Shouldn't This Be a Halloween Thing? (Two Weeks Until the Play)
Micah's POV
"A fright fest? With 1-A?"
I tucked my head back under my arms. This wasn't really of interest to me. How we could achieve "class bonding" by scaring the pee out of one another was beyond me. Plus, I wasn't particularly frightened of much.
Just... those acursed arachnids.
And then there was the play to consider. Two weeks until opening night, and we still needed all the practice we could get. Renge was a very reliable director (her past with the Host Club considering) and the cast very competent, but practice made perfect, no? And I for one would not settle for less than our very best for the debut.
"Hey, Micah-san?"
I barely lifted my head from my arms, peering at the boy next to me through half-lidded eyes. Izuki-kun. Reasonably tall (though everyone was, compared to my underachieving frame), shaggy black hair that fell in scraggly locks around his ears, bright obsidian eyes and a kind smile. He played Wendy's younger brother, John, in the play. "Hm, Izuki-kun? What is it?"
"Doesn't this sound like fun?"
I raised a brow, lifting myself fully off the desk and slouching back into my seat. "Does it?" I asked. "Wouldn't this be taking time away from the play?"
"Everyone needs a break once in a while, Micah-san," he insisted, smiling at me. "Especially you! You and Honey-sempai work the hardest every day!"
He had a point, I supposed. All work and no play made Micah an irritable monster, the likes of which even the most hormonal girl during her time of the month could not match. I'd been told that by several people.
Damian.
Riley.
Ecetera.
But mostly Damian and Riley.
I waved a dismissive hand. "So, this'll be two days from now then?"
Izuki beamed, obviously happy to have me on board with the project. He chattered on about the details I'd missed while musing about what the Host Club had done that week. It was like those proud, proud parents who always had this charming story to tell about their children. Except these boys (and Haruhi) were not my children, I couldn't find it in me to be proud most of the time, and these stories were hardly charming.
They'd broken into my house again, for one thing.
Tamaki claimed it was because I'd stayed home from school and he feared for the worst. I didn't doubt his story, but I rather wished he'd had the forethought to simply call me rather than barge in, unnanounced, while I was taking a shower.
Kyouya (whom he'd dragged along) must have had quite the interesting entry for his dirty little black book that day.
"...And so we'll be split up into teams. Scare-ers and Scare-ees. We get to pick who our partners are, I think. Oh, I hope Kamiko picks me...."
Kamiko. The girl Izuki'd been pining after since elementary school. The cast had learned a great deal about each other since rehearsals began, having spent so much time together. I spotted Kamiko in a huddle with her friends, no longer listening to Kazumi-sensei drone on about the class-bonding experience we'd all be subjected to. She was pretty, I had to admit it, but there was something about her I didn't like.
Her friends were always at the Host Club, and she pulled along with them. Their favorites hosts were the Hitachiin brothers. It was obvious she didn't want to be there, but it was also obvious just how much her friends' approval meant to her. She wouldn't leave simply because she felt uncomfortable.
Behind her pompous facade, however, was a girl much like myself. Shy, watchful, a bit too introverted for her own liking. I preferred that girl, and I knew Izuki did as well. That was the girl he'd met in elementary school. The girl he'd fallen for. Only, with that girl locked inside a glass prison, he wasn't going to be getting that date of his anytime soon.
I didn't say that to him, though; how could I? I was only cruel to the hosts, and only when I felt they deserved the punishment. Instead, I nodded politely and put up a falsified (but convincing) smile. "I'd rather work alone," I told him, breaking into his somewhat perverted stare-session with the back of Kamiko's head. He snapped to attention, looked at me with wide, worried eyes, and coughed nervously into his fist. My smile tipped up a fraction. "I find things like this troublesome enough without someone clinging to my arm."
And then, as if the universe was informing just how cursed I really was, I felt someone latch tightly onto my arm, nearly dislocating it and throwing me to the ground in the process.
"Mikes! My tigress! You and me! We're scare-ees!"
