Author's Note: Boom goes the dynamite. ;)

Chapter Ten

Haruhi had the driver drop her off around the corner from her apartment. Though it was late and most folks were retiring early in preparation for a new week, it was a nice evening, and several of her neighbors were sure to be out enjoying an evening tea in the mild weather, so she confessed she simply couldn't deal with the stares and the questions, and Mori was only too happy to oblige. For his part, after a day with so much focus and attention on him, the senior sympathized.

He was weary to the bone. His battle with the beast aside, he had never felt so tired in his life. Anxiety and stress had gnawed at his muscles all day, but now that he was seeing Haruhi home to safety, they could finally relax, and they sagged like a spring that had been forcibly straightened. The apprehension that came naturally to him after frequent conversation was almost as taxing. A whole day had passed with him struggling, as man who replaced speech with action, to explain himself to others who were used to filling in gaps with words. As usual, it was an effort in futility.

Mori shuffled a few steps behind Haruhi and discreetly admired the flash of smooth skin that blossomed up from the depths of her collar and kissed the fringe of brown hair that rustled in the breeze. Something about it refreshed his aching body, and he indulged himself with a secret smile at her hint of femininity. It was as if she could hear his eyes discussing her merits.

She slowed her steps to match his and glanced up at him out of the corner of her eye. Her voice descended over him like a shawl. "You didn't need to walk me home, Mori-sempai."

"Call me Takashi." He wanted to say it; he thought he did. Instead he said nothing.

He shrugged with one shoulder lazily as if to say, "I was already going this way."

She had called him Takashi. For that one shining moment, today had felt like the best day of his life instead of one of the worst. No honorifics, no pretensions, no distance between them. Haruhi had said his name like she was his and he was hers. She had said it with her lips rumbling against the fabric of his shirt, little earthquakes throughout his body, the vibrations of every syllable like a live wire on his skin. Takashi.

Now things were back to the way they were supposed to be—he a senior, she a first-year—and the gulf between them was as wide as it had always been. It was a beautiful memory, and Mori knew he would remember the feelings it inspired at age 80 as keenly as he did at 17. Some things you just didn't forget.

As they neared her building, Haruhi didn't press him for more conversation, and Mori was grateful for it. She was one of the few people who respected his silence instead of resented it. They crested the stairs to the second floor of her building when he caught the tail end of a remark from one nosy neighbor to another. "Looks like Haru-chan switched from celebrities to street urchins."

"Seems her fifteen minutes are up."

He smiled to himself. Mori cared little for names, titles, or wealth. He would be happier eating grilled sanma in a tiny two-room apartment than he would be noshing on a seven-course French masterpiece in a private villa. Still, for one second, he savored the image of their faces if they found out his family name.

They stopped outside of Haruhi's apartment as she fished for her keys. Mori stood there with his hands in his pockets, expecting nothing but a smile of gratitude so he could be on his way. As he waited to see her safely inside, he investigated the doorway and noted with a bit of self-satisfaction that there was no trace of boot black or any visible signs of his haste the other day. Her landlady would indeed be none the wiser.

Haruhi's keys jostled in the lock, and it brought him back to the moment he'd been dreading—leaving her. No one had ever really accused Mori of being at a loss for words because he never seemed to have any as it was, but at that moment, he grappled with a simple goodbye. He knew why—he just didn't want to say it. He tipped his head gently to her and opened his mouth to founder for a "goodnight" when she unexpectedly saved him.

"Will you come in?" she asked.

Mori listened, not to what she said, but what she meant. She needed some company, and he wanted to offer it.

Under the unforgiving incandescence inside, Mori was forced to acknowledge how shocking the state of his appearance really was. While there wasn't much he could do about the charred hems of his collared shirt, he could at least wash his face so he didn't leave a trail of soot in her home. "I'm sorry" was all he could manage as he looked rather hopelessly at himself.

The corner of her mouth quirked up as though she hadn't even realized how filthy he actually was. "Let me get you something to clean up." Haruhi excused herself and disappeared into the bathroom. She came back with a washcloth, a towel, a small bowl of water, and some soap.

