Akari Wolf Princess: We're almost there, boys! Just a little bit further!

bored411: Is it a OHSHC fic if there are no shenanigans? lol

So this was originally supposed to be longer, but then I realized it would have been nuclear in size. So this chapter and the next will both be from Kosuke's POV. The next chapter will be up pretty soon, since it's pretty much ready to go. Thanks for all the reviews, follows, and favs!

It almost feels wrong to be going camping considering—everything, but Kosuke (for once) does not linger on the feeling. In fact, she rejects it.

She'd told herself before that she was going to push herself to snapping. She didn't want to make any cosmic assumptions, but having so many classmates ask her over and over if she was going to go on the fun, relaxing camping trip far from the city seemed like a sign. Shigeo had no objections—his only response to her asking about it was a simple "Fine."

Kosuke doubted she'd ever be able to turn it down, anyway. Tamaki had never asked, he'd all but told her that she was going to go. But what really sealed the deal was finding out that plenty of other students were going to be bringing their families along with them. It had been too long since she and Hitsuji and Minami did something as a family. They went back to Karuizawa that one time over the weekend, but it felt wrong, somehow, visiting a place that was supposed to be home. It twisted the knife instead of pulling it out.

Though she stuffs Sugimoto's phone in her bag just to be safe, Kosuke is determined to relax over this weekend. She has to let out some steam. Not just for herself, but for her siblings. This is a perfect opportunity to prove that she's still there for them, and that they haven't dropped down on her list of priorities.

She'd asked Tamaki if Kyoya was going to be there, and he'd said no, probably not. Kosuke was relieved, and then she forced herself to be disappointed. She was supposed to be fixing this mess. She should be seizing chances to do so. But…Okay. Okay. She gets one more weekend. One more weekend, and then she'll work on it.

So, she is actively looking forward to the experience. She would look forward to it even more if Haruhi was going to be there, but as-is, her absence was one of the reasons why she needed this reprieve.

Hitsuji, of course, was over the moon when he was told they were going camping. They were going to have fun, period. Just him and his sisters, out in the woods, making s'mores and singing songs. For once he participated in packing his bags. By throwing everything towards Kosuke so she could put them in, but still.

Minami would have looked forward to it. She might still be, but. Well. Kosuke made a mistake. She screwed up her schedule.

The night after making the potato soup, she'd finally explained to her siblings that she was getting married. What followed was a…very long conversation.

Hitsuji didn't seem to really get it. Or care, really. He sat and listened, but had no questions. Even after she tried to explain marriage to him, he didn't grasp the full size of it. He just nodded along.

Minami does know about romantic love and marriage and all that, even if it was only a child's knowledge. Kosuke doesn't think it's her getting married that's throwing a curveball at her. If she and Kohta were still together, and had gotten engaged, she thinks Minami could have accepted that just fine.

It's the anonymity of her fiancé that's kept her hung up for days now.

"But why haven't we met him?"

This is only one of the many, many, many, many, many questions that Kosuke has gotten. What is he like? What does he look like? What's his name? How old is he?

They are sitting in their limousine, climbing up the mountain road. Hitsuji has his nose pressed to the glass like he's never seen trees before. But Minami is just looking at Kosuke. She has all her bags in her lap, filled with her pink sneakers and pink hair ties and pink sleeping bag, and she looks like she couldn't care less.

Right now she can only imagine the stranger that's going to become a permanent part of their lives. Sure, there's Shigeo, but he's a ghost that she never sees. Kosuke's husband, though, she will certainly be round a lot, and that's cause for wariness.

Kosuke bites on the inside of her cheek. She thinks this is a battle she can't win. She doesn't know how to convince Minami to accept this. The only thing she can be thankful for is that Minami is incapable of putting together that this has to do with them moving. They moved into her sister's stranger father's house, and then her sister got engaged, and those two events are entirely unrelated.

"Because he's been busy, busy, busy. He wants to meet you, I promise. He just hasn't had the time."

"Busy with what?"

"Work, hun. He works a lot."

Minami only looks away from her for a moment to process. "When are we going to meet him?"

"Soon. I promise. Pinky-promise."

She holds her pinky out for Minami to take, but she hesitates before limply joining her. She's not mad…but she's confused. And overwhelmed. And Kosuke can only hope that this weekend will be good for all of them.

