Disclaimer: I don't own Ouran Highschool Host Club. © Bisco Hatori

Chapter 3: Second Impressions

Time passed in excruciating seconds.

Faced with a legion of girls surrounding him, Ruzaki felt his nerve slipping away with each tumultuous beat of his heart. Their gorgeous faces, imprinted with expectant expressions and curious eyes, seemed more like objects of unutterable fear in his growing stage fright. In fact, in the theater of his mind, their expressions morphed into those of disgust, and their eyes flashed with indignant stares, while he wracked his brains for a word or an idea on how to start and felt his palms sweat into the lap of his pants.

Without his knowing, the girls around him grew antsy just waiting for him to speak. As such, Ruzaki's nervousness added to their curiosity and inflamed their anticipation. At this, Momoka and Kimiko exchanged nervous looks, then entreated Haruhi with urgent expressions to get the ball rolling again.

So Haruhi said, "Come on, Senpai. You don't have to feel nervous. Just be yourself, okay?"

At this, Ruzaki gulped, then closed his eyes to compose his thoughts, took a deep breath and said, "All right, I'll try."

"Good, that's good." And then she prompted him, saying, "Okay, besides religious poetry and dark poetry, what other kinds of poetry do you like?"

The poet thought for a moment before saying, "To be honest, I never really gave that much thought to what kinds of poetry I liked. I just read the poems that spoke to me, if that makes any sense."

"Well," said Momoka, "what was the first poem that spoke to you, then? Was it any of Shakespeare's sonnets? Or was it Dante's epic? Or—"

"No, no," he said. "It's neither of those, actually. Believe it or not, the first poem that really spoke to me was 'The Raven' by Edgar Allen Poe. Have any of you read it?"

All the girls exchanged looks of discomfort. The fact is, several of them were at least vaguely familiar with Poe's penchant for the macabre, and with 'The Raven' in particular that has percolated its thrills and chills even into these rarified circles of the rich and famous.

Then Yuriko Akishika said, "I remember Kyoya-sama reading it to me and Azusa during last year's Halloween here, but . . . we couldn't handle it. So we asked him to stop."

"How far did he read until you asked him to stop?"

"I'm not sure," said Yuriko, "but I think it was somewhere in the middle."

"We asked him to stop on the 13th verse," said Azusa Suwaki.

"How do you know that?" asked her companion.

"Come on, Aika, don't you remember the day in which Kyoya-senpai read it to us? He read it on the 13th day of October, and we asked him to stop on the 13th verse without realizing it, until he mentioned that to us the next day."

"But I thought he read it to us on Halloween."

"No. I specifically remember it on the 13th day of October."

"Wait a minute," Ruzaki said, seeing a connection that neither girl saw at the moment. "If you think about it, 13 backwards is 31, which just happens to be the day of Halloween."

All the girls gasped at his observation with various terrifying coincidences dancing in their heads. That connection, simple as it was, turned their faces pale, shrank their pupils to bullet points of fright and sent chills running up their spines. For Yuriko and Azusa in particular, these superstitious girls gulped and almost fainted, both kept on their feet with the help of their peers who wouldn't let their colleagues fall to their knees.

Heck, even Honey-senpai, famed for his fearsome reputation as the dreadnought of the Haninozuka clan and the winner of the National Judo Championship and even the rumored secret weapon of the Japanese government, could not help clinging onto his cousin's neck atop his shoulders, nearly strangling him.

But Momoka and Kimiko, both pale and nervous, put up brave faces and said, in unison, "That's very interesting, Ruzaki-sama," and then stopped. Both girls noted the tenuous waver of their voices.

As for Haruhi, looking at the reactions of everyone around her and then at Ruzaki who seemed perplexed by the sudden turn of events, she mentally face-palmed. She thought, Okay . . . That was a really bad digression. I need to say something before it gets worse.

But they weren't the only ones horrified at Ruzaki's remark; Tamaki and the Hitachiin twins proved just as horrified. In fact, crouching behind the backrest of the sofa the whole time, all three men paled at the horror-stricken faces of their regulars and at the flustered expression of their heroic Haruhi in particular, still trying to find the words to repair the situation at the table.