Kill me. Oh Lord, just open up the ground and swallow me whole. I can't put up with him for an entire night. I'd take Chinese water torture for eternity over this!
I pointedly didn't turn to meet Daire's excited gaze, and I felt his smile dim as a result. "Just how in the hell did I get matched up with you, Wolfe?" I demanded, voice frigid, body stiff and unyielding. He loosened his hold on my arm, then dropped it altogether when I didn't make a move for him to reconsider.
"I... uh, I requested it. Obviously."
I plan on murdering you in your sleep tonight, Daire. Did you know that?
"You're a viciously moronic idiot if you think I'm just going to go along with that."
"Too late! Kazumi-sensei's already assigned everyone else their partners. It's just you and me, Mikes." I felt him look over my shoulder, felt his eyes narrow a bit in distaste. "Oh and you, too, Izuki."
Izuki started, frantically looking between Daire and Kamiko. She'd gathered with a different group of girls, though still in her circle of friends, and still daily customers of the Host Club. She fidgeted, imperceptible unless you were looking for it, playing with the hem of her dress while the girls discussed the fact that they'd get to see Kaoru, Hikaru and Haruhi all night during the scare fest.
Oh. I'd forgotten they were all in 1-A. Great. I prayed the twins weren't scare-ers. Even though they were still unaware of my arachnophobia, I still feared they'd specifically try to pull something on me, seeing as how they'd been unsuccessful in discovering my hidden fear back at Nekozawa's beach.
I forced a thin, unsatisfied smile as I looked back at Izuki. His forlorn jaw snapped shut as my words registered: "I'm just as unhappy with this situation as you are, Izuki-kun."
He must have realized how uncomfortable I was, with Daire so close, the air reeking of his desperation. He nodded, subtly, and sunk further down into his seat, surpassing my previously untouched slouch record with minimal ease. "At least you're with me, Micah-san..."
"Same here, Izuki-kun, same here."
"...Hey! I'm here too, you know! Mikes? Mikes!"
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I didn't see much of the twins or Haruhi during those next two, frantic days. Though 1-A and 1-B were to work together during the fright fest, setting up was another matter entirely. Despite not spending much time together, I managed to learn that the three of them (along with their class president) were a group, and were scare-ees, just like Izuki, Daire and I.
That took a heavy load off my shoulders, learning I wouldn't have to deal with the twins looking to stab me in the back. Literally, or figuratively. Both seemed equally possible on such a twisted night.
Think about it, won't you? They were using the same tactic to get us to bond as Neanderthal-esque teenage boys did to make their dates cuddle against them in fear while watching a scary movie. In my experience, the girl just ends up getting exasperated and yelling her date's ear off for the next two weeks.
Daire was very moody after receiving my not-so-silent treatment for only a mere hour. The boy had no stamina, I swear.
Scare-ees were to meet up just inside the lobby the night of the scare fest. I found Izuki and Daire easily enough. Izuki was only a few feet from where Kamiko was giggling nervously with her group, this lustful, longing look in his glittering eyes that pained my heart.
Daire ambushed me at the entrance.
Brushing him off, I slipped in between the crowds and wrapped my arms around Izuki's bicep, tugging him behind the information desk, shoving its now ghostly occupant out of the way. His nerves must have been shot already with the thought of all the terrors awaiting us, because it took him a long, breathless moment to recognize my face, inches from his own.
He was breathless because I clamped a warm hand over his mouth to keep him from screaming.
"Shhh! Izuki-kun, it's me!" I smiled soothingly and spoke in soft, gentle tones until he relaxed in my grip. "I'm sorry, I just couldn't keep watching you. You have to tell Kamiko how you feel, or else it'll drive both you and me completely insane!"
He mumbled something against my hand, making me realize I'd forgotten to remove it. Once I released him, he sighed and repeated, "I've tried, Micah-san, really. But she's never alone! And when she is, it's only for a few seconds, when she's waiting outside the Host Club, before her friends get there. I never have the courage when she's there, with all those hot guys on the other side of the doors..."
