Duet chapter 38
Title: Duet
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: spoilers for the end of the anime, mildly sensual situations
Progress: 38/47
Summary: In need of a performing arts credit for her transcript, Haruhi seeks piano lessons from Tamaki. The result is a bit more bonding than either of them ever expected. How can you focus on school when you're falling in love... and what complications will arise when a member of the Suoh family is willing to give up everything for a commoner?
Oops, we were falling behind again XD but now we're caught up with FFN.
For a long while after Tamaki disappeared into the living room, Haruhi simply lay on her futon in the darkness and breathed, too affected to really think. Her entire body felt hot and she found that she was having difficulty breathing. This strange heat had taken her over sometime during the course of Tamaki’s startling display of passion but somehow still had not let go of her. She was burning everywhere it seemed, even in places that made her blush. She didn’t know if it was okay or not to be so starryeyed from this kind of feeling, and the whole effect was rather confusing.
“When did it get like this?” she whispered to herself, touching the place on her neck that still tingled from his mouth. This new raw, seemingly irrepressible passion had seemed to come from nowhere, but then again, she mused, her feelings for him had come the same way. Maybe everything always had to be sudden when it came to Tamaki. Maybe it was the natural order of things. He was so inconsistent and spontaneous that perhaps it had to carry on into his relationships as well. However, despite how perplexing this whole thing was, it wasn’t unpleasant. Tamaki made her feel dirty and clean all at once, like a princess and like a harlot. She remembered those strong hands on her body and flushed, finding that she wanted them again.
“Get a hold of yourself, Haruhi,” she muttered out loud, pulling the blankets up over herself and rolling over. She closed her eyes and tried to sleep, but all she could think of was him. His scent lingered on her bedclothes and kept her awake far into the night.
The next morning, when Haruhi finally woke from a fitful sleep, the scent of pancakes and miso filled the apartment. It was a rather odd combination and it could only mean that Tamaki was cooking. Despite all his elegance, he hadn’t the slightest idea of food combinations and his side dishes were often bizarre. Haruhi rather enjoyed them but she would never let him know that; he was impossible enough already. In the bright sunlight coming in through the small windows she splashed water on her face, put in her contacts, and padded out into the kitchen in her pajamas. Somehow Tamaki looked different this morning, maybe because of the new sensual light with which she had finally seen him illuminated the night before. He smiled when he saw her and she returned the expression.
“Good morning, Haruhi,” he said pleasantly, his eyes impossibly tender. He turned off the stove to come to her, his hands outstretched, and with the sunlight from the window behind him blurring his edges, he looked like an angel. He pulled her to his chest gently and just held her there, and for that moment she felt warm and she felt safe. “Did you sleep well?”
“I guess,” she said, which was a lie. It had taken her hours to finally drift off.
“I’m glad,” he whispered. He seemed calmer, more subdued, and he held her so gently she felt for a moment like a china doll. Gently, he kissed her forehead and tipped her face up to look at him. Slowly he kissed her lips and she felt her body get warm in a different way than the night before, a more familiar way. “Haruhi… was last night… too much?” he asked, his earnest eyes peering into hers. She searched her mind for an answer, but did not know which was appropriate. It had been too much, and yet not enough. It had been excess in a good way.
“I don’t think so,” she said finally. “It felt good. I… I liked it.”
“Me too,” he flushed. For a moment, he simply stared down at her, and then his eyes widened, his face flushing a brilliant scarlet that she had never seen there before. “H--Haruhi?”
“Yeah?” she asked, cocking her head at him and staring earnestly into his face, wondering what in the world he was so panicked about.
“Come here…” he muttered, taking her hand and fussing lightly under his breath as he led her toward the bathroom. Once they were there, he turned her to face the mirror and she stared into it, seeing the tall blonde and the short brunette whose contrast was startling but whose hands were clasped lovingly anyway. But she also caught sight of what he was panicking about almost immediately, which happened to be a bright plum colored mark on her neck just about the size of Tamaki’s mouth.
“Oh…” she muttered, blushing slightly and touching the mark.
“I’m sorry,” Tamaki whimpered rather childishly. “I didn’t mean to give you a… a hickey.” he said the word softly, as though he was embarrassed to be uttering it.
