OHHC: Two ficlets - In Which the Suohs Make an Appearance
Originally posted in ouranhostclub on September 28, 2006.
One: Satisfaction
Rating: G
Word Count: 753
Summary: Tamaki loves Haruhi, Haruhi doesn't love Tamaki, Tamaki loves everyone, Kyouya loves no one. Or does he?
Suoh Tamaki was in love with Fujioka Haruhi for four years. Of those four years, he was unaware for the first two, pining the third, and depairing during the fourth. And then, having long realized that she did not return his affections in the same manner (regarding him more like a much-beloved but somewhat annoying brother, which discovery had caused the change from pining to despairing), he got over her.
It was not without drama, to which Kyouya could well attest. But Tamaki was graced with a marked elasticity of spirit, and at that time was discovering something called maturity. His personality was mellowing (slightly) with age, his moments of euphoria not quite so manic, his depressions not quite so dark, and the shift between them not quite so rapid.
As Tamaki was not around Haruhi any less than he had been, Kyouya thought for a time that Haruhi might actually fall in love with the (slightly) more mature Tamaki, whose gallant side showed much more often now that he was not so spastically jealous. But he was mistaken, for Haruhi was in a rigorous pre-Law program, and had little time to give to romantic fancies, even if "Senpai was much less annoying than he used to be."
After that, Tamaki wined and dined a long number of girls in swift succession, leaving a trail of broken hearts and gaining an ever-growing sense of dissatisfaction.
"Mother, why is it my fate never to be happy with a woman in this world?" he bemoaned one Sunday afternoon, flopping down on Kyouya's bed. Kyouya, who had long ago resigned himself to the fact that his best friend was probably going to call him "mother" for the rest of his life, didn't look up from the assignment he was typing.
"Perhaps it's because you haven't a clue what you want," he said.
Tamaki sat up indignantly. "Of course I know what I want! I want a wonderful woman who will not be afraid of my beauty or intelligence, who will wear cute dresses and always be happy to see me!"
"Tamaki, all you did was talk about yourself."
The former king of the Ouran Host Club stopped to consider this.
"Making women happy is completely different from finding a woman who will make you happy, and vice versa. 'Women' and 'a woman' are completely separate things."
"But a woman is a woman," Tamaki said, puzzled.
Kyouya finally looked up from his laptop. "Pleasing the customers of the Host Club is fundamentally different from finding a match. A potential wife does not want to be flattered, she wants to be respected and appreciated and to know that she will be cared for. You, as a potential suitor, should seek out a woman with complementary tastes and attitudes to yourself. Before you have a successful relationship, you need to know what sort of woman that is."
"How do you know? You don't date."
"Actually I do," Kyouya replied.
Tamaki sat bolt upright.
"You do? Since when? Why don't I know about this? You're not going to leave me alone forever, are you?"
"I haven't yet."
"But what happens when you find the right girl? You will love her and never want to spend time with me again!"
"I am clearly spending time with you now."
Tamaki paused a second to consider the implications of that statement. "Does that meant you've found the right girl? Are you in love? Oh, Kyouya, I'm so happy for you!" Kyouya rather unsuccessfully tried to push his friend off of him before Tamaki's arms cut off his air supply. Finally he managed to get Tamaki into the seat next to him, where he sat looking earnestly at his friend. "Who is this wonderful woman, this bloom of feminity who has enlightened the heart of my best friend forever with the glow of her love?"
"Haruhi," he said carefully. Tamaki was silent for several moments, and Kyouya slid his gaze over to his friend. A wide variety of emotions played out on his open, expressive face. Finally, his eyes met Kyouya's, and a large grin broke out over his face. "Wonderful!" he said. "Mother will always be around to look after my cute daughter!"
"Indeed," said Kyouya, his shoulders relaxing. And after a moment, "Does it bother you?"
Tamaki regarded him gravely, his gaze clearer than it had been for the whole of the conversation. "I'm very glad it's you," he said, and his smile was a little wistful, but happy.
