What Once Was
By: Setsuna-X
Summary: "We were one once Yoh, in more ways than one." Hao x Yoh twincest
Warning: Boy x Boy (that means: gay, yaoi, shonen-ai, boys' love, slash, etc.) & names (jap and eng) might cross sometimes. Please point out any mistakes. And some OOC.
Disclaimer: Shaman King and it's characters do not belong to me—this fic, on the other hand, does.
Chapter 1- Want to Know Why?
Yoh and the rest of his comrades were gathered around a blazing fire, keeping the cool night air warm around the dancing embers. They still had a ways to go before they made it to the Patch Village. Anna was busy talking to Temari and Jun, her powerful demeanor easily taking control of the conversation. Horo, Ren, Ryu, Chocolove, and Manta were busy either joking around or having yet another pointless argument. Faust and his deceased wife could be seen off on their own little world, fully engaged in the other, yet still close enough to the large, dancing flames. Yoh was laying a bit of ways from the group, silently staring at the clear sky and luminous stars with Amidamaru for company.
Then that's when that happened. And when he came.
Hao, appearing what seemed like out of nowhere, arrived standing upon the large hand of his overwhelming Fire Spirit. He had been watching Yoh's group for the longest time, secretly longing to be right there with, well, not them, but with him, with his Yoh.
His little afro haired sidekick was seen clutching onto the bottom hem of Hao's flowing cloak, acting as if he would rather not be there, knowing far to well that this meeting could very well go downhill and once again Hao would be disappointed.
As soon as Hao appeared everyone was already in a battle position. Each were a breath away from using all their furyoku and Anna clutched the beads tighter in her hand, ready to summon her newly acquired Shinigami. Yoh could feel his heart pounding faster in his chest. It seemed that would always happen whenever Hao was nearby or when he caught himself thinking about the other boy. He stood up calmly on the surface, but inside he was a wreck. His swirling emotions never filtered onto his face, but they were there, silently and slowly tormenting him.
Whenever Hao was there, with his long, flowing chocolate hair, and with a face identical to his own Yoh felt a feeling of coming home. His body would relax and would immediately fill with warmth. In other words, they were feelings and emotions that he really shouldn't be experiencing.
They were wrong, this was wrong.
Yet, despite knowing that, he couldn't control his body's response to the close proximity of Hao's. It was as if he longed to be there atop the burning hand of the Fire Spirit, engulfed into Hao's strong arms.
But it was all wrong!
This was not only his enemy and the enemy of every other Shaman out there, but it was also another guy that he was having these sort of feelings for. He had a fiancé, for goodness sake! Not only that, but this boy, no, this man was his brother. His identical brother!
Yoh felt a wave of shame crash against him and almost stumbled from his stiff position as he glared up at the person who caused these emotions to war within him.
Hao smirked to himself as he saw several of those feelings stream lightly across Yoh's face. He knew what the other teen was experiencing, especially since he was feeling some of the same emotions as him.
Whenever he laid his eyes upon his supposed nemesis, warm and bubbly feelings danced in his stomach and his body would instantly become warm. He longed to hold that body, fragile only in appearance, with his arms and cradle him against his chest. He longed to kiss those innocent, virgin lips, to taint them with his own poisonous ones. He wished to thread his fingers through those silky locks and simply be with Yoh for all eternity, but the only way that could be accomplished would be if Yoh would simply join him in ruling as Shaman King and help rid the world of all the worthless normal humans.
The difference between him and Yoh in all this is that Hao knows why they both feel this way. Yoh would never be able to remember, that is, unless Hao wanted him to remember.
He is, after all, the one who had gone and sealed those memories of the past again. It seemed like the right and humane thing to do. He didn't want Yoh knowing about that yet. It would be a too painful event to re-experience, even if he didn't remember now.
Resolved to talk to Yoh about it once he was ready Hao turned to the tense and awaiting Shamans.
"Lovely night isn't it, Yoh," he asked, completely ignoring the fact that Yoh's friends existed, "The moon sure is big and bright tonight," he continued to speak as Yoh internally struggled with his emotions. He was sure that the sound of his voice was driving the younger shaman wild and the fact that Yoh didn't understand why it was driving him wild drove the music-hearing boy insane.
