Hao
Yoh was relieved to see his son sitting on a bench in front of the school when he arrived. He was afraid Hana's first day back would be stressful and that he would fight with the other kids. Hana smiled when he saw the car approaching and quickly jogged to the passenger door when it stopped.
"Hey, Hana!"
"Hi, Papa," he replied.
He settled into his seat and threw his book bag onto the back. When he buckled his seat-belt and stared at the windshield, Yoh pulled away from the curb slowly.
"So how was it?"
"Great."
"Really?" Yoh was greatly surprised by his reply and crinkled his nose.
"They're afraid of me," he said with a chuckle. "No one even talked to me today."
"That's not a good thing, Hana. You don't want kids to be afraid of you, do you?"
"If it will keep them from picking on me, I don't mind."
Silence lingered in the cabin momentarily before Hana decided to seize the opportunity.
"Um, Papa?" he started sheepishly.
"Yep?"
"Did you and Hao get along when you were kids?"
Yoh paused. Hana dropped his eyes quickly into his lap.
"I'm sorry. I don't...mean to be—"
"No, it's okay," Yoh said. "We didn't get along very well."
"What was he like?"
"He was different." Yoh hesitated and bit his bottom lip. "I loved him very much, and I wanted to be close to him. I followed him around everywhere he went..." He chuckled. "I know he hated it."
Hana smiled at his father as he noticed a certain gleam in his eyes. His tone was calm and cheerful, which helped him relax somewhat.
"I was lazy and happy all of the time, but he was always serious and busy doing something. Honestly, he made me look bad in the beginning because he made very good grades, was never late to school and was never absent. I couldn't compete with that."
"You said in the beginning?" Hana asked.
"Yeah," he sighed. "As we got older, he started skipping school and lashing out at the teachers. He would always say the school was a prison disguised as an institution of learning for the sole purpose of keeping us from exploring the beauty of nature and the free world."
Hana frowned suddenly and clutched his knees with his hands. "What?"
"I told you he was different."
"Did he get picked on at school?" He peered out of the passenger window.
"No way," Yoh replied. "Those kids were too afraid of him to try it. And the older he got, the scarier he was."
"What about you?"
"Well, I had friends because I pretended to be something I'm not," he said sadly. "Hao refused to conform, and he hated me for doing it."
"The kids didn't know you had..." Hana hesitated. "Um...abilities?"
"Well, they found out eventually. You can't really hide it. I just wanted to be what I thought was normal. My mother encouraged it, so I thought I was doing the right thing."
Hana saw their house quickly approaching, but he wanted to keep his father talking. He held his hand over his stomach and stomped his foot into the floorboard.
"Can we get some ice cream, Papa?"
"Sure. I don't think your mother would mind."
They turned away from the house, and Hana sighed quietly with relief.
"Your parents wanted you to fit in?" Hana asked.
"My mother was afraid of Hao. She thought she was being punished for something she did before we were born. I was more 'normal' than him, so she encouraged me to act that way at school."
"What about your father?"
"My father understood Hao and didn't like her trying to change us." Yoh paused momentarily and slowly blinked his eyes. "But, I think she was just trying to help. Hao didn't understand it. He thought she hated him, and he definitely hated her."
"Did Hao have the same abilities as you? I mean...could he move things?"
"No, Hao's power was much more dangerous," he replied.
"Dangerous?"
"He could manipulate the elements." Yoh swallowed hard as if a startling memory overwhelmed his senses, and Hana noticed.
"What do you mean, manipulate?" he asked fearfully.
"He could make fire from oxygen. Freeze water or make it boiling hot—"
Yoh stopped abruptly. He stared out of the windshield as if in a trance. Hana balled his hands into fists and bit his lip.
"Were you afraid of him?" he asked with a whisper.
"I think so. He was always trying to kill me when we were kids."
"He tried to kill you?"
"One time when I was about seven," Yoh sighed, "he pushed me into the lake and froze over the surface so I couldn't come up for air."
Hana widened his eyed and gulped.
"He waited until I passed out to pull me out of the water. Later he said it was an accident and I was too clumsy for my own good, but I'm not an idiot."
Hana nervously tapped his foot against the floorboard and exhaled. His father was making him second guess his decision to find his uncle, and he didn't know what he wanted to do. He knew he had no reason to lie to him about his childhood, but now he had more questions.
"Do you know a girl named Matilda?" he blurted.
"Yeah." Yoh's lips curved into a partially irritated frown. "Where did you get that name from?"
He panicked briefly. "Some...teachers mentioned it at school."
"She was his only friend. They met when he was thirteen or fourteen. After he met her everything changed."
"How?"
"I don't know. One day he had this group of people following him around and taking orders. It was like some kind of creepy gang."
Hana closed his eyes as his father continued.
"He got more and more violent, and I think she encouraged him. And then one day I woke up and I just didn't recognize him anymore."
"How did he die?" Hana didn't intend to blurt out this question, and he was suddenly afraid his father would shut down.
Yoh didn't respond and stared out of the window as if he didn't hear him. Hana bit his bottom lip again and his tapping increased in pace.
"Maybe he was just upset because people didn't understand him," he said quickly.
"It was an accident," Yoh said softly. "I was only trying to get him away from her."
"From who?" Hana whispered.
"Your mother. I...had to do something."
"What?" Hana whispered as if he didn't hear his father correctly.
Yoh didn't elaborate. Hana feared he had no intention of doing so.
"What happened?" He whimpered.
"Do you still want that ice cream?" Yoh asked, quickly changing the subject.
Hana could sense some kind of trauma in his eyes, but decided not to push him.
"Sure," he said with an insincere smile.
They continued the ride in silence, mostly because Hana didn't have the nerve to ask more questions and his father didn't have the stomach to talk about his brother any further. Although Yoh gave him more information than what he had in the beginning, he now had many more questions and didn't know how to get answers. He wondered if Matilda could be trusted. He feared meeting Hao. And, now he wanted to talk to his mother.
"I forgot to tell you..." Yoh interrupted his thoughts suddenly. "Ren and Mei are coming over for dinner tonight. She'll be staying with us while he's out of town."
"Did you say...Mei?"
"What's wrong, Hana?" Yoh asked with a frown. "She's your friend, isn't she?"
Hana lowered his head, allowing the thick blond strands of his hair to fall into his face, and closed his eyes.
"Not exactly," he sighed.
