You can probably tell, but I am very hyped to rewrite this. Like, really excited. Probably a lil too much. I'm sorry if the back story seems a bit confusing, I'll try and find a way to make it a bit easier to understand in future chapters.
Chapter 2 : Happy to See You
Someone in the crowd could be the one you need to know,
the one who finally lifts you off the ground
Marcelline POV
A subtle smile overtook his features as he seemed to catch on to my recognition. He patted the arm of the other boy, catching his attention to pass him his cake. He then got up from his seat, walking to the door and gesturing excitedly for me to follow him. I walked over, still not one hundred percent sure how to feel.
I ignored the confused looks we received from the other hosts as we left the room and closed the door behind us. He hugged me immediately, his little head only coming up to my stomach. "I can't believe it's really you! What are you doing here?" He cried happily, clearly not as nervous as I was which motivated me to try and calm down.
I sighed at his question, kneeling down to hug him more comfortably before giving him the same explanation I'd given Haruhi earlier. Once he knew that I needed a place to live, I saw his eyes light up and then dim almost instantly. I guessed he was going to say I could live with him and our uncle, in the dojo, but we both knew that wasn't possible. Before our mother's illness had gotten worse, she sent Mitskuni to live with her brother after Shouto - our stepfather - tried forcing him to take up the family business and then an engagement with a business partner's daughter, both of which he turned down. In response, Shouto wouldn't let us visit each other, and whenever he tried to call, he was hung up on immediately. We'd tried ditching classes to meet up somewhere but eventually got caught and I was forced to be home-schooled. Shouto's justification for doing this was: 'If he doesn't want to be part of the business, how can he expect to be part of the family?'.
If our Mum wasn't too weak from her illness to work, she would've divorced him years ago. We only kept him around for his money, and he loved blackmailing us with that fact. 'Without my generosity, your mother and sister would both be dead; so you had better be careful and well behaved from now on, understood?' That's what he told me the day he found out Mitskuni wasn't coming back.
"Well we could just happen to bump into eachother at the hospital..." I suggested casually, as if I was trying to sneakily slip someone an answer sheet in a math test.
He chuckled and whipped out his phone. "Yeah, that sounds pretty likely." He hesitated with a small fidget before holding his phone up to me and wagging it. "Do you think it would also be possible for us to accidentally trade phone numbers? You know, just so we can avoid those types of coincidences."
I took the phone from his hand with a wide smile. "Whoopsies." I deadpanned, typing my number in and saving it in contacts.
"My bad." He said blankly, doing the same with my phone when I passed it to him and only causing us both to laugh more.
It was still a bit awkward, but I suppose that was to be expected since we hadn't seen eachother for nearly seven and a half years. However, we were desperate to keep talking and promised to try and text eachother at least once every night, even if it was something completely random.
After spending another ten minutes or so chatting between awkward silences, we decided to go back in. His hand paused for second on the door handle, as he slowly turned to look at me with a sheepish grin. "Ya know, I almost didn't recognise you. You've really grown up."
"Yeah," I put a hand on my head and dragged it to hover over his and show off how much taller I was than my big brother; "I'd say 'you too' but I don't really know about that 'grown up' part." I said, giggling at my own joke as he shoved me playfully.
"That was awful." He said, face palming in mock disappointment.
"Maybe, but you still laughed." I chuckled proudly to myself with a triumphant grin.
He shook his head and pushed the door open, both of us walking in with large, childish smiles. I sat with him and his tall friend (after being introduced) eating cake and sipping tea for the rest of break; briefly explaining our situation to the other hosts when they'd sat down on the opposite sofa to us with confused and curious expressions that basically said 'gimme answers'.
I was still buzzing with excitement when break ended and found myself unable to sit still without fiddling with something or fidgeting in the rest of our lessons. I barely managed to contain my yell of relief when the final bell rang signaling school was over. When the four of us got back to the Host Club, the others were already in their...'Balinese Royalty' cosplay. While the twins rushed to get into their own blue flannel shorts and bandanas, Haruhi and I stood by the door refusing to believe that this was the same room we'd walked into just a few hours earlier. The delivery boxes that had been littered around the room at break were now gone, and instead the whole room was decorated like a rainforest, complete with real trees, rare flowers and exotic animals.