If Tamaki knew how he was breaking this young, naive boy's heart, he would have quite literally died from the unrequited love and passion he was radiating, and the tragedy of the situation.
"They're not that hot," I mumbled unconvincingly beneath my breath; Izuki failed to hear me, and even if he did, he gave no sign of it. Raising my voice, I said, "That's not the point, Izuki-kun! You don't realize it but Kamiko doesn't even like the--"
A warm hand snaking around my wrist stopped me cold as it pulled me from my hideaway and back out into the suddenly empty lobby. I wrestled my hand from Daire and backed away from him, wanting nothing more than a million miles of distance between us. His thoughts couldn't have contradicted my own more, as he stepped closer and closer, forcing me backwards until I felt smooth granite beneath my backwards-facing palms.
Backed into a corner. How nice for me.
Daire - reminiscent of the night of our first kiss - pinned me to the wall, trapping me between his arms and leaning close enough for our foreheads to touch. A hyperactive pounding infected my heart, shaking my small chest and driving every last ounce of air from my lungs in a painful whoosh. Sweat coated my palms. My brain fogged up.
And Daire knew it - every single reaction, both big and small, was present in his endlessly blue eyes.
"Just for tonight, Mikes." His eyes were closed, and he whispered the words against my hairline. Shivers crawled up and down my spine like skittering spiders, numbing my legs and turning my scared-stiff spine into formless gelatin. I felt on the verge of collapse. "Tonight, I'm gonna be the hero you used to think of me as, ok? Just for tonight...."
A cough permeated the silence building between us. Then another. And another, and another, until I feared whoever it was was going to hack up a lung or two and keel over right then and there.
Daire pulled away, looking none-the-worse for our encounter, his smile flashing cockily on his lips. He waved a hand, beckoning us to follow, as he strode forwards, angled towards a dimly-lit corridor that swelled with shadows and the promise of an eventful evening. "C'mon, slackers!" he called back teasingly. "We're the last to leave! If we don't hurry it up, we'll miss all the fun."
I remembered.
I remembered... that Daire knew exactly what I was afraid of, that he'd found out one shadow-stained morning when I'd refused to embark on a meaningless picnic with him because I even more vehemently refused to leave my room.
I'd found a spider dangling above my door the night before and hadn't crawled out from beneath my fortress of blankets since.
He'd eventually coaxed me outside - baiting me with promise of a trip to the bookstore for the latest volume of Black Butler - but that wasn't the point.
He knew.
He knew, and he would use it against me, all in the effort of winning me back.
Even worse, when in that state of hysterical terror and helplessness, I might do something an otherwise sane me would never consider. Like clinging to Daire in hope that he might drive away all the inky black orbs that threatened me from the web-lined nooks and crannies of the world.
I jumped when Izuki placed a hand on my back. I hadn't realized he'd come closer, or even that he was still in the room, truthfully. He was a steady presence among my racing, storming thoughts. I could barely breathe, much less hold down a single thought for more than a nanosecond. Why was Daire still capable of doing this to me? Of leaving me without breath nor want of air?
"Micah-san, we better catch up to him..." Izuki's tender voice helped pull me from my daze and I straightened shakily, nodding my assent.
When we rejoined Daire, I made sure to keep Izuki beside me at all times, blocking me from Daire's reach. He noticed my pitiful attempt and merely smiled at me reassuringly, as though he was trying to say he didn't bite.
At the moment, I wasn't so sure.
Izuki tried to bring back a semblance of normalcy to our group by telling what he may have considered chilling ghost stories that floated about the school in wisps of half-remembered rumors. I humored him for a bit, glad of the distraction, but soon it was becoming unbearable. He'd just told one about a spider the size of two Moris living in the pipes of the girl's bathroom. Enough was enough.
"Izuki-kun, please you're--"
Tapping.
My head snapped up, eyes darting around, searching for the source of the noise. Izui and Daire continued on, oblivious to the sound, Izuki still chattering away like one of those dolls with the pull-strings. I was beginning to think that he was as scared as I was (though obviously not for the same reasons) and couldn't clamp his jaw shut because of it.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
Over there... My feet light, I tiptoed over to the grandfather clock that stood watch at this particular corner.
