Chapter 1
Alexandra held up the yellow dress and frowned deeply. The shoulders were poofy, the skirt of the dress poofed out too much, there was an ugly bow, and the yellow color...well it was just wrong. She did not look good in poofy yellow dresses. "Quit staring at it and put the dress on already Alex. We can't be late on our first day at our new school." Turning, Alex was face to face with her twin sister, who was already in the dress for Ouran Academy.
"But I hate it. I may not have like liked the uniforms at Lobelia, but these dresses are ridiculous."
Jessica giggled, "quit standing around in your underwear and hurry up. The dress isn't going to put itself on." The two girls were twins, though one would never guess just by looking at them. It was obvious that they were sisters due to the similarities in their facial and body structure, but other than that, the two of them looked nothing alike. Alexandra had short, black hair with emerald green eyes whereas Jessica's hair was long and light brown and her eyes were a dark blue.
There was a knock on their door and their father's voice came through the closed door of their shared bedroom. "Are you two ready? Breakfast is almost done."
"Alex doesn't like the dress so she's refusing to put it on," Jessie answered, giving her sister a pointed glance. "We'll be down in a couple of minutes."
There was no response from the other end, but they could hear him going back down the stairs, meaning that he understood. Alex rolled her eyes at her sister and slipped into the yellow dress, turning so that Jessie could tie the bow in the back. "You don't look bad at all."
"You know, just because I got expelled from Lobelia doesn't mean that you had to leave the school too. You had a bunch of friends over there, like Chizuru-san."
Jessie wrapped her arms around her sister's waist and rested her chin on her shoulder, "I know, but if I didn't leave too then I wouldn't be able to go to school with my best friend. Besides, we went to an all girls school and I'm ready to flirt with some cute boys."
Alex laughed and turned around, returning her sisters hug. "You're absolutely right. Now let's go downstairs. I think dad is making us french toast."
Laughing and talking through breakfast, the two girls finished quickly and they picked up their bags, getting ready to race out to the car when their father settled a hand on Alex's shoulder. "Jessie, you go ahead, I want to talk about something with Alex for a moment."
Both girls knew what this "talk" consisted of and Jessie gave her sister a knowing smile before running out the door. This was the third time since they had moved to Japan three years ago that Alex had managed to get expelled from a school, and by now she had this little talk down. "I know dad. Don't get into any fights, don't argue with the teachers, and try to be nice to the other students."
Her father nodded and leaned against the counter behind him, "that's good, but there's more. I want you to try to stay away from the topic of your mother. We both know that she's the whole reason you're getting into fights. And because this is your third expulsion I think it's time I punished you."
"You mean wearing this hideous dress isn't punishment enough?" Alex asked, attempting to keep her tone light. The look her father gave her silenced the girl quick enough, and she resisted the urge to wring her hands together nervously.
"If you get expelled one more time then you're going to have to be home schooled. I barely managed to get you into Ouran Academy. Too make sure that you behave I have some stipulations. First off, you're not getting a new cell phone for a month. The fact that it broke is bad enough, but it happened because you threw it at a girl's head." Alex blushed and looked down at her feet. Losing her cell phone for a month was bad, but she had the feeling that he had something worse in mind for her. "And finally, no car for another three months." Alex swallowed hard. Had she been any other normal teenager then she would have thrown a fit over how unfair this whole thing was, but she wasn't normal and she knew what she had done was horrible. The fact that her father was actually punishing her was a sign that he was getting desperate, and she merely nodded. "Listen, it won't be all bad. I hear that Ouran has a Kendo Club, and I think that it might be good for you. You can go ahead and get all of your frustrations out. Now let's go before Jessie starts yelling about being late."
Alex picked her bag up from the floor and ran outside, noticing that her sister was already in the front seat. "Oh come on, that's not very fair."
"What do you mean it's not fair? I was the first one out here, therefore I get to chose where to sit." Alex stuck her tongue out at her Jessie as she crawled into the backseat.
Sitting in the principal's office, Alex and Jessie listened to their father talk. "What's with the weird lump in you bag?" Jessie asked, pointing at her sister's bag.
"I brought a change of clothes. The minute class is over I am so out of this hideous dress," Alex muttered quietly.
"Excuse me, girls?" a woman asked, stepping up to them before Jessie could respond. "I'm here to show you to your classroom." They stood and waved to their father as they followed her out.
"You're going to be a few minutes late for class, but I doubt that you've missed much." While walking up the marble steps Alex gazed around in slight awe. Jessie had gone through a tour with their father over the weekend, but Alex had yet to step inside the school. They stopped in front of a classroom door and the woman opened it, "sir? You're two new students are here."
"Ah yes, I've been waiting for them. Come in and tell us about yourselves."
This is the part Alex always hated. Every teacher found it necessary to force new students to introduce themselves in front of the entire class, almost as if being new was awkward enough, everyone got to know who you were before you learned who they were. How, exactly, did they find that fair. "Alexandra Maeko."
"I'm Jessica Maeko," he sister added in a bright tone that was opposite her sister's bored one. She gave her award winning smile and Alex had to try and keep a straight face as she watched the expressions on the guy's faces.
"And we're twins," the two of them said together.
