A/N: So a friend of mine mentioned that "Just Another Week's End" seems like a prologue to something… So I tried to come up with something, but the more I thought about Tamaki and Kyouya, the more ideas I got for Kaoru… and Hikaru, but mainly Kaoru. Because with that setting there was hardly any proper place for angst and I'd be damned if I didn't include angst in my FF xD

So, this series is going to be something like a sequel to Just Another Week's End, although you don't need to have read it to really get what's happened there… I would still be very happy if you read and left a review ^^

Midnight

Moonlight brightens the night, the perfect circle serving as an only savior in the darkness. The road is empty, only a single carriage marking its way trough the dark slopes. The steady sound of the horse' hoofs hitting the ground is the only audible disturbance of the silent nigh.… I look towards my brother who's sitting inside that carriage across from me and I smile at him…

Kaoru was the younger twin, a fact everybody was aware of. Yet despite of that, he was always the smarter, the more mature of the two.

He came up with the schemes they pulled, he gathered the information about them and he always had a plan. He left the preparations and actual pranks to his brother most of the time, though. Because after the initial planning was done the tricks didn't really entertain him that much.

He always looked, studied, thought and realized the things that were invisible to his brother and to many others, as well.

Without fail, the horse carriage will turn into a pumpkin at midnight. However… the one who cast this magic spell… was not the old witch…

He always thought, analyzed and studied everything. And he was the one who cast the spell between them.

They had been together since he remembered. Since either of them did. They wanted to be told apart, yet they didn't. They wanted to remain in their narrow world, yet they didn't.

They wanted to break the spell…

Yet they didn't.

So they just kept going.

This is the magic spell. If the carriage keeps going, it's not as bad either.

They were together, but alone. No one had ever been allowed into their world, so they only had each other. They only had each other to care for. They only had each other to keep a hold on. They only had each other to look out for. They only had each other to rely on.

They only had each other to love.

It was twisted, wrong and disgusting in so many ways. They were both boys, they were brothers, they were -twins-. Yet they only had each other and that made things so much easier to accept, to ignore, to forget. Because in their small world, they didn't need anybody else.

But… someday… there's a high possibility it'll turn back into a yucky pumpkin…

Yet that someday came… Before any of them realized it.

Kaoru was the first to notice it. There was a crack forming in the thick walls they were creating around themselves. One crack led to another, the pressure of the outside world breaking it like it was a shaky sand castle.

The Host Club had been the first step. That idiot of a Lord that saw trough them without even trying… His actions, more or less unintentionally were tearing down the barrier they had created.

And Hikaru didn't even seem to notice. Not even when Haruhi appeared.

But Kaoru did, and so he decided that to keep the carriage going, he had to do something. He had to change the spell a little bit.

Well, if you're still running towards me in that situation, I guess things are still fine.

Hikaru was growing closer to the girl. Slowly, painfully pulling himself away from his brother.

So the younger one acted immediately.

If their past relationship had been wrong, this was outright twisted.

Pretending, faking, stomping on everything true, -replacing-.

Those were the new rules between the two of them.

As for Haruhi…

Since the Lord was in the game, it was obvious who would win. Idiot or not, he had his great times and those times were every girl's dream. On the other hand, even the better side of Hikaru was far from great, when he was on his own.

The victor had been decided before the battle even started.

And that gave Kaoru the needed for the new spell.

And being a replacement had never before been so rewarding.

But, when Hikaru… notices that he wants to take another step forward… when that happens… what will I do?

But now…

-----

"I still can't believe this," his twin laughed a little, leaning further into the open window. Kaoru put an arm over the other's shoulder from his position behind him and pulled him back.

"Watch it, Hikaru! They'll see you!" He let his binoculars down and dragged his brother away from the open space.

"No, they won't!" The older one was obviously determined to see more. "They've got their back turned to us!" He easily escaped Kaoru's grasp and leaned forward again, placing his binoculars to his eyes.

Sighing a little the younger twin sat on an empty desk a little behind his brother.

Sometimes he wondered if noticing such thing was a good thing. He was just busying himself with other's problems, with unneeded burdens that tired him and sometimes confused him.

