Dear Kaoru,

Well, I read that journal of yours. For a while there, even I was starting to think it was gonna end badly, and I was there. That's okay, though. You always were the empty half of the glass.

Because I'm the older brother and older brothers are supposed to try and outdo their younger brothers (even if it is only by 32 minutes), I'm gonna try and beat your little journal entry. So ha. Mine's gonna be longer and better and I'm gonna embarrass you, because I like it when you blush.

Okay, so maybe not better. You're a better writer than me. There. I admitted it. Happy?

I bet you're laughing at me right now, right? I can see it in my head. If I'm not with you right now as you're reading this, stop. I wanna be there, so I can see how you react. Just don't get all grammar-boy on me again, like you did the last time you read something I wrote you.

Anyway, lesse, where to begin?

Hmm, since you started when we were kids, I will, too, although I'm gonna try and cover all the happy stuff, since our childhood wasn't a complete tragedy, like you made it out to be. (I don't even know why I'm telling this all to you, since you already know. Nostalgia, I guess. I guess your journal made more sense, since you just kind of addressed it to everybody.)

Remember how Mom used to make us wear dresses all the time, and then put us in different colors so she could act like she could tell us apart, and then we'd go and change behind her back, just to confuse her more? I still don't get why dresses, though. Pah, fashion people. I'll never understand 'em, and I am one.

And she and Dad wonder why we're so weird.

Remember how Mom would tell the people at her party about how we were such "darling little angels," and then have to apologize when we did something like start a food fight or play pranks on the guests?

You know what I remember best? I remember the first time we ever asked mom, with tears brimming in our eyes, if she wanted daughters instead of sons and if we were bad children because we were boys and twins. And then, I remember how we started laughing at her when she got upset, and we wiped our eyes because the tears weren't real because we knew that, even with everything that was wrong, that our mother still loved us.

That's one of the things that confused me about your journal. I was always the one who would cry at night when only you were around, telling you that Mom and Dad didn't care about us, and you'd always be the one who'd prove me wrong by telling me all the things they did every day to show they loved us, and that they still do. That's why it hurt to see that you were…kind of lying to me?

No, I guess not really lying. But, it's kind of hard to actually accept that you doubt their love as much as I used to. You were just better at hiding that doubt, I guess. And go figure; I'm the one who is totally sure now that they love us, even if just because of your words when we were kids. Ironic, huh?

You reminded me of some interesting things, like that whole mannequin thing. I had almost forgot about it. Funny. That was such a silly little thing I said one day, while I was mad. It's interesting that you were the one to really mull over it. And you made it "bloom", so to speak, turning my little metaphor into a garden.

See, Kaoru? I can be poetic!

I remember our childhood as a happier time, not a sadder one. After all, other than Mom and Dad, we didn't really have to deal with people all too much, especially not other kids. The older we got, the more we were expected to interact with people and the harder everything became. Remember the first day of school? That was crazy. Terrifying.

But before that…before the other kids really came into our lives--or tried to anyway--, we were happy. We were just us, with no society to tell us that we shouldn't be like we are. Okay, so that was only, like, the first four years of our life and I don't really remember any specifics, but I do remember that we were pretty content. I noticed that all of the horrible stuff you mentioned was after we had started school.

By the way, we were cute kids. I'm looking at a picture of us on our third birthday, and we were adorable little terrors. We're covered in cake and laughing. Looks like chocolate, with lots of frosting. You know, after I read your journal, I went off and looked for some of our old photo albums. The one I found in the attic has everything from Mom holding us in one of the Ootori hospitals to our kindergarten graduation. I didn't know Mom kept that kind of stuff.

Or maybe she didn't, and she had one of the maids put it together. Maybe our Oneesan that ran out on us.

Oh man, Kaoru, you should see Dad's face in this one. It's a picture of the first time he saw us after we were born. Boy, does he look surprised. It's like he didn't know Mom was having twins or something. Then, the one after that, he's holding you…

Or is that me?

Wow, I can't even tell us apart there. Pretty sad, huh?

No, I think that's you. You're crying. I'm just pulling Mom's hair in the background.

Anyway, Dad looks completely confused because you're screaming your head off and I don't think he knew what to do with you.

Oh well, that's nothing new.

I can't believe I'm having so much trouble telling us apart in these pictures!

Oh, wait. I can definitely see it in this one. (I'll have to get out the album again so you can look at these when you're reading) You're obviously the one Dad's holding. I'm glad I got it right. You're doing that cute look. You know, the one I told you about where your eyes get all big and doey? Wow, I didn't know you'd always done that. I thought it was something you picked up when you started having to act the uke.

It's so cute. I'm in the back, reaching for you. I think we were doomed to become like this from the beginning. Couldn't spend a moment apart. Then, on the next page, you're not crying anymore, because Mom's holding both of us, and our tiny little hands are clutched together. Wow, we were some pretty active babies.

And even Tamaki would have to give in and admit that it's cute, even if we only have about six strands of hair between the two of us. Man, I'm glad we're not still half-bald.

