From a recumbent position that wasn’t likely to change any time soon, no matter what happened or who insisted that breaktime was over and they should all get back to their training, Horohoro watched languidly the interaction of a trio of figures not far off. The largest — standing solid and unperturbed by the heat as usual — was not particularly interesting; the other two — the slender, elegant woman and her scowling brother — held the teenager’s attention now as they often did.

Ren was so clearly excessively devoted to Jun… It had surprised Horohoro when he’d first noticed it, and had not ceased to fascinate him since. Ren, who didn’t seem to care about anyone other than himself, think about anything other than his own pursuits, or (understandably) feel even the smallest connection to his odd family, yet appeared to put everything second to his regard for his sister. It made Horohoro grin, among other reasons because it proved that Ren had decent emotions and the capacity to be concerned with something that relatively normal human beings thought about; additionally, it reminded Horohoro very much of himself and Pirika.

He’d been gloating up until now that Ren wasn’t as different from him as the pointy team leader would like to think… but gradually, as he lay watching them over there, his grin faded. For the more he observed the way Ren and Jun interacted, the more he saw that they really weren’t much like him and Pirika. Despite the curtness that Ren showed even to her, it was obvious that his esteem for Jun bordered on worshipful, that he wanted to protect her above all things… Horohoro couldn’t think that Ren’s mental images of Jun were consistently naked, or that they’d ever shared a bed.

This, of course, forced the Ainu very seriously to examine his attitude about his own sister. He sat up, crossed his legs, and frowned.

It was not entirely strange that he’d never thought about it before, as he’d apparently been pretending all along that he’d forgotten they were related — and therefore his potentially questionable feelings for her hadn’t raised any objections in his mind. Whether he objected now, he wasn’t sure. The shaman fight was designed, among other things, to hone the participants who lasted by making them face themselves as well as others, question the way they lived… but Pirika was the one who’d gotten him to this point; it seemed like betrayal to question his relationship with her. On the other hand, she must have understood that, and had sent him nonetheless; and if she accepted that he must question, was willing to risk it, it almost seemed cowardly not to question.

He growled and tugged on his hair. He was twisting himself into knots here! What use was it questioning whether or not he should question?? He was already questioning! Should he face the fact that his feelings for Pirika might not be entirely appropriate, or keep on pretending that their relationship was perfectly normal?

Kororo landed on his shoulder, wondering if he was all right, and Horohoro realized he hadn’t stopped pulling his hair. “Sorry,” he mumbled, patting her. “I don’t mean to make you worry… just thinking about some stuff.”

She hugged his face and flitted off, and he had to smile. It faded quickly, though, as he considered that to make one of his dreams come true, he might well have to give up another. And was he man enough to handle that? Oh, but why should he?! Why couldn’t he have both? …because it wasn’t normal to pretend your desire for your sister was innocuous, all the while wishing out loud for a girlfriend but knowing subconsciously, complacently, that you’d never get one because you didn’t really need one. It wasn’t right.

But couldn’t the Shaman King determine for himself what was normal and right?

This was still a stupid and frustrating debate, especially since he wasn’t really considering the real issues. He turned and looked again at Ren and Jun as a sort of distraction. An inneffectual one, though, as they were what had brought this to mind in the first place. A little bitterly, he projected his dilemma onto them: what if Ren had……. that same kind of feeling for Jun? (No, Horohoro could not define it clearly just yet; that was part of his problem.) What if she returned it? Well, Ren never let anyone else dictate the way he should live, so the two of them would surely act on those feelings. Horohoro wasn’t assigning a concrete definition to that either, that action, but there was no denying that the idea made him feel… good… warm… happy. It was a sweet concept, and didn’t seem at all wrong. Was that because his thinking was warped by his own situation, his selfishness? Was it time to admit his weakness and stop pretending?

But his earlier reflection, that Ren didn’t and wouldn’t let others tell him how to live, now hung before him like a challenge. Was he to be repressed by a world that he already wanted to change? Was he to let even a hypothetical Ren live more freely, live better, than he did? Was the future king of all spiritualists to let his destiny be guided by a blind and arbitrary code?

