Ouran/Love Mode- "Ouran Academy Guest Lecturers Series- Foreign Literature in Translation"
Title: Ouran Academy Guest Lecturers Series- Foreign Literature in Translation (Takamiya Katsura)
Universe: Ouran High School Host Club/Love Mode
Theme/Topic: N/A
Rating: PG-13
Character/Pairing/s: mentions of TakamiyaxIzumi, splashes of MorixHoney and HikaruxKaoru (as, I hope, they are in the anime), and pretty much just…everyone.
Warnings/Spoilers: None that I can imagine.
Word Count: 3,235
Time: 1:47 mins (minor edits)
Summary: (Ouran/Love Mode crossover) Fourth drabble cycle in the series- Takamiya Katsura is invited to Ouran for a ten lecture series regarding his profession and thoughts on literature in translation.
Dedication: Christine- congrats on finishing your MCAT today! Also for Ann, because she’s probably the only person I know who knows both series. XD EDIT: AND Jen! JEN KNOWS LOVE MODE TOO I AM ASQUEE WITH JOY! HONESTLY I HAD NO IDEA! XD
A/N: I dunno-I’m kind of just writing because I have nothing else I particularly want to do. Just amusing myself until my brain stops being sloshy in my skull, I suppose. Damned heat just fries any intelligence I might try to scrape up. Also, this probably makes a bit more sense here and there if you’ve read the first three in the series, but it’s not really necessary, I suppose. XD Oh, and on a final note, don't know about the languages. I make assumptions that could be wrong, but it really has been a long time since I've read Love Mode, so forgive me for any glaring trespasses I make on the universe. ^^;;
Disclaimer: Not mine, though I wish constantly.
Distribution: Just lemme know.
1.
Takamiya was clearly very happy to be here, though Kyouya got the sense that this man was the kind of person who was really happy to be just about anywhere.
Another person very much like Tamaki really, and surprise, surprise, Tamaki was a great fan of his work, having more often than not, read the original in its original language and then read the Japanese translations just to see how they measured up.
Most of the girls attending Takamiya-sensei’s seminar seemed to be fans too, but that could be attributed to something else altogether, if their questions were any indication as to where their true interests lay.
“Um…what’s your favorite color?” one asked shyly, touching her index finger to her bottom lip in a bashful, hopeful manner.
“Blue!” Takamiya responded with a broad smile and no indication at all that he knew how to translate aho to idiot let alone eigo to nihongo in the broader sense of oh, his career.
“Um… do you like chocolate?” another girl asked, buoyed by the positive answer her peer had just received.
“I love chocolate!” Takamiya answered, and his smile never looked insincere for a minute. “All sorts of chocolate!”
“Do…do you like cake?” a third girl-a senior-asked, and Kyouya suspected he knew exactly where this was going.
“I love cake too!” Takamiya told her. “All sorts of cake!” He was genuinely, genuinely having a good time.
“Do you want to have cake with us after lecture, sensei?” a fourth student asked, and Kyouya thought that maybe he should start a betting pool somewhere someday, just for all the times he was always right. The profits he would make would be astronomical.
“I would love to have cake with you all after lecture!”
“Kyaaaa!!!”
Kyouya adjusted his glasses at that, making a note in his portfolio and mentally preparing himself to invite yet another happy idiot through the doors of the third music room for today’s club activity, and possibly (if the pattern held) for the next two weeks or so as well.
If they talked about Takamiya’s work once during the course of his tenure here, Kyouya surmised it might actually be something akin to a miracle.
“Do you like handsome young men, sensei?”
“My favorite things in the whole universe!” Takamiya told the young lady brightly, and clearly meant every word of it.
Kyouya wondered also, if there was perhaps, some sort of pattern to the types of guest lecturers the school seemed to be bringing in this year.
He made a note of it in his portfolio and hoped that Takamiya-sensei didn’t like cake like Honey-senpai liked cake or that he didn’t like handsome young men like Muraki-sensei liked handsome young men.
For one thing, they really couldn’t afford to keep two cake eating machines on the premises for any extended amounts of time, and for another, from what he could remember, Oyamada-san’s memorial had been a rather dreary affair.
2.
Haruhi stared at the two as they happily gibbered in French to one another, sipping milk tea and occasionally pausing to nibble on petit fours or sparkle for effect.
Tamaki finished saying something (all she could make out was the “c'est magnifique!!” part) before extending both hands in the direction of the newcomer and posing at a (very effective) three-quarter angle for a moment or two.
Takamiya-sensei clapped at whatever it was he’d said, chattered some more things in response, and gestured towards Tamaki warmly as well.
“Wow, you really do have to talk through your nose,” Haruhi observed after a moment of listening in.
She couldn’t really find anything else to say on the matter.
At all.