Haruhi POV
As the other hosts got into poses and chorused a peaceful 'Welcome, Princesses!' to the guests slowly flooding in, a small, strange bird landed on my head and Marcie's eyes sparkled as she slowly attempted to stroke it. The bird squawked at her, making her jump after flying away. She sulked and pouted, her eyes watering up in a way that would have been comedic if not for how she then directed her puppy eyes over to me as if she was a toddler who'd dropped her ice cream and I was her mother who'd have to buy her a new one cuz my dead-beat husband is probably sitting around on his lazy-ass at home or getting shwifty with some hOE FROM THE OFFICE- I'm getting too into this.
I put a hand on Marcie's shoulder reassuringly. "Uh...there there..."
The twins glided over, radiating roses and sparkles (possibly because they were literally chucking rose petals and glitter around the room as if they were flower girls at a wedding). "C'mon Haruhi, what are you just standing around for? Get hosting already."
I ignored them and instead pulled out a relatively small calendar, squinting at today's date. "I could be wrong, but I think it's still early spring...?"
Tamaki-senpai appeared at my side with a 'poof!'. "Huddling up under a kotatsu table and fearing the cold is nonsense! And besides, the heating system we have here is - the best~." He declared, putting emphasis on 'the best' as if him simply saying so made it true.
Kyoya-senpai pushed his glasses up with his free hand (the other held an open laptop) , causing them to glint in the sunlight. "Do you have a problem with the way we run our club, Haruhi? Careful what you say, you do owe us eight million yen after all."
Marcie shuddered from where she stood beside me. "I don't like that one..." she whispered. I scoffed in reply;
"Trust me, you get used to it surprisingly fast." I whispered back before we were both caught off guard by Tamaki-senpai who wrapped an arm around each of our shoulders.
"Anyway, a gentleman must not bundle up in bulky clothing. It may well be chilly early spring out there, but here at the club we want to surprise our frosty little kittens with a warm, tropical paradise~." Tamaki-senpai continued, striking a pose supposedly fitting for his 'princely character'. I tilted my head, sharing a blank glance with Marcie as we let out a simple, yet explanatory 'ugh'.
Marcelline POV
I walked around the unnecessarily large music room carrying trays of tea and slices of cake to guests after deciding that sitting patiently in a corner somewhere and waiting for activities to finish was boring. I wanted to make myself useful and be able to see what was actually going on without looking shady or suspicious, so doing that little errand was pretty much two birds with one stone.
While refilling drinks for a few of Suoh's guests, I overheard (here meaning 'earwigged') some interesting information that the club would be sponsoring a party the following week for seemingly no reason. "A party...?" I mumbled aloud in thought, nodding a polite goodbye before moving on to the twins' table only to find their conversation topic to be the same.
The girls were chattering excitedly and asking questions such as "What kind of party is it going to be?" and 'Will it be formal?". It took me a while to figure out which twin was speaking, but I eventually made a confident guess that it was Hikaru who answered them. "Yes, we decided that a formal theme would be more suitable. We managed to rent the school's largest hall and everything!"
"It is the perfect place for dancing, after all." His brother added, glancing suggestively to each of the girls opposite them who squealed and swooned in reply for a reason I must've missed.
"But you know," Hikaru piped up again in a husky voice, gently grabbing his younger twin's chin and tilting it upward toward him, "I really wanted to spend some alone time with you, Kaoru~"
In response, Kaoru leaned into his touch and brought up one of his hands to rest against Hikaru's shoulder. "Don't be upset Hikaru, I know how you feel..." He said in a wistful tone that sent another ripple of screeches through their audience and a shiver up my spine that made me want to puke. It was almost impossible to believe these were the same polite, friendly and witty boys I'd met yesterday. But, they and their guests seemed to be enjoying themselves, and they weren't hurting anyone or anything (minus their pride) so each to their own, I guess.
