EPISODE 3: Rusty

It was a bright sunny afternoon in late July. Eniko and Nibira had become part of the host club for exactly 7 days. Yesterday they were both informed that Honi's birthday was in 4 days. The host club gathered today not to open for business, but to discuss his special surprise party. Mori was asked to make sure Honi didn't have a clue about today's secret meeting. They didn't want Honi getting suspicious.

"Okay first things first everything should be chocolate." Nibira said. The other members nodded, that is except Tamaki.

"Why chocolate?" He asked, a genuinely curious look on his face. Nibira sighed and then turned her head to the twins.

"Alright, you were right, he really is an idiot." They nodded in response. She turned back to Tamaki, who was looking utterly confused. "Don't you know anything about Honi? Wow. We've only known him for a week and we already know that his favorite flavor, of all time is chocolate."

"How could you?" Tamaki said standing up. Nibira slumped in her chair and rolled her eyes. Haruhi who was sitting across from her, couldn't help but think, wow, those two are really getting into the hang of this easily. I wonder if they ever had stuff like this happen to them before?

Tamaki ended his speech with, " As the king of the Ouran host club… It is my duty to know anything, and everything about each of my members!"

"Kyoya does that better." Eniko said just loud enough for Tamaki to hear.

"W-what?!"

"Come on Tamaki." Kaoru said from behind him. "Do you even know our favorite colors?"

"Uh, your's is…navy blue?" Kaoru shook his head.

"What about me?" Hikaru asked, a smirk forming on his face clearly showing that he was enjoying this.

"Green?" Hikaru shook his head as well, though Kaoru had a straight face, and Hikaru was beaming. Tamaki turned to Kyoya. "Kyoya. Yours is orange isn't it?"

"Sorry." Kyoya said. Tamaki frantically whipped around to face Eniko.

"You! You're pink! I know it!" Pointing his finger in her face.

Eniko sighed and finally said. "No." He turned to Nibira.

"Uh, lavender?" Nibira shook her head.

"Uh…..Haruhi! I know this don't worry!" She looked skeptic. "Uh…..Bright blue?"

"Sorry senpai." She said. Tamaki staggered backward then fainted. The members did nothing. They knew he would slip back into consciousness in about 3 to 4 minutes. And that meant 3 to 4 minutes of some peace and quiet. And that was worth it. Haruhi looked up at Kyoya. "Kyoya senpai? Do you really know our favorite colors?"

"More or less.." He said eyes on the pages of his black notebook. "But, if I don't know a few of the club members colors. Chances are Tamaki doesn't know any." Haruhi nodded, but then she blinked and looked at the two girls.

"Wait a second… Do you guys even have any colors yet?"

"Sure we do! At the end of the first day we were opened for business, we were talking with the twins. And we found the perfect colors for each of us." Nibira said.

"Yeah! Nibira's green." Hikaru said.

"And Eniko's yellow." Kaoru finished.

"5 days is plenty of time for Tamaki to have figured it out."

"No it isn't!" Tamaki said sitting up. "I'm the king around here! The king's subjects are supposed to tell him everything!" He exclaimed grabbing a tissue out of nowhere, and bawling into it, slowly melting himself into a puddle.

"You know, this may just be my personal opinion, but you have gotten pretty rusty in this past year." Kyoya said casually. Instantly Tamaki was materialized again, and he turned toward Kyoya.

"Mommy?…..Please tell me you aren't serious?!" Tamaki screamed grabbing him by the shoulders and shaking him a bit. Nibira leaned over to Kaoru.

"Um who's mommy?"

"Kyoya, Tamaki is supposedly daddy." He said making air quotes, he shrugged. Nibira just laughed quietly and shook her head.

"And this is coming from the guy that just a week ago thought me and Eniko were gay." Kaoru tilted his head back and laughed. Nibira smirked, then went back to watching the little scene unfolding in front of them.

"Tamaki, if you don't believe me. Just look at this graph." Kyoya reached out and rolled in a large roll out graph that seemed to come out from nowhere. It had one line on it that was at the top at first then started to slowly go down more. Then a little above the middle the line went down more dramatically, at the top you could see it was titled, Tamaki's percentage of customers.

