Disclaimer: I have no rights over any Ouran characters.

The doors opened and the girl in front of Haruhi glided right through, they silently closed behind her.

Haruhi took a deep breath and adjusted her mask. She didn't think she'd ever felt this nervous before in her life. She was used to people paying attention her. You couldn't walk around with her friends and not get noticed. None of them exactly faded into the background, except maybe Mamoru, and then, only if he wanted to.

Still, there was a difference between people paying attention to her due to the group she was with, and being the center of attention.

And, she was certain that she would be the center of attention. The twins had gotten their flair for the dramatic from someone, and Mrs. Hitachiin seemed like the most likely candidate – if Mei's stories were anything to go by.

The doors opened and Haruhi took a deep breath and strode forward. She hesitated on the landing, very aware of the hundreds of eyes on her, but then she found her friends. They were standing together smiling and giving her a thumbs up. Haruhi smiled and kept her eyes focused on them as she made her way down the stairs; she ignored everyone else as Mrs. Hitachiin spoke about the dress.

Haruhi reached the models and took her spot at the center of the line. When Mrs. Hitachiin stopped speaking they all performed a curtsey. It took all of Haruhi's concentration to not tip over. Bowing was much easier than curtseying.

A hush fell over the ballroom as everyone looked at the dresses.

To Haruhi it felt like it lasted an eternity, but then the music started and the spell was broken.

Everyone started speaking at once and the models drifted off through the crowd to socialize and show off the dress.

Haruhi hadn't taken two steps before she was assaulted by Tamaki.

"Oh! The little princess is all grown up! Doesn't she look amazing, Alianore?" He turned to ask his fiancée, not removing his arms from Haruhi.

Alianore nodded as she tried to control the grin threatening to take over her face.

Haruhi sent her the deadliest glare in her repertoire.

All it did was make Alianore start snickering.

"Tamaki Suoh, get your hands off of her!" Mei shouted, running up. "You'll ruin the dress!"

"But…" Tamaki started.

"Boss, you really should remove your hands," said Hikaru.

Haruhi found it interesting that Masaye was holding onto Hikaru's arm. That was worth investigating later. Especially since Chiye was being escorted by Kaoru.

"You really should. If Mom sees you manhandling any of her models, especially her crown jewel, we'll never find the pieces," Kaoru added dryly.

Tamaki immediately jerked away from Haruhi and began looking around in fear. They all laughed at him until his expression changed to one of joy.

"KYOYA!" he shouted as he bounded away from them until he was hugging a tall man with glasses. The recipient of Tamaki's hug looked as welcoming of it as Haruhi had been.

Haruhi watched as Kyoya untangled himself from Tamaki quite handily. She found herself envying that. Escaping Tamaki was never an easy task, even though she'd been practicing for the last year.

"I wonder why Kyoya never told us he was back," said Hunny as he walked up with a fairly pregnant Reiko, Mori and his date, Chelsea, were following them.

Kaoru shrugged, "You know how the Shadow King is. He never shares anything unless it gets him ahead."

"That's not true," Mori said.

Hikaru snorted, "Okay, there are some exceptions, but for the most part, Kyoya works only for Kyoya."

"There was the time he pulled strings and got Tamaki and his grandmother to actually talk," Hunny said.

"Point," Kaoru acknowledged.

"Or when he helped Kassanoda get his family's business clean," Hunny said.

"Okay, two points," Hikaru grumbled.

"Or how he keeps sending Tamaki pictures of his cat, Noel, thus keeping the friendship alive. A friendship that doesn't seem to rely on what they can get from each other, but rather, what they can give," Alianore said.

"Fine, three points," Kaoru said.

"I guess the Shadow King isn't all bad," Hikaru muttered.

"Of course he isn't," Mori said.

"He wouldn't be our friend if he was!" said Hunny.

Haruhi watched Kyoya and Tamaki talk together. There really was some bond between them, she could see that. It was clearly evident in the way they moved and talked to each other. Even in the way Kyoya actually returned Tamaki's smile. Haruhi had felt intrigued by Kyoya from the first time he had smirked at her in her neighborhood grocery store. She'd been even more intrigued by the few words they'd shared in Paris.

And now, here he was, and she was in a position to actually talk to him this time. And because of Mei and the Hitachiin twins' genius she was in no danger of him recognizing her from the previous two encounters. And, she grinned, if she messed up he'd never know the 'princess' from the extravaganza was the very serious lawyer Haruhi Fujioka.

Maybe all this nonsense wasn't so bad after all.

XXX

Kyoya couldn't help but smile a bit as Tamaki rambled on about…something. He'd never admit it to anyone, but he really had missed Tamaki and all of the trouble he caused.

Now that he was back in Japan he couldn't help but wonder how he'd stayed away for so long. It all felt strangely surreal, being surrounded by Japanese again. He stopped at a café to get an Americano before meeting with his father earlier and just sitting at a table and being able to understand every word of every conversation around him was...odd.

Despite the past six years in the States he still thought in Japanese, which made tuning out conversations in English very easy. So having to work to tune someone out was a bit frustrating.

Not that he had to work to tune Tamaki out – that was an innate skill.

He returned the full focus of his attention to Tamaki as soon as his arm was grabbed.

"C'mon Kyoya! You have to come meet Alianore! Oh! And you must meet the princess!"

Kyoya frowned, "Princess?"

Tamaki grinned from ear to ear, "Yes! She's amazing! There are also more new people for you to meet! There are the Koenig twins, Masaye and Chiye, and there's Mrs. Hitachiin's assistant, Mei Yasumura. She wears too much makeup and is sometimes scary, but she's very nice."

