A King, a Queen, a Jack, Two Jokers, and the Ace of Hearts
Chapter One
Kakeru Hajimete glanced at his sister nervously. She hadn't spoken to him since this morning when he'd shown her what her new uniform was (and more or less forced her into it). All she'd done was glare out the window of the limo ever since she'd gotten in. He stared at her for a bit before cautiously attempting a conversation.
"Hana…chan…?"
"It's Hanasu," she replied icily, not bothering to look at him.
Oh no. She was upset. She never insisted that he call her by her full name if she wasn't upset. "I'm sorry about the whole uniform thing… it's not like I have any choice on what the school uniform looks like… forgive me?" he asked innocently, unintentionally doing puppy eyes. She turned to him with a glare, and he was struck by the strong desire to push her short, black hair out of her face, as always. It'd happened ever since she'd cut it. The same thing with her new yellow eyes; it always made him uncomfortable, seeing his little sister with such unusual eyes. What happened to the brown-eyed, glasses-wearing Hana-chan?
Her gaze softened slightly, and she almost smiled. "Fine, you're forgiven, you big goof."
Kakeru grinned. "Yay!" He leaned forward, his brown eyes wide and excited. "What do you think Ouran will be like, Hana-chan?"
Hanasu shrugged. "I don't know."
"Do you think we'll make any new friends?"
"Maybe." She paused for a second, and then smiled gently over at him. "I know you'll make lots of friends, oniisan. People like you. They always have."
Kakeru frowned. "But what about you, Hana-chan?"
Hanasu blinked. "Me?" She looked away. "I don't care. It doesn't matter to me whether I have friends or not."
"Hana-chan..." Kakeru said worriedly, and Hana glanced up at him, impassive as ever.
"Don't let it bother you. This is just who I am," she said, in reply to his worried look. She turned back to the window and sighed softly.
"Hana-chan... Will you at least try to make some friends?" he pleaded with her.
There was a long, uncomfortable pause as Hanasu mulled over her brothers words, and she then said, "I'll think about it..." in the quietest voice you could imagine. Kakeru's entire face lit up like a child at Christmastime. Hanasu heaved yet another sigh. Well, he didn't need to know that she had only agreed to get him to shut up about it.
"Miss Hanasu, Master Kakeru," one of their escorts opened the door. Hanasu had insisted that he didn't call her "Mistress" and Kakeru had requested that he call them by first name. "We've arrived…"
"Thank you," Kakeru said, smiling brightly. Hanasu mumbled a quick thanks. The escort smiled. He'd spent much of his adult life working for the Hajimete family, and he'd seen these two grow up. He knew how they worked. True, the young miss had become more reclusive as of late, and the escort wasn't exactly sure why, but he felt that he knew the Hajimete children well enough. Their mother was strict, and their father rarely home, so it was no wonder they'd grown up relying on each other. Hanasu had actually been very popular in middle and elementary schools, and Kakeru's clumsy, awkward, easy-to-please personality had always attracted the crowds, especially the girls, but, at the heart of everything, they trusted each other more than anything.
"Miss Hanasu, you'll be in Class 1-A. Master Kakeru, you'll be in Class 2-A." Two boys approached from behind the escort. One was taller than the other, with black hair, glasses, and brown eyes. He wore the boy's uniform, and had a rather smart, calm, reserved air about him. Hanasu guessed straight-A+ student, heir to a large, powerful company, something like that.
Hanasu decided that she didn't like him. Kakeru had a feeling that this guy was rather deserving of awe.
The other boy was smaller; girlish, even. Brown hair, large brown eyes, a friendly, helpful, smart feeling from him. A nice guy, Hanasu deduced, but hiding something.
Hanasu decided that this guy was okay. Kakeru had a feeling that this guy was also rather deserving of awe.
"Miss Hanasu, this is Fujioka-kun, and Master Kakeru, this is Ootori-kun. They'll be leading you to your respective classes." Hanasu let out an unmasked sigh of relief for not having to go with Ootori. She didn't like Ootori. There was just something… shifty about him. Something under that smile that made her uneasy.
Kakeru wasn't having those issues. He gazed at Ootori with respect and admiration, despite having known the boy for all of two seconds.
The escort walked back to the limo, then paused. "Oh, and one more thing." He turned back towards the Hajimete siblings and smiled. "Have fun."
Hanasu rolled her eyes, but Kakeru nodded furiously. "We will, Escort-san! We will!" he assured the escort, waving wildly as if "Escort-san" was miles away, instead of three yards.
Hanasu sighed, and followed the Fujioka boy to her classroom. Her hell.
