Summary: Ootori Fuyumi attempts to inculculate some moral values in her six year old brother. Kyouya kills three birds with one stone.
The sunbeams quivered through the windows of the youngest Ootori heir's nursery. They splashed in great gold and silver drops, picking out the jewel-like tints of the embroidered parrots cavorting on the Persian carpets and the satin sheen of the woven-jute papering.
Ootori Kyouya was assessing the state of his finances. Notes and coins in various states of crispness and shine lay about him, stacked into piles of immaculate neatness. He pushed his glasses up his small nose and began to count again.
Three thousand here... five thousand there... nine hundred...
Oh. Dear. That put him six hundred yen short.
Any other child would have howled in frustration but Kyouya was unflappably composed, even in moments of acute distress. Months of scrounging, saving, battling the temptation to just spend, magpie gloating over his small treasures... all adding to nothing. Slowly, methodically, miserably he began restoring the contents of the fancifully-wrought silver money-box, embossed with the ducal Ootori crest. His bottom lip trembled and vindictively he bit down on it - hard. He savored the bitter tang of the trickling blood that melded into the trickle of teardrops that had clung to his eyelashes.
The long curtains of eggshell-hued, tusshar silk shivered in the April breeze. A wedge of sunlight cut across the room, and for a moment a silver frame glistened out of the shadows at the end of the room. It was an elegant black-and-white family photograph by a famous artiste, more suited to the muted glamour of a modernistic drawing room than a child's playroom. But then, Kyouya was no ordinary child. It had been his request - nay plea - that it be set up in his playroom, where he spent most of his time. Not that he was overly partial to the family he seldom saw, but that it was the best picture that had been ever taken of his father.
Ootori Yoshio towered over his family - over his fragile, orchid-fair wife and daughter, over his tall, dignified elder sons, over the last, ignored son, small and insignificant, tucked into the shadows. There was something vital, something alive in his opaque eyes that had always impressed Kyouya. He had tried - clumsily, he was sure - to explain what he saw in the photo, why he needed it. Father had been pleased, and his pleasure had been more reward than any baubles he could bestow.
His brothers' eyes seemed to slide across the stark canvas, following him across the gilded room. Was that a smile of mockery lurking at the corners of Onii-san's lips, frigid and impenetrable as they were? He would have cause to smile for Father's birthday was in a week and all his children would have their presents ready for the patriarch. All save the youngest. Little Kyouya wanted to turn his face away from the triumph that he felt sure lurked in his brothers' faces, but he would not. Ootoris did not turn their backs - even on other Ootoris.
Sighing softly, his eyes glided forwards to meet his father's painted ones. It was a pleasure he savored, for in reality, he was far too intimidated to ever quite meet his father's - to ever look straight up into the man's face as an equal might. It seemed an impertinence. Today the force and iron will in his father's eyes that took his breath away changed into abject tyranny. They were pitiless, languid with an indifferent contempt that cut the six-year-old to the quick. He had to failed to graduate at the top of his class - had indeed had the temerity to come third, disgrace of disgraces. The disdain in Otou-sama's eyes - disdain merely, or was there disgust as well for the worthless child, the only child who could not? - had been punishment enough but his allowance had been postponed for payment at a time in when he would more merit it.
And where was he to get the six hundred yen?
When I am older, he silently promised himself, polishing his glasses - a nervous habit. I will always have enough money and more than enough, more than anyone's enough. That was all very well, but what was he to do now? He could not beg the money off his mother or the servants - they had their instructions from father - and as for asking Onii-san... he shuddered. He'd died sooner. Kuze - whom he could usually infuriate into participating in tournaments of mental prowess which he, Kyouya, always won - was bankrupt.
Fuyumi's luminous eyes peeped from over her silk fan, painted with smoky cherry-blossoms. She was laughing - the only one of them to do so - and a nimbus of misty light formed a backdrop against her dark curls like a saint's aureole. A beautiful saint, like a sculpture of alabastar. A saint...
Kyouya's head shot up. Abruptly he stopped polishing his glasses.
Ten minutes later, there was a knock at Fuyumi's door. "Come in," she said morosely. She expected it was her mother, come for a reconciliation. Or Otou-sama, come to tell her that she was a fool and attempt to appease her with a new trinket or bauble. The last person she expected entered.
