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Haruhi awoke on the floor. It wouldn’t have been that bad if the Hitachiin twins weren’t piled on top of her. The twins’ beds, pushed together the evening before, had separated during the night and Haruhi had fallen between them. The twins had been pulled after. Uncomfortably pressed into the cold hardwood, Haruhi tried to sit up, but their combined weight was too much. She freed an arm and poked them both in the face. They opened their eyes in the exact same moment and immediately fell into nearly identical scowls.
“What the hell,” said Hikaru.
“How did we end up on the floor,” said Kaoru, less like a question and more like the acceptance of a very disappointing fact.
“The beds came apart,” said Haruhi. “Please get off of me.”
“Come on, you like it,” said Kaoru, and grinned.
“Yeah, we did sleep together last night,” Hikaru added, winking.
Haruhi rolled her eyes, but smiled. “Gross,” she said. “But this is actually really uncomfortable.”
“I’m not sure if I can get up,” said Kaoru.
“Just a second, I’ve got it,” said Hikaru, and managed to stand up. He helped the other two to their feet and looked over at the clock. It was only 7 in the morning, and on a Saturday.
“It is way too early,” said Kaoru.
“Who votes we go back to sleep?” asked Hikaru. Haruhi was already lying back down.
“I thought you usually got up early,” said Kaoru.
“Not this morning,” replied Haruhi, looking up at them. She blinked, and then blinked again. “Aren’t you guys tired too?” They looked at each other, grinned, nodded, and lay back down, each on one side of her.
They hadn’t slept together slept together, obviously. Why would they do a thing like that?
***
A few weeks earlier, Haruhi had also been in their room. A class project was assigned and the twins had latched onto her as soon as the teacher had said “groups of two to three.”
“Hon-or stu-dent! Hon-or stu-dent!” they had chanted as they guided her out of the classroom at the end of the day, each holding onto an arm.
“You will have to do some of the work, too,” she had said.
“We will,” said Kaoru.
“Come over to our house this weekend,” said Hikaru, and then, noticing Tamaki glaring at them from a doorway the twins moved closer to her. “We’ll work real hard.”
Kaoru smirked as Tamaki’s face turned red. Haruhi, apparently not noticing, rolled her eyes.
“Please, guys. I do need to keep my grades up if I want to stay at this school.”
They smiled, kinder this time. “Yeah, yeah.”
***
They opened the door themselves, which usually didn’t happen. Normally, they’d let the butler get it. Haruhi was wearing jeans and a T-shirt, and she could have been any gender at all. They grinned as she gaped, stunned, at their oversized house. “Come on in.”
Haruhi looked in awe around their room. It was the size of her entire apartment. “Do you really need all this space?” she asked. They blinked simultaneously, and then looked at each other.
“No.”
“What’s your point?”
Dismissing it, she noticed the two beds pushed together. “Do you always sleep in the same room?”
“It’s comfortable,” Kaoru said, almost defensively. If anyone else had been in the room, only Hikaru and Haruhi would have noticed. Hikaru placed an arm over Kaoru’s shoulders.
“Yeah,” he added. “At this point it would be weird not to.”
Haruhi decided to change the subject. She lifted the bag she had brought with her. “Okay, are you ready to do this project?”
They weren’t, but it didn’t really matter. The subject was easy enough and they still had a week to work on it. The twins ended up playing on their phones while Haruhi did homework that was due sooner. After a couple hours she stretched and closed her book. “Done!” They glanced up from their phones, but continued playing whatever game it was.
Haruhi started packing up her bag. “I guess we can finish this in class, or I can just do it on Wednesday…”
“Waitwaitwait,” Hikaru interrupted.
“You’re leaving?” asked Kaoru.
She looked at them. They were lying on one of the beds, Kaoru on his stomach and Hikaru on his back. Their legs were tangled together.
“Well, you two seem to be occupied.” One of the phones made a beeping noise.
“No, we were just waiting for you to finish,” said Kaoru.
“We didn’t want to interrupt your studies,” said Hikaru. “We know they’re important to you.”
Haruhi smiled. “Thanks.”
“Don’t leave.”
“Let’s do something fun.”
***
Another time she was over, she found something on the floor. Their room was surprisingly messy for that of people with maids. “What’s this?” she asked.
They looked at each other. Hikaru tilted his head. Kaoru shrugged.
“It’s a binder,” Hikaru said.
Haruhi looked at it. “It doesn’t look like one. Where are the rings?”
