Author's Introduction:

I am not entirely sure where this came from, but I felt the sudden urge to explore the twins' isolation. It's a three part piece, plus minor epilogue and prologue, that touches upon the introduction of my original character Harlequinne Belmonte and his subsequent "trip and fall" into love with the twins. See if you can catch some of the imagery, I would love to see what you all think of this characterization and my interpretation of them. (I also felt the twins needed some semblance of life outside of the host club). Read on!

The Devil's Wings

"But, mamma!" the seventeen year old heir to the Belmonte household stood by the door of the family lounge, hand resting against the doorframe, "I applied and got in. They're even willing to pay for everything. Don't you know what that scholarship could do for me? I can't say no now."

"Harlequinne Adrian-Lukas Belmonte," the prim, pressed and beautiful secretary that was his mother straightened out where she had been fitting her second shoe onto her foot and turned to her son, "you should have thought of such before you applied to a school halfway around the world behind our backs." She lifted her purse from the table beside her and paused. Setting it back down, she turned and lifted her hands to cup her son's face between them, her red nails glistening against his warm skin as she leaned forward to press their foreheads together, "Sweetheart, I know how much this means to you and I know you want to go, but Japan is not exactly around the corner."

Harlequinne shook his head and pulled away, unable to look into the very eyes he had inherited from her, "It's too great an opportunity to say no, mamma. I didn't want to argue with both you and padre about it before even getting accepted. Besides, you and padre are taking the girls to England for the year. It's not that far of a stretch for me."

"Honey," Anna Belmonte watched her son's face and felt herself beginning to cave. Because she did know. Her son had worked hard for this, and she knew he wanted this more than anything. Besides, she had known days after his birth that she could never say no to the crease in his brow that he had undoubtedly gotten straight from his father. "Alright," she acquiesced but before he could turn those intense blue eyes on her, she lifted a hand, "But, you will be telling your padre, Adri. I want daily updates, and you will be spending breaks with us. Neither will I accept anything less than the absolute best from you. Do you understand?"

When her little man nodded, she placed her hand under his chin and firmly yanked it up so he looked her dead in the eye, "Do you really? If this is really what you want, Adri, you will have to make it happen with your own two hands. Papi and Grammy are retiring this year, and your padre and I will be even busier than usual. We will arrange a house for you and for someone to keep it stocked and clean. You allowance will have to cover all your other expenses."

"Sí," Adri murmured into her palm, his gaze fixated on hers. "I want to do this," he added, stronger then, "I don't care if I have to get a part time job to figure out the rest, but this is it."

Sad though smiling, Anna pressed her thumb into his jaw lightly and sighed "Ara, my baby's growing up, aren't you?" She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed his cheek lightly, "I wish you would stay close to home, but I understand, bambino. Take care of yourself, okay?"

Adri returned her hug, though slightly awkward due to the difference in their heights, "You too, mamma. Take care of yourself and papa and the girls too." He kissed the side of her face and smiled into her red hair, "Grazie."

She held him there for a while longer, then pulled back. "You've grown up to be a handsome young man, Adri," Anna patted his cheek, her thumb rubbing away the remnant of lipstick she'd left behind, "Be a gentleman over there, you're representing the entire Belmonte family. Your padre and I are so very proud of you, chase your dreams, bambino."

"I will," he smiled back, scratching sheepishly at the side of his head.

Adri's sleep-fogged eyes blinked open to survey his surroundings, and were just about to blink shut once again when Adri recognized what had woken him. It had been an intimately familiar sound, no matter how strikingly unfamiliar the situation was, and he was somewhat preconditioned to brace himself for a pint sized weight of the female variety to barrel headfast into his abdomen. The absence of such, in honesty, was what made him take a leisure look about him.

The source, he soon discovered, was running away at incredible speed, an actual trail of dust left in her wake, and the unmistakable scent of salt and tears hung in the air. Turning his face the other way, from which she had been running from, and Adri got his first good look at the Hitachiin twins, not to say he hadn't seen them around before.

They were remarkably beautiful, he mused whimsically, in a miserably stoic fashion and their obvious discomfort made them all the more artistically aesthetic. The two had soft jaw lines, prominent most likely due to unshed baby fat, and large golden eyes reminiscent of his pet cat. The latter, more than the former, endeared them to him in the same odd manner that he had acquired the slightly hostile but reasonably loveable stray beast he kept at home.

Lifting a hand to shield his eyes from the sun's glare, he peered after where the girl had vanished and whistled, "Wow." Turning his gaze to the twins, he blinked blue eyes owlishly at them, "You two sure don't pull the stops when it comes to rejections, do you?"

