Summary:
Keiko Maeda's life was a constant cycle of school and work. She believed that the only way to succeed was through hard work and determination; but when she finds herself indebted to no other than Kyoya Ootori she ends up being dragged into the Host Club and discovers that hard work isn't always enough. Sometimes you also need a few friends.

OHSHC: The Host's Maid is the Shy Type
Chapter 1
"Three Toes or Four?"

Keiko Maeda wasn't one to get into trouble. She didn't talk back to teachers, she was never late to class, and she always turned in her assignments, often before they were due. She was responsible. Many would say too responsible. The youngest of her siblings she often felt that she was the only one with her head screwed on right.

Of her two siblings, there was her older brother, Ryan, who acted more like a big kid than his actual age of twenty-eight and her twin sister, Kazumi, which she hadn't seen in two years since she had moved away to America to play in some big motion picture. Both of them were unconcerned that there were still things that needed to be taken care of at home; especially since now it was just the three of them. After their parents death Keiko was left to pick up the pieces and as a result she shouldered most of the responsibilities.

While technically Ryan became her legal guardian at the prime age of twelve, he was a bit of an airhead. As a struggling artist, he didn't make nearly as much as he needed to. Their parents had left them a sizeable inheritance, but after some questionable investment choices it had been greatly diminished which left to Keiko scrambling to pick up the slack. As soon as she reached working age she went out and got a waitressing job at a local dinner. The job was crap, but the pay was decent.

It was only because of her job that she was able to afford the ridiculously priced uniform of Ouran Academy after having received an athletic scholarship. Most of the kids were pretentious snobs, but she was determined to keep her head down until graduation, however with a best friend like Eri Sasaki that was impossible.

She was reminded of this as her attention returned to the two adults in the headmaster's office. The deep red carpet had been more interesting than the conversation going on in front of her, but when addressed she had no choice but to lift her head and face the level stare of the man sitting at the other side of the desk.

"Maeda-san, I understand that you were putting up flyers of Teshima-sensei." The headmaster, Yuzuru Suoh, said fingering a stack of previously mentioned flyers. The man had been in a very heated debate with her homeroom teacher, Teshima-sensei, who had been trying to convince him to expel her. The crabby old hag had nearly blown a gasket when he told her none too politely to shut up and now had resigned herself to glaring at the girl over his shoulder.

"Yes Sir," she nodded trying her best to look apologetic.

Headmaster Suoh picked up one of the flyers from the stack. "Is this one of the flyers?"

She stared at the familiar picture. It was obviously Photoshopped to make the woman's bloated face to appear attached to something akin to a rhinoceros. Of course she knew it was a hippopotamus as Eri had told her so. The woman's mouth was opened in a great big yawn which was a change from the constant furrowed brow and piercing glare that she usually bore. To be honest she didn't think it was that bad a picture, but Teshima-sensei apparently felt otherwise. "Yes," she answered.

The man turned the photo around and gave it a wary glance. His lips twitched up ever so slightly. Keiko could tell that he was trying not to laugh. "Look Maeda-san, this photo," he paused clearing his throat, "this photo is…" The headmaster seemed at a loss for words.

"–it's not funny!" Teshima-sensei cut in rounding on the girl. Her chubby face was contorted in barely controlled anger. "Not to mention disrespectful. What on earth would possess you to Photoshop my head onto a…" she grabbed one of the flyers from the stack looking at it, "–a Hippopotamus?"

"She made you a Rhinoceros," the man corrected barely keeping the smile off his face.

Keiko shook her head, "No she's right; it's a hippopotamus."

"Really, but I thought –It looks more like a rhino to me; aren't they fatter than hippos?" He asked.

"No. Actually they –uh– have thinner thighs. But you can really tell by the feet; rhinos only have three toes on each foot and that picture has four." She explained. The man turned introspective as he studied the photograph again.

"Wow, I didn't know that."

The woman having grown tired the two debating what animal was actually in the picture, finally erupted. "Oh, what does it matter?" she yelled, "Who cares what animal it is! It doesn't change the fact that you plastered these flyers all over campus." She turned toward the headmaster, "I think we should call her parents in to discuss this."

Keiko frowned. In a normal situation a student's parents would be called for something like this, but she wasn't a normal situation. There were no parents to speak of, not anymore. "You can't my parents died four years ago," she told her.