"We are going to have lots of fun this weekend." Kosuke straightens out her T-shirt, tightens up her ponytail. Afterwards she taps her on the nose, boop. "And we are going to make so many s'mores that we throw up."

Minami leans away from her with a giggle of disgust. "Ew!"

"You know you're looking forward to it."

The limousine begins to crawl, and Hitsuji titters with jubilee, "We're here, we're here!"

"Stay with me, Hitsuji," Kosuke says preemptively. He and Minami always bolt from her when they get excited, and she really doesn't want to lose him to the woods. She reaches for their bags and backpacks. "It's not going anywhere."

The chauffeur opens the door for them, letting in the crisp mountain air that washes over Kosuke like warm water. It smells like Karuizawa. Like home.

Hitsuji crawls out first, jumping on his feet when his sisters don't move fast enough for his liking. Minami comes out next, backpack bobbing on her shoulders, and Kosuke comes last with way more bags that she can manage, but she tries anyway.

"Whooooa, Kosuke, look!" Minami points out at the world around them. "Look at all the bouncy-houses!"

While Kosuke is currently fighting the bag straps entwining her like anacondas, "bouncy houses" makes her pause. She looks out to the campground, muttering the words under her breath.

For all of a second, she agrees with Minami. They are bouncy houses. There are a lot of them. But why on Earth...

And then she realizes that they are not bouncy houses.

"I think those are...tents."

Ouran students walk in and out of them breezily, no hesitation, like this is all just normal: their tents towering almost twenty feet in the air, with towers like castles, like prisms, like domes, in every color of the rainbow. Are they made of nylon, or satin? They look like modern art. The whole place looks like a dreamland. One, canary yellow and satiny, has been built around a tree so that it rises up from the center. Another spears up towards the sky, lined in violet lights—like the giant "trees" that pop up in the cities around Christmastime. Another still is completely transparent, a giant bubble inside which Kosuke sees slick modern-chic furniture, a zebra hide on the floor and a bed made of bamboo. (Where is this person going to change clothes…?)

For a minute, they are all Kosuke can see. The other details come fading in. There are campfires. There are people. Beyond all of it is the main lodge, which is the only structure that looks normal, which only makes it look stranger. And all around it, trees and grass and creeks, little signs guiding to walking paths.

It doesn't really bother her. Shocking, maybe, but not annoying. She just didn't need more evidence that the world of the elite has to be so much at any given opportunity.

"Those are tents?!" Minami squeaks out. Hitsuji doesn't seem to hear them, looking out at all the swells and hills of color. The bubble in particular he seems enamored with. "Are we in one of those?"

For the first time on this trip, Kosuke feels her stomach plummet. "Um..."

The tent looks fine.

Fine.

Just—fine.

It's fine.

It...looks enough like the picture.

"Alright. I think that'll do it." Kosuke gets up to her knees, dusts her hands off, and puts on a smile. "Pretty good, huh?"

But of course, the children look out at the nearby abodes to compare. The one to their left looks like it has two stories, a lavish mint green color, a collection of Persian scarves wrapped together into a hut. The one to their right is shaped like a teepee, but it's a tower, rich velvet, and the brief glimpse they got inside looked like a Bahaman cabana. Those are just the two next to them.

Their tent is just a tent. It's gray. It's made of nylon. It's dome-shaped and has a zippered flap for a door. When Kosuke had express-ordered it just for this trip, she thought that she'd indulged. She thought that it was huge, for a tent.

And it is. It is huge. But all the others are titans.

"But..." Hitsuji's voice is quiet and soft, dripping with disappointment, and it shoots right into Kosuke's heart like an arrow. "Why can't we be in a big one?"

"Hitsuji, don't whine." Minami takes his hand in hers and gives it a little tug. "It doesn't have to be big."

She isn't gleeful, though, and Kosuke wants to throttle her past self. If she had any inclination of the "standards" that were going to be set, she would have scoured the Earth for a tent that could have held a candle to all of these.

For now, though, she just has to do her best.

"I know these tents are really cool," she tells them, "but they're like...houses. And the fun thing about going camping is not being in a house, right?" She unzips the flap and crawls inside, trying not to wince as the plastic bottom crunches beneath her feet. She hopes that will not keep them awake. "Isn't this more like when we went camping in Karuizawa? It's different, that's why it's fun!"

