September 8

"Kaiyoka!" I turned my attention to my immediate left, where Hikaru and Kaoru were approaching me from the back of our math class. I waved in greeting, and they did the same.

"Hikaru, Kaoru. What's up?" I asked, beckoning for them to walk with me to my seat. They both slung an arm around me, Kaoru more gently so.

"The king requests that you come in today," They both informed me nonchalantly, as if I were supposed to know what they were talking about.

"I'm sorry?" I asked, shrugging out of their grip. "I have no idea what you're talking about." Kaoru raised his eyebrow.

"Tamaki-senpai. He wants you to come to the host club after school today," Kaoru added. At the look of slight confusion still on my face, Hikaru added,

"The dramatic blonde one." I smiled in understanding; the name rang a bell, but I continued to forget which one of the hosts was which (to be fair, I'd only met them yesterday).

"Oh, you should have started with that," I chided gently, laughing as I sat down. The twins stood around my desk, conversing with me quietly while other students trickled into the room. I got a few strange looks from some of the girls, which was fair. I'd never spoken to Kaoru or Hikaru in my life, and suddenly I was encroaching on the time they get to spend gawking at them.

"Guys, can I ask you something?" I spoke up. Hikaru nodded, and I continued.

"Do you like being in the host club?" I asked, surprising myself a little. When I asked if I could ask them something, I didn't quite know what would come out of my mouth either. In response, both of them spoke at the same time.

"Yeah. They were our first friends other than each other." My eyes widened in surprise, and I nodded slowly as I processed what they said. The way they're always together, how they literally finish each other's sentences and say things in tandem... It made sense.

"Why do you ask?" They both questioned, staring at me. I shrugged.

"I just wanted to know. I feel like being stared at all the time would get a little... I don't know. Boring? Annoying?" Hikaru laughed.

"You'd think, wouldn't you?" He agreed. "But with someone like Tamaki around..." Kaoru caught the drift and finished his sentence for him.

"Nothing is ever boring. There's never a dull moment." I laughed at their description.

"Fair enough," I conceded, shaking my head and smiling. The twins and I waved as Haruhi caught our attention walking in. She and I weren't exactly friends, as we'd never talked, but we'd always been cordial. There was something about being two regular kids on scholarship surrounded by rich people who couldn't care less about school that gave us that 'watching out for each other' feeling. With the possibility of joining the host club in front of me, maybe Haruhi and I would become true friends.

"Morning," She greeted us with a smile as she sat down, and we returned the greeting. The four of us chatted for another minute before the teacher began class, and Hikaru and Kaoru returned to their seats.

"Don't forget," Kaoru whispered on his way past me. I nodded as I took out a pencil, then faced forward to take in the school day ahead of me.

*

"Princess!-" I cut Tamaki off the second he began to flourish.

"I do have a name, Senpai," I told him, walking into the host club. School seemed to drag on forever that day, but now that it was over, I found myself keeping my promise to the twins. He followed me at my heels, peering at me closely.

"What is it?" He asked.

"Kaiyoka, but Kaiyo is fine, if you'd like," I responded, providing him with an alternative. His lavender eyes lit up, and Tamaki gave me a bone-crushing hug.

"Kaiyo! How cute!" He yelled, shaking me around so hard my backpack fell off of my shoulders. I sighed, picking up my bag as soon as Tamaki let me go.

"Tamaki, leave her be," I heard a cool voice command. I looked up from my bag to see Kyouya standing in front of me, tapping his pen on a page in his notebook and staring at me idly. His gaze made me straighten up.

"Miss Sahni," He said in greeting.

"Good afternoon, Kyouya-senpai," I said in the same collected manner. "If you're wondering, I'm just here to write, on the request of your 'king' here. I won't be in your way." He nodded, adjusting his glasses with two fingers.

"I didn't assume you would be. But good." He turned on his heel and went to sit at a table that was across the room from the table I was at last time. No wonder he found me so easily- I was directly in his line of vision. The fact that a non-paying person was sitting in his club probably irked the life out of him.

I found a table in the back of the room, kind of removed from the main floor. I sat down, pulling my leather bound notebook out of my bag and opening it to the next blank page. Losing track of time was inevitable as I wrote, looking up occasionally as girls walked in and took their own seats. At least a good hour and fifteen pages later, a familiar click of polished shoes roused me from my inattentive state. I looked up to see Kyouya already taking a seat in front of me, and I stuck my pen in the page and closed it, folding my hands over it and waiting for him to speak.

