Chapter Ninety: Good Company

So here we were, the seven of us: Kyoya, Tamaki, Carmen, Kaoru, Hikaru, Haruhi, and me. We tried to contact Renge to see if she wanted to join us, but she never answered her phone. Reiko left us with our first clue, which was a recorded message that was done through a phone and saved on to google drive.

"Hey everyone, so to get to your letters and through the events, I've written you guys letters. Letters that'll lead you all over the place. The first one should be arriving soon with your first guest. Don't try to figure out how I got all of this together, Kyoya or Tamaki. It's too brilliant and you guys will never figure it out. Just go along with me on this, guys. I'm not ready to say goodbye yet. So, for starters, I want you guys to get out of your uniforms and change into something comfortable. Have a slice of the cake in the kitchen fridge and then get ready to head out. I love you guys. Have fun."

"Okay, let's do what the lady says." I smiled, everyone except for Hikaru looked at me oddly. "What? I think it sounds like fun and we deserve a little fun."

"It could be fun to go and do this." Hikaru agreed. They sighed and nodded, knowing that there was really no way to get out of this venture even if they tried. I got up and went to the kitchen with Hikaru right behind me.

"You didn't have to come with me." I told him.

"I thought you might want some help." He replied, "If you get the drinks, I'll bring out the cake."

"Deal." I smiled, getting a bottle of cranberry ginger ale out of the fridge. I always kept it on hand for Yuki, thought it might be best now to drink it in her honor. I got out the Coca-Cola glasses, one of the last impromptu buys that Yuki and I got while shopping for supplies for the club. We had enough time to eat and change before we heard a knock at the door. We all looked at each other and then looked at the door.

'Since when did anyone knock when coming in here?' I thought confused before getting the door, and then smiled when I saw who was behind it, the sexy cowboy, Beau. Of course, he would be the one to knock. "Hello Beau."

"Hello Miss Kimi." Beau greeted.

"What are you doing here?" I asked.

"Favor to Yuki, she and I are friends, ya know." Beau responded, "She asked me to come up and help with a couple of things." He smiled, "You know maybe after all of this, we could go get something to eat."

I looked at him surprised for a moment, I knew he didn't mean really anything by it or the timing, he was a nice guy and we enjoyed talking to one another, but when I looked back at Hikaru and saw the crushed look on his face, it made me think about my own feelings and answer to Beau.

"I can't." I replied softly, "I'm sorry, Beau, but the truth is I-I gave my heart away a long time ago, my whole heart, and I didn't find out till now. It wouldn't be fair to you or me, or even him, if I agreed."

"I'm glad you have found someone to love." Beau smiled, "This letter and clue are for you." He tipped his hat, handed me the letter and the note and left.

Beau's POV

I called Yuki after I left the school to go to my hotel, "Well, it's done and she gave the answer you thought she would. She's in love with him and said it to me, well in her own way, in front of the entire club. Now all that's left for me to do is call Renge. Can you give me that crazy woman's phone number? For some reason, after talking to her the first time, I felt the need to delete it."

"Yeah." She laughed before rattling off the number, "Thank you for doing this, Beau."

"You're welcome." I replied, before hanging up to call Renge.

Tamaki's POV

"What do they say?" I asked Kimi. She and Hikaru could sort out their love lives and problems after this, we were on a time limit.

"Well, the individual letter is to me and you don't need to know what that says." Kimi replied, "The clue is just a bunch of quotes written on a piece of notebook paper."

"Read the quotes, maybe we can figure out where we're supposed to go." Haruhi told her.

"'Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.' -William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream. 'There is nothing I would not do for those who are really my friends. I have no notion of loving people by halves, it is not my nature.' - Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey. 'Promise me you'll never forget me because if I thought you would, I'd never leave.' - A.A. Milne. 'Things we lose have a way of coming back to us in the end, if not always in the way we expect.'- J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.'If ever there is tomorrow when we're not together... there is something you must always remember. You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think. But the most important thing is, even if we're apart... I'll always be with you.' - A.A. Milne." Kimi read off the different quotes, "I could go on, but they're all the same type of quote by the same type of source. They're all quotes from books or plays or said by an author."

