Hi! It's nice to be back in the world of Fanfiction and OHSHC! Thanks for the reviews; I appreciate them to no end, as well as the follows and favorites! It was brought to my attention that I was using specific Honorifics incorrectly, so I'll be better about that if they're used in this particular chapter, and future ones. THANK YOU ALLLLL! – McKenna

I was laughing so hard, I was sure that water would come spewing out of my nose. Haruhi was a crack up when she wasn't so stressed out over the Host Club and school. We were at her house, eating sushi and talking just to kick back and relax together on such a nice night. She was so entertaining and funny, I couldn't help but to feel guilty over being so jealous for so long.

"Okay, okay…" She paused to get the rest of her giggles out. We were discussing our interpretations of each host. Impressions, one-liners, and horrible jokes were flying around, causing such loud, obnoxious laughter from both of us. "Who's next?"

"Ah, god. Who haven't we done?"

She suddenly seemed to sober up and smirk devilishly at me. I'd only ever seen that same smirk on the twins, and it worried me that she had mastered it in such a short time. "We haven't done Mori-Senpai."

My face was probably red as a tomato, as she began chuckling like she knew everything about my fascination with him. "I-uh, well,"

"Jeez, even his name makes you blush, Orie-Senpai!"

I threw a pillow at her in protest. "Shut up, Haruhi!" I laughed along with her. "Okay, okay, I'll bite. I do really, really like Takashi."

"Oooh, Takashi, huh?" She replied, raising her eyebrows. I laughed again, and decided to pull my theories together and be confident enough in them to use them against her.

"Okay, Haruhi, then let's talk about Tamaki."

She paled. "W-why would we talk about him?"

I crossed my arms and smirked back at her. "Oh, you know." I cleared my throat. "Reasons." When I saw that she was becoming uncomfortable with the notion, I settled back in, putting a hand on her shoulder. "Haruhi, it's okay. How about this, no more jokes, we both take some advice from each other, hm?"

To this, she nodded, and straightened up. "Mori-Senpai surely is a man of few words." She noted. I sighed.

"You can say that again. What should I do? I'm just so curious about him. I want to be closer to him, ya know? We have our similarities, especially because we both do Keno and all that…but it doesn't feel like…enough. And, Honey's always saying that he likes me, but he doesn't really know much about me, either."

"Senpai, have you ever thought about finding a different way of communicating to him?"

This sparked my interest. "What are you suggesting?"

"Well," Haruhi shifted around before sighing and chewing on her lip. "Okay. You mentioned earlier that you love to write. Mori-Senpai loves to read. Why not…leave him a slip of paper with a question on it, maybe slip it in his book once in a while, and wait for a reply?"

My eyes widened to saucers. "Haruhi, you're brilliant."

Haruhi and I both fell asleep in her living room that night, and arose early in the morning together to make the sales at the super market. Haruhi apologized profusely, but I waved it off, allowing her to remember that where I came from in Italy wasn't some mansion, it was a small apartment over a dojo. I helped her pick out food and we chatted aimlessly about the day, homework, food we liked, food we could actually make, and, of course, everyone's favorite topic, the host club. As we were coming back, Haruhi was giddy about the sales that she had gotten on the food. Again, she made me aware that she still had laundry and cleaning to do, but again, I waved it off. I probably had to do the same at my house, anyway.

As we neared her apartment, we saw thick crowds of people standing around the entrances. There was a shiny, beautifully sleek car parked in front of the apartments, just a few feet from where Haruhi and I were standing, watching in confusion. A driver opened the doors as the crowd 'ooh'd and 'ahh'd over the whole affair. A man stepped out, with gleaming blonde hair and-

Oh.

The Host Club.

Haruhi and I exchanged panicked looks. She leaned up against a pole, looking exhausted and annoyed. I picked up the grocery bags for her, and nudged her, ignoring the comments of Hikaru and Kaoru. Haruhi and I began to slowly approach the outlandish gang, Haruhi's eye twitching as Tamaki was giving some sort of lecture.

"Don't say anything that will cause Haruhi or Haruhi's father to tell us to leave!" Tamaki finished.

Haruhi practically barked: "Well, it's too late for that, go away!"

"Haruhi!" Some of the gasped, until they noticed that she was wearing a dress. "That dress is really cute!" They chorused. I rolled my eyes, fingering the forest green dress I was wearing delicately. You're cute too, dress. Oh, Jesus, I was losing it.

"Shut up! Get the hell out of here!" Haruhi shouted over them. Eventually she allowed them all a quick peak, to which they were all so amazed at that no one even bothered to greet me. Figures, my mind grumbled. As she opened the door, and they started piling in, I just waited in the back, leaning up against the railing. I heard questions being thrown around as Haruhi decided to make tea, so I began to head in, heaving all of the groceries in the door.

"Orie," I heard someone say. I swiveled around to see Takashi standing at the door, his arms out stretched to take the grocery bags out of my hands. "Allow me to take some in for you."

I took a moment to admire everything about him. His eyes seemed particularly soft and friendly today, and he seemed very well rested. His sleeveless shirt was allowing me to swoon only a bit over his muscles that were always hidden under the uniform he wore for school. His unruly black hair was just as untamed as ever, and the small smile he reserved for me made my heart pound. The heat rose to my cheeks, and I knew I had melted.

"Oh, oh! T-thank you, Takashi." He only smiled in reply. I went in and found Haruhi looking in as the host club scooted in the room. Annoyed as she was, I found the whole ordeal rather hilarious.

