Guest: Thank you!

argenteusvipera: Thanks so much for the review! The Ootori brothers have a complicated relationship for sure. "I am not prepared to give you any advice, but also, I will gladly tear into the guy who is creeping on your fiancee." It is 100% nonsense that everyone tolerates/enables Mr. Ito, which illustrates how messed up the "blue blood" world actually is - especially towards younger people, like Kosuke and Kyoya, who are expected to maintain good appearances to impress older people like Mr. Ito, who get away with far too much. If Mr. Ito was around Kosuke and Kyoya's age, he'd be history.

Alnitak8: Thanks!

Wishfulhamadryad: After roughly 58-59 chapters, I promise, the lack of communication and refusing to ask for help is coming to an end, lol. But yes, that pretty much sums up why both of them are the way that they are - along with a few more things that we'll get into with the next chapter. Thanks so much!

Kosuke isn't an idiot. Not all the time, anyway.

She has known ever since the first time of many that he appeared in her dreams. If she didn't know then, then she knew when he brought her lemon drops. If not then, then when the children returned from the aquarium smiling from ear-to-ear, or when he sat and listened to her stories about her parents in a dusty little storage room, or when he fell on the deck of the boat and panic seized her like a python.

You can know something to be true and still deny it. It's a neat little trick called lying to yourself.

She's in love.

Kosuke was six years old when her mother married her stepfather. She did not know that the sun was a burning ball of fire, or that fairies only lived in storybooks. Looking at her mother in her frosting-stained wedding dress and with her hair mussed from dancing, what Kosuke did know was that love was beautiful. Now, fourteen years later, she knows that she's going to fulfill her promise to her mother: "Absolutely good."

She should have been happy when she figured it out.

But oh, she was so scared.

She would not let herself think about it. She would not let herself want it. The reason why was airtight logic—and the fight with Kyoya? Proof. Then, on Saturday, sitting in an empty arcade game, Kosuke had an out-of-body experience: she was looking down at a woman who was hiding, pouting, from all her problems, and Kosuke thought, You're pathetic.

Saturday made her realize how much she needed to let go, and how much she needed to hold onto.

Kosuke would love to say that she did this gracefully, but the truth was that by the time she and the children had returned to the Amida estate, she was falling apart like confetti.

The next day, when she felt a little more put-together, it wasn't that she'd changed her mind again. It was that she and Kyoya needed to talk face-to-face, and the last she'd heard, Ootori Medical had ensnared him yet again.

Kosuke had made a plan—an actual, concrete plan that she wrote in her planner with her gel pens. The next time that she saw Kyoya at Ouran University, she would say that they needed to talk. They would sort out a place and time, and Kosuke would tell Kyoya what she should've told him on the beach.

She felt very pleased with herself.

And also, like she was going to empty her stomach contents at any given moment.

Sure, love is a beautiful thing. It is also nerve-wracking, and it haunts your mind like a ghost. It's like she's twelve years old again, wanting to ask a cute boy to go to the school party with her.

Except this is much more serious, with much larger consequences, and much greater risks, and it really isn't like being twelve years old and wanting to ask a cute boy to go to a school party with her at all.

There is so much she could gain, and so much she could lose. And so much she probably has no right to ask for. She doesn't know if she's being selfish. If she wants Kyoya to not only be happy but to also be the one to bring him happiness, is that selfish? If she wants Kyoya to feel safe because he can depend on her, is that selfish?

On Sunday morning, Kosuke treats the children to a scavenger hunt. She hides toys and candies throughout the mansion, each with written hints about the next one. Minami and Hitsuji scour the place with magnifying glasses that they never use, little Sherlock and Watson, so delightfully in their childhood that they have no idea that Kosuke is writhing inside. She is delighted and terrified. She wants to sing and she wants to scream.

This is why she does something very, very, very stupid, and why she is very much an idiot on that Sunday morning.

Kosuke thought that fresh air, a change of scenery, and good food would sew her back together some. So, she took the children into the city for lunch.

Kosuke doesn't realize her fatal mistake until that evening. The children are playing in their rooms, and Kosuke is reading in the sunlight. She is stuck reading the same paragraphs time and again. Finally, she decides that her brain just doesn't have room for any words and closes the book with a huff.

A minute later, the door opens. Miyuri enters the room.

