Tenth fic for a Pride Month prompt challenge from tumblr. Prompt: coming out.
When Tamaki came to them all and looked so solemn, they all thought he was going to reveal something awful. It was uncharacteristic to see him look like that: anxious for the first time that any of them had ever seen, running his fingers over the cuffs of his blazer. All the gathered hosts immediately assumed it was to do with his mother. His eyes darted between them all, bottom lip worried by his teeth, before he was able to take a breath and speak. He talked himself into circles, not making much sense, and the others glanced to one another nervously, wondering if something had shocked him into this state. Eventually, Tamaki sighed.
"I think... what I'm trying to say is..." He clenched his fists. "I think I'm... bisexual."
Everyone exchanged a look, eyebrows raised and something going unspoken between them all. They all returned their gazes to Tamaki before Haruhi spoke.
"Were we not supposed to know?" she asked, and Tamaki's face fell.
"You knew?"
Haruhi nodded. "We thought you did too."
Tamaki shook his head and Kyouya smiled.
"It seemed clear to us," he said.
"Oh..." Tamaki looked a little put out.
"What's wrong?" asked Hani, head tilting to one side over Usa-chan's head.
Tamaki pouted slightly. "I thought this would be a bigger deal to you guys."
"Sorry," said Kaoru. "Just... we kind of figured it out."
"Well, not so much figured it out," put in Hikaru. "It just seemed right."
Tamaki seemed to chew this over, before Mori got up and went over to him, pulling him into a hug.
"Well done for having the courage to tell us," he said, his tone relatively normal but the embrace warm and kind. "And well done for coming to understand yourself."
"We're not trying to be dismissive," explained Haruhi, getting up to join the hug. "We just knew, you know?"
Kyouya, Hani and the twins all got up to surround Tamaki in their arms. Wrapped up in the love from all of them, brought a little smile to Tamaki's face.
"Thank you, all of you."
When they were cleaning up before they left for the day, Kyouya passed by Haruhi.
"For someone so into himself, you'd think he'd have at least figured that one out," he said.
Haruhi looked round and frowned at Kyouya.
"You can't blame him for not being that introspective," she pointed out. "Wouldn't you avoid it too, with a father and grandmother like that?"
As soon as she mentioned Tamaki's family, Kyouya froze, a tension in his jaw.
He's going to try it, the idiot.
Tamaki stared at the food on his plate. He'd been pushing it around with his fork for twenty minutes already, a knot in his stomach, the vegetables mixed together and only half-eaten. The words he wanted to say chewed into his throat, sticking on his Adam's apple, and he tugged on the collar of his shirt yet again. It was way too warm in the room – he was sure of it.
"Stop fidgeting," said his grandmother, voice sharp.
"S-sorry," said Tamaki. Normally, he would have aimed for a smile, but right then he didn't have the presence of mind. He coughed. "Uh, there was something I wanted to talk to you both about..."
With those words out, Tamaki felt as though he had let go of the precipice, and there was now no going back. Under his father and grandmother's gazes, he shrank into his chair, fist clenching around his fork.
"I..." He stopped, swallowed. "I did some... thinking recently."
"I hardly imagine that amounted to much," said his grandmother.
Tamaki bit his tongue, steeling himself, before letting it all out in one breath. "I'm bisexual. I'm attracted to boys as well as girls."
Two sets of cutlery paused before clinking down onto plates. Tamaki glanced at them both, seeing his father staring at his own plate, face blank. His grandmother, however, was fixing him with a steely gaze. He tried to meet it, tried not to look away, even as she frowned.
"No," she said sternly.
Tamaki furrowed his brows in confusion. "'No'?" he repeated.
"You might think this way now," said his grandmother. "You might believe this to be true but it is not."
Tamaki swallowed again, a prickle in his throat. "I... but... it is true."
She shook her head. "You say you feel attraction to girls, that is true. The rest is not. You will marry a girl and you will be content."
Tamaki threw a glance at his father, seeing a blank wall in response: there would be no help there. His stomach turned uncomfortably and the rest of his responses died inside him. He could try this again another time but it seemed a lost cause for tonight.