Title: Of Pigs and Pumpkins

Disclaimer: Ouran High doesn't belong to me, comprende? ;D

Summary: "They're over-tired but drunk with ideas, closer than ever and about to go buy a pumpkin. To Kaoru, it sounds pretty perfect."

Notes: Halloween fic. (Somewhat premature, but who cares?) One-Shot. (That might change.)

'Hmm, remind me why we're doing this?' Hikaru grimaces as he sinks his hands into the cold mushy cave of the paper-mâché pumpkin's leering face. It's disgusting work; feels sort of like he is gripping a handful of slippery intestines; the way the strips and clumps of paper are soaked and curling in the glue, and yet? He gets an odd satisfaction from squeezing the paper and feeling (hearing, too) the glue squelch between his fingers.

'Because Tono wants to do Halloween the commoners way,' Kaoru responds dully, despite the question being rhetoric. He sits at one of the computers in a plush black seat, fingers deftly clicking at the mouse, the latest Photoshop software brought up onto the screen.

'Yeah. He's an idiot.'

Kaoru hums in agreement, tapping away at the keys.

Hikaru sighs and looks back at the array of mess in front of him and knows for sure that Kaoru's got the better deal. The glue-squelching is satisfying and all, yeah, but the overall task of building a paper-mâché pumpkin is messy and difficult and- oh, awesome, he's got orange splodges all down his black jeans! Turned paranoid by this accidental ruining of his trousers he cautiously withdraws his hands from inside the pumpkin and sets about inspecting the rest of his clothes. The searchings are not fruitless. He discovers that his sleeves are encrusted in glue and it's flaking off like dead skin.

'Ewww,' Hikaru groans. He can't even pick it off because his hands are covered in even more glue and paint. He flaps his arms helplessly in the air. 'Kaoru,' he whines, staring at the back of his head and willing him to turn round.

'What have you done?' Kaoru questions in a sigh and spins around in the chair. He's sitting cross-legged in it, as always but Hikaru can't say anything about Kaoru's idiosyncrasies, mainly because he shares the same ones.

Hikaru waves his orange-splattered hands. 'Can you roll up my sleeves?'

Kaoru snorts but unfolds his legs slides out of the chair. Then he falters, eyes wide and mouth puckering into a sulky pout.

'Pins and needles?' Hikaru guesses, eyeing the awkward way Kaoru's wobbling unsteadily from foot to foot.

Kaoru nods silently, frowning, staring at his feet.

Hikaru waves his hands in the air when Kaoru, after at least twenty seconds, gives no sign of moving. 'Think you could get over here?' Hikaru asks. His sleeves are really causing him to be frustrated and they needed to be fixed right away. On the other hand, he feels a little guilty when Kaoru obediently hobbles over to assist him.

'Arms straight out,' Kaoru commands, coming to a halt in front of Hikaru. He looks at the mess Hikaru's made of his sleeves and sighs as he begins to roll them up with gentle hands. 'So clumsy,' Kaoru says, almost affectionately. But then he suddenly stops and examines the sweater closely. His soft smile vanishes (so suddenly that Hikaru doubts if it was ever present) and he frowns admonishingly. 'This is mine!' he says, plucking at the material. 'Hikaru!' He brings accusing eyes up to meet Hikaru's.

'Does it matter?' Hikaru asks. He's actually curious. They've never coveted much of anything before.

'Well I don't get mess all over your stuff,' Kaoru gripes, yet it's without any real temper. 'You should have an apron on,' he adds.

Hikaru screws up his nose. 'I hate aprons.'

'They hate you more,' Kaoru assures him.

Hikaru grunts. 'Thanks.'

Kaoru meticulously bunches the material up around Hikaru's elbows, making sure it won't slither down again. 'There,' Kaoru says, patting Hikaru's arm lightly.

Hikaru moves his now free arms around. He feels looser, the air cooler. 'Thanks,' he says, genuinely this time.

