A Completely New and Supposedly Educational Experience

DISCLAIMER: I do not own Ouran High School Host Club or anything else that I reference! I only own my OCs!

Chapter Twelve

Eva's POV

Julianna's SUV pulled into my driveway at around noon the next day. We'd decided that morning that it would be better to do this earlier, giving us more time to hang out afterwards. I waved out the dining room window at her and Rosie, who was in the back seat. Julianna honked the horn at me and motioned for me to hurry up. I laughed and grabbed the bag I'd packed.

"Mom, Julianna and Rosie are here!" I called, pulling on a coat.

"Alright. Have fun and stay warm, okay?" My mom told me, handing me my bag and kissing my forehead.

"Got it. We'll be back soon! Love you mom!" I told her as I left.

"Hey Eva!" Julianna smiled as I stumbled into the back seat next to Rosie.

"Hey! How was everyone's Thanksgiving?" I asked as Julianna pulled out.

"It was good. My cousins came to visit from upstate and we all watched Lord of the Rings, to celebrate me finally finishing the books." Rosie told me.

"Muahaha! Welcome to the nerd side!" I laughed.

I'd gotten Rosie interested in Tolkien's works a while back (mainly due to me constantly talking about them) and had lent her my copies of the book to read. Now, if she reads the Silmarillion too, we'll be in business. I thought, laughing slightly.

"My Thanksgiving was good. How was yours?" Julianna asked. I stiffened up and swallowed the lump that was forming in my throat.

"It was good, aside from the horrific family drama." I replied after a moment.

"Alright, what happened?" Rosie responded, raising an eyebrow.

"Same shit that always does. Toni caused chaos and 'accidently' wrecked a drawing Ryan was doing and Victoria got all bossy when Ryan got upset over it. I tried to tell her to tell my aunt what Toni did and Victoria was all like 'He's a kid, he doesn't know any better'. Then the two of us got into a verbal fight and Victoria ran out crying. So then her mom comes and yells at me and makes me apologize to Victoria." I told them.

Julianna's grip on the steering wheel tightened and I saw her making a face in the rearview mirror. Rosie pulled a face, brushed her bangs away from her eyes and glared at nothing. I looked between them both and shifted uncomfortably.

"That's so stupid." Julianna commented.

"I know." I muttered.

"You shouldn't have had to apologize. Your cousin was the one being a bitch. Is she still dating Tony?" Rosie asked.

"Ugh. Yes. Don't even get me started on that." I groaned.

"Wait a minute…What?" Julianna asked.

"Victoria and my friend from archery are dating. But she acts all sweet and stuff around him. It's extremely irritating and very awkward because all Tony does is talk about her. It's even more annoying because she tells people 'Oh we're not dating; we're just friends' meanwhile Tony starts conversations with 'So me and my girlfriend…'" I replied, imitating my cousin's voice as I quoted her.

"So she's friend-zoning him?" Julianna responded.

"More or less." I told her.

"What exactly does he see in her?" Rosie mused.

"I'm not sure. I guess she can be kind of fun sometimes, when she's not bitching at you for something or other." I answered.

We pulled into the parking lot of the park's picnic area about five minutes later. The picnic area was separated a bit from the playgrounds and had tons of trees. It also looked like it hadn't been touched since it snowed again the previous night. Julianna hopped out of the car and passed some clothes to us from the trunk. Rosie and I would change in the car.

"Is there a reason you always seem to put me in green?" I asked, looking at the dark green and black sweater, black leggings and boots I'd been handed.

"You look good in greens like that; it brings out your eyes." Julianna replied. I shrugged.

Once Rosie changed into the floor length, long sleeved red dress Julianna had given her, we got out of Julianna's car. Julianna then took some pictures of us in those and a few other holiday outfits.

"Alright. The fashion club advisor wants us to also work on action photos and videos. So I got my hands on the coats we'd designed and thought it would be fun to take pictures and videos of you two having a snowball fight. What do you think?" Julianna explained, rifling through one of the bags she'd brought.

"Yeah, that'd be cool." Rosie said, peering over Julianna's shoulder.

"Cool. Go change!" Julianna replied, shoving another outfit at each of us.

Rosie's coat outfit consisted of a dark blue bubble coat, multi-colored scarf and matching mittens and the furry black boots I'd worn for the holiday pictures. My outfit included an ice bubble blue coat, and white mittens, gloves, jeans and boots. I didn't really want to ask where Julianna had found white skinny jeans.

"Ready?" Julianna asked once we'd changed. Rosie and I both gave her a thumbs up. "Go!" Julianna shouted.

