After a good few weeks of nearly endless studying, during which Honey, Tamaki, and even Hikaru and Kaoru, to a lesser extent, seemed jumpy and hesitant to interact with her, Haruhi had the news to bear about her results. They were relieved to be free of the vow of silence, which seemed to have had caused them all to suffer a bit of "Haruhi withdrawal" with different symptoms per person. Tamaki was very clearly bothered the entire time at being able to see her but not being allowed to say or do anything, and his guests were enticed and concerned for his "tortured soul", unaware of the cause. Due to his turmoil, he pestered Kyoya even more than before, which was very irritating and resulted in the latter quietly keeping track of the days left until the end of finals. Honey and Mori generally missed talking to Haruhi and felt bad for how stressed she looked. Of course, the twins were most concerned with how utterly bored they were now that their favorite toy was out of commission, but they fortunately kept their mischief fairly under control. It was a storm of excitement and relief when Haruhi revealed her success. With that achievement came the fulfillment of her promise.
Thus, she found herself waiting outside the movie theater for the rest of the club members to arrive. She gently swayed back and forth on her feet, a little anxious about the day. She told them not to do anything over the top and to keep it as casual as they could, to spare herself as much unwanted attention as possible, but she wondered how clear those instructions were...
Not long after that thought, a fancy car (thankfully, not as conspicuous as a limo but unfortunately still showy enough that Haruhi knew her whole apartment complex couldn't even attempt to afford it collectively) pulled up to the entrance. It stopped and out stepped all six of the other hosts.
"Hey! Haruhi!" shouted Tamaki, leading the group to the entrance. Some of the people passing by were obviously, and with great curiosity, observing, and Haruhi even saw one girl start to take out a notebook and a pen, probably assuming the hosts were celebrities and considering asking for an autograph. She considered this a bit of an overwhelming start to the evening.
"Wow, you look very cute, Haru-chan!" Honey beamed, bouncing cheerfully up to her. Everyone else gave little chimes of approval as well, with some more aggressively pleased than others.
"Oh, thanks guys," she said, gently tucking a lock of her short hair back behind her ear. It wasn't that she particularly tried to look nice, but it was lucky odds that she had one of her nicer shirts, a light orange-brown blouse that had soft ruffles on the sleeves, lying around near a darker colored skirt that paired well with it. She didn't carry a purse because Tamaki said he'd pay for her, free of any possible future charge. She almost wished she did though, so she could fidget with the strap or click the clasp. She was used to receiving attention from girls she entertained at the club, but having strangers stare in their direction and for her companions to stare at her was making her uncomfortable.
"So what movie did you guys have in mind?" Haruhi asked as they entered the building, trying to shift her focus.
They hadn't entirely had one chosen, or even fully considered, she found, as they tossed ideas of action or comedy or an animation or-
"Woah snacks!" Tamaki suddenly pointed out, drawing away everyone's attention from the decision making. He ran to investigate the vendor, where there was a small selection of candies, drinks, and popcorn available for purchase. He waved everyone over to get a closer look.
"So it seems the commoners enjoy a sort of 'dinner and a show'. While the prices are not entirely outrageous, they're a bit more than standard, are they not?" Kyoya commented, more to himself than anyone else. Tamaki didn't seem to mind that observation though because he bought nearly one of every item, distributing them to the fellow members. The young worker behind the counter was certainly delighted to have sold all of it.
"Haruhi, you like strawberries, right? Look, they have strawberry flavored candy!" he said, handing her a box of artificially flavored chewy sweets. Stuff like that isn't exactly the real fruit by any means, but it was thoughtful, she figured.
"Hey guys," Hikaru piped up. "We were looking at the movie options, and we think this one looks interesting." He and Kaoru were gesturing to a poster that seemed to be for some thriller, horror type of movie. It seemed a little obvious to Haruhi that they'd go for that, but Tamaki was too preoccupied with his "commoner delicacies" to give much thought before saying, "Sounds good. Let's go, men!" If he'd been focusing even a little bit, even through his obliviousness, suspicion would've arisen in his mind.
However, he almost tried to waltz straight into the theater until Haruhi and Kyoya stopped him and reminded him to actually purchase a ticket. He was a little embarrassed but too excited to dwell on it long, as he practically bounced with energy while they made their way to the dim auditorium. It was here that they ran into a "problem".
