A month has passed by since having dinner at Haruhi's house, and since then our relationship has actually grown surprisingly. Were we friends? I still wasn't sure about that, but we didn't hate each other anymore. She even started eating lunch with me a few times a week, mostly on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. At first it was a bit uncomfortable, but as a few days passed I eventually warmed up to her eating with me.

It was Wednesday and I stood in my usual spot in the courtyard, patiently waiting for Haruhi. I leaned against the wall, tapping my foot impatiently. I looked at the time on my phone, she was five minutes late. I let out a low growl and put my phone back in my pocket.

"Whatever," I grumbled, acting as if I was a spoiled kid, "I don't need to see her anyways. It not like we're friends or anything."

I waited for a couple more minutes and when she still didn't show up, I huffed and turned to leave, but before I could even take one step I heard footsteps walk up behind me.

"Where are you going?"

My anger instantly vanished by hearing her voice and I turned back around to see Haruhi. I tried to fight off the smile that was itching my lips by glaring at her.

"You were late." I stated. "I wasn't going to wait for you like some puppy the whole lunch period."

Haruhi rolled her eyes. "Oh calm down, I just had to speak to Tamaki senpai for a bit."

My glare hardened as I heard Tamaki's name. For some reason just hearing that she was with him made me angry, as if there was a rage filled fire burning in my chest.

"What were you doing with him?" I hissed.

"Why do you care, unless," a small smirk appeared on her face, "you're jealous?"

A warmed blush appeared on my face as the word jealous left her mouth.

Jealous? I wasn't jealous, I wasn't even her friends. How could I be jealous? I just hated Tamaki, that's all. He probably only wanted to meet up so he could try and flirt with her like he did with every other girl. Just imagining him playing with her heart just made me so livid that I could punch the shit out of him...wait, why do I even care?

"Tsk, you wish." I grumbled as I faced away from her, the blush still on my cheeks. "It's not like we're friends anyway."

"Yeah, keep telling yourself that."

I just responded with another low growl, causing Haruhi to laugh. I looked back over to her and finally noticed that she was carrying two wrapped bentos.

I pointed to them. "Why did you bring two lunches?"

Haruhi smiled and held one out to me. "I remembered how much you loved the dinner I made you, and you always steal some food from my lunch, so I decided to make one for you as well."

I could feel my heart began to beat loudly in my chest and my blush darkened even more, but it seemed like she didn't notice. I took the bento from her, looking away from her.

"Thanks…" I grumbled under my breath.

"You're welcome."

We sat down and I unwrapped then opened up. As I snapped it open I could see all the food she prepared. She made shrimp tempura with some rice, vegetables, and some type of cookies. It was mostly the foods I would steal from her lunch, which she always complained about because I would mostly eat her lunch instead of the one I bought in the school cafeteria.

I picked up a tempura and ate it, closing my eyes as I leaned my head back on the wall I was leaning on as I let the flavor fill my mouth.

"So how has everything been lately at home? You haven't texted me in almost a week. So that must be a good sign."

After mom's outburst with the knife I decided to try to give Haruhi's offer a chance. So the next time mom abused me I immediately texted Haruhi and I don't know how she did it, but she actually made me calm down and feel a lot better. Way quicker then it would've if I didn't talk to her.

I shrugged my shoulders and turned my head to look over at her, still leaning on the wall.

"Nothing big," I replied, "just the regular of her yelling that I'm a disappointment and how she wished she only had Kaoru, or if she's really pissed, no sons at all."

"So just drunken rants then? No physical abuse?"

I nodded, looking back up and closing my eyes. "Yep, but it's only the middle of the week, so who knows what might happen."

"Don't say that."

"I'm just trying to be realistic."

Haruhi sighed, playing with her food in her bento with her fork. We ate for a bit in silence. The silence was no longer awkward. We didn't have to try to find a topic to think about, we just let the silence take over, which sometimes was good.

"So," Haruhi began, breaking the silence, "is your mom still making you fend for yourself?"

