(Ouran) - .:The M Word:. .:Chapter Three:.
Title: The M Word
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Romance, Humor, (soap-opera style) Drama, MAJOR AU
Pairings or Characters: Forced!KyouKao, TamaHaru, various others
Warnings: Sexuality, pregnancy jokes, crude humor
Summary: In order to save her business, Hitachiin Yuzuha must step up to the plate, and thus force he youngest to step up to the alter. With one, Ootori Kyouya. Only problem with that? She.. kinda-told-everyone-that-Kaoru-was-a-girl...Ah, parents.
Author's Notes: Ahahahaha....Well...I must say - just enjoy. The KyouKao comes a bit later.
Previous Chapters: Prologue || Chapter One || Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Grin And Bear It...Right?
“Mother, Mommy, don’t make me do this. I look like a mountain-plains girl!”
“Kaoru, dear, relax. It’s your bridal shower, and you look beautiful,” Yuzuha purred happily, leaning over against her seatbelt to her her son’s (once again) extension accessorized hair. She smiled, even as the boy ducked out from under her hand, snarling a bit behind clenched teeth.
“Mom!!”
“Oh, sweetie, calm down. You’ll love it!! Bridal parties are always fun, especially when you’re the center of attention.” She flipped her hand encouragingly and dissuasively. “Just soak it all up, honey. It’ll be a day and night to remember.”
“Oh, stop -” The car began to slow, turning off the main road to pull up into a procession of cars that lead to the Ootori estate. Kaoru sunk low in his seat. “No...no...no...Why couldn’t Hikaru have come with me, again?”
“Tradition, dead. No men, no matter what. And stop slouching; you’ll wrinkle you box-topped prototype of my spring fall collection.”
“No men? So I can go home?” the boy asked sardonically, sneering even as he straightened up and extracted a compact mirror to check his hair. “I do not want to do this.”
“Weeeeellll....To late,” Yuzuha said sweetly, undoing her seatbelt and out of the open car door before Kaoru could even register that the car had pulled to a complete stop and that the driver had opened his mother’s side door.
For a second he considered just refusing to get out of the car; cross his legs and pretend to be PMSing, but that was a stupid idea (one even he could admit was poorly though out) and, begrudgingly, he shifted across seat to follow his mother onto the front, grassy lawn on the Ootori estate.
A large, green section of well-trimmed yard stretched around to the left of the house, the pathway decorated with pastel blue, pink and yellow streamers and white balloons, all reeking of femininity and long hours spent pointlessly over making the twirls in the streamers perfect. Once rounding the corner to the back yard, there was an array of tables adorning the grass in an open, yet fancy and classy pattern, and a long table laden with large platters of every type of food imaginable off to the side with waiters in white and black tailored suits flitting back and forth between the guests already seated and the buffet. Up on the patio, a slightly older crowd was gathered around a small bar, cosmos in hand and empty fingers fluttering around their mouths to hide snide remarks and even snider smiles.
Pleasant chatter and soft music rose from the garden in general, as well as a few high pitched cackles from children running around in satin dresses and silk dress shirts. Heavily pregnant women waddled around, making idle small talk with others before inevitably returning to the food. Baby-doll brides who looked too young to have expensive rings on their barely pubescent fingers watched the older, more mature, more drunken women with large eyes and stuttered (quite loudly) whenever asked to voice their opinions. People laughed, people smiled, people acted girly, and Kaoru knew no one.
“Moth -” But Yuzuha has already left, having been waved over by a mix of three cosmo ladies, a baby-doll bride and two pregnant women. Now Kaoru was alone, surrounded by people but utterly alone, Perhaps he should be happy that he wasn’t attracting as much unwanted attraction as he originally had feared, but at the same time, he thought he should be receiving at least some form or recognition. It felt awkward to be in a strange place full of people with no one to ask questions or talk to or just be lost with. Dejectedly, he made his way for the bar, then thought better of it and turned to head to the buffet.
Maybe they’d have the strawberry pocky his mother always used to send them via airmail... Or else some French delicacies, or even English ones. Something familiar...Maybe ootoro...
