WARNING: THIS STORY CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR THE ANIME AND MANGA. READ AT OWN RISK. Thanks.

It was finally Monday, after a long, treacherous weekend of spending time with Kyoya. At least, that's what Haruhi thought. She wasn't sure if the feelings were reciprocated by the Shadow King, but if what his sister told her was true, and If Kyoya's family really set this whole thing up, then he wasn't too fond of the situation, either.

But there were still too many things she didn't know.

For the time being, though, as the classes of the day dragged on and on, when club activity time came at long last, Haruhi was ecstatic, to say the least. She would finally be able to see her friends. Of course, seeing all the other students' faces at school was a huge relief as well, considering she'd spent her entire weekend with nobody except Kyoya and his family. Though Kyoya had told her to move the remainder of her belongings in that weekend, she never got the chance to because, more or less, she was on house arrest. So it was decided, by Kyoya's father of course, that the servants team up with Ranka to pack up all of Haruhi's things and bring them over. Why her father had agreed to such a ludicrous thing she still didn't understand.

Haruhi walked by herself all day for the first time since before the weekend, feeling quite relieved. As she walked up to Music Room No. 3, she felt her heart ache in anticipation of what awaited her. Would the guests be happy to see her again today? Would she be treated any differently now that she was just a little bit older? What kind of games would they be playing today? What kind of dress-up was on the agenda?

Suddenly, she felt a tremendous weight from her left hand, and when she looked down, memories from the weekend came flooding back into her mind. That stupid ring. This stupid marriage. It all made no sense.

And then she realized something she really didn't want to deal with: Kyoya. He would be in there, as always, smirking down at his clipboard and pretending everything was fine. She really didn't understand him. Would he be able to act as if nothing had happened over the weekend now? It wasn't as if his own left hand was bare…

That was another problem, she came to think. Would she be able to hide the ring, even just for now? Or did Kyoya have some sort of plan? She remembered that no matter how much she tried, the gold ring wouldn't slip off of her finger. Maybe the dress-up for today included gloves or mittens of some sort, she told herself nervously. Hopefully that was the case.

She couldn't ponder any longer, anyway, because she heard two distinct voices coming from behind her, which she instantly recognized.

"Hikaru, Kaoru!" she cried, turning around and running towards them. She wasn't in their class this year, so she barely got to see them anymore.

They were both equally surprised when she wrapped her arms around each of the boys rather awkwardly. Haruhi was never one for hugs, so this made it all the weirder.

Hikaru blushed, nonetheless. "Eh, Haruhi, what's this about all of the sudden?"

"I missed you guys…" she trailed, closing her eyes as her arms were still draped around each twin's neck awkwardly.

"How out of character," Kaoru joked, prying Haruhi off of him and ultimately Hikaru. He happened to glance down at her hand because he saw something shiny, which was her ring reflecting the sunlight, but he knew better to say anything because of Hikaru. Still, he didn't imagine that Kyoya's literal proposal was real.

He cleared his throat. "In any case," he said, breaking the seconds of silence between the three, "we should get to the club. We don't know what kind of costumes await us."

"Hai, tono would be angry with us if we were late," Hikaru agreed quickly. The three second-years hurried up to the Music Room's door again, this time entering.

"Welcome to the Host Cl – "

"Oh, it's just – "

"Haruhi!"

Tamaki emerged from his spot in the clubroom and ran over to the girl, locking her into one of his embraces. Normally she would have been annoyed and tried to escape, but there was something about today that just made her miss him more than she usually did, if at all. Of course, the weekend had a lot to do with it.

She smiled into the hug and wrapped her arms around him as well. "Tamaki-senpai…"

"We're here too, y'know," the twins said together, slightly annoyed.

The couple pulled apart awkwardly and watched as everybody stared at them – everybody in the Host Club, anyway. There weren't any guests yet, for some odd reason. Haruhi thought she was late.

There was another strange thing as well that she noticed.

"Why aren't you guys wearing costumes?"

