Shadow's Strength

Chapter I - Suspicions

At first glance, the day seemed like any other inside of music room #3. Thanks to a course on Greek mythology the previous week, Tamaki insisted that the theme be Greek gods. Thus, marble and draped fabric were in abundance, and the girls' hearts fluttered as Tamaki—or Apollo as he commanded everyone to call him for the day—recited poetry and philosophy to them. The Dionysus twins (because just one party god wouldn't suffice, apparently), fed each other grapes as their clients squealed at the scene playing out in front of them. So as Kyouya, in the guise of Hermes for the day, looked around the room and watched a small Hephaestus eat cookies in the shape of drachma beside the silent Ares, all seemed to be going along as smoothly as ever. That is, all was going well other than Haruhi being surprisingly late.

A periodic tapping noise rang from Kyouya's clipboard as he struck his pen against it with irritation. Normally, Haruhi would at least give advance notice if she was going to be late—or not show up at all, as he was beginning to suspect—but he hadn't heard anything from her. He questioned the twins about it before club activities began for the day when Haruhi was already later than normal, but they both just shrugged, saying that she seemed a bit out of it during class, but otherwise no different than usual, and figured that she just got caught up. He accepted the response, figuring that Haruhi would eventually show and they could just cover for her until then, but with her continued absence, the aura around Kyouya seemed to darken with irritation after each clack of his pen.

"With that aura, Kyouya-senpai should've been Hades instead of Hermes," Kaoru joked to his brother just loud enough for the bespectacled boy to hear from across the room, and Kyouya gave the two a glare as his aura flared around him even more. "With that look, he should be Medusa!" Hikaru declared, and the two laughed, hanging on each other as the girls around them watched with amusement. Even without Haruhi there, the twins had no shortage of ways to amuse themselves, though they were a bit disheartened to not be able to tease their favorite toy, especially after deciding that she would be Athena for the day.

But after laughing a while longer, the twins turned their attention back to their guests, and Kyouya gripped his pen tighter, though he forced himself to stop tapping it as he went back to taking notes. However, not long after he went back to work, Haruhi appeared through the doors and immediately apologized to him for her tardiness as the others came bounding over, momentarily forgetting their guests. Somehow, even when all was as usual, it just wasn't quite right without her there.

They all bounced around her—other than Mori, of course, though the god of war still seemed to be in a much better mood now that she'd arrived—and lightly scolded her for being late while asking what she was doing. She responded in the same way that the twins had suggested, that she'd lost track of time while studying and apologized for worrying them all, but even as she smiled, Kyouya noticed that her color was paler than normal and eyes were slightly red. Perhaps it was just from studying too much with her contacts in combined with a bad night's sleep, but Kyouya couldn't quite pinpoint why that didn't seem right.

So he decided to make the others give her a little room, reminding them that they still had guests to entertain, and after another moment or two, Haruhi took a deep breath and her shoulders slumped slightly once she was no longer the center of attention. Kyouya added her reaction to the list of things that just were slightly different from normal, but after another moment of her simply standing next to him, she quietly said that she'd go change into her costume, despite the club time being almost halfway done.

He simply gave a nod, continuing to watch her from the corner of my eyes as she went to the other room. To him it seemed like her walk was somehow unsteady. He thought that perhaps her legs went numb from having a poor posture while studying for so long, but that reasoning still just didn't sit right with him. He frowned and unconsciously started tapping his pen against his clipboard again.

In spite of Kyouya's irritation with Haruhi's lateness and then with his own intuition, the rest of the club time went smoothly and Haruhi volunteered to stay behind to clean up since she was so tardy. The others volunteered to stay, but she managed to shake them off eventually, saying that she could handle it and that they had their own homework to do. However, Kyouya simply sat down at his computer instead of leaving, deciding to finish up budgeting and transactions for the club before heading back.

Confused when he didn't leave, Haruhi asked why he was staying, and Kyouya couldn't shake the feeling that he'd heard disappointment in her voice after he told her that he still had some work to do. That, of course, only served to aggravate him more. She didn't say anything else, though, and left him to his work as she set about cleaning up. He tapped away at his keyboard, entering transactions and balancing budgets, but his eyes frequently glanced away from his screen, observing as Haruhi moved around the room, cleaning up teacups and snacks. Occasionally he noticed her shoulders quiver, and he thought she was about to cry, though he couldn't for the life of him figure out why—a fact that irked him to no end—but then she would straighten and take a deep breath before going back to work. Even so, after the fourth time it happened, he couldn't stand it anymore.

"Haruhi?" he called across the room, voice as calm as ever and betraying none of his confusion or frustration.

"Hm?" She looked over. "Do you need something, senpai?"

"If you're concerned about a class, I could tutor you in the subject," he suggested. He knew that if that was what she was concerned about, then she'd probably agree, and he'd feel better knowing that her behavior was simply a misunderstanding on his part. However, if that wasn't the case, then he would know that she wasn't actually studying after school and his suspicions would be proven right.

