"You understand me then? This is not meant to be a burden or a task for you. It is simply something you must do… preferably before you reach the age of sixty five." Akira had ended their discussion on a lighthearted note, but it didn't make the conversation any less serious.

"I understand." The boy stood and walked away then. It was almost time for him to leave for school anyway.

On the way to school he would have been in the mood to converse with his excited cousin about how the day was going to go, but he was too distracted by what his father had just told him. He had never thought about having a girlfriend let alone marrying too much in his life. There were girls that occasionally professed their love for him, but he knew the only reason they really even liked him was because of how the Host Club portrayed him. He never even tried to become close with any of the girls he was set up with at the meetings. Originally he hadn't wanted a thing to do with that club, but because of Mitsukuni he had complied. It had become fun, but he knew he could never date a girl who liked him because of the Host Club.

"Takashi?" Huni set his chin in his palms and stared at his younger cousin from his side of the car (limousine actually).

"Yes?"

"You're usually much more talkative in the morning."

"You tend to be a bit cranky in the morning you know."

"I got a lot of sleep last night and I woke up a while before we needed to go. Is something bothering you?"

"No."

His lie was obvious, so the older one pestered him further.

"C'mon, please tell me Taka-chan!"

"You're not going to give this up, are you?" He leaned his head back on the seat and looked at the little blonde for a moment who shook his head in response to the other boys' question. "My father informed me that I need to begin searching for a wife, or at least become romantically involved with someone. He set out criteria for what the girl should be like."

"Oh…it'll be easy to get you a girlfriend, Taka-chan, let alone a wife! So many of the girls in the club are in love with you!" The only thing Takashi could do was nod and grunt in response to the other boy.

Mori was nearly silent the rest of the way to school. All he could do was sit and stare out the window, going over the list of qualities that his father had given to him. He was attempting to go through the list of girls he knew, trying to find those qualities, and then felt bad for doing so. He was not going to put himself in a loveless (or one-sided) relationship.

It seemed they arrived to school too fast. The morning classes went by painfully slow. The afternoon classes and the lunch period seemed to fly by faster than anything else though. All the while he was discreetly watching some of the girls who may fit the criteria. It was a bit ridiculous to be honest, and he felt like a bad person for doing it sometimes, so by the last class of the day he had given up and decided to focus on it after he was out of high school. He wouldn't have to be in this place for too much longer anyway.

Before he had realized it, it was time to go to the Host Club. Huni had said he was going to find Haruhi after school and ask her about something, he told Mori to go ahead of him and not bother to wait for him. After some minor coaxing, Huni had persuaded him into not waiting up for him. (Actually Huni threatened to attempt to get another cavity if Mori had not complied).

He was the first one in the club room. There hadn't been any distractions for him on the way there and the class he was coming from had been fairly close to Music Room 3. He expected total, peaceful silence, but was instead greeted with the soft sound of a piano being played.

It had been an exhausting day for Flora, so as soon as her teacher said she could go to a music room and play piano she was ecstatic. She had picked the first music room she had seen, Music Room 3. There were flowers and tables everywhere, she thought that was odd for a music room, but ignored the items and searched for a piano. Finally, in the back room, she came across and amazing grand piano. Sitting down, she touched the keys and played a few scales to see if it was in key. Not surprisingly, it made a sound that couldn't be rivaled by any piano she had ever touched before.

These rich people had so much that the vast majority of them were ungrateful. Some of them were practically born into modern day business royalty. She figured some of the people going here might really have some royal blood in them. But she didn't envy them. She liked how she lived for now and knew one day she might live in a small mansion (at the least) as well.

Flora-Celine had been going to Ouran since she got a scholarship to go for three years. She had loved it there for the nearly two years she had been going. The polite people were polite to her and the rude people were rude to her, it was just another high school when you really got down to the basics. But that's only the basics, if you look at Ouran in comparison to normal schools that weren't overrun by curious, rich kids it was a whole other world.

There were deep set rivalries between families which were passed down generation by generation. She swore she saw Kyoya Ootori, a boy in her class whose father owned the Ootori Group, glaring at Botan Yoshida (Botan's father owned a very slowly growing chain of hospitals) every morning. It wasn't like the Yoshida's were of any major threat to the Ootori Group anyway, but she supposed that it was best to get rid of all of the competition before they became competition.

