So I knew things weren't exactly normal. And I knew they weren't going to get any better. So what? It didn't bother me. So I was in major denial. What of it? Even so, whether I deny it or not, there's always something to remind me. Like yesterday when two of my classmates commented thoughtlessly about how Kaoru seemed so much happier than he has been (since Haruhi started dating Tamaki, the part they knew but left out). They also commented on how I was happier. How I was smiling more and not looking so depressed. Happier my ass. How could anyone be happier knowing that all they love and cherish is happy (happier even) with someone else? Not me, not like you didn't know that already.
Chapter 4Miyuki woke up with a started and mechanically dressed for school, her thoughts somewhere else. She buttoned up her blazer, remembering to curse the person who thought up those hideous dresses.
She dashed into the hall and slid down the banister, a habit she gathered from constantly running late. She bumped into a butler at the end of the stairs and apologized profusely before speeding out the door to the end of the driveway where the driver was sitting in the limousine, seemingly knowing exactly when she would get up this morning.
She smiled at him half-heartedly but immediately regretted it when he stared at her, obviously concerned. She took no notice to this as they sped down the street, as fast as the speed limit would allow.
As she stared down at the white lines that marked the street, Miyuki couldn't shake this horrible thought that haunted her all night and into the morning.
It was as if, sometime soon, something would go terribly, unmistakably wrong.
Miyuki nearly flew out of the car as she raced the bell to make it to class on time. She ran over those grass lawns nobody noticed anyway, and narrowly avoided a head first dive into that overly disturbing fountain, but managed to gain a few scrapes.
She jumped into her seat thanking whatever higher power made the teacher later than usual. She breathed in once and sighed mildly loud, and she noticed Hikaru staring at her oddly.
"What?" she asked, sharper than she had wanted to. Hikaru looked slightly hurt.
"Nothing," he turned his head back to the front of the class, "I was just wondering what happened." He glanced and the scrapes on her knees.
"Oh, y'know," she felt a little guilty, "the usual."
"Lost another fight with the stairs? Honestly, what am I going to do with you?" he grinned.
Miyuki's breath hitched in her throat, "B-ban me from using the stairs?" she managed to choke out, with a sardonic smile.
Hikaru laughed but it was quickly silenced with the starting of class. They both smiled and focused on their schoolwork.
Lunch as nothing unusual, if you don't count the fact that Miyuki was helping Kuri pass out invitations for her mom's business party.
"I don't know either," Kuri said exasperated, "Mom said it would be more personal and less formal if we wrote them by hand and passed them out ourselves."
Miyuki sighed, but helped her friend find their classmates and upperclassmen whose families were invited. Miyuki shuffled through her stack and came across a surprising name.
"The Hitachiin's are invited?" Miyuki questioned innocently, this could work to her advantage.
"Yes," Kuri was instantly red and flustered, "Our parents are old friends and good business partners. They haven't been able to come for the past couple years though."
"I'm sure they will be able to come this year!" Miyuki desperately tried to cheer her friend up.
"Really?!" Kuri was instantly back to her cheery self, "do you honestly think so?"
Miyuki nodded swiftly and quickly handed out the rest of her stack before dashing of to find Hikaru, with a quick excuse to Kuri.
She ran down one hallway after another but couldn't find him. She decided to give up and slowed down to a walk. She turned a corner and spotted him, sitting on a windowsill, laughing with his brother and a couple other girls.
Miyuki's heart skipped a beat and she stopped mid step. She told herself over and over that the heart-skipping was for Kaoru, her unrequited crush. She noticed the other girls and felt her face heat up, but for a slightly different reason.
She whipped around the wall and stood breathing calmly to control herself. She knew that this emotion, jealousy—which she had experienced when she realized Kaoru liked Kuri—was unnecessary for the current situation. Before she could turn around to walk off an wait for him to be done, he called her.
"Miyuki? Was that you?" she cursed to herself and walked back around the corner and faced them.
"Ha! I had a feeling," Hikaru laughed, and the other girls—now recognizable as classmates—just glared.
Her heart skipped again when he laughed. She shook her head to compose herself.
"So what did you need, Miyuki-chan?" it felt like the girls' glare intensified as Kaoru said this.
