Chapter 1: The hair clip (by Serina)
The silver morning light gently veneered the gloom inside the well furnished room of Kyoya Ootori, covering, concealing and hiding the peculiar yearning thirst, injected in the air, with cheerfulness and lighthearted mood. Mornings were never cheerful. He hated them. He hated the maids who woke him up, he hated everyone around and the whole world. His throbbing head, tired eyes and aching body hated mornings with all their might. This particular morning was no exception, and when he opened his eyes, he really wished the world to disappear forever and for him to sleep more. Forcing himself out of the bed, Kyoya rubbed his temples and tried to open his eyes, adjusting to the light in the room that had penetrated through the curtained windows. Maybe new curtains would do a better job at keeping the annoying morning light away from his tender eyes.
He knew he wouldn't be awake if he didn't take a good, cold shower. Mornings seemed even more disgusting, now that he thought of having a cold shower. He had known he would feel like this last night, unfortunately, he couldn't help but stay up and finish some of his work relating to the club. It has been a while since he started a host club with his classmate Tamaki Suoh, a rather eccentric and obnoxious idiot, who he happened to feel connected to, regardless of the guy's antics. The club had a lot of financial problems that he needed to solve, thanks to the extravagant products they bought to run the said club at Ouran High school.
Tamaki might have been a fool, but he was a convincing fool as he managed to get him and some other young men from school into his club, where he proclaimed himself a king. Kyoya found it amusing but it was a big entertainment in his rather dull life. Not to mention he met more people through the club and learnt about the children of different elite families than he would do any other way.
Every day he had to do the same mundane tasks and it made him feel demeaned and degraded, as if he was not a human being but some robot, some unimportant machine that should follow a certain pattern and didn't have the ability to be spontaneous. He got dressed, and and refusing to have breakfast, headed towards the car. Tachibana was already waiting and swiftly opened the door for him. Getting into the car, he leaned against the soft squab of the seat. He sighed, feeling a mild pain in his back, and opened his notebook. The school files should have been updated. He heard a new honour student had been accepted to Ouran. He wondered who had the nerve to study that hard, not to mention all the pressure and difficulty of going the same school with aristocratic, rich kids. How would the differences in social class seem to the commoner.
He rubbed his eyes again, before clicking on the school records file to access the list. Looking at the admission date, he found the new student; Haruhi Fujioka. The small photograph in the file showed a beautiful girl with big brown eyes. Kyoya honestly expected a guy not a girl. He quickly glanced over her information and closed the computer. She was in the same class with the Hitachiin twins. She didn't seem important enough for him to bother to investigate any further, but he could perhaps ask about her if he wanted.
Haruhi, she had the same name as her, the pretty girl he used to play with. Involuntarily a smile graced his lips and he closed his eyes praying for more memories of her from his mind. He didn't know why he clung so much to those memories, but they warmed his heart and put him at ease whenever he felt nervous. It was silly to think about someone who was lost in his past so long ago, but he wanted to think about her. He wanted it as if it was some medicine to cure the anxiety and fears that were poisoning him.
He wanted to find her. But he only knew her name and nothing else. If only he had something else, some clue, he would try to find her, but searching her now was realistically impossible. There were too many Haruhis in Japan, not to mention she could have been from a different country and even though Ootori family had the best police forces, Kyoya knew, finding her was like looking for a needle in a haystack, but that needle was the key to opening the door to the happiness imprisoned in his soul.
The car stopped and Kyoya knew that they parked in front of the school. He didn't bother to wait for Tachibana to open the door for him. Getting out of the car and taking his schoolbag and computer, he slowly walked towards the school.
It was warm and bright, but not exactly sunny. Kyoya thought the weather was strange. Maybe it would rain today. Rainy days made him moody, he felt more lonely and longed for someone's company and he knew he wouldn't be able to ask anyone to sit around with him, which made him even moodier than he was. She didn't like rainy days either. He remembered how once they were playing in the park and the first drops of rain made her panic and curl in a corner. He remembered how he found her crawling inside a small hut in the park, covering her face. He has hated rainy days since that day and he has always wanted someone's company since that day. Holding her hand in the small hut and sitting next to her while it was raining outside was his favourite childhood memory.
