The quilt is wrinkled where his fingers were twisting in it only a few minutes ago, letters and opened envelopes with frayed edges lying scattered across it, bearing the insignia of various universities—bearing his name above the mailing address sometimes, sometimes Kaoru's.

They lie forgotten on a wrinkled quilt as he clicks through one picture after another on the digital SLR's preview screen. Cherry buds. The facade of a familiar school building. Haruhi. More Haruhi. Gazing speculatively into the branches above. Smiling at the camera. Smiling at the cameraman. Big brown eyes piercing right through the lens and smiling right into the eye of the cameraman.

She never smiles like that for him.

It looks similar, that smile, to the one she shoots his way several times a day, but it's different here. Wider maybe. Maybe a little less reserved. He can't really say. He doesn't know how it's different exactly. He can't point to any one spot and say, There it is—can't describe it in words except to say this one is somehow warmer than what he's used to—but he knows it's there and he knows it's different.

Like the brightest, most symmetrical blossom on the tree and he can't reach it.

Only Kaoru, his twin, his genetic duplicate, who's supposed to be the same as him in every way and everything he has, only he can touch it. Only he gets to keep it. How is that fair?

He scrolls through his options and highlights "delete"; but, finger hovering on the button, he can't bring himself to push it. No matter how roiling the pain and the anger and the outright outrage that's boiling inside him right now, he can't bring himself to delete the picture of that girl he loves so much it hurts, and her warm, warm smile.

Even though the person she's smiling for is the brother he loves more than anything in the world.

"Hey, Hikaru, have you seen my cam—"

Perhaps because the answer is obvious, Kaoru stops. Or perhaps it's because of the look on Hikaru's face when he looks up.

"Hikaru? What's wrong?"

"As if you didn't know."

Kaoru blankly shakes his head, but Hikaru is sure he does know.

He turns the camera around and shows Kaoru the picture he took himself, the evidence of his betrayal. "It's that smile that kills me," he says, forcing one himself. "She never smiled at me like that."

Kaoru sighs. "Hikaru. . . . Is that all? You're upset over a smile?"

Then he feels it. Like a leaf dropping from a tree, he's falling, falling, and all Kaoru can ask is "'Is that all'? That's everything, Kaoru! How could you do this to me, to your own brother—"

"I really don't see why you're so upse—"

"You knew how much I loved her!"

Kaoru shuts his mouth and lowers his eyes; and he shouldn't have done that, Hikaru thinks, because that's always been as good as an admission of guilt with him. Why can't he just deny it like he always does? Even if they both know it's a lie, maybe it will keep things from changing out of their control a little longer. . . .

"I should have seen this coming," Hikaru says.

Kaoru still says nothing.

"You know on our first date, the one you set us up on, the whole time all she could think about was you?"

Kaoru just looks at him uncomprehending. He doesn't seem to realize he's just making this worse.

"Everything was, 'Kaoru would enjoy this,' or, 'let's get this for Kaoru, since he couldn't be here'. . . . As though she actually believed you were really sick. I was so stupid. . . ."

"It doesn't matter," Kaoru at last finds his voice. "I told her I wouldn't stand between you two."

"You told her that?"

"I . . . I will. I can't return her feelings if it hurts you, Hikaru. You know that. And anyway, we're all going to be together at university, so why would I want to ruin what we have?"

A laugh escapes Hikaru at that and he's not really sure where it came from. Doesn't Kaoru get it? He's already the odd man out, the third wheel. Why should Kaoru punish himself another three or four years on his brother's account? Hikaru can do that enough for both of them.

He turns his brother's camera over in his hands. It's easier than meeting Kaoru's eyes.

"About that . . . I decided to go to that art school instead."

Kaoru can only stare at him.

"I got in."

"But you said you hated art."

"But I got in. And besides, I've already made up my mind."

Then it sinks in, and a snarl pulls at his brother's lips. Not so fast, Kaoru, Hikaru thinks. Just who betrayed who here?

"You're going to a different school because of a couple of pictures?" Kaoru says like he still can't believe it. He'll have to eventually, though. Eventually he'll have to realize they couldn't do everything together forever. "You're gonna run away from us for that? Don't be such a child, Hikaru!"

And maybe that's all he's being, Hikaru thinks, as he lets Kaoru yell at him, tell him what a stubborn ass he's being. But he doesn't get it. He's stronger than Hikaru ever was—he won't understand that in a lot of ways it's just easier to run away, and pretend nothing's changed between them in the text messages on their phones between classes or their Sunday get-togethers, just as long as he doesn't have to see that smile of Haruhi's aimed at someone who looks just like him, but isn't. It serves both of them right.

He told himself a long time ago he didn't care which one of them Haruhi liked more, that he didn't care if it turned out she didn't care for either one of them.

But that was back when he thought he was winning.

—= o =—

Mother still has the pictures Kaoru and I made for her in grade school art. She keeps them hanging framed in a sentimental place where everyone who comes by can see them.

And as far as she or anyone else knows, the picture that says Hikaru was made by Hikaru, and the one that says Kaoru, Kaoru made. But Kaoru and I know that that isn't accurate at all, because our seven-year-old selves agreed back then that we would each sign the other's picture as his own. Thus when family friends stop by and admire them and say, Kaoru sure has an eye for symmetry, and, Kaoru is so exact with every detail, they're really talking about me; and when they say, Hikaru has quite an eye for color and form, and, Hikaru knows how to bring out the life of the subject in his work, and, I wouldn't want them to hear me say this but Hikaru must be the one who inherited his mother's artistic genius, it isn't really me they're talking about at all.

I keep waiting for Kaoru to say something and set the record straight, keep thinking any day now he's going to get tired of looking at those pictures as they are and hearing all those conclusions made about us that aren't true, but so far that hasn't happened yet. So I keep my mouth shut, and keep my feelings to myself.

I don't remember which one of us started it, and I don't remember what our original reasons were. Most likely we made those up after the fact. But I do remember feeling relieved when I made the final stroke in my seven-year-old hand, and sealed Kaoru's painting forever as my own with my name.

I never told him, but until that moment I was jealous. I've never really stopped being jealous. I've always liked his picture more than my own. That was why I had to make it mine.

But it never really was.