Alnitak8: When I wrote the saumon joke I thought to myself, This is either the funniest thing or the worst. So I appreciate that it landed lol.

CaityJoy: Thank you! In this house we love and appreciate Fuyumi Shido.

Guest: God I wish lol. Thanks!

Guest(2): Thank you!

argenteusvipera: I have absolutely accidentally referred to Fuyumi as "Fuyumi Ootori" at least once in this fic. I'll need to edit it. U._. She doesn't show up much in canon (at least in the anime), but I've always thought it would be great if she was the "everyone undermines just how smart I am" type of character. She knows how to get stuff done. Thank you for the review!

Okay I've tortured you all long enough. Here it is.

Five minutes pass atop the bridge with no signs of life bar the moths that flutter around the streetlamps.

Then, from the dark, "Kyoya?"

Kyoya looks down.

Underneath the bridge, standing on one of the borders of the stream, Kosuke looks back at him. She is dressed the exact opposite of him: cloth shorts and a faded Sugar Plum Pixie sweatshirt, hair thrown up into a ponytail. She looks surprised to see him—as if she could be expecting anyone else.

"What are you doing down there?"

"Waiting for you."

Not what I meant, he thinks. But fine, she'll explain. Kyoya climbs down the cold ladder rungs beside the bridge. Kosuke hovers close as he descends, like she's scared he'll slip and fall right into the inky stream.

He thinks that the explanation would be ready, but Kosuke just stands there with one hand wrapped around the others' fingers as though to stop herself from moving at all. She must not know where to begin, but how many starting points could there possibly be?

She moves downward.

She folds her legs beneath her, puts her palms to the stone, and tilts her head down until Kyoya can't see her face anymore.

"You were right. I'm sorry—for everything I said. I was being stupid and didn't want to admit that I was wrong."

There she stays, waiting for him to say something.

Instead, he moves downward, too.

Not realizing, Kosuke keeps her head down for quite a while, maybe thinking that he's just mutely staring her down. When at last she raises her eyes, she finds Kyoya in the same position before her.

"I was being a hypocrite. I hope you can forgive me for losing my temper the way that I did."

Kosuke pushes herself up to sit, and Kyoya does the same. The matter is hardly settled; there's much too much to discuss. They don't say what they instead find in each other's faces: I was wrong. I was right. I forgive you.

She tries to smile at him, and the relief is there and real, but exhaustion weighs her lips down. Perhaps it is the dim lights on the underside of the bridge, but she looks pale and sleepless.

Kyoya stands first and gives her his hands to pull her up. Her bare knees are mottled red from the stone—and Kyoya notes, with something like satisfaction, that she's wearing the white shoes with the Velcro straps.

"I should have said that earlier," she sighs. "Way earlier."

"You and me both."

"Are we going to have to go around and tell everyone we've made up, or can we let them figure it out for themselves?"

So he wasn't the only one getting tired of it all. "We'll cross that bridge when we get to it."

"Ha!"

"What?"

"You—Bridge?" Kosuke points up. "I—Sorry. I don't know why I thought you would be making a pun."

God, he'd missed her.

"Are you going to tell me why we're having to meet like this?"

Kosuke has clearly been dreading the question but knows that it's time to answer. All her tells start going off at once: she spins her toe, she chews on her cheek, she twists her ring. However, she catches herself doing the last one and stops with a glare at the silver band.

"Yes," she says. "Of course I am. I just don't know where to begin."

"Does it have to do with why you haven't been talking to anyone else?"

"Over the phone, you mean?" Kosuke scowls down at the stream. "Yes." She looks over her shoulder. "Here."

Directly underneath the bridge, where the lights glow against the thickest shadows, the stone forms a ledge right in front of the water. Kosuke swipes it clean, then sits, never minding how the edge bites into the back of her knees. Kyoya sits beside her.

He doesn't rush her, but he wishes to know why there is such a look of defeat on her face. The weary look of someone who has lost a long battle. Her hands are limp in her lap.

"My father is a really terrible person."

Kyoya doesn't think she pauses for his input. He doesn't have any to give—she has instantly shocked him into silence.

