Well. :D I felt compelled to include something romantic in this series... 'cause the twins are almost twenty-eight. D: I dun wanna leave them single for long.
I think Hikaru's too gullible. I ned to explain why Kaoru's being so overprotective...
Blah! Rated T for nothing! This is totally K stuff. I typed to fast to let Phil interfere. Oh, and this... foretells things to come. -shifty eyes-
It's Valentine's Week, Hikaru thinks his brother is frustrated.
He sees a lone figure, lounging on the office seat, letter opener in hand and shredding the light pink envelope. He leans back, reaches for another letter and scans his eyes over it. He sighs, shifting his legs, so that they're placed on the black table surface.
"Oi, Kaoru, you're at it again?" He knocks tentatively on the door, a cup in hand. "Why can't you just pick and choose?"
Kaoru turns a sharp eye at him, then lowers his gaze, "It's not as simple as that."
"Just give it a try. Give them a try," Hikaru simpers, really wanting to help his brother.
"Hikaru…" the younger Hitachiin closes his eyes, "You don't understand. It doesn't work that way. Not with me."
After all, he rejects all the girls that confess to him, and often in the rudest ways possible.
The truth is, Kaoru hates Valentine's Day.
"It's annoying; all these girls just suddenly pop up from out of nowhere and gives me chocolate, and stuff," Kaoru flings another half-wrapped box of sweets into the over-flowing trash bin. Hikaru looks, half-crying that his brother was throwing perfectly good chocolates into the trash.
But Kaoru doesn't care.
"I know, I know," Hikaru sighs heavily, running a hand through his hair, "But don't just dump them in the trash. Sheesh, it's just food; you don't have to act like it's poisoned."
Kaoru pauses, then continues to shred the shiny red paper off the box. A book on metaphors. His eyes narrow, slightly, "It might be," with this, he tosses it into the waste bin. Hikaru sweat drops; he was only being sarcastic.
It's not like he's over depressive about this, Hikaru finds himself thinking, tapping a pen to his chin. He scrutinizes his twin's facial features as he types, indifferent about the looming holiday ahead of him. Typing mechanically, hardly finding the reason to become distracted, even when their secretary arrives, a large box in her hands.
Hikaru lights up, sidling around his desk to help her with the load, flashing a small smile in the process. A small tint of a blush creeps onto her face: apparently, this is one of the first times they both hadn't insulted, teased, annoyed her to bits. Even if it's just one of them, it's nice to be appreciated.
Her brown eyes find their glance settling on the more serious twin, who still didn't move his head from the computer screen. Like he's purposefully ignoring her.
"Hitachiin-san, the delivery man said there's always an abnormal amount of packages this morning," she comments, as Hikaru sets the load onto the desk. He's used to it; Kaoru's not helping, so he sorts the mail alone.
Hikaru's eyes darken as he counts each pile again. He swears inwardly; Kaoru always gets less. Is that why he destroys all of them?
"Hitachiin-san? Is there a problem?" she cocks her head in confusion to the twins' silence.
"No, no; get the paperwork done for tonight. I think, I'll be leaving earlier today," Hikaru's gaze has already drifted to his twin, "Right, Kaoru?"
(Hikaru didn't say we. Yes, there is a problem.)
Instantly, his hands freeze in mid-type. He sets his hands on the desks, and pushes his chair away from the desk, amber eyes darting to examine the elder twin's face; Aya suddenly feels like she's intruding on something.
"With whom?"
"A Mariko-chan," Hikaru pipes up, waving a finger playfully in the air, "Lineage is A class, attractiveness a-okay; her intelligence is a top class, and her business specializes in art and painting exchanges. Second heir, elder brother inheriting the business. It's said she's supposed to be a very calm person, Kaoru."
Kaoru's back to typing again, as if his brother hadn't said anything.
Hikaru's smirk softens, "Right," he glance, almost seductively at Aya, "-you didn't believe that we would ignore girls on the most important day of their life…?" he had leant forward, and now twirls a strand of straight brown hair.
