Mikau: Hello! I'm glad so many people like the fic so far. It makes all the hard work worth while. It might be a few days before I can post the next chapter; with all my homework, I'm finding it hard to make time for writing, and I'm going to be in the musical at my school, so practices are going to take a lot of my time.
Disclaimer: I don't own Shaman King.
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Morning Makeovers
It was about five o'clock, and no one else was awake. Luca, Opacho, Mari, Macchi, Kanna, Hane, and the others were all sound asleep for another hour or two. I had the entire mansion to myself…well almost. My guardian ghost, Isabelle floated feet away from where I sat on the couch reading my book.
"May I ask why ya insist on gettin' up at this God-forsaken hour in the mornin'?" The infamous bandita glared at the gun she was polishing. She was obviously bored, being up so early, and yet not doing anything.
I ignored her; she did this everyday.
"I 'spose yer waitin' fer yer sister t' get home?" I still didn't answer her, so she supplied her own response. "So ya are waitin' for Hoshi. And then after she gets home, you'll go for yer mornin' run. You'll get back t' the house around nine o'clock, do some chores, train, eat lunch, train some more, do some house work, eat dinner, train yet again, and then you'll help yer sister get ready for her hot date tonight. Am I right Thorn?" I only burrowed further into my Shakespearian literature, not wanting to admit to the monotony of my life.
Isabelle continued to rant at me in her mixed Spanish/Western accent. "You know what Thorn? You do practically the same thing every single day of your life. You need a little variety! We never do anything fun! What I need to do is take you into town!"
"No." I shut my copy of Julius Caesar firmly. "Dad doesn't let me go into town. It's dangerous for girls my age." I found myself spouting my father's exact words.
Isabelle rolled her burgundy eyes, and took her dark red hair down from its ponytail. "I have no idea what to do with you." The Western side of her accent slipped, and she spoke with a Spanish snap to her voice. "You know you want to go, I know you want to go, Hao knows you want to go, and yet you still refuse to admit it! Why do you listen to that father of yours! You know he's lying! Hoshi goes into town all the time, and she is only three minutes older! How can you refuse to go when all you want to do is go!"
"My father wouldn't lie like that!" I tried to defend him. "He knows what is best for me, and I plan to do what he says no matter how silly it seems. There are reasons why my dad doesn't want me to go into town, and it is not my place to question him." I glared furiously at my hand-me-down spirit.
"You know what I say is true. What Hao does is not in your best interests, but in his own. He babies you so much because you remind him of your mother, and he's unwilling to marry you off to anyone. You are sixteen, yet you are treated like a little girl. I suggest that you take charge of your own life, and get one!"
"No! Don't lie to me! I have a life! This is my life! Why are you so intent on changing it! I'm perfectly happy like I am!" I threw my book down and stood up to my full height.
"This is not the type of life that your mother wanted for you. She wanted you to think for yourself, and make your own decisions." Isabelle challenged, getting up in my face.
"Don't speak of her!" I spat back venomously. "I hate that bitch! Why should I care what that whore thinks of me!"
A ghostly slapped resounded in the empty halls of the mansion. I stared blankly back at Isabelle. "Don't. You. Ever. Speak about Ivy in that way."
I turned on my heel and ran up two flights of stairs to my bedroom. I was so angry at her. 'How dare she slap me! I'm her master! She has no right! I'm the Shaman King's daughter! No one can treat me that way!' I picked up my handgun and headed downstairs to the target range to vent some anger. Unfortunately, nothing seemed to be able to free me from my rage. Nothing except proving her wrong.
I stormed up back to the second floor, but instead of entering my room, I went into my sister's. Her room was a girly nightmare with hot pink walls, and posters of boy bands all over the ceiling. I tried to avoid going in her room when at all possible, but this was an exception. I needed a formfitting outfit, and that was something I could only get from my sister's closet. Of course, I could have gone into the Abandoned Room and borrowed some of Ivy's clothes, but I didn't want to look any more like her than I already did, so wearing her clothes was a bit sacrilegious for me.
I thumbed through my twin's immense wardrobe, and finally found something that served my purpose: a pair of red sweat pants, and a matching red jacket with a star on the chest-pocket area. Hoshi had stars all over her clothing because of her name; it was a sort of signature of hers. I put on the outfit with a white tank top undershirt. I held my breath, closed my eyes, and turned toward Hoshi's vanity mirror. I slowly opened my crystal-like orbs one by one, and almost fainted at the sight before me, reflected in the glass surface. If I put my hair up in a high ponytail, I looked exactly like my big sister. It was amazing! You could actually tell for sure that I was a woman! For the first time in my life, I looked like my twin.