"What are you—" she started, confused before cutting herself off. "Oh! No, I just got a little carried away earlier. Thank you for the offer, but I'll be fine," she replied giving him a reassuring smile before turning back to work, but with his suspicions confirmed, he wondered if she really would be fine.

Even so, he didn't bother with pressing the issue. Instead, he decided to just keep a closer eye on her and see if the seemingly normal day simply had something unusual occur that was throwing her off and distracting her so much that she cleaned the same table three times.

He watched for a while longer, but then finished his work and tried not to feel insulted by the relief in her expression when he said goodbye. As he walked out the doors, he finally realized what had set off his disbelief of her story to begin with: she didn't have any study materials with her when she arrived. She wasn't the type to just leave her books where they were and run off to the club when she realized that she was running late. She would've had them with her, and she wasn't the type to lie to everyone's faces—at least not normally.

It was then that Kyoya realized that the day wasn't usual at all, and something was definitely wrong with the club's only female host.

For the rest of the week, Kyouya observed her behavior carefully, and as each day passed, his hopes were slowly waning that the issue was a fleeting one. Dark circles started to appear under her eyes. She seemed to have tried hiding them with makeup, but being the amateur that she was with cosmetics, the cover-up did little to hide the bags slowly forming. She was spacing out more than usual and only gave muted reactions to the antics of the other members, and Kyouya unconsciously continued his irritated tapping. By the end of the week, it was obvious that he wasn't the only one who had noticed her behavior. The twins and Tamaki began to act even more exuberantly than usual, trying to get a reaction from her, a smile, something, but at the same time, Honey and Mori did their best to intercept the hyperactive members, trying to give Haruhi some space to relax since she was obviously worn out, for whatever reason. Even Kyouya tried to lessen the load of her work, making the others do the errands and other tasks that Haruhi usually performed—under the pretense that they were being punished for their annoying habits—in order to let her have a little more rest. But in spite of their efforts, she her smiles were getting less frequent and more strained.

By the time Friday's club activities ended and she had gone home, Kyouya made his weekly call to her father and wondered if Ranka would be able to shed light on the issue.

"Oh, Kyouya-kun~ Thank you for calling! I know you've been so busy that I wasn't expecting to hear from you this week!" Ranka said, obviously pleased to be hearing from his daughter's friend.

"Not at all. Of course I would make time to call you, Ranka-san," he replied. Honestly, he didn't have anything more than usual going on, and the club didn't really have anything else specifically keeping any them busy, so he couldn't help wondering why Ranka thought that he was so occupied. But he thought that perhaps Haruhi had said something, since she seemed to be lying about studying a lot lately, he didn't want to contradict whatever she may have said just yet. Thus he merely gave a standard polite response.

"Well, Haruhi's just been so tired lately, and you've been helping her study so late that I just thought you'd be worn out too since you've got your own studies to worry about, but you're so diligent! Really, I just can't believe that you're only the vice-president!" he replied happily, but his response only made Kyouya frown more. Despite his suspicions, he was surprised that Haruhi really had been lying about her studies.

"It's really no problem, though I am concerned about her being tired as well. She's seemed a little out of it during club recently. Perhaps I should make her use that time to rest instead," Kyouya volunteered, hoping to coax more information out of Ranka.

"That sounds like a lovely idea, Kyouya-kun! She's been really spaced out while at home lately too. I think a little rest will help her a lot. Of course, I don't want her to put you through any more trouble. You're always taking such good care of her. Just let me know if I can do anything for you~"

"Not at all. It's my pleasure, Ranka-san, but if you could let me know if you notice anything else odd, I would appreciate it. I want to avoid accidently overworking her, you understand."

"Of course! Thank you for being so concerned about her all the time."

They chatted pleasantly for a while longer, but Kyouya only seemed to have more questions after talking to Ranka than he had answers. For the last day or two, he wondered if maybe she had a secret part-time job that was wearing her out, and that was the reason for her appearing so exhausted, but he was sure that Ranka would know about it if that was the case, and he obviously didn't know anything more than Kyouya did. And nothing explained those moments when she looked like she was about to cry.

Growing more frustrated, Kyouya sighed and stared at the ceiling, wondering what could possibly be going on with the club's secret princess.

Heya! So this fic has been in my head so much that I've been losing sleep and unable to concentrate on writing anything else, including papers for my summer classes. Thus, I decided to finally put it to paper. It'll probably end up being about 40 chapters. (I've already written through chapter 20 in the last week, but I still have to edit everything.)

For anyone who reads my Naruto fics, I promise I haven't abandoned them! I've just been busy with classes and couldn't get this one out of my head. I'll be back to them as soon as I can!

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the first chapter! Let me know what you think is going on with Haruhi or if you have any ideas for club craziness. Have an awesome day and thanks for reading!