A/N: Thank you to Ale250496 and Nana-san14 for such kind words! And I hope you enjoy this chapter:)

5:27 p.m.

"Hajimemashite, watashiwa Tenri Mihokodesu. Yoroshiku onegaishimasu."

That first introduction felt like an impossibly distant past, compared to what was happening right now.

"Ten hertz? I don't think so," Sugimoto-san disagreed—politely, everyone had to admit.

"That is far. Too. High," Tanaka-san, up until recently an employee of Sony electronics department, disagreed with unusual vehemence. "Sugimoto-san, with all due respect—"

"Clearly none," Meiko-san muttered under her voice.

"Excuse me?"

"Alright, alright, everyone," Chiba-san, who was the most diplomatic of all the group, stood up and looked down at everyone. Being the eldest in the group, everyone had a certain amount of deference towards him which became handy during heated conflicts, much like this one.

Unfortunately, heated conflicts were a regular occurrence within this team, which still hadn't decided on its name.

"We can all agree that Meiko-san's idea itself has a merit. The technical details might take some time to work out, but that's part of our job, isn't it?" Chiba-san looked significantly at Sugimoto-san and Tanaka-san, who rolled their eyes in their seats.

"Also," Mihoko ventured quietly, "we still have two more presentations."

At that remark, everyone sighed in exasperation.

"We could take a break," Mihoko suggested placatingly. There were meant to be five different presentations given by five different "experts" in their field, and Mihoko, being most familiar with computer science and robotics, had teamed up with some others to present a more advanced version of the current nanorobots involved in microsurgeries. Two hours, they supposed, were enough for five presentations to be given, discussed, and evaluated. So they began at one.

It was now half past five, and they still had two more to go.

"And then come back after dinner?" Tanaka-san asked. Mihoko shrugged.

"I don't have any plans, do you?"

According to people's faces, some of them clearly did have plans.

"Come on, people," Chiba-san began bracingly, "these are our initial stages. Once we figure out the direction of our project, everyone can proceed at their own pace."

"We definitely need a break," Sugimoto-san said. Everyone murmured in assent.

"Break?" someone said calmly, and all heads turned toward the entryway in search of the person. What they found made all of them tense up.

"Eh, Ootori-san," Tanaka-san said, looking rather dazed. "Good afternoon. We weren't expecting you."

"I thought I'd drop by and check in," Ootori with his infuriating glasses replied. "My schedule opened up unexpectedly."

It's been a few weeks since she'd last seen him, when he introduced her to the office space, some other people in the team, and signed his part of the contract. She was glad to be rid of him; as futile as it was, she wanted to pretend that his involvement in the business was minimal, if not none. And as she got to know her colleagues, Mihoko had to realize that Ootori had built a good, solid team, and that she got along surprisingly well with most of them.

But all of that was beside the point, when that infuriating four-eyed monster walked into the room.

"We've been doing our preliminary research and drafts," Chiba-san volunteered to explain. "You can imagine that it took some time, and today was the deadline we set ourselves to present our ideas to each other, and see what would be the best option for the entire group. We've been running into some difficulties with… ah… theoretical leanings."

"Just be straight, Chiba-san," Meiko-san said loudly. "We're a bunch of egos and we can't see eye-to-eye, isn't that right?"

Meiko-san's loud admonishment somehow made everyone burst out in laughter, and even Ootori's lips widened a little bit, as if he were suppressing a smile. Mihoko had to admit that Meiko-san had a point. Her team had attempted to communicate with other teams to integrate some of their ideas, but it hadn't been fully successful.

"Say, Ootori-san," Meiko-san continued loudly. "You're the boss, aren't you? And you still haven't taken us out on a proper dinner yet."

"That's right!" Chiba-san laughed heartily. "Ootori-kun, how could you be so thoughtless?"

Clearly, the prospect of a night out with a bunch of people in the room was not an appealing aspect to Ootori. Mihoko looked askance at him, waiting for him to say something that thinly disguised his real thought that "I can't bother to spend more time with the likes of you." To her surprise, he looked at her direction, and their eyes met.

