Fun fact #31: This wasn't a romance story from the get-go. Initially, as I was in the middle of the anime, I started thinking about what it would be like if I had an OC for the show. (Kosuke would be my first ever OC) I eventually felt drawn more towards the twins and their stories and decided to pair them with Kosuke.

Demigod103: *High five*

bored411: 'Magically goes well', you're hilarious! *laughs* But seriously.

TheDarkestTimeline: A bit more straightforward than I'm used to, but awwww!

Rosezelene Ersa: Yes, I know I was a bit out-of-place with the descriptions. I'm currently working to improve that. :)

Karnevalfreak59: *pats your back* That sounds rough, bra. *confetti cannons* BUT YAY FRIENDSHIP!

that. girl. we. all. luv. : :3c Okay!

Guest: Continue reading author's note.

Guest(2): Welcome to the story. Also, good morning, sleepyhead. Kyoya and Kosuke's relationship WILL begin to develop soon, but not in a romantic fashion. As for the twins and Kosuke, continue reading the author's note.

Cyan Rubies: Thank you. Also, continue reading author's note.

PumpkinSpicex: *cutsie smile* Thank you.

onlyDEARest: Welcome, my DEAR. And hooray for love squares! And your idea actually sounds very interesting. I may or may not have that come in later...

RosemaryThief: *blushes and gives cutsie smile*

Mazgirl98: Thank you! I am aware that Kosuke was a pretty typical Mary-Sue when this story began. See, this was my first-ever OC story to publish, and at the time, I was unaware of the term known as 'Mary Sues'. I wanted Kosuke to come off (to me, at least) as 'perfect', and I didn't know that being perfect made OCs absolute snore-fests. When this story is completed, I may actually go back and re-write a few things. I took note in the MarySue-ness not too far into the story and tried to flesh out her character a bit more. At the very end of this story, I promise that one of the main plot points will be Kosuke's origin of character. Also, high-fives for humor and Team Kaoru!

X Mika-chan X: Thank you!

Kaito Mitsuki: There's going to be a considerable amount of character development by the end of this arc. As I've stated before, there will be two sequels to this story, so A Thousand Miles is basically the first part in a trilogy. As such, I have to drag out the character development

Okaaaay! So, a LOT of you guys are requesting more Kaoru/Kosuke/Hikaru, and because I am a merciful god, I will deliver.


THIRD PERSON P.O.V.

"That's two hundred yen total...thank you, ma'am...and here's your change."

"Thank you, sir," Kosuke gives the vendor a small but appreciative smile and a bow as he drops several coins into her open palm. She tucks it into the pocket of her jeans so she can take the wrapped burgers from the vendor's hands. She gives him one last bow, a "Have a lovely afternoon", and turns on her heel to walk back down the cement path. With the climate change of the season, the blossoms of the bushes and trees have ceased to continue to reproduce. Nonetheless, the browns, reds, oranges and yellows create a calm, crisp environment. Kosuke notes that, looking up at the shallow canopy above her, the colorful leaves seem to be ablaze in the sunlight. Couples walk past, hand-in-hand, giggling and whispering to one another. Some have children in mittens and oversized coats who like to run forward and kick up the leaves on the path. A little ways down the path, a little girl catches her boot on a slight bump in the cement path and falls forward. It only lasts for a second, though, as her father darts forward and catches her just before she hits the ground. Kosuke smiles to herself as the father lifts his daughter onto his shoulders, eliciting a series of giggles from the little girl.

Kosuke sees Haruhi's brown-clad figure ahead, sitting on a wooden bench just a few feet away from the path, overlooking the shore of the lake. Kosuke steps around the end of the bench and sits down next to her companion. Kosuke hands Haruhi one of the two burgers then digs into her pocket for the change she had received. Haruhi murmurs out a "thank-you" as Kosuke gives her the change. The two of them shift the paper around the fast-food and bite into them, appreciating the warmth of them. Kosuke isn't actually a fan of fast-food, but she didn't entirely loathe it, either.

"At least this is easy," Haruhi sighs through a mouthful of food. Kosuke follows her gaze to Kunio and Noboru sitting in the shade of a tree at the shore of the lake. Kunio has a plastic bag of bread slices in his hand and is tossing pieces of them at the snowy white geese and ducks that cluster around them. Kunio is remaining peaceful and silent, but Noboru is going on a complete tyrant about some useless topic. His shouts and erratic hand gestures sometimes send the geese and ducks waddling away.

"Mister Kunio is, admittedly, more compatible," Kosuke agrees. She readjusts the wrap around her burger. "Is your shoulder feeling well?"

"Yeah, it's fine." Haruhi subconsciously brings her hand to the spot on her shoulder that Noboru had assaulted with his cane. The sweater and jacket had provided padding for it, and it only hurt when she applied pressure to it, but it would leave a brown bruise at the least. "He can really hit hard for a guy with arthritis."

