Chapter 12

Kyoya tossed his school bag onto the couch as he walked into his bedroom. He flopped down beside the bag, put his feet up on the coffee table and stretched. It had been a long day, yet he was feeling more energized than he had all week. It was probably the soup he had at Haruhi's. It was the first full meal he'd eaten in days, and his stomach had only mildly protested. He hadn't known that leftover food could be saved and eaten again later. Commoners' ingenuity and thrift was something to be marveled at.

He picked up the television remote from the couch cushion beside him. Pointing it at the screen, he paused. Haruhi's words from the that afternoon ran through his head. Self-care is what you do to make your life better, and to help your future self. Spending night after night staring at the TV was not helping him sleep. He needed to do something else if he was ever going to beat the nightmares that were keeping him awake. So far, only one thing had worked consistently.

He sighed as he looked across the room to where his running shoes were lying outside his open closet. It had been a long day and he was tired. The last thing he wanted to do was run, but he knew that if he didn't it would be yet another night of bad late-night TV and existential dread. This is what Haruhi had been talking about when she said that self-care took effort and willpower. Tossing the TV remote aside, he pulled himself off the couch and went to his closet to change.

Outside, the springtime air was chilling as the sun sank lower in the sky. Kyoya shivered in his t-shirt and chaffed his arms as he walked down the long driveway to the front gate. By now his security team knew the drill and didn't bother following him. Reaching the usual starting point, he checked his watch and started off at the slow, steady pace he had run with Mori. Soon he was breathing hard, but his muscles felt good as they stretched and worked. His body warmed and he started to sweat. Around him the setting sun was turning the world pink and gold. The only sounds were his breathing, the pounding of his feet, and wind rustling through the trees. The freshness of the air, the colours of the garden, the soft sounds; it all combined to fill him with an incredible tranquility. He wondered why he hadn't taken up running ages ago.

He rounded the last corner on the final lap and gave himself an extra push to take him back to the gate. Crossing the invisible finish line, he checked his watch. 37:47. A vast improvement. He smiled. He had only taken four walking breaks and he was pleased with himself. Taking out his phone he texted the time to Mori while walking back to the house. He received a thumbs up in reply.

Entering the house, he went through the family study into the library. He needed a new book to read. One that would help put him to sleep. The fiction section of the family library wasn't big, but it had several classic titles that might do. Kyoya ran his finger along the row of spines. The Tale of Genji, Great Expectations, The Pillow Book. Most of these did not stir his fancy, but he supposed that was the point.

"Well, look who crawled out of his den. The recluse himself."

Kyoya turned to see his brother come into the room. "Hello, Akito," he said flatly as he turned back to the bookshelf.

"We didn't see you at dinner. Again."

"I ate at my friend Haruhi's house."

Akito perched himself on the arm of one of the reading chairs and crossed his arms. "Haruhi is that scholarship student that your group adopted, right?"

Kyoya gave a non-committal grunt in reply.

"Anyway, I came in here to tell you that you need to call Fuyumi."

Surprised, Kyoya turned to look at Akito. "Fuyumi? Why?"

Akito rolled his eyes. "Because apparently you never answer your phone. She's left you half a dozen messages, but you never call her back. Now she's calling me because she's worried, and honestly, I have better things to do than be your answering service. Why haven't you called her?"

Ashamed, he turned back to stare at the books. "I forgot," he lied.

"Kyoya," Akito's voice was concerned. "Does Fuyumi have a reason to be worried?"

"What do you mean?"

"Fuyumi told me that you looked awful the last time she saw you. Are you sick? I know you stayed home on Tuesday, but you still look tired."

"I just finished a 5k run. Of course I look tired."

"Yeah, what is with this running thing all of a sudden?"

Kyoya shrugged. "My senpai got me into it. It's…uplifting."

Akito gave his brother a hard, examining look. "Kyoya, are you sure you're okay?"

Kyoya clenched his jaw and stared at the books on the shelf. "I'm fine. I'm…." A tiny voice in his head was whispering at him to tell his brother. He was almost a doctor, maybe he could help. But he knew that if he told Akito anything, he would go running straight to their father. Perhaps there was a way to get some advice discreetly. "I…have a friend… who has a problem."

Akito leaned forward. "Is it Suoh?"

Kyoya looked over in surprise. "What? Tamaki? No." He needed to obscure things further. He didn't want his brother getting too close to the truth. "It's actually a girl I know. At school."

Akito sat back. He had never heard his brother mention any girls before. "And what's this girl's problem?"

Kyoya didn't know how to start. He decided it would be best to start vague. "Something happened after school one day. Something bad. Now she's worried all the time. Scared. She gets sick. She's afraid to tell her family about it, because—"

Kyoya was cut off by his brother jumping up from his perch on the chair. "Oh my god, Kyoya, you didn't!"

"What?" Bewildered, Kyoya took a step back as Akito rushed up to him and grabbed him by the shoulders.

"Kyoya," Akito brought his face close and looked his brother straight in the eyes. "Are you trying to tell me that you got a girl pregnant?"

Kyoya was so shocked by the question that all he could do was stare in stunned confusion.

"Didn't you use protection? Kyoya, how could you be so careless? Father is going to have a fit when he finds out." Akito started to shake him as he expressed his distress.

