Disclaimer: IDOSKXD (I Don't Own Shaman King XD)
Summary: After the Shaman Fight, the gang decided to stay together in Funbari Onsen. But a certain brunette is hiding a big secret, and he might have to keep it forever...
Genre: Angst/Mystery/Suspense (?)/Family (?)/Humor (Actually, not really, just my bad sense of humor if anyone can see it in here)
Dedication: to Lost in Reality! If it wasn't for her (your) beta and positive comments (despite being a little crazy and fangirlish), I would never have put this up (I think...). So hugs and kisses to her (you)! (Oh, but I read your PM, and you're in for a big surprise if that's what you think X3 hehehe...)
Tell a Lie, but Keep a Secret
Chapter One: Dying Reflection
"Do you know it?"
"Yes…and I…need to…ask you…a favor…"
"A favor?"
"Yes, a very… important…favor."
"Anything."
The brunette arrived back to Funbari Onsen, a grocery bag in each hand, as the sun began to set. "Tadaima!" he called into the crowded inn.
The itako came to greet him with her hands on her hips. "What took you so long, Yoh?" she demanded.
The boy was dazed for two seconds and, realizing that she's calling him, smiled sheepishly at the blonde. "Ah, well, the store I usually go to was closed for remodeling, so I had to go to the further ones." He said then held up the bags. "I'll go put these in the kitchen now."
Anna scoffed but let him pass. The headphone-wearing boy trudged to the kitchen, where Ryu is readying the rest of dinner while waiting for the missing supplies.
"Here, Ryu." The brunette gained the older man's attention, and gave him one of the bags.
"Arigatou, danna." The Elvis-style man thanked the younger shaman and the said younger shaman, after acknowledging the gratitude, went to put away the other bag of grocery for future uses.
After doing that, the younger of the two turned to the older. "Ah, Ryu, do you nee—"
"KISAMA!" a loud shout interrupted them as two figures quickly dashed past the entrance of the kitchen, soon followed by another one holding a long 'something'.
The brunette went into the hall and turned his head, only to see Ren, his ever mysterious tongari(spike) in his hair once again growing, chasing after a certain Ainu and their African-American friend.
The concerned shaman stepped out of the kitchen, intending to stop them, when someone else did it for him, quite unwillingly. The boy cringed at the sight before him, as the Ainu tripped over a person in wheelchair, the comedian just behind him falling as well on top of the necromancer on the bottom. The Chinese shaman, not able to stop himself fall as well, but he's okay, since the other three broke his fall.
Faust pushed them off roughly with one hand. "Someone here has no legs, and would like not to get caught in your little fights." He told them.
The three quickly scrambled up and helped the man back into his wheelchair. "So what happened?" the brunette came up to them.
"Oh, Yoh-kun!" Faust greeted. "These three were playing Cat and Mouse, and they ran into me."
The Asakura smiled. "Sounds fun! Can I play?"
Ren fumed. "We were not playing Cat and Mouse! These two bakas were irritating me!"
The headphone-wearing boy raised an eyebrow. "What did they do?"
Horo Horo turned angrily toward the Tao. "We were just joking about your tongari! You don't have to get mad!" he turned to the brunette. "Mr. Serious here apparently can't take a joke."
Chocolove nodded and crossed his arms. "I just happen to be right there and a small snicker might have escaped my throat somehow." He said.
Ren's tongari grew again. "A small snicker? You were laughing your head off!"
The leader of the group raised his hands. "Calm down, guys. Now, Ren, what did they say about you?" he asked.
The Chinese shaman apparently didn't want to say it, so the bluenette took the liberty to answer. "All I did was comment that his tongari is like a thermometer measuring his anger instead of the temperature." He said, holding back his laughter. The comedian off to the side had to turn away as he shook to hold back his giggles. The Tao fumed.
To his utter diamay, the brunette before him and the doctor started to snicker slightly too.
"KISAMA!" he repeated the phrase from earlier, and raised his Kwan Dao threateningly when a small voice interrupted them.
"Erm, Yoh-sama?" the brunette turned to the shy girl addressing him. "Aa?"
The pink-haired girl fidgeted nervously. "Er, um…Anna-sama says that, if you're too loud, then all of you won't have dinner." She muttered.
