A/N: Hello! This is my first Ouran fic. This will be angst. It may be sad. Just warning you. And I am not using names for a reason. You will find out chapter by chapter who the main characters are not, and then I will tell you who they are. This would be a one shot, but it ran away from me and the only way to bring it back was to make it a multi-chapter fic. So, enjoy!
I own my ideas, but nothing else.
Grief
He simply cannot believe it.
It was just another regular afternoon, just another typical day in which nothing happens. The Host Club had just opened their doors for business when a group of school officials had walked in. They asked anyone who wasn't part of the club to please, leave, because they had something important to say.
She was dead.
At first, he scoffed, thinking it was a joke. He could think of a lot of things she was, and dead wasn't one of them. Loud, annoying, vibrant, cheerful- dead certainly was not on that list.
But they continued, saying she was on her way to school, had been crossing the street and the driver hadn't seen her, the car was going too fast, and it was an accident- and he began to feel a cold dread settle over him. He watched as the others reacted- twisting hands, sickened looks, turning away, hiding faces, as the officials droned on. He felt a million miles away, like he was watching the scene through a microscope- not truly there, just observing.
They were telling the Host Club, the teachers explained, because some other students had remembered she hung out with them. They had hoped to find some relation, but had so far been unsuccessful. They were sorry, they said, that her friends were the recipients of such grave news. So sorry.
The fog that had invaded his mind caused him to process this information slowly. Sorry? Where they truly sorry?
Her funeral was a few days later.
He wasn't sure how many days. That annoying fog, which caused everything to happen so slowly, had not gone away. In fact, it persisted so badly most things were just a blur of color, noise, and motion.
He remembered sitting through the service, but could not recall what happened. The only memory he had was when the Host Club had gone up to pay their respects during the wake. She lay there, strangely silent, the opposite of what she had been. It was as if she was sleeping and would wake up at any moment, full of commands and laughter and life. He half-hoped this was true.
"She looks peaceful." A choked voice broke into his thoughts. He wasn't sure who had spoken.
They said she had sustained multiple injuries, had lost a great amount of blood, but he wouldn't have believed this if they hadn't told him. She did look peaceful. Her mouth wasn't stretched into a grin; her eyebrows weren't furrowed in thought. Peaceful. It was an odd look on her.
And when they lowered her casket into the ground and covered it with fresh dirt, he couldn't help but fell that it was wrong. It was surprisingly painful to watch the moist earth being tossed upon the black casket, smothering and silencing the one within.
Her father walked over to the Host Club after they finished burying her. He thanked them for being such good friends to her, for being there when she needed them. There it was again. Friends. He didn't know why but something about that word bothered him. Were they her friends? Sure, she spent time with them sometimes, but it wasn't very often. He suddenly felt like someone had punched him in the gut. They hardly even knew her. Her likes, her dislikes. What she did in her free time. What classes she took.
And they were her friends? Didn't she have anyone else to turn to? If he was her friend, he didn't feel like a very good one. They had conversations, once or twice, but didn't friends talk more?
He would have to think about this.
It was easier just to forget.
He didn't like the uneasy feeling that accompanied thinking about her, because all his memories amounted to was a laughing, loud, analyzing figure. He knew that real friends should be able to remember more.
So he decided to forget. The school offered all students the opportunity to talk to a counselor if they needed- a nice gesture, but completely unnecessary for him. He didn't want to sit on a lumpy couch and talk about his actions and thoughts and feelings to some complete stranger, and then receive a carefully analyzed summary of what it all meant. He was saddened by the death of a fellow classmate. That was it.
And so summer came, and Mori and Honey graduated. Everyone decided that the Host Club should do everything that they could together because they would be losing two members. He threw himself into the activities with gusto. Doing things helped him to forget the fact that a girl had died and he hadn't been a good enough friend. Whenever he felt that tickle in his head, trying to make him remember, he would laugh harder, smile bigger, and lose himself in whatever he was doing. He created a mask, one that no one would be able to see through.
It was easier than the truth.
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