Everyone Needs A Little More Than Tinsel...
Christmas Request #2 completed!
This one is for the lovely caesyrian...a TamakixHaruhi piece...with cracktastic appearances from their respective fathers.
And, I have subtle_subtext's request done and Rae-chan's started (I need to do research for yours...). namistai8's will take a while longer because I think it will end up longer..."2000 Years" will get done...sometime before Christmas. And Michi...I haven't forgotten you, I've started!
Woot! Updates aside, on with the fic!
Disclaimer: I don’t own Host Club. I just play around with it to amuse myself.
Spoilers: Probably mild spoilers for Tamaki’s family background and definite spoilers for Haruhi’s.
And this has got to be manga!Yuzuru…anime!Yuzuru is much too stuffy and proper.
This is all for caesyrian. <3 Love! This is pretty much…well, the craziest thing I have written in a very long time.
Mortification
~ sciathan file ~
It was a simple fact that Suou Tamaki could be shocked rather easily by world views and facts that he considered to be outside of his conception of “normal”…even if that definition was more than suspect in the eyes of many individuals who knew him. But, Tamaki being sent into a state of absolutely rigid mortification at one seemingly random occurrence or another was not something that people who knew him would consider outside of their (and that is to say, more properly “normal”) definition of normal.
Tamaki and mortification went hand in hand just as Tamaki and elaborate speeches or roses or stints in the Corner of Woe with extremely fast turn-around times did.
This was, all and all, simple fact.
Haruhi reaching the same level of mortification was a horse of an entirely different color altogether.
She was never someone who was easily sent into states of shock…and she had two years of the Host Club’s ample antics (it had been summarily pronounced dead after Tamaki’s departure, sparing her senior year…or, perhaps, it collapsed because of the lack of sustainability produced by Kyouya’s absence…and, of course, the lethal combination of Haruhi’s own apathy and the Hitachiin twins’ penchant for boredom. But it would be a completely ridiculous thing to say that a club died of boredom.) to thank for it.
But even before her arduous training in order to withstand the bizarre, she had remained supremely unfazed by half naked men leaning over her compromisingly, showed considerable grace under pressure in the face of several male attackers on a cliff top, was generally nonplussed by several “kidnappings,” and, remarkably, became comfortably used to the erratic behavior of her current fiancé.
A mortified Haruhi - except, notably, where thunder was concerned - seemed almost contrary to the laws of nature. Fujioka Haruhi, as a rule, simply never approached a level of shock akin to her fiancé, Suou Tamaki.
However, as some wise (or, more likely, nefarious) soul once said, “rules are made to be broken.”
Tonight was apparently the opportunity for that rule to shatter into many tiny, tiny pieces.
It had begun as a simple dinner meant to introduce families - well, fathers - to one another and discuss plans for the impending marriage.
During the course of what should ostensibly have been a relatively short trip to the supermarket, Haruhi found that it was necessary to ensure Tamaki (several times...but even that is, perhaps, an understatement) that although her father still had an apparent dislike for him, Ranka would surely treat Yuzuru civilly.
In response, she had received several variations on, “But my dear father has so looked forward to meeting the gracious and oh so magnificently lovely Ranka-san, especially since it was from him that the gracious flower, my ever lovely Haruhi - not to mention adorable and cute to a fault - budded from. Ever since our romantic and enchanting engagement - ”
“- I think you remember things differently from me…”
“ - he has simply oozed a pronounced desire to meet the man who has produced a child worthy of his own glorious and radiant offspring - ” here he threw an arm up and stood at an angle that would make his rather stunning (in his own opinion) features glow with all the more intense brilliance “ - who he cherishes more than all of the stars in the great and mysterious cosmos. However…”
Here he would always halt and push his index fingers together childishly while looking down at his feet with a small, worried frown on his face.
Haruhi sighed and growled irritably, “He had better behave.”
Noticing her rather frightening aura, Tamaki wisely decided not to press the issue further. Who “he” referred to was very much uncertain, however.
For some mysterious reason, Tamaki’s mood did an emotional 360 and he was now embracing her exuberantly and spouting all sorts of nonsensical things interspersed by “Haruhi~~~!”
Unfortunately, rather than her usually diffidence to such occurrences, Tamaki’s characteristic behavior merely called to mind mental images on her father and her fiancé - one latched on each of her arms - cooing her name in the same tone of voice while barbed glares were thrown between the two males at regular intervals.
She hoped that Suou Yuzuru would be the kind of gentleman to take this all in stride and sit there as an amused observer.
The likelihood, however, of her having three fathers for the entire evening was extremely high. Haruhi sighed again - causing Tamaki to launch into some bit about how with every one of her breaths “beteemed the heavens to tremble” - and decided that she would merely take things as she always did where Tamaki was concerned… knowing only that he seemed to destabilize the world and make the only predictable thing in it the sheer unpredictability of events.
She resolved merely to face it as she always had. With a strange mixture of determination and apathy, she took Tamaki’s hand, causing him to grind to a halt mid purple prose and give her a rather dumbfounded look.
“H-h-haruhi, you’ve acknowledged my existence…publicly!”
She gave him a look that clearly stated “idiot” without the need of the accompanying word. Knowing perfectly well what that look meant, Tamaki had the good sense to look scandalized and then gave an almost imperceptible shift in his head that indicated he was searching for the darkest corner in the room.
Attempting to avoid any embarrassing stints in the Corner of Woe in the midst of a busy supermarket, Haruhi tugged gently at his hand in order to get him to come with her. If he did that, aside from the fact that it was embarrassing, he would most likely take the basket with him - which he had elected to hold - and that would be even more troublesome.
Instead she merely responded, “I think everyone can see I acknowledge you publicly anyways…certainly they can hear you even when they don’t see you. And,” she pondered the next part seriously, “despite what may be my better judgment, I’m still here and I am making sure that you stay with me.”
It seemed as if Tamaki merely ignored all of the parts that she had intended to be slightly blunt criticism and only processed “I am making sure that you stay with me,” prompting another romantic frothing at the mouth - still immune to the baffled glares of other shoppers at his behavior - as he placed the items on the check stand with such gusto that the cashier had a look of dubious admiration on her features and kept punching in discount codes that didn’t apply to any of the items that were being purchased.
Tamaki finally calmed himself (well, as calm as he was liable to get) half way to Haruhi’s apartment complex. He ventured to ask a question, “Haruhi…what do we plan on doing now?”
She stared blankly at him for a moment before responding, “My father said that you volunteered to help clean.”
For a moment it was clear that he did not remember volunteering to do such a thing at all…but then, hitting on a particular memory, his facial expression darkened considerably.
He had indeed “volunteered”…under duress…
…Very, very extreme duress in the form of one of Ranka’s high heels digging into his temple.
In fact, he recalled that that particular visit had gone well, at first. Over the six years or so that Tamaki had had a “relationship of an undisclosed nature” with Haruhj, both males had developed an unspoken pact that they would treat each other, well, as slightly less than friends and a smidgen more than enemies.
It was crystal clear that both considered the other to be annoying, coincidentally, for the same personality traits.
But when Tamaki had uttered the words (with accompanying great flourish), “Father! Your cute daughter whom I regard as my own and I will be engaged in prosperous and cordial Holy Matrimony because we lo-“
At this point the embrace that he was about to envelope Ranka in was halted and Tamaki found that his definite forward trajectory was no longer…quite so forward at all. In fact, he found himself landing with a kind of crunch on his back and the okama hovering over him with a downright malevolent look in his eyes.
“I knew it. I always knew it. But now, are you telling me that you will dare to touch my cute and adorable Haruhi, you overly handsome pestilence!?” The words sounded so very sweet, so very chokingly sweet.
