Chapter 3
Yao POV
"What are you doing, aru?" Yao had entered the living room of their family's house to find that his younger (adoptive) brother was reading… something. Unfortunately it appeared to be written in Japanese, which he did not understand at all. He didn't like not knowing what was going on around him, especially since he felt responsible as the older child of what happened at home.
Kiku glanced up for a moment at Yao, who was trying to look over his shoulder at the thing he was reading and calmly moved it in front of his own face. "I didn't understand what you said, Yao. You might want to repeat that." He sounded calmer than usual to Yao, but the older ignored it in favor of feeling frustrated with his brother for not having listened to him in the first place.
"What. Are. You. Doing."
Kiku looked back to his brother, pressing the open pages against his chest. "I'm reading manga." His facial expression didn't change from that of disinterest as he buried himself once again into the face of the book.
Yao sighed and took a seat next to his brother, feeling annoyed. This silent and stoic tactic Kiku was using was working better than the openly provocative tactic he typically employed. In fact, as the clock ticked quietly by, it was becoming quite disturbing to Yao.
After two or so minutes a puzzling thought came to Yao. "How can you understand all that, aru? I thought you didn't know that much Japanese."
"I can't understand you," Kiku hadn't even moved this time, keeping the book close to his face and causing his voice to be slightly muffled. "Please speak English and not Chinese. You seem to have some sort of verbal tic also. An 'aru' or something similar."
Yao sighed angrily. "I've been speaking English the entire time, Kiku! I don't even know Chinese, aru! And what do you mean 'a verbal tic', aru? I've never had a verbal tic, ar—" What he had been hearing and saying finally caught up with his train of thought. He stopped as he finally started to realize what was going on, and he deliberately slowed down his speech in order to confirm that he was speaking comprehensibly. "How much of that did you understand?"
The younger turned to face his adoptive sibling. "Clearly? Only my name and what has definitely become a verbal tic." He paused. "You seem to have become… easily frustrated. Even when I used to openly try to do things to annoy you it took a much greater effort to cause you to show your anger." He looked Yao straight in the eyes, expression unnaturally still for the young man. "Something's happened to you."
Yao was about to get angry at his brother once again when he realized that he was right. It wasn't Kiku whose behavior and responses were abnormal—it were his. He must've been so out of it that he viewed the other as being off when in reality it was the opposite. "I-I'll be in my room, a—" He stopped himself again and took the opportunity before Kiku could continue to run off towards his room.
A week had passed and Yao was certain that it wasn't just him who seemed to be having mental issues. He had, at least, been able to tell when his speech started to progress into Mandarin, namely due to him rapidly remembering—somehow—how to speak the language itself. He considered this lucky as he could now understand some of his brother's (despite the other's recent protests against the title) mumblings and mutterings in Japanese due to similarities between the two languages.
About two days ago Kiku had locked himself in his room and four days before that had started insisting (in both public and private) that Yao was not his sibling. He had totally lost all signs of his previously more passionate personality at that time, and though he could speak Chinese didn't like doing so and wouldn't talk in English either (he claimed he didn't know what it was or how to speak it). The younger finally just shut himself in his room, covered himself with blankets, and only let Yao in if he had food with him (and it had to be Japanese foods too). He refused to speak at all with Yao beyond basic requests, and the only things he did say were in Japanese.
Yao was cleaning up their last meal, consisting mostly of rice, when he heard the squeaking of a door opening. He turned around and smiled. "Japan, aru! You've come out!" His smile fell slightly as he looked at the black uniform the other was wearing. Why did it look so familiar? "Where did you get that, aru? I thought you didn't leave your room."
"I didn't. It was already in there." His expression never changed, so despite his suspicions Yao couldn't tell if his brother was lying or not. His smile returned, however, considering that Kiku was once again speaking in English. And so Yao turned back to the sink and resumed washing the dishes. He thought he heard a sliding sound from behind him but concluded that it was his mind imagining things. After all, he had been having some very strange dreams about him being someone named "China" and other individuals with similar names. He hoped that his brother would return back to normal so perhaps the more disturbing nightmares he had been having would go—
A searing pain shot through his back and he fell forwards against the counter, trying to grip onto the edge of the sink. He felt faint and found that his strength seemed to have disappeared. He fell onto his side and then rolled over on his back. All he could see was red—the pool surrounding him, the blade held above him, the featureless face and eyes of his brother…
A/N: Short chapter, I know. (And a cliffhanger, mwahahaha...) But for some reason it's hard for me to write the Asians, especially Japan. (It's also hard to write him so... boring also. I tried to provide a sort of foreshadowing of the ending of this chapter with the repetition and most likely failed. XD) I also had trouble thinking of how to fit that scene in there; it's a bit important in later chapters but the way I was first thinking of things I couldn't come up with a reason for having Kiku go all dark!Japan on China. However, I did come up with a reasoning... which you all will have to just figure out on your own for now. (Cue evil smirk.)
The next chapter is in the works! I'm really excited about it, especially since so far the starting personalities of at least one of them is so greatly contrasting to their character that the reactions from themselves and the others in the group should be great fun to write. (That is, if I don't get stuck at all on it...) My hint(s) to you are that three out of the four speak the same language and that a DIFFERENT (but in the same group) trio is a very famous trio in the fandom. Also, none of them have appeared in this story yet beyond maybe one or two mentions of two of them. Also, I will not be providing this focus for every nation group or sibling sets. Not only would it cause the plot to lag with an excess of characters but it would be difficult for me to write them all well and in character, especially for some of the more obscure ones. However, I will try to make mentions of characters that don't appear at all, and it's likely that most of them will show up at some point or another in the story (as this thing has way too long of a plot and so should be pretty long by the time it eventually gets finished).
Until next time then (and I really hope I'm not confusing you all too much)!
P.S.- There's no particular reason this note is at the bottom instead of the top; I decided recently to move them down here in case they started dragging on and on and/or if people don't want to really read them and dislike having to skip them on top. ;]
