A/N: Ohmygoodness, so much business! I'm going to be caught up in Birthday-Season for the next weekend or so, and it might be a while before I manage to write up another chapter. I think that scuba diving will be in the Host Club's future, tho, and it'll be fun too )

Anyway, here's a fun chapter for you to remember me in my absence with. I tried out a different Point Of View, and I want you to tell me if you like it, okay? I want to know if I should include some more in the future. I was thinking of doing a Tamaki one soon, and definitely more Mori. Thanks! Read on, my fans!

Disclaimer: I do not own Ouran High School Host Club in any way shape or form.

Chapter Six

She Is a Girl

He feels it is his place to watch, and listen, and know all, without saying a word.

He feels safe when he's silent. When he doesn't speak, no one can contradict him, and he cannot be told that he is wrong. That is his only fear: to be so wrong that he can never be corrected, and his failure will hurt the people he cares for.

But he sometimes feels like she's watching him, wanting him to say something. Which is ridiculous. Why would she care about what he says or doesn't say? If anything, he is the father and Tamaki the rogue son, and it is for him to take care of the Host Club, not enjoy it. Sometimes he lets himself pretend, play out in his mind what will never become real in words. Sometimes he lets himself think that he has a chance over beautiful Tamaki and complex, interesting twins. Sometimes he lets himself become, not a servant, not a father, but an equal, one that she can talk to, laugh with.

But that is the role of a servant, even long after the times when the Morinozuka family served the Haninozuka. The role of a servant is to be silent, watching, listening, knowing all and seeing all, without saying a word.

-x-

Haruhi should have known better than to agree to take the Host Club to a superstore.

Not only had they wreaked havoc with everything from Tupperware to Hershey's bars, they had bought out nearly the entire store with awed clients in tow, flirted shamelessly with the clerks and any girl who had the misfortune to wander into the store, caused nothing short of a riot when Kaoru and Hikaru decided that a Brotherly Love show was needed during the time in the checkout line to up the tension, and made the veins in Haruhi's head prematurely throb (she swore she felt an ulcer forming, damn them).

Tamaki inspected the top of the box he had in his lap, sitting in the lavish parlor where all the clients and Hosts were gathered, drinking fancy teas and flirting and laughing idly, dazed and riding out the last dredges of commoner-experience excitement, as they had just returned to Suou Vacation Home Three and gathered after having a few minutes alotted by Kyoya for freshening up, or as Haruhi put it, 'recuperating'.

"Plan-a-fah-muh-lee game night," he said, his English jerky and slow. Haruhi had the feeling that this was just for show or his own internal amusement, as no one but she was watching, for he flipped the box over and scanned the paragraph quickly, nodding.

"Haruhi."

"Huh?" she asked, jerked out of a dreamy, exhausted reverie by the tentative voice of Renge. "Oh, I'm sorry, Renge. I was distracted."

"It's all right," she said, smiling and sipping her cup of what seemed to be brown tea. It moved sluggishly and she sipped it in a hardly delicate way, and Haruhi couldn't help but be repulsed by what might lay in the porcelain.

"Renge, I hope you don't mind me asking, but what it is that you are drinking, exactly?"

"Melted chocolate," she said tritely. "Drink it while it's hot or you'll have to chew it."

"You're drinking chocolate?" she asked, fairly disbelieving. She nodded.

"It's delicious. A special treat to myself that I have only occasionally. Would you like to taste?"

"May I?" Haruhi asked, and Renge nodded, raising her cup. Haruhi remembered the incredulous looks of the wealthy parents at the Ouran Student Festival when she offered food to Tamaki, but clearly Renge didn't care, her eyes shining with hope, which, of course, Haruhi mistook as the light reflecting oddly on her retinas, lending her a vaguely manic look.

Haruhi leaned tentatively forward and accepted the cup from Renge, closing the small space between them on the richly brocaded love seat, but quickly opening it again as she leaned back and took a small sip of the heavy substance in the cup. It was rich and good chocolate, and it tasted thick and warm on her tongue. She handed the cup back and savored the taste a moment before swallowing, and finding that remnants of the liquid resided in all the little corners of her mouth.

"I'm sure this isn't healthy," she managed thickly, and Renge merely smiled beatifically and reclaimed her cup.

"All right!"

Haruhi, now accustomed to often outbursts of plots and plans, turned her head towards an easily excited blond brandishing a box and holding many more flattish boxes in his other arm with no surprise but too much dread.

"We shall plan a family game night!"

"Senpai—" Haruhi began, trying to becalm him, like he did something drastic like make them play hours of board games while snuggled into a kotatsu at gunpoint—or maybe she was letting her imagination get away with her.

