I was more than happy at my luvvy adopting the Harry Potter series so quickly. He was absolutely desperate for the books, but sadly only my volume of the fifth book was nice enough to lend to someone. It was pretty warn out, but the others were far worse. All the other books were duct-taped together, whole chunks of pages missing(but of course, I knew those bits by heart) and various other dysfunctions. The covers were well worn and almost paper thin from the near seven years of my hands running over them, wearing them down to near nothingness. So when he asked to borrow my other copies, I wanted to say yes... But I didn't want him to have to deal with the lack of pages and pain of them falling apart. He wasn't excited at that answer, but at least I had a new Christmas present idea. Seven of them, actually!

The airport was relatively crowded, which somehow gave me a headache very quickly. All I could hope was that the plane ride would be fast. I was planning on falling asleep while Takashi got out the portable dvd player to watch the fifth movie. As I dug through my carry-on for an iPod and headphones, he paused in his fiddling and looked at me. It took me a moment to realize he wanted to talk.

"'Sup?"

"Just... Thanks. This trip... It was fantastic."

I smiled and looked back at my bag to continue my rummaging, "Nah, you made it great. But man... Rome is fabulous... Especially with you there." I smiled and sat back, still unable to find headphones, yet I found my iPod... Last I remembered they were attached...

"Yeah... So... The club trip is a few days from now. Ready for it?" I grinned, saying,

"If you're with me..." He grinned at my cheesy remark and kissed my forehead before going back to fiddling with his dvd player. I continued looking for my headphones, frustrated now, while the stewardess told us to strap in. Once we were in the air, Taka-chan had his earbuds in almost instantly, which is when I realized he'd taken mine. Restraining my frustrations, I settled to simply watch the scenery for a while, then, when I finally got tired, I lay against him for a snooze. His arm worked it's way around my waist, wasting no time making sure I was comfortable. I ended up not being able so sleep thanks to some lady behind me with a serious case of mouth breather. Instead, I lay into my fiance's shoulder and mouthed the words of the movie to myself. I know, pathetic that I had them memorized, but it was what I grew up with. A few hours into the flight, we switched the movies for him, and when he realized I was still awake(he was REALLY absorbed in these movies...) he handed me one of the headphones. Eventually we switched the discs again and watched the Deathly Hallows part one until our stewardess announced we'd be touching down soon. Takashi packed away the dvd player and let me grab the carry on luggage as we prepared to disembark. He grabbed our heavy duty luggage(again attached by a thick rope. We just couldn't function without the thing.) and led the way to where our driver would be waiting for us. I expected a certain group of six Japanese teens to be waiting, but to my slight surprise, there was only an empty car and a driver. No french spaz, no evil genius, no identical faces, no cross dresser- not even a small bundle of adorable blonde with a fluffy bunny. It wasn't what I'd thought would happen. Despite feeling relieved and being unable to stop the smile spreading across my face, I was a little disappointed. Used to the constant adoration and obnoxious greetings I associate with my fellow hosts, this felt wrong... Almost neglectful. Then I realized that after last night's phone call with Tama-chan(which I'd heard all of), they were probably holding him back from coming to see us, thinking we'd be peeved. I grinned at the thought. Takashi looked down at me and raised an eyebrow, but smiled like he knew what I was thinking.

The whole trip home was completely stress free, considering we both slept. Taka had admitted to me how he'd spent the majority of the last two nights reading the fifth Harry Potter book, and I was a tired person by nature, so we were both pretty much wiped out. An hour later, we were back at the Morinozuka household, already having dropped off my luggage at my house, sprawled across Takashi's bed. I'm not sure how long we'd been asleep by the time Ouka got home, but it was around seven pm when she made us get up for dinner. I tried to work out the math. If we'd left Rome around 11 am, and the flight was twelve hours, and the time zones were an eight hour difference, we should have arrived in Japan around seven in the morning. After driving home and stopping at my place, it would have been about eight thirty in the morning when we got to Takashi's house.

I started when I realized that we'd been asleep for a whole ten and a half hours. I wasn't shocked that I had slept that long(to be honest, I sleep as long as possible), I was just shocked that I'd somehow wore out Takashi so much that his kendo-trained body had allowed him to sleep so long. Being raised an athlete as he was, his body was used to a seven hour sleep cycle- no more, no less. It was nearly impossible for him to break that, even if he wanted to. When Ouka went back downstairs after waking us up, Takashi simply grunted and rolled over, onto me. He lay across my chest, keeping me pinned underneath him. I giggled, sensing that he was actually asleep. Stirred by the jerky motion of my chest, he lifted himself up onto his elbows. I could hear his stomach grumble angrily, and chuckled at his light blush. He never blushed much, and could somehow always make it disappear fast... A skill I was extremely jealous of.

Ouka seemed shy about talking to us when we did finally drag ourselves downstairs. I wasn't sure why at first, but then I thought it may have been the fact that she found us completely unconscious on her older brother's bed however many hours ago... She could have easily thought that that meant we hadn't slept a lot on the trip... Just thinking about the conclusion she may have just come to made me blush. I tried to make small talk, but she was pretty reserved. So of course, I blushed harder. We decided to pull out a board game after dinner. Ouka chose Scrabble, if simply because she wanted to work on her English. Takashi seemed to be even more on edge than she did, which meant he had something on his mind. He'd probably come to the same conclusion as me and was trying to think of how to break the tension. After a few minutes of tense silence and the occasional interjection of my correcting one of my Japanese counterparts on their English, she spoke up.

Giving a small cough, she mumbled, "So... How was the, uh, trip?"

I felt my blood warm in my cheek bones as I replied, "Good... Good. How was yours? You went back to your friend's house again, right?"

There was a brief span of silence during which Ouka screwed up her face in concentration and pulled her knees up to her chest before she blurted out, "HE KISSED ME!" and slammed her head down into her knees to avoid our faces. I sat back on my feet, stunned. I had not expected that. Neither had Takashi. He dropped the letter tile he'd been trying to place and looked up at his younger sister. I could almost see the murder he was planning.

"Oh, wow! Ouka, that's... That's great!" I broke into a grin before I hugged her tightly balled up figure. I let out a small squeal. "Seriously, that's amazing! When? How!?" She peeked through a curtain of hair at me to be sure I meant it. She saw the genuine excitement in my eyes and took a breath before she explained.

"Well, we've been talking since the beginning of the school year because we're both in the art club. We've been friends for a while, so it's not like this was really sudden... But last week when he told me he liked me... Well, we set up a few dates while you two were gone. I wanted to tell you, but I didn't want to interrupt or worry or distract you, so I just kept it to myself... And then last night we went out to dinner, and... Well, he kissed me goodnight!"

"Wow, so does anyone else know?"

"Oh, almost everyone. Mom and dad have met him, all my friends, his family- like I said, almost everyone."

"Cool! I'm so happy for you! I wanna meet him! Can he come over soon?"

"I'm sure he could! If... If, you know," She turned to her brother, "If it's okay with you...?"

Takashi looked up from his dazed thoughts, clearly not paying attention.

"Taka, I want you to meet him. I mean, I'm excited that he likes me, and I really like him too, but I want you to approve still, and if you don't- I'll end it." She groped for the right words before continuing, "You know how much I look up to you. Your opinion means everything to me."

She sat in a state of agitation, eagerly awaiting his input.

"Well," He started calmly, "How soon can he come over?"

My eardrums nearly burst with the frequency of her squealing.