Confusion becomes wariness when Miyuri shuts and locks the door behind her, then dread when she takes a phone from her blazer pocket and says, "Here, sir."

She holds out the phone for Kosuke.

Kosuke takes it. "Hello."

"I don't recall giving you permission to leave this morning."

Her stomach drops to her feet.

Oh, no.

"I just took the children to lu—"

"I didn't ask."

Kosuke clicks her mouth shut.

"What did I tell you?"

She swallows. Her tongue is tacky in her mouth. "That if I ever want to leave for anything besides school, I have to ask you first."

"And what did you do?"

"I left without asking."

"And what should you say?"

Kosuke wants to be annoyed, but she's just scared. She cannot predict him like she once thought she could.

"I'm sorry."

"You're sorry…?"

"I'm sorry, sir."

"You don't have a good memory." He waits.

"No, sir."

"I think you need a reminder."

Damn it, damn it…

"Answer me."

"Yes, sir."

"Give your phone to Miyuri."

Her fingers are stiff, but she does. Miyuri tucks it into her pocket wordlessly.

"You'll have to do without it for the next two weeks. Other than school, you're not going anywhere. Not to meet your friends, your grandparents, or your fiancé, not to take your siblings on any playdates. Any invitations, and you'll give a reason why you can't attend. You'll give a reason why you aren't answering your phone. This is just the first stage. If I catch even a hint that you've told anyone what's happening, we'll move on. Do you understand?"

Kosuke answers, "I understand, sir."

She knows what this punishment means. She won't be able to talk to anyone, let alone Kyoya when she needs to the most.

Despite that, Kosuke is more focused on how…juvenile a punishment this is. She can't go anywhere but school. She's had her phone taken away.

She's grounded. This is the kind of banal punishment her parents used to give her in high school. Is that the point?

"For your sake, don't let this happen again."

When he hangs up, Miyuri takes her phone back—but in return, she hands Kosuke a simple white envelope. Then she leaves.

Maybe it's more information about Amida Health she needs to study while she's under house arrest? Kosuke can't guess what else it would be. She still hasn't digested what has happened.

She opens the envelope, and ash falls out.

It crumbles across her fingers in a fine, grayish-brown powder. There is more inside, enough to gather in the corners. Among it are bits of color, and when she pulls them out, they are glossy on her fingertips. On this strip, she sees a hand. On this one, green summer grass.

As autopiloted as pulling her hand away from a hot pan, Kosuke drops the envelope, ash dusting the carpet and her pants leg, and goes to her bookshelf. In tugging her photo album from the shelf, she drops it on the floor, and she goes down with it instead of picking it up again. She fumbles through the pages and finds exactly what she had dreaded: here and there, blank spots where there had once been the snapshots of Marti feeding Hitsuji birthday cake, a stuffed animal tea party hosted by Minami, and Emiko braiding Kosuke's hair.

Miyuri, or someone else in the house, must have snuck in here when she left the room for no more than a few minutes. All this time, at Shigeo's orders, they have kept track of her bedroom shelves and their holdings that could hurt her the most.

Kosuke tries to tell herself that they are only bits of paper and that the memories are still there. But Hitsuji isn't going to remember his father feeding him that birthday cake. Minami isn't going to remember how her mother arranged all her stuffed animals for party guests. Kosuke doesn't remember, now, Emiko running her fingers through her daughter's hair with the tender love only a mother has.

Punishment. And a reminder: Your life is mine now.

Kosuke surprises herself with the strength she has in the following days.

The children remain none the wiser, and she keeps it that way. When she talks to her friends at Ouran, she bobs and weaves through their questions. I've just been so busy. Oh, I fell asleep as soon as I got home yesterday. Huh, I must not have seen that message. She wants them to know that she's lying, in a way that denies further questioning.

Of course, they don't accept it. Especially not Tamaki, who has to speak on both his and Haruhi's behalf. Kosuke takes no joy in the walls she puts between them all, but she doesn't have any other choice.

She keeps up with her schoolwork. She studies every day and plays with the children when they're back from school. She rearranges her bedroom to throw off her watchers—she scours it from top to bottom to find a camera or microphone or some kind of surveillance and finds none.

Kosuke does not waste her solitude pouting and weeping, but neither is she walking on roses.

No. Kosuke spends her time trying to find a way out.

