*AN – I don't own them or profit from them. Honey is a little OOC in this – but I think even in the canon timeline he's much more mature than he lets on – he just prefers to act silly and childlike. At some point, especially when he finally grows up physically I think that'd change. A grown man acting like a little boy isn't endearing. *
*Warning – chapter contains allusions to sexual situations, but nothing explicit.*
Blindsided
Haninozuka Mitsukuni tried his best to hide his irritation. He tried every relaxation technique he had learned over his long years of training and study.
Deep breath. Focus on your heartbeat. Release breath slowly.
He closed his eyes. Took a deep breath.
He could hear the dull throb of his heartbeat. He could hear the murmur of discussion in the little restaurant. If he focused he could even listen to specific conversations. Somewhere to his right the big wall-clock ticked a steady rhythm. Someone dropped a tray in the kitchen; a cell phone rang; and under it all he could hear the slow, even, calm breathing of his tablemate.
His irritation ratcheted up another notch and his eyes flicked open.
"What was wrong with this one Takashi?"
He was facing down his eleventh disappointment in plan: Get Takashi A Girlfriend. Considering the plan had only been enacted only five and a half months earlier Honey considered it a truly impressive failure rate. That worked out to nearly two girls a month. And nine of the eleven hadn't lasted more than one extremely awkward blind date or artificially constructed social situation.
His tablemate gave a shrug. Only years of close acquaintance told Honey that his stoic cousin was mildly irritated. At least as frustrated as Honey himself, even though the frustrations stemmed from different sources.
Ever since Honey had decided to try and find a nice girl for his deserving cousin their relationship had taken on an uncharacteristic strain. The problem was, although Takashi was a remarkable young man, he was actually rather shy, reserved, had a tendency to blame himself for anything that went wrong, and always underestimated his own worth.
"You can't take care of the whole world Takashi," Honey was constantly reminding him.
But Takashi had spent so long taking care of Honey that Honey felt compelled to return the favor in any way that he could. And now that he was engaged to a beautiful, kind, and talented French pastry chef he'd met through Tamaki, Honey was even more determined that his cousin should find the same sort of blissful happiness that came from well-suited companionship.
But the process, that essentially was a series of blind dates, had revealed a before now hidden stubborn streak in his quiet and normally complacent cousin.
"I mean, I'm not just picking girls at random y'know. I have a careful screening process; intelligence level, attractiveness, kindness, personality. I know these girls aren't mutants or anything so what's the problem?"
Mori's gaze slid away into a light scowl and he grunted noncommittally.
"Maybe if you would give me a little feedback. Am I working off a faulty assumption? Do you not like nice girls? Need someone a little rough around the edges? Someone a little kinkier? More … masculine maybe?"
Takashi granted his cousin a withering glance.
It had become tradition over the past half year to meet at this little diner a couple of days after one of the arranged dates and discuss the fallout of the latest failure. And as per tradition Honey spent the duration of the lunch trying to pull information out of his cousin that Takashi wasn't willing to give. It was like trying to get blood from a stone.
Honey sighed and ran his hand through his hair; a nervous habit he had developed in college when he had finally hit his growth spurt and realized that people no longer found it cute that he carried around a stuffed animal. They found it creepy.
Growing just a few inches shy of a foot in a little over a year also introduced him to the wonderful world of girls who were interested in kissing him instead of just cuddling him, and Honey had found that he was willing to give up Bun-Bun if it meant a chance to charm a cute girl into a date. Unfortunately that left his hands empty, hence the nervous habit that resulted in permanently mussed hair.
Honey paid the check and the two rose to leave when a familiar laugh stopped Honey in his tracks. He hadn't heard the voice in years, but there was no mistaking the honest, uncalculated sound of the laughter
"Haru-chan?!"
A smartly dressed woman turned at the name, a mane of dark hair swishing around her face and huge brown eyes blinking in curiosity.
"Honey-senpai?!" she goggled at him in amazement before slowly smiling, "goodness, how long has it been?" she excused herself from her companions and rose from the table to close the distance between them. Making a show of having to tilt her head back a bit to look him in the face she exclaimed, "You grew Honey-sempai!"
"You shrank!"
She smiled at that, "God, forbid! I don't exactly have a lot of extra height to spare. I hear that congratulations are in order."
Honey beamed in genuine joy, "Thank you, Sophie and I are very happy, but how did you know?"
Haruhi smiled and rolled her eyes. "Unfortunately, no matter how hard I try I can't entirely get rid of the twins. They keep me up-to-date on everyone. Well, mostly." She shrugged.
