Well I was writing some of LOA but I figured Aeris could wait. Tuxedo Mask! (There was no point to that other than to pay homage to my plushie.) Well after so many great reviews about the ending of B.B.T.H.S. I was feeling pretty happy about that whole thing. Gah, I need to stop thinking of Hana Yori Dango AU's. Far too many ideas.

Emchan: Oh yeah I know. See I always think of one and then write the other. I'm brilliant like that sometimes.

Curdled milk: I was dying of laughter from your review! I too have a dollar, we could totally buy a clue!

Bodha: No she wasn't raped. Sorry if there was confusion about that. Which often happens as I suck at writing and therefore probably confuse my readers. Also I didn't really think I gave the impression that she was completely over it and tried to think how she handled herself right after the incident in episode nine. But I'm sure that didn't come out right either. Gomen ne!

Disclaimer: I don't own Hana Yori Dango. (Um, I think I might explode.)

Warnings: If I puke on my laptop, I'll probably be in a lot of trouble. Okay so there's cussing. Erm…and pinball…

Never Quite As It Seems

Chapter Twelve

"The search for love and happiness,

Turns out to be a game of chess,

You can't move or you'll break the board,

And lie in pieces on the floor."

            -I'm Like Yeah And She's All No, Mr. T Expierence

            I should have known. I mean I came out of the last class of the day to find the boys in the back of Doumyouji's car. I suspected something was going on. Particularly because they were all asking Doumyouji something while he got more and more annoyed. So I should have known that something was going on.

            Of course I just ignorantly walked up to the car. I didn't suspect a thing but I soon began to.

            "Hi." Doumyouji greeted me.

            "So is it a home theater?" Soujirou inquired.

            "Huh?" I was pretty confused. Of course I knew that there was probably something that lead up to Soujirou's question.

            "No it's not a home theater! Just wait till we get home!" Doumyouji snapped at them.

            "What's going on?" I asked.

            "Oh well Doumyouji got a present from his dad!" Akira explained. "He won't tell us what it is and he won't let us see it unless we were all there."

            "Is it Doumyouji's birthday?" I questioned. I had no clue when Doumyouji was born. That was a simple fact.

            "Not for another three weeks." Soujirou told me. "This was an early present though."

            "Which means it's something awesome!" Akira exclaimed. "He got the car last year!"

            "Maybe it's another car and it means we can drive this one!" Soujirou suggested.

            "Then why is it in the living room?" Rui asked in a bored tone. "Maybe it's a new couch."

            "Not big enough." Soujirou batted the suggestion down. "Plus the only one of us who would want a new couch is you." I had to laugh. Soujirou had a point.

            "You guys are annoying." Doumyouji muttered as he raced along the road at one of the maniac speeds that he was famous for.

            "They just want to know what it is." I told him. Doumyouji gave me a slightly sideways look that was a little confusing. Then he turned his attention back to the road so that he could park. Akira and Soujirou jumped out of the car, standing on the backseats. After several death threats from Doumyouji, we finally got inside the house, racing to the living room. In the middle of the floor was something, covered by a sheet. I couldn't make the shape out very well though. It did remind me of something. Though what it was, I couldn't put my finger on.

            "Now can we see?" Akira asked. "We've been waiting forever!" Doumyouji put one hand on the sheet and in a grand sweeping motion, pulled the sheet off.

            It was a pinball machine.

            I could already feel the trouble brewing behind this machine. I mean what could be worse than a house full of boys and a pinball machine? Arguments were already popping up in my head. But I was a bit excited to. How many people get to have their own private pinball machine?

            "WOAH!" Soujirou and Akira exclaimed at exactly the same time before seeming to pounce on the thing.

            "I'm going to have the top score on it!" Akira announced already searching for where it should be plugged in.

            "I'm the pinball master." Soujirou informed him. "Good luck keeping the high score."

            "This is great." I told Doumyouji. "Your father is really nice to get you such a good present."

            "You should meet him." Doumyouji's face had broken out into a smile. Soujirou and Akira were already plugging the whole thing in.

            "You know…" Akira had a sly look on his face. "Your birthday is in three weeks."

            "So?" Doumyouji raised in eyebrow.

            "And we just got a pinball machine…" Akira trailed off, obviously trying to hint something that the rest of us just weren't getting.

            "I see where Akira is going!" Soujirou straightened up from plugging the last thing in. "Perhaps we should have a birthday…party." Him and Akira slapped each other high fives as if they were both incredibly brilliant.

            "No." Doumyouji answered promptly. I felt torn. A party would be fun but on the other hand, the last party I went to didn't end very well.

            "We have to uphold our F4 reputation." Akira explained while Soujirou nodded in agreement next to him.

            "I'm not having a party." Doumyouji crossed his arms.

            "Why not?" Soujirou asked with big pleading eyes. I had to smother a giggle in my hand.

            "Well…because…" Doumyouji looked at me. "Tsukushi…" I swallowed. After all, I should be past the thing right? No reason to spoil everyone else's fun. Although Makiko was right about me always suppressing things like this. I guess old habits die hard.

            I lifted my face to everyone. "I don't care. It isn't a big deal to me. A party sounds fun." I plastered a big smile on my face to go along with my statement.

            Isn't this a psychological disorder? Oh well.

            "Are you sure?" Doumyouji looked at me, his voice hinting at disbelief.

            "Of course I'm sure." I didn't quite meet his eyes when I said that. For one I was already feeling a little guilty because I was lying a little. And I had made a promise to Doumyouji about lying.

            "See? Tsukushi said we could!" Akira jumped immediately on my approval. Doumyouji was still looking at me when he answered.

            "Fine, if we must have a party." Doumyouji rolled his eyes at them. "But I don't want anyone trying to get in here that shouldn't be in here." I already knew who he was talking about and doubted that Junpei was stupid enough to try to pull anything.