"The guests seem to be even more worked up than they usually are." Haruhi said, appearing with Ootori-senpai at my side.
"Showing some skin has always proved more effective with the ladies." He replied, pushing up his glasses and not looking at either of us as he tapped away on his laptop. I couldn't help feeling curious on what he was actually doing on there to be on it all the time, but there was some kind of unnamable feeling that told me I wouldn't have wanted to know.
"I take it you're the one who came up with this whole 'tropical paradise' idea, Kyoya-senpai?" Haruhi inquired, raising a brow in accusation.
"Nonsense," he began. His tone made it one-hundred percent impossible to tell whether or not he was being sarcastic, and I struggled to guess between the two. "I have no right as the club's Vice President to make such decisions..." He took a break from furiously tapping on the keyboard to push up his glasses for roughly the eighth time that day, again managing to catch the sun on his lenses through cloudy skies. "But I suppose there's no harm in admitting to casually slipping a Bali photo book onto his desk."
Haruhi and I shivered. So he's the real brains of the operation. She was then called back to her table not long after by some guests, and I moved on to the next host's table which was Honey and Mori's. The pair weren't there yet, and I ended up getting politely interrogated by their guests.
"Not to be rude," one began, "but who are you? I don't remember ever seeing you around the school."
Trying my best to make a good impression, I bowed my head slightly to each of them (there were two) in turn. "My name is Marcelline Haninozuka. I'm in class 1-A with Haruhi and the twins, but it's my first day today which is probably why you haven't seen me before."
"What brings you to Ouran's Host Club?" I laughed nervously at her question. How exactly was I supposed to answer that? If I told them I was living with the twins, I'd probably get hunted down by their swarm of crazy fangirls; same goes for telling them I was a friend of Haruhi's from middle school. Saying I was Honey's sister was probably my safest option in terms of not getting bullied or gossiped about, but if word ever got back to our step-father about it then I don't know what he'd do...
But wait...wasn't it kind of obvious that I was his sister? I just said my name, didn't they notice we have the same surname? I was saved from my internal thought-jumble when Honey himself ran over with his arms outstretched like a plane while giggling and smiling cheerfully. "Ta-daaaa!" He called, skidding to a halt and standing next to me with Mori not far behind him. He was holding...a pineapple...and none of the guests seemed to think anything of it, simply greeting him excitedly.
"Oh, you're sooo cute, Honey!" One of the guests gushed as the other squealed and fanned themselves while our taller cousin patted his head and made me smile.
"Hi, ladies!" He said, and I swear I could see a tail wagging happily on his lower back with pointed ears on his head. "I love these Balinese flowers, we had them flown in!" Then he caught sight of Mori-senpai and I behind him. He whipped out a lei of exotic red flowers that matched his own and bounded over, climbing mori like a rock wall. Then he slipped the lei over his head with a triumphant smile before wrapping his arms around his neck lovingly. "There, we match!" He cheered, causing one of the guests to swoon. She had long, brown hair tied back in a ponytail with a white ribbon*, and she put the back of her hand against her forehead as she went down while her blonde, curly-haired friend called out to her.
"Aaah! Miss Tsubakiin**!" She cried.
Honey chuckled, and placed another lei over my head with a subtle wink that went unnoticed by the guests. "You too, imouto-chan!" He said, smiling widely. It wasn't fair. He was too cute. I nearly cried. Okay, I might've accidentally cried a little bit.
"Imouto-chan?" Tsubaki-san's friend echoed, helping her to sit up.
I must've been wearing a kind of worried expression, because Honey sent me an reassuring nod before smiling at the other blonde. "Yup! Marcie-chan is my little sister!" He confirmed, and I almost chuckled at catching a few sighs of relief from the girls opposite us.