"Takashi and I meet here for lunch a couple of times a month, right Takash…" Honey noticed that Takashi had gone still. Not stiff and frozen in a way that anyone else would notice, but once again Honey's familiarity with the quiet man served him well. Takashi was a man who was quite aware of and in control of his body. You didn't become an internationally recognized kendoist without that trait. He usually had a sort of relaxed intensity about his movements - a sort of powerful flowing grace that spoke of power and control.
But now?
His shoulders were tight and his hands were hanging oddly at his sides as if he didn't quite know what to do with them. But his eyes...there was a fierce intensity in his eyes as he looked at Haruhi that was unlike anything Honey had ever seen in his cousin.
Actually the closest Honey could come to an analogy was the way lions went still when they had sighted a gazelle – all their attention focused in an instant on that one spot, and all their muscles ready to spring to action in a moment's notice.
Come to think of it, Honey hadn't really been in tune with Mori's reactions when they'd still been in High School, but it occurred to him that this same awkward tension infused his body a lot during their last year at Ouran. And while he had never seen this particular look in his cousin's eyes, it didn't mean he couldn't put two and two together.
Honey's eyes flicked between his cousin and Haruhi, who had begun innocently relating something about the co-workers she was out at lunch with.
Honey could have kicked himself - it wasn't that the girls he'd been picking weren't nice enough or too nice, or that they couldn't handle Takashi's reserve, or any of the numerous explanations he had been trying out over the past months - the problem with the girls he had been picking hadn't been the right girl. It was testament to Mori's reserve and private nature that this was the first time such a suspicion had even crossed Honey's mind. Though it made sense. It was obvious while they had still been in High School that several other members of the host club had boyish crushes on her.
Actually it would be like Takashi, just like him, to hide his feelings because he felt that others deserved her more, or that he couldn't even hope to be worthy of her. Just like him to love someone in silence, and for that love to transcend distance and time.
Honey had always thought that if Mori ever fell in love that it would never occur to the tall, steady man that the love might fade with time or that there would ever be an occasion to abandon that affection.
His cousin didn't do things in halves. It was all or nothing.
Revelation making him focus a little closer he tuned back into the conversation.
"And how have you been Mori-sempai?"
"Takashi."
Honey's eyes widened slightly at the deep rumble of his cousin's voice and his suspicions solidified. No one outside of his cousin's family called him by his given name.
"Takashi-semp…Takashi-san…" Haruhi's voice had taken on an unfamiliar soft edge and to Honey's shock a touch of pink flushed her cheeks. Her eyes flicked past them to her table where one of the women was motioning to her.
"Ahh, can you guys hold on just a minute?"
As Haruhi walked back to her table and her gesturing tablemate Honey's gaze whipped back to Takashi, and he caught his cousin's eye with a look of accusation. All this time Honey had been worrying about Takashi he'd been holding out on him!
Takashi met his gaze steadily and a flurry of meaning passed back and forth between them before Haruhi returned.
"I have to run back to work, and I don't want to delay you guys any further, but we should keep in touch. Here, this is my card,"
Honey suddenly found something to occupy his hands. He may have grown some, but he could still play up the adorable, innocent little boy act quite well.
She blinked and turned towards the taller man, "Uh, here Mor – Takashi-san."
Honey discretely watched the way Takashi's large hands seemed to cradle Haruhi's smaller ones as he gently freed the little white rectangle from her. There was no mistaking the blush in her cheeks now.
Haruhi whipped her hand out of his and took a step back, glancing sidelong at Mori as if suspicious he was causing her strange reactions intentionally.
"You guys should contact me and we should meet for lunch sometime. It would be nice to catch up!"
Honey couldn't deny there was there was something amusing in the situation. In fact, there was a lot of amusing in it. Although Honey had long ago seen that most of the members of the Host Club harbored some sort of interest in Haruhi, he had never thought that any of the potential relationships would be lasting ones. The long term compatibility just wasn't there. But he could actually see Haruhi and Takashi working out, as it were. Haruhi had the quiet grace and dignity that so many (even well-bred) girls lacked, and Takashi had the reserve and respectfulness that suited a woman like Haruhi. All in all, there could be much worse pairings.
His cousin's voice interrupted his musings, "Mitsukuni, don't." warning practically dripped from Mori's tone.
Honey's gaze flicked back to Haruhi as he spoke, "Why Takashi, I don't know what you're talking about." A slow smile slid across his face. He modified his initial assessment of the situation, this wasn't just going to be interesting, this was going to be fun.
***
Except in the end it didn't turn out to be nearly as much fun as Mitsukuni initially hoped it would. Because, much to his astonishment, his cousin had apparently needed no more encouragement that Haruhi's blush and obvious confusion at her own reaction to their chance encounter to take the initiative.
