Disclaimer: Creative property of Hatori Bisco. Not mine. I only harass poor Tamaki and Kyouya.

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Author's Note: My first Ouran fic. The pairing is Kyouya x Tamaki, sort of. You will see why if you keep reading. I normally don't write very serious fics (if you look at some of my other works, they're pretty much in the humor category). This is the first fic that I have ever written that does not have any real funny undertones. So, read if you dare, and if you can spare a minute, review, please. Thank you. Now, on with the story.

The Not So Glamorous Life of a Host: Chapter 1

The light patter of rain was just enough to wake the sleeping youth from his slumber on a chilly autumn Tuesday. The blonde opened one sleepy eye and stared at the tiny droplets running down the skylight above. Sighing as he thought about the day's work, he rolled rather unceremoniously out of bed, straightened his open silk pajama top that had slid off his shoulder, and sauntered off to the kitchen to put on a cup of coffee. As soon as he heard the familiar sound of the coffee dripping through the filter into the glass urn, he sat down at the table that the machine rested on and absentmindedly picked up his lighter and the pack of cigarettes that lay next to it. He then lit one of the cigarettes and reached forward to open the sliding door in front of him. Feeling the refreshing breeze chilled slightly by the rain, he crossed his legs lazily as he took a long drag.

As he looked down at the rest of the busy city from the top floor of his Tokyo apartment, he allowed his mind to drift as the smell of coffee wafted through the kitchen. No sooner had he entered his sort of daydream-like state, when the sound of his cell phone ringing jolted him back to reality. Extinguishing his cigarette in the cheap 99 yen ($.99) green ceramic ashtray, he stood up and picked up his cell phone off the counter next to the sink and stopped the cheerful ring tone.

"One new email message," read the tiny flashing screen. He opened his phone distractedly as he poured himself a cup of steaming caffeinated liquid. The golden haired young man took one look at the screen before closing it abruptly, deciding to ignore the request for the time being. Tossing the cell phone back on the counter, sending it careening into the sugar bowl, causing a bit of sugar to spill onto the counter upon impact, he focused his attention on cooling the steaming liquid in the mug he held.

A few moments later, a thin, tanned guy with bleached brown hair wearing a tight white designer suit with a lavender silk shirt open to the third button and matching white shoes entered the kitchen and made his way towards the light haired one.

"Tamaki-----! Tama-chan."

"…"

"Oh fine, fine. I won't call you that, YUKI," he said exasperatedly, leaning against the refrigerator, staring almost expectantly. Getting no response, he walked up to him, took the mug, and pressed himself against him, sticking his hand into the open shirt in front of him, moving in as if to kiss the lips of fair haired one. The blonde simply turned his head and looked away with disinterest. "Don't be so cold," he whispered huskily.

"Not now. Now what do you want, Hiro?" he said after several moments, squirming out from under the other, having been forced into an uncomfortable position against the counter top.

"Why are you so cold, Yuki?"

"If you have something to say, then come out and say it already," he said, picking up his mug.

"I need you to work tonight. Taka's sick and two of the newbies we hired just quit. Said they didn't come to clean toilets and empty out garbage."

"I got work 'til seven tonight and a party right after for one of my coworkers."

"Come to the club after."

"I'll be there by nine, nine-thirty."

"We got a party tonight, can't you come any earlier?"

"Yeah, if you send a car to come pick me up. Otherwise, if I have to walk—"

"Fine, fine. I'll tell Nobu to pick you up. In front of the lobby."

"Yeah, okay."

"Well, I gotta run to the club," he said, picking up his diamond studded sunglasses and placing them on his head. "Got a meeting with the fire inspector."

"Uh-huh."

"Yuki, don't you have work in like an hour?"

"I'm going."

"Well, I'm off," said Hiro opening the door. "Lock up when you leave—"

"Okay, BYE," Yuki said, slamming the door after him.

Yuki looked at the clock on the wall—a 100,000 yen ($1000) present from one of Hiro's clients. Hiro was right. He was due at work in about an hour. If he hurried, he could take a shower and still make it to work on time. Deciding that a shower would definitely be in his best interest, he quickly stripped off his clothes and headed for the shower.

He emerged minutes later, towel drying his hair and feeling significantly refreshed. Pulling clothes off hangers, he selected a pair of black slacks and a nice silk shirt and walked to the mirror. He stared at his reflection, tall, half-French, half-Japanese blonde blessed with perfect skin and clear amethyst eyes.

