Street Rat (OHSHC)

Chapter 17

"Ah-choo!" The sound of a sneeze rang through the host club and Reichiru noticed her brothers looking towards the source. One of the girls sitting with Honey and Mori.

"Oh no, are you sick?" Honey asked, looking at the girl with wide, worried eyes.

"Oh, no, it's just a little tickle." The girl replied.

It had been around a month or two since Reichiru had started attending Ouran Academy, and winter had fallen upon the rosy school, resulting in a bunch of rosy noses in the student body, and a ton of sick students. Which meant bad news for Reichiru.

While she had been able to recover immensely from her malnourishment, though unfortunately her immune system was still extremely venerable leading her to easily get sick. The bad news was that her brothers knew of this, and had started to once again become extremely overprotective of her, every time someone 'too close' to Reichiru would cough, they would make a wall with their own bodies to protect her from the sick student, like they were doing at that moment.

She just sighed in annoyance and rested her chin in her hand, her narrowed eyes glaring out of the window. The three of them currently had no customers since they were on a small break, so she didn't have anything to do, so she lost herself in her thoughts. She hadn't seen Kasanoda at all that day, which was unusual for him- even though he was a thug, and skipping school was expected from him, Kasanoda had never skipped school- maybe a class- but not the entire day.

Flipping open her phone, she leaned back in the chair the three of them were sitting at. Going to his contact, she stood up from the seat the three of them and ignored the calls from Hikaru and Kaoru behind her. Clicking on the number, she placed the phone to her ear and listened to it ring as she walked to the changing room and sat on one of the window sills.

"Hel- hello?" A voice greeted between coughs.

"Noda? Did you get sick?" Reichiru asked.

"So what if I Did, Rei?" Kasanoda asked.

"Then I would scold you for being careless with your health." Reichiru told him in a matter-of-fact voice.

"Thanks mom." Kasanoda said with a bit of sarcasm.

"Is that attitude I hear?" Reichiru mockingly asked, hearing a raspy laugh on the other side of the phone line, hearing her best friend like this made her heart twist in pain- especially when his laughter ended with coughs that sounded like he was coughing up half a lung. "Hey, you want me to come over after hosting?" She asked softly.

"Ah, no, I wouldn't want to get you sick."

"Who cares if I get sick?" Reichiru said, "Besides, just visiting you won't make me so sick that I die."

"Well, I'd rather have you healthy-" The voice on the other side was cut off by more coughs before Kasanoda started peaking again. "Besides, your brothers would kill me if I gave you even the sniffles."

"Ah, who cares about that. I'd be able to keep them from killing you." Reichiru said. "Besides, I really want to see you, it's been boring today without you!"

"Hm? Sounds like something a girlfriend would say." Kasanoda teased.

"H-Hey!" Reichiru shouted out as her cheeks flushed up. "Listen here, mister, are you trying to insinuate something?"

Again there was laughter on the other side of the line ending with coughing, again marketing Reichiru's heart twist. "You're too easy to embarrass, Rei."

"Oh, shut up." Reichiru grumbled.

"Hey, Rei-chan! Hosting hours are over!" Honey called, peeking into the changing room with Mori. "Hika-chan and Kao-chan are waiting for you!"