A/N: Well, I promised that I wouldn't drop my stories even if I update, like, once every two years. I really do want to finish my stories, especially this one. I promise I will work on my other stories too. I have quite a lot of free time now but I don't know for how long. I hope this gets to be a frequent thing. I had a hard time with this. There have been plenty of versions but this one is the final. I can't promise flawlessness though, but if ever there are any typos, misspelled words, or grammar mistakes, do not hesitate to let me know. :) If my Beta, EmberWillow14, is still interested in beta-ing this story of mine. I'm still ALIIIIVE. Lol. Anyway, on to the disclaimer and then to the story itself.

DISCLAIMER: I don't own OHSHC or Ootori Kyouya. I do own my OCs though and this story that my brain pooped out. Happy reading!


Alphabetically Insane Chapter H - HOMEWORK

SUMMARY: Fate has its way of making you realize the things you don't have the courage to admit to yourself. The freshmen class is assigned to do an essay about their most important person. See how this pushes Hikaru to choose between Kaede and his twin Kaoru.


Hikaru paced back and forth in his room. Unconsciously, he twirled the pen in his hand expertly between his fingers. He did not know why he was anxious nor did he understand why it was so difficult for him to choose. This should have been a no-brainer, right? Kaoru was the most important person in his life. Without him, Hikaru would be at a complete loss. But why was Kaede invading his thoughts as if she wouldn't let him write the paper on his twin?

"You know it's all right if you want to write about Kaede-chan,"

Hikaru looked up at the door a little surprised. He had not noticed Kaoru standing there, hands in his pockets and with a sly smile on his face. Usually he mirrored that smile but at the moment, he was still in a battle of wits with himself. Was it obvious what he was thinking? Or did Kaoru have mind-reading powers?

"What makes you think I'd want to write about our toy? I'm gonna write about you so I better see my name on yours." There was a split second pause before he managed to give his reply to Kaoru. He made up his mind. Kaoru was more important than anyone else...even Kaede.

"You will," Kaoru replied, this time with a thoughtful smile. "I wrote mine about the Host Club."

"You're including Tamaki-dono on your paper?" Hikaru attempted at a half-hearted joke.

"Yeah, so stop feeling bad if you don't write about me." Kaoru retorted, shooting his twin a knowing smile.

A blush rushed to Hikaru's cheeks. An image of Kaede flashed in his mind. He shook his head as if to erase his wayward thoughts but they didn't budge. He already knew that he was going to regret this choice in the near future. He sighed and sat down on his desk and began to write his essay.

.o.O.o.

On the day of the submission, Hikaru woke up and found that he had fallen asleep on his desk. He vaguely recalled finishing his paper, only remembering his struggle in choosing who to write about and the weird dream he had been having for days now. It must have been fate that had planned this all. Even in his dreams, he is forced to choose between his twin and Kaede.

Images from his dream flashed in his mind; Kaede drowning and Kaoru calling out to him. It was a choice: to be safe with Kaoru or to risk being with Kaede. And until he wrote the paper, he didn't know what he truly wanted. Could he finally admit it?

For all of my life, I have put my twin first above all else. He is the one who understands me and he is the one I trust the most. He knows me like he knows himself that's why I believed that I would never find someone I could care more for than Kaoru.

But I was wrong.

Today she is present and the reason for her long absence has been revealed. She caught a bad case of the flu after they took her to the beach. It might have been her exposure to water and cold air and her inability to lay still and rest that caused her body to give in to illness. Hikaru saw how she looked at him that day. She was frightened of him. He couldn't blame her. If he hadn't told her to jump, if he hadn't pulled her into the thing she fears most then she would have been safe. She almost drowned and even if it annoyed him to no end that it was Shichiro who had saved her, he was happy he was there.

Today she looks happier. Maybe she was able to make peace with her mother. Or maybe Shichiro had given her something to be happy about. The feeling that rose up inside him tightened his heart and left a bad taste in his mouth. It would not end well if he let his jealousy take a hold of him (again). Instead of acting out on his irrational jealousy, he opted to do what appeared to be normal. He approached the subject of his thoughts and annoyed her.

"Good morning, Kaede-chan! Missed me?" Hikaru exclaimed whilst wrapping his arms around the rather short high school girl.

"Hikaruuuuuu~!"

She made a face. A face he knew was reserved only for him. Because she knew when it was him or when it was Kaoru. She could "feel" it, she said. Like Haruhi, Kaede was observant, that's why they could tell them apart. Apparently, his face was more annoying to look at than Kaoru's. Whether that meant that Kaoru was better looking or the other way around, remained to be a mystery.

"How could I miss you? It's your fault I got sick!" She retorted, trying to pry his arms off her shoulders.

"Ah, is that the thanks I get for trying to save you from seeing your mom? Didn't you have any fun?" He prodded, not wanting to leave her side so quickly.

"Hikaru, you didn't tell me it was time to play with our toy?" Kaoru asked, feigning sadness.

"I'm just asking Kaede-chan if she missed us." The older twin answered with a faux serious expression.

"I miss neither of you so would you please get off of me?" Kaede complained as Kaoru said, "That looks like fun, count me in!" And without waiting for a reply he joined Hikaru is caging the brunette between their arms.

"Settle down, class!" Their first period teacher announced as he made his way into the classroom. The brunette silently thanked their math teacher for arriving on time and saving her from the embrace of the two little devils.

