The Other Half
Chapter 3: The Zuka Club Counterpart
It was now one week since the start of Marie's schooling at St. Lobelia. In the past week, she had come to appreciate the odd quirks and wonderful aspects of the school. The student mobs were still overwhelming but she had gotten used to it now. Well, that and the fact that she discovered how much of a sanctuary the library was. Very few people came into the school library and those that did were all isolationist who stuck to their own research.
Marie herself was engrossed in her own research. And as of yet, she had yet to yield fruitful results. Firstly, her mother's surname, Tanaka, was very common in Japan; and apparently, so was her mother's first name, Mizuki. To add onto her troubles, she didn't even know which part of Japan her mother came from and thus couldn't narrow down her search. Furthermore, everything was in JAPANESE! To put it simply, it was torturous to plough though all the web-pages and sieve thought the search results. Most of them were blogs and useless articles about school research and what not. It wasn't that she disliked Japanese, it was just that having everything in Japanese made it difficult for her to understand and slowed down her progress significantly. Marie spent more of her time ploughing though a dictionary to translate the web-pages than anything else and it was really frustrating for her to go though all that trouble only to discover that they were irrelevant to her search.
Marie was just about ready to bang her head against the computer screen in her frustration. Thankfully, the three Zuka girls decided to enter at this very moment and save her from self-inflicted brain damage.
"Marie-chan! There you are! We've been looking all over for you! Come on, we want to bring you somewhere." Benio babbled as both Chizuru and Hinako dragged her out of her seat.
"Hey girls… erm… if I may so ask, where are you taking me? I didn't even get the chance to log out from the computer!" protested Marie as she let herself be pulled along. One week of being pulled left right and centre by the three girls had taught her that it was useless to struggle. After all, it was very difficult to escape when the people you are trying to escape from have control over practically the whole student population who were all very willing to assist her escorts in the task of leading her around.
"We, my dear girl are going to crash the detestable Ouran High School Host club."
"Wait, stop. Firstly, who or what is the Ouran High School Host Club, and why are we crashing it?"
"The Ouran High School Host Club is a club that uses flashy looks to create fictitious love and fool the pure heart of maidens and we are crashing it; firstly, because it's entertaining to rile them up and secondly because we must fight to close down the club which continues to degrade the female race!" claimed Benio with a great amount of passion.
Marie didn't know how to respond. 'A host club…right… I can't believe that such a thing exists... and to think that we are going to crash it. These girls have way too much time on their hands.'
There it was, Ouran High School. It was big and it was grand. And for some odd reason, there was an endless rain of blue rose petals. Distracted by the rose petals, Marie didn't notice her friends walk up to the fancy school gates and start to do pirouettes. However, when she did notice, she could only stare.
"What are you doing?"
Stopping their turns at exactly the same time and in exactly the same position, Chizuru was the one who answered her.
"We have to do our warm up pirouettes to prepare us for the oncoming battle with the Host club."
Marie was speechless. 'Warm up for battle with the Host Club? Right…' then the gates of the school swung open automatically and Marie followed along having given up to understanding her friends.
Following a slight distance from behind her friends who were too distracted by the thought of disturbing the Host Club to notice, Marie watched her friends' antics and could only shake her head at their… weirdness.
When they reached the door of what was labeled as the 3rd Music Room, Marie watched on cautiously as they swung the doors open. From the door came a swirling wind of rose petals, this time, red ones. A sparkling blinding light followed and there in the centre of the room were seven men assembled around a love seat all dressed in different Roman costumes.
"Welco- why are you here!"
They unified greeting was cut short by an outburst from the blonde one dressed as a roman emperor.
Surprised at the lack of customers as she had expected and at the costume, Marie inched up behind Hinako and whispered in her ear, "this is the Host club?"
But Marie's whisper was loud enough to be heard by everyone thus calling their attention to her.
As Hinako answered yes, the taller blonde started walking up towards her all the while sprouting some nonsense about her beauty, grace and other qualities that she did not posses. Ignoring him, Marie swept her eyes on the remaining guys, scrutinizing them. As an artist, Marie had to have a keen eye for detail so as to portray her art subject as it should be portrayed. They were all either very handsome or cute, she noted, and each one of them had a different stance and posture giving Marie a small clue to their personalities. The tallest one had a black face with a strong stance, his eyes told Marie that he too was scrutinizing her but it was subtle. A warrior or fighter she decided based on the way he was evaluating her; the same way a fighter sizes up his opponent before battle. The black haired one with glasses was a fighter as well; but he, he held the position of one who would fight in a battle of wits rather than strength. A strategist; calculative eyes only just visible above the seemingly opaque glasses. The twins were also observing her carefully but they held only the air of curiosity and nothing more. The shorter brunette, indifferent and not interested; the pragmatic one. The shorter blonde, a soft toy. The taller blonde, flamboyant and dramatic. Marie didn't know what to think of them but looking at them now, "They are the host club? They look more like they belong in the drama club."
It was here that the black haired one with spectacles spoke.
"We are indeed the Host Club and occasionally hold thematic sessions depending on the whim and fancy of our club president. And now the question is, who may you be?"
"Marie Yue Winters, pleased to meet you. And you would be?"
