Hello everyone, if you are new to this story welcome, or if you have seen the original beginning of this story welcome back! I hope that this story is written much better than my previous version, with more character development and more of a cohesive plotline. As in my old story, this also plot contains abuse, both verbal and physical, there will be more specific trigger warning on each chapter, this one just implies physical abuse, so please watch out for those in the future. Thank you so much for reading, feel free to leave a review!
"I have often found the company of strangers more kind than those of friends, so if you're looking for me look to those crowded spaces filled with unfamiliar faces" ~ Levi H.
There was a constant agitating sound that enveloped the large white room. It was so annoying in fact that it caused movement from under the large bundle of blankets, piled onto an even larger bed. The slim figure that could barely be seen under those covers was laughable in comparison to the amount of room the mattress offered. After the fifth ring a slender pail hand with long fingers emerged for the warm cocoon where the rest of the body resided at the moment, the digits wrapped around the black phone and pulled it back into the covers. "Tamaki, it's six in the morning, what could you possibly want at this hour?" said a grouchy voice, barely loud enough to be heard. "No, I can't Tamaki, not today" there was a short pause and a loud voice could be heard on the other end of the line. "No, no you idiot I am not sick, I just have things to do today" his tone went from exasperated to monotone in that short sentence. There were a few more loud noises from the other end of the line where suddenly cut short when the black haired boy turned off his phone. Violently pushing the covers off of his face Kyoya rolled over onto his back. He realized far too late that this action was a mistake, a painful mistake, when his back hit the sheets he let out a hiss of pain, clinched his fists till they turned as white as the linens and shut his eyes taking deep breaths. After a few moments when his intake of oxygen had reached more normal levels he sat up and disentangled himself from the offending blankets. 'Damn' Kyoya cursed in his head as he observed the once white material was now stained crimson.
Getting onto shaky legs he stumbled into his bathroom and turned on the bright light, a few seconds of muttering later and Kyoya's eyes were enough to clearly see that there was indeed blood running down his back. He had placed his hand to the lumbar of his spine, once he brought it up to his face it began shaking, needless to say he was not a fan of the feeling of the sticky warm substance coating his fingers. 'Pull it together' Kyoya thought as he closed the door with his clean hand. As he turned the shower onto a scalding heat and eventually entered the hot water he reminded himself for the millionth time 'This is normal, nothing new, I have had worse, I mean it hardly even hurts' as he thought the last part his shoulders tensed as the water touched his back.
Tamaki was waiting in the middle of the busy hallway which was teeming with life. Perhaps life was the wrong description; it was more like a sea of yellow dresses and purple school uniforms. The first day of school was always a spectacle, the blonde King himself was gaining many stairs by his fans, and much of it had to do with his posing. His hips were to the side slightly, one hand balanced on the raised hip, the other hand was placed on his brow over his eyes: basically making him look like a sailor in search of land. From standing so still for such a long time his sudden movement scared those observing him. "Mommy!" he proclaimed as he launched at the boy with glasses, Kyoya just managed to dodge his embrace. This did not stop the blonde boy from giving his friend a tight hug. "I missed you so much!" Tamaki shouted while still holding Kyoya. "Calm down you idiot, I literally saw you last week when we went to the cinema together, it has not been that long since I have seen you" he reminded his overly enthusiastic friend. The King began to go into a detailed explanation of everything that he had done that summer, although Kyoya had been there for most of it. The menge was not really listening to what Tamaki was saying, he saying trying not to look pained due to the excessive contact to his body, but there was also this feeling of warmth, no matter how much Tamaki rambled or exaggerated he knew that the blonde idiot truly cared for him, something he didn't get a lot from other people.
