Chapter Four:
"You'll have to go and see them eventually, you know." Renge spoke without lifting her eyes from her nails as she painted delicate strokes upon them.
It had been four days since she had found Hikaru huddled against his brother's grave and still the boy remained her guest. He refused to leave, not that she would ever ask him to. She couldn't begin to imagine what he was going through, but she knew that he needed someone to push him back into the real world. He needed someone who really cared about him to at least try to make him better.
"Who?" Hikaru huffed, watching as if it were the most fascinating thing in the world. Keeping himself distracted was easy when Renge was around.
"Tama-chan and Haru-chan." She finally lifted her gaze to his. "They're worried about you."
"I'm sure they've figured out I'm okay by now." He shrugged, brushing her off as if his friends concern was nothing.
"Oh of course they have. I told them you were here."
"What?!" He stared at her incredulously, agitation dripping from his voice. "Why would you do that?"
"So they wouldn't worry." Renge huffed, rolling her eyes. "Haruhi was so afraid something happened to you when you didn't come home and I knew you wouldn't reach out to calm her, so I did."
"Great. Now they're going to show up here." He huffed, dropping his chin back to the table.
"Of course they are. I invited them over for dinner." Renge smirked, capping the bottle of nail polish and blowing gently upon the freshly painted tips.
"Why the hell would you go and do a thing like that?!" He hollered, jumping from his chair and towering over her.
"Oh, I don't know. Why would I invite two of my good friends over for dinner? I must be a monster," she chuckled, rolling her eyes at him. "Not everything is about you, Hikaru." She looked up at him out of the corner of her eye, watching as his agitation slowly started to fade.
At first she had been worried, there were only two possible outcomes to her approach at healing him. First, he could accept her blasé attitude and slowly start to come around again. Second, he could completely fly off the deep end and spiral even deeper into the depression he had buried himself in. Renge was willing to chance it for even the small hope that he could get better and that he could find himself again.
"You're hopeless." He huffed.
"And you're still a guest in my house."
He glared at her. "So I get no say in who comes over for dinner? Or if I want to see those people?"
Renge pretended to think about it for a long moment, chewing on her bottom lip for emphasis. "Nope! But you know what you can do?"
He merely continued to glare.
"You can open the doors," She smirked, watching as his eyes narrowed in pure hatred. Or so it would have seemed… if you hadn't noticed the way the edges of his lips tweaked up slightly.
It was working; Hikaru was almost really smiling for the first time since the accident that had claimed his brother's life.
Renge was what he needed, after all. She, regardless of how he acted towards her, was the closest thing he would ever get to having his brother back. She was impulsive and demanding and had the same sense of humor that he and his brother had perfected over years of isolation. Renge understood him on a deeper level, a much deeper level than Haruhi or Tamaki ever could.
"Open your doors yourself," he grumbled, rising from his seat and crossing the room. "I'm not your butler."
"Oh! But you would look amazing in a butler's uniform. I think I've got one around here somewhere," she grinned, already off on another one of her tangents. "I could get it out of storage and we could dress you up. You could drive me around all day and open doors for me. Wouldn't that be fun?" She teased.
Hikaru continued to glare at her, all remnants of his previous smile washed from his features. "You have a very twisted idea on what fun is."
"And you need to lighten up a bit. You're too grouchy and we're having company tonight."
"I don't want to see them!" He demanded as she followed after him towards the living room, instinctively he held the door open for her as she followed him.
"Thanks, Jeeves," she teased.
Author's / Note:
So for now I've decided to keep this as mostly little cute moments between Hikaru and Renge. As we get further into the story the plot will develop a bit more. But after all, this is just their love story.
Alice Kitten: She really does treat him like a doll, doesn't she? :]
Brainless Genius: To be honest with you, when I was writing Forever and finally decided to kill off Kaoru, I was watching Harry Potter. I was swaying back and forth because originally I was going to kill either Haruhi or Kyoya… but I just couldn't.
Thank you so much for taking the time to read this;
You all rock!
Kaasuten