I looked back over at her, giving her a bored expression. "Yeah kinda, I still have to make my own meals and do my own laundry, but she started giving me money again. So I'm grateful for that."

"You know, you could've gotten a job. Like normal people who are having issues with money."

"I wasn't having issues. I still had a debit card that I used to buy items. So I didn't need a job."

"Yeah, God forbid that a spoiled rich brat gets a job to learn what us normal people have to deal with to keep food on the table."

I smirked at her. "You said it, not me."

Haruhi just rolled her eyes and looked back down at her bento. She pushed up her glasses that were way too big for her face. I looked her up and down. She stopped wearing the male uniform completely. She just usually wore her oversized sweaters and a uniform shirt underneath. She had her hair up in a messy bun, which actually didn't look half bad.

"Your glasses are ugly." I commented, causing her to look back over to me, her mouth open as she was about to take a bite of her food.

She glared at me. "Wow, thanks for the complement Hikaru. You're such a charmer."

"What happened to that uniform that the club members gave you?"

"Well, since I'm no longer in the Host Club I don't have to keep up my appearance."

"Why did you get kicked out?" I asked confused. "Doesn't Tamaki like, adore you?"

"It's a long story." Haruhi huffed, moving a piece of loose hair behind her ear. "Tamaki senpai had this whole drama with his family and he paid for the rest of my debt because his grandmother wanted me out of the club."

"Hmm, I remember Kaoru talking about that whole family situation, but that doesn't mean you had to let yourself go."

"You're making it seem like I gained thirty pounds or something."

I just rolled my eyes. "That's not what I meant, but take it as you like." I moved closer to her and grabbed her glasses with both of my hands. "I'm just saying you'll get more positive attention if you kept a decent appearance."

I slid her glasses off and as soon as I saw her face without them I immediately halted what I was doing. I tilted my head to the side a bit, studying her features. She had a small thin face that made her brown eyes stand out a lot. Her nose was small and had was also slightly pointed, it was almost cute. Her hair, even though it was messy it was starting to look a lot more stylish. But what stood out the most for some reason were her lips. They were plump and pink...almost kissable. Was she always this beautiful? I've seen her without her glasses and not in ratty clothing, but it never awestruck me like this before.

"Can I have my glasses back?" Haruhi asked, causing me to break out of my trance.

"You look gorgeous." I said impulsively.

Haruhi blinked in confusion. "...Huh?"

A dark red blush appeared on my face. Fuck, did I really just say that she was gorgeous?!

I cleared my throat awkwardly, looking away from her face. "What I meant was that you look really good without your glasses. You should try getting contacts."

Haruhi took her glasses from me and slipped them back on. "Well, I had contacts for awhile. I just have no reason to wear them anymore."

"Well, I think they'll make your life a lot easier." I said, a small smile on my face. "I've seen how you get annoyed with the glasses because they're so big. Just give them another chance."

Haruhi put her hand back on the frame of her glasses, feeling how big they actually were. She sighed and pushed them back up.

"Fine," she looked back over towards me, "I might give them another chance."

My smile widened, I didn't know why but something about her was different. I couldn't put my finger on it, but I liked it. Just then a slight breeze blew past us, blowing some of Haruhi's loose strands of hair. For some reason now, I couldn't help but notice how adorable she was, even with her big, unflattering old man glasses Just looking at her made my chest feel tight, as if it were hard for me to breath. I made a faint pained expression and put a hand on my chest, leaning back on the wall. "Fuck."

"What's wrong?" Haruhi asked innocently.

I coughed a bit to see if it would make me feel any better, but it was futile in helping anything.

"I don't know," I responded, "my chest just suddenly started to feel weird, and it's also hard to breath."

"Maybe you got heartburn. Sometimes certain foods do that."

"Yeah, but it's never felt like this before." I coughed one last time before shrugging my shoulders. "I can deal with it, it's not the worse feeling in the world.

