Think, Tamaki, think.

He anxiously tapped his index finger on his pencil as he held it in his hand, quietly tapping the index finger on his other hand for extra brain power.

"Mr. Smith has been living in Osaka for eight years…" Is that perfect tense, or present perfect tense?

Although Tamaki had studied English essentially since he was born, the technical terms for some of the grammar rules still messed him up.

He tried his hardest to reach deep into the depths of his brain. Think, René, think!

The answer finally popped into his head, and he circled the correct answer with a strong sense of satisfaction. Maybe I need to ask René more than I ask Tamaki, he scoffed to himself, scanning over the rest of the exam before confidently setting down his pencil and standing up to turn the exam in.

After placing the exam in the pile on the teacher's desk, Tamaki began to turn around, but his teacher held up her hand to signal him to stop. "Mr. Suoh, I have your paper from last week," she whispered, flipping through a stack of papers to find the one she was looking for. She finally found it and folded it in half, then handed it to Tamaki with an awkward smile.

Okay… he thought to himself, giving her a normal smile back as he thanked her and headed back to his seat. He sat down and unfolded the paper, and it was then he realized what the weird smile was about.

Written in the top margin of the first page, right next to his name, was a big, fat "C+" written in red ink.

There were still a few minutes left of class, so Tamaki could do nothing but sit and stare at the failing grade (at least, what he considered to be in his mind). I don't understand, he thought, running his hand up and down his cheek as he scanned over the paper. I can't believe I made so many stupid errors! I understand this…

A few of the students sitting around him noticed his breakdown, but instead of paying him any mind they went back to whatever they were doing so as to not bring about suspicions of cheating. Okay, I misspelled this word… And this one… I got the word order completely wrong? I don't understand…

The next thing he knew a hand was on his shoulder, and he looked up to see Kyoya looking down at him. "Are you ready to go to the Third Music Room?" he asked Tamaki, who quickly folded the paper back in half.

"Hold on just a moment, I need to ask a question." Tamaki stood up and pushed the desk chair in. "Wait for me outside. Hopefully it'll only be a minute or two."

Kyoya nodded and left the classroom, most of their classmates filing out behind him. Tamaki briefly paused to collect himself, taking a deep breath before approaching the teacher's desk.

"Sensei?"

The teacher looked up at him, a curious expression on her face. "Yes, Mr. Suoh?"

"I was hoping I could briefly speak to you about the paper," he said sheepishly, unfolding the piece of paper again to glance at the sub-par grade.

"Of course. Please, pull up a seat."

Tamaki did as he was told and placed the paper on the teacher's desk while he sat down across from her. "I guess I'm just…confused," he told her, turning the paper sideways so that the both of them could read it at the same time. "I've been studying English for, what, ten years now? I know I know this!"

The teacher glanced over Tamaki's paper again. "Yes, I'll admit I…am a bit concerned," she told him. "It really doesn't match how you've scored on other assignments in this class. Not at all, actually." She found one sentence she had underlined. "See here? Remember in English, the adjective goes before the noun, like in Japanese."

Tamaki scratched his thigh. "I…guess I somehow got it confused with French."

"And here?" She pointed to another spot. "Here, you just misspelled a word, but it changed the meaning entirely. See? You wrote 'child beverage' instead of 'chilled beverage.'"

Tamaki blinked. Talk about a Freudian slip…

"Is everything okay?" asked the teacher gently. "I've noticed you haven't been at one-hundred percent lately, and now, this grade…"

Tamaki began to wave his hands in defense, internally screaming. Shit shit shit fuck fuck fuck. "No, everything's fine!" he exclaimed, perhaps a tad too aggressively. "I just had something come up at home, but I'm hoping to get it resolved soon…"

The teacher gently smiled. "Alright," she simply said. "How did you feel about today's test?"

"I thought it was fine." Tamaki began to stand up. "Anyway, thank you so much for going over the paper with me. I'll be sure to work hard so I'll do better next time."

"Of course." The teacher smiled. "And as always, Mr. Suoh, please feel free to meet with me if you have any concerns."

"Thank you so much, Sensei!" Tamaki bowed deeply before gathering his things and heading to meet Kyoya in the hallway.

Kyoya was leaning up against the wall, looking down at his phone. "Is everything okay?" he asked Tamaki, eyes still glued to the screen.

"We'll talk about it later," Tamaki sighed, not even giving Kyoya a glance as he walked past him and headed straight for the Third Music Room.

Kyoya thought this was strange, but ultimately said nothing and simply followed behind him.

