Once I started again, I couldn't stop. So, here's an early chapter in the hopes you'll forgive me for my recent neglect.

Chapter 7

In which Jane Walters and the former Host Club find their first meeting to be nothing short of awkward. Fun.

-x-x-x-

I had been to the Ootori mansion many a time before.

In my earlier teens, I was often subjected to spend several days there at a time, which was just about as relaxing as having your fingernails slowly pulled out. The sphere of tension the house cradled itself in was indescribable. Mr Ootori himself, though hardly seen in the flesh, was tangible in the oppression of the air in the halls, the ballrooms, the kitchens. Stepping into that place was to step into 1984, feeling eyes that may or may not have existed burning into your back. Watching and being watched. I hated it with a passion. I often faked sick just to leave early – in those days I suffered flues, colds, hyperthermia, fevers, stomach pains, spasms, choking episodes, asthma attacks, even near death on a weekly basis. They must have thought me a walking germ factory.

To get out of there, though, I would have gone so far as to amputate my left hand. It was being in that house, seeing that life, that I would actually feel sorry for Kyouya Ootori. Outside those walls, though, my compassion would vanish.

To return there now, after almost two years to meet some supposed friends of my pseudo-yet-perhaps-real fiancé made me more nervous than I care to express.

The mansion looked basically the same, which surprised me. The Ootoris often struck me as the kind of people who are constantly evolving, constantly changing and adapting to a fast-paced world. I stood before the grand entrance, hesitating as the car that brought me slowly pulled away. The doors were entirely composed of tinted glass. I recalled faintly an older Ootori son boasting they had been designed and created by the same family that had constructed the windows for the old fourteenth century Italian churches along Venice. Such grandeur was probably not necessary, but I'll admit – never out loud, thank you very much – that it was simply beautiful.

The Goddess of Fertility stared out at me, offering lilies, stained in blue and green.

Then said goddess moved. Or rather, the door creaked open unexpectedly.

"One of the maids thought you were a burglar, standing stupidly in front of the place like this. She had a candlestick ready. Rather melodramatic of her, if you ask me."

Fuyumi opened the door wider, revealing an extremely pale-faced maid behind her, hovering apprehensively in the shadows.

"See there? It's only Jane. Now put the candlestick down and calm yourself. That thing is worth more than your yearly wage."

The maid blushed, curtseyed, and then proceeded to be at a loss as to where to put the thing. Her hands fluttered about nervously.

Fuyumi sighed gently.

"Here, give it to me."

The maid was only too happy to oblige. She excused herself shakily.

"Poor thing. I don't suppose we receive many visitors these days. She's been jumpy ever since the boys arrived early this morning. But you're early yourself. I thought you would be coming for lunch, Jane," she told me, hands waving about expressively. I winced as she almost sent the candlestick flying through the wall.

My primary concern was to remove the slightly air-headed woman from the makeshift-weapon. God only knows how many people she's accidentally injured in the course of her lifetime.

"Put that thing away, invite me in, and then we'll talk," I instructed warily. I was glad to meet Fuyumi first. Her lightness and good nature always had the uncanny ability to set my troubles at ease. We had always been on good terms, perhaps not intimate, but friendly for sure. I enjoyed her doting and she seemed amused, if not initially shocked by my cheek. Out of the Ootori clan, she had been the one to immediately express a desire to be on good terms with me. I was still grateful to her for her kindness at the airport all those years ago.

Unceremoniously, she tossed the candlestick at a near-by dresser in the hall. It landed with a definitive thwack! on the surface and bounced onto the cold, marble floor, rolling a little as if clinging onto dear life. I was certain I heard something break. Whether it was the antique-looking dresser, the candlestick or the tile I couldn't say for certain.

Fuyumi just grinned.

Her absence of mind was positively disarming. I couldn't help but snort good-naturedly.

"Well then, come in," she pulled at my arm with enthusiasm, a strange glint in her eyes. "I don't think they expected you here already, so they're having a secret meeting, apparently." She pulled me across the threshold and into a familiar sitting room.

I stumbled into a chair, surprised when she closed the door behind us, leaving just the two of us in the small, finely furnished room.

"A meeting? A business deal, perhaps? Wouldn't it have been better if we did this another time, then?"

Fuyumi let out a noise that sounded suspiciously like an incredulous snort. She seated herself across from me – an action that reminded me distinctly of her brother. Ootoris liked to go face-to-face. I shouldn't have been so surprised at the family resemblance.