"How silly of me," he said, not breaking their eye contact. "What would be the most fitting? I was given to understand that the work wasn't over."

The next forty-five minutes were in a blur, at least to Mihoko, whose memory of the first day in the office blurred with the last twenty-so days where she talked with her colleagues about design specifications, lunch places, and the nearest convenience store where she could get the energy drinks to sustain her late-night projects.

Meanwhile, there was another flurry of heated debate, where people discussed the optimal delivery options:

"McDonald's will be too messy! Besides, I really doubt that Ootori-san would approve," said Miyake-san.

"I have no preferences, Miyake-san," Ootori replied politely.

"I do, I cannot eat processed meat," Chiba-san intervened loudly. The objection was met with collective groan.

"Oh, Chiba-san, just for this occasion!"

"How about sushi, then, it's pretty neat and low-key…" Sugimoto-san suggested.

"Think of the strain that will be on Ootori-san…" Tanaka-san quietly said, but the words reached everyone in the room including Ootori, who smiled reassuringly.

"I assure you, that's not an issue."

"You do realize who you're talking about, Tanaka-san?" Meiko-san said without missing a beat.

"I was trying to be polite!"

"How about buns?" Shimada suggested. He was also in her team, and she knew him from college years, when she'd met him in a cross-university competition.

"You remember, don't you, Tenri? We had a competition with the Tokyo University computer science department, and everyone had to pull an all-nighter trying to crack the problem. Ouran University had better technique, but—"

"You lost because you couldn't handle the pressure," Mihoko shot back drily, grinning. "Oh please. You couldn't beat us even if we were typing with one hand tied behind our backs."

"Anyway," Shimada-san said, ignoring her jibe. "Buns got us through until three in the morning. Great energy source, I think."

"I suppose that's alright," Sugimoto-san said, and a murmur of assent ran through the room.

"We can never do anything without a disagreement, can we?" Chiba-san said lowly to Mihoko as everyone settled down after ordering their pick. Ootori asked the teams to explain their ideas to him again, and everyone sat back in their chairs as each took their turn.

"I suppose not," Mihoko said, rubbing her eyes tiredly. "It's not too bad, though, is it? No one's bored yet."

Chiba-san smiled. "That's the spirit, Tenri-san."

"Oy, Tenri," Shimada barked. "Quit talking over there." Mihoko waved him off.

After the food arrived, people became more alert.

"So what I understand is that you can't choose which one to pursue," Ootori said. Mihoko, who was unwilling to believe that Ootori would ever even touch a commoner's food like buns, watched warily as he picked his out of the container. Everyone else nodded.

"Why can't you combine all of them?" Ootori asked.

"It's not that simple, Ootori-kun," Chiba-san said.

"Why is that, Chiba-san? From what I could tell, the one with the nanorobots already combined some ideas from the hydraulics team, and the biofuel one could easily team up with the civil construction one, no?"

"Our team did try to make our project more inclusive," Shimada said, chewing loudly. "Tenri kept bugging everyone else to tell her what was going on. She thought the nanorobots could be deployed within the biofuel production, if we could change the application settings."

"I knew we were trying to choose one final idea in the end, so I figured it'd be good to incorporate different ideas as much as possible," Mihoko said. "I didn't bug everyone."

"You did, Tenri-san," Meiko-san said. Everyone nodded in assent again and Mihoko looked everywhere but Ootori's direction, aware of him watching her again.

"It's not a bad approach," he said. "And it's already showing promises of a compromise."

"I suppose," Tanaka-san said.

"What's standing in the way of everything?" Ootori-asked.

The question sparked another two-hour long discussion where everyone voiced their concerns and built off on each other's question. Mihoko was surprised by Ootori's facility with different topics people presented; she was certainly having a hard time following when the construction team was talking, and she'd been trying to stay on top of their subject for the past few weeks. He didn't demand that things be carried out in a certain way, but instead asked more questions about why things were in a certain way, making everyone else look for different possibilities.

