Oh… heeeeeeyyyy. It's only been, like, an eternity. Sorry about that. Excuses at the bottom. I'm trying to make my way back. Promise.

When she was a little girl, Haruhi Fujioka never had much patience for planning her dream wedding. She preferred chapter books, and listening to her mother's stories, and periodic trips to the park down the road, and she thought the other girls in her preschool classroom who bubbled and blushed over white roses and lace gloves were just a bit too fanciful for her tastes.

But, sometimes, when her books had been finished, and her mother was working, and the rain had just started a little cadence upon the window pane… sometimes, she would drape the edge of a white sheet around her head and do a little pirouette, admiring the difference between the swath of fabric and her large, dark eyes.

When her mother died, that stopped. Then it was all, 'live the dream, make it work, actualize'.

Which is why when he first slipped the ring past her second knuckle, she had a small panic attack.

Because, well, she'd never quite pictured him as the one on his knees.

She had a history, a past of suitors and knights who she'd deluded herself into thinking that she loved before she really knew what love was. (And it wasn't that she hadn't cared for each of them, and it wasn't that she didn't have fond memories. He was just… more… in the end.)

And so, as she watched her gentle giant with his kind eyes that she thought she'd really love to see on her baby (which was a whole other terrifying thought), she slipped the hand not cradled so delicately between his large palms from his shoulder to the vulnerable skin of his throat. And as she brushed her thumb across the embarrassingly fast pulse in his neck, she caught herself thinking…

brown like chocolate…

gold like honey…

yellow like amber…

gray like storms…

lavender like flowers…

and you.

And that was the last thought, she decided, she'd allow herself to entertain about her previous men.

So, maybe it was just a tiny smidgen of guilt… or fear… or simply naïve unpreparedness that made her say, "As soon as possible" to his, "Will you marry me?"

When she was a young woman, Haruhi Fujioka agreed to marry one of Japan's most eligible bachelors. The heir to an obscene forture and a kendo dojo legacy, Takashi Morinozuka cut an impressive figure on paper. That had little to do with the actually impressive height and build of the Morinozuka heir, and only slightly to do with his very handsome face, but even less to do with his practically stoic public persona.

She was a nobody: a commoner by birth who had always been somewhat impartial to gender and had spent a year in high school being mistaken for a boy after she lost the long waves of mahogany hair to a freak chewing gum accident. Her brain was her most impressive feature, and her beauty had happened somewhat suddenly midway through college, and then she met Takashi in a park under a sakura tree, and he was suddenly off the market.

High society tried to hate her, but she was so endearingly blunt and honest and lovely that, instead, she became a favorite for galas and banquets and charity events.

She spoke of art, poetry, and literature with the best of them, and she most loved to discuss law, a career and future that she was pursuing despite her fiancé's fortune.

Otakus across the land squealed over periodic snapshots from paparazzi of the two out and about, living an exceedingly "normal" life for the rich of society. They fawned over her large eyes, fainted over his soft smiles, experienced frequent nose bleeds over their entwined hands or arms, and it was generally agreed upon that they were "hardcore in love".

The problem was that the pair was exceedingly, well, private about their private life.

So, when it came out that there may have been a proposal and a cameraman got a stunning shot of the rock on her left hand, you can imagine the shrieks heard round Japan.

Especially when it came out that her response had been, "As soon as possible" instead of a simple, "Yes."

When she was twenty-five, Haruhi Fujioka found herself waiting to get married at a sakura garden in a guest lodging.

She had been buttoned into her western wedding dress, and rouged to her father's standards, and her Matron of Honor Renge was just slipping the lace veil to trickle about her pretty features (reminding her of spinning, giggling, and bed sheets) when a knock sounded at her door.

Her relatively small wedding party all exchanged confused looks as this was definitely not in the itinerary before Momoka dashed over and answered.

"Fujioka Haruhi please, fair lady," came the request, and she couldn't quite describe the sensation that occurred in her stomach. Because it twisted and fell while rising and a little piece of her wanted to cry.

So she turned and faced the man she'd been convinced she'd marry for real back before she knew what love really meant.

