Greetings, my dear fellow otakus.

I plan for this to be the last chapter of this fic but since I do have a tendency to rabble away on a completely different tangent for insane lengths of time, this may in fact be the second last chapter. To be honest, I don't like this fic as much as my first one but I have started and so I shall finish. P

I don't know what I should do next. I was considering doing a Kyouya x Haruhi fic (because let's face it, the boy is sex on legs, even though he's obviously still inferior to Mori) but I still have no ideas.

And so I have decided that I will spend the entire time I'm at work tomorrow trying to think up ideas for a new fic. This is clearly far more important than my job. And more interesting. Unfortunately lovely, shirtless Japanese men do not feature largely in my workday.

Although, how great would it be if they did…

..::retreats into dreamworld::..

Sakura Seraphim

Disclaimer: mmmmmm shirtless Mori…Um, I mean…I don't own Ouran…

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Haruhi sighed and shuffled her feet awkwardly as she stared at the floor. She risked a glance up to her right, where Hikaru gave her a mischievous wink. The twins were kindly standing on either side of her, clasping her arms tightly to prevent her from accidentally falling off the stage and running away into the audience.

Tamaki had been first. The blushing blonde who'd produced the winning ticket had stood with her eyes closed, hands clasped demurely in front of her as Tamaki had cupped her chin gently in his hand and kissed her warmly on the cheek. He finished with a flourish as he flipped his beautiful blonde hair out of his eyes and stared deeply into her eyes. The girl almost fainted and had to be half carried off the stage and back into the midst of the screaming crowd.

Kyouya next. He gave his lucky winner a long, cool, but also compellingly charming stare before tilting her chin up and to the side with one finger and kissing her almost tenderly on the cheek, which began to blush furiously. There were squeals of approval from the 'Kyouya-fangirl' section of the audience.

The twins' kisses had been issued for the same ticket as I was generally accepted that to be a fan of one twin was to be a fan of the other. The lucky girl with the curling black hair stood, smiling happily, in the middle of the stage as the twins approached her, one from each side and kissed her cheeks with one arm each wrapped round her waist.

The lucky winner of Hunny's kiss kneeled down in front of him and cried out in delight as the small boy flung his arms around her neck and planted an enthusiastic kiss on the girl's cheek. There was a general cry of "KAWAAAAAIIIIII!" and Haruhi rolled her eyes as a cloud of floating hearts floated up to the vaulted ceiling.

Haruhi sniffed and turned away as Mori stepped forward to place a solemn but gentle kiss on the cheek of a first year girl with flowing red hair. It wasn't that she was jealous or anything like that. Of course not. She was just very interested in that lovely centerpiece over there that was all……

She turned reluctantly back to the stage once the cheers had died away. Kyouya was holding up his hands in an appeal for silence.

"And now, a final kiss from our youngest member, Haruhi Fujioka." he announced with a refreshing smile. He looked over his shoulder and gestured for Haruhi to come to the front of the stage. Now that his face was out of direct view of the audience it was wearing an expression that seemed to suggest that disobeying would have very serious and probably painful consequences.

Hands gave her a sharp shove at the base of her back as the twins 'helped' her forward. She turned round and glared at them. They stared back wearing identical cat-like grins.

She realized that Tamaki was crouched off-stage next to a small mound of tickets and was muttering to himself as he laid them out.

Turning back to the applauding crowd, she offered a small smile and a sheepish wave. Kyouya was selecting the winning ticket from a gilt-covered box. The 'raffle tickets' were in fact squares of creamy colored card with gold edging and numbers written on them in flowing gothic script.

Damn rich bastards and their damn fancy raffle tickets and their damn stupid competitions… Haruhi thought bitterly as she gazed out over the audience. Several of the girls had pushed their way to the front of the stage and were clutching handfuls of the tickets with grim expressions of determination. The girl Haruhi had danced with gave her a shy wave.

Ah well, Haruhi thought, turning back to Kyouya. At least it's only a kiss on the cheek, it could be worse…

"And the winner is…"

Haruhi heard a multiple intake of breath at the front of the stage. She saw Tamaki staring intently at Kyouya from beside the stage, failing to notice that the twins were stealing tickets from his pockets.

Haruhi glanced over to the other side of the stage. Hunny was watching Kyouya, fascinated, and chewing absentmindedly on the ear of his worn usa-chan doll. Her heart skipped a beat as she allowed her gaze to travel briefly upwards. Mori was looking right her, his calm gray eyes fixed on hers with an unreadable expression. Cursing herself as she felt a blush begin to rise in her cheeks, she cast her gaze down to the floor.

