Hi, guys! I had a seriously long break from writing but now here I am again!

Disclaimer: I do not own Ouran High School Host Club.

Please enjoy the first chapter of my OHSHC fanfiction "Forget-Me-Nots"

"Kyouya!" a six year old girl with long wavy chocolate brown hair exclaimed as she practically ran towards her childhood friend in delight, her light blue silk dress billowing against the wind with every step she made towards him.

"Akira, don't run so fast. Certainly you don't want to ruin your newly bought dress by accidentally tripping onto something." The boy who is also six years of age calmly said as he pushed up the bridge of his glasses.

And surely, in her hurry to meet with her friend, the little girl whose name was Akira accidentally missed a step on her way towards the gazebo and thus making her fall flat on her face.

Kyouya discreetly hid his smile when he saw an irritated expression plastered on Akira's face because of the truthfulness of his words. To add more fuel to the fire, most of the guests at the garden party were looking at Akira with a disapproving stare. Akira's face heated up in embarrassment as she felt everyone's gaze on her.

They were at a garden party hosted by Akira's parents who were none other than the owner of the Yamamoto Group. Yamamoto Group is an extremely powerful and influential company that deals with researching and formulating medicines and medical tools and equipment. It is no wonder that most of the guests in this party are also renowned and notable people in their industry.

Akira released a small grumble as she stood up with as much grace as she could muster up and gave an apologetic smile to the audience as she bowed down in apology.

Finally, she walked towards where Kyouya was standing and gave him a light glare as she dusted off the grass blades that were stuck on the laces of her dress. "Thanks for the reminder, smarty pants." She muttered to Kyouya in an irritated tone.

"You're welcome, mademoiselle." Kyouya replied in a cunning tone while adding a mock bow with his signature smirk on his face. This made Akira even more irritated but because of the guests present, she has to contain her anger and keep up her 'cute and innocent' facade.

"You will have your day, Ootori." She exasperatedly said as she sat down on the built in bench of the gazebo. Kyouya also sat down beside her as he observed his childhood friend of 3 years.

Her father and his were best of friends back in their college days and both their mothers were also well acquainted with each other, sharing the same taste in fashion and brand thus, it is no wonder that they were also friends at an early age. When he first met her, he thought that she was no less that a spoiled brat since she had really doting parents but the truth was far from it.

She was actually a little lass who hated being spoiled, cuddled and treated like a little princess. In short, a completely different girl from a stereotypical heiress.

"Hey, Kyouya. Your birthday is coming up right? What do you want for a present?" Akira asked as her head turned towards me. "I mean, you practically have everything so I'll be having a hard time choosing a present for you." She added while fiddling with the hem of her dress.

Kyouya then gave her a playful smirk as he made motions indicating for her to go closer. Akira leaned in and Kyouya went near her as if about to whisper something.

"The Ootori Group" he whispered in a cheeky tone.

Akira's eyebrow twitched in annoyance as she playfully shoved Kyouya away from her. "You're not helping! I shoudn't have asked!" she exclaimed.

Kyouya chuckled and have a small shrug. "You asked what I wanted and I answered you." He replied nonchalantly.

Akira just rolled her eyes as she sighed and kept on fumbling with her dress. "Why do I even have to wear this stupid dress?" she muttered and slipped off her heels from her feet, feeling the relief of being freed from the painful heels. "But seriously, aside from that, what do you want? Please ask me something that I can actually get!" Akira said while stressing out the last part.

Kyouya just smirked and opened the notebook he was holding. "Anything aside from stuffed toys and robots." He said, giving emphasis on stuffed toys and robots which were actually the gifts that Akira gave him for his birthday last year. Sure, he appreciated the effort spent by Akira but not the gift itself. In fact, he detested them. He was not the type to play with stuffed toys and robots. He would rather look at company stocks.

"Okay, I'm sorry for last year! Geez, I was just planning on teasing you back then!" Akira replied.

"Akira!" she heard her mother call.

Akira inwardly sighed because she has to wear those heels again. She stood up after slipping back her shoes and gave Kyouya a smile. "We'll just talk later. My mom called me." She said to him and walked towards her mother who was chatting with the wives of her husband's colleagues.

As Akira was walking away from the gazebo, Kyouya softly gazed at her retreating figure, admiring the young girl who became his very first true friend and first love….

Yes, Akira Yamamoto is Kyouya Ootori's first love. Even if one couldn't believe it seeing as they were completely the opposite of each other like fire and water, yes, he fell for her. He fell for her smile that showed her two lovely dimples, the way her eyes would sparkle if she found something amusing, the way she fiddles with her dress when she's thinking of something, even the way she would bite her lip when she's frustrated about something or someone. He knows that it was unlike him to fall for such a thing but he couldn't and wouldn't stop this feeling.