To her relief, Minami's head tips to the side, considering. When she looks back at their neighbors, she doesn't look disappointed anymore. "Yeah...It's like an adventure."

"Exactly!"

Minami comes to join her inside without another word of dissent. Hitsuji, though, lets out a whine as he follows. Kosuke opens her mouth to speak, and closest it just as soon. She doesn't know what else to tell him. She hopes he can get over it soon...maybe she just needs to distract him until it's time to sleep. At least Minami's forgotten about her mystery brother-in-law.

"Alright, how are we going to do this?" She asks them as they cluster in their bags and backpacks. She takes their sleeping bags, undoing the ties to unroll them. "Who wants to be in the middle of the sandwich?"

Minami shakes her head, and Hitsuji exclaims, "Nuh-uh!"

"What? Me?" Hitsuji and Minami nod, firm and unrelenting. "But you two are so heavy! You're going to squash me!"

Hitsuji protests, "No we won't!" and Minami squawks, "You're heavier than we are!" Now Kosuke can't help but laugh and forget all about the towers and the castles outside. This is exactly what they needed. Simplicity and familiarity.

Then she hears a voice outside call, "Knock knock!"

Yoshiko pokes her head through the flap, not quite smiling. Kosuke comes crunching over to her, refusing to be embarrassed. She hasn't done anything wrong. This tent is normal, dammit.

"Hey, Yoshiko." Kosuke tries to laugh. "Sorry, the doorbell is broken."

She laughs, but it is awkward. She looks up and down at the tent. And it doesn't take long to do so. "So...this is your tent?"

Kosuke bites on her lip to stifle down the annoyance. She knows Yoshiko isn't trying to be mean. She's like Tamaki, probably—just not knowing how to react to something so strange to her. Kosuke's normal is not her normal. "Yep. Homey, isn't it?"

Yoshiko nods, and blessedly leaves it at that. She sets her hands on her knees, asks, "So did I spy a little brother and sister in there?"

"You sure did. Here they are."

Kosuke places a hand on either head. Minami smiles, shy but kindly, while Hitsuji just looks more curious than anything. Yoshiko smiles wider when she sees them.

"This is Minami, and this is Hitsuji."

"Hi," Minami greets, but Hitsuji stays silent.

"Hey there! You guys looking forward to this weekend?"

Then Minami is quiet, just nodding, but Hitsuji thinks it great to share that, "We're going to eat s'mores until we throw up!"

"That's right, buddy," Kosuke exclaims with a pat on his back, which she hopes will work like hitting the 'off' button.

Thankfully, Yoshiko just laughs, delighted. "Now that's a plan! You know, some of the park rangers are taking the little ones on a hike. They're going to go see if they can find animal tracks and bird nests and stuff like that. Do you two want to join?"

"Ooh!" Minami starts to bounce on her knees. "Can we, Kosuke? Can we?"

Kosuke keeps herself from sighing in relief right in her face. Not only has she just found the first thing to make this weekend fun for them, this is just the distraction from the tent that she needs. "You sure can! Go on."

Minami scurries out of the tent, followed by Hitsuji—who almost trips on the tent flap and has to be caught by Kosuke and Yoshiko both. While Yoshiko leads them away, to a throng of other children bouncing on their feet, Kosuke calls after them, "Stay in the group and do what the rangers tell you!"

"We will," Minami promises.

"Bye, Kosuke," Hitsuji calls back, flapping his hand around in a wave.

Once the two are gone, Kosuke does her best to...spruce the place up. She lays out the sleeping bags and puts their bags in the corner. That's...

Yeah, that's about it.

Maybe it'll look more camp-y when it's dark, Kosuke thinks. It won't be until later when she breaks out the lanterns. Maybe the fireflies will come.

She crawls back outside, again refuses to be intimidated by the surrounding tents, and thinks of what she'll do next. She could just mingle around with the other students, or she could hike the trails. Do they have rock walls to climb? Does she feel adventurous enough to climb them?

As she walks on, she passes by students familiar and not. People greet her by name, wave to her. She wants it to feel normal, but with all these things they're calling "tents," she's back to feeling like the sore thumb. The campgrounds near Mount Asama looked nothing like this. They were wide-open. The tents were never bigger than the one they were using here—sometimes people brought their cars up the slopes, or maybe they just slept right out under the stars. It was hard to describe, but camping there always felt like they were the same as the rocks and the trees: simply there, simply living.

