A/N: Hiya. This is my first Ouran fic, so go easy on me, okay? (cue nervous laughter)
Prologue: The First Crack
It began on the day when Hikaru took it just a little bit too far.
Hikaru had been bored.
So, like any other normal bored boy, he had proposed playing a game of let's-chase-Haruhi-around-the-room-with-a-dress.
"Oh… no…" Kaoru squeaked, grabbing at Hikaru's arm. It seemed like a bizarre repeat of what they had once done to Hunny's beloved Usa-chan; there was spilled tea and a disturbed cup on the table. But what scared him the most was the object that his beloved twin had reduced to a mess of soggy pulp.
Hikaru stared for a moment before quaking in his expensive leather shoes. It was rare that he felt fear. There was that one time, when Kaoru had fallen down the stairs when they were little. And that time when their maid left them, telling them that they might never be told apart—it had scared him, knowing that he could never be away from Kaoru. And now he was afraid again, the terror now definitely overshadowing every other instance. Right now he would prefer having to climb Mount Everest than face this situation. "Uh…"
They heard the sound of stealthy footsteps behind them—no louder than the sound of a panther's footfalls. Kaoru shuddered. That wasn't a good image; he felt like the panther's prey, even though technically he hadn't done anything.
Kyouya picked up the remains of the plain black notebook with the light refracting dangerously off his glasses. "Ah." He leafed through it with delicate, butterfly touches before concluding that the data in it would not be salvageable. "Hitachiin Hikaru…"
"It wasn't his fault, sempai," Haruhi said. "It was an accident."
And then Hikaru opened his mouth. "N-no, I'm not Hikaru," he said in perfect imitation of Kaoru's slightly higher-pitched voice. "I'm Kaoru." He could see the hurt, betrayal, irritation and finally understanding and forgiveness flitter through Kaoru's eyes and he cursed himself for being a coward. But Kaoru always took the hit for him; and hello, it was the Shadow King they were talking about!
Kaoru understood. He always did. Haruhi said nothing, although her glare accused him. Whoops. But no backing out now…
Hikaru widened his eyes slightly. "I'm sorry, Kyouya-sempai, I didn't mean to wreck your notebook. It was an accident."
"Do not play me for a fool, Hitachiin Hikaru; I know very well who you are." Kyouya's eyes were like daggers. "It would be easy to fool someone else, but I am not easy prey like most people."
Kyouya's notebooks were sacred. While the twins would have been irreverent enough to put frogs in the tea of a high-profile actress, cause mayhem in a chapel, or even tamper with the machinery in some company's building, they would never, ever have even dreamt of laying hands on one of Kyouya's notebooks. What was in there, no one ever knew except for the third Ootori himself.
The bets: Haruhi thought that he was just taking down prices—although sometimes she also wondered whether there were secret files about all of Ouran's students in there since he always seemed to have just the right data at hand. Tamaki had insisted that it was some secret plan to take over the world.
Now that they thought about it, it was probably the most likely answer.
Hunny claimed that it was probably the price listings for their snacks (and while this may have been partly right, the others turned his suggestion down). Mori had abstained. The twins said that it was his diary where he wrote his secret emotions—and they had dramatized the entries that they fantasized him writing about.
Not that they would ever tell Kyouya that—like Renge—they were making up scenarios where he confessed his adoration for Tamaki.
Tamaki hadn't exactly liked that either, but the twins were more than a match for him.
"But… but I really am Hikaru!" protested Kaoru from the sidelines, his voice lowered slightly to sound gruffer, more like his more aggressive brother. "And hey, don't pick on my brother like that."
"Kaoru, do not get involved in this," Kyouya said threateningly, advancing on Hikaru. "It has nothing to do with you."
"But… I'm Kaoru," Hikaru said.
"You think I can't tell?"
Haruhi paused. "You mean… you can?"
Kyouya glared at them. "I think it would be obvious by now."
Hikaru and Kaoru exchanged looks before nodding at each other, and then, moving too quickly for the eye to see, they moved around the room in a blur (Super Twin Technique: pinball attack plus bounce off the walls style!) and finally presented themselves to Kyouya again. "I did it," they said simultaneously, thumping their chests with their hands. There. It would be impossible to tell who was who. They looked challengingly at him, their motions and expressions mirroring each other's.
Kyouya let out a weary sigh. "Kaoru," he said, laying a hand on the correct twin's shoulder without even hesitating. "And this one is Hikaru," he said, indicating the other one with a slight nod of the head. "All right? I hope that you're satisfied now. Your games are ridiculous."
Haruhi stared. "He's… right."
Kaoru's eyes bugged out. "Since when could you tell us apart?"