While thinking about Akira, he unconsciously smiled a genuine smile that he only gives and shows to her.

Tonight was Kyouya Ootori's birthday and the Yamamoto family were headed towards the Ootori Mansion for the party thrown by Kyouya's parents. Of course, Akira knew that the actual purpose of the party was not to celebrate Kyouya's birthday but to make connections with other prominent people. Knowing this, every time she attended Kyouya's birthday party, she would feel slightly disheartened because it should be meant to celebrate her childhood friend's birthday and not for the purpose of gaining business merits and investments.

"Watanabe-san, please speed up a little bit. I really want to give Kyouya's birthday present already! I couldn't wait to see his face after he unwrapped this!" Akira requested to their driver as she fiddled with something on the pocket of her cashmere coat.

"Sweetie, it's raining and the roads are slippery so the car has to slow down a little bit." Akihiro Yamamoto, the father of Akira explained as he chuckled at his daughter's eagerness to meet her best friend.

Discreetly, both of Akira's parents gave each other a knowing look and a smile of relief. They knew that they wouldn't be having too much problems coming up with their decision to the proposal of Kyouya's father.

"Akira, what do you think of Kyouya-kun?" Akira's father asked his daughter who was busily looking outside through the car windows.

Akira's gaze drifted towards her father as she smiled. "He's a great friend!" she exclaimed with a wide grin.

Yuri Yamamoto, the mother of Akira then gently grabbed her daughter's hand and placed her own on top of it. "Do you really just see him as a friend or maybe something more?" she asked her daughter whose eyes widened as a blush crept to her face.

"M-Mother! Why would you think of such a thing?" Akira exclaimed, her blush getting redder by the minute.

Her mother then sighed as she smiled at her daughter. "Well, it's just that you hang out more often with him that your female friends and it seems like you can be your true self when you're with him so... I'm sorry for assuming such a thing." Yuri explained hiding the disappointment in her voice.

"N-No... That's not what I meant! Mom, am I really that obvious?" Akira asked while looking down as she touched her warm cheeks.

It's true. She does have a crush on Kyouya but she tried her very best to hide it from him because she knew that he would never see her as more than a friend. She knew that she doesn't have a chance. There are plenty of girls out there who are prettier and wealthier that her.

She's not worthy enough to be with Kyouya.

"Really?! So you like Kyouya!" her mother exclaimed happily. Akira glanced at her mother shyly and slowly nodded her head.

Both husband and wife exchanged a look of delight as they held each other's hand.

"Well, sweetie, your mother and I having something to tell you. It about you and Kyouya. At first, we were quite hesitant because we don't want you to do something you don't want to do but because of what you said, we are relieved. Darling, Kyouya and you are getting en-"

A sudden noise cut off Akihiro from what he was about to say to his daughter.

"Watanabe, what's wrong?" Akihiro asked the driver who was sweating profusely. Watanabe had that scared and confused look in his eyes as he looked at his master with worry.

"Akihiro-sama, the breaks are broken!"

Akihiro's eyes widened in shock as he turned around and looked at his family who had confused looks on their faces. He gazed at his wife and daughter and prayed that nothing would happen to them. They were headed to a tunnel and as he was going to go back to his seat...

***Crash!***

Then suddenly, with a blink of an eye, the car collided with a massive gas truck, leaving the car almost unrecognizable from the impact and the gasoline leak from the tank that the truck was carrying…..

(Ootori Residence)

The people at the party were having the time of their lives with champagne and caviar flowing freely on the buffet table and classical music being performed by the best orchestra in Japan. All were enjoying the party aside from the birthday boy who was uncharacteristically fidgeting on his feet from both happiness and nervousness .

(Flashback: an hour ago)

"Kyouya" Yoshio Ootori, the father of Kyouya addressed his son and motioned for him to sit at a couch on his office. Kyouya immediately sat down and internally wondered what his father will be telling him.

"Kyouya, you know as well as I do that we have an excellent partnership with the Yamamoto Group." Yoshio stated and looked directly at his son.

Of course, Kyouya knew that himself. In almost all the ventures that his father took, he was constantly in partnership with the Yamamoto Group. Aside from that, the Yamamoto Group is one of the major stockholders in the Ootori Group.

"That's why Akihiro and I decided to further strengthen this bond between us. Of course we still have to wait for their decision tonight to make this official but we were thinking that it will be best for the two companies to merge through the means of marriage." Yoshio explained to his son whose eyes were getting wide.

'Marriage...'

"Father, that means that..."

"Yes, you and Akira would be engaged soon. When we finally get the approval from the Yamamoto family, we would be officially announcing the engagement tonight at your birthday party."

