Chapter 1

So hi. This is September. So, there's a few eventual pairings: Kyoya and Haru, and Hani and Mori. I won't tell you the other. :) haha. And warning, Haru swears like once. She's the only who does that, go figure. Enjoy!

Kyoya POV throughout

My eyes drooped terribly. Exhaustion was a great weight on my shoulders. The computer screen blurred for a moment and my fingers went slack on the keys. Many teachers agreed I worked far too hard, but I could never believe them. I had to be competent, and this was the only way.

Shaking myself awake, I proceeded to my first duty: diagnosis of patients. Several were easy, based entirely on doctors' notes, and I entered them into the computer. I'd memorized certain systems, patterns, that would make me intelligent on the matter of my family's hospitals. Because of this, I was convinced all our doctors were imbeciles. A child could do the job more adequately. Emails were then sent out to insurance companies explaining a few recent deaths. I analyzed a few voicemails about my marriage meetings, and deleted them from the database later on. The finances were my next stop. I'd taken it upon myself to do all the important jobs, because I didn't trust anyone not to screw up.

"Kyoya!" someone called from outside the control room. I quickly closed the site used for our finances, in the middle of my work, and pasted a jovial smile on my face.

"What do you need?" I asked. My father walked in and examined my position.

"I am just passing on word from your sister to go eat something," he said dubiously.

I nodded, but I really didn't plan on eating yet. This seemed to satisfy Father, and he left after casting a strange look my direction. Dropping my smile, I turned back to the computer.

I told myself to keep editing the accounts of my various family members, to make sure I stayed awake. Sadly, I was fading fast, fighting a losing battle. I continued for a couple of seconds, but then my body shut down.

Dreams reached me for the first time in a while, mostly because I hadn't slept in a while. A beautiful, long-haired girl whispered my name over and over, stroking my arm. Hadn't I told them all I didn't want to marry? Yet another female stood before me, thinking my money was the perfect thing to display. But this girl didn't want my wealth.

"Kyoya?" she asked angrily.

"Yes?"

"Think about something besides your stupid wealth and how the world is full of idiots! Look around! We exist, and you need to get off your sorry ass and find us." Her dark eyes were unyielding. "Damn rich boys. I have to show them what life is like without..." She trailed off. Everything shimmered around her, and I wanted to defend myself, but I couldn't.

"Don't expect anything to go the way you want it to. You might end up being brought back down to Earth," the girl finished. As she began to walk away, I drifted into a rude awakening.

Shouting echoed around me. I had a sensation of lying on the floor. When did I end up there?

"How can our accounts be frozen?!" someone yelled. I sat bolt upright, praying that my theory was not true, that something else had happened. No one saw me on the ground, but I waited until the people, I sensed about five of them, were gone to their business of worry and fussing to check the computer.

I pulled up the site used for the family finances after getting into a proper chair. Username, I typed. Password. Enter. The screen turned black. I tried pressing Escape, but nothing happened. Ten seconds passed, and my mind raced all throughout. Suddenly, a message in bold font came up in front of me.

"Only the person who deactivated the Otori account can reactivate it," I read aloud. I put my head in my hands. Apparently, my exhaustion had a consequence. I must have hit some keys when I was sleeping. I did this. I failed. All of our money could not be accessed. We were as good as bankrupt.

The next day, my father called my brothers and sister and I to a meeting. "I'm sure you've heard," he began, "that a criminal has hacked and frozen our assets. Until this complication is fixed, you will have to find other sources of cash. Kyoya," he gestures to me, "I will have to pull you out of high school. It costs too much right now. You'll have to go to a public school for the time being."

I nodded assent. My father looked relieved, as if he expected me to throw a fit. "Good," he said. "You will start tomorrow. We'll find out who did this and put them in their place, do not worry, my son."

I laughed bitterly, but I don't think he heard or understood. "I will complete my duties at whatever school you think is best. At your leave," I finished, extending my hand elegantly toward the door. All my siblings filed from the room, but my father stayed a minute more.

"Kyoya," he said after a moment. "Take care of yourself better. You look thin, and there are dark shadows under your eyes." So even Father noticed. It didn't give me any motivation to do so, however. I made myself look more like the obedient son I tried to be and told him I would. He could believe in that blatant lie, but I had work to do.

