Disclaimer: I don't own Shaman King, you know the drill…..

Author's Note:

Like 4 or 5 years ago, I started writing this really, really shitty wannabe-yaoi fiction and posted it here. I was deleting random stuff on my computer when I found this and I was like, what the heck and started reading it. It was still as crappy as before but I realised that with a bit of editing, and changing things around it could be pretty decent. So read and tell me what you think peoples! There was actually a sequel for this and I guess I'm gonna redo that too - but for now this is purely on their lives before the Shaman Tournament - the equally crappy sequal deals with that.

Summary:

((AU)) Asakura Hao is perfection - he's popular, good-looking, heir of the Asakura Clan, a line of great Shamans and the key candidate for the upcoming Shaman Tournament.

Asakura Yoh is the epitome of average, paling in comparison to his twin, he spends his life lingering in the background, perfectly content to watch the clouds and listen to Bob's newest singles. But then a accident occurs, and gives Yoh the ability to see spirits - and awakens a power deep within him.

As the tournament grows near, finacees are introduced, families pit themselves against each other and two siblings turn up out of the blue to join the party. As events happen one after the other, the twins finally realise that they really are, halves of a whole after all.

Warnings: Shounen-Ai. Will contain BoyXBoy love - but no Lemon scenes (if there are, I haven't written them yet or plan to.) Cursing - minor.

Pairings: HaoXAnnaXYohXRenXHao LysergXPrikaXRenXHoro RenXTamaoXHoro (gosh, this is like a soap opera - everyone's hooking up with each other, LOLz )

Prologue:

It was fairly early in the morning, however most of Funbari's population were still fast asleep or trying to despite the constant ringing of alarm clocks. Those that had to catch the local train or bus to work were the only ones that were awake – carefully preparing themselves for another day of work.

Asakura Yoh however, was neither asleep or trying to stay asleep. Nor was he trying to catch a local bus or train to Funbari High. But then and again – Asakura Yoh never quite fit the mold, he always stuck out and usually not in a good way.

His chocolate brown hair hung limply from his face, slightly wet from his morning shower. A pair of bright orange headphones were hung around his neck, not attached to his ears but close enough for him to hear the BOB, his favourite singer blast out his latest chart-topping single.

As he let his mind wander, his feet took complete control and began to speed up, changing from a brisk walk to a moderately fast jogging pace. Accustomed to performing this same routine day after day, he has no need to watch where he's going – it's like it's been ingrained into him.

Occasionally he runs into a newly made sign or perhaps a orange traffic cone – it's then that he snaps out of his daze, blinks twice and then continues. Sometimes he does stop though, just in case one of Ryu's thugs are around though he reckons that a bunch of lowlifes don't wake up early to take a morning jog.

His watch reads 8:15, he's late – really late. He needs to get to Manta's because that's why he had woken up early, living in a house far away from the 'city' is really inconvenient when you're trying to save your best (slightly midget-like) friends from getting beaten up by a gang led by a Elvis-impersonator.

Crap. He's never going to make it if he takes the main roads, he can already start to see the traffic build up. Instead, he ducks behind the local hair saloon and into the alleyways of Funbari.

It's a risk he knows, most of the alleyways are dominated with petty street gangs that think they 'own' their little territory. But with a bit of luck, Yoh reckons that he can go through without meeting anybody, especially not Ryu.

Of course, luck rarely chose Yoh – and once again it had forsaken Asakura Yoh and moved onto someone else.

Barely a minute later of sprinting, Asakura Yoh swerved around the corner to run straight into Bokuto no Ryu and his gang. With a sigh, he just knew that he wouldn't make it to school on time once again.

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Waist-length brown hair swirled around in a tangled mess as Asakura Hao attempted to dry it using a hairdryer. There were a few major drawbacks however as the latest attempt had just made his hair frizz up and a few strands had been caught sucked in by the drier.

