I 100%, absolutely, completely enjoyed writing this chapter! It is hands down my favorite one from this story thus far! I know Kyoya's a little OOC towards the end, but I think I played it in well enough! I hope you like it!
Disclaimer: Don't own. There, all done.
'January… always brought me down… (Brought, me, down…)
All the magic of December… 's like a circus leaving town…'
Jacklyn swayed side to side, humming along to one of the Straight No Chaser Christmas CD she'd brought over while her fingers attacked the dessert mixture in front of her. Her hands had fallen into a pattern, one she used so often she barely had to think about it anymore. Scoop up a small portion of the mixture, roll until it's a smooth ball, place on parchment paper, repeat.
As she continued this pattern, she ran a list through her head. The sugar cookie dough is chilling in the fridge, as are the Oreo balls. We decided against Mexican Wedding Cakes. Gingerbread is up next. Wreaths are setting.
"Jacklyn? When can we cut the cookies?"
The brunette reemerged from her thoughts and turned, smiling at the group of boys sitting further down table. The host club was currently residing in the Suoh 2nd mansion's dining hall, which was the only place with a table big enough for all of them. Jacklyn was at one end, which she had claimed for cookie and christmas treat making, and the boys at the other end were working on decorations.
The doors that led to the sitting room were open, and through them Jacklyn could see the large Christmas tree standing near (but not too near) a roaring fireplace. Placed front and center in said fire was a Yule Log, which Tamaki had insisted on. It was a part of the 'French Christmas' he was bringing to this celebration, and no one was complaining. Especially once he lit it and that heavenly aroma filled the room. Jacklyn couldn't place it, but that might be because she's never smelled a burning log that had been sprinkled with wine beforehand.
The rest of the room and the tree itself looked a little bare, however, as the hosts were still fumbling around with the decorations. The boys couldn't figure out how to untangle the small LED light strands, and there weren't many ornaments to put on the tree (as they only had the few that Tamaki had brought from France and Jacklyn from America) so they were a little lost on what to do.
That, and Honey's only interest was in helping to make/eat the treats Jacklyn was preparing.
"In a bit, Honey-senpai. Once I put the Peanut Butter Balls in the fridge and we make the gingerbread dough, I'll bring out the sugar cookie cut-outs, alright?"
The blond nodded, "Okay! But what should I do now? There's nothing to doooooo..."
"You sound like the twins."
"Hey!"
"We can hear you!"
"See? And if you're bored… then why don't you make a few decorations yourself?"
Honey straightened up, "Make them? Like what?"
Jacklyn shrugged, pushing the filled tray away so she could pull an empty one closer, "I dunno. Paper snowflakes?"
"Snowflakes?"
"Yeah. Take a piece of white paper, fold it into eighths, and cut out a snowflake."
Now all of the boys were looking at her, "You can do that?"
The brunette paused, returning their stares, "Uh… how about you wait for me to finish these, and I'll show you how it's done?"
She wondered if she should be concerned about how eager the boys looked.
*Timeskip*
Twenty minutes later the decoration half of the dining table looked like a scrapbooking bomb had gone off. There were multiple scissors, markers, papers (both cut and untouched), glue sticks, hole punchers, paper plates with small pools of glitter on them, tape, and rolls of string scattered across the polished wood. The seven club members sat in a semi-circle around that half of the table, smiles only a curl away from maniac as they cut out millions and millions of paper snowflakes.
"Hikaru, stop hogging all the silver glitter!"
"Then give me the blue marker!"
The redheads frowned at each other before slowly exchanging the two tools. Jacklyn watched with amusement as Tamaki quickly plucked the marker from Hikaru's grasp before he had a chance to use it, prompting a shouting match between the two boys. Kaoru smirked at his twin and his Senpai before he realized Honey was dipping his snowflake's edges into his plate of silver glitter from under his arm.
"Hey!" The redhead quickly pushed the plate out of the small blond's reach, and Honey let out a small whine, causing his cousin to stand up from across the table and attempt to grab the plate from Kaoru himself.
And yet, despite the seemingly impending chaos about to erupt over a few arts-n-crafts, Jacklyn wasn't concerned in the slightest. After 4 months of being with these insane boys, she was finally able to see the crinkle in the corner of Mori-senpai's eyes, the small quirks of the Hitachiin twin's lips, and the amusement that danced in the two blond's eyes. They weren't going to start attacking each other any time in the near future, they were just finally having fun.