As one entity, the two boys swung around at the sound of his voice, then, noticing the unexpected guest, eased into each other's sides and chorused blandly, "Why should we? They can never tell us apart anyhow. Do they know which one they are confessing to? Why should we answer when they cannot even call us by name?"

Raising an eyebrow, Adri climbed to his feet slowly and dusted the grass and dust from his slacks then his shirt and finally his hair. Straightening the tie at the base of his neck, he turned his head toward the way had gone then bent to heft his blazer off the ground with a crook of his finger. "Then," he paused deliberately, tossing his jacket over his shoulder, and leaned in the direction of two, smile widening to showcase two rows of pearly white teeth, "you would date whomever could tell you apart?"

The two raised mirrored eyebrows at him then shared a pensive look as though the thought had never occurred to them before. Looking back at the foreign upperclassman, they narrowed their eyes simultaneously and scoffed, waving a hand dismissively, "As if someone ever could anyhow."

"Mah, mah," Adri chuckled faintly, his deeper, thicker voice rumbling up from the depths of his abdomen, then he lifted bright eyes, "You shouldn't underestimate the audacity of the world." Ruffling their hair, he grinned at their scowls of protests, "Some people just won't give up on you." Tipping back to stand on the balls of his feet, he tucked his free hand into his pocket and smiled disarmingly, "Answer me one question and I'll be able to tell you apart within the week."

"A week?" both sets of ginger brows crept higher and higher, "As if." They threw an arm over the other's shoulders and lifted hardened, challenging eyes to meet his, "We'll play then. What do you want?"

Laughing in the face of their disbelief, he leaned down into their faces and smiled broadly, "Then give me your names. Your reputation precedes you but I do believe it only fair for you to tell me what to call you."

They looked at one another then took a step apart, their hands dropping to link their fingers together. The one on the right spoke first, "I'm Kaoru." Then, a vengeful grin added in reflection, "I'm Hikaru."

"So it's the other way around then, hmm?" Adri asked with a cheerful hum, nodding once to the right, "Hikaru," and then to the left, "Kauru." He paused, smiling foxily at the two, and pivoted on his foot, waving over his shoulder as he walked away, "Ja. I'll see you next week then? Same time."

Then he was gone and Hikaru and Kaoru were left to their suspected stupor in silence. "Hikaru," Kaoru murmured under his breath, eyes never leaving the broad shouldered figure of their newest schoolmate, giving voice to their inner thoughts, "How did he . . . ?"

"I don't know," Hikaru replied sourly with a shrug of his shoulders, then he pulled his twin closer to him and hissed, "but it's just a fluke. He'll get it wrong next time." The 'just like the rest' echoed in the tension around them.

Kaoru hugged his brother around the waist and voiced the long-since buried, almost forgotten whisper of hope in their hearts, "But what if he gets it right?"

Hikaru shook his head deliberately, defiantly, and buried his face in the space between Kaoru's shoulder and neck, "He won't. They never will. Come on." He pulled his brother from the courtyard by the hand, shoulders squared up against the world and neck straight. He wouldn't get his hopes up—he couldn't. No one had gotten it right before—not the butler that had served their family since they were toddlers, or the likewise identical twin maids that had served them for over a decade, or the chef that knew their individual favorites. How could a foreigner, then, who'd attended Ouran for some few weeks, and known them for less than a few minutes, possibly get it right?

He squeezed his brother's hand in an attempt to reign in the furious storm warring in his chest. Cursing the hopeful twinge of a shriveled wish, he squinted his eyes and walked away from the forbidden garden. He—no, they both—wanted it so badly, but it was only a matter of when, not if, someone got it wrong that mattered. They had to be strong enough.

A large part of Adri was entirely unsurprised when the twins didn't show the following week, but a small part was distinctly disappointed—he'd thought they were braver than that. Still, he didn't deviate from his routine and took a nap under the blooming sakura, spending his lunch break in blissful ignorance of the world.

That afternoon, however, instead of going home, he walked into Ouran's junior high division and found himself a pair of ginger twins in its reserved miniature courtyard. Watching for any spare witnesses to the no doubt spectacle he was about to make of himself, he stood under one of the nearby trees and watched them for a time, engrossed in studying their aesthetic.

They were seated on one of the school provided benches, comfortably leaning into each other, and their heads were bent at slightly awkward angles so both could see the Nintendo between them. From his position, it looked like each had one half of the item in one hand and he was both intrigued and impressed by the feat. For one, he couldn't fathom having someone so similar to his own wavelength that they could play effectively with a split of its controls.