"Business? That lot? Highly unlikely. Personally, I think they just have some secret affairs to discuss. Plans to hatch. Lives to meddle with," she smiled distantly, as if recalling some fond memory.

"What kind of secret affairs?" I dared to venture. What on earth could a group of young men possibly need to discuss in secret?

Fuyumi gave me a look which could have rivalled even Haruhi's blank stare. "You have one guess, moron."

I sat straighter, alert now. I must have resembled a meerkat. "You can't be serious."

"When am I ever not serious?"

I could think of a great many times. Not that I would ever tell her that. I happen to value my life, thank you.

"Besides," she gave me a cheeky grin. I was surprised she still held onto the Ootori beauty even so. Perhaps it was only Kyouya who lost all sense of physical beauty in his grin. The irony made me smile. "You and I should play a game."

I was immediately doubtful. I had the strangest feeling my dignity was going to be brought into question any moment now. "What kind of game?" I feared the answer. A cheeky Ootori was a dangerous Ootori. I learnt this fact years ago; the hard way, too.

"Espionage," she announced happily, flinging her arms out in great gusto, almost causing a nearby vase to topple down.

"Oh no," I blanched.

Goodbye dignity.

-x-x-x-

Standing outside the old oak door to Kyouya's study, I watched as Fuyumi crouched down and lent against the wood, a cup to her ear, deep concentration settled on her features. I couldn't believe I had let myself be roped into this.

"That cup trick doesn't even work," I hissed at her, annoyed and embarrassed beyond belief. I kept glancing over my shoulder, unable to help myself.

She only looked up at me long enough to give me a lazy smirk.

"I suppose, then, you don't want to hear what they're saying about you."

Frowning, I wondered if she was bluffing.

Curiosity killed the cat, I chanted in my head. It became my mantra. Curiosity killed the cat. Curiosity killed the cat.

I frowned harder, realising I had no idea what that expression actually meant. Furthermore, I hated cats.

I shook my head at her vehemently, hoping somehow she'd catch the action despite her closed eyes.

She whispered to me, eyes still clamped tight. "Don't shake your head at me. You're standing here on your own accord, too, you know. If you're bothered by this, go somewhere else. I, however, want all the juicy goss' my brother has to offer."

Good Lord. Was she psychic?

"You're being a horrible sister. And who says 'juicy goss,'' anyway?" I fumed silently, crossing my arms against my chest. Instinctively, I threw another wayward glance over my shoulder. I was growing incessantly paranoid.

"Shh," she hushed me suddenly, bringing her free hand up to raise one finger, as if she were a mother shushing a toddler while on the phone. "We're getting to the juicy stuff."

I might have muttered something poor about a death threat, most likely directed at her. Fuyumi always managed to bring out the worst in me.

She was frozen for some minutes while I itched to make a bolt for it. Eventually, she moved.

"Mhm," she nodded, removing her ear from the cup, and the cup from the door. She stood fluidly, latching onto my arm and dragging me back through the halls to our original sitting room. She pushed me down onto the chair with little thought, while she remained standing to pace the length of the small room.

"What on earth?" I questioned, more to myself than the strange woman, rubbing my arm protectively.

"It's just as I thought," she supplied gleefully, hands encompassing great hunks of air to demonstrate just how correct she had been. I waited patiently for a rational explanation, doubting a little if I would ever receive one. Fuyumi just continued to pace.

Apparently, she needed encouragement.

I sighed, giving in. "What is?" I finally asked after a short pause.

She beamed down at me, happy, no doubt, to see my cooperation in her little day-time drama. "He wants six children. Four boys and two girls. Preferably the boys must be all named Kyouya junior. In regards to the two girls, he's willing to be a little more lenient. I wish you every happiness, sister."

I stared. Opened my mouth. Closed my mouth. Spluttered and blushed profusely. Seconds ticked by. Fuyumi continued to grin serenely down at me, no doubt pleased with the result of her little speech.

Eventually, I managed to splutter a shamelessly neutral, "what?"

"Promise me you'll teach them to call me Aunt Fuyu," she ordered, clasping my hands in hers.

I coughed incoherently, before managing to regain at least some composure. I narrowed my eyes at her dangerously, regaining myself finally. I couldn't believe she had me for a second time, in little under half an hour, no less. Fuyumi Ootori was a dangerous woman.

"Fuyumi," I hissed.

"Yes?" she smiled.

"Lie to me again like that, and I'll tell everyone in our immediate acquaintance what you did with Mr. Takumini's son last year in the lake."

