It was just another ordinary day at the Ouran High School Host Club... well, as close as it can get to just another day. "The Ouran High School is a private academy defined by prestigious families, wealth, and prosperous people who have too much time on their hands. Therefore, theOuran High School Host Club is about these handsome young men who have time that give hospitality to these lovely young women who also have time, and profit off of them. It's an elegant game unique to this super-rich school," as quoted from the president (a.k.a. King) of the Host Club, Tamaki Suoh. In other words, the Ouran High School Host Club is about a group of 7 handsome young males who Host, converse, joke, and flirt with several parties of young female clients who go to the club to be entertained.
The club had been idealized by the President, Tamaki Suoh, a Junior, who is a blue-eyed blonde with ambition and very dedicated to hosting the clientele with the utmost affection, and extremely dramatic antics. With his best friend and vice president of the Host Club, Kyoya Ohtori, a Junior, black haired, gray eyed, and wears glasses, who has a very calm, and cool exterior, number one in his class (due to his eidetic imagery), and enjoys making as much profit as possible from the clientele (they pay quite a bit of money to be entertained by the various hosts), he had started the host club. After starting the club, they recruited Mitsukuni Haninozuka (a.k.a. Hani) blonde and brown-eyed, and his cousin Takashi Morinozuka (a.k.a. Mori) black haired and gray-eyed, seniors, who are captains of the Kendo Club, and had time to spare, thus they joined the Host Club. Soon after, they recruited Hikaru Hitachiin and Kaoru Hitachiin, freshman who are twins, red-haired and amber-eyed, and they also had time to spare, so they joined the club in order to entertain the many ladies with their joking antics, and their very close, brotherly love relationship, also part of the act in entertaining these young women. Their last recruit was recruited more by accident than anything, and her name is Haruhi Fujioka. Yes, her name is Haruhi Fujioka, a freshman who is a scholarship student, number one in her class, and the poorest student at the school (middle class). She came across the Host Club, well, more like stumbled, across the Host Club when she was looking for a quiet place to study.
She interrupted a club meeting, and as she was trying to walk out, she knocked down an $80,000 vase, and she was automatically in debt with the Host Club. Thus, she would have to be part of the host club, and host clientele in order to pay off the vase. Unfortunately, she was so poor, that she couldn't even afford to buy the proper uniform, so the Host Club bought her a male uniform. The reason for this was because they had confused her for a male student, due to her very short brown hair, but she said nothing. After she had hosted for the first time, they saw that she was very popular with the female clientele due to her gentle voice, and very natural conversing skills. Soon after, when she was going to change into the male uniform, she didn't allow them to see her change, and when Tamaki took her other clothing to her and opened the curtain, he saw that she had a pink camisole on with two bumps on her chest. It was then that they realized that they had a recruited a girl as a member of the ALL-MALE Host club, but of course they recalled that she had a debt to settle with them (the vase she broke), so they let the gender issue slide. She has since been a member disguised as a male in order to host groups of young ladies to pay off her debt.
Now, as we forward back to today, it was a very ordinary day. The host club was working the crowd of ladies that they had, Tamaki being the flirtatious one with his clientele, complimenting the way her hair looked; Kyoya was set up a tea party in which he was holding an auction for the hosts' various items that they had previously owned (Tamaki's tie, Kyoya's old calculator, the twin's hairbrush, Haruhi's favorite pencil, etc.); Hani and Mori were sharing a cake (this was because Hani's favorite food item were sweets) with the group of clientele that they were hosting, Hikaru and Kaoru were playing a game of poker with their group of ladies, and the winner would get to kiss both twins on the cheek; and Haruhi was just being herself, or himself, we should say, conversing and being charming with her clientele. She was in the middle of talking with one of the clientele when Kyoya came up to her, with a new client next to him.
"Haruhi, this we have a new guest in the Host club today. Her name is Sakuya Jetèem, and she wants you to be her first Host," he motioned towards the girl to sit down next Haruhi, and she nodded a thank you to him, and she sat down next to Haruhi. The girl was very beautiful, she had long, black curly hair tied to the side so that it cascaded down to below her chest, and bright cerulean colored eyes, with a dewy, white face. The other girls blushed in envy, and Haruhi simply looked with a smile.
