"Hikaru!"

"I'm sorry Kaoru, I just can't resist…"

Girls squealed as they came so close they could almost kiss…

"Hikaru, Kaoru, your mother wants to see you."

"Sure," they responded when they got in from school, taking off their shoes and following their twin maids through to their mother's study. Mrs Hitachiin was sat in her high-backed office chair and looked none too pleased as her twin sons wandered in.

"What do you think you're playing at?"

Kaoru and Hikaru looked at each other, unsure of what they could have done.

"I was in a meeting today and one of my clients happened to mention how much his daughter liked to go to the Host Club at school. How she always talked about my sons acting like incestuous nymphomaniacs! Explain yourselves!"

Hikaru looked at his brother questioningly.

"Yumiko," Kaoru answered.

"Oh…yeah she's been designating us every day this week."

This didn't seem to impress their mother as her face flushed red.

"You admit to this! What do you think you're playing at? You're dragging your family name through the mud for what?"

Kaoru shrugged, somewhat chastened, but his brother was remorseless.

"At least it's not boring."

"I have obviously been giving you boys too much leeway. To think that you could even pretend to…From now on you will be in separate bedrooms and go to separate schools," she continued, ignoring the loud protests from her boys, "no arguments! Go to your rooms right now! Separately!"

"No!! You can't!"

Servants appeared from either side forcibly separating the two as they clung to each other, calling each other's names, reaching out as they were pulled further and further away.

Later Mrs Hitachiin went up to see Kaoru. He had sent a servant down with a message that he wanted to talk to her. She could hear Hikaru still occasionally yelling in their old room and was quite glad that it was Kaoru who wanted to talk.

"You wanted to see me?" She asked as she opened the door, preparing herself for whatever her younger son threw at her in the way of emotional blackmail.

But Kaoru was sat calmly on the foot of his new bed, eyes red, but without the calculating look she had expected to see. He nodded quite calmly.

"Monday…the new school. Send me, not Hikaru."

She was not all that surprised, she knew her sons well enough to know who was truly the stronger of the two. She softened a little, sitting next to him on the bed.

"If you want. You do know it's for the best don't you? Imagine what will happen when one of you gets a girlfriend."

He nodded, but tears ran down his face as he hunched, clamping his hands between his knees to keep himself together. Gently she wrapped an arm around him, but he shrugged it off and she stood to go.

Haruhi was not the first to notice that something was wrong on Monday morning. Before Hikaru had even got to class the buzz was everywhere: only one Hitachiin had come to school!

When Hikaru finally made it to class the room went silent. It was clear as he took his seat that something was terribly wrong.

"Hikaru?" Haruhi asked gently as he took his seat. "Is everything alright? Where's Kaoru? Is he sick?"

"He's not sick." Hikaru said brusquely. "He's at a different school."

"What?" Haruhi asked, but class started and she didn't have a chance to ask more.

Between classes Haruhi managed to piece together what had happened and by the time they were heading up to the third music room after school had already fielded more questions from nosy girls than she ever thought possible.

There was a large closed sign on the door in Tamaki's unmistakeable scrawl when they got there, making them both pause and turn to look at each other before opening the door. Quick footsteps and they were pulled unceremoniously inside, door slamming behind them.

"We have to do something!! We've heard all about it! Such tragedy! Such drama! We simply must reunite these two star-crossed brothers!"

"You did say 'brothers' right?" Haruhi asked worriedly as Tamaki took a breath.

"Hika-chan, are you ok?" Hunny's quiet voice piped up as he pulled the redhead's sleeve.

"I'm fine…" Hikaru scrubbed at his eyes with his sleeve, blushing profusely. "I haven't been able to sleep. It's too weird without Kaoru. We've never been apart for this long before."

Tamaki pulled him close with an arm around his shoulders. "Ah! Such bravery in the face of adversity!"

"Get off me!" Hikaru griped, shrugging Tamaki off.

"We need to get Kaoru back." Haruhi said.

"Well, we can't! I haven't even seen him in almost three days! Besides even if we did go and find him Mum's determined."

Kyouya pushed his glasses up his nose. "I think I can deal with that. And Kaoru has been placed at ----- High School. Not a great school, but at least it's not far away. A car is waiting for us."

Hikaru ran for the door and the others followed at a more leisurely pace.

"I was going to go there if I didn't get the scholarship here." Haruhi mentioned.

Kyouya just cocked an eyebrow. "Like I said…"

Kaoru had not been having the best first day at a new school ever.

He hadn't slept all weekend away from Hikaru. He imagined he would get used to it, though it didn't make for the best frame of mind to start a new school, especially a rich kid starting in a commoner's school.