Two: Vesperi*
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1249
Summary: Yuzuru reflects on first meeting Tamaki's mother
Spoilers: Manga vol. 6
The first thing I noticed about her was her scent. It was a springtime, floral scent, light yet rich and slightly cloying. Later she told me it was hyacinth, the color of our son's eyes.
It was spring, in Paris, and all the old clichés were true, though for me it was new and strange. I missed the cherry blossoms of home painfully, but a stroll through the Luxembourg gardens--and later the small parks and green spaces that she took me to: Monceau, Vert-Galant, the Place des Vosges, filled me with enough fragrance and sunshine and color to get through another week or two.
I was there on business, then a junior member of Suoh Management Group's direction. It was an important deal, so much so that I had packed for several months, but not enough so that my older brother would trouble himself to fly halfway round the world. He would come if the deal was closed successfully, advantageously.
I had just finished up a business lunch in the small garden of the Banc Blanc, an exclusive club nestled among the tangled courtyards and narrow winding streets of Paris' first arrondissement. It was but a five-minute's walk from the tranquil river, here lined with plantain trees and, closer down to the water, willows. I was lingering over my café crème, enjoying the weak sunlight and the spring breeze, fresh from the night's rain.
Her perfume reached my nostrils, and I thought it was the rows of blue and yellow flowers just beyond my feet, fragrance coaxed out by the gentle breeze. There was laughter from inside the restaurant, and she walked out.
It was as if the sun had burst from the clouds. Her hair was loose down her back, in casual waves and errant curls, the pure blonde that women of my country covet but don't dare to reproduce. I did not see her eyes, for they were under long lashes, but her posture and bearing were those of someone born to privilege and power. A moment later she had passed, the scent of a flower whose fragrance I had never enjoyed lingering in the air.
She was petite and powerful. Rather, her frame and her mannerisms were delicate, but she exuded an air of confidence and self-possession native to Mediterranean women. I was very nearly reduced to a gibbering idiot in her presence. I made many flowery speeches, using words of beauty and elegance that have long grown cold on my tongue. I wonder, at times, if my feelings are merely dormant, and might one day be rekindled, or if they've been forever withered by my adherence to duty, and to family.
My son however, is a constant source of joy and pain, and his words at the school festival were like a blade to old wounds. I want him to be independent. I want him to succeed where I have not, to earn happiness where he has already known sorrow. But I know that my mother can be absolutely ruthless in the face of threats. Perhaps, one day, it will be revealed that he has inherited a bit of his mother's backbone.
For she was French, and set in her ways, and convinced her way of life was the epitome of culture. Yet she was generous and loving, stubborn, infuriating, and truly the most wonderful woman I have ever met. If I didn't fall in love with her that first damp spring day, I most definitely did the next evening.
I must have been staring at her. Her friend spoke in my ear, spoiling my infatuated reveries. "Monsieur, why don't you speak to the lady instead of staring at her?" Caught, I made my way fumbling and blushing to her table. I silently thanked my ancestors for gifts of height and relative good looks. Not once did thoughts of my wife back in Japan flash into my head--though this was France, and more than likely it wouldn't have mattered. It didn't, after all.
"Madame, I most humbly apologize for my rudeness. I am Yuzuru Suoh, and I could not help but be entranced by your beauty." She looked up at me with that expression peculiar to women, when their pleased smile is but the merest visible expression of something unfathomable.
"A lady likes to be admired," she said in a voice that made me remember why I loved the French language. "Would you like to join us?"
I did.
The next night she wore white and I put lilies in her hair. I was fascinated by the brilliance with which she shown, suprising for her seeming frailty. She, I suppose, was attracted by my exoticness, for it was still early in the days of Japanese-European business partnerships. After dinner we walked along the Seine. It was a clear night, and a star or two, though perhaps they were planets, was visible through the haze of city lights.
She said I made her feel beautiful, but I only told her the truth.
She made me feel like I could touch the sun.
