It had started out as a normal day for the Host Club. Well, as normal as it ever gets. Tamaki was charming all the ladies, Kyoya was being his usual classy business-type self, the twins were being sarcastic, Hunny was eating sweets, and Mori… well, he was doing his thing. Haruhi sat at a table watching as her fellow club members went about their usual activities. Occasionally, she would partake in conversation with customers, but today was slow, and what few clients they had today were busying themselves with Tamaki and the twins. The music room was filled with the low roar of conversation, intermittently broken by the sound of a fan-girl giggle. Suddenly, the noise went into a drastic diminuendo, and everyone turned to the doorway. There stood a girl, dressed in a form fitting grey Hilfiger tank top with a leather jacket slung across a shoulder. Her feet were clad in formidable looking combat boots, and her jeans were faded and flared. On her face was a look of apathy and mild displeasure. She certainly didn't look like a girl you would want to tick off.
"Good afternoon," Kyoya said. "Welcome to the Ouran Host Club. May I assist you, m'lady?" He gave a slight bow and resumed a casual posture.
The new girl looked up at him, as she was a few inches shorter. "Um… hi there," she said, cocking an eyebrow. "I'm new here, and I sort of got lost looking for the uniform store and was hoping someone could give me directions." She glanced across the room and added, "Although I don't particularly look forward to having to wear those hideous dresses…"
Several of the girls in the room gasped at her blasphemy against the European designers who made their uniforms. Several mutters of "How tasteless," and "Hideous? She hasn't looked in the mirror!" and other such cries of dismay floated through the room. The new girl merely rolled her eyes and said, "I'm Kichigai Tsureru. I'm a transfer student from overseas. I'll be in the 2-A class." She gave a succinct bow and asked flatly, "And who do I have the pleasure of introducing myself to?"
"Ootori Kyoya," he replied, just as flatly. "I am also in the 2-A class. It is nice to make your acquaintance. If you would like, you could stay here for a while, and I will see if anyone will escort you to the uniform store."
The new girl, Tsureru, gave a surprisingly sweet smile and said, "Thank you Ootori-san. I'm afraid I'm not particularly good with directions so that would be excellent." Kyoya nodded and showed Tsureru inside. "I had heard this school was extravagant, but I never expected something like this," Tsureru said. "Everything was far more Spartan where I came from. However, the academics were still superb." Tsureru grimaced as she took another look at the girls' uniforms. "Looking at those piss-colored poofy things makes me want to go back already"
Haruhi gave a slight snicker, and Tsureru looked at her. "What're you laughing about? Obviously you don't like wearing them either."
It took a moment for the others to realize what Tsureru had implied, but Kyoya caught on immediately. "Ah, could I speak with you a moment, Kichigai-san?"
Tsureru nodded and obediently followed Kyoya into a smaller adjoining room. Kyoya cleared his throat and said, "Now, would you care to clarify your earlier statement?"
"Earlier statement? What that hell do you mean?" Tsureru asked, confused. "That one girl was in a men's uniform, so obviously she doesn't like to wear the women's uniform."
Kyoya hummed in thought and wrote some notes on his ever present clipboard. "Yes, indeed. Then our situation here is rather delicate, Kichigai-san. You see," he said, looking up, "The members of the host club are the only ones who know Haruhi-san is a girl. You must be quite sharp to have noticed it immediately, when everyone else hasn't noticed for the entire semester. Her first day here she broke a rather expensive vase, and being a commoner scholarship student, is now working to pay off her debt."
"Hmm, your idea I'm sure. Cold, efficient, business-like." Tsureru stated.
Kyoya adjusted his glasses on the bridge of his nose. "Regardless of this, I must request that you keep silent about our "gender-bender" situation. If you so desire, some form of compensation could be arranged, I'm sure."
Tsureru grinned mischievously. "Oh don't worry, Ootori-san, her secret is safe behind these lips. As for compensation…" Tsureru paused to think and eyes twinkled in a way that could only mean trouble. "I'll have to think about what I would really want."
With that, she turned away from Kyoya and walked back into the Music Room. As she was walking to the exit, something jumped onto her back and her field of vision was suddenly full of rabbit.
"I'm Hunny! And this is my Bun-Bun," Hunny said. "Do you want to stay and have some cake with me?"
