rantings of a soulless science student

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 04:59:19 GMT

It's been a long time since I posted any fanfiction. Whoohoo me. Apparently impending French and Classical Mechanics exams inspire me to not-sleep and write fanfiction instead.

Fandom: Ouran High School Host Club
Title: Wildflowers
Summary: Tamaki reminisces about France. Rating: G
Genre: Introspective, Nostalgia?
Word Count: 1151
Warnings: Lots and lots of French. Not beta'ed. Written in the matter of a few hours. Mild TamaHaru.

Heureux qui, comme Ulysse, a fait un beau voyage,
Ou comme cestui-là conquit la toison,
Et puis est retourné, plein d’usage et raison,
Vivre entre ses parents le reste de son âge!

Quand reverrai-je, hélas! de mon petit village
Fumer la cheminée, et en quelle saison,
Reverrai-je le clos de ma pauvre maison,
Qui m’est une province, et beaucoup advantage?

Plus me plaît le séjour qu’ont bâti mes aïeux
Que des palais romains le front audacieux;
Plus que le marble dur me plaît l’ardoise fine,

Plus mon Loire gaulois que le Tibre latine,
Plus mon petit Liré que le mont Palatin,
Et plus que l’air marin la douceur angevine.

-Joachim du Bellay, 1558

Bells chimed softly, announcing the entrance of a tall blondish boy, his bag carried under his arm. His blue jacket was a little warm for the weather, but it was still early in spring, and mornings and evenings were still cool. His violet eyes cast around the shop curiously, taking in the diverse range of flowers in the shop, before crinkling into a smile for the girl behind the counter. His looks were unusual for Japan – normally, strangers would stare at this light-haired, pale-skinned European on the streets. Even in bustling metropolitan Tokyo, his looks would be remarked upon.

“Salut,” he greeted the girl, approaching the counter. “Vous êtes aussi belles aujourd’hui. Ça va bien?”

“Ouais, ouais,” she replied, her brown eyes dancing, her fingers casually spinning a pen over a Japanese school book. Probably her homework, the boy supposed. She spoke her French a little more slowly, a little more carefully than he did. Her face hinted at some European ancestry, but not so clearly as his. “Il y a longtemps, Suoh-san. Qu’est-ce vous cherchez?”

“C’est printemps,” he replied, almost shyly. “Est qu’il y a des cistes cotonneux ou des aphyllanthes de Montpelier, peut-être?”

“Hmm,” she murmured, tapping a pencil against her lips. “Je sais pas. Donne-moi un moment – je les chercherai.” She dropped her pencil on top of the book and left.

Tamaki sighed, leaning against the counter. The shop, though small, was one of his favourites. It didn’t carry any of the fancy flowers that Kyouya or the Hitachiins would look for, and their arrangements didn’t come with the same hefty price tags. Sometimes he thought that this would be the kind of shop that Haruhi would like, but he had never found the courage to find out. What made this shop special, out of dozens or hundreds of others, were two things: the owners, and the inventory. He’d never bothered to find out why, but the owners spoke French almost fluently, and they carried the sorts of flowers that he missed most.

It wasn’t something that he talked about a lot, or indeed thought about a lot. He did what he had to do, and it wasn’t as if he didn’t like Japan. Certainly he did, and certainly he would never trade his friendships today for anything in the world. He loved the Japanese festivals, and Japanese history and Japanese snacks and anime. But sometimes, especially on early spring days where the sun shone its warm heat onto his face and the cherry blossoms were beginning to sprout, before the June rains began, sometimes he missed home.

He missed the warm, sunny days of his home Provence, he missed the hot, dry heat of summer. Summer started early there, with short, mild winters and plenty of sunshine year-round. He missed the red-tiled roofs of Marseilles, where he used to climb long ago. Once he had fallen off, rolling into the cobbled streets below. He still remembered the warmth of the hardened clay on his hands and knees, the rush of adrenaline as he’d slipped, and the short, breathless fall onto hard stones. He’d cried, he remembered; his mother had picked him up, asking him in her panicked voice if he was okay, if he had hurt himself, if they needed to go to the hospital right away. He only sustained a few bruises in the end, but it was enough to keep him from climbing those roofs ever again.

He missed the old castles and aqueducts and forts of the city, living within a different history, maybe a dreamier history. Many castles and fortifications came from the Middle Ages, the time of knights and dames and chivalry; some lasted from the Merovingians and Carolingians, those glorious days under the Holy Roman Empire of Charlemagne. A few dated all the way back to Roman Provincia Nostra, and here and there, perhaps even one or two to the Greek Massalia. He missed the smell of history as he wandered down narrow streets, into old Catholic cathedrals and the Vieux-Port and La Vielle Charité.

He had never been very religious at home. Like every French child, he had of course been baptised and certainly he had studied the catechism and been confirmed. Still, it had taken a move halfway around the world for him to truly embrace it, when it was impossible to attend Mass every Sunday, and where his religion set him apart from others. It was another thing he kept to himself; Kyouya was, of course, a staunch atheist and rationalist, and who knew what the Hitachiins believed. Both Honey-senpai and Mori-senpai were Buddhists, but he and he alone was Catholic. He thought, maybe, that this was something that connected him to his mother in France. He made an effort now to go to Mass when he could, and prayed often for her health and safety and happiness.

He wondered, offhand, what Haruhi would think of that.

He missed the smells of home, the salty brine taste of the air near the ocean and the warm, desert-like scent of the garrigue, laced with gentle wafts of lavender, rosemary, sage and thyme in the highlands, closer to the mountains of Italy. He missed the smell, too, of his house; warm and welcoming, the scent of bouillabaisse streaming from the kitchens, the smell of old paper and old wood in the music room, and when she felt good enough to play, the smell of rosin from his mother’s violin. He remembered the echo of sweet melodies of Saint-Saens and the wild dances of Vivaldi she would play for him, and the sonatas of Beethoven or Mozart or Chopin they would play together.

Sometimes, or maybe a part of him all the time, missed his native France with all of his heart.

“Nous n’avons pas des cistes cotonneux ou des aphyllanthes de Montpelier,” the girl returned, apologetic, but holding before her a small plant, with very round, white leaves and a daffodil-yellow centre. “Mais j’ai cherché un ciste à feuilles de sauge. Est-ce que ça va bien?”

“Ouais, ça va,” Tamaki agreed instantly, reaching for his wallet. “Je l’achèterai. Merci beaucoup.”

“Rien fait,” the girl replied, smiling and carefully placing the flower into a paper bag and presenting it to him with both hands. “Merci.”

As he exited the shop, Tamaki took a deep breath and tasted the warm, but slightly damp smell of the Japanese spring, mixed in with the slightly acidic taste of pollutants. There were times to remember, and times to be nostalgic and times to miss home with everything he had, and for now, that time was over. It was time to return to the hustle of Japanese life, time to return to the often political game of the Japanese elite. He sighed once more, softly, glanced down at the wildflower that meant so much to him, before pulling out his cell phone and calling his chauffeur.

---

Translations

The conversation between Tamaki and the store-keeper goes roughly like this, in order, where T is Tamaki and G is the girl. Of course these aren’t really exact translations – they sound weird here but they make sense in French, and my translations are somewhere between the two.

T: Hello. You’re beautiful today as always. Is it going well?
G: Yes, yes. It’s been a long time, Mr. Suoh. What are you looking for?”
T: It’s spring. Are there any orchid rockroses or Montpelier aphyllanthuses (Both of these are wildflowers found in southern France, in Provence)
G: I don’t know. Give me a moment and I will look.”

G: We don’t have any orchid rockroses or Monpelier aphyllanthuses, but we have a white cistus (white rockrose). Is that okay?
T: Yes, that is good. I will buy it. Thank you very much.
G: I did nothing. Thank you.

---

One of the things that always bothered me about Tamaki’s character was his one-dimensional-ness, particularly in fanfiction. Often we treat him as nothing but a flailing idiot, and while this is how he often acts in canon, I always thought there was more to him than that. I always wanted to write a Tamaki that was really, really French – down to the perfect unaccented French (you have NO IDEA how much I flinched in the anime), the Catholicism, and everything else. I’m not sure how well I conveyed that, but I wanted to write a Tamaki that was serious and nostalgic about everything in France he missed, all the things that he took for granted there and miss today. I took a lot of inspiration from Joachim du Bellay’s poems in Les Regrets for this, and cited one of his sonnets at the beginning – at the time du Bellay wrote it, he was serving as secretary to a cardinal in Rome, and he was writing about how much he missed France. He died two years after he published Les Regrets.

If anyone speaks French fluently here, feel free to correct my grammar – I’m not fluent writing, but I read French and understand French very well (having studied it for about eleven years, two of those at university level). This was an idea I spent a long time toying with; initially, in fact, it was Haruhi and Tamaki speaking in a Catholic cathedral, but in the end I think Tamaki alone in a flower shop works better.

[Fic] Be Careful What You Wish For

Sat, 18 Oct 2008 20:18:35 GMT

Another fic! yay! I should stop doing this and make study notes for physics, but I'm procrastinating.

Title: Be Careful What You Wish For
Fandom: Ouran High School Host Club
Rating: G
Genre: Comedy/General
Pairings or Characters: Haruhi, Kyouya.
Warnings: Post-series, unbeta-ed.
Disclaimer: I don’t own Ouran High School Host Club.

Summary: Be careful what you wish for, because it might come true. Written for the ouran_contest "Cautious Desires" challenge.

</lj>

Be Careful What You Wish For

Haruhi sighed, setting her briefcase down on her desk. She’d graduated from law school a mere three years ago, and already she held her own office and clientele. According to her friends from law school, she was lucky. Many of them still worked in firms; only a few had climbed from the bottom rungs of the office ladder.

But there was something vaguely unsatisfying about her career, she thought, setting up her laptop and pulling out folders from her filing cabinet. Yes, she made more money than most lawyers did, only a few years done articling. Yes, she was doing important work, work that needed to be done. Yes, she had achieved all she had ever dreamed of.

But there was something, she grimaced in annoyance. Something about writing wills, filing bankruptcy papers, and the occasional messy divorce . . . something just . . . off.

Who was she kidding? The problem was that as much money as she made, her job was still crushingly, unavoidably, inevitably boring. As helpful and necessary as her work was, it was blatantly unsatisfying. She wanted one case, just one case that was exciting. Something that required her to actually go to the courthouse, maybe, and yell at people. With a jury. And maybe a death sentence on the line.

Something like that, maybe.

“Fujioka-sama?” Her secretary’s voice came over the intercom. “There’s someone here to see you.”

“Let them in,” she replied, resigned. Whatever else, her work was still important. She sat down at her desk and opened a new file; if it was an old customer, her secretary would have said so.

She did not expect Kyouya to walk through her office door.

“It’s been awhile,” he smiled, tilting his head to one side. Her eyes narrowed as he took a seat in the chair across from her – that winsome, charming smile had never been directed at her before. It was the one he’d always reserved for his customers. He would not be turning it on her without some ulterior motive. “How have you been?”

“Good. What do you want, Kyouya-senpai?” As long as it had been since high school, he was still the demon lord. She’d read the papers as this man swallowed, left and right, smaller companies and all of their assets. She’d watched the news as he took over the Ohtori Group and turned it into the most powerful company in Japan. Whatever he was here for, it wasn’t a pleasant social call.

“I’m looking for a defence attorney,” he said, leaning forward to put his arms on the table.

“Why?”

“Well, it hasn’t reached the news yet because I’ve bribed all of the major agencies, but I’m being charged with tax evasion, insider trading, and maybe blackmail.” He smiled, not the least bit afraid. “So I need a defence attorney.”

Haruhi stared at him, mouth agape. “Maybe blackmail?”

“They haven’t as of yet been entirely clear about that one.”

***

Author’s Notes: I came up with this idea while building a bookcase! I was going to have Haruhi throw him out of her office (“Out! OUT!”) and swear not to wish for something exciting ever again, but in the end I think it was better to end it where it was. Yeah. That is all.

[Fic] OHSHC - Rush Week

Thu, 16 Oct 2008 04:19:41 GMT

A few of you probably remember the OHSHC piece I posted for the ouran_contest Special Challenge about six months ago, which was an AU setting the characters in university craziness. The chapter posted, "The Demon of Med School Mania" was the second chapter (because I didn't like how the first chapter on Rush Week turned out).

Well, this is the first chapter of that particular AU. It's STILL not as entertaining and fun as I'd LIKE it to be, but I reread it again (about half a year after writing it), and it's not TERRIBLE, so it's getting posted anyway. I have too much fun at school to want this AU to end . . . but to get to that fun stuff, there has to be a set-up, and I suppose this chapter is it. I apologize in advance for anyone actually in a frat/sorority.

Title: University: Rush Week
Rating: G
Genre: Comedy/General
Pairings or Characters: None in particular
Warnings: Severe randomness. No research done whatsoever. This is not meant to be serious.
Summary: When Haruhi graduated Ouran, she thought she was leaving the insanity behind.
Disclaimer: Ouran High School Host Club is the property of Bisco Hatori. Yay.

Author’s Notes: Sometimes, my university can do some very strange, usually frustrating things. Sometimes at university, you meet very weird, frustrating people. And then I thought “What if Haruhi had to deal with it?” Also, this is a general after-the-series thing, not particularly after the anime.

University: Rush Week

Haruhi collapsed into the plastic chair, dropping her bag onto the tiled floor. She put her head down onto the table and sucked in several gasps of air, exhausted. Running was one of those things she had never been good at.

“Eleven minutes. You’re one minute late, Haruhi,” Kyouya looked up from his textbook. Haruhi glared at him. He had changed very little from the last time she had seen him, at his graduation – he still wore those thin-rimmed glasses, still wore his hair the same way, and even though they were no longer required a uniform, still wore a business-like jacket over his neatly pressed button-up shirt and tie.

“Haruhi!” Tamaki, on the other hand, was more than delighted to see her, wrapping his arms around her. Too tired to shake him off, she didn’t reply, glaring instead on the glasses-wearing youth beside him. She had seen Tamaki far more often than any of the other graduates; while they somehow, by some strange twist of fate, had all chosen to attend the same university, he had come to visit Ouran far more often. I can’t really escape from them, can I? She wondered rebelliously, and then dismissed the thought. Her university was quite well known, after all.

“Do you know how far it is to the Law building?” she demanded, her voice sounding wispy and ragged. “I don’t think it’s even possible to run that in less than ten minutes!”

“It’s not,” he said, flipping the page of his textbook. “For you, anyway.”

Haruhi drew in one last breath of air as the world stopped spinning. Running was definitely something she was going to have to get better at in the next few days, particularly if Tamaki insisted on the former Ouran Host Club meeting for lunch as many of the days of the week as possible. She saw that Honey was sitting across the table from her, a familiar smile on his face and a plate of cake in front of him. To his right, Mori sat, a book open in front of him as well. The twins completed the circle, sitting side by side.

“Haruhi, Haruhi!” Honey said, as she finished catching her breath. “How was your morning? What do you think of the university?”

“It’s a maze. Why is the first floor the second floor in the law building? And why do I only have one class in the law building even though I’m in law?” Haruhi pulled out her bento from her backpack and began eating ferociously. “And I don’t have another class for five hours! What am I supposed to do until then?”

“Study?” Kaoru suggested with a shrug. “I’ve already been assigned the first three cantos of The Iliad. It’s not that bad. Hikaru got lost on the way to his first class, Honey-senpai had to take him there.”

Hikaru glared at his brother, grimacing at the memory. “Do you know how to get to the chemistry building? You have to start in the Math building, and then you go into this tunnel, that you can only get into by one stairwell, and then you take this tunnel to the Actuarial Science building, where you find and get into another tunnel, and then you have to take this tunnel to the Geology building, where you find another tunnel, and the doors to the Chemistry building are in the tunnels between the Geology and Natural Science buildings.” He scowled.

“Besides that,” Kaoru grinned. “Have you decided what fraternity to join? Both Hikaru and I have been approached by Omega Zeta Pi and Sigma Nu. It is Rush Week.”

“I personally like Omega Zeta Pi more, but Kaoru likes Sigma Nu,” Hikaru continued. “But I sort of want to see if we’ll get any more offers before committing to any.”

“I was under the impression that Haruhi was now openly female. So wouldn’t it be more appropriate for her to join a sorority?” The question, formally worded, came from Kyouya. He was still leaning over the massive textbook.

“You can join my fraternity, Haruhi!” Tamaki gave his characteristic dashing smile and wrapped an arm around her. “Kappa Tau! We spend a lot of time doing international events and service learning!” He turned to the twins, a contemplative look slipping onto his face. “And you’re invited too, I suppose,” he conceded.

Somehow, the whole thing sounded like the Ouran Host Club, minus the serving rich people aspect. “No thanks,” Haruhi pulled herself away from him, ignoring his pout. “I think I want to focus on studying here.”

“Good luck with that,” the statement, surprisingly, came from behind her. A group of four boys stood there, as immaculately dressed as if she was still at Ouran. The boy who had spoken gave her a roguish grin and turned to the Hitachiins.

“You’re the Hitachiin twins, aren’t you?” he asked, but went on without waiting for an answer. “Alpha Eta’s having our open house this Friday, do you want to come? It’ll be a really good time.”

“But not as good of a time as if you come to our open house.” Another boy, with sandy hair and bright hazel eyes cut in. “We’re,” he gestured to himself and one of the other boys in the group. Haruhi noticed that those two stood slightly apart from the Alpha Eta boys. “We’re Phi Lambda Pi. Our open house is on Saturday. Of course, you could go to Alpha Eta’s celebration, but after you come to ours, you’ll have to admit that we’re better.” His eyes flickered over to Kyouya. “Ohtori-san, you’re of course more than welcome too. We hope you’ll join us this year.”

“Are you kidding me?” The first boy, the Alpha Eta one, spoke again. His dark hair flopped into his eyes, and he brushed them impatiently out of the way. “Nothing Phi Lambda Pi would throw could ever hope to match an Alpha Eta party! And Ohtori-san has already expressed interest in us, so why even try?” He turned back to the table with a pressed smile. “Anyway, we’re just here to welcome you to university, and we hope you’ll join us.”

“I’ll definitely consider it,” Kyouya looked up and smiled with the same charm that Haruhi remembered. And that he had of course used only when there was something to be gained from it.

“We will too,” Kaoru rushed to assure the boy. With a smile, the Alpha Eta boys disappeared. The Phi Lambda Pi boys scowled at them, but turned to the table with a smile. Somehow, Haruhi suspected that this one might have actually been genuine. “Well, that was certainly immature, wasn’t it?” he said cheerfully. “Anyway, our open house and welcoming party is on Saturday, so don’t forget. Ohtori-kun, you already know where we are.”

“I do indeed,” Kyouya again gave that charming smile. “If I recall correctly, your parties are always very . . . unique.”

“Awesome. We’ll see you there, then.” With a nod, they, too, disappeared into the crowd.

“Are their parties very unique?” Honey asked, when they were out of earshot. “I went to the Sigma Nu open house in first year. It didn’t seem very interesting to me.”

“Of course not. They get drunk, watch porn, and vomit. Sometimes a sorority comes, and then they get drunk, have sex, and vomit.”

“Then why even go?” Haruhi asked, without really paying attention. She had finished her bento and was fishing out her Introduction to Civil Law textbook from her backpack. She would have to get a new backpack soon – she seemed to have glaring gaps in her schedule, and studying during them was certainly a good idea. A bigger backpack would be imperative, particularly if she had to carry multiple textbooks.

“The president of Phi Lambda Pi stands to inherit an airline company. Conversely, the president of Alpha Eta is the inheritor a fortune and will one day be a capable investor.” Kyouya shrugged. “Why join one when more connections will be made if I don’t join any and simply pretend that I am interested?”

“You could always join Kappa Tau, Kyouya,” Tamaki interrupted. “We hardly drink at all. We’re mostly concerned with exposure to international culture and service learning!”

“Which is why Kappa Tau is at the bottom of the pan-Hellenic food chain, Tamaki,” Kyouya replied patiently, returning to his textbook.

“What about you?” Hikaru turned to Honey and Mori. “Didn’t you join a fraternity?”

Mori shook his head as Honey made a face. “Beer is really bitter and icky,” he explained. “I might have if they had cake. But it was hard to get them to take no for an answer.”

“What happened?” Kaoru asked, curious.

“Mitsukuni threw the Omega Zeta Pi president at the time,” Mori explained, poker-faced.

“It was okay. He was on the karate team too,” Honey defended himself, smiling. “He really should have been expecting it. Though, Tama-chan tried to join all of the fraternities when he got here! They all threw him out, except Kappa Tau. Kappa Tau’s the lowest of all the fraternities though, and last year they were in danger of having their charter taken away, so Tama-chan put it back on its feet.”

“Kappa Tau was the best of them anyway,” Tamaki said dismissively. “Alcohol destroys brain tissue, and we really are the most sophisticated of them all.”

“But you didn’t join Kappa Tau?” Haruhi asked, turning to Honey and Mori. “I would have thought that you would have.”

Honey shook his head. “I’m the president of the Math Students Association, and Takashi is on varsity kendo. We sometimes go to Kappa Tau events, but we don’t really have the time.” He chewed thoughtfully on his cake. “Their charity concert last year was very good.”

“Ohtori-kun!” The shout, clear as a bell and carrying a distinct Osakan accent, cut through the cafeteria’s buzz. The speaker, a girl carrying a textbook as large as Kyouya’s under one arm and a large mug of coffee in her other hand, fought her way through the lunchtime crowd. “Oh, I’m so glad I found you!”

“Shimatani-san,” Kyouya, surprisingly, looked up from the book. “How was your summer?”

“Pretty good, considering I spent it locked in a non-air-conditioned room in the Geology basement with Seiichi-kun doing underpaid undergraduate research,” she replied brusquely. “Anyway, you’re in Advanced Physics this year with me, right?”

Kyouya gestured to his textbook, which Haruhi noted was the exact same as the one the girl was carrying. “Why ask questions when you already know the answer?”

“Because it’s polite,” she replied, barging on loudly. “Do you have a lab partner yet? If you don’t, will you please be my lab partner? If I have to pair up with someone like Takao-san again, I might have to kill myself. Or her. ‘My calculator sometimes changes the twos and threes?’ Please, spare me from having to endure that again.” The girl bowed deeply, a desperate look on her face. Haruhi was impressed that she somehow managed not to spill the coffee.

Kyouya appeared to consider it for a moment. “All right,” he agreed finally. “Though I don’t see why you’re not pairing up with Ikutsuki-san or Miyano-san.”

“Seiichi-kun paired up with Chiaki-san, and Ayu-chan paired up with Mimori-san,” the girl took a deep breath, apparently of relief, and took a large gulp from her coffee mug. She appeared to notice the rest of the people sitting around the table for the first time. “Oh,” she said mildly, bowing again. “Salut, Suoh-san, Haninozuka-senpai.” She turned back to Kyouya. “I’ll see you in lab tomorrow,” she said, turning away. She paused and glanced back over her shoulder. “And you could call me ‘Hikari-chan,’ you know. We only sat together just about every day last year in calculus.”

“Who was she?” Haruhi asked curiously when she was gone. The girl had passed through like a hurricane, loudly announcing what she wanted and leaving right afterwards. “I don’t think I’ve seen you being so nice to someone when you didn’t have something in it for yourself.”

“Hikari Shimatani is the top geophysics student at the school,” Kyouya replied. “I’m considering hiring her to find oil and other mineral ores. Honey-senpai probably knows her through the math department though; she minors in math.”

“Not really,” Honey shrugged. “I’ve seen her around the Math building, but I’ve never spoken to her. But she’ll be a member of the Math Students Association, so that’s why she recognizes me.”

“And she was in my French class last year,” Tamaki threw in cheerfully. “She also plays an alternate violin in the open orchestra.”

“Doesn’t that mean she sucks?” Hikaru cut in impatiently. “Alternates are only in when the real ones can’t make it, right?”

***

Haruhi slipped quietly into one of the larger libraries on campus. This in particular was the Science library, but she had heard that it was the largest library on campus and would almost certainly have a free table. It had taken some time to get away from Tamaki and the others, though she had to admit that she didn’t really mind. It was nice to catch up with them, she reflected. Kyouya had barely changed at all, now in his second year of a concurrent physics and business degree. Tamaki was repeating first year; having hated his business program so much, he had switched over to music. She supposed that Honey and Mori had followed more or less predictable paths; the short blonde had continued with mathematics, and his guardian with history. Kaoru had chosen to study literature, while Hikaru had chosen chemistry, perhaps showing how much the two had grown as individuals over the years.

Ah, Honey-senpai had been right – she had found a table with relative ease. She shook her head, setting her backpack down at an empty table and pulling out her books. She expected that she would see far more of them this year, which she supposed wasn’t a bad thing.

What she didn’t expect, however, were the two blonde girls who plunked themselves down across from her.

“You’re Haruhi Fujioka, right?” One of them smiled, showing a perfectly even set of teeth. Her hair fell into ringlets, cascading over her shoulders. “I’m Juri Takano. This,” she gestured at her friend, “is Akaho Hayase. We’re from Delta Omicron. You’re friends with the Hitachiin twins?”

Haruhi blinked. She’d barely had time to crack open her textbook. It was like a repeat of lunch, only instead of targeting the twins and Kyouya, they were now approaching her. “I suppose so,” she replied slowly. “Why?”

“You’re also friends with Suoh-san and Ohtori-san?” The girl, Takano, continued expectantly.

“I suppose so,” Haruhi repeated, tilting her head sideways. Though on reflection, maybe it was them who were friends with her? If she’d never broken that vase, she never would have gotten them as friends, after all. Who knew?

“Well, Delta Omicron’s having our open house tomorrow. Why don’t you come join us?” the girl continued on, oblivious to Haruhi’s inattentiveness. “We do a lot of volunteer work, so we look really good on resumes and stuff. And it’s just a great community and all.”

Haruhi hesitated. She’d heard enough about sororities and fraternities at lunch from the others, enough to know that she wasn’t really interested in joining one. She was at university to study, not to party. And if they did all that community service, why did they bother picking and choosing people by their backgrounds?

“I don’t know,” she hedged politely. From what she’d heard, they also cost a lot of money to join, money that she didn’t have. “I think I’ll be busy with studying.”

“Oh, come on,” the second girl piped up. Hayase-san, wasn’t it? “It’s only the first week of school. Chill out, party, make friends. We won’t even have handed in assignments for another week.”

“I really think I should study though,” Haruhi continued, feeling pressed. Was there any polite way out of this? “I’ll . . .” she paused, hesitating. “I’ll consider it though. Thank you.”

“Great!” the first girl said, beaming. “We’ll see you tomorrow, then!”

“Definitely,” the second girl echoed. “It’ll be awesome. See you tomorrow.” With that said, they walked away, chatting to each other.

Haruhi shook her head, dumbfounded, and opened her textbook. Scarcely five minutes later, another girl sat down across from her, pulling out a piece of paper.

“Hey,” she said. “I’m Mizuki Shiomi. You’re Haruhi Fujioka, aren’t you?”

Haruhi looked up from her textbook suspiciously. This sounded suspiciously like the last girls’ sales pitch too. “Yes,” she replied carefully.

“I’m in the Chi Iota Phi sorority. Pleased to meet you,” the girl held out her hand eagerly. “Anyway, I was wondering, are you interested in joining a sorority?”

Haruhi shook her hand cautiously. “No,” she replied, her tone blunt. “I’m not.”

“Well,” the girl hesitated. Maybe no one had given her the negative answer yet? “Well, it’s a really good experience, we do a lot of community service and volunteer work. We hold a huge fashion show every year, and all proceeds go to charity. Anyway, here’s our contact information.” She moved the sheet of paper across the table. “I really hope you’ll be in touch,” she said, pulling her bag off of the chair. She gave a shy smile and moved off into the stacks.

Haruhi sighed. But when the third group of girls, this time from Xi Theta, showed up, she decided it was definitely time to move to a different floor.

What she didn’t count on was the fourth group, from Kappa Lambda Mu, to follow her.

“Hey, you’re Haruhi Fujioka, right?” the three girls chimed simultaneously. They looked like triplets, though for some reason Haruhi didn’t think they actually were triplets. They all dressed identically, talked identically, and moved identically.

“No,” she replied bluntly. It was time for desperate measures. She’d only been approached by four sororities in the past hour, and this was really beginning to cut in on her study time. “No, I’m not Haruhi Fujioka.”

“Oh.” The girls paused, looking at each other, utterly confused. “Well . . .”

One girl frowned, determined, and said, “No, you’re Haruhi Fujioka. The girls from Chi Iota Phi were trying to recruit you.”

Haruhi found herself crabbily saying what Kyouya had said at lunch. “Why ask questions when you already know the answer?”

They didn’t bother with an answer. The girl standing in the middle held out a piece of paper. “Our open house is this Saturday. Here are directions. We hope to see you there!” The girls giggled, evidently convinced that they had just given Haruhi the highest honour possible, and clomped back down the stairs.

Haruhi stood up, slamming her books back into her backpack. Clearly, studying in this library wasn’t going to work. Perhaps another building would. Preferably, one that was card-locked on all sides . . .

“Hey,” a lone girl had approached while Haruhi had been busy thinking of locations to go. “Hey, I’m Megumi Takao.”

“Sorry,” Haruhi replied, trying to remain as polite as possible. “I’ve got to go to class.” She slung the backpack over her shoulder, and walked quickly to the stairs.

The girl, uncertain, followed. “Well, I’m from Alpha Rho, and we were wondering if you were interested in joining our sorority?”

Haruhi only walked faster. She had come to the realization that saying she wasn’t interested was not an effective strategy to make them go away.

“Well, of course you’re interested,” the girl flipped her hair over her shoulder and matched Haruhi’s pace easily. “I mean, Alpha Rho. There isn’t a better sorority to join!”

Haruhi broke into a run, nearly falling down the stairs in her desire to get away, colliding with another girl at the foot of the stairs.

“Oh!” The girl blinked as Haruhi shoved her way past her. “Oh, hey, I know you! You were sitting with Ohtori-kun this morning!”

No, Haruhi didn’t want to hear this either. This was almost inevitably a prelude into a request to join some other sorority. How many sororities were there on campus anyway? Was her association with the former Ouran High School Host Club going to make her a target for every single one of them?

She didn’t notice the other girl’s eyes widen as she realized who Haruhi was being chased by.

“Scholars Building,” the girl said, catching up easily, despite her massive textbook in her arms. “Takao-san can’t get in – she failed four of five classes last term. It’s card-locked, but if you’re friends with Ohtori-kun, you’re probably a Scholar too.”

Haruhi stopped, surprised. “I . . . am a Scholar, actually,” she realized. “You’re Shimatani-san, aren’t you? Where’s the Scholar’s Building?”

“Shimatani-san!” Takao’s voice rang gaily through the library’s main floor. “Oh, it’s good to see you! How was your summer?”

“Oh, oh . . .” the other girl’s face creased painfully. “Um, it was good. I have to go, uh, study. See you. Move.” This last comment, quiet, was directed at Haruhi. “I’ll take you there, but we’ll have to run.”

“Anyway, Fujioka-san,” Takao’s voice followed behind them, but Haruhi didn’t dare glance behind her to see how close she was. “Alpha Rho has their open house on Friday! Stop, so I can give you a map!”

Haruhi tried to will herself to run faster, and was surprised to see that she was keeping pace with Shimatani. Either she had gotten a lot faster, or Shimatani wasn’t a fast runner either. Out of the library they flew, and she ran past the Natural Sciences building, past the Physics building, past the Social Science building, and stopped when she nearly collided with a wall. The building was one of the newer ones on campus, designed to match the old collegiate gothic look, but had a card lock on the door.

“Come on, come on,” the other girl panted, fumbling for her student ID. “Found it.”