In the meantime Honey-senpai frolicked amongst the shower of sparkles they were throwing back and forth between one another, until Mori-senpai tugged him aside and made him put on a pair of sunglasses so he wouldn’t damage his eyes.
Haruhi thought that maybe she would take Chinese next semester.
3.
Katsu-chan really liked cake! Honey was glad, because it was nice to get to talk to someone who liked cake as much as he liked cake, and who liked his usa-chan lots as well.
“Do you have an usa-chan, too?” Honey asked Takamiya around a mouthful of strawberry shortcake with extra, extra strawberries.
“I actually have a neko-chan,” Takamiya responded cheerfully, and sucked cream from a nice big dollop of tiramisu that had accidentally gotten onto his fingertips.
“Waaaa, neko-chan?” Honey-asked, with huge eyes. “Is it cute, Katsu-chan? Ne, is it cute?”
“He’s the cutest neko-chan in the whole world, Mitsu-chan!”
“Waaa, that must be really cute!” Honey marveled, and licked cream from the corner of his mouth.
“Yup!” Takamiya agreed, and sounded very content. “Just like your usa-chan is the cutest usa-chan I’ve ever seen!”
Honey giggled happily. “More cake?”
“Please!”
Everyone who was watching the two of them interacting across the table thought that they could suddenly see the future.
Haruhi couldn’t help but think that they were all missing something there too, and wasn’t sure if it was due to depth or lack thereof.
4.
“This doesn’t bother you?” the twins asked from the tangled maze of limbs they’d woven around each other, their faces very close.
They were determined to find one guest who got righteously indignant about it. It was sort of a self-punishment game they’d thought up after Yuki-sensei had caught them spinning lies in front of everyone. There had to be at least one straight-laced idiot out of the bunch. Famous people were rarely that interesting, after all.
Takamiya practically glowed at them both. “I used to have an uncle who kissed very well,” he offered, and found that he wasn’t so obsessed with the whole thing like he used to be, if he could bring it up just like that. His heart swelled at the thought and he really couldn’t love Izumi more than he already did.
Hikaru and Kaoru looked at each other for a second, and then turned back to the dreamily sighing writer on the couch opposite them.
“That’s kind of…”
“…gross,” they said after a moment, and stared.
Takamiya laughed. “Yeah, it kind of is, I guess. I mean… when you think about it.”
His smile never changed.
5.
On the Friday of his first week lecturing at Ouran, Takamiya tripped and fell off the stage while in the middle of a particularly passionate explanation regarding why he liked Chinese bakeries over French ones for their lunch items but liked the French over the Chinese for desserts, thus creating an equal-to situation rather than a greater-or-less-than one.
Girls all throughout the auditorium shrieked as they watched him-in solo slow motion-plummet towards the ground below.
Mori-senpai, miraculously, was there to catch him before he hit the ground.
Girls all throughout the auditorium swooned when the older man sighed in good-natured relief and rested his head against the senior’s chest for a moment, to collect himself.
“Thank you!” Takamiya beamed after that moment was up.
Mori nodded, and silently set him down.
Later, everyone wondered how Mori had gotten from the third seating tier of the auditorium to the orchestra pit before Takamiya hit the ground.
“Takashi actually left a few minutes before!” Honey-senpai explained (or failed to explain) happily, and didn’t say another word on the matter because he was too busy lapping up cream from the inside of a superb green-tea flavored cream puff.
“Aa,” Mori agreed, and didn’t quite understand it all himself.
“Well, in either case, I was very relieved!” Takamiya told everyone with a chuckle, and cheerfully munched on a mouthful of raspberry mousse cake.
All the people watching the two of them suddenly felt like they could see into the future again.
The protective instincts only confirmed it.
6.
It happened upon the day they decided that Italian was to be the European language of choice for passionate declarations when suddenly, in the midst of conversation, Tamaki made a loud, strangled noise and clamped a hand over his mouth.
“I mean man,” Tamaki corrected in Japanese again, hastily, quickly, pointedly (obviously). “Haruhi is a very good looking young man! And manly! Very male. I get Italian pronouns mixed up sometimes you know. Hahaha… ha.”
Haruhi sighed to herself and supposed she couldn’t fault Tamaki-senpai for lack of effort so much as a general lack of subtlety.
Takamiya beamed, and patted Tamaki’s hand in a reassuring way. “Oh don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone.”
Tamaki stared. “You mean…”
“Not to say that she isn’t cute,” Takamiya continued, warmly, “but let’s just say my instincts told me her type of cute wasn’t the type of cute I’d ever really be able to appreciate to the fullest potential.”
Tamaki didn’t really get it (as glaringly obvious as it was), but he figured it was as good a time as any to go on another soap-box tirade about how feminine beauty could never ever be downtrodden by any sort of fake masculinity now that he had another sympathetic ear.
