Dance with me

Pairing: HikaHaru

A/N: A two-shot I've had in mind for a while and finally decided to write :D Gaze in awe at my totally lame title XD I hope you like it~~ The next chapter'll be up pretty soon. :)

Please review and tell me what you think~! Many thankingyous~ :D

Stupid dance floor.

Stupid buffet table.

Stupid couples.

Stupid chandelier.

Hikaru paused for a second, casting an irritable and critical glance over his surroundings for something else to insult; his eyes fell upon a small huddle of girls from class 3-B, all sporting elegant dresses, hiding behind a pillar and throwing him adoring glances as they giggled excitedly to each other behind their hands.

He scowled inwardly.

Stupid girls-who-are-actually-allowed-to-dress-as-girls.

If you hadn't noticed, Hikaru was in a bad mood.

It was their last ball at Ouran, thrown to celebrate their graduation, but so far Hikaru was completely unimpressed, mostly for three reasons.

Firstly, his girlfriend seemed to be avoiding him.

Haruhi, whom 99% of the school's population thought was a boy, had consequently spend the entire function entertaining and dancing with girls from their class, who were practically throwing themselves (from Hikaru's point of view) at the much adored 'natural' ex-host. He hadn't even got to talk to Haruhi that much, which instantly reduced him to sulking near the buffet table, throwing irritated glances at couples flying by; it was, he felt, very bad girlfriend behaviour to dance with every girl in the class but fail to take some timeout to entertain your easily bored boyfriend.

Crossing dressing or not.

Secondly, Kaoru seemed to be avoiding him.

And (to his knowledge) he hadn't even done anything wrong. Apart from a few quick conversations and a short jokingly-suggestive waltz together (for old time's sake, of course; several girls nearly fainted from the nostalgic dose of twincest), Kaoru had been totally detached from his twin's side, either dancing with a classmate or disappearing completely. And whatever he kept disappearing to do, he wasn't letting Hikaru in on it.

Which, obviously, was quite annoying.

And thirdly...

Hikaru paused and gave the girls' direction a worried glance; though he didn't actually know any of them by name, they seemed to have crept closer and were giving him some downright scary looks, sickly sweet smiles frozen on their faces. Hikaru gulped.

The curse of being an extremely popular ex-host on the last dance of school.

The girls in the twin's year, as well as many of the boys, were apparently taking tonight as a last chance to speak up about any hidden crushes and newly found couples seemed to be cropping up across the ballroom like wildfire (Kaoru said it was cute. Hikaru said it was scary).

Both of the twins had been forced to gently reject confessions themselves (one of Kaoru's had actually been from a guy. Kaoru had been forced to reveal that, despite their constant act, he wasn't actually gay so therefore couldn't go out with him. Hikaru, of course, found the whole situation hilarious and never planned to let Kaoru live it down).

Haruhi however, probably because of the twin's act that they still put on whenever class seemed too boring, had had it much worse than either of them and, to Hikaru's great annoyance, had already been dragged off six times to try and softly let down another confession; which, with Haruhi's amazingly blunt personality, was no small feat.

Though Hikaru obviously knew what Haruhi's answer would be to all of them, he couldn't help being irrationally irritated by the fact he wasn't allowed to do anything boyfriend-ish towards her and had to just stand there while people gave her (whom they thought was a him) obviously flirtatious looks. He just wanted to walk up to her and stamp 'Mine. Hands off.' on her forehead.

Though Haruhi probably wouldn't really appreciate that.

Giving the girls another subtle and cautious glance, Hikaru casually pushed away from the buffet table, deciding to relocate. His eyes scanned the large hall, hoping that Haruhi had finally finished dancing and would actually-

Oh my god.

He scanned the hall again.

Then again.

No Haruhi.

And, conveniently, Kaoru seemed to have disappeared as well.

Crap.

Hikaru narrowed his eyes as he gave the hall one last fruitless look.

He had been abandoned. On the night of his graduation dance. By his twin and his girlfriend.

Giving up, he slumped back against the table moodily, bottom lip sticking out in a dramatic sulk and summing the night up in two words.

This sucks.

"Why did I let you talk me into this, Kaoru?"

"Because I'm your best friend in the whole wide world?"

Haruhi sighed exasperatedly and gave Kaoru, her 'kidnapper', a worn-out glance. As she watched, the youngest twin's grin suddenly widened and he sniggered to himself.

"Apart from lover-boy, of course." He added, smirking. "Wait 'till Hikaru sees you, Haruhi; it's gonna be such a Kodak moment."

