Ouran High Ghost Club
Kim 'Sparticus' Huerta
DISCLAIMER: Bleach belongs to Kubo Tite, Ouran High School Host Club belongs to Bisco Hatori. I like pie.
A/N: Did you know that early in the Bleach manga (during the Don Kanonoji incident, I believe), Keigo and Mizurio whip out a very Host Club–esque scene to try to attract the attention of a couple of girls? They do! It's hilarious! It gave me ideas. Bad ones. This fic has meshed a few of them together in a twisted conglomerate of Lovecraftian proportions. Well, maybe just towards the end there. ;)
The only Japanese I use in this are the honorifics (at least the ones I'm fairly certain I'm using right…), the various Bleachy terms (kidou, konsou, zanpakutou… etc…), "Oi" (which means "hey") and "aa" (which means yeah) – and I only use "aa" because I have a hard time imagining Mori saying "yeah". Mori just isn't that wordy. XD
Post Soul Society, pre Arrankar arc, vaguely sauntering towords IchigoxRukia. No major Ouran spoilers that I can think of.
Chapter 1: Death and the Host Club
It was a rare slow day. It was exam time, although, in her experience, this didn't much deter the regulars from joining the Host Club for afternoon tea. Haruhi flipped to the next page in her book as she swept her large, brown eyes around the nearly empty music room. Kaoru and Hikaru were playing video games on one of the couches, Hunny and Mori were eating cake – well, Hunny was eating cake, Mori seemed to be dozing – and Kyoya was typing away on his laptop, cooking up his next evil scheme, most likely. Tamaki had disappeared off to the bathroom a little while ago. He'd been gone for a while, he'd probably gotten side tracked. Tamakis absence seemed to be the indicator of how slow things had been lately; normally he wouldn't be distracted for long.
Haruhi went back to her book. Tamakis absence meant she'd be able to get more homework done. Unfortunately…
"Where do you think our lord has gotten off to?" Kaoru poked his head over the couch.
Haruhi made the mistake of glancing up. Both twins were peeking over the back of the couch, only their eyes and hair were visible. They looked bored. Not good…
Haruhi blinked. "Why're you asking me?"
They shrugged, answered simultaneously; "We saw you first."
Haruhi sighed and attempted to keep reading. The twins thought of her as a toy (well… not so much anymore, she'd noted) making her their second favorite target – Tamaki was their favorite, of course.
Luckily, for the twins purposes, Tamaki burst in just then, out of breath and looking like Bereznoff had just popped out of his book bag. Unluckily, Haruhi's homework was as good as dead until she went home later.
"GHOST!" He yelped, slamming the door behind him and locking it. He leaned against the pink wood and doubled over, hands resting on his knees as he attempted to catch his breath. Haruhi could see him shaking from here. Tamaki was prone to odd bouts of delusion so no one moved at first.
Haruhi frowned as she noted his overall appearance; even when Tamaki was off on one of his tangents, or sulking in his corner, he was immaculate (well, sometimes he mussed up his hair for effect) but at the moment, he looked downright disheveled. His shirt was untucked, his tie was nowhere to be seen, his blazer was on inside out and his knuckles were white. In fact, beyond the blush brought on from running, he was kind of pale. Great, Nekozawa had been messing with him again…
Sighing, Haruhi pushed her chair back from the table and stood up, then padded over to him. Crouching down, she cocked her head to the side to see around his bangs. "What is it this time?"
She braced herself for a hug that never came. Tamaki just straightened up a bit to slide down to the floor with his back against the door. He sat with his knees drawn up to his chest in a variant of his Corner of Woe. Haruhi found herself a little afraid. Normally he would have glomped her over showing some kind of concern. He was looking at her but he wasn't seeing her, his blue eyes stared off in to some nightmare. The rest of the club picked up on this immediately and, almost without a sound, the rest of the boys gathered around.
"My lord...?" Kaoru threw a startled glance at Haruhi. Even Nekozawa didn't get this kind of response from Tamaki – it was more of a spastic thing.
"There… there was a ghost in the hall by the bathroom." Tamaki said, his voice dropping to a terrified whimper.
They stared for a minute. He was clearly terrified but, come on, a ghost? The twins exchanged glances then shrugged. Apparently, this wasn't their doing.
"Do you think Nekozawa has something to do with it?" Hikaru asked. If it wasn't the twins, it was the president of the Black Magic Club. He also enjoyed torturing Tamaki.
Tamaki bit his lip and shook his head. "No, no! This was a real ghost. I'm sure of it!"
