Exposed and Forgiven
This is my Ayanakoji-hime fic, which I also posted under my fanfiction.net account. ^_^ The only difference now is that it's under a cut (took me long enough to figure out what a cut was...)
It won third place for the challenge I entered (ouran_contest). ;D
For: LJ Ouran fanfiction community
Challenge: Always forgive your enemies. Nothing upsets them more. - Oscar Wilde
Character: Ayanakoji-hime
Other: Tama/Haru, Haruhi
Rating: K+ (for a bit of language)
Genre: General/Drama (romance?)
Notes: not sure if they do the thing in Japan where the wife adds her husband’s name to her own, but let’s call it… creative license! ‘Hime’ means princess. Ayanakoji is the meanie from episode 1. Some reference to the manga. Also, my French is pretty poor…
xxx
Ayanakoji-hime was her name. Note the ‘hime’.
Pretty boys were her favorite game.
xxx
For the most part, that’s all high school really was to her. A game. Only when she grew older - when she graduated high school, passed through college, and was engaged to the man of her dreams (in other words, a ridiculously rich man) - did she realize that she walked not on a golden-paved road, but on golden pins and needles. Her life was really a trap, designed to catch the rich and beautiful who were not wary enough to tiptoe around them. Anyone who misstepped was pricked mercilessly by the gossip that ensued.
So, in retrospect, it was better that her feelings had been nipped in the bud for the Suoh boy. Really. He was a bastard - speaking literally, of course. No such crude word would otherwise emit from her glossed lips.
That didn’t stop her from hating the commoner dirt that turned him from her.
Please recall that her name was Ayanakoji-hime.
xxx
Ten years.
It had been ten long years. It was no surprise to her, but she had not missed Ouran. Though she would be lying to herself if she said she didn’t miss those rose-scented hours with that set of blue eyes. That debonair smile. That knowing gaze. That boyish blonde hair.
In other words, the only reason she was going to this asinine reunion was to see Suoh Tamaki again.
Of course, she had not bothered to track Suoh Tamaki’s actions in the past. She had a husband, and the two were very happy. Just not happy together.
But together they went to the reunion. A formal affair of high thread-count linen tablecloths and glorious scented candles at the nicest restaurant in Japan. In previous years, the dinners had been held in London, Paris, and New York. This year, things were being kept rather low-key.
Fast-forward to the night that Ayanakoji-hime was secretly anticipating. Fast-forward to dimmed lights, crystal chandeliers, and a grand, gold-leafed ballroom.
Enter Tamaki Suoh and his bride.
The one girl who managed to unleash Ayanakoji’s temper. The temper she tried oh-so-hard to keep collared and chained.
xxx
Fujioka Haruhi’s true sex was no longer a secret to any former Ouran student. He was indeed female. A fact that didn’t couldn’t seem to fit, and yet clicked, in Ayanakji’s mind.
Ayanakoji-hime had gleefully awaited the arrival of gossip. After all, this invited all sorts of ways to smear Fujioka’s reputation. To cover her in so much dirt that she would never be accepted to study law anywhere in the country.
But amazingly, out of some kind of affection, the Ouran coeds held back. Fujioka’s reputation was spotless - and in fact, she was now getting some of the nation’s biggest cases. Part from her own talent, part from blushing Ouran graduates who still behaved like schoolgirls in the lawyer’s presence.
This enraged Ayanakoji so much that, in the week following Fujioka’s graduation from Tokyo U, she tired her best to maim Fujioka’s success.
She hired people to lie, to cheat, and to ultimately get the sweet revenge she so craved. But each and every effort failed, bounced right back at her. Holding in her hands plain, black-and-white slips of resignation from various mercenaries, she was only stunned. How could this commoner elude her efforts so thoroughly?
The answer came when the marriage announcement did: Fujioka Haruhi and Suoh Tamaki were soon to be wed.
Again, for reasons she could not comprehend, Tamaki-sama had chosen to protect the commoner.
Blind anger teetered off into a quiet point between destructiveness and resignation. Though Ayanakoji-hime was far from resigning.
