My apologies for the delay for this post. The good news is that the next one will be up pretty soon - as most of the material is already written, and just needs more editing.
Many thanks to the wonderful reddit thread "roses are red / violets are blue" - I stole shamelessly from them to write the final part of this chapter. Couldn't have done it without 'em.
Chapter 5
"You did what to my eyes?!" asked Haruhi as soon as the kerfuffle died down.
To his credit, Kyouya did not even flinch, and even pushed a suddenly very protective Tamaki aside to face her directly.
"I anticipated your need for wider range of movement while you were in Tokyo," he said.
To celebrate their incredible chance - never mind Haruhi's distress - Mori had produced a box filled with hand-rolled onigiri, and the ever-present flasks of water and moonshine. Kyouya sipped the last one, coolly detached from the gross violation that he had just admitted.
"You gave me a new iris print!"
Iris prints were scanned for everything -from handcells to state examinations to greeting buyers in shopping malls. It was the most reliable way to confirm a person's identity quickly. It was unique. Tampering with it was extremely punishable.
"Yes,"
"That's - wildly illegal!" by which she meant, I'm a walking crime.
Kyouya shrugged. "So is cot, unregulated whoring, satellite links with hostile nations, stealing industrial secrets, breaking into private clinics with murderous intent and conspiring to overthrow the government,"
"And breaking curfew," added Hani, passing around the onigiri plastic container.
"Hunting and gathering," offered Mori, gobbing his onigiri in one munch.
"Taking apart devices to repurpose their components," said Kaoru, pointing at the servers.
"That is true, Haruhi," said Tamaki, conciliatory and passing her the moonshine bottle. "Almost everything that we do is against the law. And what little is not today might be tomorrow, for the express purpose of putting innocents in jail and maintaining the machina quo,"
Haruhi had spent a lifetime watching politicians on the holo and learning their tricks by heart. Tamaki was trying to divert her attention by pushing his agenda. She frowned at him and pushed back the hand that held the moonshine.
"Yes, but at least you are jumping into all those things with our eyes wide open!"
"And now you have a brand new identity to go with those eyes," replied Kyouya, breaking his onigiri in two and offering half of it to her.
Haruhi eyed the rice suspiciously, but she was really hungry. Rations were not cutting it - probably because she kept leaving half to Kasanoda. She smelled the rice it before biting into it, just in case it had been spiked. It just smelled like rice and something sweet. Kyouya smirked.
"So what you injected that night was not a serum to accelerate the healing process," she said, chewing. The onigiri was filled with sweet potato mash.
He looked slightly insulted. "Of course I did. Sliding the mask behind the cornea is a very risky operation - without proper healing, it would have flapped," he illustrated his words using the onigiri as the eyeball and his hand as the flapping cornea. Haruhi swallowed hard. The rice caught in her throat and she coughed. Tamaki passed her the water flask.
"And that's a problem because it would have hurt a lot," said Haruhi, after drinking, "And now I could be medically blind,"
"I wouldn't have had the opportunity to apply a second one," said Kyouya. "No good excuse for it. Your eyes were messed up enough to operate on them when you came in. And after I saw the… potential with Kasanoda, and officer Kosaka's insistence -"
"Couldn't you have asked?!"
"Would you have said yes?" asked Hani. He was sucking the sweet potato and passing the rice to Mori. The taller boy did not seem to mind.
"…no," said Haruhi, finishing her half onigiri and licking her fingers. "Of course not. That's the whole point!"
"I don't get why you're angry," said Hikaru. "It's not like you had a big future waiting outside with your name attached to it,"
"Not as this country is right now," said Tamaki, pressing his point.
"Besides, as long as you are wearing the wristcell - and you have to, even when you are outside- you're not going to be scanned. Commercial scanners do not care if they sense that you have no money to spend, and you will be in officer Kosaka's custody all the time. She will be the one getting checked, which is perfect,"
Haruhi took Kyouya's antiseptic bottle and washed her hands. "Why?"
Hani laughed, and the twins smiled like they had eaten a canary. Tamaki grit his teeth and took a deep breath, bracing for impact. Kyouya retrieved his antiseptic bottle, and methodically washed his hands.
"And if you do, she will think that the scanner's malfunctioning," said Kyouya.
"Why?" repeated Haruhi, horrified suspicion sprouting in her mind.