"How come you and Haruhi aren't wearing tropical cosplay like the other hosts, Marcelline-san?" Tsubaki-san asked once she'd fully regained consciousness.
"Oh, well none of the hosts really knew I'd be coming so they didn't have time to prepare anything for me." I explained, deciding to leave out that I probably wouldn't have worn whatever they gave me, anyway. "And as for Haruhi," I added, sending a glance in the brunette's direction, "sh-...uh, he normally prepares to wear stuff that's appropriate for the season. Early spring attire in early spring, you know?" I coughed, internally kicking myself for nearly letting her gender slip. Replacing the female pronouns with male ones would definitely take some getting used to.
"Wow, you just met today and already you seem to know so much about him~?" Tsubaki-san's friend inquired, giving me a knowing look.
I chuckled and waved a hand in the air as if to say 'no, no, no!'. "It's not like that, it's just that before being homeschooled I went to a public middle school and happened to meet Haruhi there."
"Ah, I see." She replied, but still had the same look on her face like she was saying 'you loooovvve him~'. Even though wasn't true, I was much happier being gently teased instead of accused or bullied, which I was sure most of Haruhi's fangirls would do once they heard that information. Presumably to save me from any more questions, Honey passed me another lei, but with pale blue flowers instead of red ones.
"That's one's for Haru-chan. Can you give it to her please?" He asked, tossing it to me childishly with another subtle wink.
"Okay! Thanks, Honey." I said, smiling gratefully and returning his wink behind my hand. I stretched as I got up and walked over to Haruhi's table where I stood behind her and dropped the garland over her head while looking out the window and whistling innocently. She looked over at me with an eyebrow raised in a questioning look. "Sorry, Honey asked me to and I couldn't help myself. He's just too cute." I gushed, scratching the back of my neck sheepishly.
She rolled her eyes with a smile, adjusting it on her shoulders. "Fine, fine."
Two of her guests - a girl with long black hair and thick lipstick that didn't suit her and a girl with short, bobbed ginger hair and a diamond pin holding back her bangs - looked me over suspiciously. "Are you two dating or something?".
We paused.
We stared.
We blinked.
We laughed hysterically, leaning against eachother for support. Haruhi was the first to regain her posture and correct their suspicions. "No, it's nothing like that. We just went to the same middle school and happened to become friends." The first two still looked doubtful but let out sighs of relief all the same, meanwhile the other two - one with light, chestnut curls and glasses and another with long dark brown hair styled into two little horns - giggled and whispered among themselves.
We chatted with them happily until I heard a voice pop up from behind me, making me jump a little. "Excuse me." The feminine voice said politely, and I apologised as I turned around, taking a cautious step back for the girl with short brown hair to step past me. She stood with a suggestive (in my opinion, anyway) smile on her face and her hands clasped delicately together infront of her. "I don't mean to disturb, but I believe it's time for the hosts to switch clients." The four guests seemed disappointed and grumbled reluctantly as they got up. I helped them gather their things and picked up their used dishes while setting down new sets of everything and earwigging on their conversation.
"Oh, right. Sorry, you must be my next appointment, Miss...?"
"Kanako. Kanako Kasugazaki***..." She paused, going a few steps closer than what was probably necessary and putting a hand under her chin, tilting it toward her. "You know, you're a lot cuter than than the rumours give you credit for..." I saw Haruhi twitch uncomfortably with a face that said 'and what's that supposed to mean?', but she stayed quiet. "I've decided. From now on, you're going to be my new favourite host, Haruhi." Kasugazaki-san said in a way that made me wonder if that's how it was done in a Host Club. Did the guests just have to give the host of their choice some kind of weird marriage proposal?
Once club ended and all the guests had given us their farewells (and money) we all took the last ten minutes or so to rest. However, Suoh sat on the floor with his knees to his chest in the near left corner (when facing the door). I assumed it was his designated spot for sulking or being - for lack of a better term - petty, since right now he was staring at us and furiously slurping a cheap brand of cheap ramen while releasing barely audible grumbles.