Until Honey-senpai suddenly made a lunge for the paper plate of silver glitter and sent up a small cloud of it over the table.
Jacklyn lets out a short laugh, and it looks like the others are about to follow in her example when a chair abruptly screeched against the floor. The six club members that had remained seated stared up at Kyoya as he glared down at them from the head of the table.
"Right, I think I've had enough of this. If any of you need me, I'll be in the living room finding a way to make these activities actually beneficial to this club." The ravenet turned to walk away, stopped, then stared at the table's occupants out of the corner of his eye, "And if I find one speck of glitter on these clothes, you will all be paying for my laundry bill to remove it."
He stalked to the living room and barely managed to close the doors before Jacklyn chucked the purple marker (that she'd capped) at them. Honey tried to touch her arm in a calming gesture, but the brunette brushed him off. What the heck? Of all the days to be a jerk, he chooses freaking Christmas? Dude needs to lighten up and take that damn stick out of his ass. It's Christmas! What a freaking Scrooge!
"Jacklyn? Don't get too mad at Kyoya. I'm sure he'll come around to you eventually."
The brunette rolled her eyes, but didn't respond to her blond classmate. Yeah, right. I'm sick and tired of him treating me like he just scraped me off the bottom of his shoes. If he wants to hate me and be a jerk then maybe I should give him a reason to. That'll at least make if fair! Maybe I should send him something to get him in the "holiday spirit"?
Suddenly, an evil idea strikes.
She thought about it, rolled in around in her head, then an equally evil grin spread itself across the American's face.
*Time Skip*
'I bought it while on vacation in Paris last year, but decided you'd appreciate it more. I hope you like it!'
Kyoya skimmed the note before tossing it into the pile on his right, where other small notes or letters were slowly piling up. Carefully opening the box, he reached in and pulled out a very pretty ornament. It was shaped like a bulb, but instead of a sheet of metal it was made of thin wires colored red and blue that crisscrossed each other until the woven metal created the shape.
Smirking, Kyoya scribbled 'Red/Blue wire bulb-shaped ornament: Ai Arakida; Class 2-C; Hitachiin' before placing the ornament back into its box and setting it down on the large table in front of him.
Even he had to admit, if only to himself, it had been a fairly good idea for the Host Club to spend Christmas together. He'd uploaded the Host Club's website yesterday, right after the hosts had agreed, and set his PR plan into motion. He'd made the correct assumption that Tamaki would purchase a relatively large tree, but neither he nor Jacklyn would have enough ornaments to decorate it completely. Since he was sure that none of them would wish to purchase more unnecessary decorations for the one day, he'd asked their guests if they had any ornaments they'd be willing to spare for the Host Club's tree.
It had been a hit, clearly. The girls loved the idea of their favorite group of boys spending this familial holiday together. Seemed to take it as a sign they were actually like family to each other.
It was an excellent publicity stunt.
As he reached for the next boxed ornament, Kyoya stilled, listening intently to the rest of the mansion. There weren't any more loud voices or bumps or threats of concussions that he could hear, so he assumed that the others were still out. They had all ordered to have their gifts for each other bought and wrapped, and now everyone had gone out to pick them up except for him… and Jacklyn.
Kyoya had been smart and all of his gifts for the others were to be delivered to the Suoh 2nd Mansion at some point in the next hour or so. The brunette had carried hers to school earlier today since they were small enough to be carried around in a plastic bag together. So as of this moment, they were the only two stuck in the mansion together.
In an attempt to forget about that fairly troubling thought, he quickly grabbed the package closest to him. This one was different from the others, a cylindrical shape rather than a cube, and it was addressed to him specifically. Normally, he'd feel a little unsure about opening such a package, but if it had gotten past his security's scanning… then perhaps he could satisfy his curiosity himself this one time.
As he peeled away the wrapping, finding a tube with a top that you had to pull at to open, Kyoya felt his imagination flicker into use. Perhaps it's an ornament specifically for me. If so, we have a very bold guest. A smirk tugs at his lips again as he proceeds to pull at the top. Said smirk twists into a frown the longer he pulls. Opening this gift was becoming irksome, it was as if the top had been glued down. Pursing his lips, Kyoya placed the tube in between his thighs and pulled hard.
The top came off with a solid pop!
His mouth fell open.
While he'd succeeded in taking the top off and opening the container, he'd also accidentally shaken it so that what had been inside came shooting out.
