A/n: Descriptions of the black magic club members come from chapter 41 of the manga, though quite a bit of guessing was done on their characterization. The only named (besides Nekozawa) and female member at this point is Kanazuki Reiko, who appears to be out to curse Honey at the beginning of the chapter in the manga (and has 18 such curses already under her belt). I realize what an inconvenience it is to include characters who haven't appeared in book form or translation yet, so I must ask the reader to simply bear with me for now, and just hope that nothing I've written is completely and utterly out of character. A huge thank you goes out to Ninja Shen for bringing this to my attention. You can download the raw scans for yourself at sakuradance-dot-net.

It seemed the next day as though that Friday night was all that was on anyone's mind. In the host club's meeting that afternoon, it was the only thing Haruhi's guests would talk about, and that was not without a great deal of dread.

"Don't worry," she reassured them with a smile. "Tamaki-sempai worked it all out with the black magic club yesterday."

"That's a relief."

"Then the ball will go on as he promised?"

Well . . . not exactly, she resisted the temptation to say. "Actually, we've decided to do something a little different this year. Just a tad unorthodox. We're going to share the ballroom with them, so it'll probably be a bit darker than what you might be used to from us, but I think you'll still find it to be rather interesting."

Boy, that sounded like a load of bull even to her ears, but the girls sitting across from her took the news with solemn expressions. "You mean," one said to the others in a low voice, "no Santas or cute snowmen?"

"That doesn't mean it's going to be austere and unromantic, does it?" said another. "Can we still give gifts?"

While yet another tried to reassure them, "I heard in other countries the holidays actually have a more serious meaning—like about baby Jesus or . . . or being thankful for community ties or a bountiful harvest . . . or something. . . ."

Good grief, rich people were all the same. She was just waiting for them to say something about the charming scrappiness of the poor, pooling their pittances together around a tiny wood fire against the cold, or some such Tamaki-ism of equal or lesser value.

Before the others could look too disappointed, Haruhi waved her hands. "It'll be lots of fun, though, I promise!" Suddenly she realized that, other than the line Nekozawa had fed them, she wasn't at all sure what the ball would entail herself, but, "You'll just have to trust that our president and vice president know what they're doing. After all, it's not as though they're new at this sort of thing."

Luckily the twins sent her out on a quick grocery run before she could wear out her bluffing skills too much.

When she returned at four o'clock, the host club had already been closed to its customers, and the third music room looked significantly different from just a short time before.

The Host Club Manager At Work

The drapes were drawn, the chandeliers turned down, and candelabras lit the room with flickering light. Yet the room was surprisingly crowded and busy for that hour. All the host club officers were there, as well as a few other shady-looking individuals who were clearly the other officers of the black magic club, in addition to the Nekozawa maid and driver who had no doubt come to pick up their young master and been waylaid by Renge and her makeshift training ground of character development.

The young woman in question could presently be found circling Nekozawa—who had somehow been cajoled once again into removing his cloak, though this time he had managed to keep his dark wig—with a state-of-the-art professional digital camera, which she clicked in his face as she fed him his motivation. . . .

"More angst! Remember, you are a Mephistophelean prince of the shadows, banished from the light, which you can only cope with by becoming a dastardly charmer of maidens' hearts and seducer of men's souls! The lonesomeness to which you were doomed for eternity is a heavy burden. Heavy! It weighs down on your limbs, your bones. You clothe yourself in the dark and wickedness to hide your suffering. Show me the extent of your tragic darkness! Think Gackt!"

"Like this?" he tried, striking a world-weary pose and soulful gaze that almost would have made Tamaki proud. Haruhi didn't care what the two of them said: there must have been a shared ancestor in there somewhere. Those two were poured from the same mold.

"Good—" click, "—good—" click, "—very good!" Renge paused in her shooting to pump a fist in triumph. "My plan is starting to come together! I knew when you set your mind to it you would discover the character you were destined to become! On the surface: a mysterious and dangerous occult-type persona shunned into a life of villainy for the forbidden allure the dark arts hold for him. But underneath there is a noble soul yearning to be understood! Like Jareth the goblin king—or Vincent in TV's Beauty and the Beast. It's the perfect foil for Tamaki-sempai's lonely prince character!"

Needless to say, by the stars twinkling in her eyes she was getting way too into it, so that Haruhi didn't even bother thinking of asking what in the world she was talking about this time.

The three boys and a girl standing on the sidelines who comprised the aforementioned shady group of characters caught her attention instead. Haruhi recognized the girl by her black, square-cut hair, heavy-lidded eyes and pouty lips as belonging to the instigator of one particular episode of their summer—the voodoo princess of 1-D, who had developed an awkward fascination with one of the host club's own. "Isn't that Honey-sempai's stalker?" Haruhi said as she came up beside Kyouya.

