Chapter 5: Optometry

She and her dad were visiting different places with glasses to find the person who her teacher wanted her to see, called an optometrist. When they entered a building with a bunch of glasses, her dad left her near the front of the store to go to the back of the store. While he was in the back of the store, she was looking at herself in one of the mirrors that were sitting on the counters that was low enough for her. Her reflection stared back at her, but she frowned at it. She was wearing second-hand glasses and had been for quite some time because money was somewhat tight.

The glasses had belonged to a relative of hers and were too weak for her to use, as determined by her school's nurse, but because her eyesight had gotten so bad, the school nurse said that the glasses would work until she was able to see the optometrist person. So with her help, her dad was able to get enough money together so that she could get some decent glasses that were made for her eyesight. As she was looking at her appearance, a boy with dark hair and charcoal eyes came up to her. "What are you looking at?" He asked startling her.

"Myself," she replied before turning to look at the innocent boy.

"Then why are you frowning?"

"My glasses don't look nice."

"Oh, then that's why you are here."

"Dad's tryin' to get me to see a person called an optometrist, but I don't know who this optometrist is," she replied shaking her head.

"An optometrist is an eye doctor. My dad know the eye doctor here, and that's the only reason why we go to this commoner's eye doctor place," the boy said looking to the side in disgust with narrowed eyes.

"An eye doctor? Do they poke you with those needles like a regular doctor?" She asked adding in her head that this boy was stuck up rich kid.

"No, no, they don't do that. I've been told they have machines that blow air at your eyes and test you for this one condition that makes your vision all weird so that details are hard to see. Then the optometrist has these big pair of glasses that he puts in font of your face and he asks you these questions about what is clearer as he flips through these lenses."

She looked at him baffled and shock. How could a boy his age know this stuff when he doesn't even have glasses? How could he change from disgusted back to his original personality of innocence? Then she came out of her thoughts and knew what she wanted to ask. "How does your dad know the eye doctor here?" She asked.

"Ah, good question. They went to university school together as undergrads and were lab partners several times," the boy replied before looking at the clock. "I should be going because my dad is expecting me."

The boy left her, and she didn't know what to think about him except for one thing. "Stuck up rich kid," she mumbled under her breath before her dad returned and told her that she was scheduled for an appointment with the optometrist.

When she returned to the eye doctor place with her dad, she was left alone again while her dad went to talk to the woman at the front desk. It didn't take long for the stuck up rich kid to appear again with his charcoal eyes. "What are you doing here again?" She asked effortlessly when she saw him.

"An appointment," he replied before silence settled between them.

She began looking around trying to avoid looking at the boy sitting next to her, but she began to shift in her chair with nervousness and starring eyes were boring eyes into her. "Yes?" She demanded slightly.

"There's nothing for you to be nervous about. The only thing that is scary is that one machine that blows air at your eyes. You can stop shifting around in your chair so much," he said before he left her alone to go to a tall man with glasses and black hair.

When she came back to pick up her glasses and was waiting for her father to get the attention of a salesperson, the boy, still without glasses adorning his face, was waiting for her with two items in hand: a notebook and a box. "Here I wrote down things you need to know about glasses," he said as he handed her the notebook.

"Thank you," she said as she accepted the gift

"Then this should be helpful for you, scary cat," the boy said with a smirk as he placed the box on her head and left.

"Stuck up rich kid," she muttered with her sight darkened by the box.

Pulling out the notebook from that day she last saw that boy that would be Kyoya-senpai all these years later, she looked at it and opened it for the first time in many years. The handwriting was neat and manicured, exactly how one would expect for Kyoya's handwriting to be. "Stuck up rich kid," she muttered with a fondness behind those words before muttering her favorite phrase when dealing with a host club scheme that makes fun of her social status. "Damn rich bastards."

Deciding that she had enough of memories, she went back to her homework, but stopped to look at the box that had been placed on top of her head all those years. A glint came to her eye, and she fired off a quick text message to her boyfriend telling him that she was planning on spending time with him tomorrow before she wanted to get all their friends together for dinner. Once the message was sent, she sent one to the twins before she settled herself down for homework. As time flowed slowly, she eventually fell asleep at her desk with her head using her arms as a pillow on top of her papers and textbooks.

AN: This chapter is the longest and thanks Emigmatricrose4 for the suggest that got this chapter rolling. Be prepared for the next chapter.

Also, I couldn't have done this chapter without looking at the first chapter of the manga to get some of my ideals together, as well as doing some research. Although what I'm about to say below is not relevant, I think my rant about glasses, contacts, this chapter's plot ideals, and the Ouran manga is interesting.

As I was researching things for this chapter, I looked why someone would prefer glasses over contacts or vice-versa. The site I had found said that glasses were technically cheaper, which made me ask why Haruhi would have contacts instead of glasses in the first place. This thought got me thinking about the prices of contacts, and I went to look that up on the Internet and found a website about how to choose the right place for you to buy contacts. One of the factors was cost, and the website I found talked about rebates that manufactures sometimes give, so this got me on another chain of thought.

The chain of thought that I got on was that maybe there was time constraints and other issues that does not allow for Haruhi to be able to get contacts at certain times. I can understand this because my parents' insurance only pays for the eye doctors every two years (yep, I do wear glasses and think that my first convention, what ever that may be, I may cosplay as Haruhi from the first half of chapter one of the manga). Then I thought of one other thing that could explain how the first chapter is set up. Maybe Hatori-sensei doesn't know much about glasses and contacts, and that could explain some things in the manga.

After all of that, I ended up with this chapter. Kyoya talking about what kinda machines are there is from my personal experience when I first went to the eye doctor about twelve or so years ago. The machine that blows air at your eye checks pressure in your eye, and the other machine that Kyoya mentions tests if you have astigmatism, which is a condition where details are not as sharp as they could be. I have astigmatism with nearsightedness, meaning I can see close up without glasses, but the astigmatism, I am assuming because I haven't talked with a person who doesn't have astigmatism, causes me to feel taller when I have my glasses off for a long time. So that's how this chapter came to be.

Edited: 9/2/2011