"Hey, Kimura!"
I looked up from my bento lunch with a hand covering my yawn, mentally preparing for the Newspaper Club hounding me for an interview again, only to find the Hitachiin brothers standing above me with their fancy lunches. "Can we join you?" they asked in unison.
It hadn't even been 24 hours since I'd sort of met them, but somehow they learned my name. And chased me down in the winding Academy gardens.
Scary.
"Uh, sure?" I said, surprised. I moved over, making space for them (and another friend of theirs that I hadn't noticed) in my gazebo. The twins slid into the cement bench across from me, and their friend sat down beside me. Birds chirped, filling the awkward silence. I took a few bites of my salad while I waited for someone to say something.
"Maybe we should introduce ourselves," one of the twins said with a wink. "I'm Hikaru, this is my brother Kaoru, and this is our friend Haruhi Fujioka. She's in our class too."
Kaoru frowned at his brother, and Haruhi kicked Hikaru under the stone table. I didn't quite understand what happened, but I pretended not to notice.
Smiling, I nodded at each of them in turn, feeling awkward. "It's nice to officially meet you all, I guess. Also nice to meet another girl who wears the boys' uniform."
"Likewise," Haruhi answered with a half-smile. She unwrapped her own bento box and started eating. I tried not to stare, but her lunch looked so good; it was almost all food I wasn't allowed to eat anymore: a sandwich, little fishy crackers, two pieces of candy, a handful of raw carrots, and a fragrant curry in a thermos. She must have noticed my creepy staring, though, and asked, "Everything okay, Kimura?"
"Ah! Y-yeah, sorry," I stammered, burying my face in my hands. "I'm not used to having other people eat with me... and your lunch looks really good. Not to be weird."
Haruhi looked from her bento to mine and up at me. "My lunch looks better than yours? Are... are you kidding me?"
"No!" I laughed. "I'm on a weirdly strict diet for a movie I'm in over the next break. So I'm starving pretty much all the time." I tilted my bento toward her, revealing my meager meal: a half-eaten 'salad' of lettuce and tomato (no dressing), brown rice, celery, and a string cheese.
Ergo: hamster food.
Haruhi frowned and opened her mouth to say something, when Kaoru cut her off. "Movie, huh?" Kaoru asked, "That must be pretty cool." He tilted his head and took a bite of his lobster bisque.
I shrugged. "It's okay, I guess," I admitted.
My mother's taut voice nagged in the back of my head: Don't let people get too close...
...You never know what they're going to sell to the paparazzi...
...Don't tell them too much...
...The only friends you have are your family.
Hikaru brightened, sitting up straight in his chair and pointing at me with his grapefruit spoon. "That's why your name seems familiar! You were the little girl in that Tom Hanks movie!"
"Small... Sh-..." Kaoru perked up, trying to think of the name, "Short Stuff!"
Grimacing, I nodded and stared into my sad lunchbox. "Yup, you got me." I pushed my salad around as the twins talked about their favorite parts of the movie, throwing quotes back and forth and imitating Tom Hanks. Kill me now. Please, Odin, smite me from the earth.
Short Stuff was my least favorite part I'd ever gotten.
I didn't like to talk about it.
"So, I heard you stopped by the Host Club yesterday," Haruhi said.
Thanking the gods for the topic change, I nodded and tucked a loose blue hair back behind my ear. "Yeah, Ootori left his planner behind in English, and the teacher asked me to return it. I take a mix of first, second, and third year classes, so my schedule's a little weird."
"What year are you, then?" Hikaru asked.
"I don't really know," I admitted, "I'm technically a first year, according to the school, but I'm the age of a second year. I already graduated from first year in the states though, so I don't know what's going on anymore."
Haruhi cut in again before the topic could stray back to acting. "Kyoya was acting strange after you stopped by. Did you say anything to him?" She leaned in close to me, as if waiting for me to lay down some hot gossip.
Did I? I paused, thinking about it. I'd basically just explained myself and gave the planner back. Nothing weird there. "Nothing strange," I shook my head. "Just returned his planner and told him I was running late."
Haruhi deflated and exchanged a look with the twins that I didn't understand.
"Want to stop by the Club again today after school?" Kaoru asked, "No carnival today, unfortunately, but we'd love to have you."
"Sure, but I can't stay long," I explained, "But, maybe I should ask now... what's a host club?"