"Looks like we're headed to the library then." Kyoya sighed.

We got up and headed out.

Kimi's POV

"So…" Hikaru started.

"Yeah…" I responded awkwardly, not really knowing what to say to him.

"Hey, I think I owe you a movie marathon and dinner." Hikaru told me abruptly, after a few moments of silence.

"What?" I asked confused.

"Yesterday after the movie we were talking about hanging out and staying in, after we do all of this with the club, would you like to go?" Hikaru asked.

"Where would we go?" I asked him.

"Let me take care of everything." Hikaru replied, "All you have to do is pack after we go home."

"Where are we going, Hikaru?"

"I'll tell you when we leave, I promise." He responded, "C'mon, we have to catch up with the others."

We left to catch up with the others in the library.

"So, which section do we look in?" Haruhi asked.

"Well, isn't it obvious?" I asked her in return, "Romance. All of the quotes were about love, they might have not all been from romance novels, but they were about love. If they weren't all about love, then we might be looking in a different section, but none of the books really match up or authors, other than the majority of them being English." I smirked, "Plus, it's Yuki. Her favorite fairytale, story type, musical and Disney movie of all time is Beauty and the Beast, which is a romance, and in that romance story, well in the Disney movie and musical, the Beast gives her a library, and in the versions of the movie and musical, the story that they read together are both love stories, tragic love stories, but love stories. So, therefore, the section that we need to be in is romance." I told them as we reached the romance section.

"She is right, you know." We were greeted by the next person with the next clue, Iruka, the first person she had helped through her, for lack of better word, matchmaking service. "I have a couple of things for you guys, so you can go to the next place, and then I have a letter for Hikaru." He handed the letter to Hikaru and a pen and a flash drive to Kyoya. "The instructions from Yuki were that the pen is special and it is for Kyoya and solely him; the black and yellow thumb-drive is for everyone." He thought for a moment, "Oh, and she wanted me to tell you, Kyoya, that she was sorry she stole your camera for two and half years, and that you shouldn't have left it lying around in the club room, her words not mine." He smiled, "Anyway if you follow what's on the flash drive, you'll find where you need to go." With that said he left.

We tried to get back into the club room, but it was locked.

"How?" Haruhi asked confused.\

"We didn't lock it." Kaoru stated, "How can it be locked now?"

"Looks like when we leave one place, we have to keep moving forward." I told them, "I know all of our stuff is in there, but it's safe, no one's gonna get into there since its locked now and the only people who can get into the room are ones with keys, which is all of us, who left them in the club room, Renge, and Reiko."

"Then how are we going to see what's on the drive?" Tamaki asked.

"We go back to the library." Kyoya replied.

We went back to the library and put the flash drive into one of the computers. There was a folder for all of the shows and competitions that Sumi, Yuki, and Reiko did, and another for all of the events the club did since it started. There was a folder of documents, which held every plan she had made for the club, lists of things she got inspiration from, and stories written from the things that we did and about other things. Almost the whole documents folder was filled with stories written in French about our adventures and other stuff. There was a folder for music, which had everything from Broadway to Disney to rock and country, and almost all of it in English. The last thing on the drive was, from what we gathered, the clue. It was a single document that wasn't in any of the folders, which had a note on it.

If you want this next clue, you're gonna have to sing for it. If you don't want to, that's okay. Only two of you have to do it, the others have to figure out the other stuff. There are more clues for this one than the one that is gonna be on stage, you'll have to split up for this clue to come together on the next cause each of you only gets a piece of a puzzle.

Kimi and Hikaru: All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players: they have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages.

"Looks like we're going to the auditorium" Hikaru told me. We headed out.

Kaoru's POV

Carmen and Kaoru: Sometimes since I've been in the garden I've looked up through the trees at the sky and I have had a strange feeling of being happy as if something was pushing and drawing in my chest and making me breathe fast. Magic is always pushing and drawing and making things out of nothing. Everything is made out of magic, leaves and trees, flowers and birds, badgers and foxes and squirrels and people. So it must be all around us. In this garden - in all the places.

