Ouran High School Host Club Fan Fiction ❯ Rubbing The Lamp ❯ Ch 22 Assistance and Confrontation ( Chapter 29 )

Disclaimer: Ouran Host Club belongs to Bisco Hatori. I make no profit off this story. If Bisco Hatori-san wishes, I will remove this from the web upon her personal request.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 30

 

 

“Tamaki, I'm so glad you're here. I need your help.”

 

“Anything, mon frère - it is yours. You have but to ask.”

 

It had been an emotional day. And he'd not gotten much sleep in the past week. This was his excuse for his behavior that he knew he'd fall back on if anyone brought this up in the future, so he unabashedly grabbed his friend by the shoulders, kissed him on each cheek, and embraced him for a moment.

 

As he pulled back he said, “For so much, I am already in your debt. I truly do not know why you decided to befriend me, Tamaki, but without at doubt, I could not ask for a better friend than you.”

 

Tamaki unexpectedly blushed and Kyoya laughed.

 

The grin on Ootori's face was contagious and Tamaki smiled back. “There! That was the reason I wanted to be your friend. Because I wanted to see you smile.”

 

With a mock frown, he pushed Tamaki on the shoulder.

 

“So are you going to tell me what you need help with?”

 

Now Kyoya blushed. He'd never been caught without a plan before. “How… how should I propose?”

 

The Frenchman smiled softly. “That's a very good question.” His voice was gentle and thoughtful. “I was going to propose in front of the whole school on graduation day. So, you'd probably do well to do the opposite of that.” He winked at his friend to show there weren't any hard feelings.

 

Kyoya smirked, “That really doesn't narrow things down by much, you know.”

 

“Well, hmmm.” He set one finger tapping against his lips. “When did you first realize you loved her? Or rather, when would you have realized it if you hadn't been in such denial?”

 

Kyoya shot him a chilly look, to which Tamaki just grinned back, insouciantly.

 

Grimacing, he thought back. There was the dancing. And the way she conducted herself with his father. At the hotel responding to the manager, yes, but even before that, when she slapped his face for how he had treated his son.

 

But, no. That had caught Kyoya's attention, but he hadn't been in love yet. That came later. Before he came up with the plan? Maybe, but he had been convinced it was just an extension of the memory of their time at the beach house. So when…?

 

“When did your heart first feel like it had stopped, just from something she did or said?” Tamaki asked to clarify the question.

 

Heart stopped? In a flash, he remembered their hands brushing as they filed in the back room, leaning in toward her, only to be interrupted by Mori of all people. That could have been it - or when they were talking about the end of the year banq-

 

Damn it. They still had the end of the year banquet to plan. How could he have forgotten? The brotherhood theme.

 

He had to get the rest of his friends behind him. If they wouldn't, it wouldn't stop him from marrying her, but still. They were his friends. Or, they had been.

 

“What is it?” Tamaki asked, with genuine concern in his voice. It wasn't that Kyoya's mask had slipped - no, now that he had gotten through his trial with Haruhi, he had recovered his ability and desire to pretend detachment. But Tamaki knew him well enough to recognize that a pause without emotion showing meant something was wrong.

 

Kyoya replied quietly, “How badly do all of the others hate me?”

 

“They don't hate you, Kyoya,” Tamaki began, but at the look of disbelief, he amended his comment. “Well, okay, maybe Hikaru does a bit. The others are more just disappointed. They feel a bit betrayed. They care so much for Haruhi - they feel like you hurting her has hurt them as well.”

 

Nodding curtly, he replied with a terse tone, “Do you feel that way as well?”

 

Cocking his head to the side, a puzzled look on his face, his blonde friend answered, “If I did, I wouldn't be a very good friend, let alone your very best friend in the whole world. Mon ami, even if we did fall for the same girl, our friendship is eternal.”

 

As he struck a dramatic pose, Kyoya just looked at Tamaki blankly.

 

“Yes. Well, anyway, they've calmed down a lot since she forgave them. I'm sure that if they see that she's over being mad with you, they'll let it go.”

 

A single raised eyebrow conveyed Kyoya's disbelief. But then, he sighed and nodded. “Alright. Would you call an emergency meeting of the club for me? I wanted to propose to her tonight, but I would prefer to talk to them all first. I…” He pushed his glasses up and glanced away from his friend.

