CHAPTER 3: LOVE AT FIRST FALL

A/N: Sorry for spelling mistakes or words clumped together or saying the wrong episode in my author' note in the last chapter! I try not to…sorry and now… chapter 3!

The next day at school, the twins came in with different colored hair. Karou had pink hair and Hikaru had blue hair. They were constantly hitting each other, insulting one another, and throwing stuff. They didn't really look at what they were throwing, so sometimes Usa-chun and Honey-sempai got thrown too, so Mori-sempai would go and catch them. Once, there such a huge pile of things they threw at each other in the music room that it almost touched the ceiling, and poor Honey-sempai was on top of that pile. Another time, all the Host Club members except for the twins were sitting at a table waiting for them to show up. The Host Club was shocked that they were fighting because they never even got mad at each other before. When Hikaru and Karou finally came in Music Room 3, they had brought a wooden Belzenef into the fight. If you write the name of someone you hate on the back of the wooden puppet, they will be cursed with misfortune. The twins took out a marker and started writing on the back of it. Haruhi got so mad at the twins that she yelled at them to stop fighting. She told them fighting is not a way to solve a problem. When she looked at the wooden Belzenef, she read "No name" on the back. Then, the twins explained that they were just bored and needed attention and something to do, so they pretended to fight. They were pretty good at acting. Mai remembered a time when she was stuck in between the two twins when they were yelling at each other. They started throwing stuff after each other after that, and Mai finally was able to come out from in between them. She sat down next to Haruhi.

"I thought that they were yelling at me at first," Mai told Haruhi.

Mai tried not to talk to anyone, but Haruhi was so friendly, she couldn't help it sometimes.

"Why would they yell at you?" Haruhi asked.

"Oh. I don't know." Mai replied, quickly regretting talking to her.

She looked straight ahead for a long minute, and finally got up and left.

After the twins confessed they were pretending to fight, nothing exciting really happened. They came back the next day like nothing happened (with their hair colors back to normal), and everyone told Mai that's not how Hikaru and Karou usually behaved. After that, it was basically the same thing for about a month, until a little boy showed up. He got locked up in a cage.

This made Haruhi ask, "Hey, isn't this a music room?"

Mai also got to meet the club's manager, Renge, who showed up on a large, twirling thing that came up from underground, and Haruhi questioned about the Host Club room being a music room again. The young elementary school boy had on a green uniform, brown hair, blue eyes, and was the same height as Honey-sempai. He wanted to be a Host Club apprentice, and he really impressed Tamaki when they finally found out what he wanted. Renge was there to train the boy into becoming a good host. Tamaki told him that each host has a certain type, and that's when everyone figured out Mai's type.

"And Mao is the… the… the mysterious type!"

"I guess it's better than nothing," Mai thought.

She found herself thinking more and more these days than she had in a while.

The Host Club wanted to go in disguise to the elementary school to find out more about this boy. They also wanted to dress Mai in a girls' uniform (which included a miniskirt) but Mai said no.

"NO! What do you mean- no?"

"I don't wear miniskirts."

"Neither do I," added Haruhi, who looked real mad in the brown middle school uniform she was wearing.

"Well, I have a bad scar on my leg, if you really must know, so I don't like anyone to see it."

Everyone paused for a second. That sentence was the most Mai had ever told anyone at Ouran about herself. It was probably the most she ever talked at Ouran, too. Of course, Tamaki, Hikaru, and Karou begged her to see the scar, but she wouldn't show anyone. So, the Host Club let her wear a boys' uniform.

At the elementary school, they found out the boy plays the piano and is in love with a girl who is moving away. Back at the high school, Tamaki tells the boy he can't really help him with his problem because a host's job is to make all ladies happy, not just on in particular. The boy had to solve the problem by himself, but of course, Tamaki would help. And that's when Mai and Haruhi found out Music Room #3 had a piano.

"We have a piano in here?" Haruhi asked.

"It is a music room, after all, replied Tamaki.

Then he sat down and began to play.

"I didn't know he could play the piano," Mai thought.

Tamaki helped the little boy to play that song perfectly, and then the club invited the little girl to play with him. They used to be in a piano club at the elementary school together. But Mai had found the piano, too. Every day now, she would stay after school, later than everyone else. She liked it because she could play the piano and be alone. Sometimes, the custodian would ask her why she was still at school, and she told him it was for a music project. Then, he told her that when she wanted to leave, the doors were only locked on the outside, not on the inside, so she could still get out. During Host Club hours, the young boy became a younger host and was the "naughty type." Two months after he came, the Host Club decided to take a break and visit the Jungle Pool water resort that belonged to Kyouya's family.

Everyone else was in their bathing suits or cover-ups, by Mai refused and stayed in her uniform. The twins tried to have their maids put a bathing suit on her, but she left the room with her uniform still on. She just sat on a chair and watched everybody. Kyouya was relaxing, Tamaki was talking to him, and Haruhi and the twins were talking in another spot. Oh. And Mori-sempai was pulling Honey-sempai threw the water. Mai watched them the longest. Mori-sempai got out, getting a drink, while Honey-sempai stayed in the pool. The twins and Tamaki were having a water gun fight over Haruhi when Tamaki went flying and hit a totem pole. Then, this huge wave came from out of nowhere and washed Honey-sempai away. Everyone started running back and forth, except for Mai and Kyouya.