"How can you be sure Tama-chan?" Hunny asked, making a pouty face.
Tamaki was silent for a moment, he didn't look up immediately but when he did, the look on his face sent a chill down Haruhi's spine. Even so, she half expected him to say I see dead people.
"It's not so bad here… but back in France sometimes I saw things…" Tamaki absently rubbed one arm as he shifted his gaze to the side.
"Dead people?" The twins said in unison.
Tamaki winced.
Everyone groaned and relaxed. They'd unknowingly been leaning foreword in excitement.
He sighed and ran a hand back through his blonde hair. "I know, it sounds stupid but… I know what I see, okay. And it really freaks me out!" Now came the glomp.
Haruhi yelped as Tamaki lifted her off the ground. "Stay with Daddy, Haruhi! He needs your level headedness to keep him…"
Haruhi was in the process of breaking free (Hunny had shown her how to break out of holds and such after an incident with a Popsicle) when Tamaki abruptly froze. He was literally cold. He set her down slowly but didn't take his hands off of her. They were shaking.
Haruhi half turned and stared around the room, as did the rest of the host club. Nothing was there, but clearly Tamaki was seeing something.
"This is starting to weird me out a little." Kyoya muttered, staring very closely at Tamaki.
The host club started to shuffle away from the door, as Tamaki backed away, relinquishing his hold on Haruhi. Tamaki was kind of protective by nature but whatever he was seeing seemed to have overridden that instinct. Haruhi edged away, glancing back and forth between Tamaki and the spot that seemed to be scaring him so. And still nothing was there…
Tamaki knew he was an idiot. Not in the book sense, he was pretty smart when it came to odd trivia and such that people seem to think has something to do with intelligence. He did and said dumb things on a regular basis, he spazzed out, and he was pretty easy to play pranks on, but he didn't mind. It was fun, really. But now was one of those times that he wished he had just a little more sense. Just a little more credibility. Oh, how he wished they believed him.
As ghosts go it wasn't scary, she looked like she was maybe twelve or thirteen, wearing a uniform that Ouran used eons ago. She wasn't bloody like the ghosts he'd seen before, wasn't mutilated in some way. She just had a chain attached to her chest. It had only three or four links left on it. She looked a little scared. In reality, he wasn't that afraid of her, it was just that he hadn't seen a ghost since he moved here and now, all of the sudden, they're showing up again. And most of the ghosts he'd seen in France were pretty gruesome. Japan had a bloody history but, apparently, their ghosts didn't stick around the way the French ones did.
"Please… I know you can see me…" She said, her eyes were watering. Tamaki didn't know ghosts could cry. "Please help me."
He swallowed hard. How was he supposed to respond to that?
"Don't worry, you won't turn into a hollow."
Tamaki snapped his head around as a black butterfly fluttered lazily past. Just behind it, a short woman in a black kimono walked serenely across the floor. She was shorter than Haruhi (whom she had to walk around) with dark hair and deep blue eyes. Tamaki would have guessed her to be in her late teens or early twenties but something told him that she was older than she looked. He became acutely aware that no one else had responded to her presence.
Except the ghost. "Are you a shinigami?"
"I am. My name is Rukia." She smiled. It was bittersweet. "I'm here to take you to Soul Society."
The ghost nodded. "What took you so long?"
"You were hiding, silly!" Her smile was lighter this time. She started to draw her sword.
Tamaki took a step foreword, some of those protective instincts kicking in. "Wait, what are you going to do to her?"
The host club stared at him like he'd lost his mind. The shinigami stared at him like she had just lost her mind. "You have got to be kidding me."
"Huh?" Tamaki blinked his big blue eyes in that clueless way he does.
"You can see me?"
"Uh… yeah."
The woman planted her hands on her hips and stared at the ceiling. "Why does this keep happening to me?" She sighed. "Well, I'm about to send this girl here to the other side. Don't worry, she'll be fine."
"Oh! Okay then!" Tamaki relaxed.
"Ah, Milord… who're you talking to?" Hikaru asked, furrowing his brow.
"Why, Rukia-sama! She's a… shinigami was it?" Tamaki laughed, gesturing elegantly at the black clad woman who had just tapped the ghost on the forehead with the hilt of her sword. The ghost let out a relieved sigh as she dissolved. A black butterfly winged its way to the unseen sky.
"A shinigami?" The club repeated dubiously.
Just then…
"Ho ho ho ho ho ho!"
HIGH POWERED MOTOR!