When Tamaki and Kyoya arrived at the Third Music Room, they found that everyone else had already arrived. Honey and Mori were setting the tables with sets of china and assortments of sweets while chatting about some statistics assignment, and the Hitachiins were putting some finishing touches on the day's costumes.

"You're here later than usual," remarked Hikaru, not even looking up from the mannequin as he spoke. "The costumes are ready, if you want to go ahead and put them on."

"No costumes today," sighed Tamaki, who tossed his satchel onto one of the couches and plopped down next to it. "I don't feel like it."

The other Hosts exchanged glances, and Kaoru decided to speak up. "You okay?" he simply asked, carefully side-eyeing the Host Club King as he delicately began to take the costume off of the mannequin.

Tamaki made eye contact with him, and Kaoru was unsettled by how lifeless his eyes looked. "No!" he blurted before burying his face into one of the pillows and letting out a flat-toned scream.

The other Hosts stared at him, bewildered. They continued to stare in silence as Tamaki continued to scream.

Finally, Mori of all people decided to break the silence. "Is there anything we can do to help?" he gently asked.

Tamaki shook his head. "No," he groaned, taking his face out of the pillow before sitting up. "I'm slipping! Everything is finally catching up to me, I'm getting overwhelmed, and I'm slipping!" He let out another groan. "I just…didn't realize how much us not being adults would screw us over."

The rest of the Hosts eyed each other, but after a few seconds Hikaru began to laugh. "You seriously didn't realize that?" He asked.

"That's not what I meant!" Tamaki sighed, collecting his thoughts before continuing. "We met with a lawyer a couple of weeks ago, and she told us my own child legally cannot share my last name unless Haruhi and I get married, or I become an adult and can, from a legal standpoint, adopt my own child, whichever comes first. And both of us agreed we'd rather not get married just because we have a child together, and it'd be better if each of us marries someone we love, even if it makes things more difficult for now."

The group sat in silence for several moments, thinking over what Tamaki had just told them. No one said anything—both out of respect for the severity of the situation and genuinely not knowing what to say.

Then, Honey spoke up.

"Tama-chan…" he uneasily began. "…have you considered that maybe you do love Haru-chan?"

Everyone else turned to look at him, and he continued. "We've all seen the way you talk about her. I think it's pretty obvious you care about her a lot."

Tamaki seemed to consider this, but ultimately his obliviousness took over. "Honey-senpai, of course I care about her. She's carrying my child, after all."

Kaoru rolled his eyes. "Milord, I know you know it goes so much further than that. Even back before this whole 'situation' started, I've been able to tell." He leaned up against one of the tables. "Remember the first time we went to Okinawa over the summer? And those jerks pushed Haruhi into the ocean, so you jumped in to rescue her? That was before all of this happened." He paused to give Tamaki a pointed look. "You love her. Even if you don't want to admit it."

All eyes were on Tamaki, and he flopped backwards onto the couch again with a groan. "I don't want to think about it!" he loudly exclaimed before checking the time on his phone. "Look, we have twenty minutes to finish setting everything up. Let's just forget this conversation even happened."

Kyoya smirked and unlocked his iPad, going over the itinerary for the day. "It's all up to you," he said, and with that the Host Club began to prepare for the day's meeting.

"Have a lovely afternoon, my princesses," Tamaki said, waving as the horde of girls left the Third Music Room. "I hope to see you all again later this week."

The Host Club guests whined and waved and said their goodbyes, and Tamaki and the others continued to wave until the last of the clients left the room, then he promptly collapsed onto a couch.

"Can we talk about something?" he asked the other Hosts, gesturing for them to sit down as well. "I know we were kind of talking about it earlier, but I was thinking about it during the meeting too, but…what will we do about the Host Club when the baby is born? I mean, I'm assuming Haruhi and I will hire a nanny or someone to take care of them while we're at school, but we can't exactly bring them with us to meetings or other outings, or…"

Everyone sat in silence for a few moments, sincerely thinking about how the future would look for the Club. "Well," said Kyoya suddenly, causing everyone else to turn their attention towards him, "if my calculations are correct, Haruhi is only in her twenty-fifth week of pregnancy, so assuming the pregnancy goes until term, we still have roughly three more months to completely figure things out."

"That's true, but Honey-senpai and Mori-senpai are graduating this year… If we recruit any new members, won't they have to know about the whole situation?" Tamaki slumped over and rested his head in his hands. "And even then, Haruhi and Hikaru and Kaoru are a year younger than me… When I graduate, what will happen to the Host Club? I mean, assuming I end up going to Ouran University, I can just pop in every so often, but since I won't be a high school student anymore I can't be the club President…"

"Tama-chan, I think you're overthinking things," said Honey, squeezing Usa-chan. "Like Kyo-chan said, you still have a few months to figure things out. You don't have to think about it all at once."