I know exactly where they are sending you
"Did Matsuyama share any more fruit with you?" asked Kyouya instead, and the insinuation in his voice was subtle enough to go over Tamaki's head but to call -distract - the twins' attention. "I could have an orange,"
and it's where I come from
"No. Why will officer Kosaka think that the scanner is broken?"
"I just don't know how she manages to get citrus all year round - she really has a green thumb,"
"Stop talking about Kanan. Answer my question,"
so I'm going to be able to give you some pointers
"For heaven's sake," said Haruhi, "You bastard,"
"I have access to a limited iris database," said Kyouya, shrugging, "I had to chose the iris print of someone who'd been in Ouran,"
"It's delightfully ironic, if you really think about it," said Tamaki, standing up next to Haruhi and striking a tragic pose, "If she had not blinded you, you would not be wearing her eyes,"
"They are still my own!"
"And lovely as ever, princess," said Tamaki, almost serenading her.
How would you know
"I swear that if any of you call me princess one more time I will tear your eyes out."
"We have a cunning plan!" said Tamaki the next night, using his index to punctuate his words.
Haruhi did not bother pretending to believe him. It was his third cunning plan in less than twenty four hours. The first had involved Haruhi distracting the guards at the clinic with her womanly wiles (this had made the twins howl with laughter) while Hani and Mori kicked the scrap out of the inlaws. The second plan consisted in kidnapping the incoming prime minister, and using that leverage to demand the liberation of Haruhi's dad and the KRM chip. Haruhi had pointed out that they had no definitive proof that any politician had anything to do with both missing chip and father. Tamaki had crumbled in a corner of woe, but not for long.
"This plan is perfect! We were going to start it when Hani and Mori got out, but drastic circumstances call for rushed development!"
"What plan?" she said, capitulating. She had been trying to dust her Law Coding skills with a 10 year old Codex Computatralia, which she'd found curling in one forgotten hard disc. It was an old download, and it did not contain the most recent decrees and amendments, but it calmed her nerves to go through the logarithms and iterations of the law.
"We are going to ask the Zuka to join us in our fight," he said, with the same reverence that her dad used to admire celebrity weddings.
Haruhi could not believe her ears. She put down the grey-scale tablet. Her voice came out weirdly deadpan.
"That's a terrorist organization,"
"They are freedom of expression fighters!" exclaimed Tamaki. "Born after the great censorship decree three years ago!"
"They blow things up to express their freedom,"
"They are la Résistance!"
"I don't know what that is and I don't care. Do you know how many times they've put the whole city on lockdown?" twelve times in three years that Haruhi could remember. The last one had been during New Years Eve three months ago.
"But they've never killed anyone, have they?" pointed out Kaoru.
"And they've never been caught," smirked Hikaru.
Eyes on the prize, sweetheart.
Haruhi rubbed her brow and aimed for practicality, as ethics were clearly not getting to them.
"Regardless of my opinion, what makes you think that they will want to join you? They are -good grief - professionals," and you are not.
"Us. Join us," corrected Hikaru.
Kyouya passed her the tablet. "They made us think that. A month ago we managed to send out encrypted messages, left in layered onion forums - they answered that we should meet in person first,"
Haruhi read through the crypto. He was telling the truth. The Zuka (who were communicating through the photo forum of the very innocent and prestigious Lobelia academy, a bastion of the sanctioned arts) seemed pleasant enough for people who liked to play with plastic explosives. They were using the Astronomy forum to leave messages embedded in night-sky pictures. They would be happy to accept them in their group, but not without meeting them first, she read in a detailed photograph of Orion.
"Hm," said Haruhi, "I still don't get why we need them. Can't we work with whatever Nekozawa drops?"
"The problem is retrieving the drop - it can't fall within Ouran's grounds, because somebody could notice. The closest and safest point is here," Mori brought up a map and signaled a spot on the coast, which was ten kilometers away, while Kyouya droned on,
"And to get that we will have to leave the school and move there, undercover. If we succeed we will have to learn to use the weapons and camouflage material, and then prepare a plan to storm the clinic. We could theoretically do all of that on our own, if we had more time," he cocked his head, "Do you want to take things slowly?"
Haruhi thought about her father's mysterious convulsions. She could not afford to take her time. She suspected that the plan was already being delayed by Kyouya, who did not want to rush into an ambush without being 100% that he was going to be the one doing the ambushing.
