And we're back for another chapter of Shooting Star! Yay. I finally have it done. I want to thank everybody who has read so far. Thank you to the 5 people who are following this story. This means you think my story has potential! Yay for me. Also Thank you to the 1 person who favorited it already. That means a lot. This chapter is pretty long so I hope you like it. I enjoyed writing it.

I do not own Ouran. I do not own Ouran High School Host Club characters. I do not own any of the Ouran High School host club plot that may or may not cross paths with my plot. I do own Ryuken though.

-Shooting Star-

Chapter 3. Diving In

Ryuken sat in the class room alone. Her stomach ached and she didn't know if it was from skipping lunch or her nerves. It was both.

'It would be too strange to walk back in there.' She laid on her desk face down and groaned.

'I cannot believe out of everyone here I asked a host to help me. Why didn't I just ask someone in class?' She looked around the room with her head still against her desk at each seat remembering who sat at each one.

Ryuken enjoyed the friends she had made in her classes. They were fun but they were not the ones to ask for this kind of help. She sighed.

'Kagura put me in a party class. No one is serious here except...' She looked at the desk in front of her and shivered. 'Ootori is too serious and scary. Seriously scary. Even when he smiles he is intimidating. How can anyone really be that scary?' She laughed a little somehow finding some humor in it.

Sitting up she looked towards Tamaki Suoh's seat. 'Maybe they are secretly similar since they are friends...?' In her mind an obnoxious, flirty Kyoya handing out roses to girls popped up.

She started laughing even more now. "That is too weird!" She waved a hand as if to wave away the thought.

"Hm? Can I ask what is amusing you, Sugiyama-san?" Speak of the devil and he shall appear. He was standing in the doorway. She froze remembering why asking Kyoya Ootori for help wasn't an option.

"Uh it was nothing Ootori-san." She unfroze herself. This was the first time they had spoken about something besides borrowing a pen or good morning. "Please call me Kyoya." He smiled one of those intimidating smiles she had just thought of minutes ago. "Then please call me Ryuken."

Now that Kyoya had this guy's attention he might as well ask. "Can I ask why you are in this class?" he asked bluntly as he sat down. Their class mates were slowly filling the room.

"To be honest, I think it was a mistake." Ryuken sighed dejectedly thinking that Kagura pulled the wrong strings with the school administrators. She was feeling like she should have been in special classes at this point.

Even though Kyoya knew this guy would give an answer he still was surprised that asking was so easy. Maybe it really was just a simple placement mistake as he says. It was believable for now.

Ryuken shook off the negativity. "Even though it might be a mistake to be here I will make the most of it." She was filled with determination.

"Well that's the spirit." Kyoya responded disinterested and turned to face forward. His curiosity was satisfied and he didn't get where Ryuken was going with this determination.

'This guy isn't so bad.' Ryuken thought to herself. She took so much more from this simple exchange. From speaking to the "Scary Ootori" she had felt so much better about her situation.

She even gained some courage for her to gather later for when she had to come by the evil host club. If this guy wasn't so bad maybe this evil club wouldn't be so evil.

Impulsively she reached over and ruffled his hair. "Thanks."

Kyoya froze. 'What does this guy think he is doing?' He didn't care why he was being thanked but he didn't like the way the gratitude was shown. "I'd appreciate if you didn't do that." he said sternly turning back to face Ryuken. He was now wishing that the bland guy stayed bland.

Ryuken paused. Her hand was still above his head. She looked at the serious face he was making, chuckled a bit, and ruffled his hair again. She smiled at him. He didn't scare her anymore. "If you say so, Kyoya-kun~."

Kyoya scoffed and smacked Ryuken's hand away. He turned around once again to face the front. At that moment Tamaki came in and sat down. He saw his friend's irritated face. "Something wrong, Kyoya~?" he asked cheerfully to maybe pick up his spirits.

