a/n:

after talking to a few people about the ratings on this site (which i'm still very puzzled about), they said that since i actually have nothing too explicit planned for this fic, a T rating would be appropriate. so keep in mind that this fic will include innuendos, references to some mature things, minor swearing, and of course, incest. if any of those things bother you, the back button is always there.

the official pairing here is Hikaru/Kaoru with Tamaki and Kaoru bonding over stuff, but they can be hints of Tamaki/Kaoru, if you want to look at it that way.

the second and third parts shouldn't take too long to arrive. c:

How It Happened
part i./iii.

The twins were almost always the first ones to leave the room when host club hours were over; Kyouya was almost always the last.

However, it seemed as if today was a special day – or unusual might have been a better word. First, the older of the Hitachiin twins had left first without the younger, and second, Kyouya had left rather early, claiming he had business to attend to. These two led to the third unusual event of the day: Tamaki Suoh and Kaoru Hitachiin were the last ones left in the room.

The situation itself wasn't the strange part of it – no, it was what exactly transpired during that extra time.

Kaoru was sitting in one of the couches, unmoving as Tamaki went about switching off the lights. When he had flipped the last switch, he turned around, expecting the first year to be ready to leave. Instead, the self-proclaimed host club "king" found Kaoru still in the same position.

Tamaki assumed it was Kaoru. The boy's shoulders were slumped and his eyes were fixed on something on the floor, and if this was Hikaru, Tamaki had a feeling everyone would know he was upset. Kaoru had a tendency to be a bit more…subtle about it. And of course, there was the way the twins parted their hair.

"Kaoru?" he called, sounding maybe a little questioning. Despite his amazing deduction skills, one could never be too sure with the Hitachiins.

Upon receiving no reply, Tamaki let go of the doorknob and took a seat next to the younger boy on the couch. For the next thirty seconds, he tried to figure out what was so fascinating about the floor.

"Kaoru?" he finally tried again, this time knocking their knees together.

The contact did the trick. Kaoru blinked once, twice- then turned to him, puzzled. "Oh, you're still here?"

"I could ask you the same thing!" Tamaki pointed out, grinning. That drew a chuckle from Kaoru, but it was dry and humorless and…not Kaoru-like.

Tamaki's smile fell a little. "What's wrong?"

And if indeed something was wrong, where was Hikaru?

The phrase went as such: Hikaru and Kaoru, Kaoru and Hikaru. One was seldom seen nor mentioned without the other.

"Nothing!" Kaoru's face quickly brightened with a smile. He shot up to his feet, adjusting his uniform. "I was just spacing out. Were you leaving?"

Determined, Tamaki caught his wrist and pulled him back down to the couch. "You were sitting here for ten minutes straight! Something's bothering you," he insisted. "You can talk to me any time you need to, Kaoru."

Kaoru looked at him – then at his hand, then back to him again. "That's nice of you and all, boss, but…there's really nothing to talk about."

"Nonsense." And, undeterred, Tamaki went for it: "You need to tell Daddy about your problems so he can help you solve them!"

Kaoru made a startled, high-pitched noise in the back of his throat that sounded suspiciously like a squeal. "Let go! And for the hundredth time, you're not our father, so quit calling yourself that!"

"Not until you tell me what's wrong!"

"I'll tell Hikaru you're molesting me! Again!"

"He's not even here!"

The reaction was instantaneous. The playful grin on the twin's face fell, his struggling stopped, and his shoulders seemed to droop again.

Tamaki regretted the words as soon as they'd left his mouth. "I- ah, I didn't-"

"No, no." To his surprise, Kaoru slumped back down next to him. "You were just pointing out the truth." He waved a hand dismissively.

They sat together like this for a few minutes.

"Hey, boss?"

"Hm?"

"You can let go of me now."

"Oh. Right." Tamaki let go. He studied the twin carefully, wondering how he had difficulty telling him apart from Hikaru. Though similar in appearance, the two certainly had a number of differences in their mannerisms.

