A/N: So... It's been another four years. It has been almost ten years since I started writing this. Even with all of life going on around me, I have never really been able to leave this story unresolved. It honestly thrills me to see that there are still people favoriting and following this story. I'm glad you are all enjoying it. It's almost over!
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Hikaru heard Haruhi leave the room. He blinked his eyes open, and rolled onto his back to stare at the ceiling. He had a splitting headache. Consuming a small fortune in alcohol can have that affect on a person. The drinking, though, seemed to be the only thing that kept him sane anymore.
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It was autumn. There were orange leaves everywhere on the playground. Gusts of cool breeze created tiny orange tornadoes.
Hikaru sat on a bench, watching the children play. There were children on the slide, on the swings, on the teeter-totter. Some playing tag, others in the sandbox. They all seemed so happy.
The sky turned from blue to orange, and, one by one, the children left. Eventually, there was only one left: a little boy that Hikaru had not noticed before. He was around four or five with auburn hair and big brown eyes. He was sitting on a swing, his little feet barely touching the ground. He looked sad.
"Hey kid, aren't you going to go home?" Hikaru asked.
The boy looked toward him and answered, "I dont have anywhere to go."
"What do you mean? Where are your parents?"
"They didn't want me."
Before Hikaru could respond, a particularly cold gust of wind blew past them, kicking up leaves in every direction. Hikaru shivered.
Just then, a dark figure entered the playground. It was hooded and faceless, tall and slender. Hikaru stood, unsettled by its presence.
It reached out a thin, ashen hand, beckoning the boy. The boy jumped down from the swing. He paused and looked over at Hikaru with an unreadable expression. Hikaru felt uneasy about letting the boy go with this... thing, but was dumbstruck, unable to say or do anything about it.
Sadness flashed momentarily in the boy's expression. Then he began to leave with the dark figure. Just before they exited the playground, the boy turned back to Hikaru one last time.
"Bye Daddy."
Hikaru awoke trembling. His heart was racing, and he could not seem to catch his breath. He took several deep shuttering breaths. There was a crushing weight in his chest, like his soul could not breathe. He stared around his room, trying futilely to shake the dream- the dark figure, the boy- from his mind. He grabbed his phone. It was only 2:08. He could not call Haruhi; it had only been a few days since she has asked for space, so he opted to flood his brain with internet bullshittery instead. It was hours before he was able to fall asleep again.
That had been the first of many dreams involving this boy. Sometimes they involved Haruhi too, the picture of a happy family, fading away before his eyes.
He wanted desperately to talk to Haruhi about it, or even talk to her at all. Just the sound of her laugh could make him feel better. However, Haruhi, he knew, did not want to see him, talk to him, have anything more to do with him. She was with Tamaki. She had always been with Tamaki. He was only a reminder of a painful memory.
Her absence allowed Hikaru's imagination to create fantasies. He began to construct daydreams from some of those images. What would have happened if he had simply chosen to believe that their entanglement had created something beautiful instead of something frightening? Would they have had a family like the ones that disappear in his dreams?
He could not tell Kaoru anything either. His brother knew him so well that his secret would be out within a single conversation. That was a huge risk that he could not take.
At first, he threw himself headlong into productivity. He could make himself spectacularly busy. Things seemed to go on with some semblance of normalcy. However, being busy could never stop the pang of sadness that tore at his heart every time he saw a happy family with a small child. That included his own nephews. The little boy in his dreams and all the what-ifs would begin to eat at him, and it took more and more energy each time to push it all back.
By the third month without Haruhi, Hikaru was not sleeping for more than a five hours per day. Frequently it was less. Some nights, he would have trouble falling asleep from anxiety. Others, he would have a nightmare and not be able to fall back to sleep. Sometimes, it was both.
The lack of sleep started to affect him. He had trouble focusing at school, at work, in regular life. He could not remember assignments- sometimes entire conversations. He was more irritable and less charismatic. Whenever people asked him whether he was ok, his positive reply was an obvious lie.
Everyone was worried about Hikaru. Kaoru pestered him everyday, asking whether he was ok, how he was doing. Trying to keep up appearances with his brother was especially exhausting. He knew every "I'm fine," rang hollow. At least half of Kaoru's calls and texts went ignored simply because Hikaru did not have the wherewithal to handle his beloved little brother.
