Ouran isn't mine

"How do you feel?" Kaoru hovered over his pale brother's hospital bed, his face twisted with an unappealing frown. Despite the reassurances from both their parents and the doctors that Hikaru was going to be fine, Kaoru still had his doubts. It was like a nagging child that pulled on his shirt sleeve, begging him to poke and prod at his ill twin until he got the answers he needed. What those answers were, he himself didn't yet know. Maybe he just needed a few words that would calm the negative thoughts of living without his brother that were speeding through his head.

Hikaru groaned, not from pain, but frustration. "If someone asks me that question one more time..." He sighed, and then shifted from his position on his back to an attempt at sitting up. "Ouch!" In an instant he was back to lying flat and staring up at Kaoru from his pillow.

"You're sore. Don't be stupid. You can answer me while lying down." This granted Kaoru a flustered glance from his twin, whose face and ears had begun to take on a red hue.

"I forgot..." Hikaru mumbled. He decided to change the topic from his accidental self-inflicted pain and to the original subject. "I feel fine. My hip hurts obviously, but I'm fine." The twin paused to think. "Hopefully, the results will be okay. I really don't want to have to go through another test. I don't like being stabbed in the back, and all of this is becoming a pain."

This time it was Kaoru's turn to think. He repeated Hikaru's words, "Stabbed in the back."

"Well...my hip, but it was close enough," Hikaru clarified.

Hikaru watched Kaoru think with a perplexed frown on his face. Whenever Kaoru thought too much, it almost always meant he would come to some over analyzed conclusion that made no sense. Of course, Kaoru also was the one with the most insight to himself and the world outside of their own.

"What if that's why you're sick?"

"What?" Hikaru asked. Again he tried to sit up, only to wince. There was probably a bruise where the doctors prodded him. The evidence was the tenderness of the area whenever he irritated it even slightly.

"It's karma. We stabbed those girls in the back when we were in middle school, and now you're being stabbed in the back...literally and figuratively." When Kaoru got only silence, he sighed and crossed his arms in front of his chest. "It's not that much of a long shot, Hikaru."

Said twin blinked. "Are you listening to yourself?"

"This is coming from the person who believes in aliens and super powers," Kaoru snapped back. "Think about it. Something bad was eventually going to catch up to us for what we did, and I think this is it. You're sick because of how we treated everyone back then."

The bedridden twin closed his eyes and tried to ignore the throbbing pain from where the doctors had pierced his bone with a needle. He hoped they got everything they needed, because he would punch the next doctor that tried anything like that again. It wasn't terribly painful thanks to the medications he'd been given, but it was enough of a shock to turn him off from it.

"If that's the case, then maybe I'm sick because of the time we trapped Tono in his bathroom." Hikaru winked, and smiled playfully up at his brother.

Kaoru snorted and then doubled over with laughter, despite his theory being waved off. True, it was ridiculous, but his mind wanted something to blame. Still, he joined in on Hikaru's joke. "Or maybe because you tried to steal Kyouya's notebook," he sputtered out through giggles.

"It was probably a trap! He laced the outside with cancer-inducing poison!" Hikaru added, a little too loudly. A few more jokes later, an older nurse came hobbling in to interrupt their rambling speculations and outrageous theories. Their fun had been squashed, but at least Kaoru's heart felt lighter.

"If I have to be poisoned, can you at least give me a decent TV to play video games on?" Hikaru fussed. The television wasn't small, but if it didn't fill the length of the wall, it was below his standards. "And the sound is terrible."

Around Hikaru's bedside several nurses worked to prepare his medication. He'd heard one mumble something, but lucky for her he couldn't decipher it. "I thought you said my brother was here."

This time he got a response. One of the nurses, who seemed to be happily prepping the needle that would be stuck into her complaining patient's arm, steadied her movements. Needle gleaming dangerously in her hand, she spoke, "He's under age. He can't come in while you're getting treatment."

Hikaru's muscles wound up, until his body grew completely stiff. His mouth dropped open, floundering desperately for words. He didn't even know what to say to such a thing. Going through this without his brother, his best friend?

"He was just in here yesterday," the traumatized boy started slowly. His words quickly found energy to press forward with more force. "What's so different about today? Did you change your age limit overnight! This isn't fair! You can't really expect me to do this without him..." Hikaru grit his teeth and then snapped his head away to focus on something other than the pitying faces of his nurses. Suddenly, he felt alone, more than when he'd first watched Kaoru disappear from his room to return to home. Home, where he should be too.

"I'm sorry, honey. He's under seventeen." The woman looked to her partner for help but was given no support. "Once you start treatment your immune system will fall. That's why he can't come in, he's not an adult. We can't risk him infecting you with any kinds of illness spreading around in school. Your mother said she would come in instead."

That did nothing to change Hikaru's tense, sullen demeanor. He pressed his lips together in a straight line and tangled his fingers in his bedsheets, clenching at them firmly. Mute tears began to fall and streak Hikaru's agonized face.

Sorry to disappoint those who wanted updates on my other fics, but I'm in a medical mood. You may be asking, "So what? You do other med fics. Why revive this one?" Because it's hitting close to home with some issues I'm having at the moment.

Anyway~ Sorry for this drabble-esque thing. I was just in the mood to write something cheerfully depressing. I didn't see any mistakes...but sorry if there are. Also if some info is off.

As always, drop me a line~ Review, PM, doesn't matter the method.