"Kyouya, where are we going?" Tamaki wanted to speak about this at length in a language in which they were equally comfortable. Thankfully, he didn't need to wait long; the words barely had the time to leave his lips before the car suddenly halted. Tamaki was the first to reach for the door, extending an arm past Kyouya so that he could get out first. Kyouya obliged coolly, but gratefully, while Tamaki gracefully exited the vehicle after him, shutting the door behind him.
They were in a park. A commoners' park. Tamaki was torn between his excitement at being taken to a place like this and his concern over the conversation the pair hadn't even begun to have. With bright, almost admiring eyes, he turned to Kyouya, mouth open and ready to give thanks, but was silenced with a gentle wave of his hand and a small smile that said there was no thanks necessary. Then Kyouya turned to make his way to an empty bench, shaded by a lonely tree. Though there were other benches in close proximity with people scattered among them, this particular one had a certain sense of solitude surrounding it. Tamaki hurried to keep up with Kyouya who seemed to be anxious to be sitting again with the way he was walking so quickly.
Proper as ever, Kyouya waited for Tamaki to join him before taking a seat. Tamaki sat rather near to him, not so much in case they needed to whisper but simply because he wanted to. He wouldn't be the first to speak, though, waiting for an answer to the question he had posed in the car and knowing that it would take a bit of time to answer.
"I don't know," Kyouya said quite plainly, but with a distinct tone of hurt.
"Well, I'm sure it's just..." Tamaki trailed off, realizing only just in time that now would not be an appropriate time to make mention of "Mommy" and "Daddy." "Kyouya," he began again, "it won't change—"
"Don't be stupid, Tamaki."
He fell silent, the words spoken to him stinging his heart as much as his ears. After something like that, it was impossible to know what to say. There was going to be no comforting Kyouya with this, especially considering that he, Tamaki, was effectively the catalyst that started all of this trouble in the first place.
"I just wish that I knew why it happened, or how. I remember when we first met that I thought you were absolutely ridiculous. I thought that you couldn't possibly be true. Then the more that I got to know you, the more fond of you I became. And then, one day, I woke up and realized that there was a lot more to it than what I had originally expected. Somewhere along the line you had truly managed to captivate me in a way I never thought any other would or even could.
"I never expected love, Tamaki. I never expected a feeling as overwhelming as this. So it really came as quite a shock, that day, when I got to school and I felt myself become a bit lightheaded when I saw you. I thought I was just getting sick. I thought it was a sudden onset of a fever, and that was why I went to the infirmary that day at the expense of arriving late to my clients. But there was nothing medically wrong with me, despite the swimming feeling in my head and the lightness in my stomach, and that's when all of this started happening and it's only gotten worse since."
Kyouya paused in his speech to steal a glance at Tamaki, who was watching him interestedly, hardly blinking. Of course he had noticed something affecting Kyouya over the past few weeks; he recalled that much. The moments where he could see it were always so fleeting, though, that he didn't even think to inquire about them. There was a heavy weight of guilt on him now, compounded by his inability to imagine any sort of response at all.
"The most complicated part of this predicament is the simple fact that it's an impossible situation."
Tamaki felt strangely wounded by that statement, his face contorting to match. He sat up a little straighter, and stared at Kyouya a bit harder. "What do you mean 'an impossible situation'?"
"Tamaki, you know as well as I that something this scandalous would never come to any real fruition. There is nothing tangible to be gained from this."
He was in disbelief to hear these things coming from this mouth. "Nothing to be gained? Kyouya, I hardly think—"
"You are not suggesting that this is requited." Kyouya eyed Tamaki skeptically, but with a small glimmer of hopefulness only just hidden by the slight glare off his glasses.
"Well, what if it was?" Tamaki knew he was being reckless, now, but he couldn't help himself. Kyouya's admission seemed to have awakened something in him that he had only ever considered once in a handful of dreams that were forgotten by morning. He was always so focused on his conflicted feelings for a certain girl, feelings he did his best to bury and forget and ignore and now this, here, was a real reason to forget for good. This was a cause worth pursuing because as much as he did care for Haruhi — very deeply, in fact — a part of him had always rejected the idea of that sort of forever with her. This, here, was a different story.
"It wouldn't matter anyway. It would never be condoned or even possible."
"Who cares?" Tamaki spoke the words slowly, his hands moving of their own accord to clasp Kyouya's, who didn't pull away, but didn't comply either.
They sat like that for a long while, watching each other with a swirling, inconstant mix of fear, anxiety, curiosity and wishfulness. People passed by — some looking, some not — but none heard a word being said. The pair stayed in silence for minutes that soon enough turned into a full half-hour. Neither boy had moved even a fraction of an inch save the intermittent blinking of their eyes and the rising and falling of their chests and the slight twitches in the corners of their mouths.
Finally, after a pause that slightly differed from the silence they had found themselves in, Tamaki leaned in quite slowly, and set a pair of delicate lips to a pair that weren't all at once forgiving. They were soft, but reluctant, and as he felt them jerk to pull away, he pursued them, pushing a bit harder to try to keep them in place. So they stayed and they carefully let down their guard, the last defenses dropping as eyes fell shut. A hand eased its way from under Tamaki's, fingers threading lightly and nervously between each other. Now, again, they stayed this way for a long time, until the fantasy abruptly ended with Kyouya coming to realize exactly what it was that he was doing and, more notably, where.
"Shit. No, Tamaki. No." The hand disentangled itself in a panic, fingers momentarily becoming more tightly threaded in its hurry to release itself, and was quickly placed over a mouth that looked scandalized. He shook his head and he stood up without saying a word, quickly marching back in the direction of the car. Tamaki had no choice but to follow.
"Kyouya, stop!"
But he didn't stop until he got to the car and sealed himself back inside of it. For a fleeting moment, Tamaki wondered if he was going to be abandoned here, but as it stayed, he hurried over and let himself in on the other side.
Kyouya said nothing to him, did not even flinch in an effort to look his way, and was so tense that he was visibly trembling. Once again, Tamaki was at a loss for words, the only thing he could think to say being, "Je suis désolé..." ["I'm sorry..."]