AUTHOR'S NOTE: Please excuse my writing. It WILL get better as the story goes on, but this is the first time I've actually written in 2 years. This story was inspired by a conversation with my wonderful friend Lullaby-of-the-lost, who I met in college. She will be helping me by co-writing this with me! Please enjoy our introductory chapter! Yay

Our story starts after the fall semester in Paris, France. Christmas is a few weeks away. A seventeen-year-old author sits in a small café, enjoying a hot cafe au lait on cold, rainy winter day. Her computer is set up in front of her with a split-screen. Half of her screen shows the records of the current stock market prices and the other half has a document with a roughly written draft for a new chapter to a fantasy fiction novel.

A second girl walks down the street and up to the café before stopping at the young writer's table.

"Hey Melody!" she greets her friend cheerfully as she drops her bag in a third chair before plopping down in the chair opposite the author.

"What do you want Beatrice?" Melody asked, recognizing the underlying tone in the voice of her best friend of 9 years without even glancing up from the numbers and documents on her computer.

"Do you remember how I applied to change food themes from French pastries through the academy?" Beatrice asked, not bothering to beat around the bush as she cuts to the chase instead.

Melody hummed in response, glancing up to look up at Beatrice, wondering where she was going with this.

The two girls had met in the American foster care system when Melody was 9 and Beatrice was 7. Nine years later, and their bond has grown to be incomparable. Their situation is very unique, however. Despite currently going to school in France, both girls are technically underage citizens of the United States of America, who study abroad as emancipated minors.

From a young age, both girls had bonded over a shared drive to forge a path for themselves while also studying for careers in the arts. They left the United States and started their adventurous travels two and a half years ago. So far, they've studied a full year in England and Spain, and have spent the past half-year in France. Typically, they spend a full academic year in a new country before checking in with a court-appointed social worker in America during the summer holidays.

The main reason why they have traveled to so many countries, was so that Beatrice could study the art of cooking different cuisines while taking courses online for regular schoolwork. Although Beatrice is only fifteen, she has always been a wonderful cook. Melody loved to travel and took Beatrice's traveling training as an excuse to absorb inspiration from all of the countries they visited for her fantasy series.

The only reason why Melody still had high school credits outstanding was because she had become quite a well-known author. After publishing her first book at the age of fifteen, she has released at least 2 books a year. Her series follows the adventures of a young boy who discovers he has magical powers and has to travel the world to uncover more secrets of his mysterious past while conquering the dark forces of evil. It's a fairly stereotypical plot-line, but Melody liked to focus on the history and culture of the places she and Beatrice traveled to gather inspiration for her books. Her hope was to gear her writing to teach younger kids lessons about life, but the authenticity and raw humor of the content drew fans to her writing in the forms of young and old alike. My series has actually proven to be fairly popular, however, most of the money the girls live off of comes from the stocks Melody loves to dabble and invest in.

"Well, the instructor told me that there was a really good apprenticeship that he signed me up for instead," Beatrice explained.

"That's awesome," Melody responded, still mostly distracted. However, she'd known Beatrice for years. From the tone of her voice and the fact she had left her statement open-ended, Melody knew there was something her friend was holding back. "What will you be studying?"

"The apprenticeship is for traditional Japanese cooking," she trailed off again.

"Okay. Come out with it," Melody gave up trying to work any more and closed her laptop.

"The apprenticeship is in Japan," Beatrice mumbled into her vanilla latte. To say Melody was surprised would be an understatement as her eyebrows shot up to her hairline. Beatrice rushed to continue. "But it's such a great opportunity and I heard about Ouran Academy, but I never thought I'd get in. They just hired a new master chef to be head chef at the school and I'd be shadowing him directly as his assistant. You know the school will accept you with your grades. Considering you just need your four final core credits, attending shouldn't be too hard. Please can we go?!"

Melody sighed, recognizing the excited sparkle in her friend's eyes. She'd never been able to say no to her friend when she looked at her like that. Melody re-opened her computer and pulled up the website for Ouran High School.

"From what I see, Ouran High School is astronomically expensive. Not to mention, we would have to skip ahead the rest of this academic year since the Japanese school year starts in the spring... How do you expect to pay for it?"

"Since we already took all of our mandatory classes online for this spring, I don't see the issue with either of us testing ahead. That way, I'll start my sophomore year schooling as a high school first year and you would skip forward to be a third year senior. Plus, the school is offering me a scholarship to attend the local cooking program as a work-study as well as working in the cafeteria at the school."

"If that's the case, why don't I just take the credits online and work on my new book from home?" I ask, typing away on my laptop.

"Because it'll be your senior year Mel, and you need to experience real school-life, just like I want to. You can put your character in a Japanese school as his new adventure! We've been traveling around so much and I could do with a dose of something "normal". Plus, I know how you've wanted to live in Japan since you were six. Plus... A little birdie told me Ouran has some pretty awesome business and creative writing classes!" Beatrice explained animatedly.

"As awesome as that all is Bea... Where do you expect us to live? It's not like Ouran has dorms for foreign students like our past boarding schools have. And have you contacted Karly about this?" Melody asked as an afterthought. Karly was their lawyer-turned-social-worker who had helped vouch for their emancipated status in court.

"Karly approved!" Beatrice beamed at Melody. "She thinks it's a wonderful learning opportunity considering that we're both already fluent in Japanese."

"Of course she does," Melody rolled her eyes. "And the living situation?"

"I actually did the research for that already! I looked it up on some websites and found some really cute images of reasonably priced two or three-bedroom, one bath apartments. The best part is, they're just a two train stops from the school," she explained as she beckons for the laptop so she could pull up the website for the two girls to look over together.

With all things considered, it was a pretty nice place and Melody could easily see the two girls making it into a home. "Have you considered how we'll pay for this apartment?" she asked, as she pulled the laptop back to herself to begin typing again. After a definitive pause, she looked up to see her friend's guilty smile. Melody easily translated the look. Beatrice was hoping she'd made a sound enough argument that Melody would pay for it with the money she earned from buying and selling different stocks.

"Please," Beatrice begged, her hands clasped together in a pleading motion as she unleashed her killer puppy-dog eyes. "Think of what a wonderful investment it will be if you change the third bedroom into a writing office!"

"Really?!" Melody asked exasperated as Beatrice ups the antics with her lower lip jutting out to add a pout. "Fine," Melody surrendered dramatically. "We'll have to get our place settled and our tests taken before the new semester starts after the new year, so we leave in a month."

Melody rolled my eyes as Bea tackled her in a bear hug. No one could ever claim that their lives were boring.

So, it's been a while, but I started re-reading Ouran High School Host Club and I wanted to revisit this story and continue it. The point of view might change a bit throughout the story, but it'll stay consistent by chapter, depending on what's going on.

Also, I know that Melody was originally a music producer, but I was blocked when trying to write for that, so I changed her to a successful novelist which is something I can actually write about (but have yet to experience).

Please let me know what you think!