Chapter 10

Cheshires' Plans

Kyoya had a hypothesis after seeing how Yumi had handled helping plan the ball. He hypothesized he had found a secret gem in Taka Yumi. Originally, Kyoya had only asked for Yumi because she had already seen the less professional side of the Host Club and had proven that she could keep her mouth shut. He hadn't expected her to sweep in and jump straight into things like she had. Calling in Yumi today had been to test his hypothesis. Once again Yumi had surprised Kyoya. He hadn't expected her to be so effective at organizing the workers and getting the lawn set up. The way she had quickly put togethe what needed to be done, figured out how to get it done, and had actually gotten it done had all been very impressive to Kyoya.

Her only downside seemed to be that she wasn't good at handling people. A trait Kyoya had noticed in her interactions with the Host Club. However, as Kyoya watched her interact with the workers he realized that he had (again) had made a judgement about Taka Yumi with imperfect information. Yumi handled the Host Club poorly, but it had been a rushed decision to decide that based off those interactions that she, on the whole, couldn't handle people. Yumi's difficulties were even understandable, given her very limited interaction with the Club. Haruhi seemed to have the same problem though her natural charm carried her through it. Yumi had no such charm.

Despite her difficultly with the club, Yumi handled the workers much better. She had some difficulty and Kyoya wouldn't classify her as gifted. Kyoya was hesitant to say she was even a natural. Yumi sometimes hesitated in her orders, undercut herself, and she couldn't appear to be able to decide on a tone, often switching between very polite (which had been a surprise to Kyoya) and very stern (which was less of a surprise). But for what Yumi lacked in skill or raw intuition was whole-hearted determination. She was willing to throw herself into things, and apparently she worked very good off the cuff.

The test had gone better than expected. Kyoya was now certain he had found a gem in Taka Yumi. She knew Haruhi's secret and had proven that she would keep it. She could handle the Host Club, though whether or not she liked them remained to be seen. She had a natural eye for interior design and had the type of almost motherly personality that she couldn't help but jump in when things went wrong. She ran towards trouble instead of away from it - complaining bitterly the whole time but Kyoya could work with that. She would work perfectly for his plans.

If running the Host Club had taught Kyoya anything it was that he could run it on his own, but that it was difficult to do so. Yumi could prove to be a very valuable underling. All that remained was a way to secure her under his control. A task that was harder than it looked. Yumi didn't owe him anything, and if anything he owed her (which he still didn't like). Even if Kyoya had blackmail or had Yumi in his debt, it would just counteract the favor she was doing for the Host Club. Not to mention Kyoya had no idea how Yumi would react to such an attempt. She was worldly enough to see any attempt for what it was, and she had proven nothing if not that she was unpredictable.

Kyoya had yet to figure out a plan, but he was sure he would, in due time.

"Huh? Taka put this all together, huh?" the twins asked, looking at the surprisingly well put together lawn.

It wasn't surprisingly that Kyoya had put it together, what was surprising was that Yumi had a hand it. Though the twins supposed that the way she had handled the ball had proven that she was at least somewhat competent. Still, Kyoya had informed them that Yumi had handled almost everything - and Kyoya wasn't a modest man. If he said that Yumi did most of the work, then she did.

"Yu-chan's pretty good at this sort of thing, isn't she, Takashi?" Mitsukuni asked his cousin with a bright grin, happy at his friend's achievement. Although he was disappointed that he had missed her. It wasn't fair that Kyoya kept Yumi all to himself.

Takashi grunted in agreement.

"I didn't know you were one to slack off, Kyoya," Tamaki teased his friend.

"It was a test."

"A test?" Tamaki asked confused.

"Do you want Yumi-san to join the club?" Haruhi asked, quickly picking up on Kyoya's plan with alarming ease.

The topic of conversation was radically switched when the twins put something together.

"Hey," Hikaru began.

"Haruhi had lunch with Taka-senpai," Kaoru picked up.

"And so did Mori-senpai and Hani-senpai."