This seemed to surprise everyone and there were hushed whispers before the teacher raised his hand, causing the room to once again go silent. "Why don't you two go ahead and have a seat over there?"
'Over there' was a very general direction, but considering there were only two empty seats, the two girls had no problem figuring out which ones he had been speaking of. They sat in front of three guys, two of them obviously another set of twins and between them was a rather girly looking boy. "Another set of twins, hm? Do you think we have competition Hikaru?"
"I guess that depends on what they're like Kaoru."
"Will you two shut up?" the boy in the middle asked.
"Oh come on Haruhi, you never let us have fun," Kaoru pouted, crossing his arms and slinking down in his chair.
Despite the pout on his lips, Haruhi could see the little glint in his eyes and shook his head. "Oh please, just stop it. The two of you have enough fun as it is. So why did you two transfer here?"
"I got expelled from Lobellia, so the two of us came here," Alex explained. It wasn't often that she shared personal things with people whom she just met, but for some reason she felt rather comfortable mentioning it.
"What did you get expelled for?" the twins asked together, leaning forward interestedly.
"I don't think that's really any of your business," she answered in a cold tone, causing them both to lean back slightly.
"Well fine then, if you don't want to tell us then we'll just find out in other ways," one of the twins stated simply, leaning back with an evil grin on his face.
Alex shrugged, "you have fun with that." This didn't seem to be the answer he had really been expecting and the look fell from his face. Before she could make another comment the teacher began to lecture and Alex turned around, pretending to pay attention as he began to go through some point in history.
"Finally! Lunch! Haruhi, you should come eat with us in the cafeteria today."
"I already told you quite a few times. I don't like going down there to eat. Besides, I pack my own lunch so there's no point in me going down there."
Alex pulled an apple from her bag and bit into it, watching the conversation intently. "A boy who looks like a girl, kind of sounds like a girl, and packs his own lunch? There's no way," she thought to herself, sharing a knowing look with Jessie. It was pretty obvious that her sister was thinking the same thing.
"Are you going down?" Jessie asked her sister. Alex merely shook her head, pointing to the apple, and her sister laughed and nodded, standing up.
"Oh, you're going down? Shall we escort you?" one of the twins asked with a smile.
"Absolutely." Alex laughed as the three of them left the classroom and she turned in her seat, facing the board again. She had been going to talk to Haruhi, but it seemed that he (or was he really a she?) was intent on studying, so Alex left him alone and started doing her own homework, eating the apple as she went. It didn't take too long before the class was filing back into the classroom and Jessie came in with the two twins. "How was lunch?" she asked, sitting next to Alex.
"Quiet and delicious." After lunch it seemed that time had slowed, and well the bell finally rang Alex wanted nothing more than to get the hell out of the dress. It could have been just her, but she felt as if it had grown tighter, especially around her neck. "Maybe it's trying to kill me," she thought. "That's it, the school is trying to kill off all the tomboy's in the school." Of course, Alex was probably the only tomboy in the entire school, since it seemed that most rich girls were preppy and very girly. They left the classroom with the twins and Haruhi when Alex pulled her to the side, and by now she was positive that this girly boy was really just a girl. "Why are you in a boy's uniform? I have no doubt that it's quite a bit a more comfortable than this thing, but still, why?"
Haruhi scratched the back of her head and laughed slightly, "it didn't take you very long to figure it out, did it? But it's kind of a long story."
"Does anyone else know?"
She nodded and pointed at the twins, who were avidly talking to Jessie about something, "they do. And the rest of the Host Club."
"Host…Club?" Alex asked slowly, raising an eyebrow at the girl.
She nodded and grabbed her hand, pulling her back to the twins. "Should we take them to meet the rest of the club?"
The two twins shared a look before nodding and Alex asked, "wait, can I go change first? This thing is killing me." Again the twins shared a look, a longer one, and they turned back, ready to give a response when they saw that she was already gone. It was a couple minutes before she came back, dressed in a simple black shirt and a pair of denim jeans while shoving the yellow dress into her bag.
"You're going to make it all wrinkled!" Jessie said in an exasperated tone.
"I can iron in out later." Jessie snorted slightly. The last time Alex had attempted to iron anything not only did she give herself a burn on her arm, but she lit the outfit on fire. That had certainly been an interesting conversation with their middle school principal.
"So what's this club you were talking about?" Jessie asked.
"The Host Club." There was a spark of recognition in her eyes and Haruhi asked, "what?"
"My friend, Chizuru-san, is a member of the Zuka Club and she would rant and rave about you guys all the time. In fact, you were there one time too," she added to Alex.
Her sister looked up as they walked, her hands shoved in the pockets of her jeans, "oh! That's right! They never mentioned you though," she told Haruhi.
"Really? That's surprising considering they tried to make me switch to Lobellia," Haruhi told them, rubbing the back of her neck. As they walked, they kept talking about the Zuka Club and a few of the antics they had pulled in attempts to take down the Host Club and bring Haruhi to Lobellia.
"Ladies," Hikaru interrupted, "we are here." They were standing in front of a pair of grand double doors and a sign above it read "Music Room 3". The twins opened the doors, revealing a music room that no longer looked anything like what they had imagined it to look like.