-xSweet Intoxicationx- Chapter Two
Julietta sighed as she sat down on her bed and tugged on her short hair, thinking maybe it will grow faster if she pulled on it. She wanted to take revenge on her cousin Nathan, but she knew that was next to impossible. She groaned in frustration as she spotted her school bag lying silently in the corner of her room, eyeing her like how an eagle eyes its prey. Despite the first day of school, the teachers cut no slack. Pop-quizzes on the first day, which Julietta did not do so well on, and tests and projects due the following week. Her freedom was literally gone.
Julietta dragged herself over to her school bag and dumped its contents on her white wooden desk with lilac lining to see what was waiting to devour her poor soul--English, World History, and ... oh great, Algebra. She was about to throw her bag aside when something fell against the soft blankets on her bed.
'What is this...' she wondered to herself. 'I don't remember having it in my bag...'
"Julietta!" her mother charged in. "My, look at your hair! It's lovely! It suits you more, way better than long, girly hair... speaking of which, you kind of look like the famous singer back in my days..."
"Mom!" Julietta interrupted her mother before she began babbling of how and who the singer was. She heard it million times already.
"Hm? What's this?" Her mother eyed the gemstone with glinting desire. "Looks like it could cost a fortune..."
"Don't even think about touching it! It's not mine, and how it got into my bag, I don't know. But I don't want to be held responsible if anything happens to it!"
"Oh, is that so? Hm, maybe somebody put it in your bag to frame you. Hm, you didn't make any friends yet and you already have enemies?"
Julietta replayed the day in her head. Nobody even noticed her; everyone was in their own little world with their own little friends. And the stone wasn't there when she packed her bag so...
"That's it! It must be the property of that bunch of guys in the South Tower Music Room!" Julietta exclaimed all of a sudden.
"Ah, I wanted to keep it though." Her mother said sarcastically.
"Hikaru, Kaoru, you major idiots!" Tamaki yelled as he chased the twins around the room. "How many times were you told to be careful around Lady Luck, and keep it safe? And look! It's gone! The Lady Luck is GONE!"
"Actually, King Tamaki, you've only told us once," Hikaru said as-a-matter-of-factly as he swiftly ran away from Tamaki.
"That's not the point! Ugh, you devils are so dead! Wait till I get my hands on you!"
Kyouya, who was writing things in his clipboard which he always has with him, raised his glasses as his sharp, cold steel grey eyes fixed on the twins. "Well, what happened has happened... but Kaoru, Hikaru, that stone was especially requested by a customer for the club auction tomorrow night. She had been waiting for 5 months for that stone, and now you've lost it. And that'll stain our club's reputation. I hope you're ready to pay the consequences." Kyouya's voice was scarily low.
"Then... there will be no more cakes?" Honey said as he hugged Bun-Bun tight, his round honey colored eyes watering.
"It's not time for such discussion." Mori replied as he carried Honey to a sofa.
"Stop accusing us," Hikaru began.
"You don't know if the Stone is actually gone," Kaoru continued.
"Or just misplaced around this room," Hikaru finished.
Everyone was silent, and the room froze with tension. "We'll wait until after school. If you can't find it, then you guys are paying for it." Kyouya said.
"Ah, whatever, I'd rather pay than search for it," Hikaru said in his carefree voice.
"Yeah, I couldn't agree more," Kaoru agreed with the same tone, as they left for their classes.
After all, what value was two million dollars to them?
Julietta closed her eyes and bit her lip. She felt like her heart was being squeezed while a pile of heavy stones fell on her. The second of school was coming to an end, and there was absolutely nothing better to end it with than this. A failed math quiz, with a big red unclosed zero waiting at the right top corner, sneering at her failure.
Julietta calmed herself down and looked at her test again. There lay messy algebraic equations, waiting to be deciphered. As she kept flipping the pages of her test, her frustration grew. Some problems she DID know how to do, but due to the threatening variables, her mind went into a state of panic, and she had not answered what the questions asked for.
Careless mistakes, Julietta! They're worse than not understanding the problems! Julietta thought to herself as she silently put her test into her folder. She took a deep breath, trying to lift the weight off her heart and shoulders, but she gained the reverse effect.
"Wow, Haruhi! You're so smart!" a girl's voice boomed, and soon, a crowd of girls surrounded Haruhi's desk which was beside yours in the front row. "Haruhi! Can you tutor me? You can come to my house anytime you want!"
"Haruhi, tutor me too!"