"Thank you," he said and reached for the towel when he immediately realized his mistake.

"Mori-sempai, you're hurt." Those shimmering brown eyes glanced up from his hand to his face, and he cursed his carelessness. She wasn't supposed to see it. Worry creased along her brow and crinkled the peak of her nose, which was the last thing he wanted for Haruhi after the day she had had. He should have just wished her goodnight and left, but he was selfish, and he was never selfish. Now he had inflicted pain on her, too.

"It's nothing," he said as he pulled his hand back.

"Let me see," she commanded with such force he had to comply. Mori imagined this was the kind of woman her mother had been: strong, resourceful, authoritative. You didn't say no to a woman like Haruhi. He considered telling her that, but like so many other conversations he had in his head, it didn't end well because he could never seem to get across exactly what he needed her to know.

He held out both hands in front of him and turned them palms up. Nearly every surface had been burned. His skin was raw and red as ripe tomatoes, and Mori could practically see them throbbing in time with his heart. The butt and meat of his palms had the worst of it with mountains of little blisters already forming while most of his fingers had been spared serious damage. They were probably second degree, maybe third in parts, but it didn't matter; Haruhi was never meant to see them.

"Sempai," she said, and he noted the heartache in her voice, "you should really see a doctor."

He shook his head.

Haruhi shook her head. "Why wouldn't you say something about this?"

"You were more important."

"Are," he amended in his mind.

She cradled Mori's left hand in hers, and it was like putting a catcher's mitt in a doll's hand. Undaunted, Haruhi gingerly traced the outline of it with her other hand. He did his best to remain stone-faced in the wake of her attentions, but he couldn't stop a wince as her fingertip glanced over a blister.

"At least let me take care of them," she insisted. Mori nodded obediently.

This time Haruhi came back with ointment, gauze, and bandages, and she sat across from her guest, one leg tucked underneath her and the other running parallel to the inside of his as she finagled herself closer to work. The heat of her leg was enough to distract him from the deep ache of his scorched palms as she rendered her ministrations. Haruhi dotted the ointment across the plane of his hand with the same delicate pecks of a baby chick, but there were no two ways of getting around it—it still hurt. He grunted and she eyed him nervously.

"I'm fine," he reassured.

Despite with his protestation, Haruhi went even easier on him. When she finally had a thick enough layer of medicine over his palms, she paused and looked like she was considering something. She glanced up, and Mori knew exactly what she was going to do. "Don't," he begged inwardly. "Just don't." But she did.

Her lips blossomed into a perfect O and loosed an arrow of breath that exploded across his brutalized hand. The pain had instantly been forsaken in favor of an amalgamation of relief mixed with a little indulgence. So this was the unintended consequence of his collapse of self-control in the nursing station. Mori knew he would regret that—but was this really regret? The pounding in his chest, the shiver down his spine, and the longing in his abdomen spoke to another feeling entirely. He thought she was teasing him, but Haruhi didn't tease. She was too levelheaded for that. Wasn't she?

At last she relented—did she just steal a glance at him?—and she layered some gauze over top before wrapping his palm like a mummy. She secured the bandage and gave Mori the okay to examine it. It was much tougher to contract his fingers, but the pain had lessened significantly, and the cooling effect of the medication offered some much needed relief to the throbbing. His second hand went much faster, and before he knew it, he looked like a boxer readying for practice.

Haruhi sat back on her knees and exhaled in relief. "Well, I'm no doctor, but it's done."

"Much better."

She stared hard at him for a moment, and he wondered what she was thinking. Generally, it was easy to gauge her thoughts from her expressive eyes, but not now. They were cool, a bit soft, and very, very deep. Eventually, she broke their eye contact and not-so-subtly nudged the washcloth toward him.

"I'll make us some tea," she said as she gave him some privacy.