"Do you ever feel so sure of doing something," Kaoru spoke, "but then, a little while later…you really, really regret it? And then you feel guilty for regretting it, because you know that things are better that way and it was the right thing to do?"

He was staring at the door.

Tamaki knew that others called him things like idiot or dense behind his back, but at that moment, he could instantly tell where Kaoru was getting at.

"Is this about Hikaru?"

Kaoru's head snapped towards him, amber eyes accusing and scandalized. Then it dissolved into a morose look. "Am I being that obvious?"

"It was a wild guess." Tamaki scooted a little closer, interested in the topic of conversation. With the twins as closed off as they were, he was rarely privy to inside information like this… "Now, what's this with your brother? Tell-"

"Say 'daddy' and I'll leave."

"-me. Tell me."

Kaoru fidgeted with the material of his tie; if he noticed the decreased amount of distance between them, he said nothing of it. "Well, I've been thinking about the future. Life after high school and the host club and all that. And then one day, I started thinking about me and Hikaru and that…we aren't going to be together for the rest of our lives, will we?"

"Who says you can't be?"

Kaoru shot him a sidelong glance. "…Everyone! Everything. Even Hikaru himself."

Tamaki's frown deepened. "He told you he didn't want to stay with you?"

"No! He didn't say it!" He noted how quick Kaoru was to come to his brother's defense. "But I don't need to hear it out loud. I can tell from the way he's acting, the fact that we have no friends now – that our world isn't just us two anymore. There's the host club now. There's…" He trailed off into a mumble.

"What was that?"

"I said, there's also Haruhi." Kaoru had returned to his fidgeting, and from where he was, Tamaki caught a glimpse of his flustered expression. "I mean, today, Hika told me he was going to hang out with Haruhi after school, so he was just going to drop me off at our house. But I didn't want to waste their time, so I told him to go ahead, and that I would just catch a ride home from someone else."

"And he left?"

"And he left."

Tamaki was having a hard time believing that Hikaru allowed them to be separated so easily. Then again, with what Kaoru had told him, maybe this was something that he should start getting used to.

"It's not fair!" Kaoru suddenly burst out. "I want him to be happy, because whenever Hikaru is happy, I am too! But I'm not happy, so- does that mean he isn't, either?"

"Kaor-"

"But he seems happier these days! So does that mean there's something wrong with me? Am I not being a good brother by not being happy for him?"

"Can I-"

"And it's not even that I'm not happy for him, I'm just…afraid. I wanted us to be a little more independent of each other, but at the same time, I don't want to be forgotten or to be replaced. I don't w-"

"Kaoru!" The host club king threw his hands up into the air, exasperated. "Have you tried talking to him?"

He was rewarded with a look that questioned, Are you crazy? "That's…not something you talk about the person you're having problems with." Kaoru's voice had lowered to a mumble.

"Why not? It sounds easier than staying in the dark and being confused."

"Being confused is better than having him mad at me."

"But…why would he be mad at you? You just want to talk things out, right?"

Kaoru sighed, and the twin looked like he wanted to curl up if he could. "Maybe you're right. But that still doesn't make me any less scared of talking to him. And that worries me too, that I'm scared of talking to him. I've never felt that before."

"So maybe," Tamaki started, albeit hesitantly, "you should talk to him before it gets worse. Before it's too late and you can't fix it anymore." He chose his words very, very carefully, and he almost wanted to add a "I think!" at the end. He didn't have a twin; he didn't know what it was actually like to be in a situation like this. The last thing he wanted was for Kaoru to take his advice and then have things turn out horribly.

Kaoru nodded silently, considering the advice. "Okay," he finally said, to Tamaki's relief and horror. "Okay. I'll do that." He stood, and Tamaki noticed that now, he was holding his head up a little higher than before.

"Just… Just be careful to plan things out very carefully!" Tamaki said after him, nervousness leaking into his voice. "You don't want to mess up and have him hating you after all!"

