Hey all. This is my first fanfic ever, so please be nice! No flames about Natanya and Scappa. Be NICE.
Disclaimer: I do not own Ouran High School Host Club, or its characters.
Natanya and I were sitting on my hospital bed. That was where we were on most days around three o'clock in the afternoon, when our friends were getting out of school. We were playing three-and-thirteen—okay, well, we were trying to play three-and-thirteen. Natanya was looking at my cards and telling me what they were, since I couldn't actually see them. That was just one of the disadvantages of being blind: You just sucked at card games. I couldn't even play Go Fish.
I heard Natanya sigh. Being blind, I have an uncanny sense of hearing. I can hear a cockroach walking across tinfoil on the other side of the room. "What's wrong?" I asked, setting down my cards. I leaned back against my pillows and rubbed my face.
"This is so boring," Natanya whined. Her voice was coarse and scratchy—she had a malignant tumor in her throat. "We've been playing card games for the last half hour, and neither of us can figure out how to win."
"You do realize that you can cheat, right?" I asked, closing my eyes. I yawned so widely that I could hear the tendons in my jaw pop. "Since I can't see the cards, you know."
"You aren't as blind as you think you are," Natanya said. From the sound of her voice, I figured that she was pouting.
Suddenly, I sat bolt upright. Someone was coming. A lot of people, actually. I could hear them coming down the hall noisily—as many as seven pairs of unfamiliar footsteps, as well as the familiar sound of Nurse Tamagachi's softly clicking high heels. "Someone's coming," I hissed. I could feel my eyes widening with excitement.
"Who?" Natanya was trembling with excitement as she grabbed my hand. "Who is it?"
"Nurse Tamagachi and seven other people," I said. "They're heading straight for us!"
As soon as Nurse Tamagachi and the strangers entered the room, Natanya let out a loud squeal. "Nurse Tamagachi, who are they?" she asked. Her voice sounded peppy and excited.
I heard an unfamiliar pair of footsteps walking swiftly over to my bed. I heard the person's weight shift and heard a male's voice say, "We are the Host Club, my fair princess. Might I ask your name?"
I heard Natanya giggle and say, "Natanya Smith. What about you?"
"Ah, Natanya," the guy said. He sounded just a little bit older than us, probably a year's difference. "A beautiful name for an equally beautiful princess. My name is Tamaki Suouh. And who might you be?" I felt the Tamaki person grab my hand, and then I felt a pair of cool lips brush against the back of my hand.
I wrestled my hand away from him. "My name is Scappa," I said, forcing a smile. This dude really gave me the creeps. "It's nice to meet you, Tamaki."
"So what are they doing here?" Natanya asked in excitement. She was practically bouncing up and down, making the sheets rustle noisily.
"Tamaki-san and his friends have come to offer a scholarship to two children in the hospital. I told them about you two, and how you've both been out of school for a year. They thought that giving you both the scholarships to Ouran would be a terrific idea." Nurse Tamagachi said all of this with a suspiciously familiar air of finality. It was the same tone she used when she told me that I couldn't stay away from the other children in the hospital just because they made fun of my blindness. I had a feeling that this whole scholarship thing had been decided for us.
Natanya didn't care, though. She was just excited about finally being able to go to a real school.
The Next Day…
"I really think that you two should wear the uniforms," Nurse Tamagachi fretted. She was pulling a brush through my thick blonde hair, trying to tame it for our first day at school. We were sitting in me and Natanya's hospital room. Natanya had told me that I was wearing a sapphire blue long-sleeved t-shirt and a matching blue plaid skirt. She also told me that she was wearing the same outfit, just in ruby red.
"Not happening," Natanya said from somewhere near the bathroom. "That uniform was hideous. I'm not going to make me and Scappa look like complete and total fools on our first day of school. We're going to save that for next semester."
I grinned. It had taken a little while, but I was finally excited about going back to school. I heard Tamaki's footsteps before he was halfway down the hallway, along with his friends, who hadn't been introduced yesterday. "Tamaki is here," I said quietly. I heard Natanya yank open the door and call, "Hurry up!" to them as they walked towards our room.
"Ah, Natanya, you look as lovely as a rose in bloom," I heard Tamaki say. Natanya giggled. She liked this Tamaki fellow, odd as it seemed to me. "And Scappa, you look as graceful as the ocean waves," Tamaki said, addressing me now. I turned my head towards him and stuck out my tongue.
Natanya giggled even harder. "We should probably get going," she said. I heard her pick up her backpack as I stood up. She handed me mine and we headed out into the parking lot. It was cold outside. I was holding onto Natanya's sleeve as we walked. After a minute or two she gasped. "Oh, my God," she practically shrieked. I stopped walking and let go of her sleeve to cover my throbbing ears. "Scappa, they ride in a limousine! A real limo, can you believe it?"
I could feel a pair of eyes watching me curiously. I turned my head towards whoever was staring at me and raised my eyebrows. "Which way is the car?" I asked in a whisper, tentatively holding out one of my hands. A moment later I felt a warm hand grasp my wrist and someone pulled me over to the car. I got in, bumping my head as I did so.
"Ouch," I mumbled, rubbing my forehead where I'd hit it.
I heard the others getting into the car and then I felt two arms being thrown around my shoulders. "Having fun?" I heard two teasing voices say in unison. One was slightly higher than the other.
"What in the world gives off the impression that I want to be touched by you two?" I asked curiously, crossing my arms over my chest and leaning back in my seat, raising my eyebrows. "I mean, I certainly haven't told you that you could touch me. So, why are you touching me?"
"Um, there's just one thing that you need to know about Scappa," I heard Natanya say. "If she doesn't know you, she generally doesn't let you touch her. It kind of freaks her out."
"Just a little bit," I muttered, shrugging the arms off of my shoulders. "So, who are the idiots that I'm trapped in between?"
"I am Hikaru Hitachiin," the lower voice said. It was coming from my left side.
"And I am Kaoru Hitachiin," the slightly higher voice said.
"And we are the Hitachiin twins!" they exclaimed in unison.
"Twins?" I asked. "As in, identical twins? That's cool."
"Hi, Scapp-chan!" I heard a little boy voice exclaim. "My name is Hunny! And the boy who helped you into the car is called Mori. He doesn't talk much, though, so you probably can't hear him."
That wasn't true. I could hear a steady set of breathing somewhere to my left. It was more even than anyone else's. I figured that he was Mori, but I didn't say anything.
"Hello, Scappa," I heard a soft, female voice say from somewhere to my right. "My name is Haruhi Fujioka. Nice to meet you."
"Nice to meet you, too, Haruhi," I said politely. "How come everyone else is a guy in here, and you're a girl? Are you dating someone?"
All around me, I heard silence. I could feel Natanya's surprise from where she was sitting. Then I felt the car give a frightening lurch of speed, jerking me out of my seat and sending me sprawling to the floor. I banged my head. Terrific. I hadn't even known these people for an hour and they already didn't like me.