"Are you sure, I'm pretty sure the nurse has some medicine tha-"

"I'm fine," I interrupted her as I faced back towards her, "I promise."

"Ok, if you're sure."

For the rest of the lunch period we just continued talking. I seemed to hang onto every word that she said as if it was the most interesting thing in the world to me, and at the moment it was. The feeling in my chest never going away, but it wasn't that bothersome anymore, it actually felt pretty good.

"You know, that wasn't half bad." I said as I closed the now empty bento she gave me.

"I'm just going to have to accept that you're never going to be nice to me."

I sniggered and smiled at her. "Took you long enough."

Even though Haruhi tried to be mad, she couldn't help but chuckle. As I saw her laugh, I could feel my heart began to softly pound in my chest. Then everything felt like it slowed down as she looked over at me and smiled. Another small gust of wind blew through her hair. Nothing seemed ugly about her anymore, not her hair, not her clothes, nothing. As I continued to stare at her, my heart began pounding even louder in my chest. My own smile fell and I quickly looked away from her again, putting a hand back on my chest. What was this weird feeling, and why was it making my heart act all crazy?

Haruhi's expression turned concerned when she saw that I was in pain again.

"Hey, are you sure that you're ok? You look like you're in a lot of pain."

"My heart, it's just acting...I don't know, weird. It just started pounding really hard all of a sudden."

"Are you sure you don't want me to take you to the nurse." Haruhi asked. "I really don't mind."

"I'm fine, really." I said, feeling my heart start to calm down a bit. "But if it gets any worse I'll promise to go."

Haruhi nodded, obviously still concerned about my health. I helped her clean up and wrapped up the bentos. As I handed her the bento she gave me back, our hands touched. Usually I would've instantly pulled away, but for some reason it didn't bother me this time. I forwarded my eyebrows in confusion, wondering why all of a sudden I didn't mind her touch. It actually felt quiet nice. But she must've thought my expression of confusion was a scowl because she pulled her hand away.

"Sorry," she apologized, "I keep on touching you. I have to stop doing that."

"No, it's alright." I responded without thinking, causing her to look at me with a puzzled look. Another small blush appeared on my face as I just realized what I said. I always got annoyed with her touching me before, but now all of a sudden I didn't care now. I cleared my throat before I continued. "It was by accident, right? So it doesn't really bother me."

She grew even more puzzled. "But the last time I accidently touched you, you literally dropped all the books on the floor in class that you were suppose to hand to me."

I shrugged my shoulders, trying my best to play this situation off as best as I could. "I don't know, it just didn't bother me this time."

Haruhi just continued to stare at me, then a small smile appeared back on her face, causing my chest to tighten again.

"You're warming up to me, aren't you?"

My blush grew even darker and I could feel my heart race again. What the fuck was going on with my body?!

I turned to look away from her, scowling. The blush clearly on my face.

"You wish." I grumbled.

"Well, by the blush on your face I think I hit a bulls eye." She smirked.

My blush grew even darker, if that was even possible, and I glared back over at her before giving her back her bento.

"Whatever." I growled before standing up. I looked at the time on my phone. "I'm going to class."

"Hey, wait for me." Haruhi called out as I began walking away.

I didn't want to stop, but for some reason my body just stopped on its own, letting her catch up.

"Thanks for waiting for me." She said as she caught up to me.

"Whatever." I growled again, the warm blush still on my cheeks as we walked back to class together.

"So you think you're not feeling well?" Kaoru asked through Skype.

After my black eye was barely noticeable anymore I decided to Skype Kaoru again. I still had the cut on my cheek though and he asked about that, so I just told him someone cut me with their ring when they punched me. He scolded me for getting into another fight, where I couldn't help but laugh. He then soon joined along. It's been about three weeks since then and mom hasn't really hurt me that bad for me not to talk to him.

"Yeah," I responded to his question, "my heart's been acting weird all day since lunch."

"Well, maybe you should stop using those." Kaoru suggested as he pointed to the cigarette in my hand. "Those fucking things do shit to your heart."

