Full Summary: Some girls grow tired watching their sibling on the banks of a river. However, some girls are too busy working to merely grow tired watching. When Yumi Taka was accepted to Ouran Academy, she thought she had found her jar of Orange Marmalade. However, when she discovers Haruhi's "little secret", her whole life goes awry. After a chase bullying incident, she finds her jar of marmalade to be frightfully empty. Not wanting to drop the jar, she descends into the adventures of the Host Club and Wonderland. Can they help her find her way home? Will she even want to go home afterwards? Most importantly, can they help her find herself? And just maybe, on the way back, she can fill her jar with just a little bit of Honey.
A/N: Yes, this story is still on going. I haven't abandoned it! This chapter has just been giving me fits.
Chapter Seven
Descent Into Wonderland
After school, Yumi headed towards the greenhouse to get her assignment from Hana. She was still embarrassed about the incident that morning and hoped Hana had forgotten about it - or at least had moved past it.
When she walked into the greenhouse, Hana was fussing over some small flower that seemed to be in poor health. The elderly woman didn't even look in Yumi's direction. It was hard to tell if she was still mad or just being her usual surly self.
"The Host Club is having some big event in the ballroom this Saturday."
"I've heard..." Yumi responded, confused. Hana didn't gossip nor did she talk about anything that didn't directly relate to Ouran's gardens.
"They requested that I send someone to help them with floral arrangements." Hana paused as she lifted up a watering can, "They specifically requested you."
"Me?" Yumi baulked. "Junko's better at that sort of thing."
"I know. I told them that-"
Yumi winced. Hana was still mad about this morning. That was the only explanation for her offering up Junko for the job, when Hana was intimately aware of how terrible she was at controlling herself around those boys - particularly when it came time to pay.
"-but they insisted. So off you go."
With that, Yumi was dismissed. There would be no protesting or requesting she send someone else, and even if she did, Yumi would just be put on soil filling duty. A task that she had come to loath.
All there was left for Yumi to do was to head to the ballroom where she was supposed to meet up with the Host Club.
Yumi wasn't sure what she expected to find when she walked into the ballroom. Her only experiences with the Host Club were: one formal encounter, one obnoxious encounter, and two lunches with three of the members. It really wasn't enough to give her an idea of what their group dynamics were. What Yumi did expect was that the ballroom be at least somewhat put together. Flowers were usually one of the last stages of preparation and the ball was on Saturday - and it was Friday.
Instead, Yumi stared in detached horror. The ballroom was nowhere put together. If the staff didn't dust it frequently Yumi doubted even that much would have been done. Haruhi was dancing with some girl, clearly taking lessons. The twins were chasing Tamaki around chanting "pervert" (and no, Yumi didn't want to know why). Mitsukuni had joined them with Takashi watching on, like Yumi, though he seemed more amused than horrified. Kyoya was over at a table, pouring over files and plans, Yumi was sure they were for the ball, at least she hoped they were. She was sure they had at least that much done.
Though there weren't even a dozen people in the room, it was easy for Yumi to walk into the room without attracting any attention by keeping to the sides of the room. As she approached Kyoya, whom she had identified as the real leader of this band of misfits at their first meeting, he showed no signs of noticing her. If Yumi were in a charitable mood she might have increased the volume of her steps to give Kyoya a head's up. Yumi was rarely in a charitable mood and certainly not for rich bastards who couldn't even arrange their own events.
"Is there a reason you dragged me out of the gardens?" Yumi asked as took a seat at one of the chairs that Kyoya had moved into the ballroom along with the small table.
If Yumi surprised Kyoya with her sudden appearance he didn't show it. He didn't even look up from his laptop.
Yumi felt her blood begin to pump in irritation, "Junko is better at this sort of thing as me. As Watanabe-san told you." She informed him firmly.
Kyoya's eyes flickered up to hers before quickly returning to his papers, "Given the generous tip you received last time, one would expect you to be excited to be chosen."
Yumi would have called the remark cheeky, if Kyoya had offered any inflection whatsoever. Instead he said it straight. It was another half-answer, apparently all members of the Host Club were experts at answering, not really answering, questions.
Yumi shrugged, "Not saying I'm not grateful or anything," she told him frankly, "Doesn't mean I'm not suspicious."
