I'd like to give a shoutout to bookloveforever for the absolutely amazing cover they've given me for this story! I love it so much, and I hope you guys do as well!

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Micah's POV

Silence. 

Pure and simple silence.

That was the miracle I experienced as my eyes, heavy with forgotten sleep, slowly drifted open. The room was dark, shadowing anything relevent that could have told me where I was, but the familiar warmth of a hand-knit throw I was snuggled up in confirmed it. I'd somehow made it back to my room, in my own home.

Which meant the Host Club had, yet again, violated my personal space. And possibly broken several laws, depending on how they got in.

I yawned, stretching my arms above my head. All nausea was gone, no trace of my ill feelings left. My head had cleared as well; a good thing, too, since I would have been at a loss for what to do next had my mind been foggy.

The door suddenly slammed open, startling me into falling completely off the bed and onto the floor in a flurry of sheets, blankets and pajamas I didn't remember putting on. It better have been Haruhi or I'll make good on my promise at Neko-kun's beach, I thought irately as I attempted to free myself of the vicious tangle of cloth. 

Probably noticing I was a lost cause, some unseen force deftly took hold of my comforter and lifted it off of me in one foul swoop, leaving me suddenly still and blinking in confusion at the lack of constricting material. A large hand settled in front of my face. 

Mori's hand. However much it surprised me, I knew it him the moment I saw his hand. Who else could have owned such a gigantic mitt? Smiling in gratitude, I placed my hand in Mori's and he carefully lifted me to my feet, where I was instantly attacked by a flying blonde chibi.

"Miiiiii-chan!" Honey cried, burying his face in my chest. I would have blushed, had it not felt like a mother comforting her small child. "You're finally awake! Takashi and I were so worried, even when Kyo-chan said you'd be alright!"

I internally groaned. What a lovely thought. Yet again, I owed Kyouya something. Would he add to my already stifling debt of one year's service? Doubtful. He'd most likely find some other form of punishment that would have me begging for servitude. I had an incredible first day back at the Host Club to look forward to.

"Sorry to have worried you, Honey," I soothed, smoothing out his tousled blonde hair with one hand and hugging him close with the other. "I'm guessing Kyouya explained why I collapsed?" Honey nodded without removing his head from my chest. Many girls would have found to be either flattering or indecent, but I just smiled and patted his head. "You were right about Daire; trouble doesn't really begin to describe what he's been causing me these past few weeks. Though I suppose the rotten fish was my own fault..."

I expected Honey to giggle or make some cute comment, but he remained uncharacteristically silent. I furrowed my brow in concern, looking up at Mori for answers. Yet he (this time characteristically) was quiet and expressionless, and offered no conceivable help. "Honey...?" I began cautiously.

He sniffled. "Dai-chan was horrible to you," he mumbled softly. My spin stiffened, and I went rigid in fear. He knew? He knew what hell Daire had put me though? I was in the process of forming a semi-coherent syllable when Honey raised his head and met my gaze. "You talk in your sleep, Mi-chan. It makes you look really cute, though..."

A solemn nod from Mori agreed; this was fact. I talked in my sleep and spilled my most disasterous secrets of the heart. Any and all careers in the spy world were snatched away from me that day by the cold claws of reality and irritating habits. 

"I'm..." Looking at Honey's sparkling brown eyes, I found I couldn't lie. Sighing, I continued with the only available option. "I'm trying to get over it still," I confessed, tucking Honey against me again so he wouldn't see the agony in my eyes. A year had passed and the sting of that betrayal hadn't lessened at all. It may even have grown with the separation. Something I said to Daire came back to me while I held Honey as securely as he held Usa-chan.

I honestly do miss Riley and Damian... I wonder how they're getting on, considering how angry Damian became after the... incident...

I shook off the thought. I wouldn't be seeing them again, so there was no point in wallowing in misery increased by only the thought of them. 

I wasn't sure how long had passed before Mori spoke up, shattering the silence of my room. "School will be starting soon," he reminded us, as gently as he could. Honey mumbled a muffled protest, but I coaxed him into rising to his feet and scampering after Mori as he turned to leave. Just before he closed the door, I called out, "I'll be attending today too, so wait for me please!"

