In The Stands
Title: In The Stands
Author:
oviparous
Fandom: Ouran Host Club, Azumanga Daioh
Rating: PG
Warnings/Spoilers: Major references to my fic, Bigger Steps: These Rich Bastards. But only if you're interested. Just remember Mikazawa Hideyo is a feminine-looking boy and is an OC. Touhi is also an OC. Haruhi is the secretary of the Host Club here. May recognise some elements from other anime inside this fic.
Summary: ONE SHOT. Hosts meet three Azumanga Daioh girls at a basketball game. Teachers watch from a distance. Very weird fic, supposed to be humorous. Feedback appreciated!
In The Stands
An Ouran High School Host Club and Azumanga Daioh crossover
Also known as a prelude to Bigger Steps: Ootoro
x
Fujioka Haruhi was a second-year student at Ouran Private Academy’s high school section. Being a scholar, her duties involved studying, completing take-home assignments and entertaining fellow women.
A year ago, while looking for a proper room to study in and stumbling into the Third Music Room in the South Wing, she had broken an overseas-manufactured vase that was obscenely expensive, and a series of events ensued that resulted in her being instigated into a club called the Host Club and embarking the destructive road to becoming a slave to luxury foods.
Haruhi also quickly discovered that when you’re in the Host Club, your life would cease to be as peaceful and normal as it probably used to be. More often than not, the unexpected would happen and Haruhi could easily find herself in a predicament that caused her a sufficient amount of stress (just a few weeks before, she had been consigned to be the secretary of the club). Otherwise, it gave her a right cause to be thrown into extreme boredom, for the lifestyles of the rich and famous did not necessarily fulfill her interests.
Today was one such day, where she was forced to forego her precious studying daylight hours and go on an excursion with her club after club hours.
x
“Tell me why we are here again?” Haruhi droned as Suou Tamaki, president of the Host Club, plunked his posterior on the seat beside her. Tamaki was a hyperactive half-French, half-Japanese (and frequently, in Haruhi’s mind, half-witted) third year student, who was exceptionally gifted in music and academics but hopeless at controlling his emotional outbursts (that took place more often than necessary). He founded the Host Club while he was a third-year at the junior high section of Ouran Academy.
“We are here to support Touhi-kun!” Tamaki wrapped his arms around himself in excitement.
Midoribana Touhi, otherwise known as the Worst Host Club Member of All Time, was a first-year host who also joined the basketball club. To make a serious understatement, Touhi was a better sportsman than a host. Reason being his fear of women - he could not speak a full sentence to any girl without stopping for a few breaths along the way, and seeing that he had actually improved compared to when he first started out didn’t make the Host Club feel any better.
In contrast, he was slated to be in the national under-18 team for basketball. It was rather befitting because the number of delegations he got in the Host Club was also fewer than 18. (In fact, he had only one.)
“Why are we suddenly supporting Touhi-kun?” Haruhi dully voiced as she checked the massive digital timepiece hanging above the arena like a primitive chandelier. Just 20 minutes more to 6 PM. She really wasn’t interested in a game where ten sweaty guys groped around a court trying to put a ball through two hoops as many times as they could before a time limit was reached.
“Because he needs the encouragement,” Tamaki grinned at the petite form beside him.
“Actually, you guys should have come sooner,” Mikazawa Hideyo complained from the lower bench in front of them. The raven-haired boy, also the other first-year on the hosting team, allowed a frown to crease his delicate features. “Touhi would have loved for you guys to watch the first two games of the season,” he propped his chin up with his slender fingers, slipping his dainty mouth into a pout.
Haruhi understood Hideyo’s concerns about his best friend - she had known him the longest out of all the hosts, since they were from the same junior high and even the same club. He was, after all, also her tenant of three months and two days. Recently, he had taken up the offer on living at Touhi’s home on weekends (thanks to the enforcement of the unwritten do-not-touch-Haruhi-because-she-is-the-Host-Club’s-baby-daughter-and-you-are-a-boy rule).
“Well, apparently Ouran has made it to the semi-finals, which is a good thing,” the sole female in the group of seven (one of which was on the court) tried to give her junior an encouraging smile.
“This place is filthy!” the Hitachiin twins exclaimed in unison as they gazed disdainfully at the empty soft drink cans and pieces of used tissue paper littering the narrow space around their feet. Hikaru, the older twin, displayed obvious disgust as he muttered something about the state of certain public areas commoners populate.
It was the view of the few people close to the highly pampered twins that Hikaru had the tendency to gripe - he was consequently also taken to be more condescending and less forgiving. It wasn’t that Kaoru didn’t grumble - in fact, he was bobbing his head fervently in agreement with his brother - but he was more understanding. Subsequently he stopped nodding, realizing that the place was dirty not because it was a commoner’s place but because humans are irresponsible by nature.
In other words, Kaoru still used his brains outside the classroom - which was a characteristic Hikaru didn’t have the privilege to share.
“Whose idea was it to come?” Haruhi stared at Tamaki incriminatingly as the Hitachiin brothers tried to jostle their way in between their club secretary and president.
“Mine,” Ootori Kyouya supplied, stepping up to the seat beside Hideyo.
The vice-president of the club pushed his spectacles further up the bridge of his nose - both Hideyo and Haruhi had engaged in countless (meaningless) private conversations about this quirk of Kyouya’s. Their conclusion was that it gave him a psychological peace of mind because it was something that provided him familiarity in doing - the cool demeanor was probably a façade of a desperate young man trying to prove something to his successful family, predominantly also male. If not so, the peace of mind was a necessity due to the pressure that came in the form of the contrasting personality that was Tamaki, who was undisputedly in the position of ‘best friend’ to Kyouya.
Haruhi sighed and wondered if it was yet another ploy to benefit the Host Club in some monetary way or the other.
“You’re going to exploit the games, aren’t you? You’re coming to test the waters today,” Hideyo turned to the senior beside him. The latter gave the first-year a benign smile. “I wouldn’t say exploit. It is more of a… publicizing effort.”
Haruhi resisted the urge to roll her eyes; not out of respect for Kyouya, but because she was positive that her eyelid was twitching so bad that she couldn’t feel it. Currently the hankering about who got to sit with Haruhi (Tamaki or the twins) was bordering on a vehement quarrel.
“So what’s the plan?” Hideyo implored, ignoring the noise from the row behind him.
Kyouya and Hideyo had a very different stitching from the rest of the threads holding the members of the Host Club together. Minutes after the physical examination that took place a while back, Kyouya had offered to help Hideyo regain his footing as the heir of the Mikazawa empire. This had led to an unprecedented partner slash friendship that others identified to be a result of the similar need to be recognized as valuable beings by their equally influential families.
“Help Touhi increase his fanbase by allowing clients special seats in the arena,” the Shadow King of the Host Club responded, opening his file of records.
A light of realization lit up in the younger host’s eyes. “I see… This way, he doesn’t need to talk to them and they can feast their eyes on him wearing a sleeveless top while perspiration glistens on his biceps. Right?”
Kyouya’s lips curled slightly upwards. “Everybody wins.”
x
It was not customary for Ouran students to attend any form of national competition that their schoolmates were involved in. For one, the stadiums where the contests were held were usually below their hygiene standards. Secondly, the school would televise the game live and broadcast it over their own private television network, so there was no real need to be there in the flesh.