At this, horror turned to outrage with the overprotective Tamaki saying to his cohorts, "Men, this is an emergency of the utmost importance! Any delay might jeopardize this club's survival if we allow Ruzaki's sabotage to continue!"

"What do we do, Boss?" said Hikaru, watching the terror linger upon his guests's faces, before looking on Haruhi still in the throes of finding a way to help out the situation. "It's getting worse by the second!"

"And Haruhi hasn't even talked her way out of it, yet," said Kaoru. "I haven't seen her this tongue-tied in my life!"

"There's only one thing we can do, men," said Captain Tamaki to his foot soldiers. "We'll have to kidnap Haruhi and Ruzaki in a two-team operation. First, we'll run at the top of our speed in one arc around the table, coming closer and closer, and then sweep up Haruhi and Ruzaki at the last moment. Then we'll split into two teams, where I'll rescue Haruhi from her predicament, while you two will take Ruzaki and run him out of the club doors! There are your orders, men!"

No sooner were those orders issued and put into action, all three running at top speed towards the start of their arc, when Kyoya stood up and stopped them with a hand raised up like a traffic cop. And no sooner had Kyoya raised his hand, when the trio skidded to a halt on the heels of their loafers.

"What are you idiots doing?" said Kyoya.

"We're trying to save the integrity of this club," said Tamaki, "from that saboteur over there!" And he pointed to Ruzaki in the center of the action, with the girls still terrified and Haruhi still trying to figure out a way to help.

"If you three do what I think you're going to do, you'll endanger the integrity of this club far more than he ever will."

"B-but that's crazy, Senpai!" Hikaru said. "If this continues, he might scare away all our customers!"

"And if that happens," added Kaoru, "then this club is screwed for sure! I mean, look at Honey-senpai over there! He's so scared, he has Mori-senpai in a death grip!"

And sure enough, the little man had a sleeper hold around his cousin's neck, without realizing it in his frightened state.

Notwithstanding all this, Kyoya remained firm and said, "If the customers are distressed over Ruzaki's methods, then we'll simply apologize to our guests during closing hours. That's all we can do to remedy the situation at present."

"All we can do?" yelled Hikaru. "What do you mean by that?"

"Why are you sticking up for Ruzaki-senpai, all of the sudden?" added Kaoru. "You don't normally stick up for people, unless you have a reason to!"

Kyoya sighed at their questions; it seemed to him that common sense won't work on this trio of morons today.

Adding to the insanity of it all, Tamaki began to have . . . spousal suspicions. Looking at the dispositions of Kyoya, Haruhi and Ruzaki, he felt something pretty dog-on suspicious going on amongst the three, and that's when his delusions took over. In fact, in the theater of his mind, he could have sworn he saw Ruzaki, Haruhi and Kyoya trading knowing glances amongst themselves at the start of Ruzaki's interview earlier this afternoon, signifying something truly earth-shattering in his familial delusions.

Without missing a beat, Kyoya picked up on this and said, "Tamaki, are you afraid that Ruzaki might replace you as 'Daddy' in Haruhi's eyes?"

His reaction was immediate. Misinterpreting Kyoya's look of confusion as admission of guilt, the blonde turned as white as paper at the sheer treachery of it all, though he refused to believe it—denied that such treason on Kyoya's part was even possible! In the throes of a delusional marital crisis, Tamaki said, "You unfaithful wench! How could you do this to me! Have I not created the very walls of this sanctuary with these hands? Have you not avowed yourself to the family that we have created with the fruit of our loins?"

Notwithstanding Tamaki's past eccentricities, his Shakespearean conceits staggered Kyoya for some moments, before he regained his composure, looked at the former king and face-palmed. "Tamaki, you're an even bigger idiot that I thought."

At this, the former king raced back to the farthest corner of the room to sulk out his miseries over Kyoya's betrayal of Tamaki's trust and honor to have and to hold in sickness and in health—so help us, God!

As for the twins, neither Hikaru nor Kaoru knew what just happened. They just stood there, shocked, and . . . well . . . freaked out.

