(no subject)

[kitsunerei88]

Title: Of Foreign Literature, Skis and Concussions
Author: kitsunerei88
Rating: PG13
Pairing: mild TamaHaru
Genre: Comedy/Romance
Summary: [Oneshot] Over winter break, Haruhi goes skiing with the Host Club. Not willingly, of course.
Warnings: Rather bizarre storytelling, or so I think. Un-beta-ed.
Disclaimer: Ouran High School Host Club is the property of Bisco Hatori. And various other companies, I’m sure.
Word Count: 1150

 

Of Foreign Literature, Skis and Concussions

 

Why? Haruhi pondered for what must have been umpteenth time, as she was forcibly dragged by the twins from her warm apartment on the cold winter afternoon and pushed into a Mercedes. Why can’t they just leave me alone, for one week?

 

Today was the last day of school before the winter break, during which Haruhi had fully intended on using for doing housework, reading foreign literature, and catching up on much needed sleep. Her plans were thwarted, however, as she discovered her father had packed her bags for her and wished her a happy trip before the twins came and dragged her into their car.

 

“Where are we going?” she asked, resentful, feeling the thud as the twins’ chauffeur dropped her bags into the trunk. She didn’t like it when her plans were ruined.

 

“The Suoh ski resort!” they chimed, Kaoru on her left and Hikaru on her right.

 

Haruhi moaned and dropped her head into her hands, as the car started moving north.

 

***

 

She was no happier when they were stuffing her into a snowsuit and slapping skis onto her feet. She had not been surprised to see the other members of the Host Club waiting for them at the mountain villa, and had not been pleased to see them either.

 

“These boots are stiff,” she complained, as the twins pulled her outside, twin snowboards under their arms. “I can’t move my feet.”

 

“That’s to keep you from breaking your ankles,” they explained to her cheerfully.

 

Oh, wonderful. This was definitely not turning out to be the holiday she wanted.

 

***

 

She was no happier when she fell down for the thirtieth time, rolling a spectacular extra fourteen meters down the slope. She pulled herself up, and trudged back up to retrieve her lost skis; for some reason, they always seemed to be the first thing to go when she fell, though probably that was a good thing. Honey-senpai had regaled her with a tale about one of his classmates who had broken his leg in three places because his skis had not come off when he fell.

 

It did not improve her mood to watch the twins one-upping each other, performing tricks on their snowboards. Nor did it improve her mood to watch Honey-senpai navigate the slope expertly on his snowblades, Mori-senpai following the smaller boy on skis. Kyouya executed a perfect parallel stop beside her as she watched them.

 

“You slow down and stop,” he informed her mildly, “by pointing your skis inward towards each other.”

 

“That’s not what you did,” Haruhi pointed out.

 

“Parallel stops are harder. Point your skis toward each other to stop.” He turned and continued down the hill, catching up easily with Tamaki further down the slope. Tamaki seemed to interrogate him frantically, to which Kyouya seemed to respond calmly; though Haruhi couldn’t hear what they were saying, it was obvious that Tamaki was making sure that she was all right. He had stopped and checked on her at least seventeen of the thirty times she had fallen, after all.

 

Haruhi sighed and waved at them to go on, before banging her foot on the ski in an attempt to make it fix itself back on her boot. It took at least four tries before it stuck.

 

***

 

“M’fine,” Haruhi tried to reassure Tamaki, and was frustrated as her words come out confused and exhausted. That tree had come out of nowhere, she’d swear it! It wasn’t there a minute ago! “T’was tree’s fault,” she murmured into his jacket as he propped her up. “Stupid trees. Should warn people before jumping out at them.”

 

“It sounds like she’s knocked herself silly.” She heard Kyouya’s voice as he whooshed to a stop beside them. “Better take her back and get the doctor to check her; she might have a concussion.”

 

“Don’t have a concussion,” Haruhi tried to tell him, but the world was spinning. She shut her eyes.

 

“I’ll take her back,” she heard Tamaki reply worriedly. “You tell the others that she’s okay; I’ll stay with her.”

 

Kyouya must have nodded his assent, because Haruhi heard him slide away. “S’not fair,” she muttered incoherently as Tamaki pulled her into a standing position. “No one else fell down, just me. Trees hate me. All because I wanted to spend winter break at home reading foreign literature.”

 

***

 

Haruhi huddled under the blanket in front of the fireplace, a warm mug of hot chocolate in her hands. Skiing sucked, she was sure of that now. The doctor had reassured Tamaki that she probably did not have a concussion, and told him to watch her for the rest of the evening and night, and wake her up at least once every two hours to make sure she was still coherent. Haruhi was confident that he intended to follow those rules to the letter.

 

“I hate skiing,” she told him as he returned with a stack of books from the private library in the villa. “And trees.” She turned to gaze into the fire.

 

“Really?” Tamaki sounded unsure, and sad. Unsure, she could understand; he probably wasn’t entirely sure if she was herself yet or not. “I love skiing; it reminds me of France.”

 

Surprised, she turned to see a smile on his face. His eyes were trained downward on one of the books on the pile “I love the snow, and the sound that my skis make going down the slope, and the cold wind and the sun,” he said distantly. “And I love the hot chocolate, and reading by the fireplace afterwards in the lodge.” He sat down beside her on the rug in front of the fireplace. “Here,” he said, passing her one of the books on his pile. “Didn’t you say you wanted to spend winter break reading foreign literature?”

 

Surprised, Haruhi glanced down at the book he had given her. Candide, by Voltaire. An unabridged version, she saw. Moreover, it was an unabridged, untranslated version.

 

“I tried to find a copy of Le Petit Prince,” he continued, his tone uncertain. “But I must have left it at home. It’s my favourite,” he misinterpreted her surprise, “but I thought maybe you’d like Candide.”

 

“Tamaki,” Haruhi started, trying to keep herself from laughing. “I can’t read in French. When I said foreign literature, I meant either translated or in English. I can’t read in any other language.”

 

“Oh.” Tamaki blinked in surprise, and smiled. “Then I’ll read it to you.”

 

Before Haruhi could interrupt, he’d opened Candide and started, translating easily from French to Japanese.

 

“There was in Westphalie, in the house of the Baron of Thunder-ten-tronckh, a young man to whom nature had given the gentlest qualities . . .”

 

Maybe, Haruhi thought, as she let Tamaki’s voice paint the picture of an old mansion, and a simple young man, and a beautiful girl, this holiday wouldn’t be too bad.

 

Fin

 

Author’s Notes: Yay, for a last minute entry that I wrote just now! I always wanted to write a Tamaki who was clearly and evidently French. After all, he grew up in France until he was fourteen, so I think he would be in some respects, very French. It would be reasonable to assume that he would speak and write perfect French, and he would probably be Catholic. . . There’s one picture of him in which he wears a cross on the cover of Volume 2, so I can dream! Oddly enough, I’m not religious in the least; I just think that Tamaki should be Catholic because most French are.

 

Yes, that actually is the first line of Candide, that I translated myself from my own copy. After I ran around my house going “Where did my copy of Le Petit Prince go?!” before I realized I left it at school. At the very least, I found my copy of Candide, so I didn’t have to reference something that no one’s ever heard of, like Les Têtes à Papineau or anything.

 

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