(...)
x x x Close Relations x x x
x...two...x
[that one obsessive sibling]
(...)
"No really, it's okay..." Yao tried again, clutching loosely onto his cellphone. He ran a hand through his somewhat-disheveled hair; sure, the four AM wake-up wasn't that wonderful, but his new 'inventory' (store, really) of Sanrio merchandise more than made up for it. "It wasn't that bad, Kiku, really." A pause as the person on the other end of the phone retorted something. "No really, you don't need to -" Yao blinked, the connection had been abruptly cut off.
"Sheesh-aru!" he grumbled, "I'm practically twice as old as him, and do I ever get the respect I deserve?" He cleared a couple magazines off the top of the suite's desk, hoping the place would look relatively presentable. Yes, he was a nation, and yes, he was the oldest nation (in New York at the time, at least!), but that didn't mean anything in the face of -
Knock-knock.
"Coming, coming," Yao muttered, walking to the door. "If that's you, Ivan, I'm going to warn you that you can't come over because my little brother is coming over and -" the door swung open, and he felt his jaw drop.
"K-Kiku..." Yao stuttered out. "Wh-what about - ?" The car ride, the jet, the fact that you were supposedly in Japan which is seven hours away on a Concorde, he would have put in. Except Kiku leveled him with that kind of glance, and then crisply interrupted.
"Yao-nii, it's so nice to see you," the two of them embraced - as per usual - and then Kiku narrowed his eyes, continuing with, "And what's this about Ivan? Are you letting him into your room again? What have I told you about being careful and safe?" Kiku put his hands on his hips, mimicking Yao's earlier posture, "I thought you would be the slightest bit unhappy, seeing as how he burnt your hair and all."
"No, Kiku," Yao sighed, feeling like the child of the two, "I'm not letting Ivan in my room-aru! He just took me out to a café in the morning, and then shopping."
"A café. And then shopping," Kiku stonily repeated. Yao nodded, slowly. Right before seriously considering taking a nearby Hello Kitty pillow and smothering Ivan with said pillow, Kiku sighed, relaxing and continuing with, "I'm sorry for being so... uptight, Yao-nii. It's just that it was rather worrying when you told us that you had burned your hair at the last Security Council meeting."
"Oh Kiku," Yao smiled, "It's really nice to know that you guys care!" And he hugged his (adorable) little sibling again - much to the other's chagrin. "However," and here, he frowned, "My hair wasn't even burned-aru! It was just singed a little bit by Gilbert's flamethrower! It's no reason for you to come all the way over here from your economics council in Japan."
"There was a flamethrower?" Kiku asked, incredulous. Yao rolled his eyes, sensing yet another 'think about safety' lecture, but nodding. "Well, nonetheless," Kiku pressed, "It was... nice... to see you." A pause and then, "That you are doing well, I mean." He swept a critical gaze around the room, raising an eyebrow at the sheer amount of Sanrio paraphernalia, "I'll be going now."
"Wait!" Yao called out, grabbing Kiku's arm, "You just got here-aru!"
"I just came to make sure you were alright, singed hair and wild flamethrowers and all," Kiku replied - dryly. Then he gently tugged his arm out of Yao's grip, stating, "And since you're alright, it would be best if I went back to the economics council in Japan, as you've suggested."
"But..." the weight of guilt was a heavy one, "But you just got here-aru!" Yao repeated.
"Yao-nii, there's nothing for me to do here," Kiku reasoned.
"You could..." Yao - still feeling guilty for having 'scolded' Kiku for coming over to check if he was alright - racked his mind for something Kiku could do, "You could watch some television!" Somehow, Kiku was not impressed with the 48-inch HDTV placed in the suite. "Or go out and eat!" Kiku raised an eyebrow. "Or..." Yao sincerely regretted his final suggestion, "Or you could trim the ends of my hair."
"...What?" Kiku choked out.