Mori took the hint and dipped it into the water with a little soap and began scrubbing his arms, watching with satisfaction as the water turned gray. He hadn't realized how hard he was working to remove the vestiges of his failure against her unearthly pursuer until he realized he was scrubbing his skin pink. He longed to remove his shirt and wipe himself down completely, but, though Haruhi had seen him without a shirt dozens of times, it had never been in the intimacy of her apartment. Instead, he turned his attentions to his face. He savored the feeling of the cool cloth circling along his hairline and across his eyebrows, and when he was done patting his face with the towel, he felt like a new man.

Mori heard the whistle of the teapot from the kitchen, and in a few moments, Haruhi returned with two steaming cups. No sooner had she sat down then she reached across the table with the freshly folded towel. "Sempai." She dabbed it at the corner of his cheek as she removed the last trace of soot, and he closed his eyes and fought the urge to lean into it.

He risked a glance at her and caught sight of a long tear along the seam in her shirt, running from under the sleeve halfway down her side. There was a flash a white that peeked scandalously between the folds that Mori could only assume was a sports bra. He turned his head away, and Haruhi pulled back.

"I could mend that," he said as he stared at the wall.

She followed his eyes, which were studiously avoiding hers. "Hm?"

"Your shirt."

Haruhi lifted her arm and glanced down to the gaping hole that fluttered along her side. "Really? I sort of figured this shirt for lost, but I'd hate to throw out anything that could be saved. I had no idea you could sew, too. You're a constant surprise, sempai."

"Mm."

While Mori was no prodigy with a needle, he was capable of mending clothing and crafting rudimentary novelties. It was a skill perfect for the type of guy who lived his life under the radar, who saw more merit in creating gifts from the heart than shopping for some high-end treasure at a designer store. Of course, if the Host Club ever saw him sewing something, it would mean his imminent demise, so he and Honey kept it a secret, but behind the scenes, he was the person who kept Bun-Bun and Beary in pristine shape and kept their school uniforms tidy so Kyoya didn't have to lament another $3,000 going down the tubes. He took a risk telling her, but he trusted that she would find more usefulness to it than mockery of it.

Without much preamble, Haruhi headed to her bedroom and shut the door, leaving Mori alone with this tea and some very un-Mori-like thoughts about the swell of her rib cage between the tear in her shirt. After a few minutes and some soft swishing sounds, she reemerged in her pajamas, carrying her tunic in her hands. It didn't matter that her pajamas were a chaste androgynous cotton tee with matching shorts. Haruhi slept in them, dreamed in them, and that alone brought the faintest hint of a blush to Mori's cheeks.

"Is the tea too hot?" she said when she noticed his flush.

"Ah."

They sat in silence for a few minutes though it was clear from her fidgeting that something was on her mind. When she opened her lips, Mori steeled himself for what he knew was coming. "Mori-sempai, can I ask you something?"

"Ah."

"I know you might not want to talk about it, but what happened back at the school?"

He knew her question was coming, and yet he was still unprepared. Mori didn't know how to explain what had happened to him. He wasn't even sure he could explain it to himself. Besides, he felt it would only make her worry more than she already had, and that wasn't fair to someone who already had her whole world crashing down around her shoulders. How much should he confess?

He hadn't stopped the dark horse, he had barely even slowed it down. All of his strength, his so-called skill, his experience had meant nothing in the face this otherworldly opponent. Perhaps it was his hubris to think he could have stopped it, or maybe he had simply been blinded by his determination to protect Haruhi, but either way, he was a failure. His only consolation was the fact that she had made it out with Hikaru and Kaoru's help.

As he had squared off with his rival in the swirling blackness, Mori had felt the telltale surge of adrenaline urging his feet forward, practically commanding him to charge, but as with every kendo match he had ever completed, he wrestled it back as he waited for the right move to present itself. He looked into the horse's eyes expecting to see a reflection of himself engulfed in their fiery depths, but there was only Haruhi, her petite silhouette chained to the brimstone within unable to get away. Mori sunk into his defensive stance, his thighs screaming for mercy and his toes aching in his shoes as they gripped for better purchase along the slick floors. The two deadlocked, neither willing to concede to the other, which was fine with Mori. The longer he stared down the beast, the further away Haruhi got.