Suoh Tamaki… the man who loved love. Back then, it had been easy to speak in terms of 'forever' and 'always' because that had been the only language the blond Frenchman wished to speak.

But then, for a man who loved love so very much, it was naïve of her to think that could be limited to one person. So, when he had sat her down and explained that it wasn't her, just so very him, she couldn't have been mad. Not when he so selfishly collected her hands and kissed them, and not when he so wantonly called to his new beau, Arai. She giggled when appropriate and talked in the pauses, and she watched the man she thought she loved sit between more love, still so very childishly craving the approval from others that his grandmother had never given him.

She left under promises of keeping up, but six months later she'd met Takashi and forgotten the boy who broke her heart.

But now, he was staring at her, preening and beautiful and exotic with his light eyes and lighter hair. She didn't know what to make of the white tux because it so paralleled what she was wearing that she felt slightly uncomfortable.

"Haruhi," he finally murmured after staring for, perhaps, longer than appropriate at a woman on her wedding day.

"Suoh-san."

The honorific (which was her own little retaliation) dragged at the corners of his mouth, and his whole demeanor seemed to wilt. She wasn't sure where he wanted to go with this… meeting, so she turned to her bridesmaids and told them to check how things were progressing out in the hallway, and she watched them slip out to leave the ex-couple well and truly alone.

"You're getting married," he finally managed, summoning up that winning grin of his that she always kind of melted over. His face seemed to fall at how she was already nodding though, and she thought that it was so very unfair how transparent he could be when she put on a good face for him two years ago.

"I am," she beamed, and she watched as he wrestled a smile back onto his face for her. "Are you staying… for the wedding?"

He carded his hand up into his hair, twisting at the long, blond strands, and his long legs stuttered into a little waltz of indecision.

"It's just… I always kind of thought…"

"I'm very excited. Takashi is wonderful. He's exactly what I want. He's exactly what I need."

A part of her, the one that was hurt and never quite got over it and wanted to see him suffer, basked in the twisting of his face. Another part of her, a larger one that never wanted to inflict pain upon another person and that bled compassion, hated the words she offered to him.

"I don't know why I came," he mused, and she grinned, though it was not pretty or sweet.

"Well, Suoh-san, you always were a bit of a clueless masochist."

"Haruhi," he gaped, mouth falling open in shock and hurt and all of the rejection that he constantly felt when he wasn't met with total adoration.

Tamaki's love was like the flowers that his eyes brought to mind, beautiful and romantic and completely temporary. He loved hard, and he loved a lot. And Haruhi didn't share. After the death of her mother, it was difficult enough for her to even open herself up someone else. To take it and require more made her belly churn with anger and self-doubt that she had never had about any other matter in her life.

So, yes, a part of her was angry, and she wanted him to suffer, but she also couldn't hold it against him. After all, she had been freshly twenty-one when they met at a mall, and, looking back, she had still been a child. He had been covered in the saliva of a shelter dog from the organization with which she was volunteering, and she thought that he looked so beautiful with that golden retriever as he'd giggled and accepted the ready kisses. He'd bought the dog and won her heart, and their story was a mere slip of time in her life.

Loving Tamaki had showed her a bit more about how to actually be committed to another person in a way that her other relationships hadn't. And she was tired of letting their differing needs come between them. He had craved constant reassurance and cultivation.

She had needed her fiancé.

"Apologies," she murmured easily, turning her head over her shoulder to glance at the long line of buttons that trailed down her spine. "Please… stay. I promise an excellent party to commemorate the importance of love."

"I'm not… I'm not with Arai anymore," he said, and she wondered if he thought that would change anything.

She wondered if he thought this was a romance movie and that she would just fall into his arms.

"You'll find someone, Suoh-san. You're worth it."

Renge slipped back in with a pointed look at him, and he slipped out then, ushered without words but excellent at reading a woman's body language. And Haruhi's clasped hands and certain eyes coupled with Renge's pursed lips and crossed arms were clear enough indicators.