This just feels like the students are trying to turn the place into some five-star luxury resort. Is that some kind of crime? No, but she'd had her fingers crossed this was going to remind her of home.

Kosuke tilts her head back, and finds that if she focuses up on the sky and the sunlight that shines bright green through the canopy, she can pretend that she's on one of the trails near the Lily Bowl. Quiet. Simple. Maybe Okina is waiting for her around the bend. Maybe she's following Kohta. Maybe she's lagging far behind her family and her mother is about to call for her to hurry up already.

"Kosuke, exactly the person we need!"

Kosuke almost screams when someone grabs her, jostling her neck back forward. Once she meets whiskey-brown eyes, she breathes a sigh of relief. It's just Hikaru. Though his brother is nowhere to be seen, which she thinks is curious.

But that isn't the most important question right now. "Who? For what?"

"C'mon, follow me."

He takes her by the wrist and pulls her along. At least with Kaoru not here, he doesn't have the manpower to get her heels dragging on the ground. Still, she's stumbling over her feet as she follows him.

"Okay, so we're doing a Red vs. Blue Competition this weekend. Bunch of challenges, team who wins the most wins the competition. Hold on—take this."

He reaches into his pocket, pulls out a red bandana, and passes it to her. Then he keeps pulling.

"You're on the Red Team now. You're going to be our ace."

"Okay, whoa, hang on—I'm here to spend time with my siblings this weekend, not do competitions."

"You don't have to be here the whole time. But you have to do this one—it's a cooking challenge."

Kosuke should probably protest, because she should probably keep herself from being busy in case the kids come back. And she doesn't want to get roped into something big that he's promising will be small.

But she hears 'cooking,' and she answers, "I will bring you to victory."

When they get there, she sees students wrapped in red and blue all clustered together, thrumming with excitement. As she and Hikaru approach, someone in a blue bandana groans, "They got Amida..." What follows is a mix of jubilee and resignation. Someone sighs, "I'm going back to my tent, come get me for the next challenge..." Kosuke tries not to preen too much.

Hikaru's smile stretches wider as he brings her in, like she's their grand prize. Then Tamaki pops out of the crowd, cheering for her with red pom-poms. "Kosuke! You're here! And you're on the Red Team!"

"They got their trump card and now we have ours," Hikaru declares.

Tamaki throws his pom-poms into the air. A few others behind him do the same. "Of course! Kosuke, you're going to take us to victory!"

"Show me where to go."

Hikaru and Tamaki keep smiling, albeit a bit unnerved at her ferocity. Still, Tamaki turns, cups his pom-poms around his mouth, and calls, "Kyoya, don't hold it against her, but Kosuke's with us!"

That name gets so deep into her ears that Kosuke almost doesn't hear the laughter and the teasing ooooooh's that follow. She leans around Tamaki to look ahead, and even though he's standing with everyone else, he sticks out like a spotlight is shining on him.

There's Kyoya, the real, tangible block in the road. Or rather, the broken porcelain she's supposed to put back together. He's looking back at her now, smiling, and she knows it's fake. Not that she knows what a real smile on him looks like, but she knows how he smiles at her.

So, this is good. A chance to fix things. Just what she wanted. And she was probably being childish, trying to put it off for the weekend.

But where to start, where to start…

Kosuke starts by bringing up her hand to wave at him and smiling. He keeps his own grin, then blends back into the crowd, ending the moment. Kosuke is left wondering if she's done enough.

Of course, she's never smiled genuinely at him before, either...

Though Renge's voice, booming through the air (...somehow?), snaps her back to attention, a corner of Kosuke's mind is still focused on it. Renge explains how they're going to be cooking up campfire food for this round—fish, sausage, burgers, the whole shebang. Kosuke knows her opponent from her class, but she can't focus enough to think of his name.

The fire, the skillet, and the ingredients begging to be turned into art pulls her focus in, but for once, it's a struggle.

Where to start, she keeps thinking, as the whistle blows and grease sizzles in the pan. Where to start, where to start...

