Michiko took the tea from Kyoya and sipped tremulously. She stared into the cup, struggling to hold back tears. Finally, she set the cup down and closed her eyes, taking slow, deep breaths in a last ditch effort to control herself. She was succeeding, Kyoya noticed from his seat, when her cell phone rang. The girl leapt up and seized the phone from her pocket, only to have it slip from her hand and skitter across the floor.
This, it seemed, was all Michiko could take. The tears she had been so carefully holding back leapt from her eyes and she gave a gasping sob. Only then did Kyoya realize exactly what she had lost. Her grandmother had been her role model, mentor, and the only parental figure she'd really known. And now this pillar of strength was gone. He rose from his seat and carefully crossed to stand next to the sobbing girl. His host instincts were definitely taking over now.
Hesitantly, he reached up and patted her back. To his astonishment, Michiko leaned against him, allowing herself to be comforted. Neither one of them had expected this, and Michiko knew, in the back of her mind, that she'd never have reacted like that if she hadn't been so upset. But, as it were, she soon found herself crying into the front of his school blazer with his arms wrapped around her. They both knew that they'd have to deal with the consequences later, but for now, it was the right thing to do.
And that is how, a very few minutes later, Yoshio Ootori found them.
The older man stopped in the doorway, quickly taking in the scene. The woman behind him did not have the same degree of patience. She slipped past and hurried into the room, casting around for the girl she'd been told would be there.
The teenagers sprang apart as the brunette woman rushed into the room. "Michi! Darling, are you alright?" The two Ootoris saw the girl's wince as she was engulfed in an embrace. Kyoya very nearly followed suit when his father subtly gestured him out of the room. This could be an interesting discussion.
"Mrs. Santonio, we'll leave you alone for a while."
The woman looked up, her heavy makeup running down her face. "Thank you, Mr. Ootori." She gushed, before turning back to her captive. Kyoya and his father rode the elevator down to the manager's office in silence.
Once he was comfortably settled behind the manager's desk, Yoshio Ootori turned to the window. "Disgusting." He muttered, clearly referring to Mrs. Santonio's conduct, before turning back to his son. "It seems that club of yours has been helpful to you in more than one sense. Keep it quiet and we'll have a good insurance policy if the girl manages some sort of miracle. Though it might take something less, several large packets of shares in the Tezuka Corp. went on the market not long before the heart attack. In any event, they need to start on the funeral arrangements. Round them up and bring them to the executive conference room."
Kyoya was taken aback by his father's reaction. He'd been certain that he'd be admonished for seeming friendly with the girl his father had so recently dismissed as irrelevant. Instead, the patriarch assumed that Kyoya had thought up the relationship as part of some singularly manipulative plan. Quickly weighing the pros and cons and calculating the chances of their plan's success on his way to the door, Kyoya decided to speak up.
"Whether the situation calls for it or not, I believe she has a miracle planned."
His father looked up from his systematic search of the hospital manager's desk. "Is that so?" Kyoya nodded and excused himself, leaving his father to contemplate the two young, dark horses that had arrived in the race for the next generation's executives as he continued his search.
When Kyoya exited the office, it was to find his three bodyguards waiting outside. "You three, go downstairs and bring Mr. Tezuka to the executive conference room. I'll go get Mrs. Santonio and Miss Tezuka and bring them down as well."
As the elevator reached the Ootori office and the doors slid open, Kyoya heard Michiko's infinitely calm voice cut through the air in the next room. "No. I just moved to a new school, I do not want to move to a new country as well. We've tried this before, remember? You were never at home for more than a week at a time. Here I have the people at the house, my school, some friends, and an opportunity to be involved in the company."
Kyoya rounded the corner just in time to see Mrs. Santonio, who he was coming to understand was Michiko's wayward mother, stand up to face her daughter. "You have no chance against Shino, Michi. And even if I'm not home for more than a week at a time, your grandmother won't be there at all."
Michiko stepped back at her mother's venomous tone and cruel words. She was spared the necessity of responding when they both heard someone clear his throat from the doorway. Kyoya stepped forward with a carefully blank expression.
