Ouran Fanfiction

Breathing

Chapter 3- Running

Hikaru fled down corridors and stairs, dodging patients and hospital employees al the way. He knocked over a nurse’s cart somewhere on the second floor and carried on running. He didn’t know- or even care- where he went now. A car could come and run him over, and he wouldn’t care. Muggers could come along, beat him up, steal all his things. He wouldn’t care. He might even welcome some kind of pain. It would be something else to think about, something else to feel apart from this wrenching feeling that part of his soul was being ripped from him. He needed something else, something like...

Suddenly, a fully-formed idea appeared in his head, as though it had been there the whole time. Moving quickly, he walked down the road and into the nearest drugstore. He paused at the display of what he wanted, fiddling anxiously with the edge of his wallet in his pocket. Would they sell them to him?

Yes, of course they would. It couldn’t look that suspicious. He just needed to pick up something else as well, to make it look like a routine thing.

He grabbed the nearest box and then some plasters as well, sauntering over to the counter and trying to look casual, as though he bought these every week or two.

Once outside, he started running again, but this time he knew where he was going.

--

No one had moved since Hikaru had run out of the hospital room, unless you counted Kaoru crumpling noiselessly to the floor when his knees gave out. He was in shocked silence, tears welling up in the corners of his eyes. He blinked them back furiously, unaware of anything else around him. All he knew was that his heart was thudding madly, and it was getting difficult to breathe, to bring enough air inside him to keep him conscious. He heard, through the haze of misery, Mori’s gentle tones, sounding completely different in their familiarity.

“Can nothing be done?”

This question seemed to bring the room back to life, and Kaoru glanced around at the others. Mori was gripping onto the end of Haruhi’s bed, his knuckles showing white through the even skin. Kaoru wondered if the tall third-year would be able to bend the metal if he wanted to. Hunny was still beside Haruhi, tear tracks down his small face. Kyouya had ended up standing away from the others, arms folded and light flashing off his glasses, obscuring his eyes. Tamaki was merely standing, still in the same position as when he had spotted Haruhi’s drip, and his expression was one of blank shock. However, every one of them had something in common. They were all staring at Haruhi, desperate for her to put their fears to rest.

But no such thing happened. Haruhi looked at them all sadly and Kaoru felt a pang go to his chest at the way she looked so very vulnerable. He had to make a conscious effort to suck in air as she answered Mori.

“They’re trying their best, but... but they’re saying that...” She paused, taking in a deep breath. “They’re saying that there’s about a ninety-five percent chance that I’m going to die.”

This seemed to bring Tamaki out of whichever stupor he had been in. He wandered round to Haruhi’s side and suddenly threw his arms around her. He said, between shuddering breaths, “Daddy’s here, Haruhi... Daddy’s here. Daddy loves you...” He was beginning to cry. It would have been funny, had it not been so heartbreaking.

“Tamaki-” she spluttered. “Can’t... breathe...”

“Ah, I’m sorry my beloved daughter!” Tamaki let her go and sat down heavily on the sofa, his head in his hands.

They all sat or stood still again, digesting this new information. Hunny had begun to weep, and Kaoru closed his eyes, unable to bear holding in his tears any longer.

--

Hikaru was sitting on the ground in the park, under the tree where he had first learned of Haruhi’s fear of thunderstorms. His purchases from the drugstore lay on the ground in front of him. The box of plasters and the box of razorblades. He didn’t know how or why he had come up with this plan. He’d never harmed himself intentionally before. But then, nothing like this had ever happened before.

Quickly, before he had time to change his mind, he picked up the box and ripped it open, reaching inside for one of the tiny metal blades.

“Ouch!”

The razorblade fell onto the grass, and Hikaru watched as red swelled up out of his thumb. Hold the safety end next time, genius.

Cursing quietly at his own incompetence, and wincing at the slight coppery taste, he put his thumb in his mouth, licking the blood away carefully. If it had been a conscious decision to buy plasters, Hikaru couldn’t remember, but he was grateful to them now. One-handed, he unwrapped one of the adhesive strips and wrapped it around his thumb. He waited for a minute while the stinging in his thumb ebbed away to nothing. Then he tried again. Holding the safety end of the razorblade between his thumb and first two fingers, he raised his other arm.

The seconds that he hesitated for seemed to last for hours.

What if something really bad happens?

I have my phone.

This won’t solve anything!

At least I’ll be able to feel something different.

This is wrong!

...

Furious at his inability to find a retort to this last part, Hikaru moved the blade decisively about an inch along his upper arm. The pain tore a gasp from his throat and he accidentally drove the blade slightly deeper. It was worse than the small nick in his thumb, and he dropped the razorblade again. He glanced own at the scarlet on the pale, creamy skin and felt ill. He clutched his arm to him and tears began to trail down his face.

