-1A/N: This was written on a whim, in one go, and is not proof-read mostly because I'm in a rush. XD Simple Tamaki-reflections. And yes, it is all cheesy and overboard. But it's also Tamaki. XD Enjoy!
Disclaimer: I do not own, of course.
The Most Beautiful Thing in the World
Tamaki, it could not be denied, was hardly the most subtle person in the world; and he was not known for understatement. So it wasn't hard to believe that he had been prone, for most of his life, to labelling things 'the best ever', 'the most magnificent', 'beyond compare' and the like. That was how the world looked to him. It made him excited. There was so much in it. Life was arguably so short, and the world so big. There was so much pain, and so much love, and laughter and betrayal and hurt and so much beauty. Of course, at least half of that, in his mind, had always belonged to 'the most beautiful thing in the world'.
What this was had changed with him over the years. As a child, it had been inconsequential, trivial things. At four, the most beautiful thing was the girl who he sat next to him in class who's name he could never quite remember. By four and a half, she had moved seats and he had realised she was not as beautiful as the delicious chocolate and strawberry sundaes sold in the café at the bottom of the road. At seven, he had discovered the joys of a long summer playing by the stream. At seven, it was a river, the beetles held parliaments, rocks could be boats or cars or trains or planes or spaceships and there seemed no end to each sun-drenched day somewhere on an unremarkable hillside in suburban France.
Those summers had seemed to last an eternity, but as he got older, the winters drew in. By ten, his mother was no longer able to play with him very often, and he played the piano. He took to it so quickly, loved it so dearly, he often wondered how he had lived an entire decade without touching the instrument. Sometimes he felt the music was as vital as breathing. Sometimes, when he lost himself in the music, he knew there was nothing more beautiful in the entire endless world. But then his mother would smile from her sick-bed as he played for her, and he struggled to decide which was the more dazzling. He was happy when she was happy. He was sad when he knew how fleeting those smiles were. He would play more.
For a long time, he thought he had seen all the world had to offer in beauty. There were little things- the way the snow clung to the trees in winter, the Christmas lights in the city centre, November sunsets, an unbroken beach, a cloudless sky. The piano's song. His mother's smile. He turned fourteen and the smiles were dying. He wondered if the song would be silenced. It was not, but diminished and changed; he moved to Japan, found a new piano, new friends, new family. The song grew again, if possible, into something even more heart-wrenching then before.
He came to wonder if the Host Club was the most beautiful thing in the world. After all, they were a collection of beautiful individuals, at least on the surface, but underneath too, he was certain. And then Haruhi joined, and their beauty was complete. His beautiful family.
Haruhi. Of course, Haruhi. Haruhi, Haruhi, Haruhi.
He didn't realise it at first, that she was, undoubtedly, unashamedly, unequivocally, unquestionably, the best ever, the most magnificent, beyond all comparability the Most Beautiful Thing in the World. With capitals, because it was a title that could only ever belong to her.
He could even pin down the exact moment he had realised it. He had slipped on a wayward and rather disobedient piece of cake and knocked himself out on one of the support columns for the ceiling. He had come to lying on one of the sofas in the Third Music Room. Haruhi had been about to apply an ice-pack to the growing lump on his temple. She was completely calm, wearing just the slightest frown of concern.
He had found himself suddenly struggling with the irrational desire to kiss her passionately and somehow grow some extra arms so he could hold her and never let go and still fend off anyone else who dared to come close.
The momentary fit of passion passed, leaving behind it a sudden quiet realisation. It had probably been there the whole time, waiting to be noticed.
"Haruhi…" He had said, slowly, and with some surprise. "You're beautiful!"
"You're concussed." She replied, 'applying' the ice pack with slightly more force than was necessary.
He had been seventeen when that had happened. It had taken him seventeen years to realise what the Most Beautiful Thing in the World was, the only thing it could possibly be. That was almost two decades. The very idea was intolerable.
The thing that was even more intolerable was that it took Haruhi even longer to realise it. And even then, she only accepted she was the Most Beautiful Thing to Tamaki (and Probably her Father). Still, at least it was enough to make her marry him, when he was twenty-three and she was twenty-two. She hadn't really wanted a big white wedding, but, apparently, she wanted him, and did it for him. A miracle.
When he saw her that day, he thought his heart would break. He was pretty sure he didn't feel it beat until the moments before they said their vows. Then it beat until it almost exploded, his hands shook, his palms sweated, but as soon as she put her hand in his, it stopped again. He wondered if it would ever start again. He was fairly sure it didn't until after the honeymoon, when he began to be out of her presence again for a few hours every day. It seemed so heavy then. He would run home as soon as work was done, as fast as he could, just to see her. Of course, he finished earlier then his beloved lawyer did, but the point still stood? And she was also the best lawyer in the world, incidentally. He was not biased, it was just that surely, no jury in the world would be able to resist the Most Beautiful Lawyer in the World. Goodness knows he couldn't.