I was puffing on a cigarette as I sat on my bed, my ashtray in between my crossed legs. I just smirked at him and blew smoke at the camera. Kaoru tried his hardest not to look amused, but I could see the smile tugging on his lips.

"I'm serious Hikaru. Haven't you seen those commercials. I don't want you to end up with a hole in your throat."

"Those people smoke like six packs a day. I usually just smoke about one or two cigarettes a day, four at most. I cut down a bit since I first started."

"But can you at least promise that you'll try and stop. For your own health."

I rolled my eyes but smiled at him, knowing that he was only worrying because he cared. "Fine, I'll try and quit." I took another drag of my cigarette, smirking. "Tomorrow."

Kaoru rolled his eyes, but smiled. "I don't know what I'm going to do with you." I shrugged my shoulders, keeping the smirk on my face. "Anyways," Kaoru said as he put his head in his hand, laying down on the hotel bed, "back to your heart. What has it been doing to make you think that you're sick?"

"Well," I started, burning out my cigarette. "My chest had been tight, making it kinda hard to breath, and my heart's been pounding a lot lately."

Kaoru forwarded his eyebrows, as if he was thinking. "Has your face been flushed as well?"

"Yeah, it has. A lot actually." I answered.

"And you said this started happening during lunch with Haruhi today, right?"

"It started during lunch and continued throughout the day until I got home, but it flared up a lot during the tutoring session today."

Kaoru just watched me silently, a hand covering his mouth. He then looked like he was glaring at me by the way his eyebrows were forwarded, making creases on his forehead.

"Kaoru?" I questioned, causing his eyes to look up at mine. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah," he replied muffled, his hand still over his mouth, "I'm just thinking." He then removed his hand from his mouth, revealing a smirk. "I think I might know what's up with your heart Hikaru."

"What is it?"

He laid his chin on his knuckles, still smirking at me. "You're in love with Haruhi, aren't you?"

A deep red blush filled my face for what felt like the umpteeth time today.

"In-In love?! You can't be fucking serious?!"

Kaoru sniggered, his smirk growing on his face. "From the way that you're freaking out and the dark red blush on your face, you are definitely in love with her."

"You're really stretching it Kaoru." I hissed, my blush still clearly on my face. "Come on, we're not even friends."

Kaoru rolled his eyes, I could tell he was starting to get annoyed. "Oh stop denying it, having a crush isn't something to be ashamed of. I'll even admit that I had a small crush on her last year."

I blinked a bit, shocked at what he said. "Wait, really?" Kaoru nodded and I felt a small feeling of rage burn in my chest. I glared at him. "So you have a crush on her?"

"Had a crush on her." He corrected, using his fingers to quote the word had. "Don't worry, my feelings for her disappeared a long time ago last year after I knew that she would never love me that way and it would be better to just be friends." Kaoru's smirk returned to his face. "You don't have to be jealous."

"I don't have a crush on her!" I barked.

"Fine, let's prove it then." Kaoru pulled out his phone and began typing then instantly found an article. "Signs that you're in love. One, your chest hurts when you think of the person." He looked up at me. "Your chest has been hurting a lot lately."

"There could be a lot of other reasons why my chest is hurting."

Kaoru gave me a look, as if to say, are you serious? Before looking back at his phone.

"Two, if the person is happy then you're happy." He looked back up at me. "So…"

"Well...yeah kinda, but happiness is contagious. Especially if it's someone you get along with."

"Or someone you love."

I glared at him again. "I'm not fucking in love with her!" I hissed through my teeth.

"We'll see about that." Kaoru said as he looked back at his phone. "Three, when you're around the person you get a weird feeling in your stomach." I opened my mouth to reply to the sign, but Kaoru continued to read the article, not letting me talk. "Four, you distinguish their voice better than other people's. Five, you get jealous when this person is around others. Six, you can't imagine living your life without them-"

"Ok I get it!" I growled, causing Kaoru to look up from his phone.