"Number 202! Will the holder of ticket 202 please come forward?" said Kyouya, smiling benevolently at the crowd.

Haruhi scanned the crowd for an exclaiming girl, a waving hand maybe but saw only other people looking around them for the ticket holder. Haruhi looked, puzzled, at Kyouya.

"Please princess, don't be shy. Please come to the stage."

The room remained silent apart from the furious rustle as Tamaki sorted through his tickets and his dull muttering. "I'm sure I had more than this…"

Kyouya was frowning slightly; he didn't like it when things didn't go according to plan. Haruhi risked another look up at Mori. She had mixed feelings of relief and disappointment when she saw that he was no longer looking at her but gazing, unseeing, into the shadowy corner of the room. It could have been her imagination but she thought his face had a slightly more set expression than usual.

It was as unreadable as ever though, so she turned back to Kyouya. The tall boy shrugged and adjusted his glasses with one finger.

"Very well, we shall draw another ticket." he said coolly. Of course, nothing ever phased Kyouya-senpai for long…

He reached back into the box and pulled out another ticket, flipping it round in front of his face.

"The number is 39. Princess, please?"

Tamaki turned around to see the twins rifling through their handful or tickets and growled.

"Give me those tickets back!"

"Finders keepers, milord!"

Haruhi scanned the crowd and heard a small gasp from through the front row. Her shy dance partner was looking, awestruck, at the ticket in her hand. Smiling and urged by her friends she climbed the stairs to the stage.

Smiling graciously, Kyouya took her ticket from her, studied it for a moment and gestured towards Haruhi.

The girl stopped in front of Haruhi, face flushed and eyes cast down but she was smiling. Taking a deep breath, Haruhi stepped forward.

Just get it over with, she thought. Then you can go home.

She turned the girls face gently with one hand and leaned in to place a soft kiss on the girl's cheek. She stepped backwards and smiled back at the girl as her face lit up with a radiant smile.

"And with that ladies and gentlemen, we at the host club bid you good night. There are horse-drawn carriages waiting outside the hall to take you back to the main gates."

Haruhi remembered herself just in time to bow with the rest of the host club as after a brief smattering of applause, the crowd began to move towards the doors in small groups or twos and threes.

Haruhi sighed with relief and looked over her shoulder. With a slight frown she realized that she couldn't see Mori anywhere. Hunny was munching happily on some left over cake but his silent shadow was nowhere to be seen.

"Haruhi!"

Haruhi blanched and slipped quickly out on of the side doors and onto the lawn before Tamaki could rope her into a lovely father-daughter carriage ride.

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Haruhi drifted over the grounds of Ouran High School like a ghost in the night, shoes barely making a sound on the well-trimmed grass despite its thin, brittle coating of February frost. She rubbed her hands up and down her forearms in a futile attempt to warm them and muttered bitterly. She had realized too late that her suit jacket was still hanging forlornly on the back of a chair in the ballroom. She hoped Tamaki or one the twins would pick it up for her; the cost would be added onto her debt and she shuddered to think of what that would cost.

She hurried onto a path, which was bordered on either side by trees, which beautiful and laden with fragrant blossoms and rustling leaves in the warmer months, were now stripped bare by the late winter cold. She glanced up as she walked, glimpsing the flecks of frozen fire that were the stars in the expansive black through the skeletal branches of the trees.

She planned to take this path and go through the courtyard near the wing where her class was situated; that would take her to the west gate where hopefully she could slip out unnoticed by the other students or host club members.

As she reached the end of the path she came to the courtyard. In the spring term, the trees would be covering everything with a gentle rain of blossoms, while colorful spring and early summers flowers of all hues and shades filled the flowerbeds. The benches would be filled with laughing students talking, reading or just enjoying the sunshine. The fountain in the center of the yard would be erupting with sparkling jets of water that would fall into the clear pool below, causing ripples and throwing up rainbow-tinted sprays.

In the late winter night however, the yard was deserted. The wind blew through the bare branches of the tree, making them rattle. A few discarded brown leaves littered the barren flowerbeds. A thin film of frost covered the surfaces of the benches and the stone path, making them glitter in the frozen moonlight.

Haruhi took all this in as she began to wander slowly across the yard, her breath materializing before her in hazy white clouds. As she neared the sleeping fountain her steps and her breath stopped suddenly. The fountain she had seen through the thin veil of smoky air that was her breath had appeared to move.

Holding her breath now and squinting at the fountain in the pale winter moonlight, she realized that its shadows and contours were the wrong shape. This was probably because a dark figure was leaning against it, staring at the frozen sky.

