A/n: I decided not to give Mrs. Ohtori a first name, since I don't know about anyone else, but when I read other people's fanfics I get confused when they add names to characters in the canon. I'm always thinking 'who is this?' then I have to go back and reread the part that introduces them. It's distracting. Maybe that's just me, but either way, I want to make it as simple as possible. :)

I'll come back and add more author's notes including review responses later. Right now I just want to get this chapter published! :)

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Chapter 21

Fuyumi gave an apology to Dr. Sohma, but the woman waved it away. "I've seen more than one young woman in my office who was raped. It's never easy. Don't judge her," she told Fuyumi.

"Oh I don't," Fuyumi replied. She saw Dr. Sohma looking at her shrewdly, as if guessing Fuyumi had been raped herself. Or maybe that was Fuyumi's imagination. Either way, she changed the subject. "Haruhi's father wants her to get on birth control. Could you write her a prescription?"

Dr. Sohma's brow furrowed. "Normally I like to speak to the patient herself about birth control so she knows all her options and everything. But I can tell the young lady is through with doctors for today, and I doubt she'll want to come back anytime soon. Very well. I'll write a prescription and you can have her call me to discuss this further as soon as she's ready," she said.

Fuyumi listened as Dr. Sohma explained the instructions for Haruhi's birth control pills and antibiotics, and where to pick up the prescription, then thanked the doctor and left. As she walked into the parking lot, she saw Haruhi pacing around the car with suppressed rage. The young woman's fists were clenched, her face was red, and there were tears streaming down her cheeks. Fuyumi knew exactly what she was going through. For a minute she stood paralyzed, feeling the all-too-real remembered pain of her own trauma, but then pulled herself together. She couldn't focus on herself when Haruhi needed help.

Fuyumi walked up to the young woman, who stopped and looked up at the sky. She said, "I'm sorry about that. I didn't mean to be rude to you or Dr. Sohma. I hope she wasn't offended."

Fuyumi shook her head and said reassuringly, "No, she wasn't offended. She's seen a lot of rape victims in her line of work, and she's very understanding."

"Victims," Haruhi said bitterly. "That's what he wanted me to be. That thug. That jerk!" The young woman's rage exploded. "I want to kick his face in!" she yelled, and kicked the nearest tire of the car. "I hate him! I hate him! I hate him!" she shouted as she kicked the tire again, and again, and again, working out her anger.

Fuyumi looked around and saw other people staring at Haruhi as if she was a raging lunatic. Not wanting a scene, she held up her hands in a calming gesture and said, "Whoa, whoa, whoa. Calm down, it's all right. It's all right."

Haruhi stopped and took several deep breaths to regain control of herself. She looked ashamed for her outburst. "I'm sorry, Fuyumi," she said, giving Fuyumi a bow. "Thank you for convincing me to come today. You're right, it is a relief to know I'm not pregnant or have a horrible disease or anything."

"Certainly," Fuyumi replied. "Dr. Sohma sent your prescription for the antibiotics to the pharmacy. Let's stop there and then get some lunch, ok?"

Haruhi nodded and took another deep breath. "Ok," she said, and they got into the car. As they pulled out of the parking lot Haruhi asked, "Did you do stuff like that after you were attacked?"

It took a second for Fuyumi to answer, as the memory surfaced from where she had tried to bury it. "Once. Well, once in public. I did it a lot when there was no one to hear me. But one time, a few months after the attack, I started screaming at one of my older brothers right outside a classroom at Ouran University. He told my father, and he was livid with me. He pulled me out of school and sent me to a convent in Spain, and told me not to come back until I could comport myself like a proper lady, not a common street-walker," she said.

Looking back, she couldn't remember which of her brothers it was or what he had done to make her lose her temper. She just knew that she had been behaving all her life as she had been trained to, not showing any sort of negative emotion or letting others see anything but a well-bred and charming young debutante. Yet the rage and pain and shame and all the emotions she had been feeling in the months since her rape couldn't be contained any longer and she snapped. She made a huge scene in front of every high-society university student and faculty member in the Human Development and Family Studies department and ended up paying dearly for it.

In her peripheral vision, she could Haruhi look at her, aghast. "That was harsh," she said. She was obviously referring to being exiled to Spain by her father, though Fuyumi felt that wasn't as bad a punishment as the vicious rumors that sprang up because of it.

Forgetting the gossip for the moment, Fuyumi replied, "My father can be one of the harshest people you've ever met, especially when it comes to upholding the family image." There was a mixture of sadness and pain in her voice.

"Does he know what happened to you?" Haruhi asked, tentatively.