Kosuke lets out a simple, short hum and continues eating. They finish their meals soon, and Kosuke crumples the yellow wrappings in her pale fingers before dropping it inside the metal trash bin beside the bench. At the shore, Noboru swats away a curious goose as he goes on about what sounds like modern technology or something. The goose, in turn, hisses at him as its snowy wings madly ruffle around its body.

Haruhi reaches into her pants pocket and flips open her cell-phone to glimpse at the time. 10: 29 A.M. She sighs as she tucks it back into her pocket. That's still another one hour, fifty-six minutes of impatient agony to go.

Kosuke rubs away a tiny scuff of brown dirt on her thumb's fingernail. Her cyan eyes rise to stare out at the lake for the shortest of moments. Her lips press together once before they open and she says, "Do you believe the others are faring well?"

"I don't know," Haruhi replies with a shrug of her shoulders. "I think I heard Tamaki mention that he's escorting his grandmother."

"Miss Shizue, yes?"

"Yeah. Shouldn't be too bad, though. Tamaki says she's gotten considerably better since the Éclair ordeal. To him, at least."

"Éclair, as in the pastry? I apologize, I'm befuddled."

Haruhi lets out a short, breathless laugh at the sheer fact that Tamaki's ex-fiancée shared the same name as a French pastry. If Éclair and Tamaki ever had children, what would their names have been? Croissant and Macaron Suoh? She stops when she sees Kosuke's still-befuddled expression and explains, "No, no. Remember when we told you what happened last school year? When Tamaki's grandmother arranged that marriage with him and some girl?" When Kosuke nods in understanding, Haruhi continues, "Éclair was the name of the girl. Éclair Tonnerre."

"I see. Have you heard from her since?"

"Nope." Haruhi pops her lips on the 'P'. "Come to think of it, when Tamaki finally agreed to come back, I don't remember her trying to talk him out of it. I mean, the final time. I'm actually not worried about Tamaki; I'm more worried about Hikaru and Kaoru. I think they're going with Tamaki and his grandmother."

"Do Hikaru and Kaoru dislike Miss Shizue?"

"I guess...? The last time they saw her was at the Ouran Fair, when she did those awful things. They haven't seen her get better; they've only seen what she's done to Tamaki."

Kosuke turns to look at Haruhi at this, leaning forward in her seat as to catch the older girl's gaze. She doesn't speak a word, but Haruhi has become far accustomed to the silent messages that she sends with her cyan eyes and miniscule facial features. She's trying to say, 'the twins actually care about Tamaki?', but cannot find the proper, polite fashion to say it in. Haruhi chuckles at the younger girl and says, "Yeah, don't get those two wrong. They pick on Tamaki all the time but I promise you they freaked out when it looked like he was about to leave."

Kosuke tilts her head to the side - resulting in her red braid of hair to sway forward - with the same expression of confusion upon her features, her steady gaze now silently saying, 'Why's that?'

Haruhi leans back on the bench, staring skyward in thought. Her chocolate brown eyes, Kosuke noted, had small flecks of pale brown in them. "Kyoya said that when the twins were still so antisocial and mean and everything, Tamaki was the one who invited them to join the Host Club. If he hadn't, they'd probably still be absorbed in their own little world. I think that's why the Host Club is so important to them."

Kosuke nods silently. Haruhi glances over to her and takes note of the chewing lip and flickering gaze of her eyes. She lightly nudges her wrist against Kosuke's side, and the redheaded teenager turns to her expectantly. "What?" Haruhi asks.

Kosuke's eyebrows furrow above her eyes. "Excuse me? I don't understand."

"You're making that face." Haruhi points her index finger at Kosuke's features in a circular motion. "You're making that 'I want to say something' face. What is it?"

Kosuke sits a bit straighter as if she had just realized how loose her posture is. She opens her mouth once, closes it, gives Haruhi an apologetic glance, and opens it again. Her lips move silently for several moments before she finally begins to speak. "I...apologize sincerely if my inquiry riles you...but...I - "

"Kosuke, speak like a normal human being."

"Are you romantically interested in Hikaru and/or Kaoru?"

Haruhi's brown eyebrows furrow on her forehead in confusion of the question - OK, to be perfectly honest, it's because she thought Kosuke said 'Hikaru indoor Kaoru' - before they rise in surprise. She furrows them again and opens her mouth, but not a syllable leaves her mouth for several long moments. Kosuke stares at Haruhi expectantly with worried, almost puppy-dog eyes and a tight-lipped frown. Haruhi closes her lips, but opens them only a second later.

Finally, she says, "What?"

