The Maxims of the Rich

Ten lessons and rules one should know about Ouran Academy...

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A/N: Thank you for the feedback, it's inspired me to continue. I need to start thinking of more ideas :P

All characters © Hatori Bisco


Lesson #2: Never attempt to understand Hitachiin cryptophasia.

"…Eh?"

It had been only a few weeks following Fujioka Haruhi's indoctrination into Ouran's renowned Host Club when she finally noticed it. They didn't really seem to be aware of doing so, she noted, with a kind of speculative fascination, as she observed the Hitachiin twins from a distance. One day, when the covertly female host was not attending to her designators, she decided to ask the only person who would be able to give her an intelligent answer: Kyouya.

"Something bothering you, Haruhi?" the club's Vice President asked as he heard her light footsteps approaching, dark eyes resting on the pulsating screen of his laptop.

"No, not really," Haruhi answered casually, hoping that she was not disturbing the Shadow King as he ran his underworld funds for the club. "Kyouya-senpai, I was just wondering…"

"What is it?"

Haruhi's brown eyes drifted towards the twins again, who were sitting with their arms wrapped around one another in the midst of their tender brotherly love act.

"Have you noticed that Hikaru and Kaoru sometimes use, ah, strange words when talking with one another?"

Kyouya brushed a rogue strand of black hair from his forehead and closed his laptop with a little snick. "Of course," he replied, stretching in his chair.

A frown flitted across Haruhi's face as she replied, "Sometimes I can't understand what they're saying at all—I thought they were Japanese, but are their parents foreign?"

"Well excluding you, Haruhi, all of the Host Club members are proficient in at least three different languages," Kyouya said with pride, pushing his oval-shaped glasses up on the bridge of his sharp nose. Haruhi rolled her eyes. Damn rich bastards.

Kyouya continued after a pause. "But, that has nothing to do with it. Hikaru and Kaoru share one of the strangest cases of twin cryptophasia."

"Eh? Cryptophasia?"

He nodded. "A type of language identical twins can develop that is understood by only them. It is more common amongst siblings who have had more interpersonal communication between themselves than with their parents."

"That's interesting," Haruhi admitted with a contemplative expression on her face.

"Ah," Kyouya agreed. "There are not many cases of it documented, even in recent history."

"So… is there any logic to their words? Like the Morse Code, or the English Pig-Latin?" the female host inquired, turning her gaze onto the Vice President. He smiled mysteriously, glasses catching the light of the room and gleaming like a cat's iris in the night.

"I suspect that the Hitachiin brothers must realize that they are doing it on some level," he began matter-of-factly, "but after listening to them for a year I have deduced that a great deal of their speech consists of a combination of different Japanese words, sometimes said backwards or in reversed characters. It has no regular pattern, so even I can't construe their idiolect."

She was speechless for a moment. Haruhi had always thought that Hikaru and Kaoru, although talented and pleasant on occasion, were generally a pair of demonic doppelgangers that loved to cause mischief. It was her first year at Ouran, after all, and she had never really gotten the opportunity to see past the perverted and sometimes devilish façade of her bronze-haired classmates. It …was fascinating.

"Haruhi, since you do not have any designators this afternoon, I have an interesting proposition for you," Kyouya's smooth voice cut into her musings and made her look up.

"What is it, Kyouya-senpai?" she asked, tilting her head to the side.

He smiled once more, burying his face in the black data book that rested in his open hands. "If you can decipher one sentence of their cryptophasia, I will take one million yen off of your remaining debt."

Haruhi's shoulders slumped at the chimera. "I know I am smart," she protested, "but in all honesty, if Kyouya-senpai couldn't do it, I don't think I could either."

"Seven million yen," was the only reply she received as his ballpoint pen jotted slickly across the pages of his book. Haruhi huffed a defeated breath and unconsciously straightened her tie.

"Fine, I'll give it a try," she grumbled flatly, slinking off to where the twins were concluding their hosting show. When the guests had left Haruhi took a seat casually by their corner of the room.

"Haruhiii!" the twins chorused, eyes bright and wicked. "Come for another demonstration?"

"As if," she muttered, taking out an economics textbook and a padded spiral notebook. "It's just to noisy to do my homework over there," she added, jerking her head over to where Tamaki-senpai was floundering loudly over something.

