She looked radiant; happier, perhaps, than he had ever seen her. Her small frame was draped in a long white dress that fit her perfectly, and her very skin seemed to glow with an internal light. His dark grey eyes followed her as she danced back and forth across the crowded court, from host to host. Honey was energetic, the two of them spinning around in a laughing blur. Mori was more sedate, poised and slient. Kaoru's face bore a happy grin that matched hers, and the two of them joked and laughed until she was passed on to the other twin. Hikaru was as cheerful as his brother, though whenever she forgot herself and touched his injured arm, his exclamations echoed through the night.
She was enjoying herself, clearly delighted to be here with them, and to be one of them, to be a host. How changed she was from when she'd entered the school, as a nervous new girl in commoner's clothes and hair that made her look like a sloppy boy. Now she was confident, at ease. She fit in here, and she could easily fit in anywhere she chose to go, thanks to the six boys she'd spent so much time with. In the Host Club, she'd found friends, as all of them had.
Then, tonight, they had almost lost it, all of it. Tamaki had been the one that had formed the club and brought them together and held them together. No matter how much any of them complained about him or his brainless schemes-Kyoya, himself, rarely went a day without sighing about the expenses that the blonde caused, or the idiocy that he managed to display-he was the cornerstone of it all. Of course he was a moron; only a moron would have ever thought to bring together such an apparently-incohesive group. Only a moron could have comtemplated and enacted the ridiculous ideas he'd subjected his fellow hosts to over the years. Only a moron could have taken as long as Takami had to realize that Haruhi was a girl. But that moron was Kyoya's best friend, and he would not give him up for anything in the world.
It frightened him, how close they had been from losing each other without so much as a goodbye on either side. He didn't want to imagine a world without Takami by his side, as he had been for over two years. Takami had brought a confidence he'd never known he'd lacked, and an openness that he rarely showed, and a kind of self-esteem he'd never known before. For the first time, Kyoya had been able to ignore his brothers' shadows that he'd been walking in, and had found himself in a light of his own. Takami had made him who he was.
Yes...Takami had made him who he was, but she held who he wanted to be. The girl with the short brown hair, who'd entered their lives so unexpectedly, was the person he most wanted to impress, the person he most wanted to please. He wanted her to turn that smile on him, to laugh at what he said, to spend time with him alone. She seemed to know him better than almost anyone, and he wanted to get to know her that well. He wanted her to think as highly as him as he did of her. He wanted to be allowed to hold her, to kiss her, to wake up with her head resting on his chest and her soft breaths mingling with his own. He wanted so badly to be the one to make her happy.
On impulse, he strode forward, just as Takami bowed low, and extended his hand in an offer of dance to her. Kyoya slipped past him, taking Haruhi's hand and effortlessly falling into the steps of a waltz. He smiled for a moment at Takami's amusingly enraged expression, then looked down at his dance partner. She'd looked perplexed for a moment, but now appeared happy as the two of them danced smoothly across the floor. He remembered how awkward her dancing had been, when she'd first started at the club, but now her steps were flawless, the gliding grace of her movements helped by the long skirt of her dress.
She looked delighted by the evening, and positively wonderful. He noticed her smiling and nodding in acknowledgement at passing dancers, hosts and customers alike, and marveled again at how changed she was. But, still, she was fundamentally the same person who'd entered Music Room 3 that spring day, just with a smoother haircut and more friends here than she'd probably ever expected to get at the prestigious school. She fit in so easily, while being entirely different than anyone at the school, or anyone that Kyoya had ever met. There was no denying that she was unique, or that her uniqueness was what made her all that he thought he could ever want.
She looked sideways, laughing lightly at the antics of one of the twins. Her clear, chocolate-colored eyes were wide with happiness, and her lips were turned up at the corners in a completely genuine smile that made Kyoya feel like he couldn't breath, but in a good way.
He came to a stop, standing still while the other couples swirled by. Haruhi, expecting a step in the dance that he hadn't taken, faltered for a moment before catching her balance. She looked up at him questioningly, wondering why they'd stopped. Kyoya, closing his eyes, acting with a fluidity and serenity he didn't normally possess, leaned down, and pressed his lips against hers.
For a moment that seemed to stretch into hours, she didn't move at all, or even seem to breath. In that second, Kyoya was suddenly full of such apprehension, such terror, that he couldn't move either, and only desperately awaited her response. His hopes now could not rise beyond that she wouldn't despise him or completely avoid him forevermore. Finally, when he was about to pull away, his cheeks flushed bright red and the butterflies in his stomach turned into pterodactyls that gnawed their way through his chest, she moved, pressing her lips slightly more firmly against his.
It was enough. He bent his head lower, kissing her deeply and never wanting to stop. He let go of her hand that he'd been holding since the start of the dance, placing his hand on her back and pulling her closer to him. She stood on tiptoe, wrapping her arms around his neck, letting him kiss her and kissing him back. For both of them, there seemed to be nothing outside of the person they were embracing; the courtyard, the people, the very Earth seemed to have melted away, leaving only Kyoya and Haruhi.
The sound of her laughter brought Kyoya out of his reverie. They were still dancing, her hand was still in his, there was still an audience of other dancers and frivolous girls on the sidelines. His heartfelt but idle fantasy had not left the privacy of his mind. Then she looked up at him, with those sparkling eyes, and he wondered why it hadn't, why he didn't try to make his dreams real.
Then he caught sight of Takami, glowering at them, and knew he couldn't. While there was no guarentee that Haruhi felt anything for the blue-eyed prince, there wasn't a doubt that he felt deeply for her, as deeply as Kyoya did, though the black-haired boy was much better at not revealing his own feelings. One day, perhaps, he could act on his feelings, sweep Haruhi into his arms, and kiss her; but for now, especially tonight, he had to give Takami his chance. He had to let him try to make his own fantasies real. So for now, Kyoya gently pushed Haruhi towards his best friend, smiled wistfully, and left, content for the time with his dreams.