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Title: Bonus Round (3/3)
Fandom: 咲-Saki/Ouran High School Host Club
Rating: U
Summary: Fresh from their prefectural-level victory, the five ladies of the Ryuumonbuchi High School Mahjong Club have arrived in Tokyo to compete in the national championships. But before they make their debut on the national stage, an afternoon of unparalleled delights awaits them -- courtesy of the Ouran High School Host Club.
Disclaimer: All characters are copyright of their respective owners; I lay claim only to this particular story.
Notes: This story mostly follows anime continuity for both series, with a few references to the manga. Set pre-series for 咲-Saki (during the flashback shown in EP 20), between EP 14 and 15 for Ouran.
For those who may not have seen 咲-Saki, the Ryuumonbuchi girls are one of the teams that the main characters compete against in the prefectural tournament -- this story is set one year before the start of the manga and anime storyline. In this picture, starting from the top and going clockwise, are Ryuumonbuchi Touka, Kunihiro Hajime, Amae Koromo, Inoue Jun, and Sawamura Tomoki.
Per Japanese convention, all names are given in the FamilyName FirstName order.
Bonus Round
Part III
'This is a school...?!'
Hajime had enough personal dignity to keep from pressing her face and hands against the limousine's tinted windows, but she couldn't tear her eyes away from the view. Ryuumonbuchi High School was one of Nagano's most elite (not to mention expensive) private schools, and working as Touka's maid in the Ryuumonbuchi mansion had exposed to her even more of the family's wealth, but Ouran Academy was like nothing she had ever seen before. Their car had taken them right through the middle of Tokyo and into another world, where all the skyscrapers and taxis and crowds of people just outside the school grounds might as well not even exist.
'Ouran Academy is a very exclusive institution,' Touka said. She was doing her best to act cool and poised, but Hajime could see her eyes darting left and right, trying to keep herself from turning and gawking at the perfectly groomed grounds and the stately school buildings they were driving past. 'If I had not thought that it was my family duty to attend Ryuumonbuchi, I certainly would have considered attending here.'
Jun snorted. 'Like they'd even let any of us past the gates on a normal day.'
'We are here now, are we not?' Touka fanned herself with the invitation, which had not left her hand since the moment they had all climbed into the car outside their hotel. 'And I expect all of you to act as befits your position as representatives of our school and honoured guests of -- '
'We get it,' Jun cut her off. 'Lay off the reminders, okay?'
Touka looked put out, but she didn't snap back at Jun. Perhaps, like Hajime, she'd heard the nervous edge in Jun's curt reply. Even the normally unflappable Tomoki was staring intently out of the car's windows, her hands clasped tightly in her lap. Only Koromo seemed unaffected by pre-arrival jitters, having clambered over to their side of the car and almost into Touka's lap in order to be able to see over the edge of the door frame.
'It's so pretty, Touka!' Koromo slid backwards and landed on the seat next to her cousin. 'What do you think it will look like on the inside?' Her eyes sparkled with delight.
Touka bit her lip, and her gaze flickered between Koromo and the intimidating display outside the window. 'I think, perhaps -- ' she began, but at that moment the car started to slow down and the front seat intercom beeped once before crackling to life.
'We have arrived, Touka-oujosama.' It was Hagiyoshi, Touka and Koromo's personal butler, who had accompanied them on their drive to the school. 'I shall arrange for the car to return at the designated departure time this evening, according to your instructions.'
Hagiyoshi's placid voice seemed to have a calming effect on Touka. The uneasy look left her face, and her hand was steady as she pressed the intercom button on the armrest. 'Thank you, Hagiyoshi,' she replied smoothly. 'I will call if there are any changes to our plans.'
'As you desire, Touka-oujosama. I believe that the young gentleman at the top of the steps is to be your escort.'
'Someone's waiting for us? Who is it? Who is it?' In her excitement, Koromo would have clambered over Touka once again and opened the door while the car was still moving, but fortunately Jun's long arms gave her enough of a reach to hastily lean forward and block the handle, keeping them all inside the vehicle until it came to a stop.
'Koromo, let Hagiyoshi open the door for us!' Touka scolded. 'We can't be tumbling out of the car like -- like -- ' An appropriate comparison failed her.
'Like a bunch of circus clowns?' Hajime said under her breath, but Touka was too busy fussing with her own dress and Koromo's hair ribbons to hear the remark. When Hagiyoshi opened the door, Koromo bolted out of the car before he had time to extend his hand to her, which left the other girls with no choice but to scramble after Koromo with less than the usual decorum.
Their waiting escort was a slim young man, wearing a tailored blazer with an elaborate crest on the front. As the Ryuumonbuchi girls exited their car, he came down the steps of the school building and held out a hand in a sweeping (and more than a little theatrical) gesture of welcome.
'Welcome, my dear ladies!' he said grandly. 'Welcome to the humble grounds of Ouran Academy.'
Touka glided forward to meet him. 'Suoh Tamaki-san, I presume?' she said, in the prim, elegant voice she always used when she was completely confident of her position -- or at least was trying to pretend to herself that she was.
'Second-year student and president of the Ouran High School Host Club, at your service, mademoiselle.' He took her hand and bowed over it, which made Touka's cheeks flush scarlet and prompted Jun to nudge Hajime with her elbow. 'May I have the honour of escorting you and your esteemed associates to our club room?'
'O-of course, Suoh-san,' Touka said, with only the slightest stammer as he let go of her hand.
'Please, Tamaki is fine.' Tamaki's smile became demure, just shy of self-effacing. 'It may seem forward of me, but we in the Host Club pride ourselves on putting our guests at ease, and we often prefer to dispense with the formality of family names in favour of the more welcoming and intimate atmosphere created through the free use of given names.'
'Oh, this is priceless,' Jun murmured, just loud enough for everyone else to hear her.
'Jun!' Touka ground out through clenched teeth, but checked herself before she could let her anger get the better of her. 'If you insist, Tamaki-san,' she said, suddenly sweet again.
Tamaki appeared to take no notice of her brief lapse in politeness. 'Then please follow me to the club room, where I will introduce you to our members.'
Touka walked alongside Tamaki through the halls of the school, with the other girls trailing behind the two club presidents and trying not to gape too openly at the sheer opulence of their surroundings. Ouran's vast expanses of marble floors and high ceilings seemed like they would be more at home in a fancy foreign museum than in a school. It was hard for the Ryuumonbuchi girls to picture what the place might look like during the school day, with actual students and teachers moving from class to class. As they made their way to the club room, Tamaki gave them a short but dizzying introduction to the academy, rattling off names of famous Ouran alumni and other bits of information that not one of them could keep in their heads for more than half a second. Before they could catch their breath, both Tamaki and his monologue came to a stop outside a set of tall doors marked Third Music Room.
'And here we are,' he said. 'We avail ourselves of this room for our club activities. Please allow us to do everything we can to make you feel at home.' He took hold of both handles, and pushed the double doors open with both hands.
The girls all blinked at the blaze of light, a sudden change from the dim corridors they had been walking through for several minutes. As their eyes adjusted to the brightness of the room, a chorus of voices rang out in a cheerful greeting:
'Welcome!'
Up until that point, Hajime wasn't entirely sure what she had imagined that a stupidly rich high school's host club would look like, but the group of boys standing in front of her didn't match with any of her half-formed assumptions. All of them were wearing their school uniforms, the same blazer-and-tie combination that Tamaki had on...and that was where the similarities stopped. Well, mostly stopped -- two of them looked so alike that they could only be twins -- but the rest were a completely mixed bunch, not all that much different than some of the high school boys she might have seen back home in Nagano. Apart from Tamaki, who seemed exotic in a way that she couldn't quite place, the Ouran club members didn't look like glamourous idols or too-perfect models or flashy pop stars at all. Hajime couldn't decide whether that made the whole idea of them running a host club seem more or less bizarre.
She didn't have much time to ponder that decision, because Tamaki was already starting to make introductions. 'Ladies of the Ryuumonbuchi High School Mahjong Club,' he said, as he ushered them into the music room and closed the door behind them, 'may I present to you the members of the Ouran High School Host Club?'
'We would be delighted to make your acquaintance,' Touka said. She folded her hands in front of her with such demure modesty that Hajime had to choke back a giggle at the sight.
'From my left, this is our vice president, Ohtori Kyouya, and club members Hitachiin Hikaru and Kaoru, Fujioka Haruhi, Morinozuka Takashi, and Haninozuka Mitsukuni.' The Host Club members bowed in turn as Tamaki mentioned their names; the last and smallest one also waved excitedly at them as he straightened up. 'For this afternoon, we are entirely at your disposal.'
'It is our great pleasure to meet you all,' Touka said, and gave a properly ladylike bow that the other girls copied with varying degrees of success. 'I am Ryuumonbuchi Touka, and to my right is Inoue Jun, Sawamura Tomoki, Kunihiro Hajime, and....' She broke off suddenly, looking around in dismay. 'Wait, where's Koromo?'
'What?' Hajime's stomach lurched. Koromo had a bad habit of wandering off, but it seemed impossible that they could have lost her in so short a time. 'She was just here -- '
'Calm down, you two,' Jun said. She glanced over her shoulder. 'We're all here, aren't we, Koromo?'
There was silence, and then a soft shuffling noise. Two long red ribbons, stiffened with wire so that they pointed up like a pair of rabbit ears, poked out from behind Jun's back. Another soft shuffle, and a tumble of long hair and a pair of nervous eyes followed.
Haruhi, standing almost on tiptoe to see past the twins, had wondered whether the Ryuumonbuchi girls might be overwhelmed by Ouran itself, but seeing this level of shyness from one of them made her feel particularly sympathetic. It took a gentle prod from Jun and another few moments of shuffling for a girl in a white sundress -- a girl so short and wide-eyed that she could have been mistaken for an elementary school student -- to show herself completely. Even then, she didn't move any more than she absolutely had to. From the way she was standing so close to Jun, she looked ready to climb her friend like a tree at the first hint of danger.
For all that the host club members had heard about this mysterious fifth member of the Ryuumonbunchi High School Mahjong Club -- someone whose identity was so shrouded in secrecy that even Kyouya hadn't been able to track her down easily -- the small girl peering out from behind her much-taller friend was nothing like what they'd expected. It was bad manners to stare, but Haruhi could almost hear the single thought that was running through her fellow club members' minds: That's Amae Koromo?
Suddenly, there was movement at Haruhi's side, and Honey skipped forward with his stuffed rabbit in hand. In a few short bounces he had made his way over to Koromo, though he stopped short enough to leave a careful distance between them.
'Hi!' he said brightly. 'I'm Haninozuka Mitsukuni. Most people call me Honey, though. I'm a third-year here. You're Amae Koromo-san, right?'
At first, Koromo stared at him, baffled by the greeting, but then she schooled her face into a polite mask, drew herself up to her full height (which was only about the same as Honey's) and gave him a stiff, formal bow that would have looked absurd even in an old-fashioned costume drama.
'My name is Amae Koromo, and I have the honour to be a first-year student at the private educational institution known as Ryuumonbuchi High School,' she declared, with all the stilted courtesy of a royal court introduction. 'We are indeed humbled to accept the kindness of your most gracious hospitality, Haninozuka Mitsukuni-san.'
