Chapter 5

"Hakuba!"

"..."

"Ha-ku-baaa~!"

"What?!" He finally snapped. The blond had been bugging him throughout the whole morning. Shion had been ignoring them for a few days now. It was the last day of the week and he was hoping that those two would get the message, though apparently not since Tamaki got sick of it and took to pestering him. Shion was ready to punch something—he wanted to punch something.

Shion took his headphones off and whirled around on his chair, "I'm trying to get some work done here!" He growled in annoyance.

"Eat lunch with us!"

"Why?" He said blandly, glancing over to Kyoya with a heavily-lidded glare.

"Well if you get to know us you might like the club more!"

"Will you continue bugging me if I refuse?" Tamaki nodded furiously and Shion put his head in his hands with a defeated sigh. "Fine," he clipped irritably, "but it doesn't mean that I will join your stupid club, or like it for that matter."

He's going to be the death of me. Shion sighed and grumbled as he got out his notebooks for the next class. At least I'll be able to talk to Haruhi.

He didn't notice Kyoya staring at his back through the rest of the class.

• • • • • •

As soon as the bell rang, Tamaki jumped up from his seat and grabbed Shion's wrist before he could escape. "Come on!" He pulled on him to go to the cafeteria.

"Suoh!" Shion resisted the pulling child and held his ground, not letting Tamaki have his way. "How impatient could you be? Let me go. I won't run away." I would if I could though, he thought mildly and Tamaki released his wrist. "Thank you," Shion clipped.

Tamaki waited patiently until he saw Shion was done before grabbing to drag him along again.

Sighing irritably, he went along with it for the time being. Then he heard the voices around them start up and gossip. He wasn't usually affected by this type of thing, but regardless Shion's cheeks flushed slightly in embarrassment. He looked behind him to see Kyoya looking amused by the situation and Shion flushed further, more in anger, seeing the smirk on Kyoya's face. He scowled, he didn't want him of all people to see him like that.

When they turned a corner Shion registered pain. Tamaki's grip was tight on his wrist and his fingers were pressing into his tendons. Shion was about to forcefully yank his arm away when he was interrupted.

Kyoya noticed how Shion winced as they turned and saw panic in his green eye. Before Shion took action to free himself, Kyoya spoke, "Tamaki, you're getting too excited. It seems that you're hurting Hakuba-san."

Tamaki let go immediately and began apologizing at amazing speeds. Shion rubbed his wrist and moved it around with no lingering pain. "Its fine, you didn't mean any harm." He turned to face Kyoya. "Thank you. But this doesn't mean I forgive you." People around them started whispering. It wasn't a nice type of attention to have either so he started walking. "We should leave now, no?"

Whether or not they could keep up with his walking speed was not his problem. He just wanted out of that situation.

• • • • • •

"Kyoya, Tamaki, you're both late!" The twins stood up from their chairs in the cafeteria and pointed at them with their cutlery. Thankfully they only had butter knives and not steak knives.

"Sorry, we were bringing a guest."

"Yeah, hi," Shion came into view from behind the two. He ended up taking a wrong turn and followed Tamaki and Kyoya to the caff instead. His memory of the place wasn't that great since he never went there.

"It's the guy that was pissed off by Kyoya!"

"Still am," Shion commented blandly—not at all happy to be there.

"I thought you didn't like eating in here Shion?" Haruhi asked.

"I don't. However Suoh-san was nagging me all morning to come here," he moved to sit beside Haruhi, "I couldn't deal with it and I caved."

"Nooo! I wanted to sit beside my daughter!"

Shion blinked in confusion, "Daughter?"

Haruhi sighed heavily, "Don't… don't ask. Please."

The desperation in Haruhi's voice really made him curious, but he abided by her request. "Hmm... Okay." Shion mused and brought out his lunch, which consisted of a chocolate granola bar and a meal replacement shake. Though he absently wondered why Tamaki was calling Haruhi his daughter.

Munching on the bar, he observed the group. Haruhi was chatting with the Hitachiin twins with Tamaki floating around them insisting on having 'father-daughter time'. Hani was eating lunch with his bunny in arms with Mori quietly eating beside him. Kyoya simply was observing the others like how he was. He smiled at the scene in front of him, they were all great friends.

"Is that all you're going to eat?" Kyoya asked.

Shion snapped out of his trance, "Oh. Yeah, I'm not a big eater, so I just have these meal replacement shakes occasionally."