"Now you see that at the beginning of this graph you see that your request rate was about 70 percent, then when Haruhi joined the host club and gradually became more popular, your percentage went down to about 60. Then in just the past week Eniko, and Nibira, and the twins have taken more than 20 percent away from you bringing you to just less than 40 percent." Kyoya finished, and saw Tamaki gripping the arm of his chair for balance.

"That can't be right." He said out loud, to himself.

"Graphs don't lie." Hikaru said bluntly. Tamaki groaned and grabbed his stomach.

"How, could you… guys… do this to your… loving father!!" Tamaki exclaimed, tears running down his face. "We're a family! Families are supposed to support each other!"

"Then tell me why you aren't supporting us for improving? Huh?" Nibira said. Tamaki only stared at her for a few moments.

"But… I thought… uh…. I have to go sort this out alone." He said finally and ran off. None of the members tried to catch him. They all knew it wouldn't do any good. The remaining hosts sat in silence, for a few minutes. Kyoya was the first to break the silence.

"So chocolate everything. Agreed?" Everyone nodded. "Ok. I think that's enough for today. Goodnight everybody."

The next day the host club was open for business. And Honi thankfully was still clueless about the whole plan of a surprise party. But there was one question that was on everybody's mind, even the guest's. Where was Tamaki?

No one had seen him all day. None of the members could reach him by phone, and he hadn't showed up for work that day. Which he always had claimed had been his favorite part of the day. Mori knew what had happened yesterday, but the host club members decided not to tell Honi. Because it may result in him getting a lead on their secret plan.

"I wonder where Tamaki is?" Haruhi said earlier that day, just before the host club opened for the day.

"Maybe we shouldn't have been that hard on him the other day." Eniko said taking her place beside Nibira.

"Wait. How come I don't remember any of this stuff?" Honi said. The host club tensed.

"Tamaki simply was exposed to the fact that the percentage of his customer rate had gone down increasingly over the past 18 months." Kyoya stated clean and simple. Honi didn't ask anymore questions.

Later that day all of the host club were with clients, when Tamaki finally showed up. Though he wasn't exactly portraying a princely type character. His back was hunched so low that it looked scary. His head was hung so it looked to the floor, but you could see his face was a dark clue. And you could see an eerie black mist following him everywhere he went.

"Tama-chan." Honi said. Tamaki didn't answer.

"Boss?" The twins asked. He still didn't respond. He slowly made his way to a single chair, and plopped down on it. Looking exhausted. He suddenly heard the twins talking to their guests.

"Hikaru? What are you-?" Kaoru started. He looked up just enough to see the twins, Hikaru had his hands and face in Kaoru's hair. The girls behind them were sweating, eyes huge. Hikaru's words were muffled from Kaoru's thick hair, so Tamaki couldn't quite understand. But a few girls let out a squeal, he could see that clearly, and the twins still kept going.

"Come on Hikaru." Kaoru said gently pulling his brother off, but just enough so that they were still close. And Hikaru's hand moved from Kaoru's hair, to his cheek. "That was once. And it was when you were paying me back for what I did for you at the park, that other day." Kaoru smiled warmly Hikaru returned it.

"Silly Kaoru." Hikaru said with a small laugh. "Just because it was me paying you back. It doesn't mean I didn't enjoy it as much as you did." Kaoru gave a small gasp, and Hikaru went back into his hair, he pulled up once. "I enjoyed it too. Very much."

"Hikaru?" The girls behind them broke out into squeals. Tamaki's face went from a depressing blue, to a fiery crimson. He went from cold to boiling hot, in a second.

"Ah! Hikaru! Kaoru!" The twins looked up, Hikaru's face was still in Kaoru's hair.

"Huh?" They said together. Tamaki ran to them pulled them up off the couch, and started shaking them. A couple girls whimpered. They were scared.

"Just what are you trying to do to me?! I'm losing my reputation because of you!" Tamaki started to breathe fire everywhere and dropped the twins with a thunk. Hikaru smirked in a way that Kaoru could tell he had an idea on his mind. Kaoru decided to start it out for him.

"Ugh." Kaoru groaned, and winced.

"Kaoru!" Hikaru said and pulled him up off the ground gently by the shoulders. "Are you alright? He didn't hurt you did he?" He finished, fake glaring at Tamaki who was stone still. Watching them.

"Of course Hikaru. Don't worry about me." Hikaru wrapped his arms around Kaoru neck and pulled his brother into him.

