Disclaimer: I do not own anything pertaining to Ouran High School Host Club.

Notes: Part of the 101kisses challenge. This one was Vaseline. I had a lot of fun with this one. Haha.

Thank you to my Gaian friends for reviewing this before I posted it.

xxx

“Shit,” said Kaoru as he rummaged through the closet, looking frantically for his uniform tie. After sifting through every box and under every pile of clothing, he told Hikaru to go ahead to the limousine. Frustrated, he then extended his search to the drawers around the room and asked passing maids if they had seen his tie. Again, his efforts were fruitless.

Kaoru pouted, staring around the perimeter of the room, scrutinizing for any spots he may have missed. Desperate to find his tie (it was more of a desire to match Hikaru than an actual attachment to the tie), he got on his knees and looked between the two mattresses.

However, rather than finding what he needed, he discovered, instead, a tub of Vaseline tucked innocently in the middle of Hikaru’s bed.

”Kaoru, I found it!” yelled Hikaru from down the hallway. “Come on, let’s go!”

Quickly standing, Kaoru shouted ‘I’m coming’ before giving the bed an inquiring look and dashing away for school – they were bound to be late if he lagged any further.

Hikaru tossed the black-and-purple tie at him, a lecherous grin on his lips. “It was under the car seat.”

Kaoru, too, grinned, an embarrassed flush coloring his cheeks as he remembered exactly what events had transpired between him, Hikaru, and his lovely school accessory.

The twins, now sitting comfortably in the plush limousine, worked on knotting and then immediately unknotting the cloth around Kaoru’s neck. Hikaru found a more pleasing activity as he abandoned the offensive material onto the floor and pushed his twin across the seat to taste the softness and warmth of Kaoru’s lips (Kaoru vaguely thought of how very similar the current situation was to what had happened the day before).

And for some reason, amidst the liquid hot passion that slowly overtook him, the jar of Vaseline flashed in Kaoru’s mind.

“Sires, we have arrived,” said the chauffeur who spoke as if he were entirely too uncomfortable.

Pulling away from each other and expertly straightening their clothes, the twins clambered out of the now stuffy limousine (as a sudden afterthought, Kaoru rushed back inside to grab his tie, which had caused this entire mess, and slipped it around his neck).

Hikaru and Kaoru walked, synchronized as usual, to their classes, smiling at several designators they recognized, their eyes silently seeking a certain Haruhi Fujioka. Upon entering their classroom, they spotted a familiar brunette wearing a male school uniform sitting at her desk and talking with a blushing Host Club regular.

“Ha-ru-hi!” the twins chimed simultaneously, settling in their desks as well.

“Good morning,” she responded before immediately resuming her conversation with the girl who now glanced hopefully back and forth between the twins.

The bell signaling the start of class prompted the socializing students to quickly maneuver to their respective desks. The first teacher of the day entered, and the students stood and greeted her.

The lesson was on English grammar, something that Kaoru knew how to do quite well. Thus, due to boredom and a superiority complex, the younger twin allowed his thoughts to drift – though, of course, dedicating a fraction of his attention to listen for his name should he be called. He thought about how much he wanted to crawl into Hikaru’s lap at that exact moment and kiss him until his lungs gave out. He thought about how much he really, really, really wanted some syrup-saturated pancakes. He thought about being in the car with Hikaru. He thought about-

Kaoru blinked. The Vaseline tub?

Glancing over at Hikaru, who was watching the teacher with bored eyes, Kaoru mentally compiled a list of why Hikaru Hitachiin, his twin brother, would hide a tub of Vaseline.

All he could think of, though, was for lubrication. And unless Hikaru was masturbating to levels that Kaoru could not even dream of reaching, Kaoru could not understand for the life of him why Hikaru would need lubrication. Hikaru dared not to bring home other girls and other boys – in fact, Kaoru was sure that Hikaru was still a virgin. So what on earth is Hikaru doing with such a random object under his bed?

Thinking back to the incident in the limousine, Kaoru’s face became a vibrant shade of red that caught the attention of his twin.

Though Hikaru and Kaoru were, admittedly, needlessly more closer and more intimate than most twins, their activities had not surpassed provocative touching and kissing. Could Hikaru really be preparing for third base? Kaoru wasn’t quite sure that he was ready to do anything of that nature – most especially with a male who happened to be his twin brother.

(Wasn’t that narcissism? Illegal? Immoral?)

