Title: Contact or Lack Thereof. Ouran High School Host Club
Author: P.L.S.
Summery: Post OHSHC- Haruhi is on the last steps to making her plans come to life, the only bump on her road is Tamaki-shaped.
Disclaimer: To whomever owns OHSHC, I'm sorry. This was only meant in honor of the story and characters who have captured my imagination. I will make no money off of this and I know I don't own them.
A/N: I've only read the US releases up to volume three. To make things worse, I don't want Haruhi paired up ever. I'm not a shipper, rather I want to see Haru finish her degrees go back to Japan and kick butt as a lawyer.
"Stop it, Haru-chan."
"Huh?" Haruhi looked up and saw the laughing eyes of her friend, Hoshi Kinachi. Haruhi knew she had to of been day dreaming again because she was sure she had sat down no more than five minutes ago. But if Hoshi was out of class then it had to of been a half-hour. Haruhi followed her Hoshi to the parking lot where they would hop on Haruhi's motorbike and go home to do homework until it was time to go to work.
Hoshi was her roommate as well as her friend, because now that she was at a foreign university to study law, the cost of living was no longer shared between her father and her. She had started on this path to find a way to honor her mother, but now she just wanted to see it though to prove she could. She even went to the same high school her mother attended, which turned out to be both a blessing and a curse as it was a school meant for the elite.
It was from her high school friends the motorbike had come. One of them had her test drive it for a bit before the whole club pitched in to buy it for her as a kind of good luck gift. As Haruhi strapped on her helmet she thought about high school and how interesting it had turned out. All but one member of her clique of friends still e-mailed her with disturbing regularity, and her two best friends, Hikaru and Kaoru, seemed to try to find reasons to visit and hide out on her pullout bed couch at least every other month.
Only Tamaki seemed to not care anymore. Or if Kyoya could be trusted, he was hurt that she moved out of the country and was pining. The problem was in the fact that when it came to Tamaki, Kyoya was usually right and Haruhi did not want to think about a pining Tamaki. The guy was bad enough when he was happy, and she really didn't want to hurt anyone.
"So, who is he?" asked Hoshi. Haruhi blinked, they were home, she had driven from the other side of the town without her thinking about it. Sure, it was a route she knew backwards and forwards, but that she spent that long thinking about her high school friends was scary.
"What? Oh, it's nothing." Haruhi pulled her books out of the saddlebags and made to go into their apartment building, which was over a convenience market. Hoshi darted in front of her and smiled.
"Uh huh, you gotta tell me what you were thinking about so hard. If you don't, I'm gonna lock you out." she said with a giggle and Haruhi scowled at her nosy friend's tactics. She knew better than to assume it was a bluff, Hoshi had locked her out before for this kind of stuff.
"Fine." Haruhi huffed, "If you must know, Suoh Tamaki isn't responding to my e-mails. He has me worried."
"Why?" Hoshi tilted her head like a curious puppy as she chirped the question.
"Ohtori said he's angry with me because I moved out of the country."
"It's not like you could say no to Oxford."
"I know that, but Tama, well, he's not rational on the best of days. He is the type to be angry with me for this long over me going to school here." Haruhi shrugged, "Anyway, we're coming up on the two month mark, how much you wanna bet that one of the twins will be on our couch?"
"I don't take sucker bets." Hoshi laughed and pointed up to their flat's door where both Hitachiin heads were sticking out.
"So, you coming up?" called out Hikaru. Haruhi shook her head.
"You idiots, of course we are."
Haruhi sat back and leaned into Kaoru as they watched Hikaru and Hoshi dance around each other as they cleaned up the dinner of sushi, soup, and other treats the twins brought in from Japan. She knew she had to go to work soon, but was, once again, so full that she couldn't move.
"So, have you heard from Tama yet?" asked Kaoru.
"No. Kyoya says that he's angry I moved and love sick or something." Haruhi pulled her knees up to her chest, "I don't see how."
"Huh? Tama's been crazy for you since day one." Kaoru said with a bit of a laugh, "We could get him to do all sorts of insane things because of his jealousy and inability to actually tell you anything."
"Let me put it this way, I don't want him to be in love with me."
"Why not?" Kaoru held her hand as she tried to get up, "Tell me."
"I've gotta go to work. Let me go, Kaoru." Haruhi said in a very flat voice and Kaoru let go. Both Hoshi and Hikaru were staring.
