I'm sorry! This is a very short update and I won't be responding to comments in this one. But the next one, I swear will come soon and will have responses to all the comments I have not gotten to!
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"Aaah...how nice it is to be back on land eh Haruhi?"
"Or perhaps you preferred it when we were rocking your boat?" Now I went simply on instinct as to which one was which. Hikaru was the one who had made the boat comment and Kaoru was the one who spoke to her first. I didn't actually have any particular reasoning as to how I knew. Hikaru had a slightly sharper tone to his voice, whereas Kaoru seemed to be a bit, and only a bit, gentler. This was a very small and subtle thing I had begun to pick up during our trip thus far. And to be honest, I hadn't interacted with them enough to even be sure that I was correct.
"How dare you talk to my daughter in such a perverted way? It's okay Haruhi, daddy will protect from the influence of these terrible twins!"
"Oh jeez senpai, give me a break."
Looking to my watch I saw that it was about 4:00PM. We had stopped at another port and for the convenience of our...guests, we were going to stay on the mainland overnight. The Host Club and Haruhi were staying at some hotel nearby and I was staying on the boat with my parents to conserve money. The twin closest to me whom I identified as Hikaru (I was pretty sure he was Hikaru) I tapped on the shoulder.
"Hikaru-san, I have to go do some grocery shopping. Tell Haruhi and the others I'll see them in the morning." I said, shouldering my backpack as I got ready. The twin looked at me with a steady curiosity before addressing me.
"I'm not Hikaru." He said.
I blinked.
I was pretty sure he was lying.
Again, no evidence to back that up.
"Oh. Um. Sorry."
Prick.
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"Let's see, what do 6 rich bastards like to eat..." I mumbled to myself as I marched through the aisles, empty basket in hand. Slowly, I ran my fingers along the shelf, knocking bags of flour into my basket.
" rich bastard...2 rich bastards...3 rich bastards..." I counted as each bag fell into the basket. It was getting heavy and quickly.
" rich bastards...5 rich bastards...6 rich-"
"-Kyoya would do just as well. No need for such formal titles." I heard the dry voice of the Shadow King come from behind me and I froze as if I had been caught doing something terrible. My face heated up at having been caught and I turned around to look at him, giving him a sheepish smile.
"Ootori-san...I didn't see you there. I uh, thought you'd be with the others." I said lamely, but Kyoya seemed amused, slowly taking off his glasses and wiping them with a silk cloth before returning them to his porcelain face. I knew he did this deliberately, forcing me to wait for his words, letting my anxiety build up as I waited for him to speak.
"I see. Well, I had some business to take care of near here. I decided to pick up something for lunch from here when I heard...a lovely little rhyme from the aisle over." He finished and I blushed even harder, making a mental note to myself to be wary of the Shadow King, at all times and at all places.
"Sorry about that, I uh..um..yeah, sorry." I really didn't have any excuse and even if I could make one up, I knew he'd see right through it anyway. Inevitably, any excuse was futile. Kyoya merely looked into my basket at the six bags of flour piled into it, rising an eyebrow.
"I see you are shopping mostly for Honey-senpai."
"Oh, well, for now. I was going to get a shopping cart actually..." I trailed off, kind of expecting some sort of response from the Shadow King, but he merely picked up a box from the shelf and seemed to be reading the nutritional facts on the back, effectively dismissing me. And for some reason, I felt like lingering around him, staring at him as if waiting for some kind of verbal command. I had momentarily forgotten what I was really doing as I looked at his face.
He had these black pits for eyes...these dark, black, eyes that seemed to be made of marble. And his hair, though it was of the regular Asian sort, there was something extra special about it. It seemed softer, it looked like black silk and it moved like it with the slightest nod of his head or movement in the air. He was tall, lean, and his skin was perfect. His skin was what really got to me. It was pale, smooth and irritatingly beautiful. No amount of beauty products could get my skin to look like his...and I was a girl.
"Is there something I could help you with Miss Murayama?" His voice felt like a bullet had been shot straight into my chest. I involuntarily took a step backwards in surprise and found myself trying to stand up straighter as I found myself feeling awkward and embarrassed at having been caught staring.
You know what really sucks?
How I have no control over the blood that rushes to my face.
It really sucks.
"I uh...I was wondering if...uh, um, you wanted to eat anything in particular for when..um...we get back out to sea?"
Yeah, that totally sounded reasonable.
Throughout this entire exchange Kyouya had not once looked up at me from the ever-so-fascinating nutritional facts. He continued reading them, or at least pretended to, for a few seconds before looking up at me.
"Pancakes would be nice." And without any warning he dropped the box in his hand full of pancake mix right into my basket. I lurched slightly at the extra weight added to my basket so harshly and blinked in surprise. Kyouya took no notice of me and instead walked past me, going to inspect other items down the aisle. I stared at him now with a mixture of shock and indignation.