Kyoya groaned at the abuse of his name and at how he was now surrounded by people who were irritating him. "Nothing." His headache from lunch was returning.

Tamaki turned to the tall guy chuckling in the seat behind Kyoya. "I haven't properly introduced myself, Sugiyama-san. I am Tamaki Suoh."

This surprised Ryuken because she felt like this guy didn't even know she existed sometimes. They never spoke before and even when she tried it was like he was always distracted by something else.

"You can call me Ryuken." "Well Ryu-kun, how is it to be the offspring of Romeo and Juliet?" He asked excitedly and already making up a nickname. He had that romantic delusion stuck in his head ever since lunch.

Both Ryuken and Kyoya were confused. "Huh?" "Well your papa is Romeo and your mom is Juliet and how their families forbade their love but they pulled through together for each other!" He was so excited about it that he completely forgot the plot.

"Romeo and Juliet committed suicide. They could never of had children." She didn't really want to burst his happy bubble but he wasn't really making sense and she was very confused why her parents were even brought up in the conversation.

"So what are we talking about, Tamaki-san?" She scratched the back of her head. Tamaki sat depressed and embarrassed in his seat and was mumbling something to himself. 'He is stranger than I thought.'

The teacher then came in and started class.

- Later that day -

The bell rung signalling the end of the school day. Tamaki and Kyoya stood up to prepare to go to Music Room 3. "See you both later." Ryuken stood up and passed the two shorter boys. She ruffled Kyoya's hair again on the way out and he smacked away her hand again in annoyance. She laughed.

She made her way outside the school building and pulled out her cell to tell the family driver to not to come and get her yet since she had buisness after school.

She was going to make her way back inside to look for a spot to do her homework but after feeling how nice it was outside decided to look through the school gardens for a spot. Eventually she found the benches that surrounded the long pond to be a nice area. The sun was still blazing and the trees provided great shade.

She took off the blue blazer, set it next to her, loosened her tie, and unbuttoned the top few buttons to let her neck breath. 'It's too hot for these uniforms.'

She took out her algebra work, looked at it, and put it right back into her bag. 'It's too nice out to be confused on numbers.' The sun and the gentle breeze was making her feel especially lazy today. 'Let's leave that for Fujioka later. I have a better idea.'

She got up and stretched her long legs and made her way to the pond. The water was crystal clear and there was little fishes swimming among the lily pads and the flowers. It was beautiful. 'I hope no one minds.'

She took off her shoes and rolled up her pant legs and sleeves. The water felt so cool to her legs. After a while she was laying down on the edge of the pond with one leg bent and the other hanging lazily into the water.

"Excuse me. Could you not be a lowlife on school grounds?" Ryuken lazily opened one eye to see a girl wearing the yellow dress uniform. She had dark red hair that was almost brown and steely blue eyes. Some would describe her as stuck up while some would say she was a just a bitch, but Ryuken didn't know that.

Ryuken didn't bother to move. The other girl wasn't a staff member or anybody who could make her move."Nothing low about being relaxed. You should try it."

"I'd rather not. You look like a bum out here. You just left your things every where like you live here!" the frustrated red-head pointed out how Ryuken left her bag with her books out on the bench.

She had gotten so relaxed that she was using her previously abandoned math work as a fan. "Hmm. I did get a little messy." She stood up and the other girl blushed and turned away. "Make yourself decent!"

Ryuken looked down. Sometime while relaxing she had unbuttoned even more buttons and completely undid her tie. She sighed at her slightly exposed flat chest. 'Good thing there really isn't anything there to see.'

"Am I decent enough?" she said after putting her uniform completely on but leaving her socks and shoes off and her pant legs still rolled up. She went to put away her things.

"It's better..." The girl's face was still a tint of pink. She didn't expect an almost shirtless attractive boy in her special spot on the school grounds. The girl had been coming here after being banned from her favorite club.

