Disclaimer: The only thing I own is the story idea and only some of the witty remarks. I own so little; so please don't steal.

Background music: -

[=]

The thing is, Midorima Shintarou is an optimist. He never believes in the perpetuity of bad news, so he's never eternally miffed when anything unfavorable happens. It's just that luck and karma and anything are cyclical and never last too long. His mother says this is what keeps him plucky and a little strange even in adulthood. The thing is, despite that, he can't figure any good thing from Akashi's declaration: "I'm going to get married, Shintarou."

"I see," he said because there wasn't anything else to say. Akashi stared at him from across the room in their apartment, grand ninety-two thousand yen a month rent. "But we're dating."

"Yes," Akashi agreed. "But we won't be, anymore; not after that."

"Are you breaking up with me?"

"It's best to do it now before we build any more attachments before the wedding. She's a nice girl. Her name is Momoi Satsuki."

"We've been dating for six years," Midorima said, hearing his voice sound strangely pleasant and unaffected while his mind struggled to remember the name amidst the confusion. "Why are you getting married?"

"It is what my father wants. It is also a beneficial strategy for the family name. She is the daughter of a business magnate that my family has been working with for many years. It would signify the solidification of our alliance and family partnership." He smiled and folded his hands like it had been an irrefutable business deal. Midorima put down his book and decided it had been an unfair sneak attack on Akashi's part. But he was a doctor and doctors recovered fast.

"Is it what you want?"

"It is irrelevant what I want. I want what's best for the family I was raised to inherit."

"And I?"

Akashi's mouth twitched, twisting with something undefinable before his lips settled into an expressionless line. "You were a happy accident." He spoke before Midorima could open his mouth. "I don't regret you, nor do I feel satisfaction at having to put you aside. It wasn't easy but it's how it has to be." His lips twisted again, his eyes coloring a little murkier and Midorima had enough experience with him to swallow his words. It was a medicine of the most bitter variety, worse than any he'd ever had the pleasure of encountering, and while he wished to protest and resist - deep down, he understood. He had understood the implications of entering a relationship with the heir of a business empire that produced most of the pharmaceuticals he worked with. Akashi was a powerful figure, yes, but there were still a good many things outside his grasp. Push as much as he'd like, Akashi would only retreat and carefully lock himself up again.

Midorima forced a grimace. "You're right, as always."

"Yes," Akashi said. He stayed where he was at the junction where the living room met the hallway to the bedroom. He had the same sort of face he wore to entertain his father's guests, polite and distanced. He was wonderful at tricky body language, but Midorima had had six years to learn the tongue. Midorima wished to cross the space and press a reassuring kiss to those anxious lips, but it was beyond his abilities now. "I shall be leaving here later this afternoon. In return for your troubles, I will shoulder the rent so you may stay here."

Akashi's sudden cleaning of the apartment was no longer a mystery to Midorima. The heavy boxes Akashi had had moved must have been his things, and it had not been Midorima's imagination that their room felt a little emptier. "You don't have to go to all that trouble," Midorima said, loathing a little how clear and even his voice was. He ought to refute the almost imperial declaration, but the futility of it all rewrote his intended script. "I am capable of finding housing of my own."

"Please," Akashi murmured, beginning to return to their room. It was a rare moment of petition and Midorima was caught off guard again. "For all you've done for me, this is barely compensation."

[=]

The apartment was spacious and very empty. Midorima found it a little too dark for his tastes as he prepared himself dinner, the only light on in the apartment being the overheads in the kitchen and the ceiling lamp over the dining table. He considered keeping the television on for background noise to be unnecessary, but he was beginning to understand why some preferred it to the incessant quiet. He had been home before with Akashi gone on familial business, but he supposed the knowledge of himself as the place's sole occupant was quite a weight on his shoulders. He frowned to himself; the stir fry was burning before his very eyes.

He had attempted to pretty up the burnt vegetables on the plate as artfully as possible when he heard the crash in the bedroom.

Frantically, he ran to his bedroom, wooden spatula in hand as a weapon, before he considered that this was possibly a horrible, dangerous idea and that perhaps it couldn't possibly be a thief because wasn't the apartment on the fifth floor of the complex? Midorima had finally accepted these truths and had held the spatula before him as he fumbled around at the doorway for the light switch. If he died, suppose it took days to find his body? His hand brushed against the switch and he just about let out a war cry - which he feared would leave his mouth as a terrified shriek - when light flooded the room and Akashi was balanced on the windowsill, hand outstretched to where the lamp on the dresser beside the window had been. Now it lay on the floor in a heap.