Unable to force her body to move, Haruhi watched as the dark figure noticed her and then unfolded himself as he stood up and turned towards her.

As he stepped out of the shadow of the fountain and into the moonlight, Haruhi let out her breath in one go.

"Mori-senpai! You scared me!"

He tilted his head slightly to the side and looked at her with a quiet concern as she gulped in the freezing night air, so cold it felt like breathing knives.

When she had recovered, she stood up and looked at him. He had taken off his tie at some point and so the open collar of his shirt moved slightly in the wind. Hands in his pockets and stray locks of dark hair fluttering across his brow, he looked more handsome than ever, and Haruhi felt her heart speed up again.

Unthinkingly, she raised her eyes to meet his. More out of habit than anything else she found herself pulling her eyes away to cast them downwards but found herself unable to break the gaze. The eyes she was so used to seeing calm and impassive, with barely a flicker of amusement or anger to convey his emotions, were now full of a quiet intensity, which seemed to be focused on her.

Remembering herself eventually, she forced herself to look away and coughed hastily.

"So what are you doing out here Mori-senpai? Shouldn't you be with Hunny?"

A thought occurred to her. She turned back to him, heart sinking.

"Ummm…. Are you waiting on someone?"

Mori looked at her for a moment, considering her silently, before, eyes never leaving hers, he gave her a solemn nod.

Haruhi lowered her head quickly so that the hair that fell into her face obscured her blushing cheeks. She had just made a complete fool of herself. He had been expecting someone else, not her.

"Oh. I'm sorry to have disturbed you, I'll move on."

Still blushing furiously, she walked, head down, past Mori with one hand clasped to her burning cheek. Though her mind ran a continuous monologue along the lines of:

Oh God Oh God Oh God He must think I'm such an idiot, standing there gaping like that, stupid stupid stupid what on earth were you thinking…

She was vaguely aware of Mori turning so that his eyes could follow her as she passed him. She thought she could feel that calm impassive gaze boring into her.

She had gone barely a few steps past him when she felt a large, strong hand grip her wrist and pull. Crying out, she pivoted on one foot as she lost balance and fell forward into the waiting embrace of Mori's arms. For a moment she stood like that, feet unbalanced on the ground, hands clutching at his suit jacket and eyes staring wide and unseeing at the ground as she tried to figure out what just happened.

Gently, she felt Mori pull her to her feet but never once release his embrace on her. Trapped between his strong arms and the reassuring breadth of his chest she felt warm, safe. She closed her eyes and just stood there for a moment, savoring the warmth of his body and the soft musky scent of his aftershave.

Swallowing nervously, her heart beating so hard she was sure he must be able to hear it, she slowly tilted her face upwards to look at him. He was looking down at her, his head framed by he glittering stars and a halo of moonlight. The look in his eyes was…unusual. Not unreadable as it usually was, but warmer, and caring. She was so absorbed by the look of gentle, smiling adoration in his eyes that she didn't even realize what was happening until Mori had leant down and captured her lips in a soft kiss.

Eyes wide, frozen in shock, for a moment she did nothing.

As she slowly relaxed, she shut her eyes and kissed him back. It was a gentle kiss. Simple, but so soft and full of love and warmth that she felt that she might just melt into a puddle right there on the stone path.

As he pulled away, Haruhi felt her lips tingle in the frozen air, left over sensitive by the kiss. Taking his arms from around her, eyes looking straight into hers, Mori gently took her hand.

"Happy Valentine's Day, Haruhi." he said with a small smile as he turned.

Haruhi watched him as her walked away from her, back over the frozen grass and towards the hall, doubtless to collect Hunny.

Unable to move, it was all she could do to stand there, eyes wide and mouth partly open and staring at his retreating back. Its was only when he was completely out of sight that she raised her hand and slowly opened it to look at the object Mori had slipped into her hand as he held it before leaving.

Lying in her palm, illuminated by the moonlight, was a small, oblong piece of card. It was slightly crumpled at the edges and had a faint smear of what smelled like girl's perfume on the corner. It had gold trimming around the edges and a number on it in flowing gothic script.

The number was '202'.

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And there it is. I'm such a sucker for cheesy, romantic endings it's not even funny.

Anyway, as I said, I'm not as fond of this fic as I am of the other one but I think it turned out ok. Could have been worse anyways. P

Any reviews and comments you could spare time out your busy schedules to write are much appreciated, they really are. They make me dance.

Also big thank you to all who have commented so far. I love you all!!!

Until next time (oh dear god she's going to keep going)

Sakura Seraphim