Honey blinked at Koromo's high-flown speech, though the smile never left his face. 'It's nice to meet you, too, Koromo-san!' he replied, undaunted. 'I'm so glad that you and your cousin and your friends were able to come today.'
It was Koromo's turn to blink, taken aback by Honey's cheerfulness. 'Th...thank you very much, Haninozuka-san.'
'You can call me Honey, if you want to! Lots of people do.' He held up the stuffed rabbit. 'And this is Usa-chan -- he always likes to meet new people. Say hello to Koromo-san, Usa-chan!' He used one hand to wave the stuffed rabbit's arm in greeting.
As she watched Honey and Usa-chan wave hello to her, the cold reserve that had hardened Koromo's expression melted away like snow in sunlight. She waved back at Usa-chan, her face all smiles. 'Pleased to meet you, Usa-chan!'
'Usa-chan's very happy to meet you, too.' Honey hugged his rabbit to his chest, letting its ears flop forward over his arms. 'Would you like to have some cake with us? It has fresh vanilla cream and whole strawberries and biiiiiig slices of peaches on top! Usa-chan and I think it's the best.'
Koromo beamed at him. 'I'd love some!'
'Yay!' Honey shifted Usa-chan to one arm, and held out a hand to Koromo. 'Come with me, and I'll show you where it is!'
As Honey and Koromo dashed off in search of cake, Haruhi saw that all the Ryuumonbuchi girls seemed to relax, as if they had been holding their breath throughout the entire conversation.
Real gratitude shone in Touka's eyes as she turned to face Tamaki. 'Haninozuka-san's kindness is very much appreciated, Tamaki-san,' she said quietly. 'My cousin is...well, she can be quite timid at times. She often finds it difficult to make friends.'
'Not to worry, Touka-san.' Tamaki smiled. 'That's why our Host Club exists: to put others at their ease. But Honey-senpai has the right idea, I think -- would anyone else care for refreshments?' He looked over at Kyouya. 'Kyouya, what kind of tea do we have for our guests today?'
'A first-flush Darjeeling, the Kagoshima sencha, and the white Ceylon that arrived from London last week,' Kyouya replied promptly. 'Regrettably, the expected shipment of gyokuro from the private tea house in Fukuoka has been delayed until the first of next month.'
Tamaki made a dismayed tut-tutting noise, and gave Touka an apologetic half-bow. 'We usually restock our supplies at the end of the term,' he said, 'so I hope you will pardon the poor selection this afternoon. But we do have the cake that Honey-senpai mentioned, as well as other sweets and beverages if you so desire.'
Touka, who had started to look a bit dazed at the words private tea house, managed a weak but agreeable nod. 'It...all sounds delightful, Tamaki-san.' When Tamaki offered her his arm, she took it, and allowed him to lead her toward the club room's snack table.
Jun and Hajime could not resist exchanging doubtful glances -- is this for real? -- but neither of them were about to turn down the offer of tea and cake. With a little subtle guidance from Kyouya, the members of both clubs followed their presidents, and the ladies began to help themselves to slices of cake and spoonfuls of summer fruits from the vast array of serving dishes laid out and waiting for the host club's guests.
* * * *
Tea was poured, and fresh pots were soon set to steep. Touka and Tamaki exchanged a few words of small talk about the hot weather and the traffic in Tokyo, and Honey and Koromo chattered away about cakes and other sweets as if they had known each other for years, but the three remaining Ryuumonbuchi girls seemed more reluctant to strike up conversations with the other members of the host club. Haruhi more than understood their hesitation: compared with Touka and Koromo, they all seemed more like her kind of 'commoners' -- the kind who might be overwhelmed by Ouran in general and the host club in particular. She wanted to help them out, to be nice and friendly (and above all, normal), but she couldn't decide who to approach first. The tall one with the short hair? The one wearing glasses? The one with the ponytail? She wished that she'd had more time to look at Kyouya's clipboard, if only to better match their faces with their names.
Even as she tried to jog her memory, Tamaki was a step ahead of her. With more astuteness than Haruhi usually gave him credit for, he did not launch into his usual flirtatious nonsense. 'Please have a seat and enjoy your refreshments, and feel free to have as many helpings as you like,' he said simply. 'We have any number of amenities here for your entertainment -- if you would care to walk on the grounds or go for a swim or simply sit by the windows and enjoy the summer sunshine, we would be delighted to make your wishes come true.'
As he spoke, he deftly guided Touka to sit on one of the sofas that had a tea table set up beside it. Once he was sure that she was seated and comfortable, he dropped into a chair next to her, and beckoned to Haruhi to join them. Much as Haruhi wondered whether this was the prelude to one of Tamaki's ominous plans, an order was an order, and it wouldn't hurt to get to know the Ryuumonbuchi mahjong club president a little better as well.
'Have you been enjoying your time in Tokyo, Touka-san?' Tamaki asked, as Haruhi took a seat on the far side of the tea table, prepared to make herself useful if needed.
'Very much so,' Touka said. Now that she was sitting down, she seemed to be as much as ease as Tamaki was with their surroundings, sipping her tea as if she were used to being entertained by wealthy young gentlemen every other weekend. 'We did a bit of sight-seeing this morning, mostly around the Imperial Palace. But this is hardly a pleasure visit for us -- with the tournament starting tomorrow, we will be busy most of the week. The team matches against our national opponents last for several days, and the individual tournament is yet to come as well.'
'Quite a strenuous schedule,' Tamaki murmured, understandingly. 'We certainly wish you the very best of luck.'
'Thank you.' Touka took another sip of tea, and then added, 'We will annihilate them all, of course -- but the good wishes are nonetheless appreciated.'
Her tone was so genial, with a modest but cheerful lilt to it, that it took a moment for Tamaki (and Haruhi) to fully comprehend what Touka had said. 'I beg your pardon?' Tamaki said. 'You will...annihilate them?'
'Utterly and completely.' Delicately, Touka dabbed her lips with a napkin. 'Our showing in the Nagano prefectural tournament, celebrated as it was, was merely a shadow of the glory that awaits us at our national debut. The position of the moon is in our favour this week, after all.' She gave Tamaki a dazzling smile, but her eyes suddenly gleamed with a ruthless, fanatical light. 'Once my cousin Koromo's full power is unleashed upon the unfortunate souls who will face her at the table, she will show them the true meaning of fear, hopelessness, and despair.'
'Er....' Tamaki's pleasant expression was starting to crumble. 'I mean...that is to say....'
Perhaps it had been too much to expect that one of Tamaki's invited guests would turn out to be normal after all. 'Would you like some more tea, Touka-san?' Haruhi asked, picking up the china pot on the table close to her hand.
Touka turned to look at her, and the malevolent look vanished from her expression as if it had never been there. 'Oh, yes, thank you,' she said, as she held out her cup. 'Haruhi-san, wasn't it?'
Haruhi smiled and nodded, pouring the tea. 'Yes, that's right.'
Tamaki blinked, coming out of his brief moment of internal panic, and Haruhi barely managed to set the teapot down before she found herself seized by both arms.
'HARUHI! You haven't been properly introduced, have you?' Without missing a beat, Tamaki swung them both around, holding Haruhi in front of himself like a shield as he plopped her down in the chair he had just vacated. He stood behind her, hands on her shoulders to keep her in her seat. 'There's lots to brag about when it comes to our Haruhi! One of Ouran's best students -- a scholarship winner, even! Top of the class in every subject.'
'Is that so?' Touka said, her curiosity piqued. 'How do you like being in the Host Club?'
With a quick but forceful shrug, Haruhi freed herself from Tamaki's grip. 'It's very nice, Touka-san.' She kept her smile easy and cheerful, though she could feel Tamaki's gaze boring holes into the back of her head. 'Tamaki-senpai and the others have made me feel right at home since the day I first joined. I still have a lot to learn, though. '
'So natural! So polite! So modest!' Tamaki whipped out a handkerchief and pressed it to his eyes. 'I couldn't ask for a better protege!'
Haruhi briefly considered kicking him in the shins to get him to tone down the histrionics, but thought it would be better to ignore them entirely. 'It's been an educational experience for me, that's for certain,' she said dryly.
'It is wonderful to know that a young gentleman's education at Ouran extends well beyond the classroom.' Touka smiled, and looked up at Tamaki. 'Does Ouran have a mahjong club, Tamaki-san?'
'A mahjong club?' The simplicity of her question brought Tamaki back down to earth with a bump. 'Not officially, no,' he said, his voice turning thoughtful. 'To the best of my knowledge, that is. I suspect that a few students may play from time to time at their leisure, but we have nothing so organized as some of the other schools in Tokyo.'
If Touka was disappointed at this knowledge, she didn't show it. 'The East and West Tokyo divisions are very hard-fought,' she said. 'With only two divisions for the entire metropolitan area, the competition can be fierce indeed. Some years, there have been as many as a hundred schools competing for the right to represent each district at the national level.'
'A hundred schools?' Haruhi said, genuinely surprised. All the same, Touka had given her a useful opening to turn the discussion around, so she jumped right into it. 'Wow. There must be some amazing players out there. What do you expect you'll see from them tomorrow?'
It was the right conversational approach, because Touka's eyes lit up again, though this time her expression was nowhere near as ferocious as before. 'I seldom listen to any kind of idle gossip, but I have heard a few rumours about the ladies of the West Tokyo representative team....'
As Touka launched into her speculations about the players on this year's Tokyo teams, Haruhi felt Tamaki's hand touch her shoulder, and the small but grateful squeeze he gave her was as much of a reward as her suddenly fluttering stomach could take.
* * * *
If nothing else, Jun had to admit that the snacks at this host club thing were pretty good. More whipped cream than she usually liked on the cakes, probably, but the melon balls were good and ripe and the sliced peaches almost melted on her tongue. The fancy-pants tea wasn't bad, either. It almost made up for how bizarre everything else was, with half-a-dozen stinking rich guys running around like a bunch of butlers in a room that looked like it could have fallen off the back of some European palace. Sure, they called themselves a host club, but what did they get out of it? Being a host wasn't something anyone just decided they were going to do one day when they woke up in the morning, especially with the kind of money they all obviously had. The whole thing made zero sense. And even if Touka seemed to be playing along with it, how on earth were the rest of them supposed to --
'More tea?'
Jun looked up, and saw the tallest of the host club members -- that Morino-guy, she thought -- holding out a fresh cup to her. She hadn't even had to ask for a new one.
'Uh, sure,' she said, as she took it from him. 'Thanks.'
The guy didn't go away. 'Can I get anything else for you?'
'I'm fine, thanks.' She eyed the Morino-guy carefully, and took a sip of her tea. They probably knew beforehand that you were tall, so they got the tall guy to talk to you. Well, whatever works. 'You can sit down, if you want,' she said. 'It's a little weird with you sort of...hovering like that.'
It wasn't the friendliest of offers, but the guy didn't seem to mind. He sat down on a nearby chair, letting his long arms and legs sprawl a little. Jun found herself wondering if he had problems getting a school uniform in his size. Ryuumonbuchi didn't have uniforms, which was one of the reasons why she'd even considered going there in the first place. Then again, all of them probably had tailors on demand to sew their uniforms by hand.
'So I have to say,' she said to him, trying to find something to talk about, 'this wasn't exactly what I was expecting when our esteemed president said we were coming to a host club this afternoon.'
