Chapter 1

The young lord stomped grumpily to the room at the end of the hallway. Why his father insisted he be woken up at such a ridiculous hour, he would never know. The cook wasn't even done making breakfast yet. What could the old man possibly have to say that was so damn urgent?

"Ah, my son! Come in! I bear great tidings for you!" The mob-boss waved the teenager in hurriedly and as the younger man took his place in front of his father, he couldn't help but to rub his face and grumble about how the man was a pain in his ass.

"what do you want, old man?"

"well as you know, you are to someday take over my position as leader of this syndicate." The teenager rolled his eyes and nodded his head lazily, annoyed to not only be awake but now having been reminded of his fate.

"And as such, you will have to also have a family of your own to assure the line of succession." This made the younger man blush a blood red, rivaling that of his own hair color and snarl slightly at the insinuation. The older man sighed heavily, moving over to the shrine built in honor of the woman which sat in the corner of the room, wiping a bit of dust off of the picture frame.

"Ritsu, not a day goes by that I do not miss your mother. She was my rock. My voice of reason in all the madness we must endure in our line of work." The young lord simply nodded. He had never really known his mother, as she had died when he was only 4, but his father spoke of her almost daily as if she were simply on a small vacation. She was apparently a very quiet, but intelligent woman with a good head on her shoulders. Well... As good as you can get for someone who falls in love with a gangster.

"I've begun to worry about you, my boy. Seventeen years old and you've never so much as mentioned a girl, let alone brought one home-"

"oh just shut up, old man." Ritsu interrupted him. He was sick of this conversation. It was kinda hard to bring a girl home when even the burliest of men were afraid of his face. And besides, what girl would want to spend an evening sipping tea in a house of illegal activity? It just wasn't possible. Any girl that was even worth the effort already had a line of suitors waiting on her, offering the promise of a better life with more money than he could ever offer. Money that wasn't dirty... His thoughts drifted to the adorable and kind Haruhi, the only girl who had ever caught his eye. And of course she was already, silently, spoken for.

Ritsu could care less if he would one day become a mob-boss. It was easier than struggling to make something of himself, which he most certainly would have had to do if he didn't already have this lined up for him. Guys like him didn't get to live the easy life. It just didn't happen. But he would be damned if he would waste time on women who would only reject him in the end due to his status as either a gangster or a commoner working for a living. Who needs girls anyway? From what he had seen at school (he didn't get out much. Never really saw a point in venturing beyond the walls of the syndicate except for school), all they cared about was who could buy them the most stuff and looked good doing it. Except for a certain small brunette, but again, that could never happen. He groaned.

The older man had waited patiently for his son to come out of the brief intermission he had taken into his own head. The boy had a tendency to keep to himself and sometimes over thought things, but he wouldn't dare try and interrupt the young man. Even he was scared of his sons temper and frigid glare most of the time.

"as i was saying," he cleared his throat, recapturing the half-sleepy attention of the rooms younger occupant, "you will need a wife at your side to help keep you grounded and run the business. As such, I feel it would be better to marry younger so you have time to forge the bond necessary to be beneficial BEFORE you have to deal with the challenge of learning to lord over men, and thus have arranged for a young woman to come live here." This most CERTAINLY caught Ritsu's attention, causing him to nearly flail with anger and embarrassment and nerves and pretty much every other negative emotion the young man had ever experienced. "She is to be your betrothed, and I will hear no objections. She will be here before dinnertime and we will discuss the terms of the engagement then." The older man declared with a ringing finality. Ritsu faltered; then, as if steam were pouring from his ears and nose in an impressive display of rage, he snorted in disgust at his father and stormed out of the room, slamming the door so hard it bounced back open.

"WHO THE HELL DOES THAT BASTARD THINK HE IS?!" The young lord roared as he stumbled out into the yard leading to the training garden, causing anyone within earshot (which must have been about a mile) to quake in fear and attempt to shield themselves from the young lords wrath.

