((Franki shuffles in, clad in a pair of panda slippers, baggy sweat-pants littered in holes, and a tank-top, a pick-axe propped on one shoulder. Her hair is a tangled mess and she has a pair of goggles covered in concrete dust slung around her neck.)) Hello there to all my readers. I am not going to give you an excuse as to why this chapter is extremely late in the releasing process (and the writing process), other than I simply had no time, the wall of Writer's Blockage was extremely thick ((gestures to her dirty goggles)), and that I had run out of Springfell7's home-made 'Plot Bunny Repellent.' Though the process was long as was the wait; I present you with what I have composed. Please forgive any grammar or spelling mistakes. I hope you have enjoyed my story thus far and I hope this chapter meets your standards. ((crosses fingers))
Oh, and also...In the story Bold print=English. not bold=Japanese
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"In here guys," Kami instructed holding the door open for Mariko, Kaoru and Haruhi, "You're really gonna like this."
Kaoru laggard behind to stare up at the neon yellow sign above the door, the words こうしんりょう designed into it. Why had he never heard of this place before, it was even just a few small blocks from Haruhi's home.
"Kaoru…?" Said boy looked to Mariko, who was tugging impatiently on his arm like an excited five year old, "C'mon. Kami's family owns this place and it's absolutely fabulous!" She beamed.
"So, the food's good?" Kaoru asked, letting himself be dragged into the restaurant behind Mariko.
"Yeah, it's delicious…if you can catch it…" She whispered the last part and Kami and her giggled softly into their hands.
"C-catch it?" Haruhi stuttered.
"Yeah, Haruhi," Kami confirmed, "I'm surprised you've never been here before. Don't you live real close?"
"I do, but I've never even set eyes on this place before." Haruhi proceeded to look around, Kaoru following her example. It was a traditional Japanese restaurant, cozy, with a small sake and sushi bar, and a few well place tables, booths and chairs for customers like them. But it was mostly empty and quiet.
"AYIEE!"
Spoke too soon.
The curt sound of glass shattering and the pounding of feet in the rear of the shop echoed through out the entire restaurant, making heads swivel and turn toward the source. Mariko grinned so hard, Kaoru thought her face would split and Kami was doing no better.
"What was—?"
"HULLO!"
"GAH!" Kaoru found himself on the floor for the third time that day (the first time he tripped over his boxers getting ready earlier). "W-w-wha?" He looked up into the face of a young Chinese man, who smiled down at him through squinted eyes.
"Hullo!" He greeted. "Did I scare you?" Kaoru nodded hesitantly, dumbstruck. "Good!" He chirped and turned toward Kami and Haruhi. "Oh, Kami-chan! It's been too long! How did your recital go?"
"Very well, thank you." Kami answered and waved the man over and said into his ear, "They've never been here, nor do I think they've ever eaten at the Hibachi before." The nameless Chinese man gasped and made an "O" with his mouth, blinking from Haruhi to Kaoru and back.
"Hurry then! Pick whatever table you want! I'll be right over!" He then disappeared into the back and could be heard speaking rapid Chinese to some other individual.
The girls guided their dates over to a table way in the back, but only when they sat down did they realize it was no ordinary table. A good sized stainless steel grill was built into the middle, a bar like rim surrounding it, long enough to fit at most eight people.
They waited a few minutes, ordered their drinks from a young girl in a pink kimono, and made small talk, but nothing seemed particularly interesting about this restaurant…yet.
"Are you ready?" Someone yelled from the opposite end of the restaurant. It was the Chinese man, now dressed in a colorful chef's shirt and hat, smiling. He wheeled over a small cart filled with ingredients, spices, and sauces. "You say they've never had Hibachi before," It was more of a statement than a question, "Then lets give them a night to remember!" He whipped out two flat spatulas from his belt slapped them harshly onto the surface of the grill and began to carelessly juggle them, laughing. "Hullo, my name is John—yes I'm Irish—and I'll be your cook this evening."
It took Kaoru a few minuets to process the joke, but when he did he found himself laughing along with the rest of his group.
"But your nametag says 'Mary'," Haruhi comment.
"Oh, yeah, that's my name; Mary Ann John the Irish man. I'll have two Cokes and a beer, should I drive up to the second window?" Again everyone broke out laughing. "Ready?" They all nodded. He spilled a clear liquid onto the flat grill, then another one. He smiled as he picked up the third bottle, "And we…begin!" He splashed the third liquid onto the first two and an enormous flame leapt from the grill, making them all shy back in their chairs as the flames licked at each other and eventually died out.
John smashed his spatulas against each other twice then against the grill once then together twice again, creating a familiar tune. He began to sing, "We will…we will ROCK YOU! We will…we will ROCK YOU!" Mariko began to tap on the table to the beat, singing along.
