'Kaoru, you know I'd never leave you, don't you trust me? You do, don't you Kaoru?'

"Kaoru? Kaoru! Come on, get up!"

"Mmmmmhmmph"

"You asked for it," a soft voice mumbled.

Kaoru Hitachiin suddenly found himself painfully thrust off the bed and onto the floor. Angrily, he shot an annoyed glance toward his brother, who smiled back mischeviously.

"What a way to be woken up. Thanks a lot Hikaru." Kaoru rubbed his backside, still not fully recovered from the rude awakening.

"I'd been calling your name for like 5 minutes already! What else was I supposed to do?"

"There aren't any options other than shoving me out of bed?"

Hikaru merely shrugged. "Well, it's certainly the quickest way."

Kaoru rolled his eyes at his twin and made his way toward the shower. He noticed that he was limping slightly from his impact with the floor; that would probably continue for a while. He hadn't made it very far before he found his hand intertwined with another's, as Hikaru pulled him into an intimate embrace.

"Hey, Kaoru, I'm sorry, okay? Really I am."

Kaoru refused to meet his brother's eyes. "That will probably bruise, you know."

Hikaru caught Kaoru's chin, forcing him to look into his eyes. He held him under a scrutinizing gaze, causing Kaoru's face to grow warm.

"I'm sorry, I forget sometimes, you are the more delicate of the two of us."

Hikaru ran a finger up the side of Kaoru's face, then cupped it with both hands, one thumb resting softly on Kaoru's bottom lip. Hikaru slowly dragged his thumb across the lip and leaned closer to whisper into his brother's ear.

"I've really got to be more careful with you."

Kaoru sighed and pulled out of his brother's clutch. He loved Hikaru, probably much more than a brother should, but he couldn't handle it when he acted like this. It was so hard to tell what his brother's motives were. Did he act out of brotherly love, or love of a different kind? It had been hard for Kaoru to come to terms with these feelings for his brother, and facing him in a situation like this, trying to read his actions, only made things more confusing, more unbearable.

Unwilling to even try to figure his brother out, Kaoru pushed past Hikaru, sending him one last resentful glance.

The older Hitachiin looked at his brother with concern and watched as he sauntered to the bathroom.

Once there, Kaoru leaned over the sink and stared into the mirror.

If he didn't know any better, he easily could've thought he was Hikaru. He could perfectly imitate his voice and knew all of his idiosyncracies. It was no wonder no one could tell them apart, they really were identical. Not even their own mother had quite been able to do it, and their father, The Ghost, certainly hadn't been able to.

Not that they'd really needed to anyway. The twins had been joined at the hip from day one, so identifying them as "Hikaru and Kaoru" had always sufficed.

It was from this inseparable bond they shared that Kaoru's unhealthy dependency on Hikaru had spawned. His brother had always been the dominant one in their relationship, coming up with all their pranks and speaking for Kaoru when he felt it necessary.

And of course, he was the one who'd invented the "Which One is Hikaru?" Game. The game that had so distanced them from everybody else.

'I wonder how different thing would be, if we'd never even started that stupid game...'

Kaoru was jolted out of his thoughts by the sound of Hikaru knocking on the bathroom door.

"Get on with it will you! I've got to shower too!" Hikaru called impatiently.

"There are plenty of other bathrooms to use Hikaru." Kaoru replied unfazed.

"Yeah? Well this is my favorite one!"

Kaoru ignored his brother and started the shower, turning it all the way up, causing the room to steam almost immediately.

As he washed himself, Kaoru became aware of a large blackish-blue bruise forming on his hip. It actually hurt pretty badly. Not much of a surprise, Kaoru was the weaker of the two.

'Man, if I'd only woken up when the alarm went off, then I never would've gotten this bruise.'

Kaoru was struck with the realization that even though it was Hikaru's fault, he just couldn't bring himself blame him. He'd never been able to.

He'd taken the fall for his brother countless times, and never thought twice about it. He just loved Hikaru too much.

Kaoru smiled sadly to himself as he turned off the water, and returned to the room he and Hikaru shared. There, he found his brother already dressed in his blue Ouran uniform.

Hikaru stood and walked over to Kaoru.

"What took you so long bro? I've been waiting for like half an hour."

"I don't know, I just really needed to clear my head." Kaoru replied non-committedly, unwilling to attempt describing what was really going on inside his head.

Hikaru's gaze shifted from mild annoyance to concern immediately.

"Is something wrong? You can tell me anything. Don't you trust me? You do, don't you Kaoru?"

