So you dare tell me who to be? Who died and made you king of anything?
The next day, at lunch, Haruhi found herself in desperate need of Hikaru's help on the physics assignment. He had promised to help her on it the day before, but he hadn't been there.
Where was he, again? The doctor's office? I'm still not sure I believe that… Oh, maybe he's in the library catching up from yesterday!
Sure enough, she found him, head down on a desk in the back of the fourth library room.
"Hikaru? Are you sleeping?" Haruhi put her hand on his shoulder and he bolted up. Hikaru turned a bespectacled eye to look at her. "Hikaru! You got… glasses?"
"Yeah, I did…" He blushed. "Do you like them?"
"I didn't know that you had troubles with your eyesight." She studied his new frames, which were made of very thin silver wire. They had an oval shape, that didn't compliment his long face very well. In other words, they looked very familiar. "They almost look like Kyoya-sempai's…"
"Ah, you do like them! I'm so happy!" He smiled devilishly as he adjusted his specs.
"I didn't actually say that," she tried to explain.
"But you said they look like Kyoya-sempai's!"
"What looks like Kyoya-sempai's?" A voice from behind Hikaru caused him to all but jump out of his skin. He slowly looked over his shoulder to see Kyoya, not looking very happy, at that. "Oh, Hikaru, you got glasses."
"Y-yeah. I did." Hikaru stammered.
"And they look just like mine." Kyoya menaced.
"D-do they?"
"So, do you think that they make you more like me? For some reason I get the feeling that's why you bought them, isn't it?" It wasn't really a question.
"Well, I—"
"Excuse me, Kyoya-sempai. Did you need something?" Haruhi tried to politely interject.
"As a matter of fact," He grabbed her thin wrist. "Hikaru, I'll be borrowing Haruhi for a while. I'm sure you won't mind." He proceeded to drag a protesting Haruhi out of the library room behind him. "We may or may not return, don't waste time worrying."
"A kidnapping?" Hikaru mused aloud. "Or just more alone time?"
XXX
"What are we doing here?" She asked realizing that they were in front of the third music room. She read the tape across the door:
"The Host Club is closed to business: Indefinitely."
Seeing it written like that makes me feel slightly empty inside.
Kyoya pulled back the tape and turned the lock with the key he always kept in his jacket pocket.
"Are we going in?" She asked, feeling a little bit lame.
"Haruhi. Just be quiet for a minute." He didn't look at her as he said it, focusing his attentions on the lock, which was being particularly stubborn. She noticed the way the muscles on his back moved as he tried rotating the key this way, then that. For no particular reason, she remembered how his arms had felt around her in the pool: stable. She blushed and Kyoya pushed open the door.
"Please, sit," he said, motioning towards the couch. The lights were all off, but beams of sunlight funneled into the room anyway. Seeing the room like that almost made her nostalgic.
"What's this about, Kyoya-sempai? Lunch will be over relatively soon…"
"This is more important than that, Haruhi." He paced in front of the couch where she sat uncomfortably. "Let me ask you something."
"Sure, Sempai, what is it?" She permitted him tentatively.
"You don't ever lie, do you?" He stopped pacing to listen for her answer.
"You mean besides about my gender? No. I don't have any reason to. Why do you ask so suddenly?"
"Then in that case," He sat down on the couch beside her and sighed. "I've thought about what you said. I decided you were right."
"About what, sempai?" He took her small hand in his and studied it for a moment, turning it over to look at the palm. He placed it back on her lap and removed his glasses.
"You said that I couldn't keep hiding behind the debt, that it's okay to care about people. So, that's why… I've decided. Haruhi Fujioka, you are no longer in debt to the host club."
"What are you talking about Kyoya-sempai?" she asked, offended.
"I'll cover your expenses. You don't have to worry about it anymore, consider it taken care of."
"No." She interrupted, defiantly. "There is no way that I will allow it. No matter how long or how much it takes, I can settle my own debt. I won't let all of this time I've spent go to waste! I still owe you around four million yen and I'm not going to stop until I've paid it all!"
"Haruhi?" He sounded genuinely surprised that she hadn't jumped at his offer.
"That wasn't the point, Sempai!" The clock tower chimed once. "Look, I'd love to stay and have you take pity on me, but I have to go to class." She stood up and left him to sit alone in the darkened clubroom.
"That wasn't the point, Haruhi."
A.N.: I'm glad this turned out like it did! This was definitely worth a second editing... The Hikaru parts are just getting started (I know, your reading it for Kyoya, anyway!) and the part from the last chapter hasn't been explained yet, so don't freak out if you don't know exactly what's going on!