It was a rather chilly Saturday morning. Almost all the club members had decided to show up, Honey carrying a duffel bag of a whole crepe cake, his cousin holding a box of tea and a tea set box under that against his chest. Kyoya keeps to himself, hands in his pockets. Tamaki and Haruhi are linked arm in arm, silent but smiling as Tamaki reaches over with his free hand to knock on the door.

A maid answers after a few seconds, opening the door halfway.

"Can I help you?" She asks softly. Tamaki smiles, introducing himself and the club. Quickly, he asks,

"Is Hamomoto-chan home? We came to see her."

Before the maid could answer, another woman steps in with a scowl.

"Who are you?" The group startle, as they can't quite place the accent the woman has, though she speaks Japanese fine.

"Uh - well, we're friends of hers—"

The woman immediately scoffs and points a finger at the blond. Haruhi is pulled away by the twins, Mori and Honey also take a step back.

"You are nothing but trouble makers, making her more upset! She has no friends!" The woman scowls, long black braid nearly whipping Tamaki in the chest when she turns to slam the door in the club member's face.

"Para!" The club members whip their head, attempting to peek through the half closed door. It had to be Yori, though with an accent unheard from the club members

"Quem são eles?" The woman argues with Yori. Yori opens the door and motions for the club members to step in.

"Eles são amigos da escuela," Yori smiles, patting the woman on the shoulders.

"Não se preocupe. Eu digo-te a verdade." Yori hugs the woman and then shooed her away, along with the other maid, who was asking the older woman questions.

"Um. Hi." Yori smiled bashfully, "sorry about that. That's just my Nana. She's a bit protective of me, but she's harmless. Actually, just last night we were baking some yummy desserts from her childhood and it was real sweet, she's very down to earth. She used to pick up strays and take them home, too. Her mother would object, but her dad would let her get away with things."

"Yori, we bought desserts." Hikaru piped up. Yori looks up to meet Hikaru's gaze.

"Uh. I told Honey you'd like crepes. Or that you do like them, so he got them. Crepe cakes, I mean."

"Smooth," Kaoru whispers. Hikaru subtly elbows him as hard as he could.

"That's nice of you, Honey! Thanks." Yori smiles as she gently takes the duffel bag.

"You're not going to change from your pyjamas first?"

"My what?" Yori looks down. She laughs at the fact that she's still in her pink, frilly nightgown, hair in a braid.

"Oh, sorry, sorry! I wasn't expecting guests, I was in my room watching television." Yori gives the duffel bag back to Honey.

"Mm. Maybe I won't send Carmen to help you out, she seems like she shook you up a bit. Sorry about that, again."

"It's fine, don't worry about it." All host members reply, Tamaki mumbling it more than not. Haruhi jabs her elbow into his arm.

"What?! I said it was fine."

"Then say it louder next time."

"Hm… I'd send the new employee but she's just now figuring things out, I don't want to stress her out too terribly… Oh! Maybe he's working today." Yori hops up the stairs, leaving the guests to watch her attempt to host.

She talks into a communicator attached to the wall and requests for a 'Kaito'. She nods her head and looks down to the hosts from the top of her spiral staircase.

"Hey, I'm so sorry I wasn't prepared, if you'd have texted me I would've done this myself. But I'm sending in Kaito, the family butler. Be nice to him!" Yori waggles her finger,
"Especially you two, Hitachiin brothers!"

The twins startle. So she hasn't forgotten the little dispute.

"I'll make sure everyone is on their best behavior, Miss Hamomoto." Kyoya projects from the bottom of the stairs.

"Okay! I'll be down quick!" Yori waves to a man walking towards her. He looked rather young, with slicked to the side raven hair and light brown eyes. She kisses him on both cheeks, to which the club members startle at.

"...No way - do you think...?" Honey whispers to Mori.

"It safe to not make any assumptions." Mori responds quickly.

"But people don't just kiss on the cheeks like that—"

"It's a different culture in this household," Kyoya cuts Honey off as level- headed as possible, "this could be a sign of affection, but not as intimate as we think."

Hikaru and Kaoru were ready to accept it as it was. So were the rest of the club members—

Until Kaito reaches down to pat Yori on the head, even going as far as ruffling the top of her hair around.

Then, the club members are stupefied.

"You can't be serious." Hikaru all but exhales.

"I think you've got competition." Kaoru slaps Hikaru on the back, "Good luck."

"I don't like her!" Hikaru defends.

"Nobody said you did." Haruhi shrugs. Tamaki raises a brow at Hikaru.

"Do your best, I suppose. Prove to Yori you're a better man than her butler."

"Stop it," Haruhi sighs, "you're all jumping to conclusions, this has to stop."

"Hello."

The three are stopped by Kaito approaching them.

"I am Kaito, the family butler. In training." He adds in, chuckling.

"Not to worry. I know this place like the back of my hand. I actually grew up in here with Miss Yori."

Kaito then bows to the group, "Thank you for being her friends outside of the household."

"...yeah no problem." Hikaru responds first.

"You're one of the Hitachiin twins. She talks about a Hikaru a lot."

"I'm —!" Hikaru flushes. The rest of the club watches, unmotivated to attempt intervening.

"She says he's a real prick." Kaito frowns.

