Haruhi Fujioka was a smart and observant girl. However, despite the fact she was an extremely intelligent and independent individual, she was painfully oblivious to things that concerned her and things that others would claim to be 'abnormal.' However, Haruhi Fujioka liked to keep an open mind and it took a lot to make her think something was wrong about a situation. After all, she had grown up taking care of an okama father and had met several eccentric characters because of that.
So when the bell rang and the teacher entered the room, it didn't faze the already-prepared-to-take-notes girl that the only two seats left unoccupied were the ones located on either side of her.
She wasn't bothered by the shy whispers and murmurs of her fellow classmates concerning the 'cute new girl' that had attended neither the middle school branch nor elementary branch of Ouran.
Nor was she concerned by the scraps of paper with love confessions scrawled across them that narrowly missed her being. At least eight had been tossed in her direction. One had even landed on the top of the desk on her right.
What finally did manage to capture her attention was the audible sound of the door being slammed open and the two identical figures that entered into the classroom.
Gasps and squeals sounded from around the room as the girls of class 1-A delighted in the fact that they were in a class with two of the members of the already well-known Host Club.
Haruhi, on the other hand, merely observed the two handsome looking men for a moment before returning her attention to the board where the teacher had already started writing up the notes for the day's lesson.
"Oh, Kaoru," she heard a voice sigh from her right side.
"It seems we have been separated from one another!" a second voice, although identical, cried from her left.
"At least I can still gaze at you from afar," the right said in a lower tone, "even though I shall long for you to be by my side once more."
"Hikaru!" the voice on her left, Kaoru, lightly scolded, "you know we should keep that between us!"
"Moe, moe!" the girls chanted in obvious delight as they watched the scene unfold.
The guys, on the other hand, looked a bit disturbed by the spectacle that the two brothers were creating.
Haruhi, who had perfected the ability to block out everything 'unimportant' from her mind, continued to jot down notes into the plain looking blue notebook which she had purchased the week before while shopping for school supplies.
"Will you go out with me?" she briefly heard the voice on her right, Hikaru, say, "signed Jun. The guy three seats behind you and one row to the left with the spiky black hair and bleached tips."
The class, Haruhi and the teacher (who was, at that point, questioning his life's choices and wondering why he had ever wanted to be a teacher) not included, burst into laughter as one guy shouted angrily from the back of the room, "That wasn't for you!"
"Oh? That's good," the voice on her left, Kaoru, said, "I'd hate to have to compete for my brother's affections."
"So who's it for?" Hikaru asked as he whirled around to face the other speaker.
"The new girl next to you!" the voice said.
Haruhi finally let her gaze slide to the boy on her right as a piece of crumpled paper was deposited onto her desk.
She looked down at the open note and realized it was the one she had heard the boy read aloud moments earlier.
"So are you going to go out with him?" she heard Hikaru ask in a mischievous tone.
Haruhi didn't know if this was one of the many differences between her old school and this extravagant new one, but she was pretty sure she had to attend class lest her scholarship be a waste.
"We're in class right now, why would I go out?" Haruhi inquired before returning to her notes.
The class was silent for a whole minute before Hikaru and Kaoru burst out into uncontrollable laughter, hitting their hands against the top of their desks and wiping tears away from their eyes.
"Oh, she's hilarious," Hikaru said.
"Definitely," the younger twin agreed with a wide grin.
.x.o.x.o.x.
By the time lunch rolled around, Haruhi had been pelted by at least twelve more love declarations. She was encountered by three guys asking her to be their girlfriend to which she only replied with a pretty smile, saying she thought they would make "good friends."
And although her rejections possessed no ill will, she was declared "comic relief" by the two brothers.
"Fujioka-san!" Haruhi heard a familiar voice call her name.
Looking up, she spotted the intimidating looking redhead who was waving at her from the doorway. The rest of her classmates had filed out of the room in favor of heading to the cafeteria to buy lunch.
"How was your class, Kasanoda-kun?" Haruhi inquired with a bright smile as she greeted the boy. He walked into the room and claimed the abandoned seat to her right, dropping his case onto the top of the desk.
Ritsu shrugged. Like he had thought, most of the other kids had been afraid of his presence. The only ones that hadn't were the other sons and daughters of different yakuza groups, but even they hadn't bothered to befriend him.
"It was boring," he admitted as he watched her take out a plain-looking bento from her schoolbag.
"Did you bring food with you?" Haruhi inquired, having noticed that her companion had yet to take out his lunch if he had brought one to begin with.
"Er," Ritsu rubbed the back of his neck. He didn't really want to go to the cafeteria, especially since she wasn't planning on going either, "I forgot."
Haruhi's eyes widened a bit at that, and she quickly pushed her lunch box towards him.
"Here, we'll share," she said, smiling.
"Err... th-thanks," Ritsu managed to say. He attempted to hide the blush staining his cheeks by looking into the container. Everything was neatly arranged in a simple manner. No cute animal shapes or pink chopsticks or Hello Kitty patterns.
Haruhi pulled out her notebook and started on her homework, occasionally reaching into the box to grab something to eat.
Ritsu leaned back in his chair, enjoying the silence as he ate the rice ball he had picked from the bento. He couldn't help but think that Haruhi's cooking was better than anything the cafeteria might have served.
"What are you working on?" Ritsu asked a few minutes later as he held the half eaten rice ball in his hand. He was truly savoring each bite, whether it be to avoid taking too much of his companion's lunch or because it was so wonderful to be eating a cute girl's cooking - he couldn't decide.