Kyoya nodded his head. Whether it was in agreement or acknowledgment, Yumi wasn't sure. He didn't comment but said instead, "We required someone of your discretion."
Yumi saw straight through that particular brand of bullshit. "You mean, someone who doesn't have any secrets to uncover."
Kyoya again didn't respond prompting Yumi to roll her eyes. She wondered what had crawled up his butt and died, and also how the great Ootori doctors hadn't managed to get it out.
By this point, the other members of the Host Club had spotted her. Mitsukuni noticed her first and had made a beeline for her, but his flight path was intercepted by Tamaki, whose long legs helped him beat Mitsukuni to Yumi.
"Ah! Our beautiful garden flower!" Tamaki exclaimed, skidding to a stop at Yumi's side.
He caught her hand before Yumi could slip it innocuously into her pocket to avoid Mister Handsy. Tamaki held her hand up to his cheek reverently. Yumi noticed in a detached away that his cheeks were soft. She wondered what sort of face cream he used.
"It is wonderful that you have come to assist us!" Tamaki pronounced with a dramatic flair, "We could use some help getting everything ready for our lovely ladies. They are absolutely depending on us!" He sing songed.
Yumi wondered if there was a way to get her hand away from him without being overly rude.
"I wouldn't be having so much trouble, Tamaki," Kyoya snapped, "If you would decide on a theme."
Yumi's head swung to Kyoya, her eyes rounding in shock, "It's the day before the ball and you haven't decided on a theme yet?" She asked, shocked.
She had thought that they just hadn't set up the room yet. She had hoped they had been lazy and she had feared that they expected her to do all the heavy lifting. She never expected them to be so far behind. If this was the result of their rich parents pouring money into their fancy, special education Yumi was not impressed. So much for this being an easy job.
"Well there are so many wonderful ways to decorate the room!" Tamaki explained theatrically - or at least, he acted as if that was an explanation, to Yumi it was not.
"Perhaps you could pick one within our budget?" Kyoya rebuffed. It was phrased like a suggestion, but the threat behind it was clear.
Yumi almost felt pity for Kyoya. She understood, intimately well, how hard it was stay on a budget, and she didn't have a fanciful Tamaki to inflate her costs. Then she remembered the price range that the Host Club were working under, and all her sympathy for Kyoya vanished and she felt even more disdain for Tamaki.
Tamaki, who seemed to Yumi to be more than a bit of a time waster, surprised her by jumping straight into the task. He showed Yumi the various ideas they had (Kyoya made sure to point out the costs). Yumi felt like she was brought in to be a tiebreak and not a floral arranger. It was becoming abundantly clear why Kyoya had requested her and not Junko. They could have been at least honest in their request for her. Yumi wasn't enjoying all the surprise that kept coming her way. Though she suspected the sadistic Kyoya did enjoy it.
As Kyoya pointed out the prices of everything, Yumi felt like she had been sucker punched. She still couldn't believe how much they were willing to spend on something that was little more than a glorified school dance. She did not, however, express those thoughts aloud, who knew what sort of fit that would send Tamaki into. It might have been enough to send Kyoya into a rant as well.
"Yu-chan, you look pale."
Yumi swung her head towards Mitsukuni in surprise. She hadn't even heard the little mite walk up! As swung her head towards him, their noses almost bumped.
Yumi was embarrassed to admit that she actually squeaked in surprise.
"T-too close!" She protested. Instead of swinging her face away like she usually would have, she froze.
Mitsukuni gave her a grin that looked too smirkish to fit his "boy lolita" look.
"Yu-chan is cute when she's scared." He said teasingly.
"You didn't scare me!" Yumi fired back immediately, this time able to break eye contact, "You just startled me!"
"So, Taka-san, what is your imput?" Kyoya implored, bringing Yumi back to the matter at hand. Yumi turned her attention away from the boy-lolita and back to Kyoya. She caught his glasses glinted in the light, which let her know that she had better agree with him.
Tamaki slid between Mitsukuni and Yumi, half bumping the smaller boy out of the way. One of his arms slipped over her shoulder, as he pulled her close to him, making a ploy to win her over to his side.
"You agree with me, don't you Yumi-hime?" He practically purred in her ear.
Instinctively, Yumi jerked away, nearly falling out of her chair which suddenly felt suffocatingly small.