“A chest binder,” corrected Kaoru. “It makes breasts go away.”
Haruhi looked at them. She blinked.
They looked at each other again, shrugged, and lifted up their shirts. Underneath was a meshy kind of cloth, and underneath that was presumably…
“How did I not notice that?”
“Don’t blame yourself,” said Hikaru, dropping his shirt and shrugging.
“You can tell us apart,” added Kaoru. “I’m assuming all your powers of observation would be focused towards that.”
“We have been practicing for a while,” said Hikaru. “At this point it’s very hard to tell whether or not we have penises.”
“No,” she said, looking away. “I just think I’m good at noticing things, when I probably am not. But, do you guys mind if I try this on? Sometimes I feel like my breasts are too obvious, and it makes me sort of uncomfortable.” She was downplaying it. She didn’t want to seem desperate.
Hikaru nodded, and looked at her T-shirt. There was only a slight curve to indicate anything was under there.
Kaoru nodded, and almost said he understood the feeling.
“Need help getting it on?” asked Hikaru, so Kaoru winked instead.
“We have plenty of experience.”
“I think I’m all right,” she replied, smiling a little, and walked out of the door to the bathroom.
“Do you think she’s a guy, too?” asked Hikaru when he was sure she was out of hearing distance.
“I don’t know,” replied Kaoru. “I don’t know if she’s anything at all.”
When Haruhi came back, Hikaru nodded. “I see what you mean,” he said quietly, into his brother’s ear.
“I like it,” said Haruhi. It was kind of hard to breathe, but she wasn’t sure if that was because of the cloth compressing her ribcage or of the self she’d seen in the mirror.
“Keep it,” said Hikaru.
“Are you sure?” she asked.
“We couldn’t say no to anyone looking this great,” said Kaoru. He was telling the truth. The only physical difference was the reduction of a curve to a straight line, but she seemed to be glowing.
“Thanks!” she said, and her smile could have drowned the sun.
***
“You’re really pulling in the customers,” said Kaoru.
“Keep this up and your debt will be paid in a month,” said Hikaru.
Haruhi mumbled something and avoided their eyes. It was getting colder outside, and she pulled on one sleeve of her sweater. “Do you think so?”
“I know so. Confidence is the sexiest thing in a man.”
“Yeah, that and your recent increase in happiness. What’s up?”
“Well, I’m not really worried that I’ll be found out anymore. I feel like I can relax.”
That’s probably not all, said the twins in a look to each other, but we’ll leave it alone for now.
“Are you excited that your debt’s clearing up?” asked Kaoru.
“Um…”
“No?” said Hikaru.
“That’s not-”
“Could it be that you like us?”
“Could it be that you made some friends?”
They both hugged her, saying in increasingly babyish voices how much she loved them. She patted each of them on the back.
“Yeah,” she said. “Yeah, I guess.”
They hugged her tighter, shoulder to shoulder, cheek to cheek, and then it came to them that it wasn’t a joke anymore, and they let go awkwardly. Haruhi grinned evilly.
“Could it be that the coldhearted Hitachiin twins care about someone?” she said, grabbing them again. “Could it be that they’ve made a friend?”
***
“Are you a girl?” Hikaru asked, finally, one day.
“Because,” said Kaoru, “You don’t have to be. We’re not.”
“I don’t think so,” Haruhi said. “I’m not a boy, either, though. I’m not sure if I’m exactly anything.”
“Should we call you something else?” asked Kaoru.
“We call you ‘he’ with people who don’t know and ‘she’ with people who do,” said Hikaru. “Do you want something different?”
Haruhi thought for a bit. “I don’t care,” she said slowly, “what you call me, or even what others think of me. It’s more of a self-discovery thing. As long as I know who I am, it’s good.”
“Are you going to tell the rest of the club?”
“I don’t know. Maybe not. We’re the closest, aren’t we? And you two would understand better than anyone.”
After she left, Hikaru turned to Kaoru. “You didn’t do it! I’d ask about the gender and you’d ask if she still liked boys.”
“Did she even like boys in the first place?” asked Kaoru. Hikaru glared at him. “I’ll ask her tomorrow, I promise.”
They sat down on one of the beds, side by side.
“What if she doesn’t?”
“We’ll deal.”
“What if she does?”
“I guess we argue over who asks the next thing.”
***
Haruhi looked at them, feeling like she was missing something. “Boys are fine,” she said. “If I didn’t like boys I wouldn’t talk to you this much.”
