Disclaimer: I don't own Shaman King. Hao and Yoh aren't walking around naked, are they?
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Hao and Yoh, Yukihira muttered under his breath, tasting the names rolling off his tongue. That sounded good, even though it was not quite the twin names that he wanted. In his mind, twins were supposed to have cute names like Natsume and Natsumi or Rei and Roy. Hao and Yoh rang like two opposite ends in an ancient war, 180 degrees difference in personalities, and it was just some stupid work of a bitch called Fate to make them related. Or twins.
His wife had begged and sobbed regarding the name choices. He still could remember the shaking grip on his wrists and the unstable tone, the raspy whisper of "Hao and Yoh-it's Hao and Yoh!" chants like holy names of saints. The names were a lull on her head, she had said, constant buzzing on her ears demanding that Hao and Yoh would be perfect. Yukihira had agreed, of course, noting that giving birth could probably drive mothers to a temporary madness.
Hao and Yoh grew fast like other babies; their tiny limbs outgrew their sleeves so quick that he thought he bought new clothes every other day. Yukihira loved them dearly, laughing at his friends when they said their babies cried and kept them awake at night, because Yoh and Hao didn't. They rarely cried-Yoh might cry more often than Hao, though, and he fell asleep of exhaustion eventually in the end.
Hao was extremely intelligent, too. Sometimes he thought that his older son actually smiled in amusement-rather than innocent laughs-when his wife making faces at him. Or laughed at them when they shook a rattle for him. As an ordinary human, Yukihira shrugged this off.
It was the usual time of the month when the married couple had dinner outside and left their babies home with a baby sitter. There was a routine after they came back: the sitter was sitting on the kitchen table, reading her kindle©; they asked how their babies had been and she cooed with adoration that Hao and Yoh had been great and no, they were not making troubles! Yes, they were sleeping soundly right now!
So according to the routine they checked their babies, peeping through the slightly opened door to expect two identical faces asleep. However, that one time the couple found them awake-albeit lying down and covered with blankets-babbling.
"Yaa-" Hao started. "Yoooo-" he said again, frowning, his tiny fists flying around as if in frustration. "Yoooaahhh..."
Yukihira and his wife glanced at each other. Hao never babbled. His dictionary only consisted of "aaaa", "aaaa?", and "aaaa!". With another glance, they reached the agreement that they would not barge in.
"Yooh," Hao said, clear as a day. "Yoh." the older baby sighed, what was it on his face-relief?
"Yuna," Yukihira murmured to his wife, his stomach coiled upon seeing her brows met. Hao's first word hadn't been mama but Yoh. That must have hurt her. Yuna shook her head and put her index finger in front of her trembling lips.
"Yoh," Hao said, moving his palm on Yoh's head in a jerky movement that should have meant stroking. Yoh turned his head a little. "Yoh, Yoh, Yoh," he said again more fiercely when Yoh didn't respond, hitting his younger brother temple.
Yukihira began to pry open the door-Hao, Hao was hurting Yoh and his wife, he knew something was off with Hao, he knew-but a firm hand stopped him.
Yoh hit back.
"Haaaa-" a hit, "Haawww-", another hit, "Haaoo.. Hao," hit.
Yukihira now knew that baby were capable to smirk. He fought the urge to separate them, Yoh needed to be saved, his heart said, but his brain said no, Yoh was perfectly fine. Hao was just another baby genius.
His wife hugged him tightly, an unspoken gesture to show her discomfort. They both knew something was different in Hao, but it was never talked of, as if it was a forbidden law to converse about normalcy. Yuna had always acted so blind and Yukihira was nonchalant, for Hao and Yoh had been their first children after all. They only knew what books had said about babies but they were books and books were wrong sometimes.
Hao and Yoh were exactly eight months old on the next morning. "Mama," Hao said when Yuna woke him up in the morning to breast-feed him. She had been ecstatic, sobbing profusely (for she knew Hao was only pretending to be the perfect son, for hearing the "mama" call for the first time had been painfully wonderful) and a big grin-a real, real, real grin, his first real grin, Yukihira mulled later on that day-was formed on his face.
Hao woke Yoh up with an accidental (calculating, deliberate) yank on his younger brother's hand. He drawled "mama, mama, mama" in a perfect rhythm (just another baby genius, Yukihira reminded himself) and made a move to caress (hithithit he meant to hit must protect Yoh) his brother. Yukihira didn't-never, would never-trust Hao and lift Yoh to his arms.
"Dadaaaaa," Yoh said sleepily, touching his nose in affection, innocent eyes blinked and Yukihira remembered five minutes ago gazing into the same eyes of Hao-deep black like night without shooting stars-but it wasn't quite naive as this one and he could swear he saw shadows dancing behind those irises.
