A Song For Another Time - A Hikaru Hitachiin Story

Chapter Forty - All the Times we had Together

Sometimes Hikaru found himself pondering the power of words. The way that lines and curves could make letters that mirror sounds and those sounds communicate thoughts to the world. How a word can be a name and name a word. That a two-letter word has the power to end a conversation or answer a question and a three-letter one could be both an answer and a confirmation. How flour and flower in English sound exactly the same but mean two totally different things and that admitting you got them confused could make you the butt of the joke for months to come.

That the longer you sit with a word the less real it seems — repeating it over and over again until it becomes nothing more than sounds, than lines and symbols.

He really shouldn't have been thinking about words as he stood in the middle of the empty Four Seasons' ballroom, watching both his friends and the hotel staff run back and forth with varying objects in hand. He had other things to stress about, really, but his mind was stuck on pause, turning the same thoughts over and over again: after a lifetime of surprises built into just a few years, when does the unthinkable, the shocking, the unexpected just become everyday life? Because he should know by now, he really should, that as long as he kept Tamaki in his life (or more like Tamaki kept himself in Hikaru's), he would never know a day of peace. Or, at least, would have no control over his own schedule.

In all his dreaming about attending an American prom, he never once saw himself as one of the people racing to put it together. He'd spent the majority of the last few years being in the process of either organizing or hosting events at his academy. So it wasn't like he couldn't throw together a prom if asked. (He could, okay? And it would be a damn good one at that.) But, and you can call him crazy for thinking so, he just thought that being in America would have hindered Tamaki's whims just a little bit and Hikaru would actually get a chance to attend a high school function and not host it. Just once, just this time.

Clearly, he'd been wrong.

How Tamaki got a whole private school board and student body council to agree to let the five foreign exchange students from Japan totally hijack the school's senior prom, he'll never know. Though Hikaru has some suspicions that it has something to do with the strength of Tamaki's determination and his sheer power of persuasion. (Read: the incalculable force of really good puppy dog eyes combined with the Suoh name and their pooled exuberant tuition money.) Regardless of the how, and maybe even the why, he knows he shouldn't be surprised. Tamaki being Tamaki shouldn't be a surprise anymore. (Does the word surprise even hold any strength at this point? Never mind, he's getting sidetracked again...)

So instead of taking his time getting ready, pressing out the lines of his charcoal grey vest before draping his navy suit coat over each arm and slowly straightening his tie in the mirror, savoring the process ahead of stepping into a sleek black limousine to meet the girl in the dress his brother designed but wouldn't let him look at, he was delegating tasks in his jeans while his suit hung on a hanger in the nearest restroom.

There'd be no big reveal as she walked out the door that led to her dorm building. No chance for him to casually lean against a streetlamp or wall and pretend he didn't notice her coming — like he was some unflappable male lead in those dramas his mother likes to watch on her "me days." He wouldn't be putting on her corsage as she delicately placed her hands on his chest to pin his boutonniere. He wouldn't be helping her into the limo and making jokes with her on the ride to calm her nerves, wouldn't be offering a hand to lead her out of it either, or escorting her into the venue. No, instead...

Rose stopped in her tracks as she pushed out of the door of her building and her eyes focused on a sleek, white limo sitting in the street ahead of her and the tall man in a traditional-looking black suit standing beside the rear door. All at once she was hit with an indescribable urge to laugh in the most unflattering way possible — the kind that makes people stop and stare, wondering if maybe all the screws in your head came loose at the same time — because preparing for this prom she didn't even want to go to had been nothing short of nerve wracking and all-consuming. And all of that work was supposed to accumulate into some kind of powerful release of nerves in these final few moments of peace before the hecticness of the night started.