I'm sorry for the slow update, but I'm a bit obsessed with my Haikyuu story, so I'm writing that a tad more nowadays

Chapter 3: Twin dynamics

"Urgh." Himawari couldn't help the sound when she opened her front door, only to be greeted by eerily similar voices, talking at the same time. She had expected to find Kyoya at the welcome mat. She definitely hadn't counted on the twins being there.

"How cold," the one on the right said.

"Himawari-chan." Continued the other.

"We are just here,"

"To help out,"

"With the food choices." The finished together making her roll her eyes successfully. Himawari left the door open, retreating into her apartment. Spending her Sunday with the semi-rude and mostly annoying, twins certainly hadn't been her plan. She had wanted to politely talk to Kyoya about the multiple plans Amai had presented her with in his voice recordings on the USB drive.

"Feel free to come in," she tossed over her shoulder, finding her way around her living space without the need of her cane. Footsteps followed behind her. "I just need to get dressed and we can go to the Tokyo restaurant. I've already arranged everything with the chef there."

"Take your time!" The completely in-tune voices made her rush her daily routine. Himawari was typically slow in the morning, taking her time to find the appropriate clothing and make certain that her outfit was color-coded and that she looked perfect. But, since the troublesome twins were in her living room, definitely being nosy, the girl rushed. She quickly picked out one of the outfit sets which Michiko had matched for her in her wardrobe and sprayed a bit of her favorite perfume on. She brushed her hair and left it to hang loose down her back, before re-entering the living room. Sure enough, the twins were whispering to each other in the corner where Michiko had placed a few of her family photos.

"Ready to go whenever you are." The whispering immediately stopped at her words. The twins were silent for a moment before one nudged the other in the ribs, by the sound of it.

"Look, Himawari," he began, and by the tone of his voice she immediately deduced that it was the rude one. "I wanted to apologize for my comment the other day. It was distasteful." She wondered if she should decline his apology, just to spite him. But, she wasn't that kind of a person.

"It's not a problem, forget about it." Himawari shrugged. "Shall we?" And the twins followed her out, Kaoru whispering to his brother than he should try more to get her to not be mad at him.

The ride to the Tokyo restaurant was mostly spent in casual, polite chatter about the party which the Host Club would be hosting. The twins had chosen to sit one on each side of her, yet, the one on her left had mostly held up their end of the conversation. Himawari deduced that that was Kaoru. He overall seemed much kinder than his brother, in her opinion. Hikaru made a few comments here and there, generally tossing jokes out. Yet, she could tell that he was simply trying hard to talk to her, as he didn't quite like her.

The Tokyo restaurant was the oldest one of the Hara chain. It had been opened by Junichiro only, back when he was just starting out his business. Amai Toki had been chef of choice and the duo had gotten famous overnight. It was almost impossible, walking towards the old building, to think that it had been the one to spark the Hara family fortune. Himawari could remember, from the time when she had been just a little girl wearing thick glasses, how she had visited the place. Amai had told her that the building had changed quite a bit with renovations. Yet, what she could recall wasn't the restaurant itself. No, the girl remembered giggling on the counter as someone handed her delicious treats to sample straight from the stove. She could recall burning her tongue on delicious lamb meat, rolled in spices. She could taste the sweet steamed buns that the unknown person behind the counter had broken in half and shared with her. She could even recall the chef's knife in her hands, as an experienced man guided her into de-boning a fish for the sushi she would later taste.

"Are we going to go in?" One of the twins asked from her side and Himawari snapped out of her memories. The delicious smells coming from the restaurant had taken her back in time.

"Of course," she nodded and unfolded her cane. "I have only been here once, could I impose on one of your shoulders please?" Tentatively, she extended her free hand, feeling her face flush at the fact she had to ask for help. There was a short silence in which she could practically feel the twins communicating between each other.

"A shoulder?" the twin on the left asked with a small smirk.

"If that's all the lady wants, Kaoru," Hikaru was on her right, she deduced.