And oh no. Oh no. The children are here this weekend, and they'll probably run into each other at some point. Then Minami will just have to deal with the stranger marrying her sister being around her, acting everyday when he isn't. She'll see him making heart-eyes at her sister and no doubt be reeling from it.

Baby steps. One at a time. That will come later. You'll figure out a way for them to meet in a calm, non-pressuring environment where everyone is comfortable. What you need to do is fix how he sees you before introducing him to more…well, you.

Kosuke forces herself to breathe as she sprinkles salt over the meat. She has the whole day, the whole weekend, to make progress. It can't be that hard.

Well apparently it is, Kosuke thinks to herself a whole six challenges later, legs kicking at the pedals of their boat. Which, like the tents, has to be so "much" and is thus roughly the size of a Viking ship, shaped like a giant swan, and seats twenty people. At least she can space out in this task, because there's a lot to space out for.

She'd been here for hours. Hours and hours. She and Kyoya had been right next to each other for so long.

And she has made zero. progress.

She'd been declared the winner of the first challenge. Renge had given fair praise and criticism to her opponent's dishes, but one bite of Kosuke's fried bacon and she'd proclaimed, "Winner!" The other guy took it well. Asked her how she managed to get a paprika taste into the burgers despite there being no paprika. Afterwards, some students, including Tamaki and the twins, had sidled up to pretty-please ask if they could have the rest of the food.

So, seeing an opportunity, Kosuke had called out, "Kyoya, do you want any?"

He'd smiled back from across the way, answering, "I think you have enough mouths to feed over there."

In the next challenge, the teams ventured to the rock walls, which to Kosuke's relief were perfectly normal and not larger-than-life...which seemed to greatly disappoint everyone else. Kosuke had hung back with the rest of the cheering crowd as the two students steadily made their way up. She'd spotted Kyoya not too far away and had side-stepped over until she could casually say, "I've never gone rock wall climbing before. You?"

He had answered, "Once or twice."

And left.

In the next challenge, the teams went out to the lake for a fishing tournament. Again, the lake was just a lake. But the fishing poles were made from...Kosuke didn't know, mountaintop shamans or something. And the bait was made by mermaids in Atlantis, and the hooks were the same silver that made up Mjolnir. The two teams of four had lined up side-by-side on the long, stretching dock. One of them brought their pole back with such ferocity that the hook nearly went right into Kyoya's face. More on instinct than anything else, Kosuke had grabbed hold of his shirt and pulled him back.

"Are you okay?" she'd gasped out afterwards. She didn't consider herself a queasy person, but the thought of that hook tearing Kyoya's skin open left her sickly.

"I'm fine." Kyoya had pushed up his glasses (of course) and only said, "Though I think I'm going to step back."

Then he'd walked back into the crowd like he was going behind a curtain. Not so much as a "thank you." Considering no one else seemed to have noticed, Kosuke couldn't figure out why.

Staring up at the clear blue sky, Kosuke tries to think of anything that she could do different. Yet again, she is coming up short.

Maybe I just have to tell him I'm being serious. 'Hey, are you okay? I'm really asking.' 'Have you ever been rock wall climbing? I'm really curious and not just putting up an act.' Yeah, sure...

For a second she thinks that maybe he's just holding onto that anger from their forgotten date, but more likely he just has no reason to think she's being genuine. And that is completely fair.

Kosuke brings her hands up to her face and drags them down. If she can't even get past the first step, then she can't introduce him to her siblings, either.

Maybe I just need to keep going. Keep being nice. Keep being casual.

"Kosuke, paddle! Paddle like your life depends on it!"

Hikaru yelling right behind her startles her feet into overdrive. She joins her shipmates in pedaling her feet in frenzied circles, over and over and over, until an ache seeps into her calves. Thankfully the end of the lake is so close—just a little while longer, and they bump into the shore. Judging by the uproar that follows, they won.

The Blue Team's boat, another twenty-foot-tall one shaped like a dragon, pulls up not too far away. Kyoya is not among them. Kaoru hops onto the dry land, cups his hands around his mouth, and shouts, "You may have won the battle, but we still have the war!"

"Leave it on the shore, Kaoru!" Hikaru calls back in response. "I'm not staying in the tent with you if you're going to be bitter all night."

Kosuke steps back down to the earth on unsteady feet. Weird, she'd thought carrying around the kids so much as boosted up her muscles...Tamaki catches her mid-balancing act and loops an arm around hers, as graceful as always.