Honey's mood brightened visibly, and he skipped giddily along behind Mori as he left the room, making sure to close the door behind him. I stood, dusted off my pajamas, and cast a withering glance at the untidy heap on the floor. Waste time making my bed or just leave it be until I get home....? Perhaps I should have gotten a maid when I moved here...

In the end, I dumped the blankets onto my mattress but left them otherwise untouched, then grabbed my uniform and hurriedly changed so I could meet Honey and Mori at the door. Mori, who'd apparently become well acquainted with my kitchen during my comatose period, handed me a freshly polished apple I knew to be from my stash on the counter. I downed it greedily, having realized just how hungry one becomes after long periods of fitful sleeping. And what a night I'd endured. 

"The rose," Mori said abruptly while I was climbing into Honey's limo; the little blonde had gone ahead of me already. "You kept it."

I raised a quizzical brow at Mori, half inside the limousine, toes of one foot still barely touching the pavement by his Italian-leather shoes. Yes, I noticed they were Italian. Coming from a family as culturally stagnant as my own, one learns to identify such things with ease. "Of course I did," I told him. "I would never throw away a rose from you, Mori. I was too happy to recieve it that day to do something so ungrateful. I'm only surprised it's kept as long as it has." I paused, head cocked to the side. "Were you surprised?" I asked curiously.

His soft smile curled his lips, ever so slightly. "I'm glad I gave it to you as well," was all he said in response. Before he could notice my flushing cheeks, I slid into the seat next to Honey, head down, hair a screen to keep me from the world of embarrassment seeing Mori's face would introduce me to. 

The ride was silent, or would have been silent if Honey was unconscious. Hopefully he didn't talk in his sleep as fluidly as I seemed to. But the point was, Honey talked up a storm yet again, chattering on and on about things a person off the street would have found meaningless and tad obsessive. You guessed it: He talked non-stop about sweets. 

"Honey," I interjected, raising a hand, threatening to cover his mouth, "I honestly don't think you should even talk about the idea of covering ramen in chocolate. Please, I beg of you, do not ever, under any circumstances, eat something even remotely like that. I'd rather die, and it wouldn't even be me eating it." He only giggled, which worried me. I turned to Mori pleadingly. "For my sake, Mori, keep him from eating strange things?"

He nodded and a wave of relief spilled over me. Honey seemed an impuslive eater, but I was sure Mori was more than capable of keeping him in check, even if he suffered from depression afterwards. I let out an internal sigh. Those two had one of the most dysfunctional relationships I'd ever seen, yet it worked, somehow.

And I loved them all the more for it. 

Honey and Mori had to hurry off to the third-year wing of the school for classes, so I was left to wander to classroom 1-B by myself. I'd found out on the limo-ride over that I'd only been asleep for the one day. The Host Club had, apparently, stayed with me until midnight, when Kyouya called and reminded them that if any were late for school or club duties the next day, he'd have something special planned for them. 

Kaoru, Hikaru and Tamaki bolted after wishing me well. Haruhi stayed until one in the morning; she would have stayed longer, but her father, worried sick because she hadn't called, showed up at my door and demanded she come home. That left Mori and Honey, who weren't swayed by Kyouya's threats and fell asleep in my living room, where they'd woken up just before I had.

A pleasant warmth sprouted in my chest at the thought of most of the hosts even staying for as long as they had (cowards though they were). And Honey and Mori... they were so sweet, worrying over me for so long. 

Truthfully, though, what made me even happier was knowing they'd put the toilet seat down. My father, after twenty years living with my mother and her whip, had yet to master that simple art. It was one of the only things they disagreed on. 

I slid into my seat just as the bell rang. Not surprisingly, all eyes snapped to me. I raised a brow, daring them to break the silence. Not a soul moved, not a foot shuffled, not a finger twitched. Our homeroom teacher, Kazumi-sensei, was still as she observed the scene. She'd be of no help, seeing as how she rather enjoyed our awkward moments and let us solve problems amongst ourselves. 

I could've sworn a cricket chirped, flitting though the sound was.

My scowl became external, transforming my normally passive face into something monstrous. "If you've got a question, ask it before I decide to insult your entire family in realistic and graphic detail," I snapped.