"When he showed up in Karuizawa and offered to make me his heir, the deal was that I would do everything he said. And even though he was a real…bastard, I agreed to it. I thought he was just mean and greedy and—whatever. All his insults and grumbling would be the least of my problems. Even though I never found out anything about him, like what happened between him and Mom, after a while, I stopped being scared of him. Sometimes he was gone for so long, I forgot he even existed…and that's when I realized just how terrible he really was.

If the children do something he doesn't like, or if I just do anything that annoys him, like fight back or embarrass him, he'll punish me. Has punished me. When Minami made that painting, he was furious. He threatened me to never let something like that happen again, or he'd do something—just because a little girl embarrassed him. And if I ever push him too far, he'll make sure I never see my grandparents again. He said he'd ruin them—that he's done it before. He'd find a way to hurt Hitsuji and Minami, too, I'm sure of it.

Earlier this week, I went out without his permission. I'm always supposed to ask first. I just forgot; I don't know how. So he took my phone away—that's why I haven't been talking to anyone—and basically put me on house arrest. And…"

Kosuke looks up and blinks rapidly—in disbelief, not tears.

"And he had someone go into my room to steal some of our family photos, and they burned them. Now they're gone, and I'm never going to be able to show them to Hitsuji or Minami. Just because I forgot to ask if I could go get lunch. I know it's probab—It is, it's really, really, stupid, but I really needed to talk to you, and I was trying so hard to find a way to get out without him knowing, but it wasn't until—"

"Kosuke. Calm down. Breathe."

He puts a hand on her shoulder and keeps it there so that he can feel her body rise and fall with her deep breaths. There's a tremble in her bones that wasn't there before.

Kyoya is ashamed.

Why did I never notice anything? Did I never see that she was scared to go home?

Before today, Shigeo Amida had never crossed Kyoya's mind much. Like Kosuke, he often forgot the man even existed, he was so perpetually in the background. Now, Kyoya hates him. Hates, hates him, more than he's ever hated another person in his life. He's never been this furious in his life. He's never wanted to hurt someone so badly, for Kosuke, the children, and the Suzukis.

He hates himself, too, for scolding Kosuke in the beginning for potentially embarrassing him by not hiding her true self well enough. When she proclaimed to everyone that her father was the respectable gentleman and businessman worthy enough to partner with the Ootoris and not the man he really was.

If he almost lost his temper at Mr. Ito for one comment, what is Kyoya going to do the next time he sees Shigeo?

But he keeps his hand on Kosuke's shoulder and lets her breathe. His fury is not what she needs right now.

"Before I ask," he says, "know that I'm not angry."

She nods.

"Why didn't you say anything? Does Haruhi know? Or Tamaki?"

Kosuke shakes her head. Strands of her hair fall from her ponytail and into her eyes. "Tamaki already hates him without me saying anything. That's bad enough. If he finds out that I've told anybody anything that makes him look bad, he'll do something."

"We wouldn't let him hurt you—or your children, or your grandparents."

"Not through lack of trying," Kosuke mutters. "I don't know exactly what he'd do, and I live with him, Kyoya. He says he's ruined people's lives without anyone ever knowing it was him! I know you guys wouldn't let him hurt us, but I don't know what you could do, because I don't know what he could do."

After all the secrets she's kept without reason, the one Kyoya wanted to know the most, she had all the reason in the world. Surely, though, there must be something he can do.

Kosuke's gaze slips down. Your fury is not what she needs right now.

"We'll figure something out," he promises.

"Let me know what you come up with," she jokes without laughter. She shakes her head again. "I can't believe I was stupid enough to trust him. I mean, not trust, but—you know."

"I'm sure you couldn't have known."

"Yeah, but I knew that I didn't know enough. How dumb can a person be?" She throws her hands up. "I mean, the guy that my mom refused to ever talk about walks in out of nowhere, he's the rudest person I've ever met, not to mention the most evasive, clearly couldn't care less that it's the first time we've ever met, that I'm his daughter, and I just take him up on his offer to own a company that I know nothing about, in a field I couldn't care less for?! What an idiot."

That had been one of the first questions he'd ever asked her: why she agreed to this all in the first place when she did not know a thing about Amida Health. Her answer had been, I don't think that's any of your business.