Kosuke instantly flinches in guilt and shrinks away from Haruhi as if the girl had harshly slapped her across the face instead of uttered a single word. Her pale hands curl into twitching fists in her lap before begins twisting them together. Her thick-lashed eyes cast down to her boots and an almost childish pout of guilt takes over her lips. As she continues to fidget and squirm on the bench, she stutters out, "I-I apologize, it was a ludicrous inquiry to be given..."

"No, no, no," Haruhi says quickly. Kosuke was fifteen years old, only a year younger than Haruhi herself, and spoke like a Shakespearean poet, but gracious, she knew how to guilt trip. "I'm not mad at you." Kosuke is calmed by this, it seems, as her body releases its tension and she brings her eyes up to Haruhi's. "I was just surprised. Where would you get an idea like that?"

Kosuke's lips purse yet again, her legs crossing at the ankles. "Erm...I...I simply took note of Hikaru and Kaoru's preference to be nearer to you than the others. And I recall when we visited Miss Matsuda's household, Hikaru in particular was very eager to accompany you."

Haruhi nods only once, taking in Kosuke's observations. She supposed that, all things considered, it was possible. Last year, after Haruhi and the twins' "Which One is Hikaru" game, in which she had answered correctly, they did seem to prefer to be with her. Hikaru, in particular. She didn't think it romantic, though. She thought that they were simply happy to find someone who could tell them apart.

Like Kosuke, Haruhi thinks. Kosuke wasn't like her, necessarily. She didn't get the twins correct on the first try. She could tell them apart, she said, if she listened to their voices closely. Koaru's was higher-pitched and slightly raspy, whereas Hikaru's was considerably lower-pitched. Sometimes, when she only heard them speak in unison, she still had to be corrected on her guess. Over time, however, Kosuke, like Haruhi, could tell from their actions that they were two different people. Hikaru, she said, seemed to act more on instinct, while Kaoru seemed to act more on thought. Once again, she had to see them act individually and not together.

As such, haven't the twins been around Kosuke more frequently, too? Looking back to the early days when Kosuke had only just joined the Host Club, Hikaru and Kaoru didn't seem to like her very much. They didn't loathe her, but Hikaru once mentioned only two days after her arrival that he thought Kosuke to be a bit of a 'worry-wart'. But slowly, surely, they considerably opened up to her, started to care for her just a small bit. They seemed genuinely worried when she had a heart attack at the hands of Osamu, went to go rescue her from those Latin criminals, and lost her beloved locket-watch.

But...they seemed to grow just a bit attached to her over time. Kaoru was obviously upset when Kosuke began to associate with Yasuchika. When the roof caved in at the Sabiro Dentoutekina, Kaoru was concerned for Kosuke's safety just as much as Hikaru's. They both wanted to help her younger sister with her bullying issues. And now, the very sound of "Kohta" made them stiffen in annoyance. They were just as close to Kosuke as they were to Haruhi, weren't they?

It took a bit of a long time for Haruhi to notice that she had been thinking for quite a while. Kosuke's look of slightly guilty curiosity had eventually developed into awkward concern. Her eyebrows are slightly furrowed now, and though she currently stares at Haruhi, her gaze sometimes flickers around them. Haruhi sits up a bit straighter.

"Well, I'm not 'romantically interested' in them. I mean, I guess they may have felt that way towards me a bit last year, but not anymore. I think they just prefer to be around me because the three of us are close."

Kosuke nods in understanding. "I see."

"But what about you? Are you 'romantically interested' in Hikaru and/or Kaoru?"

To Haruhi, Kosuke's reaction is priceless. The girl was the Picasso of facial expressions. No sooner had Haruhi said the last syllable than Kosuke absolutely blanched, as if she had swallowed down the wrong pipe. Her cyan eyes grow wide, her eyebrows shoot up nearly to her hairline, and her lips pull into a long, frowning line. The very hairs on her head seem to stand on end from the question. A rosy-hued blush appears across her nose and cheeks, and although it's actually considerably small, the snowy paleness of her skin makes it so that the blush looks like paint.

Haruhi chuckles at her, amused, and says, "Oh, come on. They hang around you just as much as they hang around me. Don't tell me you didn't notice."

Kosuke's face, still slightly rosy, draws together in thought. Her jaw begins to slightly move side-to-side, making a muscle just underneath her ear shift. Her hands remain curled together in her lap, and her right index finger begins to tap up and down.

Finally, her mouth opens, pauses, and then says, "I suppose I cannot deny that factual observation. However...I don't fully grasp the definition of 'romantic interest' or 'attraction' or—"

"Kosuke, if you don't like them that way, it's fine. I was just asking."

Kosuke nods in a somewhat twitchy manner and looks away from her senior. The almost opaque blush across her face has reduced to pinkish spots on her skin. Subconsciously chewing her bottom lip, she raises her flickering gaze to the emerald lake shore, specifically to the shaded area of land underneath the tree.