Then Hikaru said, "Hey, Senpai, what just happened?"

"I don't want to know."

"That makes the two of us," said Kaoru.

"I'll third that," added Hikaru. "Seriously, I think the Boss needs some help."

Kyoya sighed and then walked over to Tamaki's corner of woe, where the man crouched and sulked himself into deepening depression. Kyoya said, "Tamaki, we need to talk."

The man barely even shifted his head to acknowledge Kyoya's presence. "What is there to talk about, when you just tore out my heart? How could you do that to me?"

"Tamaki, it's not what you—"

"I don't wanna hear it! How could I even live with myself after what you did?"

"It's not about me, or you, or even Haruhi," Kyoya said, dead-serious with a straight face. "It's about Ruzaki himself."

Finally, the man turned his head. "What do you mean?"

Here Kyoya leaned in and whispered something in his ear, something he omitted in his interview earlier by Haruhi's request, something that made Tamaki draw breath. "When Haruhi found out about it in my research, she felt sorry for him and took it upon herself to convince me to allow Ruzaki to do this," said Kyoya. "Now do you understand?"

"Yeah, I do," he said, getting up and assuming his noble prince persona, before he looked over at Haruhi and smiled. "I guess she wouldn't be a true daughter of mine, if she didn't understand the meaning of empathy."

Just as Tamaki and Kyoya rejoined the twins at the table, just before Mori-senpai was about to black out, just as Honey-senpai realized what he was doing, and just as Haruhi was about to speak, Ruzaki beat all of them to the punch and said, "I know that 'The Raven' has attained a life of its own apart from its creator, and I will readily admit that it has enough supernatural and gothic elements to make a scary story out of it, but there's more to it than that. There's an element I found in the poem of far more power and horror than any supernatural allusion can invoke. You see, I read that poem during one of the most painful episodes of my life, when I was just seven years old."

Instantly, all the girls forgot about their fears, Honey-senpai stopped choking Mori-senpai before the big man lost his footing, and Haruhi looked at the poet, thinking, Is he gonna talk about his—?

"What happened?" said a concerned Kimiko.

"It started six months before I read the poem, around late June or early July. My mother was diagnosed with terminal bone cancer a few weeks after my seventh birthday."

At this, all the girls gasped, several eyes widened and some mouths fell open in shock at such misfortune befalling one of their own. Momoka and Kimiko held onto the seat of their dresses, while Haruhi bit down on her lower lip, anticipating the moment when—

"When my brother and I found our father crying, we pressed him to tell what was going on until he gave in and told us. He told us that the doctors said it was inoperable and gave her a month to live at the most." Here, the poet sighed amidst the worried looks of everyone around him, then continued, "But she fought on for five months, five months of life, five months of courage I've never seen in anyone I've ever known before or since. She didn't let it bother her. She just went on living life to the fullest; she kept being chipper and strong for my brother and me, as well as for my father. Her courage inspired me to become a poet, and I told her this, and she believed in me. She said that if I put my heart and soul to it, I could be anything I wanted to be, even a poet. And so she bought all of these poetry books for me, from Shakespeare's Sonnets and Dante's Divine Comedy to several volumes of gothic and romantic poetry. I read through them, and I wrote (or at least, I tried to write) poetry to please my mother in her bed when she read. She would always say that my poetry was amazing, that I would become a great poet some day. I believed her then, and to some extent, I still believe in her now."

"How did she die?" said Momoka, looking at the poet with tears welling up into her eyes.

"She died in her sleep on the first morning of December, and my father, brother and I (along with friends and family) attended her funeral a week later. I cried, just as any boy would at the burial of his mother, and I couldn't read any of the books she bought me for a few days after that. When I finally got enough courage to open one and read, I picked one I hadn't read yet called the Complete Stories and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe and read through the poems within it. I read through the first nineteen poems that night, till I noticed the time and thought of going to sleep; I think it was around 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning. Anyway, I decided to read one more poem before I went to sleep, which was 'The Raven'."

"Then what happened?" added Haruhi, feeling the beatings of her heart grow with anticipation.

