The story is moving forward as I have planned, and I hope you like it.
"Take a seat," Yoshio told him impatiently and, crossing his legs elegantly, looked at his youngest son. He watched him closely, trying to recognize any signs of uncertainty he could use against him.
The boy looked healthy. His cheeks had colour in them, and his eyes bore a pleasant liveliness. The old man really wondered what could have possibly caused his son's current fitness. He looked so alive and full of strength that Yoshio's purely medical interest piqued. He narrowed his eyes and scanned Kyoya's demeanor. It was always difficult to understand what his youngest child was thinking, but he noticed a hint of impatience in his posture. Yoshio exhaled, pursing his lips and sat back on his chair. He knew that he wouldn't agree to the medical procedures again. Kyoya was his son, after all.
"How long are you planning to be stubborn and disobey me?" he asked harshly.
"I apologize, Father," he said, courteously bowing. "I don't want to upset you, but I can't let Yuuichi-san try untested medications on me. I am not a lab rat."
Yoshio sighed and gritted his teeth. "Your behaviour is a family disgrace. Your unwillingness to try every means to get treated, so you can lead an exemplary life is embarrassing."
"I can't agree, Father," he said quietly, "If I must live like this, so be it, because I am pretty sure you know as well that no treatment can cure this."
Yoshio's expression hardened. He stood up and approached the drawer. Stubborn, foolish boy! He would find the girl soon enough and make sure he understands that he can't hope for a normal life with his condition and reluctance to change. He took a package out of the drawer and closed it behind him.
"Here, take this," he said, giving him a plastic bag packed with blood. "This will be a last time thing. You must agree to get the treatment."
Kyoya's face wrinkled in surprise, and he didn't manage to control his features. The smell of the blood reached his nose, and he felt nauseous. He instinctively backed away and accidentally bumped into the outstretched blood bag. When it fell down on the floor and the content spilled on the oak parquet, Kyoya covered his nose with his palm. The smell of the blood made him so sick, he wanted to vomit right there. His body temperature went up, and drops of sweat formed on his forehead. He fell on the ground, feeling paralyzed and unable to breathe.
Yoshio stared at him in disbelief and with slight confusion, but before he could say anything his son stood up and ran out of the study. Kyoya's body was feeling so sick, he couldn't inhale oxygen. The smell of blood made him disgusted. He hurried to bathroom and ended up throwing up in the toilet, and the terrible part was that he didn't have anything in his body to throw up. He hadn't eaten anything, so all he was doing making his muscles tighten and squeeze inside him. He washed his face, hoping to clear the smell of the blood from his nose glands.
He didn't feel this exhausted after throwing up actual food. Kyoya sat in the bathroom, trying to relax his breathing. He caught the sight of himself in the big bathroom mirror and didn't recognize himself for a second. What had just happened? Why did he have such a strong reaction to the smell of blood? It revolted him―something that was supposed to be his only sustenance turned his stomach. What was that supposed to mean?
He rubbed his face slowly and got up. He needed to go to school. It was already late. Quickly cleaning himself and changing his uniform, he called Tachibana. He didn't want to see his father after what happened in his study. He himself wasn't ready to contemplate on that, either. It troubled him how he reacted to the blood his father had offered.
"Does something bother you, sir?" Tachibana asked concerned, seeing how unusually expressive his face was. "Can I do anything?"
Kyoya looked at the man and shook his head. He was really thankful for the man's sympathy, but there was nothing he would do to help him. Kyoya quite frankly was so shocked from the blood incident that didn't know what to expect. What was happening to his body? Was it finally breaking? Maybe Yuuichi and father were right, after all, and it was matter of time before his body completely deteriorated.
"Whatever it is," Tachibana spoke again, looking back at him from the front seat, "I am sure you will figure out a solution, Kyoya-sama."
He gave him a warm smile, and Kyoya nodded affably in response. The man turned back. Hotta was driving the car, and he was unusually slow today. It seemed like there was a lot of traffic. He leaned against the window and closed his eyes. What was he going to do now? The questions swirled in his head and he found no answers for any of them. He didn't feel hungry thankfully, otherwise he was going to starve as the smell of blood now repulsed him. But how long would he be able to feel this way before hunger comes back?
The car parked near the entrance. Tachibana-san opened the door for him, and Kyoya, grabbing his schoolbag, walked up to Ouran High School. He looked at the building and sighed. It was always awkward to look at a pink building and think he was getting his education inside those walls. His father even thought of sending him to a different school just to avoid being associated with a pink coloured school. But Ouran, regardless of how utterly silly it looked, provided education of superior quality.
