Title: Invisible
Written by: WraithR249 & Yue Guang Kuroneko
Pairing: KyouyaxHaruhi
Rating: K (for now)

Invisible
By WraithR249
(and co-written by Yue Guang Kuroneko)

--

Haruhi bit her lip and scribbled down some notes after watching the professor demonstrate how to solve the complex series of problems for the second time.

She heard the twins snickering about something, but pushed her curiosity to the back of her mind. Getting involved in any of their annoying schemes usually meant trouble, and she had more than enough to deal with already.

A week had passed since she had discussed the problem with Kyouya, and she still wasn't sure how to approach her problem.

"Senpai. I wish to pursue a relationship with Ootori Kyouya. Please approve," she bowed.

His eyes bulged out of his head.

"A-A… A RELATIONSHIP? WITH MOTHER! HOW CAN THIS BE!" he screamed, proceeding to savagely shake the life out of her.

She shook her head. That would not do. Lord only knows how Tamaki was going to take it.

Resting her chin on her hand, she leaned against the desk and glanced over at the professor. He was going to solve the problem again. Since she was sure she understood it the second time, she allowed her mind to wander.

There's no way I can just tell Tamaki-senpai so simply, she thought hopelessly. He may be annoyingly vain and idiotic, but I'm sure it would devastate him.

Her imagined Tamaki going ballistic at her confession entered her mind once again.

He probably wouldn't be too happy about it being Kyouya either, she imagined his reaction upon finding out about him.

"A mother and her daughter cannot love each other that way! It's forbidden! And mother never shows any emotion towards anything! How can you love him!"

True, she thought, answering imagination-Tamaki.

"That is correct, Fujioka Haruhi. The statement is true, ladies and gentlemen. Fujioka, would you like to demonstrate to the class as to how you made such an excellent conclusion?"

Haruhi stared, dumbfounded. Did she really speak out loud?

She stood up slowly after being called on by the professor. She stared at the board for clues, but found that she didn't understand the problem after all. She should have paid attention to the demonstration instead of allowing her mind to idly land upon Tamaki and Kyouya.

"I… well… isn't it… obvious?" she stuttered lamely.

The professor stared at her for a moment, and then fortunately decided to agree.

"Yes, well, uh… If you have studied as much as Fujioka here, you can start to see the patterns in the problems, and can make a fairly educated guess at the solution."

"Ohhh, it seems Haruhi has been studying very hard lately," the twins snickered just loud enough for her to hear them.

Normally she would not be embarrassed, but normally she would not let herself be caught off guard like that either. She sat down, slowly, just as the bell rang. Everyone else got up and began to head to lunch.

"C-class dismissed," The professor said feebly to a stampede of first year boys and girls.

Sighing, Haruhi scolded herself for getting caught off guard. You're thinking too much, she repeated to herself as she stood and left with the others. Don't let it control your life.

Her feet stopped of their own accord when she saw him standing off to the side in plain sight. He pushed his glasses up his nose and pretended not to notice her, but she knew that he was there for her.

She walked up to him, swerving in between several students in her path.

"Kyouya-senpai," she breathed. "What are you doing here?"

He looked at her stonily. "I wanted to discuss matters with you."

She sighed impatiently. She hadn't progressed at all in her mission. If he was going to complain to her, then why wouldn't he do something about it?

"Why haven't you said anything to him?" Kyouya pressed, interrupting her thoughts.

Haruhi stared at his emotionless face, and tried to fight the anger welling up inside her.

She failed miserably.

"Why don't you do something about it if you're so concerned about what will happen to us?" she seethed through her teeth, aware that there were still students in the hallways. "I don't see why I'm the one who has to take care of everything!"

Kyouya stared at her blankly.

"Never mind, Kyouya-senpai; I don't want to be with someone that won't do anything, and will leave all the work for me. I think I deserve a little bit more than that." She whirled around to leave, but he grabbed her arm.

She turned to face him, and her fiery burning eyes met his frozen stare.

They stayed like that for a moment. Brown met with black, trying to decipher what the other was thinking, all the while, placing up icy and fiery walls to prevent the other from intruding.

"Is that all that's important to you, Ootori Kyouya?" she asked quietly.

"Meaning?" He did not waver.

"Money, power," she said, feeling the forced anger bubble in her throat as well as frustration. "Fancy clothes, shoes, cars, a big house, the most advanced technological gadgets that you can find? I pity you."

He remained silent.

"I always thought that you were well-versed in everything, but apparently you only specialize in material possessions."

She forced her arm from his grip and faced him.

"All of those possessions, those inventions, the technology… all of it is hurting you as much as it is helping you. You have no idea what kind of sacrifices are being made for you to have those things."

He began to speak but Haruhi cut him off. "Every time you use that laptop instead of writing, you increase the chance of Carpal Tunnel Syndrome greatly because the angle of typing is different than that of writing. Every time you put on those expensive shoes, you sensitize your feet."

"I know my anatomy," He growled icily, interrupting her. "The human foot is a configuration of twenty six bones. Thirty-three joints. One-hundred and seven ligaments. Nineteen muscles. The human foot would be torn apart without the use of shoes."

"Then can you have your doctors explain to you why half of all injuries in infants and children come from falling down? And why the majority of their falls occur in children wearing shoes?" she retorted.

