Chapter Text
It took Haruhi a few days to become oriented.
She didn't find the English as hard to understand as she'd feared, but that was likely because she'd spent the months between when she decided to come to Brekleys and when she actually departed studying English. Specifically, Australian English, because they didn't talk at all like the American English she'd been learning in middle school.
No, what she did find difficult was her part-time job.
She'd been quite happy to find they'd put her in the kitchen doing prep-work for meals. The good thing about prep-work was that she got to eat with everyone else. The bad thing was that she'd go to eat straight from the kitchen and so everyone knew she was a scholarship student.
Not that Haruhi minded other people knowing, but the fact that she was the most easily identified scholarship student made her a target for bullies.
Not they could really hurt her, but they made life annoying. She had to keep taking random routes to class in order to dodge their attempts to delay her – which left her with less time to study.
And that was criminal.
And so here she was, a month into her first year at Brekleys, skulking through the bushes rather than walking on the nice sidewalks.
"Haruhi, why are you walking through the bushes?" Chiye Koenig asked in Japanese.
Haruhi glanced up in surprise to see one of her roommates staring down at her from one of the trees.
"Probably the same reason you're in a tree?" Haruhi retorted.
A tinkling little laugh came from another tree and Haruhi looked over to see Masaye Koenig sitting on a branch. "Silly Haruhi, we may be international students like you, but we aren't on scholarships, we have no need to hide from the bullies."
"Okay, since you know why I'm here, why are you in trees?" Haruhi retorted in Japanese, getting a little annoyed. She didn't really understand her roommates. They were so obsessed with soccer that she couldn't really comprehend them. Not they had tried to get to know her, despite the fact that the administration put them all together because Haruhi was Japanese and the girls' mother was Japanese. They spent most of their time in the dorm speaking in German, which Haruhi didn't know.
"Because we're also hiding," Chiye said in Japanese.
Haruhi frowned in confusion, "Why are you hiding?"
"Well, you see-"
"-we were getting bored."
"So, we decided to-"
"-duck tape all the furniture in our science lab-"
"-to the ceiling."
"We're afraid-"
"-that we forgot-"
"-to take the security-"
"-cameras into consideration."
"And now they're looking for us," they finished in unison.
Haruhi sighed, why had she thought that she'd had smart roommates?
"You do know that you're just delaying the inevitable, don't you?" Haruhi asked.
"Oh, of course we do," replied Masaye cheerfully.
"But, we figured it would be more of a prank, if we made it hard to find us. After all, if we're going to establish ourselves as the Mischievous Koenig Twins we need to drive up our 'street' cred. Which is a little difficult at the moment because we forgot about the security cameras," said Chiye.
Haruhi understood their logic, but she was still confused. "Why do you want to be known as the Mischievous Koenig Twins?"
"Why not?" Chiye asked.
"It's something to do, we are bored, after all," Masaye added. "Aren't you?"
Haruhi shook her head, "No, I'm not. I need to get the top spot in our grade. So I HAVE to study."
Now it was the Koenig twins' turn to frown in confusion, "Why do you need the top spot? You can quit the part time job if you're one of the top three. Then the bullies will probably lose interest since they won't have the constant reminder of you eating in your work uniform."
"The bullies don't really bother me. They make my life annoying, but they can't hurt me unless I let them. I know they won't get physical. They're too worried that since I'm Japanese I'm a master at karate. Which is stupid, but I'll let them believe that since it only helps me. I need the top spot because I want the round trip ticket to Japan during the summer break. It will break my dad's heart if he doesn't get to see me."
The Koenig twins dropped out of the trees and looked at her in amazement. "Haruhi, that's the most emotion we've ever seen you convey," Masaye said.
"You must really love your father," Chiye added.
"Of course I do, all we have is each other. My mother died when I was younger."
"That's so sad!" Masaye said, tears coming to her eyes.
"Can we help you?" Chiye asked, her eyes holding a fierce determination.
Haruhi blinked in surprise at Chiye's offer, "Why would you help me?"
The Koenig Twins looked at each other for a moment before looking back at Haruhi.
"Because-"
"-you seem like a nice person-"
"-and we haven't-"
"-been very nice-"
"-to you."
"So, you're offering to help me out of pity. No, thank you," Haruhi turned to walk away.
Immediately she found herself grabbed and spun back around to face the twins.
Chiye was the one holding on to her as Masaye came up and shook her head sadly.
"Silly, Haruhi, we aren't offering out of pity. We stopped looking at each other long enough to realize that you, our roommate, is probably just as smart as us, if not smarter. You're also very nice and have a great deal of loyalty to your father. And, we've also come to realize that you're very practical," Masaye stopped to take a breath and looked over at Chiye, who took over.
"You may be a scholarship student now, but you're definitely going places in life. We're also going places, even if we didn't have our parents to give us a head start we'd go places, because that's the type of people we are. So, why shouldn't we try and make friends with someone like us?"
"So, you want to help me and be friends with me because it makes sense?"
The girls grinned and replied together, "We also like you."
Haruhi sighed and shook her head in amusement. Who was she to argue with them?
"Sure, we can be friends. Just don't go duck taping MY things to the ceiling."
The Koenig twins laughed at that, "We promise!"