####

"Ladies and Gentlemen, we will begin our descent shortly. Please buckle your seat belts and place your trays in their upright and locked position and store your belongings under the seat in front of you. As always, thank you for flying with us. We know you have many options when it comes to traveling and we hope to see you again soon." The intercom droned on, repeating the well-rehearsed speech in Japanese while the stewardesses made their rounds, helping prepare everyone for landing. In her seat in the third row from the back on the right-hand side, right by the window where she could watch everything, a young woman sat, still amazed even after enduring nearly 18 hours worth of travel from the pleasantly dreary Washington to the gloriously colorful Oregon, a two-hour layover in the beautiful chain of islands that is Hawaii and straight to her new home from there. The plane would land and she would step foot on the soil of the city of Kumamoto before a driver was supposed to pick her up and take her on the three-hour long "hop, skip and a boat ride" to her new place of residence in the city of Kanto.

To say she was nervous was an understatement. She hadn't left Washington since arriving there when she was only eight years old and had been taken away from her crack-whore mother by the state. Since the woman and, consequently, her daughter had been traveling at the expense of whoever would give them a ride for almost a year, the foster system of Seattle became her new home while her mother withered away in some jail for a few years (certainly too long to be allowed to keep her parental rights, considering the seven pages worth of charges against the high school drop-out).

The teenager chewed on her lip while her fingers idly fiddled with the mp3 player in her hands. The small, outdated piece of technology was her prized possession. She had saved up for it for three years, working odd jobs around the houses of her various temporary homes whenever she was lucky enough to be in one that didn't require her to just sit in her room and stay quiet and not be a bother. Her honed ability to pick-pocket paid for a majority of it, though, and she spent countless hours at the computers in the back of public libraries downloading and transferring music onto it when she was supposed to be doing her homework. The music, mostly consisting of classic and alternative rock but peppered with classical , hip-hop, rap, techno and dubstep ensembles (anything with a good beat, really), was the only thing that kept her sane most of the time. She felt like the ebb and flow of the sounds coupled with the sometimes profound, sometimes ridiculous lyrics, the thoughts of other people, righteously and wholly understood her. When she couldn't quite understand how she was feeling, or simply couldn't put it into words, music could.

"Well..." she thought, undoing her seat belt and waiting for the end of the line to appear, "This is it. No more foster homes. No more orphanages. You're doing this to give yourself a brighter future. So just get up and go already." Rolling her eyes at herself and flipping the long hair out of her face, she fixed the metal ring that ran through her septum and, finally, forced herself to stand and walk off the plane and into her new life.

####

Tetsuya had never really had plans for his life. All he had known was that he didn't want to continue on the path to being the Boss of his father's Yakuza Syndicate, the Sendo-Kai. His father led a ruthless bunch of men and didn't care what happened to anyone else so long as he benefited. That wasn't who he was, but considering getting out of the life of being a gangster was extremely hard as well as often-times dangerous, Tetsuya did what he felt was the easiest and safest plan for dodging his birthright and joined the Kasanoda-Gumi syndicate as a foot-man. His daily tasks were simple enough; clean and tidy the main house and serve as a companion and servant to the young lord that was in line for the position of boss when his father felt him ready. Or died. Whichever would come first. Likely the second, but who knows? Stranger things have happened than a gangster growing old and dying of natural causes.

Tetsuya quickly dodged a swinging hand, which was attached to the young lord in question as he tried to help him into his (somewhat) formal wear. Convincing the red-headed teenager to don a yukata was out of the question but he had at least gotten him to agree to nice jeans and a suave tux jacket over a white v-neck tee shirt. The young lord immediately made to roll up the sleeves to his elbows, but Tetsuya decided picking his battles was best for his physical well-being and left well-enough alone. He felt the casual way the clothing looked on him suited him far better than a traditional yukata, anyway. Had he been gay, the blond man might just have made a move at the slightly younger individual.

"I still can't believe this shit. Why the hell would he think it's a good idea to bring some girl here from America and force her to marry me? It's absurd!" Ritsu ranted on. Had Tetsuya not known the other man so well, he would have assumed that he was nervous, and maybe he was a little bit. But he knew most of the red-head's feelings stemmed from anger and embarrassment.