"No! Haruhi, you must listen to Papa! These games 'Make the family into a whole!' he read off the back of the box, nodding enthusiastically. "Don't you want to be whole, Haruhi?"

"You're a few pieces short of a whole," she muttered. "And do any of the clients want to play?" she asked, her eyes sliding to Kyoya, who had paused slightly in his frantic typing.

"I would," Renge piped up, and several of the other clients nodded vigorously. Kyoya returned to typing, satisfied, and Tamaki, with a victorious cry, began laying out their different game selections.

"Monopoly, Chutes and Ladders, Candyland, Scrabble," he pronounced. "Clue, puzzles, backgammon."

"Lets play Clue," Haruhi elected, rising from her position on the elevated seat and sitting on the floor at the opposite side of the glass-topped table. Tamaki looked like he was about to cry with happiness, at least until Haruhi glared at him solidly and struck up conversation with Renge, who was sitting on her other side now, all too eager to play Clue.

Tamaki explained the game with relish when all the Club members and their clients had sat down, and between the puzzled questions of the clients and the enthusiastic clarifications of Tamaki, they finally managed to start the game. As there were only six pieces, Tamaki, Hikaru, Haruhi, Kyoya Renge and Kaoru's client elected to play.

Tamaki and the twins took to cheering obnoxiously whenever someone rolled a six, and noisily intaking breaths when someone was accused. Haruhi laughed along with everyone else, though her foot rammed into Tamaki's shin when he began to cry as she accused Colonel Mustard in the ballroom with the rope (he had snatched up the yellow piece), which only served to make him wail louder with cries of 'My daughter hates me! My daughter wants to imprison me!'

"Professor Plum, your turn," Renge teased, and Haruhi smiled at her, rolling the die.

"Six," she pronounced, and as she moved her plum piece towards the conservatory noisy cheers abounded. "Hummm. Let's see. Miss Peacock. In the Conservatory. With the . . . the wrench."

"I can prove you wrong," Hikaru said, sliding a card over to her. She picked it up. Wrench. She crossed it off her list and handed it back to him.

There was a round of lazy conversation as Renge dithered over where to send her piece, Miss Scarlett.

"Can you believe it's been a week already?" Tamaki asked, stretching his arms.

"It feels like much longer," Haruhi said, resting her chin on her hand and smiling. "I'm really enjoying this vacation, contrary to prior beach excursions." Tamaki fairly glowed.

"I'm glad, Haruhi," Hunny piped up from where he sat with Mori just behind her.

"We should hold a special dinner or something on the last night," Tamaki said, his face pensive.

"Ballroom," Renge decided, sending Miss Scarlett to the ballroom, but interest in the game had dwindled.

"We could use the ballroom," the blond said pensively, misinterpreting her announcement. "We could invite some friends from Ouran to come over for an overnight."

"That would be fun," Renge said, forgetting the game finally. "Your ballroom is beautiful, Tamaki."

"Thank you, Renge," he said distractedly, his eyes on Haruhi with an expression seeking confirmation that she would enjoy this particular event.

"I still haven't had ootoro," was her only reply.

Truth be told, she didn't crave or want ootoro that badly. She had mentioned it merely after hearing her father dreamily rattle off the fine foods his friends had had at their wedding. He'd raved about ootoro, and a she'd possessed a vague interest in it ever since. The Host Club had blown it out of proportion, and she had learned long ago it was far from wise to contradict them.

"We'll have a dance and fine dinner," Tamaki announced. "On Friday night. We're packing up on Saturday morning, right, Kyoya?"

"Eight to ten is time for goodbyes to the scenery and having your luggage packed, yes," he replied, moving his piece into the kitchen.

"But . . ." Haruhi's forehead creased. "It's Wednesday. Thats less than a week left."

"We arrived last Monday," Kaoru said. "It's been a little over a week."

"Oh," she said. "Then I was right when I said that it's been more than a week." She moved her piece. "I am going to make an accusation."

"Ooooh!" the twins chorused.

"Miss Peacock, in the Library—l."

"Haruhi."

She felt his breath on her neck, and it felt like where it hit there spread a pink blush, making the back of her neck a dark, stained red. He was so close she could feel his body heat. The twins and Tamaki hugged her regularly, tucked her into them, but those were silly little gestures, meant to convey more companionship than anything else. They could be brimful of meaning, but to her they were empty. And in this one, not nearly as meaningful gesture she read so much more into it—because he never spoke, much less touched her or even came near her.

"You crossed off Miss Peacock, remember?" he asked, so quietly that no one else heard. This time she could feel the breath that made the words on her ear, and they, too, flushed pink. "Only on the other side."

She turned it over and found, to her bemusement, he was right. It was Miss Scarlett, not Miss Peacock.

