Alnitak8: Thank you!

REEbok123: It's happening. It's here.

argenteusvipera: Thanks, I chuckled reading your review, haha. Yes, it has finally happened. We finally hit the point of no return, and it only took us 51 chapters.

duckweed04: I take that as the highest compliment!

Here is the story, as Airi and Sugimoto tell it:

They were new money. In just a few short years, Suzuki Pharmacies went from being a just another family business into a family juggernaut. Airi and Sugimoto went from being everyday people who glanced at the newspapers while checking out at the grocery store, to being in those newspapers.

It wasn't just money that came pouring in—it was people, too, important, wealthy, and eager to "make connections." Like aliens from another planet, Sugimoto dryly joked. Every day they were sent invitations to galas, weddings, charity balls, even funerals. Airi would be asked to tea by the wife of the CEO of a major solar technology company. Sugimoto was invited to a game of golf by the current head of a century-long, family-owned vehicle manufacturing business.

It took years to feel comfortable with it all. At times they asked if this was even what they wanted. Their sense of normal adjusted in large part because they realized they could give their daughter everything she could ever want or need. They started by moving from their two-bedroom apartment into a two-story mansion with its own staff.

Soon after, however, Airi and Sugimoto realized just how unprepared they were by a single question, so casually factual, said around a glass of wine: when will Emiko inherit?

Shamefully, this took them off guard.

Sugimoto had inherited the business, but that was one store that he chose to expand. Emiko? Emiko had never expressed interest in the business a day in her life. She found a new fascination every week, botany and sculpture and poetry, but never Suzuki Pharmacy. Her parents couldn't think of putting her in a cage, no matter how gilded.

But then, what? They could sell. They had offers, certainly. Yet, maybe Emiko would change her mind one day. Or maybe her children would be interested. Or maybe it would be foolish of them, selfish even—they could keep their child's children's children's children's financially secure for generations if they kept the business.

While Airi and Sugimoto were fretting over this conundrum, they were approached by two married owners of a long-standing luxury cosmetics line. They wanted to know if Airi and Sugimoto would be interested in arranging a marriage between their son and Emiko.

The dam broke. Word spread, and suddenly, everyone was giving them marriage offers.

Airi and Sugimoto were very much aware that this was normal practice. They'd never really boggled at it, but then, they'd only ever observed. Besides, being new money, they thought they would be exempt. There was a hierarchy among the elite, and empires just one generation old were at the bottom.

Certainly, they would never, never, never, never, never force Emiko into an unwanted marriage.

But…if it was wanted, problem solved.

As for Emiko, she had responded with surprising optimism. She went to every meeting thinking it was just a date, a date like any other, what was the difference if her parents set it up? She always left sorely disappointed.

This man wanted to marry before she even started college. This man said that he would have a son, and if they had to have a million daughters first, so be it. At best, they were just boring, and nothing clicked. At worst, she was told that once married, she was not allowed to eat sugar.

By eighteen, Emiko was over the whole idea, but she still tried. The longer it went on, a few suitors were lucky enough to get a second date before being turned down. It was clear to Airi and Sugimoto that Emiko's resolve was changing, and perhaps she was considering just settling for someone already.

Until, one day, Emiko suggested a match of her own.

She'd met a man at a charity gala. His name was Shigeo Amida. His family owned Amida Health, a hospital technology business that was surging in the United States. Shigeo was living in Japan for now, finishing up his education to be fully prepared to take his father's place. Emiko had much to say about him. Kind. Charming. Gentlemanly. Handsome. Polite. On and on and on. They often found her staring out windows with a daydreaming smile, as they too had done when they were young love.

Airi and Sugimoto were so ecstatic to see their daughter in love that they almost forgot the financial gain. When they met, Shigeo was everything Emiko promised and then some. He brought Airi a sculpture of copper and Sugimoto a tapestry loom, and flowers for both. He became their son in a heartbeat. He always seemed to know just what to say, and was so polite he began even the slightest disagreement by saying, With all due respect…Most importantly, he adored their daughter just as she did him.

They were married a year after they met. It was a beach wedding. Sugimoto made Emiko's veil. Airi made the rings.

Takeo Amida, whom Airi and Sugimoto only met once before, came to discuss the business matter of it all. Shigeo (and now, Emiko) would inherit Amida Health when he voluntarily retired, which didn't seem far into the future then. Airi and Sugimoto decided they would run Suzuki Pharmacy until they couldn't anymore.

Everything was fantastic. Emiko moved into Shigeo's estate with him, and they fell into a domestic routine. Shigeo would go to his classes—and, after his graduation, work at a local hospital partnered with Amida Health—and Emiko would spend her day refining her recipes, visiting her parents, or answering the hundreds of invitations that poured her way, luncheons and brunches and the like. They vacationed every few months. They went to Paris, Honolulu, and Madrid. Often Emiko would visit her parents and tell them a hundred new stories about her wonderful wedded life.

Discord was rare. Seldom did Shigeo and Emiko butt heads, and when they did, it was necessary. Shigeo wanted to move back out to the U.S. soon to take over the business, an idea that did not appeal to Emiko in the slightest. On top of wanting to stay close to her parents, she was ready to start her college education, and had never considered going out of the country for it. This never was resolved, and it seemed the young couple put more effort into dodging the subject than confronting it.

Other than that, though, everything was perfect. Airi and Sugimoto went on without any worries, for their business and their daughter.

Until, one day, Emiko marched into their home and declared that she was getting divorced.

Why?

This is the most distressing part to Kosuke.

Airi and Sugimoto, more than twenty years later, still don't know.

At first, Emiko was composed. Her hands were shaking, but she was succinct: she had thought long and hard about it, and knew what she was doing. She absolutely wanted to divorce him.

When they asked why, because of course they did, that's when everything went to chaos. Emiko had bristled and said it didn't matter. Even more confused, they asked again. They were in such a state of shock, they were practically seeing stars.

Emiko exploded. They had never seen her in such a state of rage before; she was wild. She screamed at them that it shouldn't matter. That she couldn't believe they questioned her instead of supporting her. That all she wanted was their understanding, and instead she was interrogated.

But how could they not ask? Airi had asked Kosuke this, as though she had an answer. It wasn't about not wanting to support their daughter, it was that they didn't know how to.

The more they tried to calm her down, the angrier she became. Finally, Sugimoto had to tell her to leave. She was utterly inconsolable. When she'd calmed down, they would talk again.

Emiko left. But she never came back.

Those were the last words Sugimoto and Airi ever said to their daughter. When she didn't answer their calls, they thought she was still stewing it over. By the fourth ask of Is Emiko alright? I invited her to lunch today but she never showed up, their worry became sickness. Finally, Shigeo came to them with a letter. It said, very simply:

I'm gone. I'm not coming back.

Shigeo, do not follow me.

Mom, Dad, do not follow me.

I'm done putting on a smile.

If their daughter's delirious proclamation of divorce didn't show them that Shigeo was not the man they thought he was, this did. He had had the letter for three days. He gave it to them and left. Any attempt to contact him afterwards was fruitless. Doors shut in their faces.

