A/N: I write too much angst. Therefore, twincest fluff. **To anyone who is waiting for a continuation of Fearful Symmetry, I'm working on a sequel called Axis Illuminated that should be published soon; be on the lookout for it and please review! Sorry it's taking so long. :(

This fic is a result of angst overload and writer's block. It wasn't really a serious project. It was more like: oh shit, this idea won't go away and I'm supposed to be writing something else, so I'd better kill it in the most humane way possible. Yup. It's that fic.

So it might not be spectacular, but I hope you'll like it anyway. :)

Trial Run

The Hitachiin twins could only stare in bemusement at the foreigner, both awed and a little apprehensive. A Host Club. And he wanted them, two sullen third-year middle schoolers who never wanted anything to do with others, much less the opposite sex. What made Suoh think that would catch their attention? Why would Hikaru and Kaoru be the slightest bit interested in entertaining high school girls? He saw what they did to the letters…

And yet, they were interested. A little. If only because the guy was persistent, and they were so used to people giving up after a few tries. Tamaki Suoh wouldn't let up. He seemed to be genuine, if not a bit of an idiot, and really wanted them in his club.

Hikaru and Kaoru ate dinner quietly that night. To the staff that served their household, it might have looked identical to any other meal at which their parents were again absent, but the brothers knew this silence was different. It was contemplative.

"Hey…Hikaru…" They were finally alone in their room, and the door had barely closed yet. "Have you thought about it?"

Hikaru looked at his brother as if to say, what else have we been doing, but Kaoru shook his head.

"I mean about everything. The brotherly love."

Suddenly Hikaru gagged, choking on his tea in a noisy coughing fit. Kaoru, having been alarmed, thudded on his back.

"Hikaru! Are you okay?"

"Yes, I'm fine," he gasped. "I mean…yeah, I've thought about it a little."

"Then we should make a decision."

Dammit, he thought. He'd hoped Kaoru would have been on the same track. Did he really not intend to shove Suoh's plan in his face and tell him to think of a better one?

Hikaru sighed, loosely wrapping his arms around Kaoru from behind.

"I bet it wouldn't be too boring, at first anyway," he conceded. "And rejecting those stupid girls is getting old."

Hikaru could tell he'd said something right, the way Kaoru's slow smile suggested he'd just considered a new angle.

"It would be better to tease them instead. Lead them on."

"But it wouldn't be," Hikaru said, completing his thought. "They won't bother us—"

"—if they think we're in love with each other."

Their smiles were wide and full of mirth, their minds bursting with the beginnings of plans. If they could work it right, this Host Club would be far from boring. They'd always assumed controversy would make things harder, but this, this, so deliberate and provocative…it could work to their advantage.

"I'm not entirely sure what to do with you," Tamaki murmured. "We have everyone else's characters figured out. Kyouya is the cool type and token glasses character, Haninozuka-senpai is our lolishota…"

The twins' eyes drooped with apathy as the princely type jabbered on about the club. They couldn't help but wonder if they'd made a mistake, indulging Suoh in his shallow, idealistic goal.

"I thought you had us pegged for twincest, boss," Hikaru deadpanned.

"Yeah, what happened to our brotherly love?" Kaoru asked.

They squeezed together closer on the loveseat, reaching their hands out and flattening them against the other's palm—a perfect mirror image. Their foreheads nearly touched, and their lips briefly stretched in devilish smirks…before morphing into identically devastated expressions. Kaoru bowed his head.

"Oh, Hikaru," he whimpered. "What have we agreed to? How will I go on without expressing my love to you in front of each simple-minded female that requests our presence?"

"Don't worry, brother, our love is strong no matter what—!"

"This might be worse than Tamaki," Kyouya muttered to himself as he watched, scrawling a short note every now and then. "Except much more fabricated. I do see opportunity, though."

This Shadow King guy was staring at the twins with an odd kind of lust and it was making them a little uncomfortable. Kyouya sure had a one-track mind; the ever-running commentary of profit profit profit circling around in his head was almost tangible.

"Kyouya, you're right!" Tamaki exclaimed. "This is what we were missing! I hadn't thought of doing that…"

"Doing what?" the twins demanded, dropping their arms to the side.

"Can you just decide something already?"

