Chapter 8
Boys to Boys
"You stupid girl," The chairwoman of the Suoh company spat, "You've only been there one day and you've already made a mess of everything!"
Across the small tea table sat Akane, quietly sipping her tea while with a pair hard worn eyes starring listlessly at her grandmother. She quickly set down her delicate china cup and opened her mouth to retaliate, only to have the elderly woman raise a hand to cut her off.
"Seeing as it was your first day though, your performance was acceptable. There are flaws we definitely need to fix though, especially that your social relations."
"I made friends with everyone I met that day. I learned everyone's last name and company status, and I got invited to a party this Friday," Akane stated as businesslike as she could muster, somewhat pissed that grandmother seemed to think she still needed improvement in an area she had busted her butt to do well in.
"I am well aware of that, but to point out the major flaw, tell me; who will be at this party?" Her grandmother asked, her same cold and unfeeling tone never stuttering or faltering. Akane gazed quizzically back at her Sensei, but decided to just answer than question it.
"A group of squeaky girls asked me, so I assume they will be there and a bunch of other girls—"
"Exactly, girls. Tell me, who normally takes over a family business?"
"The son, but—"
"Yes, the son. And how do you plan to be useful to this family and marry if you are mingling with only girls and no sons?" The old woman seethed, calmly taking a sip of tea. Akane glared down into the smooth yellow fabric of the dress she found horribly ugly. Her hands, shaking in anger, grabbed fistfuls of the expensive cloth and squeezed it with every ounce of frustration that coursed through her body like wildfire.
"Am I making myself quite clear, Akane?" The chairwoman inquired, setting her teacup delicately on the table without even bothering to look up at her granddaughter. It was everything Akane could do not to yell out in vicious anger at the woman who scolded her as if she was lower than dirt. According to her grandmother, she wasn't even worth wasting a simple glance.
"Akane? Would you like me to send you to where you deserve to be? Is that what you want, even after your father and brother risked their entire careers to keep you out of there?"
Akane's head jerked upwards, troubled sea green eyes wide in exasperation. She knew all to well the chairwoman wasn't joking about anything in that statement. The last part struck her hard, like someone had punched the air right out of her stomach and left her to cringe in pain. She could feel the warm tears jerking at the corners of her eyes, wanting to show her grandmother how much agony she was in.
NO! I don't want to give her the satisfaction! I-I won't!
In an act of desperation, she threw her head towards her dress again, watching as her hands twitched and her knuckles turned stark white with the amount of emotion that she was trying to suppress with her fists.
"Akane? Do I need to repeat myself?"
"No, Sensei."
"Am I making myself clear when I say you are to pay more attention to the sons?" Her grandmother spoke solemnly, a light grin playing on the side of lips. The chairwoman knew quite well how to corner this weak little weed that had squirmed its way into Suoh's garden. But, unlike your normal gardener, who would've disposed of such an eyesore as fast as possible, she was wiser. She would dress it up like a flower, force it to act like a flower, so one day some fool of a man would come along and pluck her from the garden. Then the Suoh's would forever be rid of such a nuisance, and the garden would again flourish, everyone forgetting about such a useless weed.
"Yes, Sensei."
"Good, now, let's talk about Tamaki's ridiculous club. This scenario could work to our advantage if we…"
"I'd like to accept your offer from yesterday, about becoming the host club's waitress," Akane smiled, gazing politely at the rest of the host club as they drank afternoon coffee and tea. All at the same time, every host, except for Kyouya who was busily typing away on his laptop, spit their beverage out like broken control sprinkler. Lucky for the host club, it was after school hours and they had a bit of time before their doors opened for clients. Yesterday had been a special occasion, since they didn't normally use the club room during the school time.
"Really??? Oh, you really do love me, Akane-chan! We're going to have so much fun together!" Tamaki squealed, leaping across to his sister and tackling her in joy.
"Ano, Tamaki… would you kindly get off me? My ribcage is starting to poke me," Akane asked as politely as she could. Normally whenever her brother hugged her tightly, she would squeeze him back until he couldn't breathe, resulting in both of them cracking up like they were seven again.
Tamaki swiftly removed himself, muttering a never ending strand of 'sorry's and offering to get her some ice or rush her to the hospital. Akane politely refused over and over again, until Haruhi quickly interrupted.