"Uh, bigger isn't always better," she managed to squeak out. Her cheeks flushed. The boys back home would have had a field day with that innuendo. However, the Ouran boys were far too dignified - or naive - to make those sort of jokes (well, Yumi suspected the twins weren't). Yumi wasn't sure if she was disappointed or not.
She cleared her throat, blaming dehydration on her voice and not the suffocatingly close attractive men. Even if she thought they were silly ninnies, she was still female.
"You want the focus to be on you, so you shouldn't make the background all that..." Yumi searched for a polite words to phrase Tamaki's taste, "loud and gaudy."
Apparently those words hadn't been the right words. Tamaki wheeled dramatically away from her (at least that solved her personal space issue). In Yumi's mind's eye, she could picture her words turning into an arrow that went straight through Tamaki's chest. He collapsed into a darkened corner of the room. Yumi also imagined mushroom sprouting out of his head. He began to mutter but his words were too soft and strung together too fast to be coherent. Yumi was able to make out something about harsh princesses. Served him right, she was no princess.
Kyoya arched an eyebrow at the scene but didn't seem too put off by Yumi's blunt words and Tamaki's consequential dramatic reaction- if Yumi didn't know better she would have thought he was amused.
"I just meant..." she tried again, "The focus should be on you - the hosts - and not the scenery. So you want something more subtle..."
Yumi filed away for future reference that instead of pointing out what people were doing wrong she should focus on what they should be doing.
Later, Yumi would wonder just out exactly the Host Club had managed to wrangle her into helping out without even directly asking for it. Maybe it was her nature or maybe it was their subtle manipulation techniques. You didn't get as popular as the Host Club was without learning how to manipulate people after all.
Yet, with little prompting from the Host Club, Yumi found herself beginning to outline what the Host Club should do. She was no interior designer, but she did have a fairly good eye for what looked right. Yumi had often helped Youke Suzuki, Tamiko's grandmother, pick things out for her house back in Karuizawa. Yumi had really enjoyed rearranging Suzuki's house and Suzuki had always been surprisingly tolerate about it.
Kyoya nodded his head as Yumi began to but her thoughts to words, "That is a very good idea, Taka-san, elegant but not too expensive. This is exactly what I had in mind."
Yumi fought down a blush. She hadn't really thought it up originally, really. She had taken bits and pieces of what Kyoya and Tamaki had suggested and put it into one piece.
"Your thoughts aren't original and eventually Tamaki and I would have come to a similar conclusion but you cut down the time that would have taken. You make a very effective middle man."
Yumi stared at him blankly. Apparently Kyoya only dealt in backhanded compliments.
Yumi came to discover that the easy part was figuring out a theme. Not that that dealing with Kyoya and Tamaki's clashing personalities had been easy. Now she had to make it actually happen.
Yumi and Kyoya poured over various magazines and called up distributors to see what could be delivered today or tomorrow afternoon, anything else was out of the question. That was a difficult enough task, but to add to it there was always Tamaki, leaning over their shoulders, pushing them towards the more expensive and the more extravagant. His strategies didn't exactly work, though he was very good at getting Yumi's blood pumping uncomfortably and irritating Kyoya. The two second years took turns snapping at the poor boy, sending him running to the corner crying about "mommy being mean".
"'Mommy'?" Yumi asked, turning to look at Kyoya.
"Apparently I'm the mother in our little 'family'."
Yumi tensed a bit at the word "family" and almost scoffed. It was funny how people who already had families wanted more, and people like her - Yumi stopped that line of thought. She didn't know their family situation. She knew she shouldn't make assumptions and judgments.
She faked a smile and buried herself back in their work before Kyoya could notice her reaction. If Kyoya noticed anything off about Yumi, he didn't say. He was quickly engrossed back into their work as well. Kyoya appeared to be something of a workaholic.
The afternoon passed away quickly into evening and Yumi's shift ended which meant, work done or not, she would be leaving. As she stood Kyoya spoke up, "You work on Saturdays don't you?"
Yumi knew exactly where this was going, "Yes..." she answered because she had to.
"I'll be requesting that you come and assist with the set up tomorrow."
Yumi bit back a groan, though her way her whole body moved implied the groan even if her vocal cords didn't. Tomorrow there would be heavy lifting, and she doubted she could rely on the Host Club to help her.
"Thanks for letting me know," was all she said.
She had the feeling tomorrow was going to be a long day.
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