She knows the risks but still wants to be a little reckless—or rather, cunning. If she disobeys Shigeo again, he'll hit back even harder than before. If she sits idle, then she's a disgrace to herself, her siblings, and her parents. Kosuke wants to be an escape artist, and not merely to get back at Shigeo, but because she has messes to clean up that can't wait until her sentence is served.

If there is some way to both break out of here and spare herself and the children more suffering, then she will find it.

So while it may look to an outsider as though Kosuke is poring over a book or putting together a puzzle on her desk, it's a farce. She is strategizing. A literal breakout is obviously off the table. Even if she mapped her "guards'" routines, the mansion has such an extensive surveillance system that she won't make it a toe off the premises. She can't trust any of the house staff and she can't get the children involved lest they let someone at school know.

She can't ask any of her friends for help—couldn't even if she did have her phone. Haruhi has already left for the States again (Kosuke feigned illness for why she could not see her off at the airport), Tamaki makes it plenty obvious enough how much he dislikes Shigeo (Kosuke loves Tamaki), and the twins and the Zukas…Well, they probably won't be subtle.

Kosuke comes up with another plan one night: pretend she's injured her arm again so that she's taken to the hospital. She gets as far as practicing her I'm in excruciating pain face in the bathroom mirror before the logistical issues hit her. The doctors would catch that nothing is wrong. There is no privacy to be had in a hospital for any conversation. What about the children? Is she going to let them think that their big sister has been hurt so badly?

So, scratch that plan.

Kosuke strategizes and plans and maps until her brain is throbbing, and then she makes herself defuse before she hits a breaking point. Then she actually does read a book or put together a puzzle.

When she's particularly sore in the cranium, she watches movies. Mostly those that Fuyumi begs her to watch, romances with kisses in the rain and happily-ever-afters. It's not what she would usually watch, but she won't deny that they make for a good distraction.

Inevitably, however, they remind her of Kyoya and why she needs to get out of this prison.

Unlike the others, she hasn't spoken to him at school. It seems that even when she works up the nerve, he's talking to someone, or he's clearly in a rush, or she doesn't know how to tell him everything in the brief seconds when they pass each other in the hallways.

The others are undoubtedly upset that she doesn't answer their messages and calls. But they haven't been arguing with Kyoya, didn't scream at him for being a hypocrite, and haven't had to deal with all the questions that running into your fiancée's never-before-mentioned ex-boyfriend would bring.

She knows it's Shigeo's fault, but why, why, did she just have to go out for lunch?

Kosuke writes letters, then scraps them. They say too much and not enough, and she's supposed to be using her voice, not a pencil. There is no letter that Kyoya could read and not wonder why she isn't telling him their contents herself.

Every day, when she returns from her classes, she pulls her album from where it's been hidden under the mattress and checks for any more missing spots. She doesn't find them, but still takes a minute to flip through the pages and remember. There is a photo of Emiko in the kitchen, piping frosting onto cupcakes, her stormy blue eyes laser-focused on her hands. She looks the way Kosuke thought she did when she was a little girl: like she knew everything and had all the answers.

What would she say to Kosuke now? Probably, None of this would be happening if you hadn't taken that snake up on his offer in the first place, you stupid girl.

Such a catch, isn't it? Lifelong ownership by a sadist who will gut her and her loved ones if she steps out of line—but, without it, she doesn't even know where she and Kyoya would be.

On Thursday morning, the fifth day of her punishment, Kosuke has a headache from the moment she wakes up. No deep breathing or ibuprofen makes it dissipate. She can hardly focus on her classes, must excuse herself from after-school playtime with the children, and finally accepts that if she's going to find a way out of this, it won't be today.

It's a bitter acceptance, though, and she needs a distraction again. She puts on another of Fuyumi's recommendations: Add a Dash of Sugar. It's about a plucky young woman who opens a bakery in the city and struggles with busy days, a pushy business tycoon who wants to buy the bakery's location, and a lack of self-confidence. And of course, a budding romance with the brooding man who hardly says a word but comes every Friday morning for a slice of cherry pie.

It's a sweet little slice-of-life story that drives Kosuke up. the. wall. with all its inaccuracies. No one washes their hands! No one wears hairnets! A pie is fully baked within two minutes of going into the oven!

What was supposed to be a distraction turns into a breathing exercise.

"Welcome to The Sweet Shoppe," the protagonist says to a customer at the register. "What can I get you today?"

