Terms of Use

-By A Midnight's Dream-

Disclaimer: I do not own any characters or themes belonging to the series Ouran High School Host Club nor have ever claimed to. So if you're with SOPA, then get off my ass.

"Happy Birthday Kaoru and Hikaru!" The Ouran High School Host Club all shouted in unison.

Today was the Hitachiin twin's seventeenth birthday. The invitations they had passed out said that the small party would take place at their beach-front estate, and that all attendees must present their invitations at the gate. It also said, in very obscene terms, to wear something Hawaiian themed. Really, Haruhi thought, all the 'fancy airs' they put on weren't necessary. It was only the guys from the club, not like some fancy dinner party or something. The sun hung low near the western horizon and cast the quaint little patio the party was seated on in a pleasantly warm pink light. The rushing waves of the ocean could be heard over the towering dunes that surrounded them, and there was a slight taste of salt in the air.

All the members of the club were dressed in seasonal Hawaiian shirts to try and escape the smothering affects of early June's humidity. Even Haruhi wore a modest but very flattering floral dress. But still, the cloth stuck to their young bodies which were lightly coated in sweat.

"Go on Kao-Chan! Hika-Chan! Blow the candles out and make a wish!" Huni-Sempai exclaimed from the top of Mori's shoulders, the strong silent male adding an 'mmmm' in agreement.

"Give us a minute, would ya?" Hikaru, the older of the two twins, whined.

"Yeah," His slightly more mature brother concurred. "You can't expect us to come up with a wish right off the bat. These things take careful consideration, you know…" As the red head let his sentence fade away a mischievous look glinted in both of the Hitachiin's eyes, focusing their attention on their fair haired king.

"Hnnm?...Hey, wipe those smirks off your faces, you little devils! I swear if you two even so much as-" Tamaki ranted on, but Haruhi just sighed and tuned them out. She'd perfected the art very early on during her second semester.

"Hate to be a bother." Kyoya's voice cut through the clamor like a cold, impersonal knife. "But the candles are melting. If you want to make a wish, you should do so quickly."

"Aaah, alright, alright. Ready Kaoru?"

"You bet, Hikaru."

Lacing their fingers together, they both inhaled a big breath and then blew the candles out in unison. As cheers and clapping rose up in the silence afterwards, Haruhi began to think about how much the twins did things together like that: seamlessly, at the same time, like they'd rehearsed for hours.

"Yaaaaaaaay! Aha ha!" Huni-Sempai laughed, dancing around atop Mori's broad shoulders. "Now it's time for cake!"

"Not so fast." Hikaru said, crossing his arms over his flat chest to which Kaoru quickly followed suit.

"We want to open our presents first." His twin finished.

"Well, you guys are the birthday boys." Haruhi interjected with her famous warm smile before Huni could raise an argument. "I think we can all wait to have a little cake." Promptly after this statement came a sad whining noise from the heights of Mori's shoulder tops.

"Come then." Hikaru smirked, turning his small nose into the air snootily, and clapped his hands twice as if commanding his servants. "Bring on the first present."

A medium sized box wrapped in green wrapping paper with a yellow ribbon was slid in front of them first. "This gift is from Huni and Mori-Senpai." Kyoya announced nobly as the two twins dug their feverish fingers into the shiny, green wrapping paper. The twins lifted the top of the white box that was underneath, anticipation turning the corners of their mouths up into excited smiles. Soon after seeing the boxes contents, however, their faces fell into looks of mild puzzlement."Lady Godiva chocolates?" They both asked in unison.

"Mmmhm! They come from America!" Huni said with much vigor. "You guys are gonna share, right?"

"Why would we share our birthday prese-" They began to ask, but were silenced from staring into the large watery depths of their sempai's chocolate colored orbs that threatened to spill over with fresh tears. "Uhh…we mean…sure."

"Yaaayyyy!"

"See, Mitskuni?" Mori uttered in his rare, deep voice. "Waiting is a good thing."

"Mmmhmm!"

The twins went through the rest of their gifts with little incident and many muffled thank you's. In all, Haruhi had to say that their small pile of gifts probably amounted to more money than her father earned in a year. Not for the first time she cursed her cohorts for their nonchalant-ness with spending frivolous amounts of money.

"Okay." Kaoru said, tossing aside Tamaki's beleaguering gift of 'I'm with stupid' T-shirts. "Now Haruhi, where's your gift?"

The heroine looked faintly taken with surprise as the attention of the entire group turned to look at her. "Well…." She mumbled, averting her gaze while scratching the back of her head.

"Aww come on." The brothers whined in unison. "Don't tell us you didn't get us anything for our birthday."