“Hurry. She’s only twenty feet away.”

“We’re in,” the other girl pronounced, yanking Haruhi through the heavy doors and slamming it shut. “Oh god. I don’t want to talk to her.”

Haruhi, to her immense surprise, began to laugh. Clearly there were things that changed, and there were things that didn’t. Yes, she was now at university. She was now openly female. But she was still grouped in with the former Ouran High School Host Club, and they were still causing her immense amounts of trouble, even if they didn’t mean to. And she still couldn’t find a quiet place to study, and most of all, she was still being chased by girls.

***

More Author’s Notes:

Huge campuses, confusing buildings, and messed up timetables sound familiar to anyone? ^^ Also, the instructions that Hikaru gives to the fictional Chemistry building is actually one of the routes on my campus, though I changed the building names. Yes, we have that many tunnels.

The textbook that Kyouya and the OC were carrying, that’s actually my second year physics textbook. It is 1714 pages long, 2.3 inches thick and weighs 7.3 pounds, and is entitled “University Physics: 11^th Edition.” Trust me – bringing this thing to school sucks. And “My calculator changes the twos and threes?” Yes, this was what one of my friends’ lab partners told her in first year physics.

Some of you may have taken offence at my mild fraternity/sorority bashing. I don’t personally know what to think about them, other than they seem to me like a way of buying friends, particularly other rich friends. I realize that most of them do more than drink, and they hold charity events and so on, however it doesn’t change my perception that they party a lot. Or maybe that Alpha Gamma Delta girl who copied my labs all last year really turned me off them. As for sorority and fraternity stalking? I actually know two people who were stalked my sororities, who had to keep saying “No, I don’t want to join!” over and over for months before they left them alone.

[Fic] Ouran High School Host Club - Without Any Pointless Complications

Sat, 27 Sep 2008 14:59:11 GMT

Title: Without Any Pointless Complications
Rating: PG (just in case)
Genre: Introspective
Pairings or Characters: One-sided Kyouya/Haruhi.
Warnings: Unbeta-ed.
Word Count: 1341
Summary: Kyouya reflects on the lies surrounding his relationship to Haruhi. Written for the ouran_contest oneshot challenge.
Disclaimer: Totally doesn't belong to me.

</lj>Without Any Pointless Complications

At first, he lied to himself.

Yes, she was pretty, in a rough, tomboy-ish sort of way. Her round face enunciated her innocence and naïveté, her large eyes only made her more compelling. Her small figure, only a few inches taller than Honey and, he speculated, a few pounds lighter made her doll-like; almost childish. At the same time, her dry pragmatism showed her intelligence and pride in the station she had fought for herself at Ouran. He understood her, in a way that he didn’t always understand the others. She was practicality incarnate, standing opposite to the rest of the club and their game of make-believe. This, he admitted, was very good for the financial bottom line.

He told himself that, as a hormonal teenager, it was only to be expected that he was attracted to her. These were only chemicals – they did not control him. Love was only a hormone-induced illusion, naturally selected through evolution, and he would not permit such to mislead him.

In short, she was attractive, but he was most certainly not in love.

***

Then Kaoru confessed, and Hikaru. Tamaki disapproved of their advances until he himself finally recognized the nature of his feelings. Then it became another matter entirely.

Haruhi Fujioka, the unknown quantity in Ouran Academy, intelligent but naive, so perceptive and yet oblivious, was suddenly the object of affection for three of Ouran’s most desirable men. Covertly, thank God, else he would have had to start some sort of gambling endeavour with the school’s population. The catch-phrases were already running through his mind: Would Tamaki, the glorious sunshine, emperor of the school take the prize? Or would it be the sensitive Kaoru to win her affections? Or perhaps the dark horse Hikaru, whose brashness set him apart, would draw her attention?

He shoved those phrases into a dark corner. He wasn’t writing a harlequin romance, damn it. No, as a matter of fact, he was sequestered in a study room attempting to write a lab report. His laptop sat in front of him, the neat stack of data to his left. He pulled the methods sheet towards him, refusing to admit that he was more agitated about this than he should be; that he, too, had been taken in by Tamaki’s imaginary family.

“Oh, Kyouya-senpai,” he heard the voice and realized the study room door had opened while he was engrossed in meaningless thoughts. He looked up, adopting an impassive look as he stared into a certain pair of large, brown eyes.

“Err . . .” she hesitated, shifting an armful of books. “Do you mind if I study here? The other rooms are taken, and I have a research essay due in two days, and it’s just . . . you know.”

He paused, lowering the sheet for an imperceptible second. “Go ahead,” he replied diffidently, beginning to type. Close up, he could see the wan look in her eyes, the slight droop of her shoulders, could hear the soft sigh of relief pass through her lips.

“Difficult week?” The words came unbidden to the air, and Kyouya tried in vain to shove them back where they belonged. Too late, now.

“I suppose,” Haruhi yawned, opening the first of the books. “You know how it is, I’m sure.”

“Not at all,” he replied, glancing over at his methods sheet again. He was curious; Tamaki had said something to him about “dinner and a movie,” but he would be surprised if any such plan came to fruition. No, he realized; he was disconcerted with the notion that such a plan would succeed.

“Well . . .” Haruhi looked askance, clearly unsure of how much more to say. “It’s nothing, really. Hikaru-kun offered to drive me home today, and then Kaoru-kun interceded and said he would walk me home. I tried to tell them no, I have to study, then Tamaki-senpai burst in and asked me if I wanted to go to Café Mercado with him.”

“That doesn’t seem so bad,” Kyouya murmured, the cursor on the screen blinking at him. Methods. What were the methods used, again? He’d just checked, hadn’t he? How very unlike him.

“No,” Haruhi agreed. “Except then they started arguing, the twins against Tamaki-senpai, and then I left.” She twirled a mechanical pencil in her fingers. “But this is the third time this week, and I wish . . . I wish they would leave me alone.” Her voice lowered and trailed off into a whisper.

Kyouya, surprised, glanced up at her. She was now staring out the window into the courtyard below, her face openly revealing a mixture of emotions. Guilt, he read, and defiance.

“You don’t mean that,” he translated. He ignored the sinking feeling in his stomach as he said it. Why did he care, anyway? It’s not as if their affairs had anything to do with him, unless there was the ability to turn a profit. Host Club finances weren’t limitless, after all.

“No, I . . .” Haruhi sighed, staring down at her page again. “No, I don’t. I just want to finish school here and go on to law school, without any unnecessary distractions. Without any pointlessly complicated relationships. Is that so much to ask?” She stopped, shook her head, and pulled the first book towards her. “I shouldn’t be telling you this.”

“I don’t mind,” Kyouya replied, strangely pleased with her confidence. He stared back down at his laptop. His cursor flashed, a steady pulse, once per second. “I won’t repeat any of this.”

“I know,” Haruhi said, a small smile creeping onto her lips. “It’s nice to talk to someone who isn’t interested in me, for once.”

The force of her words hit him like a thunderbolt, concealed only by self-control cultivated during years of living in the spotlight. He pulled the whole stack of papers towards him, ignoring the slight tremble of his fingers, and began to type again. “Of course,” he agreed. “Of course.”

***

From then on, it became not so much a matter of lying to himself, but one of lying to others.

So when Tamaki called him at bizarre hours of the night, he listened patiently to all of his grandiose plans. He pointed out obvious flaws and made mild suggestions that he fully expected to be ignored. He patted Tamaki on the back when Haruhi rejected him, as she did most of the time. He did the same when, once in a long while, she accepted his invitations. He commiserated with him when Haruhi chose to go somewhere with one, or both, of the twins.

When Kaoru or Hikaru let something slip, once in awhile, he simply ignored it as if he hadn’t understood its significance. They did not confide in him as Tamaki did, for which he was grateful. Used to trusting each other, they must have come to some sort of truce and supported each other.

He suppressed the irritation that developed every time she went on another date, and resisted the temptation to tell them that Haruhi was merely trying to pacify them. He tried to keep Host Club relations between them all as normal as possible. There was no need for superfluous complications in their already complex relationships.

When Honey or Mori glanced at him inquiringly, he said nothing and merely smiled in return. He was fairly certain they suspected, but without any proof, they would not say anything. They did not like to interfere.

And once every week or so, Haruhi took refuge in his study room, in order to complete her assignments, essays, and other academic errata. Sometimes they made some light conversation; most of the time they studied in silence.

He supposed he wasn’t actually lying to anyone – and what good would it do if he, too, confessed? Aside from being an entirely cringe-worthy experience, Tamaki would feel betrayed and the twins would be angry. Haruhi would feel alienated. Honey and Mori would simply watch the drama multiply.

And he, too, despised that which was unnecessarily complicated.

Authors Notes: Hmm, I feel like some of the word choices might be a little off. I hate my tiny vocabulary. Oh, well. Anyway, I don't think Kyouya really thinks of lies in terms of black and white, so much that he just outright does it. I think what I was getting at is that he's lying for everyone else's benefit, but thinks he's doing it for himself. I think he sees himself as such a selfish person, it never really occurs to him that he's not doing it for himself at all . . . I'll stop rambling now.

Edit: Tied for first place! Yaaay! With a banner!

[fic] Nervousness

Fri, 19 Sep 2008 03:34:26 GMT

Title: Nervousness
Rating: G
Genre: General
Pairings or Characters: mild Kyouya/Haruhi. Except not really.
Warnings: Not beta-ed, I personally think it's pretty shoddy. OOC-ness?
Summary: Kyouya and Haruhi have a little more in common than they thought. Written for the ouran_contest Impending Doom challenge.
Disclaimer: I don't own Ouran High School Host Club.
Word Count: 397

Nervousness

Of all things, Haruhi didn’t think it would be like this. It was supposed to be so simple: get into Ouran, stay at the top of the class for three years, ace the entrance examination for Todai’s law school, get a scholarship, graduate from law school at the top of her class, and then get a job.

She didn’t count on being nervous about it. She’d gotten through the first two steps fine, but this exam was the real test. This was her life on the line. If she didn’t make it . . .

She refused to follow that line of thought any further, rearranging herself uncomfortably on the floor. She curled up in a corner outside the examination hall, out of sight of the doors, and took deep, silent gulps of air. It’ll all be over soon, she reminded herself coarsely, settling the textbook on her lap. Focus. The conclusion follows logically if which of the following is assumed? If which of the following is assumed?

She didn’t remember any of this. Worse yet, she couldn’t see anyone else here either. There had to be other people writing this exam, so where were they? What if she had the time wrong? Or the date? And this was the right room, right? She dug her planner out of her backpack, scanning her neat handwriting. No, this was definitely the time and place. Where was everyone? She knew she was early, but didn’t all the study books recommend that?

What if they’d changed the location without telling her?

“Ah, there you are,” a collected voice broke through her paranoid worries. Kyouya stood in front of her, dressed formally in a jacket and tie. He had tucked a sheaf of loose papers under one arm; Haruhi could see the sharp, spiky mess of his scrawl. “Tamaki’s here to wish you luck.” He raised a thin, arched eyebrow. “You do realize you’re over an hour early?”

“Mmm,” Haruhi replied, trying to make herself sound as normal as possible. It came out like a croak. I even sound like I’m in the verge of a nervous breakdown, she realized in disgust.

Kyouya evaluated her silently with his beetle-black eyes, and plucked the book out of her hands. “It’s better not to worry before the exam. It’ll all come back when you enter the room. Let’s go see Tamaki, shall we?”

Authors Notes: Personally, I always get crazily paranoid exactly as depicted above, which probably raises a good case against my sanity and towards some sort of paranoid personality disorder, if there is such a thing. Also, I think Kyouya gets off on stress. Anyway, definitely not my best piece of work.

Books-A-Minute

Sat, 31 May 2008 16:09:18 GMT

For anyone who's ever thought about reading the Stephenie Meyer books (Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse), but don't actually want to do it, here they are condensed into less than a minute!

Twilight

Edward: Bella, I love you!

Bella: Oh, Edward, I love you too!

Edward: Just so you know, I’m a vampire.

Bella: Oh, Edward, that’s okay. I still love you.

(continues more or less ad nauseam for the first two hundred odd pages. Then, something resembling plot kicks in, as EVIL vampires come into the picture)

Bella: Oh my god, the EVIL vampires have my mother! I must sacrifice myself to save her! Edward, I’m sorry!

Edward: NOOOO! (saves her)

Stephenie Meyer: There’s a sequel. Buy it!

New Moon

Edward: Bella, I hate you. (lying through his teeth)

Bella: (believes it and CRIES.)

(Time passes, during which Bella is melodramatically depressed for four months straight, and starts getting delusions in which she hears Edward’s voice)

Jacob: Forget about that loser vampire! Come hang out with me and the WEREWOLVES!

Bella: Oh, Jacob, I love you!

(More time passes. Bella is still delusional about hearing Edward’s voice, and proceeds to jump off a cliff. Don’t worry, dear reader, she’s not committing suicide!)

Edward: Noo! (plans his own suicide)

Bella: Don’t do it, Edward! (saves him)

Stephenie Meyer: There's another sequel! You know you want it!

Eclipse

Jasper: VAMPIRE WAR!

Stephenie Meyer: You know the drill.

After reading these, you are now thoroughly prepared for reading the last book in this series, Breaking Dawn, which is due out in bookstores sometime in August.

[Fanfiction] Failure

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 18:25:50 GMT

Title: Failure
Author: kitsunerei88
Fandom: Bones
Character(s): Zack Addy
Genre: Introspection
Rating: G
Spoilers: Season 3 Episode 1, The Widow in the Windshield
Summary: Dr. Zachary Uriah Addy has never failed at anything before.

Disclaimer: I do not own Bones.

Authors Notes: There appears to be a lack of Bones fanfiction about the minor characters. That must be remedied. Also, I love Zack.

Failure

Dr. Zachary Uriah Addy has never failed at anything before. He has an IQ of 187. He graduated from high school, top of his class, at twelve. He finished his concurrent undergraduate degrees, magna cum laude, in forensic anthropology and applied engineering at sixteen. He fast-tracked to a doctorate in both fields, and came out on top of fourteen other applicants when he was chosen by Dr. Temperance Brennan to be her grad student. He finished both of his doctorates at the age of twenty-four, though he knows he could have finished them at twenty if he hadn’t dawdled on his dissertation’s completion.

Thus, Dr. Zack Addy has never failed at anything before. So it is understandably a shock when the military psychiatrist sits him down across her battered, worn desk in Iraq, and sends him home.

“You haven’t assimilated with the other soldiers, Dr. Addy,” the stern woman tells him, resting her elbows on the desk and folding her hands together. “You’re a detriment to the military team approach.”

Zack only stares, his face impassive, knowing what is to come. He is rational, intelligent; he has known long before this that this would happen. His fellow soldiers are crude, tough, emotional types. He doesn’t understand them. In high school, they would have been jocks, or at least someone cool. In university, they would have failed out of first year and left, laughing the entire way. In any case, by normal American society standards, they would have largely been failures in blue-collar jobs. But here, here they are good soldiers, and he is not.

His world as he knows it is being turned upside down, and he isn’t sure what to do about it.

“I’m discharging you from the military, Dr. Addy. Return to the Jeffersonian Institution,” the psychiatrist says, her forehead creased in a harsh frown. Zack keeps staring, emotions hidden. The psychiatrist leans forward, focusing her hawk eyes on him, before she pronounces the next statement. “Do you understand, Dr. Addy?” Her pronunciation is slow, each syllable existing as its own entity in a continuum of sounds.

Zack blinks once, twice. He understands, but at the same time he doesn’t. He doesn’t fit in with his fellow soldiers, he recognizes that, and he understands that because he doesn’t fit in he is only a burden to them. But he doesn’t understand why. With that, he says one sentence that he has never said before in his life.

“I don’t understand.”

The psychiatrist leans back, and he knows that she understands his underlying meaning. She has seen him on more than one occasion. “Dr. Addy, I would ask yourself why the Jeffersonian Institute is the only place you can fit in. Your plane is leaving for DC in three hours. Pack.”

Zack stands up, knowing the dismissal when he hears it. He salutes the psychiatrist and exits the dusty office, more confused and distressed than he has ever been before.

***

He returns to the Jeffersonian before even dropping off his possessions. He has no home now, after all. He will need to ask Hodgins if he can live above his garage again. He’s not sure what he’ll find. Surely they will have filled his position by now? It has been three months, and he knows that Dr. Brennan will have a stack of applicants for his position. She is rational, intelligent, a famous forensic anthropologist. But at the same time, she is picky, and she will want the best applicant for her assistant.

All in all, he calculates a probability of eighty-three percent that his position has been filled. He calculates this rationally, using Baye’s Theorem, though he knows that Baye’s Theorem is entirely subjective. The calculations comfort him, make him feel more confident.

That done, he enters the familiar Medico-Legal Laboratory of the Jeffersonian Institution, possessions slung in a bag over his shoulder. There is an African-American boy standing above a table of human remains, and Zack breathes a soft sigh of resignation. So his position has been filled. His mind works, making plans at a blurring pace. He will have to ask Hodgins if he can live above his garage, and then he will need to formulate a resume to send to the pure research departments, and perhaps he will send a few also to the universities in the area. Another emotion niggles at him, but he ignores it.

“Zack!” Angela’s shriek of joy announces his presence, and before he knows it the entire team at the Medico-Legal Lab has surrounded him. Angela throws her arms around him, and cacophony of excited voices surrounds him. “What are you doing here?”

“Can I,” Zack begins hesitantly, turning his gaze onto Hodgins. “Can I move back into the place above your garage?”

“Are you kidding?” Hodgins replies, his expression a clear answer. Yes, of course Zack would be permitted to move back into his garage. His next words, in context, were unnecessary. “Of course! Come here.” Hodgins, too, gives him a hug, which Zack finds surprising. Anthropologically speaking, males in Western culture were taught to repress emotion. Hodgins was breaking a minor taboo.

“Welcome home, Zack,” Dr. Brennan says, in what Zack would consider from her an astonishing amount of emotion. She wraps her arms around him as well, and he quietly pats her on the back. A part of him is still surprised at the welcome he has received, but they are his friends, aren’t they? Perhaps not so much friends as family, closer to him than his real family at home in Michigan. As much as his real family loved him unconditionally, and as much as he loved them back, there was always a divide between them that did not exist at the Jeffersonian.

“Did you get wounded or something?” Zack recognizes Booth, still standing on the platform. If there was an archetype of the ideal Western male, it would be Booth. It is for that reason that Zack admires him to the extent that he does.

Nevertheless, he cannot bring himself to tell his friends of his failure. He knows that Dr. Brennan and Hodgins were opposed to him going to Iraq in the first place, that they would not judge him, and he never consulted Angela or Cam. But to admit his own failure in the military, particularly in front of Booth, would be, irrationally speaking, humiliating. “No, they just sent me home,” he replies simply, knowing that they will accept that answer without question.

“When can you start work?” Dr. Brennan asks, her eyes wide with eagerness. She’s more than happy to see him back, and Zack feels honoured, pleased. For him, Dr. Temperance Brennan is the ideal forensic anthropologist, the ideal scientist. He loves her, admires her more than any other.

“If you didn’t fill my job, who’s that guy?” he asks, curious. There is still, after all, an African-American boy standing on the platform next to Booth. He wears the lab coat of the Medico-Legal Lab, though Zack recognizes that it is a spare. His name is not sewn onto the lab coat. That could mean one of two things; he was hired and he didn’t as of yet have his own lab coat or he forgot it, or he wasn’t yet hired and they hadn’t bothered to make him one.

“Nobody,” the boy replies, waving his hand. A resigned smile adorns his face, and he clasps his hands together in front of him. Zack understands; he wasn’t hired, and Zack’s return has just destroyed his dream of working with Dr. Brennan. Zack thinks that he’s taking it fairly well, actually.

“Man, you look like crap!” Hodgins says, clapping him on the shoulder.

“Well, Iraq’s not a vacation,” Cam comments for the first time, a wide smile on her face . Her arms are crossed in front of her, and while Zack would normally interpret that as defensive or doubting, he doesn’t think that’s it.

“I think you look very rakish,” Angela says, tugging at the lapels on his jacket and smoothing his shirt. “Are you starving?”

Zack takes a deep breath, happy to be home and yet slightly uncertain. “Actually,” he begins, a small smile making its way onto his face, “I’d like to get into whatever you were talking about, before Dr. Brennan’s mental problem.”

***

Zack loves the Jeffersonian Institution. It is, first and foremost, the place where he feels understood. After having stood out in his own family, in high school and university, he likes the feeling of fitting in at the Jeffersonian. At home, only a few people he knew would get even one doctorate, let alone two. Here, he is not the only one with multiple doctorates. Hodgins has three, which given the man’s youth is a clear indicator of his brilliance. Only Angela lacks one, and she makes up for it with good instincts and amazing artistic ability. Well, he corrects himself, Angela and Booth. And Zack knows that Booth is in his own way talented, being a top FBI agent and an accomplished sniper. He has heard tales about Booth’s sniping abilities in Iraq, though he would certainly not bring them up around the man.

And then there’s Cam. He’s not entirely sure what to make of Cam, whose street-smarts and police experience set her apart from the rest of the team, but whose doctorate and intelligence makes her one of them. She is also, he recognizes, very perceptive.

“Why did they send you back from Iraq?” she asks, her gaze focused on him. Somehow, he is simultaneously surprised and not surprised. She is not as perceptive as Angela or Booth, perhaps, but she is the only one who has noticed his preoccupied and disturbed state of mind. He will need to dissect this problem later, when he is alone.

“I failed to assimilate,” Zack replies softly, without thinking. “Despite my accomplishments, I was detrimental to a military team approach.” His own answer, the truth, is also surprising. He feels closer to Dr. Brennan, Hodgins and Angela, but it is to Cam that he reveals why he is sent back? A distant, rational part of him questions why. Yes, he will certainly need to dissect this exchange later. He needs to understand why.

“Well, you’re very good for our team approach,” Cam says, laying a hand on his arm. It is meant to be a comforting gesture, and somehow more words are forced out of him.

“The army psychiatrist said that I should question why the Jeffersonian Institution is the only place where I can fit in,” he says, quiet, his gaze meeting hers. Why does he feel like he trusts her more than the others? He admires Dr. Brennan and Booth, but he would never tell them something like this. Likewise, it was completely irrelevant to Hodgins and Angela. Completely irrelevant.

He knows that if that is the case, it is also irrelevant to Cam. He doesn’t know what’s wrong with him.

“All due respect to the army psychiatrist, but that’s a hell of a lot more than some people get,” Cam pats him on the shoulder reassuringly, turning to leave the lab. “Go home, Zackaroni, and get some rest.”

Fin

[Fic] University: The Demon of Med School Mania

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 00:37:12 GMT

Title: University: The Demon of Med School Mania
Fandom: Ouran High School Host Club
Rating: G
Genre: Comedy/General
Pairings or Characters: None in particular
Warnings: Severe randomness. No research done whatsoever. This is not meant to be serious.
Summary: When Haruhi graduated Ouran, she thought she was leaving the insanity behind. Submission for the ouran_contest community
Disclaimer: I don't own Ouran High School Host Club

Author’s Notes: Sometimes, my university can do some very strange, usually frustrating things. Sometimes at university, you meet very weird, frustrating people. And then I thought “What if Haruhi had to deal with it?” This is a general “after the series” thing. Also, this is part of a series on the topic. I also have a chapter of Rush Week, but it just didn’t turn out that funny, so this one got submitted instead.

University: The Demon of Med School Mania

“. . . And that will be all for today. For next Tuesday, I expect a three thousand word essay on the ideal juror, with reference to the table of professions that cannot be jurors.” The professor turned to look at his classroom, his bald head shining under the lights. Law, Haruhi found out, was a fairly small program. The university only accepted sixty applicants per year for law, and barely thirty of them even showed up to class. Her classrooms were always large and empty. “Please defend your opinion on the ideal juror for the persecution versus for the defence. I’ll see you next Tuesday.”

Haruhi sighed, packing her Introduction to Criminal Law textbook into her backpack. Class had ended just on time, at eleven-fifty exactly. She expected no less of the taciturn Professor Nagato, but once, just once she wished that he would end class early. She would have to run to make it to the Scholars Building to meet the rest of the former Ouran High School Host Club for lunch, and even then she would probably be late. She slung her backpack over her shoulder and started trotting, past the University Community Centre, past the School of Literature and the Academy of Music, through the immaculately kept lawns of the University.

The Scholars Building was a newly built extravagance, possible through a large donation from (Haruhi had been very amused to note) the Suoh Group. It held its own cafeteria, ten music rooms, a well furnished general library, and seven study rooms. Best of all, though Haruhi usually felt very guilty admitting it, the Scholars Building was card-locked and only available for use by the Scholars Association, the University’s honour society.

Well, she shook her head, mentally justifying her use of the building as she swiped her student ID. Anytime she tried to study in any of the other libraries and study rooms, a sorority recruiter would inevitably find her. And then she would have to flee before any of the other sorority recruiters found her. She had enough problems fighting them off between classes. I don’t know what they see in me, she thought, frustrated. So I know the Hitachiins, and Kyouya-senpai, and Tamaki-senpai, and Honey-senpai and Mori-senpai. So what? It’s not as if I’m interested! What do sororities do anyway?

“Haruhi!” Hikaru’s voice drew her attention to one corner of the cafeteria. Haruhi smiled and walked over to the large table the others had already sequestered, pulling up a chair and pulling out her bento. As usual, she was the last one there. Kyouya was meticulously checking over some math assignment, with Honey looking over his shoulder. Mori had pulled out one of his history textbooks and was studying it carefully. Tamaki looked up from his sheaf of sheet music upon hearing her approach.

“Haruhi!” Tamaki flung his arms around her dramatically. She always seemed to make the error of sitting between him and Hikaru. A tall, blonde girl was standing beside him sheepishly, holding another folder. “My dove of peace, my daring princess, sunshine of my morning! How was your week?”

“Get off, Tamaki. Go back to studying your . . .” she sneaked a look at his sheet music. “Bis-ett Habanera?”

“Bizet, Haruhi!” Tamaki recoiled in horror at her atrocious pronunciation of the foreign name. “‘Biz-ay!’”

“Bizet,” Haruhi repeated soothingly. From experience, he would continue on and on until she pronounced it properly. How was she supposed to know these crazy names, anyway? Music wasn’t a particular interest of hers, and in any case, she was horrible musician. “My week was fine.”

“Err, anyway, Tamaki-san,” the blonde girl interrupted, embarrassed. She clutched her own folder, presumably of sheet music, shyly to her chest. “Anyway, will you be my accompanist at my recital in two weeks?”

Tamaki turned, as if remembering that she was still standing there. “Oh, I’m sorry, princess!” He leapt to his feet and swept her an elaborate bow. “Of course I can be your accompanist. When do you want to practice?” He took her hand and tilted his head, looking up at her adoringly.

“Err, I’m,” the girl turned her head away, taking a deep breath and pulling her hand back. “I’m free any day after four. Is tomorrow at four-thirty in the sixth music room good for you?”

“Of course it is, Mizuki-hime! Anything for you!”

“Err, well, then I’ll see you tomorrow at four-thirty.” The girl bowed deeply, blushing a bright crimson. “Thank you, Tamaki-san.”

“Of course, princess. It’s nothing.” Tamaki gave her his characteristic, charming smile, and she fled.

“Who was she?” Kaoru threw out the question, eyebrows raised. There was no real need for the curiosity, Haruhi thought. Girls tended to flock around Tamaki wherever he went. Why would university be any different?

“Mizuki Asahina,” Tamaki replied. “First year soprano. As beautiful as the moon, the sun, and the stars shining together . . .” He sighed deeply, the picture of a love-struck man.

“That doesn’t even make sense,” Hikaru snorted, then sighed, frowning. He had a brooding look on his face, and one hand stirred the cup of coffee in front of him. Nothing classy, Haruhi was amused to note. Just your regular, run of the mill, Starbucks coffee. “I have to get a lab partner this week.”

“Hope you get someone competent. Shimatani-san’s lab partner last year didn’t know how to use her calculator.” Kyouya looked up from his math homework. Shimatani-san was Kyouya’s Advanced Physics lab partner, Haruhi recalled. The girl reminded Haruhi of a whirlwind, who usually appeared out of nowhere, said her piece, and was gone. “I did all the work for my first year lab partner. He was completely incompetent.”

“Your homework looks clean, Kyou. Not that I expected anything less,” Honey leaned back in his chair. “Should be another perfect for you. I didn’t have a lab partner; math students don’t have labs.”

“Ohtori-kun!” The voice yelled clearly over the noise in the Scholar’s cafeteria. The Osakan accent was as distinctive as the girl herself, who appeared suddenly at the table and slammed a math assignment on the table. “What did you get for question twenty two for the calculus assignment? My solution is eight pages long and my answer is . . . well, it’s wrong. I’m sure it’s wrong.”

Kyouya ventured a look at the paper, and then his eyes widened. Simultaneously, Honey and Mori shot to their feet, slinging their backpacks onto their backs. Haruhi blinked, surprised, as Tamaki dragged her to her feet while gathering his sheet music messily into a folder and tucking it under one arm.

Haruhi looked behind her, and her eyes widened. “But,” she heard herself murmur as Shimatani took one look behind her, swiped her homework, and pulled Kaoru to his feet as well. “But that’s not possible.”

Her mother was striding towards her, a smile on her face. She was identical to the picture that Haruhi treasured and spoke to in the shrine at home, down to the hairstyle, the suit, the makeup. The only thing odd, aberrant about this picture was the syringe that she held in her left hand.

“Move!” she heard someone snap in her ear, and all of a sudden she was being dragged. Tamaki still had her arm, and Hikaru had grabbed her backpack, his eyes wide and alarmed. “Or do you want to become like that?”

“Like what?” Haruhi asked, bewildered. Hikaru gestured wildly at another table of students, all with a stack of books half a foot high by their sides labelled “MCAT.” Medical school applicants?

“So, I only averaged ninety-four percent last year,” one of the girls was tearfully telling the others. One of her friends put a pile of napkins in front of her, and she blew her nose. “At this rate, I’m never going to get into medical school! And I don’t have anywhere near enough extracurriculars, and, and, and my life is over!” She burst into tears, sobbing.

“It’s okay,” another girl replied as the others around the table made soothing sounds. Somehow, Haruhi felt like their reaction wasn’t sincere. As if they were pretending to be comforting for her sake, but were secretly very happy that she was breaking down. She sneaked a look behind her again – her mother was approaching sedately. Just like she had always imagined her mother would walk.

“So move!” Hikaru jerked on her arm, and she found herself stumbling after the others. Tamaki was pulling her along, and Kyouya and Honey were in the lead, slamming the doors to the cafeteria happened, and Shimatani wasn’t far behind them. Haruhi, bewildered, noticed that there were other students who were gathering their things and making a run for it. She tried to sneak another glance back at her mother, but Tamaki’s grip was too tight, and they were out of the cafeteria before she could turn.

“It’s your fault!” she heard Kyouya snarl, as they dashed down a hallway. “You brought it here! If you’d just go to Ikutsuki-san or Miyano-san for once to check your calculus assignment!”

“I told you!” Shimatani yelled back, her quaint accent drawing out her words. “Seiichi-kun isn’t in advanced calculus! And Ayu-chan doesn’t think on my level! And you think the Demon doesn’t want you too?! You’re only ranked first in the entire faculty!”

“Just run!” Honey’s higher pitched voice rang clearly back to Haruhi. “Music rooms only have two windows and the door! It’ll be the safest place - Takashi can hold the door while Kyou, Shimatani-san and I write proofs! Shimatani, you can write a basic proof, right?”