More like two or three times a day. Shion added in as a thought, but they don't need to know that. I need to get shopping tips from Haruhi, she's thrifty as fuck.

"Hakuba-san."

"Hmm? What is it Ootori-san?" He tilted his head in his hand that he was leaning on. He was tired. Tamaki sapped all his energy away from him earlier.

Kyoya looked reluctant to talk, but continued this thought despite that, "I… apologize for my actions. I admit that I went too far trying to recruit you to the club."

The table went quiet. Deathly quiet.

"... Kyoya apologized?" Murmurs of disbelief were heard from the others. It was just unthinkable.

Shion looked Kyoya in the eye for a few seconds, judging his sincerity. Shion sighed and frowned thoughtfully, "Apology accepted, Ootori-san." Even though it didn't have any noticeable emotion in it, Kyoya sounded sincere to him. Maybe because they were similar in a way.

"So you're friends again?" Tamaki asked.

Shion barked a laugh, "Were we even friends in the first place?" Shion asked rhetorically. Tamaki shrouded himself in that depressing aura of his at Shion's words. "I thought we were nothing more than aquatints."

"But I already think that you're a friend Hakuba!" Tamaki rebounded.

"Really?" Tamaki nodded at Shion's disbelief. Wow, he's naive.

"You're our friend Hakuba!" Hani piped in happily.

Shion smiled, "Thank you, but we've only just met the other day—we're still acquaintances."

"I can understand that," Kyoya said with amusement. Tamaki's dread-aura just did a one-eighty and came back with much more depression than before.

"Hey Shion, so you want to come over for dinner tonight?" Haruhi asked, ignoring Tamaki's palpable depression waves.

"Sure, you can cook a hell of a lot better than I can."

"Can I come?!" The blond suddenly came out of the dark cloud he created with sparkling eyes. only to be shut down completely.

"No." Both Shion and Haruhi deadpanned.

"You guys are so mean," and once again, the cycle continued with Tamaki's depression coming back full force, while chuckles were heard around the table.

• • • • • •

After consuming a nice fish dinner, Shion and Haruhi were just watching television—some reality TV show about affairs or something—when something popped into Shion's head. Shion smirked at the thought and almost laughed.

"Hey, Haruhi?"

"Hmm?" She made a noise to indicate that she was listening. She was quite into the show, currently, there was a cat playing with a toy in the background of the arguing couple.

"I want to test something."

"Like what?"

"Would you be able to hear my scream from my apartment?" He got up from his sitting position and left Haruhi's apartment to go next door to his own. Haruhi could only replay the words in her head, weirded out by the sudden question. Her mind jumped to the worst thought she could have possibly thought of and she paled.

Why? I doubt that's what he meant. And it certainly wasn't. The influence came from the show when there was a quick shot of a woman trying to escape the house while wearing some risqué lingerie. I could have gone for something dark, like murder. Why the totally opposite direction? I didn't ask for that image of Shion.

She sighed and cleared her mind, pushing down the heat on her cheeks willfully. Despite her internal dilemma, she continued enjoying the drama that was unfolding on the screen.

So all of this really happened? Wow.

• • • • • •

Shion double-checked the room. His studio walls were lined with black and purple soundproofing foam with only a few panels on the ceiling. That was the reason why he asked that weird question to Haruhi—and yes, he purposely chose to word it that way just so he could weird her out because hey, it's amusing.

He took a breath in and just as he was letting his voice out, he saw a spider hanging from a strand of silk right in front of his face. He paled and screamed, voice cracking and going up an octave as he hit the spider with the object closest to his reach.

"Ahhh!"

Shion heard a sound of fright and surprise from a pedestrian outside his window. It turns out that it wasn't fully shut, huh. He blushed and rubbed his head sheepishly, yelling sorry to the woman. He sighed, picked up his cell phone and dialled a number, too lazy to walk all the way back.

"Yeah... Yeah, I know. The window was open so it didn't count." He could hear muffled snickering on the other line. Haruhi sure found that funny. "Yeah, yeah, it was hilarious." He drawled in sarcasm, "I'm going to try again. Bye." Shion sighed and this time he shut and locked the window. This time he brought out his trumpet as it was more reliable in volume—also he wouldn't have to scream again.

Opening the door to Haruhi's apartment he entered. "So? Did you hear me the second time?"

"Not really, it was muffled. Hard to hear if you weren't listening for it."

"That's good to hear," he scoffed at his joke and blinked at Haruhi's stare. "I'm guessing you want to know what that was about, huh?" Haruhi nodded and Shion waved his hand, beckoning her to follow.

