Beta: Resident Quetzal (A/Ns are unbeta'd)

Disclaimer: Still not mine.

Chapter Eight: Morning People

Tuesday morning came, and brought heavy rain clouds with it. It hadn't started to rain yet, but it was obvious that it would, sooner or later. Haruhi chewed on her breakfast indifferently while watching the clouds gather.

I'll have to make sure to take my umbrella. And I have detention today... I wonder if that'll be after club time, or before? That'd made me late for the club. The girl shivered - Kyouya would undoubtedly add to her debt if she was late. She would have to ask the teacher about the timing before class started.

About an hour later, Haruhi walked through the busy halls of Ouran High. This time, she was a little early for class. Suddenly, she spotted a familiar figure ahead of her.

"Kyouya-sempai!" she called out. The teen in question turned around at the sound of her voice, and Haruhi momentarily froze in shock when she saw his homicidal expression.

"Ah, I'm sorry," Kyouya said. A gloomy, but less murderous look came over his face instead.

Haruhi caught up with him and, taking care not to provoke the other teen, asked, "I-is there something wrong?"

Kyouya's slight wince told her that there was.

"As it turns out, it was wrong to punish Tamaki for that stunt yesterday by making him do commoners' work. He called me today at FIVE THIRTY AM" – the words came out as a venomous hiss - "to brag EXCITEDLY about how sore his back was. I had only gone to bed at three AM, and I couldn't get any sleep after that because HE. KEPT. CALLING. ME." As he spoke, the killing intent returned in full force and Haruhi could have sworn that she saw a purple aura surrounding him.

The Shadow King shook his head in an effort to calm down, and the aura vanished. "How was your morning?" he asked, changing the subject.

Haruhi happily took the bait - anything to avoid that particular mood that had come over the Ootori just a moment ago. "Oh, nothing unusual- dad had already gone for work, so I ate breakfast alone..." She trailed off, desperately racking her brain for another subject, "Err, the weather seems rather bad today, doesn't it?" She asked, feeling a little ashamed for not being able to come up with a better conversation topic.

"Yes, it does," he agreed, too tired to further contemplate the possibility of rain.

After a few seconds of uncomfortable silence, Haruhi spoke up, "Ah, this is my class." She went forward and knocked on the door.

"The bell hasn't rung yet," Kyouya pointed out.

"No, but I have to ask the teacher something..." At the Shadow King's expectant look, the girl continued unwillingly, "I got detention for being late twice in a row."

Kyouya's eyebrows rose in surprise. Concurrently, the door opened.

"Yes?" The teacher, an old, sickly man called Sudo, asked in his raspy voice.

"Sensei, I was just wondering if-" Haruhi started, but was immediately cut off by Kyouya, who had stepped in between Haruhi and the old man.

"Sudo-sensei, I would like to apologize for Haruhi-kun's lateness yesterday. I needed some help with the club that Haruhi-kun and I are involved in, and he happened to be available at the moment," he lied easily, while Haruhi stared at the back of his head in complete disbelief and utter shock. "I hope you will not punish him for this, as it was my mistake not to inform you beforehand." This 'explanation' was accompanied by the patented Ootori polite business smile.

The teacher, a little taken aback, turned to look at Haruhi who just managed to clear the shock out of her face in time. "Is this true, Fujioka?"

"Y-yes, sensei, it is," the girl smiled nervously.

"Well then, I see no reason to give you detention since you were late just once. But next time, let me know earlier if you are going to be tardy." The teacher went back into the classroom and shut the door behind him.

As soon as the door clicked shut, the bright smile disappeared from Kyouya's face and was replaced by the sour, exhausted look he had worn earlier.

"Wha- what- I mean why did you- Why-" Haruhi was not sure how to refer to what had just happened.

"I did not really lie. I simply referred to something that hasn't happened just yet, because I think you owe me a favour now," Kyouya deadpanned.

Haruhi sighed. Of course the Shadow King had something in mind; he never did anything unless there was something he could gain from it.

But even so, I don't think anything he could make me do in return would be worse than having to suffer one of Sudo-sensei's infamous two-hour detentions. Not to mention the effect this would've had on my scholarship.

Kyouya's voice brought her back to reality. "I'm leaving now. Class is starting soon. I'll see you at the club."