“If I couldn’t, do you think I could have survived last year?” The other girl choked out. Haruhi could hear her running out of breath, just as she herself was. Clearly, the other girl was not a runner. Around a corner they whipped, and Honey pulled open the door to a stairwell. Up to the third floor they ran, and Haruhi could feel herself lagging behind.

“Come on,” Tamaki panted in her ear, still pulling her along by her arm. “It’s not much farther.”

“I don’t understand,” she wheezed in reply. He didn’t reply, but she saw that he was right. The third floor was almost entirely music rooms, and Honey had used his student card to open the nearest one. Haruhi had just gotten in when the door slammed behind her, and Mori stood with his back to the door, carefully watching the hallway through a pane of glass. Haruhi slid to the floor on the opposite wall, the world spinning as she tried to catch her breath. Through the window in the door, she could see her mother approaching, smiling, waving the syringe. Her mouth opened, forming words that Haruhi could not hear, but could read instantly. “This won’t hurt a bit,” the figure was saying. “Not a bit.”

“Come on, come on,” Shimatani was wheezing on the floor nearby, a pencil slippery in her grip and a piece of paper on the floor. She was scribbling very quickly a series of numbers and symbols.

“Done,” Haruhi heard Honey say, as the small boy ricocheted to his feet and taped a sheet of paper to the door, facing outwards. Haruhi’s mother stopped, her face creasing into a frown. She stared at the numbers and formulae, confused. “Green’s Theorem.”

“Clairaut’s Theorem,” Kyouya sprang to his feet, taping a sheet of paper onto one of the windows. Upon reflection, Haruhi realized that she’d never seen Kyouya quite as panicked as she had in the past five minutes.

“Expressions for the method of least squares applied to a sinusoid!” The other girl declared weakly, staggering to her feet and taping her mathematical proof onto the last window. “We’re sealed.”

“What . . .” Haruhi asked, her voice wispy. She had just seen her mother, who had been dead for fifteen years, and had just run from her. What was wrong with her? “What was that? My mother? My mother passed away fifteen years ago.” Somehow, she could not bring a tone of awe into her voice when she said that.

“We call it the Demon of Med School Mania,” Honey said seriously, his eyes wide. “You can only see it if you’re smart, and you don’t want to be a doctor.”

“About eighty percent of the Faculty of Science is afflicted with Med School Mania,” Shimatani wheezed. The girl had collapsed back on the floor, clearly exhausted. “Didn’t you see them? Crying because they don’t have perfect in every subject and don’t have a free “Get into medical school” card? You become like that if it gets you with its syringe.”

“It appears to you as the most attractive, most beautiful thing or person that you could possibly imagine,” Tamaki said, serious for a change. His voice was reflective, sombre. “For example, I see my mother. She’s always beautiful, always just like I remember. . . ” His voice turned into one of rapture, and Haruhi could see his eyes moving, seeing something that no one else could. “Her blonde curls dancing in the wind, her gentle, beautiful smile . . .”

“I see a giant version of Bun-bun holding a plate of cake in one hand and the syringe in the other,” Honey smiled sheepishly. “I was so surprised the first time I saw it, but one of the upperclassmen dragged me away.”

“We see each other,” the twins chipped in, in chorus. That was something that Haruhi hadn’t heard them do in some time. “But there are only two of us, so it would only work if we were apart.” They exchanged a glance, and shrugged. “And we don’t own syringes.”

“It will become confused and leave you alone if you write a mathematical proof and stick it to the door. The door and all openings to the room you’re sequestered in.” Kyouya said, his dry professionalism seeping through his tone. “Eventually, it leaves in search of other prey. I recommend having a math student write you some proofs and keeping them with you at all times.”

“Oh, but math problems don’t work – they only slow it down,” Honey chipped in. “It has to be an actual proof. I tried using my first year linear algebra homework one time when I was in a panic, and it only slowed it down. It nearly got me that time.”

“Oh,” Haruhi replied, at a loss for anything else to say. Such things existed? She had always been sure that ghosts, and demons, and the like were simply, simply superstition. But . . . there was something, something real about watching her own mother approach her with a syringe. “So. . . What do you see, Kyouya-senpai? I’ve never seen you look so . . .” she paused, trying to find the correct word. He hadn’t been terrified, but there had been that element of surprise and fear . . . “Alarmed.”

“Don’t you think that’s a rather personal question, Haruhi?” Kyouya, apparently, had completely recovered. He sat down calmly on the piano bench. “I’d rather not say.”

“He sees himself,” the other girl said from the floor. “We were coming out of first year calculus the first time we saw it. Ohtori-kun and I ended up in the same closet scribbling out the proof for the fundamental theorem of calculus.” She smiled, holding out her calculus assignment to him. “So about question twenty-two . . .”

***

More Author’s Notes:

Med School Mania is something that my university is very much afflicted with. I thought one day, “What if it was personified?” and that’s how this was produced. As for, “Eighty percent of the Faculty of Science is afflicted?” Yeah, that’s a real stat. Basic Med Sci dwarfs the real science departments. Very frustrating, because the Sci Students Council always seems to forget about the physical and mathematical sciences.

Some details about their university and what they’re in was in the first “chapter” of this series, which was on Rush Week. Which isn’t actually posted anywhere, now that I think about it. xD. Anyway, Tamaki is a music student, specializing in piano performance. He’s repeating first year because he started off in business, but hated it so much he switched as soon as he could, and he’s the president of the Kappa Tau fraternity. Honey is a math student and the president of the Maths Students Association. Mori is a history student and is in varsity kendo. Kyouya studies concurrent business and physics, and is a prominent member of the competitive business team. Hikaru is a chemistry student and Kaoru is a literature student, but since both are in first year, they both take a wide range of classes. Haruhi is obviously in first year Law, which being more of a professional program, means she doesn’t have as wide of a range of courses. She’s also openly female, and is currently being vigorously courted by the University’s five sororities due to her connections.

Hikari Shimatani, Kyouya’s lab partner, gets introduced more or less properly in the “first” chapter; she’s your typical student with a massive education related debt, and Kyouya (as is also revealed in the last chapter) doesn’t mind having her around because she’s one of the top physics students in their year. They aren’t really that close, but she’s useful as a second female character. Other characters (such as Mizuki Asahina) are introduced as necessary.

The University is structurally based on my own university, though we don’t have a Scholars Building. I wish we did – it would be amazing, because then I would actually find a cubicle to study in during finals. Grrr.

Edit: Yay! Third place!

[Fic] Fascination

Wed, 30 Jan 2008 03:34:44 GMT

Title: Fascination
Fandom: Ouran High School Host Club
Author: kitsunerei88
Rating: G
Genre: Introspective
Pairings or Characters: mild TamaHaru
Warnings: Not beta-ed. Written in less than half an hour. Written for the Children Drabble contest at ouran_contest
Summary: Sometimes, Haruhi wondered if he had simply never grown up.
Word Count: 272
Disclaimer: Not mine.

Fascination

He fascinated her.

His dramatic hand gestures, his elegant, eloquent manner of speech, his – often foreign – mannerisms, his hidden intelligence, natural curiosity, his sense of openness and fun. His open friendliness to everyone and anyone. His dramatic tears when he didn’t get what he wanted. The way he curled up in the corner, sobbing about how the world was against him.

These, all these things, made Tamaki Suoh fascinating.

Sometimes, Haruhi wondered if he had simply never grown up.

Sometimes Haruhi wondered this in an extremely annoyed manner. Sometimes she wondered this in an indulging manner. Sometimes even in a distant, psychoanalysing manner.

Sometimes she was curious. What was it like to be a child, wholly irresponsible, yet sometimes insightful? She didn’t remember. After losing her mother at four, she had taken over the household duties. Not, definitely, what most people would consider a stellar childhood, but until now she had never realized this.

Tamaki Suoh had not had a stellar childhood either, Haruhi remembered. Yet here he was, still a child in many respects. A child playing pretend in his own made up world, the Third Music Room.

She wondered what that made her. Was she regressing to childhood simply by being near him? By being a part of his game of pretend? She played the role of the daughter, when she was not playing at being a pirate, knight, or a court noble.

Why?

It didn’t matter, she realized. She didn’t care.

There were only three things that were important.

First, Tamaki Suoh was still in many ways child.

Second, his childish tendencies rubbed off.

And third, she enjoyed it.

Edit: First place! Yay!

Random quote time!

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 18:15:56 GMT

"Always carry a stereonet on the street. You never know who you might meet."

Thank you, structural geology textbook. I'll be sure to keep it in mind.

*falls over laughing*

[Fic] Sunrise

Wed, 16 Jan 2008 20:38:22 GMT

Title: Sunrise
Fandom: Skip Beat!
Author: kitsunerei88
Pairing(s): Ren/Kyoko
Rating: G
Genre: Romance/General
Summary: [Oneshot] New Years Eve was never meant to be spent alone. Follow-up to Snowfall, but may stand alone.
Warnings: Makes sense mostly in the context after Chapter 110, but no major spoilers; lots of cultural references.
Disclaimer: Skip Beat! is the property of Yoshiki Nakamura, and a whole lot of other people and companies.
Thank Yous: Alastair Black for being so kind to edit all my SB! fanfictions, and to snigger02 for inspiring me to write it in the first place.

There are extensive author's notes on various cultural references at the end of the fic.

“Ren’s here, Ren’s here!” Maria shouted with glee, pulling up the skirts of her little kimono and prancing eagerly to the door. Kyoko sighed. How was she enticed to come to this New Year’s party again? Ah, yes; under a combination of Maria’s tears, Tsuruga-kun’s glare, and the whispered murmurs on the set of Tsukigomori not so long ago, her resolve to spend the New Year quietly with the Okami-san and Taisho-san had died on her lips, and she had found herself agreeing without further protest.

Somehow, she was sure that the president had had a role in the planning of this party. He had been planning something, she was sure of it. She was certain that it was no coincidence that Maria had required traditional dress for the party. The president knew that she had no money, thus he must have known that she wouldn’t own a kimono! As beautiful as such things were, they were too costly a prop for Kyoko's meagre budget. Thus, there was only one conclusion: They were planning something and it somehow involved her wearing a kimono.

She smoothed the silk hem of her borrowed kimono, trying to make her nervousness less apparent. Was there any particular reason why they had to lend her a furisode, rather than a less formal homongi or tsukesage? She was worried that she would spill something on it or trip and tear it or something, and besides, she was only sixteen! And anyway, Moko was only wearing a homongi!

A part of her knew that she just didn’t want to be seen by Tsuruga-kun wearing a kimono that was traditionally reserved for women available for marriage. She wasn't sure why, but overall it just seemed to be a bad idea.

Kanae eyed her friend closely, sitting beside her on the couch in front of the fireplace . Despite listening to Kyoko’s panicked diatribe about wearing a furisode, in which she claimed furiously that she was going to trip on it, or tear it, or spill food on it, she was sure that Kyoko would do no such thing. After all, hadn’t Kyoko grown up working in a traditional inn? The way Kyoko moved in a kimono, it showed. Her etiquette and posture were perfect. In her mind she compared notes on her friend’s posture and the neat way that she had folded her hands in her lap. It would be useful if she ever had to take on the role of a traditional Japanese girl.

Kanae drew in a deep breath, and glanced nervously at Yashiro, who was seated in a thick armchair across from her. She had caught the manager looking woebegone the day after Christmas at the TBM studio, where she had gone to film a bit role in a drama. Following his gaze, she had spotted a red-faced Kyoko and Tsuruga-san making small talk. She had connected the dots immediately. This man, she had thought, this man had been responsible for the whole “Ren Tsuruga hugged me, what do I do?!” outburst that she had dealt with on Christmas! This man was going to bring hell into the hallways of LME by making Kyoko to fall in love! Oh, she was going to murder him!

And thus, she had gone to interrogate him as soon as Kyoko and Tsuruga-san had entered the set. And somehow, instead she had been dragged into this diabolical plot to bring Ren and Kyoko together! A diabolical plot that had hatched when Yashiro-san had had the supposedly brilliant idea to bring the president into it!

At least, she reassured herself, maybe hell wouldn’t be as hellish if she was involved. If she couldn't fight against the tsunami, then perhaps she could exercise some measure on control over their actions and keep Kyoko from being shattered.

In sharp contrast to the dark-haired girl across from him, Yashiro was bursting with excitement. Between himself, Kotonami-san (honestly, he hadn’t even known that Kyoko-chan had a best friend!), and the president, they had hatched an absolutely fool-proof plan! The president had convinced Maria to hold a New Year’s party for the members of LME who didn’t have family to spend it with. He had reasoned with her that it would be a horrible thing to spend New Year's alone, and thus Maria had agreed. Thus here he was, with Kotonami-san, Kyoko-chan, and Ren!

There was no way Ren could screw this up. After all, he’d made half the women in Japan fall in love with him; the man had to have some skills as a lover, right?

“Good evening,” Ren said as he was led into the room by Maria. He cast his gaze around the decorated sitting room nervously. Ren spotted Yashiro-san dressed in the traditional kimono squirming excitedly in an armchair by the fireplace. He sighed; any fool could see that he was plotting something. Sitting opposite him on a couch, with a foreboding expression was Kyoko’s friend Kanae Kotonami. She had chosen a kimono of dark blue silk with slightly longer sleeves, accenting her dark hair and eyes. She, Ren found himself thinking, would be what the Americans called an ice queen. Sitting beside her, Kyoko was staring into the fire. She was nervous.

Well, he reasoned, things had been awkward in the extreme between them of late. Unnaturally normal, he would phrase it. It was clear that the hug on Christmas day lingered in her mind as much as it did in his. It probably didn’t help that Yashiro-san and whoever he was in collaboration with had stuffed her into a furisode. The red silk accented her chestnut brown hair, bringing fire into her cheeks that had nothing to do with makeup. Inwardly, he thanked Yashiro; while it had not been the first time he had seen her in a kimono, the result was certainly stunning. Suddenly, he had the irrational desire to ask Kotonami to move so that he could sit beside her.

“Well,” Lory cheerful voice from behind broke the awkward silence. “Now that we’re all here, what should we all do now?" He directed the question to his granddaughter.

“Play games!” Maria’s smile was infectious. “Sugoroku!”

Lory Takarada was pleased with the plan. The New Year was a time of renewal and hope; for himself, he certainly hoped that Ren and Kyoko would finally move past their former trauma and see what was directly in front of them. As the president of LME, it was his honour-bound duty to make all of his actors, singers, and tarentos shine. If the plan was successful, Ren's acting would ascend to a whole new level, and Kyoko's career would be launched. It would be a beautiful thing to behold.

He resisted the urge to laugh as Kyoko rose gracefully from the couch, and with the perfect posture of an aristocrat, seated herself in seiza position on the floor. He wondered momentarily if she had been taking lessons; it was clear that she was practiced in etiquette, at least. But no matter; he could see that she had caught Ren’s eye, and at the moment that’s all that mattered. Kotonami-san had done a good job of getting Kyoko into that furisode. He saw Kotonami-san carefully watch and imitate the way that Kyoko had moved from the couch to the table; that girl was a born actress. Seeing his opportunity, he pushed Ren to the open spot on Kyoko’s left.

In the end, however, Lory Takarada knew that he, Kotonami-san, and Yashiro-san could only push so much. The end result would be produced by Ren and Kyoko themselves.

Kyoko smiled up at Tsuruga-kun nervously. She hadn’t expected him to take a seat beside her! She had to admit, he did look good in a kimono. “Tsuruga-kun,” she greeted him, her voice unnaturally normal, heat rushing to her face. “Happy New Year.”

“Happy New Year,” he replied, returning her smile. He turned back to the game board as Kyoko did the same. Maria's personality and obvious delight had restored a sense of calm in the room. He was grateful for it.

Sugoroku, then uta-garuta, then another game of sugoroku passed the time before Maria fell asleep at the table and knocked all the pieces onto the floor. Kyoko was impressed; it was close to four in the morning. When she was eight, she couldn’t have lasted that long. The president gathered Maria up in his arms and took her to bed as Kyoko suppressed a yawn.

"Do you want to continue?" Moko asked, picking up the pieces and setting them back on the board. It was just like Moko too, Kyoko thought, to remember where all the pieces had been before Maria had knocked them over.

“We may as well,” Ren replied. “It's only another three hours to sunrise.”

“Mmm,” Yashiro nodded. “I would prefer to play a game of shogi, though.”

“I believe there’s a shogi board in the cupboard,” The president said, as he re-entered the room. He walked to the closet and pulled out a shogi board. “We also have Go, if anyone is interested?”

“I will play Go,” Ren volunteered. Kyoko suppressed another yawn as she watched him take and set up the Go set.

“Kyoko-chan, Kotonami-san?” Yashiro shook the shogi set at them as the president settled himself across from Ren. Kyoko shook her head; though she had seen many people play shogi in the inn, she didn’t know how to play herself. She would just watch.

“I’ll play,” Moko volunteered. She was a competent player, Kyoko realized when the game was well underway, capturing several pawns and a rook in the first twenty moves. Yashiro-san, however, was equally competent; he took one of Moko’s pieces for every piece that he lost, trading pieces down across the board.

Her thoughts drifted away from the board. The warlike setting of the game reminded her; had she finished that essay for her history class? She’d missed a lot of days recently for the filming of Tsukigomori; she was glad that she went to a performing arts high school where they were willing to send her the notes. She wasn’t sure anyone in the class would have done so for her, and it really was important for her to keep up with her studies . . .

On Kyoko’s left, Ren snapped another black piece into play, capturing one of the president’s white pieces. Kyoko wasn’t watching him play, he thought, mildly resentful. She was staring thoughtfully at Kotonami-san and Yashiro’s extended shogi game. Evidently, they had fought each other to a standstill, for Yashiro had sat back and appeared to be pondering his next move. No, he realized as he saw the arrangement on the board. Kotonami-san had Yashiro-san in check.

“You’re not paying attention,” the president’s voice called him back to his game. The president snapped down another white piece, capturing a group of five stones that Ren had laid down earlier. Ren sighed. Perhaps it was a good thing that Kyoko wasn’t watching him. He evaluated the board again critically. The points left on the board would do him no good to play on. He could tell he had lost; he had managed to dominate only a quarter of the board.

“I pass,” he said. His mind was preoccupied with by the beautiful girl on his right.

“Pass. I win,” the president replied. “Another game, Ren?”

Ren took a deep breath. “Kyoko-chan? Do you want to play?” He tapped the girl on the shoulder, catching her attention.

“Oh. No, you go ahead,” Kyoko replied absently, focused on the game between Yashiro-san and Kotonami-san. "What was so interesting about it?" Ren found himself thinking. Yashiro-san hadn’t made a move since the last time that Ren looked over.

“All right,” Ren agreed. “Another game, then.” He cleared the board of his black pieces as the president did the same with his white pieces.

Unbeknownst to him, while Kyoko appeared to be engrossed in the shogi game, she was all too focused on the man behind her, casually putting down black pieces. He wasn’t doing so well, she knew; he’d missed about half a dozen opportunities last game to capture pieces, including a rather obvious ladder. She could also tell that he wasn’t focusing on the game. She wondered idly what he was thinking about; his eyes were narrowed slightly in frustration, and the way he gripped his black pieces was just slightly too tense. A couple strands of hair flopped down into his eyes, and he brushed them off with a vague movement.

A part of her wanted to turn and watch him toy with the black piece in his hand, tapping impatiently against the table, and perhaps point out a few better places to put his stones that would result in a higher capture, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. No, facing him would bring on a fiery heat to her face as it had done since Christmas, and she didn’t like that. Particularly when she didn’t know why. While she had been able to face him when Maria was present, somehow she couldn’t do so any longer without turning into a tomato. Tsuruga-kun must think she was ill or something.

“Checkmate.” Moko said triumphantly, lifting Kyoko out of her reverie.

“I let you win,” Yashiro-san corrected her indignantly. Evaluating the board, Kyoko saw that Moko had indeed successfully taken Yashiro-san’s king.

“Liar. I had you in check no matter what you did,” Moko replied.

Yashiro sighed. “Best two out of three?” he conceded. Moko agreed without hesitation, and they began to set up the board again.

Kyoko’s attention drifted back to the man sitting beside her. She could feel his warmth radiating to her, seeping into her silk kimono like a warm drug. She suppressed another yawn and resisted the urge to lay her head on the table and take a nap; she had never been very good at staying awake all night. However, taking a nap here and now was neither polite nor comfortable.

Yashiro-san won the next game, much to Moko's distress. The third game was a pitched battle of wits, and by the time that they had reached a standstill, Tsuruga-san and the President were finishing their second game. Their second game, too, had been painfully one-sided; It was clear from both the board, and Tsuruga-san's expression that he was being soundly defeated.

“I’m going to go wake up Maria,” the president said, rising from his seat, leaving Tsuruga-kun to clear the board. “It’s almost time for the first sunrise; why don’t you all go on ahead to the balcony?”

“Mmm?” Kyoko asked, as she realized what he was asking. “Ah, yes, of course.” As stiff as her legs were, she rose gracefully to her feet through long years of practice. Tsuruga-kun rose to his feet beside her.

“Just let us finish this game first,” Moko said, her voice preoccupied and determined. Yashiro nodded, keeping his eyes on the board.

“Shall we go, Kyoko-chan?” Ren asked kindly. He had lost the last game even more miserably than before, and Kyoko had looked tired. He had shifted discreetly in her direction, hoping to catch her if she fell asleep at the table, but there had been no such luck. It almost seemed as if the gods themselves were against him.

“Mmm,” she replied, eyes on the floor. Ren winced; Kyoko didn’t even want to look at him. He didn’t know whether to chalk that up to her tiredness or whether it was a result of something he did. Had done? It had been almost a week since their sudden hug; surely if it was a result of that, she would have done something earlier. Though, Ren remembered, Kyoko had been avoiding him lately. They had behaved normally the times they had run into each other at the office, or at the studio, but there had been no long conversations, no late night phone calls as were usual. It had, however, been a busy schedule last week as well, and he knew that Kyoko had been driven hard by the Mio role, and by the Natsu role that she had in High School Hell . . .

On the balcony, they see the first rays of the morning sun cutting through the darkness of night. Stars faded; the moon sank below the horizon. The sky shone first purple, then red, then orange. The buildings of Tokyo, visible even in the wealthiest districts, were tinted orange by the morning light. Almost like a painting, he mused, perhaps something of Van Gogh's; The Sower, maybe, or Olive Trees.

“It’s beautiful,” he heard Kyoko murmur beside him. Looking down at her, he saw her sleepy gaze fixed on the sky, eyes shaded by long lashes. “It really is nice,” she glanced at him, “to see the first sunrise with someone.”

“Mmm,” he agreed, fighting an impulse to lean down and kiss her. “It really is nice.” Kyoko had looked away from him, fixing her gaze once again into the distance. Minutes passed, as he watched the sun drift like a ship from the horizon, and he felt a warm body press itself at his side. Were his frantic, fantastical dreams at three in the morning, in which Kyoko confessed her undying love for him, finally coming true? Hope rose in him, only to burst as he realized that she had merely fallen asleep on him.

He sighed. In some ways, Kyoko was so childlike. Her inability to stay awake for more than twenty-four hours, her fervent belief in the existence of fairies, her tendency to map the world in fairy-tale terms . . . He supposed it was this was the flip-side to her maturity, her persistence and strong will. Her sleeping face was so innocent, he reflected. It would almost be sinful for him to, just this once, give into his desires. No, he corrected himself, it would be sinful. Kyoko was only sixteen, she wasn't an adult by anyone's standards. And yet, he realized, he had never truly thought of her as a child, not when he first met her before the LME audition, not when she was his substitute manager, and most importantly perhaps, not when she acted alongside him in Tsukigomori. He drew in a deep breath, trying to gain some clarity of thought, but the mind wasn't cooperating. He no longer saw the rising sun, no longer felt the cold breeze ruffling his hair in the morning light, no longer heard the dawn calls of the birds. His world had narrowed down to only her; the way the morning light brought fresh colour to her skin, the way the cold breeze blew her hair across her face, the sound of her gentle breathing. She wouldn't remember anything when she woke up. It was this thought that spurred his frozen brain into action.

He leaned down and softly kissed her on the forehead, gathering her light body into his arms. She sighed once, in sleeping contentment.

He shook his head, and picked her up. There was that couch by the fireplace. He would lay her down there, and wait for her to wake up.

Kyoko sat up suddenly, drawing in a deep breath. Something had crashed to the floor somewhere behind her, and voices were shouting. Where was she and what was going on?

“It’s an impasse! That's an impasse!” she heard Moko insisting angrily.

“Hey, by international scoring rules, I just won!” Yashiro fired back; while he did not sound angry, his words were stronger than they needed to be. “that gives me best two out of three!”

“If we’re playing by international rules, and I thought we were, an impasse is not a win!” Moko replied. “I demand another game!”

“What’s going on?” she heard herself ask, her head full of sleep. A soft noise at her feet drew her attention as Tsuruga-kun closed a book. He had seated himself on the floor by the couch, his back level with her shoulders.

“You awake?” he asked mildly, looking at her over his shoulder. “I told them to play quietly.”

That’s right, she remembered sluggishly. She and Tsuruga-kun had gone to watch the sunrise before everyone else, hadn't they? And, and it was so beautiful, but she didn’t remember the others showing up. Did she remember leaving? No, no, she didn't. She must have fallen asleep on the balcony. How rude of her . . . especially because obviously, she could not have come back here herself, meaning that . . . meaning that Tsuruga-kun or someone else must have carried her back in . . .

Colour flooded her cheeks as she jumped off the couch, almost tripping over him, and bowed at him. “I’m, I’m sorry for the trouble!”

Tsuruga-kun laughed. “It’s no problem. You may as well sit down; it looks like Kotonami-san is getting her way. They will be playing another game.” Indeed, Moko and Yashiro-san were picking up the pieces of the set from where Moko had apparently tossed it in frustration, and were setting up for another game.

Kyoko obeyed, slowly sitting down on the couch as Tsuruga-kun stood and fetched another book. “Wagahai wa Neko de Aru(1) all right by you?” he inquired. Kyoko nodded, wondering if he meant anything by that. Surely he didn’t; the book was a classic. She noted with surprise that his book was Genji Monogatari(2).

He passed her the book and seated himself on the couch beside her. “Happy New Year,” he said simply, before opening Genji Monogatari to the page where he had been before Kyoko had woken up.

Kyoko suddenly got the strange feeling that something had happened, something important -- Tsuruga-kun was behaving oddly. No, not oddly. He was behaving as he always did. But there was something off, just slightly amiss.

"Well, it’s the New Year", she thought as she opened her book. She was probably just imagining it.

Fin

---

Author’s Notes: Holy crap, there are a lot this time! I actually did a surprising amount of research for a lot of the small details for this fic (I work way too hard), so if you want more information, you can look up most of this stuff on Wikipedia. You can ignore everything I’ve written here except for the usual “please review” comment if you don’t want to read it, but I’ve explained a lot of stuff here, including some things you may have missed or didn’t get when you actually read it.

Furisode = a formal kimono with long swinging sleeves worn by unmarried women. They are extremely expensive and signify that the wearer is available for marriage. Thus, the idea is that Kyoko doesn’t want to present herself as someone who is ‘available for marriage,’ but Kanae and the others have essentially tricked her into it. That’s why Ren takes particular notice of her, even though he would anyway.

Homongi = translating as “visiting wear”, a kimono that is worn by either married or unmarried women, and may be worn to formal parties. Unmarried women wear longer sleeves. Kanae, unlike Kyoko, is wearing one because she also doesn’t want to present herself as available for marriage. Lucky for her, she doesn’t have her best friend and other people plotting to make her fall in love.

Tsukesage = a less formal kimono than the homongi, shorter below the waist.

Sugoroku = a Japanese board game similar to Snakes and Ladders.

Seiza position = a formal way of sitting in Japan. It is very, very uncomfortable for anyone who hasn’t practiced it, and most Japanese can’t actually sit in this position for long periods of time. Since Japanese etiquette is so extensive and important, that Kyoko has learned it all is impressive. Essentially, Kyoko’s behaviour in a kimono is very much that of someone high-born.

Uta-garuta = a Japanese card game played mainly on New Year’s.

Shogi = Japanese chess. One of the major differences is that you can “drop” pieces, i.e., use one of the pieces that you captured on your own side. Also, it is possible for the game to end in impasse, where no player can hope to check the other. The entire scene where Kanae and Yashiro are playing represents their argument and battle with each other; Kanae doesn’t want Kyoko to fall in love with Ren because she thinks that would cause a lot of trouble and ruckus, particular for Kyoko. She’s only involved in their plot because she sees that the president and Yashiro can’t be stopped, so she’s basically trying to mitigate their effects. The scene overall represents Kanae’s and Yashiro’s conflict with each other.

Go = a strategic board game of Chinese origin, made famous by the anime Hikaru No Go.

(1)Wagahai wa Neko de Aru = I Am A Cat, a novel written in 1905-1906 by Natsume Soseki. It’s not really an important reference, but essentially, Ren is calling Kyoko a cat because she unintentionally teases him. This is also a reference to the fanfic Whispers of Daybreak, which was originally written in Chinese but is translated in English by snigger02 on LJ, in the Skip Beat! community (http://community.livejournal.com/skip_beat/35639.html#cutid1).

(2)Genji Monogatari = The Tale of Genji, A classical novel written by Murasaki Shikibu in the eleventh century. This is actually an inside joke on my part, for the book is actually centred on Genji’s romantic life. Ostensibly, Ren is trying to figure out how to make Kyoko fall in love with him.

Wed, 02 Jan 2008 21:07:59 GMT

Title: Of Foreign Literature, Skis and Concussions
Author: kitsunerei88
Rating: PG13
Pairing: mild TamaHaru
Genre: Comedy/Romance
Summary: [Oneshot] Over winter break, Haruhi goes skiing with the Host Club. Not willingly, of course.
Warnings: Rather bizarre storytelling, or so I think. Un-beta-ed.
Disclaimer: Ouran High School Host Club is the property of Bisco Hatori. And various other companies, I’m sure.
Word Count: 1150

Of Foreign Literature, Skis and Concussions

Why? Haruhi pondered for what must have been umpteenth time, as she was forcibly dragged by the twins from her warm apartment on the cold winter afternoon and pushed into a Mercedes. Why can’t they just leave me alone, for one week?

Today was the last day of school before the winter break, during which Haruhi had fully intended on using for doing housework, reading foreign literature, and catching up on much needed sleep. Her plans were thwarted, however, as she discovered her father had packed her bags for her and wished her a happy trip before the twins came and dragged her into their car.

“Where are we going?” she asked, resentful, feeling the thud as the twins’ chauffeur dropped her bags into the trunk. She didn’t like it when her plans were ruined.

“The Suoh ski resort!” they chimed, Kaoru on her left and Hikaru on her right.

Haruhi moaned and dropped her head into her hands, as the car started moving north.

***

She was no happier when they were stuffing her into a snowsuit and slapping skis onto her feet. She had not been surprised to see the other members of the Host Club waiting for them at the mountain villa, and had not been pleased to see them either.

“These boots are stiff,” she complained, as the twins pulled her outside, twin snowboards under their arms. “I can’t move my feet.”

“That’s to keep you from breaking your ankles,” they explained to her cheerfully.

Oh, wonderful. This was definitely not turning out to be the holiday she wanted.

***

She was no happier when she fell down for the thirtieth time, rolling a spectacular extra fourteen meters down the slope. She pulled herself up, and trudged back up to retrieve her lost skis; for some reason, they always seemed to be the first thing to go when she fell, though probably that was a good thing. Honey-senpai had regaled her with a tale about one of his classmates who had broken his leg in three places because his skis had not come off when he fell.

