A/N: I have a feeling that those authors who put up the chapter number, what pairing it is, the rating, etc., at the top of their story even though there's an automatic copy about an inch above your story, are just making more space. To make the little scrolly caterpillar shrink in the scrolly bar ('cause I'm a straight-up techie-gal). And no, I'm not mocking you or denouncing you, and I'm not even shouting "FRAUD! FRAUD! BURN THEM!" I am applauding you.
Another day, another page or so to put on the chapter—hope you like this one! There's a bit of HaruxMori in this one, but you have to sort of squint to find it.
Disclaimer: I do not own Ouran High School Host Club
Chapter Four:
Semi-Refined Gentlemen
Tamaki lay wrinkled and miserable on Kyoya's bed, his lower legs hanging off the edge of the plush, surface (extra-soft mattress), glaring heavily at the dark-haired boy as he adjusted the sleeves of his shirt.
"Why did you have to ask her those things, Kyoya? Or point them out? Now I—"
"It's not a big deal, Tamaki. You're overreacting, as usual" Kyoya said calmly, rolling up the sleeves of his patterned button-down shirt carefully.
"It is a large deal," Tamaki disagreed, moaning. "If she thought those things to herself, thats entirely different than having you point them out and hang them in front of her! Suspicions are one thing, now she's had them verified, never mind they were wrong! You even told her none of us cared about her! How dare—"
"All the cards are on the table," Kyoya cut him off smoothly, observing his reflection in the mirror with a small frown."She now knows what could stand in her way should she ever choose any of us—that the feeling is fancy, and nothing more. Strong if you help it grow, but fleeting should she walk away. All that remains is a decision to be made."
"Kyoya, I—" Tamaki started, then stopped, narrowed his eyes at Kyoya and sitting up on the bed. His rumpled gold hair fell into his eyes. "You said 'any of us'. What—?"
Silence lay between the best friends, their opposite natures more obvious than they'd been in months, despite all their warring to keep them from standing between them—Tamaki, open, naïve, his heart prominently displayed on his elegant sleeve. Kyoya, the Shadow King, the Demon Lord, emotions lying shrouded beneath layers of ambition and logic. His face was hidden from Tamaki as he considered the objects littering his laureate, but he could see his glasses glinting opaque in the light, and a small smile on his lips.
"The whole club cares for her now, no matter what the circumstance. Why should the Demon Lord be kept from little Demon Number Three?"
-x-
The sounds of breakfast at noon chimed through the main dining room, soft and unobtrusive. The tinkle of forks being laid on plates to take a sip of water. The rustle of a newspaper being studiously read. The quiet requests to pass the eggs. It sounded like any other groggy, polite breakfast that any group of semi refined gentlemen suffering from jet lag might indulge in.
It was also the strangest thing Fujioka had seen in a while, and that included Tamaki in a hula skirt.
"Pass the butter," she said, and Hikaru wordlessly handed her the dish, and his fingers didn't 'accidentally' tip the glass of water just under his wrist onto her lap, and his fingers didn't brush hers for an extra count of seconds, nor did he tease her about how much food was on her plate.
It was disconcerting.
As she spread the butter over her piece of gold-brown toast, just the way she liked it, she was scrutinizing all the boys' faces with excruciating finite attention, trying to find what made them so sober (and it certainly wasn't fatigue, Tamaki made noise until he dropped down asleep).
"So, Kyoya," she said loudly. "Whats on the agenda for today?"
"Nothing, really," he said calmly, turning the finance section in the newspapers cover over. "I left a day free of itinerary to adjust to the jet lag and familiarize yourselves with the setting while the clients are otherwise engaged. Feel free to take a trip down to the beach or sleep or explore the local territory."
"Oh," she said, and the word plopped like a stone into the wordless silence.
She sipped her water. She jostled Hikaru with her elbow. She dissolved into a fake coughing fit into her arm, and no one thumped her on the back, no one was looking at her with anything but mild concern when she resurfaced. What had she done?
They ate in silence.
"Haru-chan, do you want to come down to the beach with Takashi and me?" Hunny asked, smiling hugely, breaking the silence. Haruhi smiled back, but tried not to seem overeager.
