infinityneverlasts: I can't answer all of those questions because of spoilers, BUT! This story follows the anime continuity with one or two allusions to the manga. The college storyline is completely AU. And also THANK GOODNESS you like the OCs because that was the biggest fear I had! ;^_^ I was really worried readers would just be tolerating Kosuke and her siblings until the canon characters got introduced, so thank you so much!

bored411: There is finally some reprieve in this chapter! (Before things get not so reprieve-y again)

Lillyannp: Oh, my poor, sweet summer child - in the world of fanfiction, writers are deities of woe, subjecting trauma after trauma onto the characters as they please! In all seriousness, though, the conga line of bad news for Kosuke isn't NEARLY over yet. There's a bright spot in this chapter, though, so there's that! Kosuke's situation with Okina was also based on some past life experiences with losing touch with friends for no reason. That's kind of just life. You say you keep in touch, but then you don't. *shrug* It was kind of cathartic writing about it, honestly.

JuggernautJJ: boy it suRE IS.

At long last, we encounter the canon of Ouran!

Kosuke does not like going into her parents' room. She only does it when she has to. The shelves have collected dust and the blankets of the bed have not been turned for months. Emiko had started a book just a few days before she'd died, and she'd left it on the nightstand, back-up, a bookmark sticking from the top. There it still is months later. Kosuke doesn't even know what the name is, she doesn't want to move it.

Maybe it's a little disrespectful, letting her parents' room be unattended for so long. To Kosuke, doing anything to change it feels more disrespectful. Obviously, Emiko isn't going to be reading that book again, Marti isn't going to be painting any other pictures anytime soon. That doesn't make her feel okay touching any of it, though.

Even walking by the room makes her feel queasy. Minami and Hitsuji used to run into that room several times a day, playing games or trying to pull their parents from their work. There's really no reason to do that anymore. Even Hitsuji, who loved to play in their when Emiko and Marti were both busy, carefully strays away from the door like he and Minami are both repelled by the knowledge that the room will be empty once they go in.

Kosuke doesn't go into that room unless she really needs to.

Until the first August after her parents have passed away, due to a domino effect.

To put the story in ten steps:

Minami is invited to another birthday party for one of her classmates.

It is hot and—due to a rain just the day before—humid. The air is thick. Minami begins to not feel good.

She very nearly vomits, and everyone goes into panic mode getting her juice and into the shade.

Kosuke gets the phone call and comes to her sister's rescue

They return home on the bus.

While the bus pulls away, Kosuke is about to set her sister down when she sees a car speeding like a bullet past them, not even trying to avoid the lake of muddy water at the side of the road.

Kosuke panics and squeezes Minami to her while twisting her back to the car.

The car passes.

Minami gets out of it with slightly dampened feet.

Kosuke gets out of it looking like she decided to make snow angels in a mud puddle.

"Kosuke," Minami wails while the car is still zooming away. She sounds absolutely devastated, and when Kosuke sets her down, she doesn't even back away an inch. Like Kosuke had just taken a bullet for her and not some muddy water. "Are you okay? I'm sorry, I'm sorry!"

"You didn't do anything, Minami, it's okay." Kosuke tries to give her a reassuring smile, but it's kind of hard to do that at the moment. The backs of her legs, bare in her shorts, have been splashed with thick brown water. Her shirt is soaked and clinging to her quite uncomfortably. The entire back part of her hair is now dripping with muck. It's gross. "I'm alright."

"I'm sorry," she says again regardless. "Let's go home so you can get clean. Please, let's go home. I'll help."

Well, the mud dries to the point of turning dusty, and more than one person gives her pretty nasty looks as if she's somehow slighted them by accidentally getting doused in mud from a whack driver with a death wish and it only occurs to her once they get back home that she's probably not going to be making it to the grocery store that day, which isn't the end of the world, but now she's going to have to plan their dinner menu from scratch again and it's still really hot and she ends up drenched in sweat on top of being muddy as a pig.

Point being, Kosuke's in a pretty bad mood when she gets home.

Minami tries to help as promised, but all she can do is kind of wipe off her sister's legs a bit before ushering her into the shower. Kosuke scrubs the mud off her skin and out of her hair until she's practically as pink as a strawberry.

Her soiled clothes are going straight to the laundry, of course, but it isn't until she's done and wrapped up in a towel that Kosuke realizes she's failed to bring a change of clothes. No big deal, of course; her bedroom is literally four feet outside the bathroom door.

As she opens the door, though, she sees that the door of her parents' bedroom is cracked open just so. This confuses her because she's sure that she always closes it shut whenever she leaves. Maybe Minami or Hitsuji had finally risked a visit inside…In any case, with only Minami in the house and downstairs, Kosuke doesn't see any problem in walking over in her towel and shutting the door.

She goes to it, puts her hand on the knob, and almost closes it when she sees something that has really always been there but she's only really noticing now:

A cardboard box in the corner of the room, stacked full of clothes.

She remembers that on the very morning Emiko and Marti had gone on that one car ride, she'd told Marti she wasn't interested in any of their clothes they were giving away. And sometime in the haze that followed, she had put the box back into their room. She'd had no idea what else to do with it.

Carefully avoiding looking at the book or the unfinished painting and basically everything else, Kosuke tiptoes over to the box and peeks inside.

The clothes are in two stacks, one clearly from Emiko and the other from Marti. Looking up at the closet, Kosuke sees that the rack is still lined with clothes, shoes still at the bottom, because…Yeah, why is she noticing this? Of course her parents' clothes are still here.