"We'd be happy to accommodate." Her extended hand was enveloped in a warm, bigger one, slender fingers intertwining with hers rather intimately. Almost at the exact same time, Kaoru took her cane away, the sound following telling her that he had folded it. He then proceeded to position her so that she was holding onto the crook of his elbow.

"Chef Masao should be expecting us." Himawari tried to keep her voice steady and the blush off her face as the twins snickered, obviously enjoying her discomfort. The two put her on edge in a way she couldn't describe. It wasn't the kind of anger she had felt when Hikaru had made his distasteful comment. No, it was the feeling of a more intimate thing than pas the deux. It was like she was dancing in a close dance with two overly familiar partners. Like a twisted, warped menage a trois. Luckily, they only snickered, without making any comments as to her state.

"Here we are." Kaoru said, opening the door. There was a soft jingle of a chime at the top, tastefully telling the staff that they had a customer. As soon as the scent of petrol and the soft spring breeze vanished, telling Himawari that they were inside, there was a yell from deeper in the restaurant.

"I'm in the back, Himawari-chan!" The twins paused their steps for a second, making the girl giggle.

"I told you that the chef is waiting for us." They continued deeper into the restaurant and Himawari wished that the twins would let go of her before they reached Masao. But, that was just a wish. "Good morning, Masao-san."

"Himawari-chan!" The chef sounded a tad out of breath, clanking and scraping of cooking utensils accompanying him, as always. "And you two must be Yuzuha's twins." Everything clicked in a second. That was why Kyoya hadn't showed, but had sent the twins instead. They had a connection with the chef.

"It's a pleasure to meet you," Hikaru said.

"Our mother told us much about you, chef." Kaoru continued from the other side. Masao let out his typical, booming laugh. From that, Himawari could guess that he was a rather large man. He also had a few heads over her, making him tower over the small girl.

"I hope none of you have had any breakfast?" Masao chuckled. "We have quite a few courses to get through."

"Not at all," Hikaru grinned.

"We're starving." Kaoru completed the words, making Himawari struggle to keep up with the conversation, once again. She silently gave up on it, though, instead focusing on the delicious smell of the food waiting for them.

"When I talked with Kyoya-sempai we decided that it would be a buffet dinner." Himawari supplied as the twins led her to the side a bit, Kaoru finally guiding her hand to the counter. Yet, her cane was still in his possession. It made her nervous.

"Then, let us start with fish." Masao said from behind the counter and a dish was slid over to the trio. Himawari could practically feel the level of mischief rise in the room as the two hummed. She could bet that they were exchanging glances, doing their twin telepathy thing which she had been told about by the girls in her class.

"Kaoru, say aaah." Hikaru moved from her side, letting go of her hand in order to feed his twin. But, Himawari was ready. She switched her position, getting in the way of the travelling chopsticks and managing to catch the piece of fish into her mouth with skill that surprised even her. She chewed, admiring the taste absent-mindedly.

"Oooh?" Kaoru replied from behind her. She knew that he was smirking.

"I believe that Himawari-chan is jealous of me feeding you." Hikaru sighed theatrically.

"Indeed, you should always feed a lady first, Hikaru." Kaoru nodded, which she felt against her loose hair. He was too close. Hikaru, too. They were sandwiching her.

"Look, boys, I understand brotherly love and everything." Himawari's hands came up, pushing against two firm chests in a coordinated motion. "However, I would kindly ask you to keep it to your private time and behave while you're at the restaurant." There was a short silence. They were doing their twin glance telepathy thing again, she could tell.

"Of course, Himawari-chan," Hikaru was smirking, she didn't like that.

"Only if we can feed you!" Kaoru finished, making her groan. Yet, despite all her protests, they continued to insist giving her everything on the tasting menu from their own, single, pair of chopsticks. Menage a trois had been the perfect word for it.

She had always been told that staying in her comfort zone was good. Yet, Himawari had discovered, with her recent semi-uncomfortable encounter with the twins, that it wasn't necessarily bad to leave her bubble every once in a while. Though the two had been positively horrible, annoying her to their fullest during their unfortunate morning together, the experience altogether hadn't been horrible. Himawari had even found all three of them laughing multiple times as they invented the most ridiculous ways to describe the taste of the foods they had been given, much to Masao's amusement.