-
The twins set me up with a compromise: I show up to the Host Club late, but bring her with me so we could both stay longer. I reluctantly agreed.
When I picked her up, Mei was very confused about why our day looked different than normal. She preferred routine. But I mean, who doesn't?
Using sign language as we walked from her middle school back to Ouran Academy, I explained that I had to meet some friends for a bit. I pinched all of my fingers together on both hands and opened them twice (meeting); tapped my pointer fingers together like interlocking chains, flipping them between the first and second tap (friends); and finally made two H signs with my fingers, stacking one set on the other and rubbing it back and forth twice (short).
With face masks and sunglasses on to disguise ourselves, sign was easier than speech. Paparazzi were notorious for hanging around both of our schools, waiting for us to leave and try to get pictures of us. Lucky for us, Mei's pitch-dark hair helped her blend in with crowds, but mine... not so much (even though it did usually throw the paparazzi off our trail for a few days after I changed colors). So we had to switch things up a lot - sometimes we took private cars (mom usually remembered to pay the driver), sometimes we walked (I'd wear a hat to cover my dyed hair), sometimes I called us an Uber or Lyft (paying the driver extra to not blab to the press), sometimes we rented a tandem bike...
Anything to get them away from us.
Back at Ouran, Mei and I stowed our masks and glasses in our bags and made our way toward Music Room 3. "New friends?" she asked me with a skeptical, raised eyebrow. "Since when?"
Pulling my baseball hat off, the last piece of my disguise, my dual-colored hair spilled out from underneath. "Shut up," I laughed, giving her a gentle shove and taking her bookbag. "I returned a classmate's planner yesterday, and my guess is he wants to thank me or something?" I steered her down a hall and we started up a flight of stairs.
Mei nodded and kept her stare focused on her feet, making sure not to trip up the stairs and ruin her uniform. "So, brand new friends. They don't know you're awful yet."
"Hey!" I scoffed, "If you're going to keep this up, I'm not making dinner tonight."
"Uh, there's a thing called a cell phone? And I have mom's credit card memorized," she spat back. "Plus, I was kind of craving Thai food anyway."
"You know what? Thai sounds really good, actually," I said, looping my arm around her shoulders as we made it to the top of the stairs. "You're pretty smart, kid." My stomach twisted painfully even thinking about food.
Mei laughed. "Obviously."
I steered her down the pale hall, making sure not to let her wander off or get distracted by everything (the fresh hydrangeas in the fancy vases, the pearl inset into the molding, the portraits of famous alumni), heading toward the Music Room. "Now, there are a few of them, so don't freak out," I warned, "And when I visited yesterday, they had a bunch of people there too. So it might be super busy."
But the doors were open when we arrived. And the music room was empty, except for a grand piano, coffee table, couch, and chairs.
"Where are they?" Mei asked, glancing around. I shrugged, walking to the window and peeking outside. "Maybe they smelled you coming and hightailed it out of here." She flopped down onto the couch and crossed her legs.
"So kind to your elders," I muttered.
The doors clicked shut behind us, and we both turned.
Haruhi, Kaoru, Hikaru, Kyoya, and a handful of strangers stood in front of the doors. One of them pushed a tea cart, stacked high with cakes and a steaming kettle. A blonde stepped forward, tall and princely. He offered a rose to Mei, and said, "You must be Mei Kimura. It is a pleasure to have you as our guest."
"I would say likewise, but you're a stranger and creeping me out," she answered bluntly. "Back it up, sir."
I bit back a laugh, drawing the blonde kid's attention. He rounded on me, faster than I could follow with my eye. "And you. Michiyo Kimura," he muttered, his face much too close to mine, another flower appearing in his hand like magic, "I'm glad to see you've accepted our offer."
"O-offer?" I sputtered, sucked into his deep blue gaze. When had he taken my hand?
He smirked and raised an eyebrow. "Why, to join the Host Club, of course."
My head spun. "J-join the Host Club?" I stammered. "Wh-when did? I-I didn't...?" My vision got spotty around the edges, and my bones went rubbery. I could feel all of their eyes poised on me, waiting for my answer, for more words to come out of my mouth. But I couldn't find any.
Haruhi stepped closer, raising a hand. "Uh, senpai? I think Kimura needs help."
The group advanced toward the blonde and I, and the air went thin.
Darkness overwhelmed me, dragging me down.
I think I called for help.
But I can't remember.