He wasn't too bad at this, managing people.

Having been something of a recluse in high school, it was hard for Mihoko to adjust to her university setting, where people liked to carry on coding projects with each other. Even though others approached her, it took her a while to learn to open up to new people, and it was really only after she met Hirose Ichiru that she fully embraced the idea of working with people. But that was difficult for her again when she went to the U.S. and struggled to communicate effectively, and then again in Germany. She eventually learned, of course, but it made her appreciate people who seem to be able to do so so effortlessly.

That annoying Ootori certainly had the talent for it. Regardless of how grudging her admiration was, she had to admit it.

Don't take things personally, she remembered Chiba-san's recommendation. Feelings don't play a role in business.

It didn't mean that he couldn't be irritating as heck.

10:43 p.m.

"Is it settled?" Meiko-san said, staring at the board in front of them in wonderment.

"I think so," Tanaka-san said.

"Thank goodness," Sugimoto-san said, putting on her jacket.

"Wait," Shimada said, always skeptical.

"I like it," Chiba-san said, nodding his head. "I think there's potential."

"A lot of applicable options," Ootori agreed. "I think it's the most profitable venture, don't you?"

There was that word again, profitable. Mihoko frowned in distaste.

"Home at last!" Tanaka-san said. Everyone cheered.

Mihoko stared at the board. Nanorobots acting as catalysts, like a neurotransmitter in a body.

"You're not convinced, Tenri-san?" Ootori, who'd approached her without her noticing, asked. Mihoko jumped from her spot.

"I'm tired," Mihoko lied. Her habitual consumption of energy drinks usually meant that she could stay awake until one or two in the morning, working.

"I doubt that." Was that her imagination, or was Ootori laughing at her? "Not with all the energy drinks on your desk."

Damn. Count on him to know where everyone sat, too. She suppressed a scowl. "I must be getting immune," she said stubbornly. She could swear that his laugh was getting bigger.

"Better take care of your health, Tenri-san," he said easily. "After all, you're the one who was on Dr. Schumacher's research team at MIT, aren't you? Nanorobots are your specialty."

Mihoko didn't bother asking him how he knew this.

"I'll rely on your expertise," he said, nodding at her in leave. She wanted to shout, "never for your benefit!" but it seemed immature, even in this situation.

"Ready, Tenri-san?" Chiba-san said. Mihoko looked around. Everyone had already left, it seemed.

"Hai," she said, and followed everyone else out.

10:24 a.m.

As sakura blossoms faded into May, some innovative patissiers were eager to preserve the scent of the spring in the air and consequently began to make spring themed patisserie. Haninozuka Mitsukuni, who had been an ardent connoisseur of cake since the age of five, knew all of the patissiers in Tokyo by heart. All the notable ones, in any case.

"Takashi, try this one! It has cherry jelly inside the sakura mousse," he said to Morinozuka Takashi, who was, despite being in his thirties, still Haninozuka's companion in cake-tasting.

"Reiko would've preferred to have been here with you." And that was true. Morinozuka was not one for sweet things, even if they were slightly bitter with the scent of sakura.

"Ne, she's in her weekly meeting with Neko-chan," Haninozuka said.

"Ah," was all Morinozuka said. And they sat in companionable silence for a while.

"Say, Takashi," Haninozuka said, licking the tips of his fork clean as the waiter brought in the second course of the dessert—now orange blossom biscuits with creme fraiche and tiny mochi bites. "Did you notice Kyou-chan last night?"

Last night the Suou-Fujioka family had returned from their stay in France with Tamaki's mother's side of the family, and in celebration the Host Club gathered in the Suou mansion. Suou Tamaki had been lavish in their presents—perhaps sometimes unfittingly, as he piled on macaron after macaron on Kyouya's lap, saying that each color suited his complexion. But it was a chance for all of them to get together again, which was becoming rarer and rarer as they led their separate adult lives.

