FINALLY! Not what I was going to post today, but I'm going to roll with it. Again, I own nothing but the amazing ideas that I think up (though, even that might be a bit in the gray). Oh! Easter Egg! Can you find it? If you can, you're a fantastic, amazing geek like me. If not, I will silently laugh about it by myself. THANKS, guys!

Their first official meeting as hosts went, well…

"It's Edward-San, right?" A girl asked. She wore the typical yellow dress of an Ouran Academy student. In her black hair, she wore a ruffled, floral bow that just happened to be pink.

He nodded, swallowing hard. "You can call me Ed, if you'd like." She had requested him and she smiled at him, blushing a little.

"Ed," she repeated it, trying the foreign name out. It sounded wrong in her squeaky voice. "Where are you from, Ed?"

"Amestris." He tried to keep the answers short. Maybe there was a daily quota.

"I've never heard of that country. Where is it?" He sighed. There wasn't. If there was, she'd been done after the first question. How could anyone stand that voice?

"West of Xing, next to the desert." She nodded. She'd clearly heard of Xing.

"Ed, darling, would you mind helping me with this?" She held out her arm. A golden bracelet hung, the broken chain, swinging from side to side. Ed glared a bit. Is that what the Host Club did? Fix jewelry and answer unrelenting questions? He reluctantly reached out and fixed it.

"Don't call me 'darling,'" he said, a bit perturbed. He wasn't anyone's darling. He was a state alchemist, who should have been out catching a killer.

She didn't seem to notice as she launched into her sentence. In fact, it kind of seemed like she was ignoring him. "Edward, darling, I just bought the prettiest dress in this boutique in Taiwan. It's just beautiful, and you should see." Ed had tuned her out.

At the other table, Edward sat, slightly awkward. If May saw him, he would be dead. The two had gotten awfully close while he was away in Xing. He'd sat across from two girls who seemed to be intently observing him. "Hi," he smiled shyly after having them stare at him for a few minutes. They giggled. "What are your names?"

"I'm Yumi Ishiyama, and this is Kimiko Hitsujikai." Yumi looked like Al had thought all Japanese girls would have. She had squinty, black eyes and chin length black hair. Kimiko was a different story. Her pixie hair was a pastel pink hair and green eyes.

"I'm Alphonse Elric." He smiled. "What do you to like doing?" he asked, unsure about what to ask. He glanced over at Ed, who was less than enthusiastic. In fact, he was practically plugging his ears at the grating voice of the girl who sat across from him.

"Yumi is an artist, and a martial artist." Kimiko offered. "I like to mess around with music."

"Mess around? Kimiko, you're fantastic."

"That's really cool. I've never learned how to play an instrument and I've always wondered how musicians created the chords with such mathematical precision and emotion." Trust an alchemist to turn music to math. "I am, however, a bit more adept at martial arts. My brother and I spar regularly. Perhaps you could join us, Yumi." She nodded, enthusiastic. Most boys just brushed her off when she said she was a good fighter.

Back at Ed's table, he sunk lower in his chair, silently loathing. He hadn't been as able to tune her out as he'd hoped. Her voice grated against his ears. "So I told him, he couldn't do that to me. It's just not fair to only buy me three new dresses when I needed that dress, too. If he didn't buy me that dress, I said, I'd never be happy. Eventually he broke down and bought it for me. I can't wait to wear it. I hope I can get to it, but I have about 30 other dresses I haven't worn yet, so it may be a while."

"SHUT UP!" Ed shouted finally. Tomiko, as she'd introduced herself, exhaled sharply. The entire room turned to look at the sudden outburst. "Have you ever once considered other people? Honestly, all you rich people make me sick! You only care for yourself! What about the people who actually need something, like food? There are people dying every day. You should think yourself lucky you don't have to worry about how you're going to pay taxes. In Amestris, there have been countless wars. I've seen people die! I've seen people with missing arms and legs! Why can't you just be happy for what you have?!"

"Well, Edward, darling, I'm sure it's much different for you, coming from such a background, one like Haruhi's. After all, you are a scholarship student, aren't you?" She didn't wait for him to respond, so again he stopped her sentances.

"I have enough money to afford this school." It came as a bit of a shock to the club, who had thought he was as poor as Haruhi. "I got in on scholarship because I'm smart enough. And, I actually worked for what I have, every penny. I've given up more than you could fathom for it!" He stood and stormed out of the club.

"Brother!" Al sighed, about to get up and apologize to the girl he'd upset.

"Don't bother," Kimiko told him. "That's Tamiko Kodokuna. No one really likes her." It just made Al feel sorrier for her.

"It's true," Kyoya said. Had he always been hovering? "She's so annoying, no host will let her request him for more than ten minutes. I'm surprised Ed could manage the twenty, though he did tell her he didn't want to sit with her in a much less tactful way than the rest of the club had managed."

"I wonder what she said," Yumi wondered.

"She was talking about her little brother and what a bother he was," Haruhi said. "She mentioned being glad he was gone for the rest of the year."

"I see," Al said, suddenly not wanting to apologize for his brother at all. Several pairs of eyes caught him off-guard. He hadn't meant to attract suspicion. "My brother feels very responsible for a misfortune that befell us about six, five years ago. Ever since our mother died, we were all each other had. We still haven't spent more than a few months apart." A crowd had gathered around Al. They swooned under his comments.

"I really should go and make sure he's okay." Al stood and went to find him, arousing a herd of comments along the lines of "you'd never guess he was the younger brother," "he's so responsible," and "I wish I had a brother like that!"

If Ed had been there, he would have complained about his brother, who had suddenly become far more popular than Ed.

When Al finally found Ed, he was in the bathroom, punching the wall. There was a deep hole that had started breaking through the rebar. "Ed," Al scolded, "you shouldn't have done that."

"I'm sure this fancy rich school can afford it," he said, throwing another punch. If it had been his left hand, it would have been bleeding.

"I meant about that girl."

Ed pulled out one of the steel sticks. He remembered when a very similar piece had been stuck through his left arm and his right arm had been destroyed. He remember watching Al give up his soul and get his arm back. He remembered hunching over the empty armor, praying his voice would meet him.

"She said she wished her little brother was dead, that he was never born." Ed blinked back hot tears. How dare she even think family could be so worthless? Al had been the only thing Ed had had for so many years. To watch Al die for him had been the most heartbreaking thing he'd ever felt. To think he might have never been born was too much for him to handle.

Feeling a similar sense of loss, Al ran over and hugged his brother.

"Al," Ed whispered.

"What?"

"I can't breathe," he croaked.