There is no known end to possibilities when it comes to the world of the rich.
“How odd,” mused Kurosawa Minamo aloud to herself, as she spotted the distinguishable group five rows down. All of them were donned in the Ouran uniform. “Usually they don’t have any supporters.”
No matter how elite you are, national competitions remain national competitions. The affluent and powerful don’t necessarily win nor intimidate. In sports, it is even more so. The match that day was between Ouran Private Academy and Tokyo High School - Minamo, a gym teacher at Tokyo High, felt that it was her responsibility to cheer her students on. It was the first-time after 11 years that the Tokyo boys’ team had broken into the regional playoffs. It was also said that the season’s ‘super rookie’ title had been conferred to one of the guys on the Ouran team - her boys sure needed all the support they could get.
“Nyaaaaamooooo!” A highly irritating screech punctuated the slightly muted noise in the stadium, as the game had not started yet. Almost the whole stadium lifted their heads to detect where the sound came from, for it sounded like the devil himself was singing.
Minamo froze. There was one person on the planet who still addressed her like that, and she did not particular enjoy the fact that she had to be seen with that person in public.
“Y-Yukari…” Minamo gulped as her colleague (cum ex-schoolmate) shimmied over to her. “Why are you here?”
“Why, to cheer the team on, of course!” Tanizaki Yukari flashed Minamo a bright, fake smile. Then her face turned serious and her eyes darted around the court furtively. “Has the game started yet? Has our school shot any hoops?”
Yukari equaled notoriety. She bullied students, blackmailed colleagues, and had illegal betting sessions with her class during school festivals - the stake being drinks or barbequed meat. She was also boastful of her status as an English teacher, but everybody knew that she was only keen to brag about it when Minamo proved to be a more outstanding educator. Yukari hated to lose, but she almost never won.
“You’re gambling again? You just want to see who’s going to win, aren’t you? Don’t tell me you’ve betted on us winning,” Minamo ruefully put her forehead into her palm.
“It’s just a small bet - five thousand yen. And besides…” Yukari offered her colleague a crafty grin.
Minamo groaned. “You betted against your own school?” She sighed and pitied the idiot who thought that Tokyo would win the game. Then she remembered her status as a staff and quickly amended, “It’s not that I am set on Ouran winning, it’s just that I feel that they have more experience and caliber. But everyone has an equal chance in sports, after all.”
Yukari, in one of her rare moments of intelligence, caught onto Minamo’s nervousness. “Ah, save it,” she cackled. “I’ll just tell the team that their precious Kurosawa-sensei had underestimated their chances of winning and when they are all downcast and weary from the loss they will grab the chance to start revolting against you.”
The popularity rate of Minamo to the other teachers in Tokyo High was easily three to one. Yukari’s threat, if manifested, would jeopardize the students’ trust in her. Even though she did not show it, she cared about her status among the students. In fact, she cared a lot.
“If you do that,” she growled, “I’ll tell the whole school about the Summer Festival of ‘94.”
Yukari instantly shut up and her face took on an impressive shade of red. “You wouldn’t.”
“Try me.”
The two women were engaged in a staring session when Yukari suddenly popped the bubble and pointed innocently behind Minamo. “Look, it’s Ken Hirai. I wonder what he’s doing at a high school basketball game.”
The gym teacher was about to turn when she narrowed her eyes and stared at Yukari suspiciously. “No way am I going to turn. Ken Hirai, indeed. You’d probably push me down the benches and watch me fall helplessly into mortification as thousands of eyes witness me flailing my arms and screaming that I’m going to kill you.”
Yukari scowled in defeat and thought of an excuse. “Actually, I was going to push you anyway.”
“Right.”
“It’s the truth.”
“Push me then,” Minamo set her mouth in a determined line. Yukari stared hard at the other teacher as if she really had undertaken the challenge.
Then she promptly sat down. “Boy, is it hot in here or what?” she cheerily fanned herself.
Minamo’s shoulders took a downward slump and she gave a silent sigh. Yukari was never predictable.
“Hey…” Minamo’s eyes widened in surprise as she straightened up. “Yukari, our students!”
“Who?” Yukari was picking under her fingernails for dirt and didn’t bother to look up.
“Osaka, Tomo and Yomi!” Minamo pointed to a spot beside Yukari’s ear.
“What? But they’ve graduated!” A knowing look then assumed its position on Yukari’s face.
“You’re gonna push me down, right?” Yukari’s voice was gripped with fear as she stared at Minamo. “No fair! No fair! You’re a gym teacher, you work out everyday! You’re obviously stronger than me because your hamthreads are more exercised! No fair!”
“It’s hamstrings. And no, I’m not going to push you down - they really are here.”
“Arai! Hongou! Ishimura!” Takino Tomo’s shrill greeting rang out from a distance as heads swiveled to see who she was waving to. From the court the few guys weakly waved back, but quickly scrambled to the team bench to avoid further embarrassment, sacrificing warm-ups for dignity.
x
“Arai?” Haruhi’s ears perked as she trailed the waving girl’s line of vision to the court. It really was the same Arai that she knew. The rest of the club noticed him too.
“Senpai, he was from our school too, right?” Hideyo asked, turning around to face her.
“Yes, he was my classmate. I didn’t know he joined his high school team - he told me he wanted to concentrate on his studies and would stop playing in high school because it affected his grades.”
x
“They still remember their big sister,” Tomo grinned to herself, trying to pat her back for encouraging the team. (To her, she was doing a good deed by dragging Osaka and Yomi to the playoffs but in actual fact, she had placed a bet with an anonymous person on the internet about the outcome of the game and merely wanted to see for herself.)
Takino Tomo was constantly suspected of having Attention-deficit Hyperactivity Disorder - she was easily distracted, highly competitive, completely irritating and made no sense. Also, she never believed she was wrong. Minamo secretly thought that Tomo could have been Yukari’s daughter, if the former was pregnant during elementary school.
Mizuhara Koyomi, or Yomi as it was known to her friends, would have possibly believed that theory if she hadn’t known the Takino family since elementary school. Sad to say, she had been stuck with Tomo ever since then.
“Stop embarrassing us,” Yomi muttered, dragging Tomo by the arm to the nearest seat she could find. Kasuga Ayumu (also known as ‘Osaka’ because she came from that city) looked numbly around and followed, silently pondering the possibilities of the overhead clock crashing down onto the court and killing all the players. Osaka was usually found to be in a dream-like state, chasing dust with her eyes or sleeping in class as her REM cycle brought her to worlds beyond a normal person’s imagination.
“I wasn’t trying to embarrass us; I was trying to cheer our juniors on!”
“You shouted so loud that Chiyo could hear us in the States!”
“Really?”
“No, Osaka, I’m exaggerating to prove a point.”
“See, you’re telling untruths!”
“Shut up, Tomo.”
“I really thought that Chiyo could hear us, it would really help me save up on stamps…”
Incidentally, Yomi picked the bench that Hideyo and Kyouya were occupying.
“Yomi must be on a diet that affects hormones - you’re so cranky today.”
“I am perfectly fine, there is nothing wrong with my hormones!”
It was at that fateful moment Osaka’s eyes averted to the people beside Yomi and her mouth slid open a notch. “TV stars! We’re sitting beside TV stars-!” she whispered to her company.
