Chapter Three, in which we learn a little more about the Institute and its eccentric students.
"It's no big deal. I've been able to do it since I was small."
"So, are you the first in your family, or are their others?"
Haruhi clenched her jaw and set her eyes on the tile floor in front of her. While it was a bit refreshing to talk openly about her abilities for the first time in her life, she would rather it have been with anyone other than these three. Renge was following no more than a foot behind her, acting as if Haruhi was a visiting rock star. The twins flanked her on either side, somehow managing to look bored and intrigued at the same time.
"So far as I know I'm the only one," Haruhi told Renge.
Renge nodded eagerly. "Me too! Well, I have an aunt who's psychic, kinda like Reiko, but I'm the only one who can walk through walls and stuff." As if to punctuate this, she reached out and passed her hand through Hikaru's shoulder. Hikaru shuddered.
"I hate when you do that, it makes me itch." He rubbed at the back of his neck.
Kaoru prodded Haruhi in the arm. "Hey, have you met a guy named Kyouya Ootori yet?"
"Renge mentioned him, but I haven't met him yet."
"You need to! He's totally dreamy, I-" Hikaru stepped on Renge's foot, and she stopped abruptly, her cheeks turning red with anger.
Haruhi ignored them. "Why do you ask?"
"Oh, no reason." Kaoru changed the subject: "What grade are you in?"
"I'm a first year."
Hikaru patted her on the back. "Hey, so are the three of us."
"Hey Hikaru," Kaoru said, "why don't we take her by the Club tomorrow?"
"Sounds like a good idea, Kaoru."
Their voices sounded suspicious, as if they had a hidden meaning, but Haruhi was too fed up to think about it. After what seemed like an endless trek, they reached the first year hall and she hurried ahead to her room.
As Haruhi fiddled with her key, Renge yawned widely. "See you guys in the morning," she said with a wave. Then, as though it was the most natural thing in the world, she walked right through her closed door.
"Show off," Kaoru muttered. He slung an arm around his brother's shoulder; Hikaru was cursing fluently at the doorknob.
"Someone really needs to fix this damn thing," he said loudly, handing the key over to his brother.
Haruhi stood in her doorway for a moment. "Wait, why do you two share a room? I thought everyone had their own."
They look she received from both of them could only have been described as devilish.
"That," Hikaru said, "is something you really don't want to know."
Only after Haruhi was in her bathroom, brushing her teeth, did the full meaning of that sentence hit her.
Breakfast was at eight o' clock, which meant Haruhi had to leave her room no later than 7:50 to avoid meeting up with Renge and the twins.
Too bad for her, they were already in the dining hall. When Renge saw Haruhi, she leapt up and hurried over, looking as though she might wet herself with excitement.
"Haruhi, they're sitting with us! The Host Club is sitting with us!"
Haruhi looked. She saw the twins, the Tamaki guy, a thin-faced boy with glasses, a tall, muscular fellow, and-
"That kid from yesterday," she said aloud. There he was, even smaller up close, sitting next to a petrified Reiko. "He's in the Host Club?"
"Who, Hunny-senpai?" Renge nodded. "He's a second year, would you believe it? Sixteen years old. A childhood illness stunted his growth - he almost died!" She said the last part with morbid excitement. "Have you met him?"
Haruhi frowned. "Not really. He dropped a cigarette on my head." Renge gasped dramatically.
"He's not supposed to have more than one a day!" Her hand flew to her mouth. "How in the world did he sneak it past Mori-senpai?"
Haruhi didn't even ask. "Can we sit down now?" One of the twins was motioning to them, looking irritated.
"Coming!" Renge called to him. She grabbed Haruhi's hand and yanked her towards the table, pushing her down into a chair between herself and Reiko, and across from the thin boy in glasses. He looked incredibly bored until he saw Haruhi, at which point his expression changed entirely.
"Haruhi Fujioka," he said in a cheerful voice. He stuck out his hand, which she shook tentatively. His skin was soft and clean. "I've been looking forward to meeting you."
"Have you?" She suddenly felt nervous. There was something insincere about this guy.
He smiled, and she saw a row of perfect white teeth. "Hikaru and Kaoru told me about your abilities. Would you mind demonstrating?"
Haruhi scowled. "Yes, I would mind."
The whole table laughed, except for Reiko and Tamaki, the latter of whom had a very strange look on his face - the offspring of irritation and confusion. Haruhi ignored him.
"So tell me about this place." She folded her arms over her chest and looked each of the guys in the eye in turn (with the exception of the tall one, whom she felt might have killed her). "Is everyone here like us?"
Hunny, the short one, beamed at her. "Yep. We're all gifted." He was licking powdered sugar from a crepe off his fingers one by one. Reiko was trying very hard not to watch.
"Every person in this school was sent here because their abilities weren't accepted at home," Kyouya explained. "They do an excellent job of covering it all up, of course. We operate under the front of being an elite correction facility, easily disguised as your typical boarding school for parents who want to save face."
"Now, no rich parent wants to admit to anyone that their child is unusual," Hikaru cut in. "That's what our expertly trained psychics are for."
Kaoru nodded. "They have face-to-face admissions interviews, and they look into the client's memories to find out if the kid has powers or not."