"Well..." Yao started, guilt pushing him forward, "The thing is, aru, my hair was singed a bit... and I tried to cut it... but I didn't manage to get all of the curled parts out." He grinned - helplessly - at Kiku, shrugging, "So could you help me trim those ends a bit, Kiku?"
"Alright," Kiku replied, and Yao smiled widely - completely unaware that he had inadvertently fulfilled one of Kiku's deepest, darkest fantasies. There was a gleam in Kiku's eyes - which should have been the first warning for Yao. And if the odd sparkle in Kiku's eye wasn't enough, the fact that he seemed to have whipped out a pair of scissors from thin air should have been enough of a warning.
It wasn't.
"Yao-nii," Kiku started, in a conversational tone, much to Yao's delight, "I've never seen you getting your hair cut before."
"Well..." Yao thought for a more appropriate answer than, 'that's because I haven't cut my hair in fifty-seven years, and wanted it to be one hundred, actually,' and settled on the half-truth of, "My hair just doesn't grow very fast, aru!"
"Ah," Kiku said, parting Yao's hair into two perfectly-equal sides with a barber's comb. "I'm not really a hair-cutter," he commented, combing the naturally-silky hair. "So I apologize if I manage to ruin anything, Yao-nii."
"Silly!" Yao laughed, "Why would you be the one to apologize? I'm the one who asked you to cut my hair, after all." He hummed the theme song of Hello Kitty & Friends, enjoying the feel of another person's fingers, gingerly brushing away (left, right, side-to-side) the individual strands of his beloved hair. "Just don't cut it too short, please," Yao hastily added - horrified at the possibility of too-short hair. "If I had Im-Yong Soo or Ivan do this," he started with a laugh, "Then they probably would have messed up and given me a crew-cut, aru!"
Kiku could not stifle his laughter at the idea of Yao sporting a crew-cut.
"Why are there so many Hello Kitty things in your room?" Kiku asked, choosing to switch the subject.
"Well, I really like Kitty-chan~" Yao replied cheerily. "Well..." he guiltily continued, "I beat Ivan in a food-eating contest, and then made him buy me everything in the Sanrio store on fifth street..." he sighed, "I'm really happy about winning so much Kitty-chan stuff, but I have no idea how to get it back!"
"...Wait a second," Kiku paused in his meticulous cutting, "Yao-nii... did you say that you... that you beat Ivan in an eating competition?" The level of disbelief in his voice was audible.
"What?" Yao pouted, "Just because I'm shorter and thinner than Ivan doesn't mean I can't eat more, aru!" He crossed his arms and blew a stray strand of hair from his eyes, "Or faster!" he added. Kiku raised an eyebrow, before returning to his cutting of Yao's hair.
Snip. Snip. Snip. The scissors were as careful as they were slow. Strand by strand, Kiku took care in cutting the least amount of hair, making sure to cut off all of the singed portions in the process. Wayward conversation - small talk, really - about vaious sweet foods and economic incentives was made, though it was sparse and filled with lengthy pauses. In a matter of time (half an hour, really, though it felt like the blink of an eye for Kiku), the singed portions of Yao's hair were lying - ever so neatly - on the floor.
"Are you done?" Yao hesitantly asked.
"Wait," Kiku took up the comb once more - wanting to feel the softness, the smoothness, of Yao's hair - just once more. "Let me comb all the little ends out of your hair." Once more, Yao stilled, letting Kiku run the comb through his - slowly, gently, the teeth of the comb made their way through the strands of would-be silk, almost clinging to the edges of the fine threads.
"Mmm..." Yao moaned - ever so softly - when the comb made its way across the top of his scalp once more. Simultaneously, the two of them froze, one in shock, and the other in abject horror and humiliation. "Oh God - " Yao gasped, clasping his hand across his mouth, "You didn't just hear that, Kiku," his face was heating up entirely too fast, and his voice was reaching its high levels, "You definitely did not just hear that, Kiku!"
