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Chapter 15
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Graduation
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Yuuki pulled her graduation gown on; it was light blue like the boy's uniform and thankfully not the hideous yellow of the girls. Her cap tassel was highly annoying; it kept waving like an idiot in front of her face.
"Stop trying to kill the hat." Kyoya was standing at her doorway, looking perfect as per usual. Girls would kill for that sort of luck, or genetics for that matter.
The girl turned to look at him, swiftly building a barrier between them. "I was arranging. People do that."
"I didn't do that."
"Exactly." She questioned his humanity.
Yuuki walked past him, twisting her body so they wouldn't touch. She was still furious, Kyoya hadn't even apologised. He wasn't sorry, he wished he could have done it another way, but he had got his original prize on the way. He had what he wanted.
Even so, he had planed two outcomes and, quite frankly, prefer the other to what he got. "Yuuki, you can't treat me like this forever." He followed her through to the front door. "We're graduating, can't you truce me for the day?"
"You should have thought of that before stabbing me in the back." She opened the car door and slid inside, closing it in his face.
Kyoya opened it again and got in. She had done that every morning since their argument and would have every afternoon if she hadn't invested in her own driver. "Would you forgive me then?"
Yuuki sighed. "I have Kyoya. I can still be mad at you though. And you actually need to be sorry." She pulled her cap off, frustrated with it.
A few minutes passed. "What are you doing after graduation?" He asked, hoping to ease the tension.
"Going to the formal, like you."
"I didn't mean tonight."
"I know." Yuuki put her elbow on the window ledge and rested her hand in her face.
Kyoya pushed his glasses up and stared straight ahead. He was losing her, fast. He hadn't lost anything in his life. Maybe he had already lost her, he didn't know.
"Yuuki, I'm sorry."
"No, you're not." She replied, no malice in her voice. It was a soft, truthful statement.
"I'm not sorry for what I did. I'm sorry I hurt you."
"People hurt me all the time Kyoya. It's not like you're doing it was anything special, you just took my father's company into liquidation too. Guess that puts you a cut above the rest."
"I didn't liquidate his company."
"Whatever you did, people just don't do that in secret, especially if they are the boyfriend of the daughter." Pause. "Ex-daughter...and they don't ensure that big fat EX in front of the familial title either."
"You said boyfriend as in present."
"It was present at the time of the incident." The car stopped and she opened the door. "I'm sorry Kyoya, I can't be used anymore. I can't be betrayed by the people I love again."
He caught the door as she closed it. "How will you make sure that that doesn't happen?"
"I'll keep my wall's up." She replied, flatly as she pulled her cap back on.
Yuuki pulled the tassel to the side, where it was supposed to sit, but it slid back in her face. Kyoya took it in his fingers, twisted it once and rested the bent fabric over the edge of the cap. It stayed in place.
She hated it when he did that. When he got close to her again. It was like things were what they had been. Like they hadn't been devastated by human pride, greed and a search for merit.
"Thank you." Yuuki said softly.
Kyoya nodded once, pushed his glasses up and began the walk to the field where the ceremony would take place. They were graduating in pieces. Promises had been broken and the future was uncertain. He didn't know that her flight left the next morning.
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Yuuki received honours for social and political science and came second in English and German, just after the third Ootori. She smiled for the newspaper with him, but it never reached her eyes. Kyoya put his Host act on and laughed, grinned and joked with those around him, pressing for the praise of others, creating foundations of merit for future allies.
Tamaki made a long, valiant speech about honour, friendship and the power of love. The girls listened intently and the boys tried to look dignified beside the fan girls. Yuuki smiled the whole way through the speech, it was very Tamaki. Light, didn't make much sense, but made everyone happy anyway. She would miss that.
"Don't cry because it's over." He concluded. "Smile because it happened."
Yuuki clapped with the others, smiling. It was over. It was all over. Her school life was over; she could finally pursue what she wanted to, what she was good at. The graduation was about to conclude when a familiar face took the stand. It was Kyoya's father.
