Mami's inner thoughts

Multiple people talking at once

I do not own anything but my own characters.

"Mami! Are you going to the host club today?" Tamaki raced up to me after the last bell. I quit questioning why any member of the host club would be in Class B wing a long time ago. They didn't make it a point to walk with me between classes anymore now that the threat was gone. It just didn't stop them from showing up any less. I sighed.

"I don't have a choice do I?" It was the end of the week and I had finally caught up on my work that I had missed, so I didn't have an excuse to skip the club again. A couple of girls walked past us giggling at their phone.

"Haruhi-kun is really hot in that picture."

"Mami. What are they talking about?" Tamaki whipped his head around to me, panic clear in his eyes. I pulled out my phone, thinking clearer than my counterpart, and pulled up the host club website.

"Calm down, Tamaki. I'm sure it's noth-" On the homepage was a pretty clearly photo shopped picture of Haruhi. Someone had placed her head on top of a shirtless body; it was honestly disorienting to look at. The proportions were all wrong.

"What? What is it?" Tamaki grabbed my phone from my hands and nearly dropped it. "THOSE LITTLE DEVILS!" The blonde took off toward the third music room faster than I thought possible.

"Tamaki! Wait, my phone!" I jogged after him as fast as I could in dress shoes and a dress. It wasn't until I was already panting in front of the third music room that I realized I could have just gotten my phone back from Tamaki tonight at dinner. I might as well make the running worth it.

"Nekozawa-san?" I was surprised to my friend crumpled on the floor. His face was pale and he looked sickly. I adjusted the hood slightly for him so that it covered his face more. "Why are you on the floor?"

"Those murders." He mumbled out. I only had to look over at Tamaki lecturing the bored looking twins about the dangers of Nekozawa's curses, to put two and two together. I helped Nekozawa back over to the door that lead to the Black Magic clubroom, where the members helped their president back into the safety of the dark.

"You should probably tell, Mami-senpai to be careful then, Tono." Hikaru pointed over toward me.

"Mami! Don't get too close or he'll curse you too!" The blonde pulled me away from the now closed door.

"You do realize they're in the same class." Kyoya said simply as Haruhi looked on with a look that screamed that she would rather be anywhere else. Tamaki whipped his head around to stare at me with disbelief.

"He's my partner in English class too. He's very nice if you give him a chance, Tamaki" Arms snaked around my body in a familiar fashion. The twins enjoyed making me blush and they knew that invading my personal space was the quickest way to do so. I wouldn't be surprised if they were holding a competition between themselves on who could get me to turn the darkest shade.

"Could it be?" Hikaru said from my right.

"Does Auntie have a crush on the dark prince?" My face instantly felt like it was on fire. One point to Kaoru.

"W-what are you talking about? Nekozawa-san is just a friend." They clucked their tongues in disbelief. I untangled myself from their arms, quickly making my way behind Haruhi. She could handle the tricksters better than I could. The freshman just simply sighed at my use of her as a human shield. Luckily, Tamaki 'grounded' the twins before the club started, forbidding them from having any costumers or talking to anyone.

I happily joined Honey and Mori at their table after confirming with Kyoya that I wouldn't be interfering with any reservations. Their table was my favorite spot. It was situated in the corner of the room, so I didn't feel as exposed like I did earlier. Plus I liked the girls that visited my fellow seniors. They were all very nice and quiet letting Honey takes the lead with most conversations. Mori silently placed a slice of Black Forrest cake in front of me.

A sudden loud voice made me yelp in surprise. I really hate sudden loud noises. Hikaru and Kaoru were going head to head, shouting insults at each other. I followed the rest of the hosts, who had gathered at a safe distance to watch what was happening. The twins were slowly getting louder with each insult they were throwing at each other.

"SEVER ALL TIES!" I flinched back, uncomfortable with all the yelling, into something hard. A warm hand rested on my shoulder, I followed it up to find grey eyes staring back at me. Mori looked concerned, almost as if he was silently asking if I was okay. I nodded, forcing myself to look away from his intense gaze, my stomach beginning to twist in embarrassment. Why did I have to be so jumpy? The twins left the clubroom, refusing to look at one another, leaving the rest of us dumbfounded. A heavy feeling washed over me. Honey glanced up at me with sad eyes before it shifted into a sly smile.

"Are you okay, Mi-chan?"