The day of Haruhi and Tamaki's engagement party, Kaoru called and texted him over a dozen times, to remind him of the time and place, to find out whether he was coming, to find out why he was not there, etc., etc. His only response on the matter that whole day was a text saying, "Tell them I'm sorry and congratulations." Needless to say, Kaoru was pissed when Hikaru finally answered his call the following evening.
"Hey man," Hikaru answered.
"Don't you 'Hey, man' me!" Kaoru shouted. "Where the hell were you yesterday?!"
"I couldn't make it," Hikaru retorted, trying to ignore his guilty conscience as much as possible. The truth was that he had "celebrated" on his own with a bottle or two of sake. He had discovered over the past month that it helped with his anxiety and insomnia, so now he always kept a few bottles on hand.
"Haruhi and Tamaki are our best friends," scolded Kaoru, "You've been ghosting them and everyone else for months!" Then he added, just for emphasis, "Haruhi looked so sad when I gave her your 'apologies.'"
That was enough to put a dent in Hikaru's armor. He sighed, "I didn't belong there." He tried to hide it, but there was abject misery in his voice.
Kaoru was baffled. "What do you mean?" He could not understand what could possibly make Hikaru feel as if he did not deserve to be celebrating with everyone. Nearly ten years of friendship was not something that could simply dissolve, not without a reason. "Why on earth would you think that?"
"I didn't want to make things harder for her."
"Harder for whom?" Kaoru was confused.
"For Haruhi."
"Did you guys have a fight?"
"No," Hikaru replied sadly.
Something was not adding up. Kaoru could tell there was so much more to this story. Could this have had something to do with why Hikaru had been so weird for the past several months? "Then what," he pried. "Why on earth would seeing you be hard?"
"It's complicated."
Kaoru's eyes went wide. There was only one meaning to a phrase like that. "Hikaru, did something happen between you two?"
Hikaru was silent.
"Hikaru, what happened between you and Haruhi?"
"Noth-" He could not bring himself to finish the word nothing. What he and Haruhi had would never be nothing. "No- none of your business," he stammered.
Well, if that wasn't just the most I'm-hiding-something-est responses Kaoru had ever heard... Hikaru was easy to pull information from. He did not like to, nor could he effectively, lie to Kaoru, so Kaoru could simply play twenty questions and use the questions that Hikaru could not deny as facts. Up to this point, Hikaru had been very good at shutting him out totally. This was the first time that he had given away any piece of information. Let the games begin...
"What, did you make another move on her and get shot down and now you're pouting about it?" Kaoru asked in a joking tone, knowing it was not true. Hikaru had been over Haruhi for a long time. It simply made a good opener from which he could start gauging.
"No," Hikaru replied in the exact sulky voice that Kaoru was expecting.
"So, she made a move on you then?" It was a rapid-fire joke. Kaoru said it to break the ice...
"I- Well... No?... Litsten, I don't want to talk about his Kaoru."
Kaoru's brain skipped a beat. That was not the answer her was expecting.
"So wait, what? Did she like kiss you or something?" He had to dig quickly before Hikaru shut him out again. His question was met with more stammering: an affirmative response. Therefore, he should escalate to something dramatic and unlikely: "Did you guys sleep together?" Kaoru was expecting an emphatic "No! Of course not!" but none came. Hikaru sighed. He did not stammer, or deny, or anything. What the fuck?
"Hikaru? Are you still there?"
"Yeah..."
Kaoru's inner mind was screaming. Then he calmed it. Maybe Hikaru had not heard that last question. He reiterated evenly, so as to belie his astonishment, "Hikaru, did you sleep with Haruhi?"
A pause, not a denial.
"Kaoru, I-" Hikaru sighed again.
Still, not a denial!
"Holy shit, Hikaru! Did you and Hauhi have sex and that's why you've been so messed up? Dude, what the fuck?"
Hikaru realized what he had just done. He could not let this conversation go any further. "Fuck, I can't do this with you right now. I have to go. Bye." With that, he hung up on his brother and left his apartment, because there was no way that an in-person conversation with Kaoru was going to go any better.
He found himself at a hotel bar. Drowning his sorrows was something at which he had become quite skilled.
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A/N: See you in another four years! Really though, I cannot tell anymore whether this is good. It's been too long. So, as always, please tell me your thoughts and critiques. So excited! XD