[september 18, 2007]
[holding your polymorphing opinion]
Ouran High School Host Club
* * * * *
"The Name of the Rose"
Fujioka Haruhi is very good at making logical assumptions that are, an overwhelmingly majority of the time, quite correct. As an aspiring lawyer, it could be said that this is her general way of approaching things, even causes as lost as Suoh Tamaki. She would attempt to observe him and apply logic to his speech and mannerisms, but it has been her misfortune to find that they are founded on contradiction.
"Love is a single rose buried in the snow," he exalts one afternoon, dangling the said symbol from one idly posing hand. "The only living and vividly colored thing for miles, a fighting force in the face of the despair-colored tragedy that we call life!"
"If it's cold enough to snow, that rose won't hold out for long," Haruhi reasons, but her words fall on deaf ears. Tamaki only offers it to her with a smile like spring.
Another day brings another analogy. "Love is like a desert sun, high and burning and setting the rest of the world aflame with its relentless passion! It is the mightiest thing in the world!"
"And the most destructive," Haruhi adds dryly. She vaguely wonders about the romantic hopelessness of the dying rose. "I don't suppose there's any chance of it withering in the face of tragedy?"
"Certainly not!" Tamaki exclaims, and Haruhi is doubtful he ever even hears himself.
But Haruhi's suspicions are set in stone when the rose analogy makes a reappearance, this time unforgivably different. "Love is the first snow in a rose garden, a refreshingly new beauty when old symbols are too common -"
"I don't follow, sempai," Haruhi says promptly. Tamaki's voice trails off as he slowly registers her straight-faced disagreement. "There's nothing about tragedy or passion. It sounds increasingly shallow - 'new beauty?'"
Tamaki's mouth open but then closes, answering her with air.
"How would you describe love in a way that makes sense?" she asks, finally annoyed.
Tamaki remains silent for a moment longer; she assumes he is thinking hard. Then he visibly relaxes (she hadn't even noticed he was tense) and fills his eyes with her expectant face, her sharp gaze. He is very surprised that she cares. "Love is whatever I think is most beautiful at the time," he answers decisively.
"Love is whatever Tamaki-sempai thinks is most beautiful at the time," Haruhi echoes. "For such a thoughtless answer, it works."
"Doesn't it?" Tamaki says, and he is thankful she does not ask what he thinks love is now. Beside her face, all the beauty of desert suns and roses in the snow become a cheap man's poetry - is what he thinks but keeps to himself.