Hey there!
So new story, and I understand I'll be picking up hopefully a bunch of new Skyders, so welcome if that's you! If you've come from my blog or another story, then thanks for checking in!
This is the first story not for the Maximum Ride fandom, that I'm actually serious about. Like not Tetris or a Merlin parody.
I hope you like it, more ramble at the end!
Disclaimer: I don't own Ouran (sadly) nor anything familiar, but the two OCs that appear briefly in some of the chapters are of my creation!
ENJOY!
Chapter 1 - Truth is truth, no matter how sad
Kaoru POV
"You can run, but you can't hide..." Lee taunted. And as much as he wished, Kaoru knew he was right... And with every breath, and every step, they closed in behind him.
Just gotta get to the top floor, he told himself as he bounded up the stairs. But it was a lie. Kaoru actually had much farther to go, but he knew he wouldn't make it that far.
"Almost there..." he muttered as he reached the next flight of stairs. His eyes were filled with tears, the wind smashing against his open wounds. Kaoru's pale face, was more so than usual, and his soft red hair, caked with mud, sweat and blood.
This wasn't the first time they had gotten to him. Lee and Kanata have always bullied Kaoru, but this was the worst they had done yet.
His cheek was split, his chest bruising, his leg was throbbing more and more with each step. But Kaoru knew it would be worse if he stopped.
Kaoru knew he was the weaker twin, softer and less aggressive, the gentler one, so this was probably his fault, he thought. He needed to stand up for himself more, at least that's what Tamaki said when Kaoru told him.
-flashback-
"Kaoru, you know I say this with all kindness intended, but you really need to start taking better care of yourself, and stand up for yourself, you know... Hikaru won't always be there to protect you..." Tamaki said gently, watching for a reaction from Kaoru, but all he did was flinch at the mention of his twin. "He doesn't know, does he?" Tamaki asked. Kaoru shook his head shyly, before looking up to his friend.
"Don't tell him, please... I... I don't want him to worry about me..." Kaoru pleaded.
"I won't. But just know, there is a difference between worrying and caring..." Tamaki smiled carefully, holding Kaoru's gaze with his deep blue, almost purple, eyes.
-end of flashback-
"He's up there!" Kanata boomed, bringing Kaoru out of his daze.
He stumbled up the stairs, and was almost at the top when someone grabbed his shirt and pulled him backwards.
For half a second, Kaoru thought, or maybe just hoped, it was Hikaru, but it was too rough to be his brother. Instead it was Lee and Kanata.
Kaoru was greeted by a punch in the stomach, square in the solar-plexus. He buckled over, clutching his stomach, gasping for air, as fresh tears rolled down his face, and the pair of boys pelted him with punches and insults.
Kanata took the first blow, then pushed his boot into Kaoru's shoulder, forcing him to the ground so that the boys could continue to beat him. They took turns tormenting him, pulling at his red hair, ripping at the blue uniform blazer he wore, punching him, kicking him and just plain beating him up.
"You know, this really is your fault..." Lee shouted at Kaoru between blows. "If you weren't so pathetic, you would never have been in this situation..."
Kaoru just tried his best to ignore them and come up with a way to distract them, just for long enough to get away.
"Hey butt-breath!" he heard someone call out. No. Not 'someone', but Tamaki.
The boys let up long enough for Kaoru to see that it was . "Tamaki?" he whimpered, half because he was in pain from the beatings, but also because he was scared for his friend.
"Why don't you leave him alone!" Tamaki said as he walked closer.
"Ha!" Kanata scoffed. "You and what army?" Kaoru strained his neck up to see what was happening. In a single moment Kanata's foot was removed from Kaoru, and if he had blinked, he would've missed Lee's dark blonde hair being grabbed, and thrown at Kanata, much like a bowling pin.
"We may not be an army, but we can sure as hell take one down," Honey-sempai said menacingly. Well, as menacing as a Lolita-boy with a very premature voice can be. His cousin stood at his side, agreeing with a deep 'mm.'
Kanata and Lee leapt up from the floor and ran at the two cousins, but that was all Kaoru saw before Tamaki ran over and helped him up.
"Quickly now, we don't have a lot of time..." Tamaki whispered as he pulled Kaoru up. "Honey and Mori can keep them busy, yes, but we don't want an all out fight... Not here, not now..." Kaoru knew what he meant... Yes, they deserved it, but the club didn't need anyone to think they were condoning violence.
Kaoru had no sooner gotten to his feet, when Tamaki whisked him around the corner, out of harm's way. It was there that Tamaki check to see if Kaoru was okay, properly.
"Oh, Kaoru..." he sighed, wiping some dust off Kaoru's back, as if that was the worst thing that had happened. Tamaki then turned Kaoru around to see how bad it was from the front.
Kaoru's cheek was swollen and cut, already starting to bruise. His hair was still a mess of blood, mud and sweat, but now it was tangled and his scalp was aching from the boys yanking at it. His chest hurt every time he took in a breath. His neck had clicked out of place, and his back felt cut up.
The pain was too much for Kaoru, so much that when Tamaki pulled him in to a comforting hug, he didn't resist.
"Kaoru?" called the familiar voice of Hikaru. "Kaoru, if running away from me is some kind of joke, it's not fun..." Hikaru cut himself off midsentence when he saw his twin in the arms of Tamaki, eyes so close to crying, it looked like they already had been. It was easy to see how quickly Hikaru's rage boiled up, as well as his shock, fear and love.
He bolted over to the pair, and stopped just short of them, when Tamaki stepped back to allow the brothers to face each other.
