Teru’s kidnappers didn’t talk. 

Time was slow. Time was fast. Time was never-ending. 

Positive that he had passed out numerous times, Teru tried to reason with them, but his words came out as unintelligible moans. 

Blacked out again. 

Then awake. 

Am I dead?

Maybe. It was always dark. 

The car stopped moving. Hands touched him. They flung Teru over a broad set of shoulders. Stabbing pain in his brain. Confusion. The constant sway of walking, side-to-side—

Nausea hit him hard.

Blergh! Teru puked, but the cloth in his mouth blocked the bitter bile from coming out. 

Can’t… breathe!

“Damn it!” a gruff voice complained and roughly removed it. Teru’s vomit leaked from the corner of his mouth. “I swear, this little shit!” 

They took off the thing covering his eyes, too. When the blinding light hit him, he lost consciousness again. 

Wake up. The lights hurt. Ever so slowly, he opened his eyes despite the pounding behind them.

Teru realized he was lying on a couch—a nice leather couch that likely cost a whole year’s salary. It was a process, but the room finally came into focus. 

Where—?

It was the most high-class room he had ever been in, like a CEO’s office with a hundred-million-yen city view. Tokyo’s lights twinkled on the horizon. The full moon blazed over the ocean.

When his vision began to spin again, Teru groaned. “Ugh…”

A gentle touch held his chin and turned his head to examine both sides. The new stranger’s outline hovering above was fuzzy. A thumb gently grazed over the nasty bump forming on his temple. 

“The wounds on his face and hands… Who injured my property?” they said in an eerie calmness.

There was no answer. He released Teru’s face, stood up, and went out of view.

Wait. Who are you?

“Who injured my property?!” they roared.

CRASH, WHAM.

“M-me! Me! It w-was me, Boss!”

The furious voice seethed, “Yuta Tanaka ran out of town, along with his mountain of debt. If Tanaka were to fail to repay our loans, this kid is the agreed-upon collateral. And that sneaky bastard fucking disappeared earlier today. He somehow knew I’d be sending you to retrieve seven months’ worth of payment the hard way. A rat must be within this company. Clearly, Tanaka doesn’t care about his partner… Since I see it in my office and getting sick on my custom furniture.”

Yuta? What did he do? I’m… collateral?

“I want to know why my repayment is damaged.”

CRASH, CRACK. Glass broke.

“Boss, wait! That soon-to-be whore bit me! Just look at my arm! Plus, I wasn’t responsible for his hands. They were already scratched like that—”

BANG.

Teru’s concussion didn’t stop him from flinching at the ear-deafening sound. A… gun? 

A heavy object crashed to the floor. THUD. More breaking glass.

“Clean the mess.”

“Yes, sir.”

He heard something being dragged away.

Crazy. This is crazy!

Teru weakly wiggled until he fell onto the soft rug. He landed on his side and crawled around the sofa. His fingers touched water. The painful wave of confusion receded, allowing him to see the wet puddle. And it… it wasn’t water. 

The color was unmistakable. Blood. 

Teru scooted away fast, eyes wide open. He watched the spreading pool of that thick, congealing liquid.

THUMP. His backside touched a wall with shoes—

Walls didn’t have shoes.

“Ah!” Teru yelled from fright and scurried the other way. He huddled into a ball in the corner where he had accidentally trapped himself.

A tall foreigner in a formal suit stood next to the crime scene. He had burgundy, slicked-back hair and forest green eyes that gleamed under the crystal chandelier. The soul in them had seen unimaginable things no human should have.

Teru would be lying if he said this person wasn’t beautiful. A spark seemed to crackle in his heart...

...Until he saw the crimson spots splattered on the man’s blazer jacket and rolled-up sleeves. A pistol was in his hand. A dark red trail led to the door. 

THUMP, THUMP, THUMP.

Was there a murder?!

Just his powerful presence alone demanded your undivided attention. Serious. Cruel. There was a word for that sinister type no one wanted to get involved with—mafia. 

Specifically, a mafia boss.

Teru was in the wolf’s den, facing the alpha himself. 

What was more…

He isn’t looking at me.

The dangerous predator stared without blinking at his own, blood-covered pinky. His glaring sight slowly moved and followed the air until resting on Teru’s hand.

That prompted Teru to also look down. His forehead furrowed. A bright red ribbon was bow-tied to the base of his little finger. Doing the same, he eyed the ribbon to its opposite end.

It led to the boss’s pinky.

They met each other’s conflicted eyes, brown and green.

Surely that was fake. The hallucinations must be ravaging his head.

I must be drugged. Or too brain-damaged. Because…

The mysterious thing connecting them was just a myth, a children’s story. 

In Western culture, they had the pinky swear—a gesture to signify a promise that had been made.

For Japan, the gods predestined two humans once born. If soulmates should ever meet, a red ribbon would appear around their pinkies, forever binding and…

To understand their faults and thrive as a pair. 

To spend their lives together, unable to break the ribbon, no matter how much they tried to sever or tangle it. 

Only they could see the thread, making it invisible to others.

Teru’s pointer finger felt along the silky material. It was real.

The red string of fate.