I thank my friend LexKixAss for letting me abscond her twins for my story. As always Naruto belongs to Kishimoto. Please review.
Osamu leaned back against the guard station and tried to think up the most unusual and obscure item he could possibly conceive of. Across from him his brother waited with an arrogant smirk on his face. The twins had any number of different games to waste away the time during their shift when no on was watching. Some were pure boredom fun, while others helped keep their skills sharp. Today's game was the latter and meant to increase their non-verbal vocabulary. All Hyuugas had a small range of nonverbal communication on hand, but Osamu and Isamu prided themselves in having the fullest repertoire of the clan. It generally meant they could have entire conversations without saying a word, which made it easy to joke around during the rush periods when the clan was either leaving for the day or coming home.
But such talents took work, and this game forced them to push the limits of their communication. One would think up the most unlikely item and try to convey it in the context of a sentence or thought to the other. The weirder the item or scenario, the harder it was to both show nonverbally and to read it. It also had the byproduct of forcing the other to say some of the strangest and, often times, embarrassing things either could come up with. That's what made the game fun, though. Unfortunately for Osamu, Isamu was winning. Osamu needed to think up a doozey before his brother got too big a lead to recover from.
Osamu chuckled to himself as the sentence formed in his mind.
'Bring it on,' Isamu shirked.
'Don't get too cocky,' Osamu shrugged.
Isamu's lips pursed and his brow lowered. 'It's not cocky, it's skill.'
'Right, try this one.' Osamu cleared his face and focused best on how to convey the strange message. His eyes dipped, his mouth tweaked up, and his shoulders straightened. 'You braided Neji's hair with explosive tags on top of a platypus.'
Isamu's head tilted as he tried to read Osamu's message. 'Again,' he nodded.
'You braided Neji's hair with explosive tags on top of a platypus,' Osamu repeated, though the chuckle in his throat threatened to ruin his telling.
Isamu's eyes squinted together as if he were trying to clear up blurry vision. "Me and Neji . . . no, I to Neji . . . to Neji's hair with . . . fire . . . no explosive. I laced Neji's hair with explosive tags . . . on a beaver and a duck?"
"Oh so close," Osamu taunted. "You braided Neji's hair with explosive tags on top of a platypus."
"Damn, that explains why I was picking up eggs." Isamu relaxed back against the guard station wall and scowled. "I'm still winning."
"But only by one now," Osamu gloated.
"Yeah, that won't last. I'm going to think of a really good one for you. Better than platypus."
"Otouto, there's nothing better than platypus."
"Of course there is," Isamu countered. "A ninja platypus is better than a platypus."
"Touche."
Both twins fell into muted snickering as a couple chuunin interrupted their game. The two were dusty and tired, but didn't have the relief to be home normally seen in those who'd been on missions. They must have been training. Osamu glanced up at the clock carefully hidden in the corner of the station roof.
"You'd better think quickly, Otouto," he said with a glance to the time. "Pretty soon the evening rush is going to start, and the last time we played when people passed by I almost got reported for indecent conduct thanks to you."
Isamu shrugged. "You could've always not said it and forfeited the game."
'And lose to you, I don't think so,' Osamu smirked as a woman passed by.
'Then don't complain,' Isamu winked.
Osamu relaxed again and watched his brother's face for any hint to what he was thinking, but Isamu was sending out false signals to throw him off. There was no way Isamu was going to offer anything as easily readable as ice cream after Osamu'd dished out platypus.
Isamu was close to a decision –Osamu knew because Isamu always gnawed on his lower lip when he thought up a fun one– when a face appeared from the compound side that made Osamu groan. Being gate guard was a double-edge sword. They always got to see the people they liked come and go, but they also had to see the ones they didn't. What was worse was this one used to be a friend.
Osamu made a slight motion of his hand to get his brother's attention and nodded in the boy's direction. 'Nobu's coming. Don't do anything stupid.'
'Me stupid,' Isamu glowered, crossing his arms against his chest. 'Nobu better not do anything stupid.'
When they were younger Nobu was as good a friend as any in the clan. After the incident at their genin party, they'd decided it was best not to see him anymore. If Nobu hadn't held onto the brancher grudge so strongly, they would still be friends. Though Nobu said the same of them, if only they weren't mainer-sympathizers. Only a year younger than them, Nobu had just made chuunin a few months before. He was fifteen.
"Enjoying guard duty?" Nobu gibed.
"Couldn't imagine doing anything else," Osamu replied with a perfected smile not even a Hyuuga could see though without byakugan active.
"Well I'm off on a mission tomorrow. Practically B-rank," Nobu gloated.
"In other words, it's C-rank," Isamu said, a matching smile brightening his face.
Nobu scowled but quickly recovered. "I'll be gone for a couple weeks."
"What a loss to the clan," Osamu bemoaned overdramatically.