"Car accident," the man added solemnly.

The teacher had the good sense to look slightly apologetic. "Well, then there has to be at least someone in charge of her," she reasoned.

"My Onii-san, Ryan, takes care of me."

"Oh that's right the artist," she said with a touch of disdain.

Keiko narrowed her eyes at the teacher. "He's a great artist."

In an attempt to restore peace, Headmaster Suoh moved to appease both sides. "Look, there is no need to call her brother. It's only a first time offence. I'm sure that Maeda-san is remorseful of her actions and that this incident will never be repeated again." He said shooting her a meaningful look.

"No Sir, it won't." She agreed silently breathing a sigh of relief.

The man gave her a small smile addressing the teacher, "Then I'm sure you'll be able to find a suitable punishment for her, Teshima-san."

"Fine." The woman scowled turning toward the first year student, "As I'm sure you heard a club is hosting a dance here on Saturday for all the students. I'm going to be chaperoning that dance and you will be helping out."

'No, not Saturday!' She mentally groaned. She had plans to go to a concert for one of her favorite groups. Kazumi had sent her those tickets in the mail for their birthday and she had been waiting for this for six months. After all fourth row tickets and back stage passes were hard to come by. "But I can't do Saturday," she protested, "I'm going to a Black Keys concert at the NHK Hall."

"Then I guess that's something you should've thought about before you turned me into a Rhinoceros." Teshima-sensei replied smugly.

"Hippopotamus," the girl corrected.

"Okay." She pointed to the door, "Get out."

Keiko didn't need to be told twice. She hurriedly picked up her book bag and scurried from the headmaster's office, past the secretary busily typing away at her computer and out into the empty corridor. She wasted no time in returning back to the classroom in search of her best friend; who just so happened to be the cause of all this trouble.

If Eri hadn't had insisted on making those pictures and plastering them all over campus, then she probably would've still been able to go to that concert. It made her stomach churn just thinking about it. 'Oh, why did I agree to take the fall for her?' she wondered. Her mind flashed back to when Eri had pleaded with her to "–just please help me out. I'm desperate." All the while giving her the saddest puppy dog eyes she'd ever seen. 'That's right. I'm a sucker for puppy dog eyes,' she remembered.

She paused in the doorway of Class 1-B scanning for a familiar head of short bobbed black hair. The classroom was fairly large with about twenty-four desks divided up into four rows with six desks in each row. Eri's desk was the second to the window in the second row which just happened to be right next to her desk which was next to the window. However upon closer inspection Keiko quickly realized that Eri was not at her desk and that all of her stuff had already been packed up.

Keiko looked around the room noticing that it was mostly empty. There were only a few stragglers left that were packing up their stuff. In the third row she saw Kanako Kasugazaki still packing up her books. Even though they were in the same class, Keiko didn't really know Kanako. Neither of the girls interacted with the other and once Keiko was labeled a commoner by her peers most just brushed her off. It wasn't a malicious act, but often it was just that Keiko was viewed as unapproachable by the other students and many didn't think it was worth the effort to get her talking as there was nothing to gain socially.

"Oi. Kasugazaki-san have you seen Sasaki?" She asked a petite short-haired girl sitting at her desk.

Kanako looked up at the unexpected visitor. Her eyes widened in surprise, but she quickly got over the shock of the honor student having approached her and shook her head. "No, I haven't, but I think I heard her saying something about escaping the cold weather."

Keiko looked at her confused. "What does that mean?"

'Kawaii.' The thought came unbidden to the other girl's mind. It was true though. Keiko wasn't actually full-blooded Japanese, instead being a mix of Japanese and American; this caused her physical appearance to stand out amongst her peers. Instead of the black hair, dark squinted eyes, and flat nose that were rampant in Japan, Keiko had inherited blonde hair and rounded hazel eyes from her mother and her father's high cheekbones and round face. All this combined with her current clueless expression caused Kanako to smile. "I'm pretty sure I have an idea. Are you familiar with the Host Club?"

…

When Kanako had told her about the Host Club she wasn't expecting to walk into a rainforest. Keiko stared blatantly at the foliage and tropical birds that filled the room. She was pretty sure that there was also a chameleon and that it had also just swallowed a bright orange butterfly. 'Am I dreaming?' She wondered. If Kanako hadn't been standing right beside her she would have thought herself to be in an alternate dimension. 'Mom and Dad are you guys seeing this right now? I think I just found Narnia.'

