Title: Baby Steps
Fandom: Ouran High School Host Club
Pairing: Tamaki/Haruhi
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Some bondage, but not of the sexual nature. Alas.
Word Count: 2,530
Disclaimer: These characters do not belong to me. No copyright infringement is intended.
Summary: A fake kidnapping gone wrong. A hot air balloon ride. And maybe even some kissing. Just your average day for the Host Club, really.
A/N: Written as a gift for Pearl. A big thank you to tsukizu for reading over this. Also this is my first Ouran fic ever, so be gentle. ;)
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As far as waking up went, having a pillow case pulled over your head and being dragged away from your warm bed to heavens only knew where and by whom didn't stand really high on Haruhi's list. She would've liked to have cried for help, but the kidnappers were apparently quite experienced and had gagged her on top of putting the pillow case on her. Somehow a muffled 'Mmmhhhrfff!!!' just didn't carry as much weight as a loudly screamed 'BLOODY MURDER!!!'.
A car door clicked and Haruhi felt herself being stuffed into the back seat of a car. Well, maybe not so much stuffed as gently placed on the soft clearly expansive leather cushions. The kidnappers wanted to keep her in a presentable condition so they could get the highest ransom possible, she decided. Delusional fools.
She tried counting the turns and stops that the car made, but her kidnappers (there seemed to be two of them in total plus the driver) kept whispering to each other too quietly for her to hear, presumably discussing her fate. It was most distracting.
Thankfully the car ride was mercifully short and in no time Haruhi was being pulled out of the car and carried up some stairs. And then down some more stairs. And along a long, straight corridor. And down more steps. On the fourth set of stairs Haruhi gave up.
Finally she was carried into a room and seated in a chair with her hands bound together in front of her. Only after that did the kidnappers remove the pillow case and the gag. A strategically placed lamp shone brightly right into her eyes, effectively blinding her and making it impossible to see anything beyond the light. Really this was just like a scene from an old gangster movie. A bad one at that.
"Hello, Haruhi." A distorted voice said from somewhere to her right. It sounded as if the person was talking through a piece of cloth or something in order to hide their real voice. "So glad you could join us this evening."
"We wanted to…" the second voice joined in, just as distorted as the first. But Haruhi didn't let him finish.
"Oh, you can stop right there. I know exactly what it's that you want. And you are both idiots if you think even for a minute that you will get a lot of money for kidnapping me. The fact that I go to that fancy school doesn't mean my family has money, I'll have you know. I got into that school on my own merits only. You should really do your research better before you go around taking people from their beds in the middle of the night."
Feeling rather justified in her rant, Haruhi took a deep breath and smiled. Both of the voices were clearly taken aback by her ranting as they were silent for a moment and then proceeded to have another one of those whispered conferences they seemed to favour so much. Finally voice # 1 spoke up.
"Umm… No, that's not what we wanted from you."
"Yeah, we just wanted to ask you some question about Tamaki."
"Oh, I see, so you work for his father's enemies and thought that I'd be happy to share whatever sordid little details there are about my senpai?! Do I look like a whistle blower to you? You can forget it, Buster!"
Her ranting was obviously getting to the kidnappers as this time their whispering wasn't quite as quiet as before.
"Who's Buster?"
"How the hell should I know?! Maybe we banged her head on something when we were carrying her down the stairs from her flat and she's hallucinating? Those commoners have such narrow stairways."
"This isn't going how we planned. Not at all."
"Yeah, and I thought that this would let us know how Haruhi felt about our King for sure. What do we do now? Do we have a plan B?"
But before they could figure out what 'Plan B' should incorporate, the door to the room burst open bringing with itself more light from the corridor and a strong male voice.
"Haruhi? Haruhi, are you alright?!" asked Tamaki's voice. "Don't worry I've come to rescue you from the fate worse than death!"
"Senpai? What are you doing here?"
Unfortunately the light from the lamp was still shining right into Haruhi's eyes and she couldn't see anything. She did however hear the commotion that followed Tamaki's arrival. There was some banging, pushing, scrambling and possibly punching. The two kidnappers then gave two identical, distorted yelps and fled the room.
Tamaki was at Haruhi's side in that instant, untying her hands and helping her stand up with a steadying arm around her waist. For some reason he was surrounded with what appeared to be a shower of glittering sparkles. Haruhi shook her head – it was probably just a glare from the lamp. But why were his teeth shining then too? Strange.
