"Nanako…Nanako…" Kyoya lay in bed, staring at his ceiling. It had been hours since his day out in the city, yet he could still feel her presence intimately around him. Her lips —they had been so soft against his. Her curls —their intoxicating scent lingered on his shirt. And the look in her eyes right before she had kissed him —that stayed with him most of all. Sparkling. That was the way to describe it. Like the light was dancing ethereally behind them and it was only because she had been so close to him that he had caught a glimpse of the depths within.

Although it felt silly to admit, it had made him feel special for the first time in a very long time, as if he had been privy to a magical experience made just for him.

Now…Kyoya snapped back to attention and planning mode. He had a whole week of activities left to decide on! All the sights of Tokyo that he would show her —all the attractions and cuisines and experiences. His brain whirred with the possibilities.

Grabbing a pen from his desk, he began to scribble them down on a page from his notebook —little did people know, his official-looking host club ledger doubled as a repository for his ideas and musings.

There was the imperial palace, the Meiji shrine, the temple they had missed out on today, of course, as well as his favorite parks where the cherry blossoms would be blooming and his favorite restaurants where the chefs' quality of food and presentation was unparalleled in all the Eastern— tap tap tap!

Tap tap tap!

Kyoya was brought out of his idea train by a light rapping on his window, which was growing more and more insistent by the second.

He felt a twinge of annoyance as he went over to investigate. What could it even be? Some birds gone loose from the family aviary and trying foolhardily to seek warmth from his room?

So determined he was to getting back to his work that he didn't even give a second glance as he flung open his windows, almost decapitating the bundle of chestnut-colored hair hanging on its edge.

"Na-Nanako?!" Kyoya stumbled back, frozen for a moment before rushing forward to help her in. (And here he had thought his days of stuttering over her name were behind him.)

"Wh-what are you doing here?" He checked his watch, which glinted a precise 11:37PM back at him.

"What else could I possibly be doing here?" She asked, crossing her arms with a bemused expression on her face. Per usual, he couldn't help but let his gaze linger a moment longer on her upturned cherry-colored lips.

"I don't suppose you came for a tour of Tokyo at night?" Kyoya responded, unsure what else to even say.

Nanako chuckled in response. "No, I came to see you, of course," she replied, closing the distance between them and very uncustomarily placing her hands on his shoulders.

Kyoya gulped, his heartbeat betraying him despite his seemingly calm outer demeanor.

Seeming to realize the effect she had on him, Nanako dropped them —Kyoya's shoulders immediately ached to have them back— and instead took a breath while looking him in the eye.

"I came to thank you," she said. "For showing me the most fun I've had in a while."

Kyoya smiled at that.

"…and also to say goodbye."

Huh?! Wait a minute. Kyoya's normally lightning fast mental abilities always seemed to slow in Nanako's presence. Bye. Say. Good? He tried to piece her words together in the correct order.

Say goodbye?!

That sounded right. And yet…it just had to be wrong.

Ahmm. Kyoya cleared his throat. "Was I…mistaken to believe that you would be staying the whole week?" He asked, eyes probing Nanako's chocolate brown depths for answers.

He wanted more —more time with her, more conversations with her, more kisses from her. He wanted to know her —to really know who she was and why she was the way she was and what made her happy and what made her sad.

At the street fair, he had already gotten a glimpse of it with her childlike delight at the commoner's event and her wistful looks of sadness atop the Ferris wheel. But he wanted to know more, and he realized that he had never felt this type of greed before, coursing through his veins and threatening to consume every inch of his body.

As the third Ootori son, he had always been accustomed to getting slim pickings passed down by his brothers and holding his tongue and never asking for more. Of course he had coveted —and still did, if he was being entirely honest, but he had long since accepted the ways of his world and tamped them down whenever the feelings arose.

But not this time.

"Nanako," Kyoya breathed, and in two long strides he had closed the gap between them, close enough now that he could feel each of her exhales coming out in puffs in the air in between them.

Without even meaning to, his voice had lowered to a baritone huskiness. "Are you really going to leave?" He asked, longing, pleading, and greed all wrapped up into one.

"I—" For the first time, Nanako was the one caught off guard, but Kyoya was focused too intently on awaiting her response to inwardly chuckle or celebrate.

"I have to," she exhaled, eyes lowered. "Because I was never supposed to be here in the first place."

Then, as quickly as his impromptu hold over her had arisen, it dissipated, with her looking up at him through her chocolate-brown eyelashes and flashing her signature smirk at him once again.

"I've had a good time, Kyoya," she said, giving him a solid few pats on the shoulder as she pulled him in for a hug.

"But I have to leave now, ok?"

It was her turn to search his eyes now, not for the permission to leave or for the reassurance that he would be ok with her doing so, per se, but as a check-in that he would be ok without her.

Kyoya gulped, not knowing what else to say. Mutely, he nodded. Mhmm.

Nanako smiled in response, semi-wistful again just like she had been on the Ferris wheel.

"Feels like I'm always saying goodbye to someone, huh?" She murmured to herself. But as quickly as she had gotten in her inner world, she snapped herself back into the present again.

She smiled as she leaned into Kyoya one more time. Before he could realize what was happening, her lips were on his again, but this time gentler and probing and so suddenly gone.

When Kyoya opened his eyes, Nanako was already back over the window ledge, cinnamon-scented hair wafting in the wind behind her. He barely had a chance to register the sudden stinging of the cold night air against his lips, much less suggest that she take the more conventional and convenient front door exit, that she had taken the jump off of his pseudo-balcony and was gone.

Kyoya raised his fingers to his lips. Why was it that every single one of their encounters left him dazed like a village fool? Just when he had been convinced that he had figured her out, too.

Trying to clear his head, Kyoya went downstairs to get some water.

"A package has come for you Kyoya-sama," his maid greeted him on his way down. Kyoya nodded absently in response, bowing as he took the package from her and continuing into the kitchen to pour himself a cup of warm tea.

After taking a few large gulps and splashing his face with cold water from the sink while he was at it, he finally turned to the black parcel at hand.

It would be most efficient to attack it from the top left side, he decided after examining it for a moment. One strategically peeled back piece if tape here, another efficient tear there. In two moves, Kyoya had undone the packaging to reveal the unassuming rectangular box inside.

Well, at least there was one good thing about the endings in his life this week, he decided.

Pulling the cool wiry frames out of their case, Kyoya pushed his replacement pair of glasses into their rightful place atop his nose.

Blindness ended —check.

And with that, he felt his Shadow King persona returning, his fingers itching for their little black ledger and matching pen once more.

Business at the host club would return to normal, he decided, filling his head with numbers and plans and calculations to distract from the faint sense of aching he felt in his chest. Brushing the papers on his desk aside, he opened up his PineApple laptop and closed all his tabs on his former travel plans in Japan.

"Nanako Shouji," he murmured involuntarily as he did so.

No. He would stop that thought before it began. Shaking his head and gripping his pen tighter, Kyoya got to work.

He was on a mission now, and nothing could stop him. Yes, it was decided then, he declared to himself. Next week would be the best week the host club had ever seen.