Now amused, he strolled over to them, creeping up behind, and bent over the back of their chair to rest his chin atop their heads. "Why, I never thought I'd be stood up by you two of all people," he mused from said position, waiting thusly until they got enough of their wits about them to throw him off. Then he sprawled out across the soft grass, crossing his arms behind his head to use as a cushion. They turned to look at him incredulously and he smiled at them, crossing his ankles in the wake of their ire, "So, are you going to humor me or just ignore our wager?"

The twins crossed their arms with a glower, turning their faces in opposite directions as if to snub his very existence, yet still managed to say in synchronization, "You'll get it wrong anyhow, so why should we even bother?"

"Oh?" Adri raised an eyebrow, not giving in to their angst, "And you're absolutely certain I will, huh?" He leaned his head back with a thoughtful expression, then lifted oceanic green eyes to stare at them with an oddly serious look in his eyes. In the fifteen plus minutes the twins had been aware of him, the twins perceived that it wasn't very often he dropped his easy going smile. Adri paused and let out a breath, then peered at them closely, "Or is it that you're scared I might get it right?"

The two glared fiercely down at him, then figuratively threw up their hands, and spoke at once, "Fine. Which one is Hikaru and which is Kaoru?"

A small, radiant smile spread across Adri's face and the twins felt their hearts skip a beat, feeling oddly proud yet equally disturbed by the sensation. He stared until a faint, uncomfortable blush lit their cheeks and they had begun to fidget, then pulled one arm out from behind his head. Closing his eyes, he tilted his face up to bask in the warm sunlight and dropped his arm so his finger pointed to the one on the left, "Hikaru." Sliding against the grass, his finger then shifted to the other and he added, "And you are Kaoru."

Though neither reacted outwardly, the twins felt their heart skip another three beats, and they lifted a hand to clutch at their blazer there. "And why do you think so?"

"Because I can see you," was Adri's drab, blunt reply, and he clambered up to his feet. He ran a hand through his hair and sighed. Walking over to the twins, he pulled a charming smile onto his face and leaned forward, bending between the two to whisper, "No two people are exactly alike. Your eyes look in different places before narrowing on a single focus, your voices have slightly different pitches. You have different inflections. One likes to hold my gaze, one avoids it. One likes to talk, one likes to withhold. One likes to fight, the other avoids confrontation."

And when they stared with wide eyes, he ran a hand through both their hair and turned to walk away. "You know where to find me whenever you feel the need to be reminded of such." Winking at them over his shoulder, he ducked out of sight and the world suddenly burst forth in brilliant color.

Kaoru blurted, "He got it right."

"He did," Hikaru grudgingly agreed.

For the first time in a long time, their lonely little world for two gained a splash of color where Adri had irrevocably invaded it. Where the grass had once been murky blades of grey, now radiant emerald glared up at the sun from his footsteps. A golden yellow imprint of a hand sat on the back of the bench they spent most of their days on. Black fingerprints lay on a nearby lamp post.

And when they looked at each other, their hair had peach colored streaks and their eyes shimmered with a golden amber fire that had never been there before. Looking back the way Adri had gone, a faint blue mist, smelling of cherry blossoms, seemed to trail after the older teenager.

The twins bent their heads together, a giddy smile stretched across their faces, and felt a single thought flow between them. Someone finally got it right!

Their monochromatic world of ice seemed to thaw at the corners, and Hikaru tightened his grip on Kaoru's hand, "Don't let him in."

The twins did not visit the forbidden garden the next day, or the next week, or the next month either, but they did stop playing with the girls that fawned over their similarity. They remained firmly wrapped in their small little world for two. But, nearly a year and a half later, long after Tamaki had since disrupted their lives, and after the host club took up all their afternoons and sometimes weekends too, and after the start of their freshmen year in Ouran's high school division, and after Haruhi had lost herself in an eight million yen debt, and after the examinations had been avoided, and after Renge became their manager, though most importantly, after Haruhi got it right; suddenly, their world abruptly came to a stop. It was only then that the lingering smell of sakura pulled at their hearts and drew them back to that courtyard where they had sworn never to go.

They went, and there they found him. Still sprawled out on the ground, like he always seemed to be, and eyes shut in comfortable sleep. His relaxed posture stirred something inside of them, and they leaned over him to observe. He was even taller now than he had been before, his shoulders were broader too, and his lashes were long and curved against his cheeks. His hair was long enough now to reach the mid of his back when he stood, and a few more beauty marks dotted the rich color of his skin. They had never seen as a warm and rich a color as his.

They had done their research after the "incident". His name was Harlequinne Belmonte. He went by Adri, short for Adrian-Lukas which was his middle name. He lived alone in one of the suburban chateaus near their own home. His mother was an Italian beauty—a once actress turned multimillionaire secretary—and daughter of the Serafino family. His father was of distant Hispanic origin, though now more French blood ran in the family than Spanish, and of something akin to royalty in his home circles.