What a dick. What an absolute dick.
And as if he heard his name being called from my head, he glanced up at me with a slight nod before turning back to whatever what was on the shelves.
An absolutely handsome dick.
Ugh. I could kick myself for my own thoughts. Was I that much of a sucker for good looking boys?
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Tacos.
Tacos.
The most ingenious invention of mankind.
Now there were two kinds of tacos.
The soft shell kind, which was really just a pathetically wimpy burrito.
And the hard shell kind...which was the epoch of delicious. It was full of cheese and grade F meat scraped off of the floors of huddled cows. Wait, I'm not even sure that the meat was really meat. It was probably about 40% beef and 60% magic. I'm not sure how Taco Bell really ran things...but they ran things deliciously.
As I bit into my 89 cent taco I forgot about the world momentarily, allowing the hard shell of the taco to crumble ever so inconveniently and drop down onto the open wrapper. Oh kami this taco was heavenly, a gift from heaven, from the messiah. Nothing would ever separate me from my taco. Nothing could ever possibly ruin this moment.
Haha, the mere thought of "nothing could ever possibly ruin this moment"was asking for trouble.
And it was not denied me.
"Momo-chaaaan! There you are! Takashi and I have been looking for you!"
I wasn't surprised.
Not in the least bit.
During the epoch of my joyous moment, it was almost guaranteed to be interrupted. In fact, I would have been surprised were somebody to not interrupt my joyous moment.
Slowly, I lowered the taco as if it were a sacred artifact, meant to be cherished privately, before turning to smile at them.
"Hi Honey-senpai. Morinozuka-san-"
"Haru-chan calls him Mori-senpai! Morinozuka-san sounds so formal and scary. Don't you think so Takashi?"
"Ah."
"Oh. Huh? Yeah uh, sorry. Mori-senpai...right. So, um, can I help you guys with something?" I asked, but I already knew the answer. Honey-senpai looked up at me with his big brown eyes and for a second I melted at the sheer cuteness of his gaze. His lips separated into a big, toothy smile.
"We're having a party at the hotel tonight! Haru-chan will be there too! Won't you come and have fun with us?" He asked excitedly and I blinked at his offer, both tempted and repulsed by it. It's not like I was that slow of a fool. I had picked up on the patterns and I felt pretty confident about my ability to predict what would go down at the party. In my vision of the upcoming party, there was no point of me being there.
"I have some work to do on the boat later."
"Oooh! That's too bad! Maybe Takashi and I can-"
"No-uh, it's, it's not much work. Maybe I'll finish it quickly and stop by the party?" Of course I knew I was teetering on a lie. Ah, no, it was totally a lie. I definitely didn't have any work to do on the boat. My parents had even given me some spending money to go out and have fun today. I watched as Honey-senpai's face lit up a little more, his smile widening before he began to regard his surroundings.
"That's great! What is that you're eating?" He asked curiously and for a moment it felt like Mike Tyson had cut me across the face with a mean right hook. My jaw dropped slightly as I regarded him. Taco? Did he not-no, it was impossible. He must-no.
"It's..a taco..Honey-senpai.." I said slowly and Honey furrowed his brows in confusion and seemingly deep thought. He leaned over towards me to get a closer look at my taco and scrunched his face in slight distaste.
"I've never seen a taco like this. What's that stuff in your taco?" He asked and I glanced to Mori-senpai to see if there was prank being pulled on me, but stoic as ever, his face gave me absolutely no answers. I looked back to Honey, but he seemed sincerely confused.
"It's..it's meat. It's beef. Er, some of it." I added on as an afterthought as I took into consideration the slight ambiguity with Taco Bell meat. Honey blinked in surprise and took the taco out of my hands without any regards to me and bit into it, chewing thoughtfully as he did so. I had to repress the urge to kick his shins as he ate my taco.
"Oooh! So this is what commoner's taco tastes like! Try it Takashi! It's really good!"
"Yes, the commoner's taco does taste good." I found myself commenting dryly before I could stop myself. The slight bitterness went unnoticed by the excited Honey-senpai and he nodded, continuing to munch on my taco. But, when I glanced up at Mori-senpai-though his face relayed nothing to me-he was looking at me, and I had an inkling that he had caught my bitter tone all too clearly. I coughed lightly and cleared my throat to relieve the awkwardness that I felt (all in my own head) and took a sip of soda to distract myself.
"Uh oh Momo-chan! I ate your taco! I'll go buy some more. I'll be right back and get some more." And before I could protest Honey-senpai already hopped away to order an ungodly amount of tacos. It was kind of amazing just how detached from reality these kids were sometimes...most times. I leaned my chin on my hand and made the mistake of glancing up at Mori again. This resulted in an awkward lock of eyes, followed by an even more awkward silence. I blinked a couple times, my face reddening as I attempted a polite smile. But he didn't smile back. No. He just stared at me.