Kosuke's eyes widen, first in surprise, then in worry. She shifts forward, sitting on the very edge of the wooden bench as her pale fingers wrap around the hem of her dark duffle coat. "Where did Mister Kunio and Mister Noboru leave to?"

Haruhi follows Kosuke's blue-eyed gaze with her own brown-eyed one. She too, leans forward with a slight jolt when she finds that the elderly patients are nowhere to be seen. The place that they had once occupied is now empty, apart from the confused ducks and geese waddling around it.

Haruhi turns to Kosuke with wide chocolate eyes, as if the younger girl could provide an answer of the men's whereabouts. All Kosuke is able to do, however, is stare back, shaking her head in equal confusion. Haruhi turns back in the direction of the lake shore. This time, she finds something completely satisfactory: a park employee, in the white-and-brown uniform and cap, who she realizes has been there at the shore for quite a while. The employee is carrying a large plastic garbage bag in one hand, poking at trash in the grass with a long stick with the other.

Haruhi stands and hurriedly jogs in the direction of the employee. Kosuke quickly follows, stumbling a bit to catch up to the brunette. Haruhi calls out to the employee, who looks up at her in question just as he's about to spear a paper bag. Haruhi slows to a stop before him.

"Hi. Listen; there were two guys over there." Haruhi points her index finger at the shaded area below the tree. The employee looks over there as she does so. "One of them was tall, one was kind of short and had a cane, and both of them were pretty old. Did you see where they went?"

Kosuke finally arrives at Haruhi's side, panting slightly, as the employee assesses the question before answering. "Yeah. They went down that way." He points his stick in the left direction of the two teenagers, to the cement path continuing through the park.

"Okay, thanks." Haruhi gives a grateful nod to the employee before making a beeline for the cement path. Kosuke takes a deep breath of air and quickly follows suit.

The two almost sprint down the path, their footsteps slapping and their breaths coming out in streams of fog. Kosuke lags a near five feet behind Haruhi, not really much of an athlete. She was much more concerned of letting out non-stop exclamations of "Excuse us" and "I apologize", even if they came nowhere near those she apologized to. The cement path eventually came into a three-way intersection that had green signs pointing down each path and their destination. Haruhi correctly slows to a halt, but Kosuke is a bit distracted apologizing to a young couple and, as a result, skids on the cement before stopping. Haruhi pats her hand on Kosuke's shoulder before turning to a middle-aged brunette who was snapping photographs of a blooming chrysanthemum with a rather large camera. A photographer, Haruhi thinks with relief. Someone who's been here for a while.

She taps the photographer's shoulder, and she turns to Haruhi expectantly. Haruhi gives a small description of Noboru and Kunio and asks if the photographer had seen where they had gone. The photographer, in turns, advises them to follow the path to the management office, at the front of the park. Haruhi and Kosuke give their gratitude and obey, continuing down yet another cement path.

After another long five minutes of quickly jogging down the path, the duo finally reaches the front intersection of the park, where the three main passages lead to the Japanese, English, and French gardens. Tourists and locals turn down each passage, snapping photographs and taking videos with their cameras. At the entrance of the park are the admission booths, small machines into which you insert two dollars to continue into the park. Beside the admission booths is the small management building of beige-painted bricks. Haruhi takes hold of Kosuke's arm and pulls her towards the small glass window of the management building, knocking on it with the knuckle of her right hand. Behind the glass, a young Chinese girl with raven tresses and dark brown orbs pushes the sliding glass opens and smiles at the two teenagers. "May I help you?"

"Did you see two elderly guys pass through here?" When the employee press her glossy lips together and narrow her eyes, Haruhi continues, "One of them was kind of short and had a cane and the other one was taller and had a plaid sweater."

"Oh, yes." The employee points behind the two girls, who turn around as a result. Haruhi's stomach plummets to her feet when she realizes what the employee is pointing at: the white-and-blue sign signaling the bus stop. "They boarded the bus that just left."

Behind the employee, a phone rings loudly, and she dismisses herself to answer it.

Only when the employee disappears from sight does Haruhi blanch in panic. They have lost two elderly foster home patients. Two human beings. They have lost two elderly human beings who were also foster home patients as they were sitting literally twenty feet away in clear daylight.

They have gotten into some dirty business before, but this is horrifying.

With her panic, Haruhi's heartbeat soars into the heavens and her hair rises on end. She feels chilled in her otherwise warm clothes. Her fingers curl inwards and a muscle at her nose twitches. What are they going to do? Where are they going to go? What if they can't find them? Do Noboru or Kunio have any family members that will miss them? What will they tell them? What will they tell the Hosts?

Hey, Haruhi, where are your patients?

Oh, we lost them.