"May I ask how you are progressing?" He asked, nodding slightly toward my book.

"You may," I answered, only mocking his cordial tone a little bit. "I've written 15 pages today, and it's relatively unedited, but I have the main ideas fully fleshed out." He nodded.

"Good. Do you think that you'll be able to finish by the deadline I gave you?" He asked. I remember from yesterday that he'd given me until next week. I nodded.

"Easily. I'm already past the 10 page minimum. But a question for you while you're here- who did you want it to be about?" I asked. He answered after a moment of thought.

"Whomever you think fits the personality of the story best." And with that, he got up.

"I'll leave you to finish your writing. If I remember correctly, you do not enjoy being interrupted." He gave me a very small smile, one that was almost imperceptible, and walked back to his own table. I found myself staring after him, unable to understand why. As I was looking in his direction, though, my eyes fell on a girl who seemed to be staring at Kyouya much more blatantly than I. She caught my gaze and narrowed her blue eyes, flipping her dark brown hair and twirling a strand around one finger. I stared back at her evenly, waiting until she dropped her gaze before I returned to writing. We held each other's stare for a full thirty seconds before she silently scoffed and looked away.

I smirked in victory to myself, opening my notebook back up and picking up me pen. Staring at the page for a moment, I considered my next move before flipping back to the first page and beginning to edit. I replaced words with better words and reworked paragraphs, fixing any mistakes along the way. The same ice-cold glare flittered over to me now and again, but I ignored it and kept on writing. I didn't have time to be dealing with these people. Who did, when there were a million things to write about?

Between writing, dutifully ignoring that brunette girl, and engaging the hosts whenever they visited my table, it didn't feel like much time had passed at all before the club's opening time came to an end. With all the editing I had done, I was able to sit back and do a few rereads to make sure things sounded right, which was a relaxing conclusion to a few hours of hard work. While reading, I was surrounded by the noises of the club closing for the day; the swish of cloths cleaning tables, the screech of chair being pushed back in, the swoosh of curtains being drawn shut, and a click-click-clicking that had become more familiar to me the more time I spent in here.

The sound came from a pair of shoes walking across the gleaming floors, the sounds timed perfectly, one right after another. I wouldn't be surprised if it were part of rich kid training to learn how to walk correctly. After all, they say you have to walk the walk as much as you talk the talk.

I looked up, expecting to see Kyouya but instead getting an eyeful of Tamaki. I could see that Kyouya was behind him, looking less than pleased.

"Kaiyoka! Thank you for coming here today! Just for you, I'll-" Kyouya cut him off smoothly, stepping in front of him and effectively shutting him up.

"Pardon him," Kyouya requested. "Thank you for coming today, Miss Sahni. Will we be seeing you tomorrow?" At that, Tamaki peeked out from behind Kyouya, lavender eyes shimmering. He had a pleading look in his eyes, and I sighed and laughed at the same time.

"I'll be here, unless something comes up," I answered. It wasn't as if I had anything else to do, and my mom would be glad that I was spending more time with my peers. Tamaki cheered silently from behind me, and Kyouya adjusted his glasses and plastered that signature miniature smile on his face.

"Very well," He said, snapping his book shut with finality. "Until then." He walked away as he'd come, leaving me once again to stare after him for a second.

"It'll be fun having you with us, Kaiyoka. You'll be a good addition to the host club." Tamaki told me, suddenly at my side.

"Senpai?" I questioned his sudden change in demeanor. "I haven't finished the book yet. You don't even know if I'll be joining you. Kyouya-senpai has to decide whether my work meets the Host Club standards first." Tamaki laughed quietly.

"From what Kyouya has told me, I'm sure you're more than you make yourself out to be. And there's one thing I can say, it's that Kyouya Ootori is very rarely impressed. You'll be fine!" He patted the top of my head and flourished away (that was the only way to describe the grandeur manner in which he walked) in style. What he said made me stop and think, though. If I wasn't mistaken, he was saying that I'd impressed Kyouya. Which meant quite a bit, coming from someone with his reputation. If I'd already met his standards, perhaps Tamaki-senpai was right.

All of this- the whole host club thing- might turn out to be more interesting than I initially guessed.