A new student is introduced a few weeks after the beginning of classes. The girls whisper excitedly among themselves and the guys size him up while their homeroom teacher stumbles over his foreign surname.
He is understandably nervous. Haruhi looks past the blond hair and the blue eyes and takes note of the tension in his mouth and the hands shoved into his pockets as if to hide their shaking.
Everyone, including Haruhi, is taken aback when he speaks in flawless Japanese. And when their teacher directs him to the empty seat beside her, she could only stare.
Up close she can see the streaks of brown in his hair, how ridiculously long his eyelashes are and the fact that his eyes are more violet than blue.
"Nice to meet you Fujioka-kun." His smile is tentative and she confirmed that his hands were indeed shaking, now that he was clasping them tightly on top of his desk.
"Oh, uh, nice to meet you too Gra—" before she could demonstrate her inability to speak French, the new student cuts her off.
"You can call me Tamaki."