In the same cross section of the hallway Haruhi was walking toward her locker when she stopped because someone was calling her name. Looking around she soon saw the source of the name calling, Tamaki, Kyoya was also standing next to the Club's leader with his arms crossed over his chest. The girl would never admit that she missed the antics of the Club but there had been a certain lack excitement in her life during the summer months. " Haruhi looked at Tamaki then to Kyoya whilst she continued to walk forward but failed to see a boy walking in the opposite direction. The two collided and both ended up on the ground. "I am so sorry" Stated Haruhi as she got to her feet, extending her hand down to the fallen student. The boy took her hand and brushed himself off laughing slightly. Extending his hand the student said "Levi Hill, nice to meet you" Haruhi also laughed and shook the boy's hand introducing herself. "Are you new here?" Haruhi asked with a smile. "I am, my family just moved here two weeks ago, so I haven't had much of a chance to get to know the campus" the boy stated with a slight shrug of the shoulders and a smile. "Well what's your first class, maybe I can show you the way" offered the girl. "Oh, thanks, here's my schedule, I have history first" said the boy pointing to the piece of paper he was offering. Haruhi took a few moments read it over before saying "Wow, you have a lot of hard classes, but I also have history first period, we could walk together" she smiled.
As the pair walked down the hallway toward the south wing of the school Hill looked over to another strange pair, both tall and slender, one with black hair and one with blonde hair, the latter was waving wildly in their general direction. Fujioka looked over to them for a second, smiled, waved and then motioned of him to follow which he did. Kyoya had nodded in Haruhi's direction to indicate his attention to her, but he had been puzzled by her companion, he certainly had not seen them around Ouran Academy before. A fact that was 'interesting in its own way.'
Hikaru and Kaoru where sitting next to each other in history talking to a few girls when the person they had been waiting for finally appeared, with another boy. Both of their eyes widened in shock , they stood up and approached the girl. The spectators, fangirls, either started have hearts twinkle in their own eyes or swooned with the addition of another Host Club member. "Did you have a good summer Haruhi?," "What did you do?," "Why did you never call us back?," "Who is this sketchy guy your with?," the Hitachiin brothers asked in a tag team like manner. "Goodness calm down you two!" she reprimanded "I went to Kyoto with my dad for part of the summer and my phone broke. I guess I missed your calls, sorry" said Haruhi scratching her head slightly embarrassed. The twins however were not done with the stoic girl and started prodding Levi, much to his chagrin and discomfort. "Hey Haruhi, who is this guy?" they repeated in unison, still poking him. "HEY, leave him alone. Don't pay attention to these two, their crazy" said the girl addressing both parties at once. The twins and new student both reacted differently, the homo brothers protested their being crazy and Hill observed them. After everything seemed to calm down he extended his hand to the twins who looked on with skepticism, at their response Levi rolled his eyes and waved instead at them saying "Hi, my name is Levi Hill" Thankfully the professor entered the classroom and stopped any more shenanigans from occurring for the rest of the hour.
"Ah, I have maths next, I think that's in the north building" said Levi with uncertainty. "Well I don't have college algebra, I'm only in geometry this year but this period I have English. I can walk you to your class though, English and maths are near each other" Haruhi said with a smile, handing Levi back his schedule. As the two began to walk out the history class Hikaru and Kaoru who were hiding behind a desk listening in on the pair's conversation motioned the girl toward them. In hushed tones they said "Pst, pst, don't take him to that class" Haruhi replied by asking "Why ever should I not help a new student?" Not impressed at their attempt to keep her by their side all day. "No, it's not that so much…" said Kaoru "only that Kyoya is in the class" finished Hikaru shuddering. This prompted Haruhi to roll her eyes walking away from the twins.