"Just give her a chance, my lord. She is, after all, only seventeen as well. You don't yet know her reasoning for accepting such an arrangement. It must be important to her. Things like this are common on this half of the world but in America, an arranged marriage is damn near taboo." He may not have finished school, but Tetsuya was well read in worldly dealings and other cultures. It all fascinated him dearly.

"I guess..." Ritsu continued to grumble as he made for the door. It was almost dinnertime and the mystery girl would be arriving at the house at any moment. Ritsu honestly would rather have stayed in his room all night reading, but he was a growing young lad and was feeling immensely hungry after constantly wailing on the punching bag that hung in the training garden for hours on end earlier in an attempt to let out some of his anger.

Tetsuya simply sighed again and went off to his own room that he shared with one of the other workers that lived in the house to get ready for dinner.

####

Ritsu heard voices get gradually louder as he trudged toward the dining room. Usually, everyone ate in their rooms or offices but every now and then, there would be a guest and the proverbial red carped would be laid out and the long table would be set. Tonight was the first time in over a year that Ritsu was even required to attend such a display, usually opting to eat outside as he absorbed the actions and emotions and literary devices that were inked into the many books he flew through effortlessly. He had approached Ouran's famed host club in an effort to learn how to make friends, but that did little to help him actually achieve that goal considering his loner nature. He had Tetsuya. That was enough for now. At least he had gained that.

"He arrives at last." Ritsu heard his father call out in an irritated tone when he finally rounded the corner, his has jammed into the front pockets of his jeans. "Our new addition to the family is in her room sorting out an outfit for herself. Flying almost 18 hours to be here with you has certainly taken a toll on her temporarily." The young lord rolled his eyes and mumbled a "whatever" as he took a seat on the cushioned pillow at the end of the table farthest from the mob-boss, not giving a damn if he came off as rude at the moment. The other three men in the room, those who had apparently traveled to America to find the poor girl (he remembered now wondering where they had disappeared to for two months half a year ago but had simply brushed it off. Boy did he feel stupid now.) would have scoffed at his insolence if they weren't so afraid of him. So be it. Usually he hated being feared, but at the moment, he didn't feel like dealing with anyone's shit.

####

Fixing the black satin bow in her faded blue hair, the girl checked herself in the full-length mirror that hung on the wall next to her door. Her new room wasn't huge, but it was far more space than she was used to having all to herself. A comfortable mattress sat on the ground against the far wall and there was a desk in the opposite corner. The closet was a walk-in with built in shelves and drawers, all of which were currently empty. She bit her lip as she thought that all of her clothes would fit in one drawer. She did, after all, only have the one duffle bag that held every belonging she had in her life at that point. It didn't matter, though. This was already more than she could ever have asked for.

Nodding her head in accepting satisfaction, she decided her skinny jeans, black flats and white and black polka-dotted blouse would just have to do. It was the dressiest thing she owned, out of all five of her outfits, and they would just have to accept that. She steeled her self in an fit of faux courage and walked out of the room, keeping her steps light and a small, nervous smile on her face. She didn't need her RBF giving them all the wrong idea about her. She was extremely grateful to be here and to be given the opportunities they are providing for her, even if it was at the cost of having to marry the head of the house's son to do so. She had never had any luck with men anyway, so this basically killed two birds with one stone.

Rounding the corner into the dining room she had seen earlier upon her arrival, she was met with the three men that had, in a sense, "recruited" her, an older balding man in traditional Japanese clothing, and the back of an extremely bright red head of hair, half of which was pulled into a ponytail and looked incredibly soft. The faceless attendee was leaning forward onto his hand, his elbow propped on the low-sitting table and she could hear him griping about something or another. She figured he wasn't exactly happy to be thrown into this situation. From what she understood, he had only been informed of the arrangement this morning. That had to be rough on the poor guy. He probably had a girlfriend that he could no longer be with because of her. She suddenly felt very sad and guilty for intruding into his life.

"My dear!" The older man called out to her. "It is wonderful to finally meet you. Please! Sit!" His hospitality was welcoming, already having been the warmest welcome she had ever experienced. She smiled and stepped around the teenage boy to approach the man and bowed slightly to him. Ever since she had been approached by the three other men, which now stood proudly off to the side, she had read very studiously about Japanese customs and put every waking minute of focus into learning the language. She was still a bit shaky on it, but had no doubt that she would get better now that she was among people who the language belonged to.