"I…I had a question for Hikaru-san-"
"Kun," he corrected.
"-but I see your busy so I'll leave," she finished, with a little more malice than intended.
As she turned as walked off she could hear the whispers of the other girls, "You shouldn't worry about her Hikaru, Kaoru," the first one giggled. "She's nothing all to special," the second one snorted in disgust.
Aw, whatever, she thought to herself and pictured those girls as annoying, twittering, birds. The kind people want to throw rocks at. That wasn't such a bad idea…
She was so into her thoughts that she jumped a foot when Hikaru grabbed her wrist and spun her toward him.
"What?" she asked, peeved.
"You said you had a question for me?" he grinned at her, and she fought to keep a blush down.
"This is absurd," she whispered to herself.
"What?" Hikaru now adopted a confused expression with a slight tilt of the head.
"Nothing!" Miyuki quickly became flustered again, "I'll tell you later, you seemed busy."
"But…" Hikaru looked slightly hurt at this, "I want you to tell me…please?"
Miyuki sighed and pulled the invitation out of her pocket, "will you guys please come?" Hikaru looked at her odd "F-for Kuri-chan! You know! She really wants Kaoru to come so I thought-!" Miyuki stopped mid sentence when Hikaru laughed and patted her head.
"Silly girl, of course we'll come!" Hikaru laughed a little more and his face became serious, "but," he ran his hand down her hair and twisted a short strand around his finger, "won't this hurt you?"
"Heh, not really," she reached up and pulled his hand from her hair, "It doesn't matter to me anymore, I let him go and he'll fade from my heart and mind, remaining nothing but a friend."
They stared at each other before Hikaru broke out into a wry grin.
"What happened to you anyway Hikaru-sa…kun," Miyuki changed the subject teasingly, "this is definitely out of character for you; acting so mature." She giggled but stopped when he looked serious again.
"Hanging out with you does things to me," he responded.
"What's that supposed to mean?!"
Hikaru grinned again and they both laughed on their way to class.
Miyuki arrived early on the day of the party to help with decorative planning and most importantly; get Kuri ready. She knew for a fact that if Kuri had no interest in these parties she would put no effort in her look.
After the decorating was being done, Miyuki dragged Kuri to her room.
"Okay Kuri-chan, you have two options," Miyuki spent no time beating around the bush, "You can either wear this dress I brought for you," Kuri cringed at the word 'dress', "or you can pick your own, that I approve of."
"Is there a third option?"
"No."
So after many rejections of 'not good enough' dresses they had decided to go with the one Miyuki brought.
"Now, this looks good on you," she made Kuri spin around in the chosen dress. It was knee-length and sakura pink. The top was v-neck and sleeveless while the bottom flared out from her hips.
Miyuki did Kuri's hair, but not being one to like much done to her, Kuri insisted that it be left down. She absolutely rejected the idea of makeup.
When the guests started arriving Miyuki went out to greet them, with Ikomoto-san, in Kuri's place. She didn't want Kuri running off when she was done greeting, so she locked her in her room. She greeted everyone with practiced enthusiasm while furtively scanning the incoming crowd for her subject. She spotted a flash of orange hair and left Ikomoto-san with a small apology.
"Kaoru-kun!" she sang as she pushed through the throng to greet the younger of the twins, "I'm so glad you could-!"
"You seem excited," It wasn't a question.
"Oh. Hikaru-kun, sorry, I thought you were Kaoru," she looked around, "where is he anyway?"
"Where'd all the enthusiasm go?" when she didn't answer he sighed, "he's over there," he nodded behind him and Miyuki look around him to see Kaoru talking to what appeared to be their chauffer.
"Oh!" Miyuki stared at him for awhile, a happy smile on her face.
"I thought you were supposed to be over him," Hikaru scowled at her.
"I am," at this point Kaoru spotted her and waved for her to come over, "you know I'm doing this for Kuri," she walked over to him. She glanced back at Hikaru but she nearly cringed at the expression he had on, it was almost like pure loathing. She shuddered.
Miyuki was not in a happy mood after that. The fact the Kuri refused to exit her room did nothing to improve it.
"I'm not leaving!" Kuri clung to her bedpost, "I look positively silly! I'm not going!"