"Good afternoon! You're new to the school, aren't you?" Haruhi asked with the same smile.
"Yes, I am," Sakuya replied with a soft voice.
"Well don't you worry, you'll like it here very much, everyone is very friendly. What school did you transfer from?"
"I transferred from Toujoir Academy in Paris."
"Wow, they say Paris is a gorgeous city!"
"Yes, it is, and I miss it very much" Sakuya said with a somewhat somber look.
"What brings you here then?" Haruhi asked with sincere kindness. "I'm here to meet my fiancée. We will be getting married after graduation, so we must start preparations soon," Sakuya replied with a smile, but her look remained distant.
"Is this an arranged marriage?"
"It is, but don't get me wrong, I love my fiancée! We've known each other since we were children, and we are very comfortable with each other, he is almost like my brother, we are very close. But I do love him very much," she grew bright as she said this, twiddling a napkin.
Haruhi looked at her with a smile again, "Then I am very happy for you. I wish you the best with this engagement." Sakuya smiled with true sincerity, and said, "Thank you. Oh look! I must be leaving now, my escort will be picking me up soon. My fiancée and I will be meeting tonight with our families. It was so nice getting to meet you, you are very kind," she said as she was got up from her spot next to Haruhi, and was holding her hand.
"The pleasure was all mine Miss Jetèem," Haruhi said with her smile, and Sakuya walked to Kyoya in which he thanked her for going to the Host Club, and she thanked him back with a small nod and a few words in exchange, and she left.
After the rest of the clientele left, the Hosts were left in the room lounging around, and one of the twins was standing up next to Haruhi, and he asked, "So, who was that girl? She was absolutely gorgeous!"
'Yes, this has to be Hikaru, only he would say something like that,' Haruhi thought to herself.
"Yeah Haru-chan, she was really pretty," Hani's light voice said as he popped up behind her, then Mori merely nodded, his opinion almost always being the same as Hani's.
"Well… her name is Sakuya Jetèem, and she comes from Paris. She's a transfer student," she said, and she was about to continue on what she had learned, but Kyoya interrupted her.
"She's from Paris, her parents own the Pearl International company there. They export millions of pearls around the world, very wealthy, and she is beautiful" Kyoya said this as he sat at the computer.
"Yes, yes, she is quite a beauty, but not as beautiful as our Haruhi!!!" Tamaki, the president of the club, was gesturing his hands towards Haruhi, blushing as he exclaimed this, and looked at her. He had grown an immediate crush on her right after figuring out that she was a girl, and that she was cute. Haruhi tried her best to smile, but she was clearly irritated, and was twitching a bit as he exclaimed that.
Then Tamaki rushed next to her, grabbed her hands, and said, "Haruhi, you know I would never think of any other girl more beautiful than you!!!" he looked with the lights flashing in his eyes, blushing as he looked at her still. She then pried her hands out of his grip, pinched his hand, and she said in a low, almost hissing, "You would be more attractive if it weren't for your absent-mindedness about not grabbing my hands without permission," then let go of his hands, and he backed away, having a disappointed, teary eyed, almost comical look on his face.
"You know, if he had a declarative memory, he wouldn't forget that you had said that before, don't you agree, Haruhi?" Kaoru, one of the twins, said, slipping around Haruhi, putting his hand around her waist, smirking at Tamaki.
"Yeah, Tamaki, you should have it acoustically encoded into your memory so it's in storage forever, isn't that right, Haruhi?" Hikaru asked her getting behind her, and hugging her by the shoulders, and crooking his head between her shoulder and neck.
"Exactly, so if she repeats 'Don't touch me,' constantly, it would be engraved in his long-term memory!" Kaoru replied back to his brother, laughing.
"Yeah! Then the next time he'd hear it, his retrieval cues would be the anger in her voice, and he'd have to stop!" Hikaru replied back, laughing as well.
"The magic of maintenance and elaborative rehearsal!" They both said together, and kept laughing.
Haruhi just kept a solemn face, not showing much emotion. She knew that the twins only did it to taunt Tamaki, and they taunted him all the time, so she figured if she didn't show any reaction, it would make him feel better. Tamaki grew angry, and went to the twins, yelling in their faces,
"How dare you touch my Haruhi!!! Can't you see that she doesn't want to be touched-"
"Who ever said I was yours?" she replied flatly with her still solemn face. Tamaki lost the anger in his face, and became sad again, crouching in a corner, being woeful. Kyoya looked at the situation and sighed as he pushed his glasses up against his face.
