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"Tamaki?" Haruhi managed breathlessly, all the fear and tension draining from her body.

There underneath the bed-beside empty shoe boxes and old birthday wrapping paper, right next to Haruhi's treasured stuffed bunny from her childhood, just to the left of several of her favorite mechanical pencils, just below a strangely colored pink article of clothing (that appeared to be a skirt, as far as Haruhi could tell), with several candy bar wrappers lying right in front of him—was Tamaki.

Haruhi gaped. She sputtered. Tamaki swallowed.

"Hello, Haruhi," he said quietly.

Haruhi stared. "Are you out of your mind?" She screeched.

Tamaki didn't answer. A few strands of blond hair fell perfectly onto his face, obstructing his eyes. Tamaki was at a loss for words. How could he possibly explain himself? Opting for a long, awkward silence rather than speaking with such a high probability that he'd say something stupid, Tamaki began picking at the carpeting.

"Have you been under here this entire time?" Haruhi asked, with a little less edge in her tone.

Still, Tamaki could sense her anger, and something else too—clipped and hurt, all covered up.

"Sorry, Haruhi."

What could have prompted Tamaki to decide it was best to live under his bed for an entire day? She couldn't even begin to imagine.

"And why are my pencils here?"

She wanted to ask more. She wanted to ask him the more important questions, like why was Usa-chan under his bed, and more importantly, why was he under his bed? But something like that opened so many doors that she wasn't quite sure she ready to walk through.

"I found them here."

"You found them here?" She didn't believe that at all, and Tamaki knew it.

"Yeah, I was looking for them actually! That's what I'm doing under here, in case you were wondering!"

Wasn't she wondering? Why hadn't Haruhi asked him where he'd been? Didn't she care about him at all? Hadn't she wondered where'd he'd gone? Missed him, even just the teeniest bit?

Silence enveloped them again. For once, they were on the same exact page. The two of them laid facing each other, a little too close beneath Tamaki's bed, and wondered just when did things become so awkward?

Without words and questions to distract him, Tamaki had become distinctly aware of how close they were. He could nearly feel her body heat. It was really just a few measly inches.

The longer the silence grew, the more difficult it became for Tamaki to end it. Haruhi was slowly beginning to figure it out: there was an elephant in the room. The longer she stared into Tamaki's eyes, the more apparent it became. There was a very large, very ridiculous, very obnoxious elephant in the room, and it was laying right between them.

Christmas Eve was tomorrow, and didn't someone famous once say, "there's no time like the present," or something like that? Now really was as good a time as any. Unless she really was going crazy.

She played a boy for four years at Ouran, so surely one more night wasn't going to kill her.

"Tamaki," Haruhi said suddenly.

Tamaki looked at her and prayed she wasn't going to come out to him as a lesbian right now. He really wasn't sure if he could handle something like that right now. His mind was crumbly already.

"I just, um..." Between the two of them, little was getting accomplished. "Tamaki, what I'm trying to say, is that..."

What was she trying to say, exactly? Even Haruhi wasn't so sure anymore.

"You're not doing anything Christmas Eve, are you?"

Haruhi closed her eyes. (Please say no, please say no, please say no...)

"Haruhi!" He wrapped his arms around her smaller frame and pulled her close; excited.

"Haruhi, Haruhi, Haruhi! Why didn't you just tell Daddy that you wanted to go out with him for Christmas Eve?"

The words tumbled out of his mouth without thought.

"This is so great! So, so, so, so, great!"

He couldn't have stopped his lips from moving even if he'd wanted to. Haruhi was with him—his Haruhi. Haruhi liked Tamaki. Not another boy, not another girl, not some strange American foreigner or a beatnik Yakuza member—Haruhi liked him!

She said something against his shirt but it was lost against the fabric. Haruhi pulled her face away to clarify.

"I said, I'm not your daughter."

Tamaki gave her a look.

"I didn't mean daughter like that, silly! I'm just so happy that you want to go out with me on Christmas Eve!"

Haruhi smiled. Tamaki was easy to understand in some ways. His tone revealed everything. When he'd referred to himself as her Daddy before—it'd been without thought—but this time he said the word like boyfriend.

"So you'll go then? I already booked a place—if that's alright?"

Tamaki's smile could have lit up a city.

"Of course it's alright! I'm so glad you're not involved with the Yakuza, Haruhi! This is the best day ever!" Tamaki pulled Haruhi against him again.

Suddenly he gave the action some thought. He gave everything a little bit of thought.

"So, does this mean you want to be my girlfriend?" Tamaki asked, his voice rising with his excitement.

"Are you sure you're not the girlfriend, Tamaki-chan?" She asked in jest.

"Of course I'm sure! Haruhi, think of how great we'll be together! We can go on all sorts of fancy dates—I'll take you anywhere—and we can ride the ferris wheel together at the carnival and go to the movies and take pictures together in those little booths and pick the heart background and print them out on stickers and hand them out to all our friends..."

Tamaki's rambling rambling trailed away. It was neither awkward nor perfect, it merely was. It was just one inconsequential moment in the grand scheme of two lives.

Haruhi leaned forward, and kissed him.