The world was coming to an end.

For weeks, she had argued with herself about how to tell Mori about her feelings. Before that, she had argued with herself about whether to tell him about her feelings. And even before that, she had spent a little while trying to convince herself that there were no feelings to tell him about. For just a moment, she had convinced herself that she was confusing her appreciation of the way he always took care of her, for some kind of attraction. But, much to her displeasure, she hadn't been able to fool herself for very long. What she was feeling was definitely real, and it wasn't just that she was glad that he was always there to protect her. She loved him. And because she couldn't handle arguing with herself about it any longer, she had told him that she loved him. And life had given her the chance to take it back, but she hadn't taken it back, and he had just walked away. And now that she had been rejected by him, she felt like arguing with herself for just a little bit longer might not have been so bad. She thought that hearing him say 'no' would be better than having to go through another week, or another month, or another lifetime of not knowing. But then, she still didn't know if that would have been better, because he didn't even say 'no'. He'd just walked away. He hadn't even offered her the courtesy of telling her that the feeling wasn't mutual, or saying that they should just stay friends. Jerk.

But of course, that was one of the problems, wasn't it? One of the reasons why she was so upset was because Mori was not a jerk. If he was, she wouldn't even have this problem. Because if he was mean, she wouldn't have been attracted to him in the first place, and she wouldn't have had to go through that kind of rejection. If you could even call it that. But of course, you really couldn't. Rejection implied that he would have actually told her that he didn't think of her that way, which he hadn't done. And she was sure that having her feelings denied would have been a million times less painful than having them completely ignored. Twice.

But that wasn't even the worst part. The worst part was that now she would still have to see him every day after school at the host club, where she would have to pretend that everything was okay. She was going to have to look at him as if he was just her friend, and not somebody who hadn't even had the graciousness to refuse her. She would have to talk to him, and listen to him, and be around him, and act like he hadn't ripped out her heart and made it vulnerable, then dropped it on the ground and left it there without even the decency to step on it. She was going to have to pretend that the last two nights hadn't happened, and that meant that the world was coming to an end.

Haruhi's world was, anyways.

The world was coming to an end, but it wouldn't even explode. It wouldn't be hit by an asteroid or be engulfed in flames or even have the class to be flooded. It would end, not with a bang, but with a whimper.

Haruhi couldn't even whimper. No one could know. To admit to Mori that she had feelings for him was torture enough. She was fairly certain that she couldn't bear to inform the rest of the host club, even if it wasn't verbally. On top of that, she was absolutely sure that she could not take having them know that the feelings weren't mutual and that he had quietly broken her heart.

And so, Haruhi Fujioka did her best to contain the limitless hurt and frustration of an entire world ending within the painfully limited confines of her heart, and opened the door to the third music room and an afternoon of inevitable torment.

"Haru-chan!" It was the unmistakable voice of the host club's minute senior student, who jumped at her from out of nowhere the second she stepped into the room. "Haru-chan! Haru-chan! Do you like my hat? Isn't it cute?" he squeaked, dropping back to his feet and latching onto her arm as he stared up at her with sparkling eyes, giving her a clear view of his fedora.

"It's cute!" she said with a nod, forcing a smile at the adorable little boy clad in a tiny black suit and a hat that was clearly too big for his little head, brandishing a bunny-patterned harmonica. He must have all this rabbit merchandise custom made for him or something. Damn rich bastards.

"Haruhi! We have a costume for you, too!" She felt a familiar weight on her shoulders, and saw two identical right arms extend in front of her, pointing to a dress hanging on a doorknob to a side-room. The white satin garment featured a plunging V neckline (which would be, quite frankly, wasted on her) and a flowing skirt that reached the ground, and a pair of elbow-length gloves were carefully clipped onto the shoulder straps.

"EHH?" she exclaimed, jumping backwards as if desperately terrified of the costume they had laid out for her. "What does that have anything to do with '80s era mobsters?"

"Haruhi! Your obliviousness is so cute!" cried an excited Tamaki, pouncing on her from the smoke-obscured depths of the club room, wrestling her into a reluctant embrace only for a moment before the twins pulled her back towards them, and just for a split second, she allowed nostalgia to eclipse her frustration. At the very beginning of her association with the host club, Mori had saved her from a similar ordeal with the King. It was only then that it occurred to her to look around for the tall, stoic male, but she could hardly see anything through the smoke.

Suddenly, a spotlight flashed on to her right, highlighting a sunglass-wearing Tamaki behind a grand piano as black as onyx, playing a somber accompaniment to the sorrowfully captivating saxophone piece that had been drifting through the smoky music room since she had come in.

"We're jazz artists, inviting ladies to experience the atmospheric smoky bars and soulful music of the 1940s!" he said with unnecessary enthusiasm, standing up with a flourish as the song ended. "And you, Fujioka Haruhi, are the endearing torch singer that completes us!"

She stared at him incredulously. Torch songs were musical poems of unrequited love, and it infuriated her that this was so perfectly fitting for her at this moment. "I'm not wearing that," she said matter-of-factly. There was no way she was going to wear that slinky cocktail dress, no matter what they said to try to convince her. Besides, she couldn't even sing.