Now his lap, the couch, the table, the boxes of ornaments, and the corner of his laptop were covered with purple glitter.
It took a few seconds for the shock to wear off a little. Eventually, Kyoya's mind caught up with what exactly he was looking at and a surge of bubbling anger came rising up inside of him. Because there was only one person in the Universe who would dare pull something like this, and there was no way he'd let that person go unpunished.
Working quickly, he grabbed the tube and looked inside of it. There was still a small pile of purple glitter resting innocently inside. Not quite enough, but once Kyoya brushed as much of the glitter on his lap as he could back inside there was a reasonable amount.
He stands, a shower of glitter falling from his legs as he stalks to the doors separating the living room from the dining hall. Reining himself in at the last second, he quietly pushed the door open and peeked inside. Jacklyn was standing with her back to him, scooping up paper scraps and capping glue sticks the others had abandoned. And she would've looked completely innocent to the downright crime she'd committed if it weren't for her shoulders shaking with barely repressed laughter.
She was unaware of the body behind her until Kyoya dumped the entire container of glitter on her head.
The ravenet had approximately three seconds of complete satisfaction before the brunette in front of him let out a battle cry and tackled him. The container fell out of his hands as his back hit the floor, air rushing out of his lungs. A shower of glitter fluttered down off of her hair and into his face and he shut his eyes. Before Kyoya could react any further to this frightening turn of events, he felt his glasses being pulled off his face. He opened his eyes and saw a blurry Jacklyn take off.
Scrambling to his feet the ravenet ran after her as best as he could. Without his glasses though, he was having a rough time. The world had regressed into a great big blob with a bunch of smaller fuzzy blobs around him. Jacklyn's laugher increased in volume every time he bumped into a chair, or the corner of the table, or the doorframe back into the living room, and finally falling flat on his face after tripping over the corner of the kotatsu table Tamaki had insisted on.
Kyoya looked up from the carpet just in time to see the girl stop by the table beside him. He heard the telltale 'clink' of his glasses being set down on the table before the teal and black blob ran away, her laughter still echoing around the large room. Clawing forward and managing to collect even more glitter on himself from the carpet, Kyoya snatched his glasses. Pulling them close to his face, he saw what had been the girl's incentive for taking them in the first place.
The glass and frames were absolutely coated with purple glitter. Growling in frustration, Kyoya furiously rubbed and blew on his glasses in an attempt to rid them of the herpes of art projects. No luck. Every time he blew five of the stupid specks off, three of them magically zipped back to stick to them.
Letting out his own cry for war, Kyoya jammed the glasses back on his face and jumped to his feet. Jacklyn was back in the dining room, grabbing as many glitter shakers and packets as she could when Kyoya found her. She ran, and he grabbed his own handful of packets before giving chase.
The girl was no longer laughing, ripping one side off of a packet before throwing it back at the boy gaining on her. Kyoya swatted the packet out of the air, but the glitter exploded out of it and got all over his arm anyways. Angrily, he sped up and ripped three packets open at once. He caught up to her as she tried to get to the kitchen, grabbing her around the waist with his free hand and shaking the open packets at her from every angle he could reach. Jacklyn pushed her hands up to protect her face, but her clothes were a lost cause.
The two squirmed in their new position, each trying to dump more glitter on the other and try to keep as much of the shining specks off of themselves in the process. Jacklyn unscrewed the top of the pink glitter shaker and dumped the whole thing on the boy behind her. Kyoya finally released her, falling backwards and trying to shake the pile of stuff out of his hair.
Jacklyn took off again, heading back into the living room. She felt that Kyoya wouldn't dare chase after her and risk breaking anything their guests had sent them.
Well, as it turns out, she was wrong. The boy came charging into the room, glasses flaring in the light and sparkling like a group of five year olds had ambushed him during their arts 'n crafts time.
Jacklyn would've laughed if she didn't currently fear for her life.
The two ran in circles around the couch, chucking packets of glitter in each other's general direction. For a split second, Kyoya felt a jolt of panic that his laptop would be caught in the crossfire and be ruined by the glitter getting in between the keys. Then he recalled the top of it was closed, and the war continued.
They came to a standstill after two laps, Kyoya with his back to the fireplace. The ravenet's eyes narrowed before he ran directly towards the glitter blanketed couch. Jacklyn was smart enough to realize what he was doing and about-faced through the dining room doors just as he jumped over the back of the furniture, his house slippers now sparkling in blue and silver.