"I'm sorry to keep you for a moment longer." He wasn't. "I just wanted to take the opportunity to announce the heir to the Ootori group." There was a thick silence, the media was at the event in order to cover one of Japan's most prestigious schools, it was a perfect stage to insert an economic twist.
Mr Ootori continued in his hard voice. "I have been thinking about it a long time. Giving the third son the group was not ideal, seeing as his age would slow the handover. But, it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make."
Yuuki turned in her seat, as did the half the congregation. They were alphabetised and 'O' was in the middle. Kyoya was smiling coyly, pleased but trying not to be an egoist about it. Then the cheering started and for the rest of the day, very few could actually get close enough to the heir in order to pass on their congratulations.
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Yuuki soon found herself in the third music room with the host club. Haruhi, Hikaru and Kouru were in uniform and everyone else was in causal, graduation gowns put away.
"Well, that's it." Haruhi stared at her feet with a soft smile. "What happens to us now?"
"The host club will continue! We cannot forsake our princesses while there are still hosts in the school. Duties shall be carried out until you graduate as well." Tamaki stood and stared out the window, victorious with his short burst.
"Yes." Kyoya's calculating voice broke into the conversation. "We will continue for one more year."
"Just to make some more profit? Get some more practice?" Yuuki said, she was sitting on the window sill, staring at the empty stand below. It seemed eerie, those who had walked across it would never walk as school students again. They were gone. Vanished from rolls, lists, detention halls...all that was left were marks in textbooks and engravings in desks. Ghosts of the past.
Kyoya didn't reply to her statement, he just stared at the girl as she lifted one of her legs in order to rest her elbow on it. The other hung over the edge of the sill and touched the floor with its tip. She didn't turn to him. Haruhi knew that with the other students, she would vanish to.
Hunny climbed up Tamaki. "One more year of Host club? What a good idea!" He smiled widely. "We can entertain the cute ladies for a little bit longer."
Tamaki laughed. "Yes, yes we can."
Yuuki ran her hand around the back of her neck. The necklace hidden below her shirt got caught in her nail and lifted out, into the open. She fingered it, staring at it without letting the emotion she was feeling play to her face.
Kyoya hated that. He hated not being able to know what she was thinking. He hated that he had handed her the brick and mortar to build up her walls thicker and higher than they ever had been. He had just won the world, but lost the treasures within it.
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The formal
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Yuuki went on her own. She spent the afternoon in a hairdresser's salon with a make-up artist buzzing around her. This was her final goodbye and she would do it right. She didn't head back to the Ootori estate to dress; instead she went back to the school and locked herself in the third music room for the last time.
Her dress for the evening was white with deep silver trimming. Strapless, ethereal, sophisticated. The girl's dark hair and eyes contrasted dramatically against the fabric and her skin. Both were decorated lightly with soft whites and silvers with a touch of midnight blue. Yuuki heard the music start below as people started arriving. The orchestra had started. She slid her shoes on and clipped a bracelet in place. The gold necklace somehow fit with everything she wore, even if it was the opposite colour to everything else.
The door opened and a figure slipped inside. It was Haruhi, dressed in a tux. "I thought I would find you here." She smiled.
Yuuki smiled back. "I thought I would say goodbye to this place first."
"You don't have to go. You know everyone here loves you. We're your family."
"I know." She tapped her nails on the windowsill. "I know..."
"Don't leave Yuuki."
"You'll see me again."
"On television."
"I'll come back."
"Really?"
Yuuki ignored the other girl's tone. "Let's go to the party."
Haruhi nodded and opened the door, being a gentleman and letting Yuuki out first.
The party was grand. Lots of colours, lots of girls dressed to perfection, lots of boys noticing the fact.
Yuuki placed herself amongst her friends from class, laughing as they re-told stories of high-school antics and being nostalgic over its end.
"It's not over yet." A familiar voice called from behind her.
Yuuki didn't need to look to know it was Tamaki. The girl standing across from her almost fainted. Turning, she noticed he was extending a hand to her.
"Dance with me, one last time." He offered.
The girl took his hand. "Sure." She smiled, liking Tamaki. She would miss him.
