left to my thoughts [open]

While pouting out the window, Inari registered that the chicken was moist and tender, covered in some sort of peanut sauce, and good. They hadn't ever served them with this sauce before. Or maybe they had... She couldn't remember if she'd chosen the chicken lately... With a rapid shake of her head, she pulled herself from her completely irrelevant thoughts. She wasn't a day-dreamer. Not usually. But it seemed that without the usual buzz of conversation from her class friends, her mind latched onto anything there possibly was to think of.

None the less, she could have tried to direct her mind in a more useful direction, like which historical event she would choose to write about for a paper coming up in history class. She chewed her lip and let that fall away, turning her attention back to her food and the salad she had begun eating. A few bites of cucumber later, she vaguely sensed someone approaching her table, but she didn't turn to look, assuming it was just another student passing by. There was a crash of plate against table and then "Hey! My name's Hana! What's yours? You don't mind if I sit here do you?"

She drew in a sharp breath of surprise, turning her eyes to the girl that had sat down next to her. The first thing she took in was her hair. Long, with a slight wave to it and such a light blond it appeared white. Or was it white? A moment more and she confirmed it. How interesting. Her eyes seemed to be a light shade of purple. Inari wondered for a second if they were contacts. Probably not, after all, she had never dyed her hair, as strange a colour as it was.

She took a quick breath, then said smoothly, "Hello Hana. My name is Inari. Inari Fukui." Her own accent, mostly identical to those of the other japanese kids, though slightly tinted by her British mother, contrasted Hana's american vocals. Make yourself comfortable," she said in response to her second question. It's not like you're disturbing anything, anyway," she said with a smile, gesturing to the several empty chairs around the table.

You aren't in second year, are you? I can't remember seeing you around. Her voice was curious. She would have noticed someone like Hana, she was sure.

At times, Inari tended to be quite shy, especially when she was younger. She would spend her time slinking around corners, hoping no one spotted her or forced her into an awkward situation where she didn't know what to say like her mother had sometimes done. She was a socialite, after all, and couldn't get used to Inari not being quite as charming as she had hoped. Thus, the lack of human contact had left her unsure of herself in social situations. She tended to blurt the first thing that floated through her stupid head. A lot of people mistook her for being a bit blunt and sarcastic.

She was honestly glad that Hana had deigned to sit with her. Inari liked being alone when the time was right, but the middle of lunch was not the right time. Although she could have kicked herself when she noticed that Hana looked a bit uncomfortable at the comment she had made. She had just been poking fun at herself, but she saw how it might be taken another way. I'm such an idiot. She smiled reassuringly to try to get the message across to her without saying out loud and sounding more stupid.

"No, I'm a first year. This is my first time at Ouran, I went to middle school somewhere else. I switched because- Well, I like it here better, anyways." Inari cocked her head and nodded understandingly. Had she been given the choice, she would have chosen Ouran too. I know what you mean. She skewered a tomato and avocado and pulled them neatly from her fork with her teeth. She noticed the girl sitting across from her looking uncertainly down at her own plate, then picked up a piece of golden-brown bread and began nibbling on the side. She chuckled softly.

"I get them too. The days when you just don't feel like eating anything, that is. I, however, didn't have time for breakfast this morning, so I'm kind of starving." The conversation lulled for a moment as Inari reached for her bottle of fancy iced-tea. "Do you play?" Her eyes darted back to Hana's intriguing eyes. She was puzzled until Hana spoke again. "Piano, I mean. I've played since I was little. You've certainly got the hands for it! When I was little I used to pull on the ends of my fingers to try and make them longer!"

Inari laughed out loud when she realized Hana was being serious. "Yeah, I play, she happily when her laughter had faded. "Only since last year, though, so I'm just a novice. But yeah, the fingers have certainly helped!" She paused. How about showing me a thing or two some time. And you can explain what some of the weird squiggly lines mean mean," she said with a sparkle in her eye.

Inari still wondered where her usual bunch of sort-of friends had gone off to during lunch without inviting her. Not that she really cared. It seemed as likely as anything that they had simply forgotten about her. She scrunched her lips together to one side of her face in mild irritation. She was happier to sit with Hana than any of them anyway.

She wrinkled her brow in response to what Hana said about having days when you just weren't at all hungry, but the girl made a face that told Inari she wished she hadn't said that, so the red-haired girl let it go without asking. She was glad to see her snowy-haired lunch buddy smiling at her after her request to be schooled a bit in piano. Seeing as Inari was a year above Hana, she figured she would be able to make it up helping her with a project or something that she'd been assigned the year before.

