White

Is that his mother? I've never seen her before. She's crying.

I'm crying too.

Everybody around me is crying, because this isn't fair. He was eighteen years old, he was almost done with school, this wasn't supposed to happen, not to him.

What's going to happen now? What's supposed to happen now that he's...gone?

Honey and Mori flew in all the way from America to come to the funeral. They're crying, we're all crying. Haruhi, Hikaru...me. Kyoya is next to me, and his head is bowed. I'm not sure, but I think he's crying too. Yeah...I see the tears.

How could this happen? We didn't even know he was sick. We didn't even know his health was bad, we thought he was fine.

But there were the signs, the way he lost weight, the way he seemed tired.

I don't even know what the illness was called. I don't even care. All I know is that he's gone and there was no point to it.

His grandmother isn't here. His father is, and he looked almost shocked.

The coffin is lowered into the ground, because we all know he would've wanted himself buried, because it just seems more romantic that way. The coffin is white, and I wonder why. But it's obvious, isn't it? Tamaki wouldn't have wanted everybody to wear black.

Everybody is wearing black, though, except for a few. Kyoya is wearing a perfectly tailored white suit, and so are Hikaru and I. Mori and Honey are wearing blue. Haruhi's in red. The colors stand out more, among the sea of black.

His mother is wearing light pink.

And doesn't that make more sense? Everybody here is exactly the same, and look at us. We're the people he cared about, we know about what he would have wanted, and he had never liked black.

I used to tease him all the time, up until the day he died.

Even in the hospital room, when I sat by his bed, I was joking.

You're so overdramatic, Tono. Such a romantic, dying this way.

I had made him smile, and that had been what mattered. We used to make him so mad, me and Hikaru. Maybe not mad. I still think he couldn't feel anger, he was just too soft. But we cared about him.

He knew that, right? I hope he did.

It's after the service now, and we, what is left of the Host Club, are the only ones around here. The light is growing dim. Haruhi stands in front of the stone, and she smiles a little, wistfully.

I feel a glimmer of nostalgia, I can almost imagine him smiling back, that big smile he had.

Then he would shout in horror as Hikaru and me came and twirled away with her. Let us play with our toy on our own, Tono!

I wish I could crack a joke, stop this stifling silence, and I know my twin standing next to me feels the same way. But we can't. There isn't and space to be the mischevious ones right now.

Nobody is acting like themselves. I haven't been this quiet in ages.

I hear Haruhi mumble something. She's kept herself together so well, because the one who would usually have kept us together is dead, and Kyoya's shoulders are shaking uncontrollably.

"Goodbye, Tamaki."

Hikaru and I can't help but chime in. "We'll miss you."

-The End-