Kyouya, for his part, thought Tamaki was the Most Ridiculous Man in the World.
And, for a while, that was how Tamaki lived his life, quite happily without his heart. Every last scrap of it had been sacrificed to the Most Beautiful Thing in the World and in return he was the Luckiest Man in the World. It hardly seemed a fair trade.
However, these assumptions were to be proved wrong. He rediscovered the remains of his love-torn heart on the day he was given a daughter. He had thought he had given out every last fragment of his shattered glass heart, every last piece of his love. Then Haruhi had told him that she was pregnant, quite casually one morning as she left for work.
Her exact phrase had been "Your lunch is on the counter, I might be late home because I'm in court this afternoon, and book tomorrow off because I have to go to the doctors and confirm if I'm pregnant."
She had left. Tamaki had stared at a wall for half an hour. And then began eight months of elation, panic, excess, and the general discovery that he might just love all over again. When his daughter was born, a little less than a week early, he felt his heart (which apparently had been beating after all) stopped. He cradled her. He cried. He wondered if there had ever been such a beautiful girl in the entire history of the world. Then he remembered Haruhi and suffered one-point-four seconds of confusion.
"You're the Most Beautiful (Big) Girl in the World." He told Haruhi decisively. "And you," he whispered to the bundle in his arms. "Are the Most Beautiful (Little) Girl in the World."
"You're ridiculous." Haruhi told him, sleepily, but Tamaki had stuck by his guns, and watched his beautiful daughter grow every day. She was still beautiful when she was waking them up in the night and ruining his shirts (and Kyouya's, wonderfully) with baby sick. He thought there would be nothing more beautiful then when she opened her eyes, but then she smiled, and then she'd walk, and talk, and play, and then go to school, and every day she would grow, and every day he would think she was beautiful. Even when she was disobedient and disappointed him, or when he let her down, and she cried, she was beautiful. She grew and grew, became more independent, became a beautiful, beautiful, woman. And just when he thought he would drown in the beauty of it all, he saw Haruhi.
She had to be the Most Beautiful (Big) Girl in the World. Otherwise, how could he wake up beside her every single day and still find she left him breathless? How was it no matter how many wedding anniversaries they came through, he still felt there could not possibly be enough time to spend with her?
Tamaki occasionally wondered how he ever managed to think about anything but his wife and daughter. Most of his friends would point out he didn't. However, today, his attention was focused entirely on his daughter. And… her boyfriend of the last two and a half years, who were coming to visit that day.
"You do realise why they're coming, right?" Haruhi quizzed him as they made tea together. Tamaki just nodded. Of course he realised, he just… wasn't sure he was ready to give her up just yet.
Still, they came, and asked permission to marry. Haruhi smiled straight away. Tamaki required some assurance.
"…I only have one question." He said, slowly.
"Tamaki…" Haruhi mumbled, embarrassed, as their daughter whispered "Dad" in the exact same tone. Tamaki was still not the most subtle person in the world, and was undeterred.
"Do you love her?!"
The answer came without hesitation. "Love her? I think at this point we can safely assume I need her." He chuckled. "I couldn't be without her. The universe doesn't work that way."
"But… do you love her?"
Again, without hesitation. "Yes, I do."
"How much?" Tamaki asked suspiciously, prompting the embarrassed mutterings again. He still didn't care.
"A great deal."
"How much?!"
"I'm not very good at-"
"How much?!"
"I don't know!" He answered, flustered. "I just know that she's the Most Beautiful Thing in the Universe to me and I will marry her if you approve or not!"
Tamaki blinked. The Most Beautiful Thing in the Universe? He hadn't thought of that.
"Tamaki." Haruhi said, quietly. "Give them your blessing already, it's important to them."
So he did. He blessed them, because he had been so blessed. He supposed it was about time he shared it with someone else, wasn't it? Let them get married, let them have their own luck. Their own beautiful future. There would be problems and rows and misfortunes and mistakes, just like there had been in his life. Just like there was in every free-fall between birth and death.
But goodness, there was so much beauty in this world, Tamaki thought to himself. He would be loathe to leave it behind.
Still. He watched his daughter's hand close inside her love's; and knew he would leave it in good hands.
And somehow, he finally realised. The Most Beautiful Thing in the World- his girls aside- was, and always had been, that mysterious thing called love.