So, after the mischievous duo had dropped her off at home, Himawari decided to take another step forward. After her ballet teacher's comments, she had dreaded returning to a studio of any sort. But, coming to the Hara restaurant had brought back memories of her watching a couple dance there. It had been the most mesmerizing thing ever. Though she had never followed in their path, choosing ballet over tango, she had always kept that memory somewhere, buried deep, as a source of inspiration. Hence, perhaps it was time to experiment once more.

Her phone told her that there were three studios close to her apartment. She easily found the time and date she was looking for. There was a freestyle dancing workshop in one of them that evening. Himawari left her phone plugged into the speakers, playing her favorite ballet list of songs as she took a quick shower and got ready slipping into her training gear.

Himawari had learnt after losing her sight that she needed a new way of navigation. Using her eyes to see where to go, which street she was on and where the people were was gone for her. Instead, she had turned to the wonders of modern technology. GPS was a great way to locate her path in an unfamiliar neighborhood. Her cane had become like a short field of vision, making certain that she didn't bump into anyone. But, in the end, all of her senses had sharpened. The smallest of sounds became telltale signals when to move, when to stand still, when to avoid someone. In short, Himawari had absolutely no problems navigating herself around the neighborhood on her own. Except, when it came to finding the door of the building she needed.

"Oh, my bad." The girl immediately apologized when she heard someone curse after tripping on her cane. "I'm sorry." She offered a polite bow.

"No, no, my fault entirely." It was a boy, apparently, by his voice in his teens. "Do you need any help?" He offered making Himawari smile. If there was anything good that had come out of her unfortunate state of eyesight, it was constant offers to help. While sometimes they felt like a hand on her throat, suffocating her and her words, they were more often quite welcome.

"If it's not too much trouble," Himawari fished out her cellphone, clicking the autoroute voice off and extending it to the boy. "I'm looking for this dance studio. It should be somewhere around here…" His hands were larger than hers, but they were cool to the touch. Yet, not uncomfortable.

"Well, I'll be damned!" The boy cursed, laughing. "This is incredible, I was going there myself." The boy led her into a building, the air changing as they entered. He had a pleasant tone of voice, a little deeper than any other teenager she'd heard before. He introduced himself as Takagi Masashi and was all too eager to tell Himawari all about the studio where he practiced dance.

"This is it," Masashi told her when he opened the door, the music instantly muting everything around Himawari. "It's not much, but we're all family around here. If you want to, you can just observe for the first day, but I'm not really sure how that would work?" He was obviously uncomfortable with her lack of sight.

"It's alright, I have my routine that I want to go through," the girl replied with an easy smile. "I might join your practice if that's alright, too? But, I would either have to be led through the moves or touch the body while it's going through the choreography."

"Oh, I see." Masashi nodded. "We can do that."

Himawari got to school on Monday early. She'd received an email telling her how her student guide would meet her at the lobby. The sea of people had become easier to navigate on her own and the girl waited by the main desk at the entrance for a while. She was greeted by a few people from her class, and even visited by a quite flamboyant Tamaki, who seemed to be in peak condition that morning.

"You must be Hara Himawari," it was a girl's voice which interrupted Himawari from taking in the noise and people around her. "I'm Asai Chiyo from 2-A, I've been assigned as your student guide. Can you tell me a bit more about what you need me to help with?" The girl seemed friendly enough.

"It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance. I've mostly got it all down," Himawari bowed politely. "However, some help getting to the classroom and if there are any social events during them would be perfect."

"I believe we can arrange that," Chiyo was smiling, she could tell from the tone of her voice. "Does giving you my elbow work or should you put your hand on my shoulder?" She'd clearly done some research on blindness, which made Himawari smile.

"Whichever you're more comfortable with." In the end, Himawari held onto the older girl's elbow as they went up the stairs and to the familiar classroom. Chiyo led her in and then lingered at her desk.

"Are you going to the Host Club ball, Hara-san?" the older girl asked.

