So… this is my newest story, and I'm actually excited for it. In all of my years of creepily stalking fanfics, I've never come across a storyline where everyone at Ouran is crazy, as in patients in a mental institute, but I feel like all of the characters could definitely do it.
Which is how this beauty was born.
As usual, I'm a hardcore MorixHaruhi-shipper, so, one guess as to what this baby will be in so far as relationships. Go on. You can guess… ; )
This will be my first ever attempt at a multi-chapter MorixHaru. Yeah. Go ahead. You can applaud.
The title, and each little line that precedes each chapter, are quotes taken from my poetry idol: Leonard Cohen.
He has a way with words like Rothko has a way with canvas. And, yes, before you ask: I consider his song lyrics to be poetry.
So, anyway, read and enjoy. I hope to be posting a new chapter of TBMUFSSF soon, so feel free to check in on that as well. See y'all at the bottom.
"I cannot understand why my arm is not a lilac tree."
Prologue
"You're going to be okay."
Her father is reaching out to her, arm latched around her own, acrylic nails digging into her skin.
He's leaving marks, she idly notes, watching in fascination as her forearm gives beneath his grip in a most fascinating way, the smooth surface caving into crescent-shaped indents and divots.
"You're going to be just fine," he repeats, and she's sure it's more for his own benefit than it is for hers.
The taxi driver spares a glance at her in the mirror, and she pretends that she doesn't notice the fear washing through his brown eyes as his gaze lands on her.
He's been like this since they first stepped into the cab, her father rattling off their destination while she watched the driver's eyes widen with a sort of grudging worry, waiting for her to explode.
It's the look that she always gets when people find out.
It's the look that her father gave her when she was diagnosed.
She sighs noiselessly.
"This will be good for you," the man, who is dressed in a knee-length skirt and pressed blouse, continues; she doesn't know why he continues to talk since she hasn't responded, but it's annoying her. Like a fly. She wants to swat it. Or is it him maybe?
The annoyance turns into a fever-hot rage that storms around in her chest for no real reason other than the man not shutting up. The anger is so deeply moving and so hot that a sweat breaks across her forehead. Her heartbeat thrums unevenly up in her neck, her chest is tight, and her fingertips start twitching. She wants to hit him. She wants to swat this annoyance from her presence…
Her father's free hand snaps down on the one that she has lifted involuntarily, his other hand constricting until the blood rises up beneath the skin of her forearm between the marks of his nails.
A shuddering gasp leaves her lips; the cabbie looks terrified; she can't meet her father's gaze – she just doesn't care anymore.
"You're going to be just fine, Haruhi."
She can hear the pity in his voice. She'd like to say that it yawns before her like an ocean, swallowing her, making her want to be a better person, but it doesn't. Nothing does.
"Here we are, sir," the cab driver interrupts, his eyes wide and nervous and very brown; Haruhi sighs and directs her gaze out past her father's shoulder.
Ouran Hospital is supposedly the best, and maybe if she was different, she would care about how much this must be costing her father, the man who has only ever tried to give her the best that he possibly could. If there's one place where she could "be fixed" like her father dreams, then it would be Ouran.
Too grandiose, she thinks, brow furrowing in distaste. The gates are too wrought-iron-y, and the greenery is too green. Somewhere in the distance, behind shrubs and flowering trees and pretentions pavement, a fountain is splashing, a long, rectangular pool with a cherub and lily pads, and the hospital rises up behind it, very gothic in its flying spires, ogival arches, and rose windows.
If she didn't know better, she'd say that this was a school for rich and self-important people.
Her father slides out of the taxi gracefully, and she looks down at her skin at the marks he's left. No sooner has she left the car, his arm is back on hers, and she glances down at it for what feels like the hundredth time in the space of the thirty-minute cab ride.
His nails resume their clawed position, the angry marks now a torrid red that will be sore in a few hours.
She's never studied arms before. They're rather curious with their knobby elbows and blue veins and fine hairs. And why are they called arms? What makes an arm an arm?
The interest is fleeting, and she turns her eyes away and to the hospital, to her new home.
She guesses that she should feel something, but she doesn't care about anything.
Her father used to say that she was just apathetic, finding no pleasure and no interest in the outside world. But he allowed it because he could dote on her relentlessly, always trying to coax her to feel something; he wanted to be the one to bring her out from behind her dazed eyes and uncaring expression.
Nothing changed though, and she thinks that it was almost a relief for him to finally hear the diagnosis that week ago.
"You'll be fine," her father says one last time as they move through the gate, over the stone, through the highly-arched doors.
A nurse's station lies immediately to the left, and two women man it. One of them, a chipper-looking brunette with too much mascara, steps from behind it and opens her hands up to Haruhi – this woman doesn't look as nervous as others have in the past, and Haruhi appreciates it.
"Welcome to Ouran Hospital, Fujioka-san. We've been expecting you."
She assumes that she should say something in return to be polite, so she slaps on a smile and bows delicately at the waist.
"Arigato gozaimasu."
The nurse reaches out for her hand, while the other one scurries for the one bag that she was allowed to pack – it's probably to check it to make sure that there's nothing too too much in there, she thinks.
Ranka is tough to dissuade and disengage from, but she eventually manages, moving around him to the nurse, placing her hand in the extended palm.
"You're going to be fine," Ranka pitters in the background, before he's ushered out of the door.
"I'm to take you to your room, Fujioka-san. And then, you are to attend your morning session…"
A part of her listens, taking note of the regimented schedule, but another part just wanders aimlessly about in her brain, staring past everything with impassive eyes.
She thinks that a part of her should feel something as her father is led away and she is taken to a new life, but, as it's been for a while now, she's just in her regular state of indifference, watching the world pass with neither purpose nor meaning.
She just doesn't care; in fact, the only thing that she can feel at any time is rage. She thinks that she should worry that she feels nothing, but then the anger can rise fast in her belly, and then her throat, and then her brain, and the world can fade into this hazy red place where all she can feel is this undiluted fury and rage.
Perhaps that's how she ended up here. In a psychiatric hospital. A place for crazies. Perhaps that's why she had to see a new doctor. Why her father can only say that '[she] will get better'.
In retrospect, she probably shouldn't have gotten that mad at that man when he offered her that free sample… or those people that tried to stop as the floor around her and him turned this strange, deeply red color. It might have been a bit too much to slam his head into the mall's tiled floor so many times, and it might have been a bit too much taking down that pregnant woman when she got in the way.
She thinks that it's nice that a part of her hopes he wakes from his coma soon.
So, yeah. Haruhi's a little crazy. We'll meet the boys in the next chapter, as well as Haruhi's roommate. I'm, probably, most proud of Kyoya's… problems, just because they're the funniest, but that's just saying.
Your favorite Cyber Host to each individual who offers their opinion on what they think each Host has that makes 'em crazy.
Reviews are my medicine. Won't you please give me my dosages?