"And now Kyoya-senpai spent the whole morning with her."

"We want to have our own bonding time with Yumi-chan!" The twins chorused together.

They were usually loath to hang out with anyone outside of the Host Club - and even if that was a new occurrence - but if everyone else was doing it, they didn't want to be left out, especially if she was potential new member. Besides, Yumi was a very surprising person. In a lot of ways she was similar to Haruhi. Though in just as many ways, she was radically different. The twins were curious to see what made her tick - and what ticked her off. She probably was really funny when she was mad.

"Since when did you two brats get permission to call her Yumi? And what's with the '-chan', she's your senpai!" Haruhi chided immediately, feeling an instinctive rush to protect the other new girl. It had been about a week since the last time she had really spoken to Yumi, but she had liked the girl - that and she wouldn't wish the twins on anyone.

The twins shrugged, not effected by Haruhi's chiding in the slightest.

"We should bring her to host club!" The twins decided more than suggested.

"Yumi-senpai has work!" Haruhi protested.

"If Kyoya-senpai can bring her here to test her out for the Host Club then I don't see why we can't bring her here."

"You selfish jerks, that's completely different!"

"What, we're saving her from work. Really, she should be thanking us."

Kyoya's glasses gleamed menacingly shutting up the bickering trio, "May I remember you that you will be working. I will not summon Taka-san to waste her time and offer a distraction for you and the rest of the club. If you want to do your 'bonding time' with her, track her down on your own time."

With that, the club set about getting ready for their grand appearance before their guests. Nobody noticed the wicked glance the twins shared. The more Haruhi and Kyoya told them no, the more they decided they would. Now it was just a question of getting Kyoya to summon Yumi.

Yumi wasn't sure what kami she had managed to piss off, but she fully attended to track down every shrine from Ouran Academy to Himura's bakery and offer repayment. She only hoped that nothing truly bad happened before she got a chance - and that the shrine in question wasn't back in Karuizawa.

Everything had started off fine. She had went to her afternoon shift at the greenhouse. Hana had either completely forgotten the smoking incident or had decided that working with the Host Club twice had been punishment enough. Yumi was finally off soil duty and back to cutting shrubs in one of Ouran's many gardens. It was no greenhouse duty, but everyone was competing for that work.

Yumi had thought that after the morning her escapades were done and that the rest of the day would just pass normally. It wasn't until Katsuo, one of the oldest workers in Ouran's gardening department, came bustling towards her in his strange "old-man" run - that was more like speed walking then running - that Yumi realized that she had jinxed herself. She really needed to find herself a luck charm.

Katsuo reached her out of breath forcing Yumi to spend a few agonizing minutes in total suspense as he caught his breath.

"Host Club," He rasped out, making Yumi's stomach drop - not again!

"I was working in the garden right outside where they're throwing some sort of... of-"

"- flower viewing reception," Yumi cut in, wanting to hurry the explanation. It couldn't be good, and the waiting was just making it worse.

Katsuo nodded, gulping a few greedy gasps of air down. Yumi winced, wondering if he had ran the whole way here. Her eyes narrowed at the thought, the flower reception had better be on fire if they were making a man as old as Katsuo run around like a chicken without a head.

"Apparently a limb came down."

Yumi paled. She was sure she had checked all of the trees for unstable branches. She had a few removed that had looked dangerous. She had to manage a lot of work in a little amount of time but Yumi was sure she was good enough with foliage by now to know when a limb was about to crack! Yumi turned positively white when she thought of what Hana's reaction would be when she found out. Yumi would be wishing she was carrying heavy bags of soil when she was done with her!

"It didn't hurt anyone," Katsuo quickly reassured and Yumi had let out a sigh of relief, "It didn't fall near anybody. From what I gathered, it just scared them."

Katsuo had been working at Ouran long enough to know how the students reacted. If that's what he thought happened, Yumi trusted his judgement. She knew from just her limited experience how volatile the student body was. With morbid humor, Yumi wondered who had freaked out more, the Host Club or their guests.