"We're bored."

"If you can't figure it out, we'll just wing it—"

"—or quit."

"We don't exactly need to be here."

"Yeah, we've got better things to do."

The way Tamaki's mouth dropped open was comical. He actually looked scared—although what he was scared of was a mystery. The chance of quitting the club before it began, the way their eyes narrowed straight at him, their voices growing sharper and colder with each sentence…?

"No, no, I have it all figured out," Tamaki said, gaining back his confidence with a flourish. "You'll still be the devil types!"

Hikaru sighed and leaned against his brother's shoulder, waiting for an elaboration.

"Mischievous, not-quite-innocent twins," he went on, "specializing in symmetry."

"Of course, you already knew that," Kyouya interjected. "There's no need to rehash what has already been discussed. Tamaki, tell them what you thought of just a minute ago."

Tamaki laughed, an irritating, self-important sound. And did he just…flip his hair?

With a dazzling smile, he pointed at Hikaru. "You're the uke and Kaoru is the seme!"

"What!" Hikaru yelled, brow twitching in anger. "Why me? Kaoru is much more fitted for that position—he's younger, after all—"

"Shut up, why should a few minutes count toward something like that?"

"Pecking order!"

"But we're the same age, Hikaru—"

Kyouya's note-taking grew quick and feverish; he seemed to be having an epiphany of sorts. However, his mental processes were overshadowed by the bickering.

"—and even if I'm younger, I'm definitely more mature than you! How many times did you have to jump out of that damn tree in the courtyard until figuring out you'd just keep getting hurt?"

"I was six!"

"So was I, but at least I figured it out before you—"

Tamaki joined Kyouya by the window, merely blinking at the twins, and whispered, "This is bad. I thought they never fought."

"I wouldn't call this a fight, just a disagreement…and this could benefit us, to tell you the truth. I've had a few ideas."

"Like what?"

In his excitement, Tamaki swiveled his head around to check on Hikaru and Kaoru; the insults seemed to have died down. Instead they were locked in a fierce staring match, nose to nose.

Kyouya cleared his throat. "Hitachiins. I'd like to get this settled before next term, so here's what I'd like you to do…"

They reluctantly broke eye contact and crossed their arms. Hikaru scoffed.

"Look, we're done here. It's already messed up enough that you want us to pretend to be in love."

"We were almost okay with that," Kaoru explained, "but designating a clear-cut seme and uke is too boring."

Kyouya only smiled. "I agree. That's why I want you to practice."

Well…that was the last thing they expected. Kyouya seemed to go to extremes more often than not, and that could only mean when he said practice—

"Practice…what…?" they choked out.

"Get a feel for the act yourselves. Come up with a script, at the very least. I'll be the judge of its efficiency."

If they were only there to alleviate their boredom and play with girls' affections, why did it feel like Kyouya Ootori was the real manipulator here?

"So," Kaoru started awkwardly, "um…"

Hikaru coughed quietly. "Right."

After Kyouya had briefed them about the specifics of his request in the third music room of the high school that day, the two brothers were stuck with a permanent, deep shade of red coloring their faces. They sat at the foot of their bed, on opposite corners, determined to not look at each other too much.

"Okay," Kaoru sighed. "I know it's weird. But I think we should…you know…do what he says."

"Do you think so…?"

"We don't want to disappoint the club, I guess."

Hikaru wanted to say, screw the club, but instead he mumbled an affirmative.

"It's not that much different than what we usually do," Kaoru said, trying to be encouraging. "Pretending to be each other and all that. It's just pretending. And we do love each other."

"But—but Kaoru! We don't play punishment games!" Hikaru said, sounding a tad desperate. "We definitely don't own whips and chains and—Kaoru, why do you look guilty?"

"I don't," he said quickly. He might have been thinking about it, you know, out of curiosity.

This was awkward. For some reason Hikaru couldn't shake off the nerves, so he grabbed his brother's hand out of instinct. It was odd under these circumstances, but Kaoru wasn't in a position to decline. Hikaru was clenching his hand hard enough to bruise.

"You should probably relax, Hikaru."

"Right," he said automatically, letting go of his hand and pulling his own into his lap. After a moment, he grumbled, "Why is this so weird?"

