Day Four: Choices

Kaoru blinked in the darkness, yawning so wide his jaw creaked. Sleep still crusted his eyelids, and in the pitch black of the room he had no sense of anything but his arms around Hikaru's waist, his head burrowed into the crook of his brother's neck. They often slept in this position… although Hikaru's hand would usually be buried in his hair, not lying in front of his face like he'd been stroking his cheek or…

Hikaru's fingers were not as long and graceful as those, nor were they as pale.

Right. He'd won out that night. And got lucky. With Kyoya. Not Hikaru.

Kaoru's chest tightened painfully as his memories came swimming back, and he closed his eyes in the pitch black of Kyoya's room as if attempting to shut out the memory.

"Kaoru! Kaoru, let go of me!" Hikaru's yells had cut through the fog of sleep like a knife, and his eyes had flashed open before he was even fully awake. "She's getting away! Don't ask me to choose, I'll be right back, I swear…"

"Hika…" Kaoru had muttered muzziy. "You're dreaming…"

"HARUHI!"

Suddenly something cold had crept its way into his chest, squeezing his heart tighter than a steel trap. His breath was shallow as he listened for more, but his brother's dream must have been over because he simply shifted in his sleep, withdrawing his arms from around the boy next to him and fisting them in the blankets instead. He pulled them closer to his body, leaving Kaoru's feet bare and cold.

Hikaru had dreamt of Haruhi before. It wasn't as if this was a rare occurrence. But when he awoke he seemed to have no recollection of the dreams whatsoever, as if this subconscious mind was no longer connected to the operative parts of his brain. The realization that his brother did not even remember the dreams to feel apologetic about them most of the time simply made his blood boil, and he'd lain in the semi-dark of their room and watched the clouds fly by the moon for what seemed like an eternity. He was slowly slipping away; he could feel it. Sleeping was so much harder for him now, if only to avoid the dreams. He was sure it was the same one his brother was having by now.

"Alright, I'll choose for you," he'd said finally, anger slipping a reddish haze into his vision. "I'm letting go, Hikaru."

And with that he'd slid out of bed, flicked on the light, and began to pack his bag.

"Haruhi," Kyoya mumbled. "Tamaki."

Kaoru looked at the darkness where the older boy's face should have been with a patronizing smile. In the darkness he could only vaguely make out the shadowed outline of his hair, and he wondered vaguely what time it was. Kyoya had special curtains to prevent sunlight filtering in before he wanted to be awoken; Shadow-Lord to the end, Kaoru supposed.

But still, even hearing the girl's name fall from yet another of his bedmates, he felt nothing put pity for the boy. While his second choice might have been destined to be with Kyoya's, Kaoru still got to keep his first. Yes, he was livid with the boy now, but deep down he knew that eventually he would get over it and return home, because that was just the way things were meant to be. But Kyoya… who did Kyoya have? When you can't have choice one, two, or three, where do you go?

"Kyoya," Kaoru said, suddenly deeming this an important question, "who's your fourth choice?"

"Hmm?" the boy muttered, still mostly asleep.

"To spend the rest of your life with. You said I was your third choice. Who's fourth?"

Kaoru's eyes had adjusted to the darkness somewhat and he watched as the boy smirked in his sleep. Kaoru couldn't help but grin; typical. "Mori-Senpai is straight… despite oddities with Huni-Senpai…"

"Alright, fifth?"

"Don't… have… one," he said, drifting off to sleep. Kaoru tugged his hand out from under the older boy, using it to take his face between his hands.

"Think of one!"

Kyoya yawned widely, eyes fluttering. "Nekozawa…? Renge…? Hani-Senpai and your brother tie for sixth." He opened one eye and fixed it on the younger student in a scathing glare. "What the fuck is this all about? I'm trying to sleep.

Kaoru blinked before letting go of the older student with sudden haste. What was he doing?

"Renge beats my brother." He muttered to himself. "We look the same."

"Personality," Kyoya muttered, "makes much more of a difference when there are two people that look the same to choose from."

Kaoru thought about this for a few moments. It made a lot of sense.