Kaoru froze as the words from his dream replayed themselves over and over again.

"Kaoru? You do trust me, right?"

Kaoru opened his mouth to speak, but found that he couldn't, and settled for nodding his head. A small part of him hoped that Hikaru would understand without him having to say a single thing. It hoped that somewhere deep down, Hikaru would feel the same way. But his heart told him this would never be, and that to tell Hikaru the truth would only succeed at distancing them, severing the bond they'd shared from day one.

On any normal day, Hikaru wouldn't have let this go so easily, but today was different. He just stared off into the distance and returned his brother's nod.

"Good. Don't forget that... Hey, I've got some stuff to take care of before school, so I'm just gonna go ahead, alright?"

Kaoru, still unable to speak, nodded dumbly again.

"Cool, I'll meet you there later then."

And with that, Hikaru walked out of the room without so much as a look back.

Kaoru finally regained some sense, enough to recognize the sadness welling in him. Hikaru hadn't tried to figure out what was going on with him. He'd never not cared before, Hikaru would always relentlessly pester Kaoru, begging him to share his feelings, sometimes, he'd even cry in desperation, but not today. Today, he'd walked away like he'd never even noticed anything was wrong in the first place.

After a moment more in the uncomfortable silence, Kaoru dressed himself, identically to how Hikaru had, and headed downstairs.

Upon entering the kitchen, Kaoru ran into his mother who draped her arms around him dramatically.

"Ah, Good Morning Hikaru, my little fashion protégé! Come! You simply MUST see some of my newest designs!"

"Um, sorry mom, I'm Kaoru, not Hikaru."

"Ah, I'm sorry darling, when you see Hikaru at school, could you tell him I could use his GENIUS input on a few of my new designs?"

Without waiting for a response, Kaoru's mother kissed him on the forehead and walked away, returning to her studio.

Kaoru sighed. This wasn't really something he should be surprised about. Hikaru had always been a little bit better at everything. If Kaoru scored a 99 on a test, Hikaru scored perfectly. Whatever gave Kaoru a bruise, barely even made a mark on Hikaru. The same went for their designs. Whatever Kaoru designed, Hikaru took and made 10 times better. It was just the way things were.

Even though he was hungry, Kaoru didn't feel much like eating and ignored the maid who came to find out what he wanted breakfast.

He was still trying to get a grasp on the way Hikaru was acting. Not only that, but he was also trying to make sense of the dream he'd had the night before. Kaoru was thinking himself in circles, ultimately ending up nowhere. His mind was sufficiently tired out.

Kaoru was just about to decide whether or not he could get away with faking sick. School was the last thing on his mind; he highly doubted he'd be able to focus in class, especially when Hikaru was only a seat away… His thoughts were interuppted when his cell phone lit up with a text from Hikaru.

'Hey! Haruhi invited me to go shopping with her after Host Club. Don't wait up for me, okay?'

Kaoru closed his phone without responding. It's not like Hikaru would have cared either way.

He put his head in his hands, and rested for a moment before calling a limo to take him to school. At least he'd have the 15 minute drive to school to collect himself and put on an act that everyone would fall for.

While he waited, his phone lit up, another text from Hikaru.

'On second thought, come with us! You need to be more social anyway."

Kaoru seethed. HE needed to be more social? Hikaru was the one who'd lost it when Haruhi had reconnected with her old friend, Arai. Hikaru was the one who was constantly played pranks on and blatantly insulted people. Kaoru had only followed suit out of pure love and admiration for his brother. Kaoru couldn't ever say no to him.

Once again, his thoughts were interrupted, this time by a maid who'd tapped him on the shoulder.

"WHAT." He snapped at her, still livid from Hikaru's text.

"Eh! Sorry Master Kaoru, but your limo is here!" the maid responded hastily, pointing out the window.

Kaoru glanced unenthusiastically in the direction she'd pointed, seeing that the limo was indeed there. He gathered his things and made his way to the limo silently, not wanting his anger to get the best of him.

He attempted to pull himself together on the ride to school, like he'd planned, only to find that with each passing minute, his anger was escalating.

It grew and grew until finally, Kaoru broke down in tears.

Did Hikaru really think he was anti-social? WAS he anti-social?

"Master Kaoru, we have arrived."

"Huh? Oh, yeah. Thanks."

Kaoru wiped his face with a handkerchief he pulled from his uniform pocket and stepped out of the limo.

He took a deep breath as he walked toward Class 1-A.

'Today is going to be a long day.'