She rolled her eyes.

The two were currently hiding out in an empty classroom, unlit apart from the soft light drifting in from the large windows. After Kaoru had forcefully removed her from the party, he had announced (while shoving a dress into her arms) that 'boy' Haruhi was too sick to attend and therefore couldn't be around while his female 'cousin', Natsumi appeared.

In other words, he was dressing Haruhi up as a girl, whether she liked it or not.

"This wig feels hot." She grumbled, patting the elegantly curled wig with a clumsy hand. "And it's heavy. And the make-up feels weird."

Kaoru rolled his eyes good-naturedly, too happy dressing her up to get annoyed. "But you look great. You shouldn't complain so much; unless you've forgotten that you're actually a girl?"

He paused in his work to give her a mockingly 'teacher' look, which she promptly ignored, deciding to mess with her wig again instead. Sniggering, he happily went back to adjusting her dress.

The ball gown that Kaoru had demanded she put on (he had obviously waited outside while she had initially changed) was an exotic mix of deep oranges and subtle yellows, flowing from the corseted waist in elegant bundles. The corset was subtly fringed and her hands and arms were taken up by a pair of long, graceful gloves, leaving hardly any skin uncovered.

Despite moaning that the frock was heavy and too expensive for her, even fashion-blind Haruhi couldn't help but observe that it really did look beautiful.

She could only assume it was one their mother's designs.

Giving the dress a final satisfied look, Kaoru finally straightened up and fiddled slightly with the graceful flower ornament he had put into her hair (or rather, her wig) before taking a step back and looking smugly over his handiwork.

"I'm a genius." He decided, making Haruhi scoff slightly. "Meaning you look lovely, Haruhi." He added quickly.

"I wasn't actually fishing for a compliment."

"Well, I'm giving you one anyway."

He paused and looked thoughtfully towards the hallway that led, eventually, back to the dance. "Huh... I wonder how much time's gone by. I hope we get back for the start of the slower songs... I don't want to get there too early though..." He paused again and bit his lip, having obviously given his plan a lot of thought.

Haruhi gave him a slow look before glancing in the direction of the party.

Though she had become decisively more laid back and light-hearted in her years at Ouran, she generally would flat out refuse to go so willingly along with one of Kaoru's weird cupid-like plans. After all, it was a wonder that she, as the eighteen year old she now was, was still passing as a boy, so to dress her up like this was surely pushing the limit.

Surely someone would recognise her?

But still...

The whole plan had a very... nostalgic feel to it.

Despite the fact she would undoubtedly keep in contact with the twins (she was actually going out with Hikaru after all) like she had with the rest of the old host club, this was genuinely going to be the last of their stupid plans she would have to go along with inside Ouran's walls. She would be leaving the eccentric and adoring characters of her class for university and a course in law, where everybody would undeniably be trying to step on each other's toes to reach the top.

And the twins would be on the other side of Tokyo, going to a famous fashion collage.

It was really quite sad.

Her three years at Ouran had definitely been the most annoying, troublesome and downright wonderful years of her life.

Leaving was... sad.

Her mind's eye swept over her memories like the surface of a pond, looking back over her time with the Host club, with the twins, with Hikaru...

Yeah. Leaving was sad. Really sad.

So, albeit whining a little, Haruhi couldn't help but feel pulled to go along with Kaoru's plan.

Because she was going to miss it more than she had ever expected to.

She was going to miss it so much.

Kaoru looked over at her and beamed, taking her hand.

"Ready, little sister?" He laughed, pulling her out of the room happily.

Haruhi paused, and then smiled slowly back, slipping her arm into Kaoru's when he held it out to escort her more formally.

"That's better." Kaoru grinned at her, winking. "The finishing touch. You really look beautiful when you smile, Haruhi. Hikaru," he snorted, thinking back to his brother's tendency to fall into Haruhi-induced fluster, "is seriously going to combust on the spot."

Haruhi scoffed (in a very lady-like way, I'll have you know) then, suddenly feeling it expected of her, said politely; "Your Mother's design is very nice, Kaoru."

The younger twin paused and cocked an eyebrow at her, looking thoroughly amused.

"Who said Mom designed it?"

"Huh? But I thought-"

"Naw, Mom didn't design it. I didn't either, though I saw to it being made properly. The one who designed it," he chirped, looking almost proud. "was Hikaru."

As Haruhi blinked in surprise, Kaoru straightened up; trying to look as formal and elegant as possible as they neared the party. He smirked sideways at her.

