Kaoru closed the window, then turn to put on his clothing.

"Kaoru! My love!" He heard his mother call from the bottom of the steps.

"Coming mom!" Kaoru called back, buttoning up his pants. Smooth, cool, fabric cascaded over his skin while his fingers rushed to smooth his t-shirt over his torso. Kaoru raked his fingers though his hair a few times, in a desprate attempt to calm the storm of curls littered across his scalp. Finally, deeming himself worthy with a side glace to the mirror, he scurried down the steps and into his mother's waiting arms.

"Kaoru! Darling!" His mother exclaimed wrapped herself around her only son. She buried her nose into his fiery red hair. She kissed the top of his head over and over again.

Kaoru nuzzled his face into her blue dress, breathing in her essence. He pulled away once his mother stopped kissing him.

He turned to the muscular, sturdy, tall man next to her. His hair was a dull red compared to Karou's and his golden eyes were dulled into a deep brown. He sported a full suit and a suitcase. A long, looming shadow waterfalled from his feet and river down the floor behind him, sharp, like an ice pick.

Kaoru turned to his father and bowed. "Hello father." He greeted.

"Karou." He bowed back. "Your grades are all good I trust? Not getting into trouble?"

Kaoru nodded. "Yes sir."

"How's that girlfriend of yours, what's her name?" His eyes frozen to a path that traveled far off from his son.

At the sound of his girlfriend's name Kaoru's stomach plummeted from his gut. All the blood in his face went with it.

"Haruhi, dear, her name is Haruhi." His mother corrects curtly and softly. She turns swiftly towards her son. "So how is she, sweetie?"

Kaoru swallows. "uh- she's good. We're good. How was your trip?"

His mother pushed away at the comment with a sway of her wrist. "Oh, my fashion show was cancelled so we were left with nothing but a big old boring business meeting. Snoresville!" She beamed. She calmly, but abruptly seized Kaoru's arm, tugging him towards a nearby sofa. "But- enough our trip, I haven't seen you in ages Kaoru I want to know how you've been?"

She plops Kaoru down with a push then delicately seats herself next to him. Kaoru's father takes a place across from them in an armchair, retrieving his phone from his pocket and begins to mindlessly tap away at its face.

Kaoru blinks, because for a moment, the shadow his father is casting just doesn't seem-

"So Kaoru!"

Kaoru jerks at the sound of his mother's voice, whipping around to face her.

"You'll never guess what happened! We met with this man, one of your father's old colleagues, that now runs this museum. We saw him, and he was actually able to find old photographs of your great great great grandfather! Three greats! Um, honey?"

Kaoru's father looked up from his phone.

"Would you hand me my purse?"

He looked around for a blind moment. Eventually he recovered it next to the armchair's back leg. Obediently he handed it to his wife, then returned to his phone.

Kaoru's mother searched through the purses interior with a warm grin that oozed into her cheeks.

"Ah!" Her cry revealed a stack of neatly laminated pictures, held together with a clip. She gently removed the clip then leaned over towards her son, holding out the pictures.

"See! Didn't you look just exactly like him!? You know you're named after him too!"

Kaoru blinked. Then blinked again. Before him was indeed, a spitting image of himself with a thick mustache and a stark suit, all pictured in grainy black and white.

He swallowed. "Yeah. That does look, a lot, like me."

His mother giggled. "There's a picture of him a lot like this one in your grandmother's house. It's why we named you Kaoru."

Kaoru barely manages a nod, tugging at his arm subconsciously. He frantically rubs his soft palm up and down the skin, not noticing the way it begins to goosebump. She flipped to another picture, this one of his great great great grandfather, this time with a young women with dark flowing hair.

"This is Kaoru and his wife Tsubaki."

Kaoru's brain goes white. A sharp pain rockets up his neck after he twists it harshly towards his mother.

"What did you just say?"

His mother expression swirls in confusion. The golden orbs in her skull shimmered.

"What? Oh, um this is your grandfather Kaoru, and his wife, Tsubaki."

Kaoru nodded, it was weird, hearing that name twice in a little under an hour.

"So you said Kaoru had a twin? What was his name?"

This time his mother's expression sunk in soberly.

"Oh, well… No one really knows."

He arched an eyebrow. "What?"

"Well umm…"

A familiar rough voice chopped through the air, making Kaoru jump.

"It turns out your grandfather's twin was a disgusting virus so they cut him loose before he could infect the rest of the family."

"What?"

His mother sighed, sweetly palming her son's back.

"He was gay honey. Back then it was almost unheard of. It was immoral in their eyes but also, if he was gay that meant he couldn't produce an heir for the family."

Kaoru bit his lip, looking down at his toes. "Oh."

"The family, our family, was so ashamed that they erased your grandfather's twin brother from history."

His mother pulled out another picture, this one of Kaoru's great great great grandfather, and another young man, standing together, locked arm and arm, only the other young man's face had been blacked out.

"They burned his birth certificate, and inked out his name from all legal documents."

Kaoru swallowed a lump in his throat, which instantly lurched back into place.

"Isn't that a little, harsh?"

"Absolutely not!" Kaoru skin leaped off his bones at the sound of his father's voice. He glared at his son for half a moment before going on in a gruff tone.

"That boy made his choice, and these were the consequences. There's no reason our good family name should be soiled because of one young man's choice."

Kaoru's stomach swelled inside his gut and lurched up into his throat. His father still kept his heated gaze towering down on his son, unaware of the way his shadow loomed just as heavily on him.

Kaoru's mother cleared her throat, turning both men's attention on herself.

"Well, I'm going to go upstairs and unpack." She lead on, gathering up all the pictures and placing them on the coffee table next to her.

Kaoru bit his lip, "Uh, mom, would it be okay if I went out for a little bit?"

"Hmm?" She turned towards him. "Oh sure honey! Just be back soon, your father and I have to fly out again tomorrow unfortunately for Germany."

"Really? You guys aren't going to be here for that long."

"Oh I know honey, we really wanted to see you but we've had this show schedule for months, you understand."

His mother stood and kissed him on the forehead. "See you in a little bit darling."

His father followed her upstairs, not so much as looking back at his son, his shadow following him.

Kaoru bored holes in his feet with his hazy gaze. He chewed at his lip, reminding him of the scar racing along Hikaru's bottom lip, all its deeply seated grooves he'd traced with his tongue only hours before…

Hikaru.

The way his father looked at him, as if he knew exactly what he'd just done. It made his skin crawl. Hikaru never looked at him like that, staring at him with ice cold daggers, freezing him to the core. Hikaru looked at him with such love and lust at times it became overwhelming. He looked at him with such a heated, smoldering gaze that made him melt under his touch.

Kaoru blinked, then stumbled, realizing he was on his feet. A huff of breath escaped his lips. His hand was reaching out, just barely grazing his front door's doorknob. Maybe a tiny sliver of "I really shouldn't fucking do this" shot through Kaoru's head, before a wave of something else completely drowned it out. Without a second thought he ripped open the door and let it slam behind his back.

Kaoru's heart thundered in his chest and his feet moved just as rapidly across the street. His thoughts were even complete sequences just shatters of images, words and one name over and over and over again. Hikaru. Hikaru. Hikaru. Like a sick mantra that had grown legs and began chasing him. The only way he could get it to stop chasing him was when he began to storm towards Hikaru's home.