“That’s okay,” Haruhi said dismissively. But the fact was that the bruise was rather conspicuous and there was no way people weren’t going to notice it. It wasn’t as though she could just wear a scarf either, with the steadily increasing warmth of the weather. She would sweat to death in a scarf. For a moment both were at a loss until Tamaki started rummaging through the medicine cabinet and procured a small bottle of her father’s makeup.
“We’ll just cover it up!” he said happily, still red as he tipped a bit of makeup onto a sponge pad he grabbed and began dabbing it on her neck. The makeup felt cold on her skin but Tamaki’s fingers smoothing it out were warm and she smiled, watching him work in the mirror. In a matter of moments he was done and stepping back to admire his handiwork. “Absolutely invisible!”
“Thanks,” Haruhi said, relieved that he had found a solution. “But we’re going to have to be more careful in the future, okay?”
Tamaki blushed again, smiling awkwardly. “Okay,” he agreed, twiddling his thumbs a little. “Thank you for not being angry with me.”
“Why would I be angry with you?” she asked, grinning up at him and watching the colors in his eyes dance. “I liked it. A lot.” Tamaki smiled back at her, and for a moment they simply stood there and time stopped until the sound of Ryouji’s bedroom door opening startled them out of their silence.
XXX
The time after the actual classtime had ended but the bell signifying the period’s end had not yet rung was perhaps Haruhi’s favorite part of class. It was the time when she could sit and work on her homework and simply soak up the relaxing feeling of knowing exactly what she was supposed to be doing and have no worries. It was a little unforgivable to her when the twins interrupted her time, and today when she heard Hikaru snickering she looked to her right with some irritation. He looked pointedly at her and snickered again.
“What’s so funny?” she asked, more than a little miffed to have her homework interrupted. Hikaru covered his mouth and laughed again. Sighing heavily, Haruhi tried to ignore him and focus on her work. But when it became clear that Kaoru was giggling as well, she put her pencil down, despairing ever getting any work done, and turned to him. “Can you tell me why you guys are laughing at me?” she asked. “Because it’s a little distracting, and I need to finish this worksheet.”
Kaoru chuckled. “Well, Haruhi… it’s your neck.”
“What about it?” Haruhi wondered if he had gone crazy.
“You have a hickey,” he explained between laughs, and Haruhi’s cheeks burned. The makeup must have smeared during the course of the day, and now she had no idea how she was going to get out of this. Everyone was bound to notice.
“Oh… that…” she muttered. “I…”
“So you and tono finally got it on?” Hikaru asked, giggling.
“No,” Haruhi told him coolly. “And it’s none of your business.”
“That means you did!”
“Shut up,” she growled, picking up her pencil and going back to her homework as best she could. This whole thing was thoroughly embarrassing and she had had just about enough of the twins to last a lifetime. It was hard to ignore their laughter, and when Kazukiyo handed her a call slip, it was a welcome diversion.
“It says you’re wanted in the chairman’s office, Fujioka,” he told her, and immediately her relief turned to horror.
“What?” she asked, taking the slip from him. Again it was marked ’urgent’, and she gritted her teeth. “But I can’t go down there like this…” there was nothing in the world that sounded more terrifying than visiting the chairman’s office with the evidence of his son’s passion on her neck for all the world to see.
“Haruhi,” Momoka said, coming up in front of her desk with a delicate lacy scarf. “Don’t worry. You can borrow this to hide it.”
“Thanks, Kurokano,” Haruhi said, smiling gratefully at the girl as she came forward and looped the scarf around her neck.
“Of course,” she replied. “I’m sorry it’s not very manly, but it takes care of your problem. And I think… I think it’s very nice that you and Tamaki are getting more… intimate.”
“Oh… um…” Haruhi reddened slightly as she stood up from her seat, gathering her books and sliding them into her school bag. “Thanks, I guess. I really appreciate your help. I’ll give your scarf back in the host club today, okay?”
“That sounds fine,” Momoka told Haruhi as she made her way toward the door. “I didn’t mean to embarrass him…” she heard her friend say quietly to Kazukiyo as she left.
Haruhi was rarely called down to the office, and so consequently she always had trouble finding it. By the time she opened the door to the outer office and was waved inside by the secretary, the next period had already started.
“Sorry it took me so long to get here,” she said apologetically.
“That’s no problem,” Yuzuru told her, motioning for the chair in front of his desk. “Go ahead and have a seat.”
Haruhi sat in the sumptuous velvet chair and glanced over the photos of Tamaki with the other hosts, herself included, that decorated the desk. “What did you want to see me about?” she asked, and Yuzuru smiled.