"Go ahead and sit down, Orie-Senpai. I'll make tea." She grumbled.

"Are you sure, Haru-Chan? I can help." I offered back, giving her a polite smile. She shook her head and sighed, turning around to start the water. I, in turn, went to the room and sat down with the host club, listening to them bat back and forth about things.

"Oh, Orie-Senpai, when did you get here?" Hikaru asked, casually raking a hand through his hair. I rolled my eyes.

"I was already here." I said monotonously, glaring at Hikaru as he shrunk back, shrugging in apology.

"Did my daughter and niece have a sleep over?!" Tamaki shouted, giddy with happiness. "No one told me!"

Again, I rolled my eyes, put out that no one seemed to bother with me. Takashi caught my eyes, though, and just slightly nodded towards me. I shrugged, as Haruhi came back into the room with hot tea cups, passing them around to everyone. Honey allowed Haruhi the first choice of cake, to which she took one covered in strawberries. The twins and Tamaki were going on about "commoner" and "cute", to which I tuned out. They angered me too much already to be worth anything.

My focus came back to see Takashi shoveling off his strawberries to Haruhi's plate. "You like strawberries, you can have mine."

"Hey, thanks, that's really nice of you, Mori-Senpai!" Haruhi replied, smiling brightly. I sighed once again. There's no competition here, is there?

Again, with my lack of concentration on anything but Takashi, we somehow got around to lunch and Haruhi having to go back to the supermarket to get more food. I walked out with Takashi and Honey, who was, as always, very excited about something I found very boring. Takashi must have noticed my droopy attitude, as he grabbed my hand for few moments before dropping it. I looked up at him, and he only smiled back down at me, patting my head.

"Thanks, Takashi." I whispered, just loud enough for him to hear. I guess, though, in the heat of things, Haruhi's father arrived home.

Ranka was a lovely person, very caring and sweet, but hilarious and raunchy at times. We met last night when I came over to Haruhi's, but he had the night shift and was glad she wouldn't be alone at night again. I suppose Ranka had found Tamaki and Haruhi in an odd position, at least, that's what the twins were saying, and I've learned to doubt everything they say. We all sat back down so the club could get acquainted with Ranka. I sulked. Later, Haruhi left to go to the supermarket, and I apologized for my rudeness, but I quickly took the opportunity and went home.

Haruhi called me later to warn me that the guys had been talking about surprising me at home one day. I laughed along with her about how I'd be the next target and all, but it actually relieved me a lot to know that they were thinking about me even after I left. After finishing homework and eating a quiet dinner with dad, I retired to my room, where I quickly fell asleep.

The next day at hosting hours, I decided to try out what Haruhi had devised for me oh so cleverly. I had a million and one questions I wanted to ask Takashi Morinozuka, but I settled for the more trivial things. I understood in life that there were different ways of communicating in relationships.

Some people liked to buy gifts and presents, some people liked written things, while others just liked to talk. I felt strongly that Takashi didn't care much about the material things in life, and he wasn't much of a talker himself so…it only made sense. So, while the guys and Haruhi were hosting, I took out a scrap sheet of lined paper and wrote as clearly as possible:

What is your favorite kind of cake?

I didn't address it, or add anything else to the slip of paper. I folded it, and while he was busy handling Honey; I slipped it into his book he was currently reading, something about Japanese history. For the rest of the club's duration I was anxious with anticipation over his answer. Kyoya called a short meeting to address events coming up as the weather was changing, and in the meantime, Takashi was flipping through his book, entrusting Honey with being the ears of their operation for the moment.

I tried to pull my eyes away and look as though I was focusing deeply on Kyoya, when out of the corner of my eye I saw the piece of paper flutter out of book and into his lap. He stared at it, blinking innocently at it. He gingerly picked it up and inspected it, reading the writing over and over. Finally, I was content for now, and looked away just in time to see Kyoya giving me a hardened look. I blushed easily, embarrassed that he had caught me not paying attention to his spiels. After he dismissed us, we all hung around for a bit, no one necessarily wanting to leave quite yet.

I used one of the tables to spread out my homework and relieve myself of some of that work while I waited for my dad's driver, Miyogi, to come and get me. Honey kept asking me for help on Chemistry problems. Nearly every question he needed "help" on, but would quickly get the hang of it. It felt like he was just using me for homework, either that, or he wanted my attention. I glanced over to see him trying to name a chemical reaction.

"No, no, Honey, that's not combustion. That's decomposition." I corrected, pointing out the problem.

"Why is that, Orie-Chan?" He asked, his eyes glancing behind me, then quickly back to my face.

"Uh, well, it's because Sodium Chloride is an ionic compound, and the product of the compound is Sodium plus Chlorine, so they're just being ripped apart. Combustion always results in water molecules and Carbon Dioxide." I explained as his eyes switched from behind me to my face every few seconds. After I was done, I quickly swiveled around in my seat, seeing no one there, or anything out of the ordinary. When I turned back to Honey, he only smiled at me and thanked me for the help.

When I got home, I threw down my textbooks on the bed and began changing from the horrid school uniform, peeling the yellow off and throwing on comfy sweatpants and a tee-shirt from my mother's dojo. I collected up the books, moving them off the bed and to the floor, when something fell out of my book. Curious, I picked it up. It was a small slip of folded paper.

Truthfully, I'm not the biggest fan of sweets.

What was Italy like?

My heart stopped, because Takashi Morinozuka asked me a question, too.