"Have I ever told you how much I hate you?" Kyo growled for about the thirtieth time.
"Yes," Yuki responded, "You have. Trust me, the feeling isn't unrequited. I just don't understand why you keep blaming this on me. It was Shigure that insisted on it."
"You were the one that made me come into the damn room, so it's your fault!" Kyo's voice rose to a shout. Yuki kicked him in the leg to quiet him.
They were laying on a twin bed, barely big enough for one person their size, let alone two. They had only been there for an hour at most, but it had seemed like years to both of them.
"Ow! You didn't have to freaking kick me, you-"
"Be quieter, you idiot."
"I do what I freaking want!" Kyo retorted, but his voice dropped a considerable amount nonetheless.
They sat in very uncomfortable silence for a few minutes more, until Kyo let out a string of expletives and tried to get up to go to the bathroom. He fumbled around in the darkness and accidentally paced one hand on Yuki's hip, the other on his cheekbone.
"What are you doing?" Yuki demanded, shoving Kyo off. Kyo tumbled off the bed with a series of grunts and shouts, successfully waking up those in the house that had managed to fall asleep (Honey, Momiji and Tohru).
"I was just going to the bathroom ya damn rat bastard!" Kyo scurried to his feet.
"You could have done that without climbing over me!" Yuki said indignantly.
"Not when you made me sleep on the side of the bed next to the wall!"
Before Yuki could respond, Tamaki and Kyoya burst into the room with their flashlight.
"What happened?" Tamaki cried.
"Kyo fell off the bed," Yuki said simply.
"No, you pushed me off the bed!" Kyo glared at Yuki, whom he could now see clearly enough with the light from the flashlight.
"Well, you two can't do this all night. You're keeping everyone up with your immature bickering," Kyoya stated resentfully.
"He's the immature one!" Yuki and Kyo countered in unison.
"My point exactly," Kyoya sighed. "We're going to have to split you two up so some of us can sleep."
"That's fine with us," Yuki said, rubbing his eyes.
"Wait, Kyoya!" Tamaki suddenly realized what Kyoya was getting at. "Are… Are you saying you're going to leave me and make me share a bed with a stranger?"
"That's exactly what I'm saying. It's the obvious solution. This way, these two won't keep everyone up all night and we'll all get some sleep," Kyoya's gray eye twitched. "One of you come with me to the room next door."
Yuki and Kyo exchanged a cursory glance before Yuki got up and stood by Kyoya's side.
"This isn't fair, Kyoya!" Tamaki stamped his foot on the wood floor. "You know I won't be able to sleep now!"
"Learn to," Kyoya murmured darkly before thrusting the flashlight into Tamaki's hands and walking with Yuki to the room he had once shared with Tamaki.
"Am I right in assuming you aren't a cuddler…?" Tamaki looked hopefully at Kyo.
"Don't freaking count on it." Kyo grumbled, getting into bed beside Tamaki to spend the rest of the night deflecting the other boy's attempts at conversation and/or cuddling.
"Everyone, breakfast is ready!" A painfully chipper voice resounded through the house a bit earlier than necessary. "Come and get it before it gets cold!"
"Tohru…" Shigure groaned from his room at the far end of the hall. "We understand and accept that you're a morning person, but that doesn't mean that we are."
"Tohru and I made breakfast, you guys!" Momiji called from the kitchen, where he and Mori (as the only other people in the house awake) had previously occupied themselves with helping Tohru prepare breakfast. "It's realllllly delicious and you're missing out!"
"We'll eat later. You know, when it's not six in the damn morning!" Kyo - who had been woken up by the commotion- barked.
"Now now, Kyo. We could do without the yelling, thank you," Shigure spoke. "There are some people who are still sleeping, and if we're careful not to wake them up now, we can later by putting leeks up their noses!"
"Well, we're not asleep anymore." Hikaru and Kaoru grumbled from their room beside Shigure's.
"Say, Kaoru, I am sort of hungry. Do you want to just go down for breakfast?" Hikaru asked his brother.