Normally he would be the calmest and most level headed out of the whole group. It was an odd and rare occurrence that something was able to affect him so much and so deeply. The annoying thing was that he didn't even know why it bothered him so much; why he reacted to it so much and in such confusing ways as well.
"What do you want, Hao?!" yelled out Horo, annoyed at how this guy just comes and go's as he pleases, completely disrupting them when they were having fun. Arguing with Ren is always fun.
"Now, now, no need to be so rude," admonished the fire wielding teen, "I just came to have a little chat with your Master Yoh over here," said Hao, never once taking his eyes off Yoh. He told his Fire Spirit to gently and slowly lower him and Apacho onto the ground as he climbed off the massive hand without any trouble. He landed on the soft ground as if he had floated instead of walked.
"Well Yoh has nothing he wants to say to you!" shouted Horo again in response.
"Yeah!"
"Master Yoh has nothing to say to you so please leave now," quipped Ryu, holding his wooden sword pointedly in front of him. Too bad intimidations never worked on Hao. He knew he was way stronger than these 'wanna-be' shamans.
"I believe I came here to talk to Yoh, not to argue with asinine creatures such as yourselves," haughtily said Hao.
Ren's left eye twitched, annoyed at this confrontation. Anna looked on at the scene, trying to weigh the best way to avoid any conflict this night while the rest of the group glared at Hao openly, trying their best to remain calm. But this damn guy pissed them off so easily!
Throughout this whole exchange Yoh had been oddly and surprisingly quiet. Usually he stepped in right away to avoid any future conflict, but it seemed that this wasn't going to be the case today.
"Well Yoh, should we go have ourselves a little chat?" asked Hao a little too politely. "I promise no harm with come to your precious leader," he added with his hands posed in mock surrender as indignations verbrated off the yellow-gold canyon walls.
"Just go away Hao!" some one shouted at him.
"Yeah, just go and leave us the hell alone!" added another one of Yoh's lackeys. Seriously, this macho-I'm a shaman-thing was becoming too old too fast.
Yoh didn't answer for the longest time. He knew that everyone's eyes were on him, especially Hao's, Anna's, and Amidamaru's.
"Who knows," continued Hao, undisturbed at Yoh's lack of response, "You might find out why you're feeling the way you do," he added slyly.
Yoh's eyes widened slightly as murmuring voices drifted around him. 'Hao knew how he was feeling! And he even knew the reason as to why he feels this way too!' It was too much of a tempting offer to pass up, and Hao knew it.
"Sure." Short and simple. There it was, he had just consented to this 'little chat'.
He knew that everyone was shocked, amazed, hurt, and even be feeling a little betrayed because of that one little word, but at the moment Yoh couldn't bring himself to think about it too much. This was something that had been bothering him since he first saw that identical face and flowing brown hair for the first time. Everyone was silent around him and it was the oddest thing. He was so used to chatter and laughter all around him that the lack of voices made him feel alone and out of place. Even the fires embers didn't feel warm anymore. Yoh turned to look at his friends and traveling companions and let out a carefree grin. "Don't worry, everything will work out somehow," he said, letting them know that he was okay with this and that they should just trust him.
Not one of them looked reassured, but there wasn't really any of them could do about it so they silently, with slightly hurt looks on their faces, watched as Yoh turned back to facing Hao and made his way over to the Fire Spirits open hand. Amidamaru floated silently near his friend and Master, vowing never to leave his side for even a second, lest something happen to Yoh.
Yoh stood there with his back still to his friends and clenched the sword that he had forgotten all about in his hand. He couldn't take the looks they were sending him and found it easier to leave this way. And it wasn't as if this was to be permenant. He wasn't going to join Hao or anything. He just wanted to know the truth of why he felt the way he did toward his own brother.
And with that Hao, Yoh, Apacho, and the Fire Spirit vanished from their location.
TBC
A/N: Why oh why did I start a new story::sigh:: I guess I just wanted some Shaman King posted. Well, this isn't going to be a long fic or anything. 5 chapters max I would say and they would be shorter than this one. I just didn't know where to end this. Anyway, hoped you liked the first chapter.