It did not improve her mood to watch the twins one-upping each other, performing tricks on their snowboards. Nor did it improve her mood to watch Honey-senpai navigate the slope expertly on his snowblades, Mori-senpai following the smaller boy on skis. Kyouya executed a perfect parallel stop beside her as she watched them.

“You slow down and stop,” he informed her mildly, “by pointing your skis inward towards each other.”

“That’s not what you did,” Haruhi pointed out.

“Parallel stops are harder. Point your skis toward each other to stop.” He turned and continued down the hill, catching up easily with Tamaki further down the slope. Tamaki seemed to interrogate him frantically, to which Kyouya seemed to respond calmly; though Haruhi couldn’t hear what they were saying, it was obvious that Tamaki was making sure that she was all right. He had stopped and checked on her at least seventeen of the thirty times she had fallen, after all.

Haruhi sighed and waved at them to go on, before banging her foot on the ski in an attempt to make it fix itself back on her boot. It took at least four tries before it stuck.

***

“M’fine,” Haruhi tried to reassure Tamaki, and was frustrated as her words come out confused and exhausted. That tree had come out of nowhere, she’d swear it! It wasn’t there a minute ago! “T’was tree’s fault,” she murmured into his jacket as he propped her up. “Stupid trees. Should warn people before jumping out at them.”

“It sounds like she’s knocked herself silly.” She heard Kyouya’s voice as he whooshed to a stop beside them. “Better take her back and get the doctor to check her; she might have a concussion.”

“Don’t have a concussion,” Haruhi tried to tell him, but the world was spinning. She shut her eyes.

“I’ll take her back,” she heard Tamaki reply worriedly. “You tell the others that she’s okay; I’ll stay with her.”

Kyouya must have nodded his assent, because Haruhi heard him slide away. “S’not fair,” she muttered incoherently as Tamaki pulled her into a standing position. “No one else fell down, just me. Trees hate me. All because I wanted to spend winter break at home reading foreign literature.”

***

Haruhi huddled under the blanket in front of the fireplace, a warm mug of hot chocolate in her hands. Skiing sucked, she was sure of that now. The doctor had reassured Tamaki that she probably did not have a concussion, and told him to watch her for the rest of the evening and night, and wake her up at least once every two hours to make sure she was still coherent. Haruhi was confident that he intended to follow those rules to the letter.

“I hate skiing,” she told him as he returned with a stack of books from the private library in the villa. “And trees.” She turned to gaze into the fire.

“Really?” Tamaki sounded unsure, and sad. Unsure, she could understand; he probably wasn’t entirely sure if she was herself yet or not. “I love skiing; it reminds me of France.”

Surprised, she turned to see a smile on his face. His eyes were trained downward on one of the books on the pile “I love the snow, and the sound that my skis make going down the slope, and the cold wind and the sun,” he said distantly. “And I love the hot chocolate, and reading by the fireplace afterwards in the lodge.” He sat down beside her on the rug in front of the fireplace. “Here,” he said, passing her one of the books on his pile. “Didn’t you say you wanted to spend winter break reading foreign literature?”

Surprised, Haruhi glanced down at the book he had given her. Candide, by Voltaire. An unabridged version, she saw. Moreover, it was an unabridged, untranslated version.

“I tried to find a copy of Le Petit Prince,” he continued, his tone uncertain. “But I must have left it at home. It’s my favourite,” he misinterpreted her surprise, “but I thought maybe you’d like Candide.”

“Tamaki,” Haruhi started, trying to keep herself from laughing. “I can’t read in French. When I said foreign literature, I meant either translated or in English. I can’t read in any other language.”

“Oh.” Tamaki blinked in surprise, and smiled. “Then I’ll read it to you.”

Before Haruhi could interrupt, he’d opened Candide and started, translating easily from French to Japanese.

“There was in Westphalie, in the house of the Baron of Thunder-ten-tronckh, a young man to whom nature had given the gentlest qualities . . .”

Maybe, Haruhi thought, as she let Tamaki’s voice paint the picture of an old mansion, and a simple young man, and a beautiful girl, this holiday wouldn’t be too bad.

Fin

Author’s Notes: Yay, for a last minute entry that I wrote just now! I always wanted to write a Tamaki who was clearly and evidently French. After all, he grew up in France until he was fourteen, so I think he would be in some respects, very French. It would be reasonable to assume that he would speak and write perfect French, and he would probably be Catholic. . . There’s one picture of him in which he wears a cross on the cover of Volume 2, so I can dream! Oddly enough, I’m not religious in the least; I just think that Tamaki should be Catholic because most French are.

Yes, that actually is the first line of Candide, that I translated myself from my own copy. After I ran around my house going “Where did my copy of Le Petit Prince go?!” before I realized I left it at school. At the very least, I found my copy of Candide, so I didn’t have to reference something that no one’s ever heard of, like Les Têtes à Papineau or anything.

Please comment or review!

Snowfall - Christmas

Tue, 25 Dec 2007 21:18:47 GMT

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Title: Snowfall
Chapter: 3
Fandom: Skip Beat!
Author: kitsunerei88
Pairing(s): Ren/Kyoko
Rating: G
Genre: Romance/General
Summary: It’s Christmas Eve, and LME has given all of its employees a couple of days off. Thinking Ren might be lonely, Yashiro sends Kyoko to see him. [Last Chapter] It’s Christmas Day, and the blizzard has passed, leaving behind only three feet of snow!
Warnings: Makes sense mostly in the context after Chapter 110, but no major spoilers.
Disclaimer: Skip Beat! is the property of Yoshiki Nakamura, and a whole lot of other people and companies.
Thank Yous: Alastair Black, once again, for betareading.

Christmas

Ren awoke to the smell of sizzling sausages, sweet and enticing. “Mmm,” he murmured softly into his pillow, rolling over. It had been some time since he woke to that particular smell. He squinted at the red numbers on the bedside clock; it was flashing twelve. He groaned softly into his pillow, cursing himself for having forgotten to reset it last night. He’d been in such a good mood that he’d fallen in bed and slept without thinking of it. Good mood? Maybe giddy would have been a better word for it.

Well, whatever time it was, the sun was shining clearly through the curtains. Time to get up, he thought, willing his body to obey. It took several attempts and momentous effort to even pull his body to an upright position. Sitting up, he rubbed sleep out of his eyes and set his bare feet on the floor.

The coldness of the hardwood floor cleared the fog from his brain. He shook his head once, just to shake himself out of it, before getting dressed.

In the kitchen, Kyoko hummed softly to herself as she threw two eggs into the frying pan. She hoped that Tsuruga-kun wouldn’t mind a Western-style breakfast; his refrigerator had been devoid of so many basic foods that she had been forced to improvise. How did the man even survive? She’d used the eggs that were left over from the cake the previous night, and had managed to find some pre-cooked sausages in the fridge. Suspicious of how old they were, she’d fried them just to make sure they were safe to eat. Predictably, Tsuruga-kun did have bread; it was about the easiest thing to toast and eat in the morning, after all.

“What time is it?” Tsuruga-kun’s voice was uncharacteristically groggy as he entered the kitchen, running a comb through his hair. “Good morning, Kyoko-chan,”

“Good morning, Tsuruga-kun. It’s eight-thirty,” Kyoko replied, concentrating as she slid the finished eggs onto a waiting plate. Another plate was already finished, with two eggs, four slices of bacon, and a thick slice of toast. “I hope you don’t mind a Western-style breakfast; it was all I could make with the ingredients at hand.”

“It’s no problem at all,” Tsuruga-kun replied, smiling down at her. Kyoko eyed him suspiciously. There had been no Emperor-of-the-Night occurrences last night, but that didn’t mean one wasn’t coming. Plus, there was something about him . . . “A Christmas present for you,” he added, as he fished a small box out from his pockets.

“Oh,” Kyoko said, surprised, somewhat distressed. She hid that. She hadn’t thought that senpais normally gave presents at Christmas to their kouhais. This was rather unsettling; giving presents seemed like such a, such a . . . romantic thing to do. Like making chocolate hearts to give your true love on Valentine’s Day. She shook her head inwardly. Clearly, Moko’s words were bothering her too much. “You didn’t have to. I left your present on the kotatsu. Could you get the coffee?” She smiled, motioning with her head at the two steaming cups of coffee as she picked up the plates of food, and led the way to the living room and the kotatsu.

Ren slipped the box back into his pocket to pick up the coffee, shaking his head as he followed her to the living room. How did she do it? She could be such a klutz on the set, knocking down equipment and tripping over wires, but given several plates of food, could balance them all without dropping a single one. He wasn’t surprised, however, that Kyoko had gotten him a present; it was very like her to get presents for others, but never expect any for herself. He had, in fact, gotten a present for her on this very supposition.

He watched her set the plates down on the table before seating herself across from him, and set down the steaming mugs of coffee. He was glad that she hadn’t filled the mugs as full as she could have; if she did, he was sure that he would have spilled. He wordlessly pulled her present out of his pocket and slid it across the table. The atmosphere was tense, awkward.

“Shall I open mine first?” he asked, wishing fervently to break the awkward silence. Kyoko nodded, quietly toying with the green ribbon on the present he’d given her. Ren carefully unwrapped her present, wrapped in red tissue paper.

Kyoko watched him do so, his long fingers gently finding the places where tape held the sheets together, prying it open. Even Tsuruga-kun could not unwrap tissue paper without tearing it, though she noted that he tried. Oh, she really shouldn’t have given him what she had; it was going to reflect very, very badly on her.

“A doll?” he asked, amused, raising a plush keychain model of Kyoko herself. “Why a doll?”

Kyoko blushed furiously. “It’s a good luck charm,” she informed him defiantly, well aware that her present made it look as if she was a crazy fangirl in love with him. “It’ll eat any bad luck or curses that people put on you.”

“I . . . see,” Ren replied, as much amused by her reaction as he was by the present itself. Her fairytale tendencies had not changed a bit. It really was a very cute keychain, though Ren wished she hadn’t dressed it in that eye-watering uniform of the Love Me Section. “Your turn,” he said, motioning at the small blue box he had slid across the table at her. He watched as Kyoko unwrapped the present with trembling fingers.

“It’s pretty,” she said, an odd note in her voice as she pulled out the necklace. A tiny four-leaf clover hung from the delicate silver chain, the design simple and elegant.

“A good luck charm,” Ren hastened to reassure her. He was aware that he was encroaching upon what he liked to call ‘dangerously romantic territory.’ A push too strong in this direction would have Kyoko fleeing from him, and erasing him from her mind.

She relaxed visibly, a sheepish smile spreading across her features. “Thank you,” she said, before digging into her food.

Ren reached over to grab the remote control and turned on the TV before doing the same. While he would have liked the break the awkward silence that ensued, he couldn’t think of anything to say.

“. . .And so last night’s freak blizzard has left in its wake three feet of snow,” the announcer was saying, the projector displaying several pictures behind him. “Snowplows are out on the streets, but citizens are encouraged to stay off the roads unless absolutely necessary” the announcer laughed, “not that it is of any importance to any romantic couples out there who would be more than happy to spend some time with that special someone this Christmas. On another note, the storm has left behind it a large high pressure system which is likely to dominate the weather patterns the next few days, so plenty of sunny clear weather to look forward to into next week. . .”

Kyoko frowned at the TV as she meticulously dipped her toast into her egg yolk. The reason she hated Christmas was that it was such a romantic holiday; really, only Valentine’s Day was worse. Or was Valentine’s Day worse? At least on Valentine’s Day, she could make and give chocolate to Moko and Maria, and celebrate that. There was no need to go into hiding on Valentine’s Day. On the other hand, she would be surrounded by girls talking about confessing their love on Valentine’s Day, which she didn’t get at Christmas. Why were people so love-obsessed anyway? What was so great about it? All it led to was a broken heart.

Speaking of such things, what was Tsuruga-kun thinking, getting her a present? And such a gift it was. Yes, he had said (rather glibly, in her opinion) that it was a good luck charm, and she knew that four-leaf clovers were considered lucky in the West, but still . . . Why would she get a gift at all, really? It didn’t make any sense to her.

Actually, it did make sense. It was all building evidence that perhaps, just perhaps, Moko was right. But she didn’t want to think about that.

“Sunny days,” Tsuruga-kun said, dispelling those dark thoughts from her mind. She looked away from the TV. “I guess the crew isn’t going to be too happy about that.”

Kyoko laughed. Indeed, tomorrow they were counting on cloudy skies. “How do you think they’ll cover it up?”

“Well, we only need a dark sky; at least it doesn’t have to rain or anything.” Tsuruga-kun smiled, toying with his fork, thinking. “They could have us to the scene inside and add the background using CG later, but I think they’ll only do that if it absolutely can’t be covered up. If we can angle it so the sun isn’t in the way, we’ll be able to do the scene outdoors, and they’ll fix the lighting later. Or maybe,” he smiled down at her, “Or maybe the weather report will be wrong and we will have cloudy skies tomorrow. That would be preferable.”

Kyoko smiled in return. “The weather report is wrong half the time anyway,” she said, finishing up her breakfast. She sipped at her coffee, watching the variety show that had come on as she waited for Tsuruga-kun to finish.

“I’ll give you a ride home.” Tsuruga-kun said as he finished. He gave his empty plate and mug to Kyoko, who held out a hand for them. She piled them neatly onto her own dishes and took them to the kitchen to wash.

“Are the roads cleared yet?” she called out from the kitchen. Tsuruga-kun was already at the window, checking. There wasn’t any real reason why it wouldn’t be; Tsuruga-kun lived in a very well-to-do area, close to a major road. His roads would be one of the first areas to be cleared. She wasn’t so sure about her own area though.

“They should be,” Tsuruga-kun replied, as Kyoko put the plates on a dish rack to dry. She couldn’t reach the cabinets where they belonged anyway. “Are you ready to go?”

To be quite honest with himself, Ren was more than reluctant to take Kyoko home. There was something about her being in his apartment that felt oddly right; that she belonged in this setting, in this apartment . . . with him. But if he did not take the time to drive her home, he knew that she would have set off on foot back to Darumaya anyway, and any attempts to convince her to stay would likely scare her off. He would feel better about driving a girl home than simply letting her walk the whole way.

“Oh, yes,” Kyoko replied instantly. She dried her hands on a dishtowel which she had hung on the oven door, and dashed off to grab her winter coat, hat and mittens. She pulled her shoulder bag over her head so it hung neatly by her side.

“You almost forgot this,” Ren passed her her gift as he pulled on his own winter jacket and grabbed his car keys. Kyoko was already waiting at the door when he pulled on his shoes.

The car ride back was quiet. For once, Ren wished he had not imposed a strict no talking rule in his car, but he knew he would not be able to handle Tokyo’s rush hour traffic without it. Looking over at her, he saw that she was staring out the window, a pensive look on her face. Was she staring at the mountains of snow on either side of the road, at least five feet high? Every now and again, she would pull out the necklace and just stare at it, before putting it away again. Ren sighed inwardly, wishing as he often did when she did things like this, that Kyoko would confide in him more. There was no use pushing her, as knowing her, she would just clam up about it.

Pulling up to Darumaya, he got out as Kyoko did. “Thank you for coming to keep me company yesterday,” he said, rather formally. “and thank you for the cake.”

“It’s no problem,” Kyoko replied, smiling. Somehow, it looked that much sweeter, surrounded by mountains of snow, a pink knit cap keeping her hair tame. She stared down at the ground, nudging a bit of snow with her foot. “Thank you for letting me stay the night,” she said softly. “And for, for listening to me about the nightmare.” A light blush coloured her cheeks.

“It’s no problem,” Ren returned as she looked up at him. Why did she have to look so, so utterly kissable at this moment? A couple strands of chestnut brown blew across her face. Her eyes, brown as well, were warm and inviting; her expression uncommonly shy. He wanted nothing more, at the moment, than to lean down and give her a kiss, just one kiss, on those pink lips.

Just one kiss would be okay, wouldn’t it? Wouldn’t it?

Kyoko stared up at the older actor, whose dark brown hair fluttered in the breeze, his brown eyes unreadable. He looked enigmatic, powerful, handsome in the clear winter day. “Well, I’ll, I’ll see you tomorrow at the Tsukigomori filming,” she stammered, turning away. She didn’t like these feelings in her at the moment, not at all.

“Kyoko-chan,” he said, and it was her only warning before he enveloped her in a tight hug. “Merry Christmas.”

To her surprise, she hugged him back. “Merry Christmas,” she murmured into his coat. He had a musty smell; like old books in a library. Old pages and ink . . .

He let her go as suddenly as he had hugged her. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” he smiled, before getting back into his car and driving away. He was gone before she could say anything else.

Kyoko turned mechanically back to Darumaya, and forced her legs to make the short walk up to the doors. The Okami-san and Taisho-san welcomed her back easily, wishing her Merry Christmas, as she knew they would; she automatically smiled and wished them Merry Christmas in return. In her room, she dropped her bag on the floor and shed her coat, hat and mitts, before collapsing onto her bed.

What on earth just happened? Her mind shrieked at her, as she buried her head under her pillow. What the hell?!

Unbeknownst to her, Ren had only driven a couple blocks before pulling to the side of the road. A giddy smile spread across his face as he dropped his head into his arms, resting on the steering wheel. He was glad that his windows were tinted, for no one would be able to watch the giddy breakdown of Ren Tsuruga.

In her bedroom, Kyoko lifted her head out from under her pillow, taking in several deep breaths. This was an emergency. This was nothing short of an emergency. That meant that she had to call Moko. Moko would know what to do. She pulled out her cell phone and dialled the familiar numbers. Moko picked up on the second ring.

“Oh, Kyoko,” she said, surprised. “Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas,” Kyoko said, before breaking down. “It’s a disaster! I don’t know what to do, Moko!”

“Wait, wait,” Moko replied. “What’s a disaster? What’s wrong?”

“And then he hugged me, Moko! I don’t understand! What do I do?” Kyoko babbled on.

“Who hugged you? Calm down and start from the beginning!” It was lucky for her that Moko had dealt with her in a panicked state several times before, and knew exactly what to do. “I’ll hang up if you don’t calm down, breathe, and start from the beginning!”

Kyoko sucked in air, following her directions. Deep breath in, deep breath out. Repeat until calm. After a few moments, she recounted to her friend all that happened since the previous night, when she had received a phone call from Yashiro.

In her cozy apartment, Kanae pulled the phone away from her ear, staring at it. Kyoko’s voice was still perfectly audible, her tone escalating as she reached the climax of her tale. At that moment, she knew exactly what had happened, and she knew that her friend would not take well to it. And she knew that telling her friend that “Ren Tsuruga is head over heels in love with you,” would not bode well; Kyoko would panic again, and that would do no one any good. And that was just the least of it; certainly she couldn’t say “Kyoko, you’re in love with Ren Tsuruga too.” Kanae shuddered at the very thought.

Oh, they were so utterly hopeless, those two. So utterly, completely hopeless. At the moment, it was probably best to suggest an alternative explanation; Kyoko herself must suspect that Tsuruga-san was in love with her now.

“Maybe,” she heard herself say, “It was just the mood of the holidays. Hugging isn’t a very big deal, after all. And Christmas is full of holiday cheer; it makes sense that he would hug you, and you would hug back, right?”

“Of course!” Kyoko’s voice echoed the relief she obviously felt. “So it really didn't mean anything, did it?"

“No, not at all,” Kanae was glad that Kyoko couldn’t see her face, for she wore an expression that completely contradicted her words.

“So it was all just caused by holiday cheer!” Kyoko was happy, that much was clear. “Thank you, Moko, you’re my best friend ever! Merry Christmas!”

“Merry Christmas,” Kanae returned, before hanging up the phone.

Disaster averted, but she knew it was only a matter of time. Oh, they were so screwed!

Kyoko hung up the phone in a much better mood. Of course it was all just a result of holiday cheer; after all, all those couples kissing out on the street yesterday, all the TV programmes today focused on love, it only made sense that it would rub off. A hug on Christmas Day didn’t mean anything at all! She skipped down to the kitchen to help the Okami-san make lunch.

Ren eventually drove back to his apartment, and pulled out his stack of books again. Life of Pi, where was he again? Oh, it didn’t matter. He couldn’t concentrate on the words anyway; the English words were slithering away under his fingertips. He tossed the book onto the coffee table, leaned his head back on the couch, and stared at the ceiling, thinking back. Her soft body, warm even through her winter coat, the knit texture of her hat, the lingering flowery smell of her body wash in his mind . . . the way that she had wrapped her own arms around him, returning his embrace. For him, that was heaven in a nutshell.

The only thing left to see was if Kyoko would talk to him tomorrow.

***

The next day, Yashiro was eagerly awaiting the results of his genius plan. If all went according to plan, Ren and Kyoko would be a great deal happier, and the women of Japan, disappointed. And really, it should have gone according to plan; how hard could it be? Seeing the weather report, he sent Kyoko to Ren, supposedly to keep him company, and the storm had indeed struck. Furthermore, he knew that Ren’s apartment was in one of the districts of power outages, so Kyoko should have been forced to stay the night. A perfect opportunity for a love confession, a realization of feelings, and on the most romantic night of the year. . .

“Good morning, Yashiro-san!” Kyoko was, as usual, on set early. The scar did take three hours to put on, he recalled. And she had a large role in one of the scenes to be filmed today. She seemed happy, but no happier than usual . . . “Here’s your present!” She passed him a wrapped box.

“Thank you!” He smiled down at her through his glasses. “May I open it?” he asked, untying the ribbon that held the whole affair together.

“Of course,” Kyoko laughed. “What else are presents for?”

“I was being polite,” Yashiro excused himself. “A tie! Thank you!” He brandished his gift, a plain red tie, one that would match most of the suits in his wardrobe. “How was your holiday?”

“You’re welcome,” Kyoko replied. “It was good, Tsuruga-kun and I baked a Christmas cake.”

Tsuruga-kun? Surely over the weekend, she had been stranded at his place, and surely they would have made more progress than that?

“Were you hit badly by the blizzard?” he asked. Maybe his information had been bad, and Kyoko hadn’t been forced to stay the night?

“Oh, yes,” Kyoko replied. “Were you? I had to stay the night in Tsuruga-kun’s apartment, it’s a good thing he had a spare bedroom. And we did lose power, but it came back on around two in the morning, so it wasn’t too bad.”

“Oh, no, my area didn’t lose power or anything, it was fine,” Yashiro replied. Had Ren really made as little progress as Kyoko was indicating?

“That’s good,” Kyoko said agreeably. “I’ve got to go get my makeup done; you know how long that scar takes.” She smiled sheepishly and disappeared into the makeup rooms.

“Good morning, Yashiro-san,” Ren appeared behind him. Yashiro whirled, furious at his friend.

“You damn failure as a lover!” he snapped, berating his charge.

Fin.

Author’s Notes: Yay, it’s done! Now, there aren’t any more chapters after this, but I might have a couple oneshots kicking around for Valentine’s Day and White Day. Please review/comment! We didn’t reach 50 last time, but I can still hope. . .

Merry Christmas, or Happy Holidays, everyone!

[fic] Starbucks

Sun, 16 Dec 2007 04:51:23 GMT

Title: Starbucks
Fandom: Ouran High School Host Club
Author: kitsunerei88
Pairing(s): Kyouya/Haruhi
Rating: PG13
Genre: Introspective/Romance
Summary: [Oneshot, Holiday Fic Exchange: Prompt: Ice] Sometimes, falling in love just happens, especially when you don’t want it to.
Warnings: Stylistic oddities.
Disclaimer: Ouran High School Host Club is the property of Bisco Hatori. And various other companies, I’m sure.
Word Count: 1221
Thank Yous: Setsuna Kagami for looking it over for me.

Starbucks

“No, I’m very sorry,” Kyouya replied, smiling kindly, at the first year that had caught up with him in the hallway. She was the youngest daughter of a major electronics company’s CEO, he was well aware. It wouldn’t do to offend her. “I’m already occupied on Christmas Eve.”

The girl looked as if she was about to burst into tears. In fact, she probably would if he wasn’t careful. “Do you . . . do you already have someone else?”

“No, no,” Kyouya said, artfully hastening his speech and injecting just the right amount of alarm. “No, my family has a policy of spending time together on Christmas Eve. I’m very sorry.”

“Oh. I see.” The first year stared down at her shoes, swallowing the lie. “Umm, I will be, umm, going then.” She turned around and fled; it had evidently taken all her courage to even ask the cool upperclassman to spend Christmas Eve with her.

Meet Kyouya Ohtori; handsome, intelligent, and cool. Kyouya Ohtori, who had everything and wanted more. Just not in terms of love; love was for the weak, for the romantic. Love made you stupid, shameless, and poor. Which was why, of course, it was so great for manipulating people. As long as you didn’t fall in love yourself, that is.

Yes, indeed, Kyouya Ohtori was an ice king.

One floor below him, a very different person was in the exact same situation he had been.

“No, I’m very sorry,” Haruhi replied, bowing her head in apology at the petite, blonde girl in front of her. Was she in 1-B? Haruhi wasn’t sure who she was. “My father and I traditionally spend time together on Christmas Eve; I’m very sorry!”

“I . . . I see,” the girl said, her eyes filling with tears. “I understand.” She turned and left, dignified, her blonde hair fluttering into place behind her.

Haruhi sighed. How many times was this going to play out again? She didn’t like lying, but it was necessary. She didn’t want to spend time with any of the girls on Christmas Eve.

Meet Haruhi Fujioka; handsome, intelligent, and a natural. Haruhi Fujioka, whose major goal in life was to become a lawyer, and who had entered Ouran High School on a special scholarship for that exact purpose. Love wasn’t something she wanted; she had far, far too much to do to have time for something as frivolous as that.

Yes, in her own way, Haruhi Fujioka was an ice queen.

So on Christmas Eve, what are our ice king and ice queen doing together sitting in a common Starbucks?

“It’s cold today,” Haruhi murmured softly, staring outside the window. Fat snowflakes drifted down from the sky; the wind blew them into fantastic swirls. Long icicles hung from the cloth overhang. She could almost see the twins having sword fights with them, if they were here. Turning her gaze down to her white hot chocolate, she warmed her cold fingers against the cup, before cautiously taking a sip. The warmth flowed into her, immediately making the chill of the fifteen minute walk here disappear.

“Mmm,” Kyouya agreed, gazing outside the window as well. His chai tea latte sat on the table, steam rising in curls above it. His fingers brushed the paper cup tenderly, taking in its warmth. The action was discreet, as he himself tended to be. He turned back to Haruhi. “It will be a white Christmas.”

“So it will.” Haruhi smiled softly. “Are you sure this place is . . .” she hesitated, looking around. It was crowded tonight. Of course, she thought, it would be. It was Christmas Eve tonight, the busiest night of the year for any food establishments. Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony hummed softly underneath the chatter of the people. “High class enough for you?”

He raised an eyebrow at her expression. She was so nervous; in an odd way, it pleased him that he unsettled her so much. “I wouldn’t have suggested it if it wasn’t,” he replied. “We won’t be recognized here.”

Haruhi supposed that was true. Any Ouran student with a date tonight will have gotten a reservation at a nice restaurant. But there were others, she thought, others that might have gotten in their minds to come to a commoner’s coffee shop on Christmas Eve. “And what about Tamaki and the others?”

“Tamaki was going to have a party,” Kyouya let an amused smile creep onto his face. “But none of the girls wanted to come after they found out there would be other girls there. He’ll be sulking in his room.”

Haruhi laughed. It was so like Tamaki; when Kyouya had given the orders to turn down all the invitations the Host Club members got to spend Christmas Eve with someone, Tamaki had invariably ignored him and accepted any invitations that he had gotten. He had argued that while showing favouritism would lead to a decrease in revenue, it wasn’t showing favouritism if he accepted all invitations. “And what about the twins, Honey-senpai, and Mori-senpai?”

“The twins are at home, watching Home Alone.” Kyouya smiled wryly. “It’s their favourite. Honey-senpai and Mori-senpai are also probably at home.”

“I see.” Haruhi took another sip of her hot chocolate. It was sweet; while she normally didn’t like sweets, today seemed to be special. She struggled to think of something to say; the silence was awkward.

“It’s good.” Kyouya murmured, caught in the same dilemma as the girl across from him. He sipped at his latte quietly. “Perhaps we should visit Starbucks more often.”

“We?” Haruhi asked, surprised.

“You and I,” Kyouya said. He couldn’t believe that he was saying that. After all, love was for morons. Morons went into coffee shops on Christmas Eve and drank coffee with their girlfriends. Though, to his credit, Haruhi wasn’t his girlfriend, per se. He just cared about her. He’d invited her out, thinking that she would be lonely; after all, Ranka would be working at the bar until the early hours of the morning, serving other couples. Was that love?

If it was, it sucked. Being in love would wreck everything he’d worked towards.

“You and I?” Haruhi replied, confused, staring at the boy across from her. No, no, she didn’t want this. She was going to graduate from Ouran, get that special scholarship to enter the law department at the university, and move on. She didn’t have time for petty things like falling in love. She didn’t have time to go temporarily insane and do stupid things. She had to study. And yet . . . And yet she couldn’t seem to bring herself to turn him down, just as she hadn’t been able to turn him down when he had called earlier today, inviting her out.

Then she caught sight of the reflection of their faces in the glass window beside them, and laughed. The same aghast expression adorned both their faces; Kyouya’s for having suggested it and hers for having heard it. Kyouya had evidently caught it as well, for a quiet smile crossed his face. They were both in the same situation, they realized.

“Sure,” she replied, turning to face him. “Starbucks it is.”

And so the ice king and the ice queen fell in love, neither desiring it nor embracing it, yet unable to resist it.

Author’s Notes: I tried writing this in a different style than usual, thus there is a strict third-party narrator which I’ve never used before; opinions on it would be great. I’m used to writing from a particular character’s perspective, or from multiple characters’ perspectives (and flipping between) . . . this was definitely fun to write.

Please comment/review! Feedback would be awesome!

Snowfall: Midnight

Mon, 10 Dec 2007 04:53:54 GMT

Title: Snowfall
Chapter: 2
Fandom: Skip Beat!
Author: kitsunerei88
Pairing(s): Ren/Kyoko
Rating: G
Genre: Romance/General
Summary: It’s Christmas Eve, and LME has given all of its employees a couple of days off. Thinking Ren might be lonely, Yashiro sends Kyoko to see him. [Second Chapter] It’s the middle of the night in the worst blizzard in a decade, there’s no power, and more importantly, there’s no heat.
Warnings: Makes sense mostly in the context after Chapter 110, but no major spoilers.
Disclaimer: Skip Beat! is the property of Yoshiki Nakamura, and a whole lot of other people and companies.
Thank Yous: Again, to Alastair Black, for being so kind to beat me over the head until it was done right.

Snowfall: Midnight

The first thing Kyoko noticed was that the ballroom was crowded. The men wore suits; the women wore beautiful cocktail dresses in all colours. Looking down, she saw she, too, was wearing a sequined, floor-length dress in creamy white. Near the distant walls, she could make out the blurred figures of cameras and sound systems.

“Are you all right?” Tsuruga-san approached her from behind, his voice low. It wasn’t quite right, Kyoko thought. There was a note in there, something she didn’t quite recognize. Discontent, maybe? Disapproval? Certainly not anger, for her demon antenna was not out. No, she thought, it wasn't that. She was more in tune with Tsuruga-san’s emotions than that. No, that note definitely sounded like pain. Well-hidden, but there nonetheless.

“Yes, I’m fine,” she replied, her voice as quiet as his, laced with concern for her senpai. “Are you all right?”

He sighed. “I’m fine,” he said, the corner of his mouth turning up in a smile. Everything else about him contested this fact; his suit was uncharacteristically wrinkled, his eyes were tired, and his hair was a mess. Kyoko doubted he’d slept. She was about to press him further when a woman wearing a navy-blue pantsuit approached him with a microphone, and he gave one last smile to her and drifted away to speak to the reporter.