She reaches into the box first and pulls out the first shirt she sees on top. It's just a simple T-shirt, white and red striped. Beneath that is a pair of high-waisted denim shorts. After that, there are dresses and sweaters and pairs of jeans.

Kosuke can kind of remember seeing Emiko wearing the T-shirt. When Kosuke was younger, her mother seemed to prefer shorts and T-shirts above all other combinations. That was back when they lived in an apartment, not a house, and the much younger version of herself would be struck time and again by the fact that her mother was younger than other mothers. As she'd gotten older, Emiko's taste seemed to start leaning more towards long-sleeved shirts and cardigans, though maybe she'd sported her old fashion every now and then.

In any case, the T-shirt is clearly a little older than Kosuke herself is. She can't really explain how, she can just tell it's pretty well-aged. From the eighties or nineties, probably. Same for the shorts. The shirt is soft but unwrinkled, and when Kosuke holds it closer, she can pick up a still-lingering stink of cigarette smoke.

Kosuke has dressed herself in them before she knows it, and it's a process she doesn't really remember doing. She looks down at herself and has mixed feelings. She's never worn high-waisted pants before. It's a feeling and look she's not used to. Her legs poke out from the shorts, longer than she'd think, another reminder that she's not fifteen anymore, not a student anymore.

The clothes smell and look and feel like her mother, though. It's not like trying to bake, where it was just a mock imitation of what her mother could do. This is like remembering her without trying to replicate her. It's a nice feeling.

Minami seems to notice that it's her mother's clothes that Kosuke is wearing, and yet again, the little girl somehow decides that it's better not to say anything. Kosuke doesn't know where she gets that from. She's only seven, a tiny little thing who still believes that hearts are heart-shaped and wonders if the light in the fridge go off or not when you close it. It's not that she's dumb, though, because she knows what is happening and how everything has changed. But how she got that tragic old wisdom to not say anything about it, that's a mystery.

Kosuke knows it's not really fair not to talk about it. Knowing that Minami is forcing her voice down and not being mature enough to make the push forward…That's selfish, right? It's selfish to just take the discomfort instead of trying to fix it.

Kosuke can be a selfish person, though. That's why she doesn't bring it up.

After that, she's wearing her mother's old clothes almost exclusively. High-waisted pants, shirts made of cotton, belts that go around the waist instead of the hips, patterned skirts, even the occasional pair of overalls. Her own clothes pop out of the closet every now and then but mostly hang up unused.

It's September, and Kosuke realizes that it doesn't matter how many books she reads, or planners she fills. There will always be something she won't be prepared for and will need outside help.

Case en point: Hitsuji's hair.

Hitsuji and Minami had both inherited their father's thick chocolate-colored hair. Marti's hair had been wavy, though. He'd kept it long, but handsomely so, long enough for him to pull it back from his face or comb through easily.

Hitsuji and Minami have curls and curls and curls. Even Marti himself would say once or twice that he had no idea where they came from, because it certainly wasn't from Emiko. Minami's hair is long, about down to her elbows, and they have to be so careful with it to avoid tangles and knots. A tangle in Kosuke's hair is an easy fix. In Minami's, it's a painful nightmare.

Minami's hair grows down and Hitsuji's grows up. His curls stack upon his head like a crown. They couldn't be tamed no matter what they did. Just before all this started, his locks were already begging for a trim. They were starting to fall into his eyes and fluff up when he laid his head down.

Kosuke tries putting a cap on him on a particularly sunny day and realizes that it isn't going to fit. That's when she decides they're going to have to do something about it. She manages to get him wrangled into a seat, but doesn't get a single snip in before deciding that yeah, no, she is not qualified to do this.

Two days later sees them making a walk to the hair salon, with a good bit of money in Kosuke's wallet and a spring in Hitsuji's step. Since Kosuke told him they were going to get his haircut there, he'd been excited as could be, bouncing around, telling anyone that would listen what was going to happen. Minami even gets jealous at once point and asks if she can get a haircut, too, but immediately decides that she really doesn't want that. It's enough just to come along.

When it's time for Hitsuji to take his seat, Minami is once again at his heels for support. The chair goes high, high, high up just so he can be seen in the mirror. The stylist chuckles as the blanket swallows him up. Kosuke once again tells him to stay still, firmly this time, and he seems to uphold it. Minami taps him if he gets too fidgety.

Then the stylist lifts up the scissors, and he panics.

They all freeze as a sudden, high whine comes out of him, and he starts twisting around, "No, no, no!"

The stylist backs off, and Kosuke gently asks, "Buddy! Hey, what's wrong?"

He points at her, looking far too betrayed for someone his age. "You're supposed to cut my hair!"

"What, me?" He nods. "Hitsuji, no, that's why we came here. We have to let someone else do it."

"No, you!"

Hitsuji—misunderstanding child that he is—must have thought that for some reason, they had to go all the way to this new place, but that Kosuke was still going to be the one cutting his hair. It never even occurred to her that she would have to explain that.

"I can't cut your hair, buddy." She gestures to the stylist, who's smiling a bit uncomfortably. "She has to do it."

"No," he almost wails. He starts making crying sounds without really shedding tears, but Kosuke knows that will happen soon enough. Minami is trying to calm him down, promising him that it'll be okay and it still won't hurt, but he keeps saying "No" like it will spare him from this horror.

Hitsuji has never had his hair cut by a stranger before. Emiko was terrified of cutting hair. She'd accidentally given herself a pixie cut in her younger years, and gave Kosuke a "jellyfish" not too long after. They'd relied on hair stylists—and even Kosuke will admit that the first time was scary for her, sitting still while a stranger snipped sharp scissors close to her head—until Marti had come along. Marti's parents, before they had passed, were very busy people who could hardly spare time for haircuts, so he'd gotten the skill himself. He couldn't style too drastically, probably couldn't do bangs, but he was a master at trimming, and that's really all they had ever needed.