Tomo and Yomi stopped arguing and turned to see what Osaka was so hyped up about.
Yomi blushed as she caught Hideyo’s eye, and Tomo’s face practically lit up as she exclaimed, “I’ve never seen them on TV before, but they sure look like TV stars!”
x
“How long has it been since they left Tokyo High, Yukari?” Minamo sighed.
“About three months, right?”
“Well, that’s a consolation. It hasn’t been long enough for them to have made drastic improvements yet.”
“But Nyamo, they’re still exactly the same! You mean you can see tiny improvements?”
“That’s what I’m upset about.”
x
“You know Arai-kun too?” Haruhi tried to make conversation.
“Yeah!” Tomo pumped her elbows and scanned the group excitedly. “I used to challenge him, and I won every time! They were just spineless first-years.”
Hideyo made an effort to be pleasant as well, since the other guys were quite aloof to the girls, not knowing how to react to ‘common commoners’. “Ah, you were from a sports club?”
Tomo obviously enjoyed the attention and flipped her hair behind her shoulder coquettishly. But before she could open her mouth, Yomi spoke. “Actually, she challenges guys to see who would break a leg if they jump off the school building. They naturally decline so she declares herself the winner without even participating.”
“Hey, that’s not true, I jumped before! I won fair and square!”
“You just yelled that you were opening a challenge and jumped off the front step, then declared yourself the winner because no one else was jumping ‘off the building’.”
“Still!”
“Aa, I have a question,” Osaka put up her hand as she frowned solemnly at Haruhi. The group nodded. Osaka looked directly at Haruhi and continued in her dialect-peppered speech, “Why do you look like a girl?”
Haruhi was momentarily speechless. So was Tamaki, as he made sense of Osaka’s Kansai dialect.
“I am a girl,” Haruhi replied frankly, the same time as Tamaki exclaimed, “You’re from Osaka! I’ve never seen a commoner from Osaka before!”
The secretary and president exchanged glances.
Osaka’s eyes widened. “You are a girl? But you’re dressed like a boy. Why do you need to dress like a boy if you’re a girl? Could it be that there is someone out there trying to kill you, so you need to be in a disguise? He looks like a girl too,” she paused to point at Hideyo, “so does it mean that your school requires all girls to wear boys’ uniforms? Is the killer out there all out to kill girls from your school?”
The Host Club stared.
Then Osaka started giving roving looks at each of the Host Club members’ chests. “None of you are Americans or Hawaiians, so I can’t tell who the girls are and who the boys are.”
The Host Club tilted their heads in puzzlement.
“That’s quite a clever way to confuse the killer. If I were a killer I wouldn’t be able to find the person I’m looking for if all of them look the same.”
The Host Club started to think if the girl in front of them had a problem.
“But since you say you’re a girl, I think you’re a Japanese just like me,” Osaka concluded as she grinned at Haruhi in self-satisfaction. “I wonder if you have a swimsuit tan?”
Yomi stood up violently, her face hot. “Ignore her,” she commanded the Host Club.
x
“Should we go down to help them?” Minamo rubbed her palm anxiously against the other. “They seem to be embarrassing the crap out of Yomi.”
“Ah, Yomi can handle it,” Yukari waved in an offhand manner. “She’s a pro. She’s been stuck with Tomo since she was six. Her last resort will probably be, oh, I don’t know, suicide I guess.”
Minamo glared at Yukari. “I can understand how she feels.”
x
“I’m Takino Tomo! You can call me Tomo! What’s your name?” She moved on to the next boy, and the next. “What’s your name? What’s your name? What’s your name? What’s your name? What’s your - how come you look exactly like the previous guy? Oh, you’re twins!”
Yomi wanted to die. It didn’t help that all of them were good-looking.
“How old are all of you?” Tomo ploughed on even though Tamaki was about to reply her previous question(s). Hideyo feebly answered, “We’re all in high school.”
“Ha! That makes me older than you! I graduated from high school a long time ago!” Tomo triumphantly raised a fist.
“Oh, we all can tell,” Hikaru whispered to Kaoru, who suppressed a chuckle. Haruhi heard the nasty implication in the comment and frowned at the elder twin.
“Yes, graduation was so long ago that I can’t even remember what I was wearing that day,” Osaka pointed out seriously.
Yomi stared hard at Osaka. “You were wearing your uniform.”
“How do you know? You remember what happened that long ago?” Tomo dared.
“I’m sure you were an elephant in a previous life. I heard that elephants never forget. No wonder you’re so smart,” Osaka nodded towards Yomi.
Yes, Yomi really wanted to die.
x
“I’m Suou Tamaki, president of the Ouran High School Host Club,” Tamaki offered his hand to Osaka, which she took without second thought. Osaka was gullible that way. Yomi had always suspected that Osaka would even believe that Tomo was a genius if Tomo took Chiyo’s PhD and wrote her name over Chiyo’s in purple glitter. Tamaki gave Osaka a charming smile that didn’t seem to have any effect on her before putting her hand down gently.
“This is Fujioka Haruhi, our secretary,” he gestured to his right then his left, “and the twins are Hitachiin Hikaru and Kaoru.” He looked down. “This is Mikazawa Hideyo and Ootori Kyouya. Kyouya is our vice-president. We have one more member, Midoribana Touhi - he’s playing today. What’s his jersey number, Kyouya?”
“Eight.”
“Yes, do look out for him.”
“I’m sure he isn’t as good as people from our school!” Tomo cheered confidently - she had placed her bet on Tokyo High, after all.
The twins decided to have a little bit of fun with this neuron-jumbled girl just before the game started and nodded to each other before hanging an arm over each others’ shoulders. “Let’s play the Who-is-Hikaru-game!”
“Pick me! Pick me!” Tomo started bouncing. Osaka whipped out a headband that said “Definite Victory” and tied it around her head, before crouching down and clenching her fists.
“I’m ready!” she uttered her war-cry.
Yomi struggled to keep calm and massaged her temples.
“Right - who is Hikaru and who is Kaoru?” they drew out caps and placed it over their heads to mask their parting.
Tomo appeared to be deep in thought. Then she looked up. “Both of you are neither Hikaru nor Kaoru, because you two look the same. You have lost your individual identities and are only to be known as one entity - The Twins!” she folded her arms and gave them a smug wink. “Am I right?”
The Host Club was quiet for just that second. What she said didn’t seem to make sense, but it did harbor a shred of truth.
Osaka assumed that the silence meant that Tomo was right, and she disappointedly removed her headband. “Aa, she must be right since none of you are saying anything. I really thought that he’s Kaoru and he’s Hikaru,” she pointed to them individually.
Haruhi couldn’t help but gape. They did strike her as, well, dumb in the beginning, but these two girls had gotten everything about the twins right.
“Ping pong!” The Hitachiin brothers tried to dissolve the fog of discomfort that was hanging over the group (thanks to Tomo’s comment) and declared to Osaka, “You’re right!”
Her face took a while to brighten up since her brain needed to process the information.
“Right,” Yomi said with a tight smile. “Thank you very much for befriending us, I think we should sit somewhere else because Tomo is very prone to answer the call of nature halfway through any sort of function and this area does not allow easy access to the toilet.”
“I do not need to-”
“Shut up!”