The first thing she noticed was that there were fewer boxes and it looked much cleaner. There was more furniture and it looked homier.

Shion lead her over and opened his door, "Low and behold, my studio!"

Haruhi was surprised at the number of instruments he had, both musical and technical. Looking around, she felt that the room was as large as a bedroom. "If this is your studio, then where's your room?"

"Oh, over here," He walked across his apartment and opened a sliding door to a tiny room. It just barely fit his bed, dresser and wardrobe, along with a few shelves hanging on the walls. "I'm not going to spend all of my time in there anyways. Since Kyoya wasn't going to let me use the music room without joining the club, I hurried to finish this." He paused, scanning the room. It felt like he was forgetting something. "That's why I needed to know if you could hear my scream. I wanted to know if I would disturb our neighbours."

Suddenly they heard a slam come from next door. "Haruhi! What's wrong?! I heard a scream!"

"Aaaaand that must be your father," Shion wanted to laugh, but Ryoji probably honestly thought something was wrong. So they went back to her place.

"Oh, no! She's not here! She was kidnapped!" His mind immediately went to the worst thing possible just like his daughter's mind did earlier.

Shion poked his shoulder and Ryoji whirred around with a fist, ready to hit the criminal. Shion, not ready for the sudden aggression, barely had enough time to clench his core for the hit. It hit head-on, slugging Shion right in the stomach. The assaulted one fell to the ground, the wind almost knocked out of him and in pain. He coughed, "Ryo-Ryoji, you can sure pack a punch."

Ryoji noticed after the fact that it was Shion but saw Haruhi out of the corner of his eye. So, naturally, he forgot about Shion's suffering and went to coddle his precious daughter.

"Oh Haruhi, I was so worried!" Ryoji embraced his daughter, "That scream just sounded like a woman's and I thought it was you!"

At that, Shion blushed. "U-um... That was a woman outside… I scared her," he cleared his throat, embarrassment surfacing.

Haruhi started laughing. "He wanted to know if his voice would be heard through his soundproofing, but forgot that the window was open and scared a pedestrian."

"It gets hot in there!" Shion exasperated, purposefully keeping the fact that his scream went up in pitch because of a spider.

Ryoji calmed down and joined in on the laughter before things calmed down.

"Hey, Shion?"

"Hmm?"

"Do you want to come with me to the shopping district on Sunday? The club wants to know what a commoner's life is like." Haruhi air quoted with a roll of her eyes and Shion absently wondered if they have experienced her not-very-common sass yet.

"Around what time?"

"From eleven to whenever. Tamaki didn't specify."

"Hmm... Sorry, I have plans, though you might find a surprise while you're there… Hopefully," he added as an afterthought.

"What do you mean, surprise?" Shion left without answering Haruhi's question, an eager shit-eating grin on his face. "Shion?"

Haruhi had a hunch that he was up to no good.

• • • • • •

Looking through his wardrobe, Shion found some clothes that he had never worn to school as of yet. A long-sleeved deep red turtleneck with a long, gray patterned cardigan. Simple black pants and shoes would do for the rest.

"I think this'll be good enough. Now for my hair..." He brought out his phone and looked up a hair salon. He dialled the number, "Hello? I'd like to book an appointment. It's just to straighten and cut. Yes, if I could have it booked around nine-thirty this Sunday? No, before noon. Yes... Yes... Thank you, have a nice night."

"Now that, that's done..." Shion went to his studio room and went straight for his guitars. He had two, an acoustic, and an acoustic-electric. He picked his acoustic-electric along with a small amp.

He also needed an audio file of the drums and guitar—after all, he couldn't play two instruments at once. Even if he didn't have a drum kit, he just used a computer program for the instruments he couldn't play. He would have to record the guitar parts he wouldn't be able to play and have it as an MP3 like the drums. For the next day, he didn't leave his apartment. He just recorded and edited the timing on whatever parts he would need for the songs that he would play.

• • • • • •

Yawning, he looked at the clock on his phone. Nine-thirty. He didn't even have anything to eat besides a muffin and a few cups of coffee the whole day, too preoccupied with his current interest to earn money.

"I guess I'll have my last shake then..." He downed the bottle and licked some off of the corner of his mouth.

Now having everything ready for his debut the next day, he was starting to feel excited. Having a shower to finish off his day, he went to bed. He needed to get up at eight to get to his appointment on time.