"Feck off, Cup!"
Okay! As promised I have finished the formerly Christmas requests in time for the tail end of New Years.
I might do the New Year's meme, but most people know in great detail about the good part of the year and the rest is either blah or fairly depressing...so we'll leave it at that.
Ally's Resolutions:
1. Continue both Ireland Lessons
2. Read more stuff that isn't required
3. Move on
4. Be as tough as nails
But, without further ado, the drabble requests!
Requester: meritjubet
Fandom: Ouran Host Club
Thy Mother's Glass
She looks at herself in the mirror - something she usually forgoes as long as her clothing is comfortable, but decides to do because of the importance of the occasion. For a moment, she doesn't recognize herself and, after a moment's contemplation thinks that Tamaki (or indeed, any of the members of the former Host Club) would hardly recognize her at all. Tamaki, however, would simply be the most vocal about it.
It is a wonder, Haruhi thinks to herself, that even she recognizes herself, because she looks the part.
At long last, she has come to her first trial and is wearing a pair of low heels (a gift from her father, who ridiculously spouted on about the magnificent magic that a good pair of heels could provide), a deeply sensible skirt and suit jacket (it had appeared one night - her first inclination was to name the Hikaru and Kaoru as the culprits, but some nagging voice in her head said that something about it all - probably the deep sensibility of it all - immediately led her to suspect Kyouya in the entire affair) which covered a not very sensible deep red blouse (which she definitely suspected Hitachiin involvement in). Just beyond the scope of the mirror's gaze lies a monogrammed suitcase (a birthday present from a very self-satisfied Tamaki) and a number of delicate breakfast pastries that arrived that morning via a delivery boy who tried to cover up the "Morinozuka Bakery" label (those culprits were, perhaps, the most obvious).
It strikes her, looking in the mirror, that she looks like her mother. Her mother, the lawyer she always wanted to be and, the sensible part of herself wonders if it has been a silly ghost that she has chased all of these years and, if that ghost has now materialized in front of her. Quickly, she tells herself that such obnoxiously fanciful thoughts are another unwanted gift from the members of the Host Club. Again, mostly Tamaki.
Before she walks out the door to her first trial, she spies her father leaning on a wall - groggy, unshaven, and wearing an old tracksuit - and sees him smile.
His words to her before she walks out the door echo in her head all throughout her opening statement, her questioning of witnesses, her closing statement.
"She would be proud of you."
Suddenly the figure that appeared in front of her in the mirror no longer strikes Haruhi as strange or silly. Rather, Haruhi wins the case with ease. She thinks, only for a moment, that she can see her mother's smile amidst all of the other ones who have come to congratulate her.
Requester: cooking_spray
Fandom: Jane Eyre
Note: In my absence someone thought it funny to re-organize my bookshelf, so there is a giant hole between Wide Sargasso Sea and A Room of One's Own where Jane Eyre ought to, by all rights, be…so, I do profusely apologize. But this is being done from memory and a few quotations I've discovered to remind myself of the style. If it fails, let me know and I'll do something else for you. :0
I tend to think that I am the blind leading the blind.
In order to read him, I need to learn to read the darknesses about him - those that are part of his existence in a world that is almost perpetually black. They are varied and multifaceted - like a river, never quite the same. There are some times when, as we sit alone in the synthesis of existence, the darkness is neither gentle nor the silences genial: Edward, then, has gone to that space in which I cannot go, no matter how much I have led him and encourage the small pricks of light he knows to enflame into bright bursts.
It is a place where the ripped veil is whole, and the secrets are not talked about at a great length; where muscles are vigorous and eyes are clear and keen. Here it is I that am blind and I feel a necessary and visceral separation from him.
But then I take Edward's hand and, knowing I am also blind in this thick, virulent darkness, I lead him out - towards the pricks of light and into a gentler darkness. The darkness of mutual society in which my eyes may be his as well and our thoughts are once more entwined.
