It is just after lunch. We are going to be given about an hour to work on our project. I walk into class and sit down, and I notice that Hikaru and Kaoru are hovering around Haruhi's desk. "What is your group going to do?" Hikaru asks Kaoru. "We still have no idea." Kaoru answers. "Yeah? Well no ideas are better than bad ones!" Haruhi says gruffly. Hikaru laughs a little and Kaoru gives him a questioning look, so he explains. "Tono wants to market commoner's coffee." Kaoru laughs "You won't let him, though... right?" The teacher comes into the classroom and everyone goes to their seats. Commoner's coffee? What is that?
Soon enough we are in our groups and working on our projects. We really aren't getting anywhere. I didn't imagine that it would be this hard. I'm playing around with my pencil when Hunny starts complaining about his book bag. "The strap on my bag is scratching me!" He says sadly as he tries to adjust the strap. Poor Hunny. When I think about it, though, they are pretty uncomfortable. Mori helps him fix the strap. "Hey, that's a good idea! We could sell covers for the straps on book bags to make them more comfortable!" Kaoru says suddenly. "That is a good idea." I agree. Kaoru starts to sketch out an idea of what it should look like, just as the bell rings.
"Dammit! I'm still not done!" Kaoru exclaims. "We could meet somewhere after school to work on it." Hunny suggests. "I would say my house, but something tells me Hikaru would try to bug us. He wants to know what we're doing." Hani nods "That would be hard." Suddenly I remember something, "My house would be pretty quiet. And, my mom has a studio area. I'm sure she wouldn't mind us using it."
And so now everyone is at my house. We've already finished the designs, and we are using some of mom's fabrics to try to start making them. Or, that's the idea. It's not happening, however, because they all thought it would be fun to explore my house. (That idea belongs to a certain twin that I won't mention.) "Aislin, your house is so small." Kaoru says, sounding unimpressed. "And it's so clean!" Hunny says as he stares into a vase that's on display. "Be careful with that!" I run over to him, making sure he doesn't break anything. I turn around and notice Mori admiring a seashell collage on the wall, and I go over to him. "It's pretty, huh? They're all real. It's a collection of shells we've found on our trips to the beach." I explain. He just nods, and replies "Mori likes shea shells." He refers to himself in the third-person?
Suddenly, I hear Kaoru, in the other room, say "Oops!" and I run over to him to see what he broke. When I get there, I see that nothing is broken, but that doesn't set me at ease. "What did you do?" I ask anxiously.
"I accidently spilt coffee-"
"Where did you get coffee?"
"-It's called the kitchen-anyway, I spilt coffee on the dress."
I turn to see a nice sundress with a huge coffee stain on it. "That's okay. It was only a show dress anyway." He looks confused. "It was designed to look nice and stay on the mannequin the whole time, never be worn." I say as I carefully remove the dress from the mannequin "They get dirty all the time, so Mum made several extras." I pull out one of the extras from a drawer and smooth it out before putting it back on the mannequin. "Your mother is a designer?" Kaoru asks "I didn't know that. I thought the dress was important." He still looks pretty sorry for hurting the dress. "No, you're fine. Anyway, that wasn't a very popular design- I think. I remember her saying something about one of her dresses not doing very well, I think it was that one." He nods, and we go back to the living room with Hunny and Mori.
"I didn't know you had a cat!" Hunny exclaims as he points to a curled up baby Siamese that's cuddling with a toy rabbit. "Where did the bunny come from?" I ask.
"It's my usa-chan!"
"Oh, I'm sorry if Shayla took it." I start towards my kitten."Here, I'll get it back for you." Honey jumps in front of me. "No! Usa-chan likes kitties! Besides, it's so cute!" I don't know which looks cuter right now, Shayla and Usa-chan or Hunny-senpai. Although, Honey is also pretty loud, and he wakes Shayla up. She looks at the strangers in the house for the first time, I think that she will freak and run away, but she surprises me and walks up to Hunny. She tries to make him pet her.
"So, you like cats?" Kaoru asks. "Yes, they're my favorite animals." I answer. "I think you would get along well with Nekozawa-senpai." He says. "Who?" He doesn't answer my question, but he does say something that sounds like 'doesn't like the host club' or something like that. I couldn't hear very well because he said it quietly, almost under his breath.
Kaoru walks off somewhere else, I'm not sure where, and Hunny and Mori play with Shayla. I'm sure that she loves the attention. I hear Hunny pout and I notice that Shayla just got up and left while they were still petting her. "Sorry, Hunny, cat's just do that sometimes. Maybe she was hungry." He still looks sad, but he nods and waits for her to come back. "Here, have Usa-chan." Mori says, handing Hunny his bunny, and Honey looks so much happier now.
