Prologue
"Tell me a story in a day," she says (never raising her voice).
"Gladly," he responds (telling her exactly what he knows she knows and wants to hear).
. . .
Tamaki brings her a flower (pink and daring) and silently issues his opponent a challenge. He is a pugnacious one, Kyouya notes. He watches as she takes the gift and dangles it by her leg, over the ledge where it stays: precarious.
And she looks too magisterial herself, sitting there by the balcony facing them.
The two boys (one who—
one who almost made it out.
—and this one still left in the hole) who call themselves. It ends.
. . .
Messy and tangled, Kyouya is a boy forced to act a man who laments for a childhood not his own. And then there's Tamaki (whom he secretly hates and loves and wants to be) waltzing with her, gentle and gentlemanly. Tamaki, who is always so happy.
But one day, Kyouya will get his word, the last to finish is the last to win. And the final winner takes all the prize.
"You're beautiful," Tamaki says suddenly.
And both Kyouya and Haruhi turn their heads (and only Haruhi smiles back lovingly). Because only Haruhi is allowed to do so, and Kyouya must never, ever make it obvious.
Kyouya scoffs and makes some witty remark on their juvenile gestures.
. . .
Kyouya stays silent: there is no need to lie. He simply doesn't voice it.
. . .
They are so sweet and cheery together that it sickens him. He wants to tear them apart (if only for a second) and talk some sense into both their heads.
"The cherry blossoms are exceptionally pretty this year. Exquisite."
Haruhi wraps her little fingers around Tamaki's and nods consent.
He thinks it's like dying a little death, being suffocated and strangled with all this nauseating charm and pretentious laughs.
But they are all arrogant and pretentious, protected by their wealth. Except for her. She is different and so she intrigues Tamaki.
Kyouya would rather have it not, thank you. But she is there to stay and there is nothing he can do. So he sighs and sighs and retreats into numbers and calculations.
. . .
Eventually, everything will be fine and come to pass as a fancy. He waits for that day eagerly (and is disappointed and frustrated that it's taking so damn long).
. . .
"Are you all right?" Tamaki asks.
Tamaki is blind. He sees the glass and does not see through. But Tamaki is transparent himself with glass bones and crystallized skin.
This time, though, Tamaki does know.
And it still hurts.
. . .
Haruhi is absent (ill her father explains). Tamaki waits for him by the stone entrance gates. And the day is too short and too bleak, and out of his austere heart, Kyouya produces something genuine and half-heartfelt.
"I know."
"Then…"
Tamaki keeps his head down. "It's just that…there are some things I can't do for you, even if you are my friend."
Kyouya nods, has known all alone, and feigns nonchalance.
What isn't played out won't bother him.
So when he uses him (Tamaki, the blond, ungrateful idiot) he can delude himself into not feeling guilty. Guilt is guilt, but guilt has no measure and whatever Kyouya might have thought have no significance.
Fact is fact. And facts are dead.
(So is guilt.)
. . .
They call him the Puppet King, and they all bow to him.
He controls them (or so they hallucinate the domineering façade to be dictations). And they obey, that is how things work. And they—the Host Club and its patrons—are glad, knowing that there is a leader.
That things are certain and destined to unfold a set way. The established rules do not explode. And they can leech onto them like parasites onto rocks.
Kyouya bears a heavy burden.
. . .
Tamaki is a good friend, and so is Haruhi (sometimes). And for now, Kyouya can forgive—just a bit.