He waltzed her around the room, smiling and bestowing his affection upon her, it was as if he knew this was really the last dance.
"Yuuki?" The blonde asked, spinning her under his arm.
"Yes?"
"How do you know someone loves you?" He stared across the room at Haruhi.
"I wouldn't know." She replied. "I could guess, but I don't think I've ever experienced true love, just a play of it."
"That's a little harsh."
Yuuki paused. "What do you think it is, how do you know someone loves you?"
"How do you really know he loves you? When you scream and he's calm. When you hit him and he kisses you. When you cry and he cries to. When you tell him you hate him and he tells you he loves you."
"Sounds like you knew the answer all along." She raised an eyebrow at him.
Tamaki smiled coyly. "He might have finally got what he wanted; he finally has a good thing, what he always strove for. But he's still hunting for more, looking for something better. Yet...I'm sure there is something he wants back."
"You can't change the past Tamaki. There is no refund policy on life."
"How about exchange?" Tamaki spun her under his arm again but let go.
Yuuki lost her bearings for a minute, seeing the orchestra one second and then parts of the room she hadn't noticed the next. A hand filled hers as her partner took her back.
"Don't do that." She hissed lightly. "I'm navigationally challenged."
"And you can't drive." The voice was different.
Yuuki saw Tamaki offering another girl a dance as her new partner circled her. She stopped dancing, knowing what had happened. Host club antics. Kyoya kept her hand firmly in his, lifted in waltz position, his other arm around her waist.
"What?" He looked at her.
Yuuki didn't want this; she didn't want him close like that. He smelled the same. He was the same. She used the hand not in his to unwrap Kyoya's arm and then stepped away, ducking her head as she said a soft apology and retreated. Tears stinging at her eyes. The girl couldn't handle that sort of confusion, she still loved him – she had kept the necklace, but she was too far gone.
Yuuki found the balcony and remembered it covered in snow and ice. She remembered slipping on it and getting kissed for the first time. Her dance partner had followed her directly this time.
"Yuuki, what's wrong?" He could never stand not knowing.
"I think you know perfectly well." She replied, not wanting to be hard but knowing she would never fully escape him if she wasn't.
"Yuuki..."
"Don't." The girl face him, her voice climbing, trying not to yell but not knowing what else to do. "Please, Kyoya, I don't need you to make this harder than it is. So just..." She put a finger to her temple before clenching it into her fist. "Stop it."
He stood, calm. Kyoya stepped closer to Yuuki and extended his hand to hers. She slapped it away. As she did, he turned and caught her fingers, catching her force but captivating her hand. He lifted it to his mouth and kissed it softly.
"Don't..." Yuuki's voice broke as she pulled her hand away. She didn't even think about her mascara as a few tears slipped out. "Kyoya...please..."
The girl couldn't tell, but she thought she caught the glimmer of the moon on a wet diamond, falling down his face.
Yuuki had to separate herself from him. The girl had bound herself to Kyoya and knew it would hurt them both to be severed apart.
"Why?" He asked calmly.
"I can't do this Kyoya." She said back.
"I didn't mean to hurt you. I hate what I did to you."
"Well I hate you for doing it. I hate what you are, Kyoya." Yuuki tore herself apart; it was the blackest blasphemy to say she hated the man she loved.
Kyoya closed his eyes in the dark. "I don't hate you. Quite the opposite. Yuuki, I never expected to fall in love with you, but I did."
He had taken his walls down again. Ripped himself open to her in a way that couldn't be an act. The part of their relationship that couldn't have been manipulated for capitalist merit. Yuuki put another layer of bricks around her heart and raised her hand over her mouth. She was shaking.
Kyoya took his jacket off and put it on her shoulders before she could object. "I'm scared. I don't want anyone else to kiss you. I don't want anyone else to hold you. I don't want you to love anyone else. I'm scared because, I don't want anyone to take my place."
"Kyoya, don't." She pleaded. Stop tying yourself back to me. Stop knitting it together. This moment would hurt and scar her forever. "Don't! Leave me alone!"