Tamaki continued to ramble, but Kyoya had stopped listening. All of his attention was fixed on the intriguing woman in turquoise. He'd been in the ballroom when she'd come down the stairs and she'd drawn his attention then. She hadn't glided like the others; rather, she'd walked with a grace that Kyoya had only seen on Mori and Hunny.

She didn't glide, she prowled.

It was obvious to him that she was no career model – which only made him more curious as to how Mrs. Hitachiin had gotten her to model that dress.

Upon reaching the group of young people Kyoya felt as if he was back in high school. They were all smiling and acting like they hadn't been apart for so many years. It was relaxing to be around people that weren't trying to get something from him.

Tamaki introduced all of the girls to Kyoya. Though, when he got to the girl in turquoise he merely introduced her as, "Princess."

"I assume you have a real name, Princess," Kyoya said.

Princess smiled, "Of course I do."

"Well, then what is it?"

"Oh, I could never give my name out to a stranger," she smiled slyly at him.

Kyoya was intrigued.

"If we danced, would we still be strangers?"

"It depends."

"On what?"

"Your dancing skills."

"Oh, never fear, Princess, my dancing skills are extraordinary."

"And so is your ego," she muttered.

He actually grinned, "It has to be, how else could I be friends with these idiots?" He gestured at the other Ouran Host Club members.

She chuckled, "Point."

The music changed as a new dance began.

He extended his hand and gave a short bow, straight out of his host club days, "Well, Princess, will you honor me with this dance?"

She put her hand in his, "I do believe I will."

When the two of them were safely on the dance floor Tamaki began laughing. The others looked at him in curiosity.

"Can't you see?" he said. "I do believe the Shadow King might've just met his match."

Hunny grinned, "About time."

Everyone laughed at that.

"Ah, but does he know he's met her before?" Alianore asked.

Everyone turned their heads to study the two dancers for a few moments.

"I don't think he does..." Tamaki said, surprise evident in his voice.

"Then, shouldn't we tell him?" Mei asked.

All the men's heads turned to stare at her. The Hitachiin Twins' jaws had dropped.

She looked at them in confusion, "What? Isn't that the right thing to do?"

All five men shook their heads to some degree.

"Mei, you don't seem to understand," Hunny said.

"What don't we understand?" Alianore asked.

Tamaki looked down at his fiance, incredulously.

"Darling, don't you know, we don't tell Kyoya ANYTHING."

Chiye frowned, "How can you be friends if you don't tell him anything?"

"Because," Kaoru said with a shrug, "we never have to."

Hikaru nodded vigorously, "The Shadow King knows all."

"Except this," Mori stated, his eyes going back to the dancing couple.

"Well, I think telling him is the nice thing to do," Masaye said.

Hikaru and Kaoru chuckled.

Hikaru said, "It may be the nice thing, but we're not going to do it."

"But what if-" Mei started.

"Mei," Hunny cut in, "it's better to let Kyoya find things out on his own."

"Definitely," the other men said together.

XXX

Haruhi didn't know where the evening had gone. It seemed like one minute she was going to dance with Kyoya and the next she was excusing herself to go to the bathroom.

Which was, of course, a lie.

Rather, she met Mei in the dressing room and quickly changed out of the princess dress and into a pair of jeans and a t-shirt.

"Well, did you enjoy yourself?" Mei asked as she began unpinning Haruhi's hair.

Haruhi smiled, "Do you know what? I think I did."

"You spent every moment with Kyoya Ootori. Mrs. Hitachiin was shooting you daggers until I pointed out that holding an Ootori's undivided attention was drawing more eyes than anything else could ever do."

"Well, he was interesting."

"Yeah, sure, just like I found Kassanoda interesting at Reiko's baby shower last week."

"I thought it was his flower arrangements you found interesting," Haruhi pointed out.

"Well, yes, but he must have a truly beautiful heart to make such beautiful arrangements."

"Mei, you do realize that Kassanoda is the leader of a very powerful yakuza group?"

"He Was the leader of a yakuza. Kyoya made his family legitimate. Now he owns a darling flower shop. No yakuza leader could own a flower shop. Besides, Kyoya is the heir to a zaibatsu. Some people claim they're as bad as a yakuza."

"Some people don't study economics."

"And some people need to admit when they're romantically interested," Mei said, pulling the last pin out of Haruhi's hair.

Haruhi immediately stood up and pulled her hair into a neat ponytail.

"And some people need to stop worrying so much about others."

"What? It's okay for you to worry and meddle with Alianore, but we can't meddle with you?"

"That's not what I–" Haruhi stopped and sighed. "Okay, you're right. Turn around is fair play. But, remember, Alianore and Tamaki had been pining for almost a decade. I only officially met him tonight. Give me some time before any of you meddle. Please?"

She stared at Mei until the girl sighed, "Fine. We'll give you a few months. I'll make sure the others back down. But, I'm warning you," she waggled her finger in Haruhi's face, "if you two start acting like idiots, we WILL step in."

"Fine, just keep Tamaki and the twins under control."

Mei grinned, "Oh, don't worry. I'll talk to Masaye, Chiye, and Alianore. They'll keep those boys so busy that they won't have time to even think about you and Kyoya."

Haruhi smiled at that and grabbed her purse, heading for home.

It was time to put away 'Princess' and go back to being Haruhi Fujioka, up and coming lawyer.

Author's Note: And Kyoya has arrived :) There was a delay in posting this due to me going to the Cherry Blossom festival in Jinhae yesterday and almost getting trapped there due to a lack of buses. It was TERRIBLE. But I finally got home.

Also, Happy Easter!

Enjoy! :)