"No. Of course not,"
"So your job in Tokyo will be to get in contact with the Zuka, and to convince them that it's in their best interest - our common ideals - to lend us a hand," said Tamaki. "They know that you are coming. We left a message," he tapped on a picture of Andromeda and it dissolved in code, "They will get in touch with you,"
"How? I'm going to be in Kosaka's custody the whole time,"
"Do not worry, prince-" Tamaki caught her death stare and stammered, "- comrade, we have a fool-proof plan,"
"You just have to get into Kyouya's mad surgeon hands one more time," said Kaoru, pulling his hand out of his pocket and showing her a tiny metallic device.
"What's that?"
"A very ingenious invention from the era before the internet - it's called a short wave radio, and this one has been adapted to fit into a tooth," said Tamaki, beaming, "Isn't science marvelous? A machine straight out of an old-fashioned spy movie!"
Somehow, Hikaru and Kaoru had brought down a moth-eaten velvet recliner, and they were covering it with relatively clean plastic sheets. Kyouya and Mori had moved, and were straining a pot of boiling water. There were pliers and pincers and other inauspicious instruments floating inside. Haruhi gulped, and took a step back.
Hani reached out with a heart-shaped lollipop. "For the pain. Lick it slowly, and it'll make your mouth all tingly and then numb,"
"I don't think that this is the best solution," she said, very slowly, eyeing the lollipop like a sword.
"Au contraire - it's perfect," Tamaki took out a tin box, filled to the brim with rough cottonballs. He selected a medium-sized one, and grinded it on his palm using the lid.
Anesthesia, Haruhi realized, walking back. Well, at least they've thought of that.
"Nobody transmits in short-wave because it's so incredibly low-tech. On the plus side, the transmission will be completely unmonitored by the Authorities. You will be able to hear the Zuka, and hear us. We'll be literally inside your head the whole way AND you will not be compromised, because you will not be able to transmit back! You don't have to worry about anything," he seemed too enthusiastic for someone who had just uttered three completely contradictory statements.
If Tamaki was a program, he would have crashed ten minutes ago.
Haruhi backpedalled again, feeling for the handrails. Her foot connected with a dented wheel, and the two dark-haired boys looked up at her - Mori solemn and firm, with his stern "ten more push-ups" expression. Kyouya's eyes were more distant. His mind was clearly pacing through checklists. Haruhi could only hope that they were medical.
"I don't wanna," said Haruhi, whose teeth were pristine and had never suffered as much as one cavity. She had never been afraid of going to the dentist, though - she was terrified of these dentists. "There has to be some other way,"
"Resistance is futile," noted Tamaki with infinite kindness, striding forward and holding her chin. Kaoru was dabbing antiseptic on the receptor and Hikaru was adjusting a repeater with a foldable screwdriver. He smiled mischievously at her and winked an eye.
"And I promise you, this will not hurt," added the blond, puffing air into his palm and dusting cot all over Haruhi's face.
Two hours later, Haruhi touched her new radio-filled molar with the tip of her tongue, probing for pain, but Tamaki's promise had become real once more - it did not hurt, although the gums around the implant were swollen and tender. It felt very strange to know that she had a tiny machine lodged in her jaw, and even stranger to anticipate the moment where sound would start to run from her tooth to her eardrum.
They had run a couple of tests in the server room after the procedure, with Haruhi standing alone on one wall and the boys talking through their headsets from the other. She had no way of talking back to them, or of tuning them off once they started babbling, and that was the part that she liked the least.
"It's a design fault," admitted Kyouya, "Plus, once you are outside Ouran's broadcast area, the radio will be silent until you enter Zuka's,"
"How can I tell you if something is not going according to plan?" asked Haruhi. "Or if I need to improvise,"
"You can't," said Mori. Haruhi's eyebrow twitched involuntarily.
"How am I supposed to get out of Kosaka's sight?"
"Use your natural ingenuity?" suggested Tamaki.
"My guess," said Kyouya, fiddling with his glasses, "Is that she will want to put you at ease to advance her investigation. Use her eagerness to make nice to get her guard down."
"She wasn't very nice before," said Haruhi, remembering officer Kosaka's cynical comments and how rough her last night in her old life had been.
"I think there's more to her than meets the eye. She seems awfully involved in this investigation. Fifteen requests to get you out means that fourteen of them were denied before this one was green-lighted,"
"Well, it's her job to find people,"
"No, it's her job to follow the Authorities' directives. She couldn't find the security footage of your father in her system - while a Russian hacker could. What does that tell you?"
That the videos were blocked from within the system.