Her eyes grew as round as dinner plates. It was her turn to splutter.

"You wouldn't." She barely sounded half-sure.

I smiled as I heard several voices growing louder down the hall. Well. They're finished, are they? Footfalls were heard coming in our direction.

"But I would. Here comes your brother now," I made a show of pointing to the closed door, where a slight knock came in perfect timing. I suppressed a triumphant grin. If I ever lived through Fuyumi's wrath, I would have to thank Kyouya for his incredible knack for timing.

Fuyumi paled, coloured, then paled once more. Eventually she whispered, "okay. Fine. So perhaps they weren't the exact words he said. Sue me."

I gave her a blissful smile as Kyouya pushed open the door, letting himself and four other figures into the small room.

"I wouldn't dream of it."

-x-x-x-

It was amazing how the house seemed different. How much lighter the air felt. How much brighter the patterns on the furniture seemed to be. How deeply I could breathe.

I had to wonder when the sun had rose and shone through the Ootori household, leaking streams of liquid gold into even the darkest, deadest places of the house. And what one earth could have induced such a phenomenal change of atmosphere. Surely, it had to have been the work of gods.

But then, watching them, I realised it must have been them.

The way he brightened to the familiarity of long-lasting friendship. The way he seemed free again.

When Kyouya first introduced me to them, and them to I, they looked down on me with recognition, and I at them with disbelief, and embarrassingly enough, a tiny bit of wonder.

I didn't miss that Kyouya very subtly twitched upon my reaction.

So this was the Host Club, with the exclusion of a pair of twins, to which Kyouya explained were abroad studying, tearing up Paris in a way only they could, and to which Tamaki added that their absence was probably for the best. His grip on Haruhi's waist tightened fractionally as he said this.

I wondered if things had always been as rosy as they seemed now between the friends.

At any rate, their names were listed off quicker than I could remember, to which point I was glad none of the friends looked alike. Each was superbly different, as if they had been hand-picked for their difference in looks likewise in personality. There was the tall one, the short, excitable one, the twins (who were present, if not in person, then surely spirit – I was sure several times someone had been lightly touching my hair or grazing my hand playfully), Tamaki, Haruhi, an of course, Kyouya.

"The Shadow King," Tamaki presented Kyouya to me proudly, hands outstretched for a theatrical effect.

I blinked. "The what?"

Tamaki only smiled at me secretively. "It's a tale for a dark and stormy night," he enlightened helpfully. I rolled my eyes.

The short one, who after several embarrassing blunders on my part over his name ('Mitsunny?' 'Mitskontee?' 'Missini?') informed me jovially to just call him 'Hunny.' He blushed slightly upon saying this strange nickname.

"Hunny was what he was widely known by in high school," Kyouya told me, finally joining my side rather than watching from afar as the littlest one skipped off in search of something sweet. I wondered for how long he had been eavesdropping in on my conversations. "Fitting no doubt for his sweet tooth and childish disposition," Kyouya sighed then, looking onto the smaller man with a mix of admiration and disappointment. "But now, he's a man just like the rest of us."

I followed his gaze to Hunny, who was discussing at great length the cake that would be served at the upcoming wedding with an honoured Tamaki and disinterested Haruhi. He stood straight, hands behind his back in a leisurely manner, his back straining to level straighter, pushing harder and harder against gravity. As if he was trying to grow taller. Kyouya sighed.

"As you can see, what was once our virtues, with age, have become our vices."

Looking up at him, I found him frowning down at his hands with a seriousness that was all too familiar to me.

"And what's become your vice?" I questioned, genuinely interested.

Kyouya looked up from his hands, perhaps mildly surprised at the question. He seemed to chew it over for a while.

"My aloofness," he finally decided with a barely concealed sigh. He turned to give me a shaky smile. "Of course, I have many more, but my pride has been the main thorn in my side. In school, it made me appear collected, desirable. Now, it renders me incapable of expressing what my heart begs me to say, to do, to feel. My pride, my incapability of showing emotion has given me great pain."

I considered this, content to have him stand next to me in nothing more than companionable silence. "To be honest, I had always believed you were perfectly frank with your feelings, at least to me," I grimaced slightly, recalling a myriad of occasions when cutting words flew from his mouth. I tried to push it past me. "I never considered that this might not be the case."

He shook his head sadly, determinedly avoiding my eye. "I have never been entirely open with you."

My heart sunk a little at this.

"And for that, I apologise."

