Disclaimer: Ouran High School Host Club, and all its entities, belong to Bisco Hatori alone.
"The Refugee" by Pekorimomo
Chapter 1
Haruhi sighed. Today was Christmas Eve. She was stuck in the music room after school with the twins, putting up decorations for the upcoming seasonal event. She glazed the tree with fake frosting, shaking the spray paint bottle harder than necessary.
Confounded season…annoying season…she thought frustrated, wanting nothing more than to return home and watch old Christmas movies like she had allegedly done for the past 15 years. Even when she was a baby, her parents held her as they watched old Christmas movies on TV in their small but modest apartment. Perhaps more of her anger presently was due to the circumstances, and not towards the holiday itself.
Her anger dissipated a little as Hikaru and Kaoru bounded into the room with a wave of streamers in their hands.
"Feeling blue, Haruhi?"
"C'mon, it's Christmas!" the other one retorted, not looking as he taped up the blue streamers.
She sighed again. "No, I'm just tired."
"Better not overwork yourself with your studies, eh?" Kaoru voiced light-heartedly.
She smiled slightly. "No, I think I will. I have that essay to finish on 18th century English literature…," thinking at that moment that she probably won't even attempt a paragraph that week.
The snow fell silently onto the window sill as the skies began to darken.
---
Kyouya let out a sigh, which was something he rarely did in public. Presently, he was sitting in a secluded space in the grand library, after school hours and therefore depleted of the student population except a few exceptional studiers. He was in a back corner of the large room, perhaps not one person was in his radius until eighteen bookshelves over.
His fingers were numb. Had the time come upon him already? He was sure he had at least five more years… it was nerve-wracking. His arms rose slowly, then he contorted his fingers one by one, up and then down, testing their flexibility. What should have been a quick jerk of the index finger was, instead, a struggle of movement. Indeed, the time was almost here.
Time that he returned home.
It had been perhaps ten or eleven years of this planet since he first arrived, denied of family and possessions, with only an arrangement set up previously by his connections that involved having him stay with a family in the new world. He was to pose as their youngest son, with only the mother and father having knowledge of what he truly was underneath. For ten years or more, no suspicion had ever risen regarding the subject of his identity. As his foster father had said to him, "You are smart, even amongst your kind."
But it was nearing the time for his departure. The fake body could not be sustained any longer by something not of this world. Everything had a life span to it, and by filling the shell with unknown substances for years, it was bound to decay much more quickly than a known material from this planet would.
His eyes looked up to the antique ornamental clock on the wall. It was nearing six, and the ball started at seven. Standing up sighing again, he walked across the room and began to unbutton his shirt.
---
Haruhi's eyes traveled from the top of the grand marble staircase down to the crowd of young fortunate girls dressed in myriads of shades by the water fountain. Her thoughts wandered to the sleek black suit with two tails she was donning. She noticed that as she grew older, she became a little bit more aware of what she wearing, but only a microscopic amount, and nothing more. To prove this point, her eyes flew to the food table.
Really, she thought sarcastically, as she saw the ice sculpture of a beautiful cherub. She quickened her pace towards the stacked platters of sushi, curiosity and desire fueling her footsteps.
"Stop right there, Haruhi," a voice called out from behind her. Her head spun around.
"What is it, Kyouya-senpai?"
"Need I remind you, that for the whole night, you are a host? You can eat later, after you entertain at least fifty girls. The Club is paying for the food, you know. We would lose profit if one of our own people were consuming the food."
He had a point, she thought, but was being awfully cruel, considering that she had to skip dinner just to stay at school to put up the decorations.
"Alright," she shrugged, "…bastard…" she added while muttering.
The night was golden to the eyes, just as it was the previous year, when Haruhi somehow ended up touching lips with a girl, she remembered with disdain. As she danced with what she hoped was fifty girls, she thought that the host club was going to be the end of her.
"Man, Haruhi's really doing well tonight, isn't she my lord?" Hikaru asked Tamaki from the foot of the staircase.
"Yes, but," he sighed dramatically, "I only wished we could have her in a dress instead. No lady should wish to have to dress herself up as a man on a ball such as this."
"Kyouya said it was good for profits."
"It is good for profits," a voice said from behind the two. Kyouya walked up beside Tamaki. "Haruhi actually makes more money than Hunny-senpai and Mori-senpai."
"Yes, well…" Tamaki trailed off.
"And me."
"Yes, WELL…" Hikaru rolled his eyes.
The three sharply dressed gentlemen became silent as they stared off into the ballroom for a moment, champagne glasses in hand. The three pairs of eyes eventually all wandered to where the overwhelmed commoner danced awkwardly but with strange essence in the middle of the dance floor. A smile graced her face.
Hikaru broke it off. "Alright guys, let's get going. Can't disappoint the girls tonight." The three dispersed and went to their separate stations, amongst crowds of beautiful young women.
After what seemed like four hours (which, Haruhi suspected, probably was), she dragged her poor misfortunate feet over to food table. A butler came and offered her a drink, which she hurriedly gulped down without hesitation or consideration for what the lilac pink beverage contained. She turned her head to scan up and down the table. If all her work tonight was for something, this was it. She reached over to her left to pick up a single piece of delicate tuna with chopsticks.
Suddenly, she heard a loud cry. Turning her head, she saw a crowd of skirt hems mass on the dance floor. Dropping her dear, cherished piece of ootoro, she ran to the crowd.
"What happened?"
"Oh Haruhi-kun!" a brunette cried, "Kyouya-san was dancing with Machiko-chan, when he suddenly fell down!"
"Kyouya-senpai?"
"Oh dear, did he faint! Oh no!" another girl interjected.
"Excuse me ladies," Tamaki said politely to the girls. "Let me see… Mori-senpai, please call the nurse…"
Kyouya's eyes saw no more.
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R&R Thanks!
A/N. So, I'm starting a new Ouran fic. Why? Quite honestly, Deepest River was giving me hell, trying continously to convey the whole plot in my head and what Haruhi's going through. I seriously had planned 40 chapters on that one, but in the myriad of having too much plot, I decided to give myself a break and write something easy, hence this story, a easy-going, easy-to-tell, typical Kyouya/Haruhi fic. I do hope you'll enjoy it!
Well...I guess it's not SO typical, considering that I've never seen a fic on this site that had Kyouya from another planet. Too weird? Got the idea from that 'Men are from Mars' book, taken way too literally -laughs-