"Oh... Otouto-chan," she murmured, raising her swollen face from her pillow a fraction of an inch. Her red-rimmed eyes widened and hastily she rubbed her tear-smeared cheeks. Kyouya was just a baby - she didn't want to involve him. He already had it hard enough from father, the poor, precious darling... and how sweet he looked, dressed in the lovely little Hitaiichin set she'd recommended mother buy. Clever woman, that Hitaiichin was... "I wasn't expecting you," she said lamely. She always knew when to expect her brothers - none of them had ever evinched the slightest interest in visiting her on a whim. There was always a reason. Typical Ootoris.
Even at six, Kyouya was steeped in family lore. He always, it seemed, had a reason. It saddened her, sometimes. She was too emotional - Otou-sama often said so, with the faintest curl of his lip, before adding that it was a good thing that she was only a girl. A single daughter between three fine sons - an indulgence, a toy to be petted, a liability, an ornament to be paraded.
Kyouya thrust an exercise book at her. "They're making us write compositions in English for practice, in class," he said. "Onee-san is very good at English, so I thought-" the slightest hesitation and he looked down, apparently embarrassed. Fuyumi knew how her little brother hated to ask for help and her heart warmed.
"Why of course," she said, beaming. "Sit down, sit down and I'll look through it."
Kyouya looked around at the befrilled and beflowered bedroom. Everything was as he remembered - very pink. His sharp eyes picked out the absence of Ashiya Akio's (her betrothed) photograph in pride of place on her bedside table. Perhaps Fuyumi and Akio were in the midst of what his mother was fond of calling 'a lovers' tiff'. Nervously, he chose the least intimidating - and least pink - footstool to perch upon.
Name: Ootori Kyouya
Roll Number: 3
TOPIC: The kind of wife I would like to have
"How avant-garde," Fuyumi murmured, in English.
Kyouya looked up. "Avant-garde?" he said, his tongue slipping hesitantly over the queer foreignness of the syllables.
"New-fangled. Radical." When Kyouya still looked befuddled, Fuyumi sighed and reminded herself that he was only six, even though he thought he was a hundred. "Ahead of it's time."
"Oh," Kyouya said and lapsed into silence. He made a mental note to keep a notebook with him, to copy down whatever long words adults chose to drop in his path. It might prove profitable.
She must be perfect, because otherwise she would not fit with us Ootoris. She must be very clever and know everything about managing money. She must not be too beautiful because beautiful ladies like my mother and my sister are not always very smart-
Fuyumi choked and ran her pen through that line.
She must give me good advice about business and not nag me about the house. Her IQ must be in the range of within 10 points of mine - that is, between 145 to 155. Otherwise we shall be.... (please insert a suitable word, Fuyumi).
'Incompatible' she wrote in the blank space her brother had provided.
She must have clever children and raise them to be perfect Ootoris. She must be very rich and from a good family, which my father will approbe of-
"A-p-p-r-o-v-e," Fuyumi murmured, "Not a-p-p-r-o-b-e. Approve. Not approbe."
I think I will meet her in Ouran. If she is not perfect, I will not stay married with her for too long.
"And who is the luckless maiden to be?" Fuyumi said dryly. "Not that Jonochi girl, I hope. What's her name? Ayame?" She shivered delicately. "She isn't quite Ootori-wife material, she's rather too... drab." She smiled encouragingly at her brother. "She's grey as an unpainted wall." Fuyumi crossed her legs gracefully and sat up on the bed. Even pale and jaded-looking, she was still one of the prettiest people Kyouya had ever seen. It was probably on account of her prettiness that he allowed her to mess up his closet every so often - you could never be mad with beautiful people. There was something vaguely dangerous about that too, so it was better that his future wife be not too beautiful. "But this composition of yours-" she waved the paper impatiently "-well your vocabulary is alright for your age, but the moral tone, the flavor-" She frowned and shook her head.
"Kyouya-chan," she said earnestly, looking deep into his eyes. Tears clung to her eyelashes, so dark against the paleness of her eyes - tea-colored eyes, Kyouya always thought - and they were deeply, deadly in earnest. "Does your heart speak through these soulless words? Do you really want a wife like that?"
"Yes," Kyouya said, on reflex. Fuyumi looked troubled. "Moral tone," Kyouya said thoughtfully. "Inoue Sensei said something like that about my last composition." He began rubbing his glasses, remembering.