'Mm.'
Morino-guy wasn't a talker, that was for sure. 'So do you guys do this' -- Jun waved her free hand, trying to indicate the room and everything in it -- 'all the time?'
'After school,' he replied, with a slight shrug. 'It depends, mostly.'
This Morino-guy really wasn't giving her much to work with. At least Touka was occupied elsewhere, so Jun figured that she could be as blunt as she liked without getting chewed out for not being all tea-ceremony-polite to the hosts. 'Aren't you supposed to be trying to...I dunno, seduce me or something?'
Morino-guy tilted his head a fraction of an inch to one side. 'Do you want me to?'
Jun hmphed through her nose, then knocked back the rest of the tea in her cup and set it on the table next to her chair. To her surprise, she felt a little pang of...it wasn't disappointment, exactly, but somehow she felt like she should at least have had a chance to fight off some kind of flirty advances. Then again, it wasn't like she was making it easy for him, either. And for that matter, this guy didn't seem like the flirty type, like his club president was. So maybe this was his way of telling her that she didn't have to go in for that kind of thing if she didn't want to? Whatever, this whole thing was still weird.
'Not really,' she finally said. 'Though it might be a nice change for once.'
For the first time, Morino-guy seemed to show actual interest, in that he sat up a little from his partial sprawl. 'Oh?'
Jun draped an arm over the back of her chair, and crossed her legs in the most unladylike fashion she could muster while sitting on a pile of squashy velvet-covered cushions. Morino-guy probably deserved some sort of explanation as to why cuddling up to him was the last thing on her mind. 'So I start at Ryuumonbuchi in April, right? By the middle of May, I've got three love notes in my shoe locker and one very awkward confession from this stammering kid who bursts into tears and runs off before she's even finished.' She shrugged. 'Nice enough girl, but...it's annoying, is all.'
If she'd thought that she could surprise the Morino-guy by telling him about being confessed to by another girl, she'd clearly thought wrong. All he did was nod slowly, and make a noise that sounded like 'Mm' again. Like he understood...but then again, he probably did, didn't he?
'You don't talk much, do you?' she said.
Morino-guy blinked once, then twice, and reached for the teapot to refill her cup.
This whole thing was completely crazy...and yet Jun couldn't help but crack part of a smile. Join the Ryuumonbuchi High School Mahjong Club, end up having afternoon tea served to you by a tall dark silent guy whose family probably has more cash than you'll ever see in your lifetime. Completely crazy, and yet no less than she might have expected from hanging around a club president like Touka. 'Nah, it's cool,' she said, waving a hand at the cup to stop him from refilling it. 'We're here to relax, right? Might as well just go with the flow of things.'
Before Morino-guy could reply to her, the high-pitched voice of his little friend -- the one who called himself Honey, and had taken a shine to Koromo -- rang out across the room. 'Takashi! Come with me to show Koromo-chan the club's costumes!'
Both Jun and Morino-guy -- Takashi, rather -- turned to look, and saw both Honey and Koromo over on the far side of the music room, staggering under massive armfuls of bright silky-looking fabrics and ribbons and glittering jewels, as if a Takarazuka theatre's wardrobe closets had puked all over them.
Once Koromo saw that Jun was sitting with Honey's tall friend, she wasted no time in shouting, 'Jun, you come, too!'
'Duty calls?' Jun said to him, as both of them got to their feet.
In that short space of time between hearing and responding to Honey's call, Takashi's face had softened slightly from the quiet, impassive expression he'd had nearly all afternoon. And when he met Jun's gaze, his dark eyes were wry but fond. 'Something like that,' he agreed.
Ah, well. As far as Jun was concerned, there were plenty of worse ways to spend the afternoon.
* * * *
Kyouya, ever watchful, circulated the room while the others set to work. Tamaki had naturally directed his attentions to the Ryuumonbuchi club president, but as long as Haruhi was beside him to keep him in line there was no reason to hover around them too closely. The rest of the host club would sort out their attentions easily enough. The important thing to do was to ensure that no one was left out...and so when he saw that one of the Ryuumonbuchi ladies was sitting by herself, a cup of tea by her side and a small subnotebook personal computer in her lap, he drifted over to speak to her and figure out how she might be ushered into joining the antics of their fellow club members.
'Sawamura Tomoki-san, isn't it?' he said as he approached her. 'Is there something I may do for you?'
The glow of Sawamura-san's computer screen glinted off the lenses of her glasses as she looked up at him. 'Ohtori Kyouya-san.'
Kyouya could tell that she wasn't looking directly at him, but rather had focused her gaze on his glasses to give the appearance of meeting his eyes. The tactic of someone who is ill at ease around other people, he noted. According to his research, Sawamura-san had been a successful competitor in real-time strategy computer gaming before moving to Nagano to attend Ryuumonbuchi High School. It was likely that she found online interactions more within her comfort zone than in-person ones. He had relatively little expertise on such forms of gaming, but perhaps if he gently led her onto a topic on which she was more well versed, she might be more willing to be drawn into conversation.
'That's right,' he said aloud, schooling his expression into something mild and unthreatening. 'The host club vice president, and a second-year student here at Ouran.'
Sawamura-san nodded once. 'Your family's organization has recently taken over management of the hospital nearest the Ryuumonbuchi family residence, I believe.'
Kyoya's smile widened slightly, his usual approach to concealing any betraying evidence of surprise. Nothing in his files on Sawamura Tomoki suggested a reason why she might have any particular knowledge of, let alone personal connections to, his family's business or the Ryuumonbuchi family's holdings. There was more to her than his initial research had intimated, but regardless, there was no reason to lose any composure over it. Only a slight adjustment would be required. 'That would be correct, yes,' he said, keeping his tone modest. 'Do you have an interest in hospitals, Tomoki-san?'
Sawamura-san's expression gave nothing away. 'I have an interest in the acquisition of useful information,' she said quietly. 'Data collection can be particularly useful for our club's activities.'
'I see.' The club's analyst, then. Perhaps that was why Ryuumonbuchi Touka had recruited a video game strategist: to have someone who was familiar with studying system rankings and categorising potential adversaries. Kyoya could always respect a proactive approach. 'I can imagine that knowing more about your opponents would be most beneficial for your competitive perspective.'
'There are significant statistical factors.' For the first time, Sawamura-san's face showed a flicker of disapproval. 'Particularly those that defy logical gameplay.'
'In what way?'
Sawamura-san studied him for a moment, then turned her small computer around and held it up so that Kyoya could get a good look at the screen. She had been working on some sort of database, if the expanse of number- and text-filled tabbed spreadsheets visible in the background was any indication. The middle of the screen was taken up with what appeared to be a database profile entry, featuring the photograph of a young woman with chin-length hair, wearing a white school uniform blouse with blue trim and ribbon.
'Family name Miyanaga. First name Teru. Shiraitodai High School, West Tokyo Division. Second-year student, age 16.' Sawamura-san deftly reached around to the front of her computer to tap a few keys on the keyboard, and a graph appeared on the small screen, covering up the Miyanaga girl's profile. 'Point values of her winning hands at last year's nationals, by game.' Another tap, and a second graph appeared. 'Point values of her winning hands at this year's West Tokyo qualifying divisionals, by successive winning round.' Three taps on the keyboard, and a final chart popped up, covering most of the two previous charts. 'Probability of achieving said point values, adjusted for game length and comparative rankings of her individual opponents and their respective school teams.'
Kyouya peered more closely at the final chart, and his eyes narrowed as he processed the information on the display. His knowledge of mahjong was limited at best, but he understood probabilities, and the outcomes he was seeing on Sawamura-san's computer bordered on the absolutely absurd for a game that was as much about chance as it was about experience. 'Luck, or skill?' he asked.
She gave him a meaningful look. 'There are some players,' she said in a low voice, as she closed the pop-up windows and the profile entry, leaving behind only the larger database, 'who appear to transcend both.'
It was an odd enough statement to make, but Kyoya scarcely heard it. He was far more interested in the text of the database that he could now see on the screen in front of him, specifically the fact that the entries included no fewer than six high schools whose names featured prominently in his own private rankings of certain educational institutions that moved in the same circles as Ouran. Eisui Girls' High School of Kagoshima, for instance -- a selective school dominated by the influential Jindai family and its subordinate family branches. Through the Jindai family's connections in high-ranking Shinto shrines across the country, more than a few Eisui alumnae, through birth or marriage, wielded a surprising amount of behind-the-scenes power in political and even Imperial Household circles. One of the two Tokyo schools he could see on the list was Rinkai Girls', a hot-house for overachieving overseas students, including many children of the foreign business and diplomatic communities. Those two schools alone were working examining more closely -- and what other information might be in Sawamura-san's files as well?
Kyoya straightened up, adjusting his glasses. 'Would you be good enough to show me how you arrived at these calculations?' If Eisui and Rinkai both had girls' mahjong teams capable of reaching national-level tournament play, perhaps it would be best to learn more about this particular game...and understand why such high-ranking schools and families found it important for their young ladies to compete in it.
If he had been looking more at Tomoki instead of her computer screen, Kyouya would have seen a tiny smile starting to form at the corners of her mouth. It was not a very wide smile, but it stayed firmly in place as she slid to one side, clearing a space for Kyoya to sit down beside her on the sofa.
* * * *
Not wanting to miss out on a single opportunity offered by the afternoon, Hajime had eaten more cake than she'd ever thought could fit in her stomach at any given point in time. She was fairly confident that for at least the next five minutes, it would be a bad idea to do anything much more strenuous than sitting still at this particular table and letting all of it digest. However, sitting still meant fidgeting, and before she knew it she had a 100-yen coin in the palm of her hand. Without thinking, she started to fiddle with the coin -- walking it across her fingers, palming and revealing it, running through the various routines that her father had taught her to do ever since she was old enough to play with his trick scarves and linking rings. Nothing special, no flourishes or flips, just the basic warm-up exercises that any magician would start with before attempting something more difficult. Her fingers felt a little stiff and slow, but the muscle memory was there, and the coin's weight and firm round shape was soothing and familiar.
'Wow, you're fast!'
Hajime startled, and only just managed to close her hand around the coin to keep it from slipping out of her grasp. The voice had come from her left, and when she turned she saw one of the host club's twins watching her closely.
'Sorry.' She clenched the coin in her hand more tightly. 'I shouldn't have -- it's a bad habit.'
'Where'd you learn how to do that?' A similar-sounding voice came from her right, and when she looked it was the other twin. Their family name was Hita-something, she recalled, but their first names were a total blank.
'My...my father taught me.' She would never, ever be ashamed of her father's profession, but it didn't make it easy to explain sometimes. 'He's...sort of a magician.'
Suddenly, almost before she could blink, the twins were sitting opposite her, elbows on the table and chins propped in their hands. 'Can you do anything else?' the one on her left asked.
Hajime stared down at the table. She shouldn't even be talking about this, with Touka so close by, but the twins seemed really interested and she didn't know how to begin trying to put them off the subject. 'A few things. I'm not very good, though.'