"That would be fun," she said pensively. "Do you like sand castles, Hunny?"
"I love sand castles, and so does Takashi!" beamed the small boy, turning to his large, gentle companion, who nodded minutely in reply—Haruhi was struck with the mental image of Mori placing a flag atop the tower of a sand castle and proclaiming it his kingdom and had to make herself not laugh.
"Let me know when you're going down to the beach, ne?" she asked, poking at her American breakfast.
"Sure, Haru-chan!" he chirped. "We were planning to go a little while after breakfast!"
"Okay, Hunny," she said, and smiled again at the little boy, her savior. She didn't know why everyone was being so cold this morning—had she said something this morning that she didn't remember? Were they mad she'd replied she'd rather kiss Kaoru—she had only been joking! She'd rather kiss none of them!
"Haruhi," Tamaki said, rousing himself slightly from his somber silence staring at his plate, marked as per usual by bars of black depression hanging over him. "Don't forget to wear the swimsuit your brothers packed you. It's very nice . . . be a girl . . ." he trailed off into mumbling at his plate.
"Since I don't have any other options, thank you very much, Kaoru and Hikaru, okay," Haruhi conceded. "I'll have to pretend to be my visiting cousin for the day."
Three sets of ears perked up, and three people asked to come along eagerly on an expedition previously holding no interest to them.
The fourth decided it would be wisest to come along—the photos would be valuable and God knew they needed a chaperon.
-x-
"Is everyone okay?" she asked dubiously, eying the quiet-enough-to-be-in-a-funeral-procession around her. This was getting eerie. When she had stumped down the stairs in the frilly bathing suit and sarong, a bag slung over her shoulder, no one had cooed. There had been no group hugs. They were still silent, and she was worried—and okay, maybe selfishly, perhaps she had grown accustomed to having handsome men obsess over her.
"We're fine," Tamaki grumbled, and Haruhi sighed. Only Hunny was acting normal, as it was hard to tell with Mori, bouncing around a few feet ahead of them with his ever-present caretaker. Her feet sank into the sand, making it difficult to walk—but she couldn't deny the pleasantness of the landscape, the air thick with the smell of beach—warmth, sunblock, salty brine, and the sunshiny smell of sand. It was slow going on the sand-paved road to the beach, but it seemed that Hunny had reached their destination, just a dozen feet into what could safely be called 'beach', only a handful of yards away from the trees, for he had flopped down on the dimpled sand with a beatific smile on his face.
Haruhi dropped to her knees a few feet away, spreading out a towel on the sand. She didn't particularly enjoy swimming, but she was more than happy to lie on the beach and adopt the heavy, drowsy feeling of lying under a hot sun.
Tamaki and the twins sprinted off into the surf almost immediately, and in a few minutes they were splashing about happily, laughing and dunking each other underneath the water, the sounds of happiness so evident Haruhi winced. She felt, even more, that their strange, brooding silence was all her fault.
She set about laying out the towels for the boys to relax on when they returned, adjusting the umbrella over Kyoyas' head at his insistence, and over to Hunny, who had fallen asleep in the comfortable warm, where she was entertaining ideas of lying down on her towel.
"Haruhi," Mori said, and she jumped a little, having forgotten he sat there, her eyes adjusting to the bright sunlight as she looked over to where Mori sat on the far side of little Hunny.
"Yes, Senpai?" she queried, shading her eyes.
"Do you have any sunblock?" he asked in his low voice. "I forgot to tell Mitsukuni to apply any before we left Tamaki's home and I'm afraid he'll burn."
"Oh, yeah," she mumbled, pulling out the little turquoise bottle. "Here." She squirted some onto Mori's outstretched, expectant hand.
"Thank you, Haruhi."
"No problem."
She watched silently as he scooped some of the mound of orange-ish sunscreen in his hand with his opposite index finger and start to put it on Hunny's arm. It was almost like the twincest act, only more tender, like a father with a child or a caretaker with his ward (essentially the case in point).
"Let me help you," she said, taking some lotion from his hand and starting to smear it on his other arm. Hunny's skin was unbearably soft, and it was slow going, as neither of them wanted to wake him and witness the terror that be.