"Fine." Kaoru's voice went as flat as hers and he dropped her hand like a hot potato.
"Good," with that she collected her apron, hat, and purse then left the flat for the deli where she waited tables.
As she parked her motorbike in the alley behind the shop she put on a smile and tried to forget about the hurt she saw in Kaoru's eyes and the hurt she felt every time a week went by without a message from Tamaki.
As she went in no one could see that she wanted to go back to bed and hide with a pint of chocolate ice cream and a trashy tabloid. They only saw "Harry" Fujioka, the uni student and waitress.
Haruhi got home late, it was nearing midnight and she just knew that one of the twins was going to be on her case about not calling. It was just something they did when she had to clean up and close the deli up at night. As she rolled her motorbike into it's space and turned the key she looked up, in her window was Hikaru. She could only tell it was him by the silhouette because when he settled down to design or do any creative work, he wore a silly ball cap that Hunny gave him during their last club Christmas. His had rabbit ears, and Kaoru had been given one with cat ears, but Kaoru rarely wore his cap.
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath and prayed that the twins would not bring up the subject of Tamaki. She didn't want to talk about why she didn't want him to be in love with her. She didn't want to have to curse herself for not killing the infatuation when she first saw it. She didn't want to tell anyone who could do anything about her troubles about them. They were hers and she needed to either fix them or ignore them.
She only had one more semester after this and then her degree would be done. She didn't need Tamaki. The chaos that always followed him would only prolong her stay in England and cost her the scholarships she worked so hard to get.
Haruhi put the key in the lock, opened the door and was surprised at the subdued, "Oh, hello." from Hikaru.
"Hi." Haruhi hung up her apron and hat on the coat tree in the corner and tossed her purse under the gaudy brass thing. It came with the flat and was too useful to toss, but she hated the false richness.
"Mom's asked me to do a summer line, just sketches right now." Hikaru said explaining why he was in her window with his tablet computer and stylus.
"Okay. Is Kaoru still angry with me?"
"Yeah, a bit. He left with Hotaru."
"Yeah."
"What happened? One second you two were talking like normal, then that mini-blow up."
"We were talking about Tamaki." Haruhi sat on the couch and Hikaru nodded.
"Yeah, that makes sense. So, Haru, what do you want to do about it?" Hikaru slipped the tablet into it's pouch and slid over the back of the couch to sit next to her but twisted enough so they were face to face.
"What do you mean?"
"Kaoru's anger is easy to fix. Make waffles or something for breakfast and say sorry, then he'll say sorry and all is forgotten. It's Tama that's got you all messed up."
"Tamaki's not sane, not really. When I first stumbled into the club, he thought I was an anime character, not a real person. He's not in love with me, he's in love with the idea of me." Haruhi fought down the lump in her throat that seemed to be threatening to suffocate her, "I miss him as a friend, but I'm so angry with him for treating me like a pet." Haruhi was surprised as Hikaru enveloped her in a hug and pulled her over to his lap.
"Ah, crap. We treated you so awful, didn't we?"
"No, not really. You and Kaoru adopted me, in a way, made me remember I was a girl. Mori and Hunny, well, they were so wrapped up in each other that there were times I think they forgot there were others in the world. Kyoya, I expected him to treat me like a commodity, he treated everyone like that. But Tamaki, he never stopped treating me like a slave even after I paid you guys off. No, not a slave, more like a puppet. He expected me to do what I was suggested to do, stick around to amuse him, then maybe marry him like some stupid air head on T.V."
"And now he's ignoring you and hurting you because you hurt him by not living up to his dreams, even though we all knew that Ouran was just a step on some pre-planned path that you set out on as a little girl." Hikaru said and Haruhi nodded into his chest.
"It's an amended version of my mother's path. She went to Ouran, then to Waseda, then to Harvard. I picked Oxford though, it has a better look on a resume."
"No wonder you stuck it out, even after St. Roberta's made their offer to you." Hikaru said with a bit of wonder, "Was your mother a scholarship student, too?" Haruhi laughed.
"No, no. Mother was the youngest daughter, but they were also well off and an older family. She was disowned when they found out about Dad. She still finished her degree then became a corporate lawyer. I'm going for trial and civil law."