"Are you sure you want to Akane-chan? You shouldn't do it if you too pressured," The girl host prodded, wanting to keep anyone else from suffering the kind of fate she had been forced into. No matter what way Haruhi looked at it, she couldn't see why Akane would want to do such a job in the first place. Haruhi could tell the girl was already trying to push her brother away as much as she could, so why would she want to involve herself in a place where he was at his flauntiest every day.
"Thanks for you concern, Haruhi-kun, but I thought about it and it might be the best way to get back in touch with my brother since we've been separated for quite a while," Akane replied, taking a sip of her own tea. Truly, she hated the prospect of coming here everyday and having to serve the most frivolous girls in the school tea while watching them burn their money on fantasies that could never manifest themselves in real life. She almost felt sorry for them, since they probably didn't get to choose their husbands, just like her. No, she didn't care about that part. The sooner she got married off, the sooner she'd be free of the old witch's evil demands.
Haruhi looked back at her, watching Akane's troubled eyes fight against her smiling exterior. It was almost painful to watch the torture that was contained in those blue-green irises.
"Ohohoho!!!" The familiar laugh rang out in the room, the same pedestal as the day before rising from the floor to reveal the Host Club's manageress. Jumping down in the middle of their conversation, Renge grasped Akane's shoulder in her strong hands.
"I see you have chosen, but are you sure you're up to it? There is no room for laziness or failure in this club!" The crazed girl stated, her eyes in a serious dead-lock with Akane's.
"Wait, weren't you the one who begged her to do this in the first place?" The twins asked, their questioning eyes wandering over to Range.
"Never mind that," Renge mumbled, subtly punching the two twins out of the way.
"I'll try my best, Renge-chan," Akane replied firmly, not letting any ounce of hesitation enter her tone.
"Yosh! Alright, let's begin your training, Akane-chan!"
From the corner of the group, Kyouya let his eyes wander through the pages on the screen, still nearly no information on his recent subject to be found. Still, he hadn't gotten the opportunity to speak to her yet, but her behavior from yesterday's celebration had revealed several things to him:
She did not want to be near her brother for longer than necessary, but not because she disliked him.
Over the course of 24 hours she had performed a complete change of attitude towards a job she had flatly refused yesterday.
Every few minutes or so, you could find her gazing off as if she had somewhere she'd rather be.
Still, Akane's life had been overly dramatic the last couple months, so personality quirks were easily explainable. Absentmindedly, he began pulling up the record for the Suoh's limo service yesterday and began scanning, suddenly noticing a strange abnormality in the schedule. Smiling to himself, he let his mind calculate the motives and he came out with the most logical choice, causing him to widen his grin a bit more. It was almost too perfect, and all the more info he could use to his advantage.
"Mommy, what are you smiling about?" Tamaki asked, rising in front of the young Ootori from below his laptop. Gracefully lowering the monitor of his laptop, he returned to his normal stoic expression with a flick of his shining glasses.
"It's none of your concern, Father," Kyouya retorted, abruptly pushing the king of the host club away from his computer with his foot. Tamaki stumbled backwards onto the floor and stared quizzically up at his best friend before letting his normal charming, yet goofy smile jump back on his face.
"Oh, that was your evil scheming face. What are you up to?" Tamaki inquired slyly, putting a contemplative hand to his own face.
"If you watch carefully, you just might find out, baka," Kyouya responded, pushing up his glasses once more and returning his laptop to its upright position to continue his work.
As the doors to the Host Club opened that day, all of the normal customers were surprised to see the king's little sister standing in the room with a tray full of tea in her hands. Mouths eagerly drooling with this juicy gossip, nearly every girl flipped out their expensive cell phone to text every student on their contact list the newest word on campus. Akane inwardly sighed in grief, watching as the chairwoman's plan perfectly unfolded before her eyes. Her mind quickly returned to reality as the twins called for another tray of sweets and she rushed over to help.
Then, as if the entire world was against her, the squealing clones from the orchestra room yesterday were waiting right at the table.
"Ah! Akane-chan, we didn't know you helped at the Host Club! That's so cool!" One of them exclaimed, the other two nodding in agreement with clone number one's statement. They stared jealously at her, though Akane felt painfully idiotic in her big yellow dress that was now covered in a frilly white apron, courtesy of Renge herself.
"Yep!" Hikaru answered for her, wrapping an arm around the girl, "She's our new servant, so she'll be here all the time for your serving pleasure."