As soon as I entered my bedroom again, I pulled out my laptop from its case. Line after line of code spilled from my fingers into the desktop, driven by me, who experienced another sleepless night. I would have a few of those in the near future.

Morning came too quickly. I'd made absolutely no progress hacking into Yoshikawa Bank's website: the firewalls they'd put up were very difficult for me get over. But I couldn't stop; I could not fail. So I zipped my laptop back into its case and headed to the car that would take me to school.

I was unused to commoners' school uniform, but I hoped I was nondescript enough to not make a fool out of myself. I had looked in a decorative mirror on my way outside, and probably the reaction I would get was being a bit plain. For once I prayed the business with our finances would be cleared up soon. But then I chastised myself. Why would Kyoya Otori ever need to pray?

The first thing I thought when I saw the public school included wondering how so many students could fit in so small of a building. There were hundreds of them, popping up in every place you'd expect them not to be. The halls had dirt covering them, and the overpowering odor of perfume and plastic was everywhere.

I walked to the office with my shoulders hunched, and dark hair positioned over my eyes. It wouldn't profit me to draw too much attention. "I am the new student," I said once in the office. The woman I was speaking to nodded and rummaged around in a desk drawer, looking for my schedule. When she found it, she placed it in my waiting hands, and I left to find Room 2A.

Room 2A was upstairs, on the second floor. Every floor had ten classrooms, with thirty students per class. Classes were arranged by rankings according to grades in the year. Because of my grades earlier, I was put into the top class. I gazed out the window on the second floor. The sky was gray and dull, and below me were the congested streets of Tokyo. I didn't belong there, not a single part of me.

People stared at me when I entered 2A. The teacher, a dyed blonde female, paused in her lesson to tell the class, "We have a new student. Please make him feel welcome." She turned to me. "What is your name?"

"Kyo Shinohara," I replied quietly. "Please take care of me."

All the girls and half the boys squealed quite loudly. I didn't understand why they were excited, so I decided to ignore it. "There is an empty seat behind Fujioka-san," the teacher finished. Almost immediately a great multitude of the students began to glare at me. were commoners' emotions so volatile? I strolled to the back of the room, where a pretty girl whose features I couldn't see well raised her hand. Gracefully, I sat behind her, focusing my utmost on the English lesson.

As the day went on, I started hacking again. the problem was that with every line of code I typed, another part of Yoshikawa's firewall activated. None of my fellow classmates seemed to want to speak to me, which was a comfort, except one boy. He was naturally blonde, with a cheerful, energetic disposition who told me his name was Tamaki Suoh. I wondered why he was so flamboyant and friendly; perhaps it was the sugary commoners' food. Tamaki noticed my distress and asked me repeatedly about it, but I wouldn't say a single word on the subject.

"You need to stop with the computer," Tamaki whined.

"Why do you care?" I asked, not tearing my eyes from the screen. He reacted ridiculously, curling into a ball in the corner of the room and growing mushrooms.

"He does that if he feels abandoned or insulted," a voice remarked. I looked behind me and saw the figure of the girl I sat near. her features, now that I could see them, were vaguely familiar, and reasonably pretty, but something was disconcerting about her.

"My name is Haruhi Fujioka," she said, extending her thin, callused hand. I shook it, and Haruhi took the opportunity to gaze into my eyes. What she saw in them made her expression harden. she pulled away from me, making sure no one was watching. I was confused, and became more so when she suddenly yanked me to her chest. For some reason, I got rather flustered, probably because she was soft and warm and smelled like flowers, and shut up, Kyoya, shut up. Haurhi's lips brushed my ear as she said, "I know what you are, my little rich boy."

I moved her chin so we were face to face. She was expecting me to be arrogant, and I would fulfill her expectations. "And only I know what tools I have at my disposal," I said softly, wrapping a piece of her long hair around my index finger. I hoped she would not see through my bravado.

The end! Not really. Kyo isn't related to En, Ten, An, Ken, Ran, Rin, or Shinnosuke. Smiley faces to any and all who got that reference! :) Sorry for the passive voice. I'll try to fix it next time. Kyoya is a bit out of character. Feeling flustered isn't his thing, but for the purpose of this romance fanfic, our smart little rich boy needs to get a bit flustered. I really do think Kyoya works too much. See y'all next time!