That explanation was a little bit useful, though. Now she understood why the background music was a saxophone, and why Tamaki was playing the piano, and why Honey had a harmonica, and why Hikaru and Kaoru now held blues guitars, and why Kyoya, as the smoke cleared slightly, was revealed to be balancing a double bass against his shoulder. But…

"Where is Mori-senpai?" she asked offhandedly, as if it was a completely innocent inquiry. Her question was answered not by Honey, who she had expected to respond enthusiastically with a reason for the man's absence, or by any of the other visible members of the host club. Instead, it was answered by a glaringly familiar "Ah" from a source that was presently inevident.

"Senpai?" she asked, whirling around in circles frantically, searching for the person who had spoken. She didn't find him until the boy-lolita club member leapt at some unseen target, exclaiming a jubilant "Takashi!", emphasizing the first syllable in a manner that was customary for Honey-senpai's greetings.

Without waiting for another invitation, the tall, dark-haired young man stepped out into plain visibility with his cousin on his shoulders, and an alto saxophone slung over his shoulder. "Ah," he repeated, staring directly at Haruhi, his blank gray eyes seeming colder and emptier than ever, but frustratingly, they were as beautiful as they had always been.

She quickly ducked out of his sightline and was promptly attacked by the Hitachiin brothers, who seemed to be trying to forcefully pull the dress on over her uniform, and she turned to run away, but ended up being saved by Kyoya, who held a garment bag out in front of him, hindering her progress into the shadowy sections of the club room. "Your costume," he said knowingly as she took the bag from him and began to make her way to where she could change.

Understandably, the suit (which matched almost exactly with everybody else's) in the bag inspired a more pleasant sort of enthusiasm within her, and she put it on without any argument. "So, I get why Tamaki has a real piano." The host club's King was a good piano player. It made sense for him to play the instrument for customers to add to the atmosphere of the cosplay. "But why waste the money on real instruments for everybody else?" She was sure that there must be somewhere to find relatively convincing models of these instruments that would be much less expensive than buying the actual ones. "It must be easy to find imitations of guitars and standing basses, so why bother paying full price for high-quality instruments that you're only going to use once? And for Mori-senpai, a toy saxophone would be good enough for this one event." It wasn't as if they were ever going to pull them out and reuse them or anything, so why pay thousands of dollars for things that they would never even look at again after this?

The twins and Tamaki stared at her as if she was speaking unacceptable nonsense, their eyes wide and their jaws on the floor. The King seemed like he was going to say something, but Kyoya beat him to the punch. "Our customers pay to see club members in costumes that are well-put together. If we started to do cheap things like that, they'd have less interest in buying the photo collections, and the sales of the photo collections, and other merchandise, are the primary source of the club's funding. So, by doing such petty things to save money, we'd actually be losing money."

Damn rich bastards.

"Besides-" He started to continue, but Honey bounced in and interrupted.

"Takashi plays the saxophone!" he announced cheerfully before hopping back up onto his cousin's back.

What? Since when did Mori play an instrument? She heard the usual "Ah", and raised her eyebrows in surprise. "Really, Honey-senpai?"

"Hai!" squeaked the senior, and Haruhi forced herself not to look in his direction for too long, because whenever she looked at him, she couldn't help but look at Mori, too.

"Didn't you hear him?" asked Hikaru skeptically. "He was playing when you came in," Kaoru added.

She jumped up in surprise as she realized what they meant. "What? That was him? I thought that was a background track!"

"No," said the entire club in faintly uneven unison.

There was a moment of uncomfortable silence, until…

"Takashi!" exclaimed the short, harmonica-wielding, bunny-clutching club member, seeming to remind everybody else to get back to what they were doing and quit standing there doing nothing. "Come eat cake with me!"

"Ah."

"Haru-chan! Come eat cake with us!"

"Oh, I don't-"

"We want you to eat cake with us! Right, Takashi?"

There was a short pause.

"Ah."

She reluctantly followed them to a booth that had been set up in the third music room expressly for this occasion, and had already been equipped with enough different kinds of cakes to ensure the tiny senior's satisfaction. She slid into one side, and Honey and Mori sat together across from her.

"What kind of cake do you want, Haru-chan? There's a chocolate one, and a strawberry-"

"I'll have whatever kind you're having, Honey-senpai," she said, forcing a smile for the sake of the excited little boy within the eighteen year old sitting across from her.

"Hai!" he enthused, delivering a slice of chocolate cake to each of the three sitting in the booth. He consumed his in a timely manner and quickly cut himself another slice, but Haruhi and Mori took their time, both rather disinterested in the sweets in front of them.

"You seem odd, Takashi," he said once he was into his third piece of cake. He knew that Haruhi didn't care much for sweets, so it probably wasn't too surprising that she hadn't finished hers yet, but Mori always humoured him long enough to have at least one slice of cake with his cousin.

"Oh."

"Are you mad at me?"

"No."

"Are you mad at Haru-chan?"

There was another pause.

"No."

Haruhi stifled a sigh as she swallowed a forkful of chocolate cake. Should she be relieved to hear that? Was it wrong that she hadn't even considered the possibility that he might be angry with her? But, she hadn't done anything wrong, had she? If anything, she should be angry with him, for ignoring her the way he had. She wasn't mad, though, she was just sad. And she supposed it was a good thing that he wasn't mad, either, but it didn't make her feel any better. Because she really didn't care if he was mad or not. She just wanted to hear him say that he was sorry.