"Akashi?" Midorima said incredulously.

"Shintarou," Akashi said, breaking out in a smile. "I had meant to come back for something but I'd forgotten my keys."

"The doorman could have let you in," Midorima insisted. "You didn't have to climb through the window." The image of Akashi scaling the wall was ludicrous. He could scarcely believe it but here was Akashi, perched on the window with wind ruffled hair and Midorima swallowed. "You could have phoned me and we...could have worked something out."

"Perhaps," Akashi agreed, sliding off the windowsill and into the room. "But I wanted to see you." Midorima would have dropped the spatula then and there and did when Akashi strode over to him in two quick strides and kissed him on the mouth, arching his back and pressing a warm weight against Midorima's chest. "When I thought I wouldn't be able to see you again, I couldn't stand it, so I rushed to come see you..."

"You're not Akashi Seijuro," Midorima said when Akashi broke off, looking dreamy and perfect and - fake.

"I am," the Akashi lookalike laughed. "But perhaps not the Akashi Seijuro you were expecting."

[=]

"Come in," Akashi ordered after a knock at his door and a soft greeting by one of the maids. He was doing some last minute stock analysis before bed; it relaxed him somewhat. He always felt perpetually haggled at the main house. His father had insisted he adhere to tradition and spend his last few months at the family home before sharing his name with another.

"Please excuse my interruption at this late hour, young master," the maid said, bowing deeply at the door. "I only bring along two short but urgent messages."

"Speak, then, please."

"First: Midorima Shintarou called. He said there was an urgent matter he could not elaborate upon but it needed your immediate attention, and to please call him at your earliest and soonest convenience. He stressed tonight, if possible."

"And the second?" Akashi inquired, finishing his analysis and reaching to switch off his phone.

"An unknown number called, left no name, but said to expect a message at eleven-forty-three on the dot."

Akashi glanced at his phone. It was 11:43 precisely. At that moment, he received a message from an unknown number. He had a feeling the source had probably encrypted the line. He clicked to open it without a moment's hesitation.

It's been a while little brother! How could you dare leave such a capable house husband on his own?

"Please have Takeda send the car around the back. And keep this unknown to my father at all costs. I will assume responsibility if necessary."

"Yes, young master."

[=]

"Seijuro," Akashi greeted, almost snarling.

"Seijuro," the other Akashi replied, all glee.

"I don't understand," Midorima said.

"Shintarou," Akashi said, not taking his eyes off the imposter, "allow me to introduce my twin brother, Akashi Seijuro. Our names differ by the kanji used, but I can assure you we share many other differences. Our father especially liked the name." The twin grinned at him and Akashi stepped into the apartment reluctantly, allowing Midorima to take his coat and scarf. "Why are you back, brother?"

"I heard you're getting married."

"How could you hear that? You've been cut off from the main house."

"The walls have eyes, little brother." Akashi's brother seemed positively gleeful. He also seemed quite at home in his apartment, having crawled in in tight pants and abandoning them to rummage through Midorima's drawers for some looser sweatpants. For one terrifying second, Midorima could see Akashi notice this and his lips drew tighter.

"You've bugged this apartment, haven't you?"

"What?" Midorima sputtered.

"My older brother is what many people may consider a technical wizard. He'd been programming since he was five."

"I've bugged this entire apartment, the main house, and most of the places you frequent," the twin said proudly, beaming with almost villainous pearly white teeth. "I was hoping to integrate into your life without you noticing, kind of like a double life. When I heard you'd be coping yourself up at the main house for the next few weeks because of some political marriage, I thought I caught a big break! But I guess househusbands are useful for some things, like guard dogging."

"Why haven't I ever heard of his brother of yours?" Midorima asked, opting to pretend the twin brother did not exist in the room with them. The twin leered at him. They were very eerily alike; the way they shared the same face unnerved him. "You always told me you were an only child."

"Lawfully, yes," Akashi sniffed, never taking his eyes off his brother with same sort of expression he would have toward a nuclear bomb or a rabid puppy. "The family had disowned him years back. It would be bad luck to even mention the name. He'd slipped off the radar ever since. Why are you back?"

"I came out first but our father deemed me damaged goods because of my eye." Indeed, the only way Midorima could distinctly tell the difference was the eyes - Akashi's eyes were both a dark, rich red but his twin's had one golden, bright left eye. "His obsession with perfection is truly a sight to see. He's rubbed off on my brother, as you can tell. Seijuro was always the favorite, and I was left to waste away on my own."

The twin then gave Akashi a pointed look. "To answer your question, I'm back to ruin our father."

"Explain."