Fuyumi's felt a lump form in her throat, but she swallowed and said in a dead voice, "The guys who did it spread the word that I was a whore who slept with all of them willingly and enjoyed it. My family was in marriage talks with one of them, and his father called it off when he heard about it. He said he didn't want a whore as a daughter-in-law," Fuyumi said, putting a sneer into that last sentence. "My father was more furious than I had ever seen him before. Furious with me that is, not the guy's father. I tried to tell him what happened, but he said it was my fault for going into the room with a bunch of guys in the first place. I think he would have hit me if my mother wasn't there to stop him."

Fuyumi remembered the confrontation vividly. She had seen her father hit her brothers before, but he never touched a woman as far as she knew. Yet as she tried to explain that it was the fault of the men who did it, not hers, that the man she was in marriage talks with and thus thought she could trust lured her into a secluded room during a society function at his family's mansion, that he didn't tell her his two friends were waiting inside, that the 'respectable' sons of some of Yoshio Ohtori's most respectable friends and business associates were in truth horrible raping monsters, his rage had exploded. He raised his hand to strike, but her mother grabbed it and forced him to calm himself. He still made Fuyumi apologize for 'slandering' the 'decent' young men and to promise never to accuse them of such a heinous act ever again to anyone.

Forcing the memory out of her mind, Fuyumi continued, "He wanted to send me to a convent - the same one he sent me to later when I yelled at my brother in public. He said I was to repent my whorish ways and become a nun. He only relented when he found out there were business executives who either hadn't heard the gossip or who were willing to have their sons marry me despite it." A disgrace to the family honor she may have been, but she was also profitable, and that's what really counted with him.

Haruhi just stared at her, shocked and horrified. "Oh my god, that's awful!" she whispered.

By that time they had reached the pharmacy drive-thru. Fuyumi checked herself in the large mirror on the visor, put on a sunny smile, and drove up to the window. As she had been trained to since childhood, she talked to the clerk in a cheerful voice, not showing the slightest hint of what she was feeling inside.

When they had the prescriptions and pulled away from the drive-thru, she let her mask fall away. She didn't cry as she wanted to, but instead spoke in a calm, almost dead voice. "It was awful," she agreed with Haruhi. "Everyone in our social circle thought I was a whore. I wasn't allowed to tell anyone I was raped, and I doubt they would have believed it anyway. No one blamed the men who did it or thought less of them for engaging in an orgy, willing or not. Apparently men are allowed to 'sow their wild oats'" she said, lifting one hand off the wheel to move her fingers in air quotes, "but for a woman to do that kind of thing makes her a dirty slut." She glanced over at Haruhi and gave her a sardonic smile. "Now you know why there's a host club at Ouran but no hostess club. No self-respecting high-society girl would want to put herself on that kind of display."

"But they're fine with being guests at a host club?" Haruhi asked.

"There's a difference," Fuyumi explained. "It's the boys who are drawing all that attention to themselves, like rock stars. The girls are just fans. You never see fans in the tabloids, unless they murder the rock stars or something. It's the same kind of thing with the host club guests. Besides, you've seen how the boys are. They can charm everyone they meet - high school girls, parents, faculty . . . everyone who initially disapproves of the host club members or their guests comes to change their mind in the end, especially with Kyoya involved. He's a wizard at getting people to feel the way he wants them to."

"Does Kyoya know . . . what happened to you?" Haruhi asked.

"No," Fuyumi replied. "He was young enough that he never heard the gossip, and no one in our family ever talked about it in his hearing. All he knows is that our father was mad at me for some reason. Considering our father gets mad a lot, he didn't question it."

Haruhi said, "I'm surprised he never heard about it. I've seen how good he is at ferreting out everyone's secrets."

Fuyumi shrugged. "He wasn't as good at it at the time. He's gotten better with experience. Fortunately for me, the gossip has long since died away," she said.

"And your mother? Your two older brothers? What did they say?" Haruhi asked.

Fuyumi said, "Akito and Yuichi never said anything about it. I know they heard the rumors, but I don't know what they thought of them. I was too consumed with my own pain and darkness to really pay attention to them at the time anyway. As for my mother . . . " She suddenly felt very tired. "My mother loves me, and she believed me when I told her I was raped, but she was always brought up to be a lady and to uphold the family image and family honor. She blamed me for going off alone with the man in the first place. She was never hostile about it, though. I don't think she really knew what to think or how to act, so she took me to the doctor, stopped my father from hitting me, and then tried to pretend the attack never happened."

They stopped at a red light and Fuyumi took the opportunity to look at Haruhi. She said, "Actually, her reaction to finding out what happened to you wasn't what I expected. It makes me think she regrets how she handled everything back then."

"What do you mean, her reaction?" asked Haruhi, frowning in confusion.

