The Color of the Passionate and Passionless

Chapter 1, Shady Yellow

"You can keep it if you would like."

The words, as soft as the silk in her dainty hands, barely registered in her mind at first. However, their meaning slowly seeped into her brain and brought a tiny, gratifying smile to her face. Still, she was cautious. She had never met this man before in her life, not even his color.

"I—I can?"

Her chocolate eyes finally were pried away from the cloth in her hands, though with some difficulty, so that she could catch any hint of deception in the man before her. This nameless man was odd to say the least. He had spiky orange hair and yellow eyes, not that she was not used to seeing different eye and hair colors every day. The color that had truly shocked her was the color of his clothes. They were a far more brilliant yellow than his eyes and that was strange because everything in the Kingdom of Hearts was red, especially the clothes.

"Of course."

She had met him by accident, apparently yet another in a now series of accidental meetings since her first visit to the Castle of Hearts, when she was making a delivery. She had collided into him by chance and though curt apologies should have been the beginning and ending of their meeting, fate had other ideas. This poor girl by the name of Haruhi Fujioka became just another one of fate's puppets when this mysterious man dropped a handkerchief. Being the diligent girl she was, Haruhi had originally been only concerned with the tasks of her employment as a dress shop delivery girl, but the moment her eyes caught sight of the handkerchief's vivid color she was ensnared. She had meant merely to return it to the gentleman she had hit, but before she knew it all she could do was stare at the yellow cloth. Everything in Hearts was red—except this handkerchief. It was the one exception to the rule, and that, to her, made it beautiful. Beautiful enough that her desiring heart was exposed to a stranger, one clearly not from Hearts. However, no part of her could doubt the kindness of a man that gave her such beauty.

"Thank you."

She could have never predicted that this would happen when her day had started. Although she knew something odd had to be going to happen, it always did when she had a delivery to the castle, she could in no way have even conjured the color of the cloth she now possessed. In fact, it was about as predictable as the whole reason she was in this mess in the first place.

Her deliveries to the Castle of Hearts began because of the random whim of a teenage girl, in all actuality. Not hers of course, but the daughter of the Jack of Hearts that she later learned went by the name of Renge. That first delivery to the castle gave her the misfortune of meeting the crown prince of Hearts himself, Tamaki Heart, who she found out had a thing for both rosebushes and falling into them, since it was apparently a common occurrence. Ever since then one of two never failed to request a clothing delivery from her father's shop at least every two weeks. Haruhi believed that they merely wanted to toy with her, especially when the prince requested that her father, a dressmaker by heart and design, make him pants and shirts. Business was business, but if he would not wear a dress, then he should not be ordering from their shop in her opinion. Still, what truly annoyed her was his casual attitude. Whenever she visited, delivery in hand, he always had some tea prepared and snacks laid out. If it was not tea time with him, and sometimes Renge, it would be some childish game that he wanted to play. A favorite of his was hide and seek, though it was naturally her least favorite since the Castle of Hearts was an endless, red maze. She neither had the desire nor the time for either, and always said as such, but more often than not he got his way by some strange sequence of events that never ceased to plague her at the exact moment it needed to. Then there was the bribery. That was something that once the prince learned it worked, it became his specialty. In fact, that was namely why there were snacks in the first place: expensive, exotic, and ones she could have never possibly have seen or obtained elsewhere.

Still, as much as it pained her to admit it to herself sometimes, she did not truly hate neither Renge nor even Tamaki. They were kind to her, in their own little ways, at least. Selfish and spoiled indeed, but far kinder than they very well could have been. However, she never once wanted to bridge the gap between them with the friendship she knew at least Tamaki desired so much. Call her a realist, but a simple citizen such as herself and royalty such as them had no business with friendship. They lived in two totally opposite worlds with an unstable bridge between them solely meant for a single person to cross at a time. If more than one person tried to cross, meet in the middle, or a single person just stopped on the bridge, it would collapse. That was because if they were truly to interact one would have to pass into the other's world and that was near impossible and not desired. For Haruhi to pass into their world she would either have to become Tamaki's queen or jack. She knew at least one position was going to be taken up by Renge, and because of their long history together she assumed that it was the position as the jack. However, even if she could have become the jack, she had no desire to cross the bridge. She was happy in her world as a simple citizen, as red as it was, and she had no plans to change it. For Tamaki or Renge, on the other hand, to cross into the world of commoners was near impossible. Tamaki, being an only child, could only be prevented from taking the throne by death or revolution. Renge could possibly not be chosen as either queen or jack, but she would not fall so far as commoner. She would be some sort of nobility and marry in with some of the other former royalty in the capital.

