Kyoya had never expected to be good at art. At first, when presented with his choice of elective, Kyoya had leaned toward music. His mother had always loved music. She had been a brilliant pianist, guitarist, and violinist, and Kyoya had wanted to learn all the instruments she had played.

When his homeroom teacher had asked the class to consider their elective choice, Kyoya had been buzzing in his seat for the rest of the day. When he got home he had run straight to his mother's disused music room, excited to finally have a legitimate reason to touch the grand piano.

His hands had hovered over the dusty keys as he breathed in, thinking about all the songs she had played him as the sat side by side on this bench. He had remembered how she smelt like chalk dust and dry erase markers, how her laugh sounded amidst the music, how she smiled when she was utterly adsorbed in a song.

After she had died most of the instruments had been cleared out of the room but not the grand piano. The entire room was emptied except for his mother's favourite couch and this piano, things even this father could not see go.

Kyoya had been distantly aware that his father wouldn't like him being in this room alone, but Kyoya was willing to risk his father's anger just this once. For his mother.

He had printed off sheet music the day before, and had read it over and over recalling his sight-reading lessons with his mother. His fingers clenched and relaxed, and he promised himself then that he would do his mother's memories proud.

He had seen her preform so many times, could appreciate the true beauty of music. He had lowered his fingers to the keys in excitement, in anticipation; hope bubbling up within.

He had been terrible.

Awful.

God awful.

Kyoya had spent years by his mother's side learning a fine appreciation for music, for what? Years practicing hearing pitch or recognizing composers musical style had been all for naught.

How could he honestly be so terrible?

He had practiced the whole night, the whole week. He had snuck out of his room in the middle of the night practicing the finger motions above the keys, too afraid to press down. He had practiced until his fingers hurt and he could barely hold a pen without his hand cramping. He practiced until his sister asked him if he was okay and Akito asked why he was tormenting everyone's ears.

He expected his father to come, to tell him to stop playing around with the piano, or to insist they get a private tutor for Kyoya, or maybe, just maybe, to tell Kyoya he'd get better with practice.

But he never came, and Kyoya's fingers were sore and his ears were ringing and he was still horrendous.

A failure.

When it came time to choose electives Kyoya resigned himself to visual art. He hadn't been particularly good at visual art, but he couldn't have been worse at it then he was at music.

Still he had practiced frequently, determined to at least be average. He had never expected to be any good. Certainly he did not expect to be the top student in his high school art class.

And he really did not expect this conversation with Renge.

"Look at the movement," Renge said as she held up a sketchbook. The Art Club and the Art Class were holding an art showcase with various pieces displayed around second floor ballroom. The pieces varied drastically in quality, but most of the parents and friends and siblings didn't seem to mind. The showcase was anonymous and every artist's name was kept off their work. Probably to prevent the worse students from embarrassment.

Renge waved the sketch around and flipped through its pages, almost oblivious to Kyoya. Kyoya sighed and looked around for Tamaki.

There weren't supposed to be many people at the showcase this year, but Tamaki had caught on that Kyoya's paintings would be here and had dragged the entire host club and all their fans with them. Now, the second floor ballroom was packed and Tamaki was nowhere in sight.

Renge stopped flipping through the sketchbook and showed Kyoya the page she had stopped on. Her eyes were alight, her hands clenched with excitement, and she looked ready to take on the world.

Kyoya was incredibly thankful works were anonymous or this conversation would be a lot more awkward.

"Kyoya-senpai! Look, the paneling, the timing, the flow."

Kyoya was convinced Renge had no idea what she was talking about. She was probably just spouting random words. What did she know about art?

"We should definitely find this artist and get them to draw doujinshi for the club! I've been saying it for a while, but look!" She flipped through Kyoya's sketchbook, finally landing on a comic of a female Tamaki flirting with various people.

"This is supposed to be anonymous, Renge."

