Chapter 11

Kyoya could not pay attention in class. He hadn't slept at all the previous night and it showed. After lunch, his Physics teacher had even asked him if he was okay and if he wanted to go to the infirmary. He was tempted, but he knew if he went, they would call his parents, so he politely declined and toughed it out for the rest of the Friday afternoon. Now it was the last period of the day, English, and he just could not focus on the list of irregular verbs they were supposed to be practicing. He stared at the clock as his mind wandered. Twenty minutes left to go. An eternity.

He thought back to his sleepless night. Whiling away the early morning hours, he had thought to check his phone. There had been a dozen missed calls and twice as many text messages. His stomach kicked him when he saw that they were almost all from Tamaki, so he skipped over them and opened his email. There were two that caught his eye. One was an invitation to the Hitachiin party that very evening. It was nice of them to think of him, he thought before deleting it. The other was an unexpected note from Haruhi. She very politely asked him if he would be available after school to come to her house to help her with some schoolwork. The request was so surprising and intriguing that he typed out and sent a positive reply before he had actually thought about it. He wondered how Haruhi would take it if he told her that he was too tired to go to her house today. Perhaps she would be okay with postponing until tomorrow.

The bell rang and the room filled with the sound of scraping chairs and excited chatter. Slipping his books into his bag, he jumped when someone put their hand on his shoulder. He snapped his head around to find Tamaki standing beside him. They hadn't spoken all day. Tamaki hadn't even tried to get his attention during class, which Kyoya found odd. Now he was there smiling at him, but his eyes looked sad. Kyoya was about to ask him what was wrong, but Tamaki spoke first.

"I'm around this weekend. Call me, if you want," Tamaki gave his shoulder a squeeze. "Otherwise, have a good weekend, and I'll see you Monday. Okay?"

Kyoya blinked. "…Okay." He watched Tamaki leave the classroom chatting with some girls. He wasn't sure what Tamaki's reaction would be to him missing club time yesterday, but he never dreamed it would be this. It was a relief, yet also disconcerting. Further thoughts were interrupted by Haruhi knocking on the doorframe as she stepped into the classroom.

"Kyoya-senpai, are you ready to go? I really appreciate you coming to help me out today." She stopped when she saw his haggard face. "Are you okay?"

"Fine," he answered automatically. He sighed. "Actually, Haruhi, I don't think I can help you today." He saw her face fall with visible disappointment. He felt bad about letting her down. "Well, I mean…what is it exactly you need help with?"

Haruhi looked down at the floor and fidgeted with her hands as if embarrassed. "I…I was hoping you could help me with some math problems. There's big exam next week and I'm having some trouble with a few of the concepts. I need to do well on this test, or I might lose my first rank. If that happens, they'll take away my scholarship."

Kyoya raised his eyebrows in surprise. "You want me to tutor you? Honey-senpai is the most proficient in math. Why not ask him?"

Haruhi gave a short, harsh laugh. "I need someone who can stay on topic and not get distracted. This is really important to me."

Kyoya nodded his head in agreement with Haruhi's assessment. The other host club members could be distressingly unproductive sometimes. He stifled a yawn, then looked back up at Haruhi. She was looking at him with such earnestness that he just couldn't bring himself to put her off. Besides, it was only some math practise, nothing very strenuous. He picked up his bag and checked his watch.

"My car should be waiting at the front gate. Are you ready to go?"

Haruhi's face broke into a bright smile. For a moment Kyoya completely understood why Tamaki and the twins fawned over her.

The car ride over to Haruhi's apartment was quiet. One thing he always appreciated about Haruhi was her ability to be quiet. Other people always seemed to feel the need to fill the air with endless chatter. Haruhi on the other hand, was comfortable in silence. It was a trait they shared.

The car rolled up in front of the apartment building and the pair climbed out. He must have looked even sicker than he thought because Haruhi gently put her hand on his elbow and guided him up the stairs to the door of her second-floor apartment. Inside, Kyoya immediately set himself down cross-legged on the tatami mats.

"I'm going to make us some tea," said Haruhi going into the kitchen. "Did you want anything to eat? I have leftover soup that will only take a minute to reheat."

"No, thank you," he answered, pulling his notebook out of his bag. "Just tea is fine."

