"Princess." Grinning from ear to ear still with the knowledge that his fellow second years had finally stopped beating around the bush, Tamaki bowed beside the opened limo door with a bit more dramatic flair than was necessary. One hand gently pulling the raven haired beauty forward, he ignored the way she shook her head at him when he laid a chaste kiss against the smooth expanse of her knuckles. Motioning with his free hand toward the vehicle, he said, "Your chariot awaits."

The Higurashi girl curtsied in response once he released her hand, smiling at the way the blonde prince's face lit up even more with the action. "Why, thank you, good sir," she breathed, trying to stop the resulting giggles the whole situation brought forth. "How very kind of you to save me from the very thought of a dreaded bullet train ride!"

"You only need to ask, and I'll gladly be your knight in shining armor whenever you so please!" Overjoyed with the events of the day, Tamaki forgot himself as he stepped close enough to throw himself around her with an excited cry. Rubbing his face against the top of her head as she laughed and pushed on his chest, he continued, "Never again shall I allow you such a horrid fate, Kagome! If Saito-sensei is unable, then it is my sole purpose to—!"

A throat cleared behind him.

Slowly pivoting on his heel, Tamaki gave a nervous laugh and quickly stepped away when he noticed the gleaming, shadowed eyed stare of his best friend. "A-ah, Kyoya!" Making sure to put both hands up for the other boy to see, the blonde haired prince quickly ducked behind the opened door and ignored the faint giggle from Kagome when she stepped into the vehicle. Feeling tears beginning to well in his eyes, he pouted, "T-this is such a joyous occasion, you can't possibly expect me to not… not… uh…!"

Readjusting his glasses, the Shadow King lightly mocked him by saying, "Can't expect you to not not what exactly, Tamaki?" and glared a little harder.

"He's just happy for you, senpai." Shaking her head, Haruhi sighed a little, still not entirely sure how exactly she had been roped into this extremely inconvenient road trip that was going to take them to a shrine half way across Tokyo and back again. Any protests that she should be dropped off first along the way had been blatantly ignored, and she could not help but slant her best impression of a dead fish up at the Ootori boy for allowing this. "You and I both know that he probably can't help himself, so if we could just go already, that would be great. I have homework I need to finish."

Brightening back up a bit, Tamaki exclaimed, "Haruhi, I would be more than happy to—!"

"No." Ignoring the immediate slip back into his dramatic little corner behind the limo door, Haruhi shifted her school bag higher up onto her shoulder. Taking the last few steps toward the awaiting vehicle with the hopes that they would get the testosterone filled whatever out of their system so they could leave, the Fujioka girl cast him a sideways glance knowing that it was useless to try and argue her point again. "I would just like to leave if that's alright with you."

"That makes two of us!" the Higurashi girl's own aggravated voice called from inside the vehicle. Clearly still annoyed from earlier, her head popped out the moment Haruhi stepped inside to find a seat so that she could scowl in the Ootori boy's general direction. "Stop trying to pick a fight with Tamaki-kun just because you're a jerk, Kyoya!"

Blinking at the sight of her disappearing back into the limo, Tamaki pouted a little more when he noticed Kyoya's glare still fixated upon him. "It's not my fault she's mad at you," he whimpered, ducking a little lower when the other boy moved to enter the vehicle himself. Feeling the door pull away from him, Tamaki gave a cry when it shut behind the Shadow King without remorse. "Hey! That's not funny, Kyoya!"

Inside, Kagome rolled her eyes slightly and asked, "Really?"

Taking the available seat beside her, Kyoya crossed one leg over the other and waved his hand dismissively toward the door the moment it was yanked back open to allow Tamaki entrance. "I thought it was only fitting," he smiled toward his best friend, watching him visibly wince when the first dark, possessive wave washed over him, "since he was the one preventing us from leaving in the first place. As you requested, mind you."

"You still don't have to be so mean to him," she quibbed.

"Now, Kagome, I'm not entirely sure what exactly you're accusing me of."

"Oh!" Puffing out her cheeks a little, the Higurashi girl scowled at the familiar attempt to divert the conversation. "Don't give me that, you know exactly what I'm accusing you of, mister."

Chuckling, Kyoya's eyes hooded a little, delighting in the way she quickly turned her head to hide the rosy hue that instantly surfaced upon her cheeks. Leaning toward her a little, he released a soft exhale across her ear, as he said, "Perhaps you'd care to enlighten me then?"

Scooting further away from him, Kagome huffed, "I don't need to enlighten you when you're perfectly aware of your own actions, Kyoya."

"Hm," he hummed lightly in response. His glasses reflecting the faint flashes of sunlight filtering in through the tinted windows, he turned his suddenly predatory smile toward the opposite side of the limo when it became obvious the raven haired beauty meant to ignore him once she had said her piece. The vicious little tilt at the corner of his lip widened at the sight of Tamaki squirming beneath the stare almost immediately, watching as he attempted to hide behind Haruhi and quickly got rebuffed by the girl's own glare. "What do you think, Tamaki? Am I mean to you?"

"U-uh," Tamaki laughed, looking away, "I wouldn't say y-you're mean, exactly, but, uh… well…"

"See?" Kyoya's face softened back out when he turned toward the girl still pointedly looking out the opposite window. Brushing back a few stray strands of hair that had fallen out of place, he slowly tipped an eyebrow when he noticed her glancing back at him from the corner of her eye. "Even Tamaki doesn't think I'm mean to him."

"Oh, that's not at all what he said," Kagome scoffed. "I believe I remember hearing a rather big but there at the end."

