Written somewhat specifically for HideyoshiK's birthday, who also has a fever. I could have finished something old, but it somehow felt more appropriately to literally pluck a random idea out of thin air and bash my head against the keyboard until I finished it. I have mixed feelings about the result, but the usual, "Why the hell did I just write this?" reaction is among them. I hope everyone likes it anyway.

I don't own BakaTest and parts of the following story will probably make more sense if you've seen at least the third episode of BakaTest Ni... just in case, y'know, one of you hasn't already... As usual, you should have expected the title and summary fail. The writing style is probably all over the place in this one, too...

"Yeah, okay," Yuuko spoke into the cell phone dismissively. Her mind is obviously elsewhere.

It's her mother calling on her, so she doesn't deem it too important to pay attention. After all, that's what people her age do, and she has better things to focus on, like "studying" which is really a secret cover for "reading manga". Yuuko is smart, but even if she needed to study, she can always do it another time. Right now, she's distracted by the thought of that new BL manga she ordered on the internet; it's delivery is due today, and she's been impatiently waiting to read it for a long time.

Meanwhile, her mother continues to ramble on the phone, completely oblivious that her daughter would rather be elsewhere. Yuuko still isn't listening to her mother, who's rambling about what needs to be picked up for groceries this week... as if she's actually expecting Yuuko will do it, when there's always her twin brother to boss around. Speaking of which, it looks like Hideyoshi came home earlier than her and brought in the mail today, which means her manga is waiting for her on her desk already.

Yuuko continues speaking absently into her phone, so their mother will think she's at least half-paying attention, as she opens the door to their apartment. She even manages to step inside and take off her shoes before she notices what's wrong. Then she happens to glance to the side and the conspicuous way she freezes alerts even their mother's attention – Hideyoshi, who is the cause of the problem, appears not to have noticed her enter the room at all.

In another moment, any suspicion their mother had is proved right and Hideyoshi abruptly becomes less oblivious before Yuuko can stop herself. To control her reaction would have been impossible; Hideyoshi is sitting there on the couch with her book, the manga she just ordered, in his hands and he's looking at it as though he's actually trying to read it. Though she knows her brother has casually flipped through some of her books in the past, there are certain things she doesn't want him seeing and this is one of them.

"What do you think you're doing!" she yells loudly enough to startle everyone in hearing range, including herself. Hideyoshi nearly jumps off the couch and the manga in his hands falls clumsily to the floor. Over the phone, mother immediately starts asking her what is wrong.

Yuuko's face turns even redder now that she has to think about how to answer this while Hideyoshi seems incapable of anything other than stuttering himself.

"It's nothing. Nothing I can't take care of myself," Yuuko growls into the phone and hangs up before her mother can start to protest. Her good mood has been ruined already. Tossing the phone to the side and ignoring her mother's ringtone probably won't get her in so much trouble that she won't still enjoy what she's about to do to Hideyoshi, she decides.

But her brother's never even opened one of her packages before – he's too modest, or probably just unconcerned – to go snooping in her manga before she gets a chance to read them herself. Yuuko decides to be the good, patient sister and offer him a chance to explain first:

"What the hell did you think you were doing!"

As good and patient a twin sister as she can be, at least, especially considering the circumstances.

"I... I..."

"Do you always look through my stuff?" Yuuko continues to yell at him. "How could you? That's not any of your business, and-"

Hideyoshi allows her to continue ranting until she's finally out of breath and panting heavily, though whether it's because of his easygoing and passive personality or sheer terror of Yuuko's rage is impossible to determine. Most likely, it was a mixture of both, but he somehow manages to find the words he needs to speak while Yuuko has calmed down a bit.

"I-I just wanted to know... what kinds of boys you like," he replies meekly, looking down. "If it's not the 'pretty' type, because..." he wasn't sure if he could ever be anything other than 'pretty' to everyone around him.

Yuuko's mind is instantly brought back to the day they tried to switch places. More specifically, what he said to lead everyone into thinking she was some sort of queer interested in young boys... Her faced burned angrily again. If he really wanted to remind her of that so badly, she didn't mind adding to her list of punishments.

"That's none of your business," she seethes, and notices how Hideyoshi cringes when she takes a step toward him. Even her brother isn't so stupid as to not realize what's in store for him.

"B-but don't you want to know why I'm asking!" he cries out desperately, a flimsy attempt to distract her.

"You've already embarrassed me enough. Why is it you need to know my taste in men now also?"
Somehow, and too late, Yuuko realizes his strategy is working. Even more miraculously, Hideyoshi seems to know this also. "Does that mean you've got something to hide? Because... I'm tired of hiding secrets from each other."

If it were just the first sentence alone, Yuuko wouldn't have been deterred long enough to avoid beating him mercilessly. But the second part has picked her curiosity, and the downcast expression on Hideyoshi's face, a face that always seems to wear its emotions earnestly when it's not on the drama stage, softens even her hard feelings.