"Are you OK, Haruhi? Did they hurt you?" Tamaki's eyes went 'Sparkle, sparkle'. It was starting to give Haruhi a head ache.
"Yeah, I'm fine, considering. They didn't really do anything to hurt me. Did you see who they were?"
"No, they had masks over their heads." Tamaki paused thoughtfully. "Masks that looked suspiciously like ladies' stockings with holes cut out of them. How perverted!"
Yep, a bad gangster movie it was, Haruhi decided. "But what did you do to make them run away like that?"
"I punched them both in the eye – the right one in the right eye and the left one in the left. At least I hope I got them in the eye since I couldn't see their eyes and all. Then I tried to rip the mask off of one of them and that's when they bolted." He grabbed Haruhi's hand. "We have to go, Haruhi, or they might come back with backup."
Haruhi nodded and quickly they made their exit. But as soon as they were outside Haruhi stopped dead in her tracks.
"What is that?!" She pointed in the direction of a large hot air balloon.
"That's a hot air balloon." Tamaki explained unnecessary. "It's our escape transport."
"We are going to escape using a hot air balloon?!!"
"Yep. Don't tell me you've never wanted to go on a night ride in a hot air balloon? It'll be so romantic with the stars shining brightly down on us and the gentle breeze blowing in our faces. You'll love it, my Haruhi!" Tamaki's eyes were doing the weird sparkling thing again. Maybe it was some sort of an eye related disease?
"That's absolutely no way that I'm going to get into that! I can get home by myself, thank you very much." Haruhi gave a decisive nod and started walking in the opposite direction from Tamaki and the balloon.
"Oh, come on, Haruhi! You don't even know where you are." Tamaki jogged up to her and blocked her path. "Stop being stubborn and just come with me. Please?"
"You won't leave me alone until I agree, will you?" Tamaki shook his head enthusiastically. "Oh, alright. Let's just get out of here."
They walked back to the balloon and Haruhi let Tamaki help her as she climbed inside the basket. Tamaki followed her in and after some intricate manipulations with the hot air balloon's burner and some fumbling with the rope that was holding the balloon down they were slowly lifting into the sky.
"I didn't know you could operate a hot air balloon. You are just full of surprises, aren't you?"
"I've been taking lessons in hot air balloon flying. I wanted to make this as memorable as I could for you, my beautiful Haruhi."
"Memorable, eh? So you had this whole thing planned." Haruhi looked thoughtful. "You never did tell me how you knew where to find me…"
"Oh, well, I was just walking past your house, talking my usual nightly stroll when I saw those hooligans dragging you into their car. So naturally I followed you and voilà!"
"Right. That still doesn't explain how you ended up near my house. And don't tell me you always take your walks down there because that's such an obvious lie."
"Well, my lovely Haruhi, as you're so observant I'll admit it – I came by your house to sing you a serenade under your balcony. I had a band of musicians all ready to go too."
If it was possible Haruhi's eyes went even bigger and rounder than normal and she stared at Tamaki for a few moments, at a complete loss for words.
"You mean you were going to sing outside of my house in the middle of the night? You'd have woken up all the neighbours! The police could've arrested you for disturbing the peace, you know. And I don't even have a balcony."
"Oh, Haruhi, don't be so narrow-minded. Every girl dreams of a gorgeous gentleman singing to them." He took Haruhi's hand, bringing it to his lips and kissing the tips of her fingers. Haruhi gave a startled jerk and tried to pull her hand free.
"Umm… Senpai, you…"
But Tamaki was too busy studying the underside of her wrist to pay much attention to her words. Then again it would hardly be the first time.
"You have rope burn here from where they tied you up. Why didn't you tell me they hurt you? No one marks my Haruhi and gets away with it! No one I tell you!"
Tamaki was well under way to having a huge fit, so Haruhi placed her free hand on his shoulder to try and calm him down.
"They didn't hurt me. Of course I got some marks from the rope, my wrists were tied up after all. But I don't think those kidnappers wanted to hurt me at all. Actually they were being rather gentle throughout the whole thing. It was really strange now that I think about it."
However Tamaki continued to ignore her explanation in favour of tugging both of her hands closer to his face and letting his mouth linger mere millimeters from the skin.
"Let me kiss it better."
