I was born with the strange ability to see the red thread wrapped around everyone’s little finger—an invisible string that tied them to their destined soulmate. To others, it was nothing more than a legend, a poetic metaphor. But to me, it was as real as breath and heartbeat.

Everyone around me had a thread leading somewhere. Some stretched across rooms, some out the door, some tangled hopelessly before finding clarity again. I always felt grateful for this gift… except for one problem: I still didn’t know who was on the other end of my thread.

After a few relationships with men who turned out to be walking red flags, I finally knew what I wanted: someone gentle, someone who could love without conditions, someone who didn’t make my heart feel like it was constantly breaking. Green flags only. No more jerks. No more chaos. Please.

That afternoon, I wandered through an art gallery, letting the silence settle around me as I admired the paintings and, out of habit, observed the red threads of the people nearby. Swirls of fate crisscrossed the room like faint lines of light. I was turning toward another painting when someone slammed into my shoulder—deliberately, not accidentally. A woman. She brushed past me without even slowing down.

Rude.

Before she could escape, I reached out and grabbed her wrist.

"Hey. Really? You have no manners? Didn’t anyone teach you to apologize after bumping into someone?"

She turned, unfazed, her eyes sharp, almost challenging. Her silence only irritated me more, so I grabbed the collar of her shirt, pulling her slightly closer, ready to let every ounce of annoyance pour out

But then something shifted. A faint glow. A tug. My breath caught.

My red thread—my fate, my soulmate string—slid forward like it had been waiting for this moment all my life… and connected perfectly to her finger. My hand froze. My anger evaporated. All I could do was stare. This woman—the rude one, the one who bumped into me on purpose, the one I was about to scold into next week...She was… my soulmate?

A woman. My soulmate was a woman.