Haruhi may have been furious at Tamaki for not thinking her enough, for making her doubt herself, but their relationship was never meant to last.

After all, you cannot fault a flower for wilting.

"Finally!" Renge cried as she flung the door open. "It took you long enough!"

Haruhi looked over her shoulder, mind still somewhat shocked from her last visitor five minutes ago.

Only to find another surprise.

Ohtori Kyoya stepped through the door, brandishing a bouquet that Haruhi had not realized was missing.

"I stopped at the shop the second you texted me, Renge," the man reprimanded, sighing as he pushed his glasses further up the bridge of his nose. "It is not my fault that, in picking up the flowers, you forgot to retrieve your own bouquet. Fortunately, you are lovely enough that I do not mind the unnecessary trip."

Renge scoffed, bouncing forward lightly to press their cheeks together before slipping past him with the other bridesmaids, twiddling her fingers behind her as she left the friends for a moment.

Kyoya shuffled awkwardly, fitting his hands into the pocket of his suit jacket and tilting his head towards the window to catch a sun's glare.

"How's business?" she finally asked, smoothing her hands over the lace appliques on her dress. "Renge told me you just got back from Bermuda with your C.F.O."

"Profitable, as expected. There were some university students from America on a trip with their professor for Risk Management. It was charming."

"To think," she teased, "that was us not that long ago."

"You wound me, Fujioka. We are mature adults. Let us not return to the past," Kyoya breezed, and she understood it to be the joke that he intended.

Kyoya had been her first serious boyfriend. And she did mean Serious Boyfriend. Meeting at freshman orientation at Todai, she had stumbled quite literally into the slim, calculating man.

He had threatened brute force from his family's private police force. She had threatened a lawsuit so convoluted his head would have spun.

They had never really had a typical romance; he'd never nervously asked her out or wiped the sweat from his palms before reaching for hers. Every move between the two had been planned, she liked to think, carefully reflecting the mysterious and stifling nature of their relationship. But for a year, they had been together before they mutually decided to end it a month into sophomore year. After that, they had been content to test one another in friendship, finding that dynamic worked far better for the two. But, there had been a time when his gray eyes had made her head spin.

The thing was, and she knew this now, that Kyoya had never really made her feel completely comfortable. As a child, she had developed a quick aversion to storms, to thunder, to loneliness. Her relationship with Kyoya had always sent the same thrill through her belly that she got before the storm broke, that clenching and free-falling that whirled through her when she scented the rain in the air.

"I find that wedding days have a habit of bringing up the past," she murmured quietly, moving to stand by the window. The air was light and pink, colored, perhaps, by her happiness, and she thought he looked at such odds with his surroundings, given the dark and cloying nature that she knew he could give off. "I once thought this would have been us."

"The idea did have merits," he allowed, clasping her forearm briefly. "We would have been a most formidable couple."

"Ah… the legacy of the Ohtori Dynasty upon my delicate shoulders. What would the people's advocate in me have said?!"

She looked at him then, seeking past the glare of his lenses, seeking those gray eyes that had always shaken her to her core. He let her… just this once.

Haruhi doubted she could have ever been truly at peace in such a relationship. Happy, of course. Kyoya had proven to be a worthy adversary in regards to understanding profit margins and executing deals. But Kyoya had also never been content to merely be. As the third son, he'd always pushed for more, had never been quite happy to let the world pass by, and, after everything with her mother and her determination and her hard work, Haruhi felt she was due a little peace.

"We would have been happy to have you."

"Not as happy as you are now."

"No," he conceded, and a wry grin twisted across his thin lips. Haruhi had yet to be proven incorrect in any matter that pertained to another human once she fundamentally understood them. "Not as happy as I am now… but happy nonetheless."

A smile threatened to break across her face, but she tamped it down. It wasn't appropriate with him.

"Anyway, I'll leave you to finish up here. You make a beautiful bride. Morinozuka-san is a lucky man."

His wife poked her head back in then, large brown eyes glimmering happily as she gazed upon her husband and best friend. Haruhi did not introduce them; Renge had never needed any introduction, especially when she had burst into the study room they'd been using their sophomore year of college.