"Well, you know, power over big companies can be given two ways: peacefully or not. I intend to seize our family's company by force."

Midorima turned quickly with horror to Akashi. "It seems we have the same goal, then," Akashi replied.

"And you hope to achieve that goal by marrying that rich girl?"

Akashi's lips twitched. "It's part of the plan, yes."

His brother laughed. "Good luck with the slow method, little brother. I intend to completely snatch everything from our scum of the earth father in half the time you would have taken with your subtle, slow-acting ways. Unlike you, I can't wait."

"Then what do you propose?"

"Well," his twin hummed, tapping his chin with a mischievous smirk. "It wouldn't do if you told father, would it?"

"If our father hasn't already discovered that you've come back, it isn't my place to rat you out. It wouldn't benefit me and would give me more work as it is."

"Let me just put it this way," his twin said. "I can manipulate stocks."

"Isn't that illegal?" Midorima interjected. The twins gave him matching looks. He quieted immediately.

"I won't change numbers," Akashi's brother sniffed, suddenly adopting the look Midorima saw on Akashi's own face whenever he had said something particularly dimwitted. "But I have access to things that can."

"Sure it may be underhanded," Akashi agreed. "But it isn't like my family hasn't done anything off the record."

"But as it stands," his brother said, turning his attention back to Akashi. "I still need your help, so I suppose my arrival also heralds a potential alliance."

Akashi regarded his brother. "What would you need my help for?"

"Surely you also have noticed that our father distrusts the digital age. I'm sure half of it is because of his old-fashioned ways, but I'm a little proud to say he might still be paranoid and afraid of me. He has a lot of paperwork and contracts he still keeps physical forms of and locks them in his safe in his office at the main house. I would like to see those."

"You know that I have no access and do not have the code either. Our father doesn't even trust his own heir with that material."

"Thankfully our father is also paranoid and has a digitally locked safe. As expected he's afraid of traditional crooks. Ordinary crooks can't crack a sophisticated electronic code without skills. However, I have equipment that can crack them, and I willingly volunteer to snatch them myself. You would not be indicted in any way. You know how flawless my skills can be." Akashi's twin wiggled his fingers. "I just need a way to get close to the safe, and that's where you come in."

Akashi's face was stony. "I suppose we are aiming for the same thing and you can help me realize this goal much sooner than I calculated."

"Perfect!" his brother rubbed his hands together. "We can discuss this in full detail later. First things first; now that I have a role here, I need a place to stay temporarily in Tokyo."

"I can find you a discreet place."

"I prefer here." The twin threw his arms out. "It's a place for two and there's currently only Shintarou staying here. Why not let me bum a ride here? You don't mind, do you, Shintarou?"

"I," Midorima began.

"You don't have to," Akashi said quickly.

"Oh, come now," Akashi's brother said, sidling up to Midorima and snaking an arm around Midorima's. "I promise I won't be a bother. And anyway, I find you quite attractive...I suppose tastes do run in the family."

"Guh," Midorima blubbered.

"Seijuro, stop," Akashi warned.

"What?" his twin asked. "You're not dating him, so he's a free agent. And if you call your people, isn't there a chance my arrival might get around to Father? Just let me stay here, little brother. I'll be out of your hair." He looked up at Midorima. "It's just family business. You won't even notice I'm here. It would be a big favor to both me...and my brother, undoubtedly."

Midorima glanced at Akashi. He was conflicted, Midorima could tell, by the way his eyes were murky and he had a slight frown, slightly tense fingers. "I don't - mind, I guess, if only for a little while."

"I can find a place for him immediately if it's too much trouble," Akashi interjected.

"Great," Akashi's twin sang. "You can call me Seijuro. Calling me by my family name sounds so stuffy. It's different kanji so you don't have to be all flustered about it." He offered a wide, almost plastic smile. He went to the guest room as Midorima walked Akashi to the door.

"I apologize for my brother," Akashi said. "I really don't want this to be a bother to you; you really don't have to do this."

"I don't mind," Midorima said. "For - for a friend."

Akashi looked up at him in the doorway. Midorima bit his lip. "Does this mean that I could still call you...I mean, about your brother? Would you mind?"

"Oh." Akashi stepped back over the threshold of the doorway. "I suppose. Because it's now business, isn't it?"

"You're still hung up on it, aren't you?" Seijuro asked, when Midorima closed the door and stood behind his apartment's door for five minutes. "But I understand; it was really a one-sided breakup."

"Where did you put listening devices in my apartment?"

Seijuro laughed. "Where indeed?"

[=]

Note: why am i doing this to myself