(Present time)

Kyouya couldn't believe what was happening. In just a matter of hours, he would be engaged to his best friend and first love. He was literally fighting the urge to jump up and down and make a fool out of himself but he was that happy!

He quietly looked around hoping to find Akira in the midst of the crowd but alas! They are still not there yet.

'I wonder what's taking them so long...' he thought as he walked pass the crowd and went to the buffet table to get some punch.

He was about to sip on the drink when a wet and panting man appeared from the huge door. He looked tired as if he just ran a marathon.

The guests looked at him in shock as he went inside and went towards one of the butlers.

"I wish to speak with Mr. Yoshio Ootori." the man said in an exasperated voice.

Yoshio looked at the man weirdly until he recognized the disheveled man before him because of his uniform.

It was a staff from 119.

Yoshio approached the man with furrowed eyebrows wondering what business he had to come here.

The staff went towards Yoshio and whispered something to him that made the ever stoic man to gasp in shock. Kyouya looked at his father weirdly wondering what's the cause of his father's shock.

Yoshio's eyes expressed an emotion of sadness, an emotion of which Kyouya rarely saw from his strict father. He then went towards his son and held Kyouya's shoulder lightly, about to break a sad and unfortunate news.

"Kyouya, the car that the Yamamoto Family was riding met an accident. They collided with a gas truck on their way to our house." Yoshio explained to his youngest son who became stiff with shock and was still processing the news on his head.

'Accident...Yamamoto Family... Akira...'

"What about Akihiro and Yuri? How are they?" Yoshio asked.

"Fortunately, the rescuers got them out of the car before the gas tank exploded. Akihiro-san and Yuri-san only had minor injuries so they are in a stable condition now. The doctors said that they should wake up after a few days." The staff replied.

"A-Akira! W-What about her? How is she?" Kyouya asked frantically with tears threatening to flow down his cheek any second from now.

The staff approached the teary eyed Kyouya as he slowly crouched down on the level of the child

"That's the reason why I came here. My co-worker asked me to give you this." He explained to Kyouya as he got a neatly wrapped box from his pocket.

Kyouya, who finally had tears dripping down his cheeks, realized that that box is actually his birthday present.

"We had a time limit of 10 minutes to rescue the family before the gas tank will explode. The driver was already dead due to the impact of the collision but the family was still alive. We first got out the two elders because they were the easiest to reach. After we got the two of the out, we thought that no one was still inside the car so we prepared our stuffs to evacuate the place but one of my co-workers said that there was still a child inside. We barely had 2 minutes left but she still insisted on rescuing the child. Everyone already evacuated the area but she was there saving the child. At last, after a few tries, she managed to get the child out. The child was barely breathing and gained serious injuries but she managed to fish something out of her coat and gave this box to my co-worker. My co-worker tossed it to me because she already has a handful to carry and said that she'll get it back later after the child was put into the ambulance. But she never did…." The staff trailed out as he shed his own tears while looking up at the crying child who was very frightened from what happened.

"The gas tank exploded before she and the child got out of the area. Based on the explosion, it is impossible that both of them are still alive." He finished his story and stood up and bowed.

The news affected a lot of the guest seeing that most of them were business colleagues of Akihiro Yamamoto. They knew that this would be on the headlines of the newspapers by tomorrow.

Because of this incident, Yoshio then announced to the guest that the party is over and apologized to them while the guests were assisted by the staffs in leaving the mansion because of the emergency.

Shizuka, the mother of Kyouya then hugged her silently crying son. Even though she was the mother of Kyouya, she never saw her son cry. Even when he fell down the stairs and broke his leg, he never cried. He just kept on enduring the pain. But now… seeing him in this state made her pity her son. How sad the news affected her son was far from average.

Kyouya gently touched the lavender colored wrapped box with a matching white satin ribbon on it. It was Akira's last gift to him before she died. The staff then patted his shoulder and got something out of his pocket.

"There was a letter attached to it. It came with your name and I instantly knew who you were. The son of President Yoshio Ootori." He said and gave the eggshell colored envelope to Kyouya.

"They were admitted to the Ootori Hospital near Akaibara Stadium." The staff said and Yoshio ordered the butler to quickly request for the car. Yoshio looked at his son and felt a pang of sadness when he looked at him crying uncontrollably as he read the final letter of Akira. "Kyouya, I need you to stay home with your siblings. Your mother and I will deal with this." Yoshio stated.

Shizuka then motioned Fuyumi to take her brother upstairs while the maids quickly fetched her coat.

Soon, the car was already waiting and the Ootori family went inside the car and drove towards the hospital.

That's it for the first chapter! I promised more thrills and twists and turns of events on the succeeding chapters but for now, please comment, review or even send me PM (if you're the shy type). Constructive criticism is well accepted.

Thank you and have a nice day!

-SparkofMemories