COMPOSITION
Elegant calligraphy in white chalk looped across the blackboard. "Miss Jonochi, you will kindly drop your pen and listen," Sensei said, his voice brittle like glass. Ayame, who was perched at the edge of her seat in the front bench, pen raised to take notes, blushed. "Mr Kuze, I would request you to direct your attention from the window and towards me. Football may wait."
TONE
"You are the future of Japan," Sensei said, his voice hard and cold. Like glass, yet. His eyes burned straight into Kyouya's and he fought the urge to squirm. He returned the teacher's stare. "You are not ignorant, common little guttersnipes, you are an honored class, set apart by birth and breeding from the cattleherd." He rapped the blackboard sharply with his pointer. "Mr Ootori," he said sharply, "How much did you receive on your composition?"
"7," Kyouya said, "out of 10."
"Your grammar and vocabulary were flawless, but you lacked the essence of the matter - tone. To those ignorant little barbarians who attend public schools, tone and grammar are one and the same - and it is well for them if they do not muddle everything up into one big soup-bowl - but you are different." He rapped the blackboard once again, making half the class jump. His voice rose as he addressed them, the steely glint of appraising scorn in his eyes. "You are Ootoris and Shidos and Himuras-"
"What did he mean?"
Fuyumi rose, with the lithe grace of a gazelle. She sighed, "Okaa-chan ought to have read you fairytales when you were littler." She wandered into the bathroom. Kyouya could hear her splashing water, humming to herself. He waited. Fuyumi had all the reticence of a songbird. She would open up soon enough. She came back, a heavy book clasped in her arms and sprawled out on the floor. Kyouya slid down from his footstool and knelt next to her. She flipped through the dogeared, gilt-edged pages. Paintings in delicate, swirling watercolors peeped out at him. "Kyouya-chan," she cooed, "I want to read you a-"
"No."
"But, oh don't you see-"
"Why should I?"
"Well, I really don't know - perhaps to humor me?"
"No."
"But-"
"No."
Fuyumi groaned in exasperation, but it was as she expected. Little Kyouya would never do anything if he could not see the profit in it for himself. She had prepared for that too. Her brother's moral education was far more important than pecuniary matters. Besides, the money she was saving - of what use was it know? She would not buy her father a gift, not after he'd been so cruel, so preposterously - ugh, she scowled and didn't care that the scowl-lines might be permanently etched on her unlined temple, as her nanny had ushered her they would.
What good was beauty?
"One hundred yen," she barked out.
Kyouya waited.
"Two! Three! Kyouya, stop looking at me like that!"
His eyes were too large in his thin, fine-boned little face. There was an almost predatorial gleam in them. "Three hundred yen?" he quoted softly. "That is very sweet of you." He said it as though she was a child to be humored. He reached for his exercise book.
"Five? Six?" She spluttered hopefully.
He turned away to hide the glitter in his eyes. Even at six, he knew it was in bad taste to flaunt one's victory uncouthly. "Perhaps," he said guardedly. "Onee-san is very generous."
"Onee-san intends to drive a hard bargain. Sit, Kyouya."
Kyouya plonked down obediently. Fuyumi's eyes were shining just like Onii-san's after a successful company merger. She flitted through the contents of the storybook with the eagerness with which she rifled through birthday presents. "Snow White... no, there's dancing in red-hot iron slippers. The Little Mermaid... walking as though on sharp knives. Rapunzel... it might as well be called The Rape of The Lock. The Goose Girl... wanton mutilation, flippancy whilst dealing with execution... the tales of the Brothers Grimm all seem so grim." She looked disgruntled, though Kyouya's curiousity was piqued.
"Yes, I think this shall prove quite satisfactory though it is a fable and not a fairytale..."
Kyouya made a mental note to look up the definition of 'fable'.
"'What Men Live By,' by Leo Tolstoy," Fuyumi announced imperiously. "Beautiful." Kyouya rather dreaded the sound of that word on his sister's lips - to Fuyumi, beautiful represented kittens, dolls and teddy-bears and other dehumanizing, demasculinizing influences.
"A shoemaker named Simon, who had neither house nor land of his own, lived with his wife and children in a peasant's hut and earned his living by his work. Work was cheap but bread was dear..."
Kyouya snuggled up next to Fuyumi, content to let her wrap her arm around him and let the sing-song sweetness of her voice wash over him. It was permissible to allow oneself respite from the cares of life once in a while, he supposed. To indulgence in wisftul fantasies about marrying Fuyumi - why did you have to marry outside your own family at all?
But no. It would not prove a profitable alliance if he were to marry his own sister.