"What family was insane enough to disown your mother?" Hikaru said with a little of a growl under his laughing voice.
"Does it matter?" Haruhi pushed up and away from Hikaru. She wiped the tears away with her sleeves and looked him in the eyes.
"Of course. I don't want to do business with them."
"You don't. Besides, I know they've never heard of me." Haruhi smiled and faked a yawn, "I'm gonna go to bed."
"And I know where the bedding is and how to make a bed, right?"
"Right."
"Nigh, night, Haru."
"Sweet dreams, Hikaru." Hikaru grinned.
"So I can dream of you tonight, my sweet?" Hikaru threw her a dramatic leer and waggled his eyebrows at her a la Groucho Marx. He even mimed holding a cigar to complete the image. It was just so rediculous seeing the normally posh guy do something so plebian.
"No!" Haruhi threw a cushion at him and went to her room then let herself collapse into giggles. Hikaru seemed to always know how to cheer her up at just the right time.
Haruhi logged on her e-mail account in the uni's main library. She scrolled through, stopping to read the messages from classmates about tutorials and study groups, getting rid of the spam that seemed to crop up no matter how many filters she created, and really wanting to see something from Japan.
Then it popped up just after she deleted her over-full trash folder, something from kohtoriohtorigroup. Tama
Hello, Haru. I know life in Great Britain is treating you at least as well as life here in Tokyo did. Yes, I still am keeping an eye on you, even if you told me that you are a "big girl" now. I simply prefer to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that nothing is hurting your chances of finishing on time and getting back here. I do miss you, mostly for your candor and fearlessness. You kept me somewhat noble and tried to curb my more cutthroat tendencies, and no one else dares to try to do so to me now. Are you sure you won't forget your plans of becoming Japan's greatest trial attourney and become my personal assistant?
I'm not the only one that misses you, as you well know. Renge drifts in and out of my office bemoaning the loss of her "angelic muse", I think this means you (but with her I'm never totally sure.) Her latest project with her indie studeo was not a flop, but not a hit either. Critics are unsure if she has a future or if she is burning out after that adaptation of The Two Gentlemen of Verona she finished just after graduation from her art school. Hunny and Mori have inquired about you just the other day while we were out. It seems they've been remiss in communicating with you as you have with them. This is not an admonishment, rather it is a warning that soon your inbox will be filled with poetic and woeful apologees from them and I'm sure Mori will send you all their latest photographs.
Hikaru and Kaoru have vanished again, so I'm assuming that they are at your domicile as they usually are when they go on their little psudeo-fugues. Tamaki has vanished as well, but unlike the twins, he's never done this before without at least calling my voice mail with a cryptic clue.
To be honest, I'm growing worried about Tamaki's actions. While he is impulsive and an idiot on the best of days, it is not like him to just vanish. He has always hung around an made a nusince of himself until someone would give into his wishes. As your graduation aproaches, his behaviour has started to stray from eccenctric into insanity. His family won't do anything to help him and his psychatrist has called me, telling me that Tamaki stopped attending their sessions a month ago and the times he has gotten a hold of the ponce, Tama sounded very odd to him. As flighty as Tama acts, he has never vered so far away from his schedules and habits.
I'm not sure if I'm asking for help, or if I'm warning you now. Haru, Tamaki is my oldest and best friend, with you following closely as second, but right now I think I can trust him about as much as I'd trust a pack of rabid monkeys.
With friendship & love,
Kyoya.
"Damnit, Tama. You screw up my plans and I will not hesitate to kill you." Haruhi whispered as she read the message over again. Kyoya was watching over her from afar, the Hitachiin brothers were practically moving in with her now that they had officially bought a flat in the city, but still she felt a twinge of fear at the idea of Tamaki showing up. Tamaki knew her fears, he was the only one who was able to read her like a book, and he was the last person she wanted to fear.
She typed off a quick acknowlegdement of the message with a bit of news such as the twins' new residence and her latest test scores, and cc'ed that news to the whole of her address book. She then beat Hunny to the punch by writing a three page letter filled with mundane details of her life and open-ended questions for the hyper little lord to answer. It was the only way she could see to avoid the unpleasentness of a sad message from Hunny or Mori. To Mori she sent a funny forward and a link to Hoshi's personal website, which was only her photo album with far too many pictures of Haruhi caught in silly moments or being teased by the twins.
