WARNING: THERE WILL BE SPOILERS FOR THE ANIME AND THE MANGA IN THIS STORY. READ AT OWN RISK. Thanks.

The fathers of the Ootori and Suoh families watched as the latter's son attempted to dance with the girl named Haruhi Fujioka. There was a slightly romantic moment between them as the blond son slowly stuck out his hand towards the girl, who was about to accept the offer to dance until a certain black-haired teenage boy cut in.

He stole Haruhi from the blonde – who breathed fire to show everybody his anger – and began twirling her around, causing her dress to fly with the wind they created. This continued for a few minutes until he grew tired of his friend's glares, and then he set her free into Tamaki's arms, who gladly accepted his new girlfriend.

From high up on one of the top floors of the school, the fathers of these boys laughed, having watched the scene. The black-haired parent, Ootori, spoke first.

"That honor student girl – Haruhi Fujioka was it?"

At this the blond father turned around to face his potential friend. They had set aside their differences for at least this one night in order to watch their sons and their shared friends have fun.

"I'm thinking of having her marry Kyoya in the future."

Suoh didn't know how to react to this. That girl was the only thing that made Tamaki, his son, happy. To have her taken away from him so briefly… wait, no, that wasn't the right way of thinking. Surely the girl would leave Tamaki soon enough, anyway, due to his recklessness and senselessness. She probably knew it already, even. It was only a matter of time before things sorted themselves out.

Mr. Ootori didn't miss a beat while the other male in the room acted just like his son, overthinking things.

"Please keep that in mind."

The blonde cleared his throat, now able to form an at least somewhat coherent sentence. "I guess we aren't going to get along so well, after all."

Some friendships were just never meant to be, instead doomed to remain rivalries.

…

"Tamaki-senpai, could you please stop growing mushrooms in the storage room?"

An annoyed Haruhi stared at a depressed Tamaki for the third time within the week. This time, it was about cake. For whatever reason, Tamaki was upset that Haruhi was given a small piece of strawberry cake, her favorite – which wasn't strange at all, considering it was her seventeenth birthday and everything – and ended up with more strawberries than she wanted and resorted to giving them to Honey. The little blond boy was ecstatic with this, of course, and hugged Haruhi as hard as his little arms would let him. In turn, the younger, but taller, blonde was angry. He wasn't getting enough attention, apparently.

"My little girl doesn't love her daddy anymore…" Tamaki whined a little too loudly to be heard by just himself, but it was probably intentional, knowing him.

Haruhi sighed but ignored him. He'd get over it soon enough, just like the other two times he'd gotten upset this week. She thought he would've maybe grown out of this, since they were more or less dating, but she was wrong. Again. But really, when talking about Tamaki-senpai, anyone could guess wrong.

"Hai, senpai," the twins spoke in unison as always. "Come over here and watch Haruhi open her gifts."

Honey and Mori stayed in silence – well, Mori did, anyway, while Honey ate his cake – and Kyoya just pushed up his glasses. Whether it was signaling a coming end to his patience nobody knew.

Hikaru and Kaoru took initiative and grabbed some of the gifts since nobody else seemed to be very interested, for unknown reasons. Kaoru took one closest to him, which happened to be Honey-senpai's gift to the girl, and set it beside Haruhi with a huge smile on his face. Haruhi could only guess that this meant he knew what was in the box – the smallest box there, in fact.

Hikaru, on the other hand, went out of his way to the other side of the room to grab Tamaki's gift, which was the second smallest, but before he could, a hand reached his arm and held it in a death grip.

"Hikaru! Do not touch my present! I want to be the one to give it to her!" When all eyes landed on him at last, his voice grew louder. "She is my little girl, after all."

The redheaded twin winced and managed to pull away from Tamaki's vice grip. "Then, tono, when do you want to give it to her?" He rubbed gingerly at the red mark that made its way to the surface of his arm's skin.