"Mori," she said, breaking the silence, wiping off some extra sunscreen on his hand and squirting some onto her finger and rubbing small circles on Hunny's chest. "I have a question for you."
"Yes?" he asked, and Haruhi couldn't decipher the expression on his face.
"Is Hunny really like he is in the Host Club—loli-shota? All the time?"
More stopped moving a second, face a mask of thought.
"I cannot get into Mitsukuni's mind," he said after a beat, resuming motion. "But he has said things of wisdom beyond his age, and far ahead that of the age he appears to be. He enjoys cute things like cakes and bunnies, true, and I feel he likes to dwell in childhood because it was a time in which the things he adores were acceptable in a way they often aren't now. But . . ." he trailed off, rubbing circles on Hunny's cheeks as Haruhi mirrored his actions on the other side of his pert little nose. "I believe he exaggerates these traits for the sake of the Host Club."
"Huh," Haruhi said pensively, and concentrated on exterminating a white strip of unabsorbed lotion on Hunny's chest. "Hunny is much more muscled than you'd expect . . ." even though she'd seen the havoc the small boy could wreak with his little hands, feeling the iron bands of muscle beneath that soft skin was somehow even more disturbing than the memories of him taking down a small army.
"We all are," Mori said. "In the kendo club and in the martial arts clubs. You have to be."
"Huh," Haruhi said. "Do you enjoy kendo, Mori?"
"It is necessary for me to learn precision and control," he replied as if it worked to the same end, slightly baffled.
"Maybe I could come to one of your kendo competitions. I've never been to one," she said, distracted by her own thoughts on the subject.
He looked surprised, and opened his mouth to reply, when a short scream sounded over the sand.
"Haruhi! What acts are you participating in with that wide eyed perpetrator of sin?!"
Tamaki's wails of concern woke Hunny, whose eyes snapped open the second he was jarred from slumber, and under the film of sleep, the pupils looked hard, black. His arm whipped out and caught Haruhi's wrist, yanking her down so he could observe her face. And he relaxed.
"Oh, Haru-chan!" he chirped, planting a chaste kiss on her cheek and giggling. He let her go, and the hard thing in his eyes had melted into a pool of chocolate. "You startled me!"
"S-sorry, Hunny," Haruhi stuttered, gearing up to apologize profusely, still scared witless by the explosion on the small boys' face, but she was cut off by being tackled from behind by an eccentric blond, causing her face to smash into the sand.
"Little supporter of evil!" he bawled at Hunny. "How could you—"
Haruhi felt the pressure life off her back, and she scrambled over into a sitting position, spitting out sand and wiping her hands over her eyes to try to rid her eyelashes of the grit.
Mori was holding Tamaki in the air by his armpits, and the blond was making eep-eep-eeping noises.
"Haruhi and I were putting sunscreen on Mitsukuni so he wouldn't get sunburn."
"Oh, thats why Haru-chan's hand was on my stomach," Hunny warbled, smiling, unaware of the damage he'd done.
"What?!" Tamaki exploded, struggling in Mori's grip.
"Sunscreen, Tamaki," Haruhi said, then sighed. "Would you mind putting him down, please, Mori?"
"Yes," he said, lowering Tamaki to the ground. Haruhi, who was still sitting on the ground and looking a little irritated, was suddenly enveloped on two sides by arms, lifting her onto her feet with a jerk.
"Haruhi, you had us worried," Hikaru purred into her ear from behind. "We thought you had decided you preferred Hunny."
"But you like us best, right?" his twin said, pressing closer to Haruhi. They had her sandwiched in between them front-to-front, unlike their usual chaste shoulder-to-shoulder hugs, and they were both pressing close, making it difficult to breath.
"I actually do prefer Hunny," she said breathily, finding it a chore to get out words. "Now let me go, I'm suffocating."
With crestfallen (but not surprised, at least they'd learned that much) looks, they let her go and shot looks at Hunny, who was grinning.
"I'm your favorite, Haru-chan?"
"You're not irritating," she qualified. She immediately had the breath knocked out of her again as Hunny pelted her with a tight hug and knocked her into the twins, who stepped out of the way, uncharitable with rejection, and allowed her to topple to the ground.
She lay with her legs spread out, Hunny sitting between them on his knees and staring at her with shining eyes.