"Aislin, is this your family?" Kaoru says from the back of the room. He's looking at a picture of me and my parents. "Yes." I walk over to him. "Why?" He turns toward me. "So, you're an alone here?" I'm sort of confused but I answer anyway. "Well, besides the staff. I don't have any siblings though, so when my parents are gone I guess I am pretty alone." His expression softens "I don't know what I would do in that situation. I've really been alone, I've always had Hikaru." I think about this for a moment. "Well, I've never had a sibling, so I guess I'm adjusted to it." He nods "I think Hikaru and I broke the rules on that one. We've always had each other-never been apart- but yet we were always so lonely." He pauses for a moment, "Let me ask you this, can you tell us apart? Most people can't, and we both like and dislike that. We seem to contradict everything we do or say." Can I tell them apart? I've never really tried. I decide carefully on how I will answer. "That's not a fair question." I finally say.
"Oh really, how so?" He asks. "Well, I hardly ever see you both together. I have Hikaru, that I sit next to in class, and I have Kaoru, who is in my project my mind they aren't together. Two different people. However if you were together, no. I wouldn't be able to tell you apart." He seems to be thinking pretty hard about it. "Okay, so when you think of either of us, how do you know if it's me or Hikaru, how do you tell?" I roll my eyes."You act as if I think about you two so , to be honest there is a big difference between the two of you." He looks as if this is new to him. You would think someone else would've told them sooner (I know I can't be the only one to notice.) "Well, honestly, -and no getting offended or butthurt here- but you two have very different personalities. Another contradiction? You pride yourselves on being the same, yet you are very different. For example, you seem to be a bit nicer than Hikaru, who is also the more annoying of the two."
He starts laughing. "You must really dislike Hikaru, then?" I shake my head, "Actually, he's not that bad. Gets on my nerves pretty often, but he seems like an interesting person. He's honest about everything-no matter how rude it may come across as- and that could be a good quality." Kaoru looks confused "So, you know that he is annoying, and rude, and generally has quite a few bad qualities, but you still have a good opinion of him?" I shrug. "Yeah. I guess I just realized that in some ways, I'm no better myself. Everyone has both their good and bad qualities. You can't focus on just one." Actually, I've never really had a set opinion on anyone I just thought of this now. I've never known myself to decide what I think of someone upon meeting them. Now that I think about it, I rarely ever find myself deciding what I think about someone. I hardly ever tell myself 'I like this person' or 'I dislike this person'. I just subconsciously decided to be around certain people more, I never even notice that I do it. that might be why I never really had many friends. I've never told anyone "Hey, I like you, be my friend." or anything like most people do. I guess people like to know what you think of them? I never have. I don't ask people what they think of me, because I'm afraid I'll get an answer that I don't questions are tricky.
"Okay, I have another question." Kaoru's voice chimes over my thoughts. "Would you consider either of us, Hikaru and I, one of your friends?" Another tricky question. "Well, I suppose so. Like I said, I don't think about these things. Although, I do enjoy spending time with both of you." However annoying they may be, they are pretty annoying. I think about what Kaoru said earlier, and something hits me. "You said that you and Hikaru are always together, right?" He nods, not really understanding what I'm getting at. "Then wouldn't it upset you to be in two separate groups? I would think you would want to be together." Kaoru nods. "Yeah, I do wish that we could be in the same group, but sometimes it's good to branch out and do things on your own."
I'm about to reply when Mori enters the room. "Mitsukuni has an idea." He says, before pointing to the studio area. "In there."
All three of us go to see what Hunny's done. He seems to have made a strap out of some of the loose fabric lying around. "It looks nice." I say, almost automatically, and not really paying attention to it. "Why are there bunnies on it?" Kaoru asks, looking at it closely. There were bunnies? I didn't notice. "To make it cuter, duh!" Honey replies. Where did he get fabric with bunnies on it? I didn't know we had any.
Hunny also shows us an idea for a stand to sell our products out of. "That's a good idea, if we set it up somewhere at school, we'll sell more." I say, imagining what the stand should look like. We need posters. "We'll need to make a lot of them, even if we end up making too many, so we don't run out." I say, and everyone agrees. "YAY! MASS-PRODUCTION!" Kaoru says loudly. Okay...
We throw out some more ideas, how much they will cost, when we'll sell them, who we want to sell them to, etc. We make as many more of the straps as we can with leftover fabric. I think we have almost ten. We also decided to try to start selling a few tomorrow. We lose track of time and soon enough it's almost 9:00 at night. Everyone goes home, and I stay in the studio working on designs.
I draw out designs for what signs we can put up, different designs on the straps, what the stand should look like, and more. I'm still working when I start to feel really tired and fall asleep.