Yuuki pulled his jacket off and let it melt to the ground and fall into a puddle of unforgotten memories as she tore herself away. She pushed him from her, pausing with her hand on the centre of his chest, memorising the beat under his skin for the last time. Remembering his smell and his taste as she did so.
Suddenly, she ripped her hand away as if it burned before turning and disappearing swiftly into the night. Leaving traces of silver and white in her wake. She had to leave.
Now.
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Yuuki stood at the entrance to Ouran High School, barefoot with her shoes in her one hand, her phone in the other, fighting to breath evenly. This was not how she had planned her goodbyes. She didn't even get to say goodbye to Hunny, Mori and the twins. She didn't know if they would understand. But she had to leave. She couldn't stay a moment longer. It hurt her too much. A set of headlights illuminated her dress and she hurried to the side of the car, slamming the door as she slid in behind the driver.
"The Ootori estate, please." She held a bill to the cab driver, which he took and put in his pocket before beginning to drive.
The girl was jittering in the back seat.
"Everything okay, miss?" The driver asked, his accent lilting.
"Yes, everything's fine. Thank you." Yuuki smiled at him, it was forced.
"You're leaving an awful high toned and fancy to do party there."
"It's nothing I haven't done before." Pause. "How much weight will this pull?"
"The car, miss?"
"Yes."
"It's just a regular taxi."
"Would it pull a float?"
"Like in 'em parades?"
Yuuki smiled. "No, like a horse float."
"Oh, one of them. Yeah, probably."
The girl drummed her fingers on the window, fighting back another torrent of tears. She couldn't stand it. She needed to escape. Yuuki was sick of being hurt and grounded. Broken. The girl pulled open her phone.
When the receiver picked up she began speaking, missing hello. "Can you take off tonight?"
"Tonight?"
"Yes, tonight."
"I'm at the airport now at the pilots quarters. I can probably get clearance for you."
"Please try, call me back." Yuuki hung up. She had flown with the pilot before, sat in the cockpit and chatted. He would leave early if something was wrong.
The driver pulled into the estate. "You flying out somewhere?"
"England."
"That's awful far away. I was born in England you know?"
"Yeah." Yuuki opened the door and got out. "I might be a while."
"That's no problem miss. I'll wait."
The girl rushed up the steps and into the empty house. The family was at the formal. Yuuki pulled her hair down and changed her clothes. Her bag was already packed for the morning, hidden in her closet under a pile of sheets. She felt like a child, running away. Yuuki pulled her luggage to the car and the driver got out to load it.
"I got it miss." He said in English.
"Thanks." She replied in the same. He was helping her transition.
Yuuki ran down the side of the house and grabbed the keys to the quad bike. It had enough power to pull the empty float to the car and it did in record time, having been already hooked up to go. Zero's things were in the float, packed into various holders that would keep them contained in flight.
The driver told her he could attack the trailer and Yuuki took off again to the stable. Zero was standing in his stall, alert. His master was crying again.
"Hey boy. Shhhh, shhh, quiet down." He was stomping on the floor, throwing his head at her unease.
"I'm fine boy. I'll be okay." She was desperately trying to keep her mind off what she was doing.
Yuuki sniffed and pulled the halter over Zero's head before pulling herself onto his back. She rode out, not bothering to close the door or turn off the light. The girl found comfort in the drumming of hooves on the grass; it was as if her horse were communicating a secret message with the earth.
The driver was waiting, the float ramp down, when Yuuki dismounted.
"You've done this before?" She asked, leading the horse inside.
"Yes, miss. Once worked for a stud farm in England."
Yuuki didn't ask more about it, she didn't want conversation. "Could you please wait a minute while I finish something?"
The man nodded and touched his hat before disappearing back into the car.
Yuuki took her time this round in climbing the stairs to the front door. She pulled it open and felt a part of her tear away at the familiar feeling. She walked to her room and pulled open her bedside table, taking out a small, navy box. Inside was a message, it said:
Kyoya,
I think the scary part was, you understood me when no one had, even if you never wanted it. You loved me, and I loved you.
Don't forget me.
Don't be scared.
You have your dreams.
Everything we've done, and everything we've been through, can never be explained in words.
