Hello again everyone! I just want to let you all know that I go back to school on Monday, and it's nearly exams, and I'm almost failing chemistry, so updates will be a bit sporadic for a while, until the start of the new semester.

Also, I am in desperate need of a beta reader... Anyone know one/ want to be mine? I will be eternally grateful...

I'm not really liking this chapter... But it introduces a couple of major elements to Julie and her secret. So, I hope you enjoy!

Disclaimer: I do not own Ouran High School Host Club, or any other things mentionned in this chapter, to be honest...

Chapter Three

When Kaoru next awoke, he felt emotionally drained, yet somehow lighter, as if a great burden had been lifted from his soul. The ache, the hole in his chest which his brother usually filled was still there, and still as intense as before, but somehow it seemed… Bearable now.

The shifting of another body in his arms brought him back to the situation at hand. Julie was asleep, a small smile on her face, looking completely relaxed. Kaoru took a minute to look at her, since he had been to groggy on previous occasions to really take in her appearance.

She was shorter than him by about an inch, and slender, but she had a strength about her that made him think that she could easily take care of herself.

Kaoru moved from her body to her face. He supposed that she was really rather beautiful, but he hadn't really noticed it until now because she always wore such a hard, guarded expression when awake. Even her smile was guarded! But now, as Kaoru gazed down at her sleeping form, he realized for the first time how lovely she truly was. She had high, defined cheekbones, a defined jaw line and smooth, blemish-free skin. Her hair was very short. 'Like Haruhi' Kaoru thought. It was, however, much more wild than their friends, and seemed to have been done that way deliberately. There was a light dusting of freckles on her nose and cheeks. It was then that Kaoru noticed that the girls' nose was slightly crooked, as if it had been broken once, or perhaps several times.

She was relatively small and didn't seem to weigh very much. Most of her body was covered by baggy cloths (presumably her pyjamas) but she had slender forearms and tiny, delicate hands, which were rather disproportionate to the size of her body. Her neck, the only other part of her body that Kaoru could see, was slender and long, blending seamlessly into her jaw line. There were two silver chains, along with a gold one, and what appeared to be a piece of string hanging around it.

He reached out towards them, curious as to why she wore them. He reached first for the gold chain. On it was a heart shaped locket of moderate size. Kaoru wondered if he could risk opening it. He quickly glanced at her face to make sure she was still deeply rooted in the world of dreams, then snapped the locket open. Within it was a photograph of Julie and a boy, who Kaoru assumed was Joshua, judging by their resemblance. The two of them were looking at one another, him looking as if he were telling some sort of story, a smile playing at the corners of his mouth, while she was laughing; eyes closed, head tipped back, mouth slightly open in a wide smile. Kaoru stared at the picture for a couple of moments, slightly in shock. He had never seen her so relaxed and carefree, even in sleep. It was perhaps the presence of her twin, Kaoru mused. Maybe she just felt complete when he was there, just like he himself felt when Hikaru was by his side.

Kaoru snapped himself out of his reverie and grabbed the string, which, upon touching it, he identified as a piece of leather. As he tugged it gently from out of her pyjama top so he could look at it, it jingled softly.

It was covered in charms, some modern looking, some Native American looking. The charms were divided by beads of different sorts of rock; Kaoru identified turquoise, quartz and rose quartz, sandstone, jasper, blown glass in several different colours (clear, green, brown-nothing fancy) and amethyst. The charms, however, were what held most of Kaorus' attention. There were twelve, and they varied from an eagles feather to a round piece of silver with the letters CAF engraved on it. Kaoru took a moment to look each of them over and attempted to glean their significance somehow.

There was the eagles feather, which Kaoru remembered stood for bravery from a project he and Hikaru had done in middle school. A yin yang symbol hung next to it, then the American symbol for peace*. Next was a green circle with white markings- they must have had some significance, but Kaoru couldn't fathom what. After that was a golden pendent in the shape of a cat that looked vaguely Egyptian. Following it was another gold pendant, but this one was strange. It was an oval, painted black and set on an angle with a pointed, jagged capital "R" on it, painted yellow. There was a delicate rose of silver and a snowflake. An opal in the shape of a heart and inlayed in gold followed them. A silver dolphin curved around a bead of blue glass and a pair of golden ballet slippers, or perhaps Pointe shoes, made up the remaining charms.

Only one made absolutely no sense to Kaoru, the green one not counting; the silver CAF oval. What did CAF even stand for? He flipped it over, but all that it said was "Made in Canada" in small, English letters, just like the letters on the front. He felt Julie stir slightly and gently set the necklace down and moved on to the two silver chains that remained.

The first yielded nothing particularly interesting- only a rather simple silver cross adorned with a couple of small emeralds.

Kaoru was reaching for the last chain, which turned to be stainless steel, not silver, and was significantly thinker and more durable looking than the others, when a hand shot out of seemingly nowhere and grasped his wrist in a vice-like grip, an he nearly jumped out of his skin. Julie looked up at him, wide awake, guarded expression back in place.

"What are you doing?" she asked, looking confused and sounding slightly tired, her grip loosening on his arm as she looked around, taking in the situation at hand. Her expression hardened and Kaoru winced as the pressure on his wrist increased again.

"Did you see it?" She asked the question calmly, but her eyes burned with fury at this blatant invasion of her privacy. Kaoru looked at her in confusion.

"See what?"

She moved as quickly that it took him a minute to register that she was no longer laying at his side, but standing next to the bed. He wondered how she had done this for a moment before she spoke again, snapping him back to the present.

"The pendent on the silver chain, did you see it?"

"The cross?" he asked her, bewildered.

"No! The other silver chain!"

"Technically, it's stainless steel, not-"

"JUST ANSWER THE QUESTION!" Her voice sounded half crazed and really quite scary. Kaoru shook his head mutely and she seemed to regain her composure somewhat, though she still looked furious.

"I cannot believe that you would completely invade my privacy like that!" she yelled, then took a deep breath and continued in her normal tone. "I thought I could trust you… So you had better have a good explanation for this." She looked at him expectantly, waiting for him to speak.

He began haltingly, but slowly gained confidence. "I-I was only curious… They were just lying there around your neck and I wanted to know what they were, because I want to get to know you…" He figured she wouldn't take it well, but he couldn't help asking, "What do those charms mean, anyways?"

"None of your business." she said coldly. Taking another deep breath, she continued, "As for getting to know me, you could have just asked, instead of looking at my PERSONAL BELONGINGS!" Her voice had risen again by the time she reached the end of the sentence. "Those are MINE and you just- you- AHH!" she screamed and punched the nearest wall, breathing hard.

"I'm going out for a while." she said curtly, and rather abruptly. She walked over to the bed where he still sat, and stood on it, removing a small piece of the metal ceiling.

"Julie-" Kaoru started.

"BE QUIET!" she yelled, then in a much quieter, chocked voice she continued, "Just be quiet. I don't want to hear it." Then she hoisted herself up through the hole with deceptively strong arms, and she was gone.

*= I'm not sure if it's actually american, but we're gonna pretend it is...

Kudos to anyone who can guess what superheros the green and white charm and the R belong to. Your first hint is that they are both from the DC Universe.
The green symbol is the symbol of a group of heros from different planets
The R's owner wears alot of red and green along with yellow anad black.

Those hints make it fairly obvious to me. The reward for getting both correct is... I dunno yet... I'll think of something though! JM