bored411: lol thank you very much! I promise we're on our way to some healing. The fire isn't quite dead yet, but it's calming down.
Akari Wolf Princess: The miscommunication is strong...But we're working on our way to resolution. This is a romance story after all, lol. Poor Kosuke and Poor Kyoya will get there eventually.
lillyannp: Honestly writing them refuse to communicate with each other is so frustrating. Things will go "wonderfully right" soon enough. In terms of "arcs" in this story, we've gone past the introduction and are just about done with the "Kosuke and Kyoya Hate Each Other" Arc.
simone: Yes, I do! This fic is going to be around ~120 chapters. The number may change just a bit depending on how long chapters end up being, if I want to get rid of this one then add this one, etc. There will be a lot of "slice of life" chapters, i.e. little self-contained stories that just develop Kosuke and Kyoya's relationship, haha. Thanks so much!
He's furious. Kosuke can tell.
He's not verbal about it, of course, not when they have a play to act and lines to remember. She catches it in the way his eyes go frosty when they are heard but not seen. His smiles were always fake before, but now they are cheaper than plastic. She swears that she knows he's coming because a chill sweeps into the room and brings goosebumps to her skin.
Kosuke wants to say that she couldn't care less. After all, doesn't he deserve a taste of his own medicine? Sadly, she does care.
Perhaps not on Kyoya's behalf, but it's proof that she's not holding everything together quite as well as she thought. She has been managing so far—not excelling, not floundering, just managing. She's stayed on top of all her class assignments. She has given the children proper attention and care, has played with them and read them their bedtime stories. She has been reading all the papers Shigeo gave her, even if it's to the point where she feels like her brain is about to ooze out of her ears.
She slipped on this, though. Completely dropped the ball. There are no words strong enough to describe the horror that shot through her heart when she realized that she was supposed to be with Kyoya at a fine-dining restaurant in the city twenty minutes ago, and she was dressed in her candy-kitten pajamas, passed out in a heap of blankets and papers.
Thus far, her and Kyoya's text messages consist of only three: the address of Chapels, her confirmation, and then her second apology for forgetting, which he hasn't responded to.
Does she care that Kyoya's angry? Probably not. Especially after learning that he just decided to make it a double date. She would have also been shellshocked to meet his mother, but according to Tamaki (utterly oblivious to Kosuke's confusion as to why they were also at Chapels) that had been a surprise to Kyoya, as well.
She doesn't know why he wouldn't tell her that Haruhi and Tamaki were coming, but knowing him, he probably wouldn't have cared to let her know. Because, after all, she's just the stupid little brat who needs to do as she's told and stop complaining, right?
Thankfully, there have been no repercussions. Haruhi and Tamaki have not complained, only asked if they could maybe try again sometime. Kyoya has not said anything else about it, or anything else, for that matter. He hasn't said a single real word to her since—only the lines on their scripts. So, forgetting the date isn't a problem. It's proof that she has problems.
Kosuke knows that Kyoya is at least a little right. Not that she's ever going to admit as much to his stupid smug face. Shigeo, too, has emphasized that the way others perceive her can make or break any deal. Forgetting her date with her fiancé might only be the first step. Then she'll forget to attend one of Minami's plays, and everyone will think she's heartless to her siblings. Then she'll forget to attend some important gala, and everyone will think she's rude and stuffy.
She just has to mind her schedule more, that's all. And her mind. No doubt she forgot about the date because it got lost in all the screaming thoughts ricocheting between her ears.
She has to keep up with the many different assignments in her college courses.
She has to care for her siblings and cannot for one moment leave them behind now that their world has flipped upside down.
She has to walk on eggshells around the father that she cannot trust.
She has to keep the phone Sugimoto gave her hidden in her pajama drawer, and wonder if taking him up on his offer will ruin her family even more.
She has to wonder what happened to her mother, and who did her the most harm, her parents, or her husband?
She has to send the loan shark her scheduled payments and pray that no one ever finds out.
She has to pretend to be in love with a man she despises but will spend the rest of her life with.
She has to keep all of this a secret.
Sometimes she forgets to breathe. Kosuke knows that if she starts to panic, she will only spiral, and she has no time for that. She knows, deep down, that she's wearing herself down mentally. It doesn't take a medical professional to tell her that she's pushing herself too far. Still, in the sparse moments where she isn't doing anything, she doesn't feel relaxed. She doesn't take a breath. She tries to figure out what she should be working on.
