So this is a songfic, in that it's based loosely around "Brick" by Ben Folds Five. If you don't know the song, I'd recommend listening to it either before or after reading the story; it will make the story more powerful.
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She stared at the little stick for five minutes. Then she threw it in the bathroom garbage and called out of work sick. She stayed all day at home, thinking. She had had errands to run after work. Laundry to do. Shopping. She was supposed to visit her father. She spent the whole day alternately lying on her bed and sitting on it crossed legged, alternately reading and watching TV, alternately eating yogurt and yesterday's leftover tofu curry. Thinking. And when the day was over, she called Kyouya.
---
"Haruhi, you know it's extremely imprudent for us to meet like this." What on earth possessed you to ask me to have lunch with you today? Here of all places?
"I'm sorry." I know. Have I ever asked you before?
"We've already discussed the pros and cons. We agreed that maintaining secrecy would be in both our best interests. In the future I'm sure you'll be more inclined to honor that agreement." I know you know. I know you've never asked for any such public commitment from me before. That's why I came.
"I apologize."
The waitress arrived, a cheap-looking girl with a cheap-looking apron who took notes on a cheap-looking order pad. Haruhi ordered tofu curry. Kyouya ordered the most expensive thing on the menu, out of principle.
"Was it inconvenient for you to meet with me today?"
"Not terribly so." I had to cancel lunch with the board of executives. Have you any idea what kind of excuse I had to come up with? When are you going to tell me why you called me out of the blue last night and asked me to have lunch with you?
"I'm glad."
"When do your classes start again?" Is this about the future? Money? (Are you about to stab me in the trust and ask for handouts like some common gold digger?)
"September 2nd." How could you accuse me of something like that?
"As a junior, you'll finally be getting into the interesting classes. That will be good for you. Before you buy your books, check with me. I might have a few in my library. I'm minoring in law, after all." I'm sorry.
"That's generous of you." I think I love you sometimes.
Kyouya smiled. It was a very small smile, but it was a genuinely happy smile. It was Haruhi's favorite sight in all the world, but she would never tell him so.
The waitress returned with their plates of food. They began to eat. A booth or two over, somebody knocked a plate off the table. There was a crash and a mess of salmon yaki udon and porcelain. Two waitresses rushed over with brooms and rags. The man with the clumsy elbows apologized profusely.
"I'm pregnant."
Kyouya stared at her for three minutes straight. She ate her tofu curry in silence. Then finally, "Don't worry. We'll figure something out," he said.
She stabbed through a piece of tofu. Hesitated. Lifted her gaze. He was eating neatly, light glancing off his glasses, and she couldn't see his eyes.
---
In an uncharacteristic show of support and affection, he offered to drive her to work or home or wherever she needed to go. She wouldn't look at him, because there were tears forming at the edges of her eyes. She declined politely and took the subway.
---
He didn't call her for three weeks.
---
For three weeks, he was attentive to his fiancée. For three weeks he went to dinner parties with her and stood in small circles making pointless chitchat that would never yield lucrative business opportunities, she hanging confidently, possessively from his arm, he smiling blankly at men who were smiling blankly at him, their women displayed on their arms, competitively. For three weeks he listened to whispers, kept track of the vectors of gossiping eyes. Paid attention to who paid attention. Noticed who noticed.
"Do you see that?" winked the eyes of the middle-aged matron with the sleazy 16-year-old daughter and absolutely no say in what her husband did with his majority shares in a leading plastics company. "That Ohtori Kyouya is here." "Aaah, so he is, so he is," agreed the sideways glance of the petty wife of a member of the Diet who couldn't bear that neither of her sons had chosen to follow their father into politics. "The notorious Ohtori Kyouya is here. Must be a special occasion, hmm?" And they both laughed, their gold-crusted hands demurely covering their black mouths. They reminded him of vultures, with their small eyes and their wrinkled skin and their disgusting mouths. Jewelry-laden vultures.
"Finally accepting his responsibility, I see," said raised eyebrows of CFOs. "Finally realizing how good he has it - a rich girl, and not even ugly," agreed bushy eyebrows of startup financiers. "His father chose well for him. She might have been wasted on him if he didn't know how to use her, but it seems he's coming around. Probably had some romantic ideas to work out of his head." "Doesn't seem like the type, though, does he?" "Ah, but it's always the ones with the greatest potential who turn out to be nothing. No self-discipline. No respect for tradition." "Seems he's taking responsibility now." "Yes, yes. He'll do well." "Not too well, I hope." "He's a man like his father. We'll have to watch him carefully, of course." "Now that he's gotten his head in the game." "Indeed. Now that he's gotten his head in the game, and with a wife like that, we'll have to watch him very carefully." Kyouya began wondering how much trouble it would be to hire a ninja to shave the eyebrows off of all the sniveling, influential men who went to dinner parties.
His father noticed too, of course. That was the important part, that his father noticed. That was the goal. Kyouya was placing his face-time with his fiancée as an offering in front of his father, a sacrifice for the pacification of his venerable not-yet-dead ancestor. He was offering his obedience, hoping to curry favor, hoping to gain an eventual favor in return.
When, after three weeks, his father summoned him to his clean, untouchable office for afternoon tea, it was sooner than Kyouya had expected. He took the stairs halfway to the 30th floor, to give himself time to revise his plans. It's too early, he thought. It can't be done yet. It needs more time. Much more time.
He stepped out of the elevator (the only entrance to his father's office was via elevator), and the secretary at the desk turned obsequious eyes on him.
"Father is expecting me," he said.
"Of course, Kyouya-sama. Please go in," she purred. Her cheeks were too soft, her lips too full; they got in the way of clear enunciation. She was too rounded, too ostentatiously curved. Kyouya wanted to button her shirt up.