"Oh that's great! I never have anyone to play with! I think I have some duet pieces somewhere, and I can definitely tell you about music theory. I've got some great books on it you can borrow." Inari finished crunching her last piece of cucumber then beamed at Hana and said "That would be great, thanks!" She washed down her lunch with a few swigs of iced-tea then placed the empty bottle to one side of the table along with her plate for the staff to pick up.

She continued smiling, thinking how fun it would be to play piano with a friend rather than the middle-aged woman that instructed her every Tuesday and Saturday. "Isn't there a piano in the Host club room?" Inari thought for a moment. Even with the amount of time she'd been at Ouran, she hadn't become a regular at the host club. In fact, she could only remember going there once or twice. She was just a little shy to go on her own, she supposed. "One of them plays too, I think." She nodded. Tamaki Suoh was in her year.

"It is technically a music room, after all. Same as the room the Hostess club is based out of." She cocked her head again. "It’s their leader that plays. Tamaki Suoh; he’s in my year.” She paused briefly. ”We could sneak in and use their’s sometime, or you could drop by my house and show me what you can do. I’ve a pretty nice piano in my room. There’s one in the study too.” She wasn’t quite sure why she was listing all the pianos in her house. Maybe it was her stupid way of inviting Hana over. She didn’t want to say anything else, in case more idiocy spewed from her mouth, so she looked at her and waited for an answer.

"You can always come to my place. My parents won't mind, you probably won't even see them, if you're the type of person who gets nervous around other people's parents." She blinked a few times to clear an eyelash from her vision and nodded. She didn't really tend to get too nervous around adults, but she could relate since her parents were hardly ever around too.

"Although," said Hana with a mischievous grin. If Inari was an animal her ears would have perked. "It would be fun to sneak into the Host Club room and use theirs. To be honest, I like visiting the Host Club quite a bit. It's so fun, they're all just so cute!" Inari giggled, smoothing back a piece of fiery hair that had sprung loose from its clip, and leaned back in her seat.

"I admit, they are really cute." She bit the side of her lip. It was true. She'd swoon over any one of the host club, just like most other girls in the school, just not so very publicly. She'd also go there along with Hana if she wanted her to, willingly and happily at that. "They're supposed to do whatever it takes to make their customers happy, so why not?" There was only a short moment of silence before it was filled again by Hana, speaking in her cheerful, eager way. "What about you? What else do you like to do?"

Inari lifted a hand and tapped a well-manicured nail against her temple as if deep in thought. "Well... I dance. As strange as it sounds for someone like me, what with my gangly arms and legs." She lifted an arm in demonstration. "Ballet, specifically, since I was very little. She wondered if Hana was looking for a more comprehensive list. "And I've dabbled in a large number of sports, but... let's just say none of those worked out." She smiled sheepishly. What about you?"

Still looking at Hana, Inari reached into her bag and pulled out a modern-looking thin black cell-phone that she slid up with her thumb, doubling it in length, revealing the keypad and lighting up the screen. She glanced down at the screen to check the time. Lunch was almost over, but they had a few more minutes.

It hadn't taken Inari very long to realize that she really liked Hana. Far more, in fact, than she liked any of her current "friends." Not to mention she was far more interesting. Even if she was a first year, Inari never put much stock into the whole only-be-friends-with-people-in-your-year-or-higher-because-younger-kids-are-annoying thing. She brushed her hand over her mouth to stifle a bark of laughter.

"We can stage a surprise performance! First we'll practice, and then we'll play in front of the boys one day! It'll be so fun!" Honestly, Inari found the idea fascinating, although being a little shy, she was reluctant to agree straight away. "Maybe it would be better to pay them a visit together first before planning anything, eh?" This girl is a mind-reader, Inari thought while nodding in agreement.

Inari inclined her head to help Hana reach as it seemed she wanted to. "Thanks," she said gratefully after she readjusted her light yellow clip. "I know what you mean about sports. It's so crazy, people can get so competitive sometimes. I stick to music, piano and guitar. And of course," The older girl's gaze flitted to the white headphones around Hana's neck. "These." Inari was about to mention that she loved listening to music too, though she only had a pair of ear buds to plug into her phone.

"I have health problems so I'm not all that active," Hana blurted before Inari could reply. She was taken aback for a moment, but she knew the kind of reaction that Hana probably feared from her. She wouldn't want to be treated like a fragile piece of glass, and she assumed that Hana wouldn't appreciate it either. "Health problems?" she said, her voice nuanced with concern, but not overly so. "Don't worry dear, I understand. We can't control those sorts of things."

Her expression took on a look of understanding and very mild sympathy, not pity. "I think lunch is almost over, and my math teacher will kill me if I'm late. How about we swap numbers? And maybe we can drop by music room number three today or tomorrow?" She placed her slim black cell-phone on the table, waiting for Hana to accept or decline it.