Just what you need on your Tuesday: more dumbassery :D hope you enjoy
I wandered into the school cafeteria a couple of hours later, a map that Hikaru had been drawing while we had been sitting out by the sports field clutched in my hand. Pretty much as soon as Kyoya's fan club had disappeared Hikaru had torn a page out of the notebook that he had been scribbling in and handed it to me. It was a map of the school (a much more informative one than the one I had been given upon arrival) with 'Haruhi's Guide to Ouran' written in the top left-hand corner.
Both he and Kaoru had stated very firmly that where people sat in the cafeteria was incredibly crucial as everyone was there. To be perfectly honest I wasn't particularly fussed about where I sat – I could quite happily have gone back to that music room and ate there – but they insisted that I should go and eat lunch with them. Hikaru had drawn a complete layout of the cafeteria, complete with who sat on each of the different tables, which he had also marked out perfectly.
The first table that I came to had the words 'Second Years' written in block capitals. I looked up at the table and it was filled with girls and boys who I vaguely recognised from the year above. I looked back at the map; the next table said 'Sports Players' and, sure enough, the people sitting around it all had some kind of sporting equipment with them. I kept looking from the map to the tables and each of Hikaru's descriptions matched those of who was sitting there.
After the first two tables there was the 'Nerds' (most of whom had some kind of text book open in front of them, the 'Otakus' (mostly boys sitting around either playing some kind of card game with dice or reading manga), the 'Unfriendly Princesses And Their Slaves' (a table filled with grumpy looking girls being waited on by simpering boys), the 'Girls Who Eat Their Feelings' (a group of larger girls, which I thought was insensitive), the 'Girls Who Don't Eat Anything' (the polar opposite of the previous table) and the 'Sexually Active Band Geeks' (a group with musical instrument cases engaged in passionate kisses, one of whom seemed to have his hand up the skirt of one of the other girls).
The final two tables were labelled 'The Greatest People You Will Ever Meet…', I looked up at the table in question and saw Hikaru and Kaoru, Kaoru waving enthusiastically at me, '…And The Worst'. Just above this Hiakru had hurriedly scrawled 'BEWARE THE HOSTS!' I looked over at the table in question and saw the three boys that Hikaru had pointed out on the field earlier. I had absolutely no interest in sitting with them so began to weave my way through the students mingling around, making a bee-line for the table where Hikaru and Kaoru were sitting.
Just as I was passing the table where the Hosts were sitting, a girl, standing a couple of inches shorter than me with long dark-blonde hair, popped up in front of me. She was holding a clip-board, I noticed, as she gave me what she imagined was a radiant smile but just came off as worrying and I gave her an awkward smile back.
"Hi," she said brightly. "I'm doing a survey of new students do you have time to answer a couple of questions?"
"Um… ok." I replied but she didn't seem to hear me, she was too busy looking at her clip-board.
"Is your cherry blossom popped?" she asked.
"Excuse me?" I asked in return. I assuming that statement was supposed to make some kind of sense that I didn't understand. Again she didn't seem to hear me but turned back to her clip-board.
"Would you like us to assign someone to pop your cherry blossom for you?" she asked.
"Um…" I hedged uncomfortably, desperate to get out of this conversation.
"Is she bothering you?" a cool voice said from beside us. I turned to see Kyoya, the other two sitting either side of him, looking at us with cold disdain. "Renge are you causing trouble again?"
"I'm just being friendly." the girl, Renge, protested grinning.
"Renge three days ago you were all over Mori here and now you're trying it on with some poor innocent boy right in front of us." he said waspishly. "He's not interested. Do you want to have sex with her?" he added turning to bring me into the conversation. I shook my head vehemently.
"No thank you." I replied hurriedly.
"Good, that's settled," Kyoya gave her a calculated smile. "you can run along now Renge." Regne muttered something under her breath that sounded like an insult meant for Kyoya, but dutifully weaved round me and left. I turned and gave Kyoya a grateful smile.
"Thank you." I bowed slightly then made to go and join Hikaru and Kaoru as I had planned.
"Wait," Kyoya raised a hand to stop me. "sit down." He indicated the chair opposite him.
"Um…" I turned to look over at Hikaru and Kaoru. Kaoru was enthusiastically waving me over while Hikaru mouthed 'what are you doing' at me.
"Seriously sit down." Kyoya said again.
"Ok." I shot an apologetic shrug in the twin's direction before taking the seat Kyoya was offering.
"I'm Kyoya," he introduced himself. "this is Mori and Honey" he added indicating the two on either side of him.
"I'm Fujioka Haruhi." I replied. I decided to give him my full name considering that they are my upper-classmen after all and should keep some sense of propriety.