"You mean Kanazuki Reiko?" he said, not looking up from his ledger. "So it is. And working on her thirty-fourth curse of the school year, I hear."

"Thirty-fourth . . ." Haruhi echoed.

Kanazuki looked abnormally intense. "President Nekozawa, give it your best!" she was cheering on their club's leader. "And never fear: Vengeance shall be ours after the holiday vacation!"

When there was no response from behind her, she shot her three gawking clubmates a look Haruhi couldn't see, but must have been fearsome on a biblical scale if the boys' reactions were any indication. They straightened up lickety-split with a chorus of "Yes, vengeance!" and "Good luck, Mr President!"

"Thirty-seventh," Haruhi corrected to herself, feeling a sweatdrop tickle her brow. "I'm starting to think maybe Tamaki-sempai's fear of Nekozawa is just a little misplaced—"

No sooner had the words left her mouth than the devil she spoke of was at their side, running his fingers through his hair and posing dramatically. "Have I allowed that Delilah's chumminess with Honey-sempai to cloud my judgment—been lulled into a misguided state of ambivalence by her siren's song of cordiality, sailing unknowing toward the jagged rocks of damnation? Is that what you're thinking, Haruhi?" He clasped his hands to his chest in exaggerated rapture. "I'm honored that you would concern yourself so with my spiritual well being! It's a sign, that's what it is! Try as you might to act indifferent, you cannot deny it: you worry about Daddy as much as he worries about you!"

But Haruhi was no longer paying attention. For one, Kanazuki's manner switched instantaneously to decidedly nonthreatening as she and Honey suddenly waved to each other across the room in a sickeningly cute way; and for two, she'd simply learned to tune her upperclassman's onanistic blatherings out. She said instead to Kyouya, while their host club king rambled on, "So what's Renge's deal this time?"

"You mean with the camera?" (At the same time as Kyouya said that, Renge turned her attentions to the other black magic club members, who panicked and glanced longingly toward the exits, but could not escape the camera's cruelly indifferent lens.) "They're promotion photos for the saturnalia. Since the black magic club are to be our honorary hosts on Friday, it is only fitting our customers have the opportunity to learn something about them before choosing their dance partners. If there's one thing to be said for our ladies, it is that they are fastidious when it comes to educating themselves before they commit to a host selection."

It sounded to Haruhi like he was equating the process to buying a new car, but she knew better than to raise that thought with Kyouya. He would just say it was absolutely the same as shopping for a new car.

Before she could even open her mouth, however, Renge blew her whistle, causing half the room to nearly jump out of their skins. "All right, slimes, you're ready to move on to the next level. We will now commence the dancing lesson," she said, and leveled an index finger at Tamaki, who promptly snapped out of his lonely monologue and seated himself at the grand piano. "Maestro, strike up the waltz!"

"Ma'am!" he saluted, and struck one up.

As the music of Chopin filled the room, Renge turned to Nekozawa. "I'm letting you off easy this time. Since this is partly your club's function, I won't object to your occult vocabulary. Who knows, girls might actually get a big kick out of that freakish persona of yours in the right setting. As I said before, dark and mysterious (up to a point) is always fashionable. But as it is first and foremost a social function, there is one matter I absolutely cannot cut corners on. You will be a gentleman, even if that be a creepy gentleman, as even a creepy gentleman must be proficient in the dance—"

"Yeah, yeah," Nekozawa sighed boredly. "Just because I'm socially awkward doesn't mean I'm inept, you know. Fujioka-kun?" He extended his hand toward her. "Will you do me the honor?"

"Um," was all Haruhi managed before the black magic club president swept her into his arms.

His poise and timing were amazing, even with the quick tempo Tamaki had no doubt chosen hoping to thwart his arch-nemesis, so that it was Haruhi who had to struggle to keep up. Astonished—though not sure why she should be, given Nekozawa's impressive lineage—she looked up at his fair face; but he was concentrating stubbornly on some point over her shoulder as he stepped lightly to Renge's "One-two-three, one-two-three," barked out through a megaphone. Haruhi blinked. He really was taking all of this very seriously.

The Nekozawa maid and chauffeur clapped softly from over by the window sill, the former wiping a tear from the corner of her eye with a handkerchief. "Wai! Big brudder's a libertine!" said Kirimi beside her (courtesy of her vast mental database of girls' manga and with no idea what she was truly saying).

