This is the chapter wherein the second arc begins X3 It's the first time one of my Ouran fanfics has ended up long enough to actually have arcs. I hope you enjoy the increasing amounts of fluff! And I have to send my computer in to get fixed and will be updating on my laptop for a while... so I apologize if updates end up slowing down slightly.

Also, am I the only one extremely saddened that this site doesn't have an Ugly Americans category? That show is absolutely fantastic.

And one more thing: NaNoWriMo 2010. Who's doing it? Mine's called "Dearly Departed" (it's a zombie apocalypse comedy) and I fully expect to hear about some of yours :hint hint:

Living on his own, Tamaki soon realized, was much harder than he had expected. In his idealistic little world he had made himself believe that everything would be fine and he would live a happy little life away from the pressures of being a Suoh. However what he found was that living in a seedy motel room without his staff was a rather sad little existence. He lived off of room service and instant ramen and he spent his nights after homework watching the Kato Family and trying to forget about everything.

Money was drying up rather quickly, and he found that while he had expected to be in the hotel for at least a few months, he only had a few weeks' worth of funding. He began, for the first time, to really worry about what was going to happen to him. Living day to day and wondering if he was going to be able to afford another week before he ended up like some kind of hobo was a foreign thing to him. He quickly made friends with the motel's staff but still could not help feeling lonely. It didn't take long for Tamaki to learn that he, who had been groomed for the high life and pampered from the moment he came into the world, was not the sort of person who could survive on his own. It was not geared into his mind at all to have survival instincts. He was like a turtle born into captivity without a shell and then released into the wild without conditioning.

"What am I going to do?" he asked himself one night as he lay among the clean but cold sheets of his bed, a shoe commercial blaring in the background. Diagrams for the costumes of a new theme were scattered around him and he lay sprawled among the tiny remnants of his old world, wishing on stars he could not see for an easier way.

Within a week, Tamaki was nearly out of money and he moved out of the motel and into music room three. It wasn't as hard as he had expected to hide it from the other students. He had always stayed later in the room than the others, as president, and so it wasn't odd for him to wave the others off and make things seem normal. The hosts were the only people who even came in afterhours and after they had gone home, he had the place to himself. It was much easier and less lonely than the motel, eating his meals in the cafeteria, showering in the locker room, and sleeping on the ornate sofas as he had many times before when he'd stayed too late working on a theme and dozed off. There was also the fact that despite its lacking of things like a bed and its own refrigerator, the music room was home. It was the place where he and his remaining family lived out their lives together, and so it was much easier to live here than anywhere else.

As quickly as it had come, his depression lifted.

XXX

Haruhi was walking down the hall deep in a conversation about gardening with Kasanoda Ritsu when a shadow fell over her. Disturbed, she stopped in her tracks as Mori loomed over her, Hunny perched on his shoulders like a parrot.

"Good afternoon, Haruhi," Kyouya said pleasantly, blocking her path. The twins flanked him, one on either side, barring the hallway for her. She had been headed home for a quiet evening of homework and now all hopes of doing so were dashed. She sighed.

"What is this?" she asked, a vein pulsing in her temple.

"Are you guys a mob or something?" Kasanoda asked, looking rather disturbed. Hikaru moved off to the side.

"You can go, Bossanova. We need to talk to Haruhi alone," he said. Kasanoda looked to Haruhi for confirmation, and she sighed.

"Go ahead, Casanova. It's fine," she said to him, and Kasanoda nodded.

"See you later, Fujioka," he said as he headed off down the hallway, leaving her to the fiasco that was building. Haruhi turned to face her captors, really wishing she were anywhere else in the world at the moment.

"What do you guys want?" she asked, and their eyes bored into her.

"We're just worried about Tama-chan," Hunny said.

"Yeah," Mori concurred simply.

"Since you've been so close to him lately, we figured maybe you knew what was up with him," Hikaru added. Kaoru nodded.

"He's been acting really strange lately," the younger twin told her. "And we just want to make sure he's okay."

"Look, I'm sure he's fine. But what's up with him really isn't my business to tell."

"You need to do something about it!" Hikaru told her, losing his head for a moment. "He hasn't been himself at all lately! You have to help him."

"I don't really think I can," Haruhi argued. "I don't know if there's much I can do to help, and I don't think he needs my help."

"Just think about it, okay?" Kaoru asked as he and Kyouya stepped aside, tasting defeat.

"We want to see Tama-chan's smile again like we used to," Hunny looked down. "That's the most important thing."

"Well, I'll see what I can do…" Haruhi said as she stepped past them. As she moved to go down the hall and the others continued on with her toward the front door, Kyouya leaned close to her, so close his mouth almost touched her ear.

"That fool has been living in the music room," he whispered, and a jet of worry shot through Haruhi's heart. She couldn't believe she hadn't noticed. "Please, if you can, do something to help him."

XXX

Tamaki had just finished his homework and was sitting down on one of the couches to read Dumas when the double doors banged open. Startled, he jumped nearly a foot in the air and gasped. Haruhi strode into the room, looking purposeful and closing the doors behind her.

"Good afternoon, Haruhi!" he said cheerfully, setting his book aside. "Did you forget something in here? Do you need me to help you find it?"

"You've been living in the music room," she stated, looking at him with worry. "How long?"

"What?" Tamaki asked, eyes widening. He was surprised that she had found out his secret and he felt rather exposed with the truth laid out before him like this. He wondered if she had felt this way when he discovered her gender. It was a rather uncomfortable feeling.

"You've been living in here," she said again. "Kyouya-senpai told me. How long have you been living here?"

Tamaki cleared his throat. "Haruhi, you don't need to-"

"How long?"

With a heavy sigh, Tamaki looked away from her. "A week," he admitted.

"I feel like such an idiot for not noticing, since I've been coming here for piano lessons with you and all and I never suspected a thing. Why didn't you tell me?" Haruhi was coming toward him now and her eyes were softer than he had ever seen them.

"I didn't want to trouble you. And also I… I should have been able to survive by myself, right?"

Haruhi had reached him by now and her hand landed gently on his arm, eyes locking with his. "You don't always have to do everything by yourself," she told him. "I know that now because of you, and maybe it's time for you to take a lesson from yourself."

"Haruhi…"

"Come on," Haruhi reached for his hand. She began pulling him toward the door. "You're coming with me."

"What? Where are we going?" he asked, eyes wide as she led him by the hand.

"To my house. You can stay with me until you can figure something else out. Something permanent," she was slightly businesslike and he wanted to giggle at it, but mostly all he could do was be filled with wonder at all her initiative. He could get his suitcase tomorrow, he decided. Right now he just wanted to focus on the sense of devotion he could feel coming from Haruhi as she brought him home.