"Hanataro, where's Jack?"
"Ah, Haruhi, she's at home, she got really sick and won't be able to come to school for a while." he calmly answered to his secretly cross dressing friend.
Haruhi blinked in surprise, "Really, for a while I thought Jack couldn't get sick."
"That's only because I make sure she doesn't do anything stupid to get sick, but I wasn't with her for a few hours yesterday, then she and Walker both got sick from eating too much junk food and riding too many roller coasters."
"Okay then."
"So what's the Host Club doing for the cultural festival this week?" he asked, deciding to change the topic before his friend realized he purposely hadn't been with Jack.
"I don't know yet, I'm going to ask Kyoya-senpai about it later."
"Settle down class." the teacher said as she entered the room, making everyone sit in their seats, "As you should all know, the cultural festival is this week, and this year, students from other schools are going to come as well, so you are all dismissed for the festival, be nice to everyone please." after the teacher said her little speech, the students quickly filed out of the classroom.
Hanataro walked in a different direction from Haruhi once he was out the door. Where his destination was Haruhi did not know, but she assumed he was heading off to a place that wouldn't be crowded to avoid being sick as well, like Jack. She thought nothing of his leave, or why he hadn't been with Jack the other day, she believed her friend was an honest and true person, how wrong she could be.
Hanataro stood in a hallway that most no one used, it was dark and dusty there, and it was where that person would definitely go to. He was right, for only a few minutes after arriving to the place himself, a girl with long brown hair and light grey eyes came through the opposite entrance of the hall. She was of average height; she had average looks, wore a Lobelia uniform, and had a look of pure murder in her eyes at the sight of the boy. She immediately turned to leave the hallway, until Hanataro spoke.
"Now, now Izumi-chan, why do you treat me so coldly?" he asked, smirking smugly at her,
She didn't respond, although she wasn't walking away anymore either.
"My, do you really not like your supposedly, beloved, sister so much you don't want to ask me how she is?" he knew how pissed that would get her, but he absolutely loved to do that to this person, see how long she could hold before snapping.
"If anything has happened to Sakura, I will kill you." Izumi told him, glowering so fiercely that if looks could kill, Hanataro would have been far more than six feet under already.
"Not to worry, she's at home because she's sick, remember, that was the agreement, I tell you how she's been, you don't see her, and your parents don't find out." he answered, looking at the girl with a strange look in his eyes, as if though telling her to back off.
"Yes, I remember, I'm not stupid." she said tartly, glaring at him, but her face suddenly softened as she stared off to the side, "Has she...remembered anything?"
Hanataro's gaze softened only slightly, but his face remained firm, "No, just the same as the first day, even if seeing you again would help that, it can't be done, those memories, there's too many sad ones,
she could get worse, you and I both know that, I'm sorry she's not Sakura anymore." Hanataro stepped forward, kissed the girl's cheek, and walked out of the hall before she could respond.
As he walked away he could hear a table get thrown to the ground and a vase smash from the hall he exited, 'Still the same as always Izumi-chan.' He then walked into a classroom to find the twins hiding behind a desk from him.
"Did you two hear anything?" he asked, both twins shook their heads, "Good, keep it that way." and he left the twins, not realizing that of course they would be the last people he would want knowing about that conversation.
Haruhi was working the booth with Hikaru and Kaoru, it turned out they were selling sweets, when Hanataro passed by, wearing a white medical mask, all three rose an eyebrow at Hanataro's unusual accessory. He approached the trio giving the twins a strange look and then turned to Haruhi.
"I don't feel as sick wearing this." his voice muffled by the mask,
"Really?" Haruhi asked,
"Yes, although I'm not sure why." then he suddenly fell forward, hitting his face on the counter.
Haruhi's eyes widened, as well as the twins' "Hanataro, are you alright?" she asked him as he lifted his face out of the pie it fell into.
"Perfect." he answered, wiping pie crust and filling off of his face and out of his hair, he turned around while pulling out a new medical mask to wear, seeing a girl wearing the Lobelia uniform with long brown hair, trying to knock down a group of milk bottles with a baseball. Hanataro easily found a baseball on the ground below him; he picked it up and aimed for the girl's head.
"Hanataro!" Haruhi yelled at him, shocked he'd ever do something like that, "You can't do that to a girl!"
