Mori had been searching for Haruhi for several hours. She had not returned home, she wasn't up at the school, he did not know where she could be. Mori, the cool, composed, stoic kendo champion was panicking. That is not to say that the panic was needless. It was his fault after all that his girlfriend of many months had left his graduation party in tears, and if he did not find her and make things better, Mitskuni was going to make sure that Mori knew what a horrid mistake he had made.
Mori didn't know where she could have run off to though. He had tried all the places that he knew that she would go, and all of them had been wrong.
Mori frowned and sank down on a bench. His search had taken him to the park that he had taken Haruhi to the day they stayed out in the rain, the day that he helped her through her fear. It was night and the park was closed, but he smiled fondly at the memory, before the bitterness of reality came crashing back down upon him.
It took Mori a while, gazing at the park, to realize that the gates to the park were open, and that he could go in.
"I wonder if Haruhi could have…." Mori didn't muse any longer of how Haruhi would have managed to enter the park, he just seized the opportunity and went inside, in case Haruhi had come here.
From a car nearby a young man smiled, the lights of the city at night glinting off of his classes, a steady hand making a notation on a ledger.
As Mori ran he did not pay attention to the splendor of the park at night, nor the exquisite night blooming flowers that no one ever got a chance to appreciate, he merely followed a path, well engrained into his head, and now, his heart.
He prayed that Haruhi would he here, and he would be able to find her.
As he rushed into the clearing, he stopped, blinking at the site.
Haruhi was seated on the ground, asleep against the rock. Even from the edge of the clearing he could see the dried tears that stained her face, and the unhappiness in her face.
Moving with well practiced silence Mori moved over to Haruhi. As he picked her up and settled on the rock, cradling her in his arms, she began to stir. For a moment she seemed content in his arms, but as she awoke and became more aware of her surrounding she whimpered, scrambling to her feet and out of his arm.
"What are you doing here?" Here voice was coarse, fatigued from the sobs that must have consumed her tiny frame. "How dare you think that you can---"
Haruhi spun on her heel, away from Mori and began to walk out of the cleaning.
"Haruhi, wait."
His voice brought pause to her steps but she did not turn around. The emotion in his voice was something that she rarely heard, and his voice was straining with it now.
"What can you possibly have to say to me?" Her voice was cold, and he could hear the strain in her voice.
"I – you gave back the necklace. Why?"
"I will not let you abandon me, abandon this, for some twisted sense of duty. I will not watch that happen. I did what I needed to do." Her voice trembled with her words, the strain leaking through. Mori could imagine the tears that crowded her eyes, and he slumped forward, his head hung.
"I am a fool. I love you Haruhi. Don't—"
"You love me?" Haruhi spun around, the tead flowing freely from her eyes. "This is the first time that you have ever mentioned love. You claim to love me, but you have a funny way of showing it. You announced hours ago that you were leaving with Hunny, that you are bound to him above all else. Those words render your confessions of love meaningless." Haruhi laughed, and Mori could tell that she was teetering once again on the edge of a breakdown.
"I knew that you cared for him, I knew that you felt bound to him, I just didn't think—I thought that maybe—I was a fool."
"You are not the fool. I am." Mori's didn't lift his head as he spoke, hiding the vulnerability, though she could hear it in his voice.
"When I saw the necklace fall out of the card, I realized what you must think." Mori neglected to mention that Hunny had literally beaten some sense into him, but that could come later. "I didn't realize when I had decided to go to France that you could, that you would see it as abandoning you." He heard Haruhi snicker, a bitter mocking laugh and he sighed.
"I will not go to France. Hunny doesn't need me there, nor does he want me there. I was just running away from that which I really wanted."
He glanced up at Haruhi and saw her standing, her arms crossed about her chest in defense.
"What would you have to run away from?"
"I realized what I wanted from life, and I realized that I was not worthy enough to seek such a thing." His voice was low. "I thought that by following Hunny, I could make myself better able, more capable." He sighed.
"Mori-senpai…" Haruhi's voice was low. "I don't know what has you so scared that you run from it, but I did not think that you were the type to run from that which you truly wanted." Haruhi waited for Mori to look up at her. "What are you running from?"
"You." Mori stood and stepped towards Haruhi, and she took a step back.
"I love you. I wish to protect you, to cherish you, to keep you from harm. My desire to serve and protect you overwhelms me, and pushed aside any thoughts to duty towards Mitskuni that I have." Mori stepped closer to Haruhi, placing a hand on her shoulder. "I am sorry, Haruhi, I was running from you."