"As I was saying," The twins let go of Haruhi as Kyoya said this, and she let out a sigh.
"She came here to get married to Alex Dufon, his parents own the Tareka Diamond Company, and they also sell and export diamonds all over Japan, and Europe, very wealthy as well. Alex is a senior here, he has always attended Ouran Academy, but Sakuya, as she may have told you Haruhi, recently moved here from Paris to marry him after graduation. Their parents must figure that by combining Pearl International and Tareka Diamond Company, they would be the ultimate jewelry company," Kyoya said, closing the notepad where he had been calculating the money that the Host club made that day.
"Oh, and by the way, Haruhi, if you want to know how much you have left on your debt, I could tell you right now," he said, still putting away some items that were on the desk.
"Eh, it's fine… I don't need to know right now," she said with a side smile, but still feeling embarrassed.
"Well then, I guess we can all go home now," Tamaki said, grabbing his backpack, and other items.
"Yeah, see you tomorrow!" Hikaru and Kaoru said in unison. "See you all tomorrow!!" Hani said jumping up and down, and Mori following behind him. "Good bye then, until tomorrow," Kyoya said walking out the door with his briefcase. "Bye everyone," she said grabbing her backpack on one shoulder, and she noticed that Tamaki held the door open for her. "Thank you Tamaki," she said as she walked out the door, and waited for him. "Your welcome, Haruhi. Oh, and do you need a ride home, because I can take you home! I do have a limo that has more than enough room for two people-"
"No, it's alright Tamaki, I'm pretty sure I can walk from here," she said trying to laugh it off.
"Are you sure, because I really can!!!"
"Yes, I think I am completely sure!"
And the two walked down the hallway and out of the school arguing about a ride home.
The next day, afterschool at the Host club, everything had been going normally, all the Hosts entertaining their guest, and having food available, when there came four very loud knocks at the door. None of the activity stopped, but Tamaki stood up to get the door. When he opened the door, he recognized that the two men standing at the door were from the Police Department (due to the fact that had access to the Tokyo Police Department at any time, thanks to Kyoya, who's father owned the Tokyo Police Department).
"Good afternoon, and welcome to our Host Club. How may we help you today?" Tamaki knew that he had to be serious in front of police officers, and because the police have never come to the Host club for any reason whatsoever, he knew there was something wrong.
"Good afternoon, we've come to ask you and your Hosts a few questions regarding an investigation we are working on," one of the police officers said calmly.
"Yes, certainly," Tamaki said, then he turned to Kyoya who was watching what was going on, and said softly, "I think we need to dismiss the club early." Kyoya nodded, and clapped his hands and said, "All right ladies, I'm afraid that today we will be ending our meeting early," many of the girls awed in response, but he replied back, "Don't worry ladies, we shall be having our meeting again tomorrow, as scheduled, so there is no reason to be sad. Thank you for coming," he said as he let all of the girls out of the club room. Then all the hosts looked at the two men next to Tamaki, and waited to respond.
"Should we all sit down?" Tamaki asked the two men.
"Yes, it's quite urgent, actually," the two men said motioning at the table where all of them could sit down.
"I am Suzaku Higamaya, and I am the chief of this investigation. We wanted to know if you all know a girl named Sakuya Jetèem?"
All the host members replied with yes, and the chief continued his interrogation.
"Did she happen to come by here yesterday?"
"Yes, she did, she came because she had heard about us from a friend of hers, who is also a client of ours," Kyoya said with concern.
"Who is this friend of hers? What is her name?" the chief continued to ask.
"Her name is Artemis Devin, she's been a client for a few months now. May we ask why you are here interrogating us about Sakuya?" Kyoya asked, still remaining stern. The chief of the investigation sighed, and said, "Last night, around 10pm, Sakuya had been murdered by two shots to the chest outside of Kisame Grill on Shioku Street and Hiroshi Street." The Host club had all gasped at this, but Haruhi seemed to have the most shock out of the seven.
"My partner and I would like to interrogate you all separately if you don't mind," and none of the Host club members objected.