Once the initial shock had worn off, Keiko began to look around the room. She saw that there was a group of boys situated throughout the room. Each of them was equally handsome, though varying in appearance and personality. Some of the faces looked familiar and Keiko thought that she had seen one or two of them at some point in her time at the academy. She was pretty sure that those twins were in her French class and that the young burnet boy that Kanako had left to talk to shared her Home Ec. class.

It seemed as if she had been standing there awhile and it wasn't long until one of the boys noticed her presence. The pair of twins looked up excusing themselves from their current conversation. "Hello Miss," one of the Hitachiin twins greeted. It was Kaoru, though she had no way of knowing.

"Why don't you come in? It's no fun watching from the sidelines," Hikaru was quick to follow sliding up next to his brother. They both leaned in simultaneously causing Keiko to take a step back.

"Oh no, it's okay. I didn't want to interrupt." She said with a nervous smile waving them off, "I was only really looking for someone. I was told that she might be here."

The twins leaned back giving her some space. "It's alright you're not interrupting anything, Princess," they responded, "Who, by chance, are you looking for?"

"Sasaki Eri Class 1-B. Kasugazaki-san said that she might be here escaping the cold weather," her eyes wandered past them looking over the room again. 'Isn't this supposed to be a music room?'

The brothers smiled to each other. "Of course, Sasaki-hime is a regular here. Come right this way and we'll take you to her," they said slipping their arms around her shoulders and leading her into the room. She tried not to tense at the close contact and remain relaxed as the other girls' eyes fell on her. It has hard though, especially when they passed by a table and she was able to catch their hush conversation.

"Who's that with Hikaru and Kaoru?" One of them whispered.

"I don't know. I've never seen her around before." The other answered, "Do you think she's a transfer student?"

"Could be," another chimed in, "she does look foreign."

Keiko sighed. Of those three girls she shared classes with two of them and still they had no idea who she was. She couldn't grudge them for it though. Often the girl had a habit of blending into the background unnoticed and unseen. She didn't like being the center of attention; that was more her sister's area. 'So their names are Hikaru and Kaoru,' the girl glanced up at the two boys, 'I wonder which one is which?'

"I'm sorry," she said causing them to look down at her, "but I'm afraid I didn't catch your names. I'm Maeda Keiko."

The brothers grinned. "We're the Hitachiin brothers! Hikaru and Kaoru at your service," they spoke in unison so Keiko was unable to tell which brother was which. It was still too early for her to tell, but from experience she already noticed that the one on her left was far more outspoken than his counterpart. It was the same way with her sister. 'I guess I'll just call them both Hitachiin-san for now. At least until I can tell them both apart.' She decided to herself, though the odds of her returning to the Host Club were slim to none.

"It's nice to meet you both. Thank you so much for helping me." Keiko smiled doing her best to be polite. Inwardly, however, it was a different story. Behind her polite mannerisms and charming smile there was a storm brewing. It had been growing steadily since her meeting with the headmaster and now had almost reached its dew point. It wouldn't be long before her resolve snapped and out came her temper like a ragging dragon all fire and brimstone ready to consume a village; which in this case was her best friend.

Over the years, Keiko had rarely lost her temper. But on the rare occasion that she let it slip the consequences were often times lethal, resulting in both physical and emotional backlash to the unsuspecting person who had been foolish enough to set it off. And for that reason she didn't want anyone else getting caught in the crosshairs; especially when it could be avoided. Right now the only one deserving of her wrath was Eri.

Speaking of which, said girl was currently sitting enjoying a slice of chocolate cake with two third-years, the names of which had escaped her for the moment. The two seniors were dressed in some sort of islander's outfits. The taller darker haired one was even wearing a tropical fruit hat, while the smaller lighter one was decked out with several lei of bright red flowers. Thinking back on it, Keiko remembered that the rest of the boys were clothed in a similar fashion, but she had been otherwise distracted by her surroundings to notice.

Eri had been listening to Mitsukuni Haninozuka, more affectionately known as Honey, chatter on happily about the types of sweets that he liked when the twins had approached their table. "To be honest I always favored pies over cakes. Banana crème is my favorite. I go to this little shop in the Hamamatsucho district. Their banana crème is far superior to anything I could find anywhere else," she told them between bites of cake.