Haruhi had sighed, gathered up the dinner dishes and moved towards the kitchen. Seeing this, Tamaki managed to do quite an accurate impression of a crab walk - even despite the black pump that pinned his head to the floor - towards her, tears in his eyes and a plaintive wail of “Haruhi~!” on his lips.
Not even his best puppy dog eyes sufficed this time.
She walked past him, slid open the door, and before his one free hand could grab onto any part of the hem of the blue jumper her father had forced her into, she said “This is your battle, Senpai” and slid the door closed.
In the space of a few moments, Tamaki found himself alone with an enraged Ranka. “Battle” had been more a accurate word choice then the entire plethora of vocabulary words he possessed could possibly come up with.
A feat, indeed.
He looked longingly at the door, hoping that somewhere in her heart, Haruhi might find the chivalrous ecstasy that would be the impetus to come and save him. But in a rare moment of lucid thinking, he knew that Amazon-in-White-Armor was not a role that suited Haruhi at all (In fact his mental image of Haruhi as an Amazon was…decidedly un-cute). But he didn’t have much time to contemplate this as he was abruptly pulled to a sitting position by the collar of his shirt by a hand sporting marvelously manicured fingernails.
There was a tiny snap and Ranka looked down at an index finger where a small, jagged triangle had broken off one of the blood red tips.
It was then that Tamaki realized that hell hath no fury like a woman with a broken nail. A strange new aura now surrounded Haruhi’s father…but curiously, there was a deafening silence.
Ranka merely eyed him, then simply picked him up and threw him through the doorway. He slid into the outside banister and thanked the Lord above for Commoner building ingenuity within the small dwellings. But, once again, the rage of his future father-in-law did not allow a great deal of time for propitious ponderance on the topic of architecture.
The last image that Tamaki remembered before the door closed resoundingly upon him was the tall silhouette of Ranka’s shadowy figure, skirt billowing around him like some demon’s cape and the growled words, “I knew you would steal my daughter away from me…but you should at least do it properly. Let me talk to the father of my worst enemy in existence - ” Ranka stabbed an inky finger in his direction…lest he forget who exactly that enemy was…Tamaki could swear Haruhi’s father’s entire aura was tinged with red flames by now, “ - and you had better not work my Haruhi too hard in order to accomplish that!”
In light of the rage that was palpably emanating from the figure, Tamaki could only stammer a shrill, “Y-y-y-yes!”
He was brought out of the nightmare by Haruhi’s voice saying, “Your father informed me that he would be here in two hours, so that should be enough time to prepare everything necessary.”
For no apparent reason, Haruhi found herself nearly being suffocated to death by one of his already too high-powered embraces. But she didn’t ask the cause of it. In her head she kept enumerating the various tasks that needed to be accomplished prior to Suou Yuzuru’s arrival because she had decided long ago that whatever went on in Tamaki’s head could be represented solely by one giant question mark. But even after the bone-crunching hug, she kept his hand firmly in hers as they walked the remainder of the distance to her apartment with a minimum of outbursts both verbal and figurative.
Tamaki still managed to ask her twice if she thought that the meeting would go smoothly.
Even though she never included it in her assurances to him - most likely because it seemed like an incidental fact to her…something so obvious there was no need to say such a thing - personally, she didn’t really care what anyone else thought.
Certainly it would be less troublesome if the meeting went smoothly. But her father’s outbursts wouldn’t influence what she had already decided to do.
Her grip on Tamaki’s hand grew imperceptibly tighter.
----------~<@>~----------
Suou Yuzuru arrived with stylish promptness at the time that had been specified. He decided immediately that the dwelling that his son’s intended lived in had a pleasingly quaint feeling to it. In fact, a woman who had introduced herself as the Fujioka’s landlady had already offered him a personal welcome and a basket of…persimmons?...upon his arrival.
He had of course declined them politely as any gentleman should, (that is, with a great rhetorical flourish) and with a deep blush the landlady commented that she could see how he must be Haruhi’s fiancé’s father.
The glow of fatherly pride that resulted from her comment propelled him towards the stairs with a high degree of vigor. His adorable son had already won over the entirety of the building’s population, it seemed. For here on, Yuzuru could only imagine what other great conquests lay before his foolishly charismatic boy.
And like always, he mentally patted himself on the back and thanked the powers-that-be that out of all the Commoners he might have awarded the special Scholarship to Ouran to, serendipitous Fate had intervened and caused him to pick the love of his devastatingly handsome son’s life.
As he alighted the set of stairs to the second floor, he drew his jacket around him against the chilly winter night and thought for the umpteenth time during the evening that Commoners seemed to make jackets that withstood the cold far better than even Armani or countless designer brands.
It was out of necessity, he supposed. But he would have to remind himself to tell Tamaki at a later time that he had discovered that the elite paid several hundred dollars more to me several degrees colder within their brand name coats.
However, in Yuzuru’s own opinion, he looked rather dashing in his current ensemble.
His darling boy had suggested that he look more like a Commoner - purely for the sake of appearances - for the dinner…and, privately, Yuzuru thought that the idea simply smacked of his adorably dense son’s endearing brand of ridiculousness.
So, of course, he had to play along. It was simply too tempting not to.
Of course there was that half mumbled indication that Fujioka Ryoji…Ranka?...oh, he would use whatever name the man introduced himself as…but, Tamaki had intimated that for some unfathomable reason he was not well-liked by the man.
The notion that anyone - except his mother…but that was to be expected because she hardly liked anyone - could possibly dislike his Tamaki seemed like a foreign concept altogether. He must have heard him wrong.
There had never been any indication of pure dislike against Tamaki that he could remember.
Yuzuru found that he had arrived at the number that Tamaki had indicated (he had, for some reason given him a series of directions that included everything from the number of stairs to the correct floor, the number of doors down, and, peculiarly, a rather poetic description of a species of lawn ornament that was in a large potted plant three doors down from the Fujioka household) and knocked.
His lovely jewel of a future daughter-in-law answered, looking much harassed and throwing a quick glance somewhere behind her. The pleasant scent of sukiyaki wafted out to him.
They exchanged the customary formal greetings and Yuzuru entered the dwelling.
The sight that greeted him was not what he had at all expected.
Tamaki was splayed out on the floor as a woman stood over him, one foot planted firmly on his back and saying, in a deep - almost masculine - voice, “I told you not to work my precious daughter too hard…how can you be worthy of her if you can’t follow that small instruction?”
The woman then proceeded to dig her heel into him while grumbling a series of strange insults. Haruhi, however, seemed supremely unfazed by the entire display while Yuzuru himself didn’t quite know what to think.
Tamaki, it seems, was trying to answer the accusations against him, but every time he opened his mouth the woman applied more pressure to the pitiful looking boy and the only sound that emerged was something that sounded like “Sowargheeee!”
Haruhi cleared her throat loudly and said in a louder voice -clearly not for Yuzuru’s own benefit - “I apologize for my father’s behavior.”
His future daughter-in-law gestured, inexplicably, to the woman.
Suddenly, all of Tamaki’s comments about “the lovely Ranka-san” made sense. In fact, all the details of several conversations feel firmly into place. Yuzuru would definitely enjoy telling his mother about the family of his son’s intended. The woman was liable to have a conniption fit.
…Albeit, a highly amusing one.
But, at Haruhi’s comment, the okama who was apparently Haruhi’s father straightened up immediately and turned towards his guest. Removing his high heeled shoe from Tamaki’s back he put his hand up to his mouth and gave a small, tittering chuckle before walking over to the newly arrived guest and giving a very exuberant greeting.
