Kiku sat on the park bench, watching the scene unfold before him. It was always the most distracting in parks; the flashes of red that indicated a string connecting two people. It wove itself like a net on particularly bad days, and Kiku never got used to straight walking through one.
Not for the first time, he looked down to the knot on his own little finger, trailing to the ground, then making a sharp turn left. He swung his hand. The yarn swayed.
Kiku checked his watch and stood. Although he had the unusual hobby of people watching, he liked to keep it from taking too much time away from his work. He had clients to call and photos to send. He started walking away, thread trailing behind him.
"Yong Soo is coming over next weekend," Yao's voice came out of his phone, "You could come too, if you'd like."
Kiku set down the manga he was reading, reaching for the phone to check his calendar.
"The seventeenth?" he asked. The prospect of a weekend with Yao and Yong Soo wasn't the most exciting, but neither was re-watching Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets for the sixth time.
"I think so. Three days from now."
"The seventeenth," Kiku affirmed, "When should we be there?"
"Ask Yong Soo. I think he has a meeting that day, and that's why he's in the city."
"Very well," Kiku paused, "Is there a special occasion?"
"No, just a family visit. And it's the first time you'll meet Herakles," Yao said.
"The one who's cat you almost stepped on?"
"He forgave me, after a few weeks," Yao was quick to defend himself, and Kiku let out a faint smile.
"I'll be there," he said.
"Goodbye, then."
"Goodbye."
The thread ran along the sands, and this was the first time it actually led to someone. Someone who was getting farther and farther away, and Kiku could feel the pull on his finger, could feel the pull on his body, and soon he was chasing after the silhouette. He called out something that he was sure was a name, but the sound was foreign before he yelled and forgot it immediately after…
Kiku's eyes opened to the sun rising outside his window, sheets tangled and legs sore. He sat up and gingerly stepped onto the cold hardwood floor.
"Are you sure those fortune cookies aren't offensive?" Kiku gestured to the plastic bag in Yong Soo's hand.
"At least I got him a gift," Yong Soo replied, "Couldn't you have brought flowers or something?"
"I'm not asking him out on a date. We're visiting him as brothers, and flowers wouldn't be appropriate."
The elevator dinged, doors opening to let the two men through to the third floor.
"Excuses, excuses," Yong Soo shook his head, "I'll be generous and say it's from both of us, okay?"
"I don't want my name to be attached to that."
Yong Soo simply shrugged, before pushing the package into Kiku's arms and knocking on the door. A second later, he was jumping and what looked like suffocating Yao.
Propriety, Kiku realized for the dozenth time, wasn't something he could use as an excuse with Yong Soo.
In the brief moment Yao was flailing around to try to get Yong Soo off of himself, Kiku noticed a man standing behind both of them, with tousled brown hair and a sleepy expression. Herakles. In the next, as he handed the bag to Yao, Kiku saw, with dread, that the string on Herakles' little finger was not connected to Yao.
It led straight to his own slackened hand.
The apartment Yao owned seemed modest for his background, but there were surprisingly spacious rooms and tasteful decorations left behind by the last tenant. Yao had a knack for finding things like that. It was how he found Kiku, it was how he found Yong Soo, and it was how their set of not actually brothers and sisters had come together.
It must have been how he found Herakles.
"I visited Kyoto once, when Sadik said he thought the magazine should be 'more cultured'. I have some drawings, if you'd like to see them," Herakles offered
"We'd be interested," Kiku nodded.
The three brothers heard footsteps, and then rummaging, and then footsteps coming back.
"Here they are," Herakles handed some to Kiku and some to Yong Soo.
There were some inked, and fewer painted, but most of them were done with graphite and charcoal, smooth lines of dark grey with the initial underdrawings easy to see.
"Why are they all black and white?" Yong Soo asked, "I mean, they're nice, but you can't show the shrines without the bright red colour."
"When you add colours, the under drawing is lost. I only colour the ones that are to be hung up, or put into articles. The rest are… studies, I suppose."
"That's the most effort I've seen in a study of a building. The birds seem unnecessary," Yong Soo muttered into the pile of papers he was sorting through.
Yes, Yao had a knack, and that served him well.
That night, in one of Yao's guest rooms, Kiku tried out Herakles' name, quietly, in case anyone would hear. It rolled off his tongue, and he quite liked it.
He thought of Yao and Herakles, wondering how bad they would take the break up. It might have been a nice relationship, if not perfect. Kiku had seen his friends happy with people they weren't tied to- the relationships just didn't stay that happy for long.
Still, as he turned in his bed, Kiku knew he didn't have the heart to stop this one short. Besides, the string might tangle or loosen or wear, but it never went away or snapped. Herakles and he would be tied together, and they would have plenty of time.
The day Kiku heard Yao had broken it off, he and Mei went to the apartment they knew their brother was. Mei, armed with DVDs and several tubs of ice cream, and Kiku with a bouquet of flowers. He had come prepared, this time.
Yao opened the door, and instead of the distraught, puffy-eyed husk of a man they had expected, a man just out of the shower and drying off his hair appeared.
"You brought ice cream?"
Kiku walked into the office, manila folder of photos in his hand.
"Hello?" he asked reception, spotting a bearded man instead of Andreas, who had given him the job.
The man looked up, and Kiku noticed he wore a mask across his eyes. "You must have the pictures from Seoul? Honda?"
He nodded, "Yes, Kiku Honda." He offered his hand.
"Adnan. Sadik Adnan," the receptionist shook his hand.
"Ah," Kiku drew his hand away, remembering the long, mostly unflattering descriptions Herakles had made of a man of the same name months ago, "You wouldn't happen to know a man named Herakles?"
"Karpusi? The article's author?"
"Yes, I'd like to speak with him about some of the photos," Kiku lied.
"Okay, then," Sadik shrugged, before getting up to get the man.
"Hello," Herakles said, holding a kitten in his hands.
"Hello," Kiku answered.
"I heard you wanted to talk about the article?" Herakles asked, though Kiku was sure from his expression that as soon as they step out the door, the man would fall asleep.
"That would be nice."
"There's a coffee shop across the street."
Kiku was leaning on a tree and Herakles was laying on the short and choppy grass.
"You know," Kiku started, "There's a legend in Japan about strings."
"Hm?"
"Soul mates are tied together by a red string around their little finger," Kiku held up his hand and joked, "If you look closely, maybe you could see your own."
"I don't think I can see it," Herakles brought his hand over his face, fingers pinkish against the blue sky. Kiku could see a line of red falling to the ground and swerving around rocks to his own hand beside him.
"Not many people can," Kiku shrugged. He'd tried it with Yao and Yong Soo and Mei, and none of them could see it. He didn't know why he thought Herakles could.
"There's a book from Ancient Greece, called Symposium," Herakles started, "One of the speeches says in the beginning, everyone was joined to someone else. Then the gods got angry, so they were split into two. Once they were separated, they spent their entire lives trying to find each other again."
"That's quite sad," Kiku looked down from Herakles' hand to his face.
"The Ancient Greeks liked their tragedies," Herakles shrugged.
"Did they all find each other in the end?"
"Most of them did," Herakles looked over to Kiku, "Helped along by fate."
"Ah."
The wind blew again, another short and soft gust, and the string rose up with it. It fluttered, it tangled, and it frayed and loosened, but the string would never snap.
A/N: Thanks for reading the story! Reviews would be appreciated, very much. The next chapter should be Herakles' PoV.