He'd cut Hitsuji's hair every single time. They would count every curl they cut until Hitsuji couldn't count any higher. If a particularly long one was snipped off, he'd let Hitsuji hold it, and that one lock would almost always preoccupy him until he was done. Hitsuji never fretted when Marti was around. If Daddy was there, everything was okay.

This is another instance where Kosuke isn't sure whether a hard no or a compromise would be more fitting. While Hitsuji continued to fuss and cry, she figured this could go two ways. She could tell him that the stylist had to cut his hair, and that was just how it was going to be, which could take hours just to convince him of, and he'd probably wail the whole time. Or she could make a promise of doing something good and fun afterwards, at the cost of maybe letting his refusal to cooperate be rewarded. Did that sound too strict? That sounded too strict.

Tears are starting to shed, Minami is getting desperate, and more than one other patron was starting to look aggrieved. A light bulb finally flickers over Kosuke's crown.

She has to say his name over and over just to get him to listen, then she says, "If you get your hair cut, I'll let her do mine, too."

He hiccups for a good while, while Minami stares at her with a mix of confusion and wonder. When Hitsuji finally gets a hold of his voice, snot is starting to bubble out his nose and his face is all pink. "You'll get your hair cut, too?"

"Mm-hm." Kosuke pulls her hair down her shoulder, and holds it so her hand is just about chin-level. A good eight inches of hair, still holding the pale red sheen of dye, hangs past her palm. "This much!"

She can see the realization that THAT'S A LOT OF HAIR occur to both Hitsuji and Minami then. Hitsuji blinks away the last of his tears and takes on a look of curiosity, like the idea alone of his sister with shorter hair outweighs his fear of a stranger with a pair of scissors by far. Minami's brows are furrowed in a look that borders on horror.

"Kosuke, let me do it," she suddenly says. "I'll get my hair cut so you don't have to."

It's sweet as sugar, but the little waver in her voice has Kosuke shaking her head. Minami's hair has been as long as it is for basically her entire life. It's a change she can't even imagine.

"I'll do it, Mina. Don't you worry about it."

So Hitsuji gets his hair trimmed with a minimal amount of fidgeting and almost no fussing. It's only when the cold metal of the scissors brushes against his ear or his neck that he flinches, fair enough. Curls flutter down to the floor one by one. By the end, his mane has been tamed just a little bit more, and Kosuke finally gives him a cap to prove a job well done. Minami compliments him for how cute he looks.

Then it's Kosuke's turn, out of sheer luck that there wasn't an appointment scheduled at the time. The stylist offers to dye her hair to its natural color, just to get rid of the almost pinkish sheen. Kosuke luckily has a picture on her phone to show what it used to look like, and it's a process that doesn't take horribly long, maybe around a half-hour. The kids entertain themselves with the coloring books.

Then it's time for the cutting, and Kosuke steels herself. It's not that she's really attached to her hair. She wants it to look good, of course, but she's never cried at haircuts, never freaked out at the idea of a drastic change. Still, it's a change, one she has only been prepared for for not even an hour.

Her hair is gathered in a ponytail, and snip, it's gone.

There's a lot of trimming, head-turning, combing, brushing, leveling, and whatever else after that. The kids get a little more antsy and impatient, but other than Hitsuji needing some apple slices, they don't interrupt.

Then, finally, the stylist declares that she's done.

Kosuke looks at her reflection and doesn't see red for the first time in years. Hair that had been a bright, rich scarlet—"candy red", the boxes usually called it—was now a pale blonde, her natural color, not a trace of pink left. Before, her hair had been long enough to brush against her elbows, almost straight save for a slight wave, and she usually kept the top part tied back. Now it brushes against her shoulders, the wave more pronounced in its shortened length. The treatment makes it look fluffy and soft.

Kosuke likes it. She actually, really likes it.

"Kosu, you're so preeettyyyyy!" Minami runs off the seat so she can touch it, feeling the newly cut locks between her fingers. Kosuke laughs when she just bunches it between her fists. "It looks so gooood!"

Hitsuji doesn't say anything, probably because Kosuke's hair has been red—well, his entire life, huh? He knew her hair wasn't really red, he'd seen enough baby photos and been told plenty of times, but it was still a change. It's like if Minami's hair suddenly turned pin-straight; it just isn't normal.

The haircuts and dye job cost a good bit, but it all works out fine. Kosuke finds that the shorter hair is easier to brush and she doesn't have to use nearly as much shampoo and conditioner. It's still just long enough to pull into a ponytail, albeit a tiny tufty one. She finds out that if she does a braid across the front and pins it to the side, she likes the way it looks very, very much.

It does take a while to get used to, though, and sometimes she's still struck with the knowledge that she looks so drastically different. Long red hair and hoodies had become short blonde hair and blouses. Even more so than that, her body and build had gone through some changes. Before, though she'd always been petite and slender (chalk that up to a metabolism that had her pediatrician furrow his brows at her), there was no definition to her arms and legs, a bit of softness in the belly. Now, so much bicycle-riding, child-toting, and daily walking and given her some muscle. Not a lot, but enough to shape her legs just a bit, add a little definition to her waist. Her cheekbones seemed a little sharper, but that might have been the haircut. And stress.

"You look like Mommy," Hitsuji tells her one day while they're doing a puzzle.

"Thank you," Kosuke agrees.

