Chapter 4: Humiliation Abounds!

Now revealing this week's chapter … 'Humiliation Abounds!'

I'm so cruel to Masa-chan … in my head I want her to have the perfect entrance and for everyone to fall at her feet and worship her; but that would be rather unrealistic and would kind of kill the character rep I am building for her :3

The nurse who had followed Kaoru-kun out turned towards Sakura-san.

'What can I do to help you?' she asked politely. Sakura-san turned and gestured towards where I was busy melting through the floor with the shame of my namelessness. and cursing the day I was born.

'My friend here has a really bad blood nose. I think she needs something to stop it … and perhaps also a clean uniform. This one's a little bit bloodstained.'

I rose unsteadily to my feet, and, in a daze, stumbled towards the infirmary door. Once inside, I collapsed into a chair. The nurse's gaze was rather concerned as she looked over me.

'How long ago did this happen?' she politely enquired. Sakurazuka-san replied for me.

'Oh, about … seven minutes ago maybe. She got hit in the face by a door.'

I noticed that she didn't specify who exactly it was doing the door-hitting. The nurse removed my hand from my face and inspected the now-dwindling stream of blood, frowning a little.

'The blood really should have stopped by now – perhaps she's broken something …'

Sakura-san gasped and covered her face with her hands as I sighed. Yep, that'd be about right. I had thought that it wasn't painful enough to be broken, but who knew with these things. It'd be about my luck if it was.

After examining me, the nurse made her final proclamation. 'It's not broken – it's very close though. We'll have to cast it for a day or two though, or else if it gets knocked again, the damage may well be far worse. You should be alright to head back to class, unless you would rather go home.'

I would much rather be at home, in bed, possibly with a tub of ice cream and lots of gloomy music, but my mother would not be impressed if I turned up at home halfway through my first school day. School it would have to be.

I decided that it might be time to try out my voice, now that I didn't have to live in constant fear of blood running from my nose straight into my mouth (not a nice mental image).

'Oh no, I – I'm fine to stay here.'

The sound that came out was alright – somewhat nasal, but, all in all, not completely terrifying. While I may not be hired as a voice actress anytime soon, it's not as though small children are going to be running in fear because they think I'm a Shinigami or the like.

The nurse smiled happily and clapped her hands together. 'Okay! We'll have to find you a new uniform then; this one is a bit, well, stained.' She gestured to the reddy-brown mark that now decorated my incredibly expensive uniform.

Well there went my birthday and Christmas money for the next seventeen years. It's not like my family was poor, (I was attending Ouran, after all), but since our money was relatively 'new' in comparison to some of the families whose businesses had been around for aeons, my mother and father didn't just throw it around. They were much more conservative about their spending than the majority of families here. Which was why we only had two cars, instead of ten, and while the majority of my clothes were tailor-made, I occasionally bought things at commoner chain-stores – upper class ones nonetheless.

And this school dress had cost more than the majority of the clothes in my wardrobe – combined.

The nurse stood up and disappeared into another room. I smiled over at Sakurazuka.

'Thanks for coming all the way over here with me. It would have been a little hard to explain everything while I couldn't talk.'

She grinned back at me in reply. 'Well, it was the least I could do, considering that it was my fault you ended up here in the first place. Anyway – we're friends, right? Friends help each other out.'

Friends. Yeah, that sounded good. I had already made another friend, and it was still only my first day. Maybe Sakura-san hitting me with that door wasn't really an accident … maybe it was fate, pre-ordained by a higher power to bring us together. Maybe it wasn't really a bad thing, just a good thing in some sort of odd disguise.

Who knew that a blood nose could be good?

Obviously, the karmic forces of the universe weren't happy with me rationalising their actions, because my happy feelings lasted the whole of two minutes it took the nurse to return holding a uniform.

'I'm sorry Miss …' she said awkwardly. But this is the only uniform we have left here …'

She held it up, and thus my fate was sealed.

Which was how I ended up making my introductions to my new class; with what appeared to be an entire roll of duct tape strapped across my nose, wearing a boy's uniform.

Hello again! I've had a few people ask about the honorific system; why I use it and what it means.

Well the reason I chose to use it is because it felt a little odd saying some names without the honorific, like saying Mori instead of Mori-senpai :D Also, because it's a sort of way of seeing how the relationships between the characters progresses … I apologise if the meaning behind this isn't spot on, because I am not Japanese and therefore my knowledge of them comes from anime and what I learn at school. Feel free to correct me if I commit a faux pas.

Okay, first is what it means if you don't use an honorific when referring to someone: this is usually only done between family, fiancées and best friends. Either that or if you are incredibly disrespectful.

San: this is the most commonly used; basically it's just a term of respect. You use if you know someone rather well but not to the extent where you would completely drop the honorific.

Sama: a more respectful version of san. It's used when you talk about someone who you see as being of a higher rank than you.

Kun: most of the time is only used for boys; usually children or teenagers. More respectful than san, less so than sama.

Chan: is used to imply that you find the person close to you cute. Unless your Honey, in which case you put chan on the end of everyone's name. Is usually used for babies or young women.

Senpai: Is used to refer to someone who is your senior, in the case of Ouran, it's usually for a student who is in a higher grade than the speaker. It can be used by itself; for example, some people just call Mori 'Senpai.'

Sensei: usually used to refer to a teacher, whether that be for school or for sport of whatever. It can also be used by itself.