After fussing around in the kitchen for a few minutes, Haruhi brought the tea tray into the living room and set it on the low table in the center of the room. Sitting down across from Kyoya, she pulled out her own notebook and a page of math problems. Together they worked through five of the problems. Kyoya could tell right away that Haruhi wasn't having any trouble solving them. She asked him questions, but it was obvious that she already knew the answers.

"Haruhi, why am I here?"

"Senpai?"

"You clearly don't need my help with these math problems."

"Oh, you know, I just…" she shifted on the floor and plucked at an invisible thread on her sleeve. "It's just, I, we, the host club, haven't seen you around much lately. We really…" she gazed into the air to find the right words, "…notice your absence. The guys can be a lot to handle, so I thought maybe you'd like to hang out quietly. In case…in case you were maybe feeling…a bit isolated."

Kyoya set his pencil down and clasped his hands in his lap. She was right, he did miss them, but the thought of going on a weekend adventure with them, or even just doing regular Host Club activities, made his chest tighten. Now, here was Haruhi, confessing that they missed him too. He didn't know how to respond to such a gesture of friendship, so he said nothing. Haruhi looked down at her notebook and doodled a circle on the corner of the page. She didn't look up when she spoke.

"Sometimes when my life gets crazy, I like to do math problems. I have since I was a little kid. Math is so black and white. It's not open to opinion or interpretation. The answer is either right, or its wrong. Even when your answer is wrong, you can go back and find your mistake. I've always found that comforting because no other part of life is like that."

"You think all the stress in my life will be solved if I do more math problems?" Kyoya narrowed his eyes at her as she drew a second circle linked to the first. Haruhi continued as if she hadn't heard Kyoya's sarcastic remark.

"When my mother died, a lot of people told me that it was okay to be sad." She coloured in one of the circles, still not looking up. "They said that, yet my sadness really seemed to worry them. They'd bring me presents or take me for ice cream. Anything to try and make me happy. I learned not to show that I was sad, because I didn't want to make them sad."

Kyoya shifted uncomfortably. Of course, he knew that Haruhi's mother died when she was four. Everyone did, it wasn't a secret. She spoke quite openly about her mom, but always about her life, not her death.

"There was one person though, a friend of my dad, who didn't seem to care if I was sad or not." She stopped drawing on her book, but she still didn't look at Kyoya. Instead she turned to stare out the window. "Whenever my dad was too sad to get out of bed, which was often, he would come over with groceries and clean up the apartment. Unlike everyone else, he didn't treat me like I was made of glass, or talk to me in that weird pitying tone. He just talked and went about doing housework as if it was normal. He would tell me stories while he stood at the sink washing dishes. Stories about his life, places he had been. He had traveled a lot. China, India, America, all over. He once brought me photos to look at from his trip to Canada.

"Out of all the people who were around after my mother's death, I liked him the best. He never asked anything of me. Not to be happy, not to talk, not to go on living my life pretending as if nothing had changed. He was just there, talking to me, doing things that needed to be done, so that I didn't have to be alone. He taught me the importance of self-care. It's something that really helped me. It still helps me."

"Self-care?" scoffed Kyoya. "Isn't that the excuse middle aged women use to justify drinking red wine in the bathtub and eating too many chocolates?"

"I think there are people who use it like that," said Haruhi, pouring herself out another cup of tea. "And there's nothing wrong with bubble baths or wine if those are things you enjoy, but I define self-care differently. To me, it isn't something you do to escape from your life. It's the things you do to make your life better so that you won't need to escape from it. Self-care is hard work. It takes a lot of effort and willpower. For me, it's going to the grocery store even when I don't want to, so that I'll have food to take for lunch the next day. It's doing the dishes right after supper since I won't want to deal with them later. For other people it might be cooking supper instead of eating unhealthy fast food, completing school assignments to keep your grade up, or flossing your teeth every day even though you really don't want to. It's taking care of your future self. Being kind to them by not leaving problems for them to deal with."

Kyoya watched her sip her tea as he thought about the concept of 'future self'. "What happened to your dad's friend? The one the told you stories and cleaned your house?" he asked.

"He moved to Kobe a couple years ago to live with his boyfriend. He still sends me a Christmas card every year." Haruhi toyed with the teapot on the table, tracing the line of the handle with her finger. "I'm sorry, Senpai, I didn't mean to get into this sort of stuff, and please don't think I'm trying to give you advice. I just thought we could do some math problems together. That's all."