The headphone-wearing boy turned to the others. "Hear that, guys? No dinner if you don't calm down."
Ren sputtered angrily. "They started it!"
"How about this," Faust gained their attention, "Horo, apologize for joking about Ren's hair and for laughing; Chocolove, say sorry to Ren for bursting out in laughter."
The Ainu crossed his arms furiously and turned away. "Sorry." He muttered.
The comedian turned to the Tao. "Laughing is good for you." He told the boy with saffron eyes.
"Chocolove!" The brunette and the doctor scolded.
"Okay, okay. Sorry, Ren." He apologized.
The Tao turned away angrily. "Fine, I'll let it slide this time." He then headed in the direction of his room to fume silently, apparently not intending on letting it slide at all.
At that moment, a girl came around the corner, heads turning as if searching for something. When she spotted Horo, she immediately brightened. "Nii-chan!" she called.
"Yes, Pilika?" The Ainu calmed down from his anger and turned to his sister.
The ecstatic girl held up a small notepad. "Here's your training schedule, starting now!" she suddenly turned evil-like, as an unknown fire burned in the background. "I won't let you rest until you did them all!"
"What?!" Horo stared at the miniscule letterings. "It's the end of the Shaman Fight! We beat Hao for Great Spirits sake, Pilika! Give me a break!"
Pilika pouted. "No! If you slack off, then you'd be out of shape, and no girl would come for you!"
The bluenette strained to read the writing. After a while, he gave up and turned to his sister again. "I thought you're busy doing 'girl stuff' with Jun?"
The Ainu girl put her hands on her hips. "But she went back to China last week! You should be happy that I even gave you a week to rest." She took a speaker phone out of nowhere. "Now TRAIN!" she commanded.
With tears streaming down his eyes, Horo slowly jogged off. "Yes, Pilika…"
The headphone-wearing brunette laughed heartedly at the scene. Then he felt a chill as a cold voice sounded behind him. "Yoh…"
He slowly turned around. "Yes, Anna?" A feeling of doom dawned upon him.
The itako crossed her arms in authority. "Don't think just because you came back too late for the five o'clock training, you don't have to do them. You've got twenty minutes before dinner, go do them now." She told him and left
Streams of tear also trailed down the brunette's face. "Yes Anna…" he answered just before the blonde was out of earshot.
As the Asakura left in a hurry, he passed a certain dowser that just turned the corner. Noting the tear on the brunette's face, Lyserg turned to the other two quizzically. "What happened to Yoh-kun?"
"Training." They answered in unison.
Realization reached the green-haired boy's face. "Ah...I see."
Funny how that's all that is needed to be said.
Training, consisted of two thousand sit-ups, two thousand push-ups, and ten minutes of 'invisible chair', has become the daily five o'clock routine set by Anna-sama herself. Which means, in the short span of twenty minutes, only ten minutes can be spend on push-ups and sit-ups, meaning he has five minutes to do each of them.
So the brunette is found frantically trying to finish all that in the front yard while Horo ran his hundred laps around the Funbari Onsen. Five minutes before they are done, a short blonde came into view; he saw the brunette and waved.
"Hey, Yoh-kun; I hope you don't mind my coming over." He said and walked up to the boy who's doing 'invisible chair'.
The boy smiled at his friend. "No problem; I was going to invite you over anyways, but a certain event kept me from doing so." He told the short boy, remembering the chase.
"Okay. Well, good luck with that; I'm going in first." The blonde boy told his friend, thinking that the 'certain event' is training, and headed inside. The brunette waved at his friend and smiled before concentrating on keeping himself up.
The headphone-wearing boy stared at the crowd surrounding the table. Anna doesn't like big commotions, but he doesn't mind.
Friends are…nice…yes…friends are really nice…
"YOH!" a sudden shout snapped him out of his thought. He turned quickly to Horo next to him. "What?"
The Ainu sighed. "You space out too easily, Yoh. I've been calling you for like ten times."
The boy smiled sheepishly. "Gomen ne. What is it?" The others are all in their own conversation, except Anna, who's silently eating dinner, a keen ear daring anyone to talk badly about her. Of course, that means whenever her name was mentioned, an entourage of praises has to decorate the before and after before they can go on and say what they wanted to.