Fuyumi explained, "She went to see your father last night. To talk to him one parent to another. She claims she did it to apologize to him in person for our family's failure to protect you and to see to it herself that our family's obligation to you was met, but really I think she wants to help your father avoid making the same mistakes with you that she did with me. If she can help you guys, then it might absolve her of some of the harm she caused me. It's also possible she wants to commiserate with someone who is going through the same thing she went through. As far as I know, your father is the only other parent my mother knows who had a daughter get raped and who actually loves her and is torn up about it."

"Oh," Haruhi said as the light turned green again. "No wonder your mother was out so late last night." She paused and slumped in her seat. "My dad must feel awful about that. Some stranger coming in and seeing him drunk like that, knowing that he scared his daughter into running away in the middle of the night."

"Don't worry, my mother is very good with people. I'm sure if your father felt any embarrassment, my mother was able to put him at ease," Fuyumi said reassuringly. "Speaking of your father, you might want to let him know what the doctor said. I'm sure he's anxious to hear it." She saw a gas station and pulled into it, stopping next to a pump. "Here, I'll gas up the car while you call him, ok?"

"Ok, thanks," Haruhi replied.

Fuyumi got out of the car and started to pump the gas. She saw through the car window that Haruhi was talking on her cell phone. From the young woman's body language, it seemed she was trying to reassure her father that everything was all right but that he was having trouble believing that. Turning around to give Haruhi some privacy, Fuyumi took her own cell phone out of her pocket and dialed her mother.

"Fuyumi?" came the woman's voice on the other line.

"Yeah, Mother, it's me," Fuyumi confirmed. "Is this a bad time?"

"I can spare a few moments," her mother replied. "I had everything set up so my assistant could handle things while I was on vacation, but even so I have a lot of catch-up to do."

"A security guard's job is never done," said Fuyumi with a smile. It was a joke between them. Mrs. Ohtori wasn't actually a security guard. She was the Chief Security Officer at the Ohtori Group. It was one of the highest positions in the company and required a lot of work. She often had to put in 70- or 80-hour work weeks and was therefore not home much or involved in her children's' lives. Even her husband, who was CEO of the Ohtori Group, often didn't work as much as she did. That made Fuyumi more than a little sad since it meant that the parent she and her brothers had more contact with was their callous and demanding father, not their kind and good-humored mother.

"True," Mrs. Ohtori sighed, not responding to Fuyumi's banter. "I assume you're calling about Miss Fujioka?"

"Yes," replied Fuyumi. She explained how Haruhi was upset about not being allowed to choose whether or not she skipped school this morning, but that she agreed to go to the gynecologist. Fuyumi didn't tell her mother the results of the doctor's exam and her mother didn't ask; they were both well-versed in patient confidentiality. "She's on the phone with her father now. I'm getting gas and then I'm going to take her to lunch," she finished.

"Good," said Mrs. Ohtori. "He's a good man, Mr. Fujioka. A wonderful father. Miss Fujioka is lucky to have him."

"Yeah, she is," Fuyumi said wistfully. Then she said, "Speaking of fathers . . ." She trailed off, not needing to say more.

"Your father is still in Indonesia. He's not due to be back until next week. Tuesday at the earliest," Mrs. Ohtori assured her.

"And he still doesn't know...?" once again Fuyumi trailed off.

"No. I convinced him to stay away from phones or devices when we were at the resort, so he couldn't have heard anything without me knowing about it. And he was on a plane when I finally did hear about it so I had time to take steps to make sure he stays in the dark. Your brothers, too, though I doubt that would be an issue anyway," Mrs. Ohtori said confidently.

"But how can you be sure Father won't find out? He finds out everybody's secrets?" asked Fuyumi, worriedly.

"Honey," Mrs. Ohtori chided her, "your father may be the best businessman on the planet to find out secrets, but that's because I'm his spymaster!" Fuyumi could imagine the smug look on her mother's face as she said it. "Believe me, I can make sure he doesn't know any more than he needs to know, particularly when it comes to Kyoya."

"Good," Fuyumi said, relieved. She saw Haruhi hang up the phone then lean back against the seat with her eyes closed. "I got to go, Mother. Thanks for everything," she said.

Mrs. Ohtori said, "Thank you, Fuyumi. I'm glad you get to spend time with Miss Fujioka. I think . . . " she paused. "I think it will be good for you."

Fuyumi raised her eyebrows in surprise. "You're probably right, Mother, but that's not something I'd expect you to say," she said.

"I . . . made a lot of mistakes, sweetie. With you. Back then. I'm sorry," Mrs. Ohtori apologized, sadness and sincerity in her voice.

Even though Fuyumi had suspected her mother regretted what she did five years ago, actually hearing her say it took her by surprise. Tears welled in the corners of her eyes and she said softly, "Thanks . . . Mom."

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