"They wanted me to summon you, to check it out. I dunno why, I could have checked it for them but they didn't want to bother me." Katsuo and Yumi shared a knowing look. They both knew it was more of a bother for Katsuo to track down Yumi then it was for him to just check out the trees.

"One of them fancy you or something?" Katsuo asked with a cheeky grin. Coming to a completely different conclusion than Yumi had.

Yumi scoffed immediately at the suggestion, maybe too quickly as Katsuo's cheeky grin seemed to grow larger on his wrinkled face.

"Don't be silly!" She protested.

Yumi was sure it was nothing like that. The Host Club had much better prospects with their guests before they'd bother with a weed like her.

Her real theory was that they just didn't want Katsuo to ruin their "atmosphere" (or something stupid like that) and preferred Yumi since she would get in and get out with no fuss. Yumi did wonder why they had started requesting her and not somebody they could con out of money. She knew that she was a fairly good worker but Yumi did not think herself so talented as to be better than free labor.

"I'm not being silly," Katsuo rebuffed, suddenly serious, "You're a cute girl, Yumi-chan."

"Thanks, but you're way to old for me, Katsuo-senpai." Yumi drawled.

Katsuo laughed loudly, "That's what I like about you Yumi, you have a bite."

Yumi shook her head at the silly, old man and gave her goodbyes. But before she could leave, Katsuo stopped her.

"Hey, I'm not going to report you to Hana-san."

Yumi stared at Katsuo questioningly. She hadn't asked him not to. She didn't expect to put himself between Hana's wrath and herself. She wouldn't ask anyone to do that for her.

"Something about this just feels... off, and I don't want you getting into trouble over nothing."

Yumi gave Katsuo a truly grateful smile and bowed her head to him. "Thank you, Katsuo-san."

When she straightened Katsuo was blushing.

"Don't do things like that girl!" he rebuffed, scratching his head. Then he turned on his heel and stormed off muttering under his breath. Yumi grinned as she watched him. Katsuo always acted funny when he was embarrassed.

Without Katsuo to distract her, Yumi headed off towards the Host Club's flower viewing reception. Though the fear of Hana's wrath was severely lessened with Katuso's promise to not say anything (though Hana usually found out about anything that happened on Ouran's gardens), Yumi still had plenty of other concerns. Kyoya was going to be shooting her dark looks the entire time and afterword he probably say something chilling cold that would destroy her self-esteem. It was his fault anyway, he could have actually helped her out when she was setting up his flower reception! Yumi was sure she had checked all the tree branches.

Yumi spent the whole walk to the flower reception fretting, so when she arrived there she was fully expecting something dramatic to occur. Maybe Kyoya descending on her like a vulture, the sky turning to match the mood with ominous thunderclouds. He would give some long speech that would be really about him just roasting her. He'd have his family's police investigate her past, there was enough stuff in there to have her in juvie for months. Maybe she'd get thrown out of the school all together, she had heard somewhere that Tamaki's father was on the school board. She was so dead. Of course, Yumi's life would go down this way. There was no slow decline, no clues. She was riding high and now she was crushed.

When Yumi arrived nothing even close to her dramatic fretting happened. In fact, it was almost comical how calm everything was. There was a tree branch that had fallen down, and Yumi could imagine how the girls had freaked out, but like most drama at the school it had already passed. Nobody even seemed to have notice that she had arrived.

Yumi was too relieved at the turn of events to be miffed. She headed around the crowd of tables. As she headed for the fallen limb, Yumi observed the event she had put together. All of her earlier decisions with the setup Yumi saw validated, with the exclusion of a few things that Yumi was already mentally fixing in her head for later reference.

The tree branch that came down was no where near where anyone was and Yumi was a bit surprised that any of the airheads had even noticed it coming down. Calling it a branch was even being generous. Yumi wouldn't even need a saw to deal with. If she put it against the ground and exerted force she could probably snap it in half. Carrying it wouldn't even be a chore.