Kyoko studied the banquet hall in more detail, thinking. It was vast; a little too warm. The walls, further away than should be possible, were guilded. Chairs were arranged in rows in the front of the room, and people were chatting, loudly and excitedly. She heard, underneath the chatter of the people, a classical tune; Pachelbel’s Canon in D? Perhaps this was a set for a movie? That would explain Tsuruga-san’s presence, and the cameras. It would even explain his sadness and his appearance; perhaps his role was a sad one, and he hadn’t gotten out of his role yet. Looking around, she realized she recognized several actors and actresses that she had worked with before. Kuu Hizuri was there, with a woman who could only be his wife, Julie. Momose Itsumi, resplendant in a pale pink, was deep in conversation with Director Ogata, who was dressed to match in a cream-coloured shirt and navy trousers. She also spotted someone else, someone who shouldn’t be there. Someone who had no business in show business. Frowning, she disengaged herself from the back of the hall, where she had apparently been standing close to the exit and followed that familiar figure.

Saena. It was her mother. Well, that did it. This was a definitely a dream, because her mother had no place at a movie set. The rational part of her mind questioned the presence of Kuu Hizuri, but that was irrelevant. After all, he was an actor! And Julie was of course there to give him support. But Saena, Saena had no place at a movie set. Unless of course this was all a dream, which it must be!

Well, even if this was a dream, she didn’t feel like talking to her mother. She retreated rapidly to the back of the ballroom, hoping to escape out those doors, but was hampered as people stopped to wish her congratulations. Even dreaming, she smiled and thanked them. After all, it wasn’t important to know what they were congratulating her for; she would probably wake up soon anyway. Glancing over her shoulder, trying to see if she could still see her mother, she ran headfirst into a tall, suited man. His blonde hair sparkled in the lights of the chandelier.

“Whoa, watch where you’re going, honey,” said a voice she recognized. She would recognize this voice anywhere, even though it contained a tone she didn’t normally associate with him. Caring, for one. Affection, for another. She looked up and met the eyes of Shotaro Fuwa. “We wouldn’t want you to fall down on your way to the aisle,” he said, as Kyoko, panicked, looked behind her and saw the masses of people part to reveal a smiling priest and an altar.

The dream spiralled into a nightmare as Kyoko struggled to open her mouth to scream.

“AIIIIRRRRRRRRGHHHHH!” Kyoko opened her eyes, thrashing around in her blankets, rolling out of her bed as she did so. She landed on the hardwood floor with a loud thump. Struggling to sit up, she disentangled herself with trouble from her sheets and breathed deeply. The air was cold, she realized, momentarily thankful as it brought her to her senses. It was a nightmare, she thought, just a nightmare. After all, Shotaro would never take a second look at her, right? She was plain, and had no sex appeal. She laughed nervously at her own foolish mind, running her fingers through her damp, sweat-soaked hair, her breathing obscenely loud in the silent night.

". . . Time is it?" she wondered aloud, searching for the alarm clock in the dark bedroom. Tsuruga-san’s spare bedroom, she remembered. There should be a clock around her somewhere, she thought, slowly getting up to her feet. She gasped when the cold air hit her bare legs, cursing under her breath as she remembered. After they realized that she would have no choice but to stay the night, Tsuruga-san had offered her an oversized, thick sweater to sleep in. Given his height, the sweater fell to her knees. Unfortunately, despite their best efforts, he had failed to procure anything like pyjama bottoms for her to wear that actually fit. Thinking back, Kyoko regretted turning down the pyjama bottoms he had offered her, even though they were so long that she would have tread over an extra foot of fabric walking anywhere with them and the waistline was about seven inches too large. It was cold.

Grimacing, she finally found a clock and drew up on another string of curses. It was a bedside digital alarm clock. The lights that should have been blinking the time at her were blank. The power was still out, she realized – and Tsuruga-san must have an electric heating system. That would explain the temperature of the apartment. She gathered up the sheets and blankets without thinking, quietly making the bed out of agitated habit. Sleep was out of the question, at least until she was calmer. She would find out what time it was before planning anything.

Two rooms over, Ren rolled over in his bed. Cold air crept into his bed and over his body, warmth retreating into the night. He had hoped the power would come back on shortly, but there had been no such luck; the heat in the apartment had finally seeped out. And of course he, being something of an insomniac, had been awake to feel every single degree slip away.

At least Kyoko had fallen asleep fairly quickly, he thought, shifting his pillow into a more comfortable position. He had gotten up to check on her a couple hours ago, and had found her dozing fitfully, rationalizing his behaviour with his concern. If she seemed too cold then, he had been fully prepared to give her all of his blankets too, he had stubbornly insisted to himself before he went. Of course he hadn’t just wanted to catch a glimpse of her sleeping face; so like a child’s, so innocent in her sleep. Closing his eyes, she was still in his mind, breathing slow and even, a lock of chestnut brown hair falling over her eyes. He remembered wanting to take a seat beside her, stroke her face, tuck that stray bit of hair behind one of those crescent-shaped ears; her breathing was light and even, her face tilted to one side, her body curled in the fetal position, facing the wall. The blankets had been clenched tightly with one hand, the other hand tucked under the blankets. He sighed, trying to rid his mind of the image. She had looked so defenceless in her sleep, immediately provoking a desire in him to protect her. Wrap her in his arms, bury his face into her sweet-smelling brown hair, warm her with his body heat. . . Well, he grumbled, rolling over, with luck, the power would come back on sometime in the night, and the apartment would be warm before she woke in the morning. She would never realize a thing.

“AIIIIRRRRRRRRGHHHHH!” A shriek tore through the apartment from the spare bedroom, followed abruptly by a loud thud. Ren sat upright in bed, alarmed. Kyoko! His mind was seized with nothing but her safety; but another thought hit him only a second later. Clearly, Kyoko was awake – would it be considered appropriate for him to go barging to the spare bedroom to make sure she was safe? He had been awake for the entire night; if anyone had broken in, he would have known. She could be more alarmed by him coming into her room at one in the morning. Thus prompting the question, would it be appropriate for him to go checking on her right now? Probably not, but . . .

To hell with it, he thought, shaking his head. It would be perfectly appropriate for someone to go checking on someone else after hearing them scream. He swung his long legs off his bed, wincing as they hit the cold hardwood floor, and strode, worried, to the spare bedroom.

Kyoko sighed as she finally finished making the bed. It had taken longer than usual, indicating that she was either upset, tired, or both. In her current state, it was probably both. After all, who wouldn’t be upset after having a dream about marrying their worst enemy? Ugh . . . Marriage on its own was terrifying, without factoring in Shotaro! She sighed again, and reached for the door; Tsuruga-san had a traditional, non-digital clock in the living room, didn’t he?

A soft knock came at her door. “Kyoko?” Tsuruga-san’s voice came through the door. “Are you all right?”

Kyoko shuddered as he echoed the words of her dream. Of course she would have woken him with her scream; Yashiro-san had told her once that he was a light sleeper, if he slept at all. “Perfectly fine," she replied, keeping her voice steady as she opened the door. His hair was tousled, but his eyes were wide awake. He looked much warmer than she felt in his flannel pyjama set, his tall body hanging gracefully in her doorway, one hand on the doorframe. “Sorry to wake you,” she said, apologetic.

“I was already awake,” Ren replied, his eyes wandering of their own accord to her bare legs, then snapping back up to her face. No, he scolded himself sharply, stopping a few stray thoughts from even surfacing in his brain. She looks cold, doesn't she? His mind whispered conspiratorially. Wouldn’t he like to wrap her up and cuddle her on that bed, oh so conveniently placed this room? He was glad he was such a good actor, for not a single hint of those thoughts ever reached his face. “What’s wrong?” he asked, carefully making sure his face betrayed only concern, despite whatever his mind might be thinking.

“Oh, it’s nothing,” Kyoko laughed, a little higher and more nervous than usual. She would have fooled someone else, he realized; it was only that he spent so much time focusing on her small quirks and behaviour that he had even picked up on that. He raised an eyebrow, not satisfied with her answer. “Just . . . just a bad dream,” she continued hesitantly, her eyes falling away from him, focusing on the doorframe lying beneath his hand.

“Do you want to talk about it?” The words sprang unbidden to his lips.

“No.” He was surprised at how harsh her voice had been, her eyes springing back up to meet his, alarmed. To him, that tone was sharper than the cold of the apartment. Didn’t she trust him? A frown crossed his face, but he erased in an instant. It would not do to drive her away. He changed the subject. “Are you cold?”

Kyoko hesitated as guilt ran over her. She had caught the frown that flashed across Tsuruga-san’s face. I don’t want to tell him, she thought, distressed, but I don’t want to seem like I don’t trust him, either. Taking a deep breath, she focused on the question at hand. He would think she was weird if she took too long to answer. “A little,” she admitted. Part of her mind realized that under normal circumstances, she would never have admitted it, but it was better to say that and have him forget about the dream altogether.

“The stove will still work,” Tsuruga-san offered, his voice more tentative than usual. Bad sign, Kyoko thought, inwardly grimacing. Definitely a bad sign. “Since it’s a gas stove. We can make hot chocolate?”

Kyoko faltered, unsure. On one hand, hot chocolate did sound good, and it would mean she wouldn’t have to go back to bed until the shock of the nightmare had worn off; on the other, she would have to make conversation with Tsuruga-san, hoping the entire time that he remained Tsuruga-san, for she certainly couldn’t deal with the Emperor of the Night in this condition. And there was no guarantee that he wouldn’t bring up the dream again – she wished she hadn’t said anything at all about that stupid dream, but what choice did she have? What other reason did she have for screaming in the middle of the night? In the end, however, the desire for hot chocolate won. “Sure,” she agreed reluctantly, to cover her confusion. She was rewarded with a smile, as Tsuruga-san turned towards the kitchen.

The warmth of the stove cheered her greatly, as Tsuruga-san silently took down a pot. She filled it with water from the tap and set it on the stove. Tsuruga-san fished out two mugs and a container of dry hot chocolate mix as she discreetly tried to warm her fingers over the pot. Silence sprouted in the room, and filled it quickly, broken only by the click of the stove; it was as cold and prickly as the howling winds outside. Neither Kyoko nor Ren were comfortable in the silence, but neither could think of anything to say.

While Kyoko waited for the water to boil, Ren found the matchbox they had used to light the candles the night before left carelessly on the kotatsu. He quickly lit the candles in the living room, contemplating moving one of the candles down onto the kotatsu itself. On the bright side, it would be romantic, and he would like that. However, Kyoko would not take well to it, and she was already on edge. It wouldn’t take much for her to say “I despise you” to him, if he wasn’t careful. Shaking his head, he sighed and decided against it. It wasn’t worth the risk. He seated himself at the kotatsu with a sigh, his mind wandering back to her expression as she refused to tell him about her dream. Alarmed, but not particularly frightened. The way her eyes sprang up to meet his, wider than usual . . . His mind lingered, as it so often did when she was near, on her small movements, her expressions, her speech patterns . . . He was obsessed, he thought with vague disgust, putting his head in his hands. He really was. He stared out the window, their curtains left open for the meagre light earlier. It was still snowing heavily, though it was hard to see anything else.

“I’m done,” Kyoko called to him softly from the kitchen. He didn’t know how she managed to get the water to boil that fast; whenever he boiled water on the stove, which was rare, it always took at least ten minutes. Usually longer. She came out from the kitchen, balancing two mugs of hot chocolate carefully in her hands, her steps sure in the dim light.

"Here," she set down a mug of steaming hot chocolate in front of him, cushioning the impact gently with her pinky finger. He wondered where she had picked that up; some drama, perhaps? She seated herself noiselessly across from him, tucking her legs under the kotatsu with considerably less apprehension than before. It wasn’t on, but the blanket had still trapped some heat within the structure. She really must be cold, a part of his mind analyzed distantly. “Is it still . . .” She hesitated, trying to find the right word. “Storming?”

“Snowing, yes,” he replied, his voice soft as hers. He lowered his eyes briefly to his mug of hot chocolate, bringing the mug to his lips. It was good; she hadn’t put a lot of chocolate in his mug. Somehow, it pleased him that she knew that he didn’t like sweets. He didn’t usually drink hot chocolate, and the container had been a gift from an actress he had worked with in another drama. It was supposedly top-quality, but he wouldn’t know the difference. “It’s difficult to tell from the window.”

“I see,” Kyoko stared down into her mug of hot chocolate, expression difficult to read. Ren eyed her carefully; she seemed to have calmed down now.

“Do you feel like talking about your dream now?” The words slipped out his mouth before he had really thought about it. He waited for her reaction with caution.

“Not really,” she replied, but her voice wasn’t particularly adamant. Her gaze was still firmly set in bottom of her mug. He wondered what she could see there; the swirl of the milk she stirred into her own cup, perhaps? “It’s not really that interesting.”

“To the contrary, Kyoko-chan” he teased her gently, taking the initiative. He was curious. “It’s very interesting. You confronted delinquents to find your role for Mio, you willingly sought out your stalker in Karuizawa . . . I think it would be very interesting to find out what left you screaming at one in the morning.”

Kyoko flushed at the memory, her eyes meeting his. No, no, the dream was just far, far too embarrassing to talk about. Tsuruga-san stared at her, resting his head in one hand, balancing himself gracefully on the table. She didn’t know how he managed it. His eyes curled up at the ends in a hidden smile. “No,” she insisted, ignoring the “Kyoko-chan” that he had so obviously thrown out to taunt her. Part of her realized that half the women in Japan would pay millions of dollars to have Tsuruga-san call them by “–chan.” She wished she could sell the honour; it would pay both tuitions for high school and acting school, and a lot more besides. “Really, it’s not that interesting.” She smiled back at him, reinforcing her words.

“Ahh,” Tsuruga-san murmured softly, voice light. “But seeing as you woke me up with your screaming, I believe you owe me an explanation.” Kyoko raised her eyebrow, watching at him steadily as she sipped on her hot chocolate, as much for show as otherwise.

“Liar,” she told him, feeling her lips curve up in a smile. “You said you were already awake when you came to check on me. You’re just curious.” She set the mug down.

Ren dropped the hand that he had been resting his head on, laughing quietly. “So I am,” he agreed. It was playing out the way he had planned, as the atmosphere in the room was now much lighter. “I really wish you would trust me, though,” he said, turning his voice soft and serious, watching her expression with care. This was his trump card; after all, hadn’t she herself said once that she “didn’t want to lose his trust?”

“I do!” Kyoko started, “It’s just . . .” She hesitated, thinking seriously for the first time about her dream. A dream about a wedding, a seething crowd, camera shutters stuttering, Pachelbel’s Canon . . . Her own wedding, she corrected herself, still horrified that her mind could come up with something so dreadful. To Shotaro. Ignoring that, however, there was another anomalous fact that she hadn’t seen until just now.

That was Tsuruga-san himself. He had been in her dream, in the very beginning, hadn’t he? She stared into her mug, stroking the handle with her thumb. And he had not been happy; he had sounded in pain, he hadn’t paid as much attention to his appearance as usual, he had looked as if he hadn’t slept all night. Why was that? Why would Tsuruga-san be hurt if, she thought, wincing, if she married Shotaro? Angry, she could understand; she would be furious with herself if she married him at this point. Tsuruga-san knew that she was in show business to get revenge, so he would be angry at her for abandoning her principles, but there was no reason why he would, or should be hurt by this action. . .

Moko’s words from the karaoke box, so long ago, came back. “Maybe . . . Tsuruga-san likes you?” Moko had been serious, but still . . .

That was ridiculous! She drew her hand back from her mug and smacked the table with her fist. Completely ridiculous! Tsuruga-san had his pick of women in Japan, and Kyoko knew that she wasn’t a prize. Wasn’t she plain and lacking sex appeal? Didn’t she get dumped by Shotaro? No, that was definitely ridiculous.

But it was the only explanation that made sense in the context of her dream.

Ren watched the girl across from him as she stared at him, an expression of surprise, then thoughtfulness crossing her face as she focused her stare on her mug. A frown came over her face next. She stayed silent, stroking the handle on her mug with her thumb. All of a sudden, she winced, and continued to stare at her mug. Ren paused, unsure of what he should say. Should he tell her to forget about it, that it was okay if she didn’t want to tell him? But she didn’t look particularly angry; indeed, she looked as if she was focusing on a stray thought that hadn’t occurred to her until this very moment. Suddenly, she withdrew her hand from her mug and smacked the kotatsu with a fist, making the liquid in his mug jump. Surprised, he eyed her expression; it had changed to one of confusion. Taking the risk, he asked, “Just?”

Kyoko shook herself out of her reverie and raised her head to meet Tsuruga-san’s expression of intermingled curiosity and surprise. It was, after all, just a dream. Things didn’t have to make sense in dreams. She smiled reassuringly at Tsuruga-san; she didn’t have to tell him about that part, after all. He would understand why she woke up screaming if she just gave him a barebones explanation. “It’s just, I just had a dream about marrying Shotaro,” she ventured, colouring furiously. “It was horrifying.”

Ren froze for a moment, then burst out laughing. Really, this girl! She could chase down a speeding car on a bicycle, get perfect on all of ditch her high school transfer exams, and act like a pro in a matter of months, but what was she scared of? Marriage. The cherry on the cake was that it was marriage to a childhood friend that she currently hated, and who, at least according to that part of his mind that he always tried to shut up in her presence, was his top rival for her affections.

Kyoko blushed furiously, watching Tsuruga-san shake with laughter. It was ridiculous, she knew. She brought her mug to her lips and took several large gulps of warm hot chocolate, wishing to remove herself from the room. Melting into a puddle in the floor wasn’t an option, apparently, though she’d tried as he started laughing.

Suddenly, she was blinded by the flood of light in the room. She blinked furiously, trying to see – her vision was clouded with bright spots of white. She could see that Tsuruga-san was doing the exact same thing across from her, having stopped laughing as soon as the lights came back on. No one had thought to turn off the light switch before going to bed, so the lights had come on with the restoration of power.

“Well,” he said, cocking his head to one side as she finally regained enough of her vision to see him clearly. “I would say that was interesting. And the apartment should warm up soon.”

Kyoko smiled; he wasn’t going to ridicule her. She caught sight of his clock hanging in the room; it was as much for show as for use, not being digital, and drew in a quick breath of surprise.

“It’s almost two in the morning!” she blurted out, suddenly feeling slightly guilty. She wasn’t really used to staying up this late, actress or not.

Ren chuckled at the expression on her face. “So it is,” he agreed, taking a long draught of his hot chocolate. “If you think you can sleep now, we can finish this and go to bed.” Part of him wanted her to say no, so that he could stay up with her longer.

“Yes, I’m fine now,” Kyoko said, crushing his hopes. “Thank you very much,” she offered, finishing her hot chocolate. He imitated her, finishing his hot chocolate quickly and passing the mug into the hand she offered to him. “I’ll go put these in the sink to soak. I’ll wash them in the morning,” she said. A smile came on to her face.

He nodded, concealing his disappointment. It was a good thing that she felt better, he snapped at himself inwardly. He rose from the table, blowing out the candles he had lit earlier. “Good night, Kyoko-chan,” he called out softly to her retreating back as she left for the kitchen, looking much smaller than usual in his ridiculously oversized shirt.

She paused and glanced back at him. His eyes held a remarkable level of caring, she realized. Had that always been there? She didn’t know; she had never thought about that before. “Good night,” she replied, pausing as she tried to find the appropriate words to call him. Senpai? No, that wasn’t quite right. Tsuruga-san wasn’t right either, it felt too . . . too formal, she realized. But she certainly couldn’t call him by his first name! “Tsuruga-kun,” she finished shyly, and continued her path into the kitchen.

Ren stared at her as she walked into the kitchen without a second glance at him. “Well,” he murmured softly, blissfully happy. “I couldn’t really have expected her to call me Ren-kun.” He shook his head as he waited at the door to his bedroom, one hand on the light switch, for Kyoko to finish in the kitchen and return to the spare bedroom. Yashiro would have teased him for enjoying some small and trivial progress again. He heard the water running in the kitchen, and soon after, Kyoko crossed the living room, giving him a shy smile, and returned to the spare bedroom.

He flicked off the lights and returned to his bed. As a bonus, he thought, Kyoko is clearly opposed to marrying Sho Fuwa. This time, he fell asleep easily.

In the spare bedroom, Kyoko stared at the ceiling, Moko’s words again echoing through her mind. “Maybe . . . Tsuruga-san likes you?” She rolled over, getting into a more comfortable position in her cold blankets. “That’s ridiculous,” she snapped to the wall. “Absolutely ridiculous.”

She banished the thought from her mind and slept, dreaming troubled dreams, all of them starring that strange Tsuruga-kun.

Fin

Author’s Notes: Most of the language and cultural details will be the same as for the last chapter. So mostly amusing details now . . .

For the record, Ren isn’t actually THAT obsessed with Kyoko, it’s just that she’s around and as far as his mind is concerned, only half dressed. But he doesn’t want to think about that, so he doesn’t. And I’ve actually had a dream like Kyoko’s before, only I didn’t wake up screaming, I was just really, really freaked out. And also, if you’re ever in a situation where the power is out and the heat is out, and you have a gas stove, DO NOT use the stove for heat! It will lead to carbon monoxide poisoning! Don’t follow Ren and Kyoko’s bad example!

There should be one last part to this, but I haven’t written it yet. I’m going to try to get it written and posted before Christmas, but god knows. . . I’ve got a lot of other fics to concentrate on this month.

As always, please comment or review! I broke 25 with the first chapter of this, so the greatest Christmas present ever for me would be to break 50! I reply to all reviews too, so feel free to comment on anything and everything!

Snowfall

Tue, 20 Nov 2007 03:31:33 GMT

Title: Snowfall
Fandom: Skip Beat!
Author: kitsunerei88
Pairing(s): Ren/Kyoko
Rating: G
Genre: Romance/General
Summary: It’s Christmas Eve, and LME has given all of its employees a couple of days off. Thinking Ren might be lonely, Yashiro sends Kyoko to see him.
Warnings: Makes sense mostly in the context after Chapter 110, but no major spoilers.
Disclaimer: Skip Beat! is the property of Yoshiki Nakamura, and a whole lot of other people and companies.
Thank Yous: Alastair Black, for ridiculing me until I did it right.

Snowfall

“What am I doing tonight?” Kyoko pursed her lips, thinking. Her restless fingers toyed with a charm hanging off of her cell phone. Lory had declared that “Christmas is a holiday for love!” and had given everyone in the LME agency both Christmas Eve and Christmas off. She had been planning to work the night at Darumaya, for it would be the busiest night of the year, but the Okami-san had surprised her by giving her the night off after she helped the Taisho make a huge batch of rice and noodles. “I don’t think I’m doing anything, why?”

“Is that so?” Yashiro’s voice perked up, and a smile spread over his face. “Well, Ren is always lonely at Christmas,” he said, pleased with how well the lie rolled off the tongue. He knew full well that Ren would spend most of his break reading. “And you know his eating habits, he’ll spend all Christmas eating instant noodles. Do you think you could drop by later and keep him company for a bit?”

“Umm, okay,” Kyoko said, her voice uncertain. Somehow, she couldn’t see Tsuruga-san pining away on Christmas Eve, but she didn’t really feel like being alone on Christmas either. Stupid couples. Stupid romances on TV. Stupid Shotaro. She sighed, looking out the window. “If I’m going to go, I better leave soon – it’s snowing pretty hard.”

“Thanks, Kyoko-chan,” Yashiro’s voice echoed his gratefulness, but his face echoed something different, something slightly evil. Christmas, he thought, would be a perfect time to get Ren and Kyoko together!

“No problem, Yashiro-san,” Kyoko said. She was absentmindedly glancing around her room, thinking about what to bring. Obviously she would need her coat, hat and mittens, and probably she would need one of her cookbooks; it would be impossible now to get a Christmas cake, so she would probably have to bake one from scratch. Perhaps the supermarket down the road was still open too, so she could buy the ingredients there. Oh, and she would have to bring Tsuruga-san’s present, too. She had initially intended on giving it to him on the 26th, but that would not be necessary now. “I’ll see you on the 26th at the Tsukigomori filming, right?” she asked Yashiro-san, spotting his present sitting beside Tsuruga-san’s. “I’ll give you your present then, okay?”

“Oh, thank you,” Yashiro’s voice betrayed his surprise. “I’ll see you on the 26th, then. Bye.” Only after he pressed the end button did he begin to laugh, imagining Ren’s face as Kyoko showed up on his doorstep on Christmas Eve, of all days. Now, with luck, Ren wouldn’t screw everything up, and they would be a couple by the 26th.

Kyoko shut her cell phone with a clack and tucked it back into her bag. She grabbed Tsuruga-san’s present and her dessert cookbook and tucked that away too, and pulled her coat, hat and mittens out of her closet. “Present, check, cell phone, check, wallet, check, keys, check, cookbook, check,” she murmured, glancing through the contents of her bag. Looking outside her window, she could see that it was snowing pretty hard, or rather, pretty thickly. It was the kind of snow that had big, fat snowflakes, but not a lot of wind. Very romantic, she thought bitterly, spotting a young couple nuzzling noses on the street. An older couple strolled past them, laughing. She sighed and clattered down the stairs to the doors before pulling on her coat, hat and mittens. “I’m off,” she called to the Okami-san who absentmindedly nodded and told her to have fun. The restaurant was getting busier.

In his neat third floor apartment, Ren settled back in his leather couch, a stack of novels on the mahogany coffee table in front of him. Strangely enough, even for those who knew him, these novels were all in English. In magazines and on the air, Ren Tsuruga had no more command of the English language than the average Japanese businessman. Christmas was his only chance each year to settle back and read his favourite English books without interruption.

Well, until the doorbell rang. He sighed and set down The Life of Pi, thinking darkly that if it were a door-to-door salesman, he might just snap and hit him. No, he thought, mentally shaking himself and taking several deep breaths. No, of course he wouldn’t, because that wasn’t something that Ren Tsuruga would do. No, he decided, if it was a door to door salesman, he would pretend he wasn’t there. Yes, that’s it, he thought, conveniently forgetting that this building was card-locked and door-to-door salesmen wouldn’t even be able to get to his apartment. Looking through the peephole, however, he saw Kyoko – Kyoko, who looked somewhat uncertain, and yet twice as beautiful as usual, with snow melting into water droplets on her hat, in her hair, even in her eyelashes. No, not twice as beautiful, he thought, because that would no justice to her. Four times as beautiful, maybe. Hell, even fourteen times as beautiful. He opened the door for her as Kyoko looked uncertainly at the doorbell, clearly wondering if she should press it again. He saw a smile spread across her round face, as she tilted her head up to look at him. In an adoring manner, his mind purred to him. You'd wish, wouldn't you?

“Mogami-san, what brings you here?” He smiled down at the petite girl, only noticing now that she carried a large paper grocery bag with both arms. His fingers itched to wipe a loose, cold, wet strand of hair from her face, but he kept them locked on the doorframe. "Come in," he invited, eyeing her wet clothes with concern. "You must be freezing."

“Yashiro-san told me that you would be lonely tonight, because it’s Christmas Eve,” she told him cheerfully as she shed her shoes and hat. “So I came over to keep you company. Um, where do you want me to put this?” She lifted up the grocery bag. “I bought ingredients for a Christmas cake, I thought we could maybe bake it together.”

“The kitchen is fine,” Ren said, taking her coat from her. “Your hat and mittens can go . . .” he paused, glancing around. “On that table over there is fine.” She nodded, shifting the bag to brush a couple strands of damp hair behind her ears and pattered into the kitchen with her ingredients.

Well, Ren thought with amusement, packing away his stack of books, clearly I won’t be able to read tonight. Somehow, however, he could not bring himself to be angry about this.

When he joined Kyoko in the kitchen, he saw she had dug out an apron from somewhere, and had arranged a lot of mysterious ingredients out on a counter. She was gazing mournfully up at one of the cupboards. He sighed, recalling the last time that Kyoko had tried to get things from the cupboards in his kitchen. “What do you need?”

Kyoko brightened upon hearing his voice behind her. She really had not wanted to repeat an experience like the last time; facing the Emperor of the Night was not on her list of priorities. “Umm, I need a mixing bowl, a measuring cup, and a baking pan.” Her cookbook was open on the counter as well, and she skimmed the directions as Ren dug out the requested items from a cupboard. He was surprised he even owned a measuring cup. “A couple extra bowls might be a good idea too,” she called over, as she poured flour into the mixing bowl.

He brought over two extra bowls as Kyoko shoved the mixing bowl into his hands. “Sift that flour, would you?” she asked. “I have to whisk these eggs.”

“Sift?”

“Run your fingers through it like this,” she demonstrated, taking the bowl back and setting it on the counter. Pulling up his sleeves, he imitated her action while she broke the eggs into another bowl and whisking them furiously with a spoon.

“Why are we baking a Christmas cake?” Ren asked cautiously, as Kyoko managed to somehow keep all the egg in the bowl. He probably had a whisk somewhere, but he wasn't sure.

“Because it’s Christmas,” Kyoko replied, surprised. She set down the eggs and poured a measuring cup of sugar into them. “On Christmas, we should have a Christmas cake, and I don’t imagine you bought one, and they're sold out now. These eggs are done, so pour them in with the flour.” She strode off, picking up the second of the extra bowls, and poured some milk in it. Turning to the microwave, she put in the milk and heated it.

“No, I didn’t,” Ren said, carefully pouring the eggs into his flour. Silence reigned as he tried to find another topic of conversation. “But why are you here baking one? I would have thought that you would be working tonight.”

“Okami-san surprised me today,” Kyoko said, popping the milk out of the microwave. Sticking a finger in it, she pulled it out quickly, wincing, and gave her hand an odd flick. Ren was suddenly seized with the desire to walk over there and kiss those darling fingers better. He glanced down at his mixing bowl, regaining his composure, as she, having noticed nothing unusual, slid butter into the hot milk. She walked purposefully back to where Ren stood, holding a bowl of eggs, sugar and flour, and dumped the milk and butter mixture in with it. “Your choice; wash these dishes and preheat the oven, or stir this.”

“I’ll stir the batter,” he decided. “What do you mean?”

“I was going to work tonight, but Okami-san gave me the evening off after I helped Taisho make a lot of rice and noodles. You know, it’s the busiest night of the year. You’re stirring the batter wrong.”

“What?” Ren blinked. “There’s a way to stir batter wrong?”

“Yes, and it’s the way you’re doing it. You’re going to make it clump.” She grabbed the bowl from him, brushing his hand and demonstrated. “Like this.” She stirred the batter far more evenly than he had done it, with wide, even strokes, before passing the bowl back to him. "You try."

He was too dazed from the sudden contact to really have been paying attention to her demonstration. “Like this?” He made some sort of attempt of what he thought she had done.

“No, use wider strokes. You're missing spots.”

In the end, it took him about four tries before he could stir batter to her satisfaction. She dashed around his kitchen doing mysterious things before he had found another topic. “But aren’t Christmas cakes what you share with a,” he hesitated, knowing this was a delicate subject. “A romantic partner?”

Kyoko dropped the baking pan that she had been lining with wax paper. Turning to him, he was almost surprised to see the expression on her face. Almost.

“No. Not at all,” she told him in a flat tone, her eyes dark, her face having lost its usual good humour.

“Of course,” he agreed with her hastily, wanting her to lose that expression. “What do I do with this?” He raised the bowl. She raised an eyebrow and glanced into the bowl, where the batter was now an even, dark brown colour.

