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Episode 20 - The Door Opened By the Twins
Japanese Title: Futago ga Aketa Tobira
Based On: Volume 7/Extra Ch., Volume 9/Chapter 37
Airdate: August 15, 2006
Summary: Ever since they were young, Hikaru and Kaoru have always been together, treated as one unique entity. They created their own little world, where it's "us" versus "them". As second year middle school students, their world only included each other and no invaders had yet to appear. But even though they are treated as one, they are still separate individuals with separate thoughts and feelings. Hikaru is Hikaru, and Kaoru is Kaoru, but no one seems able to understand that or distinguish between them. So they continue to shut themselves to those on the "outside", and when something gets boring, they get rid of it.
But when they were little, there was one maid that the twins adored above anyone else. They liked her because she was different from the others who tried to flatter or just smile at them. In reality, she was working undercover at the Hitachiin estate in order to crack the family's safe. The twins catch her in the act, and tell her they'll give her the code if she plays with them - the "Which one is Hikaru-kun?" game. They want her to be able to tell them apart because they like her so much. However, she gets the code from their piggy bank and they intercept her as she's escaping through the window.
She confesses that she just can't tell them apart, and perhaps, there will never be anyone who can. With those final words, she escapes into the night and out of their lives forever.
After that, as they grew older, they grew more and more twisted. They built a barrier around themselves so that people could not approach them easily. However, there is one enthusiastic blonde student who either chose to ignore the barrier or was too slow to even notice it was there.
Tamaki Suoh, a third year middle school student, approaches the twins, noticing they have a lot of free time and asks if they would join him in establishing a club. The twins tell him they don't just hang out with anyone, and they issue a challenge - the "Which one is Hikaru-kun?" game. The time limit is one month, and Tamaki is allowed as many guesses during that time, but they will ask his reason for it. No one has been able to win at the game before.
Despite that, Tamaki agrees to the challenge. If he wins, the two will join his club. He also makes a prediction. Come April, the twins will open the doors of the third music room in the high school section.
The game starts and Tamaki is persistant in trying to figure it out. He even suggests that, for the club, the twins sell their brotherly love - a somewhat taboo, symmetrical brotherly love! The twins ignore him, even though they later laugh at the way he speaks - it reminds them of an ancient lord from the past.
However, they're getting tired of him and declare that the game is over. They throw Tamaki's past back into his face, saying that he's just looking for companions to erase his own loneliness. Still, even his kind of loneliness is better than the kind the twins have. They walk away and after that, they don't think he's ever going to come to them again.
But Tamaki does approach them again, and though he guesses right about the twins, he confesses it's too hard to tell them apart since they're so alike. He tells them to look at it this way - to be that much alike is a talent. He tells them to live as the "two-are-one" Hitachiin brothers, while not forgetting they are separate individuals as well. Tamaki says he'll also try his best so he'll someday be able to tell them apart.
The twins argue that it's contradictory, but Tamaki replies that's how they are - that's their personality. But Hikaru says if they start the Hitachiin brotherly love style, then they would be considered a set for the rest of their lives. Kaoru proclaims that no one will ever win at the "Which one is Hikaru-kun?" game, and that they've known it from the beginning.
Then why, Tamaki asks, do their faces look so lonely after people don't get it right?
Even if he can't, someday, somewhere, someone who will be able to tell them apart will appear. But, as Tamaki points out, if they continue to stay in their own world, they will never meet this person.
And so, one month later, with the start of the new school year, the Hitachiin brothers find themselves at the doors of Music Room 3 with a new future ahead of them.
Screencaps: 831
Manga Version:
• N/A