After they had all been interrogated, the two police officers thanked them, and said that they would come again if they needed them, and with that, they left. The Host members looked at each other after, still in complete shock about the murder.
"Why would someone want to kill her?" Haruhi asked in a trembling voice, and Tamaki, who happened to be next to her put his arm around her, trying to calm her down. Then Kyoya said, "I think it's best to not think about it anymore, and just go home." But Tamaki felt Haruhi start to sob, and then he held her tighter, then he stood up on his two feet, and exclaimed, "We should investigate this on our own, to find out why Sakuya had been killed, and who had done it!"
Everyone had looked at Tamaki with dead panned faces, and yelled "Don't be stupid!"
"Can't you see what has just happened here?! This isn't a game now, someone was really killed!" Kyoya said to Tamaki trying to reason with him.
"Exactly! Kyoya, do you not have all the access to police records, and medical records at your father's disposal?" Tamaki said being completely serious.
'Either this fool's brain encoding isn't working properly, or something his ideas are blocking my reasoning,' Kyoya thought to himself.
"Tamaki, please be reason-" Kyoya stopped himself in the middle of the sentence, and remembered that he did have access to all the medical records and police records at his father's disposal because his father did own all of it. And he knew that having the smartest students in the Freshman, Junior, and Senior classes in this one club, it would be a more than easy task trying to solve a murder mystery before the actual police could do it. And besides, he knew that they had more brains in that one room than the entire police department did. It would be interesting to try and solve this mystery before the police. It seemed as though Tamaki had more brains than he thought he did. Kyoya simply pushed his glasses up against his face, and said, "I think you're right Tamaki, we could actually be successful in trying to solve this case before the detectives could do it, we would just need assignments, and time to put in this investigation," and Tamaki's eyes seemed to really sparkle at this acknowledgement.
"Yay, Tama-chan is happy! I'm sure we could solve this case too!" Hani said coming out of his gloomy state, and Mori said a quick yes after Hani had said so.
"Yes! We could go interview different people, and getting what we need for the case!" The twins chimed in after Hani and Mori.
Haruhi remained in her pensive state, and looked at them like they were all idiots. "Are you all serious about doing this? How could teenagers like us figure out the murder of someone we barely know? The way we're thinking about our aptitudes has got us way over our heads. "
"Well, Haruhi, don't you see why we're the top students in our classes?" Tamaki asked her, slithering up next to her?
"Why?" she asked very flatly and bluntly.
"The computer metaphor, think about it. Our brains work just like computers," Tamaki said with a smile.
"Like computers? Really?"
"Yes! And because we use whole methods. We've each got it, we wouldn't be this smart if we didn't,"
"And how do we know we use whole methods?"
"Because we're all very good at chunking the material we learn. And the retrieval of the information is even easier because of that, as is recognition," he replied back to her with the same smile.
"Although that isn't the case for everyone. I have eidetic imagery, which makes it easier to know where everything is, and who I've talked to," Kyoya spoke up from where he was standing in the room.
"And that would be…?" Haruhi asked in a quizzing tone.
"Photographic memory," Mori had said in his low voice, standing next to Hani. He doesn't usually speak out, but right now, he was, and it sort of surprised the club members.
"It's a rare form of explicit memory. It'll help us in this case. It would also help in procedural, episodic, semantic memory. Priming will be necessary as well," Hani said looking up at Haruhi.
"We'll probably be dealing with flashbulb, misattributed, suggested, misinformed, and mood- congruent memories and accounts from those we interview, some will probably suffer retrograde amnesia as well," Hikaru said to Haruhi, who was now understanding more of what they were talking about.
"What sucks is that most of them would be expectancy biased, self-consistently biased, and availably biased, which is the worst one, I think," Kaoru said after his brother.
"Mental sets and functional fixedness won't help us in this case either, so we have to utilize extreme creativity, but you're the best at it out of all of us here, Haruhi," Kyoya said to her with a tap on the shoulder. "And besides, your overlearning helps you in committing things to your head, and your grammar, artificial concepts, and use of algorithms is phenomenal," he messed up her hair with his hand like he would his little brother, and she looked up at him with a glare.
"You hardly ever have instances of overregularization, proactive interference, or heuristics," he said as he walked from the couch to his desk to grab the notepad that he left in the desk drawer.