However, at times work and relaxation fuse together. She's attended a birthday party of a classmate. She did not know her, and gave her a very impersonal gift of a pretty necklace (bought with Shigeo's money, of course), but she bought out an entire opera house for them to see The Magic Flute. She, Haruhi, and Tamaki have met in the city to eat, and even if she has to lie about loving their best friend, their presences relax her. She'll miss Haruhi sorely when she leaves for the States.
There is no greater example of this, though, than Application of Culinary Skills I.
Because HOLY MOLY, she LOVES THIS CLASS.
One of the many, many, many things Kosuke loves about this class is that everyone has their own stations. Each and every one of them has their own oven, their own stove, pots, pans, knives, whisks, ladles, skewers, forks, clamps...There's even a gold plate on the corner of each one denoting their name, which she isn't even annoyed at. She feels like a competitor on a televised cooking competition, but without a drop of stress. The first day in here, when she first saw the array of knives set up on the backboard of her station—her station!—she had to swipe away drool that was spilling from her lips. She hopes no one saw.
And that's just their stations. Perhaps the Gothic pink walls and the crystal chandeliers are out-of-place, but Kosuke couldn't care less. Not when the classroom is her dreamland. A sleek row of stainless steel refrigerators, freezers, and blast-chillers line the eastern wall, without a single scratch. To the back is all of their equipment, stand mixers and woks and deep fryers, one for each and every one of them and still looking crisp and clean from packaging.
And the pantry.
Oh, sweet merciful heavens, the pantry...
Their pantry has been provided for them by the gods and goddesses of food and wine. The spice room is just ethereal, there's no other word for it. There are rows upon rows of spices and herbs from all over the world, paprika to anise, cardamon to Himalayan pink salt, almost sparkling in their delicate glass jars in a rainbow of colors. The flour and grains are also stored with them—freshly ground and tucked immaculately away in their sacks, each and every kind imaginable. Kosuke has never seen so many different kinds of rice in one room before, and she has made it her mission already to cook with each and every one of them—basmati, jasmine, arborio…
The produce room cannot even be compared to Marché Saxe-Breteuil. Once you step in through the door and into the misty air, you've been transported away to another world, where every fruit and vegetable known to man all grow in the same soil. Kosuke thought that surely the branches and vines had to be hidden in the shadows, because she's just never seen food so fresh before. The leaves are almost too green to look at. She can smell the mint from three feet away. There are fruits that seem like to burst with juice, their color coming close to neon. They would all sell for hundreds, there's not a doubt in her mind. They have all being raised from seedlings to be nothing but ambrosia. There are no brown spots, no odd shapes, not even the slightest speck of dirt. She feels horrible just for touching them.
The cooler may not trigger her appetite so much, but every time she looks in, she feels like an artist looking at countless blank canvases. No doubt she should be considered crazy for being so happy about frozen animal carcasses hung on the wall or chilled along ice cubes, but she can't help it. There is poultry, fish, beef, and pork from all over the world in here. Red snapper with crimson scales that glisten on the ice. Ham hocks just waiting to be rubbed with spices and roasted to perfection. Chickens, quails, and turkeys plucked so smoothly Kosuke thinks she'll just have to do rotisserie with them every time because she'd otherwise feel overwhelmingly guilty for mangling them.
There are just too many blessings for her to count. It seems that every time she turns around, she's met with some new wonder right out of her fantasies. How she didn't pass out during their tour, she doesn't know. The guy standing next to her asked her if she was okay because he said that she was, quote, "vibrating."
This kitchen is her therapy. Her home away from...Well, now it's just her home. She has already memorized her station down to every groove in the sleek wood. At the end of the day, she ducks her head back into the produce cooler just to look at everything one more time before tomorrow. She's even named all of her knives already, which she is aware is very strange and has not told anyone about.
She's working with Boss today. Boss is her favorite.
"Kosuke, how..." Rika shuffles over to her station. Ten minutes in, and she looks like she's crawled through a trench in No Man's Land. The snowy white of her uniform has now been dusted in a fine layer of dirt. She's even got some on her toque, somehow. Kosuke likes Rika plenty, but somehow the poor thing gets filthy no matter what their task. "How did you get them so clean? I can see my reflection in them!"
