terajk

Title: Bargain-Hunting
Rating: G
Fandom: Ouran High School Host Club
Ship: Haruhi/Tamaki
Kink: Class fantasies
Contains: Nothing explicit, but underage characters in kinky situations.
Word count: 523+
Summary: “Senpai, are these all…coupons?”

On Sunday morning, having arrived bright and early at the Fujioka apartment, he presents a small box like one would keep a necklace in, but deeper. “Senpai,” Haruhi says, voice thick and sleepy, “are these all…coupons?”

“I spent all month clipping them for you!” Without thinking, Tamaki emphasizes the verb in that sentence slightly. He's never had occasion to use it before in this way. “Did you know they even have coupons for instant coffee? It was amazing!”

“A lot of them are probably expired, then.”

Haruhi…doesn’t like his present?

Haruhi doesn’t like his present.

Haruhi doesn’t like his present.

Haruhi's happiness is gone–evaporated into nothing–and it’s like someone took away the sun. How fitting, then, that he should sit depressed in Haruhi's shadow.

"Get up, Senpai."

Is that a hint of softness in Haruhi's voice? Of forgiveness? He jumps up, snaps his fingers. “Well, get your shoes, Haruhi! Let’s be off!”

“Huh?” Haruhi is wearing sweatpants. They’re much too big, with a drawstring in the middle, topped off with a baggy shirt featuring the name of a university he hasn't heard of, which he is certian Haruhi has never attended. (Are the Fujiokas so poor Haruhi has to steal clothing out of other people’s garbage?!) Haruhi is wearing glasses and adjusts them. “Off to where, Tamaki-senpai?”

“To the supermarket, of course! Quick–before the other commoners buy everything!” Haruhi is always leaving club activities early or arriving late because of some sale or other. It must be a dangerous business, chasing bargains, and a father’s duty is to look after his child.

Haruhi sighs, clearly jaded after years of scrabbling for food. “But it’s seven in the morning. The store doesn’t open for another two hours.”

***

People watch as he gets out of the Royce; he flashes smiles at them, waves with one hand and opens Haruhi’s door with the other. “Couldn’t we have walked?” Haruhi asks, climbing out.

“Is walking to the supermarket a peasant custom?”

“Yes,” Haruhi says after a pause. “Yes, it is.”

Of course! They’d walked to the supermarket with Haruhi’s father! How could he have forgotten?!

“You don’t need to blanch like that,” Haruhi says, taking his hand. “It’s just the supermarket.”

Seeing food in its natural state–unprepared, unadulterated–fills him with a joy he can’t describe. Boxes of tofu, commoner’s ramen, sheets of nori in resealable bags. (Resealable bags!) There’s something so pure about food that the chef hasn’t touched, hasn’t softened and tweaked for his palate. The supermarket is Wonderland and reality all at once, the way the host club should be.

And Haruhi? Haruhi is the Cheshire Cat to his Alice. “100 yen." The whisper echoes his wonderment. Haruhi's fingers trail reverently through the coupons. “Damn.”

Together they walk through the aisles, filling their little basket: dashi stock, green onions, broccoli and carrots; chicken; wasabi peas; bags of shrimp and crab meat; matcha energy bars for Mori-senpai; shichimi rice cakes for Kyoya; Pocky and Yan-Yan and Hi-Chew and chocolate cake for Honey-senpai.

“I hope you’re planning on carrying all this,” Haruhi says.

“For you,” he says, offering his Haruhi a box of fresh strawberries like a rose.