The brunette turned around in an attempt to shut the doors separating them, but Kyoya burst through just before the lock clicked into place. The girl fell backwards onto her butt, staring up at the boy as he took one step onto the glitter covered tile and slipped. Kyoya felt to his side, letting out an 'Oof!' as a cloud of multicolored glitter surrounded him.
The two prop themselves up on their elbows and stare at each other. Various appendages ached, glitter was so deeply ingrained in their clothes and in their hair and between their fingers it was unlikely either of them would stop sparkling within the following month. There was complete silence as the glitter Kyoya's fall had kicked up slowly settled back down onto the tile.
Jacklyn stared at him, chest heaving as she took in his appearance. Kyoya Ootori, sitting amid a pile of glitter and coated from head to toe with the stuff. His glasses were so caked with it she had no idea how he could possibly see where he was going through them.
Her lips were traitors, she decided soon thereafter. They curled up in the corners, lower lip wiggling as she squeezed them together. Her upper body began tightening with the force it took to keep her laughter in. Kyoya seemed to notice, because his eyes narrowed and his face scrunched up a little more.
Now panicked that she would have to start running for her life again, Jacklyn leaned backwards. But Kyoya didn't make any sort of move to stand. Instead, his nose scrunched up, then smoothed, then his lips parted and his entire body jerked forward. He sneezed hard into the crook of his left elbow, and a shower of silver, purple, and what looked to be pink glitter rained down from his hair at the movement. He pulled away to show off his new mustache of dark blue glitter and Jacklyn couldn't take it anymore.
"AAAAAAHHHHHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAA! AHA! AHA! AHAHAHAHAAA!"
The brunette fell backwards, her arms curling around her stomach as the laughter erupted from her mouth. She could feel the glitter from the floor scratching at her bare arms, but it didn't matter at the moment. Her eyes that were now flooded with tears of mirth could only see the glitter-encrusted boy sitting in front of her.
Said boy was staring at the American girl being wracked with laughter. If he couldn't hear the screeches coming from her, he would've assumed she was experiencing horrific stomach cramps. If she continued laughing as hard as she did, she might, too.
But still, as he continued to watch, the humor of their current situation didn't escape him. Not a single square inch of the two had been spared from their battle. He was sure he could feel their weapon of choice in his house slippers and under the collar of his sweater. For all he knew, there was some in his boxers that he'd discover later tonight.
The girl in front of him was now curled on her side, still laughing like it was the only way to get air into her body. She turned her head towards the floor, possibly to try and muffle herself, but she quickly pulled away, laugh cutting short as she attempted to spit out the glitter than had gotten into her mouth.
"Uh! Gross!" She rubbed at her lips with the back of her hands, but that only made it worse. She looked at Kyoya, who was still watching, and quickly lowered her hand in embarrassment.
Seeing her sparkling lips was the last straw. Kyoya soon found himself doubled over with laughter, his eyes squeezing out hot tears of his own. He could faintly hear the girl joining in again, apparently the hilarity of the situation not completely out of her system quite yet. So they laughed. And laughed. And continued to do so until they both were having difficulty breathing. Kyoya couldn't remember the last time he'd laughed this hard, needing to prop himself up off the floor. Not even when he'd laughed at Tamaki's idiocy had he done so this hard or for this long. Five minutes must've passed before the two slowed down.
Eventually, though, Jacklyn had enough air to speak again, "That was fun!"
Then the ravenet blindsided her. He sat up straight and smiled quite sincerely before responding, "Yes. It was."
Not wanting to look a gift horse in the mouth just yet, she shuffled her feet against the glitter, "I'm, uh, sorry. You know, for getting glitter all over you. Especially your glasses. You are going to sparkle like a cheap movie vampire for weeks." Kyoya looked down at his clothes, humming softly in agreement as he brushed at his pants in vain.
"Well… I did have it coming."
The girl's smile dropped, "Look, Kyoya-"
"I was out of line. Actually, I was more than out of line, I was cruel. I should never have attacked your family the way I did. I simply…" he looked up again, "In case you were unaware, I don't have much experience with being honestly friendly towards others. Having… friends, real ones, is a new concept I've recently learned of and, well, the host club means a lot to Tamaki. It's pretty fun for the others and I as well. So I saw you, a brilliant, kind, and exotic girl who looked at Tamaki like a lost kitten, and all I could think of was if you were going to end the club before it even lasted a year. What if the other boys fell in love with you? What if you fell in love with us? The guests and the other clubs and having a girl in the host club… I just saw so many ways of this going wrong that I never considering it going right. So, I tried to frighten you into staying in your own little box."