"You must have had a reason."

"Yeah, I did." She runs a hand down her face. "We needed the money."

True, Kyoya didn't know Kosuke when she lived in Karuizawa, but Haruhi and Tamaki did. She'd been struggling. Anyone freshly graduated from high school, with two children to care for so shortly after the passing of their parents, would be.

But they hadn't said she was struggling that much. Because they would have acted in a heartbeat.

"That badly?"

"Yes, Kyoya, that badly," she snaps, but he knows the anger isn't directed at him. She grimaces. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't—"

"It's fine. I know I wasn't there, but Haruhi and Tamaki never said—"

"I lied. I do that a lot, as you've noted."

Kyoya pushes up his glasses and looks away to calm himself before he blurts out the next obvious question. He'll get to that. "How? I thought your family's restaurant was one of the most popular in Karuizawa."

What he means is, Didn't your parents leave you money? There is no good way to ask that, not when she's distressed as it is.

"It was." Kosuke glares down at her Velcro straps. "But apparently, there were some details that I wasn't in the know about…"

"Details like what?"

Kosuke smiles a disbelieving, bitter, angry smile that looks wretched on her face. "My dad was dealing with loan sharks."

"What?"

"Maybe a few—or a lot. But yeah, he was dealing with loan sharks, and I don't know if Mom knew that, but I definitely didn't. It's not like they left us swimming in money, but it wasn't nothing. Not until one of those sharks found out that his client had died while he still had a tab going. So, he came to me about it."

Kosuke, no. But he knows she did.

"How much?"

Kosuke clips out the sum. Down to the last yen. It turns Kyoya's insides into lead.

"It's not possible that your father managed to accrue that much debt."

"Not at the legal interest rate, no. And before you ask, yes, I thought about calling the police. But then they would have to investigate, and that takes time, and that would give him time to…do whatever. I tried to ignore it. Then our gate got smashed. And the store that I worked at had its window broken. It was just me and the children, and we had no security guards, no super-advanced surveillance systems, no—no privately owned police force to protect us. So I started paying."

"For how long?"

"I sent the last payment a little before that typhoon came through." Kosuke glances at him and sees the confusion on his face. "I didn't have to worry about money once I came here, obviously, but since image is so important, I thought it would be best to keep him from coming around. Around Shigeo. He showed up way earlier than he did, and what he was asking for was more than half of what Mom and Dad left us. I was working at a grocery store. Even if I could afford to go to school to get a degree, I didn't have the time, not between working and taking care of the kids, keeping them clothed and fed and cared for, which costs money. We kept losing more and more, and I didn't know when it would stop, when it was going to run out. I was so scared. I was so scared I—"

Kosuke's mouth twists, and she buries her face into her hands.

"Kosuke." Kyoya squeezes her shoulder and puts his other hand on her back, trying to coax her out. She shakes her head, still hiding her eyes behind her fingers. "It's okay. Tell me what happened."

"You're going to be so disappointed…"

"No, I'm not. Come on. Tell me."

It takes a few more minutes of coaxing for her to resurface, but she only looks down at the stream. She can't meet his eyes.

"I went on a compensated date. I lied to Haruhi and Tamaki and Ranka that I was meeting my friends so they would look after the kids. Then I dressed up and went into the city to go on a group date and flirt with some men that I'd never met before so that I could get a few hundred yen. But I didn't—I didn't do anything with them, Kyoya, I swear, and I never did it again, just one time—"

This time, Kyoya gently pulls her upright. The fear, the shame, is rolling off her in waves, and he needs her to breathe.

"Calm down. Calm down. I believe you. I'm not disappointed. Just breathe for a minute. Breathe."

He only takes his hands away when she takes three deep, even breaths in a row without trembling.

"I'm sorry. I know it's bad, I know if someone finds out—"

"Don't even think about that right now. And don't apologize. You were scared."

"That's why I agreed to it. When Shigeo showed up, I mean. We needed the money. Really needed it."

"I'm not disappointed, or angry," he repeats. "Does anyone else know? Tamaki, or Haruhi?"

Kosuke shakes her head.