"Will you be my sister, Haru-chan?"
And they couldn't help it, everybody laughed.
-x-
"Hikaru?"
"Yeah, Kaoru?"
"Whats that noise?"
"Perhaps a car starting?"
"A motorcycle doing laps around the mansion?"
"Haruhi's snoring?"
"Bingo."
They lay still for a beat of silence, then giggled simultaneously, squirming in each others arms. Haruhi's snoring was legend. If you were unfortunate enough to be in the same room (as told tearfully by Ranka), as Haruhi when she turned over onto her back while asleep, the terror! Sleep would certainly not come for you poor souls that night.
Their whispering couldn't possibly drown out the loud Snnnkkk-nk-nk as Haruhi drew in breath, and she'd been at it for a good two hours.
"We're going to have to do something," a twin, nameless in the black, whispered to his image.
"You know there isn't a lock on her door . . ."
"Oh, Hikaru, we promised," Kaoru said, but slipped away from his brother and out of bed. Hikaru was quick to follow suit, and they stood silent, grinning at each other, before creeping—absolute silence was not required, even through the unwise construction, due to Haruhi's thunderous snores.
"Thats hers there, right?" Kaoru whispered, pointing at the only door that was shut securely.
"Whose would it be, if not hers?" Hikaru whispered back, and they skirted the pillow storm, sliding up towards her door and very gently turning the handle. It made a small snick! sound, but Haruhi hadn't braced a chair against the opening or even shoved a dresser up against the threshold. She'd been too tired, falling into bed and, it seemed, rolling onto her back.
Her face wasn't visible in the vague moonlight slanting in from outside, but her location was obvious, the root of the deafening sound issuing from those little rosy lips.
"Haruhi sleeps pretty soundly, right?" Hikaru whispered to his brother, creeping alongside him towards th bed.
"I think," Kaoru replied, a note of doubt in his voice. His brother didn't notice, it being drowned out by aforementioned noise.
"Good. Now I'll take her right side, and you take her left, and we very carefully push her onto her side."
"Right!" Kaoru said, slithering to Haruhi's left and levering himself up on the heavy beaming of the wood that supported the box spring and mattress. He could see her delicately-featured face under the moonlight, and if she had not been emitting terrible snoring noises, he would have been struck again by how lovely she was, and pained at how he could never have both her and Kaoru.
The pure white sheets lay in a flurry around her as she turned her head from side to side, snoring, occasionally murmuring nonsensically between between breaths. Kaoru gently wiggled his fingers under her rib cage, and he could barely feel the weight of her beneath layers and layers of nightgown. He suddenly regretted their fluffy-bodice idea.
"On three we turn her onto her side," Hikaru whispered, his hands ready to steady her should she fall onto her stomach.
"Right."
"One . . ."
"Two . . ."
"Th—"
"Hikaru?" Haruhi murmured sleepily, blinking at the elder twin. Kaoru froze, and he could hear the telltale stillness in the large dining-room gone dorm that told so much—Haruhi had stopped snoring, and said one of the Hitachiins' names loud enough for everyone to hear and stop breathing for a second (awakened as they surely were by Haruhi's 'dainty' snores).
"What are you doing in my room?" she asked, her voice still fuzzy and her eyes still unfocused. Kaoru was slowly sliding his fingers out from underneath her ribs, but the small movement jerked her fully into consciousness and she turned over snatched his arm before he could slink away. "What is—why are—get out—"
"HIKARU! KAORU!"
Tamaki had entered the room in a flurry of blond hair and blue nightclothes, holding what appeared to be an aluminum baseball bat.
"Tamaki—" Haruhi began, then shook her head and let it fall back on the pillow, deciding that she would never accept another vacation offer from the Host Club if they paid her back the eight million yen.
"YOU ARE ACCOSTING OUR PRINCESS AS SHE SLEEPS!"
"I'm not asleep," Haruhi protested weakly, and ducked as Tamaki's baseball bat whizzed past her ear. "Tamaki—put that down! You're going to hurt someone!"
"Thats the general idea," he grumbled, but lowered the bat and glowered at the twins, whose unflappable cockiness had not yet fully returned.
"Well, milord," Hikaru blundered. "You're one to talk about accosting people."