I smiled a little, still not quite used to hearing a sincere apology from the man I once so despised. We stood for a few moments in silence, lost in our own thoughts. I watched Hunny wave at me happily from across the room, smiling toothily. I returned the favour.

"You know," I said hesitantly, a thought taking hold that refused to be shaken off. "At least you have an advantage Hunny never will."

His glasses caught the morning light. "How do you mean?"

"No matter how hard he'll try, he'll always be like he is now. There's no changing in him, unless it's his thinking. You, on the other hand, have a power he would kill for. You can control your vice. You can overthrow it. Really, it's all up to you and your willpower."

He shook his head stubbornly. "It's not a small personality defect," he deflected, looking me in the eye. "It's who I am. I was born to be as I am."

I frowned. I felt let down by him, so I grumbled, "if that's truly the way you feel, then quit complaining."

A small laugh echoed, and to my surprise, I found the source to be him.

"Right," he smirked. "Will do."

It was an odd reaction, the kind that threw me overboard. I doubted I would ever know what he was thinking. Another thought occurred to me then.

"Kyouya?"

"Hm," was his committed reply.

"Does this mean you're going to be honest with me now?"

A pause. I feared I had assumed too much, stepped too far. What right did I possibly claim to his honesty? I opened my mouth to take the question back, but he bet me to the punch.

"To the best of my ability," he emphasised slowly. "However, there's a time and a place for everything."

I nodded, unable to look him in the eye. I should have been satisfied, but a niggling feeling in my fingers told me I had just skated over thin ice. I may have made it over unharmed this time around, but I doubted I would be so fortunate the next.

He strode off then, Tamaki as his aim.

Sighing, I turned around slowly with the intention of getting some fresh air when I came face-to-face with the tall, quiet one. I blinked unbelievingly; thankful to the heavens I didn't voice the small yelp that had threatened my throat and scraps of remaining dignity.

Good God, had he been there the entire time?

"Er," I started, eloquent to a tee. "You are-"

"Takashi Morinozuka," he supplied, and I was eternally grateful. He had unconsciously saved me from another attempt at a name, no doubt butchering it beyond recognition.

"As I thought," I lied smoothly. Well, about as smoothly as I could lie. Which probably wasn't that smooth. I fought down a grimace.

Takashi, or 'Mori' as I suddenly recalled Kyouya whispering to me earlier, smirked ever so lightly.

Damn it.

At this rate, I would be lucky to get out of this place alive.

Apparently having nothing further to say, yet possessing no intention of leaving, Mori watched me, as if waiting for something that was painfully obvious.

Amazingly, I managed to take the hint.

"It's a little surreal meeting you all. I've heard bits and pieces, but to finally meet you all is something else entirely," I floundered for conversation. It wasn't until after the words left my mouth that I realised they could be interpreted the wrong way. I hoped he wasn't easily insulted. Judging by his size and physique, I wouldn't be let off easily if he were.

He shrugged and gave a small smile, and just as I thought this was all the response I was going to receive, he spoke in a low, leisurely voice.

"We're happy to meet you, too," he smiled politely, and with the shy smile, all appearance of hostility seemed to vanish. "Finally," he tacked the word on the end of his speech, with, if I'm not mistaken, a very small amount of humour.

"Finally?" I questioned. I could feel my forehead rippling.

"Kyouya's surprisingly talkative," was his explanation. Evidently, he must have thought it a very informative one, as he said nothing else. I could argue that. I only stared, urging him to continue.

He didn't recognise the hint. Or, horror of horrors, he mischievously ignored it.

I sighed, perhaps a little too impatiently. "What has he said about me?" I questioned, suspicious. One eyebrow reached to grasp my hairline without my permission.

Mori smiled minutely, and I realised he was enjoying this.

The trouble with the Host Club, I found, was they enjoyed a good joke just as much as the next person.

"Oh," he shrugged, his voice a monotone beyond even Haruhi's capabilities. "This and that. It's odd, though."

"What is?" This conversation? Would I even be able to guess with this bizarre, tall man?

His smile grew till it was the most visible I had ever seen it. There was a knowing in his eye. A lighter lilt to his voice. "He always said your eyes were a brighter green."

And with that, he ambled off without another word.

-x-x-x-

So. Here it is, Part 1 of the Walter/Host Club meeting. Part 2 to follow in a week or so.

Review, and you make me the happiest kid in the world. And if I may be so bold, can I get opinions on my depiction of the Host Club members? Criticism/Suggestions/Observations would be greatly appreciated. I'm a little unsure about them…

Till next time,

x Schnook