She was just a little stuck now, that was all.
xxx
And now here she was. In all of her glory. Suoh Haruhi. Ayanakoji’s eyes narrowed, for the slightest moment, but at the sight of Fujioka’s husband - no, just think of him as Tamaki-sama - she managed to regain her composure.
Tamaki turned her way and his mouth visibly widened - just a bit - as she slipped down into the cushioned chair.
“Good to see you, Tamaki-sama. Fujioka-san.”
“Er, Fujioka-Suoh-san.”
“Ayanakoji-hime, it’s a pleasure to see you,” Tamaki standing and bowing slightly. At first, his words were forced, but he seemed to warm up to them. She felt her heart warm with them. It wasn’t often one saw a man who treated women of her standing as well as he did.
“But-“ he added, raising his head from the bow and looking up uncertainly, “The seat you’re sitting in is reserved, I’m afraid. Didn’t you reserve a table?”
“Oh, yes, over there,” she replied, motioning to the side of the room with her head. Where her husband sat, stumbling his way through a conversation with a girl Ayanakoji hardly recognized. Probably a B-class student. “Just wanted to chat.”
“Well, it’s, er, good to see you again,” Fujioka-Suoh-san said, extending a hand and smiling shakily. An awkward situation, certainly. Ayanakoji obliged the commoner and gave her a quick jerk of hands.
There was a short, awkward silence for the duration of perhaps a minute. Tamaki scuttled back into his chair and looked at Ayanakoji - not maliciously, but curiously, like a child who’s great-aunt has come to visit for a bit. Not quite sure what to do, a little bit fearful.
Fujioka was not affected by the silence. A waiter came by holding a tray of appetizers. She took two and savored each one, dreamily staring off at the wall.
Ayanakoji didn’t take her eyes off of this girl. This commoner. This dirt. Rage began to bubble and foam, frothing madly - almost two the point of being visible through her eyes of ice. This pig. This glutton. How dare this commoner, with her simple mind -so easily enticed with a tiny piece of ootoro - win her Tamaki-sama?
“Is this…?
“What’s she doing here?”
An auburn eyebrow quirked, and Ayanakoji turned to see the two twins - Hikaru and Kaoru? - jauntily standing behind her, using one another as support. Giving her a look of disdain, as if she were some kind of bug.
Water. Humiliation. In her eyes, in her hair, on her clothes. Dripping down her face. Filling her lungs so she can’t breath. There’s something in her throat. Her eyes squinting shut. There’s already water there. Salty water.
Her eyes narrowed again.
“Hikaru, Kaoru,” Tamaki warned. Ah, Tamaki-sama. No matter what, he would always defend her. Because he was a gentleman and gentlemen were gentle to ladies. He would never betray a lady like her willingly, would he? It was his bride who had deceived him. Certainly she was just another student - but poorer and more desperate - who’d cross-dressed to get closer to Tamaki-sama. Despicable.
The twin on the right shrugged and stretched out his arms lazily. “Well, Tono, if she, you know-“
“What?” Fujioka stared up at them with big, innocent eyes. She’d finished her ootoro, and was now gracing them by joining the conversation.
“Tono, Kyouya-senpai said he wouldn’t be able to come until late tonight,” the twin on the left said.
Kyouya?
Proof. Cold, hard proof. Caught in the act. Exposed.
Naked.
Her lips pursed.
“Ah! Mon ami préfère! He works too hard.”
“What about Hunny-senpai and Mori-senpai?” Fujioka spoke up.
“They should be here any minute,” the twin on the left answered.
“They’re flying in from China. Martial arts tournament.”
Fujioka nodded with understanding, before spotting something. “Isn’t that them over there?”
“Haru-chan! Tama-chan!” called the blonde one - who could’ve only been in high school. Wait. Was that Hunny…? Yes, of course, there was the tall, dark man next to him…
“Hunny-senpai! Mori-senpai!” Tamaki shouted as he dashed off to greet them. Ayanakoji watched him go, wondering why she’d never seen this side of Tamaki-sama before. He wasn’t acting very refined. She didn’t quite know what to make of it.