“Excuse me?” a voice behind Kaoru asked, and he jumped, attempting to cover the startle by turning to face the woman, smiling forcibly and looking a little flustered. A small brunette woman giggled. “Are you Hitachiin Kaoru?”
“I, uh...Well, yes. Yes, I am. And...You are?”
“Suoh Haruhi. I’m Kyouya’s friend; we went to school together.”
“Oh, how nice,” Kaoru observed, attempting to sound more interested than he felt. Looking Haruhi up and down, he noted the style of the shirt she wore: open and breezy from the elastic under-breast strap down. It almost looked a size too big, as well as stretchy...A maternity shirt? “I...Forgive me for asking but are you, uh...?”
“Pregnant?” Haruhi smiled, a contagious expression that one couldn’t help but reproduce. “Yes. Only a few months, though. Not really showing yet.”
“Oh, how sweet. Congratulations!”
“So, you come from France, right?” Haruhi asked, picking up a plate and proceeding after Kaoru down the buffet line, picking sparingly at the food and disregarding most of the richer foods. “So did my husband. He was raised there, but I’ve never been. Is it nice there?”
“Yes,” the red head replied, selecting several small finger foods. “...If you like wine, art and tourism. Most of the city is more concerned with peddling their goods, but it’s really quite nice and calm some places, especially in the country.”
“Ah, well, I’ll have to insist he take me then,” the chocolate eyed woman replied, reaching the end of the table with her plate. She smiled widely, invitingly. “Why don’t you come sit with us?”
“Us?” Kaoru queried, and Haruhi motioned toward a table behind her.
“Haninozuka Reiko, Morinozuka Renge, Shindo Fuyumi, Ootori Matsuki and Ootori Yuki,” she listed. “Other friends of Kyouya, and your future sisters-in-law.”
“I...” Haven’t got anywhere else to go... He grinned sheepishly. “I’d love to.”
Haruhi looked delighted and turned to breeze back to the rounded table, Kaoru trailing in her shadow. He peered at the women as he approached, trying to match barely known names to even less known faces (one of them looked like Kyouya...) but failed. They appeared like a nice group of women from afar - polite, pretty, quiet and all-over ideal Ootori brides - but as they drew nearer and Haruhi slipped into an open chair, he realized something: they were all pregnant and looked irritable. Kaoru gulped.
“ - Oh, and the mood swings! I swear, sometimes Akito thinks I’m going to kill him. Sometimes I want to.” Giggles, nods of agreement.
“I’ve been eating more cake than Mitsukuni,” a rather daunting and emotionless woman conceded. “I’ve tried various spells to prevent thus, but every time I ban a flavor from my diet, another flavor is introduced - from chocolate to pickled apple. I think I am dying.” That sounded horrible, and Kaoru gaped, especially horrified as some of the women around the table laughed again. What was with these people?!?!
“At least you can eat,” a honey-haired woman sighed. She still retained her figure, but wore the same shirt-type as Haruhi, prematurely showing off her nonexistent baby-belly. “I can’t keep anything down. Every morning, and then every night! The bathroom is my new bedroom.”
“Awww,” the obviously heaviest pregnant woman sighed in sympathy. “Have you tried seltzer water? Or eating something light before you get out of bed?”
“No, but I never want anything but spicy foods - especially in the morning!”
Well, Renge, they say the more you throw up, the smarter the baby will be,” Haruhi said smiling. “And speaking of future smart babies, this is Hitachiin Kaoru; Kyouya’s fiancee.”
There was a collective ‘ooooooh’ and several smattered ‘hi’s, and sheepishly, Kaoru rose a hand in slight greeting.
“I’m Fuyumi. Shindo Fuyumi. Kyouya-kun’s older sister,” the heavily pregnant woman said, smiling slightly. She pointed to her right, to a woman with short black hair. “This is Yuki, my older brother Rei’s wife. This is Matsuki,” a woman with very long, braided blackish-brown hair and a slightly babyish face was indicated, “My older brother Akito’s wife. This is Morinozuka Renge,” the honey haired woman with very bad morning sickness gave him a slight smile. “And Haninozuka Reiko -” the strange, ‘dying’ woman... “- and Suoh Haruhi, but I take it you’ve already met.”
