The alarm clock next to my bed went off at its usual time, the sound of shrill vocals filling my ears and waking up my senses. I reached over to shut it off and smiled when I saw the outline of my camera in the dim light coming through my windows.

I stood and stretched, yawning loudly before getting up and into my shower. I was happy this morning, whether it was because Tamaki and Kyoya had found my most prized possession or that the entire Host Club had been kind enough to help me look for it. The only downside to the whole situation from yesterday was the two Hitachiin twins. Tamaki had unfortunately paired them with me in our search for my missing camera, and it was disastrous. They had done nothing but try to provoke me, making me sick to my stomach with dizziness and fearful of how close they had gotten to me. They'd broken my space bubble entirely. No one other than my two brothers and cousin had ever done that, well, since... No. Don't ruin your mood by remembering that right now. I usually remembered the incident late each night, when even Takashi couldn't rescue me from my own visions and thoughts. I relived it over and over until my tears could no longer be shed, and my eyes slowly shut to get four to five hours of rest at most. Damn those twins! How dare they make such dangerous thoughts enter my mind! Why couldn't they just leave me alone like everyone else in the school?

I hummed a slow melody quietly to myself as I dressed in the uniform I was required to wear for school but hated so much, attempting to rid the thoughts of what had happened so long ago from my mind for the time being. And, fortunately for me, it worked. I loosely tied the red bow around my collar and brushed my knotted, dark hair, letting it fall in front of my face as usual to enhance my ghost-like appearance.

I exited our giant house, regarding the architecture as I left like I usually did. I never got over how beautifully styled the mansion was; it almost looked like a building that belonged in ancient Greece or Rome. I smiled to myself, slinging my bag containing my school books and camera over my shoulder and climbed into the limo parked in front of my estate. Inside, Takashi and Mitsukuni greeted me, one more cheerful than the other. "Good morning, Soy-chan!" Honey sang.

"Morning, Honey." I replied cheerfully.

The drive to school was short and speedy, which seemed to be the case for my happy mood as well. When I entered the colossal doors of Ouran Academy, I separated from my brother and cousin and headed to my first class, science, which happened to have the twins in it, like all my other classes besides photography. I huffed when I spotted them as I entered the spacious room filled with rows of desks. I normally would've came into class and gone straight to my desk without being noticed to enjoy another day of silence towards me and observations of my classmates, but once I sat down the twins got up from their seats, took their belongings with them, and sat in front of me.

I unpacked my textbooks and papers from my bags, not bothering to look up so the twins would see my lack of response and become disinterested in me and leave me alone, but that wasn't going to happen and I knew it.

"Hello, Soymikou." I heard them say in sync.

I reluctantly raised my eyes to meet theirs and froze. The other students in the class seemed to have noticed the Hitachiin twins greeting me and turned to watch, waiting to see if I would respond; if I actually was a mute. My eyes went wide with terror and I felt my heart begin to beat loudly and quickly inside my chest. I felt my knees begin to tremble and held them still with my hands. I opened my mouth to speak; the dozens of pairs of eyes watching me grew wider and they leaned backwards in their chairs to try and hear my voice as if it was miraculous that I actually could speak and the sound of my voice was so important to hear. Answer them! They're going to think you don't like them! Confusion took over my mind for a split second; I thought I didn't like them anyways?

"Soymikou...?" One of the twins said, his voice no louder than a whisper. I shut my mouth as my face grew hotter and hotter by the second, my stomach twisted painfully and I felt like at any moment I was about to be sick in front of everyone. He looked over his shoulder and then back at me, seeing that all eyes were on me and I was way more than uncomfortable.

The twin turned to his brother. "We'll talk to Soymi later, Hikaru." He said and they both spun to face the front of the class.

All the gazes on me went elsewhere as the students laughed at the fact that they had actually, for some crazy reason, thought I could speak. I breathed a sigh of relief and silently started practising a calming technique the therapist my father had gotten for me had introduced to me to slow the beating of my heart.

Haruhi, who arrived late and saw the ending of what had just occured, hit the arm of the closest twin to the aisle she walked down, earning a groan from him, until she reached the seat next to me.

The professor began to teach a lesson minutes after that, and I looked ahead but was distracted by the backs of the heads of the twins in front me. Each twin had their hair styled opposite to the other. They sat close, so close that their shoulders were lightly brushing each other as they breathed.

My eyes wandered to twin on the left; the one that had saved me from embarrassment. Well, more embarrassment. Kaoru. I knew it was him because he had said Hikaru's name, and, I noticed he parted his hair on the left while Hikaru parted it on the right. I remembered the hint of something I couldn't quite name hidden within his playful eyes, and shivered slightly. I inwardly scowled at myself. No, do not get involved with them. I huffed angrily at myself and slumped in my chair for the rest of the lesson, thinking that a boy that troublesome shouldn't have saved me from embarrassment, he should've been the one to encourage it to happen.

"...you and a partner will complete the lab and record your results." The teacher said as I focused my attention off of the twins and onto him. "Get to it." He instructed. My mouth went dry. Partners?I took a deep breath. Relax, this is when you go ask the teacher if you can work by yourself. It's fine. I tried to assure myself that doing that would be fine, I'd already done it countless times before, but every time a teacher said the word 'groups' or 'partners' my stomach did backflips.

I feel a hand on my arm, causing me to jump slightly, and looked over at Haruhi who smiled sweetly at me. "Partners?" He asked.

