The Scars Unseen (OHSHC)

Chapter 6- The Ball

"So Haruhi, I never asked; what's up with the outfit change? I mean, I can understand why you wouldn't want to wear the girls' uniform, it's horrible; but why did you suddenly start dressing like a gentleman?" Haruhi and I were walking down the hall carrying decorations for the ball; this week had flown by and with it came a lot of change.

"Well, it's kind of hard to explain." Haruhi grimaced as she shifted the load she was carrying, "You see, the guys mistook me for a guy when we first met, and apparently they decided that I had the potential to be a host. You know them, they saw an opportunity and they took it." I had warmed up to Haruhi a lot since we spent a good amount of our time together. I hadn't been this close to another person in years, so this was a really good feeling

"I bet their faces were priceless when they found out that you were a girl!" I chuckled at the thought of Tamaki's face at that assuredly horrifying realization. Haruhi smiled when she heard my chuckle and looked at me.

"I'm sure you can imagine it. They all found out at different times, and of course Tamaki only found out when he walked in on me dressing. The look on his face was comical, he turned bright red and had a hard time talking to me for a bit after that." I laughed again and we continued down the hall for a while in silence, then Haruhi spoke right before we got to the ballroom, "You know Risa-san, I've noticed that you've opened up a lot this last week, it's nice to see you smile." I blushed as we walked through the doors.

Haruhi's POV

It really has been good to see Risa-san smile more; when I first met her, she looked scared of just about everything. It's been really slow, but I think she is starting to feel safe around us, which is a real accomplishment.

As soon as the Host's heard about Risa-san's haphephobia, they immediately started working towards helping her overcome that. They would find reasons to touch her when they were around her, (Not like that, get your mind out of the gutter!) and that seems to have really helped. At first her face would pale and she would start shaking if someone touched her for more than a second, but now she just looked really uncomfortable and if they kept it up then she would start to pale. I decided not to join in with this, but Tamaki, the twins, and Honey were all really enjoying the challenge.

My only question is how did she get this fear? After I heard she had it, I did some research and found that people usually get haphephobia after a traumatic experience, or repeated traumatic experiences. I also found that there are varying degrees of it and, from what I saw, she had a severe case. Questions floated around in my mind, and I knew that I wasn't the only one who was wondering; knowing Kyoya he was probably just as, if not more, curious than I was.

As walked over to the decoration coordinator, (Kyoya) to find out what he wanted us to do with the boxes, we were intercepted by a pair of twins. The smirks on their faces could only mean one thing: trouble.

Risa's POV

I both loved and hated the host's mission to try and get me over my fear of touch. I could feel the fear slowly fading, but it would still take more than a week to get rid of over a year of horrible experiences. That being said, when I felt an arm slide around my shoulders and another slip around my waist, I immediately tried to get the ginger twins off me to no avail.

"Risa, we're bored." I'm pretty sure that was Hikaru.

"So, we were wondering if we could," Kauro added his portion

"Come over to your house sometime?" They said this together, which freaked me out a bit, if I'm being honest.

"No." I glared at them as I finally managed to escape their embrace.