Hikaru doesn't remember walking up the stairs. He doesn't remember walking into the room he and Kaoru share. He doesn't remember falling asleep but, he does remember the nightmares. -Kaoru, tied up, bruised and bleeding. "Hikaru...why..." He cries looking up at his older brother. "Why didn't you pick up the phone? Don't you care about? He's going to kill me, Hikaru! He told me!"Tears fall from the younger Hitachiin's eyes- -In a dark room Hikaru can't see anything. The only sound is killing him and he yells Kaoru's name but his twin is impossible to find. The older boy backs up covering his until he hits a wall and slumps down still yelling for Kaoru as his brothers screams filled the darkness.- Hikaru jolts awake and sits panting. He recalls the events of yesterday and presses a hand against his forehead wishing it were just another one of those terrible nightmares, wishing, hopelessly, for Kaoru to coming running through the door and jump into his waiting arms. But he somehow he know that can happen. He pulls himself from the bed and puts on some different clothes.
He walks slowly down the staircase. Hikaru goes into the dining room and returns with a chair which he positions right beside the table that the phone sits on. He looks around the empty house sadly. It's Sunday, all the servants are off and Mr. and Mrs. Hitachiin are off somewhere in the Indies completely unaware of the situation their sons are in. The elder boy takes a deep breath trying to keep from calling them, know if he did their first reaction would be to call the police and then...no more Kaoru. He sits down in the high-backed chair and rubbing absent mindedly at the seams on the bottom of his shirt.
It takes him a moment but he soon realizes he's not wearing his shirt. He's wearing Kaoru's. His little brother's favourite jersey. He twists the bottom of the shirt up tightly in his hand and bites his lip to keep the tears at bay. He's never felt this way. So vulnerable, alone, lost and utterly broken. But then again, he's never had his brother taken from him. Or had the life of the same one person who he deeply cared about tossed so carelessly around in a sadistic game before. And so he sat silently in that chair waiting with baited breath for that horrid call that would connect him with his other half.
~ "You know it hurts me to do this little one, it really does."The dark hair man says sympathetically. "Then let me go!"I cry struggling against the ropes binding my hands to the bed. The man frowns and ambles over to my side. "But Kaoru, that's not how the game works."He smiles sadly looking down at me as he pets my hair. I jerk away from him and try again. "Please...just let me. We can play any kind of game you want just let me...Ahhh!" I yelp as he scrapes the knife along the cut he'd made yesterday along my side. He looks down at a watch on his wrist and smirks. "If you'll excuse me Mr. Hitachiin I have a very important phone call to make."He pauses at the door and looks back. "Don't go anywhere." The man laughs and he leaves. Now it's just me again with that clock. Ticking away my time. "Save me Hikaru."~
The phone doesn't even finish ringing the first time before it's in Hikaru's hand. "Where's Kaoru?"The words that have been eating at him since he first discovered his brother was missing spill out. There was a chuckle from The Gamemaker's end of the line and it took him a minute to reply.
"He's right here." The man replies and the phone is drop onto something soft with a quiet plop.
"Kaoru! Kaoru are you alright! Kaoru!"Hikaru calls frantically begging to hear his little brother's voice. There's more shifting and then.
"Hikaru! Hikaru I'm so scared!"He whimpers and the man laughs in the background.
"Kaoru."His brother cries. "Are you hurt? What's that sick bastard done to you? I'll kill him if he hurt you."
"I'm fi...OWWW!"Kaoru hisses as the man drags the tip of his knife down his thigh drawing a thin, dark trail of blood. The phone is picked up and once again the man is back.
"You evil motherfucking asshole! Don't you dare lay a hand on him!" Hikaru shouts, his temper exploding hearing the pain in Kaoru's voice and his cry.
"Are you ready for your riddle, Hitachiin?"The Gamemaker asks ignoring his ranting. "The backward hands spin like a carousel. Two times the lady circles she wishes you well. Wishes, wishes and a bit of luck make a wish but never tell."Hikaru scribbles down the message onto the same paper from before. "Remember Hikaru, you have 30 minutes."And again the dial tone hums. Hikaru can hardly breathe. He doesn't understand the riddle. It sounds like one of Tamaki's stupid love lines he feeds clients. It hits him then that he needs help. He flips open his cell phone not even wanting to wait a second and presses the sped dial.
A few minutes that feel like hours and one conversation later there is a knock at the front door. Hikaru explains the situation as best he can without breaking down and looks to his friend for so sign of...anything.
"That bastard .It seems, Hikaru, that the Host Club has a task at hand."He growls in a voice heard very few times outside his morning wake up. He takes the slip of paper with the riddle on it from Hikaru and begins to study it carefully.
"Thank you. Kyoya-sama."Hikaru says unable to think of anything more fitting. The dark haired teen only nods and begins scrawling in his black book.
"The first line is I believe referring to the Sali Carousel in Sentini Park."Ootori says looking at the anxious brother over his glasses. The ginger grabs a pen and writes what he said on another piece of paper.
"What could the Sali Carousel have to do with..."Hikaru stops dead in his tracks, shocked by this new revelation.