“Tomo-chan, you have to go out to speak to the trees halfway through the game? I didn’t know you could speak to animals. It must be the weather.”
“What a pity,” Tamaki genuinely felt sorry and folded his hands, albeit disappointed at losing a chance to speak to someone who had such a fascinating lilt in her voice just because she came from a different part of Japan.
“We haven’t learnt your names,” Hideyo probed, nodding towards Yomi and Osaka.
“You can call me Yomi,” came the curt reply, showing anxiety to leave. (They were cute but Yomi would pick the option to preserve decorum over knowing them, any day.)
“People call me Osaka-” Osaka started, but was quickly cut short by Tomo’s need for attention.
“I’m Takino Tomo,” she pointed to herself.
“You’ve told them already.”
“Doesn’t hurt to say it a second time!” Tomo turned to face Yomi, accidentally knocking Kyouya’s file off his lap. His hand moved up to push his spectacles - he was notably irritated. As he bent down to collect the object Osaka let out an audible gasp as she saw its contents - photos, vital stats, the like.
“You!” she had adopted an expression of pure horror, her pupils dilating as she raised her pointer at Kyouya, who looked at her in annoyance - which she mistook for murder. “I’ve found you… And I’ve not even read Book 12 yet,” she rasped, narrowing her eyes at Kyouya. Surprising everybody more than the cheering that had erupted around them due to the start of the game, Osaka clenched her fists and accused, “Did you kill L?”
“What?” Kyouya was taken aback for a moment.
“Don’t pretend to be clueless. Where is the monster? I can’t see it!”
“Too much manga,” Yomi made an attempt at a smile and tried to drag Osaka away.
“My name is Osaka, not anything else!” voiced the agitated Japanese gravely, her shoulders shaking. “Is the monster trying to see my name? Is my name floating around me? My name is Osaka!” She frantically beat the air around her, trying to dissipate any name-clouds. “Don’t mess with me, Kira - I know who you are now! I have seen the book with my very own eyes!” she pointed to the file on Kyouya’s lap.
x
“Oh look Nyamo, Osaka’s spotted us. She’s waving.”
“I don’t think she’s waving, Yukari.”
“Yomi looks like she has to let go some stuff big time in the little ladies’ room. Look at her expression. Haha!”
x
Yomi caught sight of her two ex-teachers waving, one like a maniac and the other simply twiddling fingers, and her heart heaved. She wasn’t sure if it was the nostalgia that made her feel that way, or if it was due to her desperation to get out of the current situation.
“He’s the killer?” Tomo’s eyes lit up in stark realization as she put Osaka’s earlier comments together with the crazed ones that she was making. “Run!” she pulled Haruhi’s hand, but found resistance. “He’s found you! The killer who kills girls! He’s seen through your disguise! That’s what Osaka is trying to say!”
“He knows your name, doesn’t he?” Osaka clasped her hands together and tears actually glistened in her deep brown eyes.
“Enough!” Yomi reached the end of her tether. “Two months to university and you two are still behaving like that!” She fixed a grip on both Osaka and Tomo’s sleeves. “Let’s go!”
Without further ado, she dragged the grappling Tomo and incoherent Osaka out of the Host Club’s view - to a seat that, Kyouya observed, was even further away from the restroom.
x
“Why are you three here?” Minamo quizzed the college-bound girls.
“Tomo wanted to come,” Osaka clutched her bag to her chest, delighted to see her teachers again. She also had conveniently forgotten about finding the ‘killer’. “She placed a bet on the game.”
“You what?” the gym teacher was appalled that her student would turn to such vices. Then she remembered Tomo was in Yukari’s form class for three years and stopped feeling bad.
“Yukari placed a bet too,” Minamo confessed.
“You did, Yukari-chan? On which team?” Tomo excitedly bounded over to the English teacher.
“None of your business, but I’m going to win.” She paused to screech in tyrannical laughter. “Where are the rest?” Her eyes gleamed at the prospect of getting the girls to give her a treat. The more people the better - funds wouldn’t run low - so hopefully some more people were on the way.
“Sakaki is working at a pet shop before going to college, so she couldn’t join us today, and Kagura has to get the details finalized for her sports scholarship. Oh, and Chiyo sends her love from the States,” Yomi smiled at her high school teachers.
“Ah, the richest brat isn’t here,” Yukari complained, as Minamo and Yomi sighed collectively.
“Please, let’s just watch the game.”
x
It was 7:20 PM when the game ended in Ouran’s favor. Yomi and Minamo felt a genuine tug of pity for the Tokyo team and began gathering their things to meet the boys.
“I WIN!” Yukari yelled and jumped on the bench, screaming and terrifying half the people sitting around them (the other half were busy screaming over the win as well - apparently there were a lot of punters in the arena). Tomo was still mortified from the loss of her two hundred yen, and Osaka took the chance to grab Yukari’s cell phone while nobody was looking. Her eyes were fixed on the group from Ouran dancing around in celebration, and slowly focused onto Kyouya.
Punching in the numbers, she waited for the other end to pick up.
x
“I’ve never been so excited over a sport before!” Tamaki cried, gripping Haruhi’s shoulders. Haruhi couldn’t complain, as she too was truly light-headed at the prospect of Ouran winning the game. Maybe she belonged to the school more than she thought.
“Let’s go speak to Touhi!” Hideyo shrieked, disentangling himself from Kyouya, who showed no hint that he was awfully ecstatic. The twins stopped their celebratory dance and immediately agreed.
The Ouran basketball team was heaving Touhi onto their shoulders, for he had caught the highest number of rebounds and also sunk the last basket, which helped them lead by two points. According to Hideyo, early stages of the game did not usually display such fierce competition, and Tokyo High School was indeed a formidable opponent.
The hosts left the bleachers and headed for the court, where the team was. Each of them felt satisfaction in their hearts even though the stadium, littered with crisp bags and commoners, reeked of the faint odor of perspiration. They felt fulfilled. Watching the game wasn’t merely watching the game. It was involvement.
Touhi’s participation made the Host Club feel like a team, but on a different sort of court.
Needless to say, they were all gratified.
x
“What a crowd,” Kyouya muttered as they approached the stairs. There was a furor at the front of the mob, and a voice suddenly boomed over the speakers - “This is the Tokyo Police Department! We have received a call from someone in this stadium saying that a serial killer has been found! We advise everyone not to move as we have blocked all the entrances!”
Of course, everyone started panicking. The twins were separated, Tamaki gripped a hand that he thought was Haruhi’s but turned out to be Kyouya’s, and Hideyo was squashed to the front of the horde of people. Haruhi spiraled backwards as people pushed past her, and she found herself falling.
A silver-haired boy wearing the Tokyo High School uniform stretched out his arms by reflex to catch her, and he barely finished saying, “Be careful!” when he disappeared in a poof and all that was of him left was the uniform.
“Souma-kun!” came a female voice from a distance away that was mixed with horror and predominantly, shock. Haruhi barely had time to make sense of it all when a mouse poked its head out of the shirt sleeve.
But that, my folks, is another story.
The End.
Chapter notes:
‘Ping pong’ is the sound of a game show bell - used to signify that the answer given is correct.
Osaka was talking about the manga ‘Death Note’. The anime happens to be scheduled for airing right after Ouran on Nippon Terebi. More info about Death Note can be found here: http/en.