"Okay, okay, need to keep my job; what do you want to eat today?" John slipped out a round plate of white rice from under the counter, sliding it onto the grill with his spatula.
"Haruhi, do you like chicken and shrimp?" Kami asked the brunette, who nodded. "Two chicken and shrimp, please."
"Hai…Hai, and you two?" John asked Mariko and Kaoru eyes never leaving the rice as he grilled some peas and carrots.
"Steak and chicken?" Mariko looked to Kaoru for confirmation, whom happily obliged. "Steak and Chicken; medium rare," She told John.
"O-kay!" He reached into the top of his hat and removed two eggs, making everyone look at him quizzically. "Look," He said placing the eggs on the grill and spinning them with a flick of his wrist, "Egg roll." They all chuckled at the pun. John cracked the eggs and tossed the shelling over his shoulder, not caring where it landed in the process. He scrapped and flipped the eggs until they were thoroughly scrambled then abandoned them for the time being.
John picked up a glass bottle and splashed its contents onto the rice, stating, "Some Diet Coke…" They smiled, knowing it was just soy sauce and listened to him mutter, "Dr. Pepper…" as he added a spray of a similar looking sauce beside it. He scooped and shuffled the sauce and rice until the rice had been stained a light tan color.
"Veggie time!" John announced bringing out a plate of diced carrots and a bowl of green peas from under the table/grill. He poured the vegetables over the eggs and began to mix all the ingredients on the grill.
"Kami-chan, open your mouth." Kami complied with John's command. "Let's see if you've gotten better, eh?" He balanced a grilled pea on the tip of his spatula and began to bounce it playfully. "Ready?" Kami nodded, forcing herself to keep her mouth open and not laugh.
"One…two…" John counted giving the pea a bounce each time he spoke, "…Three!" He bounced it forcefully off the spatula, toward Kami's mouth. Kami jerked her head to the side as she attempted to catch it, only to have it bounce off her nose and land in Haruhi's hair. Everyone laughed as the brunette try to remove the vegetable from her short locks, blushing.
"You next." John pointed to Haruhi with his cooking utensil, once she had gotten rid of the small round nuisance on her head.
John now balanced a carrot on his spatula and tossed it at the unsuspecting girl, who attempted to catch it unsuccessfully. Everyone giggled at Haruhi's pink stained face.
"Who's next?" John asked himself evilly, eyes landing on Mariko who was smirking.
"What?" She asked innocently, cocking her head to one side.
"Your turn." John said, scooping up an unstable clump of rice and showing it to Mariko.
"Psh, piece of cake," She shrugged and leaned forward in her chair, staring at the piece of rice like an old rival. An old rival that would obviously explode into little fragments if Mariko didn't catch it in her mouth in time.
"Fine," John aimed, "Then open that sexy mouth of yours!"
Mariko smiled, then waggled her eyebrows suggestively and licked her lips slowly, opening her mouth for the food. "Go." She whispered seductively.
"One…two…three!" John threw it hurriedly, as if it would burn him…but not at Mariko.
He threw it at poor unsuspecting Kaoru, who had gone rigid when he heard Mariko use her "bedroom" voice so openly. The rice had exploded when it made contact with his forehead, sending rice flying all over his face and hair.
Kami and Haruhi had exploded into a fit of giggles and chuckles, supporting each others weight on their swaying stools. Mariko held a hand over her mouth as she laughed soundlessly, "A-are you okay?" she asked as she raised her hand to brush the rice from Kaoru's topaz hair.
Kaoru felt heat rise up his neck but forced it down before it could reach his cheeks, "I'm fine." He mumbled sourly. He was so embarrassed.
"Oi—Oi—Oi!" John patted Kaoru on the shoulder apologetically, "Don't cry, baby. It was a joke. Don't cry! Look, look!" John's spatulas began flying around the rice and forming it into something other than a pile of grains. "Look," he repeated, producing two more eggs from his hat, placing them in the rice side-by-side. He made a hole with his spatula under the eggs and slid the actual spatula under the hole.
"Aw, I know who that is." Kami smiled, "Its Hello Kitty, right?"
"Yes, and look," John mixed the flammable liquids in the kitty's mouth hole and pulling a lighter from his pocket placing it extremely close to the cat's mouth. Soon Hello Kitty had a mouth full of fire and was looking quite distressed about it from Kaoru's point of view.
"Ah, poor kitty-cat…" John pretended to look guilty, shaking his head and "tsk"-ing. He sighed, but then, "FIREWORKS!" he yelled, holding up a tin can of something. He began to wanton the contents over the flames. Sparks began to fly and pop away, but never harming anyone. "And here's your rice…" He sloppily scooped up the grains and brushed them onto their plates without looking.