“Ah, you must be that handsome boy’s father, I am Fujioka Ryoji - you may call me Ranka~~! If you like - and I am the father of this adorable girl!” In a small burst of speed and a flutter of scarf and skirt, the man had wrapped his daughter in an embrace (Haruhi merely looked fiercely indifferent to his efforts).
Yuzuru noticed that in doing this he had stepped in front of Tamaki, who at that moment had been clawing towards the girl, the look of a kicked puppy dog reflected in his face. Finding his path cut off by the man who was formerly stepping on him, he changed directions in favor of the closet…where he mysteriously began growing mushrooms.
With a bemused expression - because it interested him greatly that someone else found as much amusement in making fun of his silly boy as he did - he bowed formally and said, “Indeed, I am the father of that silly boy…and it’s a pleasure indeed to meet the father of the adorable fiancé he managed to win over at long last.”
Yuzuru caught a very strange look flash for a moment in the other man’s eyes. Whatever it was, however, faded quite quickly.
They shook hands quite vigorously.
Haruhi sighed at what must have been the strangest greetings ever and said, “Please take a seat at the table and I will serve tea and the meal,” she threw a look of annoyance in the direction of her fiancé and added, “I will not serve dinner to people who have taken over others’ closets without permission, again.”
Then, before the puppy dog eyes could emerge, she disappeared into the kitchen in order to retrieve the dinner. The fathers, still sizing each other up, complied with the request and seated themselves around the table and began exchanging light compliments and trivial conversation. Tentatively, Tamaki made his way out and took up a place opposite of Ranka and next to his father.
When Haruhi emerged from the kitchen and served the meal, the conversation among the four moved to a discussion of wedding plans (Tamaki had quite a nonsensical idea involving rose petals, a pair of elephants, and a highly inventive use of a wedding cake…however, Haruhi was quick to quell it before the theater of his brain could become even more ridiculous).
Both fathers seemed to get along quite well until the very end of the meal.
At that point, Haruhi had politely inquired of Yuzuru, “I hope the food was to your liking, Chairman.”
With a flamboyance that rivaled that which his son was capable of producing, Yuzuru shaded his eyes and looked away in mock humility while throwing one hand out towards Haruhi (who merely blinked in response) and stated extravagantly, “Please, please, my dear almost daughter, call me ‘Father.’”
Almost immediately, there was a sound of jostled china clinking and the assembled party looked up see that Ranka had risen to his feet and was leaning on the edge of the table, a look of outrage on his face.
He took a few deep and angry breathes before jabbing a finger at Yuzuru and shouting, “I see where the enemy gets it!”
At this strange outburst, Yuzuru blinked and asked questioningly, his tone tinged with confusion, “…enemy?”
As Haruhi sighed and began the rest of the dishes away while Tamaki, with a great and dramatic sigh pointed meekly at himself and said in a squeaky voice, “That would be me.”
Ranka nodded vigorously and with a toss of his long hair stated haughtily, “That annoying boy thinks that just because he’s a little bit handsome he can come and usurp my position and take my lovely Haruhi away from me.”
Haruhi, who had just come in again after clearing the remainder of the dishes away, slumped down next to Tamaki and said wearily, “I think - well, I hope - he has finally gotten rid of the troublesome notion that I am his daughter. And he is not stealing me. It’s only marriage.”
Tamaki began to object to her assertion that it was only marriage and was immediately interrupted.
“But both of them, both of them,” Ranka made a sweeping gesture towards the two Suous present, “keep claiming the position of your father. Thus,” the gesture became a stabbing motion with an index finger, “they must both be my greatest enemies!”
It was at this moment that Haruhi decided that if there ever was another opportunity for a meeting like this - and half of her sincerely hoped there wouldn’t be - she would make sure that saké was too “expensive” at the supermarket that day. This thought was only reinforced when her father seized her and said “I don’t know how my Haruhi~ was ever won over by…” the saccharine falsetto suddenly deepened into a voice that didn’t hold any vestiges of sweetness, “that.”
His finger pointed straight at the quivering blond across the table from him.
Seeing this, Yuzuru, nodded almost imperceptibly and said in a very neutral tone, “I see.”
Both of the younger people in the room looked like they wanted more than anything to crawl under the table…indeed, Tamaki appeared to be inching very, very slowly towards the closet again.
Curiously, despite years of discouraging the activity, Haruhi seemed to share the same trajectory.
All of the tension in the room seemed to be focused directly on the chairman of Ouran who stood up and looked as if he was about to leave.
Rather, he turned and faced away from the his host and, balancing his chin on top of a fist, stated in a very serious tone, “I am very glad, Ranka-san that you wish to know such a thing.”
He turned around with surprising burst of speed - Haruhi would later swear that the invisible but still perceptible glitter that Tamaki so often displayed was a trait that he doubtlessly inherited from this man - and exclaimed, “Because he is sinfully handsome, irresistibly charismatic, adorably pure hearted and - ” he paused for a moment and pointed a finger in the air resolutely and strolled towards his son, “ - he is a very silly boy.”
While at other times Tamaki might have jumped up beside him and thanked him with an incredibly long speech detailing the intimate nature of paternal love and the strength of the filial bond - not to mention his father’s impeccable knack for summarizing the facts of the situation - this was one time when he had the rare good sense to continue his painstakingly slow journey to the mushroom closet without comment.
Because, oblivious though he might be on a fairly regular basis, Suou Tamaki could recognize a proverbial clash of titanic forces when he saw it. Even when one titan applied make-up better than most females he knew and the other was practically sparkling in a deadly manner.
Ranka, quite disappointed that the progeny of his current enemy hadn’t opened his mouth and showcased his normal annoying display of verbal diarrhea, decided that he needed to answer this rich man’s burst of pride with one of his own.
He sidled over to his daughter and enthusiastically embraced her. Her expression immediately turned from one of weary acceptance of the antics of the two older men to one of belligerent annoyance for physically involving her own person.
“While Tamaki-kun certainly might be good looking, my daughter is so very, very adorable~!! And independent~~! And of course, as she has come to your own very rich school, it is obvious that my lovely daughter is certainly intelligent!”
Each successive compliment was accompanied by a lung-popping hug. Sensing the impending danger to his fiancé’s petite frame, from his position halfway between the table and the closet, Tamaki reached out to her in an unsuccessful bid to be Haruhi’s knight in shining armor.
Unfortunately, he found himself unceremoniously flung toward a corner of the room - alas, in the opposite direction from the sanctity of the closet - by a well placed kick disguised as a playful flip of the heel instead.
Yuzuru noticed this, but, as a veteran of many international political squabbles and more than a few familial ones, he decided that he would leave him to face his own, uh, gender confused demons.
However, he didn’t believe that he should leave the wonderful jewel that was his future daughter-in-law in extreme peril of imminent strangulation.
“Of course, Haruhi-chan is wonderfully intelligent,” he acknowledged smoothly. Ranka relinquished hold of the girl and looked a cross between triumphant and scandalized by the honorific (even though Yuzuru had used it the entire evening without eliciting the same reaction), “Of course, she would have to be since I personally chose her to receive the scholarship that secured her attendance at Ouran.”
Ranka stuttered. This was a fact he was unaware of.
But it was also something that he found he couldn’t easily counter and so he did what he thought would improve his situation the best.
“And from there, my lovely future daughter-in-law managed to enchant quite a few impressive people,” and very slyly he added, “and…Tamaki merely charmed her.”
He ignored that completely and, changing the topic completely, began extravagantly relating an account of Haruhi’s statistical analysis project she had done at the age of six while obviously fabricating a significant portion of data.