"Hey boss, why don't you stop eating that Commoner's Ramen and come help with the party planning?" Hikaru whined, and I quietly chuckled to myself at how he said 'Commoner's Ramen' as if it was the name of the brand.
"Does it really bother you so much that Princess Kasuga has taken a liking to Haruhi?" Kaoru added, sitting down next to his brother with me and the rest of the hosts at a long table to one side of the room by some windows.
"He shouldn't be surprised, she's had the disease for a while now." Ootori-senpai said in a matter-of-fact tone while not looking up from his laptop. Haruhi and I exchanged a glance.
"Illness?" I repeated, and Honey gave me a look that I couldn't identify.
"It's called The Host Hopping Disease." He answered before the twins appeared on either side of Haruhi and I.
"A.K.A. The Never-The-Same-Boy-Twice Disease." They added in unison.
"Our guests usually tend to choose a favourite host and request them regularly, however Princess Kasugazaki tends to change her favourites on a regular basis." Ootori-senpai explained, taking a break from typing to subtly wriggle his fingers and make me struggle to hold back another laugh. Something about seeing the sophisticated and serious second year wear such an indifferent expression while wiggling his fingers like a child was incredibly amusing.
"That's right! Cuz before she chose you, Haru-chan, she was with Tama-chan!" Honey added, finishing off a slice of cake from earlier.
Haruhi leaned back in her chair with an expression flooded with amusement and realisation. "Ohhhhhh...so he's upset because I took her from him?" She said, looking over to me with a raised brow.
"What's the big deal, doesn't he have tons of other guests?" I shrugged, looking back to Ootori-senpai and then nearly falling off my chair in shock when Suoh popped up behind us, slamming his hands on the table.
"SHUT UP, I COULDN'T CARE LESS!"
"Clearly." I said, earning myself a nudge under the table from Ootori that I'm assuming meant 'Just humour him' while Suoh was off in the back room somewhere, his yelling was barely audible through the wall.
"I'M LOSING MY PATIENCE!" He called out, accompanied by noises of rummaging. "HARUHI, IT'S TIME YOU STARTED DRESSING LIKE A GIRL!" He then emerged in the doorway, struggling to push a large chest across the floor. "I don't understand how you can be so popular with the ladies when you're a lady yourself!" His voice was more strained, and I noticed Ootori-senpai wince everytime the chest squeaked from being dragged against the floor. "No one in the whole school knows the truth except for us!"
"Yeah, all the attendance numbers are mixed together so no one can tell any different." Hikaru began.
"And she opted out of taking gym classes, too." Kaoru finished.
My features were overtaken by admiration and envy. "What, they let you opt out just like that?!" Haruhi nodded smugly with a grin, knowing how much I'd always hated that particular lesson. I'd also tried to get out of PE (Physical Education, that's what we call it in Britain anyway) but my request was denied since the amount of girls was currently odd, and they couldn't do group exercises unless there was an even number of students it 'wouldn't be be fair'. You can probably tell, but I'm still feeling pretty salty about it.
Suoh finally managed to drag the chest to the middle of the room, flipped the lid open and leaned in, reaching for something inside. "Now you listen to daddy, Haruhi." He took out a large, gold-framed photo of Haruhi from middle school and slammed it on the floor. "DADDY WANTS YOU TO GO BACK TO THE WAY YOU WEERRREEEE!"
"DON'T GO BLOWING UP MY PHOTOS WITHOUT ASKING ME FIRST!" She yelled at him in reply, attempting to give him a whack which he barely managed to dodge before handing the picture up on a nearby wall.
"Aw, your dad still had that picture?" I gushed, recognising it as one I'd taken for her in middle school.
"Of course he did, it's a good picture. Why, do you not have it?" Haruhi asked, turning to me.
"Course I do, it's a good picture." The other hosts gathered around it and stared in disbelief, wondering what could have possibly happened and 'how this became that'.
"The day before school started, one of the kids in my neighbourhood accidentally got some gum in my hair." Haruhi began answering their silent questions as I felt myself start to sweat.