Haruhi felt her hand slightly crush around the twin's papery gift she held behind her back. Not for the first time, she began to wonder if this plan was a bad idea from the start. She could even remember herself thinking about what to get the duo for their birthday and was quickly lost in the current of a flashback.

"Haaa, I wonder what I should get Kaoru and Hikaru for their birthday?"She sighed out loud as her iron heated up, her flat voice bouncing off the walls of her empty apartment. "I mean, for crying out loud they're rich, what else could they want?...Maybe I could make them something." She began to think, but then quickly dismissed the idea. The two would probably choke down a sob while trying to keep tears from spilling down their cheeks and tell her that whatever she made them was worth more than any respectable piece of art. All in an effort not to bruise her 'fragile commoner self esteem'. "No. Definitely not." The heroine's eyebrow twitched in annoyance as she slammed the iron down on the next unfortunate piece of laundry. "I'll have to think of something else…"

And so she had decided on this.

Haruhi let out an almost reluctant sigh before handing each of the twins an identical envelope from behind her back. "Here…" She said in her usual flat tone. It was obvious from the look of surprise on Hitachiin twin's faces that they hadn't expected to get anything at all from her. She was about to say something to snap them out of their stupor when Kaoru leaned forward and plucked the envelope out of her hand, Hikaru quickly doing the same.

The duo quickly opened the envelopes with a look of eagerness, as if they were genuinely interested in what kind of gift could be so small as to fit between two pieces of stiff paper? As they opened the cards, two dollar-sized pieces of white paper fluttered out from the creases, and fell to the table. The twin's didn't seem to notice though, and continued to read Haruhi's neat, italicized sentiments written therein. Both of the brother's tan cheeks tinted a light pink as they finished reading their cards.

"Wow…"

"Thanks, Haruhi." Kaoru muttered, suddenly feeling shy.

Haruhi smiled, the small motion reaching up into her eyes, making them close. "You're welcome guys. I'm glad you liked your-"

"Now wait a minute." Hikaru said suddenly, picking up one of the pieces of paper that fluttered out from his card earlier. "What's this thing?"

"Oh yeah," Kaoru added.

Crap. Why couldn't they have blown away in the wind and be lost forever, Haruhi thought? If she knew they were going to be happy with just the cards she honestly never would have gone through the trouble of making these things in the first place.

"I saw these things fall out earlier. But I thought they were just checks so I ignored them."

After a brief, and very unattractive, noise Haruhi fell over backwards, causing the small patio to shake from the crash. "Ugh…damn rich kids…" She cursed though a mouthful of sand.

"Hunh? No way!" Kaoru exclaimed and Hikaru gasped beside him. Their amber colored eyes had gone huge and were fixed to the pieces of paper held in their hands.

"What? What is it, guys?" Tamaki asked.

The Hitachiin twins flashed their notorious grins before flipping the paper over to show the group what looked like a cheap imitation of a U.S. dollar scrawled in pen on the other side, only with a chibi drawing of Haruhi drawn in the middle of the bill instead of the president. "We got four 'Haruhi-favor ' coupons!"

Sounds of surprise and amusement went around the group of hosts, all leaning in closer to get a closer look at said coupon. All except for Kyoya, that is.

"W-What!" Tamaki shrilled, his face turning the same color as a ripe tomato. "And pray tell, just what is a 'Haruhi coupon?' Hmm?"

"It's a Haruhi-favor coupon." The brunette corrected. "And I don't see why you're making such a big deal out of it, Senpai. It just says that I owe them a favor. That's all. Like, if they want me to carry their books or if they want me to help them study or….What?" She asked after receiving a collective group of 'is she serious?' stares from the club and two suspicious looking grins from the twins.

"Haruhi." Tamaki dropped his voice down to a low whisper and ushered her over to the edge of the patio, ensuring that the twins wouldn't hear. "Do you have any idea what those two dimwits are capable of? They'll use those coupons to make you do terrible things! I swear it!"

"Knock it off, Senpai." Haruhi said, stepping to the side so that Tamaki fell forward into the sand. "Kaoru and Hikaru wouldn't do something like that, right guys?" She asked, casting her voice over her shoulder, and was sorry at what she found waiting on the twin's faces. They were doing it again. Looking into each other's identical amber eyes while a menacing smirk quirked their mouths to each side. "Uhhh….guys?"

"You thinking what I'm thinking, Kaoru?"

"You know it brother."

"Hey wait a minute, just what are you two thinking?" Haruhi asked, taking a step backward. She knew it then, as she looked into the leering, jackal-like faces of the Hitachiin twins: She never should have made them those coupons.

"We've made our decision."

