At last, the chilly weather revealed one of the toughest times and one of the most relieving moments of the school year: midterms. The students at Ouran walked confidently toward their classes with pride in their private education and hours of studying, while others sulked, knowing that they wouldn't even compete with the top ranked students among the school, including Haruhi Fujioka and Kyoya Ootori. The members of the host club were able to face their exams with ease and confidence they were always ranked amongst the top fifty at the least.
Yuubi surprisingly felt at ease as well. She had been working continuously on her fine art midterm that she was confident in at least a B. Finally, it was over. Critiques had already begun. She entered her classroom calmly took a seat beside her easel, yawning obnoxiously causing her vision to be blurred with dew. Her painting wasn't there, attached to her easel or was it a result of her blurry vision?
She rubbed her eyes, confident it was a result of the mixture of some unconscious paranoia and the glossy layer of dew hindering her vision. Still nothing. The information took a while to process. She stood there utterly confused and baffled. It had been there the day before, and the day before that. And the days before that. Helplessly, she began to rummage around the premise of the small art room in desperate hopes of a miracle: finding her piece. Some of the students began to snicker and murmur amongst themselves in the midst of their critiques, something about embarrassment and shame and no sense of responsibility. The teacher tilted his head at her in both slight annoyance and confusion. He opened his mouth, "Yuubi. What are you doing?" The girl seemed to ignore him as she pushed through the piles of art supply boxes and easels. He repeated the question. Still no response. "Yuubi. You're the last one up... You either have your midterm or you don't." His annoyance multiplied as it replaced the calm atmosphere of the room.
"I swear… I… I…" she stammered in disbelief, continuously searching through the same boxes. "It was here yesterday…" Her words taunted her as they departed from her lips and entered her ears. They sounded like lies, even to her. "I swear…" she murmured before taking a heavy sigh, trying to relieve the heaviness in her chest. She looked to the other students for some sort of approval or assistance, but they deliberately avoided making eye contact with her even when she called out their names individually, pretending they were busy packing up to leave.
He shrugged, "I don't know what to tell you… if it's not here, then it's not here. I said no late work. I'm sorry."
She hesitated, gulping down the sorrow, mucus and tears in her throat. "If I fail my midterm then I – "
"Yep…" he nodded, his expression softening into a mixture of pity and disbelief. "I'm sorry," he put a comforting hand on her shoulder. The girl was unresponsive: head down, eyes grey without light, a pale tint of purple in her skin, biting her tongue, holding back a waterfall of emotions. She peered at him quickly, and headed out the door, quickly hitting a sprint when she entered the hallway full of her privileged peers, arrogantly scoffing about the easiness of their exams.
Her speed made her feel dizzy, blurring her vision as the images flew by her rapidly. She refused to cry, desperately fighting the lump on her throat. It had to be somewhere. Whether it was accidentally misplaced or deliberately hidden, she was determined to find it. To be honest, she wasn't willing to accept defeat, after all the sleep she lost and the work she put into staying at Ouran.
"Hey... Be careful, little prince," Tamaki coolly advised, after being pushed by a frail looking boy jolting down the hallway. The boy had fallen and quickly got back up, seemed to grit his teeth for a second and was back running on his feet. "Ah… Yuubi-san?" Tamaki asked himself as the figure continued down the hallway. He had only a glimpse of the boy, but he was fairly certain that it was her. Curiously, the host club's leader made his way down towards her art classroom, which was occupied by no one but a seemingly distressed teacher.
"What?!" Tamaki's eyes widened, screaming in anger, as the teacher nodded calmly beside him, explaining school regulations and strict policy on scholarship students. "She worked so hard! All she did was work on that stupid midterm," he shouted, frustration lining his words. "This isn't fair! She has to stay! Stay at Ouran! Stay at the Host club," he exclaimed, almost gasping for air. He'd always been this way. He always got worked up over the dilemmas of other people, a reason why he was the leader of the host club. The incredible amount of sympathy he had for others oozed out of his words as he spoke. "It has to be somewhere!" He desperately called the others, who seemed alarmed and absolutely taken aback by the new as well. "Search team!" With that, the members voluntarily ran around the school in search of her project.
The campus was huge. Even though the members had split up, they ran for hours without any signs of the painting, not even the slightest bit of hope. Honey and Mori decided to rest in the art room. Honey took a deep breath and looked at the room with a gentle smile. "Takashi," he giggled a little. "Remember the day we ran around the whole campus to find Yuubi… We were in here and the painting that was there was her midterm, unfinished."
Mori nodded, unsure what his cousin was rambling about.
"We should've been in here today, with the painting inside here, finished. Maybe, that'll happen later today," he smiled optimistically at his friend, whose lips curved slightly upward in response.