Now there was nothing to concentrate on.

Nothing but the pain.

--

Everyone was still sitting in the hospital room when the thunder sounded.

Haruhi squealed and dived under the blanket, terrified, and the others immediately forgot all else. Tamaki and Hunny moved to sit either side of her pillow, holding her hands gently but firmly in theirs. Kyouya moved to the window and pulled the curtains shut before sitting, with Kaoru on the other side, by Haruhi’s knees. Mori remained standing, tall and imposing, at the end of the bed. It was at this point that Kaoru noticed his brother’s absence.

”Hikaru?” Kaoru looked around the room searchingly, but he knew in some part of him that Hikaru had fled at the news.

He lifted himself from the bed. “I have to go find him,” explained simply as he moved towards the door.

“Wait.” The redhead turned to see Mori getting his rain jacket from the back of the sofa. “Borrow this.”

“Err... thanks...” Kaoru shrugged the too-large jacket on over his shoulders and zipped it up.

“See you guys later.” He turned back to the door, but then heard Haruhi’s voice and turned back again.

“Will you be back?” Her eyes were wide as she looked at him.

He thought for a moment. “Depends how long it takes to find him.”

And out he went, out of the hospital, and into the rain coming down in sheets.

--

The rain came suddenly for Hikaru, making him look upwards dumbly, as if not believing that it was really coming down on him.

Swearing to himself again, he threw the boxes of plasters and razorblades into the plastic bag and got up, glancing anxiously at the cuts on his arm. The first few had just about stopped bleeding, but the most recent were still weeping scarlet. Carefully, and feeling slightly light-headed, Hikaru stood up and began to wander through the rain. He did not know where he was going, but he knew he needed shelter.

Unaware that his feet had thought of some kind of destination for him, he looked up in surprise when he found himself standing in front of the little church where he’d sat with Haruhi on that day they’d been on a date. He wondered distantly if he was dreaming again, but the cold of the rain drove the thought away almost as soon as he’d thought it when he shivered. Even if it was, by some miracle, a dream, he was cold and wet.

Once inside, Hikaru closed the door and wandered slowly up the aisle, his pale, bare, damaged arms wrapped around his torso. He wished for Kaoru suddenly, needing the warmth of his twin beside him, feeling so alone and afraid in that moment that more tears began to seep out and down his face.

Before he knew what he was doing, Hikaru had crouched down and crawled under the table at the front of the church, he had the razorblade in his hand again, and he was sobbing uncontrollably.

--

Kaoru was standing under a bus shelter, cold, but mercifully dry, thanks to Mori’s jacket. He sighed and saw condensation rising from his breath in the cold air. He’d looked everywhere for Hikaru, and couldn’t think where to go next.

Dejectedly, he began to walk slowly along the pavement to find somewhere he could get some tea or something and warm himself up. Perhaps Hikaru had returned home, and he was sitting grumpily on his and Kaoru’s bed, angry at himself for being unable to stop Haruhi from leaving them all.

It was then that Kaoru saw the little church. There was something compelling about it- maybe it was the small door, or perhaps the stained-glass windows. In any case, the younger Hitachiin twin felt drawn to it.

He slipped inside silently; his eyes adjusted to the dark as he ventured further in. It was peaceful here. Gloomy, but peaceful.

Kaoru sat quietly in the front row of pews, staring at the window as the front of the church shone with light from the lightning.

He heard a small gasp or cry, or a mixture of the two, and looked around worriedly.

“Hikaru?” he called desperately. Whenever he was scared, Hikaru was always there for him. Where was he now?

Silence greeted his call. Then...

“Kaoru?”

“Hikaru!” Kaoru flung himself onto the floor and lifted the tablecloth that hid his brother from view. He stopped short, frozen, his breath caught in his throat, when he saw Hikaru.

Hikaru was curled up on the floor in the foetal position. His skin was pale, almost luminously white in the gloom. Kaoru could hear his breaths, shuddery and ragged, and knew his own breathing was exactly the same. His pallid face was expressionless, except for his eyes, which were wide and staring at Kaoru in horror. But worst of all were- oh God he couldn’t believe this- Hikaru’s arms. Cuts up and down them, not too many, but enough to be terrifying, and in one of Hikaru’s hands was a razorblade, red with blood.

--

An age passed, in which the twins stared into each other, both shocked and disbelieving. Hikaru hadn’t intended to be found, but when he’d heard Kaoru’s voice, he’d answered instinctively, desperate for Kaoru, needing him so badly in that moment that sense had left him completely. Now he regretted calling out. Kaoru was his younger brother, and Hikaru was supposed to protect him from horrible things, not expose him to them.

Kaoru stared at him for another full minute, before saying, very quietly, “Oh Hikaru, what have you done?”