"Yes, but it's not just Haruhi and the baby I'm worried about," Tamaki responded. "I'm still worried about my whole family situation? My father has been extremely helpful, but my grandmother still won't listen to him, and if I can't prove myself and get her to acknowledge me before she finds out about the baby, I don't know what will happen. Everything we've discussed with the lawyer is contingent upon me inheriting Suoh Enterprises at some point in the future, which isn't set in stone, yet alone even a thought in my grandmother's mind."

Kyoya opened his mouth to say something, but quickly closed it. He knew it wasn't his business to say anything regarding the matter.

"I don't know," continued Tamaki. "I'm running out of time to get everything in order, and it has me so stressed to the point where I'm not sure I can keep pretending everything is okay."

A thought popped into Kyoya's head. "How about the Host Club takes a little break?" he suggested, quickly swiping through several pages of notes on his iPad. "Not a long one; just until Friday—I have an idea."

"What kind of idea?"

"Tell Haruhi she needs to brush up on her acting skills," Kyoya said with a smirk, causing both Hitachiins to simultaneously raise an eyebrow. "In order to mitigate any protests from our customers regarding the Club taking a break, I think it'd be a good idea to have a special video message waiting for them when we return. Not a long one, maybe five minutes at most, but that would give you enough time for a break from the Club and eat up some meeting time."

Tamaki rubbed his temples. "Yeah, I'll…I'll talk to her about it when I get home," he said, starting to stand up. "Alright, I think that's it for today. But before everyone leaves—"

Everyone looked at him expectedly, and he sighed, albeit with a relieved smile. "—thank you all. For being so helpful."

In his forty-eight years, Yuzuru Suoh had nearly mastered the art of the poker face, and not in the gambling sense. Growing up with an overbearing mother nearly led him to develop dual personalities—one reserved for business-related ventures and conversations with his mother, and the other for nearly everything else. The moment he retreated into his office—whether at Suoh Enterprises, at the Ouran administration building, or at home—he could revert back to his "true" self.

Which, at this moment in time, was completely stressed out.

Yuzuru flipped through the calendar on his desk and stared at the big red "X" marked on May 6th, Haruhi's due date. "That's less than four months," he groaned to himself, rolling his chair back over to the desktop monitor to study some reports again. Over the years, his workload had increased, so much so that at this point the only thing his mother even really did was give the final word regarding any business moves.

A blessing and a curse.

The phone on his desk began to ring, and Yuzuru jumped a bit before sighing and answering it. "This is Yuzuru Suoh," he said, not quite having switched over to his business personality yet.

"Hello, Yuzuru, this is Yoshio Ootori," the voice on the other side of the line said. "Are you alone?"

Yuzuru's face lit up, and he got up out of his chair. "Yes, I am; hold on just one moment." He engaged the lock on the door to his office and sat back down. "There we go."

"Alright," continued Kyoya's father. "I was just calling to let you know the pharmaceutical trials have been green-lit and officially scheduled, and the earliest possible starting date is February 16. Do you think that will work?"

Yuzuru glanced back at the calendar, but nodded his head out of habit. "Yes; Anne-Sophie has been on standby for the past several months. I'll let her know so I can go ahead and book the flight."

He paused and looked out the window. "I must warn you, though: it's extremely important Tamaki does not catch wind of this. I'm remarkably close to getting my mother to accept Tamaki, and it's important he still believes Anne-Sophie is in France for all of this."

"I agree; however, I have my suspicions Kyoya is already somewhat aware," said Yoshio a bit uneasily. "Perhaps I could see about scheduling a superficial business dinner or something similar so the both of them believe that's the reason we've been talking."

"That sounds wonderful," Yuzuru replied with a satisfied nod. "Before we go—would you be able to send over the details of the trial so I know which name to book the hotel room under?"

"Certainly." Yoshio coughed. "Anyway, I'll be sure to keep you updated regarding any new developments or any changes that need to be made. And I'll take a look at my calendar to see about that business dinner."

"Perfect," replied Yuzuru. "Again, I must thank you for your monumental help with all of this."

"Of course. I'll be in touch."

The two men exchanged goodbyes and Yuzuru sighed, resting his chin on his steepled hands. So far, everything was falling into place perfectly.

Almost too perfectly.

Only if nothing slipped out of place.