Kyoya rubs at his temple. He lied—he is very disappointed, just not for the reason she'd feared. He just needs a minute to collect himself before he kicks her while she's down. Be grateful that she's telling you now. This clearly isn't easy for her.

"What I don't understand is why you didn't ask Haruhi or Tamaki for help. You know that they would have. Why didn't you even tell them?"

"I didn't want them to worry about me."

There's something hollow in the way she says it. She knows that it's a weak excuse, but it's one she's held onto for so long.

"If it was the other way around, you know you'd be upset if they didn't tell you." Her hair is falling into her eyes. Without thinking, Kyoya reaches over and tucks it behind her ear. She doesn't even stir—like his touch is so normal. "All you do is worry about people. You take care of them when they're sick and try to protect them when they're scared. You worry because you care. It's how you show love. I don't understand why you refuse to let anyone do the same for you."

Despite the circumstances, Kyoya is grateful for what he sees in her face: contemplation. She doesn't want to give him an answer, but herself.

Why does she do this? As Akito said: What is the problem?

Kosuke opens her mouth, but reconsiders, and closes it again. She doesn't want to guess.

While she's deep in thought, her eyes drag from her hands to her feet, up to the lights on the bridge and where the stream carries on. She finally moves again to lean forward over the stream. Her reflection is ghostlike. Hardly there, a few wispy traces of her face.

She leans back. Her shoulders are weak.

"Back in high school—and before that—I was a really selfish person. I acted like just showing people that I cared about them was too much work. I almost never hung out with my friends when they invited me to, I wouldn't show up to support them when they were in competitions, or shows, or anything like that. I took gifts but never gave them back. I hardly ever even responded to text messages. I don't even think I should be calling them my friends—it's not like I treated them like they were."

"I doubt that—"

"Don't. I missed Okina's first ballet solo. I forgot Kohta's birthday. Tamaki and Minami and—I don't know, maybe you, too, are mad at Kohta for breaking up with me after my parents died, but he tried to end it way before that, and I didn't let him. He told me that he felt like I didn't care, and I lied and told him I did. Just because I—I couldn't deal with the consequences. I wouldn't let him go.

And that's just with them—with my family? Minami and Hitsuji had to beg me to play with them. When the restaurant was having a rush, my parents wouldn't ask me for help because they knew I wouldn't. When Mom and Dad were both sick, they still had to cook and clean and do everything because I didn't know how and I didn't even try to learn! After everything they did for me, especially Mom. She spent years going all over the country just to take care of the two of us, and that's how I paid her back?

And the worst thing is that whenever someone tried to tell me that I was hurting them, I wouldn't have it! I'd feel guilty for a while, and then I'd just go right back to it. But even though I never did anything for anyone, not even my own family, they still worried about me. They were worried that I wasn't happy, or healthy. That I wasn't doing well in school. I couldn't be bothered to write essays for scholarships for Seneca, and instead of being angry, my parents were just…worried. And then…"

Kosuke closes her eyes.

"Sometimes…Sometimes I wonder if there were just…a few seconds between the car crashing and them…going…where they thought, Oh, no. Now the children will only have Kosuke."

"Kosuke…"

"So. I promised that I would do nothing but my best—be nothing but my best. I would do anything for the children. I wouldn't eat or sleep until they were taken care of; I wouldn't even let them see me tired. And I wouldn't let anyone else worry about me, because people had been worrying about me for far too long and I did nothing about it.

You're right. Worrying is love. And I wasted so much of it. So the idea of anyone, just one person, being worried about me is…too much."

She says this. But when Kyoya reaches out, she lets him, wrapping his arms around him while he does the same for her.

The first time Kosuke had hugged him, Kyoya froze. He didn't hug people—not unless Tamaki's and Fuyumi's ambushes counted. He'd had no idea what to do, so he'd just stood still until Kosuke let him go.

Now, he does it without hesitation, even if he is still so angry that he just can't fix everything. He can hold her for as long as he wants, and he still won't be able to just take the pain away. Wrapping his arms around her won't take the weight off her shoulders.

He'd always admired her strength—her perseverance in the face of everything that had happened to her. He would never say it, but while he still believes in that strength, she feels very delicate with her cheek against his shoulder.