She half expected the Shadow King to answer but was grateful when Honey spoke up instead.

"Kyo-chan proposed a Special Bonding Day!"

Her eye twitched. Well, she couldn't really help talking to him now… "Special Bonding Day?"

"Yes." Kyoya pushed up his glasses. "This day is for the Host Club to bond. As such, there are no costumes because there will be no guests today."

"Eh, but Kyoya-senpai – "

"Why were all of you in front of the door, ready to greet guests, if there aren't any coming in today?" Hikaru finished for Kaoru.

"Some guests can't resist my charm," Tamaki said, flipping his hair. "We have to always be prepared to greet them."

The twins looked at each other and shrugged.

Kyoya just smirked, not providing an actual answer. Instead, he looked back to Haruhi. "Are you okay with this?"

Now her other eye was twitching, but it stopped long enough for her to formulate a question. "How does it work?"

"I'm glad you asked," he replied, still smirking. "Club activities usually last two hours, right?" He didn't bother waiting for any nods. "And there are six of us, seven if you include yourself. That means, if we split up into groups of two, but keep the twins together, there will be two groups of two and one group of three. We will rotate groups. Each group will bond for thirty minutes, and afterwards we will come back together and bond as a group for the remaining time."

Well…one thing was certain. She knew that Tamaki had at least something to do with this whole plan, otherwise it wouldn't have sounded so stupid and pointless. Still, she couldn't exactly say she was bothered by this plan. Come to think of it, she wasn't really in the mood to deal with all sorts of guests today. And if she got lucky, maybe she would be paired up with Tamaki for one of those half-hour segments.

"Any objections?" he asked, a shot in the dark. Perhaps he kept the explanation vague so that nobody else would really understand it, hence no questions. Anyone who wasn't an idiot could sense that he was tired, presumably from this weekend, but only himself and Haruhi would know that. She remembered seeing him slaving over the table in his room with an open book and dozens of notepads spread around him late the previous nights, presumably studying for something.

"Then, Honey-senpai, would you please read off the first list of groups?"

"Mm!" the Lolita boy responded cheerfully. Again, anyone who wasn't an idiot could tell the small boy was happy to be out of college for a while. He produced a thin sheet of paper from his pocket and took a deep breath before reading aloud.

"Group One: Mitsukuni Haninozuka and Kyoya Ootori.

"Group Two: Takashi Morinozuka and Haruhi Fujioka.

"Group Three: Kaoru and Hikaru Hitachiin and Tamaki Suoh."

"Gah!" The single vowel was drawn out by Tamaki as he lowered his head in despair. Then he brought it up and pointed at the twins in a menacing way. He soon wore an expression of dread. "Why do I have to be paired up with these little devils?! Let me be with Haruhi! Let me be with my little girl! My daughter!"

"Mori-senpai, should we get going?" Haruhi asked the tall brunet, completely ignoring Tamaki now.

"Mm." He nodded and the two began to walk away, presumably to find a spot that wasn't so noisy.

"Noooooo, Haruhi!" Tamaki reached out his hand in an attempt to bring her back, but to no avail, of course.

Meanwhile, the twins came up to the blond king and snickered triumphantly behind him in their 'devilish' tones.

"Noooo!"

"Honey-senpai, let's go somewhere quiet," Kyoya interrupted the despair affair, pushing his glasses up his nose. He looked down at Honey, who quickly nodded.

"Hai! Let's go, Kyo-chan!"

"Wait! No! Honey-senpai, Kyoya! Don't leave me with these devil sons! Come back here, AB-blood brothers!"

"Ah, gomen, Tamaki," Kyoya said with fake innocence, pretending that his insincere apology meant something.

With that, they left Tamaki and the twins alone.

…

Haruhi and Mori walked around outside the club room for a little while before they finally decided on an abandoned classroom since they were running out of time, or so they thought. Granted, both were relatively level-headed students, so neither one found much point to this activity anyway, but they didn't want to upset the other club members, so they participated.