He must have telegraphed his thoughts through his body language because the very next second, the horse plunged forth, its front legs hammering into the marble so hard a tile splintered. It came directly for him, snorting, chomping at its bit, and shaking its mane of jet black hair. Mori smiled as he egged the creature on and braced for impact.

The dark horse slammed into his chest with the force of a car, and while Mori had been prepared for its brute strength, he was not prepared for the searing pain that ignited under his hands as he grappled with its noseband and struggled to grab a hold of its reins. Nothing had ever hurt so much as the heat that bubbled up underneath of them. It was like his skin was sloughing off, and when at last he could no longer hold the horse at bay, he found the heat lingered on his skin as though he had just dunked his hands in lava.

The fight was literally melting right out of Mori, but the memory of Haruhi in the horse's eyes burned stronger, and with his last effort, he jammed his shoulder into the haunch of the beast just long enough to slam it into the wall. Mori fell to his knees, his hands still roasting, and found he could not stand back up. The horse stumbled too, dazed and disoriented, its two front legs momentarily buckling and creating a high-pitched squeal as the horseshoes skidded against the stone. But it regained its footing, and without so much as a glance back at its opponent, left Mori in a heap of ash and shame on the floor.

"Sempai? Sempai!" Haruhi was shouting at him. Mori hadn't realized he had zoned out until he heard her teacup clatter and slip over the table.

"Mm?"

"I asked what happened to you."

"I lost." It was a simple enough summation of the events, but it wasn't good enough for someone like Haruhi.

"How did you get those burns?"

"Its skin."

"It was hot enough to burn you?"

"Ah."

"But you slowed it down?"

"A little."

"A lot," she argued back. "If it hadn't been for you, we might all be dead right now. Do you have so little respect for yourself that you can't even acknowledge how brave you really are? You risked everything to get us out, and we got out. Doesn't that count for something? So you couldn't defeat a demon in a battle of strength. Who do you think could? It's a damn demon! I don't think anything less of you, and no one else does either. Now finish your tea before you make me any angrier."

He couldn't fight it, not that he wanted to. Mori relaxed the chains he held on his lips and let them curl into a bemused grin. He let out one firm "ha" before he did as he was told and finished his tea. Though much of her face was hidden by her cup, he could see that she mirrored him with a smile of her own. The Natural indeed.

"Geez," Haruhi sighed as she put the empty dish on the table, "I didn't get to do anything I needed to today. No laundry, no schoolwork, no cleaning. I never even made lunch for tomorrow. I guess being stalked by a demonic ghost horse is pretty inconvenient after all."

She was working hard to be her usual pragmatic self, Mori could tell, but there was no disguising the not-so-casual checks she'd been making of the front door since they arrived. He knew he shouldn't worry so much about her because he had never met someone stronger than Haruhi was, including himself, but he wanted to worry about her, and even more, he wanted her to let him.

In as steady a voice as he could manage, he said, "If you want, I will stay until your father comes home."

Her eyes ratcheted to him, no longer attending to the front door and what could come through it. She shook her head. "That could be all night, and it's a school night. I can't do that to you."

"Ask me to stay, and I will."

Haruhi paused for a long moment as her eyes searched his, but what she was looking for, he could not tell. Their customers at the Host Club might answer with a sigh or a blush or a squeal, perhaps even a faint, but not his Haruhi. She returned his bluntness with her own, the only concealment being a lock of hair that dared to obscure his perfect view of her eyes. "Please stay, Mori-sempai."

He nodded, and their pact was sealed. For one night, she let him in.

Now that the hard part was over, Mori felt a rumble in his stomach and realized they hadn't had anything to eat since their late lunch on their drive back to Kioshi's house. As if she could read his mind, his kohai said, "You must be hungry. Let me see what I've got, but don't expect Peking duck or anything because I didn't get to do my shopping today either."