"I'm sure your parents never thought that."

"You don't know that. I don't. No one does."

"I'd like to say something—two things. Not to scold you, but just because I think you need to hear them."

Kosuke nods as she pulls back from him. It's not steady, but she tries to meet his eyes.

"First, ignoring a problem is just going to make it worse. That's how this happened." He nods down at her braced arm. "I know you want to take care of your siblings, but you need to take care of yourself first so that you can."

"Yeah. I know. I just…" She shakily waves her hand: Everything I just said.

"Second, asking for help does not mean that you're not trying. Much of what you've told me wasn't your fault to begin with. Even if it was, that doesn't make you undeserving of help. There's a difference between needing to be taken care of, and letting people take care of you."

"I guess I just…hate who I used to be so much, I went too far trying to be as different from her as I could."

"I know why you feel that way. But you can hold yourself accountable for what you've done while acknowledging how hard you've tried to make it right."

Kyoya lifts her hand in his and sees the way her gaze again turns cold at her ring. No wonder.

"Could you at least try? Not for me. Ask for help when you know you need it. Just talk to someone—me, Haruhi, Tamaki. Fuyumi would pick up the phone any hour of the day. Let yourself be worried about before you break. Again."

"I…will. I will. I promise." Her jaw clenches. "But…"

"What?"

The look she gives him is so disappointed.

"I want to ask you to do the same, but I don't think I can. I don't know if it's fair."

Though they've both admitted their hypocrisy, it doesn't keep shame from rising anew. How quickly he'd lost control of his temper when he'd seen her sitting upright in the examination room when what he'd felt must not have been a fraction of what she had when she'd seen him on the deck of the boat and under the sterile white lights of the hospital.

"I think it's more than fair."

"That's not…" Her hands curl into fists in her lap. "Your job—everything around it—I know you want that more than anything. No matter what. Yeah, it hurts seeing how far you push yourself and how frustrated it all makes you, but I can't ask you to just give it up because I want you to."

He's so grateful that she understands. For years he's heard that he shouldn't push himself so hard. So many times has Fuyumi told him that their father does not expect as much from him—and so many times has Kyoya had to bite his tongue to stop himself from snapping that's the problem.

But he feels awful, too. Wretched, really, that she finally understands how much it hurts to watch her suffer in silence because she has felt the same for him.

There's nothing Kyoya can say to ease her. He can't make empty promises or false comforts. He is not going to give up. If he has to work himself into a gurney again and endure his father telling him that it's his fault for being obedient, then he'll do it. Just for that chance.

"I just…" Kosuke looks him up and down. "I just wish I understood why. Why does it all mean so much to you?"

That, too, is something that Kyoya has heard too many times. He's just never answered it, because no one would understand. He is not sure if Kosuke will understand, either, but he has to repay her honesty.

And Kyoya would be lying if he said that finally saying it aloud didn't feel like a weight being lifted from his ribs.

"Maybe I would want it less," he says, "if I had not been told from the beginning that I could never have it."

Kosuke's brows knit, but she doesn't interrupt.

"Many people think that being a thirdborn son would be a blessing. You don't have as many responsibilities, or expectations. You don't have the same limits. In a way, you have more freedom. That may be true, but I never felt that way. Being a thirdborn son meant I was…an extra. Not worthless, but I was going to have to make myself worthwhile.

I know that it's easy to think that I'm free of the pressure my father puts on my brothers, but what I get instead—have always gotten—is apathy. Not dislike, not scorn, just a total absence of care. I had no inherent value, so what was the point in paying me any mind?"

He feels the bitterness dripping from his mouth, and the tension creeping into his shoulders—as though his father is right behind him, listening. His father, who hated the word unfair more than any other and told Kyoya when he was ten years old to never say it again. Because in their world, there is no time or place for unfair things—only challenges to be won, and problems to be solved.

"After so many times of being told I had nothing to bring my family, I needed to prove it wrong. To my father, especially, but to everyone else, too. I tried to in everything I did. Sometimes, I was so intent on proving myself that I purposefully angered him. He may have hated the club, but everyone else loved it, and I tried to keep it the best that it could be. Staving off the Grand Tonnere Group annoyed him, but it worked. He might be furious, but he's paying attention to what I could be now."

