Yes! I'm alive!

(Though I did go into depression when I saw only one person took the time to send me a nice farewell…was the chapter THAT bad?)

Escape_To_Ouran: Thanks for the review! Your comment really made me think…so hold that question till the end of the chapter ok!

"Alright, so I'll go over it again" Haruhi said for about the 5th time "An acid + a metal hydroxide creates a salt, and what?"

"Um…er…" Alex trailed off, furrowing her eyebrows together with frustration "Hydrogen?"

Haruhi sighed "Nope" she shook her head and closed the Chemistry textbook "It makes water"

"Dammit!" Alex exclaimed, slamming her head onto the table "Why does chemistry have to be so %^$£*&^ difficult!"

"Language" I warned her, still weary that swearing isn't the most socially acceptable thing to do in somebody's house when you're meant to be studying "Remember the fruitcake incident? We don't want to repeat that again, now do we?"

Alex responded simply be giving me another death glare, then turning her attention back to Haruhi

"What's next?" She asked

"Well, chemistry doesn't seem to be going anywhere" She remarked, rummaging through her school bag on the floor "How about Japanese history?"

"I guess so" Alex replied, lifting her head off of the table and running a hand through her blonde hair and pointing to me accusingly "I've got that one hammered in thanks to the history nut over there"

"Only a small part!" I responded, holding my hands up in protest to Haruhi's demanding expression "I was…researching?"

I have a weird tendency to look up irrelevant information when I am procrastinating for my exams, and at some point I had managed to get so submerged I blabbed to Alex about the Edo period in Japanese history every time I saw her that month, so she ended up being an expert.

Surprisingly enough, Alex seemed to remember quite a lot of the historical facts and dates I had told her, and the last half hour of Haruhi's tutoring went by reasonably quickly. That is, until the last 10 minutes.

Everything was going fine, and Alex was beginning to brave her algebra homework with Haruhi's help, when suddenly we heard increasingly loud voices approaching the door.

Haruhi noticed the voices also, and turned to the door, her face now one of masked indifference.

About a second later, as if Haruhi had timed it all perfectly, the door burst open, and the familiar 6 irritating males entered the room.

I swore that a tick mark appeared on the side of Haruhi's face as she stood up and fully turned to the Host Club "What are you guys doing here?"

"We were bored" The twins stated, shrugging their shoulders in perfect synchronization "So we thought we'd come see you!".

Alex was pretending to ignore them, lowering her head onto the desk again as her face began to flush. I began to smile at that, it was always funny to watch her react around boys; after all, she doesn't have all that much experience.

I snickered at her pain, and whispered to her "What's the problem?"

"Boys…why?" She simply replied with a groan

"You never act like this on the football pitch" I commented.

She raised her head to give me a glare "It's called soccer, and they aren't boys, they're team-mates"

I rolled my eyes with a sigh, and directed my attention back to Haruhi's conversation
It looked like she had given up arguing with them, and instead simply indicated for them to join us at the table as she went off to the kitchen.

I laughed a bit at the way each of them scrunched up as they sat down, like there wasn't enough room for them, despite the face Alex and I were sitting cross-legged quite comfortably with school bags streamed across the room still with plenty of space around us.

"So what are you two doing over at Haruhi's house?" The small blonde named Hunny asked, tilting his head innocently as he looked at the crowded table covered in school books and pencil cases

"Studying" I replied, picking up my chemistry textbook "Haruhi's tutoring us"

"Well, more me than Kate" Alex added, finally gaining the courage to lift her head from the table to make eye contact with the group "I've got at raise my grades by the end of the semester, otherwise…" she shuddered

Tamaki seemed completely entranced by Alex's cliff-hanger, and leaned forward to Alex, his eyes wide with anticipation "Otherwise…what?"

I noticed another violent blush creep its way across Alex's face, so I decided to put her out of her misery and lie for her "Otherwise her parents will kill her…with a knife"

Somehow, the idiotic blonde fell for the blatant lie, and recoiled in fear dramatically
"Oh! That's so tragic! Being pressured by one's family like that!"

The rest of the club didn't seem to buy the tale, but it seemed like there was no stopping the blonde when he was on a roll

"We, the Ouran Host Club will do everything we can to protect you from your cruel family!" Tamaki continued, somehow seeming even more melodramatic with every sentence "That, we will guarantee!"

I suddenly deeply regretted my decision to so suddenly explain in Alex's place, as I felt the glare of doom burning a hole into the back of my head, probably coming from Alex.

Haruhi entered the room again carrying a tray, balancing on it cups of tea which I guessed she must had made when we were having this conversation, and sat down with a sigh.

"Sorry again about this you guys" She said to me and Alex, handing everybody a cup "The club tend to do this a lot"

"I guessed" I replied, taking a sip of the warm tea.

As I did so, I saw the time on my watch in the corner in my eye.

"$*^£!" I exclaimed, slamming the tea down as I looked at my watch properly "Is it that time already?"

"What is it Kate-chan?" The blonde Hunny asked as I grabbed all my books and shoved them into my bag

"Tom's band meeting!" I exclaimed in reply, leaping up from the table and quickly bowing to Haruhi as I ran to the door "I am so sorry for this, but I have to go!" I apologized as I ran out of the door and leapt down the stairs.

