The happiest day of my new life came two years after my birth, Mother had been pregnant with what she called an "imoto" when she pointed to him, and a "musume" for them. I had deduced that it would be a girl based on the fact that she referred to me as "musuko". It hadn't registered in my mind what being an older brother really entailed until after my cute little sister was born. Hikigaya Komachi had me wrapped around her tiny baby fingers from the moment I saw her.
Infinite amounts of worry coursed through me on a day to day basis, I felt useless and I had no way of actively doing anything about it in this tiny body, so I tried to support my little sister with silly faces and little hugs, that was all I could really do.
Our parents seemed to be taking longer and longer time away from the family, still alternating to allow one parent to take care of both kids at home. I still felt the love both of them radiated, and it had only intensified after the birth of Komachi. Hey Mother don't you think it's a bit rude to show your favoritism that clearly? If I was a normal son I would definitely grow up depressed, good grief. But the love between them had faltered slightly, I could tell that their honeymoon phase had come to an abrupt end with the highs and lows of child rearing. During one of the few nights both of our parents were home at the same time, it was faint, but I could make out hushed arguments late at night, though I couldn't discern what they were about other than the word "gomi" meaning trash being used by my mother and Father walking past Komachi and I's room to sleep on the couch.
"Gomi," a voice rang out in the crib next to me. Startled, I looked over to see Komachi pressing her face up to the bars of the crib, wide eyes peered into my soul, and a gummy smile was present on her face. Truthfully it was a rather scary thing in the dead of night, with only the moon's natural light poking through the curtain allowing me to see her. Is she talking to me? Did she hear Mother and Father too?
I pointed to myself and said slowly, "Onii-chan," my little sister had yet to speak her first word in front of our parents, and I would be damned if her first word was "trash."
"Oni... Onii-ch..." that's it, just a little more, I had rightfully earned my place as best family member, This'll show Mother to play favorites so early on.
"Onii-chan" I said once more, hoping it didn't come off as too excited, but really this was the most amazing thing to happen so far in my life, and I had a right to be happy about it.
"Gomi-chan!" She proudly exclaimed, followed by a plethora of giggles, as I slumped forward, defeated, into the bars opposite her. Everything that's led up to now, has it just been a waste? I thought to myself, as I sat hunched on my knees, drawing circles in the ground. If this was an anime there would definitely be a dark and gloomy miasma around me. That reminds me, I should keep practicing the Lumos counter-spell, Nox, so I could reproduce the effects without a wand one day.
xxx
My parents were suitably amused the next day, much to my humiliation. Evil little sister, why do you torment me so. This new development also led to my parents trying the same thing they did with me, and attempting to get her to say different things by pointing at them, but all she managed to get out was "Gomi-chan" in different pitches, accompanied by copious amounts of giggles or tears. Brat, it's obvious she knows what she's doing, and that I still can't do anything about it. Not that I would say anything if I could, she is just too cute. I could tell my Mother and Father were confused as to why my little sister was so different from me, as I had started learning words pretty fast after my first time speaking, and I prayed they wouldn't look too deeply into it. Normal children were absolute hell to deal with, and while my parents were lucky I was such an awesome baby, it left them sorely unprepared for Komachi.
I spent the majority of my time attempting to learn more Japanese, sleeping, and trying to cast different spells with my pudgy fingers. There was no way to make myself grow faster or stronger in any way as a baby, other than walking around on my own occasionally. I'm embarrassed to say that I even tried and failed to do a sit-up when I was around a year and a half old. I have only gotten to see myself a couple of times in my new life, but let me tell you, whatever you're thinking it was like to be a baby, it's worse. Talk about body dysmorphia, good grief. Though it gave me insight as to why Komachi was the favorite among us. My eyes were still a glowing green, which neither of my parents have, but they looked like they belonged on a dead fish, and while I was grateful to have perfect vision, I would gladly trade for them for my old eyes in a heartbeat. Along with my eyes I had this one strand of hair near the middle of the front of my head that was curved up constantly, no matter how many times I flattened it down, it was like an antenna or something. The rest of my bluish-black hair was neatly combed down. Komachi had a similar strand of hair as well as the exact same shade of hair as me, but her piece of stuck up hair was slightly less pronounced, and a little more on the side of her head.
My parents seemed to catch on that I was not exactly normal around the time that I was enrolled into the Japanese equivalent of pre-school. The other kids were frankly gross, and I probably would've gotten sick every other day if my magic wasn't creating antibodies for me. The amount of snot that a three-year-old produces is honestly rather obscene. Regardless, I attempted to interact with the little devils, for the sake of my parents if nothing else, but they seemed to be smarter then they looked, and avoided me entirely.