She picks up one of the potatoes from Kosuke's bowl—which bothers her because come on, Rika, you're getting it dirty again, but she lets it slide—to marvel at it. They do look oddly pearly for spuds. Kosuke doesn't want to brag, though. As Marti always said, you can be proud of your work while still being humble.
"Elbow grease, I guess?" Kosuke resumes her brushing of the one in her hand. The water that runs between her fingers and down the drain is tinted brown, but at least she's rolled the sleeves of her coat up to her elbow. Unlike Rika's, which now have thick brown cuffs. "You are rinsing them, right?"
"Not enough, I guess." Rika looks back to her station with despair and returns reluctantly to it. Kosuke truly doesn't want to kick the poor girl while she's already down, but...yeah, her potatoes do still look like they've been pulled right out of the dirt.
There's a sudden SNAP from the station in front of her, and Kosuke almost drops her potato into the sink. Haruto stares dumbly down at his fingers, which are luckily all still there and not spilled out along his cutting board. "That scared the hell out of me." He turns to her. "These things really don't want to be diced."
Kosuke asks, "Is your knife sharp?"
He inspects the blade, wet with water, with a frown. "Could be sharper."
"A dull knife is more dangerous than a sharp knife. Please be careful." Kosuke speaks from experience. One of her worst cuts came from forcing a knife. She doesn't want to coddle anyone, but when she spots the student one station past Haruto's, she exclaims, "Yoshiko, do it away from your body. You'll cut yourself!"
The young women stops just as the blade of her peeler is cutting into the flesh of the potato again—and if she kept bringing it as close to her wrist as she was, her flesh, too. Her chinks go even pinker under her blush. "I knew I was doing something wrong. Thanks, Kosuke!"
"Oh, dear..." Benjiro's groan has her turning back around. He's looking this way and that at the small pile of diced potato on his cutting board, as if trying to figure it out. They don't need to be absolutely flawless, but they will be judged on uniformity, and this first batch is rather...not-uniform. "How am I messing up cutting a potato?"
Kosuke makes sure to carefully rinse her hands clean before picking up a peeled potato from his station. It's clean and free of peel, but the sides are pointed and stick out at all angles. It looks less round and more dodecehedron-like. "I think you went too deep when you were peeling. Now you have a bunch of sides on it that are going to make it hard to keep symmetrical."
Benjiro takes a look into his wastebasket. There's a nest of brown peels inside, but also just a bit too much yellow-white of meat clinging to them. "Figures. Thanks, Kosuke."
"No problem," Kosuke chirps. She likes helping whenever she can. She just hopes none of her classmates thinks she's condescending or pompous for it.
Chef Matsuhisa calls out as she stalks along the aisle. She is a tall, thin women with an upper lip as stiff and red as a ruby. All her gray hair is pulled painfully tight beneath her toque. It makes her face seem sharper than it truly is—especially her eyes, a pale brown color that is almost yellow, making her look like an angry hawk ready to swoop down upon them at any moment.
Kosuke was thrown for quite a loop when she found out she was going to be their instructor, but in the best way possible. She's been a diehard fan of her for what feels like forever. Her expertise in the kitchen is godlike, earning her at least a spot in many Japan's Best Chefs lists, and almost always the number-one title in Japan's Best Female Chefs list. She has cooked for celebrities, diplomats, and more than once, the President. Kosuke has several news and magazine articles tucked in her little "Inspiration Folder" in her closet. Which is...another thing she won't tell anyone about.
"Fifteen minutes of class left," Chef Matsuhisa calls out. She has a steely contralto voice that cuts through the air crisp and clear. "Remember you will be graded on cleanliness, peeling, and dicing. You don't have to use all of your potatoes, but I will judge what you provide."
Kosuke does wish that they could do more in here—push the envelope a little bit. Is it bragging to say she already knows how to dice potatoes? But this is the only application class she can take part in without any prerequisites or a Culinary Arts focus, and she still had to take a test on kitchen safety and sanitation before she was admitted. Plus, they're still early.
It could be worse, Kosuke tells herself as she starts peeling her last potato. She wasn't planning on using all of hers, but she got finished faster than she thought she would and decided to just go for it. The glide of the blade soothes her nerves. This is familiar, and an easy grade. Plus this is the best thing happening in your life right now, so.
"Holy crap, Kosuke! What the—?!"
