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                                             Under His Touch

     I’ve gingerly draped myself along the cushions of one of the couches in the Third Music Room. My head rests in Kaoru’s lap, one of my hands resting idly against the inside of his thigh. He’s telling four of our customers an anecdote about a class we once skipped together, and how afterwards, we were found in an “indecent position” in some utility closet, “but it wasn’t what it looked like…” His story is met with frequent charmed giggles, but I’m having significant trouble concentrating. His left hand is tangled in my hair. His fingers are playing with the orange that he shares, and his thumb is caressing the arch of my ear. It makes me shiver. It drives me wild.
     I haven’t told him yet.
     I haven’t told him that when he does that, the sensations echo through my entire body. I haven’t told him that every time he touches me, every time he coquettishly invites me to rest in his lap, the blushes I give are not faked. My every sexual reaction is genuine. I haven’t told him yet.

     Today is Sunday, so Kaoru, the rest of the Host Club, and I have a day off from club activities. At Tono’s suggestion, we’ve all gathered at Haruhi’s house. She wasn’t happy when we suddenly showed up out of the blue—Kaoru and I had suspected that Tono hadn’t exactly told her we’d be here—but she didn’t kick us out. At the moment, we’re playing Kick the Can. It’s the most fun I’ve ever had with a can, especially when I get to kick it, get to watch it fly up against the bright yellow sun and fall back to the ground, where my brother tackles it because he likes to kick it right after I do.
     I haven’t told him yet.
     I haven’t told him that I always kick it in his direction on purpose. I haven’t told him that I love watching him play because I love watching him no matter what he’s doing. I especially love watching his body flow, watching him smile as he runs around playing such a simplistic commoners’ game, listening to his laugh.
     Mori-senpai sees the can coming towards him and quickly whips up one foot. Kaoru and I are closing in from both sides, preparing to tackle the giant who would deny us our tin can, but instead of kicking it, Mori-senpai accidentally crushes it into the grass.
     “…Oops…” he murmurs.
     “Taka-chan stomped on it!” Hunny-senpai declares, jumping up and down with excited laughter.
     “Mori-senpai!” Haruhi calls over. “I’ll go get another can!”
Kaoru and I seem to have been overlooked. We were in midair when Mori-senpai destroyed that can—and so now we’ve collided and fallen to the ground in a heaping pile of twin limbs and orange hair and matching outfits.
     “Oww,” Kaoru whines, even while twisting himself out of our loop and straddling me—out of habit, I think. He smiles down at me with a wink, one hand to the side of his head. I reach up as my heart stops. My brother—is he hurt? I can’t even bear to think of it. Did I do it? Did I hit him by accident?
     “K-Kaoru!” I exclaim frantically, my hand closing over his. “Kaoru, are you alright?”
     “I’m fine,” he tells me softly, even while his free hand is rubbing my shoulder. “But you’ve got a scrape.” I glance at it sideways—I hadn’t even noticed.
     “I don’t care!” I insist, half-heartedly pushing his hand away. I have to admit that it’s starting to feel a little sore, and it feels better under his fingers. “What about you?”
     His lips are soft and pink, and turn upwards in a loving smile. His body is bowed against mine, his elbows barely holding him above me, his face mere inches away.
I want to kiss him.
     “I’m really okay.”
     “You’re lying! You have a headache!” I know he does because I do. We’re twins. It pains me to know that his injuries are mine, because that means my injuries are also his.
     So even though my shoulder hurts a little, I thrust my arms up and around him and hug him against me tightly. “Kaoru!”
     He smiles into the crook of my neck. I know he thinks I’m immature. I know he thinks I’m clingy and needy and dependent. But… I also know that he once thought it would be best for me to become “my own person.” I know that he wanted me to develop a relationship with Haruhi so that I wouldn’t need him so much for the rest of my life. And I know that when that almost happened, especially around Halloween, he didn’t know what to do. And when we fell off the carriage and I broke my arm, he rushed over to me just as frantically as I had rushed to him, crying my name just as noisily, just as worriedly. So I know. I know that even though I’m clingy and dependent, usually immature, overly needy of my brother, he won’t try anything like that again.
     And besides. I told Haruhi. I told her how I feel. I told her that I love him.
     I just haven’t told him yet.

     I curl up beside him. We’ve always slept like this, he and I, in each other’s arms, or at the very least, indiscriminately touching. Tonight is cold, though, and our shoulders are still a little sore from that disastrous first round of Kick the Can. These two things put together have given me ample reason to cuddle with him, to press up against him and breathe hotly against his barely-clad body. My face is buried against his narrow chest, and in the quiet of our room, I can hear the steady beating of his heart. My hands slide up between us and he pulls me closer, trapping my chilly fingers between our tummies, where they’ll stay all night as our body heat mingles and mixes and warms me.
     His legs tangle through mine, and as we settle into a position we can comfortably sleep in, his thighs press between mine, his hips huddling against mine.
     I haven’t told him yet.
     I haven’t told him that this is my favorite position with him because I can feel him. I haven’t told him that I love it when our hips are thrust together because all that separates us are two layers of matching boxers, equally thin and wrinkled. I love the way my brother’s body feels, the way his half-hardness makes my blood roar. It’s a challenge, to keep my body in check, to keep my own half-hardness from blossoming into the full erection that I’ve always truly wanted him to feel. But I just don’t think it would be fair to him, to do those things to him, to force myself on him, when I haven’t even told him yet.