And that was that, really. Airi and Sugimoto almost lost themselves in their grief. They almost lost each other. Airi wanted to find their daughter. She wanted to hire an investigator, someone, to track her down so that they could make amends. Sugimoto thought it best to respect her wishes, scared that if they ignored her warning she would only run away farther.

Airi accused him of not fighting hard enough. Sugimoto told her she was being selfish. They never saw Takeo Amida again. Shigeo went to the U.S. The gossip was ravenous. New money, failed marriage, missing daughter. They left that world behind. It was easier, not knowing that many of their friends were anything but. Shigeo downsized Suzuki Pharmacy just to cut more ties.

They separated for three years and came back together with hollow chests. They told themselves that wherever their daughter was, she would come back to them when she wanted to. Of course, she never did.

The end.

Kosuke had left shortly after they finished. They understood. She needed time to process. She took that day, and the day after, and the day after. She took a visit back to Karuizawa with the children, she went with Kyoya to the hospital, and she went back to classes and she still hasn't processed it.

She's so frustrated. Angry. All this time they kept her waiting, got her hopes up, for what amounted to a shrug and an I don't know.

Alright, no, that's not fair. Despite the confusion, they're clearly drowning in guilt for what they did, or what they didn't do. She heard the regret flooding from their mouths. We just didn't know, we just didn't know…Not to mention, she would've heard this a loooong time ago, if she hadn't been scared of it.

She knows they didn't lie once. They are as lost as she is.

Whatever their truth is compared to her mother's truth, it's not up to her to forgive them on Emiko's behalf.

Kosuke is down to one last hope:

The diary.

When she feels ready, she visits again. She has some questions, but it's more dead ends. They really have no idea what went wrong. They've had over twenty years to scan their memories for warning signs and still find none. Kosuke makes up an excuse that she left something in the bedroom upstairs, and creeps back to the diary in the chessboard.

She was frenzied. She was delirious. She needed answers, answers, answers, she had no other options. She wanted to go right to the end, but started at the beginning. Maybe there was a clue, something Airi and Sugimoto missed…

After the entry about Emiko getting the diary, then returning to the diary, there's one about a friend's birthday party. There's one about a crush she has on a boy in her class. There's one about how a friend lost Emiko's favorite bracelet. There's one about a trip her parents take to the mountains, and it's perfectly innocent—Dad thought he saw a bear, but it was just a big boulder. He FREAKED OUT. Mom is still making fun of him.

Then she makes it to one page and stops. Not for a revelation, but inability. Because, what the heck?

It's like her mother was going through an earthquake when she wrote this. The pen strokes are a chicken scratch mess. They're trying to wiggle right off the page. She can barely make out the Dear Diary.

In trying to read it, Kosuke pushes the other page further back…which succeeds in tearing it from the spine.

She'd almost screamed.

She picked it up and tried to put it back in, but then Sugimoto called, which meant he or Airi would come up soon, so Kosuke stuffed the page into her pocket, threw all the stuff back into the chest, and went back into the hallway just as Airi came up the stairs.

Kosuke is now in possession of a page of her mother's diary.

It feels like holding a ticking time bomb.

She sleeps with it tucked into her pillow. She carries it in her pocket wherever she goes, making sure it's there every few seconds. There could be something amazing in those wriggles. If she loses it—or if Shigeo finds it—she'll never forgive herself.

She never lets it leave her sight.

Including now.

While the limousine pulls to a stop, Kosuke checks one last time. Still there. Opening the door, she finds the exact same poster that Renge had unveiled at the Valentine's Day party, the palatial villa all theirs for the whole weekend. Same color of the sky and everything. It was a joint idea of the winners to turn it into a friend-group getaway rather than a honeymoon precursor.

She hears the flip-flop of…well, flip-flops. Hani comes down the steps two at a time, in swim trunks and a shirt with a hibiscus design. "What cha' looking at?"

"What chi'm looking at?" Kosuke throws a hand up. "Chi'm looking at that!"

"Oh. Is it big?" Hani looks back up at it, tilting his head. "I thought it was pretty small, actually."

Kosuke purses her lips and puts on her sunhat. Hani is sweet. She won't snark at him. "Nevermind. Nice to see you."

"You, too. Let me help with your bags!"

"Oh, you don't—" Hani sweeps her suitcase up right on top of his head. Along with her beach bag, and her backpack. He walks as though he doesn't even notice them. Right. It's Hani. "Oh. Thank you!"

The heart of the villa is wide open, big enough for five rooms combined. The kitchen of stainless steel is to one side, complete with a brick oven. The "living room" with the wall-sized TV is to the other, but there are armchairs and long sofas everywhere, a whole lobby of furniture. At the far side of the room are floor-to-ceiling windows that roll open to the patio with the infinity pool—even though the ocean is right behind it, which seems superfluous to Kosuke—and in front of them is a long dining table. The second floor landing is overhead. The whole place seems designed for the ocean breeze to come right through.

"Kosuke! You're here!" Tamaki jogs through the open doors, somehow looking even handsomer than usual. His hair is damp at the ends, for maximum allure. "I have a surprise for you! Look!"

From somewhere, he produces a big, plastic square. On the front is a picture of a great killer whale, with a little blushing smile and two handles behind his dorsal fins. A jumbo floatie.

"I got one for everyone! You use them to ride the waves. Won't that be fun?" Tamaki flips the pack over, still smiling. Then not. "'Pump…'?"

"I got something for you, too! I know it's something you've been wanting…"

"Don't tell me!"

"Yep!" Kosuke reaches into her backpack (still on Hani's head) and pulls out a small, red, castle-shaped plastic bucket. "A bucket for sandcastle building!"

Tamaki lets the floatie drop to the floor so he can behold it. "Kosuke!" He's crying. "It's everything I could have hoped for…"

"You have to take care of it, though. Hitsuji gave me a very clear list of instructions."

She also gives him the sheet of paper Hitsuji had scribbled on. It says, in crayon, 1 Don't break it 2 Have fun.

"Of course! Hani, could you show Kosuke to her room? Once you get changed, come out back! Everyone's already down at the beach."

Hani takes her upstairs to one of probably a dozen bedrooms. It's not nearly as grandiose, thankfully. There's a four-poster bed, a dresser, and an armchair. She has her own balcony and her own bathroom. Not bad. Not bad at all.

She goes into the bathroom to change into her swimsuit. It'd been so long since she swam—she honestly forgot that the Amida mansion had a pool sometimes—she had to buy a new one. It's a one-piece, navy blue, with halter strings that tie at the back of her neck and a small diamond cutout under the bust. She pulls her shorts back over them, and feels the paper in the back pocket.

Okay, what to do…No one will be coming in here, so any place is safe. She just needs to remember…Under the pillow? Inside her luggage? Maybe on the dresser, behind the lotion bottle. Oh! That reminds me…

Kosuke opens her beach bag. Yep, sunscreen.

Someone knocks at the door.

