It was a well-known fact that the Japanese held dearly an old legend regarding the Red String Of Fate. The Red String Of Fate was meant to tie together who were meant to be soulmates. No matter how far apart the two lovers are, the string will never break. It may stretch or tangle, but the connection will never end.

It isn't a well-known fact that this bond wasn't just folklore. Sure enough, every single person was connected to the person who was their one and only—well, typically. Aromantic people had 'platonic soulmates, a kindred spirit one might say. Polyamorous people naturally had several bonds. Other than that, it was simple. You had one romantic bond. That person was the one who you had the greatest chance of being happy with, it was simple as that.

Or maybe not so simple.

The legend leaves out that there are clear-sighted individuals who were given the gift by a higher power and often immortal could see the string and spend the eternities floating throughout time and space to push the mortals from all dimensions towards their true lover, or kindred spirit.

It still was more complicated then it sounded. See, humans had a sense of free will. They are not bound by their soulmate and most do not even know that they have one waiting for their love. They make irrational mistakes and give into temptation that they wouldn't have tried if they knew who was out there.

Not to mention that the Immortals had their own business to attend to, and even their own soulmates to find. The problem was that while sometimes their lover was another Immortal, a lot of the time an Immortal had to choose to give up their immortality for their lover. An Immortal always did so for their human soulmate. There weren't a lot of Immortals left now.

It just wasn't fair. Humans loving the wrong humans, settling for someone that they need not settle with, their own meant-to-be millions of miles away. Not to mention archaic laws in some nations that make certain relationships taboo.

For an Immortal, it was often too much work. In fact, some of the Immortals had given up on their job entirely, the aggravating despondence of it all getting to them far too easily.

Such was the case of one certain Immortal, a boy born during the time of the Teutonic Knights, currently sitting in his flat off at Ailateh, the dimension from which the Almighty Power ruled over the lesser humans. It wasn't too far from Earth, and the Immortals even had friends on the human planet, including the young man—well, young in regards to his physical age. To the humans he looked about twenty-five.

Currently, the young man was waiting to for his summons. He hated going to Earth on an actual mission, but it was his job that he was obligated by Ancient Law to perform. He didn't really see the point anymore, though. Humans never listened to his advice anyway and they always wanted to be just content, not truly happy. Frankly, he had quickly become jaded to the ideal of romantic love or even intimacy.

If he had to guess, it might have been around the time that his close friend Erzsébet gave up her immortality in the seventeenth century for some prissy aristocratic Austrian composer named Roderich. Bleh.

Or maybe it was when he realised that humans were so blind to the truth about love that they willingly created laws to restrict the expression of it, laws that in some countries still exist. Love is a force of nature that can not be controlled or chained. The humans never did realise that.

So the man had long stopped caring.

There were others, other Immortals, who were the other way, such as his close friend Francis or the Leader's favourite, Kiku. The man had never actually met the Leader, but Kiku and his soulmate had. No, he was not jealous. He was just awesome enough to not have to deal with such matters.

Suddenly, the man's HetaPhone went off. He didn't answer, he didn't need to. Only three people called that phone: Francis, Kiku, and his little brother Ludwig. He knew that the meeting was starting soon. It was probably Ludwig pestering about whether he'd forgotten and is he going to be late, ignoring the fact that the man was the one who instilled proper punctual traits into Ludwig when he was a teenager, right after their parents had been killed by the Other Side—Immortals could only die if they gave it all up or if they died of unnatural causes.

Oh, right. The Other Side. They were anti-love. Not anti-sex, but just anti-intimacy. They made it so much harder. They even amplified the humans temptation to explore their options, or to be sexually promiscuous. Now, the Immortals weren't necessarily against being sexually promiscuous either, at least some of them. But the Other Side not only actively encouraged it but also discouraged commitment and love in general.

It was incredibly annoying, especially when the Other Side tried to start shit by murdering Immortals.

The man sighed and stood up, not wanting to be late. He wasn't as sold on this stuff as he used to be, but that didn't change the fact that he was as professional as professional could be—when it was necessary, at least.

He walked down the hallway and out onto the street to find his hoverbike—it was a piece of shit, but he wasn't rich enough to replace it. Once at the meeting for Kiku's branch of remaining Immortals, he found his way to the conference room. Francis and Ludwig were already there, along with Kiku and Francis' reluctant soulmate, Arthur. Heracles, Vladimir, Lukas, and Emil weren't there yet.

Well, whatever. He wasn't necessarily close to any of them anyway. And Heracles would just sleep the whole time.

"Gilbert! Mon ami!"

Francis started to persuade the man—Gilbert—to sit on his other side, but Arthur intervened, quickly. "No thank you, I'd rather not have to deal with two imbeciles on my left talking about absurd nonsense. Go sit next to your brother"

Both Francis and Gilbert went to reply, but Ludwig briskly indicated that Kiku start the meeting, not even seeming to care that half of the team wasn't there. "Well, Almighty Leader wanted the group in Spain. There seems to be an increase in members of the other side. He believes they are trying to stop a wedding between two men."