His father sat at the center of a uselessly long desk that reflected dully the light from the twin floor lamps, like a 50 yen coin. His father was the hole in the middle of the coin, face empty and impassive, silver-black hair rejecting the light, and for a moment Kyouya was furious. He wanted to string him up, a piece of crude twine through that empty face, and hang him jangling from some commoner's rear-view mirror.
"Good afternoon, Father."
"Kyouya," his father greeted him. "Sit down, please." He sat, and the pruriently round secretary entered with tea.
"I've been pleased with your behavior lately," he said, and a guard went up behind Kyouya's eyes, because every commendation from Ohtori Yoshio was in fact a threat.
"I decided it was time to take a greater interest in the social circles of my peers."
"That is a wise decision. One can never be too interested in the movements of one's peers. You must remember, however, that no matter how much interest you take in others, others will always be more interested in you, Ohtori Kyouya." The emphasis there, at the end, was not simply on the surname. It was on the whole thing. Ohtori. Kyouya. It was an acknowledgement that Kyouya had achieved an independence of reputation. He was watched not simply because he was an Ohtori. He was watched because he was Ohtori Kyouya. It was an honor, to receive such acknowledgment from his father, and the bottom of Kyouya's stomach dropped out.
He wrapped cold fingers around his warm teacup. It was a traditional ceramic cup with traditional sencha green tea filling it, and no tea leaves.
"Suzushima-san's family has also been pleased lately," his father continued. Here it comes, Kyouya thought, and inhaled the earthy smell of the tea. He had always found that smell particularly calming. "You are aware of how your previous behavior was being perceived by your fiancée's family. Reforming your behavior is another wise decision. It has not gone unnoticed." Kyouya sipped the tea. His gaze remained straight, above the tea cup, skewering the 50-yen-coin-hole, concentrated on his father. "You are also aware, of course, that such reform was expected. Had you continued in your negligence of Suzushima-san, action would have been taken." Kyouya put his tea cup down. "Going forward you will be expected to spend more of your time with Suzushima-san. You will incrementally increase the attention you devote to her until your wedding next summer. She will, naturally, segue into a less demanding role once the two of you are married and you have begun your graduate studies. All other interests you may be pursuing should be put on hold until that time." He paused.
Kyouya sat very, very still. He could think of no response to make. His mouth would not open to form the obligatory Hai, otou-sama. He knew what his father was driving at. He was terrified.
Yoshio tilted his chin up and the lamplight fell flat against his glasses so that, for the first time in the interview, Kyouya could see his father's eyes. They held same look as a tiger approaching an already wounded deer, when the deer cannot get away, and both tiger and deer know it. Pitiless. Untriumphant. Businesslike.
"As a married man, an Ohtori, and especially as the heir to my position, you will have to learn that not all of your desires may be indulged." Kyouya felt that he had lost the control of his face. The heir to my position. "You will learn that certain things are allowed, but not until you have achieved the appropriate rank." The heir to my position. The heir to my position. "This is something both of your brothers have learned." Here he sipped his tea for the first time. "It is something I, also, had to learn." He put the teacup down again. "Failure to understand this, Kyouya, is unforgivable."
Kyoua had given up keeping tabs on what his face was revealing. Understanding sank in his stomach like a brick, flew sharply through his mind like breaking glass, and if it all showed on his face he didn't care. I will not make her my mistress, he thought. I will not make her wait years. I will not ask that of her. I will not ask that of our child. Even if my brothers have. Even if - his thoughts hitched here, re-cycled a few times, and he forced himself to continue - even if Father has. Even if Father has asked that of his women, and has forced that on God knows how many bastard brats that I have never met, I will not do it. Conviction settled like a heavy stone in soft mud. Sucker-stuck. Irremovable. I cannot have her as my mistress. I cannot have my child this way. His eyes were hot as weapons, and painfully dry. He rose carefully from his seat. "I understand, Father," he said, and his voice was uninflected. Un-polite. Not the voice he used with his father. He left the room.
---
He called her, and it was a Wednesday night, and they arrived separately at one of their favorite restaurants. It was a tiny European-style place, only six tables, that accepted no reservations. The only lights were candles, of which there was an abundance, and the food always took especially long to appear. They spoke, but neither understand what the other was saying. Neither wanted to understand. Neither wanted to be understood. They ordered, Kyouya for Haruhi and Haruhi for Kyouya, because it was a game they almost never played anymore. Haruhi ordered the most reasonable thing on the menu, and Kyouya ordered the most expensive, because that was part of the game.
For a while they ate, slowly and with care, like every other couple in the small dining room who hoped that their faces would somehow be less recognizable in candle light.
Then Kyouya took off his glasses, and Haruhi put her fork down.
"Under no circumstances will I be able to acknowledge this child." I'm sorry.
"I see."
"My name must not go on this child's birth certificate. This child must never know who his father is." I'm sorry I'm sorry.
"I understand."
"I will set up accounts in pseudonyms for the both of us. I will deposit a reasonable amount of money each month, commensurate to the needs of the child. I will create a separate account for the child's college fund." I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry.
"Thank you."
"It is up to you how you explain to the child where the money comes from, if you find it necessary to do so at all. Aside from the college fund, which will not concern you until the child graduates from high school, the money will be yours to use as you see fit. I will have no direct contact with you at any point during the child's upbringing. I will never see you personally after tonight." I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry.
"I've decided to have an abortion." I'm sorry.
A tear slid down the impeccable surface of Ohtori Kyouya's left cheek and landed with the tiniest, quietest, most unassuming scream on the edge of his plate.