Mori gestured towards an empty desk for Haruhi to sit at, and as she did so, he pulled around the desk right on front of it, putting them together so they could face each other while they sat.

No words were said at first, with both of them used to being at least somewhat quiet. She spoke first.

"Mori-senpai, how's college?"

"Fine," he replied unenthusiastically. Naturally, he and Honey went to the same university. It wasn't because he was still so worried about the smaller boy getting into trouble, because he knew the blonde could handle himself, so much as the university offered a variety of courses.

She bit her lip. She forgot the last time she and Mori-senpai had actually had a time all to themselves when they could talk together like this. She figured it was probably sometime around the time she first joined the club and they went to Kyoya's family's indoor waterpark/jungle/tropical whatever they called it, back when Honey-senpai got lost.

"What are you studying?" she tried.

"Law."

Well, that was unexpected. She wanted to study to become a lawyer as well. Mostly it was to make sure her mother would be proud of her… But she had her own reasons as well.

"Oh." She didn't really know what else to say. "Have you thought about working for the Ootori law firm?"

She almost clamped her hand over her mouth. Why did she say that?!

His lips curved into a smile. "Yeah."

She was a bit dumbfounded. She really hadn't meant to say that. But it seemed like he was taking it seriously, for some reason. Was he actually considering it?

"But I'm not going to do it."

Her expression darkened and a wind of realization hit her. "Of course not."

But then her interest got the best of her. "Why did you choose law?"

He shrugged. "It's interesting."

That was true, she had to admit. "I want to study law too, to become a lawyer. I want to do what my mother did and make her and my father proud."

"Haruhi."

"Huh?" She looked up, not having realized she was even looking down.

"We all come from different families," he stated simply, though judging by the look on his face, there was much more to it than that.

"Mori-senpai…"

"Mitsukuni is the older son of the family. He is trained well in martial arts, but is not well-liked by his brother. He is expected by his father to be a fighter at any given time, no matter the circumstances. He has not seen his mother since she divorced Yorihisa-sama when Mitsukuni was young.

"Hikaru and Kaoru come from a world of their own, where no rules or other people existed. They grew up relying only on each other, and that eventually shaped their personalities. Hikaru was dependent on Kaoru, because Kaoru would watch him play games and tell him what to do next. Kaoru is more independent by himself than Hikaru."

He paused to watch her face, seeing if she knew where he was going with this. When he didn't get a response, he continued.

"Kyoya is expected too much of. Anyone can see this based on his struggle to impress his father. He will never be as important to his father as his two brothers are, however he continues to strive for the acceptance he wants.

"Tamaki comes from a broken family of only his father and grandmother." He managed a soft smile despite all the somber stories he was retelling. "At least now he can visit his mother whenever he wishes to. His grandmother has finally accepted him."

He paused again and looked straight at Haruhi. "You lost your mother at a young age. You strive to live by her terms and her rules, mixed in with few of your own. You're a commoner."

Her face dropped even more so after that last line. Why did being a commoner matter so much around here? But then she realized he left out one of the Hosts in the Club.

"Mori-senpai? What about you?" she asked.

His face lost its expression now. "I lost my mother when I was in Elementary School. I've been working in the family company since I was young." He turned away towards the window. "The rest doesn't matter."

Haruhi stayed silent, still not entirely sure what was meant by all this.

"Tamaki wants the Club to be a family. He wants to give us a good family life so we can forget about our bad ones."

Well, now it made a little more sense. About Tamaki wanting to keep everybody literally 'related,' anyway.

"Haru-chan!"

She turned her head towards the door, where she heard the voice come from. Undeniably it was Honey-senpai, but what could he be doing here? Was time up already?

In no time at all he showed up in the doorway, grin on his face.

"Haru-chan, time's up! Time to spend time with me!" He ran into the room and grabbed her by the arm, yanking her away from Mori.

"Ah… Mori-senpai, thanks for the talk!" she made sure to say before he was completely out of sight. She saw him nod and felt more at ease, though she wondered how he was to find out who was his next partner.

"Honey-senpai, where are we going?" she now asked the short blonde.

