Even in summer, nights near the coast of San Francisco got cold, and Sora pulled his jacket tighter around himself. He had made the mistake of forgetting it once before. Never again.
The city was bright and busy as ever, people still walking about even at this late hour. With his sun-bleached brown hair and dark blue eyes, he blended in with the Caucasian faces passing. His face was tilted down and his eyes scrolling up and down as he tried to pick a song from his smartphone. He was eighteen, but his rounded face and large eyes gave him a very youthful appearance, often making people mistake him for fifteen or younger. In his left hand was a bag of a pack of coke, and chips. Finally settling on a "Friend Like Me", he was about to press play when he noticed a hunched over figure from the corner of his eye. A male wearing a leather jacket, black jeans and leather boots with a black undercut was leaning against the building, using a hand on his knee and on the brick to hold himself up.
He gasped in panic, darting over. "Oi, daijo-!," Sora couldn't help but ask, but quickly corrected himself into the right language. "I mean, hey, are you ok?"
The male looked up at him, shockingly bright golden eyes peering up at him. He was pale- deathly so- and looked clammy and sweaty. His breathing was labored and the dark circles under his eyes made him look ill against his pale skin. "I… I don't feel too well." He grunted.
Sora gaped. "What happened? Are you sick? Do you need help?"
"I need to get to the hospital," the male hissed. "My car is too far."
"Hold on, I'll help you," he said quickly, pocketing his phone and moving his little grocery bag up his wrist to free his hand. He took the arm of the male and wrapped it around his own shoulders before hoisting him up. "Lean on me."
The male just grunted and huffed, the change in positions straining him. He was only a few inches taller than Sora, making the feat easy for him. Sora took a few careful steps, the male trudging up behind him.
"Which way is your car?" the boy asked.
The man tiredly raised his hand to point at the entrance of an alleyway, and Sora supported him as he turned in, figuring he must have parked on the other side of the block. The man was heavy- shockingly so for such a small frame- and Sora had to really strain himself to support him. But he would never dream of complaining, not when the man looked like he was at death's door.
"Hey, do you want me to come with you to the hospital?" He asked as he turned another corner. "I can't drive, but maybe I can help you in-"
The man grabbed him suddenly, and in one fluid motion whirled him to slam the back of his head against the building, with one hand against his mouth.
"HMPH-?!"
That was all Sora could manage before the creature bared its fangs, and sunk them into his neck.
Sora and Taiyoku Arias were twins born on April 19th, 1997 to Kirin and Henry Arias in Kin Town, Okinawa.
Okinawa was on the southern tip of the chain of islands that made up Japan. Kin Town was on the eastern side of the island, nestled in a shallow bay at the base of Mt. Onna. It was a very old, beautiful amalgamation of cultures; its welcoming gate had both the Japanese, and the American flag crossed together to show the camaraderie the two cultures shared. After World War II, the US military built Camp Hansen right in the middle of the town as a base to house marines. Over time, as businesses began to cater to the base, the two social spheres melded together to create a mixture of American and Japanese countryside that became a distinctive trademark. Kirin Pierce, a Japanese-American haffu that worked as an airline stewardess, grew up in Kin Town.
Henry Arias was a Japanese-American mixed race pilot that flew the lines between Japan and the US, who grew up in San Francisco. He met Kirin Pierce on a flight, and they hit it off, laughing and bonding over the commonalities they faced as dual-raced individuals. Their sons were beautiful baby boys, born two months before their due date- which was normal for twins. With two brothers to share a soul, as claimed by the old Japanese wive's tale, both parents truly felt they were blessed.
"Bath time's gonna be a pain in the ass," Henry said, sighing at the face of the one he held.
"Henry!"
"What?"
"Not in front of the babies," she said, shielding the ears of the one she held.
"They can't understand it anyway. When they start repeating words, THEN I'll be careful."
"By then it'll be too late."
They were named in honor of both parent's professions, though they were written in katakana instead of the usual kanji. "Sora" for sky, and "taiyou" for sun. "Sora" had already been decided on, since it worked for either a boy or a girl. The parents had to debate for Taiyoku, but Kirin eventually came up with it, and they agreed on it.
"They look a lot alike…" Their father marveled. "Do you think they're identical?"
"Oh no!" Kirin gasped. "How are we going to tell them apart?"
"It's fine, we'll just dress them differently."
As the boys grew, the parents found it easier to tell the boys apart, though they were indeed identical. Sora was a constant bundle of energy, always moving. And while Taiyoku was as energetic as any baby, he was a little more reserved compared to his brother. Perhaps ironic, given his name.
"What are we gonna do?" Kirin sighed as she breastfed one. "I can't possibly take care of two babies on my own!"
