Haruhi saw Kyouya down the hallway and ran up to meet him. She was walking towards her first Arabic class.

"Kyouya-Sempai, you're also were taking Arabic this term?"

"You're correct," He smiled at her "I'm looking forward to being classmates."

"Me too, actually, but…why are you taking Arabic?"

"Do you really have to ask? The Middle East is a booming center of business, schools in Jordan and the Emirates produce some of the best doctors in the world. It would simply be practical to speak a few words. Not to mention I'm interested linguistically. The real question is why are you pursuing the language Haruhi?"

"Well, you know I want to be a lawyer, right? Well, I'm not quite sure what sort of practice I want to pursue, but I really think asylum law would be interesting. I've been reading about Palestine lately and…" she paused for a second "I've always been interested in ancient Egypt. I don't know, I guess I just can't think of any reasons not to give it a try." She smiled back, reminiscent and happy.

They sat down in the classroom. The room had been prepared for the class, six student desks facing a teacher's and a chalk board. The other four students were already there. Haruhi smiled warmly at the sight of Kasanoda "Hello!" she exclaimed "You're taking Arabic as well?"

"Yeah." He grunted, not looking happy. "The administration thought it would give me leg up in dealing with terrorists – you know, cause I'm a thug and all and that's what I am supposed to do, unfortunately my father agreed."

Haruhi didn't miss a beat. "Well, think of it as a way to prove you can learn Arabic and not have to associate with terrorists at all."

Kasanoda didn't look excited, but still retained a major crush on Haruhi, so he smiled and thanked her, and then cursed the fates.

Kyouya engaged himself in chat with the girl from his class. She was a shy girl, but no one was surprised by her being in the class; both of her parents were diplomats, both to completely different regions of the world. Thus, she had accumulated an impressive mastery of numerous tongues and Arabic would soon be amongst them.

The two first years sat together. They were dating. The girl was in the class because her father did business in Saudi Arabia and she already spoke a little Arabic, but couldn't read or write; the boy was in the class because he was dating her.

They all just sat and chatted for a while, waiting for their teacher to arrive.

Inez was frazzled. This school was giant; she was lost, and completely unnerved about how awkward her arrival to Japan was yesterday.

She had gotten off the plane, made her way to luggage area safely and without harm, only to be bombarded by a family of ninjas.

They weren't literally ninja's, but most of the clan had come to meet her and pretty much you could tell they were all exceptionally trained in the art of fighting. Except for the blonde cuddly one, but something about him made her uneasy, so she noted to never underestimate him.

He was the one who broke the ice. "HI HI HI HI HI HI!" He exclaimed, in odd English. "I hope that you think my English is good! I practiced it just for you!"

"Hi, um, it's very good. What's your name?"

"Hani!"

"Hunny?"

"Yeah!"

He had Inez in a bear hug that whole time, until a tall, silent figure bent down and, with some effort, peeled Hani off. She looked up at him, and before she could extend a hand in greeting- her body was pushed into his.

"This is Takashi! Everyone wants you two to get married!" Hani exclaimed, without pausing he added, "Well, do you? Do you want to marry Takashi? I want you to!"

Inez removed her face from Mori's chest and laughed awkwardly to buy herself a second. Mori was looking down at her with the same expression she was looking up at him with – the 'why I am in this situation?' look. At least they had the same thoughts on the matter.

"Well, we'll have to see what happens, Hani."

"Yay! Now meet everyone else!"

She met everyone else. Half of them were like Hani, who embraced her shamelessly with strong, ninja fighter reflexes that at least made her feel safe- kind of. The other half were like Mori, silent, a small hello and that was all.

On the limo ride home she had to sit next to Mori. At dinner, she had to sit next to Mori. Mori had to give her the house tour. The only thing that really bothered her about the situation was that now it was going to be ten times harder to get to be friends with Mori, simply because every time the two of them were together someone gave an excited glance and whispered the fact to someone else.

Even once, Mori's grandfather popped out of dark shadow and pushed the two of them into a closet, locked it, and yelled "Get to know each other!"

She shouldn't have been surprised that Professor Assad's best friend was eccentric, but this was ridiculous.

At least in the closet, in complete darkness, she got to know a little bit more about Mori.

"They're really pushing this, aren't they?" She muttered, jokingly. He was quite, but his extreme annoyance pushed the words through.

"He's been pulling this our whole lives. Satoshi brought a girl home once for a school project. Grandpa thought she was a family friend he never met…and lets just say her and Satoshi will never have another class together, let alone a school project."

Inez didn't let her imagination run wild. If Professor Assad was willing to fund a year in Japan on the off chance that she would hook up with Mori, then she didn't want to know what Mori's considerably more eccentric Grandfather would do.

"Yeah, if I had known that this "study abroad" was a loosely disguised betrothal before it was too late, I don't know if I would have gone."

Mori grunted. "It'll be alright. Besides, the students you'll be meeting at Ouran will be much more insane than my family." She didn't know how to respond to that, but he continued. "But I'm glad you came, if we get married or if we don't."

"Yeah, me too, actually." There was a pause "How much longer do you think we'll be locked in here?"

"All night."

"Huh?"

"Don't worry." She felt his arms on her shoulders, guiding her away from the door behind him. She couldn't see what he was doing, but suddenly the door was cracked down the middle and light from the hallway flooded in.

A crowd had gathered in anticipation, hoping that they would come off without any clothes.

"It's time for bed." He grunted angrily at mix of cleaning staff and family members, leading Inez to her bedroom.

And now here she was, lost in Middle Earth, unaware of where to go. She knew the class had already started, and she was fairly anal about punctuality, which only made her loose her cool more and more.

Straining her neck, looking at the door labels placed way unnecessarily high and having difficultly making out the elegant Japanese writing, Inez did not look at all in front of her. Suddenly, she felt herself bump into a student.

Beautiful, tall, and blonde Tamaki turned and smiled at Inez, who had lost her balance and fallen.

"Beautiful princess! What unholy demon had possessed me to knock over such a darling, graceful and elegant creature as yourself?" He exclaimed in French, helping her up.

Mori was not kidding when he said the students at Ouran would be much more intense than his family.