The Shadow King raised an eyebrow. "I always could," he said simply. "I just never saw fit to advertise the fact. There would be no benefit if I were to join your which-one-is-Hikaru game, and in any case, were I to give away the answer, ratings would drop considerably."
"Eh?" Hikaru frowned at him. "You could have said something! You always referred to us as Hikaru-and-Kaoru, never just… Hikaru. And Kaoru."
"I never had a reason to," Kyouya said, his nose turning up slightly at the younger boy. "And if you really must know, I was going to tell you that that wasn't my notebook. It's Tamaki's; he asked me to bring it in for him at club today since he left it at my house yesterday."
"Oh, so it was just milord's…" Hikaru's comment died unfinished when he saw the expression on Kyouya's face.
He smirked. "We were supposed to submit them today for Biology class. Tamaki will fail because of you. I suppose you understand that our profits will go down because of the adverse effect this will have on Tamaki?" He grinned, obviously thoroughly enjoying this. "Guess who'll be reimbursing that amount?"
The people who could tell them apart landed into their world. That was a fact. No, it was their law. They had long accepted Haruhi to be a part of their world. But Kyouya—that was a different matter altogether.
Haruhi was cute.
Kyouya was…
Scary.
And that was an understatement.
Haruhi was their classmate, and therefore offered endless opportunities to be harassed at any moment.
The thought of even touching the older host scared the twins out of their minds.
"He would have us beaten up by his private army," Kaoru murmured.
"And then he would ship us off to the Artic," Hikaru added.
"Where there's no maple syrup—"
"—no video games, or at least I doubt Kyouya-sempai will let us bring them—"
"—snow everywhere, for heaven's sake—"
"—we'll have to live on penguin burgers—"
"—learn how to ride polar bears—"
"—and wear bulky layers of drab-colored clothes."
They exchanged horrorstruck looks. "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
The Hitachiins: once you threatened their impeccable fashion sense, they would do everything in their power to eliminate you.
Presuming anyone could eliminate the Shadow King, anyway.
"We have to do something," Kaoru whispered, his eyes trained on the tall, lithe figure that wove effortlessly through their customers. Why hadn't they ever looked at Kyouya before? They never had—at least not properly. If they had bothered to more than glance at those dark eyes, maybe they would have noticed.
Those eyes saw everything. They watched a person, memorized every little detail and stored it away for storage in his nimble mind. Why were they so surprised that he knew? He knew everything.
Kyouya's eyes flickered in their direction, and his mouth twitched as though he was suppressing a smirk. Hikaru and Kaoru both flinched. He was calculating, and they knew it.
"You guys are being ridiculous," Haruhi said, shaking her head. "What's the big deal if Kyouya-sempai knows which is which?"
Whoops. Apparently her voice was a little louder than she'd intended.
"What do you mean, Haruhi-kun?" asked one of their customers, puzzled. Oh dear—her voice was even louder than Haruhi's, and by now everyone turned to look at them. "You mean that Kyouya-sempai can tell apart Hikaru-kun and Kaoru-kun?"
"No!" Hikaru insisted. Kaoru shook his head vehemently.
Tamaki let out a little laugh. "Of course not. Isn't that right, mother? Otherwise you would have helped me during our first year when they made me try to tell them apart."
Hunny looked up from behind his cake. The others stared at the adorable senior; it was rare that he came up for air in the middle of a sugar session. "I think that Kyou-chan can," he announced. Mori grunted in agreement.
Kyouya pretended not to hear and scribbled something in the notebook.
"But Kyouya-sama, that would be so cool!" one of them gushed.
Uh-oh. The key word was cool. Kyouya looked up, his eyes sparked with interest.
Whatever he was doing, Kyouya embodied the cool gene. It was his act as a host. Even when he was stressed out and being evil or reluctantly agreeing to another one of Tamaki's idiotic schemes, he radiated an aura that was a paradox of being smoldering with intensity and yet was frostily aloof.
"Kyaa! That's right, it would be just like Kyouya-sama to be able to know which one is which. It's part of his 'refreshing' personality," agreed another girl, beaming at him. "Isn't that right, Kyouya-sama?"
Oh no. 'Refreshing'? As though cool wasn't bad enough…
Kyouya barely glanced at them, but the barest hint of a smirk tugged at his lips. "The one on the right is Kaoru."
"No, you're wrong!" the twins chorused. It was more of a knee-jerk reaction to say so, really.
The Shadow King walked towards them, leaning in close to Kaoru, who inexplicably turned red. "Do not lead me on, Hitachiin Kaoru," he said, his slender fingers moving too quickly for Kaoru to stop him.
He easily extracted the freshman's Ouran ID from his pocket that proved that he really was—unfortunately—Hitachiin Kaoru. He smiled darkly at the younger boy, his eyes half-closing as he peered intently at the redhead's face. "Do you really want to try to trick me again? Another stunt like that and I may be forced to…" He raised his eyebrows, letting the sentence hang unfinished in the air.