Kuretake sniffed in joy. "That he is, little mistress. That he is."

Renge put down the megaphone after a moment to sigh. "Wonderful—a thousand times wonderful!" she said dreamily. "Crack pairing."

"What are you going on about now?" Tamaki mumbled at the keyboard. "Don't you mind seeing your beloved Haruhi in the arms of another man?"

"Not at all. Like I told you before—"

"Yeah, yeah, homosexual relationships are something different."

"Besides, just the thought of Haruhi caught up in a love pentagon—no! a love pentagram—is a fabulous thing to behold—"

Tamaki could stand it no longer. He slammed his hands down on the keyboard and stretched one arm out dramatically. "Haruhi-i-i-i, Daddy loves you! Always remember that and endure. . . . Endure. . . ."

Which prompted a nice thwack on the back of the head with a tabloid paper fan. "Who said you could quit playing?"

The black magic club's lesser officers, however, were not faring quite so well. Kanazuki was at least happily stumbling her way through the waltz with her first-year classmate, but the second- and third-year boys had nothing but grumbles about having to lead Hikaru and Kaoru. After their partners stepped on both their left feet simultaneously for the umpteenth time, and apologized profusely, Hikaru and Kaoru had had enough.

"Uhn, this is getting taxing," Hikaru moaned to his partner as he rotated his shoulders. "How are you three supposed to make proper hosts at the ball at this rate?"

"Have some pity on us, will you?" said Kaoru. "It's one thing for us to have to dance with boys, but it's quite another when neither of them even knows how to lead. And they call themselves men."

Hikaru was at his side in an instant. "Perhaps we should show them how it's done." And with that he pulled his brother toward him, one arm around his waist, the other hand clasping Kaoru's. "As long as you don't mind. . . ."

"Need you ask? You know I always follow where you lead," Kaoru breathed, instantly on the same page.

The three boys of the black magic club looked incredibly uncomfortable as the two began to waltz before them, though Kanazuki was quite speechless in wonderment. "Holy mother of Horus," said the second-year boy. "And I thought our club was into some messed up things."

Kanazuki didn't even hear them. "All that time spent with Honey-sempai, I never knew what else I was missing!"

Which, needless to say, garnered the weird stares of her male companions. Still, it must have been refreshing to the host club to know the Hitachiin brothers had procured one more convert to the brotherly love act.

. . . And The Tribulation Continued

"You know," Nekozawa sighed deeply to Kuretake at one point in the afternoon, "you might want to just take Kirimi home. I don't know how much longer I will be."

"Perhaps an ice cream is in order," the maid agreed, tugging at his little sister's hand, but she just pulled right back.

"But I want to see big brudder transform into a charming prince character!" Kirimi whined, as though she expected it to happen at any moment with the sparkles and pomp of one of her manga, and refused to be moved. A dead weight.

"Perhaps it wouldn't be so detrimental if she stayed," Kyouya said over his ledger. "After all, her knowledge on the subject is quite extensive."

"You're not helping," Haruhi told him.

"Neko-chan? Neko-chan?"

Nekozawa turned and came face to face with Mori's stoic countenance. It didn't match the voice. He looked down. "Oh, Haninozuka. You mean me."

"You have to call me Honey now," his classmate said with a cute wink. Now that you're part of the family, that is, he seemed to imply ominously. "But we have to talk about the black magic club's music collection."

"What's wrong with the music?" Tamaki wanted to know. As he joined them he took the stack of jewel cases out of Honey's hands. "Mozart's 'Requiem,'" he read aloud, tossing it aside, "Stravinsky's 'Rite of Spring,' the Firebird suite, 'Night on Bald Mountain,' new age crap . . . Ha! The Bulgarian Women's Choir! That oughtta put the fear of God into them. Here, Honey-sempai, put this on the 'maybe' pile." Tamaki squinted at the next one. "Who's Arvo Part?"

Nekozawa snatched the cases back protectively. "That's Latin choral music. It's very inspirational."

"Yeah, and completely useless. Don't you have any of that gothic-punk-emo stuff?"

"Who do you take me for?"

"What about Kanazuki? She looks like she might be into that sort of thing—"

"You're one to talk, Suou. All I ever see you listening to is classical music."

"Not anymore, it isn't," said Tamaki, grabbing the CDs back again. "Now, I already agreed: no Santa songs, no love-love winter ballads, no 'Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree.' You guys need to do your part to liven up this little soiree of ours. After all, it is the black magic club's big, second annual winter solstice saturnalia, right? Now, this is what I'm talking about!" He flashed one CD in Nekozawa's face. "'The Devil's Trill.' I like the sound of that. It's nefarious."