At this, Aya blushes a dark shade of pink, "Hitachiin-san?"
Hikaru's brows furrow imperceptibly, "Right, I shouldn't disturb you from your work."
Instantly, she retreats back out the door, leaving an awkward silence between the twins. That's their difference.
In the week before Valentine's Day, both twins feel completely differently. On one hand, Hikaru reverts back to his host club charming ways, and acts extraordinarily nice to them; after all, it's their day, he believes. On the other, Kaoru develops a complete disregard for any girl who comes; girls are simply woman, men does not need to pay them attention on hand and knee.
"Aya's not your type," Kaoru says, not moving his gaze.
"Mmm, I know," Hikaru replies, placing both hands at his hips, pursing his lips into a pout, "I don't even know if she even has a boyfriend yet."
"Or married," he inserts.
Hikaru turns to look at his twin, a frown on his face, "But I'm giving Mariko-san a try. She's been emailing me for who knows how long."
"Right."
"Kaoru…"
"What?" Kaoru turns a rotten glare at him. Like he doesn't like where this conversation is going.
Hikaru fumbles with his hands, nervous, "You can't promise not to interfere, right?" he lets out a hollow laugh.
Kaoru blinks once, then turns back to his computer.
"Nope."
It's happened for so many times, Hikaru doesn't believe he'll ever find someone for him. But his feelings are so jumbled around girls. His host club charms get in the way. He doesn't know whether he actually tell whether he's impressing a girl or loving her.
Mariko-san… is just one of the many young ladies he had gone out with, impressed with his achievements and gentlemanly manners. And will dump him. Sooner or later.
He's absolutely certain that Mariko will do that to him to.
"Mariko-chan, glad you could make it," he greets, smiling serenely at the black-haired woman before him. She's shaking. With enthusiasm or excitement by going out with one of the Hitachiin twins. Hikaru guides her into the restaurant, a five-star Japanese cuisine.
"So I've heard that you like Japanese culture," he starts, sitting opposite of her, "This restaurant specializes in most of the cultural goodies of Japan. It's one of my favorite places to eat."
Hikaru's sincere, but he doesn't know if she lies.
"Mine too," she nods, deciding to open up the menu. She's furrowing her brows (in deep concentration?)
Hikaru only shifts open the elegant menu and scans it for one of his favorite dishes.
After calling the waitress to take down their orders, Hikaru starts another conversation.
"I heard you majored in art," he props up his head with his hands, still looking at her, honestly. "I did too."
"That's to be assumed," she replies, "After all, you are one of the Hitachiin fashion designers. Your designs are beautiful… Although, I don't really know what to say about Neapolitan…"
He laughs, "Ah, that was an inside joke. We didn't mean to make people look like idiots wearing strawberry pins around the place."
She giggles, almost realistically.
Hikaru can't tell yet. And that's his problem. Outside of Kaoru, he can't tell whether they are sincere.
"Hikaru."
He blinks, as he walks through the office door. Unsurprisingly, Kaoru's still there, but now on Hikaru's computer, typing something.
"You didn't hack onto my computer again, did you?"
"Mmm?" Kaoru smiles, amused, "Didn't have to. You didn't protect it with a password."
"Blah, I knew I forgot something," he sighs, placing his coat on the rack nearby, and flopping onto Kaoru's side of the desk. "What were you doing?" he leans over to see the computer screen, but the windows that Kaoru had open are now closed.
"Nothing," Kaoru waves absently, "How was your date?"
"Went fine."
"That's what you always say," the younger looks, carefree, at his twin.
Hikaru doesn't say anything else and just begins to do his paperwork. Kaoru cups his cheek, staring intently at his twin, thinking, his arm propped on the table.
His twin doesn't know this, but Kaoru saw. He knows what happened. He knows how she forced a smile, tried to hide her displeasure at the foods, and generally lied to get on his good side. Kaoru looks back at the computer, sighing.
