Hikaru POV

It had been an entire week since Haruhi had stopped attending the host club. We knew she was annoyed with us, but it was starting to get on my nerves that she would brush us off each and every time we tried to speak to her in class as well. What made it worse was that she moved from between Kaoru and me to sit next to some nerdy girl near the front of the class that clearly had taken a liking to our oblivious toy.

Actually I hadn't noticed how much she had wormed her way into our lives without even meaning to. All our subjects seemed boring without her sandwiched between us to explain things to us and pretending that she didn't notice us copying her notes. Occasionally we would doodle in the margins of her notebooks and write little notes to wind her up or try to make her laugh in class. The closest we had gotten to making her laugh was when we drew Tamaki taking a fit at 'chibi' versions of my brother and me.

In a nutshell, we missed her.

Today had started off pretty normally. Class hadn't started yet and a few girls had gathered around our table in order to swap some small talk to pass the time. It was then that I decided it was time to play a game.

"How would you ladies like to play the 'which one is Hikaru' game?" I suggested to the small gathering of girls. Kaoru reached down and pulled out a couple of caps from under our desks as we fitted them onto our heads and switched our positions a few times.

The girls seemed to be concentrating pretty hard on our appearances, scrutinizing all that could give away their true identities. After a few moments they still couldn't come to a conclusion and it was somewhat disappointing that the girls we had spent the last few years sharing a class with still couldn't tell us apart.

"That one is Hikaru, that one is Kaoru." Our heads shot in the direction of the front of the class, where Haruhi was sitting with her nose in a book, her eyes lazily resting upon us before going back to the text.

"But…"

"How did you…"

We were dumbfounded. Nobody had won the game before.

"It's not that hard you know. You might look alike but that doesn't make you one personality."

"That doesn't explain how you told us apart, Haruhi," I huffed. She was probably only taking a stab in the dark about the answer. She had gotten lucky.

"Hikaru, you're more hot-headed whilst Kaoru tends to be the more rational and relaxed one. You also tend to be more mischievous, although while Kaoru still shows that characteristic, when he's alone it much more toned down than in comparison to you."

I turned to my brother wide eyed to stare into an expression I expect totally mirrored my own at that exact moment. I raised an eyebrow to him in silent question. An almost unnoticeable tilt of the head was enough of an answer.

It took a moment before Kaoru started laughing, softly at first but getting stronger until he was clutching his sides. I couldn't help the scowl my face contorted into as he pointed at me whilst doubled over and shaking with laughter.

"Oh man, she got you down to a T, Hikaru. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to laugh."

"Shut it, Kaoru. I just speak my mind, its sneaky people like you that people need to look out for."

"Why are you turning this on me? I just go along with your selfish games."

"I might come up with the ideas, but you're the one that really gets into them. If you hate them so much, then why don't you stop? " He retorted.

"Whatever, Hikaru. Make your excuses. I just don't want to see you make a total ass of yourself in front of everybody."

The stare down began between the pair of us; eyes hard and unforgiving. From the corner of my sight I could see Haruhi's shock from our little argument. I can't blame her. We'd never actually had a real fight before, alone or in front of a crowd. Her face was guilt ridden, as if she was the main root of our confrontation.

Stage one of our plans to win back Haruhi: Successful.

Kyoya POV

It didn't take long for news to spread about the twins little squabble. It seemed suspicious to me that Haruhi was the source of the argument when she had been avoiding every member of the host club since we had our first visit to the Fujioka household. The twins were up to something, I was aware of that, but whatever their next move was, was beyond me for now. They could be unpredictable at times, an enigma of sorts.

For now I would leave them to play their games, whatever they hoped to achieve must be worth it in order to stage a fight in front of so many of their customers. It was when they didn't show up in the cafeteria at lunch that the other members started to get worried of their whereabouts. Tamaki was blurting out all sorts of long winded guesses as to what had happened to them.

"They went home, sempai. It's as simple as that." The blonde bombshell spun around in his seat to get a glimpse of Haruhi walking past our table before disappearing to the back of the room to sit alone. Tamaki's shoulders visibly slumped in disappointment when she didn't stop to sit with us once again, even though she usually spent the lunch hour with the twins and not the older members of the club.

"I wish Haru-chan would come back to club already. Kyo-chan, Tama-chan why don't you just apologize to her?" His lips pursed into a childish pout and his eyes glazed with tears.

