The Person You Are
“You know,” she said, “you don't really seem the type to be a host.” She traced the floral pattern decorating the rim of her teacup, carefully drawing out her words. Her inflection had been flippant enough, but she wanted to wipe out any possibility of innocuousness, just between the two of them.
“Oh?” He raised his eyebrows, indicating surprise she knew had to be feigned. “Why not?” Of course. The expected reply.
“Well for one,” she said, glancing up and grinning at him, “you're not romantic at all.”
“You seem to be the only one that thinks so,” he rejoined, inclining his head in the direction of the girls who seemed to be fidgeting vaguely in his direction. One of them blushed and turned away.
She glared at him. She was angry; he was not taking her seriously. “But I'm right, aren't I?” She shot it at him like a challenge.
“Do Hikaru and Kaoru strike you as romantics?” he asked, his tone frightfully, infuriatingly calm. “Does Mori? Does Haruhi?”
he had no choice but to fire back: “Are you in a pseudo-incestuous relationship with your nonexistent twin brother? Do you have a strong aversion to opening your mouth and talking?” Pause. “And, well, I can sort of see Haruhi being romantic.”
He chuckled, and it sounded awful. She heard mocking, jeering, try again next time, (insulting diminutive). “So what you're saying is that you see no reason why I would be a good host.” How, she wondered, could he make an apparent concession seem like a triumph? And it would have been a grave concession, an amazing one, if she'd thought he hadn't just been humoring her. But of course, he had.
“Touché,” she said in a monotone, glancing down at her teacup. She would get no further today.
“Besides,” he said, startling her. Must he kick her when she's down? Her eyes shot back up to his face, his lips curling up in that smirk, those eyes pretending to warmth and compassion. She wanted to smack him, but she didn't. She knew she wouldn't have to wait for him to continue, because he'd have the timing exactly right. And he did.
“Besides,” he said, “you never seemed like much of a romantic to me either. I must say I never quite expected you to visit the host club, never mind request me every day for an entire month.”
She said nothing, but her face burned so hot she thought she saw one of the twins flinching away from her - but it was only a spilled cup of tea. One of the girls sitting near him started wailing at the top of her lungs: “Oh no! Hikaru-san! Your lovely arms! Someone! Quick!” Then Fujioka's voice: “What are you talking about? This is Kaoru. And his arm's fine, his sleeve's just a bit stained…” And sat there, five feet away, helpless.
She inhaled sharply as someone tapped her shoulder from behind. “No luck?” the other girl whispered into her ear, sounding more tired than anything.
“No luck,” replied.
::::
“It's not that bad,” said her friend, consolingly. She stretched in her seat on the windowsill so her face was approximately lined up with her knee. “I don't mind, so there's no reason you should.”
“That's your problem, really,” snapped back. “You don't mind enough. It's really such a bother – it means everyone else has to mind for you.”
“Well, it's not like I ask them to.”
“That only makes it worse.”
inhaled, then pursed her lips together to extend what would have otherwise been a normal breath out into what was almost a whistle. “Really, ,” she said, feeling very repetitive, “It's my problem to worry about, not yours.”
“But you're not worrying about it,” very nearly whined.
“That doesn't mean that you should.”
“Hmph.” refused, as always, to acknowledge her defeat in words. The two of them sat in the frigid January silence until she caved. “Aren't you cold up there?” she asked.
“I'm fine,” mumbled through her legs. “Warm-blooded, remember? Now really, stop worrying about me.”
“I refuse.” That was , all right. Never listened to a word anyone else said.
“Well, what can I say to that?”
“Nothing. Don't say anything. Is that your ride?”
“Yes, it is. See you tomorrow! And remember, stop worrying!”
::::
“I didn't explain myself last time.”
Ohtori Kyouya's face remained impassive as he shuffled through his brain for a suitable answer, and came up with “That's true.”
“See?” said, frowning. “This is why you're not meant to be a host. You don't make people feel good about themselves.”
“And?” he asked, because she was so wrong that he had to see the logical conclusion. It was just a little bit like watching a train wreck.
“That's part of the job of a host, you know.” Her irritation wasn't showing in her voice – yet.
“No, not really,” he said, as placidly as ever. “My job as I understand it involves getting paid for being enjoyable company.”
“Same thing.” Dismissive nod.
“No,” – reasonably – “they're not.”
“I would venture” – ah, there was that irritation, creeping up on him with frigid politeness – “to say that making people feel good about themselves is a mandatory step towards becoming enjoyable company.”
“In that case,” he said, “I would venture to argue against you.”
“Indeed?” A quirked eyebrow on her side now.
“You'd be amazed what some people enjoy.”
She stiffened. “I don't like what you're implying.”
“I was implying something?” He put his teacup down in order to rest his elbows on the table and lean in attentively.