“Uh, hi, everyone,” Kaoru greeted in response, feeling a little hot in the face.
“Hello, Kaoru,” the Renge woman greeted sweetly. “So, when do you plan on having children?”
Slightly off-put by the direct remark, the red head scoffed without thinking of the words that were coming out of his mouth. “Psh, never! Are you kidding me?” His answer was met with a heavy, weighted and pregnant (no pun intended) silence, and inside Kaoru wilted a bit, swearing at himself mentally before giving off a faux little laugh uneasily. “I...uh...Haha...I mean, not until we’re officially married...Ha...ha...”
There was silence for a second more, and then Fuyumi spoke monotonously. “Make sure your first one’s a boy, then. That way you’re not at fault for having a girl who is useless to the family bloodline. You won’t have to have two that way.”
“Oh, unless it’s twins, Kaoru-chan. Twins run in your mother’s side of the family, don’t they? You’re a twin yourself, aren’t you? Oh, there’s a good chance you can have multiples!!” Was Renge’s comment.
“You’re a twin?” Matsuki asked interestedly. “A brother, right...?”
There was a collective giggle around the table.
“Uh...Yes?”
“Does he look like you?”
“Um, near identical. Most people thought we were identical twins...when we were little.”
More giggles. Fuyumi especially, not even bothering to hide her chuckles behind a finely manicured fingernails like Yuki and Haruhi were. For some unbidden reason, Kaoru felt his cheeks flush a most undignified shade of red.
“Is he...” Matsuki’s voice dropped a considerable amount, and she leaned forward conspiratorially, if not somewhat shyly. “...Single?”
Kaoru’s jaw dropped. His back stiffened up, and he felt a shiver run though her whole body as Renge shook her head with a small, almost sad smile. “She means ‘is he straight’; she’s just bring shy about it.”
“I...wait...What?” Amber eyes flicked downward to her moderately sized stomach bulge, not quite sure if he had heard the woman just claim her husband was... “If...if he’s not...Well...Y’know...How’d you get like...That?” The Hitachiin asked, crossing his panty-hoed legs under the table while his fingers plucked at his chocolate covered strawberries.
Matsuki shrugged, but continued to smile (in fact, all the women were smiling and it was rather disconcerting). “ ‘Grin and Merit’.”
“Uh...Do you mean ‘grin and bear it’?” Kaoru asked.
No one said anything for a while, and the Hitachiin-in-drag got the distinct impression he was missing out on something and floundered. But then the topic switched to nipple tenderness and hyper sexuality, and Kaoru retired himself to this company with a sigh.
-
Kyouya shifted, standing up from the conference table as the other men disbanded from the meeting in the top-most floor of Nekozawa Corp. Listlessly, he replaced papers in a portfolio, organizing them as small talk drifted in and out of discern-ability and people exited the darkened room, wincing as blinding white lights hit them in the retina. Nekozawa Umehito still sat at the head of the table, still looking over the proposals and other pieces of paperwork he’d received at some point in time over the meeting.
Just as the Ootori pushed the last manilla envelope into his bag, the blond man looked up. “Ah, Kyouya. It’s been a while.”
Kyouya nodded in agreement. “Yes. Two years, I believe, since our last business transaction?”
“Yes, yes. Shrouded in darkness until the light finds us and guides our paths to cross again. That light seemingly being...” And here he consulted another piece of paper. “...‘Extra security at your hospital and private family estate’. What’s the occasion, may I ask?”
“Fuyumi-san’s second child. A hospital expansion. And my wedding.”
A dark chuckle. “My, my. Engaged, are you? Tarot cards do lie, then; they swore that you’d never settle.”
“Surprisingly enough. And even to a Hitachiin.”
“No need to sound bitter, Kyouya-san,” Umehito chuckled. “A wedding is a chance to be happy, make memories and build bonds.”
“Yes...bonds..” Kyouya buckled his bag and slung the shoulder strap over his arm, nodding in a casual-yet-let’s-cut-this-short farewell to his old classmate. “Goodbye, Umehito-san.”