Requester: egelantier
Fandom: Seirei no Moribito, TandaxBalsa
For Every Thing There Is a Season
Eveningtide
In the wastes of Kanbal, with rocks for pillows and her cloak drawn against the wind, sometimes Balsa dreams.
She dreams she is back in the Hunter's Cave and the snow is gently falling to the rhythm of Chagum's breathing. She watches as the flakes flurry and swirl in the wind and for a moment she imagines that they are propelled by Chagum's breath.
When she looks up, it is always to Tanda's eyes looking at her, watching her with a half-smile that is just short of wistful, and something that stirs just beneath his still and patient stance.
She wakes up to an aching feeling - not the same one as when she thinks of Chagum hidden away behind a screen and crown. There is no antidote to that ache, no cure.
Cures make her think of Tanda and Tanda is an entirely different kind of ache. One Balsa knows exactly how to cure, although, for the first time since she was a child, she is afraid and uncertain of what exactly the cure entails.
Uncertainty, traveling, Kanbal are all certainties and things that are understood.
Tanda is always a different kind of ache.
Spring
For a while after she has left, he jumps at every single person darkening the doorsteps. However, every time it is someone looking for herbs, for deliveries, for errands.
And so, he waits until the waiting dulls into familiar routine and he expects people enquiring after herbs and errands and deliveries.
For a time there is a fervor over Chagum - the Emperor claims he is the reincarnation of Torgal and Shishou scoffs and wonders where the Empire would be without the Yakue - although you wouldn't know they had anything to do with it from the stories that are spun.
For a moment he thinks of Chagum's very un-heroic sounding advice - just sleep with her.
As Tohya makes another comment about his patience and another person inquiring after herbs darkens the doorstep, Tanda again wishes it could be so simple - even if he could somehow manage to do that, he'd have to keep her in one place long enough to do it.
He gives another cure to a customer and wonders if he himself will ever be cure enough.
Summer
The heat is oppressive and he lays down in the meadow looking up at the clouds passing lazily overhead. The herbs he had set out are drying and wafting their perfumed scent into the air - they are for wounds, for burns, for suturing.
He is prepared, even if she will be gone for two years again.
The mixed aroma wafts over again and seems to blend into the general atmosphere or the clouds and the long shadows that are cast over everything. Foolishly, he thinks they are like ghosts.
A bitter astringent smell is carried on the wind, temporarily drowning out the sweeter scents.
He is living and she has gone after ghosts.
Pulling himself up, he begins to bundle up the herbs to save them for later use - it could be two years and who knew how long she would stay after that?
Autumn
The leaves fall in bright droves.
The rain falls down and he stirs a pot of wild vegetable soup to its steady rhythm.
The weather grows steadily colder and Tanda waits.
Winter
The snow curls in small flurries, as if propelled by unseen breaths and there is a shadow at the door.
He looks up and is surprised to see Balsa at last, limping her way back into his house, his life, with a crude bandage wrapped around her leg. He merely frowns and helps her into the house, onto the sleeping mat.
Tenderly he pulls off the bandage and caresses the ankle, seeing if it has been fractured. There is a definite break and, for a moment, Tanda wonders how it is possible that she has dragged herself this far.
Tanda sighs and goes about ladling out some wild vegetable soup for her, which she takes gratefully.
Frowning he tells her, "It looks like you will be here for a while."
Looking at him directly in the eyes she responds, "I did come to be cured."
Outside, the snow curls, propelled by invisible breaths.
Requester: saffire_persian
Fandom: Seirei no Moribito, TandaxBalsa
Blossom Man and the Spear Wielder
The fire spirals up, spreading its embers, and in Toumi Village the storyteller begins her legend.
She tells of the old hero - the Blossom Man - the consort of the Spear Wielder - the most fierce some woman ever to set foot in the village. Always, on this day of the Celebration of the Water Spirit, she rattles the bones of the nahji and tells of the Egg Bearer, the benevolent Emperor Chagum. This story cannot be told, however, without the legend of Blossom Man and Spear Wielder - the world would long ago have been cursed with drought without them.
