*Hangs head in shame*
Overthinking wasn't the reason this time.
"Hey Yura-chan?"
Yura looked up from unpacking her bag to see Tamaki staring in wonder at her.
"…Yes Tamaki-senpai?"
"Is that…Kyo?"
Yura blinked and let her hand run over the orange cat keychain clipped to her bag handle. She had bought the trinket on whim last week online since the price had dropped.
"….Yeah..." she was afraid to venture further, but the expression of incrudelity on her face must have been obvious, "You…you've watched Fruits Basket?"
"Absolutely! It's the first anime I've ever seen!
One of Yura's thick eyebrow rose, a quizzical half smile on her lips.
"Really?"
"When I first came to Japan, it was so fun to watch them when I couldn't get a historical drama I ordered on time."
'That would explain the enthusiasm for the Free cosplay…'
"Have you read the manga too?"
"Yup, though I kinda wished they just made the whole thing into an anime."
"Me too! It would have been great. Who's your favorite character?"
Tamaki felt his smile grow some at the sight of his underclassmen's face fill with a small blush. Her gaze lowered.
"…Hatori." She mumbled.
"Really? I was sure you'd say Yuki or Kisa."
Yura shrugged.
"I like them too, but Hatori stuck out the most to me."
"But his past!"
"I know. It just makes me like him all the more. What about you?"
"I would have to say Touru. She's just so sweet."
Yura looked back up at Tamaki, an involuntary smile tugging at her pale lips.
"Touru's my second favorite."
Tamaki brightened in surprise at this confession. Yura found his reaction a little ridiculous. Had it been anyone else but the prince type of the host club, she would have suspected him of insincerity.
"Tamaki."
Yura and Tamaki turned to Kyouya, who was standing near the two, his black notebook closed and in a fist resting on his hip.
"As riveting as this discussion is, I do believe you have a costume to put on."
"Eh?"Tamaki responded with elegance, before memory could fill him in as to what the vice president meant. "Oh yeah! Don't worry Kyouya, I'll be ready before our guest arrive."
The statement gave Kyouya little confidence regarding his best friend's preparation skills. He merely shook his head as he walked off, opening the book to write something down.
"We'll talk more later, Yura-chan."
He gave her a small wave, to which he received a brief nod before heading to the adjacent room.
Of all the club members, Tamaki Suou had to be most enigmatical to the small girl. He was loud, dramatic, foolish, charismatic, insightful yet ignorant. Being so keen with those around him, but then being completely oblivious to his true feelings for the 'princess' of his club, Yura didn't know what to make of the half French upperclassmen. The only positive conclusion she could come to initially was that he wasn't boring to watch.
Yura also felt she could get by in conversing with any of the members as time passed. Everyone but him. And she didn't understand why. He had never been callous or even unfriendly to her. In fact, he had been the only pleasant one when they all thought she was a boy, minus the third years. And yet whenever he approached her, Yura felt disquieted. Deep down, his friendliness made her wary and nervous. However, once they started to talk, she would soon silently berate herself for the feeling. It didn't take long for her to observe that he was like that with everyone. She just wasn't used to such natural, jovial, affability.
Her brother Yuki was as kind as could be, but Yura could often see the fear in his eyes of doing something that might inadvertently hurt her. Her uncle Hirohito, though quiet, was abundant in his generosity. However in terms of talking about his preferences or more personal life, the twenty-five year old was a closed book. So Yura could only take the French blonde's enthusiasm in stride.
It was during pre-club hour conversations that the host club president eventually related his past with that open naturalness that the small girl slightly feared. His nonchalance talking about such topics made her more apprehensive. If she was in similar circumstances, she would have surely kept silent. While musing through that, it occurred to her one day that though Tamaki talked about his family, he never once asked her about her own.
Did he really have such discernment to know Yura wouldn't be comfortable with those kind of questions? Was she that obvious? She had to stop what she doing when the thought occurred to her and watched him as he talked to Haruhi, a happy blush spread on his cheeks. She soon came to regard him as one of those types of people who just got along with everyone.
There was nothing deep to their interactions, as far as she could decipher, so she concluded that it was him just trying being to be nice to a friend of Haruhi's. She didn't mind. It was only cringe worthy to watch him interact with the cute brunette: constantly referring to himself as her father when his actions were everything but parental. When Hunny finally told her about his confusion while helping Kasanoda, it only made Yura cringe more whenever he brought forth any reasoning for justify his 'daddy' status with Haruhi. It was some deep seated denial in her book.
By the time Yura was officially a member of the host club, the French blonde had managed to get almost every anime, manga, and book she had ever watched or read. To her surprise, it wasn't prying at all; one day she would be sketching and he would come over after talking to Kyouya, a cup of tea in hand and a warm smile. But after lending a book to him that she had been reading to Haruhi, he seemed almost shy to approach her for awhile. Until he came up to her one day bowing, the book stretched out before him.
