As you can clearly see from the magnitude of recent updates, I have absolutely no life but what can you do :P
Once again comments and reviews much appreciated
Disclaimer: I don't own Ouran Host Club………… unfortunately…………
Mori walked through the silent garden, his feet making no noise on the grass as he proceeded through the rows of high hedges. He looked upwards and smiled slightly to see the multitude of stars; to him they looked like diamonds scattered on a sheet of black velvet.
He kept walking.
He rounded the corner of one of the hedges and found himself in a small clearing surrounded by the rose bushes; a small white bench sat in the middle.
There was a girl sitting on the bench.
Mori turned, beginning a polite apology for disturbing the young lady when she turned around.
It was Haruhi.
He gaped, open-mouthed at her as she stood up, hands clasped demurely in front of her as she turned around. She lifted her head to look at him and not for the first time, he was struck by the simple beauty of her face. The gentle curve of her lips in the beginning of a smile. The delicate trace of her cheekbones, skin flushed with a pale blush. The way the shortest bangs of her hair fell into her eyes and curled gently under her chin and cheeks where they framed her face.
And her eyes. Beautiful, sparkling pools which lit up as she recognised him; dancing with reflections from the stars so it look like the entire sky was contained in her eyes.
He felt the colour rise in his cheeks as she smiled at him radiantly.
"Mori-senpai! Will you come sit with me?" She held one hand out to him.
Mori smiled and nodded, taking one step into the clearing.
The minute his foot entered the clearing, everything changed.
The stars winked out in the sky, one by one as dark clouds gathered, filling the whole sky within a matter of seconds. Mori looked wildly at the clouds which had appeared out of nowhere. When he turned back to Haruhi she was standing with her shoulders hunched, hands balled into tight fists at her sides, head down so he couldn't see her face. Her shoulders began to shake.
("Why Mori?")
Even as he watched her, her dress ripped savagely in a dozen place, exposing one leg, the curve of one breast, a sliver of her stomach. A bruise
("Where were you?")
flared on her right arm, expanding outward like a blooming flower. There was a deep rumble as thunder rolled across the cloud laden sky. Mud and grass stains appeared on her dress as if
("Why did you let them hurt me?")
a child had scrawled across it with crayons. Mud was streaked down the inside of one arm and Mori could see clumps of mud and a few matted strands of grass caught under her fingernails. As he watched a dark red stain bloomed on her side and blood began to drip slowly down the section of leg revealed by her torn dress.
Mori unfroze and bolted towards Haruhi, reaching desperately for her. No matter how fast he ran he couldn't get any closer to her, she continued to float just outside the reach of his outstretched fingers.
("Mori……")
Haruhi slowly began to raise her head and when she was facing him, the face thrown into stark relief by the sudden flash of lightning made Mori gasp.
("……why did you let them do this to me?")
Haruhi's face was streaked with mud and blood, striped with clean streaks where her tears had run. The bruise covering one cheek looked bad enough but it was the eyes above it which had really made him gasp.
Haruhi's once beautiful eyes were spilling with silent tears. The eyes he was so used to seeing filled with warm laughter were now full of misery and hurt betrayal. She looked at him with a kind of helpless desperate pleading. Begging him to please help her.
Another burst of thunder drove across the sky, this one deafeningly loud; loud enough to drive Mori to his knees with a shout that he couldn't hear with his hands clapped over his ears. He looked around wildly for Haruhi, who was now standing with her back to him.
("You couldn't protect me ...")
Haruhi began to walk away from him. He cried out and tried to move towards her but she was gone. All that remained was a small patch of blood-stained grass next to a white bench. More lightning flashed across the sky and
thunder rolled.
Mori sat bolt upright in the bed of one of Kyouya's family guest rooms, chest heaving as he gasped for air. Hands curled into claws clutched desperately at the neatly made bedclothes that he'd fallen asleep on top of as he looked wildly around the room, trying to figure out where he was.
His breathing began to settle as he looked at the huge windows that stretched from ceiling to floor, water running down them in steady streams. Mitsukuni had been right, the weather had gotten much worse, fast.
Recalling his conversation with Honey caused the memory of everything else that had happened that night to hit him with the equivalent emotional force of a battering ram.
He was in Kyouya's house.
They'd all come here after the party.
And Haruhi was lying unconscious in a hospital bed with a stab wound in her side because Mori hadn't been vigilant enough to protect her from gatecrashers and it was all his fault.
That seemed to about cover it. Mori collapsed backwards on top of the bed with a sigh watching the lightning chase shadows across the room's massive ceiling. He knew he'd never get back to sleep; fragments of his dream continued to chase around his head. Haruhi covered in blood, Haruhi begging him to help her, Haruhi turning away from him.
He sat upright quickly, shaking his head as if doing so could dislodge the haunting remnants of his dream from his mind.
("Mori, why did you let them do this to me?")
He frowned and got up from his bed. He'd fallen asleep on top of the covers still dressed in his formal outfit. His suit jacket was slung over the back of a chair, as was his tie but he was still wearing his shirt and formal trousers, the shirt unbuttoned down to his chest.
