Author's note: I had this fic idea floating around in my head for weeks. I finally sat down and finished writing it tonight. I'm quite pleased with this story. I enjoyed the freedom of writing characters that aren't often written. You will find no hosts in this story, you will find no situations you might recognize from the series. You will, however, find a love story, depicting a tale of romance between two unlikely characters that had to come together somehow. Their story demanded to be written. :)
This is my contribution for Thatz's Family Challenge on SHINE.
All characters of any importance in this work belong to Bisco Hatori.
Scratch.
The branches of the tree, still lifeless and bare with winter's chill, clawed at the windows of the darkened bedroom.
Within the room, two small figures huddled together.
They tried to will away the noise. How they tried; to imagine it wasn't some frightening beast, or a witch that had come to steal their souls.
Tap. Scrape.
A high pitched wail of fright.
The light inside the bedroom switched on, revealing a very tired looking father standing in the doorway.
"You two need to settle down and go to sleep," he chided, exhausted. "Do you realize what time it is?"
"Daddy, it's too scary to sleep!"
The boy that had cried out in terror was now clinging to the other child next to him.
The man sighed, running a hand through his disheveled hair. He had been sleeping quite peacefully next to his wife until the scream woke him up.
"Why is it too scary to sleep?" he asked, crossing the room to perch on the bed next to his children.
"There's a noise outside and it's scary," came the trembling reply.
His eyes flickered to the window, where he immediately identified the shape and sound of the tree's boughs outside.
"It's just a branch," he said soothingly. "A branch won't hurt you."
They whimpered, huddling together under their blankets, their eyes wide and unconvinced.
Of course it was never as simple as that with a terrified child. With two, a simple solution seemed nigh impossible.
"Okay," he exhaled, knowing that his next words were probably going to be against his better judgment, "What if I sat here until you two fell asleep?"
They appeared to consider that.
"Will you tell us a story while you're here?"
"Eh? What kind of story?"
A pause. No doubt contemplating a good response.
"A true story!"
"Yeah, a true story! All those fairytales are getting boring."
The father smiled in spite of himself. His precocious children always seemed to be more entertained by reality than fiction.
"Do you want to hear about when I was your age?" he offered, trying to think of something to talk about.
"No... that won't be interesting," came the matter-of-fact response.
"Talk about something with mommy, too."
"Hm..."
He stroked his chin thoughtfully for a moment.
"Hey, tell us about how you met mommy."
"Yeah!" the other echoed immediately.
"How did someone like you... end up married to our mommy?"
Their father had to laugh at the dubious expressions on the faces of his children as that question hung in the air.
"Let's see... I met your mother when we were in high school..."
-x-x-x-
"Did you see that new girl?"
He looked up from his work at the sound of someone speaking.
It didn't even really make much sense that he would, the girl that was talking wasn't even addressing him. She was turned around in her seat, chitchatting with the female at the desk behind her, their heads bowed together almost conspiratorially as they discussed a transfer student.
"Yeah, she's sooo pretty!"
"She looks like a model," the other agreed, the thinly-veiled jealousy evident in her voice.
Idle gossip. That's all it was. He found himself wishing they were doing it somewhere other than directly next to him. He didn't particularly care about the subject matter, either. Transfers came in pretty often at Ouran. All their banter managed to do was distract him from completing his class assignment.
Still, the two girls didn't seem like they were going to stop anytime soon.
"She's an artsy type, apparently."
"Yeah, I heard she joined the art club the day she arrived at Ouran."
"Maybe she's one of those art nerds that might look pretty, but is socially inept."
A snicker from the other. They were both obnoxiously trying to boost their own egos by bashing a student it seemed obvious they had never met.
The boy folded his arms on his desk and rested his chin on them. It appeared he wasn't going to get his work done until he found some quiet.
Pehaps he'd just have to wait until he went home that night.
-x-x-x-
The final bell of the day rang.
The boy gratefully gathered his books and made his way toward his safe haven within the academy.
The computer club had been the only one to snare his interest from day one. It didn't matter that people assumed he was a loner. A nerd. Not worth their time. He preferred to have people leave him alone, anyway. Even if they thought of him as unapproachable simply because he was quiet.
Talk was cheap, and he knew better than to let their rumors get him down.
Computers were by no means 'cool', but that wasn't his primary concern. He enjoyed sitting at a keyboard and learning how to make the machine do what he wanted. Learning how it operated. That was a satisfying experience to him.
Best of all, there were no gossiping girls. No loud noises.