"So you're the scholarship student, aren't you?" Kyoya stated after studying me for a minute or two.
"How did you know?" I asked. I was amazed at how quickly the news of my arrival at the school had actually travelled.
"Word travels fast at Ouran," he replied. "and I have my ways of finding out the most interesting information." That sounds vaguely ominous. Still I thought I should probably be polite and make conversation.
"Well yes I am the scholarship student." I smiled.
"You're incredibly gifted." he stated. I wasn't totally sure if it was a compliment or not so I decided to take it as one.
"Thank you." I replied.
"So you agree?" Kyoya asked coolly. "You think you're incredibly gifted."
"Um…" I had no idea how to respond to that, he had just completely twisted what I had said. "well I…"
"So that uniform?" Kyoya interrupted me before I could actually finish my sentence. "Where did you get it from?"
"It's one of the old ones, isn't it?" Mori asked.
"Um, yes," I replied a little embarrassed. "my father wasn't able to afford one of the most recent ones. If I hadn't got the scholarship he wouldn't have been able to afford the tuition fees."
"So if you're at Ouran," the little one, Honey, piped up suddenly, looking confused. "why are you poor?" I opened my mouth to answer, although not sure how I was going to respond, before Mori cut me off.
"Mitsukuni you can't just ask people why they're poor." he admonished.
"I just want to know how he's able to come to school here." Honey half whined, pouting.
"That's kind of how scholarships work." I said trying to sound as polite as I possibly could. Is he really a third year? I wondered. The twins had said that the class we had seen them in was a third year one so I guess he must be. They had also said he was a complete idiot so I wasn't holding out much hope for him.
"You should know that we don't do this a lot so this is quite a big deal," Kyoya cut in before Honey could say anything else. "but would you like to have lunch with us for the rest of the week?"
"Oh that's very kind of you but I…" I began about to try to make some kind of excuse to get out of it but Kyoya didn't seem to be listening to anything beyond 'that's very kind of you'.
"Wonderful." he said with that same calculating smile he had given Renge. "We'll see you here tomorrow." Honey leaned towards me, beaming at me.
"On Wednesday's we were pink roses." he stated happily. It was then that I noticed that each of them had a red rose tucked into one of the buttons on their blazers.
"But I…" I began to protest again but the three of them had already begun discussing something else. Do people just not hear me when I talk?
"Oh my god! That's hilarious; you have to do it ok." Hikaru chocked between fits of laughter once I'd finished retelling him and Kaoru what had happened to me at the Host's table. As soon as I'd left the cafeteria the twins had grabbed me and practically frog marched me to the boy's bathroom. No one seemed that bothered that I was in there but so far I hadn't met anyone who hadn't mistaken me for a boy. "Then you have to tell us all of the horrific and stupid things they say."
"Why do you hate them so much?" I asked.
"What do you mean?" Hikaru asked as if the question was a surprising one.
"Kyoya and the others," I clarified. "you seem to really hate them."
"Yes, what's your point?" Hikaru asked flatly.
"Did they do something to offend you?" I asked. I was having trouble working out why Hikaru seemed to have such a vendetta against Kyoya without some kind of reason behind it.
"Everything they do offends me." he stated matter of factly. From his position over by the sink where he had been fiddling with his hair I saw Kaoru roll his eyes.
"Hikaru's just pissy about them because Kyoya started this rumour that the two of us were…"
"Kaoru!" Hikaru snapped cutting him off. "Shall we not?" Kaoru just rolled his eyes again and continued fiddling with his hair.
"Whatever you say." he muttered. I looked between the two of them. Clearly something had happened between the three of them in the past that Hikaru was quite sensitive about it.
"So there is a reason you hate him?" I asked. I didn't really want to press the issue (partially because I didn't completely care – this was not the kind of thing I needed to be wasting my time on).
"Oh there totally is." Kaoru grinned at me.
"Look, this isn't about hating him ok." Hikaru cut in hurriedly. "I just think it would be like a fun little experiment; a psychological experiment if you would prefer."
"What would I even talk to them about?" I asked. I mean what on earth would I possibly have in common with boys like that?
"Family status." Hikaru offered.
"Because I have so much of that." I muttered darkly.
"Class gossip." Kaoru shrugged.
"I don't know anyone!" I protested.
"Can you just do it, please?" Hikaru asked.
"But I…" I began but tailed off as they two of them looked at me expectantly. I sighed, there wasn't any way that I was going to get out of this so I might as well just agree to it. "Oh fine!"
"Yes!" Hikaru exclaimed, thrusting his fist in the air with glee and Kaoru grinned while continuing to fiddle with his hair. I sighed again; does anyone at the school listen to me?