"I don't get it. Yesterday he acted like he would die if we shared the ballroom, and today he wants the atmosphere as evil as possible?" Nekozawa looked to Haruhi for help, who shrugged.

"I don't know, he just does this. Leave him alone with it long enough, and he'd think Emmett Kelly hobo clowns would be the host club theme of the century."

"I see," said Nekozawa, who apparently didn't.

"I hate to be the one to say it," said Tamaki, though he didn't seem to really, "but this event is going to have to increase its sex appeal if we can hope to bring as much attention to the black magic club as possible. Now . . ." He placed a hand dramatically over his breast. "We hosts have the feminine angle covered, but it will take more than our charms alone to awaken both sexes to the sensual appeal of the dark arts. That's your field. You have to dress it up, pimp it out, make them understand why they can't live without black magic in their lives! What is it that young people find so appealing about satanism nowadays?"

"Pantheists! We're pantheists, Suou, not satanists," Nekozawa shot back. "There's a big difference."

"Whatever." Tamaki waved the correction off.

"Ne, Tama-chan," Honey asked his president upon the mention of satanism, "this year's Christmas party isn't really going to be scary, is it?"

"Actually, my customers have been worried about the same thing—well," Haruhi corrected herself, "I guess it's more accurate to say they're worried about being preached to and bored to death."

"We've never done anything like this before. Are you two sure it's going to work?"

For the first time that afternoon, Tamaki and Nekozawa found themselves at a lack for words and just exchanged glances. Both had been so sure of their purpose that, if they were to be honest, they hadn't given much thought to what anyone outside their respective clubs would think.

"Fortunately," Kyouya saved the day, "there is a precedent for just this sort of thing."

The five gathered around turned to him expectantly.

"At the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago," he began, "organizers planned as a publicity stunt a ball that promised to have local and fair officials dancing with exotic girls from the various villages of the Midway in their native costumes. When the Victorian society of the time heard of the plans, they worried what a blow it would deal to the mores that a world's fair such as theirs was supposed to set an example of, especially regarding sexuality—what with the revealing costumes and wild dances of the visiting natives. Then there was the concern about accommodating the customs of certain peoples, like headhunters, which led the newspapers to dub the event the 'Ball of the Midway Freaks.'"

Honey bit his lower lip. "Sounds creepy."

"Well, they weren't really freaks," Haruhi reassured him.

"Speaking of creepy," Tamaki said under his voice, pointing discreetly over his elbow, "does that thing have to sit there like that?" He was speaking, of course, of Beelzenev, who currently sat propped up in his own chair on the sidelines. Tamaki suppressed a shiver. "I feel like it's watching me with it's nasty little eyes."

"How did it turn out?" Nekozawa asked Kyouya, ignoring him.

Kyouya adjusted his glasses. Apparently he was reading from a marginal note. "Contrary to public expectation, pretty well, actually. It wasn't a disaster at least, and the mayor enjoyed himself, though it certainly was outrageous for its time. In the end I believe it turned out to be just a spot of harmless, good old-fashioned imperialistic fun for everyone."

Good old-fashioned imperialism, huh? Haruhi felt faint.

"Now then, as for the rest of you. . . ." Drill Sergeant Renge said as she paced before the rest of the black magic club, the twins standing at attention at her back. "As you must be well aware, we at the host club aim to please by providing a range of some of the most desirable types of male characters for the discerning young lady's pleasure. If you look hard enough, you will see that even within the realm of horror and fantasy RPGs and glam rock, or simply among the most charming villains of your typical girls' manga, dark characters also fall into certain reoccurring categories. For example . . ."

She stopped at the first-year boy at the end of the line and leveled her finger at him. He started. "The imp!" Renge said.

"Imp?" he echoed uncertainly.

"Yes. The imp is a trickster character, essentially the loli-shota rascal type all grown up. He sports a devilish grin and messed up hair at all times." And so saying, she proceeding to further mess up his already fairly tousled hair. "Often he is characterized by pointy little canine teeth that hint at his fox-like nature. His has a noble lineage that traces back to such beloved characters as Coyote and Brer Rabbit, and Robin Goodfellow. You never know what the imp is going to pull next, and therein lies his attraction."

The willowy second-year who was next in line gulped as he saw Renge coming toward him. She hummed as she looked him up and down. "I've got it. You will be the occult variation on the wild type. Like Mori-sempai's stoic type, the occult wild type is prized for his relative reticence and eccentricity. He is ambivalent in social situations, and many people fear him because of his uncanny relationship with animals—especially rodents and crows." Indeed, very proud of her intuition, Renge patted him on the shoulder and nodded, "Yes, I shall have some brought in special for you on Friday. It will be so dramatic!"