     Monday after school rolls around again, and this time, Kaoru is recounting our Kick the Can incident. Our customers squeal and request that we reenact the way we landed on each other. Kaoru consents with a mischievous grin, scooping me into his arms and lying me down on the couch. I gasp with a soft blush, because I can’t help it and because it’s according to script. He puts on his fretting-over-my-younger-twin face and brushes the tip of my nose with his own.
     “Hikaru,” he whispers with care, “are you alright? I hope that nothing has marred your perfect body.”
     “O-Oh, Kaoru.” I fantasize about him saying those things when girls aren’t around. I daydream in class about him sliding his hands up under my uniform jacket, down into my uniform pants. I’m so breathless that I can hardly think, hardly move, and my blush deepens as his fingertips kneed my torso and my sides, as my brother pretends to check me for injuries in this highly sexual fashion. “Kaoru,” I repeat, trying to remember what it was I had said, what it as I was supposed to say. “Forget about me. Are you alright?”
     I reach up and touch the side of his head, pull him gently closer to me, and if he shifts in just the right way, I’m certain we would kiss. In fact, I’m certain that if he doesn’t lift his lap away from mine in mere seconds, I won’t be able to stop myself.
     All this. All this, and I haven’t told him yet.

     Somehow, I managed to make it out of yesterday’s situation at Host Club without kissing Kaoru. While I’m glad that nothing has changed, I’m also a little depressed by it. What would happen, if Kaoru and I kissed?
     Maybe I’ll try it again today. Class ends in just a few minutes, and the professor is stacking his papers up to stick in his briefcase so he can leave ahead of us. Between Kaoru and I sits Haruhi, annotating the last of her notes, hurriedly packing her things at the same time.
     “Why are you in such a rush?” Kaoru and I ask her at the same time. We loop our arms around her shoulders, and his fingers nudge against my shoulder, and I love the attention.  But I haven’t told him yet. “Are you trying to escape?”
     “Let go of me,” she says distractedly. “Senpai has come up with some new harebrained scheme that requires me to wear an elaborate costume—so I’ve got to make it to the Third Music Room as early as possible.”
     “Tono?” we say in unison. Neither one of us knows what he’s got in store for her. Suou Tamaki is not the brightest of people, but he has surprisingly good ideas when it comes to the Host Club—whatever outfit he was putting Haruhi in would be nothing less than perfect for her.
     The bell rings and Haruhi flees from our classroom, leaving us far behind her with a short wave and a promise that she’ll see us soon. Kaoru and I take our time, talking quietly and only beginning to pack our things after the teacher has left. Everyone filters out ahead of us, even the girls who are our customers and who are clearly on their way to the Host Club to see us.
     I’m part of the reason why we’re so slow. When I get depressed, I don’t feel like acting like a “Devil Type,” acting like the uke that I know in my heart I would be and wish in my soul that I could be for Kaoru. I tend to drag my feet when I’m depressed. That’s what I’m doing now. I’m dragging my feet and not paying attention, and because of this, my thigh hits against someone’s desk and I jump.
     “Hikaru!” Kaoru gasps, and he lunges for me as my hand shoots down to cover the place I’ve scraped myself. “Hikaru, are you okay?” He lifts my hand away and replaces it with his own, and his opposite arm holds me against him, and I know that there is nothing sexual about this. I know that it’s the worry my twin feels for me. My eyes fill up with water and Kaoru notices and starts to panic.
     “K-Kaoru…” I whimper. “It stings.” And it does. He knows, because he can feel it, too.
     “B-But, Hikaru…!” He wants to know why I’m crying, but I myself don’t know the reason. One of his hands reaches up and he brushes away my tears. Then he kisses the other side of my face, and I turn red. I can’t help it. We aren’t at the Host Club, and no one’s around, so this time I know that it’s conspicuous, obvious that I’m not faking it.
     “Sorry,” I murmur. I sniffle and he smiles and kisses my face again, but this time, my tears have stopped and there’s nothing for him to kiss away, so he’s kissing me just to kiss me.
     “Hikaru.” He doesn’t say anything else, and wraps both arms around my body.  And, as if we really were already in the Third Music Room, he tangles his fingers through my hair and caresses my ear with his thumb, and now my entire body feels wonderful. I turn to jelly in his arms and cling to him.
     I haven’t told him yet.
     He gently tilts my chin back and I look up into those infinitely amber eyes that I have loved for my entire life and will love for the eternity that I spend with him. Then he smiles at me again. Softly, infinitely softly, he kisses me on the lips.
     I haven’t told him yet… but I think he knows.