Haruhi tuned that familiar part out, and so far, counted the guest lecturers at four-for-four.
If it was so seemingly easy, she couldn’t help but wonder-- very briefly-- what exactly, was wrong with the rest of the school.
But then again, she supposed- generously-- that money tended to make people eccentric…or something.
7.
“A host club, huh?” Aoe said dryly from his end of the telephone when Takamiya called him in the middle of the work day, Katsura thinking that the other man would find this whole situation singularly funny too. In the middle of the work day.
However, the irony was apparently lost on his friend.
Really, Reiji had no sense of humor sometimes.
“Well, a host club full of high school kids, I guess,” Takamiya amended, and ignored the other man’s general aura of grumpiness (a commendable task given that he could practically feel it oozing out of the phone’s earpiece).
“Ah, I see now,” Aoe remarked, this time with some of that lost irony lacing his voice. “It explains why you’re there, in any case.”
Takamiya would have taken affront to that jab against his character if he was generally the type of person who could be offended. “Shall I pass out your card?” he asked, voice full of good cheer. “They’re very professional you know. You’d hardly have to train them! Though I um, don’t think they provide certain services. I mean, as far as I can tell.” Pause. “Maybe the twins might.”
There was a long instance of silence from the other end of the line. “Twins, you say? Hmmm.”
Takamiya grinned. “Twins!”
“Well, you sound like you’re having fun, Katsura.”
“It’s very nice here,” Takamiya agreed, affably.
“If my card makes it into any one of those under-aged brats’ hands I’m calling your under-aged brat and asking him if he knows where his idiot is. Sometimes I think he really ought to keep you on some sort of physical leash.”
Takamiya pouted. “Aw, c’mon, Reiji, that’s not nice at all!”
Reiji chuckled, darkly, and Katsura wondered if maybe he’d underestimated his friend when he’d thought he didn’t have a sense of humor.
“Goodbye, Katsura.”
The click on the other end of the line left the threat of a call to Izumi hanging unfinished between the two of them, suggesting to the writer that maybe the other man did have a sense of humor after all.
It just leaned towards the cruel and unusual.
Takamiya looked at his cell phone for a moment before flipping it shut.
He couldn’t help it when he thought that maybe Hikaru-chan and Kaoru-chan would get along rather well with Reiji if they three were ever to meet. Maybe he'd like Kyouya-kun too.
8.
Takamiya’s cell phone rang in the middle of a chat with some nice young ladies on the nature of his favorite kinds of fuzzy slippers one day, and the ring tone was positively cheery.
Takamiya answered it in like, with a smiling, “Hello Izumi! How was your day?”
There was something like hissing and screeching from the other end, but no one would have known it just by looking at Takamiya’s happily calm expression.
“Why no, I’m not at Aoe’s club, why?” Pause. “He called you and you actually picked up the phone? Well, that’s wonderful, Izumi! I’m very happy for you… that’s really very mature. What? Well yes, I am still at the high school.” Laugh. “Silly, of course not, they’re all far too young for that! Well… I was proportionally younger than I am now when we met too, wasn’t I?” More laughter. “It makes sense, I promise. Shall I bring back some chocolate for you later?”
That statement was followed by a sharp, angry sounding click.
“I love you too!” Takamiya chirruped, before flipping the phone closed and pocketing it with a smile.
“S-sensei? Who was that? I mean, if you don’t mind us asking,” one of the girls he’d previously been in conversation with posed, shyly.
Takamiya didn’t mind at all, actually. “That was my neko,” he explained, simply.
Honey paused in his cake eating just long enough to exclaim, “What a smart cat!”
“Thank you, Mitsu-chan!” Takamiya returned in like.
Some of the girls squealed.
Some of them (well, Haruhi mostly) didn’t get it at all.
Which might have prompted Renge’s grand entrance into this week’s saga, as the high powered motor everyone in the third music room was learning how to dodge rather efficiently came barreling up through the floorboards.
“Clearly your understanding of the situation is juvenile!” Renge declared upon her arrival, and swished her hair dramatically before winking at Takamiya. “Ohohoho! Shall I clarify for everyone then, tachi-san?”
Takamiya grinned and marveled at the whole situation (and the really neat motorized platform that had just appeared out of nowhere). “Well, that’s really nice of you,” he told Renge, and helped himself to more cake.
Haruhi couldn’t help but think that she was probably better off not knowing.
9.
It just so happened that the days towards the end of Takamiya-sensei’s lecture series at Ouran also fell upon about the usual time of the month for Lobelia’s White Lily society to come calling (i.e. come issuing challenges).
Takamiya was really the only one who applauded when they burst through the doors twirling-he thought they sung rather well, and it would have been rude just to stare and not do anything, he felt.
