The problem with becoming bored easily is that you expect others to have the same affliction. Hikaru has always shaped the world with the perceptions he makes based off of his own habits, so it's no surprise—considering how quick he is to delete that computer game, or throw away those sweaters, or ignore that once-so-funny television show—that he keeps anticipating the next great abandonment in his life.

After all, no one's cared enough before. Everyone leaves. Everyone but Kaoru, who left the same single egg once and has vowed never to make that mistake again.

(And even so, how could it be otherwise? Like a chain that digs into his skin until it bleeds, Hikaru is tied to Kaoru, a willing prisoner and glad hostage. One thing he dares not to lose. If ever there has been something Hikaru trusts never to toss him away, it's Kaoru, it's Kaoru.)

All this is meant to explain why, when first meeting Tamaki, Hikaru expects the strange boy's obsession to last a week, at most. They're bored of him far before he's bored of them, however, so he gives it a little longer. Then Tamaki becomes Tono and plays the game like he's actually batting to win, like it's a question with an answer that matters, and they grow angry, and Hikaru thinks, Drop us, just drop us already. Bite the nail before it breaks. Drop the iron before it burns.

Then Tono says, "It's called character." He says, "It's who you are."

And there's the host club, and Hikaru thinks—surely now, surely at any time, he's got to get bored of having us at hand. The twins are trouble, the twins are devils, the twins are bored and battling and bratty. They survive the first year hanging on with their teeth. Hikaru thinks then, It's been a year. Seriously, has it been a year?

"Should we go back?" Kaoru asks, but they already know the answer. They can't stay away because it may be troublesome, and boring, but it's better than the rest of the idiots at school.

And then there's Haruhi, and then there are so many changes, little slivers that wedge uncomfortably under Hikaru's fingers as they clutch reality, his reality of things. Change is frightening. He's not sure where he stands and he hates that. But Kaoru is there, steady like stone, and Hikaru makes it. Their world grows a little wider—at the edges, the grass begins to curl and seek new ground. Somehow, nothing ends. It only twists. Disconcerting, and annoying, and somewhere along the line Hikaru finds that he's leaning as heavily on the host club as he is his brother's identical smile. Of the things he hoards—precious few—he discovers toys that become people and people are so hard to predict, so how did that happen?

"Tono is an idiot!" they say.

Tono never gets their names right.

But he doesn't stop trying and it's driving Hikaru mad.

Two years later, Tono and Kyouya-senpai graduate and he thinks, that's it, right? It's over. Half of the club gone, Haruhi far into her studies, Kaoru becoming someone named Kaoru and not just half of Hikaru. No one's really won the game, not really, and now it's done. He feels cheap. Used. Discarded. Some part of him wants to be sick and the rest just wants to crawl into bed and never get out.

It's not fair, he thinks, surprising himself with the lump in his throat. It's stupid. And not fair.

Then, the Saturday after the end, Tono comes by the Hitachiin mansion with sweet cakes and red tea.

Hikaru thinks about throwing something. Something heavy. "You should've called first," he snaps. "It's rude to just show up at people's houses, Tono!"

Tono grins sheepishly.

It's a little like stepping onto a dock after a long time on the water. Hikaru lets him in.

There is no real story to this. It's just an observation: some people don't leave, some games aren't won, and sometimes that's all okay. Tono visits on the weekends, long enough for the twins to tease him, rip apart his fashion sense, and eat whatever he's brought as an offering. They do dinner, more often than any of them care to admit. Hikaru's been known to get phone calls late at night, when an idiot can't sleep, or has an emergency involving goldfish, or simply wants to talk about the new garden he's been destroying in the quest to actually be good at something. Tono's hands are still heavy when they ruffle (and ruin) Hikaru's hair. His laugh is still irritatingly loud. He still tries, and still fails, and still comes back.

Eventually, Hikaru expects he always will.

Eventually, Hikaru figures out that kept things are loved—though he's still not sure who's keeping who—and that's something to be solely known, not thought about. Thinking about it is embarrassing.

But next time, he buys the cake and tea.