"She started it." he said, pouting like a little kid. Then he merely walked towards the girl, leaving Haruhi to wonder why the girl did that, and the twins to wonder whether or not they should say something.
"You know Izumi-chan, if you're going to do something like that; you should be a little farther away." Hanataro whispered into her ear as he set his head on her shoulder.
"I don't know what you're talking about." she answered, trying her hardest to ignore the nuisance on her shoulder, then she felt something round being placed in her hand, she looked down just as Hanataro's hand moved out of the way so she could see the baseball in it.
"Of course you don't know." there was a sarcastic tinge in his voice,
"Can you leave me alone now?" she was getting really fed up with his behavior.
"No, I can't, I'm going to annoy you for as long as you're here." he smiled as he said this, enjoying how much it annoyed her.
"What are you doing to our darling princess?!" someone shouted at him, Hanataro barely rose his head to see a group of three girls, one was tall and had short, boyish, brown hair, the second was average height and had long, brown hair, the third had short, girlish, brown hair, and was shorter than the others.
"What princess, the only person here is barely human." he answered, wrapping his arms around Izumi, while she steamed over being called barely human, as well as being hugged by the person she most hated.
"Stop that!" the tall girl yelled at him,
"Stop what?" he asked innocently, more than likely actually not knowing what she was telling him to not do.
"Stop defiling our pure fellow students of St. Lobelia!" the trio yelled at him,
"OK, I won't."
"Then stop hugging Izumi-chan as if though you two are so close!" they yelled, furious at this ignorant boy wearing a medical mask.
"You do know that we actually are close, don't you?" he asked, making the girl he had his arms around even more upset, "Yes, Izumi-chan and I have known each other for such a long time, almost twelve years now, and our parents once had a plan for us to marry, but she ruined it." he proclaimed to the group, making Izumi turn to stone, as well as the trio of girls.
Then Izumi unfroze, and pulling out a hammer from nowhere, she whacked Hanataro in the face with it, sending him flying off, "Stop trying to get me pissed off you faggot!" she yelled at him after he landed back at her feet.
He easily got up and started walking away, "You know, I wouldn't do this sort of thing if you didn't get pissed off so easily, besides, why the hell would anyone want to marry someone like you, I mean really, the apple doesn't fall too far from the tree." he told her, his back facing her as he walked away, knowing what he just said was worse than any other insult that he could throw at her.
The look on Izumi's face was indescribable, some sort of mix between complete rage and an unending sadness before she merely turned around with the trio of girls following her, trying to figure out what had just happened.
"What was that about?" Haruhi asked as Hantaro walked away from the festival,
"That was the same girl Hanataro was talking to earlier wasn't it Kaoru?" Hikaru asked his younger brother puzzled by the Rubik's Cube that happened to be their good friend.
"Hai, demo they seemed to at least like each other to some degree then, why are they like this now?" Kaoru wondered aloud, worried whether Hanataro was alright.
"What are you two talking about?" Haruhi asked them, then she just shook her head, "Forget it, I'm going to go ask him what's wrong." and she ran off after her friend, leaving the twins to manage the cake stand by themselves.
Hanataro found himself in front of a fountain, no one at all was anywhere nearby, and it was just him, the wind, and the trees, plus the fountain. He pulled off the medical mask and sat on the rim of the fountain, then, pulling back one hand, he let his long hair free of the ponytail it had once been in. He would now seem completely unfamiliar in case if anyone happened to pass by, they would just think he was some girl who preferred the male uniform over that of the girl's. What he didn't count on was Haruhi appearing.
"Hanataro?" she questioned, barely recognizing the red headed girl as her friend,
"Hai?" he questioned, his voice exactly the same as earlier, not disguised like it had been the one other time she'd seen him dressed up as a girl.
"Who was that girl you were talking to?" she bluntly asked, never one to realize the art of subtly, perhaps which was what Hanataro admired in his friend.
"Just Izumi, she's no one important." he seemed a bit far off as he answered this, only barely noticing when Haruhi sat down next to him, he laid down with his head in Haruhi's lap a few minutes after she sat.
"You don't mind, do you?" he asked her, merely out of courtesy,
"Iie, it's fine, but the twins also mentioned you had been talking to her earlier, and you seemed as if though you at least liked each other then."
"Remind me to give them a slow and tortuously painful death later." he said seriously, making Haruhi wonder whether he seriously would do that or not.