But, among the Yakue, the Blossom Man is not a man who is famous for his clever way of defeating La Lunga or his legendary healing skills.
He is known for his patience, often now evoked in proverbs. The Blossom Man, it is said, would wait until the end of the world for the return of the Spear Wielder, a woman unbendable and unflappable. It is said his patience was blessed by Emperor and Yakue alike, but for many years respected by the Spear Wielder, but not reciprocated.
And finally, against a background of fanning embers, the storyteller tells her favorite part - how the Blossom Man's patience was blessed.
Because more than his patience or her heroism, the Blossom Man and the Spear Wielder are known for their love. That is why they are Yakue legend.
Requester: xaki_kun
Fandom: Ouran Host Club, KyouyaxRenge
Ootori Kyouya was a man whose next move was the subject of much speculation (speculation that turned out to be wrong 95% of the time).
Most had expected him merely to marry a wealthy heiress to cement his position as the front-runner of the three Ootori sons. However, very few expected him to have married his school associate Hoshakuji Renge. Even fewer would have predicted that Renge would turn out to be equally as unpredictable as her husband, and sometimes just as ruthless.
Most however, would call Ootori Renge rather more…imaginative (because that is the politest term they can think of) than her husband.
Under the joint regime of Ootori Kyouya and his wife, the Ootori group had expanded into a number of ridiculously successful enterprises - it had a thriving film studio and a private video game developer all in addition to their medical industries.
Secretly, Kyouya was always pleased that his wife was also the only one who could speak her mind - he hesitated to use the term "yell" out of respect for his spouse - to his brothers. Out of all of the advantages that the unpredictable union had brought, this last was perhaps the one he found most merit in.
Requester: jav_chan
Fandom: Ouran Host Club, TamakixHaruhi
As one by one the Host Club members were informed, they each reacted as she knew they would.
Hikaru and Kaoru both shrugged their shoulders exaggeratedly and assumed a bored posture, discussing how best to manage their time in French Conversation now that their planned for activities would no longer suffice without the extra…prop…they had intended to use.
Kyouya was silent about the entire affair, merely making a check in his ledger with a terrifying sort of nonchalance.
Hunny looked mournfully at his cake and, remarkably, looked a bit hesitant to eat it for a fraction of a second. Mori, on the other hand, placed a hand to his forehead in a sort of despair at the fact that such a thing had once again happened.
Tamaki responded just as Tamaki always did to small ruptures in the fabric of his gilded existence.
"Haruhi! My dearest gracious daughter, this is a tragedy on par with the sinking of Atlantis and the slaughtering of the entire royal family of Elsinore! How could such a horrific thing happen to someone such as my daughter whom I should protect from all manner of things of such a terrifying and disrupting nature - indeed! It is against the natural processes that such an event should occur to someone such as you - I might perish away at the thought of the death that such trauma might bring you to!"
Haruhi, however, merely blinked, wondering why a visit to the dentist would at all be considered such a horrific event…a cavity wasn't such an unnatural thing after all.
And yet it went on - "Those jewels that reside in the cave of humanity's mouth must be flawless at all times lest it be considered as a disgrace and blight upon the reputation of a father who cannot protect his daughter from a simple cavity!"
Haruhi had no doubt that her Sempai would go on - just as she had no doubt that Kyouya had added onto her debt for what she considered a legitimate absence - and, in fact, Tamaki's railing about her supposedly horrific ordeal continued unabated as she left the room for her appointment.
Requester: dizilla
Fandom: Ouran Host Club, TamakixHaruhi
There are some things that even individuals who make entire lives out of being oblivious to certain aspects of things or re-arranging those aspects so that they sparkle and shine cannot ignore.
When a resounding slap filled the room and Tamaki could feel his cheek stinging, the ire of his Grandmother was became one of those things that he could no longer simply ignore.
She had been speaking about blood, marriage, redemption. Tamaki had responded with something that he had been certain she would understand being such a beautiful woman - he had told her about love.