Francis and Gilbert looked at each other. "Excuse me? Did you say Spain?" Francis questioned, a worried look on his face.

Arthur grimaced. "Francis' insufferable mortal Spanish friend Antonio is getting married in a few weeks—"

Kiku nodded. "Hai, that would be him."

"…." Arthur sighed. "I bloody hate that damn git. I guess we have to help him, though." Gilbert knew that Arthur and Antonio—who was also Gilbert's mortal Spanish friend—did not get off on a good start when they met. Gilbert didn't understand why. They were just playing the game Battleship when drunk… Aw well, didn't matter.

Francis chuckled. "At least we finally get to meet Antonio's soulmate. I've heard so much about this mysterious 'Lovi.'"

Something inside of Gilbert didn't feel right whenever Francis would tease Antonio about his fiancé Lovino or whenever Antonio would go on about him. He'd always brushed it off. A part of him was worried that he knew what it meant, that the two were not truly soulmates. It seems like they were though. He should've felt relieved.

"I just hope that Arthur doesn't try to make amends by cooking him scones…."

"Shut up! You just don't appreciate my cooking skills! And it was one time!"

"Mon lapin, it was more than once…. There is a reason that we are tied." Francis said, bring his hand with the string attached to it up to his head with a dramatic swoon. Gilbert figured he could and should probably walk out before he had to be subjugated to nonsense about how Francis was the best cook in the whole universe including all dimensions so naturally he was matched with the complimentary worst cook in all dimensions.

It made sense to Gilbert. Arthur was wonderful at sewing but bad at fashion while Francis was fashion-savvy but shit at actually making it. Arthur was a horrible cook but wonderful at cleaning. Gilbert liked their house when he went over to it. It wasn't a disaster. Well… Not yet anyway. They were trying to adopt a child right now, one of the small orphans whose parents were murdered by the Other Side. Everyone knew what children, especially young boys, were like.

Anyway, even if it did make sense that the person who you were paired off with was your opposite in every way , it still didn't. Didn't two people need to have at least a little in common, even if it was just similar history, just enough to understand each other's flaws?

Gilbert didn't think he'd ever find someone. He reached up to run a hand through his hair subconsciously. He knew that his soulmate didn't live on Ailateh. He was sure he would have met them by then. But no one on Earth could understand him, could they. An albino freak whose father nearly had him thrown into the orphanage at birth, who's younger normal brother seemed to get all his family's love.

Gilbert didn't hold a grudge towards his father for favouring his blonde-haired, blue-eyed brother—nearly seven centuries his junior—over him. It would be stupid to do so. His father had been dead since the twentieth century. It still hurt him.

Sometimes, Gilbert wondered if his soulmate would be better off with someone else. Or maybe they didn't exist. Maybe the string that was on Gilbert's pinkie finger was connected to his bird, Gilbird, and he just didn't notice because the string is incredibly small at the other side to fit around the chick's talon.

Yes, that was unrealistic, but at this point he figured that there was no way that his likely human soulmate would be interested in him. Damn humans and their ability to avoid fate. He almost felt envious. Almost.

The group loaded onto their hovership—Gilbert pleaded with Ludwig to let him bring his hoverbike to which the younger brother, a soldier in the Pro-Love army, sighed and agreed to. Lukas, Emil, and Vladimir, who were all late—well, on time had they not started early—were on one side of the hovership with Kiku while the rest of the group stayed on the other.

The day long trip to Earth through the dimensions was incredibly boring. On a first trip, it was beautiful. The space between the dimension was a blinding light filled with sparkling colours, dancing and blending together to form a prism of light. "Beautiful, isn't it?" Francis, ever the romantic, remarked.

"You damn Frog!" Arthur said. "Are you barking mad? It's the same sky you always see on these trips!"

"Ah, but rosbif. No matter how many times I see their beauty, it never fades! Just like yours." Francis and Arthur were both born during the Normans conquest of England. Gilbert could believe it. He turned away from their bickering, looking at Lukas and Emil, a pair of brothers who were mostly silent other than Lukas always demanding his brother call him "Big Brother" because he was older. Those two were weird.

Gilbert did feel pity for them, sort of. Their cousin Berwald had recently given up his immortality for his Finnish soulmate, and Lukas's soulmate Mathias was kidnapped by the Other Side. He was probably dead. Neither Lukas nor Emil seemed to show much reaction about it all though. They probably did all that stuff in private.

Then there was Vladimir. He was an odd one. Born in the time of Erzsébet Báthory, he really went all out with his whole "vampire" theme. He was always wearing fake fangs. It was creepy. He didn't find his soulmate either, it seemed. At least Gilbert wasn't alone. Well, Ludwig hadn't, but he was young. He was only born in what, the mid-nineteenth century?