"Just a second!" Kosuke tiptoes over her luggage, picking her hat from the hook beside the doorframe. "Oh. Hi, Kyoya."

Of course, she'd known he was going to be coming, especially since his father—whom Kosuke is having some very mixed feelings about—mandated a vacation, and she'd been pleased at the thought of him sleeping in a palm-tree hammock rather than collapsed on the deck of the yacht. Still, it's hard not to find the sight of him going out for fun again odd. And it's hard to look at him and not remember what he looked like under the hospital lights, pitch-black bags against snow-pale skin. He looks better. A lot better. Especially now, in trunks and a T-shirt, second only to pajamas as the most casual she's ever seen him.

Kyoya only glances down at her swimsuit for the briefest of seconds. "Haruhi would like to see you once you can come down."

"I'll be there in just a second. Um…How are you?"

"I haven't even gone down to the beach yet, but everything I have is covered in sand. Besides that, I'm doing well. Did Tamaki give you your surprise yet?"

"The floatie? Mine's a killer whale."

Kyoya holds up another plastic pack she hadn't seen him holding. This one has a picture of a big, round, yellow duck.

Kosuke snorts at just the idea of Kyoya waddling around in it. "Wanna trade? I'm jealous."

"Let's see if Tamaki's lungs will hold out first. I'll see you down there."

"Alright."

She thinks he takes one last glance at her neck before he goes. It makes a head spread all across her shoulders, but she really is over it now. He was delirious. A madman! He would have never touched her like that otherwise soeverythingisokayreally.

She grabs her beach bag, slides on her sandals, and puts her sunhat back on before heading out. Outside, past the infinity pool, there's a sandy path down to the beach itself. Besides the nine distant figures she sees, it's empty. Just them, the sand, and the endless blue.

She'd forgotten how much she enjoyed the beach. It had been the Nakahara family's go-to vacation spot, far enough to feel like an adventure, close enough for a weekend, relaxing for the parents and fun for the kids. Except for that time Marti was stung by a jellyfish. That was not relaxing at all.

Closest to her is Haruhi and Mori, kneeling beside a firepit, which seems laughably commonplace considering. Haruhi inspects the grate with a puzzled frown. It seems she's recovered from jetlag at last.

"Oh, Kosuke." She stands, brushing black dust from her hands. She's in a white swim tank with a design of green palm leaves, with matching green swim shorts. "There you are. We wanted to see about doing barbecue on this tonight. Is there a way to get it a little cleaner?"

Kosuke pshaws. "Nothing a little elbow grease and baking soda won't fix. It should only take a—HEY."

Haruhi jumps a foot in the air. "What?!"

Kosuke narrows her eyes. They don't deceive her. "You're not wearing sunscreen."

"Oh. I thought I forgot something before I came down here. Give me a minute and—"

Kosuke thrusts a hand into her bag and pulls out a bottle of sunscreen, pushing it right into Haruhi's chest.

"My baby sister once got sunburned so badly at the beach that she couldn't sleep at night and she went through three bottles of aloe vera just for the pain. Put it on."

Wheeze. "Haruhi!" Wheeze.

There's a line of lounge chairs and umbrellas set up along the sand. Tamaki sits in one, with pink plastic spilled all over his legs. He huffs and puffs into the little plug on the opening. He's so red in the face, a sunburn would make no difference.

"Listen to her!" Wheeze. "We must take—" Wheeze. "—our epidermal care—" Wheeze. "—very seriously!"

So, Kosuke asks, "Are YOU wearing sunscreen?"

"I will—" Wheeze. "—apply more—" Wheeze. "—oncethisisdone!" Wheeze, wheeze, wheeze.

This is much too late, of course, and Kosuke lets Haruhi know with just the look on her face.

"I've got him," Haruhi sighs, and takes the bottle for her and her fiancé both.

Kosuke puts her bag down on another chair further down and looks inside. She takes her towel out. No. The frisbee, no. Spare sandals, no. Lip balm, hair conditioner, sunglasses, rash cream, hairbrush, hand sanitizer, water, life jacket, the other sunglasses, banana chips, binoculars, bug spray, flashlight, umbrella, the other frisbee, first aid kit, radio, snorkel, goggles, bucket, shovel, the other life jacket—

"Do you have a lighthouse in there, too?!"

Out in the water, the twins boggle at her. Or rather, all the things that she'd pulled out from her bag, spilled all over the sand. And there's still more.

"Better to have it and not need it, than need it and not have it!" Kosuke digs deeper, and… "Ah-ha! There it is."

From the Salt of the Sea: A Cultural Study on the Cuisines of Seaside Communities. The twins groan in tandem.

"This is a beach, not a library!" calls Hikaru.

"Take a break from being a grandma for a day!" Kaoru splashes for emphasis. "Get in the water!"

"I will get in the water when I want to. Hey, are you two wearing sunscreen?"

"Yes."

"No, you're not."

"No."

"Get over here!" They come up the shore with their tails between their legs. "This grandma will have better skin than you if you don't take care of it!"

"Ah, so we're the grandparents now. It's an upgrade from being the mother, I suppose."

Kyoya sits on the chair next to her, the one not consumed by her supplies, with a book of his own. The Sleeping Forest. Looks like a classic. Does he read fiction often? Kosuke looks up at him to ask—

Okay. Okay. Yeah. He's shirtless. Yep. Alright. Makes sense. This is a beach. Okay.

Don't stare. That's rude. Or is it a compliment? No, it's rude. Should she compliment him? God, no! Don't do that! You look very nice, Kyoya, and I'm saying that now because you're half-naked! Normal people don't say those things…or think them!

Fingers snap. Hikaru holds a hand out, deadpan, while Kaoru snickers behind him.

"Look, if you're going to make us come all the way over here, you could at least give us the sunscreen and then drool over your man, alright?"

Kosuke rolls her eyes, like she's just annoyed, and not desperately wanting to bury her burning face in the sand. She pulls out two more bottles of sunscreen from her bag, and the twins boggle at her. "Are you kidding me?!"

"Is that all you two need?" Kyoya flips a page over, not even looking up at them. "I can't hear my own thoughts with you squawking like that."

"Alright, come on, Hikaru." Kaoru tugs on his brother's arm to lead him away. "We've interrupted their moment long enough."

"My turn!"

From the Salt of the Sea: A Cultural Study on the Cuisines of Seaside Communities flies out of Kosuke's hands when Renge pops up out of absolute nowhere—as she is wont to do—with a pen, a notepad, and a huge, gleaming smile. And a very ornate parasol that doesn't fit under the umbrella.

"Kosuke and Kyoya. One of three very beautiful opposites-attract couples that I am so blessed to be acquainted with…" She clicks the pen. "How are you two feeling today?"

"Short of breath." "Preemptively exhausted."

"Now, tell me. The white sand, the sapphire blue of the ocean. The sun warm on your skin. Salt on your lips. It's all just so romantic. How is that…affecting you two today?"

Kosuke looks to Kyoya. He knows what's going on. She does not.

"I…" Renge touches the pen to the paper, leaning to Kosuke in anticipation. "I don't understand the question?"

