OHSHC: The Host's Maid is the Shy Type
Chapter 8
"Test of Character"


Eri's experience with the Host Club was limited to that of a customer. She drank tea and ate cake whilst discussing random topics like the weather or classes. The atmosphere was always lighthearted –until now, that is. Now, Eri was no longer just a customer. She was a threat to the club.

The young woman was beginning to question all the props the club had. This was supposed to be a music room. Yet sometime between traveling from the Special Boys' Clinic to the clubroom, it had been transformed into a police interrogation scene from an American Crime Drama. Now, she was seated at rickety table in a cold metal chair with a bright desk lamp shining in her face.

"Come on guys," Keiko scoffed from one of the sofas, "is all this really necessary?" Beside her, Haruhi sat working on her Japanese History report. The burnet was too absorbed in her work to be the voice of reason and the guys simply ignored her comment.

Kyoya adjusted his glasses and addressed Eri. "Well now that the secret is out, I guess it's time to negotiate. Sasaki-san, for purposes that shall remained unnamed, Haruhi has to conceal her gender. Now, we can't forbid you from spreading this information. But you should keep in mind that as someone of our social status I'm sure you've heard of the Black Onion Squad. It would be very unwise to share this information," he said.

Eri blinked and shifted away looking rather sick. "So basically you're threatening me."

"Not at all," he dissuaded, "It's simply a reminder that there are people in this school it'd best not to cross."

"I wasn't going to tell anyone. I mean the only person I'd even consider telling is Keiko, but she already seems to know," She mumbled. "Honestly, I feel pretty stupid for not realizing it sooner. I mean now that I know it's fairly obvious. Her facial features are decidedly female and the way she carries herself is a dead giveaway; though, I guess her voice is a pitch lower than the average girl. But I'm kind of curious, how did Keiko find out?"

She looked to the male hosts for answer, which none of them gave. In fact, they all seemed slightly perplexed by the question. "She just kind of knew," Kaoru drawled vaguely. Eri turned around in her chair and gazed curiously at the blonde.

"What, I didn't tell you this story?" Keiko asked eyes darting to Eri before taking in the interested expressions of the other club members. Even Haruhi had stopped reading her textbook, while she waited for the other girl to explain.

"Not that I can remember," she replied.

Keiko was bemused by that, yet she simply shrugged, sat back onto the sofa and began her tale.

It was during the first day of school that Keiko and Haruhi had both crossed paths. Of course at the time, both were unrecognizable to each other.

Haruhi had recently taken a pair of scissors and chopped off all her hair after a horrible gum fiasco. And with her grandfather's glasses –that she'd been forced to wear when her father, Ryoji Fujioka more commonly known as Ranka at the okama bar he worked at, accidently mistook her contact solution for a glass of water after a particularly heavy night of drinking –it made her gender almost indistinguishable to the other students.

Keiko hadn't fared much better. The day before, she had had to break up very nasty fight at the diner that she worked. Blows were exchanged, property was damaged –there might've been a baseball bat involved –and the restaurant was closed until the repairs could be made, but the icing on the cake was her black-eye, swollen lip, and fractured wrist. She was lucky it wasn't anything worse. Had she broken her leg or something like that, the girl would have lost her scholarship.

Neither of them were having a good first day. Each girl had made a terrible first impression on their class. Haruhi's classmates were debating whether or not Haruhi was a guy's name, while Keiko's classmates thought her to be a yakuza's daughter or one of those yanki-student type girls. Not one of them had attempted to befriend them, and in Keiko's case went out of their ways to avoid her. Eri was still vacationing with her family and wouldn't be back until the second week of school, so there was no one to correct the rumors.

And like anyone having a terrible day, they both needed to escape somewhere. But without knowing the campus that well, the only place they knew where to go was the girls' bathroom on the second floor by the first-years' classrooms.

Haruhi thought it both ridiculous and wasteful the amount of money Ouran spent on things. Sure, she understood it was a school for the rich; but did they really need marble countertop cherubs in the bathroom? The burnet looked around the room a frown pulling at her lips. This bathroom looked like it belonged in a five-star hotel and not a high school. 'They even have seashell-shaped soaps,' she sighed.

She wondered just how she was going to fit in there. Everything there was so foreign, she didn't know how to react. These kids were nothing like the ones she went to middle school with. It wasn't just the money, but these kids seemed to have their heads in the clouds. All they talked about were the vacations they took or lessons in flower arranging or tea ceremonies; nothing that had any real world applications. Studying seemed to be that last thing on their minds.

