"Master Tamaki, Kamiko is here as you requested." Tamaki's secretary notified him of the arrival of his girlfriend.
"Thank you Tanaka-San," the blonde thanked him impassively, tapping his pencil agitatedly on his desk.
Kamiko entered the room, a satisfied smirk on her face. "Hello Tamaki." she greeted him haughtily, seating herself in the leather chair across from him, crossing her legs pompously.
"So," she began, her usual sweet voice, now smug and sarcastic. "Why did you call me here?"
"I would like to know," he inquired, reaching into a drawer, "What happened to this."
He opened his hand, revealing the shredded remains of a note, with his hand writing on it. She looked at it, speechless, eyes wide; her smug facade, gone.
"Did you do this?" he asked, cocking an eyebrow.
"Yes." she answered, quietly; hesitantly.
"You did?" Tamaki asked, uncertain. "You really did Kamiko?"
"Yes I-I did Tamaki." She said, still reluctant, looking down at her feet as though she was about to cry.
"Why?" was Tamaki's one, simple question, "Why would you do this?"
"I did it...because I was...jealous." She answered, a quiet sob escaped her lips.
"I guess you had every right to know, and you had to figure it out this way." Tamaki said, avoiding her eyes; he couldn't bear to see the tears.
"You...loved her...didn't you Tamaki?" she asked in between sobs, fear evident in her breaking voice.
"I'm sorry to say Kamiko that I still do, even after seven years." he replied in a bittersweet tone. "My only regret is that I never told her."
Kamiko started to sob even harder, averting her eyes. "Why?" she thought bitterly. "I thought I finally had someone, but from the beginning, I had nobody."
She stood up, and was about to leave the room, when Tamaki came up to her.
"I'm really sorry for leading you on." he apologized. "I thought I was over her, but now I've realized that I still love her." He explained to the crying girl.
"And I've decided to go after her."
"No." she commanded sharply, not looking up.
"What?" he asked, staring questioningly at her.
"I said, no!" she yelled in a sudden burst of anger.
If looks could kill, Tamaki would've certainly been dead.
"Kamiko, you're being unreasonable," he calmly replied, trying to make her understand.
"No Tamaki! You're mine, not hers!" she screamed, desperate.
"Calm down!" he tried to silence her hopeless argument.
"I'll make you mine Tamaki Suoh, I will!" she screamed, storming out of the room.
He watched her leave, letting out an exasperated sigh.
"What am I going to do?"
He slumped down in his large rolling chair, running a hand through his hair, thinking.
"I want to find her..."
Kamiko returned home in a rage. "How could Tamaki make such a stupid decision?!"
She stomped up to his room, bursting through the ornate doors. She went over to the shelf covered with the precious pictures from his years at Ouran.
"This will teach him," she thought coldly, carefully taking every picture with Haruhi in it—except for one—and carefully cut her out of each picture.
When she was done, she wiped all of the pictures off the table she had been working on, letting the ruined pictures fall to the floor. Cautiously, she made her to the other side of the room, putting the cutouts into the fireplace, and started a fire. She watched with satisfaction as the many smiling pictures of Haruhi Fujioka burned in the flames, curling at the edges, blackening the photographs to ashes.
"That's what you get Tamaki; for deceiving me." she said resentfully to herself, waiting for the fire to burn out.
She looked carefully at the one picture she didn't burn, and held it tightly in her hand. She walked out of the room, inhaling the smell of the burnt paper with approval.
Tamaki came home at the usual time, and immediately headed to his room. As soon as he entered, he could tell something was wrong.
The room smelt of smoke.
In a panic, he rushed to the shelf of pictures. There were hardly any of them in their frames. Instead, he found them scattered on the floor near his desk, crumpled, and covered in shoe marks.
He picked them up suspiciously, noticing that a figure was missing form all of them: Haruhi.
"Kamiko did this," he immediately assumed, "Kamiko did,"
There was no trace of Haruhi left in the pictures, for Kamiko had done her work well. He was just wondering… what did she do with the cutouts?
"The smoke!" he remembered rushing over to the hearth. Inside was a pile of ash, still warm. He looked at it, dumbfounded.
All of his memories with...with her—all of the good times…consumed by fire and smoke.
That was when Tamaki decided he couldn't just stay there and let Kamiko think she had won.
He was going to find her.
He picked up the bag he had packed before time, and pulled out his cell phone, dialing a number he hadn't dialed in seven years. The phone rang for several moments, until a familiar male voice answered it.
"Hello? Kyouya Ootori speaking." The voice on the other end answered.
"Hello Kyoua, it's been awhile." Tamaki greeted his long-lost friend.
"Tamaki, is that you?" Kyouya asked, hoping that his ears had not failed him.
"Yes Kyouya, it's me." he answered; glad his best friend had remembered him after so long.
"What do you need Tamaki? I'm sort of busy."
"Okay Kyouya, I just need you to help me with something."
"Sure, anything."
"I need you to help me find someone." Tamaki half asked, half stated.
"Who?" Kyouya asked, amused.
"Haruhi, Haruhi Fujioka."
Haruhi looked out the foggy window, anxiously awaiting Arai's return. Startled by a sudden low rumble in the distance, she instinctively pulled her favorite light, blue blanket closer around her shoulders. She trembled silently, her mind a highway of thoughts, her face blank in fear.
There was a loud clap of thunder, as a strike of lightning lit the sky. She cowered in fear, rocking back and forth, her hands clamped over her ears in a desperate attempt to drown out the loud rumbles. She closed her eyes tightly, trying to calm herself, as heavy raindrops began pelting her window.
"I wish Tamaki was here right now. Maybe then my fear would go away."
She remembered that day at the beach so many years ago, when she had been pushed off that cliff, and nearly drowned. Tamaki had saved her, and for that, she owed her life to him. She thought about how he had stayed with her when she was so deathly afraid of the storm just passed those thin walls, protecting her in his warm embrace.
"What are you thinking?!" she scolded herself, "He did that only as a friend, nothing more." She was mad at herself for even thinking of that selfish, inconsiderate idiot.
As her mind wandered off the subject of Tamaki, she started to worry that maybe something had happened to Arai. He said he would be home at seven that evening—it was already nine, and he was still not home. The storm outside was raging, winds howling fiercely at the windowpanes, as the raindrops pelted the windows even harder.
She was now on the floor in a ball, holding onto her blanket for dear life. Unfortunately the power went out, leaving her in the darkness. Moments later, she heard a loud thud, as if someone was trying to kick the door open.
"Haruhi!" A male voice yelled above the storm. She couldn't distinguish the voice above the raging gale.
Desperately afraid of the storm outside, she thrust open the door, hoping to God that it was Arai…maybe even Tamaki. She was surprised to see a tall figure standing in the doorway…
"That's not Arai…"
"Tamaki?"