Henry, who was on paternity leave for a couple months, sighed while he fed his baby with a bottle. A pilot's schedule was not accommodating for newborns, and he would essentially be leaving Kirin all alone for days on end when he was working. Which they agreed would have been fine had it been only one baby, but two? That was just unfair. "I can get a job closer to here. I can find something on the ground. Money will get tight though."
"I'm not a big spender," she pointed out. "I'm sure we can get through."
Of course, her parents, who also lived in Kin Town, would hear none of it.
"I can help watch the babies while you work," her mother, the Japanese half of her ancestry, insisted. "You're going to need to."
"Ma, I couldn't possibly-"
"Babies take a lot of money! And you have two! If Henry won't be making as much, you will need to make some!"
"Yer mom's right," her father insisted. He understood Japanese, though didn't know how to speak it. He was a retired American marine that had come back to live in Kin Town after falling in love with the region, and her mother. He was a heavy set man with gray hair that would be curly if he let it grow out, but it was cut short- a lasting habit from the marines. "It'll be hard enough taking care of them- you shouldn't have to worry about money too."
It was hard to argue their logic- neither of the new parents had any idea just how much babies really cost- but her mother's advice was sound, and after four months of pinching pennies in their tiny apartment, despite her exhaustion Kirin found a part time job at the convenience store nearby.
And thus, the parents squeaked by in the early years of the boy's development. As the babies grew, both parents realized that in the genetic lottery, the boys had drawn the caucasian side of both parents. Their hair was medium brown compared to their parent's dark hair, and their noses were more pointed. Neither of them strongly resembled either parent, and the only hint to their Japanese ancestry was the tilt of their eyes when they smiled wide.
"Alees!" Sora insisted. The boys were starting to form words, making their needs and requests known. "Alees, Alees!"
"Alees?" Kirin repeated confusedly. "What are you trying to say, Sora?"
He repeated it a few more times, getting frustrated as his mother struggled to accommodate him, and broke into a wail. He cried off and on for nearly an hour before she was finally able to coax him with a few toys.
"I just don't know what he wants," she sighed into the phone. "Alees?"
"Oh, he must mean Alice in Wonderland. We watched it together yesterday."
"Henry!" she cried exasperated. "You should have told me that before you left!"
"I'm sorry!"
Finally understanding, she took the video cassette from the bookshelf and popped it into the VCR. Taiyoku darted over to join, more than happy with his brother's choice. Henry loved Disney ever since he was a child, and had a video collection of all the classics. Of course, being from America they were all in English, and served as immersive lessons for the boys. As they fell in love with the movies, Henry took to singing them songs and quoting lines from the movies. His sons loved it, dancing and singing to their little hearts' content.
Kirin grew up as a nerd; she preferred the Final Fantasy video game series, and made it her main form of entertainment when she watched the two boys and needed them quiet for a while. Her sons were enthralled, watching the screen for hours as their mother played. And of course, she played the original games, meaning she read Japanese aloud for her sons so they would understand.
As the babies grew into toddlers, they began to recognize the difference between their Japanese family members and their American ones. As their grandparents and aunt came to visit, they would pick up who spoke Japanese, and who spoke English. This lasted for several years, Japanese and American culture clashing and weaving, until it created a unique identity unlike either country.
And thus, Sora and Taiyoku Arias were created.
The boys grew thin and wiry as they hit their toddler growth spurts, and their hair grew long. It was brown and curly, making it stick out like a puffy brown cloud. Naturally, they got their haircuts at the same time- until one day Henry had a stroke of genius.
"Wait, why don't we keep Sora's hair longer?"
"Why?"
"It'll be easier to tell them apart that way."
"Sora? What do you think?"
Sora made blasting noises with his mouth, play-fighting with his brother and finding his toy monsters more interesting. So the parents let his curly hair grow out, making two rounded triangles on the side of his head, while Taiyoku had a short little crown of curls sticking up. It made them look all the more "American", but the boys didn't mind. Looking different was normal for the pair, so much so that they didn't question it when they happened to find another foreign face at the beach.
"Hi there!"
It was a slightly bigger boy, with shocking white hair and pale blue eyes. Strangely, he was wearing a bright yellow long sleeved swim shirt and blue swim pants, almost resembling a diver's suit. He was making a sand castle by the lapping waves, until Sora addressed him. Then the boy simply looked at them in confusion.
"Huh?"
"Can we play?" Sora asked, pointing to him and his brother. "We like making castles too."
"... I don't speak Japanese."
"Oh! I'm Sora. This is Tai-chan."
"Taiyoku," he corrected.
"I'm Rick."
"How old are you?"
"Five."
"We're four." Sora helpfully held up his four fingers.
