A/N: I'm not sure how we did it, but this is the last chapter. With this, every single one of the uses has appeared at least once in one of the stories in this collection. And with this chapter, the Bitter series is truly complete. These can be read as a standalone or with the Bitter stories. Enjoy the last chapter and I'll see you in the next story. Since the end has come upon us, I decided to go back to her first year in school, before the whole tooth incident that began the Bitter series. Requested numbers by Shortie87.
#89…Hammer – a shinai can beat nails too.
#94…Drum stick – it can beat a drum just as much as a real drum stick.
It was a day like any other day in the Ouran High School Host Club, which is to say that it was completely different than the day before because with this group nothing is ever status quo. Each day brought something new and slightly different than the day before…and that is why things were always so interesting and Haruhi continued to hang around this bunch of goofballs. They had become her friends (dear reader, she was also dating Mori, so she was kind of stuck with the lot of them – not that she would change anything about her situation).
During her first year at Ouran, shortly after she and Mori started to date – not that anyone other than Hunny knew of their status change – Tamaki got the bright idea that they needed to get in touch with their commoner roots. Some of the hosts complained stating that they were never common to begin with and they could trace their roots through the centuries (dear reader, it was mainly the twins, although, Kyoya did mention that his family was never common to begin with. And he also pointed out that the twins' father did have commoner roots. Leave it to the Shadow King to have everyone's family tree in his computer).
After they helped reunite brother with sister (meaning, dear reader, the whole debacle with Kirimi and Nekozawa), the president of the Host Club decided on a new cosplay. According to him, he had been thinking about it ever since they had visited Haruhi in "the other" part of town. As he and the others followed Haruhi to the grocery store, he noticed different people walking around, and then in the grocery store, he noticed various people dressed in what looked like uniforms and aprons, or as he called it, the everyday commoner worker. It dawned on him that all of their cosplays up until this point had been elaborate and elegant, and he wanted to do something that was grittier. He wanted to cosplay as a commoner! And once he decided on the theme, he also decided that they needed to be able to build at least a couple of the props themselves.
Haruhi face palmed, but in the end decided it could be worse, and as long as she wasn't doing all the work in making the props, then she would go along with their club's figurehead (dear reader, I think we all know that Kyoya is able to influence Tamaki and get what he wants, and controls the purse strings of the club…even if he can't completely control his best friend). The others weren't so sure, however, the twins went along with it because Haruhi did, but she had the feeling they were plotting something. Hunny and Mori went along with it because Hunny thought it would be cute (dear reader, and it was because Haruhi had agreed, but no one else needed to know that). Kyoya agreed with the stipulation that he would be the overseer and that was all he would do (dear reader, Tamaki agreed to that because…well honestly, it was because his best friend just gave him permission to follow through with his crazy idea without an argument. I would also point out that Kyoya believed this would be popular with the girls and allow the club to save money on costumes and props. In his eyes, it was a win/win).
The first day of construction, the twins pretended to swing hammers at each other, which then caused Tamaki to lecture them – they were counting on that. Two sentences into the lecture, they turned on the blond and started to chase after him with the hammers. Tamaki screamed and started running towards Kyoya. Hikaru missed hitting the computer by a mere inch and was then tied up from the ceiling and used as a human piñata by Shiro and his class, who had been invited to beat the elder twin by Kyoya.
The second day, Hikaru and Kaoru had been stripped of their tools and given only a shinai each. Out of nowhere they each pulled out a drum and started banging them stating, "Kyoya is the slave driver, and everyone else are the slaves!" They thought it was funny until Hunny grabbed the shinais and used them to skewer the twins (dear reader it was only through their clothes, but the spit he put them on was very real. Thankfully, he never lit the fire).
The third and final day of construction, Haruhi hit her thumb with the hammer and Tamaki freaked out. He grabbed her and shouted, "Mommy, we need to get her to the hospital. If we don't, she might lose her thumb!" Mori saved his girlfriend and took her into the kitchen and put ice on it.
"Thanks, Takashi," she spoke softly so that no one else would hear her.
Patting her head, Mori ran his fingers through her hair and asked, "Are you all right?"
"Yeah, I just missed the nail head and hit my thumb instead. Stupid mistake. I'll be okay though." She could see the concern on his face and in his eyes, and smiled, "Really. Tamaki-senpai was making a bigger deal than he needed to. See?" Pulling her thumb out from under the ice pack, Haruhi allowed Mori to inspect the digit.
"It's going to have a bruise."
"Yeah, but that's all. I didn't even hit the nail, so I won't lose the nail and I can deal with a bruise. I have them enough around this group," she snickered, hoping his mood would lighten as well.
It worked. Nodding, he gave her a small smile and bent down to kiss her head, "Be careful."
"I will. Now, I think we need to go back out there because I don't think Hunny-senpai can hold Tamaki-senpai back much longer."
"Mitsukuni could always knock him out."
"Yes, but then we would hear about it from Kyoya-senpai and he would probably raise my debt."
"I could always pay it off."
Holding up her non-injured hand, she shook her head and said, "No. I don't want you to."
"I know. Come," with his hand on the small of her back, he guided her out of the kitchen and then let her go. His hand still felt warm and he wanted to pull her back into his arms, but he couldn't. Now was not the time.
After declaring herself perfectly fit to continue (dear reader, she also managed to send Tamaki into his corner of woe for a brief period of time), Haruhi returned to her station only to find her hammer missing, "Who stole the hammer?"
"We decided," Hikaru smirked.
Nodding, Kaoru continued, "A hammer is too dangerous, so you can use a shinai to hammer the nails."
"Eh?" Haruhi dumbfounded. Hammer with a bamboo sword?
Hikaru explained excitedly, "Yeah! We saw it on a T.V. show once."
She deadpanned, "You do know that T.V. is not real life…right?" Then again, she reassessed who she was talking to and stopped arguing. Picking up the shinai, she started to hammer the nails into the prop. It worked, however, the shinai was damaged and it took 10 times longer to hammer in one nail.
Finishing up his chore, Mori walked over to his girlfriend and sat down. Placing the nail in place, he tapped it a couple times with his hammer and then one good strike sent the nail all the way into the wood. Tap, tap, hit. Tap, tap, hit. He was making short work of her assigned pieces, and before anyone could react, he was done (dear reader, except for Hunny, they were all astounded, fascinated, and enthralled with his skill. He didn't care. He just wanted to be close to Haruhi and be her knight in shining armor).
The next day, it was more than evident which pieces had been done by the hosts and which had been professionally made; however, it didn't matter. As Kyoya predicted, the girls were excited about the new cosplay and felt it brought them closer to Haruhi, whose popularity was rising every day, and profits skyrocketed. In fact, profits for this one event rose 93% over their last cosplay event because they didn't have as many expenses (dear reader, he was one happy Shadow King).
Eventually, the guys would learn that their secret princess already had a prince she loved more than anyone else and there would be many duels and obstacles, but today was not that day. Life was perfect the way it was now, and later on after the dust of the future had settled, they would still be friends, life would still be perfect, and everyone would be just as happy, and even happier, than they were on this day.