Warning: T for Language.

Disclaimer: I do not own any of these characters. All rights are reserved to the owner and creators of The Ouran High School Host Club


The Foundations of Chemistry

I paced my dorm room back and forth while I waited for the line to connect me. Finally, it stopped ringing.

"Tamaki," I said calmly over the phone, "you're a fucking idiot."

There was a moment of silence over the line before Tamaki got up the courage to quietly say, "You don't understand."

My fists automatically balled up in rage, "Bullshit! I understand full and well."

I was losing my temper and the words were flying out.

"Don't tell me I don't understand. What I understand is that this is the biggest mistake of your entire life. What I understand is that you broke her heart! There had to be another solution! You didn't have to leave her!"

My rage made my body shake and my face grow red.

"YOU DON'T THINK I TRIED, KYOYA?" The receiver shook in my hand at his screams.

"You don't think this is hard for me?" He said more subdued, "I know this is the biggest mistake of my life. But staying with her would have been worse. How can you of all people not see that?"

I shook my head, "How can you not see that Haruhi is worth anything?"

There was a pause, "I know. That's why I did it."

He sighed, "I did it because she is worth everything. And this time it meant I had to let her go."

I remembered the day of the Ouran fair. The day I made the same exact choice. I knew that Haruhi would be happier with Tamaki. That mattered more than anything else in the world. That mattered than me. Than my friendship with Tamaki. It was the only thing that mattered. I shook my head.

"Yeah," I finally said, "I understand that."

There was silence over the line.

I furrowed my eyebrows, still not convinced fully, "I just don't understand why you didn't talk to me about this. I could have helped, Tamaki."

"Not enough," I could hear the tears in his voice, "it wouldn't have mattered in the end. I would have dragged Haruhi through the agony of reliving her mother's death. Even if I tried my best not to, I would have taken my pain out on her. The relationship would have fallen apart. And because I selfishly couldn't lose Haruhi. Even though it hurts her now, she is better off with a clean cut. I know the consequences. But either way I would have lost her."

He sobbed into the phone. He sniffed and then composed himself enough to go on.

"It would have been cruel of me to put her through all of that and still lose her."

I knew he meant it would have been cruel to Haruhi. But I could tell he meant for himself too. The anger started to fall away from me as I accepted his reasoning. I hadn't forgave him for hurting Haruhi. But I understood why he did it.

xxx

The end of our first year at university was coming to an end. We had only to take our final exams, pack our dorm rooms, and shuffle ourselves back home for three months. Haruhi was sitting on my twin bed with her textbooks and notes scattered about her. I sitting next to her at my desk with my study supplies similarly strewn over the table.

She tapped her pen on the bed anxiously and bit her lip so hard I thought she was about to cut skin. I turned in my chair, put one elbow on the desk and the other on the back of the chair.

"What are you studying?" I asked cocking my head to the side.

She groaned and rolled her eyes, "CHM 128."

She moved forward and swung her legs over the side of the bed, "Look, I get it. Earth is doomed and humans are the cause. Do I really need a whole class to make me feel terrible about it?"

I couldn't help but laugh. She was best friends with the owner of a business that made me rank of the Forbes list on The World's Most Innovative Growth Companies. The O&Co wasn't even in the top 50, but we were still helping to produce one of the very things that hippies protest in protection of the environment. Smartphones. If more people took the course, people might think twice about buying a new cell phone every year. Leaving me bankrupt.

After Haruhi asked me why I was laughing, I explained the irony in her statement. She laughed with me.

"Ok, Ok," she said once she stopped laughing, "can I see your notes?"

I shuffled through my pile of papers until I uncovered my CHM 128 notebook. I handed it over to her and returned back to studying French conjugations. I heard her open the book and sigh heavily in frustration.

"Kyoya!" she wailed.

I looked over to see her head in the palm of her hand as she looked over my notes confused.

"What the hell is this? Code? Are you trying to protect spies from learning about chemistry?" She asked bewildered.

I climbed onto the bed, sat next to her and looked over my notes with her. The notes were in English shorthand written in especially illegible scribble. I shrugged.

"The professor talks so fast and it's not like I expected anyone else to read them." I said simply as I handed them back over.

She rolled her eyes at me, "Well, will you help me decipher these, please?"

