Mute Or Just Scared? (Mitsukuni 'Honey' Haninozuka Love Story)

The Tiger And The Bell

Since I'd spoken in front of Taiga and Chika, I had to explain everything. And by explaining, I mean I wrote it down and showed it to them. The only reason I'd been able to say Kiseki's name was because I hadn't thought about it when I'd done it. So I didn't even know I was saying it until I'd said it.

But I had made it clear that I wanted to change that. That part seemed to interest the two. Both Taiga and Chika agreed to help with that. Though I wasn't entirely sure why those two would want to help me in the first place. I did have a theory though.

Chika seemed to be fond of animals, but he seemed reluctant to admit it. I figure it was because he has to maintain a tough reputation. So maybe because I knew that, this was his way of making sure I kept that little bit of information to myself.

Taiga was the one I didn't know about. She was in the same class as me, but outside of that, I really knew nothing about her. But she seemed like someone I could trust.

It's been three days since the day I met them. Every day, Taiga would meet me before school. She would talk to me and I would try to talk back. So far, there had been little progress. But I was slowly growing more and more used to Taiga being around.

"So you still haven't been to the Host Club?" she asked me as we were walking through the hallways. To be honest, I hadn't even known there was a Host Club. I didn't even know what a Host Club was. We didn't have anything like that at Lobelia.

I shook my head while mouthing the word no. That had been one of Taiga's ideas. If I could get myself used to saying the words without the sound, it would make it easier when I tried to add the sound to the words. I wasn't entirely sure if it would actually work, but it was worth a try.

"Then the two of us will go right now!" she laughed, linking her arm with mine and dragging me off. As she dragged me along, she described the Hosts for me. "Kyoya's the cool type, he's always really calm. Tamaki's the princely type. He says a bunch of cheesy lines that make most of the girls go nuts. Then there are the twins. They have the little twincest, brotherly love thing they do. And there's Honey and Mori. Honey is so sweet and loves cake. And Mori hardly ever speaks, but he looks after Honey kinda like a big brother."

Her explanations were very simple. I didn't really know any of them, though a couple of names sounded familiar. Couldn't quite remember where I'd heard them before though. "Since this is your first time and you're kinda shy and all, I'd recommend Kyoya or Honey and Mori. Which one do you want?"

We ended up picking Honey and Mori. When I'd first come here, I'd had no idea that it was the Host Club. My first day here and I'd walked right into it without even knowing it. That explained why the names had sounded familiar to me. Though I was quite shocked when I realized who Honey and Mori were.

"Hi Suzu-chan!" Mitsukuni's cheerful voice greeted me. I was a little surprised by how childish his voice sounded now compared to how it had been before. Though I guess the situation before had been a little different. "You aren't going to read your scary manga today?"

I flinched a little when he mentioned that. No one really knew about that I read those. I hadn't even to Taiga about that. It's not a scary manga... I mouthed the words, but only Takashi seemed to notice.

"You know them Suzu? You didn't tell me that," Taiga laughed, poking my shoulder.

I didn't know. Taiga noticed my response this time and handed me her notebook and pencil so I could write out what I wanted to say.

After a while of talking (and writing), I began to realize that this side of Mitsukuni was quite adorable. Of course, it was strange to me because he'd seemed different when I'd first met him. I wanted to ask about it, but I had a feeling it would be better not to ask.

As I thought about it more, I began wondering which of the two he really was. Could this childish and cute boy be the real Mitsukuni? Or was it the kind, mature one his real self? Regardless, I found I liked him.

"Hey Suzu, are you blushing?" Taiga's voice teased, causing me to let slip a startled squeak. She just laughed at me as I realized that I had been. "Hehe... Does our little Suzu have a crush on a certain host sitting with us?" I gave her a glare before denying it.

Taiga let it go, but I was certain she would bring it up later. But she didn't mention it. "Oh yeah, were you still meeting with you-know-who after this?" she asks, reminding me of my plans for today.

Before I could answer her, it seemed like she'd caught the attention of the cute blonde boy. "Who are you meeting today, Suzu-chan?" If he were anyone else, you might think that statement would make him sound jealous. But since he had that sweet and innocent personality, it was merely innocent curiosity. Though I didn't really want to say who it was.

"Oh, just a friend of hers. A guy friend," Taiga said tauntingly, causing Mitsukuni to give her a puppy dog face.

"Aww... it's not nice to tease Tai-chan."

I promised I wouldn't tell anyone I was meeting up with him. I'm supposed to help him with homework. I quickly wrote out the explanation, which was only half true.

Chika had made me promise not to tell anyone about our meeting. But really, there were two reasons were meeting up. The main reason being that he was teaching me a little karate. At Lobelia, we hadn't had a Karate Club, and I'd never really had much of a chance to learn on my own before.

If I wanted to, I could bribe Chika into it by threatening to tell everyone about his fondness for cute animals. But I wasn't like that. Which leads us to the other reason we would meet: Kiseki. Chika had liked him and after he was done teaching me for the day, we head back to my house with Taiga and see Kiseki. We'd only done this twice of course, since I'd only been here about a week now.

As Taiga walked with me to meet Chika, she had an idea. "Hey Suzu, why don't we have ourselves a little girls' night? You know, like a sleepover."

I hesitated. At Lobelia, I'd never really had any friends. So I'd never really done anything like that before. The closest I'd ever come to anything like that was reading little scenes like that in a manga.

Noticing my hesitation and guessing the issue like normal, Taiga knew what to say to convince me. "It'll be fun, I promise. You can even bring Kiseki too." I smiled and nodded before running off to meet my other friend.