Sorry this took so long to get out guys, I had block...again. But yeah! Whoop! It's out!
Special thanks to my-forgotten-rose for BETA-ing! You are SUCH a star!
Those two days in which I spent my last hours of solitude went by disturbingly quickly.
As I stood in front of the baby-pink giant gates of Ouran Academy, and as I watched the expensive limos pass me by, I pondered on what exactly I did over those two days.
It had been the weekend, so I didn't go to school.
I hadn't even had the courage to speak to Alex after my conversation with Linda, Jack and Todd.
I hadn't been outside the house.
So that left me no other choice, I spent the entire weekend locked up in my room, watching videos of cats on YouTube.
Suddenly, I began to feel I had completely wasted my final days of peace.
"Kate-chan!" I suddenly heard from behind me, and before I could even turn around I felt a small body jump onto my back, as if I was giving the person a piggy-back. Instantly I knew it was.
"Hunny?" I asked, turning my head behind to glimpse the older male blonde smiling sweetly back at me.
"How are you Kate-chan?" Hunny asked, jumping off me and running round so he faced my front, still smiling as innocently as ever.
Seriously, this guy is a year older than me?!
I smiled fondly at him, and replied "I'm waiting for three of my friends…They were meant to start attending school today, and I promised to meet up with them."
"Your friends are the exchange students?" Asked the harmonic voices of the twins in unison, scaring me out of my wits as they appeared behind me on each side.
"Y-yes!" I stuttered, jumping back instinctively as the twins completely destroyed my personal space and turning around. (It's different with Hunny; he certainly doesn't look like he'll harass you!) "You've got a problem with that? I'm sorry if they've done anything disruptive to your school, I really am!"
"No, they haven't done anything." One of the twins said, which I think may be Karou, but I can never truly tell. He shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly as his brother continued.
"It's just…they're very different from you." The other twin I guessed must have been Hikaru finished the twins' statement.
"Different?" I asked, confused, yet still unsurprised at the statement. "Different how?"
"Well, to start," Hikaru began, shrugging his shoulders in an 'it's pretty obvious though I'll explain it to you anyway' motion.
"They're troublemakers." Karou continued, mimicking his twin's body language. "Not to mention that they're-"
"Stupid?" Asked a female voice, speaking Japanese, though the accent was pretty terrible, from behind me, once again making me jump out of my skin.
"Seriously?!" I exclaimed. "Is today 'sneak up behind Kate to scare her day'?! What is with everybody!?" I turned around yet again to see a teenaged girl with red hair cut in a feminine 'bob' style. Her bright green eyes glinting with humor as she grinned mischievously The yellow dress of Ouran High School had a band on the right sleeve with the writing 'Exchange' in red and white.
"…Linda?!" I exclaimed, my voice cracking slightly with emotion as I jumped onto the slender girl and gave her a big hug.
Linda happily hugged me back and we quickly began laughing hysterically, completely forgetting about the Ouran students beside us.
"I missed you so much!" Linda exclaimed, breaking the hug and surveying me up and down. "You've gotten thinner, and taller!" She said, smiling widely as she tugged a small bunch of strands of hair, making my head move slightly "Not to mention your hair style; you didn't need it to be that short!"
"I know, but I wanted a big change, plus I always liked girls with short hair." I indicated to Linda's hairstyle, longer than both my hair and Haruhi's, though still short for girls' hair. I instantly remembered that the twins, plus Hunny were standing behind me. I turned around, and smiled awkwardly.
"Guys," I said, indicating to Linda and scratching the back of my head "This is my friend from boarding school, Linda Thompson. Linda, these are the guys from the Ouran High School Host Club, Hikaru Hitachiin, Karou Hitachiin and Hunny Mitsukuni."
"Hey! I remember you two!" Linda said, pointing the twins with a look of distaste and annoyance on her face, eyebrows furrowed. "You two nearly blew me up in chemistry class!"
"Er, no." The twins said in unison, a facial expression that only could be described as 'what're you, stupid?' also being perfectly mirrored onto each twin. "You nearly blew up yourself in chemistry class; we were nothing but mere bystanders."
"Yeah, and of course mere bystanders would be adding fuel to the fire and just kept adding all the wrong ingredients whilst it was blowing up!"
"Ha!" Said the over-exited, immature, and familiar voice of Todd as he jumped out from behind the left pillar that the pink gate was attached to and pointing an accusing finger at Linda. "So you're admitting it! You blew up the chemistry lab on your first day!"
"I did not!" Retorted Linda. "Tweedle-dumb and Tweedle-dee did over here!"
"We didn't do that!" The brothers yelled at Linda in unison. "You did!"
The argument went on for so long that all of the bystanders had stopped paying attention. I looked around some more for the inevitable arrival of Jack, who was always one step behind the other two troublemakers so he won't be dragged into their mess.
Surely enough, I saw the disturbingly tall figure of Jack walk in between the arguing foursome, picked up both Todd and Linda by the scruff of their clothing and simply dragged them both out of the argument without even blinking an eye.
He clearly had experience in the art of 'getting them the hell out of there'; as he took the wise decision of stretching his arms outwards to make sure Linda and Todd were properly separated.
He walked towards me, looking as calm as if he was on a daily stroll, instead of carrying two quarrelling demons out of a brawl,
"Sup' Kate!" He exclaimed, dropping the two as fast as he picked them up to give me one of his famous rib-crushing hugs, lifting me up off the ground and shaking me. "It's been a real long time, huh?"
"Grammar, Jack…" Linda mumbled as she rubbed her temples, getting up and smoothing out her hair.
"Doesn't matter!" Jack replied. "The delinquents are reunited!"
"Delinquents?" The twins asked, suddenly highly interested in our conversation and poking their heads out from behind Jack's large back. "What do you mean?"