"But I—"

"You're impressed by my intuition, I know," Renge cut him off. "Sometimes it even surprises me!"

Needless to say, that wasn't much reassurance to the second-year boy.

"And as for you," she said to the third-year, a light-haired boy who had something of Kyouya about his presence and Tamaki about his poise, "you are the quintessential Dr Jekyll character: handsome and charming and witty, but severely cynical about society and life in general. The war between the id and the ego pulls your soul this way and that, wreaking havoc on your moral fiber, making death look a more and more attractive option every day! Alas poor Yorick . . ." Renge produced a skull from somewhere, which she contemplated at once in horror and fascination like some Baroque vanity portrait before tossing it at him. "The ephemerality of all things is like springtime blossoms scattered in the breeze. Gracious insanity: that is your motivation."

She snapped her fingers. Kaoru handed off a small bunch of notebooks to Hikaru, who placed them into Renge's waiting hands. "You should learn your character types well by Friday. In the meantime, you can practice some lines to get the feel—"

"What about Kanazuki?" the boys asked when Renge ignored her completely.

The twins grinned at one another.

"She's perfect just the way she is," said Renge. "Miss Kanazuki is already fully in touch with her devious persona, and as a woman already has all the tools necessary to play a hostess in her natural feminine grace and good looks."

Kanazuki beamed, and her companions, notebooks shoved into their hands, glared at her mutinously.

"I suppose the more I think about it," Nekozawa was in the meantime thinking aloud, "a little frivolousness and sensuality is in keeping with the spirit of the saturnalia. Perhaps the precise thing the club needs is to not take itself so seriously." Tamaki nodded vigorously and put a chummy arm around Nekozawa's shoulders. That garnered a glare from his upperclassman. "However, I must admit I was rather reluctant to let the host club in on our festivities for fear of being made a fool of," he said with a warning edge in his voice.

To which Tamaki was completely oblivious. "But now you're warming to us, is that it?" Though nobody remembered Nekozawa saying that. "You see the usefulness of our charms to a truly pagan affair. It will be our privilege if we of the host club can do a little justice to the ancients, who so truthfully and beautifully captured the eroticism in all things in their art and poetry of eons ago. I congratulate you, Sempai. You have taken your first step into a new and glorious world."

"Then . . ." Ignoring that, Nekozawa caught his second wind as he produced a hand-written scroll. "Perhaps now is a good time to discuss the menu for this affair—"

"Oh, I don't think we'll be needing that," Tamaki said with a nonchalant laugh as he plucked it from the other's hands and discreetly handed it over to Kyouya to dispose of behind his back. He put one arm around his sempai's shoulders and drew him aside. "You just leave the food matter in the host club's capable hands, all right? After all, we do keep detailed records of our customers' likes and dislikes (and no one wants to be held accountable for any accidental food poisonings)—"

"What?"

"I was just saying you should save your accounts by sticking to ballroom decorating."

An awkward silence followed as Nekozawa just glared at him. "Sempai, everyone can hear it when you think out loud," Haruhi tried to point out, "and 'ballroom decorating' doesn't rhyme at all with 'accidental food poisoning'—"

"Haruhi," Tamaki gritted out through a plastered-on grin, "don't help me."

"Fine," said Nekozawa. "Our club will handle the mood. We'll hang some black drapery, bring in some dead branches and antique candelabras, and deck the halls with boughs of holly."

"Good!" Tamaki clapped his hands. "I'm glad that's all settled. My, I feel like so much ground has been covered already. Shall we call it a day, Kyouya?"

As the members of the host club wandered away, Nekozawa chose not to follow them but instead glanced around the third music room. On one side, Tamaki—true to Haruhi's word—was talking animatedly about this or that idea that struck his fancy with Kyouya, while on the other his own club officers were working very hard trying to get into character, reciting lines to themselves or posing dramatically (or, in the first-year's case, looking to the twins for pointers on mischief-making), and Honey and Kanazuki took a time out for tea for working so hard.

When he thought everyone else was too occupied to notice, Nekozawa allowed a small, proud smile to form on his lips. Who knew—despite the embarrassment that still lingered over the fact that they did, in fact, need the host club's help, perhaps things would turn out for the best in the end. Perhaps the end result would even exceed his expectations.

Nekozawa didn't think anyone had caught that smile, not even eagle-eyed Kyouya; but Haruhi noticed—for a split second when she glanced over her shoulder. And she kept that to herself.

To be continued . . .