"Oh, there you are. Thank you very much, Mr. Fujioka," smiled the teacher, a younger woman with a mess of curly hair framing her round face. Hanasu looked at her. She looked nice enough. She supposed this teacher wouldn't give her too much trouble, and vise versa. "Miss Hajimete, would you please introduce yourself?" The teacher said kindly, and Hanasu resisted the urge to say, 'You just did.'.
"Sure. My name's Hanasu Hajimete. Don't give me trouble, and I won't give you trouble, ne?" Hanasu said a little distantly. The stares she was getting were suffocating, obvious, and annoying all at the same time.
"Thank you, Miss Hajimete. You can take a seat behind Mr. Fujioka, if you like?"
"Sure." Hanasu shrugged, and took her seat. She looked up to see that the teacher seemed to be looking around rather perplexedly, as if waiting for something, or perhaps someone.
"Ah. We were supposed to have another new student, but… It appears he's lost his way?" She said uneasily to the class, when suddenly, the sound of the intricate doors being opened cut her off.
'Another girly boy?' Hanasu thought, raising an eyebrow.
In the doorway stood a short, girlish boy, who was huffing slightly. He had probably run all the way here, Hanasu deduced. He had shaggy, golden brown hair that almost entirely covered his right eye, and his wide eyes were an odd shade of gold.
"I'm very sorry to be so late," The boy said quietly, bowing to the teacher. "I'm afraid there was a detour."
"Not at all, Mr. Gouto. Please, won't you introduce yourself?"
"Ah, yes. My name is Naoko Gouto. I hope we can all get along well…" The boy mumbled quietly to the eager-looking girls in the class, chancing a half-smile and looking a bit embarrassed and disheveled as the girls squealed things like, 'aww, he's so cute!' and 'looks like Haruhi-kun!' loudly.
'What a racket…' Hanasu thought, irritated. These girls were like frikkin' sirens…
"Well then, Mr. Gouto. Please sit in front of Mr. Hitachiin. Please, uh… One of you… Raise your hands…"
At this Hanasu looked in front of her, where there sat two identical boys on either end of Fujioka. She then saw Naoko silently walk over to his seat and take out his books.
'Another smart one.' Hanasu decided, and turned her attention towards the window for the rest of the period.
Meanwhile, Naoko himself was getting rather irritated. More than once, the boy had turned around, razor-fast, to stare annoyedly at the two identical Hitachiins that continued to throw paper and poke him with pencils.
"Was there something that you needed?" Naoko whispered through clenched teeth, fed up. His mood only darkened as the twins brought their lips up in smirks.
"Not at all. Stop distracting us." They chorused smugly. Naoko turned around again, but another piece of paper hit him in the back of the head.
'Ignore it, ignore it…' Naoko chided himself.
Poke, poke.
"Could you two stop tha—" Naoko began, but was interrupted by the teacher. "Mr. Gouto, eyes at the front, please." The woman said, and Naoko did just that, shying under the slight glare. He had to put up with another forty minutes of paper-throwing, pencil-poking, and snickering coming solely from those stupid twins.
Mercifully, the bell rang, and just as Naoko was about to get up and leave, he was stopped by a gentle voice.
"Gouto-san?" Naoko turned around to see the doe-eyed boy that sat between the twins during that hellish class.
"Yes?" Naoko said politely, blinking. He really hoped this boy wasn't about to pick on him for no reason, too.
"I'm sorry about the twins. They can be really annoying, right?" The boy said with a refreshing, girly smile that shouldn't have been used when talking about someone being annoying. But who was Naoko to judge? A few remaining girls squealed in the background, but both boys paid no mind to it.
"Quite." Naoko nodded with a sigh. "I pity you for having to sit in the middle of them."
The other boy heaved a sigh, then smiled. "Yeah, but they can be nice when they get to know someone. By the way, my name is Haruhi Fujioka. Nice to meet you."
"Naoko Gouto, and likewise." Naoko smiled. More squeals.
"Well, I've got to go now. I'll see you later." Haruhi said, waving goodbye and exiting the classroom. Naoko gathered his books slowly, then left himself, beginning to jog. He didn't want to be late for yet another class.