"Isn't this great?" he asks as he leads her—not tugs, not drags, leads like a normal person—back towards the walking path. The challenges are over today. The sun is setting now, setting the sky ablaze orange and pink like sherbet, and again Kosuke feels closer to home. At the very least, her mind had been so preoccupied with Kyoya, she hadn't spent this first day of her vacation fretting over anything else. Everything else. "Oh, Kosuke, I wish you'd been here sooner. You could've been coming here with us for years."

"Yeah. That would've been fun."

She's distracted, but the words are genuine, and she squeezes his arm gently. She's had enough of the larger-than-life nature of Ouran already, but she thinks that she really would've liked to be with the Host Club in high school. Even if it meant dealing with the twins in the prime of their prankster years. And Kyoya. Probably.

"Can I ask you something?" Tamaki tilts his head to the side just so. "Did you ask Kyoya to come along this weekend?"

"Uh...No. I thought you did?" Kosuke tucks away a strand that had fallen out of her ponytail. "This doesn't really seem like his thing."

"He's never come before, is why I'm asking. Ah, well. Maybe he just realized he was missing out."

"Yeah, maybe." She has that niggling thought again, that Kyoya is more or less chained on a leash and none of the Hosts seem to realize it. But—no, no. They know him better than she does. She's just making huge assumptions.

They walk back to the campgrounds in relative silence after that. Now that it's getting darker, the tents are lit up from within. What had at first been a field of garish color now looks...sweet, in a weird way. They all remind her of lanterns. Even the campers seemed to have calmed down, the volume only raising up in trills of laughter. A student walks by carrying his little brother, fast alseep, in his arms. Two girls giggle their way past them.

There's a sudden itchy sting on her arm, and she swats it on instinct. What's left is a squashed mosquito against her skin, which she peels off with a curled lip. She knew that she'd forgotten to do something before. She's a Karuizawa girl. How did she forget to put on bugspray?

"Uh-oh. Bugs biting you?"

"No, I'm fine." Sting. Swat. Pain. "Okay, a little."

"Here, let's go to my tent. I'll give you some."

"No, no, I have some in mine—"

"Oh, come on, it's right here."

Tamaki lets go of her to sprint ahead, to what she is fairly certain is the same castle Jack found on top of the beanstalk. Kosuke's whole body seizes up in wonder.

It's pure, snowy white, and the lights within give it a pearlescent glow. From the very top a flag flies, long and wispy. Looking down, Kosuke sees that the ground beneath her has been dug up, the space filled with clear water. And the only way to get into the tent is by the great piece of carved wood suspended to the castle by chains.

It has a moat.

It literally has a m—

Did the park rangers okay this?

"Oh, Kosuke, you don't have to linger. Come on in!"

Kosuke's feet lead her forward out of her control, across the smooth wood and into the pearly glow. She dares go no further. From just here, she sees that the tent has hallways. And thus, several rooms. And the floor is lined in red velvet. On the far wall there's a giant hand-painted portrait of Tamaki himself.

Kosuke turns her back to it for just a moment to stare out at nothing in particular, thinking, Maybe you fell back asleep after Mom and Dad left for that business meeting and all of this has just been a dream.

"Kosuke? What's wrong?"

She turns back, and Tamaki is sticking his head out from one of the doorways to look back at her.

"I'm just—" She swallows. "I'm not used to people...camping like this..."

"I know, I know, I'm sorry." She's shocked by the genuine embarrassment in his voice. Until he explains: "I was trying to find something more authentic for the weekend, but I waited too late, so I had to bring the old one instead."

"The old one." Kosuke swept her pointing finger around in a huge circle. "This is 'the old one'?"

"He's out-of-fashion," a voice speaks up from behind her. Hikaru and Kaoru are walking past them, pulling their bandanas from their arms, and Hikaru continues, "We've brought a new one every year."

"You're welcome to visit if you want to see some real style," Kaoru offers, then points. Kosuke follows the gesture to the distant, where a great yellow pyramid stands out against the darkening sky. She knows it isn't, but it seems as big as the Pyramid of Khufu. Maybe it is.

"What about you?" Kosuke grits her teeth as she turns to Tamaki, who is happily curious. "Which one is yours?"

