Prompt: What is love? And what is real?
Note: A tad AU-ish, and a little darker/colder and definitely stranger than the pretty pink marble of the anime. This is what I imagine Renge and Kyouya would share in something one might call a relationship. Mostly Renge-centric, focusing on her growth… shaped by my own weird logic.
Enjoy. S'amusez-vous.
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Fantasie
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When Renge first talks to him, one on one, apart from the rest of the Host Club, their conversation veers into unexplored territory.
"You're delusional, aren't you?" he laughs. (Except not.)
Because he is cool, calculated Kyouya. He is kind, caring Miyabe. He is one and both and she doesn't know just who the hell he really is after all.
They look identical. And that's enough for her, anyhow.
Instead, Kyouya chuckles quietly and closes his notebook partway, carefully keeping his pen inside so that the page is not lost.
"And, what did you want to talk about?"
She doesn't really know where to start, because her hands hold no controllers and there is no menu and no screen, just endless amounts of cut scene. The cut scenes that play out her life might have been decided for her already. They might have been programmed. Honnêtement, honestly, she does not know. Some other people like to call it fate. Renge has other ideas.
Because she doesn't know what to say, they lapse into silence.
So Renge chooses Haruhi instead, because the stifling feeling in her chest will not go away. Video games could be replayed, unplugged, saved, and paused. Miyabi is a character who existed in imaginary time, whose life revolves solely around Renge. In return, Renge gives him her devotion and what she likes to call love.
Renge sticks to Haruhi, and learns to bake cookies, and makes almost-edible chocolates—all signs of devotion to Kyouya, whose time Renge believes will inevitably one day wrap itself around her own. That's what she wants to call real life human love. Two-sided. Renge knows no other distinction.
If she gives love and devotion, then surely she will receive? Inevitably, they are meant for each other, because she wills it to be so.
She never gives Kyouya a chance to respond—she so busy, agitement, showering him with her so-called love. Probably, although she will never admit it, she's simply afraid that Kyouya's reaction would be unlike Miyabi's from Uki Doki Memorial. Regardless of the positive or negative outcome, the very act of Kyouya reacting would likely send her own system into overdrive. Never in her practical life experience has a video game truly given her anything besides the cure to a surplus of excess time.
She gives.
She doesn't know if she has the heart to take.
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"300 percent," he says to her during the school year.
Not because it's impossible.
It is possible, though the chances slim.
Kyouya is essentially practical, which (contrary to popular belief) does not mean he overlooks the unlikely, but rather, that he scrutinizes the still possible.
"You want me to raise sales revenue by 300 percent," she repeats dully. Her voice sounds unimpressed. But the look in her eyes burn, because she's probably like that. Inspiration comes easily to her, irrationally, even. In that, Houshakuji Renge reminds Kyouya of Tamaki.
That was how the 'Moe Moe' line of host club fan products is created. Renge gets in touch with magazine printing agencies her father deals with in Europe and invests both time and money to the creation of the Host Kurabu magazines, complete with glossy color fold out posters.
They are extremely popular. Sales increase by 340%.
Kyouya's glasses gleam. Her heart flutters.
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"Glad to be doing business with you."
Kyouya doesn't know if he sees Renge's glowing face dim a fraction, or her star-struck gaze turn downwards. What he does see us the stubborn set of her chin, the way her lips press together in concentration.
Next time, she seems to be thinking, projecting.
Kyouya finds that he's actually looking forward to that.
Business is good. So is she.
There is nothing wrong with admitting that much.
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At graduation, she sends him flowers.
They're painstakingly handpicked and selected by Renge herself over the Internet. The delivery service is impeccable, and before Kyouya exits the gates of Ouran, he finds a bouquet of red tulips and amaryllis thrust into his hands by an anonymous, effeminate male student who promptly runs away afterward.
The flowers are signed 'Secret Admirer'.
Kyouya's brain races through the possible candidates, narrowing down the list with percentages and likelihood ratings in the fashion reminiscent of a computer processing system.
