Harbour

Author: Atthla

Diclaimer and Warning are in chapter one.

A/N: In which the twins are not as in synch as they always seem. Dedicated to those who want some HikaKao moments.

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Chapter Three: Three of A Kind

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"Kaoru."

He thought it was a dream, the soft affectionate voice, until he felt a hand caress the top of his head. Stirring from his sleep, Kaoru struggled to open his eyes and found himself staring blearily at the half-frowning face of his brother.

"What are you doing? Why did you fall asleep on the desk?" Hikaru asked, the hand moving lower to rest on his cheek as Kaoru raised his head from the hard pillow which, he realized a moment later, was the surface of said desk.

"I must have fallen asleep," he mumbled, smiling sleepily at his brother, and straightened up, unaware of a piece of paper which was making its way to the floor from the top of the desk.

"Well, that's obvious," Hikaru rolled his eyes and bent down to pick up the paper. His eyes widened and suddenly Kaoru remembered why he had fallen asleep on the desk in the first place.

"Hikaru, that is not finished!" he exclaimed and stood up, trying to seize the paper from his brother's hand, but Hikaru distanced it away from his reach and hooked an arm around his waist instead, effectively anchoring him. Kaoru found himself pressed against dark blue suit, the faint whiff of cologne his twin had put on before he had left this morning caressing his nose with its tantalizing fingers.

"But I can see its exquisiteness already," Hikaru whispered with a smile and landed a soft kiss on his lips. "You are so much better than me in these things. I can't produce a half-decent design if my life depends on it."

"Right, like you don't have things you yourself need to deal with," Kaoru mumbled, trying to sound indignant despite the loud drumming his heart made in his chest. What the hell was wrong with him anyway? This was Hikaru, the twin brother he had spent his twenty-three living years with.

"Give it back," he insisted.

His brother's eyes gleamed. "Not yet," he said and put the unfinished sketch away before pushing his twin down to the long couch conviniently placed next to the desk, grinning at the sulking face. "One thing that I am certain of is, with your designs at the front line, our success this year is assured."

"Don't exaggerate, I'm still learning," Kaoru replied with a pout before proceeding to pull his brother down into a slow, languid kiss. He felt Hikaru smiling to his lips and smiled back, letting the other to gain the upper hand for a little while as his mouth enjoyed a thorough plundering. His own fingers traced a line down Hikaru's jaw, finding the knot of his tie, loosening – playing – with it until Hikaru made a frustrated noise at the back of his throat. He grinned and pulled their lips apart gently but firmly, looking straight at lust-glazed eyes.

"So how's the meeting?"

Hikaru gave him a disbelieving look. "You want to know about the meeting?"

"But of course," he answered nonchalantly, working at the knot with deliberate slowness that he knew driving not only some parts of his anatomy mad.

"Now?"

Kaoru raised twin perfectly innocent eyebrows. "When else?"

"Are you sure?"

He opened his mouth to answer but only a groan made it out of his throat as Hikaru ground his hips down, the impact coursing through his body with a speed that should be impossible. But of course. This was Hikaru. Kaoru was willing to bet his very soul that there was someone who knew his body better than he himself did and it was Hikaru.

"That is not fair," he accused, glaring at his smirking brother.

"Your rules, little brother," Hikaru pointed out and did another trick with his hips which forced Kaoru to suppress another groan. "Now, still want to know about the meeting?"

"I'm dying to," he answered with mock seriousness but his fingers had already reached the knot again. Hikaru grinned down at him.

"Then I'll happily oblige," he played along, allowing Kaoru to throw the tie to the other side of the room and reach down to a column of buttons. "It was boring as hell but it went rather well so I shouldn't complain. Can you believe that old man Hamada brought his daughter to the stock meeting? She looked so dumb sitting there without understanding a thing."

"Ah, talking about hidden intentions, are we?" Kaoru teased lightly as he helped his brother to divest himself of the thick suit.

Hikaru made a face at him. "Obvious intentions are more like it."

"Mm," he made an approving noise, partly because his brother had slipped a hand under his shirt and entertained him with slow, lazy caresses. "That is to be expected, isn't it? After all, you should be engaged now that I already am. Tell me, dear brother, how many proposals have been made to you during the last six months?"

Hikaru stopped whatever he was doing and stared at him in disbelief. "You are not being jealous."

Kaoru gave him a noncommittal smile. "Maybe I am."

"You're impossible, Kaoru. After all I've gone through for you?"

"Hikaru," he held his brother's face between his hands, voice stripped of all mirth, and said will all seriousness he could muster, "I really think you should marry."

His twin gave him a blank look. "What?"

Kaoru swallowed, his throat suddenly thick and heavy, and repeated, "You should marry."

Those golden eyes, identical to his own, narrowed dangerously. "That's not what you think. That's what Mother thinks."

"But Hikaru–"

"No."

Kaoru fell silent as his brother got up and sat at the far end of the couch, a disgruntled expression on his face. The line was crossed, he knew, but he had to say it. There was a thought which had lurked for too long at the back of his mind. He was getting tired of it whispering to him unfair,you have betrayed him, at least free him from your dirty little fingers, you cheater.

Sometimes, Kaoru wished that there was a line between them. It would make things much easier, not to mention simpler.

"Do you want me to get married?" Suddenly Hikaru asked, hisvoice blunt and harsh, as were his eyes which were looking straight at him.

"No," he said flatly, meeting the fierce gaze, "but do you want me to get married?"

"Kaoru, I'm–"

"No," he held up a hand, the other cradling his suddenly throbbing head, "no, please don't start again. We've gone through that already."

Hikaru did not say anything for a long time but his lips thinned and Kaoru recognized a silent plea of truce when he saw one, particularly when it came from his older brother. It wasn't Hikaru's fault, he inwardly cursed. Hell, it was his fault. It was him who came with the original plan and God knows he had broken Hikaru's heart when it had been carried out and approved by no other than their mother.