He laid back and closed his eyes, deciding to go to sleep. When he woke up, it was when they were finally landing. He shook Francis and Arthur awake—they were being sickeningly cute, Arthur leaning against his husband's shoulder and Francis resting his head on top of Arthur's blond hair. Both would probably deny that scene happened later.

Gilbert rode out of the ship on his hoverbike, making sure to activate the wheels so that it wouldn't scare any humans in the vicinity. Ludwig sighed seeing his brother on his bike. Well, Gilbert didn't care what he thought anyway.

Francis pulled out a human iPhone with a SIM card to call Antonio, who cheerfully answered. The main group would head to a secret headquarters that they have in Barcelona while Gilbert, Francis, Ludwig, and Arthur were being allowed to visit Antonio and stay in his house in Madrid if he allowed it. Which he would and did. The Spanish man was used to his friends dropping in on short notice, though there was an angry Italian accent in the background that didn't sound so pleased to have "more of your damn bastard friends over" and also that he "agreed to get married, not to have sleepovers for the whole fucking planet!" Gilbert's heart was beating quickly when he heard the Italian accent. Antonio's fiancé didn't seem pleasant and yet that accent sounded like music to his ears.

"I'm presuming that is Lovino." Francis said.

"Si! Ah, lo siento. He's not much of an extrovert. He's not used to so many people around." Lovino grumbled something else in the background that Gilbert couldn't catch.

Gilbert and Ludwig took off on the motorbike, the tall, blonde, muscular younger brother holding onto his shorter, leaner older brother was probably a spectacle to see. Arthur and Francis followed behind in a rental car.

Their relationship with Antonio was an odd one. Antonio had no idea about their true nature, believing Gilbert and his brother to be normal Germans and Francis and Arthur to be just a regular Franco-English couple who fought a lot. However, Antonio did unknowingly save Gilbert and Francis from an Anti-Love while in a bar 7 years before when they were on another mission in Spain and the three had been close friends ever since.

Gilbert and Francis knew that they would stop having to visit him sometime. They never got any older. One an Immortal reached their physical age—it was usually some random age after maturity—they stopped growing older. Gilbert and Francis had long met that criteria, both physically twenty-five.

Still, for now, he was pretty awesome to hang around.


Francis knocked on the door of Antonio's house in Madrid in the evening after stopping for dinner. The twenty-six year old had only bought it recently, about a year and a half ago when Lovino decided to move in with him. Whenever Gilbert and Francis came over somehow the Italian was always visiting his brother in Venice. Now, it seemed that he was home. Gilbert figured that the brother was coming here instead, for the wedding.

Antonio opened the door, his green eyes lit up with happiness and gave everyone but Arthur hugs, which Francis and Gilbert happily returned. Ludwig sputtered and didn't return it at first. Antonio smiled at Francis and Gilbert before looking at Arthur with a scowl. "Puta." He said to Arthur.

"I see you're still mad because I won…" Arthur said with a smirk.

Antonio scowled more. "I still say you cheated. And you're not getting extra churros for dinner tomorrow either."

"No one's getting extra churros for dinner, stupido. I'm cooking. Don't need them eating your gross shit!" Francis, seemingly happy for his friend to find his soulmate, smiled a bit when he heard the voice getting closer, though oddly the string connecting the two European men didn't seem to come from the direction the voice was coming from. A young maybe 23 or 24-year-old man entered the room. Arthur's eyes lit up in surprise and pity, Ludwig stiffened a little, and the smile on Francis's dropped completely, now a tight grimace. Gilbert couldn't tell why everyone was acting odd at first, too entranced by the tan skin, storming hazel eyes, and brown hair of the person who had just walked in who his mind perceived to be Antonio's betrothed.

Lovino was oddly beautiful, lest he dare use that term on a man. He had a long curl sticking out of his slightly shaggy brown hair. Finally, Gilbert registered why his fellow Immortals seemed so tensed.

Because Lovino and Antonio were definitely not soulmates.

Lovino and Gilbert were.


Ooh, cliffhanger! Anyway, I probably should not be starting a new story when I'm so slow at updating my MANY projects I typically am working on, but I got this idea last night and I just starting typing instead of editing my paper for uni, lol. And ugh, speaking of uni, I just got my last paper back and I got a C- for... what exactly? Apparently, part of it is because I spelt honour like honour and not like honor like he apparently wanted me to. I have half a mind to use "manoeuvre" "honour" "favourite" "grey" and "centre" on all my papers but on the other hand I don't want to sabotage my grade via passive-aggressive shit like that.

Also, if some of you readers are reading "I'm Starting to Think That You Don't Mean That" and haven't noticed, I did finally update. (England's chapter was up like... last week, lol)

Now, I've got to find time to start the next chapter of "The Centre Of The Compass" because I haven't. Lmao.