Disclaimer: I don't own anything I didn't create.
Now, before you start thinking that she screamed that, let me correct you. She didn't. She gave one of those whisper shouts, you know, the kind you make when you want to scream your head off, but don't want to be loud? That kind. Except she made it look a lot better than I made it sound. Ritsu had heard her, and had turned around to see us standing there and had looked a little awkward, but had shot me a smile when I gave him his umbrella. Apparently he hadn't been able to go out to the greenhouses in the rain, and had stayed behind to clean up his classroom, which was where we found him. He had just been about to go off to a place he had called 'The Forests' –note the capitalization- but Haruhi had grasped both of our wrists and started pulling us off towards a place she called a 'Host Club', saying that someone called 'Tamaki' would insist upon hearing 'this story' and would give her 'an earful' if she 'forgot to bring them along'.
That was a lot of quotes, but I swear, she actually said each and every one of them. I had looked over my shoulder at Ritsu, looking for some guidance, but he had just been smiling at the back of Haruhi's head in fond amusement. I took that to mean that he knew Haruhi was a girl too. For some reason, no smile came at the thought.
So that was how we ended up here, in the host club, Ritsu and I sitting side-by-side on a red velvet couch in the high school's 3rd Elemancy room, with the 'Host Club' –a bunch of amazingly handsome men on the edge of the end of their teen years, including a pair of redheaded twins who caught my eye, and Haruhi- sitting on a identical red velvet couch opposite us, with an overly-enthusiastic blonde Light practically leaning across the table between us, and spraying light everywhere like a sprinkler. I took it that this person was 'Tamaki', and I glanced at Ritsu out of the corner of my eye with a small amused smile, to see him doing the same. Our smiles grew bigger almost simultaneously.
"So darling Haruhi-chan told me that this woman sitting beside you, Bossanova," I snorted at the nickname, covering my mouth with my hand to hide the grin. "- had her life saved by you. How incredibly valiant! A hero amongst the commoners! Tell me more!" He said excitedly, radiating light like a sun as he turned to me and slipped his fingers under my chin before I leaned away from him, my eyes lit up in amusement. "How did this valiant knight Bossanova in shining armor manage to save your life?" A few seconds passed while I waited for him to say something else amusing, and then I blinked when I realized that he had asked me a question.
"Oh!" I exclaimed loudly, and the blonde before me straightened up quizzically. "You actually asked me something!" He looked smug for a moment. "You were being so amusing with your fancy, unnecessary words and spontaneous light show that I was waiting for you to do something else!" I laughed. "You're so strange, you're hilarious!" He fell over and everyone else bit back grins while the redheaded twins laughed and said 'good one'. I grinned and let him sit on the couch again before I let the smile slip away in reflection. "Well…" I glanced at Ritsu, and he nodded for me to go on. "-around a week or so ago, I was homeless." The aristocratic teens -except for the one in glasses - looked at me like they had never heard the word 'homeless' before. They probably hadn't. "I had been kicked out of a café because I had been asking for something to eat, since I hadn't eaten for a few days and they didn't like the way I looked, so they threw me out. When I didn't go away, they sent some bouncers after me, and I had to run. After I lost them, I stopped in an alleyway. There, I heard guns, and out morbid curiosity, stepped out into the middle of the alley to see what was going on." I glanced at Ritsu, and saw that his face was tense. "I was shot just under my left hip bone and lost consciousness. I woke up in our friend Tetsuya's arms at Ritsu's place, and passed out again. When I came to, the pain wasn't as bad, and Ritsu healed my leg. Thanks to him, my life was saved and changed for the better. Without him, I wouldn't be here." I leaned back on the couch back, and smiled gratefully at Ritsu as I did so, whose face softened as he felt my gaze. I could feel Katsuro listening somberly to my story in the back of my mind, and I looked up at the Host Club and blinked.
'Tamaki' was bawling dramatically and spouting words and phrases like 'heroic' and 'how brave', the twins were wiping tears from their eyes and leaning on each other while Haruhi was rolling her eyes at the three of them. I couldn't get a reading on the dark bespectacled one with the black book, and my eyes fell on the tall brunette with the cute blonde on his shoulders. I blinked. Wait… My eyes fell back to the familiar brown eyes of the brunette, and recognized the face shape. My eyes widened in surprise, and I leaned forward instinctively, my heart beating a little faster as I tried to keep myself from getting too hopeful. The man kept his eyes on me as I stared at him, and I swallowed, suddenly aware that everyone's eyes were on me.
"Um… y-you." He blinked. "What's your name?"
"Morinozuka Takashi." I tried to keep my eyes from widening, and took a steady breath in, trying to relax.
"Do you happen to know a girl called… Miyako?" He twitched. "Morinozuka Miyako?" I clarified, and his eyes widened. He nodded, and the small blonde climbed off of his shoulders.
"She's my cousin." Everyone's attention was now riveted on him. "My father's brother split from the family and created his own style of fighting. He trained his daughter, Miyako in that style, and I haven't seen her since I was eight, when she was six. Are you alright?" Upon his question, everyone looked back at me, and Ritsu's eyes widened for a second, and he instantly put his hand on my shoulder, where I felt his elemancy start to spread over me to calm me down. I was shaking like a nervous Chihuahua, my eyes riveted on Takashi's, and I was grateful for the effect Ritsu's elemancy was having on me, as the muscles in my jaw unclenched and I started to breathe again. I breathed in and out slowly before asking another question.
"Your cousin Miyako, she had dark hair and brown eyes like yours, and she wasn't an elemental, was she?" He blinked curiously and nodded. I let out a heavy, shuddering sigh of relief and rested my forehead in my palm, my elbow resting on my knee as I felt tears prick at my eyes. "Omg…" I whispered, Katsuro was in a state of wide-eyed shock, and Ritsu automatically scooted along the couch closer to me as he realized that his elemancy wasn't working as well as it should, and got closer so that he could put both of his hands on me. I sighed once more and looked up, blinking the tears away and looking at everyone seriously, happy that everyone else was giving me the same look, the one in glasses even having put his book away. "There's something I haven't told you. Something not even Ritsu knows. I never thought I'd find help so soon, but I guess someone loves me."