She forces herself to take a deep calming breath of air. The adrenaline dies down a touch as a result, and her thoughts begin to sort themselves out. She turns in Kosuke's direction and begins to speak in a calm but serious tone of voice. "OK. We are going to remain calm. This isn't that big of a deal, we will take care of it. All we have to do is find out where that bus was headed, and then we'll take another bus to that location. We'll get them and take them back to the foster home, and if they try to say that it's our fault, we'll explain that...Kosuke. Stop. Crying."

Since before Haruhi was talking, Kosuke was letting out a series of low-pitched wails. They each continued on for a good ten seconds before Kosuke inhaled a deep breath and wailed again. Her cyan eyes were brimming with glimmering tears, and when she closed her mouth, a single tear ran down her pale cheek. Small, broken whimpers replace the wails, muffled through her throat.

As Kosuke continues to whimper like a beaten puppy, Haruhi knocks on the service window once again. The employee pushes the sliding glass open and stares at them wide-eyed as she waits for a question.

"The bus that the two guys got on, where was it headed?"

"The sign on the front of the bus said that it was headed for Kagurazaka."

"When's the next bus?"

"It should be here any minute now."

Haruhi turns away from the employee, and said employee takes this as a signal that their business is over. As she slides the glass close, Haruhi begins to tell Kosuke their plan in a slow voice. "Alright, Kagurazaka is only twenty-five minutes away. We'll take the bus and carry on from there."

Another small tear slides down Kosuke's cheek, but she nods quickly and ceases her whimpers.

"Alright, I think I see the bus coming. Let's go."


"Are you sure you'll manage without me?"

"You're only going to be gone for seventy-two hours. I think I can manage." Kyoya inserts another coin into the slot of the tall cerulean vending machine. His eyes dance behind his polished spectacles, searching for a preferable selection of beverage.

"But how are you going to handle the laundry?"

"You fold it and put it away, don't you?"

"But I can barely manage it, how can you?"

"They're my clothes. I have a bit more experience with them." Kyoya raises his left hand, free of his cell-phone, and presses a slender finger to one of the many white buttons on the machine's face. In response, the can of coffee behind the plastic screen pushes forward and falls into the bin at the bottom of the machine with a loud clunk!

On the other side of the line, Fuuyumi sighs audibly. Kyoya can hear the telltale sounds of an intercom calling out departing flights, delayed flights, or overall cancelled flights. She's probably sitting in the terminal now, already dressed in her hefty straw hat and lime green sundress as her husband takes care of the tickets at the desk twenty feet away.

"Just take it easy, alright? Get some sleep."

It's almost as if Fuuyumi can tell exactly what he's doing. Kyoya sighs to himself as he reaches into the vending machine bin and pulls out the small silver can of coffee. Along with the black-and-red silhouette logo of Boss Jan, the front reads Fine Roast, and below that, a red scribble of Super. As he pulls on the small silver tab on the lid of the can, opening it with a loud snap, he speaks into the cell-phone wedged between his cheek and elbow. "Fuuyumi, is there an actual reason that you called me?"

"Can't a girl just check up on her younger brother because she cares?"

"No."

Fuuyumi huffs, but says, "Fine. Dad wanted me to talk to you about something."

Kyoya takes a long swig of coffee. Other than tea and the occasional soda, it was the only thing he really ever drank. Going to sleep at three in the morning and waking up only four or so hours later, he needed as much energy as possible. He swallows, and says, "I'm listening."

"Dad said you should start looking for a fiancée."

Kyoya stops mid-swig. Before the Ouran Fair, his father very solemnly associated with him, let alone his personal issues. Honestly, any time they associated last year and before, it lasted a maximum of three minutes and really didn't concern himself. It was either about the stock, or future plans, or other trivial matters.

And then there was that slap. The one that made his cheek sting red and his glasses clatter to the tiles of the floor. And how, afterwards, his father had turned his back on him, scolding him for wasting his time. Calling him an embarrassment to the Ootori name. That hurt more than it should have.

But they have begun to get along considerably better. They now exchange small talk with one another, more as father and son than business partners. But still...this is the most personal matter to appear in years.

In the end, after swallowing, all he can bring himself to say to Fuuyumi is "Excuse me?"

"A fiancée? Someone you marry?"

"I know what a fiancée is. I'm asking why he wants me to find one."

"He says that it's just as good to find a fiancée now as to do it later. Early bird catches the worm, or something like that."

"Is there a reason he wants me to find a fiancée at all?"

"Are you saying you don't want to get married?"

Kyoya pauses, taking another swallow of coffee before replying, "Not necessarily. I may find myself marrying someday. I'm just curious to as why he wants me to start now."

"I honestly don't know. I think he mentioned something about 'the sooner, the better'? Something like that. Yuuichi is already married, Akito is seeing someone and it looks like he's going to propose any day now. You're the only one who isn't even seeing anyone right now."