"If you look at us, personality-wise, Tamaki and I are on opposite ends of the spectrum. You and your brother, when taken together, are directly in the middle. However, taken as separate entities, you are far closer to my end of the line than you are to Tamaki's, and the opposite pertains to your brother. That being said, despite Hikaru being more like someone that I would be willing to spend the rest of my life with would he be interested and not because I had to based on the circumstances of the scenario, Hikaru is too much like me and much too much like Tamaki for me to ever be attracted to him. Hikaru has all the dramatic tendencies of Tamaki and all the moodiness that comes with it, but he also possesses a manipulative streak, as well as a sadistic one. Taken together, I couldn't ever handle him. He has none of my control, and none of the charm that Tamaki has to compensate for it. As Tamaki and I are opposites, you and your brother are also. The line is just much shorter in your cases."

Kaoru paused, making sure the older boy was done speaking, before taking a tentative stab at the avoided choice. "And Haruhi?"

Kyoya laughed. "Kaoru, you know the answer to that." His voice was more bitter than amused. "You can't help but fall for someone like Haruhi."

"Do you ever hate her?" Kaoru asked, voice quiet in the empty blackness of the room. "I mean if she'd never shown up, you'd probably have been married off to some random girl by convenience and neither of you would have cared who you were really sleeping with. You and Tamaki could have been happy together out of public eye. Hikaru and I, too."

"Do you?" Kyoya replied with an audible hint of dry amusement. The younger boy was silent for nearly a minute.

"No."

Kyoya laughed, and the sound was so lacking in mirth it made the boy shiver. "Hai. You have no choice in the matter. You can't help but love someone like her."


"You have to call your brother, Kaoru."

"I don't have to do anything."

"Kaoru, I promise you I have no qualms about forcing you to leave the premises."

"So I'll simply rent a hotel room or some such nonsense."

Kyoya sighed heavily. "If you're going to continue to go about pretending that you were not listening to anything discussed over the phone yesterday, it would do you well to not quote me."

"I never said I didn't listen to any of them. Just the last one."

"You should speak to him."

"I should," the boy allowed, but his expression made it clear that he had no intention of doing so.

"You speak to him or you clear out by tomorrow night."

Kaoru raised an eyebrow. "Just speak to him?"

"I'm not asking you to forgive him," Kyoya replied evenly. "But you should discuss the matter. Use my phone, speak for less than five minutes, it doesn't matter to me. But you must do it."

Kaoru eyed his friend speculatively. "Alright. Pass me my phone."

Kyoya felt some of the guilt stirring in his chest dissipate, and he breathed an inaudible, unnoticeable sigh of relief as he unplugged Kaoru's phone from the wall behind him and handed the red-head his cell-phone. Kaoru took it and it began to ring almost immediately; his brother was speed-dial one. He put it on speaker and nonchalantly left it on the coffee-table in the middle of the small sitting area on the lower portion of Kyoya's room. His bed was in the loft above, but they'd moved downstairs for appearances sake. Kyoya raised an eyebrow at Kaoru's total lack of a need for privacy and took it as a bad omen, but it was too late to do anything about it.

"Kaoru? Hikaru's voice breathed on the other end, as if he half expected it to be a trick.

"Hai, Hikaru?"

"Kaoru, oh… thank god. Are you… uhm… are you alright?

"Hai, Kyoya's a most generous host."

"He is, is he?" the malice in Hikaru's voice would have been apparent to a snail.

"Hai, although he threatened to toss me out on the street if I didn't speak to you about, as he referred to it, 'the matter'. I had no choice but to call you."

"He did, did he?" the tone of voice was much more grateful now, but for some reason Kyoya was not pleased by this at all. He didn't like where the conversation seemed to be headed.

"Hai, he did."

There was a long silence on the other end. "When are you coming home, Kaoru?"

The younger boy swallowed, setting his jaw. "When I can."

"You can now, Kaoru. That choice was never taken from you."

Kaoru laughed. "I'm sure you're mistaken, Hikaru. You see, it takes a certain amount of time to get over a person. And since I've been trying to get over this one boy for the longest time, well… I assume you have about as much trouble as I do."

"No, you don't understand." The boy's voice was bitterly happy on the other end, and Kyoya waited for the news he'd been expecting for the past two weeks. "Tono and Haruhi… on Friday…You see, you and Kyoya left as soon as clubs was over, but Haruhi was tending to his nose and something happened. She was sitting next to him one minute, and the next they were just… and well… it just seemed to slip out of him after that. Not that any of us expected differently, considering the circumstances."