"Please, just Himawari," the blind girl sat down, taking out her books for the first class. "I'm going to be catering it, so I figured I'd go. Will you be attending, as well?"

"Yes! I wouldn't miss one of their events for the world," Chiyo giggled. "They always outdo themselves." The girls fell into an easy chatter, talking about the boys from the Host Club, before moving onto school related topics. Finally, Chiyo excused herself, going to her own floor. Aimi popped up next to Himawari as soon as the older girl was gone.

"Was that Asai from class two?" the bubbly girl asked and Himawari nodded. "You won't believe what happened with her last year!" And she launched into gossip without any prompting, explaining an incident with Chiyo dating a commoner against her father's wishes.

Classes passed rather quickly and lunch rolled around before Himawari could even notice the passage of time. She opted for going to the cafeteria and getting something there, as she hadn't had the time to pack a bento that morning. When she got her order in, the girl found an empty table and sat down. Quickly, though, the peace was broken.

"Hello there," the twins had joined her.

"A little kitten seems lost," they were doing their usual routine of sitting on each of her sides, knowing that it confused her, and talking by finishing each other's sentences.

"Hello," Himawari greeted half-heartedly. She could tell that it amused them, though.

"So, about that project that we should be doing together," the twin on the right spoke. Himawari was pretty certain that that one was Kaoru.

"We were thinking of meeting up after the ball and doing some work on it," and the one on her left was Hikaru, judging by the pitch of his voice.

"Stop hounding her," Haruhi was now sitting opposite of the trio, scolding the two troublemakers. They whined at her, but didn't let up on messing with the girl in between them. Himawari was simply glad for the distraction. She didn't like being the center of attention, unless she was on stage. And, she especially didn't like being the center of attention when it came to the twins. They were too much trouble. Somehow, the topic drifted back to the Host Club ball after Aimi had joined them, as well.

"I'm a little anxious about it," Haruhi admitted, pushing the food in her bento around with her chopsticks.

"How come?" Hikaru asked, making Himawari take note of his pronunciation and pitch, doing her best to differentiate between him and his twin.

"I can't dance."

"Oh, I'm sure Himawari can help you with that!" Aimi was quick to suggest. Suddenly, all the attention was on Himawari, which the girl didn't enjoy much.

"I could," she nodded, returning to her food. In her nervousness, she missed her mouth with the fork, taking some time to get the spatial orientation right.

"Oh, she's having trouble!" Hikaru said, a hand going to take away Himawari's fork. It was on the other side, though, leading her to believe that Kaoru had done it.

"Let's help out kitten in trouble!" the other twin supplied, helping her with the bite of food on the fork. Hikaru, on the other hand, wiped the bit of gravy which got stuck at the corner of her mouth.

"Little kittens need a lot of attention," he mused in a patronizing manner. Finally, Himawari had had enough of them. She closed her mouth when Kaoru prompted her to take the next bite and turned to him, blank eyes focusing somewhere in the direction of his face. The boy placed the fork down, sensing that they'd gone too far.

"Maybe you should go back to feeding your brother, Kaoru-san, he looks like he needs all the help he can get," her tone had bite to it, which made both boys stop, look at each other and then shrug. "I'll help you with the dancing today after classes, if you have the time, Haruhi-kun?"

"Er, uh, sure, sounds good." Haruhi smiled, though she still sounded rather miffed. The teasing the twins did obviously didn't sit quite right with her either.

"I'll wait for you and then we can find an empty room somewhere." Himawari made plans.

"You can just use the Host Club music room when we're done with club activities," Kaoru supplied, making Himawari award him a smile. He made a noise which told her that he was definitely surprised by that.

"Thank you." She could tell that the twins were doing their usual no conversation communication with their eyes.

Himawari took a deep breath and then left the town car that had driven her to the school. She entered the lobby, glad that Michiko had been free to work some overtime and help her with the dress. Himawari dropped off her light black coat at the lobby, the workers there taking it and giving her a number to keep. She placed it into her purse, a little anxious as she extended her cane and followed the path Haruhi had told her to, finding the ballroom where they were holding the event.