When September comes, the children return to school. Kosuke once again returns to long days with more time to do things, but more things to do. The children being busy for most of the day gives her more time to tidy up around the house. She can prep for dinner more and do little oddjobs, like mending clothes and whatnot. She fixes the basket on her bike and patches up a hole in a pair of shorts. She even gets free time every now and then to read, do puzzles, and other time-killing things.

She also manages to get herself a job, which was probably long overdue. It's nothing major, of course. She wasn't going to be a doctor anytime soon, for crying out loud. She gets a job as a cashier at a nearby convenience store, minimum wage for taking money, giving money, putting things in bags, so on, so forth. She's on her feet most of the day, but that isn't new, is it? All she has to do is smile and nod, and though she does come across the occasional difficult customer, she's dealt with more than enough to take it.

September 12th brings Hitsuji's birthday, and he doesn't really care all that much, but Minami is over the moon about it. She took one of the old chalkboards and set up a countdown on it in the dining room. Hitsuji's been counting things an awful lot lately, and when he gets to five, Minami will proudly remind him that that's how old he will be soon.

The party is in the park, and all Hitsuji's daycare friends are invited. He gets new toys that he darts between, and Minami gifts him with a superhero costume she'd found at the store. The thing took a little chunk out of her piggy bank, so Kosuke helps by getting the separate mask and gloves. The day is spent in sunshine and laughter and all good things.

It's nice. It's fun. It feels almost normal, even though the other mothers bounce between awkward chitchat and ignoring her entirely. But that's fine. Hitsuji comes over every now and then to brag about his gifts or ask her a question, just to keep her company.

Life just…keeps going. The children go to school. Kosuke goes to work. When the power goes out in storms, they do the No Lights routine. Kosuke makes them soup when they get sick. They go back to the park on lazy days. Kosuke helps Minami with her schoolwork. The kids cheer when she flips pancakes in the mornings. They set up a permanent tent in the backyard where they sometimes "camp out". Hitsuji gets new shoes when he outgrows his old ones. They still have appointments with dentists and pediatricians and become well acquainted with the bus.

Life keeps going in a strange, disjointed way. There are now two parts of their lives, when their parents were there and when they aren't. They are new characters in a new story. It is impossible to describe, but this is how things are now.

It wasn't unusual to still get "customers", even so long after the Lily Bowl shut down for good. Word of its closure had spread far enough, especially by the local newspaper. Still, the restaurant had featured in more than one travel brochure and website, which was as flattering as it was inconvenient.

They usually went away with apologies and such—one or two were miffed and took it out on her, not that she paid them much mind after—but they still came, however infrequent.

The kids were away at school, and Kosuke was up on the roof, trying to repair a leak. Fixing shingles wasn't nearly as hard as she thought it would be, but it was still a trial-and-error process. The skin of her hands was going pink and tender from the work.

She had a slow cooker of stew going in the kitchen, perfect for a day like today. A cold chill had swooped in and taken them all by surprise, and it'd been overcast since early that morning. Kosuke was starting to sniffle, and zipped up Marti's jacket up to her chin. It was the bomber-style one he'd offered her. It still stunk of paprika, but the sheepskin kept her warm.

Then, down below, someone knocked on the door and called, "Hello?"

Surprised, Kosuke sits up from her work, but she can't see who it is from where she sits. The edge of the roof cuts the road at a diagonal, and the most she sees of her front yard is the white wooden gate at the front. She calls, "Up here!"

The girl down below moves back until she sees the blonde atop the roof. She's bundled up in a thick leather jacket and had a knit cap, bright red, atop her head. Probably not much older than Kosuke.

"Oh! Uh—hi! Is this the Lily Bowl?"

"Yes—" Kosuke does her best to turn in her direction. It involves a lot of teetering on her knees. "—but we're out of business. I'm so sorry!"

She makes a gesture towards the sign, and the girl cranes her neck back to look. Only then does Kosuke see that the plaque reading CLOSED INDEFINITELY has fallen from its place, so now the Lily Bowl's name is all that can be seen. The girl seems to get the point, though, and visibly deflates.

"Oh, I'm sorry! Didn't mean to bo-oh-ah-ah-AH-CHOO!"

Kosuke really, truly believes she almost falls from the roof from how hard the girl sneezes. Once upon a time, lightning had struck a tree fairly close to their home, and even that hadn't had such a reverberation.

"Excuse me," the girl calls up in embarrassment.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah! My dad and I always get kind of sneezy in this weather, I was going to pick us up something from here. But don't worry abou-ou-ah-ah-CHOO!"

Kosuke slaps her hands over her ears for this one, and in the split second, she thinks of whether she would offer what she was thinking of offering. She doesn't do anything for any of the would-be customers, but she's never had one come to her doorstep while they were on death's doorstep, too.

Whatever, she figures, there's more than I'll need, anyway.

"Hey, wait down there just a minute!"

She doesn't give the girl time to answer, just maneuvers her way down to the ladder she has on the front balcony. She hurries, but does not run, to get downstairs and open the front door. The girl in the front yard visibly melts in the gust of warm air that comes from within. Up close, Kosuke sees her nose is about as red as her hat. She hadn't thought it was this cold.

"Come on in," Kosuke tells her. "I might have something for you."

"Oh, no, no, no, don't worry ab-ah-AH—"

Kosuke closes the door, feels it through the wood, and opens it again after. The girl seems much more willing now.

"Are you sure?"

"Positive. C'mon."

So she steps in, and Kosuke locks the door behind her so she can thaw out while she gets the stew. The slow cooker is just keeping it hot now, and it steams beautifully as Kosuke pours two helpings into two of the takeout bowls they still have leftover. She's been using them a lot, since it saves money from using the dishwasher, and is there any need not to?