Renge throws her head back and groans. "Nothing?! None of this is getting the sparks flying? None of it at all?"

"Oh, would you look at that," Kyoya quips, pointing the other way. "Hani and Reiko are gathering seashells together. Isn't that adorable?"

Renge gasps and takes off with a strangled cry of, "INSPIRATION!" Kyoya lifts up his book again, and Kosuke really does feel bad for causing another distraction, but…What?

Kyoya sighs and turns another page. "Renge is trying to write another otome in time for a summer release next year. We are all her unwitting muses."

"Ah. That makes sense. Think she would've done the same if it was just Haruhi and Tamaki?"

"I would like to say 'no.' But that is just what I would like to say."

Kosuke shakes her head and chuckles. She packs away her things again, feeling relieved when she has no right to be. Weeks and weeks later, she still looks out for the tiniest signs—even just a blink—at Haruhi and Tamaki. He does not feel for them that way anymore, he's said so. It's none of her business.

"Hey, wait." She turns back around, hand in her bag again. "Are you—"

"Yes."

"When—?"

"Thirty minutes ago."

She'd been pulling another sunscreen bottle out, but Kyoya holds her look long enough for her to sheath her weapon again. He wins this time.

Kosuke stretches out and leans back, only to immediately sit back up again. Ouch. She hadn't realized she'd tied her halter strings into such a huge knot. She sits up and reaches back, undoing them and quickly tying them again.

Wait, no, that doesn't feel right either. She does it again—too lopsided. Again—ouch, she caught her hair.

She keeps her eyes away from Kyoya, and prays he's not looking at her, but it's pretty hard to hide the fact that she's struggling to tie her swimsuit when she's right next to him. She loses her grip on one string and snatches it up again. If the top actually slips, that's it. She is absolutely burying her head into the sand and is not going to come back up.

"Would you like some help?"

"Nope!" Kosuke squeaks before the question mark. One more time. Too tight. One more time. Too loose. The idea of wrapping herself up in a towel and running past everyone to get back inside makes her insides shrivel. "Maybe…?"

She hears him set the book down, so she turns her back to him some more. She can feel a preemptive shiver in her spine, but it's just a friend helping a friend. Nothing to be jittery about.

Kyoya takes such a long moment she almost asks him if something's wrong, but then his fingertips are brushing her hair out of the way, running over her neck just as they did the other night. Kosuke holds her hair to the side, and she can feel their hands brush as he ties the strings yet again.

He stops. "Is that comfortable?"

Kosuke sits a little straighter. Not too tight, not too loose. "Yeah. Thank you."

He definitely does not take another long moment to pull his hands away. That's just her wishful thinking.

Wait, NO IT ISN'T.

SHE DOESN'T THINK LIKE THAT.

SHE DOESN'T—

"You know what?" Kosuke stands up and almost bashes her head right into the umbrella. She grabs another bottle of sunscreen. Why not. "I think I'm actually going tooooooo wait. To read. I'll be back."

She walks away as fast as she can without running. It's the heat. She's thinking this way because of the heat.

She comes to Reiko and Hani, who are studding a giant mound of sand with seashells. Oh, wait, no. That's Mori.

"The sapphire blue ocean, the salt on your lips," Renge is saying to Reiko, scribbling furiously. "How does it make you feel?"

"I find the beach insufferable. It is too bright and open for me to bear. Only when I am alone, however. With Hani, anywhere is paradise."

It's hard to say if she's saying what Renge wants to hear, or if that's the truth. Renge eats it up, either way, pen moving so past it flies off the page.

"Hey." They all look up to her, Renge glowering at her interruption. "When was the last time you put on sunscreen?"

Reiko and Hani look at one another. Hani shrugs.

"Here." She hands him the bottle. "And Mori…" She looks at his bored, still, sunglasses-wearing face poking out from the sand. "Uh…Have them help you out."

"Will do."

She goes back to the deck, where Tamaki has moved for more shade. He still sits with a floatie still uninflated. Haruhi has forced him to take a break, and he lies immobile. And red. Maybe a little blue. Haruhi is just gathering her towel and slipping on her sandals as Kosuke approaches. Is she even approaching them? Or is she retreating back into the villa?

"Hey," Haruhi greets her. "Forget something?"

To the edge of the deck, there's a stack of soft towels at the ready. Kosuke picks one up, as if she didn't pack three already. "Yeah. Just needed to grab one of these."

Haruhi turns back to the ocean. She said she didn't much care for the beach, too much hassle, but the view seems to affect even her.

"I didn't think he'd actually pull it off, but he's really relaxing."

What? Kosuke follows her line of sight.

Oh. Right. Kyoya. They can't see much of him from so far away. His hands turns another page of his book.

"He is. Unless he's working while no one's looking. Wouldn't put it past him."

She means it in jest. Mostly. Sometimes she thinks back to when he was bedridden and still trying to work, and it makes the present-Kosuke want to shake past-Kyoya until his head screwed on right. I swear, he thinks of himself so little, he'll start speaking in second-person…

It's a bad joke, though. Way too soon, when she can still feel the weight of him collapsing into her arms.

"I don't think so. I can tell when Kyoya really doesn't want to be somewhere. I'm not seeing it now."

That's true. He'd had many a comment to make about the camping trip. It makes Kosuke a little jealous, that Haruhi can recognize Kyoya when he's at ease. She's tried to imagine the high school version of Kyoya, who only had to worry about how much his club was spending. She's tried and failed. This version is all she knows.

He needs this trip a million times more than I do, Kosuke thinks as she leans against the deck railing and watches him.

To think, she considered dumping a load of Suzuki family drama onto him when he's all but on medical leave. She thought she'd be better at this by now, not being so selfish, learning how to fend for herself. Maybe Kosuke is stressed out, but she's not the one literally fainting under the pressure.

"What's that face for?"

Kosuke shrugs it off. "Just worried about him, I guess. He wasn't exactly clicking his heels when his dad told him to take a break."

"I figured." Haruhi sighs and shakes her head. "He's always been worried about what his dad thinks about him. The Ouran Fair thing didn't help."

"Right. The problem with the Tonnere Group."

"Well, I meant the…" Haruhi trails off at Kosuke's confused face. She coughs. "Um. Nevermind. That thing with the Tonnere Group was pretty serious, but honestly? I didn't even know it was happening until it was over. They kept it under wraps. Then Kyoya graduated and started working for Ootori Medical, and he's been pushing himself to the limit ever since. I just never thought he'd go this far to impress his dad."

Kosuke chews on the inside of her cheek. There's a heat on her skin that isn't just the sun. "It wasn't just about impressing him."

"What do you mean?"

The question stops Kosuke like a red light. She would've figured that Haruhi, of all people, would have already picked up on it. Or that, knowing Kyoya for so much longer, he would've already told her. It's not just respect that has Kyoya at his father's beck-and-call, it's fear. Or something else that goes far beyond just wanting to prove himself.

"Uh…You know, it's not really my business. Just forget it."

