FicWad

Part 1.

Rose was first out the TARDIS door to sneak a glimpse outside and see where they had ended up this time. With a ship that could travel anywhere in space and to any time you cared to imagine, their destinations were always a surprise. Though the main surprise seemed to be how often they ended up on Earth, really.

Bright light filled the corridor that was visible through the crack in the door. Rose opened the door further and got out. The air was clean and what few sounds she could hear were of peaceful activity. She walked past the curtain that concealed the TARDIS from casual view.

Rose wasn't sure if they had landed behind the curtain through happy accident or deft piloting on the Doctor's part - most likely the former - but it came in handy. It would probably provoke some questions if a large blue wooden box, which was how the TARDIS appeared on the outside, suddenly appeared in a corridor. Then again, maybe it didn't matter so much. The TARDIS' camouflage mostly relied on that very peculiar human trait of wilful denial. If something looked out of place enough, everyone would just treat it as if it wasn't there at all. And a blue wooden box with 'Police Public Call Box' written on it was extremely out of place nearly everywhere. At least, that was the explanation the Doctor tended to use when asked why the 'disguise' worked at all.

They were on Earth again, or so it appeared. She supposed the long, wide corridor with high and many-paned windows could have occurred on many other planets. But through those windows she could see a clock tower that looked suspiciously like Big Ben's, and the face of the clock had Roman numerals. Somehow she doubted those would occur on whichever random planet you cared to mention.

She walked over to the windows and looked outside properly. Ornamental ponds and formal gardens filled the sunlit view below, with two wings of what was probably the same building they were in just on the edges of her vision. The tower was close by, but these gardens weren't to be found anywhere near the Houses of Parliament. So, not Westminster, then. Not like this corridor looked like it belonged there anyway.

"Enjoying the view?" The Doctor joined her at the window, hands in his pockets as usual. He raised his eyebrows as he caught sight of the view below. "Hmm. Not bad at all. Bit too formal for my tastes, though."

"Just trying to find out where we are. Any ideas?"

The Doctor directed his eyes upward. One hand slipped from a pocket and started scratching behind one of his ears instead, mussing the already untidy brown hair even further in the process. "Well," he began, and simultaneously he started looking around further, at whatever fixtures presented themselves in the corridor. "I traced that anomaly back to the early twenty-first century, so that's when we are. We should only be out by a couple of days. As to where..." He walked along the corridor to one of the ornate doors. Then he fished out his spectacles to read the sign hanging over it. "Probably Japan."

Rose also looked up at the sign. The symbols on it were blocky and unfamiliar, but they quickly resolved themselves into English. From the Doctor's comments, the sign must originally have been in Japanese. Another feature of the TARDIS. Beyond being capable of travelling both in time and space, it also formed a connection with its occupants, translating most written and spoken languages. The existence of that connection had freaked Rose out when she'd first found out about it, so long ago now, but it was very useful in cases such as this. Because Japanese itself might as well have been Raxacoricofallapatorian for all that she could understand of either language. The sign read 'Third Music Room'.

In the time it had taken her to approach the door and read the sign, the Doctor had returned his glasses to the inside pocket of his brown pinstriped jacket and shot another glance around the hall. "This door seems as good as any other. Let's take a look, shall we?" And with that, he pushed down the handle to open the door. The door was snatched out of his hands, opening fully without apparent further assistance. Ripples of harp strings sounded while rose petals floated past on a slight breeze.

"Welcome, strangers, to our elegant Host Club," a voice greeted them. When she'd overcome her astonishment, Rose saw that it belonged to a young man with blond hair that seemed to glitter in the overhead lights. He had been seated in a graceful pose with four other boys, all in the same blue jackets and black trousers, standing around him. Now he stood up and approached Rose and the Doctor as if he were dancing towards his objective. He halted about three feet away from them, put a hand to his chest and bowed. "Standing before you is Suoh Tamaki, King and founder of this eminent society. How may we serve, sir and madam?"

