CHAPTER 37

Tamaki-san pounds on the doors. "Hikaru, don't lock us out!"

After listening to Fuyumi-san's anxious tale and assuring her that they will handle it, Haruhi and Tamaki-san have returned to the shop only to find it bereft of customers and displaying the closed sign.

One half of the double doors is flung open to reveal Hikaru holding a broom. "No need to shout!"

Something weird passes between the two men when their eyes meet.

Hikaru moves away, back to where he'd presumably been sweeping the floor. "They're inside," he indicates with his chin.

"Let's go, then," Tamaki-san says decisively, grabbing Haruhi and Hikaru and dragging them into the kitchen.

Standing at the absolute opposite ends of the room, as though they can't bear to be near each other, is Kyouya-san and Kaoru.

"Eh?" Hikaru asks, confused. "Where are those three guys?"

"They left."

It was a mere two words, yet Kaoru's voice quaked despite his efforts to smother it.

Haruhi sees Hikaru grimace apologetically. They'd obviously barged in on something.

"They told you everything, Kyouya?"

Kyouya-san flicks a look to Tamaki-san and says nothing.

"Excuse me."

None of them stop Kaoru from leaving, though Hikaru would have gone after him had Tamaki-san not restrained him.

"Life happens wherever you are, Kyouya, whether you want it to or not."

Kyouya-san clenches his jaw.

"Even if you hate that you cannot remember your past, your present is going to keep happening and your future is still what you make of it. If you keep waiting for a future that you can share with Kaoru, he's going to become your past – "

Haruhi and Hikaru spring backwards in alarm when Kyouya-san seizes hold of Tamaki-san by the lapels of his chef's uniform and shakes him almost violently.

"Shut up! Shut up! Why are you forever sticking your nose where it does not belong?!" he yells, fully as angry as any one of them have ever seen him. "Do you have the right to be such an arrogant busybody after what you've just found out today?!"

Beside her, Hikaru gasps in… desperation? Pain?

"Hikaru, what's going on?" Haruhi asks worriedly, putting a hand on his arm. She is at a loss as to who to help – her boyfriend or her friend; she had not known that Kyouya-san could go berserk this way, or that he would be so frightening.

"Kyouya-san!" Hikaru appeals in that same tone.

Kyouya-san's incinerating gaze lands on him. After a while, he forces himself to relax and pull away from Tamaki-san.

It takes two to tango, though, and Tamaki-san doesn't retreat.

"You see, Kyouya? You love them. You already loved them when you erased Haruhi's debt and went to her house to fire her after that day, and you already loved them when you took Haruhi back because Hikaru seemed fine. You loved Haruhi too, when you put up with me even though you think I'm irritating."

Kyouya-san is quivering with rage, his visage sickeningly pallid.

Now Haruhi's panicking a little too. "Tamaki-san, please…!"

She knows he has uncanny insight sometimes, but when Hikaru is faint with gratitude and fear, she can't tell if it mightn't be a mistake to push.

"Haruhi, Hikaru loves you."

She can feel her own eyes widen to the size of saucers as Hikaru emits a strangled sound.

"… Eh?" she breathes, turning to him to study his reaction. He looks like a dead person, like he's going to cry any second.

Then, faster than a blink, he leaps on Tamaki-san with a sort of frenzied anguish. "WHY DID YOU HAVE TO SAY ANYTHING?! Why do you ALWAYS have to say something?! If I want you and Haruhi to be happy, that's my fucking business! You can't save everybody from themselves! You have no right to always be the noble one! Who's going to save you from yourself, René?! Huh?! Answer me! Who's going to save you from your own fucking nobility?!"

Oh my god, Haruhi thinks, dazed and foolish. It's true.

"Hikaru. Hikaru," Kyouya-san keeps repeating firmly as he encircles Hikaru's torso from the back to haul him away. "Hikaru, hush."

Hikaru fights him at first, bellowing more crazed questions at Tamaki-san before crumpling in Kyouya-san's arms, completely winded.

Tamaki-san's lovely purple irises stare through her lucidly.

She gulps.

"Renge-san's foreigner is me, Haruhi. She knew Hikaru liked you before I showed up."

Haruhi is struck dumb. It's too much to process at once, and the only thing she is capable of wishing for at the moment is for Kaoru to be present – that he had never left – in order that he might use his influence to mellow out this situation.

"Leave. You have done nothing but disrupt the peace of this place since your arrival."

"But you've never brought real peace to this place, Kyouya, and I love them as much as you do."

Again, Kyouya-san snaps.

"Enough! I have had enough of you! You may not think much of the peace we've had, but it meant more to us than anything else so don't you dare disparage it further!"

"Then why don't you ever tell Kaoru that?" Tamaki-san cries. "Kaoru is observant enough to know the things you don't say, but it doesn't mean you should get away with not saying them!"

"Stop using Kaoru to attack me," Kyouya-san replies, low and deadly.