When he finishes, Kosuke looks ready to hit something. "You shouldn't have to prove anything. No one should have to prove that they're 'worthwhile' to their parents."

He nods. "You're right. I shouldn't—but I do."

Kosuke unhappily understands. They sit and listen to the trickling of the stream and the hum of the lights for a few minutes. Kosuke tucks another lock behind her ear, realizes just how messily her ponytail has been done and pulls out the tie. She lifts her hands to tie it again, but pauses, twisting the band between her fingers.

"Does it still feel the same?" she asks. "After everything he's done. I mean…you know that all the crazy hours and having to drop everything at a moment's notice—You know that's not just testing you, right?"

"It certainly doesn't sound like I've won, does it?" He pauses. "I suppose I still want to prove to him that I can be very worthwhile for our family and Ootori Medical. But I don't want to earn his approval anymore. I want to prove him wrong." He shakes his head, smiling dryly. "I suppose I want revenge."

Kosuke tips her head sideways in a He deserves it sort of look that almost makes Kyoya laugh. She ties her hair up again, neater.

"Well." Her hands fall back into her lap. "If that's what you want, you've got me in your corner. I'd really like it if you didn't push yourself to skin and bones, but I also want you to get your 'revenge,' so. We'll figure something out."

She gives him a comforting but determined grin that doesn't last. A thought comes to her—or was already there and had been pushed away. Kyoya doesn't have to nudge her this time.

"Can I ask…? Not that it matters, I guess, not anymore. But…" He nods. "If what happened with DomenMed hadn't happened…Would you still have agreed to our engagement?"

Kosuke must have thought they were in the same sinking boat and had both agreed to the marriage in desperation for their families. Now she's in doubt—and curious as to how deep Kyoya's resolve goes. Or went.

"If it was my father's bidding, then yes. I'm not proud to admit it."

Kosuke's lip curls in disgust. "What about Amaya?"

Kyoya, too, sneers at the idea. "If my father insisted…then yes, I suppose I would have. I'd rather be thankful that he didn't, instead of thinking about what could've been." Kosuke's mouth stays curled. "Does that upset you?"

"It confuses me. Or—no, it doesn't confuse me. I guess I just don't…get it. Or—" She groans, tilting her head back. "What am I trying to say…It's just hard to imagine. Does that make sense? I mean, I guess I did kind of do the same thing, but…"

"No, I understand. It's not normal to you."

She nods. "I would do a lot of things for my family. Obviously." She rolls her eyes. Kyoya huffs a laugh. "But I think about all the things that I see people doing for their parents, and I can't imagine Mom and Dad asking it of me. I know that's just how things are here. Still."

If he didn't fear making her miss her parents more than she does already, Kyoya would tell her that he's quite jealous that she had parents like hers—who worried for their daughter's future not in terms of how beneficial it would be to their family name, but simply because they loved her.

Not to say that Kyoya's family doesn't love him. It's only that Kyoya must assume that they do.

Kosuke picks up a little pebble of concrete and tosses it into the water. They can't see where it lands, but they hear the plop. She looks uncomfortable again.

"Is there something else?"

"There's a lot of something else. Somethings else." Kosuke tosses another rock. Another plop. Quickly, she says, "I'm not trying to not talk about it. I just don't want to…preach to the choir."

"Go ahead."

Kosuke leans back, propping herself up on her hands.

"I had an idea of what 'family' meant. I guess it changed a little after Mom and Dad died, but ever since I've come here, I don't think I even know what 'family' is anymore."

"What do you mean?"

"It's so complicated now. Maybe because I had such a childish way of looking at it, but it's true. Family…can keep secrets, even if it means that someone might get hurt for it. Family can demand that you do everything that they tell you because they see you as more of a subordinate than anything. Family can see that they're hurting you, and not only will they keep hurting you, they'll do it and still tell you that they just want you to be happy."