Immediately, Rosie launched a snowball at me. I ducked, made a snowball and threw it at her stomach. The two of us threw snowballs at each other for a while before Rosie stuffed the hood of my jacket with snow and pulled it over my head. I squealed and jumped around trying to get the snow out while Rosie and Julianna laughed. After returning the favor to Rosie, I had another idea.

"Rosie. Let's throw snow at the camera." I whispered.

Rosie nodded and we both smiled mischievously in Julianna's direction. She snapped a picture, but eyed us warily. Rosie and I grinned and threw snowballs towards Julianna. She laughed and took a picture.

"Nice, guys." She said sarcastically, mock-glaring at us. "That was actually a really nice picture." She added.

After the photo-shoot, Julianna and Rosie hung out at my house for a while. We got back at around 1:30, but my friends stuck around until it started getting dark. Once Julianna and Rosie left, I checked my email for the first time that day. Kaoru had emailed me.

'A lot of people are really self-centered and mean like that if you really think about it. It is a bit sad that it shows so much in high school age people though. I've never really thought about it. It's never affected me because no one is really mean to me and Hikaru. I think that might be because we're in the Host Club and all the girls at school either like us enough to be nice or fawn over us. It might also be because we're rich and people are a bit scared of the power our family has. Money causes a lot of competition between the people at my school. I like hearing what you think about things, it gives me something to think about. Thanks for that, Eva. Really. Yeah, Hikaru and I call Tamaki-sempai Boss because he's in charge of the club. I think the second thing hurts more. Some people honestly don't care enough to get to know us each individually. That part bothers me. Physically we're the same, but that's fine and we use it to mess with the host club's guests sometimes. But Hikaru and I have different personalities. That's what bothers both of us; that people think we're the same person mentally and emotionally too. Do you get what I'm saying? Yeah, sometimes the way you describe your family (like your cousin) versus the way you do friends like Rosie or Gianna shows that you don't really get along with some members of your family. But I get that. You and your cousin seem to have completely opposite personalities. Ooh. I hope your friend gets better. It feels a little weird saying 'get better' that way. But…Oh you know what I mean. How are you?'

I find it funny how Kaoru says I give him things to think about…Does he realize that it works both ways? That his perspective gives me food for thought too? I wondered.

'This 'giving you things to think about' thing works both ways. I like hearing your perspective; finding out how you see things. I think that's part of the point of this whole Pen-Pal Program; to learn about how other people our age learn and think. So thank you too, Kaoru. Hmm. That money thing is interesting. I figured that's why you called him Boss. Very funny. I can understand completely what you're saying with that. I feel a bit bad for you and your brother. It must be rough sometimes. It bothers me too (well, pisses me off quite a bit actually); the fact that people can say something like that without considering you or Hikaru's feelings. It's really just rude (and pretty cruel in a way) and I can understand how and why it hurts. Don't worry about that anymore. If they'd do something like that, they're not worth your time. I'd never do that or anything else that would hurt you either. Like I said, you're my friend; I don't intentionally hurt my friends. Hmm. You're exactly right; my cousin and I do have opposite personalities. The two of us are like water and oil. And people wonder why we can't get along. Yeah, I get what you're trying to say. I hope Reyna gets better too.'

I sent the email and put my iPod away. Once I did, I wandered downstairs where my parents and brother were. My mom was watching TV, Ryan was drawing something at one of the desks and dad was working on fixing the other computer. I vaguely paid attention to the TV; my mind was racing far too fast for me to be able to pay attention to the local news right now.