I did not go home with her that night. There were weeks of courtship, and I loved each moment as much as I loved the sweet fulfillment and the comfortable familiarity that came later. We picnicked at her family's château a few hours outside of Paris, where our son was later raised. We rowed on the Loire, flowing smoothly in the verdant French landscape. Then there were weekends at the sea, the Cote d'Azur more beautiful than any photograph.
But eventually the business deal was done, and I knew I would be expected home soon. I told her I had a wife. She said she didn't care.
I was back within the year. The second time I returned to her, her face was glowing with a new radiance. She put my hand on the new swell of her stomach, and I cried with joy. Memory fades and hardens with age, but as I peel back the layers I remember my youthful exuberance, her remonstrations when I nearly crushed her in my arms. I didn't stay long then, but came back for the birth of my first and only child.
Her family was ambivalent about the affair, though wished that she'd at least marry. They doted on the child, who had light brown hair, a mixture, I liked to think. His blue eyes never darkened to brown, merely deepened in intensity and becoming almost violet in melancholy moments. Apparently I carried a recessive trait, hidden beneath the rich brown of Suoh family eyes.
I adored looking at my son, especially as he aged. I could see my ears, the curve of her jaw. His temperament she said came from me, but his highly-developed sense of self was purely from his mother.
But it is late now, and memory pains me. I prefer to linger on those blissful, early years when she was healthy and strong. When our son was still trying to sort out his mother's French from my Japanese, even then one of the most joyful children I have met. And amazingly, he's stayed like that. Heaven knows he has the right to be angry at the world, furious at me, but he merely smiles that smile that makes hearts flutter and takes it all in stride.
I know, my love, you might never forgive me for what I've done, but thank you, thank you, for him.
A/N: Please forgive my ramblings about Paris. I should never be allowed to write about it, because that's what I will do. But anyways, if you'd like a better idea of what I'm talking about, here are a few links and pictures:
A decent map of Paris - ignore the giant red arrow. The numbers are what I referred to as the "arrondissements," or districts. You can see where Park Monceau is in the top left. Also, Square du Vert-Galant in the center, near Notre Dame, and the Place des Vosges.
*Please forgive the pretentious title. I learned this word in Latin today, which means 'in the evening' and I absolutely love it. I feel it fits the mood.
One: Satisfaction
Rating: G
Word Count: 753
Summary: Tamaki loves Haruhi, Haruhi doesn't love Tamaki, Tamaki loves everyone, Kyouya loves no one. Or does he?
Suoh Tamaki was in love with Fujioka Haruhi for four years. Of those four years, he was unaware for the first two, pining the third, and depairing during the fourth. And then, having long realized that she did not return his affections in the same manner (regarding him more like a much-beloved but somewhat annoying brother, which discovery had caused the change from pining to despairing), he got over her.
It was not without drama, to which Kyouya could well attest. But Tamaki was graced with a marked elasticity of spirit, and at that time was discovering something called maturity. His personality was mellowing (slightly) with age, his moments of euphoria not quite so manic, his depressions not quite so dark, and the shift between them not quite so rapid.
As Tamaki was not around Haruhi any less than he had been, Kyouya thought for a time that Haruhi might actually fall in love with the (slightly) more mature Tamaki, whose gallant side showed much more often now that he was not so spastically jealous. But he was mistaken, for Haruhi was in a rigorous pre-Law program, and had little time to give to romantic fancies, even if "Senpai was much less annoying than he used to be."
After that, Tamaki wined and dined a long number of girls in swift succession, leaving a trail of broken hearts and gaining an ever-growing sense of dissatisfaction.
"Mother, why is it my fate never to be happy with a woman in this world?" he bemoaned one Sunday afternoon, flopping down on Kyouya's bed. Kyouya, who had long ago resigned himself to the fact that his best friend was probably going to call him "mother" for the rest of his life, didn't look up from the assignment he was typing.
"Perhaps it's because you haven't a clue what you want," he said.
Tamaki sat up indignantly. "Of course I know what I want! I want a wonderful woman who will not be afraid of my beauty or intelligence, who will wear cute dresses and always be happy to see me!"
"Tamaki, all you did was talk about yourself."
The former king of the Ouran Host Club stopped to consider this.
