"Ne..."

Once in a while a girl asked about what her host enjoyed. Whether she did it because she felt it would bring her closer to him, wanted to keep it in mind and show him she remembered at a later date, or obsessively wanted to do something with whatever he'd told her and daydream that he was beside her, a hand on her elbow and gently guiding her through it, was anyone's guess, but no one's concern. So long as it made her happy, anything was fair game.

"...what sort of fruit does Kaoru-sama enjoy?"

In a sense, a game was exactly what it had to become: it was too boring otherwise.

The girl's eyes widened when colour crept across Kaoru's face, staining the apples of his cheeks a light pink. Kaoru lifted his palm to his mouth and tilted his head away from her. She wasn't the only one who leaned in to try and see his eyes: they were blanketed with a distant look that implied he was remembering something that distracted him. Only slightly, his narrow brows twitched into an expression that said misery was a storm cloud on the horizon in his mind, threatening to split it apart with rain any moment. It wouldn't have looked out of place if he'd pressed a tender kiss against the pads of his middle and ring fingers. "Well," he answered at last. "That's..."

Sitting beside him, Hikaru's mind lit up like satellite links, processing the new opportunity and picking up where Kaoru trailed off. He turned his body and placed his right palm upon his brother's left knee, which tensed at his touch. "Kaoru... it's hard for you, isn't it?" Grace was a must when it came to being a high class lady, but one of the girls almost fell out of her seat from inching so close to the edge, staring at Hikaru's face. It was focused and drenched in concern, full attention on Kaoru. "It was so delicate," he said. "If I hadn't been so rough-"

Kaoru's knee wasn't the only thing that was tense. Each girl noted a distinct change in his posture: it had become rigid. Some boys make themselves ugly by blushing too darkly, but Hitachiin Kaoru's face was like a picture painted with the colours of pure perfection: his cheeks deepened into an attractive red. "I-It's true that it was strange, but Hikaru was so diligent and helped me afterward. His fingers felt so good... I hardly remember anything else."

"The sight of you with my mistakes on your skin was too much to bear."

"Hikaru... I don't blame you. I only... ah-" Kaoru paused. His white teeth sank into the soft flesh of his fingertips, twisted so closely together they could have touched. A slow shudder crawled up his spine and shook his shoulders. When he had the will to speak, he murmured in a voice everyone could hear. "I miss that moment. It will never come again."

The girls held their breath, only to find they couldn't: they'd been holding it from the very beginning.

Like four slender moles, Hikaru's fingers made dents in the fabric of Kaoru's pants, digging into his knee. As if it had always been there and belonged there, his left palm caught the right side of Kaoru's face and turned it toward him, forcing their eyes to meet. Leaning in, eyes low-lidded and heated as a wildfire, Hikaru spoke in a low voice like a lover's confession: "Kaoru, later... let's make a moment that feels like it should last a lifetime."

Not unlike sweet tea being poured into a cup, Kaoru's eyes filled with liquid shock. He moved the fingertips he'd bitten, reaching out to touch the soft underside of his brother's jaw. His voice trembled as he exhaled a breathless, "Hikaru..."

When the girls began to squeal, two of Tamaki's customers squealed the loudest. The consequences of the twins' newest act hadn't been known to Tamaki until the next day when the girls designated them instead.

"Lascivious!" he accused when he caught them alone after all the girls had gone, teary-eyed and trembling.

Almost out of the doorway and on their way to the next class, Hikaru and Kaoru paused, turning their heads to cast a look over their shoulders. "Haaaaah?"

"Lewd! Libidinous, lustful, unchaste, salacious, immoral, incontinent, indecent-!"

The twins exchanged glances as flat as Tamaki had assumed Haruhi's chest was the moment he first laid his eyes on her, but that didn't stop Tamaki: "Lecherous, fleshly, obscene-!"

"Tono," Hikaru tried.

"Risqué, lecherous-!"

"Didn't he just say that?" wondered Hikaru.

"Yeah."

"Pibbled! Evil-minded-"

"Pibbled?"

"He means 'ribald,' " answered Kaoru, who liked to help. "And he pronounced 'piebald' incorrectly."

"Ooooh!" Hikaru's hands clapped together in awe. "Impressive, considering it sounds the same as it's written!"

"Suggestive, sensual twins!" By the time Tamaki finished, he was so overwhelmed by the conviction with which he'd spoken that he had to sit in a chair and recover. The tears hadn't yet left the corners of his eyes.

"Tono, those words-" began Hikaru.

Kaoru finished, "-basically mean the same thing."

If Tamaki heard any of it, he showed no sign. "My pain is like a basket," he declared miserably, writhing in the seat. Both twins winced an eye shut, mouths curling into an expression that could only be described as distasteful confusion. "A basket woven from the finest threads of sorrow. If I were to collect my pain in one place, it would fill a basket and the basket would have to be this big." He held his hands apart from one another, then thought better of it. "No, this big! The maids could empty it into a bucket -- a gigantic bucket with which they could wash the floors with my heart's deepest grief-"

Trying to talk failed. The twins lost interest and turned for the door.

"Wait!" Tamaki straightened in his seat, reaching a hand after them, curling his fingers in the air. "Don't you have anything to say?"

The brothers lifted one hand each, waving them limply from side to side in a half-hearted mimic of a real wave. Dryly, they offered, "See you tomorrow."

"No! Not that! About the girls-"

Flatly, the boys sang, "Sooooooooooooorry!" and continued to wave their hands.

"Twin devils," bleated Tamaki, whose face was so full of sadness it was a surprise as to why his heart hadn't cracked in half yet. "Who could at least try to sound more apologetic!"

They kept on waving, but didn't say anything as they padded into the hallway like a pair of wicked cats. There was nothing to say: Tamaki was right.