The twins were still looking at her expectantly, so she let go of the coin and placed it flat on the table, then scooped it up and began to walk through a basic routine. Unlike her school uniform or maid dress, the outfit she'd worn to Ouran didn't have sleeves, so it was harder to do something more complicated in terms of concealment. She stuck to the straightforward passes, loading and palming, letting the coin trickle over her fingers in a show of dexterity. Finally, she flipped it up, watching it spin, and caught it on the fall by plucking it out of the air with her thumb and forefinger, then held it out to them.
If nothing else, the twins were a very appreciative audience. Their mouths were almost hanging open, their eyes wide with fascinated, almost hypnotised delight.
'...that's so cool,' one of them breathed out.
The other fixed Hajime with a worshipful gaze. 'Can you do things with wands and pigeons and straitjackets all that?'
Hajime's eyes widened only a little at the eager emphasis placed on the word straitjacket. With some effort, she was able to keep her cool. 'Uh, a little. But my father does a lot of close-up magic, so that's more what I'm used to.'
Without warning, the twins abruptly pushed their chairs back, and each brought one hand up in a clenched fist. To Hajime's astonishment, they launched into sudden battle: 'Jan-ken-PON!'
The twin on her left threw paper, the one on the right threw rock. Paper-twin punched the air in triumph. 'Yes, me first!'
'If you can't do it, Kaoru, I get to try!' his brother said sullenly.
'Sure, sure, whatever, Hikaru.' Paper-twin -- Kaoru-Kaoru-Kaoru, Hajime tried to drill into her brain -- spun back around to face her, brought his hands up before his face in prayerful respect, and bowed so deeply to her that his nose almost touched the tabletop. 'Sensei, would you please teach this humble servant how to do the special coin magic?'
'S-sensei?' Hajime stared at him. 'I mean -- you really want to learn?'
'If you would be so kind!' Kaoru addressed the table surface an inch from the tip of his nose. 'This humble servant wishes to hear Sensei's gracious instruction!' Next to him, Hikaru was nodding so fast that it made Hajime dizzy to look at him.
'Okay, okay, enough with the humble servant stuff.' Hajime didn't entirely feel up to the task of responding like some actor in a historical drama. As Karou raised his head, she held up the coin, and gave him a smile that only wavered a little bit. 'It's probably best to start with switching hands. It's mostly about how you hold the coin, so it can slide between your fingers -- '
'Hajime! What are you doing?'
Hajime gasped, and dropped the coin, which landed on the table with a plink and rolled right off, skittering away somewhere unknown. A sick, burning sense of shame rose within her chest as she turned her head to see Touka standing a few feet away with her hands on her hips. The host club's president and one of the other hosts, the shorter one with the dark hair, had stopped whatever they'd been in the middle of doing with her and were looking back and forth between her and Hajime, obviously confused.
'I...I was just showing them a little coin trick!' Hajime swallowed, reflexively folding her hands on top of each other and placing them on the table, as innocent as possible.. 'Nothing bad, Touka, I promise.'
Even with the host club president and his fellow club members so close by, Touka wasn't in one of her more forgiving moods. 'I will not have you getting back into bad habits the night before the tournament!' she said sternly. 'I permitted you to remove your restraints for today because you have been very well behaved lately, but you will put them back on the moment we return to the hotel!'
Cowed, Hajime bowed her head. 'Yes, Touka.'
She didn't bother to look up until she heard the sound of feet moving away. When she did, both twins were studying her with peculiar expressions on their faces. They didn't look shocked or disgusted, thankfully, but the strange mix of concern and uncertainty made Hajime's stomach turn a couple of unpleasant corkscrews.
'...restraints?' Hikaru said at last.
In response, Hajime held out her right arm, palm up, so that the twins could see her wrist -- and the faint indentation around it, like that left behind by a tight bracelet or watchband. 'You can't see the marks very well today, but they're there,' she said quietly. 'Ever since I started at Ryuumonbuchi, I've been wearing chains to restrict my hand and arm movements.'
The twins looked at each other, then back at her. 'You wear them all day?' Hikaru asked, picking his way over the words with care.
Hajime nodded. 'At school and at home. But especially when I'm playing mahjong.' The odd looks that the twins were giving her were not going away, so she sighed and began her well-rehearsed explanation. 'When I was in elementary school, I used a sleight-of-hand trick in order to win the final game in a team tournament. I swapped the tile in my hand with a tile that I'd already discarded, and used my discarded tile to win the game. It was a stupid thing to do, but...anyway, the tournament organisers found out. And because I cheated, my school's team was disqualified.'
'Cheating at a tournament? In elementary school?' The twins couldn't seem to decide whether it would be more appropriate to sound horrified or fascinated.
Hajime nodded again, resigned to telling the full story. 'Touka made it a condition that if I wanted to attend Ryuumonbuchi and join the mahjong club, I'd have to wear chains to prevent me from doing something like that again.' Her mouth twitched, tasting her own bitter words. 'And also to remind me that it takes a lot of time and effort to win back people's trust.'
The twins glanced at each other, and Hajime waited for one of the reactions she had come to expect from those who heard her story. They might backtrack, changing the subject quickly out of embarrassment. They might simply drop all conversation and get up and walk away. They might even try to pry further, asking her more questions about that awful elementary school tournament that no one would ever let her forget. But she didn't expect the twins to lift their shoulders in a mirror-image shrug, and for Kaoru to turn back to her and say, in a matter-of-fact tone:
'You must really like playing mahjong, Hajime-san.'
Hajime's mouth dropped open; she quickly snapped it shut. '...Sorry?'
'I was just thinking that you must really like playing mahjong,' Kaoru said again, as if the statement was obvious. 'I mean, Hikaru and I like being in the host club, but if anyone ever tried to make us wear chains --
Hikaru tilted his head, his brow creasing in a slight frown. 'Well, there was that one time -- '
'We're not going to talk about that!' Kaoru cut his brother off hastily. 'Anyway,' he said to Hajime, 'it just seemed that if you wear them even when you're not playing, then mahjong must mean a lot to you.'
Hajime had not fully recovered from Kaoru's unexpected statement, and so she had to think for a moment before she replied. 'It's fun to play,' she said at last. 'Even when you're up against a really tough opponent...well, there's part of you that's definitely excited. You always have to think about how you can win. There's a lot of skill involved.' She held up her hands, flexing her fingers. 'And I think I'm pretty skilled, when I don't cheat.'
The twins grinned at her. 'You're all here, right?' Hikaru said. 'For the national tournament? That must mean you're pretty skilled at more than just magic, I'd say.' He leaned forward, drawing her and Kaoru in with a conspiratorial gesture. 'Even if your president's a little, uh, scary sometimes.'
Hajime snorted. 'You think she's scary? You don't know scary until you've seen Amae Koromo on the other side of a mahjong table.' She glanced up, trying to figure out how to bring Koromo in on the conversation -- only to discover that the topic of her warning was nowhere to be seen. 'But speaking of Koromo, where'd she go?'
* * * *
In the end, Mori was the one who located her. Or rather, them.
An afternoon of cake and strawberries and dressing up in fanciful costumes apparently had proved exhausting for both Koromo and Honey. At the far end of the music room, away from the bright sunlight that streamed into through the windows, the two of them were asleep on top of a pile of throw pillows that they'd turned into a nest in the corner. They were almost curled around each other, Koromo's long hair falling over both of them like a veil, with a very uncomfortable-looking Usa-chan squashed between them.
Touka pressed a hand to her mouth, then gave Tamaki an embarrassed half-smile. 'I assure you,' she said, 'that my cousin is usually a much better guest than this.'
'No need to apologise,' Tamaki replied graciously. 'Honey-senpai often takes a nap at this time of day, so we're used to it.'
'Between the family restaurant lunch and everything this afternoon, the excitement probably caught up with her,' Jun said. 'Especially with the tournament tomorrow.'
'So it would seem.' Touka sighed. 'It cannot be helped, I suppose. Should we wake them?'
At Touka's suggestion, Tamaki's eyelid twitched, his genial smile suddenly frozen in a pained, desperate grin. The twins automatically took several steps back, and were about to dive behind the closest tea table when they caught sight of Hajime giving them a strange look. They laughed nervously and started to fiddle with the tablecloth, acting as if they'd been planning to straighten it all along, but their eyes kept darting between Tamaki and the sleepers on the couch. Haruhi and Mori exchanged knowing glances, while Kyouya glided up behind all of them, observing the situation from a safe distance.
'That...might not be such a good idea at the moment, Touka-san.' Tamaki spoke lightly enough, but a fine sheen of sweat had appeared on his forehead, and he was eyeing the sleeping Honey with the look of a demolitions expert trying to calculate whether he'd set too short a fuse. 'Honey-senpai sometimes gets a little, er...a little upset if you try to wake him from a nap.'
'Koromo could sleep through an earthquake,' Hajime said.
'I think she has before, actually.' Touka pursed her lips thoughtfully. 'Not a large one, but an earthquake all the same.'
'I'd rather deal with an earthquake than try to wake up Honey-senpai too early,' Hikaru mumbled to Kaoru, who nodded in fervent agreement.
Jun raised an eyebrow at Touka. 'Should I just pick her up? I doubt they'd even notice.' As she spoke, she took a step forward, prepared to ease Koromo off the couch.
The twins dove for the shelter of the tea table. Every muscle in Tamaki's body seemed to go tense, and even Haruhi shuffled a little to one side to put more of Mori between her and Honey --
-- but just before Jun could touch her, Koromo yawned and rolled over, throwing an arm across Usa-chan and snuggling closer to both the stuffed rabbit and Honey. Her eyelids fluttered, but within moments her breathing had evened out and she was fast asleep again, dreaming more deeply than before.
Honey let out a single quiet snore, and that was all.
Jun let her hands drop to her sides. '...or not.'
Haruhi looked up at Mori, trying to hide a smile. 'This would be kinda weird if they weren't so...cute together.'
Mori said nothing, but his normally stoic expression seemed to ease a little as he gazed at Honey and Koromo.
'Ha ha ha, yes, well, I think we should let them sleep for now!' Tamaki could not entirely keep the relief out of his voice. He turned to his fellow club president. 'Did you have any plans for dinner, Touka-san?'
Touka shook her head. 'Our car should be coming to collect us by six, but as we have no firm plans for the evening I can always make alternate arrangements,' she said. 'And since Koromo will be hungry when she wakes, I suppose it would only be sensible to decide on something now.'
Tamaki nodded, and folded his arms across his chest, closing his eyes. Without realising it, Touka did exactly the same thing, so instinctively that it looked as if she and Tamaki had spent weeks choreographing it beforehand.
Tamaki raised a hand, and snapped his fingers. 'Kyouya!'
Touka raised a hand, and snapped her fingers. 'Tomoki!'
At the same moment, Kyouya's clipboard appeared in his hands, and Tomoki produced her computer from thin air.
There was a startled silence -- and then Haruhi let out a very unladylike (or ungentlemanly, for that matter) snort, and quickly clapped her hands over her mouth before she could lose it completely.
Touka and Tamaki opened their eyes and stared at each other, bewildered. Hajime and the twins were bent almost double, gasping and wheezing as they futilely tried to smother their laughter, and Jun's mouth twisted in a way that suggested that she was trying to do the same, somewhat more successfully. Tomoki and Kyouya exchanged understanding glances.
Finally, Tamaki shrugged, and gave Touka a winning smile. 'A joint planning effort, then?' he said
Touka returned his smile. 'I would like nothing better, Tamaki-san.'