She doesn't say it to insult. Perhaps Kyoya never appreciated just how bizarre the Ootori family must seem to her. Their father is their employer, their mother a visitor, and the siblings are strangers who occasionally cross paths. Kosuke had a mother who traveled the country to take care of her, and watches Jin take advantage of her son's collapse to take a painting she'd forgotten in her old home. She had a father who cooked breakfast for his children every morning, and watches Yoshio demand everything of his children while giving them not a glance in return. She would move heaven and earth for her siblings, so of course she boils over when Akito and Yuuichi spend their brother's birthday bemoaning their presence.

"Compared to yours, I guess my family doesn't seem like much of a family at all, does it?"

"Compared to mine?!" Kosuke gawks at him. "What are you talking about?! My family is a mess."

"Everything is, isn't it?"

She hums in agreement, none too happy. Kyoya hands her another pebble. She tosses it into the stream.

"But at least there are some silver linings."

This time, Kosuke hands him a pebble. "Yeah. At least." She makes a show of looking left and right, and leaning in and whispering, "I'm glad you didn't have to marry Amaya."

"You and I both."

She laughs, short but genuine. All the tension has eased away from her body, replaced by the sag of exhaustion. "What a night." She turns to him. "Weren't you at a birthday party?"

"Let's not talk about it. What are you going to do now?"

She sighs. "Go back to the mansion, serve the rest of my sentence, and try not to tick him off again. Not much else I can do."

"I'm sure there's something that can be done. We could find a way to protect your grandparents. Once we're married, they'll be my family just as much as yours."

Not enthusiastically, she nods. "That's true."

"Also, if he tries to hurt the children, we both know about a dozen people who will beat him into a pulp."

She smiles at the idea. "Also true." She glances out beyond the bridge to the night. "What about you?"

"We're staying at a hotel tonight."

"And tomorrow? Will you be working?"

"We'll see."

Lips pursed, she nods again. "Can you just promise me you'll try to take care of yourself, as much as you can? Don't get yourself killed trying to prove your father wrong."

"I will." He wonders when he'll be able to see her next, if not at school. This leads him to his next thought: "You should talk to Haruhi and Tamaki. Even the twins and the Zukas, if you want. I'm not asking you to report to them one by one, obviously, but just when you want to. I know you do."

"Yeah. Okay."

"And the next time that something happens, however big or small, please just tell me."

"I will. Should we make a deal?" She holds her hand up, grinning again, a bit sadly. "I'll tell you when something's happening, and you'll…get some sleep and eat real food?"

They shake on it. For the first time in a long time, Kyoya feels comfort in his exhaustion. He's lighter. He'll sleep better tonight than he has in months, knowing that everything is going to be a little better going forward, that this bond between the two of them has been strengthened, not weathered.

Not all is resolved, of course. There are still things to discuss—such as what had been consuming Kyoya's mind that day she'd been rushed to the doctor. In a way, there may be no better time to say it, when they've already opened themselves to so many other things.

But in another way, perhaps this is the worst time. They're both spent. They've admitted so many things to themselves and each other, they're both on pins and needles. No doubt Kosuke, too, will sleep like Briar Rose tonight. What's a little while longer?

"We should both be going. Neither of us wants to catch suspicion—and no doubt Fuyumi is dying for you to tell her everything."

She half-sighs, half-laughs. "We really are going to have to tell everyone we've buried the hatchet, huh?"

"Yes, I suppose we are. But the details are none of their business."

Kosuke stands. The backs of her knees are red from the stone. "Thank you for coming. And I'm sorry that this had to be so…crazy."

"It's not your fault. Thank you for trying so hard to talk to me. And for talking to me."

She looks away, sheepish. "Right. Well…Goodnight? I guess?"

"Goodnight. Let me know when you've been freed."

"Okay." She waves. "Bye."

Kyoya is the first to go, taking a second to peer up atop the bridge. There's no one there, of course, but better safe than sorry. He has no energy left to do any explaining—not even to Akito, though he doubts he'll ask any questions. Other than, of course, why there's such a need for discrepancy, which—

"Kyoya?"

Kosuke hasn't budged an inch. She's frozen again. No tells.

"Yes?"