Haruhi frowns at that, and Kosuke gets it. Naturally she would be upset to know her friend was suffering something unknown to her, but she doesn't pry.

"I get the impression you could use this vacation, too, though. You've seemed pretty on-edge lately. Has something happened?"

Where should I begin. She could tell Haruhi. She knows Haruhi wouldn't mind. Problem is, Haruhi has never even met the Suzukis, let alone heard about the ten million mysteries surrounding them. The idea of dropping that juggernaut of info on Haruhi doesn't sound cathartic, it sounds too exhausting for an ocean view to make up for. Plus, this vacation is for Haruhi, too. She came for a break from her studies, not babysitting.

"No, no, everything's fine. Just the new semester, I guess."

Kosuke thinks back to that…blessing Shigeo had given her. She doesn't have to keep Airi and Sugimoto a secret anymore.

"There is something else I wanted to tell you about, but I'll tell you when we get back, alright?" Kosuke puts on a smile. "Ready to get in the water?"

Haruhi's curiosity is obviously piqued, but she only nods. They bid Tamaki goodbye as he picks up the floatie again. Round 2.

As they cross the sand, Kosuke's hand moves instinctively to her back pocket to feel a folded paper that she knows won't be there.

Except it is.

Kosuke freezes.

She knows it's the diary page just by the feel of it under her fingertips. But I hid it away in the bedroom…Right?

She was trying to find a space…and then Kyoya knocked. He'd told her Haruhi was waiting, and her train of thought went right off a cliff. She'd been carrying the page around the whole time. She could've dropped it in the sand, or lost it in the water.

"Something wrong?" Haruhi asks.

Kosuke looks back to her bag, still seated beside Kyoya. It doesn't feel like enough. What if sunscreen leaks out of a bottle and ruins it? Or it gets snagged on something, she pulls it out, and it falls to the sand without her ever noticing? She should really run back to her room real quick, just tuck it away under a pillow—

"GOTCHA!"

The scream Kosuke makes is embarrassing. Her sunhat and her towel both fall to the sand as her legs are swept up from beneath her. A pair of arms wrap under her armpits, and in no time at all, Kosuke is hammocked between the twins, who immediately advance towards the sea.

"Put me down! What are you doing?!"

"It's tradition!" Kaoru all but cackles. Kosuke is kicking with everything she has, but his grip on her legs is like iron.

"You haven't been on a beach trip with the Host Club until you've been dunked," Hikaru agrees.

"Guys, put me down! I'm serious!"

"So are we!"

It's not the end of the world. Immature, sure, but she was going to get in anyway. She just wants to take her sandals off so she won't lose them to the tide. Plus, her shorts are going to get soaked, completely nulling their purpose—

Oh no.

"Put me DOWN. NOW."

But the twins only snicker louder. It's too late now. There's a flat bed of rock jutting out into the sea, just horrifically perfect for throwing someone to the waves. She gets thrown in there, and it will be head to toe, soaked to the bone, the ink on the page lost to the ocean.

So, Kosuke does the only logical thing.

She lets her feral, primal instincts take over, first by tearing herself out of the twins' hold, then by grabbing them in turn, and then by utterly launching them into the sea in her place.

It happens so quickly, Kosuke only knows when it's over. She's breathing hard, heart still racing. The adrenaline saps away, and she realizes that she just threw the twins into the ocean, she could have hurt them, what is WRONG WITH HER?

But Hikaru and Kaoru pop back up only a second later. They sputter and cough some, and then look up at Kosuke with both awe and terror.

"WHOA!" They exclaim as one. "YOU COULD GIVE HANI AND MORI A RUN FOR THEIR MONEY!"

Kosuke is aware that all eyes are on her. Because she just threw two fully grown men into the ocean like they were ragdolls. So, she comes up with the best (read: only) excuse she can come up with:

"I haven't waited an hour since the last time I ate. I don't want to get a cramp."

To which the twins respond, wonder gone, "Grandma."

Kosuke does get in the water eventually, by her own will and only after running the page back up to her bedroom. The saltwater is cool, and the push and pull of it against her body makes her forget about anything Suzuki, Amida, and Nakahara for a while. Hani unfurls a giant, squid-shaped kite to soar overhead, the whole group spends thirty minutes trying to figure out if Haruhi found a shark tooth or a chipped-off piece of shell (it's the latter), and the twins go further and further and further into the water until Kosuke is screaming for them to get back here, right now, she will come out there, so help her!

Kyoya only goes up to his knees in the water. The twins scheme for exactly two seconds to get him out further, but all Kyoya has to do is give them one look that makes the sun go dark. He switches between reading, lounging, and at Tamaki's request, finding some prettier shells to bring back to Anne-Sophie. Kosuke catches his eye every now and then, but they don't talk, even though Kosuke wants nothing more than to know if he's admiring the ocean view or thinking of the paperwork back at his desk.

The day goes well. Only one thing goes wrong: Reiko misplaces her engagement ring, and barks louder than Kosuke has ever heard her voice that everyone needs to help her find it now. It ends up being in the giant sand cocoon Mori is trapped in.

Haruhi gets the grill cleaned, and at sunset Kosuke is flipping over corn cobs, beef-and-pepper kebabs, sausages, and more. The others crack jokes about how quiet she's being, but she has to concentrate on the exact moment to flip for the perfect all-around sear.

"I did it!" Everyone turns as Tamaki comes flying through the sand, one giant flamingo floatie up above his head. "She's finally ready for her maiden voyage!"

"And it only took him seven hours," quips Hikaru.

Haruhi shoves a corn cob into his mouth to shut him up, and then turns to her fiancé as he releases the flamingo to the waves. "Tamaki, isn't it a little late to go swimming?"

"I just want to see if it works!" Tamaki runs back to them for a better view. The floatie is indeed being a floatie. "Ah, look how beautiful she is!"

Kosuke plates him some food, but as she hands it over to him, the floatie catches her eye again. "Tamaki?"

"I can probably do one more tonight, and then we'll have two ready for tomorrow."

"Tamaki," Kyoya tries.

"That means we're going to have to share until I can get more done."

"Boss," the twins drone.

"I say we take thirty-minute shifts. Oh, but we did say we wanted to do some hiking tomorrow, too…"

Mori pats him on the arm and points behind him. The floatie, sitting right at the shore just a minute ago, had somehow been sucked far, far into the ocean. They can only watch as its vacant smile gets smaller and smaller in the horizon, until at last she is gone, as soon as she came.

Tamaki looks like his soul went with her. Kosuke pats him on the back and puts another beef-and-pepper skewer on his plate. "You did good, Tamaki. I'm proud of you."

"We can do frisbee tomorrow instead," Hani offers cheerily.

It takes some eating for Tamaki to get his spirits up again. The sea swallows the sun, and the moon and stars take its place. A few of them head inside to wash the salt and sand off of them. Kosuke changes into her pajamas and comes back with the s'mores ingredients she'd brought as a surprise. Of course, she will not be in charge of making them. Might as well feed everyone cyanide while she's at it.

