Chapter 2 – A Commoner's Advice

There he was, standing helplessly in the seemingly endless black void. Cold, alone, scared, glancing about desperately for some kind of way out. He gasped and jumped five feet in the air as a bolt of lightning flashed right in front of his face, closely followed by ear-shattering thunder as the earth slowly began to quake beneath him. He could only stand and watch as a 300 foot tall Honey-senpai slowly rose up from the ground, a giant plate of cake in one hand and a colossal fork in the other. The giant Honey-senpai licked his lips, letting out a booming "Mmmmmm!" before slamming the fork into the ground, mere inches from where Tamaki stood.

"Look, it's Tama-chan! Would you like to have some cake with me?"

With no warning, suddenly, slices of cake began to rain down from the sky, all different flavors and shapes, pelting Tamaki in the head one after the other. Trembling, the blonde turned to run only to find that his legs were seemingly frozen in place. He looked down and was horrified to find Usa-chan holding onto his legs, an angry glare fixed upon the bunny's normally cute face. He tried as hard as he could to put them away, but it was all in vain for the bunny held him firm. All he could do was stand there as the raining cakes slowly piled around him, higher, higher, until they were up to his face and he had to desperately gasp for breath. He took one last look at the giant Honey-senpai's face- smiling down at him, before breaking out into a sinister chuckle, then a full out evil laugh. The sound of the booming laughter flooded Tamaki's ears, the last thing he heard before the cake swallowed him whole.

Tamaki blinked, shaking his head to try and clear away the image. Now was not the time to be busying himself with silly, impossible, utterly terrifying fantasies like that.

Once again, he stood outside the clubroom, the same spot he'd been for the last ten minutes. Everyone else had already arrived, he could hear them, and he was surely late by this time- which was certainly not behavior befitting a prince, to be late to the very club of which he was in charge, especually if it was for no good reason at all, only his own pathetic cowardice.

He'd mercilessly racked his brain over the weekend for an idea, an excuse, any clue as to what to do or say once he had to face the other members of the club, and had come up with nothing. Zero. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Nothing except perhaps for a severe reaction to hay fever, which upon thinking about it some more he realized wouldn't work because it was Fall. Keeping with the theme, the next thing his brain suggested was cabin fever, but no matter how hard he tried to make THAT work, he simply couldn't, although he did mentally file it away for use at a later date, should the need ever arise. Cabin fever. Hm. From what he'd heard it sounded like something commoners would be more likely to come down with, what with living in those tiny little apartments. He'd have to ask Haruhi later.

With a frustrated sigh, he stared helplessly up at the double doors, which he could've sworn were mocking him, somehow. He knew he couldn't stand out here forever, but couldn't seem to force himself to go inside. Surely he'd already incurred the wrath of Kyoya for being so late. It would only get worse the longer he waited...

He sucked in a deep breath, and mentally braced himself. He let it slowly before assuming his best princely smile, grabbing hold of the door handle, turning and striding as confidently and casually as he could into the club room before he could decide to chicken out and flee in the other direction. He could only pray that today wouldn't end in disaster...

Tamaki gave himself a mental pat on the back, because although he knew that truly he was only stalling, he had still managed to successfully avoid any kind of prolonged conversation with any of the other hosts all day. As soon as he'd entered the club room, he'd immediately busied himself with entertaining the guests, and hadn't paused for a breather even once, leaving no openings for anyone to accost him with their raised eyebrows and baseless accusations. He ignored any looks of concern sent his way and not once did he even glance in Hone-... Honey-... in a certain person's general direction. Making lady after lady blush and swoon with some of the best lines he'd thought up all month, he was the very picture of normalcy! Anyone who would accuse him otherwise was very obviously suffering from a late case of hay fever. Or something like that.