“Mix it a bit longer,” she said, staring at it critically. “It doesn’t really need it, but the oven hasn’t come to temperature yet, and a little extra stirring doesn’t hurt." She paused, flicking the oven lights on. He didn't even know there was a switch for that. "Yes, that should be good.” She took the bowl from him, and poured it into the baking pan, just as the oven beeped. “Ah, that means it’s at temperature. Open the oven door for me?” He obeyed, and to his surprise, she slid the pan into the oven without putting on oven mitts. Noticing the look on his face, she asked, “What’s wrong?”

“You stuck your bare hands into a hot oven.”

“Yes, I did."

“. . . Isn’t that a little dangerous?”

Kyoko paused to consider, setting the timer on the oven. “The pan wasn’t hot yet," she said, as if that answered the question. "Leave it in the oven to bake for about half an hour. Have you eaten anything yet?”

Ren smiled. “Of course I have,” he said, beaming.

“. . . and what exactly did you eat?” Kyoko was instantly suspicious.

“Err. . .” Ren paused, caught in his lie. Kyoko really was getting to know him far too well. “Instant noodles. With a bit of torn up sandwich meat and an egg. . ." he improvised, hoping he sounded believable.

“Liar.” She sighed. “I haven’t eaten yet either, so I’ll make some nikujaga while we wait for the cake to bake. Go set the table, it won’t take too long. But can you get a large pan for me first?” She pulled out the potatoes and meat she had bought for this very situation from her grocery bag. She set the pan that Ren pulled down for her on the stove, poured in vegetable oil, and began chopping the meat and potatoes with seemingly inhuman dexterity.

Ren sighed, he hoped, unnoticed, as he exited the kitchen to his dining room with an armful of placemats, chopsticks, and spoons. Why would Yashiro-san tell Kyoko he was lonely on Christmas Eve? He knew that Kyoko would feel the need to come over and keep him company, he thought, mildly annoyed. He could not truly feel angry at his manager as he watched Kyoko wander, businesslike, around the kitchen, sleeves rolled up and apron on. She really was far too cute with that apron on. Her auburn hair, almost dry after it’s exposure to the elements outside, danced around her face as she stirred the meat and potatoes. How he would like to brush his lips across a few strands of that hair, wrap his arms around that slim frame, breathe in her distinctive, flowery scent. He shook his head, realizing that he had been staring. He glanced out the window; it was snowing harder now, and he was struck with an idea.

He dropped his placemats, spoons and chopsticks onto the table, and quietly slipped off to the storage room. After all, what was better in cold weather than a kotatsu for keeping warm, and dare he think it, being romantic? And if Kyoko asked, he could just say that he set it up earlier, and that it was chilliest close to the windows. She looked preoccupied now, so it wasn’t likely that she would notice the switch. Quietly, he set up the kotatsu and removed the table, setting it only after he turned on the heat. He wandered back into the kitchen.

“You can go watch TV or something, if you like,” she said, noticing he was back. “There isn’t too much left to do, unless you want to wash those dishes.” She nodded towards the sink, which now held the mixing bowl, measuring cup, and various utensils. “The nikujaga will be done soon, and the cake should be done in the next five minutes or so. Then I’ll just put icing and fruit on the cake while we let the nikujaga simmer.”

“I’ll wash dishes then. After all, Mogami-san, you were kind enough to come over and cook.” He meandered over to the sink, watching her discreetly out of the corner of his eye. True to her word, the oven sounded soon after, and he watched as she pulled it out of the oven (using mitts this time), sliced it in half horizontally, put whipped cream inside the two layers, top it with more cream, and set six strawberries around the top. It was almost like a dance, he thought, as she moved busily between the cake and the stove to check on the stew. He finished the dishes just as she poured the nikujaga evenly onto two plates.

“Take the cake out to the table,” she smiled. “It’ll be our dessert.” She easily hefted dinner and moved gracefully out to the dining room, stopping short when she saw it was a kotatsu.
“A kotatsu?” Kyoko turned to give a dark look to Tsuruga-san, who followed after. “Why a kotatsu?”

“It’s cold in the dining room.” Ren replied, using all of his acting skill to make it sound obvious. “It’s snowing harder now, and there's a draft coming from that window.” He nodded towards the window, not trusting himself to balance the cake with one hand. He evaluated Kyoko's reaction carefully; she would probably buy it. She viewed him as a Demon Lord, and the idea that her presence sparked the use of the kotatsu wouldn't even cross her mind.

Kyoko stared up at Ren; his expression was open, innocent. This being Tsuruga-san, however, that didn't mean much. She turned her gaze on the kotatsu; the tabletop was plain glass, turned blue by the colour of the puffy duvet that lay beneath it. It really was fairly plain as kotatsus went, but still . . . She didn’t really want to sit at a thing with such, such romantic connotations, but Tsuruga-san had spoken with reason. It was cold in this room due to lack of stove. Sighing, she set down the food on the placemats, and sat down, wrapping her lower body in the duvet. Tsuruga-san set the cake down in the centre of the table and set himself down opposite her.

“Do you want to turn on the TV, Mogami-san?” asked Ren, his manner mild.

“I’d rather not, if it’s all right with you, Tsuruga-san,” she replied, barely keeping herself from scowling. Watching romantic couples on TV on Christmas Eve was not her idea of a good time.

“All right,” Ren agreed easily, eating. The room fell into brief silence as Kyoko focused on her own food, and he contemplated something. “Kyoko-chan,” he began uncertainly.

Kyoko dropped her spoon into her half empty plate and looked at him suspiciously. “Yes?” She asked, her voice edged with suspicion.

“I was just thinking that even my manager is allowed to call you that. Why not me?”

Kyoko studied his open face cautiously, noting that there was no malice in his voice. Of course, being that this was Tsuruga-san, that meant nothing. However, the fact that her anger-sensing demon wasn’t out was more reliable. She rose from her seat and checked his forehead. Nope, no fever, she thought.

“Would you like to call me Kyoko-chan?” she asked, as bemused as he was after her strange action.

“I would like that very much,” Ren smiled. “I would also like it very much if you would call me Ren-kun,” he continued, his voice deepening. At that moment, the power went off, cutting off whatever he had left to say.

Kyoko thought that that had good timing, at least; Tsuruga-san had missed the look of incredulous confusion and suspicion that tore across her features. She would have to check his head again later; maybe he was running a temperature, and she just missed it the first time. For the time being, however, she chose to ignore his words. She rose and opened the curtains, bringing a ghostly light into the apartment. “It really is snowing out. The wind’s picked up since I left Darumaya. . . I can’t even see the streetlights,” she commented. True to her word, the streetlights, normally visible from Ren’s third-story apartment, were only faint blurs of yellow. The window dimly illuminated the room, just enough for Ren to make out Kyoko’s silhouette.

“I’ll go get a flashlight.” Ren said, his demeanor calm. Inwardly, he could have been celebrating. “And perhaps a couple of candles.”

“Have you got a radio?” Kyoko asked. She had now come to the realization that she was trapped in the dark with a man who quite possibly wanted her to call him Ren-kun, which made her earlier relief at this turn of events disappear. Who could know who she was talking to now? It could be Tsuruga-san, or it could be the Demon Lord, or worst of all, it could be the Emperor of the Night. She prayed it was the first. “We’ll need to check the forecast." Her voice, contrary to her feelings, was strong and she was glad to hear, perfectly reasonable.

“In the kitchen. Can you find your way there?”

“I will be fine. There’s just enough light from the window that I won’t trip.”

Ren had entered the kitchen with a couple flashlights, holding two candles before Kyoko had found the elusive radio. He passed her a flashlight, the candles and a matchbox before easily digging out the radio from behind the toaster. Returning to the kotatsu, Kyoko briskly lit the candles and set them in high enough places to transmit light to the rest of the room (carefully avoiding placing any candles on the table, to Ren’s disappointment), as Ren fiddled with the controls of the radio, bringing into focus a news channel.

“. . . worst blizzard in over a decade,” an announcer’s voice was saying, “so I hope you and your loved ones are inside! Temperatures are supposed to fall to negative twenty degrees Celsius tonight with wind chill, so we advise you don’t go outside. Oh? What’s this?” A pause came in the announcer’s voice. “Also, we have a power outage in several districts of Tokyo.” The man’s voice trailed on, listing the different districts. Kyoko recognized her own on the list. “We hope to restore power as soon as possible. Now, in world news, the Supreme Court of Pakistan . . . ” the announcer continued on, his voice not wavering an inch.

“Well,” Ren’s voice came out of the semi-darkness. “I don’t think you can go home tonight, Kyoko-chan. You should call the Okami-san to tell her you’re safe.”

Kyoko struggled quietly with his logic, but gave up, seeing his point. The walk back to Darumaya in negative twenty degree weather sounded even less appealing than spending a night at Tsuruga-san’s apartment. She knew he had a spare bedroom, and it wasn't as if it would be her first time staying over. The only difference would be that Tsuruga-san would not be feverish and possibly hallucinating with a cold. As ashamed as she was for thinking it, she wished it was that Tsuruga-san that was in the room with her now; an ill Tsuruga-san would not be either the Demon Lord or the Emperor of the Night.

“Have you a landline?” she asked, resigned. “With those winds, cell phones won’t have any signal at all . . ."

Fin

Authors Notes:
Christmas in Japan is more of a romantic holiday than it is one for family, which is why Kyoko sees a lot of couples walking around. A Japanese Christmas cake is more of a sponge cake than the Western Christmas cake, which is why it didn’t take so long to bake. Nikujaga is a meat and potatoes stew, very tasty for cold days, and a kotatsu is a table that has a heater underneath it and a duvet around it, under the tabletop. The duvet traps heated air, and keeps the person sitting at the table nice and toasty.

This is my first fanfic for this fandom, which I am currently crazy about. xDDD I really don’t need another obsession, really I don’t!

On another note, I haven’t decided if this should remain a one-shot or if I should continue it. As a result, I’ve left it open-ended; comment and tell me what you think! I <3 comments/reviews!

Sat, 10 Nov 2007 21:55:42 GMT

Title: Crescendo
Chapter: 4
Pairing(s): None
Rating: T for safety
Genre: Humour/Crossover
Warning(s): AU; Crosses over with Kiniro no Corda
Summary: [AU, Ouran High School x Kiniro No Corda] Ouran Academy was always known as a good music school, so what happens when they face off against Seiso Academy and St. Lobelia’s Institute for first place in the tri-annual music competition?
Disclaimer: I do not own Ouran High School Host Club, Kiniro no Corda, or any other anime that may or may not be mentioned.
Thank You's: To Sailor Melina, for faithfully beta-reading this and catching obvious errors!

Chapter Four: The First Selection and Everything That’s Involved

Haruhi sighed, polishing her clarinet with a cloth and some cleaning oil that Kaoru had given her (all the while lecturing on how important it was to look in a competition), and wishing she were at home. She could have done the laundry and studied for an important English test on Monday today, she thought rebelliously. Also, there was that essay for World History that needed to be done, and she had barely gotten through yesterday’s Calculus homework . . . All in all, she really didn’t want to be there.

“Excited yet?” Hikaru plunked himself down on the seat beside her; Ouran High School had built this preparation room particularly for the Interschool Music Competition, and had decked it out with its finest: brocade curtains, chairs gilded with foil gold and thick couches. A mosaic with various ‘musical’ (or so Haruhi thought) scenes lined the top of each wall; three of the walls were bordered with counters. The room was large, and certainly large enough to give plenty of space to the twenty-one competitors. She turned to face Hikaru, wondering idly why he had even bothered to sit down; he had been bouncing around impatiently for the past half hour.

“Not really, no,” Haruhi responded to Hikaru in a deadpan voice. “I would rather be at home checking my Calculus homework and doing the laundry.” Hikaru’s reaction was an exasperated sigh, before he got up from his chair and resumed his ricocheting around the room.

“If you need any help with Calculus, Haruhi, I can help! Just ask me anytime,” Honey-senpai said, looking very awkward as he carried his cello over to them. He sat down in the chair that Hikaru had vacated. Mori followed him and stood silently, giving only a smile when Haruhi acknowledged him.

“No, thanks, Honey-senpai, I should be fine,” Haruhi replied. She had found yesterday’s lesson, on integration by parts, trickier than usual but nothing that she couldn’t handle.

“Are you sure?” Honey-senpai asked anxiously. “I know the competition takes a lot of time out of your usual schedule with practice and whatnot, so if you ever need the help, just ask!”

“How’s the suit?” Kaoru wandered over, his saxophone gleaming. Unlike his brother, who only got excited and impatient before a competition, Kaoru was a great deal more nervous. Haruhi was willing to bet that he had polished his saxophone at least three or four times over the last hour. “Not itchy or anything?”

“It’s fine,” Haruhi reassured him. The twins had been in charge of the What Will Haruhi Wear For The Competition Committee, of which only they were party to. Tamaki had decreed to them that, as she couldn’t dress as a girl for the competition, her outfit had to carry ‘effeminate designs.’ Kyouya had promptly told them that it couldn’t be too effeminate, lest some girls suspect her true gender, leaving the twins stuck between the proverbial rock and a hard place. They had compensated by giving her suit frills at the neck and hands, and downplayed the whole effect with a stiff black vest and black trousers.

Haruhi thought it looked something a vampire would wear, like perhaps something from Bram Stoker’s Dracula. It wasn’t, however, as if she really cared, and she didn’t have anything else to wear.

“NO!” The sharp wail came from the direction of, strangely enough, the ceiling. Around the room, eyes flew to the ceiling until they hit the chandelier, a magnificently designed masterpiece floating ethereally above the centre of the room. A blonde fairy was cringing, teary-eyed, within the metal framework, trapped there by a black-haired fairy with purple wings. Melee had somewhere found a barbecue skewer, with which he was using to prod the blonde fairy.

“Lili!” A red-headed girl across the room immediately dashed over to the scene. Haruhi recalled her name vaguely; Kahoko Hino, or some such? Dodging another one of Melee’s strikes with the skewer, the blonde fairy escaped and fled to the relative safety of his chosen competitor.

“Boys,” a drawn out, high-pitched voice rang out from another wall. A third fairy, with brown eyes, brown hair and red wings, floated around the girls from Lobelia’s. “How utterly, completely disgusting.”

“Agreed,” Tsuwabaki said to it. The girls promptly went back to their own preparations.

Melee ignored them as well, taking the opportunity to swing around dangerously on the chandelier. He cackled his glee. “I can’t wait to see how much your competitor messes up this year!” he called out to the blonde fairy.

“She’s not going to!” Lili cried back angrily from the relative safety of behind Hino’s head. “You’re not going to hospitalize my competitor this year; I won’t let you!”

“Melee, stop that!” Haruhi, seeing the danger to the chandelier and remembering Kyouya’s warning, gave her clarinet to Honey-senpai to hold and grabbed a chair and headed over to the chandelier. Although, she remembered, the words “No,” “Stop it,” and “Don’t do that” had no effect on this fairy. Melee would do what he would do, and not much would stop him. At the moment, what he was inclined to do was to wreck the chandelier, and Haruhi didn’t even want to think about how much debt that would add on to her already considerable amount.

Putting the chair down under the chandelier and climbing on it, Haruhi thanked the gods that this room had a fairly low ceiling. After a couple swipes, she grabbed her school’s resident fairy from midair.

He promptly bit her fingers.

“Ow!” Haruhi snapped, and let go. Melee gave the chandelier one last, strong push, sending it swinging, forcing her to topple back off the chair, into a heap on the floor.

“Haha!” he giggled madly, “You’ll have to work harder than that to stop me!” He flew off towards the auditorium, stopping only to topple over a couple statues and another chair.

“Are you all right?” A concerned face hovered over her, framed by red locks.

“I’m fine,” Haruhi reassured her politely, pulling herself off the floor. “I’m sorry about my school’s fairy.” Her eyes lingered on the fairy that floated by Hino’s shoulder: blonde, purple-eyes, and with blue wings. So this was Lili of Seiso Academy.

“Oh, no, it’s all right, umm. . . Fujioka-san?” Kaho replied, hazarding a guess to this boy’s name. He looked really young, younger than a first year normally would. Her eyes betrayed her curiosity about him. “I’m Kaho, Kahoko Hino. I’m Lili’s chosen, from Seiso. Umm, you’re bleeding.” She gestured to his hand.

“Haruhi!” Tamaki had run over to her. “Are you all right? You’re bleeding!”

“It’s only a little cut,” she told him, knowing he would become frantic and probably say a lot of nonsense and quite possibly hint at or reveal her secret if she didn’t. She examined her fingers; the cuts from Melee’s teeth were actually a bit worse than a little cut. She cursed herself inwardly for not remembering that his teeth were pointed and sharp.

“Nonetheless, you should go get it bandaged. I’ll make your excuses to the Chairman.” Kyouya had approached noiselessly as usual. “The actual competition starts in another half hour, so as long as you’re back before then it’ll be fine. Hino-san,” he politely acknowledged the girl with a nod, and pulled the worrying Tamaki away.

Haruhi nodded, and turned to Kahoko. “I guess I’ll see you later, Hino-san,” she said politely, before leaving for the nurse’s office.

“Falling for him already, Kaho?” Kazuki asked her jovially as she returned.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Kaho snapped, sitting down on a couch as Shoko and Ryoutarou made room. “I’m just curious about him because he’s another one of the fairies’ chosen. The girl from St. Lobelia’s won’t talk to me at all; she just glares at me and gives me diplomatic not-answers.”

“And he’s cute,” Ryoutarou butted in.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Kaho said again, as she pulled her violin case closer to her. She had set her violin, shoulder rest and all, back in it before rushing to Lili’s aid. Pulling out her bow and a chunk of rosin, she began rosining her bow.

“If you don’t like him, senpai, then who do you like?” Shoko asked teasingly. The girl had gained quite a bit of confidence since the last competition.

“I don’t know,” Kaho replied. “Why don’t you tell me who you like?”

“Umm, I don’t know,” she said with a slight giggle. “Ohtori-san is really handsome.”

“Hmm, really?” Kaho looked over at the boy in question and considered. “I don’t really know, I think he’s kind of cold, actually . . . The half-Asian one, Suoh, he’s really friendly to everyone.”

“I’m sorry to bother you,” Len approached them, looking rather as if he wouldn’t have liked to talked to them at all. “But have you seen my violin anywhere?”

“Why?” Kaho asked, surprised. “Didn’t you just have it?”

“Yes, but,” Len explained, “I went to the restroom briefly and left it on the counter over there, and it was gone by the time I returned.”

“Sorry,” Ryoutarou said, rather bluntly. “We haven’t seen it.”

“The fairies had an argument,” Shoko ventured shyly. Len intimidated her. “One of them bit one of the boys from Ouran, and . . .” her voice trailed off into silence, as if she felt she had said too much.

“Understatement of the day, Shoko,” Kazuki burst out.

“Sorry, Len,” Kahoko said; while all of Seiso’s competitors had known each other for months, she was still the only one who was truly comfortable with him. “It was rather exciting, I don’t think anyone was paying attention. Try asking around?”

Len nodded, preoccupied, and wandered off to ask the Lobelia girls. Watching, Kaho inwardly winced as the Lobelia girls verbally tore him apart.

“Everyone, gather around,” A teacher, one Kaho didn’t recognize, called out. Kanasawa-sensei motioned for all of them to go over to her.

“You will be drawing numbers for the order in which you will play,” she explained to them kindly, showing them a paper bag. “Ladies first,” she held the bag out to the Lobelia students.

Haruhi dashed back into the room as the teacher, whom she recognized as one of the secretaries normally with the Chairman, was allowing the Seiso students to draw numbers from the bag. She joined the rest of the Ouran students waiting to draw their numbers. The twins were sniggering quietly to themselves.

“What did you guys do now?” she sighed, knowing them far too well at this point.

“We hid Tsukimori’s violin.” Kaoru said, laughing. “I thought it would stop Hikaru pacing around like a nut.”

“And it would also stop Kaoru from sitting in a corner polishing that saxophone and shaking like a leaf,” Hikaru added.

“Where did you put it?” Haruhi asked, mildly alarmed. She didn’t think it was a good policy to sabotage the opposition, but then again, she would bet that Kyouya knew perfectly well where they hid it and when to return the missing instrument.

“Under the counter,” Hikaru explained, “because most people don’t know they can open up.”

“And it was the only place we could reach discreetly while everyone had their attention focused on you,” Kaoru finished, as the bag reached them. “Fourteen. Hikaru?”

“Thirteen.”

Haruhi reached into the bag and pulled out the last paper. “Third,” she said, surprised. Thinking of something, she turned to Kyouya. “Hey, Kyouya, can I go home if I’m done early? I have a lot of work to do. . .”

“No,” Kyouya replied absentmindedly. He seemed to be far more interested in watching Tsukimori, the cold Seiso student, pace around worriedly looking for his missing instrument. “There will probably be announcements after the actual competition, though we won’t be getting the results until at least tomorrow, and it isn’t customary to leave until your competitors have played their pieces. He drew seven; what do you think the odds are that he will think to look in the cupboard right under where he left the violin?”

Haruhi sighed, and dropped into one of the chairs.

“Whoever is first, please go ahead.” The secretary smiled and exited the room, leaving the room in the capable hands of that teacher from Seiso and another instructor from Lobelia’s. Benio Amakusa, the tall, androgynous senior from Lobelia’s stood and exited in the direction of the stage, saxophone in hand.

“What number have you got?” Kahoko sat back down on a couch, sweeping her long skirt out of the way. Shoko sat down on one side of her, Kazuki on the other. Azuma joined them, his flute polished to shining. “I have twelve.”

“Nine,” Shoko said, her voice showing a little more nervousness.

“Seventeen,” Kazuki smiled.

“Second,” Azuma replied, with a smile that reached his eyes. One could see why he was so popular with the girls at school. “You’ll be fine, Shoko-san,” he said, his voice more polite than other times that Kaho had heard him speak.

“I’m going to go talk to Fujioka-san, over there,” she decided, and rose.

Haruhi snapped out of her rebellious thoughts as an announcement came across the PA system, announcing the name, school, and piece that Amakusa had chosen to play. She also noticed that the redhead from Seiso Academy, Hino-san, was approaching her.

“Hi, umm,” Hino hesitated. “I was wondering how you were enjoying the competition.”

Haruhi thought for a few moments about that question. In all honesty, she hated it; it was a waste of her time, seeing as she was pretty much tone-deaf and wasn’t remotely musical. She hadn’t hated the clarinet to start with, but with all the practicing the twins were making her do so that she would not, in their words “Bring shame onto your teachers . . . that is, us,” she certainly hated it now. However, she contemplated, what were the repercussions of telling this stranger this? Hino-san wasn’t a customer; she wasn’t even an Ouran student. Did image matter in this case? Thinking it over, Haruhi decided, at the moment, to reserve her feelings of rebellious hatred to herself. After all, if image did matter, and somehow the profits of the Host Club went down, she could count on Kyouya to up her debt,

“It’s all right,” she said reluctantly. “It’s not really my sort of thing.”

“Oh,” Hino said, seemingly put down, and paused. “I really like it, I never played the violin before, but I really like playing it. It has,” she thought about her words, “really opened up a whole new world to me.”

“I see.” Haruhi replied politely, and they fell silent. Amakusa finished her piece, and returned to the room looking satisfied. The other Lobelia students immediately crowded around, asking her how it went.

“Oh, umm,” Kahoko stammered, unnerved by the uncomfortable silence and the surprisingly reticent boy, “When are you playing? I’m, I’m really looking forward to listening to you.”

“Third,” Haruhi replied, slightly amused. Well, if this girl was looking forward to hearing her, she was in for a surprise. “And you?”

“Oh,” Kahoko said, “Twelfth. I guess I should leave you alone while you, umm, prepare. I know I always like to have a couple minutes to myself before I play . . .” her voice trailed off as she waved goodbye, and returned to her own friends.

“What did she want?” Hikaru asked, plunking himself on a stool next to her.

“I think she was just saying hello,” Haruhi replied, mind wandering. She wished she could just get this over with and go home, or that she had thought to bring some of her homework with her. She would have to remember that for next time. “I mean, she must be curious about me, right? She’s another fairy’s chosen, and I’m sure that the Lobelia student isn’t saying that much to her.” She motioned her head in the direction of the girl, having forgotten her name.

“Well,” Kaoru said, “It’s not customary for competitors to get friendly. I mean, Tsukimori over there is still frantically searching for his instrument.” He motioned his head to where Tsukimori, getting more and more frustrated by the minute, was interrogating Honey-senpai and Mori-senpai. They hadn’t seen anything, which left him with nothing.

“Haruhi!” Tamaki had wandered over to her. “What number do you have?”

“Third,” she replied. “I suppose I’m next, as Yunoki is playing now.”

“He’s quite good!” Tamaki was delighted; Haruhi could see that he was enjoying the competition for what it was, rather than seeing the whole thing as a situation to be won. “I think Yunoki is finishing now though,” he said, glancing at the PA system. “Go do Daddy proud!” He gave her a little push towards the door leading to the stage while indeed, Yunoki returned.

Haruhi sighed. “Let’s get this over with,” she murmured under her breath.

Across the room, Hino turned to congratulate Azuma. “Good job,” she said. “How was the crowd?”

“Strange,” he returned, smiling. “They’re mostly girls, I can’t tell if they’re music students or not. Looks like most of them are here to see the Host Club, I saw a couple signs saying “Tamaki” and “Hitachiin.”” He motioned his head over to the clump of boys near another corner of the room. “Found your violin yet, Tsukimori? I can help you look if you haven’t.”

“No,” Len said tersely. “No, I should be able to locate it on my own.”

“Well, if you’re not going to accept any help, have you asked Ohtori?” He gestured to the student, who looked stiff but very good in a formal suit. Hearing his name, Kyouya wandered over.

“Ah, your violin?” he interjected, smiling. “Try under the counters where you left it. Good piece, Yunoki-san, very well played.”

“Thank you,” Yunoki replied politely. Looking at them, Kahoko couldn’t help but wonder if Ohtori had a dark side the way that Azuma did. Two smiling devils, she thought ruefully. But, they are very handsome devils. Fujioka-san should be starting soon; I wonder how well he plays? I played all right during my first competition . . . Her train of thought was interrupted as Haruhi’s chosen piece played over the intercom.

Two lines of music. Six measures, three of which repeated. The Lobelia girls burst into laughter as the Seiso students stood in shock. Hino was confused; did the intercom stop working or something?

“He did NOT just play that. Really, he did not,” Kazuki said, looking almost depressed.

“What didn’t he just play?” Kaho asked, bewildered. She had been tossed into the classical music world and had played Gavotte as her first piece, so she wasn’t aware of anything simpler.

“Hot Cross Buns.” Ryoutarou groaned. “It’s the easiest song in the books, usually it’s the first thing anyone learns. It only has three notes in it, after all. I bet he’s tone-deaf or something, historically Ouran’s chosen have been mediocre to good, but rarely absolutely horrible.”

Kahoko chanced a glance over at the Ouran students. The tall blonde second-year looked on the verge of tears, the twins looked resigned, and the rest simply looked depressed. “I don’t get it,” she pronounced. “Don’t you have to have, I don’t know, a potential for music to be the fairy’s chosen?”

“Depends on the school,” Ryoutarou explained. “At Seiso, yes; you only see the fairy the year of the concours if you’ve got the potential. At St. Lobelia’s, their fairy generally chooses someone who already has musical training. At Ouran, their fairy just chooses someone at random, usually someone who doesn’t want to have anything to do with the competition.”

“Oh,” Kahoko replied, stunned, as Fujioka returned, expressionless, and packed up his clarinet. He settled himself in a chair with an air of apathy.

The next two competitors were from St. Lobelia’s Institute, the first playing the contrabass and the second, the chosen, playing the French horn. “Like I said,” Ryoutarou said of the latter, “She’s had training, but I don’t think it’s in the French horn.”

“So what did you think of Kimihiro, the girl who played the contrabass?” Kaho wanted to know.

“She’s pretty good,” he responded. “I don’t know much about strings though.”

“She should play a smaller instrument,” Keiichi commented sleepily. “Her hands aren’t quite big enough; her range isn’t very big. Whose turn is it now?”

“We’re on number six,” Kahoko told him, and he promptly returned to sleep.

“Good luck!” One of the Lobelia’s students called out sardonically to the tall boy leaving for the stage. “After hearing your first competitor, you’ll need it!” The girls surrounding her laughed, though Kahoko noticed that the girl who played the French horn and another girl carrying an oboe didn’t join them.

“No, he won’t,” Azuma murmured under his breath to her, as the Ouran student began playing his piece. “Morinozuka Takashi’s won a couple competitions here and there.” Kahoko read between the lines to what he wasn’t saying: “But he is nothing compared to me.”

Len, who played next, gave a stunning performance as usual, having chosen a piece by Paganini. Within the waiting room, the atmosphere was getting tenser by the minute. Those who had played were thinking about what they could have (or rather, in their minds, should have) done better, and those who hadn’t were getting more and more nervous while waiting.

Kahoko, too, was becoming nervous. While the chances that anyone would try to sabotage her here were low, it had become second nature for her to worry about it. She nervously checked her violin over. Shoko, sitting beside her, had pulled out her sheet music and was regarding it intently, though Kahoko didn’t think she was actually seeing any of it. Azuma and Ryoutarou were staring contemplatively on one of the mosaics lining the tops of the walls. Keiichi was of course sleeping. Kazuki alone seemed unaffected, cheerfully making conversation with anyone who would do so.

The cluster of girls in another corner, which they had made clear was theirs, were chattering quietly to each other, evaluating each performance and criticising all of them, even their own.

Across the room, the twins were reacting by being louder and more raucous, stealing Tamaki’s lucky bear pencil and mocking him for it. Kyouya became more reserved and reflective, studying intently the pieces that his competition had chosen, and how they were played. Honey-senpai had asked for and received sweets, and was currently compulsively eating them. Haruhi was, of course, unaffected, as she didn’t care in the first place.

“He’s good,” Kyouya commented in a low voice to her, seated beside her and Honey-senpai. “Tsukimori is.”

“I guess?” Haruhi ventured. She didn’t recognize what he was playing.

“You’re good too, Kyouya,” Honey said to him, licking his spoon. Somehow, he had polished off four slices of cake, and had not yet spilled a single crumb onto himself.

“I know,” he responded, an interested smile hovering in his eyes.

Yasatsune, the shy girl from Lobelia’s who played the oboe played next. She was competent, but the loudly voiced opinions from the twins were “Nothing special,” earning them glares from the Lobelia team. While Yasatsune Hana was not friends with the White Lily Society, Lobelia students stood for their own.

Fuyuumi Shoko of Seiso Academy was next. Her team members earnestly wished her luck and reassured her that she would do just fine; she looked like she was about to be sick from nervousness. However, on stage her nervousness seemed to disappear, as she gave a very good rendition of Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto in A Major. She returned, visibly relieved.

Next was Tsuwabaki, the loud, opinionated girl from St. Lobelia’s Academy. She left without a word, an expression of determination on her face. She knew what she had to do, and she was going to do it.

At this point, Haruhi was beginning to get bored, wishing even more that she had thought to bring a book or something with her. Tsuwabaki played well, or so Kyouya said, and she was the tenth contestant. Only eleven more, she thought.

“It’s my turn now!” Honey-senpai said as Tsuwabaki’s piece came to an end. He picked up his cello and made for the stage. He had chosen a fairly simple piece to play, Dvorak’s New World Symphony, and his intention was simply to play it very, very well. It fit his view of the world.

Afterwards, Hino played. Kyouya in particular was very interested in how she would play, being surprised that she played as well as she did. His opinion was that while she would never match up to someone who played their entire lives, she played as if she had been learning violin for perhaps four years. Her piece was Vivaldi’s Summer.

The twins, making up contestants thirteen and fourteen, gave an excellent performance, both having chosen very cheerful songs. They both came back immensely relieved and began cheerfully trading insults with the Lobelia team. The Seiso team looked on in something like disbelief.