"Well then," the Ootori boy's eyes gleamed, "I suppose we'll just have to agree to disagree then, won't we, Kagome?"

Even Haruhi sighed at that, knowing that the Shadow King had almost effectively dug his own grace by throwing the second year girl's words back at her. Shaking her head as she watched Kagome quickly swivel her eyes back around to glare at him again, she turned her own attention to the blonde still squirming beside her. "How long does it normally take to get to the Higurashi shrine, Tamaki-senpai?"

"It should only take us roughly about an hour or so to return you to your home, Haruhi," Kyoya answered instead, adjusting his glasses beneath Kagome's twitching stare. "That is, of course, if traffic is agreeable. There were not any obvious delays earlier, but there's always the chance of an accident occurring along the way."

Tamaki nodded enthusiastically, saying, "You'll love the shrine, Haruhi! It's on this little hilltop, and Kagome's family has their own Goshinboku that's—!"

"I've been to shrines before, Tamaki-senpai," Haruhi sighed, cutting him off. "My father and I go to a nearby temple for almost every festival they host. It's not like it's a novelty that I don't get to see very often."

"O-oh, of course," he laughed lightly in return, scratching his cheek. "The joys of commoner living, right?"

An awkward silence developed in the back of the limo then, as Haruhi continued to blink owlishly at the blonde haired prince. It was very rare that it occurred to her that he had not been born and raised in Japan, despite his obviously foreign appearance. Releasing a gentle breath, she supposed that the tradition might have been something that easily slipped his mind given the circumstances. Deciding to forget about the incident entirely, the Fujioka girl blinked a little more when she turned to find herself staring into curious cobalt colored eyes.

"Ah." Kagome tipped her head a little, as she said, "I've been meaning to ask you, Haruhi."

"Uh, ask me what?"

"Well, I don't want to seem rude," she smoothed out a wrinkle in the kimono she was still wearing, "but why are you wearing the boys uniform exactly? Is it just because you're in the Host Club? I know some of those girls can be… vicious."

You mean like you, Haruhi quietly mused, remembering the raven haired beauty's sudden shift into a dark incarnate earlier. Opening her mouth to respond, she felt her eyebrow twitch when the boy beside her quickly clamped a hand over her hand to prevent her from simply telling the truth when it was obvious the other girl already knew.

Tamaki waved his other hand, saying, "Kagome, don't be ridiculous, of course Haruhi would be wearing the boys uniform. I mean, look at him, he's so manly!"

Kyoya, on the other hand, did not even bother, as he hummed, "I suppose I shouldn't be surprised you figured it out so quickly."

Rolling her eyes in his direction, the Higurashi girl blinked as she asked, "Was it supposed to be a secret? It's rather obvious she's a girl. I'm surprised that nobody's actually noticed before now, but I suppose most of those girls who visit your club are more interested in swooning than anything else."

"K-Kagome!" Tamaki flailed dramatically, saying, "Our club is so much more than girls simply swooning! It is a place for romance, and the chance for young hearts to finally be given the chance to be set free so that they might—!"

Haruhi snorted in the middle of his tirade, ignoring the way he whipped his head in her direction at the sound. "Don't be ridiculous, senpai," she told him, before turning her attention back to the other girl across from her. "And, yeah, I'm a girl. I don't really care if anyone knows," her eyes slid to the Shadow King, "but business is business, right, Kyoya-senpai?"

"Oh," Kagome delighted in the way he stiffened a little, "so it's your fault she's wearing the boy's uniform. I should have known."

"To be fair," Kyoya coughed, "it was originally Tamaki's idea for her to be our club's… dog."

"What?"

"U-uh." Caught beneath the sudden scrutiny from the raven haired beauty, Tamaki floundered a bit. "W-well, you see, Haruhi broke a very expensive vase that we were planning to auction off in order to boost the club's funds," he started fidgeting more with every upward tick of Kagome's brow, "and we, well, I mean, that is…! We didn't know Haruhi was a girl!"

"How expensive was this vase?" Kagome asked.

"Eight million yen," Haruhi heaved another sigh at the memory.

"E-eight million?!" Her eyes snapping back to the Ootori boy sitting beside her, Kagome allowed her mouth to drop open slightly at the price given. "Why in the world would you keep something like that out in the open where someone could break it?"

"Again," Kyoya readjusted his glasses, "Tamaki's idea."

"Please." The raven haired beauty looked like she was about to have an aneurysm with the way she was beginning to count quietly on her fingers in an attempt to figure out how many hundreds of yen went into a million. Ignoring the way Kyoya's lip started to tilt the longer she continued, she finally blurted out, "Please, for all love of all that is holy, tell me again why you decided to let Tamaki be your club president, Kyoya?"

"H-hey!"

"The club was also his idea," Kyoya chuckled lightly back at her. "It was only fitting."

"B-but," she stammered. "Eight million yen j-just…!"

"It's really not that much," Tamaki said quietly.

"It's eight million yen!"

Haruhi felt her lip lift a little at the sight of the familiar freak out currently happening across from her. A faint, joyful chuckle escaped her then, as she found herself internally grateful that she had finally discovered someone else in that crazy Academy who had any common sense. Shaking her head at the curious stares that resulted from the sound, she kept her attention on the other girl when she said, "They're a bunch of rich idiots."

The smile slowly returning to her face, Kagome looked up at the equally raven haired boy beside her. "They really are."

"Hm?"

The Fujioka girl smiled a little more when she noticed that the two of them had every so slightly interlaced their fingers sometime during Kagome's lapse in sanity.

Kyoya might just make it out of the dog house yet.

Note: I hope all of you are staying safe in these times!