Chapter 4.

'Keep-Hikaru-In-The-Dark Day'

"I hate you Kaoru."

I flung out of bed, sweat drops dripping in pearls down my face. My bloodshot eyes were wide and terrified from stress. I felt incredibly tired, but not wanting to close my eyes again.

I had no idea where I was to begin with and had a minor panic-attack, but then I remembered last night and forced my heartbeat to calm down. I was at Tamaki's house, or rather, mansion - because Haruhi and him had picked me up on the street last night. Literally.

I felt my hands shaking as I wrapped them around myself, curling up in a tiny ball in a corner of the enormous bed. I felt so much smaller in such a huge room, like a kid. And this was only a guest room. It was 5 or 6 times larger than my old room, and one of the chairs by the window probably cost more than all my furniture combined.

I let my messy bed-head rest on my knees and focused completely on my breathings. 'In and out' I chanted to myself. Which ended as a rasping: 'in, in and out, out.'

"I'm fine," I whispered to myself, closing my eyes painfully. "Don't be a wuss, it was just a nightmare. You have them all the time, no need to whine about it." But some nightmare it had been.

I had dreamt that I was back at my house; my foster parents had been there also. My foster-father had been very drunk and had hit me, and somehow I had been more scared than ever – because I knew he wanted to kill me this time. You know, those dreams where you just have a feeling what's going to happen? You know the outcome, but not how to stop it? That was one of those dreams. Scratch that. One of those nightmares.

My hands clenched around my pajamas as I recalled details.

I suddenly felt sick.

In the dream, my foster-father had thrown me into a table and on the table had been a candle. I had grabbed it as he walked closer, creeping towards me eerily, a fearsome smirk on his face. Somehow he had managed to appear even intimidating than usually, scaring me shitless. I had jumped forward with the candle tightly in my hand and I had…

I jolted out of my bed abruptly, not from fear, but from the urge to get to the bathroom before I threw up in Tamaki's nice guest-room. Disgusting, I know. But that was the least of my worries right now. Luckily, there was a bathroom right next to my room. I flicked on the lights, momentarily blinding myself from the sudden brightness. Dazed, I stumbled towards the toilet. My own breath was jammed in my throat, and my knees felt numb against the cold (and probably horrendously expensive) stone floor.

I leaned my forearms clumsily against the bare toilet seat, which where unusually clean for a toilet, I noticed.

I took a deep, calming breath, hoping to fight down the urge to puke. I hated nothing more than throwing up; it made me feel like I was choking, and then I start panicking and freaking out. I took one more breath, thinking it had only been a momentary sickness and had passed, but I was wrong.

I leaned over the toilet bowl as I felt it coming up, bracing myself for the following choking coughs. I wretched into the toilet and broke into a fit of said loud coughs. I tried thinking of something else, but it was too late. Unfortunately I hadn't eaten in a while, so only bitter acid swelled up in my mouth, and I weakly spit it into the bowl.

My head felt heavy and the whole world twirled around me like a blue. My eyes still hadn't gotten used to the piercing light, and amidst my confusion, I saw a shadow come toward me from the doorway. No, that's not right. I must just be imaging it or something...

"Kaoru?" I head a drowsy voice from the doorway. 'I guess I'm not hallucinating after all'. Tamaki was standing in the entrance but was too blinded by the light to see what I was doing. "Are you okay?"

I wondered if he was too tired to think clearly, or just an idiot for asking that question when I clearly was choking on my own insides. Sorry for that mental image. With a cough, I pulled away from the toilet, flushing weakly.

"No." I said truthfully, and on shaky feet, I stood back up.

The blonde held a hand up toward the light as he approached me, his bare feet padding across the stone-floor lightly. "Need something?"

"No." I said and waved him away. I wandered toward the sink and placed each hand on either side of it, catching a quick glance of my devastated form in the mirror. "You can go back to bed."

And to my glee, Tamaki mumbled something about, 'just ask if you need something,' before he staggered back out of the room with a yawn. He closed the door lightly behind him, and I took a deep rasping breath. For the first time, in ages, I lifted my gaze and stared at my own reflection in the mirror.

I gently let a hand run across the smooth surface and felt something get stuck in my throat. "Please," I whispered toward my own form. I felt my eyes heat pathetically.

The sickening part about me burning my foster-father's face hadn't even been the worst part of my nightmare – although the most sickening.

It had been when Hikaru had walked into the room, seen my previous action and his face had twisted in disgust. His face had twisted from surprise to utter disgust. His eyes had found me, and he had voiced three words that was still echoing painfully in my head. "I hate you."

I closed my eyes for a moment; the dream had been without any sort of context but still imprinted so severely in my brain. I clenched my teeth in frustration. Why was I so affected by this?

oOo

Hikaru winced as the alcohol was pressed blithely against his wound.