“No, that isn’t-” started Kaoru.
“What about girls?” asked Hikaru. “How do you feel about girls?”
“They’re also fine,” she said, still confused. “Why are you asking me this?”
“Okay, but if you were to date someone,” said Kaoru.
“Would it be a boy or a girl?” asked Hikaru. “Or maybe another person who isn’t really either?”
Haruhi shrugged noncommittally. “I don’t really want to date anyone.”
“What about sex?” asked Hikaru, and Kaoru hated that he sounded serious.
Haruhi shrugged again, but this time she made a face. “Can you stop?” she said, and she sounded genuinely annoyed.
“Haruhi, someone’s waiting for you,” came Kyoya’s voice from back in the main room, and Haruhi left, feeling guilty but not really knowing why.
“Great,” said Kaoru. “You had to bring up sex.”
“Shut up,” replied Hikaru. “You wanted to ask too.”
Yeah, thought Kaoru, but I didn’t.
***
“Sorry if I sounded mean yesterday.” There were 15 minutes before class started and Haruhi was seated at her desk. The twins were sitting on each of their desks, facing her.
“It’s fine,” said Hikaru, and then quieter, “I was out of line.”
“Why were you asking me those questions?” she asked. “It was kind of weirdly personal for you two.”
Shit, they thought, we had wanted to do this on our own terms.
“Well,” they said at the same time. They both stopped. They looked at each other.
“We were…” Hikaru.
“Kind of…” Kaoru.
They stopped again. Haruhi looked at them. She had never seen them unsure of their words before, and she was actually sort of worried.
“Are you two okay?”
They were blushing. She could tell, even if the rest of the room couldn’t.
“We were asking you out!” Kaoru blurted, and Hikaru wanted to slap himself in the face.
“Oh,” said Haruhi. “Hm.”
“Hm?” said Kaoru.
“Hm,” said Haruhi.
Hikaru was going to kill them both.
Nobody talked until the bell rang, and nobody talked after that, either.
***
They were out the door as soon as class was over, and Haruhi had to run to catch up. This was the first time the three of them hadn’t walked out of the classroom together.
“Wait,” she half-yelled, dodging between annoyed students. They stopped, but didn’t turn around. “Why are you running away?” She was panting a little.
Hikaru turned, slowly. Kaoru turned even slower.
“Why wouldn’t we run away,” said Kaoru, deadpan. Students were walking by on either side of them, talking loudly. Their words wouldn’t leave this small break in the flow.
“We asked you out and you said ‘hm,’” said Hikaru.
They were actually hurt. They had been on the other side of this conversation so many times, and now they knew how it felt. It sucked.
Haruhi also felt horrible. “I did tell you,” she said. “I don’t really want to date anyone at all.”
Is it because we’re not really men, neither of them said, but they both thought it.
“Also, date both of you? How would that even work?”
They blinked and turned to each other, self-doubt mostly gone. The answer was, of course, that neither of them had considered any other way. The three of them stood there, looking at each other, in the middle of the hallway, ignored by everyone.
“Come over tonight,” said Kaoru, quietly, almost drowned out by the crowd.
“It’s Friday,” said Hikaru, a little louder. “It wouldn’t interrupt your studies.”
“You two are probably my best friends-” Haruhi started, but Hikaru cut her off.
“It’s fine,” he said. “You don’t have to explain yourself.”
***
At the Hitachiin house, they did normal things. They watched some TV, they played some video games. When it started getting late, the twins asked if Haruhi wanted to go home. She said no.
She hadn’t brought anything to sleep in, so they lent her a T-shirt and boxers. In the dark, with the twins’ hair gel losing its power and Haruhi’s becoming messy, they looked the same; nervous curves under their T-shirts and legs that were too shapely without the suit pants. The beds were pushed together, they were always pushed together, and Haruhi got in on top of the sheet, lying in the direct center. The twins got in on either side of her.
“Could you ever do kissing?” one of the twins asked, but she was too tired and it was too dark to know which.
“Maybe,” she said, and a few seconds later, “maybe not.”
“What about cuddling?” said the other.
“Probably,” she said, smiling though no one could see. “Yes.”
Simultaneously and without warning, they reached for each other’s hands under the blankets. They seemed to stay like that forever, all three heartbeats to the same rhythm, hands grasping hands, staring at the now invisible ceiling, and then they fell asleep.