“Kaoru,” the teacher drawled, probably noticing that the redhead was staring off in some distance that was not her. “Could you please tell me if the underlined phrase in question fourteen is a participial, gerund, or infinitive phrase?”

Glancing at the question, Kaoru immediately answered, confident that he was correct. And, of course, the teacher simply rolled her eyes, affirmed his answer, and moved on.

Hikaru and Kaoru connected eyes, and for the first time in his life, Kaoru turned away out of complete embarrassment.

xxx

After school and Host Club, Hikaru and Kaoru tossed their bags into some random direction, quickly stripping their blazers and unbuttoning the first two buttons of their collared shirts. Exhausted, they collapsed onto their beds.

“Hey, Kaoru?” said Hikaru after several seconds of silence.

”Yes, Hikaru?” Kaoru mumbled, his eyes closed and his body slack with fatigue.

Hikaru pulled himself properly on his bed and leaned over Kaoru’s body, unintentionally seductive. “Why did you turn away from me this morning in English? Are you angry with me?” Biting his lower lip, he asked in a whisper, “Do you not like kissing anymore? I’ll stop if you ask me to.”

Kaoru, once again, blushed as certain thoughts crept back into his awareness. He turned his head to the side, admiring the view outside of the window. “No, it’s not that, it’s just . . .”

Frustrated at his brother’s elusiveness, Hikaru made Kaoru face him (though the little minx averted his eyes, thus ruining the point). For some reason, he felt hurt and almost panicked. His eyes asked, ‘what is it, then?’

With a sigh, Kaoru gently pushed Hikaru away and sat up, his hands folded neatly in his lap. He scraped up the words to explain his inquiry. How could he possibly say this without being too direct and bold and dirty? The mere thought of saying such things to his brother was nerve-wracking.

“Well,” he started, twiddling his thumbs, “while I was looking for my tie this morning, I found something . . . weird.”

“Weird?”

“Yeah.” Kaoru pretended not to notice how much closer Hikaru had gotten within the past thirty seconds. “I looked underneath your mattress and saw some Vaseline.” With a quick, risky glance towards Hikaru, Kaoru saw an expression that told him to go on.

Go on?

“Er . . . that’s all.”

“My Vaseline is weird to you?” Hikaru crawled off of the bed and lifted his top mattress in order to retrieve the item in question. He then situated himself beside his twin once again and handed the container to him. “What’s so weird about it?”

Kaoru blushed. “Well, it was randomly and your bed and I-”

“What, did you think I was going to use it to have sex with you or something?”

The barcode on the label suddenly took all of Kaoru’s attention. Hikaru, noticing this suspicious act, blinked. His eyes widened in realization.

“Y-you thought that I . . . that I was going t-to?” Hikaru’s face soon matched Kaoru’s furious red one. He, too, switched his gaze to the dresser across the room, suddenly unwilling to continue this conversation. “I totally put that between my mattresses because I-I use it a lot for my hair and I- Why would you think that?!”

“It’s not like I wanted to!”

Silence, like a thief, quickly overwhelmed their conversation. Their argument soon collapsed into awkward silence. The tick-tocking of the clock seemed to reverberate around the room. Was it also possible for it to multiply their tension?

Hikaru sniffed. “Well, do you want to?”

Kaoru inhaled deeply. “Do I want to?”

“Yeah.”

To their surprise, Kaoru answered, “Well . . . maybe . . . eventually . . . yeah.”

xxx

It was unusually uncomfortable that night to go to bed. Though Hikaru and Kaoru usually slept near the groove where their individual beds met, that night they slept on opposite edges. The simple presence of each other made their skins crawl.

However, a sudden epiphany stripped away that thick layer of awkwardness. Kaoru leapt to Hikaru’s bed, horrified. “You use that in your hair?!”

Hikaru felt ashamed, his head hanging in defeat. “Yeah, I didn’t want you to find out that I was using that in my hair.”

“Oh, Hikaru.” Kaoru slipped into the covers, hoping to console Hikaru’s shame when he embraced his twin’s form. In the sweetness of the moment, Kaoru leaned down and kissed Hikaru’s lips softly, lovingly.

Their youth and naïveté remained a barrier between second and third base. This, Kaoru noted and kept safe in his mind with lock and key as he felt the warmth of Hikaru disperse within him through their mouths.

It was hot, passionate, and intimate without the permanence of sex.

But the tub of Vaseline, tucked back beneath the mattress, almost glowed with an aura that begged to differ.

xxx