“Humph, what’s this? Now you’ve sullied this room even further by exposing the poor, misguided young maidens of Ouran to some old rich man who can delegate them to the domestic sphere and cut off all their potential for individual greatness? Thinking of selling them off to the highest bidder like cattle? Left to marry and breed and slave away for the selfish desires of pig-headed men? Well we won’t stand for this! We won’t allow it!”
“This is our guest lecturer, Benibara-san,” Haruhi began, patiently. “Takamiya-sensei. He’s just visiting.”
“Oh! These famed guest lecturers we’ve been hearing about!” Maihara exclaimed, disdainfully. “You’ve had four thus far, yes?”
“Yes I believe four!” little Hinako chimed in, not bothering to wait for an answer from the Host Club.
“Four men!” Benibara accused, and pointed (she had commendable posture, Takamiya thought) right at the writer. “What kind of message does that send?”
“Clearly Ouran doesn’t believe that women can be successful!” Maihara decried, and clutched her hands to her bosom. “Atrocious!”
“Vicious!” Benibara agreed. “Well! We’ve come to tell you something very important, beasts of Ouran!”
The hosts all sighed. “That you’re calling us out?” they asked, in tandem.
Takamiya thought everyone speaking at the same time like that was pretty neat too.
“We’re calling you out!!” the Lobelia girls responded in like simultaneity, and spun again. “And your guest!” they added, before stopping mid-turn to stare at Takamiya accusatorily. “Men like you are what’s wrong with society today! Sullying maidens’ worth by coming along with your money and your charm and your success and buying and selling girls like a mere commodity!”
Benibara snapped her fingers then, and seemingly out of nowhere, Tsuwabaki and Maihara produced a white board and a dry erase marker, the two bowing gracefully before handing the items to their leader.
The board read “Called Out!” on it, and already had Tamaki-kun and the other’s names written on it several times over. Takamiya could only surmise that the boys’ names were really fun to write. They were very nice names, after all.
Without further ado, Benibara flipped the cap open with a dramatic flourish Takamiya had only ever seen in the professional theater and wrote his name next to Tamaki-kun’s in large, elegant script.
“There!” she declared, and stepped back from her work.
“There!!” Chizuru echoed.
“Theeeeeeeeeeeeeere!!!” Hinako finished, in the key of F.
“How lovely,” Takamiya responded, and poured creamer into his beverage.
“Fiend!” the girls cried in tandem. “You’re mocking us!”
“I can practically feel you eyeing us impurely!” Chizuru bemoaned, and her eyes shone fiercely.
“Dog!” Benio agreed.
“We girls are not mere objects here to satisfy your lust!” Hinako agreed.
“BE GONE!” they chanted, and the key went straight to a chilling A minor.
“Well,” Takamiya began, and stirred his coffee gently, “I’m gay.” Pause. “Though you’re all very pretty,” he added, because he didn’t want to offend anyone here.
The three visitors paused at that. Blinked.
Silence.
And then, “Oh. Well. Good for you.”
“Right.”
“Right!”
“Riiiiiigggght!”
G major now. Takamiya really thought these girls were wonderful.
“Eraser!” Benibara demanded, and Tsuwabaki rushed to comply. The taller girl then twirled (very well, if Takamiya might add) back towards the “Called Out” board.
Maihara pirouetted in support of her classmate, and before long (three very crisp turns), Takamiya’s name was erased from the board.
Everyone blinked.
The twins looked at each other, and after a moment, raised their hands simultaneously. “We’re gay too!” they announced, and then smirked wickedly. “Really, Tono is the only one here who isn’t.”
The “Called Out” board was thus officially stripped down to one name (written five or six times) that very afternoon, and everyone had Takamiya-sensei (and the sobbing Tamaki, in a way) to thank for it.
10.
Meanwhile, from his high-rise office at the top floor of the infamous Blue Boy, Aoe Reiji couldn’t quite shake the words that his happy idiot of a friend had (in theory) planted into his head rather unwittingly.
Reiji really hated it when Katsura pulled stunts like this-the man was admittedly a good guy but at the same time, singularly infuriating.
Especially when he knew how to appeal to Reiji’s deeply ingrained sense of business savvy.
“I ought to have him whacked,” Aoe muttered to himself, and ordered Kashima to please bring him two aspirin and a glass of water as soon as possible.
He really didn’t like it when Takamiya went off and said something that made cutthroat entrepreneurial sense like he had.
Katsura had taught him how to live once before already, after all. Aoe wasn’t sure he fancied the other man teaching him how to work on top of that.
Reiji folded his hands together and furrowed his brow at how distasteful a feeling that left in his chest.
Still, though.
Still.
It wasn’t a half bad idea.
He sighed to himself and couldn’t quite stop the slight upturning at the corner of his lips when he thought more about it.