Will people ever stop touching me?! Akane inwardly groaned, swiftly slipping out the twins grasp and placing the dishes on the table as refined as she could.
"Well then, I have to get back to my duties, but if you need anything all, just call for me! I hope to see you all here again," Akane bid farewell, grinning sweetly and curtsying before gracefully striding off.
It wasn't particularly hard work to walk from table to table serving tea, but keeping herself in a perpetually gleeful mood was exhausting. Seeing that every host and his customers were content after an hour or so, she flung herself down into the nearest chair and stretched her arms around her seat.
"Taking a break I see?" A calm voice behind her commented, causing Akane's heart to nearly break her ribcage, again. Akane whipped her head around to see Kyouya, notebook and pen in hand, smiling pleasantly behind her.
"Ah, Ootori-kun, you scared me," she greeted, trying to recover from nearly falling out of her seat from his greeting. "How all you hosts have so much energy I will never know."
"It's only your first day on the job, so don't feel like you have to push yourself too hard," He commented frankly, offering only another generic smile before writing down something in his little notebook.
For some reason, Akane wanted nothing more to than to bury her fist in the young Ootori's face. On the other hand, she was trying to recover from exhaustion, so wasting effort on something that would only get her into extreme trouble was not a wise decision in the first place. Something about the way he spoke to her though, that he thought he knew exactly what she needed to hear and that he couldn't spare her an ounce of actual sympathy made her insides burn in anger. Who did he think he was? Sure, he was probably crazy rich, but from what she knew, he wasn't even going to inherit his family company. What a loser. Akane really couldn't talk about being a loser though, since she was the one having to serve people in the stupid apron.
After a brief moment of akward silence, Sensei's words suddenly flooded back into her head. "…..I say you are to pay more attention to the sons?"
"So Ootori-kun, why aren't you entertaining any clients?" Akane asked, trying to sound as naïve as possible. Tamaki had already told her Kyouya was more of the financial specialist of the host club and was usually too busy with business to entertain. It was stupid to ask questions you already knew the answer to, but Akane was desperate for a conversation starter.
Instead of instantly replying, Kyouya turned towards her and stared at her annalistically before saying, "You shouldn't ask questions if you already know the answer to them."
"How, wa-w-what? I don't think I know what you're talking about," Akane quickly stuttered and recovered, honestly not believing that her exact thoughts had suddenly become his comeback. Still, she couldn't let him know, but how did he know?
"Playing the stupid yet beautiful girl doesn't suit you, does it, Akane-san?" Kyouya replied coolly, not having to think for a moment about his words. His seething grey eyes tore through his glasses and into her startled eyes.
H-how can he possibly know that? There's no way he could've figured that much out for having watched me for only two days! I haven't even had one of those "I talk to myself about my life's pains when I think no one else is around" moments! Play it cool, Akane, maybe he's just taking a stab in the dark.
"Haha! You're such a kidder, Ootori!" Akane laughed, waving her hand cutely in front of her.
"I never kid," Kyouya replied flatly, shifting his glasses back onto the bridge of his nose with his two fingers. "And you shouldn't act so air headed all the time, you might stay that way forever."
Never before in her life had Akane wanted to punch someone so many times that their face would look like their own foot, only covered in bloody scars and missing all their teeth. This was her first time. Containing her sanity as much as possible, she wheeled herself around to completely face Kyouya, their eyes locking without a single blink between the both of them.
"And you shouldn't pry into other's choices or I might permanently stick my foot in your face," Akane retorted, her voice deathly calm and murderous at the same time.
"Well well, aren't we a bit feisty?" Kyouya commented, never breaking the intense gaze for a moment. He could feel the heat and hatred through her eyes, yet she seemed to keep a lid on the vast majority of it.
"Listen here, you scum-sucking runt of the litter, I'm trying to keep my cool and you are most definitely not helping in that area. I don't want any kind of bull from you, or any other nosy prick who thinks he knows anything about me. And if that doesn't fit into your schedule, then your pretty little face and my fist are going to have a long chat. Good day to you, Ootori," Akane seethed, abruptly getting up and sauntering to get more tea for Hunny's table.
Lowering his gaze back to his notebook, Kyouya couldn't help but grin as he wrote the newest notes.