Tamaki looked away, suddenly not seeming like himself. Suddenly, all the mushrooms on his back were gone. "I…I want to wait to give it to her. I want to be the last gift-giver!"

Haruhi rolled her eyes at her senpai. It was probably something completely useless, like a new wallet or something of the material sort. Ever since her first few days at the Host Club when 'Princess' Ayanokoji dumped her stuff into the pond and her wallet got ruined, Tamaki insisted that she let him buy her a new one, which she always declined because the wallet she had still functioned fine for its job.

The twins looked at each other and shrugged, and Hikaru ran off to get another gift while Kaoru nudged Honey-senpai's gift further towards Haruhi. Honey could see this now, and he got excited because he knew Haruhi would like it. Or, at least he really thought she would. After all, who doesn't like –

"A cake?"

Sure enough, what Haruhi stared down at was another cake, this time chocolate flavored. There was something odd about it, though. It was shaped into the form of a head… Upon closer studying, she noticed it was her head, and the brownies that lay on top of the frosting shaped her face. As far as she knew, it was indeed very accurate.

"Haru-chan! Do you like it?" Honey-senpai blurted out. "I hired ten professional bakers to make it for you!"

Haruhi's eyebrows twitched. Ten…professional bakers? For one cake? She was lucky if she ever got help from her dad, just one person, while making one of her cakes. To add eight more to the equation…that was a bit much.

But she pushed that thought aside and instead focused on the cake. It looked delicious, to be sure.

"I really like it, Honey-senpai. Thank you!" She flashed her signature smile, tilting her head in the process. Tamaki blushed and resisted the urge to hug his 'daughter' while Honey smiled back and pulled a knife from out of somewhere.

Right before he started slicing into the cake, Mori caught his arm. Honey glanced up at him, a surprised look in his eyes.

"Takashi…"

"It's her cake," Mori explained simply.

"B-but…"

"Let her have it."

The two stared at each other while the rest of the Host Club stayed in silence – though Kyoya took a picture for future magazines and therefore profits – until Haruhi spoke up.

"Honey-senpai, we can share it if you'd like." She smiled again and looked at Mori, who, upon seeing her reaction, let go of Honey's arm but still kept a wary eye on him.

With nothing to hold him back now, Honey raised his right arm to slice the cake into two distinct halves, but another hand grabbed hold of him just as he was about to break through the layers.

"Honey-senpai, cake can wait," Hikaru said, pushing the chocolate cake out of the way so it was in front of Kyoya. The Shadow King surely wouldn't do anything to Haruhi's cake. Honey pouted a little bit but hugged onto Usa-chan a little tighter so he could smile when Kaoru brought over a massive gift. It seemed this one was from Mori.

The first thing about the box, other than its intimidating size, that Haruhi noticed was its wrapping paper. It seemed to be a little bit off-kilter, as if he'd wrapped it himself. That made it more special in a way, though, she guessed. She made a mental note that Mori-senpai always seemed like the independent type, so it would make sense that he wouldn't ask for any assistance with this. She placed her fingers underneath the folds of the wrapping paper that were held together by tape – she had to give him a lot of credit for making it look like an actual present, though, since all the other gifts came in pre-wrapped boxes or just regular 'rich people' boxes that had designs printed to look like wrapping paper – and began to tear. She felt a little bad for destroying Mori-senpai's hard work but quickly pushed the thought away when she saw what was inside the box.

There was some tissue paper at first, so she took it out and threw it to a side of the room, uncaring when Tamaki let out a sharp gasp as the material landed on his head, and underneath it was the biggest stuffed animal Haruhi'd ever seen. To put it understandably, it was an oversized Usa-chan, having all the qualities of the little stuffed bunny Honey-senpai carried around except larger. Even the same shade of pink was present.

"Mori-senpai, where did you find this?" Haruhi took the gigantic stuffed bunny, easily twice the size of herself, and showed it off. The others didn't seem half as impressed as Haruhi was, though, which wasn't surprising considering how rich they were. They probably received these huge toys as Christmas presents when they were kids.

