Chapter Three

Not All That It Seems

"The host club?!" I nodded, hefting the full school bag higher up my shoulder. Mornings were the best part of the day, apart from the bit where I was in bed. The walk to school was always refreshing. It was the part of the day when I had literally nothing to worry about at all, hence why we set off much earlier than we could have. Mornings were lovely - no Tsubame, no Aunt Chiyoko, no making a fool out of myself, nothing to cause lasting bruising. Plus, I got to walk part way with Yuri, dressed in his relaxed uniform of which I was eternally jealous. He turned towards me as I recounted yesterday's events, his eyes wide as saucers. I almost laughed.

"I can't believe you met the host club." He ran his spare hand through his hair. "Wow. I mean… what were they like?" I looked at him, surprised.

"You know about them?" He chuckled, shaking his head. Sometimes he forgot I knew absolutely nothing about anything at all. I'm pretty good at pretending I know everything.

"Of course I do. They're kind of like legends around here," he explained. I smirked at the brightening sky as he began to ramble on about each of them and their families, zoning out every now and then. It was getting busy in this part of town – slightly more respectable than our part, it seemed. Shops were opening up and groups of students stood around giggling. I got some weird looks every now and then, in my badge of sham-honour. I totally meant honour. Obviously Ouran students didn't venture down here much. I pulled myself back into the present and realised Yuri was still talking. How did everyone keep all this information about different families in their heads? Especially someone like Yuri, who had basically nothing to do with them.

"Why do you even know this stuff?" I asked in amazement. "I don't know this and I go to the same goddamn school." He shook his head as I slipped in and out of English. 'Goddamn' was one of the words that just seemed to find its way into whatever language I was speaking.

"I always wanted to go to Ouran." He sighed. "I actually took the entry exam."

"Really?" I was about to press him when something fell over with a bang behind us. We turned to see fruit rolling across the street and a horribly familiar figure lounging against the remaining crates.

"I don't think you heard me properly," he sneered to the shop owner, who began to stammer, indignant. I began to slink backwards, dragging Yuri with me.

"What is he doing here?" I hissed. Yuri shook his head. Jai had a very distinct territory, which was unfortunately our neighbourhood, or at least we thought he did. I'd manage to avoid him ever since term started, which was a good compromise for both of us, but it looked like that wasn't lasting much longer. Something must've seriously boosted his confidence to make him venture up here. Jai sighed.

"You're still not listening, old man." The shop owner hit the pavement with a yelp and Jai's buddies guffawed to themselves. The boss himself put a foot on the man's head and pressed slightly, his trademark grin on his face. The surrounding street had gone very quiet as everyone else realised these new bullies weren't messing around. I glanced behind me. We were about a hundred metres from an alley way. If we could get there without being spotted…

"Leave him alone!" Yuri nudged me, ruining my escape planning.

"What?" I muttered and glanced back at the scene. I knew that light blue blazer. In fact, I knew the person in it, if only vaguely. Jai turned his head to look at the newcomer.

"Well, look here. Some little rich kid comes wandering down to our level and tell us what to do." He kicked the man on the ground absently. "That doesn't seem fair, does it, guys?"

"I said, leave him alone." Jai moved, towering over the small student, and I groaned inwardly at the defiant expression. I knew, and Yuri knew, that my fellow student was obliviously digging himself a hole that just so happened to be six feet deep and distinctly rectangular. I decided at that moment that I really hated being me.

See, here is where I made a really stupid decision.

I could have, if I wanted to, walked away then. We could have easily made it to the alley while Jai was distracted and ran for our pathetic little lives, and left the well-meaning yet woefully misguided rich kid to be beaten to a pulp. I could have not got involved with any more drama than I already had done and to be honest, I'd already saved this guy once already, although admittedly a crazed fan and a sadistic street thug are two exceptionally different things.

"You're going to want to get out of here." Yuri glanced at me and went white.

"Don't you dare-"

There was a crack and Jai reeled to the side, stunned. I swept up my school bag as I ran past, catching the boy by the wrist. He stared briefly before I dragged him along after me.

"What're you doing?" He stammered as we hurtled into a side street. Dead end. Nuts.

"Trust me on this, kid," I said through gritted teeth, "You do not want to start a fight with that guy." I skidded to a halt behind a shop and gestured up the ladder at the back. He stared at me.