"KYAA!" The girls went wild—obviously Kyouya's intended effect.
Once all their customers had left, Kyouya glanced over at Kaoru. "I'm sorry if I made you uncomfortable back there."
Hikaru looked at him with flaming eyes. "Yeah, well, maybe you should have thought about that before you made a move!" Already Renge was going on and on and on about a wonderful and bizarre new pairing in the Host Club, which had caused an avalanche of 'Kyaa!'-crazy girls to babble about how much money they were willing to pay to see that.
So it really wasn't any wonder that Kyouya had stayed silent.
On the other hand, Kaoru had turned into a tongue-tied mess when the girls questioned him, unable to follow his usual oh-I'm-so-in-love-with-Hikaru-and-would-never-betray-him style, only fueling the suspicions of the chattering girls.
Well, who could stay coherent anyway, when Kyouya was giving him a meaningful look that clearly said say-the-wrong-thing-and-I'll-have-you-shipped-to-the-Artic?
And there was no maple syrup in the Artic.
No maple syrup? He would never have survived!
Hikaru was—and had been—furious. The girls lapped it up all the more when he had yelled at Kyouya to stop molesting Kaoru.
And Kyouya merely replied, "If you can't hold on to him tightly enough, then I have every right to take your twin from you." And with that, he had taken hold of Kaoru's hand and squeezed it lightly with a smug wink as Kaoru stuttered and tried to pull away—not very successfully, in fact.
Cue the fainting fits from the girls.
"I didn't have much of a choice," Kyouya replied coldly. "After Haruhi's earlier outburst, I had to do some damage control. Of course I have to maintain my host club persona if we want to keep up earnings."
"Sorry about that, sempai," Haruhi said in a hurry, praying that he wouldn't add to her debt.
"But since we're likely to garner bigger profits from this little incident, I wouldn't worry about it too much, Haruhi," the Shadow King added. Haruhi breathed a sigh of relief.
"Why didn't you help me out back then when they made me try to tell them apart?" Tamaki wailed.
Kyouya raised an eyebrow. "I cannot recollect you ever asking for my help with that."
"It's not a big deal, Hikaru," Haruhi said comfortingly. "I thought that you would be happy that people are able to tell you apart."
"Yeah, but not Kyouya-sempai!"
The Shadow King twitched. "Do you think that's a compliment?"
"Of all the Host Club, I wish it was anyone but him," Hikaru groaned.
"Uh, Hikaru, may I remind you that he can make your life a living hell?" Kaoru murmured from the side.
Hikaru turned on him. "Oh sure, defend him. After all, you were the one who seemed to be enjoying it so much earlier!"
"Enough, Hikaru," Kyouya said, the words cracking in the air like a whip. "I have no idea why you are so possessive of your younger brother, but rest assured that I had nothing else in mind but the profit to be earned." He checked his watch. "Tamaki, let's go. My car should be waiting outside. And if it isn't, I know that a certain driver will never work in this town again."
"He tries his hardest, Kyouya—"
There it was again, the scary light-off-my-glasses-making-me-look-like-I'm-from-another-planet thing. "But if his hardest isn't good enough, then I'll have to be harder on him, don't you think?"
As they left, Kaoru looked up at Hikaru. "Did you seriously think that I liked it?"
"No," Hikaru said, deflating. "Sorry, Kaoru. I was just irritated, that's all."
Kaoru grinned a bit. "Because you were so jealous of anyone touching me?" he asked in his simpering host-club voice.
"Of course, my beloved brother," Hikaru said back, pretending to pull him close. "We must formulate plans to end that Shadow King's insidious influence in identifying us."
Kaoru smiled, enjoying the feel of his brother's familiar arms wrapped around him. "Yes, Hikaru," he breathed. "I don't want anyone else to—"
Haruhi made an impatient noise when she glanced at her watch before grabbing her bag and leaving as well. At that moment, Hikaru broke away from the embrace.
"Hey, Haruhi, wait!" he called out, chasing after the brown-haired girl and cutting his twin off mid-sentence. Kaoru watched his twin grab her arm and fall into step with her. With a small sigh, he went to pick up his backpack from the table in the back of the room. Hikaru would wait for him anyway.
Plus the fact that their driver would remind his brother if he forgot…
"Kao-chan," Hunny said.
"Yeah?"
"Do you really mind all that much that Kyou-chan can tell you two apart?"
Kaoru hesitated. "A little bit, I guess. Because I don't think of me and Hikaru as apart at all." Then he smiled grimly. "But we are."
A/N: I know, I know... it was short. But I promise that upcoming chapters will be a lot longer. If you like it so far, please review and I'll update as soon as possible! Thanks for reading.