Chapter Seventy-Six: Just to See You Smile

Reiko's POV

Yuki and Kyoya came back a few days later, but things still weren't any better. Tamaki and Yuki wouldn't talk to one another, actually it was more of she wouldn't speak to him and he got so annoyed with her stubbornness that he gave up trying until she came to him, which was an awful plan since Yuki would be the last one to give someone their way when she was upset with them. She and Kimi wouldn't speak to Haruhi, nor would she speak to them, she would talk to Tamaki and Kaoru here and there though. Kimi and Kaoru wouldn't speak unless it was absolutely necessary. Yuki and Kaoru would talk to one another once and a while, but the different groups were pretty obvious. Yuki stuck mostly with Kyoya and him with her, when she wasn't with him, she was with me, Sumi, Mitsu, and Takashi, the four of us had formed our own group and we really had nothing to do with their whole spat that was their problem to solve.

When Kyoya wasn't with Yuki, he was trying to talk some sense into Tamaki or on his laptop. He was trying to stay out of all of this as much as he possibly could, but since Yuki and Tamaki were involved, he was sort of stuck in the middle. Tamaki hung around Haruhi and Kaoru mostly.

Hikaru was probably the most interesting in my mind out of the group. He bounced between hanging out with them and spending time with Kimi. When he felt she had been spending too much time on her own, he'd take her out to see a movie, to eat, to hang out, and to just get her out of the house. If she was watching a movie, he'd sit down and watch it with her. He did it as one friend to another, but it was a little more than that. It was completely obvious that he was interested in Haruhi and not Kimi, and Kimi had feelings for Kaoru and not Hikaru, but Hikaru treated her the way that Kaoru should have. He put her first, made her his top priority. If she wasn't reading, or hanging out with Yuki, Sumi, or I, he'd be with her. And the sole reason for his actions was just to see her smile. He only meant it as one friend to another, but it did make me wonder, if Haruhi wasn't available or in the picture, would he go after Kimi even though she's his brother's girl? All's fair in love and war even between siblings… Haruhi is available though and he is interested in her so the idea's really moot anyway.

"Anyone else tired of the tension?" Sumi asked, pulling me out of my thoughts. I looked at her a little oddly, since when did this stuff bother her? She's been okay so far with letting them figure it out on their own. Takashi looked up from his book at her and Mitsu looked up from the piece of cake he was eating.

"It's better that they figure it out on their own." Takashi replied, giving her a look asking her if she was okay.

"I agree with Su-chan." Mitsu spoke up, "We've been letting this go on for a while and the most they've done is pull even more apart. I'm not saying we should play matchmaker or anything, or try to put the group back together, but the club and our own relationships with each other are going to go down hill if we don't push them in the right direction to start talking to one another and to eventually fix this."

"So what do you think we should do?" I asked him.

"What if we combined part of our parties?" Mitsu asked, talking about the bachelor and bachelorette parties, "You have a scavenger hunt in yours that Hika-chan and Kao-chan are putting together, why don't we have our parties on the same night and do the scavenger hunt together."

"Okay." I nodded, "How are the teams going to go?"

"Three teams of four." Mitsu suggested, "I'll take Takashi, Kyoya, and Kaoru. You take Sumi, Anju, and Hikaru. And the other four will work together."

"I don't know if it's such a good idea to leave those four together without someone to mediate between them." Sumi commented.

"I agree with her." I nodded, "Putting the four of them together is like waiting on a ticking bomb to go off."

"What about four teams of three?" Takashi asked, "The four of us will take two of them. Kyoya may not seem like he's completely involved in the situation, but he is just as involved with it as Yuki is, he just doesn't show it. Hikaru is just as involved as he is, but he has two girls to worry about instead of one, it's the 'which one is he more concerned with' is what I'm wondering. Yuki and Haruhi will figure themselves out, they don't need to be paired together and it'll only add to the tension. Yuki's relationship with Tamaki and Haruhi's relationship with Kimi are the bigger concerns, so those four can be separated into two groups. It's which one of us will mediate which group is the question."

"I'll take Tamaki and Yuki." Mitsu volunteered.

"I'll take Hikaru and Anju and keep them out of it." I volunteered.

"I'll pair up with Kaoru and Kyoya." Sumi volunteered.

"I guess I'll take Kimi and Haruhi then." Takashi nodded.

"So what are we going to do about the group names?" I asked randomly, "We only picked out two since we only had two groups when we originally planned out the teams."

"What do you guys have so far?" Mitsu asked, "We'll build from there."

"Yuki's team was going to be Suna and originally Sumi and my team was going to be Konoha." I told them. Yuki and I were bored when we came up with the team names. I was playing a video game with Kimi and Yuki was reading fanfiction for Gaara, she denies it and the maturity level she was reading at, but she was. Kimi, her, and I all have our ninjas that we prefer. Kimi likes Shikamaru, and cannot stand Temari, Yuki likes Gaara, hates his father, and me, I like Kakashi, and all three of us hated Sasuke. Since the majority of us know what Naruto is, grew up with it, and like it, we decided to go with that.

"You be Konoha, I'll be Chidori." I told Sumi. She nodded.

"I guess I'm Suna." Mitsu smiled.

"Byakugan." Takashi stated after some thought.

I smirked and thought about our groups and characters from Naruto based on likes and personality, and not on teams on the show or gender of the characters. We've got the Sand Siblings of Suna, Yuki as Gaara, Tamaki as Kankuro, leaving Hunny as Temari. We've got team Chidori, consisting of Hikaru as Naruto, Anju as Sakura, and me as Kakashi. We've got the ninjas of Konoha, consisting of Sumi as Ino, Kaoru as Kiba, and Kyoya as probably Neji, he would be Gaara if he was in team Suna. We've got team Byakugan, consisting of Takashi as Shikamaru, Kimi as Hinata, and Haruhi as Tenten. I really need a life if this is what I find the time to let my mind drift into people and character comparisons, although I wonder what the guys are going to say when they find out the scavenger hunt is done in cosplay.

Hikaru's POV

I poked my head into Kimi's room. She was reading, I softly smiled and shook my head. She was always reading these days. I feel bad that Kimi and Kaoru broke up, but in some ways, I think it was good for her. I've never really seen her pick up a book unless she had to until now and now she reads quite a bit, not as much as the others, but definitely more than she used to.

"Whatcha reading?" I asked her.

She looked up, "Pollyanna."

"What happened to The Little Princess?"

"I finished it." She replied simply, "What's up?"

"Let's go somewhere."

"Where?"

"Anywhere." I replied, "We'll plan it as we go."

"Okay." She smiled and we left.

I wasn't trying anything romantically with Kimi. I liked her, but not in that way. She was with Kaoru, not at the moment and probably not in the near future, but she was still who Kaoru liked. She needed someone right now, someone neutral, and I wanted to be there for her. I wanted to help her. She left her family to be with Kaoru and he didn't appreciate her as much as he should have. I like her. She fits into our world. She could be so much to him and to us. I just want to show her that she isn't the last thought to at least one of the two of us, that there's more for her than second best and if she sticks around, even though Kaoru may take a while, her friends, me and the others that aren't necessarily involved in this issue between her, Kaoru, and Haruhi, are worth it.

I just want to see her smile. She has such a pretty smile and her dark emerald green eyes just seem to glitter when she does. There is so much to her that Kaoru didn't notice, that he should have and he will eventually. I know he will, they just have to get past this. I may not be interested in Kimi romantically, but there's nothing I wouldn't do just to see her smile. I'd do anything that she wanted me to and I'd never count the cost cause when all is said and done, it's worth everything that's lost, just to see her smile.