She wants to just point to a random one and claim it, but Tamaki could very well just go, "What? No, that's so-and-so's tent." Lo and behold, their tent is in sight, too. The squat, gray thing that looks like a giant boulder. Kosuke points to it with a resigned hand. "That one."

Tamaki doesn't say anything, so she turns to see how he looks. Except she can't see him.

"You're staying in this one?!"

Kosuke's head whips side to side, because—what?—how on earth did he move that fast?!

She trots after him, begging for him to please not make a scene. The tent has already been getting pitied looks all the day long, the last thing she needs is Tamaki wailing of how unacceptable the commoner-made piece of trash is.

"Yes, Tamaki. Please calm down."

"Well, I'm sorry, but…" Tamaki has already unzipped the flap (uninvited) and is walking around inside, looking at the sloped nylon walls and the backpacks bundled in the corner, the lantern and the sleeping bags, all with…

…wonder?

"This is so incredible!" Tamaki bends down to run a hand over the crunchy plastic floor. He's glowing. "This is what I wanted to do, the true camping experience! You know, sometimes I find commoner ways so peculiar, but I think they were right on the money with this. It's minimalist. It brings you so much closer to nature!"

"I—yeah. Thank you." Kosuke should be more grateful that he's agreeing with the exact point she made this morning. Instead she's focusing on how he's amazed by a rock when he's living in a castle. "That's what I was going for. Absolutely."

Tamaki looks at the sleeping bag again. There's the blue polka-dotted one for Minami, the rocket-printed one for Hitsuji, and in the middle, her slate gray one. Tamaki tips his head at them. "Are all three of you staying in here?"

"Yeah. It's not going to be a tight fit or anything. Look, there's plenty of room."

She braces herself for Tamaki to correct her on what qualifies as "plenty of room." Then she stops bracing when she sees Tamaki twiddling his fingers. He looks very sheepish, all of a sudden.

"What's wrong?"

"It's nothing. Just…" Tamaki's finger-twiddling intensifies, and suddenly Kosuke is hit with the sledgehammer force of his puppy dog eyes. "…do you maybe want to switch?"

"…What."

"A-Am I overstepping my bounds? I just…" Tamaki runs a finger along the crunchy plastic again. Gah, he looks so innocent. "This is the kind of tent that I was hoping to stay in, and mine's bigger anyway, so maybe you guys would be more comfortable in there. It's okay if you don't want to…I just thought I'd ask…"

So, normally, Kosuke would turn this down flat. She really, really doesn't like accepting favors from anyone. Not because she feels like she now owes them a debt, but—well, she doesn't really know why. Not wanting to be the poor girl that everyone has to take care of, she supposes. If Tamaki had been telling her that this tent is much too small for her and her siblings and that he absolutely insists they take his instead, she would put her foot down.

But…he's not doing that. He's asking for him. He really, genuinely wants to stay in this thing, and she'd feel kind of bad for not letting him.

"I…guess so. If you really want to."

Where was he keeping his pom-poms? She doesn't know. But they're back. "HOORAY! Thank you so much, Kosuke, I'll make sure to keep the best care of it and keep it clean and—! Oh. Here you go."

He drops out the pom-poms and instead procures a bell-shaped bottle to her, and Kosuke takes it with curious hands. The glass is cloudy gold, soft somehow, and from the nozzle there's a bulb with silvery tassels. Turning it, she finds SUBLIME written on the side in elegant silver script.

"Well." Kosuke clicks her tongue. "I guess there are ruder ways to tell me I smell."

"What? Oh! No, no, no, it's bug spray! And also perfume. The creator is a 'chemical artist' in Paris who makes these for royalty. This is actually the only of its kind, he sent it as a birthday gift—"

"That's nice, Tamaki, but seriously, I have bug spray." Sting. Swat. Pain. "Right here in the tent."

"But isn't commoner bug spray sticky? And doesn't it smell...not perfume-y?"

"It does smell like car exhaust…" Sting. Swat. Pain. "Alright, fine."

"Hitsuji! Minami! There you two are!"

Before Kosuke can properly turn around, Hitsuji wraps his arms around her legs and squeezes them as tight as his little arms can manage. Minami comes bounding up behind him, and not far behind are the two 'Zuka cousins and Reiko. Kosuke thinks they returned to the campground just an hour earlier than they did.