"How come you're wearing those?" Taiyoku pointed to his outfit. "You're at the beach!"
"It's my swimsuit," he answered, glancing at his arm. "I have to wear it or I'll get sunburned."
"Oh." Taiyoku looked down at his khaki-colored swim trunks and his brothers' bright red ones. Then he shrugged. "We won't. We just put on sunscreen."
"Sunscreen doesn't always work for me. You're not gonna ask me about my hair?"
"Should we?"
He shrugged. "Everyone does."
"That's ok," Sora tugged a curl on his hair. "We have funny hair too."
Rick smiled, though Taiyoku frowned.
"Our hair's not funny."
"Yes it is." Sora argued. "No one else has hair like ours."
Taiyoku wrinkled his nose. "At least we don't look like we're from an anime."
Rick furrowed his brow. "A what?"
"You don't know what an anime is? It's this thing on TV!"
Henry had originally planned to play with the boys on the beach, but they had seemed more interested in the other child. He had been keeping an eye on the boys as Kirin dozed off in the sun, and spotted the man he suspected to be the other boy's father, since he also had shocking white hair. The woman Henry presumed to be his wife laid with him on the towel under the large parasol.
"Hi there," he greeted. "Boys were getting along, so I figured I'd introduce myself."
"Michael," he greeted and extended a hand.
"Henry," he shook it. "You visiting or are you stationed here?"
"Stationed."
"Nice. Do you like it so far?"
"Only been here a few weeks, can't say either way."
"Do you bring the boy down here a lot? Our boys haven't started school yet, so they can all play together."
"I don't, but the wife can."
"Mind if I get your number?"
And thus was the beginning of a beautiful friendship. They met up every weekend to play at the beach, eventually coming to each other's houses to watch movies and play games. That was how Sora and Taiyoku learned about the marine base on the island, and all the Americans that lived there. Sora was a little more outgoing than his brother, and Taiyoku and Rick tended to argue more. Unfortunately, both boys were stubborn and didnt like to lose. Sora didn't mind so much, loving that he now had two friends to compete against.
The boy's next life changing friendship came in kindergarten, when they met the mayor's adoptive daughter. Kindergarten and first graders played together at lunch, making it easy for Rick and the twins to find each other. And Sora, ever the cheerful one, loved making new friends. Approaching the young red headed girl, he pointed to her head excitedly.
"Your hair's like Ariel's!" He said in English.
The girl stared blankly at him.
"Oh sorry." He said in Japanese. "I said your hair is like Ariel's!"
"Who?"
"She's a mermaid! She has red hair and a green tail, and-!"
"Oh! You mean Arieru!"
"Arieru?" He repeated, tilting his head slightly in confusion.
"From the movie, right? Ritoru Maamedo!"
Taiyoku seemed as confused as him. "You mean… The Little Mermaid?"
"Yeah!"
Kazeki and Sora blinked at each other as they tried to process this information. It was on this day that they learned Disney movies came in two languages.
(Wait until they learned about world wide distribution.)
"You can't speak English?" Rick asked the redheaded girl.
She just stared blankly at him, which answered his question.
He pointed to himself. "I'm Rick." He said in very simple Japanese.
"Rikku?" She tried to repeat. Japanese didn't have an ending "k" consonant like in English, so she couldn't help but pronounce "ku" instead.
"No, Rick."
"Rikku!"
He sighed. "Yes, Riku."
Sora and Taiyoku giggled.
"I'm Kairi!" The girl answered brightly.
Not at all interested in the conversation, Taiyoku spotted a group of kids on the monkey bars and found his interest piqued, beginning the stroll over.
"Tai-chan, where're you going?" Sora asked.
"I'm gonna go play with them." he pointed to the kids.
"Ok! I'll go too!"
"You don't have to. Wouldn't you rather play with Rick?"
His brother pouted. "But I wanna stay with you…"
Taiyoku frowned a bit in uncertainty, debating on how to handle this, before finally sighing in defeat. "Ok. I'll stay."
"Yay!"
"You don't have to," Riku pointed out.
"Yes I do. If I leave him, he'll cry."
"I will not!" he protested, even as Riku looked at him sympathetically.
Sora and Taiyoku were the go-between for them, since Riku didn't really know Japanese, and Kairi hadn't learned English yet.
"Why's your hair white?" Kairi asked.
Taiyoku turned to him. "She asked why your hair's white."
"I have albinism."
Sora and Taiyoku both stared at him, and then at each other, before Sora piped up. "Uh… we don't know how to say that."
He shrugged. "Just say I don't have color in my hair or skin."
He did so, and Kairi's eyes went wide.
"Why's your hair red?" Riku countered, only slightly annoyed.