The breeze becomes cooler, and everyone wraps themselves up in their towels while the twins launch a round of ghost stories. They begin with a tale of a woman possessed by some creature that hunts for human eyes when the moon goes full.

The two of them cheat by banshee-screeching right in the middle, of course making them all jump. Hani tells a chilling tale of a young child who, on the night of his birthday, snuck downstairs for another slice of cake, only to find that it was all gone. Renge's story ends with the protagonist falling in love with the mysterious creature of the night. Tamaki, Mori, and Kyoya refuse to partake (one for terror, two for disinterest), Haruhi can't come up with anything, and when Kosuke tries one from Karuizawa, the twins dismiss it as cliché. She pouts around a corn cob.

The night comes to an end with Reiko's.

"She pushed the door open slowly, holding the candle and her breath tightly, watching the light slowly spill into the room, until at last, she saw, hanging from the ceiling—"

"No," whimpers Tamaki.

"—split into two halves—"

Kosuke covers her ears with her hands. "Stop it!"

"—like hocks of meat at the butcher shop—"

"You win, you win!" The twins quail, holding onto each other for dear life. "We surrender, just stop!"

Reiko is satisfied with her victory, but Mori, Hani, and Haruhi would like to know how it ends. Tamaki, the twins, and Kosuke bid them all a good night, the psychopathic lot of them. Reiko at least agrees to let them all gather up their things before she continues.

As Kosuke stuffs her bag again, very methodically, Kyoya comes to her to give her back her sunhat, which she'd left behind once the sky went orange.

"Did you enjoy yourself today?" he asks her.

"I don't think I'm going to sleep tonight, but other than that, yes." Kosuke lifts her bag up over her shoulder and twists her sunhat. "What about you?"

"It was nostalgic." It's a much more honest answer than she was expecting. Kyoya explains, "It reminds me of when we would do this when the club was still together."

"So, entertaining but utterly exhausting?"

"Precisely."

He gives a hint of a smile, and Kosuke chuckles as she wraps her towel a little tighter around her. He enjoyed himself. Good. "I'll see you in the morning."

"Goodnight."

Her footsteps drag even once she's out of the sand. She has enough strength to make it up the stairs and into the bed, falling asleep in seconds flat with the diary page under her pillow.

She thinks that exhaustion will give her a good night's sleep, but she dreams of a different beach and a different time, Marti showing Minami's clumsy little fingers how to make a sand castle, Emiko holding Hitsuji's hands as he waddles in the shoreline. Emiko presses a conch shell to Kosuke's ear to let her hear, and in one blink, the warmth of her hand is the coolness of the pillow.

Kosuke suffers through that one flash of delirium where she doesn't know where she's at, and then it all comes back.

Even when she tries to forget for a little bit, she won't let herself.

She sits up in bed, wondering if she's going to have to do her wandering routine. Her room is almost bright with the moonlight. Through the window, she can see the ocean, a great spill of ink dotted with stars. A walk along the beach might do the trick.

The page tugs harder than the tide, however, and Kosuke is weak. It's been a while. Maybe, now that she's taken a long time away, she can see something in the lines she couldn't before.

Wouldn't hurt to try, Kosuke thinks as she reaches under her pillow.

Her fingers find nothing, so she moves them. Under her pillow, then the next one.

She rips them both from the mattress.

She jumps onto her feet and tears up the sheets.

She checks under the mattress, behind the frame, and underneath.

No, she did put it under her pillow. She did not hallucinate walking all the way up here, tucking it away, and going all the way back down to the shore. No way. And why on earth would someone come in here and take it?!

Alright, alright. Be rational. Kosuke does another manic search. Then another. Okay, no one would have taken it. Then what?

She had her bag with her when she brought the paper back. She was using it to bring back cold water bottles. So, maybe it had fallen into the bag without her realizing? Kosuke guts it, but the page is not to be found.

The most unthinkable worst-case scenario is that it fell into the bag and then out of the bag. Somewhere on the beach.

That wide, endless beach.

Kosuke tries to stop that train of thought in its tracks. She's going hysterical. There is no possible way. Right?

She grabs her flashlight, jumps into her sandals, and takes off.

Quietly, though, so as not to wake anyone.

She tiptoes down the stairs, through the back door, and down the steps to the shore. It's even cooler now, in the dark hours of morning, and Kosuke's bare legs break out into goosebumps. She'd forgone her usual kitten-candy pajamas because she thought they'd be too hot, ironically. Her sandals splash up sand with each step.

Ten steps in, Kosuke knows that this is worse than finding a needle in a haystack. No matter how bright the moon is, the shore is a stretch of shadows. Her little flashlight makes a tiny beam of light, it's pathetic. She won't be able to tell the page from a grain of sand.

And is it possible that the page was swallowed by the tide? That it's gone forever, never to be seen again? Yes. And no, because Kosuke won't let that be possible.

She spends hours, days, weeks wandering the beach with her useless flashlight, her shivers intensifying with each breath, whether for the breeze or the panic.

Kosuke is the biggest idiot in the world, either for losing the page so easily, or for not losing it at all and wandering the beach at night because she can't keep a grip on herself.

At last, she has a stomach-sinking realization. They've been running around this beach all day. Even if she did drop it, maybe someone picked it up and threw it away thinking it was trash. Or they just kicked sand over it, and Kosuke will have to comb this whole shore grain-by-grain to find it.

Kosuke clicks the flashlight off. Pathetic.

Stupid, stupid, stupid…

"What are you doing?"

Kosuke screams. She can't help it. It's the middle of the night, she's alone, this stupid diary page has left her in pieces, and she still has Reiko's godforsaken horror story on her mind, so yes, she screams.

Kyoya doesn't even flinch, the bastard, not when she screams in fright nor when she screams in fury.

"That is IT!" Kosuke throws her flashlight down into the sand so hard it thumps. "I have HAD IT! NEVER sneak up on me like that AGAIN, do you hear me?! I was over it the first million times, and this is your FINAL WARNING!"

Kyoya picks up the flashlight and flicks it on. The beam is as tiny as ever, and his look of confusion cannot be blamed. Why not keep her eyes closed, while she's at it? "You didn't answer my question."

"You know what? No. After that, you answer first. What are you doing?"

"I was woken up by the sound of you tearing your room apart by the floorboards. By the time I got to the door, you'd gone and left nothing but debris behind." Kyoya raises his chin upwards. "And it's a full moon. I thought maybe you were turning into an eye-eating monster."

So much for being quiet. Kosuke digs her toes into the sand, embarrassed. "It would've been stupid for you to come out here alone if that was the case."

"Words that would have done any of those protagonists some good." Kyoya looks her up and down. She's shivering now that the heat of fury has sapped away, still in her T-shirt and shorts, legs covered in goosebumps and kicked-up sand. "Can you answer me now?"

If Kosuke were to say 'nothing,' he might throw her, or himself, into the ocean, and who would blame him? She sighs and answers, "I was looking for something."

"Obviously. Something such as…?"