Why was that girl from the Lord's class so unwilling to go anywhere near him and his brother? Why had the last janitor left his job so suddenly? What had happened between the sisters in the upper class?

All unneeded questions, things irrelevant to him that he happened to spot and look into when he had nothing else to do.

And this was just like that.

But now…

It wasn't as irrelevant as it seemed.

He picked the binoculars again and stared over his brother's head into the open window of the Third Music Room. A place that held such great memories of pranks, laughter and times he was grateful for… A place where they could show their truth to the world without worrying that they would be thrown to the side because of who they were.

But it wasn't just the room he was looking at. It was the piano and the small bench in front of it, hardly big enough to bring any comfort to the two people sitting on top of it.

Tamaki and Kyouya. The Lord and the Shadow King. Two of the most different people in the world, sitting there into each other's arms, probably talking quietly.

Alone and free to be themselves because nobody was looking.

At least nobody was supposed to look.

"They look so sweet together," laughed his brother. "Kaoru, how did you find this out? I would have never guessed!"

"Intuition," answered the younger one and left the binoculars down.

It wasn't that he wasn't happy for them. Tamaki was always so exuberant and overexcited, but from his observations of the last half hour he seemed… tamed, if was the right word.

He had played for a while, but ever since Kyouya had joined him in front of the piano, the two of them hadn't moved at all. It was strange to see the Lord still for such a long time.

And this could be good for Kyouya himself, too. The Shadow King needed something to make him relax from time to time and what else, except the easygoing blond?

They were opposites, but that was why people said that 'opposites attract'. He was standing in front of the very proof of that theory.

And he dreaded that fact.

"The Lord's gonna flip when we tell him we know," a devilish grin was stretching Hikaru's face. "And I bet even Kyouya will lose his cool for once!" He laughed. "That would be a sight to see!"

They could do a lot with information like this. Neither of their upperclassmen had ever mentioned anything about this so they were obviously hiding it. That meant they were both perfectly aware what could happen if this were to reach the wrong person.

Kyouya's father and Tamaki's grandmother. If either of them was to find out about this, both boys were going to go to hell and back for it. Being disinherited would be the last thing on their minds if word of this spread.

On the other hand the media would pay millions for a piece of information like this. Not that either of them needed money, though. And spreading the news would only result in the Ootori and Suoh families finding out and things would turn ugly.

Their best options were either to tease the two until the end of eternity or to blackmail them.

Hikaru would vote for the later. They could get great privileges if they could have an upper hand over the two superiors in the Host Club.

Yet Kaoru would never allow him to do something like that.

Would he even realize? How much they are like the two of us in that matter…

His golden eyes were glued to the back of his brother's head. There was nothing they could gain from this information.

Or at least, there wasn't anything for him.

But with Tamaki out of the game...

"Hay, you know what, Kaoru…" the older sibling finally moved and started putting away his things. Kaoru's heart was squeezed painfully by the realization that his brother wasn't meeting his eyes. And it wasn't because he was purposely evading him. No, it simply seemed like he didn't care enough to look at him.

"What is it, Hikaru?" He kept his voice steady and normal and he was surprised at how hard that was.

"I've had problems with Japanese lately…"

But you've always had problems with Japanese…

"… So I was thinking to go and ask Haruhi for some help since we're in the same class and all."

But –we-'re in the same class…

"I think I'll go see what she's doing now, should I call a limo for you, too?"

And this time Hikaru had proved to see what was underneath.

What Kaoru had realized a long time ago, or at least suspected until today, wasn't simply that Kyouya and Tamaki were together. It was that, although nothing seemed to have changed in his obsessed and defensive attitude, the Lord was not, and maybe had never really been any competition for Hikaru.

"No, I think I'll go by foot," he said towards his brother who was sprinting out of the classroom before he could even finish.

And now, when that was a fact, when Haruhi was no longer an unreachable dream, when Hikaru didn't need him as a replacement any more and when the spell had been broken…

I stand in the middle of a pumpkin field in the impenetrable darkness. The clouds have covered the moon and no light reaches me anymore. I head the sound of a clock tower somewhere in the distance, confirming the arrival of the twelfth hour. And I am alone.

… What will I do?