A/N: Written in a somewhat melancholy mood. This was an original prose piece I adapted to Ouran because it was just so right for them to be the characters. It's all about loving someone you shouldn't and, well... that's life. Tragic and terrible. At first the main character should have been Hikaru, and then Kaoru and Haruhi would get together (for the sake of those two pending requests asking me for a KaoruxHaruhi, but no worries, I have other plans for that) but I decided that the thought of Hikaru folding paper cranes instead of just seizing what he wanted is just not him.

This is not a happy fanfic. I just wrote it because I'm feeling kind of discouraged about my sequel, Never and Forever. I'm starting to get the feeling that I should never have started writing it.

By the way, this is so far my first fanfic that's not in the OTNK-verse. Enjoy your one-sided Hitachiincest. This fanfic is for anyone who's ever been in love with someone they shouldn't have fallen in love with; for starlight2005, my best friend in the whole world; and for Almost a Bookworm for no reason other than this person has been the greatest reviewer ever for my work-in-progress and it really cheers me up to read her reviews.

Happy April Fool's Day. Love can be the biggest joke of all sometimes.

A Thousand Paper Cranes

1, 2, 3. Kaoru's fingers moved slowly, accustoming themselves to the unfamiliar task of folding the colored sheets of paper. The first was red, because it was their favorite color; the color of love, of passion, of their hair. The second black, for sorrow, black for mystery and secrets, for darkness. The third he left to chance: he closed his eyes and allowed his hands to seek out whatever hue they chose.

A thousand paper cranes. They said that folding a thousand paper cranes would grant you a wish. He did not believe in legends, but then, he had never believed that he would fall in love with another boy either, let alone his own twin brother. He had not believed in love at all. Love: a convenient myth invented by people who were only using pretty semantics to describe a phenomenon necessary for evolution. People got lonely, people needed protection, people wanted to continue the species. So they came together and called it love.

But he wasn't lonely (at least, not any more than any person is, for who in this world has never felt so? And perhaps even less than any other, because he had a reflection forever standing at his side, sleeping next to him, holding his hand). He didn't need protection. And as for continuing the species, what he felt could only be a nihilistic fall; his unmade actions were barren. And yet, he felt.

And he felt it for his brother.

He wasn't sure when it began. One day he had turned around, watched his brother's mouth twist into a smile, and realized that that was the mouth that he wanted to kiss. A schizophrenic heat spread through his body as they sat together, heads close, the space between their skin seeming much too finite—his pulse beat where their fingers brushed. The mere memory made his palms disobedient, and the crane crumpled into a shapeless mass underneath them.

203, 204, 205. A month and a half later; the moon had changed but he had not, and the paper he used was a dark blue the color of the smoggy night sky. That day one of their customers, pretty enough with her glossy lips and hair but not so beautiful that he would have caught his breath at the sight of her, had rested her head on his shoulder and spoken to him of feelings and fire. "I dreamt of you every night since we first met," she whispered.

Poetic, he supposed, yet untrue; but then, love had its own language of lies. He knew that well enough, for had he not said "Yes, let's go out" to her? Had he not caught her pale hand, so small, frail as a promise, and imagine the calluses and familiar textures of a bigger hand in its place?

"I'm in love," he had told Hikaru.

And that much had been the truth. He finished folding the 250th crane and put away the cranes in a box he hid under his bed like a sin. Gods don't grant wishes. If there are gods, they can only look at me and know how twisted I am. He said the words out loud, knowing that it would be the first and only time he would utter the truth: "I love you, Hikaru, my brother, my twin… my life."

560, 561, 562. Almost five years later the box was opened again. His girlfriend had realized that his thoughts traveled with someone else, that his breathing matched someone else's, that he had not dreamt of her and never would. "You never loved me," she said, a statement, not a question

He swallowed hard, confronted by eyes that weren't golden. "That's right. I didn't."

She'd hurled his ring and his promises back in his face and walked away from every lie he had struggled to keep up.

And he had cried on Hikaru'ss houlder, sick at his gladness for the excuse to inhale the scent of clove cigarettes and honey. He cried because he had taken a chance at normalcy, and learned that no one else would ever matter. "She left me," he wept as his twin held him close, murmuring soothing nonsense into his ear.

But there had been nothing to leave.

644. That was the number that Sadako Sasaki had folded before she had died, her wish unfulfilled; that was the number he had reached when Hikaru had come to him holding Haruhi's hand and said, "I'm getting married."

The 645th crane was clumsy, folded that night by inebriated hands. His veins flowed with polluted blood, heavy with alcohol. He chose white for purity—the purity of the simple 'natural rookie' host who would be on his arm, in his bed. Small drops turned the pristine, stiff sheets first a damp gray, then as the torrent continued the bird fell apart in his hand, forever flightless.

If only feelings could be crushed as easily as a paper crane.

999. 1000. A broken smile was fixed on his face as he spoke in front of the crowd, his eyes swimming with lights and unshed tears as he clutched the paper with his prepared speech . He didn't even have to look down once to know what he had written; by now, every word had carved itself on his heart.

"Throughout our lives, Hikaru and I have been inseparable. We were the terror of just about everybody, as anyone who can recall the incident with the chainsaws can attest to. He's always been a restless person, and we tended to shut other people out. But someone managed to get through our defenses, and then one day Hikaru came to me and told me that he had found the person he was going to spend the rest of his life with."

(And it wasn't me.)

"He smiled then like he had never smiled before."

(But he had, he had smiled at him like that an infinite number of times; he had smiled like that more times than there were stars in the sky).

"And I knew that he had found the one for him. Haruhi was our favorite toy back then; now, she's my brother's wife and one of the best friends I could ever ask for. Today, your wedding day, is the beginning of something I know will be beautiful."

(It's the end of something I knew would never be anything.)

"My only wish is for you both to have the very greatest of happiness."

(My only wish is for you.)

With a quiet smile, he stepped down from the platform. He took the paper with his speech written on it, the page spotted with ink and tears, and he fashioned a paper crane.

"For you, Haruhi," he said, giving it to her, before he kissed her cheek and walked away.

A/N: And that's it. Written for the sake of catharsis.