She thought though, that sometimes it was actually quite fun to live in another world and then go home and spend time with her middle class friends. It was just entertaining to watch how some of the students acted. Some of them were so naïve it was painful to watch. That was one of the reasons she thought it was so odd that Tamaki Suoh and Kyoya were close friends. She assumed Kyoya had befriended the poor rich boy to get some leverage in the world. Another person she found odd was the new full scholarship first year, Haruhi Fujioka. The boy was so feminine, sometimes she wondered if he was really a she in disguise.

So as she stopped playing her scales and arpeggios, she stopped thinking about all of these remedial things and began playing. The beginning of the song was the color cobalt blue and faded into a pretty lilac, which built up to an angry red. It was just about to fade off into a cream when she heard someone close the door behind them and step into the room.

An abrupt hammering of minor and augmented chords made the room stand still for a moment.

"Sorry," the both of them hurriedly said, the boy never losing his monotone. Flora stood up hurriedly, staring the ground and trying to hide behind her half-moon bangs. At the moment she wished she never put her wavy, black hair up in a bun every day. She was so embarrassed that she wanted to hide behind her dark hair.

"You're early if-"

"I'm sorry, I didn't know anyone else used this room after school. I'm sorry you had to hear me play, I'll leave now." She grabbed her bag and awkwardly walked to the door.

"Wait." He had such a low voice and he looked familiar, but she couldn't remember where she had seen him before in the school.

"Huh?" Flora stopped in her tracks, her head in line with his upper arm. He was so tall compared to her, about a foot taller in fact.

He wasn't sure why he was still talking to her. At any other time he would have just let someone like her go, but today he was a bit distracted by his fathers' words. "This is the Host Club."

She leaned back to hear him speak and looked surprised. "It sounds like a waste of time, but whatever makes people happy they do, right?" She shrugged and looked up at him, "I think you're a year above me, but I don't know you or your name." She attempted to be pleasant. Most of the time she was awkward and didn't particularly like talking to people, but it wouldn't hurt to be polite to a nice looking rich boy who had to have a certain amount of influence. It was a painful thing to do and she was certain nothing would amount of it, but it was also the only socially acceptable thing she could think to do right now.

"Takashi Morinozuka." It seemed to her that he didn't want to talk to her, but maybe that was just how he always sounded. He was the one who had initiated conversation in the first place. Oh, well…

"Well," she adjusted the strap on her bag and walked out the door, "The next time you find someone in here, don't attempt to tell them what this room is if they're leaving. There's no point in starting a conversation if you're not going to bother to even try to carry it on." She closed the door behind her softly. Her tone had not been harsh, but her words felt like daggers to Mori.

He didn't even know her name, she didn't tell him. A small part of him had wished that she would have and that she would've tried to hold up the conversation as he was no good at doing that. He stepped through the still open door, half hoping she was still there and that she had been joking when she walked out. All he found were confused looking red heads, a cross dresser, and Mitsukuni. He looked at them, emotionless.

"Hey, Mori-senpai…" Kaoru asked suspiciously and took a step closer to Hikaru, "Who was that?"

Mori shrugged in response, the twins advanced on him. "C'mon Mori-senpai," they spoke in unison, their different voices clashing in a good way, "You can't lead us to believe that you were all alone with a pretty girl and didn't even bother to learn her name…" they kept prying and suddenly they both gasped.

"Senpai, you didn't!" Kaoru yelled out.

"We thought you were much more gentlemanly-like than that!" Hikaru fell to his knees amid the dramatics.

Mori was blushing bright red.

"Even if it was only a one-time thing between you two you should at least learn her name, courtesy senpai, courtesy." They clicked their tongues at him and shook their heads. Mori's blush had nearly reached his ears by that time, and he gently pushed both of them back with his hand.

"She was lost." He said crossing his arms.

"Lost in your thoughts?"

"She didn't know this is the Host Club room, she was playing piano in here."

"But you thought she was pretty, didn't you, Taka-chan?" Huni had walked up to him and tugged on his suit jacket. Mori twitched back a little and shrugged, blushing. "Were you thinking about-"

"Mitsukuni." Mori warned.

"What? You don't want Haru, Kao, and Hika-chan to know?" Mori nearly face-palmed.

"Know about what, Mori-senpai?" Haruhi popped her head up behind the twins. "You can trust us to know anything, we're your friends. But if you really don't want to tell us, I get it."

