Mental Disorder Challenge
Username: Perdendosi
Disorder: Schizophrenia
Character/Pairing Focus: Kaoru

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He had a twin.

It was almost always eerie in a way, to know that there was someone out there who looked exactly the same as you and was born by the same parents. But Kaoru was used to it, and looked at Hikaru languidly before smiling back at his doppelganger.

"Ne, Kaoru?" Hikaru would say at times, always staring into his eyes as if searching for something. It always made Kaoru wonder what he was looking for, because he was almost completely assured that whatever he was looking for, he would never find because he was never one for miracles or any other sort of phenomena in the world. He was looking for someone else, someone that wasn't him.

Kaoru stared right back at him, though. He was looking for what his twin wanted, not what he himself wanted, after all.

"What is it, Hikaru?" he would reply back. Kaoru wasn't one for mysteries, after all. He searched for what his doppelganger wanted, as if he could magically make it appear in front of him if he just knew what it was.

"You'll always be with me, right?"

And even though Kaoru knew that he wouldn't and Hikaru himself would be the one who would distance himself, he could only reply in assent.

"Of course, Hikaru. We're twins, after all," he would always reply, as if the word "twins" would fix everything wrong in the world.

"Even if the world ends, we're always together."

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When they were little, they always held hands and slept. It was a sort-of way to know that the other was still there, that it wasn't a dream and everything was comforting and real.

("He's not real," a part of Kaoru always told him. "He's not real.")

And right before they fell asleep, Hikaru would always ask for him.

"Kaoru?"

Kaoru himself smiled right back at his doppelganger before asking.

"What is it, Hikaru?"

"Together until the end, okay?" Hikaru would ask. He was always a bit possessive, after all.

Kaoru nodded. "Together until the end."

("But he's not real," his mind would always scream. "Stop doing this to yourself!")

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Who would've known that the end was so close?

As he stared at the mirror's reflection, he held back a choked sob at the back of his throat. The reflection reminded him so much of Hikaru-everything he saw, everything he felt, he thought he saw, heard, felt Hikaru there.

"I miss you so much…" he would say to himself in the dark, lying on the huge bed by himself. "Hikaru…"

He hugged himself and fell asleep.

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"Your son is schizophrenic," the doctor told Yuzuha. She was sitting on a plastic chair in front of the doctor's desk, where the doctor sat in his chair with a grim expression. "He has been for quite a while, it seems. What encouraged you to bring him here? Was there a particular situation which instigated this visit? You don't need to answer it; it's just a question that I wanted to bring up."

Yuzuha stifled a sob. "He thought he…had a twin."

The doctor turned around before turning back to Yuzuha. "Did he?"

"He did," Yuzuha told him. "But he was stillborn."

"He never had a twin, then."

"Never."

"Then that's how it is," the doctor said, and the conversation was over.

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"But Kaoru…" Hikaru would call whenever Kaoru tried to block him out, "we're twins. Didn't you say that we were twins; that we would be together until the end?"

"But you're not real," Kaoru would counter, afraid of his own creation. "You're not real, the promise is fake; we're not twins, we can't be twins, Hikaru, you're not real in the first place, you know that, I know that..."

Hikaru would stare into his eyes just like long ago, when Hikaru was real and they were happy and everything was the way it used to be, and Kaoru knew that it couldn't be.

"Then we'll be together forever, Hikaru. We'll be together forever."

Hallucination or not, creation of his mind or not…

Hikaru was his twin.

Like hell he'd throw away his twin.

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A/N: Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed it, and please R&R!

I know it's not really the best fic in the world, but I think it did what it said it'd do xD

Thank you!

~Dosi

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