"Wow…You, like, actually look good Thorn!" A high-pitched squeal from the doorway jerked me from my thoughts. I turned to see a girl about my height, with aqua blue eyes, and long crimson hair pulled into a high waterfall-like ponytail, secured with a star-shaped barrette. She wore a black leather mini skirt that looked more like a belt than a skirt. Funny that she even bothered to wear a belt with the skirt. Her belt was a simple chain with metal stars dangling from it. Her shirt, if you can call it a shirt, was bright orange. It looked more like a swimming suit top. All that was covering her top were two triangle pieces of cloth that were held together by skinny pieces of string, and that was hardly enough to cover her bulging chest. The strings formed a sort of halter top on her, surrounding her neck, and circling around her throat like it might strangle her at any moment. That string held the tops of the triangles. Another string was attached to the bottoms of the triangles, and that string circled around her back, securing the skimpy garment. The girl's Go-Go boots were the same bright orange color as her top. The boots only came up to mid-calf, but were elaborately decorated with—what else?—stars! My eyes wandered to her ears, and sure enough, in their rightful place, were star-shaped stud earrings.
My sister, Hoshi, smiled like a cat as she sauntered into the room and surveyed me.
"What do you want Hosh?" I slowly sucked in a breath, just waiting for her to snitch to dad that I had been in her clothes. She could be so childish sometimes.
"Here. It'll be, like, easier if you use this." She took the star clip from her own hair, and placed it in mine. Then I stood still as she took off the jacket and the tank top and replaced it with one of her favorite white tube tops. She put the jacket back on, but left it unzipped. My sister forced me to sit down on her vanity stool, and she proceeded to put make-up all over my face. When she was done, she drew a pentagram with eyeliner around my exposed belly button, and fixed it so that it would look like my belly button was pierced. Next, she stripped me of my old, worn tennis shoes, and placed an old pair of black leather, knee-high, boots on my feet. When she was finished, she stepped back and inspected her work.
I turned toward the mirror, and the girl looking back at me scared me to death. "AhK! What the hell did you do to me!"
"Oh my God, Thorn. You don't have to like overreact so much; I made you hott." Hoshi smiled knowingly and pulled my top down a bit more so that it showed more cleavage.
My hand instinctively flew up to hold on to my skimpy shirt, pulling it back up to cover me. "You made me like you!"
"That's, like…what I just said." She slapped away my hand and readjusted the top.
"No, you said you made me look like you!" I protested, fixing my shirt.
"It's the same thing." Two blue eyes rolled their annoyance at me. "Anyway, you like, look great. Actually you almost look as good as Mom! Almost. No one, not even I can look as hott and sexy as Ivy Kyôyama. She was a total, like…sex goddess!"
"I told you a thousand times, don't compare me to her!"
"What. Ever." Hoshi rolled her eyes at me again. "Now do you want to a have fun day on the town or not?"
My gaze dropped to the black leather boots that were now on my feet. I silently mumbled 'Yes.' under my breath.
"What was that?"
I glared up at her, knowing she had heard me clearly the first time. "Yes." I growled.
"Great!" A cheeky smile graced her hot pink lips. She pulled my top back down until it showed enough skin. "You should have no problem convincing Dad that you're me, now. You sure like look the part, but can you talk like me?"
"Um, Oh my God. Like, I, like, am, like, Hoshi, like, Asakura. Like."
I ignored the glare I got from my twin. "That'll, like, work for starters. But I really don't think I'll be able to teach you anything else. It'd be…like a waste of my time." Hoshi turned away from me, and headed into her walk-in closet.
"Thank you Hoshi." I allowed myself a quick grateful smile at my sister when she wasn't looking.
"Like don't mention it; it's my job to, like, help the less fortunate and stuff. And let's face it, who isn't less fortunate than I?" I rolled my eyes, and checked the image in the mirror one last time before I exited my conceited sister's room.
I had trouble walking down the stairs in the clunky black boots, but somehow I managed it without breaking my neck. Thankfully I got back to the parlor in one piece.
"You look like Hoshi!" Isabelle's mouth dropped when she got sight of me.
"Oh like shut up." I did my best to imitate my sister.
"Where did you get those?" Isa's gaze fell upon my new footwear.
"Oh, they're Hoshi's; she's letting me borrow her clothes." I explained.
Isa shook her head. "The clothes may be Hoshi's, but those boots have been around since before you two were born."
"Whose are they?" I pried, wanting to know just whose feet had been in the boots before mine.
"Nah…I'll tell you later. I knew the owner though. She was almost buried with those boots. I can't see why she loved them so much, but they were her little side-kicks." A mournful grin took the cowgirl's mouth.
I was about to ask something else when I heard a faint scratching at the door. It sounded like someone fumbling with keys, trying to stick the key in the lock, but missing and accidentally hitting the door. Finally the scratching stopped, and in stumbled my father. 'Stumbled' is a graceful term for what he actually did, but I can't come up with words to describe my father's swaying, tripping, and wobbling into the room, trying to steady himself by leaning on various objects.