There wasn't a row of seven seats available because all the other people had arrived earlier and were sparsely distributed throughout the theatre, unable to know prior that the group of students were arriving. It managed that they had to take two rows, with (from more of the center to the edge) Mori, Honey, Kyoya, and Tamaki in one row and Haruhi being sandwiched between Hikaru and Kaoru in the row behind them. While he may have been distracted before, the seating did not escape Tamaki's notice.
"Wait a minute, this has to be rearranged," he insisted, gesturing to the trio.
"But we already sat down," Kaoru protested.
"And besides, you can't always hog Haruhi to yourself," Hikaru added. Neither of them looked willing to move in the slightest, and while Haruhi wasn't keen on getting up either, she internally groaned at the situation.
"I'm not hogging her! She would probably just prefer to sit next to her daddy, right Haruhi?" Tamaki said. Ughh not this again, she thought. His insistence to be her father figure was perplexing.
In the end, everyone stayed where they were, mostly because the other moviegoers began to look very annoyed at the argument, so Haruhi had to tell Tamaki to just sit down. He was clearly distressed at the prospect of leaving her with a Hitachiin on either side, but her quietly stern expression made him have to deal with the suffering that only he felt and nobody else really cared about.
He managed to cope by shoveling popcorn into his mouth and grumbling to himself.
"Tamaki, the other patrons might appreciate if you quiet down, as the movie is starting," Kyoya whispered. It didn't quite matter because the film's opening was deafeningly loud and startled everyone in the theater, and it caused the Host King to begin to choke on his popcorn. As in seriously, legitimately choke. Because he couldn't even cough, he began panicking and waving his arms, inconveniencing Kyoya and Mori; the latter was already having to awkwardly lean and reach to yank him into standing, while they were trying to help him.
"Stay still!" Kyoya scolded breathlessly as he tried to perform the Heimlich on Tamaki. It was exhausting trying to fight the flailing moron, but Kyoya struggled to position himself behind him with one hand wrapped around a fist against Tamaki's stomach. Fortunately, and worryingly, the lack of oxygen he was recieving was already causing his struggling to weaken. This was good because it made it easier for Kyoya to execute a few (what would be impressive if not for the context) nearly flawless thrusts against his gut to force his body to eject the popcorn kernel stuck in his esophagus.
While the chaos caused one or two people to shout a polite, "Are you alright?", the majority of others chose silent, tense glaring, causing Tamaki to try to collapse into himself in his seat and for Haruhi to feel pity for him from behind.
As the film carried on, it clearly held typical, cheap horror elements that left Hikaru and Kaoru much less impressed and interested than they'd expected.
"You know, I figured it wouldn't be that scary, but this is just pathetic," Kaoru murmured from Haruhi's left, speaking more to his brother than her, before resting his elbow on her shoulder.
"Yeah, I mean, it would've at least been worth it if Haruhi was easy to startle and jumped into our arms now and then," Hikaru responded, occupying the right side of her arm rest with his head perched on his left hand.
"Hey, don't talk about me like I'm not here!" she said, feeling almost a little insulted by their intentions for the movie, but not entirely surprised. But honestly, if they were going to take up her personal space, they should at least try not to annoy her.
"Besides, even if that had happened," Kaoru added, ignoring her, "Tamaki's in front of us, so it wouldn't have been as fun since he can't see us, and we can't see his reactions." Hikaru simply nodded to acknowledge the flaw in their plan. With a sigh, he held up his box of candy up to his face and peeked inside. Then, he pulled out one of the sweets, brought his hand back, and tossed it at the back of Tamaki's head. Because of the angle and distance between the seats, he missed, but a second throw succeeded, causing the Host King to abruptly place his hand over the impact zone and turn around. He looked ready to accuse one or both twins, but he didn't get the chance.
"GRUAAAAAAHHHHHH!!" The monster (which honestly looked so low budget, there was a zipper on its back) on screen appeared and seemed to be chasing a girl around. However, it caught Tamaki off guard, and the girly shriek of fear during the scene was his own. He clutched Kyoya's sleeve desperately and buried his face in it. The twins were falling apart (and almost into Haruhi's lap) in a riot of laughter, earning choruses of aggravated hushes from all the other movie watchers.
"Takashi, I don't like this movie," Honey timidly complained. "Can we go find a different one?" After a moment, Mori nodded, and the two of them began to stand.