Haruhi walked past the shining golden faucets, that she hoped weren't real gold, to one of the bathroom stalls. She went in, closed the door behind her, then turned. "You've got to be kidding me… I've never seen a toilet this clean," she muttered. She half expected a maid to pop out of it, knowing this place it seemed like a real possibility.

"I don't know how to do this."

Those words traveled over from the next stall. Haruhi glanced up to the small gap separating the wall from the ceiling. She hadn't been aware someone else was actually in the bathroom, so she was a little surprised. What was more surprising still was that her exact thoughts were spoken aloud. "Are you alright?" She asked.

Keiko jumped, glancing at the gap between the stalls. Great. She hadn't thought anyone would hear that, but apparently not. Looking back down at the fancy toilet and all its twenty something buttons, she debated whether or not to tell the stranger in the next stall that she had no idea how to flush it. The other girl would probably laugh and Keiko was sure that she'd be labeled the scholarship student that didn't know how to do something as simple as flushing a toilet.

"Yes. I'm okay. It's just…" she trailed off looking over the buttons again, "this toilet. It's too fancy."

Haruhi nodded her head in agreement, though the other girl couldn't see. "I know what you mean. And what's with all the buttons? It looks like something out of a Sci-fi film."

Keiko breathed a sigh of relief. This girl didn't seem so bad. It was the first friendly person she had met at this fancy school. "I know right! I can't even figure out how to flush the damn thing. All they had at my middle-school was squat toilets not any of these washlets." she said.

Haruhi turned introspective as she looked over electronic control panel on the wall. The little symbols on the buttons didn't make much sense. There were five main buttons; two buttons with a number 3 turned on its side and bunch of blue dots underneath it, one had a person sitting on a series of purple dots, another was an ominous looking orange button with a black square in the middle, and the last just looked like a strip of bacon.

Curious, Haruhi hit one of the blue dot buttons. There was a whirring noise from her toilet, then a stream of water shot up out of the bowl like the Peeing-Boy fountain by the maze garden. "Huh? It's not the blue buttons. That just shoots up water…"

"You mean like a duvet?" Keiko wondered.

"I think you mean bidet," Haruhi corrected. "And yeah."

The blonde bit her lip looking at the control panel. So if the blue ones' wash butts, then what does the purple one do? She jabbed it. Another mechanical whirring noise filled her stall and then something that sounded a lot like a hairdryer kicked in. "It's not the purple one. I wonder what this bacon button is?"

"It's probably a seat warmer," Haruhi mused.

"On a school toilet?" Keiko scoffed, "This place just keeps getting more and more pretentious."

Haruhi hummed, her eyes squinting as she read over the dozen or so smaller buttons. Because she was wearing her grandfather's old glasses, the prescription wasn't exactly right so the Kanji symbols were a little blurry. But despite this, the girl eventually found the button they had been looking for.

"Found it!" She called out triumphantly.

"Where?"

"It's on the top edge, above the five man buttons," Haruhi told her.

Keiko smiled and pushed the button for the half flush. "Thanks a lot," she said grabbing her bag off the hook and exiting the stall.

"It's no trouble."

Washing her hands in the sink, she thought about the girl in the stall. After a couple minutes Haruhi exited her own stall to wash her hands. And both girls gave each other a friendly smile. That morning Keiko had been questioning whether or not she made the right decision in choosing Ouran. But if someone like her went here than these rich kids couldn't be all bad. Incidentally, Haruhi was thinking the same thing; neither knew the other was just a scholarship student.

Haruhi was surprised at the revelation. Of course, she remembered that first day clearly; but she couldn't believe that she hadn't recognized Keiko the moment she saw her and she said so.

"I can't belief I didn't know it was you when you came to the club."

Keiko shrugged. "Didn't expect you to. My face was pretty bashed up," she said.

Meanwhile, the boys were attempting to wrap their heads around how casually Keiko had just brushed over getting into a fight that was bad enough she had to go to the hospital. "Wait, wait, wait –Hold up a sec," Hikaru said halting the conversation. "You broke your wrist on the first day of school?"

"Fractured," the blonde corrected, "a hairline fracture, teeny-tiny –not a big deal. I had to wear a cast for six weeks and compared to the times I broke my arms; it wasn't too bad. Besides, I think you're missing the point of the story."

"Ugh! You're doing that thing again," Eri erupted waving her arms wildly.

"What thing?"

