THe Death of a King

Ouran Highschool Host Club

Disclaimer: Bisco Hatori owns Ouran.

05: Acceptance

"This is badd!!!" Haruhi stared at the childish boy hugging her so tightly she could barely breath. "Uh, Huni senpai what are you doing here?"
Mori pulled Huni out of Haruhi, "We heard about Tamaki"

"Oh" she sat back in the bench and smiled. "What's so bad about it?" she said not looking at them.

Huni pouted, "what about Haru-chan?"

'Yes, what about me? I have been dwelling the the past for week now and yet I haven't done anything...' she thought quietly.

"I'm all right!" Haruhi looked up at them and smiled, just like what she did at that exact time.

"Oh Haru-chan!! Takeshi and I will do anything so Tama-chan will choose you!" Huni threw his arms around her neck, choking her again. "What do you want us to do? Kidnap him? Knock him till he realizes he likes Haru-chan?"

Haruhi's eyes flew wide open as she stared pleadingly at Mori senpai. "N-no thanks Huni-senpai. Things will work out just fine!"

"Ohhh Haru-chan!! Poor Haru-chan!!!"

"Mori-senpai!!!"

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"Where is Milord?" Kaoru asked as they lounge lazily in the music room.

"His grandmother called for him" Kyouya replied dryly looking tentatively at his laptop.

"Tamaki-senpai is so busy.." Hikaru stretched his long arms upwards.

"Aside from the engagement, his preparing to leave for the States to pursue his studies" Kyouya added naturally. Haruhi who was sitting in the corner and was reading a book did not bother to look up. She knew about it, how could she forget such event anyway? Now she could feel the twin's eyes on her. She lifted them and shrugged her shoulders. "What about you Kyouya sempai? Where are you going to study?"

"Just here" he simply said.

Haruhi let out a knowing smile and resumed reading her book. Kyouya glanced at her with curiousity, for the last few days she had been acting far from what she was suppose to. And that look in her face, if she was hiding her feelings she was pretty damn good at it. Kyouya narrowed his gaze then he decided to test her. "Suppose I do not want to be a doctor.." he said slowly, the twins ignoring him but Haruhi glanced up and caught his eyes.

"You will be a doctor senpai, and a very good one" she blurted out.
He rested his head on one hand. "I don't want to be a doctor"
She challenged his gaze. "You will be a doctor"

Kyouya sighed. "Let's see...you made me change my mind"
Haruhi''s face turned pale.

Bingo.

"Senpai, whether you like it or not you will be a doctor. Its in your blood and its one way you could please your father" she said firmly. "Really...so its more like that I do not have a choice" he continue to stare at her with that piercing eyes behind those wire trimmed glasses. "What about you Haruhi? Do you have a choice?" Haruhi blinked back. 'I do not remember him asking me this question..' Yet judging from Kyouya's face, she said things that she wasn't suppose to. She closed her book, the twins were now looking at her waiting for her answer.

"No" she said to them.
Kyouya shrugged her shoulders, "that's sad"
A worried look crossed Hikaru's face. Haruhi got up and retreated to another part of the room. Kaoru pouted, "senpai, you made Haruhi go away"
Kyouya's face darkened. "I hate it when people supress their emotions when its too obvious" he muttered not minding that his words had somewhat stirred Hikaru.

Alone, Haruhi glanced outside the school grounds from the music room window, contemplating on Kyouya's strange words. She knew that the boy was suspicious, which isn't new. He was as cunning as a detective. One of his best or probably his annoying aspect of being himself.

But he was right, damn he was right. 'I had a choice didn't I?' she thought biting her lower lip. 'Now I have a chance I could change that. I could go to him and stop everything'

"Haruhi" she heard Hikaru calling from behind her.
"Yes?" she did not bother to turn and look at him.
"I can't stand seeing you like this" he blurted out.
"I'm all right" she lied.
"Why don't you---"

"No" she said firmly, she turned to look at him in the face. Even if this whole damn thing may look like a dream, or if she did really fly back to the past, Haruhi Fujioka remained stubborn. Then she decided.

Hikaru walked towards her and reached out to her.
"Its been decided.." she trembled.

Her wall was beginning to crumble.
"What is wrong?" he touched her cheek. "Is it about Milord?"

'Its about you, Kanoya, Tamaki and the future!' her mind screamed. 'I do not want to touch anything in the past..I'm terrified to change anything!'

'I'm nothing but a coward!'

Haruhi took a step back, recoiling from his touch.