"Winters-san, may I present to you, Ohtori Kyouya, the cool type, Hitachin Hikaru and Kaoru, the devil type, Fujioka Haruhi, the natural rookie type, Morinozuka Takashi, the wild type, Haninozuka Mitsukuni, the cute type," Tamaki said all this each time pointing to the respective host, "and finally, I, Suoh Tamaki, the princely type." As he said this, Suoh did the prince charming shake head hair flying move from shrek and extended a rose to her.
Blink. Marie didn't know how to react to all this… sparkles and rose imprinted backgrounds. So she gave her normal spectical reaction of "Right……"
The other girls, having had enough of being ignored, stomped up to Tamaki and snatched the rose out of his hand, throwing it on to the floor and scolded him.
"How dare you try to ensnare our sweet Marie with your false words and bombastic looks!"
Under the constant onslaught, Suoh, Marie observed, ran to hide behind Ohtori all the while crying out something that sounded like "Mother, they're so mean!"
'Amusing.' thought Marie as she watched the chaos of the Zuka Club and the Host club coming together. She was interrupted by her thoughts when the brunette, Fujioka she believed, came to her offering her a cup of tea. This brought the two warring groups attention back to the two of them.
"Haruhi! How can you offer that Lobelian coffee!"
"Oh! Fair maiden, how kind of you to care for our dear Marie, you truly do posses the marks of a true maiden, won't you come away with us?"
"Haruhi is ours! Stop trying to steal her away!"
"Nonsense, this is obviously an inappropriate environment for her. She cannot bloom into the beautiful flower that she is in this kind of junk. She should come with us where she will be properly nurtured."
"If I may so state that Ms Fujioka currently as obligations to our club and any attempt to null her responsibilities are inadvisable." (Glasses gleam)
Taking a few steps back from the arguing mess, Marie accepted to cup to tea from Haruhi and sipped it slowly while leaning against the wall. Turning to face the shorter boy, Marie asked, "Are they always like this?"
"Yes it's very tiresome."
"Hm, so you're the sane one around here I guess."
"I suppose so. You have a foreign accent. May I ask of its origin?"
"Sure, I'm Japanese by blood but I was raised in America."
"Oh, I see, so you moved back to attend Lobelia?"
"No, not really, I'm on a six month exchange program. That's all"
As the rest of the Host Club and the three Lobelia girls continued to fight, Marie and Haruhi left the Music room chatting all the while. As Haruhi brought Marie for a tour around the school, they talked about everything and anything. Haruhi told Marie about what happened the first time the Zuka Club dropped by making her laugh at the imagery. Marie told Haruhi about the craziness of Lobelia and the superstar status of the girls.
"It's actually quite annoying, especially since they're my escorts and I don't like crowds. Wow, a rose hedge labyrinth, I'm impressed."
As the two unlikely pairs got to the fountain at the centre, Marie turned to Haruhi.
"I've got to ask. You're not a boy are you?"
"Eh? How could you tell?"
"It's simple really, its obvious when you look at your body shape and structure, your pitch of voice and the way you move. It's not very obvious but you can see it if you look carefully. Well okay, you won't be able to see it but others will if they observe properly."
"Oh. I see."
"Well, I think it's about time for us to go back don't you think? I wouldn't want the girls to leave without me because then I'd have no idea how to get back from here."
The moment the girls opened the Music Room doors, Marie was assaulted with a sobbing blonde who was crying aloud about "where have you been" and "I was so worried!" It was more exaggerated when he said it though. So engrossed in his hysterics was Tamaki that he never noticed he had assaulted the wrong girl.
"Excuse me, can you please let go, you're invading my personal space," drawled Marie as she shoved Tamaki off her. "And for the record, I am not Fujioka-san. I can't believe I just got molested. Are you sure you're the princely type because I'm quite certain Prince Charming would have more honor than that."
At the harsh tone of her accusation, Tamaki's face turned red and he started to stumble back, falling into the arms of his fellow hosts; devastation written all over his face. Her student escorts however, were sporting smirks of triumph.
"Do you see fair maiden, the treachery of your Host Club? Will you not take our hand and let us save you from this horrible place?"
By routine, Haruhi declined politely leaving the girls no other excuse to stay especially in their moment of triumph when Marie had taken down the Host Club president with just a few words.
"Very well, we shall take our leave but we will return fair maiden to rescue you when you realize that they are not worthy of you." With that the three girls left out the door, blue rose petals, showering down them. All this while not realizing that they had left Marie behind since they were not used to having one more person in their Supreme Zuka Team.
"Chaînés, Chaînés and rose petals. Why can't they just walk out like normal people. Honestly," Marie shook her head at her friend's antics before turning to the host club. "Sorry to have caused trouble but you really shouldn't invade my personal space like this. Fujioka-san, I'd love to take you up on your offer, drop me a call alright? Well, goodbye." With that, Marie sort of curtsied, turned and left.
Little did she know that her words had stirred up even more trouble.
Author's note: well, that's it for chapter 3, kind of weak I know but it's just that this is not where I want to put my focus on. I want to focus on Marie finding her father but it's unrealistic for her to find out so soon so yeah. The host club interaction was a little too little I suppose but currently they're strangers, it would be odd for her to just pick a fight or get along with all of them just like that.