"Mamaaa," Yoh said again. Yukihira whooped, throwing Yoh to the air, Yuna laughed freely, scooting close to him and he realized everything would be normal with Yoh here, that Yoh would always be their perfect boy no matter how progressed Hao was, and he would never be the least-favorite son.
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When Hao and Yoh turned a year and three months year old, they were able to walk. Yukihira and Yuna just came back from the usual dinner out and Hao had walked to Yuna right after they opened the door. Surprise, surprise, they, no, Hao seemed to grow up every time they went out and it was as if Yoh was forcefully dragged to grow up with his older brother. Or I'm just looking too deep into this, Yukihira decided finally.
Yuna had been truly happy and Yukihira played the role of perfect husband dutifully, laughing and running to the end of their narrow hall while motioning Hao to follow him. Wobbly feet followed him afterwards, Hao was the flawless son after all, and Yukihira swirled him in the air.
The couple didn't expect Yoh to pop and walk too, of course. Yoh was... lazy, so to say. He barely crawled and walked with support. Yukihira found out that he could crawl after his mother-in-law had come to check on the boys. She didn't know that if a) Yoh stared at you without blinking b) babbled incoherently c) opened and closed his palm repeatedly; he wanted something that you hold. Yoh had sobbed after not getting what he wanted and the young couple had panicked because Yoh rarely cried and they always gave what he wanted anyways. It shocked them how the faint cries stopped suddenly and Yoh crawled. He crawled to his grandmother feet and voila, he got the shiny object (an orange). There were not even unshed tears, as if all this time Yoh had manipulated them because he didn't want to move and take it himself. Yukihira hypothesized Yoh perhaps had decided that crying was more tiring than crawling, but again, sometimes he made things up because he was used to make sense of Hao's every action.
True, Yoh didn't even shift when they checked on him, but when Yuna tossed an orange in the air, Yoh walked awkwardly to her.
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When the twins were three and Hao appeared to understand English, they brought the boys to a child psychiatrist. Yukihira and Yuna always talked in Japanese, for God's sake! An English-speaking relative came to spend the night at their house one time and he had played with the boys, all the while fussing and speaking in English, and Hao understood her perfectly. "Now take the red tank," the twins' aunt had said, and Hao took the red tank although there were yellow and green ones. "Hey little guys, do you know where the Lego is?" and Hao pointed to a bag of Legos in the corner of the play-room. The aunt didn't seem to realize this and Yukihira then reread "My Baby is a Genius" book, looking for a line where a three-year old baby could understand two languages.
Yuna had had enough of these insecurities and they brought them to a psychiatry (should've brought them to a shaman, Yukihira thought bitterly, Hao is certainly possessed) because usually an over-genius baby was autistic, or having low EQ, or something was just off from him.
The doctor somehow managed to pull off "I-am-a-cat" fashion without intending to. He had faint cat-like whiskers on his cheeks and grins like a Cheshire cat. He also gave Yoh an ancient three-claw necklace which smelled like earth. Yuna saved this deep on her drawer because she insisted it was dirty.
They were hesitant to leave the babies with him alone, but the doctor ("Matamune," the raspy voice purred, "call me Matamune.") sweet-talked them to it. The result was surprising: Hao was an average baby. Yoh was more than average, but that was not the point.
Before Matamune explained the result, he gently asked them to leave the toddlers in the play-room (Hao, bring Hao out of here, that was the underlying statement). Yukihira understood but Yuna threw the doctor a dirty look just because, and Hao had the decency to look entertained.
"Yoh is an intelligent boy," Matamune started off. Yoh seemed to be lazy, blah-blah-blah; they had long known who Yoh was. Yukihira was more nervous to hear Hao's result.
"Hao is... interesting," the doctor continued, and Yuna-who later said she disliked the doctor-shot another look at him. Interesting was not choice of word to describe a baby, after all. "He is extremely intelligent. Look at his score," Matamune said; short-nailed index finger tapped a box in a tune. Yukihira eyed it distrustfully, imagining the doctor would flex his hand and grow claws.
"Twenty-six out of fifty," Yuna muttered, her voice alleviative.
"That number proved that he is ordinary," Matamune carried on, and Yukihira wondered whether he would be offended that his son was called ordinary in other circumstances. "but," the doctor stressed (always the buts, the young father knew there would be a 'but' somewhere, but he couldn't help hoping it wouldn't exist), "his responses were not random. Look at this," the same tan index finger ran on the length of the paper.
Yukihira scanned over the small boxes quickly and failed to find the special qualities of Hao's answers, but then he discovered the pattern.