The bluenette smiled. "I've been thinking, you should change your name to Hao." The brunette paled considerably, but the Ainu didn't notice. "I mean, since you're Shaman 'King' now, it is only reasonable." Horo laughed, but the boy only lowered his head, his dark bangs covering his eyes. "Of course, I was just joking." The ice shaman finished. (1)
Manta, who had just ended a conversation with Pilika, turned to talk with his best friend, and noticed that something's weird with the brunette. "Yoh-kun? What's wrong?"
That caught everyone's attention. To them, Yoh is their leader and the one who changed their lives. The headphone-wearing boy seems to snap out of it suddenly and smiled at his blonde friend. "Nothing, Manta." He stood up. "Excuse me for a sec." he went into the hall.
They looked curiously after him. "What happened to him?" Chocolove voiced everyone's question. Anna however, stood up and walked over to Horo. Then, without warning, gave him a hard slap.
The Ainu fell. He sat up holding his face. "What was that for?!"
The ice queen stared down at him. "Yoh is very sensitive about the fact that he killed Hao."
Horo's eyes widened. "Oh; my bad; I should go apologize." He stood up.
"Yeah, you should." Anna said coldly, and glared after the Ainu until he left.
Inside the upstairs bathroom, the brunette took off his headphones and laid them on the sink counter after closing and locking the door. He then looked up and stared at the mirror above the sink, his eyes wide and distant.
"It's been half a year…" The boy lifted a hand and slightly touched his reflection. "We look so much alike…" he chuckled without humor. "What am I saying? We're twins, after all."
He looked down, frowning, his face scrunched up in pain. "Why did he have to die?" He turned back to the reflection. "We look…exactly alike. The longer haired version of this reflection…died, so that I can be here."
He touched the face in the mirror again, this time laying his whole palm on it. "Why? Why did one of us have to die? You…deserved to be saved...you didn't deserve to die...at all." He clenched his fist.
A samurai spirit appeared behind him. "You don't have to push yourself so much." Amidamaru said in concern.
The boy glanced back. "Of course I do; it was my fault he died, after all." An expression of regret appeared on his face. "If only I wasn't so weak at that time—"
"But you didn't want to kill him!" Amidamaru protested.
"I had intended to before." The boy responded simply.
Amidamaru frowned. "I bet he really didn't want to kill you either…"
The boy suddenly turned back. "Amidamaru, are you hiding something from me?"
The samurai spirit has an expression of shock on his face. He shook his head. "I assure you that anything I know, you already knew. If anyone's hiding anything, it would be you who are hiding something from everyone—"
The brunette suddenly has a dangerous look on his face. He approached the ghost and pointed a finger at the samurai spirit. "Listen, Amidamaru. You are just as guilty as I am. If you utter this to anyone—"
"Yoh?" he paused as he heard the distant voice of the Ainu coming up stairs.
Sighing, he picked up the headphones and, taking one last look at his reflection, put them on, unlocked the bathroom door and went out. Facing the bluenette, he smiled. "What is it?"
The ice shaman fidgeted. "Look, I'm sorry for what I said at dinner, I—"
The brunette went forward and patted Horo's shoulder. "Don't worry about it; you didn't know." He smiled. "Let's just get back; I'm a lot better now. I'm sure the others are worried."
The Ainu brightened and nodded. The two then went down stairs and rejoined everyone for dinner, after the Asakura apologized profusely for his absence that worried everyone and a glare from Anna, who told him that his training would be doubled the next day. Everything is right again.
Or so they thought.
A/N: Well, this story probably won't be that long and, in my opinion, probably won't be as good as the other fics, but I still hope my readers support it. (I will add Japanese key if requested, but otherwise just hope everyone knows it).
(1) - In Japanese, the 'Ha' in Hao means the same as Yoh, which means leaf. The 'o', usually spelled as 'ou' in different words, means 'king'.
Did anyone figure out what the secret is through the little dialogue in the beginning? It wasn't that hard, but it's not that obvious either. Anyways, kudos to everyone that figured it out! But if you figured it out, don't say what it is! Just tell me if you know or not.