He wandered over to the window, closing his eyes as he laid his head on the cool pane of glass. The shadows of the raindrops ran down his face, looking like tears in the dim light. An especially bright bolt of lightning caused him to open his eyes.
Haruhi was frightened of thunder of lightning.
Well, he thought. I suppose it's a blessing that she's unconscious then.
Mori was not the only insomniac that night.
Kyouya lay back on his bed, hands tucked beneath his head, and watched the rain water that poured down his window in steady sheets. He was worried about Haruhi. The doctor had proclaimed her in a stable condition a couple of hours after Honey left the room to talk to Mori and had chased them all from her room, stating firmly that she was to be left alone to rest. After the twins had been manhandled out the door by a couple of nurses, Tamaki following like a beaten puppy, Kyouya talked to the doctor.
"She should be fine until she wakes up." he had said. "But I'll have nurses check on her every so often to monitor her vitals and check up on her."
Kyouya still wasn't satisfied and he knew he'd never be able to sleep until he had seen with his own eyes that she was too sleeping peacefully.
Luckily the Ootori household was fitted with a state of the art security system, including cameras in most of the rooms. Not all were in use, due to reasons of privacy but there was a camera in Haruhi's hospital room.
Kyouya sat upright and swung his legs off the bed, padding silently across the room to his laptop. A sudden flash of lightning made him jump slightly as the computer loaded up. Drumming his fingers impatiently on the table top, Kyouya accessed the house's security system. His father of course had no idea he was capable of doing such things, but there was no harm in that, was there?
Accessing the camera in Haruhi's room, Kyouya peered at the small video screen representing the view from the camera in Haruhi's room.
Kyouya drew breath in with a sharp hiss as he used the camera to scan the whole of Haruhi's room.
It was empty.
The IV drip that had been in her arm lay neglected on the bedspread, which was lying half off the bed, trailing across the floor. Heart pounding, Kyouya accessed the camera's previous footage and wound back. He watched a nurse walk into the room and check Haruhi's vitals, fluffing her pillow and smoothing her hair before leaving, closing the door quietly behind her. About five minutes later, during a particularly bright flash a lightning, Haruhi sat bolt upright in her bed, mouth open in a cry that he couldn't hear. As another bout of thunder rolled across the sky he saw her drew her knees up to her chest with her hands clamped over her ears. She was shaking. When the thunder had passed, Kyouya watched the small pixelated Haruhi pull the drip out her arm and swing her legs off the bed. After gently testing her weight on her injured ankle she stood up. Kyouya winced along with Haruhi as she clutched her hands to her wounded side and watched as she forced herself through a series of uneven, limping steps towards the doors and out of the camera shot.
Kyouya leaned back in his chair; so she'd got scared of the thunder and left her room. The nurses presumably hadn't noticed yet since no alarm had been raised so he should go look for her.
A small, sullen part of his mind pointed out sulkily that she hadn't come to his room for comfort, but he shook this thought off as he headed for the door.
Walking silently down the dark hallway, he considered where to look first.
Tamaki's room he supposed; it was Tamaki who had comforted Haruhi during the thunderstorm when they had all gone to the beach. It was possible she'd gone to his room.
Turning the handle of Tamaki's door silently (it was the same room the blonde always used when he stayed) he pushed the door inwards and peered inside.
The storm apparently hadn't phased Tamaki at all, since he was fast asleep, sprawled across the large bed, having kicked the blankets off during some fitful dream.
He was alone.
Kyouya crossed the room silently and after picking the blankets off the floor, tucked them back round his friends sleeping form. Tamaki stirred slightly, tousled blonde hair shifting, and mumbled something incoherent in French. Kyouya smiled and padded back out the door.
Ok, not Tamaki then. Next stop the twins. Haruhi had become surprisingly close to them due to seeing them for both class and club activities. Besides, Hikaru had comforted Haruhi when they were caught in that storm in Karuizawa.
Kyouya stopped at the next door down the hall and looked cautiously inside. In the dim light he could make out the sleeping forms of the twins. He always gave them a room with two beds but, as usual, they had opted to sleep in one bed together. They slept in the bed furthest from the window, limbs entangled together in their embrace. There was no one else in the room.
Frowning slightly, Kyouya withdrew from the room, letting the door shut quietly behind him. Surely not Honey-senpai's room? That wouldn't make any sense.
All the same, he pushed open the door and looked around.
Honey was curled in a ball in his bed, apparently oblivious to the storm. The thumb of one hand was inserted firmly in his mouth while the other hand clutched Usa-chan to his chest. As Kyouya watched, Honey sighed in his sleep and turned over, golden hair spilled across the pillow.
He was also alone.
Kyouya stepped out into the hall as another bolt of lightning illuminated the length of the hall, throwing everything into stark relief. The light glinted off something on the carpet and frowning, Kyouya bent to pick it up.
It was a needle; the type of needle that Haruhi would have had in her arm from her drip. Kyouya looked up at the door and placed his hand on the doorknob. This would mean that Haruhi had bypassed the rest of their rooms in order to reach….
…Mori's room…