Chapter I – What's the Fourth Wall Again?

First things first ~

Disclaimer: I do not own, nor do I pretend to own Ouran High School Host Club or Naruto. While that would be fantastic, alas, I live on planet earth.

For those concerned with seeing 'Naruto' up their in the disclaimer, this is not a crossover. I am simply borrowing some character because honestly, with a story as complex as I'm going to attempt to make this, it's simply too much to think about. And Kishimoto makes fantastic characters.

Anyway, I hope that you guys enjoy this. I've been watching the anime (I finished the manga years ago) and this idea kinda popped into my head. Honestly, there was no prewriting or planning for this... at all. Which is unusual for me. Even if you don't follow the fandom, I'm going to try and make it a good read anyway. Any critics, comments, questions, or just plain 'nice job's' are welcome.

Enjoy!

I hummed happily, my messenger bag bouncing against my hip as I walked up the stairs. As an American, I took pride in my walk. It was sassy, confident, and, dare I say, majestic. Damn right, I said majestic. Borderline bald eagle majestic. It is something that every American teenage girl should learn to use to her advantage. You sway the hips just right and bam! There go the boys.

I ignored the whispers and stares as I danced up the stairs of the south building. Being the very first day of school, I couldn't help but make an impression. An extra large t-shirt with a fire-breathing dragon on the front and torn up shorts was my main attire. My granddad's army jacket was wrapped around my waist, the green a contrasting color with the black, reds, and purples. I had debated between my Doc Martens and my Converse, but really? Come on, the boots were the obvious choice. Makeup, something I usually didn't bother with, accentuated the blue in my eyes, while I kept my hair in a messy bun. Blatantly out of dress code, but I have to keep up the American rebellious image. I was also too poor to afford a uniform, but hey, making it sound like I'm fitting a stereotype sounds cooler.

Reaching the top step, I glanced left and right before I turned and walked onwards down the hall. Classes hadn't started yet, so I was exploring my new playground. And there was something that I noticed; Image was everything around here. All the snotty rich kids wore expensive diamonds earrings, had chauffeurs escort them to school. I actually saw a kid have servants walking around with him. Chandeliers hung from the ceiling, and intricate lace curtains framed stained glass windows. Everything sparkled with a special kind of clean.

It was disgusting.

You're probably curious about all this, aren't you? Who I am, where I'm from, why I'm walking down the halls of one of the most prodigious schools in Japan like I own the place? Well, I guess I can start where everything usually starts. With a name. And my name is Audrey Harp, a spur of the moment foreign exchange student at Ouran Academy. First year, class… well, it's a class. I can't remember.

I was born in Scottsdale, Arizona. It's supposedly a rich girl town, with grand houses, exquisite buildings and such. My family was pretty well off, though far from the status of these kids. We're probably a six or seven on the rich people scale. Now I know you're wondering, 'How does an (above) middle class American get into Ouran Academy, the school for the richest of the rich?' The answer is relatively simple.

Actually, scratch that, it's really not all that simple. Dear reader, I'm going to tell you this now, so that if you would like, you can click that back button and go find some other story. Cause things are gonna get a little Mary-Sue here.

I'm special. I joke and like to say special needs, but that's really not the case. When I was young, maybe seven, I was hit in the head with a baseball bat when a kid tried to steal my bicycle. Luckily, I only got a concussion, but things changed then. It was like a switch to a whole new side of my brain being flipped on.

The only way I can really describe it is intuition. I just… I know things. I could look at a guy and realize that he was having an affair and was about ten thousand dollars in debt. Once, when I was shopping with my mother in Target, I knew the woman in line ahead of us was worried about her son, who was sick with a cold. I knew that my father was sleeping with two other women on the side. And I knew that my mother married him for his money, so she didn't really care.

And this is just from looking at people. Imagine what I learn from touching. Which is actually quite a lot. It's not mind reading by any means. Like I said, I simply call it intuition. But touching a person… that's a whole other can of beans. That's intuition times ten with the power of a physic medium. Because sometimes, when I touch someone, I can see his or her future. I thank baby Jesus that it's a come and go thing; If every time I shook hands with someone new and I realized that they were planning on masturbating to a rape porno, I would probably go crazy. Not that I've ever read that off a person before. Really, just an example.

Are you still with me? Yeah? Great. Onwards and upwards.

So, the next question – how did I end up here? It all started when I was handed a pink flyer. Sitting in Spanish class my freshman year, Señora Sanchez (that seems like such a common last name for someone of Hispanic heritage) had been explaining the foreign exchange opportunities that our school provided. She handed out the flyers as she spoke, and I remember her accent very clearly. I also remember that she was a hoarder and often debated doing naughty things to her students, but I digress.