The only reason she was there after school was because she couldn't be picked up from school till later. Embarrassingly her family could only afford one driver (it was "hard times" for them) and she refused to take public transportation so she had to wait. This wait eventually lead her to be a frequent customer at the host club.

She came to this specific spot to regret what she had done and now some boy was defiling her zone of self-pity. "Why don't you have your shoes on still? Put them on and get out of here! Shoo"

"I still have quite a while before I have to go." Ryuken was looking at her phone. School clubs ended at 4:30 and it was only 3:40. 'This girl really looks like she should relax.' "Well now that I cleaned up the place join me." She pointed to the pond.

"A-are you suggesting I get in that? There's fish in there!" "They won't bother you. Now are you going to take off your stockings or are you letting them get wet?" Ryuken decided to just lift the girl right out of her shoes. If she waited on her the girl would never get in.

"Put me down, you beast!" Ryuken was lucky no one was around. 'This sounds bad with no context.' She thought and laughed a little to herself.

The girl wiggled out of her grasp. "Fine! Let me take off my stockings. No peaking or else!" The red-head pointed at Ryuken like she was a pervert.

"...Nothing I haven't seen before." She said out loud accidentally almost giving herself away. 'Crap..' She looked away from the other girl. The red-head's face was red as a tomato. "You're dirty!"

"Hurry up! Or do I have to do it for you?" Ryuken can hear the girl scrambling out of her stockings. The red-head put her the white nylon in one of her shoes and placed them neatly next to Ryuken's haphazardly placed shoes and socks.

"Now why am I doing this again?" she said while crossing her arms. "Just try it." Ryuken held out her had to her to help her in. They sat in it together. "See isn't this nice?"

The red head was holding the skirt of her dress. She looked down in the water at her feet. "It's not bad..." She really didn't want to admit it to ...who was this again?

"You never introduced yourself." She looked at Ryuken accusingly. "Well, you didn't either, so don't look at me like that." the taller girl laughed.

"I just assumed your name was Huckleberry Finn." the red head quipped to cover up that Ryuken was right. "Who's that? I'm Ryuken Sugiyama from class 2-A."

"Nevermind. My name is Mei Ayanokouji. I'm from 3-B." She lifted her hand knuckles up to be kissed out of habit. Ryuken just took her hand, turned it, and shook it.

'Ugh I cannot believe I still do that.' Mei looked away from Ryuken and to the school building. "So Mei-san, what brought you out here? You're not in any of the school clubs?"

Mei really was out there to be mopey and to look at Music Room #3. This spot had a tiny view of the hallway outside the room. Mei wouldn't dare look insane by standing outside the window of the actual room and she was always gone before club ended so they wouldn't see her.

"Um, I am waiting for someone." She told a half truth. "Hey, me too. We can wait here together." Ryuken smiled at her. "But I am a little bit nervous to be honest." She lied for the sake of conversation.

"Why? Who are you waiting for?" Mei was a little interested.

"Someone at the host club." Ryuken didn't really want to say she was waiting for one of the hosts that might be strange to say.

If Mei was drinking water she would have done a spit-take. 'Who could this guy be waiting for at the host club?' "Are you waiting for a girl?" "Ehh. Yeah. You can say that." Ryuken scratched the back of her neck as she lied. If only she knew she really was telling the truth...

"Do you like her or something? Is that why you are nervous?" "Yeah.." She didn't get why she was lying. "You'd even like someone who was a customer at the host club?"

"Why are the customers mess up? Is something wrong with them?" "NO! It's more like there is something wrong with the hosts especially Fujioka!" Mei covered her mouth. She was completely embarrassed by her own sudden outburst.

Ryuken didn't believe her. From her interaction with Kyoya Ootori earlier she had learned not to let first impressions be her last judgement on how she thought of someone and she was happy to apply what she learned on people like evil host tutor Haruhi and even slightly snotty Mei.

"Forget that I did that..." "No. What do you think is wrong with Fujioka?"