"Looks like she's sending us to the gardens." I told Carmen. She nodded in agreement and we left.

Haruhi's POV

Tamaki and Haruhi: Do not train a child to learn by force or harshness; but direct them to it by what amuses their minds, so that you may be better able to discover with accuracy the peculiar bent of the genius of each.

"We should probably head to your classroom first." Haruhi told me.

I nodded, "Yeah, we might want to check the other two too."

Kyoya's POV

Kyoya: Just go to the fountain, the person meeting you there is going to give you a hard enough time, you don't need to figure out where to go through a quote on top of that.

"Yuki, how bad could it really be?" I asked, reading the note again, "It's not like you having me meet with an ex-boyfriend." I looked at the screen one more time, this time I was shaking my head, "You're having me meet an ex-boyfriend, aren't you?" I got up and went to face the music.

Kimi's POV

When we got to the stage there was a note on the stage floor. I read it aloud, "Sing for you clue. If you sing this and actually treat it like a performance, they should appear. If not, just keep singing til they do."

"She's gotta be kidding." Hikaru told me.

"I don't think so and we're not going to get the next clue until we do." I replied, "But I have no clue what we're supposed to be singing."

"Let me look around." Hikaru replied, a few moments later he got the music playing, "She's got a whole stack of love duets."

"Think she's trying to tell us something?" I asked.

"Don't worry about it, let's just get this clue." He smiled, before starting to sing Don't Go Breaking My Heart

"That was so unbelievably cheesy." I laughed lightly after we finished the song.

He laughed, "That was probably the least cheesy song I could find in that stack."

"I kinda wanna do another one."

"The person's not here," He shrugged, "We might as well."

Kenta's POV

"They sang something," Sakura said, "shouldn't we go down there?"

"No," I shook my head, "I'm supposed to wait for something."

"For what?" Sakura asked confused.

"You'll know it when you see it." I replied.

Kaoru's POV

"So are we supposed to walk around until we run into someone?" Carmen asked confused.

"I have an idea where a clue might be," I replied, "we just have to find where it is."

"That makes no sense."

"We're looking for a gazebo." I told her.

"Why?"

"It sounds weird, but it's important."

"A gazebo?"

"It would take forever to explain and part of the explanation is why Tamaki and Haruhi should be going down memory lane than us going down it for them."

Haruhi's POV

"Well, that was easy." I said as I picked up an envelope off a desk in Class 3-A.

"Turn it over." Tamaki replied, I raised an eyebrow at him. He smirked, "Believe me, I know my sister, turn it over."

The envelope read Part One of Three.

"C'mon, let's go to the other classrooms." Tamaki told me.

Kyoya's POV

There I sat on the edge of the fountain, waiting for whoever she had lined up for me to meet to appear. My hope was just that it wasn't Masao, Ryo. There's no one that could have been worse. Or at least, I thought until I saw who was meeting me, Allan. Allan was worse than Ryo, he was the only ex-boyfriend she not only remained in contact with, but remained close friends with. He was really my only threat out of all the guys she's dated. I stood to meet him and get this over with.

"Sit, we have a lot to talk about, Kyoya." Allan told me.

"You could give me the clue and we could go our separate ways." I retorted, "I think I'd prefer that instead."

"And that's not gonna happen."Allan shook his head, "I'm not being funny, but I have my orders from Yuki and you're not getting this clue," He held it up, "until we do as she wants."

"She's not here!" I retorted.

"Not physically." He smiled, "I'll make you a deal. You do this, I'll let you in on everything. The plan, who's in on it, and where she is, so that when you finish school, you can go after her because we all know what you want is to be with her."

"If she knew that, she wouldn't have-"

"Written a letter to the next girl after her." Allan finished, "In all fairness, I cautioned her against that. If I were you, I'd give it right back to her." He laughed lightly, "So, what are we going to do? We gonna talk like civilized gentlemen or we just gonna stand here awkwardly until you give in?"

"Fine." I agreed. We both sat down.