"Not to mention that it's election time. The whole police force should be focused on keeping the peace during the rallies, not in pursuing red district runaway fathers,"
"Here," said Hikaru, dangling a pinky-sized plastic bag in front of her nose, like he was playing with a cat. "If everything else fails, use this,"
Haruhi snatched it off the air. It was filled with red dust. She remembered the lollipop. Well, she was already impersonating an officer - her sentence couldn't get much harsher if she drugged said officer. But…
"How do you suggest I get this out of the school?"
"Do you want me to draw you a picture?" asked Kaoru, walking two fingers down her spine.
"Or we could help you with the hiding," said Hikaru, smiling with too many teeth, "After we look at all the possibilities," he slung an arm around her shoulders, getting hold of the front zipper and sliding it down just a little.
Haruhi pushed their hands away. Hani giggled. Kyouya rolled his eyes and turned his back on them. Mori, who was fixing a lose panel, hit the metal with his hammer menacingly. Tamaki looked outraged.
"Perverts! Leave your sister-in-arms alone! You will not put your filthy hands anywhere near her -"
"Her what, oh, Leader?" asked Kaoru, turning with a twinkle in his eyes.
"Yes - tell us, which nook were you specifically thinking about?"
Tamaki looked so furious and uncomfortable that his cheeks got goosebumps. "I… None! I order you to shut up and -"
"No cavity searches when going out," said Mori.
Tamaki calmed down immediately. He shot a triumphant look at the twins.
"Killjoy," mumbled Hikaru.
It made sense. There was technically nothing worth stealing in Ouran - at least nothing that could be carried within one's body. Haruhi felt some relief at not having to tinker with herself anymore for the mission, and then a deep annoyance that they were in the mood to tease her when they should be going over the details of the plan.
"I think that's all for today," said Kyouya. "It's not as if we have a very detailed plan to go through. We will have to trust Haruhi to use her brains to win this one,"
The next morning, Haruhi's pod opened on its own as a quiet synthetic voice commanded her to go to the nurse station for a checkout examination.
Officer Kosaka's frown was carved deeper than Haruhi remembered. This time she wasn't accompanied by an Inlaw - small relief - but by a trembling trainee.
"This is Arai Shindou," said Kosaka. "He's - new," she said, clearly meaning useless.
Shindou was drowning inside his oversized police coat. He timidly nodded at Haruhi, who was standing in the scale in her camisole and underpants, receiving the medical check (only weight and general state of health, because she'd been such a good girl) before entering Kosaka's custody for the weekend. Shindou's cheeks reddened and he turned his face away. From the corner of her eye, Haruhi noticed Kyouya's mouth twitch in amusement.
"We are going out," said Kosaka, arms crossed, throwing a disdainful look at the back of nurse Okai's head. Haruhi was starting to suspect that the unsupervised power that Kyouya held over the medical tasks was more due to the sheer laziness of nurse Okai than his own sneakiness. Nurse Okai was confirming that impression - she looked like she could barely contain herself from snapping at officer Kosaka for waking her up so early, and she looked even more disheveled than poor Arai Shindou.
Haruhi forced herself to seem hopeful. "Have you found my dad?"
Kosaka shook her head. "I was hoping that we could go over his last movements again - maybe you will see something that we missed. Ouran has not transmitted any reports about you, which usually means that you have been a stellar kid,"
Haruhi had to work less hard to look disappointed.
"All normal," reported Kyouya to nurse Okai.
"And these," said Kosaka, easing her frown a little and passing her a bundle, "Are for you,"
Haruhi's fingers recognized the texture before her eyes did. She couldn't help but smile warmly at the older woman.
"My old clothes!" she said, delighted, burying her face in cotton, linen, denim. They still smelled like home. "I thought they were gone,"
"I pulled some strings - though that you might want to wear something softer for the weekend. I would have killed for anything other than those potato sacks when I was in here,"
Officer Kosaka turned to nurse Okai. "Do you mind if she changes here before we go out?"
Nurse Okai waved her agreement and went back to laying her head on her hand and staring at her console. Haruhi stepped behind a folding screen that had been put up exclusively for officer Kosaka's benefit, although poor Shindou looked like he needed it the most.
"Fujioka had a cavity last week in her upper right second molar," reported nurse Okai to Kosaka. "She's taking antibiotics, and she shouldn't eat sweets."
The antibiotics (and the anti-inflammatories) had been dealt much more liberally than nurse Okai suspected to prevent any infections that could attract even the slightest attention to Haruhi's mouth.