"Ho ho ho ho ho ho!" Renge laughed that weird little laugh of hers as she rose out of the floor. When her platform came to a stop, Tamaki was slightly disturbed to note that she was wearing the exact same outfit as the shinigami.
"Uh, Renge-kun… how did you…?"
"It's amazing! Just amazing! It seems our very own Host Club King has high spiritual powers! Ho ho ho ho ho!" Renge gestured expansively with one hand as she set her cup of coffee down with the other. She stood up and posed dramatically with a prop sword. "Who would have guessed!"
"It seems Renge-kun knows something of the subject." Kyoya said, tapping his glasses into place. Unbeknownst to everyone but Tamaki, Rukia was giving Renge – or rather, her costume, a thorough inspection.
"You don't think she can see me too do you?" She asked, throwing a startled look at Tamaki.
"Of course I know something of the subject!" Renge laughed. "Shinigami are a fairly recent addition to Japanese culture; they're based off of the grim reapers of the western world. It doesn't make them any less romantic though! Ho ho ho ho! Only people of very high spiritual powers can see them!"
"Nope, can't see me." Rukia waved her hand in front of Renges face then smirked triumphantly. "Although I'm surprised at how much she knows about us…"
"Renge knows a surprising amount about a lot of things, Rukia-sama."
"Just Rukia is fine." She waved disimissively then jumped down off of Renges platform.
Tamaki regarded her for a moment. He never tried to think much about people, he just went with his gut. Oh, in hindsight he could usually break things down and explain how he was able to figure things out, but at the moment? Pure instinct. And right now, he knew he was seeing a guest.
The club watched in some small horror as Tamaki abruptly transformed. Suddenly his coat wasn't on inside out, his shirt was tucked in, a tie appeared out of nowhere, and his hair was tousled in a carefree manor. "Ah, how rude of me!" He said, bowing low and offering his hand to someone no one else could see.
"Here we are, the finest club of the whole school in the presence of a most honored guest and we haven't even introduced ourselves!"
Rukia blinked a few times, not quite sure how to respond. "Uh…"
"I am Souh Tamaki, and this is my Host Club." He gestured elegantly to the confused teenagers.
"You do know they can't see me right?" Said the shinigami dubiously.
"You do know we can't see her right?" Said the host club dubiously (they had decided to play along).
"How sweet! A guest only Tamaki-senpai can see!" Renge gushed. "This should be amusing… so very amusing! Ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho!" And then, she was gone.
Tamaki struck a pose. "Ah, but love is blind, Shinigami-sama! Vision would not help one seeking your heart!"
"What?" Rukia stared at him as if he'd completely lost his mind.
The host club had already decided he had. "Ah, Milord…" Kaoru sauntered over and leaned nonchalantly on Haruhi's head – much to her annoyance. "If only you can see her, how can she choose a favorite and have that favorite entertain her?"
"What if she doesn't go for the Prince Type?" Hikaru added, also leaning on Haruhi's head, much to her further annoyance.
"Ah, you're right, of course." Tamaki tapped his lips with one finger. "We shall have to remedy this!"
And so…
They'd only been playing along at first, hadn't seen any harm in humoring him. But then… then he'd gone and done something intelligent; he'd draped a silk scarf over the shinigamis shoulders and given her a pad of paper and a pencil (his bear pencil, no less) to write with.
There was a long, awkward pause as the Host Club stared at the scarf, pad of paper and pencil that were hanging in mid air. Rukia realized then that she should have simply left after doing her job. Damn her curiosity! Sighing, she quickly sketched out a bunny that was waving hello. Maybe if she simply explained to them that she had a job to do…
Finishing her drawing, she glanced at this Tamaki kid, who was smiling happily. "I really do need to go but I'll indulge you this once, okay?"
Then, before he could reply, she flipped the pad over. She'd drawn a bunny waving hello, then another bunny briefly explaining her job.
The club stared terrified for a moment. Then, the small boy (whom she had a hard time believing was in the high school section) bounced over, brandishing a bunny of his own! "It's so cuuuuuute! You draw so well Rukia-chan!"
"Oh, thank you!" She smiled, then flipped to a new page and wrote it down, along with another bunny drawing. Then added a note about loving the small boys plush bunny.
He read it quickly. "Really! Yaaaay! You can play with him if you want!" He held his bunny out to her.
Rukia suppressed a giggle as she gratefully accepted the adorable toy. Maybe she could hang around for a little while…
A/N: Fixed a couple of things.
Still lookin' for someone to beta!