"OK OK OK! Just stooop!" The blue eyed boy burst out, interrupting the story. His face almost as red as the other described. "Just stop it!" He whined, pleading with the other.

"Oh yea?" The englishman said, his voice taunting the younger man. "What's wrong, what is it that I need to stop? I won't know unless you speak in complete sentences."

"Y-you know!"

"See, now that was a complete sentence, but it still doesn't tell me what's wrong. Come on US use your words." The Brit was almost singing his words by the last sentence. He was enjoying the American's reactions, maybe too much.

"You know what I mean! Y-you don't have to go into so much detail..." He said, voice being muffled as he hid his face.

"But that's what storytelling is about," his smirk faded into a small, genuine smile; the tone of his voice becoming softer, "painting a picture with your words to let the audience show what's going on. The nouns and verbs make up the outline, you can still see what it's meant to look like, but using adjectives is like adding color, the view becomes much more immersive and more entertaining with the added detail."

"W-well yea, but maybe I don't want the audience to see exactly what's going on..."

"Oh come on now don't tell me you're embarrassed."

"You weren't the one not wearing clothes!" He suddenly snapped raising his voice, a bit of timidness was still audible. Whether he was being defencive or apprehensive unclear. "Y-you weren't the one who had to sit there a-and, and..." His aggression faded just as fast as it grew.

The Englishman let out another exhale before speaking once more. "OK, OK, I'm sorry for upsetting you. Though you must understand, this is just how I tell tales, you think there aren't any parts I want to leave out?" A light laugh escaped from the Brit's mouth. "Honestly, you were the one who insisted we tell the entire story. Come on now, let's get back to the story."

Just as the man was about to speak again the other interrupted him."Wait."

"Yes?" He replied, patience in his tone.

"I, I want to tell the next part."

"By all means, please do."


"It's… Ah-kai ee-toe." I sorta stumbled over the word. You know, it being another language and all.

"I beg your pardon?"

"Uh, ah-kai ee-toe. At least that's how I think you say it. The term's Japanese, Kiku told me about it. It means red thread. It's believed that an invisible red thread connects two people who are destined to find each other. I-It's similar to our concept of soul mates."

I glanced up to see the Brit's reaction. His expression remained blank, and I looked back down. The two of us sat there in silence for a few uncomfortable minutes. Fidgeting I twisted my hands together as some sort of distraction. Then finally the other guy broke the silence.

He let out a big sigh. "I think you mean, Akai ito."

"-yea that's totally what I meant. What did I say?" I tried to sound confident, failing pretty badly, it was pretty clear I was nervous and uncomfortable.

UK shook his head. "Tsk, it's the pronunciation. You need to put equal stress on each syllable, otherwise it sounds wrong. It's how Japanese works. Anyway, if what you're saying is true this could be a problem." He trailed off looking out the window as if the answer was in his front yard, it wasn't.

"Uh, I don't remember much about this thing." I said, raising my right hand and gesturing to the red thread. "Maybe you could share that knowledge?"

"The one thing that's important right now is that these strings are supposedly unbreakable." He said something under his breath about fairies too.

"Sooo, you're saying we're stuck like this?"

"Precisely." By then, lots of the tension of the scene had faded. He placed his hand on his chin in thought, looking down towards the floor like it helped him think. Just when I thought the situation returned to comfortable, UK had to open his mouth again. "But what I don't understand, is why? Why us?"

If I had a dollar for every time I went from my regular tone to bright red, well I'd probably have five dollars, but that goes for a lot these days! Anyways, I'd have gained another dollar.

So yea, I may be the kind of an idealist. I like the prospect of happily ever afters and hero gets the damsel in distress situations. And, UK wasn't that bad. Yea he may be rough around the edges, a stickler for the rules, but he wasn't that bad. Wasn't hard to look at either. But to be perfectly honest, I hadn't had the worst of it yet. "Intolerable prat!" Well long story short, I honestly didn't mind. If the string says we should be together, I don't see why not.

"I-Is that what you think? There's no reason for it?"

"Oh there's a reason for it," I still have no idea if this is what he actually said because he was mumbling, but this is what I heard, "the fairies must be trying to kill me now."

"Uh, fairies?"

"Hmm?" He broke his staring contest with the floor to look up at me. "Did you say something?"

"Oh, uh, nothing." I assumed I misheard him, and he went back to his staring contest.

The tension of the room was still there, though now it was awkward like: no-one-saying-anything-I'll-just-keep-sitting-here-and-do-nothing, instead of like: holy-crap-why-is-he-so-close-ahh-I'm-still-not-wearing-any-pants-I'm-freaking-out. Still though, silence, it bothers me. I can't explain it either so don't try asking. I decided to try to start up another conversation, hoping that this one wouldn't be as awkward as the last.

"If we're stuck like this, how are we going to do anything?" I said, attempting to get the guy's attention, I succeeded. "I mean, we can't get more than what, two, two and a half, maybe three feet away from each other. It's not possible for me to put on a shirt with you attached to me. What are we supposed to do?"

"The only thing we can do, make it work. We'll have to try to stay in here as much as possible, it might be too dangerous for us to fight linked together. Luckily I have almost everything we need in here. I'm sure it's not going to be a pleasant experience, but it could've been worse."

I laughed a bit at that last part. "How could this be any worse?"

"The sting could've followed the Chinese version and have us attached by our ankles."

"Yea that would be worse."

After that complete mess, I let UK get back to fixing my shirt. I told him there was no need since I couldn't get the shirt on now, but he insisted. Finally I got my jeans back on. That helped calm me down a lot. There's a big difference between not wearing a shirt and not wearing a shirt and pants. UK had me move my chair around the table so we sat next to each other instead of across to allow for more wiggle room.


Notes on cultures! (Because I think as Hetalians we can all appreciate these kinds of things.)

Akaito: Better known as "The Red String of Fate" in western culture (like a few of you guessed). I believe everything UK says is true. Though I have found that the 'pinky in Japan ankle in China' rule is not always true. Japan's pinky version is more popular in the west (or at least where I live) and I have found Chinese examples using the pinky version.

Japanese Pronunciation: What UK says here is also true. Words in the Japanese language are made up of syllables. Unlike in languages from Western culture each syllable is equally stressed or not stressed. Two consonants together means that constant sound is repeated. Like in Hatafutte Parade. The way I was taught you start the sound but it gets cut off. (I'm not sure if this is true though please feel free to correct me!) There's also when you have two "vowel" sounds together, the sound is simply elongated. Like in Marukaite Chikyuu, you just hold the 'u' sound longer. I guess songs aren't the best example for this kind of explanation, eh he.


A/N: I am sooo sorry for the delay of this chapter! I've been having a bit of trouble coming up with what to do next and was drawing a blank for a while. I did not forget about this story! I just took a bit of a break to try to get some new ideas (it didn't really work... any suggestions?) and merely didn't feel like what I had was good enough to upload. By the time I was able to complete this chapter to the bare minimum of my standards I was waaaay over my due date and I didn't want to make those few readers wait any longer (love you guys!). I know what at the very least half of the next chapter will be. Hopefully I can come up with more. Anyways, thanks for reading this far! Don't forget to review, and all that good stuff. See ya later!