Miyuki sighed for the umpteenth time. "Fine you be like that, poor Kaoru-kun will be all by himself tonight," she smirked when she saw Kuri snap her head up, "Or, maybe not, Kasawari-sans' daughters seemed to gain interest when I escorted him in."
"You invited Kaoru-kun?" she muttered while staring at the floor.
"Yup and you better go find him before Kasawari Kimiko-san finds him first."
"W-well, you went to all this trouble to get me ready and the maids did all that decorating…so I guess I'll go."
Miyuki followed Kuri out of her room to where the party was being held and walked with her across the room. Kuri glanced around nervously and quickened her pace. She was stopped by a couple of her cousins—whose names Miyuki could never remember—but Kuri looked as if she wished for nothing more than to be anywhere else.
Miyuki decided that it would be great for Kaoru to save her from this dilemma and quickly scanned the room for him. She pouted when he was nowhere to be found. Kuri made a swift hand motion be hind her back to tell Miyuki that it was all right for her to leave.
Miyuki took this chance to search for Kaoru. With some speedy walking and a few mumbled apologies; Miyuki managed to break through the crowd and spot Kaoru and Hikaru across the room sitting at one of the few tables set up around the room.
She would have been over there in an instant had she not noticed the Kasawari sisters, flirting with them from across the table. She sighed quietly and her hand met her forehead. This was definitely not good.
It was around that time that Hikaru noticed her and they both stood and walked over.
"Thank you for being a convenient excuse to escape that," Hikaru gestured to the girls left at the table.
"I didn't think I could take anymore of that!" Kaoru made a dramatic gesture of passing out.
Miyuki was about to respond but she heard the familiar sound of the band warming up and remembered her objective. "It sounds like the band is about to start playing…I wonder if Kuri found a partner yet…" she didn't make an effort to be subtle, but Kaoru didn't notice.
"Ah, maybe I should go find her, to make sure she's not alone," and he vanished into the crowd.
"That…" Miyuki stared after him in shock, "…was too easy."
"Incredible…" Hikaru muttered.
"Yeah…" there was an awkward silence after that.
Miyuki took this moment to look at Hikaru. He had a dark blue plaid vest over a long sleeved white dress shirt. His pants were black and surprisingly similar to the school uniform pants.
Hikaru caught her stare. "What?" he asked with a confused expression.
"Well," Miyuki blushed and looked away, "I was just thinking how you look very nice tonight."
She snuck a peek at him but his face was turned away. She sighed, she knew what she said sounded weird. Hikaru looked back at her, grinning, with a slight pink tint to his cheeks.
"Thank you, Yuki-kichi, you look very nice tonight as well." Miyuki didn't bother to correct him, knowing it wouldn't do any good.
"So, what now?" Miyuki had to look up slightly to see his face.
"Let's go spy on them," Hikaru grinned down at her, a mischievous spark in his eyes.
"Won't that look a little conspicuous?" Miyuki though, "two people walking through a dance floor following a couple?"
"Then we'll blend in," Hikaru grabbed her hand, "dance with me?"
"Nice," Miyuki smiled, "smartest thing you've said since I've known you."
Hikaru glared, "Come on," he dragged her into the throng of couples dancing until they were within sight of their target.
They quickly and awkwardly got into formation to join the other dancers in the middle of the song. They spun around gracefully keeping half their focus on the dance and half on Kuri. Then they turned around and Miyuki caught sight of them.
"Oh shit," Miyuki cussed quietly. She just noticed just who Kuri's partner was.
"What?" Hikaru asked in a anxious whisper.
Miyuki knew she could never forget who that was. His being exactly that much taller than Kuri and the blonde hair that could blind someone.
"It's Maxwell," Miyuki cussed again, "He's dancing with Kuri, and she seems to be enjoying it."
Hikaru took a quick glance over his shoulder and matched Miyuki's cussing, "I thought you said she liked Kaoru!" he hissed.
"I did!" she snapped, "and she does like Kaoru! That's her-" she trailed off, to a whisper, "speak of the devil…"
As she said this the dancers all turned again and Hikaru caught a glimpse of Kaoru; stomping across the floor to confront his crush and his apparent competition.
"…and the devil will come."
End Chapter 4