Chapter Text
Kaoru:
The university was large and spread out over several blocks with different buildings for different majors. The buildings, however, were a mishmash of architecture. Some were brick and sturdy and others had off colored outer side panelling, but the inside of each building was state of the art and up to code. Hokkaido U cared more for the internal structure and learning environments as opposed to uniformity in its buildings which drove Kaoru bonkers. If Hikaru could see the campus, he’d lose his mind, but Hikaru was overseas studying fashion in London while Kaoru took a more practical approach to studying business a bit closer to home. The goal was for Hikaru to be able to visit him whenever he came home, but that plan didn’t go over so well with Hikaru.
Kaoru thought back to the fight they’d had about him choosing Hokkaido over attending the London College of Fashion. In all honesty, Kaoru didn’t want to study fashion. He agreed to attend school for business so he and Hikaru could run their own fashion line one day but even that was still pushing it. If Kaoru had it his way, he’d have opted out of college and gone to work in one of the libraries or coffee shops in downtown Tokyo. But he didn’t have a say. That just wasn’t the Hitachiin way.
Kaoru wandered the campus in search of the dormitories. He eventually found Keiteki-Ryo, the men’s dormitory on Hokkaido campus. Originally the dormitories held one student per room but after a charitable donation the dorm hall was renovated. The hall had expanded adding more rooms and was now able to accommodate and house two to four students per room. Though Kaoru was used to sharing a room with his twin brother, he was anxious to start school living with a stranger. He mentally cursed the amount of dependence he and his brother had on each other. He knew as they grew throughout secondary school that they would need to separate eventually and grow into their own independent selves, but he didn’t expect to struggle so much when it finally came to fruition.
It was Kaoru who made the decision to attend a separate university. It was Kaoru who told Hikaru he had wanted space. It was Kaoru who opted to room with a stranger instead of getting an on campus apartment. So why was he so anxious? Anxiety wasn’t a foreign concept to Kaoru, he’d been diagnosed with it as a kid after throwing a tantrum when his parents had separated him from Hikaru and taken the two on different vacations. The plan was for their parents to trade twins after and try to get to know them as separate people, but Kaoru wouldn’t stand for it and Hikaru was more than happy to constantly be with his brother. Kaoru went through counseling as a child and though he had been sure he had his anxiety under control he could feel the beginnings of an attack.
Kaoru counted silently to himself as he breathed in deeply through his nose and slowly out through his mouth. If he could head it off before it got worse, then he would be okay. His throat hurt, feeling like he was choking, but he refused to panic. ‘We’ve been here before, we’re okay,’ Kaoru thought as he continued breathing. After a bit, his throat loosened up and Kaoru took a step into the dorm hall. “21, 22, 23- oh,” Kaoru stopped in front of dorm 23. He took another deep breath and knocked before opening the door,
“hello? I’m your roommate not an intruder, promise,” he inwardly flinched at the statement. An intruder? Really?
The dorm was perfectly tidy. With a bed on either side of the room, a bedside table, a small lamp, and on the right side there was a mini fridge. So, his roommate had been there. Kaoru called his staff to bring his things and soon enough a rolling rack of clothes, a minifridge, a toaster oven, and a few boxes were delivered to his room.
“Would you like help organizing, Master Kaoru?” Kaoru waved the staff away and they bowed before heading out and leaving him to organize his half of the room. Kaoru pushed the minifridge into a corner and plugged it in right away to let it cool down. He set the rolling rack to the side next to the fridge to keep it out of the way and shoved a narrow rolling bin under his bed. He then went about making the bed when he heard the door to the dormitory open.
“As I was saying, we should really check out Mount Hakodate! There’s a gondola and my roommate was telling me the nighttime view is beautiful-”
“Hikaru?” Kaoru pursed his lips. Not only did his roommate know of him, they didn’t know him properly. He let out a breath and turned to correct his roommate but paused,
“Kyoya-senpai? Tamaki-senpai?”
“Oh! Kaoru, it’s you!” Tamaki corrected Kyoya’s previous mistake. A wide smile spread on Tamaki’s face. “Oh, it’s a party now! Where’s Hikaru?” Kaoru stifled a scowl,
“London.”
“Forgive me if I recall incorrectly, but weren’t you also headed to London?” Kyoya inquired,
“I changed my mind,” Kaoru said firmly. Kyoya merely nodded in response, “weren’t you going to attend the University of Tokyo?”
“I changed my mind,” Kyoya countered. Kaoru sighed inwardly. He’d rather have had a stranger than Kyoya. Sure, they’d been friends in secondary school, but they’d never hung out together without Hikaru and Tamaki as a buffer. On the bright side, Tamaki was there but Hikaru wasn’t and suddenly Kaoru felt alone and small. They had thought he was Hikaru and Kaoru realized he didn’t know who he was without his brother. His throat felt tight again and Kaoru did his best to ignore it.
“Do you wanna join us in the student center? They’ve got the Fair going on with a smorgasbord of clubs looking for members!” Tamaki said excitedly.
“No, no, you go ahead.” Kaoru waved them off. Kyoya grabbed a binder from a box on his side of the room and gestured for Tamaki to lead the way. Kyoya cast a look to Kaoru before heading out and closing the door behind him.
Kaoru threw his pillow across the room. He thought attending university would allow him to reinvent himself away from the Host Club and away from his brother. He didn’t want to constantly be mistaken for Hikaru, he didn’t want to constantly be performing a bit with his brother, he didn’t want to be living in the shadow of a mischievous persona. Truthfully, Kaoru wasn’t mischievous. He was just a really good actor. The character he played in the Host Club was just that, a character.
He dug through a box of things pulling out a picture of himself and Hikaru and setting it on the bedside table with a stack of books. The volumes varied from cook books to interior design to fashion and chemistry. Kaoru left the interior design book on the top of the pile, something he’d been interested in for a while now and casually considered pursuing until he made the agreement to attend school for business and fashion marketing. There were plenty of schools Kaoru could have attended instead of Hokkaido but it seemed like an excellent option to stay in high ranks while not being at the Top. Kaoru wasn’t looking to be the center of attention and Hokkaido was the perfect school to get his parents to talk about him less. They’d boast about Hikaru attending Uni in London at the top ranked school and that’s all they’d care about. Except...Kaoru wanted them to be proud of him too. Not proud of Hikaru and Kaoru. No. He wanted them to be proud of Hikaru and proud of Kaoru.
Kaoru pulled out his laptop and folded it to it’s tablet form. He set it on his bed as he dug for his stylus and once found Kaoru climbed onto the bed and went to work designing his future home. It was a task he’d been doing a few years now and had various versions of things he liked. Adjusting lighting, shape, decor, color scheme. He couldn’t decide, but he knew his house would look amazing. He didn’t want a big house nor did he want a ton of maids. Something big enough but not too big. A house with a pool and decent sized backyard. Maybe on a lake instead? He wasn’t sure.
Hours passed before Kyoya returned to the dormitory with an armful of pamphlets
and several plastic goody bags on his arm from the fair. Kaoru made it a point to keep his head down and continue working on ‘Kaoru’s House 56’ as it was titled on the file and Kyoya seemed to know well enough to leave him alone. Kaoru was surprised, to say the least, that Tamaki hadn’t followed Kyoya back to the dorm. Though they were best friends, Kaoru figured Kyoya set his boundaries with Tamaki about invading their dorm room and Tamaki knowing how Kyoya was in the mornings gave Kaoru reassurance he wouldn’t randomly be woken up by the blonde screaming in his ear. He was wrong.