Title: "A Hitachiin Day Off"
Author: LegolasLover2003 aka Ashley
Category: Anime/Manga - Ouran High School Host Club
Genre: Cute/Family
Rating: G
Disclaimer: I do not own any rights to "Ouran High School Host Club". I just think it's the best reverse harem shoujo manga/anime out there really.
A Hitachiin Day Off
There was one thing in their world which truly set the twins apart. One small detail that many people overlooked or simply failed to notice. Even in their own household, the maids and servants, the butler even, had always neglected to take this tiny discrepancy into account...
Kaoru Hitachiin hated being cold.
Of course there were times when a good chill was necessary, especially on a winter's day, the snow piled up high to the windows and bits of frost clinging to the glass. But even on such days, Kaoru had always been well bundled up. His brother's hand clasping his own, Kaoru knew that he would even endure the cold if his twin was happy.
Days like today however, had no reason for him to remain chilled.
Oh yes, it had snowed the previous night, blanketing the grounds like fluffy white clouds. It had snowed so much however, that even the idea of a snowball fight had flittered from the minds of the Hitachiin brothers.
It was a lazy day now... A day to keep indoors and to forget about the wind's bitter chill.
Laying on the floor next to a massive fireplace, Hikaru Hitachiin was idly flipping through the pages of a manga. He had borrowed it from Haruhi Fujioka, as what was usually deemed as an 'exercise in the practices of a commoner'. According to her, it was rather funny and so, Hikaru had asked if he could read it when she was finished. At first, his request had seemed a bit odd, especially given that Haruhi hardly seemed like the type to enjoy manga. However, she had insisted that it was fun comparing the manga, 'Gensoumaden Saiyuki' to the tale 'Journey to the West', after which it had been patterned. Of course, Hikaru couldn't understand why that would be fun but... then again... it was Haruhi and the girl seemed to have a rather skewed sense of the word.
So now, Hikaru lay on his stomach, his legs bent into the air behind him, as he listened to the popping of burning wood in the fireplace and simply tried to enjoy this 'commoner's treat'.
As for his counterpart, Kaoru was curled in a maroon armchair a few feet behind his twin. His golden eyes fixed on the hearth and the flames dancing within. He held a book in his lap, 'Confessions of an English Opium Eater', open to page 124, with a dark blue satin bookmark placed between the pages... but Kaoru wasn't reading, at least not anymore.
Now... he was cold...
Sighing, he pulled the dark green blanket the lay just over his lap, up around his chest, tucking it under both arms in an attempt to try and stave off some of the chill. Both he and Hikaru were wearing identical long sleeved sweaters. Identical save for the fact that Kaoru's was sky blue and Hikaru's a sort of burgundy. They also wore matching black pants of a thicker material in an effort to save a bit of body heat. Neither worse shoes, though Hikaru's black socks were visible just above the edge of his twin's book.
Aside from being cold, Kaoru was rather happy with their day off.
It was a wonderfully silent Sunday afterno.....
The sudden familiar ringtone sounded sharp in contrast to the silence which had permeated the sitting room. It jarred Kaoru from his thoughts, the young man blinking and looking down to the cell phone which sat near his twin's right elbow.
Sleepily, Hikaru turned the manga upside down on the rug, carefully using the position to keep his reading place, and picked up the cell before the ringtone could drive away all semblance of peace and quite.
"Tono?" he asked, turning onto his right side and then tumbling backwards to lay on his back, staring up at the ceiling. He ran a hand through his bed-head of hair, having been too lazy to do anything with it at all.
Kaoru could clearly hear Tamaki Suou's voice on the other end of the line, but it wasn't loud enough... thankfully... for him to make out what their senpai was saying. From his twin's un-amused look... it didn't seem very important.
"Demo..." Hikaru tried to press, but no sooner had he gotten that word out then Tamaki started on another tirade, this one louder than the first.
Sighing, Kaoru turned his gaze to the fireplace again, watching the wood crackle and spark as the Host Club President's voice droned on and on in the background.
Obviously Hikaru was getting frustrated and, instead of continuing to placate the rantings, closed his cell phone and hung up.
The sudden silence startled his twin, and Kaoru's golden eyes rested on his brother. "He'll just call again."
Shrugging, Hikaru sat up and quickly tossed the cell phone into the fireplace.
"No he won't." he said with a smirk, before laying back down and fixing his eyes on the ceiling.
Kaoru stared at his brother in slight shock for a moment, before smiling softly and laughing. "So..." he asked, closing the book in his lap and setting it on a maple table to the left of his chair. "I guess we really do have the day off."