The twins ambled off after him. Haruhi stood to get up, but - from under the table - Ayanakoji grabbed her hand.
Slowly, the brown eyes set themselves on her.
“Yes?”
“Tamaki-sama. I wish you would have stayed away from him.” A hiss.
Something filled Haruhi’s eyes. Something that Ayanakoji-hime hates with every fiber of her being. And she means that as literally as possible.
It was not contempt.
It was not even disdain.
It was pity.
In that moment, Ayanakoji-hime shrieked. High and strong. It’s a siren, an alert, turning every head in the room to her.
Before she knew what she was doing - before she calculated the whiplashes she’ll receive from the tongues of the women she calls friends - she flipped the table over. Sugar spilled, wine stained the hardwood; antique china crashed with a terrible clatter and broke with a clash.
Suoh Haruhi sat stunned on the ground. Her beautiful light blue dress was stained with the wine.
Ayanakoji-hime suddenly felt like the suffix ‘hime’ should no longer be attached to her name.
She had never felt guilty, but she figures this is what it feels like.
Still, she didn’t back down. She stood, fists clenched, and looked at the slip of a woman before her. She felt a satisfaction rise from the shame, and a smile crept on her face.
She never thought she was crazy, but she figures this is what it feels like
“Haruhi!”
The voice she knows too well, desperately calling his wife’s name.
This time it was wine. And she knew it was coming.
Wine, over her exclusive Chanel dress.
She looked down, horrified. The thought finally comes: What was she thinking?
“Did I just spill?” a twin - Ayanakoji doesn’t know which - said dryly.
She nearly jumped. Now the cool liquid is slithering down her back. She whips around. How- how dare he! The other twin poured his wine down the low back of her outfit.
“Is the princess crying?”
Tittering, from some table behind her, but she hardly had time to hear it. Now she was focused on Fujioka, or, more accurately, Tamaki-sama. Kneeling next to her, enveloping her in his arms. A huge bear hug.
“Haruhi! Haruhi, my darling are you all right?!?”
“I’ve fine, Tamaki,” she replied, her voice muffled. She sounded slightly annoyed.
Ayanakoji’s eyes widened to three times their natural size.
He cares about her.
He really cares.
She denied it when he protected her the first time, the second time… but now? Now that he’s in front of her, giving that common girl the kind of love she could only dream of having…
She could no longer deny that their marriage was some kind of fluke. Some kind of deception that those brown eyes were responsible for.
Peeking from behind Tamaki-sama’s broad shoulders are that pair of brown eyes. She wrestled herself out of her husband’s bear hug, and the room goes silent again.
The pity. It was still there, in her eyes.
Ayanakoji-the-no-longer-a-hime ran out of the room, nearly sobbing.
xxx
In the bathroom. Things were different there. People came in and called her name - both friends and enemies, though there really wasn’t a difference. For the next month, each and every one of them would gorge themselves on her misery. This night might even get into the tabloids.
Here she was, sitting in the cushiony chair of her generously large bathroom stall, wallowing. Worst of all, she was finally resigned.
It was the worst night of her life.
The tabloids. Ayanakoji twisted her wedding ring around her finger. The stakes were all higher now. Instead of a crush, it was marriage at stake. Instead of the simple gossip at Ouran, it was the tabloids.
“Um, Ayanakoji-san?”
Ayanakoji flinched. That voice - that sweet, innocent voice. Fuj - no, Suoh-san.
“I just wanted to let you know, that, um, what happened back there? It’s okay.”
Ayanakoji froze and hoped that she would go away.
She felt like she was on fire, burning.
“I forgive you.”
Ayanakoji threw the stall’s door open.
“You took Tamaki-sama away.” Her voice came out weak.
Suoh-san cocked her head. Her eyebrows knitted together. “Oh.”
Ayanakoji looked down at the intricate floor tile.
Then she threw the door shut and sat back down.
“Ayanakoji-san?”
And because she was a fool - and because she’d been forgiven - Ayanakoji just sat and let the warm tears slide down her face.