"This is not going to work." Arthur sipped his tea as he watched his soulmate tinker with pipes and wrenches at a section inside the wall above the showerhead. Alfred was standing on a stool in the shower, soaking wet, in the bathroom of the apartment he shared with his brother. Five empty milk cartons sat at the foot of the stool, the contents having been used by Alfred in his revenge plan.

This revenge plan entailed Alfred shutting down the water in his apartment and pouring spoiled milk into the pipes. Arthur could attest to just how spoiled the milk was, having been sitting in front of Alfred's bedroom window for a month. It was the same milk Alfred had bought the day they met. It also counted on Matthew taking a shower in the morning, being sleepy enough to not realize the liquid coming out of his shower head was not water, not feel that the temperature was wrong, and not notice he smelt strange until he was away from the apartment.

In short, it was far too out there and extreme for it to work.

"It'll totally work. Trust me, since when have my plans ever gone wrong?"

Arthur coughed into his tea. "I'd say every time I wasn't around to make some heavy changes to your ideas." Which, quite frankly, was not at all a gross exaggeration.

For the week after their first meeting, Arthur summed Alfred's rather unorthodox mannerisms up to nerves and a release of pent of anticipation due to meeting his soulmate.

On the eighth day of their courtship, Arthur realized, with horror, that Alfred's strange antics was not a result of nerves. Alfred was simply an...unique person, to say the least, and Arthur nearly cried with how his life was about to be uprooted completely.

"No, this will be the prank of all pranks. Mattie will so be embarrassed it'll totally make up for what he did to me!" Perhaps, Arthur thought, this revenge would have been warranted had Alfred been a regular person. But Alfred was Alfred, and Arthur was quite convinced that regardless of whether or not Matthew pulled the prank, Alfred would have found some equally humiliating manner to meet his soulmate.

Hidden by the rim of the teacup, Arthur smiled, affection pouring from his eyes. For all of Alfred's faults and idiocy, he was still Arthur's soulmate and Arthur found that Alfred had grown on him immediately.

"Aaaaand, complecto!" Alfred cheered, softly, as to not wake his brother up.

Drinking the last of his tea, Arthur set his cup aside on the counter he was leaning against and applauded softly. "Congratulations," he yawned. "I suppose we can go to bed now? It is rather late, you know."

Alfred chuckled, picking up the stool and empty milk cartons. He handed a couple to Arthur. "Nah, this is pretty normal. I mean, it's only half past one. I've pulled all nighters for gaming tournaments with Kiku."

"Yes, well, I'm sure you've also pulled your fair share of all nighters finishing university papers you procrastinated too long on," Arthur responded, leaving the room with the cartons and his tea mug. "But some of us," he called from the hallway, "have a regular living schedule."

Alfred just laughed, following his soulmate out.

During lunch the next day, Alfred could barely stifle his excitement. His plate sat before him, barely touched and still overflowing with food. It was cold, having been sitting there for half an hour as Alfred bounced up and down with anticipation.

"Oh my God, I can't wait until Mattie gets home. I waited an entire month for this! I bet this went perfectly. Do you know how long I planned this!? Replacing pipes and convincing the landlady to turn off the water for our apartment is an easy feat you know. This required tons of careful planning! And it had to be a super hot and really sunny day!"

For his part, Arthur felt a bit of sympathy for Matthew. Alfred's revenge was bad enough on its own, but Matthew was on a date with his soulmate. And if being embarrassed in front of his soulmate wasn't enough, Matthew's soulmate was certainly going to embarrass the poor lad in front of the entire restaurant, before a group of strangers Matthew had never seen before in his life. And, as Arthur had learnt very early on, there was nothing Matthew despised more than attention, especially negative attention. But, by no means did that prevent Arthur from being almost equally as excited to see Matthew's reaction.

They smelt Matthew before they saw him. Alfred and Arthur shared matching cheshire cat grins (Alfred's being only slightly wider than Arthur's) before their eyes snapped back to the front door when they heard the door being unlocked.

A very tussled Matthew was revealed when the door was quite violently flung open.

Arthur's conviction that Matthew had no angry expression was shattered when he saw Matthew's face.

Violet eyes had darkened to a shade of black, fists clenched tightly at his sides (so tightly Arthur worried if Matthew would pull a muscle), the stray friendly looking curl of hair was now bent and looked quite menacing for a strand of hair. And, of course, there were the obscenities that almost left Matthew's mouth.

Even Alfred looked a little scared at the undulating waves of anger radiating off of his brother.

But, Matthew was not the confrontational type, and simply stood in the doorway stewing in his anger for moments before slamming the door behind him and storming into his room. Once again, a door was slammed but the unquestionable scent of spoiled, rotten milk lingered in his trail.

Arthur and Alfred sat at the table in silence for a moment before Alfred spoke.

"Well," he said, voice only slightly shaky. "It worked. I told you it would work."

"That it did." Arthur's heart went out to Matthew, but he could not help being impressed that Alfred's crazy plan had actually worked out for once. "I can't believe you pulled it off."

Alfred smirked, leaning back smugly in his chair and exaggeratedly puffed out his chest. "Well, I do have a degree in civil engineering."

When Alfred and Arthur headed for Alfred's room after their meal, they stopped when they heard a noise.

"Alfred F. Jones, you are going down." An eerily calm voice came from behind Matthew's door as they passed his room and Alfred blanched.

Arthur swore he even heard a whimper.

Thank you for all of your kind words~~ I hope you enjoy this little omake ^^