Jacklyn licked her lips and instantly regretted it. Gross… we should've bought edible glitter instead…
"I hated it."
Forgetting about the taste of sparkly art supplies for a moment, she returned her attention to her classmate, "What?"
"I hated scaring you. It felt like… dirt inside my head and I instantly regretted it. I'm sorry."
"And I forgive you."
Now it was Kyoya's turn to look at the other in surprise, "You do? Just like that?"
"Well, you meant it, right?" He nodded. "So, problem solved."
"You're not the least bit upset?"
Jacklyn grinned, "Tamaki and I talked the day after you said that stuff to me. He let me know you weren't really a bad guy. And it sounds to me like you wouldn't enjoy being the bad guy anyways. You meant your sorry, and we just proved that you're actually pretty fun when you don't have that stick up your butt. So… I think I can forgive you this one time."
Kyoya can't think of anything to say in response to that, but thankfully he doesn't have to. From the other side of the house, they hear the sound of large doors opening and then shutting, loud words and laughter and the occasional bickering floating through the hallways. The others were back.
Jacklyn looked down at the remaining packets of glitter still clenched in her hands. Then she saw the many remaining packets still on the table beside them. She looked at Kyoya and held up her handful, cocking an eyebrow.
To her surprise, Kyoya non-verbally agreed immediately.
*Itty Bitty Time Skip here*
The five boys walked into the dining room, conversations ending abruptly as soon as they saw the carnage.
Tamaki's mouth fell open as he surveyed the damage. A few chairs were knocked over here and there. The tabletop and floor were sprinkled with glitter everywhere. Even the doors to the living room had a little bit stuck to them.
Slowly, they all inched further into the room, looking around for a sign of the two they'd left behind.
"What in the world?"
"What happened in here?"
"Do you think something happened to Jac-chan?"
"Wow. Whatever it was, Kyoya is going to have an absolute fit."
Tamaki slowly inched towards the living room doors, doing his best not to slip and fall amid the piles of glitter beneath his feet. He eventually pushed the two doors open and his jaw dropped further, "I believe that's a massive understatement."
The other four make their way over to him and stare. If they thought the dining room was back, the living room was ten times worse. The couch was nothing but glitter. The ornaments Kyoya had been going through were all but buried under the stuff, as well as Kyoya's beloved laptop. At least the top was closed, so hopefully that would've protected it from a majority of the damage. It looked like that area had been the center for whatever had happened, because there didn't appear to be any glitter anywhere else in the room. They inched forward, still searching for their missing club members.
"Do you think Jac-chan did this on purpose? To get back at Kyo-chan?"
"It that's the case-"
"-then we should start looking for the blood spatter."
"But where are they?"
"I don't know… but with all of my servants gone for the holiday, how are we supposed to clean this up?"
"Easy."
The five turned around just in time to see Jacklyn and Kyoya closing the doors and chucking opened packets of glitter at them. They stumbled backwards, the twins actually falling over the back of the couch and popping up with blue and silver slashed across their red hair.
The seven stared at each other for a brief moment, two of them covered from head to toe with glitter and sporting wide grins, and the rest of them wearing shocked faces and most having only one solid line of the stuff going across their chests.
"We leave it for now."
Kyoya and Jacklyn ran back through the dining room doors just as their friends began pursuing them with mock battle cries.
*Later that night*
Tamaki turned this way and that in his mirror, the light in his room making his whole body seem to shimmer with half an hour's worth of glitter. He pressed two of his fingers to his lips, then threw his arm out in his signature extravagant way of blowing a kiss. A small cloud of glitter fell from the sweeping motion, slowly spiraling towards the floor.
The blond smiled at his reflection, "I think this might actually work in our favor…"
Holy cow I finished this chapter before my other ones! I'm so freaking proud of myself for this! And yes, that little bit at the end was a reference to where I got the inspiration for this chapter. After all, Tamaki had to get his sparkles from somewhere!
And YAY Kyoya and Jacklyn are now FRIENDS! No, they are not going to hate each other after this. There are a few things that you simply cannot do together and continue to despise each other afterwards, and getting into an all out glitter war is one of them.
If you liked this chapter as much as I do, then please favorite, follow, and review!
See you next chapter!