Kyoya doesn't consider this to be entirely truthful. Yes, his father wishes for him to find a fiancée, but he doubts that it's because he simply wants him to start seeing someone. No, whatever woman he finds can't just be any woman. She has to be considerably wealthy, have a fair social standing, and be beneficial to the Ootori family. Many of the soon-to-be matriarchs of family names were currently young at this particular time, around Kyoya's age or a slight bit older. This would be the perfect time to find a fiancée before all of them became engaged to other men. Kyoya will be graduating at the end of this year, the time of which he will be eighteen, the legal age for men in Japan to marry. He supposes her should start seeking potential fiancée's now and propose to them after graduation.

His father isn't being selfish with this. He wants the Ootori name to be connected to another strong family name, to increase their own strength. But surely he isn't going to force Kyoya to marry an absolutely horrid woman. No, Yoshio Ootori himself told Kyoya not too long a time ago that the incident of Shizue Suoh practically forcing her grandson to marry the self-centered Eclair Tonnerre was a very dreadful thing. So he wouldn't dare do the same.

Fuuyumi's voice begins to speak once again, cutting off his train of thought. "Hey, we're getting called to the flight. I'll call you when we land, alright?"

"Understood."

Kyoya flips the phone shut and tucks it into his slacks pocket. Taking one last drink of his canned coffee, he crumples the tin in his fingers before lazily dropping it into a nearby trash bin. He was standing outside Ritoruredi!, a small boutique in the middle of a strip of other clothing stores in Bunkyo. It's family-run shop, so it's the only one of its kind. The boutique is directed towards elderly women, so everything inside is furry, flowery, and lacy. Opening the door, Kyoya is met with a blast of cozy warm air and the ring of a small bell. His nostrils are assaulted with harsh perfumes. Inside the store, elderly women hobble to and fro, some carrying canes and one in a wheelchair. Some are accompanied by grandchildren who are either assisting them or silently begging for them to leave soon, bored out of their wits.

One girl stands at the back of the store, holding a round glass bottle filled with pink-colored perfume. She is alone, unaccompanied, so Kyoya assumes that she's seeking out a gift for a loved one. Kyoya can't see her face, as her back is turned to him, but he can see her elbow-length jet black hair, the ends cut straight and sharp. Judging by her height and form, she's around his age. As Kyoya discreetly watches, the girl removes one of her hands from the bottle and uses the other to aim its nozzle at her wrist. She sprays it onto her skin and lifts her wrist to her nose, inhaling its scent. She pauses for a moment before continuing through the perfumes. But she continues to hold the bottle, so she'll likely buy it unless she finds a more satisfactory perfume. Perhaps it's just the discussion of earlier, but Kyoya wonders once again of the girl he's supposed to find and marry. What her personality will be, how she will look, when he will meet her.

To keep his head cool, Kyoya turns in the direction of Miss Chiharu, Mori, and Hani. In her wheelchair, Miss Chiharu has declined changing in and out of items and clothing and instead simply informed Hani and Mori of her dress size. Hani is thoroughly examining the lines of dresses. Every now and then, he pulls out a particularly pretty dress by its hanger, holds it before Miss Chiharu's form, and pauses before draping the dress atop the already-large pile of others in Mori's arms. Miss Chiharu isn't even giving her say on the dresses. She's still continuing with her tale of Kyoya. Apparently, she saw more of him through her college years.

Kyoya sighs and pulls his phone from his pocket once again. Flipping open the top, he punches in the wanted number and holds it to his ear. The phone bleats several times before the other line picks up.

"Kyoya-senpai?"

"Haruhi. I called to assure that all is going well. Is it?"

"..."

"Haruhi?"

"Yeeeeeah. Everything is perfect."

Behind her voice, Kyoya can hear several other sounds: other voices, screeching brakes, the hiss of doors opening and closing, an engine humming to life. Kyoya raises an eyebrow, despite knowing that Haruhi (naturally) cannot see him. "Are you two still on the bus? It's been more than an hour already."

There's another hiss of closing doors and the hum of an engine starting again. "Ah...The bus blew a flat tire. We had to wait for another bus while they fixed it."

"...I see."

"Yes."

"..."

"..."

"..."

"...Well, I suppose I'll be seeing you in an hour or so?"

"Yesyouwillsenpaibye."

Kyoya raises his thin black brow once more as the line abruptly cuts off, leaving a bleating silence in its wake. His onyx gaze turns to the others, who have turned to the shelves of flowery hats along the pastel pink walls. Hani appears to be caught between a large beige straw hat with gargantuan tiger lilies and a smaller, lavender hat with bluebells. He places one hat atop Miss Chiharu's pouf of platinum hair, then the other hat, and then the first again. He seems unable to make a decision. Knowing Hani, it's going to take him a while before he makes up his mind. Lowering his phone downwards just enough to view the pad of buttons, he punches in the next address, hits the green dial button, and holds it to his ear as it rings.