Tick.
Tock.
Tap.
Tick.
Tock.
Tap.
The unnatural sound jutted in to each swing of the pendulum sheltered behind the glass door. Tentatively, I pressed my fingertips to the glass. No rhythm pulsed below them, not the tap tap tap I'd been hearing, anyway. I shifted my gaze to the clockface itself, cocking an ear. Ah. There it was. I pushed off from the ground on my toes, stretching my hand for the latch to undo the face.
My fingers closed around the small metal handle and I turned it without hesitation, letting the clockface swing free on its own.
Out jumped something furry.
I would have screamed - if I was afraid of small, mechanical cat toys, that was.
Daire, on the other hand, was afraid of small, mechanical cat toys, apparently. He shrieked like some godforsaken banshee as I probed the tiny device sitting atop my head, its whirring wheels unable to find traction in my hair. Ignoring Daire's unsightly episode, I scooped the mouse into my hands, holding it level so I could inspect it. Izuki sidled up to me, his wide eyes curious, and he smiled at the toy in my hands.
"It's cute," he said, making me smile in agreement. How any normal girl could pick the hosts over this boy.... it made no sense at all.
And here I was, still believing I was normal.
An internal sigh blew through me, stirring half-forgotten memories of a life I once considered normal. Apart from the constant contact with my family being nonexistent, I'd come to enjoy this new life of mine, with Ouran, the hosts, the insanity. It had, for better or worse, become my normal.
"Was this supposed to scare us?" Izuki took the mouse from me, absently stroking its faux-fur as his eyes trailed up to the still-open clock. Eyes widening, like he'd spotted something, he stepped up to the clock and, being a few inches taller than me, had no trouble reaching in and groping around for whatever he was looking for.
With Izuki busy searching, I took the liberty of finding where Daire had run off to after his girlish breakdown. Part of me felt the tiniest amount of regret for always belittling him so; the other relished the fact that I wasn't under his obnoxious, self-absorbed thumb anymore.
That part usually one, being drastically more sadistic than the other.
I found Daire perched against the wall, halfway around the corner from where Izuki was still fumbling for his hidden object. I watched his heartbeat through his shirt, uncharacteristically loud and skittish. His emotions were palpable, thickening the air and coating it in some bitter taste that left me wrinkling my nose. But those emotions weren't fear and anxiety. Clear as Honey's obsession with sweets, I could see that he was burning up with regret.
Before I realized what I was doing, my hand was reaching for arm, ready to impart some ill-gotten comfort, but I curled my fingers back in time. He didn't notice. Didn't see me, didn't look up at my admittedly Bigfoot-like footsteps. I would have thought he was lost in in the deeper recesses of his mind, if not for the subtle movement I caught from him. His eyes, the lids so lowered he could have been feigning sleep, were still open enough for me to see his glittering irises cut towards me, before quickly roaming back to the floor, his shoes, some unidentifiable dust that danced through the still air.
He was waiting for me to comfort him, trying to manipulate me.
What a delusional idiot he was. I only wish I'd noticed it sooner, before even an ounce of pity made its way into my heart.
I abruptly turned on my heel and hurried back to Izuki and his escapades.
"Got it!" My mood brightened considerably as he withdrew his hand, finally lowering himself back onto the soles of his feet, and tugging something dark from the depths of the clock. But when his hand jerked and Izuki stumbled backwards, I regretted ever giving the tapping noise any of my attention in the first place.
A severed head dropped to the floor, bounced once, twice, rolled over and over and over, and stopped just in front of my shoes. And then it grinned up at me.
Alright. I'd like to get something straight here. I am not one to have panic attacks over scary movies, nor am I one to have nightmares waking me with cold sweats and tremblings limbs. I'm the one of the group, the logical, fun-killing, mood-ruining girl who points out how fake she believes everything in the horror film to be, from the runny blood to the badly done torture scenes. I am not, as stated before, easily frightened.
