"Once upon a time there was a man and a woman. They were angels you see. One was guarding the countries Far East and the other was guarding the countries Far West. They were very good angels, but they were missing something. Then the gods decided to join those two angels together forever so they tied a Red String of Fate around their little fingers…"
"The Red String of Fate? What is that? What is it grandpa?" little Alma asked enthusiastically.
Tiedoll laughed and explained. "The red string of fate is an invisible red string that is tied to some people's little finger and is connected to someone else's. Then those two people will meet and never be apart."
"Ooohhh!" the small child exclaimed. "And what if it's broken? What happens then grandpa? The angels never meet ne?"
"That string is very special. It can't be broken even with the sharpest of knives." Tiedoll poked Alma's nose lightly and kissed his forehead.
Little Alma jumped around happily yelling about red strings and red sheep that produced them.
"I am going to draw the angels and their Red String of Fate, grandpa!" Alma yelled running to the steps.
"Don't run on the stairs, Alma." Tiedoll called after him and then turned to his other grandchild.
Six year old Kanda was looking at his little finger with a pensive way, his round blue eyes shiny. He was sitting at the dining table with a preschool book, reading its texts. He was already on the fifth page! And the letters weren't so big in this book than in the books Alma preferred.
"Is it true? Does the Red String really exist or did you just make it up?" the child asked.
"It is true Kanda. That's how your mommy and daddy met and had you and Alma." The old man told him and pinched his cheek lightly. The child shoved his hand away annoyed. "Now go tell Alma to wash his hands and come down to dinner. You two have school tomorrow."
The small boy did as he was told, climbing down the chair with difficulty and going up the stairs to get his hyperactive brother to come down and eat.
The next day, the old man Tiedoll took the children to school. Alma ran straight away to play on the sandbox while Kanda made a beeline to the plastic arts section. Their grandfather stayed at the entrance to talk to the teacher for the remaining two minutes before all the children were called to participate in the group activities.
Kanda took the box with the art supplies and dug in, but he couldn't find what he was looking for so he stood up and moved to the next box. By the time he had searched all the boxes there was a mess of round point scissors, glitter, glue, colourful paper, painting supplies and more.
"What are you doing, Kanda?" a small girl with long brown curly hair and dark honey eyes asked him. She had a big colourful lollypop on her hand and a white dress with red strawberries.
"I am looking for a red string but there is none here." Kanda answered.
"Kanda! Sol! What have you done sweethearts?" the teacher scolded them. "Why don't you go and play with the other children while I sort this out?"
The boy stood up silently and left the room with the girl, Sol.
"Do you want a bit of my lollypop?" she asked him once outside.
"Just one lick. I have to find a red string." Kanda said poking out his tongue. Sol approached her lollypop to his tongue and he gave it a lick before running out.
Where could he find a Red String of Fate?
Just then he saw a glimpse of a red string, but it was stuck to the teacher's skirt. He frowned. There was no way around it. And so, he went to get Alma.
"Distract the teacher?"
Kanda nodded.
"How?"
"Like this." Kanda leaned in and bit Alma's nose. Not too strong, because he didn't want to hurt his brother, but he had to cause him to cry or the teacher wouldn't come to his aid. Of course he apologized.
"Kanda! Why did you bite your brother?" the teacher screeched and rushed to Alma's side.
While the teacher was comforting his brother, the six year old found the loose string on the teacher's skirt and pulled.
For a moment he thought he's made it, but the scream that came from the teacher told him he had only succeed on pulling the skirt along with the loose string.
"Yu Kanda, you are going to the corner for five minutes!" the teacher announced, her patience wearing thin. The children that had gathered to see why was the ever happy Alma Karma crying gasped. No one liked to go to the corner for naughty boys and girls. "You must think of the bad things you are doing and then you have to apologize to your brother and to me."
"I already apologized to Alma." Kanda told the teacher. "I am sorry for pulling your skirt."
And with that the child entered the classroom and headed for the corner. The auxiliary teacher entered the classroom as well as to not the small child alone. Sol entered after her and made a beeline to the dark haired boy, but she didn't get far before the auxiliary teacher called her back.
"Kanda did something bad, Sol. He needs five minutes to think about it." She said before picking up a broom and started cleaning the classroom.