Kaoru froze, the confidence suddenly diminishing, and Tamaki wanted to slam his own head into the wall. Repeatedly.

Stupid, stupid, stupid! You shouldn't have said that!

"N-Not that I think he will! In fact, if Kyouya were here, he would probably give you a statistic of .001% that Hikaru will end up hating you!" Tamaki finished with a laugh that sounded forced even to his own ears.

Kaoru now looked even more uncertain.

"Trust me," Tamaki continued, as Kaoru said, "Uh, boss? Could you switch back to Japanese, please?"

Realizing that he'd slipped into French out of anxiety, Tamaki gave him a paraphrased version: "The day Hikaru decides he hates you will be the same day Haruhi finally agrees to wear that swimsuit." He said this with a forlorn sigh, mostly for dramatics. "So you shouldn't worry. Talk to him, let him know what you feel, and resolve this."

Kaoru was still staring at him in wonder.

"All right?" Tamaki stood with him and took him by the shoulders. His voice turned gentle. "And do it as soon as possible, because I hate to see my two sons fighting."

Here, Kaoru rolled his eyes, but nonetheless assented. "Will do, boss." His tone was mirthful.

Pleased, Tamaki began steering him out of the room. "Good! Now, let's all go home."

"Oh yeah, about that," Kaoru said as they pushed through the doors. "I was planning on asking Kyouya to drive me home, but I guess he left early…"

"I'll take you home, then!" Tamaki cried, earning a few stares from students who were staying after school. They must have been a strange sight, the host club king and only one of the Hitachiin brothers. "Why didn't you mention it earlier? Were you just planning to walk home? What is it with my own children not trusting me?"

Kaoru's last indignant shout echoed throughout the hall: "For the last time, I'm not your son-!"

. . .

That evening, the twins crossed Tamaki's mind more than several times.

That night, Tamaki had a nightmare that the worst outcome did happen after all, and Hikaru ended up turning on Kaoru; "This is your fault!" dream-Kaoru had screamed at him, for some reason wearing a sombrero and shaking a lollipop accusingly at him. Then dream-Hikaru had shown up, brandishing a chainsaw- and that was when Tamaki finally woke up, scrambling for his cell phone.

He had started dialing blindly and the first time he called the wrong number, but on the second try, a familiar, sleepy voice groused, "Tamaki?"

The irritation was evident in the caller's voice. Tamaki gulped. "Kaoru?" he spoke in hushed tones. "How did it work out? Did you tell him? Is he mad? Do you happen to own a chainsaw? Kaoru? Kaoru! Say something!"

"Fuck off!"

The line went dead.

Tamaki barely suppressed a wail.

. . .

Morning arrived, and the blaring noise of their alarm announced it.

Movement.

A groan.

"Shut up," a lump in the bed grumbled.

"Hika…" a second voice chimed in, equally as tired. "Talking…to the alarm…again…"

A hand slammed down on the snooze button, sending the poor clock skittering to the floor. A few minutes later, Hikaru forced himself out of bed to retrieve it and make sure it wasn't broken. Their maids were becoming less and less amused with having to replace the alarm clock every two or three days.

When he had made sure that the thing was okay, the older Hitachiin stood by the side of the bed and contemplated the other figure still wrapped up in his comforter.

"Kaoru," he said, reaching across and shaking the lump. "Kaoru. Wake up." When Kaoru refused to, Hikaru frowned and decided to crawl back onto the bed – more specifically, onto his brother.

"Get off," came his twin's muffled voice.

"Make me," Hikaru shot back. He wormed a hand under the covers, looking for a particular body part-

Kaoru squealed and slapped his hand away.

Found it.

"Fine, I'm awake." Not sounding too happy, Kaoru finally resurfaced from the comforter and pushed himself up to a sitting position. Or, attempted to. "Hikaru," he complained, "get off."

Hikaru complied.

However, much to both of their chagrins, Kaoru still found it practically unable to move a whole lot.