"I don't know. Even now, I find it hard to describe the feelings I felt as I ran my eyes along each line, whispering the cadences between the shadows of my room and my soul. Between the beatings of my heart and the quickening of my breath, I thought I heard the footfalls of someone in the room with me. Sometimes I thought I smelled the faint traces of perfume that my mother used to wear, or even felt for a moment or two her ghost rustling through the curtains, until all was silent and only the shadow of her memory lingered by the time I finished the last two lines of Poe's poem:

"'And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
Shall be lifted—nevermore!'"

Nevermore. The last two lines of the infamous poem, the lines that produced the most screams in most readers, sounded less terrifying and more somber and intimate, and thus had a far more powerful effect on his listeners. Their hearts constricted, and their eyes glistened with a film of tears that have yet to fall, and in that moment, all the guests and hosts were of one mind and understood where Ruzaki was getting at.

"Of all the poems I've read up to that point, Poe's 'The Raven' touched me in a way that almost no other poem has ever touched me since. I read that poem after my mother's death in the same month and time of night as the narrator of the poem; I shared the same moods, felt the same pain, and in some ways, even mourned the same woman. Reading it touched me with an edge of reality far exceeding anything the supernatural can invoke on its own, because it's inevitable; it's something all of us have to face at some point in our lives. I know it's hard to think about; in many ways, it seems impossible that something like that can happen, but it does, and it will. Someday. That's why I wanna become a poet so bad; because poetry is the last connection I have with my mother. While others have mementos like photos or old camera footage to remember lost loved ones, my mementos are the poems I write for my mother."

"Senpai," Haruhi said, "you can't live in the past forever, you know."

"I already know that: I know what I wanna do; I know what I wanna be. I just don't know what I'm looking for to get to where I wanna be right now."

"I'll tell you then," she said, attracting everyone's attention, including Ruzaki who stared at her in amazement. "You need to find another reason to write."

At this, all the girls inhaled at the bluntness of Haruhi's suggestion.

"But I wanna make my mother proud."

"Then do it by showing that you can stand on your own and not use your mother's memory as a crutch in your writing. That's what I noticed in your poems when I read them earlier; there's not enough variety in your poetry. How are you going to grow as a poet, if you keep relying on the same subject?"

"Wait, how do you know this? If you only read one of my poems, how do you know I focus my efforts in one subject?"

"Because I read some of the less soggy clumps of paper earlier, while Kyoya was doing a background check on you before the meeting."

Her words sent an arrow straight through his heart, at which he buried his head in his arms and sulked at the sheer display of Haruhi's treachery to read more of his poems without him knowing, mumbling something inaudible to her ears.

"Wait, what? What did you say? I can't hear you."

So he raised his head and looked at the female host with tear-filled puppy dog eyes, "How could you do that to me? I trusted you! Now EVERYBODY'S gonna think I'm a terrible poet!"

Haruhi mentally face-palmed, thinking, Oh geez, what a crybaby! Then again, maybe I was bit too harsh on him. Here she sighed, then placed a hand on Ruzaki's to the thrill of the guests and to the shock of Tamaki and the twins and said, "Look, I'm not trying to be mean, okay?"

Her touch roused the poet out of his miseries.

"But you need another source of inspiration for your poetry," she continued. "You need to expand on your poetic potential by trying other subjects and moods."

"But I don't feel like writing on other subjects. It just doesn't feel . . . genuine to me."

"That's because you haven't found that reason yet. Senpai, I know it's hard to think of anything else after going through something like that. Trust me, I've been there. I know exactly what you're going through. When my mother died, I felt the same way for a while, till I realized that I still had my father, so I became strong and independent for him, as well as for myself."

"But your father's not like my father. My father doesn't want me to be a poet; he wants me to join his company in the shadow of my older brother. I've been trying my hardest to make him believe that I can make it on my own as a poet, but he just won't give me a chance to prove myself."

"The only person you need to convince is yourself. Not your father. Not your brother. Just you. If you start thinking you're a poet, you'll start believing you're a poet; and if you believe you're a poet, then pretty soon, you'll be a poet. A great poet, even. But it all starts with you. We'll try everything we can to help you, but you're the one that needs to step out of your shell."