His response was a soft, graceful scoff.

"Even those expensive chairs that you sit on and those large, ornamented doors, everything in this world that is a product of human ingenuity has downsides and none of them are ever just advantages."

"How can sitting in a chair hurt me?" he demanded, his anger seemingly uncontainable.

"You already know that the primitive chairs that were manufactured upon the chair's invention were crude and hurt the backs of the owners if they remained sitting for an extended period of time," she stated matter-of-factly.

"That was a long time ago, Haruhi. Perhaps commoners chairs have not developed—,"

"The more expensive chairs manufactured today cause Kyphosis," she interrupted. "It is a back condition in which there is an excessive outward curvature of the spine and is common in those who remain seated for long periods of time in even the most comfortable chairs. Your furniture retailer assured your comfort for years to come. Did he guarantee the same thing for your posture?"

Kyouya crossed his arms and said nothing more. Haruhi sighed. Perhaps this was his way of admitting defeat.

"These examples mean, senpai, that not everything is just advantages upon more advantages. Every new thing that you come across solves new problems… but goes on to create its own problems.

"The keyboard allows you to write faster, but it increases the risk of Carpal Tunnel, as I mentioned. In the sport of baseball, the technique that the pitcher uses to throw the ball has changed over the years. At this point in time, in order to maximize the speed, the pitcher throws the ball in a way that the ball can reach incredible speeds, but the sacrifice is that his technique is an unnatural motion of the arm that tears muscles in an irregular manner.

"What I am trying to say…" Haruhi paused slightly to look at the older boy, who wavered slightly (or was it just her imagination?) and made a face that she didn't quite understand.

"What I am trying to say is that you have no self-mastery," she said finally.

"Self-mastery?" He inquired with the lift of an elegant eyebrow.

"You keep using pieces of technology that you think make your life more convenient, but the dangers of that technology are far greater than the benefits that they create for you.

"Technology, invention, is all necessary in our society today," she continued, waved around at their surroundings.

"If technology is so necessary, then how can you say that I possess no self-mastery?" he shot back.

"Because self-mastery isn't abstaining from all inventions and contraptions available to us; it's about using the ones that we need, and seeing which ones hurt us more than they help."

"Doors are necessary, they keep people safe inside houses and they keep unwanted intruders out," she explained now, her eyes staring off slightly into the distance. "But imagine, without doors, there would be no rooms. And without rooms, would there be such a thing as claustrophobia? Closed confined places would still exist, but they would be so few and in between that claustrophobia would have little meaning.

"However, the benefits of this invention outweigh the downside that the door represents. In order to truly gauge whether an invention should be used, it is necessary to look through the benefits and the excitement of advancement… and to see what problems they could really produce.

"Kyouya-senpai; I'm tired of you treating me like a tool, an invention that is available for you to make your life better or more convenient."

--

Kyouya was stunned. Where did his plan go wrong? Was he missing something vital that Haruhi would be looking at him through eyes he could not read?

He looked at her, and then, in sudden revelation, he saw in her eyes a whirlwind of emotions. She was tired of dealing with this and she looked disappointed in him. Like he was not the man she wanted.

"Perhaps I would like to never see you again," she spoke again softly.

He stared at her statement. He had never felt this way in his life. These things were now out of his control, and he had no idea what to do next. He felt like a golden opportunity was passing right by him, and all he could do was watch.

She approached and stopped right in front of him. She looked up at him, and they gazed at each other for a long time. His heart wrenched involuntarily that it might be the last time that he would look at her like this.

She whispered something to him. "Prove to me that you have some self-mastery. Don't use anything other than yourself. Go tell him."

She continued walking past him, probably to her next class.

Kyouya turned around slowly, but she was gone. He pushed his glasses up his face and clenched his jaw. This was quite an interesting game.

He wasn't ready to lose yet. He was going to accept her change and regain his advantage. Ootori Kyouya was not going to be beaten down, he can't be.

--

Authors' Notes:

-WraithR269: The facts about the foot were taken from Edward Tenner's Our Own Devices, which is a book about invention and technology and how it has pros and cons. The theory is not stated but totally implied and this is how I took it.

But think about it for a second. Are so many damn things necessary in the world? Did you know that it is scientifically proven that babies that are breast fed get higher grades on tests than babies fed by bottles? And by that I mean when these babies grow up, those that were fed by breast milk will score higher tests than babies that were fed by bottles.

What the hell? What the hell is that? Apparently it's like antibodies or something and like it improves relationship with the mother when the kid grows up… it's so…

I could go on. Some people probably find it interesting. Some people probably thought this chapter was boring as sh--.

Review what you thought of the chapter and the theory and if you want me to put an A/N discussing anything in particular that you want to know about this kind of stuff.

Or if you just liked seeing Kyouya get smashed and are ready to see him man up.

-Yue Guang Kuroneko: I'm assuming the next chapter is going to be more interesting, since Kyouya just got rejected by Haruhi (although that was a turn of events o.O) and let's see…I did a huge edit on this, so hopefully I didn't take out anything too vital. -sweatdrop- I'm so sorry, Wraith-san! -gets down on knees and begs for forgiveness- I hope everyone enjoyed Haruhi's anger. Serves Kyouya right. -enter rabid kyouxharu fangirl- NOW GO GET HER, KYOUYAAA! -waves flag-