Shichi Go Ichi San

by Empatheia

-Haruhi x the Twins- A series of letters. An encounter on the couch. More letters. She may be practical to a fault, but when has that ever stopped them?

A/N: Written for the February round of Ouran flashfics on LiveJournal.

Title is just a sequence of Japanese numbers, seven-five-one-three. The meaning is fairly obvious after reading the fic, very probably obvious even before. I just thought it sounded nifty. XD

Enjoy!

EDIT: Okay, I know now that the Twins are supposed to be in Haruhi's year. Certain websites are filthy, filthy liars. Fie on them. Anyway, have added a strategic sentence to explain why they are not in her class in this fic. Bullshitting 101 basic strategy. Pretend this is AR and get over it. :D

xxxxx

Shichi-Go-Ichi-San

xxxxx

And then, there were five.

xxxx

Haru-chan!

Takashi and I are in South America! It's very hot and wet and stinky and there's no cake or candy or strawberries or anything but beans to eat and I have to get up at the crack of dawn to get to the meeting place wahhh! Takashi says I can't tell you that. Now my head hurts.

I wish I was back in Japan with you and Tama-chan and the others. Being a grown-up sucks.

Honey ♥

xxxx

Dear Honey-senpai,

Beans are good for you.

I wish you were here too.

Haruhi

xxxx

Haruhi.

Mitsukuni says I should write you a letter. I don't know why. Anything interesting I could have told you is classified.

How are the others?

-Takashi

xxxx

Mori-senpai:

I don't want a mission report. How about telling me about South America, without mentioning anything to do with why you're there? I've never been there. Honey-senpai says it's hot and humid. Are there any strange animals?

Haruhi

xxxx

"What are you doing?" chorused the Twins, leaning rudely over her shoulder to peer at the papers in her lap.

Haruhi leveled a cool look at them until they withdrew to an acceptable distance. "Answering letters."

"From who?" asked Hikaru at the same time as Kaoru asked "From Mori-senpai and Honey-senpai?"

Haruhi nodded, unconsciously gathering the letters up and hiding them away in her bookbag. She'd asked the others once why they never wrote to Mori and Honey, and had received a series of blank stares in return, and then "Well, if we want to talk to them, we'll just talk to them on the satellite phone, right? Or fly over and visit." She hadn't asked again. Distance to the rich was not the same as it was to the poor. To her it was an insurmountable wall. To them it was a weekend's fancy.

She wondered if the remaining four aside from herself really understood that this was their last year together. Kyouya and Tamaki were graduating. The Twins, fickle and clever as always, had bribed and wheedled and cajoled their way into skipping a year and would be graduating with the others. Even if Haruhi went through university and became a lawyer, in twenty years she still would not be nearly rich enough to follow them in their circles. They might still all be able to be friends with each other, but after school, they would go somewhere she couldn't follow them. They might come down occasionally to her level, but she could never rise up to theirs, and while it was possible to be this intimate when they spent hours of nearly every day cooped up in the same building with each other, the same wouldn't hold true later. Afterwards.

The fact was, in less than a month Tamaki, Kyouya, and the Twins would graduate. They would go off into their new lives as wealthy adults in the business of becoming wealthier, and Haruhi would stay behind, alone, until she too graduated the year after and went off to law school as she'd always planned. They would write letters to each other as Haruhi now did with Honey and Mori, and they would always be friends, but in time they would stop thinking of themselves as the Ouran High School Host Club, and grow apart into cordial acquaintances.

Tamaki loudly promised every day that he loved her and would visit her daily, but he had his fiancee, whom he was already beginning to love alongside his love for Haruhi. He would choose her in the end. Kyouya was naturally antisocial, but Haruhi suspected Renge would win him over if she calmed down a bit. The Twins had each other, all they had ever needed.

Haruhi was a practical person... so practical it was painful to her sometimes. She couldn't make herself believe in a rosy, huddled future between herself and the rest of the club. She simply knew better.

So, for the last few weeks she had with them, Haruhi threw herself into the time she spent with them. She gave in to their madcap plans with only a token protest, humoured their oddities with the fondness only someone who knows she only has a limited time left to appreciate said eccentricities can have, saved up enough to buy a cheap camera and ignored the bewildered teasing when she made people group up so she could take their picture.

She wasn't sad, not exactly. She'd simply come to understand since the departure of Honey and Mori how precious her time with the remaining four was. She was making a point of making the most of every day.

Haruhi enjoyed herself more than she ever had before because within herself she carried the knowledge that sooner rather than later, she would be writing letters to Tamaki and Kyouya and Hikaru and Kaoru just as she wrote letters to the other two now.

Her fingers lingered a moment on the bundle of letters. She would need stamps for them. She made a mental note to pick some up on her way home.

"The King's got himself all tangled up," Hikaru commented. "Let's go, Kaoru."

"Just a minute," Kaoru replied, slipping away from Hikaru. "You go on, I'll catch up."

Haruhi watched their eyes meet for a moment, saw Hikaru shoot his brother an unfathomable look and felt a stir of unease.

Kaoru sprawled on the couch beside her and slung an easy arm around her shoulder to pull her close. "I bet you're worried about what you're going to do next year," he said off-handedly, cutting right to the heart of Haruhi's trouble like she'd once cut to the heart of his and his brother's.

"Am I supposed to recruit new people and make a new Host Club?" she asked him in lieu of answering the question directly. "I really don't see myself as the new King."