I'm not sure if it was because of how I looked like something out of Knockturn Alley, or if they had some sort of sixth sense about the difference between them and I. But the older kids could tell I was different, and different was wrong, so they treated me like the plague, and the younger kids followed their lead. My Father and Mother were definitely worried now, I was a social outcast at the age of three, how pathetic is that? And so I kept on trying, and was met with repeated failure to make any meaningful connections. Until one day during play-time...
"Hey," I called out, "do you mind if I swing here?" I was speaking to a group of three children that looked around the age of 4. They were sitting and talking on the only swing set in the fenced in play area, that sat underneath a huge lilac tree. The reason for my question was an open swing next to them and I didn't want to appear rude by sitting on it unannounced.
"AH! It's Hikigerma, run!" They took off running, the swings were shoved violently in their retreat, left to continue rocking back and forth. Well, that was just fine with me, it's not like I wanted to be friends with those guys anyways! I sat down on the swing.
"Another failure huh?" I mumbled to myself, I couldn't figure out why this was so much harder than it looked. It couldn't just be my appearance scaring them off, could it? There had to be something more, maybe they were told to stay away from their parents? But I had never met those kids before.
"Pft."
I spun around in my swing, the chains clinking together as they formed an X over my head.
"Something funny?" I asked.
A girl, most likely older than me by a year or two was standing behind me, her eyes were the strangest thing I had seen in a while, they looked like they were tinted purple, and she had black hair that fell just past her shoulders.
"Yeah, that was like, super embarrassing, dontcha think? So I had to laugh."
"Oh? I guess so," I didn't really get it, was she trying to kick me while I'm down?
"Hah? What kinda lame reaction is that?" More giggles, and then she said, "I'm taking a seat here, OK?" First she makes fun of me, and now she is sitting down next to me? Girls will always be confusing no matter how old they are, good grief.
"I'm Yukinoshita Haruno, it's nice to meet you Hikigerma-kun!" Oi, even if I'm used to being called that, it still hurts when you use it like that so casually.
"..."
"What? Are you struck speechless that a beautiful girl like me is talking to someone like you?"
Make that confusing and delusional, seriously who does she think she is? And why is this the first person to initiate contact with me, am I some sort of normal person repellent? There's no way a little kid would even know what she is trying to say, perhaps she is some sort of mega prodigy?
"I exactly see people lining up to be your friend, Yukinoshita-san," I responded dryly, hoping that would be the end of it, and she would run off crying or something.
"Hahaha, you're so silly Hikigerma-kun, let's be friends, alright?" She leaned in close with a closed eye smile and extended her hand
"..." No, absolutely not, my first friend should be a normal person, not some sort of freak of nature like you Yukinoshita, but… I have to think of my parents, they are probably worried sick about me not having any friends, "Whatever," I said as I smacked the palm of her hand.
"Awesome! Hey, after school I will introduce you to my parents, and then we can get married!" She backed up and took off toward the school building before I had the chance to come up with a proper response.
"Huh?! What are you saying?" I jerked my head back in surprise and almost fell off the twisted swing. Where did this even come from? You probably don't even know what marriage is Yukinoshita, please cease this foolish behavior immediately before you give me a heart attack.
"Haha, I'm just kidding germ-kun! Don't forget to wait for me after the school day ends!" Seriously, don't just change my name whenever! And what kind of kid talks and acts like that?
I may look a little older than I actually was, but there is no way a preschooler has the attention span to remember something so trivial... On second thought, everyone has remembered to call me Hikigerma, even though my actual name is said every day for attendance.
I ended up meeting Yukinoshita's parents after the school day. They seemed initially surprised at how I acted, in contrast to my shitty eyes, and Yukinoshita's mother in particular looked at me with a calculating gleam, not dissimilar to a cat eyeing up a mouse. I learned that Haruno was going into kindergarten soon, so the chances of me showing my parents I made a friend were slim to none. Their parting words were something like, "Please take care of her," meanwhile Yukinoshita was grinning cheekily at me, thankfully she didn't bring up anything regarding marriage. They seemed to be a rather well off family, as the parents were dressed in finely tailored clothes with expensive looking watches and shoes, I wouldn't want to get on their bad side.
Haruno was a regular part of my preschool days for the next couple months, constantly annoying me with random things, trying to prod out funny reactions. Though she never did get to meet my parents before she suddenly disappeared from Chiba Learning Center.
xxx
AN: Haruno will always be great. I'm not sure how accurate my age and descriptions are, I think Haruno might be a bit older, but for convenience sake I'm making her 2 years older than Hachiman. Also! I'm going off of the 2nd season designs for characters.
edit: I'm having some serious trouble when copying and pasting from a google doc, everything bold/italic seems to undo itself, and sometimes I lose line breaks. Let me know if there is a better way to do it.