"Here you go, Yura-chan. Thank you for letting me borrow it."
"No problem. Is…something wrong?"
"Wha-what do you mean?"
"Why are you acting so formal?"
"Oh, um, I was just wondering….if I could borrow that manga I saw you reading yesterday."
"The Name of the Flower? Oh, yeah sure." She dug through her bag, pulling out the paper bag containing the two volumes she had bought while getting the club's instant coffee. She was more than happy to run the errand for Haruhi so she could study more. The small girl had already ordered the out of stock items from the bookstore and was able to pick them up on her way, thanks to the errand. She handed them to Tamaki. "I got volume two too, so I'll give you both of them."
Tamaki looked shocked, but slowly took the bag from her hands.
"Thank you Yura-chan…"
"No problem."
Then she heard him sigh and put his hand to his chest, laughing in…relief? Her eyebrows furrowed.
"Oh, sorry Yura-chan. It's just I thought you'd be upset."
"Upset? Why would I be upset?"
Tamaki fidgeted a bit, looking down at his folded hands, books tucked under his arm.
"Because….well…I kept the book so long. And I saw you get angry at the twins yesterday when they gave you back a book that they had, so I thought-"
Tamaki mouth closed at the finger placed in front of him. Yura had stood up and was currently tip-toeing to be as near to his mouth as she could. He wasn't sure whether she was angry, but her lips were set in a partially formed frown.
"Firstly," she placed her feet back on the ground and put a hand in her pocket, the small hand still out stretched, "The twins took that book and then brought it back to me torn, thinking I wouldn't care because I'm a 'commoner', as you guys so politely put it, and are used to having old items. Secondly, they told me they were only keeping it for a night and two weeks past before I had to ask for it." She put her hand down. "You, on the other hand, can keep the books you borrow from me for as long as you want Tamaki-senpai, as long as you bring them back how I gave them to you. Which you have."
"Really?"
Tamaki sounded so surprised and hopeful that Yura couldn't help but smile. This guy was hard to figure out sometimes, but she couldn't really dislike him. And it was moments like these that made her realize why.
"Yes. Unlike the others, I trust you'll take good care of the things I lend you, so I don't mind."
The blonde's simper at her response was almost puppy-like. She chuckled a bit.
"Thank you Yura-chan!"
"Mm-hmm."
After that he soon began to talk to her more often, asking to borrow other books or DVDs. He even once just sat with her until she finished a book before asking if he could borrow it. This book buddy system soon became something Yura looked forward to. It was nice having someone to talk to about her readings and Tamaki, despite his drama, was a good person to just sit down and have tea and listen to when it came to literature.
Though in the back of her mind she wondered why he was going this far just to have something in common with her, but figuring he was being extra attentive to a friend of his 'daughter's', she shrugged. It was amusing to her so she didn't really care.
She would have never even considered joining the host club for her required extra curriculum if it hadn't been for one incident a month prior to it. Yura sat in front of the windows of the second year section, sketching. It was lunch period then. On her way back to the first year section of the campus after a break in her schedule, she spotted a statue out of a window that made her hand itch to draw. The urge to see the piece of art sketched out on paper overtook any other plans she had made for her lunch. She reasoned that anything she drew would probably would be a poor comparison, but that didn't diminish the urge.
So as soon as the bell had rung, she bee-lined for the door and after waiting awhile for the second years to clear out of the area, she headed over to the window with her sketchbook and a package of sweet bread with the plan to sketch and get a few bites in between her pencil strokes. The window was big enough for her to sit with her leg bent to prop up her sketchbook and still have room to place and bottle of water and her bread. The two victuals went untouched as she immersed herself into the task. Twenty minutes elapsed with the underclassman in such a concentrated bubble that she didn't notice someone walking down the hallway.
The person stopped upon spotting her and was about to call out until they caught sight of what she was doing. Realizing what was happening, they moved silently over to her and when they could finally get a sight of the sketchbook in her hands, stopped at that safe distance and watched. Another ten minutes past and Yura huffed as she starting to get more frustrated and disappointed with her work. The pencil felt awkward in her hand, all the shading she was doing was off and the stiff half smudged figure was an insult to the graceful pose through the glass before her.
'This is why I don't normally do shading…' she grimaced, adding a few more strokes in some futile attempt to make it look better before letting out a loud disappointed sigh and fishing out her eraser from her blazer pocket to erase the mess of pencil on the page.
Yura placed the rubber from the right hand corner of the page and was about to begin the swift journey down the sheet to erase the big graphite mistake when a hand shot out from her left and stopped her. She jumped up, bumping into the glass pane.