You know my one and only true fear remains as spiders.
But when you are practically alone in a castle-like school, draped in darkness, remembering the story Izuki told you about the lamentable student who was decapitated by a falling suit of armor, and on pins and needles from waiting for someone to jump out at you and scream "BOO", you get jumpy. And I'll be the first to admit that I screamed louder than even Daire, snatched Izuki's hand and made as swift a getaway as I could without tripping over my own feet and killing myself.
There were shadows behind us, tailing us and guiding us at the same time. The rational part of me whispered that there was nothing to fear, to stop and confront whatever was pushing me to flee, because in reality it would do me no harm. But my thumping heartbeat drowned out the whisper and replaced it with a staccato drumbeat, urging me on like some wild, ritualistic chant.
At some point, I stopped. Not because the inner war that instilled a ridiculously intense ache in my head had quieted and I'd regained my senses, but because I no longer felt the reassuring warmth of Izuki's hand on mine.
I spun round, head whipping from side to side, but only for a moment. My eyes settled on the black-clad hand suddenly wrapping around my mouth, harshly tugging me back against a sturdy chest. I was towed, kicking and (muffled) screaming, backwards, then shoved sharply to the side, ending up on my hands and knees before I could completely roll over and knock myself unconscious.
The door clicked shut, drowning me in raven light.
I was locked in. Really. Locked in. Weren't they taking this fright fest just a bit too far? Or was it really only me?
Sighing, I pushed myself up to my knees, trying vainly to inspect my scuffed-up hands, held above my head as though I had light to see by. Pointless, like I knew it would be. Judging from the sting that zigzagged up my arms whenever I brushed the raw skin of my palms against my skirt, it wasn't a pretty scrape. Scrapes are never pretty in the first place, but I felt this was marginally worse than your average boo-boo.
I could have survived this without any trouble. The dark was no hindrence to me. Loneliness was a comfort after the constant crowding of the Host Club. Silence a blessing when in comparison with the hosts' boisterous environment.
But then came the quiet pattering, the skittering across rough wooden floors. The perpetually loud silence that came between breaks, between the sound of terrifying things tapping the floor with all eight gruesome legs.
There just had to be spiders in this closet, didn't there?
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Third Person POV
Kaoru, breathless from the sudden burst of excercise, chased after the escaping President, whose white-water tears of terror trailed behind him like liquid mercury in the gloom. The chattering skulls had been enough to set the boy running for his life, even if he, like Micah, understood deep inside how illogical all of this was.
He stretched out a hand, wanting to grab hold of the President's sweater vest and tug him to a much-needed standstill, but it was all in vain. He was forever a few feet behind him, never gaining, but never falling behind either.
"Noooo!" the teen wailed, trying to draw farther ahead of whatever he thought was chasing them. "Getta... way... from me!!"
"Presiden!" Kaoru called, hoping to force his words through the President's horror-fogged mind. "Where are you going? Calm--"
He suddenly felt himself being forced to side, heard a door swing open and close, felt his shoulder make heavy impact with the ground below and skid a few feet before stopping. Kaoru let out a long, drawn-out sigh. Of all the things that he could be doing right now....
He lifted himself off the ground, ears pricking as the lock clicked (for the second time, unbeknownst to him). "They... locked us in..."
He knew the President would panic at any moment and brought out his cellphone. All it did was illuminate a patch of black: No signal seeped in through the thick walls surrounding them. He sighed again. "Phone can't get reception here," he remarked dryly to Soga, otherwise known as 1-A's class president.
"Eh...! Which twin are you?!"
"...It's Kaoru, you moron."
A soft, broken gasp echoed from a shadow-bathed corner, and Kaoru raised his head, squinting through the darkness to see. He made out a lump. No, not a lump, or not just a lump, anyway. There was the perculiar yellow of the female Ouran uniform, the pale glow of an arm. Or a leg; he couldn't tell until his eyes adjusted better. But when two mismatched eyes came into focus, he felt his own breath grow still.