"And guess who he was thinking of while he was designing it?"

My face hurts. I'm out of practise.

Hikaru smiled his best host smile at the tall girl in front of him, who was animatedly talking his ear off.

While stalking his way around the hall, hunting for Kaoru and Haruhi, he had somehow gotten roped into a conversation with a random group from their year - which was all well and good, as they actually managed to drag him slightly out of his slump, but when they had all dispersed and left him with a hyper girl whom he had never seen before in his life, he had slumped right back down again.

"Oh, but it was really funny." The girl (Hikaru had kind of forgotten her name) laughed giddily, as though they were suddenly best friends. "Because she didn't even know what she was doing!"

Hikaru faked a laugh, feeling miserable.

I miss Haruhi.

He knew that really, he should be trying to entertain her and give her a good impression of him. After all, the next time he saw any of the people around him might be in business deals, where reputation matters. So, really, he should be showing them all how mature and competent he was, instead of visibly sulking because he'd lost his twin and his Haruhi.

But... he was Hikaru.

Entertaining girls was something he did with his twin at his side, not alone when he bound to say something too informal for a ball (note that he didn't actually count Haruhi in with his use of the word 'girls').

In the club, flirting with the female costumers had meant... well, actually their costumers usually didn't really want him to flirt with them, preferring any suggestive glances to be thrown at his brother.

No help there then.

He sighed inwardly as the girl launched into another story, unable to think of anything to do but listen to her mindless chatter.

He really must be out of practise, after a whole year with no hosting duties.

Haruhi had once told him he had a naturally flirty personality, so slipping back into the role of being the mischievous host he used to be, even without Kaoru, shouldn't be that... Hikaru suddenly froze.

He had... been flirting with Haruhi. He must have done. They'd been going out for a year. So... what did he do when he was flirting with her...?

Oh my god, how do I flirt with Haruhi? I can't remember! He inwardly gasped in horror. Maybe she's not here because I always act too perverted or something and now she never wants to speak to me again! Oh my god! She's going to leave for university and I'll never see her again! Because... because... I must flirt wrong! Ahhh! Noooo! Haruhi!

Despite the fact totally random bursts of 'Haruhi' babbles were perfectly normal, Hikaru was luckily saved from drowning completely in his sudden panic by... um... the tall girl. Whatever. It's wasn't like Hikaru really wanted to remember her name.

"Oh!" She gasped, giggling giddily. "I almost forgot! I actually came over here to deliver a message to you, Hikaru!"

And then she beamed at him, as though she wanted him to start praising her or something, even though it had taken her ten minutes of exited talk before she had actually remembered what she had come over for. Hikaru just blinked at her.

"Huh?" He stated intelligently, still a bit dazed from his earlier panic. "A... message?"

"Yeah! Haruhi's gone home!"

"Eh?"

"I know." She muttered, lowing her voice as if she was passing on some scandalous gossip, and appearing totally nonplussed at the look of complete horror on Hikaru's face. "Kaoru said he ate some bad commoner food or something and-"

"Kaoru?"

She suddenly giggled, making the oldest twin twitch all the more.

"Yeah! You know, your twin?"

"Kaoru's taking Haruhi home and sent you to tell me?"

Don't shoot the messenger, don't shoot the messenger.

The girl fluttered her eyelashes and gave him a simpering smile. "Yeah! Weren't you listening, silly?"

Oh-my-God. Don't-shoot-the-messenger-don't-shoot-the-messenger-don't-shoot-the-messenger-no-matter-how-much-I-freaking-want-to.

"Oh, look!" She suddenly gasped, looking past Hikaru as he sulked and staring in wonder at the golden stairway that cascaded into the hall. "It's her! Well, I think it is." She added in a perky chirp. "Yes, it must be. Oh, Hikaru, she-"

"Oh my God! I don't freaking care! Just shut up for a second!"

Messenger officially shot.

But if the girl was anything, it was thick-skinned (and, apparently, bullet proof); she barely blinked at his grumpy comment before she giggled again, sounding like fast-talking hamster. On helium.

"But Kaoru said you know her! Don't you want to see her?"

"No."

"Sure you do!"

"Sure I don't."

"It's Haruhi's cousin, though; she's really pretty, isn't she?"

"Huh?" Hikaru frowned in confusion at her remark before finally turning round to see for himself, trying to remember if Haruhi actually had any cousins and why, if she did, this cousin would be going to their ball when Haruhi herself was apparently sick.

He looked up.

Then he saw her.

And he nearly combusted on the spot.