Return to Part II
Return to the Master List
Fandom: 咲-Saki/Ouran High School Host Club
Rating: U
Summary: Fresh from their prefectural-level victory, the five ladies of the Ryuumonbuchi High School Mahjong Club have arrived in Tokyo to compete in the national championships. But before they make their debut on the national stage, an afternoon of unparalleled delights awaits them -- courtesy of the Ouran High School Host Club.
Disclaimer: All characters are copyright of their respective owners; I lay claim only to this particular story.
Notes: This story mostly follows anime continuity for both series, with a few references to the manga. Set pre-series for 咲-Saki (during the flashback shown in EP 20), between EP 14 and 15 for Ouran.
For those who may not have seen 咲-Saki, the Ryuumonbuchi girls are one of the teams that the main characters compete against in the prefectural tournament -- this story is set one year before the start of the manga and anime storyline. In this picture, starting from the top and going clockwise, are Ryuumonbuchi Touka, Kunihiro Hajime, Amae Koromo, Inoue Jun, and Sawamura Tomoki.
Per Japanese convention, all names are given in the FamilyName FirstName order.
Bonus Round
Part III
'This is a school...?!'
Hajime had enough personal dignity to keep from pressing her face and hands against the limousine's tinted windows, but she couldn't tear her eyes away from the view. Ryuumonbuchi High School was one of Nagano's most elite (not to mention expensive) private schools, and working as Touka's maid in the Ryuumonbuchi mansion had exposed to her even more of the family's wealth, but Ouran Academy was like nothing she had ever seen before. Their car had taken them right through the middle of Tokyo and into another world, where all the skyscrapers and taxis and crowds of people just outside the school grounds might as well not even exist.
'Ouran Academy is a very exclusive institution,' Touka said. She was doing her best to act cool and poised, but Hajime could see her eyes darting left and right, trying to keep herself from turning and gawking at the perfectly groomed grounds and the stately school buildings they were driving past. 'If I had not thought that it was my family duty to attend Ryuumonbuchi, I certainly would have considered attending here.'
Jun snorted. 'Like they'd even let any of us past the gates on a normal day.'
'We are here now, are we not?' Touka fanned herself with the invitation, which had not left her hand since the moment they had all climbed into the car outside their hotel. 'And I expect all of you to act as befits your position as representatives of our school and honoured guests of -- '
'We get it,' Jun cut her off. 'Lay off the reminders, okay?'
Touka looked put out, but she didn't snap back at Jun. Perhaps, like Hajime, she'd heard the nervous edge in Jun's curt reply. Even the normally unflappable Tomoki was staring intently out of the car's windows, her hands clasped tightly in her lap. Only Koromo seemed unaffected by pre-arrival jitters, having clambered over to their side of the car and almost into Touka's lap in order to be able to see over the edge of the door frame.
'It's so pretty, Touka!' Koromo slid backwards and landed on the seat next to her cousin. 'What do you think it will look like on the inside?' Her eyes sparkled with delight.
Touka bit her lip, and her gaze flickered between Koromo and the intimidating display outside the window. 'I think, perhaps -- ' she began, but at that moment the car started to slow down and the front seat intercom beeped once before crackling to life.
'We have arrived, Touka-oujosama.' It was Hagiyoshi, Touka and Koromo's personal butler, who had accompanied them on their drive to the school. 'I shall arrange for the car to return at the designated departure time this evening, according to your instructions.'
Hagiyoshi's placid voice seemed to have a calming effect on Touka. The uneasy look left her face, and her hand was steady as she pressed the intercom button on the armrest. 'Thank you, Hagiyoshi,' she replied smoothly. 'I will call if there are any changes to our plans.'
'As you desire, Touka-oujosama. I believe that the young gentleman at the top of the steps is to be your escort.'
'Someone's waiting for us? Who is it? Who is it?' In her excitement, Koromo would have clambered over Touka once again and opened the door while the car was still moving, but fortunately Jun's long arms gave her enough of a reach to hastily lean forward and block the handle, keeping them all inside the vehicle until it came to a stop.
'Koromo, let Hagiyoshi open the door for us!' Touka scolded. 'We can't be tumbling out of the car like -- like -- ' An appropriate comparison failed her.
'Like a bunch of circus clowns?' Hajime said under her breath, but Touka was too busy fussing with her own dress and Koromo's hair ribbons to hear the remark. When Hagiyoshi opened the door, Koromo bolted out of the car before he had time to extend his hand to her, which left the other girls with no choice but to scramble after Koromo with less than the usual decorum.
Their waiting escort was a slim young man, wearing a tailored blazer with an elaborate crest on the front. As the Ryuumonbuchi girls exited their car, he came down the steps of the school building and held out a hand in a sweeping (and more than a little theatrical) gesture of welcome.
'Welcome, my dear ladies!' he said grandly. 'Welcome to the humble grounds of Ouran Academy.'
Touka glided forward to meet him. 'Suoh Tamaki-san, I presume?' she said, in the prim, elegant voice she always used when she was completely confident of her position -- or at least was trying to pretend to herself that she was.
'Second-year student and president of the Ouran High School Host Club, at your service, mademoiselle.' He took her hand and bowed over it, which made Touka's cheeks flush scarlet and prompted Jun to nudge Hajime with her elbow. 'May I have the honour of escorting you and your esteemed associates to our club room?'
'O-of course, Suoh-san,' Touka said, with only the slightest stammer as he let go of her hand.
'Please, Tamaki is fine.' Tamaki's smile became demure, just shy of self-effacing. 'It may seem forward of me, but we in the Host Club pride ourselves on putting our guests at ease, and we often prefer to dispense with the formality of family names in favour of the more welcoming and intimate atmosphere created through the free use of given names.'
'Oh, this is priceless,' Jun murmured, just loud enough for everyone else to hear her.
'Jun!' Touka ground out through clenched teeth, but checked herself before she could let her anger get the better of her. 'If you insist, Tamaki-san,' she said, suddenly sweet again.
Tamaki appeared to take no notice of her brief lapse in politeness. 'Then please follow me to the club room, where I will introduce you to our members.'
Touka walked alongside Tamaki through the halls of the school, with the other girls trailing behind the two club presidents and trying not to gape too openly at the sheer opulence of their surroundings. Ouran's vast expanses of marble floors and high ceilings seemed like they would be more at home in a fancy foreign museum than in a school. It was hard for the Ryuumonbuchi girls to picture what the place might look like during the school day, with actual students and teachers moving from class to class. As they made their way to the club room, Tamaki gave them a short but dizzying introduction to the academy, rattling off names of famous Ouran alumni and other bits of information that not one of them could keep in their heads for more than half a second. Before they could catch their breath, both Tamaki and his monologue came to a stop outside a set of tall doors marked Third Music Room.
'And here we are,' he said. 'We avail ourselves of this room for our club activities. Please allow us to do everything we can to make you feel at home.' He took hold of both handles, and pushed the double doors open with both hands.
The girls all blinked at the blaze of light, a sudden change from the dim corridors they had been walking through for several minutes. As their eyes adjusted to the brightness of the room, a chorus of voices rang out in a cheerful greeting:
'Welcome!'
Up until that point, Hajime wasn't entirely sure what she had imagined that a stupidly rich high school's host club would look like, but the group of boys standing in front of her didn't match with any of her half-formed assumptions. All of them were wearing their school uniforms, the same blazer-and-tie combination that Tamaki had on...and that was where the similarities stopped. Well, mostly stopped -- two of them looked so alike that they could only be twins -- but the rest were a completely mixed bunch, not all that much different than some of the high school boys she might have seen back home in Nagano. Apart from Tamaki, who seemed exotic in a way that she couldn't quite place, the Ouran club members didn't look like glamourous idols or too-perfect models or flashy pop stars at all. Hajime couldn't decide whether that made the whole idea of them running a host club seem more or less bizarre.
She didn't have much time to ponder that decision, because Tamaki was already starting to make introductions. 'Ladies of the Ryuumonbuchi High School Mahjong Club,' he said, as he ushered them into the music room and closed the door behind them, 'may I present to you the members of the Ouran High School Host Club?'
'We would be delighted to make your acquaintance,' Touka said. She folded her hands in front of her with such demure modesty that Hajime had to choke back a giggle at the sight.
'From my left, this is our vice president, Ohtori Kyouya, and club members Hitachiin Hikaru and Kaoru, Fujioka Haruhi, Morinozuka Takashi, and Haninozuka Mitsukuni.' The Host Club members bowed in turn as Tamaki mentioned their names; the last and smallest one also waved excitedly at them as he straightened up. 'For this afternoon, we are entirely at your disposal.'
'It is our great pleasure to meet you all,' Touka said, and gave a properly ladylike bow that the other girls copied with varying degrees of success. 'I am Ryuumonbuchi Touka, and to my right is Inoue Jun, Sawamura Tomoki, Kunihiro Hajime, and....' She broke off suddenly, looking around in dismay. 'Wait, where's Koromo?'
'What?' Hajime's stomach lurched. Koromo had a bad habit of wandering off, but it seemed impossible that they could have lost her in so short a time. 'She was just here -- '
'Calm down, you two,' Jun said. She glanced over her shoulder. 'We're all here, aren't we, Koromo?'
There was silence, and then a soft shuffling noise. Two long red ribbons, stiffened with wire so that they pointed up like a pair of rabbit ears, poked out from behind Jun's back. Another soft shuffle, and a tumble of long hair and a pair of nervous eyes followed.
Haruhi, standing almost on tiptoe to see past the twins, had wondered whether the Ryuumonbuchi girls might be overwhelmed by Ouran itself, but seeing this level of shyness from one of them made her feel particularly sympathetic. It took a gentle prod from Jun and another few moments of shuffling for a girl in a white sundress -- a girl so short and wide-eyed that she could have been mistaken for an elementary school student -- to show herself completely. Even then, she didn't move any more than she absolutely had to. From the way she was standing so close to Jun, she looked ready to climb her friend like a tree at the first hint of danger.
For all that the host club members had heard about this mysterious fifth member of the Ryuumonbunchi High School Mahjong Club -- someone whose identity was so shrouded in secrecy that even Kyouya hadn't been able to track her down easily -- the small girl peering out from behind her much-taller friend was nothing like what they'd expected. It was bad manners to stare, but Haruhi could almost hear the single thought that was running through her fellow club members' minds: That's Amae Koromo?
Suddenly, there was movement at Haruhi's side, and Honey skipped forward with his stuffed rabbit in hand. In a few short bounces he had made his way over to Koromo, though he stopped short enough to leave a careful distance between them.
'Hi!' he said brightly. 'I'm Haninozuka Mitsukuni. Most people call me Honey, though. I'm a third-year here. You're Amae Koromo-san, right?'
At first, Koromo stared at him, baffled by the greeting, but then she schooled her face into a polite mask, drew herself up to her full height (which was only about the same as Honey's) and gave him a stiff, formal bow that would have looked absurd even in an old-fashioned costume drama.
'My name is Amae Koromo, and I have the honour to be a first-year student at the private educational institution known as Ryuumonbuchi High School,' she declared, with all the stilted courtesy of a royal court introduction. 'We are indeed humbled to accept the kindness of your most gracious hospitality, Haninozuka Mitsukuni-san.'