Her only response to that had been the glaringly red outline of a hand upon his cheek and the realization that there were some things that he espoused and believed in that, no matter how lovely a woman she appeared to be, she would never understand.
This left him in a darker mood than the Host Club was accustomed to see him in. After collective efforts ("collective" not including Haruhi who, after the first disastrous scheme had declared them all rather troublesome) to lure him out of the darkness with appeals to everything from Kuma-chan to excessive annoyance (a Hitachiin ploy) they realized that more drastic measures were needed. However, when even a final last ditch effort involving pork flavored ramen and a kotatsu had failed, Kyouya decided that there was only one way to revive the King from his general malaise (and, by proxy, revive his profit margins).
Finding an opportune moment - and bribing her with more debt relief (to which she responded in a rather offended manner "you could have just asked" and Kyouya said he was happy to have her work for free. After this, she decided conventional manners might not apply to the rich bastard class) Haruhi became the final last ditch effort to bring Tamaki forth from his state of ennui.
Sidling up to where the Corner of Woe had become rather more expanded than the Host Club was accustomed to, Haruhi started, "Tamaki-sempai…"
There was no speech, no elaborate gesturing, no unnecessary exclamations…there was absolute silence.
For a moment, she thought of her father talking to her at times when she had the same sort of silence. Slightly awkwardly, she reached out her hand and patted him on the head.
"Whatever it is, Sempai, I'm sure you will make it okay."
Just as there are things one cannot ignore, there are also things that can never be verbally explained. There was something about that particular gesture that was more comforting than it should have been to Tamaki.
For a moment, he marveled at the difference between his Grandmother's and Haruhi's touches and realized, for every harsh slap there was also a touch like Haruhi's. For every unspoken denial of his beliefs, there was also an unspoken avowal. Tenuously, he smiled, after which Haruhi visibly relaxed.
"It will be, Haruhi."
She returned the same smile.
Happy New Years and belated Merry Christmas to everyone! Good luck to everyone in 2008! <3
I might do the New Year's meme, but most people know in great detail about the good part of the year and the rest is either blah or fairly depressing...so we'll leave it at that.
Ally's Resolutions:
1. Continue both Ireland Lessons
2. Read more stuff that isn't required
3. Move on
4. Be as tough as nails
But, without further ado, the drabble requests!
Requester: meritjubet
Fandom: Ouran Host Club
Thy Mother's Glass
She looks at herself in the mirror - something she usually forgoes as long as her clothing is comfortable, but decides to do because of the importance of the occasion. For a moment, she doesn't recognize herself and, after a moment's contemplation thinks that Tamaki (or indeed, any of the members of the former Host Club) would hardly recognize her at all. Tamaki, however, would simply be the most vocal about it.
It is a wonder, Haruhi thinks to herself, that even she recognizes herself, because she looks the part.
At long last, she has come to her first trial and is wearing a pair of low heels (a gift from her father, who ridiculously spouted on about the magnificent magic that a good pair of heels could provide), a deeply sensible skirt and suit jacket (it had appeared one night - her first inclination was to name the Hikaru and Kaoru as the culprits, but some nagging voice in her head said that something about it all - probably the deep sensibility of it all - immediately led her to suspect Kyouya in the entire affair) which covered a not very sensible deep red blouse (which she definitely suspected Hitachiin involvement in). Just beyond the scope of the mirror's gaze lies a monogrammed suitcase (a birthday present from a very self-satisfied Tamaki) and a number of delicate breakfast pastries that arrived that morning via a delivery boy who tried to cover up the "Morinozuka Bakery" label (those culprits were, perhaps, the most obvious).
It strikes her, looking in the mirror, that she looks like her mother. Her mother, the lawyer she always wanted to be and, the sensible part of herself wonders if it has been a silly ghost that she has chased all of these years and, if that ghost has now materialized in front of her. Quickly, she tells herself that such obnoxiously fanciful thoughts are another unwanted gift from the members of the Host Club. Again, mostly Tamaki.