Tsureru stared blankly over her shoulder at the little person clinging to her back. "Uhh… sure?" she said awkwardly. With Hunny still hanging onto her, she made her way over to a couch and set him down. She sat across from him and helped herself to a generous slice of chocolate cake, taking special care to get a strawberry. As she savored the rich taste on her tongue, a looming shadow fell over her. She looked up to see a tall figure looking down at her. "Hello?" she said.
"Ohayo," the figure replied. He handed her a glass of milk, and sat down next Hunny after handing him one also.
Seeing Tsureru's flustered expression, Tamaki took the chance to make his introduction. He swept down on her, as she was chewing her cake, and took her free hand in his. "Greetings, fair maiden, do not be alarmed. As ominous as he looks, Mori-sempai would never do you harm." He made a flourishing bow and roses magically sprung from nowhere. "I am Suoh Tamaki, King of this Host Club, and your prince charming. But since we are going to be classmates, you can call me Tamaki-kun," he flashed an award winning smile and added, "and could I call you Tsureru-chan? I would allow you to lead me wherever you wished, darling." [Author's Note: Tsureru – to lead, to take (a person); Kichigai – mad, madness; so roughly, "to lead into madness"?]
Tsureru was completely taken aback by his dramatic and completely open introduction. After blankly staring at him for a moment, she seemed to realize she never swallowed her bite of cake. After washing it down awkwardly with a glass of milk, she said, "Nice to meet you, Tamaki-san, but I won't be leading anyone anywhere with my crappy sense of direction." She laughed nervously, and glanced around. "Ah, I think any more introductions can wait for now. How about that uniform store Ootori-san?"
Kyoya nodded and steered Tsureru out of the Music room and down the hallway. "You must have an absolutely horrible sense of direction. The uniform store is two buildings over," he stated when they were outside.
Tsureru gave an embarrassed laugh and said, "Yeah, but I suppose that's all part of living up to my name, huh?"
As they neared the correct building, Tsureru scoffed. "I wasn't that far off. It looks exactly like the other one." She stuck her tongue out at him while he opened the door for her. The bell at the top of the door announced their arrival.
"Indeed, it does." Kyoya agreed smiling politely as if her childish antic had gone unnoticed.
"Greetings, how may I be of assist…" The seamstress trailed off when she saw who walked into her store. She was about to ask if Tsureru was in the right place when she noticed Kyoya standing behind her. "Oh, Master Kyoya, it has been a while." She warmly ushered them in, as if compensating for her earlier rudeness.
"Yes is has been, hasn't it? This is-"
"I'm Kichigai Tsureru, transfer student. I need a uniform for tomorrow, please." Tsureru said, more coldly than necessary. Realizing how still she sounded, she faked a smile and held out her hand in an attempt to seem friendly.
The seamstress gingerly shook her hand and said, "You can call me Maru-chan. I apologize for my earlier behavior. I have never seen anyone dressed like you on campus before. May I ask, why you didn't come in sooner for your uniforms?"
Tsureru laughed, "Yeah, I was ah… held up at a nearby village. I got in not to long ago." Tsureru was getting tired of everyone being so shocked about her appearance. She didn't see anything wrong with it. "Don't I need to get measured or something?"
Maru-chan physically jumped as if she had forgotten her entire reason for working at Ouran. "Of course, if you could just follow me, and Master Kyoya, if you could please wait over there." Tsureru obediently followed Maru-chan into a room with a large three-fold mirror and held out her arms for the measurements.
"Huh," Tsureru sighed, a puff of air escaping from her lips. Maru-chan had stepped out for a moment to find a dress in a close size to bring back for fitting and adjusting. "There is no higher punishment for myself than wearing that disgusting poof piss dress thing."
Kyoya overheard her and came to the doorway. "It's not so bad as you may think. Elite designers in Europe specially created these dresses. None of the other girls object to it. I would suggest wearing the men's uniform, if I didn't think that you wearing it may make other's more suspicious of Haruhi-san"
Tsureru turned around, "Pervert, you're not supposed to be peeking into the dressing room!"
Kyoya coughed and said, "I am not a pervert, nor am I 'peeking.' You're not even undressed anyways. Now that I think of it, if you did reveal Haruhi-san's secret, I would just make you pay back her debt."
Tsureru thought for a moment and then asked, "How must is her debt anyways?"
Kyoya did some quick mental calculations and then stated, "Now it is about… seven and a half million yen."
"Holy shit!" Tsureru exclaimed, "that much just for a VASE? Why would you even have a vase that expensive, let alone leave it where it could be broken! I bet you idiots had it out in the middle of the room, trying to show it off."
