Disclaimer and Acknowledgements: Ouran High School Host Club was created by Bisco Hatori and definitely not licensed by myself. Therefore, the following is a work of fiction using characters that are not my own, and no harm nor profit is meant or made by publishing this.
The best part about being a twin is that you are never alone in the world.
The worst part about being a twin is that you are never alone in the world.
Kaoru mulled disinterestedly over these thoughts and others as he waited for Hikaru to finish sending his text message to Haruhi. It was the beginning of summer, and the trio were new alumni of Ouran Academy. To celebrate, the pair were getting ready to take a trip to their family beach house for the next week, so Hikaru took it upon himself to ask Haruhi if she would like to join them. It wasn't that Kaoru was opposed to her joining them, but ever since they had become an official couple, the distance between he and his other half seemed to be growing at an alarming rate.
At first, he was destroyed, and it was awkward because as much as it hurt and as much as he wanted to take it out on the source, he couldn't bring himself to harm his twin. Instead, he locked all of his hurt away and just let things go as they would.
In hindsight, neither decision was a very good one.
Finally, Hikaru turned back to him, smiling excitedly. "She is packing her things, now."
The bright, unabashed happiness that Haruhi brought his brother should have made Kaoru feel a lot better than it actually did. But every time he caught their clasping hands, their light pecks, those glints of something a bit bigger than teenage crushes in their eyes it killed him. "We can just pick her up on the way, then."
Hikaru laughed. "Sound a little more excited, Kaoru. It's summer and we're free!" He slung an arm around the shoulders of his other half, who only mirrored the gesture out of habit. "We should bring a new bathing suit for Haruhi to try on, too. Maybe one of the new prototypes Mom's done up?"
"Sounds great."
"What's wrong with you, Kaoru? Don't you want to see Haruhi?"
"Oh, of course I want to see Haruhi. We're best friends. The three of us." Kaoru wore a plastic grin that didn't in the least fool Hikaru.
"Are you upset that I invited her?"
"No, I'm not upset."
"You are. You know I can tell."
"Okay, so maybe I am a little upset." Hikaru stared his twin down. "Okay! Okay! More than a little."
"Why don't you want her to come?"
Kaoru sighed heavily, feeling the weight of the past two years more acutely now than he had in awhile. "It's not that I don't want her to come. I know she makes you happy and that you make her happy and, really, what more could I ask for?"
There was a very uncomfortable silence following his question, as if Hikaru were trying to come up with an appropriate answer. "You're jealous of her."
"What?"
"That's what it is. That's what's been wrong with you. You wish it was you instead of me."
"N— Hikaru, that's not even remotely true."
"Yes, it is! It's written all over your face!"
"I'm telling you, it's completely different."
"I can't believe—"
"I can't believe how much of an idiot you are!" Kaoru had jerked himself away from his twin's grasp. It was the first time he'd ever been truly angry with Hikaru, and not just at a situation that was his own doing anyway. Standing up to bear down over him, he was positively enraged, but he didn't once raise his voice. "The old Hikaru would've noticed right away and would've known everything I wanted to say without me having to say anything. He would've understood that I could never be jealous of anyone other than him. He was mine first and mine alone and that's how it was always supposed to be and now it isn't anymore and I can't take it."
Hikaru blinked up at his other half. He couldn't say anything because he knew that Kaoru was right. Things had changed, and not for the better like everyone had thought they would. There was a ravine of space between the pair of them now and hardly a bridge of which to speak. To top it off, Kaoru, who he'd always known to be just a bit stronger, was the one to break. He didn't know what to do.
"It's not fair, Hikaru. I want my brother back. I want my other half back." Kaoru paused, having quite a struggle with suppressing his tears that had never been more genuine. "I want you back and I'm sick of having to share you with someone else, even Haruhi."
"Kaoru..." There was that tone that he'd always used on him in front of the girls; the tone that didn't altogether condescend, but was supposed to comfort. This time it did anything but. "Kaoru, I'm right here."
"The rest of you is somewhere else. It's in that suitcase that Haruhi is packing and it's in her head and in her heart. The same goes for her, but where am I supposed to be?"
"You know you mean more to me than—"
"Shut up!" This time Kaoru had yelled, and it was difficult to tell who was more startled by it. Unable to stand for any more arguing, Kaoru turned from his twin and hurried out of the room, going to a separate bedroom in another wing just to get away from everything familiar about the one that they'd shared for so long.