Alex followed me to the top of the stairs, and waved as I ran down the street

"Good luck!" She exclaimed "Make sure they don't blow something up this time!"

COOL TRANSITION

You see, Tom is my older brother.
I don't get to see him much though, he didn't move to Japan with us you see; he was just accepted into university when we moved, so he stayed behind.

He tries to visit as often as he can, but normally we only see one another about a year at a time. This time, he's brought his band with him.
He's in a band called 'Ultimate Heights ', which are on a tour at the moment in Japan. I've heard that they're doing quite well as a band, and their gigs have been sell-outs. But, they have one problem as a group.

They tend to break stuff when they have an argument.
Last time they all met up at my house was back in England, when they had an argument so big 12 year old me thought it was World War III. In total the group broke 2 windows, split 5 living-room cushions, threw a TV into one of the band member's face and broke our only working computer at the time with a guitar smash.

In response to this, Mum was furious. She banned the group ever meeting in our house in England ever again, and made me promise that if they ever visited Japan together, it would be of course, as the little sister's duty to make sure this time they don't destroy the living room.
Mum's orders.

So, that is why I am running at full speed down my house's driveway, nearly tripping over my own feet while doing so.

My house itself isn't much of a marvel to look at, with a nice, but still simplistic traditional Japanese-dojo styled look to it, which is in strange contrast to the western interior we have going on inside. My favourite part of the house has to be the yard though. My mother loves gardening, so most of the time she has is spent taking care of the roses and marigolds we have down by the gate, or looking after the front lawn spread across the garden like a lush green never-ending ocean.

"Tom!" I exclaimed as I slid open one of the side doors and ran full pelt into my older brother by accident, falling onto the floor beneath him as a result.

"Whoa!" He said, crouching down and giving me a warm hug as he helped me up "Careful there Kit-Kat!"

I grinned in response and hugged him back

"I missed you so much! Why didn't you bother calling me when you got here!" I yelled at him, poking his chest accusingly

"I told you what time I would be here!" He said in response, head locking me and ruffling my hair "Don't try to blame everything on me! You were the one who didn't bother to check her watch again!"

Tom had changed so much since I last saw him; His chocolate brown hair had gotten messier and he had gotten much taller than last time we'd met. I noticed he'd his fashion sense hadn't changed a bit though; wearing a ridiculous 'Musician by day, Ninja by night' black t-shirt and a pair of ripped jeans.
His eyes were a different color from mine too, he had inherited a sort of sea-blue and green from my mother, whereas I just got regular light green from my father.

"Does mum know you're in the house?" I asked him, remembering the scream-fest that the pair had last time he came to visit the household with the band, it was not pretty.

He paused for a moment; like a child considering whether to tell somebody that they drew on the walls. Luckily though, one of his band members explained in his place.

"She doesn't know." The band's drummer, who if I remember right was called Dominic, said. I could tell that he didn't seem all that proud about being here without my mum's permission either.
Dominic ran a hand through his dyed red spiky hair before continuing "She won't need to know either. We plan to leave in the morning to get to the next venue"

"Sorry about that" The lead vocalist Andrew said, giving me a kind smile, but still one dripped with mischief "We'll be good…sort of "

I felt my anger begin to rise as I looked at all of them. What did they think they were doing? Mum is going to kill them, and then she will yell at me too for keeping their doomsday of a visit a secret!

I began to open my mouth for a screaming match with my brother, when suddenly I felt half a dozen pairs of eyes on me.
I had felt the feeling many times in Boarding School, so I could detect it with ease or ignore it at will, which was kind of useful in a way.

However this time I chose not to ignore it, I was too tired and irritated to ignore it, not to mention I wanted nothing more than to divert my attention away from the thought of what mum was going to do with the members of 'Ultimate Heights', family or not.

I sharply turned around, and briefly scanned every bush and wall I could see for those pairs of eyes.
It didn't take me long; in the bush literally 10 meters away from where I was standing, I saw the telltale tufts of hair from two redheads, three blondes, one brunette and two with dark hair.
There was no denying it; it was Alex and the Host Club.

Alex instinctively noticed my anger begin to seep through every pour in my body; I was using every ounce of my strength to keep myself from strangling every one of them then and there, so she gave up the hide-and-seek game and stood up from behind the bush.

"Um…Hey Kate!" She began, awkwardly scratching the back of her head "What a coincidence! How's it going?"

I had enough at that point. There was no way that I could keep the floodgates of my temper closed for long, so I thought I may as well let it seep out and direct it towards Alex, after all, it was her fault in the first place for spying on me, she had it coming.

"WHAT THE %$*& DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING ALEX?"

My trip was fun! Though everybody got into fights and we ended up stealing water from the café because the youth hostel wouldn't let us have any…

Alright, I've been thinking at the moment what YOU guys think who should go with who, so if you are reviewing, please can you tell me who personally you think who Kate and Alex are going with…it would really help giving me a help as to what developments should come next.

Thanks!