"Yeah, see y- Wait!" The Shadow King turned once more to look at her. "How did you know I was late yesterday? I never said when-" Yet again, Kyouya (who apparently became impatient when he was tired) interrupted.

"I guessed. Sudo-sensei usually doesn't put off detentions, so I concluded that you only gave him a reason to give you one yesterday."

Haruhi nodded in understanding. "Okay. See you, sempai."

Kyouya nodded and turned to leave when he spotted the cause of his exceptionally dark mood laughing in the hallway with a gaggle of customers from the Host Club. Haruhi meeped as the purple aura re-appeared around the Shadow King, who stalked off angrily. The cross-dresser briefly wondered if she should try to help Tamaki out, but eventually decided (very wisely) to save herself and stay out of it.

The bell rang soon enough and Haruhi went to class, refusing to look behind her to see whether Kyouya had acted on his killing intent. When the class started, the girl noticed that both Hitachiins were missing, but she thought nothing of it and simply took notes for them as Sudo-sensei began the lesson.

Sometime long after the class had started - in fact, less than fifteen minutes before it would have ended - Hikaru and Kaoru stumbled into the classroom. Haruhi lifted her head from her notebook as the door opened with a slight creaking sound, her eyes widening at the sight.

The twins looked - and this was the nicest word Haruhi could think of - like hell. Kaoru's hair stuck out in odd angles, as if it hadn't been brushed at all, while Hikaru looked like he had slept with his clothes on. They both moved awkwardly, as if their muscles hurt, and had dark rings under their eyes.

As everyone in the classroom stared at the odd sight, Sudo-sensei took one look at them and seemed to come to the decision that their sloppiness and lateness was inexcusable.

"Hitachiin Hikaru and Hitachiin Kaoru!" the teacher barked, pointing at the wrong twin when he said their names, "You skipped nearly the entire class and then come barging in looking like that! This interruption is unpardonable! What do you have to say for yourselves?"

"We didn't barge in, sensei, we tried to be quiet," Kaoru argued, but he only managed to anger the teacher even further.

"Don't talk back at me! Detention, today after club hours! Both of you! Now sit down!" As the twins went to their seats, defeated, Sudo-sensei quickly took a pill for his heart condition that apparently acted up every time he lost his temper, and tried to continue the lesson even though no one was paying attention to him anymore.

"What happened to you two?" Haruhi asked the twins during recess, as they walked towards the next class. "I don't want to be rude, but you look pretty awful."

"Thanks, Haruhi," Hikaru snarled.

"Yeah, that's exatcly what I want to hear when I feel bad," Kaoru said, his voice heavy with sarcasm.

"Okay, sorry, but what happened?"

"Well, you see..." Hikaru started, "You remember how Kyouya called cleaning the club room a commoner experience before you guys left?"

Haruhi nodded. She remembered very well what it had cost Kyouya.

"And, well, you know how excited milord gets about commoner stuff. We tried calling in our own cleaning staff, but he stopped us, saying that Kyouya was right and that it was going to be awesome, or something like that." Kaoru shook his head in despair.

"So you had to clean it yourselves?" The twins nodded. "But surely it wasn't that bad? I mean, just one room..." Hikaru cut her off.

"Yes, but we had to scrub the floors! Do you have ANY IDEA how hard it is to get the green stains off the marble floor with just a wet rag?"

"We had no proper cleaning equipment!"

"And that bastard Kyouya knew it!"

"And I SWEAR he trampled on the flowers on purpose to leave more stains!"

"And milord went on and on about how great it was and how we had to make the floor totally spotless!"

"He even stayed after we left!"

"When we got home it was late and we were too tired to even do our homework!"

"My arms are killing me! I can't lift them up properly!"

"And now we got detention! Well, at least you'll be in the same detention with us," Hikaru finished.

Haruhi sweatdropped. With an apologetic smile, the girl started, "Guys, I have some bad news- I mean, well, good news for me, I guess..."

A few seconds later a terrible scream (two simultaneous screams, actually) was heard echoing throughout the building, "THAT BASTARD DID WHAT?"

-.-.-.-.-.-.-

I really had fun with this one. On the next episode: Tamaki is scared, Haruhi is bored, the twins are mad and Kyouya is distracted. Please review while I write that, nee? I'll love you if you do.

(I wonder if I've yet appealed to all the common clichés of extorting reviews from readers? Tell me in a review, haha) Thanks for reading!