Disclaimer: If I owned Host Club, I would change the uniform
"Quick," I said, pushing Kei and Kyo along, "we've got to hide!"
They only merely looked extremely amused. By now I knew they would treat this as a game rather than a matter of life and death (life or limb, whatever. Same difference). But whatever got their sorry asses out of the war zone was fine with me.
"You got to hold her off, Father!" I shouted, "Take one for the team! She's already set to make you want to do as she says!"
I only heard a sad, suffering sigh before I jumped onto the banister and slid down, following Kyo towards the back of the house.
That idiot still had my plunger.
"Move!" I heard Kei shout, likely at an inanimate object, followed by Kyo pushing through and knocking the broom out of the way with his new souvenir. They both burst out through the back door and turned back to me.
"We wish you luck," Kei said.
"Judging by you two's reaction, you'll need it," Kyo remarked, "and can I keep this?"
I grinned, "Go forth, brave knight, and keep your sword at the ready."
They both saluted and marched over-exaggeratedly off.
I stood smiling, shaking my head, for a moment before reality barreled into me once more.
"Damnit," I muttered, trying to conjure up my best Rin-spy skills. I swiftly sprinted to the broom closet, hoping I wouldn't be found.
Yes, looking back, it was an officially asinine idea.
Right as I closed the door, I heard another burst open and picture rattle on the walls with the force of the blow.
And you thought I was kidding about the trampling down the door.
"Honestly, boy," the anti-nostalgic voice pierced into me and I wasn't even being addressed, "the landscaping around here is dismal! The only decent piece of foliage out there is that willow I so graciously gave you upon your arrival to this cramped excuse for an estate."
Of course she's referring to that willow. What other form of arrival could have possibly heralded that damn tree's existence?
"In fact, I met a lovely woman the other day, she has beautiful grounds, you know, and she…"
I hate you Teme. Why are you always right?! I thought angrily. Obee-baba had come to get Father into familial politics again. Which of course, undoubtedly would lead to ranting on 'that toy woman' and all the supposed filth left behind by her. Which is me, by the way. Some of that filth.
"Tsk," I said disdainfully at the thought, which was lobotomy-worthy because suddenly I was assaulted by light filling my hiding spot.
"Look at this child!" exclaimed Obee-baba, pulling me out, not leaving gaps for escape, "If not for those disgusting dirt-colored eyes," the one physical trait I had inherited from my mother (though Mom's eyes would be described as 'chocolate-colored'), "I would not have recognized her! And as for these clothes-!" she said the words like she was too aghast to finish the sentence, "This dust rag hardly counts for a human being, much less a girl, nearly a young woman! Well, I guess I'll just have to revise my plan to include turning you, child, into a real and proper girl."
I went on the defensive and Father knew what was coming, but couldn't stop me in time.
"If you dare put me in a dress, old hag-!"
"Such a filthy mouth!" Her gasp of shock moved her far away enough for me to scramble out the door, running as fast as I could.
"Get back here at once, child!"
"In your dreams, hag!" I called back, giving the one-finger salute, hurdling off the drive and down the road.
My heart was pounding as I kept running to make sure she wasn't on my tail, not really having a destination in mind and letting my feet take me wherever I should land.
The moment I was sure I wasn't being chased was the moment I realized I had run five of the eight kilometers I usually rode to school. The exact route. I slowed to a stop.
School? What the hell?! I couldn't figure out what could possibly make me run to school, aside from the likely cruise control setting I had from going the same way practically everyday, but shook my head clear of thoughts.
It was time to relax and get away from it all. I smiled and adjusted course to Mess Hall.
Just to get a drink, of course. I hadn't forgotten the chicken incident.
I grinned when I caught sight of the sign above the renovated old steakhouse. Every time I saw it I was reminded that Mess Hall was no sit-down restaurant nor was it a bar.
Okay, originally it was a soup kitchen, but one opened further into the area where it was needed and Mess Hall had become an exchange post of sorts. It kept its name, but now specialized in the trading of stories and directions, a perfect place for tourists to come if we weren't such an immensely intimidating bunch.
After all, it was filled with smoke when I entered. Which wouldn't have been a problem if I hadn't flung open the doors and breathed in deeply the sweet scent of…eau de la racking cough.
"Oi! Maru!" I coughed again, waving a hand to clear the thick fog, "What'd you burn?!"
"Quiet, ya cockatoo," he growled back good-naturedly from behind the register. I grinned, "Got a newbie cooking, don't you? Careful for food poisoning, now."
"I told you already I don't owe you anything, Too. You ate it off the floor and you only have your buddies to thank for that."