"You're right, Mori," she said, her voice equally soft. "I did."

She could feel the eyes of everyone in the room on her, Tamaki's scathing, the twins', unreadable, Kyoya's hidden by glasses, Hunny's large and confused eyes boring into her back.

"It's Miss Scarlet in the library with the revolver," she said quickly, her voice little more than flustered, embarrassed breath. Renge pulled the cards out of the envelope and declared her right—the tension in the room lifted, everyone congratulated her. Which left her distracted mind to wonder—how had he known which side she had crossed Miss Peacock off on?

-x-

Haruhi Fujioka might not look it, act it, care about it, or acknowledge it in any way, but she was a girl.

She was a girl constantly surrounded by men, most of whom cared deeply for her, and as Kyoya had said—this could easily be confused for love. And despite everything, her not caring, her disregard at the rather obvious romantic advances she was given, she had to confess that somewhere along the line, she'd had odd daydreams.

Things like her and Tamaki being married, catching herself doodling one of the Host Club members names on a sheet of paper when she was thinking of them, dreams about being kissed by a nameless face.

When the twins hug her, when Tamaki cradles and coddles her to him, her face gets red, not only because of embarrassment, but also because of their close proximity. She's not completely ignorant—it's easier in her situation to pretend that none of it fazes her. Mostly it doesn't. Sometimes it does.

She had read the romance novels in middle school before declaring them utterly silly and a complete waste of her valuable studying time, she sometimes watched a soap opera, at her fathers' urges, and she found the scenes in which dramatic kissing took place somewhere between revolting and slightly appealing.

Yes, Fujioka Haruhi will never admit it, but she is a girl, and sometimes she thinks of kissing.

-x-

"Tamaki?"

Her knuckles lay on his door, peering curiously into his room, her mouth still half-open with the sound of his name, whispered. The twins were off Hosting, Mori and Hunny off eating cake and supervising, respectively, and Kyoya was at the office of Suou Vacation Home Three trading stocks or taking over the world or whatever he did on that ominous silver computer. The auxiliary dining room was very nearly empty.

He looked up, and his cheeks pinkened, delighted that for once, she has approached him, with that curious, adorable look on her face.

"Yes, Haruhi?" he asked, beckoning her in.

"I had a few requests for the last day dinner/dance thing," she said carefully, standing awkwardly in the middle of his room. It somewhere between messy and clean, every surface cluttered but organized.

"You can sit down," he said, standing up from where he had been sprawled on his bed, regarding her curiously. She dropped where she was like a puppet with it's strings cut, and he started, once again in awe of how she thought so little of simply sitting on the plush carpet—he could hear her reasoning if he should ask; 'It's comfortable enough, senpai, but if you prefer I could sit in a chair.'

"Well, I was going to ask if we could invite Casanova-kun," she said first, and he could hear his world crashing down around his ears. He recalled Kyoya's words: telling her that the redheaded boy was desperately in love with her. This hadn't changed her opinion of him. She wanted him around now. This couldn't mean . . .

"I felt that I should apologize somehow," she continued. "You senpais alerted me to the awful thing I'd done to him, the same way I did with Arai, and I feel like I should invite him over to make up for it . . . I don't know."

"The clients might be a little alarmed," Tamaki said, perking up. "They already think that he is trying to engage you romantically."

"He hasn't said anything to—" she began doubtfully, then smiled, curling herself into a ball, resting her chin on her kneecaps. "That's a little ridiculous."

"No it's not," Tamaki said fondly. "You're just overwhelmingly naïve."

Haruhi looked up at him sharply, and he felt his face grow warmer as she inspected him even more thoroughly. Even though her face was hardly half as easy to read as the heart that Tamaki kept prominently displayed on his sleeve, he could hear her thoughts clearly in her actions. 'I hope he doesn't like me too . . .'

"I'm only your father, Haruhi," he said disapprovingly. "Don't even think such things."

She laughed.

"Yeah," she said. "I guess I'm just a little paranoid lately."

His face was sad as he watched her, gladly believing his unskillful lies.

"Good night, senpai."

"Good night, Haruhi."

She climbed to her feet and smiled at him detachedly.

"Thank you for the lock. It's kept the twins out of my room twice. I caught them."

"Unscrupulous twins," he said complacently. "Sleep well."

"You too, Senpai," she said, smiling and exiting his room.

The click of the latch fell into dead silence.

What did you think? Did you like it? I did. I typed this up in an hour, pressured with aforementioned business, but I'm fairly happy about how it came out. There's a bit of – I don't know what to call it, exactly – emotional sections? I hope you liked them – and if you don't Read and Review I might have to eat you.

Just kidding.

Much Love,

Vacancy