Why hello, dear readers. It's been too long, hasn't it? I lost a lot of inspiration and motivation for a while, but it's slowly returning. :)

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Episode 37 of Luckiest Loser

I'm With You

My eyes quickly widened until they looked they were as big an tennis balls in my skull when I had realized what I had done.

Wait...what did I just do?

I saw a visible light pink blush appear on his cheeks. I couldn't tell if it was because he was as equally embarrassed as I was or if it was because my actions had caught him off guard. Either way, he still seemed stunned at my sudden audacity, well, as stunned as a typically expressionless person could look.

I let my hands drop to my sides and took a few shaky steps back.

There were noticeable creases in his forehead from his raised eyebrows.

"I'm sorry," I stuttered pathetically as I fiddled with my fingers. "I didn't mean to...I wasn't thinking...I, um..." My mind was reeling faster than I could form words out of my mouth. My sentences became incoherent gibberish as I tried to grasp what I wanted to say.

He stood in front of me silently, his dark eyes focused only on me.

I buried my face in my hands in shame as I tried to articulate my thoughts clearly to him. "I was just so caught up...I just..."

I froze when I felt his warm hand brush the side of my face. I shifted my gaze upwards until I met his eyes.

I wanted to lean my face into his palm and nuzzle against it for comfort, but I was too abashed to act on my instincts. Instead, I bit my bottom lip nervously. The next move was up to him and I had no idea what he was thinking.

Would he either accept my feelings or reject me again?

After a few tense minutes, he retracted his hand and reached into his pants pocket.

He pulled a pair of elegant hair ornaments that were styled elegantly in the fashion of red, pink, and white colored plum blossoms with light yellow centers. He reached forward and brushed back some of my hair on the right side of my face before putting the hairpiece in place. The palms of his hands grazed my cheeks as he did so and I held my breath. I felt like my heart was going to leap out of my throat, which would've made one big, bloody mess.

"I thought they suited you," he explained in his normal, curt manner. He let his fingers run down my hair after putting the second hair ornament in place.

I looked down at my shoes, embarrassed as I realized that he really had put a lot of thought into the gift. "T-thank you."

"And umm," he shifted awkwardly as he reached into his other pocket and pulled out what at first I thought was an odd scrap of paper, but very quickly realized was a photo. "I should probably return this to you." As I took the photo from him he covered the lower half of his face with his hand.

I looked down at the photo in my hands. It the was the middle school picture of me that my idiot cousin had tucked into Mori's pocket weeks earlier. Shyly, I shifted my gaze back up towards him.

"I'm sorry my cousin forced such a terrible picture onto you," I said in a melancholy tone. I sighed. "I looked like an idiot back then, right?"

"No, it's not that..." he trailed off as he lowered his hand away from his face. With his hand away from his face I could see that his cheeks were flushed in embarrassment. "Y-you look cute."

C-cute?

My heart began beating at a frantic pace. I could feel my cheeks getting hot. My face was probably redder than a tomato after hearing those words.

"So," he began in a low voice, "where do we go from here?"

The air around us was tense again. He brought up a valid point, how should we proceed from here? I had just confessed to him and his actions spoke louder than words that he was clearly returning my affections for him with equally strong feelings.

I never imagined that when I first met him that our relationship would ever get to this point. He always seemed to be sure of himself and had a grip of what was going on around him even though he hardly spoke a word unless necessary. I had only seen him briefly lose his calm composure a handful of times before when I had been in danger or when there had been awkward moments between us.

It occurred to me that Mori was probably as anxious and nervous as I was. These feelings were new to both of us. Both of us were going to have to explore the possibilities of our relationship together to see where these feelings would take us.

I tucked the picture into my pocket and smiled up at him. The fact that I was still in my school uniform and I had little scratches and bruises on my arms and knees from when I had tripped earlier didn't bother me at all anymore.

Feeling more confident than I had ever felt before, I seized the moment and took his hand. "I know a nice little restaurant downtown that makes great traditional Japanese dishes, do you want to go there for lunch tomorrow?"

My grin widened when I saw the edges of his lips curl up into a small smile and his entire face lit up.

He nodded. "Ah."

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Musical Inspiration- Bad Romance by Lady Gaga (YES, I LOVE IT. DON'T JUDGE MEEEEEE.)

One more chapter and maybe an epilogue. Depends. You have no idea how tempted I was to make this chapter just a dream Nodoka had, but that would have been too cruel. I consciously decided to keep this chapter short and simple. There was a much longer version of this chapter, but it was so sappy and so over the top lovey-dovey that I cringed inwardly every time I reread it. So I decided to censor myself a bit.

And funnily enough, I have a part time job at a bakery. Now I actually knows what goes on at a busy bakery, which would have been helpful thirty or so chapters ago when I started this story. ):

ILU ALL LIKE CRAZY CAKES FOR READING/REVIEWING THIS FAR. THANK YOU, YOU GUYS ARE AWESOME.

Peace out.

p.s. My KyoyaXOC story will be out soon! I'm excited to finally write about a different Host club character.