Yuuki.
The girl watched as a tear fell from her cheek and onto the paper; it seeped through and stuck to the gold beneath it. Her gold. He owned her horse; she repaid him with its winnings. Yuuki cracked somewhere inside, a deep gash forming right though her. It screamed at its raw edges and roared as it burned her. It was the pain she had been trying to escape, only intensified as she did the act. Yuuki remained calm as she put the box on the white covers of her bed.
He could come there first, Haruhi would realise what was happening when she didn't come back inside. She probably already had. Tamaki would find out and then Kyoya.
Kyoya.
Yuuki put a hand to her mouth as a small cry escaped. She loved him. She wanted to be with him forever. But he had used her, he had abandoned her trust. He had broken her, like one would break an animal. He used her like a toy and she didn't know what would have happened when he had completed his task. What would have happened with her?
Yuuki kissed her fingers and sealed them on the lid of the box before closing her door. She closed her heart with it, seared it shut. It was excruciating, but to her, it was necessary.
She left her keys on the side table by the front door and left.
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Haruhi realised what was happening. She told Tamaki, worried, not caring about breaking her promise. Tamaki's eyes widened and he rushed off, dragging Kyoya by the arm into the night.
"What are you doing?" The Ootori complained. He didn't like being thrown off.
"Yuuki's
gone."
"I know." The words stung.
Tamaki turned and slapped his friend. "No, she's really gone."
Kyoya didn't understand.
"You idiot!" The blonde yelled as he pushed the other into his car and ran around to the other side. "She's going to England."
Kyoya's face reflected shock. He hadn't considered that, he hadn't wanted to. "Now? She'd have so much to do before she left."
"That's why she did it yesterday." Tamaki said over the roar of the accelerator.
"Yesterday?"
"Yuuki told Haruhi her plans; she was packed and ready to leave while you slept off the party."
"Why now?" Kyoya sounded desperate.
"You tell me." Tamaki was furious. He felt as his friend had the day he had tried to run away.
Kyoya remembered the scene earlier that night and realised he had hurt her more than he should have as he tried to get her back. The Porsche roared toward the Ootori estate, the drive was empty.
Kyoya threw himself out of the car and into his house. He burst into Yuuki's empty room and stared at it for a second desperately before reaching for the box. Upon reading the note he scrambled back to the front door, the medal still clutched in his palm. His heart raced as adrenaline pumped through his body. What had he done?
All the Ootori had to do was slam the car door. Tamaki swore and spun the car around and raced toward the airport. After half an hour, the road widened, opening into the highway that lead to the terminals.
Kyoya hated himself inside. He had driven her away. He was losing the one thing he would have worked his life for to achieve. The thing that had just given itself to him, not expecting anything in return. He had thrown that away for greed. For earthly merit.
"Drive faster Tamaki." He hissed.
The blonde responded by flooring it, rending the air with the noise of acceleration. Tamaki's jaw was clenched. It wasn't like Kyoya was the only one loosing something, they all were.
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Yuuki climbed out of the car and paid the driver. He carried her bags onto the tarmac and nodded his goodbye. A team of couriers rushed to assist the Cunxin, the Olympian. They had travelled with her before and knew her routine which is why she had specifically asked for them.
Her bags were in the plane as the engines roared to life. Zero was unloaded and put in a traveller box and the trailer was lifted into storage deep within the plane's belly. The horse was put in front of the passenger seating, in its usual place when flying. Yuuki signed the paperwork and showed her passport to the official who had come to her in the flurry of activity.
"Thank you miss, have a safe flight." He had said as he left the tarmac for the comfort of the terminal building.
Yuuki watched him go, she had to wait before getting onboard, she had to be told when things were secure and she could check her horse herself. The terminal spilled light, illuminating how bare it was during that time of the evening. The girl got called by the pilot out of her thoughts. She greeted him warmly and followed him into the plane before running her personal checklist on Zero's security. For precaution, she put mufflers on his ears. He was already anxious because of how fast things had happened. He didn't understand.
"Sshh pretty thing. It's all good. We're going home hey bud?" He cooed at him, trying to calm herself. She needed things to happen as fast as they were, she needed to get out.