Haruhi blushed profusely as Tamaki closed the distance between them and swiped his tongue along the skin of her inner wrists. He proceeded to kiss a trail up to her right elbow and then leaned down to press a soft kiss to the side of her neck. By the time his mouth made it to Haruhi's, her eyes were closed and her breathing rugged. However the moment their lips touched her eyes flew open and she pulled away with a gasp.
"Isn't that my house down there?" She pointed somewhere over Tamaki's shoulder with a shaking hand.
It looked like Tamaki might say something, but then he reluctantly let go of her hands and turned to fiddle with the burner.
"I'll lower us down as much as I can, but you'll have to climb down a rope the rest of the way, because there isn't enough space here to land the balloon."
"More ropes. Great, just what I need. Fine, just lower us and I'll climb down."
As the hot air balloon started to descend, Tamaki turned to look at Haruhi with concern.
"Haruhi, I didn't mean to upset you…"
"It's fine, really. We're fine. I'm just tired. It's been a long day. And night. I just need some time to figure this out, OK?" She grabbed the rope and climbed over the side of the basket. "I'll see you tomorrow, yeah?"
"I'll see you."
Tamaki watched her climb down to the ground and then pulled the rope back up. He blew her a good bye kiss and she waved in return. As the balloon rose into the night sky a small smile crossed Haruhi's face and kept on smiling all the way home.
---
The following morning all the members of the Host Club looked quite the sorry spectacle. Haruhi and Tamaki were both rather rumpled and tired from not getting enough sleep. Honey appeared to be nursing another tooth ache and Mori was miserable because Honey was in pain. And the twins were for some reason sporting identical black eyes, only Hikaru had his on his left eye and Kaoru had his on the right eye. Well, everyone except Kyouya that is. He was looking as cool and unaffected as ever.
From the moment that Tamaki had walked into the Third Music Room, he had been recounting the story of the night's horrific adventures with his usual dramatic flair. Haruhi didn't interfere, even when Tamaki's story went a little beyond the realm of truth. She was content to just sit in the corner of a couch and watch him with a soft glow in her eyes.
As Tamaki got to the part where he so courageously saved Haruhi by beating the kidnappers into a bloody mess, the expression on Kyouya's face started to change. He tapped his pen against his chin thoughtfully as he watched the twins whisper frantically into each other's ears and slowly try to creep out of the room.
"And where exactly are the two of you going? Tamaki hasn't finished telling his story yet. Surely you wouldn't want to miss out on that?"
The twins stopped dead in their tracks and slowly turned to face an upset looking Tamaki.
"Of course not." The left twin said smiling charmingly. "We just wanted to get some air."
"And how, pray tell, did the two of you get those lovely black eyes?" Kyouya wasn't letting them go that easily.
"Well, you see Hikaru – the silly thing that he is - walked right into a door and hence the black eye. And you know how sometimes identical twins call feel what the other one's feeling? Well, I felt his pain so much that my eye went bruised all on its own."
"Interesting story there. But tell me, where were you last night?"
No one seemed to be able to follow Kyouya's questions, but the twins turned rather pale and quickly made it for the door with a parting, "Sorry, Tamaki, we've got to run!" thrown over their shoulders.
Kyouya also got up and headed for the door at an unusually fast pace. "I just remembered an important business meeting that I need to prepare for. You know how it is – money to be made, companies to be destroyed, evil twins to be questioned... Must run." He too disappeared behind the door.
Tamaki looked around the room with a puzzled expression. Honey appeared to have fallen asleep with his head in Mori's lap, who also seemed to be dozing. Tamaki's eyes finally landed on Haruhi, who shrugged.
"Don't ask me what those three are up to."
"Never mind them. Now that we finally have a moment are you ready to talk about what happened last night?"
Haruhi took a deep breath before walking over to Tamaki, taking his hand and lacing their fingers together. "How about we just take it slow and see where we end up?"
Tamaki smiled softly down at her, "I'm good with that, Haruhi. I'm good with that."
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A/N 2: In regards to all the logistics of hot air balloon flying I feel I should mention that yes, I do know that there's really no way to control the direction in which a balloon is flying except to follow the wind. But let's just pretend that the wind was in fact blowing in the direction of Haruhi's house. I mean it is Ouran, anything can happen. :)
A/N 3: And yes, I'm also well aware that I can't write a convincing 'Haruhi voice'. (hangs head in defeat) Meh. At least I tried. :)