For the second time today, the hapless poet found himself looking at the female host in awe, making Momoka and Kimiko blush and garnering a few nervous whispers between the ladies around the table. Every guest saw the awestruck adoring stare of the poet and silently wished she was the object of his wonderment.

But the girls were not the only ones who saw that longing stare. Every male host of the club saw it with varying reactions, from Mori-senpai's imperceptible look of indifference and Honey-senpai's look of wonder to Kyoya's look of analytical curiosity, the Hitachiin twins' looks of jealousy, and Tamaki's look of fatherly outrage.

Luckily for the poet, Kyoya picked up on Tamaki and the Hitatchiins' hostile thoughts, saying, "You three need not worry for Haruhi's sake. She's handling the situation quite well."

"Yeah, but don't you see that look he's giving her?" said Tamaki, pointing to the poetaster still staring at Haruhi. "I'm telling you, Kyoya. If that bastard doesn't take his lecherous eyes off of her this instant, I'm gonna—"

"Now, now, Tamaki, don't jump to conclusions. His stares might be suggestive, but nothing that would merit a club meeting."

"But Senpai," added Hikaru, "the way he's looking at her is way beyond that! It's sexual harassment!"

"You really think so?" Here the man just looked at the ginger-headed hypocrite, readjusted his glasses and said, "Honestly, you surprise me, Hikaru, given that you do that same thing with Kaoru every day for the enjoyment of your guests."

At this, both Hitachiin brothers blushed and gaped at the Shadow King in shock, as if he suggested that their brotherly love act was actually real.

"We're not gay, Senpai," said Kaoru.

"Kaoru and I were just acting," added Hikaru, before pointing towards Ruzaki still staring at Haruhi, "but that isn't acting. I mean, just look at him stare at her—it's disgusting! The way he's leering at her would be like me putting my hand up her shirt."

At this, all three men looked at Hikaru in silence. Kaoru gave him an uncomfortable stare of betrayal, Kyoya cocked an eyebrow at him, and Tamaki just gaped at him in shock.

When he noticed the pause, Hikaru looked at his three colleagues and said, "What? I was just making a point."

But Tamaki thought differently in his daughter-complex, with all kinds of unwholesome thoughts about Hikaru doing naughty things to his innocent Haruhi. He said, "Did you just make a pass at Haruhi?"

"What? No," he said, noticing Tamaki's fatherly glare, "I was just making a point, that's all."

"You were making a point, when all of the sudden, the thought of groping my daughter—groping your sister—ran through that sick brain of yours! Have you no shame for such thoughts?"

"What are you talking about? I was just making a point, Boss! And besides, didn't all this start from Ruzaki-senpai leering at Haruhi?"

"Leering's one thing, but groping her?" The blonde man then stalked towards Hikaru with clenched fists, getting ready to defend Haruhi's innocence from his corrupting influences once and for all. "Even the thought of such an act is abhorrent to all honorable men!"

"Whoa, wait, Boss, wait a minute," said Hikaru, backing away on shaky knees. "It's not like that, I swear!" All the while, he kept turning towards his brother for help. "Right, Kaoru? Come on, help me out!"

"Boss," said Kaoru, taking a few tenuous steps towards the stalking man, "even if he would think that, I don't think my brother would actually do that. So would you please calm down? You're blowing this way out of proportion."

Right then, Tamaki swung around and glared at Kaoru. "So you think this is blowing it out of proportion? I'll show you what blowing it out of proportion really is, you little—"

"Run for it, Kaoru!" said Hikaru, running off while the blonde got distracted. And no sooner had his brother screamed it, when Kaoru ran the opposite direction, making Tamaki double back to catch both brothers.

"Damn it! Hikaru, Kaoru," said Tamaki, running after Hikaru and then after Kaoru, then back at Hikaru, over and over, "when I get my hands on you two, I'll wring both your necks for saying nasty things about Haruhi!"

"But, Boss, I didn't say anything about Haruhi," said Kaoru. "Hikaru's the one who said it, not me!"

"Kaoru, can't you see we're both running for our lives here?"

