Alone With the Beast
This is a prompt from a forum:
"Write a one-shot entirely in the style of a cheesy romance novel."
That means corny unrelated title and everything.
I highly recommend this exercise to anyone who is looking to improve or wants a challenge. This was WAY too much fun to write, plus I have an excuse if everyone seems to be extremely OOC.
Why Kyoya and Haruhi are in a dark room with a storm outside even I don't know, but let's just go with it shall we?
"I take it you've decided to pledge yourself to him."
Kyoya's callous bark pierced the dense silence. Haruhi flinched at the violent suggestion in his voice, and she forced herself to reply lightly,
"Do you mean Tamaki?"
"Of course. I don't recall seeing anyone else so vehemently infatuated." the accusing tone at his words made Haruhi instantly defensive.
"What makes you say that?" she snapped.
But Kyoya did not answer. Instead he stared fiercely at her from across the darkened room, and as the shadow of the storm outside fell across his face a shiver ran up Haruhi's spine. She tore her eyes away and rejoined,
"I think I am very lucky to be cared for by someone as gentle and kind as Tamaki."
"Is that what you call it? 'to be cared for'?"
"I'm sure he has great affection for me."
"Is that how you love, Haruhi? With such indifferent, passionless 'affection' ?" he asked, as a gleam of mockery lit his eyes.
"Certainly not." she retorted, and her head snapped up to meet his severe gaze unwisely, for the vicious threat in his eyes caused her to tremble for reasons she herself did not comprehend.
"If that is the extent of your ardor, my advice is that you take a more critical look at this man before you promise him anything."
"Your cynicism won't make me change my mind."
"Perhaps not," he concluded, "but reality might."
His final declaration troubled her greatly for a considerable time after, but she remained subdued and allowed herself the grace to hold back the angry reply that pressed on her tongue.
The storm dragged on, and while elsewhere people were walking by without trepidation or worry, Haruhi and Kyoya remained in the room alone, and she began to feel stifled by the overbearing quiet. She found herself thinking disturbingly less of Tamaki, and far too much of the man seated a little distance from her window. He sat with his computer open in silence, his eyes broodingly on the screen, but she has the sinister feeling that every muscle in his long body was poised for action. There was something about him that drew her inexplicably towards him, a magnetic quality which was frightening as well as strangely exciting.
Haruhi snapped herself out of her reverie and realized what she had been thinking with horror. She rose abruptly and moved nearer the window furthest from Kyoya, but it did not diminish the fact that she was aware of him with every nerve and fiber of her being.
"Are you missing your lover?"
His voice startled her at first, but she only cast him an indignant glance.
"Tamaki is not my lover!"
"Is that so?" he said derisively, and raised his hard eyes again to hers.
"Quite!" she said resolutely, and lifted her chin defiantly.
"And he's never made love to you?" he demanded with a flash of derisive contempt in his eyes, and her cheeks flushed.
"I refuse to answer that impertinent question!" she turned away.
There was a tense little silence before he remarked dryly, "I can see you're going to have a very dull, straight-laced life with poor Tamaki if he hasn't yet succeeded in awakening even a little flicker of desire in you."
"That is none of your business!" Haruhi exclaimed, inexplicably angry as she whirled around. Suddenly he was standing, and within seconds he made two very quick long strides and stood beside her. His fingers snaked about her wrist with the unexpected speed of a reptile, and she was jerked unceremoniously into his vice-like grip.
"Do you love him?" he challenged, his eyes burning with unveiled fury.
"I don't have to say anything to you!" she declared, trying to free her wrist from his grasp. "He is good, kind, and dependable, and he would never do anything to harm me."
"He is, in fact, everything I am not." Kyoya added, his lips pulled back into a sneer.
"You have nothing to do with this," she argued heatedly.
"I doubt that very much." he laughed harshly, releasing her wrist and gripping her shoulders with a biting firmness until she could feel the burning heat from his hands through her shirt.
"I'm willing to bet that you only allow Tamaki the chance to be romantic with you because you think you owe him." he accused, his voice slicing through her, and the most dreadful part of it all was the sudden realization that jerked inside her at his words.
"You have no right to say that to me." she hissed, her heart beating so fast it almost choked her.
"So the fact that you feel naturally inferior to him and you are severely indebted to him has no influence whatsoever on your relationship with him?"
"Absolutely not!" she retorted, a bit breathless.
"Liar." he growled, and pulling her up to him again he added, in a dangerously low voice,
"If in reality you let Tamaki adore you so shamelessly because you felt obligated to him somehow, that is nothing less than pity."
Haruhi stared into his narrowed, catlike eyes and managed to murmur,
"You're wrong."
"I don't believe you."
"You are! I am sure of it!"
"Are you?"
His deep dark voice mesmerized her, and she sounded infuriatingly unsure as she heard herself say insistently,
"Yes, yes I am."
His darkness was enveloping her, invading her senses and stirring her emotions until she felt herself trembling beneath his hands as she cowered before him. She was unable to wrench her eyes from his, and she was caught between fear and some terrible fascination.
"Do you tremble because you're afraid of me, or is there perhaps some other reason?" he questioned softly, and her coal-tipped lashes fluttered down to hide the confusion in her eyes when he added with a soft note of amusement in his voice,
"Let's find out, shall we?"
I quite enjoyed that.
Especially the whole evil-twisted-sexy Kyoya part, I really enjoyed that.
I may just add a second chapter and indulge in some good old fashioned melodramatic make-out scenes with some over-the-top denial…
What do you guys think?