“Twins, huh?”
END
EDITS PLZ. I'm too brain ded to do this myself. ;_;
Universe: Ouran High School Host Club/Love Mode
Theme/Topic: N/A
Rating: PG-13
Character/Pairing/s: mentions of TakamiyaxIzumi, splashes of MorixHoney and HikaruxKaoru (as, I hope, they are in the anime), and pretty much just…everyone.
Warnings/Spoilers: None that I can imagine.
Word Count: 3,235
Time: 1:47 mins (minor edits)
Summary: (Ouran/Love Mode crossover) Fourth drabble cycle in the series- Takamiya Katsura is invited to Ouran for a ten lecture series regarding his profession and thoughts on literature in translation.
Dedication: Christine- congrats on finishing your MCAT today! Also for Ann, because she’s probably the only person I know who knows both series. XD EDIT: AND Jen! JEN KNOWS LOVE MODE TOO I AM ASQUEE WITH JOY! HONESTLY I HAD NO IDEA! XD
A/N: I dunno-I’m kind of just writing because I have nothing else I particularly want to do. Just amusing myself until my brain stops being sloshy in my skull, I suppose. Damned heat just fries any intelligence I might try to scrape up. Also, this probably makes a bit more sense here and there if you’ve read the first three in the series, but it’s not really necessary, I suppose. XD Oh, and on a final note, don't know about the languages. I make assumptions that could be wrong, but it really has been a long time since I've read Love Mode, so forgive me for any glaring trespasses I make on the universe. ^^;;
Disclaimer: Not mine, though I wish constantly.
Distribution: Just lemme know.
1.
Takamiya was clearly very happy to be here, though Kyouya got the sense that this man was the kind of person who was really happy to be just about anywhere.
Another person very much like Tamaki really, and surprise, surprise, Tamaki was a great fan of his work, having more often than not, read the original in its original language and then read the Japanese translations just to see how they measured up.
Most of the girls attending Takamiya-sensei’s seminar seemed to be fans too, but that could be attributed to something else altogether, if their questions were any indication as to where their true interests lay.
“Um…what’s your favorite color?” one asked shyly, touching her index finger to her bottom lip in a bashful, hopeful manner.
“Blue!” Takamiya responded with a broad smile and no indication at all that he knew how to translate aho to idiot let alone eigo to nihongo in the broader sense of oh, his career.
“Um… do you like chocolate?” another girl asked, buoyed by the positive answer her peer had just received.
“I love chocolate!” Takamiya answered, and his smile never looked insincere for a minute. “All sorts of chocolate!”
“Do…do you like cake?” a third girl-a senior-asked, and Kyouya suspected he knew exactly where this was going.
“I love cake too!” Takamiya told her. “All sorts of cake!” He was genuinely, genuinely having a good time.
“Do you want to have cake with us after lecture, sensei?” a fourth student asked, and Kyouya thought that maybe he should start a betting pool somewhere someday, just for all the times he was always right. The profits he would make would be astronomical.
“I would love to have cake with you all after lecture!”
“Kyaaaa!!!”
Kyouya adjusted his glasses at that, making a note in his portfolio and mentally preparing himself to invite yet another happy idiot through the doors of the third music room for today’s club activity, and possibly (if the pattern held) for the next two weeks or so as well.
If they talked about Takamiya’s work once during the course of his tenure here, Kyouya surmised it might actually be something akin to a miracle.
“Do you like handsome young men, sensei?”
“My favorite things in the whole universe!” Takamiya told the young lady brightly, and clearly meant every word of it.
Kyouya wondered also, if there was perhaps, some sort of pattern to the types of guest lecturers the school seemed to be bringing in this year.
He made a note of it in his portfolio and hoped that Takamiya-sensei didn’t like cake like Honey-senpai liked cake or that he didn’t like handsome young men like Muraki-sensei liked handsome young men.
For one thing, they really couldn’t afford to keep two cake eating machines on the premises for any extended amounts of time, and for another, from what he could remember, Oyamada-san’s memorial had been a rather dreary affair.
2.
Haruhi stared at the two as they happily gibbered in French to one another, sipping milk tea and occasionally pausing to nibble on petit fours or sparkle for effect.
Tamaki finished saying something (all she could make out was the “c'est magnifique!!” part) before extending both hands in the direction of the newcomer and posing at a (very effective) three-quarter angle for a moment or two.
Takamiya-sensei clapped at whatever it was he’d said, chattered some more things in response, and gestured towards Tamaki warmly as well.
“Wow, you really do have to talk through your nose,” Haruhi observed after a moment of listening in.
She couldn’t really find anything else to say on the matter.
At all.
In the meantime Honey-senpai frolicked amongst the shower of sparkles they were throwing back and forth between one another, until Mori-senpai tugged him aside and made him put on a pair of sunglasses so he wouldn’t damage his eyes.
