Heh. As I'm writing this A/N, my mom is discussing the consumption of soba noodles with my sister. I'm over here yelling Ouran quotes (Now, watch as we work together to eat soba!) xD

Warning: Unnecessary amounts of sad.

"Kyoya? Kyoya? Hello?" I am woken by a loud, insistent knocking at the door. It stops only when the door creaks open. I crack my eye, not moving, rather listening to the conversation between the host and the knocker.

"Yes, Fuyumi?" Kyoya asks.

"Father says he wants to see you and Akira."

"Very well. I'll be there in a moment."

"Have you seen Akira around?"

"I'll inform her. Thank you, Fuyumi," Kyoya says, closing the door. Only when he sits on the edge of the bed again do I flip the borrowed blanket off me and cross my legs on his mattress. I blush when I realize I'm in Kyoya's room. What will his family think? And, stars forbid, did he expect something?

"Go get dressed," Kyoya says shortly. I nod and hurry from the room on silent feet, forcibly pushing those rather awkward thoughts from my mind. Yuuichi has abandoned the room, but I still change in the adjacent bathroom just to be safe. When I'm done, I rejoin Kyoya in the hallway, smoothing down my dark hair and rubbing the sleep from my eyes. He leads the way silently to a room that I've never been in before, knocking. He whispers a few words to me about keeping my head high and being respectful, most of which I just nod at. Finally, he opens the door and steps inside. I let it swing closed behind me.

We are in an office, a large one, with a huge desk and an enormous bay window at one end. Behind the desk, Mr. Ootori duly sits, his hands folded regally on his lap and his desk neat despite stacks of papers. As Kyoya and I approach him, he takes a manilla folder from the depths of a drawer and slaps it on his desk.

"Kyoya," he says coldly, slowly. "What is in this folder?"

In response, Kyoya takes the folder and paws through it, turning paler and paler with each paper. I can see unspoken words on his lips, his eyes masked with the white glasses glare that I have come to know as his veiled expression.

"What is it, Kyoya?" I ask gently, placing a hand on his arm and standing on my toes to see over his shoulder. At my gesture, he slams the folder shut and places it on the table, all the while fixing his face to the stony, neutral expression he wears while talking to someone he doesn't particularly like.

"Do you understand, Kyoya?" The Ootori head asks. My friend, after a pause, says in a very strained voice an affirmation.

"Understand what, sir?" I ask Mr. Ootori, agitated at being kept in the dark.

"Akira, you will be an Ootori soon. My son knows I do not tolerate insolence or foolishness in my family. Both of you," at this point, his voice hardens considerably. I take a step back. "Both of you need to focus on your studies. Kyoya, you need to impress me. Akira, you need to learn to be a woman. Do not waste your time creating false friendships and pretending to be something you're not!"

"I- I still don't understand. What is it you want?" I ask quietly. No. I know what you're going to say. Please, don't.

"I know about your affairs at that Host Club of yours, and I don't want either of you participating in such tomfoolery."

"But, sir," Kyoya says, little bits of desperation seeping into his calm voice. "You told me once to befriend Tamaki Suoh and this is the outcome. Would you have me jeopardize our business with his family?"

"I do not care," Ootori says coldly. "Tamaki Suoh is not an honorable heir, and therefore I have lost interest in his trust. Follow my orders, Kyoya."

"Very well, sir," Kyoya says, keeping his chin high. His voice is lowered in defeat, and that jolts me from my icy, numb shock. "We will leave the club."

My mouth opens, and I look between Kyoya and his father, the father that gets everything. Why should he, really? Why does he have to have control over every aspect of his sons' lives? In what world is that fair?

With that bomb, Kyoya takes my elbow harshly and marches me out the door, down the hall, and back to his room. Once inside, he closes and lock the door. I am silent, standing there unsteadily. You should have fought back, Kyoya. Why didn't you? Why didn't you save us both? You could have stopped this. And now... A realization hits me with alarming speed, bringing a heart pounding, knee knocking panic attack upon me.

And now, I'm back to where I was before I fell into the music room.

"Kyoya," I state, barely more than a whisper. I can't even hear myself over my beating heart. Why is it still beating? "You- You- You didn't fight back."

"I know, Akira," he says, defeated, dropping on to his bed. "I know I didn't."

"You could have." I slide down the door and rapidly twirl my hair over my fingers. "You could have saved us."

"But I didn't."

"Why not?"

"I... I don't know." He sighs. I realize that the Shadow King, my Sunlight King, is actually feeling uncertain about himself. "I should have, Akira, and now it's all gone. The Host Club is gone now, and there's nothing we can do."

"I'm sure there must be something we can... do... This can't be the end," I say distantly. Even before the words leave my mouth, I know they're false. This is the end. The end of all my adventures with my first friends. The first people that accepted me, even though I lied to them.

I lied.

"Kyoya," I call. When the word is met with silence, I continue. "When I joined the club, you said you host to make every girl happy."

"Yes," he confirms. "We're not hosts any more though."

"No," I agree. There goes that. My only idea. My last resort, gone. "Kyoya, how are we going to face them?"

"I don't know." His voice is muffled, and I stand up. Kyoya is stretched out on his bed, his face buried in a pillow and his glasses folded on the night stand. Of course, Kyoya's been in the club a lot longer than I have. He's parting with his whole social life. His best friends ripped away all at once. This is a nightmare for him, and I'm standing here blaming him. So, I force him to dislodge his face from the pillow. Once I do, I nearly drop his chin. His face is streaked with tears. He's crying. At the sight, I feel a tear leak out of my lashes, followed by a couple more.

There's nothing we can do, except cry.

...

...

...

Kyoya cries. Nothing more needs to happen now. No more emotion today. I'm done.