"A piece of paper. Really small, folded into a square. I couldn't find it anywhere in my room, so I thought maybe I should retrace my steps. And before you say anything, yes, I know finding a teeny-tiny little piece of paper on the beach in the middle of the night is not the brightest idea, I knew that before I walked out of the door—"

"You mean this?"

Kyoya reaches into the pocket of his pajama pants and pulls out the paper.

Kosuke sputters and sputters until Kyoya has to nudge her with, "Is that a yes?"

"How?! How do you…?!"

"I didn't steal it, if that's what you're suspecting. If you were, you'd be quite the hypocrite."

"Hypocrite?"

He tilts his head at her. "So it wasn't some kind of joke. I should've figured, that'd be too immature for 'Grandma.'"

"Kyoya, what are you talking about? And hey, I don't need you calling me Grandma too—!"

He points behind him, to the towering back wall of the villa, lined in balconies one after the other. There are too many windows to count, but in just one of them, there's a faint yellow glow of a light. "Our rooms are next to each other. You must've been so tired you didn't even notice you walked into mine when you came back."

Kosuke thinks back, and uh…yeah. 'Her' room was definitely bereft of any of her things when she crawled into bed. Not only did she not notice her own luggage missing, she's only now noticing Kyoya's black suitcases in hindsight.

"Am I having heatstroke?"

"Either that, or there's something on your mind. I'm assuming it's this, though I must say, I don't think even the twins would care to read your diary."

Kosuke takes the paper from him and unfolds it. It's just the same as she remembers it. Completely incomprehensible.

"I didn't read it, don't worry. All I caught was something about a winter party."

"What?"

"Also, I don't mean to pry, but is your arm alright? Because judging from this—"

"Kyoya, wait, wait. Can you read this?"

Kyoya puts a hand up. "No, I didn't."

"No, not did you, I said can you."

"Yes, though again, this penmanship is rather troubling."

"Read this." Kosuke pushes it into his hands, their fingers fumbling together. "Read this and tell me what it says."

Kyoya isn't looking at the paper, though. "Did you not write this?"

"Kyoya, please."

"Alright, alright." Kyoya adjusts his glasses and clicks the flashlight on again. "Let's see…"

Kosuke refuses to bounce on her heels, twiddle her fingers, or even shiver for fear she'll break his concentration. She's forcing her breath into a steady rhythm. Slow in, slow out. Kyoya her savior, her hero, he'll put an end to this nightmare.

Unless…

If it turns out to be about Shigeo or her grandparents, that'll be great for Kosuke and terrible for Kosuke. She'll have to explain it all to him. She can't make him un-read the words. She'd ruined his vacation without a second thought. Now he's going to be confused about this and worried about her, and…

Kyoya clicks the flashlight off, and says:

"'Dear Diary, December 2nd. I showed Sayaka and Mone a photo of the dress I'm wearing to the winter party. Kana saw it and freaked out.' Freaked out is in all-capitals. 'It's the same dress she got. I got it a week before she did. Now she's angry but I don't get what the big deal is?' Three question marks. 'She said I have to change my dress. I said no and she freaked out even more.' That's in extra-large all-capitals. 'She was crying about how it was her perfect dress and how maroon is the only color that looks just right on her, and it was perfect because she wouldn't have to hold up the train to walk and blah blah blah.' There's roughly twelve blahs. 'Sayaka and Mone backed me up, but she cried to her friends and I've been getting dirty looks all day. It's so stupid. We can both wear the dress, for crying out loud!' Angry face. 'Anyway, when Mom gets home I'll ask her what to do. This is so stupid!' Followed by seven exclamation points."

Kosuke waits, but he doesn't continue.

"That's it?"

"That's it."

He gives the paper back to her.

Kosuke takes it, and stares at it, and stares at it, and stares at it.

The thing that's been keeping her up for days.

All this worrying, this anxiety, this pressure…

For teenage girl melodrama.

Kosuke almost—almost—crumples up the paper and throws it into the ocean.

It would be so cathartic.

But no. She can't. It's priceless. And worthless.

She folds the paper again, says, "Thank you."

Kosuke then sits down and to try and force herself to be calmed by the ocean view. "I'm going to sit out here for a bit."

After a moment, Kyoya leaves, thank goodness. She doesn't want to be with herself right now, let alone other company.

Something long and soft comes down around her shoulders. A towel.

Kyoya sits down beside her, also staring off into the dark waters. Though it's hard to see from the side, Kosuke thinks that his eyes look oddly silvery. Maybe it's the moonlight.

What am I, a character in one of Renge's otomes? Kosuke shakes her head and pulls the towel tighter around her shoulders.

The roar of the waves crashing into the sand just isn't loud enough to penetrate her thoughts. It all melts together. The roar of the water becomes the roar in her ears as her mother presses the conch to her hair.

"To state the obvious," says Kyoya, but his voice is soft, "whatever that paper is, it's upset you very much."

"I'm not upset."

"Shaken, then." Kyoya glances down at it, still in her fingers. "Who wrote it, if not you?"

It occurs to Kosuke that there's no way out of it. Tell or don't tell, he's going to be worried about her. She wishes he wouldn't, but then, he has a track record of damaging himself for no reason. It's for that reason, and only that reason—because this is not an indulgence, not her being selfish—that she speaks.

"If I tell you…Can you keep it a secret?"

He doesn't even pause. "Of course."

She swallows. "My mother. It's a page from her diary."

"Ah. I see." He glances at it again. Surely he must have noticed how faded the ink was, and how yellowed the paper. "You were frustrated that you couldn't make it out?"

"I thought maybe it would be a little more important. I don't know, something besides 'Blah-Blah is angry that we got the same dress for a party, angry face.'"

"I'm sorry it wasn't something else."

"I mean, I guess it is a diary. It's not like she was thinking of me when she had it."

An odd thought. When Emiko wrote this, she must have been younger than Kosuke is now. Just a child, only worried about childish things.

Kyoya turns his face to her. "Why does it need to be a secret?"

She swallows again. The salt must be turning her throat raw. "It was in that chest back at Airi and Sugimoto's home. I don't think they even know the diary exists. Or, maybe they do…"

"You're still unsure about them." Still? She squints, and he explains, "When I met them the first time. We were in the kitchen and you told me you weren't sure you could trust them. That you would give them a deadline to tell you the truth about what happened with your mother."

Ah, right. So she has burdened him with this before. On the day he met them? Maybe she could've told Haruhi after all…

"I did," she admits. "They did tell me the truth. It just wasn't much."

"What do you mean?"

"I thought…" Kosuke tilts her head back and closes her eyes. Here comes the headache. "I thought it was going to be so important. Even when I was a kid, I thought that one day I would find out what happened to my grandparents, and everything would change, and I would see this whole new side of my mother that I never saw before." Kosuke's fingers curl into the sand. She crushes it into her palm, maybe hard enough to make diamonds. "My mother came to them one day and said she wanted to divorce my father. She never explained why. And then, when all they did was ask why, she left. So they're just as clueless as I am."

"About what they did, you mean?"

