Disclaimer: Not Mine.

A Light, A Life

Chapter 2

It took her a moment to unfreeze herself after Kaoru walked away. Why had he done that? There was no crowd watching, no people to draw into the club. She would almost expect something like that from Tamaki, or maybe even Hikaru, who had been acting a weird around her lately. But Kaoru was definitely a surprise.

She took a moment to compose herself, and wiped the confusion off of her face before following Kaoru back into the club room. Like Kaoru had said, it wouldn't do to be missed from club activities. Kyouya just didn't put up with it.

Despite being surrounded by clamoring fangirls, Hikaru made time for himself to smile at her, welcoming her back even though she'd only been gone for a couple of minutes. Kaoru was already three deep in his fans, and Haruhi knew she would soon be just as surrounded. Despite the crowds, she glanced periodically at both Kaoru and Hikaru.

Now they were both acting weird. Maybe it was some kind of twin thing that she just didn't know about. The two of them were chock full of strange habits and behaviors, after all. Hikaru was giving her all the attention he could spare, smiling and always wanting to chat. Not too unusual, all in all, actually, except he was going out of his way to give her that attention. And Kaoru had kissed her, which wouldn't have been so strange if it were a club thing. But on his own like that... He was avoiding even looking at her now, too. He blushed and jerked his head to look away every time he failed to avoid her gaze. Kaoru was just lucky he was good at thinking up excuses, or someone would have found out something was up already.

"What's wrong, Haru-chan?" Hunny tugged at her sleeve from his perch on the side of the couch.

"What do you mean?"

"You're looking funny at Kao-chan and Hika-chan. Did they do something?"

"I'm sure it's nothing, Hunny-senpai. They're just acting weird, is all." She smiled at him, and he happily bounced away looking for another piece of cake, satisfied with her answer.

Still though, she wanted to know what was going on.

Hikaru wanted to know just what was up with his twin. He'd come back from his supposed "bathroom break" looking agitated, not that anyone besides Hikaru knew enough to tell. He twitched at every mention of Haruhi, and refused to so much as glance at her if he could help it.

Hikaru glanced over at Haruhi and couldn't help the smile he felt spreading across his face. He just couldn't help it lately. Every time he looked at her, he couldn't have stopped it even if he wanted to. She was just... special to him, right now, and he didn't even know why.

And she was one of few people who could read Kaoru as well as he could. He could see her giving Kaoru the occasional odd look, like she was wondering or worrying about something.

Maybe she'd learned something Hikaru hadn't, though, and he resolved to question her the next day, if he didn't manage to get any answers out of Kaoru later that night.

He glanced at the clock. One more hour until the end of club activities, then he would be free to corner Kaoru and make him come clean.

Hikaru looked over at his brother in time to see him once again turn red and jerk his head away from looking at Haruhi.

Just one more hour.