"Yes," Morinozuka said. "He seemed energetic."

"He was lively, wasn't he?" And lively was certainly not the word that the rest of the Host Club used to describe the Shadow King. Ootori could certainly be awake, ready to pounce at a new target, or even animated, if it meant greeting customers and offering them the newest photo collection of Host Club members. Sometimes his eyes gleamed with calculation, and he was active in his pursuit of goals. Lively, however, was not the world that the members would use.

"He was different," Morniozuka agreed, discreetly pushing his plate of patisserie into Haninozuka's way.

"It's been a developing theory, Takashi," Haninozuka said, swallowing the last bit of his biscuit. "But I think Kyou-chan has found a new interest."

"Interest?"

"Project… or what he thinks is a project, anyway."

"Regarding his family's business?"

"Maybe," Haninozuka nodded thoughtfully. "He wasn't explicit on the details. He rarely is, you know. But I saw him with someone, and he was almost smiling half the time."

This struck Morinozuka more than anything that'd been said so far. The smile of the Shadow King could only mean one thing: scheming. It was a smile that made even Morinozuka pause and shudder slightly.

"Oh, no," he said.

"That's the thing, Takashi, I don't think he even knew he was smiling."

"What do you mean?"

"It's just a theory," Haninozuka said. "And it might as well just be nothing, but I think Kyou-chan has developed a special interest in someone that he himself doesn't fully understand."

Morinozuka considered this.

"If that's the case," he said finally, "it might take a while for there to be any kind of an outcome."

"Or any at all," Haninozuka nodded. They sipped their tea simultaneously.

"Poor girl," Morinozuka said. "She probably won't even know what's going to hit her."

"Poor Kyou-chan," Haninozuka said. "He probably won't know, either."

"But are you sure, Mitsukuni?"

Haninozuka rocked back and forth in his chair. "I might be wrong. Like always!"

"We'll wait and see, then."

"We will."

And then:

"Ne, Takashi, did you really finish that mochi by yourself? I was hoping you'd leave some for me…"

6:49 p.m.

Since the first time Ootori came to see the team, he made it a habit to drop by two or three times a week in the evening, often unannounced and catching everybody off guard. If it was a kind of Steve-Jobs-Jeff-Bezos-inspired kind of management where he caught people off guard and asked them what they were working on, then it didn't seem to have the desired effect. Unfazed by unannounced visits, people on the team welcomed Ootori with varying degree of politeness and always ended up asking of he meant to stay long enough to have dinner with them; if there was a positive answer, then it was always followed by "so what will you treat us today?"

Somehow, Ootori didn't seem to mind hanging around and asking questions.

And he asked so many questions, that he led hour-long conversations at a time without the team realizing it. Of all the things that Mihoko wanted to blame him for, not caring was not one of them. And that annoyed her to no end.

If he were some useless airhead that took pleasure in getting in the way of other people's lives, then she could feel antagonistic toward him her entire life. But no, he had to be engaged and active and curious. It didn't help that she actually liked the project they were working on, liked the people on the team, and even liked how she could contribute to the problem-solving process. At Tenri & Hirose, her role was becoming more and more removed from what they were working on, even though she would never admit it out loud…

She would've loved it if she could question his capability in any way. Other than that he looked far too young and fit to be in his position, she could not.

"Tenri-san." Another point in Ootori's disfavor: he had a knack for approaching her without her noticing.

"What?!" she said louder than intended, caught off by his presence yet again. Several people looked at her concernedly and Mihoko tried to make a gesture that said that everything was fine.

"Ootori-san," she said.

He was looking at her in a peculiar way that made her feel particularly uncomfortable. His gaze roamed from her eyes to her nose and her lips before back to her eyes in a way that made her want to wipe every part of her face, just to make sure that nothing from lunch was somehow still on there. Ootori cleared his throat.

"I was wondering if you'd like to have dinner with me this Friday?"