1. A Time For Everything
There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under the heavens:
a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.
—-
Kyouya had never believed in luck. No, he would never believe in such flimsy thing. Not luck, nor the deities, nor any gods for that matter. They only exist for the irresponsible, those who had the compulsive need to blame anyone other than his or herself. He believed in making his own luck, working hard for it and manipulate hard if needed. That was, until that day.
At the age 24, Yoshio Ootori announced him as the heir of the Ootori zaibatsu, and just like that he had achieved what he had been aiming for since he was 8.
He really couldn't have tried harder the past 8 years since his graduation from Ouran. He was young, a promising entrepreneur, and one of the world's most eligible bachelors. The moment he'd bought majority share of the Ootori Zaibatsu and threw it back at his father, his fate had been sealed.
It wasn't, however, the end of his story. Contrary to what people believe and just like any other humans, he makes mistakes. Contrary to what the third Ootori heir believes, there are things he couldn't predict.
One small miscalculation helped by unprecedented economic downturn, and the wheel turned. That day.
The Ootori name meant nothing now, if not the Japanese version of Wallstreet in the subprime mortgage.
Everytime he remembered that inauspicious day he felt like laughing. How the mighty have fallen, as many would say. The funny thing was that nobody would have been able to fault him for the fall, not even his father. He really had done his best, no one in their sane mind could have done any better. And yet to see the majority of his inheritance disintegrate before his eyes in a snap of a finger made him he realize how really fickle life was.
It was during those moments that the thought of Haruhi the scholarship student passed his mind every now and then. Someone so lacking, with dream so little, but every time he looked at her he had the funny feeling that she actually had more than he ever did.
"…Kyouya-senpai?"
Kyouya snapped toward the familiar voice, half-expecting that it was his imagination.
"Haruhi" He intoned, although altogether surprised as she was.
"What are you doing here?"
Her eyes were looking strangely at his hand- the same blunt chocolate eyes, Kyouya thought- and he realized that she was looking at the daikon he was holding for tonight's dinner.
"Shopping."
"In a commoner's market?" she asked doubtfully. "It this something Tamaki-senpai asked you to do?"
"Haven't you heard about the news recently?"
"News? What news?"
Now it was his turn to look at her strangely.
"Have you been living under a rock?"
"Well" Haruhi breathed rather sarcastically, "Excuse me for having no time to watch what other people are doing… I'm rather busy trying to pay up my rent."
"Funny, I'm doing the same thing myself."
"EH?"
—
Money. Assets. Profits.
Money are valuable. Profits are good, assets even better. They are long term assurance, Yoshio Ootori would often say.
People can be profitable to you, but they are not an asset. They are as fickle as the wind, they help you one moment and they stab you in the back next. Hold their weakness and they stay loyal to you.
Don't get him wrong, Yoshio emphasized, there are some people worth investing your time on, some people whose loyalty worth buying. They are an asset. Something of an increasing value. Choose wisely.
To the Ootoris, assets rang more assurance. These things Kyouya knew by heart.
Because he knew these things by heart, he had invested the zaibatsu money on many valuable assets, several were predicted to rise beyond measure.
Those assets valued to nothing now.
"Thanks for walking me home, senpai."
Kyouya obliged her and hummed noncommittally. She grew out her hairs, he noticed. More feminine.
He watched her fish for her key while putting all her groceries on one hand. He would've helped her, if his own hands were not both full with groceries.
Then, almost as a second thought, Haruhi added: "Do you want to come in for tea?"
"Tea sounds delightful." Kyouya didn't realize how much he had missed talking to an old friend, and judging from Haruhi's reaction, his answer had surprised her too.
—-
"Ano… Senpai."
Kyouya had to put his groceries in her fridge. They barely fit in that tiny fridge, on top of her own groceries, but it sufficed.
"Hm?" Kyouya sipped his tea. How nostalgic, commoner's tea.
Then: I'm a commoner now. Kyouya chuckled.
Haruhi raised an eyebrow. "What happened?"
"Fate, I suppose" The tea was bittersweet in every sense; he'd had the very same cheap tea filling the Host Club's supply for years. Tamaki started it.
"Fate, senpai? Are you going to tell me what happened or are we just here for tea?"
"Direct as always, aren't we?" Haruhi saw him smile against the teacup and forced herself to rein her ire.
"The host club… we've been in contact, you know. Tamaki calls ocassionally, or whenever he feels like it. Honey-senpai dan Mori-senpai sends me emails, although the content really didn't tell me much about them, other than the fact that they're doing fine. The twins…
"Are just being the twins… they barges in whenever they deem it fit." Haruhi sighed.
"And that leaves you." Haruhi faced him, and stared hard, as if it would help her see why he had disappeared the past few years.
"…And that leaves me." Kyouya agreed.
Now she was pissed. "Must you answer everything in circles?"
"Calm down, Haruhi. I'll tell you."
His calm persona made Haruhi want to strangle him. Don't he know how much he'd made the others worried?
"As you've probably heard the news, Japan is all the poorer now." Kyouya began, as if making a remark about the weather.
"Which I'm sure didn't bother you rich bastards even one bit." Haruhi bit back harshly. After all, thinking of all the bubbly life Ouran students had, the term economic crises probably didn't even register.
"Au contraire, Haruhi." Kyouya frowned. Unknowingly he had picked up a certain blonde's taste despite having not seen him for almost a year. He wasn't sure he liked it.
"Eh?"
"Sure, we're all the poorer now." Then, as if an afterthought, "At least comparatively to the global market, we are.
"The Suous were forced to cut down on their schools budget, although on the other hand people are going back to school because they couldn't find a job, so at least off the things they worry about, they don't have to worry about captive market;
"Hani and Mori-senpai... their business is with the national security so the current government budget will definitely affect them;
"The Hiitachins, on the other hand, are rather unaffected by the downturn as their clothing brand ships globally. They have a large reserve of various foreign assets that are suddenly worth more, so it evens out whatever they have lost.
"And you? What about you, Kyouya-senpai? What about the Ootoris?"
"I'm here, am I not? Shopping daikon in a commoner's market." He laughed enigmatically. The irony of the situation was very hard to miss.
"I'm a commoner now. Just like you are."
Haruhi could hardly swallow the irony as she gaped at him.
Kyouya ignored her.
"Well, I better head home before Father start calling."
As if on impulse, Kyouya grasped his pocket for his phone to make a call for his limo driver, an action not missed by Haruhi, before he annoyedly stopped, picked up his groceries and walked for the door.
Haruhi was not sure what to think of Kyouya's confession. In her mind, the word Ootori does not even belong to the same sentence as the word commoner.
"I'll walk you outside, senpai."
"Thanks, Haruhi"
Kyouya couldn't help but think that maybe, just maybe, there really is some higher power up there that's now laughing at him. Maybe he was paying up for all the manipulation he's done. If that was true, then he sure had lots to pay for.