He was quick with his assumptions, wasn't he? Rose saw the Doctor open his mouth to answer the boy, but before he could do so, the self-proclaimed king continued: "If you both have come to judge Ouran Academy's facilities, it would be my honour to assure you that, even in her idle hours, any daughter of yours will be secure and entertained." He danced back to the other boys, snatching a rose out of one of the vases filled with them while he did so. "Our members consider it their duty to brighten the life of every guest that presents themselves to us."

He waved the rose around as if it were a conducting an orchestra with it. "Allow me to introduce them! First, the Hitachiin brothers, Hikaru and Kaoru!" Two of the boys, both with red hair and clearly twins, stepped forward, raised their thumbs and winked at Rose. Then one swung the other into a tango dip. Up until that point, the two had been exact mirror images, not just in their movements, but also in looks.

Tamaki paused for breath to continue his introductions. He was interrupted by the same rippling harps that had greeted Rose and the Doctor when they had opened the door. Rose petals were wafted across the room again.

The effect was rather spoiled by the harsh bang of the door slamming shut. Two people had entered, again in the same clothing as the five members of this 'Host Club'. One, taller than the Doctor and with short, spiky black hair, stood with his back to the door, breathing hard. The other, short and blond and clutching a pink bunny, was already halfway across the large room, crying and shouting "Haru-chan, Haru-chan!" He ran to the brown-haired young boy Tamaki had been about to introduce and buried his face in the other boy's chest.

"Honestly, when will you people learn to come on time?" The only one of the room's original occupants that hadn't had any introduction at all yet now spoke up. He moved over to a box next to the door and flipped a switch. The harp music stopped and the rose petals drifted to the floor. He changed hands on his clipboard to push rimless glasses back up his nose. "You're lucky we haven't got any guests. Think about how an entrance like this would have upset the ladies."

"Kyoya..." Tamaki started before swallowing the rest of his comment and illustrating his point by wildly indicating the tableau formed by the two young boys.

The one addressed as Haru had untangled himself from the little blond boy's embrace and was now on one knee, brushing at the tears on his face. "Honey-senpai, what's the matter?" Rose saw the Doctor focus his attention on the two young boys and started paying closer attention as well.

The kid was still sniffing too much to reply, but the young man who had slammed the door was now standing next to him. He answered, a single word in a deep bass tone, almost a grunt: "Nekozawa."

"Nekozawa?" repeated almost the entire group of boys with the exception of Kyoya, across whose entirely placid expression flashed a hint of annoyance. Rose was the only one to notice this, however. Everyone else, including the Doctor, remained focused on Honey and the young man.

Honey nodded while wiping away the remnants of his tears. "He was being extra scary today."

This caused various expressions of shock, especially on the face of Tamaki, who was pouring with sweat and looked ready to start declaiming his woes for all to hear.

Kyoya interrupted him before he had a chance to begin. "While I am certain that the matter of Nekozawa-senpai acting more frighteningly than usual is one that concerns us," he said, inclining his head to the little boy, "there are some matters that require more immediate attention, I feel." He turned to face the Doctor and Rose. "You, for instance." He spoke at an even tone without any particular expression. "Ouran Academy is an institute of education for the extremely wealthy and influential. You are not, by age, dress or behaviour, the parents of any prospective student here." He moved his head slightly to check his notes, and now the light reflecting off his spectacles made it impossible to see his eyes. This only served to make him even more expressionless. "Nor are you new teachers, for there are no positions open. Even if there were, you do not seem to meet the standards of this school." He paused. "This leaves me with two pertinent questions: Who are you, and why are you here?"

The rest of the group had changed formation. The young boy that had dried Honey's tears had been forced to the back of the group by Tamaki and the twins, while Honey and the tall young man had taken a step forward, their postures now alert. Kyoya stepped aside so that he was no longer between them and the Doctor.

