Fate's Strings (2p! Hetalia x Reader)

Chapter Twenty One

It had been one week. Everyone had gathered together in Oliver's home and were sitting in the living room, waiting for him to finish the preparations to open the portal to (Name)'s dimension. It seemed like they had been waiting forever, ever since she had been pulled into their counterparts' dimension, not to mention ever since (Name) herself had told them she needed time to decide on whether to return or not. Many of them could barely bring themselves to be patient.

But eventually, Oliver came up from his study in the basement. There was no friendly smile on his face like usual. No, he was giving off a focused and serious energy. On the inside, he was forcing himself, however. He was just as anxious as everyone else. There was no guarantee (Name) would come back. After all, she had told Allen she needed time to think about what to do. That alone was enough to make them doubt she would ever come back to them.

"Alright..." Oliver addressed everyone. "The portal is ready. Allen will go-"

"Oliver," Zao stood all of a sudden. "I want you to let me go instead of Allen."

"Are you crazy?" Allen glared at him. "Why the hell would he send you instead of me?"

Oliver was glaring at the American, but refrained from saying anything about the swearing. Zao, on the other hand, was completely calm. Everyone expected him to yell right back at Allen, but he didn't even think about it. Arguing with him wasn't important. Convincing Oliver to let him go was.

"Why should I send you instead?" Oliver could see how different this was from his usual carefree demeanor, so he figured it was best to take him seriously.

"If she decides that she doesn't want to come back...there's something I have to tell her," he explained.

A few of them expected him to go into further detail, but he said nothing more as he waited for Oliver's response.

"Dumbass," Allen rolled his eyes. "If you have something to say, I can tell her."

"This isn't something another person can tell her for me," he stood his ground. "I have to be the one to do it."

Oliver was surprised by the look in his eyes. Zao was practically begging him without saying the words. He was beginning to understand what would be so important...Viktor, on the other hand, knew exactly what this was about the minute Zao spoke about needing to tell her something. Of course he knew. They had been living together with (Name) for quite some time. Viktor was easily able to detect the change in Zao. There was only one possible thing he would want her to know...

As he began to put the pieces together, Oliver let out a short sigh. If it was really what he was thinking, there was no way he could just deny Zao that opportunity. There was the possibility he would never see her again if he wasn't the one to go through the portal. How would that feel...to always regret not being able to tell her and to never know what she would say in response...? Oliver imagined that it would always haunt him. And so, even if he knew that every single one of them would want the chance to see her one last time, there was really only one choice he could make.

"Fine," Oliver replied. "You can be the one to go to through the portal."

Relief was apparent on Zao's face. However, many of the others voiced their disapproval of the decision, Allen especially. But one hard look from Oliver silenced them all. Sure, Oliver wasn't that big of a deal when he was just annoyed, however, he might be the scariest of them all when he actually got angry. Nobody wanted to provoke him and push him to that point, so they all kept quiet.

"As I was saying," he continued his thoughts from earlier before Zao had interrupted him. "Zao will go through the portal. It has been a week, so (Name) most likely has made her decision by now. Whatever she decides, we have to respect her wishes. I'm sure most of us want her to return, but if she does not want to, that is something we must accept. Zao, I will explain this in more detail once we are down in my study. I hope there are no more objections?"