After a long fast walk the two arrived at their destination, the pair was running up the stairs breathing hard. Rounding the corner quickly they rushed into the college maths class. The room was quite full, which was to be expected as the class would start in five minutes. There were empty seats scattered around the room but most of them were near the back. Levi found it hard to focus when sitting in the back and gave one last desperate sweep of the room with his eyes before believing he would have to reside in the back. However there was one sole empty seat near the front, the other boy sitting at the shared desk seemed familiar. He plucked up his courage and made his way to that open seat with his new friend shadowing behind him. Arriving at his destination the black haired boy looked up and said blandly "Haruhi, hadn't you better be getting to class?" with a raised eyebrow. "Ah, right, thanks sempai" the girl said "See you last period Hill" Haruhi said rushing out of the class as fast as they had entered. Levi gave a small bow in the direction Haruhi had run off in, "See you later Fujioka" The words hung in the air for a second before Levi turned back to the boy with glasses. With a sigh Kyoya moved his books and cup of coffee to make room for the new boy. "Thank you" he said with another bow setting down a heavy looking book bag and lightly sitting down. Just as he pulled out his slightly tattered composition book and pens the class began.
After an hour of complex equations and more than one confusing graphs and assigning one hundred problems for homework the whole class sat stupefied and tired except for the two near the front. Kyoya had already started the first three problems and Levi had packed his things and pulled out the now dreaded schedule and map once more. All around the class chatter filled the air, most of the conversation was about how most of the students were considering dropping this class, this type of noise hardly annoyed Kyoya, he was used to it from hanging around Tamaki so much; but the annoyed sounding sigh caused him to look over to his temporary partner. There stretched on the table a map was laid out with a route to the English building, the path drawn with a pencil was one of the worst he had ever seen, mainly because it took all the central hallways. Hallways he refused to use himself, they were filled with swarms of people who jostled each other with no notion of personal space: even as a Shadow King Kyoya could not go down those hallways undisturbed. For some unknown reason Kyoya said "There is no way you would reach your next class in time using that path" The boy sitting to his right looked up at him responding with "Oh." The boy took a few moments to look over the map again, thinking. His left hand started lowering down for some object or another, Kyoya assumed a pencil to erase the rubbish route. The dark haired boy had grabbed the others down turned hand. This stopped the boy, again looking up to him with questioning eyes. Kyoya shifted under the gaze and released his hand: the Shadow King had just seen the new students schedule and was looking at that while saying "We have the next class together as well, you can follow me there" he ended his conversation there, stood up and put his bag on his shoulder and started walking out of the room, the other boy rushing to catch up.
After a few minutes filled with silence down what was now an empty hall Kyoya said "You're new here." It was not a question, more a threatening statement that required an answer because he had gone out of the way to help someone clearly younger and more insignificant than him. Levi understood these hidden nuances of the elder's statement and replied with "Yes, my name is Levi Hill, my family has just moved back to Japan from Sweden two weeks ago. I am in class 2-A" He hoped this was enough to satisfy the upper classman taking long strides beside him. It apparently was because he nodded his head saying "My name is Kyoya Ohtori" And that was all that was said until they reached the College British Literature class where Hill said "Thank you Mr. Ohtori" Kyoya didn't much care, now that he had what he needed from the other boy: his name. Kyoya walked quickly into the almost empty class and sat down next to a blonde haired boy who also looked familiar to Levi. With a sigh Levi took a seat at the font of the class as more and more people trickled in, until the room reached capacity and every desk was filled.
In art class seventh period Levi smiled as Haruhi sat down next to him. "So how was your first day?" he asked warmly. "To be honest I'm not sure there are words to sum it up" said Hill with a short laugh "tiring for a start" he finished. "I understand what you're saying, you should have seen me last year, let me just say I was a mess back then" Smiling and talking casually they started sketching the flowers in the center of the room as they were instructed to do by the teacher. At the end of the period Fujioka and Hill parted ways talking about how they would meet up again in the morning before history class, parting with a handshake and smile. Among the tirade of happy kids ready to return home from an exciting first day back to school there were those with an entirely different attitude on the subject. Those that were already weary from the work expected from them, or wanting to avoid for just another minute having to have to return home. But those special people and their desires would go unnoticed among the sea of yellow, as they always had.
*I also have to include that none of these characters are mine, all rights belong to Bisco Hatori and I am making no money from this story. Thank you for reading.