Hikaru has to be so damn optimistic that he doesn't realize when people are tricking him. The younger twin clicks a link on the computer, and logs onto Hikaru's email account.
Mariko-chan! I thoroughly enjoyed today's lunch, so if you don't mind, can we go out for lunch tomorrow too? I'll meet you in front of the French restaurant down the street at twelve, okay?
Luffs! Hikaru.
He studied how Hikaru signed his emails, his voice, his sentence pattern… Kaoru's not Hikaru's twin for nothing.
His pinky taps enter, and off the email is sent.
"Ara, Kaoru, what are you doing?" Kaoru promptly deleted that sent message that remained in the inventory; no need for Hikaru to be seeing this.
"Nothing."
That's why Kaoru's there. To judge.
"Are you going out, Kaoru?"
"Yep," Kaoru nonchalantly walks towards the door. Hikaru munches on a piece of pocky that Kaoru had bought to distract him, "I need some air, plus Aya-san said I needed to go and pick up something from Kyoto."
The door slams before Hikaru can question why Aya would ask Kaoru to pick up something from Kyoto.
It's not long before he arrives in front of said French restaurant and looks about for said Mariko-san who was with Hikaru yesterday.
He spots the girl, nervous, and wondering. Probably nervous in a good way.
Well, he'll have to see about that.
"Mariko-chan! How are you today?" he asks, energetically, bounding up to her.
"I'm fine."
"I checked out this French restaurant, it's very good they say," he flashes a cheeky smile her way. She blinks.
"R-Really?" she stutters, like this was unexpected.
He sighs exaggeratedly, "Well, this is one of the closest restaurant there is; my office work takes up a ton of my time. It's so boring," he waves a hand dismissively dragging her to through the door.
"Eh, right," she nods, sitting down daintily.
"Not to mention, this place has very good French cuisines," he smiles, flipping through the menu, "There's a vegetarian menu, Mariko-chan. Wow, there's desserts in the back too!"
"Ah, hai," she nods and flips her menu to the same page, and wrinkled her nose.
Unbeknownst to her, Kaoru watches her sharply.
"Japanese food has lots of seafood; I wonder how people who has seafood allergies survive here?" he leans back in his seat, relaxed.
"Well, there's the fried foods," she comments, half-heartedly.
"But it also has meat!" he rubs his head, like he was irritated, "What about those people who are solely vegetarians?"
She pauses, "Are you a vegetarian, Hikaru-san?"
Trapped. Kaoru smiles evilly.
"Wait, you were eating…" she blinks, "Why do you care so much about cultural foods anyway? I thought you liked Japanese foods!"
"Actually, we have specific preferences for Japanese delicacies. Western foods appeal to us the same way," he laughs. In a carefree way. "I could be asking you the same things. I thought you fancied Japanese cuisine."
"What?"
"No need to hide it. Why did order a western styled salad in a Japanese restaurant? Why did you avoid the offer to sushi? Why did you lie?" Each sentence was a barbed insult, and he smirks at her horrified face.
You. Are. Found. Out.
"And Neapolitan?" he's half-standing, his palms grinding into the table. "That fashion line was based on sweets, the ice cream flavor Neapolitan, vanilla, strawberry, and chocolate. But you don't like sweets. And you pretended to like the insult. Didn't you?"
He glares at her menacingly, "You took advantage of it. The lack of full-blown conversation. You made me believe… that I had a chance. But that's not all of it."
She looks very small right now, trying and failing to ignore the stares from around the restaurant.
"The worst of it all is… You… can't even tell my brother and I apart."
"But, I've never even met Kaoru-san before!" she shrills, wringing her hands for an explanations.
Kaoru only smiles, widely, grinning like a Cheshire cat. "You are now."
"Wait, wha-" she blinks, "Kao-Kaoru-san?"
