He looked at the pale red thread that was strung from your ring finger. The own thread that tied a small ringlet around his digit was a much darker red that yours, an orange-y red thread was linked and entwined around it. An identical pair of strings sat on Rose's ring finger. Rose was his, he was her's, though it seemed to you like he was meant to be yours as his same deep red thread was looped around your thread. He was supposed to be yours. And he wasn't. Anytime you saw him smiling in earnest with Rose, laughing and enjoying himself it only seemed to drive a blade into your heart in knowing that somehow, through some screwed up fate, you had essentially been declared eternally single by the universe.

Raiden had been a close friend of yours for years and all the while you'd made sure to he didn't know about your predicament. You didn't need him feeling obligated to love you when he seemed more than happy with Rose. Though you'd broken down after listening to him talk of his plans to marry Rose and all but shoved your hand in his face and made him look at your strings so he'd come to the same conclusion as you.

He glanced from you to the strings before taking a hissing inhale through his teeth as he thought things over. Eventually ending the prickling silence that had crept over you two by stating earnestly: "{{user}}, soulmate or not, I don't love you."