Wishin' and Hopin'

Title: Wishin' and Hoping'

Pairing: Kyouya/Tamaki and... others to flesh it out a bit

Rating: PG13 (at the moment)

Warnings: Spoilers for the anime and up to ch 56 of the manga

Disclaimer: All characters belong to Bisco Hatori, I just take them and put them in lovely slashy situations

Summary: With conflicting schedules, Tamaki and Kyouya rarely see one another these days. Both are searching for a way to fix this, but will Tamaki's grandmother let them?

A/N This is a birthday present for my best friend, Buckle. She can never find any decent stories of Tamaki and Kyouya and so I wrote one for her. I'm posting on chapter a day for the week of her birthday. It's going to be ten chapters but I'm only posting five at the moment (its all I have done) the next five are for her graduation. My beta is Nagi, and she is very helpful. Any mistakes are purely mine.

Prologue - Chance

"More," the customer said and pushed his glass forward, dark eyes red and bloodshot. He was surrounded by the paper napkins the bar gave out and what looked to be pieces of copier paper. The paper was folded so to look like birds. You could see the progression of the man's drinking by the state of the birds. The ones farthest from him were neat and folded well. The closer you got to him though, the messier the folded creatures became. The edges no longer met as well and the heads (or were those the tail?) were folded at a tilt.

Tamaki Suoh shook his head; effectively moving his shaggy blond hair out of his violet eyes so he could look at the man and the origami around him. He nodded and poured more of the man's drink into his empty glass. "Enjoy your drink," Tamaki said cheerily and turned to help a couple that had just sat down on the opposite end of the bar.

The pile around the man grew larger as the night progressed and Tamaki kept the man's glass full and a tally of how many times he'd refilled it in his head.

During a lull, the man looked up at Tamaki and moaned. "I have a wish you know. An impossible wish, the only way to get it is the cranes..." the man said, not even slurring his words. Tamaki was impressed; the man had drunk quite a lot.

"Cranes? How can birds help you with your wish?" Tamaki asked, genuinely interested.

The man's eyes widened and he looked taken aback. "Birds? Have you never heard of the girl who folded a thousand paper cranes?"

Tamaki looked at the customer and blinked. "Um...no? Would you tell me about her?" Tamaki asked, getting excited to learn something new about Japan. It'd been awhile since he had learned something new; he'd been in here so long. "Please?"

The man thought for a moment and then smiled at Tamaki. "Well, it started during World War Two when the Americans dropped Bomb on Hiroshima. You do know about that, right?"

Tamaki silently nodded, and the man continued.

"Well, the girl was two when it came, but was fine until she was twelve. She was then diagnosed with the bomb disease—leukaemia. She got very sick, but then remembered the legend about folding paper cranes. That the gods so loved the image of the crane and were so impresses with someone who folded a thousand that they would grant that person one wish. So-"

"So she folded a thousand cranes and got better right?" Tamaki hopefully asked the man.

The man looked at Tamaki, and the blond blushed and hunched over. Before he spoke anymore, the man tapped his glass, wanting more to drink. Tamaki nodded and hurried to get the man his drink. When he returned, the man continued.

"The girl started folding paper cranes, so she could be granted her wish to get better. She folded 1,500 before she died."

"Oh no!" Tamaki said, for he had sincerely hopped that the girl had lived.

"Yes," the man said, but stood up and pulled his wallet out from his pocket and took out three paper cranes from it and set them on the bar. These three were colourful and well made, the edges coming cleanly together and the heads looked normal. "So now many people all over the world fold paper cranes for peace and health and send them to the Genbaku-no-Ku-no-Zoh [the Statue for the Children of the Atomic Bomb, in the Hiroshima Peace Park. It's a beautiful place."

Tamaki looked at the tiny paper cranes and then at the man, and idea in his head. "Could you show me how to make these?"