'Maybe this is what is stressing her out.' Ryuken was going to help her new friend out.

"Nothing is wrong with Fujioka..." Mei sighed as she crossed her legs. She held her chin in her hand. She was feeling melancholy.

"Were you his customer, Mei-san?" Ryuken smiled a bit as she leaned to get a view of her face.

"I was once." Mei said slowly. 'Why am I telling him this?'

"Did he reject you?" "No the whole host club did." "And why would they do that to you?"

"...I was jealous. I wanted... my favorite host all to myself and Fujioka just came in and took all of his attention because Fujioka is just some new commoner novelty!" She didn't want to say Tamaki's name but Haruhi's she could say with distain. 'If that commoner was never there I wouldn't be out here and in there...' She looked to the music room.

"If you think of it that way then don't be jealous. You don't want to be a novelty to someone and you shouldn't keep coming out here to mope and look at the host club." Mei looked at her in shock. "How did you know?"

"I had a feeling that's why you wanted this space to yourself and you keep looking over there at that room." Ryuken pointed. "Mei, this is your last year of school here. There are better things you could be doing...Hmm I wonder what that is?"

Ryuken was looking at a little slip of paper that was on a lily pad on the other side of the pond. "C'mon let's go look. It could be a note or something" She grabbed Mei's hand and dragged her along across the water getting the bottom of the girl's dress wet. "Hey wait!"

They got to it and Mei picked it up. It was a super market receipt with cheap items listed on it. Ryuken took it and looked at it. "I wonder how this got in here?"

Mei looked down at her wet dress in shame. "It probably was from the time I threw Fujioka's cheap bag in here." She confessed. Ryuken gasped. "You're like a school bully from a tv show!" She slapped Mei's arm lightly.

"C'mon, let's give this to Fujioka-san. What if it's important to lower class people to keep all their receipts? Then you can apologize for everything you did to him too." Mei nodded. They obviously didn't know that Haruhi didn't need it.

Ryuken put the receipt in her pocket and grabbed Mei's hand again. They ran across the pond splashing water everywhere back to get their shoes. Ryuken was impatient so she ditched her socks and just shoved her shoes on without them. "Forget those! That'll take for ever!" Mei paused putting on her white stockings.

"Get on my back." Ryuken looked completely serious as she bent over for her. Mei was looking at her like she was crazy. "Hurry up!" She got on and held on to Ryuken's shoulders. "You got to tell me how to get to the host club."

After ditching their stuff outside, they sped through the hallways. They left a trail of water droplets along the way. Ryukens pants were getting wet too from Mei's dress since she was holding under her knees.

Mei came to a realization as they got closer. "Wait. I don't think they'll let me in. They banned me from coming to the club." "Why?" Ryuken didn't stop but she slowed her speed. She felt a little patch of wetness on her back. Mei was crying.

"I tried to make it look like Haruhi assaulted me, but they found out and they banned me. I am so ashamed. I was so hideous! He won't forgive me." Mei buried her face into the back of Ryuken's blazer and cried some more.

"You'll just have to ask for it. If you don't you'll never know if he would. We can't give up now." "Okay."

The host club was just fooling around after club hours. Today's theme was sports and they were still in their athlete costumes. Haruhi was a basketball player. Hikaru and Kaoru were baseball players. Mori was in his kendo uniform. Honey was in a bubble bee mascot costume. Kyoya was a referee. Tamaki was the 'soccer star'.

Haruhi was trying to leave to get dress into normal clothes. She didn't even see why she had to be the basketball player. At her size she would have been terrible at basketball.

They didn't want Haruhi to leave yet because they wanted her to join their combined sports game. Tamaki was supposed to make a goal while dodging the twins with their bats and then try to make a goal around kendo goalie, Mori. Honey was cheering on the side.

Tamaki was the only one playing their fake game seriously. The twins just wanted to hit him and Mori was just blocking the flying soccer balls so they didn't hit Honey. Kyoya was just wondering how much the damages were going to cost. They didn't think to go outside to play.