Yuzuru countered by enumerating the various languages Tamaki spoke with an exact degree of proficiency and bragging about his “profound degree of outstanding musicality.”
Then, of course, came the photos.
Looking at each other, neither Tamaki nor Haruhi could fathom why Yuzuru Suou carried such a complete pictorial timeline of his son’s life in his wallet nor why Ranka’s boxes of photos were quite possibly the most organized thing that he had ever (and ostensibly would ever) possess.
In fact, on the fringes of the inferno of fatherly pride, both Tamaki and Haruhi could only sit side by side in, perhaps for the first time, a completely equal state of mortification. It was like staring in shock at a giant, glittering, bragging, and increasingly far-fetched train wreck.
But these men had down the work that no half naked boy or rambunctious hooligan - or even an overly enthusiastic boyfriend - could do.
For a few moments, Fujioka Haruhi sat in stunned silence.
Finally, the comments thrown back and forth between the pair were so absurd that Haruhi thought, rather numbly, that she should figure out a way to escape before she became even more troublesomely involved in the dispute.
Her announcement that she would go make tea was greeted with a collective “That is because my daughter is so cute~!” and then a dispute over the right to use the pronoun “my” in reference to her.
As she rose, Tamaki numbly caught onto her sleeve. The look that he gave her was so pitiful - and she did feel slightly bad for her father’s behavior for the evening - that she somehow managed to get him past his father’s now more than overt displays of affection and her own father’s accusations of betrayal.
Once the door to the kitchen slid closed, they both moved to the wall and slid down onto the floor again with a sigh of relief at the brief respite.
There was a comfortable almost silence (the noises of the argument and the now completely made up claims about their respective childhood accomplishments provided a throbbing background noise) between them.
After a small time had passed, Haruhi let out a noisy sigh.
“Really…those two…”
Real tears glistening in his eyes, Tamaki wrapped his arm around her shoulder and said with flourish, “They are just apprehensive that their greatest treasures - the children that they carry in the deepest depths of their hearts - are gaining new wings with which to fly out of the sheltered refuge of their parental nests! And, as one who once harbored such fatherly feelings towards you - however erroneous those were you need not remind me, once again - I understand your father’s great love for his cute daughter and will endeavor to ensure him that I shall continue to care for you like the divine goddess that you are.”
At the close of his speech he daintily dried his eyes and let out an impassioned sigh.
Haruhi merely rolled her eyes and said, “I don’t know who will cry more at the wedding…you or my father.”
He dramatically flipped a tear out of his eye and said, “I will cry from happiness - and proudly! - because I will be with my beloved Haruhi.”
Haruhi smiled and said playfully, “You can cry for me, then.”
She must have looked exceptionally cute at that moment (not that in Tamaki’s mind she ever looked anything but exceptionally cute), because he grabbed her at that moment and extolled many of her virtues. Deciding she owed him, she allowed him to and even tried to look less…annoyed.
By now, Tamaki’s excessive emotion - especially in light of the battle of fatherly affections that they had escaped - was something she had grown accustomed to.
It only accounted for about 25% of his entire personality. The other 75% was made up of more or less redeeming qualities that had eventually - and this she would only grudgingly admit to a very, very select group of people - slowly won her over.
Even though the exchange between their fathers was akin to the time she had watched as Kyouya’s sister and Tamaki gushed over commoner’s gourmet food, she did learn some rather…interesting…things.
More to stop his enthusiastic overtures than anything else, she asked, “Tamaki-senpai, did you really learn German when you were younger?”
After his initial surprise at her question (in which he thankfully released her), he gave one of his loud laughs and wistfully answered, “When I lived in France, we had a German chambermaid who taught me to greet the head butler by saying ‘I love your mustache’ in German.”
Despite herself, Haruhi chuckled slightly while imagining a very solemn and small Tamaki try to win over a serious butler in this manner.
Tamaki put his hands behind his head, “I can imagine you correcting the zoo keeper about the codes for animal cruelty, even at the age of nine.”
Haruhi pondered this tid bit of information for a moment before looking at his face and knowing that what actually happened had nothing to do with whatever scene he had decided had happened, she stated, “I don’t think that it was quite how you are imagining it…but, I remember something like that…I think he was exaggerating most of the rest of the things he said. Especially the part when - ”
Whatever made-up story of her youth that Haruhi found particularly objectionable would never be known because Ranka chose that moment to come in with a shout of “Haruhi~! Why has my cute daughter left her loyal father?!?”
This time it was her father who was weeping ridiculously.
She stood up, taking Tamaki’s hand in her own and gesturing for him to follow. Briefly she wondered if her father had somehow managed to incapacitate Yuzuru and had merely left him in the next room.
Ranka, so far gone in the haze of fatherly love that had engulfed him utterly over the course of the evening, launched himself at his - by now extremely annoyed - daughter.
He ran into Haruhi’s outstretched hand and lost his footing, falling on the floor in an undignified heap. Without so much as inquiring if he was okay, she walked resolutely out with Tamaki docilely obeying and grumbled, “We will return in awhile. Hopefully you will not be as troubling when I return.”
Yuzuru, who was chuckling and sipping the rest of his cup of tea, said pleasantly, “Take care of yourselves. Especially you, my very silly boy.”
Rather than simply following in Haruhi’s footsteps, Tamaki’s own steps gained a fierce - though ridiculous looking - determination and Yuzuru thought he distinctly heard his son whisper something to the effect of “Mean old man.”
The door closed with a bang behind them. Yuzuru took another sip of his tea before quietly saying, “Ranka-san, they’ve finally left.”
The okama emerged from the kitchen, a mischievous smile on his face and all traces of the former animosity he had shown erased.
Glancing at the apartment’s front door, Yuzuru swallowed the last bit of tea and set the cup down at the table before saying with a tone of amusement, “They are both intelligent but also…”
Ranka sat down opposite his future in-law again and finished, “annoyingly oblivious.” She twirled a wayward strand of head around his finger, “They really should learn to not underestimate Kyouya-kun’s organizational skills.”
Ranka poured out the remainder of the saké into two glasses. The gentleman toasted to their meeting.
Yuzuru chuckled, “It really is, however, a pleasure to meet you finally, despite our long history of prior communication.”
“Yes, even though it still pisses me off that that boy of yours will steal away my Haruhi. But I knew it would be him the first time I saw him…its so…so…annoying.”
Yuzuru nodded in bemused agreement, “He really is quite a fool…endearing though he is.”
Ranka tossed his hair and gave the other man a devious grin.
“I think we are going to have fun with both them for a long time.”
Fin
A/N: With my penchant for horrible puns I kept wanting to put Tamaki in the mushroom closet and have him pop out and go “Haruhi~! I’m a fun guy!” (Get it? “Fungi” Hah hah hah….) *Is shot*
That bit of absolute stupidity aside (I really apologize profusely) this fic is entirely for caesyrian…although, I meant to have more TamaHaru fluff and the Yuzuru and Ranka took over…so hopefully it is still okay (if you hate it I will write you something else!)… ^^U But there are a few bits of (strange) fluff in there for you!
But, I’ve always wanted to write a fic where Yuzuru and Ranka meet…and the fatherly battle and subsequent embarrassment of their children just seems like an inevitable result.
And…if Haruhi and Tamaki dated, Yuzuru would so get Kyouya to give him Ranka’s phone number…or Kyouya would give Yuzuru’s to Ranka or something to that effect.
And, the “I like your mustache” is a random joke in my family - in case anyone was wondering…I actually know how to say it for some reason…
But, random information aside, I hope you all enjoyed and, as always, thanks for reading.