"Dad!" I ran to him, and shifted his body so that he rested heavily on me, and I too stumbled under his weight. I helped him to the couch to lie down, and noticed the pungent odor of hard alcohol on his breath.
He muttered something that I couldn't make out. His words were slurred together so badly. "Dad?" He did respond at first, so I tried again, "Hao!"
"Whaddya want?" His words became more coherent.
"Dad? Where were you? Why were you drinking?" I tried to keep my voice steady, but it was hard for me to see my father like this.
"Hmm? Who ur you?" My heart broke with his words; he didn't even recognize his own daughter. "I-vy?"
"No!" Tears well up in my eyes. "It's me! You're daughter! Tho—er—Hoshi!"
It was no use. He was too drunk to hear me. He started to ramble in broken sentences and just plain nonsense sometimes. I really only caught phrases of what he said: "Ivy! Why? You didn't have to…leave me! On Christmas no less… I don't care! I never cared! I love you! Please come back to me; I can't stand living whenever you leave me! We could have made it work…I-vy!"
'That woman! That's why he was drinking! He was still upset about that witch leaving him. And today is her birthday…that's why…That bitch…she doesn't deserve him.'
"You're drunk." I finally admitted it out loud, letting all my worst fears out. My mother was gone, and my father was become more and more of an alcoholic by the day. He usually didn't drink. It was a rare thing that my father came home wasted; usually that was Hoshi's job. Dad only got drunk when he was depressed, consequently, the drinking made him even more depressed, unlike Hoshi, who always became slaphappy when she was drunk.
"No I'm not." Hao sat up and looked me in the eye. He looked completely sober. "I get really depressed when I'm drunk. Do I look depressed to you?" He flashed me a million dollar smile. "No, I'm only semi-intoxicated." He joked.
"D-dad!" I buried my face in his chest, slightly smudging the line-liner with my tears. "Please don't drink anymore!"
I could sense him raising an eyebrow at me, "Wow…was I that drunk? What did I say?" His words were still a little slurred, but he was sober for the most part.
I shook my head, not wanting to talk about him not recognizing his own daughter, or his mistaking me for her.
"Was it that bad?" Hao took my face in his hands and looked into my eyes. "Look, whatever I said: I'm so sorry. I didn't mean a word of it."
"But you did." I insisted, and it was true. He had thought I was Ivy, and really that's how he had always thought of me: Ivy's little clone. Isabelle was right: everything he did, all the rules he made for me weren't to keep me safe, they were to keep me from growing up and leaving.
"Look, Thorn—"
"I'm Hoshi!" I insisted.
"Hoshi?" He blinked several times and squinted at me. "I could have sworn…Wow. I am the worst father ever. Can't even tell his own children apart." My father reached into his side pocket and pulled out a bottle of vodka. I snatched it before he could take a drink.
"DAD! Stop it! You're a great father! You just need to stop drinking!" I whined.
"All right." He agreed.
"What?" I did a double take.
"I said 'all right.' I'm going to quit drinking." He stood up straight, wobbling only a little. He picked up the vodka bottle, and threw it in the trash.
"Seriously Dad." I rolled my eyes at his foolish joking.
"I am serious. I'm going to stop, if it means that much to you. I'll go cold turkey. No more drinking from here on out." His handsome smile assured me that he was seriously going to do what he said.
"Thank you so much!" I jumped into his arms, knocking him over back on to the couch.
"Sure thing. Just don't be too mad at me when you come home tonight from your little outing and find me passed out, drunk on the couch." He muttered.
"How did you know I was going out?" I got off of him and took a seat next to him on the couch.
"Your clothes. They are clothes that you wear to go into town to pick up boys." He observed.
"Oh! Well, I am going into town, but I'm not picking up any boys today." I smiled sheepishly; trying to pass as Hoshi was hard, and I was afraid that I was doing a lousy job of it so far.
"All right then…have fun, and don't get involved with any boys. They're all hormonal perverts." Hao stood up and walked me to the door, hugging me and saying, "Please be careful."
"I will." I vowed.
"Hey, where did you get those boots?" His eyes were slightly misty when he looked at them.
"These? Oh, Hoshi gave them to me." I didn't realize my slip. I was supposed to be 'Hoshi'.
"Hmm…be careful not to get them scuffed up. Their owner will want them returned 'good as new' when she comes back." Sadly my father bid me on my way, making me promise to be back by noon.
'Just be careful Thorn…I can't always be there to protect you.'
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Mikau: Poor Hao…he always seems to get drunk in my fics…but he sure sobered up quickly…hmm. Oh well, so is life.
Thank you to reviewers: Hemila-Rose, evelyn619, ChibiAzn3, morgan000, animeren, MaiValentinefan, Danny, keiiris, Kiva Kyoyama, and Knux33.
To MaiValentinefan: I'd love to help you on your story! Feel free to email me any time.
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