Honey blinked at Koromo's high-flown speech, though the smile never left his face. 'It's nice to meet you, too, Koromo-san!' he replied, undaunted. 'I'm so glad that you and your cousin and your friends were able to come today.'
It was Koromo's turn to blink, taken aback by Honey's cheerfulness. 'Th...thank you very much, Haninozuka-san.'
'You can call me Honey, if you want to! Lots of people do.' He held up the stuffed rabbit. 'And this is Usa-chan -- he always likes to meet new people. Say hello to Koromo-san, Usa-chan!' He used one hand to wave the stuffed rabbit's arm in greeting.
As she watched Honey and Usa-chan wave hello to her, the cold reserve that had hardened Koromo's expression melted away like snow in sunlight. She waved back at Usa-chan, her face all smiles. 'Pleased to meet you, Usa-chan!'
'Usa-chan's very happy to meet you, too.' Honey hugged his rabbit to his chest, letting its ears flop forward over his arms. 'Would you like to have some cake with us? It has fresh vanilla cream and whole strawberries and biiiiiig slices of peaches on top! Usa-chan and I think it's the best.'
Koromo beamed at him. 'I'd love some!'
'Yay!' Honey shifted Usa-chan to one arm, and held out a hand to Koromo. 'Come with me, and I'll show you where it is!'
As Honey and Koromo dashed off in search of cake, Haruhi saw that all the Ryuumonbuchi girls seemed to relax, as if they had been holding their breath throughout the entire conversation.
Real gratitude shone in Touka's eyes as she turned to face Tamaki. 'Haninozuka-san's kindness is very much appreciated, Tamaki-san,' she said quietly. 'My cousin is...well, she can be quite timid at times. She often finds it difficult to make friends.'
'Not to worry, Touka-san.' Tamaki smiled. 'That's why our Host Club exists: to put others at their ease. But Honey-senpai has the right idea, I think -- would anyone else care for refreshments?' He looked over at Kyouya. 'Kyouya, what kind of tea do we have for our guests today?'
'A first-flush Darjeeling, the Kagoshima sencha, and the white Ceylon that arrived from London last week,' Kyouya replied promptly. 'Regrettably, the expected shipment of gyokuro from the private tea house in Fukuoka has been delayed until the first of next month.'
Tamaki made a dismayed tut-tutting noise, and gave Touka an apologetic half-bow. 'We usually restock our supplies at the end of the term,' he said, 'so I hope you will pardon the poor selection this afternoon. But we do have the cake that Honey-senpai mentioned, as well as other sweets and beverages if you so desire.'
Touka, who had started to look a bit dazed at the words private tea house, managed a weak but agreeable nod. 'It...all sounds delightful, Tamaki-san.' When Tamaki offered her his arm, she took it, and allowed him to lead her toward the club room's snack table.
Jun and Hajime could not resist exchanging doubtful glances -- is this for real? -- but neither of them were about to turn down the offer of tea and cake. With a little subtle guidance from Kyouya, the members of both clubs followed their presidents, and the ladies began to help themselves to slices of cake and spoonfuls of summer fruits from the vast array of serving dishes laid out and waiting for the host club's guests.
Tea was poured, and fresh pots were soon set to steep. Touka and Tamaki exchanged a few words of small talk about the hot weather and the traffic in Tokyo, and Honey and Koromo chattered away about cakes and other sweets as if they had known each other for years, but the three remaining Ryuumonbuchi girls seemed more reluctant to strike up conversations with the other members of the host club. Haruhi more than understood their hesitation: compared with Touka and Koromo, they all seemed more like her kind of 'commoners' -- the kind who might be overwhelmed by Ouran in general and the host club in particular. She wanted to help them out, to be nice and friendly (and above all, normal), but she couldn't decide who to approach first. The tall one with the short hair? The one wearing glasses? The one with the ponytail? She wished that she'd had more time to look at Kyouya's clipboard, if only to better match their faces with their names.
Even as she tried to jog her memory, Tamaki was a step ahead of her. With more astuteness than Haruhi usually gave him credit for, he did not launch into his usual flirtatious nonsense. 'Please have a seat and enjoy your refreshments, and feel free to have as many helpings as you like,' he said simply. 'We have any number of amenities here for your entertainment -- if you would care to walk on the grounds or go for a swim or simply sit by the windows and enjoy the summer sunshine, we would be delighted to make your wishes come true.'
As he spoke, he deftly guided Touka to sit on one of the sofas that had a tea table set up beside it. Once he was sure that she was seated and comfortable, he dropped into a chair next to her, and beckoned to Haruhi to join them. Much as Haruhi wondered whether this was the prelude to one of Tamaki's ominous plans, an order was an order, and it wouldn't hurt to get to know the Ryuumonbuchi mahjong club president a little better as well.
'Have you been enjoying your time in Tokyo, Touka-san?' Tamaki asked, as Haruhi took a seat on the far side of the tea table, prepared to make herself useful if needed.
'Very much so,' Touka said. Now that she was sitting down, she seemed to be as much as ease as Tamaki was with their surroundings, sipping her tea as if she were used to being entertained by wealthy young gentlemen every other weekend. 'We did a bit of sight-seeing this morning, mostly around the Imperial Palace. But this is hardly a pleasure visit for us -- with the tournament starting tomorrow, we will be busy most of the week. The team matches against our national opponents last for several days, and the individual tournament is yet to come as well.'
'Quite a strenuous schedule,' Tamaki murmured, understandingly. 'We certainly wish you the very best of luck.'
'Thank you.' Touka took another sip of tea, and then added, 'We will annihilate them all, of course -- but the good wishes are nonetheless appreciated.'
Her tone was so genial, with a modest but cheerful lilt to it, that it took a moment for Tamaki (and Haruhi) to fully comprehend what Touka had said. 'I beg your pardon?' Tamaki said. 'You will...annihilate them?'
'Utterly and completely.' Delicately, Touka dabbed her lips with a napkin. 'Our showing in the Nagano prefectural tournament, celebrated as it was, was merely a shadow of the glory that awaits us at our national debut. The position of the moon is in our favour this week, after all.' She gave Tamaki a dazzling smile, but her eyes suddenly gleamed with a ruthless, fanatical light. 'Once my cousin Koromo's full power is unleashed upon the unfortunate souls who will face her at the table, she will show them the true meaning of fear, hopelessness, and despair.'
'Er....' Tamaki's pleasant expression was starting to crumble. 'I mean...that is to say....'
Perhaps it had been too much to expect that one of Tamaki's invited guests would turn out to be normal after all. 'Would you like some more tea, Touka-san?' Haruhi asked, picking up the china pot on the table close to her hand.
Touka turned to look at her, and the malevolent look vanished from her expression as if it had never been there. 'Oh, yes, thank you,' she said, as she held out her cup. 'Haruhi-san, wasn't it?'
Haruhi smiled and nodded, pouring the tea. 'Yes, that's right.'
Tamaki blinked, coming out of his brief moment of internal panic, and Haruhi barely managed to set the teapot down before she found herself seized by both arms.
'HARUHI! You haven't been properly introduced, have you?' Without missing a beat, Tamaki swung them both around, holding Haruhi in front of himself like a shield as he plopped her down in the chair he had just vacated. He stood behind her, hands on her shoulders to keep her in her seat. 'There's lots to brag about when it comes to our Haruhi! One of Ouran's best students -- a scholarship winner, even! Top of the class in every subject.'
'Is that so?' Touka said, her curiosity piqued. 'How do you like being in the Host Club?'
With a quick but forceful shrug, Haruhi freed herself from Tamaki's grip. 'It's very nice, Touka-san.' She kept her smile easy and cheerful, though she could feel Tamaki's gaze boring holes into the back of her head. 'Tamaki-senpai and the others have made me feel right at home since the day I first joined. I still have a lot to learn, though. '
'So natural! So polite! So modest!' Tamaki whipped out a handkerchief and pressed it to his eyes. 'I couldn't ask for a better protege!'
Haruhi briefly considered kicking him in the shins to get him to tone down the histrionics, but thought it would be better to ignore them entirely. 'It's been an educational experience for me, that's for certain,' she said dryly.
'It is wonderful to know that a young gentleman's education at Ouran extends well beyond the classroom.' Touka smiled, and looked up at Tamaki. 'Does Ouran have a mahjong club, Tamaki-san?'
'A mahjong club?' The simplicity of her question brought Tamaki back down to earth with a bump. 'Not officially, no,' he said, his voice turning thoughtful. 'To the best of my knowledge, that is. I suspect that a few students may play from time to time at their leisure, but we have nothing so organized as some of the other schools in Tokyo.'
If Touka was disappointed at this knowledge, she didn't show it. 'The East and West Tokyo divisions are very hard-fought,' she said. 'With only two divisions for the entire metropolitan area, the competition can be fierce indeed. Some years, there have been as many as a hundred schools competing for the right to represent each district at the national level.'
'A hundred schools?' Haruhi said, genuinely surprised. All the same, Touka had given her a useful opening to turn the discussion around, so she jumped right into it. 'Wow. There must be some amazing players out there. What do you expect you'll see from them tomorrow?'
It was the right conversational approach, because Touka's eyes lit up again, though this time her expression was nowhere near as ferocious as before. 'I seldom listen to any kind of idle gossip, but I have heard a few rumours about the ladies of the West Tokyo representative team....'
As Touka launched into her speculations about the players on this year's Tokyo teams, Haruhi felt Tamaki's hand touch her shoulder, and the small but grateful squeeze he gave her was as much of a reward as her suddenly fluttering stomach could take.
If nothing else, Jun had to admit that the snacks at this host club thing were pretty good. More whipped cream than she usually liked on the cakes, probably, but the melon balls were good and ripe and the sliced peaches almost melted on her tongue. The fancy-pants tea wasn't bad, either. It almost made up for how bizarre everything else was, with half-a-dozen stinking rich guys running around like a bunch of butlers in a room that looked like it could have fallen off the back of some European palace. Sure, they called themselves a host club, but what did they get out of it? Being a host wasn't something anyone just decided they were going to do one day when they woke up in the morning, especially with the kind of money they all obviously had. The whole thing made zero sense. And even if Touka seemed to be playing along with it, how on earth were the rest of them supposed to --
'More tea?'
Jun looked up, and saw the tallest of the host club members -- that Morino-guy, she thought -- holding out a fresh cup to her. She hadn't even had to ask for a new one.
'Uh, sure,' she said, as she took it from him. 'Thanks.'
The guy didn't go away. 'Can I get anything else for you?'
'I'm fine, thanks.' She eyed the Morino-guy carefully, and took a sip of her tea. They probably knew beforehand that you were tall, so they got the tall guy to talk to you. Well, whatever works. 'You can sit down, if you want,' she said. 'It's a little weird with you sort of...hovering like that.'
It wasn't the friendliest of offers, but the guy didn't seem to mind. He sat down on a nearby chair, letting his long arms and legs sprawl a little. Jun found herself wondering if he had problems getting a school uniform in his size. Ryuumonbuchi didn't have uniforms, which was one of the reasons why she'd even considered going there in the first place. Then again, all of them probably had tailors on demand to sew their uniforms by hand.
'So I have to say,' she said to him, trying to find something to talk about, 'this wasn't exactly what I was expecting when our esteemed president said we were coming to a host club this afternoon.'