Her name comes up, glaringly obvious and staring him in the face. His lips frown as he hands the flowers to Tachibana, but his eyes might have crinkled in amusement for half a second.
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Kyouya meets her again at an exclusive club in London.
He's surprised, because he had not pegged her to become a socialite.
But then again, even the most decided personalities cracked under the pressures of society and family. Renge's father may have been accommodating to her, but even a girl as swathed and protected as she knew that the world outside of her cocoon was waiting, gossiping, and pointing.
She is stunning in her evening gown, periwinkle and twinkling in the dim lighting. Her dirty blonde hair is twisted up into an intricate bun, and Kyouya thinks that she looks older.
They finally acknowledge each other after dancing circles surreptitiously for half an hour at the party. When Renge sidles up to him, Kyouya notices that there are several pairs of male eyes watching her.
He doesn't quite know what to make of this.
They end up only making polite talk, which is all these parties are really good for anyways. Kyouya remarks on the recent developments at Ouran, and makes no promises about the future, but Renge is bold enough to predict that he'll see her again before the year is over.
Renge trails out of the vicinity with a subtlety Kyouya had certainly never thought she'd develop, after all the motor-powered entrances she'd had in their high school days. But he's observant, and is good enough at the society game to notice that two men trail out after her.
Kyouya brings out the slip of memo paper fisted in his palm. Somehow, the young businessman knows that he's the only one to whom she had slipped a note with her contact information.
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They do meet again, in a few months time, a scarily accurate prediction on Renge's part that had Kyouya's rational side musing. The café is high end, and even though Kyouya doesn't do cafes, the new male head of the Suoh Empire had ordered/forcibly cajoled him into tasting the popular Paris café scones on his short vacation trip to France (Kyouya doesn't do vacations either, but this aspect is all his sister's fault).
It is interesting, because Renge was married just four months after the London club meeting, to the heir of a large publishing company in the UK.
She smiles, if somewhat ruefully, and flashes her moderately sized and reasonably cut diamond ring in the sunlight filtered through the screen of their private upstairs café chambre.
In the spur of the moment, Kyouya asks her if she loves her fiance.
She asks him what his definition of love is. The corners of his lips lift and he tells her it only mattered what her definition is in this case, right?
"Then, relatively, no. I don't love him."
Her answer surprises Kyouya, who would have thought Renge would marry with obsessive devotion (love?), or not at all.
Because he couldn't resist, and because the scones were rather good, he asks 'relative to whom?' and she gives him an interestingly coy smile and taps her fingers on the table without answering.
Kyouya orders Romanée Conti even though it's not quite noon. The garcon comes with a chilled bottle, and Kyouya tells the man to leave, that he'll pour this time.
He watches as the red liquid sloshes into the clear crystal. He can feel her eyes on him. He realizes her eyes are a deep gold color.
The two drink to several things.
They cover the important, practical matters first. Like financial health and good business deals and a lifetime's luck in escaping unhealthy media gossip.
After both are reasonably intoxicated, those flitty, intangible concepts worm their way into their toasts.
"To love, and to our reality."
Renge hiccups.
"You mean it, then?"
"C'est la vie."
Suzu: Whew, I feel like I haven't updated in forever (actually, that's about right). Drop a review, s'il vous plait, if you still enjoy a bit of my work now and then (lol). Con crit and flames welcome, too.
End notes: Well, this piece was mostly written a year ago, with me finishing it up just recently in one night. Un-betaed (hangs head in shame), so I'd appreciate anyone pointing out mistakes.
Symbolism: The wine Kyouya orders is one of the best red wines in the world, and is from Burgundy, France. An average bottle goes for about 3000 dollars retail. Oh, and red tulips are flowers symbolizing a declaration of love, while amaryllis symbolize pride and beauty. Renge, being the dramatic fangirl she is, probably mellowed up their farewell by sending Kyouya those sorts of flowers and locking herself in her room with a frilly handkerchief. (sweatdrop) I love Renge, though, really… haha.