Kaoru goes to turn away but- 'Oh. Paint.' He reaches out and rubs at Hikaru's cheekbone, breathing the scent of toffee apples all over Hikaru's face. 'Clumsy,' Kaoru repeats and walks back to the computer, back to his station. Hikaru notes, with amusement, that despite his alleged pins-and-needles, Kaoru still uptakes their same weird way of sitting in the chair.

Hikaru labours on in relative silence, working on the cumbersome pumpkin. He issues a few curse words from time to time- when the paper isn't doing what he wants it to, like slopping unattractively off the main structure and onto the table instead of staying put.

Kaoru gives a sudden weary sigh and runs his left hand through his hair, the right one still clamped on the mouse. His head moves slightly and Hikaru can tell, even though Kaoru's facing the other way, that he's squeezing his tired eyes briefly shut.

'Black or red, Hikaru?' Kaoru mumbles. 'For the background?' He sounds like he couldn't care what colour Hikaru picks, that Hikaru could pick something disgusting like khaki or maroon and Kaoru would go with it without even batting an eyelid. Still, Hikaru decides to handle the issue responsibly and he wanders over to look at the poster Kaoru is designing. It's all in flat blocks of colors, range of shades, with fancy effects in the foreground- which is, predictably, an image of the Host Club. Their inky silhouettes are hazily distorted and embellished in a shadowy orange glow- much like the glimmer of candlelight.

And okay, looking at it, maybe Kaoru did have a difficult time of it too because the editing looked really professionally done.

'Hikaru.' Without turning to face him, Kaoru reaches around expertly and prods him in the cheek. 'Stop hovering and pick a colour.'

'Black,' Hikaru settles on finally and he watches as Kaoru fills in the remaining blank space with the stain. He retreats back to his work table, again disliking how messy it all was compared to Kaoru's clean-cut task. 'Who says commoners make their own decorations, anyway?' he asks abruptly, watching purple paint drip sluggishly from one of the open pots. 'Haruhi said her dad was gonna go out and buy stuff for their place. I doubt they're gonna waste time on shit like this. And anyway, remember Haruhi's efforts in that art enterprise thing we had to do? That was terrible, remember?' Hikaru snickers as he liberally slaps on more glue.

Kaoru doesn't reply, too immersed in his designing, Hikaru supposes. Hikaru gathers a particularly gloopy fistful of paper-mâché and lets it fall onto the desk. He revels in the loud splat! it makes and the fact it gets Kaoru's attention.

Kaoru shakes his head at the child-like glee splayed over Hikaru's face. 'You're so immature.'

'Whatever,' Hikaru dismisses. 'Right, Kaoru,' he says seriously, commandingly, 'tell me what you think about this.' He steers the paper-mâché pumpkin around, orange paint trailing like sun petals from it. 'Does it look okay?'

Kaoru quietly assesses the pumpkin, straight-faced. Then the corners of his lips begin to twitch. A badly suppressed smile evolves into a full-blown peal of laughter, and the sound echoes throughout the classroom. 'Sorry, Hikaru, but that looks more like a pig! A creepy, smiling pig!'

Hikaru crosses his arms over his - or rather, Kaoru's - dark grey sweater and looks down at his creation. 'What?' he says, defensive. 'How?'

'Look at it!' Kaoru exclaims, still buckled with laughter. 'It's such a creep looking. And the stumpy bit at the back?' He bites his lip. 'It looks like a tail.'

'That's the stalk,' Hikaru bristles, insulted.

'Oh, the stalk,' Kaoru says in illuminated tones. 'Right.' His smirk stretches far and wide.

'Okay,' Hikaru concedes, 'it's falling off a little, but…' He prods it, trying to force it back into an upright position.

It falls off completely and makes an explosive splat on the table. Kaoru laughs harder.

'Well, anyway.' Hikaru turns his masterpiece away from Kaoru, making an attempt to physically shield it from the criticism. 'I think you're just being overly-critical. It's not like it's… Frankenstein's monster or something...'

