If that was how it was going to be, so be it. It would only make his choice easier, anyway. Kyoya exited the room, slamming the doors shut behind him.
He hardly remembered walking to his room, but he soon found himself staring at the TV in the living room area. I will never be in my room again.
Before he could stop himself, he yelled and threw a vase at the TV. The loud crash that followed was more than satisfying. He grabbed a decorative rock and threw it at the aquarium, which thankfully did not contain any fish at the moment because Tachibana had moved them to a fishbowl in another room so he could clean the tank. Like that would be necessary now. Kyoya then went on to break all the windows he could.
Fuyumi's voice suddenly came from the entrance to his room. "Kyoya, stop it! Don't do this to yourself." He froze and stared at the small marble statue he held in his quivering hands. Had I been shaking this whole time? Suddenly, the full extent of what had just happened hit him, and panic finally set in. I have been disowned! Fuyumi, what am I going to do now? What will my classmates think? It will be all over the news tomorrow. If not for my grades and my money, I would have been demoted to Class B or C. He hated how his thoughts were broken and simple, like those of a little elementary school student, but his mind would not stop panicking incoherently. Calm down. Calm down. Try to breathe normally. But he could not get himself to. His room seemed to start spinning, and his knees felt dangerously weak.
"Kyoya?" Fuyumi's face contorted with worry. His knees buckled and he crumpled to the ground. "KYOYA!" The last thing he remembered before he lost consciousness was his sister running to catch him.
When he woke up, he found himself in Haruhi's bedroom. He stared at a pair of warm, chocolate-brown doe eyes and a colder pair of onyx eyes, so much like his own, behind thin-framed glasses.
"Oh, he's awake!" Haruhi exclaimed as she exhaled in relief.
The other person remained silent, instead looking at Kyoya with a sharp, critical expression. Yuichi. Of course. Of Kyoya's two brothers, Yuichi had always been the fondest of him, even if the eldest Ootori son was not exactly a warm person. "How are you feeling, Kyoya?"
"What do you think?" Yuichi looked down at the floor.
"I see. I will call you later to check up with you, but seeing that your vitals are fine and that you have woken up, I will leave. Fujioka?"
"Thank you. I'll take care of him." The man nodded before heading out of the bedroom. Kyoya propped himself up against the headboard. He felt Haruhi sit down next to him.
"Kyoya…" As Haruhi tucked a strand of his surprisingly disheveled hair behind his ear, his eyes met hers. "You never do something half-assed, do you?"
He barely reacted to the bluntly worded question. "I guess not."
"Fuyumi brought all your clothes, books, your school bag, and small mementos that she thought you might want to keep with you. She also said that your new glasses had arrived soon after you left and that she packed them for you."
"She did?" His voice cracked slightly, and a small, understanding smile graced Haruhi's lips before she pressed them to his forehead.
"Yes, she did. Where are you planning to stay? Can you stay with your mother or something? Wait, if you're completely disowned, then..."
He felt his emotions get replaced by solid ice. "My mother? I haven't seen her in years."
"Really? I mean, I never saw your mother or even heard anything about her, but...Wait, I thought you said during the sports competition that both of your parents had been too busy to attend. I heard you tell Kaoru that."
A lie that was so easy to make up at that moment. "I actually haven't seen her since I was eight."
"But why?" Because my father sent her away after a suicide attempt.
"She is at a psychiatric hospital because she is suicidal. I don't like talking about her much, really." His voice was that of a stranger's. The numbness he felt grew as he recalled his last memory with his mother.
Eight-year old Kyoya walked into his mother's room to find her too pale and too still body lying on the floor, his brothers and sister huddling around it. The book about the stock market he had been carrying fell to the ground with an almost deafening thud. He felt that he should be crying or screaming, but nothing came out. His brothers, whom he was shocked to see were crying, immediately grabbed him and led him away.
"Mommy is going to be fine, okay? An ambulance is coming and will take her to one of our hospitals," Yuichi gently told him as if he was a three-year-old. This served to upset him further instead of comforting him.
"But what happened? Why is she...why is she unconscious?"
"She tried to off herself," Akito replied in a rather blasé voice, but the tears gleaming on his face betrayed his true feelings.
"Akito! He is just eight. We don't need him to know that much."
"He is a smart kid, Yuichi. He would somehow get the information from the doctors without anyone knowing, probably." Kyoya would have normally glowed at such praise, but now he felt no such happiness.
Kyoya watched as the oldest brother carefully wiped away his own tears. "Yuichi, why did she do such a thing? I thought she loved us."
Yuichi bent down before Kyoya and put his hands on Kyoya's shoulders. "Grown-ups are complicated. She loves us, but sometimes she doesn't feel quite right, you know? Sometimes the monsters in people's heads can get too much to take." Kyoya had not fully understood what Yuichi told him that day, but it did not take long for him to finally realize just how true that statement was.
"So that's why you have thanatophobia." She took his hands in hers. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to bring it up and make everything worse."
He shook his head as if trying to shake his thoughts out of his mind. "You don't have to be sorry, Haruhi. After all, I brought up your mother during the thunderstorm the other day." His voice cracked again. "I should leave. You were asking where I will stay? I'll live in an apartment or something until I have to go to Harvard."
"That sounds like a good idea, but why don't you spend the night with me? I don't want to let you leave my apartment right now, not when you got disowned by your father. Tamaki would probably be better at comforting you, but he's out with his mother. That's why you were brought here, anyway." Her head tilted slightly to the side as she looked at him with her large doe eyes. An entirely unaffected gesture. "I want to help you."
He suddenly lunged forward and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her flush against him as he buried his face in the crook of her neck. When he felt her arms tighten around him in return, he let go. He hardly made any sound as he sobbed. Only his slightly labored breathing and wet tears betrayed him. It felt so cathartic to at last break down and cry that when he started he could not stop. Her fingers ran soothingly through his hair, just like she had the other day when he had a migraine. The motion comforted him and, eventually — after what seemed like hours — he had no more tears left to shed.
It suddenly hit him how awkward it must have been for Haruhi to have someone crying on her. Neither of them were the comforting nor the emotional type. "Sorry, I just…"
"It's okay. I'd be worried if you didn't cry over this eventually. Feel better?"
Kyoya gave a small, shallow chuckle. When has she turned into a supportive caretaker? "I'll be fine, I think. It's just been quite a shock. I wanted to leave the Ootori Group but not the damn family itself."
"That's reassuring. Come on, let's get some sleep, okay? Unless you want to eat something first?"
"I'm not hungry." Haruhi nodded sympathetically before spreading her arms out wide.
"Come here. Whenever I felt stressed, Tamaki would insist on cuddling with me. Of course, if you don't want to..." Haruhi flushed a brilliant red. Kyoya, for some reason entirely beyond him, practically leaped into her embrace. "Mpfh. Kyo-" Her blush grew even more vivid.
Kyoya loosened his grip on her waist and rested his head on her chest. "Ich liebe dich, mein Engel."
"I'm not sure what that means, but goodnight, Kyoya." For the first time that day, he gave a small, true smile.
Ranka came in later that night and smiled when he saw the two sleeping, Haruhi's arms still wrapped around Kyoya.