"Yeah, I'm just worried about Hikaru and Kaoru. They said some pretty mean things to each other. I hope they'll be okay." Honey giggled slightly before shaking his head.

"I'm sure they'll make up tonight and everything will be back to normal tomorrow." He smiled sweetly calming my nerves. "Takashi we should go too." The taller boy hummed in agreement before following the bouncing blonde toward the door. My shoulder felt oddly empty as I watched them leave.

I placed my empty bento back into my bag as Haruhi rounded the corner. I didn't think she was going to join me today. Since the Chiharu-incident was solved, I was able to convince Honey to let me get lunch outside again. Occasionally, they would join me but Haruhi was the one that joined me the most often. She liked the quiet of the outdoors and she, like me, always brought lunch. I saw her getting dragged along by the twins, who had dyed their hair ridiculous colors over night, on my way outside. She looked even more annoyed that usual today. I guess I made the right choice in avoiding the cafeteria today. She sat down with a huff.

"What happened, Haruhi?"

"The twins started a food fight in the cafeteria and blamed Tamaki for the vice principal spilling his soup so now we have to clean the cafeteria after class." Her frown deepened. "I didn't get to try foie gras"

"They're still fighting?" I frowned as Haruhi nodded taking a bite out of her egg. "Do you know what started it?" She looked down.

"I think it's because I said that Hikaru was 10% more evil than Kaoru." I couldn't help but laugh.

"But it's true!" I stopped laughing and looked at her in all seriousness. "Don't tell them I agreed with you or they'll drag me into it too." The younger girl simply rolled her eyes, not taking my very real fears seriously.

"I do hope they make up soon. I hate seeing them like this." I frowned. I feared what would happen if the twins didn't make up with one another. If I was this upset of over the possibility of loosing the friends I had just made, I could only imagine how horrible it would be to lose your best friend since before birth.

"I don't see why I had to help clean too. I wasn't even in the cafeteria when it happened." I muttered under my breath as I fell into one of the plush chairs in the clubroom. I didn't mind cleaning; I cleaned the animal cages both at home and at the center on a regular basis, that didn't bother me. What did bother me was getting pulled into punishment for something I wasn't the cause of.

"You are a part of the host club." Kyoya replied already pulling out his notebook. He had been quick to pick up the feather duster when we first arrived. He had just lazily brushed it over the already spotless surfaces, leaving the heavy cleaning to the rest of us. "And we did have to reschedule a lot of appointments due to you taking time off to catch up on school work. It's the least you could do for all the extra work you made."

His icy stare made me push myself back into my chair, willing it to swallow me whole. Kyoya had been patient with me but with the stress caused by the twins' rift, it was wearing thin. Kyoya looked over his notebook and sighed.

"If this situation persists, we will have to cancel the brotherly love setting…" I felt my stomach drop as the word cancel echoed in my ears. My mind started spiraling. If the brotherly love package got canceled, how long would the host club last? Could the club survive without the twins? Would the host club come to an end? Could I be close to losing the only friends I've ever had?

"Haru-chan?" Honey's voice broke through my inner turmoil. He looked curiously at the retreating back of the freshman. Kyoya sighed and slowly pushed his chair back from the table. I tried to dry my sweaty hands on the skirt of my dress while focusing on calming my heartbeat.

"I suppose we should follow as well, before they kill Tamaki." Mori, Honey and I followed the shadow king out to the open field, arriving just in time for Kaoru to pull out a cursed Beelzenef doll. Before anything else could be said, Haruhi hit the twins hard upside the head.

"Stop that! Don't use that kind of thing for such a stupid quarrel! Both of you are bad and you're causing trouble for people around you." This was the first time I've seen Haruhi so upset. "If you two don't make up and shake hands now, you two will never ever set foot in my house in this lifetime." The whole mood changed. The tension that was surrounding the boys suddenly disappeared as the twins looked up with matching smirks showing off a script and a blank Beelzenef doll.

I can't believe it. They were faking the whole time. I nearly had an anxiety attack because of them. I couldn't help the feeling of betrayal that floated to the surface as the little voice in the back of my head started to slowly get louder. An arm landed on my shoulder.

"Where you really that worried, Mami-senpai?" Hikaru asked, the playful smirk still on his face. I pushed his arm off. I couldn't look at them right now. I had reached my limit and I was afraid if I looked at them, I wouldn't be able to hold back the tears that threatened to fall.

"I-i have to go." I ignored the sounds of protest as I walked away from the group toward the front of the school.