The sudden switch in focus felt a little threatening to Rose, but it didn't faze the Doctor. He just smiled. "Thought you'd never ask. Yes, hello." He waved, then nodded at each member of the club in turn. "I'm the Doctor, and this young lady," he put his hand on Rose's shoulder, "is Miss Rose Tyler." He stuck his hands back in his pockets before continuing, now pacing in front of the group. "As to why we're here, now that might be a bit harder to explain. I could go into all sorts of philosophical arguments." He stopped and faced the group again. "But you were in the middle of an interesting conversation there." He looked at Honey questioningly. "What was this about someone acting strangely?"

"Kindly do not try to change the subject." Kyoya's interruption once again forestalled an exclamation by Tamaki. He looked away from the Doctor for a second to placate the boy who had proclaimed himself king of this little club. "Tamaki, it is my estimation that we had better investigate these strangers..." Kyoya trailed off, then quickly turned his head to look at the Doctor. "'The Doctor', did you say?"

"That's right." The Doctor's eyes followed Kyoya as the boy slowly walked around both him and Rose. From behind the glasses, Rose could see Kyoya's eyes fixed on the Doctor, carefully taking in the whole picture from messed up brown hair through shabby brown pinstriped suit to downtrodden tennis shoes. Rose found his reaction very odd, especially since the face beneath the glossy black hair still betrayed no emotion.

Clearly she wasn't the only one to think that, because when Kyoya was just about halfway, Tamaki interrupted. "Kyoya, what's wrong?" He was speaking for the whole Host Club, because the rest looked just as shocked as he did.

"Nothing," was Kyoya's initial reaction. After a glance at the Host Club's faces, he explained further. "There is an Ohtori family legend about a Westerner who helped drive out evil spirits. He called himself 'The Doctor'. When I researched that, I found many references to this person in other stories, mainly in Europe but also in Asia. Most are very incomplete." He returned to his inspection of the Doctor, but also continued his explanation. "Descriptions of the Doctor vary wildly, but this person does match one of them. There are also a few mentions of other methods of identification." He took two steps closer to the Doctor and extended his hand. "If you will permit me?"

The Doctor raised his eyebrows and extended a hand as well. Kyoya took it and then pressed two of his fingers to the inside of the Doctor's wrist. After about thirty seconds during which the silence in the room became almost oppressive, he stepped back. Then the silence was broken by gasps of surprise from some of the Host Club members as Kyoya released the Doctor's hand and gave a slight bow. "My apologies for the intrusion, Doctor-sensei. It is an honour to meet you."

The Doctor looked a little uncomfortable with the display of humility, but he recovered quickly enough. "The honour is mine, Ohtori-sama." He grinned at Kyoya. "Congratulations on your research. I see I'll have to cover my tracks a bit better in future."

"We'd hate to interrupt, but," one of the twins started, while both of them pointed to the door. "There are people here," the other continued. In the doorway a number of girls in yellow dresses had appeared, so far unnoticed because Kyoya had disabled the harps and roses that normally greeted them and that would have alerted the Host Club to their presence.

