Sensitivity


[Kyo's P.O.V.]


I wish I would've seen him come in, maybe then all this wouldn't have happened. Maybe then my mom wouldn't have that sadness in her eyes every time someone addressed her as Mrs. Aichi. Maybe then, I'd still be living in America with my best friend Lily, and boyfriend Theo. Maybe then I wouldn't be attending some rich academy in Japan.

Maybe then my life would still be what I'd considered to be normal.


~Prologue~


I was up in my room, sprawled out across my bed, ear buds plugged into my ears, the lyrics to 'Bite My Tongue' by You Me At Six flooding my brain. It was late, around midnight probably.

'I should get to be soon. Mom would be upset if I stayed up any later.'

I paused my music with a slight sigh and took out my ear buds, casually tossing the electronic onto the small table beside my bed, when a loud crash sounded from downstairs. My mother's screams followed shortly after.

"Why can't you just support him?! He's your god damn son, Shiro!"

"My son isn't some faggot!"

I flinched slightly. They were obviously talking about me. After all, I was their only son. I quietly slipped off my bed and left my room. Ignoring the temptation to listen in on my parent's conversation, I walked past the stairs. As much as I wanted to hear more of what they were saying, I wanted to make sure my little sister didn't, more.

Silently stepping into my ten year old sister, Ume's room, I quickly checked to make sure that she hadn't woken up because of all the noise. Stopping beside her bed, I brushed some of her hair out of her face and gave her a gentle peck on the forehead once I saw she was still sleeping. Yes, I definitely was a protective older brother.

Making up my mind, I whispered almost inaudibly, "I'll be back, Ume, I promise." I left her room and went back to mine, throwing on a random clean T-shirt and a pair of comfortable sweatpants. I grabbed my hoodie from my closet, before I quietly opened my window and removed the screen. After years of wanting to escape from my parents at certain moments, I had actually cut the screen from my window so that I could sneak out – hey, I was a sixteen year old, after all.

There was a tall oak tree, a few of its branches reaching out towards my windows. This was a rank-A escape route in my opinion, since there was only a slight chance of my falling from my second-story window. Leaning my upper body out the window, I grasped the closest branch and swung myself up onto it, before replacing the screen and closing my window and carefully climbing down the rest of the tree.

[]-[]-[]-[]-[]

Slightly rocking back and forth on one of the swings at the public park, I noticed the sky was beginning to lighten, a sign that dawn was approaching. I had spent the entire night out and about. Since it was around six in the morning, I decided to head home.

Once I got there, I climbed the oak tree and slid open my window, pushing the screen into my room before stepping myself. I got a surprise when I saw my mother sitting on the edge of my unmade bed, her back turned slightly away from me and her head buried in her hands. When the screen hit the floor, she turned to look at me.

"Ah, Kyo!" She jumped up from my bed and ran over to me, throwing her arms around me in a tight embrace.

"M-Mom? What's wrong?"

Her head was resting against my shoulder as she was shorter than me, and I could feel her tears soaking into my hoodie. She didn't say anything, but I could feel her shaking slightly. Whatever had happened after I snuck out was obviously having a big impact on her.

"…Where's dad, mom? I didn't see his car. Did something come up at work..?"

Taking a deep breath, my mother lifted her head and brushed a few messy spikes of hair away from my face, much like I had done to Ume last night. She smiled at me, but I could see the sadness lurking behind it. "He's gone, sweetie…"

"..To work?" I asked, almost afraid of what the answer would be. I knew how much my mother cared for her husband – they had been happily married for seventeen years after all.

"…No, I'm afraid not…" She gave a forced laugh, her voice breaking towards the end of her speech. "He's gone, sweetie, and he's not coming back."


~Chapter One~


It was the end of March Break, half a week before April began, and my mother and I had just finished packing up everything we were going to bring with us for the move. Anything we didn't pack up, like the furniture for example, would stay here and we would use it over summer break whenever we came back to visit America.

Where were we headed, you ask? Japan.

Yes, that's right. We were moving all the way across the Pacific Ocean to live with my mother's family in Japan, where I would be attending some rich academy that I couldn't be bothered to remember the name of. I think it started with an 'O' though… Or maybe not.

My mother, Nakamura Himiko, had been an actress in her youth, but had retired shortly after turning twenty-three when she discovered she was pregnant with me. Even then, my family had always had a lot of money. I didn't like flaunting it around though, and always played off my mother being an actress as no big deal whenever somebody asked. My father – as much as I despised to call him that, since he left us – was also fairly wealthy. He was head of the American Branch of the major electronic company, Pineapple. [1]

My mother's family were all in showbiz at one point, or still are. My grandfather had been a singer back in his time, while my grandmother had been an actress, just like my mother ended up being. My aunt, Nakamura Hina, retired from her modeling career recently, and left her daughter – the demon spawn known as Nakamura Aiko – to take over her legacy. Aiko was, as you may have guessed from my nickname for her, a major bitch.

Quite frankly, I didn't even want to go to a school – pardon me, an academy – that would no doubt be full of rich snobs and prissy dudes. [2] I had gone to public school my entire life, and I didn't want that to change. Even Ume was going to be attending the middle school version of the academy I was entering, and I could tell she wasn't happy about it. She wasn't happy about the move in general, neither was I, but we both sucked it up and went along with it after hearing our mother's reasoning.