I do admit I did eat that death chicken off the floor on a bet that I couldn't do it. Speaking of which…
"Cockatoo's here?!" a low voice shouted over the dull roar of a crowded room, "Not on sick leave any more?"
The smoke started to billow faster and I laughed as I heard a girl's panicked voice shout, "I'm so sorry!" the sound of a blasting of a fire extinguisher and the smoke cleared.
A select few cheers rose at my appearance and several others turned to where the large group of tables with people cheering sat. My enthusiasts ranged from huge bikers to oh crap that's Cable isn't it?
Cable grinned at me from behind those orange goggles of his.
"Well, Cockatoo?" Akira prompted, "What do you have to tell us today?"
I smiled, "Well…"
So I twisted a tale around me like a web, acting out scenes and motions, jumping up and down, spinning in circles and just generally having a great time. It's hard to describe the feeling of truly telling a story. One could say I absorbed their emotions, their reactions, pulling out laughs and chuckles and weaving them together to create something that will never shine as much as it did that moment. Or one could just say I fell into my element and got lost in my story.
Most would say I was just having fun.
I took a bow when I had finished and my table mates offered me some soda to drink. I happily agreed and was completely caught off guard when Cable dropped (yes, dropped, as in from the ceiling) down beside me.
"Cockatoo, huh?" he grinned, "Nice name. Ya do draw 'ttention."
Akira arrived with my Coke and I took a sip only to be bombarded with inquires the moment Cable opened his mouth to add, "Funny how ya never seem ta talk 'bout ya real life."
"Real life, eh?"
"What's this spider mean?"
"Surely you don't have more interesting stories to tell."
"Okay, okay, quiet down!" I said, shooting a glare at Cable, "You all know as well as I that we don't share specifics."
"Fine then," Akira said, "be general then. So no cases of mistaken identity? No international crime spree? This is a place to entertain, so please, entertain."
Ignoring the fact that both his suggestions had been dead on didn't prevent Cable from saying, "Start 'staken identity."
"Fine," I growled grudgingly and they all laughed. We're like a family really, no prisoners taken.
"I may possibly, occasionally, sometimes, be known more often as a boy than as a, ah, girl."
This put them in stitches of course. Like the thought never crossed their mind, when I first came I had to tell them I was a girl!
"Yeah, yeah, very hilarious," I said sarcastically, "And I'm sure you all would make fine gentlemen yourself, hanging from ceilings and naming people after birds."
This made them laugh a bit more but they eventually shut up.
"So, Too-kun," they were so worked up now, they'll laugh at anything, "If we don't fill your quota of gentlemen, what qualifies? Holding out for a prince?"
I laughed at the image of Tamaki popping into my head, "Prince my ass!"
"Well, what does qualify?" Akira then added in mock solemnity, "you're not asexual are you?"
This was followed by uproarious laughter and as soon as it began to settle down, I made my move.
I stood up and put my hands dramatically to my heart, "Oh my! Where to begin?" I sighed in a totally cheesy airy voice of a love-struck maiden, "My perfect man must be tall! Dark!" I emphasized each 'quality' with a twirl, spinning carelessly in the picture of true, pure love, "And handsome!" I sighed the word, "He must look good in a suit!" I caught Cable's eye when I said, "Especially a blue one!"
I knew he probably knew everything involving me and the host club, so it got him to snicker in anticipation of what I was going to say next.
Meanwhile, everyone was laughing at my antics in describing 'my perfect man', "Glasses are essential and if he has grey eyes!" I pseudo-swooned and Cable was clutching his sides in laughter at my satirical description of the Shadow King.
"And if he's rich, oh I will squeal with joy-!" I was going to punctuate with said squeal if my twirl hadn't slammed me into someone with an 'umph!' I spun around, prepared to apologize with a fake explanation of 'love knowing no bounds' or some other cheese-ass line but instead uttered, "Ah, sh-"
"I had no idea you admired me so much. I'm flattered."
"And she's screwed," Cable muttered under his breath with perfect eloquence.
Because, honestly, I was hardly getting away free declaiming my love practically to Kyoya's face.
He just kept smirking and I pushed through angrily, suddenly not very cheerful at all. I snatched the money Maru held up for me and stomped out, knowing Danna-teme would follow me.
"You certainly know how to work a crowd," he commented once we were outside in the open air.
"What," I said darkly, turning slowly around, "the hell is your oh so noble hide doing anywhere near a place like Mess Hall?"
"Hmph," was his only reply before continuing, "For all your talk and distain, you have potential for the manipulation that's so repellent to you."