"So let's see how many symptoms you have. I know you have number five because you were jealous when I said I had a crush on Haruhi last year, and you also have symptoms one, two, three, four, and six."

I let out a frustrated sigh before running a hand through my hair. "Whatever, believe what you want to believe." I leaned back on my arms that were supporting me. "I know how to actually feel and that's all that matters."

"Hikaru," Kaoru huffed, clearly irritated. "I love you, I really do, but you're really fucking stupid."

I hardened my glare at him. "Wow, thanks for that. It really brings up my self-esteem."

"You know what? I'll just drop it." Kaoru said. "But when you finally figure out that you love her, I'm going to tell you I told you so."

"Yeah, not going to happen."

"We'll see."

For the rest of our Skype call we just talked about how Kaoru's day was in New York. He saw Aladdin on Broadway and got backstage access to meet the cast. Then for dinner they went to a five star restaurant, but I didn't hear when he said the name of it was. I tried to pay attention as he talked, but every word he said was muffled, as if he had a cloth over his mouth. I just couldn't stop thinking about what he said earlier, about me liking Haruhi. It could be true right? Even though I had most of the symptoms, it didn't mean I was in love with her.

Kaoru stopped talking when he noticed he was only having a one sided conversation. He saw the far off look in my eye as I stared off somewhere.

"Hikaru?"

"Hmm." I responded, not looking at him.

"Did you hear anything I said?"

"Yeah."

"So what did you think of the picture I got with the cast members?"

"That's cool."

Kaoru glared at me, realizing that I in fact wasn't paying attention.

"So I had this huge fucking orgy with all the girls on the trip last night and they might all get pregnant because we didn't use any protection." He lied.

"That must've been fun."

His glare hardened. "Yep, you're definitely not paying attention."

He picked up his phone and began searching something up. He then placed the speaker of his phone to the microphone of the computer and played an ear piercing sound. I hissed as the sharp sound hit my ears and I used my hands to cover them. As Kaoru turned it off I glared at him.

"What the fuck was that for?!" I growled.

"You weren't paying attention to me." Kaoru answered nonchalantly.

"I was paying attention."

"Really, then what was the last thing I told you?"

I sweat dropped, not really remembering what he said after the restaurant. Kaoru raised an eyebrow when he saw I wasn't answering.

"You don't know, do you?"

I sighed and gave him an apologetic look. "I'm sorry, I just have a lot on my mind right now."

"I get it." Kaoru said. "I know you won't admit it but I know you're thinking about what I said about Haruhi." He looked at the time on his computer. "It's getting late so I'm going to let you go." He looked back up at me. "Just give it some thought, about what I said." I gave him a nod and he smiled. "Talk to you tomorrow."

"Yeah...talk to you later."

Kaoru signed off and I turned my computer before closing it. I moved it and my ashtray to my nightstand before turning off the light. I got under my covers and flipped on my side. I hugged my covers around my body, the warmth of my blanket hitting my bare chest. I sighed as I looked out at the night sky through my blinds, thoughts about Haruhi consuming my brain.

Was I really in love with her? All the symptoms were there were there, but that has to mean something else. I groaned and flipped onto my back, staring at the ceiling for a few seconds before closing my eyes, going through the symptoms in my head one last time.

One, your chest hurts when you think of the person. Check.

Two, if the person is happy then you're happy. Check.

Three, when you're around the person you get a weird feeling in your stomach. Check.

Four, you distinguish their voice better than other people's. Check.

Five, you get jealous when this person is around others. Triple check.

Six, you can't imagine living your life without them. Check.

I sat up, letting the blanket fall to my waist. I put my head in my hands, covering my eyes as I sighed in and out. I then looked over at the clock, seeing that it was only midnight. It was going to be a long night.

The next morning slowly came. I covered my mouth as I yawned, walking to my homeroom class. I only got about two hours of sleep last night because of the thoughts of Haruhi that kept me up, but I wasn't going to let that try and bother me.

