OHSHC - Summer Hosts - 6

Ouran High School Host Club Tale:
Part Six: Whispers in the Floorboards

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"The more I give to thee, the more I have, for both are infinite."
- William Shakespeare

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Just because I like to act like a kid, doesn't mean I am one.

I'm sure there's a lot of people in the world who are the same way. You just want to make everything brighter. Just think about al the good stuff in life - friends, cake, toys... And even though your outside is sparkly and happy all the time, when you're alone... Things suddenly get a lot more serious.

I don't like to be in that place. Mori knows that. I'm sure even Haruhi and the rest of the Hosts know that. So when Tamaki asked me to be in the Host Club, I felt a weight lift off my shoulders. I could surround myself with cute things and sweet people. I wouldn't have to be alone anymore.

But lately... There's been this tension in our family. I'm not sure what's going on exactly, but I can feel it. Being happy is a lot harder when eveyone around you isn't.

It started in the morning... Bright and early on Wednesday, I was sent up to get Kasanoda and Tetsuya from Haruhi's old bedroom on the second floor. I walked cheerily through the hallway with Usa bunny, humming a cute tune I heard on a bakery commercial last week. Oh. I forgot. I was going to take Mori and Haruhi to that bakery the other day. We were going to try the strawberry shortcake I had seen on the commercial. And the coconut caramel mountian cake. Although Haruhi doesn't really like sweets... But she said she would try a slice of pound cake or-

Oh. What was I doing again? Um... hallway... Usa... humming... Right. I was going to get Kasanoda and Tetsuya for breakfast!

I stopped humming as I neared their door. I guess that's why they didn't hear me, even with the door cracked open slightly. I don't know if one of them had just accidently not closed the door all the way, or if the wind blew it open, or if... Anyway, I raised a fist to knock, but Tetsuya's voice stopped me.

"AH! Ow... Easy."

I know it's not right to peek in on people, but Tetsuya sounded like he was in pain. And I didn't want to burst in trying to help until I made sure he was actually in trouble first. So I looked through the crack in the door. On drama shows, that's usually when someone learns something their not supposed to know, which causes a lot of trouble near the end. To me, that's exactly what happened. I just didn't know it at the time I was peeping.

"Sorry Sunny..." Kasanoda lamented. He was sitting on the edge of the bed, rubbing some sort of cream over Tetsuya's bare back. He squirted more into his hand and continued his work - lighter this time. "Is this stuff working at all?" he asked anxiously, "Are you still in pain?"

Tetsuya's head was hanging down - his hair covering his face - but he stil shook it a little. "No," he answered with a sigh, "It kind of numbs everything. It's weird, but helping."

Kasanoda frowned. He finished, putting the cap back on the tube. Then his hand rested on Tetsuya's back for a long, drawn out moment before he got up from the bed and went to put the tube away in a bag in the corner of the room. Tetsuya straightened slowly - like someone getting up from a position they had grown stiff in - and then got up from the twin sized bed, looking for something.

When he turned, I had to put my hand over my mouth to keep myself from gasping.

In the Host Club, you don't get injured a lot. I suppose that was why I was so surprised to see Tetsuya's back absolutely covered in bruises. All different shapes - perfect straight lines, (a sign of a wooden stick used as a weapon), tred marks, (shoeprints), and splotches, (just about anything with a blunt edge) - sizes, and colors - black, yellow red, purple, blue, light green.

It was awful.

Tetsuya found what he was looking for - a light blue V-neck sweater - and careful wiggled his way into it. It was amazing to watch him cover all that injured skin. What a burden he was carrying. And no one knew.

Except Kasanoda, who came over and took a seat back down on the edge of the twin bed, staring up at Tetsuya like he wanted to say something, but he needed Sunny to start.

Which he did, "What's the matter?"

"What else?" Kasanoda asked, making me think they had had this conversation before, "I don't want to be here."

Tetsuya pulled his messy ponytail down and went over to the dresser with the big mirror ontop of it - standard in every room in the bed and breakfast. "Darling... We can't just keep running," he told the redhead fumming on the bed while he brushed through his tangles, "A few days here and I'll be better than ever. Then we can go back and try again."

