Princess Ouran-Chp3

Another long day has passed and all Haruhi wanted to do right now is hole up in her room and enjoy a little alone time. She hurriedly changed into her night clothes and scrambled up on bed before grabbing one of her novels to read.

During her first hours in the manor, Kyouya took her directly into the study to meet up with the Count Hitachiin Bros. Count Hikaru Hitachiin looked like a no nonsense man, with dark strawberry-blonde hair and piercing gold eyes, and his voice was cold as ice. Count Kaoru Hitachiin, on the other hand, was a weak man. He grew his strawberry-blonde hair to let it run loosely on his shoulders, passing off as a pregnant woman and his skin seemed to be lacking of sun lately. His identical golden eyes looked tired, and he was sitting on a wheelchair beside his twin and husband with a belly that seemed like he had just swallowed a watermelon in whole. He looked almost kind, but he’s mostly drained. The pregnancy must be taking a toll on him, Haruhi thought as she tried hard not to stare too long at Count Kaoru. It’s not everyday you would see a pregnant man right in front of your eyes, you know. Haruhi couldn’t help shaking the feeling that Kaoru could almost pass off as a mirror female image of Count Hikaru, and if he hadn’t grew out his hair and was in this condition, she might not be able to tell which twin is which.

Count Kaoru didn’t talk much, but his eyes told her that she was more than welcome to be in the Hitachiin Manor and glad that she was his future daughter-in-law. Count Hikaru seemed slightly satisfied with the choice of bride that Renge-sama made, but didn’t seem too eager to want her in the family. It was as if her presence here to him was to merely keep his son alive and nothing else, and he would not hesitate to kick her out of the house and denounce her title as the Hitachiin daughter-in-law as soon as she served her purpose. After introducing herself, Haruhi was given some general ground rules by Count Hikaru while she stayed in the manor and was immediately ushered to her room by Kyouya. At least her room was a warm welcome for her; all her familiar things were there to keep her company. She understood now the reason why the strange men kept coming to take her things away.

Days in the manor was an adventure altogether. During her first week in the manor, she was quite rudely awakened by Kyouya stating that in order to promote better compatibility, Renge-sama made a house call in the middle of the night to say that Haruhi must go about dressing in masculine clothes so as to strengthen the unborn child’s spirit. Poor Haruhi had to be dragged groggily out of bed to the backyard to have her beautiful dark long tresses trimmed to resemble a boy’s hair cut and her wardrobe was immediately replaced with boys’ attire. She didn’t really mind the new hairdo—her hair needed a trim anyways—and she didn’t mind wearing boys’ clothes, as long as she had something to wear, but dragging her in the middle of Dreamland was not exactly very pleasing, not to mention finding yourself first with long flowing hair and then short-cropped one the next as soon as your brain is actually awake to figure out the whole damn thing.

Haruhi tried many attempts to look for the winged kitten she saw before, but to no avail. It was as if it just disappeared in the face of this earth. She tried everywhere but it was nowhere to be found. Sometimes she began to suspect that maybe it was all her imagination, that she really had been reading too many story books like her father nagged about. She wanted to try her luck in going to the labyrinth to look for it but the fear of getting lost again like before held her back, and she didn’t dare ask Mori to spare her some string to start her search, so she had to settle with getting along with everyone in the manor.

She got to know all the servants, maid, errand boys (Mori being one of her best friends) and the strange men, including Kyouya, in the household, and she familiarized herself with her surroundings better. Thanks to her haircut and sort of “bishounen” appearance, everyone thought their masters engaged their future Young Master to a man just as the way they married themselves, but her radiant smile and feminine voice broke all suspicions. She would occasionally help them tend the cattle, horses, sheep and chickens and join in with the cooks to make meals. Though the servants prefer that their future Young Mistress do something else rather than lowering herself with the commoners, but they appreciate her help all the same. The only person she was uneasy with was Count Hikaru. He was sort of an icy man who wouldn’t stand for any incompetence and insolence. Everything had to go his way or the highway, that’s how it’s done in the Hitachiin Manor. Count Hikaru didn’t seemed to mind Haruhi going about cleaning and cooking like a lower-class girl, most probably because he still viewed her more of a survival tool than an actual daughter-in-law, but sometimes Haruhi—even though she didn’t mind the chores—wished that he would forbade her from menial work once in a while. She was, after all, going to be the wife of his baby boy.