"Huh," Kaoru said. "I dunno. I mean, we've even kissed before."

"Not like this."

"It's just an act. Right?"

"Right," he breathed. "Okay…"

Neither of them were sure who started it, but they were sitting side by side again. They didn't know who started this, either—their heads tilted closer together, hesitant and unsure, and Kaoru situated his hand on Hikaru's knee to steady himself.

…And that was the end of Hikaru's patience.

"Just get on with it," he growled, gripping the back of Kaoru's neck, feeling the soft strands of hair underneath his fingers.

And crushed their lips together in an anxiety-ridden kiss.

Kaoru made a small sound in the back of his throat. He tried to move his head back a little, but found no way to do so with Hikaru holding him in place. After half a second he realized his efforts were futile and pressed himself closer. Might as well make it worth the trouble.

Hikaru took this as a positive development. At least they'd done something right. He figured the harsh, angry kissing would probably not convince anyone of their heart-wrenching forbidden love—did Kyouya want them to do this for the clients?—so he eased up a little, trying as much as he could to be a little gentler. It was definitely better.

Curiously, he darted out his tongue to taste him. It was odd how the only thing he could think at the moment was that Kaoru had very soft, warm, and dry lips. Then he realized his would feel the same. He bit back a laugh…probably wasn't the best time for hysteria.

He was enjoying this too much, anyway.

As he let the kiss progress and deepen, he noticed he felt a bit lightheaded—oh, and Kaoru's arms were around his middle, like he wanted no space between them at all…well, Hikaru understood that. There was something addictive in the way they clutched at each other; suddenly they weren't touching enough. How did they go this long without wanting more, wanting to be like this? The body heat they shared, the rigid muscles underneath his palm becoming more supple as his hands wandered, just kept touching and needing—

It was frustrating. Goddamn hormones.

Finally, Hikaru couldn't take anymore. He pushed Kaoru off, ignoring his involuntary intake of breath at the loss of contact.

"Um…so…"

"Yeah."

They just sort of stared at each other in shock, like what the hell did we just do?

"I don't think Kyouya wants us to do that in front of others," Kaoru said helpfully.

"I wouldn't even if he told me to."

"Ah—right, neither would I. It'd probably just get boring."

Hikaru shook his head. "That's not the problem. I just found out there's such a thing as too interesting."

Sometime around three in the morning, Kaoru couldn't sleep. There was something that had been bugging him. Something about Kyouya and his request was a little…off…

"Hikaru," he whispered. "Wake up."

"Whadywan," Hikaru said into his pillow. Kaoru easily translated that, because his brother made a pretty impressive habit out of making speech sound unrecognizable while half-asleep.

"I wanna talk. Sit up."

Hikaru kicked off the remainder of sheets that hadn't found its way to the floor and sat up, eyeing Kaoru unhappily.

"Kyouya said to 'get a feel for it' and write a script, right?"

"Yeah," Hikaru yawned. "And then he told us the things we should say, or hint at, whatever…something about S&M…"

"Exactly. He said to practice."

Hikaru blinked at him. "Yes. And we did. Your point?"

"He…he never told us to kiss, Hikaru. I have no idea why we immediately jumped to that conclusion."

He watched as Hikaru's eyes, first lidded with sleepiness and incomprehension, widened in understanding and probably a little mortification.

You can't be serious.

Kaoru wondered if he should feel the same. Sure, there was a bit of embarrassment, loads of discomfort, but he couldn't help but somehow feel satisfied.

His twin was obviously having problems. Possibly an identity crisis or something equally life-changing, if he could judge by the look of pure self-doubt written all over his face.

Hikaru fell face-first onto the mattress and groaned.

"It's that damn Shadow King, Kaoru, I swear. He's like a mind ninja. He's screwing with us."

Kaoru quickly agreed, although he had the vaguest feeling they were just looking for somewhere to place the blame.

"He's worse than Suoh," Hikaru continued. "He called me an uke! I'm definitely the seme, don't you think?"

"Yeah, sure." He paused. "But…seriously…I can keep the seme title. Right?" There was no answer, and he could have sworn Hikaru's breathing was beginning to level out. Shit.

"He's got to agree," Kaoru whispered before falling asleep himself. "It's only logical."

…Oh, Kaoru.