"Or we go back and your father makes good on his promise to kill you," Kasanoda stood, his hands clenching into fists like he was too angry to sit down anymore, "Damnit all, Sunny... Why is it so important for us to live in the syndacate?"

With a hairtie in his mouth, Tetsuya turned to face Kasanoda while he pulled all his hair up. "I already told you," he seemed irritated, but I could understand him a lot better when he took the hair-tie out of his mouth, "I'm not running away from him anymore. I'm not taking you away from your family. And I'm not letting him win. We are going to go back and live our lives. No matter what he thinks of me."

Tetsuya turned back to the mirror, his eyebrows slanted forward. "I'll train harder..." he murmured, "I'll get stronger... He'll have to send way more than ten thugs next time..."

Kasanoda sighed, and his hands fell open and limp. Then, he took a few steps and came up behind Sunny, placing his hands on Tetsuya's arms and gently rubbing them. His head fell slightly - resting his forhead on the back of Sunny's shoulder. "I don't want this..." he whispered, "I don't want to have to worry about loosing you every time you run to the supermarket... Or waking up every hour just to make sure you're still in bed beside me..."

Sunny reached one hand over to place on one of Kasanoda's hands. "I'm not going anywhere, love," he sighed.

I swear, I must have waited there an hour - just watching the two of them stand together. Then again, Kyouya says I don't have a very good concept of time, so I guess it could have been like ten minutes, and I wouldn't have known. Anyway, the point is, I figured they were done talking, so I knocked on the door. Because it was already open a bit, it sort of swung open some more when I knocked on it. Kasanoda practically jumped through the ceiling trying to put space between him and Tetsuya.

"Hi!" I greeted them like I hadn't just been watching for a little chunk of the morning, "Are you two hungry? Haruhi made waffles!

~

"So they're together?" Takashi asked as I put another apple into the little plastic bag he was holding open.

My cousin and I loved to do the shopping. Once a week Haruhi and Kyouya would make up a list of all the stuff we needed. I loved coming into the market - there was always something new to distract me - and of course, Takashi always came with to keep me from blowing all our money on toys and cake. Which I don't really think is a bad thing. Can you really ever have too many toys or too much cake...?

Anyway, I told him what I had heard about Tetsuya and Kasanoda. I told Mori everything, after all. He was a lot better at sorting out my head then I was. And boy did it need sorting today.

"Yeah," I sighed - I wasn't really in an uplifting mood. Luckily, I was with Takashi, and he knew every side of me. So I didn't have to pretend to be happy when my heart was so heavy with icky bad stuff, "But... I don't really understand the rest of it. Sunny's father... and the thugs?"

Takashi tied the bag shut and placed it into the basket on his arm. "It sounds like Tetsuya's father isn't happy about his only son leaving the syndacate," he suggested, "Perhaps he sent some of his thugs to collect his son?"

I picked up an orange and smelled it. I like oranges. They smell nice. So why not smell one before you decide to buy it? Then I realized I had to answer Takashi's theroy. But what could I say besides, "Maybe..." Then I handed him the orange and went for a few more nice looking ones.

There was a silence between us for a few minutes. Just as I started wandering off wondering if there were any bakeries around that could make orange flavored cakes, Takashi spoke again.

"Are you going to tell the others?"

I tried to shrug it off. That's what I do when things get serious. I don't like to think about them. I prefer to think of nice things. Like orange flavored cakes! And I swear there was a bakery just a few blocks from here that made lime cakes. What would stop them from having orange cakes too? I bet...

"Mitskuni."

I hated it when Takashi said my name like that. To everyone else it sounded the same as how he always said my name, but to me it sounded bad. Like he was frustrated that I wasn't answering his question. I looked up at him, already knowing my blown up baby eyes weren't going to work on him. "I want to," I whispered, and then my voice rose slightly, "It's not my secret to tell! What if I make things worse?! What if Tetsuya and Kasanoda hate me for telling?!"

His eyes went soft, and he knelt down next to me. I guess it was a little weird. He hadn't done something like this since our time in the club back at school. It was a little strange for him and I to be in casual clothes, in the middle of the fruit section of the marketplace. But he put his hand on my head to ruffle my hair, and I didn't really mind it any more.

"Sometimes... people need help they're never going to ask for, Mitskuni."

~