As Norio sat trembling after his confession, Haruhi calmly set down her cola. When Norio looked up, puzzled at her silence, she gave him a dazzling smile. With a gentle tone of voice, she spoke;
"It's ok. Love is love, no matter what the gender is. If you're sure of your feelings, I don't care who you're in love with."
For a few seconds, Norio could see why the other hosts cared so much for Haruhi, why she was such a popular host. Tears dribbling down his face, he scooted over and plopped his head onto her shoulder. The brunette calmly patted his head, inwardly mourning her ruined shirt.
After a few more emotion filled moments, the two got to planning. In the notebooks they brought out for "studying", they began writing down all the possible ways for Norio to win Mori-senpai's heart.
"Well," Haruhi began, tapping her chin. "You probably won't get anywhere unless you win Honey-senpai over." Norio nodded, but wasn't very worried.
"He'll understand, right?" The thought of asking for his smaller senpai's blessing had not occurred to him, but now it seemed almost mandatory.
The brunnette's mind flashed to all the times she's witnessed Honey's acts of selfishness. Everytime she thought she was sure of her senpai's personality, he always threw her a curveball.
"I'm pretty sure that he won't mind, but it's best to ask..." She gave a final nod and took a sure sip of her cola. Norio allowed himself a small smile; he knew going to Haruhi was a good decision.
The next morning was spent like any for Norio; dodging his sister and Akashi and diving into the limo like his life depending on it. But today, he had a something little bit extra in his bag: a medium sized light blue bunny plush. He was pretty sure Honey enjoyed his company, but a little insurance wasn't unwise, was it?
As he came up to the door of his first hour, two whispering figures were crouched in front of the door. Two (unfortunately) familiar figures. With an exasperated roll of his eyes he spoke up, "Akira, Hisoka-chan, what are you two doing?"
At the sound of their names, the young boy and girl sprang up. Akira was a slender boy of average height, with black hair combed wildly into a faux hawk stylized like his favorite video game character, with tanned skin and and bright hazel eyes, while Hisoka was a heavy set girl with full strawberry blonde pigtails and long bangs that hung on either side of her circular face and pale skin with the slightest smattering of freckles across her nose and hazy brown eyes.
"Waitin' for you, man!" Akira launched himself forward into a hug. "Hisa-chii and I heard you joined the host club~!" Suspicious at his long time friends' actions, he raised an eyebrow. "Aaaannnd?"
As if Norio was stupid for simply inquiring, Akira scoffed. "That's great exposure for the Otaku club! You gotta get us inside!" The Otaku Club was the most obscure and ridiculed club in school, probably because the only two members were these two crazies.
Akira's father, Ichirou Honda was composer for a long franchise of Kaiju horror movies, and he was the all time authority for anything related to that genre. Otaku from around the school flocked to him for inside knowledge. Hisoka's aunt, Manami Morioka was the founder and lead publisher of Lavender Shoppe, a publishing firm for shoujo manga. Therefore, she got a look at all the new chapters of all the newest shoujo manga. The Morishita family had represented both of them many times and so, all of them were relatively close friends.
Up until recently, Hisoka had
been a hikikomori, but Akira managed to break into her shell and get her to come outside. Although she still barely spoke, she was much more open with her feelings now. It's only recently she'd enrolled in Ouran Academy.
His friends always had some kind of ulterior motive to their schemes, not all of them completely safe or 'legal', so you could understand his hesitance. Somehow, someway, he always managed to get sucked into them, so he didn't even bother to say no. Thanks to some string pulling, they had all their classes together, so poor Norio had to deal with two excited nerds bouncing behind him all day.
As classes ended and clubs started, the starry-eyed Otaku walked behind their friend happily, walking through the door with him. Once again, the hosts gathered around the door.
"Norio-kun always has the best entrances." The twins grinned, already having caught Haruhi and were currently nuzzling their cheeks against her struggling form. Stepping forward with sparkling eyes, Hisoka snapped a picture of the spectacle with her cell phone before retreating back behind Norio. Akira, however, was horrified.
"Oh no, they're all hot! We'll never recruit new members at this rate!" With enough dramatic flair to make Tamaki proud, he threw himself to the ground, clutching his chest. "Our club is doomed..."
It took a while (what with peeling Akira off the ground, convincing Kyoya to allow them to stay, and tearing Hisoka's cellphone away from her death grip per Kyoya's refusal to allow non-profit photoshoots.), but everything was calmed down. Today was a break from the customers, which meant it was perfect for Norio to execute his plan.
Having fallen into a routine, Norio sat with Honey and Mori, calmly nibbling at his cake while listening to Akira's fevered ranting about how a club alliance was necessary in order to increase both club's morale (Which was very moving to Tamaki, not so much Kyoya.) 'Now's as good a time as any.' he thought, reaching into his bookbag.
"Ah, Honey-senpai," he began, getting his smaller senpai's attention.
The shota swallowed and smiled. "Yeah, Nori-chan?"
He pulled the plushie out of his bag and held it out towards Honey. "I want you to have this. A gift."
His brown eyes sparkled with happiness as he took the plush and held it close to him. "So cute! Where'd you get him? Does he have a name?"
Smiling at the reaction his gift got him, Norio nodded. "His name is Usagito. He was mine a long time ago. I thought I'd give him a good home." Honey held Usagito close before picking up Usa-chan and holding him as well. With amusement in his eyes, Norio watched his senpai introduce the two rabbit plushes to each other.
Before he could open his mouth to ask Honey if they could talk alone, Honey spoke, "Takeshi, could you get me some more tea?" The large student nodded stoically and got up to fulfill his cousin's request. When he was out of earshot, Honey set both of the stuffed animals down on the table.
"Go ahead." Taken aback at the unusually serious tone, Norio could only respond with, "Huh?"
"Takeshi's always doing things to make me happy. He never does anything selfish. I think he deserves to be happy." He smiled wisely, for once looking like his age. Then, he patted Norio's knee discreetly as Mori came back with tea in hand.
With his flushed face buried in his cake, Norio mumbled a quiet expression of gratitude. The air was cleared of all tension, and soon everything was back to normal once more.