“What a waste of breath,” Shoko murmured quietly. “I don’t know why the girls even respond, not all of them have played yet.”

“Just don’t worry about it,” Ryoutarou told her, standing up. It was his turn. “Lobelia and Ouran have always had a stronger rivalry. It’s probably why they lost the last few competitions. Wish me luck.” He gave them a wave and moved towards the stage.

Tamaki had finally recovered his lucky bear pencil, and plunked himself down beside Haruhi. “Isn’t it exciting?” he asked.

“No.” Haruhi replied, completely deadpan. “I want to go home.” Tamaki ignored her and continued chattering away.

“Tsuchiura was said to be a piano prodigy at the age of ten, did you know? But then he mysteriously stopped playing and disappeared from the music scene! I’m excited to see how he’ll play; I wonder, did he just stop playing piano flat out after he disappeared from the music scene, or did he practice for those six years?”

“Tamaki. Shut up.” Kyouya told him, not entirely unkindly. “You won’t hear him play if you keep talking.” And indeed, the first notes of Tsuchiura’s piece were filtering through the PA system.

“Rachmaninoff,” Tamaki said instantly. “Piano Concerto No. 2 in C Minor. He’s good.”

“Whatever you just said, senpai, it’s all gibberish to me,” Haruhi told him, staring off into space. She was bored. Admittedly, she could try to stop the twins from insulting at the Lobelia team, but they were yelling back, so why bother? It wouldn’t have any effect anyway. There were the cakes that had been set out at the request of Honey-senpai, but he was doing a pretty good job of demolishing them all by himself. She sighed, and for once cursed herself for being as meticulous as she was; if she wasn’t, maybe she would have left something in the classroom like a textbook or something to do.

Tsuchiura returned, to applause and congratulations from his team. The next musician was also a pianist; Maihara of St. Lobelia’s.

“That was well played,” she told him kindly. “But not as good as it needed it be.” She smiled and exited.

“We’ll see,” Tsuchiura said to the door, closing behind her.

She played Chopin’s Berceuse in D Flat Major, competently, but as Kyouya and Tamaki agreed on, “Not as well as Tsuchiura played Rachmaninoff.”

Seventeen, Haruhi thought, as Hihara, the cheerful trumpet-player from Seiso, stood up. Tamaki went to wish him luck. Only five more, including him. His piece was Kreisler, or so Kyouya told her, as he checked his violin one more time.

“My turn,” he smiled, eyes narrowed in determination, and moved towards the door as Hihara returned. Tsukimori eyed him cautiously, measuring him up. Noticing this, he gave Tsukimori a mysterious smile and exited.

“Hey, Len-kun,” Kahoko said, watching him as he watched Ohtori leave. “What’s your preoccupation with him anyway?”

“Just a professional one,” he responded, somewhat coolly. “He’s said to be one of the top violinists in Japan, but I’ve never competed with him before now.”

Kyouya delivered a stunning performance of Vivaldi’s Autumn. Len hadn’t changed expression when Kyouya returned, but Kaho knew him well enough to tell that he had been impressed. Of course, he would also say nothing to the boy in question.

“Well played,” she told him as he passed. Ohtori smiled.

“You played well too, one can hardly tell that you’ve only been playing for the past six months,” he replied.

She thanked him as he nodded and returned to his circle of friends. The last Lobelia contestant, Shizuma, headed for the stage with her flute. She played well, but as the twins chose to announce in a particularly loud voice, “She’s not on our level!” When she returned, Tamaki was already bouncing on his feet.

“Haruhi,” he said, a pleading note in his voice. Haruhi glanced at him suspiciously. “Can Daddy have a good luck kiss?”

“No.”

Tamaki looked sad enough to almost cry, so Haruhi quickly reminded him that he had to get on stage before he could cause a scene. Recalling the Tamaki signs from the brief time she was on stage, she said, “A lot of the girls are there to see you. They’re all cheering for you.”

This seemed to cheer him up greatly, and he gave an excellent performance of Grande Valse Brillante. Haruhi sighed with relief as he returned. Only one more, she thought.

Shimizu, the sleepy blonde boy from Seiso, had had the luck to draw last. He meandered towards the stage, and played a Schubert piece. Haruhi was pleased when he had finished and returned, though she was less pleased when she saw that he was being trailed by the Chairman.

“Well played, everyone, well played!” The Chairman announced. “We’ll have the results for you in Karuizawa.”

“Karuizawa?” Hihara asked. His confused face was mirrored by each of the others.

Seemingly amused, the Chairman continued. “Oh, did I not mention it before? Next week will be the music camp. The Ohtori family,” he gestured to Kyouya, giving a small bow, “has kindly volunteered to us their vacation home in Karuizawa. I realize it will be a little chillier this time of year, but I’m sure it will be well-heated. Thus, you are all excused from your classes next Thursday through Tuesday.”

“What if we’d rather not go?” Haruhi asked, alarmed. She would miss about a week of school, and that would be a pain to catch up on.

“Oh, you have to go,” the Chairman replied. “You won’t know your results from today otherwise, and the next theme will be announced there as well.”

“Yes, but,” Haruhi hesitated. “What if we don’t care about that?”

“You have to go, Haruhi,” the Chairman told her firmly, but kindly. “It’s mandatory.”

Haruhi sighed, resigned, as he continued to give them details about Karuizawa.

Fin

Notes: I will do my best to have chapter 5 up sometime in late December or early January. I am a crappy, slow writer. Also, comments and criticisms are VASTLY appreciated! So PLEASE take the two minutes it takes to write me a comment. . . <3

Chapter 3 of Crescendo

Fri, 28 Sep 2007 13:57:23 GMT

Title: Crescendo
Chapter: 3
Pairing(s): None
Rating: T for safety
Genre: Humour/Crossover
Warning(s): AU; Crosses over with Kiniro no Corda; Flagrant OOC-ness on everyone’s part. . . extreme suckiness. . . I’M SORRY I’LL WORK HARDER ON THE NEXT ONE >Summary:</b> [AU, Ouran High School x Kiniro No Corda Ouran Academy was always known as a good music school, so what happens when they face off against Seiso Academy and St. Lobelia’s Institute for first place in the tri-annual music competition?
Disclaimer: I do not own Ouran High School Host Club, Kiniro no Corda, or any other anime that may or may not be mentioned.
Thank Yous: To Sailor Melina, who was the ONLY one out of FOUR people I sent a copy to TWO WEEKS AGO to be beta’ed! Thank yous!

Crescendo

Chapter 3: Chaos Before The First Selection

Kyouya stared absentmindedly at his blinking laptop monitor, plotting. In the background, a piano tinkered out the notes of Chopin’s “Grande Valse Brillante” as Tamaki practiced his piece for the competition. The fool had already told everyone what he was playing, rather than (as was the norm) keep it a secret. He brought his attention back to his monitor and pondered the latest problem; they were booked full. With all the excitement for the competition, there had been something akin to a stampede as girls booked days to come and wish them luck. However, with the need to practice more and more, they could only open the Host Club to customers half the time they normally could, at most. And yet this was an excellent opportunity for a profit . . .

He turned around as the doors creaked open and Kaoru’s voice floated in. “Honestly, Hikaru, I think we’re going to have to go with it. The first selection is a week away and there’s nothing else that she can play.”

The twins and Haruhi, sandwiched in between them, walked into the room. Hikaru looked decidedly frustrated, while Kaoru simply looked resigned. Haruhi, standing in the middle, looked apathetic.

“What’s the problem?” Kyouya inquired, as the twins wandered over, plunking themselves in chairs at his table. Haruhi went to get tea and cakes, which was her usual job.

“We figured out what Haruhi is playing for the competition,” Hikaru said grimly.

“It’s a little worse than we thought,” Kaoru admitted.

“Because she’s going to be playing Hot Cross Buns,” they chimed in together.

Kyouya raised an eyebrow, and returned to looking at his monitor. Not that he was reading it; he’d simply found that no one would question him if he at least looked occupied. This provided a whole new set of problems, as Haruhi would inevitably be last in the competition. Thus, to win, the other Host Club members would all need to score in the top half or so.

“Kyouya, what are all these boxes doing in the back room?” Haruhi called from said location. “They’re sort of in the way of the cabinets.”

“Oh,” Kyouya responded, absentmindedly looking away from his blinking LCD. “We’re selling them today, just bring them out with you before you take out the tea and cakes. It doesn’t matter if they’re still in the boxes.”

“Okay,” Haruhi replied. “What’s in them anyways? They’re really heavy.” She came out carrying a box, dropping it by the table.

The “Grande Valse Brillante” stopped in a flourish as Tamaki stood up. “How could your subject our daughter to mean labour?!” he cried out dramatically. Kyouya didn’t even blink.

“You were the one who set her up with the chores,” he said, “and if you’re so upset about it, why don’t you go and help her with the boxes?”

“Fine, I will!” Tamaki sniffed, and went to the back room.

“Go get the tea, Haruhi.” Haruhi sighed, rolled her eyes, and went to fetch the tea.

Hikaru and Kaoru were eagerly opening the boxes. “Books,” Hikaru said, pulling a glossy book out.

“The Twenty-Third Interschool Competition,” Kaoru read off the cover.

“What’s this?” Honey-senpai skipped into the room, closely followed by his taller cousin. Hikaru passed him the book.

“Ooooh, they turned out well,” Honey-senpai replied, impressed. “Don’t you think, Takashi?” He held up the book for his cousin to see.

“You knew about these?” Kaoru asked, surprised.

“Yeah, Kyo asked we could give him some pictures.” Honey grinned. “Though I wonder how he got the pictures of the competitors from the other schools? Look, there’s a really good picture of Hino from Seiso, and the profile is pretty detailed.”

However, an answer was not forthcoming as simultaneously, Haruhi brought out tea and cakes, Tamaki brought out the last of the boxes, and the doors to the Third Music Room crashed open.

“Hello, hello,” Tamaki said to approximately ten very excited girls, running his fingers through his blond hair, automatically the gentleman. “A little early today?”

“Tamaki-senpai,” one of the first-years Haruhi recognized from class 1B. “We bought it.”

The girls squealed all at once, each pulling out a copy of a book. The Host Club looked askance at each other, clearly confused – The books hadn’t even been released yet. In fact, most of the club hadn’t even known they were being printed, so how could the girls have gotten a copy of it?

Their confusion was answered as one of the second-years in the party held her book out for the Club to see.

“Violin Romance – A Kyouya Ohtori/Len Tsukimori doujinshi,” Hikaru read aloud, before collapsing into fits of laughter. Kaoru leaned beside him, similarly reduced to hilarity.

“Oh,that.” Honey-senpai said, beaming. “Takashi and I saw a couple girls in the hall with those. But we didn’t know what they were, then.” Even Mori showed a trace of amusement. Tamaki looked as if he’d gone into shock, and Kyouya appeared to be utterly speechless.

“May I see that?” Haruhi asked, reaching with an unrestrained grin for a copy held by the nearest girl. She glanced at the cover, which featured a good drawing of Kyouya, back to back with Tsukimori, both holding violins. “By Renge Hoshakuji,” she read the line of print on the side. She flipped through the book with curiosity.

It was a wonder that the Host Club session went without serious problems after that. Kyouya, while at times appearing as if he wanted nothing better than to become rather violent with the book and occasionally with the girls who held them, also appeared to have the self-control to hold himself from actually doing so. It was even more of a wonder, Haruhi thought, that they actually did manage to sell a good number of the profile books that Kyouya had compiled for the competition.

When the doors eventually shut, the last guests having left for the day, Kyouya pulled out his cell phone and made a call.

“Yes, there is a doujinshi by Renge Hoshakuji called “Violin Romance,”” he said in a tone of supreme disgust. “Find all copies of it, and destroy them.”

“It wasn’t that bad,” Haruhi told him. Over the session, she’d successfully managed to skim the book. “There weren’t any really,” she paused, choosing her words carefully, “explicit scenes, and overall the plot and plot development wasn’t too bad.”

Kyouya gave her a glare that would peel paint from the walls, before leaving the room and slamming the door as he left.

Meanwhile, at Seiso Academy, Kahoko Hino held a hair elastic between her teeth as she tried to brush her layered red hair into a ponytail. It was at times like this that she really hated how she had layered her hair – despite the best efforts, stray hairs still fell around her face. She sighed, frustrated, and gave up, typing her hair up as best as she could.

“Amou-san, can I borrow some bobby pins?” she called over to her friend, an aspiring journalist and one of the main reporters on the school newspaper.

“Sure thing,” the long-haired brunette said, tossing over some black pins. “So what’s your impression of the competition?” she asked.

“Thanks,” Kaho replied, smiling. She threaded the bobby pins through her loose strands hair. Amou never missed an opportunity to needle someone for information. “I’m not sure,” she admitted. She was much more open about her opinions than the others. “I didn’t expect to have to participate in two competitions, but once you’re in one, I guess you’re in for the other too. The Ouran bunch are really handsome; they have a blond half-European pianist, he’s absolutely hilarious. The Lobelia girls are kind of stuck-up, though; they only talk to each other, or they don’t talk at all. Done.” She turned to Amou, already in her gym clothes and her hair already braided out of the way. “Let’s go. Soccer today, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Amou said. “But first, one of the girls here with a friend in Ouran was passing these around today; I thought you might be interested.” She passed her friend a glossy book, her eyes wrinkled in amusement. Kaho glanced at the cover, and her eyes widened. Amou continued, ignoring her friend’s reaction. “I heard we’re playing a game against class 2-5 today. Tsuchiura’s in that class, right?”

“Yes, he is,” Kaho replied. She packed the book away in her backpack, thinking to look at it later. She wasn’t surprised that Amou knew – she would bet that Amou knew the classes, phone numbers, addresses, grades and extracurricular schedule of each and every one of the competitors in the concours. After all, they were hot stuff right now, and thus very, very newsworthy.

“Do you think he’d answer some questions for me after class?” Amou asked eagerly as they lined up. “I think I’m going to try to compile profiles of all the competitors in this concours.”

“I’m not sure; maybe,” Kaho said reluctantly, as they headed onto the soccer field. Class 2-5 was already there; she could see Ryoutarou’s shock of dark green hair. She knew it’d be much harder to pull information from Ryoutatou than it was from her.

“All right, everyone,” the teacher called out. “Gather around. We’re having a game today; Class 2-2 versus class 2-5” he said, and announced the positions each student would be taking. Ryoutarou was announced to be a forward; so too was Kaho, to her surprise. To her even greater surprise, she didn’t trip over her own feet; to her great relief, she also kicked the ball the right way.

Class 2-5 won, though it was close; the winning goal was fired by Ryoutarou in the last two minutes of the game. Kaho breathed a sigh of relief as the final whistle was blown; she was tired and she wanted to shower and go hole up in one of the music practice rooms. She still had to memorize her piece for the first contest. She slipped off to the change rooms as Amou mobbed Ryoutarou. She knew that her classmate would be memorizing every word that came out of his mouth.

When she stepped out of the change rooms into the hallway of Seiso Academy five minutes later, Ryoutarou was standing outside the door. “What are you doing here?” Kaho asked, surprised. “You didn’t agree to give Amou an interview, did you?”

“Of course not,” he replied dryly. He’d clearly taken a quick shower, as his hair was still damp and falling in his eyes. “I hope you haven’t given her one. Going to the practice rooms?”

“Yeah. Oh, and speaking of Amou, she passed something to me in the change room before class,” she said, suddenly remembering the book. She stopped, fishing it out of her bag, and taking a close look at the cover. “Violin Romance? Sounds like one of the books that Mio would read.” She flipped through it, eyes widening. “Isn’t that one of Ouran’s guys?” She passed the book to Ryoutarou.

His eyes widened. “Yeah; Kyouya Ohtori. He’s widely believed to be the best violinist of our age in the country. We better not show this to Tsukimori,” he said. He closed the book, glancing at the cover. “I dread to think how he’d react.”

“Kaho, Ryou!” A jaunty, cheerful voice cut through their conversation as Kazuki dashed up behind them, slinging his non-instrument-carrying arm around Kaho. He paused, looking at the book. “What’s that?” He reached over a plucked the book out of Ryoutarou’s hands.

“A doujinshi, by one of the Ouran girls, I think. Art’s not bad.” He raised an eyebrow at his senior, crossing his arms over his chest. “What’s with ‘Ryou?’”

“Ryou is just so much easier to say than Ryoutarou,” Kazuki explained. “Besides, Ryoutarou is boring! I mean, who wants ‘firstborn son’ in their name?” He took at look at his stolen prize. “Violin Romance? A Kyouya Ohtori/Len Tsukimori doujinshi?” His expressive voice became more incredulous by syllable.

“I like my name,” Ryoutarou said, frowning at the shorter boy. “As we were saying before you interrupted, we better not show that to Tsukimori.”

“Really?” Kazuki asked, flipping through the book. “I don’t know – Tsukimori might not react much. You know him; cool and distant. Something like this might freak out one of us, but he might take it calmly.”

“You willing to take that chance?” Ryoutarou raised an eyebrow.

“Well, I’m not saying we should show it to him,” Kazuki retorted. “I’m just saying we shouldn’t make any efforts to hide it from him either. I mean, if we have a copy–“

“Amou gave it to me,” Kaho interrupted, explaining. “So I don’t know how widespread it is yet. Amou has a way of getting gossip and stuff before everyone else, so. . .”

“Even so,” Kazuki continued, gesturing expansively with the book. “If it’s not widespread now, it will be within the next week. We don’t have the time to try to track down every one, so we shouldn’t bother trying to hide it from him in the first place.”

“Hide what?” As they were speaking, the three students had reached the door to the music hallways. A cultured voice broke in from behind as Kaho opened the door. Kazuki passed the book to Azuma before Kaho or Ryoutarou could say anything.

“Oh,”Azuma said, paging through the book. “Well, it appears either Kyouya or Tsukimori have a fan. So why hide it?” He shut it and passed it into a waiting hand.

“Well, there’s the rather obvious implication that both of them are gay,” Ryoutarou said coolly. “Gay together, to be exact.”

“It’s a fangirl thing,” Azuma said, mildly condescending. He brushed his long hair out of his face with his free hand. “You get it if you’re popular with girls. I’ve had a few about myself and various others, usually seniors. They’ve decided I’m a bottom.”

“I haven’t seen any!” Kazuki broke in, surprised.

“Well, of course you haven’t,” Azuma replied. “I don’t go around giving them out or anything, and girls only give them to other girls. I don’t even know what they’re about, because I’ve only seen the covers of them.”

“Pretty good,” a sleepy voice said from behind. “You’re blocking the doorway.” He closed the book, having read it already. “It was pretty good though,” he said, trailing off as he entered a thoughtful daze. He passed it back to Kaho. Shoko was standing behind him, having walked with him to the music hallway. Her eyes were huge over Keiichi’s shoulder.

“I don’t think,” she said softly, “that we should let Tsukimori-senpai see that.”

“See what?” A cold voice sliced through the group. Tsukimori had arrived, and he wasn’t particularly pleased to see his fellow competitors clogging up the music hallway. Silence fell among the group as Kaho, Ryoutarou, and Kazuki conspicuously looked away from him.

“See what?” he repeated, his tone slightly more demanding.

“Oh,” Keiichi had seemingly heard him for the first time. Apparently Tsukimori could recall even Keiichi from one of his daydream states. “Someone made a doujinshi about you and Kyouya Ohtori from Ouran. It was pretty good. . .”

“. . . What?” Tsukimori’s voice was a combination of cold surprise and sharp disapproval.

“No, we didn’t make it!” Kazuki exclaimed, explaining rapidly. “We think someone in Ouran did it.”

“A fangirl, from the looks of it,” Azuma added serenely. “And the artist, Renge Hoshakuji, doesn’t go to this school; she’s the daughter of a major businessman currently living in France. They have extensive business ties to the Ohtori Group. I don’t personally know her, though.”

“May I see it?” Tsukimori asked. It wasn’t so much a question as it was a demand. Wordlessly, Kaho handed him the book.

“I should, er, go and practice,” Kaho stuttered. She was often unnerved by the blue-haired boy’s demeanor. She fled into the nearest room.

“I ought to be practicing too,” Kazuki said, his eyes wide. “I completely forgot!” He, too, entered one of the practice rooms.

Ryoutarou gave Azuma, Keiichi and Shoko a meaningful glance before making his own excuse. Shoko took the hint and fled to another room, steering the daydreaming Keiichi along.

“You know, it’s not that bad,” Azuma added before he left. “I’ve had some really explicit ones about me. It means you’ve got your first fan.”

Tsukimori stood alone in the hallway, flipping through the book, his disgust increasing with every page turned. “If this is an attempt to sabotage me, Ohtori,” he murmured under his breath, “You might as well have not bothered.” He tossed the book to the side of the hall and entered a practice room.

Fin

Notes:

1) Sorry about the OOC-ness, but I think a certain amount of it is necessary to keep the plot going. I’m doing my best to keep everyone more or less in character while still making sure there’s progress.
2) As for the LCD characters, I’ve placed this competition to be AFTER the anime series, so I’m working from the assumption that in the few months that have passed since the end of the anime, they’ve gotten closer to each other (thus, first names are used). Hino and Tsuchiura are closer to each other than they are to everyone else simply because they’re both General Ed students, and Hihara is closest to them after Yunoki, due to his personality. Fuyuumi and Shimizu are closer too, just because they’re both first years and have had more interaction with each other.
3) Please suggest improvements T___T I’m trying to make this story fun, like both of the series that inspired it; if you have any suggestions to improve it, please say so!
4) Expect the next chapter around November. I’m going to aim to have it done by the end of October (I’m a slow writer, and it’s university midterms that month *sigh*), but even if it’s finished then, likely it won’t be posted until November.
5) I <3 you all! ^^ Thank you to everyone reading this and commenting or replying! You inspire me to write more!

Chapter 2 of Crescendo

Sat, 14 Jul 2007 19:54:05 GMT

Title: Crescendo
Chapter: 2, A Dinner Party
Pairing(s): None
Rating: T for safety
Genre: Humour/Crossover
Warning(s): AU; Crosses over with Kiniro no Corda.
Summary: [AU, Ouran High School x Kiniro No Corda Ouran Academy was always known as a good music school, so what happens when they face off against Seiso Academy and St. Lobelia’s Institute for first place in the tri-annual music competition?
Disclaimer: I do not own Ouran High School Host Club, Kiniro no Corda, or any other anime that may or may not be mentioned.
Thank Yous: Thanks to Kaitou Icery and Sailor Melina who beta'ed for me, and without whom this tale would be much, much worse.

Crescendo

Chapter Two: A Dinner Party

Classical music hummed softly in the background of Ouran Academy’s Central Salon, and elegant curtains (which were specially ordered for this occasion) moved in the breeze. The Ouran String Ensemble was providing entertainment for the event. Students milled everywhere in this rich, luxurious room, seemingly carefree. Laughter tinkered through the scented air, and beverages and snacks lay on tables strewn artfully around the room. At the centre of the room, there was a larger table where dinner was going to be served later in the evening.

If one looked more carefully, however, one could feel the heaviness of the air. Laughs were terse and nervous, and students, while seemingly everywhere, fell into three groups. Loud and raucous – the group of seven boys who stood near one of the snack tables, trying to keep one of their own from eating everything on it.

Quiet and reserved – the seven girls who stood far away from any tables at all; each one casting haughty looks at the seven boys by the dessert table. Every now and then, one of the girls would whisper in a low voice at the others, causing a number of derisive laughs. Ignored by all – the group that sat in a corner, near a drinks table, who stood more loosely collected than the other two groups, conversing in low tones, and likewise ignoring the other two groups.

Haruhi glanced around the room. She didn’t really feel comfortable there, as she was wearing a suit that she had borrowed from the twins. There had been an outcry about it earlier as Tamaki wanted her to dress as a girl for the competition (because she truly was one, after all), but Kyouya had sensibly reminded him that there would be girls from Ouran watching the competition. Hikaru and Kaoru were being loud as usual – They had managed to steal Tamaki’s bear earlier and had hidden it, so Tamaki was panicking and threatening the twins with all he could think of to get it back. Honey-senpai was eating cakes while Mori-senpai was trying to ensure that at least some of the cakes would be left for the others.

Across the room, a green-haired boy, wearing a bright smile, was teasing a red-haired girl who was laughing, as a purple-haired, calm boy (clearly their senior) looked on. A tight-lipped, athletic boy stood beside the girl, smiling tersely at the senior. A green-haired girl with large eyes stood shyly off to a corner with a blond boy who was leaning against a wall sleeping. Haruhi was surprised that he could sleep with the noise of the green-haired boy, the twins, and Tamaki.

Alone, to one side, stood a blue-haired youth who seemed to be ignoring everything that went on around him. At the back of the room, Haruhi recognized a couple girls from St. Lobelia’s Institute chatting with others that she did not know. One Ouran student, Renge Hoshakuji, fluttered between the groups with a small handheld video camera (she had been forbidden from bringing in a camera crew) interviewing each of the contestants.

“Interesting group, isn’t it?” Kyouya said, slipping behind her.

“A little pretentious, I would think,” Haruhi replied dryly. She gave the room another disinterested look.

Kyouya smiled slightly. “Well, it is meant to be. Since we are the hosting school this year, we are taking the opportunity to impress and intimidate the competition as much as possible before the actual competition.” He nodded at one girl in the Ouran String Ensemble, who had been casting glances at him between pieces. “For example, the string ensemble is here to show how well they play, and they aren’t even in the competition.” They were interrupted as Renge came to them, camera in hand.

“So, what do you make of the competition?” she asked, eyes sparkling. “I think that Len Tsukimori is a rather cutting figure, and he is famous throughout Japan already; do you think he poses a threat, Kyouya-senpai?” The camera turned to him.

“We’ll see.” Kyouya replied. Seeing that she would get nothing else from him, she turned her lens on Haruhi.

“Haruhi, as our fairy’s chosen, what do you make of this competition as a whole? Are you worried?”

“I don’t know.” Haruhi replied simply to the first question. Yes, she thought the competition was pretentious as a whole, but then again, thought rich people were pretentious as a general rule. “I’m not worried, no,” she said to the second. She was downright horrible at music and she knew it, and thus she simply did not care. “However, I think this competition will be an interesting experience,” she smiled for the camera.

She knew that Renge would get these videos to pretty much every member of the female population at Ouran, and thus every one of the Host Club’s clients. There was no harm in trying to get more clients – It would mean that she could quit the Host Club that much sooner. Seemingly satisfied with her responses, Renge moved on.

“Could everyone please sit down?” A voice ordered politely, and the students (except the string ensemble and Renge) gravitated towards the table.

A petulant Renge argued with one of the teachers as she was escorted from the room, to no avail – the agreement was that she could interview the competitors before the dinner started, and no later. The Chairman of Ouran had already sat down at the head of the table. Yuzuru Suoh was a tall, forbidding man, but it was clear he intimidated no one as he still wore a smile upon his face. The teachers in charge of the contest from Seiso Academy and St. Lobelia’s Institute sat on his left and right sides, and their students occupied the seats closest to them.

Haruhi took a seat between Kyouya and Kaoru. Tamaki seated himself across from her, beside one of the Seiso students. It was clear that he managed to get someone (likely not the twins) to divulge the secret as to the location of his bear, as he wore a pleased expression on his face.

“Isn’t this exciting?” he asked Haruhi happily.

“The food certainly is.” Haruhi replied. She had good reason too, as the chefs (normally the cafeteria staff) brought out the meal, which included among other things crabs and lobster. Someone gestured for the string ensemble to stop.

“Before we begin with our meal, I’d like everyone to introduce themselves.” Yuzuru Suoh smiled and gestured for the first student to his left to begin.

The purple-haired senior from Seiso was the one first one to speak. “My name is Azuma Yunoki.” His hair was long, and left free for more maximum effect and his white tuxedo accentuated his features. His voice was calm and Haruhi thought that she heard one of the girls in the string ensemble sigh. “I am a third year, and I play the flute.”

“Kazuki Hihara!” announced the green-haired youth who had earlier been entertaining the red-haired girl. His expression was simple and carefree, and a smile adorned his features. Somehow, Haruhi was reminded of Tamaki. “I’m also a third year, and I play the trumpet. It’s nice to meet you!”

“Kahoko Hino.” said the red-haired girl seated beside him, who seemed to be much calmer. Her hair was layered around her face, her expression cheery. “I’m a second year, and I play the violin,” she said with a smile to everyone before continuing, “It’s a pleasure to meet everyone.”

A tall green-haired boy spoke. “Ryoutarou Tsuchiura.” His voice was deep and he looked like the type that the Ouran Soccer Club would have actively scouted. His figure was muscular, and his expression – unreadable. “Second year. I play the piano.”

“Keiichi Shimizu.” said the blond boy who had been napping earlier. His eyes were far-off, as if he was gazing into the distance and he looked like he was on the verge of falling asleep on his plate. “First year. Cello.”

The girl beside him spoke. “Shoko Fuyuumi.” Her hair was cut short, and pinned back by clips. Her eyes were trained to no where in particular; that is, she seemed to be making an intensive effort not to look at the others. Her voice was quiet – Haruhi had to strain to hear her. “I am a first year. I play the clarinet.”

“Len Tsukimori.” Haruhi recognized his name. She could see why Renge had said that he had a “cutting figure.” His hair was coloured blue, had a slender figure, and a disciplined posture. His eyes and figure were sharp, but were no sharper than his voice. “Second year. Violin.”

“Tamaki Suoh.” Tamaki smiled with one of his truly sincere smiles that reached his eyes and spread out to everyone around him, like an infectious disease. “I’m in second year and I play the piano. I’m really happy to meet everyone!”

“Takashi Morinozuka. Third year. Flute.” Mori-senpai stated in his reserved tone. He rarely spoke so much.

“Mitsukuni Haninozuka.” Honey-senpai introduced himself. “I’m a third year and I play the cello and I really like sweet things!” He said it all in one breath.

“Hikaru Hitachiin.” The first of the twins said, a devilish grin flirting about his features. “First year. I play the trumpet.”

“Kaoru Hitachiin.” An identical grin danced on Kaoru’s face. Haruhi could see danger ahead. “First year. I play the alto saxophone.”

Haruhi was startled to hear that, but before she could ask him about it, it was her turn. She modeled her answer to the others. “Haruhi Fujioka. I’m a first year, and I play the clarinet.”

“Kyouya Ohtori.” Kyouya said, in a voice that matched Tsukimori’s for sharpness. “I am a second year, and I also play the violin.” Tsukimori glanced across the table at Kyouya with a clearly surprised look on his face, but it was quickly replaced with disdain.

“Hana Yasatsune.” The first of the Lobelia girls spoke, her voice soft, her eyes trained to the table. She had brown hair, braided back simply and was wearing a plain dress. “I am a first year. I play the oboe.”

“Hinako Tsuwabaki. I am also a first year.” This girl’s voice was much stronger and more confident than her classmate’s. She looked around the table ferociously, eyes narrowed. “I play the viola.”

“Chizuru Maihara.” The girl beside her had a willowy figure and a feminine voice. Her brown curls danced around her face. “I am in second year. I play the piano.” She smiled at the group. “It is nice to meet you all,” she said, though her posture said differently.

“My name is Benio Amakusa.” The girl’s voice was surprisingly deep. Her hair was slicked back, and cut short, and rather than a dress, she had opted for a suit. “I am also a second year, and I play the alto saxophone.”

The girl beside Benio seemed stunned by her luck; after all, Benio was a famous figure at their school. Blonde and brown-eyed, she started when she realized it was her turn. “Kimiko Shizuma. I am in third year. I play the flute.”

“Mika Tanaka.” Her long, black hair was left free, accentuated with a red dress. “I am a second year. I play the French horn.”