"The thing! Every time you tell a story, you reference some other crazy thing that happened to you and you never explain it." She turned to the confused host club members as she explained, "She did this to me last week. We were at the supermarket and we were talking an upcoming test we had in history. Then out of nowhere she says she didn't get much studying done because her neighbor, Mrs. Ariwara, cornered her on top of her fridge with a fire extinguisher. And that was it! No explanation. No finishing that story. It was just: 'Hey, I got a coupon for this!' It's enough to drive a person crazy."

"Okay, one, I didn't think that story needed anymore explanation because you know that Mrs. Ariwara is an 84-yearold grandmother, who we look after during the day because she's so senile that she can't be left alone for more than ten minutes at a time. Crazy things are bound to happen. Two, you never asked about it. But if you must know, Mrs. Ariwara thought I was on fire or something like that, so she grabbed the fire extinguisher and tried to spray me with it. I had to climb on top fridge to get the box of saltwater taffy. It calms her down from her episodes. And three, I can't explain every crazy thing that happens. I'd never get anything done. It's a lot of you-had-to-be-there moments. And when I do explain, people tend to look at me like that…" Keiko gestured to Haruhi's slack-jawed expression.

This bewildered expression was mirrored on everyone's face, except for Eri (who had gotten used to these stories a long time ago). Stories like these were a norm for the Maeda family. Nonetheless, if you didn't know them, it came as quite a shock the first time you heard it. Keiko's father, Naozane, had an abundant source of material for his novels because of this.

Kyoya was the first to recover, opening up his black book and writing something down. Tamaki, for once, was at a loss for words and didn't say anything. But Hikaru and Kaoru quickly digressed into a fit of laughter. "Hahaha. That explains so much!" They snickered

"All I keep seeing is Keiko kneeling on her fridge and throwing taffy at an old woman," Kaoru cried clutching on to his brother. "It's like the old-person-zombie apocalypse."

"That's why she's doesn't react to tono's crazy ideas," Hikaru added breathlessly.

Keiko frowned. Honestly, she should've known this would happen. The twins were known for being unapologetic mockers, heaven knows she seen them tease Tamaki enough to prove it. But up until this point the girl hadn't been on the receiving end of it. This had a lot to do with the fact the she didn't share her home life with the club. It was just like Eri to blurt out something like this. 'Just wait until they come over unannounced and end up meeting the crazy-bat,' she thought 'They'd have a field-day.'

"I think it's nice that you help out someone's grandmother," Mitsukuni chirped.

"Yes, how altruistic of my darling niece to volunteer her time like that," Tamaki agreed loudly.

"It's not entirely without motive," the blonde said, "they do pay us 2000 yen an hour. No one would be willing to volunteer for that much crazy if there wasn't money involved. It's kind of cheap considering she tried bite off one of Ryan's toes, though." She shrugged checking the time on her wrist watch. "Crap. Ri-chan, we gotta go get your brothers. It's 2:30 now."

"Right." The smaller girl nodded standing up she turned to Kyoya, "I suppose we're done here. I won't mention Haruhi's gender, so please excuse me." She started toward the door.

"Not so fast." The Shadow King stopped the two girls in their tracks. "We haven't finished quite yet. You say you won't say anything, but we can't know that for sure. Not without some proof of character of course."

Eri looked back warily. "What do I have to do?"

Kyoya sure was a manipulative bastard. Of course, Keiko knew this from the beginning as he had blackmailed both her and Haruhi into the club. But who knew that guy would get Eri into a cosplay costume? She certainly didn't expect it, albeit she'd should've guessed that he would. It was just a Kyoya-thing to do.

The blonde adjusted the strap under her chin holding the costume's hat to her head, then sighed. "Ri-chan come out of the dressing room, would you. It can't be any worse than what I'm wearing."

That statement, while true, didn't persuade the other girl to exit the changing room. If anything it only made Eri more adamant about not letting anyone see her. You see, the two girls had nearly identical costumes; each an unflattering heap of fabric and felt assembled to into giant cupcakes. Keiko was grudgingly given the chocolate with bright pink icing and a red and white striped wrapper with whipped cream hat and a bright red cherry. And Eri, even more grudgingly, was forced into the vanilla with the light blue icing, a blue and white stripped wrapper, and sporting the same whipped cream hat. It was unclear whose idea it was, but Keiko suspected that Honey-sempai had more pull in the decision-making process than he let on.

"No, no, no. I'm not coming out there," Eri called back, "You may have been desensitized to these things because of Kazumi, but I'm not. I know I look like an idiot."

Keiko sighed again. "And you don't think I don't?" She wondered. "I feel like an idiot too. But believe me, you're only making it harder on yourself. Just give into it, stop fighting…I don't know why I'm quoting a rapist." She mumbled the last bit under her breath, then turned towards the door to the clubroom as Tamaki popped his head in.

