When I regained consciousness, I noticed three things.

The first was that my wrist hurt to the point where I was certain I wasn’t going to be able to do anything with that hand until I visited the doctor.

Second, the room had gotten really, really loud.

Finally, I wasn’t on the ground anymore.

As I slowly blinked open my eyes, I attempted to see the face above me, despite the glaring ceiling lights making it difficult. It only took me a moment to realize that it should have been obvious right away who was carrying me.

“Mori..”

He glanced down at me. By then my eyes had adjusted to having the lights directly behind his head, and I could see that his expression change in the smallest degree. With it being him, however, it was impossible for me to guess what he was thinking. A slight change for Mori still made his expression seem as stoic as before.

“You’re awake,” he replied.

I nodded as he stopped walking. Instantly we were surrounded by our teammates.

“Are you okay?”

“What happened?”

“Senpai, are you okay?”

I grimaced, and I was relieved when Mori took a step back.

“Give her space,” he said in explanation.

“Can you put me down…?” I mumbled in the seconds of silence that followed.

Mori turned his eyes back to me and his lips twisted down, once again it was the smallest of movements.

“Please?” I added.

He shook his head and I frowned in response.

“He’s right, Morioka-senpai,” Ayumu said, leaning into my line-of-sight. “You passed out, you should be careful.”

“Then just sit me down on the bench,” I grumbled. “I’d be fine.”

“The referees just told me they have something set up in the nurse’s office,” Fujii commented, completely ignoring my suggestion. “You should take her there. I’ll deal with things here.”

Mori nodded and started walking again.

“I’ll come, too!” Ayumu announced and I could hear him running to catch up with us.

“I’m fine,” I said loudly, for once not bothering to hide my glare. It was bad enough I’d passed out, what would happen if my Uncle heard that I’d actually had to be carried out of the room? “I can walk. It just hurt was all.”

Although, when he heard that it was Mori who carried me, he might not be irritated.

It didn’t matter. I could handle myself just fine.

“You just got hit on your hand, didn’t you?” Ayumu asked when Mori didn’t say a word. “How could that hurt enough to make you pass out? You don’t seem the type to not be able to handle a tap on the hand, Senpai.”

Why did he have to be observant? Wasn’t he supposed to be airheaded?

“It was the shock-” I began.

“She was already hurt.”

The monotone words couldn’t have annoyed me anymore if they’d actually had some sort of emotion behind them. He didn’t have to tell Ayumu that!

“What?” Ayumu demanded, I could hear the shock in his voice. “Where?”

“Put me down!”

Neither one of them seemed to think that responding to my words was worth the effort.

“Her wrist.”

Irritated, I began struggling and froze the moment the movements jolted my injured wrist. Suddenly feeling faint once again, I decided that trying to get myself down wasn’t an option. Well, that and I had a feeling that if Mori dropped me it would hurt as high up as he was. As if he’d already known that I wasn’t going to try that hard to get myself down, all Mori gave me in response to my attempt was a glance.

Why was it that without saying anything he was completely pissing me off?

“How?” Ayumu wondered. “Wait, the first match? She got hit then, didn’t she?”

“I’m right here! Don’t talk like I’m a million freaking miles away!” I grumbled.

There was a second of silence and I realized that my comment had probably shocked him. After all, I worked pretty hard to conceal my slight temper.

“The nurse’s office is there, I believe,” Ayumu said slowly, having apparently decided to leave my comment be. “At least, that’s what the sign said.”

Without a word, Mori moved in what must have been the indicated direction. Seething, I quit trying to talk them into putting me down, and instead focused on putting together what must have happened. I’d passed out, that was for certain, and when I’d come to it must have only been a few minutes later. The round was probably put on hold… for how long, though?

“What’s going to happen?” I asked as Mori waited for Ayumu to open the door.

All I recieved in response was a shrug.

“Oh my!” a new voice exclaimed the moment we entered the room. “Put her down over here.”

I glanced towards the direction of the voice and found a short, chubby woman dressed up in what I assumed was her everyday clothes. After all, there were very few nurses uniforms that included blue jeans and a grafic tee-shirt. The woman’s frizzy black hair was pulled into a bun and her gray eyes were darting here and there, seeming to try and figure out what was going on before she’d even asked a question.

“You’re awake? Just taking advantage of the chance to have a big strong guy carry us around, are we?” she asked, an amused smile appearing on her lips when Mori sat me down on the nurse’s bed. My only response was a scowl. “Oh, that’s not the case? You didn’t seem to be fighting it, though.”

Why the hell did she have to be the nurse?

“I insisted to be put down and was refused. Can you just take care of the injury so that I can get back to the match?” I demanded.

Much to my surprise, instead of being annoyed by my attitude, the woman laughed of all things.

“Quite a temper on this one. Very well, let’s see the problem.”

Without a word, I put out my hand, wincing at the small movement. At the same time I happened to be doing my best to ignore the wide-eyed look Ayumu was giving me. Was I acting that out of character by saying what I was thinking? Perhaps I was… I needed to be more careful…

Ignorant of my thoughts, the woman easily pulled away the wrap Haruhi had put on for me. Knowing that I wouldn’t like what I saw, I turned my eyes away the moment skin started coming into view.

“Going back to the match? Dear, you must be insane. I don’t even have to touch this to know it’s broken.”

“Broken?” Ayumu echoed, sounding shocked. “But…”

“This isn’t a simple break, either,” the woman continued, her voice actually taking on a hard tone. “When did you first hurt it? Did you continue to play with this wrist?”