"Somewhere!" he responded happily. Sometimes, she thought, he was just a little bit too happy.

Soon he settled on a secluded hallway on the other side of the school. So that meant they'd probably wasted a lot of their time as well…

Instantly Haruhi sat down and crossed her legs, acting at least somewhat like a girl now that she was sure there were no guests around. She even resorted to using 'atashi,' though it was a bit weird getting used to it. Across from her, Honey also crossed his legs and she had to stifle a laugh.

"Haru-chan!" he suddenly blurted out at her.

"Uwah?!" she was caught off guard. "Honey-senpai, there's no need to shout my name three times in the short period of time we've been together!" She sighed, calmed down a little. "Anyway, what?"

"Do you like Kyo-chan!"

It wasn't even a question, though she had the lingering feeling it was meant to be one. Still, what did he mean by that?

"As a friend? Yes, of course." Though, she had to admit, right now at this particular time in her life, she wanted absolutely nothing to do with the Shadow King, given their situation.

Honey shook his head. "More than a friend!"

Haruhi's eye twitched again. "Of course not! Why would I?"

"Eh? Aren't you marrying him?"

She let out a tiny groan. "Yes, thank you for reminding me, Honey-senpai…"

"Sorry," he said, suddenly ashamed. Well, he was prying.

"But you still love Tama-chan, right?" he pressed further.

She closed her eyes and let loose another groan, annoyed. "Yes, I love Tamaki-senpai." She didn't realize it until a few moments later, but she was blushing when she said that. They hadn't spent time together in a while.

"Ah… Then, you should fix your situation, Haru-chan." He closed his eyes. "It doesn't look good."

"Eh?" She was curious now, she had to admit.

Honey sighed. "I was just with Kyo-chan. He told me about the situation, and he said his father doesn't plan on backing down anytime soon."

"…Oh."

That was quite some bad news, especially if she was already forbidden from leaving the house simply to go to her own for a while. It wasn't as if her telling Kyoya she wanted a night away from her dad meant that she never wanted to see him again. It had been bad enough being away from her friends for even that short amount of time, just knowing she couldn't see them, let alone Tamaki.

Honey's demeanor had changed drastically within the past minute or two, his expression now somewhat somber. "Haru-chan… I hope you will do what's best for you. Ganbaru."

She was still a little lost in her thoughts, though she nodded nonetheless. These were some of the thoughts she never wanted to think about ever again, along with the memories of the weekend. This was turning out to be a pretty crummy after-birthday for her – a ridiculous seventeenth year.

"Ah, Haru-chan, we should go now," Honey broke through her thoughts, glancing at one of the clocks on the wall. So even rich kids could tell time. Haruhi had thought the clocks were there solely for decoration.

Nevertheless, the two smallest Hosts stood up and began their walk back to the Music Room to see who each would be paired up with next.

"Haruhiiiiii!" came Tamaki's voice from virtually out of nowhere.

"Tamaki-senpai! What are you doing?" she tried to ask loudly, but her breath was caught in her throat as he dragged her by her arm giddily.

"We're paired up for the final bonding time! Isn't this exciting?!"

He seemed to be ignoring any efforts made by the girl to struggle and wriggle away, instead focusing on dragging her wherever he saw fit for the time being.

"Senpai, where are we going?" she asked rather calmly, now running at a leisurely pace right behind him. He at least seemed to listen more when she was level-headed, or else he would get upset and not listen at all. It was just another perfect example of the kid still trapped inside of him.

Still, her question was ignored as he continued to run faster and faster towards the outside of the school building.

"Ah… Tamaki-senpai, I don't think Kyoya-senpai wants us to go out this far," she said hastily, still confused about where he wanted to go.

He looked back at her quickly with shining blue eyes. "Haruhi, stop worrying. Do you think Kyoya will yell at us?"

Something about his abrupt change in tone and appearance made her blush warmly, and she looked away in embarrassment. She didn't answer.

