Born out of my incessant love for Shissou, the ending theme for Ouran Host Club.
Before we get started, I'd like to address a Japanese honorific that I may or may not use throughout my story (for those of you that didn't know.)
Senpai/Sempai: One who's grade is higher than oneself
SCHEDULE!
As many of my few readers are familiar with my infrequent update pattern, I'm just going to go out and say that I will do one chapter a month, and that this is GUARANTEED (unless something major comes up that will prevent me from writing.). There will be a break every five chapters for about a month.
REVIEWS!
While I enjoy ANY sign of appreciation for my work, I humbly request that if you are going to favorite or something else, please review! I skim through my works about once a week, and only notice reviews. I am starting, with this story, to attempt to contact my reviewers and give them a thank you for their kind words.
ALSO!
Just felt that I should say to any readers of my other works that UNTIL THIS FANFICTION IS FINISHED, EVERYTHING! ELSE IS ON HIATUS! THANK YOU!
WITHOUT FURTHER ADO!
I present...
Ouran High School Host Club: Across a Blue Universe
"No! It can't just end like this! Not after everything we've been through! Not after how close we were!" Hikaru shouted, each shred of pain and utter anguish resounding off the trees of the pumpkin patch. Every bit of final, dreadful desperation that retched from his throat tore at Haruhi's soul. Not even his brother's loving touch could dissuade the Hitachiin twin from his grief. Haruhi herself tried to bend down to him, but Hikaru's cries only stung and she had to pull back.
Kaoru, on the other hand, continued his soft, soothing massages and sweet nothings into his brother's ear, but meanwhile glanced at Haruhi with a fury in his eyes that she hadn't seen for a long time from the orange-haired teenager. Not since the twins had ceased talking to one another had that look of anger crossed Kaoru's face. It actually surprised her that the mellower of the twins was glaring so vehemently.
"Haruhi," he said, venom practically dripping from his voice. This time his foul disposition actually frightened her, but the Hitachiin shot her a small grin. "Go get our boss back."
"Tamaki!" Haruhi called over the din of the car's motor and the horse's hooves. "Tamaki-sempai, we need you back! The Host Club's falling apart without you!" The Ouran King turned to her with the road between them, his eyes widening at the horrific danger his "daughter" was getting into. Typical Tamaki. Had the situation been less tense, Haruhi might have rolled her eyes.
"Haruhi! Get that carriage off the road! It's too dangerous up here, and you're gonna get hurt! Besides, you all are sick of me! The least I can do is get outta your way!" The carriage under her shook as a wheel ran over a rock on the road, and she lurched forward with the Victorian device. Tamaki tried to leap over and help her, but his soon-to-be-wife Éclair got in the way.
"No, Tamaki, dear!" she cried with mock concern as she grabbed his pale hand. "You simply musn't! Your Haruhi has been nonchalantly selling her body to the other Hosts! I swear to you, I saw it myself! The twins on side, the silent one and the one with glasses using her in such deranged manners! Even the adorable creature with the bunny dolls was playing with her like a toy, to be thrown away after being used! What a dreadful sight it was!"
Éclair's performance was clearly acted and rehearsed, just in case something like this was fated to interfere with her and Mr. Ootori's plot to steal Tamaki away. The hand movements, the voice pitch; everything was timed down to the second. And Haruhi could see Éclair smirk at her through her binoculars.
All between a carriage and a luxury white car speeding down the road.
Tamaki stared at her, indigo eyes bulging out of their sockets and mouth hanging wide open. As if it happened in slow motion, Haruhi could see each line of his face contorting in a mask of hurt.
This was simply...terrifying. She'd never seen Tamaki with real emotional pain. It had always been the face of the Ouran King, a beaming smile and entrancing eyes captivating hundreds of girls and whispering delicious words into their ears. Or it'd been that ridiculous "Father" face, the look of concern for one whom he'd labeled as his daughter.
Haruhi had never wanted that look to return as badly as she did now. Anything to wipe away that numbed look on the blonde's face.
"I can't..." she saw him mouth."I can't...Haruhi wouldn't...not my b-baby girl..."
His eyebrows furrowed.
His eyes widened in fury.
One solitary tear was streaming down the Ouran King's cheek.
Haruhi wanted so desperately, so hysterically to tell him that it wasn't true, that Éclair was merely creating a façade. But the anger written on Tamaki's face told her that the deal was sealed. Tamaki believed his French fiancé through and through.
"I can't believe it..." the blonde whispered."I can't believe you would do something like this. All this time together and you still couldn't see what you do to me without even trying? How could you...I just...I loved you so much, Haruhi..."
"But my daughter isn't some backstabbing whore. Step on it, driver!"
And with that, the horses finally gave up the weary struggle, stopping very abruptly as the car carrying Tamaki and Éclair sped away into the dying sunset. The sudden stop of the elaborate carriage caused another, far stronger lurch. The momentum carried the cross dresser out of the vehicle and sprawling on the hard, hot pavement. Haruhi could feel the skin on her left forearm graze off horrendously, and a lightning-quick, shooting pain race to her forehead.
As the darkness closed in around her, both from her unconsciousness and from the now dead sunlight that'd just dipped below the mountaintops, only one thought coursed through her:
How could she have let go so easily?
After the King of Ouran's departure to France, the Host Club had lost its glue and began to rapidly fall apart.
Honi had begun to eat sweets and sugars more often than ever before, and only Mori's rage-filled training with him did anything to halt the boy's weight gain. Though Honi had easily consumed a pound or two in an attempt to quell the hurt in his heart, his cousin kept him rigorously fit.