"Okay, the first thing you have to know is I am no threat to you or your relationship with Yuki." Allan stated, "Yuki and I, there's nothing there, but a good friendship that we've had since we were kids. We tried dating, but we were at the age where we had no clue what we were doing and kissing each other is what ended that relationship, well what little, if any, there was of a romantic relationship. We were thirteen and mistook a close friendship for something more in a different way than what it actually was. We're like siblings, I've kissed her once and am not interested in doing so ever again." Allan's words took a weight off of my shoulders as he continued to talk. He could probably out talk Yuki if he tried.

"So you two-" I started.

"If she ever told you more than that she wanted to make you jealous."

"She never really said much about you."

"Probably because the last time she mentioned me, it started a fight." He replied, "She spent that whole day I met up with her after that fight, talking about you and how much she didn't want to mess things up with you." He looked down, "From the time you guys met over the phone to now, most of what she talks about when it's just the two of us is you. You are the one for her, she knows that. Hell, even I know that, and this is the first time I've met you. Do you know that?"

"I'm well aware this is the first time we've met." I replied. I knew what he meant, of course, I knew, and she was. She was it for me, there was never gonna be another her, not for me.

"Look, I can't look after her anymore." Allan told me seriously, "I'll be a phone call away or flight away, whenever she needs me, but I'm not the one she wants or needs anymore. You are, but are you ready to leave everything you've ever known and all of your vast wealth," He looked around for a moment, "Are you sure this is a school?"

"It's a school." I assured him.

"What I was asking is, can you leave all of this behind?"

"And if I were?"

"Then you might want to know she's going to be in New York for a while, finishing school, and then she's been looking at colleges all over the country. She's talking about studying literature, so she can write and spend all of her college years reading, or psychology, so she can be a forensic psychologist, or journalism."

"Anywhere in particular she's been looking?"

"Not yet." He replied, "But she's only been in New York a few hours."

I nodded.

"So, I'm sure you want to know what all of this is about."

"That would be helpful." I replied.

"You can't tell the others and even then you won't know everything yourself since we are only told so much."

"That won't be a problem." I assured him.

Kimi's POV

"We've been at this for almost an hour." Hikaru groaned.

"I guess they want us to take it seriously." I shrugged.

"I thought we were."

"Maybe we should pick something else, we do one more song and if they don't show up, screw 'em." I replied. I went over and put one last song in: At the Beginning.

As the song ended, I searched his eyes looking for a sign of what to do. We were in such close proximity that my mind had been muddled with so many thoughts of things that weren't the best idea with someone possibly coming in at any moment.

Hikaru's POV

"So what do you want to-" Kimi started to ask, but I cut her off.

"I don't care if they come anymore, we've been at this for an hour." I told her, "I'm done waiting around for them. I have you alone, and for once, we don't have to go anywhere. Or at least we don't have to go anywhere to be until they decide to show up, if they're not already here."

"If they were already here, why wouldn't they just give us they clue?"

"They might be waiting for us to do something." I replied, then realization dawned in her eyes. "What is it?"

Kimi's POV

'I guess she had to set up one more pair before she was gone.' I thought shaking my head, 'Sorry, Yuki, but I'm gonna have this moment on my own terms. Thank you for the help though.' I kissed his cheek, "Don't worry about it." I smiled, "I'm gonna clean up the stacks we left." I went to the back to clean up. Something told me, if I left him alone on the stage, the clue would land in his hands.

Kaoru's POV

"I told you we would find them here." I told Carmen when we found a letter and a clue on the table in the Gazebo. I handed both of them to her.

"It's addressed to me." She said confused.

I shrugged, "She said she had a letter for everyone."

"Yeah, but I didn't expect there to be one for me." She replied, "I'm not really part of the group."

I smiled softly at her, "I guess she thought otherwise."

Haruhi's POV

"Any ideas where the third part could be?" I asked him after we left classroom 1-A empty handed.

"I have one." He replied doubtful.

"What?"

"You remember when we were helping Nekozawa?"

I nodded, "Yeah."

"That was in a classroom."