Haruhi thought that maybe she would take Chinese next semester.
3.
Katsu-chan really liked cake! Honey was glad, because it was nice to get to talk to someone who liked cake as much as he liked cake, and who liked his usa-chan lots as well.
“Do you have an usa-chan, too?” Honey asked Takamiya around a mouthful of strawberry shortcake with extra, extra strawberries.
“I actually have a neko-chan,” Takamiya responded cheerfully, and sucked cream from a nice big dollop of tiramisu that had accidentally gotten onto his fingertips.
“Waaaa, neko-chan?” Honey-asked, with huge eyes. “Is it cute, Katsu-chan? Ne, is it cute?”
“He’s the cutest neko-chan in the whole world, Mitsu-chan!”
“Waaa, that must be really cute!” Honey marveled, and licked cream from the corner of his mouth.
“Yup!” Takamiya agreed, and sounded very content. “Just like your usa-chan is the cutest usa-chan I’ve ever seen!”
Honey giggled happily. “More cake?”
“Please!”
Everyone who was watching the two of them interacting across the table thought that they could suddenly see the future.
Haruhi couldn’t help but think that they were all missing something there too, and wasn’t sure if it was due to depth or lack thereof.
4.
“This doesn’t bother you?” the twins asked from the tangled maze of limbs they’d woven around each other, their faces very close.
They were determined to find one guest who got righteously indignant about it. It was sort of a self-punishment game they’d thought up after Yuki-sensei had caught them spinning lies in front of everyone. There had to be at least one straight-laced idiot out of the bunch. Famous people were rarely that interesting, after all.
Takamiya practically glowed at them both. “I used to have an uncle who kissed very well,” he offered, and found that he wasn’t so obsessed with the whole thing like he used to be, if he could bring it up just like that. His heart swelled at the thought and he really couldn’t love Izumi more than he already did.
Hikaru and Kaoru looked at each other for a second, and then turned back to the dreamily sighing writer on the couch opposite them.
“That’s kind of…”
“…gross,” they said after a moment, and stared.
Takamiya laughed. “Yeah, it kind of is, I guess. I mean… when you think about it.”
His smile never changed.
5.
On the Friday of his first week lecturing at Ouran, Takamiya tripped and fell off the stage while in the middle of a particularly passionate explanation regarding why he liked Chinese bakeries over French ones for their lunch items but liked the French over the Chinese for desserts, thus creating an equal-to situation rather than a greater-or-less-than one.
Girls all throughout the auditorium shrieked as they watched him-in solo slow motion-plummet towards the ground below.
Mori-senpai, miraculously, was there to catch him before he hit the ground.
Girls all throughout the auditorium swooned when the older man sighed in good-natured relief and rested his head against the senior’s chest for a moment, to collect himself.
“Thank you!” Takamiya beamed after that moment was up.
Mori nodded, and silently set him down.
Later, everyone wondered how Mori had gotten from the third seating tier of the auditorium to the orchestra pit before Takamiya hit the ground.
“Takashi actually left a few minutes before!” Honey-senpai explained (or failed to explain) happily, and didn’t say another word on the matter because he was too busy lapping up cream from the inside of a superb green-tea flavored cream puff.
“Aa,” Mori agreed, and didn’t quite understand it all himself.
“Well, in either case, I was very relieved!” Takamiya told everyone with a chuckle, and cheerfully munched on a mouthful of raspberry mousse cake.
All the people watching the two of them suddenly felt like they could see into the future again.
The protective instincts only confirmed it.
6.
It happened upon the day they decided that Italian was to be the European language of choice for passionate declarations when suddenly, in the midst of conversation, Tamaki made a loud, strangled noise and clamped a hand over his mouth.
“I mean man,” Tamaki corrected in Japanese again, hastily, quickly, pointedly (obviously). “Haruhi is a very good looking young man! And manly! Very male. I get Italian pronouns mixed up sometimes you know. Hahaha… ha.”
Haruhi sighed to herself and supposed she couldn’t fault Tamaki-senpai for lack of effort so much as a general lack of subtlety.
Takamiya beamed, and patted Tamaki’s hand in a reassuring way. “Oh don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone.”
Tamaki stared. “You mean…”
“Not to say that she isn’t cute,” Takamiya continued, warmly, “but let’s just say my instincts told me her type of cute wasn’t the type of cute I’d ever really be able to appreciate to the fullest potential.”
Tamaki didn’t really get it (as glaringly obvious as it was), but he figured it was as good a time as any to go on another soap-box tirade about how feminine beauty could never ever be downtrodden by any sort of fake masculinity now that he had another sympathetic ear.
Haruhi tuned that familiar part out, and so far, counted the guest lecturers at four-for-four.