Sol looked at Kanda again and smiled at him when she saw him looking at her. "I'll wait for you here Kanda. I still have some lollypop left!" she called and sat on the middle of the floor, legs crossed.
Kanda blushed and nodded.
"Your teacher told me you were being a bad boy today, Kanda." Tiedoll asked him gently. "What happened?"
Kanda didn't answer. Alma did it for him.
"He bit my nose! But he said sorry too. Kanda told me it was to distract the teacher!"
Tiedoll looked at the boys sitting on their car chairs at the back of his old car. "Why did you want to distract her?"
"There was a string. I wanted it. But her skirt was attached to it and it came along!" the dark haired boy answered. "I just wanted the string!"
Tiedoll's heart clenched at the sight of Kanda's watery eyes.
"Children, today we are going to draw our pets." The teacher announced. "Do you have pets?"
The children started talking all at same time, telling the teacher about their cats, dogs, birds and fishes.
The teacher laughed. "Okay. Even if you don't have a pet you can draw the pet you like the most. Let's all sit at the table."
After everyone was sited the teacher brought out a box of supplies. "I brought more things to draw your pets. There is enough for everybody!"
Then, from the supplies box the teacher pulled several balls of wool of different colours and Kanda's eyes lit with joy and determination. One of them was red. He reached his hands towards it but his small arms couldn't reach it before a classmate snatched it. Kanda saw him take the end a cut a long string, throwing the ball back to the table. He tried again, but yet again another child got to it first.
The small six year old chased the ball around the table with his eyes, reaching when it came close to his hands and never being able to touch it. Just when he saw the ball getting so small it bare had any red string left did he get it…but it was so small. So small that it could only be tied to his small finger. There wasn't enough for another person.
Tears clouded his eyes and he whipped them before they could roll down his cheeks. His throat hurt from trying not to cry and his lips trembled. He looked around the table at his classmates' drawings of cats and dogs and fishes and birds. He even saw some dragons and one cow. All of them had a string around the pets' neck, long enough to go across the page and to different sizes of hands that held said pets under brilliant yellow suns and blue clouds with rainbows.. He looked at his own empty page, a drop of a salty tear falling on it.
"Are you done drawing your pet?" The teacher asked the children and got several 'yes!' and 'no!' "Okay, those that are done can come with me and we'll hang the drawings on the wall."
Kanda saw Alma run to the teacher waving a drawing of a green elephant. Next to him there was girl with curly brown hair and dark honey eyes with a drawing of a white kitty. Another tear escaped his eyes and he left the table to go to the corner so that nobody could see him cry.
The little girl with the curly brown hair and dark honey eyes gave her drawing to the teacher and went back to the table, but she didn't find what she was looking for. The boy with the pretty eyes was gone.
She looked around the teacher, but he wasn't there either so she ducked under the table, passing various balls of wool, pens, crayons and puddles of glitter to get to the other side. The space where the boy had been drawing was empty, but then she saw that he hadn't been drawing at all. His white page only had two small dots of water.
Sol looked around again for a long time until she finally found the boy and she ran to him before the teacher could see her.
"Hello." She said.
Kanda didn't look up. He was sitting on the floor, knees drawn to his body and he had his face hidden on his arms.
"Have you been naughty again?" the small girl asked and received a shake of the head in return.
"Why didn't you draw your pet? Don't you have one?"
Another shake of the head and a sniff of the nose. Sol patted the boy's head softly and the kissed it.
"Where does it hurt?"
Kanda lifted his head sniffing a little more. His eyes were puffy and his cheeks were flushed.
"It hurts here." He put his little hand on his chest where he knew his hart was supposed to be. "Because I couldn't get the Red String of Fate and we can't be together forever." More tears ran down his face.
"What is the Red String of Fate?"
"It's a special String that makes two people be together forever. My grandpa said no one can cut it." Kanda explained blushing. "I wanted to tie it to your finger and mine…but now there is no Red String."
Sol thought for a while and then smiled.
"I know where we can find Red String!"
Kanda's eyes widened and he rose to his feet. "Where?"
Sol took his hand and led him to the drawing table. Fortunately one of the teachers were still hanging drawings on the wall so the two children ducked under the table without being seen…or so they thought.
The teacher smiled a wide smile when she finally understood Kanda's odd behaviour for the past two days.
Kanda looked at the red ball of wool like a treasure and smiled at Sol.