"That sounds really good Ri-chan. Maybe we should check it out sometime, ne Takashi?" Mitsukuni paused in his eating and looked over at his cousin.

The tall senior looked down at the excited boy. "Yeah."

"Hope we're not interrupting anything," said Hikaru.

"–but, we got a guest who was looking for Sasaki-hime," Kaoru finished.

The three teens turned toward the newcomers. Mitsukuni looked at them with a beaming grin. "Hika-chan, Kao-chan it's fine. Sit down. There's still plenty of cake, would either of you like a slice?" He asked. Sometime during this exchange Eri had completely froze and paled considerably.

'Holy crap. I didn't think she would show up here.' She cringed inwardly. Her eyes darted over Keiko uneasily trying to judge just how angry her friend actually was. It was hard to read her emotions; to the third-party observer Keiko looked calm, maybe a tiny bit nervous. However having known the girl since they were both mere babes, Eri had developed a simple list of her body language. If the corner of her mouth was turned up in a half smirk that either meant that she was amused or sad, depending on the side of her mouth that was upturned. If her eyebrows were scrunched together and her mouth was pressed in a firm line then she lost in her thoughts. It was all about subtlety. Her narrowed eyes and demure smile were enough indication that Eri had messed up royally.

The petite girl attempted to smile, but it really was no more than a grimace. "Hi Kei-chan! I didn't ever think that I'd be seeing you here." She laughed nervously taking a rather large bite of her cake, "Would you like any cake? It's really good –Chocolate… but wait you don't like chocolate cake do you?! It doesn't matter. I'm sure we can get you something else. They have lots of other sweets here…" Eri took a deep breath, "Oh I know! You want tiramisu. That's your favorite right? Honey-sempai you do have tiramisu don't you?!"

The blond senior blinked in surprise. "Uh –"

"–It's okay if you don't! I can always go and pick some up. As a matter of fact, I think I'll do just that. Yes! That's a great idea, Eri. There's a little bakery a couple blocks from the school, if I run I can be back in fifteen minutes…"

The boys watched in fascination as the normally happy Eri Sasaki stumbled over her words as her voice steadily grew louder and louder. It was slowly starting to attract the attention of the other hosts. "Sasaki-hime it's alright," Karou said trying to pacify her.

"Yeah," Hikaru chimed in, "just calm down. We got some tiramisu here, right Honey-sempai?"

The blond nodded furiously. "Yes that's right! Takashi, go get a plate of tiramisu for Ri-chan," he ordered. The dark haired senior fled from the scene quicker than a gazelle with a cheetah on its heels. Eri didn't even notice that one of the boys had left. She was too busy worrying about how Keiko was going to react.

Throughout the theatrical spectacle Keiko had not utter a word. She had remained passive. Eri was still babbling on incessantly as the twins and Mitsukuni tried rather unsuccessfully to calm her down. By now all eyes had fallen on the group. "Tsk, so troublesome," Keiko sighed. The next words out of her mouth caused everyone to freeze.

"Eri," she spoke softly, "shut up."

All four of them twirled around and stared at the girl. The person standing before them was no longer the shy girl that the twins had met a few minutes ago. No this girl was not that girl. The change was so drastic that the three boys actually took a step away from Eri. Keiko was no longer keeping up false pretenses. The small smile that had graced her countenance had vanished leaving in its stead the harshest glare that they had ever seen. "Don't look so worried. You are making everyone uneasy," she said as a dark, foreboding aura seeped out of her, "Besides it's not like I can kill you in front of witnesses."

'You're the one making everyone uneasy!' The boys thought.

"Ha. Ha. Ha. You're so funny Kei-chan!" Eri laughed nervously raising her voice to comical proportions, "I can't kill you in front of witnesses. Good one! Hehe." None of the boys even remotely thought that was a joke.

"Say Hikaru don't we have guests to attend to?" asked Kaoru.

Hikaru turned toward his brother. "That's right Kaoru. How careless of us to forget," he chuckled as they both slowly started to remove themselves from the scene.

"Ah, then we'll just leave this to you Honey-sempai!" They called out before retreating over to the other side of the room, while still keeping a close eye on the situation. The blond senior watched them go. 'Wait! Kao-chan, Hika-chan, don't leave me alone!'