"Why not? We're already awake," Kaoru agreed, and the pair rose from their bed and made their way down to the kitchen, leaving Haruhi (who had not yet risen) Kyo and Shigure with the tedious job of trying to wake Honey, Kyoya and, to a lesser extent, Yuki.
"Good morning!" Tohru greeted them happily when they entered the kitchen. "How did you sleep?"
"Well…" Hikaru exchanged a sly glance with Kaoru. "One could say we didn't do very much sleeping…"
"Hikaru!" Kaoru scolded him. "Stop it! They might get the wrong idea."
"And what idea is that?" Hikaru caressed Kaoru's cheek with one hand and slipped the other around his waist.
"Get a room, you two!" Momiji snickered.
"There's breakfast out on the counter, you two! Make sure you get some before everyone else gets hungry and comes down." Tohru interrupted, gesturing to the kitchen counter where Mori stood piling steaming food onto his plate.
"So Mori stopped trying to fight you, then?" Kaoru asked a few minutes later, drizzling maple syrup over a tall stack of pancakes.
"Oh, yes! We talked about it –well, I talked to him and he listened- and for some reason, he seemed to think Honey stayed because of me… But now that misunderstanding is all cleared up!" Tohru beamed.
"Yeah," Mori muttered.
"Aw," the twins shared a disappointed glance. "We were looking forward to the fight."
"We were gonna sell tickets and everything!" Kaoru added.
"Of course, it wouldn't have been much of a fight," Hikaru snorted.
"You guys!" Momiji stamped his foot. "Don't make fun of Tohru! Just because she's pretty weak and would get destroyed in a fight against Mori doesn't mean she doesn't have feelings!"
"Can you all shut the hell up?!" Kyo thundered from the upper floor. "We're tryin' to get some sleep up here!"
"If you don't like it, come up here and do something about it!" Momiji taunted.
"Maybe I will!" A succession of angry footsteps running down the stairs followed Kyo's threat. He jumped into the kitchen and grabbed Momiji by the hair.
"Owww! Kyo!" Momiji cried, thrashing about beneath Kyo's grasp.
"Stop it," Mori separated them effortlessly, swiping Kyo to one side and Momiji to the other.
"Could you stop freaking butting into my fights?!" Kyo turned venomously on Mori. "I'm gonna have to do something about it, aren't I?"
"If you think you can," Mori replied simply, a small smile playing on his lips.
"That's it; I'm sending you to hell!" Kyo flung himself at Mori, fists flying. He didn't even manage to get one solid hit in before Mori batted him into the chairs beside Hikaru and Kaoru.
"This is the fight we were looking for!" They approved excitedly.
Kyo rose to his feet with a growl and again attempted to charge Mori, who swiftly sent him barreling into the wall. It went on this way for a few more minutes until Kyo finally had enough; he slammed his fist into the wall in frustration and humiliation and stormed away, out of the door and into the woods.
"Good show!" Hikaru approved, clapping his hands together.
"Yeah, it was much better than any fight between Mori and a girl," Kaoru agreed.
"Kyo, wait!" Tohru called, running after him.
"I see it hasn't taken Kyo very long to pick a fight and destroy the house," Shigure noted, coming down the stairs. "Of course, it's not my house, so I don't mind."
"That big grumpy pants ran away and made Tohru go after him!" Momiji blubbered. "What if she gets lost?"
"Tohru went after him…?" Shigure raised his eyebrows. "Oh my, this may not end very well."
"Yeah, it looks like the rain is going to start up again any minute," Hikaru looked out the window, his lips beginning to form a firm line.
"Well, I suppose I'll go wake Yuki," Shigure sighed. "He can track Kyo down and beat some sense into him. As for the rest of you, we can fat out and find Tohru. We can't let her get caught up in another thunderstorm, alone in those big woods. I'll stay here at the house; when everyone is safe and sound, just head back."
"We'll go wake everyone else up!" Hikaru and Kaoru volunteered, hopping from their chairs and dashing up the stairs.
Just then, the first roll of thunder sounded and rain began to fall…
Chapter Nine