"T-F-T-F-T," he read aloud, "F-F-T-T-F-F-there's a pattern," he enunciated. "F-F-T-F-F-T-what does this mean?"
"It looks like he's mocking us, yeah?" Matamune said with a grin and Yukihira agreed silently. The doctor could see the horror on their face apparently, so he settled down by countering, "just kidding. He's simply clever and craving for attention."
It's not funny, Yukihira wanted to say. Yuna looked like she was ready to go anywhere but here. The couple stood up simultaneously like it was a rehearse, lying phrases of thanks through gritted teeth and bowing. Before Yukihira opened the door, though, he turned around.
"One more thing," he said hesitantly, throwing a quick look to his wife who eyed him carefully. "Yoh... he often stares into space,"
"It's called daydreaming, Yukihira-san, it's normal," Matamune responded with a grin, baring his sharp canine teeth. Yuna shuddered visibly beside him.
"Sometimes he... talks to thin air. Communicates to something I can't see."
"It's called imaginary friends, Yukihira-san," the doctor replied without missing a beat.
Imaginary friends, Yukihira thought. Well, I could live with that. He bowed one more time, ignoring Matamune's blatant worry tone when mentioning 'imaginary friends'.
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Before he knew, the twins were already entering high school. People could tell them easily apart: they were so different in both personality and appearance, they just happened to be twins.
On the first day of school, Yukihira was worried for Hao kept his hair long-black tresses that he recognized was his wife's-because its femininity could attract bullies. Yoh's lazy, laid back attitude, on the other hand, would attract annoyed seniors and made his life hell.
Well, at least that was high school movies all about.
But nothing happened. True he heard of some seniors got several-degree burns for some unknown reasons, but besides that, all was well. Yoh said the seniors loved him, he didn't know why, and Hao just flashed the enigmatic smile of his when asked.
And life had been... normal.
Or Yukihira was just used to their peculiarities.
"Where are you going?" Hao asked, putting a stop on his absent-minded state. Hao didn't comment on the fact that Yukihira had stuck on the same page for a long time (Hao always noticed every single thing, always).
"A movie," a lighter voice returned. At first Yukihira thought they had identical voice, but Yoh always had his light, fainéant tone of his and Hao had aristocratic, archaic air with his.
"With whom?" Hao questioned, making his way to Yoh. Yukihira watched them behind his newspaper with small interest. Hao had always been intrusive of Yoh's business-it was an old news on his household.
"Maria," Yoh answered, putting wireless earphone to his ear. Hao abstractedly pull out some hair strands that stuck with the ear buds with an elegant forefinger, running the remaining four fingers down his brother's neck in the process.
"Who?" Hao repeated.
"A girl from my dojo," Yoh said, taking a black coat from the hanger. "I will introduce her to you next time."
"Girlfriend?" Hao asked, face blank, his tone was familiar but Yukihira couldn't quite put a finger on it.
"It's suddenly hot in here," Yoh said, brows puckered into a thoughtful frown. Now that he mentioned it, Yukihira felt the same.
"Very creative way to change the subject, Yoh," Hao gnarled, not affected by the abrupt change of temperature. Yoh raised an indolent eyebrow, putting on his coat even though it was hot.
"Hao," Yoh sighed, taking a tentative step toward his brother and cupped his cheeks.
Oh, Hao-card, Yukihira remarked silently. Yoh always called Hao 'aniki*', but when he called him by his name, he always got what he wanted.
Yoh pressed his forehead to his older brother's easily, gaining advantage from their similar height. Yukihira continued watching, feeling foolish that he thought of looking away from the intimate contact. Silly me, he scolded himself. They're brothers.
Yukihira had given up looking for the meaning of physical contacts between the twins since long time ago. Well, twins were supposed to have this kind of connection, right? It was normal.
"She's a friend," Yoh put pressure on the last word. "I don't date people easily. I just want to know her first."
"That means that you put her into consideration without me agreeing to it, Otouto*,"
Hao only used Otouto when he was angry. Or jealous, his conscience added. Sometimes Hao acted like a jealous boyfriend-but that was twin's thing, right?
"She's a good friend," Yoh dodged, heaving breath to Hao's face. Hao closed his eyes and Yukihira thought oddly that out of blue the heat became bearable. "I will introduce her to you next time you pick me up in the dojo,"
Hao nodded, face still blank and eyes still closed when Yoh pulled away.
"Have fun," he grunted out, showing an unreadable smile when Yoh grinned widely.
Oh well, Yukihira shrugged, repressing the urge to blush upon the strident display of affectionate fight.
It's twin's thing, right?
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*aniki = older brother, outoto = little brother.
AN/: Reviews, constructive criticisms, appreciations, are welcomed. I think this two-shots is really sketchy what do you think?