If it was so seemingly easy, she couldn’t help but wonder-- very briefly-- what exactly, was wrong with the rest of the school.
But then again, she supposed- generously-- that money tended to make people eccentric…or something.
7.
“A host club, huh?” Aoe said dryly from his end of the telephone when Takamiya called him in the middle of the work day, Katsura thinking that the other man would find this whole situation singularly funny too. In the middle of the work day.
However, the irony was apparently lost on his friend.
Really, Reiji had no sense of humor sometimes.
“Well, a host club full of high school kids, I guess,” Takamiya amended, and ignored the other man’s general aura of grumpiness (a commendable task given that he could practically feel it oozing out of the phone’s earpiece).
“Ah, I see now,” Aoe remarked, this time with some of that lost irony lacing his voice. “It explains why you’re there, in any case.”
Takamiya would have taken affront to that jab against his character if he was generally the type of person who could be offended. “Shall I pass out your card?” he asked, voice full of good cheer. “They’re very professional you know. You’d hardly have to train them! Though I um, don’t think they provide certain services. I mean, as far as I can tell.” Pause. “Maybe the twins might.”
There was a long instance of silence from the other end of the line. “Twins, you say? Hmmm.”
Takamiya grinned. “Twins!”
“Well, you sound like you’re having fun, Katsura.”
“It’s very nice here,” Takamiya agreed, affably.
“If my card makes it into any one of those under-aged brats’ hands I’m calling your under-aged brat and asking him if he knows where his idiot is. Sometimes I think he really ought to keep you on some sort of physical leash.”
Takamiya pouted. “Aw, c’mon, Reiji, that’s not nice at all!”
Reiji chuckled, darkly, and Katsura wondered if maybe he’d underestimated his friend when he’d thought he didn’t have a sense of humor.
“Goodbye, Katsura.”
The click on the other end of the line left the threat of a call to Izumi hanging unfinished between the two of them, suggesting to the writer that maybe the other man did have a sense of humor after all.
It just leaned towards the cruel and unusual.
Takamiya looked at his cell phone for a moment before flipping it shut.
He couldn’t help it when he thought that maybe Hikaru-chan and Kaoru-chan would get along rather well with Reiji if they three were ever to meet. Maybe he'd like Kyouya-kun too.
8.
Takamiya’s cell phone rang in the middle of a chat with some nice young ladies on the nature of his favorite kinds of fuzzy slippers one day, and the ring tone was positively cheery.
Takamiya answered it in like, with a smiling, “Hello Izumi! How was your day?”
There was something like hissing and screeching from the other end, but no one would have known it just by looking at Takamiya’s happily calm expression.
“Why no, I’m not at Aoe’s club, why?” Pause. “He called you and you actually picked up the phone? Well, that’s wonderful, Izumi! I’m very happy for you… that’s really very mature. What? Well yes, I am still at the high school.” Laugh. “Silly, of course not, they’re all far too young for that! Well… I was proportionally younger than I am now when we met too, wasn’t I?” More laughter. “It makes sense, I promise. Shall I bring back some chocolate for you later?”
That statement was followed by a sharp, angry sounding click.
“I love you too!” Takamiya chirruped, before flipping the phone closed and pocketing it with a smile.
“S-sensei? Who was that? I mean, if you don’t mind us asking,” one of the girls he’d previously been in conversation with posed, shyly.
Takamiya didn’t mind at all, actually. “That was my neko,” he explained, simply.
Honey paused in his cake eating just long enough to exclaim, “What a smart cat!”
“Thank you, Mitsu-chan!” Takamiya returned in like.
Some of the girls squealed.
Some of them (well, Haruhi mostly) didn’t get it at all.
Which might have prompted Renge’s grand entrance into this week’s saga, as the high powered motor everyone in the third music room was learning how to dodge rather efficiently came barreling up through the floorboards.
“Clearly your understanding of the situation is juvenile!” Renge declared upon her arrival, and swished her hair dramatically before winking at Takamiya. “Ohohoho! Shall I clarify for everyone then, tachi-san?”
Takamiya grinned and marveled at the whole situation (and the really neat motorized platform that had just appeared out of nowhere). “Well, that’s really nice of you,” he told Renge, and helped himself to more cake.
Haruhi couldn’t help but think that she was probably better off not knowing.
9.
It just so happened that the days towards the end of Takamiya-sensei’s lecture series at Ouran also fell upon about the usual time of the month for Lobelia’s White Lily society to come calling (i.e. come issuing challenges).
Takamiya was really the only one who applauded when they burst through the doors twirling-he thought they sung rather well, and it would have been rude just to stare and not do anything, he felt.