'Mm.'
Morino-guy wasn't a talker, that was for sure. 'So do you guys do this' -- Jun waved her free hand, trying to indicate the room and everything in it -- 'all the time?'
'After school,' he replied, with a slight shrug. 'It depends, mostly.'
This Morino-guy really wasn't giving her much to work with. At least Touka was occupied elsewhere, so Jun figured that she could be as blunt as she liked without getting chewed out for not being all tea-ceremony-polite to the hosts. 'Aren't you supposed to be trying to...I dunno, seduce me or something?'
Morino-guy tilted his head a fraction of an inch to one side. 'Do you want me to?'
Jun hmphed through her nose, then knocked back the rest of the tea in her cup and set it on the table next to her chair. To her surprise, she felt a little pang of...it wasn't disappointment, exactly, but somehow she felt like she should at least have had a chance to fight off some kind of flirty advances. Then again, it wasn't like she was making it easy for him, either. And for that matter, this guy didn't seem like the flirty type, like his club president was. So maybe this was his way of telling her that she didn't have to go in for that kind of thing if she didn't want to? Whatever, this whole thing was still weird.
'Not really,' she finally said. 'Though it might be a nice change for once.'
For the first time, Morino-guy seemed to show actual interest, in that he sat up a little from his partial sprawl. 'Oh?'
Jun draped an arm over the back of her chair, and crossed her legs in the most unladylike fashion she could muster while sitting on a pile of squashy velvet-covered cushions. Morino-guy probably deserved some sort of explanation as to why cuddling up to him was the last thing on her mind. 'So I start at Ryuumonbuchi in April, right? By the middle of May, I've got three love notes in my shoe locker and one very awkward confession from this stammering kid who bursts into tears and runs off before she's even finished.' She shrugged. 'Nice enough girl, but...it's annoying, is all.'
If she'd thought that she could surprise the Morino-guy by telling him about being confessed to by another girl, she'd clearly thought wrong. All he did was nod slowly, and make a noise that sounded like 'Mm' again. Like he understood...but then again, he probably did, didn't he?
'You don't talk much, do you?' she said.
Morino-guy blinked once, then twice, and reached for the teapot to refill her cup.
This whole thing was completely crazy...and yet Jun couldn't help but crack part of a smile. Join the Ryuumonbuchi High School Mahjong Club, end up having afternoon tea served to you by a tall dark silent guy whose family probably has more cash than you'll ever see in your lifetime. Completely crazy, and yet no less than she might have expected from hanging around a club president like Touka. 'Nah, it's cool,' she said, waving a hand at the cup to stop him from refilling it. 'We're here to relax, right? Might as well just go with the flow of things.'
Before Morino-guy could reply to her, the high-pitched voice of his little friend -- the one who called himself Honey, and had taken a shine to Koromo -- rang out across the room. 'Takashi! Come with me to show Koromo-chan the club's costumes!'
Both Jun and Morino-guy -- Takashi, rather -- turned to look, and saw both Honey and Koromo over on the far side of the music room, staggering under massive armfuls of bright silky-looking fabrics and ribbons and glittering jewels, as if a Takarazuka theatre's wardrobe closets had puked all over them.
Once Koromo saw that Jun was sitting with Honey's tall friend, she wasted no time in shouting, 'Jun, you come, too!'
'Duty calls?' Jun said to him, as both of them got to their feet.
In that short space of time between hearing and responding to Honey's call, Takashi's face had softened slightly from the quiet, impassive expression he'd had nearly all afternoon. And when he met Jun's gaze, his dark eyes were wry but fond. 'Something like that,' he agreed.
Ah, well. As far as Jun was concerned, there were plenty of worse ways to spend the afternoon.
Kyouya, ever watchful, circulated the room while the others set to work. Tamaki had naturally directed his attentions to the Ryuumonbuchi club president, but as long as Haruhi was beside him to keep him in line there was no reason to hover around them too closely. The rest of the host club would sort out their attentions easily enough. The important thing to do was to ensure that no one was left out...and so when he saw that one of the Ryuumonbuchi ladies was sitting by herself, a cup of tea by her side and a small subnotebook personal computer in her lap, he drifted over to speak to her and figure out how she might be ushered into joining the antics of their fellow club members.
'Sawamura Tomoki-san, isn't it?' he said as he approached her. 'Is there something I may do for you?'
The glow of Sawamura-san's computer screen glinted off the lenses of her glasses as she looked up at him. 'Ohtori Kyouya-san.'
Kyouya could tell that she wasn't looking directly at him, but rather had focused her gaze on his glasses to give the appearance of meeting his eyes. The tactic of someone who is ill at ease around other people, he noted. According to his research, Sawamura-san had been a successful competitor in real-time strategy computer gaming before moving to Nagano to attend Ryuumonbuchi High School. It was likely that she found online interactions more within her comfort zone than in-person ones. He had relatively little expertise on such forms of gaming, but perhaps if he gently led her onto a topic on which she was more well versed, she might be more willing to be drawn into conversation.
'That's right,' he said aloud, schooling his expression into something mild and unthreatening. 'The host club vice president, and a second-year student here at Ouran.'
Sawamura-san nodded once. 'Your family's organization has recently taken over management of the hospital nearest the Ryuumonbuchi family residence, I believe.'
Kyoya's smile widened slightly, his usual approach to concealing any betraying evidence of surprise. Nothing in his files on Sawamura Tomoki suggested a reason why she might have any particular knowledge of, let alone personal connections to, his family's business or the Ryuumonbuchi family's holdings. There was more to her than his initial research had intimated, but regardless, there was no reason to lose any composure over it. Only a slight adjustment would be required. 'That would be correct, yes,' he said, keeping his tone modest. 'Do you have an interest in hospitals, Tomoki-san?'
Sawamura-san's expression gave nothing away. 'I have an interest in the acquisition of useful information,' she said quietly. 'Data collection can be particularly useful for our club's activities.'
'I see.' The club's analyst, then. Perhaps that was why Ryuumonbuchi Touka had recruited a video game strategist: to have someone who was familiar with studying system rankings and categorising potential adversaries. Kyoya could always respect a proactive approach. 'I can imagine that knowing more about your opponents would be most beneficial for your competitive perspective.'
'There are significant statistical factors.' For the first time, Sawamura-san's face showed a flicker of disapproval. 'Particularly those that defy logical gameplay.'
'In what way?'
Sawamura-san studied him for a moment, then turned her small computer around and held it up so that Kyoya could get a good look at the screen. She had been working on some sort of database, if the expanse of number- and text-filled tabbed spreadsheets visible in the background was any indication. The middle of the screen was taken up with what appeared to be a database profile entry, featuring the photograph of a young woman with chin-length hair, wearing a white school uniform blouse with blue trim and ribbon.
'Family name Miyanaga. First name Teru. Shiraitodai High School, West Tokyo Division. Second-year student, age 16.' Sawamura-san deftly reached around to the front of her computer to tap a few keys on the keyboard, and a graph appeared on the small screen, covering up the Miyanaga girl's profile. 'Point values of her winning hands at last year's nationals, by game.' Another tap, and a second graph appeared. 'Point values of her winning hands at this year's West Tokyo qualifying divisionals, by successive winning round.' Three taps on the keyboard, and a final chart popped up, covering most of the two previous charts. 'Probability of achieving said point values, adjusted for game length and comparative rankings of her individual opponents and their respective school teams.'
Kyouya peered more closely at the final chart, and his eyes narrowed as he processed the information on the display. His knowledge of mahjong was limited at best, but he understood probabilities, and the outcomes he was seeing on Sawamura-san's computer bordered on the absolutely absurd for a game that was as much about chance as it was about experience. 'Luck, or skill?' he asked.
She gave him a meaningful look. 'There are some players,' she said in a low voice, as she closed the pop-up windows and the profile entry, leaving behind only the larger database, 'who appear to transcend both.'
It was an odd enough statement to make, but Kyoya scarcely heard it. He was far more interested in the text of the database that he could now see on the screen in front of him, specifically the fact that the entries included no fewer than six high schools whose names featured prominently in his own private rankings of certain educational institutions that moved in the same circles as Ouran. Eisui Girls' High School of Kagoshima, for instance -- a selective school dominated by the influential Jindai family and its subordinate family branches. Through the Jindai family's connections in high-ranking Shinto shrines across the country, more than a few Eisui alumnae, through birth or marriage, wielded a surprising amount of behind-the-scenes power in political and even Imperial Household circles. One of the two Tokyo schools he could see on the list was Rinkai Girls', a hot-house for overachieving overseas students, including many children of the foreign business and diplomatic communities. Those two schools alone were working examining more closely -- and what other information might be in Sawamura-san's files as well?
Kyoya straightened up, adjusting his glasses. 'Would you be good enough to show me how you arrived at these calculations?' If Eisui and Rinkai both had girls' mahjong teams capable of reaching national-level tournament play, perhaps it would be best to learn more about this particular game...and understand why such high-ranking schools and families found it important for their young ladies to compete in it.
If he had been looking more at Tomoki instead of her computer screen, Kyouya would have seen a tiny smile starting to form at the corners of her mouth. It was not a very wide smile, but it stayed firmly in place as she slid to one side, clearing a space for Kyoya to sit down beside her on the sofa.
Not wanting to miss out on a single opportunity offered by the afternoon, Hajime had eaten more cake than she'd ever thought could fit in her stomach at any given point in time. She was fairly confident that for at least the next five minutes, it would be a bad idea to do anything much more strenuous than sitting still at this particular table and letting all of it digest. However, sitting still meant fidgeting, and before she knew it she had a 100-yen coin in the palm of her hand. Without thinking, she started to fiddle with the coin -- walking it across her fingers, palming and revealing it, running through the various routines that her father had taught her to do ever since she was old enough to play with his trick scarves and linking rings. Nothing special, no flourishes or flips, just the basic warm-up exercises that any magician would start with before attempting something more difficult. Her fingers felt a little stiff and slow, but the muscle memory was there, and the coin's weight and firm round shape was soothing and familiar.
'Wow, you're fast!'
Hajime startled, and only just managed to close her hand around the coin to keep it from slipping out of her grasp. The voice had come from her left, and when she turned she saw one of the host club's twins watching her closely.
'Sorry.' She clenched the coin in her hand more tightly. 'I shouldn't have -- it's a bad habit.'
'Where'd you learn how to do that?' A similar-sounding voice came from her right, and when she looked it was the other twin. Their family name was Hita-something, she recalled, but their first names were a total blank.
'My...my father taught me.' She would never, ever be ashamed of her father's profession, but it didn't make it easy to explain sometimes. 'He's...sort of a magician.'
Suddenly, almost before she could blink, the twins were sitting opposite her, elbows on the table and chins propped in their hands. 'Can you do anything else?' the one on her left asked.
Hajime stared down at the table. She shouldn't even be talking about this, with Touka so close by, but the twins seemed really interested and she didn't know how to begin trying to put them off the subject. 'A few things. I'm not very good, though.'
The twins were still looking at her expectantly, so she let go of the coin and placed it flat on the table, then scooped it up and began to walk through a basic routine. Unlike her school uniform or maid dress, the outfit she'd worn to Ouran didn't have sleeves, so it was harder to do something more complicated in terms of concealment. She stuck to the straightforward passes, loading and palming, letting the coin trickle over her fingers in a show of dexterity. Finally, she flipped it up, watching it spin, and caught it on the fall by plucking it out of the air with her thumb and forefinger, then held it out to them.
