A/N: Written for the September round of the Ouran flashfic community on LiveJournal. Also known as the fic I only like the first line of and wish to burn the rest of. I apparently fail completely at writing slash for Ouran, who would've guessed? XD

Hopefully you all are in the mood for a pretentiously fake!Brit cocktease of a badfic.

...I really do like the first line, though.

Eia

xxxxx

Eccentricities

xxxxx

"Fornication," said Kyouya.

"--but then I said 'Bugger diplomacy, I wouldn't come near you or your poxy dog for... wait, what?"

Kyouya's serene expression did not falter. "Now that I have your attention... are you going to button up your suit or not? It's the first day of the rest of your life, you can't go out looking like a rake."

"I happen to do rakish very well," said Tamaki, striking a pose with his jacket sliding off his hip and his white shirt riding up tantalizingly. A quick toss of his head had his pale hair falling messily into his eyes. A smirk completed the picture.

"Hm." Kyouya was forced to agree. He was never one to lose his head, but even from a carefully distanced perspective, Tamaki painted a pretty picture in the morning sunlight. "Indeed. However, I'm sure you would rather not deal with the recalcitrance of your employees when they underestimate you because of your dress."

"True, that," mused Tamaki, tossing his hair effortlessly back into place and straightening his clothing until he looked the very image of a dashing young entrepeneur. "It's odd not going to school. It feels almost like a holiday, but not."

"Eloquently put. Now if you don't mind, I'm going to be late, and I'll remind you that it was your idea to drive to the city together."

"Right, right, let me find my keys and we'll go before the chauffeur figures out what's happening--"

Graduation from Ouran High had taken place last week.

It had been a grand affair. Kyouya was sure he would see wheeling red and green lanterns behind his lids every time he closed his eyes for the next month at least, and the taste of fine French cake still lingered at the back of his mouth.

They'd each had their last dance with Haruhi, spinning dizzy and half-drunk beneath the lantern-strung ceiling, hair loose and flying. Kyouya had made sure to memorize the curve of her eyelashes and the brightness of her eyes so he could lay out the memory of that dance for himself whenever he wished.

Then she'd walked off on Kasanoda's arm in a way that spoke very clearly, and the rest of the evening had deteriorated considerably for Kyouya.

xxxx

Five days earlier

xxxx

Oh dear, Kyouya thought to himself as he watched her press herself into the redhead's side-- as though hiding from the rest of the room-- and lay her head on his shoulder.

Sure enough, a moment later a hand grasped his sleeve and hauled him bodily out of the hall towards an unoccupied closet. Tamaki didn't say a word until the door was safely closed and they were all the way to the back where they were less likely to be overheard.

"Kyouya. Is she--"

"Yes," replied Kyouya indifferently. "She is."

"How long have you known?" Tamaki demanded, anguished.

"For some time. She asked me not to tell you, and you know how I am about keeping my word."

"You bastard," hissed Tamaki.

Kyouya abruptly reevaluated the situation. Tamaki was much, much angrier than he'd expected.

"I'm your best friend. You knew how I felt about her. You think you could have overlooked your goddamn code just this once for my sake?"

"I am sorry, Tamaki," Kyouya said gently, meaning it. He hadn't expected Haruhi to be so blunt about it, and hurt on behalf of his friend. "I would have told you if I'd suspected that she was going to do that."

"If? Only if? For the love of little apples, Kyouya, I can't believe you'd keep a secret like that from me, even if it was Haruhi asking. I thought we were... thought you were..."

"I am," Kyouya told him, catching his shaking shoulders in his hands. "Tamaki. I only did it because I thought it would be easier for you this way-- to have one last dance with her, then let her go. What she did after this was supposed to be her own business."

"I wasn't going to," Tamaki said in a whisper so low Kyouya nearly had to press his ear to Tamaki's mouth to catch it. "Let her go. I wasn't going to."

The air hammered out of Kyouya's lungs.

He'd always believed himself good at reading people, but even to him this was a great surprise. He'd known Tamaki loved her... of course he had, how could he have not? Anyone with functioning eyes knew it, he was that obvious. However, Kyouya had been sure he'd realized that a relationship between them beyond school would never work. He was too happily rich, she too happily poor, and no common ground between them.

"Oh, Tamaki," he said in a rare display of compassion, and pulled Tamaki's head down to rest on his shoulder. "I really am sorry."

A nearly visible gloom descended, true to Tamaki's style. "Oh, it's all right, I suppose," he mumbled into Kyouya's shoulder. "Thanks for caring, anyway. I just... I... I just... I..."

And to Kyouya's dismay, he dissolved into messy tears all over his lovely Italian suit. Tamaki's hands clawed their way around his sides to dig into his back and shoulderblades, clutching him tightly as sobs wracked his thin body.

Kyouya reflected that the person bawling in his arms was the only person in the entire world he would allow to dribble snot all over a thousand dollar suit without repercussion. They had been best friends for years, almost decades now, and Kyouya had learned to tolerate Tamaki's eccentricities without blinking an eye.

No, it wasn't the horror of the current situation-- stuffed into a broom closet with a weeping grown man-- that was bothering him.

It was, to put it with very little diplomacy, the fact that Tamaki's face was pressed into his neck, his hair was tickling his throat, his chest was pressed flat to his own, and Kyouya had never desired anyone so much in his entire life.

He wanted to remove the tears undoubtedly dripping off of Tamaki's cheeks first with his fingers, then with his tongue, and then he wanted to thread his fingers into the hair he'd been helplessly transfixed by for five years and...

"All right, all right, let's go home," Kyouya said, hoping the sound of his own voice would return sanity to him. It didn't, but it helped temporarily halt the downward slide. "You can sleep in the guest room until you feel better."

Sniffling, Tamaki nodded. "You're a true friend, Kyouya," he said.

That was debatable, but the last thing Kyouya wanted to do with Tamaki was have an argument with him in a broom closet. Unless of course the argument led to other, more pleasant things, which he wasn't thinking about at all.

They went home. Tamaki slept on the guest bed, and via some heretofore unheard-of reservoir of willpower, Kyouya managed not to do anything to him in his sleep. He was a very good sleeper-- splayed out with limbs in all cardinal directions, hair in his eyes and spilling across the pillow, mouth slightly parted.

It drove him half-insane all night, until he woke up in the morning and discovered that drowsy morning-faced Tamaki was far worse than sleeping Tamaki in terms of distraction power.

With his hair mussed and his eyes-half lidded and pillow-creases on his cheek, he looked half-ethereal, impossibly beautiful.

"Kyouya," he said muzzily.

"Er. Yes?"

"I'm moving in."

He vanished into the bathroom and shut the door, leaving Kyouya to gape at the door like an attractive glasses-wearing fish.

xxxx

Present

xxxx

And that was how Kyouya had found himself living day-in and day-out with the greatest source of inexhaustible insanity he knew of.

Approximately three weeks into their cohabitation arrangement, Kyouya finally lost his mind and accosted Tamaki at three in the morning.

It turned out very nicely for both of them.

THE END

XxxxxxxxxxxX

A/N: OMG COPOUT

Don't say I didn't warn you. Augh. Seriously, can I burn this? XD