"Not exactly. I…I believe them. Everything they said. They were confused, and I can't blame them. I mean, their daughter just rushed in screaming for a divorce from her husband, and just screamed more when they only asked why. But, I think they regret that they didn't just accept it without question. Maybe if they did…"

Maybe you would have actually met her.

He nods, but his eyes go back to the folded page. If he'd just stayed in that room with her a few minutes longer…"So why the secret, if you trust them?"

Kosuke drops the page to the sand before she can crumple it. She almost wishes she'd lost it to the sea after all.

"It's stupid."

"No, it's not."

"It's because I'm…Because I'm sick and tired of having to learn everything about my family from someone else." It's like coughing up bile, but Kosuke keeps going. She has to purge all of this already. She spits through the nausea. "If I wanted to know more about my grandparents, I had to ask my mother. If I want to know more about my mother, I have to ask my grandparents. Any time I asked about my own father, it ended with either me or Mom in tears and nothing else, so for once, it would be nice to get it right from the source. I want Mom to tell me about Mom. That's all."

There. All out.

She was wrong. She doesn't feel better at all. She feels like she literally vomited all of that out, and now her throat is raw and her tongue is sour, and her whole body is sore from heaving. She doesn't feel better at all.

"I don't think that's stupid at all. It makes sense."

"Does it? Because I'm pretty sure I almost lost my mind over a sheet of paper."

"It does. You want to be in control for once, yes?" She half-shrugs, half-nods. Perhaps that's a way to put it. "Perfectly logical to me. I'm sorry that you're dealing with that, it sounds exhausting. I wish I could say more in the way of advice."

Kosuke shakes her head. "No. I'm fine. It's fine. Thank you for understanding."

He keeps staring at her, though, and his frustration is obvious. It is the exact same thing that she was trying to avoid. She's sad, and nothing is going to make it better, but she told him all of this anyway. And now he feels responsible for fixing what can't be fixed.

"You do know that you can tell me anything, don't you?" Kyoya's hand falls to his side, very close to hers, close enough to feel the sand shift under her fingertips. "You do know I won't be annoyed if you do?"

"I know," Kosuke half-lies. She knows two conflicting truths: that Kyoya would never think it a burden if she opened up to him, and that she should never burden him by opening up. She looks back out to the ocean, and remembers that the last time they had looked out at the sea together, she'd caught his falling body. Her heart had bashed into her ribcage when he began to sink, so hard she thought her chest might be bruised from the inside-out. All she could do was sit there cradling him as everyone ran around in a panic, powerless to do anything but call to him.

She'd been scared.

"I just…"

His hand rests over hers, startling her, but she doesn't pull away. She isn't afraid…but she is frozen when, instead of just holding his palm over her knuckles as he had back in the storage room, he spreads her fingers apart to slot his own between them. Sand grits between their palms, but she hardly notices. She's too busy staring at the sight of their hands entwined.

Maybe it's the chill, or exhaustion, or her nerves still crackling from panic.

It feels electric.

"When I say that," Kyoya goes on, almost whispering, "I don't just mean that I don't mind. I want to help you. I want to. Do you understand?"

Some part of her scoffs, such sweet naivete, he'll take that back once he realizes what he's in for. Another wants to believe that he truly feels no obligation to her, and that it's not because she's his fiancé, his partner, or even just his friend, but just because she's Kosuke. As though her name alone has so much more meaning to him than any title. She wants to believe that so badly.

He squeezes her hand (again), because she's still just staring at it, but she doesn't have any words. Especially not when she looks up and he's staring right at her. His eyes catch hers and don't let go.

This could be a dream. She was in bed. He isn't an uncommon face to dream of. She doesn't know if she wants it to be a dream or not. Because in every one he appears in, there are no consequences besides her burning face when she wakes up. In the moment, she doesn't have to feel ashamed for letting him touch her and stare at her like she's worth staring at, and when one of them closes the distance it will all be over before they touch.

But this isn't a dream, and there are consequences, and what is she doing—

"PERFECT!"

This time, Kosuke transcends the meaning of the word 'startled.' Her soul is shocked right out of her body and slams back down into it. Her brain is still rebooting as Renge does a little excited dance, eyes sparkling more than the sky above, in a strawberry-patterned sleeping gown and bunny slippers.

"I just knew you two would give me something amazing!" She clicks that goddamn pen again. "So how are you feeling now?"

If Kosuke weren't shocked into numbness already, the look on Kyoya's face would surprise her. She was very familiar with his annoyed expression—she'd seen it a million times today alone. She isn't prepared to the actual anger sparking behind his glasses as he glares at Renge.

"You don't want me to answer that," he spits.

Maybe he's angry. For whatever reason. Not Kosuke. Kosuke is nothing but thankful for beautiful, beautiful Renge, because whatever she was just about to do, she couldn't. She can't do this.

She can't do this. She can't do this. She can't do this.

"I—" Her voice is shot. "I think I'm going to go back to bed now. Thanks for—translating. And what you said. For both of those…things. I'll see you in the morning. Or later this morning. When the sun's up. Bye."

Renge tries to protest. Kyoya's "goodbye" has a very clear question mark attached. It's sad that, after he literally told her not five minutes ago that she could tell him anything, she is once again running away.

Surely she has some leeway here, though, right? How can she answer any of his questions when she has a million for herself?

Such as: Why are you doing this? What are you thinking? How could you be so selfish?

Most importantly: How did you not realize sooner?

Kosuke races up to her—his?—bedroom, shuts the door, and barricades it with her back. Everything is still a mess, and her mattress isn't even lined up on the frame anymore, but Kosuke just grabs a heap of blankets and falls where her pillow was thrown. She wants to look at the clock, but the idea that morning will be closer than she hopes terrifies her.

She can't go back to sleep. Even if every single one of her synapses weren't firing off, she can't take the chance of having another one of those dreams.

Oh my god, you've been having dreams like that for months and you STILL DIDN'T REALIZE—

Kosuke grabs a pillow, buries her face in it, and screams.

Kosuke is reeling after hearing Airi and Sugimoto's side of the story: that one day, Emiko declared she would be divorcing Shigeo, and exploded in fury when Airi and Sugimoto merely asked why. She left soon after, leaving Airi and Sugimoto to wonder just what went wrong. Kosuke turns to the diary again for more answers, and accidentally tears out a page that she can't make out. She takes it with her to a beach trip Haruhi and Tamaki are throwing for their friends, too anxious to let it out of her sight even when she can't understand a word of it. While she's there, she wants to tell Kyoya, but doesn't want to burden him when he's still in recovery. That night, Kosuke realizes the page is missing and goes to the beach to find it. Kyoya follows her and reveals that not only had she went into his room by mistake, but he can also read the page. It turns out to just be silly teenage drama, and Kosuke, with some nudging, confesses to Kyoya that she wishes she could figure out something herself for once without relying on others. Kyoya sympathizes, and assures her she can go to him for anything. Kosuke finally realizes she feels something more than platonic for Kyoya, and takes the opportunity to flee when Renge interrupts.