No, more pretending was fine. Because he shouldn’t have to define it at this point, but he shouldn’t have to give it up either. So until things took their natural course — until he faced and admitted what he wanted, or until it faded, or whatever the case turned out to be — he would pretend, and he wouldn’t regret, because the world was big enough for things like that.

No, there is no mention of the potential Yoh/Horo implied in the first story simply because Horohoro is utterly oblivious to that possibility XD

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The brush snagged, and she yanked it down with a barely-restrained growl that might have been anger at the occurrence, might have been pain occasioned by her violence, and might have been… something else. She glared at the tool and the tangled strands of blue that had come away with it, then tossed it onto the counter and left the bathroom in a huff.

He often brushed her hair. Granted, he wasn’t very good at it — there was a reason he kept his own so short — but it was a gesture that was never lost on her. He would put one hand on her shoulder and brush away with vigor, chattering all the while about what he was going to do that day or the dreams he’d had while they’d slept; her eyes would be locked on his in the mirror, and she would smile.

And that was all she wanted! To keep him beside her, against her, to stay close to him, to know she was first in his thoughts. Was that too much to ask?

But how long would a boy brush his sister’s hair, really? How many years? They were getting so old — he was almost seventeen already! — and eventually, no matter how much she did for him, he was going to realize that she was just his sister. Could never be anything else to him. That he could be brushing anyone’s hair, holding anyone in his arms at night, and that someone who wasn’t blood would probably be more appropriate for that purpose anyway.

The awareness of this inevitable realization was something she tried to ignore, and often managed to, but then it would creep up on her in the dark — those evenings when he could sleep and she could not — and she would fight it off by pressing herself against him, laying a hand on his bare chest to feel his heartbeat, putting her face to his shoulder, and pretending… pretending this was how they would always be.

There was no possible way she could do that now. No more pretending. For one thing, they’d slept in separate beds for the first time she could remember. As she sat on the one and stared at the other through a filter of tears, she wondered how anyone could ever sleep alone. Cold hotel beds and brushing her hair alone in a tiny hotel bathroom, she thought, must always be a symbol of growing apart, of loss, of hatred.

Because, for another thing, he was gone to America, and he would never come back.

No, it wasn’t that she thought he was likely to be killed or defeated. It was just that he had left behind his primary protector against those who might… distract him. It wasn’t that he wouldn’t come back at all. It was just that he wouldn’t come back her Horohoro.

She’d never thought that they would be separated during the course of the fights. Why should they be? Not like this, at any rate. But, having chosen to remain a shaman trainer rather than become a shaman herself — having opted to support him with her entire being rather than pursue her own course — she had unconsciously driven in the wedge that would eventually tear them apart. And she could not protect him now, could not keep his eyes from straying.

There had always been people who looked at him the same way she did. People he looked at the same way. He never realized it, of course, and it had never caused any trouble before — because she’d always been there to keep him on track, keep him where he belonged. But now… now there was a wide ocean, two hotel beds, and a pair of headphones between them. And nothing she could do about it. Not even pretend that what she’d already seen hadn’t happened, or that what she foresaw wasn’t going to happen.

Pirika was not blind.

There was more than one reason she hated Asakura Yoh.

Though I don’t get a similar vibe in the manga, I was just enchanted by a couple of scenes with Pirika and Horohoro in the anime — when they were cuddling in bed, and when he pictured her naked to motivate himself during a particular battle — and immediately determined there must be incest going on or at least contemplated.

I’m a little unclear on how old everyone is at different points in canon. My guess in this piece with the statement that Horohoro is almost seventeen when he leaves for America is based on the fact that at one point in the manga during the Shaman Fight, Amidamaru remarks that it’s been something like three years since he first met Yoh.

Anyway. This is a nearly pointless fic, though there is a follow-up from Horohoro.

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