"Micah? What the hell are you doing in here?"
She was cowering against a supply shelf, her legs tucked clumsily beneath her, head in her hands. Her fingers were splayed, allowing him to see her eyes: As bright as ever, shining a brilliant crimson and emerald. Only now, they were bright with unbridled fear.
"Got... l-locked in..." she stammered, her tongue thick in her mouth.
"Us too..." Kaoru had never seen her like this. Sure, there were times when he and his brother had driven her to the brink with their teasing, but never had they gotten a reaction like this. And Kaoru was certain he'd never wanted one quite like this, either. It hurt - physically pained him - to see her in such a crippled state.
He tried for a smirk, anything to ligthen to oppressive mood. "What're you scared of anyway? It's just Team A pulling a few dirty tricks on us. They won't leave us here or anything."
She only whimpered in response, pulling herself into a tighter ball.
He shifted closer to her while the president watched on, transfixed by the sight. "Hey, what's wrong? You didn't see a naked picture of tono or anything, right?"
He'd hoped for a giggle, a muffled chuckle, a laugh she desperately tried to hold in, not wanting to admit how much he managed to amuse her. What he obtained was nothing. Nothing at all.
She was frozen, the ice water in veins having turned her as cold as the frosty metal shelf beside her. Then a twitch. A jerky little twitch that angled her away from the corner, digging her spine into the jutting metal of the shelf. Another low, fragmented whimper.
"Is she... stable?" Soga's whispering skills were in need of desperate work, as Micah clearly heard him speaking to Kaoru. The ginger-haired host appraised Soga with a cold, indifferent look; the boy clammed up instantly, shrinking back from his fellow class 1-A student.
"Micah..." Kaoru tried again. He had to. "You're not gonna tell me you actually had a fear all this time, are you? Because that's really lame. We tried everything back at Nekozawa's beach. What the hell did we miss?"
The hoarse whisper she replied with made him wish he hadn't spoken at all: "Spiders...."
Spiders. Was that why Mori-sempai and Honey-sempai had rejected the twins' idea to have an insect-themed Host Club day? They hadn't been planning to include spiders anyway, just things like ladybugs and fireflies, but the idea had been shot down nonetheless. Did the two third-years know? Had they been trying to protect Micah, from a thing she felt she could only trust to them?
Why only them?
Weren't Kaoru and Hikaru her friends too?
He paused, backtracking. Friends? Of course. Friends. Hadn't it been that way for some time now? Yes. Yes, it was true. Friends. Just when had it happened? When had she gone from a plaything to an insider? He knew Haruhi had, only a short while after joining the Host Club. But Micah...
He decided now wasn't the time, that now he had something much more important to think about. However, it was instinct, not rational thought, that had him sliding up on her other side, pressing her between himself and the shelf, an arm pulling her to his chest and holding her to a steady heartbeat. She was stiff as death for a long while, but as he began to talk, she relaxed, uncoiling herself from her fetal position.
"Tch. It's just spiders, Micah. I thought you'd be afraid of zombies or something else stupid like that. Vampires, maybe. You're a book nerd, so I thought maybe it'd be some creature from a story none of us had heard of beside Kyouya-sempai. But nope; you had to go with spiders. Lame. They're not gonna touch you or anything. What are you afraid of? The extra legs? The eyes?" Her fingers clawed into his sweater, stretching the neckline and probably doing severe damage to the Egyptian cotton-blend. "Nah, I bet it's the pincer-things, right?" He wasn't expecting a nod, but felt her head move against his chest. Up and down. Up and down. Up and down.
"Heh." Unconsciously, his fingers moved through her hair, on some level registering how soft it was, how free of tangles. His mother would love her hair. She'd have so much to play with. Friend, huh? he thought, shaking his head. I think it's a little late to realize that...
"Take a picture, President, it'll last longer."
Soga jumped; he hadn't realized he'd been staring, but the sharp reminder from Kaoru sent him cowering into his own corner.