"Your family does business with my family, and our parents are attempting an arranged marriage. I suggest you remedy the situation post-haste," she'd snarled, eyes blazing and large red ribbon twitching as she had quivered with rage.

Kyoya, who had been attempting to navigate his macroeconomics textbook, had failed to control the dropped jaw her words had provoked. Haruhi had dissolved into laughter.

Two weeks later, Renge-chan was Haruhi's new self-proclaimed best friend, and Kyoya had reined his father in.

Three weeks later, they'd started dating. Haruhi couldn't have faulted either for winding up together and even served as the maid of honor at their wedding six months ago. After all, she and Kyoya wanted such different things, united under drive and determination yet apart in degrees of cunning. When they had been together, every moment spent as a couple had felt like a competition and a business deal, a constant need to best the other and declare victory… even when it came to deciding on pizza toppings. So, yes, she much preferred Kyoya with Renge. Kyoya's rough and ruthless nature was gentled by the exhuberance of his bride, while Renge's romantic and flighty temperament was smoothed by the solidity of her love.

"Haruhi, ma cherie, your dress designer is here to see you. Hubby, leave her alone… wedding days are not for business deals."

She believed this to be the most surreal day of her life, watching the sun slide through the spikes of his auburn hair. He wouldn't meet her eyes, and he had this mean look about him, fisting his hands and glowering at the white lace as if it has done him a personal affront.

"Why?" was the only thing that came from his mouth, and she startled just a tad.

"Because it would have never worked for us," she found herself admitting. It was the nicest way she could think to put it because, even after all this time, she didn't really wish true harm on any of them.

Hikaru was the closest she ever got to an abusive relationship. Jealousy and anger and 'you have to stay with me because we're it and I love you'… one day, she just couldn't do it anymore because Haruhi had never been that type of girl.

She'd never wanted to be possessed.

The boy in question was not her wedding dress designer… merely his twin. But, as she and Hikaru had lost all contact after their messy, high school break-up, Haruhi could understand how Renge would not be able to differentiate.

"Haruhi, we could have been so happy," he snarled. "We loved each other so much."

"Hikaru, it was high school. We were friends who held hands and called it adoration."

She didn't mean to be cruel, just frank.

But the words evoked a blistering anger that had his fingers twitching at his side and drew his slanted brows down over his yellow eyes. She'd seen him this angry before, and it always reminded her of amber. He hardened and preserved, but beneath that veneer, there was a roiling mass and ecosystem of fury that burst forth when he'd had enough.

"Forever, Haruhi," he spat harshly, and she flinched. He'd dropped the proclamation early in their relationship as a way to quantify it, as a way to reassure her of how he saw her as (more or less) equivalent to his brother. "You were mine!"

High school Hikaru had been so desperate for love. There were times when she thought that she was merely easy for him. Accessible, their friend since middle school, and able to differentiate between the two, she made an easy girlfriend for the Hitachiin heir. It had been junior year and the time when Hikaru was trying to distinguish himself from his brother to stave off the incest rumors that had sewn themselves into the tones of their classmates. Haruhi doubted that he really noticed her, but Kaoru had and cared, and that made her easy enough for Hikaru to turn his attention.

Kaoru may have had the first crush, but Hikaru was the first to ask her out. Dating for two years had, at the time, been acceptable for the twin.

Until she'd broken his heart a month before their graduation. Because she did love him, but she wasn't ready to sign herself over to him totally. And Haruhi really did understand that the twins needed each other more than they needed her, so she'd broken up with him, and he'd pitched a fit, and she'd spent the majority of senior year talking more to Momoka and Kimiko and having stolen moments of friendship from Kaoru when he wasn't nursing his brother's hurt feelings.

"I've always been your friend, Hikaru. But I've never been your possession," she reminded him, tone gentle as she moved to his side. Her train whispered along behind her, already laden with the vows she had yet (but couldn't wait) to speak.

He ducked his head, a gesture that mirrored the day they'd ended their relationship. It belied his feelings far more than outright sobbing would. Hikaru closed down when faced with pain… pulled in and forced his affections on his twin. Once, she had also received those feelings.