"I know you both don't want to leave… I know you've made many friends here, and I'm sorry that you'll have to leave them… But I just can't stay in this house for very much longer, not after living here so long with him…"

Shaking away the memory, I picked up my large backpack that I had stuffed with all the necessities to last me a couple of days until the rest of our belongings reached our new address in Japan [3], and left my room, silently pulled the door closed behind me. It was going to be difficult, moving to an entirely new country, but I was up for the challenge.

Thank god my mother had insisted on my sister and I learning Japanese when we were younger for when we went to our relatives that still lived there, or else I would never even have a chance of surviving in Japan.

[]-[]-[]-[]-[]

After thirteen and a half hours [4], our flight to Japan had finally ended. I never thought I would be so relieved to get to the foreign country, but after still in a plane for so long; one tends to want to get out of the plane.

Grabbing our bags from the storage compartment above our seats, I moved out in to the aisle to let Ume and my mother pass before handing them their bags and exiting the plane with them. I looked around at the foreign scenery, enjoying the view through one of the many glass windows. Japan really was beautiful, no matter how busy and crowded it was.

A man in a black suit and hat approached us and began to speak with my mother, telling us that he was one of the drivers of the Nakamura household, and had been assigned the task of taking us back to the mansion. I could see Ume was slightly struggling to understand the man as she hadn't received as many lessons in the language as I had, but she nodded at the man once she figured out what he was saying.

Getting into the limo awaiting us in front of the airport, I leaned back into the comfortable seat and sighed. Maybe this whole 'living like a rich person should' thing wouldn't be so bad after all.

[]-[]-[]-[]-[]

Arriving at the Nakamura mansion that I would be calling 'home' from now on, I couldn't help but smile. It had been at least two years since I had last seen my grandmother, maybe even three. The last time I had seen her was when my grandfather had passed away.

After the three of us were escorted into the house, we were lead to the parlor (my grandparents had decided that they wanted an old English style mansion when the house was first being built) [5] to have tea and talk with my grandmother. We talked for most of the afternoon, about America, about our new schools, and about the layout of the mansion, but never once did the subject about my father come up. I guess even my grandmother knew how much of a touchy subject he was right now.

After that, we ate dinner. There was a combination of Japanese food to get us accustomed to it, and what we considered to be normal food. Dinner was rather silent, only the occasional remark about the cooking was made before the table fell silent again. It wasn't an awkward silence, not really. Everyone was just busy eating, and we had already discussed a lot beforehand. I think my mother wanted to say something, but it was probably going to come up in a private conversation she and my grandmother would have later tonight after Ume and I had gone up to our rooms.

The mansion had three floors not including the basement or attic. The main floor had the more casual rooms, such as the living room, parlor, kitchen and such. The second floor held the guest rooms, a few bathrooms, and a room that could be compared to a high-class gym. The third floor, meanwhile, held all the rooms for members of the household, each with their own balcony and en suite. Also, there was a rooftop garden that my grandmother had tended to in her youth, but now asked staff members to look after it for her.

My room had already been decorated to fit my personal tastes. The walls were painted a dark, midnight blue, and the floors were made of cherry wood. The large window that took up almost one entire wall and lead out to a balcony had long, billowing black curtains. My bed was located on the wall across from the window, and had a plush black bedspread. A black leather couch sat a little ways away from the fifty-two inch flat screen T.V. mantled on the wall to my right, under which was a shelving unit stocked full of movies and videogames, and well as held a DVD player and an Xbox.

After changing into a pair of plaid pyjama pants [6] and ditching today's dirty clothes in the hamper placed in the bathroom attached to my room, I flopped down on my soft new bed with a small sigh of contentment. I had three days to relax and sleep off my jet lag before the first day at my new school, Ouran Academy, as I learned it was called, which surprisingly started on the first of April. [7]

"Damn differences in culture," I mumbled tiredly. "Hopefully it won't be too bad living here…" And with that, I let the jet lag take over, and practically passed out, still on top of the covers. [8]


AN/

Katsumi: Oh my God! I'm writing again! It's a miracle! And I'm writing for Ouran instead of D. Gray-Man… Anyways, this is my lovely (yet slightly insane) co-author, The Ever-Changing Alias!

The Ever-Changing Alias: Hello there dear readers~ I'm The Ever-Changing Alias, but since that's a jumble to type and to say, you can just call me TECA.

Katsumi: So I hope you all enjoyed the prologue/first chapter of Sensitivity! Please don't be afraid to leave a review!

The Ever-Changing Alias: Just don't leave a flame. Or else I'll set you on fire *glares*

Katsumi: *shoves TECA into random wooden crate and sits on top of it* Ahaha, just ignore her! We hope to see you next time, and Merry Christmas to all of you who celebrate it!

[1]: Pineapple is Ouran's version of Apple. Kyoya even has a laptop with the Pineapple logo on it.

[2]: Yes, Kyo is gay, but he is most certainly NOT prissy (at least we hope not.)

[3]: Their belongings are being shipped overseas by boat, so it will take a while to get to Japan, but they can always buy more clothes and such once they're settled in more.

[4]: When I Googled it, the answer I received was that it took about thirteen and a half hours to get from Detroit to Japan, so that's what I put in the story… I'm not sure if it is correct though.

[5]: Kyo's grandparents decided to get an English style mansion because his grandmother is European. She was in Japan for a movie shooting when she met her future husband.

[6]: Yup, Kyo sleeps shirtless.

[7]: I looked this up (Me? Doing research? What a surprise!) and the school year in Japan does start on the first of April, and it does have the usual summer break, winter break, and March break.

[8]: Sorry if that was a crappy ending, but I really couldn't think of a way to end this chapter… It'll be better next time though, so stick around!