After guidance from the maternity nurse on breastfeeding, Haruhi finally felt confident on how to calm her red-faced, crying daughter down. The young mother exposed her left breast and pinched around her nipple, touching her baby's lips to it where she had instinctively opened her mouth wide. Ryoji rushed to Haruhi's side to cover her up with his body, scolding the blushing perverts who couldn't peel their eyes away from the young woman out of shock.
The baby latched onto her nipple, swallowing the fatty tissue further into her mouth and kneading it with her tiny jaw, the milk flowing down her throat in large gulps. Haruhi felt tears in her eyes as she happily looked down at the baby against her chest, feeling prideful and accomplished.
"Good job, my girl. You're a natural." Her father praised.
"So..." Tamaki began. "She was just hungry?"
Ryoji closed his eyes momentarily to gain composure then turned to face the blond. "Yes. There are different cries for certain needs the baby has to have fulfilled. You'll both learn them all gradually."
Tamaki pulled at his ears to wrongfully combat the potential hearing loss. His baby daughter's shrill cries still rung in them. "I hope so."
"...so you've named her Reinette?" Ryoji sharply asked, eyes slightly narrowing.
"We're still deciding actually." Tamaki said, scratching at his cheek and remembering Haruhi's and Kyoya's words of caution for the naming.
"Well, you've been calling her Reinette so I just assumed that was her name. It's beautiful by the way." The young grandfather humbly complimented.
Tamaki's eyes shimmered with excitement. He clasped his hands tightly together under his chin. "Oh, Papa-san. Thank you so much! You see that name references my own in a way!"
"How in the—" Now irate, Ryoji's brow twitched. He violently pointed to the blond. "Why the hell should she be so unfortunate to be named after you? Why can't you give her a good name, like Kotoko?"
"But she deserves to have her own identity!" Cried Tamaki.
The little patience he manifested for the blond was completely sapped now. "The further away her identity is from you the better, insect!"
Haruhi groaned, no longer able to tune out the noise. "Can't we be done with this already?..." She muttered.
Haruhi wanted to sob all over again. She knew things would've been easier had anyone else been the father of her child but begrudgingly, she couldn't help who she loved. It was why she was so willing to accept the many awful things she'd had to endure over the course of her pregnancy because of Tamaki. She believed she had to take some responsibility for the events that led up to now and she needed to keep faith with herself in choosing a good man. That much with Tamaki was a constant to her in spite of everything.
Maybe things will be better with Tamaki actually being around now, she thought with some hope.
Yet... Haruhi looked around her hospital room, her dark-haired glasses wearing companion nowhere in sight.
"Since you guys haven't decided yet, let's play 'give Haruhi's baby the best name ever' game!" The twins sung joyfully.
Tamaki anxiously jumped up and down, shouting desperately, "Camille, Camille, Camille!"
"I'd say Nidaime Tanuki would be a good fit, wouldn't it?" Hikaru said, snickering to himself.
Kaoru hit him in the head for Haruhi. "Absolutely not. Sakura is a better name. It means cherry blossoms which symbolises the beginning of spring. It's perfect for her, being a late February baby, and what she means to all of us."
Tamaki's eyes glinted with tears. "Oh, my angel son, that's a beautiful name—"
The younger twin adamantly cut off the blond. "Milord, you've gotta stop with that family nonsense. You have a real one now. It'll only be confusing for Reinette when she's older."
Chin in his hand, Tamaki looked up to the ceiling in reflection. "Mmm, maybe."
"Not maybe! It will be, birdbrain!" Kaoru shouted.
The blond was in tears all over again. "Leave me alone! Don't yell at me! A day ago I didn't know about Haruhi's condition so just—leave me alone!"
"God, you're pathetic." The twins spoke in unison and Ryoji nodded in agreement behind them.
Kasanoda nervously walked up to Haruhi's hospital bed with Megumi in tow by hand. "Fujioka, Suoh. I thought that Fumiko would be a good name for a child between you two. It means child of treasured beauty. F-fu is the first part of your name, Fujioka. Mi is the second part of yours, Suoh. And ko in kanji is child."
The young parents shared a contemplative look over the literal but deeply thoughtful name, then settled their eyes on the nursing bundle.
"Or Kiomi." The brunette girl behind him suggested. She looked between them frantically. "It means pure beauty." Megumi quickly added.
Haruhi caught the minute glance she stole of the blond man hovering over her and their daughter when emphasizing the word 'pure'. She blinked slowly, then exhaled for a long while.
"Since you'll be living with us, Kanoya-san, tell me what you know about infant care." Haruhi straightforwardly began.
Megumi jolted. "Um—I know that they often need diaper changes and they cry quite a lot."