"I'll have two strawberry macaroons, please."

The protagonist bags two strawberry macarons, not macaroons, and Kosuke pauses the movie thirty seconds later so she can scream into her pillow.

The door to her bedroom opens. One of the house staff says, "Miss Amida?"

Whether still incensed over macaroons being conflated with macarons, or with the knowledge that this staff member could have helped in the burning of her family photos, Kosuke raises her head from the pillow and snaps, "What."

He flinches. "Fuyumi Shido has come to see you, Miss."

Kosuke shoots up on the bed.

Fuyumi?

She brushes past the staff member, her head already throbbing again, in time with her climbing heartbeat. Has something happened? Is there an emergency, and no one could reach her?

In the foyer, Fuyumi is as perky as ever, talking in her singsong voice.

To Shigeo.

"—and Tetsu was so embarrassed, he hasn't gone back since," she's saying to him as Kosuke comes down the stairs. "But Mr. Ito has said nothing of it, so I hope he forgives his absence."

"Perhaps you could find a way to pass a 'happy birthday' to Mr. Ito on my behalf," Shigeo replies. He sounds remarkably human.

"Of course, sir. I'll make sure of it. Kosuke! There you are!"

Fuyumi wraps her long arms around her in a hug. When she pulls back, her face is still kind, but frowning. "You haven't responded to any of my calls!"

"Oh, Fuyumi, I'm so sorry. I have an exam coming up, and whenever I study, I turn my phone off. Is something wrong?"

"Well, I need your help with something. I want to cook dinner for Tetsu tomorrow, and ever since you mentioned it, I've wanted to try my hand at saumon en croûte. Do you have a recipe? I want it to be absolutely perfect."

"For sure! Let me go write it down."

"Thank you! You're a darling!"

As she turns to go, Kosuke briefly locks eyes with Shigeo. He silently warns her.

Kosuke climbs the stairs, returns to her bedroom, pulls out one of her recipe books, and starts copying onto a sheet of paper. She puts her writing on autopilot and thinks, thinks, thinks. Is there any opportunity to seize? Shigeo will be listening. Somehow, she knows that he'll know whatever she writes down. What would she say, anyway? What message could she give, to Fuyumi or Kyoya, that would not beg any questions?

If she gives any hint to Fuyumi that something is wrong, then she'll tell Kyoya, and they'll both want to know what is happening. They won't be deterred by anything but the truth, but I'm being punished for leaving without permission is just the tip of the iceberg. She'll have to tell them who Shigeo truly is when he'd explicitly warned her not to even hint at it.

Unless…she warned them to be secretive. If she conveyed to them the seriousness of it all, then she would trust them. She would.

But then, they would be so worried. They'll fuss over her, and want to help when Kosuke is the one who agreed to all this knowing that she would suffer for it. She can stew in her anger, but she can't peep a complaint, not when she brought it all upon herself. Right?

Kosuke finishes the recipe, but sits there at her desk, frozen in thought. Her eyes wander the room. What to do, what to do…

Her television screen is still paused on Add a Dash of Sugar. The protagonist is passing the broody love interest a slice of pie. A few seconds ago, a trio of drunk customers had broken a plate on the floor and barked at a waitress to clean it up. So Kosuke knows what comes next.

The protagonist and the broody love interest have gotten closer and struck up a deal: if he takes care of the problem customers that can't seem to stop pestering her bakery, then all his cherry pie will be free of charge. They have a signal. She'll say to him, "Have you tried our peach lemonade? It's fantastic." Then he steps in, without hinting to the drunk customers that any of the restaurant staff had anything to do with it.

Kosuke can almost feel the heat of the lightbulb that lights over her head.

Fuyumi may understand…but she'll have questions, and Kosuke will have to answer. And…And…

Kosuke swallows.

She needs help.

She finishes her writing before she loses her nerve. She exits her bedroom, recipe in hand, and sees Shigeo waiting at the end of the hall.

He holds his hand out expectantly, and she hands the paper over. He reads it, finds nothing, gives it back, and turns back to the stairs.

Fuyumi lights up when Kosuke returns and takes the paper with both hands like it's something precious. "Thank you, thank you, thank you! Ooh, I can't wait!"

"You're welcome. Hey, I've been watching some of those movies you recommended to me. I'm in the middle of Add a Dash of Sugar right now."