"I just have to find a scissors…" he said. "Wait here."
"Yes!" Sol yipped happily and dutifully waited for her friend.
Kanda returned soon enough with a green pair of scissors. Sol took the end of the string and pulled.
"How long does it have to be?" she asked looking at Kanda.
"I don't know…let's make it this long!" he suggested widening his little arms with the string between his fingers.
Sol cut the string where Kanda told her, careful not to cut the boy. Kanda took one end and tied it to Sol's little finger. Then, Sol tied the other end to Kanda's little finger.
"See, now we'll never be apart." Kanda said with a brilliant smile on his face.
"Yes, yes. Now, Kanda and I will always be friends!"
Kanda leaned in and gave his friend a chaste sweet little kiss to her cheek.
Sol looked at him dumbfounded and leaned in as well, landing her kiss on Kanda's small lips.
"Alma! Kanda! Your grandpa is here!" the teacher called.
Kanda looked at Sol and nodded. The girl nodded back.
"There you are!" Tiedoll smiled tenderly hugging Alma, then turning to Kanda. "Hello, little one. My name is Tiedoll. I am Kanda's grandpa. What's your name?"
"J-Sol." she answered timidly, holding Kanda's hand and hiding slightly behind him.
"Sol is my bride, grandpa. We have the Red String of Fate." Kanda stated, his voice as absolute as a child can muster and he raised his and Sol's hand. The red wool string tied around their fingers.
"Oh my…" the teacher said, one hand going to her mouth to hide her smile and the other to her heart.
"I see." Tiedoll said evaluating the situation. "It is indeed the Red String of Fate. But you see Kanda, Sol has to go back to her home too. So why don't we take off this wool string and let the Red String of Fate free to stretch all the way home?"
"No! Don't! Please grandpa, I don't want to be apart from Sol!" the boy screamed when the old man removed the bunny ears of the wool lace Sol had done on his finger.
Sol gasped. "Kanda look."
Kanda's eyes widened and he looked at Sol, then at his finger and then at the wool string Tiedoll had just finished taking from Sol's finger.
There, on his small little finger was a thin Red String that connected him to the small Sol just beside him, but this one was different. He didn't feel it at all on his finger and when he moved, the string grew, stretching and moving with him.
He looked at Sol and smiled. The girl smiled back and they shared another chaste sweet kiss, before Kanda followed his brother to Tiedoll's car.
"Why don't you go play a little bit more before your mommy comes to pick you up?" the teacher told Sol and the girl obeyed.
"Bye bye, Mr. Tiedoll. Thank you very much!"
"Bye bye, Sol. Nice to meet you."
"Normally, I don't approve a parent lying to a child in such a situation, but given the circumstances…" The teacher said.
"But it was no lie, Miss. Those children are connected." Tiedoll said, smiling.
"Mr. Tiedoll, everyone knows the Red String of Fate is just a legend." The teacher snorted.
"It is a legend and it is real. So much so, that you also have one on your little finger." Tiedoll told her. "You just have to feel it."
And as Tiedoll drove home, the preschool teacher brought her little finger to her heart and blushed.
Years later found Kanda waking up to a warming sun, filtering through the blinds. He patted the area next to him only to find it empty. He frowned and opened his eyes. He found who he was looking for sitting on the floor next to the bed.
"What're you doing? Come back here…" he said with a raspy voice laced with sleep.
The brow curly haired head he could see from the edge of the bed turned around revealing a pair of dark honey eyes.
"Good morning, Kanda." Sol said, going back to her previous sleeping spot, a white small box on her hands. She leaned down and placed a chaste good morning kiss to Kanda's lips.
"What's that?" Kanda asked, curious as to what had taken his warm girlfriend from him that morning.
She opened the box and showed Kanda a pair of red wool strings with their tips tied to small loops where once a pair of little fingers had been.
"I was just remembering old things." She explained.
"Hn. I would have never let that thing to be cut if the old man hadn't intervened."
"He was right though. We are tied together." Sol commented.
There was a silence and then Kanda closed the box on Sol's hands, put it on the bedside table and tackled her on the bed.
"I love you." He said.
"I love you too." She answered.
The kiss that followed was long, soft, tender and passionate. And in the mingle of their bodies and their tangled fingers, two knots tied to a red string were clearly visible around their little fingers.