The girl is huddling by the fireplace when she comes back—it's as good a day as any to have a fire going, Kosuke figures, and their stock of wood is great—and stands to attention.

"Thank you so, so much," she says as Kosuke hands the bowls over. Her voice is muffled behind the black scarf tied around her neck, tucked into her jacket. "I'm Haruhi Fujioka, by the way."

"Kosuke Nakahara. Nice to meet you."

"You, too." Haruhi looks around the room, as if estimating if it's real or not. The chairs stacked against the walls are starting to collect dust. The kids' latest crayon-and-marker masterpiece is still spread across the floor. The orange firelight makes the place look even emptier. "Has this place been out of business for long? I've been visiting Misuzu's pension for years and I only just learned of it…"

Misizu's—or "Isao", his real name—Sonoda was not the only pension owner in Karuizawa, but he is certainly one of the best. It isn't too close to the Lily Bowl, perhaps a thirty-minute walk, but it's close to one of the major shopping strips and is scenic to boot. Good pricing, good food, good lodging. Personally, Kosuke can't care less that the owner is a crossdresser, but others do, and even they put that aside for the hospitality.

"Just recently," Kosuke affirms, and embarrassed, she sweeps up the kids' picture and crayons. "My parents were the ones who ran this place. Why don't you go ahead and eat some stew? You look frozen."

Haruhi hadn't said anything behind her for a minute, but Kosuke heard the sound of the lid being popped off. The savory smell has her own stomach rumbling. Stew has been a good choice today.

"What do I owe you?"

"Nope." Kosuke shakes her head firmly. "Not taking anything. You didn't ask, I offered. No payment."

"But I can't juuuuuuuuuuust…"

This time her voice trails off into a whisper, so low Kosuke thought she was about to faint. Turning to her, though, Kosuke sees that she's still on her own two feet, but is as still as stone. She has a spoon sticking out from her lips.

Her eyes are almost too starry to look at.

"This is the best stew I've ever had…"

Kosuke heaves a sigh of relief. She thought she poisoned her for a second, there. "Thanks."

"How did you make this?" She slurps up another spoonful before she's even finished.

Kosuke answers seriously, because cooking is a serious matter that she is seriously serious about. Seriously. "Caramelize the onions a bit, sear the meat before stewing, use honey instead of sugar. It's the only right way."

Haruhi is so head-over-heels for the stew that she's almost too far gone. Even so, her brows furrow together and she asks, "You seem around my age. Do you go to college? We came out here early because classes were cancelled today." Under her breath, she adds, "Tamaki couldn't run us out here fast enough…"

Does Kosuke want to depress her with her sob story? No. It isn't worth it. "No college for me. Life just didn't go that way." Eager for a change in subject: "Who's Tamaki?"

"Uh…" Haruhi lifts a hand to her mouth and tugs her glove off with her teeth. A gold band with a diamond, simple but beautiful, shines on her ring finger. A smile splits across Kosuke's face, she can't help it.

"Oh! Congratulations! You must be excited."

"Oh, yeah. Sure."

Such enthusiasm.

"Or not?" Kosuke offers.

"No—I mean, yes, of course I'm excited to get married, but—" Haruhi sighs a heavy breath. "Tamaki has always been way too much to keep up with, and this is no exception. The first ring he wanted to get was as big as a golfball."

Kosuke teases, "You poor thing."

She snorts. "Yeah, I know. What horror. But I just don't want it to be a huge extravaganza, you know? I don't want it to be about glasses made of diamond and a solid gold aisle. It's too much. Maybe I'm being whiny, I don't know."

"No, no. I get it. You want it to be about you guys, not how much money you can spend at once."

"Yeah." Haruhi sounds worryingly relieved, like someone sharing the sentiment isn't common enough.

"So." Kosuke wrangles one of the chairs free, then another, setting them close to the fire. "What abominations did he wish to leash upon you?"

A destination wedding to France, as it turns out—not bad in any way, but at the Shangri la Hotel, with 10 different meal options, a seven-tier cake, a wedding dress of around 150k and a guest list into the hundreds. This is common among Tamaki's crowd, apparently. Weddings aren't just celebrations of love, they are fashion shows, advertisements, public displays of financial standing. It doesn't take much to put together that the groom-to-be is, as Jet would have put it, loaded.

Kosuke lets her go on as long as she wants; it seems to help. Haruhi's father, Ranka, texts her to say he'd already gotten lunch. So Haruhi gets more stew and K gets more conversation than she's gotten in literal weeks.

Wedding talk branches out to Haruhi herself, and even Kosuke, but not as much. Haruhi is through with her second year of school, Tamaki his third. She doesn't go into detail, but Tamaki is visiting his mother in Paris, which is a big deal, somehow. Kosuke explains how her siblings are at school, she just doesn't have time for college, and (dismissively) that she and her boyfriend have broken up.

It's during their talk that a low rumble sounds off overhead. Kosuke thinks it sounds like something rolling across the floor upstairs, only for it to come again, louder, with more presence. It's been overcast all day, but she hasn't heard a word of possible rain.

Haruhi stands to her feet, stew still in hand but now clearly worried. "Oh, no…Maybe I ought to head back before—"

It's as if the clouds burst open. One second, there are perhaps a few spare drops hitting here and there, and the next, it's a full-force tsunami crashing down upon the house. Kosuke and Haruhi both jump high in the air. It isn't deafening, but the rain hitting the windows have made a steady, low roar.

"Guess not," Kosuke lamely jokes. She thinks it lucky that she'd come inside after all…and then remembers why she was on the roof to begin with. "Agh!"