He didn't shut the door, simply going to the bed to sit and to sob and wish that things were as they'd been before he'd been stupid enough to encourage Hikaru to pursue her. He felt so unbelievably and overwhelmingly foolish and blind that he was almost praying for vomit so that it might help to relieve him. But he knew that it wouldn't; this kind of sick wasn't ever fixed that way. So he just laid himself facedown onto one of the pillows and let it soak up his tears and his choking, all the while imagining it was so much more than just cotton and down feathers.
Kaoru didn't know when Hikaru came after him, but if he did, he might've felt a bit better for the fact that it was immediately, as it should have been. The first of his presence Kaoru felt was the slight shake and then depression of the mattress as Hikaru sat down beside him. By this time, he had already stopped crying, but Hikaru had been fearfully watching from the doorway since his other half had run from the room. A gentle hand situated itself at the small of Kaoru's back and if he hadn't been craving something like that so badly, he would have shrugged off its touch in the same manner as the arm before it.
"Kaoru, please sit up." His voice was not demanding, rather it urged him, begged him even, to turn and look at him. After a few moments of hesitation in which Kaoru seriously considered not moving at all, he rolled over enough to peel his face away from the pillow that had been thoroughly soaked through. Hikaru's face visibly fell at the sight of his twin's, and while Kaoru knew he couldn't have looked wonderful, he wasn't expecting such a genuine, familiar response.
Without even pausing to breathe, Hikaru was down beside Kaoru, wrapping arms around his twin to keep him safe, arms that wouldn't relent no matter how much Kaoru resisted. But Kaoru didn't resist at all, and only began to sob again, tearlessly this time because he simply had none left. He set his head against Hikaru's chest, listening to the heartbeat he'd heard so many times before as they'd lain like this and letting its regularity soothe him. Hikaru didn't need to say a thing to him in apology or comfort as long as he stayed here like this with him forever.
It wasn't quite forever, but Hikaru stayed with Kaoru for a very long time. Kaoru's phone rang a few times from the pocket of his shorts, but the two of them ignored it in favor of each other. Hikaru didn't dare give Kaoru the slightest reason to worry and Kaoru silently thanked him for it. Finally, though, they knew that the phone calls were certainly Haruhi wondering where the pair was and what was taking them so long, so Kaoru reluctantly allowed Hikaru to call her back and explain the situation. What he didn't expect was for Hikaru to remove himself, not only from the bed, but the room entire, and take the call in private, pouring salt into a wound that hadn't yet stopped bleeding.
When Hikaru pulled open the door again, Kaoru was gone from the bed. Kaoru was gone from the room. Knowing that Hikaru would have to go back to their bedroom to get his phone, he had taken the opportunity to leave and to migrate elsewhere. The house was more than large enough to accomodate a good game of hide-and-seek and that was what Kaoru was counting on right now. It was childish and stupid of him, but that was exactly how Kaoru felt so it seemed only appropriate. He went looking for the most obscure part of the house that he could find, eventually settling on a particularly large closet in a room that was last used when family came to visit, and that was years ago.
He knew Hikaru had reentered the room when he received a text message from him shortly thereafter asking where he had gone. Kaoru replied quickly with, "Just go pick up Haruhi." Hikaru wrote back about his unamusement. Kaoru wrote back with insistance that she had waited long enough already. Then he wrote back again before Hikaru could respond with, "You two need the time to connect."
That was when Hikaru found him huddled in the empty closet as if he'd known exactly where he was all along. "More than that, I need to stay here."
"No, Hikaru. We've needed this separation all along."
"We didn't need it like this."
"This is how it came."
There was another long, heavy pause as the twins just watched each other. For once, there was no secret communication; they were now on completely different pages. After a long time, Kaoru stood up and moved to embrace his other half. It was much like the one they had shared over breakfast on that day not so long ago: close and safe but with the sickening feel of a farewell. Kaoru finally managed to suppress his tears, but Hikaru was not so lucky.
"You will always have me," he said. "Forever."
Kaoru nodded. "I know that you'll never leave me."
Hikaru seemed placated by that answer, as if that was all that he needed to hear to feel comfortable leaving for his trip with Haruhi. It would be the longest time the twins had ever spent apart in their lives, and neither knew how the other was going to cope anymore than they knew how they themselves would cope.