Disclaimer: I do not own Ouran, nor have I ever jumped in front of a taxi.

Haruhi tossed the bouquet into the air as she and her roommates stepped out into the mild evening. Despite her lack of prowess at any sport known to man, she easily caught the flowers again.

"Stop doing that," Hikaru admonished, "you'll drop them."

"I don't think I can," Haruhi replied. "I still have no idea how I caught them in the first place."

"It was fate!" Hikaru's lovely girlfriend declared. "I wish I'd caught it."

Hikaru put his arm around her comfortingly. "At least your failure wasn't for lack of trying."

Kaoru laughed, slinging his arm around Haruhi's waist. "Instead of a triumph in spite of a total disinterest in trying!"

"I really didn't mean to catch it," Haruhi said apologetically. "Did you want to take it home with you, Kami-chan?"

"No, but thank you anyway, Haruhi," she replied, refusing the flowers Haruhi was offering. "That's very nice of you, but I don't deserve your prize."

"And I'll buy you some even better ones on our way home," Hikaru vowed, kissing his girlfriend's forehead. "Uh, I mean, on our way to your home. Because I'm escorting you home, to your apartment, and then going back to where I live." She giggled, and they sauntered away with only a wave of a hand exchanged between the twins.

Kaoru watched them go, and then turned and pulled Haruhi the other way, murmuring about the night turning cooler and getting to a better place to find a taxi. They walked away with their arms around each other, headed back to the apartment they shared with Hikaru.

"Do you think he's going to move out?" Kaoru asked suddenly, with a tilt of his head in the direction his brother had gone. Haruhi glanced after the retreating couple and then looked with concern at Kaoru. "I just… kind of get the feeling that it's going to happen soon."

"What will we do then? Find another roommate?"

"I'm not worried about that," Kaoru said, waving Haruhi's fears aside with his free hand.

"Then what?"

He was silent for a moment, then admitted, "I think I'll be pretty lonely."

"I'm sure he'll miss you, too."

"What about you?" he asked, looking down at her. "Are you going to be lonely?"

Haruhi smiled. "I'll have you."

Kaoru returned her smile, but Haruhi noticed for the first time that evening that there was something sad in it. His overly cheerful tone didn't do enough to cover it up. "Haruhi, when was the last time you went on a date?"

"Uhh… I think… maybe when Tamaki forced me to go out to dinner and then dancing with him the year after we graduated."

He shook his head. "Any time the word 'forced' is included in the explanation, it's not a date."

"Oh." She frowned. "Then I guess it was when I went to the market with Hikaru that time in high school… but even that wasn't actually the date I'd agreed to." After a moment of silence she asked, "Why? When was the last time you went out with someone?"

He merely sighed in response. Several minutes later when they had reached a busier street, Kaoru began to try to flag down a car to take them home. Haruhi had suggested the train, but he insisted that "this will be faster!"

However, when the third empty cab whizzed past Kaoru's beckoning arm, he dropped it in frustration and said, "You know, some people marry their best friends." He heaved another sigh and put his arm back around Haruhi. "I've heard of people who made a deal that if they weren't both married by a certain age that they would get married to each other."

"Do you really want to get married that badly, Kaoru?" Haruhi said, trying to get more of a look at his face than just a shadowy profile.

A slight shrug of his shoulder was all the evidence Haruhi had that he had heard her question. "What age would you make that kind of pact for? Forty? Fifty?"

"What, you mean promising to marry one of my friends? I don't know… I guess as long as I'm able to support myself, I wouldn't mind being unmarried."

Kaoru's sigh told Haruhi that he was once again disappointed in her lack of interest in his plan. Even at her current status, nearly graduated from law school, the practical girl was already showing signs of becoming a work-a-holic.

"Well then," he said, flinging his hand out into the street to get the attention of a nearby taxi, "let's not put a time limit on it; let's go get married right now." Haruhi joined in Kaoru's laughter, and playfully hit him on the arm. "I'm sure if I can get a cab, it'll take us to a priest for about the same amount as it'll cost to get us home."

"Kaoru, stop," Haruhi said laughingly.

"You might say no today, Haruhi, but that doesn't mean I'm going to stop asking," he said with a grin, then leaped off the curb, throwing himself in front of a taxi.

As Kaoru questioned the driver as to why he wouldn't stop for a fare when there was one ready and willing, Haruhi looked hard her friend's face.

"Are you being serious?" she asked.

Kaoru smiled, glancing at the bouquet Haruhi still held in her hands. "Sometimes you catch something without even trying, but it doesn't mean you don't deserve it."

The look on her face told him that she'd never considered such a thing before. He opened the door for her, and held out his hand to help her in.

They rode back to their apartment in silence, and Haruhi waited while Kaoru grudgingly paid the driver, unlocked their door, and turned on the light in the hallway. Not a word was said while the two of them got ready for bed, not even when Kaoru glanced at the clock and then out the front window, a sure sign that he was getting worried about his brother.

"Goodnight," Kaoru finally said as he spotted Haruhi heading for her bedroom.

She stopped in the doorway. "Kaoru," she said softly, and turned a little toward him so that she could look him in the eye. "Maybe… you should ask me again tomorrow."

Author's Note (August 10, 2014): Thank you for reading; I love every one of your wonderful reviews.

Though it may not seem like it from the amount of things I post on ff . net, I am writing all the time. If you have something you want to write but just can't find the words, I'd love to help (and so would Stella)! Send me a pm or go check out my fanfic blog at iwillwriteyourfic . blogspot . com!