Managing to find his voice, Kyoya pushed his brother off. "No! That's not it. I didn't!"

Akito stepped back and put up his hands in a gesture of surrender. "It's okay. I'm sorry. I'm not angry, I'm just surprised. It's going to be okay. We'll take care of your girlfriend. I'll tell Father and—"

"Akito, stop! Nobody is pregnant! I've never even…" Kyoya's cheeks burned with embarrassment.

"Ah, geez, I'm sorry, Kyoya." Akito stepped up again and put a hand on his shoulder. "It's just with what you said…I'm sorry for getting ahead of myself. This girl you talked about, is she your girlfriend?"

Kyoya was inwardly cringing with humiliation and awkwardness. "I don't have a girlfriend."

"Is that the problem? You want to help this girl because you like her?"

Kyoya let out a frustrated groan and ran both his hand through his hair. It was impossible to explain anything when Akito kept jumping to conclusions without listening to what he was trying to tell him.

To Akito's credit, he seemed to realize that he wasn't helping. "Maybe you should call Fuyumi about this. She might be better at dealing with girl problems."

Letting out a sigh, Kyoya nodded in agreement. "I will call her tomorrow." Grabbing a random book from the shelf he left his brother standing awkwardly in the library and rushed up to his room before he could run into any more well-meaning family members.

"Well? Did you show him the picture?"

"Yeah, what did he say? Did he like it?"

The twins sat on Hikaru's bed with their phone on speaker between them. It was late and downstairs the party was winding down as guests filtered out to their waiting cars.

"I showed it to him. He didn't say anything about it, but he seemed pleased." Haruhi, dressed in baggy sleepwear, sat cross legged on top of her futon. "When we first got here, he looked like death warmed over. I was afraid he was going to collapse coming up the stairs. But after he saw the pictures you sent of the flowers, he perked up a lot."

The brothers gave each other a high five then turned back to the phone. "What did you guys end up doing all afternoon?" asked Kaoru.

"Not much," she answered. "Just studied mostly, but we did talk quite a bit."

"Really? The Shadow King talked to you?" asked Hikaru. "Did he tell you what the hell his problem is?"

"Not really. He admitted to not being able to sleep because of nightmares, which we kind of knew already, and that he hasn't been eating because of stomach aches, which I didn't know but I can't say that I'm surprised."

"Yeah, but did he explain why he's having the nightmares and stomach aches?" asked Kaoru.

"No, because he's got some crazy idea in his head about what his family will do if they find out. He told me a story about some lady named Nakamura."

"Oh, sure," said Hikaru. "Mrs. Nakamura flipped out a couple of years ago. Went totally nuts-o."

"You know about that?" asked Haruhi.

"Of course," answer Kaoru. "Everybody knows about that."

"Yeah, well, he thinks that if his family finds out that he's, well, you know… That they're going to pump him full of sedatives and keep him locked up in the house, just like that Nakamura lady. I mean, that's ridiculous, right? His family are doctors. They would never do something like that." Haruhi waited to hear the twins reply of agreement, but instead there was silence. "Guys? Kyoya's family wouldn't do that, right?"

"Ummm…well…actually…"

"He may have a legitimate concern there."

Haruhi's brow furrowed in a worried frown. "Are you joking? 'Causes it's not very funny!"

"We're not joking," said Kaoru. "Although, I don't think they'd lock him in the house. Probably, they'd send him away to a facility."

"A facility? Like an institution?" Haruhi couldn't believe what she was hearing.

"Sort of," said Hikaru. "They call them Recovery Resorts. Most are for addiction treatment, but some of them specialize in mental illness and disorders. He'd likely end up at one of them. There's a nice one on Ishigaki Island that is quite popular."

Haruhi was stunned. Was this how rich people dealt with problems? By sending them away and sweeping them under the rug, as it were? "But what if Kyoya doesn't want to go?"

"Have you ever known Kyoya to do anything that wasn't of benefit to his family?" scoffed Hikaru. "At best he does things that are neutral – neither helpful nor harmful to his family. Like the Host Club."

"Yeah, he would never openly defy this family's wishes," added Kaoru. "If they want to send him away for treatment, then he'll go."

"But…" Haruhi's thoughts raced and she found herself clutching the duvet on her futon with white knuckles. "But what about us? We're his friends. The people there, they won't know him, they won't understand what he's like. How is he supposed to get better surrounded by strangers who won't be able to see what he's really like deep down?"

"It's true," said Kaoru, "Beneath that cunning, shrewd shell is a daring and loyal person."

"Whatever," said Hikaru "Inside that daring and loyal person is a cold and black heart."

"Yeah okay, but it's sort of a shiny black," replied Kaoru.

Hikaru nodded. "Okay, sure, I'll agree with that."

"Guys! This is serious!"

"Haruhi," said Hikaru. "Have you considered that maybe spending some time in a place with trained medical professionals is exactly what Kyoya needs?"

"These are people who will know exactly how to help him," added Kaoru. "They'd be able to give him what he needs to get better. We're just a bunch of high school students. What can we really do for him?"

"But…" Haruhi felt a pang of sadness settle in her chest. The twins were right, of course. Kyoya needed more help than they could give him. "But he shouldn't have to go if he doesn't want to."

"That's between him and his family."

Haruhi hung her head. "It won't be the same without him."