To make amends for his soulmate’s downfall, Toa is cursed to an immortal life spent unknotting strangers’ Red String of Fate, helping them connect with their own soulmates while never finding a soul bond of his own. When Toa encounters a devastating man who also lacks a Red String partner, everything he knows about Fate is called into question. How can a man so beautiful also be cursed to wander the Earth alone, never knowing true love or connection? And is it possible that two people denied love by Fate could forge a new love in each other?

Representation: 

The story explores queerness through a lens inspired by historical Japan. Any” representation” is a Western approximation of what labels someone with similar lived experience might use today. Queerness often went undefined and certainly did not hold the same level of “other” that it holds in a modern, Western context, so none of the characters in this book would be likely to “identify” as “queer” or any other label under the umbrella, though they may still feel familiar to people who do.