Rika flies over to Kosuke's station at the speed of light. Kosuke is still reeling as Rika looks so closely at her pile of diced potatoes that she's just a few scant inches away from getting poked in the eye with them.
"How the heck did you do that?!"
"Do what?" Benjiro snaps from behind them—Kosuke may not know him well yet, but she knows he hates it when his focus is interrupted, which is fair. Yet the sharpness in his voice evaporates with a "Whoa!" and then he has joined Rika. Then Yoshiko, and a few other chefs-in-training leave their stations behind to flock over to hers, and Kosuke is starting to feel a little claustrophobic.
"What's wrong?" she asks.
"What's wrong? Nothing is wrong! Look at them!"
Yoshiko flings her arm at the pile of potato-cubes, which perhaps isn't a pile so much as it is a pyramid. Kosuke thinks she's done well, but nothing to drool over. Chef Matsuhisa instructed them to cube their potatoes, and that's what she's attempted to do.
"Look at these edges!" Benjiro plucks up one of the cubes and runs his fingertip along one of the sides. "I could cut myself on them!"
"Okay, you know what? I petition that Kosuke be removed from this class." Rika stamps her no-slip black shoe down hard on the tiled floor. Kosuke honestly cannot tell if she's joking or not. "She's clearly some inhuman cooking witch, so she has an unfair advantage."
"Ahem."
All sound cuts off as though someone has hit the mute button on a remote. From across the room, Chef Matsuhisa raises a thin, penciled brow at them. Somehow Kosuke didn't notice that it wasn't just a few of her classmates, all of them have gathered around her station to ooh and ahh. No wonder she's feeling so cramped (especially since some are still wielding their knives.)
"You now have ten minutes of class left. I suggest you all focus on your own work before others'."
There's a lightspeed stampede of students gunning it back to their stations. Knives are picked up again, faucets start running water, and each and every one of them reply, "Yes, Chef!" in a perfect chorus.
Chef Matsuhisa glides her way to Kosuke's station, and she tries to quell the buzz of excitement in her chest. She used to roll her eyes at her middle school classmates for screaming and squeeing every time they saw their celebrity idols smiling on a magazine cover, or popping up on the television screen, real but miles away. Now Kosuke thinks she's about to explode just from the fact that Chef Matsuhisa is standing right there judging her food and aaaaAAAAHHH—
The world-renowned chef pinches one of her cubes between her finger and thumb, turning it this way and that and then turning her attention to the others. Kosuke doesn't know what she wants more, a compliment or a criticism. They're coming from one of her idols either way.
"Good." Chef Matsuhisa puts the cube back down and doesn't spare Kosuke a glance as she walks away. "You can start cleaning up your station for today."
"Yes, Chef," Kosuke replies, and prays with all of her heart that she hasn't squeaked the words out.
Even cleaning is something that she takes an unreasonable delight in, even if it is with the bittersweet acknowledgement that it means her haven is coming to a close for the day. By the time she's washed her knives and cutting board in the dishwasher—which is so large and powerful one could probably stuff a car in there and have it come out squeaky-clean—Chef Matsuhisa rings her dainty end-of-class bell, and students start to shuffle about cleaning up their own stations. Chef Matsuhisa picks up her clipboard and walks from one to the next, scribbling grades.
Kosuke sighs when she knows no one is listening. When she returns home to Shigeo's mansion today, with its eerily empty hallways and the bed still too new to sleep on, it will be just like any other day. A repeated schedule of digesting information she can barely comprehend, finishing up school work at the last possible minute, and playing with the children. She knows that she should be fairer to them—they're both old enough to take "I'm sorry, hun, but I'm too busy to play right now" for an answer. It's just Kosuke's fear that once she starts doing that, she will make it a habit, and she'll turn her precious baby brother and sister into nuisances.
Just as she's making the finishing touches to her station, making sure all her knives are in the right order (Princess, Duchess, Lady, Tsarina...) Kosuke looks up and sees something that makes an invisible hand squeeze around her trachea.
Suddenly the sugary pink walls and the glossy mosaic tiles become monochrome. Out of her own control, her hand comes up to her heart, which feels as though it has given its last beat, rhythm cut short by the absolute travesty—no, the horror!—in front of her:
People wasting perfectly good food.