“I actually wanted to apologize for misleading you,” the man said with a smile. “It is true that you needed a performing arts credit, but I had ulterior motives for setting you up for piano lessons with my son. I knew he had feelings for you and I wanted you two to become closer. You could have just taken a choir class and gotten your credit that way, and it was underhanded not to tell you.”
“That’s alright,” Haruhi said, smiling. “I’m glad it happened. If it hadn’t, I probably wouldn’t be with him right now.”
“I’m glad you see it that way. And I have a proposal to make. Tamaki has told me the host club is holding a cherry blossom ball on his birthday, and he had an idea about your transcript. The deal is that you choose a piano piece, master it, and play it at the ball. If you do that, I’ll count it as your final exam, call your tutoring with Tamaki an independent study since about half of the lessons took place on campus, and give you the performing arts credits that you need to graduate. How does that sound?”
Haruhi was overwhelmed, and she simply sat staring at him for a moment. “That… that would be great. Could I really do that?”
“You certainly could,” Yuzuru told her.
“I have no idea what to play, though…” Haruhi said, and Yuzuru opened his desk drawer and pulled out a folder embossed with the Ouran crest, handing it to her over the desk.
“If you can’t come up with anything, here are some options you might want to consider,” he told her, and she opened the folder. It was full of sheet music, all marked with the same composer’s name, and her eyes widened.
“Tamaki-senpai wrote these?” she asked, and Yuzuru chuckled and nodded.
“Yes, he did. He gives them to me as gifts for my birthday nearly every year. He never mentioned to you that he writes music?”
“He didn’t,” Haruhi stared down at the sheets upon sheets of music, tracing the top one lightly with her finger. “I guess I’ll pick one of these, then. I never knew he wrote his own music.”
“Just make sure to get them back to me when you’re finished with them,” Yuzuru said with an air of finality, and Haruhi stood up, realizing that she was being dismissed.
“Thank you for the opportunity, chairman,” Haruhi said, bowing to him. “I won’t waste it.”
“Enjoy yourself, Haruhi-chan,” Yuzuru said, waving to her as she left the office with the thick folder. She began looking through it on her way to class, musing on the fact that she had a lot of practicing to do.
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: spoilers for the end of the anime, mildly sensual situations
Progress: 38/47
Summary: In need of a performing arts credit for her transcript, Haruhi seeks piano lessons from Tamaki. The result is a bit more bonding than either of them ever expected. How can you focus on school when you're falling in love... and what complications will arise when a member of the Suoh family is willing to give up everything for a commoner?
Oops, we were falling behind again XD but now we're caught up with FFN.
For a long while after Tamaki disappeared into the living room, Haruhi simply lay on her futon in the darkness and breathed, too affected to really think. Her entire body felt hot and she found that she was having difficulty breathing. This strange heat had taken her over sometime during the course of Tamaki’s startling display of passion but somehow still had not let go of her. She was burning everywhere it seemed, even in places that made her blush. She didn’t know if it was okay or not to be so starryeyed from this kind of feeling, and the whole effect was rather confusing.
“When did it get like this?” she whispered to herself, touching the place on her neck that still tingled from his mouth. This new raw, seemingly irrepressible passion had seemed to come from nowhere, but then again, she mused, her feelings for him had come the same way. Maybe everything always had to be sudden when it came to Tamaki. Maybe it was the natural order of things. He was so inconsistent and spontaneous that perhaps it had to carry on into his relationships as well. However, despite how perplexing this whole thing was, it wasn’t unpleasant. Tamaki made her feel dirty and clean all at once, like a princess and like a harlot. She remembered those strong hands on her body and flushed, finding that she wanted them again.
“Get a hold of yourself, Haruhi,” she muttered out loud, pulling the blankets up over herself and rolling over. She closed her eyes and tried to sleep, but all she could think of was him. His scent lingered on her bedclothes and kept her awake far into the night.
The next morning, when Haruhi finally woke from a fitful sleep, the scent of pancakes and miso filled the apartment. It was a rather odd combination and it could only mean that Tamaki was cooking. Despite all his elegance, he hadn’t the slightest idea of food combinations and his side dishes were often bizarre. Haruhi rather enjoyed them but she would never let him know that; he was impossible enough already. In the bright sunlight coming in through the small windows she splashed water on her face, put in her contacts, and padded out into the kitchen in her pajamas. Somehow Tamaki looked different this morning, maybe because of the new sensual light with which she had finally seen him illuminated the night before. He smiled when he saw her and she returned the expression.