As she handed the fateful flyer to me, I remember getting a shock. A literal tingle ran up my fingertips. I remember the look she gave me when I practically ripped it out of her hands. I had scanned it, waiting for my intuition to kick in, and it did. Right as I got to the word Japan.

A smiling boy, with the strangest blue eyes, dramatically speaking to a pair of twins.

The same boy, but this time, holding hands with a dark haired girl. They smile at each other and share a kiss.

A blonde haired boy, swimming with a pink tube in a current pool.

One of the twins, hair dyed dark, holding hands with his counterpart.

A tall, black haired boy, with his nose buried in a black book. The light reflect off his glasses, hiding his eyes.

A horse drawn carriage and a spell.

A family.

I had known immediately that I should go there. I also knew that it was entirely possible. My father had business dealings in Japan after all, and what good were they if he didn't abuse them from time to time? It was a pull, almost a need, to go to Japan. As soon as the bell rang I darted for the door, intent to switch out my Spanish class for a course in Japanese. That, combined with the infamous Rosetta Stone, I managed to become your average Japanese speaker by the end of the school year. It's amazing what motivation and hard work can do.

You won't be shocked to realize that my family didn't really care. I mean, they shipped my brother off to military school – why would me going across the planet be any different? I know in my heart that they did care. My parents love me – I am, after all, their only daughter. But it's hard to connect to your parents when you see their every flaw. That isn't to say I didn't love them; I did, with my whole heart.

Thanks to the uniform on the little flashes I had seen, I knew that something was telling me to go to Ouran Academy. After some research, I realized to my utter dismay, that it was a school for rich brats with a shit ton of money. While the school was listed on the option for the exchange program, it was only there for formality it seemed. The amount the program provided was nowhere near enough to pay for a years worth of education.

It took a lot of pleading on my part to get my father to use his connections to help me qualify for a scholarship. While he did have dealings in Japan, he worked with a very… uh, prestigious family. He didn't want to mess that up in anyway, and he hated to ask for any sort of favor. It must be a man thing. But either way, I guess he contacted them, because he managed to get me a chance to win a scholarship. I just had to take some tests and sign up for certain courses and promise to do certain extracurriculars, and I would be accepted into the academy.

After weeks of studying, planning, and crying, I passed the test in flying colors and got the green light.

Finally, after dreaming of this for over a year, I had arrived. I had gotten lodgings via the foreign exchange program, so I essentially switched homes with a kid named Naruto Uzumaki. His family, like mine, was well off. His Dad was a senator or something important like that (Naruto told me, but his father is so intimidating that I've been scared to ask again). So they were probably a lot better off, actually.

I had exchanged a lot of letters with him, and he told me a lot about his life and his friends, mainly Sasuke and Sakura. Naruto told me that they said they would try to help me adjust, which I really appreciated. But I guess they went to a different high school, so we wouldn't see much of each other.

Since we were practically switching life's, I volunteered the same information. I told Naruto about my high school, what he could expect, and that if he really loved ramen so much, he should stockpile it, seeing how we don't exactly have the good stuff in America. I told him about my mother and father (more like warned him, actually), and about my brother (even though he wouldn't meet him).

Well, anyway, all of that for a different chapter.

Because, dear reader, my little friend in my head led me towards a large door, which I thought (my speaking was great, but my reading was iffy) was labeled Music Room three. I scratched the back of my head, messing up my already messy bun.

Was it weird? That I chased the image I saw of a family across the world, just so I could meet them? That I signed myself up for a year of schooling in a foreign country to get to know these strangers? I frowned, gripping the door handle. What if my intuition was wrong? I mean, it hadn't ever been wrong before, but nothing like this had ever happened either.

Just because I knew things didn't mean I acted on them. There were certain rules I had laid down for myself when I realized that something was wrong with my melon. For example, not letting anybody know that I knew anything. That was the first rule, and the most important. Because, like any special heroine, I was worried about being locked up in a lab and being experimented on. The second rule was to not get involved. With my earlier example, with the man having an affair and in debt – I couldn't do anything about it. Not my problem.

And sometimes, that rule was the hardest to follow. When the elderly man lost his last son to cancer, it's hard not to offer your condolences. Because how would a teenage girl know about something you only thought about when you were alone and in the dark?

I pushed the thoughts away, focusing on the ornate gold handles that seemed to mock my inner struggle. I growled at it. You try being a mentally challenged individual and see how you like it. With a sigh I pushed down on the handle, blinking when it clicked ominously. Blinking dramatically (after all, a years worth of work went into making this moment real), I shoved it open, and gazed out with expectant eyes.

"You've got to be fucking kidding me," I moaned.

The room was empty. How anticlimactic was that?