"Ah…" Kyoya did not respond to the last comment and merely said, "Just as you said, Ouran is extravagant."
"Yeah, tell me about it. I wouldn't be here if not for that scholarship."
"I know." At Tsureru's questioning glance, he stated, "My database has information on everyone in this school."
"Stalker," Tsureru retorted.
A vaguely menacing silence began to spread, but was dissipated with the return of Maru-chan with the "piss-colored" garment. "You can leave, you know," Tsureru said to Kyoya. "You got me to the uniform store, just like you said you would."
"True," he agreed, "but I'd like to stay to ensure you can find your way back out again." He smiled his host-smile.
A pulse mark appeared on Tsureru's brow. "I can find my way out! It's not like I don't remember… how we… came… in…"
Kyoya raised an eyebrow. "Indeed I'm sure you do. Regardless, I'd like to stay and see if you are actually presentable in proper women's clothing before I return to my hosting duties. At the least, it would be amusing." He grinned in a slightly mischievous way.
Tsureru suddenly became violently pissed off and a death glare fogged her vision. "What is that supposed to mean? That I'm not a proper girl unless I wear that overly pompous …thing?! Hmph. I'm more a girl than half of these spoiled bitches will ever be! Just ask-" She abrubtly cut herself off, not wanting to reveal more than she meant to. She grunted in frustration and grabbed the dress from Maru-chan, who was standing subserviently to the side.
Kyoya barely saw her dash across the room behind a changing curtain and heard several loud noises as Tsureru chucked things into the wall. Tsureru dashed out a moment later, barefoot but garbed in the uniform, trembling with rage. Her now messy hair fell like disheveled curtains around her head. "Am I presentable now… KYOYA," she spat.
As Maru-chan slowly inched out of the room, Kyoya took a step towards Tsureru and cupped her chin in his hand. "Actually, you do look quite lovely, if I may say." Tsureru continued to glare at him, not wanted to give him the satisfaction of a blush. "If you were attemping to be insulting or threatening, by the way, you sorely missed your mark," he sighed, releasing her from his warm touch. "It is rather a shame. That was the first time you used my first name, and without an honorific, too." [Author's note: haha, I picture Kyoya at the last part waving his hand like Shigure. Sorry for the Out of Char! Haha].
Tsureru blinked. She couldn't think of a proper retort, and as her rebellious drive wouldn't let her loose, she abruptly turned on her heel to go change back into her regular clothes. As she walked, the same warm hand that had touched her chin now took her elbow. "What now?"
"Relax," Kyoya replied. "I'm simply pulling your zipper up all the way, as you neglected to do." Tsureru blushed and was thankful he couldn't see, even if Maru-chan could. She felt him pull the zipper up and then it stopped. "How annoying. It seems to have gotten stuck," Kyoya said.
"Great, thanks, Mr. Chivalry. I don't see why it mattered anyway, if I was only going to take it back off again." Tsureru snapped.
"This is the difference between the upper class and commoners. I, for one, when trying on clothes, would actually do it right, and make everything proper, including zippers, buttons, and clasps. Things like that seem to be overlooked by normal people."
"Oh, I'm sorry," Tsureru replied, nonchalantly, "I quit listening after shit started spewing from your mouth."
Kyoya made no reply but kept trying to move the zipper. "Oh my."
Tsureru turned her head. "What 'oh my'? That doesn't sound like a good 'oh my'."
Maru-chan walked over to assist and added, "It seems that somehow some stray threads were entangled in Master Kyoya's watch and are now stuck with the zipper. I don't think this will come apart easily."
Tsureru huffed in frustration. "Oh lovely. Just take your watch off, stupid."
"I can't take it off" Kyoya stated flatly. "The way the string got tangled doesn't allow me to unclasp the band without breaking it." Kyoya tried once more, to no avail. They were stuck together.
As Tsureru was about to make another rude comment, the door of the uniform store opened; Kyoya could immediately tell from the voices who it was, and groaned.
"EH!! That Nekozawa is one- GAH!" Tamaki exclaimed as he saw Kyoya and Tsureru. "Ho ho ho, Kyoya, I didn't know you were that kind of man!" he said, as the rest of the host club filed in behind him.
A beet red Tsureru growled, "It's not what you think you useless sonuva-"
But Tamaki didn't get to hear the rest of what he was, as he broke down crying, "No, she called me useless. Just….like…Haruhi….."