She caught me unaware. I did not expect to care for her like I do. It started with a letter. Anonymous confessions were common for Kaoru and I but it had been long since we received any. An effect of the Host Club, maybe? Girls needn't be hiding in the shadows and admiring us from afar. They could just stop by the Host Club and they could be with us if they wished. It was getting boring and responding to a confession letter sounded like fun.

The surprise came in a puffy yellow package. She came running into me at full speed and almost tripped. Funny, she was the one who lost her balance but it felt like I was the one who fell. I remember thinking that I hadn't noticed her before but now I wondered why I hadn't. She told me then that she was just at the wrong place at the wrong time but maybe, she was wrong about that too.

Classes went by unusually slowly. Like the slow-mo in an epic boss battle before the hero deals the finishing blow. In Hikaru's thoughts he did not know if he was the hero or the evil boss.

"Kaede-chaaaan~ can I borrow your english essay please?" Hikaru couldn't help over-hearing Mayu Airi, Kaede's best friend, whine during class break. Did Kaede even know about that assignment? She was absent when it was announced in class.

When he saw Kaede pulling out a piece of paper from her bag and handing it to Airi, he realized she actually did her homework. Hikaru was now itching to know who the most important person to Kaede is. He wondered that if he would ask her directly, would she tell him?

"Oy, Kaede-chan! Who's your important person?" He yelled from his seat, loud enough for the addressed to hear.

"None of your business, Hikaru-baka!" She yelled back, sticking out her tongue at him.

Sometimes she just asked for it.

At first, it was all a game. I discovered how fun it was to annoy her. She was interesting, to quote the words from Kyouya-senpai. She always reacted violently, was always affected by the littlest things. And it is the littlest things that she notices like the subtle differences between Kaoru and me. There are only a handful of people who could tell us apart and she is one of the privileged few.

Right now, I do not think that when she ran into me in that corridor that it was an accident. I think I was meant to meet her - the girl who could change my heart.

"Okay, class, today we will be hearing about what you all wrote about in your essays." Kobayashi Akira smiled sweetly as she walked in her last period English class.

Hikaru froze up at the teacher's announcement. 'What the hell?' He thought, surprised to say the least. He looked up and he wasn't sure if he was imagining it but Kobayashi-sensei just smirked at him. 'She's doing this on purpose!' His mental panic was masked with his outward show of indifference. If he had known that they were supposed to read their homework in front of class then he wouldn't have written it about Kaede.

First, it was the topic that confused him. It took him hours and a little nudge from his twin before he decided to write about her. Now, he had to read it out loud for the whole class to hear? 'Uh, maybe, no.'

"All right, pass your assignments forward." Kobayashi-sensei instructed her class.

Immediately, students started to shuffle in their seats. Leaning forward towards those seated in front of them and handing out their homework. The guy sitting in front of Hikaru turned to him with an open hand, waiting for him to pass his homework. Hikaru gulped and decided at once that he wasn't going to humiliate himself. Not in front of his twin. Not in front of Haruhi. Not in front of the freshmen class. And definitely not in front of Kaede. He shook his head and mumbled, "I didn't do my homework."

Kaoru turned to him in surprise. The question in his eyes was obvious but Hikaru wouldn't meet his gaze. There was no way the older twin would allow his younger brother to talk him out of not submitting his assignment. The wrath of Kobayashi-sensei was a lot better than dealing with everyone's response to the essay he wrote; not to mention Kaede's reaction. What would she say? The thought sent a shiver down his spine.

"Who did you write about, Hikaru-kun?" Kaede asked all of a sudden.

Was the universe conspiring against him? Just when he was trying not to draw attention to himself and his reluctance to submit his homework, Kaede suddenly wants to know whom he wrote it about. 'You,' he answered her in his head. But out loud he told her, "I didn't do the assignment."

"Eh? Why does Kaoru have his homework and you don't?" She was as stubborn and as persistent as could be.

"I didn't feel like writing an essay. I can just tell Kobayashi-sensei my most important person." Hikaru replied, trying not to meet her eyes while remaining nonchalant.

"Who, then?" she retorted, raising an eyebrow at him.

"Kaoru," he responded without missing a beat as he pointed at his twin with his thumb.

"Figures," she grumbled as she finally let the subject rest.

"Told you," he taunted her, a small smirk on his face.

The rest of the period was dedicated to listening to his classmates as they read their essays out loud. One after another, each of his classmates went up to the front of the class and described their important person. Kaoru talked about the Host Club and how they have become a sort of family for the both of them.

When Kaede came to stand beside the teacher's desk, Hikaru was paying more attention than he let on. He was wondering who her important person could be. Was it her first love, Shichiro? It could be anybody, just not Shichiro. Please.

"If I could write a list about people who have any significance in my life, it would be quite a long list," she paused, smiling to herself. Hikaru missed nothing. "But topping that list would always be my mother. We don't always get along and half the time I think she's made it her life's mission to find me the perfect suitor but I know that she has my best interests at heart."

She was not like any of the girls who confessed to me or my twin. She even told us she wasn't the one who wanted to confess. I remember hoping that she was only lying. It was always fun being around her. The more she yelled at us to go away, the more we couldn't leave her alone. She thinks she's hard to read but she's no mystery. She doesn't pretend, or she tries and fails to pretend anything.

I could list a lot of things that make her important to me and a lot of things about her that I liked but I realized there's only one reason I could tell that she's important to me. I can't live without her.


SECOND A/N: Leave a review for me if you liked this or if you want to comment on things. :) I dunno if I murdered Hikaru in the essay part*, but I guess since it's his innermost feelings then it is excused, right? :D

*FYI, the essay parts are the ones in Italics :)