Sorry! Sorry! Sorry! I know that is really late but my laptop was getting fixed and I finally just got it back. Hope you enjoy. I do not own OHSHC.

Hikaru's POV

I spent a good five days moping and brooding on the subject of Sunny and this A.J. person. So much anger was housed in me that I really couldn't process what to do and how to function correctly. It wasn't until Kaoru woke me up this morning and informed me that the Boss told us to gather and that we would go and visit their apartment.

And by wake up: I really mean he slammed my face in with a pillow and yelled at me to get dressed. I still continued to brood about it when we got in the limo with the others.

"Why," I questioned, "are we going over today? They've got company." I had somehow managed not to hiss that last bit and clenched my hands to keep myself from making any outburst. I really did not want to go over to there while he was there, with Sunny. Probably hugging her.

"We," said Tamaki, "are going to try to convince Sunny to stay." I was slouching in my seat but that made me bolt right out of the cushions, the seat belt stopping my progress upwards, only to yank me back down.

"What?!" I demanded. Tamaki flinched at my outburst, inching closer to Kyoya, but thought better of it and moved back. "What do you mean? Why would Sunny be even considering leaving?" He pointed in Kyoya's direction, too afraid to feed me the information.

"Well," he drawled, pushing his glasses higher, "I have some information on this A.J. It is said that they are childhood friends." That really didn't surprise me after seeing the picture in her room. "His extended family lives in Florida and they are all quite fond of her. His parents are dead and he had offered to take her back to America with him during this visit."

If felt like all the air in me was nonexistent, for a few more seconds forgetting how to breathe. The look in his eyes were as emotionless as ever. He should care more! Isn't he afraid of loosing profit if she leaves?! I sank down in my seat, wondering how much more I wanted to know. But whatever information would just make me angry.

But Honey-senpai didn't see it that way. He was in shock too though, his eyes were wider than ever, crushing his rabbit closer to his chest. "Why would he be taking Sun-chan away? Doesn't he know that Hikaru likes her?" That got my attention.

"I do not like her!" I yelled. But they all just gave me an I-don't-believe-you look. "I'm just concerned for her well-being. Whose to say that he won't move in on Haruhi too?" That got Tamaki's attention. He yelled stuff about how he would never let hat happen and how A.J. will have to go through him before he even thinks about taking his "daughter" away.

"We must know our enemy better," he proclaimed. "Tell us more about him, Kyoya." I was hoping that he wouldn't, but Kyoya went on anyway.

His name was actually Andrew Jeremiah Mathews and he would be turning 21 later in May. His mother died of childbirth, the baby also having died shortly after, when he was thirteen, and his father having died in the line of duty as a police officer when he was fifteen. He was studying to be an architect, explaining how he left after graduating high school to a university in the state of Florida. He always came back to visit Sunny and her parents when he got a break. He was then there for her parents funeral, only to leave a few day after. They kept in touch these past few months by phone for a few weeks, before she sold it along with her laptop (she was the one that saved up the money and continued to pay for the bills out of her work money), they then kept in touch by letter.

Back to the problem at hand, I hated to admit, but he sounded like a pretty stand-up guy. It sounded like he, just as Sunny and Haruhi, went through much heartbreak. I still didn't want to admit it, but if they are close as Kyoya says, then there is a strong possibility that Sunny will be back in America before the end of school break.

There she was, a broom in hand, her hair up in a high pony tail, wearing a white shirt in overalls with the legs rolled up to her shins. There wasn't much surprise on her face, but she did show plenty of annoyance. Who could really blame her, we just interrupted their New Year's Eve cleaning.

"Can I help you?" she asked in a harsh tone. Her eyes were narrowed as she met each of our gazes.

"Yes," said Kyoya, "Tamaki gathered us here in order to-" His speech was stopped by Tamaki's hand over his mouth.

"We're here to help you clean!" he interrupted.

"Uh huh," she muttered. "Now, tell me why you're really here." Thankfully there was a door sliding open that took her attention off of us.

"Hey, Sunshine," said a groggy voice. "I didn't know you were having friends over." In came the reason why we were all here, half dressed. His hair was wet from the bath, an inch or so of black boxers peeking out from his jeans. The kicker and most infuriating thing was the fact that he came out with no shame and no shirt. Surprise, anger, and then smugness went through me. His eyes looked tired, and his Japanese was slurred, sounding as if he was nursing extreme effects of jet-lag. But then that all came crashing down when Sunny got this worried look on her face.

"Oh, you're out," she said, turning to him. "It's almost ten. Now get in the room before Haruhi sees you." She swatted his backside with the bristles of the broom in the direction of her bedroom. "Don't even think of coming out of there without looking decent."

Tamaki chose that time to perform a group huddle while her back was turned. "Look," he said, "we can't let her know that we know about this. She'll freak out or something and we'll scare her off. Is everyone clear on this?" We all nodded. "Good." We broke up and resumed our positions just as Sunny turned back to us.

"He's been so tired these past few days that I've had him sleeping in my room, while I slept in the sitting room."

"Oh," said Honey-senpai. He voiced all of our relief at hearing that. At the very least it didn't sound as if the two of them were together, like that.