Mori didn't speak, only smiled, so Honey spoke for him. "We ordered it from the same company who makes stuffies like Usa-chan!"

"I thought your grandmother hand-sewed Usa-chan for you?"

"Mm! But before she passed away, she wanted our family to receive a kind of inheritance, so she sold the recipe to a huge toy manufacturer all the way over in China!"

Haruhi was really amazed at what money could do for someone if it was the right amount. She'd begun to wonder about how much this present had cost, but Honey began talking again.

"But the gift wasn't my idea! Takashi thought of it when we were on our way home from school one day."

Is that so… I was about to call Mori out for being dependent rather than independent. But that didn't matter now, because Kaoru took the stuffy from Haruhi and placed it in the other room (because there was no space for it in the small room of Haruhi's house that they were in), replacing it with yet another gift. This time it was from Kaoru and Hikaru themselves. She gulped unconsciously, only imagining what was in it for her.

Kaoru winked at her before scooting back to sit next to his brother.

Unlike Mori-senpai's gift, the twins' was a box that was printed with a wrapping paper design rather than the paper itself. She supposed that made it a lot easier for her to open, however, so she didn't pay much mind to the fact. There was, however, tape underneath the flaps of the large box, and as she attempted to pick it off with her fingernails, the twins beside her laughed at her efforts, to which she turned and glared.

She finally managed to slice through all of the tape with her nails, though, and she lifted the side flap of the box, unveiling what was inside.

"Another box?" Haruhi grimaced. The twins cracked up and Tamaki glared at them.

"Don't make fun of my little girl," he growled, and they laughed louder. Haruhi sighed and picked through the next box.

"Oh hey, another box…" She grew tiresome after the fourth box-inside-of-a-box, and was about to call it quits when she noticed something about the box afterwards. It was smaller than the rest, of course, but still decent-sized. She figured she might as well try to open this one, too, and as she inched closer to the flaps she could see a little piece of blue fabric sticking out.

She unraveled a beautiful blue and black dress, just the perfect size for her body. Tamaki looked over and blushed as she held it up close to her person, smoothing it out against her frame to predict how it would look on her.

K-kawaii… he thought. But then his expression changed to an angry one once he remembered who gave her such nice clothing.

"Hikaru! Kaoru! What do you think you're doing giving my little girl that outfit?!"

The twins shrugged and put on their blank faces. "Don't you want to see her wear it, tono?" they asked in unison.

Tamaki pointed an accusing finger at them both, but took it back as the red on his cheeks grew darker. "Y…yes, I do, but that has nothing to do with it!"

"Tamaki, let it go," a voice from the corner of the room finally spoke. All eyes turned towards Kyoya, who pushed up his glasses like he'd done so many times before. "Haruhi can wear whatever she wants."

Tamaki grew angrier. "Mommy! How can you say that about our little daughter Haruhi?! She's precious! She can't be seen in such…revealing clothes!" He gestured to the chest area of the dress, which was shaped in a V-neck, and the way it clung to Haruhi's form even when she wasn't wearing it told Tamaki that there was much more to be seen.

Haruhi pretended to not hear Tamaki and Kyoya and instead placed the dress back inside the box it came in and handed it to Kaoru to take it somewhere else. Hikaru grabbed one of the two remaining gifts, though he couldn't really grab Tamaki's he supposed, and handed it to Haruhi.

"Kyoya-senpai, you got me something as well?"

Kyoya pretended to look insulted by the girl's question. "Haruhi, of course I did! Do you really think that little of me?"

She shrugged it off and stared at the box before deciding to open it. It wasn't as big as the twins' or Mori's boxes, but it was bigger than Honey's and Tamaki's, from what she could tell, anyway.

What was inside of it was something Haruhi would've never expected to see in a gift from Kyoya. Well, from a gift to her, anyway… Maybe if it was for another girl, she would've understood more, but this just didn't make any sense.

It was… a jewelry case?

"Um… Kyoya-senpai, are you certain that this gift is for me?"