She saw that someone had already brought her work boots and a pair of thick socks to wear outside. She started to get ready by folding her Ouran uniform and pressing her palm to the soft-as-home clothes - and because she had already been desensitized in the Dormitories, she didn't really register when Kyouya stepped behind the screen with and made a brusque "o" gesture with his mouth. Haruhi sighed, complying for a last dental check, and opened her mouth like an alligator.
"Perfect," he whispered, looking inside to assess his own work one last time. He looked into her eyes, re-checking the iris mask, turning her face under the sunlight to make sure that it did not produce strange reflections that might give it out. There was that smugness again.
Haruhi shook her face from his hands. "I have to get dressed," she whispered, pushing him back.
"I have to stay and make sure that you are only putting on clothes, as per procedure," he said a little louder, for the sake of officer Kosaka and nurse Okai.
"Thank you, Ootori," said nurse Okai's weary voice. "And hurry up. You have lab shift in fifteen minutes."
Kyouya ran his hands through her garments - well worn blue-jeans, a light pink tunic cut like a tulip and an oversized white sweater.
"Very -" he said, turning the cuffs of the jeans, throwing them back to her and running his index on the inseams of the tunic, "- feminine. I didn't know you had it in you,"
"Are they clear?" asked Haruhi, putting on the clothes as he finished checking them for trackers. He paused at the sweater and frowned. He'd found something.
Haruhi loved that sweater. It was softer than a cloud, and warmer than duvet. She had practically lived in it every winter since her dad found at the bottom of a sales pile. It'd had a hole in an elbow that Haruhi had patched from the inside with a small iron-on poppy.
"It's a home repair," said Haruhi, tugging at the fleece lining, trying to save it from closer inspection. "I sewed it myself three years ago,"
Kyouya ripped the poppy nonetheless, and inspected it, just to make sure it was not laced with a bug. Bastard.
"Crystal," he said, dropping the poppy patch in his chest pocket, where it disappeared like a drop of blood.
Well, at least if he kept it she might be able to get it back once she was back at the school.
Then he set his hand along her profile, thumb on her chin and index over the juncture of jaw and ear.
"The group has taken a liking to you," he said, feeling for the small swelling under her earlobe, "They think that you bring luck,"
"And you?" asked Haruhi, narrowing her eyes ever so slightly.
"I hope that you prove them right," Kyouya slipped his hand under her gloriously fluffy sleeve and brought her closer. For a very confusing second Haruhi thought that he was going to kiss her, or hug her, or sniff her, or do something equally ridiculous, but he merely slid a thin supple package under her wristcell, sticking it between her skin and the plastic band. The closeness, she realized, was also for the sake of the adults - if they were watching, their silhouettes would suggest young lovers saying goodbye instead of illegal subterfuge.
"In case you need to knock out Kosaka," he said, whispering in her hair and using two fingers to smooth and flatten the package against the skin. "Better here than where the twins suggested,"
Then he applied pressure to her jaw juncture, activating the radio. She heard the crackling of empty air, and then the sudden distance between their bodies and the bittersweet rush of relative, temporary freedom.
"Sit on the back," said officer Kosaka, taking the wheel. Arai Shindou sat shotgun. He still looked impossibly shy and way too young to be a real policeman. His hair was light brown and he even had a couple of pimples.
"How old are you, exactly?" asked Haruhi, unable to resist.
"I'm 16," he mumbled, neon-red. He looked 14, at most. "It's job week at school - short internship. Do you - eh...- have that here?" he stammered.
Kosaka looked at Haruhi through the mirror with incredulity, almost excusing herself. "Shindou, in Ouran every day is work day. Be more considerate!" she barked.
"Sorry," he said in a very small voice, staring at his knees. Haruhi tried to smile at him to put him at ease, but he did not lift his eyes from that spot for the rest of the ride.
"So we are going to drop by headquarters first, and I'm going to go with you over your father's last movements before his disappearance,"
His last movements - convulsions. Shaking. Spasmodic breathing. Electrocution, probably.
Haruhi nodded. "Of course - I will help you in any way I can,"
Kosaka looked at her again, frown deepening. "Good. Tomorrow, if we are done, I will help you set up a savings account to automatically transfer your Ouran wages. I wish somebody'd done it for me. Is there something that you would like to eat today? I'm partial to fish - but I can let you pick, this one time,"
Haruhi nodded again, absent-mindedly. She really didn't care. The sun was rising behind slate clouds. It looked like it was going to rain a lot, and other than the work boots, she had not prepared for rain at all. Not very practical, if she had to roam the city looking for the Zuka.