"You know," Kaoru went on in a whisper-soft voice, one even Micah found hard to interpet, "for a while now, I've been wondering what I'd do if Hikaru decided he wanted something more than family from our group. What I'd do, if he chose her over me... Maybe I shouldn't have been worrying so much..."
"Hikaru'll always be your family, Kaoru."
Her voice was ragged, her breathing labored. But her words didn't falter. "Just because... just because he decides he wants more out of life than the company of his brother, doesn't mean he'll leave you behind. Family isn't a word, Kaoru; it's a feeling, a bond. Nothing, not love nor what we consider to be hatred, can break it."
He looked down at her, saw her counting the stitches in his sweater, her eyes flickering from side to side and back again. "You think so, huh?"
"It's just a thought, yeah," she admitted, her shoulders moving up and down. "But it doesn't make it any less true."
Kaoru would have liked time to consider that, and the fact that she completely misinterpreted half of what he'd said, but alas, it was not to be. The door abruptly slammed open, revealing an ashen Hikaru, his eyes wild with worry and fear.
"Kaoru!"
"Hikaru!"
Micah, sensing her time of comfort was over, slithered from Kaoru's lap and stumbled to her feet as the brothers embraced. She looked around, fixing what she could of her dirtied clothing. She picked out the class president, standing awkwardly in his own corner.
"Who're you?" she asked. The unhurried, bored, almost lackadaisical timbre of her voice hid its previous trembling. She'd perfected the art after locking memories of Daire in an underwater safe.
"Ah... I'm Soga Kazukiyo. The class president of 1-A. And what about you?"
"....Micah. 1-B. Nice to meet you." Micah gave a stiff bow, her eyes skimming over the rejoicing Hitachiin twins, then twirled around, exiting the room without a fault to her step.
She bumped into Haruhi, who was just joining the rest of her group members. Her careful eyes didn't miss the drying tears on Micah's cheeks, or the crumpled mess her uniform had become. But she saw the bitter edge in her eyes.
She didn't want to speak of it.
"Did Hikaru leave you behind to find his other half?" Micah asked, half-joking.
"Looks like it," Haruhi agreed, grimacing. Those twins would be the death of her. She was sure of it.
"Well... I'm going to go." At Haruhi's questioning stare, Micah forced a laugh and began walking backwards down the corridor. "My group got hacked to pieces. I should probably find them. Daire might be sobbing in the bathroom for all I know." She faced the end of the hallway again, looking forward, never back. No point, she reasoned.
"Oi, Micah! You're leaving already?"
Kaoru. Why Kaoru, exactly? Why was he the one to call her back, to smirk teasingly at her from a distance, and not his brother? She didn't bother mulling over the thought; her head was pounding too fiercely already. "What about it?"
"I'll help you find your group. You're lost, aren't you?"
"....Of course I'm not...."
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Micah had been pleasantly surprised when her group came together once again. Izuki was glowing with newfound joy, his arm wrapped securely around the waist of one chocolate-haired Kamiko. He recounted the story for Micah, who listened, enraptured, to how he'd been dragged away from her and tossed into a lonely hallways. How, there, he'd stumbled upon Kamiko, wandering the school, also cut off from her group.
How he'd "rescued" her from the dark and creepy place Ouran had become overnight.
How she'd even rejected her host-chasing friends when they'd finally been reuinted, in favor of her "hero".
Izuki's wish, in the end, had been granted after all.
Daire's, however, had not.
The moment he set eyes on Micah and Kaoru, playfully arguing with one another, her terrible ordeal seemingly forgotten, he left. It broke his heart to see her smiling so carefreely, without him.
Micah wouldn't see him again during the next week, or even the one after that.
No, she'd be far too busy with the play, with the hosts, with moving on.
But he was determined to halt her progress, one way or the other.
On another note, the day after the scare fest, Micah mercilessly chased Nekozawa with a fully-charged flashlight. She'd found out it was his Black Magic Club that had masterminded all the misfortune of the night and made damn sure he understood just how infuriated she was with him.
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