Tamaki paled.
"What?"
"You know," Kaoru said, sidling up to Tamaki and elbowing him in the ribs, warming to the subject matter. "Milord, don't try to pretend you haven't—" He let his sentence trail off, smiling slyly as the conversation slipped back into his awfully capable hands.
"Haven't what?" Tamaki asked shrilly, glancing at Haruhi, who stared blankly back, deeming it safe to sit in an upright position.
"Accosted, idiot. Or don't you want us to talk about it in front of Haruhi?"
"This is not an appropriate conversation for family members to participate in!" Tamaki tried to save.
"Oh, I'm sure Haruhi doesn't mind. She's a big girl, right, Haruhi?" Hikaru winked at her, and Haruhi merely gazed back at him with the nonplussed expression she wore whenever someone hinted at romance with the Host Club.
"You know, milord," Kaoru said, draping one arm over Tamaki's shoulder and letting Hikaru claim the other, their forearms overlapping. "I've never shared a kiss outside of the family. I'm chaste, so to speak."
"You, on the other hand . . ."
"She was French!" Kaoru explained to Haruhi with a flourish and what was, admittedly, a good impression of Tamaki's most flowery speeches. "She was beautiful, with her hair glinting," he paused dramatically, hand over his heart. "Scarlet-white in the moonlight. Her name was . . . Jacqueline."
"How do you remember this?!" Tamaki demanded, his face bright red. "It was last year!"
"We were staying in the same hotel in London. We couldn't help it." Kaoru and Hikaru's voices, speaking as one (by far the longest and most impressive two-for-one exhibit Haruhi had ever seen), lowered conspiratorially. "Things happened. When I woke up . . ." Haruhi suddenly grasped what they were hinting at and turned her face away, a slight red tinge staining her cheeks. "She was gone forever, back to France, the land I can never revisit."
"And so he loses Jacqueline, his first," Hikaru concluded singularly.
"I told you not to tell the twins," Kyoya counciled from his place by the doorway (how long had he been there?). "I told you it would work to a bad end. I told you that they would tell someone and your father would find out."
"Father already asks me regularly if I'm 'active'," Tamaki muttered, glaring at the twins. "And I'm not."
"Not anymore, anyway," Kaoru smirked, and, the blame shifted painlessly from him, skipped out the doorway, shoulder-to-shoulder with his brother.
Kyoya stepped out of the room, scribbling furiously on the omnipresent notepad, which left the embarrassed-for-Tamaki Haruhi and the simply embarrassed Tamaki standing or lying, accordingly, in the small room. Neither of them said anything, Tamaki regarding his feet, feeling like he should apologize, and Haruhi just wishing he would leave so she could forget this whole episode.
Haruhi could hear Hunny and Mori speaking quietly two rooms to the left, the formers' voice slightly worried, the second soft, reassuring.
"Maybe you should go to bed, Tamaki," Haruhi said abruptly.
"Oh, right. Yeah," her elder said, blushing again. He turned around and started for the door before pausing slightly. "Haruhi?"
"Yes, senpai?" she asked, fluffing her pillow.
"Don't sleep on your back."
"What—? Oh, I'm sorry!" she said, realizing what was implicated. "I must've turned over in my sleep, I don't usually—"
"Don't worry about it, Haruhi," Tamaki said, stopping by her door and running his fingers over the latch of her door. "And, just one last thing?"
"Yes?"
"Maybe we should get you a lock."
And with that, he slunk out of the room.
Just so you know, that was NOT HaruxHunny up there. That was Haruhi feeling affectionate towards Hunny like he was her own little brother, which is just how it is in this fic.
And due to popular requests, this fic is now OFFICIALLY HARUxMORI! Whoop! Now, don't be scared, there will still be a bit of HaruxHostClub, because I can't just leave them in the dust, but Mori's part shall grow!
This means you need to review. I love and adore you for putting me on your author alert, but there's no substance. Tell me why you worship the ground I walk upon. Just kidding.
ALSO (wow, this is getting to be long), I draw inspiration and banish my lethargy and writers block with good Ouran AMV's. Got a good one? PM me with the link, I'll be sure to check it out.
LoveLoveLOVE,
Vacancy