He laughed and shook her once, affectionately. "No, of course not, unless you want to. The seven of us... well, we're something special. You can't make a Host out of just anyone. The King was good at spotting potential hosts, but no one expects you to ascend the throne after him. Relax."

"Well, good," said Haruhi, her throat inexplicably tight. "This club is ridiculous anyway, it's good that it'll end with you."

"You don't mean that," said Kaoru simply, not a question but a statement.

"No, I don't," she agreed in a whisper.

He tightened his grip for a moment, then released her so he could turn and face her directly. "Listen, Haruhi," he said, uncharacteristically grave. "I know you won't believe me if I say we'll come visit you, but we will. If for no other reason than the fact that Hikaru is madly in love with you and pines away in your absence--"

"He does not," she protested, uncomfortable, though she couldn't very well deny that Hikaru loved her. He'd said so straight out, after all.

"Well, all right, maybe he doesn't," admitted Kaoru, "but I do."

"You do not," she replied automatically despite the fact that all her limbs had frozen rigid.

Haruhi wasn't big on love, and generally looked down on romance as a silly waste of time and energy. It was bothersome that people kept falling in love with her, and even more bothersome that they were people she already loved in another way. It made it so much harder to keep them at their proper distance.

Kaoru smiled sadly. "Do," he corrected gently. "You know Hikaru and I... we always end up liking the same things in the end, it's just who we are. Hikaru got a bit ahead of me there for a bit but I've caught up now. We're the both of us utterly, madly, truly in love with you. You're not getting rid of us that easily."

Her disbelief must have shown through on her face, for Kaoru sighed deeply and lowered his head for a moment. "Hikaru will be so angry with me for this," he said under his breath, so low she almost didn't catch it. Then he took her face between his aristocratic long-fingered hands and kissed her four times-- once on the forehead, once on each cheek, and once, shockingly, on her mouth.

"Kaoru-senpai, what," she began, then trailed off when she realized she had no idea what to say.

He pulled back and winked at her cheekily. "Don't worry, Haruhi," he said kindly. "We're don't expect any sort of answer right away. We'll visit you at law school, and at your house, we'll eat your food and annoy you horribly until you wish we'd leave you alone, and then years from now if you decide romance isn't so awful after all, we'll still be there." He then blushed from neck to hairline, red as his hair.

Haruhi stared at him, thunderstruck.

"Well, ah, that was all we wanted to say," he stammered. "Hikaru's not good with this kind of thing so he made me do it, but I suppose I'm not very good at it either."Kaoru dropped his chin and ruffled his hair, clearly embarrassed.

Galvanized at last into action by his abashed, nervous face and the look in his eyes that said he was more terrified of what she might say in this moment than he'd ever been of anything else before, Haruhi leaned forward and hugged him hard. "Thanks, Kaoru-senpai," she said, and then had nothing else to say.

He pulled away, nodded, and stood up to leave not quite quickly enough to hide the expression of relief on his face. "Hikaru's having trouble with the King," he said lightly, "I'd better go save him." He dashed off across the room.

Haruhi sat alone on the couch with her bookbag leaning against her legs and rethought her vision of the future to include two crazy redheaded twin boys, and two less letters to write.

xxxx

Haruhi!!

My fiancee is a terrifying demon in human form, you must save me!

Father wants me to take over already. I shudder at the thought of the mountains of paperwork awaiting me if he has his way.

Please, save daddy!

Tamaki

xxxx

Tamaki-senpai,

You're being ridiculous. Eclair is a wonderful woman, just be nice to her and she'll be nice to you too.

I think you should take over. You're perfectly prepared, and you can't run forever, you know.

Sorry. You don't need rescuing this time.

Haruhi

xxxx

Hello, Haruhi.

Has your university application been approved yet? If there are any difficulties, notify me. I'm well acquainted with the university director.

My company is getting off the ground quite nicely, thank you for asking. I estimate that within approximately ten years I should be able to buy my father out.

Let me know if you need anything.

Kyouya

xxxx

Kyouya-senpai,

Thanks, but I don't think that will be necessary. I have my admittance letter. The paper it's printed on probably costs more than my shoes.

Really? That's wonderful, senpai. I'm not surprised. Knowing you, you'll do it in five.

I will. I promise.

Haruhi

xxxx

HI HARUHI!

KAORU THOUGHT IT WOULD BE FUN TO WRITE YOU A LETTER LIKE EVERYONE ELSE DOES.

HOW ARE YOU? HOW IS SCHOOL? WAIT, WRONG QUESTION, I ALREADY KNOW. DO YOU LOVE US YET? HOW ABOUT NOW? ...NOW?

EXPECT A SURPRISE ON FRIDAY. NOT TELLING WHAT IT IS, BWAHAHAHAHA.

HIKARU

xxxx

Haruhi read the last line and grinned. She'd need to go grocery shopping, her fridge was far too understocked at the moment to accommodate the Twins. Their 'surprises' invariably consisted of them showing up at her place for dinner, sometimes with flowers or chocolate and sometimes not. They seemed to regard their presence in her apartment as a boon from the heavens, a balm for her soul-crushing solitude, and a perfectly acceptable dinner gift.

In a couple years maybe she'd let on... that to her, it was all of those things and more.

XxxxxxxxX

A/N: Well, there you have it. Even while writing Twins/Haruhi (which I do love, honestly) I still had to fight to keep the Kyouya/Haruhi out of my brain while writing his letter. It's a sad day for me when I OTP something so hard it sneaks into completely unrelated fics, haha.

Anyway, hope you enjoyed it:)

Eia