 

Tamaki couldn't help but smile. It was just like Kyoya to try to hide his feelings. But it was obvious that he cared about all the club members, too.

 

“I think I have an idea for how you should propose,” Tamaki said softly with a grin that looked slightly evil to Kyoya.

 

 

X

 

 

“What are we doing here?” Hikaru barked. “Doesn't Tamaki know we've got exams to study for?”

 

When even Mori turned to stare at him in disbelief, he amended, “Well, we do! Even if I wasn't actually planning on studying…”

 

“Tamaki said it had to do with the end of the year banquet,” Mori stated quietly.

 

Huni smiled, “Yeah. This'll be our last one. It's kinda sad.” His expression dimmed, and then he brightened, “So we have to make sure there's plenty of cake!”

 

“That must be why we're meeting here at this pastry shop,” Kaoru said softly.

 

The words were no sooner uttered than, with his normal flamboyance, Tamaki swirled into the room. “That is part of it,” he declared. “The chef here makes pastries that are divine! And we will need to make sure that our end of the year banquet is a tribute to our departing third years, Mori-sempai and Huni-sempai.”

 

He leaned toward them conspiratorially. “So do you want to know what our theme is?” Without waiting for them to answer, he spun as he declared, “Brotherhood! Isn't that lovely? It was Haruhi's idea!”

 

“Great. Brotherhood. Kaoru and I the only actual brothers, you know.”

 

“Ah, but as Haruhi pointed out, the friendships we've forged have made us brothers in spirit.” He gestured to the seniors. “Are not Mori and Huni brothers in their hearts?”

 

He waited until they nodded or shrugged in response.

 

“And that brings us to the other reason as to why we're meeting here. One of our brothers has recently been absent.”

 

Each of the other four shifted and he could see the retorts start to form on some of their lips, so he held up a hand to forestall them. “The fact that some of you feel as if he betrayed and manipulated us does nothing to negate the fact that he is our friend, our brother.” His tone was so serious, so counter to the Tamaki they were used to that they couldn't help but remain quiet so he could continue.

 

“What exactly did Kyoya do that has you upset? Manipulate us? Honestly, he did nothing of the sort. He asked us all to do something we wanted to do in the first place. Did he manipulate Haruhi? I am afraid to tell you that we're all guilty of that. We cannot blame him without blaming ourselves.”

 

“Well, that's not really a problem then, is it? Because there's plenty of blame to go around,” Hikaru sneered.

 

Tamaki turned on the twin and hissed, “Does it make you feel better, Hikaru? Do you feel like you can blame yourself less if you shift some of your blame onto Kyoya? You know what? You are all my brothers, and with as much as we've all disappointed ourselves when it comes to Haruhi, you all have disappointed me much more in your treatment of Kyoya.”

 

The others looked at Tamaki in shock. He never took this type of tone with anyone. But when Hikaru made a move as if he were going to make a snappy comeback, Tamaki pointed at him and said, “Shut the fuck up, Hikaru, and listen to what I have to say! You all know damned well how badly you felt about the whole thing. But when you realized that you'd been hurting the woman you love - the woman we ALL love - you at least had someone to turn to, someone to talk to about it. Kaoru and Hikaru, you were able to talk to each other about what you'd done wrong, think about how you could make amends. You had SOMEone to share in the guilt. Mori-sempai and Huni-sempai, you were able to talk to each other, and to work out some frustrations by sparring.

 

“What did Kyoya have? A father who treats him like a failure? Friends who turned their back on him for their own convenience's sake - to help appease their guilty consciences? No. Kyoya had none of that. He didn't even have me - his supposed best friend. Even *I* let him down.

 

“Don't you all remember? Don't you remember what he looked like when we decided to give it up? Don't you remember how terrified and alone he looked. Later, I came and told you that he wasn't well, that he needed us, but you all were too scared to help a friend in need.” The Host Club King radiated disappointment. “And that's why I called you here today. You think he sat at home gloating? You don't know him at all! You don't have the right to call yourself his friends…”

 

“Enough, Tamaki. Enough. They don't deserve this. They've just been trying to protect her. I didn't want you to… I just wanted the chance to apologize to them.” Kyoya entered and bowed to them all. “I understand if you all never want to see me again. I wouldn't blame you. But I wanted you to know: you all have been my friends. I'm not certain whether you realize that. Each of you means a great deal to me.”