"The other twin, Kaoru." Hikaru finishes stupidly.

Kaito laughs. "Kaoru? She says you're much sweeter."

"Heh." The real Kaoru snickers.

"But she did mention she's a bit more tender towards you, Hikaru, " Kaito shrugs at Kaoru, "Can't really see it. No offense."

"None taken," Kaoru chuckles sinisterly at his brother, who's currently being held down by Mori And Haruhi as he fumes.

"Anywho, Miss Yori instructed me to take you to the garden."

"It's cold out," Honey pipes up. Kaito nods in understanding.

"We will have to walk into the cold, but we won't be in there for long. You seem to be in her favor,"

Kaito strifes in front of the group, motioning for them to follow, "She lets very few people in her garden. I'm one of the lucky few, and so are you all."

They step out into the cold from a side door, leading into a glass house, with flowers that are out of season and not found locally inside.

"She's letting her guard down. This is what we've all been waiting for."

"...Typical. it's another refreshment approach." Hikaru scowls, shoving his hands into his pockets harder than intended.

"We've already got a cute and innocent act, even with someone who isn't part of the host club—"

"Now Hikaru," Kyoya scolds, "I made a promise to Yori to keep you in check specifically. I suggest keeping your thoughts to yourself, lest you make a fool of yourself like summer with Arai."

"Right for the jugular," Tamaki whistles against his teeth.

"It's alright." Kaito assures, though warily. "My apologies for mistaking you for your brother; and her story isn't quite mine to share, though I did take part of it."

"What do you mean?" Honey asks, head tilting to the side.

Kaito ushers them inside Yori's botanical garden. There was a miniature waterfall installed inside, the water falling into a mock-stream, which babbled softly as it circled back to the waterfall. Though not all colors of the flowers matched, it was obvious Yori picked out these types of flowers. They were fluorescent colors, though red, orange, and yellows dominated the indoor garden.

"She spends much of her time in here," Kaito explains as he pulls out seats for everyone except Hikaru, who did it himself.

"So there's some garden furniture in here."

Kaito was silent for a while, as the host clubs made themselves comfortable, Honey and Mori insisting on passing plates and teacups. Instead, Kaito places the cake in the middle, cutting it into and even amount of triangles.

"...Yori told me about Friday." Kaito says suddenly.

"No point dwelling on the past," Hikaru attempts to brush off.

"Was she okay afterwards?" Haruhi asks.

"...she cried for a while. She was angry with herself."

"With herself?" Kaoru questions, "but she was angry with us."

"...That is true. But there's something you should know about Yori - she's extremely unkind to herself."

Kaito continues, "She couldn't forgive herself for scaring those who saw her in that state - she tends to spiral to very negative feelings that she can't handle by herself. She tends to internalize a lot of things, so you can imagine for someone who is already lonesome how much of a burden that is."

"She locked herself in her room that night, and I was worried for her."

"He's taking Tamaki's princely schtick" Hikaru grumbles. Kaoru kicks him under the table.

"I couldn't understand what you saw when I was younger. So one day I abandoned her. We were in primary school, I believe. I knew she needed me, but I didn't want to be picked on for being friends with her at that time, either. I acted selfishly and that hurt her. It hurt her terribly." Kaito brows furrow, lost in thought. The club lets new information settle in before they hear the door to the garden open and close.

"Kaito? Haruhi?" Yori calla out.

"She spoke of a Haruhi too. She says she's an angel if she's ever met one. I'm grateful for her too." Kaito chuckles softly. "She's a funny girl, that Yori."

Yori approaches them, wearing a camel coat, striped shirt, navy jeans and ankle high, grey boots. Her curls were out of the braid, and was unfortunately not as bouncy as usual.
She was carrying a tray with a large teapot on top.

"I could've fetched that, Yori." Kaito scolds.

"It was on my way," she shrugs. "So, now that I'm here -beat it."

"Hah? This is the thanks I get for working overtime?" Kaito jokes and Yori sticks her tongue out.

Hikaru makes a disgusted noise somewhere in all the hosts laughter and chatter that didn't go unnoticed by Kaoru, who watched him silently.

Kaito goes and Yori is left standing. She places the tray holding the teapot down, wipes her hands on her jeans, and bows low just like when she first meet the host club.

"I'm so sorry about my...outburst. I shouldn't have directed my anger towards you, Hikaru and Kaoru. That's wasn't fair on the two of you."

"Haruhi and Tamaki, I'm so sorry for causing the two of you as much distress as I did on the twins. Kyoya senpai."

Kyoya, who didn't think he'd be part of the apology, let his glasses tint with the sunlight that was hitting his lens.

"I'm sorry for disrespecting you and our deal. I acted childishly and impulsively."

Yori's voice had went from calm to watery, like she was in near tears.

"Please forgive me."

Okay so let me explain I've been updating.. but on Ao3. I'm under the same name there, except it's M_kT instead of M-lkT bc i guess someone is out stealing my fuckin brand... anyway sorry to keep you guys on FF waiting, but if u wanna keep up with this, I'll most likely be either moving it to Ao3 or updating exclusively on Ao3. My sonic fic can also be found on there if you've been reading that also! Thank you for your interest in my fics, it means the world to my 11 year old self when I first joined here like way back when.