Ouran High School Host Club © Bisco Hatori
Malted Chocolate Balls
When Haruhi returned from a blowout sale in the supermarket, her high-spirits were immediately flattened when she saw that she had a visitor. Not even all the strawberries and sixty-seven cents tomatoes in the world could have kept her vigor in the place it once was. Though the girl's joyful smile wavered, her outward composure remained the same as she delivered in a curious voice:
"Kyouya-senpai?"
The boy being addressed shifted his gaze and his attention from Haruhi's apartment's nameplate to the actual girl, whose hands were full with bags containing all sorts of things ranging from poultry to vegetables to self-adhesive bandages. His slightly startled look quickly relaxed into his regular physique as he extended a slender finger to push up his glasses. Haruhi stiffened. Being the observant girl she was, she had long figured out that when Kyouya did his trademark glasses twiddling that he was up to something, and when Kyouya was up to something, there was no telling when disasters were to come.
"Haruhi," he replied as he strode over to where the girl was. "Need help with those bags?"
Kyouya was sharp. He took half the bags off of the other's hands without waiting for a response for he knew that Haruhi would never accept help from him. Haruhi looked rather disappointed because no doubt she knew that Kyouya would somehow come up with an excuse to add more digits to her debt like how she strained his arms or something of that sort. At the rate she was going, she'd be more in debt than out of it each and every coming day.
"I'm not going to add anything to your debt." As if reading her mind, Kyouya delivered this line to put the girl at ease, and Haruhi let out a small sigh of relief. There had been many times when she misjudged the boy of his intention. While Kyouya's mind was usually set for his own gain, there were a few times like this that he was genuinely a nice guy. Then another thing crossed her mind:
"What are you doing here, Kyouya-senpai?"
"I was just passing by," he said as his eyes snapped at the door and then back at Haruhi. The girl gave a small nod to show that she understood, and swiftly Haruhi withdrew her keys and unlocked the door with an audible click. After pocketing them again, she motioned the other in.
Kyouya noted that Haruhi's place had rarely changed from the last time the group visited. The only thing different now was that instead of seven (and then later eight) people and a horrible clamor, there were two and a calming peace. The only sound came from that of Haruhi putting away the groceries in their respectable place in the kitchen. Kyouya seated himself beside the table.
"Ah, can I get you something to drink?" Haruhi ventured. She was quite aware of the social status difference between the two of them, and their usual preferences when it came to drinks. While Haruhi may be contempt with a bottle of green tea grabbed off of the shelves of an ordinary supermarket, she knew that Kyouya would probably expect some sort of expensive brand that she probably never heard of that came from a place in a foreign country she'd only hope she could visit someday. Still, she tried to play her part as a host and offering the normal hospitality to the guest.
"Regular tap water," came the response. For a second, Haruhi contemplated whether this person in her home was really Kyouya. His presence had been awfully fishy from the moment he appeared at her door in all his devious glory. First of all, the fact that he was there was a complete mystery itself, and then he helped her with her bags with no hidden intention detected, and now, he, who was filthily rich, was insisting on tap water? Haruhi came to the conclusion that there really must be a grand scheme involved in all of this, but for the time being, she decided to play along.
"Okay," she answered as she rummaged the cupboards for a cup. After finding a suitable one, she placed it under the faucet and turned the tap and watched the sparkling water dance down into the dainty little thing before presenting it to Kyouya, who gratefully took it. She watched him queerly as he took a sip before placing it on the table, and again the thought of if this Kyouya was indeed a fake doppelganger crossed her mind.
"You're wondering why I'm here, right?" Kyouya said, knocking Haruhi back into reality. The girl felt her cheeks tingle slightly warm at her obliviousness and her intimidation by the smile that now danced upon Kyouya's lips. She remembered that same look plastered on his face the first she saw him when she opened the door to the dreaded third music room, but Tamaki's brilliance had out shadowed his presence and the random whirl of rose petals and unneeded sparkles had momentarily blinded her.
"Well, yeah," she answered as she propped her head up against her hand. "You wouldn't have any reason for coming here unless it was really important, would it? …Unless it's to see my father?"
"No, no, it's not Ranka-san I'm here to see," Kyouya told her as he leaned over and locking his eyes onto her own round chocolate ones. "I'm here to see you."
"Oh, about what?" Normal girls would have melted in a puddle of lovey-dovey goo right then, (or in Renge's case, gone into a squealing fit) but Haruhi merely blinked as she awaited an answer. To her, this was nothing more than typical Kyouya behavior, and in a way she was relieved because by the way he had been acting, she hadn't been very sure if something hit his head or what.