“Yes, goodbye Kyouya-san. Watch out for bad omens.”
-
“You left me!!” Kaoru all but screamed the second the elongated black car exited the main gates of the Ootori estate. It was just getting dark out, and the clouds had begun to roll in just as the string quartet began to pack up.
“Aw, honey, it can’t have been that bad,” Yuzuha waved off in turn. “I had to help Kyouya-kun’s maids organize the party gifts. And plus, it looked like you made some new friends. Wasn’t that the other three Ootori girls you were with?”
“Yes.” His response was muffled by disinterest and scowling out of the window. The first drops of rain flecked the tinted glass, although in his current state, it felt more like a slap to the face. “And a Suoh, a Haninozuka and a Morinozuka. I swear to god, they talk as if their lives were soap operas! All they’re missing is an alien cross-dressing child.”
A hand patted Kaoru’s head, petting his hair to smooth down the static frizz that seemed to follow even fake hair extensions in humid, pre-rain weather. “Aww, sweetie...” she crooned. “They have you!”
The boy/girl sneered and pulled out his pone, scrolling through the contacts. “I only really liked the Haruhi one. She even gave me her phone number and told me to call if I needed anything...” He continued to scroll before remembering speed dial. It rang about three times, and then someone finally picked up. Without even leaving the other time to ask who was calling, Kaoru cut across smoothly with a, “Hello, Hikaru?”
“Mh? Oh, hey Kaoru.” A sly tone edged its way into his twin’s voice. “How was it?”
“Oh, brother-mine. I have something to tell you. The two of us, you and I, will be having wonderfully grotesque inbreed children to void this marriage contract into possibly one of the most overdramatic families I have ever met. Alas, I wish there were some other way, but I’m already inseminated as it is. Plus, as it is, incest always worked for the Greek Gods, and with a story like this under my belt, I can still fit in with all the Stepford-Wife-style breeders!”
“That bad, huh? Is mother making a face?”
“Yeah.”
“Wonderful.”
“See you at home.”
“See ya, Kao-chan!”
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Romance, Humor, (soap-opera style) Drama, MAJOR AU
Pairings or Characters: Forced!KyouKao, TamaHaru, various others
Warnings: Sexuality, pregnancy jokes, crude humor
Summary: In order to save her business, Hitachiin Yuzuha must step up to the plate, and thus force he youngest to step up to the alter. With one, Ootori Kyouya. Only problem with that? She.. kinda-told-everyone-that-Kaoru-was-a-girl...Ah, parents.
Author's Notes: Ahahahaha....Well...I must say - just enjoy. The KyouKao comes a bit later.
Previous Chapters: Prologue || Chapter One || Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Grin And Bear It...Right?
“Mother, Mommy, don’t make me do this. I look like a mountain-plains girl!”
“Kaoru, dear, relax. It’s your bridal shower, and you look beautiful,” Yuzuha purred happily, leaning over against her seatbelt to her her son’s (once again) extension accessorized hair. She smiled, even as the boy ducked out from under her hand, snarling a bit behind clenched teeth.
“Mom!!”
“Oh, sweetie, calm down. You’ll love it!! Bridal parties are always fun, especially when you’re the center of attention.” She flipped her hand encouragingly and dissuasively. “Just soak it all up, honey. It’ll be a day and night to remember.”
“Oh, stop -” The car began to slow, turning off the main road to pull up into a procession of cars that lead to the Ootori estate. Kaoru sunk low in his seat. “No...no...no...Why couldn’t Hikaru have come with me, again?”
“Tradition, dead. No men, no matter what. And stop slouching; you’ll wrinkle you box-topped prototype of my spring fall collection.”
“No men? So I can go home?” the boy asked sardonically, sneering even as he straightened up and extracted a compact mirror to check his hair. “I do not want to do this.”
“Weeeeellll....To late,” Yuzuha said sweetly, undoing her seatbelt and out of the open car door before Kaoru could even register that the car had pulled to a complete stop and that the driver had opened his mother’s side door.
