Disclaimer: I have no rights over any Ouran characters

"HARUHI!"

All of the air rushed out of Haruhi's lungs as she was swept off her feet and spun around like she was still in preschool by her father.

When he put her down she chuckled, "Hi, dad. I see you're happy to see me."

"Of COURSE I'm happy to see you! My baby girl has come home! And you're all MINE until the end of January! Now, give me your suitcase! I want a nice lunch with you before I have to go to work. And, I want you to tell me EVERYTHING about Brekleys! Hear me? EVERYTHING."

Haruhi couldn't keep the grin off her face as she followed her father out of the airport and to their bus. She shivered as she stepped into the cold winter wind, and, for just a moment, she thought longingly of the nice, warm summer currently occurring in Australia.

But that feeling disappeared as soon as she laid eyes on her excitedly exuberant father. While he may drive her crazy, she loved him so much, and she'd missed him during the past eleven months. She wished it had been possible to visit him during the two month break back in July, but it just hadn't been economically feasible.

They ended up eating lunch at a little hole in the wall with deliciously decadent yakisoba. As Haruhi took her first bite she almost moaned in pleasure. She'd missed real Japanese food so much!

Sadly, her father had to go to work soon after they got back to the apartment, but he promised to spend all of the next day with her, since he had it off.

She spent a good thirty minutes after her father left for work just sitting in the middle of their apartment and looking at everything. Noticing that while nothing had really changed, it felt different. Almost as if it wasn't her home anymore, which made her sad. Then she spent another twenty in front of her mother's shrine.

"Mother, can you believe I've been in Australia for the past year? I can't. It's been such an adventure, but I didn't slack off. I worked hard and got top of my class. Granted, Chiye and Masaye Koenig helped me study. It's not that the material was difficult, but it was all in English and I don't have the same level of fluency in it as they do. They're trilingual, and very, very smart. They're also very nice and funny."

Haruhi picked up her mother's picture and held it.

"When I first got there I was bullied some. They made fun of my eyes and called me names. They also called me a leech since I'm a scholarship student. But they never touched me. They think I'm a karate master. Chiye and Masaye thought this was very funny and so decided to help me make it true. There's no karate teacher at Brekleys, but there is a taekwondo teacher. So I'm taking that. I know taekwondo is Korean, not Japanese, so Dad might not like it, but it's actually really interesting. It involves a lot of kicking and is meant to help smaller opponents. Masaye knows a lot of trivia and she told me it was invented so Korean captives could kick Chinese soldiers off their horses with their hands tied behind their back. They signed up to take the class with me, since kicking is just a little useful in football."

Haruhi chuckled at her own joke and felt a tear trickle down her face, knowing her mother would've chuckled at it also.

"I don't think Dad changed at all while I was gone, I know the apartment didn't. But I feel like I did. The world's so much bigger than I ever realized. But, it some ways it's smaller. Once I got over the language differences and the economic backgrounds I realized that my new classmates and teachers are markedly similar to my old ones. Masaye is teaching me how to study people in order to discover how they think. She says that it will help me be a good lawyer. I believe her, but I wish you were here to confirm what she says. Chiye, on the other hand, is teaching me how to use people to achieve what I want. I don't think this is nice, but a part of me realizes that a good lawyer must be willing to use every tool to achieve what is right. I want to be a good lawyer, so I'll learn, and then decide when I really need to use it."

Haruhi put her mother's picture down and let her hand rest on it for a minute before pulling back.

"I think I'll go see what food Dad has around and decide what to make for dinner. Thank you for listening, Mother. I miss you."

A quick search of the kitchen showed Haruhi that the only thing that was really edible was the 20kg bag of rice, canned soup, and some frozen dumplings.

Her father had not been eating well without her.

Well, she may only be home a month, but she'd make sure he ate well while she was here.

And with that thought she grabbed her purse, took some money from the grocery jar, threw on her jacket, and headed out the door.

It felt so right to walk to the grocery store. Such a mundane thing, and yet she'd missed it so much.

Nothing had changed at the store, and that made Haruhi smile as she walked the familiar aisles for food. The place was more crowded the normal though, which Haruhi knew was due to all of the gift boxes being offered as potential Christmas gifts.

She wasn't a big fan of Christmas; it had no meaning for her. Christmas was for couples and children, she was neither, but it was nice to see children pointing excitedly at toys and hoping that Santa would bring them something.

"OOOOooo! Look at this! A gift box of spam! Who knew common people liked spam so much?"

Haruhi curiously glanced over at a tall blonde boy talking excitedly about all of the different gift boxes. He was surrounded by five boys of assorted sizes and ages, none of them looked the least bit interested in what the boy was saying. One thing they all had in common though was the fact that their clothes were much too nice and fashionable for this grocery store.

Haruhi was frowning and wondering just who they were and what they were doing here when the pair of red-headed twins caught sight of her watching them. As soon as she saw the mischievous expressions appear on her face she knew she needed to get out of there. She'd seen that look on the Koenig Twins too many times.

But it was too late.

As if by magic they were in front of her, trapping her between them and the shelves full of coffee.

"You're such a beautiful girl, what are you doing in such a common place as this?" asked the one who reminded her of Masaye.

Haruhi glared at him, "Shopping."

"Kaoru! How could you ask such a stupid question of such an intelligent girl? Of course she's shopping!" the other one scolded.

Haruhi almost burst out laughing as Kaoru's eyes filled with tears, "Hikaru…how-how can you say such mean things to me? Y-y-you know she's so beautiful that I stopped thinking straight."

Hikaru immediately turned away from Haruhi and touched Kaoru's face, "I'm so sorry Kaoru! Please don't cry! I didn't think! I was just afraid you'd upset such a beautiful and intelligent girl."

Haruhi didn't wait to see how Kaoru responded to this; she rolled her eyes, took a step to the side, and walked away. As she did so she glanced over at the other boys still looking at the gift boxes.

Her eyes caught a pair of piercing black eyes that belonged to a tall boy with black hair and glasses. He gave her a small smirk while raising a slim eyebrow to indicate he'd seen how she'd escaped from the twins.

She gracefully returned his smile before going to pay for her purchases.

What a strange group.

Author's Note: Here's the third! Our first interaction between Haruhi and the Host Club. Now, will any of them remember this moment in the years to come?

Enjoy!