Kaoru is four years old.
His mother holds his hand in one of her own and his twin's in the other. Her breasts are bare and proud. Everyone on this beach is naked, and so is he. He thinks nothing of it and is unafraid of the sand and ocean before him.
His father brings him to art museums, catering both to the classic and the obscure, the famous and the overlooked. They admire, amongst the other masterpieces, countless odes to the human form. Oil-paints the color of flesh, statues without fig leaves. He channels this admiration into his first designs. Where should the fabric hug, where should it hang? The beauty of the final product is as much about the garment as it is about the body underneath.
He is nine when the nanny decides it is high-time for his brother and him to bathe separately. He disagrees. He is twelve when the maids move his mattress to the other end of the bedroom, disturbed upon discovering Hikaru's new habit of kicking off his boxers in the middle of the night. Kaoru simply moves it back.
For all the nuisance, he is slightly amused by the alarm. Do these adults honestly think that the mere sight of his brother will render him a demon of lust? The brother he has been beside since the moment of conception? Kaoru refuses to hide his body for the sake of such superstitions. What the rest of Japan calls "modesty," he calls ignorance. Hikaru and he make this widespread weakness into a game. They learn to stand too close to others when they speak, to make them uncomfortable with easy and meaningless touches. It is around this age that the rumors start. Middle school girls project their fantasies onto anyone but themselves, and middle school boys project their fears onto each other. Whereas the grade school counselor was concerned with "separation anxiety," the middle school counselor is concerned by something she will not name. She requests that the twins not hold hands in her office. Kaoru understands, so he pretends not to hear.
He is a fourteen-year-old host when his first concerns for "normalcy" occur. He and his twin have sworn off girls and boys alike at an age when cravings are evident. Kaoru knows exactly what his feelings for his brother are and are not, but he worries for Hikaru, who is wont to misname his own emotions. How easy might it be for the elder to turn to the only warm body he trusts? To feel for him what he refuses to feel for others? The Hitachiin lineage has made eccentricity into a brand, and Kaoru is not disgusted by what modesty and ignorance call "taboo". He is, however, afraid to see his brother suffocate. Despite knowing what his feelings are not, this fear does not leave him.
He is fifteen when a fellow named Haruhi sees through his tricks. He is fifteen when a fellow named Haruhi ignores him. When he speaks, she does not have much to say. When he touches her, she does not react. Humanist rather than nonconformist, idealist rather than elitist, she has learned to accept, where he has learned to provoke. He wants her attention, and his brother wants her heart. But his brother is afraid to leave behind what he knows, so Kaoru leaves instead, finally brave enough to destroy what nannies, rumors, and counselors could not. Hikaru's knees refuse to buckle under the pressure of normalcy, though. He returns with reassurance and brown hair. Adam and Eve were unashamed of their beauty before a fruit told them to be. They forgot how love was before the desperation, before the doubt. "But I know you remember."
Kaoru is four years old, unafraid of the sand and ocean before him.