"Why is everyone coming along again?" Haruhi grumbled. But no one in the limousine heard her; the four boys were all too busy discussing Kyoya's 'great plan,' which according to Hikaru…
"…is going to be a complete failure, senpai!"
Kyoya sat with his arms crossed. "Then I suggest you devise some other way of telling your mother."
"Fine then, we'll wing it!"
"Hikaru," Haruhi said. "Kyoya-senpai is making perfect sense. Why not just go along?"
"Because his wonderful idea involves us coming out with the truth point blank!" the Hitachiin snapped. "We can't do that!"
"And why not?"
Hikaru flushed a little. "…Because!"
Tamaki knocked him on the head. "You're just as immature as ever. What about you Kaoru, do you have anything against Kyoya's idea?"
"No," the younger looked apologetically at his brother before continuing. "Kyoya-senpai's approach will get it done quicker and more painlessly. Anyway, we're gonna end up telling mom the truth with whatever tactic we resort to… So let's just get it over with fast."
Tamaki looked satisfied with Kaoru's reply and with Hikaru's glower. "Ah, here we are!"
--
Haruhi and the twins all felt a little thankful that Kyoya had decided to wait in another room (and by doing so, forcing Tamaki to remain there as well). It did little to lessen the pits in their stomachs though.
At the count of three, the twins opened the door into the parlor.
Yuzuha was seated calmly on a posh divan, chatting with a client on her phone. At the sight of her sons, she said goodbye hastily and abandoned the receiver to give Kaoru and Hikaru a hug. Right after embracing them, she punched them on the arm.
"Oww!" the twins started.
"Yeah, you better say oww!" Yuzuha said reprovingly. "You boys had me worried, you know that? Don't ever run away again!"
"Mom, we didn't run away…" Kaoru began, but she tapped her finger on his mouth.
"You can explain tomorrow, Hikaru, it's getting late!" she said absentmindedly. That was when she first noticed their guest.
"Haruhi! My, my, I almost didn't see you there! Come, come…" she gestured to the chair opposite her divan. "Have a cookie!"
Haruhi sat down, took one look at the platter of the delicacies on the table in front of her and politely declined. She remembered the prank from her last visit—gummy cookies—and decided to save herself from humiliation. Yuzuha must have remembered as well, because she laughed; a tinkling, feminine version of the twins' laugh. "Don't worry, those are banana bread cookies. Help yourself, dear, go on. So… To what do I owe this pleasure?"
Haruhi, smiling, took a cookie as the twins settled down on either side of her.
"Well, we have a surprise for you," Hikaru said for her.
Haruhi almost rolled her eyes. Yep, it's going to be one hell of a surprise, alright.
Yuzuha's eyes brightened. "A surprise?"
It was a little comical, Haruhi thought. She was so much like her sons. As she pondered over this, a huge yawn almost split her head open.
"Excuse me!" she apologized. "I don't know what came o-over me…" she stifled another yawn.
"I do," Yuzuha said in a scolding tone. "Just look at the time! Almost 10:00. That just won't do now, would it? Why don't you stay over for the night, Haruhi? I could call your house for you."
"No need, mom," Kaoru interjected. "Her father won't be home until late night tomorrow."
Haruhi glared at him, wishing that she had never shared the information. Then she turned to Yuzuha.
"Thank you very much, but I couldn't possibly—"
"But I insist, dear. There's no need to worry about clothes; we've got that covered."
Hikaru smirked. "Aww, there's no harm in sleeping over, is there, Haruhi?"
Then a maid stepped in, inclining her head towards them. "I'm very sorry to intrude, mistress, but Mr. Ootori is waiting in the other room with Mr. Suoh, who is asking for Ms. Fujioka."
"Tell him to wait a little longer," Kaoru said, waving her to go on her way.
She bowed and went off.