"But we've got nothing to hide," she replies, a little too quietly for her own preferences. If Hideyoshi is easy to read when he's not acting, she fears that herself to be an open book one-hundred percent of the time. Maybe even a book with large, bold-faced typing, she's so bad at hiding her emotions most of the time. The past couple of minutes have been proof of that.

Hideyoshi's courage to speak abandons him again. Every time he opens his mouth, he fails to get past the first word. "I..." he starts, only to repeat himself again and again, as if it's not something he's sure he really wants to say. This is new to Yuuko, who has always looked down on her twin brother as the fool who never thinks before he says something.

Thanks to the sudden, dismal change in atmosphere, he's no longer threatened when she moves toward him, and even sits on the couch next to him, wedgeing herself between Hideyoshi and the cushions at the end of the seat.

"You, what?" she asks as she picks her manga up from the floor, though she's no longer as impatient to read it. "And why do you care what kinds of boys I like?" The latter happened to be a rather sensitive question... And to finish it, she asked, "What were you doing looking at my manga anyway?" As mentioned before, there were certain things she didn't want even her brother seeing.

"I wanted to know what kind of boys you liked, then I happened to notice you got a new manga, so I..." he cut himself off there, leaving Yuuko to assume that this really was the answer to her last question, though she still didn't understand why.

"Didn't you learn anything?" she huffed, thinking back on the day they'd masqueraded as one another again. "You can't know anything about a person just from the type of books or manga they read, idiot!"

She continued to chide him, but she didn't look as mad as she looked. In fact, it appeared as though she almost might be... blushing again? It gave Hideyoshi some hope.

"The back of this manga," he pointed at the new book, feeling a little more courageous, "says it's about incest."

The bluntness of his observation was enough to turn Yuuko's face red as she scrambled to think of an explanation. "I-it's just a random boys' love that I th-though might be interesting, so..." she broke off mumbling incoherently.

"Are you interested in that kind of thing?" Hideyoshi asked. He was looking just as red now, and it was obvious from the waver in his voice that he was having almost as much trouble continuing as Yuuko was. Talk had suddenly become so uncomfortable between them, but at this point there was no stopping. He just couldn't stop now. "N-not the boys' love, but the...?"

He couldn't stop, but it was so difficult to continue. His face was way too hot and his heart pounded harshly in his chest; he felt very much like a cornered rabbit, but he wasn't facing a physical predator. Not yet, anyway. Yuuko might still get mad at him when he told her...

And some people would say an emotional heart break hurts far worse than any physical pain anyway.

"Y-you mean the...?" Despite the lack of words, it was clear Yuuko knew what he meant.

Not telling her was painful too, and Hideyoshi didn't expect her to understand his what he felt. He didn't expect anything other than an absolute freak out when he told her, though the incestuous manga had given him – what he presumed to be false – hope to cling to. At least he could shakily reassure himself that he'd tried, and now that he'd said it, he'd be able to move on.

Not wanting to wait another moment, lest he'd panic and back out, he drew in a deep breath and mustered up all of his courage. And with that courage, he finally said something he'd been wanting to say for a long time: "I love you, Sis."

In that instant, the whole room turned deathly silent. Even Yuuko's cellphone had stopped ringing, as their mother had apparently realized her daughter wasn't about to answer the phone any time soon. As for Yuuko herself... Now that he'd said it, Hideyoshi was too terrified to look in her direction anymore.

For a long while – long enough that Hideyoshi had almost gathered up the will to gauge his sister's reaction again – the seconds ticked by, Hideyoshi was counting them off on his head. By the time roughly three minutes had passed, he was almost ready to apologize – say, "sorry, what a fool I've been" and hurry back to his room to sulk and hide in his shame. Yuuko prevented him from doing that.

"This... this isn't a joke, is it? Because you happened to find that one manga, right?" she asked, with a cautiosness and vulnerability in her voice that was very unlike her. Yuuko didn't really need to hear the answer, because she already knew her brother well enough to also know that he would never joke about something so serious. Some of his stupid friends, maybe, but never her twin brother.

At any second, Hideyoshi feared that this would turn into the sharp-tongued, angry sister he was much more familiar with. "I-I'm sorrry, Sis. I hope you won't-"

"No, don't apologize!" Yuuko cut him off.

Hideyoshi inhaled a breath sharply; what was coming next was something he had only dreamed about, never anything he had expected to happen in reality. Yet he felt he already knew for certain what Yuuko was going to tell him, and he turned out to be right:

"Hideyoshi... I love you also."

Never before had either of them been so grateful toward a manga, one Yuuko hadn't even gotten to read yet. Said manga lay forgotten on the table as Hideyoshi leaned in to kiss his sister; Yuuko was thrilled to find the real thing was much better than reading about it.

Despite being the first of the three main (only?) BakaTest twincest writers, I'm still the last to include an actual kiss in a story. Um... yeah. I kind of forced this one in, so...

/dies of embarassment.

I'm not good at romance.