"Hi-Hikaru," Kaoru breathed when he felt his twin's presence. He was doing his best to avoid Hikaru's golden eyes.
Even though Hikaru wanted to comfort his brother, to ask him what happened, he just found himself counting the wounds on Kaoru's pale face, the pain each breath showed him and the way his hair was coated in gunk.
"I'm so sorry Hikaru," Kaoru muttered as he ran off. It took Hikaru a moment to gauge what had just happened. In a flash, he had taken off after his younger twin, and was quickly catching up to him, when Kaoru stumbled on an out of place tile. Reacting only on whim, Hikaru reached out to catch his brother, spinning him around when he did so that Kaoru was in his arms.
"Why are you sorry?" Hikaru whispered gently. "I just want to know a few things, okay Kao?"
"Yes," Kaoru responded, a little taken aback at how quickly he went from falling to being in Hikaru's arms. Not that he minded.
"Who did this to you?" Hikaru asked.
"Kanata Shui and Lee Onsa," Kaoru answered quickly, and honestly. He felt Hikaru's grip tighten around him, ever so subtly that Hikaru himself probably didn't even notice, when he said the boys' names.
"How long has this been happening?"
"Um..." Kaoru stalled to think about how long it had been. Then he remembered. "Middle school." It was the one day that the class teacher split the two of them up. Kaoru was stuck with Shui and Onsa in a group, and Hikaru was put into a group with two girls, neither of whom got any attention from the older twin.
-flashback-
"Which one are you?" Lee demanded.
"If you can't tell, then you don't need to," Kaoru answered flippantly. In an attempt to throw the boys off his trail, he slid his arm over the name on his text books.
"You're Kaoru, aren't you?" Kanata said, reading the initials on his book bag. Kaoru froze. Why would they want to know who I am, anyway? he thought to himself.
"Yeah," he answered, not coming up with a good enough reason to lie to them. After all, what harm could come?
"Well listen up, Kaoru," Lee said. "If you think you can look down on us, think again." With that, Kanata punched him fair in the shoulder, as if to emphasise what they were saying.
They were in those groups for a whole term. Each time, Kaoru would take a beating of sorts, and get a threat; if he told anyone, there would be hell to pay.
Gradually, the boys figured out which one was which just by the way they talked and their actions. Kaoru was a forgiving person, less likely to try and punch you if you got on his bad side.
So, they could tell which one to bully, and which one to leave alone.
-end of flashback-
Hikaru was still frozen from the shock announcement. His twin had been getting bullied since they were in middle school, and Hikaru never found out?
"Why didn't you tell me?" Hikaru whispered out his last question as more of a shock than the last had been. "Don't you trust me?"
"Hika, that's not it. It's just that... I didn't want you worrying about me... I just didn't want you to stress out about my problems... It was affecting you when even the slightest thing happened to me, so I couldn't imagine what it would be like with something like this..." Kaoru pressed.
"So, how did you hide it from me all these years?" Hikaru asked with tears pricking in his eyes, threatening to break the barrier of his eyes at any second.
"Well, I never had any open wounds, and if I did they were small enough to be overlooked. So I used concealer to cover it up... And emotionally, I just smiled as much as I could and constantly reminded myself that if you found out, it would make you so upset that I knew I wouldn't handle if you were..." Kaoru explained carefully.
"Last question... Why did you go to all that trouble to keep me happy?" Hikaru asked, looking into his twin's eyes for the first time since he started with the questions...
"I was afraid you'd ask this..." Kaoru said lightly. He knew why, it was just... It was going to be hard to explain this to his brother... "Because, Hikaru... I... I love you." Kaoru watched his twin intently and he registered what was just said.
"Yeah, I love you too, Kao," Hikaru replied flippantly.
"No," Kaoru muttered. "That's not what I meant..." Kaoru held the pause out to figure a way to get it through to his twin what he meant. "Not just like brothers..." He said the last bit the quietest so that Hika mightn't hear. But he did.
"What?" Hikaru asked. He was pretty sure he knew what was said, but wanted to know he wasn't imagining this.
Apparently his voice played up the emotion because Kaoru had tears begin to silently fall from his eyes. "Oh, you heard me, Hika. I know you did," he stuttered through his quivering lips... "I'm sorry if it was out of place, but I said I love you." And with that, Kaoru was off again, running back past where he and Tamaki had stood moments ago, past the stairs he had the fight on, and down into the main courtyard, turning to run behind the building.
"God, you're an idiot Kaoru!" He screamed at himself, as he slid his back against the wall and slipped down so he was sitting. He pulled his knees to his chest and rested his forehead against the tops of his knees, letting the sobs flow and the tears fall.
So what did you think? The idea for the story actually came to me just after I had to present a speech to my English class. I died, to say the least.
Sorry if any characters were off, still getting used to working with these guys. I'm more used to working with OCs or book characters, so this is a first.
And now on to the fun stuff!
As you may know from my other stories, I do a "pretty little question" at the end of every chapter, to learn a little about you guys and sometimes because I genuinely need help. Let's start with something simple, hey?
PLQ: Rain or sun?
MY PLA: Rain. It's so much more relaxing and better weather to write!
So this is about it for this chapter! I don't tend to update until I have a reasonable amount of reviews or it's been a week, whichever happens first. So if we could hit ten I'd be stoked! All reviews accepted, except flames... No flames...
But I allow anonymous reviews, so don't let laziness or a lack of account stop you!
Hope you've enjoyed and I'll see you all next time!
Fly high, Skyders!
Love, Kate!