"Is she still not out yet?" He asked. "The customers are getting impatient."

"Well what do you expect? It's vanilla," Keiko said putting a hand on her hip and gesturing to the mass of white curtains. "She won't come out of the changing room. I'd love to run up to random strangers telling them to 'eat me' or chasing down Honey-sempai and yelling at him for eating my 'family'. But she's being stubborn."

Tamaki stepped into the room and glanced between her and the curtain, curiously. "You seem chirper today," he observed.

"Yeah well, I found 1,000 yen in the couch cushions this morning…kind of put me in a good mood," she told him as if that explained anything, then waddled over to the curtains. "Okay, Eri, I'm giving you to the count of three to come out or I'm going to drag you out. One…"

"–Okay, fine!" The girl yelled shoving the curtains aside and stomping angrily, a difficult feat in itself, over to the counter where a tray full of different colored cupcakes sat. She picked up the tray, spun on her heels and faced the two blondes. Her face was flushed with anger and embarrassment; though mostly embarrassment. "Let's get this over with."

Tamaki looked the smaller girl over. The cupcake costume was a little too big as it had been originally intended for Haruhi and Eri was at least a head shorter. Of course, Haruhi couldn't wear such a thing as it would surely give away her true gender. It was truly ingenious of Kyoya to get Eri to be her replacement. Her petite stature and babyish face, similar to Mitsukuni's, made her the perfect candidate and she gave off the air of innocence that the creators had intended.

Contrariwise, Keiko emitted a certain level of class and maturity that the other girl didn't. It was a difficult thing to pull off in that costume. How she managed it, Tamaki hadn't a clue. Although if he had to guess, he'd say it might have had something to with the fact that the blonde hadn't fought them as much; taking everything in stride and even with a hint of enthusiasm. Tamaki could almost say that she seemed to be enjoying it.

"You know, Sasaki-hime, that costume really is quite fetching on you," the older boy told the burnet, genuinely surprised by the fact.

Some of the anger seemed to leech out of the small girl's face at the comment. Looking towards the floor, she wondered how he could actually believe what he was saying, though she could tell that he did. Eri had even started to feel a little better about the whole situation, at least until Keiko spoke.

"Yeah, blue is really your color." Now while Tamaki was completely sincere in his compliment, Keiko's comment was laced with sarcasm. And Eri, having known her her whole life, knew that the blonde was teasing her. Thankfully, she knew just what to say to shut her up.

"Do I need to show you a mirror?"

This little interaction seemed to fly over Tamaki's head. And the older boy quickly snapped into action, reverting back to his princely-character. "Well, come on, ladies," he said leading them out the door. "Let's not keep the beautiful princesses waiting any longer."

The Host Club was in full swing when they stepped into the main room. Haruhi was charming the girls at her table with her honest, straightforward compliments. The twins were entertaining their guests with stories of mischief they got up to as kids. And Kyoya, no surprise, was off by himself working on his laptop.

Keiko idly scanned the room, noticing immediately the lack of a certain third-year duo. She would've thought Mitsukuni would be first in line for the cupcakes, and yet he was oddly enough not there. What she did see though was two students standing by the entrance, which wouldn't had been unusual, except they were male and one was dressed in a middle school uniform while the other was clothed in pair of gym shorts and a tee-shirt with soccer cleats.

Eri noticed these two students just about as quickly as Keiko did. But she had an entirely different reaction. Keiko was just about to wave and call the two over, however Eri stopped that by all but throwing the tray of cupcakes into her hands. "Oh hell no! What are my brothers doing here?" She broke out of Tamaki's grasp and hurriedly ducked –as hurriedly as a person can when dressed as a giant cupcake –behind Keiko. "They can't see me like this."

"S-Sasaki-hime?" Tamaki sputtered, bewildered by the unusual behavior.

"Yukine probably heard about the free cupcakes," the blonde mused, "you know how big a sweet-tooth he has. What's the big deal anyways? Why are you ducking behind me?"

"They can't see me in this costume," she repeated, "I'm already hanging on to their respect by a thread, if they see me dressed like this it's gone. You don't understand, they put you on a pedestal. Naoki calls me sis and Yukine hasn't started that yet and he not going to start now."

Keiko looked like she was about to laugh. "Well in his defense, you guys are only a year apart."

"This isn't funny, Kei-chan." She hissed. "Have they seen us yet?"

Keiko rolled her eyes and looked at the two boys. "Nope…wait no, now they have," she said as Yukine turned instantly spotting her.