He looked forward to the quiet clacking of keys while the other boys worked at their terminals; looked forward to another day of sitting at his own computer.
It was familiar and comforting. He knew what to expect from it everyday and he liked that.
When he opened the door to the computer lab, there was, however, something unfamiliar and unexpected waiting for him.
A strange girl was seated at his computer, the chair pulled away from the desk, and she was hunched over, scribbling on a pad of paper in front of her as opposed to typing on the keys.
He didn't know whether that was a bad or good thing. Who sat at a computer to write on a piece of paper?
Slowly approaching her, he made to clear his throat to alert her to his presence. It would be a simple enough matter to inform her that she was sitting in his seat. Quiet as he was, it wasn't out of shyness that he didn't say much. He just preferred to only speak when it was necessary.
Upon closer inspection, he found she wasn't writing anything at all, but sketching on the paper in her lap.
Before he could think too much on it, she appeared to sense him there, and lifted her head to look at him before he had to do anything.
The first thing he noticed about her face was the startling color of her eyes. They were a pale shade of brown, with gold flecks throughout. Quite striking, really. In fact, the whole picture of her face was beautiful.
He momentarily forgot what he had been planning to say.
That proved to be of no consequence, however, as she smiled disarmingly.
"Oh! I'm sorry, I'm sitting in your chair, aren't I? Pardon me!"
Oh, right. The chair.
With a small whoosh of her yellow skirts, she vacated the seat hurriedly, tucking her pad under one arm.
"Thank you."
His lips curved into a small smile as he slid into his usual chair, scooting it up to the keyboard in preparation of his afternoon's work.
That should have been the end of it. He expected her to leave, and their interaction to end there.
A few moments later, he arrived at the realization that she was still standing there. He looked up at her with a bemused expression. She was chewing thoughtfully on her lower lip as she stared at him unabashedly.
"Yes?" he prompted, causing her to blink suddenly as though he caught her drifting away in her own thoughts.
"I was just wondering what I should do to finish today's sketch," she stated matter-of-factly.
"I see."
He hadn't particularly encouraged her to keep talking, but she took that as an invitation to explain in more detail.
"You see, I'm with the art club. Today we all agreed to each visit another club and make a sketch inspired by what life is like there," she said animatedly, waving her pencil around to emphasize her words.
A pause.
She tilted her head at him, and actually leaned forward to examine him more closely. Naturally, he leaned slightly backward out of pure instinct.
Her face had been contemplative, but now cracked into a grin.
"You're handsome. I think I'll draw you today."
"Huh?!" came the immediate, inarticulate response of bafflement.
Winking and giving a small giggle, she marched across the room and snatched another chair. Dragging it back to where he was sitting, she seemed not to care how everyone else in the room, including him, was looking at her as though she were from another planet.
Seating herself gracefully, she put her sketchbook back in her lap and poised the pencil over the paper. Glancing up at him, she smiled again.
"Carry on. Don't mind me."
-x-x-x-
"Wait a minute!" the child interrupted, his voice indignant.
"Hm? What is it?" his father asked.
"So some random girl was flirting with you... what does that have to do with you and mommy?"
"Silly," the other child said. "He is talking about mommy."
"...Oh."
The man smiled.
"Do you not like the story? I can stop."
"No!" came the unified response.
"Tell us more, daddy!"
-x-x-x-
He learned that she had recently transferred to Ouran, but had yet to make very many friends. She was, for lack of a better term, quite eccentric, and most of the young bluebloods in attendance of the fine academy probably had no idea what to make of her.
That suited him just as well, from the way she had taken to meeting up with him on frequent whims.
Sometimes she just sketched him, as she often did, dramatically claiming that he was her muse when other inspiration would not strike. He would just smile at this, electing not to argue the point. She would never be convinced otherwise, anyway.
Other times she would just talk to him, about anything and everything. Random trivia. Greek mythology. Passionate declarations that she would build her own company one day and take the world by storm. The way she would say the latter, with a particular glint of determination in her eyes, left him unable to do anything other than believe she would succeed.
She had made a habit of meeting up with him for lunch nearly every single day at school, and he would let this occur. He found that he actually didn't mind having her around. She was certainly the only person that really chose to speak with him at length. It was almost refreshing.
He liked that she didn't gossip, but still never seemed to run out of interesting things to discuss. She didn't even seem to be bothered that he didn't talk much. The times he did choose to contribute to the conversation, she seemed to look directly at him and hang onto his every word.
It occurred to him one day that she was an oddity in his world. She was pretty much his opposite in every way.