And on the high jinks went, all three enacting a heated version of tag throughout the music room. Looking on these morons with their antics, Kyoya pressed two fingers over his eyes to relieve the pressure of an on-coming headache. To make matters worse, he noted the confused looks of the guests bearing witness to their shenanigans. His first thought was simple enough, though he resisted the urge to head back to his laptop, open the school web browser and send that incriminating e-mail to the chairman. As much as he wanted to do that—and by God, he really wanted to—, he thought of a better way to resolve this.

So without missing a beat, he ambled towards Mori-senpai and Honey-senpai, both watching the idiots at play all well. He said, lowering his voice so that none of the guests would hear, "Mori-senpai, Honey-senpai, please retrieve Tamaki and the twins. They're becoming an embarrassment to this club."

"Yes, sir," said Honey, while Mori just nodded his head.

Without further adieu, Honey and Mori, two legendary titans of the art of 'search and subdue', observed Tamaki and the twins and split up. Honey took up the left side of the club room, and Mori took up the right side. Both stood sentry observing the three delinquents, both sizing up their quarry like hunters on the African veldt, both waiting for the perfect opportunity to ambush.

The few guests still conversing over Ruzaki's unsettling attentions on Haruhi stopped talking, as every guest wondered what the heck was going on. One moment, Tamaki and the twins were bedridden, the next moment, they were running around like madmen. At this, some of the guests began to worry.

"Don't worry, ladies," Kyoya said, adopting his hosting persona. "Honey-senpai and Mori-senpai will take care of this."

One of Tamaki's guests said, "What's happening to them? I thought you said they were too tired to run around."

"And indeed, they are, madam, though they don't know it yet. That's why they were so tired when they came over today: they never realized how tired they were, all three falling asleep when they took a respite on the sofas. And now it looks like they're at it again," he said, adding in a mock-worrisome voice, "only this time, they're doing it in their sleep. I wonder why."

Audible gasps came from Tamaki's and the Hitachiins' fangirls, all of them once again wondering over their bodily and mental conditions.

"By the way," Kyoya said, steering their minds from worrisome thoughts, "have any of you ladies heard of the martial prowess of Honey-senpai and Mori-senpai?"

"Of course we have," said Marika Mikamo. "Honey-senpai's the Judo Champion, and Mori-senpai's the Kendo Champion."

"Indeed," said Kyoya. "So you ladies will all see a glimpse of what makes these men champions. Just watch, and you'll see."

And so they watched, anticipating God-knows-what from these two champions upon the frenetic trio still running like chickens with their heads cut off. They didn't wait long.

Without warning, both Honey and Mori dashed off their starting positions, two blurry streaks heading for the unsuspecting trio of idiots like two birds of prey diving for three unwitting pigeons, capturing them upon their shoulders. And audible gasp filled the room from where the clients were standing, their eyes wide and filled with awe at their speed. With Honey shoulder-carrying Tamaki and Mori having both Hitachiins upon each shoulder, they both arced back across the expansive clubroom and slowed to a halt at Kyoya's position with Tamaki and the twins passed out from the g-forces involved.

Amidst clapping, whistling, squealing and all manner of fangirling, Kyoya pointed to the solon sofas where Tamaki and the twins had slept during the opening of the Host Club. "Keep an eye on them while they sleep there, and wake them up when hosting activities are over. I'll handle the rest." Then he turned to the ladies and said, adopting once again his hosting persona, "They need their sleep, so please refrain from getting near them. They're more tired than I realized; but like I said before, they'll be their wonderful selves by tomorrow," adding under his breath, "even if I have to threaten them."

After setting Tamaki and the twins on their respective sofas, Honey and Mori looked over at the table that now seated their Shadow King with Haruhi and Ruzaki and all the girls surrounding them. The two cousins then looked at each other before turning back to the table in contemplation on Haruhi and Ruzaki and Kyoya. Both had similar ideas on what might result from such unusual circumstances.

"Takashi," Honey said, grabbing onto Mori's jacket.

The big man looked down at his charge. "Yes?"

"Would you prefer Kyo-chan as the Host Club king over Tama-chan?"

