Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep! Kyoya's hand shot out from under his 1,000-thread count silk sheets, slamming down hard on the blinking red snooze button. One more hour, he wanted to groan. Though, of course, today that would be impossible, seeing as he had to get to school for his first class at 7:30.

Ugh! If only he hadn't stayed out so late with Fuyumi last night, he might have been able to get home before 1AM in the morning. And then he had had to plan today's club activities, call to make sure his sister had gotten home safely, and finish all his homework. By the time he had finally gone to bed, it had been 3 o'clock in the morning.

Ugh. Begrudgingly, Kyoya finished his inner grumblings and stuck his head out of his covers at 7:00AM sharp. Without looking up, he felt around his bedside table for his glasses.

What?!

That was strange. He sat up to get a clearer view, though how much better that made the situation was debatable, seeing as his whole world had diminished to a colorful blur.

Hmmm, I must have left them at Fuyumi's house yesterday, he mused.

Unperturbed, he reached for the spare pair he always kept in his bedside drawer…

Huh?!

A realization hit him like a bolt of lightning as he realized that the pair he had been wearing had been his spare, as Tamaki had broken his regular pair last month during a club event.

The sound of a car's engine purred up beneath his window. That meant his limo was here.

Dammit, he thought. It would be too late to find a replacement now. Pulling back the covers, he stood up to get dressed and grabbed his books.

I guess I'll be going to school like this, then, he conceded.

Taking the stairs two steps at a time, Kyoya scooted around the wing where his father's room was. Luckily, he managed to successfully make it to the door without running into the Ootori family patriarch. As he strode out the door, though, a small thought nagged at him. It wasn't like him to let things slip through the cracks…

…

"Oh, who is that?

"A new kid?"

"You know, that looks kind of like…"

"Kyoya-sempai?!"

Kyoya was greeted with an exclamation of shock as he entered the doors of Music Room 3 ten minutes late. All day, he had been the topic of whispers and hushed conversations as he walked through the hallways at school. Even with his blurred vision, he could tell that people were staring at him as he walked by, but now even in the host club?

"Not you guys, too," he said flatly, pushing past them to pick up his clipboard. He reached to push his glasses up the bridge of his nose by way of habit, only to pause and realize that they weren't there. The rest of the host club stared.

"I forgot my glasses at Fuyumi's house yesterday," he offered as an explanation.

"Oh, that's terrible, Kyo-san!" cried Honey, hugging Usa-chan to his chest.

"Yes, how will you participate in the commoner's spot-the-difference game if you can't even see!" cried Tamaki, clearly more distraught about the situation than Kyoya even was.

"Maybe you won't be able to participate in the contest," suggested the Hitachiin twins, sidling up with more courage now. They seemed to have thought that without his glasses, Kyoya wouldn't be able to give them his usual glasses-sheened glare.

Well, they thought wrong. In an instant, Kyoya flashed them a look, the daggers from his eyes even more deadly without a layer of glass to obstruct their path.

"Ah!" Karou jumped behind Hikaru, nearly shaking from fright. Clearly, they were mistaken.

"Aha-ha-ha-ha!" A flash of lightning blast through the room.

"He's got new powers, too!" cried Kaoru, cowering behind Hikaru.

"Guys, it's just Renge," deadpanned Haruhi, pointing out the obvious.

"Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha!" Renge's high-powered motor spiraled her up to the top of her platform. She leaned down to regard her cowering subjects. "Just Renge, I see. If it were anyone but you who had said that, Haruhi, it would have been inexcusable, got it?" She glared around the room.

"But seeing as it was you…" she flashed Haruhi a flirtatious smile.

"What are you doing here, Renge-san?" asked Tamaki, gaining his courage back to ask their club manager.

"As it just so happens, Tamaki and the Hitachiins are right!" cried Renge.

"Never thought I'd hear her say that," Mori whispered to Honey, who nodded in agreement.

Choosing to ignore that remark, Renge turned to Kyoya. "Kyo-ya! In this club, you are the megane, or the glasses character. And do I see you wearing glasses today?"

"No!" she cried. "The answer is no!"

"All the fine young ladies of this school come to this club for the cool, glasses character, so until you are back to wearing your glasses, I, as your club manager, decree that your position in the club be suspended indefinitely!"

"Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha!" Finishing her spiel, Renge spiraled back down on her podium.

"Wow," mouthed Haruhi. "Harsh."

"Looks like she finally got her revenge…" whispered Hikaru.

"…for spurning her earlier," finished Kaoru.

The host club members all shuddered, remembering the days when Renge had first moved to Japan and forced them to play against type, the most memorable of all being Tamaki's dreadfully out-of-character stint as 'the lonely prince' and Honey's even shorter-lived take on 'the baby-faced thug.'

In fact, if it hadn't been for Kyoya's stepping in at the end, who knows what would have happened to the dynamics of the host club as they knew it…oh, dammit.

If it hadn't been for Kyoya stepping in.

A bead of sweat dropped down Kyoya's face. He had never taken Renge to be the vengeful type. But, of course, everyone could be vengeful when the right item was on the line…

Seeing the distress on his friend's face, Tamaki rushed to Kyoya's side.

"Wait! It's ok, Kyoya! She didn't mean it like that!" He exclaimed, trying to alleviate the situation.

"Yeah, here Kyoya-sempai, you can use a magnifying glass!" Honey chimed in helpfully, holding up the science kit he had somehow gone and retrieved during the course of the conversation.

But Kyoya put his hand up. "No, she's right," he said. "I appreciate the sentiments, but it would be detrimental to club profits if I, as the glasses character, weren't wearing my glasses. Not to mention if I tripped and accidentally broke any of our delicate, priceless artifacts…" he said, pointedly looking at Haruhi. "That would have no merits at all."

"Jerk," muttered Haruhi under her breath.

Shrugging, he sat back down and picked up his clipboard as everyone balked at his very un-Kyoya-like attitude.

"I guess I'll just have to sit this one out today," Kyoya said.

…

Huh. Kyoya sighed as he watched the other hosts lead their guests in a game of spot-the-difference. Currently, Tamaki's group was gathered around two versions of Monet's famous Water Lillies, while Kyoya took a lonely seat at the back of the club room. Just yesterday, he had gotten the authentic version flown in from a museum in Paris and made the necessary arrangements for his Tachibana to purchase a counterfeit from the commoner's supermarket. Although a part of him wanted to take part in what was evidently just a simple test of one's 20th century art knowledge, another part of him had settled into the observer's role quite nicely, if he did say so himself.

"…And this one has a lilac petal while the other one is blue!" The girl who had just gone turned to Tamaki. "Did I get it right?" she beamed, eager for his praise.

"Oh, lovely princess, what a great eye you have," Tamaki said in response, tilting her head up so she met his gaze. She blushed furiously. When he wanted to, Tamaki really could turn on the charm.

Across the room, the other hosts were also having success with their guests.

"Now, which one of these is Hikaru's?" the twins asked in unison, shuffling themselves around while holding their paintings. Evidently, they had adapted the day's club activities into their own little game.

"Haruhi, I think this one has an extra cluster of circles," one of Haruhi's customer pointed out, to which her smiling host nodded in affirmation.

"Looks like you're correct!" said Haruhi.

"Now, which of these do you think is chocolate?" asked Honey, bypassing his paintings to examine his assortment of cakes. Naturally, his guests all squealed in response.

Ah, everything seemed to be going on track without him, Kyoya thought, as he turned back to his notebook. And yet...

He clenched his fist just a tiny bit in frustration, unable to concentrate. Without his glasses on, reading the tiny, carefully printed script on his club ledger had become a hassle. He closed the cover and set it down, seeing no merit in going over it now rather than later, when he wouldn't get a migraine out of it, too.

Closing his eyes, he rubbed his temples. What had gotten into him?

One moment he had been perfectly fine as the cold, meticulously calculating Shadow king of the host club, and the next he was misplacing his glasses like a common idiot.

Honestly, what had gotten into him? he thought again.

"Hey, there. You're not playing either, huh?" A female voice next to him snapped him out of his ruminations. Without asking, she sat down on the seat beside him, her long, dark hair wafting the warm, intoxicating scent of cinnamon in his direction.

"I'm Nanako, by the way. Nanako Shouji," she supplied.

Oh, right. That.