Fuyumi gasps. "What do you think? Do you love it?"

It's a trainwreck of inaccuracies on food and kitchen operat—Okay, not important right now. "I'm really enjoying it! We'll talk about it later, okay? When I've finished it."

"Yes, we will! We should watch the sequel together."

"Yeah! That would be great."

Kosuke refuses to even glance at the paper. Shigeo is still watching.

"You don't know how much I appreciate it." Fuyumi kisses the air on either side of Kosuke's face and bows to Shigeo. "Thank you so much for your time, Mr. Amida. I hope I wasn't too much of a bother."

"Not at all. Thank you for visiting."

With a few more goodbyes, Fuyumi is gone. When she reads the recipe, she'll find Kosuke's note on the bottom: Try this with peach lemonade. It's fantastic!

She may only think that it's a cutesy little reference. Maybe she'll laugh it off.

Well…at least Kosuke can say that she tried.

Shigeo heads back to his office without another word. Kosuke heads for her bedroom to start brainstorming backup plans.

Her headache is gone by the next morning, but only to be replaced by a roiling stomach.

Every time she thinks about her hidden message, she feels like she's going to be sick. What if Fuyumi texts to ask about it, and Shigeo sees it on her phone? What if Fuyumi asks Shigeo about it, not knowing that it is about him?

She sits through her classes and retains not a word of the lectures. She says hello without paying mind to who. In the hallway, a hand comes down on her shoulder—Reiko gives her a paper cup with steam winding through the lid. Tea.

"You don't look well," is all she says before she disappears again.

Kosuke ducks into the bathroom, and oh, goodness, Reiko is right. She's pale and sweaty and tense all over. She looks sick.

She is sick, sick with worry that it can all go wrong—or right, and she'll have to face the consequences. The worry. The pity. The doubt in her.

When she opens the bathroom door, she catches sight of Kyoya, walking in the opposite direction.

She misses him.

Please, let this work.

By that evening, after another attempt at finishing Add a Dash of Sugar that ends when a rack of bread is pulled out of the oven without any mitts, Kosuke begins to accept that Plan A failed. Onto Plan B. Maybe she could rework that fake injury idea…

She is standing on her stepstool in front of the bookshelf, trying to estimate if a fall from there could do reasonable damage, when she hears footsteps approaching her door again—hurried footsteps. She throws herself into her reading chair and flips open a book just as the door opens.

"Fuyumi Shido is here to see you again," the same staff member says. "It seems very urgent."

"I'll be right there," Kosuke says.

When he goes, she darts to the bathroom and leans over the toilet. Nothing comes up. She leaves her bedroom.

In the foyer once again, but Fuyumi is not her usual self. She is crestfallen. Tears line her charcoal eyes. A covered dish is trembling in her hands.

Shigeo is back again, too, and trying to comfort her by saying, "I'm sure everything will be fine, Mrs. Shido, please don't worry." On the inside, he must be so irritated.

"Kosuke." Her name comes out in a whimper. "I don't know what went wrong…"

"What happened?" Kosuke hurries down the rest of the stairs two at a time. "Are you hurt? Are you okay?"

Fuyumi takes a shuddering breath. "I followed all the steps in your recipe the best that I could, but…Just look."

She nods down at the baking dish, and Kosuke takes the lid off.

"Oh! Oh, wow. Geez!" Kosuke coughs and sputters and bats away the smoke that flies up into her face. Even Shigeo can't help but cough into his elbow and take a step back. What should have been saumon en croûte is instead…saumon en cendres. A charred black brick sits smoking in the dish. What was supposed to be a crust has broken open, and its gooey pink insides are running. "How did this happen?"

"I don't know," Fuyumi groans. "I just don't know. And I promised Tetsu that I was going to cook something delicious, but I can't mess it up again."

"Hey, hey, don't worry! We can probably fix—" The black crust collapses with a puff. "Well. Um."

"Kosuke…I-I'm really sorry, I know this is so much to ask, but…Could you come help me? I know it's so last minute, but I'm so scared I'll just ruin it again."

It's too good to be true. So, Kosuke looks at Shigeo.

His jaw is clamped, but Fuyumi would easily blame the smoke for that. He knows that Kosuke could not have planned this. He saw the recipe and found nothing in it. He has her phone. He knows that she is blameless and cannot be punished, and he knows that there is no way that he or Kosuke could refuse such distress in any acceptable way.