She makes Haruhi jump again by springing up and out of her chair at a speed that almost has her crashing to the floor. Without a word of explanation, she grabs the nearest bowl she finds in the kitchen and dashes up the stairs. There's already a good puddle on her bedroom floor; she sets the bowl atop with a sigh.

"Kosuke?" Haruhi's calling voice has her coming back. She stands at the bottom of the stairs, no further. "What's wrong?"

"A leak," she sighs. "Everything is okay."

The forces of nature seems to have picked up comedic timing that day, because just after she says that, the whole house goes a gloomy gray, the fridge stops humming, and the stewpot clicks off. Thunder rolls above them, not cracking, but heavy.

Kosuke sees Haruhi's legs go stiff and her arms reach for her elbows. She's seen the look on Minami's face several times before they made up the Lights Are Out protocol.

"Um." Haruhi swallows. "You sure?"

"Yeah. This happens during light showers around here." She can tell that Haruhi is scared, it's obvious, but she doesn't want to question it, doesn't want to embarrass her. Instead, because she knows that it might help, she declares, "Well, now that you're here, you'll have to take part in our family tradition. House rule."

She at first worries that Haruhi will not like the No Lights protocol whatsoever, that maybe she'd think it childish or boring or just not something she wants to do with a girl she has just met. Not only does Haruhi not mind it, though: she seems to love it. Jigsaw puzzles, Jinsei Game, cards…Kosuke has gathered that thunderstorms scared Haruhi, but the little time-passers helped. Especially when she grabs the comforter off her bed to make an impromptu tent for her to nest in beneath one of the tables.

The only thing missing is the ramen, if only because they already have the stew in the still-hot pot, but no matter—it gives them more time to talk, and talk they do, and Kosuke never gets the feeling that they were somehow trapped together. She learns other things as they talk, like how Haruhi had gotten a scholarship to Ouran Academy and that was how she met Tamaki. Her tone implied there is more of a story there, but she doesn't go into detail.

Haruhi is now in college to become an attorney, and is planning on heading out to the United States for further study. "The classes are hard, but it helps that I'm interested, you know? It's harder to sit through a class you don't care about."

Kosuke, hunched over a 300-piece moon-and-stars puzzle, huffs a laugh. "That explains why I practically failed PE every year."

Haruhi chuckles in response, but looks up from sewing buttons into scrap cloth to ask, "What about you? If you had to go to college, I mean."

"I actually was going to go to college, at Seneca." She hesitates to give such details before, but maybe a combination of the rainfall and much-needed downtime had loosened up her good reason. "I was going into general business-running, just in case I decided to take over the restaurant after all. I guess I was going to figure out my actual major when I got there."

"Didn't have a plan?"

"My interests don't stick too much as is…It's kind of hard to pick the thing you want to revolve four years of college and the rest of your career around. I thought about teaching, nursing, even photography at some point, but…" Kosuke shrugs. "Nothing felt right."

"Is that why you don't go to college now?"

"No, uh…" It isn't easy to swallow the knot in her throat, it's just familiar. "I wouldn't have the time to; I have to take care of the kids, and the money…"

"What about your parents? Are they busy, or something?"

It isn't like she's going to be able to just lie about it forever, right? It isn't something for her to hide, anyway. She hasn't done anything wrong. The words just don't taste any better in her mouth no matter how many times she says them.

She has to say them, though, because life keeps going and she has to, too.

"They passed away, earlier this year. They were in a car accident."

As expected, there is a length of silence that follows. She keeps her head down and focuses on the puzzle, but all she does is look. She just doesn't want to see that look of crushing pity again; she is sick to death of it.

Finally, Haruhi replies with, "Kosuke, I'm so sorry." It's sincere, but appropriately so. Her voice doesn't go soft and weak like she's going to start shedding tears for the poor little thing, pull her close and tell her everything will be alright. It's a nice change of pace.

"That's why I'm not in college; I have to take care of Minami and Hitsuji. I'm all they've got."

"You don't have any other family?"

"My dad's parents have already passed away. My mom's…" Kosuke can't even offer an explanation because she didn't have one. She never had one. So she just shrugs and goes on. "They were both the only children, so no, it's just us."

Haruhi nods. She takes her eyes off Kosuke, which somehow lets her breathe a little easier. "My mother passed away when I was a little girl. I sort of took over the house. I didn't have to, I just did."

Kosuke still does not pry, because she picks up in her tone that she doesn't want her to. She didn't mean to be unappreciative of all the help and sympathy she'd been given, really, but Haruhi's approach is certainly refreshing. Kosuke can tell her how much it still hurts, or how she still doesn't know what to do, but she doesn't have to. Haruhi knows.

Kosuke looks down at the cloth still in Haruhi's grasp. "How's my scarf coming along?"

She snorts. "I'm supposed to be knitting you a scarf?"

"I can't believe I let you into my home, gave you my food, and let you in on a family tradition, and you won't even knit me a scarf? The audacity…"

Haruhi chuckles, and then, audibly, the rain begins to lighten. A softening of the roar against the windows, a little bit of light shining through the gray clouds. They haven't heard a roll of thunder for a while, and the two share an affirming look that it has almost passed.

Then there is a knock, fast and urgent, on the front door. Another look, this one confused at who would be outside in such a downpour. A customer, maybe, but they'd have to be quite a desperate one.

Kosuke stands to her feet, crosses the room, opens the door…and is promptly thrown flat on her butt from sheer wind force.

She turns around while her head is still spinning, and sees Haruhi being hugged to death and back. She is cocooned in long limbs and gasping for breath.