-Violent
-Quick tongued
-Somewhat easily provoked
-Hiding more than first perceived
The week continued more smoothly, Akane distancing herself from Kyouya as much as humanly possible. She was constantly visiting the roof of the school, her only escape from the land of the rich and the stupid. Once she even skipped orchestra just to get away from Kenjiro, who was now constantly grinding her nerves. It was no longer just the pure lack of musical knowledge that made him annoying; it was more the fact that he was continuously complimenting her. Normally, she would just giggle it off, but whenever she did that, he thought it was more incentive to flirt with her and it never seemed to end. The pick up lines weren't even that good. There were more like the lines you would use if you were a 35 years old guy still living in your basement and you hitting on the pretty girl who drives the mail truck, which you ran out to greet everyday.
From this, Akane concluded that if she ever had a child as annoying and thick-headed as Kenjiro was, she'd stage her own death and fly away to Peru where she'd herd llamas for the rest of her life. Okay maybe not, but she was growing sick of her idiotic stand partner more quickly than anyone else she had known in her entire life. Well, besides Kyouya whom she had only spoken to once and had forced her to use violent threats (which she hadn't used since coming over to Japan).
She'd had a dream the night after the incident with Ootori-kun, that he had announced to the whole school she was a fraud and was only friends with them because they went to Ouran. Instantly and without question, every student believed him and for some reason, Akane was so delighted by this she threw herself off the roof of the school. A long time ago, Akane had read a theory by an Austrian psychologist named Sigmund Freud that the deepest desires of our subconscious manifest themselves when we dream. Akane hoped to God she didn't want to kill herself that badly.
"Aka-chan! Come eat cake with me!" Hunny called, his area vacant and without a single customer. Akane was extremely fatigued as it was and she most definitely wasn't going to sit with Kyouya again, so anywhere would do. She brought some fresh coffee and tea with her to the table, setting down the tray as with graceful practice.
"Mitsukuni," Mori stated, causing both Akane and Hunny to look up to the towering, unreadable figure. The dark headed senior stood up as the small boy nodded in reply, and without another word stalked out of the room.
"What's wrong?" Akane asked, nervously taking a sip of her tea. She could never tell what Mori was thinking, and it was scary to think she had upset him so much that he left. Did he know everything just like Kyouya? Did he despise her?
"He just had to go the bathroom!" the cute boy replied, causing Akane to take a large sigh. "Ne, Aka-chan, do you like it here at Ouran?"
Akane looked curiously at the tiny senior before her, wondering if that question had an inner meaning. Her fear where quickly assuaged when he took a whole piece of cake on his fork and shoveled it into his mouth, a ring of crumbs around his mouth.
"Of course, Hunny-sempai. Everyone's been nothing but nice to me since I've been here," She replied, smiling warmly at the host with chocolate brown eyes. For some reason, she never really had to force a smile when talking to Hunny. The air around him was always pure and welcoming. It was no wonder he got as many customers as he did.
"That's great!" Hunny cheered, wiping the crumbs from around his face and taking another bite of cake in a swift fashion. "You know, I was kind of worried. I have a brother in this school too, but there's still so much tension between us. When you first came, it felt like you and Tama-chan were unsure with each other, but I'm glad to see it's gotten better!"
Akane's insides suddenly morphed to warm mush, her vocal chords wanting to let out one giant "AWWWW!". Even though she had barely talked to the senior, he seemed to care enough about her to welcome her and tell her about his own problems. Her face slid into probably the most honest smile she had experienced since entering the academy.
"Thank you, Hunny-sempai," She said, her smile radiating through her entire body. The sweet host gazed at her in wonder, this smile completely different than the ones that she had been using the entire week. He grinned back, offering her a slice of cake which she gratefully accepted.
Wow, Akane and Kyouya's argument was almost too much fun to write _. And I have discovered my love for italicizing and bolding words for emphasize.
Anyways, don't you love how nearly every chapter I switch the way I spell 'Suoh'? And how I completely skipped from 3 to 5 with chapter numbers? Sorry about that, I guess I just have a sort attention span for stuff like that. Also, I actually proof-read this chapter, so there shouldn't be very many typos. Or too many 'from's turned to 'form's. And if you couldn't tell, I had really hard time thinking of a chapter title, until I realized this whole chapter is about boys… ^__^ aren't I clever?
Review like you do! (Wow that was pretty moronic… and white) XD