They all thanked him and hesitantly took their first mouthfuls, picking it up delicately with their chopsticks as if it would spontaneously combust there on the spot.
"As my nonexistent niece would put it; Time for the Sketti noodles!" he removed another long oval-shaped tray from underneath the bar and swept the noodles unto the stove. He replaced the tray and picked up a tin bowl filled with butter.
Chopping slices of butter off of the square he sent them flying into the pasta, "Butterfly, butterfly, butterfly…" he sang with every slab that melted into the food.
Soon though, it seemed as if John began to tire, his jokes occurring every once and a while but not as rapid fire as they once had been.
"Oh, Kami-chan," he whined to the dark-skinned girl, "Mary needs more sake." He swiped the last of their food onto their plates, sighing.
"Oh John," Kami said sympathetically, placing her hand on the Chinese man's red cheek, "I'm sure Lin can get you some more," she patted his cheek and waved him away, "Go, go. By all means… drink yourself silly!"
"Oh, thank you, Kami-chan!" he leaned over the cleaned hibachi and planted a kiss firmly on Kami's cheekbone, "You are so good to me!" And with that, the fanatical Mary Ann John was gone. Never to be seen again, hopefully.
"So, Kami," Haruhi said, wiping food residue from her lips with the napkin provided, "How long have you been dancing?"
"Oh," Kami held up a finger while she tried to finish the food still in her mouth. "Well," she began, swallowing, "Actually, I've been dancing tap since I was five. But I've been a ballerina since I was seven. Mariko has two years over me."
"You can't even tell though," Mariko stabbed her chopsticks toward Kami, "You're just as skilled as I am."
"Nuh-uh!" Kami protested, turning to Kaoru with widen beseeching eyes, "Did you see how well she did her Pirouettes?" Kaoru opened his mouth to respond, but Kami turned back to Mariko with out his answer.
"I couldn't get over how organized your arms were! How—how symmetrical your relevé was!" Kami put her hands out in front of her in attempt to make her lengthy arms symmetrical to one another.
"Kami," Mariko rolled her eyes in exasperation, "Please, it wasn't that good, okay?"
Kami shook her head in response, "If you say so…" She returned to her own meal. She mumbled sourly, "Still can't believe you had such a small part."
"Hey," the raven laughed and said with a slight pout, "I liked being Dove number six!"
The two dancers laughed.
"What about you Haruhi?" Kami turned the conversation toward a different subject, "What do you do in your spare time?"
"Um," Haruhi looked to Kaoru for a moment, "Kaoru and I," she began hesitantly, "Participate in a club at school, after hours."
Haruhi tensed slightly when she noticed Kaoru's eyes widen at the statement. Haruhi had a feeling he was keeping a few things from his date. Perhaps the Host Club was one of those things.
"Oh, really?" Kami inquired, facing the younger twin, "What school?"
Letting out a small unnoticeable breath of relief, Kaoru devoured a cluster of noodles before responding.
"Ouran High School."
"Ouran?" Kami exclaimed, looking to Mariko, "You didn't tell me that."
Mariko raised an eyebrow, "Does it matter?"
"No but, that's like a really high ended school isn't it?" More questions for the students of said institution were thrown Haruhi and Kaoru's way, "Don't you need, like, connections?"
"Kaoru said his Mum was a fashion designer…" Mariko smiled slightly as she remembered how Kaoru had helped her that day.
Kami grinned, "Awesome! What about you Haruhi? What do your parents do?"
"Uh, I—"
"Haruhi got into Ouran on a scholarship," Kaoru wrapped an arm around Haruhi's elfin shoulders and brought her close, beaming almost proudly.
"A smarty, eh?" Kami laughed and ruffled Haruhi's hair playfully, "That's cool man."
"Do you ladies go to school together?" Kaoru nodded to the waitress as she placed their bill on the table.
"Yeah," Mariko snatched the pink check out of Kaoru's hand, "I'll pay."
"No, no, no," Kaoru grasped one end of the bill, "I'll pay."
Mariko smirked, "No, I insist," she tugged lightly on her side of the bill.
"But what kind of gentleman would make the lady pay, Hm?" Kaoru pulled as well.
Mariko leaned toward the ginger, "The kind that is dinning out with Tatsuna Mariko on his arm."
Kaoru chuckled and advanced forward as well, "So you admit this is a date?"
"I never said that, Stinker."
"But you im—"
"Lobelia…?!"
Mariko and Kaoru both looked to Haruhi, whose eyes were wide in surprise.
"What about Lobelia?" Kaoru asked, letting up on his hold of the bill.
"What?" Kami held her hands up in a show of defense, "Me and Ko-chan are students there…"
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"So…uh… Lobelia, huh?"