Before she walks out the door to her first trial, she spies her father leaning on a wall - groggy, unshaven, and wearing an old tracksuit - and sees him smile.
His words to her before she walks out the door echo in her head all throughout her opening statement, her questioning of witnesses, her closing statement.
"She would be proud of you."
Suddenly the figure that appeared in front of her in the mirror no longer strikes Haruhi as strange or silly. Rather, Haruhi wins the case with ease. She thinks, only for a moment, that she can see her mother's smile amidst all of the other ones who have come to congratulate her.
Requester: cooking_spray
Fandom: Jane Eyre
Note: In my absence someone thought it funny to re-organize my bookshelf, so there is a giant hole between Wide Sargasso Sea and A Room of One's Own where Jane Eyre ought to, by all rights, be…so, I do profusely apologize. But this is being done from memory and a few quotations I've discovered to remind myself of the style. If it fails, let me know and I'll do something else for you. :0
I tend to think that I am the blind leading the blind.
In order to read him, I need to learn to read the darknesses about him - those that are part of his existence in a world that is almost perpetually black. They are varied and multifaceted - like a river, never quite the same. There are some times when, as we sit alone in the synthesis of existence, the darkness is neither gentle nor the silences genial: Edward, then, has gone to that space in which I cannot go, no matter how much I have led him and encourage the small pricks of light he knows to enflame into bright bursts.
It is a place where the ripped veil is whole, and the secrets are not talked about at a great length; where muscles are vigorous and eyes are clear and keen. Here it is I that am blind and I feel a necessary and visceral separation from him.
But then I take Edward's hand and, knowing I am also blind in this thick, virulent darkness, I lead him out - towards the pricks of light and into a gentler darkness. The darkness of mutual society in which my eyes may be his as well and our thoughts are once more entwined.
Requester: egelantier
Fandom: Seirei no Moribito, TandaxBalsa
For Every Thing There Is a Season
Eveningtide
In the wastes of Kanbal, with rocks for pillows and her cloak drawn against the wind, sometimes Balsa dreams.
She dreams she is back in the Hunter's Cave and the snow is gently falling to the rhythm of Chagum's breathing. She watches as the flakes flurry and swirl in the wind and for a moment she imagines that they are propelled by Chagum's breath.
When she looks up, it is always to Tanda's eyes looking at her, watching her with a half-smile that is just short of wistful, and something that stirs just beneath his still and patient stance.
She wakes up to an aching feeling - not the same one as when she thinks of Chagum hidden away behind a screen and crown. There is no antidote to that ache, no cure.
Cures make her think of Tanda and Tanda is an entirely different kind of ache. One Balsa knows exactly how to cure, although, for the first time since she was a child, she is afraid and uncertain of what exactly the cure entails.
Uncertainty, traveling, Kanbal are all certainties and things that are understood.
Tanda is always a different kind of ache.
Spring
For a while after she has left, he jumps at every single person darkening the doorsteps. However, every time it is someone looking for herbs, for deliveries, for errands.
And so, he waits until the waiting dulls into familiar routine and he expects people enquiring after herbs and errands and deliveries.
For a time there is a fervor over Chagum - the Emperor claims he is the reincarnation of Torgal and Shishou scoffs and wonders where the Empire would be without the Yakue - although you wouldn't know they had anything to do with it from the stories that are spun.
For a moment he thinks of Chagum's very un-heroic sounding advice - just sleep with her.
As Tohya makes another comment about his patience and another person inquiring after herbs darkens the doorstep, Tanda again wishes it could be so simple - even if he could somehow manage to do that, he'd have to keep her in one place long enough to do it.
He gives another cure to a customer and wonders if he himself will ever be cure enough.
Summer
The heat is oppressive and he lays down in the meadow looking up at the clouds passing lazily overhead. The herbs he had set out are drying and wafting their perfumed scent into the air - they are for wounds, for burns, for suturing.