He sighed again frustrated that he missed her or rather his over-glorified idea of her every day even more. Suddenly someone barged out of corner, bumping into his chest and stumbling backwards and falling on the ground. A small expression of disgust appeared on Kyoya's face when he looked at the rude oaf who bumped him. He had an awful haircut, horribly unfitting clothes and huge glasses. He was on the ground collected his belongings that were knocked all over the ground because of the contact. The guy looked at him timidly and bowing apologized. He looked really intimidated and Kyoya found it amusing. He wanted to accept his apology and say he hoped it wouldn't happen again, but the little rude thing bowed again and ran away towards the school.
Kyoya stood there completely puzzled and shocked and then snorted angrily. Who was that obnoxious, clumsy oaf!? He wanted to leave too, but noticed a small hairpin on the ground. He tentatively knelt and took the small clip and carefully looked at it. It just fell from the person's bag. He wanted to go after the guy and give it back to him and question why he was carrying female stuff with him, when he heard a familiar voice.
"Kyoya," it was Tamaki, "wait for me."
Kyoya rolled his eyes and then turned to face the blonde idiot.
"Good morning, Tamaki," he greeted him with a polite smile.
Tamaki, reaching Kyoya, threw his arms around his neck, as if he was some toy and dragged with him. Kyoya had to put extra effort to get rid of his embrace. The blonde beamed at him blabbering about something, that Kyoya felt he couldn't listen to just right in the morning, but eventually started to, after Tamaki decided to ask him questions and demand his opinion.
As they entered the school, Kyoya noticed the little thing that bumped into him minutes ago. His eyes glinted with interest and he told Tamaki he had something important to do before the class and walked over to the guy.
The boy was trying to find something in his backpack, because he was sitting in the corner and rolling the old bag around, shaking it, as if hoping something would fall down.
"Did you lose something?" Kyoya asked smoothly, pushing his glasses on the bridge of his nose.
He looked up at him a little surprised and baffled and dumbly nodded.
"My mother's hairpin," he said in a soft voice.
Kyoya frowned. This guy's voice was so soft, it sounded as if he was a girl. He took out the pin from his pocket and held it up.
"Are you speaking about this?" he asked with a smirk.
Seeing the pin in his hands, the person jumped up and tried to snatch it away, but Kyoya managed to lift it higher and hold out of his reach. He let out a small chuckle, seeing his confused and horrified face.
"I'd think I deserve a small 'thank you' for bringing this here to you," he said, locking his eyes with the guy. He couldn't really see his eyes behind those ugly huge glasses, but he supposed eye contact was a good way to intimidate one, even when it wasn't exactly direct. And he was right, because his stern stare made the guy to back up a little and look at him cautiously.
"Thank you," he said with a bow, "would you give it to me. It's very important for me. It belonged to my mother and I don't want to lose it."
Kyoya snorted and rolled his eyes. Such dramatism, this guy was worse than Tamaki. It was just an old pin. His mother wouldn't kill him for losing it. He handed him the pin and wanted to ask what he was doing in Ouran when one of the teachers approached him.
"Fujioka-san, did you bring your medical record from your old school, we need to put it in your files," the teacher said, looking at the guy.
Fujioka-san? Kyoya's mind quickly assembled all the information he gathered. Feminine voice, small body, girly things. It was the new scholarship student, Fujioka Haruhi.
She looked like a hurricane passed over her. The girl in the files looked really pretty. He wanted to ask her a question, but she disappeared with the teacher. Something was not right about this girl. She seemed so out of ordinary and his curiosity was piqued. He wanted to know more about this girl now. He looked after her leaving figure and his lips curled into a small smile.
