Once again, the white walls of the hospital came into view and I stretched slightly, grabbing my glasses and forcing myself to ignore the pain that was streaking though me, thank heavens for pain killers because the pain was much better than it had been before. "It's good to see you awake Miss Parrik," The voice from the corner of the room caused me to jump badly and yelp, attempting to get in a defensive position, but failing miserably because of the IV that was still stuck in me. 

Sitting in the corner of the room with his black folder held loosely in his hands was the shadow king himself, looking at me as though I was providing him with the most interesting puzzle ever, "Kyoya?" The hesitation in my voice was palpable, "What are you doing here? You're supposed to be at the beach still."

He chuckled and moved to sit in a chair that was closer to me, "You slept through the rest of that, we returned from the beach an hour ago, and I came to check on you barely ten minutes ago; I was only doing the responsible thing and visiting one of the guests who had been hurt while in our care, is that not okay?" His expression was mostly blank, but I could see a small smirk forming as he said that, sarcastic butthead, "Anyways, I came to see if you were alright and ask some questions."

"Well, as you can see, I'm okay," I muttered, there was something off about this whole thing, I couldn't help but feel like I was in a trap that was slowly closing; if I didn't know that jumping out of bed and running away would have caused my IV to come crashing down as well, causing a hideously loud noise, I would have done that with no hesitation.

"I'm glad to hear that, from what the reports mentioned, you would have been a lot worse off if the security guard hadn't found those boys dragging you away," He flipped through some pages and I grimaced slightly, some of my memories had come back, and I knew clearly exactly what would have happened, "You should be free to go as soon as you're dressed, your parents are downstairs waiting for you," he paused then pushed up his glasses, causing a glare to cover his eyes, "The questions I had involve your medical history, would you care to explain this?"

I gulped as he pulled a piece of paper from his folder and presented it to me, when crap like this happened in anime, you knew stuff was about to get real, and I suppose that this was no difference. In my hands was a part of my past that I never wanted to be revealed, "Why, may I ask, do you have a copy of this?" My voice was sharp enough to cut through ice and I fought the temptation to tear the document in my hands to little pieces, removing the proof of its existence from the room.

"It is protocol to go through a patient's medical history before attempting to treat them, it is done purely out of concern, I assure you." And there was his false caring voice again, I wanted to smack him.

He met my glare without flinching and continued his fake host smile as I growled in frustration, "I'm not an idiot, Kyoya, I understand why the hospital has my records, my question is why you have my records; I'm no expert, but you don't look like the doctors who were treating me, and doctor patient confidentiality should protect my records from a third party source like you from getting them."

He sat back slightly and smiled eerily, "That isn't something you need to know; however, if you answer the questions I have about why you were committed to the psych ward in your hospital two years ago for twenty days, then I'll consider telling you how I got this."

At that moment, I swear I saw the outline of one of those Shinigami behind Kyoya, heaven help the world if he ever found a Death Note, I had a feeling he would be worse than Light Yagami.

I forced myself to take a few deep breath and released my grip on the paper in my hands, a record of admission to the said psych ward, while considering Kyoya carefully. If I told him, he would hopefully leave me alone, but the only people who knew the full circumstances of that day were my parents, so I was in no hurry to tell one of the most manipulative people I had ever met the full truth. Kyoya was a nice guy deep beneath the surface, I had heard stories of things he had done for Risa and others, but a larger part of me didn't trust him, maybe I would tell him eventually, but certainly not like this.

"It looks like we're both leaving here disappointed then," I said casually, handing the now wrinkled paper back to him, trying and failing to come off as unconcerned, "I would like to go home though, so it'd be great if you left now."

He surprised me when he nodded and stood to leave without complaint, though I swear he was telling me with his eyes that he would find out eventually, which was probably true, but that didn't mean I had to like it. Before he turned to leave he looked at me once more with a glimmer of humor in his eyes, "Just so you are aware, I didn't tell the Host club about what happened, but I don't imagine it will take them too long to find out, expect them to visit you soon." With that he was gone, and I swear that I turned into a chibi version of myself, staring at the wall in utter hopelessness, hoping that I could survive the host club's particular brand of caring.

***

As Kyoya had predicted, not even an hour had passed before I got a text from the twins asking if I had died and that Tamaki was making them come over so please don't kill them for springing this on me. Sadly, the killing them option was a rather inviting one, but since that was against the law, I settled for huffing angrily every five minutes as I paced around the kitchen in my home, ignoring my parents, who were watching my every move as though I were a ticking timebomb.

Ever since I was released from the hospital it had been like this, Dad pretending not to watch me while doing work on his laptop, mom outright staring at me (though she had gotten better, for the first twenty minutes she refused to let me go and kept muttering how much she loved me), and me muttering about irritating hosts.

"Why are you so mad that they are coming over, Jess?" Mom said innocently, trying to get me to lighten up, "You always hang out with the twins and about how much you enjoy being around these boys during their... club." I couldn't help but grin slightly at how hesitant Mom was in mentioning the host club, she found it more amusing than anything, but Dad nearly had a conniption when he found out that I was hanging out with boys who did nothing but flirt.

My scowl came back when I remembered that the Hosts were why I was irritated, "It isn't the Hosts themselves, it's why they're coming over and the fact that they're bringing Tamaki with them," I grumbled, finally grabbing a family sized bag of chips that I made sure was always in here and sitting gingerly. I was still sore, so pacing around had done me no favors.

My mom smiled slightly and reached over to steal a chip from my bag, "If you want, I could send them away, it won't kill them to wait until school to see you; you should probably rest anyways, it's been a hard two days for you."