"Mm-Hm…" Mariko nodded, taking a protracted lick up the surface of her gelato cone. (Kaoru had insisted that she get the expensive Italian desert in replacement of her beloved 'ordinary' mint chocolate-chip ice cream.) "Been goin' there since I was in nursery school."
Kaoru had persuaded Haruhi to return home after she had had an atypical fainting spell three-fourths through their dinner. Kami had volunteered to make sure she got home alright and had then gratefully accepted a ride home from Kaoru's limousine chauffeur. Kaoru had told his servant that he would give him a call when he and Mariko would need him to come and take them home as well.
"Hm…" Kaoru hummed, tasting his own gelato slowly. The two of them walked contently side by side down a commoner's city street; Kaoru's stride equaling two of Mariko's.
Kaoru didn't know how he should undergo Mariko's attendance to the rivaling all girl's school. He hadn't even known that he was sitting in one of the school's many elaborate theatres during her amazing performance earlier that night. Sure, the Zuka-White Lily Club had tried to steal Haruhi away from Ouran on many a time to enroll her into their own academy, but that certainly didn't mean the whole school was filled with crazed females…did it?
He stole an uneasy side glance at the ballerina who had lightly taken and linked it with hers in her very own distracted state. The younger twin settled with himself in a short psychological debate that he would wait and see how things unfolded.
"Oh—" Mariko gasped, abruptly stopping, causing Kaoru to halt as well. He looked at her pouting expression (finding it rather endearing) and then followed her eyes to the fallen dairy creation at her feet.
"Whoops." He said aloud for her, smiling.
Mariko looked up at him, her unfilled cone still clutched in her hand, "Why is it when you're around; bad things tend to happen to me?" she furrowed her brow further.
Kaoru smiled and shrugged, holding out his waffle cone to her, "Just lucky I guess." His eyes twinkled with a delight that he had never had before when separated from Hikaru. "Here, have mine."
She acknowledged the outstretched cone but shook her head negatively, "It's yours, Stinker."
He chuckled and pointed to the ground, "And that one was yours." He kept his arm extended, "Take it."
The raven's ample eyes scanned his face and tentatively reached for the cone, lifting it up out of his large palm. She stared at it for a moment before proposing, "Howa 'bout we share?"
Kaoru leaned in and licked what was once his dessert. "Sounds fair enough," he smacked his lips happily. He tried to tilt in and take an extra taste, but he was stopped by Mariko's sun kissed hand smushing his cheek away to one side. "Hey!"
She laughed and stole a huge lick away from the base of the cone and shuffled away down the dimly lit sidewalk. "Mine!" she giggled.
The Hitachiin face became one of puzzlement, "What did you say?" he gave a crooked smile and trotted closer, "Was that English?"
Mariko kept dancing away just out of his reach. She took another large bite and nodded, "Yes, it is." She smiled and swallowed, licking her lips afterward, "I speak a little bit. Are you jealous, Stinker?"
"That's not fair. I can't make a good come-back if I can't understand you, Loopy!" He made a playful growl and leapt for the cone again, "Japanese please!"
"No way!" she protested.
Then, suddenly, after an exceptionally large consumption of the gelato, Mariko gaped and pressed one folded fist to her temple, her eyes screwed shut. Kaoru didn't need to be fluent in English to know that the clever raven had gotten a tremendous case of brain freeze. He took the moment of her stillness to swipe the ice cream away and replace it with his own hand. Mariko didn't protest to the impulsive physical contact.
"Press your tongue to the top of your mouth," the red head instructed.
Mariko forced her eyes open into slits to see him, "What?" she ground out.
Kaoru opened his own mouth and pointed to the roof of his oral cavity. Mariko studied him before trying the motion out for herself, pressing her thumb flat against the area in her mouth. Her body language visibly relaxed as the method worked its magic.
"Better…?" he asked, tossing the half eaten cone away into a waste basket near-by.
"Much. Thank you." She let go off his hand, subtly tucking it away under her arms as if she were chilled by the warm breeze of that night.
"What did that mean?" Kaoru asked, flipping his wrist over to check the ever fleeting time.
"It meant, 'Thank you.'" She explained nonchalantly, coughing into her forearm.
"How do you say 'You're welcome,'?" he slipped his hands into his pockets and leisurely strolled beside her.
"You're welcome."
"You're welcome." Kaoru repeated quietly.
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Franki: ((begins to weep uncontrollably into Mariko's shoulder)) That—was—horrible! ((sobs)) my readers deserve better! Please forgive me!
Mariko: ((awkwardly comforts her creator with a stiff pat on the back)) Please review…? ((tries to escape Franki's grasp)).
((please help and give Franki-chan suggestions for how you want to story to unfold or thing you might want to be seen done))