Several snickes drifted through the room, but otherwise it remained uncomfortably hushed. Eyes darted this way and that, prompting others to take up the torch and demand answers to their pointless questions. Rumors must have flown through the ornate halls after my collpase the day before; however close-lipped Honey claimed the Host Club to be, word would have slipped out somehow or another. A passing comment, a worried phone call overheard, an anxious fangirl head poking into the club room while they frantically tried to wake me. 

Anything and everything was possible. What mattered was that it was obvious the word was out.

A brave child, turned around fully in his seat to give me the full effect of his uncompromising stare, began, "I heard you fainted yesterday. What happened--?"

He wasn't given the chance to finish, nor I the chance to answer, because the door exploded open and in ran Daire, hair disheveled, shirt untucked and jacket half on. His tie hung uselessly around his neck like he handn't bothered with it at all. Wide eyes stared frantically into mine as he heaved in gulping breaths. "You... you're...." 

"Fine," I supplied flippantly, breaking eye contact with him pointedly to rest my gaze on the blackboard, where Kazumi-sensei had written out today's lesson plan. Oh, how I loathed geometry. "I'm perfectly fine," I went on to the blackboard. It was a pleasanter conversation than any I'd had with Daire in recent times. "Nothing serious. A simple case of sleep-deprivation. Now sit down, Daire. You're causing enough of a scene already."

Mutely, Daire shuffled to his seat at the front of the room and dropped into it as though he weighed a thousand pounds. His bag thumped lifelessly against the ground. People stared; they always would. It had been no different the day Daire emotionlessly announced to our class that we were "over". He'd had to, if we wanted to be seen in public with Veronica without invoking unnecessary questions. There had been several cheers from the ungodly hormonal girls, but the hawk-eyed staring had been overwhelming. Now, I saw just how vicious a cycle this was.

I scribbled in my notebook, futilely attempting to finish homework I'd been assigned the day before, as Kazumi-sensei exchanged places with Toshiro-sensei (whom I'd had a mental fangirl moment over when I'd heard his name for the first time; not entirely a disappointment, as it turned out). He was, in fact, a snow-haired man in his mid-twenties, with green-tinted blue eyes the color of a frozen lake caught in a storm. My fragile crush on him had been ripped to shreds the moment he started mercilessly beating geometry into me, though.

And so it went that day. Daire's eyes were glued to me when he thought I wasn't aware of it, whispers were traded among my peers, chilling glares were sent my way from girls without want or care that didn't involve Daire's happiness (and possibly his virginity, as some of those glares were turned on him and morphed into something akin to lust).

I was rather adept at ignoring it all and was passably unaffected by the time the final bell chimed and I quickly gathered my things to speed down to the Host Club. But I stalled when I passed the bulletin board, covered in brightly-colored posters that were eye-catching enough to snag my already divided attention. One, a delicate green thing lined with fanciful script, caused my heart to race. 

"Auditions for Peter Pan this Saturday ~ 1:00pm to 3:00pm ~ Performing Arts Center"

Saturday. Tomorrow. No Host Club duties to worry over, no homework to drown me. Perfection. They must have had students with various after-school activities in mind when they decided the date of the auditions. Perhaps the Universe didn't forsake me as brutally as I'd thought.

When I entered Music Room 3, I realized just how much of a burden I'd been to its other occupants. It was the first day since I'd arrived at Ouran that Tamaki hadn't set up some outlandish theme for the club. The boys were only flirting in their respective zones, in their normal uniforms, without decoration or hook. 

It may have blackened my heart with guilt, but I much preferred them this way.

Quietly, so as not to disrupt them, I slipped over to my work station and gathered the ingredients for the cookies I'd baked what felt so long ago, the day I'd been "coerced" into joining this club as itts pastry chef. I didn't even really prepare pastries all that often; the moniker was misleading, if anything, and the blame was all on Kyouya for continuing on with my intended insult long after its time had come and gone.

I was in the process of adding sprinklings of cinnamon to the still-doughy concoction when a blonde head popped up in front of my counter and nearly caused me to wet myself. "Cookies, Mi-chan?" he asked eagerly. I laughed, bobbing my head in confirmation. 