Mori himself was a different story. The muscly tower of a Host had already put a fist through several of the walls, with only an apathetic Kyoya there to remind him that he'd have to pay that off with Host work. At that point, Mori had almost hit Kyoya as well. Thankfully, the black-haired Host kept his cool and prevented putting the Shadow King through a wall.
Hikaru and Kaoru had been swallowed back up by themselves. Often times they'd sit in one of Music Room 3's pink-rimmed windows and stare absent-mindedly at the ground below. Only Kyoya could remember what exactly was happening to them, and thankfully didn't mind sharing. They'd devolved back to their own little world, with an invisible barrier surrounding them and protecting them from other people. Only this time around, they weren't letting anyone through.
Haruhi's debt had been almost completely forgotten, and when classes were not in session she would sit in the Music Room and read. Books upon books upon books scattered everywhere, in shin high piles. Edgar Allan Poe's The Raven, Stan Nicholls' Orcs, even a few of Hajime Isayama's Attack On Titan manga novels. She rather liked the EreMika pairing that apparently garnered much fame on the Internet. Who could say, perhaps it was the canon of the pairing, or maybe the 'incest' app-
'Mommy...I failed as a father, my little Haruhi's been out with those shady twins all night no-'
She'd promptly throw the manga on the floor, disgusted and angry.
Of all the remaining Hosts, only Kyoya had been seemingly unaffected by Tamaki's absence.
The Shadow King continued to accept clients for the Club, though he was the only Host who really took clients anymore. Due to his own work not making a very large amount of money, Kyoya was forced to scrounge around in Nekozawa's Black Magic stores. This caused much of the Host Club's events (everything done by Kyoya, of course) to take on a dreary, downtrodden appearance. The Shadow King often times appeared in one of Nekozawa's black robes, which served more to creep any potential clients out rather than charm them.
In short, most of Kyoya's clients saw in the Music Room, what the Hosts felt on the inside.
And so it was, another boring day in Music Room 3, when Haruhi actually had thoughts on her mind that weren't book related. She set down the copy of The Onion's Our Dumb World, and called Kyoya over to the mattress the twins had hauled into the room. One last act of kindness before descending into their fortresses of solitude.
"Kyoya," she said quietly, once the glasses-wearing Host had strode over with his ever present clipboard. "Why...why do you still accept clients? I mean, it's not like the Club's still really even here anymore. It's just the five of us sitting here and you doing your...thing. Why are you trying to hold on to the way things were?"
Kyoya pushed his glasses back on his nose, and Haruhi almost giggled at the little gesture that hadn't really been noticed by her all the times she'd seen it, and the memories it brought back.
"Well," he said as he sat down on the mattress next to Haruhi. "I suppose it's like...keeping the throne warm for our King. I know it's most likely an ill-fated venture, but Tamaki, however annoying and obnoxious and idiotic he was, was my friend. He was such a constant in my life and I don't think I'm ready to let him go. I feel like...if Tamaki were here, he'd want us to still Host."
And then something she wouldn't have ever expected from Kyoya happened.
A lone tear traced its waving pattern down his cheek.
The Shadow King was crying.
Abruptly, Kyoya lifted himself from the mattress and stalked off towards the bathroom. It took Haruhi a second to realize what was happening, but she soon followed the Ootori boy and tired her best to match his viciously long strides.
"Kyoya-sempai! Stop-" her pleas were heard, perhaps a little too early. Kyoya stopped running, just fast enough for her to slide into him.
"Why did he have to be so STUPID?!" He yelled right in her face, his voice crossing the doorway.
His teeth clenched, cords in his neck strained, and he breathed like a tired lion. It scared Haruhi a little, scared her more than that night Kyoya had threatened to take advantage of her. But the thought that came to her head in response to his question almost sent her into waves of laughter. But she dare not let it loose; as she wasn't sure she was safe from Kyoya's fury yet.
"Kyoya...this is Tamaki we're talking about. You know that, right?"
Slowly, ever so slowly a smile crept on to the Shadow King's face. It wasn't a big one, but a grin of pain released and then sudden relief. Haruhi herself began to giggle uncontrollably as Kyoya let loose a small chuckle. She had to hold herself up against the bathroom sink lest she fall and crack her head on the tile.
After the laughter died down, Haruhi hugged Kyoya tightly. "Sempai..." she whispered."Those stereotypes he gave us don't need to be us. Drop the whole Shadow King thing and just be Kyoya, okay?"
He straightened his glasses again, his expression devoid of a grin but still retaining that smug, Kyoya-like glow to it.
"I'm going after him, Haruhi. I'll swim to France by myself if I have to. But either Tamaki is coming back, or neither of us is."
"Kyoya, look," she countered. "I wanted him back just as much as you do, but he left willingly. He left us alone willingly! What makes you think that he'll just walk back in that door same as ever and then everything'll be fine again?"
"Haruhi. Through all my years standing beside him, he never once gave up on me, never once did he let me fall. The same with the Host Club. The damn idiot would do whatever it took to keep us afloat."
He grabbed her chin and pointed her face at his, so she looked him right in his onyx eyes.
"Did he ever give up on you?"
How she wanted to say yes, yes he did.
But one part of her couldn't help but think how wonderful things would be with him there again.
R&R! Also feel free to tell me of any canon (ANIME canon) errors I may have made!
Question of the Episode: Who do you ship Haruhi with, if anyone?
*Roll end credits*