"We didn't keep them from you, did we?" Hani frets. "Their group came back a while ago, and you guys were still at the lake, so we let them stay with us."

"Look, Kosuke," Minami exclaims as she points out. "Their tent is the one that looks like a temple! Isn't it cool? The campfire is on the inside!"

Kosuke follows her sister's pointing finger to a great, scarlet-red tent that yes, does bear a striking resemblance to Senso-ji. This time she doesn't even get shocked. She's just numb now. "Very cool. Thanks so much for taking care of them. I should've known better than to stay away for so long—"

Reiko raises an elegant hand to stop her. "They're very well-behaved. Not a problem at all."

"Here." Mori holds out two sheets of paper and a little collection of forest knick-knacks on top of them. "They almost left these behind."

Kosuke takes them into her hands, struggling with the SUBLIME bottle—not helping is the children's hands, eager to show her their treasures.

"These are all the animal tracks we found," Minami says as she points to the papers. They're covered in pictures of animal prints, and though not all of them have, a good number have been marked with leaf-shaped stamps. "We found rabbit prints, and deer prints—"

"Look, look." Hitsuji grabs the swirled shell from the haul, waves it around. "It's a snail!"

"I found these!" Minami flourishes a trio of brown feathers. "Aren't they pretty?"

Hitsuji hiccups in excitement, apparently finding the diamond of the gems. "Look, I found this rock that looks like a turtle!"

"Wow!" Tamaki leans down, hands on his knees and a great smile across his face. "Looks like you two had some fun, huh?"

Minami just says, "Mm-hm." Hitsuji blinks at him for a second then turns away without a word. Tamaki is thusly gutted. Kosuke doesn't know why Hitsuji is so cold to the poor prince; he just is.

"Oh, so these are the little ones?" To complete the ensemble, the twins come sidling back up to them again. Thankfully the smiles they give to Kosuke's little siblings lack mischief—just kindness. Hikaru asks, "So which one of you is the smart sibling, like me?"

Minami sticks her hand up into the air and declares, "I am!" Hitsuji looks wounded, but before Kosuke can jump in, Kaoru gives her little brother a ruffle of his curls and tells him, "So me and you are the fun ones, huh?"

Hitsuji's protests evaporate in an instant. "Yeah!"

"Well, I don't know about the rest of you..." Tamaki stands upright again, runs a hand through his blonde locks in a way that feels...not forced, but like he's practiced how to do it in a way that looks as perfect as possible. "...but I've had a tiring day. Why don't we all have some dinner?"

"Yeah, I'm hungry." Hitsuji tugs on Kosuke's shirt. "When are we going to eat s'mores until we throw up?"

"That's dessert, hun. Now." Kosuke claps her hands together, stands upright. "Are we going to have a big cookout? I meant to ask earlier if they were going to need some help, but I didn't know who to ask."

"You put hotdogs on sticks and dangle them over a fire, that kind of stuff?" Kosuke nods, but Kaoru kinda-sorta just scoffs in her face. "Yeah, no. Not for us."

"Not that there isn't value in such a thing," Tamaki snaps quickly, "but they're serving food in the lodge."

"Oh." Kosuke looks over at the building, its windows now sparkling gold in the night. Makes sense with all the people, she supposes. The lodge may be a bit grander than the ones at Mount Asama, but it's a grandeur that's inviting instead of overwhelming. For once. "Well, maybe we can have a cookout tomorrow. Lead the way."

Hikaru and Kaoru extend their hands to Hitsuji and Minami respectively, and the two happily take them. The group heads off, though Kosuke hangs back for just a second to put the children's things into her backpack. She wonders if she should spray on Tamaki's perfume/bug spray, but the group is already so far ahead of her, and she's going into a building anyway, so she stuffs it into her backpack and hurries after the others.

As much as she was looking forward to cooking hotdogs over an open fire (she considered it a challenge and a treat), she knows this will probably be better. It has been a tiring day, and she won't mind eating inside a comfy, air-conditioned lodge instead of around a bug-swarmed fire.

Now, on the other hand: there's probably a certain someone in there, her relationship with whom has not bettered in the slightest despite all her efforts today, and who has not been properly introduced to her siblings yet.

Kosuke trots after the group, but her stomach is twisting into knots. She doesn't know what to do.