I don't own Ouran High School Host Club Characters.

This was getting frustrating.

More frustrating than anything she'd ever done before.

How could a boy, any boy, resist all attempts to gain his attentions?

Nothing. That's what she'd gotten, nothing. Emi hadn't worn that hideous yellow thing they called the girls uniform since her first day a week ago. Instead, she reverted to her normal clothes, pants or skirts of varying color with a completementary colored shirt and her black leather jacket. Her female classamtes were almost horrified, but the boys didn't seem put off. They saw her as something different than the girls they saw everyday.

But they weren't the center of her attention. He was, Takashi Morinozuka, the impossible boy. She had learned nothing deeper about him than what the rest of the Host Club (mostly Kyouya) had already told her. She wanted to hear him talk, say more than a few words in a day, see him smile, instead of that same stoic look he had on all of the time. She never missed an opportunity to talk to him and ask him questions, but he rarely gave her much of an answer to anything. It was time to step up her game.

After club time was over that day, they were disscussing plans for a little getaway from the stress of school and all that. Haruhi was refusing to go anywhere with them, saying something always happened when she went places with them. Mitsukuni was also saying that he and Takashi wanted to stay in Tokyo because they were so close to graduating.

"But Mitsukuni-sempai, you're this close, why don't you take sometime off?" Emi said, "When you get into the University, you aren't going to have much time off at all."

Tamaki hugged her, "Oh my daughter! Sprouting such wisdom from her young mouth!"

While Emi tried to detach herself from Tamaki's grip, the twins turned to the upperclassmates, "She's right," Kaoru said, "You guys won't get as much time with us after you graduate."

"So why not spend as much time with us as you can?" Hikaru added.

They both started pestering them, and Mitsukuni looked like he was about to give in, but Takashi showed no signs of leaning towards going. She expected nothing less. She knew if Mitsukuni went, Takashi would have to go. But the twins couldn't go that extra inch to make him say he was going to come. Emi finally detached herself from Tamaki with the help of Haruhi and went up to Mitsukuni, "Please Mitsukuni-sempai? It's the first time I'd be coming with you all and it just wouldn't be the same without the whole Host Club." She even added a few sniffles in for affect.

That pushed it, "Of course I'll come Emi-chan!" he said, "You're right, it is your first time out with us, it has to be special!"

"What about you Takashi-sempai?" she turned to him, "Please." She said, drawing it out.

"Yes." He said indifferently.

Then she turned on Haruhi, "That means you too Haruhi-chan."

Haruhi sighed, "Whatever you say Emi-sempai."

She clapped her hands together excitiedly, "Fantastic. Where are we going?" To be honest, when they'd been disscussing where to go, she hadn't been listening.

"Since Mori-sempai, Hunni-sempai and Haruhi want to stay in Tokyo, I, as King of the Host Club, say we shall go to a different commoner department store!" Tamaki said.

"Even after what happened last time?" Haruhi asked.

"That can be avoided." Tmaki said, "If Kyouya doesn't dissapear on us again."

"If I remember right, you were the ones that abandoned me." Kyouya said.

Emi went over and patted him on the head, "Don't worry Kyo, I won't let them abandon you."

-Flashback-

He looked around the room. A five-year-old Kyouya Ootori didn't know what to think of this. His mother had been invited to an afternoon tea with a few other women of high standings who also had children. He didn't really want to be here, there were six other children here, but they were out on the lawn. He was too shy to go with them.

"Kyouya dear, why don't you go with the other children?" his mother said.

He looked up at her, "I want to stay with you mother."

"You don't want to play with them, they're going to be your classmates some day."

One of the other ladies smiled at him, "Why don't you go find my Emi, she's always fun."

"Go on." His mother scooted him away.

Kyouya reluctantly went out on the lawn too, scouting for the one called Emi. He spotted her, a ways away from the other children, squatting next to a clump of bushes, poking at something on the ground. "Hello." He said cheerfully.

She looked up at him and sniffled, "Hi." She said sadly, with a few tears in her eyes.

"Why are you crying?" he asked, sitting next to her.

"No reason." She sniffled.

"You can't just cry for no reason."

"I can."

"There must be some reason."

She looked at him, tears gone, "Listen, I'm trying to get my moms attention, okay? You're ruining it."

He looked back at their mothers, the woman who was Emi's mother was laughing lightly, but seemed to take no notice of her daughters distress. "Why?"

"Because."

"Because what?"

"If I keep crying she might notice and come over, and then we can go home. I want to go home."

"Why don't you just tell her?"

"Because."

"Is that all you can say?"

"It's all you need to know. Now go away."

So he stood up and left her alone, going to the other children. "Isn't she weird?" one of the girls asked.

"Yeah." One of the boys said, "We don't like her very much."

'So this is why she wanted to go home.' He thought. "Did you make her cry?"

The eldest one there shrugged, he was about eight, "She did a little, but she was trying to get us to sing a song to surprise our mothers. We didn't know the song she wanted to sing because it was in English. She's not full Japanese, you know. We told her she didn't belong because of that."

"Oh." And he didn't say anything else to them, just turned around and headed back to Emi. "I know why you want to go home." He told her.

"Hinako was my friend, before they turned her against me." She said quietly, "She abandoned me."

He smiled at her, "Don't worry, I won't abandon you." He told her.

"Friends?" she asked, holding out her hand.

Kyouya took it, "Friends."

-End Flashback-

Kyouya new perfectly well why Emi had chosen those words, to remind him that no matter what she does, no matter what her reasons for coming on this excursion, he was still her friend and she would pull him into this and would put some of the blame on him. "Thank you Emiko."

"No problem."

If there was one thing both of them were sure of, tomorrow would be interesting. More for Emi than Kyouya. She was going in without a plan, she was going to wing it. The prospect was somewhat exciting, but something about the ususal excitement was gone. What was it? What was it. . .

What was it?

I guess you'll find out.

Sooner or later.

~Cloudy 3