Chapter 1

Kyoya Otori sat at his desk in his room, typing away at his laptop. School didn't start back up again until next week, so he was taking the opportunity to polish up his business plan. The new club they were starting had been Tamaki's idea, but Kyoya knew his friend would let him have his way about the financial side of the club, especially since Kyoya was investing most of the money for their initial expenses himself. He had to come up with a way for the club to return his investment, and then be self-supporting, at the very least. He was never one to stop at "the very least," however. With a good start, good publicity, and a solid investment portfolio, who knew what he could achieve? He had big plans for the new Ouran High School Host Club.

A soft knock came at his door. "Enter," he called, without looking up.

One of the interchangeable maids working for his family came in, carrying a small tray. "A letter arrived for you, sir," she said, holding it out to him.

The envelope bore the seal of Ouran Academy. He took the envelope off the tray, and nodded in dismissal. The maid backed out of the room, closing the door behind her.

He opened his letter, and as he'd expected, it was a short missive informing him of his class assignment for the new school year, which began next week. Without bothering to read it, his eyes scanned down to the bottom of the letter, where he saw what he expected to see: 1A. Ouran divided its students into classes by rank. The top students in each year would all be in the A class, and Kyoya Otori would always be at the top of his class.

He threw the letter onto his desk, and returned to his laptop. He typed a few sentences, and then hesitated. His class rank had been on the letter too, right? Surely it hadn't said...? He snatched it back up, and scanned to the bottom again. It read:

Class Assignment: 1-A

Class Rank: 2

He stared at the offending number for a solid minute. Class rank 2? He had never been anything other than first in his class, and he knew everyone who was rising from the middle school to the high school with him. Surely none of them could have beaten him on the entrance exam? It seemed unthinkable. Unless...

He snatched up his cell phone, and dialed his best friend's number.

"Mon ami!" Tamaki Suoh shrieked into his ear when he answered. "I have been desolate without you! Have you come up with some more ideas for our new club?"

"I'm working on some things," Kyoya evaded. "I was calling to ask...did you get your class assignment letter from Ouran yet?"

"Oh no, did you hear of my disgrace already?" Tamaki sobbed dramatically. "My father tells me my grandmother is so angry that I'm not allowed in her presence until I regain my position."

So it wasn't Tamaki. Kyoya was even more lost than he'd been before. "What do you mean, Tamaki?"

"I lost a rank! I am no longer number 2 in our class; I've been plummeted to lowly number 3. And get this: the person who beat me is a new scholarship student. A real, live commoner! My father told me briefly about it yesterday. Grandmother never minded my losing to you, but losing to a commoner? She's out for blood! For some reason, Father doesn't seem upset about it. He even says he's going to try and talk Grandmother down, but you know how she is."

"A commoner?" Kyoya asked. "Well, he might be a commoner, but I doubt he's ordinary. Did your father tell you that this commoner beat my entrance exam score, too?"

"WHAT?!" Tamaki shouted so loudly, Kyoya had to hold phone away from his ear. "Mon ami! How could that happen?"

Kyoya ignored the question. "Did your father happen to tell you the commoner's name?"

"It's Fujioka. Haruhi Fujioka. Father didn't really say much about him, but I could ask if you want?"

"The name is enough. Thank you."

"Now about the host club, I had a few more ideas. How do you feel about special cosplay days? Just think: we could be princes and knights, or samurai, or maybe even..."

Kyoya settled in for at least half an hour of his friend's enthusiastic meanderings, listening with only half an ear. As the third son in a family of exceptional people, he knew he would have to be better than exceptional to gain his father's attention and respect. All his life, Kyoya had settled for nothing other than perfection. Now, for the first time, he found his record blemished.

He would never let it happen again.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

A few internet searches, a few phone calls to the right people, and the thing was done. It had been simplicity itself to find out just who Haruhi Fujioka was.

For one thing, "he" had turned out to be a girl. Kyoya looked at her student ID picture, which had accompanied a file of her academic records he'd wheedled out of an administrator at her middle school. She had long, straight hair, and a fringe of bangs. She was cute, if you liked the enormous-eyed, innocent-looking type. He'd exchanged emails with a few of her former classmates, and found out that she had been well-liked by everyone, without having had very many close friends. He supposed she must have been too focused on her studies to spend time socializing with her peers. Apparently, she'd left a swathe of broken hearts in her wake, too; several people had told him that scarcely a week passed between professions of love, but she turned them all down. Of course, if she had set her sights on Ouran High School, perhaps she was aiming for a richer prize than the boys at her commoner middle school. The thought brought the ghost of a smirk to his lips and an evil glint to his eyes. If that were the case, she'd be in for a rude awakening. He knew of very few Ouran families that would look favorably upon their sons dating a commoner, and even the lowest ranking Ouran students would balk at adding a commoner to the family register.

His mind wandered back to the host club he'd agreed to start with Tamaki in the coming weeks. Kyoya already knew more than he'd ever wanted to know about ambitious young women, and the lengths to which they'd go in order to try and secure themselves a rich boyfriend. Mostly, they left him alone; his frosty and forbidding stare could wilt the most ardent attempts at flirtation. But he'd watched the way the girls fawned over the other boys from rich families, and wondered how those frivolous-minded girls expected anyone to ever take them seriously. Now, thanks to Tamaki's persuasion, he wasn't only going to stop avoiding those girls, he was going to start flirting right back at them. He rarely ever indulged himself in such a mundane emotion as self-doubt, but he wondered, briefly, if he knew what he was getting himself into.

Well, all new business ventures came with risk, after all.

This school year was going to be one full of firsts for him. First real friends, first club, first business venture outside the Otori umbrella. He found his gaze settling back on the picture of Haruhi Fujioka, staring back at him from his laptop screen, and he glared at her. First academic rival. He closed the computer, and pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose in an irritated gesture, but his scowl melted away a moment later. High school hadn't started out exactly as he'd planned and expected it to. But at least it was going to be interesting.

. . . . . . . . . . . .

Author's note: I've always found Kyoya to be the most interesting character in Ouran Host Club, and since I've read nearly everything this site has to offer that features him as a main character, I decided it was finally time to give writing about him a go. I haven't decided if this is going to have a romantic relationship or not, but if it does, it will almost certainly be Kyoya/Haruhi. Definitely not Tamaki/Haruhi. I've never thought Tamaki was just right for Haruhi; I think I might actually have him as a distant fourth, compared with the other host club guys, for best matches for Haruhi. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed what I threw together, and I expect to have another chapter up in a week.

Oh, and because I'm sure I'd only butcher them, I'm going to skip trying the Japanese honorifics. Sorry to any this offends!