And, of course, Merry Christmas caesyrian!
^_^
This one is for the lovely caesyrian...a TamakixHaruhi piece...with cracktastic appearances from their respective fathers.
And, I have subtle_subtext's request done and Rae-chan's started (I need to do research for yours...). namistai8's will take a while longer because I think it will end up longer..."2000 Years" will get done...sometime before Christmas. And Michi...I haven't forgotten you, I've started!
Woot! Updates aside, on with the fic!
Disclaimer: I don’t own Host Club. I just play around with it to amuse myself.
Spoilers: Probably mild spoilers for Tamaki’s family background and definite spoilers for Haruhi’s.
And this has got to be manga!Yuzuru…anime!Yuzuru is much too stuffy and proper.
This is all for caesyrian. <3 Love! This is pretty much…well, the craziest thing I have written in a very long time.
Mortification
~ sciathan file ~
It was a simple fact that Suou Tamaki could be shocked rather easily by world views and facts that he considered to be outside of his conception of “normal”…even if that definition was more than suspect in the eyes of many individuals who knew him. But, Tamaki being sent into a state of absolutely rigid mortification at one seemingly random occurrence or another was not something that people who knew him would consider outside of their (and that is to say, more properly “normal”) definition of normal.
Tamaki and mortification went hand in hand just as Tamaki and elaborate speeches or roses or stints in the Corner of Woe with extremely fast turn-around times did.
This was, all and all, simple fact.
Haruhi reaching the same level of mortification was a horse of an entirely different color altogether.
She was never someone who was easily sent into states of shock…and she had two years of the Host Club’s ample antics (it had been summarily pronounced dead after Tamaki’s departure, sparing her senior year…or, perhaps, it collapsed because of the lack of sustainability produced by Kyouya’s absence…and, of course, the lethal combination of Haruhi’s own apathy and the Hitachiin twins’ penchant for boredom. But it would be a completely ridiculous thing to say that a club died of boredom.) to thank for it.
But even before her arduous training in order to withstand the bizarre, she had remained supremely unfazed by half naked men leaning over her compromisingly, showed considerable grace under pressure in the face of several male attackers on a cliff top, was generally nonplussed by several “kidnappings,” and, remarkably, became comfortably used to the erratic behavior of her current fiancé.
A mortified Haruhi - except, notably, where thunder was concerned - seemed almost contrary to the laws of nature. Fujioka Haruhi, as a rule, simply never approached a level of shock akin to her fiancé, Suou Tamaki.
However, as some wise (or, more likely, nefarious) soul once said, “rules are made to be broken.”
Tonight was apparently the opportunity for that rule to shatter into many tiny, tiny pieces.
It had begun as a simple dinner meant to introduce families - well, fathers - to one another and discuss plans for the impending marriage.
During the course of what should ostensibly have been a relatively short trip to the supermarket, Haruhi found that it was necessary to ensure Tamaki (several times...but even that is, perhaps, an understatement) that although her father still had an apparent dislike for him, Ranka would surely treat Yuzuru civilly.
In response, she had received several variations on, “But my dear father has so looked forward to meeting the gracious and oh so magnificently lovely Ranka-san, especially since it was from him that the gracious flower, my ever lovely Haruhi - not to mention adorable and cute to a fault - budded from. Ever since our romantic and enchanting engagement - ”
“- I think you remember things differently from me…”
“ - he has simply oozed a pronounced desire to meet the man who has produced a child worthy of his own glorious and radiant offspring - ” here he threw an arm up and stood at an angle that would make his rather stunning (in his own opinion) features glow with all the more intense brilliance “ - who he cherishes more than all of the stars in the great and mysterious cosmos. However…”
Here he would always halt and push his index fingers together childishly while looking down at his feet with a small, worried frown on his face.
Haruhi sighed and growled irritably, “He had better behave.”
Noticing her rather frightening aura, Tamaki wisely decided not to press the issue further. Who “he” referred to was very much uncertain, however.
For some mysterious reason, Tamaki’s mood did an emotional 360 and he was now embracing her exuberantly and spouting all sorts of nonsensical things interspersed by “Haruhi~~~!”
Unfortunately, rather than her usually diffidence to such occurrences, Tamaki’s characteristic behavior merely called to mind mental images on her father and her fiancé - one latched on each of her arms - cooing her name in the same tone of voice while barbed glares were thrown between the two males at regular intervals.
She hoped that Suou Yuzuru would be the kind of gentleman to take this all in stride and sit there as an amused observer.
The likelihood, however, of her having three fathers for the entire evening was extremely high. Haruhi sighed again - causing Tamaki to launch into some bit about how with every one of her breaths “beteemed the heavens to tremble” - and decided that she would merely take things as she always did where Tamaki was concerned… knowing only that he seemed to destabilize the world and make the only predictable thing in it the sheer unpredictability of events.
She resolved merely to face it as she always had. With a strange mixture of determination and apathy, she took Tamaki’s hand, causing him to grind to a halt mid purple prose and give her a rather dumbfounded look.
“H-h-haruhi, you’ve acknowledged my existence…publicly!”
She gave him a look that clearly stated “idiot” without the need of the accompanying word. Knowing perfectly well what that look meant, Tamaki had the good sense to look scandalized and then gave an almost imperceptible shift in his head that indicated he was searching for the darkest corner in the room.
Attempting to avoid any embarrassing stints in the Corner of Woe in the midst of a busy supermarket, Haruhi tugged gently at his hand in order to get him to come with her. If he did that, aside from the fact that it was embarrassing, he would most likely take the basket with him - which he had elected to hold - and that would be even more troublesome.
Instead she merely responded, “I think everyone can see I acknowledge you publicly anyways…certainly they can hear you even when they don’t see you. And,” she pondered the next part seriously, “despite what may be my better judgment, I’m still here and I am making sure that you stay with me.”
It seemed as if Tamaki merely ignored all of the parts that she had intended to be slightly blunt criticism and only processed “I am making sure that you stay with me,” prompting another romantic frothing at the mouth - still immune to the baffled glares of other shoppers at his behavior - as he placed the items on the check stand with such gusto that the cashier had a look of dubious admiration on her features and kept punching in discount codes that didn’t apply to any of the items that were being purchased.
Tamaki finally calmed himself (well, as calm as he was liable to get) half way to Haruhi’s apartment complex. He ventured to ask a question, “Haruhi…what do we plan on doing now?”
She stared blankly at him for a moment before responding, “My father said that you volunteered to help clean.”
For a moment it was clear that he did not remember volunteering to do such a thing at all…but then, hitting on a particular memory, his facial expression darkened considerably.
He had indeed “volunteered”…under duress…
…Very, very extreme duress in the form of one of Ranka’s high heels digging into his temple.
In fact, he recalled that that particular visit had gone well, at first. Over the six years or so that Tamaki had had a “relationship of an undisclosed nature” with Haruhj, both males had developed an unspoken pact that they would treat each other, well, as slightly less than friends and a smidgen more than enemies.
It was crystal clear that both considered the other to be annoying, coincidentally, for the same personality traits.
But when Tamaki had uttered the words (with accompanying great flourish), “Father! Your cute daughter whom I regard as my own and I will be engaged in prosperous and cordial Holy Matrimony because we lo-“
At this point the embrace that he was about to envelope Ranka in was halted and Tamaki found that his definite forward trajectory was no longer…quite so forward at all. In fact, he found himself landing with a kind of crunch on his back and the okama hovering over him with a downright malevolent look in his eyes.
“I knew it. I always knew it. But now, are you telling me that you will dare to touch my cute and adorable Haruhi, you overly handsome pestilence!?” The words sounded so very sweet, so very chokingly sweet.