"Yup, those...darn kids...ha...ha ha..." I said in a way that was not suspicious in any way, shape or form. She sent me a subtle glare with narrowed eyebrows that I looked away from, scratching the back of my neck and smiling guiltily. I mean, not guiltily. Non-guiltily? What's the opposite of guiltily?! Because whatever it is, tHAT'S WHAT I AM, I ASSURE YOU-
"It's a real pain getting gum out of long hair, so I got a friend to cut it off for me." Haruhi explained, sending me another sideways glance which I also avoided. "I didn't care if I looked like a dude, ya know?"
Suoh screeched as if someone had stabbed him thirty seven times in the liver while she was talking, yelling something about how a girl shouldn't refer to herself as a dude. But then he literally started crying to 'Mama', who we later established to be Ootori. I decided to drop his honourifics, too...
The twin at my side nudged me gently with his elbow. "How's your dancing experience?" By his soft tone and movements, I assumed it was Kaoru.
"Does it matter? I don't remember saying I'd go to this party?" I said jokingly, raising a brow. But seriously, no offense to them but I didn't want to go. Parties weren't really my thing. Especially the classy kind, the music was always annoyingly soothing and made me tired.
He smiled sheepishly, taking out his phone and showing me a text conversation. "Yeahhhh, about that...I kinda already texted our Mum and said the club was sponsoring a party and she kinda already thought it would be a good time to advertise for her company by making you a dress."
I looked at him, now with a mixture of disbelief and admiration. "You absolute fiend."
He chuckled. "Sorry, but Haruhi and Honey-senpai would probably be more at ease with you there, right?" I rolled my eyes at his attempt to convince me.
"Sure, sure."
"THAT'S RIGHT!" Suoh yelled out suddenly making Kaoru and I jump, realising that we hadn't been paying attention to the last minute or so if the conversation. "If you wanna stay in the Host Club that badly, Haruhi, you'll have to show us how far you're willing to go!"
"When did this turn into the Yakuza club?" I mumbled, causing Kaoru to stifle a laugh with the back of his hand, barely managing to get away with turning it into a cough which only made me start to laugh.
"-you must learn the waltz within one week!" Suoh dramatically finished his speech with a hand in the air and his legs crossed in his seat. At catching the last bit of his sentence, I quickly clasped my hands over my mouth to stop myself from bursting out into laughter again after remembering that it had taken a month for me and my sister to teach Haruhi the basics of the funky chicken. The brunette noticed my struggle and glared down at me (since I'd doubled over from laughing).
"You better not be thinking about-"
"Ohhhh, but I am." I interrupted her between wheezes.
Learning the waltz in a week would be impossible for her without help.
Someone in the crowd could take you where you wanna go
If you're the someone ready to be found
In the origional, I normally made each chapter around 3,500 words, but the first chapter here was just over 7,000 so I thought 'fuck it' and now I won't post any chapters until they're over at least 5,000.
...
Pray for me;;
My school had a ton of snow days recently which I'm glad about since it meant I had more time to work on this without worrying about homework +_+
If you happen to spot any spelling errors or grammar mistakes then please let me know in the reviews so I can fix them!
Until next time~ ^3^
*I know the two girls in these scene are the other way around in the manga but I just liked this girl better because she reminds me of Monika from Doki Doki Literature club and since Monika is and always will be my favourite (unpopular opinion, I know) I decided to switch them.
**I'm not 100% certain, but Noragami taught me that adding 'in' to the end of a person's name is a type of honorific or endearment so I'm assuming the Monika-look-a-like's name is actually Tsubaki. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.
***THAT'S RIGHT. THIS WONT BE A REPEAT OF LAST TIME WHEN I COULDN'T BE BOTHERED TO GOOGLE HER NAME AND ENDED UP CALLING HER KONEKO *WHATS-HER-FACE* OR KONEKO *TEA-CUP FETISH*. I'm still really sorry about that by the way.