He is prepared, even if she will be gone for two years again.
The mixed aroma wafts over again and seems to blend into the general atmosphere or the clouds and the long shadows that are cast over everything. Foolishly, he thinks they are like ghosts.
A bitter astringent smell is carried on the wind, temporarily drowning out the sweeter scents.
He is living and she has gone after ghosts.
Pulling himself up, he begins to bundle up the herbs to save them for later use - it could be two years and who knew how long she would stay after that?
Autumn
The leaves fall in bright droves.
The rain falls down and he stirs a pot of wild vegetable soup to its steady rhythm.
The weather grows steadily colder and Tanda waits.
Winter
The snow curls in small flurries, as if propelled by unseen breaths and there is a shadow at the door.
He looks up and is surprised to see Balsa at last, limping her way back into his house, his life, with a crude bandage wrapped around her leg. He merely frowns and helps her into the house, onto the sleeping mat.
Tenderly he pulls off the bandage and caresses the ankle, seeing if it has been fractured. There is a definite break and, for a moment, Tanda wonders how it is possible that she has dragged herself this far.
Tanda sighs and goes about ladling out some wild vegetable soup for her, which she takes gratefully.
Frowning he tells her, "It looks like you will be here for a while."
Looking at him directly in the eyes she responds, "I did come to be cured."
Outside, the snow curls, propelled by invisible breaths.
Requester: saffire_persian
Fandom: Seirei no Moribito, TandaxBalsa
Blossom Man and the Spear Wielder
The fire spirals up, spreading its embers, and in Toumi Village the storyteller begins her legend.
She tells of the old hero - the Blossom Man - the consort of the Spear Wielder - the most fierce some woman ever to set foot in the village. Always, on this day of the Celebration of the Water Spirit, she rattles the bones of the nahji and tells of the Egg Bearer, the benevolent Emperor Chagum. This story cannot be told, however, without the legend of Blossom Man and Spear Wielder - the world would long ago have been cursed with drought without them.
But, among the Yakue, the Blossom Man is not a man who is famous for his clever way of defeating La Lunga or his legendary healing skills.
He is known for his patience, often now evoked in proverbs. The Blossom Man, it is said, would wait until the end of the world for the return of the Spear Wielder, a woman unbendable and unflappable. It is said his patience was blessed by Emperor and Yakue alike, but for many years respected by the Spear Wielder, but not reciprocated.
And finally, against a background of fanning embers, the storyteller tells her favorite part - how the Blossom Man's patience was blessed.
Because more than his patience or her heroism, the Blossom Man and the Spear Wielder are known for their love. That is why they are Yakue legend.
Requester: xaki_kun
Fandom: Ouran Host Club, KyouyaxRenge
Ootori Kyouya was a man whose next move was the subject of much speculation (speculation that turned out to be wrong 95% of the time).
Most had expected him merely to marry a wealthy heiress to cement his position as the front-runner of the three Ootori sons. However, very few expected him to have married his school associate Hoshakuji Renge. Even fewer would have predicted that Renge would turn out to be equally as unpredictable as her husband, and sometimes just as ruthless.
Most however, would call Ootori Renge rather more…imaginative (because that is the politest term they can think of) than her husband.
Under the joint regime of Ootori Kyouya and his wife, the Ootori group had expanded into a number of ridiculously successful enterprises - it had a thriving film studio and a private video game developer all in addition to their medical industries.
Secretly, Kyouya was always pleased that his wife was also the only one who could speak her mind - he hesitated to use the term "yell" out of respect for his spouse - to his brothers. Out of all of the advantages that the unpredictable union had brought, this last was perhaps the one he found most merit in.
Requester: jav_chan
Fandom: Ouran Host Club, TamakixHaruhi
As one by one the Host Club members were informed, they each reacted as she knew they would.
Hikaru and Kaoru both shrugged their shoulders exaggeratedly and assumed a bored posture, discussing how best to manage their time in French Conversation now that their planned for activities would no longer suffice without the extra…prop…they had intended to use.