We sat shoulder to shoulder as I helped her read over the sloppily written notes. We quizzed each other and drilled formulas together. An hour later we were exhausted, hungry, and in need of a break. Although take out food was tempting, we needed to get our blood circulating again. We walked to a nearby grill that a lot of the students frequented.

The early spring air felt nice so we sat outside on the lush patio to enjoy our meal. After the meal, Haruhi leaned back into her chair and tilted her face towards the sun. She took my breath away. There was something sublime in the way that she enjoyed simple things. Her brown hair swished behind her and shimmered in bright bronze highlights and calm caramel tones.

She raised her head and smiled at me.

"Thank you, Kyoya."

"Sorry my notes weren't more legible!" I joked.

She shook her head, rested her elbows on the table, and put her chin in the palm of her hands.

"No, not just for that." She gave me a sheepish smile, "I didn't think I would get through this winter. But you got me out of bed for class, made sure I ate, checked in on me everyday. IT it wasn't for you, I would have spent this whole winter hidden under my covers."

She looked me straight in the eyes, "You never pushed me. You always knew when I wanted to forget about the whole thing or talk about it. You pulled me out of the darkness. You uncovered me and never made me talk about what was wrong. You were just there."

"The Shadow King?" I laughed skeptically.

She laughed lightly while she looked down and then back into my eyes, "You're actually quite sunny when you want to be."

I smiled at her. She wasn't wrong. The true me wasn't lurking behind shadows and barring my teeth at invaders. He was right there in the daylight, sitting across from her and constantly in a state of smiling.

I saw the way that Haruhi was looking at me. I had caught her looking at me like that a more than a few times since the day after Christmas. She was looking at me like she had never seen me before and also like she was the only one who truly saw me. I looked back at her unadulterated. I let all my emotions flow to my face. Every thought I had ever had flooded into my eyes, plain to read.

How I wanted her ever since my sophomore year. How I didn't fight for her when she went to Tamaki because I knew it was for the best. How I never stopped loving her even while she loved someone else. How every moment I spent with her was replayed in my head every night when I laid still in the quiet night. I stayed silent while she looked deeply into me.

Like so many times before, I wanted to close the space between us. I wanted to pluck her out of her chair, take her into my arms, and kiss her in front of the whole patio. But things like Tamaki were not so easy to forget. It had been less than six months since they split. And I knew that she still thought about him when she was stilled by the dark night.

Somethings were better left unsaid. So I stood up and extended my hand to her.

"Ready for some more chemistry?" I said lightly trying to forget how close I was to letting her know how I felt.

xxx

I was packing my dorm room. I had made perfect marks all year except for in CHM 128. I w as so distracted during my final, I answered three of the questions wrong. I cursed myself for allowing myself to let my emotions cloud my mind. I still ended up being second in our class next to Haruhi. When I had finished packing my things, I stepped out of my room and into the hallway. I looked at the empty dorm room and replayed the year in my head.

Pacing the room on the phone with companies working to create connections. Studying at my desk with Haruhi next to me on the bed. Eating instant ramen when I didn't have enough time to go to the cafeteria. Laying on the floor next to Haruhi trading stories about our past and confiding in each other about our dreams for the future. They all flashed before me like a movie stills playing on the walls.

"You gonna miss it?" I heard a voice say behind me.

I turned around and saw Haruhi standing a t-shirt and long shorts. I smiled at her.

"A little bit, yeah." I admitted to her, "But I'll have all the memories forever up here."

I tapped on my temple.

"Until you get old and senile!" She joked with me.

I nodded in agreeance, "Hopefully I'll have a smart wife who will outlive me and help me recall what I can't remember!"

We laughed together. It wasn't a good joke, but just seeing Haruhi laugh made me crack up with her. Her laughter was so bubbly, like a bright staccato begging to be listened to intently. And I couldn't help but be enchanted by it.

We walked out to the the car that was to drive us home. We spent the trip reminiscing and planning for our summer. Everyone but Tamaki were coming home for the summer. I had thought that Tamaki would come back, but with his mother still in critical condition he decided to stay in France. At least that's what he told us. I knew him enough to realize that spending the summer with Haruhi would have crushed him.

The Host Club was down one prince. But we were still going to make the most of this summer.