Meanwhile, in Class 2-A, a very annoyed Kyouya Ootori took his seat behind a very cheerful Tamaki Suoh, who immediately interrogated him on the new student. "So, Kyouya?" Tamaki whispered, grinning. "What's this new kid like? Is it a boy or girl? Are they attractive? If it's a boy, are they host club material? Are they friendly? Do they like commoner's coffee? Are they—"
"He," Kyouya interrupted, too irritated to keep up the calm and cool façade, "is a complete idiot whose foolishness surpasses your own. The entire way here he did nothing but babble on and on about the school and how he'd seen nothing like it and how he hoped his little sister would make some new friends. He was even worse than you when you first came here." Tamaki was struck with insult arrows ("idiot", "foolish"), but recovered in time to see the new kid introduce himself.
"I'm, um, Kakeru Hajimete! I just transferred here, so please treat me kindly! I hope to have a good year with all of you!" He bowed very deeply, flustered, but pulling it off in an attractive way, as apparent from the love struck expressions of the girls in the room.
"Alright, Mr. Hajimete, you can take a seat next to… how about next to Mr. Suoh?" the teacher suggested, smiling. Kakeru jumped, as if she'd just awoken him from some sort of dream.
"A-ah, okay," he said with an awkward smile, blushing slightly, and the girls just melted right there and then. He looked around for "Mr. Suoh", and Tamaki gave his charming smile (causing further meltage of all females in the room and lowered self-esteem at having all of these pretty boys in their class among the males) and raised his hand.
"Over here, Hajimete-kun." Kyouya twitched. There it was, Tamaki trying to make a good impression on a starry-eyed potential new recruit. While Kakeru didn't seem to react to the sparkly rose background that had suddenly materialized behind Tamaki, he was not unaffected by the Host King's obvious charisma. He nodded, somewhat embarrassed but eager (it was going to take the janitor forever to mop those girls off the floor), and took his seat next to Suoh. Kyouya sighed. No backing out now.
"So, Hajimete-kun," Tamaki began (quietly, as they were still in class and didn't want to be heard), then paused. "-Actually, may I use your first name?" Kakeru nodded. Tamaki probably had gotten him to do roughly anything by this point. He smiled confidently, as if he was in an ad for the benefits of being a host ("join the Ouran Host Club and you'll have confidence, looks, and pretty hair like me!"). "Kakeru-kun, I was thinking," he began. No stopping him now, Kyouya shrugged, and tuned out of the conversation, nodding whenever it seemed appropriate. From what he bothered to hear, Tamaki was simply inviting the new boy to check out the third music room after school for a "surprise." Kakeru agreed without any hesitation. At this point, Kyouya guessed, Tamaki was practically the poor kid's idol. Hm. He'd have to do a background check on him when he got the chance.
A few periods later, a throng of students crowded the lunch room, chattering away happily and eating lunches that were far too sophisticated to be given the title "cafeteria food". Naoko was used to this, of course. He was rich, too, but the fact that none of these kids even said a simple "thanks for the meal" perplexed him. Shouldn't they act just a little more grateful, or were they completely ignorant of the growing issue of world hunger?
At that point, Naoko's thought process trailed off, because he realized that he'd been overthinking things yet again. And really, was it any of his business whether the other kids said "thanks" or not?
"Thanks for the food." He muttered under his breath. He sighed and brought the fork up to his mouth, savouring the rich tastes that, although he was so used to, he never tired of, when suddenly, a cluster of girls surrounded the doorway, and he heard them exclaim,
"HARUHI-KUN! YOU FORGOT YOUR LUNCH?"
"Ah, yes, but it's alright. I had breakfast, so I'll be fine."
Naoko stared disbelievingly at the sparkles that came flying out of the heap of girls as they squealed and shrieked once more. He sighed.
'They're so loud...' he thought with a sweatdrop. He really couldn't be bothered enough to endure the noise, so he got up to leave. Unfortunately for him, this meant having to sneak around the gaggle of blushing girls, because they were blocking the only exit.
"Haruhi! I heard you forgot your lunch! Let me buy you something! Let me buy you something!" The voice of an idiot cried out, and, if it was even possible, more females flocked to the doorway, accidentally knocking Naoko to the ground with a soft thud.
"Oh, Naoko-san? Are you alright?" Haruhi asked, offering his hand to Naoko.
Suddenly, everyone in the crowd wheeled around super fast to stare at him. Naoko took Haruhi's hand gingerly and was swiftly pulled to his feet.
And now he was sparkling, too. What was wrong with this place? Cartoon hearts, sparkles... Was he going insane or something?
"Haruhi, who is this? A new student?" Sounded the voice of an idiot again, and Naoko looked up to see a tall, good-looking blonde guy pouting with a finger to his mouth, obviously not thrilled that this strange boy was acting so familiar with Haruhi.
"Yes, hello. My name is Naoko Gouto." Naoko smiled in what he hoped was a polite and sincere way. "Nice to meet... you? ACK!" He cried as the blonde leaned over and was right in his face.