Kyouya, meanwhile, fished out a small package that was tied together by a quaint blue ribbon and handed it to Haruhi. His stance remained unchanged through this, and his eyes were still locked onto the girl as she received the gift with graciousness and wonder. He watched with amusement as the girl examined it from all sides as if to see if there was a label that said that there was a catch to this all. Finding none and thoroughly content at it, Haruhi slowly pulled loose the ribbon and peeked inside. Her face lit up in an instant.
"Chocolate balls!" she exclaimed happily as she reached a hand inside to retrieve one, and upon doing so, immediately shoved it in her mouth. Kyouya restrained the urge to let out a laugh. It was at times like these that he understood why Tamaki and the twins swooned over Haruhi's so-called cuteness. Her eyes were round and pure as she chewed slowly on the delicacy that so closely resembled them. Rarely did the girl buy sweets, preferring a hearty dinner above them, but she always did have a sweet tooth in her somewhere, and it seemed very eager to devour the heavenly candy.
"They weren't cheap, you know," Kyouya told her, and Haruhi immediately stopped chewing as she fixed her stare on him. The allure of chocolate drowned out all other thoughts in a girl's mind when presented to her, and Haruhi was no different as she realized her mistaken in not having forgotten to suspect other tricks that might have been up Kyouya's sleeve. She was relieved, however, when he said, "But you don't have to worry about the cost." Thank goodness he didn't tack on a 'yet' at the end.
"Thank you, Kyouya-senpai," she mustered between the mouthful of malted chocolate. Then she remembered that it was only courteous to share, even though she was sure the other could easily get hundreds of these with a snap of the fingers. "Oh, would you like some?"
It was then that Haruhi noticed that in her haste, she left her fingers covered in chocolate. Kyouya seemed to have taken noticed too as his ever-wandering eyes focused in on them accompanied by a trace of a triumphant smirk. What happened next was something Haruhi should've seen coming, but didn't really anticipate. Kyouya, though it seemed subtle, craved reaction beyond anything else. Haruhi had long confirmed that, so you could say she was hardly tuned into Kyouya's channel when he softly licked the chocolate off of her fingers. Her mind absolutely refused to do anything more than blink— the typical Haruhi reaction. Kyouya's mind, however, refused to be unacknowledged as he tried his luck and plunged in for a chocolately kiss.
"So? So? What happened?"
Kyouya smoothly sidestepped as a screaming Tamaki swished by him and crashed into the nearby lamppost. Twiddling with his glasses, his mind clanked as it mentally printed him out a script to go by. Tamaki was someone whose reactions could easily be read.
"So? What type of clock does my precious daughter have?" Tamaki whined as he clung onto Kyouya's back. Kyouya took the needed moment to un-cling his friend before proceeding:
"It was a blue digital one," Kyouya told him, and Tamaki breathed a sigh of relief. Believe it or not, the real reason Kyouya was at Haruhi's doorstep was because Tamaki had been at Kyouya's mansion hyperventilating about Haruhi's clock, which, since it was coming from Tamaki, was actually quite believable. The blonde had been delirious over if Haruhi was still using an analog one or not because of a documentary he recently saw on it, and employed the work of Kyouya to investigate. No doubt he was happy with the results.
"Thank goodness," Tamaki laughed. Then he added with suspicion, "And you didn't steal a single cent from her, right?"
"Well, I did ask for tap water," Kyouya told the other. He cringed at the revolting taste of that memory. Normally if he wanted water, he would've asked for his favorite brand of mineral water, which he was positive didn't have any sort of vile and harmful microorganisms swimming about in it.
"What!" Tamaki exclaimed as his hands clutched his head in agony. "How could you run Haruhi's water bill! What if she doesn't have enough money to take baths anymore?"
"It was one cup," Kyouya told Tamaki as the boy got over his sudden outburst. Letting the calming pats coming from Kyouya settle him down, Tamaki vouched for more information about his friend's little visit.
"Did she like the chocolates?"
A tiny bit of guilt struck at Kyouya's heartstrings, emitting a chord that resembled that of a tritone. It was an unplanned and simply spontaneous thing for him to do back in that situation, and even the ever calculating Kyouya sometimes broke free of his bubble and attempt a 'heat-of-the-moment' type of thing. He didn't have much time to think about this as he recited what had already been inputted into his mind:
"She liked them."
Tamaki breathed a sigh of relief, as he turned to the other boy with the widest smile you could imagine— both carefree and genuinely grateful. "Thank you, Kyouya! Now I can finally go home and once again try to brew the commoner's coffee on my own!" he said before speeding off into the sunset resuming his normal acts of insanity. Kyouya watched his friend dash off out of earshot before musing to himself.
"Sorry, Tamaki," he said with forlorn eyes before putting the incident behind himself and resumed his normal character. "But I believe I will charge Haruhi for letting me help with the bags."