He decided that was probably why she completely fascinated him.
-x-x-x-
One day, she was ill and did not attend school.
He had been used to keeping to himself before she came along, and this temporary reversion wasn't really a big deal.
That was why he couldn't understand why it bothered him so much that she wasn't around.
-x-x-x-
The pair of them were walking down the hall toward the refectory at noontime, and she seemed slightly more distracted by the whispers of the students around them than usual. Normally, she cared as little as he did about what people chose to bother themselves about regarding the lives of others.
"Say," she said slowly. "Have you heard the latest rumors?"
He stopped walking abruptly, looking at her strangely. She most certainly was not the type to discuss gossip after hearing it. Whatever it was appeared to be more thought-provoking to the girl than the usual stories flying around the school.
Watching her expectantly, he figured he must have been wearing a rather comical expression, because she began laughing as she regarded him.
"Don't look at me like that!" she chuckled, punching him playfully on the arm.
He merely raised his brows, silently urging for her to get to the point.
"Well," she leaned forward slightly, lowering her voice. "I heard two today. One is that you and I are in a cult together," at this, she snorted another laugh, "The other is that we're dating."
He blinked. Apparently he hadn't heard those.
"Can you believe it?" she continued, folding her arms. "The nerve of those people."
"Mm," he mumbled distractedly as he looked toward the doors of the dining room down the hall.
They hadn't begun walking again yet. He supposed she was stewing over what the other students were saying about them for reasons unknown to him. When he looked back to her, he found her staring at him in that way she tended to have when she appeared to be working out the kinks of an idea within her mind.
"I don't really see why we aren't," she abruptly announced, slamming a fist down onto her open palm, as though she had come to an obvious conclusion.
He stared back for a moment as he absorbed that, the corner of his mouth eventually quirking upward.
"Should we join a cult?" he asked facetiously.
Grinning slyly, she slipped her hand into his.
"Maybe," she said, as they walked through the refectory doors.
-x-x-x-
They dated throughout the remainder of high school, and beyond.
It was a comfortable, familiar camaraderie between the two of them. They may not have been obvious, but they liked it that way. They belonged together, and there was no need to flaunt it. They were partners in crime and the best of friends, but moreover, they were soul mates.
Such a notion would have been silly to him a few years ago. He had thought such romantic ideals of having one special person, that was destined for you, to be foolish.
He just hadn't met her yet at that point. But now that he had, there was no going back.
Once she had achieved all her lofty goals of starting her own company after college, she had indeed seemed to catch the spotlight of the world. He was immensely proud of her, and expected nothing less from her fiery determination in everything she did.
He couldn't explain just how he had always known she would succeed, except to simply note that she never took no for an answer when she truly wanted something.
Maybe in that sense, he never really had a choice in whether or not to be with her.
He didn't mind in the slightest.
It never once felt like a relationship in the traditional sense, considering the pair of them tested the traditional rules of courtship.
Even such an ordinary progression as taking her hand in marriage, held notes of her aberrance.
She was a strong woman, like her mother, and wanted her name to remain unchanged as her company was already established.
He had no complaints about it, but he did mention once that he thought it wouldn't feel the same if they didn't share a last name.
At this, she had merely grinned, leaning in to steal a kiss, then two; an impish, sneaky thief.
"Then take my name."
It was such a simple solution.
He smiled.
"It would be an honor."
-x-x-x-
"Does that answer your original question?" the man asked softly, smiling at his sons as he surfaced from his recollections.
When his eyes fell on them, he found they were both fast asleep, curled into each other beneath the blankets in a mutually protective cocoon.
He hadn't taken note of how much of his story they had missed; when exactly they had drifted off.
But that was okay.
Brushing back cinnamon-colored hair from one boy's forehead, he placed his lips against it fondly, repeating the process with the other.
Rising gingerly from the bed, he padded quietly across the lush carpeting of the bedroom and paused at the doorway to flip off the light.
"Good night, boys," he whispered softly, closing the door behind him.
Perhaps they might approach him about the conclusion of the story the next day.
He could almost picture their identical looks of determination as they clamor for the end of the tale. They were so very like their mother, their gold-flecked eyes an extension of her spirit.
But he wouldn't be able to tell them the end of the story, even if they asked.
After all, the greatest love stories never really end.
Author's note: Be honest. At what point did you figure out who I was writing about? :) I'm anxious to hear how obvious I was. I did drop little hints throughout. Reviews are lovely, reviewers are dead sexy.