"Your favorite," I added as I began mixing in the last of the ingrediants - by hand of course. My Italian pride wouldn't have it any other way. "They'll be ready in about twenty minutes." As I talked, I finished stirring and moved on to rolling out individual balls of dough onto a sheet I'd prepped earlier. 

"Oh, Mi-chan, are you still planning to audition for Peter Pan?" Honey asked curiously.

"Mmm," I hummed, too absorbed in my work to make proper conversation.

"What part are you trying out for? Tinker Bell?"

"Ah, no." I couldn't imagine myself in her flimsy green dress, let alone the sight of myself in a blonde wig. Despite what Kyouya so carelessly claimed, I enjoyed my dignity and would rather not soil it with such drivel. "I'm more suited for Wendy, don't you think? She's a bookworm and unwilling gets sucked into Peter's adventures because she's following her siblings. I think my current situation has some similarities," I added teasingly as I pushed closed the oven door and set the timer. Twenty minutes. My baking skills were exact, and I never let customers wait a moment more than absolutely necessary. Another aspect of my Italian pride, I suppose. 

"You'll be a great Wendy!" Honey chirped, giving me his adorable closed-eye smile that I'd never be immune to. Touched, after dusting off my flour-stained hands, I patted his head.

"Thank you, Honey, that means a lot to me. What role were you thinking about?"

"Peter Pan," he answered, without any hesitation whatsoever. I blinked. That... actually made a good deal of sense. He was light enough for the required aerial acrobatics, and he had a sort of impish charm about him. Though the twins probably resembled Peter more than the little blonde did, I much preferred Honey to their nerve-rattling selves. I only wondered whether Honey had the acting abilities to perform the role acurately, or if he was planning on winning the part on cuteness alone. I doubted he'd have any trouble with it, but I hoped he was serious about the part. I was certainly serious about my own.

"Have you read the story?" I asked. I'd read it as a child and never cared for the Disney version. Disney, in my opinion (even at the tender age of six) ruined perfectly good fairy tales with their ideals. The most emotionaland telling moments were always left out in fear of children's dissatisfaction. While I couldn't say if it was true specifically for Peter Pan, I was too biased to watch the movie for answers. "I know it's a western novel but... well, I'm curious."

Honey giggled. "Yup! Takashi's read it too! We've loved it since we were little," he told me enthusiastically. "I was really excited when I found out we were putting on the play. And I know it'll be even better with you in it, Mi-chan! You'll get to wear cute outfits again~!"

It was obvious Honey adored cute things, which explained his friendliess towards Haruhi and I. While I didn't consider myself beautiful, I knew I had a dollish quality that others found heartwarming - apart from the eerie orbs, that is.

In any case, his obsession with my wardrobe was something I could have done without.

"Well, let's just see how the auditions go, shall we?" I suggested. Honey, energized by the prospect, laughed and skipped back to his waiting clients, prattling on to them about how they should come and see us when the play opened, making sure to bring both sweets and flowers. The squealed, overjoyed that they'd get to see Honey on stage, among the lights and magic, while Mori, amused, cast a faint smile in my direction.

I raised a thumbs-up as a reply, unsure what to say. He seemed too pleased for such a simple chat, though I didn't mind the flush of color that came to my cheeks. I blushed so often around them - the boys - that is was all but natural now.

While I was waiting for the cookies, I felt my phone buzz in my pocket. Confused (as I didn't get many texts that weren't from the Host Club) I unlocked the screen and shifted through my latest texts (Tamaki had sent me about two dozen this morning, asking how I was and if I was alright to come back to school and things of that nature) until I found the one in question. A number I didn't recognize blinked at me as I read over the short text:

Micah, we just found out you're in Japan! You never told us that you were going overseas. That was rather rude of you, hmm? But we need to see you. We're worried.

I already had an uncomfortable inkling of who'd sent the text when another quickly followed:

Ah, that must have sounded like a stalker text. I'm sorry. It's Damian Wells, and indirectly Riley Parker. Here's hoping you haven't forgotten us just yet.

My hand flew to my mouth, holding back a gasp I couldn't let go. As if I could forget...