“Humph, what’s this? Now you’ve sullied this room even further by exposing the poor, misguided young maidens of Ouran to some old rich man who can delegate them to the domestic sphere and cut off all their potential for individual greatness? Thinking of selling them off to the highest bidder like cattle? Left to marry and breed and slave away for the selfish desires of pig-headed men? Well we won’t stand for this! We won’t allow it!”
“This is our guest lecturer, Benibara-san,” Haruhi began, patiently. “Takamiya-sensei. He’s just visiting.”
“Oh! These famed guest lecturers we’ve been hearing about!” Maihara exclaimed, disdainfully. “You’ve had four thus far, yes?”
“Yes I believe four!” little Hinako chimed in, not bothering to wait for an answer from the Host Club.
“Four men!” Benibara accused, and pointed (she had commendable posture, Takamiya thought) right at the writer. “What kind of message does that send?”
“Clearly Ouran doesn’t believe that women can be successful!” Maihara decried, and clutched her hands to her bosom. “Atrocious!”
“Vicious!” Benibara agreed. “Well! We’ve come to tell you something very important, beasts of Ouran!”
The hosts all sighed. “That you’re calling us out?” they asked, in tandem.
Takamiya thought everyone speaking at the same time like that was pretty neat too.
“We’re calling you out!!” the Lobelia girls responded in like simultaneity, and spun again. “And your guest!” they added, before stopping mid-turn to stare at Takamiya accusatorily. “Men like you are what’s wrong with society today! Sullying maidens’ worth by coming along with your money and your charm and your success and buying and selling girls like a mere commodity!”
Benibara snapped her fingers then, and seemingly out of nowhere, Tsuwabaki and Maihara produced a white board and a dry erase marker, the two bowing gracefully before handing the items to their leader.
The board read “Called Out!” on it, and already had Tamaki-kun and the other’s names written on it several times over. Takamiya could only surmise that the boys’ names were really fun to write. They were very nice names, after all.
Without further ado, Benibara flipped the cap open with a dramatic flourish Takamiya had only ever seen in the professional theater and wrote his name next to Tamaki-kun’s in large, elegant script.
“There!” she declared, and stepped back from her work.
“There!!” Chizuru echoed.
“Theeeeeeeeeeeeeere!!!” Hinako finished, in the key of F.
“How lovely,” Takamiya responded, and poured creamer into his beverage.
“Fiend!” the girls cried in tandem. “You’re mocking us!”
“I can practically feel you eyeing us impurely!” Chizuru bemoaned, and her eyes shone fiercely.
“Dog!” Benio agreed.
“We girls are not mere objects here to satisfy your lust!” Hinako agreed.
“BE GONE!” they chanted, and the key went straight to a chilling A minor.
“Well,” Takamiya began, and stirred his coffee gently, “I’m gay.” Pause. “Though you’re all very pretty,” he added, because he didn’t want to offend anyone here.
The three visitors paused at that. Blinked.
Silence.
And then, “Oh. Well. Good for you.”
“Right.”
“Right!”
“Riiiiiigggght!”
G major now. Takamiya really thought these girls were wonderful.
“Eraser!” Benibara demanded, and Tsuwabaki rushed to comply. The taller girl then twirled (very well, if Takamiya might add) back towards the “Called Out” board.
Maihara pirouetted in support of her classmate, and before long (three very crisp turns), Takamiya’s name was erased from the board.
Everyone blinked.
The twins looked at each other, and after a moment, raised their hands simultaneously. “We’re gay too!” they announced, and then smirked wickedly. “Really, Tono is the only one here who isn’t.”
The “Called Out” board was thus officially stripped down to one name (written five or six times) that very afternoon, and everyone had Takamiya-sensei (and the sobbing Tamaki, in a way) to thank for it.
10.
Meanwhile, from his high-rise office at the top floor of the infamous Blue Boy, Aoe Reiji couldn’t quite shake the words that his happy idiot of a friend had (in theory) planted into his head rather unwittingly.
Reiji really hated it when Katsura pulled stunts like this-the man was admittedly a good guy but at the same time, singularly infuriating.
Especially when he knew how to appeal to Reiji’s deeply ingrained sense of business savvy.
“I ought to have him whacked,” Aoe muttered to himself, and ordered Kashima to please bring him two aspirin and a glass of water as soon as possible.
He really didn’t like it when Takamiya went off and said something that made cutthroat entrepreneurial sense like he had.
Katsura had taught him how to live once before already, after all. Aoe wasn’t sure he fancied the other man teaching him how to work on top of that.
Reiji folded his hands together and furrowed his brow at how distasteful a feeling that left in his chest.
Still, though.
Still.
It wasn’t a half bad idea.
He sighed to himself and couldn’t quite stop the slight upturning at the corner of his lips when he thought more about it.
“Twins, huh?”
END
EDITS PLZ. I'm too brain ded to do this myself. ;_;