Hikaru arranged his face to try and look defiant, but merely managed more miserable and pathetic. “What does it looks like?” he asked, gesturing vaguely with the razorblade.

“Hikaru...” Kaoru closed his eyes, holding back tears.

“W-well...” Hikaru stammered, sitting up slightly, his eyes wide. “Wh- what can we do?

He could tell that Kaoru was probably about to cry, but then the younger redhead suddenly seemed to turn protective.

“We’re going to sort you out,” he answered decisively, standing up and beginning to move the things on the table so that he could pull off the tablecloth. He dropped the white material and removed Mori’s jacket, before crouching on the floor again and searching through the pockets. “Aha!” He’d found what he needed- a packet of tissues.

Hikaru watched his brother in a kind of dazed wonder. Kaoru was being so calm that it was a little unnerving and Hikaru wondered if he was dreaming again. But then Kaoru reached out a hand and lightly touched one of the stinging cuts and Hikaru winced with unspeakable pain, and knew that this was reality... Whatever reality was.

Kaoru pressed one of the tissues into Hikaru’s free hand.

“Clean up some of the blood with that,” he instructed, then added gently, “And please, give me this.”

Hikaru looked where Kaoru was pointing and was genuinely surprised to see the razorblade still gripped tightly in his other hand. He dropped it and began to dab at his arm with the tissue, wincing more as he did so.

Meanwhile, Kaoru was ripping the tablecloth into long strips. When he had finished, he told Hikaru to put tissues on the worse cuts, to act as a kind of dressing, and then to wrap his arms in the bandages he’d made from the white fabric, no longer a tablecloth, and secure them with the remaining plasters.

When they were done, Hikaru’s arms resembled those of an embalmed Egyptian mummy, but fortunately he’d mainly stuck to his upper arms with the razorblade, and he was no longer bleeding too dreadfully. He was still pale though, and it had only just sunk in that he was freezing cold, and that his teeth were chattering.

Kaoru picked up the jacket from where it had been lying on the floor.

“Here.” He held it out to Hikaru. “You’re cold, and wet. We need to get you to a doctor.”

“No!”

Kaoru blinked at Hikaru’s reaction.

“I... I don’t...” Hikaru stumbled on the words around his noisy teeth. “I don’t... want anyone... else... involved...”

“But Hikaru-”

“Please!” chattered the older twin. “Please... let’s just... stay here... just for... a little while...”

“You could get a cold, or worse. You need warmth...”

“Well then, we’ll stay here, dry off and warm up,” replied Hikaru, wrapping the coat around himself, but then holding it open. “Come here.”

Kaoru looked at him in silence, apparently deep in thought, or having some kind of inner struggle.

“What?” asked Hikaru, frowning slightly.

“I don’t want to...” Kaoru now looked troubled and slightly desperate. “Hikaru, can’t we just-”

“No,” said Hikaru flatly. “We’re staying here. Now, get under the jacket before you turn blue. You worry too much about me, and not enough about yourself.”

Kaoru threw him a pained look, but then resigned and curled up beside his brother.

“Fine,” he replied. “But we can’t stay here too long. And I need to phone the others.”

He produced his phone, quickly dialled and started speaking into it.

“Hey, it’s me... Yes... Yeah, we’re both... uhh... coping... Not sure... No, it’s okay... No I think we’ll both just go home soon... Maybe tomorrow... depends on... things... Yeah I will... Okay, bye.”

He hung up and sighed.

“Thanks,” muttered Hikaru.

“For what?”

“Not telling the others.”

Kaoru stared at him. “Why would I do that?” he asked incredulously. “It’s nobody’s business but ours.”

“Oh...” Hikaru fell silent, his eyes closed.

“Hikaru...?”

“Yeah?” The older twin opened one eye, looking sideways at his twin.

“... Nothing.”

Hikaru closed his eyes again and soon his breathing became slow, even, and heavy.

Kaoru turned his head to look at his brother. He looked so peaceful, head dropped onto his chest, face free from all emotion, eyes gently shut. Kaoru studied the curving lines and planes of Hikaru’s face and wondered what Hikaru must be dreaming about, if he was dreaming at all.

Slowly, and so gently that Hikaru would not feel it, Kaoru reached out a pale, shaking hand and placed it on the other side of Hikaru’s face. He turned his head slightly, and brought his own face closer.

“I love you Hikaru,” he whispered, hardly raising his voice above a breath. The words were different to how he usually said them. These were not spoken as if to a brother, or even to a twin. These were spoken as if to a lover.

Decisively, Kaoru lowered his lips and met Hikaru’s in a soft, gentle kiss that was all tenderness and sweetness, a kiss of love. He broke away after the briefest of moments and gently lowered Hikaru’s head again, before settling down beside his twin and falling immediately into sleep.

He did not see Hikaru open his eyes and turn to stare at him in the darkness.