I scratched the back of my head, and began to awkwardly laugh. After noticing that nobody else was laughing with me, I felt my face become extremely warm.
"I believe that Mr. Kingsley is referring to the group's rather…interesting school record." Kyoya said, literally appearing out of nowhere and making me completely lose my embarrassment as I stared at him, jaw dropped. He was a ninja, a deadly, stealthy, ninja.
"I do look at the student's private records after the Host Club has made contact with them, Miss Farnest." Kyoya said, within a sentence answering the question that had been running through my brain for the past few weeks.
"How the heck do you even get access?" I asked, still mouth gaping like a goldfish.
Kyoya simply gave me a look, as if to say 'you're really going to ask that?', and so I didn't bring it up again.
"Didn't' she tell you?" Linda asked the twins. "We were the trouble makers in Parkinson Boarding School! Also known as the PBS!"
"Like PMS, only it's a school." Todd contributed.
To that, the entire Host Club, minus Kyoya, who already knew about it, and Tamaki and Haruhi, who were absent from the conversation altogether, gave me a stare that spoke more than a thousand questions would ever offer.
I smiled awkwardly again, before saying "What can I say; I wasn't the best apple in PBS."
Clearly that wasn't going to be enough explanation for the four boys, so I sighed and began to explain in full.
"Ok, basically in Parkinson Boarding School, I was kind of a troublemaker. Not to say I was the only one." I indicated to the trio of exchange students, who somehow weren't doing their usual routine of bickering and instead simply listening quietly, standing still and acting seriously out of character. Though once they understood that I was indicating to them, they all gave the Host Club a wide, cheeky grin.
"We skived off lessons practically every day." I continued. "We drank, smoked and snuck into one another's rooms almost every day, despite the fact it was against one of the biggest school rules. We weren't like the other rich kids in the school. In fact, when I was first admitted to the school I was so much of an outcast that these three were the only ones who'd talk to me in the school for the first couple of weeks. I don't regret being friends with them, in fact, I think they were the best thing to come out of the PBS. Still, when my parents decided to move to Japan, I went with them and decided to clean up my act."
"By the way," Linda asked. "How is the 'clean up act for Japan movement' going?"
"You can kind of tell by their reactions." I replied, indicating to the blank face of Mori, the wide eyed face of Hunny, and the flabbergasted expressions of the twins. "I don't even consider it a 'big secret' or anything. I mean, Alex knew about it within a month of us being friends. Still, I'm happy to know that I'm different enough now to shock people."
My mood dramatically fell after mentioning Alex. I suddenly remembered that I was supposed to have called her the day I got the news that the trio were coming to Ouran, and had been so preoccupied with them I had completely forgotten about her. I felt incredibly guilty and sort of let the conversation drop.
Jack must have picked up on this, and changed the subject, he always knew how to change the subject, almost like a sixth sense.
"So, where are we going Kate?" He asked. "I've been dying to see more of Japan since we're actually here!"
"Yeah! Linda was yakking on about it the entire plane ride!" Todd said, poking Linda's cheek much to her protest.
"Only because I spent the entire week before researching!" She retorted, smacking Todd's hand away harshly, after he cradled his hand, pouting a little.
"My God…You were studying?!" I exclaimed, a look of mock horror on my face.
"Sort of." Linda replied. "We weren't allowed to skive the entire week before, or we'd be bunked off the trip, so I spent the entire time on my laptop researching Japanese culture instead of doing actual work."
"They didn't say anything about avoiding work whilst we were in the classroom!" Todd commented, a look of pure satisfaction on his face.
"Well, there's a great sushi place a few blocks away from here…" I said, thinking about the different options I had planned out. "Though it's a bit expensive, so I wouldn't be able to play for everybody…did you guys bring money with you?"
"Kate-chan!" Hunny exclaimed, tugging my sleeve. "We can come too, right?"
"Um…" I replied, feeling awkward again.
"We'll pay!" Hunny said, looking back at Mori for conformation. "Right, Takashi?"
He nodded, meaning that Mori must have agreed. Instantly, knowing that two very rich members of the Host Club would be paying for my meal and for the meals of my bottomless-pit-like-stomachs for friends I didn't mind them coming so much. I smiled and happily agreed.
"Alright, let's get goin-" Linda said, already begging to walk along the pavement, before the twins both grabbed her by the back of her dress and pulled her back into the group.
"Wait for the boss!" The twins said in unison in response to Linda's blank shell of a facial expression. It was a very rare occasion that Linda was stopped after deciding something.
"Not to mention Haruhi." Kyoya contributed, now having lost interest in the conversation and was writing some more information in KIRA.
You know, someday, I'm going to check out what he's really writing in there.
Even so, now it was decided what we would be doing, and all we had to do, was wait for Tamaki and Haruhi to arrive.
What's the worst that could happen?
So that was that. I'm kind of uncertain about the element of Kate's past personality, so tell me what you think in the reviews!
Fangirl429: Indeed, Excalibur is awesome. Thanks for the compliment, though I think the most praise would have to go to me BETA reader, she's seriously a wonder-woman. :)
tokiluv: Happy to hear that Kate's friends are at least partially realistic! And sorry it took so long for the chapter to come up!
my-forgotten0rose: I'm happy I'm back too!
Half-Breed Kid: Glad you love the story as much as I love writing it!
Generators and Phantoms: No weird auto-corrections here! I'm so glad that it's not Mary-Sue infested (something that I desperately look about for when re-reading these chapters) and I really hope that the new element of Kate's personality hasn't become Mary-Sue-ish! Hope to hear from you again!
Also, tomorrow I'm starting school again (NO!) so updates will slow down a HECK of a lot. Literally every day, I'm going to be coming home late due to out-of-school activities, so sorry about that :(
See you space cowboy!