She was absolutely baffled with the strange school. She needed perfect grades to be able to enter this school and she had perfect grades. Studying day and night to get the scholarship and be able to attend Ouran to make her dreams come true, to make the promise she gave to herself, after her mother left, to come true. But something wasn't adding up in her mind. If this school was so hard to get into, then why did all of these kids look like total morons. The libraries were turned into beauty salons or pastry restaurants. The girls she was sitting next to were chatting so loudly about some dude named Tamaki with such exclamations and fainting noises that she couldn't concentrate on her book.
"Mother in heaven, what did I get myself into," she mumbled inwardly.
How had any of these students been accepted? Or did the school require just poor commoners to study? The rich bastards were supposed to have fun and feel like it was one of their vacations. She wanted to get into a good university and supposedly studying at Ouran would give her that opportunity, but glancing around at the pink walls and over the top baroque design of this school, she doubted anything she had read about the school could possibly be true.
The girls were getting louder and louder, and Haruhi wanted to stab her ears for listening to the amount of nonsense that was coming from the mouths of these self-proclaimed princesses. One of the girls suddenly looked at her and curled her lips in annoyance. Haruhi tried to smile at her out of politeness, but it seemed to irritate the girl even more, because she threw her long braided hair in Haruhi's face and stuck her nose up.
Haruhi rolled her eyes and sighed. All of these rich people were weird. That guy from earlier that morning came to her mind. What a jerk he was! Her heart started to beat rapidly at the thought of losing the hair-clip. Her mom had attached it to her hair just before dying. It was the last gift from her and she had always cherished it. Rich people like him wouldn't understand such things. She rubbed her palms and an image of a boy appeared in her mind. She didn't know who the boy was but she thought about him frequently. Very small fragments, dim images of his face, her sitting with him in some strange place holding hands, would come to her mind.
After her mother's death, she had a horrible breakdown and as a result of severe traumatic experience lost some of her memories. There were small holes in her mind. So slight that it didn't bother her. She remembered everyone and everything eventually, except the boy. Doctors had said that the boy was not a real person, just a coping mechanism she had created in her mind to overcome her fears and pain and she should forget him. She tried to, but her mind refused to comply. She would remember his face, his laughter. She would remember them playing with each other. It bothered her that even after so many years her mind wouldn't settle and would occasionally bring up him.
She sighed and stood up. No way she was going to study while these airheads were chitchatting like loud crows. She took her bag, closed the books and stuck them inside it. Maybe she could find some abandoned spot in this 'castle'. Walking around, she soon found that all the libraries were occupied by obnoxious, noisy cows and there was no place to study, until she came across a very silent corridor. There was a beautiful big door and a sign on top of it, 'The music room 3'. It looked quiet. She looked around and found no one. Maybe she could find some comfortable spot and study. She tentatively approached the door and slowly opened it. For some reason the door made a screechy noise and Haruhi got more cautious. She didn't have a good feeling about this place.
She popped her head in to make sure it was safe to enter, and the bright light coming from the windows inside the room, nearly blinded her. She closed her eyes, and taking a deep breath, decided to risk and entered in. She blinked her eyes, trying to shoo away the bright, colourful dots that were flowing in front of her eyes because of the bright light. The room was empty. She sighed relieved. Finally some quiet place where she would study! She walked forward and noticed a big vase right in front of a door, solemnly sitting on top of a pedestal.
She scowled, seeing the blue vase and then ignoring it, walked to the sofas. Suddenly a low voice spoke and it made her shudder with the realization that she wasn't alone.
"We are not open yet," the voice said.
Haruhi could swear the person was an arrogant, condescending ass by how superior his tone sounded. She stopped in her tracks and looked in the direction where the voice came from. She couldn't see anyone; maybe she was just imagining things after being extremely tired of hearing mindless girl blabber. She shook her head and moved forward, but suddenly froze in place. The guy from the morning was sitting on the sofa, his legs were elegantly crossed, and he was typing something in the computer on his lap. He fixed his glasses and looked up at her.