'He'll be okay,' Kaoru had said after she and Hikaru broke up their senior year. Haruhi had not cried after she'd calmly spoken the words to end it, and she had not cried in the days following. 'We're always okay.'

'You're both so selfless,' she'd murmured as they both went for a chunk of chocolate in the ice cream they were splitting.

'I disagree.' He'd conceded, allowing her the prized morsel and avoiding her gaze.

'You both like to look at each other as your own mirror reflections,' she'd told him. 'So you don't see yourselves clearly.'

'Perhaps,' he'd laughed, breaking any funk he'd slipped into. 'But he'll be okay. He'll understand… one day. You're still the only other person in our world.'

She whispered the same words to herself as he practically ran from the room, her white dress, and the future she hadn't seen with him.

"Haruhi, you'd better cover up. I've seen everything, but you're about to be married, and Mori-san would have no problems offing me."

"Now, Kaoru, don't pretend it's been for anything other than because you designed my dress," she called back, smoothing her hands over the lace appliques at her hips.

Hitachiin Kaoru was the sweetest man that Fujioka Haruhi had ever had the pleasure of dating. Well, holding hands with and pressing cheeks to. In all honesty, their relationship had never truly progressed into anything romantic due in part to their age and his brother. Middle school romance had never been in Haruhi's plan, but it was because of Kaoru that she truly understood the definition of sweetness and concession.

Kaoru was not what most people would think of as "sweet". He hardly ever remembered her birthday, and he talked about their differing wealth in excess. He seemed more charmed by "commoner life" than accepting of it and preferred large and expensive gifts to small and thoughtful ones. But Kaoru and his golden eyes were like honey, powerful and smooth and far more in touch with his emotions than most people believed.

He had first noticed her in middle school. Haruhi was a transfer student, having been moved into a rich preparatory school after she had flown through schooling at the regular institute. This place, the administration had assured, would be far more capable of handling the talent and brain that she had at her command.

It was not her clothes. And it was not her sense of fashion.

But in her French class, she had faultlessly communicated with her teacher in near-perfect French when called upon, and the boy before her with the auburn hair and golden eyes had turned to her in awe.

She had tutored him for three months, and that had been the beginning. Between pursed lips and curled tongues, he had begun to admire the shine of her dark hair and the curve of her pink mouth. Eventually, he had held her hand over accent aigus, and she had blushed when he stared for too long. And then he had introduced her to his twin brother.

"Quit twitching," he reprimanded her as he moved about the dress, tucking and pulling to ensure its perfection. "This is a Hitachiin masterpiece. I won't have it leave this room unless I'm sure it's faultless."

She stilled, smiling fondly at the man before her. Hikaru and Kaoru had been so instrumental to her understanding of how to depend upon another. After the death of her mother, and the jobs of her father, and the natural independence of her spirit, Haruhi had needed the boys.

They had been so close at their best… the ultimate trio. Kaoru had still blushed when she reached for his hand, and Hikaru had always reached for her cheek to direct her attention his way.

And, perhaps, that was where Kaoru had been too sweet… too soft and fluid.

"Alright… now give us a twirl."

She did, and he teared up. He laughed, but it was mostly sniffles and his dashing at his cheeks.

"You're just so beautiful," he sobbed when she reached up to trap a tear under her thumb.

"Because of you."

"I wish. Ugh… this wasn't how I wanted to do this. I just want you to know that I really did like you."

"I know."

"And I'm not going to say that I gave you up," he assured, and she smiled sadly at him. Because he did. His brother's feelings had always been more to Kaoru, and when Hikaru had noticed Haruhi as she was drawn into their trio, the younger twin had stepped aside.

But, in the same way that the twins were unable to see themselves clearly and only as mirrors, they were also unable to analyze their own actions that were done in the name of the other.

"You're so special to me," she murmured, clasping their hands together after he wiped hurriedly at his cheeks. "You taught me what it means to sacrifice for another."

"Iie," he said, more tears spilling. "In giving you up, you taught me what true sacrifice entails."