 

They looked at the young man before them. One night of sleep had helped, but had not erased the dark circles from under his eyes. Nor had one super-sized breakfast done anything to fill the hollows in his gaunt face. While he no longer appeared to be at death's door, he was still a shadow of his former self.

 

“Oh,” Huni gasped.

 

“What the hell happened to you?” Kaoru breathed in disbelief.

 

Kyoya shrugged and said, “That doesn't matter. What matters is that I… I am sorry for everything that happened. I didn't realize how much you all… This is…” he swallowed hard. He pulled his glasses off his face, so that he would be uncovered and open before them. “This is harder than I thought. You see, I know you all love her. That's what makes this so hard. I love her, too. More than anything. I…”

 

“Yeah. You love her. We get it,” Hikaru muttered.

 

“It's so difficult because you have all been my friends. We always knew that someday our parents and business might put us into opposing sides of a battle. But with all that we'd been through together, I guess I had picked up some of Tamaki's optimism. I believed we'd be able to remain friends. Even in the battle for Haruhi, part of me thought we'd each accept her choice - if she made one. But that may not have been realistic. Even so,” Kyoya started, then changed his mind on what to say, shook his head and continued, “I plan to ask her to marry me.”

 

They all looked at him dumbfounded.

 

He nodded, then stood and began to make his way out of the shop. As he reached the door, he called, “I'll be proposing tonight at 7pm. At Le Parc.”

 

The door closed behind him.

 

“Yeah, right!” Hikaru laughed. “Even if he does somehow get her to show up, she'll never accept. She hates him!”

 

Huni shook his head. He spoke slowly and deliberately. “I think you're wrong, Hikaru. I think… I think she loves Kyoya more than any of us. That's why she was so upset. The rest of us she could forgive, but Kyoya…”

 

“The opposite of love is indifference,” Mori continued. “Hate and love are two sides of the same coin.”

 

“Well, fuck that! Kyoya's nothing but a rat-bastard. Haruhi's much too smart to fall in love with him!”

 

Tamaki laughed bitterly. “What the hell does `smart' have to do with falling in love? Do you think you get to choose who you fall for? If we had that choice, none of us would be here right now. And I wouldn't even exist.”

 

To that, no one had any retort.

 

“It seems to me that Kyoya has just invited us all to the proposal,” Kaoru said softly. “He knows that we're important to Haruhi. Do you think she'll accept if we all were against it?”

 

“I think,” Mori responded with quiet conviction, “that Kyoya went out of his way to tell us that we're as important to *him* as we are to Haruhi.”

 

“Did you see how terrible he looked?” Huni asked.

 

Softly, Tamaki said, “Until last night, he hadn't slept since we last saw him. He hadn't slept in a week. He refused to eat. All he did was drink espresso to keep awake. His sister had surveillance on him in his room. From what I saw when I went over there, he couldn't sleep and couldn't be awake any more. He just couldn't take the idea of living without her.

 

“I know that I do love Haruhi. But not like that. Could I live without her?” He grimaced and nodded. “Yes. I could. But Kyoya can't. He would still be in his room, killing himself, if I hadn't brought Haruhi over, if she hadn't forgiv-”

 

“Wait. Wait.” Hikaru called. “You brought Haruhi over to see him last night?”

 

“Yeah. I did.”

 

Hikaru scrunched his eyes closed, his face a grimace of pain. “She already forgave him, didn't she? Because she loves him.” He'd kept his eyes closed tight as he said it. Mori, Huni, and Kaoru's expressions wore varying shades of acceptance tempered with expected disappointment as they watched the exchange between Tamaki and Hikaru.

 

“Yes.”

 

“And he knew that before he came here.”

 

“Yes.”

 

“So he really only came here to apologize to us.”

 

“Yes.”

 

With a bittersweet smile, Hikaru whispered, “What an idiot.”

 

 

 

Secondary Disclaimer: All characters in this story are at least 18 years of age. While that might seem unlikely - as three of the characters are only sophomores in high school, I figure it this way: if Bisco Hatori-san can ignore the students graduating for two years in a row and keep everyone in the same grade, I can then apply that logic to their ages. Therefore, Haruhi, Kaoru and Hikaru are just 18. Kyoya and Tamaki are about to turn 19. Mori is about to turn 20, and Huni already is 20. (Therefore, according to Japanese figuring, Huni is the only adult. :P )