For once, I was having a nice relaxing day off at home, but as always, it didn't last. Unsurprisingly, someone was knocking at my door. Even less surprising was that it was someone from the Ouran host club. What was surprising, however, was that it was Hikaru. Just Hikaru.

"Can I help you?" I asked, confused.

Hikaru looked embarrassed, and he was uncharacteristically quiet. "Can I come in?"

"Sure..." I said as I let him inside, "make yourself at home."

He didn't say a word as he sat on the floor, hugging his knees to his chest.

"Do you want some tea or something?"

He simply nodded.

I made a cup of tea for each of us and sat down next to him. "So, what's wrong?"

He didn't answer, he just took a sip of his tea. This kind of annoyed me.

"Come on, Hikaru. You came here for a reason, so talk to me!"

"Sorry," he replied. "I'm not good at this."

"At what?"

He hesitated. "Talking about my feelings."

I laughed a bit. "Obviously. But that's okay, I won't judge you or anything."

He turned pretty red, but he managed to get the words out. "I just wanted to tell you how important you are to me, okay?"

"Huh?"

He looked at me. "Before you, I thought I only needed Kaoru. And maybe that was true for a while. But since we joined the host club, and since we met you..." He broke eye contact. "I realized that he doesn't need me as much anymore."

"I'm sorry, Hikaru."

"No- no, don't be, it's fine. Thanks to you I realized I..." He went silent for a moment.

"You...?"

"I realized I don't need to depend on him so much either. That I have other people that care about me, and that I... that I care about, too."

"Well, that's good?" I said like a question, "But I'll admit, I'm confused about the whole 'thanks to me' part. I mean, why me specifically?"

He sighed. "Well, for starters, you're the only person who could ever tell the difference between Kaoru and I. Like, actually tell. And if you can actually tell, it must mean you care a lot. Even more than the others."

I found myself blushing lightly. "Well, I guess that's true."

He looked back at me again. I might be wrong, but I could have sworn there were tears in his eyes. "And I guess you're the first person I've cared about this much, too. Don't get me wrong, the others mean a lot to me, too, but, I think you're really great, Haruhi. And I'm really glad I met you. You've helped me through a lot without even realizing it."

We were both quiet for a minute or two.

"Wow, Hikaru. This all really means a lot, but, why are you telling me this now? I mean, you said it yourself, you're not good at talking about your feelings. So, why bother?"

He laughed. "You really are oblivious about this kind of thing, aren't you, Haruhi? Even more than I've been."

"What do you mean 'this kind of thing'?" I was so confused I was starting to get upset. Why couldn't he just answer the damn question?

To my surprise, he put his hand on my shoulder. "Haruhi, what I'm trying to say is... I'm in love with you."

"You what?" I exclaimed in total shock.