"So can I tell them?" Huni whined up to his cousin. Mori shrugged again, crossed his arms, and turned his head away from them. "Taka-chan's father told him that he needed to start dating because he's going to need to find a girl that'll become his wife soon."

"Soon?" Kaoru looked surprised.

"Didn't you just turn eighteen? You won't need to marry for a while." Hikaru added.

"Oh, no!" Huni shook his finger and his head. "It's a traditional for the Morinozuka family to marry before or while they're twenty three. Since Takashi turned eighteen a little while ago, that means he only has five years before he should marry. Also it's also very… well-liked for people of his family to be in a relationship for a few years before they marry, but that just goes for everyone in the family, not his direct line."

There was a shadow over Mori's face.

"Is that true? Do you really need to get married before you turn twenty three?" Hikaru asked.

Mori stiffly nodded.

With a flourish that was largely unnecessary, Tamaki (followed by Kyoya) flounced through the door. "Good afternoon! I'm so excited to show you all what we shall be wearing today!" The blonde flounced into the back room with his bag and another package.

"He's been especially excited today for some reason." Kyoya pushed up his glasses and walked to the group that had formed around Mori. "Would anyone care to tell me why there was a girl moping down the hall, away from this room, chastising herself? The point of this club is to make girls feel happy."

They all turned their eyes to Mori.

"Do you know who it was?" Haruhi finally asked.

Kyoya nodded and pulled out his laptop and clipboard, he sat in one of the seats. "It was Flora-Celine Azalea Tsukino, that is her full name, she's in second year. Her grandmother moved from Tokyo to New York City when she was twenty and had Flora's father. I'm not sure who her grandfather is as her grandmother never wed and gave her name to her son. Flora's father married an American woman when he was thirty and she was born. They moved to Japan so her grandmother could spend time here with childhood friends. Her family is very upper middle class. She's on a similar scholarship to yours, Haruhi. I'm surprised she didn't know about the Host Club, she has been going to Ouran with Tamaki and I since first year.

"She's ranked second in the class and based on today's test, she'll most likely be ranked first. Because of her lineage she doesn't remotely look like she's from Japan. She's rather short and has black hair and blue eyes. She does have a couple of friends here and she even talks to Tamaki on occasion because they end up sitting near each other what with her name being close in the Alphabet."

"I didn't ask for her life story, just her name," Haruhi sounded exasperated.

"Her father has a blog that's open to all of the public, and you should know by now that I like to keep tabs on just about everyone. Besides, I had to work on a project with her in first year and realized I didn't know anything about her."

"That's shocking." The twins muttered.

"You didn't answer my first question and why does any of this matter to you?" He snapped his device shut with a soft click. They all turned to Mori.

"…She was in here playing piano when I walked in, and then she left." He finally answered.

"I'm sure there's more to this story…" Kyoya pressed.

"Why did I just lash out like that?!" Flora whispered to herself. Her eyes were glued to the floor, so when she bumped into a person she jumped. "Sorry!" She looked back as they began to apologize as well. It was only Tamaki, there was no reason to be too worried, she knew he wouldn't think she was out to get him because she bumped into his shoulder. (Some people there were like that).

However, after she changed clothes, she did practically run to the parking lot in embarrassment. This whole day had gone badly, but nobody wants to hear about that. The girl fumbled with her jacket and helmet for a few seconds before taking a breath. She paused and slowly zipped and buttoned her jacket, strapped on her cobalt helmet and stuck the key into her red motorcycle.

She was home too soon. It's not as if it made any difference though, no one was home to greet her. Her parents were gone on a business trip, and they would be gone for another four months. Her grandma was visiting with friends for an equal amount of time. In other words, Flora easily became bored when she was home. At least she had her mutt to keep her company.

As soon as she stepped out of the garage where she parked her bike she could hear the dog barking inside the giant house. It wasn't even close to being a mansion, but it was gigantic for a family of three and a dog. Attempting to get her mind off of how terribly wrong the whole day had gone, she walked an abandoned trail that started in her backyard and wound its way up a hill about a mile or two and came back down with her dog at her heels. It was nice here. Nobody knew about this place but her, and since she lived a fairly rural area, nobody else even bothered to look for something like this.

The thing she felt the worse about was how she had treated Takashi-senpai. She thought back to her words and how harsh they seemed now. She thought back to his expression. Not much had shown on his face, but the look in his eyes had been something far from indifference.