Disclaimer: I don't own OHSHC.

Also, this chapter may be triggering, as it includes a derealization episode, so please read at your own risk.

March 14, 2014

5:23 PM

Hikaru had never liked rain. In fact, rain had been one of his absolute least favorite things about springtime ever since he was a little kid. It created mud, swamped the grass, and made having marble stairs a nightmare. Every single thing about it was less than desirable, even the sound. Especially after what happened.

His homework was spread on the desk in front of him, waiting to be finished, but he couldn't focus long enough to begin it. That wasn't much of a problem, though; his teachers were being much nicer to him now and he knew that he could get away with not finishing his work. They'd understand why. The real problem wasn't one he could just solve, it wasn't something he could forget about.

Thunder boomed outside his bedroom window, the vibrations almost knocking over the cup of cold tea he made and forgot about. He it brought up to his lips and drank. When he scowled, he didn't know if it was at the foul taste, or if it was at his trembling hand.

His eyes drifted to his cell phone sitting on the corner of his desk. Earlier it had been lighting up like crazy with emails from distant family members. Condolences and well-wishes were mixed in various versions of "Can't wait to see you!", but all went ignored. He didn't want to talk to them; some emails came from family he had never even met. They probably don't even care, he thought, giving in to the temptation to look through the emails.

Without thinking, he took another sip of tea and instantly regretted it. As he set it down again, he wondered when exactly he had made that tea, maybe after he came home from school? Did a servant make it for him? Come to think of it, he didn't really recall much about after school. He went to the host club, spent an hour there, and went home by limousine, that much he knew. Rubbing his face, he hoped that he didn't say anything at the club he would regret later.

The phone startled him as it went off in his hand, a text message from his mom. 'Okay thanks honey, I love you! Call me if you need anything' He stared at the message, wracking his brain to see if he could remember what he had sent before. An uneasy feeling settled in his stomach as he realized he had no recollection of sending her a text message before that.

With less leisure than before, he quickly scanned the conversation to try and spark a memory. Two hours prior, she had sent a text asking him to please let her know that he got home safe (he instantly felt guilty). A bit of relief replaced his worry when he read his reply and found that he did vaguely remember sending it from the back of the limo. That was when he first noticed the rain clouds forming, he remembered now.

He sighed and put his phone back down. It was hard to think that his mom was stressing about his safety for the whole day while at work. She was probably the strongest woman he'd ever met, but behind her strength and cheer, she was just as devastated as the rest of them. The only difference was that she was better at hiding it, a trait Hikaru deeply envied.

A few minutes passed, minutes filled with nothing but the empty feeling in his chest and the sound of rain outside. He didn't move from his chair, watching the clock's hands move as the time slipped by. It was almost comforting, but the feeling of feeling nothing was robotic and strange to him. Almost as if nothing was real. As if he wasn't really real. And who defines what's real? What makes something real? He wished and hoped that the accident wasn't real, he wanted so badly for everything to go bad to the way it was. I don't want it to be real, he thought, leaning back and shifting his gaze to the high ceiling without truly looking at it. I want it to be not real, please, not real, just make this all not real, make me not real, please, just make this stop-

The hard collision with the ground knocked the wind out of him. Pain radiated from his back, resulting in a low groan as he rolled to the side and off of the tipped chair. His breath hurt against his throat as if it was raw, though he didn't think he had been yelling. With a racing heart and shaky legs, he pushed himself off the ground, shoving the chair back into place so he could lean on the back of it. The sound of rapid footsteps approaching swam through brain as if he was just waking up from a deep sleep, but he didn't feel rested by any means.

A rhythm of quick knocks landed on his door. "Master Hikaru?" One of the maids, she must've heard the crash. "Are you okay?" She didn't wait for a reply, though, opening the door and sticking her head in. Her eyes widened. "Oh my! What happened? Your face is very red, do you need an ice pack?"

He adjusted his vice grip on the back of the chair to wave a hand in reply. "No, no, thanks, I just dozed off and fell over. Sorry." His voice, too, resembled the way it sounded when he woke up in the morning, thick and disoriented. It fit his lie about accidentally falling asleep, but he was struck by worry. "I'm fine, really." Worry is better than feeling nothing, he thought with a thin smile.

Her brow furrowed. "If you're sure, Master Hikaru. Please let me know if you need anything. Pardon my intrusion." With a quick bow, she ducked out of the room. Hikaru barely breathed until he heard her footsteps fade, when he did, it was heavy and deep.

He sat back down in the chair and put his head in his hands. The beginning of a killer headache was forming; the rain didn't help. What could help at this point, he wondered, gazing again at his cell phone. Calling his mom would only worry her, and his father was just not an option. Without really thinking, he grabbed the phone and found Kyoya's number, but hesitated. Of course he knew Kyoya would listen, but would it be out of politeness? He was always so busy, would it be too much of a bother to keep pestering him? Hikaru swallowed hard. There wasn't another option, though. He jabbed the call button before he could stop himself and held it to his ear, almost praying for the answering machine.

Unfortunately for him, that didn't come. Instead, he heard faint laughter in the background, the first laugh he knew was Tamaki, but the second voice was odd. "One second, sorry." Then, the familiar voice was louder, and uncharacteristically cheerful. "Hello?" It sounded as if he was smiling.

At first, Hikaru's voice failed him; it took a cough to clear his throat. "Uh, Kyoya? Hi. It's me, uh... Are you busy? Is that Tamaki laughing?" His fingers drummed on his desk, a nervous habit.