"Now, how about telling me why you're all really here?" She opened her mouth to say something else when no one answered, but Haruhi thankfully chose that time to intervene.

"The neighbor had some glass cleaner that they could spare. Why are you all here?"

"They say that they're here to help clean," answered Sunny.

"And you believed them?"

"No. Now you all have about five seconds to leave before I swat you with this broom." Sunny raised the broom, the bristles high in the air, ready to strike.

"Whoa! How many times do I have to tell you: you don't hit guests with brooms?!" A.J. came out of the room, thankfully fully dressed, and caught the broom mid-swing.

"This is the first time actually," she muttered.

"Don't get smart with me," he said. He lightly hit her on the head with the broom. "There. Now stop using cleaning tools to assault people." She crossed her arms in annoyance. He then turned to us, an apologetic look on his face. "Sorry about that, she can get kind of dangerous if she has some sort of weapon. This one time she managed to make a pillow hurt."

"When do you plan on letting it go?," she muttered. "It's in the past."

"That was this morning!" Sunny shrug, he then sighed and shook his head. "Now I'm going to give you this back to you, but you have to promise not to use it for evil."

"Define: evil?" He gave her a warning look. "Fine." She grabbed a hold of the stick and stuck her tongue out at him.

"Now, I haven't had a chance to introduce myself," he said, holding out a hand. Why, oh why? Out of all the people in the group why did he have to reach his hand out to me first?! I didn't make any move to shake his hand, slightly glaring at it.

"A.J.," called Sunny. "They don't really shake hands here, so this is really just strange."

"Oh," he said. "I'm so sorry. I forgot my manners." His words really were apologetic, but when he looked me in the eyes there was a questioning look. He looked back between Sunny and me. He took a few steps toward her, and when he put a hand on her shoulder, I tensed. He then stepped away from her and I relaxed. This continued for three more times, doing it in the most casual way that no one else but me seemed to notice, and when he stopped there was a smile to his lip as if understanding the world's hardest puzzle. "I can already tell that this is going to be a very eventful day." He gave me a smug smile as he kissed Sunny on the forehead.

Because of Tamaki's awful excuse for us being here, we were forced to help out in order to keep any suspicions down to a minimum. Which was hard since we were supposed to be cleaning.

A.J. cleaned up in the kitchen, while the girls were cleaning the bedrooms. The six, or actually the five of us since Kyoya was off to the side, were cleaning the sitting room. All in all, it wasn't that bad of a day. We stopped and broke for lunch and then got back to work, finishing around two. During the last hour Haruhi went into the kitchen to make some New Year's cakes.

We decided to hang out for a while until it was time to go to a shrine, passing some time before it got dark. When we finally looked at the clock it was 10:30. The girls decided to go and change clothes, since it was very cold outside, but my eyes stayed on Sunny. She wore a red thermal shirt with a jacket over it and denim jeans, later putting on her boots on the way out.

We all agreed in taking the car, since the shrine was so far away. Everyone got quiet as I was to sit next to A.J. and Sunny sat in front of the two of us. I still refer to him as A.J. because I somehow got it in my head that if I call him by his actual name something bad was going to happen. I did not want to think of him as Sunny's childhood friend because I just really wanted to hate this guy, ruining everything and possibly taking Sunny away from us.

Snow started to fall from the sky much faster than before, the cold frosting up the windows. Sunny suddenly got a little twinkle in her eye as she turned to the window and blew warm air at it, fogging over the glass. She then took a gloved finger to write Happy New Years.

The car stopped, arriving at the shrine. Sunny was the first one to act and jump out of the car, she spun under the falling flakes with the ends of her scarf and hair spinning with her. We had about a good forty-five minutes to kill before midnight. Haruhi said that there was amazake, a sweet drink made from fermented rice. We started making our way over to the stand up ahead, ignoring the stares our group got.

"You guys must attract a lot of attention on a regular basis," muttered A.J. "I can only imagine the mobs you must get at your school."

"The only mobs they attract are of the cute variety, but it never gets out of hand," said Sunny.

"Oh, yeah. That club of yours. You mentioned it in one of your letters, they have you wear, and I quote "things that would ruin your street cred"." He laughed.

"It's true, I would never be able to live it down if one of my friends back home saw me in one of those outfits."

"If I remember correctly, you would dress up in one of the most outrageous things for Halloween. Weren't you dressed as a '20s flapper one year?"

"They don't need to hear that," she hissed.

"You're right," he said, reaching for something in his pocket. "But maybe they need to see it." She started to grab at his phone, but he kept it out of her reach. She gave up, saying that she didn't care anymore.

When the phone came over to my direction, I had to bury the impulse to smash it to the ground, for I did not want to owe him. There, in the middle of the group was Sunny, about fifteen, in a white, shimmery dress. It was strapless and ended around her mid-thigh. She had on smoky stockings, and wore pure white gloves that came up to her elbows and wearing a feather headdress and a white feather boa rested on her shoulders. The one pop of color was on her lips, covered in a dark red shade of lipstick. Her lips had a coy smile to them as she gazed mysteriously towards the camera, making a show of playfully popping a foot in the air as the shot was taken.