"Well then, Naoko Gouto..." He said, and then pointed dramatically toward him. "You are officially recruited into the host club!"
More sparkles. More Squeals. More cartoon hearts.
"Um..." Naoko said uncomfortably, backing away and into the doorway. "No thanks," he finished, and left in a hurry.
"Wait a second, wait a second!" The boy yelled in shcok, and was suddenly in front of him, still sparkling. "You haven't even heard me out! Please, just come to the third music room after school, and you'll definitely want to join the host club! I guarantee it! My name is Tamaki Suoh, and I am the king of the host club!"
Oh great, and now there were roses.
"The king?"
"The king!" he replied cheerfully.
"... That sounds stupid. I'm not going."
Tamaki turned completely white before wandering off to a dark-lit corner and sulking in what Naoko could only classify as the fetal position. He looked at Haruhi—what was one supposed to do in a situation like this?—but Haruhi only sighed. "Senpai, don't be stupid," the boy scolded. "If Gouto-san doesn't want to join, he doesn't have to."
"Haaa-ruuuu-hiiiiiii…." Tamaki whined.
Naoko cast a grateful glance in Haruhi's direction. At least someone here had common sense. Haruhi met the new boy's eyes and smiled. The lunchroom erupted into sparkles and the squeals of fangirls.
Naoko sighed. Moment ruined. "Does this whole… sparkly thing happen often?" he asked.
Haruhi chuckled awkwardly. "Increasingly."
"Oh, look, there's Suoh-san!" Both boys turned to see a tall, black-haired boy come running over to the fallen host king, followed by a younger girl with short black hair. He turned to the girl. "See, see, Hana-chan? That's Suoh-san!"
Tamaki, hearing someone call his name, leapt up, fully recovered. "Ah, Kakeru-kun!"
The girl, Hanasu, simply stared dully at Tamaki, clearly not anywhere near as impressed with him as Kakeru evidently was.
"Oh, and who is this?" Tamaki said, his voice lowering with a princely smile as he took Hanasu's hand in his. "It is a pleasure to meet you, princess. Won't you tell me your name?"
If her contempt for him wasn't evident in her spiteful glare, than the fact that she whipped her hand out of his grasp, recoiling with anger should have made it clear. This, once more, caused the over exuberant blonde to retreat to a darkened corner.
Naoko looked over to the new arrivals pleasantly. Once again, he was glad someone with common sense had shown up. The boy next to her, however…
"Oh! Suoh-san, are you alright? Don't take it personally, um, that's just how Hana-chan is!" The boy said worriedly, hurrying over to Tamaki to reassure him.
"She rejected me, she rejected me…" Tamaki sulked, pouting like a child who was told he was on time-out, and poked at his newly-cultivated mushrooms.
"And now mushrooms are randomly growing… Greeat…" Naoko mumbled to himself sarcastically, and began to walk away. "Oh, and Fujioka?"
"Yeah?" Haruhi asked.
"I pity you." He deadpanned, and left without a word, only sparing a glance back at Tamaki because she had heard a stabbing sound. Sure enough, an insult arrow had pierced him right after he had spoken. "And now there are arrows. I'm out of here." And then he left.
Haruhi sighed. "Senpai, get out of the corner. You're creating a scene."
"Don't wanna…" Tamaki said with a bigger pout than before.
"Uhm, uh…" Kakeru said uncertainly, and then smiled awkwardly. "So, I'm really looking forward to, um, after school?"
Tamaki unexpectedly rose and laid one of his hands on Kakeru's shoulder. When he lifted his face, everyone saw his eyes were sparkling excitedly, and he had a silly smile on his face. "Good, very good!" He gave the thumbs up with his free hand. "That was a good expression, Kakeru-kun! You'll do well at the host club! Fantastic, even!"
"Ehm, er… Thank you?" Kakeru said, smiling confusedly.
"I've had enough of this." Hanasu suddenly said with a sigh, and turned on her heel to leave.
"Ah! Wait, Hana-chan!" Said Kakeru quickly, trying to stop her, but she was already out the door. "Hana…chan…" He frowned worriedly, and was suddenly surrounded by girls.
"Oh, it's okay, Kakeru-kun!"
"I'm sure she didn't mean anything by it!"
"She's your sister, right? All siblings fight sometimes!"
"It'll be okay!"
"Yeah, you just have to believe in yourself!"
Kakeru sniffled, and smiled. "Yeah!"
The janitor was really going to hate him for leaving such a mess of melted girls on the floor.