Kyoya sat for a long time gazing into his teacup while he contemplated what Haruhi had said. She had talked about a lot of different things in a short span and brought up several points he had never considered.

"I can't sleep," he said, still staring into his teacup. "And my stomach hurts all the time so I can barely eat."

Haruhi digested Kyoya's statement before replying. "Is it nightmares keeping you awake?"

"Mostly."

"Why haven't you told anyone?" Haruhi leaned over with the teapot and filled up his cup.

"Because it's stupid. I'm stupid. Freaking out over nothing. I'm turning into a crazy person and it's shameful."

"Stop it," snapped Haruhi. Kyoya looked up in surprise at her harsh tone. "Don't be mean to yourself. You wouldn't beat up on a sick child like that, so don't do it to yourself. Now, tell me again why you haven't told your family about your insomnia, and do it without beating yourself up."

They sat for a minute in silence, sipping their tea, before Kyoya started again. "Haruhi, do you know how many families make up the aristocracy in Japan?"

"No. How many?"

"About two hundred."

"That's not very many."

"No. It's not," said Kyoya. "It's a bit like living in a small village. Everyone knows everyone else. And everybody knows everyone's business. Once one person knows something, the whole community knows. It's impossible to keep a secret."

"You're afraid that other people are going to find out that you've been having stomach aches?" Haruhi looked bemused. "Is that something to be concerned about?"

Kyoya sighed and took off his glasses to rub his tired eyes. "Have you heard of the Nakamura family? They hold a large firm that deals in international shipping." Haruhi shook her head.

"Their youngest daughter was in the same class as my sister Fuyumi. Several years ago, Mrs. Nakamura had, what was politely called a 'manic episode.' Delusions, hallucinations, the works. It was a full-blown psychotic break and was apparently quite dramatic. It was talked about for some time afterwards. She was diagnosed with bi-polar disorder. The family tried to keep it quiet, so naturally everyone knows about it. Do you know where Mrs. Nakamura is now?" Haruhi shook her head again.

"At the family home. She never leaves that house. She hasn't been seen in public for nearly five years. Fuyumi, being a friend of the daughter's, was often at the home. She saw her once, sitting in the garden, staring into space, with a nurse supervising her. One presumes that in order to keep her from causing any more embarrassment to the family, they are keeping her heavily medicated and tucked away out of sight."

"What? That's horrible!" cried Haruhi.

"It's quite common amongst the upper class. You often see it with elderly family members when their minds start to go."

Haruhi reached across the table and put her hand on Kyoya's. "Your family would never do that to you. You wouldn't let them. We wouldn't let them."

Kyoya tried to think of something say. He started to open his mouth when Haruhi's phone started buzzing on the floor next to her. She glanced over and saw it was a text message from the twins. She flipped it open and furrowed her brow as she read the message.

"Is something wrong?" asked Kyoya.

"It just says, 'Show this to Kyoya,' and then there's a picture of some flowers." She handed the phone to him. It was a closeup photo of one of the twins, impossible to tell which one, making a face beside a beautiful flower arrangement. It had been adjusted slightly, but it was definitely the one that he had made with them the other day. Another photo came through. He was shocked to see that it was a wide shot showing his arrangement placed in the center of the mansion's main foyer, a prominent spot where it was sure to be seen by all the guests.

A message popped up. "Hope you don't mind, but we made a few small changes to your arrangement. It was 90% there already. Sometimes it only takes a small alteration for everything to fall into place. All it needed was a little outside perspective."

He felt light-headed and he sucked in a deep breath. He didn't know what to think. He was confused, flattered, and for some reason, deeply pleased.

"Are you okay?" asked Haruhi.

Kyoya gave her a half smile and handed back her phone. "Yes, I'm fine, thank you."

Haruhi looked at the message. "You made an Ikebana arrangement with the twins? I didn't know you knew how to do that. It's lovely."

"Yeah… I…," he didn't know what to say. He felt the muscles in his shoulders relax. He hadn't realized he had been so tense. The knot in his stomach seemed to untangle itself. He let out a sigh of relief. "Haruhi, thank you for inviting me over today. I know it's getting late, but unless you have other things you need to do this evening, I think I'd like to do some more math problems with you. And maybe… we could have some of that soup you mentioned earlier?"

"Yes, of course. I would love that." Haruhi beamed at him with delight. Kyoya felt his heart flutter and he couldn't help but break into a genuine smile, which, impossibly, made Haruhi's face even brighter.