“Yes,” she said, following his lead and bending her head towards him, so gradually it couldn't be conscious. “You mean that you will decide what people like, that you know better than I do. You mean that you will continue in this selfishness – thing – because you are Ohtori Kyouya and everything you touch turns to gold, because you are the third son and you can do whatever you damn well want, and because you can cozy up to Suoh because you can lie, you can convince him that you're a decent person because you have enough charm behind that stupidly handsome face of yours–” She recoiled abruptly enough that Kyouya found himself readjusting his glasses, rubbing his nose where hers had brushed past it rather painfully. That, he thought, was probably enough control lost for today. Then would have been a good time to stop.
“I'm sorry,” he said, instead. “I didn't quite catch that last bit.” He knew as soon as he said it that he'd pushed her too far, and he was right. She kicked her chair out rather viciously and stormed out of the Third Music Room.
He watched her go, feeling something that might almost be regret.
::::
did not have to ask what had happened. Kyouya read the question in her eyes.
“Your friend does not understand that we are our own people,” he told her, and she only nodded and shrugged.
::::
“I just think it's really stupid. He's smart, you know that. Highest grades on exams in our class every year. He knows the ramifications. So the question is, why does he keep doing it?”
“Maybe he has a reason.” slid her fingers through her long, long hair and dragged them back out.
“What sort of reason can he have?”
“Well…” Any number of them, did not say. People, things, places, ideals.
“He has to know that no one respects a host,” said, and she was so stuck on this point couldn't believe it wasn't intentional.
“That's not true,” she said for maybe the seventh time today. “Hosts deserve to be respected. The sense of etiquette necessary for such a job is impeccable, their abilities with small talk are amazing, and they have stomachs of iron and great heads for wine. Good for business.”
“Even if that's applicable,” said, hearing nothing at all, “It doesn't mean they are respected.”
“I suppose not,” said , ambivalent even about her own defense.
“And people can't really feel anything but sorry for their families, if they have them.”
“I don't like where this is heading,” said.
“But you have to admit I'm right.”
“ -chan…”
“My ride's here. Think about it.”
::::
“I reserved you for half an hour today.” She looked calm, if one ignored the fact that she was pushing her teacup back and forth across the table. “So we're not going to be interrupted.”
“Yes, you did, and no, we probably won't be.” Kyouya expected her to last ten minutes at the most. He was amused at her own estimation of herself.
“You know, I still don't know why you're a host.” She paused, and Kyouya wondered for a moment why she was still on this track.
“I have my reasons,” he told her.
She went on after a bit, as if she hadn't noticed him speaking. “It's stupid and pointless. I mean, so far as I can tell, your etiquette has been perfect since we were first years, and what else can being a host give you? It's not like you'll be one after graduation – you have a family business. And even if you didn't, you could do better.” Another pause.
“Contradict me,” she said.
He smiled. “Perhaps. Is there any particular reason why I should?”
“Stop playing mind games. Give me a reason why you – think of your reputation! You have a future, don't you! Think about that! Think about your future wife, what people will say about her: that she married a frivolous skirt-chaser, that he married her for her money. She likes you, she'll defend you, because she actually does, so why can't you just do what's right for her? Break it off, or stop this, or at least give her a choice!”
“Is this supposed to be an ultimatum?” he said, slowly and evenly. She stood up, turned on her heel, and left.
She still had twenty-four minutes and forty-two seconds of reserved time left.
::::
“I'm sorry.”
“Will you stop it?”
“What?”
“Saying sorry!”
turned to stare at her friend. “You're acting unusual. Are you all right?”
let out a hard-edged sigh. “ i-chan, how old are you?” The honorific was thrown in there the same way people threw expensive vases at walls. was reasonably intelligent. She could see the warning signs.
A quick evaluation of the situation, though, yielded the simple conclusion that knew her well enough to catch her in any sort of lie. The consequences for that particular offense would have been worse, she decided.
“Seventeen.”
“How old am I?”
“Sixteen.”
“ , my birthday is tomorrow. ”
“So? You're still sixteen.”
snorted. She wasn't very good at it. frowned.
“Yours was three weeks ago.”
“Yes.”
“You are not my mother. You're too young for that.”
paused here, even though it was so true, so obviously so. “That is correct,” she said after a moment.
sighed, looked drained. “It is.”
They sat there for a while, until 's cell phone rang.
“Goodbye,” whispered to her friend's retreating back.
::::
“It's the last day,” she said to him at their table that day.
“Yes,” he replied. She knew he knew exactly what she meant.
“I've given up,” she said, and had the pleasure of reading surprise on his face in the form of a raised eyebrow and the pushing of his glasses up his nose.
He's too young too, she realized. Even he didn't yet always see why everyone did the things they did. Only he was older than her anyway (by a month, only a month).