Haruhi had sighed, gathered up the dinner dishes and moved towards the kitchen. Seeing this, Tamaki managed to do quite an accurate impression of a crab walk - even despite the black pump that pinned his head to the floor - towards her, tears in his eyes and a plaintive wail of “Haruhi~!” on his lips.
Not even his best puppy dog eyes sufficed this time.
She walked past him, slid open the door, and before his one free hand could grab onto any part of the hem of the blue jumper her father had forced her into, she said “This is your battle, Senpai” and slid the door closed.
In the space of a few moments, Tamaki found himself alone with an enraged Ranka. “Battle” had been more a accurate word choice then the entire plethora of vocabulary words he possessed could possibly come up with.
A feat, indeed.
He looked longingly at the door, hoping that somewhere in her heart, Haruhi might find the chivalrous ecstasy that would be the impetus to come and save him. But in a rare moment of lucid thinking, he knew that Amazon-in-White-Armor was not a role that suited Haruhi at all (In fact his mental image of Haruhi as an Amazon was…decidedly un-cute). But he didn’t have much time to contemplate this as he was abruptly pulled to a sitting position by the collar of his shirt by a hand sporting marvelously manicured fingernails.
There was a tiny snap and Ranka looked down at an index finger where a small, jagged triangle had broken off one of the blood red tips.
It was then that Tamaki realized that hell hath no fury like a woman with a broken nail. A strange new aura now surrounded Haruhi’s father…but curiously, there was a deafening silence.
Ranka merely eyed him, then simply picked him up and threw him through the doorway. He slid into the outside banister and thanked the Lord above for Commoner building ingenuity within the small dwellings. But, once again, the rage of his future father-in-law did not allow a great deal of time for propitious ponderance on the topic of architecture.
The last image that Tamaki remembered before the door closed resoundingly upon him was the tall silhouette of Ranka’s shadowy figure, skirt billowing around him like some demon’s cape and the growled words, “I knew you would steal my daughter away from me…but you should at least do it properly. Let me talk to the father of my worst enemy in existence - ” Ranka stabbed an inky finger in his direction…lest he forget who exactly that enemy was…Tamaki could swear Haruhi’s father’s entire aura was tinged with red flames by now, “ - and you had better not work my Haruhi too hard in order to accomplish that!”
In light of the rage that was palpably emanating from the figure, Tamaki could only stammer a shrill, “Y-y-y-yes!”
He was brought out of the nightmare by Haruhi’s voice saying, “Your father informed me that he would be here in two hours, so that should be enough time to prepare everything necessary.”
For no apparent reason, Haruhi found herself nearly being suffocated to death by one of his already too high-powered embraces. But she didn’t ask the cause of it. In her head she kept enumerating the various tasks that needed to be accomplished prior to Suou Yuzuru’s arrival because she had decided long ago that whatever went on in Tamaki’s head could be represented solely by one giant question mark. But even after the bone-crunching hug, she kept his hand firmly in hers as they walked the remainder of the distance to her apartment with a minimum of outbursts both verbal and figurative.
Tamaki still managed to ask her twice if she thought that the meeting would go smoothly.
Even though she never included it in her assurances to him - most likely because it seemed like an incidental fact to her…something so obvious there was no need to say such a thing - personally, she didn’t really care what anyone else thought.
Certainly it would be less troublesome if the meeting went smoothly. But her father’s outbursts wouldn’t influence what she had already decided to do.
Her grip on Tamaki’s hand grew imperceptibly tighter.
----------~<@>~----------
Suou Yuzuru arrived with stylish promptness at the time that had been specified. He decided immediately that the dwelling that his son’s intended lived in had a pleasingly quaint feeling to it. In fact, a woman who had introduced herself as the Fujioka’s landlady had already offered him a personal welcome and a basket of…persimmons?...upon his arrival.
He had of course declined them politely as any gentleman should, (that is, with a great rhetorical flourish) and with a deep blush the landlady commented that she could see how he must be Haruhi’s fiancé’s father.
The glow of fatherly pride that resulted from her comment propelled him towards the stairs with a high degree of vigor. His adorable son had already won over the entirety of the building’s population, it seemed. For here on, Yuzuru could only imagine what other great conquests lay before his foolishly charismatic boy.
And like always, he mentally patted himself on the back and thanked the powers-that-be that out of all the Commoners he might have awarded the special Scholarship to Ouran to, serendipitous Fate had intervened and caused him to pick the love of his devastatingly handsome son’s life.
As he alighted the set of stairs to the second floor, he drew his jacket around him against the chilly winter night and thought for the umpteenth time during the evening that Commoners seemed to make jackets that withstood the cold far better than even Armani or countless designer brands.
It was out of necessity, he supposed. But he would have to remind himself to tell Tamaki at a later time that he had discovered that the elite paid several hundred dollars more to me several degrees colder within their brand name coats.
However, in Yuzuru’s own opinion, he looked rather dashing in his current ensemble.
His darling boy had suggested that he look more like a Commoner - purely for the sake of appearances - for the dinner…and, privately, Yuzuru thought that the idea simply smacked of his adorably dense son’s endearing brand of ridiculousness.
So, of course, he had to play along. It was simply too tempting not to.
Of course there was that half mumbled indication that Fujioka Ryoji…Ranka?...oh, he would use whatever name the man introduced himself as…but, Tamaki had intimated that for some unfathomable reason he was not well-liked by the man.
The notion that anyone - except his mother…but that was to be expected because she hardly liked anyone - could possibly dislike his Tamaki seemed like a foreign concept altogether. He must have heard him wrong.
There had never been any indication of pure dislike against Tamaki that he could remember.
Yuzuru found that he had arrived at the number that Tamaki had indicated (he had, for some reason given him a series of directions that included everything from the number of stairs to the correct floor, the number of doors down, and, peculiarly, a rather poetic description of a species of lawn ornament that was in a large potted plant three doors down from the Fujioka household) and knocked.
His lovely jewel of a future daughter-in-law answered, looking much harassed and throwing a quick glance somewhere behind her. The pleasant scent of sukiyaki wafted out to him.
They exchanged the customary formal greetings and Yuzuru entered the dwelling.
The sight that greeted him was not what he had at all expected.
Tamaki was splayed out on the floor as a woman stood over him, one foot planted firmly on his back and saying, in a deep - almost masculine - voice, “I told you not to work my precious daughter too hard…how can you be worthy of her if you can’t follow that small instruction?”
The woman then proceeded to dig her heel into him while grumbling a series of strange insults. Haruhi, however, seemed supremely unfazed by the entire display while Yuzuru himself didn’t quite know what to think.
Tamaki, it seems, was trying to answer the accusations against him, but every time he opened his mouth the woman applied more pressure to the pitiful looking boy and the only sound that emerged was something that sounded like “Sowargheeee!”
Haruhi cleared her throat loudly and said in a louder voice -clearly not for Yuzuru’s own benefit - “I apologize for my father’s behavior.”
His future daughter-in-law gestured, inexplicably, to the woman.
Suddenly, all of Tamaki’s comments about “the lovely Ranka-san” made sense. In fact, all the details of several conversations feel firmly into place. Yuzuru would definitely enjoy telling his mother about the family of his son’s intended. The woman was liable to have a conniption fit.
…Albeit, a highly amusing one.
But, at Haruhi’s comment, the okama who was apparently Haruhi’s father straightened up immediately and turned towards his guest. Removing his high heeled shoe from Tamaki’s back he put his hand up to his mouth and gave a small, tittering chuckle before walking over to the newly arrived guest and giving a very exuberant greeting.