"They won't get anywhere like that," he told Mai.

When everyone settled down, Kyouya showed them a map of the place, and everyone followed him on their search to find and rescue Honey-sempai. Mai watched Mori-sempai extra closely. He fell a lot and he seemed so worked up. Mai wanted to comfort him for some reason, but she didn't know how to. One time, Mori-sempai slipped and fell down on his back. Mai was so busy watching him, she didn't notice a banana peel right in front of her feet and she slipped and fell on her back too. She had always been clumsy, but it was embarrassing in front of all these gorgeous guys. She felt her face turn hot with embarrassment.

"I'm blushing!" Mai thought, surprisingly with some emotion. "Wow. That hasn't happened since… last summer."

Mai didn't like thinking about what had happened last summer, so she blocked out her thoughts. Instead, she looked at Mori-sempai.

For the first time, she got a good close up look at his face. Of course, all the guys in the Host Club were handsome, but Mori was a whole universe more handsome than the other hosts' beauty put together. Mai saw every detail in him: the way his eyes sparkled like stars in a midnight diamond sky, and the way his blue-gray eyes were like little pools the color of a darkening light. His black hair looked perfect and was tousled, but somehow Mai knew he didn't really do anything to it to make it look so perfect. He was so tall, muscular and strong. He also was fast and calm and didn't talk too much. Mai never really paid any attention to guys before, but now she realized how much she had been watching him. To her, Mori-sempai was as close to perfect as it gets. Mori-sempai and Mai had never talked to each other before, but now Mai felt a strong urge to start a conversation with him. You could almost see her wishing for a moment to know him even more. Then, she realized she had been staring at him for a while, so she quickly stood up, and Mori-sempai got up too. No one had said anything, but Mai knew everyone had noticed her staring at him.

The group began walking again, and soon they reached a little hut. Mori-sempai looked out facing the south of the hut, Mai looked out at from east part, and everyone else faced the north.

"Mori-sempai's really worked up about Honey-sempai. They must be good friends."

"Haruhi, you mean you don't know? Mori and Honey are cousins." They told Haruhi the history of Mori-sempai and Honey-sempai's families, and how a marriage separated the families, but they still treated each other after their traditions.

"He cares so much for his family," Mai thought, finding a new thing that was amazing about him.

Haruhi walked up to Mori-sempai.

"Don't worry, we'll find him. I'm sure he's ok. He's a lot tougher than you might think."

"You're right."

He had such a low, deep voice that was still soft somehow. The twins were starting to get bored, so they decided to tease Tamaki about being a pervert. Tamaki got so mad that it almost looked like there was steam coming out of his ears. Mai leaned out of the hut and looked at the fake jungle. She had always loved nature. Or, at least she thought she had. She couldn't remember. She was so caught up with everything in the jungle indoors; she never noticed Mori-sempai and Haruhi leave. Everyone sounded frantic in the hut, and the twins had stopped singing and teasing Tamaki. Kyouya was on his cell phone and everyone had a worried expression on their face. And that's when Mai noticed Mori-sempai and Haruhi were gone.

Kyouya explained that he told his personal army to look for a little boy and to watch out for any suspicious figures.

"Wait, I didn't tell them about Mori-sempai or Haruhi! Let's head in this direction. I think they went this way."

Kyouya led them to a circular area where Mori-sempai and Haruhi were standing off to the side as they watched Honey-sempai beat up Kyouya's whole army. Then, everyone watched as the army kneeled down.

"Don't you ever mess with my friends again!" Honey-sempai commanded.

"Yes, sir. We're so sorry, sir. We had no idea you were Mitsukuni Haninozuka! Wait till we tell the guys back at the dojo!" They all apologized once again and left.

"Honey-sempai, are you famous?" Haruhi asked.

"You mean you don't know?" The twins asked back.

"Honey-sempai's a national karate and judo champion," Kyouya filled in. "And Mori-sempai's no slack off either. He won the national championship for kendo when he was just in middle school."

"Wow, I never would have known," was all Mai could think.

As they left the park, Honey-sempai asked Mori-sempai, "You were probably really lonely without me, huh Takashi?"

"So that's his first name," Mai thought.

Takashi Morinozuka. She liked the sound of that.

"I don't really know if I'd say that," he replied.

"We should go to the beach next," said Hikaru.

"That'd be fun," added Karou.

"You idiots. Haruhi or Mai's not interested in anything like that."

"That would be fun."

"Huh?"

"I'm not into these silly water parks, but it might be nice to go to the beach."

"What about you, Mai?"

"Uh… yeah," she lied.

"Ok, great! Next time, we'll go to the beach, then."

"So we're going to the beach next, huh Takashi? That'll be fun, don't you think?" Honey-sempai asked him.

"Yeah," he replied.

Mai thought back on her day as they exited the resort.

"That was amazing and thrilling yet, embarrassing at the same time when I looked at Takashi so closely for such a long time."

And then she remembered a tiny detail that made a huge difference. Takashi Morinozuka had looked right back at her.