            "YES!" Soujirou cheered. "Now to play pinball."

            "No way! I'm first!" Akira argued. The two turned around to see Rui playing pinball. Much like miniature golf, Rui didn't even look like he was paying attention as his points rose higher and higher at a rather alarming rate. I decided I probably would not be getting a turn anytime soon and went upstairs to do homework. Maybe after that I could try to wheedle my way into the line.

            I was half way done with it when Doumyouji came into my room without knocking. I threw my pencil at him.

            "Hey! Knock first!" I told him. Doumyouji looked rather irked at my pencil but gave it back to me.

            "You're just doing your homework." Doumyouji pointed out. "Now about this party-"

            "What about it?" I pretended not to have any clue what he was going to say. "Like I said, it's no big deal."

            "I thought you said you weren't going to lie." Doumyouji reminded me. I flinched a little, knowing he had pulled his trump card out on me.

            "Well I just don't want to ruin for everyone else." I explained.

            "What do you think is more important to me? You or everybody else?" Doumyouji asked me. I felt my heart began to thump.

            STUPID HEART! STOP DOING THAT!!!

            "I…" I trailed off as I realized I had no clue how to respond to that question. It just wasn't fair the way he could pull things like that out.

            "Is it really that hard to figure out?" Doumyouji's intense gaze had me in a bit of a daze. All I could do was look up at those dark eyes and feel like they were swallowing me up.

            "No…I mean…yes…I mean…" I stammered. What an intelligent answer, Tsukushi.

            "If you don't want to have this party, then I'll call the whole thing off." Doumyouji told me. "I want you to be…"

            "Really, it's okay. If you're there, I should be fine right?" I smiled a little. "When you're around, I don't think anyone could hurt me." Doumyouji looked frozen, staring at me with that look that seemed as though he couldn't believe what I had just said. What had I just said?

            "Do you…really think that?" Doumyouji's mouth was curved in the faintest trace of a smile. He leaned towards me, till his face was only a few inches away from mine. I could feel my cheeks began to flush.

            "Doumyouji…" I couldn't really think properly right then.

            "Akira's hogging the machine!" Soujirou's voice yelled up the stairs at us. Doumyouji's teeth clenched in irritation.

            "I swear they're all five years old!" I shook my head. "You should probably go back down and monitor them though."

            "Yeah…I guess…" Doumyouji looked really disappointed. I wasn't really sure why though. "Well I guess I'll go then." Doumyouji gave me a look right before he left that confused me. Why did it confuse me? Well this may sound really weird but the look was…hopeful.

*                                              *                                              *

            "Grocery shopping is hard enough without everyone tagging along!" I put my hands on my hips. Rui was pushing the cart along as that seemed like his job. I had a large list and was trying to shop properly but Soujirou, Akira, and Doumyouji seemed to be trying to prevent that. First of all, I finally got Soujirou and Akira to stop racing carts along the store. Then all three of them liked to just throw things into the cart.

            "I'm not doing anything." Rui defended himself as he pushed the cart obediently.

            "I know you aren't but the next thing that finds its way magically into the cart is going to be thrown at someone's head!" I threatened. Akira, Soujirou, and Doumyouji all looked sheepish. It was a few more days till our party and we were shopping for things we would need. Plus regular groceries. It was a total madhouse.

            "Aren't we done yet?" Akira asked, looking mildly bored.

            "No we aren't!" I snapped at him. "Now where the heck is the cereal?"

            "In the next aisle." Rui supplied.

            "I want Lucky Charms!" Soujirou insisted right away.

            "GAHHH! I'm never going grocery shopping again!" I wanted to pull the hair right out of my head. "Just pick out your damn cereal so I don't have to hear about it."

            "Tsukushi is scary." Akira whispered to Soujirou, which of course I heard because those two seemed to have some sort of odd speech problem where they couldn't control the volume of their voice.

            "Shut up you two!" Doumyouji jumped to my immediate defense. He seemed to be doing that a lot lately. I smiled slightly as I remembered a time not so long ago that we were snapping at each other more than anyone else. I managed finish off the rest of the shopping in peace before we loaded all the bags into the trunk of Doumyouji's car.

            We arrived at the house with Soujirou and Akira in a full-blown debate about whether or not butterscotch pudding was better than chocolate pudding. It was getting pretty stupid at one point until Rui woke up enough to point out that some people will allergic to chocolate and lots of people just didn't like butterscotch. This of course just made it worse on the rest of us. I unloaded groceries before debating on whether or not I should take an aspirin to get rid of the headache that had built up.

            "How come we bought all this fruit juice?" I asked as Soujirou and Akira sat there stocking up all the cans of juice concentrate in the freezer.

            "There has to be punch at the party." Soujirou explained knowledgably. "We're going to make it ourselves."

            "That should be interesting." I replied wryly before going upstairs. Maybe I would take a nap or something. I was tired. But before I did, I looked up at the vase containing the roses that Doumyouji had bought me a while ago. They were dying. I took them out of the vase and then decided against throwing them out. I bunched them together and tied all the stems together with a ribbon to make the whole thing look nice. Then I left it on the window ceil to dry out in the sun. This struck me as a little funny. Every time someone gave me flowers, I threw them out as soon as they died. But I had kept Doumyouji's flowers.

            Well they're different.

            The funny thing was, I don't know why they were different then other flowers. They just were.

*                                              *                                              *

            Sorry this chapter is kind of short! But sometimes it means that the next chapter is going to be really long or something. I'm also sorry that not a lot happened in this particular chapter. I swear things are going to start happening very soon! Please review.

Favorite Line From This Chapter: STUPID HEART! STOP DOING THAT!!! (Do I even have to comment?)