Author:
oviparous
Fandom: Ouran Host Club, Azumanga Daioh
Rating: PG
Warnings/Spoilers: Major references to my fic, Bigger Steps: These Rich Bastards. But only if you're interested. Just remember Mikazawa Hideyo is a feminine-looking boy and is an OC. Touhi is also an OC. Haruhi is the secretary of the Host Club here. May recognise some elements from other anime inside this fic.
Summary: ONE SHOT. Hosts meet three Azumanga Daioh girls at a basketball game. Teachers watch from a distance. Very weird fic, supposed to be humorous. Feedback appreciated!
In The Stands
An Ouran High School Host Club and Azumanga Daioh crossover
Also known as a prelude to Bigger Steps: Ootoro
x
Fujioka Haruhi was a second-year student at Ouran Private Academy’s high school section. Being a scholar, her duties involved studying, completing take-home assignments and entertaining fellow women.
A year ago, while looking for a proper room to study in and stumbling into the Third Music Room in the South Wing, she had broken an overseas-manufactured vase that was obscenely expensive, and a series of events ensued that resulted in her being instigated into a club called the Host Club and embarking the destructive road to becoming a slave to luxury foods.
Haruhi also quickly discovered that when you’re in the Host Club, your life would cease to be as peaceful and normal as it probably used to be. More often than not, the unexpected would happen and Haruhi could easily find herself in a predicament that caused her a sufficient amount of stress (just a few weeks before, she had been consigned to be the secretary of the club). Otherwise, it gave her a right cause to be thrown into extreme boredom, for the lifestyles of the rich and famous did not necessarily fulfill her interests.
Today was one such day, where she was forced to forego her precious studying daylight hours and go on an excursion with her club after club hours.
x
“Tell me why we are here again?” Haruhi droned as Suou Tamaki, president of the Host Club, plunked his posterior on the seat beside her. Tamaki was a hyperactive half-French, half-Japanese (and frequently, in Haruhi’s mind, half-witted) third year student, who was exceptionally gifted in music and academics but hopeless at controlling his emotional outbursts (that took place more often than necessary). He founded the Host Club while he was a third-year at the junior high section of Ouran Academy.
“We are here to support Touhi-kun!” Tamaki wrapped his arms around himself in excitement.
Midoribana Touhi, otherwise known as the Worst Host Club Member of All Time, was a first-year host who also joined the basketball club. To make a serious understatement, Touhi was a better sportsman than a host. Reason being his fear of women - he could not speak a full sentence to any girl without stopping for a few breaths along the way, and seeing that he had actually improved compared to when he first started out didn’t make the Host Club feel any better.
In contrast, he was slated to be in the national under-18 team for basketball. It was rather befitting because the number of delegations he got in the Host Club was also fewer than 18. (In fact, he had only one.)
“Why are we suddenly supporting Touhi-kun?” Haruhi dully voiced as she checked the massive digital timepiece hanging above the arena like a primitive chandelier. Just 20 minutes more to 6 PM. She really wasn’t interested in a game where ten sweaty guys groped around a court trying to put a ball through two hoops as many times as they could before a time limit was reached.
“Because he needs the encouragement,” Tamaki grinned at the petite form beside him.
“Actually, you guys should have come sooner,” Mikazawa Hideyo complained from the lower bench in front of them. The raven-haired boy, also the other first-year on the hosting team, allowed a frown to crease his delicate features. “Touhi would have loved for you guys to watch the first two games of the season,” he propped his chin up with his slender fingers, slipping his dainty mouth into a pout.
Haruhi understood Hideyo’s concerns about his best friend - she had known him the longest out of all the hosts, since they were from the same junior high and even the same club. He was, after all, also her tenant of three months and two days. Recently, he had taken up the offer on living at Touhi’s home on weekends (thanks to the enforcement of the unwritten do-not-touch-Haruhi-because-she-is-the-Host-Club’s-baby-daughter-and-you-are-a-boy rule).
“Well, apparently Ouran has made it to the semi-finals, which is a good thing,” the sole female in the group of seven (one of which was on the court) tried to give her junior an encouraging smile.
“This place is filthy!” the Hitachiin twins exclaimed in unison as they gazed disdainfully at the empty soft drink cans and pieces of used tissue paper littering the narrow space around their feet. Hikaru, the older twin, displayed obvious disgust as he muttered something about the state of certain public areas commoners populate.
It was the view of the few people close to the highly pampered twins that Hikaru had the tendency to gripe - he was consequently also taken to be more condescending and less forgiving. It wasn’t that Kaoru didn’t grumble - in fact, he was bobbing his head fervently in agreement with his brother - but he was more understanding. Subsequently he stopped nodding, realizing that the place was dirty not because it was a commoner’s place but because humans are irresponsible by nature.
In other words, Kaoru still used his brains outside the classroom - which was a characteristic Hikaru didn’t have the privilege to share.
“Whose idea was it to come?” Haruhi stared at Tamaki incriminatingly as the Hitachiin brothers tried to jostle their way in between their club secretary and president.
“Mine,” Ootori Kyouya supplied, stepping up to the seat beside Hideyo.
The vice-president of the club pushed his spectacles further up the bridge of his nose - both Hideyo and Haruhi had engaged in countless (meaningless) private conversations about this quirk of Kyouya’s. Their conclusion was that it gave him a psychological peace of mind because it was something that provided him familiarity in doing - the cool demeanor was probably a façade of a desperate young man trying to prove something to his successful family, predominantly also male. If not so, the peace of mind was a necessity due to the pressure that came in the form of the contrasting personality that was Tamaki, who was undisputedly in the position of ‘best friend’ to Kyouya.
Haruhi sighed and wondered if it was yet another ploy to benefit the Host Club in some monetary way or the other.
“You’re going to exploit the games, aren’t you? You’re coming to test the waters today,” Hideyo turned to the senior beside him. The latter gave the first-year a benign smile. “I wouldn’t say exploit. It is more of a… publicizing effort.”
Haruhi resisted the urge to roll her eyes; not out of respect for Kyouya, but because she was positive that her eyelid was twitching so bad that she couldn’t feel it. Currently the hankering about who got to sit with Haruhi (Tamaki or the twins) was bordering on a vehement quarrel.
“So what’s the plan?” Hideyo implored, ignoring the noise from the row behind him.
Kyouya and Hideyo had a very different stitching from the rest of the threads holding the members of the Host Club together. Minutes after the physical examination that took place a while back, Kyouya had offered to help Hideyo regain his footing as the heir of the Mikazawa empire. This had led to an unprecedented partner slash friendship that others identified to be a result of the similar need to be recognized as valuable beings by their equally influential families.
“Help Touhi increase his fanbase by allowing clients special seats in the arena,” the Shadow King of the Host Club responded, opening his file of records.
A light of realization lit up in the younger host’s eyes. “I see… This way, he doesn’t need to talk to them and they can feast their eyes on him wearing a sleeveless top while perspiration glistens on his biceps. Right?”
Kyouya’s lips curled slightly upwards. “Everybody wins.”
x
It was not customary for Ouran students to attend any form of national competition that their schoolmates were involved in. For one, the stadiums where the contests were held were usually below their hygiene standards. Secondly, the school would televise the game live and broadcast it over their own private television network, so there was no real need to be there in the flesh.