Haruhi dug around in the cabinets and, after a few minutes of preparation, came back to the table with two containers of Cup Noodles. They ate in silence, both ravenous, but, more to the point, happy to have a diversion between them. The inevitable goodnights lurked right on the other side of that styrofoam container, and Mori was in no rush to get to them. Yet despite his best efforts, they finished all too quickly and he knew the right thing to do was ensure her rest before any chance to sleep evaporated for her. "You should go to bed," he urged.

Haruhi frowned. "I guess you're right. It is getting late." She collected their garbage and wiped down the table and then looked over the lanky man. "Let me get you something to sleep on."

"Not necessary."

"Mori-sempai," she warned, "come on."

She nodded to her bedroom, and he followed, reluctant to put her out, but he could tell from her tone there was no point in resisting. In her room, Haruhi delved into the back of her closet and extracted a neat pile of a small futon with a blanket and handed it to him. At her bed, she picked up a spare pillow of her own and laid it on top with a polite smile.

At her simple gesture, something in Mori broke. She was too generous with him, sacrificing her comfort for his. It was unnecessary, it was unfair. It was the opposite of everything he wanted for her, especially after he had let her down tonight.

"Forgive me."

Her brow furrowed. "What on earth for? It's just a pillow…"

Mori couldn't look at her as his admission came tumbling out. "I can't protect you. Even now, if the dark horse came for you, I would fail."

"Why would you say that?"

"Because protection is the only thing I'm good at, and I could do nothing." He said it with more force than he intended, and the screens rattled in their frames as his deep bass reverberated along them.

Where he was all hardness, Haruhi was softness. "If you believe that, then why are you here?"

"Because I have to try."

His words hung in the air, three words buried underneath five.

But as usual, Haruhi bulldozed right through them as her temper had been ignited as quickly as kindling. "You know, it's never my plan to inconvenience anybody. I don't expect anybody to take care of me, least of all you accursed Host Club. I don't even want anybody to. I'll deal with the dark horse the same way I've dealt with everything else my whole life: by myself."

"Haruhi."

Mori stepped toward her retreating form and reached for her hand, but his foot skidded over something slippery—was that a banana peel? The bedding went flying over his head in an arc of fabric as his legs shot forward and he wheeled backward. Haruhi twisted around in time to grab his wrist, but he was so much bigger, and gravity dragged them down hard across the width of her bed. All of the air escaped from his lungs as she collapsed on top of him, her face in his neck, her chest pressing into his, and her legs entangled with his own.

Mori felt her weight shift across his ribs as Haruhi lifted her head, her face tinged pink from the exertion and maybe—for once—a little embarrassment. "Are you all right?" she asked.

She had tried to save him. The irony was not lost on him. For all his training, Mori had never been taught how to deal with an opponent who beguiled, who unraveled the world he knew, who fought not with weapons of destruction but weapons of charm—charm she didn't even know she had. He had no defense. All he could do was nod in response.

On many levels, Haruhi felt like a test for him. Mori's whole life had been about servitude; it was how he was raised, but more than that, it was how he had always liked to live. He was useful and valued without ever having to put on the dreaded airs that so many of his elite classmates did. He did not pursue the things he wanted but helped others pursue what they wanted, and that had always contented him. It had been the food for his soul. Until Haruhi.

Just because he didn't show emotions didn't mean he didn't have any. Morinozuka Takashi loved Fujioka Haruhi. Not in that take-her-to-the-movies, make-out-under-the-stars juvenile kind of way. He loved her in the wrinkled-hand-holding, matching-beach-chairs, watching-the-grandkids kind of way.

He realized, in a flash one morning, as he sat down to a breakfast of miso, fried fish, and strawberries, that Haruhi would like this breakfast. He just knew. It was a fleeting and inconsequential moment, but it was how he knew that even in his most solitary, humdrum moments, he wanted her by his side. She was a first year, he a third, with a whole life of possibilities ahead of them, and yet Mori was certain, the same way he knew instinctually which way was up, that she was a part of him forever. She had become his first thought of his day and his last. It didn't matter how it had happened, all that mattered was that it had.

But Mori didn't just love, he burned. If he could touch her with all his passion as he longed to, they would both go up in flames. And therein lay the sole reason for his restraint.

