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It was on a mellow weekend when the oldest of the Hitachiin brothers awoke to the bright rays of morning light, rubbing his eyes gently before hopping off his shared bed to take a peek outside their bedroom window.
The outside displayed the rows and rows of flower bushels and neatly trimmed topiary that the ginger-haired youth could not get enough of, seeing as how much his mother adored botanical gardens, especially the ones they toured out in public. They were quite a mesmerizing view from atop the mansion, Hikaru decided, pondering why he had never thought to praise the greenskeeper who had allowed for such a sight to begin with.
Behind him lay his younger twin who was notably a heavier sleeper than he was, someone who, without his brother’s assistance, would probably end up waking up during the afternoon, therefore cutting short the amount of playtime Hikaru had with his lookalike. And oh, how very upsetting that would be for the both of them.
Hikaru took in the view for a couple more seconds before deliberately jumping on top of his brother at an attempt to jerk him up out of his slumber. Kaoru tried moving his twin off of him as best he could but to no avail, as Hikaru had successfully kept him locked in place.
“Kaoooruuuuu,” the older twin whined, poking the back of his twin’s head. “It’s time to get up already, it’s a Saturday!”
Kaoru gave an unsatisfied look to his pillow before muffling in monotone, “I know that, Hika. Just let me sleep for a few more minutes…”
The little ginger pouted and crossed his arms atop his stubborn reflection, now attempting to shake him awake.
“Kao, you do remember what happens on Saturdays, yeah?” he inquired.
Kaoru groaned and shoved his brother off of him, sitting up and looking at him disinterestedly. “I know what we do on Saturdays but I don’t care to go, Aniki. I don’t wanna go into the gardens and…” he trailed off, mumbling incoherently as he went on.
“You don’t…what. C’mon, you can tell me Kaoru…”
The boy looked about ready to enter a flippant rage. “I don’t wanna visit the girls in the garden, Hikaru! I don’t get why you want me to!”
Hikaru sighed and picked at the dirt under his finger nails, hoping that his nail beds would distract him from his brother’s fit.
“It’s not going to be bad, Kao. I think you’re just shy.”
The youth turned away flustered, beginning a tangent on how he just ‘didn’t care to befriend a bunch of sissies’ and how ‘they could see them at school instead’ but Hikaru refused to accept his brother’s behavior. And before long, the two of them were seen outside in the comfort of their gazebo, patiently awaiting for a group of beautiful maidens to appear in their lavish backyard.
“See, it wasn’t so bad to go outside, was it?” Hikaru smirked, nudging his brother’s shoulder.
Kaoru pouted, his cheeks beginning to tack on a pinkish color. “It’s not that I can’t go outside…I just…I don’t feel like talking with such a large and well, noisy* group of girls, is all.”
The elder stared at him from the side for a few seconds before turning towards a dismissive response to ease his sibling’s anxiety.
“Don’t worry about them too much, Kao. They’re really sweet and cheerful girls, and I’m sure they’d take a big liking towards you if you actually took the time to speak to them.”
“It’s not that I haven’t spoken to them it’s just—“
Without any former notice, a whirlwind of girls started moving hastily to their location, bursts of laughter and adoration to be heard as they got closer.
Hikaru sat up from leaning on on of the columns to greet the damsels before him, smiling a tender smile that, if Kaoru saw, would bring him to the conclusion that his brother was even brighter than the sun itself.
“Ehe, hey you guys. It’s been a while since I’ve seen all of you like this. Usually there’s at least 3 or 4 of you gone but now…”
The girls lit up, nodding their head in agreement. “We know! But today everyone gathered around just so we could see you!”
A few of them whispered to each other before coming to a consensus regarding which twin it was.
“Of course it’s him, you dummy! He’s the most charming out of the both of them!”
Hikaru gave a confused look and questioned what the girls were murmuring about, to which the girls gave a simple “It’s nothing!” and spontaneously dragged him into the rows and rows of floral goodness.
Behind one of those beautiful bushels hid a much more reserved ginger that the girls rarely ever got to see. Kaoru almost always kept to himself whenever the occasion arrived and blocked himself from even encountering them, however he couldn’t miss out on his mother’s treasured botanical possessions.
The girls scurried around to different sides of the vast backyard, each of them trying to make the “most beautiful bouquet” for Hikaru without a care for the Hitachiin family’s property, plucking whatever flower they deemed Hika-worthy.
On the flipside, Kaoru seriously considered getting up and slapping every one of those girls who decided that they could do as they please without a care for how, I don’t know, the people who paid for such dazzling spectacles to blossom felt. However, the youth ultimately decided that making a fuss over it wasn’t worth it, and that exposing himself to the world wasn’t exactly an option on the table quite yet.
The amount of girls that looked to be heading towards Hikaru looked like it could take down an entire military, or even become its own militia at that. In only a few seconds the boy had been trampled under a pile of gushing little girls who couldn’t wait to see his appeased expression after being handed their bountiful gifts of glory.
“Hikaru! Take mine!” a voice shouted from the left. “No! Mine’s much more neat and cohesive than hers! Take mine!” another yell from who knows where.
The young gentleman slowly made his way out of the piles of unbounded “bouquets” and tried his best to elegantly (and respectfully) move the girls’ wonderful endowments off of him.
“I appreciate the offer very much, ladies, but I’m afraid I can’t pick just one of them, unfortunately…Although, I think I may just give one of my own to somebody else…”
The girls became starstruck once more and let their excitement subside so that the young gallant could thoroughly decide which lovely maiden to give his own offering to. Apparently the more gentler their demeanor, the more likely the boy was to hand it to them, as ironic a sentiment that may be.
Hikaru moseyed around the array of blossoms until his eyes caught what he had truly been searching for, walking towards the object of desire and carefully plucking it off of its bush.
After a few moments passing, the ginger made his way to the girls, paused, and instead went to walk between two other rows of flowers until…
The soft shuffling stopped before him. “Here, for you…”
The adolescent’s reflection looked in complete awe as he took the flower from the gift giver’s bashful grasp, staring down at the flower wonderingly.
“Hikaru?”
The boy glanced down at him softly. “Yeah, Kaoru?”
His sheepish brother made his way up and gave him a tender hug, a smile creeping up his delicate features. “Thank you, Hika. It’s beautiful.”
Hikaru squeezed his close relative tight, his heart thumping in his chest irregularly. “W-well, I think you’re much prettier than all the flowers in the world combined s-so I-“
And just before he could finish, a large mass of young ladies paraded straight to where the brothers were in a beeline.
“It’s him! I knew I was right!” a girl somewhere in the mix shouted in triumph. “Kaoru’s much more gentler than all of you could ever be, so of course he wouldn’t hang out with you guys!”
“KAORUUUU!!!!” they all cried out in unison, leaping on top of the boy in the process.
“Hey! Leave my brother out of this!” Hikaru protested, trying to shoo the girls off of his dear twin.
“I can’t believe you accepted that singular little flower when we could’ve given you full bouquets of them!” one of them yelped.
Suddenly, a realization had clicked in them.
“Oh…shoot…I think we’ve already trampled over them…”
“And most of the flowers in this area are already gone…”
Kaoru took off from his brother’s grasp and charged towards the group in exasperation. “I’M MAKING ALL OF YOU PAY FOR THIS!!!!” he screamed, though delighted that he had finally spoken to them after ages.
“Those little runts…” Hikaru smiled, satisfied by his efforts.