"Sorry! I'm sorry. It wasn't my intention to frighten you."
Yura looked over to the stranger as she tried to still her rapid beating heart. The person was a student, around the twins' height, but Yura had never seen him before so she assumed he must be in one of the B or lower classes of first years. His polite smile faltered a bit to see she wasn't relaxing and the long fringe of dark brown hair partially covered an eye as he lowered his head, attempting to show her he meant no harm.
"I'm really sorry about grabbing you so suddenly." He began with a chuckle. "My name is Shouei Matsuda. I'm a second year."
Shouei held up his hands and took a few more steps back.
"It just looked like you were gonna erase what you been working on for so long and I just couldn't help myself."
The explanation didn't calm Yura at all. In fact, it made her even more nervous to realize that he must have been watching her for some time now and she didn't notice. There was nothing she disliked more about drawing than having to do it in public when she needed references from life. It was just an invitation for people to come up to her and that was the last thing she wanted.
"Um, are you a first year?" Shoei tired to get the small 'guy' before him to say something, seeing the suspicious way she eyed him.
Though she was now standing, Yura was still pressed against the windowsill, her arms crossed and clutching the sketchbook and pencil she had pick up off the ground while Shouei had introduced himself. He would never have guessed she was making hasty plans on how to leave without having to talk to him. She nodded after a while.
Shouei shrugged a bit.
"What's your name?"
"…Yuri Komatsu."
He barely heard the mumble that escaped the pale lips that were pressed tight together after giving that answer.
'A shy type I see…'
"You must be the transfer student then. I know it seemed a bit odd that I was watching you, but curiosity got the better of me. I'm into art too you see."
Yura only nodded again, not sure why that was suppose to make her feel better.
"I was wondering, if you're not in any extra-curricular activities, would you consider joining the art club?"
"Huh?"
"You seem to really like drawing; you haven't even eaten your lunch. Everyone is at a different skill level there. We do sketching, painting, master studies and we're always looking for new members. Are you already in a club?"
Yura's mouth quirked as she was about to tell him she was in the going-home club, but figured a rich kid wouldn't get the joke. She shook her head.
'He really doesn't talk much, huh?' Shouei scratched the back of his head, letting out a small chuckle at this one-sided conversation.
"Well, if you don't have any in mind, you can drop by before club hours this week."
He gave her the directions to the art section of the school before leaving. Yura watched him turn the corner, looking down at her sketchbook. She wasn't officially tutoring Haruhi anymore and the homeroom teacher had been insisting she join a club.
"Maybe art should be it…." She mumbled.
But the thought of drawing in front of others made her made her dismiss the thought for the moment.
Though exams were over, Yura and Haruhi still had occasional study sessions. The brunette found English grammar and syntax easier to understand when she practiced with Yura. But one afternoon, Haruhi saw her study partner was distracted.
"Something wrong?"
"Huh? No Haruhi, sorry. I was just debating something with myself."
"Debating something?"
"Yeah." She put her fist to her chin before her eyes shifted to the older girl beside her. "Actually was thinking about whether or not I should join a club. But that might intervene with our study schedule…." She mused.
"Oh really? Which one?"
"…The art club."
"You draw really well and almost as much as you read. I think it's a good fit. If it really interests you, we can work something out."
Yura stared at her friend with slightly widened eyes. She nodded slowly.
"Okay…"
"It's just…."
"Just?"
"Nothing, never mind, Yura. Do you think we can go over the homework we got today?"
"Sure."
A week after their talk, Yura started coming to the host club to see Haruhi twenty minutes later than usual. She had begun to visit the art section, only observing club activities. She was still deciding. There were a lot more people in the club than she expected and seeing the amazing work being made there was discouraging. But Shouei seemed to be invested in her potential and tried to convince her to finally join whenever they chanced to meet.
One day, before lunch Yura told Haruhi that she wouldn't be coming to third music room that day. Haruhi saw the newsprint pad in her hand and nodded with a smile, a little sad to see her go. She knew Yura might not be very keen of everyone in the host club, but the guys were of a different opinion. She wasn't sure how to tell the smaller girl that the others would miss her.
'She might not believe me anyway….'
The natural type of the host club was helping to rearrange the room when she noticed Tamaki looking around the club room. Their eyes met and he came up to her, his eyes still searching.
"Haruhi, where's Yura-chan?"
"Yura? We're not studying today so she, um…"
"What?"
"She didn't tell you?"
"Tell me what?"
'I figured as much…'
"Well, senpai, the truth is…"
Yura walked to the art section of Ouran academy with a club form in hand, wondering if Shouei was there so she could get his signature. She wasn't mentally prepared to talk to anyone else just yet. Even as she headed over to the club, she was having second thoughts. What if she ended up hating having to be out so late after school? Well, it was true she was doing it already, but she could choose whether or not to go; nobody would come questioning her about it.