Haruhi raised one eyebrow and looked around the table again. "You're serious? Psychics?" But inside, her mind was racing, trying to imagine what things the experts had seen in Etsuko's memories. Had they seen a yapping Shih Tzu floating up and up until it touched the ceiling? Had they seen a bicycle bored into the ground? Children screaming and pointing? Or, perchance, had they seen the ruins of a small garden shed, collapsed under some unseen weight?
"If you're who you say you are," Kyouya said, "then you shouldn't be at all surprised." He took a final sip of orange juice and stood up from the table. "Come by the fourth floor gallery today at three. There are some things I'd like to run by you." Then, he left.
Renge could hardly contain her grin a moment longer. "Isn't he just dreamy?" she burst out. The twins groaned.
"If you're forty, maybe," Kaoru said. "I just don't get what you see in him."
"Where do I start?" Renge tapped her chin in thought. "There's-"
Kaoru shook his head violently. "Nevermind, I don't think I want to know." His brother laughed and slung an arm around Kaoru's neck.
Haruhi looked up at the clock. "When does breakfast end?"
"Nine o' clock!" Hunny piped up, stuffing the last bite of crepe in his mouth.
It was only half past eight.
"I'm just gonna leave now." Haruhi stood up, grabbed her satchel, and was gone before anyone could stop her.
Five minutes into her first class, Haruhi made up her mind on something - academics at Ouran were taken about as seriously as their security. It was not surprising in the least, although it was admittedly disappointing. She liked school. School was comfortable and fun. But this? This wasn't school.
It looked enough like a classroom. There were academic posters on the wall, ordinary shades on the windows, and there was no crystal chandelier in sight. The primary difference was that the mahogany desks could have seated an entire family for dinner, with room left for condiments. Haruhi took a desk near the back, far away from the other students, and pulled out her notebook and pencil. By the time the twins, Renge, and Reiko arrived, all the desks around Haruhi had been filled. She gave a sigh of relief as they took desks near the front.
The teacher entered the room ten minutes late, which should have been the first sign. She had winged glasses perched on her nose, and her dark ringlets were tangled and windswept.
"Don't bother," she said dramatically when a student up front tried to take out his calculator. "The damned air conditioner in my car is out again. I'm not feeling like geometry today." She sank into her desk chair and let out a sigh through her violently carmine lips.
"Mrs. Numata?" Several girls near the window shot their hands in the air immediately. "Can we go to the bathroom." The teacher's only answer was the wave of a hand, and the girls were gone in moments.
The remaining forty minutes passed quickly. Most of the students left the room with various excuses, and the twins seemed to have momentarily forgotten Haruhi; they were deep in conversation with Renge. Only at the very end of class did they migrate to Haruhi's desk and slap their arms around her shoulders.
"You know," Hikaru said, "I have a feeling we're going to be the best of friends."
Haruhi tried not to laugh. She shook his arm off of her back. "What makes you think that?"
"You haven't been here long enough to notice," Kaoru explained, "but popularity in this place is ranked not by looks or money, but by powers."
Hikaru nodded in agreement. "People like us-" he motioned to the three of them, and Renge scowled "-are top of the food chain."
"And people like these two," Kaoru added, indicating a fuming Renge and a generally apathetic Reiko, "are at the bottom."
"Excuse me." Renge crossed her arms over her flat chest. "Who else at this school can waltz into a locked room? Who else in this school can see the future?"
Hikaru snorted. "And who else in this school can turn into a dinosaur? Sense somebody coming from a mile away? Make an entire room of people go temporarily blind?"
Haruhi gaped, momentarily forgetting her apathetic demeanor. "Wait, who can do all that stuff?"
"Pretty amazing, huh?" Hikaru said with a smirk. "Well, Haruhi, welcome to the Host Club."
"You already saw Boss last night, when he turned into the dog," Kaoru began. "He's a shapeshifter. Comes in handy at the Club - girls love puppies."
"Kyouya-senpai has super senses," Renge cut in. "He can hear a pin drop in another room, or know who's behind him before they even make a sound. He's amazing!" She made him sound like some kind of superhero.
"But Hunny-senpai has one of the coolest powers here," Hikaru finished, as though he was telling a ghost story around a fire. "He controls the senses - he can make you go blind or deaf, or feel whatever he wants you to feel."
Kaoru grinned. "Pretty freaky, huh?"
Haruhi considered this. "I guess. But what can you guys do? You haven't mentioned that." As soon as the words left her mouth, she wanted to take them back. The twins' faces lit up with excited pride.
"This," they said together. They snapped their fingers, and at once a flock of small canaries appeared, chirping and swooping above Haruhi's head. She fought to conceal her surprise, but when the birds vanished and were replaced by miniature fireworks she had to smile. The twins snapped again, and the fireworks turned into a group of tiny fairies that landed on Haruhi's desk and began dancing some kind of ballet.
"Wow..." she breathed, watching as one of the fairies did a perfect pirouette. The others cheered, their clothes and wings shimmering. Then, they all disappeared with a pop.
"Amazing, isn't it?" Renge seemed to have forgotten her anger, and had a dreamy expression on her freckled face.
Hikaru stretched his arms over his head. "Try not to be too intimidated."
"I'm not," Haruhi said, a little too quickly. "So would you mind telling me what this Kyouya guy's interest in me is all about?"
The twins exchanged an unreadable look, then shook their heads.
"You'll just have to find out this afternoon," Hikaru answered.
Haruhi regretted asking. Willing the day to be over as soon as possible, she slumped down in her seat and sighed.