Kyouya was silent about the entire affair, merely making a check in his ledger with a terrifying sort of nonchalance.
Hunny looked mournfully at his cake and, remarkably, looked a bit hesitant to eat it for a fraction of a second. Mori, on the other hand, placed a hand to his forehead in a sort of despair at the fact that such a thing had once again happened.
Tamaki responded just as Tamaki always did to small ruptures in the fabric of his gilded existence.
"Haruhi! My dearest gracious daughter, this is a tragedy on par with the sinking of Atlantis and the slaughtering of the entire royal family of Elsinore! How could such a horrific thing happen to someone such as my daughter whom I should protect from all manner of things of such a terrifying and disrupting nature - indeed! It is against the natural processes that such an event should occur to someone such as you - I might perish away at the thought of the death that such trauma might bring you to!"
Haruhi, however, merely blinked, wondering why a visit to the dentist would at all be considered such a horrific event…a cavity wasn't such an unnatural thing after all.
And yet it went on - "Those jewels that reside in the cave of humanity's mouth must be flawless at all times lest it be considered as a disgrace and blight upon the reputation of a father who cannot protect his daughter from a simple cavity!"
Haruhi had no doubt that her Sempai would go on - just as she had no doubt that Kyouya had added onto her debt for what she considered a legitimate absence - and, in fact, Tamaki's railing about her supposedly horrific ordeal continued unabated as she left the room for her appointment.
Requester: dizilla
Fandom: Ouran Host Club, TamakixHaruhi
There are some things that even individuals who make entire lives out of being oblivious to certain aspects of things or re-arranging those aspects so that they sparkle and shine cannot ignore.
When a resounding slap filled the room and Tamaki could feel his cheek stinging, the ire of his Grandmother was became one of those things that he could no longer simply ignore.
She had been speaking about blood, marriage, redemption. Tamaki had responded with something that he had been certain she would understand being such a beautiful woman - he had told her about love.
Her only response to that had been the glaringly red outline of a hand upon his cheek and the realization that there were some things that he espoused and believed in that, no matter how lovely a woman she appeared to be, she would never understand.
This left him in a darker mood than the Host Club was accustomed to see him in. After collective efforts ("collective" not including Haruhi who, after the first disastrous scheme had declared them all rather troublesome) to lure him out of the darkness with appeals to everything from Kuma-chan to excessive annoyance (a Hitachiin ploy) they realized that more drastic measures were needed. However, when even a final last ditch effort involving pork flavored ramen and a kotatsu had failed, Kyouya decided that there was only one way to revive the King from his general malaise (and, by proxy, revive his profit margins).
Finding an opportune moment - and bribing her with more debt relief (to which she responded in a rather offended manner "you could have just asked" and Kyouya said he was happy to have her work for free. After this, she decided conventional manners might not apply to the rich bastard class) Haruhi became the final last ditch effort to bring Tamaki forth from his state of ennui.
Sidling up to where the Corner of Woe had become rather more expanded than the Host Club was accustomed to, Haruhi started, "Tamaki-sempai…"
There was no speech, no elaborate gesturing, no unnecessary exclamations…there was absolute silence.
For a moment, she thought of her father talking to her at times when she had the same sort of silence. Slightly awkwardly, she reached out her hand and patted him on the head.
"Whatever it is, Sempai, I'm sure you will make it okay."
Just as there are things one cannot ignore, there are also things that can never be verbally explained. There was something about that particular gesture that was more comforting than it should have been to Tamaki.
For a moment, he marveled at the difference between his Grandmother's and Haruhi's touches and realized, for every harsh slap there was also a touch like Haruhi's. For every unspoken denial of his beliefs, there was also an unspoken avowal. Tenuously, he smiled, after which Haruhi visibly relaxed.
"It will be, Haruhi."
She returned the same smile.
Happy New Years and belated Merry Christmas to everyone! Good luck to everyone in 2008! <3