Despite the drawbacks, the most important thing was that she got to know Count Kaoru and her future husband a lot closer. Unlike his twin, Count Kaoru was more mature and level-headed and slightly nicer than him, and he revealed to her secretly that sometimes Count Hikaru can be a bit emotionally immature at times. Count Kaoru was in bed most of the day and could only move around on the wheelchair, so all Haruhi had to do to keep him entertained was to go to his bedroom and chat or play cards with him. Sometimes, when the baby is acting up inside Count Kaoru, Haruhi would tap lightly on his belly, whispering “My husband, my little husband” and tell him the Princess story or make up some fairy tale to calm him down. Although now, she treated Count Kaoru’s fetus as a baby brother, she knew that sooner or later she was going to treat him as her husband for years to come. She found it hard to believe that she was going to be engaged to a baby whose age is going to be 16 years younger than her. She had not even experience a first love yet, let alone being married. But there was nothing she could do but accept her fate. Times are harsh and they often called for desperate measures.

While Haruhi read her novel, she heard that familiar kitten sounds again. She knew what those sounds were. She looked around but saw nothing. She lowered down the light of her oil lamp and looked around again. Slowly but surely, she saw something peeking out from the foot of her bed. It was the winged kitten she had seen that fateful night when she first came to the mountain of Hitachiin Manor. It grinned with its naughty blue eyes shining under the pale light and its transparent wings shimmered under the moonlight that shone through her half-opened window. It flew out of its hiding place and settled onto the blanket where Haruhi’s knees were.

“You’re a rather interesting creature, aren’t you? Are you a fairy or something?” Haruhi asked.

The winged kitten mewed in reply, looking as if it was smiling at her like a kid who had a secret.

“Have you been watching me all this while? I’ve been looking for you everywhere. I wanted to see you.”

The winged kitten suddenly flew up a few inches and made a gesture to follow it. Haruhi was surprised.

“Do you want me to go with you? Where? Outside?”

The winged kitten nodded and made its way out of the window. Haruhi wasted no time. She grabbed a coat and went out of her room, down the stairs and out of the manor quieter and faster than you can say “Rumpelstilskin”. She soon realized that the winged kitten was waiting for her at the labyrinth entrance. Haruhi took a gulp. She didn’t dare set foot into it, not like the last time. What if she got lost again? What if she couldn’t find her way back to the manor? Count Hikaru would definitely go off his rockers and Count Kaoru would be upset, and everyone in the manor would be unhappy…

The winged kitten’s urging mews threw every worry she had out of the window. She would figure out what has to be done later. Right now, she needed to know what the winged kitten wanted.

It soon led her all the way to the centre of the labyrinth where there was a gorge that led almost 10 feet down the earth by a long winding flight of stone steps. As she went down the stairs with the fairy, she saw that in the middle of the gorge, she saw a flat statue of the stone face creature she had seen in the entrance standing in the middle of a spiral crevice that was almost to the brim with rain water and dew. To be more exact, it was the full scale statue of the creature from head to toe, looking like something very out-worldly. It had the same facial features portrayed at the entrance and a body that stood almost twice her height and it was like one of those neko demons she had studied in books about ancient folklore. She had never seen statues or creatures like this, not even in her story books. On the walls of the gorge there were millions upon millions of vines and moss growing through every nook and cranny, like it had been growing there since the dawn of time.

The winged kitten took off and disappeared mysteriously into the darkness of the wall, leaving Haruhi to fend for herself in the dark, dripping gorge. Haruhi got a little nervous being left alone in there.

“Hello? Anybody here? Hello?”

“It’s you!”