Haruhi might never be his, but Mori had make her understand that she wasn't an inconvenience to anybody, especially him, and thanks to a little deus ex machina, he had her full attention. He laid motionless beneath her hands, willing her to look at him. "You don't have to do things alone if you don't want to."

"I know," she said as she rested her brow briefly against his collar bone. "I'm sorry I said that." Her body sagged against him under the weight of her apology until there wasn't even a breath to separate them, but Mori refused twitch a muscle. This would be their one moment in time, the closest he would ever be to her, and he would not spoil it.

Eventually, Haruhi lifted her head, and when she did, she noticed her palm was crushing his bandaged one beneath hers. Haruhi leaned to the side so she could prop herself up and relieve the pressure on him. "Mori-sempai, your hand!" He hadn't even noticed.

The next moment came down to a simple decision really: now or never.

Mori's fingers tightened the weave between hers, essentially securing her to him, and her eyes glided from their entwined digits to turbulent gray seas in his eyes. "Sempai?"

He was looking for a reason to let go, to abandon this foolish selfishness and save himself from his weakness, but Haruhi just stared back at him like someone trying to read a book in a foreign language, and, god help him, she was beautiful.

"I'm not good with words," he stuttered at last.

"I wouldn't worry about it. Silence is part of your 'type' anyway, isn't it?" She smiled softly until the corners of her mouth melted into a more wistful expression. "But if it makes you feel any better, I always remember my mother telling me, 'Haruhi, actions speak louder than words.' "

With that, Mori sat up on his elbows, and Haruhi's body rose with his so they were now eye level. Her brown eyes returned his gaze unblinking, the remnants of her friendly smile still alighting their corners. He reached up with his free hand and brushed back a few errant locks of hair from in front of her face and tucked them neatly behind her ear. Then he kissed her.

His eyelids drifted close, and every sense intensified. There was pressure, velvety and inviting pressure, as his lips met hers. A hint of tea and flowers. A note of honey underneath and the comforting spice of ramen. Smooth. Warm. Honest—finally honesty. He could feel her heartbeat against his mouth, wild and erratic like a jackrabbit. Her breath mixed with his as they both exhaled.

He knew it had to end, and he dreaded it. These were mere seconds of his entire life, but they were momentous, as life-changing as a baby's first cry or a gunshot, and just as volatile. Everything would end the moment they parted, he knew that. But while she could have pulled away at any moment, Haruhi had indulged him. She kept indulging him. In the end, Mori believed he could finally let her go because at last she would know what she meant to him even if he meant nothing to her.

As abruptly as he had initiated the kiss, Mori pulled back, their lips releasing with a gentle pop. It had lasted five heartbeats—he had counted—and they had been the most meaningful of his life. When he opened his eyes, the spell for him would be over. He wouldn't know what he might find on the other side, but he had to face it. His eyelids eased open and, to his relief, he found she had closed hers. Another second to delay the inevitable. He sat up and so she had to as well.

From his periphery, he could see the rise and fall of her chest straining beneath her shirt as well as the fistful of sheet she gripped with her other hand, but nothing held his attention like her eyes. Her pupils were dilated, and he could see his reflection in them. She was his dark horse, pulling him in, but he didn't want to run. That was a fate he would gladly accept.

Haruhi blinked and he remembered himself. He was still on her bed, she was in her pajamas, and they were both waiting for her father's return.

Only when he prepared to stand did he discover they were still holding hands. When Mori looked down, he noticed the little crescents of her stubby nails as she had dug in to his bandages. He released her and stood up, silently gathering the tossed bed things, and headed for the door.

"Goodnight, Haruhi," he said before he closed her door.

Haruhi sat unmoving in her bed, the sheet still balled in her hand until her muscles began to spasm. Her mind was racing, processing textures and smells she had never experienced before, examining feelings she had never unearthed before, but in the end, there was no getting around it, everything circled back to her own fateful words. In retrospect, she told should have said, "Actions speak louder than words, but you may need a few of those, too, to clarify."