"They need to eat so much. I remember your cousin here going through 16 bottles a day." The red-haired okama told Megumi. "She was a very gassy baby, that one." He laughed.
Haruhi gasped, asking, "Reinette might be colicky since I was, right?"
"Unfortunately, maybe. Don't worry though, I'll always be right here to help you out. I am her grandfather after all." Ryoji told his daughter after seeing the near complete distress in her eyes. He was sick of that painfully familiar expression.
"Maybe she'll be more like her papa. My father told me I was like an angel when I was born." Said Tamaki dreamily.
"And look at you now." Retorted the twins and his future father-in-law.
With that, the blond disappeared somewhere dark to grow a new species of mushrooms.
"It seems you've settled on Reinette, baby girl." Ryoji observed.
Haruhi gave a shy smile. "It just... feels right."
"You can't choose a name so easily, Haruhi! A name has powers, you know! We wanted to name her too, something that represents us all!" Hikaru brashly interjected.
"That's right, she's our baby too!" Kaoru tacked on.
"I don't think that'll be possible, Hikaru. She said the name feels right for her baby." Kasanoda said.
"It's a fine name. And it doesn't reference her non-existent father's name in the slightest." Ryoji spoke with finality. Melting when his baby granddaughter slowly opened her eyes to meet his.
oOoOoOo
The dollies, congratulatory gifts and trinkets extended quite a distance out into the maternity ward hallway from Haruhi's room. Kyoya covered up his irritability with stoicism at the materialistic outpour of love from his clubmates, tallying up the costs.
His phone started ringing so he flipped it open. "Father?" He answered formally.
"Kyoya, I see my granddaughter has been born. Congratulations." The Ootori family head said over the phone. He was more than likely skimming over a document sent to him by one of his hospital employees.
"Yes, she has." Kyoya said, disturbed that the man went out of his way to call about the matter when he'd be much more domineering in person.
"2948.35 grams. An appropriately small child from that petite girl. Both healthy. No complications. You must be proud of them."
The megane man thought back on the powerful wails of Haruhi and Reinette in the birthing room. He allowed a controlled smile as if his father were there in front of him. "They did well."
"When am I going to meet her?" Yoshio asked expectantly.
Reactively, he told him, "As soon as Haruhi wants to." He surprised himself with that response.
"I beg your pardon?"
"My apologies, father. I meant I'll get her to you as soon as she's discharged."
"That'll be arranged in a few hours. I want as low of a risk of many more finding out about this...situation you've put our family in before I fix it."
Kyoya felt his mouth grow dry. For so long, all that he wanted was to do right by his family and to be acknowledged as worthy. So much of what he's done was for his father's approval and his decision to go forth with the plan of almost marrying Haruhi just to throw it back into his father's face had the risk of tarnishing any semblance of chance he could have of becoming the Ootori family successor, even without the pregnancy drawback. Unlike the retrieval and recompensing of his father the company bought by the Tonnerre heiress, there was a great deal of malice and emotion found in his recent plan that he hadn't accounted for and controlled as well as he hoped despite his smug attitude about it. There were so many things that contradicted what he's known about himself and thought he knew of others. That he could truly see himself without his family's legacy, so much so as to risk his position within it. That he could use people as he pleased so long as it benefitted himself.
It began to rear its head most evidently to Kyoya when he recognized his defensive slip over the young woman he's gotten to know and respect. At the least, he strangely found he didn't like the idea of Haruhi being controlled by Yoshio.
"Don't worry, son. I know it's abnormal for a new mother to be discharged so soon from the hospital. I am not a spiteful man, at least against my own... I'll make sure your fiancee and child are given the best Ootori treatment possible." Yoshio ended the call.
A/N: I'm not even an Otaku nor too much of an anime lover, I just love Ouran enough to learn some Japanese culture and practices.
Reinette in the original story was in reference to a novel Haruhi read during her pregnancy, a talented French woman named Camille and nicknamed Reinette. She held the heart of the king in that novel and since Tamaki is "king" and his name means to be king, he obviously loved the name for his daughter.
I'm getting a lot of writing inspiration from the TV show "Archer" in how to write a 'coparenting, dysfunctional semi-couple who love each other but are too stupid to make things healthy between them' dynamic.
Kyoya, Tamaki, and Haruhi are going to have big character arcs in this story, Kyoya was the hardest to come up with because in the original fanfiction, he was written really well but there was some subtexts that alluded to his true nature too. I want Kyoya to reach self-actualization in my story. I want them all to do that actually, Kyoya was just the hardest to figure out for me on how I was going to do that, but I know now. I'm not changing anyone's core characters, I'm just expanding on them.