"Um... I'm sure you could all get good marks if you study hard... you don't need tutors, I think..." Haruhi replied uncertainly at the girls' comment.
"Ladies, please go back to your seats!" the teacher, Mr. Santilli, ordered. "As you know, this is the review of the things you learned in previous grade... and most of you did okay. Some of you still need to review these questions. We will be having these kinds of quizzes through out the year, to keep you sharp. You are dismissed."
Julietta felt a pang of humiliation and embarrassment at herself. Math was never her forte, but she always managed to get good marks. She was angry at herself, especially for the careless mistakes. But some questions here she hadn't even learned to solve yet, and that made her feel stupid and crushed her self esteem.
So this was the difference between an ordinary public school and one of the world's best private schools.
Julietta yawned as she packed her things. Yes, she thought, Finally the day is over.... As she rummaged through her school bag, she spotted the rainbow colored gemstone glistening from the bottom of her bag. Julietta groaned in frustration, and slowly but heavily hit her desk.
More time spent away from home; her current sanctuary.
"What do you mean you STILL didn't find it?!" Tamaki fussed at the twins.
"It's not our problem," Hikaru and Kaoru said in unison. "Besides, if you want to recover it so much, you should look for it too. We think looking for it is a waste of our time."
"What did you little devils just say? Looking for a two million dollar gemstone that someone is going to bid higher on is a waste of time?" Tamaki yelled.
"Geez, King Tamaki, two million dollars isn't that much anyways, what's the big deal?" Hikaru said.
"I know, but that's not the point! NOOO! My precious gemstone, especially imported! And it was the only one in the world! NOOO! My darling!" Tamaki lamented as he sulked at a corner of the room, which turned gloomy with his depressed aura.
"Shh, guys, someone is coming!" Kaoru whispered as he grabbed the club members and dragged them behind an antique Italian couch.
"What? We don't even have the club scheduled today..." Hikaru said.
"My precious darling... my precious gemstone..."
"Tamaki, be quiet," Kyouya demanded in his manipulating voice, as he glared at the door as if he knew something.
Then entered a boy with brown hair, and the face all too familiar.
Oh just great, Julietta thought as she entered the South Wing Music Room. No one's here. Does that mean I have to come back another time again? Ugh, so troublesome... whatever, I'll just leave it here... As Julietta was about to set the gemstone down, a voice called to her from the behind.
"And what exactly have made you decide to return the stone?"
Julietta spun around in an instant, to discover the group of boys she met last time, with the twins pointing accusingly at her.
"You tried to take the stone, haven't you? It's bad to take things before asking for permission..." the childlike boy, Mitsukuni, if she remembered correctly, said.
It took Julietta a moment to realize what they were implying. "What- n-no! I found it in my bag yesterday when I got home! I have no idea how it got in! It's not that I stole it or anything-" before she realized, the group was walking towards her. She slowly backed away, thinking of what to do.
"There is no place for you to run; if you try to run, I shall call upon my private police and tracking you down won't be hard at all," Kyouya said as-a-matter-of-factly, as if he read your mind. They kept advancing, and Julietta kept backing away, until they came near a balcony.
"Look, seriously, this is a big misunder—" Julietta's sentence was finished off with a scream, as she tripped on the bump where the balcony and the floor connected. Out of instinct, she threw her hands below her to support her but when she realized that she still had the gem, it was too late; the stone flew in a perfect ark over the balcony railing, gaining gasps and yells from the boys who almost threw themselves after the stone. Julietta, despite her pain, quickly jumped up and looked over the balcony, just in time to observe the rainbow gemstone smash into powder as it hits the pavement below.
"Aww, Lucky is gone," the little boy said as he held his pink bunny tight.
"Did you by any chance," Kyouya's quiet and cold, yet calm voice crept through the air, "know how much that costs?"
Julietta bit her lips.
Oh god, I sense big trouble awaiting me... "Um... a lot?"
"Indeed. Two million dollars, to be exact."
Julietta nodded, not knowing anything better to do. 'Why is he telling me all this?'
"I'm really... sorry..." Julietta said quietly.
Kyouya sighed and started writing in his clipboard. "Well, I guess what's done can't be undone..."
"Kyouya! Are you just going to let him go?" the twins said in unison. "That's not fair! When we do something wrong, you always have scary punishments for us!"
Kyouya's expression was unreadable as he pushed up his glasses, which glinted in the sunlight. "Of course I'm going to let him go... after he pays the two millions."