The man looked at Tamaki with surprise in his eyes. "Of course, but perhaps on your next brake, I don't want you to get in trouble with your boss."

Tamaki smiled and nodded. "Okay! Don't leave!" Tamaki said and turned to pay attention to the other customers. When he looked back at the man he was fiddling with the paper napkin that the commoners liked to use.

Maybe, Tamaki thought as he went to help the other customers. Maybe if I make a thousand, Kyouya and I might be able to actually be together. I don't know about him, but this schedule is killing me. I want- need to be with him more! If he wasn't so uptight about coming to see me here, maybe it would be different, but... Tamaki sighed. Their current schedule was horrible on the small love life they had had before Tamaki got this job, but now it was slowly and efficiently it was killing it. My wish would be for us to be able to be together more...

On his last break, Tamaki set next to the man, a piece of paper he's found in the back in his hand. "Okay so what do I do?" the blond asked.

The man then showed Tamaki the process of making a paper crane. It was more complicated then he had expected and he wasn't sure he'd remember it. When they were done, the man looked at Tamaki, his expression serious.

"Fold five more of these tonight and you won't forget how. If you plan on making a thousand for a wish, no one can help you make them. They all have to be done by you and you alone," the man said and stood up, taking his rather large bill to the register to pay.

Over the remainder of his shift, Tamaki made five more paper cranes, just like the man had said. He put them in his bag when he was done with each one. As he swept the floor and cleaned the counter, preparing to close up, his mind wandered. To tell Kyouya or not to tell? The thought pestered him as he clocked out and waited for the subway. Running his fingers though his smoke scented hair, it repeated itself. To tell Kyouya or not to tell? He could feel the bag heavy on his hip as he rode the subway, a constant reminder. As he walked up the stairs to their apartment and softly set his things down, it was circling in his head. He franticly ran over all the possible reactions his lover could make, and was slightly terrified by all of them.

When the blond stepped into the shower—after staring at Kyouya's sleeping form for a few minutes—he turned the water on as hot as he could stand it and leaned against the wall, letting the water pour on him and mingle with the tears he let escape. What could he do? This was his last job he could have before Grandmother took everything away. He had to keep it, if not for himself, for Haruhi and Kyouya. But...he never saw Kyouya anymore and with the stress of both his grandmother and Kyouya's business, they never even had time for fun anymore. Let alone each other. And he couldn't do anything about it...the wish of a thousand cranes was the only thing left to do. But- but, Tamaki thought as he washed the smell of the bar off his body. But Kyo would just laugh at me. He'll think it won't work, and would tell me I was wasting my time. Or he'd-

Creeeeek

Huh?

"Tamaki?" a sleepy voice groaned.

Tamaki froze and turned, even though he couldn't see the man who had just walked though the door.

"Tamaki? Did you just get home?" Kyouya's sleepy voice said and Tamaki heard the clunk of the toilet seat as it hit the back of the toilet.

Tamaki gave the shower curtain a bashful look, the remembered he couldn't be seen. "Sorta..."

Though he couldn't see him, Tamaki was sure that Kyouya had raised his eyebrow at him. "It's pretty late for you." Kyouya responded simply and Tamaki could hear the flush of the toilet and the shutting of the door.

Tamaki franticly finished and dried off, quickly putting on a pair of pyjama bottoms and brushing his teeth. He walked softly into the bedroom, but stopped short at the sight of Kyouya. The other man's breathing was far too even to still be awake and the blond hung his head.

He stood and watched his lover for a while, wishing he could snap his fingers and everything would be better or he could crawl in and wake his Kyouya by slipping his hand into the other's pants—but much experience had finally done the unthinkable: taught Tamaki. He knew that the black haired man needed sleep and was scary when woken up in the middle of the night.

So, he sighed and gently crawled into bed. He rolled over and—gently, softly and still unsure after so many years—wrapped his arms around Kyouya. His last thoughts were still, To tell or not to tell?