Kyoya didn't need to glance up to see the gift in question, and instead kept his eyes glued to the clipboard he always had with him, taking notes for whatever reason. "I am indeed positive, Haruhi." He made his signature move with his glasses again before continuing. "I suppose it would have made more sense to save my gift for last, but Tamaki insisted that his was last and everything…"

Haruhi wasn't really listening to him. Instead, she focused on what she thought was a case for jewelry. What reason could Kyoya-senpai possibly have for giving her jewelry? His gift to her last year had been simple, nothing meaningful or useful to her at all. If she remembered correctly, it was an upgrade chip for the cellphone that the twins bought for her. It did something like making it easier to complete calls while not in a service zone…or something like that, anyway. She was never too much into technology. Of course, she never had the time for such time-consuming interests due to her house chores and schoolwork.

But really… jewelry? She was still confused. Apparently, so were the other Hosts around the table, because nobody spoke for the several minutes that Haruhi took trying to examine the box without opening it (everybody besides Tamaki, anyway, who believed he instantly knew what the box held and resorted to insisting that Haruhi open his gift now rather than later). But then Kyoya cleared his throat, looking up from his clipboard to see Haruhi.

Oh, how he didn't want to do this…

"Haruhi, if you'd prefer, I could open it for you so that I could do this properly."

"WHAT?!" the twins and Honey shrieked altogether. Mori had the same look of shock on his face but remained silent.

The brown-eyed girl stayed just as confused as she had been, maybe a little more now, though. It seemed everybody knew what was going on besides her. Even Tamaki, who was usually clueless about everything, seemed to have at least some idea of what was happening. She just didn't get it.

"Haruhi, you're not going to say yes, are you?" Hikaru and Kaoru asked.

Say yes to what…?

Just then Haruhi heard the shifting of metal on wood and glanced over to see Kyoya stand up (he probably moved the clipboard away from him, causing the noise). The sun shining in through the windows caused a glare to appear on his glasses, so she couldn't see his expression. Though, she wasn't entirely sure she wanted to now. He loomed over her for a moment before reaching down and grabbing the velvet box from the table.

Everyone was silent.

Haruhi was still as confused as before.

Kyoya knelt down so that he was face-to-face with her, and then he looked her in the eyes. The sun's glare was gone now and Haruhi could see his dark orbs looking both exhausted yet entirely alert at the same time.

Her breath caught in her throat. Everything went silent and nothing in the world mattered than what Kyoya was next about to say – ask, rather.

"Haruhi Fujioka, will you marry me?"

A/N: My newest project! Can anybody guess why Kyoya's suddenly asking Haruhi to marry him? Does he love her? Or is he doing it for some other reason? Perhaps he's mad at Tamaki for something and wants to hurt him? Hmm... Guess we'll have to find out next chapter! (which will probably be out sometime this week, depending on my schedule. My schedule sucks, for those of you who don't know me. I'm a really good procrastinator.) Anyway, next chapter will be mostly from Kyoya's POV and tell what made him do this so suddenly. And the title will play very important parts, just not quite yet. It's one of my favorite quotes from the anime.

Oh, and Haruhi's seventeen! That means she's in the second half or so of her second year, as are the twins, and Kyoya and Tamaki are third-years while Honey and Mori are in college somewhere. I promise to give Mori more love in this story. I absolutely love him. And I'll make the relationship between Tamaki and Haruhi better... It just seemed kind of appropriate in this chapter, considering his mood. I can't imagine them being all lovey-dovey in front of people anyway. I'd much rather portray their relationship like it was in episode 8 where only those two know about how close they are. Yeah.

Oh wait. I should probably say this down here as well as up there before the story starts. THERE WILL BE SPOILERS FOR THE ANIME/MANGA IN THIS STORY. I WON'T HOLD ANYTHING BACK.

All right, I think that's enough ranting. I really hope you guys like this! First story in the series for me, I hope to make it good. Stay tuned!

~CGA