Haruhi had never been so still in her life. Watching the clients walk through the beautifully embellished doors of the club, she felt her stomach drop with fear and trepidation. What were she and her fellow hosts to do? They couldn't stay in the dollhouse- what if the clients touched them, thinking they were dolls and realized the "dolls" were actually made of warm flesh and bone instead of cold, hard, inanimate plastic.
"Kyoya-sama, what do we do?" she hissed at her fellow host who was still clad in his ruffled suit. The be- speckled host stood as still as she and murmured:
"Hopefully Tamaki and the twins will be able to put a stop to them before they can get too close. If they are aware that we have access to something as dangerous as a shrink ray, I'm sure very few will return for our services," he shifted his eyes over to Honey and Mori. "Honey-sempai, Mori-sempai, stand perfectly still and do not move."
The two nodded slightly and stood so still they may as well have been dolls.
"Oh, look at this dollhouse!" one of the girls squealed to her friends, "this must be new- I don't remember seeing it here before!"
Haruhi watched with a strange fascination as the girls' faces lit up with joy. She hadn't played with dolls very much as a child; she had often been more absorbed in books and studying. It was interesting how young minds could be enchanted with a miniature version of life- a version that could be controlled in small hands.
"Oh my- this one looks just like Haruhi-chan! And there's a miniature Mori-sempai, and Honey-sempai…Oooh- and Kyoya-sempai!" the girl who had pointed out the dollhouse to her friends now peered, intrigued and delighted.
"These are so realistic," one of the girls said, trying to get a better look at Mori-sempai's hindquarters. "They appear so anatomically correct!"
Just as another girl was about to reach in and pick up Haruhi, the twins appeared as if out of nowhere and distracted the girls with an offer to join them for the tiny tea of miniaturized cakes and cookies which they gleefully accepted, leaving the dollhouse.
That was close Haruhi thought as she let out a small sigh. She was sure the others were thinking the same, but her thoughts were interrupted by Tamaki walking into the room. He greeted his clients with his usual amorous courting gestures. Haruhi was startled to see he began to walk his client over to the dollhouse.
What could he be thinking? She thought, panicked at the thought of being discovered as tiny. But when they arrived at the dollhouse, Tamaki drew the girl's attention away from the mini hosts and pointed it toward, instead, to the detail of the dollhouse.
"I've always thought having rooms this exquisite to live in would be wonderful," he said, tipping the girl's chin so she was looking him in the eye. "But it would be even more wonderful to share such a room with someone as lovely as yourself."
The girl blushed, putting a hand to her cheek and sighing happily. With one hand on the girl's chin, Tamaki's other hand opened his jacket pocket and motioned for the small hosts to climb inside.
It was a risky move, but Tamaki's client was obviously hypnotized by his many charms, she wouldn't have noticed if an elephant had come charging into the room. Silently but quickly, the hosts all made their way to the prince's purple pocket, all hosts, big and small, sighing in relief when they were out of sight.
Appointment not yet finished, Tamaki led his client to one of the couches and dined with her on the small cakes, cookies, crackers, and fruit. She was enchanted with the food at first, then sighed sadly.
"What troubles you, my dear?" Tamaki asked, caressing her cheek lightly.
"It's just…I know how much Honey-sempai likes cake. I wonder where he could be."
"Cake?" even in the darkness of the pocket, Haruhi could see the huge smile light up Honey-sempai's face. It took only a short second before he began climbing out of the pocket toward his beloved cake.
"No, Honey-sempai; you'll be seen!" whispered Haruhi. "Mori-sempai, can't we stop him?"
Mori shook his head while Kyoya murmured: "It's better to let him go. When he finds what he wants, there is no stopping him." They all watched helplessly as Honey toppled out of the pocket. Haruhi could only hope Honey would remember to stay still and pretend he was a doll.
"Oh!" Tamaki's client gasped with surprise, "look, Tamaki- it's Honey-sempai!"
The eyes of the twins and Tamaki flashed toward the girl's lap where Honey, still clad in his bear outfit, began crawling toward the cake the girl held in her hand.
"My goodness, what a lovely animatronic toy!" one of the clients squealed with delight, reaching toward Honey to pick him up.
"Yes, yes quite the toy!" Kaoru laughed and scooped up Honey quickly, despite his wiggling attempt to get his cake. "We meant to get a few of them for our clients-"
"But this one's a prototype," chimed in Hikaru.
"Hehe yes, mustn't break it!" Kaoru finished the hasty explanation before excusing himself and scurrying away to the closet in which the shrink ray was hidden.
Tamaki quickly finished his appointment with his client and he and Hikaru told the girls to please excuse them- they had an enormous project due for class the next day and they simply had to work on it.
After bidding their farewells, Tamaki opened up the closet doors and found Kaoru scolding Honey.
"You could have waited- we would have saved you a piece!" he hissed.
"But I wanted a whole cake- a whole miniature cake!" Honey insisted, the mild scolding not deterring him from his want of cake.
"Enough, you two," Tamaki insisted, as he and Hikaru wheeled the shrink ray out "we need to get them un-shrunk quickly!"
Soon, the regular-sized hosts had made a platform and placed the shrunken hosts onto it, carefully aiming the ray.
"You'll need to aim it just right," Kyoya warned, "there will only be enough power in it for one more shot. And make sure it's on grow. Not shrink."
"No kidding," Haruhi said, "if we shrink anymore, we'll slip through the cracks in the floor."
"There!" Tamaki said after flipping the switch from shrink to grow. "We're all ready."
"Hurry up!" Honey yelled, "I'm hungry for cake!"
"Plus it'd be nice to get back to our original size again!" Haruhi chimed in.
"Here we go!" Tamaki pressed the button. There was a bright flash of light and a puff of smoke which, when it cleared, showed Haruhi, Kyoya, Mori, and Honey back to normal size.
"We did it!" the twins yelled happily, running up to Haruhi and hugging her. "If we had done this while you were small, we would have smooshed you for sure!"
"I think you're still smooshing me," she said in a chocked breath.
"Get your grubby hands off of my daughter, you two!" Tamaki shooed the two of them away. "Ah, it's so nice to have my daughter normal-sized again!" he grinned as he hugged Haruhi who still felt rather smooshed by hugs.
"Yes, it is quite nice to be relieved of the burden of being small," Kyoya said while Mori nodded in agreement.
"But wait-" Haruhi said, regaining her breath from all of the hugs, "where's Honey-sempai?"
Kyoya pointed behind her and she turned around to see Honey sitting atop an enormous cake, mouth covered in strawberry frosting, a smile stretching from ear to ear.
"The cake! It grew with you?" Tamaki exclaimed, "how on earth are we going to eat it all?"
"I think Honey-sempai's got it pretty well covered," Haruhi laughed, "he may not even be hungry for cake for a while after this."
"Impsssbl!" Honey's word came out garbled with vanilla cake. The hosts all shook their heads and laughed, a sweet end to a short day.
A/N: Hey everybody! Thanks for sticking with this story for so long! I'm glad I actually found time to finish it since it was on a hiatus for so long. I'd like to thank everybody for reading and reviewing- especially for the wonderful reviews you all left! It make me feel so awesome to see that you guys liked my stuff.
Have some of Honey's leftover cake as a reward for reading! Thanks you guys! :D
Um...don't actually tell him I shared his cake with you. He'll probably get mad and eat all of MY cake.
Till next time!