Tamaki tore his eyes away from the Doctor and Kyoya to follow the twins' indication. Then he exclaimed: "Ladies and gentlemen, we have guests! Fascinating as this conversation is, we must attend to our duties." He danced over to the door to greet the girls. "Enter, enter, princesses mine." He emptied a nearby vase of its roses by distributing them among the girls. Some of them reacted to this attention by nearly swooning. "Take these pale reflections of your beauty as tokens of our regret that you should have waited. Your hosts will join you shortly."

~~~

What had been the most strange about the whole thing, Fujioka Haruhi decided, was Kyoya-senpai's reaction. It seemed so strange for the aloof and calculating vice-president of the Host Club - also known as the Shadow King - to humble himself so before a stranger, though the stranger obviously wasn't quite as strange to Ohtori Kyoya as he was to the rest of the Host Club. Of course, that had only spurred on the curiosity of the other Host Club members, who now seemed more occupied with the two strangers than their designated clients.

Kyoya-senpai actually seemed least affected by the strangers' presence. Upon noticing the two's discomfort with the hordes of curious girls, he had quickly and efficiently arranged for a more private table. The curtains that concealed the musical instruments the Host Club had no use for but couldn't throw out because they were school property served perfectly well to conceal their new guests as well. Kyoya had also appointed Haruhi, who hadn't been specifically designated by any of the Host Club's customers at that point, to look after them.

This didn't stop the rest of the club members throwing curious looks over to the curtain and calling Haruhi - busy fetching the tea the two strangers had requested -- over to ask about their guests. Tamaki-senpai especially seemed preoccupied with them, not that that was particularly strange. Tamaki's ability to focus all of his attention and charm on a single subject was largely responsible for making him the most popular of the hosts. But it also hampered him, because if there was something occupying his mind other than the guests at hand, he had trouble tuning this out to the point of neglecting his responsibilities. Haruhi had been the target of such obsessive tendencies often enough to know that it just didn't stop being annoying. The guest seemed not to mind, though. They were taken in by his every word when he turned his attention back to them.

Attention which was currently being expended uselessly on the unyielding curtain and Haruhi, who was now close enough to the curtain to hear the conversation going on behind it. Unlike the Japanese the strangers had spoken in their few words to the Host Club, this conversation was in English. Not all the words made sense, but Haruhi could pick up the gist of the conversation anyway.

"A school club where guys entertain girls for money? That's sick."

"It seems to be entirely voluntary to me. And with people this rich, they can probably do what they like. That's capitalism for you."

"But they're just /kids/."

"/Teens/, Rose. And you're not that much older. Three, four years, maybe? What were you getting up to at that age?" The remark was followed by an exclamation of pain and a laugh from the Doctor that Miss Tyler echoed soon after.

Haruhi pushed through the slit in the curtains at that moment, interrupting the conversation. The Doctor was still rubbing his right shoulder, although the expression on his face was playful rather than pained. He greeted Haruhi with a wide grin and switched to Japanese without even blinking. "Ah, tea!"

"We're all in high school," Haruhi tried to reassure the strangers, "and there's nothing indecent happening."

Miss Tyler was looking out through the small gap in the curtain, a dubious look on her face. The gap just admitted a view of Hitachiin Kaoru in the arms of his brother, almost kissing him. The girls around them were, as usual, nearly fainting at the sight.

Haruhi followed her gaze and smiled. "Okay, those two are a bit strange, but they're not doing anything they don't want to, and the guests like it."

The young woman apparently wasn't convinced. "What about the little one with the bunny? He can't be much over twelve, can he? And you look pretty young yourself."

"Honey-senpai is nearly eighteen years old." Haruhi put down the tea tray and poured out three cups before taking a seat. "He just doesn't want to grow up, I suppose. I'm fifteen, just like them." That was said with a nod to the twins.

"A club that turns people's eccentricities into merits. Very inventive." The Doctor smiled as he sipped at his cup. "Does this club have any other female members, then?" The remark caused a sharp look from Miss Tyler, alternating quickly between the Doctor and Haruhi.

"Not really. There is a girl who thinks she has something to say about the club, but really it's Kyoya-senpai and Tamaki-senpai who run things," Haruhi replied, completely missing the Doctor's implication.

"Hmm." The twinkle in the Doctor's eyes diminished as he turned serious. "What about Honey-san? He seemed pretty upset when he came in." He returned the cup to its saucer and placed the ensemble back on the table with a clink. "Someone was acting scary?"

"A classmate of Honey-senpai, Nekozawa-senpai. He always wears a dark wig and a black cloak over his uniform, and he's so obsessed with black magic he's created a Black Magic Club. He's always waving a voodoo cat puppet around, too." Haruhi said, shrugging. "I think it's weird, mainly, not that frightening once you get used to it. Tamaki-senpai is always scared of him." A smile. "But then he overreacts about everything."

A thought struck and Haruhi frowned. "Honey-senpai usually isn't very frightened by Nekozawa-senpai, though. That is strange."

"Strange enough for a closer look, maybe?" the Doctor interjected. Then he turned to Miss Tyler and grinned at her. "Rose, how would you like to go back to school?"