"I said we are..." he paused and looked at her curiously, "oh, I didn't know the honour student had time for this."
She narrowed her eyes at him and puzzlement clouded her mind. What did he mean? Time for what? She stared at him a little taken aback and confused. He closed his computer, and putting it aside, stood up. His glasses glinted and light smirk appeared on his lips. She involuntarily bit her lower lip and made a step backwards. This caught his attention, because the smirk on his lips widened and became more emphasized.
"So," he mumbled huskily, "what is your type?"
Type? What was he speaking about? She had to back away, as he was getting closer and closer. Her cheeks flushed and she became nervous because of his advances. What was he doing? Why was he getting close? Her heart started to beat wildly.
"Well?" he smiled, leveling his head with hers and whispering gently.
Haruhi nearly choked, smelling his cologne and finding it absolutely alluring. A furious blush covered her face.
"I...um... ahh... I came to study..." she managed to mumble.
She felt a shiver pass through her body when he looked into her eyes. What was this idiot doing? Did he decide to give her a heart attack?
"Is that so?" he said, smothering a chuckle that threatened to escape his lips.
She wanted to respond, but suddenly he stepped so close that she panicked and stepped back too fast and hit something. She turned to see the stupid vase on the pedestal falling down. The Adrenalin rushed through her body and her brain realized the fall of the vase before it would get to the floor. She tried to catch it, but of course even though her brain was fast, her body wasn't so much. A loud smashing sound filled her eardrums and she had to close her eyes not to witness the scene in front of her. She knew it broke. She knew she was in trouble.
"You just broke a rune vase worth of 8,000,000 yen," his cold, somewhat lazy voice hit her ears like some hail on a sunny summer day.
"8 million yen," she stammered.
Cold sweat covered her body and she felt sick enough to faint. How much was it going to be if... She mentally started to count and her eyes widened. She looked at him and saw his cold stare.
"I will... pay," she said gulping.
"You will pay?" he laughed loudly and she looked at him with terror, "how are you going to pay if you came to school looking like this? It seems you are not even able to afford a uniform."
Annoying rich bastard! She clenched her grip. It wasn't her fault she bumped the stupid vase. Who puts a vase in the center of a stupid room! If he didn't pester her, she wouldn't even touch the damn thing.
"I will pay," she said firmly, not being able to stand the guy's patronizing gaze.
He smiled and crossed his arms. He looked at her for a moment and then his glasses flashed. She blinked and looked at him confused.
"Maybe, I can arrange it," he said with a smile, pushing his glasses up, "you are from now on my errand girl; until you pay your debt, you do as I say."
Her eyes widened at the way he smiled at her and she found herself unable to come up with a protest.
"I hope you don't plan on running away, honour student?" he said with a cheeky smile, "if you do, drop the idea. My family hires the best police force in the country. I will make sure they find you if you suddenly decide to disappear."
She couldn't put in words, how uneasy this dude made her feel. What was with his polite face and movements when he was basically treating her and forcing her into some slave-hood! She sighed frustrated.
"Mother in heaven there is a strange boy at school who just turned me into some errand girl," she whined inwardly.
"Do you have a passport?" he asked, scanning her shocked face.
She hung her head. She had nothing else to do but to go along with this jerk's errands.
"Oh, it's Kyoya-kun," a small blonde boy jumped into the room accompanied by a very tall guy.
Haruhi had to cover her face as she tried not to cringe when she saw how they observed her and the floor, where the smashed vase lay.
"What happened here?" another person said walking in.
It was that annoying Hitachiin twin from her class, Hikaru Hitachiin. His twin entered in shortly after and four eyes looked sternly at her. She noticed how the jerk with glasses stood there in complete amusement and cheerfully scanned her face. She wanted to murder the guy.
"Let me introduce you Haruhi Fujioka, the honour stu..." he was cut off by the auburn haired boy.