"Poor Haruhi," Kaoru crooned. "Can't even afford a laptop, so she has to write out her homework out manually. Isn't that sad, Hikaru?" His twin nodded in agreement.

"Well, carry on writing in your commoner notebook, Haruhi," he declared with a wave of his hand as she glared at him. "We'll try not to bother you... too much," he added with a smirk.


In reality, the economics homework proved to be no great crucible for a mind such as hers. Just as well, for she had only planned on using it as an excuse to hear the twins in action. The club continued on, the last of the designators petering off and the hosts going about their own things: removing costumes, calculating budgets, the usual.

Haruhi bit the end of her pencil, about to give up, when she finally heard it.

"Kaoru, wonol undeHasw dointh?" (1)

Haruhi's ears twitched, picking up the unfamiliar phrase that had just tumbled from Hikaru's mouth. However she didn't look up, in fear that they would stop.

"Mn. Ninp? No, inthbluwn," was Kaoru's response. The words were uttered in a soft, low tone, and spoken in a much faster tempo than their normal speaking voices.

"Bakakao, Edetho fedintel. Weldoush kras."

Haruhi closed her book. "Excuse me," she asked politely, "but what are you two talking about?" Abruptly the twins looked up, puzzled at first, but flushing slightly around the cheeks as they stared at her.

"Not much, Haruhi," Kaoru responded, as casually as he could. His older brother elbowed him in the ribs. The younger gave him a reproachful look that clearly said "no way."

Hikaru made a 'tch' sound. "Edetho," he murmured.

"Hmm, what does that word mean, Hikaru?" Haruhi asked inquisitively. Now it was Kaoru's turn to 'tch.'

"You are an idiot," he sighed, turning to his female classmate. "I'm sorry Haruhi, but I can't tell you that," he replied.

"Eh? Why not?"

The twins looked itchy, the younger more so than the older. "Well, it would just be… uncomfortable," Hikaru said as he grasped for a sound excuse. "You wouldn't understand."

Haruhi dipped her head and exhaled, the epitome of defeat. "I see. But you know," she went on in a falsely lonesome voice, "I was going to let you two come over to my house this weekend."

Immediately the Hitachiin twins snapped to attention. Haruhi's house? Just them, without Tono? They deliberated, wondering if it was worth it. After a moment, they decided it was.

"You see," Hikaru began, taking responsibility as the older twin and confessing, "'edetho' is our way of saying, um, red thong."

Haruhi's eyebrow twitched sporadically, remembering the way they had looked at her a moment ago. "And why, pray tell, would you two be talking about red thongs?"

"Well—"


Kyouya sensed a particularly irked aura emanating from the figure approaching his table. "Ah, Haruhi," he greeted her pleasantly. "Did you manage to decipher the Hitachiin cryptophalia?" his lithe fingers hovered over the keyboard of his laptop, as if ready to subtract the numbers from her debt. She was normally an exremely impervious individual and was not easily offended, so Kyouya decided to give her his full attention for a moment.

"I did not," Haruhi fumed. If this was an anime, she would be sporting a lovely anger-vein sign atop her temple right now, Kyouya surmised. He fully caught her expression as she met his gaze. Make that several anger-vein signs.

"What I did find out was that Hikaru and Kaoru need to get their minds washed out with soap," she snapped. "Are dirty things all that men think about?"

Although the query was rhetorical, the Shadow King answered with a frank "pretty much," and resumed his typing.

"If I wasn't trying to pay off my debt I would switch to the female uniform immediately; this has made me reconsider passing off as a male. It's insulting to my name," she scowled, stomping away. Kyouya's fingers paused once more, watching her go. He would have to ask the twins what they could have said to provoke such a reaction in their natural rookie. She was so amusing when she was in a snit.

End.


(1) (You should read this before finishing the story)

"What color underwear do you think Haruhi's wearing?"

"I don't know. Pink? No, I think blue or brown."

"Karou, you're an idiot. It's definitely a red thong. We should ask her."

--

Real cryptophasia would probably not sound like that, but I thought that it would be interesting to write about. The Hitachiin twins certainly would have been suseptible to developing it growing up, since their parents never spent much time with them and they were alone in their own little world most of the time.