A few seconds later, the other line picks up with an almost silent click.

"Hello Kyoya."

Kyoya's eyebrows rise, lower, and furrow. (He scolds himself for doing this so frequently. Honestly, he'll grow wrinkles soon.) Tamaki has answered - as Kyoya has intended for him to do - but not with his usual sugary-sweet "Hell-o, dear friend!". Not to mention his voice is tight and whispering, as if he's speaking through gritted teeth whilst also attempting to remain reticent.

"Hello, Tamaki, is everything...okay?"

There's a small pause before Tamaki replies. "Everything is perfectly fine. Just a sweet, normal, sentimental dinner with two lovely grandmothers and their lovely grand-sons."

On the word "sentimental", Tamaki practically growls. Things are obviously not going well for him and the Hitachiin twins, and Kyoya can tell without even seeing the scene. He pauses, clears his throat, and continues, "Yes, well, I just called to see if things were going well...which they seem to be—"

"Yes, things are going fine."

"O...kay..."

"..."

"So I guess I'll see you and the others later?"

"Yes now goodbye."

Kyoya scoffs as the line abruptly cuts once again. Tucking his phone back into his pocket to join his three companions, he has just enough time to turn his head and watch as the brunette girl with the perfume exits the store through the front door. The bell chimes as she exits.


Tamaki huffs air through his nostrils as he closes his cell-phone shut.

As Kyoya had predicted, things were not going well for him and the Hitachiin twins. It had all taken the wrong turn the very second that Shizue Suoh and Kazuha Hitachiin laid eyes on one another. As Shizue, her grandson, and the Hitachiin twins waited calmly in front of the Miyuki restaurant, Kazuha's motorbike pulled into the curb, growling as if it was a living beast. It was actually unlikely that Kazuha was even going to arrive. She was known for travelling away without warning, giving no indication as when or where she would leave. Whenever she did so, her family would require reading gossip magazines or listening to rumors to discover where she had left to. Hikaru and Kaoru told Tamaki of an incident in which the entire Hitachiin family gathered in Shanghai, China, for their Oba Umeko's pre-wedding dinner. Said dinner would take place at Ultraviolet, the single-most exclusive restaurant in the city. When Kazuha was called to give a speech of regards to her daughter-in-law, an employee of the restaurant awkwardly approached the family to give them word the Kazuha was travelling to Puerto Rico.

Tamaki already factually knew that the two women were near-polar opposites in personality, but he could see the nonexistent future of friendship between them just by observing them standing next to one another. Kazuha Hitachiin is in her fifties and is currently wearing a sleek lime green tracksuit and motorbike helmet. Shizue is seventy years of age and wears a flowery pastel pink kimono. There's a two-head height difference between them, Kazuha being the taller of the two.

And then, there was...Kazuha's hair. Her hair was the same rustic strawberry blond as the twins', but one would hardly be able to tell so. Kazuha's hair was (and still is) an arranged mess of indigo delphiniums, soft white geraniums, and creamy carnations with crimson edges, all of which were artificial. It was an honest mystery to as how it all fit into her helmet. The entire mess was a prank unleashed upon her by her own grandsons when they were both five and it had remained there since. Tamaki himself had made the fatal mistake of referring to it as a hat and he and the older woman have been on ill terms since.

Around thirty seconds after they laid eyes on one another, Shizue had coldly inquired, "What is that debacle upon your head?"

Kasuha's expression had hardly changed to the naked eye, but her amber-eyed gaze had turned cold. "Hello to you, too."

And now, here they are, in the Miyuki restaurant, sitting cross-legged on satin-bound cushions. Kazuha and Shizue stare coldly at one another silently. Their difference is evident in the very fashion in which they sit. Kazuha sits with her legs criss-cross applesauce, whereas Shizue sits on her legs in a traditional manner. Their grandsons copy them both respectively. The tension is thick enough to cut with a knife.

Every now and then, Kazuha and Shizue will speak to one another indifferently.

"You never answered my question," states Shizue.

"It's called a hairstyle," replies Kazuha, "What's with the bathrobe?"

"It's a traditional Japanese kimono," answers Shizue, "professionally sewn and fitted by my tailor, Ti—"

"I didn't ask for your life story," snaps Kazuha.

Tamaki squirms on his cushion uncomfortably. The tension is almost physically applying pressure to his chest. Kaoru and Hikaru, meanwhile, observe the ordeal with hidden smirks of amusement with their chins cradled in their folded fingers. When Tamaki pointedly glowers at them, their smirks widen teasingly. Finally, when Tamaki can no longer endure it, he turns to the grandmothers with a tight but charming smile. "My apologies, but may I speak to Hikaru and Kaoru in private for a moment?"

