A/N: Hellow from Chrysalight, who was basically on a condition close to being on crack when she wrote this story. This is basically set during the dance sequence at the 43rd Ouran Festival during the end of episode 26. And of course, I don't own Ouran, Bisco Hatori and the mad bunnies do. Enjoy. xD

Distance.

It's something that is never predetermined, but can be measured in full as clearly as the space between two separate pairs of feet on the moonwalk when it arrives. I feel I am so unfamiliar with senseless emotional metaphors that I tend to use the wrong ones when describing scenes of remembrance, but when I think of distance, the first thing that comes to mind is extravagant festivities: roses and dresses and shiny shoes and carriages and fairytale kingdoms that last no longer than a night.

Some kingdoms seem to last for a longer time, however. Like the seasons, they live out their prime before disappearing into the recesses of reality and subsiding into obscure memory. I lived in a world full of vibrant companionship, and I ruled with princes. I relished my crown, even if I knew that it would be over sooner or later.

That was why I asked her to save me a dance.

It doesn't really matter, I now tell myself, when it will begin, as long as it does. All sarcasm aside, no special starlit evening would be complete without that. It is to be a dance of propriety, a dance of cordiality, a dance to celebrate formality—a dance between friends, comrades-in-arms, while the magic still lasts.

A gold pocketwatch hidden in the folds of my trousers quietly ticks to the rhythm of the loud, festive music as we wait for her grand entrance.

And there she comes.

She steps awkwardly, unsurely, into the courtyard with the hems of her gown held stiffly up and the soles of her shoes held stiffly down. Gasp upon gasp overlaps as guests swallow their breath and observe a newcomer enter with the courage of an offbeat lioness entering foreign pride. Her eyes trail the stone of the floor, but there is a tinge of red in her pale cheeks. She isn't used to everyone ogling at her in this manner, and she's conscious of every move and mannerism.

But I can infer that she's a little proud of herself. No one else has ever seen her look 'this beautiful'.

Even more pleasingly, no one contests the fact that in my infinite wisdom, I knew this from the very beginning. No fancy trimmings of silk and satin can affect my vision of her for as long as she is my constant, and I, hers.

A measure is sounded, and a new dance begins.

She moves with a childlike innocence to her surroundings, and concentrates on executing every flick of her hand and touch of her toe, as if to prove that she regularly handles more than thick textbooks of classical Japanese and the screeches of her enamored female suitors. Her transitions are smooth, fluid and unhurried. She alternates her partners in an ever-changing pas de deux: a slow and steady trot with Mori, free-flying with Hunny, a deliberate sequence of physical mathematics with Hikaru, and a less complicated, more tender and sensual waltz with Kaoru.

The time comes, and Kaoru sends her gliding to me. I gently take her hands in mine.

We dance.

For the first minute, we focus on restoring her ease. I pace back and forth in perfect sync to the music, and little by little she follows, needing to be assured of the beat before her presence relative to mine.

She looks up to me. Her eyes are a luminescent brown, and they seem to see deeper into my face than my glasses.

It is then I realize what it is to be distant. I recall recognizing the threat of the Host Club breaking apart after the incident with Éclair, encountering my fear at being left behind as an insubordinate by my family, and for the first time in my high school life, distrusting the friends I'd made and caring about this doubt, rather than just forgetting it and going off on my own.

There is a new fear that I feel for myself as I let her fingers trace along the palms of my hands. I cannot read her. There is a sense of cloudiness around her that even my calculating enigma cannot break through. Her sight is fixed on me, and yet inwardly pulled in another direction. I am disoriented to remember that she has strayed away from my side to walk fifty tiles further along the Third Floor Music Room. I hear her sarcastic remarks at a lower volume than usual, and hear even less of her laughter.

I had even gotten used to the roughest, most contextualized forms of endearment, of affection—and it is now that I realize that even the Shadow King cannot live without his kingdom.

Somewhere in my mind the threat of increasing distance echoes, and awakens the smallest hints of despair and desperation. My need for normalcy, the comfortably stable constant—for her—allows itself to channel through my fingers, and I grasp her hands a little tighter.

My desperation draws me nearer to her. The rhythm becomes eerily slow and my feet suspiciously heavy, but I fight to keep myself in my present. I let my breath out through my nose in a discreet and elusive manner.

I close my eyes and try to gain back my composure, feeling embarrassed at myself for showing even the slightest hint of inner weakness. But the musical notes flutter by without stopping, and so does that one moment that I think that I love her.

Too unsettled to resist it, I try looking to her for an answer. And in a way that strangely reassures me that some things choose to remain constant, she gives me one.

She smiles at me and leans her head against my shoulder.

At first I think that her sense of intuition has gone up ten different levels, but I decide to relax at the same pace that she does, and as we both recover to dance more naturally to the music, I regain my own power of perception.

The moment of 'love' changes to one of acceptance, and of understanding.

I now comprehend that she needs me almost as much as I need her—she depends on me to be her constant, to watch over the regularity of her remaining years at Ouran, and to protect her—especially from the harm that I myself could bring upon her. She's confident that she's vulnerable, if that makes sense somehow—and she knows she can be that way with all of us.

With me. Tonight.

I smile. I no longer feel weak. I let her move as she pleases, and she steps with surprising accuracy when her mind is off the positioning of her feet. I hold her for a few more measures, the way that only I can hold her when I know enough about the truth of our relationship. Her head is warm against my shoulder, and so are her hands.

The song enunciates its last beat, and the dancing stops.

I bow to her, and pass her on to the only one who can break down the barriers she's put up for herself to preserve distance: her prince, the king among princes. I can see it in the way she flies around with him that she feels the strongest and the weakest around him; I remember that her first love will probably be Tamaki and mine will probably still be the world I venture through my Pineapple laptop computer.

One dance. It didn't have the last dance, the most important one—but one dance was enough to temporarily eliminate the distance and draw us closer together on the moonwalk.

The violins belt out their starting notes, and yet another new dance begins.