“Ah, you must be that handsome boy’s father, I am Fujioka Ryoji - you may call me Ranka~~! If you like - and I am the father of this adorable girl!” In a small burst of speed and a flutter of scarf and skirt, the man had wrapped his daughter in an embrace (Haruhi merely looked fiercely indifferent to his efforts).
Yuzuru noticed that in doing this he had stepped in front of Tamaki, who at that moment had been clawing towards the girl, the look of a kicked puppy dog reflected in his face. Finding his path cut off by the man who was formerly stepping on him, he changed directions in favor of the closet…where he mysteriously began growing mushrooms.
With a bemused expression - because it interested him greatly that someone else found as much amusement in making fun of his silly boy as he did - he bowed formally and said, “Indeed, I am the father of that silly boy…and it’s a pleasure indeed to meet the father of the adorable fiancé he managed to win over at long last.”
Yuzuru caught a very strange look flash for a moment in the other man’s eyes. Whatever it was, however, faded quite quickly.
They shook hands quite vigorously.
Haruhi sighed at what must have been the strangest greetings ever and said, “Please take a seat at the table and I will serve tea and the meal,” she threw a look of annoyance in the direction of her fiancé and added, “I will not serve dinner to people who have taken over others’ closets without permission, again.”
Then, before the puppy dog eyes could emerge, she disappeared into the kitchen in order to retrieve the dinner. The fathers, still sizing each other up, complied with the request and seated themselves around the table and began exchanging light compliments and trivial conversation. Tentatively, Tamaki made his way out and took up a place opposite of Ranka and next to his father.
When Haruhi emerged from the kitchen and served the meal, the conversation among the four moved to a discussion of wedding plans (Tamaki had quite a nonsensical idea involving rose petals, a pair of elephants, and a highly inventive use of a wedding cake…however, Haruhi was quick to quell it before the theater of his brain could become even more ridiculous).
Both fathers seemed to get along quite well until the very end of the meal.
At that point, Haruhi had politely inquired of Yuzuru, “I hope the food was to your liking, Chairman.”
With a flamboyance that rivaled that which his son was capable of producing, Yuzuru shaded his eyes and looked away in mock humility while throwing one hand out towards Haruhi (who merely blinked in response) and stated extravagantly, “Please, please, my dear almost daughter, call me ‘Father.’”
Almost immediately, there was a sound of jostled china clinking and the assembled party looked up see that Ranka had risen to his feet and was leaning on the edge of the table, a look of outrage on his face.
He took a few deep and angry breathes before jabbing a finger at Yuzuru and shouting, “I see where the enemy gets it!”
At this strange outburst, Yuzuru blinked and asked questioningly, his tone tinged with confusion, “…enemy?”
As Haruhi sighed and began the rest of the dishes away while Tamaki, with a great and dramatic sigh pointed meekly at himself and said in a squeaky voice, “That would be me.”
Ranka nodded vigorously and with a toss of his long hair stated haughtily, “That annoying boy thinks that just because he’s a little bit handsome he can come and usurp my position and take my lovely Haruhi away from me.”
Haruhi, who had just come in again after clearing the remainder of the dishes away, slumped down next to Tamaki and said wearily, “I think - well, I hope - he has finally gotten rid of the troublesome notion that I am his daughter. And he is not stealing me. It’s only marriage.”
Tamaki began to object to her assertion that it was only marriage and was immediately interrupted.
“But both of them, both of them,” Ranka made a sweeping gesture towards the two Suous present, “keep claiming the position of your father. Thus,” the gesture became a stabbing motion with an index finger, “they must both be my greatest enemies!”
It was at this moment that Haruhi decided that if there ever was another opportunity for a meeting like this - and half of her sincerely hoped there wouldn’t be - she would make sure that saké was too “expensive” at the supermarket that day. This thought was only reinforced when her father seized her and said “I don’t know how my Haruhi~ was ever won over by…” the saccharine falsetto suddenly deepened into a voice that didn’t hold any vestiges of sweetness, “that.”
His finger pointed straight at the quivering blond across the table from him.
Seeing this, Yuzuru, nodded almost imperceptibly and said in a very neutral tone, “I see.”
Both of the younger people in the room looked like they wanted more than anything to crawl under the table…indeed, Tamaki appeared to be inching very, very slowly towards the closet again.
Curiously, despite years of discouraging the activity, Haruhi seemed to share the same trajectory.
All of the tension in the room seemed to be focused directly on the chairman of Ouran who stood up and looked as if he was about to leave.
Rather, he turned and faced away from the his host and, balancing his chin on top of a fist, stated in a very serious tone, “I am very glad, Ranka-san that you wish to know such a thing.”
He turned around with surprising burst of speed - Haruhi would later swear that the invisible but still perceptible glitter that Tamaki so often displayed was a trait that he doubtlessly inherited from this man - and exclaimed, “Because he is sinfully handsome, irresistibly charismatic, adorably pure hearted and - ” he paused for a moment and pointed a finger in the air resolutely and strolled towards his son, “ - he is a very silly boy.”
While at other times Tamaki might have jumped up beside him and thanked him with an incredibly long speech detailing the intimate nature of paternal love and the strength of the filial bond - not to mention his father’s impeccable knack for summarizing the facts of the situation - this was one time when he had the rare good sense to continue his painstakingly slow journey to the mushroom closet without comment.
Because, oblivious though he might be on a fairly regular basis, Suou Tamaki could recognize a proverbial clash of titanic forces when he saw it. Even when one titan applied make-up better than most females he knew and the other was practically sparkling in a deadly manner.
Ranka, quite disappointed that the progeny of his current enemy hadn’t opened his mouth and showcased his normal annoying display of verbal diarrhea, decided that he needed to answer this rich man’s burst of pride with one of his own.
He sidled over to his daughter and enthusiastically embraced her. Her expression immediately turned from one of weary acceptance of the antics of the two older men to one of belligerent annoyance for physically involving her own person.
“While Tamaki-kun certainly might be good looking, my daughter is so very, very adorable~!! And independent~~! And of course, as she has come to your own very rich school, it is obvious that my lovely daughter is certainly intelligent!”
Each successive compliment was accompanied by a lung-popping hug. Sensing the impending danger to his fiancé’s petite frame, from his position halfway between the table and the closet, Tamaki reached out to her in an unsuccessful bid to be Haruhi’s knight in shining armor.
Unfortunately, he found himself unceremoniously flung toward a corner of the room - alas, in the opposite direction from the sanctity of the closet - by a well placed kick disguised as a playful flip of the heel instead.
Yuzuru noticed this, but, as a veteran of many international political squabbles and more than a few familial ones, he decided that he would leave him to face his own, uh, gender confused demons.
However, he didn’t believe that he should leave the wonderful jewel that was his future daughter-in-law in extreme peril of imminent strangulation.
“Of course, Haruhi-chan is wonderfully intelligent,” he acknowledged smoothly. Ranka relinquished hold of the girl and looked a cross between triumphant and scandalized by the honorific (even though Yuzuru had used it the entire evening without eliciting the same reaction), “Of course, she would have to be since I personally chose her to receive the scholarship that secured her attendance at Ouran.”
Ranka stuttered. This was a fact he was unaware of.
But it was also something that he found he couldn’t easily counter and so he did what he thought would improve his situation the best.
“And from there, my lovely future daughter-in-law managed to enchant quite a few impressive people,” and very slyly he added, “and…Tamaki merely charmed her.”
He ignored that completely and, changing the topic completely, began extravagantly relating an account of Haruhi’s statistical analysis project she had done at the age of six while obviously fabricating a significant portion of data.