As it turned out Honey's initial assessment of Mori's reaction as lion-like had be strangely appropriate because as far as Honey could tell, Takashi had hunted Haruhi down. Honey had been surprised to run into them alone together in a nice little café one day around lunch, but even more surprised to learn that this was their fourth of such meetings. Haruhi, true to form, had smiled kindly at him and invited him to join them. Was the girl really still that clueless? But a warning glance from his cousin shifted Honey's inclination to accept into a regretful smile and a smooth lie about prior engagements.
The burgeoning relationship was never obvious.
A phone call in the middle of a casual lunch that brought a special warmth to Takashi's smile. A stack of pictures from a kendo championship lying casually on Takashi's kitchen counter, and there, almost out of the frame in one, a petite young woman with huge dark eyes. The simple fact that Takashi wasn't at home nearly as much as he usually was when Mitsukuni was trying to find him. But nothing overt was ever said about it. His cousin didn't talk about the dates Honey was increasingly sure he was having. He was never the one who brought the subject of Haruhi up, and when Honey teasingly did he was rewarded only with stubbornly tight lips and wryly amused eyes that said No matter how you pry, it isn't going to work.
It was almost like his cousin was… not trying to keep it a secret exactly, but trying to keep it under the radar.
So he had been shocked into open-mouthed silence on a spur of the moment visit with Takashi's parents to hear his Aunt suddenly start gushing about "That sweet girl Haruhi". It seemed that the Morinozukas had "accidentally" run into Takashi and Haruhi at a museum opening and Haruhi had successfully charmed Takashi's mother. His father said nothing one way or the other, but that was to be expected, and at least meant that he didn't disapprove.
He had to wonder if Haruhi herself knew that Mori's mother was probably already buying every wedding magazine she could get her hands on. Haruhi might not seem to care much for that sort of thing, but Honey didn't believe for one second that she would let someone hijack her wedding into a huge production.
Still, at the time Honey hadn't given the occurrence much further thought - chalking it up to his Aunt's sentimental nature, the fact that she didn't have any daughters of her own to plan weddings for, and the fact that Satoshi had recently instigated a family kerfuffle by eloping. Even if Takashi and Haruhi got married, it wasn't anything that was going to happen anytime soon.
Of course, that was before he noticed the way Takashi touched Haruhi. It was always chaste and subtle, nothing that anyone would notice if they weren't looking. But Honey was looking, and Haruhi cleaned up quite nicely, so a lot of other men were looking too. Which was, Honey eventually realized, exactly why Takashi was touching her in public. His hand on her shoulder, or resting in the small of her back, a brush of his fingers to straighten her purse on her shoulder, helping her with her coat by smoothing it down her arms – all of it was Takashi's way of saying This is Mine, I'm making it clear to you that she is mine; so I don't have to hurt you if you try and touch her.
And, well, if you valued your health you just didn't touch things that belonged to a man that looked like Morinozuka Takashi.
But even if Takashi was acting proprietary and possessive, from Honey's view Haruhi still seemed blissfully unaware of the subtext that thickened the air whenever Takashi loomed behind her when she ran into a male co-worker or was approached by men at museum functions or outdoor festivals.
So Honey was absolutely floored, although in hindsight he supposed that he should have seen it coming, when he strolled into his cousin's rooms one morning with a bright and cheery greeting the same way he had always done, and he had been met with two pairs of eyes peering up at him from a tangle of bedding. One set of eyes widened above rapidly reddening cheeks and one set narrowed in irritation.
He froze mid-step, his sentence half-finished, mouth opening and closing uselessly, as he desperately tried to think of some way to gracefully get himself out of this situation. Suddenly his cousin's towering form was standing over him as he was grabbed by the scruff of the neck and dragged out of the bedroom.
It was one of the only times that he had ever seen Takashi visibly angry and it would remain one of the few times his cousin would ever use physical force against him. Of course, he never forgot to knock after that.
Who would have thought that Takashi would be even more intimidating in nothing but a sheet than he was fully dressed?
After that, not much surprised Honey when it came to Takashi and Haruhi. But he did enjoy being the bearer of the tidings to the rest of the former Host Club. Kyoya looked for a moment like he had swallowed something unpleasant before raising an eyebrow as if the news did not affect him. The twins had frowned in unison, and then given fatalistic shrug, "We knew something was up. If anyone was going to have her, he's probably the best man we could think of." Tamaki had exploded into effusive raptures of joy until his wife swept gracefully into the room and swapped him on the head.
Then he had unexpectedly run into Renge. When she had flirtingly asked after her "dear Haruhi", Honey had smiled beatifically and relayed the news, "Haruhi and Takashi are engaged."
"They…what…Haruhi…he's marrying Mori-sempai?!" Honey could practically see the hearts forming in her eyes.
"She is marrying Mori." Honey corrected.
Renge processed this for a second or two and then squealed excitedly, "Haruhi got a sex change!?!"
--END--
*Peace y'all*