"Making women happy is completely different from finding a woman who will make you happy, and vice versa. 'Women' and 'a woman' are completely separate things."
"But a woman is a woman," Tamaki said, puzzled.
Kyouya finally looked up from his laptop. "Pleasing the customers of the Host Club is fundamentally different from finding a match. A potential wife does not want to be flattered, she wants to be respected and appreciated and to know that she will be cared for. You, as a potential suitor, should seek out a woman with complementary tastes and attitudes to yourself. Before you have a successful relationship, you need to know what sort of woman that is."
"How do you know? You don't date."
"Actually I do," Kyouya replied.
Tamaki sat bolt upright.
"You do? Since when? Why don't I know about this? You're not going to leave me alone forever, are you?"
"I haven't yet."
"But what happens when you find the right girl? You will love her and never want to spend time with me again!"
"I am clearly spending time with you now."
Tamaki paused a second to consider the implications of that statement. "Does that meant you've found the right girl? Are you in love? Oh, Kyouya, I'm so happy for you!" Kyouya rather unsuccessfully tried to push his friend off of him before Tamaki's arms cut off his air supply. Finally he managed to get Tamaki into the seat next to him, where he sat looking earnestly at his friend. "Who is this wonderful woman, this bloom of feminity who has enlightened the heart of my best friend forever with the glow of her love?"
"Haruhi," he said carefully. Tamaki was silent for several moments, and Kyouya slid his gaze over to his friend. A wide variety of emotions played out on his open, expressive face. Finally, his eyes met Kyouya's, and a large grin broke out over his face. "Wonderful!" he said. "Mother will always be around to look after my cute daughter!"
"Indeed," said Kyouya, his shoulders relaxing. And after a moment, "Does it bother you?"
Tamaki regarded him gravely, his gaze clearer than it had been for the whole of the conversation. "I'm very glad it's you," he said, and his smile was a little wistful, but happy.
Two: Vesperi*
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1249
Summary: Yuzuru reflects on first meeting Tamaki's mother
Spoilers: Manga vol. 6
The first thing I noticed about her was her scent. It was a springtime, floral scent, light yet rich and slightly cloying. Later she told me it was hyacinth, the color of our son's eyes.
It was spring, in Paris, and all the old clichés were true, though for me it was new and strange. I missed the cherry blossoms of home painfully, but a stroll through the Luxembourg gardens--and later the small parks and green spaces that she took me to: Monceau, Vert-Galant, the Place des Vosges, filled me with enough fragrance and sunshine and color to get through another week or two.
I was there on business, then a junior member of Suoh Management Group's direction. It was an important deal, so much so that I had packed for several months, but not enough so that my older brother would trouble himself to fly halfway round the world. He would come if the deal was closed successfully, advantageously.
I had just finished up a business lunch in the small garden of the Banc Blanc, an exclusive club nestled among the tangled courtyards and narrow winding streets of Paris' first arrondissement. It was but a five-minute's walk from the tranquil river, here lined with plantain trees and, closer down to the water, willows. I was lingering over my café crème, enjoying the weak sunlight and the spring breeze, fresh from the night's rain.
Her perfume reached my nostrils, and I thought it was the rows of blue and yellow flowers just beyond my feet, fragrance coaxed out by the gentle breeze. There was laughter from inside the restaurant, and she walked out.
It was as if the sun had burst from the clouds. Her hair was loose down her back, in casual waves and errant curls, the pure blonde that women of my country covet but don't dare to reproduce. I did not see her eyes, for they were under long lashes, but her posture and bearing were those of someone born to privilege and power. A moment later she had passed, the scent of a flower whose fragrance I had never enjoyed lingering in the air.
She was petite and powerful. Rather, her frame and her mannerisms were delicate, but she exuded an air of confidence and self-possession native to Mediterranean women. I was very nearly reduced to a gibbering idiot in her presence. I made many flowery speeches, using words of beauty and elegance that have long grown cold on my tongue. I wonder, at times, if my feelings are merely dormant, and might one day be rekindled, or if they've been forever withered by my adherence to duty, and to family.
