Characters/Pairings: Ryoma, Tamaki, Haruhi, rest of the host club

Rating: PG-13

Warnings: Cross-dressing, Hitachiin twins, Tamaki's silliness, Ryoma's obliviousness and language, and the AU-ness of it all.

Premise: What if Ryoma hadn't gone back to Japan when he was 12, waiting instead until he was 15 and had three Grand Slam wins under his belt? And what if he decided that he didn't want to go to any of the high schools reputed to have the best tennis programs in the country, opting instead to give in to his mother's nagging and enrolling in Ouran Academy, the most prestigious school in Japan (with the added bonus of frustrating Nanjiroh to no end)? Well, for one thing, you get this fic. And all the insanity it entails. :D

Timeline: Set at the beginning of Ryoma's freshman year in high school, when he's 15 years old. Fic starts a few days after Haruhi strike gets coerced /strike joins the host club in Ouran.

Additional notes: Ryoma still doesn't know Haruhi's a girl, hence the use of the pronoun "he" whenever Ryoma is referring to Haruhi. And the difference between "brunette" and "brunet" was intentional – the former is used for girls, and the latter for guys.

There were some days when Ryoma wondered just how wise his decision to enroll at Ouran Academy had been. In all fairness, those days didn't come around all that often, but when they did, Ryoma wondered if causing his stupid oyaji to wail and burst into tears without having to even threaten his porn collection was worth some of the things he went through in this school.

He was almost certain that had he gone to Seigaku, he would never be manhandled in such an undignified and embarrassing way. And he would certainly never be called cute by weird, overenthusiastically affectionate guys.

(Miles away, in the high school division of Seishun Gakuen, two boys sneezed simultaneously, causing a certain fukutaichou to start fussing worriedly over them to check if they were coming down with something. The rest of their team mates looked on in amusement and exasperation. Their venerated buchou, however, did not and ordered them all to run ten laps around the courts.)

As it was, Ryoma wondered if his reputation as one of the best, albeit snarkiest, young tennis players in the international scene would save him should he decide to kill this stupid blond idiot twirling him around in some strange parody of a waltz. After all, his reputation had preceded his arrival at the school and gotten him a fanclub even before he set foot on the grounds. And this had to be some form of harassment. Weren't there rules against that kind of thing? And besides, he was perfectly justified in wanting to throttle the little ---- Hang on. He did not just ----

"What did you call me?" he hissed, trying to get his bearings from all the spinning. He was failing spectacularly, though, and that was the only reason the blond – the soon to be dead blond, Ryoma corrected himself – had been able to, of all things, maneuver Ryoma into a dip with the blond idiot leaning precariously close to his face.

"Why, I only called you a maiden whose beauty is second only to that of my daughter's!" Tamaki declared passionately, and ---- were those sparkles around him? Ryoma wasn't too sure. He was still reeling from suddenly finding himself only a few feet from falling painfully to the floor on his back with only the idiot supporting him. "For you could only be a relative of my sweet Haruhi's!" the blond went on, oblivious to the aforementioned brunette's deadpan expression and the twins' chortles as the rest of the host club watched the scene unfold. It was probably just as well. Had Tamaki seen the way Kyoya's eyeglasses gleamed as he typed up notes in his laptop, he probably would have lost his grip on the smaller boy and possibly give Ryoma even more reasons to kill him.

"Your delicate bone structure, your slender figure!" Tamaki cried rapturously. "Your large, luminous eyes and the rosy blush that tints your perfectly unblemished alabaster skin, framed by that glorious dark hair!" he crooned, going so far as to caress the side of Ryoma's face to emphasize his point. He conveniently ignored the fact that said blush was one of anger and mortification, and not one of girlish pleasure as he'd convinced himself. "Even your shared affinity for cross-dressing, which does little to hide your feminine charms! Yes! Now I've got it! I shall adopt you as well! From henceforth you shall be my second daughter, and I shall teach you both to shun your current, indecent cross-dressing ways and be outstanding ladies of high society ♥♥♥!"