She opens and closes her mouth a few times again. She looks more afraid than she has this whole time, and it makes his stomach twist with worry. What else could there be? Her father, the loan sharks, the compensated date—what else could she possibly be afraid of telling him?

Kosuke looks behind and around her, not to find anything, but as though she's debating the here and now of it all. It reminds Kyoya a bit of when she was trying to ask him to meet her grandparents. She looks just as ready to run as she did then.

But she stays, and stays quiet and still for a long time.

"I'd like to…ask you something."

Even her voice sounds unstable. "Yes?"

"I don't want to…" She doesn't finish.

"It's okay. You can ask."

She clears her throat and nods shakily.

"Just…hypothetically."

Kyoya nods.

"Hypothetically. If I told you that—despite everything that came with it—I was happy that we're together—in this together. Not just because we're friends and I trust you, which we are, and I do. But also because I…feel safe when I'm with you. And happy, and more sure that everything will be okay. And if I said, hypothetically, that I feel that way and more not just because you're a friend who I love, but because I love you in a different way…in a way that makes me want to stay with you and make you feel as safe and happy and as sure that everything will be okay as you make me feel…what…would you say to that?"

She swallows. "Hypothetically?"

Much silence follows, which Kyoya feels terrible for, seeing how she stands still and terrified. But he can't help it. He's unable to breathe, let alone talk.

Kosuke is half-lit and half-shadowed, and terribly small where she stands alone beside the stream. As Kyoya returns to her, he sees how stiff she is. The slight blue of sleeplessness under her eyes, and the way her fingers are gently curled into her palms, like she can't let herself fidget in a time like this. She's never looked so delicate. She's never looked so beautiful.

When he holds his hand palm-up to her, she looks between it and him, uncomprehending. Perhaps not even believing that she's said all that—it's all out in the open, now, her last secret. Or perhaps, as she rests her hand so lightly in his, she's like him, and not allowing herself to believe that this is real.

"Hypothetically," he says, "I would say that I'm upset that I didn't say it first."

Her hand twitches in his like a static shock.

"Yeah?"

"Yes."

"Oh." Her hand finally holds his tighter. "Okay."

And then, much to Kyoya's horror, she begins to cry.

She doesn't even realize it herself. A tear rolls down her cheek, startling her. She wipes it away, but no sooner does another fall down the other cheek, and she laughs and groans at the same time.

"Oh, God. I'm sorry. I don't know why I'm crying."

"You're not sad, are you?"

She gives him a push to his shoulder without any strength. "No, I'm not sad, you…"

Kyoya never does find out what he is. He wants to laugh, and at the same time, he can't bear the sight of it anymore. So while Kosuke continues to wipe those happy tears away, Kyoya pulls her to him, one hand in her hair and the other around her. It's less of a hug and more of a hold, and she gives a shaky laugh and another apology, and he tells her it's okay.

It is. It's okay. It's perfect.

Chapter Summary:

Kosuke and Kyoya finally reunite. They apologize to one another for their argument, then move on to why they're having to rendezvous somewhere hidden. It takes effort, but Kosuke finally admits to how horrible Shigeo has been to her, and that she'd agreed to be his heir because she needed the money. This also leads to her confessing about the loan shark and the compensated date. Kyoya is nothing but sympathetic, but doesn't understand why she never told any of her friends, let alone asked for help. Kosuke explains that she hates how she used to be so much that she feels the only way to compensate for it is to endure every problem alone. She wants to atone for being so selfish and for making her parents worry about her for so long. Though understanding, Kyoya tells her that she NEEDS to ask for help sometimes, even if it's just venting, and that she shouldn't feel guilty for it. Kosuke promises to do better. She wants to ask him to stop pushing himself so hard in turn, but feels she can't, since he clearly cares so much about his family business. Kyoya admits, to both her and himself, that he wants to prove to his father and everyone else that he's not the worthless thirdborn son they've always said he was, and that's it's almost a matter of revenge now. The two ruminate on how trying their circumstances are, but mutually promise to look after themselves and each other. When it seems that the conversation is coming to an end, Kosuke finally says what she'd wanted to in the first place: that she loves Kyoya and wants to truly be together. Elated, Kyoya tells her he reciprocates, and the two hug one another.