"This whole investigation will be consolidated in our memories, huh?" Tamaki asked Kyoya.
"That is if we are successful, and if we don't experience transience," Kyoya laughed at the thought. "We're going to need prototypes of what situations we could encounter so we know how to deal with them in the future, we can't just go into the investigation blind," Haruhi said being very contemplative now. "Don't worry. We can use a forgetting curve to keep track of the suspects, and how often they 'forget' things that have happened. You're good at reading other people's faces as well, Fujioka," calling her by her last name.
"Concepts and natural concepts will help trigger suspect's implicit memories in case it is necessary as well," Haruhi said to them.
"So, have I proven you wrong, Haruhi?" Tamaki asked her, making a puppy dog face at her. She looked at him with a stoic face, and said, "So it seems…"
"Well then, I say we get to started on trying to get access to you father's businesses, huh, Kyoya?" Tamaki asked with an air of new found confidence.
"We should. I guess we should," Kyoya said with a smile forming on his lips.
That weekend, Kyoya was staying at the second mansion that his father owned, and where his father would take care of many business meetings with various corporations. Fortunately for Kyoya, his father had just gotten hives from a medicine that he decided to test out. It seemed that he was allergic to the medicine, and had gotten a bad allergic reaction. He walked into his father's room where he was bed-ridden to for the next two weeks (it was what the doctor had ordered), and he heard his father just getting off of the phone, cursing probably at the pain from the hives that he had gotten.
"Dad, will you be needing anyone to take over for you in the offices this week? I can if you want me to, I don't have too much homework," he said, hoping that his measly offer would somehow work to get his father to open up to his files. "Don't be foolish! It'll just be two weeks that I am out, nothing will happen, and you have to concentrate on your studies!" he said in an upset manner, but was fairly weak.
"Alright," Kyoya said, merely shrugging, and before he left the room, he asked, "Where are your keys, I think I left one of my textbooks in the car?" Then his father replied, "They're in the office hall, first door to the right, on the desk," and his father proceeded to roll himself his blankets.
"Thank you," Kyoya said, stepping out of the room, and smirking because he knew that his father had every single key to every place he owned on the key rack he carried around.
That weekend, he went his father's offices at the Police Department, merely showing his father's badge wherever he went, and if he had to explain himself, he said that he was the owner's son, and that he was running necessary errands for his father, and if they wanted to be sure, they could even call him. Once he would say this, they believed him, and they let him into wherever it was he needed to go to, and besides, what would a teenager want with files regarding a special case? He was merely picking it up for his father. It was the same case in the Hospital, he simply walked in, and if asked, he explained himself, and he was let in to wherever it was he needed to go. When he got all the case and medical files regarding Sakuya Jetèem, he made copies of every single paper, file, or note that went with the case. It was grueling work, but he was willing to do it if he wanted to beat the police department at their own game, and it would be satisfying for the family once they knew her killer was brought to justice. He finished making copies of the case for each of the Host club members in three days, his whole weekend, and luckily, he was able to finish his homework as well. After this was done, he called Tamaki to tell him to call the twins to make flyers in saying that the Host club meetings will be postponed for the next two weeks in preparation for a big party that they would be throwing.
When he went to the Host club on Monday, he distributed the copies of the case to each member, and they all were given assignments by Kyoya. After each member had read through the whole case, the medical files, and the other details to the case, they each chose their own assignments. Hani and Mori were in charge of going to the different places that she had gone to during the week that she had been there in Japan, and finding any more of evidence that could've been left there; Hikaru and Kaoru were in charge of knowing what type of gun killed her, and which people she had gone to see during that week, who she knew; finally, Tamaki and Haruhi were in charge of going to interview the people that they had narrowed down as suspects.
Wednesday:
"Ok, Hani, Mori, were you able to find any other clues that could have been left at the places she went to?" Tamaki asked them with eagerness. "No, we weren't able to find anything," Hani said with disappointment, and Mori nodded in unison. Tamaki sighed in exasperation.
"Don't worry Tamaki, we're only two days into this, we won't find anything immediately," he said, reading a section of the case on her. "Although, you and Haruhi should go and interview her family, and her fiancée," he said to Tamaki, trying to light his spirits up. "Kyoya, don't you think the police already interrogated them?" Haruhi stated simply. "You don't know unless you try," Kyoya said, looking at them through his glasses.