'It's not like it'll look good when I apply to college or anything…" she grimaced as she looked up to see the sign indicating she had reached her destination. "if I live long enough to get into college…"
"Yura-chan!"
The small first year jumped and spun around to see Tamaki jogging up to her.
"Tamaki-senpai? What's wrong? Did Haruhi need something?"
The blonde stopped and put his hands on knees for a moment, letting out a breath of air; he was confused by her last question, but shook his head all the same before straightening up.
"No, but she told me you were thinking of joining the art club."
Yura tilted her head, glancing at a door further down the hall.
"Yeah, uh, Matsuda-senpai caught me drawing once and asked if I wanted to join a few weeks ago. I'm still not really sure, but I figured it'll be fine. It might help me get comfortable drawing in public."
At that explanation Tamaki's face fell. Yura couldn't understand why.
"Oh. Yeah, that's true, it will help you improve." He mumbled more to himself than her.
"Tamaki-senpai, are you okay?"
"Yea, I'm fine." He smiled now, but it looked crestfallen. "Actually, I was kinda hoping you would…consider joining the host club."
"….Ha….?"
"I know it may not be something you would be ok with now, but I thought…since we were becoming friends, maybe you wouldn't mind hanging out with everyone."
"We….we were becoming friends?" she asked in disbelief.
Their eyes met and she witnessed the hurt as he flinched before his violet eyes shifted away from her.
"Then, I was the only one who thought that then…" Tamaki murmured, his shoulders beginning to slump.
Yura stepped closer to him. She placed a hand on his arm. When he finally looked her in the eye again, she couldn't believe to see his eyes were slightly shining.
"I was having so much fun, talking about books and reading with you. Kyouya doesn't really have any interest in books unless he can use them to his merit and Haruhi and the twins don't really seem into reading just for fun so it was nice, having a reading buddy."
Yura's mouth dropped.
"I thought you were just being nice so I didn't feel left out when Haruhi wasn't around."
"What?! No! I mean, maybe when we first met, but all the others seem to have gotten closer to you lately except me."
"Really? I…well I never thought about it…"
The sad smile only grew and Yura put her hand down. The two stood in the hall in silence for a few minutes. Yura squeezed the newsprint pad in her hand and adjusted the bag straps digging into her shoulder. She couldn't believe she actually hurt his feelings. Glancing up at him, she watched the violet ones until they caught hers. He closed his eyes now as he smiled.
"Tamaki-senpai, I-"
"It's okay Yura-chan. It's my fault for jumping to conclusions like that. Good luck to you in the art club."
What made her feel worse was that he didn't say the last line in the usual dismissive tone one would assume when they were hurt and just replying with a seemingly good natured response out of habit or sarcasm. He was being genuine. It made her regret letting out the question about them becoming friends. She wasn't used to someone like Tamaki yet, but she wasn't so suspicious of him now. In fact, she was starting to like him and the others in the club, though she kept to herself. It took some minutes for all this process in her, so by the time she did click back into her surroundings and stretch out her hand, Tamaki was already gone. The small first year looked down at the form in her hands.
The next day when Tamaki came into the club room, he was startled to see Yura sitting with Haruhi, reading from a workbook while Haruhi did her math exercises. He walked up to the table.
"Yura-chan?"
"Good afternoon Tamaki-senpai, how are you?"
"Wha-what are you doing here?"
"I'm studying with Haruhi."
Tamaki was so engrossed in figuring this puzzlement with Yura, that he missed Haruhi's smile at Yura's seemingly innocent response.
"But I thought you were going to join the art club."
"Yu-chan's going to join a club?"
Tamaki, Haruhi, and Yura looked over at Hunny and Mori. Hunny hugged the pink stuffed animal as he sauntered up to Yura.
"You're not going to stop coming to the music room, are you?" Hunny asked with a pout.
"No Hunny-senpai, I'm not."
"Huh? But Yura-chan, didn't you take in the form to be signed by someone in the art club yesterday?"
Yura shrugged a little, patting Hunny's hair and not looking up at Tamaki though her reply was directed at him.
"I changed my mind."
"So…then…you'll come to the club room tomorrow?"
Yura raised her eyes from Hunny's soft flaxen locks to the second year's hesitant look of hope.
"I don't see why not."
Thank you to everyone who faved and followed this story even though it seemed to have all prospects of one that was abandoned. Doing multiple chapters to this story made me realize I had an idea for everyone but Tamaki. And I couldn't understand why since he is one of my three favorite characters. Yet among the host club, he is probably the hardest for me to write about on his own.
Only one more chapter to go and that one is for the infamous Shadow king.
Thank you for reading.
Love and Peace.