Ryuken peaked her head into the room and saw the chaos. 'What the..?' Mei opened the door a little more to see too. She never saw the host club after hours. She was speechless. "Sports club?" Ryuken thought out loud.

"Is this the right club?" she looked down at Mei. She only nodded.

Hikaru noticed Ryuken at the doorway. "Hey, it's that guy again."

Kaoru noticed Mei. "and her."

"We thought we told you to not come back here, Ayanokouji." They said to her with disdain. With that all of the host club was looking at the intruders at the door.

Mei looked down in shame. "Wait. She has something important say to Fujioka-san." Ryuken stepped in front of the shorter girl before they made a move to remove her again. She reached into her pocket and gave Mei the receipt they found.

"Why are you all wet..?" "..and where are your shoes?" The twins looked at Ryuken and Mei up and down.

Mei went red again and hesitated to move towards Haruhi. "That's not important." Ryuken grabbed her hand again and dragged her towards Haruhi. They stopped in front of her. Haruhi pulled on a brave face. She didn't know what Ryuken was doing with a girl who bullied her or what that girl was going to say.

"Tell him, Mei." Ryuken stopped and pushed Mei so that she was in front of her. The host club watched in silence.

"Fujioka-san. I just wanted to apologize for everything that I've done to you. For throwing your bag into the pond, for all those things I said to you, and for trying to accuse you of attacking me. You were right. I am jealous of you. I am not asking for reëntry into the host club. I just want to express how sorry I am. I am ashamed of what I have done." Mei confessed sincerely. She tried to stand tall against the looks the host club was giving her.

"I hope you could accept my apology." Mei held out her hand to Haruhi as an offering of peace between them. Haruhi took awhile looking into Mei's face looking to see if she really was sincere. She shook Mei's hand and gave her a small smile. "Apology accepted."

Ryuken was relieved. She smiled.

"Oh yeah. I think this is yours Fujioka-san. We found it in the pond. I hope it's not important." Mei handed Haruhi the old receipt. She took it. "It's an old grocery receipt...I don't need this." She threw it away. "Is that why you guys are all wet? To get an old receipt?"

"We ran through the pond and got my uniform wet for trash!" Mei yelled at Ryuken.

"Why did you rush in here, Ryuken-senpai? You were supposed to meet me here anyways. I would of waited." Haruhi said plainly.

"What?! I am in the school barefoot because we rushed in and we didn't have to this whole time! You knew this the whole time too! You did this on purpose didn't you?!" She berated Ryuken and hit him in the arm. Ryuken rubbed where she was hit. "I kind of forgot that I was seeing Fujioka-kun here."

"What happened to the girl that you liked? Weren't you waiting for her to get out of the host club?" The host club was nervous a little at this.

"Well, I made her up. I didn't really want to say that I was going to pick up my tutor." Ryuken laughed nervously. The host club let out their breaths that they were holding. Their secret was still safe.

"Well, I'm not walking the school barefoot. Let's go get my shoes." She pulled on Ryuken's arm signalling that she wanted to be carried again. Ryuken put Mei on her back again and held her under her knees. She turned to Haruhi before she left. "Hey Fuji-kun, I'm going to go get my things. I'll meet you at the front door and then we can go, kay?"

"Whatever." With that Ryuken left giving Mei a piggyback ride.

-end of chapter three: Diving In-

So how was it?

Does everybody remember Ayanokouji? She didn't even come with a first name. I had to make one up. She was from the first chapter of the manga / the first episode of the anime. That was the only parts she was in. haha I don't remember why I decided to have Ryu meet her but I just felt like they would, I guess. She is different from the manga and the anime because I figured she would change. I don't really plan on bringing her in as a regular character but she'll probably make a brief appearance later. I hoped you guys like my rendition of her. I did.

Soundbird over-and-out! See you next time!