Kaoru guffaws. 'Sure about that?'

Hikaru pouts and regards his creation. 'Stop laughing,' he moans. ''I actually have to submit this, you know. Is it seriously that awful?'

Kaoru retains some momentary seriousness, enough to join Hikaru in the act of staring at the pig-pumpkin dubiously.

'Weeeell,' Kaoru tries to begin in a falsely optimistic voice and then Hikaru truly sees the pitiful attempt for what it is and then they are both laughing.

'Whatever,' Hikaru snorts finally. 'I know it's kinda shitty but this is the best Tono's gonna get. He's not getting a better one made. Halloween's in two days and-'

'That's still got to set and dry,' Kaoru nods.

'And I don't have the time to make another one.' Hikaru crosses his arms and leans against the table's edge. 'He's just gonna have to deal.'

'Mm-hm,' agrees Kaoru, attention wavering back to the computer screen.

Something else rant-worthy occurs to Hikaru. 'And anyway, why does he get to go and select costumes with Haruhi while we have to do this? It's a complete…'

Kaoru edges around in his chair until he's facing the computer. Hikaru rants himself off into silence.

The rest of the evening passes, time trickling away as easily as sand, as they get on with their decoration-making duties. Hikaru gives up on his paper-mâché pumpkin, setting it to the side -again muttering that it was 'the best their idiot King was going to get' and, instead of making a chain of paper-dolls as was typical with paper crafts he makes a chain of paper-pumpkins, pointing out that 'at least these don't look like pigs' and 'in any case, pigs were pink and the pumpkin was orange'.

Kaoru finishes the poster, abandons the computer and joins Hikaru in manual work. He draws bats on the large soot-coloured cardboard sheets they have scattered around the room. He cuts them out, leaving thin curls of black paper littered all across the floor.

They talk and laugh and plan their scripts and the sky dims outside from opaque wintry grey to a deep invigorating blue and frost presses its icy fingers to the glass and leaves its mark, tainting the windows with a spiderweb glittering chill.

Kaoru tries not to let his silences draw out, tries not to count the number of times Hikaru mentions Haruhi or the way his eyes glow when he does this. This Halloween, Kaoru decides, he's not going to brood. He's not going to think about fairy tales and magic carriages. He's not going to liken his heart to a pumpkin with the insides scooped and carved out, raw emotion splattering everywhere, spending the emptiness with the hope that a light, a candle, was going to be placed into the empty shell.

No, he's going to enjoy it, enjoy spending this time with Hikaru.

Starting now.

'Hey,' Kaoru says, bumping shoulders with him, causing Hikaru to accidentally shred the scissors straight through the mini cauldron he is painstakingly cutting out. 'I was thinking,' he continues, poking at the two halves of the cauldron to join them again. 'We still need to buy a pumpkin. Wanna go to the city?'

'Pumpkin!' Hikaru repeats loudly, and in a flash of enthusiasm, throws the bundle of mini paper-cauldrons in the air like confetti. 'I forgot! Today?' he half-asks, half decrees.

It's almost midnight. Not really 'today' at all, but Kaoru has no objections.

When they stumble out of the school into the ice-cold velvet-dark to wait for the car they stand under the streetlights, that are hazy with shimmering frost, and cling to each other, shivering- it was only Kaoru who had enough sense to bring a coat, so now they share, Hikaru ensconced inside it too, his arms wrapped tight around Kaoru's waist. Kaoru's teeth chatter against Hikaru's collarbone.

'Now, remember, Hikaru,' he says, tugging him closer. 'We're looking to buy a pumpkin, not a pig. Think you can manage that?'

'Shut up,' Hikaru says, embarrassed.

It's past midnight now. They've been up since six am and they'll be up at six am again today. They're over-tired but drunk with ideas, closer than ever and about to go buy a pumpkin.

To Kaoru, it sounds pretty perfect.