Judging from the slight twitch of Nobu's eyebrow, they were getting under his skin. "Better than standing around doing nothing all day."
"You're right," Isamu agreed, flashing a hidden smirk under his false smile. "We'd hate to do nothing all day."
"We're much too busy for that," Osamu added.
It really was too easy to annoy certain people. Nobu couldn't stand it when they refused to take his bait, and if his jaw clenched any tighter he'd crack teeth soon. When he joined in the false flattery (though not nearly as successfully as the twins), Osamu knew he'd changed tactics.
"So how's Hinata-sama enjoying her new team?" Nobu asked.
"She's enjoying it just fine," Osamu quickly answered as he watched his brother's smile falter.
Nobu nodded and started walking out. "Seems fitting she ended up with mutts and pests, mice are vermin after all."
Osamu shot a hand out to grab hold of Isamu's vest and held him at bay until Nobu was out of sight. The anger in his brother's eyes was too open and his hands shook with barely controlled intent. Osamu wanted to warn him, but someone was coming into range and he needed to keep what he saw from being what the clan did.
"Close your eyes," he whispered with all the command an older brother could produce.
Isamu obeyed, but not without a hint of confusion slipping into his body. Osamu smiled and said hello and goodbye to the young brancher woman so Isamu knew when it was safe to look again.
"What was that about?" Isamu asked. The anger had mostly faded from his eyes, but his hands remained tightly crossed against his chest.
"You need to be careful what you show to people," Osamu chided.
"People know we're close to Hinata-sama. I'm allowed to be mad when they insult her."
Osamu hadn't wanted to break their agreement, but if Isamu continued the way he was things could get out of hand. "Look, if anger was all that came out, that'd be fine, but I'm seeing something else and you really don't want the clan seeing it, too. You need to control yourself better."
Isamu's brow knit together beneath his forehead protector and he stared at Osamu honestly confused. "What do you mean you see something else?"
Osamu waited for another man to pass by before answering. He wasn't going to be so nice with Nobu next time for bringing this up right when people were coming. "Look, I wasn't going to mention it, but this isn't a rumor you want going around the clan. For you or Hinata-sama."
'Huh?' Isamu contorted, too befuddled to speak.
"Oh my God," Osamu gasped, the realization exploding in him like birthday fireworks. "You don't know."
"Know what?" Isamu snapped as his confusion turned to aggravation.
"Oh, this is great. You don't know!" Osamu grabbed onto the wall behind him to keep from doubling over laughing. It was too wonderful to even imagine. He'd assumed what he'd seen was a slip up, but to know Isamu didn't realize he'd done it at all made it a thousand times funnier. Far more dangerous, but too hilarious to let go.
"What's wrong with you?" Isamu asked, getting tired of Osamu's hysteria.
"You've given me ammunition against you for the next ten years. This is great. Horrible for you, and completely awesome for me." Osamu slid down the side of the wall and looked up to his brother from the ground, still chuckling to himself the whole time. "Okay, I can't say this aloud, so watch me very carefully."
'Hinata-sama is very important to you.'
'Yeah, Hinata-sama's important to you, too,' Isamu quirked, 'You're point?'
Some of the mirth faded from Osamu's face and he scoffed at his little brother. "Now that's just denial."
"What?" Isamu defended.
'You like Hinata-sama,' Osamu's eyes widened.
"I what!" Isamu cried, drawing the attention of a couple branchers headed out to dinner. His face burned red and he avoided Osamu's smirking gaze. 'I do not!'
Osamu harrumphed and eyed Isamu skeptically. 'I've seen it.'
"When?" Isamu asked, too unnerved by what Osamu was telling him to convey it silently.
Osamu smiled and waved at a cute mednin heading out for her evening shift at the hospital before turning serious. "The night you went to get her from the academy. I thought it was strange you didn't look back at me before going after her, and then I saw it." His eyes lowered. 'At that moment, she was more important.'
Isamu's face went slack as he saw the truth in his brother, and he joined Osamu on the ground. Osamu watched Isamu reflect on his behavior and what it meant now, the disbelief slowly being replaced by shocked awareness.
"It's not like that," he finally said. "She's twelve. I don't . . . not like that."
Osamu laughed. "I know it's not romantic. Hey, I tried to say she was very important, but you wouldn't listen." He popped an over-exaggerated grinned on his face to relax his brother, though there was a bit of tease hidden in there, too. "I also know in a couple years that's going to change."
Isamu hid his reddening face behind his hand and thoroughly refused to make eye contact with Osamu or anyone who passed by. Osamu wouldn't taunt him excessively today. (He would later, but the shock was a bit much right now.)
"Just promise me you'll be more careful about what you show from now on," Osamu said seriously. "It'd be bad for both of you if the clan figures it out."
Isamu nodded, still avoiding his brother's gaze. Osamu stood back up and watched his humiliated brother squirm.
"You didn't know," Osamu snickered.
'Shut up!'