And then she didn't realize where they were until he at long last let go of her arm. She turned her head and stared with no words at the gazebo in front of her.

"Tamaki-senpai, this is…"

"Isn't it amazing?!" He gestured with his arms to all the nature surrounding them, twirling happily in a circle. If they were with everybody right now, she would definitely be embarrassed.

"This isn't hide-and-seek, senpai," she said coldly, glowering at him.

But he seemed unfazed for the most part, and only pulled her closer to him as he took a seat on the small bench inside the gazebo. She blushed profusely, not used to this kind of contact at all anymore.

"Haruhi."

"H-hai?" She was so nervous, yet she just didn't understand why. What was it about his presence that made her so unsure of herself?

"Do I make you uncomfortable?" He pressed his lips up against her ear, causing her to shiver and blush uncontrollably.

"Tamaki-senpai…"

"Call me by name, Haruhi," he said suddenly. He turned her chin now so that they were facing each other. She was still blushing a bit.

"T…Tamaki…kun," she managed to push out, cheeks still on fire, more so now.

"That wasn't so hard, was it?"

He inched his face even closer to hers, pressing his forehead against her own. "Haruhi."

"..Hai?" It was barely above a whisper. Her eyes were closed.

"I love you."

Her eyes shot open and she tried to move away from him but he grabbed ahold of her hands, stopping her from moving too far away. Of course they'd confessed before, but being so open about it now of all times… It was too much for her to handle.

"Tamaki-senpai, this is just too weird and I feel like we shouldn't be saying this stuff to each other right now at this very time, I mean we might be too young to even understand what love is, I mean – "

She was cut off by his lips pressing up against hers, and her resistance fell as she melted into it, no longer struggling to get out of his grip. Her eyes, which had jolted even more open when he kissed her, had shut themselves again, and she realized she was enjoying every second of it. He was really a very good host.

They pulled apart after several seconds and Haruhi blushed again. If anybody were out here right now, surely they'd see what was happening…

Even so, she cleared her throat and tried her best to appear calm as she stared into Tamaki's blue eyes.

"I love you too." She smiled.

Tamaki threw his arms around her small frame and pulled her closer to his chest, ruffling her short hair. They stayed like that for a moment until Tamaki spoke again.

"Haruhi, promise me you'll never leave me."

He was looking straight into her eyes, as was she into his. But the strange thing was she didn't feel uncomfortable at all. She didn't feel like she was talking to a child anymore. She felt like she was talking to the Tamaki-senp…kun she fell in love with. He wasn't just her senior anymore, he was a best friend. No, the best friend. He put on his silly, giddy front in order to cheer people up. And, for the most part, it worked. Even when he pretended (though most of the time it was sincere) to be upset, he knew in some way he was brightening people's days. But when he was alone with her, he didn't have to be an entertainer. He could just be himself, and she loved him for it.

She smiled at him.

"I promise."

A/N: Eh... This chapter didn't want to be written .-. Sorry if it's kinda bad. I tried to include some fluffy moments, along with some signature Ouran comedy, though, so maybe it's not as bad as I think it is :o. Anyway, I haven't really proofread this one as much as I did the other ones (and even last chapter I noticed a few minor errors I still need to fix when I'm not so lazy).

SO THIS CHAPTER KIND OF MARKS THE BEGINNING OF THE ACTUAL LOVE TRIANGLE. YAY LOVE TRIANGLES. Yeah. I hate them too, actually, why am I saying yay?

...Anyhow, thanks to all my reviewers! You guys keep me going! And of course, the followers count as well ;) If it weren't for all of you guys I'd probably be scrapping this thing right about now. Eh, it's all right though. First fic that I actually intend on finishing, lol.

Well you guys don't want to listen to me rant, so I'll just go now... See you guys again on Sunday! Hope this chapter was at least decently presentable :)

Edit. Sorry guys! I'm unexpectedly reeeeally busy all of the sudden, so um... I think I'm going to change the updates to just every Thursday now. Stupid high school :( You'll see the next update on Thursday, I promise! =)

~CGA