A cheque to pay in total
My second Ouran fic, and also my second Haruhi x Tamaki.
Though originally it was three times as long and mostly about Hikaru. i cut my loses, this was the best bit. After all, i've always wanted to know how this would play out, and i hope one day Hatori does play it out.
or i'll be so sad XD
1448 words
i've been working full time preparing my workplace for christmas. we sell decorations. so i've been putting up trees... millions of trees... and baubles, tinsel, ribbon, everything. so this kind of came to me in between the branches, so to speak...
anyway, enjoy ^^
i do like Kyouya in this XD
A cheque to pay in total
Tamaki ran to the door flailing slightly, Kyouya placed and arm in front of him, blocking his escape.
You mean, Haruhi’s out there… with one of those unscrupulous twins??’ he was in wild mode, his voice whiny and high pitched.
It was cold outside, and he hadn’t realised they had ran to the door.
Kyouya wasn’t impressed.
Tamaki hadn’t grasped the gravity of the situation at all.
‘Tamaki.’ Said Kyouya, looking straight into Tamaki’s wildly moving eyes, and finally pinning them to the spot, ‘I told you already, Hikaru saw you with Haruhi, and he ran off.’ he stopped, for Tamaki looked more and more like he was about to collapse.
‘I’m pretty sure he told her.’
Tamaki’s eyes now looked… bewildered.
But really, he hadn’t been doing anything with Haruhi, how could he? they’d been hanging christmas decorations in the third music room, as they had been for several evenings now, until they’d met, in the middle of one of the sides of the room with a bump, which wasn’t anything particularly strange, (he did seem to lose his natural grace around her it seemed) but then Tamaki had realised he was holding mistletoe… which had been difficult to deal with.
He found himself fighting the urge to kiss Haruhi, not for the first time, but definitely with a hundred times the resolve. It had thumped in his head like a steel drum, practically hurting him, making his heart thump in rhythms that were deeply disconcerting.
It hadn’t helped that she stood there, looking confused, and so ridiculously cute he could have died. And for all the drama, he really meant that.
But then Hikaru had walked in, and seen more into the situation than had really been there. or maybe the amount that actually had been there, had been enough... either way, he'd not been impressed.
Tamaki couldn’t remember Hikaru’s words, but he did remember his angry and hurt face, and Haruhi running after him calling him, and the fact she’d turned and looked back at him, looking for all the world, a little …flustered? Maybe.
Still, he couldn’t have predicted any of that.
‘I… I… I…‘ he stammered. ‘I never knew… Hikaru… had… …for Haruhi…’
He couldn’t bring himself to say the word ‘feelings’ somehow. It took all he had to even utter the rest of the sentence, it seemed distasteful.
‘Perhaps I should…’ he said, now turning around, feet not co-operating quite as they should, blankly trying to feel his way to somewhere this wasn’t happening. He was starting to crumble.
Kyouya had somehow expected this.
‘TAMAKI.’ Kyouya said, louder, a little more hoarsely maybe, but still with control.
‘You have to realise. it's now or never.’
‘Realise?’ Tamaki said, lingering over the words as if they were alien to him, losing more and more grasp on the situation by the minute.
he’d been shuffling about quietly and awkwardly, his rear finally found a seat, which he collapsed into, with a heavy thud.
Kyouya blinked.
‘YES.’ He said pointedly. ‘Realise. Make your decision.' he paused, and took a deep breath. ' What does Haruhi really mean to you?’
Tamaki’s eyed widened to an all-time record diameter. His face drew whiter, and he blinked, repeatedly. What did she really mean to him? Well… wasn’t it obvious?
‘Haruhi…. i… love her… she’s my… Daugh…’
‘TAMAKI!’ Kyouya growled gruffly, interupting Tamaki, grasping his friend’s shoulders and shaking him slightly, ‘THINK PLEASE.’
The slightly taller blonde boy thought intently, but mostly about the fact he was losing his gentle and wonderful daughter, the light of his admittedly short but triumphant life, the apple of his eye, the…
But somewhere, deep within the confusing myriad that was Tamaki’s mind, a voice was shouting…
Why should Hikaru get to have her?
A father had to let his daughter go didn’t he? He didn’t want to, he definitely didn’t want to, but perhaps he had to?
‘TAMAKI!!’ Kyouya shouted. His eyes were nearly as wild as Tamaki’s own now, and he was really shaking him, it was starting to jar his neck.
Tamaki was so painfully slow.
‘I er.. er…’ Tamaki couldn’t find any more words, he was resigned to fate, limply sat in a heap, he couldn’t find any more spirit to lift himself, just the dull resignation, a duty… he felt sick. he closed his eyes and they grew warm and moist.
Suddenly, he felt something hot and sharply stinging, a force that moved his face across with such force he saw small black spots. The moisture that had gathered the instant before in his eyes ran down his face.
‘uhhhh….’ He moaned, when his breath returned to him. He started rubbing the spot where Kyouya’s hand had met with his flesh.
‘Kyouya!’ he gasped, shocked and hurt bottom lip wibbling, trying to realise why of all the people in the world, his best friend would choose to do that, right when his world was falling apart… right as he had to give up Haruhi...
‘I’m sorry, but I had to make you wake up, snap out of it…’
Tamaki still looked confused.
Kyouya gritted his teeth. here goes… he thought. He’d held this back quite a while now.
‘Tamaki… you’re in love with her.’
It was loud against the absolute silence of the room, the words seemed to linger cold in the air for a long time.
Kyouya’s body froze with hearing his own words, but he carried on.
