Chapter Sixty-Four: Refusing the King
It was just me and the hosts for this cosplay today. With the year winding down and Reiko and Yuki being in drama club as well, they weren't here because the club was doing a musical review, like they did every year, and they had rehearsals. I couldn't figure out what the cosplay was, but we were outside in the courtyard and the customers loved it. Tamaki's customers were lined up to sit with him on a blanket surrounded by hydrangeas as he whispered lines of sweet nothings into their ears. It was a completely forbidden hidden rendezvous card, and they ate it up. He had different versions of basically the same line for each of them, but with each one you could not doubt his sincerity. Hikaru and Kaoru were playing games with their customers. The one they were currently on was a shell matching game. As part of their act, Kaoru kept losing and then he and Hikaru would do their twincest, I mean brotherly love, bit. Kyoya had his customers by the stream that he had specially made for this cosplay, so he could hook them into making more appointments with the club, and it was working like a charm. He had his reservation book for the fall at the ready and they made their appointments without hesitation. Although what else would you expect from a snake charmer? I don't know exactly what Hunny and Mori were doing, but it was funny to watch. It involved food and it looked so odd, but their customers gushed over it. They gush over everything those two do though, so that's not really new. Haruhi and I, well, we were chilling out in our costumes by a hydrangea bush.
"It's so peaceful." Haruhi commented.
"I know, right?" I smiled, "I wouldn't mind if we had a few more like this, maybe with different costumes though."
"You don't like the costumes?"
"They're heavy."
"That's understandable." Haruhi nodded.
"Haruhi, Kimi! Duck!" Tamaki called, running towards us. I moved out of the way as he tackled Haruhi to the ground. Tamaki yelled at Hikaru for almost hitting Haruhi, he and Kaoru blamed it on him and his lack of talent at the game. He used his starlight kick to kick it back, but it ended up going through a window. Kyoya sent the customers away.
"What room do you think that went into?" I asked them.
"Who knows." Kaoru shrugged.
"We'd better go find it and apologize for it." Kyoya sighed.
We ended up finding it in the last place we really wanted to be, the Newspaper Club's room. It had hit the club's president in the head.
"Really, we're terribly sorry about that." Tamaki apologized to the president. He and Kyoya were smoothing things over as Hikaru, Kaoru, and I looked at the papers and Mori, Hunny, and Haruhi cleaned up the glass.
"Don't worry it's no big deal, could have happened to anyone, right?" He replied, "Just a ball, flying through the window and hitting me upside the head."
"Please accept our apology." Tamaki apologized again.
"Well this works out perfectly." He replied, that didn't sound good, although anything he wanted from us I doubted would be. "I was just thinking about approaching the Host Club about a cover story, I don't suppose you'd be interested."
They went on to talk about their paper being ruined and no one buying them anymore because of the bullshit tabloids that they wrote about people. They begged us, well Tamaki mostly to help them save the paper and their club. They pitched a cover story to try to convince him to go along with it as well, by the look on his face it was working. Maybe it would have worked less if Kyoya, Hikaru, Kaoru, and I had decided to tell him that the president of the newspaper club, Akira Kotmatsuzawa, the guy who was now begging for us to help him, was the one who tried to run his sister's, and Reiko's, reputation into the ground.
"You can count on us, on behalf of the Host Club, I acce-" Tamaki started to agree, but was knocked away by Kyoya.
"We have to decline." Kyoya replied, feigning a smile as he pushed Tamaki, who was objecting to his objection, back. "Sorry, we have a policy prohibiting us from sharing any personal information with anyone, other than our guests, and our only members who take on male guests are not with us this week, but we'd be more than happy to pay medical expenses related to your injury."
"And another thing," Kaoru spoke up, "what makes you think we'd want to help you spread more rumors and gossip? We've got a reputation to uphold and you'd just ruin it."
"Besides you guys cause a lot of trouble for other people." Hikaru added, "And who'd wanna get mixed up with that?"
"And are you guys forgetting how much trouble you guys caused for three of our members already?" I asked, "Forget it."
"I understand." Kotmatsuzawa said, sitting down, "I guess you can't erase the sins of the past, can you? People won't even give you the opportunity to try and redeem yourself."
'You don't deserve one.' I thought, rolling my eyes as I watched the dude cry and complain about his head.
"I guess all we can do at this point is disband with grace." Kotmatsuzawa cried.
"No." Tamaki objected, "You don't have to, you can always make a fresh start. We'll help, we'll rally the power of our Host Club and we can reestablish the newspaper club together!"
"Well count us out." Hikaru and Kaoru stated.
"I'm not helping them, you can forget it." I told him, as I went with Hikaru and Kaoru as they took Haruhi away.
"You're too trusting boss." Kaoru told him, taking my hand and letting his brother take care of dragging out Haruhi.
"We can't just go along with everything you say forever." Hikaru added.
Kaoru nodded, "Yeah, we've had enough."
"We're leaving too Tamaki." Kyoya stated as he walked away with Hunny and Mori. "We're holding an evaluation meeting, mostly about you."
"Hold it." Tamaki told us. We stopped, deciding to listen to what he had to say, "How can you be so heartless? These men are about to lose their club, don't you feel sorry for them?"
"Not really, no." I retorted, "But I tend to hold a grudge towards people who disrespect my friends."
Tamaki started to cry, "But their family's breaking up! As your president, I demand you help them, and that is a direct order!"
"We're not going to do it." Hikaru, Kaoru, and Kyoya told him flatly glaring.
Tamaki freaked as we left.