'What did he just say?'
"But I-" Julietta began to protest.
"You don't have two million dollars, right?" Kyouya finished her sentence for her. "That's not a problem; we'll have you work then. For us, until your debt is paid. With your body."
"Work... for... you?" Julietta asked unsurely. With my body? What?! "What do you guys do?"
"We," Tamaki began, "are the Ouran High School Host Club! The Host Club is where rich, good-looking gentlemen with a lot of time to spare entertain rich ladies with a lot of time to spare."
Julietta felt goosebumps on her skin. 'What does he exactly mean by "entertain"...?
"Of course, by entertain, he means having tea and sweet-talk the ladies," Haruhi said.
"The club is held at the end of every month, and we also have a different theme every time! For instance," Tamaki suddenly took out a projector from god-knows-where and starts rolling several films in it, showing the Host Club on many occasions, "this is the spring where we cast a Japanese-tea-ceremony atmosphere, and this is the Christmas atmosphere where we dressed as Santa's cute little helpers... of course, with myself as the king!"
"Oh... kay... I guess," Julietta shrugged. "So... um, how does that exactly pay two million dollars?"
Kyouya smirked, as the twins slowly took a step away. "Hmph, good question." He took out a thick stack of magazines and threw them on a nearby tea table. "With our merchandise, of course! For example, we publish photo collections of our club members, which seems to be popular among the ladies, and..."
"Kaoru, I'm scared," Hikaru whispered to his twin as Kyouya went on.
Kaoru nodded. "Yeah, since when did he take all those pictures?!"
"...And, we have our online shop, where we auction the items of our club members," Kyouya clicked a picture of an item on the Host Club auction website, "such as this pencil, which is now auctioned to a price of $300..."
"Man, so that's where my pencil went! Ever since I left it in the library last week, I never saw it again!" Haruhi said, somewhat happy and somewhat sad. "That was my favorite pencil... I got it for free from a bookstore when I bought a math workbook..."
"Oh, now that Haruhi mentioned it..." Tamaki put his face closer to the laptop screen to get a better view of the picture of not-Haruhi's-anymore pencil, "it has the name of the bookstore engraved on there..."
'These guys are whackos... how can a pencil be auctioned to such a high price? And a pencil that Haruhi got... for free Julietta took a step back, and the eraser she had in her pocket fell out.
"Oops, looks like somebody dropped this... hm, I'll be taking it, if you don't mind," Kyouya said, and snatched the eraser from the ground in an instant.
"Kyouya, but he tried to steal the gemstone! Why does he have to join our club? He can't be trusted!" the twins complained.
"Oh, it's not like he'll actually become a host... he'll just be our servant until he has proven himself worthy. So he'll just carry us tea, and clean up afterwards."
"But, that wasn't a part of the deal!" Julietta protested. She absolutely hated anything similar to housework. Including cleaning up after people.
"Kyouya, but if you do that, her items won't sell..." Mitsukuni, the little cute boy, said.
Kyouya held his chin between his index finger and thumb. "Hm, you're right... fine, he can be a proper member, a host, after he successfully increase a hundred customers. That way, by becoming a host, his debt will be paid off sooner, too. So that be it!"
'Heh... I've never really got to decide anything on my own really...'
"Oh yeah, your name please?"
"My name is Juliet-" all the club members' eyes turned to Julietta. She realized her mistake, and coughed to lower her voice. "Uh, my name is um, Julian Nightingale... yeah, Julian." Kyouya still looked at her suspiciously, but finally let it pass as he scribbled something into his clipboard.
"Good. Perfect, we're having a club session tomorrow after school, since today was almost like if we hadn't have anything done... You can start your work tomorrow," Kyouya flashed a smile, unbelievably sweet for a person like him. If someone who didn't know him saw that smile, they would probably mistaken him for a naive, innocently sweet person.
"Um... thanks," Julietta smiled unsurely. "But may I ask a question before we leave?"
"Go on ahead," Kyouya kept his eyes on the things he was writing.
Julietta pointed at the little boy. "Don't take this wrong, but this is the high school campus, right? So why exactly is this little boy, Mitsukuni, always hanging around here? Is he a brother of someone here?"
The ebony haired boy raised his limpid grey eyes from his clipboard finally, and looked at Julietta. "Oh, you mean Honey?" Kyouya continued innocently. "Well, his name is Mitsukuni Haninozuka, but we call him Honey, and he's actually the oldest member in our club: he's 18."