A/N: I'm not Hatori-sensei and don't own Ouran Highschool Host Club. But I do like to write about it! Thanks for continuing to read and enjoy chapter 37.
New A/N 12.2017: I recently rewrote this story to change an important element in Caine's backstory that I wasn't satisfied with. I hope you all are as content with the change as I am and continue to read and review my story.
Please note, if you read the previous version of Silver Lining and want to find out what has changed, I would encourage you to go back to the beginning and reread it. Failing that, please reread chapters 13 and 31 to understand Caine's new backstory.
So, when I was replacing these chapters with my rewritten ones I realized I omitted the chapter just before this one. If you are caught up and reading from this chapter, please go back and read that one, this one is simply a rewrite of the previous "A Rude Awakening".
Chapter Thirty-Seven: A Rude Awakening
"Ry-chan?"
Caine wasn't sure exactly what time it was when Seito came to wake him up that Saturday morning, but it was certainly several hours earlier than anyone had a right to rouse a night owl. Sometime during the night he had buried himself in his comforter, pillows sandwiching his head and muffling any and all outside noises that might seek to disturb his slumbers. It was his preferred weekend sleeping arrangement, guaranteed to prevent anyone from waking him on the days the gods had gifted their people for late sleeping.
Seito had seen the arrangement many times before, though, and knew precisely the method to best awaken the silver-haired boy encased within it.
"Wake up!" he called, rapidly removing the pillow off of the silver locks beneath it and yanking free the tangled blanket covering the rest of his charge.
"Mhm," came the reply, a sound somewhere between the dying moan of a tortured bear and sullen revving of a black tinted-window-clad SUV. With the removal of the blanket, Caine could be seen loosely swathed in his sheet, his scar and the artistic tattoos of a sun and moon, dragon, and half the kanji of the poem on his side exposed. His right hand lay across his body, his left reaching out as if to grasp the last fragment of sleep that always eluded him. Underneath the pillow, his silver hair rested untidily over his face, mussed by the pillow sandwich it had formerly filled.
Grey eyes cracking open, Caine forced out, "Satur… day…", his protest at the rude waking.
"Your boyfriend's here!" Seito announced, his voice as full of enthusiasm as Tamaki's.
"Ugh," the sleeping boy instantly replied, rolling to merge his face with his remaining pillow. Seito raised an intrigued eyebrow at the less-than-ecstatic response, but no sooner had his right ear made contact with the pillow than Caine reversed his course, turning back and opening his eyes fully for the first time that morning.
"Wait, what?" he asked, his voice gritty from sleep.
"You heard me," Seito replied, a smug smile decorating his face. "He's waiting for you in a car out front." His eyes drifted to suspicious, puzzlement washing away the smug look. "There's a blond boy with him too? Big violet eyes."
His awoken charge groaned, staring at the ceiling with immensely tired eyes.
"... ugh."
Seito chuckled at the reaction.
Still mostly asleep, Caine lay still, steeling himself to get up.
"Mira's making your coffee as we speak," his observer commented, incentivising him.
Two blue-grey eyes closed, a deep sigh containing the last dregs of sleep escaping their owner. Suitably prepared, Caine wrenched himself into a sitting position and swung his legs over the side of his bed. Weaving his fingers through grey tresses, he corrected the unkempt nature of his hair, then strode to his closet to dress.
"Now is probably a good time to mention the bubbly boy said to tell you 'we're going swimming!'," Seito added, pausing on his way out of Caine's room. Caine gave him a suspiciously impressed side-eye–his caretaker had slipped effortlessly into a supernaturally apt impression of the blond host's excited demeanor. Seito, seeing the expression, smiled mysteriously and departed.
Swimming, he recalled when his mind returned to the course of former thoughts from its deviation to wonder at Seito's previously unknown skill for Tamaki impressions. Since his family owned a summer home in the Ryukyu Islands, he was no stranger to water, and the many summers spent immersed in those cerulean waters meant it wasn't as if he disliked swimming either. Swimming in the company of those outside his own family; however, had always been something he avoided whenever possible. Even though he had gotten over his youthful discomfortable at inadvertantly showing his half-naked body to all with eyes to see, the matter of his scar and tattoos complicated the idea of such a display. The difficulty of concealing them and keeping them hidden despite the water, compounded with the anxiety he suffered knowing his preparations might easily fail, overmastered the enjoyment he got from the activity. Despite his apprehension, though, he felt he should go. It was the weekend, so the presence of customers was unlikely (besides which he felt certain Kyoya would have warned him in advance if any plans to the effect had been made), and he did not so much fear the watching eyes of his fellow hosts. It had been too long since he had been able to enjoy playing in the water with friends.
Pushing the hangars aside, he reached into the back of the closet and removed the necessary gear, then dressed casually and made his way to the waiting car below.