Haruhi had honestly tried to express this well-reasoned argument beginning from her second delivery on, but eventually she got to the point of not even bothering anymore. Each meeting with Tamaki further confirmed her assumption that reason did not work with this man. Besides making her fear for her country's future, it merely served to frustrate her. As such, she abandoned it and the negative emotions it caused. If she let everything that Tamaki did eat away at her she would never be able to enjoy her peaceful life, lest make it to her golden years. That was the only way she could handle her deliveries to the Castle of Hearts. She had to take everything in stride in the hopes that maybe the two would find a new toy in due time. Though she both hoped and doubted, she continued to make every delivery with at least a smile on her face in the beginning.

In fact, today had been just the same. When she left home for the capital, Heart of Vermillion, she had been smiling. She did truly like the capital. Its hustle and bustle fit her diligent, working lifestyle perfectly and she believed it would make a great home in the future. It was also beautiful, in both architecture and landscaping. The only thing she could have done without is so much red, which was inescapable in Hearts. The only other thing she was looking forward to was the prince's usual bribery. He had learned quickly that while money motivated her, merely money she felt she earned would she accept, and jewels did not have the same effect on her as they did Renge. In a fit of desperation he discovered her secret gluttony and had used it against her since. It was now and old, but still affective, trick.

She had no clue what was in her sealed package, or even whether it was for Tamaki or Renge for that matter. All she had to know that it was to be delivered to the Castle of Hearts and the two waiting for her would sort it out there, as always. This was a game to them anyway, she was still convinced. If she showed up without a package at all she did not doubt that they would pay the fee and then progress with whatever Tamaki had planned for her that day. Whenever she began to think of it that way she always began to feel as though she herself was being rented and it admittedly left a bitter taste in her mouth, but business was business.

It was actually during one of those bitter moments in her mind that she had rammed into the man in yellow. She had been so preoccupied that his clothing color did not catch her eye until the handkerchief dropped right on the ground in front of her. She had even forgot her package in the moment her eyes fell on the yellow cloth, though she did not drop it. It was certainly a scene to behold. And that is exactly what happened.

Little did she know at the time, but her interactions with the man in yellow were being observed from afar by no one other than the prince of Hearts. He knew both more and less than either of the actors before him. For one, he knew that this yellow man was the prince of Diamonds who had come to the castle with his father to observe the discussion between both the kings, as Tamaki was expected to do as well. He also knew about Haruhi, her purpose for being there and her personal qualities. However, what he did not know was what had been said and how the actors felt. It is here where another fatal flaw lies. There were two princes of Diamonds: the crown prince, Hikaru, and the second prince, Kaoru, which were identical twins. He had not a clue which one stood before him, but either one's identity truly did not matter in his mind. What mattered was the nature of this scene, which he determined rather early on to be romantic. Without the insight into their minds, much less the words, he would never truly know, but he could assume and he did. He assumed with everything in him and for the first time he felt the bitterness for Diamonds he had often heard was so common with citizens of Hearts. His father even was guilty of such bitterness, and had tried to explain the rivalry of the red blooded in the past. At the time it had been for naught, but now, maybe now, the prince could grasp such a concept as the instinctual bitterness between Diamonds and Hearts.

It is a difficult thing to predict, to say the least, but as Tamaki gazed upon Haruhi's secret smile, still there after the prince of Diamonds had long left as she stared at the yellow cloth, he believed he could understand. He believed he could understand that and more at that moment. As much as he wanted to go out and greet Haruhi he restrained himself. He had to have Renge go get the delivery today. He had been dreading it earlier, but now he wanted to do nothing more than observe the discussion between the two kings in the castle today. If he was lucky, he would even be able to exchange a few words with the princes. Still, the one thing he wanted to do more than anything was snatch away that yellow cloth that made Haruhi smile so, though he knew it was one of the few things he simply could not do, chances were, ever. What a shady man, that prince of Diamonds was.