‘You’ve always been in love with her.’
He was throwing them out now, they sounded hard and harsh, but Kyouya had decided, it was time.
If now was not the time, when would it ever be?
‘Not like a father Tamaki, but like a man.’
He stopped… and sat down himself, beside his best friend feeling empty, and suddenly noticing the cold. but, It was done.
Tamaki said nothing for what seemed like an eternity.
‘I uhhh… uhhh…’ he began, very quietly at first, but gathering voice, as if somewhere a tiny part of himself had stopped falling endlessly into a black hole, and had found a way out, back into open space, back into the open air.
Suddenly it seemed Kyouya’s words had caught onto something in there and started cogs.
Tamaki’s slow, dead mind began to think, sluggishly dragging out memories, winding right back to the second he first set eyes on her, scruffy, confused, and bewildered, when he’d embarassingly thought she was a boy, and there it was, a small seed, a tiny thought process, ‘cute’ it had said.
When he’d opened that curtain, and Haruhi had turned, shielding herself, her flesh so pure, so smooth and definitely that of a girl, then that seed that would not have come to aught alone, was planted.
‘Wow’ he had thought perhaps a little in relief, before blushing violently.
When she’d fallen into his arms, on a stormy evening, where she’d been frightened half to death, that seed had opened, and started to grow,
‘Warm’ was the thought that came back, and a longing, to repeat the action to hold her again, forever.
And on that day when Haruhi confessed to him that she had always followed the shadow of her mother too, it had bloomed into a giant colourful flower.
‘Kiss her’ he’d thought. But that wasn’t enough to break his self-imposed illusion obviously.
But now, after all this time, it had eventually borne fruit.
Kyouya was right.
Kyouya… was... right.
‘So this is love?’ he thought, somewhat painfully amused, the last and most remarkable line of a train of realisation that left him feeling more numb than he was a few seconds before, if that had been possible.
Kyouya looked across at Tamaki who was stuck in the pain and happiness of release from what seemed like years of disillusion, and mentally signed off the cheque that meant he was now no longer in debt to his best friend. Everything Tamaki had ever done for him, had been repaid in full, and stamped.
He thought back to Haruhi telling him he didn’t find merit in her body, that stormy night at the mansion, but that wasn’t exactly true was it?, somehow though the merit of paying off Tamaki was worth more... Perhaps Tamaki’s better nature had worn off on him after all.
Just my luck, Kyouya thought grimly.
Suddenly Tamaki stood bolt upright and looked like he was about to act.
‘What are you going to do then?’ Kyouya asked him worried slightly that Tamaki might ruin it for himself.
‘I…’ Tamaki started, a second wave of realisation running over his face.
‘I don’t know…’
He stopped, and sat back down.
Kyouya sighed deeply. Very deeply indeed.
‘Kyouya…’ he said, his voice was high and pinched, and tinged with fear.
‘What if she… what if Hikaru… what if I’m too late?’
He was staring out into the wall, in his newly found situation, he knew he was vulnerable, and he was understandably terrified.
‘In my honest opinion Tamaki, he said, pushing his glasses back up his nose slightly, you’ve won most of the battle in the past few minutes. ‘
He couldn’t speak for Haruhi, but Kyouya had noticed, even if no one else had, how she had been gradually changing, warming to Tamaki slowly, noticing all his good points, and managing to put aside his more annoying points, even if sometimes he drove her to distraction. But even that though, was in a way, all leading her to the point where today, she might have even been taken in by him, distracted, if only for a second.
Still, Haruhi was as oblivious of her feelings as Tamaki had been of his.
Would Tamaki manage to tell her in the right way that didn’t drive her away?
That would be up to him. Kyouya thought.
He had already repaid his debt. His part was done.
Tamaki arose again.
‘I’m going to find her.’ He said frowning.
There was a serious finality in his words Kyouya never heard from Tamaki before.
Tamaki had taken it seriously and could do this. With this kind of resolve within him, he could do anything. That was his gift, and the reason so many had flocked to be with him. Kyouya smiled.
A second later he was enveloped with long arms, blonde hair falling over the top of his glasses and into his eyes.
‘Thank you Kyouya.’ He heard in his right ear.
It was simple, but it was heartfelt.
Kyouya coughed slightly.
‘One day’ Kyouya said, now hugging Tamaki back, ‘you’ll have to find a way to repay me’
Technically, he had signed it off, so there was no debt, but for some reason, he wanted Tamaki to think there was.
Tamaki let go and grinned at him impishly.
‘Of course’ he said. ‘I would expect no less of my shadow king.’
With that, Tamaki ran to a mirror, removed his blazer, ruffled his hair and loosened his tie slightly.
Of course, he was well aware of the form he was most alluring in.
At times he probably thought of nothing else.
‘I’ll be careful’ he said, turning to face Kyouya again. ‘Since Hikaru probably dislikes me intently…’ he frowned.
He wouldn’t have wanted it to be like that, but he couldn’t take it back, so what would be... would be.
'...and Haruhi… she’s probably confused enough. I shouldn’t add to that…
But if I’m there for her…’
‘You’re always there for her.’
Kyouya said wryly. Tamaki smiled meekly.
‘I better go.’ He said.
He smiled again, and with that, sprinted off down the grounds, disregarding completely the fact it was freezing outside.
Kyouya chuckled.
All that was left to do now was to get a drink and await the inevitable return of the twins, the furore of Hikaru, and hope it all held together enough,
Enough for his cheque to pay off.
But Kyouya guessed it would eventually.
He was after all, seldom wrong.
~~ fin~~