Golden eyes gazed back at him, "Wanna play?" Hikaru asked, arms behind his head in a pillowing fashion.
That, Kaoru knew, was a rather loaded question.
"Depends on the game." the more soft spoken twin replied with his own smirk.
There was a sudden narrowing of Hikaru's eyes that Kaoru almost mistook for mischievous thinking. But when the look passed and Hikaru sat up fully, gaze still on his twin, Kaoru noticed that the look had nothing to do with his prior question.
"Cold again?" Hikaru asked, sitting cross-legged on the rug, his hands on his knees, leaning slightly forward. "You're always cold."
Kaoru frowned. "Am not. But it... I mean... it IS cold in here."
Sighing, Hikaru looked up at the ceiling. "No... it's just you. If you're cold, you won't want to play... and if you don't want to play, then I certainly won't have any fun. So..."
Without warning, Kaoru found himself pounced upon.
The twins nearly knocked the chair over, but it somehow remained righted and now Kaoru had his brother sitting on his lap. However, before he knew it, Hikaru had pulled him back out of the chair, blanket and all, and had somehow tucked the both of them beneath the dark green fabric, and in front of the fireplace.
"See? Isn't this better?" Hikaru asked, falling backward to lay down on his back.
Inadvertently, this took Kaoru down with him, both twins now staring up at the ceiling.
Kaoru smiled softly, nodding and closing his eyes. "Much better." he whispered glad for his twin's warmth.
For as much as Kaoru wanted to ignore how cold he was, in an effort to make his twin happy... Hikaru was just as much devoted to making Kaoru happy as well. This delicate balance, seen as a dance by some, was a very large part of who they were. They were separate and yet one, both having quirks and dislikes that the other simply learned to deal with in a give-and-take manner.
Hikaru smiled, closing his eyes as he reflected on how glad he was that could help stave off Kaoru's chill, even for a short time.
Together, the Hitachiin brothers stayed like that for much of the day, both soon fast asleep next to the fire.
Later, Hikaru was able to convince Kaoru to 'play'... but exactly what the twins did is, in itself... another story.
THE END
Author's Notes:
Gomen!
This was just a quick drabble (one of my first actual drabbles and not full out short stories) that I wrote between 4:30am and 5:30am on October 1st, 2009. I woke up hot... as usual (I can't seem to get the temperature right for sleeping) and, unlike Kaoru who hates being cold, I wanted the temperature in my room to be in the 60's, whereas it felt like it was in the 80's! I couldn't go back to sleep, no matter how hard I tried so... I read Volume 7 of the "Ouran High School Host Club" manga. That went on from 3:00am to about 4:30am, wherein then I decided that I still couldn't sleep and that I'd write the short drabble that had been congealing in my head for the last few days now.
The only hard part of the story was coming up with the book and manga titles. I couldn't think of anything that Haruhi would read, and the twins seemed like the type to ask to borrow stuff from her, and so I was staring into space when the dvd box for Volume 3 of the "Gensoumaden Saiyuki" anime caught my eye (I blame Youji's red hair on that) and I thought that Haruhi might read it as a comparative analysis between it and "Journey to the West".
I came up with Kaoru's book only because it's a book I actually have (I haven't finished reading it yet though) that I was using to better grasp the opium addiction for my own historical fiction work dealing with Joe Byrne. I thought, 'Hmmm... Kaoru might read something obscure like that, and it would be in English so that would certainly make for a more refined read that way.' or something of the nature.
For the purpose of stating that the italicized works aren't mine, here's who each is by (and I claim no rights to any of them);
"Ouran High School Host Club" by Bisco Hatori
"Gensoumaden Saiyuki" by Kazuya Minekura
"Journey to the West" by Wu Cheng'en
"Confessions of an English Opium Eater" by Thomas De Quincey
The only three Japanese words that I used in the story this time were "Tono" meaning "Lord", which is what the twins call Tamaki, "Senpai" (or Sempai) being a designation of a student older than yourself, and "Demo..." meaning "But..." since Hikaru was trying to dissuade Tamaki's rants. And no, I have no idea what Tamaki was ranting about... yet. (smirk) I think I can play off this drabble quite nicely in the future.
Lastly, as for what Kaoru and Hikaru "played"... well, you'll have to wait and see if inspiration strikes me to actually write that in a short sometime. And NO, I wasn't meaning "played" in any innuendo sort of way (at least not that I'm aware of at the moment), so... minds out of the gutter! Unless that makes you happy... then, by all means, stay in the gutter. I hear they have milk and cookies (wait... (blink) I must be tired cause even I took that the wrong way just now. But if the gutter has cookies... (Hunny-senpai morph) Cookie wa DAISUKI!).