"Yes, but you have to know who's style this is! You're in the art class, aren't you? Just ask around. You can't pass up this opportunity not when this girl, or guy, captured the host club so well!" Renge spun around and Kyoya took a very deliberate step back.

"Think of the profit! Besides, it definitely gets around the idea of hiring a professional or adult to do it…" Renge trailed off.

Kyoya considered what she was asking, promptly dismissed it, then leaned away from her. "As a member of the host club, I cannot condone pornographic works featuring myself and—"

"No senpai, don't worry, I'll make sure everything is PG but the girls will still go crazy for it." Renge's eyes seemed to burn with near tangible flames.

Kyoya didn't really want to have his conversation. Still, he smiled tried to relax his posture.

"I'll see what I can do and have the artist e-mail you with their response, anonymously of course." He smiled but the effort was painful.

Renge nodded satisfied. She took Kyoya's sketchbook, and made a beeline for Haruhi who was trying to edge away from the crowd on the other side of the room.

Kyoya turned to look at his paintings, thinking of what Renge had said. He sighed and rubbed his shoulder. Was his work really that good?

No. This wasn't the first time Renge had made a big deal over nothing, and she wasn't the only one either. Tamaki had been begging Kyoya to see his paintings since Tamaki got wind of the art show. He had been pestered Kyoya nonstop until Kyoya agreed to personally point out which paintings he had done.

Kyoya couldn't really see why Tamaki cared. One painting was just a landscape of an outdoor ice rink by a mountain, one was an impressionist piece of the Ouran campus, the other was of this very ballroom and none of it was of anything special. The only special one, the only painting Kyoya had ever done that had been truly good, had been the portrait Kyoya had done of Tamaki, which Tamaki actually owned now. Perhaps Tamaki's expected all Kyoya's painting to be that quality? Kyoya frowned. If so Tamaki was going to be severely disappointed.

That portrait had taken Kyoya months to do and he'd ended up with five of them done anyway, unsure which was the best. The portrait unit had been worth the most after all and Kyoya was not going to settle for second best. Still, he it would illogical (not to mention impossible) to put that kind of effort into all his art.

At least Tamaki didn't ask to see any of his other works. Kyoya scanned the crowd for Tamaki again. He caught a glimpse of blond but he faded quickly into the crowd.

Kyoya smiled tightly at people who walked by and hoped Tamaki was not trying to guess what other works Kyoya could have produced.

He noticed Haruhi give a bunch of girls the slip. Kyoya smiled and opened his notebook, flipping to the page on recent expenses.

Kyoya furrowed his eyebrows. Was the increase in profit from doujinshi sales worth more than what remained of his morals?

Kyoya considered it as Haruhi approached him. She wiped sweat off her brow, grimaced but then seemed to grow calmer when she caught sight of him.

"Are these the paintings you were going to show Tamaki-senpai?"

Kyoya nodded before pushing up his glasses.

"They're really good." Haruhi considered the paintings carefully. Of course she would think they were good; she hadn't been trained all her life to appreciate art, to be cultured and understand real artwork from well-formed lines.

Haruhi smiled.

"I didn't know you liked art so much."

"I don't."

Haruhi looked at him and appeared to be deep in thought. "Anyone who can paint this well has to practice a lot, most people don't practice things they don't enjoy."

Kyoya remained silent. Silence was something he was comfortable with, something that didn't give himself away but didn't force him to pretend to be someone he wasn't.

"I do think you're really good. I mean it." Haruhi spotted the Hitachiin brothers, sighed and quietly slipped back into the crowd. Hikaru paid Kyoya no mind and followed after Haruhi.

Kaoru looked from Kyoya to the paintings. "The ballroom one is pretty nice. Are we going to auction it off at the club? I'm sure the girls would pay a lot of money for something you painted."

Many of the girls would pay a lot of money for Haruhi's pencil.

"I'll consider it."

Kaoru frowned and followed after his brother.