"Yes! Haruhi, let's go interview his family!" he said as he grabbed her hand and led her out of the club room.
Thursday:
As it turned out, with Kyoya giving unbelievably real-looking badges to Tamaki and Haruhi, they were able to get out information that the police hadn't covered before. Sakuya's mother had remembered that Sakuya had seen someone that she hadn't seen in years at the Chiyo Bakery that they had gone to, to pick up a cake for the engagement announcement. She had hugged this person, and they stayed talking inside for a little while until they she had left, with a different look on her face, but then she seemed to shrug it off, and she seemed her normal self for the rest of that week.
"Well, that's surprising, she wasn't able to remember that when they first interrogated her about it, but I guess it happens when someone is in shock," Hikaru said bluntly. "But Hikaru and I were able to find the type of gun that she was killed with. It was just your basic 9mm (millimeter), nothing too sophisticated or classy," Kaoru said scratching his head.
"That's pretty smart of the killer to do that, anyone would have your basic 9mm," Haruhi said, in deep thought.
"We should interview that person next then-" Tamaki exclaimed, but was soon interrupted by Haruhi.
"No, we need to interview her fiancée next, just so we can get our suspect list cleared faster," she said, killing any excitement he had. "Fine, we'll go interview him next," he said with a pout.
Friday:
"So, what did her fiancée say about what he knew about her murder?" Kyoya asked sitting up from his desk. "Well, he knew nothing about why or who would kill her, and his alibi was pretty solid. He was with her mother and father waiting upstairs at the restaurant for her. He really felt genuine feelings for her, I'm almost positive he didn't do it," Tamaki said to Kyoya with a sad look.
"It could be called good acting. He could've sent someone to kill her, if he wanted to," Kyoya replied back to him. "But he had no reason, or so he said, and his alibi was very solid. He even said he was looking forward to them being married soon, even the family said so," Haruhi replied to his suggestion. "Nevertheless, I understand we should be careful, Kyoya," she said back to him with an understanding look.
"Besides, today, she and I will interview the man that she had seen at the bakery right now, then next week, we can focus on his family's side," Tamaki said, motioning for Haruhi to go with him. "We can all meet tomorrow at my house, and talk about what we can do next week," he said heading out the doors of the club room with Haruhi.
They arrived at Chiyo Bakery across the street from the Kisame Grill, and they saw that it was a quaint little bakery, not too big, not too small, but it was beautifully decorated. Tamaki and Haruhi got out of the car, and stood in front of the bakery. "It's very cute," Haruhi said, looking up at the animated sign "Chiyo Bakery" with little cranes next to it.
"Maybe we can get some sweets for Hani tomorrow, he'll love you if you give them to him!" he smiled, then laughed at Haruhi. She laughed, and smiled back at him, but she realized that they had an interrogation to take care of, and so they walked into the bakery and looked around. It was very pretty, with sweets that looked absolutely scrumptious, from tiramisu, to takoyaki, they knew that their friend would be happy with the sweets they'd bring him back. Then a young man about the age of 20 came out from the back of the bakery, and greeted them with a warm smile.
"Good afternoon, how may I help you," he said with his smile.
"Good afternoon, we here on account of an investigation we're doing regarding someone named Sakuya Jetèem," Haruhi said with a calm voice.
"Sakuya… I'm sorry but I don't know anyone by that name, Miss," he said with a confused look.
"Oh but, I already asked someone who was with Sakuya when she came here and she said-" But before she could finish her sentence, she felt that she was hit with something hard on the head, then she heard Tamaki yell, and the sound of a gun, but she had already fallen on the floor, and everything went black.
It seemed like hours later that Haruhi woke up, and her head was buzzing, hurting like she had been hit with something hard. She was in a daze, she could only see gray, and she didn't know where she was, all she knew was that her head was hurting, and that something bad had happened. She started looking around, and she still couldn't see normally, but then she felt someone next to her, and then, as she felt a jeaned leg next hers, that was when her memory came flooding back to her. She remembered walking into the bakery with Tamaki, then asking the man what he knew about Sakuya when she was hit, and then she heard a gun shot. Tamaki! He was the one next to her right now! She was about to start yelling when she felt restrained by something in her mouth. There was a gag around her, and she felt that her hands and feet had been tied up as well. She turned around to face Tamaki, to see what had happened to him, and when she turned , she saw that he was gagged as well, with his feet and hands tied up, but one of his hands had been bleeding profusely, and she got scared. It turned out that that man had shot his hand while he had hit Haruhi. He wasn't awake, so she tried kicking him once, but it hadn't worked.