"Don't be a baby," Haruhi scolded at him, but her face was twisted in a frown. "What were you even thinking? Getting into a fight and this early. You know, you just started at this school."

Hikaru smirked at this. "Well, they started it, I was just standing casually at my locker when they- ouch! Gosh, Haruhi, be a little more gentle!" he cut himself off when she pressed the disinfectant back on his injuries. He had been punched earlier by the jock from yesterday as "payback for his punk-ish words the other day". So ridiculous – and was 'punk-ish' even a word? Hikaru had boldly fought back, and gotten a few strikes in before a teacher had broken off the fight, so he was pretty satisfied with that.

However, the jock had in the process managed to: break his lip, make a small wound beside his eye and slam him into the lockers so hard that he had gotten a pretty bad bruise on the shoulder.

"Do you know how reckless you are?" Haruhi continued, and Hikaru gave up on arguing with her.

"Alright, I know, sorry," he mumbled with eye-roll. "But I was still not the one who started it though." He added under his breath. "You sound like Ka-" his eyes suddenly widened in remembrance. "That's right! Can you believe it? He didn't met me yesterday!"

Haruhi paused in a movement, her lips pressed into a line. "Is that so." She murmured quietly. She continued wiped the last blood off his face, while she mentally wanted to reveal everything from last night, but Kaoru's words from last night resounded in her head.

"Please don't tell Hikaru about all this."

"Why?" Haruhi asked stunned. "He's so worri-"

"Please," Kaoru said, looking at her with miserable golden eyes. "I have my reasons. Please, just please, don't tell him."

Hikaru continued his rant with much dismay in his voice. "He has some nerve, right? I am going to find him today, and tell him a piece of my mind. I mean, he didn't even have the decency to contact me. Seriously, I slept in my freaking car. Do you know how sore I am? Ugh, he is so-"

"Maybe something happened," Haruhi interrupted, her voice small and soft, as she grabbed a small bandage to cover up his cleaned wound.

"But still. I think he is really- OUCH!" he exclaimed as Haruhi forced the bandage on with way too much force than necessary before he could call Kaoru anything.

"There," she said shortly and turned to leave without another word. Hikaru stared after her with confusion written all over his face. 'What the hell was that about?' he thought, as he rubbed his face with a displeased pout.

oOo

I felt awkward driving to school with Tamaki.

He wasn't bad company at all, because he did most of the talking, and I only had to utter a few "hmm's", and maybe a "Yes" or "aha" once in a while. However, it still kept me in a state where I couldn't fully concentrate on my own thoughts.

People were standing in crowds around cars on the parking lot. I had never noticed this, since I always walked to school. I mentally prayed that Tamaki would take the parking-space in the far end of the lot, but of course he didn't.

The blonde pulled into the student parking lot out of routine and parked in the first empty spot he saw. Near the entrance… and the cliques.

I stared at the groups of people who immediately seemed to recognize the sports car, and I felt like melting into my seat. I didn't deal with other people, and other people normally just ignored me. However, if a person they normally ignored were with someone they associated with, the people would automatically get interesting. According to my novels anyway.

I didn't feel like being questioned.

I hurried out of the car and swung my bag around my shoulder. Tamaki waved at the students, who greeted him happily. A few girls ran to him with big smiles and said something, and his reply seemed to be extremely funny for some reason. Some of them gave me strange looks as I walked out of his car, but luckily no one seemed to- oh no!

"Tamaki, who's driving with you?" a girl asked him. I winced.

No one! An uninteresting, normal, human being! "This is Kaoru." He beamed. I could hear the questions immediately flying around, but I pretended not to hear them and tried to camouflage myself into the crowd of students.

I heard Tamaki yell after me, but I just walked faster. Swinging the entrance door open, I hurried inside. Entering into the busy hallways of this school was like entering a jungle. I normally came early to avoid commotion, but it seemed like all my habits had been flipped around today.

I sighed deeply as I had to concentrate deeply on zigzagging through the crowd, and felt a few people accidentally bump into me, but finally I managed to find my locker. I dialed the combination and yanked a little in the door, since I had gotten the worst locker on the whole school. At least, I'm pretty sure that's the case. The door didn't budge, so I pulled a little harder, and it flung open with a metallic thud, but before I could do anything, a hand appeared and slammed the door shut again.

"Hey! Um-"

"Good morning," a blunt voice said.

I looked up at the person and immediately frowned. "Hikaru." The floor suddenly seemed very interesting today.

Hikaru nodded, as in agreement and crossed his arm while leaning toward the lockers. "So?"

"So what?" I mumbled, faking confusion.

"Where were you yesterday?" he demanded, and I could see his foot starting to tap in impatience.

"Something came up?"

"What happened?"

I pressed my lips together. "None of your business."

This took him off guard, and he blinked twice. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"It's none of you b- oh my god," I exclaimed stunned as I looked back up. I had planned to angrily tell him off, but that's when I saw his face. "What happened to you?"