"We know him," Hikaru said, "he is from our class. But doesn't talk to anyone at all, so we don't know anything about him. He is a strange guy."
Haruhi felt really violated that they would speak in her presence as if she wasn't even there. She noticed how the guy with glasses looked carefully at twins and the grin on his face widened.
"He broke the vase we were going to put up for the auction ," he explained, "so, I offered my help."
Haruhi nearly snorted at the word 'help'. The bastard called it a help to force her into being his personal errand girl.
The twins looked at each other, exchanging a curious glance, and then looked at Haruhi. The tall guy hadn't said anything since he had entered the club. He just looked at her and sighed. Suddenly the short blonde boy jumped towards her, shoving the pink bunny he had into her hands.
"Does Haru-chan want to play with Usa-chan?" he asked.
She looked at the bunny and her eyes softened, but she was confused by the sudden action the little blonde did in giving her his stuffed toy, so she looked at him astonished and blinked her eyes. Suddenly the blonde's eyes widened and he looked at her with curiosity. Then he laughed and ran to the sofa.
"So, what are we going to do about the vase?" asked the Hitachiin twins.
"I will pay for the vase and the honour student will be my errand... boy," he turned and gave her an amused look, "basically he will run club related errands that I think should be done. "
Haruhi was already sweating with all the attention towards her. She was so shocked she didn't even ask what club he was talking about.
"Club?" she mumbled looking around lost.
"Host club," Kyoya explained, "we, a group of very elite students with too much time on our hands, are running a host club, entertaining girls who also have way too much time on their hands."
She had to rub her face to make sure she was actually standing there and wasn't hallucinating this nonsense.
"Oh, Kyoya, I am sorry I am late, I had to meet my grandmo..." a blonde guy with the most perfect face Haruhi ever saw stood there in front of her staring at her and the smashed vase.
"What happened here?" he asked confused, "who is this boy? A guest?"
He walked closer to her and she realized that she had no place to walk if she went backwards she would fall into the arms of the jerk with glasses, whose name was Kyoya.
Kyoya...
Such a familiar name. Where did she hear it? It was as if she knew someone named Kyoya and he was very important. She brushed off the idea, thinking it was her nerves playing tricks on her.
"The honour student broke the vase and now he is Kyoya's errand boy," Kaoru explained.
Tamaki's face brightened up and he jumped towards Haruhi, throwing his arms around her neck, "So, the honour student is into boys. So openly gay!" he screamed.
Gay? What was this blonde idiot screaming about? How was she gay? She pushed him away and glared at him with anger.
"Tamaki stop pestering my assistant," Kyoya smiled.
Assistant? And how many words was he going to come up with to sugar-coat the fact that she was trapped in 8 million yen debt because of him.
Tamaki put his fingers on his chin and looked at Haruhi thoughtfully.
"You know he is cute," he said, walking closer to Haruhi, "maybe, we could turn him into a host."
"Cute?" Hikaru scoffed, "what did you see there that you decided to call cute?"
Kyoya was so amused and he was silently following the exchange. Yes, the girl did look like a boy, even he got deceived, but how would twins not to know when they were in the same class with her.
"I don't like the fact that you are touching my assistant," he interfered again, throwing his arm around her neck, "unfortunately, today we can't run the club any longer. So, we will postpone the 'tea garden' cosplay until tomorrow. I have already made sure that the guests know about it."
Haruhi stood there paralyzed, scared to make any moves, as if she did, he would snap her head.
"I am sorry," he smiled again, "My assistant and I need to discuss his job specification and conditions."
He dragged her with him out of the room, leaving everyone behind a little puzzled.
A/N-hi dear readers. This is Serina and I hope you enjoyed the chapter. I hope it is as enjoyable to read this work Tigyr and I write, as it is for us to write it. We have decided to do one chapter-Tigyr, one chapter-Serina type of writing and as you can see it has wild promises. I personally can't wait to see what will happen next chapter which will be written by Tigyr.
Tigyr, update soon ;) lol