She then started kicking him more to see is he would stir, but he still hadn't stirred. She started crying, and she kept kicking his leg, kicking until she got a response from him, just to prove that nothing else had happened to him, to see if he was alive. She was really crying now, he hadn't stirred, and she had been kicking for a minute or two, but she continued to kick, just to keep herself from not breaking down, and suddenly, she heard a groan from him, and a deep breath. She was now crying because she knew that he hadn't died, but that he was hurt, and he needed help. She nestled herself against him, crying, and trying to keep quiet, she put her face against his chest, stifling her tears. She then tried thinking of any possible way of getting themselves out of the cramped place that they were in, looking around the place, trying to see any possible weapon or tool that would help them.
She realized then that the gag around her mouth would be useful. If she pulled the gag far enough to the back of her mouth, she could use her teeth to pull the gag away from his mouth, and rip the rope that was tied around his hands. Then she looked back at Tamaki, and he was looking at her with fear for her safety more than anything, but she looked back with determination at him. She pulled her head forward so the gag could go back into her mouth, then, she pulled herself towards Tamaki, and angled herself at the side of his cheek, grabbed onto his gag, and started pulling down. At first, she wasn't getting anywhere with pulling the bottom of it, so she started pulling the top of the gag down, and that was when she was able to tug it free from him, and it fell at his neck. Then he did the same to her, not having as much trouble as she did, but he pried her free from the gag, and they were able to breathe normally.
"Tamaki, I thought you were dead," she whispered to him, and he sensed the fear in her voice.
"I'm here, talking to you though, aren't I?" he asked trying to keep the situation positive. She laughed a bit, but then she said, "Tamaki, I'm going to see if I can bite off the ropes around your hands, I know it's going to hurt since he shot your hand, but we have to try," she said being very serious. Then he nodded, and braced himself.
She started gnawing at the rope with her canines, rather than her front teeth, and she found that it was faster than what she had been doing with the gag, but the rope was thick, so it would take more time. She gnawed at the rope as quickly as she could, and after what seemed like an hour, she was able to gnaw the last bit of rope away from his hands.
"Good! Now start looking for something, anything to cut the ropes from me - no! Wait! Tamaki, you're going to have to get the phone in my pocket, the phone's in my left pocket, your right, it's in there, I could feel it! Make sure it's on silent, and text Kyoya, tell him to call 911, send the police to the bakery!"
He started texting as fast as he could with his one hand that was good, and he was able to send the text message, and he put the cell phone back into her pocket. He then started scraping the key against the rope so that it would cut free from her hands, and it took longer than expected. After a few minutes, right before he could pry her free of the rope, the man opened the door, and stared at them with a knife in his hand. Tamaki scrambled for the broom that was next to him, and hit him across the face with it as hard as he could, but it only made the man angrier, and as they tried to scramble out of the closet, the man took his knife, and stabbed Tamaki's thigh. Tamaki yelled in pain, and Haruhi bit the man on the arm that he stabbed Tamaki as hard as she could, feeling blood seep out of where she bit him, until he grabbed her by her hair, yanked her off of him, and threw how onto the outside of the closet, against the corner of the counter, where she scraped her left cheek badly, and fell onto the floor. She felt pain stinging her cheek, blood seep from the scrape, and she heard the man go to Tamaki, and he started socking Tamaki in the face. She grew desperate, and started looking around, anything that could help them survive the situation when she saw the gun 3 feet away from her. She started crawling towards the gun, and she was able to grab it, she pointed it to the man, and said, "Where is your gun now, huh?" The man stopped hitting Tamaki, and looked at Haruhi with the gun and stayed staring. That was when she pulled the trigger, but nothing would come out. She kept pulling the trigger, and the man laughed, walking to her now, he grabbed the gun away from her, and hit her face to the floor. He then dragged her to the counter, lay her on the counter, and had the knife that he had stabbed Tamaki with in his hand. He got close to her bleeding face, laughed, and said, "First, I'm going to rape you in front of your boyfriend, then I'm going to stab you slowly, and repeatedly until you bleed to death, how does that sound, my dear?" She stayed unresponsive, and he was about to hit her again until he heard the windows to the Bakery that were closed shatter, and the metal covering them was immediately shattered by another metallic sound, and a man in black gear tackled the man with the knife to the floor. There was yelling all over the place, and all Tamaki and Haruhi could remember were the sounds of sirens, people all over the place, and people yelling to them, "Stay with me! Stay with me! Stay with me!"