I had considered apologizing to our petite female host, but my pride had stopped me from doing so each time I had willed myself into phoning her house or when we saw her at lunch times. I had merely completed a task that I carried out with each of the club members parents. I hadn't lied when I spoke to them all personally about club activities. The only one I didn't actually inform how well we were doing was my own father. He was too busy to listen about drabbles regarding 'that waste of time' as he would refer to it. Whilst some of the activities were somewhat taxing and the girls could be hard to bear when they got a little overzealous in their affections towards us, I still managed a profitable club and had built close relations with some of the wealthiest and influential business names in Japan. But alas, that wasn't enough to justify my involvement in the host club.

"I think Honey-sempai is right on this one, Kyoya. We gave her time to cool off like you said we should, now it's time to act," to princely boy said with authority.

I simply nodded in response. I wasn't sure if she'd be so easy to persuade as Tamaki was predicting. She was most likely wanting a break from us all and a week may not have been long enough in her books. But there's no stopping Tamaki when he sets his mind so thoroughly on a task.

Haruhi POV

I had really wanted to stop and ask the host club members if the twins had ever argued in such a manner. I'm sure as brothers they may have had their disagreements in the past but this had come out of nowhere. What was even worse that she felt guilty for causing it and she didn't even know what she had really done. The 'which one is Hikaru?' game had been played plenty of times before and each time the player got it wrong the pair had a flash of disappointment cross their face, but it was gone so quickly it was hard to notice unless you paid enough attention. So why had they gotten upset when she won? It made no sense.

And now they had fled the school, abandoning their afternoon classes and presumably their hosting duties as well. The easiest option would be to confront them and make them explain what the hell was wrong with them. But she was trying to avoid interactions with the hosts. She didn't even know why she got involved with the game in the first place. She had just witnessed them pulling on the hats to hide their partings and the clueless girls trying to solve the puzzle and win their little game. Answering was a reflex; she just knew who was who, before even noticing she had spoken out loud.

I absentmindedly poked at the food in my bento box with the plastic chopsticks. If it would stop the twins bickering she would go back to talking to them again.

The next classes were strangely quiet with the lack of the class troublemakers, and oddly enough I missed them. I missed hearing their whispering voices behind me and the occasional heavy sigh that Hikaru would exhale to make it obvious to all around him that the lesson was boring him, a sign that he was about to start defacing her stationery and notebooks with ridiculous doodles. They were her friends, perhaps blowing them off the past week had been a little too harsh on the boys.

The minutes of the class crawled by until we were dismissed and as I left the class, I instinctively started to head towards the abandoned music room I had come to know so well but stopped myself mid-step to exit the large school building. The fact that I didn't have two arms lazily wrapped around my shoulders and waist wasn't lost on me as I stepped out of the front entrance to Ouran and into the drizzle outside.

Kaoru POV

"Do you really think this is going to work, Hikaru?" I was still slightly sceptical that the quarrelling brothers act was actually going to work. On most girls, it would take immediate effect, capturing their full attention and drawing their sympathy to the broken hearted siblings that we would portray. But Haruhi wasn't just any girl; she was almost the complete opposite of the girls we dealt with on a daily basis. Her reaction to this ploy was hard to predict and a little bit risky.

"Don't worry too much about it, Kaoru. Pass me the dye, would you?" I handed him the colourful bottle. Our plan was to take the game a step further and dye our hair hot pink and electric blue so we could be told apart instantly. We would tell anyone who questioned it that we just didn't want to be mixed up for 'that loser' or some other insult we could come up with on the spot. The aim was that it would make Haruhi feel guilty enough to come comfort either one of us or both of us, and in the process forgive us for intruding in her home. The other possibility I predicted was that she'd get so irritated that she'd snap at both of us eventually which would get the ball rolling in our progress of having her notice we still existed.

"Why did I have to be stuck with pink? Blue would have been much better." I pouted at my brother as he massaged the foamy mixture into his auburn locks.

"That's what happens when we flip a coin. Pink and blue were the only extreme colours I could find in mom's beauty products. No clue why she would need them though."

"But still, I pulled the short straw here. Let's just hope that this is enough to get her to react. I don't know what other extreme measures we could take before we just have to flat out apologize to her."

"That would be the boring way of getting her to talk to us though. Why not make it a game?"

I shook my head at my twin's childish antics. I suppose a game does make it more fun, but it would be nice to just resolve the issue with less drama and risk. I don't bother discussing that with Hikaru though. He's rinsing out the blue dye, it's much more vibrant than I had expected it to turn out saying as it was covering up orange toned hair. I guess it's my turn for a makeover now.