"You're not coming to the party." He said flatly and the deep rumbling of his voice actually sent shivers down my spine. I was speechless for a moment, the deep quality of his voice washing over me in a very satisfying way. I found myself stumbling, reaching blindly in the empty recesses of my skull for words to respond with, some sort of lie to make up in response.
But instead, I found myself unable to really think too well and told the truth.
"No. I won't be going to your party." My voice was surprisingly steady for having been caught at lying. Mori's facial expression never changed and I guess I didn't expect it to. But I did anticipate what he asked next.
"Why?" But he asked it more like a statement.
Now.
Why didn't I want to go to the party?
Just because.
Because I didn't fucking want to.
"Because I don't want to." That was a good enough reason right? It was a perfect reason.
"We make you uncomfortable." He stated. Yes that was true.
"No. It's not that." Yeah. Since day one. "I just don't really like parties. I'm not the partying type."
"Aah." Was his response and I knew with that, that the conversation was over.
"I have the tacos!"
Sigh.
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"Haruhi! Daddy wants to feed you all the delicious things in the world! Kyoya! Room service! No more eating fish for our dear daughter!"
"Right. And what exactly would you like?" Kyoya asked, pushing his glasses up with the back end of his pen as he reached for the hotel phone. Tamaki put his finger to his face, posing in deep thought.
"Steak! I bet Haruhi would like a good steak! Is everyone good with steak?"
"Hai Tono!" The twins called.
"And cake?" Asked Mitsukuni and it was around here that I began to zone out from their antics. It was an almost existential moment as I watched the rest of the Host Club run through with their shenanigans from a third person point of view. I watched as Haruhi dealt with them all in her passive and indifferent manner, though she seemed to be slightly more affected by Tamaki. I watched as the twins fought over her attention to play video games with them in their unrealized jealousy. Even when the food came up to the room I ended up just staring at my steak, unsure of whether or not I was actually hungry.
She didn't like us.
Or at the very least, she was uncomfortable with us. That much I knew for sure. In one dramatic swoop, as is a permanent side effect of associating with Tamaki Suoh, her expected summer had its neck wrung and subsequently drowned. I could see her hesitance in dealing with us every time any one of us showed up. With Mitsukuni she had a reserved tolerance, merely tolerating him after having become immune to his initial charms. Though Mitsukuni didn't pick up on this consciously, he picked up on it subconsciously, and in response he took his antics up a notch, trying even harder to win her over with his charms. In turn, this just irritated the girl more and left her forcing herself to be polite. Mitsukuni didn't quite understand this yet. It wasn't something he had grasped.
In my presence she was intimidated. Her face colored like a tomato and she was unable to keep a steady gaze with me. Her eyes always darted back and forth from the floor, to the table, to anything else that existed in her surroundings, before going back to me. She reminded me of the Host Club guests with her apparent shyness...but on the other hand, unlike the Host Club guests, she never sought us. Nor did she seem to enjoy our presence. She wasn't blushing because she had a crush on us. She was blushing because she was unsure of how to act with us. She completely lacked all confidence in her actions and only when her bitterness takes over, and only then, had I ever seen her act out on her own.
None of the girls I met were like this.
Haruhi wasn't like this.
None of the girls at Ouran were like this. Though they acted shy at first, they were pretty bold after the initial shock wore over. They acted entitled. They were demanding.
She was more or less resigned.
"Where's Momoku? Honey-senpai, I thought you said she was coming." Haruhi said, snapping me out of the slight daze I was in. Mitsukuni jumped up and waved his hands for her attention.
"She said she had a little work to do on the boat, but that she'd come by afterwards! She said it wasn't a lot of work, right Takashi?"
"Aah." She wasn't going to come. I knew this.
Haruhi put her knuckles to her lip, lightly biting one as she contemplated.
"I should go help her, it's my job to help on the boat anyway." She turned to move towards the door and I wondered for a moment if I should let her go to Momoku, knowing full well that she had no work to do on the boat.
"Haruhi." I found myself saying out loud, causing her to pause and look up at me with those wide doe eyes. I stood up and consequently attracted Mitsukuni's attention.
"I'll go with you." I said simply and Mitsukuni, upon hearing this hopped up and ran towards us, his arms outstretched as he jumped onto Haruhi.
"Where are you guys going! Usa-chan wants to come too!" His outburst then attracted the attention of Tamaki.
"Eh? Haruhi? Where is daughter going without her daddy?"
"You guys I'm just going to see how Momoku is doing, I'll be right back-"
"Eh? If Tono is going..." Hikaru started.
"Then we must come too." Kaoru finished.
And within the span of 60 seconds, I knew that I had suddenly made the situation a hundred times worse.
I silently cursed myself.