"Don't be stupid Kaoru." Hikaru said, running a hand through Kaoru's hair. "As the older brother I need to protect you. I'm so sorry." Kaoru could see he was trying to hold back a laugh. He decided to respond by bringing his brother even closer to him putting his head into his neck. Hikaru was able to give Tamaki an evil grin, without the girls seeing.

Meanwhile Tamaki was staggering backward, trying not fall. Eniko and Nibira a few yards away, were watching the entire thing, along with their guests.

"My, my." Eniko said, Nibira looked at her.

"It seems the twins can always pick the very worst time to piss Tamaki off." Nibira finished. Eniko nodded. When they went back to watching Tamaki was curled up into a ball at his corner. Haruhi was listening to him mumble.

"I'm not the king of the host club anymore." He said, "I used to be. But now those ominous doppelgangers are have torn that reputation away from me." He finished with a pout. Haruhi groaned.

"What are you talking about senpai? You're still the king of the host club." Suddenly Tamaki was stood up. The dark mist surrounding his corner was now gone.

"W-what?"

"Sure." Haruhi said. "The members that have the second highest percentage, are Hikaru, and Kaoru. But you're still a good 20 percent ahead of them."

Suddenly Kyoya popped up out of nowhere. "Haruhi's right you know." He pulled out a bar graph with all the host club member's faces. Tamaki's bar was about double or triple the size of all of them. "You see here that Hikaru and Kaoru's customer rate is a mere 17 percent. While yours is up at 38." Tamaki had his index finger on his chin, looking at the graph with a surprised expression.

"See senpai, you are the king of the host club." Haruhi stated with a comforting smile. Suddenly Tamaki started laughing.

"Ha, ha! Yes! I am the king of the Ouran host club! Long live the king!" He yelled so everyone could hear. His arms flew up. Haruhi slouched a little bit.

"Ugh. He's started this again." She said.

"Maybe we shouldn't have said anything to him. That way he could've just figured it out on his own and we might have been able to relax for a few more days. Hm." Kyoya said standing by Haruhi.

Two days later, the host club told Honi to come ready for the host club. But they really weren't going to open for business. It was the day of Honi's birthday party. A few of Honi's regular customers asked if they could join, and Kyoya gave the okay. Tamaki was having everyone rehearse a special opening just for Honi. When he walked in the lights would turn on, and everyone would yell surprise! And everyone would throw streamers and confetti, then Tamaki would come a few steps forward to give a small speech about Honi. While the other members were bringing out the snacks. Tamaki said it was genius. But Eniko, Haruhi, and Nibira noticed that Hikaru and Kaoru were acting unusually excited about all this.

Five minutes later, the members were in position when Mori, and Honi walked in.

"Huh?" Honi said.

"Surprise!" All the members yelled, pink streamers and confetti went everywhere.

"Ooh yay! It's cake time!" Honi squealed. Most of the members went into the back room to get the snacks. Tamaki thought that only he, Honi, and Mori were still in the room. But what he didn't see was Hikaru, and Kaoru, standing behind him. Watching.

Tamaki took his few steps forward, but suddenly he stepped on something slippery. And before he knew it he was on the ground. He also noticed that parts of his body were burning because of the tea he just spilled.

It took him a second to hear the laughter. He looked up to see the twins not too far behind him, cracking up. Their hands were clutching their stomachs and tears were streaming down their faces from laughing so hard.

"Grrrr! Hikaru! Kaoru! How dare you put oil on the floor and ruin Honi senpai's birthday!" He didn't bother to realize that Honi was laughing as well. The twins didn't respond. The just kept laughing.

Just then Haruhi, Eniko and Nibira walked in with treats. Honi squealed. When Nibira and Eniko saw what the twins had done. They just started laughing too, and sat down on the couches. Haruhi noticed, the oil, the tea, and Tamaki's blood on the floor where he fell, and sighed.

"I'll go get a mop." She said, and started walking towards the back room. Tamaki gasped, and started running after her.

"No wait! Secret princess! You shouldn't be using your feminine hands to clean up my mess. Let me help you!" What Tamaki didn't realize was Nibira, and Eniko were still in the room. And Nibira was watching them.

"Well, well, well." She said. Though they weren't the only two in the room. Eniko was the only one listening. "It seems we have another female in our midst."