"Yes, I'm with Tamaki right now, he's awfully- stop laughing, can't you see I'm on the phone? Sorry, we're just chatting. And no, I'm not busy. Is something wrong?" The faint background laughter stopped abruptly.

"What? No. Nothing's wrong, I just..." Fear suddenly hit him. "I just... wanted to thank you for going to see Kaoru yesterday. And for dealing with the doctors and stuff."

It was hard to place through the phone, but Kyoya sounded rather relieved. "It's no problem, I wish I could've been more help. I... never mind. I'm sorry it didn't go very well yesterday. It wasn't what I had in mind."

"You helped a lot, really. But was it okay to go? Like, okay with your dad? You did skip some morning classes."

"Yes, well..." His voice suddenly got icy, and a long pause filled with indignant-sounding, angry whispers indured, as if him and Tamaki were arguing briefly. "He'll, ah... get over it. It's- shut up, we'll talk later. It's not a problem, thank you. Is that all you called for? Or is there something else you wanted to talk about?"

His heart was pounding in his ears. "Um, n-no, thanks." I can't do it, he won't believe me. I must be crazy.

"Hm, okay. I'll see you soon, then." The chilly tone was gone, replaced by the smile. "Good-"

"Wait, Kyoya?"

"Yes?"

Just do it, coward. "I..." Tell him. "I can't remember what I was doing today and I can't remember what I did at the club and during school and who I talked to and what I said or what happened and I don't know what to do." The words tumbled out in a rush. "A-And I completely spaced out a few minutes ago and I couldn't feel anything at all, there was no fear or grief or anything, not even guilt and I couldn't stop my thoughts and it was horrible and I just hate the rain and-"

"It's okay, slow down. You'll work yourself into a panic. It's over now, right?" His voice was calm and soothing.

Hikaru ran a shaky hand through his hair, and he was definitely feeling emotions now. "Yeah, yeah, it's gone now, it was just so sudden and really freaky and I felt like a robot and-"

"Okay, let's slow down. I can tell you right now about the memory loss. As you're grieving, you tend to shift from manual to a sort of "autopilot" mode. You are going through all of your normal routines, but not remembering doing it because you're not consciously making the decisions to do those things. Does that make sense?" In the background, he heard Tamaki saying something, sounding worried. Kyoya, it seemed, did not acknowledge that.

"Yeah, I just..."

"What is it?" There was legitimate concern in those words, real worry for him, not just politeness.

"When I spaced out... I didn't feel real. It wasn't like I felt specifically fake, just... not real. And I was wishing that the accident would be not real and this whole mess would be not real."

Silence fell, a pause so long Hikaru wondered if the phone connection was lost.

"Hikaru, I'm really sorry, I don't know what to say. That's... horrible. I don't..." A long exhale. "I can't even imagine. I'll see what I can do, okay? Please, call me if it happens again."

His exhale was just as long and much shakier. "I will. Thank you, you're honestly the only person I could tell. It's not that I don't trust anybody else, but I just trust you a lot."

"You're welcome. I have to go, I'll see you tomorrow. Stay safe." He sounded suddenly exhausted.

"Yeah, see you." With the call over, he gazed down at his homework, decided he wasn't going to do it now, and crawled into bed. The dark rain clouds made it seem much later than it actually was. His fists clenched tight on the blankets covering him.

Hikaru really hated rain.

5:57 PM

The silence was heavy again. Neither said a word, but no one really needed to. Rather, no one really wanted to. Tamaki didn't hear all of what his two friends talked about, all he knew was that it was so bad that Kyoya was really upset, though he was lousy at showing it.

Well, Tamaki thought as he put his hand over the one that clutched the cell phone. he's usually lousy at showing it. This time, it was obvious by the white-knuckled grip on his phone and the hand that covered his eyes.

"Kyoya, do you want to talk about-?"

"No." Short and sharp.

"Okay." He rubbed little circles around and around on the back of the other's hand. "Give me the phone then."

The glare was only half its normal strength. "What? No, if he calls back-"

"He won't call back right now." Tamaki said, beginning to slowly take the phone out of the tight grip. To his surprise, there was no resistance.

"How do you know that?"

"I'm smart that way." He smiled a bit, finally taking the phone away and sliding it down the table, out of both of their reaches. "There, that's better."

It was silent again. Tamaki kept rubbing those tiny circles; his mother used to do it to calm him down and he was unsurprised to see that it worked on his friend too.

"Hey, can I ask about your dad?" Curiosity killed the cat, as it's said, but if he didn't talk about it, then it would stay all bottled up until he exploded.

At first, he didn't think he would get an answer. "He doesn't like how much I'm helping the Hitachiin family. He says I'm too soft. He was mad when he found out I skipped some classes yesterday."

"How mad?" That wasn't a simple question, but one that was part of their own sort of code.

Usually, when asked that, there would be a good response, but Kyoya just shook his head. "This isn't really the time."

"Okay." He has enough to think about right now, I shouldn't have brought it up. "Sorry."

"It's fine."

The drops drummed against the window in the music room, heavy and relentless. It wasn't the type of storm he enjoyed, more of an angry, torrential downpour wreaking havoc on everything it touched.

The clock struck six, and Tamaki cursed the rain.

Hey there! It's great to be updating again. I'm pretty happy with this chapter, actually. It's a little longer than some of the other ones and I tried some new writing techniques. Let me know what you think! I love hearing your opinions about my writing. (Also, some great news: this chapter will push the word count over 30k! Woohoo!)

Until next time!