My cheeks grew warm. "Yeah, but I have to warn you, I'm terrible in science." I spoke softly and apologetically.

He laughed lightly. "Don't worry," He winked, "I've got this."

The petite brunette went to the front of the class to grab the supplies we needed for our lab and handed my a pair of large goggles when he returned. I grimaced and slipped them on while pulling out paper from my binders.

Haruhi got to work while I doodled on the papers, glaring at the back of Kaoru's head. How dare he be nice to me! What was his game? Was he trying to get me to owe him a favour, to blackmail me?

"Uh, Soymikou?" Haruhi's voice interrupted my inner rant and I mentally shook myself.

I looked over at the doe-eyed host. "Yes?" I asked quietly, still not completely focused.

"You kind of ripped through the paper while you were drawing." Haruhi told me, a thin brow raised. "Is something wrong?"

I looked down at the paper I'd been doodling on, it now had lines of rips through it thanks to my anger subconsciously being taken out on it. Heat rose to my cheeks once again. "Sorry." I mumbled sheepishly. "Nothing's wrong." I said, assuring myself more than answering him.

He looked at me solemnly. "You know, Soymi, if it's about the whole 'The Mute' thing and the twins, don't worry about it." He waved his hand. "It'll blow over sooner or later. And you'll learn to ignore the twins, if you don't retort them they'll lose interest."

I sighed. "Easy for you to say." I muttered inaudibly.

"What?"

I smiled. "I said: thanks for the advice." He smiled back and nodded, going back to our lab project.

I grimaced again, this time visibly. As nice as it was for Haruhi to give me advice, it was completely unhelpful. He didn't know about my anxiety; nobody knew except for my family. So, in a way, being 'The Mute' helped me. It helped me stay stable; with no one talking to me, the risk of having an anxiety attack was low. Today's incident was mild, usually it was twenty times as worse.

I scowled at the back of the Hitachiin brother's heads once more, hearing the bell signalling the end of period ring through the corridors of Ouran into my classroom.

I stood and sighed heavily, grabbing my things and leaving the class as quickly as I could, not even bothering to glance at the twins as I passed by.

During lunch I visited the library, which wasn't very much like a library at all. Almost half of the students attending Ouran were in here, chattering loudly and not reading or studying whatsoever. I made my way through the crowds, getting pushed and nudged by dozens of elbows that I knew would leave marks and bruises on my sensitive skin. My breathing increased, so I tried to go as fast as I could to reach the bookshelves where there weren't any people. The maze of students was a little ridiculous; I actually wanted to sign out a book unlike them who were just using this room as a place to hangout.

I started to use my elbows to shove back, almost clawing my way through until I reached the book shelves in the back. I wiped the sweat droplets that had formed on my forehead and get to work looking for a new book to read on my downtime.

I'd gone over practically every book in this library already, but I was determined to find another. I loved to read, almost as much as I loved my camera, which was saying something. As I turned the corner of the shelf I'd grabbed a book off of, I collided with another person, and we both fell to the ground.

I groaned quietly, and looked up to see a small hand in front of me. My eyes travelled upwards to reveal that Haruhi was holding out his hand to help me get up. I had collided with him of all people.

A light blush came over my cheeks as I hesitantly took his hand and stood. "Thank you, Haruhi." I said, my voice hushed.

"I was just going to come looking for you, Soymi!" Haruhi smiled widely. "I found this great science book to help us with our project. Do you want to come over after school and work on it together?"

Me go to Haruhi's house? I looked down at my shoes. This was something I'd never done before. I'd never been to another classmates house before, ever. Because I was never asked to do such a thing before, and I wasn't entirely interested. I had to admit, it would be enjoyable, but the fear of having to actually attempt to converse with someone else for such a long period of time was alarming. I'd have nothing to say to Haruhi. He'd get angry with me if I didn't speak to him, he wouldn't like me anymore. What if I offend him?

I looked back up at the boy in front of me, ready to decline his offer, but his eyes were so bright and his smile was wide with excitement. I would offend him if I didn't go. It was a lose-lose situation for me.

A semi-forced smile formed on my lips. "Sure." I replied softly.

"Great! See you after school." The brunette waved, left the spot we were in and went into the maze, becoming completely absorbed by the students until he was out of sight.

I sighed to myself. I was going over to someone's house, something I'd never done. And he was a boy. Although, he had some very feminine qualities and actions about him... No matter, my stomach was still doing gymnastics inside of me for the rest of the day.

The day came and went quicker than expected, and I packed my belongings into my book bag before rushing off to Music Room 3.

I didn't bother knocking and turned to the knob to open the large door, ignoring the rose petals that came down on me and walked in.

"Soymikou?" Tamaki, Hikaru and Kaoru said in sync.

"Soymi-chan!" My older cousin, Mitsukuni, yelled happily. He ran over and hugged me, and like usual, I couldn't help but grin at my older cousin and wrap my arms around him. I looked down and smiled at the short third-year, remembering when we were both younger and I was the shorter one of the two of us.

"You ready to go?" I heard and looked up to see Haruhi with his bag over his shoulder in front of me.

I nodded and looked back down at my cousin. "I've got to go now, Honey." I said politely and slipped away from his embrace.

"Wait a minute, where are you going!?" Tamaki yelled.

"Yeah, where?" The twins nosily asked.

We ignored them. "Let's go." I said quietly and smiled at the natural host.