All of this were setting off warning bells in her head, which prompted Yumi to inspect the part of the "branch" that had been connected to the tree. Sure enough, it look like it had been sawed off with a pocket knife. The way the wood pealed up and there were nicks and cuts made that had been clearly made with a knife - wielded poorly but still.

Yumi understood that the rich people had to occupy themselves somehow and often did so by backstabbing and sabotaging each other, so at first, that was what she thought had happened. However, the part of her that had read one too many detective books while hiding in the school library, noted that if this were a form of sabotage it was made by someone stupid. This simply didn't have any impact, unless the goal was to get her in trouble with Hana. Yumi frowned at that thought, now that was a plausible scenario. Yumi was on thin ice with some of the Host Club's fanclub. However, besides doing her job Yumi hadn't done anything, in her mind, that ought to incite their rage. They had even expressed that as long as she was playing by the "rules" - as idiotic as that sounded - she could be around the Host Club. Yumi was fairly certain that doing her job was fair - though maybe enviable - to the twits.

Yumi was still stewing over the possibility that she had angered the Host Club's fanclub when an arm wrapped around her shoulder.

"Nice to see you drop in, Yumi-senpai. Isn't it Hikaru?" Koaru asked with a snicker.

Yumi turned her head and noticed the other twin was leaning against the tree that was the "scene of the crime". Well, they wasn't obvious at all. Yumi shot Kaoru a dirty look that only caused the twins to grin more. Yumi need to work on her intimidation abilities, clearly.

"You wouldn't have anything to do with that, would you, Koaru?" Yumi asked.

"How could we have anything to do with that? Right Hikaru?" The twin Yumi thought was Hikaru answered.

"Yeah," the other twin that Yumi had thought was Koaru answered, "We've been working."

Yumi's eyes narrowed at their evasion. The more they talked with her with those smirks on their faces the more she was sure they had something to do with it.

"Shouldn't be working now?" Yumi asked, trying to dismiss them before they made her mad. Back in Karuizawa, Yumi might have made a scene even though she knew any scene she made would amuse the twins and make her look bad. However, Yumi had a tentative reputation and a tentative clean slate, nothing like back in Karuizawa. With something to lose, Yumi found herself much less assertive.

She shrugged one of the twin's arms of her shoulder. The twins shrugged in sync, and the one who had been manhandling her backed off. Yumi couldn't exactly read their expression but she didn't like how curious they were acting. She wanted the troublemakers bored with her, not interested.

A light seemed to go off in their minds as their grin grew until it was almost ear splitting, "Hey, Yumi you haven't ever played our game!"

"What game?" Yumi asked, immediately regretting it.

"The 'which one is Hikaru' game."

"No thanks." Yumi immediately shot down, winning perplexed looks from the twins. Apparently the girls liked the obviously rigged game.

"That's not a game, that's a challenge," Yumi informed them, a hand on her hip, "And I win challenges."

"So you won't play," one of the twins began.

"Because you know you'll lose?" The other one finished with an obnoxious smirk.

Yumi gave a nonchalant shrug that hid her growing irritation, "Nope. When I play your challenge, I'll win."

Yumi didn't know why she was taking their stupid game so seriously. It really irritated her how they pretended to be each other and then seemed to want people to be able to tell them apart. Yumi found that more than a little bit hypocritical. The competitive side of Yumi also had pitched in. She hated to lose and so anything that was set up to make her lose was bound to set her off. If they wanted to play that way, fine, Yumi would play - eventually - and she would win. If she could tell Sora and Emi apart, she could learn to tell the twins apart. It would just take time - more time than it had with Sora and Emi since they had distinctly different personalities and never tried to hide it except when they were up to something.

"That sounds like a bet, Yumi-senpai." The twins chorused, looking amused, though Yumi sensed something darker under the surface. Like they found her 'bet' offensive.

Yumi felt little sympathy. If they didn't want people to win then they shouldn't issue the challenge. "Well, then you guys can think of what you want to give me when I win." She told them haughtily, glaring up at the twins that were practically looming over her.