The police car was a newer solar model and it rolled soundlessly -but relatively slowly- through the fields. Haruhi was starting to doze off, thinking about the best way to get an umbrella or a raincoat, when the buzzing that she carried in her temples like a low-intensity headache tuned into a hysterical screeching.
"Haruhi!" screamed Tamaki, "I just learned that you almost kissed Kanan Matsuyama! Your pure lips were almost soiled!"
Haruhi frowned. Kyouya was such a gossip. "And I had to learn it from her lips! What other secrets have you been keeping from your daddy?"
I can't believe that I'm stuck with this idiot until we get to the clinic.
Tamaki coughed. "In any case - I pardon both of you. I understand how terrible it is for young virginal women to avoid giving into the forbidden temptation of handsome men like me - I can see why you had to almost release your tension,"
Haruhi heard wrestling sounds. Hikaru and Kaoru, taking over the mic.
"What he means is that next time he wants to watch," said Hikaru.
"We will be there too - I'm sure Kanan won't mind,"
"See, our poor deprived Leader has never been with two girls at the same time - he's practically a virgin,"
Tamaki insulted them, colorfully, in two languages.
Haruhi smirked at the pale golden sun.
"What's so funny?" asked Kosaka, watching her on the mirror.
"I'm just happy to be out - even for a little while," said Haruhi.
More punching and smacking sounds. Tamaki's voice came back clear and dignified.
"I do not want you to get distracted with matters of the heart - there will be more than enough time for that after we accomplish our goal! You have to control your base impulses and sublimate your desires into the fight!"
Right.
"Furthermore, Kanan told me to pass you this message if I spoke with you before you left - something about a holocard to a friend - I pretended that you were still around,"
He cleared his throat.
"Roses are red,
violets are blue,
oranges are sweet
and so are you.
But the roses are wilting,
the violets are dead,
the Ouran school's empty
and so is your head."
Haruhi blinked. What?
"Personally, I think that this rhyme is the END of poetry as we know it - do not inflict that in any of her friends. I suggest Rimbaud. Or Baudelaire, if you ladies want to talk about flowers and fruits -" started Tamaki, and he cleared his throat again, and started to perform, incomprehensibly, in French:
« Mère des jeux latins et des voluptés grecques,
Lesbos, où les baisers, languissants ou joyeux,
Chauds comme les soleils, frais comme les pastèques - »
A loud crash and whistle that almost made Haruhi wince in pain. Tamaki had lost the mic again.
"He means that you should have French kissed her!" howled Hikaru, while Kaoru made kissing noises in her ear. "We can teach you how to use your tongue when you come back!"
"Hey, Haruhi, listen to this one - I just made it up!" said Kaoru. "Roses are red, violets are blue, who is your daddy? And what does he do?"
Very sensitive, guys.
"I have one, I have one!" said Hikaru, his voice excited like a child's, "Roses are red, violets are blue - I'm using my hand but thinking of you,"
"Get off the mic!" clamored Tamaki's in the background. "It is my duty to calm down your sister-in-arms in her way to her first mission in the real world! Stop perverting her innocent ears! This broadcast could be being recorded, like the ones Géneral de Gaulle made from London! Do you want to go down in History Books as perverts?!"
But it was too late. The twins had discovered a new game. Haruhi could picture them perfectly, taking turns to keep Tamaki at bay while they made up their silly poems.
"Radio Hitachiin dedicates this one to their Leader," said Kaoru, and drumming on the mic, "Roses are red, my soul's pure and white - and I have two lovers - the left and the right,"
Haruhi looked through the back window. She could still see Ouran's buildings, waiting for her return and barely touched by the light.
"Officer Kosaka," she asked, "How long until we get to Tokyo, more or less?"
"Two hours," answered the older woman, checking the GPS. "If the traffic is good,"
"Oh."
"Roses are red," teased Kaoru, and his voice was still broadcasting crystal clear, "Violets are blue,"
"And you have a face that belongs in a zoo," said Hikaru, and to the twin's joy, Tamaki actually roared.
"Don't be sad, I'll be there too," added Kaoru, barely keeping his voice stable with the giggles.
"Not in the cage but laughing at you," completed Hikaru.
"You just wait until Kyouya gets here!" shouted Tamaki.
It was going to be a long ride.