"I'm sorry to interrupt, but my father was hoping to speak to you both in the executive conference room downstairs." Michiko's mother visibly blanched and begged a moment to fix her makeup, leaving the teens waiting for her on the couch.
"Did he tell you what he wanted to speak to you about?" The blonde asked after a moment of slightly awkward silence.
Her ally shook his head. "But he indicated that he didn't think your uncle is going to be very successful. I told him you had a miracle up your sleeve, if you're here to carry it out."
A rueful smile crossed Michiko's lips at this. "I will be. I have no intention of moving to Spain to live with my mother and stepfather. She'll appreciate that once the funeral's over. Every few years she has a month or so when she's really concerned about me and then she just drifts off again. "
"I'm glad you're so determined. I might have had to interfere if you'd been willing to leave me holding the bag."
Kyoya smiled as a much cleaner Mrs. Santonio joined them. "Don't let her faze you. We have to focus or the wrong people win, right?" He said under his breath as they stood and turned to the woman. "I'm sorry I wasn't able to introduce myself earlier, ma'am. My name is Kyoya Ootori, my father owns the hospital. Your daughter and I are classmates at Ouran High School."
Hanajima's daughter nodded regally, giving the young man a thorough once over. "It's a pleasure to meet you, my name is Ayame Santonio. I've met your father and brothers, of course, but that was years ago." Kyoya led them back to the elevator and down to the conference room, all the while pretending to listen to the woman's incessant chatter. He was rapidly deciding that she and her daughter could hardly have been more different.
When they reached the meeting, Shino Tezuka was waiting for them at the door. He embraced his once-again tearful sister and led her into the room, utterly ignoring his niece and their guide. Before they settled into chairs in the somber room, a woman Kyoya vaguely recognized blocked their path further into the room.
"Miss Michiko, Yuuta is waiting outside. If you'd like, you can go visit with her. Otherwise it might be wise of you to go tell the chairman of your school that you'll be out for a few days. There's not much you can do here, miss. Thank you for bringing her here, Master Ootori." If looks could kill, the one Michiko was giving them would have certainly killed Shino Tezuka and Ms. Sherman as the woman chivvied the students from the room.
In the hall, Michiko continued to glower at the closed door, as though expecting it to just give up and crumble before her fury. At long last, she turned from the closed doors and followed a silent Kyoya back to the lobby and the waiting car.
------
Back at the school, Tamaki had reluctantly hurried to his father to hear the news. Upon hearing of Michiko's grandmother's death, he hastened to tell his subjects. Oblivious (for the most part) that they were not exactly the type of people Michiko would want to be around so soon after her grandmother's death, the hosts closed the club for the afternoon to go visit their newest almost-client.
To their great surprise, Michiko was not at her grandmother's home near the school and when Haruhi finally thought to call Kyoya, they heard that she had returned to school to speak to the chairman.
Needless to say, the chairman was surprised to see her so soon. Calmly, she explained that she would return to school in a day or two, but requested to be allowed to wear black in place of the normal yellow uniform.
"Miss. Tezuka, the school's policy is to allow students who have recently lost close family members to miss up to two weeks of school. It won't be necessary for you to return so soon, though if you wish to, you are welcome to wear mourning for as long as you would like." He assured her.
She shook her head. "Thank you, but sitting at home crying won't do me any good. All I can do is keep moving according to her plans for me, which included getting an excellent education. I will see you in a few days. Thank you for your time, Mr. Suoh."
She'd thought abot it but, in all her pragmatism, she didn't see the benefit of staying out of school for a long time. She was devastated that her grandmother had died, but she'd been expecting it. Life would keep moving, and if she didn't keep up, she'd be failing her grandmother.
When the befuddled chairman showed her out of his office, Michiko did not leave the school. Instead, she walked to the Host Club's meeting room and sat down at one of the tables.
"So, are you ready to start nailing things down for this opening?"
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A/N:
A "dark horse" is a term in used to describe someone running for a position for which he or she had not been previously considered a likely choice.
Sorry it took me so long to publish, school and our school play happened, so I haven't been able to write much.