"What a waste," he thought to himself as he popped his contact lenses in and pinned up his hair. The free-flowing blonde locks were pinned away from his face and replaced with long dark tresses, pulled into a low ponytail at the nape of his neck. After finishing the final touches, he grabbed his cell phone and stuffed a few other necessities in his bag before rushing out the door, barely remembering to lock the door on his way out.

"Good afternoon, everyone," puffed Yuki, as he burst through the double doors of the Tokyo Grand Prince Hotel.

"Good morning, Toyoshima-san," said the door attendant to the dark flash that dashed towards the main lounge.

Yuki ran into the lounge, dumped his things into the locker room, checked his appearance for one last time, and ran out just in time for the emcee's introduction.

"Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Kasuga Lounge of Tokyo Grand Prince Hotel. My name is Kasuga Yuusuke, manager of this lounge. Today we have our star pianist, Toyoshima Yuki, who will be performing a series of original compositions for your entertainment today. Please put your hands together for Toyoshima Yuki."

Yuki walked out to the grand piano, bowed deeply before sitting gracefully in front of the ivory keyed instrument. As he began to play, the lounge fell silent, as it always did when Yuki began to play. Everything sort of stood still as he played. People were always drawn to the way that he was able to make the instrument almost come alive and sing as if it were a person with feelings and personality.

Time always seemed to pass by quickly for Yuki when he played the piano. He often played original compositions in addition to famous classical pieces, which is not to say that he would not take requests. But generally people were satisfied with the music that they heard and he would often go for hours uninterrupted in his own world. It was a win-win job for him, sort of. He got paid to do something he enjoyed. While this job was not so stimulating in terms of human interaction, Yuki did not mind as his other job was and therefore he was more than happy to have blocks of time where he could simply have alone time.

Today was no different. Time passed quickly and soon it was time for the intermission, during which he took his break.

"Ladies and gentlemen, we will be taking a brief intermission. We will resume today's entertainment in half an hour. Thank you." Yuki hardly ever spoke on the job. Kasuga always told the audience when he was coming on, when he was going on break, and when he was done, when he would be returning. Not that he minded of course.

"Good job (A/N: I am translating "O tsukare-sama" as "Good job" for the time being—at least until I can find a better translation), Yuki," said the other employees that worked in the lounge, as he exited the stage and headed to the break room.

"Thank you, I'll be taking my break now," he said bowing politely and making the waitresses swoon in adoration.

He headed to the break room. Usually during the time that he took his break, there was no one there. All the other employees usually took their breaks during the hour before his, so he was pretty much free to do as he pleased. Yuki reached into his pocket and took out his cigarettes, a lighter, and his wallet. He placed those on the table and opened the refrigerator next to it.

The break room was stocked with food, snacks, and drinks, all of which the employees of the lounge were free to help themselves to. Yuki took a bottle of water and a few pieces of what appeared to be clubhouse sandwiches piled on a platter before closing the refrigerator and sitting down. Munching carefully on a sandwich, he opened his wallet.

He took out a 1,000 yen bill ($10) and placed it on a box marked 'donations.' He always felt bad eating the food without paying and thus always left money in a jar in the refrigerator in the past. Kasuga always refused to take his money, but Yuki did it anyway, which is why Kasuga finally put a 'donation' box for him.

Every time he opened his wallet, it was a constant painful reminder of what he had become. There was an identification card in one of the clear pockets used to hold credit cards that read, 'TOYOSHIMA YUKI' with a picture of a young man with green eyes and hazelnut wavy hair that was pulled into a low ponytail with a few loose tendrils gracing the sides of his face. Then on the other side in the main pocket of the wallet, smack in the middle—the first thing one sees when the wallet is opened, there was another card, laminated and quite old with a young boy in a blue school uniform jacket with blonde hair, amethyst eyes, and a gentle smile that read, 'Ouran High School – SUOU TAMAKI.'

"Toyoshima, you're back on in five," called Kasuga. Yuki, surprised, snapped the wallet shut as if he were afraid that someone would see it.

"Thank you, I'll be there in a minute!" he called back. Stuffing the last of his sandwich into his mouth, and the wallet, cigarettes, and lighter back into his pocket, he took a sip of water and walked back out just in time to begin one of his favorite original compositions, 'Ma Mère.'

Meanwhile, up in one of the VIP conference rooms of the Tokyo Grand Prince Hotel….

"What is this 100 billion yen ($1 billion) in inventory shrinkage?!" said a young man with thin rimmed glasses in an expensive black suit rather dangerously.