"Ugh!! Screw this!!" She dragged a mildly frustrated Kyoya with her into the changing room and came back fully dressed in her previous garments.
"Now can we forget that ever happened and live our separate lives. Goddess, what a weird school!" She took a deep breath and walked out of the room.
"WAIT!" the twins called after her.
SQUEAK! went a yellow bit of cloth beneath Tsureru's foot. She stepped back and picked it up. "Aww! A puppet!" She put it on her hand. "KAWAII!"
"Belzeneff!" A voice shouted.
"Huh? Uh, AHHH!" A black shape came hurling at her, toppling her over onto the hard floor. "AHH! HELP! RAPE! ABUSE! HELP ME DAMMIT!!"
"Shush," said the same voice that had yelled at her earlier. "You mustn't disturb the spirits anymore than you already have! Give me my Belzeneff!" said the black figure.
"The puppet?! You knocked me over for a puppet!!" Tsureru said incredulously, still pinned to the floor. "Why does it seem like every guy I meet comes onto me one way or another? This is the most literal yet!"
"Give it back" he whined.
"Who are you?"
"Nekozawa. Give me my Belzeneff."
"Tsureru. You can get off me now."
He complied slowly, but his hidden face did not reveal any sign of a blush.
"So this puppet is important?" Tsureru asked.
"Yes, very."
"I see."
"Can I have it back now?"
"…"
"…"
Tsureru took a step or two back, and before she knew it, she was running away as fast as she could. She didn't know why the hell she was running, but he gave her a bad feeling. She was running to where she though was the exit, when she collided head-on with a column. As she sat on the floor massaging her throbbing head, the black cloaked figure, Nekozawa he called himself, came running around the corner.
"Belzeneff!" He shouted. He snatched the puppet off Tsureru's hand and cuddled it, murmuring, "I'm so sorry, Belzeneff! Are you ok? Yes, we will get revenge on the strange new girl who tried to kidnap you." Tsureru dusted herself off and edged away from the muttering psychopath.
"Tsureru-chan! Thank goodness you are alright!" Tsureru turned and saw Tamaki running towards her dramatically in slow motion, tears of joy streaming from his eyes. He finally reached her and said, "I was so worried that you would be cursed. One time, I stepped on Belzeneff on accident, and when I went to my next class to take my final exam, horrendous curse-like words were on the paper in front of me! And when I turned around, the room was filled with strange people I had never seen before from an alternate dimension!"
Tsureru looked back and forth from Tamaki, the babbling idiot, to Nekozawa, the supposedly evil puppet-loving psycho. "So," she said slowly, "this guy put a 'curse' on you..."
"No, that was simply Tamaki taking a test in Greek instead of whatever he was supposed to be." Kyoya stated as he walked up behind Tamaki.
"Oh," Tsureru said. "How anti-climactic." For such a prestigious school, the people here are total nut jobs. "Well, curse or not, life is definitely going to be more interesting here. That's for sure."
Later on:
The host club was closing up shop at the end of the day, and the twins cornered Kyoya before he had a chance to leave. They grinned maliciously and circled him like beasts closing in on their prey.
"So Kyoya," Kaoru began.
"It would seem that you are now the closest person to Tsureru." Hikaru finished.
Kyoya looked at them, utterly flabbergasted. "What on earth are you talking about? I know her no more than you do."
The twins looked at each other and said in unison, "You've seen her naked." At the word 'naked', the rest of the host club turned around to see what would transpire.
Kyoya blinked in surprise and said, "You are being ridiculous. I saw no such thing. She tore her way out of the dress and was back into her clothes before I had a chance to even take a breath. Not that I was looking," he added, "because that would be improper..."
"Riiight," Kaoru and Hikaru said. "If you say so. How did she change out of it so fast anyways, if the zipper was stuck I wonder. Perhaps with some help?"
"I said it already. She literally tore her way out." Kyoya grimaced at the thought.
"...Note to selves: Don't piss off the new sempai!"
Author Postlude
Hey guys :D It's Aly here. I finally got around to rewriting this haha. Hopefully I will finish it. Cheer me on! ^_^ Chapter Two is actually in the making, so if it's not up within a week, someone has to email me and bother me to finish it ok? haha.
Sorry for any typos. I wrote this late at night. I seem to do alot of writing late at night. -laugh-
I hope the ending isn't too awkward. it seems that way to me o_O"