Haruhi spun round at the raspy voice. She saw a tall creature—taller than Mori—moving towards her. As he came into the light, Haruhi found herself staring at the same creature that was portrayed by the statue, only that he was in the flesh and was walking and talking. His blonde fur all over his body was illuminated by the creeping moonlight and he had the smell of earth around him. His body was covered with moss and vines and tiny branches with leaves were sticking out of him. His eyes were almost evil-looking with slits for the pupils, and let out a menacing glow about it. His throat let out an occasional cat’s trill and purred as he circled around Haruhi at a respectable distance, rubbing his paws together like someone planning a plot. His feet made no sound as he walked, and his tail swoshed about with glee. Haruhi was speechless staring at this oddity, and above all else, afraid.

“Oh, it’s you, you have returned, my dear!” the creature said in his happy, raspy voice. Noticing that Haruhi looked petrified and backing away from him, he quickly calmed her down, “Oh please, do not be frightened, I beg you. Here, look.”

So saying, he produced a cloak from thin air and wrapped himself around it. His features slowly receded from his cat’s features and turned to a more human look. As Haruhi watched, she saw the half-man-half-cat transformed from its monstrous self into a very beautiful-looking man with blonde hair and blue eyes. Then something grew about his golden locks like a dark wig and immediately hid his beautiful face. He still looked menacing with that huge dark cloak and black hair, like one of the kids who played a dark black magic sorcerer in the school play back when she was still studying in a regular school, but at least it was less creepy than having a huge cat that walked on two legs hovering about you like prey. She soon stopped being afraid and braved herself to come nearer towards the creature.

“What’s with the get up?” Haruhi asked as she pointed at the cloak and wig.

“My transformation into human form leaves me vulnerable to human light,” the creature replied. “This is a magical gimmick to protect myself from such things.”

“Well, uh…my name is Haruhi Fujioka. What’s yours?”

“Me?” the creature asked, then huffed and replied, “I’ve had many names, old names that only the animals can pronounce. I am the Lord of all things feline. But for me to assimilate life in the human world in search for you, I am called Umehito Nekozawa, your most humble servant, Your Highness.”

Haruhi felt awkward looking at the creature who called himself Umehito Nekozawa bowing down at her, “No, I’m…”

“You are Princess Ouran, daughter of the king of Ouran, the Ethereal Realm . I do not expect you to remember anyway; it has been so many centuries since we last saw you.”

“Daughter…? King of the Ouran the Ethereal Realm…? But that’s just a fairytale legend! I’m not the Princess! My father is a cross-dressing okama…”

“Bah!” Nekozawa waved away her words, as if they were all just excuses and lies. “You are not born of man, most certainly not by that gender-confused bisexual. It was the moon that bore you. Look at your left shoulder and you will find a mark that proves it.”

Haruhi glanced at where he was pointing. A mark? Now that was something she never noticed before.

“Your real father—known to the human world when he joined the search for you a few centuries ago as Tamaki Suoh—had us open portals all over the world to allow your return. This is the last of them. But we have to make sure that your essence is intact, that you have not become a mortal.”

Before she knew, Haruhi saw a huge red book in his hand together with a small pouch that felt slightly heavier than the usual money pouch she carried when she helped her mother do her groceries. Nekozawa handed it to her and said, “You must complete three tasks before the moon is full. This is the Book of Crossroads. Open it when you are alone and it will show you your future, show you what must be done.”

Haruhi opened the book tentatively, but to her surprise, the pages were empty. There was not a single word written on them and even the cover had no titles. When she looked inside the pouch, there were three stones that looked like rock sugar her father used to make sweet potato broth whenever she was sick.

“But there’s nothing on it…”

When she looked up, she found herself standing in her room near the window, the breeze blew through it and caressing gently onto her hair and skin instead of the cold, dreary gorge in the labyrinth. For a second she thought she was dreaming, but one look at the book and pouch that were still on her hands and her muddy shoes confirmed that she had not dreamt all this. It was real, and she had an important mission in hand.

Things get more and more curious by the minute.