"Sir, that is to say, err…" offered one middle aged man in a gray suit.

"What Kawada means to say is, uh…"

"Well?" he said, expectantly.

Of the twelve members of the board of trustees sitting at the round conference table, all balding middle-aged men hanging their heads in shame, nearly triple the age of the young man standing before them, none of them were able to answer his question.

"All right, all right," he said, pushing up his glasses and rubbing his temples for several moments. He took several deep breaths before continuing, "You all call me out here today, saying you have finally finished preparing my financial statements," he said glaring at his board, many of whom also served as his CFO, CAO, etc. "I—"

"Kyouya!" said a voice that came out of the monitor. An image of Ohtori Yoshio flashed onto the large flat screen used for teleconferencing.

"Father, I'm talking to them now. Your time could be better spent elsewhere. Allow me to take care of this."

"Very well. Report to me when you are ready." The elder of the Ohtori family nodded and disappeared as quickly and abruptly as he had 'arrived'.

"As I was saying," continued the former 'Shadow King'. "I wanted these financial statements last month. You all asked for more time. My father so generously granted you all that, against my advisement. We are reporting to our shareholders in less than two weeks and here we are at the last minute with over 100 billion yen in INVENTORY SHRINKAGE. You all have presented me with a 200 page report summarizing our financial position. We are still on page 10 and already I have found major inconsistencies. Does anyone have anything to say about that?"

"…" The silence was deafening and the air was thick with tension.

"All right. Well, considering that this statement I have here is 100 billion yen in medical inventory shrinkage, I am very curious as to how we managed to incur this shrinkage within a little over three quarters. Any ideas? Personally, I have not received any notices of major mis-shipments or short-shipments from our logistics department and warehouses, nor have I heard of any major damages on our equipment. I did the physical inventory myself every quarter and found very little discrepancies. Of course, you all as the board of trustees don't have to feel responsible for this incredibly large task of beginning to inform the shareholders, even though the reports were technically gathered, analyzed, and handled completely by the twelve of you," he said with a smile.

"He's clearly blaming this on us, isn't he?" the twelve of them thought uneasily as they exchanged glances and shifted uncomfortably in their chairs.

Finally, one of them, unable to stand it, blurted out, "Kyouya-sama! Please give us some more time to find the source of our error. It is possible that maybe we made an error in our accounting department—"

"That's right," chimed in another. "Allow us to examine our report once again to ensure that there are no more, err….major accounting errors."

"How very kind of you all," smiled Kyouya. "How does tomorrow sound?"

"Tomorrow?!" they shouted incredulously, nearly having multiple heart attacks. "This is a 200 page—"

"Then, perhaps you could have it on my desk earlier, like this evening, say 6:30ish?"

"But that's in…No, no, tomorrow afternoon would suit us just fine!"

"Excellent! Well, I would not want to keep you. After all, three quarters worth of financial statements can be quite a challenge. Therefore, let's adjourn this meeting today, and meet up again tomorrow, same time."

"Thank you very much for this opportunity, Kyouya-sama," they said in unison, bowing deeply.

As they were exiting the conference room, "Oh wait!" called Kyouya.

"Yes, sir?"

"You all may rest assured that your jobs are safe…for the time being. However, we may have to do a bit of restructuring in the upper management levels after tomorrow, should there be any more future, unaccounted for deficit errors. Okay?" he smiled as they exited cringing, as they knew exactly what he meant.

"Good work, Kyouya-sama," bowed one of the company's drivers. "Shall I take you back to the office?"

"Thank you, Takada," Kyouya said as he packed his things back into his briefcase and headed out the door.

"Takada, where is Ishizuka?" Kyouya asked, following Takada into the elevator and at the same time, wondering where his secretary had run off to.

"He said he left something in the car and went to go get it. Is there anything I can get you, Kyouya-sama?"

"Yes, would you mind getting my father on the phone for me?" he said as they got off the elevator and walked into the lobby.

"Certainly," Takada responded and proceeded to call the direct line of the president. "Hello? Yes, is…? Oh, he is? I see… Would you let him know that Kyouya-sama called. Yes. Thank you."

"Was he out of the office?"

"No, he was in a meeting."

"I guess, I'll just—Where is that music coming from?" asked Kyouya suddenly.

"I believe it's the lounge across the—Kyouya-sama, where are you going?!" Takada called after him.

"It can't be…" thought Kyouya, as he raced towards the lounge. "That song, it's so familiar…"

"Kyouya…"

"Kyouya, I just thought of a great idea! Let's start a club together!"