Speaking of Tamaki, did you see his face last night when Haruhi was helping him cook that…well, ironically, chocolate cake? Redder than a Tokyo sunset. And they've been together for, what? Two years now? I can't take full credit for that, though. Not after all that Kyouya did. You know, I don't think I ever told you all of that. Well, now's as good a time as ever, I guess.

Well, Kyouya, being the too-smart crazy, manipulative bastard that he is told me all about your little conversation with him after my date with Haruhi that one time. So, I'm stupid, huh? You don't think that so much anymore, though, do you?

Of course, though, Kyouya gave me the facts of what you'd said, and then the literal translation of those facts, so that I didn't get mad. The exact opposite, actually.

Man, I never realized how friggin' observant Kyouya was until that day. He told me everything. Told me you were jealous of Haruhi. Told me you were scared.

Told me that, despite all that, you still wanted the best for me, so you wanted to let me go. Talk about breaking in two.

You know, I always had a pretty funny picture in my head of what it would have been like if Haruhi and me ever got together. Thinking back on it, I don't think Haruhi'd be much into the bigamy thing, do you? But, you know, it always seemed to get all of the other girls, the idea of being loved by two identical twins. Of course, to most of the other girls, it wouldn't have seemed like bigamy, because most of them thought we were pretty much one person.

That really posed a problem, what with Haruhi being so different from all the other girls. Of course, that's what I liked about her, but that also meant that she totally messed up my dream of what my perfect life would be like. Even when I went on that date with her, I think I could feel it shattering. Something was telling me, back there in that place hiding in the shadowy mushroom corner of my brain that has your voice, that my dream could never happen.

Now, that dream's really changed, huh?

Guess a good figurative whack in the head's what it takes sometimes. Like Kyouya telling you that your twin brother called you an idiot because he was in denial that you could ever be caring for somebody as much as him.

Every time I think about that, my stomach sinks. It hurts, because I think I almost may have left you just a step behind if the Shadow King hadn't confronted me.

Just a step, but too much, huh? We're supposed to walk side-by-side. That's how it's always been, and that's how it's gonna stay, and I'll be damned if realistic expectations are gonna get in the way of me and my other half.

You talked about the first time we kissed. Oh, man, I get this weird tingling sensation in the back of my skull when I think about it. I remember I was scared. I remember that I had those butterflies everyone's always talking about, and I remember that your lips made mine burn.

You kissed just like I'd always imagined it, at least up until the part about you almost biting my tongue off. And, yeah, I just said that. I'd been imagining it for a long time, too.

It was exciting, it was just a little dirty, and it was the best and worst couple of minutes of my life, I think.

My lips are burning right now thinking about you.

And, with my lips, after all that we've done, the rest of my body follows.

Kaoru, every time I looked at you in the Host Club and I saw that spark in your eyes that Kyouya somehow managed to capture just right when he painted our portrait right after I let Haruhi go (damned observant Shadow King), I wanted to take it from you. Every little thing I did was a test. I wanted to see my boundaries, and I wanted to push them.

When I would run my finger up under your jaw, I saw the way it made you shiver.

When I held your hand, I felt how it still clutched onto mine.

When I got just that little bit closer than I had the day before, I saw the slight blush that tinged your cheeks.

When you parted your lips to say my name, did you see the way my eyes always closed for that split second to let the darkness in so that I could imagine?

Every once in a while, you still ask me, "Is what we do wrong?" and my answer is always the same.

"In whose eyes?"

Occasionally, you'll shrug and nervously mumble something like, "I don't know, really. Just wrong in general."

I think it's time we straighten things out, before we end up having our first real fight.

Listen, Kaoru, wrong and right are in your area of expertise, not mine, with things like writing. They're not finite or fixed, like math and science are. They're based on interpretation.

Ah, here's something we can both relate to: It's like art. Two people look at the same picture. One says it's artwork, the other says its crap.

So, maybe, the world sees us and says it's crap. I see us and see art. They say we're wrong. They say what we do and how we feel are incest and homosexuality and unnatural and gross, and against the will of some god or another.

I say it's the most right I've ever felt.

You shouldn't have any reason to feel any other way.

Maybe Dad was right. Maybe we shouldn't have been allowed this much of a connection, and maybe things would have been different if we hadn't. But the way we grew up--together--can't be changed, not now. It's too late. We're already so close, with a bond that's stronger than friendship, stronger than family, and stronger than their stupid love.

We're one person, but we're two. We're the same, but we're different. And, other than that, I can't even explain it, because when we're together, I feel like I'm you and you're me and maybe we've been getting our own game backwards all along.

Connections to other people make up who you are. What we have is full. It's complete. Going out and finding a nice3 girl and getting married would mean giving up some of that connection, but it would never go away. It's there, and I can never leave it behind, now.

So, there I'd be, with half my connection to you and half to some woman, and I'd be split in two.

I'd go from being one person and two people at once to being only half a person.

And so would you.

Their right is not an option.

At the same time, we're still human. We have human needs, so we break up our "more than" into friendship, into our brotherly bond, into love; and we save that last bit for that thing that nobody but us can really understand.

If that's not art, then I don't know what is.

Kaoru, please say that you feel the way I do, because I need you.

I want you forever.

And love isn't even enough, but there's no other word for what I feel.

So, Kaoru, I love you.

--Hikaru