My son however, is a constant source of joy and pain, and his words at the school festival were like a blade to old wounds. I want him to be independent. I want him to succeed where I have not, to earn happiness where he has already known sorrow. But I know that my mother can be absolutely ruthless in the face of threats. Perhaps, one day, it will be revealed that he has inherited a bit of his mother's backbone.
For she was French, and set in her ways, and convinced her way of life was the epitome of culture. Yet she was generous and loving, stubborn, infuriating, and truly the most wonderful woman I have ever met. If I didn't fall in love with her that first damp spring day, I most definitely did the next evening.
I must have been staring at her. Her friend spoke in my ear, spoiling my infatuated reveries. "Monsieur, why don't you speak to the lady instead of staring at her?" Caught, I made my way fumbling and blushing to her table. I silently thanked my ancestors for gifts of height and relative good looks. Not once did thoughts of my wife back in Japan flash into my head--though this was France, and more than likely it wouldn't have mattered. It didn't, after all.
"Madame, I most humbly apologize for my rudeness. I am Yuzuru Suoh, and I could not help but be entranced by your beauty." She looked up at me with that expression peculiar to women, when their pleased smile is but the merest visible expression of something unfathomable.
"A lady likes to be admired," she said in a voice that made me remember why I loved the French language. "Would you like to join us?"
I did.
The next night she wore white and I put lilies in her hair. I was fascinated by the brilliance with which she shown, suprising for her seeming frailty. She, I suppose, was attracted by my exoticness, for it was still early in the days of Japanese-European business partnerships. After dinner we walked along the Seine. It was a clear night, and a star or two, though perhaps they were planets, was visible through the haze of city lights.
She said I made her feel beautiful, but I only told her the truth.
She made me feel like I could touch the sun.
I did not go home with her that night. There were weeks of courtship, and I loved each moment as much as I loved the sweet fulfillment and the comfortable familiarity that came later. We picnicked at her family's château a few hours outside of Paris, where our son was later raised. We rowed on the Loire, flowing smoothly in the verdant French landscape. Then there were weekends at the sea, the Cote d'Azur more beautiful than any photograph.
But eventually the business deal was done, and I knew I would be expected home soon. I told her I had a wife. She said she didn't care.
I was back within the year. The second time I returned to her, her face was glowing with a new radiance. She put my hand on the new swell of her stomach, and I cried with joy. Memory fades and hardens with age, but as I peel back the layers I remember my youthful exuberance, her remonstrations when I nearly crushed her in my arms. I didn't stay long then, but came back for the birth of my first and only child.
Her family was ambivalent about the affair, though wished that she'd at least marry. They doted on the child, who had light brown hair, a mixture, I liked to think. His blue eyes never darkened to brown, merely deepened in intensity and becoming almost violet in melancholy moments. Apparently I carried a recessive trait, hidden beneath the rich brown of Suoh family eyes.
I adored looking at my son, especially as he aged. I could see my ears, the curve of her jaw. His temperament she said came from me, but his highly-developed sense of self was purely from his mother.
But it is late now, and memory pains me. I prefer to linger on those blissful, early years when she was healthy and strong. When our son was still trying to sort out his mother's French from my Japanese, even then one of the most joyful children I have met. And amazingly, he's stayed like that. Heaven knows he has the right to be angry at the world, furious at me, but he merely smiles that smile that makes hearts flutter and takes it all in stride.
I know, my love, you might never forgive me for what I've done, but thank you, thank you, for him.
A/N: Please forgive my ramblings about Paris. I should never be allowed to write about it, because that's what I will do. But anyways, if you'd like a better idea of what I'm talking about, here are a few links and pictures:
A decent map of Paris - ignore the giant red arrow. The numbers are what I referred to as the "arrondissements," or districts. You can see where Park Monceau is in the top left. Also, Square du Vert-Galant in the center, near Notre Dame, and the Place des Vosges.
*Please forgive the pretentious title. I learned this word in Latin today, which means 'in the evening' and I absolutely love it. I feel it fits the mood.