He lived alone, though, because his parents were in England conducting long-term business. He had two sisters, younger by about a decade, and he often flew overseas to meet his family. He sang occasionally for a local café and played football (soccer, he was American) when in season. He could play nine different instruments passably, and was fluent in five languages though had working knowledge in an additional three. He had few acquaintances and no friends.

"Oi!" they flopped down on either side of him, elbows plowing mercilessly into the elder teen's stomach and gut respectively.

He woke with a start, sputtering as he flew up into a seated position, and held his stomach in pain. "Wha?!" Befuddled eyes found one twin then the other, and they saw both recognition and a gentle understanding there. He watched them for a moment, no doubt cataloguing the changes in them as well, then fell back and greeted lazily, "'Ello, what do you need?"

"Which one's Hikaru?" they asked as one, peering at him indignantly through narrowed eyes.

Wiggling his right arm out to the side, his finger jut up to point at the twin it faced while he rubbed his face and eyes with the other. Sitting up once more, he scooted back so he rested against a tree and raised an eyebrow at them, "And what can I do for you this time?"

"How do you get it right?" Kaoru asked, voice barely above a whisper, "Why you and no one else?"

"Oh? But someone else got it right, didn't they?" Adri asked with a lilt and a touch of a sardonic smile hanging at the corner of his mouth, "I doubt you'd have come back at all if someone hadn't. Why don't you enlighten me as to why you're really here."

Hikaru stared at him, both perplexed and slightly annoyed, "That's all we came for."

"Really?" Adri questioned, eyebrows crinkling together and up at the center, "I seriously doubt that, but all right." He paused, scratching the side of his head just behind his ear, and shrugged, "Didn't I say it last time? I see you." Lifting his face to them, Adri lifted a brow, "You can tell your own reflection from your brother's in a mirror, can't you? It's something like that." His face softened into a smile, then a grin, "Well? Do I get to claim my date this time? I do believe that was our initial wager."

"Date?" the two blinked owlishly, reeling from the sudden shift of topics, "What?"

Adri shook his head with a laugh, "I did ask whether you would date someone that could tell you apart, and neither of you disagreed." Clapping his hands, he rose to his feet and grinned down at them, "I got it right twice. Does that mean I get to take you both out?"

"Excuse me," one began and the other ended, falling back on their defense against being so uncomfortable, "but we did not agree to this."

Adri extended his hands, one for each of them to take, and challenged with a smile, "And why not?"

Hikaru looked at Kaoru and Kaoru looked at Hikaru. Then they shrugged with a laugh and each took his offered hand. Why not—was indeed the question. The veil of snow that had masked their world from view suddenly parted and spring flowers shot up from the ground, now one for three. They stared at Adri as he pulled them to their feet, stunned in the explosion of color that radiated out from his smile. The violent display left them breathless and somewhat out of sorts, making their previous experience pale in comparison.

They hadn't come back because he scared them. And he scared them because he made their world colorful, because he forced them to see a world beyond their own, because he made them want to try again. Hikaru studied Adri's broad, welcoming smile, and wondered if he'd already known which was which from the day they'd first met.

It wouldn't really surprise him.

He looked over into Kaoru's eyes and saw the same question written there. Someday, they'd ask. But right now, the answer itself could make them cave in, so they kept their suspicion silently tucked away in their heart. Someday, they'd know but that day would not be today. Today, they would bask in the sunshine that was the man that had reintroduced color and spring to their monochromatic world in only three touches.

They would never know that was the last day Adri took his nap in that courtyard, waiting in never ending patience just for them.

It took them years of holding that question to themselves for them to finally ask it. And when they did, Adri—soon to be Harlequinne Adrian-Lukas Hitachiin-Belmonte if they had any say in the matter—laughed and draped his arms over the two. "You've met my sisters. Back then, they swore they were the exact same person. Even your likeness can't beat that of five year old twin girls that think they are one person in two bodies." Dipping his head between them, he branded their cheeks with a kiss and smiled, "Besides, you are very different people."

Hikaru shrugged, "Well, if you're so sure you'll get it right every time . . ."

"Then I suppose you can take us on a date to eternity, don't you think?" Kaoru spun to wrap his arms around Adri's shoulders.

"Eternity?" Adri said, "Only if you'll have me."

Hikaru and Kaoru both took the hand that gave their world warmth, and gave their hearts freedom, and slid a ring down his second to last finger. If Adri noticed the intricately different pieces, he didn't say a word and merely opened his arms for the two. For a brief moment, they saw faint but wide, silverish wings arching out behind him, superimposed over his widespread arms just seconds before they fell into him.

Well if this was falling, they didn't mind tumbling.

~ An Author Betwixted and Bewitched