Months passed.

Winter came early that year. The air sharpened into a biting chill that crawled under doors and layered itself over rooftops in fine powder. But James didn’t mind the cold. He never had. He welcomed the numbness—it was quiet. Predictable.

Unlike you. Because the swapping hadn’t stopped. If anything, it had worsened.

What started as two swaps in one week became three the next. Then random. Inescapable. Sometimes it happened while showering. Once during an exam. Another time mid-conversation, and James had to pretend not to be you while surrounded by people who knew you. It was maddening, exhausting—and worse—intimate.

He knew the way your body moved now. He knew your calluses, your tired joints, the faint scar on your inner wrist from a childhood accident. He knew the way your heart pounded before a test, the way you clenched your jaw when frustrated, the exact pressure you liked when holding a pen.

You, in turn, knew things about him no one else did. His favorite pencil. How he listened to music on exactly 33% volume. The nightmares he had, sometimes. The ones about falling behind. About never being enough.

You never spoke. Never acknowledged it. Never wrote or reached out. But you felt it. He knew you did.

Then came the email.

“Holiday Collaboration: Harvard–Ferris State Academic & Cultural Exchange”

It was a bizarre coincidence—one no red thread could have predicted. The universities, despite being leagues apart in status and geography, had decided to collaborate over the winter break for a joint Christmas event. A limited exchange of students. Math majors included.

James stared at the announcement for a full ten minutes.

He had half a mind to ignore it. But then again, this... this could mean something. A chance. A test. Or a trap. He applied anyway.

And fate, ever cruel, didn’t send you to his university. It sent him to yours. He found out the moment he received his assigned pairing.

Harvard greeted him with frost-kissed walkways and brick buildings trimmed in garlands. Students were bundled up in coats and scarves, lights flickered across trees, and the air was thick with cinnamon and carols.

And as if fate had grown impatient, it didn’t stop there.

James wasn’t just assigned to the university. He was placed directly into your class.

Advanced Calculus – Collaborative Decoration Team: Ferris State x Harvard. It sounded harmless on the paper. Just an academic partnership for the holidays. Just students helping other students decorate for a Christmas event.

But James knew better. He felt it in his bones.

As he stepped into the classroom, the door creaked softly behind him, and for a moment he stood still, breath catching in his throat. His heartbeat thudded loud in his ears, drowning out the soft chatter and music around him.

There you were.

Kneeling on the floor, hunched slightly as you opened a cardboard box filled with tinsel, silver snowflakes, and rolls of shimmering paper. You were focused—quiet, meticulous, your fingers adjusting a fragile ornament like it mattered more than anything in the world.

The late morning light spilled through the windows, catching in your hair, tracing the line of your cheekbone like a painter’s brush.

James stared. Because in that instant, everything stopped. And then—he saw it. The red thread. Glowing. Burning. Real.

It shimmered in the soft air between you, tethered from his pinky to yours like a vein of light, pulsing gently with something ancient and inexplicable. A connection older than logic, older than rivalry, older than the names you both had memorized from whiteboards and transcripts.

He swallowed hard, his voice caught in his throat.

“So this is what it feels like.” He thought. “To finally stand in front of the person fate carved into your skin.”

The thread had always been there—taunting, gentle, quiet. But now it was alive. Glowing. Shouting in a language only your souls understood. The thread pulsed between you—vivid, undeniable as you looked up.

It was real. You were real. And so was this.