More than one kid sneered as he introduced himself, making comments about his parent's money as he took his seat. Just about everyone laughed at him in the cafeteria as he asked what the miscellaneous dishes were and then realised he hadn't brought any money with him, expecting it all to be prepaid. The dinnerladies took pity on him and let him take his lunch on the proviso that he paid twice the next day and he thanked them and took a seat only to have a gang of obnoxious boys sit on the table next to his and make sneering comments the whole time he was eating. He was afraid to leave the cafeteria on his own with them so close by and so ate slowly, managing to make it last the whole of lunch hour and then practically running back to class. He got lost between classes more than once and had to apologise for being late. The teachers were nice about it, but it didn't make him feel any less embarrassed.

When he saw the gang of boys who had been bothering him hanging around outside after school he ducked into the toilets, shutting himself in a cubicle. It was just too much and he was too tired to be dealing with these bullies and before he knew it he was sobbing.

"Hello? Is someone in here? Are you ok?"

It was a voice he recognised from class, though he couldn't remember the kid's name.

"Leave me alone."

"…ok."

There was the sound of the boy peeing and then a flush. As he heard the taps run Kaoru felt brave enough to open the cubicle door.

"Are those guys still out there?" He asked timorously.

The boy paused, then nodded.

"Why?! What do they want with me?!"

The kid shrugged. "They pick on everyone, usually me."

"At my old school there weren't any bullies…"

"Really? I thought there were bullies everywhere."

"Not at Ouran-"

"You went there?! What I wouldn't give to go there! Why did you leave?"

Kaoru drew up his knees to the toilet seat and buried his face in his arms to hide the tears that threatened to spill again.

"It's a long story."

There was a long pause.

"I better go, are you going to be ok?" The kid asked.

"Yeah…thanks."

Kaoru tried a smile, the other boy returning it more successfully.

Yuki saw the bullies still waiting for Kaoru and sighed deeply.

"Why don't you just leave him alone?" He called as he went passed, but did not stop to wait for an answer, hurrying towards the school gates before they could think to pick on him instead. But when he got close he found himself rooted to the spot. Kaoru was at the front gate with a group of guys in Ouran uniforms…good looking guys, Yuki thought and felt himself blush.

"Excuse me," a small guy with dark hair asked, "Have you seen our friend?"

"He looks like me," Hikaru interrupted.

"Uh…yeah, he's in the toilets," Yuki pointed in the direction only to see the Ouran Kaoru run right towards the bullies, who seemed just as surprised at finding Kaoru outside the toilets and in an Ouran uniform, but willing to take advantage of it none the less.

"Hey rich boy where do you think you're going?" Setsuna asked, squaring up to Hikaru and pushing him as his friends gathered round only to suddenly jerk backwards.

Yuki hadn't even seen the little blond kid move but he had a guy four times his weight leaning back in agony, completely pinned. Still, the guys friends didn't look too happy and Yuki was about to intervene when he felt a hand on his shoulder and looked up into the face of a dark haired young man with a serious face and glasses.

"Just enjoy the show," he advised.

"Did you hurt Kao-chan's feelings?" The little kid asked sounding surprisingly dangerous.

"No permanent injuries please Hunny!" A tall blond yelled as a blur of movement left the bullies lying prone on the floor.

"Tamaki?" Kaoru asked as he appeared from the toilets, his eyes still a little red. "Hikaru!" He cried as he saw his twin, running towards him.

"Kaoru!" The other yelled, running too until they came together, arms flung around each other, squeezing each other tightly.

"Now isn't that touching," the bespectacled guy said from behind him without a touch of emotion in his voice to betray how he truly felt about the scene that had unfolded before them.

The twins walked over to where Setsuna and the others lay on the playground with their arms still around each other's shoulders. Hunny looked down on his adversaries in a disappointed way, as if he had been hoping for something more.

"Why look what we have here Kaoru?"

"Yes Hikaru. Looks like there's dog shit all over the playground."

"Someone really ought to clean that up."

"I think Hunny's already done enough."

"Let's go" they said in unison, holding hands as they made their way to the long car Kyouya had found to ferry them all back to Ouran.

Hikaru and Kaoru had looked so tired when they got back to school, still refusing to let go of each other's hands even to get in and out of the car, that Hunny ceded the wide couch he usually used for a bed to them. They lay down on it face to face, though it still looked a little uncomfortable. Silently, Mori put down another bench next to the first so they weren't so cramped and the other host club members retreated to let them sleep, wrapped in each other's arms.

"I still don't know what we can do about their parents," Haruhi began.

The light glinted off Kyouya's glasses, making him seemed less than human for a split second as he smiled.

"It's already been taken care of."

No one asked what Kyouya had done to convince the Hitachiins that their sons should not be separated again, but the twins public reunion at school brought in the highest profits since the host club opened and Haruhi couldn't help wondering just Kyouya did with it all…