He smiled and bowed back and they all sat, the men at his left and her at his right. The teenager remained sitting throughout the exchange and stared down at his lap, causing her to not be able to see anything but the top of his glorious head of hair no matter how hard she tried.

"Well," the older man began, "First off, my dear, how do you pronounce your name? I do not want to mess it up and shame myself." She simply giggled to herself slightly and obliged him. "Daria, sir. Daria Engebretson. And yours?" Her language skills were not failing her yet, and that she was extremely thankful for, though the slight elevation in her pitch was not something she was used to. "My name is Lee-Fu Kasanoda. You may call me whatever you want, though, so long as you do so with kind intentions." He flashes a kind smile at her and she immediately reciprocates a nervous one, nodding once.

Just then, as if to save her from anything embarrassing that may or may not have happened, a barrage of men bustle into the spacious room and set plates and bowls full of delicious looking sauteed meats and vegetables and rice in front of them. A glass is quickly filled with what she assumes is water and placed within reach but obviously belonging to her and they all quickly file out as efficiently as they arrived. This is all very surreal to her. Before, if she wanted food, she would have to make it herself. And that was if she was allowed in the kitchen at all. Or the lunch ladies at the orphanages just slopped things onto a tray for her. She had no idea how to handle all of this fanciness.

"This is very good." She remarked between bites, trying to remember her very best manners and, for the most part, succeeding. The food was delicious and hot and, her favorite part, Asian. She absolutely adored Italian food and Indian food and even most American foods, but by far, Chinese and Japanese dishes were the best, in her opinion. And now she would get to eat them every day. Her head was beginning to spin from how excited and overwhelmed she was with such a huge change in her life. Just a day ago she was scraping peanut butter out of an almost empty jar and smearing it on a stale piece of bread and calling it lunch, and now she was a foreign American girl in the middle of Japan eating the best food she had ever had the pleasure of being within twenty feet of.

"My cook will be glad to hear your compliment. He is the best I have ever had. I don't know what we would all do without him." the older man, Lee-Fu, boasts, taking a large swig from his sake. "Anyway, as I have informed my son down at the end of the table there, once we are all finished eating, we will discuss the terms and conditions of this arrangement, sign a few documents, then we can all rest for the night. I am sure you are exhausted after such a long flight and being thrown off of your normal schedule by seven hours is not exactly something to sneeze at."

Daria replied with a meek "yes, sir", thankful that he was being so kind to her. She had also spent a great deal of time Googling Lee-Fu Kasanoda, boss of the yakuza syndicate Kasanoda-Gumi. She knew full well that she had agreed to come here and enter the home of a gang, marry the heir to the criminal organization, and yet, felt it was completely worth it if it meant she could go through a good school and one day become a good lawyer like she had always dreamed for herself.

Soon after, everyone had finished eating, even, surprisingly considering his surly attitude, the other teenager in the room. He hadn't left a single grain of rice in his bowl. Then again, just looking at how tall he was sitting down, he must eat a lot. Teenage boys were like black holes sometimes. Daria had observed many a time the boys at the orphanages eat everything in sight without even so much as a pause.

The people from earlier returned and cleared the table and a man, couldn't be more than twenty-two with bandages on his face and long blond hair swept haphazardly into a pony tail, brought a small stack of papers to sit in front of Lee-Fu. "That must be the contract." She thought to herself as she readjusted her blouse and quickly glanced at the red head at the end of the table out of the corner of her eye. He seemed defeated, the way his shoulders slumped forward and he just stared at his lap still. Hopefully he wouldn't hold too immense a grudge against her. She really needed all of this to work out. She felt bad that he had to endure something he obviously wanted nothing to do with, but she really needed to be better than her mother. She just had to...

####

Ritsu fidgeted with the hem of his tee shirt in his lap and tried to take deep, even breaths. Anything to not look up at the absolutely stunning girl that was sitting next to his father. He had finally snuck a glance at her when he had finished eating and had temporarily lost his ability to breathe for a second. It was bad enough that the poor girl was being forced to put up with him for the rest of her life. He felt truly sorry for her, knowing that most people wanted nothing to do with a guy whose glare could make even the meanest of men flinch. But this girl was gorgeous. She had everything in the world going for her, could have any man she wanted with the snap of her fingers, and she was stuck with him. Just the boost his self-confidence needed. He sighed silently to himself and snuck another glance.

