Title: The Fragile Flower

Summary: The first person who was able to tell the twins apart was their little sister. A fragile little flower who was lost long ago.

Genre: Angst, Hurt & Comfort

It was love at first sight.

The moment they held the bundle in their arms, lumps grew in the both of their throats and tears of joy welled up in their identical eyes, but they didn't fall. Beautiful eyes just like their own stared up, darting between them every few moments with innocent curiosity.

By the age of four, she was a beautifully blooming flower. She admired them, looked up to them and loved them. They were her big brothers and she was their darling little sister - the apple of their eye. Only she could tell them apart. Nobody else could, not even their mother. That made her all the more special to them. She was their fragile little flower.

Tragedy hit them with an iron uppercut. She was five when she fell ill. They were ten. Their parents tried everything - they spent millions to get her the right medical attention but it was all put to waste. Nothing worked. And so, for her own safety, the fragile flower was locked away to spare her parents the heartbreak.

"Where is our sister?"

"Don't worry, Hikaru, Kaoru. She's being taken care of by one of the greatest doctors in Japan."

"Can't we see her, mommy?"

"...I don't think that would be for the best, boys."

She was lonely. She clung to the conversations with the servants and doctors who tended to her and made friends with many of them, but she missed her big brothers. If they were there with her, she knew they would do all of these things to make her laugh like they always did when she was sad. Like when they would tell her fairy tales riddled with swear words (she didn't know why that made her laugh, but it is pretty funny when she hears them say something posh and then a curse right after it), or when they would play a fun game of 'chase the princess'.

They were twelve when they saw her again. It happened when they were playing hide-and-seek. Kaoru hid in a closet, moving aside the coats to hide behind them. That's when a doorknob jabbed him in the side. At the back of the closet, there was a room. They opened it together.

She was there, sleeping in an armchair with a golden blanket draped around her. She was seven now. They noticed how different she was now. Her skin was so pale she was like the color of snow. Her hair which was the same shade as theirs, had grown out more and was now resting on the blanket covering her legs. She was there, and she was real. Their hearts swelled.

When she awoke to seeing them for the first time in two years, she cried tears of joy. "Please, Hikaru, Kaoru." Her body shook in their embrace, and they were scared to see how skinny - or rather, bony - she was up close. "Don't leave me. I don't wanna be alone anymore."

They visited her every day, but they never told their parents. They were smart enough to know that they locked her away for a reason - so they wouldn't see her like this. They didn't care though. They'd rather spend every moment with her until the end.

When they asked her what she wanted for her birthday, she asked for a beautiful hidden garden where she could sneak away to see them. The twins couldn't have any of the servants knowing where she would run off to, so they made the garden themselves hidden behind a hedge on the edge of their property. They spent hours each day in the garden, pouring their hearts into it for their little sister.

She passed on in spring. It was three weeks before her birthday. She never got to see the garden.

"We won't get to play 'chase the princess' now, Kaoru."

"I guess you're right, Hikaru." He choked back. They sat there in the garden in tears for hours.

She was buried in their garden, added to the collection of flowers that bloomed like she did. But her type of flower was special.

She would always be their little, fragile flower.