Everything started coming in a blur. The walls were white and light blue, there were the sounds of machines beeping, and he didn't know where they were. Tamaki opened his eyes, but he still could see just white, and blue, he tried looking in front of him, but it hurt to look out towards the front, so he stayed looking up. He blinked a few times, and then he heard someone say, "You're awake!" He couldn't recognize the voice, but then, he realized that it was very familiar to him, one that had always been with him. He twitched to the side, and was able to moan out, "Father?" then he felt a hand pet his head and hair, and then he was able to see that it was his father.
His father smiled at him, and said, "I'm so glad you're alright, my son," he said holding the hand that had been shot, which was now wrapped in white bandages and gauze. He was about to give thanks to his father for being there when he remembered the girl that was with him through the whole ordeal.
"Haruhi! What about Haruhi, is she alright? Please don't say she's hurt-" he seemed on the verge of tears when Haruhi's father quieted him down, and said, "She's fine! She wasn't hurt as badly as you were, but she's sleeping right now. She woke up a while ago, worried about you," her father said, looking at Tamaki with affectionate eyes for the first time.
"Tamaki! You're awake!" He heard Haruhi chime up from her bed next to him, and he asked her, "Are you alright now? Did that man hurt you? I'm so sorry I wasn't able to defend you-"
"You did defend me, and no, he hadn't hurt me. At least he didn't hurt me anywhere I couldn't have recovered from," she said a bit weakly, but with a brightness to her face. They smiled at each other, and then they saw their friends come into the room. Hani was crying when he came to hug Haruhi, and Mori stayed very calm, but she was able to calm him down with soothing words; Hikaru and Kaoru came to Tamaki with a mirror, and showed him how bruised and cut up his face was, and Tamaki was in shock as he saw his face in the mirror, but as soon as they twins started laughing, his look grew to one of despair, but he slowly started laughing along with them. Then Mr. Ohtori (Kyoya's father) walked into the room with Kyoya, and made a very serious face. They all stopped laughing and talking, knowing that they were about to be scolded for life.
"Now, what were you kids doing, thinking you could solve the murder of a young girl by yourselves? Unbelievable! Mr. Suoh and Miss Fujioka almost died at the expense of this case! Do you know how stupid that was?" They all stayed silent, while the parents of each child stayed glaring at their children.
"It was my fault, Mr. Ohtori, I had convinced the club that we could solve the mystery before the actual police department could, but I found that we were very wrong, and I sincerely apologize for it, I promise that it will never happen again," Tamaki spoke up before them, and explained himself for the rest of the Host club. Mr. Ohtori simple gave a "hmph," in response, then said,
"I'm glad that you take full responsibility on behalf of your club, but you are all at fault by taking some sort of participation in this." They all nodded their heads, but before he could say anything else before he left, Haruhi called out to him.
"Wait, Mr. Ohtori! Was the man that attacked Tamaki and me the man that killed Sakuya?" she called out and he stopped at the doorway, staying quiet for a moment.
"Yes, it was." The Host club's faces brightened up, and they were almost smiling a little bit.
"What was he to her?" she asked him before she left.
"He was a friend of hers from elementary school, then she left to France. He had been obsessed with her for years after that, never telling anyone he still loved her. Then, she came back, and when she saw him in the bakery, she told him about her engagement party at the restaurant later on, and he lost it after she told him. He figured is he couldn't have her, no one could, so he shot her." Then the Host club stayed silent and angered.
"Good. Well then, after this has all been taken care of, and we've recovered from this, we will all see to it that there is some sort of punishment for this game that you made out of the case." He continued to say so that they would be kept in their place. The parents agreed in unison with what Mr. Ohtori had said, glared at their children and the Host club all gasped in fear of what punishment was pending for them when they got home.