fic: Christmas Eve Cakes and Miracles, 3/3
Title: Christmas Eve Cakes and Miracles
Fandom: Host Club
Pairings/Characters: Haruhi/Tamaki (minor Kyouya/Kaoru, Mori/Hunny, Hikaru)
Rating: PG
Summary: Christmas Cake - Slang for an unmarried girl over 25. "Nobody wants Christmas cake after the 25th." Haruhi won't become one with Tamaki so obviously entranced with her, right? A humorous holiday story about love and Christmas-eve epiphanies.
chapter one
chapter one-point-five (extra)
chapter two
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Christmas Eve Cakes and Miracles
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“Tamaki?!” Haruhi managed breathlessly, all the fear and tension draining from her body.
There underneath the bed-beside empty shoe boxes and old birthday wrapping paper, right next to Haruhi's treasured stuffed bunny from her childhood, just to the left of several of her favorite mechanical pencils, just below a strangely colored pink article of clothing (that appeared to be a skirt, as far as Haruhi could tell), with several candy bar wrappers lying right in front of him-was Tamaki.
Haruhi gaped. She sputtered. Tamaki swallowed.
“He-Hello, Haruhi,” he said quietly.
Haruhi stared.
“Are you out of your mind?!” She screeched, voice high-pitched with stress and worry. Tamaki didn't answer. A few strands of blond hair fell perfectly onto his face, obstructing indigo blue eyes. Tamaki was at a loss for words. How could he possibly explain himself? Opting for a long, awkward silence rather than speaking with such a high probability of saying something stupid, Tamaki began picking at the orange carpeting; fidgeting and idly twiddling his thumbs.
“Have you been under here this entire time?” Haruhi asked, with a little less edge in her voice. Still, Tamaki could sense her anger, and something else too-but clipped and hurt-and all covered up.
“Uhm, yeah. Sorry.” Haruhi breathed in deeply. What could have prompted Tamaki to decide it was best to live under his bed for an entire day? She couldn't even begin to imagine. Tamaki liked to do the silliest and most unthinkable things at times, that Haruhi was beginning to give up on trying to figure them all out.
“Why are my pencils here?” It was all she could ask. She wanted to ask more. She wanted to ask him the more important questions, like why was Usa-chan under his bed, and more importantly, why was he under his bed? But something like that opened so many doors that she wasn't quite sure she ready to walk through.
“I um-I found them here.”
“You found them here?” She didn't believe a lick of it, and Tamaki knew it.
“Yeah, I was-uh, looking for them actually! That's what I'm doing under here, in case you were wondering!” Wasn't she wondering? Why hadn't Haruhi asked him where he'd been? Didn't she care about him at all? Hadn't she wondered where'd he'd gone? Missed him, even just the teeniest bit?
Silence enveloped them again. For once, they were on the same exact page. The two of them laid facing each other, a little too close beneath Tamaki's bed, and wondered just when did things become so awkward?
Without words and questions to distract him, Tamaki had become distinctly aware of just how close they were. He could nearly feel her body heat. It was really just a few measly inches. Just a few inches! And yet, inches can seem like miles-any distance can seem like forever-if there's something preventing you from closing it.
The longer the silence grew, the more difficult it became for Tamaki to end it-and he so very badly did want to end it. Long, awkward silences were the worst sort of silences, and silences were bad enough as they were. Yet, everything he wanted to say seemed obsolete and useless. There was a strange sort of aura developing between them, Tamaki could tell, and as much as Tamaki wanted to address this, he found the feeling distinctly incommunicable-at least with words.
Haruhi was slowly beginning to figure it out:
There was an elephant in the room.
The longer she stared into Tamaki's eyes-that strange shade of blue-purple-the more apparent it became. There was a very large, very ridiculous, very obnoxious elephant in the room, and it was laying right between them. It became so obvious in that moment that she could nearly see it's smiling face and too-long trunk.
She should ask him, Haruhi thought suddenly. Christmas Eve was tomorrow, and didn't someone famous once say, “there's no time like the present,” or something like that? Now really was as good a time as any and all that.
But was it really?
What if the entire thing was fruitless? But then-Tamaki didn't really see her as a daughter, right? Besides, there was that elephant between them too, and as hesitant as Haruhi was to admit it-even to herself-she was certain that elephant was raw feelings, raw, returned feelings. Mutual feelings. She was certain they could both feel it.