“Good morning, Haruhi,” he said pleasantly, his eyes impossibly tender. He turned off the stove to come to her, his hands outstretched, and with the sunlight from the window behind him blurring his edges, he looked like an angel. He pulled her to his chest gently and just held her there, and for that moment she felt warm and she felt safe. “Did you sleep well?”
“I guess,” she said, which was a lie. It had taken her hours to finally drift off.
“I’m glad,” he whispered. He seemed calmer, more subdued, and he held her so gently she felt for a moment like a china doll. Gently, he kissed her forehead and tipped her face up to look at him. Slowly he kissed her lips and she felt her body get warm in a different way than the night before, a more familiar way. “Haruhi… was last night… too much?” he asked, his earnest eyes peering into hers. She searched her mind for an answer, but did not know which was appropriate. It had been too much, and yet not enough. It had been excess in a good way.
“I don’t think so,” she said finally. “It felt good. I… I liked it.”
“Me too,” he flushed. For a moment, he simply stared down at her, and then his eyes widened, his face flushing a brilliant scarlet that she had never seen there before. “H--Haruhi?”
“Yeah?” she asked, cocking her head at him and staring earnestly into his face, wondering what in the world he was so panicked about.
“Come here…” he muttered, taking her hand and fussing lightly under his breath as he led her toward the bathroom. Once they were there, he turned her to face the mirror and she stared into it, seeing the tall blonde and the short brunette whose contrast was startling but whose hands were clasped lovingly anyway. But she also caught sight of what he was panicking about almost immediately, which happened to be a bright plum colored mark on her neck just about the size of Tamaki’s mouth.
“Oh…” she muttered, blushing slightly and touching the mark.
“I’m sorry,” Tamaki whimpered rather childishly. “I didn’t mean to give you a… a hickey.” he said the word softly, as though he was embarrassed to be uttering it.
“That’s okay,” Haruhi said dismissively. But the fact was that the bruise was rather conspicuous and there was no way people weren’t going to notice it. It wasn’t as though she could just wear a scarf either, with the steadily increasing warmth of the weather. She would sweat to death in a scarf. For a moment both were at a loss until Tamaki started rummaging through the medicine cabinet and procured a small bottle of her father’s makeup.
“We’ll just cover it up!” he said happily, still red as he tipped a bit of makeup onto a sponge pad he grabbed and began dabbing it on her neck. The makeup felt cold on her skin but Tamaki’s fingers smoothing it out were warm and she smiled, watching him work in the mirror. In a matter of moments he was done and stepping back to admire his handiwork. “Absolutely invisible!”
“Thanks,” Haruhi said, relieved that he had found a solution. “But we’re going to have to be more careful in the future, okay?”
Tamaki blushed again, smiling awkwardly. “Okay,” he agreed, twiddling his thumbs a little. “Thank you for not being angry with me.”
“Why would I be angry with you?” she asked, grinning up at him and watching the colors in his eyes dance. “I liked it. A lot.” Tamaki smiled back at her, and for a moment they simply stood there and time stopped until the sound of Ryouji’s bedroom door opening startled them out of their silence.
XXX
The time after the actual classtime had ended but the bell signifying the period’s end had not yet rung was perhaps Haruhi’s favorite part of class. It was the time when she could sit and work on her homework and simply soak up the relaxing feeling of knowing exactly what she was supposed to be doing and have no worries. It was a little unforgivable to her when the twins interrupted her time, and today when she heard Hikaru snickering she looked to her right with some irritation. He looked pointedly at her and snickered again.
“What’s so funny?” she asked, more than a little miffed to have her homework interrupted. Hikaru covered his mouth and laughed again. Sighing heavily, Haruhi tried to ignore him and focus on her work. But when it became clear that Kaoru was giggling as well, she put her pencil down, despairing ever getting any work done, and turned to him. “Can you tell me why you guys are laughing at me?” she asked. “Because it’s a little distracting, and I need to finish this worksheet.”
Kaoru chuckled. “Well, Haruhi… it’s your neck.”
“What about it?” Haruhi wondered if he had gone crazy.
“You have a hickey,” he explained between laughs, and Haruhi’s cheeks burned. The makeup must have smeared during the course of the day, and now she had no idea how she was going to get out of this. Everyone was bound to notice.