The students—all of them, even the ones that she liked! Even the ones she admired, respected!—were just throwing their sliced and diced potatoes away as if they were nothing. Junk! Trash! Lint in the dryer! Some grab them by the handfuls, others push droves with the blade of their knives, but all those poor, uneaten potato cubes go spiraling into the gaping maw of their trashbins.
Kosuke's foot suddenly shoots out behind her—just barely stopping her from collapsing backwards to the floor. She brings herself closer to her own pyramid of potatoes, back bending over them as though she were a dragon protecting her hoard of gold. She honestly thinks she is about to scream.
Is this what we do here? her numb mind says. This is the first time we've worked with actual food...If I'd known we were going to be doing this, I would've left class while we were learning the different kinds of kitchen equipment! They can't force me to go against my beliefs like this!
"Amida?" Chef Matsuhisa has called her name, her new, wretched name several times now, but Kosuke is still so unused to it that she only now looks at her. The renowned chef's whiskey-colored eyes are fixed on her, one brow again raised up. "Did you need something?"
"No, Chef. Um—Yes, Chef."
"'No, Chef, yes, Chef'? Use your words."
"Are we...really not going to be using these?" Kosuke looks to her diced potatoes and imagines them descending into the plastic darkness of a garbage bag. She's going to have nightmares tonight, she knows it. "It just seems...wasteful. Can't we...give them to the cafeteria to serve?"
"I understand your wariness to waste, Amida, but you have to learn cutting skills somehow. When you make a dish that does not come out well, does that mean you wasted the ingredients, or does it mean you now know what to do next time? Don't cry over spilled milk—or diced potatoes, in this case."
That...makes sense. Somewhat. She recalls watching cooking competitions on television—just about the only thing she does watch, other than the news—and that there are sometimes rounds based solely on knife skills. She supposes they really do just toss whatever vegetables they've chopped and diced and minced into the trash.
Still...this feels sacrilegious.
Chef Matsuhisa begins her end-of-class speech. "Wash and dry all your utensils and equipment and return them to their proper place. Clean and organize your stations. If you don't, you'll be penalized come your next grade. The kitchen will be open until five, as always. You're allowed to stay here and practice your culinary skills as you please, but only at your station, and you will clean up after yourself afterwards. If you don't, you'll lose this privilege. I'll see you all tomorrow."
A few students drift towards the door at once, others still mingling at the dishwasher. Aprons are thrown into the linens to be washed. Coats, some stained, some spotless, shrug off of shoulders. More than one student goes into the changing rooms. Kosuke actually likes that they take their uniforms home instead of leaving them here to be washed. She likes having it hang up in her closet. It's one of the few new things that she takes comfort in.
Still, looking at her potatoes...Kosuke can't do it.
I can...take them home? Cook them for supper tonight? Wait, no, I don't have a container. And I can't steal from the kitchen. And the cooks REALLY don't like when I just up and decide to cook dinner myself. I could put them in one of the fridges, come back with a container tomorrow. Or...will that be disobeying Chef Matsuhisa's orders? Would she really care?
Kosuke is unsure of what to do, she just knows that she can't just toss all this perfectly usable food into the trash. It always frayed her nerves down past the bones even before she discovered this burning passion for cooking, back when she could burn water. She judged unseen customers by the plates that were sent back to the kitchen—chicken with plenty of flesh still on the bones, spaghetti that just looked like they spun their fork in it a few times, and worst of all, salads that had only had the toppings picked off, leaving behind an empty bed of lettuce. All sent back by what could have been perfectly fine people, but in Kosuke's eyes, they were monsters.
Surely she can find something to do with it. The children won't be done with school for a few more hours, still. Shigeo's mansion isn't that far away…maybe she can leave, get a container, and come back. But if no one is in the kitchen, then it'll probably be locked up for the day, and Chef Matsuhisa will be enraged if she leaves a mountain of raw potatoes on her station. She can't call her chauffeur. She's been explicitly told that his job is to take her to and from places. The end. No favors.
When life gives you lemons, make lemonade, Kosuke thinks, grabbing her apron and throwing it back on. Probably not supposed to take that literally, but here we are.