He stands up from the table, and brushes his hands off. "Hikaru's too damn optimistic, too damn gullible. There would always be someone just right for the both of us, he says, You're just not looking hard enough," he air-quotes, pushing the chair in and stalking off. "That baka…"
The first sight he sees once he exits the restaurant is a mirror. Rather, his mirror image.
The first time he saw his face, it almost devastated him. A hopeless, pleading look. Hikaru hadn't wanted him to interfere then; he stated it loud and clear. But now…
Hikaru's voice isn't even angry.
"Kaoru, you- she-"
"Mariko-san is not your type," he says, indifferently, brushing his brother off.
"I know… But… Is everything you said, true?" Hikaru places a hand on his twin's shoulder, walking in his pace.
"Yes, you didn't notice. You pretended not to notice. Hikaru-" he turns around and faces his brother, abruptly, "-there are people who's going to trick you in believing that they are whom you're looking for. Don't believe them."
Hikaru blinks, "Is that why-?"
He ignores him and turns around, continuing his pace, "A lot of people know our likes and dislikes, Hikaru. We don't know theirs. They can act, pretend to be who you want, and you're stupid enough to fall for their tricks," Kaoru's eyes narrow. "They know we're desperate. After all, we're almost twenty-eight."
"But, Kaoru-"
"Yes, I know, we should be married and have kids, but why aren't we?" Kaoru's words dance along his lips like toxins. He tears his brother's hand off his shoulder, and looks deeply into the other's eyes, a finger tracing along his jaw line, "Because we play hard to get. And when we play, they cheat."
Hikaru fingers the hand on his face, his twin pausing in his motion, "But, Kaoru, is that why you throw everything away? Why you'd rather hurt them before they hurt us?"
"Cheh," Kaoru snaps back around and stomps away back towards their building.
Hikaru realizes, Kaoru still doesn't trust a lot of people. No one. It's sad, that Kaoru's shutting himself out of the world, he doesn't want to "get into a relationship with a purpose." Well, that's to be true. How many girlfriends that Hikaru have already gone out with, more than one two dates, more than a month? Sooner or later, they would get fed up with the twins' antics-
"When I chose Hikaru, I didn't choose the both of you!"
-but it's not the both of us, he thinks.
It was just Hikaru. Trying to be himself.
If Hikaru isn't the one who searches desperately, there will be no way Kaoru would convince himself that all the girls who sends him presents aren't lying. But then again, there's no way. Even his twin doesn't know what Kaoru wants.
That's why, he can only watch as Kaoru throw yet another box into the trash. He picks up another one.
And he pauses.
"Kaoru?" Hikaru lifts his head off the desk, where he had been watching his brother (who was sitting on the desktop) rip up boxes. Was, had been. What made him stop? "What's up?"
"Hikaru. Is it abnormal for chocolate manufacturers to give out mints as samples?"
Hikaru blinks in confusion, "What?"
The younger winks an eye closed and examines the small neatly unwrapped box. Even when he about to throw them away, he still treats them with tender care. Why? Hikaru finds himself wondering.
"Hayashi Confectionary. They-" he bites his bottom lip; Hikaru wonders at this action, "-They sent me mints."
"Doesn't that company make chocolate?"
Kaoru sweat drops. "I said that already."
"Why's it different?" Hikaru yawns, and props up his head on his arm.
"Nothing," Kaoru places the box to the side, and takes another package out. This one he throws away.
It takes a while for Hikaru to understand. He tenderly picks up the mint box, and scans his amber eyes over it. Kaoru stares at him, stopping in his "throwing out chocolates" moment.
Mint. A refreshing, a burning, yet calming feeling. And it soothes. I think, it's like love.
"Ah. Souka," Hikaru smiles wickedly at his twin. In the slight darkness of the room, Hikaru could make out a small tint of pink settling on his twin's face. "So you finally found another idiot like yourself?"
The younger Hitachiin doesn't look at him, but Hikaru understands.
Kaoru finally has a Valentine.