“Oh… that…” she muttered. “I…”
“So you and tono finally got it on?” Hikaru asked, giggling.
“No,” Haruhi told him coolly. “And it’s none of your business.”
“That means you did!”
“Shut up,” she growled, picking up her pencil and going back to her homework as best she could. This whole thing was thoroughly embarrassing and she had had just about enough of the twins to last a lifetime. It was hard to ignore their laughter, and when Kazukiyo handed her a call slip, it was a welcome diversion.
“It says you’re wanted in the chairman’s office, Fujioka,” he told her, and immediately her relief turned to horror.
“What?” she asked, taking the slip from him. Again it was marked ’urgent’, and she gritted her teeth. “But I can’t go down there like this…” there was nothing in the world that sounded more terrifying than visiting the chairman’s office with the evidence of his son’s passion on her neck for all the world to see.
“Haruhi,” Momoka said, coming up in front of her desk with a delicate lacy scarf. “Don’t worry. You can borrow this to hide it.”
“Thanks, Kurokano,” Haruhi said, smiling gratefully at the girl as she came forward and looped the scarf around her neck.
“Of course,” she replied. “I’m sorry it’s not very manly, but it takes care of your problem. And I think… I think it’s very nice that you and Tamaki are getting more… intimate.”
“Oh… um…” Haruhi reddened slightly as she stood up from her seat, gathering her books and sliding them into her school bag. “Thanks, I guess. I really appreciate your help. I’ll give your scarf back in the host club today, okay?”
“That sounds fine,” Momoka told Haruhi as she made her way toward the door. “I didn’t mean to embarrass him…” she heard her friend say quietly to Kazukiyo as she left.
Haruhi was rarely called down to the office, and so consequently she always had trouble finding it. By the time she opened the door to the outer office and was waved inside by the secretary, the next period had already started.
“Sorry it took me so long to get here,” she said apologetically.
“That’s no problem,” Yuzuru told her, motioning for the chair in front of his desk. “Go ahead and have a seat.”
Haruhi sat in the sumptuous velvet chair and glanced over the photos of Tamaki with the other hosts, herself included, that decorated the desk. “What did you want to see me about?” she asked, and Yuzuru smiled.
“I actually wanted to apologize for misleading you,” the man said with a smile. “It is true that you needed a performing arts credit, but I had ulterior motives for setting you up for piano lessons with my son. I knew he had feelings for you and I wanted you two to become closer. You could have just taken a choir class and gotten your credit that way, and it was underhanded not to tell you.”
“That’s alright,” Haruhi said, smiling. “I’m glad it happened. If it hadn’t, I probably wouldn’t be with him right now.”
“I’m glad you see it that way. And I have a proposal to make. Tamaki has told me the host club is holding a cherry blossom ball on his birthday, and he had an idea about your transcript. The deal is that you choose a piano piece, master it, and play it at the ball. If you do that, I’ll count it as your final exam, call your tutoring with Tamaki an independent study since about half of the lessons took place on campus, and give you the performing arts credits that you need to graduate. How does that sound?”
Haruhi was overwhelmed, and she simply sat staring at him for a moment. “That… that would be great. Could I really do that?”
“You certainly could,” Yuzuru told her.
“I have no idea what to play, though…” Haruhi said, and Yuzuru opened his desk drawer and pulled out a folder embossed with the Ouran crest, handing it to her over the desk.
“If you can’t come up with anything, here are some options you might want to consider,” he told her, and she opened the folder. It was full of sheet music, all marked with the same composer’s name, and her eyes widened.
“Tamaki-senpai wrote these?” she asked, and Yuzuru chuckled and nodded.
“Yes, he did. He gives them to me as gifts for my birthday nearly every year. He never mentioned to you that he writes music?”
“He didn’t,” Haruhi stared down at the sheets upon sheets of music, tracing the top one lightly with her finger. “I guess I’ll pick one of these, then. I never knew he wrote his own music.”
“Just make sure to get them back to me when you’re finished with them,” Yuzuru said with an air of finality, and Haruhi stood up, realizing that she was being dismissed.
“Thank you for the opportunity, chairman,” Haruhi said, bowing to him. “I won’t waste it.”
“Enjoy yourself, Haruhi-chan,” Yuzuru said, waving to her as she left the office with the thick folder. She began looking through it on her way to class, musing on the fact that she had a lot of practicing to do.