Kaoru laughed a maniac sort of cackle, more frightening than amused. "I pretty much break his nose with a door and he uses it as an opportunity to finally get in good with Haruhi. Just like Tono."

"Tamaki didn't tell me when he called," Kyoya said suddenly, knowing full well Kaoru had hoped something of the sort would come from his actions in any case. The surprise was mostly feigned.

"Oh, yeah, tell Kyoya-Senpai Tono said he couldn't trust him anymore…" Hikaru said, sounding sheepish. He obviously did not realize he was on speakerphone.

"Oh… hai, I do recall something to that extent." Kyoya frowned.

"Please come home, Kaoru."

The younger boy looked at the phone in silent disbelief for a few moments, face reddening. Kyoya sighed and waited for the outburst.

"You expect me to come home just because your other choice is no longer available?" Kaoru snarled.

"No, no, no! Kao- I've wanted- you don't understand-"

"You're right I don't."

"Kaoru."

"Goodbye, Hikaru."

Kaoru stood and closed the device with a vengeance, the snap echoing across the room. He moved to throw it, but Kyoya stopped him with a hand on his wrist, gently pulling the device out of his hand and placing it calmly on the table. Kaoru yanked his arm away in response. There was a long period of silence before Kaoru looked up from where his fists were clenched at his sides, hands relaxing with some difficulty as he looked at Kyoya with a mildly pleasant expression.

"There, I spoke to him."

"Hai, you did."

There was another period of silence. Kaoru sat next to the older student and cleared his throat.

"So… Haruhi and Tono finally got together, huh?"

"So it seems."

"Not that we weren't expecting it."

"Of course."

Another silence.

"We're pathetic."

Kyoya chuckled. "Speak for yourself."

"I'm in love with my brother and his crush, but hate him for liking the same girl. You're in love with your best friend and his girlfriend, who happens to be the same crush. Don't sugarcoat it; we're pathetic."

Another silence.

"So… since you can't have choice one and two since they're together… and choice three is currently in love with choice six, who definitely doesn't deserve it…" The boy trailed off.

"And four is straight," Kyoya reminded him with a smirk. "Despite his rather odd feelings for his cousin."

"And four is straight… what do you plan to do?"

Kyoya chuckled. "Compensate?"

Kaoru smiled bitterly. "Ah, hai. There's always that." He gave the boy a hopeful look, like that of a cat asking for a treat it fully expected to be refused. "I don't suppose…"

Kyoya chuckled. "You already have me knee-deep in trouble."

"But it can't get any worse, can it?" the boy challenged.

"No, I suppose not," Kyoya said thoughtfully. Kaoru smiled as the older boy shifted slightly towards him, a mildly speculative gleam in his eyes.

"Is that agreement I sense?"

Kyoya chuckled darkly. "I suppose we should lock the door and take this upstairs." He paused. "This is not exactly the choice I was thinking when I suggested compensation."

Kaoru grinned. "Nobody gets to live Plan A," he said, getting up to lock the door as Kyoya shut his laptop and stood, stretching. "And if they do, well… they're freaks."

"Like Tamaki and Haruhi?" Kyoya replied with a smirk as Kaoru took his hand and practically dragged him up the stairs to the loft.

"Exactly."

A/N: So I'm getting a lot of mixed feedback for this one. Half of you hate how evil Kaoru is, and half of you love it. Let me just say something; in the manga, doesn't Kaoru go on a date with Haruhi and kiss her just to tick off his brother? Or something like that. Maybe I'm switching them. Hrm. I dunno, anyhow, in general Kaoru is the methodical and manipulative one, whereas Hikaru is irritable and moodly simply because that's the way he's wired. Because he's childish. If Kaoru were to be mean in retaliation to his brother then, following that logic (if it makes any sense at all to you XD) he would have to plan as such. Which would evolve - possibly - into this situation. Or at least, that's how I see it. Plus, wouldn't you get tired of being the uke all the time? XD Idk, I kinda agree with some of you; evil plotting Kaoru is much sexier.

Anyhow, responses to my attempt at an explanation would be nice. Or just reviews in general. Those are nice too. ^.^ Or criticism. Or flames. Whatever works for you. And only one chapter left, cause that's day five, isn't it? ;) I'm taking bets on what resolves it; get it right and... idk. Metaphorical cookie? Maybe a oneshot if you're spot-on? Dedication? I'll think about it. :) Hope you've nejoyed it so far in any case.