Kyoya's POV

"Well you have everything I have." Allan told me after he finished telling me what he knew about the scavenger hunt or whatever this was we currently doing.

"You have no way to contact her?"

"I'm the one who was sent to meet with you." He replied, "Not being funny, but why would she give me contact information if she didn't want to be found yet?"

"Then who has it?"

"The last person you would probably expect is my middle man to her."

"Renge."

He nodded, "But she's only picking up her phone to certain numbers. All of my calls go to voicemail."

"Why would she work with Renge?" I asked confused.

"Yuki could only put together the plans, she had to leave and couldn't enact any of it, so she wanted to have someone who would be able to work with her plans and steer them in the way she wanted them to go. Renge hands out Yuki's marching orders, and the team enacts them the way we think she would have wanted them done. Beau keeps Renge in check when she gets out of hand." Allan explained, "Here you deserve this, you've been sitting with me for over an hour." He handed me the clue. It hadn't felt like it had been over an hour, I hadn't realized how much time had passed until he had mentioned it. "Look, I'll let you know when I hear something from her."

"I appreciate that." I replied honestly.

Hikaru's POV

Within a matter of moments, the clue and the letter made their way into my hands. I don't know how they got to me, but they floated down from the lighting area. The letter was addressed to me, which wasn't that surprising Beau handed Kimi hers when he asked her out. What kind of name is Beau anyway?

I turned over my letter to open it, it read: Do not open after found, wait till home.

"Wow." I smirked, folded the letter, put it in my pocket, and then went to go help Kimi. It wouldn't be fair if I left her to do all of the work. That, and I left a scattered mess in the back while trying to hide 'You're the One that I Want.'

Tamaki's POV

After we found the last clue, we went to the fountain to meet up with Kyoya. From the looks of it, we weren't the only ones with that idea, Kaoru and Carmen were there too. Kaoru texted his brother so that he and Kimi would come meet us when they were done.

"Any idea what's in the clue envelopes?" Kaoru asked, looking at the clue he and Carmen found.

"More quotes?" Haruhi guessed, "The other clues have been quotes."

"Mine isn't." Kyoya replied, showing the index card filled with numbers.

Haruhi and I opened our envelopes, they were all filled with puzzle pieces.

"Why?" Haruhi asked confused, looking at the puzzle pieces.

"I think a better question is how." I commented, "What did you guys get, Kaoru?"

He opened the envelope, "It's a bunch of pictures."

"We've got a couple of bookmarks." Hikaru said as he and Kimi came over to us.

"So pictures, bookmarks, puzzle pieces, and an index card with numbers." I listed everything we had, "What do all of those have to do with one another?"

"Well, the bookmarks are for the same genre, they might be connected to the index card." Kimi replied, "Like the card is an Ottendorf Cipher and the bookmarks are the clue to the book."

"What's an Ottendorf Cipher?" I asked confused.

"Each of the three numbers" Carmen looked at the index card, "corresponds to a word and a key. In most circumstances a book or newspaper article. It creates a sentence or two as a clue. It can be used as a way to communicate between spies or agents on missions too, but, anyway, the first number in the page number in the key text, the second would be the line on the page, and the third is the letter in the line."

"How do you-" Kaoru started.

"My dad was an agent for Interpol." Carmen shrugged, "He loved ciphers and puzzles, and those were his favorites. Every surprise, every present, anything special he really had in mind, he would use them and make a game and the whole day of finding whatever it was he wanted me to find."

"When did he die?" Kimi asked her.

"Ten years ago." Carmen replied, "How did you know?"

"The past tense sort of hinted at it." Kimi replied softly.

She nodded, "Let's just find a place to put these together."

We ended up going back to the library, so we could piece the clues together. Haruhi, Kimi, Hikaru, and I worked on the puzzle while Carmen and Kaoru went through the pictures. Kyoya took the bookmarks and the index card and went searching for the book that was needed for the rest of the clue. He ended up coming back with a book of fairytales.

"Why am I not surprised?" I laughed lightly. Kyoya sat down and started to decode the note.