It had started off as a good day.
But it had quickly become far more terrible than any other recent days.
If peace and excellent working conditions were day, then it was like day to night, except afternoon seemed to be cut out of the picture.
--
Haruhi was late-- just as she had been on numerous occasions before. Kyouya shook his head in exasperation, both with her tardiness and with irritation at the chaos that became the club without her. Because…without her being a focal point of action and attention, the club seemed to melt into an apathetic-to-club-duties and generally untamable group.
To make an analogy, it was like removing the magnet that kept a bunch of metal clippings together. Rough and unrefined way to put it, but Kyouya really couldn't think further right now, what with a blond hanging over his shoulder.
…No, it was not Tamaki.
-
"Kyou-chan, Kyou-chan! Wanna piece of cake? It's dark chocolate and not too sweet!" The other blond in the club was pestering him with offers of cake and other assorted pastries-- all of which he politely declined.
"No thank you, Haninozuka-senpai. Please offer it to someone else." Kyouya decided to remain tactful with the seniors, though he couldn't say the same for the other three members currently present.
The others simply would not shut up and sit calmly; true, they had not been asked to do so, but such a request would surely prove futile. The twins were engaged in very rowdy horseplay, running and bumping and breaking things (they were going to pay) and causing so much damage that Kyouya began to grind his teeth. Meanwhile, Tamaki was creating a ruckus, shifting between a grandiloquent monologue (no one was listening anymore) and some form of incoherent scolding of the others.
When the antique vase of white roses sitting in dyed water crashed and fell to the carpet, Kyouya began to plot their deaths. He could only wonder if it were possible to somehow choke them with the now rapidly staining rug.
Ah, it was a pity that propriety of high society tended to include passivity in terms of physical violence.
--Why, why did people have to derive so much pleasure from being destructive?
Maybe death by electrocution would be better. It was easy to subtly wire an innocent puddle into something else, and that still un-wiped water would be perfect…
…Now, where was that power outlet again?
--
Sometime later, some members of the black magic club had burst in, claiming that Nekozawa had been abducted or something or the other; they got no more reception than a commoner's cellphone in a lead-painted room.
Oh sure, they got a few screams and finger-pointing from Tamaki and several flashlight beams straight to the eye courtesy the twins, but that was beside the point. Kyouya watched the black magic club (who seemed a little put-out) for a bit, inwardly analyzing the alleged 'abduction'. After a moment, he decided it was simply a silly overreaction and thus dismissed it.
By now, everyone had resumed whatever they had been doing before the robed group came in, whether that was teasing or eating or plotting the horrific deaths of his fellow hosts.
To make an analogy, this was the comical interlude of the play watched only for the pratfalls of its actors.
Kyouya decided he really wasn't at the top of his game, to come out with something like that.
--
Salvation came when Haruhi finally arrived, half an hour late. She looked around in horror for a moment at the vast waste the others managed to produce in so little time, before sighing and shaking her head, both in exasperation and irritation.
Kyouya looked up in what he might later deny as being relief, and the other members paused in their play to greet her. Four arms belonging to the twins wrapped around her, and her 'father' proclaimed his limitless relief at her safety. Cake was shoved into her face, and a large hand descended upon her head to pat her in way of greeting.
Kyouya watched as they all began to gather around her like-
-like-
-what, exactly?
He frowned. Dozens of analogies sprung to mind, most of which rude or totally inappropriate (generated by an irritated, overworked mind). But none of those would ever be…right.
The twins might have put it as "bored young men to their toy" or "a designer to a doll" or something like that-
Haninozuka might somehow make a cake analogy work, and Morinozuka would undoubtedly agree-
Tamaki would certainly liken it to "the great planets revolving around the magnificent star that is their sun" or "like fathers to their precious daughters" or similar-
But Kyouya couldn't find anything better than,
"Like hosts to Haruhi."
--