"For our first coupon, we want you to have a sleep over with us….tonight." They both finished together, letting the last word fall through the silence like a heavy hammer.

"No way." Haruhi's answer was quick, and blunt, causing the twin's expression to do a 180 in terms of emotion.

"But it says right on the coupon 'no questions asked.'" Hikaru whined.

"Yeah for like school related things and stuff."

"And stuff?" The brothers added, wriggling their eyebrows.

Haruhi flushed. "You know what I mean."

"I'm afraid I don't, Haru-chan." Hikaru smirked, fanning himself with the coupons as he leaned back in his chair. "Unfortunately the terms on the coupon are very vague. There isn't even an expiration date on it."

"Honestly. Who taught you how to make a coupon?" Kaoru added, leaning his cheek on to his fist.

Haruhi's mouth rounded into an outraged 'o'. "No one did, I made the damn things because-"

"Well it's not our fault if the terms of the coupon are ambiguous, now is it?" The two asked in unison, throwing up their hands in defeat.

"I'm afraid they're right, Haruhi." Kyoya said pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. "With no apparent rules or regulations written down on the coupon to say exactly what you mean the use of the coupon is left to the discretion of the owner." The second-year relayed the bad news with a chillingly cheerful smile. Across the table the twins beamed at him.

Haruhi's hand clenched into a fist at her side. "Why in the heck would he take their side in this?" She thought, cursing her senpai in a rippling after-thought. But mostly she cursed herself; she cursed herself for her own foolishness. How could she not see this coming? In reality she had a feeling something like this would happen, but it never really seemed like a possibility. Honestly, how dense could she be?

She realized the entire party had gone silent, and everybody was staring at her while they waited for her to answer with her decision. Her brown orbs flickered over the faces of the twins, who had their lower lips pouted out in an admirable attempt to persuade her. She still had an essay to write. And then there was the five page essay for another scholarship and summer reading. Not to mention she still had to do the laundry and do a whole bunch of spring cleaning. But what kind of person—no—what kind of friend would she be if she didn't take her own coupon's seriously?...and besides…it was their damn birthday, after all. Finally, she sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose between her fingers. "….Fine. I guess I could do the lau-"

Instantly the Hitachiin brother's broke out of their wicker chairs and rounded the table to dance with Haruhi. "Yaaaaaayyyyy!" They cried together. "Sleep-ov-er! Sleep-ov-er! Sleep-ov-er!" They chanted, much to the dismay of their club's president that looked as if he were about to turn into a mushroom in the cloud of gloom that surrounded him.

"C'mon Haruhi!" One of the twin's said, casting his voice over his shoulder purposely so that his leader would hear. "Let's go play house!"

Tamaki's ear twitched.

"No, Kaoru!" His brother yelled louder. "Let's play dress up!"

"THAT'S IT!" Tamaki boomed, his entire eyes bleached white with rage. "I won't stand for this! Unhand my daughter, you heathens!" The remaining group of host's only had time to cough and shut their eyes as their king took off in hot pursuit of the sleepover trio, leaving a cloud of dust in his wake.

"Aaah? Hey wait!" Huni called, and then slumped back into Mori's shoulders with a small whimper, defeated. "…We didn't even get to eat any cake…"

And so began Haruhi Fujioka's first sleepover.

Hey gang! So yeah, as you can see this story is NOTHING like that last one's I've posted. This thing is incredibly short compared to my other stories. In fact, you could say that this story was part of the whole big distraction picture.

Reader: so that's where this story came from so suddenly. Usually she takes FOREVER just to write something.

Me: I'm not going to try and fight that one. But anyway, it's just a fluffy story that I've written and depending if you guys like it or not I might post the second chap (which is short too :p) on Thursday, possibly Wednesday.

Tah tah!

And now, an excerpt from my crazy ass dreams:

On 8/29/11 I had a dream that me and my friend Marcus and Ally were leaving my skewl and were gonna go bowling (I don't know why, I hate bowling). But then all of a sudden we decided we wanted to go out to eat. So we got into my car and drove through the wall of the restaurant. My sister, who was driving, forgot to put the car in park and got out to go order something and we nearly rolled into this elderly couple sitting at a table. Then I put the car in reverse and started to back the car out of the building and drove backwards down the road. Now here's where it gets weird: All of a sudden my car turned into a shopping cart and we were going a hundred and twenty miles an hour in a twenty zone. Then somehow the cart was on a make shift roller coaster with no tracks or guides. They were just wooden boards all nailed to each other! Eventually I got thrown out and I had t walk to the end of the track. Apparently the track ended in my living room where my mother had decided to install a giant, singing rooster statue.

And then I woke up to an ordinary day.