I entered the classroom and was surprised to see that Haruhi wasn't there. She usually was the first one in the classroom, but today I was here before her, which was a bit unusual. I just shrugged and went over to my desk, but as I put my bag on my desk.

"Hey Hikaru."

My heart began racing in my chest and a red blush tinted my cheek. I whipped around to look over at her. What immediately caught my eye was that she wasn't wearing her glasses.

"You're glasses, where are they?" I asked.

She smiled at me, making my heart pound even more. "I thought a lot about what you said yesterday about them and how troublesome they were because of how big they were. So I found my old contacts and put them in. That's why I was a bit late, I had to search for them." Her smile fell when she noticed the red tint on my cheeks. "Hey, are you alright? You're all red."

"I-I…"

She placed a hand on my face, causing my heart to pound even harder, feeling like it was about to burst out of my chest, and my blush darkened to where my cheeks were a dark scarlet color.

"You're really warm. I think you have a fever."

"I'm-I'm fine!" I reassured as I took her hand off of me. "It's nothing at all!"

"But you're really warm and your face is all red."

"I'm hot." I practically screamed. "M-My god, I have to use the bathroom!"

Before she could say anything else I quickly ran out of the room, leaving a dumbfounded Haruhi behind.

After I exited the classroom I leaned on the wall next to the door and put a hand on my chest. My heart felt like it was going to burst at any moment. As my heart calmed down a bit I peeked back into the classroom, seeing Haruhi sitting in her seat.

Oh no, I can't...I can't go back in! It's harder to re-enter a situation once you get out!

I then suddenly felt someone lightly tap my arm and out of instinct I swung my arm back, almost hitting the person. I looked at who touched me and saw a couple of girls looking at me in concern, with slight fright from me almost hitting one of them.

"Hikaru, are you alright?" The girl I almost hit asked. "You're acting strange."

I cleared my throat and looked away from her, putting my hands in my pockets.

"I'm fine." I grumbled as I faced back towards the classroom, looking at Haruhi.

"Are you sure?"

I took a deep breath to calm myself down before answering. "Yeah, I'm positive."

I then walked back into the classroom, trying my best to keep my composure for the rest of the day.

The school day ended and Haruhi and I were half way through our tutoring session. I was doodling in my notebook as Haruhi finished up her math problems. When she finished the last problem she closed her book and looked over at me, seeing that I was distracted.

"Hikaru, are you sure you're fine? You've been out of it all day."

I looked up at her, pausing my doodling. I felt a lump in my throat that was forbidding me to speak. I looked into her brown eyes, feeling my chest tighten, which caused me to look away.

"I'm fine." I said, finally finding my voice. "I just have a lot on my mind."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"I don't think this is something I can talk to you about, sorry."

"Alright, but I'm here if you need me."

I didn't respond to her. I just looked at her for a couple seconds before looking away again.

"Well, if you're feeling fine, let's switch to history." I groaned as Haruhi pulled out her history book. "Oh shut up." Haruhi sniggered. "I know that you hate history, but we have to get the assignment done," she opened the book to the lesson we were on, "and today is an interesting lesson. We're learning about the lovers Cleopatra and Mark Antony." She pointed to the question in the first paragraph. "It asks if you ever been in love."

Haruhi looked up into my eyes. It felt like we were the only two in the room. My heart began pounding again as I stared in her eyes. Her beautiful brown eyes, that had a hint of green in them. The tight feeling in my chest suddenly turned all warm and fuzzy, it actually felt...really nice. As if I was on a high that I never wanted to stop.

"So, have you?" She asked again.

I stared at her for a bit longer before looking back at my notebook, seeing the doodles of hearts that I drew as if I was a love struck school girl. Then my eyes traveled to the the big heart in the middle of the page that had H+H in the center of it. A warm loving smile appeared on my face and I looked back up at her, staring into her eyes. The warm feeling in my chest growing.

"Yes, I have loved someone before."

Haruhi smiled at my answer, still staring into my eyes.

"And so have I."