"You should go. Your studying can wait for one night."

Kosuke bites her tongue. Otherwise, she would be screaming, YES!

"Let me take care of the children, and I'll be right back," she tells Fuyumi.

She leads Hitsuji and Minami quickly through their nighttime routines, tells them that she'll see them in the morning and that they are to stay in their rooms for the rest of the night—and that they will be going to bed on time. They have no questions, already nodding off after a long day of play.

Shigeo stops her before she goes. "Don't forget your phone."

When Kosuke steps into the awaiting limousine, she is still shaking, holding onto the hope that it worked. For once, she actually did something.

Fuyumi shuts the door and tells the driver to head back to her home. When she turns to Kosuke, she is no longer bleary-eyed with desperation.

She is dead serious.

"I saw your message," she says, fists on her lap. "At first, I thought it was just a joke, but then I thought about it some more, and I realized, No, she's telling me she needs help! I was going to call you, or text you, until I realized that if you were asking for help, you would have done it over the phone, not through a hidden message! And I know that in the movie, Sachiko tells Isamu about the peach lemonade so that no one else knows she needs help, so I knew that I had to find a way to talk to you without letting anyone else catch on. That's when I had the idea—"

"Fuyumi?"

"Yes. No, right." She clears her throat and shakes her head. "I'm sorry." She reaches out and squeezes Kosuke's shoulder. "What's going on?"

The time has come, but Kosuke just…still isn't ready. Her mouth opens and nothing comes out. It's like she has stage fright. All she is aware of is the attention on her, and the judgement that will follow.

Fuyumi squeezes her other shoulder. "Everything is okay. Take your time."

Everything is okay.

Stuttering, hands shaking, Kosuke speaks.

The door of the Shido residence bashes against the wall.

"TETSU!"

There's a thud on the other side of the ceiling. Testu practically falls down the stairs. "What?! What, what?!"

"We have an emergency!" Fuyumi tosses her coat at the rack near the door, where it lands perfectly on a hook. "Get down here!"

Tetsu is in front of them in three seconds flat. "Is someone hurt? What's happened?"

"No, Testu." Fuyumi grabs him by his shirt collar and pulls him close. "A love emergency."

"Just tell me what to do!"

"First: Everything that happens tonight is a secret. You tell no one. No. One. Understand?"

"No, but—Yes!"

"Here's the rundown." Kosuke must admit, this determined, drill-sergeant side of Fuyumi is kind of stunning. "Kosuke's father has her on house arrest. Don't ask why. She isn't supposed to be going anywhere or talking to anyone, but she and Kyoya are in the middle of a crisis, and she needs to talk to him ASAP. We are on a top-secret mission to make that happen. Alright?"

"Yes, ma'am!"

Fuyumi rounds on Kosuke. "Alright?"

"Yes, ma'am," she says in an instant.

"Good. Now, here's what you two are going to do…"

Fuyumi's plan is brilliant. Better than anything Kosuke had come up with in the past week.

While Fuyumi goes to make some calls, she and Tetsu fabricate evidence. He takes pictures of her while she "cooks" the saumon en croûte. If Shigeo asks for one or more, Tetsu will use Kosuke's phone to send him the pictures, intermittently and in order. Tetsu will take over the actual preparation so that when the dish is done, he can take a picture of it as well.

With his phone, they record lines. Kosuke holds the microphone end to her mouth and recites the phrases they've come up with. Yes, sir. No, sir. We're halfway done. It'll take another half-hour or so. The oven is being finicky, we're trying to fix it. She gives several takes on each, with different inflections. If Shigeo calls, Tetsu will hold his phone up to hers and play the right recording. Why not just take the phone with her? Well, because Kosuke wouldn't put it past Shigeo to have a tracker on it by this point.

Tetsu does not ask her any questions, as promised. That's great because Kosuke is feeling sicker by the minute. Now it's Fuyumi, Tetsu, eventually Kyoya, and perhaps whoever else Fuyumi is calling that knows that something has happened, it's Shigeo's fault, and Kosuke needs help. There is so much trust that she must give tonight.

Fuyumi stomps back into the kitchen, a woman on a mission. "Kosuke, let's go. Tetsu, you finish that dish."

"Leave it to me!"

"Wait," Kosuke fumbles out, "where are we going?"

"To see Kyoya."