I didn’t respond, which was appearently enough of an answer for her. The nurse sighed, then began feeling my wrist, prompting a hiss of pain to escape my lips. When I looked back at her face, I was surprised to see the smile she’d been wearing had been abandoned in favor of pursed lips and a serious look.

“You’ll have to have an x-ray at a hospital to be sure, but I can tell you that my initial impression was probably right. There’ll be several little breaks in there, and they were probably just hairline fractures to begin with. Your lucky that you didn’t break skin if you took another hit with your wrist like this,” she said, then paused, turning her eyes to Mori and Ayumu. “You two are escorting her, right? I suggest taking her to the hospital before you head home from this match. It’d be better to get it offically checked out and treated as soon as possible.

“She’ll probably need a brace before you leave town.”

____________________________________________________

After we’d left the nurses office I ended up running into several of the host club members. Needless to say, I was scolded by numerous people within a short amount of time. Honey even seemed to be considering not sharing his cake, but then decided he would so that I could have something sweet to distract me from the pain.

They also told me that a decision to allow my team to continue had been made as long as I’d still be able to play. When the nurse shared the information with those in charge, however, it became obvious we’d have to forfeit. A few hours later found me boarding the plane with my wrist held still by a brace that I’d have rather died than have to wear.

It was hot, sweaty, and itchy, and had quickly become the most annoying thing on the plane. Not even the host club could have beat it in that matter- despite how hard they seemed to be trying.

“How long will you have to wear that?” Honey asked, leaning over the back of his seat. He’d elected to sit next to Mori when we boarded the plane. The others had mostly taken the seats they’d had on the way up.

I hesitated, glancing at the brace. Lying wouldn’t do me any good at this point.

“Only untilI get home, they suggested going immedatiely to my doctor to have a cast made.”

I glanced up at him and caught Honey making a face in response to my words.

“Nao, you should apologize to your team,” he advised.

Barely able to keep myself from scowling, I put a confused smile on my face instead.

“Why?”

“Because you worried them,” he replied, tilting his head in Mori’s direction. “Takeshi was worried, weren’t you?”

Surprised, I studied Mori’s expression. There didn’t seem to be anything of the like in it.

“Yes.”

“See?”

I blinked, glancing between the two of them. Well, if it was what they wanted… I’d have to put my pride aside. I was supposed to make them happy, after all, even if I couldn’t understand why they’d be worried. Pasting on an apologetic smile, I attempted to pull together the right words in my mind.

“I guess you’re right, I’m sorry for causing so much trouble.”

Honey frowned and shook his head.

“Not like that. You have to mean it.”

I could only stare at Honey, which seemed to amuse him.

“You do a lot of things you don’t mean,” he said in explination. “That’s why watching you eat cake is fun, cause you actually like it.”

“... then I can’t really apologize,” I muttered after a moment.

Honey’s amusement actually seemed to grow, seeing as he offered me a bright smile in return for my words.

“Then apologize when you figure it out,” he replied cheerfully. “Everyone really was worried. You probably just don’t get it yet.”

How did someone who was always acting like a little kid act so… smart sometimes?

“... alright.”

_________________________________________________

Waiting for someone to stop lecturing you isn’t exactly the most entertaining thing in the world to do.

“You do recall that I was planning to present you to the board this week, don’t you?” Uncle demanded. “How am I supposed to do that when you have your arm in a cast! A small injury would have been one thing, I could have pushed it off for a few days, but you overdid it to this extent! The meeting won’t be able to occur for months!”

I simply continued staring at the spot on the floor that I’d been training my eyes on for several minutes.

“Also, you heard the doctor, didn’t you? One more hard hit on that wrist as it was with all the little breaks from your using it past when you should have, and you could have severly damanged it to the point of having problems in the future! What sort of Morioka would you be if you weren’t able to use your hand to the extent you should?”

“A poor one, Otousan.”

It seemed my comment didn’t amuse him, instead when I chanced a glance at his expression he was scowling. A second later, however, the expression died down into what seemed like a tired one.

“You won’t be able to practice, but I’ll expect you to keep up on your studies. Also… as a result of what happened today, one of my old friends called me with a favor. It seems that his child hasn’t been behaving as he should, the details weren’t completely shared with me, but he’s wanting me to retrain the child in hopes that my way of life will influence the boy to be a bit less spoiled and a bit more of a man.”

At some point his little rant had started to cause a headache to form in the back of my mind. At the same time a bit of wariness had started to appear, I didn’t like where this was going.

“After today, I’ve decided that perhaps you could use a bit more responsiblity to help you understand that you can’t be as selfish as you are. I’m putting you in charge of him when I’m not around. He’ll be moving in either tomorrow or the day after, he’ll also be transferring to Ouran. His dad wants to get this taken care of as soon as possible, but the paperwork probably wont’ be finished until the end of next week, at which time he’ll hopefully be placed in your class.”

A boy who needed trained and was in the same grade as me and had something to do with what happened today.

Surely my luck wasn’t as bad as I was starting to think it was.

“What’s his name?” I asked.

“Kimura Ren.”

A/N: This chapter took so long to write, and I don't know why! Hopefully my irritation with this story and how poorly the chapters are turning out will die soon enough, then you guys can expect more updates! Especially with Shadow King's Princess being as close to finishing as it is.

Comment, vote, follow, you know the drill! Do as you like!

Also... I have no clue how Ren ended up how he did... it just happened.