But Kairi was nonplussed. "Because I'm adopted."
Sora translated both, and the pair quickly moved past introductions. After all, kids' games didn't need translators or language.
….ok that was a lie- some games really could have used a translator.
"ARGH!" Riku jumped into the air, grabbing onto the middle of his rump, from the agonizing pain shooting up his butthole. He whirled around at a laughing Sora. "Ow! What was that!?"
"Kancho!" He laughed, hands still clasped together with his two fingers sticking out. "Taiyoku showed me!"
"What did you do to me!?"
"I stuck my fingers up like this," He oh-so-helpfully supplied, miming jabbing his fingers upward.
Riku looked at him incredulously, before his face furrowed with anger. "Oh yeah!? Let's see how you like it!"
He mimicked the hand position, and Sora shrieked and darted away. Because Kairi was able to witness the horror Riku went through, she was able to dodge Taiyoku's attack on her.
Besides that, all the other games were fun and harmless, really. Mostly they just liked talking about and playing Final Fantasy together, and it affected their tastes and imaginations. During coloring one day, Sora drew a little picture of himself with lion ears and tail.
"Oh my!" Their teacher gushed when he explained it to her. "How creative!"
Taiyoku looked up from his own picture, where he had been doodling a messy sketch of a person with a black face, yellow eyes, blue coat and yellow hat. "Like Zidane, right?"
"Yeah!" Sora beamed. "But I wanna be like a lion! Lions are cool!"
The next year, Riku's Japanese improved, but he was now in the second grade, and his class didn't play with Sora, Taiyoku's and Kairi's anymore. So they made new friends, though they tended to circle around each other as the three foreign looking kids. Riku would get jealous of all the time they spent together without him, and demanded they play whatever he wanted when they saw each other on the weekends.
"Why don't we play after school?" Sora suggested.
"Can't." Riku said. "I need to practice my dance lessons."
"Dance lessons?" Kairi tilted her head curiously.
"I take ballet."
"Woooooooooow…." She breathed with wide eyes.
Sora smiled and bounced a little in excitement. "How high can you jump? Can you lift Kairi?"
"Let's see," Riku said easily.
He started with a jump, but truthfully he didn't really jump any higher than a normal kid. Next, Kairi lifted her arms, and Riku put his hands around her waist and grunted as he tried to hoist her up. But alas, he could not, his little arms not yet strong enough to hold all her weight. He frowned in frustration, and Kairi pouted.
"Maybe next time," she relented.
Riku crossed his arms, making a silent vow to work extra hard on his lessons until he could.
His lessons weren't a secret, so Riku was open with his after school activities. A kid tried to make fun of him for it once, but Riku beat him up, so no one tried after that.
"Didn't you get in trouble?" Sora asked.
"Worth it." Riku smirked.
Taiyoku and Kairi giggled.
And so the four played, Sora and Kazeki acting as the go-between for them until their language skills came up to par.
They lived blissfully happily.
Until they lost Taiyoku.
One day, Sora came home from school alone. Kirin looked up front he counter, where she had been chopping vegetables for the night's dinner. "Sora?" Kirin asked. "Where's Tai-chan?"
"He wandered off by himself," he said in English.
"He what?" She gaped. "Where did he go?"
"I dunno," he shrugged.
His mother dropped the knife and went out looking for him, getting more worried about him as time went on.
By the time night fell she was frantic, having the police help with the search.
"My son-" she gasped tearfully. "My son is missing- he looks like him but with short hair!" She insisted, bringing Sora forward.
The woman was in tears, hysterical with panic. The police had to speak with Sora about what happened just so they could get a story.
"Did you see anyone else take him?" They asked him.
"He wandered off by himself," he answered again in English.
Kirin frantically translated, then stayed at the station for five hours, until Sora began to doze off and she realized she had to take him home. She stayed awake the whole night through, waiting by the phone for an affirmative phone call for her son.
There was none that night. Nor for the next. Or the next.
"I don't know what to do." She whispered into the phone. She sobbed to her husband. "I don't understand why he'd wander off so far like this!"
"The police will find him," he said, trying to sound more certain than he felt. "He's just a boy, it's not like he can leave the town."
She sniffed and nodded to herself, finding small comfort in that. After all, he had to have just gotten lost. This was Japan- it wasn't as if there was high crime to worry about.
"Taiyoku's gone," Sora told his friends at school the next day.
"Really?" Kairi asked. "What happened to him?"
"He wandered off by himself."
"Wandered off where?" Riku asked.
Sora shrugged. "I dunno. But mama was really sad. I hope he comes home soon."
He never saw his brother again.
Hello, everyone! Thanks so much for reading! Please leave a comment if you enjoyed it to let me know how I'm doing! :D