He bent over her hands and kissed the palms he turned to face him before he hurried out to take his seat.

"It's almost time, Haru-chan."

She was not surprised to see him given how this morning had played out.

"Hai, Mitsukuni. It seems fitting you're the last."

"Only because I was your first."

They both giggled, and he moved to clasp the hands she freely gave.

"You look so beautiful, Haru-chan… like the prettiest cake!"

"And you look so fat! Reiko's been baking again, then," she chimed back, feeling an easy smile steal over her face at the banter. Mitsukuni's face broke into a bright beam before sobering.

He still surprised her when he shifted between the carefree naïveté he spent most of his days in and the sudden severity of adulthood that he really possessed. After twenty years, his moods were still mercurial and fleeting, heavily tinted with sweetness and the chocolate of his eyes. She'd known it when he moved from sharing a strawberry candy to asking her to be his girlfriend when they were five; she'd seen it every time they met up for dinner with his girlfriend and her fiancé.

"You are… the best thing I could have ever given to Takashi."

The comment sparked a bark of laughter from her that was chased by a tear she hadn't realized was ready to fall.

"Don't cry, sweet Haruhi. I mean it… I'm never going to top this gift."

She played the broken sob off as another laugh and flicked at another tear.

"Thank you, Mitsukuni. He is… the very best kind of man."

And he was. Morinozuka Takashi may have never showered her with endless benedictions to her beauty or impressed her with his business game theory. He didn't fervently pine for her every speck of attention, and he didn't sacrifice his happiness for another's. And Takashi had never lost himself in a mercurial flutter of shifting moods.

But he had loved her.

"Plus, you did owe him for stealing my first kiss," she teased.

"We were five, and you'd stolen the strawberry from the cake. And strawberries are my favorite!"

They both dissolved into a fresh round of giggles that were so loud that the bridesmaids and Ranka entered.

"It's just about time, Haru-chan," Mitsukuni beamed. "I've gotta go get in position now. I'll see you in five!"

Ranka fixed her veil, and Renge powdered her nose. Momoka and Kimiko collected the long swaths of her train, and the party moved out for the double doors that led into her future.

When she'd re-met all of her ex-boyfriends in one day, Haruhi Fujioka found herself more than ready to marry the man with the silver eyes.

She held onto the arm of the man who had taught her about love, and she marched past the five men who had shaped its definition, and she joined hands with the man who had promised its forever.

And, so, when the priest asked, "Do you take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband", instead of responding with the inappropriately radical, "As soon as possible", Haruhi found herself saying the traditional "I do."

This ending is… not exactly my favorite. I need babies. I need millions of Morinozuka-Fujioka babies. Oh well… it's not happening. Sorry.

A few pieces of info for the reader's pleasure:

Game theory, if you aren't aware, is the study of strategic decision-making. Business game theory is decision-making in economic or business settings, obviously.

Bermuda is, quite interestingly, the place through which most Fortune-500 companies get their insurance/do risk management. Businessmen are CONSTANTLY there, and CEOs are the most frequent visitors.

Momoka, Kimiko, and Renge are the girls I picture to be Haruhi's bridesmaids. In the manga, all three traditionally make up Haruhi's customer trio; in the anime, Renge's spot is filled with another girl named Ruri. But, I have this weird headcanon that Renge and Haruhi would be the absolute best of friends if, you know, she knew Haruhi was a girl in the anime (if you couldn't tell from my other stories where I regularly pitch these two together).

This story, if you couldn't tell, is vaguely AU-ish in that it relies upon the idea that Haruhi has known the Hosts at different intervals throughout her life. It goes backwards, starting with her most recent relationship and going through the boys till she gets to her childhood "boyfriend".

Anyways, hope you enjoyed. Sorry it's been 5evr since I posted – between switching my major, researching heavily, and applying to graduate schools, I have had approximately zero time and rarely read or write for fun anymore. I'm now headed into a doctorate program, and I'm trying to find my way back into writing a bit and finishing up my works here. I still appreciate and love all comments, so please let me know what you think.