As far as he could make out from the story, God had a distorted sense of crime and punishment, his angels didn't know their own value, Simon the Peasant was a philanthropic drunkard with a knack for choosing skilled workers who would not revolt for better wages (he wished he had that knack too, it would prove invaluable in business), the rich were to be vilified in fables and the poor lauded.
Fuyumi shut the book with a snap. "Wasn't that lovely? Now, Kyouya, what have we learned from this story?"
Kyouya withdrew his head from her lap. That the God of Christians is a bossy old cow? "That God of Christians is a didatic, tyrannical, overbearing, domineering God?" He poured all the high-sounding words he knew in that sentence, feeling rather proud of himself.
Fuyumi looked aghast. "Kyouya!" she reproved him, imbuing each syllable of the word with gentle reprimand.
He tried again. "That God does not desire us to be foresighted?" Verbatim, he quoted from the book. "A man came to order boots that should wear for a year without losing shape or cracking. I looked at him and suddenly, behind his shoulder,, I saw my comrade - the angel of death. None but I saw that angel; but I knew him and knew that before the sunset he would take the rich man's soul. And I thought to myself, "The man is making preparations for a year and does not knoew that he will die before evening." And I remembered God's second saying, "Learn What is not given to man.""
Fuyumi tsked and held up a finger. One last chance.
"God does not desire us to be humane? God punished me for disobeying Him. I was an angel in heaven and disobeyed God. God sent me to fetch a woman's soul. I flew to the Lord and said: "I could not take the soul of the mother. Her husband was killed by a tree; the woman has twins and prays that her soul may not be taken. She says: 'Let me nurse and feed my children, and set them on their feet.'" And God said: "Go take the mother's soul, and learn three truths: learn What dwells in man, What is not given to man, and What men live by. When thou hast learnt these things, thou shalt return to heaven.""
Fuyumi heaved a gusty sigh. "No Kyouya. The lesson is - here I'll read it to you. I have now understood that though it seems to men that they live by care for themselves, in truth it is love alone by which they live. He who has love, is in God, and God is in him, for God is love. It doesn't do, you see, to have a photographic memory if you cannot absorb the moral value of a story. This story, in particular, is a treasury of wisdom - of the most beautiful virtues in the world, love of one's neighbour, humility, kindness-" Fuyumi was in her element. Her voice soared like a bird in flight. She would have made a wonderful kindergarten teacher if her fate had not been earmarked for her - an ornamental daughter for the Ootoris, a trophy wife for the Ashiyas.
"Do you understand?"
He nodded dutifully and put out his hand for the six hundred yen. Business first.
She laughed. The sound was beautiful, almost as beautiful as the jingle of coins as she fisted in her piggy bank (it was cute, so she had to keep it) for his fees. "I'm afraid you don't, Kyouya-chan. You're too much of an Ootori for that." She pinched his cheeks. "Try not to get too lost in that identity. Try to remember sometimes that you're not just an Ootori, you're Kyouya as well." He didn't understand what she meant exactly - perhaps he needed to work more on tone? - but he tried to look as though he did.
At the door, he halted, remembering something. "Fuyumi," he asked hesitantly, "Why were you crying?"
She looked away, pretending to be absorbed in her task of fluffing the pillows. "Oh that? Why it was nothing, nothing you need trouble yourself about." She forced a creaky laugh. "A mere whimsy of mine - you know changeable and girlish I can be, just like Otou-sama says..."
He waited patiently.
She sagged against the pillows, her voice muffled as she said, "If you must know, it's merely that he has cancelled my engagement. Our alliance with the Ashiyas would not have proved as profitable as he had assumed."
"I'm sorry," he said softly, walking away. When he was in the hallway, where she couldn't see him, he shook his head sadly. Women - so volatile, so headstrong, so liable to let their emotions get the better of them. They never seemed to see things in the right light - an engagement meant an eventual marriage to a handsome face and a tender voice, not the cold, hard rationality of an alliance of fortunes. She ought to have done the sensible thing and kept her emotions in check until the wedding contract was in black and white.
Still, poor Fuyumi. He rather pitied anyone who was subject to such a surfeit of unprofitable emotion.
A/N: Onii-san means big brother, Onee-san means big sister, Otou-sama is father and Okaa-chan is mother. As for 'What Men Live By' - read it. I mean, I respect Tolstoy's contribution to literature and everything, but seriously it's a very WTF Grrrr kind of story.