There is no known end to possibilities when it comes to the world of the rich.
“How odd,” mused Kurosawa Minamo aloud to herself, as she spotted the distinguishable group five rows down. All of them were donned in the Ouran uniform. “Usually they don’t have any supporters.”
No matter how elite you are, national competitions remain national competitions. The affluent and powerful don’t necessarily win nor intimidate. In sports, it is even more so. The match that day was between Ouran Private Academy and Tokyo High School - Minamo, a gym teacher at Tokyo High, felt that it was her responsibility to cheer her students on. It was the first-time after 11 years that the Tokyo boys’ team had broken into the regional playoffs. It was also said that the season’s ‘super rookie’ title had been conferred to one of the guys on the Ouran team - her boys sure needed all the support they could get.
“Nyaaaaamooooo!” A highly irritating screech punctuated the slightly muted noise in the stadium, as the game had not started yet. Almost the whole stadium lifted their heads to detect where the sound came from, for it sounded like the devil himself was singing.
Minamo froze. There was one person on the planet who still addressed her like that, and she did not particular enjoy the fact that she had to be seen with that person in public.
“Y-Yukari…” Minamo gulped as her colleague (cum ex-schoolmate) shimmied over to her. “Why are you here?”
“Why, to cheer the team on, of course!” Tanizaki Yukari flashed Minamo a bright, fake smile. Then her face turned serious and her eyes darted around the court furtively. “Has the game started yet? Has our school shot any hoops?”
Yukari equaled notoriety. She bullied students, blackmailed colleagues, and had illegal betting sessions with her class during school festivals - the stake being drinks or barbequed meat. She was also boastful of her status as an English teacher, but everybody knew that she was only keen to brag about it when Minamo proved to be a more outstanding educator. Yukari hated to lose, but she almost never won.
“You’re gambling again? You just want to see who’s going to win, aren’t you? Don’t tell me you’ve betted on us winning,” Minamo ruefully put her forehead into her palm.
“It’s just a small bet - five thousand yen. And besides…” Yukari offered her colleague a crafty grin.
Minamo groaned. “You betted against your own school?” She sighed and pitied the idiot who thought that Tokyo would win the game. Then she remembered her status as a staff and quickly amended, “It’s not that I am set on Ouran winning, it’s just that I feel that they have more experience and caliber. But everyone has an equal chance in sports, after all.”
Yukari, in one of her rare moments of intelligence, caught onto Minamo’s nervousness. “Ah, save it,” she cackled. “I’ll just tell the team that their precious Kurosawa-sensei had underestimated their chances of winning and when they are all downcast and weary from the loss they will grab the chance to start revolting against you.”
The popularity rate of Minamo to the other teachers in Tokyo High was easily three to one. Yukari’s threat, if manifested, would jeopardize the students’ trust in her. Even though she did not show it, she cared about her status among the students. In fact, she cared a lot.
“If you do that,” she growled, “I’ll tell the whole school about the Summer Festival of ‘94.”
Yukari instantly shut up and her face took on an impressive shade of red. “You wouldn’t.”
“Try me.”
The two women were engaged in a staring session when Yukari suddenly popped the bubble and pointed innocently behind Minamo. “Look, it’s Ken Hirai. I wonder what he’s doing at a high school basketball game.”
The gym teacher was about to turn when she narrowed her eyes and stared at Yukari suspiciously. “No way am I going to turn. Ken Hirai, indeed. You’d probably push me down the benches and watch me fall helplessly into mortification as thousands of eyes witness me flailing my arms and screaming that I’m going to kill you.”
Yukari scowled in defeat and thought of an excuse. “Actually, I was going to push you anyway.”
“Right.”
“It’s the truth.”
“Push me then,” Minamo set her mouth in a determined line. Yukari stared hard at the other teacher as if she really had undertaken the challenge.
Then she promptly sat down. “Boy, is it hot in here or what?” she cheerily fanned herself.
Minamo’s shoulders took a downward slump and she gave a silent sigh. Yukari was never predictable.
“Hey…” Minamo’s eyes widened in surprise as she straightened up. “Yukari, our students!”
“Who?” Yukari was picking under her fingernails for dirt and didn’t bother to look up.
“Osaka, Tomo and Yomi!” Minamo pointed to a spot beside Yukari’s ear.
“What? But they’ve graduated!” A knowing look then assumed its position on Yukari’s face.
“You’re gonna push me down, right?” Yukari’s voice was gripped with fear as she stared at Minamo. “No fair! No fair! You’re a gym teacher, you work out everyday! You’re obviously stronger than me because your hamthreads are more exercised! No fair!”
“It’s hamstrings. And no, I’m not going to push you down - they really are here.”
“Arai! Hongou! Ishimura!” Takino Tomo’s shrill greeting rang out from a distance as heads swiveled to see who she was waving to. From the court the few guys weakly waved back, but quickly scrambled to the team bench to avoid further embarrassment, sacrificing warm-ups for dignity.
x
“Arai?” Haruhi’s ears perked as she trailed the waving girl’s line of vision to the court. It really was the same Arai that she knew. The rest of the club noticed him too.
“Senpai, he was from our school too, right?” Hideyo asked, turning around to face her.
“Yes, he was my classmate. I didn’t know he joined his high school team - he told me he wanted to concentrate on his studies and would stop playing in high school because it affected his grades.”
x
“They still remember their big sister,” Tomo grinned to herself, trying to pat her back for encouraging the team. (To her, she was doing a good deed by dragging Osaka and Yomi to the playoffs but in actual fact, she had placed a bet with an anonymous person on the internet about the outcome of the game and merely wanted to see for herself.)
Takino Tomo was constantly suspected of having Attention-deficit Hyperactivity Disorder - she was easily distracted, highly competitive, completely irritating and made no sense. Also, she never believed she was wrong. Minamo secretly thought that Tomo could have been Yukari’s daughter, if the former was pregnant during elementary school.
Mizuhara Koyomi, or Yomi as it was known to her friends, would have possibly believed that theory if she hadn’t known the Takino family since elementary school. Sad to say, she had been stuck with Tomo ever since then.
“Stop embarrassing us,” Yomi muttered, dragging Tomo by the arm to the nearest seat she could find. Kasuga Ayumu (also known as ‘Osaka’ because she came from that city) looked numbly around and followed, silently pondering the possibilities of the overhead clock crashing down onto the court and killing all the players. Osaka was usually found to be in a dream-like state, chasing dust with her eyes or sleeping in class as her REM cycle brought her to worlds beyond a normal person’s imagination.
“I wasn’t trying to embarrass us; I was trying to cheer our juniors on!”
“You shouted so loud that Chiyo could hear us in the States!”
“Really?”
“No, Osaka, I’m exaggerating to prove a point.”
“See, you’re telling untruths!”
“Shut up, Tomo.”
“I really thought that Chiyo could hear us, it would really help me save up on stamps…”
Incidentally, Yomi picked the bench that Hideyo and Kyouya were occupying.
“Yomi must be on a diet that affects hormones - you’re so cranky today.”
“I am perfectly fine, there is nothing wrong with my hormones!”
It was at that fateful moment Osaka’s eyes averted to the people beside Yomi and her mouth slid open a notch. “TV stars! We’re sitting beside TV stars-!” she whispered to her company.