The good news is that it takes much less time than she thought it would. Perhaps a little more than a half-hour. The Applewood-smoked bacon crisps up beautifully in the Dutch oven—there's a Dutch oven, by the way, holy moly—and after dicing up the yellow onion, it's just a matter of tossing the potatoes in with the spices and the broth and cream. Simmering takes up most of the time, and pureeing it to just the right consistency. After sprinkling some fresh chives atop her bowl, Kosuke is very satisfied. It's been a while since she's made potato soup. It's not exactly the right weather just yet.
The bad news is that in her blind need to not waste her potatoes, Kosuke grossly underestimated just how many there were. She only has one bowl of soup in front of her, and an entire pot of it left. There has to be twenty more servings of it, easily. So she's right back to where she started, but now she has a liquid instead of a solid to figure out how to get out of the kitchen.
She's going to need some backup.
Washing her hands clean once more, Kosuke pulls her phone out from her back pocket.
To: Haruhi
Are you busy right now? Made soup in cul. arts kitchen and need someone to help me eat it.
As always, Kosuke can depend on her best friend for her quick help. Very quick. In fact, Kosuke thinks the message has been sent for all of three seconds when Haruhi comes bulleting into the kitchen.
"I'm here to help," she says with all seriousness. Her face lights up brighter than the sun as Kosuke pours her a bowl and passes it over to her. Kosuke only wishes that they had some chairs—Haruhi nearly melts into the floor the second she puts the first spoonful into her mouth.
"So what happened?" she asks when she's gained control of her bodily functions once more. "Did you accidentally make a pot of potato soup?"
"No. We were cutting potatoes and we were going to just—throw them away. Just—throw them all away! Into the trash! Perfectly good potatoes!" Haruhi clearly does not understand that this is a crime against God, so Kosuke just sighs and goes on. "I figured I'd make something with mine, but I don't have anything to bring this home in."
Haruhi sucks the cream off her spoon and takes a look into the massive pot—Kosuke turns the flame off. "Not that I wouldn't happily try, but I don't think I can eat all of this."
Kosuke's lips purse as she, too, looks and sees that Haruhi's serving has not made so much as a dent. She also realizes that before she would just be throwing potatoes away. Now she'd be throwing away potatoes, bacon, onion, spices, broth...Oh, she's going to be sick.
"Hold on." She digs her phone out again.
To: Tamaki
Made soup in cul. arts kitchen. Do you want some?
She hits 'send', and the door flies open again. "Kosuke!"
"Tamaki!" She's already pouring a ladle of soup into another bowl. Tamaki bounds over to the station, standing beside Haruhi as she scrapes the cream clinging to the sides of her bowl. "I need your help eating all this soup!"
"Of course I will!" Tamaki at least pauses to blow on his spoonful (as opposed to his fiancée, whose tongue is clearly suffering the consequences) before popping it past his lips. Instantly he lets out a delighted hum that Haruhi supports with one of her own. "Kosuke, are you sure you don't want to cater our wedding?"
"It's not about not wanting to, Tamaki, it's about not having the experience. I promise I will gift you two with a lot of food even if I'm just a wedding guest." Kosuke looks into the pot and instantly slaps her hands down on the counter. Tamaki and Haruhi jump. "Ugh!"
"What?" Tamaki asks, even as he's swirling his spoon around in his bowl to gather up the cream. "What's the problem?"
"This is never going to be eaten at this rate. Listen, you two. I need as many people to come get soup as is possible. How many phone numbers do you have?"
Eager to help—and perhaps a bit unnerved at her intensity—Haruhi and Tamaki obediently pull out their cellphones with their spoons sticking out of their mouths.
"I can invite the people in my law class," offers Haruhi. "Hikaru and Kaoru should be here, too. And maybe Mori and Hani."
"I have the entire student body's phone number."
Haruhi pulls the spoon from her mouth with an audible pop. "Why?"
"I like to send everyone birthday wishes," Tamaki answers as if it's the most obvious thing in the world. He scrolls through the many, many contacts packed into his list. "Who should I invite?"
"Everyone."
Kosuke's low voice has both of them looking back at her, alarmed. Usually she regards her food with a sense of pride and satisfaction—if not, then a critical eye, mentally taking notes of everything she must improve the next time. Now, though, her eyes are dark. And determined. Looking down into the pot of potato soup like it's an enemy that she has already decided she will destroy.
"Are you...sure?" Haruhi asks first. "That'll probably create a mess, and that'll be a lot of bowls to clean—"
"EVERYONE."
Not everyone makes it. But it's enough.