Just as quickly as the picture was put in my reach, it was just a quickly taken out of my hand. "That's all you get to see, dude," said A.J. "But from what I've heard, it seems as if you've seen more than you should have." I looked away in embarrassment, I then noticed that we were at the back of the group. I tried to find Koaru but was far away near the amazake stand with Sunny. "From the look you just gave me, I would guess that you're Hikaru. Sunny talks about you in some of her letters, she wrote that you've been keeping that secret for her. She thinks highly of you, believe it or not."

"I think very highly of her, too," I said, quickening my pace.

"Wow," he said. "I knew it, you hate me, don't you?" That stopped me in my tracks, I turned back to him. "You seem to want to avoid me completely, but then you would have to avoid Sunny, too, in the process. I don't want you to hate me, I want us to get along, for Sunny's sake." The sound of him saying her name made me snap.

"Why should I?" I glared at him. "What's the point in getting along with you? You came here to try to take Sunny away from here!"

He laughed, which startled me. "Sunny did say that you practically have spies keeping track of everyone's movements, but I didn't really believe her. I'm guessing the guy with the glasses and the scary look in his eyes is Kyoya, the one that knows all. He's right, though. I did try to take her away, but it's for a selfish reason really. I miss her a lot. I wasn't the only one though, her friends and my relatives miss her, too. She's a ray a sunshine to be around. She's very selfless and puts everyone's needs above her own. Her biggest fear is that she'll hold people back and that she'll hurt the people that she cares about. She told me to go back to Florida after her parent's funeral. Said that I should get my butt back on a plane as soon as possible and that college is more important than her."

The disbelief that I was feeling must have shown through. "That's how I must have looked when she said that to me. The reason I'm saying all this to you is because she said no." I managed to keep the smug smile off my face as he continued. "She cares too much about Haruhi and her uncle to come back right now. She went on and on about how she would hurt them both more if she left than if she stayed." The smugness disappeared leaving behind confusion.

"What do you mean by that?" I asked. His words gave something away, bringing up a memory of one of Sunny's stories from when she was younger. But I just as quickly lost my grasp of it.

"It's not my place to say anything else about it. Just know that she cares a great deal for you knuckle-heads. And from earlier this morning I can tell that you very much care for her, too, perhaps even more." The most irritating thing about this was when he said it, there was a deep meaningful look in his eyes.

Before I got the chance to even think of a way to respond, snowballs were attacking us. A.J. managed to dodge a few of them, but I was still pounded with them. We both turned to see innocent looking Kaoru and Sunny, their gloves covered in snow powder, each of them pointing an accusing finger at Tamaki.

"It wasn't me I swear," he said.

A.J. shook his head, continuing to say things that I didn't bother to listen to. I looked on at her, seeing snowflakes nestled in her hair and the way she smiled. She caught my starring, she nervously raised her scarf over her nose and waved. I waved back, the tips of my ears reddening. My attention was snagged away when there was a hand snapping in my face.

"Huh," he said. "You're in way deeper than I thought." I innocently shrugged my shoulders, pretending that I didn't know what he was talking about. "Dude, if you think you can pull the wool over my eyes than you've got another thing coming. You know that sick feeling you had when I was around Sunny, well I've felt that exactly when I was your age. Take it from me: you should just get over yourself and tell her how you really feel. But since the girl that you're mooning over is Sunny, you minght have some trouble getting her to understand your feelings."

"No thanks, Andrew. I don't need your help. I'll do just fine on my own," I said too quickly. I only vaguely realized that I called him by his real name, but nothing bad had happened yet so I ignored the sudden word spill. Whatever suspicions he had were proven correct by his determined nod. He started to call Sunny over. "What are you doing?" I hissed.

"Proving a point," he answered.

"Hey," she greeted. "What's up?" She looked at me in question but I shrugged in confusion. She then turned to A.J.

"Me and Peeping Tom here were talking about you," he blurted. A fearful tingle went down my spine. "I think that he's in love with you." The fog of air every time I breathed stopped, my lungs locking in place.

But something unexpected happened. She started laughing. It wasn't awkward or forced, but sounded real. It was warm and sweet. She must have thought that A.J. was kidding. But as I thought over this morning's car ride to their apartment when Honey-senpai said that I liked her and I said that I didn't, I realize that I wasn't lying.

I was in love with her. But she thought we were joking.

She must have realized that neither one of us was laughing with her. Her laughter slowly died down, until it was just a whisper. "Um... how come you're not laughing?" she asked weakly. "This is a joke, right?" She looked at A.J. in question, franticly searching for humor that wasn't there. She then looked at me, wanting me to say that it was and that I felt nothing, or at least a normal amount of like, for her. She stepped back, shaking her head, still wanting to deny it. "It's happening again," was the last thing she said before she ran out of there, mixing in with the crowd and continuing to run further into the shrine.

I didn't bother to ask A.J. what happened or to ask for anyone else's help, I just ran after her. She sped up when I called after her. As I pushed my legs harder I realized that my hypothesis was right about calling him by his real name. Something bad did happen.

This is sad, ain't it? You've no idea how painful it was to type this.