"You just did." I grinned without humour.

"I can handle myself. Up." He glanced at the rickety contraption but began to climb. A yell caught my attention and I swore as two of Jai's crew raced down the alley towards us. The guy on the ladder glanced down at me, worried. I waved my hand.

"Keep climbing. I'm right behind you." I hefted my heavy school bag in my hand and, not for the first time, thanked Isaac Newton for advanced calculus.

I swung the bag with full force into the side of the first guy's head and sent him crashing into the wall with a sickening crack. His buddy snarled and I flicked him an obscene hand gesture that seemed to send him into a blind rage. He lunged and I dodged, leaping onto the first rung. The guy turned and got a heavy boot to the face. He crumpled satisfyingly.

The stray Ouran student helped me onto the roof. He glanced down at the fallen gang member but wisely decided not to comment.

"What now?" He asked. I heard movement below us. Jai's angry voice echoed up from somewhere. I swallowed. We had to get out of here.

Between us, we seemed to know the territory. A few roofs over got us to a fire escape and then suddenly I was following him. Unfortunately, my bright yellow monstrosity was not exactly subtle. I might as well have run around with a giant flashing neon sign saying HERE SHE IS, QUICK, KILL HER. The skirts kept getting caught. I span to get free of a chain-link fence, ripping a chunk out of the bottom of my uniform with a few choice curse words, before stumbling back into step. I glanced ahead.

"Where are we going, exactly?" I got out between breaths.

"I'm not sure. Over the bridge and round to school?" I nodded as we left the apparent safety of the alleys and sped towards the river. My legs were beginning to tire but he was more so. I grabbed his wrist to pull him along after me when I heard the roaring behind us. I glanced back.

"Shit."

Years of being one of the Home kids at a run-down state school had taught me to run fast and fight dirty. There weren't many things that could catch up to me in a flat-out run. Unfortunately, a car was one of those things.

"Are they fucking crazy?!" I reverted back to English. A bridge. Of all the places they could have caught up with us in a great big killing machine, it had to be a bridge.

"They're going to hit us!" It really looked like they might. It wasn't a very wide bridge and the gleaming of tarnished metal looked like it may have done this before. I knew for a fact Jai would think nothing of it. I looked ahead of us, feeling the weight of an addition tiring person with every step. We wouldn't reach the other side by the time the car reached the bridge. That left us one option if we didn't want to end up with serious injury.

"Can you swim?" I yelled. He hesitated, eyes widening.

"You'll be fine," I said and vaulted over the side. There was the vague sound of brakes screeching above us before we hit the water.

I coughed a load of water onto the stony bank and collapsed onto my back nest to my sopping wet companion. There was a couple of moments of silence.

"We just jumped off a bridge."

"Correct," I replied.

"We're going to have to walk to school like this."

"Also correct."

"We're in our underwear." We looked at each other and started to laugh.

"Oh god, I knew there was a practical reason to hate those uniforms!" I snorted, glancing down at myself and remembering the momentary panic as the heavy dress weighed me down. Both of us had to shed our clothes to stay above water.

"Question," I said, rolling over, "How are you getting away with posing as a guy at the host club?"

"It's a very long story," she sighed, running her fingers through her wet hair.

"Fair enough. I stuck out my hand. "I'm Katya, uh, Hayashi Katya. Excuse my Japanese and all. I'm not really sure how it works." She smiled at me and shook my hand.

"Pleased to meet you. I'm Fujioka Haruhi and your Japanese is… passable." I laughed. She turned her bag upside-down and groaned at the torrent of water. I looked at mine, oozing brown onto the stones. Our notes would be well and truly ruined. Our other problem was, of course, the fact that we were wearing pretty much nothing. The yellow horror was somewhere at the bottom of the river. I was almost happy about that but still. I was wearing distinctly less than skinny Haruhi and wondered if the vest was the Japanese underwear style or something.

"So what are we going to do now?" She asked.

"Send up a flare?" I said, half-seriously, fumbling in the soaked bag for my purse. I clambered to my feet, shaking coins onto my hand. There wasn't much else to do but grin and bear the embarrassment. Haruhi looked at me before sighing. Looks like we were going shopping.

Quickly.

Drawing as little attention as possible.

Guess how well that went.