"Oi, Yuuki." The pilot stuck his head out the cockpit. "There's a car on the tar. Pretty funny. Might make you smile. Whoever it is has turned the abandoned strip into a 90210 episode or whatever it is Americans do."
"What?"
"You heard me."
The girl stared out the window as a silver Porsche raced past security and onto the runway. It was on the wrong stretch of tarmac. Yuuki stared at the couriers as they took their seats, steadying themselves as the engines of the plane roared to life. She shed one more private tear and let her fingers run along the cold glass window before taking her own seat. Strapping herself in as the plane taxied away.
Yuuki stared at the car as it raced down the runway parallel to hers. She couldn't see through the windows. But they could see into hers.
"There." Kyoya cried. "In the window." He gripped the navy box harder; he couldn't let it be his last link to her.
He clambered to the backseat to be on the same side of the car that the plane was on. Pulling his phone out, he dialled her. All there was, was a disabled tone, her phone was off. She was watching them, her fingers pressed to the glass. Her face written with grief. It was like she had lost a loved one, like someone had died.
Kyoya wound down the window and watched Yuuki's face change as she saw his head appear in the night. "YUUKI!" The wind whipped at him and carried his voice away. "YUUKI! DONT! I'M SORRY!" He opened himself to her, hoping it wasn't the last time.
She could tell he was yelling at her, pulling himself apart for her. It hurt to know he wanted her back that much. It hurt enough for her to question her motives, to want to stay. But only for a second, the emotion faded away. She didn't know he was sorry. That might have turned the tables.
Kyoya stared in horror as the wheels of the plane lifted off the ground, first just a few centimetres and then a meter.
Two...
Three...
Four...
Tamaki slowed the car and pulled it to a stop as the airplane engine roared, lifting the metal bird into the sky. Angry, he punched the steering wheel. The car screamed in defence, doing what its driver and passenger could not do anymore. Kyoya leaned out the window and watched the plane disappear. The box dropped on the seat beside him with a soft thunk. He mourned. He had tried to play God and lost. He had failed for the first time in his life and in an area he had wanted to succeed. An area he hadn't seen as a place he wanted to be until it was too late. A place he needed to be. His insides hurt.
"You're an idiot!" Tamaki yelled.
Kyoya didn't reply. He knew it was true. He crumpled on the backseat. He had won what he had spent his whole life to that point reaching for that morning and lost what would have been the rest of his life in the evening. The man discovered that he wanted to latter and would sacrifice the former. But that choice had been made for him. He had dug that hole. And closed it on top of himself.
The plane disappeared into the night. The girl inside was beginning to hate the new life she was staring as much as the one she was fleeing, hating it as she began to realise the pain it caused by ripping her from what she had come to love. It would never heal. It would always hurt.
Throb. Ache. Bruise. Tear. Rip. Burn.
She disappeared into the night, crying against her window as the horse that belonged to her old life watched. While the couriers that had travelled the world watched. While none of them understood.
-
One day.
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Two.
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One week.
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Two.
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One month.
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Two.
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One half year.
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Two.
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"Even more, I had never meant to love him. One thing I truly knew - knew it in the pit of my stomach, in the center of my bones, knew it from the crown of my head to the soles of my feet, knew it deep in my empty chest - was how love gave someone the power to break you. I'd been broken beyond repair…I was like a lost moon - my planet destroyed in some cataclysmic, disaster-movie scenario of desolation - that continued, nevertheless, to circle in a tight little orbit around the empty space left behind, ignoring the laws of gravity."
"Before you…my life was like a moonless night. Very dark, but there were stars--points of light and reason...And then you shot across my sky like a meteor. Suddenly everything was on fire; there was brilliancy, there was beauty. When you were gone, when the meteor had fallen over the horizon, everything went black. Nothing had changed, but my eyes were blinded by the light. I couldn't see the stars anymore. And there was no more reason for anything."
(Stephanie Meyer, Twilight Saga)
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On that happy note.
Please tell me what you thought.
Blessings,
-peterpauper