"Because it actually works, doesn't it?"

"ENOUGH!" Kyouya-san seethes, and Haruhi knows both she and Hikaru blanch impossibly whiter. Where does Tamaki-san get his immunity? It can't be because they're the same age, can it? Haruhi has seen people much older than Kyouya-san tremble at his presence. "What is wrong with you?! Why don't you ever know how to leave it be?!"

"Because I know what happens from leaving things as they are," Tamaki-san replies, raw grief threaded through his very being. "My Japanese surname is Suou."

Kyouya-san starts slightly; Hikaru demands, "You're the child that Suou Corp guy had overseas?!"

Haruhi wants to move to Tamaki-san to support him. Her legs weigh her down like lead.

"We were always waiting, my father, my maman and I. He was always waiting for the opportunity to sneak over to see us, waiting for my grandmother to forgive him, waiting for the empire to be handed over to him. My maman and I were always waiting for him to come and see us, waiting for the day where we could live together as a family. A few times, my father mentioned giving up his inheritance and choosing us, but maman said she wouldn't be happy if he had to give up everything for us, and my father said he wouldn't be happy unless he could find a way and have the means to improve my maman's health – they loved each other but they always had so many conditions before they would let themselves be happy with each other. Kyouya, my parents spent their lives waiting for a future that they will now never have. You keep waiting, but Kaoru is in your here and now. If you want him, tell him."

Haruhi is witnessing yet another unprecedented event: Kyouya-san is silenced by somebody else.

Hikaru detaches himself from Kyouya-san and stands under his own steam again, apparently taking his turn to be angry. "You have no right to lecture Kyouya-san! Aren't you setting conditions for you and Haruhi to be happy together? Why else would you tell Haruhi that I like her? You're exactly the same as your parents!"

"Yes, he's right," Haruhi chips in, frankly somewhat annoyed herself. "You are like your parents, Tamaki-san. I'm sorry for not noticing, Hikaru, but, Tamaki-san, telling me means you need Hikaru to be happy before you will allow yourself to be happy."

"Gyaaah! You've joined forces! If we marry, Haruhi, it means we'll break Hikaru's heart twice! That's too heartless! A cruel marriage like that will be cursed!"

"So?! You decide to make everyone feel bad too?! What do you expect Haruhi to do now, choose between you and me?! She's wearing your ring already, stupid!"

"You have no right to scold Tamaki-san either, idiot!" Haruhi echoes in a sudden fit of extreme vexation.

All three men gawk at her.

"Ahhh! It's yours and Kaoru's fault that Haruhi is using bad language!"

"Psssh, as if."

"Quiet or I'll ask Kyouya-san to kick you both out!" Haruhi raises her voice and pinches one of Tamaki-san's cheeks and one of Hikaru's. "You spend three quarters of your time fighting like one of those strange and boring French flicks! The only thing that's missing is the gratuitous sex, and I'm tired of having you both stew away in unresolved tension so let's solve this once and for all!"

"Wh – we never had sex! He didn't want to!"

"Ahhhhh! That's between you and me, Hikaru!"

"Like Haruhi wouldn't know your attitude towards sex?!"

"Did I ask for a sequel?!" She pinches harder and they yelp their surrender. "Number one: Tamaki-san, stop looking at me for approval whenever you have to be alone with Hikaru! Number two: Hikaru, it's actually more awkward when you keep looking at me anxiously whenever the topic of you and Tamaki-san come up! Number three: Tamaki-san and Hikaru, it's time someone told you that when either of you look at me with those worried faces, it has the opposite effect of emphasizing your past relationship! Number four: I choose who I want and neither of you are allowed to give me away like I'm a present! Number five: if both of you want to pretend to be noble so much, then I choose neither!"

While they goggle incoherently at her, Kyouya-san remarks, "Haruhi, you are a most refreshing employee."

"I don't know why their relationships must all be so complicated. I guess that's why my dad didn't want me to date a Frenchman."

"Haruhi! That's mean!"

"Here's an excellent idea: why don't the three of you be in one relationship and spare us the drama?" Kyouya-san says cuttingly. "Excuse me while I go out to search for Kaoru."

"He'll be at Honey-san's," Hikaru volunteers helpfully.

Haruhi catches it now, that minute dimming of Kyouya-san's expression.

"You do get jealous!" Hikaru squawks with a distinct note of victory, then shrinks from Kyouya-san's withering glare.

Tamaki-san beams too. "Kyouya, mon ami, the best revenge is a life well led."

"You're incorrigible," Kyouya-san snorts. "Heaven only knows how they live with you, much less why they love you."

With that, he vanishes into the vermillion light of dusk.

.

20/06/2012

For those of you who wondered why these characters kept dancing around each other to no avail, this chapter is your answer: because, as in the canon Ouran work, Tamaki is the catalyst in their lives. Therefore he needed to be introduced and established in the shop before the action can happen – he causes the action. This may be an AU fic, but I have kept many elements of the original.