"I told you you should have stayed," the attacker(?) cries with a tone almost like heartbreak. He pylls back to let Haruhi breathe, and from where she sits, Kosuke sees soft locks of hair like spun gold. "We waited forever for you! We headed out as soon as the rain lightened…"

Kosuke can't see it, but she hears the look Haruhi gave him, because…wasn't that just a few seconds ago? And the man replies, "You underestimate how quickly I can run."

There is another man on the doorstep, and Kosuke was too disoriented to notice him before. He's like the other one in that he's tall and long-limbed, but that's where the similarities stop. The stranger's hair is not only longer than Kosuke's has ever been, but softer and shinier. She's never been jealous of a man's hair before, but she is now, looking at the coppery waves held back in a loose tie.

He sees her first and foremost, and looks quite embarrassed. "Oh, dear…Please tell me he didn't break anything."

He's already moving forward and taking her gently by the elbows. Kosuke lets herself be pulled up to her feet. "I'm fine. I think. What was that?"

"My overdramatic, soon-to-be son-in-law. Your introduction to him was better than mine."

Only then does said soon-to-be son-in-law—Tamaki—seem to realize there were four people there, not three, and finally turns to look at her. And—

Okay, no, no one is allowed to be this beautiful. This just wasn't possible. Or fair. Seriously, are his features carved out of marble? Kosuke has never seen eyes such a rich shade of violet. They can't be real.

He blinks once, twice, then finally…kneels down and bends his head to the floorboards.

"I am so very sorry for my rudeness," he says, and a very dark part of Kosuke's mind notes that Haruhi hadn't sounded as stricken when she told her that her parents had passed away. "Clearly you have been taking care of Haruhi and I did not so much as thank you before barging into your home."

Kosuke gives Haruhi a look that says, Please tell me he isn't serious.

Haruhi replies with a look that says, Please forgive him so we can all be free.

"It's fine," Kosuke answers with a barely-contained sigh. "Really."

He stands to his feet once again and smiles at her—gah, that smile is too perfect. Kosuke controls her face because she doesn't want him to think she's disgusted with him, but it is hard. She is thoroughly discomfited by those blinding pearls. "I'm Tamaki Suoh. Thank you very, very much for watching over Haruhi during the storm."

"Oh, no, no need. I enjoyed the company." Kosuke tries not to laugh at Haruhi's expression as she stands behind her fiancé's back. It is the painfully exhausted look of a woman fed up with being treated with such overbearing adoration. "Congratulations, by the way."

"Thank you!" Tamaki beams bright as the sun and holds up his hand to show the gold band around his finger. "I'm a very lucky man!"

"Indeed he is," the other man cuts in, "and my only wish for my daughter to be lucky by not having an overbearing husband."

Kosuke should've seen the similarities between them sooner, really. Narrowing her eyes, though, she can't help but tease, "Didn't you also leave 'when the rain lightened up'?"

"The overbearing love of a father is different from the overbearing love of a husband." Catching the deflated…everything on Tamaki, though, he lets out a sigh and waves a hand through the air. "Come on, now, I'm ribbing. Those two are a perfect match and I will have words with anyone who says otherwise. I'm Ranka Fujioka, dear. It's nice to meet you."

Kosuke bows to him with a smile, then does the same for Tamaki. "Nice to meet you, too." But then she realizes just how long they have spent in the dark. "Oh, no, what time is it?"

Ranka holds his wrist upwards. "A quarter until three."

"Ohhhhh dear…I am so sorry, but I have to go pick up my brother and sister from school! I didn't realize how late it was…"

"No worries," Ranka assures her, gesturing Tamaki and Haruhi forward. Haruhi hurries to pick up the scarf she'd unwound from her neck. "Thank you again."

"I should help clean this up," Haruhi insists, but looking at their makeshift tent and the puzzle and the sewing kit, she falters. "I can, uh…"

"No, no, it's fine! Don't worry about it!"

The three of them come out of the house, drawing up their hoods against the sparse but chilling rainfall still coming down. While Kosuke is locking up the front door, Haruhi tells her, "Thanks again. Usually thunderstorms are a nightmare for me…"

"Like I said, I was happy for the company. It was nice meeting you!"

Then the two of them part ways, and Kosuke isn't thinking too much about the whole thing as she leads the children by hand through the rain-slick sidewalks back home. She guesses it was just one of those once-upon-a-blue-moon kind encounters you have with strangers. A pleasant memory, but a memory still. She only really thinks about it again after the kids are asleep in their beds—the power having returned while they were gone, which miffed Minami and Hitsuji both. It'd been nice, but she doubts she's going to see Haruhi ever again.

Haruhi returns the next day with a dry mix of hot cocoa in hand. It's a drier, sunnier day, and the somewhat shy smile is unhidden by any scarves.

"I know it's not stew, but I figured I should pay you back somehow." Do you want to hang out some more?

"Thanks. Here, I'll get the kettle." Sure. I'm bored, too.

Not only does Haruhi return: she keeps returning. She does for the last two days of their vacation and tops it off by giving Kosuke her phone number. "To keep in touch."

Remembering how easily Okina slipped away could very well be why Kosuke is mindful of sending messages, replying to messages, and always picking up her phone. It's misplaced, probably—shouldn't she be giving the newfound enthusiasm towards Okina, not a newcomer she hasn't known for even a month? But something in Kosuke's head tells her Okina's ship has sailed.

Sometimes Haruhi will call for a reason—"Hey, I'm about to make Soba noodles, any advice?"—but others, it's just to talk, nothing more. School, work, Tamaki, Ranka, Minami, Hitsuji, nothing is off the table, really. Kosuke is convinced her life is not nearly as captivating, but Haruhi shows genuine interest just in a story of Kosuke knocking over a pyramid of cans at work, or something just as boring.

