💫

It takes a moment for the words to register— though she’s not asleep, she’s exhausted, and everything feels a little muddled as she turns her head to find Hikaru staring at her. He’s sitting up, arms wrapped around his legs, his chin resting on his knees. 

“What?” Haruhi asks, shifting so that she’s sitting up. The two of them somehow ended up lying next to each other on the floor, the other hosts further down the line. “Why are you asking?” 

Hikaru shrugs, a stilted movement while he refuses to move his arms from where they’re curled around his shins. “I was just thinking.” 

“About kissing?” Haruhi asks. She studies the way that he’s staring at the mattress in front of him, his inhales in tune with the chorus of even breaths in the rest of the room. “Why?” 

“Tamaki was talking about it the other day,” Hikaru admits, “you hadn’t gotten to the music room yet, but the rest of us were there.” 

Haruhi rolls her eyes. “Was he being weird about me again?” 

Hikaru actually laughs at that, a quiet, breathy laugh— the kind you make when you don’t want to wake anyone else up. It’s sweet. “Nah, he was just talking nonsense.” 

“Seems about right.” 

“Doesn’t it?” Hikaru smiles at her. “It really didn’t mean anything, but it just got me thinking. And I was wondering.” 

Haruhi nods. She doesn’t say anything, just turns away from Hikaru so that she can pull herself up and lean against the wall rather than sitting up straight. It brings her next to Hikaru, their shoulders just barely brushing. His breath hitches as she leans closer, but she refuses to think anything of it. It doesn’t mean anything; it’s late at night and the world is just a little bit out of balance. 

“I haven’t,” she says quietly. “I don’t count that night at the party.” 

“It shouldn’t count,” Hikaru agrees. 

He’s staring out at the rest of the room— the bookshelves across the room from the two of them; Kaoru sleeping soundly to his right, using Tamaki’s arm as a pillow; the window curtains blowing gently in the night breeze; the shadows crawling from the closet door to fall over the feet of the hosts. Haruhi can’t tell what he’s thinking, and it’s slightly unnerving in the way that the twins always are— like he’s on a different plane than everyone else, like he sees the world in slightly different colors than she does. 

“What are you thinking about now?” Haruhi asks. 

Hikaru shrugs, letting go of his legs and leaning against the wall. “I haven’t kissed anyone either.” 

It’s a strange admission, mostly because it had come unprompted. Haruhi doesn’t know why it surprises her— they’re the same age, and it’s not like most of the grade has had their first kiss either. They’re still young, and she knows that Hikaru and Kaoru hadn’t exactly been the most popular before they had joined the host club. But still, it’s surprising. 

Something about Hikaru is the lonely kind of beautiful, she thinks, in the kind of way most people can never understand. He’s closed off in every direction, but the world, Haruhi thinks, is beginning to break in. Or maybe it’s not the world. Maybe it’s just her. 

“Huh,” is all that she says. 

She doesn’t look at him for a moment, just closes her eyes and rests her head against the wall. It’s cold, but somehow she can feel herself finally about to fall asleep. She sinks down slightly, resting her head against Hikaru’s shoulder. He stiffens— and she’s ready to jump up and back off, ready to apologize— and then he relaxes. 

For all the show he makes about wanting to be with her, Haruhi is so sure that it’s just a game. She’s tempted to think that this, too, is a game to him, but then she feels the light press of lips against the top of her head and she knows that there’s something different there, here in this version of nighttime. 

She sits up, finding Hikaru staring at her, eyes wide, like he doesn’t know what he’s done. Like he didn’t mean to do it. 

It’s the most innocent and most honest that she’s ever seen him look. 

She leans forward, slow enough for him to move away, quick enough that she doesn’t have to think about it. He meets her in the middle, and Haruhi thinks that maybe this is the way that the world ends: not with a bang nor a whimper, but with a kiss. With the lightest of all touches; him against her and her against him. A first kiss, a real one— one that counts. 

When he pulls away, both of them wear wide eyes and kiss-red lips. Haruhi isn’t quite sure what brought her to do it, what makes her want to do it again. He’s a black hole, she thinks, and she’s losing herself in his galaxy. 

“Oh,” he says, softly. 

“Right,” she says, softer. 

They stare at each other. Haruhi’s stomach turns over as what they had done sinks in— it was just a kiss, and it didn’t mean anything, but still, somewhere in her chest, she can feel Hikaru’s heart beating.

“Well,” Haruhi says, trying to swallow down the wanting in her throat, “good night then.” 

Hikaru swallows, and she follows the shine of his mouth as he says, “Well. Good night, then.”