Hikaru still seemed astonished my attitude, but then he smirked. "Is that concern I hear in your voice?"

"N-no-"

"I think it was."

"Kaoru! Oh, there you are!" a voice blurted out. Hikaru and I both looked up with identical aware expression, and I had a sudden urge to run for it. The tall blonde came toward us, with a confused face on. "Didn't you hear me yell Kaoru? I wanted to introduce you to the others."

"Oh, no, I didn't," I lied and looked down again. I felt Hikaru's eyes dig into the back of my head, but ignored it. "Anyway, I need to go to class."

But before I could move, a hand suddenly planted itself on my shoulder. "Wait, I still need to talk to you." Hikaru said seriously, but at that second I was, literally, saved by the bell.

"We can talk later," I mumbled and fidgeted out of his hold. "I really can't get late to class again. I have too much absence already. Um, bye."

"Wait! Kaoru, I'm serious! Kaoru!"

His voice echoed in my ears, but I just kept walking away, biting my lip.

oOo

Hikaru watched with a frustrated expression as Kaoru disappeared down the hall, as if he paid no attention to his words at all. He moisture his lips and ran a hand through his hair. 'Why was Kaoru avoiding him? Everything was finally going great… and he really wanted to talk it out. Hikaru Hitachiin actually wished to talk it out.' The last people were moving past him to class, but he could only think about Kaoru and didn't even regard anyone around him. Then he suddenly remembered that Tamaki was still standing there and forced his eyes away from the hall.

"Oh, sorry," he mumbled, although he didn't knew why he was apologizing.

Tamaki shrugged with a smile. "You really care, which is admirable, but Kaoru is a handful," the blonde mumbled.

Hikaru couldn't help chuckling. It sounded like they were talking about they own bothersome teenage child. "I guess he is," he smirked, but then his smile fell and a sudden sad glimpse showed in his eye. Tamaki's smile fell as well, and he opened his mouth, but Hikaru hurried to speak first. "I really like Kaoru," he let slip, out of the blue and looked at Tamaki with helpless eyes. "But I don't know what to do. I have to … force him to socialize, and I do, because I love that look he gets. I really… really want to see him smile, just once, but he's such a freaking- I don't even know what he is." Hikaru flung his arms in the air and sighed.

"I know," Tamaki said and gave Hikaru a friendly pat on the shoulder. "He is quiet and not used to talk to others. He doesn't talk at lunch and he didn't even utter a word when he drove alone with me this morning."

"Yeah, I just wish he would talk to m-" Hikaru suddenly broke off. His eyes suddenly flickered off the floor and directly toward the blonde, gleaming with sudden suspicion. "Wait, he… drove with you?" the words were so stunned that they almost sounded insulting, but the teen was simply so baffled by what he had heard. "Willingly?" he added.

Tamaki paled for just a split-second, then he let out an awkward laugh. "Um, yeah. I met him on the way and offered him a ride."

"And he… agreed?" Hikaru whispered the last word.

"Yeah, well, I guess he did," Tamaki babbled and took an uneasy step back. "Anyway, we should get to class, don't you think?"

"Um…" Hikaru whispered, lifting a weak hand. Once again, a person left him back, without explanation. The teen stood back with an utterly confused glance before he lowered his hand and ran a hand through his hair. 'Was this 'keep-Hikaru-in-the-dark' day?'.

Sorry, this took way too long to write. Dx But it's up. Hope you liked. :D I'll set a deadline for myself from now on. At least a week between uploads... frooooom... now!

Reviewers of amazing-ness:

wishIwereanime - Haha, I really hope that isn't illegal, or I will be in for life. xD I'm flattered that you're breaking the law for me though. ;)

MusicMixerGURL - Just proves that HikaKao is cooler than math. :D

xdeathxbunnyx - That was exactly my thought, since Kao never had any friends before, I guess I figured that's what he thought too. ^_^ Thanks for reviewing.

OuranFire - The cliffies will continue. Mwuhahaha. ;) Thanks for beta'ing me. :D

Victoria62015 - Thank you very much. :D Glad you like, and I'll have your beat'ed chappy back very soon. ^_^

brings074065 - Hmm, when I just finished the anime, Hika was my favorite. Then I read the manga and Kao became my favorite. Then I read too many fanfics and now I absolutely don't know. xD

nosylla - Totally thank you! :D

s - I would love to say that the cliffy's will stop, but I don't want to lie to you. :D Thanks for reviewing. ^w^

Moonlight900 - The jock did. xD Now that I look at, I don't even think I gave him a name yet. xD He's just the evil jock. xb

Mesutora - yes sir. ;)

KathrenCullen18 - I will. :D And I have deadlines for myself now, so there won't be going so freaking long anymore. xD hopefully-

Moonlight900 - Argh! You're too sweet. ^w^ Thank you. I will upload faster. Pinky promise. ^_^