Oh, my. This paticular story has a bit of a tale behind it. First off, a do not ship this pairing in paticular. However, my beta has been talking my ear off about it for the past year, and when I had a story idea for kyouya/haruhi she demanded I write it out. It was mean to be a really early birthday present.

Well, that is a different story to write all together.

I had started to write the story I have not written yet, and it I morphed in this. Neededless to say, I was very disturbed when it actually kind of made sense. Did I mention I don't like this pairing? But here it is, the product of my labors. Happy early, early birthday Showpeople.

This is more of a beginning setting to the story I am going to write. When you get to the end there really should be the words 'but then...' or 'unless...' because this is by no means done. When it will be finished, however, no one can really say...

I don't own the characters, I just enjoy messing with them.

Shadow and Magnetism

It's funny how things can sneak up on you sometimes. Like the sun, creeping up in the depths of the darkest night, gradually illuminating until you're caught unawares by the fact you can see again.

It had started with a chance meeting, for him and for her, an alignment of fate that twisted her out of her previous realm of reality and into his. Theirs was the right word, really, as he shared this insane plane of existence with several other lunatics and maniacs. How on earth, for instance, had the other idiots, otherwise known as Hosts, not realized that the bedraggled, intriguing creature standing before them was, indeed, female? While her hair was short and her attire distinctly masculine, her dainty hands that griped the door, along with her smooth skin, shapely lips, and long eyelashes (framing her wide, doe-brown eyes) gave her away. Then, he hadn't paid attention to the fact that his eyes, while hidden behind his ever-gleaming glasses, had lingered on hers fractionally longer than he normally would have on such a seemingly uninteresting person. And if he had…well, he probably would have dismissed it offhand for any number of thought-up reasons. Instead, noting that she had yet to correct the other Host's assumption on her gender, he chose to smile and play along.

In this case, playing along meant following Tamaki into one of his usual ludicrous schemes. Although, once they cleaned her up a bit and added a bit of window-dressing, Kyouya did admit she had potential as a financial asset to the club, gender non-withstanding.

It only took a week to re-classify her from boring to one of the most intriguing human beings he ever had the fortune (or the misfortune, depending on how you looked at it) to meet. She tore into all of their lives in such a way where she did nothing, but left you re-assessing everything you had ever thought about yourself. If anyone was going to steer you onto the past of self-examination, it was Haruhi. Even Tamaki, king and leader of the Host Club, could not escape from her guileless eyes, innocent and kind with a bite of sharp humor. With devastating, matter-of-fact honesty, she told you things about yourself that you hadn't even realized, things you had never even stopped to consider yet knew to be perfect truth.

She never practiced the most basic of social deceptions; if she looked mad, she was mad. If she worried, it was genuine. If she smiled, it came straight from the heart. But, despite this, she had a (nasty) habit of being able to see through any mask, any façade a person could care to bring up. Every time she looked him in the eye, hers would crinkle as she smiled, a small twist at the corner of her mouth. Almost as if she was saying 'I see you, Kyouya Ootori. You don't fool me for one minute.' And every time this happened, Kyouya resolved himself to find out more about her, to even out the footing between them. After all, he had a reputation to uphold.

Slowly but surely, Kyouya found himself becoming more and more intrigued. He had never invested so much energy into one person before. He took the time, when the two of them were standing back from the chaos that was the Host Club, to prize little pieces of information away from her, casually of course. How she took her coffee. Her favorite color. Her birthday, and her father's. Her favorite brand of shampoo. The little pieces of information kept building up and up, each being committed to memory, then securely placed away in the back of his head, in a file for later. The price he paid for this was a return of information, for she never let him ask a question without posing one of her own. What was his favorite school subject? Who was his favorite author? TV show? Did he prefer spicy or salty foods? What type of toothpaste did he use (he had laughed at that one)? For her, it seemed, each answer was of vital importance, almost as much as the reason behind his interest. With every answer being weighed as such, he found himself more willing to answer that he ever had been to anybody. Plus, he enjoyed the way her nose crinkled when she considered a question or received an answer.

He was being trapped in the tangled, glorious web that was Haruhi Fujiokra, and for the life of him he couldn't tell if he wanted to get out anymore.

Carefully, he began to follow her. He told himself this had everything to do with gathering information and nothing to do with anything that resembled stalking. Her shopping trips, her work hours, her nights with school friends, all were scrutinized and observed with the greatest care. He was careful enough to not let her see, but still careless enough to risk the chance that she might. It worried him how careless she was about walking home at night, coming back from the grocery store or the tea shop down the street. This seemed, to him, another display of that naivety that had made itself known when she'd fought those three boys at the beach. Haruhi still seemed completely unaware, or uncaring, of the difference between men and women, and what could befall a young girl walking down a dark street at night. Every Tuesday night, the day she did her late-night shopping after work, he would tag along behind her, twenty feet behind in the dark like a shadow, just to make sure she got home safely. It was just another mark of her innocence that she rarely, if ever, checked behind her in the dark.

There was one time that two drunk men had cat-called from the recess of a pitch black alley. Haruhi had just kept walking, head held high, obviously ignoring them. These two men weren't likely to forget her though, because as soon as the girl had turned the corner, a shadow had swept out of the night, with dark hair and eyes hidden behind gleaming glasses. Afterwards, the two, bruised and bleeding, had dragged themselves back into the bar and began to spread the word. No such incident happened again. This did nothing to soothe Kyouya's worries, and he still made sure Tuesday nights were cleared on his calendar.

This went on and on, with Kyouya only spiraling deeper into her life every day, before suddenly he realized he was more interested in this one person than he had ever been in anyone before. That day, on the heels of this realization, came an incident that cumulated all of his odd behavior into a single, stunning realization. It was silly, really. All he had done was have club activities end early that day, because he knew Haruhi had an engagement that she needed to prepare for later in the evening. Tamaki, Honey, Mori, the twins, and the remaining guests had filed out of the room, leaving a lingering Haruhi And a silently observing Kyouya behind. Haruhi had walked up to him with a certain gleam in her eyes that made him think that she knew he had known about the appointment. Instead of thanking him, she had stood on tiptoe, laid a butterfly kiss on his cheek, smiled her blinding happy smile, and walked out the door. It was something she did occasionally with the other Hosts, but this was the first time she had ever dome it to Kyouya.

It had left him, staring blankly into space in an empty room, as all the puzzle pieces clicked together and he realized he was in love with Haruhi Fujiokra. But what he now fervently wished for couldn't be. Because Haruhi was in love with Tamaki. And Tamaki loved her back. It was painfully and blinding obvious.

So day after day, he watched the two of them from his shadow throne, seeing how every day the pair would grow closer. Kyouya supposed darkly it would be the same at their wedding; he would always be watching their happiness from the shadows, waiting for his chance in the light that would never come. But he still couldn't help himself. He knew he wouldn't be able to. All he could do was sink to the empty piano bench in the corner of the room and put his face in his hands, wondering why fate was so cruel as to make him desire something he could never attain.