This of course, only made him wonder once again how on earth humans with long hair could stand to do this everyday. It was like some form of torture or something. With a sigh and several more curses, Hao glared at the 'evil' instrument that had nearly burnt off some of his hair and incinerated it.

There that had fixed that thing. Screw being a human, he was a shaman and like hell he wasn't going to abuse his privileges no matter how many times his grandparents lectured him on it. He was THE Asakura Hao and no crotchety old person was going to tell him how to use his all-powerful-god-like spiritual guardian.

With a snap of fingers, he felt his spirit emerge behind him and at the presence of such extreme heat, the remaining water in his hair immediately evaporated, leaving behind the same result one could only get after twenty minutes of non-stop hair-drying, at least with hair that long.

Thank god he had received the spiritual guardian, he was the eldest and as an age-old tradition, the spirit of fire was passed down the Asakura line, generation by generation to the first born-son. Still, he supposed it didn't really matter this generation as Yoh didn't possess any powers whatsoever so it would still be useless to give him it anyway.

But then and again, that was practically the only tradition Hao actually approved of. Everything else hindered him too much, 'correct use of power' was bad enough – who needed rules when you had the power of a god, but fiancée? There was no way that he was going to get engaged; in fact he shuddered at the word 'relationship'!

That and the house needed some renovating. Not only was it totally inconvenient – being totally disconnected to the suburban areas of Funbari, it had crappy electricity that continuously flickered on and off and his grandparents absolutely forbade any form of real technology except for the small portable T.V

It would be so much better sometimes if his parents actually stuck around long enough to do something about it. But no, due to being the 'Very Important People' they were, they had decided to go whizzing around the world, his father holding martial arts demonstrations and his mother accompanying him as a tradition miko of Japan.

Grabbing a apple off the basket of fruit on the kitchen counter, he slung his bag over his shoulder and teleported off to the Tao Mansion to bother his 'best friend.'

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Almost half an hour after school had officially started, one Asakura Yoh had officially arrived in school premises. Although he had gained a black eye and a pretty harsh bruise on his left leg, he was pretty much alright – and it proved that Anna's training really had paid off.

He had taken two of them out on his own and they had only gotten to him because they had outnumbered him, five to one. But even then, he frowned thinking of it – although he knew Anna approved of testing his ability fighting for no reason was definitely not okay and something he always tried to avoid.

Well that, and not being spotted by his sharp-eyed math teacher as he tried to sneak unsuccessfully (once again) into his class.

"Ah, there you are Asakura, I wish to congratulate for arriving late again – and for breaking the 30-late-days record you had previously achieved." The woman pinches up her face and folds her arms over her chest.

A couple of students look annoyed at having a interruption but most are glad that they are going to waste more time. Manta who is sitting in front row, one seat away from the window waves but Anna, who is halfway in the back doesn't even turn to look at him. Instead she seems to be inspecting her nails.

Raising his arm sheepishly behind his head in his trademark Yoh pose, he makes an awkward laugh. "Oh, um – gee, uh…"

Several students titter, others turn back to their workbooks used to Yoh's daily antics and confrontation with his first period teacher. The teacher however, glares at him for a good five seconds before giving up.

"Enough is enough, Asakura. You will stay behind after class for a little chat. Quickly take your seat, I will not delay this lesson any further." Turning back to the board she continued the lesson on algebraic equations and left Yoh to his own devices.

Attention off him, he crept up to the empty seat next to Manta and plunked himself down. Then he proceeded to stretch each arm and leg with an almost catlike grace before falling back into a dreamy daze.

This was all disturbed a few seconds later by rapid poking of his exposed arm.

"Yoh? Yoh? Yoh? You okay?"

One eye opens ever so slightly and glances over at his friend who seems caught between worrying about him and raising his hand to the difficult algebraic equation written on the board.

"Yeah – I'm okay."

"But your eye! And you were walking funny – it could be really serious!"

"I'm okay – it was just Ryo, no need to worry Manta."