Unless she really was going crazy.
Figuring she'd been the boy for four years at Ouran-and that surely, one more night wasn't going to kill her-she took a deep breath, and manned up.
“T-t-tamaki,” she stuttered out. So much for manning up. Her words were laden with nervous feelings.
Tamaki looked at her, straight in the eyes, and prayed she wasn't going to come out to him as a lesbian right now. Tamaki really wasn't too sure if he could handle something like that at the moment. His mind was crumbly already.
“I just, um...” Between the two of them, little was getting accomplished. Despite all the raw emotion-just like raw materials-you've got to do something with them. It's only what it is if you just leave it sit there. Raw things-they've got to be turned into other stuff-built upon.
Yet Haruhi and Tamaki-they were terrified of the prospect-of the idea that their perfect little stable would crash before they could hammer the first nail.
“Tamaki, I just-well-will you, I mean, what I'm trying to say, is that...” What was she trying to say, exactly? Even Haruhi wasn't so sure anymore.
“You're not doing anything Christmas Eve, are you?” Haruhi closed her eyes.
(Please say no, please say no, please say no...)
Haruhi couldn't see it through her eyelids (or her fear) but Tamaki's eyes could not have physically widened any further.
“Haruhi!” He screeched suddenly in recognition of the whole fiasco-the elephant, the aura, the calendar, that strange smell from the toaster-he understood all of it. Everything made sense. (Well, maybe not the strange toaster smell.) Haruhi was going to confess to him! To Tamaki!
He wrapped his arms around her smaller frame and pulled her close; excited.
“Haruhi, Haruhi, Haruhi! Why didn't you just tell Daddy that you wanted to go with him for Christmas Eve?” The words were tumbling out of his mouth without thought; happiness numbing his brain and exuding from his pores.
“This is so great! So, so, so, so, great!” He couldn't have stopped his lips from moving even if he'd wanted to. Haruhi was with him-his Haruhi. Haruhi liked Tamaki. Not another boy, not another girl, not some strange American foreigner or a beatnik Yakuza member-Haruhi liked him!
She said something against his shirt-the same turtleneck from yesterday (that was embarrassing)-but it was muffled by the fabric and shuffling from Tamaki's constant excited movement. He slowed down and Haruhi pulled her head away from him.
“I said, I'm not your daughter.” Tamaki gave her a look.
“I didn't mean daughter like that, silly! I just mean that you-you want to go out with me on Christmas Eve!” Haruhi smiled. She'd known when the word had slipped from his lips that he hadn't meant daughter like that. Tamaki was easy to understand in some ways. The connotation in his voice sometimes revealed everything. When he'd referred to himself as Daddy-it'd been without thought-but his voice, his voice, his voice said the word like boyfriend.
“So you'll go then? I, uh, I already booked a place-if that's alright?” Tamaki's smile could have lit up a city.
“Of course it's alright! I'm so glad you're not involved with the Yakuza! This is the greatest! It's the best day ever, and you're here and you look so, so, so, cute!” Tamaki pulled Haruhi against him again, easily and without thought.
Suddenly he gave the action some thought. He gave everything a little bit of thought.
“S-so, does this mean you want to be my girlfriend?” Tamaki asked, his voice rising with his excitement.
“Are you sure you're not the girlfriend, tono?” She asked in jest, chuckling; smiling.
Tamaki's face began filling out with red.
“Of course I'm sure! I'm obviously the boyfriend! I'm a perfect prince and I woo wonderfully and you'll be the perfect, prettiest princess in all the land! Oh Haruhi-think of how great we'll be together! We can go on all sorts of fancy dates-I'll take you anywhere-and we can ride the ferris wheel together at the carnival and go to the movies and take pictures together in those little booths and pick the heart background and print them out on stickers and hand them out to all our friends...”
Tamaki's rambling dissipated into nothingness, and for one solemn moment, they stared at each other. It was neither awkward nor perfect, it merely was. It was just one moment, one inconsequential moment in the grand scheme of two lives Simultaneously, their lips parted back in grins to reveal teeth, and Haruhi leaned forward, and kissed him.
It was his turn to falter, his turn to have his cheeks stained red.
Haruhi chuckled again, and rather surprisingly and quickly, it turned into a laugh. At that moment, they seemed to be thinking the same thing: tomorrow was going to be the best Christmas Eve ever.
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end
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