The twins started counting down. "3…2…1…"
And from the other room suddenly came a scream. "What?! Why do I have to wait longer? They've been in there forever! What are they doing? What's happening? What—"
"We've been in here for about ten minutes, boss!" Hikaru called over lazily. "Oh, don't worry about it, mom," he said upon seeing the bemused expression his mother wore. "He's just really hyper for the surprise we were telling you about."
"Tamaki-senpai gets pretty upset whenever he's not involved with something this big," Kaoru put in.
"Goodness," Yuzuha chuckled. "I'm getting pretty excited about all this myself! But can it wait until tomorrow? It seems like your friend here is very tired."
Haruhi dipped her head to hide another yawn and smiled at the older woman gratefully. Ever since she became pregnant, she found it increasingly hard to stay up late.
"But what about the two boys?" the twins' mother asked, remembering Kyoya and Tamaki. "Do you want me to invite them over—?"
"No!" Kaoru and Hikaru cried in unison.
"Uh, you see…" Hikaru tried to tell her. "The thing is that the whole Host Club knows about the surprise; but only me, Hikaru and Haruhi are going to pull it off. If Tamaki-senpai and Kyoya-senpai are here it might ruin everything!"
He looked at his brother and Haruhi for support; the first nodded vigorously in response while the second followed suit much more unenthusiastically. Anyway, what mattered was that Yuzuha bought the act and immediately called maids to escort the trio upstairs, winking and saying that she would personally take care of sending Tamaki and Kyoya home.
--
It was dark. Haruhi studied the interior of the guest's bedroom from what she could make of it. She almost snorted at the word 'bedroom.' What an understatement. She could easily have fit her apartment room in it, and there would still be room to spare for a nice long game of kick the can.
She sat up from the lavish bed and felt a slight chill run over her. Earlier she would've given anything to get to bed. But now, at almost two-thirty in the morning, she couldn't even fall asleep. But it wasn't her pregnancy that was making her night hell, it was this place. She couldn't sleep here. The room, the house; it was all too familiar a setting. She knew she had only been in this house twice before, but she felt as though she had revisited this area many times… The déjà vu was overwhelming and she knew why.
Her contemplation was interrupted by a soft creak from her door followed by identical whispers.
"Haruhi, are you awake?"
The darkness masked the sarcasm etched on here features. "No, I'm asleep. Now go away."
Kaoru and Hikaru tiptoed inside (though they really didn't need to—the plush carpet muffled their footsteps,) and jumped up on the mattress.
"I knew you'd do this," Haruhi said. "It was obvious as soon as you had the maids take me to the place that was nearest to your bedroom. Geez, won't you guys give me any peace?"
"What? We're not doing anything wrong… yet," Hikaru said with a hint of slyness, earning him a flying feather pillow that landed a solid blow on the back of his head. "Ouch—hey! I was just kidding."
"We only wanted to check on you. So what's the matter? Can't sleep?" Kaoru asked Haruhi. "We could keep you company for a while."
"We're nervous about tomorrow too," his brother said, rubbing the spot the pillow had hit. "Oh, and about that. Actually, Haruhi, me and Kaoru have been thinking."
"Wow, that's new."
"Oh, shut up," Hikaru snapped. "I'm trying to be serious here! Anyways… We've been wondering about… Uh, about Akachan…" The word sounded foreign coming from the Hitachiin, and he seemed to sense it, too.
The girl's ears were suddenly alert, though she still feigned her displeasure about the boys being in her room. "Yeah?"
"We… We thought 'what if we never find out who the dad is?' and well, it was kind of confusing…"
"What Hikaru means to say is, we didn't want Akachan to grow up confused as well," Kaoru clarified. "Having two dads must be great and all, but it doesn't exactly look good…"
"Let me get this straight," Haruhi began a little angrily. "You're worried that this'll do damage to your image, is that right?"
He shook his head. "We were more worried about you, actually."
"We mean; a fifteen year-old who had premarital sex with fellow minors and got pregnant in the process?" Hikaru scoffed. "It sounds like a drama, don't you think? And dramas like that, well, they never really end well for the girl in question. People think stupid stuff about her, you know?"