"Now?"

"Yes, now! Allons-y! Hâte! Nous perdons du temps!"

Kosuke has no idea what that last part was, but—Okay! Looks like she's doing this now. Tonight.

Yay?

Fuyumi has pulled a silver car with butterfly doors to the door at some point, and she all but shoves Kosuke into the passenger seat and takes off down the road before Kosuke even has her seatbelt on.

She has to ask, "What did you do, Fuyumi?"

"Father and my brothers are at a birthday party for—Do you know who Mr. Ito is?" Kosuke shakes her head, and Fuyumi's voice briefly dips into an uncharacteristically dry tone. "Lucky you…After it's done, and they're leaving for the hotel they're staying at, Akito is going to bring Kyoya to a meeting point."

"Akito?" Fuyumi nods. "And…He's not going to tell anyone?"

"No, because he's doing this for his brother. And also, because I'll kill him if he does."

Woof. Kosuke had no idea Fuyumi could be so cutthroat when it comes down to it.

During the dark drive through the city streets, she tries not to be too obvious about her looks over at Fuyumi. The only sign of any upset she's giving is her pinky tapping against the steering wheel. Unlike Kosuke, who switches from twisting her ring to tapping her feet like an impatient child.

"Hey," Fuyumi says suddenly, "do you need me to pull over? You don't look so good."

Kosuke pulls down the overhead mirror. Fuyumi isn't kidding—even in the dark, there's no missing how deathly pale she is. She leans until her back is actually against the car seat and focuses on her breathing.

"I'm fine—I'll be fine. I'm just thinking about what I'm going to say."

They pass through two stoplights before Fuyumi responds. "How much does Kyoya know about what you told me?"

"Nothing. Like I said, I haven't had my phone, and I really wanted to tell him in person…"

"What I meant was, does he know that your father is like this?"

Kosuke doesn't have to rack her memories to answer. "No. I'm sure he's already figured out that I don't exactly like him, but no, I haven't told him anything."

"Is it what you need to talk to him about now?"

Well, Kosuke can't not bring it up, given that Kyoya will need to know why they're having to rendezvous like this. But it wasn't supposed to be a…topic.

"I will, but that's not what I need to talk to him about."

"Does anyone know?"

"No."

Fuyumi is quiet after this, and Kosuke just doesn't know how to deal with a quiet Fuyumi. Whatever she's thinking, who is Kosuke to blame her? Maybe she's like her younger brother, and she's frustrated. After welcoming her into the family more than anyone else, and going far out of her way to be Kosuke's friend, Kosuke still didn't tell her about this. And just like her younger brother, Kosuke doesn't know how to convince Fuyumi that it has nothing to do with her.

"I'm sorry, Fuyumi. I understand if you're upset with me."

This time, when Fuyumi looks at her, she almost turns her whole body. "What? Why would I be?"

"Aren't you?"

"I'm upset for you, not at you. Where did you get that idea? Was it something that I said?"

"No, no, no! Not at all! I just didn't want you to think that I didn't tell you because I don't trust you or anything like that. I do!"

Fuyumi sighs in relief. "I knew that. No, I'm not upset with you."

Kosuke nods, but she knows she's still pale, and her feet have gone back to tapping. She wonders if Kyoya will say the same thing, or if he'll just get some bitter vindication. After everything he's said about her refusing to talk to him, or even hinting that something may be wrong, she's going to come and tell him that there's another huge problem she never told him about? Kosuke wouldn't blame him if he stormed off in a heartbeat.

"That's what Kyoya is upset with me about."

Fuyumi frowns. "I thought you said that he didn't know?"

"Not about this, but other things. I don't…tell him about a lot of things. And when I do, it's always because he's already figured out that something is wrong, so he has to ask me instead of the other way around. We're fighting because of this."

Kosuke gestures to her braced arm.

"My arm was hurt. He knew it, and I knew it, but I didn't say anything until I had to see a doctor. He was so angry that I pretended I was fine, which made me angry because he did the exact same thing and went to the hospital, but when I brought that up, he said it wasn't the same thing, and—"

She sucks in a deep breath. She hadn't meant to reignite her anger. Again. She can't keep up this cycle of calm and fury—which is exactly why she needs to see Kyoya tonight, to put an end to it.

"So," Fuyumi says, "you're both wrong. And you're both right."