"Of course not, Yao-nii," Kiku soothed, even though his heart was beating - like a drum, really - and his face was quickly sprinting to meet Yao's hue of red. And then, experimentally of course, he ran the comb down Yao's scalp again, eliciting the same sort of sigh. Perhaps, Kiku thought with a racing heart, Yao-nii was one of those individuals who happened to have an overly sensitive scalp? "Do you want me to stop, Yao-nii?" he asked, just to be on the safe side.
"N-no..." Yao mumbled out, subconsciously leaning into the teeth of the comb, much to Kiku's delight - and rising blood pressure levels.
It was yet another 'what if?' experiment, really. The fact of the matter was, Kiku didn't normally carry around scissors and combs and... hair bands. But Yao-nii had always been the exception. Yao seemed to be completely distracted by the 'massage' his scalp was receiving, and as such, Kiku - with trembling hands (and a terribly giddy smile) - parted Yao's hair once more.
Except this time, he did not cut any of it. Rather, he gathered the parted halves and, using the comb, managed to neatly...
"Kiku?" Yao asked once more, "...What are you doing, aru?"
...make two adorable pigtails on both sides of Yao's face.
"N-Nothing..." Kiku mumbled, before playing a quick round of 'yes-or-no' with himself, with the question 'should I keep Yao-nii's hair like this?' In the end, one glance at Yao - hair no longer singed, and no longer in its customary single ponytail - was enough to bring convince him entirely. And then the gleam returned.
"Yao-nii," he started, and Yao immediately tensed up, mainly because he had heard KIku use that tone of voice on only one other occasion, and the results were, needless to say, not very pretty. Without waiting for a response, Kiku continued, "Because I came all the way over here to make sure you were alright, and then skipped my very important economics council meeting to trim your hair, could I ask for something?"
Everything righteous and sane in Yao's mind screamed at him to say no. But that one little nagging voice - the one called 'guilt' - affirmed Kiku's statement.
"Of course..." Yao ground out, clenching his fists and preparing his mind for the worst. He wasn't prepared.
Thirteen hair clips, two combs, three bottles of some aquamarine hair dye, four entirely out of character squeals (coming from Kiku, but of course), and half an hour of 'What-aru?' and 'No! No! No!' later, and Yao found himself staring at that Matsune Hiku girl. In his mirror. With marginally shorter hair - but still in-costume. And there was even that ridiculous headset. In his mirror. On his head.
"Aghhh!" Yao wailed, "Why do you always do this to me, Kiku?"
"Wait, wait, Yao-nii!" Kiku flailed, desperately snapping picture after picture - from every single angle imaginable, "I've... I've always thought that you would make an adorable Miku-chan!" Yao pouted, instinctively grabbing for a Hello Kitty plushie to soothe himself, holding it close to his chest. This, of course, caused Kiku to squeal even louder; the camera flashes were blinding.
"Thank you for having me over," Kiku said - after they had cleaned away the cut hair strands, taken Yao out of the cosplay outfit, and gotten the aquamarine hair dye out of a certain nation's hair. He bowed deeply, flushing a little bit, "I'm... sorry... to have gotten a little bit carried away." Yao laughed - most likely at the 'little bit' part.
"No problem-aru! And thank you for cutting my hair so nicely!" Yao replied, smiling sunnily and embracing Kiku once more. Absent-mindedly, he thumbed his now-smooth threads of hair, almost enjoying their new length. Almost. The younger nation braced himself for the words that Yao said every time - that broke his heart every time, "What are siblings for, after all?"
Stiffly, Kiku nodded, before compacting his various supplies to fit in his pocket. And then he cast one final glance around Yao's UN suite, before adding, "And I'll send you the next shipment of Kitty-chan merchandise directly, so you won't need to go through Ivan."
"Oh Kiku!" Yao dramatically cried, launching himself at his younger sibling, much to the other's chagrin (and delight!), "You're the best little brother ever-aru!"
(...)