But that was his brother. He would sulk for one day and express his full support on the next. And it was for Haruhi, someone who was actually on the list of people-worthy-enough-of-their-concern. Both of them had accepted it, fully and unconditionally. Still, sometimes reality – jealousy, pain, selfishness – just reared its ugly head and reminded them of what could have been.

Actually it wasn't that bad. At least he would marry Haruhi, not some other girl he barely knew and most likely could not tolerate. Kaoru was aware that she was probably the one for so many others and it was his insightfulness only which had won her. He was the most perceptive in their small circle of friends, second only to Kyouya-senpai who unfortunately had a grave disadvantage in this round. Kaoru understood Haruhi and she knew that he did. It was only that, understanding. Doubtless, affection was there at some degree, but it would never ever be able to hold a candle to what he felt to his brother.

"You know Mother clearly states that we must have a child," suddenly Hikaru said, his voice heavy but frank.

"We can always adopt," Kaoru replied, silently wondering why it was him who was waving the red flag now but still accepting the role without protest. The white flag, the signature at the end of their treaty was not without sacrifice, which they only knew too well.

Hikaru fully looked at him at last, a small mirthless smile on his lips. "I'd rather have your son inheriting the business, Kaoru."

"He won't be my son. He will be our son."

It was obviously a sneer on his brother's face now and Kaoru prepared himself for a remark no less than vicious.

"You mean see whose sperm can beget the child?"

"Hikaru–"

"Damn it," the older twin hissed, face buried in a pair of trembling hands. "This is just so sick."

A long silence stretched between them. Kaoru felt the bitter taste of loss, hopelessness, guilt rising in his throat but didn't say anything. It was not Hikaru, he tried to convince himself, it was disappointment speaking, cursing this whole ordeal they were too scared to change. Or maybe he was too scared to change. If he had not come to that benefit in Paris with his mother a year ago, he might not feel this way.

Hikaru had not been there because of a mild cold, resting at their hotel room as he and their mother attended the event. The whole night, he had felt off, unused to the absence of an only-too-familiar presence at his side and everything had come brighter, sharper to his senses. Kaoru had been in the verge of snapping at a fat balding man who hadn't stopped jabbering for the last five minutes about a topic which obviously didn't catch his interest when his mother had suddenly appeared at his side and suddenly the conversation had taken turn to heirs and marriages.

Kaoru was familiar with his mother's inclination to matchmaking – after all, it was not her first attempt – and had been ready to unobtrusively excuse himself when wives and children came into the conversation. It had been her smile, brilliant and proud, as she talked about the yet unborn grandchildren she would undoubtedly have from her two handsome sons that had stayed Kaoru at his place and left him more miserable than he had been in years since that little crush Hikaru had had for Haruhi. It hurt to look at his mother's smile and the feeling that he couldn't do anything about it was suffocating.

But he couldn't choose. People said it was sick – twins falling in love with each other – but they had never cared much about others in the first place. Unless that person really mattered to them.

Unfortunately, his mother, no matter how strange she was as a parent to a set of twin sons, was one of them.

She might not know but she undoubtedly had guessed. As the head of the Hitachiin family, she had not said anything, not even when she had personally told them about who was to be the heir of their empire and his main obligations as said heir which involved even more heirs. But as a mother, there had been this one look, not admonishing, only a thoughtful look sent his way and Kaoru felt like he understand more than he should. It had never really occurred to him but apparently their mother knew her sons better than he thought.

The look said 'let him go.'

It might be some kind of a twisted revenge from him, the thing between him and Haruhi. He couldn't help but to feel angry at the whole world and… wasn't his mother supposed to give him, her own flesh and blood, her full support? And the thought that Hikaru was unaware about all of these silent wars going right in front of his eyes only disappointed him further.

"Kaoru, I'm sorry."

He felt like kicking himself over the head. Hikaru was doing it again, those eyes drowned in total guilt and apology written all over his face. Kaoru had admitted to himself a long time ago that Hikaru and anything remotely related to apology was a deadly combination. And if there was anyone who knew how hard it was for the older Hitachiin to say 'sorry', it was his younger brother.

He must feel really, really sorry.

"I don't want to involve her either," Kaoru finally said with a sigh, his voice gentle, almost coaxing and he wondered how the hell he could do that. "You know I meant to break the engagement once her father hadrecovered from the surgery. It was her who proposed this idea to us."

"She knows I can't live without you," Hikaru muttered, in his eyes gentleness that only felt cold to his younger brother, "but we're only hurting each other like this. You're engaged to her and here we are kissing behind doors."

Kaoru gave him a bland look. "Actually there is another option. We can continue living like the lord and Kyouya-senpai and wait until the same thing that is happening to them happens to us." He looked away, ignoring the wince on his brother's face, and added quietly, "I know I'm selfish, Hikaru, but I really don't want that."

The long couch suddenly felt smaller when Hikaru moved closer and wrapped his arms around Kaoru's waist, lips pressed to the back of his neck and warm, shaky breaths ghosting over his skin. Kaoru involuntarily suppressed a shudder.

"Me neither," Hikaru murmured, burying his face in the crookof his brother's neck. "I love you, Kaoru."

There were things – their teacher's long preach, commoner's lifestyle, other people's problems, mushy proclamations – that should went unacknowledged by him and still Kaoru felt his heart breaking into myriads of splintered pieces.

End Chapter Three

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A/N2: Argh, I have a headache. There are too many underlying things in this chapter. Anyway, this thing between Kaoru and Haruhi will be explained more in the next chapter and we'll be back to Kyouya, so stay tuned and please review. Thanks for reading!