Himawari had had both the time to help the Host Club girl with her dancing and discuss the menu further with Kyoya the previous day during and after club activities. It had all fallen into place well. Perhaps, the whole thing was even worth the attention the twins paid her. The very unwanted attention. Yet, the two devils seemed to be quite enamored with the idea of a blind person, asking her multiple questions and acting out their twin scenarios for the Host Club around her. Once they had realized that she could decide which was which fancy cup by touch alone and discern between teas with only her nose, they had made it into a punishment game. Himawari had to admit that she'd had quite a bit of fun wiping those smirks off their faces.

The usher at the main door announced her and instantly, there was silence in the ballroom, only the band playing. Himawari knew that Michiko had assured her that she looked great, but she was starting to doubt it. Perhaps, it was a cruel joke. Just as she had made up her mind to turn around and leave, simply wanting those eyes to focus on something other than her, two sets of arms caught her from both sides.

"The belle of the ball," the twin on her right said.

"Truly, you clean up nice for a blind girl." Hikaru was on her left, she was certain. Himawari took a breath, then put her head up high and walked forward, the twins helping her down the stairs. "You stand out like a sore thumb," Hikaru remarked with a chuckle.

"Truly, quite a sigh to see all of these people rendered mute in awe." Kaoru agreed.

"We couldn't have picked a better dress for you if we'd tried." They chorused, making Himawari finally smile. They weren't being mean, for once, which made her walls drop down in hopeful anticipation.

"Thanks," she grinned and again, she could tell that they were doing their twin communication thing with only eyes involved.

The dress Michiko had picked out for her was one fit for a queen. It was red, tight at the waist and strapless, though showing off that she had cleavage, and then billowed out from waist down. It was sprinkled with delicate shiny silver designs, shimmering as she moved. It looked good on her dancer body, as Michiko had assured her numerous times. Himawari had chosen to leave her hair loose, only curling it slightly so that it looked as natural as possible. She hadn't bothered with much makeup, either. It made it too hard for her, as she would have to be careful throughout the night.

Surprisingly, the twins didn't leave her immediately after helping her down the stairs. Instead, they hung around, handing her some champagne and the treats which had been catered by her own restaurant.

"The appetizers are a hit, because they are going around on trays," Hikaru told her.

"Good call on that one," Kaoru agreed.

"I'm just glad that it worked." Himawari smiled. The two shared bits and pieces about how the other guests looked, who was dancing with whom and if there were any blunders, how funny they were. At some point, each of them asked her to dance, a little surprised when she perfectly accommodated any number they led her into. Both twins were good dancers, which made her grin to herself. They were good, but not as good as she was.

"Thank you both," Himawari told them as they excused themselves, finally, leaving her close to the end of the evening. Sensing their confusion, she elaborated. "I was anxious about spending this time alone. It's not that fun when you can't see what's going on around you."

"Our pleasure," they chorused, bowing and each of them kissing one of her hands. It was a comical picture, she was sure, but Himawari was just glad that they had been around. She waved goodbye to the odd duo, thinking that they might not be as bad as she'd pegged them to be.

It seems that both twins have been voted as the pairing for now, so I'm going to run with that for a while. As promised, after chapter 5 the poll will be closed. Remember to vote if you want a different pairing! Cheers :D

Reviews:

paulavara140:
Hello there, thanks so much for leaving me a review :D I did my best to update fast :D I hope you enjoyed the new chapter :D

Omake:

Hikaru and Kaoru walked towards the classroom where Tamaki had told them to meet up to set up their operation. They held hands, silence stretching between them. It was a pensive kind of quiet.

"I like her." Kaoru said.

"She's fun." Hikaru agreed.

"Shall we make her our toy?" his twin smiled.

"It would be awfully fun," Hikaru agreed. "Let's make it a game."

"First one to get close to her wins?" Kaoru suggested.

"First one to get her to fall for him wins." Hikaru chuckled and the twins shared a look.

"Let's have some fun." Kaoru agreed.

That's all folks!