Tomo and Yomi stopped arguing and turned to see what Osaka was so hyped up about.
Yomi blushed as she caught Hideyo’s eye, and Tomo’s face practically lit up as she exclaimed, “I’ve never seen them on TV before, but they sure look like TV stars!”
x
“How long has it been since they left Tokyo High, Yukari?” Minamo sighed.
“About three months, right?”
“Well, that’s a consolation. It hasn’t been long enough for them to have made drastic improvements yet.”
“But Nyamo, they’re still exactly the same! You mean you can see tiny improvements?”
“That’s what I’m upset about.”
x
“You know Arai-kun too?” Haruhi tried to make conversation.
“Yeah!” Tomo pumped her elbows and scanned the group excitedly. “I used to challenge him, and I won every time! They were just spineless first-years.”
Hideyo made an effort to be pleasant as well, since the other guys were quite aloof to the girls, not knowing how to react to ‘common commoners’. “Ah, you were from a sports club?”
Tomo obviously enjoyed the attention and flipped her hair behind her shoulder coquettishly. But before she could open her mouth, Yomi spoke. “Actually, she challenges guys to see who would break a leg if they jump off the school building. They naturally decline so she declares herself the winner without even participating.”
“Hey, that’s not true, I jumped before! I won fair and square!”
“You just yelled that you were opening a challenge and jumped off the front step, then declared yourself the winner because no one else was jumping ‘off the building’.”
“Still!”
“Aa, I have a question,” Osaka put up her hand as she frowned solemnly at Haruhi. The group nodded. Osaka looked directly at Haruhi and continued in her dialect-peppered speech, “Why do you look like a girl?”
Haruhi was momentarily speechless. So was Tamaki, as he made sense of Osaka’s Kansai dialect.
“I am a girl,” Haruhi replied frankly, the same time as Tamaki exclaimed, “You’re from Osaka! I’ve never seen a commoner from Osaka before!”
The secretary and president exchanged glances.
Osaka’s eyes widened. “You are a girl? But you’re dressed like a boy. Why do you need to dress like a boy if you’re a girl? Could it be that there is someone out there trying to kill you, so you need to be in a disguise? He looks like a girl too,” she paused to point at Hideyo, “so does it mean that your school requires all girls to wear boys’ uniforms? Is the killer out there all out to kill girls from your school?”
The Host Club stared.
Then Osaka started giving roving looks at each of the Host Club members’ chests. “None of you are Americans or Hawaiians, so I can’t tell who the girls are and who the boys are.”
The Host Club tilted their heads in puzzlement.
“That’s quite a clever way to confuse the killer. If I were a killer I wouldn’t be able to find the person I’m looking for if all of them look the same.”
The Host Club started to think if the girl in front of them had a problem.
“But since you say you’re a girl, I think you’re a Japanese just like me,” Osaka concluded as she grinned at Haruhi in self-satisfaction. “I wonder if you have a swimsuit tan?”
Yomi stood up violently, her face hot. “Ignore her,” she commanded the Host Club.
x
“Should we go down to help them?” Minamo rubbed her palm anxiously against the other. “They seem to be embarrassing the crap out of Yomi.”
“Ah, Yomi can handle it,” Yukari waved in an offhand manner. “She’s a pro. She’s been stuck with Tomo since she was six. Her last resort will probably be, oh, I don’t know, suicide I guess.”
Minamo glared at Yukari. “I can understand how she feels.”
x
“I’m Takino Tomo! You can call me Tomo! What’s your name?” She moved on to the next boy, and the next. “What’s your name? What’s your name? What’s your name? What’s your name? What’s your - how come you look exactly like the previous guy? Oh, you’re twins!”
Yomi wanted to die. It didn’t help that all of them were good-looking.
“How old are all of you?” Tomo ploughed on even though Tamaki was about to reply her previous question(s). Hideyo feebly answered, “We’re all in high school.”
“Ha! That makes me older than you! I graduated from high school a long time ago!” Tomo triumphantly raised a fist.
“Oh, we all can tell,” Hikaru whispered to Kaoru, who suppressed a chuckle. Haruhi heard the nasty implication in the comment and frowned at the elder twin.
“Yes, graduation was so long ago that I can’t even remember what I was wearing that day,” Osaka pointed out seriously.
Yomi stared hard at Osaka. “You were wearing your uniform.”
“How do you know? You remember what happened that long ago?” Tomo dared.
“I’m sure you were an elephant in a previous life. I heard that elephants never forget. No wonder you’re so smart,” Osaka nodded towards Yomi.
Yes, Yomi really wanted to die.
x
“I’m Suou Tamaki, president of the Ouran High School Host Club,” Tamaki offered his hand to Osaka, which she took without second thought. Osaka was gullible that way. Yomi had always suspected that Osaka would even believe that Tomo was a genius if Tomo took Chiyo’s PhD and wrote her name over Chiyo’s in purple glitter. Tamaki gave Osaka a charming smile that didn’t seem to have any effect on her before putting her hand down gently.
“This is Fujioka Haruhi, our secretary,” he gestured to his right then his left, “and the twins are Hitachiin Hikaru and Kaoru.” He looked down. “This is Mikazawa Hideyo and Ootori Kyouya. Kyouya is our vice-president. We have one more member, Midoribana Touhi - he’s playing today. What’s his jersey number, Kyouya?”
“Eight.”
“Yes, do look out for him.”
“I’m sure he isn’t as good as people from our school!” Tomo cheered confidently - she had placed her bet on Tokyo High, after all.
The twins decided to have a little bit of fun with this neuron-jumbled girl just before the game started and nodded to each other before hanging an arm over each others’ shoulders. “Let’s play the Who-is-Hikaru-game!”
“Pick me! Pick me!” Tomo started bouncing. Osaka whipped out a headband that said “Definite Victory” and tied it around her head, before crouching down and clenching her fists.
“I’m ready!” she uttered her war-cry.
Yomi struggled to keep calm and massaged her temples.
“Right - who is Hikaru and who is Kaoru?” they drew out caps and placed it over their heads to mask their parting.
Tomo appeared to be deep in thought. Then she looked up. “Both of you are neither Hikaru nor Kaoru, because you two look the same. You have lost your individual identities and are only to be known as one entity - The Twins!” she folded her arms and gave them a smug wink. “Am I right?”
The Host Club was quiet for just that second. What she said didn’t seem to make sense, but it did harbor a shred of truth.
Osaka assumed that the silence meant that Tomo was right, and she disappointedly removed her headband. “Aa, she must be right since none of you are saying anything. I really thought that he’s Kaoru and he’s Hikaru,” she pointed to them individually.
Haruhi couldn’t help but gape. They did strike her as, well, dumb in the beginning, but these two girls had gotten everything about the twins right.
“Ping pong!” The Hitachiin brothers tried to dissolve the fog of discomfort that was hanging over the group (thanks to Tomo’s comment) and declared to Osaka, “You’re right!”
Her face took a while to brighten up since her brain needed to process the information.
“Right,” Yomi said with a tight smile. “Thank you very much for befriending us, I think we should sit somewhere else because Tomo is very prone to answer the call of nature halfway through any sort of function and this area does not allow easy access to the toilet.”
“I do not need to-”
“Shut up!”