Kyouya ran as fast as he could. The song was ending just as he could see the spotlight. "Could it be…?"

When he got there, he ran towards the stage, practically shaking in anticipation. But when he got closer, he realized his mistake. The person Kyouya expected was not playing the piano on the lounge stage.

"Excuse me, sir—" started a waitress. "Can we help you?"

Kyouya stood there speechless as the next song began. The next song was just a classical piece. "Chopin… Fantasie Impromtu…" he whispered. "But…"

"Granted, not everyone can play it, but…" Kyouya expected to see a blonde with amethyst eyes, but what he saw was an extremely thin brunette with wavy hair and green eyes.

"Sir—I'm going to have to ask you to—"

Kyouya stood there speechless as a tear ran down his face for the first time in four years.

"Kyouya-sama! There you are!"

"Sir—"

"What is the name of your pianist?" asked Kyouya abruptly.

"Toyoshima Yuki—"

"Please, let me speak to your manager right away."

"I am already here. What seems to be the problem, Mr…?" Kasuga said from behind.

"My name is Ohtori Kyouya," Kyouya said regaining his composure.

"Of the Ohtori Medical—"

"Yes, and I was wondering—"

"Yes, what can I do for you, Ohtori-sama?"

"I was wondering if you could tell me about your pianist?"

"Toyoshima? No one really knows much about him. He never really talks. Only says hello and goodbye. Never makes conversation with anyone—"

"Oh, how odd…" Kyouya muttered. "How unlike—"

"Sorry did you say something?"

"No, nothing."

"But he's a helluva amazing pianist, though. We originally wanted a harpist, but he's just as good, if not better than having the harpist, that is."

"Yes, he is. And if I didn't know better—"

"Sorry?"

"Um, no, Mr….?"

"Kasuga."

"Yes, Kasuga-san, I was wondering if you would allow me to meet this wonderful pianist at the end of his shift."

"Certainly. He doesn't say much though, I gotta warn you. But you are in luck; his shift ends at the end of this song."

"Splendid."

"Come with me," Kasuga said, gesturing Kyouya to one of the VIP booths.

The audience clapped as Yuki took a deep bow and exited the stage.

"Toyoshima!" called Kasuga, flagging him down. "Come with me. There's someone who wants to meet you."

Yuki walked over and Kasuga gestured over to the booth, revealing Kyouya sitting down having a drink with Takada.

"Toyoshima, this is—"

"Ohtori Kyouya," he whispered.

"Oh, you two know each other?" Kasuga asked surprised.

"No, we don't," recovered Yuki quickly. "At least not personally. I've read a great deal about the Ohtori family in the papers and such."

"Really, well then, Marika is flagging me down. I'll see you later. Good work, Toyoshima," said Kasuga walking back to the bar.

"Do you have a minute, Toyoshima-san? You see the thing is, you actually remind me a great deal of someone I once—"

"I'm sorry, Ohtori-sama, I am actually in a hurry. I actually have another job I have to be at."

"I see, I apologize for dropping in so suddenly—"

"No, no. I'm sorry. But it was nice meeting you, Ohtori-sama," he said holding out his hand.

Kyouya took it gently and shook it. "It was a pleasure meeting you. I hope to hear you play more in the future."

"You are too kind," he said bowing, in a very familiar way that Kyouya seemed to pick up on. "Now, if you'll excuse me."

"Of course."

Yuki disappeared into the break room to get his things. Kyouya nodded to Takada.

"I'll go get the car. Please wait at the entrance."

"Thank you, Takada." Catching Kasuga's eye, Kyouya bowed slightly before pulling out his cell phone from his jacket pocket. He also pulled out a 5,000 yen ($50) bill and stuck it under his and Takada's barely sipped beverages before walking out towards the main entrance.

"Hello? Kyouya here. Get me any information you can on Toyoshima Yuki. And find out what really happened to Suou Tamaki. Now."

Kyouya hung up the phone and just as he was putting away his cell phone in his briefcase, a car swung by and picked up Yuki. Kyouya did not notice and simply got into his own car that was on its way to the office.

To be continued….

Next time:

Just what does this "Yuki" do during the evening? (I'm sure we all know) Why has Tamaki assumed an alias? Why does he change his appearance? Why is he even working? What happened with his father and grandmother?

And Kyouya…Why is he practically running the Ohtori Businesses? What happened to everyone else? Where are the other Ouran High School Members?

These questions and maybe more….to be addressed and answered in the coming chapters!! Don't miss it!