"You are excused." "Knock yourself out."

Tamaki snaps his eyes to the twins and jerks his head to the right, gesturing them to follow. They roll their amber eyes but comply. The three teenagers stand from their seats and shuffle away from the table. They enter a different dining room, and Tamaki pulls them away from eyesight and earshot. After assuring that their conversation will be strictly private, Tamaki glowers down at the twins.

Before he can speak, Hikaru and Kaoru simultaneously chuckle, stifling their laughter behind their hands.

"Oh, man, and I thought that she was the worst creature on earth," Hikaru sighs.

"This was a great idea," agrees Kaoru. "Why haven't we ever done this before?"

"I told you both that nothing was to go wrong!" Tamaki runs his long fingers through his blonde locks. He takes a deep breath to calm his nerves. "This is horrible. Why did you—"

"Hey, hey, hey." Hikaru raises his hands defensively alongside his younger brother. "We're not controlling what she says or does."

"Don't go blaming us for something we're not doing," Kaoru adds.

"You both knew this would happen, didn't you?"

"Well, duh."

Tamaki's fingers curl in fury. He brings them to the sides of his head, as if he's about to tear his hair out of his scalp, before curling them into fists and lowering them to his sides. "Why would you two do this?" Tamaki's eyes glitter with exaggerated tears and the twins sigh in exasperation as he bites his knuckle to prevent a sob. "My grandmother's soul, encased in icy bitterness for all this time, was just beginning to thaw."

"Look, if you didn't want anything bad to happen, why did you invite us?" the twins ask with crossed arms.

With his shoulders still loose, Tamaki turns to them sharply and glowers bitterly at them. He stands tall and prim, setting his hands on his hips. "As if I was actually going to allow you two to accompany an elder with no supervision."

The twins scoff at this, rolling their amber eyes at this truthfully accurate accusation. "What were we going to do, lose them?"


"We'll find them, we'll find them, we'll find them," Haruhi whispers to herself over and over, sitting cross-legged on one of the red cushioned seats of the bus. As her chocolate brown eyes flash between the road and the scenery outside the window, Kosuke sits beside her, breathing into a brown paper bag to ease her hyperventilation. The bag crinkles and cracks with each panicked breath.


No, you weren't going to lose them, Tamaki thinks to himself. His own thoughts were dripping with sarcasm; it was practically oozing from his ears. You'd just bring them back, one-armed, several inches shorter, a hook for a hand and a tattoo of a demon on their chest.

Tamaki shuts his eyelids and massages his temples with his index fingers. This entire ordeal is physically giving him a migraine the size of Venezuela. Hikaru and Kaoru watch with unimpressed gazes. Why was this so important to him? Shizue made the Grinch look like SpongeBob SquarePants. Tamaki had just stated that she had "thawed" considerably since Hurricane Tonnerre, but they honestly can't see it.

Tamaki sighs and lowers his digits from his temples, letting them fall limply to his sides. His amethyst eyes cast down at the twins almost pitifully. "Don't you two know that your actions can lead to consequences that can affect other people?"

Hikaru and Kaoru's facial expressions are sour, for the most part, but withhold a glimmer of fury.

"'Actions that can lead to consequences that can affect other people'?" They repeat in a single monotone.

"Like taking your friends to a circus and almost getting them killed by a crazy mafia boss?" Hikaru inquires in a clipped voice.

"Or volunteering the same friends to replace a boy band and almost getting them sued for all they own?" quips Kaoru in the same tone.

"Or sneaking said friends into a birthday party and almost ruining the social life of one of their younger siblings?"

"Or taking the exact same friends to a dentoutekina and almost getting them crushed in a cave in?"

"Or—"

"WE'VE ALL MADE MISTAKES, OKAY?! I GET IT." As the twins raise their hands in sarcastic defense, Tamaki cautiously cranes his head around the entrance of the room to observe Shizue and Kazuha. They continue to speak to one another in slow, icy voices, but their words are ineligible from where Tamaki stands. A moment later, the chefs enter the dining room with an array of succulent dishes and cuisines ordered by the grandmothers and their grandsons. Tamaki quickly turns back to the younger teenage boys and says, "Just don't let this get out of hand."His amethyst eyes almost fade to indigo with acidity as he adds, "OR ELSE."

Despite themselves, the twins shiver with fear as the blond exits. They both run their fingers through their strawberry blond locks and sigh to themselves. As their thoughts begin to wander, remembering their previous statements, they both think the exact same thought in perfect unison.

I wonder if things are going well for Kosuke and Haruhi.


THAR YE GO.

Also, as a little question for you guys...

WHO WANTS TO SEE RUDE!KOSUKE

*blazes fire as Gavin screams*

~iamconstantine