Kyoya's shoulders tightened as he waited. Kyoya frowned. There had been a reason he hadn't intended to come to this ridiculous show in the first place but Tamaki had of course paid Kyoya's reasons no mind.

Kyoya waited.

And waited.

And waited until the art show closed and Tamaki had not shown up. Tamaki must have seen the sketchbook Renge was waving everywhere (his public sketchbook, so he called it) but there was a lot of Kyoya's other art on display, and another more personal sketchbook sitting in depths of Kyoya's bag that Tamaki would not see.

Being at the art show had indeed been pointless.

Kyoya left ballroom and spotted Tamaki, exhausted but still trying to jog toward him.

"I'm sorry I didn't get a chance to see you, the girls were everywhere today. Who knew?"

Kyoya had known. Kyoya had in fact warned Tamaki of this exact thing.

"Besides, it's not the girls fault, who could resist me?" Tamaki ran a hand through his hair and Kyoya wondered how long it would take to choke a person. "Let me make it up to you! We can go back your house and hang out!" Something must have shifted in Kyoya's expression because Tamaki frowned.

Against his better judgment Kyoya agreed, because Kyoya always agreed no matter how stupid Tamaki's plans were or how much he was against them.

It was sort of pathetic.

It might have been less pathetic had Tamaki managed to stay awake for the duration of the evening and actually 'hang out' with Kyoya as planned, but instead Tamaki collapsed on Kyoya's bedroom couch the minute they arrived.

He was asleep within seconds.

Kyoya looked at his sleeping friend and wondered how out of line it would be sketch him. Taking a picture was certainly a grey area, but a sketch?

How much could he get for it?

Kyoya wondered.

Deciding to go ahead with the doujinshi and e-mail Renge was easy. Actually e-mailing her was not.

There had been several details about the process that he hadn't considered.

Should he pretend to be a girl? Just ask for a lot of privacy? How soon was it to say that he wasn't interested in drawing incest?

There were so many things that Kyoya wanted to get across but he had to take his time. Why was he always so impatient?

Then there were the things to consider from the producer side. Renge had talked about getting other artists to draw for the club but Kyoya wasn't sure. He needed to maintain tight control over this situation. If he needed to shut their doujinshi sales down, well, it would be much easier with only one artist, especially if that artist was himself.

Kyoya also had to put in strict rules but having no graphic violence or explicit sexual content. All in all the there were a lot of issues to address.

Kyoya e-mailed her over the weekend as he worked on his physics homework and his self-portrait. He had done three self-portraits already but none of them were up to standard. He'd messed up the lighting in the first one, his jawline was too distorted in the second and his ears in the third had been asymmetrical.

It wasn't until he had almost finished the fourth self-portrait that he remembered Kita.

Kita, the girl who sat beside him in art class, had a habit of looking at all the work Kyoya turned in. Usually she rolled her eyes, and told him no one needed to do three version of the assignment.

Well that was all fine for people who could get it right on the first try wasn't it?

She had a habit of looking at his work and had a high chance of recognizing Kyoya's style's if she ever saw the doujinshi. If Kita found out he was the one drawing the doujinshi, his father would find out soon enough no doubt.

Kyoya wondered if he could buy off her silence. Buying her off would cut into sales profit.

Maybe he could just explain things?

No, that was ridiculous. When had honesty ever gotten him anywhere?

What he needed was blackmail. Mutually assured destruction should be enough to keep her from talking. He would have to do it himself of course. He couldn't risk his father finding out about this.

His father would, well, his father would certainly not be pleased.

Kyoya looked down at his unfinished work. Kyoya took a deep breath and steeled himself. Was this really worth it?

Kyoya remembered the projected sales figures he had drawn up. With the extra profit, the budget for cosplay and events would increase by at least 32%. Tamaki would be thrilled.

The larger events meant more chances of parents coming, more opportunities for schmoozing and showcasing what Kyoya's real talents were.

There was no doubt about it. No matter what it took, he'd have to find some dirt on Kita. It was the only way.