He was just making his way across the room, waving a sweet goodbye and blowing kisses to one table of ladies as he made his way over to the next, only to bump into someone while he wasn't paying attention. His head whipped around in time to see Haruhi frantically scrambling to regain her balance and not drop the tea pot she'd been carrying. Thankfully successful, she huffed and puffed a few times before turning to fix Tamaki with a hard glare.

"Watch were you're going, senpai! I almost dropped this expensive tea spot. The last thing I need is for my debt to go up just because you weren't paying attention!"

He flinched, backing away slightly. He simply couldn't stand for his daughter to be angry at him. He was about to try and stutter out words of apology, before something in his brain... clicked as he looked into Haruhi's angry eyes.

Haruhi...

Smart, down-to-earth, Haruhi! I mean sure, she was naive, but perhaps her blunter-than-a-baseball-bat manner could shed new light on the situation and show it to him from a side he'd never thought of before! If nothing else, unlike the others, she'd never tell! It was perfect!

His hand shot out and landed around Haruhi's wrist.

She blinked and stared at him. "Senpai...?"
With that, holding firmly onto the small girl, the blonde took off running full speed towards the closet across the room. Haruhi could only scream confused protests as she was practically dragged across the room, the tea pot slipping from her grasp, plummeting down to the floor below and shattering into a million pieces. How many more thousand yen was that, now?

The closet door slammed shut behind him, Haruhi's angry cries silenced as Tamaki clamped a hand over her mouth. He glanced about suspiciously, as though there could possibly be someone else in the closet with them, before turning back to Haruhi and putting a finger to his lips. "Shhhhhhhh!" He slowly removed his hand from her mouth.

Big mistake.

"TAMAKI-SENPAI! Have you lost your mind?! What are you doing?! Can't you see I was-...!"

"SHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Tamaki waved his hands frantically. "They'll hear us!"

"Senpai, everyone in the room saw you charge in here like a crazed bull! Look, if you dragged me in here to tell me one of your ridiculous plans, I-...!"

"It's not that!" He whispered loudly. "There's something else I need to talk to you about! It's important."

"Senpai-...!"

"PLEASE!"

"Ugh, fine, whatever, spit it out, I haven't got all day you know!"

"It's about Honey-senpai!"

He stopped short as all of a sudden his heart seemed to jump into his throat. He took a deep breath, trying to calm his frayed nerves. Stay calm, this is the easy part... deep breaths...

Haruhi watched him impatiently, seething. As she continued to wait though, she felt her anger slowly fading away. Upon closer inspection, Tamaki really did look kind of upset about something. Not his usual overly-dramatic, over-the-top upset, either.

Finally, she spoke up. "... Senpai? Are you alright?"

Tamaki exhaled one more time, swallowed, and straightened up to look the other in the eye. It was now or never.

"Yes... yes, I'm fine. It's just... there's something I need to tell you."

"Ooookay. What is it?"

"It's... it's a secret. You have to promise not to tell anyone. Especially not the other club members."

"Okay, I promise. What's your problem?"

Stay calm. Spit it out. Everything's gonna be fine. You can do this, Tamaki. You can do this...

"What are Tamaki and Haruhi doing in that closet?"

"What's going on, why did they rush in there so suddenly?"

"Do you think Tamaki's confessing his love?!"
"And then what happens after that with the two of them in that closet?!"

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

The rest of the club looked on as the guests went into an excited fit at the thought of Tamaki and Haruhi doing something scandolous in a closet. They also wondered what was going on naturally, but they were rather a bit less... enthusiastic.

"Kyoya-senpai?" The twins said in unison and slowly slid up to the bespetacled boy. "Do you have any idea what's going on here?"

"No, and I get the feeling I really don't want to."

There we have the second chapter! Sorry we don't see what happens next just yet, but it'll be up soon, I promise! Stay tuned and have some cake, folks! Thanks again for reading, and any and all comments are appreciated. Special thanks to one person following this! It encouraged me to try and get this up faster instead of waiting around.

Next chapter: Operation Confess to Honey-senpai!