"Yeah." Kosuke runs a hand through her hair. "Yeah…"

"Has Kyoya kept other things from you before?"

Kosuke takes a long stretch of sidewalks and streetlamps to think it over, and Fuyumi does not rush her. There's what happened with the Tonnere Group. His feelings for Tamaki and Haruhi. She could count how he never really talked about just how demanding his job was, but then, that was more of an "open" secret.

"Yeah, I guess."

"Were you upset with him when you found out?"

Yes.

No.

"Not…exactly. I mean, I wasn't upset because I thought he didn't trust me, or because I had a right to know. I just wished he would have told me earlier, so I could've helped him."

Fuyumi lets her continue rather than say it herself.

"Which I'm sure is exactly how he feels." Kosuke shakes her head. "This whole situation is just so stupid."

"You're human beings. Human beings do stupid things. And hey—if you're doing all of this, then you clearly care very much."

That's true. Kosuke folds her hands in her lap. "I just wish I hadn't let it come to this in the first place."

"Can I give you my two cents?" Kosuke nods. "I'm not going to say what it is—I don't think it's because you don't trust him—but there must be a reason that you don't tell him things. He must have one, too. Maybe you both know what it is, maybe you don't. If you do, then you need to talk about it. If you don't, you need to figure it out. Then you need to talk about it."

Kosuke twists her ring once, then stops herself. She wishes she could roll down the window and throw it into a gutter. She wishes it was the jewelry that her mother had promised her.

"What if there isn't a reason?"

"No, there's definitely a reason."

She's right, and Kosuke is feigning stupidity. There's a reason. A lot of reasons. Are any of them good? Do any of them make sense?

"Maybe," Fuyumi continues, "it would help you figure it out if you took everyone else out of the equation and focused on you."

Just after she says this, she slows and pulls into a parking spot just off the main street. They've made it to some random spot in the city that Kosuke may have recognized if it weren't veiled in shadows. There is no one to be seen, not even a car. Fuyumi points down the street to a bridge.

"There," she says. "You and Kyoya meet under that bridge, okay?"

"Wh—Under the bridge?"

"No one will see you. No one even knows you're here except for me and Akito. I'm going to be right here. When you're both done talking, come back here. Don't take too long. Take as much time as you need! But not too long. As long as you need, though."

"O-Okay." In truth, Kosuke would very much like to not crawl underneath a dark bridge in the middle of the night, but it's too late to be picky. She unclips her seatbelt. "Thank you, Fuyumi. I mean it. Thank you so much."

Fuyumi unclips her seatbelt, too, but only so that she can pull Kosuke in for a hug. Kosuke knows it well. It's the hug of a sister.

When they pull away, Fuyumi gives her a smile and a pat on the head. "Go on, now. Don't keep him waiting."

The street is eerily quiet, and the shadows are long and opaque. Beside the bridge is a ladder built into one of the two walls on either side of the stream, and at its end is just enough stone to walk to the underside of the bridge, lit only by a few dim bulbs. It's not where Kosuke thought she'd be at the end of the night, but then, she didn't think she was going to be anywhere.

Alright, she tells herself as she crouches down and reaches for the first cold rung of the ladder, no more time to be scared.

Chapter summary:

Kosuke has finally accepted that she's in love with Kyoya, which is causing her equal parts stress and relief. To relax, she takes the children out to lunch but forgets to ask Shigeo for permission first. As punishment, he not only takes away her phone and all but imprisons her in the mansion, but he also burns some of the Nakahara family photographs as a warning. Kosuke tries desperately to find a way to get into contact with Kyoya and set things right without getting any further punishment. When Fuyumi visits the Amida estate one day, Kosuke comes up with the idea to write her a clue in the form of a quote from a movie they'd both watched. It seems to have failed at first, but the next day, Fuyumi returns and "convinces" Shigeo to let her take Kosuke with her to prepare dinner for herself and Tetsu. Once they're away, Kosuke confesses to everything that's happened. Fuyumi sets into motion a plan to get Kosuke and Kyoya together without getting Shigeo's attention. On the way to the rendezvous point, Fuyumi and Kosuke talk about Shigeo, and why he is among many topics that she's neglected to tell Kyoya about. Fuyumi encourages her to be more honest not only with Kyoya, but herself. They arrive at the rendezvous point, and Kosuke nervously prepares to have a long overdue talk.