If nothing else, the twins were a very appreciative audience. Their mouths were almost hanging open, their eyes wide with fascinated, almost hypnotised delight.
'...that's so cool,' one of them breathed out.
The other fixed Hajime with a worshipful gaze. 'Can you do things with wands and pigeons and straitjackets all that?'
Hajime's eyes widened only a little at the eager emphasis placed on the word straitjacket. With some effort, she was able to keep her cool. 'Uh, a little. But my father does a lot of close-up magic, so that's more what I'm used to.'
Without warning, the twins abruptly pushed their chairs back, and each brought one hand up in a clenched fist. To Hajime's astonishment, they launched into sudden battle: 'Jan-ken-PON!'
The twin on her left threw paper, the one on the right threw rock. Paper-twin punched the air in triumph. 'Yes, me first!'
'If you can't do it, Kaoru, I get to try!' his brother said sullenly.
'Sure, sure, whatever, Hikaru.' Paper-twin -- Kaoru-Kaoru-Kaoru, Hajime tried to drill into her brain -- spun back around to face her, brought his hands up before his face in prayerful respect, and bowed so deeply to her that his nose almost touched the tabletop. 'Sensei, would you please teach this humble servant how to do the special coin magic?'
'S-sensei?' Hajime stared at him. 'I mean -- you really want to learn?'
'If you would be so kind!' Kaoru addressed the table surface an inch from the tip of his nose. 'This humble servant wishes to hear Sensei's gracious instruction!' Next to him, Hikaru was nodding so fast that it made Hajime dizzy to look at him.
'Okay, okay, enough with the humble servant stuff.' Hajime didn't entirely feel up to the task of responding like some actor in a historical drama. As Karou raised his head, she held up the coin, and gave him a smile that only wavered a little bit. 'It's probably best to start with switching hands. It's mostly about how you hold the coin, so it can slide between your fingers -- '
'Hajime! What are you doing?'
Hajime gasped, and dropped the coin, which landed on the table with a plink and rolled right off, skittering away somewhere unknown. A sick, burning sense of shame rose within her chest as she turned her head to see Touka standing a few feet away with her hands on her hips. The host club's president and one of the other hosts, the shorter one with the dark hair, had stopped whatever they'd been in the middle of doing with her and were looking back and forth between her and Hajime, obviously confused.
'I...I was just showing them a little coin trick!' Hajime swallowed, reflexively folding her hands on top of each other and placing them on the table, as innocent as possible.. 'Nothing bad, Touka, I promise.'
Even with the host club president and his fellow club members so close by, Touka wasn't in one of her more forgiving moods. 'I will not have you getting back into bad habits the night before the tournament!' she said sternly. 'I permitted you to remove your restraints for today because you have been very well behaved lately, but you will put them back on the moment we return to the hotel!'
Cowed, Hajime bowed her head. 'Yes, Touka.'
She didn't bother to look up until she heard the sound of feet moving away. When she did, both twins were studying her with peculiar expressions on their faces. They didn't look shocked or disgusted, thankfully, but the strange mix of concern and uncertainty made Hajime's stomach turn a couple of unpleasant corkscrews.
'...restraints?' Hikaru said at last.
In response, Hajime held out her right arm, palm up, so that the twins could see her wrist -- and the faint indentation around it, like that left behind by a tight bracelet or watchband. 'You can't see the marks very well today, but they're there,' she said quietly. 'Ever since I started at Ryuumonbuchi, I've been wearing chains to restrict my hand and arm movements.'
The twins looked at each other, then back at her. 'You wear them all day?' Hikaru asked, picking his way over the words with care.
Hajime nodded. 'At school and at home. But especially when I'm playing mahjong.' The odd looks that the twins were giving her were not going away, so she sighed and began her well-rehearsed explanation. 'When I was in elementary school, I used a sleight-of-hand trick in order to win the final game in a team tournament. I swapped the tile in my hand with a tile that I'd already discarded, and used my discarded tile to win the game. It was a stupid thing to do, but...anyway, the tournament organisers found out. And because I cheated, my school's team was disqualified.'
'Cheating at a tournament? In elementary school?' The twins couldn't seem to decide whether it would be more appropriate to sound horrified or fascinated.
Hajime nodded again, resigned to telling the full story. 'Touka made it a condition that if I wanted to attend Ryuumonbuchi and join the mahjong club, I'd have to wear chains to prevent me from doing something like that again.' Her mouth twitched, tasting her own bitter words. 'And also to remind me that it takes a lot of time and effort to win back people's trust.'
The twins glanced at each other, and Hajime waited for one of the reactions she had come to expect from those who heard her story. They might backtrack, changing the subject quickly out of embarrassment. They might simply drop all conversation and get up and walk away. They might even try to pry further, asking her more questions about that awful elementary school tournament that no one would ever let her forget. But she didn't expect the twins to lift their shoulders in a mirror-image shrug, and for Kaoru to turn back to her and say, in a matter-of-fact tone:
'You must really like playing mahjong, Hajime-san.'
Hajime's mouth dropped open; she quickly snapped it shut. '...Sorry?'
'I was just thinking that you must really like playing mahjong,' Kaoru said again, as if the statement was obvious. 'I mean, Hikaru and I like being in the host club, but if anyone ever tried to make us wear chains --
Hikaru tilted his head, his brow creasing in a slight frown. 'Well, there was that one time -- '
'We're not going to talk about that!' Kaoru cut his brother off hastily. 'Anyway,' he said to Hajime, 'it just seemed that if you wear them even when you're not playing, then mahjong must mean a lot to you.'
Hajime had not fully recovered from Kaoru's unexpected statement, and so she had to think for a moment before she replied. 'It's fun to play,' she said at last. 'Even when you're up against a really tough opponent...well, there's part of you that's definitely excited. You always have to think about how you can win. There's a lot of skill involved.' She held up her hands, flexing her fingers. 'And I think I'm pretty skilled, when I don't cheat.'
The twins grinned at her. 'You're all here, right?' Hikaru said. 'For the national tournament? That must mean you're pretty skilled at more than just magic, I'd say.' He leaned forward, drawing her and Kaoru in with a conspiratorial gesture. 'Even if your president's a little, uh, scary sometimes.'
Hajime snorted. 'You think she's scary? You don't know scary until you've seen Amae Koromo on the other side of a mahjong table.' She glanced up, trying to figure out how to bring Koromo in on the conversation -- only to discover that the topic of her warning was nowhere to be seen. 'But speaking of Koromo, where'd she go?'
In the end, Mori was the one who located her. Or rather, them.
An afternoon of cake and strawberries and dressing up in fanciful costumes apparently had proved exhausting for both Koromo and Honey. At the far end of the music room, away from the bright sunlight that streamed into through the windows, the two of them were asleep on top of a pile of throw pillows that they'd turned into a nest in the corner. They were almost curled around each other, Koromo's long hair falling over both of them like a veil, with a very uncomfortable-looking Usa-chan squashed between them.
Touka pressed a hand to her mouth, then gave Tamaki an embarrassed half-smile. 'I assure you,' she said, 'that my cousin is usually a much better guest than this.'
'No need to apologise,' Tamaki replied graciously. 'Honey-senpai often takes a nap at this time of day, so we're used to it.'
'Between the family restaurant lunch and everything this afternoon, the excitement probably caught up with her,' Jun said. 'Especially with the tournament tomorrow.'
'So it would seem.' Touka sighed. 'It cannot be helped, I suppose. Should we wake them?'
At Touka's suggestion, Tamaki's eyelid twitched, his genial smile suddenly frozen in a pained, desperate grin. The twins automatically took several steps back, and were about to dive behind the closest tea table when they caught sight of Hajime giving them a strange look. They laughed nervously and started to fiddle with the tablecloth, acting as if they'd been planning to straighten it all along, but their eyes kept darting between Tamaki and the sleepers on the couch. Haruhi and Mori exchanged knowing glances, while Kyouya glided up behind all of them, observing the situation from a safe distance.
'That...might not be such a good idea at the moment, Touka-san.' Tamaki spoke lightly enough, but a fine sheen of sweat had appeared on his forehead, and he was eyeing the sleeping Honey with the look of a demolitions expert trying to calculate whether he'd set too short a fuse. 'Honey-senpai sometimes gets a little, er...a little upset if you try to wake him from a nap.'
'Koromo could sleep through an earthquake,' Hajime said.
'I think she has before, actually.' Touka pursed her lips thoughtfully. 'Not a large one, but an earthquake all the same.'
'I'd rather deal with an earthquake than try to wake up Honey-senpai too early,' Hikaru mumbled to Kaoru, who nodded in fervent agreement.
Jun raised an eyebrow at Touka. 'Should I just pick her up? I doubt they'd even notice.' As she spoke, she took a step forward, prepared to ease Koromo off the couch.
The twins dove for the shelter of the tea table. Every muscle in Tamaki's body seemed to go tense, and even Haruhi shuffled a little to one side to put more of Mori between her and Honey --
-- but just before Jun could touch her, Koromo yawned and rolled over, throwing an arm across Usa-chan and snuggling closer to both the stuffed rabbit and Honey. Her eyelids fluttered, but within moments her breathing had evened out and she was fast asleep again, dreaming more deeply than before.
Honey let out a single quiet snore, and that was all.
Jun let her hands drop to her sides. '...or not.'
Haruhi looked up at Mori, trying to hide a smile. 'This would be kinda weird if they weren't so...cute together.'
Mori said nothing, but his normally stoic expression seemed to ease a little as he gazed at Honey and Koromo.
'Ha ha ha, yes, well, I think we should let them sleep for now!' Tamaki could not entirely keep the relief out of his voice. He turned to his fellow club president. 'Did you have any plans for dinner, Touka-san?'
Touka shook her head. 'Our car should be coming to collect us by six, but as we have no firm plans for the evening I can always make alternate arrangements,' she said. 'And since Koromo will be hungry when she wakes, I suppose it would only be sensible to decide on something now.'
Tamaki nodded, and folded his arms across his chest, closing his eyes. Without realising it, Touka did exactly the same thing, so instinctively that it looked as if she and Tamaki had spent weeks choreographing it beforehand.
Tamaki raised a hand, and snapped his fingers. 'Kyouya!'
Touka raised a hand, and snapped her fingers. 'Tomoki!'
At the same moment, Kyouya's clipboard appeared in his hands, and Tomoki produced her computer from thin air.
There was a startled silence -- and then Haruhi let out a very unladylike (or ungentlemanly, for that matter) snort, and quickly clapped her hands over her mouth before she could lose it completely.
Touka and Tamaki opened their eyes and stared at each other, bewildered. Hajime and the twins were bent almost double, gasping and wheezing as they futilely tried to smother their laughter, and Jun's mouth twisted in a way that suggested that she was trying to do the same, somewhat more successfully. Tomoki and Kyouya exchanged understanding glances.
Finally, Tamaki shrugged, and gave Touka a winning smile. 'A joint planning effort, then?' he said
Touka returned his smile. 'I would like nothing better, Tamaki-san.'
Return to Part II
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