Her eyebrow twitched. "What are you two getting at?"
The twins looked swiftly at each other.
"We really put some thought into this," Kaoru said slowly.
"And we know it's for the best," Hikaru added.
The girl was indifferent to their words. "Just what are you saying?"
The boys sighed. "We're saying that one of us is going to marry you."
Hikaru and Kaoru had said it in such a grave manner that the last thing that they expected from Haruhi was a laugh. So when she opened her mouth and stuffed her face under the covers to mute the sound, the boys really felt demoralized.
"Haruhi," Kaoru started weakly, but she spoke before he could utter anything else.
She was wiping tears from her eyes and laughter was holding both her sides. "Yeah, okay. You two, always trying to make things funny. Now you're pulling Tamaki-senpai's stunt on me!"
"No we aren't!" Hikaru said indignantly, his ears coloring like stoplights. Of course, he would never admit that they had indeed gotten the idea from Tamaki, but that was beside the point. "Haruhi, we're dead serious about this."
She chuckled. "Yes, I can tell."
"No, really!" he went on, quite piqued. "We mean it."
The sounds of mirth wavered. Haruhi's eyes were filling with uncertainty as she looked at the twins. They weren't smiling at all.
Kaoru thought it safe to continue. "We figured that you should be engaged, to make everything okay. You know, before you get big and everything becomes obvious."
"But I don't even know which one of you…"
"We have time," Hikaru said impatiently. "If we figure it out, great! You'll be engaged to whichever one of us it is. But what we don't find out?"
"That's my point," Haruhi stated in her pragmatic tone. "Saying that I agree to this crazy conspiracy of yours—and I'm not saying I will; which one of you will I be engaged to?"
"That's up to you, isn't it?" they shrugged. "Take your pick."
"What? I can't do that!" she said disbelievingly. "How is that going to solve anything?"
"Haruhi, we aren't really the reckless morons that we act like. Alright, fine. Maybe sometimes we are," Hikaru said, adding the last bit after Haruhi started to scoff.
"Hikaru's right though, you know," Kaoru said softly. "We feel bad for having you in this position, and we don't want your life to go to pieces because of some stupid thing we did."
Her blush deepened. "But don't you think that your idea is taking things a bit too far?"
To her surprise, the two sidled up to her and kissed her on the cheek. She felt color creep from the spot where they made contact, and her cheeks tingled.
"Things have already gone too far," they said, their heads buried in her hair. "Just promise us that you'll consider it, alright?"
"We better get back to our own bed," Kaoru whispered.
"Yeah, we have a 'big surprise' for mom tomorrow," Hikaru said anxiously.
They said their goodnights and left.
Haruhi unconsciously raised her hands to her cheeks and immediately felt like an idiot when she realized what she was doing. But inwardly, she smiled. She never thought of the Hitachiin brothers as anything else but negligent idiots before, and she was glad that this little mishap was causing her to see them in a new light. When she put it that way… Maybe it was wrong for her to call it a mishap, after all.
With that, her heavy eyelids fluttered closed.
A/N:
Akachan = baby
~*~
Okay, before you start yelling at me, I'm going to apologize. GOMENASAI!
I know I took a really long time to update. Sorry for making you guys wait. I feel guilty! Waaaah!!! But there were New Year parties to go to, rush gifts to wrap, calls to be made, new resolutions to live by (okay, that last part was pretty fake, I'll admit it), yada yada. Everything was hectic... x(
~*~
Anyway, here it is at last! The twins decide to show a side of them they rarely show. So it's all good? Well, there's still Haruhi. Will she decide to go along with the plan? And what about that 'big surprise' Yuzuha is waiting for? And don't forget about Ranka... OPh, and the main question of course.
WHO THE HELL IS DADDEEEEH?
We'll find out together, yeah? xD
l
l
V