"I'll be fine. Its Tamaki's life, and not ours to mess around with" she said to him, trying to put up a straight face. But her head was starting to kill her. A wave of dizziness blurred her vision for a second.

"Haruhi.." a worried darkened his features.

'I have to be alone..' she thought quickly. "I have to go somewhere" she told him, and turned her heels before he could utter another word.
Haruhi walked outside, into a garden in the school grounds trying to recollect her thoughts. 'Why am I even here? What exactly am I trying to change?' she asked herself.

Then she heard footstep from behind her. "Hikaru, I told you I am---" she spun around, a pair of deep violet eyes greeted. Her own eyes widened in dismay. Tamaki was the last person she wants to see today.

"Oh" he blinked back, looking a little bit hurt. "You were expecting Hikaru?"

"Maybe" she muttered looking away. "..its so annoying" she added.

He laughed heartily, the tension between them fading. "The twins are annoying"

She raised her gaze. It has been years since she last saw him, and to have him standing in front of her alive and smiling like those old days. These old days was the most wonderful thing that had happened since the news of his death.

'I cannot believe in the future you are going to put a gun in your head' she thought painfully, ' you whose smile never fades, eyes that always reflected the beauty of the world. Should I save you? Should we run away and forget the others? Is that how it works'
She closes her heart listening to the rustling of the leaves around them.

'Or is this just a dream to mock me? To stir the guilt I have been keeping since the day we parted?'

"Haruhi?" Tamaki interrupts her deep thoughts. She opens her heart and finds him a step closer. "You are crying. What is wrong?" he asks looking worried now.
"You have been acting pretty strange"
Haruhi quickly wiped her sudden tears, "its nothing really, its just one of those days when you wake up and..." she lets her voice fade.

'..your back in the past, facing your own demons..'

"Ah, yes one of those days indeed" he said buying her story.

"Nee, senpai" she calls him in a soft voice.
"Hmm.." he was looking at the garden, admiring the flowers.

"You'll be fine" she says.
"You think?"
"Yes, you are after all Tamaki Suou. You are you afterall.."

'The person most precious to me'

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Time, for Haruhi just skipped so fast that she barely realize Tamaki and Kyouya were finally graduating. There was a big party in honor of their individual achievement, in the mean time it served as a farewell party for Tamaki and probably it was for the engagement

"Oh Haru-chan, you didn't have to come.." Huni clinged on her arm like a vine.
"I'm here to congratulate them" she said dryly. She stood beside the Mori, Huni and the twins while Kyouya lingered together with his father, and Tamaki was beside Kanoya.

"They look nice together" she added.
Huni pouted, "if she had short hair she was you"
Kaoru snorted, "yeah she's a replica of Haruhi. Milord is such a devil"

Haruhi finally began to relax, as her friends joked around. Yet she remembered that it was this time she had a conversation with Kanoya, something she had avoided but it took place anyway when she was standing near the door that let to the patio.

"Thank you for coming" she told Haruhi with a gentle smile.
Haruhi pressed her mouth together and smiled back. It was just odd that she should say those words to her. It felt almost as if it stab her heart.

"Its my pleasure" she said quietly. "You guys have been together for years, how I envy you all" she tells her, then Haruhi watch her as she looks at Tamaki in a gaze she had envied herself. A gaze she could never try herself. After such denials, she could only look then glance away ignoring that thumping in her heart.

"His a good person, Kanoya. Take care of him" she tells her. "A bit of an idiot but you' ll get by"

"An idiot?" she looks at her with wonder.
"Oh yeah. He has this weird fascination on things that commoners own" she said. "So you'll probably end up in places that I frequent.."
"He does that alot when he is with you?" Kanoya asks standing closer.

"Well yes. And he thinks of weird activities so be prepared" Haruhi added with a small laugh.
"Eh, you really know him" she said with a sigh. Haruhi just smiled. "Please take care of him" she ended up repeating. "I'll do my best. But perhaps I cannot live up to it" Kanoya said.

"What?"
"I can never be like you" that was the last thing she told her.
They may look physically the same but...

"Haruhi is Haruhi" Mori said emerging out of nowhere with Huni and the twins. Did they overhear thier conversation?! She stared at them in shock. "Oh Haru-chan!!!" Huni once again clinged on her arm.

'I am me' she nodded. 'Its time to accept what I feel once and for all'

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a/n: yay, at least this chapter is a bit long.. I'll be updating after I come back from my trip. Thanks for reading everyone. Cheers to Ouran.