"Hanataro, really, who is she, it seemed you almost made her cry?"
"Like I said, that was Izumi, normally, not anyone important, although, in the past you could say she was."
Hanataro's answer only succeeded in confusing his friend even more; couldn't he just once speak clearly?
Then, almost as if though reading her mind, he clarified things, "She's Jack's sister and my once potential fiancée."
The shock could easily be seen on Haruhi's face, she would have never even guessed that that girl and Jack had been related in any way, and the fact that they were twins made it harder to believe.
"A few times a year, she and I are able to set up meeting places in which I can tell her about how Jack has been, without her parents finding out. I actually convinced the superintendent to set up this cultural festival that allowed students from other schools to come." he told her, making her wonder why he did this for a person that he, according to his behavior earlier, didn't like.
"If I don't give her information on Jack and how she's been doing, she threatens to see Jack face to face, I will not allow that." he answered to the unasked question, "That's why I arranged for Jack to get sick."
Haruhi was beyond shock now, that he would deliberately do that to Jack, just so she wouldn't see her own sister, "Why?" she asked in disbelief.
"You obviously weren't listening when I told you how Jack became the way she is."
"You said she fell out a window."
"You're pretty lucky to have selective hearing, aren't you?" he asked, smirking more to himself, "I said, she threw herself out the window, she wanted to die."
Haruhi couldn't have been more surprised, even if Kyoya came up to her and told her that her debt had been paid off. The girl, who admittedly was strange beyond all good reason, but always smiled and could make anyone laugh, whether she meant to or not, had actually wanted to die, and how old had she been, only five years.
"If she had such thoughts at an early age, what do you think made her like that?" he immediately sat up, burning with a silent rage, "I don't want her to remember such painful things, I've seen what happens to her when she does..." he immeadiately grew quiet at this, as if though reveling in some sad, distant memory, "Seeing the person that had tried to stop her from making that jump out the window might bring
everything back, far too quickly, she could become even worse. And Jack is fine just as messed up as she is."
"Her sister tried to save her."
"Yeah, but she still didn't succeed, although, I'm kinda happy she didn't." Haruhi could only stare, waiting for him to continue, "I would have just stayed a danger to society otherwise."
"Why do you say that?"
"I didn't tell you how I was institutionalized yet, did I?" he asked, staring into the ripples that the fountain made, noticing out of the corner of his eye when Haruhi shook her head, "Some guys got me upset when they were talking about my uncle back when I was seven. I pushed one of them out a second story window, and I threw a chair at the other two and threatened to kill them. A teacher happened to see me do all those, she called the police, and I was sent to Yaledem's."
Haruhi would have sweat dropped at how seriously her friend could take a comment over his uncle's cross dressing, if it weren't for the fact that he would get upset and then not answer any more of her questions.
"I think that's enough for now." he said as he stood up from the fountain's rim, "I just came over here to calm down a bit, let's go back, Kyoya might be raising your debt right now." that was all it took to get Haruhi hurrying back to the stand so quickly that she didn't notice her friend wasn't following.
Hanataro pulled out his cell phone and dialed a number into it, then only waited for the person to answer, "Put her on the line please." he immeadiately answered to the person asking who it was, the phone was quiet while being hand over to someone.
"Hi hi Hana-chan!"
"Hey Jack, tell me what you'd like from the festival, I'll go get it, and then we can watch some movies when I get back, that sound good?"
"Yeah, yeah! Jack, you, and Skelly-kun, can watch Nightmare!"
"Okay, so what do you want?"
"For Hana-chan to get here so we can watch Nightmare!"
"Okay, I'll be there in a few."
"Kay, see you soon Hana-chan!"
"See you soon." he hung up his cell phone after the small conversation, he laughed a little, mostly because Jack only wanted for him to get home so they could watch 'The Nightmare Before Christmas' instead of just waiting a few minutes more for him to get her a little present from the festival. "She never cared for that sort of thing anyway." he said to himself before calling for a ride home since he never took his motorcycle to school. His ride came and he left, after being found by an over panicked Host Club who thought he was probably throwing up in a bush somewhere since he didn't come back with Haruhi, then he told them he had to leave to go be with Jack. He left easily, although, he could've sworn he felt a heated glare upon his back as he walked out of the festival grounds.