“Tomo-chan, you have to go out to speak to the trees halfway through the game? I didn’t know you could speak to animals. It must be the weather.”
“What a pity,” Tamaki genuinely felt sorry and folded his hands, albeit disappointed at losing a chance to speak to someone who had such a fascinating lilt in her voice just because she came from a different part of Japan.
“We haven’t learnt your names,” Hideyo probed, nodding towards Yomi and Osaka.
“You can call me Yomi,” came the curt reply, showing anxiety to leave. (They were cute but Yomi would pick the option to preserve decorum over knowing them, any day.)
“People call me Osaka-” Osaka started, but was quickly cut short by Tomo’s need for attention.
“I’m Takino Tomo,” she pointed to herself.
“You’ve told them already.”
“Doesn’t hurt to say it a second time!” Tomo turned to face Yomi, accidentally knocking Kyouya’s file off his lap. His hand moved up to push his spectacles - he was notably irritated. As he bent down to collect the object Osaka let out an audible gasp as she saw its contents - photos, vital stats, the like.
“You!” she had adopted an expression of pure horror, her pupils dilating as she raised her pointer at Kyouya, who looked at her in annoyance - which she mistook for murder. “I’ve found you… And I’ve not even read Book 12 yet,” she rasped, narrowing her eyes at Kyouya. Surprising everybody more than the cheering that had erupted around them due to the start of the game, Osaka clenched her fists and accused, “Did you kill L?”
“What?” Kyouya was taken aback for a moment.
“Don’t pretend to be clueless. Where is the monster? I can’t see it!”
“Too much manga,” Yomi made an attempt at a smile and tried to drag Osaka away.
“My name is Osaka, not anything else!” voiced the agitated Japanese gravely, her shoulders shaking. “Is the monster trying to see my name? Is my name floating around me? My name is Osaka!” She frantically beat the air around her, trying to dissipate any name-clouds. “Don’t mess with me, Kira - I know who you are now! I have seen the book with my very own eyes!” she pointed to the file on Kyouya’s lap.
x
“Oh look Nyamo, Osaka’s spotted us. She’s waving.”
“I don’t think she’s waving, Yukari.”
“Yomi looks like she has to let go some stuff big time in the little ladies’ room. Look at her expression. Haha!”
x
Yomi caught sight of her two ex-teachers waving, one like a maniac and the other simply twiddling fingers, and her heart heaved. She wasn’t sure if it was the nostalgia that made her feel that way, or if it was due to her desperation to get out of the current situation.
“He’s the killer?” Tomo’s eyes lit up in stark realization as she put Osaka’s earlier comments together with the crazed ones that she was making. “Run!” she pulled Haruhi’s hand, but found resistance. “He’s found you! The killer who kills girls! He’s seen through your disguise! That’s what Osaka is trying to say!”
“He knows your name, doesn’t he?” Osaka clasped her hands together and tears actually glistened in her deep brown eyes.
“Enough!” Yomi reached the end of her tether. “Two months to university and you two are still behaving like that!” She fixed a grip on both Osaka and Tomo’s sleeves. “Let’s go!”
Without further ado, she dragged the grappling Tomo and incoherent Osaka out of the Host Club’s view - to a seat that, Kyouya observed, was even further away from the restroom.
x
“Why are you three here?” Minamo quizzed the college-bound girls.
“Tomo wanted to come,” Osaka clutched her bag to her chest, delighted to see her teachers again. She also had conveniently forgotten about finding the ‘killer’. “She placed a bet on the game.”
“You what?” the gym teacher was appalled that her student would turn to such vices. Then she remembered Tomo was in Yukari’s form class for three years and stopped feeling bad.
“Yukari placed a bet too,” Minamo confessed.
“You did, Yukari-chan? On which team?” Tomo excitedly bounded over to the English teacher.
“None of your business, but I’m going to win.” She paused to screech in tyrannical laughter. “Where are the rest?” Her eyes gleamed at the prospect of getting the girls to give her a treat. The more people the better - funds wouldn’t run low - so hopefully some more people were on the way.
“Sakaki is working at a pet shop before going to college, so she couldn’t join us today, and Kagura has to get the details finalized for her sports scholarship. Oh, and Chiyo sends her love from the States,” Yomi smiled at her high school teachers.
“Ah, the richest brat isn’t here,” Yukari complained, as Minamo and Yomi sighed collectively.
“Please, let’s just watch the game.”
x
It was 7:20 PM when the game ended in Ouran’s favor. Yomi and Minamo felt a genuine tug of pity for the Tokyo team and began gathering their things to meet the boys.
“I WIN!” Yukari yelled and jumped on the bench, screaming and terrifying half the people sitting around them (the other half were busy screaming over the win as well - apparently there were a lot of punters in the arena). Tomo was still mortified from the loss of her two hundred yen, and Osaka took the chance to grab Yukari’s cell phone while nobody was looking. Her eyes were fixed on the group from Ouran dancing around in celebration, and slowly focused onto Kyouya.
Punching in the numbers, she waited for the other end to pick up.
x
“I’ve never been so excited over a sport before!” Tamaki cried, gripping Haruhi’s shoulders. Haruhi couldn’t complain, as she too was truly light-headed at the prospect of Ouran winning the game. Maybe she belonged to the school more than she thought.
“Let’s go speak to Touhi!” Hideyo shrieked, disentangling himself from Kyouya, who showed no hint that he was awfully ecstatic. The twins stopped their celebratory dance and immediately agreed.
The Ouran basketball team was heaving Touhi onto their shoulders, for he had caught the highest number of rebounds and also sunk the last basket, which helped them lead by two points. According to Hideyo, early stages of the game did not usually display such fierce competition, and Tokyo High School was indeed a formidable opponent.
The hosts left the bleachers and headed for the court, where the team was. Each of them felt satisfaction in their hearts even though the stadium, littered with crisp bags and commoners, reeked of the faint odor of perspiration. They felt fulfilled. Watching the game wasn’t merely watching the game. It was involvement.
Touhi’s participation made the Host Club feel like a team, but on a different sort of court.
Needless to say, they were all gratified.
x
“What a crowd,” Kyouya muttered as they approached the stairs. There was a furor at the front of the mob, and a voice suddenly boomed over the speakers - “This is the Tokyo Police Department! We have received a call from someone in this stadium saying that a serial killer has been found! We advise everyone not to move as we have blocked all the entrances!”
Of course, everyone started panicking. The twins were separated, Tamaki gripped a hand that he thought was Haruhi’s but turned out to be Kyouya’s, and Hideyo was squashed to the front of the horde of people. Haruhi spiraled backwards as people pushed past her, and she found herself falling.
A silver-haired boy wearing the Tokyo High School uniform stretched out his arms by reflex to catch her, and he barely finished saying, “Be careful!” when he disappeared in a poof and all that was of him left was the uniform.
“Souma-kun!” came a female voice from a distance away that was mixed with horror and predominantly, shock. Haruhi barely had time to make sense of it all when a mouse poked its head out of the shirt sleeve.
But that, my folks, is another story.
The End.
Chapter notes:
‘Ping pong’ is the sound of a game show bell - used to signify that the answer given is correct.
Osaka was talking about the manga ‘Death Note’. The anime happens to be scheduled for airing right after Ouran on Nippon Terebi. More info about Death Note can be found here: http/en.