The blond stopped in his rant here, visions of Haruhi and Ryoma dressed in lovely floor-length gowns, the best money could buy, their dark hair long and unfettered. In his little fantasy, they were both flushed with happiness, their eyes glowing with adoration, praising their wonderful daddy (i.e. him) and promising to never cross-dress or hide their true feminine beauty ever again.

Finally breaking free from his daydreams after hearing Kyoya's quiet, but meaningful, cough, he looked down at the petite form in his arms, purple eyes shining with hope.

Golden eyes stared back at him, obviously unimpressed. "You think I'm a girl," he said finally, voice flat. "And that I'm related to Fujioka. Who you also think is a girl." Ryoma paused then, trying to work out how the hell this idiot had managed to come to that conclusion before deciding to focus on the matter at hand so he could go and finish what he came here to do.

Which was basically to ask Fujioka where the hell he'd been these past few days because surely it wasn't that hard to find a quiet place for the two of them to study in. Or rather, for Fujioka to study in and Ryoma to sleep in undisturbed. Besides, Ryoma wanted his free food, damn it, and Fujioka always fed him whatever he had on hand, if only because Ryoma was one of the few people who didn't seem to care that he wasn't as rich as everyone else in the school. It helped that Ryoma's glare usually got rid of any interlopers that dared to invade whatever quiet sanctuary they'd managed to sneak into during their free time. It was a win-win situation for the both of them, really.

And so Ryoma had gotten mildly, well, not concerned per se, but rather curious as to what happened to the other brunet who had resurfaced the day after he (Haruhi) gone to investigate one of the music rooms sporting a proper school uniform, nicer hair (though Ryoma couldn't fathom why he'd noticed that bit) and without those ridiculous glasses. Because apparently, Fujioka had gone and joined some kind of weird club, one that was not related in any way to tennis and therefore beneath Ryoma's attention. It was only a few days later when it had finally gotten into his brain that he would no longer be able to get free food from the other boy, who would be busy with club activities, after class that he decided to go investigate and get some answers for himself.

Only to find himself in this situation. He really should have seen it coming after all those rose petals showered down on him when he had opened the door. He shot a bemused look over Fujioka's way and only got a shrug and a slightly apologetic look for his trouble. He huffed, feeling more than slightly annoyed. "You must be insane," he told the blond, and suddenly found himself painfully on the floor, the blond who was supposed to be supporting him brooding over in a corner. With mushrooms growing. Right.

Ryoma winced as he struggled to sit up, surprised when large, strong hands helped him to do so. He blinked and came face to face with a stoic face staring back at him. He and the tall boy who'd helped him up continued to stare each other down before a childish voice from Ryoma's other side asked him if he wanted cake 'cause cake makes eeeeeeeverything better, and isn't that right, Takashi? Usa-chan?

Blinking again before his usual calm-but-bratty demeanor reasserted itself, Ryoma shrugged and took the offered cake slice from the beaming little kid. Free food was free food, no matter how weird the people around here were, and he said as much to the little boy and the silent man, much to the laughing twins' amusement.

As said twins draped themselves around his person, declaring that he seemed to be a fun boy and therefore their newest toy (Ryoma tuned them out at this point, not wanting to think about exactly what they meant and how eerily they reminded him of his perverted oyaji), he turned his attention over to where Fujioka was chewing out the blond from before in his mopey little corner, and smirked.

"You guys," he began slowly. He waited until he had everyone's attention on him before he smirked and continued. "Mada mada dane," he told them, voice loud and clear in the silence that had followed his earlier words.

The vaguely creepy guy with the glasses smiled at this, somehow making him look even creepier despite the fact that his smile was very polite and supposedly meant to put people at ease. He closed his laptop with a decisive click and strode purposefully over to where Ryoma stood eating cake and getting molested by the twins, flanked by Mori and Hunny. Haruhi watched, frowning a little as she wondered if her not-quite-friend Echizen was going to be somehow dragged into this host club mess, before deciding that is was partly his fault for wandering into this room in the first place. Tamaki also watched, forgetting to brood in his interest, causing the mushrooms around him to stop growing.

"Echizen Ryoma-kun," Kyoya all but purred, his glasses glinting ominously and spelling doom for all in the room. "I believe I have a proposition you'd be interested in hearing."