“Just… one last thing?” When you set your heart on something, it was hard to let it go in full.
“Yes?”
She bit her lip, suddenly shy. Then she figured she might as well ask. It wasn't like she was returning to the third music room anytime soon.
“Why – Oh my god!” She shrieked. In her nervousness, she'd upended the teapot into her lap. She couldn't just stand up – that would be a waste of an absurdly nice teapot – and so she moved slowly, too slowly, feeling the burn seep through the skirts of her uniform. And then suddenly Ohtori was there, setting the teapot on the table and hoisting her up by the shoulder and pulling her skirts away from her body and they stood there for a moment just breathing, tea dripping down those ridiculous skirts she hoped weren't beyond salvation.
And he was close, she realized, suddenly aware – too close. His right arm was wrapped around her torso, his left holding up her skirts, and his heart near her head, beating nearly as fast as her own. She pushed him away (I can hold my own damn skirts, you…), just in time to be bombarded with concern. “Waaaaah, -san, are you okay?” “Your poor, poor legs!” “Oh…” – this was Haruhi – “I don't think you'll be able to get that out of those skirts, but they probably kept the burn from being too bad…” until Kyouya waved them away, saying something about his customer and crowding her and getting her a change of clothes.
::::
“I never finished asking my question,” she said, pulling the top layer of her Ouran uniform off over her head.
“No,” Kyouya told her, voice muffled through the curtains. “You never did.”
“Why are you a host?”
He paused. Measuring his words, she thought. Deciding how much he told her would be truth and how much would be lie, allowing for truth and lies to be subjective and relative.
“For Tamaki, mostly,” he said finally, and , pulling on a clean petticoat, thought that was all he would give her, a name and then nothing. But he continued – “Because no matter what you may think, I am not just a third son, and he doesn't see me that way. Because he gave me a chance to be someone outside the confines my birth set me in, and to decide who that person was. And,” he said, chuckling softly enough for to know it was only half humor, “you don't disagree with Suoh Tamaki.” She decided Kyouya was telling mostly the truth, because that hadn't been what she'd expected, not at all. She fastened the ribbon at her collar and pushed the curtain aside, ready to leave, but Ohtori was in the doorway.
“Thank you,” she said. He did not move. “Do you have to do that?” she asked.
He eyed her quizzically.
“Rub salt in the wound,” she said. “You were right. I was wrong. You are more than the third Ohtori boy. I should have respected 's acceptance, no matter how wrong the two of you are for each other. No matter if I think you'll leave her heart cracked and bleeding, no matter if you're cold as ice and can't show anyone the affection they deserve.” That last bit was both unnecessary and wrong, knew. She'd known even as she'd said it, known that he'd just proven it false, but it had escaped anyways. Somehow her face had contrived again to be only inches away from his, and she felt the nearness tangibly but she couldn't move, she was frozen…
“Can't?” he said, eyes suddenly opaque and onyx-black, and she (imagined? hoped for? saw?) what was coming but he wouldn't but she couldn't move – and he kissed her.
It was searing, like someone had held a firebrand or a just-boiled kettle of tea to her skin, and yet she didn't pull away, not at first. At first she leaned in and gasped, just slightly, and then there was tongue and she was gone. Mindlessly, insensate, she reached out for him. One hand grasped his wrist, one twined around his neck, and she clung to him, feeling his pulse racing past her fingertips, kissing him back with all the frustration and puzzlement and anger she knew. He was angry, and so passionate that she knew this was a battle he would wage, a war. And so she knew it couldn't be about her, that it was about something greater than her and she was only channeling it, the world setting itself against him.
She wrenched herself apart from him, knocking her head against the doorframe. Softly, gingerly, she touched a finger to her lips. They scarcely felt like hers anymore, swollen and bruised. She raised a hand to slap Ohtori's face; she would be no conduit. She would be no conduit. Her hand came down on her own right cheek, leaving an angry red mark.
“Goodbye,” she said.
And left.
::::
“So I hear you betrothed to the third Ohtori boy.”
smelled alcohol mixed with breath and the vague hint of perfume, sighted the long slender hands just barely supporting a tall, slim glass of red wine.
“Yes, we did, -san.”
's hair too was long - long and glossy and black, slipping over her shoulders and covering what the sparse bodice of the too-expensive evening gown didn't. The ideal society wife, elegant and beautiful, looked almost the perfect model of unhappiness.
“It seems an excellent match. Congratulations.” heard far more than congratulations in her childhood friend's words, watched as the wine disappeared rapidly down that long, slender, jewel-adorned throat and leaned forward to refill her glass. She heard resignation and resentment, and a tiny hint of hope.
“Thank you,” told , and conversation closed for the night.
~~~
Lynn
Edited by Elenniel
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