"What's wrong?" Hikaru, who had moved off the bed entirely to stretch, glanced back at his twin.

Kaoru – who always claimed to be the more mature one between them; who constantly chided him for pouting; his precious baby brother – was sitting in a pool of sheets, cheeks red and expression stricken. Quite frankly, Hikaru found it endearing, and he found himself grinning when he realized what was happening.

"Oh, Kaoru," he said with a deliberate sigh, earning a sharp, but still flustered glance from his twin. "Was I too rough with you last night?"

"This is not funny," Kaoru deadpanned.

"Yes it is."

When Kaoru made to dive back under the sheets, Hikaru reached over and pulled him to the edge of the bed. "Oh no you don't," he chirped, batting away a hand that tried to smack him. "Unfortunately, good sex isn't enough to excuse you from school." He placed Kaoru's hands around his neck and had him wrap his legs around his waist. With a grunt, Hikaru lifted his brother from the bed and piggybacked him to the bathroom.

"You're so crass…" Kaoru nuzzled his face sleepily into the crook of Hikaru's neck.

He would have to thank Tamaki later.

Oh, right-

"You shouldn't have been so mean to Tamaki last night," he mumbled as he was set down in the bathtub. He let Hikaru manipulate his limbs as the older twin worked on undressing him.

"He interrupted us," his brother huffed. Their clothes were being deposited carelessly to the floor. When they were both finally sans clothing, Hikaru joined him in the tub.

"Yeah, but you could have at least told him off nicely."

"Told him off nicely? You're cute, Kaoru."

Kaoru muttered something incomprehensible.

"And by the way, you still need to explain why he was calling in the first place," Hikaru reminded, but made a note to ask about it later; Kaoru was clearly in no condition to give a proper answer now. He was the worst during mornings.

Kaoru hummed in agreement. "Yeah, I guess I couldn't really explain when you had me on my knees and-"

Hikaru kissed him then, because if his baby brother didn't shut up that instant, they would end up doing something that would require him to piggyback Kaoru for the rest of the day.

. . .

It was during host club that Tamaki's anxiety reached its peak.

"Calm down," Kyouya's monotone reminded him, but Tamaki waved him off. He wasn't the one in this awful situation! He wasn't the one who ruined two brothers' relationship!

"How long do they plan on taking?" the blond demanded, breathless from his pacing. He looked at the dressing room door for the umpteenth time in the last fifteen minutes. "Are you sure you didn't see them bring any weapons in?"

Needless to say, his dream was still very fresh in his mind.

"They're taking too long!" Tamaki halted by the door, teeth gritted. "Those two devils aren't changing. They're obviously in there, planning how to kill me!"

"Tamaki," Kyouya said, finally looked up to watch his best friend. "Don't you think that if indeed Hikaru and Kaoru are fighting, they wouldn't be changing in the same room?"

It was a perfectly good point; however, Tamaki missed it completely, because halfway through Kyouya's sentence, he was already barging into the dressing room.

"Hey! I know what you two are doing, and let me just say-!"

He was right; Hikaru and Kaoru were not dressing up in today's costumes.

In fact, they seemed to be in the process of doing the exact opposite, if their state of undress was any indicator.

Tamaki had frozen the moment his eyes laid on the two figures pressed against the wall.

They aren't… What are they doing…

Then he noticed the one of them had their hand down the front of the other's pants.

"Tamaki!" the one pressed against the wall squeaked. This was Kaoru.

The one keeping him cornered had his eyes narrowed to slits and glaring dangerously at the intruder. It should go without saying that this was Hikaru.

Mine, the older twin mouthed, hand splayed possessively over Kaoru's bare waist.

Never had Tamaki Suoh backtracked so fast than he did in that moment. He slammed the door shut behind him, giving the twins their privacy, and walked away, hoping that since Hikaru and Kaoru looked far from hating each other, he no longer had to worry about the ordeal.

Unfortunately, this was only the beginning.