Ouran's Genius

Another day

Chapter 17

The next day, Arianne had made up for her lost sleep by sleeping for almost twelve hours but that meant she was going to be late again if she didn't run to school. This time she grabbed her homemade lunch that was supposedly for the day before, before anything and then rushed to the door. She was stopped at the gate by Mary, a small lady in her early forties with black hair and a rounded belly, who gave her a container full of muesli, fruit and yogurt for breakfast. Arianne thanked her and continued on her way to school. As she passed the Ootori mansion she saw a limousine turning a few blocks away and began sprinting as fast as she could, hoping she wasn't wrong in assuming it was Kyoya. When she turned to the left where she had seen the limousine turn she saw it was still stopped at the light and wanted to turn right, in the direction of her school, she prayed nobody was accompanying Kyoya on his way to school and rushed to the back door. She knocked on the window, slightly out of breath and as the window rolled down she caught Kyoya's surprised expression. A quick glance proved that he was in fact alone working on his computer and Arianne smiled in relief.

"Good morning Kyoya! You wouldn't mind taking me to school would you? Pretty please with a cherry on top?"

"Good morning to you too Arianne. Not at all, get in" he replied as he opened the door and let her sit in front of him. As he closed the door behind her, the limo turned right and Arianne let out a relieved sigh. "A host should never be late to school" he reprimanded with a small glint of amusement in his eyes and Arianne grinned at him, which only made him smile.

"I know, I overslept is all, after all, I don't have maids to wake me up and I forgot to put my alarm last night because I was too tired. But at least you were here to save the day. This is perfect because I actually wished to speak to you of the dinner party"

"Oh, Haruhi managed to get a hold of you?"

"Yes, she went to the supermarket where I work. I mentioned we should make the guests write down their guesses on some platform so we can be sure they don't change their answers."

"That sounds reasonable, it is good that I am working on the preparations now" he said and typed something into is computer.

"I also thought that at the beginning we should provide some sort of entertainment so everybody could have an opening conversation topic."

"Very reasonable, but it will cost us more and the entrance tickets are already barely more expensive to make a profit, and if we raise the prices, the people coming will lessen, we already have to pay the theatre club, even though they were the ones who wanted to practice their improvisation"

"Not if we get the members of the club to do something. I'm sure Tamaki wouldn't mind playing the piano"

"Yes, and if I recall correctly we met in Music Room #3 after an amazing performance by you. You and Tamaki could practice something together" Arianne blushed but nodded reluctantly knowing it would appease Kyoya if not only the performance would be free, but not left to Tamaki alone. Kyoya then typed some more on his computer and they drifted into a comfortable silence. It was much better than last time Arianne had joined Kyoya for a ride and she was grateful she had developed a closer relation with him, even though it wasn't much. She recalled she had offered to help with the expenses and she moved seats to see what he was doing. Kyoya went to close his computer quickly but Arianne stopped him and looked over his estimates for the cost of the whole thing. She corrected two of them by explaining he had made some wrong calculations and then looked at him.

"There is a new shop on 83rd that sells fine materials, and since they are but starting out, ordering a large quantity can be easily negotiated for a much lower price than using the school's team of seamstresses for the masks and our costumes. And instead of hiring so many people to put up the decorations and clean up afterwards, I can do that. Also, I can get much cheaper ingredients with them still being of high quality if you let me bargain with some people I know. Meanwhile as we save so much money you can keep the price of entry where it is and we'll make a huge profit without ripping off our classmates"

Kyoya looked at her shocked but nodded and wrote down the details Arianne would be taking care of. It wasn't long until they reached the school and they headed in together after thanking the driver, who seemed a little bit surprised at Arianne's appearance in the limo, since the back of the car was soundproof when the glass separating them was pulled up.

Arianne thanked Kyoya profusely and he told her not to worry about it and she smiled at him which made him blush lightly. He then stalked off to class so Arianne did the same. When she got to class the twins were teasing Haruhi and she looked very uncomfortable. When Haruhi caught sight of Arianne, she rushed up to her.

"Arianne! Thank God you got here, these shady twins are annoying me" she complained and the twins snickered as they came up behind her.

"You should have told us to stop then" said Kaoru

"As if that would do anything" scoffed Arianne amused and Kaoru sent her a wink.

"If we did stop then it would be no fun" said Hikaru and Haruhi hit him on the arm.

"It shouldn't be fun in the first place!" Hikaru yelped and Kaoru and Arianne laughed as they started out the school day.