She comes back for another trip on winter break, and she meets Hitsuji and Minami for the first time. Hitsuji is as shy as ever, mostly ducking his head or hiding behind Kosuke's legs. Minami, though…she interrogates Haruhi as if she's a threat. She needs her name, age, favorite color, hometown and—most importantly—does she think Kosuke is a good cook? Haruhi agrees with much vigor, which is good. Kosuke can take criticism of her food. Minami can't. By the end of that first day, Hitsuji is inviting her to games of pretend and Minami lets her take her favorite color (red) on board games.

Sometimes Ranka or Tamaki tag along on these visits, and Kosuke becomes well-acquainted with both. Ranka—real name Ryoji, but he insists on being called by his stage name—is a flamboyant man whose favorite past time seems to be doting on his daughter. He is absolutely delighted that Haruhi and Kosuke are friends, not because Haruhi is without them, but she apparently doesn't have a close female friend. He insists this is important, and Kosuke doesn't disagree, she guesses.

It's hard to disagree with Ranka about anything. Kind and cheerful as he is, he's a man that doesn't seem to take arguments. Not bad at all, however, it's even endearing. Thing is, though, whenever he comes to the Lily Bowl, he all but forces Kosuke to sit down and talk to Haruhi while he does the housework. Kosuke doesn't like it, but again: no arguments. It just doesn't help that Ranka seems to be unused to housework, but he's trying so hard. And he absolutely Adores Minami and Hitsuji with a capital A. The first time he lays eyes on them, he's on cloud nine.

Tamaki is…wow.

Tamaki Suoh is 'wow'. That's a good word.

He is very, very much aware that he's a beautiful man and he has no shame declaring it. Sometimes his movements seem to only exist to highlight his features. At his command, heaven's light shines down upon him and turns the air around him shimmering. Everything he does, down to his very breaths, are…passionate. He can't fetch cups from the cupboard without declaring it to the world. There are so many sweeps of his arm every time he comes. And even though Haruhi promises he's working on it, there's a wonder with all the "commoner" stuff that Kosuke makes a point to not be offended about. "Why, yes, Tamaki. I did fix this hole in my jeans with a miscolored patch because I can't afford a tailor! Thank you for noticing!"

But he is so stupidly sweet, for heaven's sake. Not unlike his future father-in-law, he is just so happy that Haruhi and Kosuke are friends, and insists that this makes the two of them friends as well. He wants to know everything about her, her whole life story. He gushes and frets and fawns over her. Every single time he comes, he crushes her in a hug. It's odd to befriend someone so quickly, but Kosuke doesn't mind calling him that: a friend.

As overbearing as he can be, he's not just bold charm and dashing looks. He's a very understanding person, someone who tells when you're not feeling good and demands to know why. He protests not so much against the constant work Kosuke does, but her refusal to take a break. When he's told of what happened to Kosuke's parents, he so very sincerely offers his condolences and tells her that she's a very strong person. Kosuke likes Tamaki.

He's also so head-over-heels for his fiancée that Kosuke can't notlike him. There is no doubt in Kosuke's mind that Haruhi loves him just as much, but people can love different ways—doesn't make it any lesser. Haruhi does it in gentle touches and tender looks and the slightest softening of her voice when she speaks to him. Tamaki does it in star-struck stares and the constant reminder of just how eager he is to be her husband—the walking epitome of 'adoration.' Haruhi is a lucky woman and Tamaki is a lucky man. Kosuke is happy for them.

Kosuke's nineteenth birthday is spent between just her and her siblings—they buy her a box of chocolates together, and Kosuke splurges to make her favorite dish of honey glazed salmon. It's not at all bad, it's just kind of lonely and a reminder of how limited her company is now.

It is her fault, apparently, because Haruhi and Tamaki are both very, very annoyed that she didn't tell them it was her birthday, and they only find out two weeks after the fact. So now they have to wait another three hundred and sixty-five days. Foolish girl.

Christmas, however, is much better. The inside of the Lily Bowl is decked out in their yearly decorations of paper snowflakes and snowman window stickers. The tree goes up in the dining room. On the morning of, Kosuke fixes up hot cocoa and roasted chestnuts before waking up the children for their present-fest. Minami gets a new wardrobe for her doll, Hitsuji gets a painting smock and easel, and they both get goodies of candy and toys and whatnot. Kosuke gets a pretty necklace in return. They laugh and cheer and go outside to play in the snow until they are aching from the cold. Again, nice, just with a noticeable hole there. Three people instead of five.

Two days later, Haruhi is there, with gifts from her, Tamaki, and Ranka in tow: an apron, a throw blanket, and a (very. expensive. but beautifully sharp) chef's knife. Kosuke sends her back home with a comfy sweatshirt, a pajama set, and a box of prime "commoner's" coffee. Both are very happy.

It's also during this visit—it's too cold for them go outside, so Kosuke and Haruhi watch the children through the kitchen window, sipping on more cocoa—that they get back on the topic of Kosuke's parents.

"Is this what you've been doing all this time?" Haruhi asks as Minami chases Hitsuji around the backyard. Kosuke is going to call them in, soon. Doesn't want them getting sick. "Taking care of the children?"

"Basically. If I went to college, I could get a job, but when would I ever have the time for that?"

Haruhi nods. She gets it. "So what are you going to do?"

"Stay put, I suppose. Wait until the kids are older and then see about it."

Haruhi hums around the lip of her mug. Kosuke doesn't tell her that there's so, so much more to it than that.