For a second he considered just refusing to get out of the car; cross his legs and pretend to be PMSing, but that was a stupid idea (one even he could admit was poorly though out) and, begrudgingly, he shifted across seat to follow his mother onto the front, grassy lawn on the Ootori estate.
A large, green section of well-trimmed yard stretched around to the left of the house, the pathway decorated with pastel blue, pink and yellow streamers and white balloons, all reeking of femininity and long hours spent pointlessly over making the twirls in the streamers perfect. Once rounding the corner to the back yard, there was an array of tables adorning the grass in an open, yet fancy and classy pattern, and a long table laden with large platters of every type of food imaginable off to the side with waiters in white and black tailored suits flitting back and forth between the guests already seated and the buffet. Up on the patio, a slightly older crowd was gathered around a small bar, cosmos in hand and empty fingers fluttering around their mouths to hide snide remarks and even snider smiles.
Pleasant chatter and soft music rose from the garden in general, as well as a few high pitched cackles from children running around in satin dresses and silk dress shirts. Heavily pregnant women waddled around, making idle small talk with others before inevitably returning to the food. Baby-doll brides who looked too young to have expensive rings on their barely pubescent fingers watched the older, more mature, more drunken women with large eyes and stuttered (quite loudly) whenever asked to voice their opinions. People laughed, people smiled, people acted girly, and Kaoru knew no one.
“Moth -” But Yuzuha has already left, having been waved over by a mix of three cosmo ladies, a baby-doll bride and two pregnant women. Now Kaoru was alone, surrounded by people but utterly alone, Perhaps he should be happy that he wasn’t attracting as much unwanted attraction as he originally had feared, but at the same time, he thought he should be receiving at least some form or recognition. It felt awkward to be in a strange place full of people with no one to ask questions or talk to or just be lost with. Dejectedly, he made his way for the bar, then thought better of it and turned to head to the buffet.
Maybe they’d have the strawberry pocky his mother always used to send them via airmail... Or else some French delicacies, or even English ones. Something familiar...Maybe ootoro...
“Excuse me?” a voice behind Kaoru asked, and he jumped, attempting to cover the startle by turning to face the woman, smiling forcibly and looking a little flustered. A small brunette woman giggled. “Are you Hitachiin Kaoru?”
“I, uh...Well, yes. Yes, I am. And...You are?”
“Suoh Haruhi. I’m Kyouya’s friend; we went to school together.”
“Oh, how nice,” Kaoru observed, attempting to sound more interested than he felt. Looking Haruhi up and down, he noted the style of the shirt she wore: open and breezy from the elastic under-breast strap down. It almost looked a size too big, as well as stretchy...A maternity shirt? “I...Forgive me for asking but are you, uh...?”
“Pregnant?” Haruhi smiled, a contagious expression that one couldn’t help but reproduce. “Yes. Only a few months, though. Not really showing yet.”
“Oh, how sweet. Congratulations!”
“So, you come from France, right?” Haruhi asked, picking up a plate and proceeding after Kaoru down the buffet line, picking sparingly at the food and disregarding most of the richer foods. “So did my husband. He was raised there, but I’ve never been. Is it nice there?”
“Yes,” the red head replied, selecting several small finger foods. “...If you like wine, art and tourism. Most of the city is more concerned with peddling their goods, but it’s really quite nice and calm some places, especially in the country.”
“Ah, well, I’ll have to insist he take me then,” the chocolate eyed woman replied, reaching the end of the table with her plate. She smiled widely, invitingly. “Why don’t you come sit with us?”
“Us?” Kaoru queried, and Haruhi motioned toward a table behind her.
“Haninozuka Reiko, Morinozuka Renge, Shindo Fuyumi, Ootori Matsuki and Ootori Yuki,” she listed. “Other friends of Kyouya, and your future sisters-in-law.”
“I...” Haven’t got anywhere else to go... He grinned sheepishly. “I’d love to.”