The boy smiled, his face stretching into a cheerful grin. Of the two, Yukine was the youngest and it showed. His boyish features made him look a lot younger than he was and with his happy-go-lucky attitude and an endless supply of energy he resembled another certain Lolita-type. To be honest, if it weren't for the dark hair and eyes that all the Sasaki kids had, Keiko could almost think that they were brothers.

Naoki, on the other hand, was 180-degree flip from his younger brother. He didn't speak much and smiled even less. And it was rumored that he wasn't someone you wanted to make mad. His temper, though most were fortunate enough to never see it, was truly frightening as Keiko had learned personally. And because of his rather quiet nature, he seemed a lot older than he was.

"Ne-san!" He gave far more energy to his wave than was needed. Then happily walked, almost skipping, over to where Keiko was standing with Naoki following languidly behind.

"Hey, Yuki, Nao." Keiko greeted them, "What you, guys doing in the high school section of campus?"

"We heard ne-chan was helping out here and giving out free cupcakes…" the boy trailed off looking at the tray of multicolored cupcakes. Keiko got the hint and handed a cupcake to each of the boys.

"Oh, sempai," she turned to the Host King, "this is Sasaki Naoki and Yukine, Ri-chan's otoutos. Guys, this is Tamaki-sempai. He's the club's president."

Naoki nodded mildly interested, but Yukine enthusiastically shook the blond's hand. "Hajimemashite, sempai! You're a konketsuji like ne-san, huh? That's cool. So are you English or European?"

"I'm French."

"Yuki how many time have I told you that can't just walk up to someone and call them a halfer?" Keiko scolded. "Especially, that term. It's beyond rude."

Yukine had the sense to look apologetic. "Sorry, Ne-san. I didn't mean anything by it, Sempai."

Tamaki gave the younger boy a friendly smile. "It's alright. I get that a lot actually."

"Ne-san does too."

Now, keep in mind that through this whole conversation Eri had not moved from her position behind Keiko. But it wasn't until this point that two boys actually noticed. Naoki was the first to say something about it. "Hey, Kei why is Sis ducking behind you?" He wondered peering over the girl's shoulder.

Eri winced.

"That's a good question, but the real question is why she still doing it if she knows she's been seen," Keiko replied. She didn't shy or look away from the glare that the smaller girl was sending her. Taking a side step out of the way, Keiko merely adjusted the strap under her chin again.

"Oh hey ne-chan, I didn't see you there." Yukine greeted.

Naoki scoffed. "Don't see how you couldn't with that costume. What did the witch bake you two in her oven?" He said jokingly.

"Shut up."

Naoki raised a brow challengingly. "Or what are you going to ice me?"

"That's it!" Eri said snatching one of the cupcakes and preparing to throw it at her irksome little brother. Fortunately, or unfortunately, Keiko grabbed the girl's wrist just as she was about to let the bake good fly.

"Don't you dare. Remember, black onions…" she whispered then turned to Naoki, "And you, stop teasing your sister. She doesn't like being the Bundt of the joke."

"Keiko!"

"I know. I'm sorry. Couldn't resist," she said. "Here…" she put the tray back in her hands, "go start passing these out. You don't have any more excuses now. I'm going to get the other tray."

And with that said and that little hurtle overcome, the host club then carried on as normal. Eri did manage to pass out all the cupcakes despite her embarrassment. Of course, her siblings teased her about it on their way out. But with the proof of character completed, Kyoya trusted that she would keep Haruhi's secret.

Still, Keiko suspected it was only the beginning. Once you participated in the Host Club, there was no going back.


Author's Note:

So I kind of feel like this chapter was a kind of all over the place. I wasn't really sure where I was going with this one as I kind of just threw Eri finding out about Haruhi's gender in the last one on a whim. I guess this is more of like a transitional chapter as from here on out the storylines will be taking place more off campus. Up until now the majority of this story has been taking place at Ouran Academy, but I really want to start including some more of Keiko's home life and work and just the general craziness that ensues.

I'm been slowly developing a whole cast of original characters that make up Keiko's world. Mrs. Ariwawa will definitely be making multiple appearances later on as well as some other neighbors and fellow employees at the diner and Hideki and his family... there's a lot here guys. I don't know when I'll be able to get the next chapter up, but just know that it will be up as soon as I finish writing it.

As always follow, favorite, and leave your thought or critiques in the reviews. I'll talk to you guys soon.

(P.S. I really think the song 'Make a Mess' by Matt and Kim would be a great anime opening, if this were an anime. It's kind of the song that I listen to a lot to get inspiration for these chapters.)