"Yu-chan!" Mitsukuni came charging towards Yumi out of the corner of her eye. For a second, Yumi was thrown by his strange, traditional clothing, but not so thrown that she didn't dodge his glomp. Yumi ducked under his arm avoiding the hug.

"Nice to see you again, Haninozuka-senpai."

The tension that had been palatable between the twins and Yumi evaporated with the appearance of Mitsukuni. He pouted at Yumi's evasion. Yumi attempted to redirect Mitsukuni's attention before he went full "puppy-dog" mode and demanded a hug.

"Why are you dressed like that?"

"We're cosplaying!"

Yumi stared, "What?" She asked blankly. She wondered how she only just now realized that the twins were dressed like butlers along with Mitsukuni's traditional clothing. Of course, the first time she had met them they had been cosplaying, so maybe she shouldn't have been so surprised.

"Shouldn't you all be entertaining our guests?" Kyoya appeared from behind Yumi.

"Thank you for coming to deal with our little issue, Taka-san. I apologize for taking you away from your work."

Yumi turned to face Kyoya. Judging from the dark look Kyoya was sending the twins and his 'apology' and noticeable lack of irritation towards her, Yumi's suspicion about the twins had been confirmed about as much as she needed them to be.

They were definitely brats who thought it would be funny to drag Yumi away from her work. If Hana found out that a branch came down, Yumi was going to be in a real trouble. Not that idiots like them ever thought about consequences.

"No problem, Ootori-san," Yumi responded with a grin that she hoped let Kyoya know that she knew what had really happened and would remember it. The look Kyoya shot the twins confirmed that he had gotten her message.

Yumi turned to go deal with the branch feeling a little self-satisfied with herself, she probably shouldn't be implying that an Ootori owed her something, but on the other hand she couldn't have them taking advantage of her because she was scared of their prestige.

Club hours had been almost over by the time Yumi had hoofed it to the garden and by the time she was finished dealing with the tree limb, they were. It had been a relief as it allowed Yumi to make an innocuous escape. Or it would have, if she hadn't been almost close lined by Tamaki as she made her escape.

Yumi wasn't exactly certain what brought it on, everyone had been staring at some chart that had come out of nowhere when she had attempted to escape. Now she was trapped in Tamaki's grip, staring at a chart that had how much time Haruhi spent with Tamaki versus the twins and how much time Yumi spent with the Host Club versus just Kyoya. Yumi found the chart a bit enlightening. The Host Club were able to heighten her stress levels remarkably given how little she saw of them.

"It's not fair! Everyone else gets to spend much more time with Haruhi and Yumi-hime-"

"I'm not a princess!"

"-Then I do!"

"That's not fair boss! Kyoya-senpai gets to spend the most time with Yumi-senpai, not us!"

Tamaki then started ranting, and Yumi immediately checked out since it was nonsense and more about Haruhi then it was about her. Of course, the consequence of checking out meant then when Tamaki started to shake her back and forth demanding that she 'turn Haruhi back right now', Yumi was utterly confused.

"What the heck?! I didn't change Haruhi into anything!" Yumi denied, clearly demonstrating that she had not been paying any attention. She had missed Tamaki spouting his theories about how Yumi, being a female, would be able to make Haruhi more feminine, like she had been before.

"You don't have to rush anything. Haruhi's going to be found out anyway." One of the twins pointed out.

"Remember? The day after tomorrow, we have physical exams." The other twin picked up.

For once Yumi felt gratitude towards the twins who were indirectly coming to her aid. Everyone froze. It appeared that everybody but the twins had forgotten about the physical exams.

"Wait, you mean that you guys have been harassing me about knowing Haruhi's secret when the entire school is going to know in two days?" Yumi demanded incredulous at the ignorance of the entire club. Two of them had known and had went along with the harassment anyway. Yumi took back any gratitude she might have felt towards the twins.

A/n: Longer chapter this time around! Please favorite and review!