"Mathematics," Haruhi replied, not looking up from her paper. She was almost halfway done. The homework her teacher had assigned consisted of very simple and easy to understand material.
"I suck at that subject," the redhead admitted. Actually, he was a rather poor student in general, but math was perhaps his worse.
Haruhi met his eyes with a smile, "I can try to help you with your homework whenever you need it."
Ritsu blushed and looked at the tabletop, finding the wood to be extremely interesting as he mumbled, "I'll keep that in mind."
Realizing that Haruhi had turned back to her homework, Ritsu finished off the rest of his rice ball.
A few minutes of silence had passed between the two. Ritsu ate another rice ball, thanking the girl once again for sharing her food and complimenting her on how good it tasted.
"It's just a rice ball," she replied in an amused tone before turning to a blank page in her notebook to begin on another assignment.
"But it was really good," Ritsu insisted.
"Oh man," someone interrupted from the doorway, "I guess she's not single anymore."
The redhead let his gaze slide over to where there were two boys standing. As soon as they saw he was staring at them, they quickly turned and headed in the opposite direction with nervous expressions plastered across their faces.
'What did they mean by that?' Ritsu mused to himself.
Looking at his brunette companion who was still writing in her notebook, it took a few seconds to finally register in his mind what their conversation had been about.
"MAH?!"
Haruhi's attention snapped to her redheaded friend and she looked at him with an odd expression. The boy was holding his face in his hands and had a gloomy exterior. His cheeks, or at least whatever was visible of them, were flushed as well.
"Are you feeling well, Kasanoda-kun?" Haruhi asked.
Ritsu nodded slowly, but didn't look at her.
"Oh," she said, returning to her homework, "alright."
.x.o.x.o.x.
Ritsu took his leave from her side a few minutes before classes started up once more, thanking her for sharing her meal and telling her he'd see her later.
Seven minutes before classes resumed, the two twins reentered the room and claimed the two empty seats next to the studious girl once more.
"Where were you for lunch?" Hikaru asked from her left, "We wanted to place bets on how many guys would get rejected by you by the time lunch ended."
She wondered why they had bothered to switch seats, but didn't bother asking. Instead, she inquired, "What do you mean by 'rejected'?"
Hikaru was holding back his laughter as he waved her question away. He insisted on knowing where she had been for the lunch period.
"Here," she stated as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. She was reviewing the assignment she had just completed, checking for mistakes.
"Didn't want to eat?" Kaoru asked from her right. He was propped up on his elbow, angling his head to stare at her with his warm-colored eyes.
"I ate," she said, scratching out an error with her pen.
"But you didn't go to the cafeteria," Hikaru said.
"I had a bento."
There was a pause, and Haruhi could only assume the two brothers were sharing a glance above her head as they took in the knowledge of her "commoner methods."
"Isn't that the homework assignment we were given just before lunch?" Kaoru asked as he leaned forward to peek at the paper in front of her.
"Yes," Haruhi said, rewriting a word that appeared illegible.
"And you're already done?!" the twins chimed simultaneously.
"Almost," Haruhi stated, scanning the final lines on the page.
"Kaoru," Kaoru said, "do you think she's really human?"
"I don't know, Hikaru," Hikaru replied.
Haruhi thought the two of them were odd and even went so far as to tell them so.
"What do you mean?"
"You're Hikaru," she said to her left before turning to her right and saying, "and you're Kaoru. Why are you calling each other the wrong name?"
The twins looked a bit shocked at her statement before their expressions melted into an amused one.
Kaoru was the first to speak up, asking, "What makes you think you're right? Why do you think I'm Kaoru?"
"Even if you're identical, you're different," she said in a bored tone as she placed the piece of paper that held her assignment into the notebook and flipped to the section she used for notes.
Haruhi wanted to add on, "Besides, the two of you have been very distracting throughout the whole time we've been in class. Of course I can identify which one of you is which." However, she held her tongue and instead chose to scribble the date onto the corner of the paper.
"You probably got lucky," she heard Hikaru mutter under his breath.
She shrugged his statement off. The wide-eyed girl didn't really see why it was such a big deal.
More students had arrived by that time, but the teacher had yet to enter. There was still some time remaining before class started up once more and a group of the Host Club's loyal fans decided it was the perfect opportunity to greet the "little devils."
"Hikaru! Kaoru!" one girl squealed loudly, causing Haruhi's attention to drift towards the group huddled around either twin's desk.
"Is the Host Club open today?" another girl asked.
'Host Club?' Haruhi thought to herself before returning back to her notebook. She had flipped open to the previous page and was reviewing the notes she had taken earlier.
"Yes!" the twins chimed simultaneously.
"Will we see you there?" Hikaru asked.
"Or must I keep Kaoru company?" Kaoru questioned with a sly grin, once again taking up the role as his brother.
The girls swooned.
"We'll come and keep Kaoru and you company!" the girls promised before drifting off to claim their seats once more.
"See," Haruhi, who had turned back to her notes, was interrupted by Kaoru whispering in her ear, "they couldn't tell who was who."
"So how could you?" Hikaru asked.
Haruhi didn't reply because the teacher had walked into the room, bidding the class "hello" before launching into another lecture. Thankfully, the twins chose to be quiet. However, they couldn't get the girl in between them off their minds long enough in order to actually concentrate.
Instead, it was Hikaru's unanswered question that lingered in their minds.
'So how could you?'
Thanks to everyone for reading and reviewing! I hadn't realized that Kasanoda was such a popular guy.