A Song For Another Time - A Hikaru Hitachiin Story

Chapter Six - It Takes Two of Us

Hikaru Hitachiin was not a man that liked to lose. He never lost in a battle to the last word and he sure as hell was never a man rendered speechless. But Rose has won in the battle of wits on each of their encounters and Hikaru was anything but a gracious loser.

He would not be beat by some self-righteous, naive, bookworm who has to ride the bus to get around. He would not fall victim to some flower girl who was so insignificant in his life that he didn't even know her last name. He was the great Hikaru Hitachiin - one half of the notoriously mischievous Hitachiin duo - and, as of this moment, he had his mojo back.

All weekend he schemed. He hunched over the kitchen table with a pencil and paper scribbling furiously as the gears shifted in his mind. He looked like a mad-man with his black hair tousled, eyes narrowed in focus and a devious smile plastered across his face.

Crumpled paper littered the floor around the table and the quantity of them increased each time Kaoru checked in on his brother. Periodically, he would sneak behind him and try to glance a peek over Hikaru's shoulder. When he went to the kitchen to pour some coffee, he gave a curious look at his twin's fervor. As he watched TV, his eyes would track between his brother's back and the characters on the screen.

He couldn't help but be curious, poking his head around the walls and over the edge of the table, trying to grab his brother's attention. When the sun started setting on Sunday night, he just couldn't handle it anymore.

"Whhhhattt are you doing," he asked his brother.

Hikaru didn't even bother to look up from his work, mumbling a quick "nothing" as he continued scratching at the paper with his pencil. Kaoru shrugged and started to pick up the crumbled up balls of paper littered throughout the area. He carefully collected them in his arms, one by one, before walking over to the trash bin and letting them loose by separating his arms.

He couldn't help but stare into the litter, marveling at the sheer number and volume of paper balls stacked in the waste. Slowly he lowered his hand into the mass and pulled out one piece. He began uncrumpling the mangled sphere and pulled the corners out taught in front of his face.

Before his eyes was a four-paneled drawing depicting a hastily concocted prank. The last panel showed a character with long hair, spiked up in shock, with lightning bolts aiming toward her. Kaoru laughed at the stick drawing and turned to his brother.

"Aren't you a little old for pranks like this," he asked, holding out the paper to his brother.

Hikaru flushed, his head still faced down at his current drawing but his hand had stopped moving.

"I can't let her win," he mumbled, almost too quiet for Kaoru to hear.

"Ooohhh have you found us a new toy to play with," Kaoru asked coyly. "It has been getting a little boring around here lately."

It is time for things to get more interesting around here, Hikaru thought, but he wasn't sure yet that Rose would prove to be an entertaining toy. Right now she was just a buzzing fly that needed to be struck down.

"Maybe, I don't know," Hikaru said. "She's ... annoying."

"Annoying a good start," Kaoru said, breaking out into a smile. "Tell me more,"

What was there to say? Hikaru barely knew her, but what he did know - what he had experienced - made him want to act out. He wanted to make her blush, to make her feel the same flashes of embarrassment he had each time she ended a conversation. He needed to win.

She was a bag of contradictions in his head and he felt like he couldn't pull out the right words. She was a quiet storm; a whispering force. Rose was barely anything to him, but getting back at her just felt so important and when he really thought about it, he knew that she knew what she was doing.

"She's nothing," Hikaru said suddenly. "But every time I talk to her, she kills me."

Kaoru laughed. "This is going to be good," he said.

"But I have nothing!" Hikaru moaned, pushing his head down to the table and covering it with his hands.

There was no way there wasn't at least one good idea among all the crumpled papers on the floor, Kaoru thought as he bent over and started rifling through them. As Hikaru wallowed in a pool of self-doubt, staring at his blank sheet of paper, his brother began to expand on the discarded schemes.

About 10 minutes later, Hikaru heard snickering in front of him and raised his head to see a nefarious grin on his twin's face. Kaoru was holding a piece of worn out paper in his hand with his eyebrow raised.

"I'm thinking, maybe it's time we made a house call."

The two smiled at each other knowingly. They had a new secret mission.