Haruhi looked delighted and turned to breeze back to the rounded table, Kaoru trailing in her shadow. He peered at the women as he approached, trying to match barely known names to even less known faces (one of them looked like Kyouya...) but failed. They appeared like a nice group of women from afar - polite, pretty, quiet and all-over ideal Ootori brides - but as they drew nearer and Haruhi slipped into an open chair, he realized something: they were all pregnant and looked irritable. Kaoru gulped.
“ - Oh, and the mood swings! I swear, sometimes Akito thinks I’m going to kill him. Sometimes I want to.” Giggles, nods of agreement.
“I’ve been eating more cake than Mitsukuni,” a rather daunting and emotionless woman conceded. “I’ve tried various spells to prevent thus, but every time I ban a flavor from my diet, another flavor is introduced - from chocolate to pickled apple. I think I am dying.” That sounded horrible, and Kaoru gaped, especially horrified as some of the women around the table laughed again. What was with these people?!?!
“At least you can eat,” a honey-haired woman sighed. She still retained her figure, but wore the same shirt-type as Haruhi, prematurely showing off her nonexistent baby-belly. “I can’t keep anything down. Every morning, and then every night! The bathroom is my new bedroom.”
“Awww,” the obviously heaviest pregnant woman sighed in sympathy. “Have you tried seltzer water? Or eating something light before you get out of bed?”
“No, but I never want anything but spicy foods - especially in the morning!”
Well, Renge, they say the more you throw up, the smarter the baby will be,” Haruhi said smiling. “And speaking of future smart babies, this is Hitachiin Kaoru; Kyouya’s fiancee.”
There was a collective ‘ooooooh’ and several smattered ‘hi’s, and sheepishly, Kaoru rose a hand in slight greeting.
“I’m Fuyumi. Shindo Fuyumi. Kyouya-kun’s older sister,” the heavily pregnant woman said, smiling slightly. She pointed to her right, to a woman with short black hair. “This is Yuki, my older brother Rei’s wife. This is Matsuki,” a woman with very long, braided blackish-brown hair and a slightly babyish face was indicated, “My older brother Akito’s wife. This is Morinozuka Renge,” the honey haired woman with very bad morning sickness gave him a slight smile. “And Haninozuka Reiko -” the strange, ‘dying’ woman... “- and Suoh Haruhi, but I take it you’ve already met.”
“Uh, hi, everyone,” Kaoru greeted in response, feeling a little hot in the face.
“Hello, Kaoru,” the Renge woman greeted sweetly. “So, when do you plan on having children?”
Slightly off-put by the direct remark, the red head scoffed without thinking of the words that were coming out of his mouth. “Psh, never! Are you kidding me?” His answer was met with a heavy, weighted and pregnant (no pun intended) silence, and inside Kaoru wilted a bit, swearing at himself mentally before giving off a faux little laugh uneasily. “I...uh...Haha...I mean, not until we’re officially married...Ha...ha...”
There was silence for a second more, and then Fuyumi spoke monotonously. “Make sure your first one’s a boy, then. That way you’re not at fault for having a girl who is useless to the family bloodline. You won’t have to have two that way.”
“Oh, unless it’s twins, Kaoru-chan. Twins run in your mother’s side of the family, don’t they? You’re a twin yourself, aren’t you? Oh, there’s a good chance you can have multiples!!” Was Renge’s comment.
“You’re a twin?” Matsuki asked interestedly. “A brother, right...?”
There was a collective giggle around the table.
“Uh...Yes?”
“Does he look like you?”
“Um, near identical. Most people thought we were identical twins...when we were little.”
More giggles. Fuyumi especially, not even bothering to hide her chuckles behind a finely manicured fingernails like Yuki and Haruhi were. For some unbidden reason, Kaoru felt his cheeks flush a most undignified shade of red.
“Is he...” Matsuki’s voice dropped a considerable amount, and she leaned forward conspiratorially, if not somewhat shyly. “...Single?”
Kaoru’s jaw dropped. His back stiffened up, and he felt a shiver run though her whole body as Renge shook her head with a small, almost sad smile. “She means ‘is he straight’; she’s just bring shy about it.”