"Where are you guys going?" Haruhi asked. They weren't going to be able to find and pay for a soon enough movie and get out of the theatre at the same time as everyone else, as they'd already sat through a good portion of the current one.
"We saw earlier that another movie was viewing around the same time as this one in the theatre across the hall; it looked like a funny one. We can just walk in and try to catch up. It'll be less scary and more fun I think!" Honey explained.
"Wait, that's not how-" They left before she could even attempt to stop them. Trying to manage everyone was more exhausting than she'd feared... She needed a moment to herself...just a single moment...
"I have to go to the bathroom," she whispered to Hikaru, hoping he'd move for her to get out. No acknowledgement... She tried again. When he didn't respond again, she assumed he was just sort of ignoring her and forcing her to decide to try to awkwardly clamber over him. Well... it was definitely awkward.
"Woah, what are you- Haruhi what?" he frantically failed at piecing words together and was turning extremely red in the face. Crap! He wasn't ignoring her; he just didn't hear her both times and now it looked like she just randomly got up and climbed over onto his lap. In that moment, she looked around and saw what a scene she was causing: Kaoru's mouth was agape in shock, other moviegoers were murmuring amongst themselves with confused and occasionally disgusted expressions, and Tamaki, who had turned around again, looked like a broken robot, moving in slow motion and hyperactively at the same time, clearly not knowing what to do with himself. The whole situation was more horrifying than anything the monster on screen could invoke. Quickly, she shoved herself off of Hikaru and free from the row.
"I'm going to the bathroom!" she clarified, much louder than she'd intended, before dashing down the steps to the exit.
Haruhi couldn't even think. It felt like her brain was yelling at her as she stood in front of the sink and splashed cold water on her face. She had been more preoccupied with how the guys could embarrass her that she didn't even consider she'd accomplish that task the most. After one more splash to cool her hot cheeks, she dried her face with a paper towel, hoping she looked more composed than she felt.
When she left the restroom, she found people were departing from the theatre she had been in, indicating the movie had ended. It didn't really bother her because she hadn't been able to pay much attention to it, but she was suddenly self conscious that all the faces she was seeing were the ones that saw her mistake earlier. Nothing she could do about it now, she thought to herself in an attempt to prevent the memory from replaying in her head.
Suddenly, Tamaki emerged from the theatre in a rush. He must have left Kyoya behind because he was by himself and very quickly approaching Haruhi, who didn't have enough time to move away when he grabbed her shoulders with a sort of fearsome determination.
"Haruhi, did he force you to do that? You can tell me! I'm sorry I couldn't protect you!" He started blabbering nonsense and began to pet her head, as if to comfort her. It was suffocating and drawing way too much attention.
"Senpai!" she exclaimed with frustration while she tried to swat his hands away.
They were interrupted by Hikaru and Kaoru, on either sides of Tamaki, who emitted a simultaneous deep growl, like the monster from earlier, into his ears. Apparently the movie had him on edge, and he jumped and hid behind Haruhi.
"Aaah! What- You jerks!" he shouted.
Haruhi was glad when he stepped from behind her and wasn't holding onto her anymore, but she had to apologize to Hikaru now...
"Hey, I'm really sorry about the situation I put you in earlier," she began.
"Don't worry about it," he assured her. "It was an accident, and besides, the look on Tamaki's face was worth it." He laughed, certainly confirming his good nature about the matter. While Tamaki started incoherently ranting about how he felt about it, Mori and Honey were walking out of the theatre they had ditched off to. As they were approaching, the others could see that Honey was in tears, yet Mori was gently patting him and relatively unaffected.
"Woah, what happened to Honey-senpai?" Kaoru asked.
"The dog." Mori tried to say this quietly, but Honey heard and attempted to hold back his crying.
"It was supposed to be a cute, romantic movie! The dog- Why?!" he whimpered. Exhausted from his sadness (which the others were still confused by the vagueness of the explanation), he started to rub his eyes and sniffling softly. Mori picked him up and began to carry him on his back.
"How was your movie?" he asked the group as they exited the building, a very tired Honey now beginning to fall asleep against his shoulder. Uncomfortable glances all around as they were unsure what to say, but not wanting to leave him in silence.
"It was... interesting. The effects were tacky, but I'd say the experience terrified a few people," Kyoya responded, with a small knowing smile. Mori didn't inquire further, but Haruhi and Tamaki's immediate interests in their shoes didn't escape his notice.