He glanced back over at Keiko. She had not moved since she had approached the table. Her eyes met his in that moment and her glare almost completely subsided. "Haninozuka-sempai is it alright if I speak to Sasaki-san alone? It will only take a moment." She said.

"Uh – sure," He nodded, "I'll just go see what happened to Takashi." Happy for an excuse to escape, he quickly followed the twins lead.

Keiko turned her attention back to her friend; seeing that she was visibly relaxing now that she wasn't being glared at. The blonde sighed again this time massaging her temple, "You can sit Ri-chan I'm not going to attack you."

"You're not?"

"I considered it, but what I'm about to tell you is probably going to hurt more than a punch to the face." She said plopping herself down in the chair across from her.

Eri was secretly relieved; however she knew that whatever Keiko had to tell her wouldn't be good news. 'Just how much trouble did she get into?' She wondered. "So how bad was it?" She questioned retaking her own seat.

"I spent the first fifteen minutes listening to Teshima-Sensei rant about the photo and then the next fifteen minutes were spent with her arguing with the Headmaster to expel me. After that, things were resolved fairly quickly," she told her.

"–but you didn't get expelled did you?" Eri asked.

"No."

"Then that's good!" The burnet cheered.

Keiko thought about it. Yeah, she wouldn't be getting expelled, but she would be missing out on a once in a lifetime opportunity to meet the Black Keys. Eri would too, now that she thought about it. She knew that when she came out and said it the other girl would probably go into a spiral, ranting about that witch of a homeroom teacher. In this instance Keiko couldn't say she disagreed. "I can't believe I let you talk me into taking the blame for you," she sighed.

"You had to! I've already been suspended once this term, if I had been caught I would've been expelled." Eri replied.

"There's a trick for getting around that."

"Really? What?" She asked.

Keiko face twitched with annoyance and for a second her anger lashed out in full force. "Stop doing bad things!" she yelled, "Honestly I can't believe you some days! What were you thinking? I mean those photos! You were obviously going to get caught."

"Don't pretend that you weren't worse than I was," Eri bit back, "I'm getting really sick of that Holier-Than- Thou attitude of yours. Need I remind you of all the tricks you've pulled?"

"But I grew out of it!"

"Yeah you did, but now you don't even know how to have fun. You're cold and distant. You hardly ever smile and I mean really smile, not one of those fake ones that you do. Ever since your parents –" She immediately cut off seeing Keiko flinch. Her friend was no longer looking at her in the eye, but focused solely and the polished wooden surface of the table. "I'm sorry;" she apologized, "that was thoughtless of me."

"It's alright. I only came here to tell you that I can't go to the concert on Saturday. There a function or something at the school and Teshima-Sensei wants me to help out." The blonde looked up then staring through her, "I have to go to work. I've already missed my bus, but if I run I can probably still catch the train. See you tomorrow." With that said Keiko stood up from the table and exited the club room before Eri could even get a word in edgewise.

Eri stared after her feeling more or less like a complete failure. She didn't punch her in the face, but she may as well have.

"Ri-chan," Mitsukuni murmured uncertain, "are you okay?"

She looked down at the blond senior, smiling sadly. "I'm just realizing how much I've screwed up this week sempai," she mumbled, "And it's only Monday."

He didn't comment on her swearing. Eri wasn't one who was easily upset. In the months that she had been coming to the Host Club he could say that he knew her well enough to know that in this instance she was trying hard not to show him just how much she was effected by her fight with her friend. But as he stared at her he resolved that he was going to do everything in his power to help. It was the job of a High School Host to make every woman happy and he was going to do just that.

"How can I help?"

Author's Note:

Okay so I decided to start another story. Yep... I don't think there is much else to say than that. To those of you who have read some of my other stories you're probably sitting asking, "What is Insanity doing? Why are you starting another story when you have like nine others that you still haven't finished?!" To answer your question: It's because I felt like it.

I originally had an OHSHC story up, but after reviewing it I thought the whole idea to be crap so I tossed it out. This is a way for me to cope with deleting that story.

To those of you who are just stumbling across my work now, let me say thank you for reading. Constructive criticism is encouraged. And feel free to leave in thoughts, comments, or suggestions in the reviews or just PM me.