“I...wait...What?” Amber eyes flicked downward to her moderately sized stomach bulge, not quite sure if he had heard the woman just claim her husband was... “If...if he’s not...Well...Y’know...How’d you get like...That?” The Hitachiin asked, crossing his panty-hoed legs under the table while his fingers plucked at his chocolate covered strawberries.
Matsuki shrugged, but continued to smile (in fact, all the women were smiling and it was rather disconcerting). “ ‘Grin and Merit’.”
“Uh...Do you mean ‘grin and bear it’?” Kaoru asked.
No one said anything for a while, and the Hitachiin-in-drag got the distinct impression he was missing out on something and floundered. But then the topic switched to nipple tenderness and hyper sexuality, and Kaoru retired himself to this company with a sigh.
-
Kyouya shifted, standing up from the conference table as the other men disbanded from the meeting in the top-most floor of Nekozawa Corp. Listlessly, he replaced papers in a portfolio, organizing them as small talk drifted in and out of discern-ability and people exited the darkened room, wincing as blinding white lights hit them in the retina. Nekozawa Umehito still sat at the head of the table, still looking over the proposals and other pieces of paperwork he’d received at some point in time over the meeting.
Just as the Ootori pushed the last manilla envelope into his bag, the blond man looked up. “Ah, Kyouya. It’s been a while.”
Kyouya nodded in agreement. “Yes. Two years, I believe, since our last business transaction?”
“Yes, yes. Shrouded in darkness until the light finds us and guides our paths to cross again. That light seemingly being...” And here he consulted another piece of paper. “...‘Extra security at your hospital and private family estate’. What’s the occasion, may I ask?”
“Fuyumi-san’s second child. A hospital expansion. And my wedding.”
A dark chuckle. “My, my. Engaged, are you? Tarot cards do lie, then; they swore that you’d never settle.”
“Surprisingly enough. And even to a Hitachiin.”
“No need to sound bitter, Kyouya-san,” Umehito chuckled. “A wedding is a chance to be happy, make memories and build bonds.”
“Yes...bonds..” Kyouya buckled his bag and slung the shoulder strap over his arm, nodding in a casual-yet-let’s-cut-this-short farewell to his old classmate. “Goodbye, Umehito-san.”
“Yes, goodbye Kyouya-san. Watch out for bad omens.”
-
“You left me!!” Kaoru all but screamed the second the elongated black car exited the main gates of the Ootori estate. It was just getting dark out, and the clouds had begun to roll in just as the string quartet began to pack up.
“Aw, honey, it can’t have been that bad,” Yuzuha waved off in turn. “I had to help Kyouya-kun’s maids organize the party gifts. And plus, it looked like you made some new friends. Wasn’t that the other three Ootori girls you were with?”
“Yes.” His response was muffled by disinterest and scowling out of the window. The first drops of rain flecked the tinted glass, although in his current state, it felt more like a slap to the face. “And a Suoh, a Haninozuka and a Morinozuka. I swear to god, they talk as if their lives were soap operas! All they’re missing is an alien cross-dressing child.”
A hand patted Kaoru’s head, petting his hair to smooth down the static frizz that seemed to follow even fake hair extensions in humid, pre-rain weather. “Aww, sweetie...” she crooned. “They have you!”
The boy/girl sneered and pulled out his pone, scrolling through the contacts. “I only really liked the Haruhi one. She even gave me her phone number and told me to call if I needed anything...” He continued to scroll before remembering speed dial. It rang about three times, and then someone finally picked up. Without even leaving the other time to ask who was calling, Kaoru cut across smoothly with a, “Hello, Hikaru?”
“Mh? Oh, hey Kaoru.” A sly tone edged its way into his twin’s voice. “How was it?”
“Oh, brother-mine. I have something to tell you. The two of us, you and I, will be having wonderfully grotesque inbreed children to void this marriage contract into possibly one of the most overdramatic families I have ever met. Alas, I wish there were some other way, but I’m already inseminated as it is. Plus, as it is, incest always worked for the Greek Gods, and with a story like this under my belt, I can still fit in with all the Stepford-Wife-style breeders!”
“That bad, huh? Is mother making a face?”
“Yeah.”
“Wonderful.”
“See you at home.”
“See ya, Kao-chan!”