I grit my teeth. First Obee-baba, now Devil-teme, at this rate I'll go on a frustrated murder spree. "I don't have time for this." I turned away and would have gone on my way if he had not said mockingly, "Yuna-obee getting the best of you?" I stopped. I turned around.
I punched him in the nose.
Or at least I tried. He, as usual, caught my fist before it could make contact. I must be very predictable.
"If you insist on provoking me to violence, at least let me make a mark," I growled. He didn't reply. He seemed to have been caught off guard. Maybe I wasn't as predictable as I thought.
I stormed away anyways, filled with dark thoughts but not one of them pertaining to what Kyoya was doing at Mess Hall.
When I returned home, there was hell to pay in the form of an impossibly long lecture on etiquette and manners of a refined lady. It sounded a lot like a description of the host club patrons. I finally managed to get away but couldn't find a place to sleep with all the books. So I was left outside in the hall and got no sleep whatsoever.
Early in the morning, Obee-baba disturbed my fruitless attempts at rest at an ungodly hour to try and get me dressed up properly for school, but I evaded her and ran out the door with the same clothes I wore yesterday and nearly slept in (nearly because I didn't actually sleep).
Sleeping on the bench by the bus stop yielded better results, but I'll never know how I made the half a kilometer to get to the stop without collapsing. However I did, and I managed to catch about fifteen minutes of fitful sleep before I had to give up. I could make it a day without rest. I was sure of it.
Classes were a blur and I didn't absorb a thing. My attention was so focused on not sleeping, I got poked nine times by other people's pencils to answer a teacher's question and was nailed by a paper hornet from Henry when class had ended and the teacher was getting ready to send me to detention for not noticing the fact. (And it really hurt too. His name should be Oni, not Henry.)
But I did stay awake; just no one was really concerned until club.
"Hmm, Peppermint doesn't seem on top of his game," Hikaru observed.
"Yes, I think he needs some cheering up," Kaoru agreed.
"I think we have just the thing," Hikaru reached behind him and I prepared myself to have to put out a lit stick of nitro-glycerin.
It wasn't dynamite, though. It was a red and white hoodie, identical to my old one, with one altercation. Across the front above the red pocket was a large embossed wrapped peppermint, with the word 'Peppermint' arching over it with a smaller version of the mint dotting the 'i'.
But that didn't matter, because I got my hoodie back! I snatched it and pulled off my navy one, replacing it with the new. But it felt different somehow.
The sleeves still extended past my wrists and the hem past my waist, and it was comfortable. So what was wrong?
That's when it hit me.
"What's this made of?" I said suspiciously, looking at the sleeves. They misunderstood.
"What, did we get the measurements wrong?"
My jaw dropped, "You custom made this?!"
A smile joined one twin's ear to the other, "The customers wanted you to look more presentable," Hikaru said.
"We told them you shunned the word," Kaoru commented.
"But your old hoodie went pink,"
"So we opted for un-dyeable material."
And I was supposed to be the only one making poems around here. I didn't want to think what this thing had cost.
"Thanks." Articulate as ever I was. I wondered where the punch line was.
"No problem Peppermint," they walked off, leaving me with a snickering Kyoya.
"What?" Up until this point, Kyoya hasn't said a word to me since yesterday. I yawned.
He smiled and twirled his finger, indicating for me to turn around (was he on mute? I wish I could find that remote). I played along and heard a mechanical click. I whipped back around and he smiled again, turning his laptop towards me.
Full screen, it was a picture of my back. A red and white target labeled 'Throw Candy Here' was stickered to the back of my hoodie.
"I knew it," I growled, swiping at it. I couldn't reach it and Kyoya peeled it off for me, only to promptly stick it to my entire face. Before I could rip it off (which actually took a while considering how easily he had initially gotten the damn thing off), he had taken another picture. He clicked and dragged and when I got the sticker off, he wordlessly turned the screen back to me (seriously, where is that remote?).
I began to laugh and couldn't stop for a few moments not because it was funny, even though it was, but because I've dearly needed a good laugh.
He had somehow taken the target and swirled it to make it look like my head was a peppermint. Taylor Harding, the walking mint.
"Can I get a copy of that?" I snickered, "I need to hang it in my room."
With the mention of my room, I yawned.
"Why not," he shrugged, finally breaking the silence (damn you, remote holder, turn him back off!), "It certainly woke you up. If you're ready to work, there are some customers with new guests over there." Of course it was only to make me work. I snatched up the printout sourly, glaring.
Author's Notes: If you haven't already, go check out chapter four. I realized yesterday I had left out an entire chapter and rushed to get it on there as soon as possible. There are grammar mistakes in the author's notes and disclaimer, so obviously I was in a rush.
That aside, I hope to update soon.