"Tsk, someone can't take a joke." Hikaru said to my back. I was hurt that they could so easily play with our emotions like that. If they were faking the fight, what's the say they weren't faking our friendship as well?

They were never your friends. They just felt sorry for you. You don't have any friends.

The little voice of doubt in the back of my mind didn't seem so small in the moment.

"Mami, are you okay?" Tamaki's voice startled me a bit, causing my fork to clatter down on the plate in front of me.

"Y-yeah, I'm fine."

"You haven't touched your food." Tamaki pointed out. I glanced down at my plate, realizing he was right. It was untouched except for a few peas I had been pushing around. He reached over and grabbed my hand.

"Mami, please tell me what's bothering you." He was clearly worried. "You don't have to keep everything to yourself anymore." I could feel my stomach beginning to twist even more than it was previously as guilt began to wash over me. Deep down, I knew the little voice was lying to me but I couldn't stop myself from listening to it.

"Tamaki…you're my friend because you want to be friends with me and not just because you feel bad for me?" I somehow managed to choke out after a few minutes of tense silence as I battled with myself. He squeezed the hand he held in his, making me finally look at him in the face.

"Of course I'm your friend, Mami." Everything about Tamaki screamed sincere in that moment as I felt a heavy weight beginning to be lifted off my chest. "What's this about?"

"When we found out that the twins were faking their fight, I convinced myself that everything had been a lie, that you guys were only pretending to be my friend because you've all just felt bad for me. I know deep down that it's not true at all but I can't stop myself from believing it. I can't stop my brain from going into overdrive and believing the worst. I'm so scared I'm going to mess up everything and loose the only friends I've ever had."

Tamaki didn't say anything for a while. He seemed to be trying to make sense my weird thought process. I couldn't blame him for taking so long to process, I didn't fully understand it myself.

"I can promise you, with the upmost certainty, that I'm not going anywhere. The Host club isn't going to go anywhere and even if it did, we would still be friends."

"I-I'm sorry."

"Don't be. Thank you for telling me, Mami." He smiled. I returned it as the voice of doubt finally quieted down. I happily dug into my dinner as we chatted about different ideas for the host club. My anxiety finally quieting down enough for me to enough dinner with my best friend.

"Mami-senpai!"

"It's time to play-"

"Which one is Hikaru game?" The two of them spun out in front of me, wrapping an arm around each other's shoulders. Their hair was still dyed the ridiculous colors they had been sporting during the fake fight. They had been playing the game all day with the guests but I was too focused on the animals to pay much attention to them.

"Do I have to play?" I asked as I gently placed the veiled chameleon, I had been showing Kyoya's guests just moments before, back in it's cage. They looked at each and had a brief silently conversation before turning back to me.

"Yes."

"If I guess right, are you going to start another fake fight?" Once again they shared a look before turning back to me.

"We promise not to start a fight."

"If you guess correctly." I stared at them looking for the very subtle differences I had picked up between the two over the last couple of months. They were obviously trying to trick the guests today, as they had swapped hair colors but they couldn't change the fact that Kaoru had a very faint scar on his hairline, or that Hikaru's smile always went slightly to the left.

"You're Hikaru." I pointed to the twin with powder blue hair.

"Wrong!"

"Why do you have pink hair, Kaoru?" I couldn't help but smile as Haruhi walked up and confirmed that I was correct. The twins stared just continued to stare at us.

"Haruhi-kun, do you mind helping me bring this over?" I asked after it became clear that the twins weren't going to say anything.

"Sure." Carefully, the two of us lifted the fairly large cage and brought it closer to the door, leaving the stunned boys behind us.

Author's Note:

As always, thank you so much for all of the follows, favorites and reviews. It makes me so happy and motivated every time I get a notification. I honestly had a really hard time with this chapter, so I'm sorry if it's not the best. I probably changed the ending about 6 different times, trying to create the right conversation for Mami to have about her anxiety. Orginally, I was going to have Kaoru talk to her about it and then I tried briefly for Yasuchika to show up again (Mostly I just wanted to write more interactions with him and Mami) but eventually it only felt right for Tamaki to be the one to drag it out of her. I feel like Mami is closest to Tamaki and thus more willing to open up to him.

I completely made up the slight physical differences with the twins. I just liked the idea of Mami using her keen observation skills to be able to catch the very, very slight differences in the twins.

I hope you continue to enjoy the story! Please review and I'll see you next time!