"I'm not worrying! But what if there's a cut or something and it gets infected! Or they bruised some sort of important thingy-mabob in your leg or something! This is all my fault isn't it? Oh god – I'm going to feel so horrible when you die and all I'm going be able to do is-"

"I'm OKAY."

"Really?"

Manta's eyes open disbelievingly as he looks over at Yoh's overall dishevelled appearance.

"Yeah. Just sleepy."

"If you say so…" with a doubtful look, Manta turns back to his textbook and resumes scribbling down answers and workings. Yoh himself stares out of the window and watches the clouds form shapes.

On the other side of the room, Anna glares at the back of Yoh's head – stupid, she wants to yell across the room and probably will once this day is over, what's the point of going to school if you don't want to learn?

And that is when a small inconspicuous piece of paper is thrown in her direction. She unfolds and when the teacher turns away begins to read. "Sorry I'm late," she reads out loud in a low whisper and even as she tries to concentrate she can't make herself stay mad at him.

The brunette continues to stare out of the window watching a bunny wearing fuzzy duck slippers go by.

This day is was going to be just like yesterday, another average day.

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Because of his obvious differences to an ordinary human, his powers – not his self-proclaimed amazing looks, Asakura Hao and other shamans tended not to go to Funbari High but a special private school created by the prestigious Tao Clan to further their abilities to interact and bond with the spiritual world.

It was also a wonderful source of income for the already extremely wealthy Tao Clan that continued to dominate the business world across Asia and was starting to make it's way to Europe.

The school grounds of Funbari Private Academy were already milling with students, there were groups of friends already chatting and several others were mooching about, trying to seem 'cool' and 'aloof.' So far they just looked like they had no friends.

Meanwhile, a few metres away hidden by the semi-dense bush that surrounded the facilities, several thumps could be heard as two figures fell out of seemingly nowhere.

"Godamnit Asakura! I thought you said you were good at this!"

This voice belonged to one Tao Ren, heir to the Tao Clan. His golden eyes where narrowed in cat-like slits as he brushed off dirt that had gotten onto his perfectly clean pants from his rather ungraceful landing.

"Well, at least I can do it! Which by the way, is more that you can possibly say."

The brunette sniped back and shook the leaves off his poncho and quickly ran his fingers through his hair – just incase any had gotten tangled, it wouldn't do for the great Asakura Hao to appear with twigs stuck in his hair.

Hao had originally planned to arrive in Ren's limousine – only to realise that he had done that for all of last week so something new had to be done. Teleportation, Hao had come to realise was a hell of a lot harder than it looked like, it wasn't just a 'poof – I'm there!' sort of thing.

Which was a good thing he hadn't aimed to arrive right in the front of the school. Falling flat on his face would not be good for his 'perfect guy' image.

Of course, landing on top of a prickly bush wasn't much better, but at least only one person saw and that person had suffered the same fate as himself.

"You alright?" He asked, totally unconcerned for the fate of his friend who was still cursing at the bush in Chinese.

"Yes, but no thanks to you Asakura. And no – I don't want to make a dramatic entrance with you. Go yourself."

With that, the chinese boy stalked off, still holding his precious kwan dao. The brunette rolled his eyes, and with a "Kay, be that way," he summoned his spiritual guardian to full size, allowing it to slowly emerge from behind the trees, with him on top of it.

And just as he had predicted, every student turned to stare as Asakura Hao entered, not in a car or any sort of transport – but on top of his massive guardian. And also as expected the hana-gumi where the first to welcome him.

"Yo, Hao!" "Hao." "HAO!!!!"

This day was going to be just like yesterday, another average day.

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Meanwhile, from the safety of the boys bathroom, Tao Ren flipped open his cellphone and after making sure nobody was around finally answered the call.

"Tao Ren here."

"Little brother. He won the case. Protest is over."

"…good."

Click. Beep - beep - beeeeeeeeeeeep.

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Author's Note: So please read and review - would really appreciate some feedback!