“Arisa Kimihiro.” The last girl, with blonde curls and blue eyes, spoke. Her voice was direct; her face determined. “Second year. I play the contrabass.”

“And that’s everyone,” the Chairman announced rather obviously. “Again, these competitions are meant to foster unity within the schools, so I hope that everyone looks past the rankings and befriend one another. And with that, I shall not keep you from your food any longer. Enjoy the meal, and enjoy the competition.” He motioned for the string ensemble to play again.

Conversation buzzed around the table. “I thought you played the bass clarinet,” Haruhi said through mouthfuls of food, glancing at Kaoru.

“I started with the bass clarinet, but I switched over to saxophone a year ago,” he replied. “Had to learn new key fingerings and everything. So what do you think of that Tsukimori, ehh, Hikaru?” He turned to his twin, grinning.

“I think he’s a little too serious about the competition,” Hikaru replied, smirking. “That could be fixed.”

“Don’t do anything too rash,” Kyouya said to them. “Sabotaging him could be rather costly to cover up; His parents are relatively wealthy and influential musicians as well. It would be troublesome.”

“Kyouya,” Tamaki’s voice was a whine. “Tsukimori won’t talk to me.” It was apparent that he had attempted to engage the blue-haired youth into a conversation, and in that, had failed miserably. The most he could get out of him was “Why do you want to know?” and “I don’t feel obligated to tell you that.”

“Tsukimori seemed to be rather interested in you,” Honey-sempai said curiously.

“Tsukimori’s already won several competitions in the country,” Kaoru said thoughtfully. “But then, so has Kyouya; maybe he sees him as a rival.”

“It’s possible.” Kyouya acknowledged. He turned to Kaoru. “How has Haruhi been playing?”

Kaoru and Hikaru let out groans. “Miserably,” Kaoru said.

“She can read sheet music now,” Hikaru followed up. “But we’re pretty sure she’s tone-deaf or something, because she can’t even play a scale. And even though she knows the notes, it’s like . . .”

“It’s as if she can’t transfer it over to the instrument,” Kaoru finished. “In short . . . “

“We’re pretty sure she’s going to be dead last in the competition,” They chimed in at the same time.

“Neh, Kyouya, what have you heard about the other competitors?” Honey-sempai asked. The rest of the Host Club turned to him.

“Azuma Yunoki comes from a wealthy family who own a flower arranging school.” He began. “He’s fairly accomplished in both that and the flute, and gets competitive grades in regular classes as well. In short, class A. He is likely the strongest competitor from Seiso aside from Tsukimori. Kazuki Hihara is a competent musician who thoroughly enjoys what he does, though it seems that he doesn’t care about rankings. Kahoko Hino is their school fairy’s chosen competitor, but has the upper hand among the chosen competitors from the schools because she has already played through the Seiso intraschool concours.”

“Ryoutarou Tsuchiura was already an accomplished pianist in elementary school,” Tamaki chimed in. He didn’t know any of the other competitors at all, but he had heard of Tsuchiura before. “It was thought that he was a musical genius!” It was clear that Tamaki was looking forward to competing with him.

“But he seemed to have quit after junior high,” Kyouya said. “Keiichi Shimizu is an accomplished cellist, but sleeps often, sometimes all day, and has been described as an alien. Shoko Fuyuumi is shy, and is known to become nervous enough to affect her performance before a competition.” He continued with the St Lobelia students. “This is the first competition for Hana Yasatsune, which means that she is intimidated easily,” he cast a glance at the twins, who had suddenly grinned at each other. “Hinako Tsuwabaki is competent at the viola, and has won a few competitions before; the same goes for both Chizuru Maihara and Benio Amakusa, though Amakusa has won more competitions than either Tsuwabaki or Maihara. Mika Tanaka is their school fairy’s chosen competitor. The other two are not worth mentioning,” he finished. Haruhi could almost hear the crisp snap of a clipboard punctuating his remarks, as it would have in a Host Club meeting; however, Kyouya possessed no clipboard at the moment.

“I bet he just got in because he’s the son of the Chairman.” A harsh voice sailed clearly above the dinner conversation. Tamaki turned a shade of light pink. Hearing this challenge, several of the students talking quieted down and turned. Down and across the table, Hinako Tsuwabaki, seated amidst the Lobelia students, glared her challenge at him.

“More than likely,” a female voice replied. Hers was softer, like wind rushing through leaves. Chizuru Maihara smiled and looked down the table at Tamaki. “But then, even if he did, it would make him easy to defeat, wouldn’t it?”

“But I didn’t!” Tamaki protested, his face now bright red. “I didn’t cheat!”

“Can you prove it?” A full-throated, deep voice challenged. Benio Amakusa lounged at her seat like an emperor on a throne. Haruhi chanced a glance down the table at the teachers. The Chairman seemed to be interested in what Tamaki would respond with, and the teachers, following his suit, were speaking quietly to one another, ignoring the proceedings.

“If I had a piano--” His complaint was cut off by the green-haired youth at near the end of the table; Hihara, Haruhi recalled.

“Neh, this isn’t really the place for this, is it?” He asked. He wore a smile, though somewhat shyly; it was clear he was trying to cool down the hotheads. “I mean, this competition is about unity, and challenging one of the contestants before even the first selection isn’t really working towards that purpose, is it?”

“Exactly!” Tamaki jumped at his opportunity. “It’s about making friends and having fun!”

Several of the girls tittered. It was clear that even if these two possessed illusions about the contest, very few of the others did.

“Keep to your own group, Hihara,” Hinako snapped back at him. “I wouldn’t be so quick to say that; after all, your famous Len Tsukimori probably only got in because of his famous parents.” She placed emphasis on the word ‘famous.’

Eyes shifted to the blue-haired youth, who had not looked up from his meal since the start of it. He gave Hinako a look of disdain and continued eating – Unlike Tamaki, he had heard this from others many times before.

“Aren’t you going to say anything in your defense, Tsukimori?” Hinako dug a little further at him. “Or are you letting it slide because you know it’s true?”

Tsukimori put down his utensils, and dabbed at his mouth with a napkin before speaking. “Why?” He replied nonchalantly. “This is a competition, and we will see who has ability and who does not at the first selection. Speaking of which,” he turned to the end of the tables, where the teachers sat. “You said you would not reveal the first theme unless we had this meeting. What is the first theme?”

“We will tell you at the end of the night,” the Chairman replied. Tsukimori sighed, and conversation buzzed anew among the students.

“What was that about?” Kaho, who had been quiet through the proceedings, asked.

“It’s nothing,” Kazuki turned to her with a grin, “Lobelia students have always been a little out there.”

“Well, they haven’t won a competition in the last decade,” Ryoutarou explained. “They’re looking to win this one.” He glanced down the table at the Ouran students, who were laughing as the twins were taking turns throwing various fruit at the Suoh boy. Tsukimori was more than a little annoyed as half the food that missed Suoh hit him. “What do you make of the competition?”

“I know Kyouya Ohtori,” Azuma cut in. “He’s the third son of the Ohtori Group.” He smiled as Kyouya looked over, hearing his name. “My family very much enjoyed the stay at your Aqua Gardens last winter,” he said in a friendly tone. “My grandmother asked me to tell you that the piranha aquarium was unsightly.”

“I will be sure to tell my father so,” Kyouya replied, his tone and mannerisms very much that of a businessman’s son. “We hope you will come to stay again.”

Azuma turned back towards Kazuki, Kaho, and Ryoutarou. “He is well accomplished by all accounts. The boy beside him, Haruhi Fujioka, is their school’s chosen, and is notable because unlike the rest of them, he doesn’t come from a rich, influential family. The Hitachiin brothers,” he nodded in the direction of the twins, who were dodging ammunition slung back by their lord, “stand to inherit the Hitachiin clothing line from their mother.”

“They’re the sons of the designer?” asked Kaho as she gazed down the table at them, wide-eyed.

Azuma nodded. “The two beside them, Haninozuka and Morinozuka, are the eldest sons of the families that train many of the world’s militaries and security operations. Suoh is the illegitimate son of the Suoh family, but stands to inherit the entire corporation.”

“Woooow,” Kazuki breathed in awe. He’d heard of many of these families before, but had no idea that the people sitting around him could be that wealthy.

“What’s more interesting is that those seven boys have also made a rather unprecedented club at Ouran,” Azuma continued, eyeing the end of the table with interest. “They’re also known as the Ouran Host Club.”

“I’ve heard of that,” Ryoutarou rested his chin on his hands, his plate empty. “They entertain rich girls there, don’t they?”

“Yes.” Azuma cocked his head to one side. “Though I wonder when they find the time, between school, music, and other contests, for such things. Ohtori and Suoh in particular are fairly frequent contestants in other competitions outside the school. As for the Lobelia students,” he nodded in the direction of the girls across the table, and lowered his voice a bit. “Hinako Tsuwabaki, Chizuru Maihara, and Benio Amakusa are in the White Lily Society, but the rest have no background worth mentioning.”

The conversation ended as Suoh approached Kazuki, wiping a loose strawberry from the back of his jacket. “Tsukimori told me I should talk to you about this, and I just had to know; What do you think are the merits of Pokemon Diamond and Pearl?” And thus began a heated, enthusiastic conversation on that very subject.

After the end of dessert (somehow – Haruhi wasn’t quite sure how – Honey-senpai had managed to finish a whole cake at the end), the Chairman clapped his hands and stood up.

“And now to what some of you have been waiting for all night,” he said with the smile. “This competition is done in the same manner that I am sure many of you will have experienced; there are four selections, and each one has a theme. The winner of each selection earns himself and his school twenty points, and second and third earn nineteen and eighteen points respectively. Likewise, points are awarded down the rankings, with the last place finisher earning no points.

At the end of the fourth selection, points for each selection are tallied, and the final rankings posted. The school whose competitors earn the most points wins. The first selection will take place three weeks from now, and you are free to choose any piece you wish, so long as it fits the theme. If necessary, you may have an accompanist. Your interpretation of each theme is also important. The theme for the first selection is ‘Human Nature.’” He seated himself once again, as soft whispers buzzed around the table.

“‘Human Nature,’ huh?” Haruhi heard Kaoru mutter under his breath. “Could be tricky.”

Fin

Author's Notes: Err, various notes for this chapter, and three in particular.

1) First, I'm referring to the Seiso (La Corda D'Oro) characters by first name because in Ouran High School Host Club, they refer to each other by first name, and I wanted to be consistent. I felt it would make it awkward if all the Seiso characters went by last name even when referring to each other, but the Ouran characters still called each other by first name. Thus, when referring to each other and talking to each other, Seiso characters will use first name (with possible exceptions of Tsukimori, Fuyuumi and Shimizu, because I haven't decided that yet). When referring to students from other schools, all characters will use last names.

2) This isn't important, but as indicated above, La Corda D'Oro characters will have a larger role than I'd originally planned, however it will still be told mostly from Ouran's perspective.

3) In this chapter, Yunoki took a rather Kyouya-like role in describing the competitors to his schoolmates. While I don't think it'd actually be in his personality to do so, he is most likely to know the Ouran characters or have heard about them. So that's more of an explanation if people were wondering.

Other Stuff: I'm trying to make this piece of writing as musically accurate as possible, so if you play a musical instrument (any listed above) and are willing to receive emails around three in the morning that ask really weird stuff like "What's the difference between a clarinet and a bass clarinet? Do they have the same fingering tab things?" and "What classical pieces can you play on a saxophone anyway?" and "Is it even POSSIBLE to play Fur Elise on the flute?" and reply to me sometime within that week, I would really, really appreciate your help. ^^

Thanks all!

Exams, Exams.

Fri, 13 Apr 2007 23:34:52 GMT

I have hit stage 2: Extreme nervousness causing constant indigestion.

Arrgh.

On the bright side, something new!

Title: Crescendo
Pairing(s): None
Rating: T for safety
Genre: Humour/Crossover
Warning(s): AU; Crosses over with Kiniro no Corda.
Summary: [AU, Ouran High School x Kiniro No Corda] Ouran Academy was always known as a good music school, so what happens when they face off against Seiso Academy and St. Lobelia’s Institute for first place in the tri-annual music competition?
Disclaimer: I do not own Ouran High School Host Club, Kiniro no Corda, or any other anime that may or may not be mentioned.
Author’s Notes: A result of my overactive imagination thinking “Holy crap, what would happen if you made all the characters in Kiniro no Corda (also called La Corda d’Oro ~primo passo~) compete against the Ouran Host Club in a music competition?” and an overwhelming desire to make Honey play the cello because it would be funny. As for the fairies . . . Watch Kiniro no Corda. Updates will be coming . . . extremely slowly.
Thanks Yous: To tatsumaki, for being as ever a brilliant betareader and editor. I <3 you.

Crescendo

Chapter One: A Not So Musical Beginning

Ouran Academy was known for three things: Prestigious families, wealth, and academics, most notably their music program.

Seiso Academy, across the city, was known for three things: Wealth, athletics, and academics, most notably their music program.

St. Lobelia’s Girls’ Academy, one hour away from Ouran, was known for three things: The White Lily Society, wealth, and academics, most notably their music program.

As any music major in all of Japan knew, these three schools were not only the top music academies in Japan, they also had a fierce rivalry exemplified in their tri-annual competition, in which each school sent six of their best musicians to compete for honour, glory, and the right to brag for the next three years straight.

So what did Haruhi Fujioka, first year of Ouran Academy in the general stream have anything to do with it all?

Well, it went sort of like this.

*****

Haruhi panted, running down the hallway. She was late to the Host Club, as usual; even half a year after she unfortunately dropped that vase, she really had no inclination to be there early. Being there early meant having to put up with Tamaki’s endless babbling nonsense and more time for them to convince her to wear whatever ridiculous outfit they’d pulled out before the guests came. Yet she still had to at least pretend to make an effort to get there on time, or else they would think that she was intentionally being late (which she was – but she wasn’t planning on letting them in on that anytime soon). This would explain why she was working up a sweat dashing across campus to the Third Music Room.

To be honest, though, she didn’t even know how these boys found the time to run a Host Club. They were all music students, weren’t they? She wondered. Didn’t they need time to practice and do whatever it was that rich music students did?

Suddenly, she tripped. A high-pitched giggle came from somewhere near her legs, but she couldn’t quite tell what it was. Slowly, she pulled herself upward, rubbing her knees where she’d fallen, and looked up to see the strangest creature she’d seen in her life.

The apparition giggled again. It was about four inches tall, with black hair, purple wings, and perhaps most shockingly, red eyes. It wore a tunic of royal purple and flew at her face, smacking her nose with its minute wand. “You can see me,” it laughed.

Haruhi stared at it, wondering if she hadn’t hit her head a little too hard when she fell. For the moment, she would assume she had. “What on earth are you?” she asked it weakly.

“Me?” The spectre smacked her nose with its wand again. “How rude! I’m the resident music fairy of Ouran Academy!”

“Oh,” Haruhi replied. She was now quite sure that she’d hit her head a bit too hard and had had a concussion. After all, what on earth did a music fairy want with her? She contemplating going to the nurse, at least as soon as this thing stopped hitting her nose with its wand. “Well, I think you’ve got the wrong person, because I’m not in the music program,” she told it, hoping it would go away.

“I have not,” the fairy told her, whacking her nose with its wand again. She really wished it would stop doing that. “Well, I would stop it, you know, if you would get over this stupid idea of yours that you’ve got a concussion. I’m real, and you tripped over me.” It giggled again.

“Oh,” Haruhi said obstinately. She was surprised that it knew what she was thinking, but then, that probably went to show that this was a figment of her imagination or something. “Well, I still think that you’ve got the wrong person. I’m not a music student.” She got up and dusted herself off; it would do no good to show up to the Host Club in even a vaguely dusty, dirty state. Kyouya would just add to her debt, more than he probably would for being late, anyway. “Well, I’m running a little behind, so I have to go,” she told it, hoping it would just disappear, because she didn’t feel like she had a concussion. Of course, that didn’t mean she didn’t have one, and for once she found that she rather hoped that she did. “Err, it’s been nice talking to you. . .” she said to it, still figuring it would be best to be polite. She continued her dash down the hallway.

“Hey!” it yelled after her. “You can’t just leave like that!”

She kept on running until she finally made it to the Third Music Room. Entering, she shut the door after her and turned around to find the room empty. Where was everyone? she wondered. She was at least ten minutes late, and the room, by now, was usually chattering with noise and complaints and Tamaki’s overly-loud and overly-dramatic voice.

“Hey, I told you, you can’t just leave like that!” Turning to face the source of the noise, she found that the fairy was watching her from a corner. It gave her a wicked grin, its red eyes glowing. It was working on lifting up a vase – a very expensive looking vase, in fact – as it huffed at her. “You know about the contest, right? The big music contest with Seiso and Lobelia’s? Anyway, you’re competing in it.”

Haruhi blanched. “No. No, I’m not,” she informed it. “I told you, didn’t I? I said you had the wrong person! I’m not a music student, I don’t play an instrument, and I don’t even sing! Please put that down!”

“I won’t!” it gasped at her. The weight of the vase was clearly straining it. Haruhi dashed over to try to pull it away from the sprite, only to be more frustrated as the fairy pulled it up out of her reach. “Back off, Fujioka-san! You’re going to be in this contest because I say you are, and if you don’t . . .” It plunged dangerously.

“But I can’t play an instrument or anything!” Haruhi replied desperately. “Put that down!”

“I’ll take care of that! Just . . . do . . . it!” it growled out, gritting its teeth as it rose upward, dropping about half a foot for each foot it rose.

Haruhi really could not see a way out of this one unless she wanted to add another $80 000 debt to her name. “Okay, okay, just put it down!” she said, and heaved a sigh of relief as the fairy unsteadily put the vase – intact – back onto its stand. Seconds later, an instrument case smacked her over the head, followed shortly thereafter by a hefty load of books and sheet music (which, mind, she couldn’t read).

“I’m glad that you saw sense, Fujioka Haruhi-san!” The fairy said to her, a wicked grin again gracing its features. Haruhi, with a slight shiver, noted that its teeth were pointed. It zipped off in the direction of the doorway, only to run headfirst into Honey, who was the first of the Host Club to enter the room.

Honey looked down at the fairy.

The fairy smiled up at him.

“Ah, I see! I was wondering!” Honey bounced gleefully over to Haruhi, who was sitting in a pile of books, sheet music, and instrument case looking decidedly unhappy. “Haru-chan, Haru-chan, you’re in the competition too!”

Haruhi turned slowly to the loli-shota boy, with a glare worthy of the Shadow King, or perhaps of Honey himself in a sweets-deprived state. “What,” she asked, enunciating her words, “was that?”

“The music fairy of the school, of course,” Kyouya walked in, taking in the scene for potential damages. “He shows up every three years in concordance with the competition. St. Lobelia’s and Seiso have them too. He didn’t break anything, did he? It’s going onto your debt if he did.”

“. . . What?” Haruhi asked, before being attacked by a violet-eyed, blond second-year.

“Haruhi, Haruhi, my darling daughter Haruhi has been chosen by the fairy for the competition! Ohhh, Otou-san is so proud of you! Okaa-san, Okaa-san, isn’t it wonderful? Now the competition is going to be the Host Club against the other schools! We’re practically guaranteed to win! The school will support us and we’ll become heroes!” A slightly distant look appeared in his eyes as he imagined what would happen if (no, once, he corrected himself mentally) he won. “Yes, Haruhi!” he said, clearly in rapture with what he was imagining. “Yes, I won it all for you, aren’t you proud of your dear Otou-san? Oh, you’re so cuuute!”

Haruhi ignored him. He was clearly in one of his raving mad moods.

“Would someone please explain things to me?” Haruhi asked dryly, picking herself up from the floor and untangling herself from Tamaki. She was starting to get a mild headache

“Oh, oh!” Honey-senpai butted back in. “Well, every three years, there’s a competition between the three top music schools in Japan, which are Ouran, Seiso, and St. Lobelia’s, and there are seven competitors from each school. Two are chosen from each year, usually the top two music students in the year, and the seventh competitor from each school is chosen by the school’s respective fairies.”

“The fairy for Seiso Academy is named Lili – He’s blond and he’s an emotional, dramatic idiot, like Tono,” Kaoru said, Hikaru standing beside him. “The fairy for St. Lobelia’s Girls’ Academy is a feisty little one called Mei.”

“But the one for Ouran. . .” Hikaru added.

“Is our favourite!” They chimed together, simultaneously sliding their arms around her, other hands on their hips.

“He’s a very chaotic fairy,” Hikaru said with a wicked grin. “Everywhere he goes, it’s said he causes trouble.”

“Which is why,” Kaoru added, an identical grin gracing his face, “He’s called Melee.”

“Get your hands off my daughter!” Tamaki said, snatching Haruhi back from the clutches of the twins and into his own. “Oh, I’m so proud of you for being chosen! Don’t worry! Otou-san will make sure that you do well!”

“What instrument do you play, Haruhi?” Kyouya turned to her, pushing his iron-rimmed glasses up onto the bridge of his nose.

“Oh.” She blinked. “I don’t know yet.”

“Well, open your instrument case, silly!” Honey-senpai told her cheerily. He had climbed onto Mori’s shoulders as he said this. “Let’s all have a look!”

Haruhi sighed as the boys crowded around her, shaking Tamaki off of her. Evidently her music school friends were not going to take sympathy on her for being shoved into the competition like this. She unsnapped the lock on the music case to find a clarinet.

“Ahh, good,” Kyouya said. “Kaoru plays bass clarinet, so he’ll be able to help you if you need it. After all, there’s no arguing with the fairy.” He pushed his glasses up his nose. “By the way, any damages it incurs will be added to your debt.”

Hikaru and Kaoru grinned widely at this, but Tamaki immediately protested.

“Kyouya,” he whined, “How can you leave her to the twins? It’s not as if the clarinet and the bass clarinet are that similar! There’s a whole octave difference! And surely someone with more experience should teach her – They’re still in their first year! It would be more appropriate for someone who is at least in his second year and who is at the top of the class to help her!”

“The written music is exactly the same, Tono,” Kaoru said wickedly, “So there shouldn’t be any problems.”

“Yeah, and the keynotes are the same, aren’t they, Kaoru?” Hikaru found fit to chime in. “You don’t know the keynotes, do you, Tono? So there’s no need for you to bother. We’ll take care if it all, right, Kaoru?”

“So it’s settled – Hikaru and Kaoru will help Haruhi prepare for the contest,” Kyouya finished. The twins smirked.

Tamaki fled to his corner of woe, sobbing about how the world was conspiring against him.

“Ahh, yes,” Kyouya smiled slightly, ignoring the blonde boy’s antics. “And just so everyone knows, we are required to attend a competitor’s dinner in three nights. These competitions are, of course, meant to foster community between our schools. And to ensure that we all go, the first selection theme will be introduced at that meeting.” With that, the Shadow King closed his notebook with a snap. “I suggest you all practice,” he told them, and left.

Honey and Mori also took their leave, Honey chattering with excitement about the upcoming competition. Tamaki, quickly recovered once he heard the word “practice,” occupied his usual place behind the piano in the room, glaring rather ominously at the twins. Hikaru pulled out his music books.

“So, Haruhi,” Kaoru smiled. “First things first: reading sheet music.”

End Chapter One: A Not So Musical Beginning

new fic-ness?

Wed, 28 Mar 2007 18:21:02 GMT

Fandom: Ouran High School Host Club
Title: The Witch of Maria Agnesi
Author: kitsunerei88
Pairing(s): None
Rating: K
Genre: Humour
Warning(s): None
Summary: [Drabble] For once, Haruhi doesn’t know the answer to a question on a math test . . .
Author’s Notes: Math, I love you. You make me laugh, and frustrate me and drive me crazy, but never, ever let me down. Admittedly, this fic is funnier and makes more sense if you’re a math geek. xDDDD I love math geeks.
Disclaimer: I do not own Ouran High School Host Club.

The Witch of Maria Agnesi

Haruhi stared down at her math test. It was the bonus question at the very end, and she didn’t understand what it was asking her.

Draw the Witch of Maria Agnesi.

Admittedly, it wasn’t as if she really needed to write the bonus, she reflected worriedly. It wasn’t as if she didn’t understand and do each and every single previous problem on this test perfectly. In fact, she realized, she probably wouldn’t get the bonus marks even if she did do it right; she never did. They were there just in case; if you got perfect and wrote the bonus, you got nothing. If you didn’t get perfect and wrote the bonus, you got however many points the bonus was worth added to your mark. But she always got perfect.

But what if she didn’t this time? She might need that extra mark or two. And she knew what the consequences were if she didn’t top the class. She stared worriedly back at the test paper.

Draw the Witch of Maria Agnesi.

Haruhi found herself spiralling further into confusion.

What was this Witch of Maria Agnesi anyway? The only thing she could even remotely guess that it could be would be something like a painting. Or a sculpture. She wasn’t really familiar with famous pieces of work, so it was entirely possible that was what this mysterious Witch of Maria Agnesi was. But what would that be doing on her math test?

So in the end, she left it blank and left the room in a decidedly frustrated mood. The twins trailed after her, talking animatedly.

“So what did you think of the test, Haruhi?” Hikaru asked, slinging his arm around her. “I got everything, but I think I might have made a small mistake on question fourteen, and I didn’t get the bonus.”

“It was okay,” Haruhi replied, sighing. “I didn’t get the bonus either, but otherwise same as usual.”

“That’s okay. I got stuck on question thirteen, fourteen, and sixteen,” Kaoru butted in from behind. “I wrote something down for them, though, so I should get some part marks anyway, right?” His voice betrayed a small amount of anxiety. He wasn’t a natural at math like Hikaru was, and usually had some difficulty with the tests.

“Yeah, you should be fine,” Hikaru reassured him. “You always say that and you always come out with a top mark anyway.”

And in this manner, the three first-years reached and entered the Third Music Room.

“Haru-chan, Haru-chan!” Honey-sempai bounced over energetically. He was there early. “How did your math test go?” He had watched her study for it for the past week.

“It was alright, Honey-sempai,” she smiled at the short senior. “I didn’t get the bonus question though; it was something about drawing the Witch of Maria Agnesi, but I’m not really familiar with famous artwork, so I left it blank.”

Honey-sempai stared at her and then burst out laughing. He went and fetched his advanced calculus textbook and paged through the Appendix. “Haru-chan, the Witch of Maria Agnesi is a curve!” He found what he was looking for and showed her. A circle, with some lines drawn through it, several labelled points and a curve. “This is the Witch of Maria Agnesi,” he said, pointing to the curve.

“Oh,” Haruhi said, the question finally making sense in her head. Rarely did she ever feel so stupid.

Fin

I don't really like the ending, but I'll live with it. Dedicated to math geeks everywhere because you all rock.

So, a return to Fanfiction, eh?

Sat, 10 Mar 2007 16:45:25 GMT

Title: Simple and Clean
Fandom: Ouran High School Host Club
Author: kitsunerei88
Pairing(s): Kyouya/Kaoru
Rating: G
Genre: Romance/General
Summary: Kaoru just loved him . . . [request fic for tatsumaki][Drabble}
Disclaimer: Ouran High School Host Club is the property of Bisco Hatori, Studio Bones, Viz Media, and gods know who else. I just know I’m not on that list. *pouts*

Simple and Clean

Kaoru just loved him.

He loved the sharp cut of his senior’s face. He loved the way those iron-rimmed glasses sat on his nose. He loved the way his dark hair, parted to the left, flopped into his onyx eyes. He loved the confident way the other boy carried himself, full of grace and assurance. He loved his calculating mindset, his sharp intelligence, the way that he could seemingly do things that no one else could. He even loved the way he fussed over his accounts on his laptop. Tap, tap, tap, the keys went, a strangely reassuring beat to the late afternoon serenity.

Yes, Kaoru Hitachiin found himself thoroughly, completely, entirely in love with Kyouya Ohtori.

“Kaoru?” The stern, handsome, second year student looked across the table at him.

“Hmm?” The redhead looked up from his novel.

“Will you bring me some tea? I think I will be working for a while longer. Our president has, yet again, spent more money on than he should have on our latest event.”

“Of course,” Kaoru said, rising from his chair. Since it was long after the Host Club had closed for the night, he brewed a new pot of tea and pulled out a small tea set, before bringing it over to the dark-haired senior.

“Thank you,” Kyouya said, his eyes trained to the laptop screen. “You can go home, if you like. There’s no need to stay here with me; I said I would be awhile.”

“No,” Kaoru smiled, picking up his novel. “I’ll wait.”

Notes: It's been mildly edited from when Tatsu saw it, and I'm posting it because it's cute. I didn't intend the fic to presuppose a relationship between Kaoru and Kyouya, I intended it to be more of a "Kaoru is unrequited, yet still satisfied with what he's got" idea, but it was left open-ended because. . . It just worked that way.

So kids, school is fun!

Sat, 13 Jan 2007 03:36:03 GMT

"Because these carbon sheets will slide easily past each other, graphite makes an excellent lubricant."

Thank you, Earth Science textbook! I will certainly keep that in mind!

Des choses qu'on doit voir. . .

Fri, 24 Nov 2006 15:55:04 GMT

C'est en meme temps effrayant et amusant.

O.O

My life - The Soundtrack

Sun, 15 Oct 2006 05:10:34 GMT

Stolen from keltyc

Instructions:

1. Open up iTunes/computer music player
2. Put it on shuffle.
3. Fill in the song sections with WHATEVER song comes up next.
4. That be your soundtrack!!

Opening Credits? My Direction - Sum 41 ("Perfection is my direction . . ." o.O Anyone who knows me will get it.)

Waking Up? Du Hast - Rammstein

Falling in Love? The World - Yuki Kajiura, .hack//SIGN

Fight Scene? Silence - Sarah McLachlan (Pretty fight song. . . I'd have chosen something by A Perfect Circle, myself. . .)

Breaking Up? Blood to Bleed - Rise Against (I like it xD. "'I don't love you anymore,' is all I remember you telling me, Never have I felt so cold.")

Getting Back Together? The Ghost of You - My Chemical Romance (Man. . . This was originally a concept cd in which the protagonist's girlfriend DIES and then he swears to kill a thousand evil men to bring her back. . . o.O)

Secret Love? Gothic Sanctuary - Nightwish (Oh. Well, I guess it was a miserable love)

Life's Okay? Frozen - Madonna (o.O I have never listened to this song before xD. I am highly tempted to skip to the next one. Thanks, boyfriend.)

Mental Breakdown? Walking in the Air - Nightwish (whoa. . . of the things that make no sense. This is a Christmas song that was redone by Nightwish, originally composed by Howard Blake for 'The Snowman.' It's a classical piece xD)

Driving Flashback? White Eyes - Gackt (Err, I believe the song title refers to the whites of people's eyes when they're rolled up in their head. I think it's about his lover dying. But it's a fast-paced, driving song. . . <3)

Partying? Born Like This - Three Days Grace ("Somewhere someone’s gun, someone’s gun is laughing" Why am I getting all the ridiculously violent or depressing or morbid songs? I swear, my entire playlist isn't like this. Just most of it is.)

Happy Dance? Never Enough - Dream Theatre (Whoo! hard metal. It's one in the morning, and that sort of sucks because I can't blast it xD <3 I love how they're crazy complex)

Regretting? Garnet - D'espairs Ray (one of those songs sitting between electronic and metal . . . Crazy fun <3)

Long Night Alone? Angelic - It's My Turn (Original) - DJ Johan Gielan

Final Battle? Blue Blood - X Japan (Yes. . . the forerunner of JRock xD)

Death Scene? YOU - Ayumi Hamasaki (DDR Mix) (Other than this being a weird choice for a death scene, but considering the life I must have lead to get this far according to this, I must be happy to die xD)

End Credits? I Don't Believe In Love - Queensryche (note: Operation:mindcrime is an amazing concept cd.)