Uncertainties of his current situation made him feel lightheaded. He didn't even notice how he reached the Ouran gardens by the time he bumped into the lush evergreens. He sighed loudly enough for his own ears and that drew him out of his contemplations. He had felt his body grow warm and sick from the smell of human blood. He had turned sick when he consumed human food, but no shifts of body temperature occurred before. It was alarming.
"Kyoya-senpai?" he stopped when her soft voice reached his ears, soothing his mind like a lulling melody in the darkness of a night.
She had her old jacket on, and her scarf was waving in the air, as she was running towards him. His lips curled up kindly in response, but his mind quickly found the action irrational and dismissed it. Something about Haruhi always made him feel safe. She was breathless by the time she reached him, and he involuntary reached to put his hand on her back in a comforting motion.
"I have seen you wander around this tree three times," she mumbled, catching her breath. "Did something happen? Did you lose something around here? We can look up together."
Kyoya shook his head. "I just don't want to go to school before classes start," he tried to sound sincere. "Suoh Tamaki will get in my hair again."
Haruhi chuckled and shook her head, "Tamaki-senpai is like that, but he is not doing it to annoy anyone."
"Well, my will is not an iron one, it can take so much," Kyoya said with a sigh, but lightheartedly.
They started to walk to the school, but Kyoya couldn't forget what had happened that morning. The memory was still fresh in his mind. The way his body convulsed and all of his muscles contracted as if he had consumed poison made him anxious. He looked at the girl curiously. She didn't smell any differently. She still had that distinct, unique aroma that made his knees go weak. He still couldn't figure out what was so different about her.
"Did something happen, senpai?" she asked.
"No," he said, looking towards the group of students gathered at the school yard. "Why are you asking?"
"I don't think Tamaki-senpai is the only reason you looked so lost earlier," she said honestly. "I can feel something is bothering you. Even though you are good at hiding, I can still see."
"Everything is alright," he said with a low voice. "I am just preoccupied a little."
She didn't say anything, turned her eyes away and looked at the green garden walls that looked more animated in otherwise plain winter scenery. The slow wind was playing with her hair. Her smell was dancing in the air, and he could feel it with his body. He still had that strange reaction to her.
"I thought we are friends," she finally said, her tone full of accusation.
"We are friends," he stated, surprised by her sudden change.
"If you thought so, you would tell me what is bothering you," she said. "You can trust me."
The way she said that made him feel strange. One second he was relieved, another―he was anxious. Hard feelings, that choked him, suddenly got an opportunity to leave his mind and allow him to get some solace with himself. Telling her, opening up about his fears would make him vulnerable, and it teared his eagerness to let her in.
"I am sorry," she hurried to say. "It was very inappropriate of me. You might think I am very pushy. I just wanted you to know that if there is something that bothers you, you can always rely on me."
Kyoya took a deep breath and gazed at her with calculating eyes. She was sincere. There was no malice or exterior motives behind her words. Her body and face was open to read, and she hid nothing. He sighed inwardly, thinking he will regret his decision later, but reached out for her arm anyways and pulled her into the secluded corner away from everyone else's eyes and ears. She was the only person he could tell any of this.
"My father had given me a package of blood today," he said slowly.
"Oh," she mumbled. "So you won't need..."
"I threw up just from the smell of it," he added quickly. "This has never happened before. I am not sure if this is just not the beginning of complete deterioration."
"Are you sure it was blood?" she asked worried.
Kyoya nodded silently.
"Maybe it was not your type of blood," she reasoned. "You know even with food sometimes it happens."
"It was the standard type I have always had," Kyoya said with a sigh.
"How about my blood?" she asked.
"What about it?"
"Maybe you still can have mine," her voice sounded hopeful. "Let me. Give me a moment."
She undid her jacket and then rolled up her sleeve. "You can try," she said gulping. "Maybe, you won't feel sick from my blood. Maybe the one you have tried was old or something."
"Haruhi," he held her arm. "You don't need to worry."
"Go on," she demanded. "If you have bad reaction to all blood, it's better to know earlier so we can find out what to do."
Why was she so caring? It puzzled him and at the same time tickled his insides in a childish way, like he had found a toy worth keeping forever. But she was no toy. She was the most amazing and strange person he had ever met. Her pretty eyes stared at him full of determination, and he unwittingly felt hopeful himself. Because in that moment there was someone on his side and for no reason or merit.