She was most definitely American. Her features suggested maybe mid-European descent, but were all so well blended that he couldn't put a finger on any one region. She had sparkling hazel eyes and a septum piercing which currently held a simple silver horseshoe ring. He couldn't help but think how elegant she made the piece of metal look, when it usually just made people look like a bull. His eyes swept over her fading blue hair that cascaded in choppy layers, the longest of which reached almost to the middle of her upper arm, but when she turned her head and surveyed her surroundings, he saw she had the left side of it shaved down to maybe a quarter of an inch and had what appeared to be a design in the shape of a heartbeat line shaved into it, reaching from her temple to where the long hair started. Her bangs framed her eyes and made them seem deep and mysterious, but her shy smile lit up the room and he wondered what it would look like if she really, truly smiled. He felt he might be blinded by its honest brilliance.

"Right!" the old man clapped, causing Ritsu to jump a little and look up suddenly. "Son, you're going to have to come over here. This does concern you pretty heavily, after all." For a second, the red-head wondered where the small bit of confidence his father was exuding came from. Usually he was just as afraid of his son as everyone else was. Maybe it was the sake. The man had been drinking a lot of it lately, most likely in preparation of this. Wouldn't want to make himself look a fool.

Ritsu scoffed and hauled himself up to sit in the seat across from the girl, Daria, which had just been vacated by Gon. Gon was a middle aged man with one hell of a mug, but an OK personality. He had been one of the men to go to America, so Ritsu had been told, and now both teenagers sat right next to Lee-Fu. Gon and the other guy, Ritsu could never remember his name because he was never really around when the young lord was home and not in his room or outside sitting under a tree, bowed to his father and left the room and only the 39 year old weapons specialist, Koh, remained in the room with the three. Koh scooted from right by the young lord to one seat over, allowing himself a one-seat buffer between the two of them. It didn't bother Ritsu any. He was still pretty peeved at basically everyone but the girl in front of him, who he now, briefly, observed to have a small dimple in her left cheek and that she was lightly chewing on her bottom lip. He didn't blame her. He'd be nervous too if he were in her position.

"Alright. So what has happened here, basically, is that I sent men to America in search of a wife for you, Ritsu. You both know this. After about three weeks, I received a call saying they had found the perfect girl and that they were setting up the arrangements." Lee-Fu handed each of the teenagers a copy of the document that was in his hands. Each of their stacks now consisted of maybe twenty pages of single spaced, 11-point font. Ritsu groaned and Daria bit down harder on her lip.

"What this contract basically says is that you, Ritsu, will agree to wed and, subsequently, care for our dear Daria here to the best of your ability. And you, Daria, as discussed, will be put through proper schooling at the institution Ritsu attends, Ouran Academy, which has been given the highest recommendations and educational ratings in Japan, and you will also be put through post-secondary schooling and graduate schooling, as per your request, in exchange for giving your hand to my son." Ritsu's eyebrows shot up at this as he gazed at the seemingly shy girl across from him. "So she's not as helpless as I thought. She made sure she got something out of this too. She's got some gumption in her. Well good. Better chance she will survive." He thought, leaning back slightly and flipping the page of his ridiculously long contract.

He listened to his father drone on about how Koh was now the legal parent of Daria, that being the only legal way to get the girl here from America, as she had apparently been found living in an orphanage (another detail Ritsu tucked away for future questioning, if he could ever get up the guts to actually talk to this strange enigma sitting across from him), and meaningless things about their future property rights and blah blah blah sign here, initial there, Ritsu didn't care. He was now officially bored, but Daria was absolutely absorbed into the words on the papers in front of her.