"No," I said, sighing deeply, "They're just worried, and I understand that, it would be rude to at least see them." My body was ready to give up, so I decided it would be for the best to go lay down before I collapsed, "When they get here, could you send them to our main living room? I'm going to go lie down there." I limped out of the room, keeping my chips with me, after the pain I went through to grab those dang chips there was no way I would leave them here.

Mori's POV

I half listened to Tamaki, Mitsukuni, and the twins talk as we sat in a limo together, heading towards Jessica's home, we were all on our way there except for Risa who was moving out of the Ootori's and needed to pack, and Kyoya, who claimed he needed to help her pack. When we had heard about Jessica being hurt on our trip, the twin's immediately got ahold of us to go visit her; they were all shocked that they hadn't noticed Jessica's absence, but I wasn't too surprised, we had, after all, been focused on Risa getting hurt at the time.

At the thought of Risa, my heart clenched slightly, I refused to admit it to myself for a long time, but I cared for her more than just as a friend, and now she was Kyoya's. I could only blame myself for not speaking up sooner, but that didn't stop it from hurting whenever I thought of her. It hurt, there was no way around that, but I knew she would be in good hands, Kyoya looked at Risa in a way that I had never seen him look at anyone else, he deserved happiness to, and I knew they could find it together. Inwardly, I shook my head, if I told Mitsukuni my thoughts about all this, he would probably tell me I sounded like a cliched character in those romance novels that girls read all the time. I looked over at my cousin and watched as he interacted happily with the others, the last day had been hard on him, he was close to both Risa and Jessica, so knowing that he hadn't been able to save either of them from being hurt was weighting on him. To be honest, the past few days had been hard on both of us, I may not be as close with Jessica, but I respected her, I had only seen it once, but there was an inner strength to her that I couldn't help but admire, though the fact that she reminded me of Risa kept me from getting too close to her.

The trip passed quickly enough, and before I knew it, we were climbing out of the limo in front of an oddly styled house, the wrap around porch and the texture of the walls was distinctly un-Japanese, but it was nice still. I passively watched as Tamaki began ranting about Americans, and the twins stood to the side snickering at him; I knew those two spent a lot of time with Jessica, so I imagine that none of this was new to them.

My cousin, however, ignored the others and walked to the door, anxious to make sure his friend was okay. I followed behind him and gently patted his head to sooth some of the anxiety; at my touch, he turned around and looked at me with eyes that showed some of the stress he was under, so I picked him up and perched him on my shoulders to help calm him a bit.

Before we could even knock on the door, it was swung open by an older woman who was a little shorter than Kyoya, who had short, dark brown hair, and a face that was lit up by a smile. It was obvious that this was Jessica's mom, and from the grin she was sending us, she knew exactly who we were, "Oh, so you're the boys who have been making my daughter so flustered," She said in English, "I'm torn between chewing you out for letting her get hurt and thanking you for being there for her; she's been happier than I've seen her in a while since coming here!" She stood back slightly, inviting us in with a gesture.

Once we were all in, she shut the door behind us and began walking deeper into the house, before stopping in front of a door, "She's waiting for you in the living room, though she might be asleep, so let me go in first to check; after the last few days, she needs every last bit of sleep she can get." (I'm sick of using italics for right now, just know that whenever they speak around Jessica's mom, it will be in English.)

She cracked the door open and peeked her head in before pulling it out and gently closing the door while shaking her head gently, "Nope, she's out," The woman leaned her head against the door for a minute before turning back to us with another gentle smile, "How about you boys come with me to the kitchen so we can talk for a little while before Jessica wakes up, I'm pretty sure I had the maids make cookies yesterday, and we can raid Jessica's treat's that she makes sure is always stocked."

"Mrs. Parrik, why did you answer the door? Don't you have people who can do that kind of thing for you?" One of the twins asked, and I swear I heard Haruhi say something about rich people, though I wasn't really focused on her at the moment.

Mrs. Parrik laughed for a moment before realizing that it was a serious question and falling into a slightly awkward silence, "Oh, well, I guess I don't see the point in having a maid do that for me." She looked at us as she shoed us into the kitchen, "Back in America, we never had any help around the house, so I feel silly making one of my employees do something for me that I am perfectly capable of doing on my own. The cooking and cleaning they can do all day long, since I help my husband with his work every now and then, I have neither the time or desire to do chores all day, but getting the door is something I can do."

Her gaze stopped when she saw me, mischief began dancing in her eyes and I'm pretty sure her smirk became more sinister, just what had she heard about me?

"Oh, you're a tall one, aren't you?" she approached when she asked this, and for the first time ever, I felt the need to back away from someone who was advancing on me, "I remember Jessica mentioning you, she was surprised to meet someone taller than her while she was here." Thankfully, the woman stopped, and her smile lost the sinister edge, though I couldn't miss the smirks that I was getting from the twins, and even my cousin; he may have been on my shoulders, but I could feel him trying to suppress his laughter. "We have a son your height, though he isn't a champion of fighting like you are!"

Haruhi took pity on my situation and cleared her throat to get Mrs. Parrik's attention, "Is your son still in America?" As soon as the woman turned away and began talking about her family, I pulled Mitsukuni down from my shoulders and sat at the counter quickly, ignoring the snickers from everyone in the room.

We sat there for at least ten minutes, the others were chatting pleasantly, as I listened; now that Mrs. Parrik, or Kim, as she insisted we call her, didn't have her attention on me, she was a good person to be around. She was engaging and loving, even though she didn't know us at all; all was going well until Mitsukuni asked a question that caused all of the joy to leave her face in an instant, "Kim, where did Jessi-chan get the scar on her neck from?"