He held her hand, and he felt a strange sense of dread. The thought of him drinking her blood and throwing up disgusted―horrified him. He wasn't sure what he would do if he no longer could have blood, either. She pulled him closer clutching the hem of his uniform, and his body immediately tensed up. He was standing so close. She smelled so beautiful, and his thinking became light, his head feeling dizzy, his thoughts scattering in his head. He inhaled a gulp of her smell and closed his eyes tightly.
She smelled of life and fresh lavenders. She smelled of spring and of coziness. He sighed quietly and leaned down. His heart skipped a beat in anticipation. His lips touched her skin, and then the sharp glistering fangs pierced into her soft flesh. He heard her muffled sigh. Hot blood seeped into his mouth, drenching his tongue and gums. The taste of her aromatic, soothing blood reached his taste buds and made his heart dance in his chest. She was sweet and luscious. All of his senses woke up at once to experience the taste of her blood.
Instinctively he pulled her close, wrapping his hand around her waist, and drunk her blood greedily, washing his palate with the flavor that her blood had, and he couldn't get enough of it. Every time he got even more infatuated with her blood. It didn't burn him, it didn't sting him, it soothed his throat, warmed up his body and made his heart beat swiftly. His fangs punctured deeper and more blood streamed into his mouth. Adrenalin rushed, and his breathing became uneven. The experience of drinking her blood left him kind of intoxicated and besotted with her.
She was close, and he could hear her heartbeat while her blood drifted into his mouth. He found himself strangely content as his ears caught the soft ticking. She would usually tense up, but this time she was calm―he almost thought she was enjoying it herself. The thought was silly, but he didn't even have time to dismiss it, because the new flow of blood overwhelmed him, and he forgot about everything happening around him.
"I am so glad," he heard her low voice, but didn't raise his head to look at her. "I am so glad your concerns were wrong."
He must have done something really nice at some point in his life to have Haruhi now here. She was so recklessly kind and so extraordinary. Wasn't it strange? She was a commoner girl, a very ordinary commoner, and yet, she felt so extraordinary to him. The world he lived in had no place for people like Haruhi, and he was taught by life that one always should be careful to receive a gift that didn't merit the gifter. Such gifts didn't exist in Kyoya's mind. And even those that seemed to be such were just Trojan horses.
He felt her hand on his head. She was absentmindedly brushing his hair with her fingers. He realized she had no idea she was doing it, but it made him feel so vulnerable. Why was her blood not affecting him in the same way the one in the morning did? After all, he had drunk that blood for years, and he never had such a reaction.
"And you were worried," she said with a smile, when he raised his head and reluctantly stopped drinking her blood. His cheeks were slightly blushed.
"I don't understand," he confessed, suddenly feeling stupid. "There must be some kind of reason I felt sick from that blood and not yours."
She smiled and tried to open a package of band-aids. "Maybe it wasn't a good one," she mumbled. "Or maybe you had the vampire version of food poisoning or something."
Kyoya laughed. Why was she so cheerful? Was it even normal? He felt sudden sense of unease for drinking her blood.
"Let me help you," he said, taking the bandage from her hand when he noticed that she was struggling. He leaned down and licked the blood on her arm, and she stared at him dumbfounded.
"Not to waste," he clarified almost mockingly, mimicking what she would say and then plastered the bandage on her arm.
When he looked up at her, she was staring confused. Kyoya raised his eyebrows, wondering what had made her look so stunned and surprised, but she didn't pay attention to respond. She looked dazed and stared into his eyes. There were no words spoken as if both of them had lost their way of conveying speech. The classes would start soon, and they needed to move. They didn't even notice that there were many students already gathered in the school yard and were rushing to their classrooms.
They didn't notice Ayanakoji Seika either, who was staring at them from the side of the bushes.
"What's up with these two," the girl spoke to herself when she noticed that that they were together.
She walked closer only to catch third son of Ootori family with that damn commoner in a strange position. Was he kissing her hand or something? The girl wrinkled her face in disgust. She leaned down and took out her cellphone. That nasty commoner had found a way to wrap everyone around her finger, but she would make sure the school knew that she was just a shameless gold-digger, who came to Ouran to find some unsuspecting idiot and climb the social ladder. She smirked, snapping a picture in her phone. So that was why that idiot Kyoya Ootori was defending her, and she was wondering what was his deal.
"Tomorrow the entire school is going to see this," she laughed, staring at the photo where Haruhi's face was visible, and someone was leaning over, and their lips were on her arm.
A/N-I thought to make Ayanakoji a bit more antagonistic that she was in the anime and manga an expand her role in that way. I know I ended it with another cliffhanger, but the next chapter will be up soon :) Tell me what you think of this chapter. And I hope all of you are having a fun time preparing for Christmas. :)