The big man shook his head, as unreadable as ever to everyone except Honey.

"I thought so." Then Honey looked over at Tamaki and the twins now reposing on their respective sofas, thinking of other more immediate thoughts. "But these three need to get their acts together, especially Tama-chan. Something tells me that Kyo-chan won't give him back his position if he doesn't think Tama-chan's ready for it. Do you think Kyo-chan might call a meeting for that?"

The big man remained silent for a time, gazing out at Kyoya talking with a nervous Ruzaki and a confused Haruhi at the table, all the while charming the ladies with his own considerable literary prowess. Mori said, "Maybe . . ." and let his words drift off into space.

It took less than a split second's glance from the Shadow King, a glance that escaped the attentions of everyone around the table, to stop Mori from voicing his opinion with another demonic flash of his glasses. That flash, invisible from where everyone else was seated, chilled Mori to the quick and compelled him to nod his head in silent acknowledgement.

At first, Honey was mystified; but from what little he could decipher from Mori's stoic expression, he got the gist of his trepidation. The Shadow King's omnipotence must be observed. So he changed the subject to less dangerous waters and said, "Takeshi."

The big man looked down. "Yes?"

"Have you noticed that Tama-chan, Hika-chan and Kao-chan act like cats and dogs?"

The big man nodded.

"And that they're all fussing over a tanuki?"

The big man looked at his charge . . . and smiled. Leave it to Honey to make a metaphorical comparison between a tanuki and Haruhi and have it make sense. No wonder Honey was on a roll today charming the ladies; his poetic conceits were quite sharp.

"I thought so." Honey paused, thinking of another connection in his mind. He said, "Takashi."

The big man looked down. "Yes?"

"What animal does Ruza-chan remind you of?"

The big man gazed over at a nervous Ruzaki sitting across from Kyoya, viewing their exchange along with a nervous Haruhi and an equally nervous crowd of girls. He saw their wide-eyed expressions of suspense, all of them absorbed in the outcome of their conversation, all of them following their exchanges with the absorption of an academic debate. He zeroed in on Haruhi in particular in relation to Ruzaki next to her and saw the connection.

Mori said, "A tanuki."

"I thought so, too. No wonder Haru-chan went out of her way to do this for Ruza-chan." Honey paused, thinking out the possible consequences of such a connection. "Takashi."

The big man looked down. "Yes?"

"Do you think Kyo-chan would—?"

Here, Mori put a finger to his charge's lips and smiled. "Let Kyoya decide, Mitsukuni." He then looked over at the table and caught a glimpse of Kyoya's momentary stare in his direction and yet another flash of his glasses as if Kyoya had read his mind. Like his Satanic counterpart, Kyoya kept one step ahead of everyone else; but Mori took pleasure in the knowledge that he could glimpse into the mind of such a man without getting burned. Mori added, so that Honey understood his meaning, "Don't play with fire."

Honey then turned towards the table and focused on Kyoya with big wondering eyes, adding under his breath, "I thought so."

(To be continued...)

A/N: Hey there! I know it's been a while since I last updated this story; life's been crazy on my end. I hope there are at least a few people out there still reading this fanfic. Anyway, hope you find this chapter enjoyable, because I really like how this chapter turned out. It took a lot longer to write than I thought, because I wasn't sure where to take it in the middle. All right, enough excuses. Here are the names of each of the Host Club member's most frequent regulars:

Haruhi: (1) Kimiko Sakurazuka, (2) Momoka Kurakano, (3) Ruri "Karasuma" Karasumaru
Tamaki: (1) Shiori Igawa, (2) Tsubaki Kamigamo, (3) Honoka Kimiwada
Kyoya: (1) Yuriko "Aika" Akishika, (2) Azusa Suwaki
Twins: (1) Haruna Usami, (2) Kozue Kitamikado
Honey/Mori: (1) Marika Mikamo, (2) Ayumi "Munekata" Munakata

I'm SOOOOOO excited right now! I wanna know what people think of it, but I hope haven't lagged on their characterizations since I last updated. I was writing the last section of this chapter purely on gut instinct from what I still remember of my research on Honey and Mori. Hope you enjoyed!