Yuzuru countered by enumerating the various languages Tamaki spoke with an exact degree of proficiency and bragging about his “profound degree of outstanding musicality.”
Then, of course, came the photos.
Looking at each other, neither Tamaki nor Haruhi could fathom why Yuzuru Suou carried such a complete pictorial timeline of his son’s life in his wallet nor why Ranka’s boxes of photos were quite possibly the most organized thing that he had ever (and ostensibly would ever) possess.
In fact, on the fringes of the inferno of fatherly pride, both Tamaki and Haruhi could only sit side by side in, perhaps for the first time, a completely equal state of mortification. It was like staring in shock at a giant, glittering, bragging, and increasingly far-fetched train wreck.
But these men had down the work that no half naked boy or rambunctious hooligan - or even an overly enthusiastic boyfriend - could do.
For a few moments, Fujioka Haruhi sat in stunned silence.
Finally, the comments thrown back and forth between the pair were so absurd that Haruhi thought, rather numbly, that she should figure out a way to escape before she became even more troublesomely involved in the dispute.
Her announcement that she would go make tea was greeted with a collective “That is because my daughter is so cute~!” and then a dispute over the right to use the pronoun “my” in reference to her.
As she rose, Tamaki numbly caught onto her sleeve. The look that he gave her was so pitiful - and she did feel slightly bad for her father’s behavior for the evening - that she somehow managed to get him past his father’s now more than overt displays of affection and her own father’s accusations of betrayal.
Once the door to the kitchen slid closed, they both moved to the wall and slid down onto the floor again with a sigh of relief at the brief respite.
There was a comfortable almost silence (the noises of the argument and the now completely made up claims about their respective childhood accomplishments provided a throbbing background noise) between them.
After a small time had passed, Haruhi let out a noisy sigh.
“Really…those two…”
Real tears glistening in his eyes, Tamaki wrapped his arm around her shoulder and said with flourish, “They are just apprehensive that their greatest treasures - the children that they carry in the deepest depths of their hearts - are gaining new wings with which to fly out of the sheltered refuge of their parental nests! And, as one who once harbored such fatherly feelings towards you - however erroneous those were you need not remind me, once again - I understand your father’s great love for his cute daughter and will endeavor to ensure him that I shall continue to care for you like the divine goddess that you are.”
At the close of his speech he daintily dried his eyes and let out an impassioned sigh.
Haruhi merely rolled her eyes and said, “I don’t know who will cry more at the wedding…you or my father.”
He dramatically flipped a tear out of his eye and said, “I will cry from happiness - and proudly! - because I will be with my beloved Haruhi.”
Haruhi smiled and said playfully, “You can cry for me, then.”
She must have looked exceptionally cute at that moment (not that in Tamaki’s mind she ever looked anything but exceptionally cute), because he grabbed her at that moment and extolled many of her virtues. Deciding she owed him, she allowed him to and even tried to look less…annoyed.
By now, Tamaki’s excessive emotion - especially in light of the battle of fatherly affections that they had escaped - was something she had grown accustomed to.
It only accounted for about 25% of his entire personality. The other 75% was made up of more or less redeeming qualities that had eventually - and this she would only grudgingly admit to a very, very select group of people - slowly won her over.
Even though the exchange between their fathers was akin to the time she had watched as Kyouya’s sister and Tamaki gushed over commoner’s gourmet food, she did learn some rather…interesting…things.
More to stop his enthusiastic overtures than anything else, she asked, “Tamaki-senpai, did you really learn German when you were younger?”
After his initial surprise at her question (in which he thankfully released her), he gave one of his loud laughs and wistfully answered, “When I lived in France, we had a German chambermaid who taught me to greet the head butler by saying ‘I love your mustache’ in German.”
Despite herself, Haruhi chuckled slightly while imagining a very solemn and small Tamaki try to win over a serious butler in this manner.
Tamaki put his hands behind his head, “I can imagine you correcting the zoo keeper about the codes for animal cruelty, even at the age of nine.”
Haruhi pondered this tid bit of information for a moment before looking at his face and knowing that what actually happened had nothing to do with whatever scene he had decided had happened, she stated, “I don’t think that it was quite how you are imagining it…but, I remember something like that…I think he was exaggerating most of the rest of the things he said. Especially the part when - ”
Whatever made-up story of her youth that Haruhi found particularly objectionable would never be known because Ranka chose that moment to come in with a shout of “Haruhi~! Why has my cute daughter left her loyal father?!?”
This time it was her father who was weeping ridiculously.
She stood up, taking Tamaki’s hand in her own and gesturing for him to follow. Briefly she wondered if her father had somehow managed to incapacitate Yuzuru and had merely left him in the next room.
Ranka, so far gone in the haze of fatherly love that had engulfed him utterly over the course of the evening, launched himself at his - by now extremely annoyed - daughter.
He ran into Haruhi’s outstretched hand and lost his footing, falling on the floor in an undignified heap. Without so much as inquiring if he was okay, she walked resolutely out with Tamaki docilely obeying and grumbled, “We will return in awhile. Hopefully you will not be as troubling when I return.”
Yuzuru, who was chuckling and sipping the rest of his cup of tea, said pleasantly, “Take care of yourselves. Especially you, my very silly boy.”
Rather than simply following in Haruhi’s footsteps, Tamaki’s own steps gained a fierce - though ridiculous looking - determination and Yuzuru thought he distinctly heard his son whisper something to the effect of “Mean old man.”
The door closed with a bang behind them. Yuzuru took another sip of his tea before quietly saying, “Ranka-san, they’ve finally left.”
The okama emerged from the kitchen, a mischievous smile on his face and all traces of the former animosity he had shown erased.
Glancing at the apartment’s front door, Yuzuru swallowed the last bit of tea and set the cup down at the table before saying with a tone of amusement, “They are both intelligent but also…”
Ranka sat down opposite his future in-law again and finished, “annoyingly oblivious.” She twirled a wayward strand of head around his finger, “They really should learn to not underestimate Kyouya-kun’s organizational skills.”
Ranka poured out the remainder of the saké into two glasses. The gentleman toasted to their meeting.
Yuzuru chuckled, “It really is, however, a pleasure to meet you finally, despite our long history of prior communication.”
“Yes, even though it still pisses me off that that boy of yours will steal away my Haruhi. But I knew it would be him the first time I saw him…its so…so…annoying.”
Yuzuru nodded in bemused agreement, “He really is quite a fool…endearing though he is.”
Ranka tossed his hair and gave the other man a devious grin.
“I think we are going to have fun with both them for a long time.”
Fin
A/N: With my penchant for horrible puns I kept wanting to put Tamaki in the mushroom closet and have him pop out and go “Haruhi~! I’m a fun guy!” (Get it? “Fungi” Hah hah hah….) *Is shot*
That bit of absolute stupidity aside (I really apologize profusely) this fic is entirely for caesyrian…although, I meant to have more TamaHaru fluff and the Yuzuru and Ranka took over…so hopefully it is still okay (if you hate it I will write you something else!)… ^^U But there are a few bits of (strange) fluff in there for you!
But, I’ve always wanted to write a fic where Yuzuru and Ranka meet…and the fatherly battle and subsequent embarrassment of their children just seems like an inevitable result.
And…if Haruhi and Tamaki dated, Yuzuru would so get Kyouya to give him Ranka’s phone number…or Kyouya would give Yuzuru’s to Ranka or something to that effect.
And, the “I like your mustache” is a random joke in my family - in case anyone was wondering…I actually know how to say it for some reason…
But, random information aside, I hope you all enjoyed and, as always, thanks for reading.
And, of course, Merry Christmas caesyrian!
^_^