Kaoru's right. One of the biggest issues in society is money. I guess that applies to every walk of life, whether you come from a rich family like he does or if you're an everyday person trying to get enough to get by. It makes people do crazy, desperate things. It also really bothers me, what Kaoru said about how people perceive him and Hikaru. I'm not sure why it pisses me off so much, other than that people are exceedingly rude and cruel and obnoxious to say it to their faces…Maybe I actually am crushing on my pen-pal. I thought.

~~~~~meep~~~~~meep~~~~~meep~~~~~

Monday morning rolled around too fast for my liking. I got pretty nervous on the way to school; wondering if Reyna would really be back and what would happen. You've got to stop doing this. Everything's going to be…fine. You'll see. Just calm down, damn it! I told myself.

Everything played out as usual before first period; Rosie and I both tried not to throttle the idiots who hung out by my locker, waded through an ocean of people trying to get through the lobby and Rosie bolted up the stairs to be on time.

"So I heard that Reyna Ryan is coming back to school today." I heard one of the more snotty girls whisper to her friends as I walked towards the band room. I think her name was Ellie.

I froze in my tracks. Well, so much for everything turning out fine. I thought bitterly, craning my neck to see over the crowd of people, glaring at nothing in particular and attempting to disguise the fact that I was eavesdropping.

"Yeah. I heard that too. Really, I don't know why she's back. She could give the rest of us mono or whatever she had." One of Ellie's friends replied, pulling a face and loudly snapping her gum. It's way too early in the morning to be chewing gum. I thought.

"Pfft. She didn't have mono. She was in some sort of rehab or something. She's nuts, we all knew that. Did you know she tried to kill herself twice over the summer?" Ellie continued.

"Oh my god, seriously? What an emo freak. What kind of person would do that?" One of the other girls in the group replied.

"One who suffers through these sorts of insults every day and is fed up with no one paying attention or doing anything to stop it. One who has enough issues to deal with aside from petty teenagers trying to feel better about themselves by making others feel like crap…One who had completely lost hope because of morons like you." I muttered, thinking out loud.

"What did you say to me, Eva?" Ellie asked, grabbing my shoulder. My eyes widened. Shit. She heard that? How is that possible with this kind of crowd?! I wondered.

"Huh?" I turned around to see the dark haired girl glaring at me and twirling a piece of hair on her other hand.

"Don't play dumb, you little bitch. What did you say?" she asked again.

"I didn't say anything to you. I was talking to myself; I do that sometimes. I think I forgot something at my locker, so I'll just go get it." I told her, turning away and speed-walking towards the band room.

As I left, I heard Ellie whispering something to her friends, undoubtedly about what a 'weirdo', 'nerd', or whatever the insult of the day was that I am. I rolled my eyes and pushed open the door to the band room. It was still relatively early, so I had time to set up. I looked around the room, freezing up when I noted that the only other student here was another flute player; one with long, curly auburn hair and (significantly less bright than I remembered) blue eyes. Reyna was back in school.

I smiled politely at her as I took my seat, a whirlwind of emotions bouncing around my head. She's back! I can't believe it. I-I want to be happy that she's made enough progress to be back and I wan tot be glad to see her again…But judging by what I just saw outside, my irrational amount of worry might not be so irrational. I thought as I put my instrument together. Once I did, I moved to sit next to Reyna.

"Hey Eva." She looked to me, smiling slightly. The smile didn't reach her eyes like it used to.

"Hey. How have you been? I haven't seen you in a while." I replied, albeit awkwardly.

"Eh. I've been alright…I guess. Yeah, there's been some stuff going on. How have you been?" Reyna replied.

"I've been worse. What classes are you taking?" I asked. Reyna looked at me for a minute.

"You seem like you've been better too. Do you want to see my schedule?" Reyna responded, handing me a piece of paper.

"Thanks. You seem like you've had better days too." I told her, reading her schedule. Reyna laughed and for a minute, it seemed like a real laugh.

"Yeah, I've definitely been better. But whatever." She shrugged.

"We've got English and gym together." I told Reyna, handing her the schedule.

"Really? That's cool. What are the teachers like? Who's in our class?" she asked. I had a feeling she wasn't all that interested in the teachers as much as she was the other students.

"Coach Kowalski is nice and pretty chill. He's the really tall one with the platinum blonde hair. Mr. Aberman, our English teacher, is great. He's kind of eccentric sometimes, really sarcastic too. He's the kind of teacher who actually makes them; meaning the other kids in the class, think about the things we're reading. He makes them attempt to think outside the box too." I explained.

"Wait, there's a box? I wasn't aware of this! How do you think inside the box?" Reyna asked, acting genuinely confused.

I couldn't help it; I laughed. Part of the reason was because Reyna's words were absolutely true. Neither of us was very fond of 'thinking inside the box'. The other part of the reason was that her joking around gave me a little more hope that she'd get better.

"I don't know what this box they're talking about is either. Really? You're asking me, of all people, how to think inside the box?" I responded once we both stopped laughing. Reyna smiled.

"I missed you, Eva." She told me.

"Missed you too, Reyna." I told her before moving back to my seat.

The teacher, along with the majority of the band, filed into the room a few minutes later. I shrugged and started warming up my flute. This is good, I suppose. Reyna definitely seems better. I'm glad. She'll get through this…and I'll be there to help her if she needs me. So will Rosie. I don't think either of us wants to see her fall again.

Author's Note: I AM SO SORRY! Really, I apologize profusely for making you all wait this long. Rant at me if you must, I don't even have an excuse this time. Anyway ( if you're not too mad at me)…READ AND REVIEW PLEASE!