Disclaimer: I do not own "Ouran High School Host Club" or any of the characters in this wonderful manga/anime in any way.
Shelter in the Storm
Chapter One
"Can this day get any worse? First the rain when I am three blocks from school, then the twins and their red slushy this morning, and now this. Seriously, can it get worse? Oh wait, I still have host club later today, I better not jinx myself. But still…" Fujioka Haruhi silently pondered as she scooped the remnants off her bento and another girl's tray full of food off of her lap. Sheepishly, the girl across the table from her offered to replace the meal with one from the school cafeteria as an apology. She had only meant to stop by Haruhi's table before joining other girls from her class at the table behind when she tripped. This sent her tray sliding across the table and straight into the host's lap, knocking the bento that Haruhi had barely started along with it. "You needn't worry. I was mostly through any way," she replied as she flashed her 'natural style host' smile at the girl. Placing the remaining mess into the thrash receptacle as she left the cafeteria, Haruhi found herself running head-long into the primary source of today's otherwise avoidable problems.
"Haruhi, you are just who we were looking for. Ehh what happened to you?" the twins stared in disgust at the image in front of them. As if the sudden and completely unexpected downpour that started as she was thee blocks from school this morning wasn't enough, these two devil twins met her at the door to the school with a large red slushy from the convenience store down the block. As they passed it back and forth to each other over Haruhi's head, the lid came off and the entire contents of the cup spilled all over her. And now, this lunch incident had left Haruhi in a foul mood. She could only speculate at the cost of her cleaning bill that Kyoya-senpai would tack onto her seemingly unwavering debt. She felt a headache coming on and dealing with the Hitachiin brothers could only make it worse. She narrowly made her escape by pretending to greet Tamaki behind them. When they turned to greet him as well, she ran the other way. That would only grant her a few minutes of peace until the next class started, but every moment counts. She was lucky enough to not end up with more being spilled on her until club time.
It was yet another cosplay event, so Haruhi wouldn't have to greet guests in a stained uniform. Admittedly she made a habit of bringing along a spare uniform to school, due to the twins having a tendency of hiding her uniform and leaving some frilly dress for her to wear instead. But she had already changed after the red slushy incident, so she didn't have another clean uniform. As the days events ended, Haruhi remembered that she had nothing clean to change into. The best she could do would be the pants from that morning which were now mostly dry from the rain and did not take the brunt of the red slushy, and the shirt from the afternoon. The shirt, admittedly, had some food stains, but was not as bad as the red slushy. Due to the bad day she had been having, she took her time changing so when she walked out of the dressing room finally, only two members were left. She avoided looking at or calling the attention of Kyoya-senpai simply because she knew that he would insist on her having both uniforms professionally cleaned. However, finding Huni-senpai still eating cake and without Mori-senpai struck Haruhi as very odd.
"Haru-chan! Want to join me for one more piece of cake while I wait for Takeshi?" called Huni-senpai as he saw that Haruhi had finally emerged from the dressing room. "Takeshi forgot something at the dojo after kendo practice this afternoon. He'll be back in a bit so we can leave." Huni-senpai smiled at her with a bit of frosting on him cheek.
Haruhi couldn't help but go clean her small senpai's face. "No thank you, Huni-senpai. I don't want to spoil my dinner. Tonight I am making Dad a special dinner. He got a promotion at the bar last night." When Haruhi wiped the frosting off of his cheek, Huni-senpai blushed a little bit, but his kouhai did not notice as her attention was drawn to Kyoya senpai. Closing his laptop and placing it in his bag, for about half of a second, he looked shocked to see others still in the room with him. It didn't last long though, as he pushed his glasses up and shouldered his bag.
"Haruhi, you do know, don't you, that the school uniform really should be professionally laundered? Even more so when considering red food dye that goes into those ridiculous frozen slush drinks that the Hitachiins were drinking this morning." She knew that she wouldn't be able to avoid him, but she had tried all day, darnit. "If you would like, I can have them cleaned for you and ready for you in the morning," he offered.
"No thank you senpai. I can get it taken care of on my own. Thank you. Besides, I don't think that I could afford to have that added to my debt," Haruhi explained as she smiled her typical host smile. Kyoya just sighed as he walked out the door, passing Mori-senpai along the way.
"Ready, Takeshi?" asked Huni-senpai as he bound over to the tall senior. With an affirmative nod, both boys turned their attention to Haruhi. "Haru-chan, can we give you a ride? It's getting dark early 'cause a storm is coming in tonight."
She glanced out the window and saw that he was indeed correct as the clouds where ominously dark for so early in the afternoon. "Uh. Thank you. But if you would just drop me off at the grocery store a few blocks from my house that would be fine. I have to get there before the sale items are all gone.
"Haruhi, can we come with you? Usa-chan doesn't want you to get sick from walking in the rain, and I want to buy some cakes." Huni-senpai asked with a hopeful look in his eyes.
"OK, but we need to get going." She said with a smile. It was hard to turn down those eyes.
The trio made their way to the limo and then on to the store as Huni-senpai chatted happily with Haruhi about the types of cakes he wanted to by and what she was expecting to purchase. Despite Huni-senpai's child-like behavior and non-stop chatter, it was a fairly eventless outing. Haruhi got the ingredients to make her father's favorite meal, Huni-senpai picked up several cakes, and Mori-senpai just carried the shopping basket for them against Haruhi's protests that she was capable of carrying her own.
In the end, they dropped her off at her apartment since it had started to rain while they were in the store and Huni-senpai felt responsible for her delay in leaving. He had taken his time in selecting the cakes that he purchased, and didn't think that Haruhi should have to pay for his indecision. She thanked them for the ride home as she climbed out, expecting the door to shut and the driver to take off. Mori-senpai climbed out after her and would not let go of her shopping bags. "But Mori-senpai, you're getting wet. I can make it to the door; it's just up the stairs." Her protests were met with silence and his ever-present stoic stare.
Not wanting to keep him out in the bad weather any longer than necessary, she immediately ran to her door and unlocked it. After depositing the bags on the kitchen table, he smiled at her as she thanked him. He ruffled her damp hair before turning to leave, as she went about preparing dinner for her father. She could be heard sighing to herself repeatedly that evening, "Not a Tuesday that I care to repeat… well except maybe the last few hours."
The next morning as she went to school a car pulled up next to her shortly after she left home. She assumed that it would be one of the members of the host club, but was she ever in for a big surprise. A middle aged man reached out and tried to pull her into the car. It was not one of the limos that she expected from her friends, nor did she recognize the man who had gotten out of the car in attempts to force Haruhi in. The rain worked to her disadvantage, as it made it difficult to slip out of her blazer in attempts to escape. He held onto her tightly, knocking her around quite a bit in the scuffle. The stranger even managed to drop her to her knees with a punch to her midsection. Then an elbow landed square in her right eye.
A resident in the neighborhood witnessed what happened and called the police. As the sirens neared, the stranger who was still struggling to push Haruhi into his car finally gave up and left. The police arrived at the scene as Haruhi collapsed. She was transported to the nearest hospital, which happened to be Otori owned. By the time she was out of emergency surgery, her father, the school, as well as Kyoya, had all been notified.