"And finally, you shall both remain faithful to each other. From this point on, you are both now engaged to be wed and, as such, it is expected of you both to remain devoted to each other in accordance with the vows you will both be making once Daria has turned eighteen years of age, which is to happen 10 months from this upcoming Thursday, so January 18th. The detail concerning the exact date of the wedding is something left up to you two to decide as a couple, so long as it happens within six months from her birthday. Should either of you be found to have committed an infidelity, the marriage will be annulled, Daria will be disowned and put out onto the street, left to her own devices, and Ritsu will be stripped of his birthright as heir to this syndicate." Both of the teenagers sighed and nodded their heads, initialing next to that section of the contract and signed the final line, swapping without looking at each other to sign and initial all required spaces on the opposing contracts and taking turns doing the same to Lee-Fu's copy while Lee-Fu and Koh signed all of the appropriate sections they were required to sign as the parents of the two minors.

Finally, it was all said and done and Ritsu quickly excused himself to go back to his room, clutching his copy of the contract and thinking about how the girl that had been in his home for less than four hours, with whom he had not exchanged any words whatsoever with, had given up her freedom to marry whoever she wanted just for the chance to gain a good education and that if either of them strayed from each other, she would be out on the streets in a completely different country than she had ever known. He didn't give a flying fuck if he became a mob-boss or not, but he decided, right then and there, that even though he did not yet know this woman, even if the two of them hated each other, he would only ever allow her to lose everything if it meant she had someone to help her pick up the pieces. Her finding someone and falling in love would be the only reason he would allow her to leave his side. Because he was just that tragic of a hero. God he needed to stop reading so much shojou manga... It was really starting to screw with his personality...

####

Daria sighed and slipped into the hot shower she had just started. That dinner had been the most intense thing she had ever experienced. Between having to concentrate really hard on both what Lee-Fu and the contract was saying (as both were in Japanese), making sure she kept a pleasant expression on her face and trying to calm her heart from stuttering every time she glanced at her newly betrothed, Ritsu, she had developed a killer migraine. She just wanted to stand under the hot water forever and let it beat down on her neck.

Ritsu hadn't been what she expected at all. She wasn't even sure what she expected, but the man she sat across that table from as they both scribbled their names over and over again had definitely not been it. She had pictured some short, skinny pale kid with normal black Japanese hair and basic-ass face. What she got, instead, was a tall, well built (she could tell under his tux jacket), red-head with an RBF that could rival her own on one of her bad days. That last detail actually made her feel a little bit better about herself.

Now, she wasn't the only one. Someone might actually understand the struggle she went through with everyone always thinking she was angry as hell just by looking at her face. Most people didn't think it was a problem, but those that had it knew just how frustratingly isolating it was. And only they knew when they looked at other people afflicted by the inconvenient gene that it never meant just one thing. They could actually see that there were other emotions under an RBF.

She shook her head. She always went off on this weird spiel in her head about RBFs and how there should be support groups for people with them, even though it was clearly not as big an issue as, say, addiction or depression or anything of the like. But still, she found comfort in knowing she wasn't alone in that department anymore, and somehow, oddly, the man's mean looking face made him very, very attractive to her. She was now even more happy that she had tried to pick Koh's pocket when she spotted him walking along the sidewalk in downtown Seattle. If she hadn't, he would have never noticed her and she wouldn't have this incredible opportunity for a real future or such an attractive partner. She had no knowledge of what this man was like, if he would hate her, resent her, or somehow grow to at least tolerate her presence in his life, but if all she got out of this was an education and a chance to look at the man, she would be able to die happy. "Well that's dramatic. But oh well. I don't care right now. My head hurts too much to argue with myself."

She stepped out of the now-cold shower, feeling refreshed if even only a little bit, and toweled herself off before wrapping her hair up. She performed the tedious duties associated with being a woman that just exited a shower, such as brushing her teeth and lotioning her newly shaved legs, before slipping on her ratty gray tee shirt and blue fluffy sleep-shorts and releasing her hair to be combed. She did all of this while humming the tune to Kansas' Dust in the Wind, which had been stuck in her head since her plane landed earlier that day, and exited the bathroom. The hallway was quiet, save for the sound of her bare feet padding along the floor and her humming, and she made it back to her room without incident. Now she could fall into her new bed and drift off to thoughts of violins and fleeting lives and a particular red-headed gangster-in-training.