If the students were only wearing formal attire instead of casual wear, and the floor was not cluttered with the rows of stations, Kosuke would think that she actually is a caterer, serving at a soiree of Japan's elite. Students flow through the aisles and cluster around the counters. The air is filled with the hum of laughter and conversation, shoes clicking across the tiled floor.
Kosuke has pulled out the half-size bowls to make the soup go longer, a problem that she is all too happy to have instead. She asks herself sometimes why it is that cooking makes her heart beat so happily, and she thinks that maybe it is just as simple as bearing the fruits of her labors. This is another joy, however: watching as so many people eat her food, her food, and smile and exclaim. Maybe it inflates her ego, or maybe she's just happy to make others happy. Kosuke doesn't care. Because she's happy.
Kosuke does not know how long this impromptu party has been going, only that the soup was once only a few scant inches from the lip of the pot and is now just a few scant inches from the bottom. She knows that she will have dozens upon dozens of bowls to push through the washing machine, and she couldn't care less. For once, Ouran is not overwhelming her by its sheer size and scale. She feels at ease, and that these next years here will not be so bad as she feared.
She catches a few glimpses of familiar faces. Some only the brief flashes that she catches in the hallways, others the more constant ones in her classrooms. She doesn't feel so much like a sore thumb now—just now, though. Every time she hears someone talk about their three villas in the Alpines, she's physically repelled ten feet away from them.
"Kosuke!" The youngest—no, geez, oldest—Zuka comes skipping up to the station, followed with a much calmer pace by his fiancée. His younger but much taller cousin is among the crowd, talking in a quad of students. Or, listening, anyway. "You're such a good cook! You should be a chef one day!"
Yes, that would be nice. "Thank you very much. I think I'm just going to stick to Amida Health."
"It's very good," Reiko says in a tone that sounds a bit noncommittal but Kosuke thinks is genuine. The girl just doesn't wear her heart on her sleeve, and Kosuke can respect that. "Would you want to be a chef, if you didn't have Amida Health to leave?"
"I don't know," she lies. She busies herself with wiping a soapy towel down her station for the thousandth time. Hani is scraping up the last bits of carrot and potato with his spoon and she doesn't want to bring the mood crashing down by lamenting how she can't follow her dreams. "You're not supposed to do something you like as your job, right?"
They both hum. 'Fair enough.' Someone behind them pulls Hani's attention away, talking about more rich-people topics that sound like a foreign language to Kosuke's ears. Just as soon, his presence is replaced by none other than the Hitachiin twins, who have forgone their spoons in favor of just tipping their bowls back. Kosuke isn't filled with dread, not really. Just as long as they don't try to sneak some measuring tape around her hips again, they'll be fine.
"Not that you have a bad personality or anything," says Hikaru, "but now I'm convinced you made Kyoya go ga-ga over you with your cooking."
"Kyoya's gonna be a happy man," agrees Kaoru. He slides his fingertip around the lip of his bowl. "Fat, but happy."
"Thanks. I guess. But no, I actually haven't been able to cook for Kyoya yet." Kosuke even wonders if she'll ever have to. When she and Kyoya inevitably live in their own house, it seems expectable that they're going to have their own team of personal chefs, too. Her only other company in that far-off hellhole. "I'll pass on the warning to him, though."
"So did your mom teach you how to cook?" Hikaru sets his bowl on the edge of her station and stretches his arms out behind his head. Now Kosuke sees that he's expertly picked out all the carrots. Wasteful. "Did'ya cook in the kitchen while you guys were open?"
"Uh," Kosuke says first, just to buy her some time. She knows that she hasn't yet told them that her mother has passed, and she knows that that is—pretty bad. She knows that one day she'll hear a shout along the lines of, 'Why the hell didn't you say anything?' She just can't find the right time to say, 'Hey, my mom died, actually.' On top of that, though, has she even mentioned that she has a stepfather? Had. "Yeah, I picked up a lot from her. She gave me a book of all her recipes."
"Wow." Kaoru sets his bowl down, too. Also full of carrots. Carrots aren't that bad. "How do you have a twenty-seven-inch waist when you grew up with cooking like this?"
"I'm going to let you try that again."
"Your mom is a very good cook."
"Thanks."
From the crowd sprouts two students that Kosuke thinks she has seen before. She does not know their names, but they're smiling at her, so she smiles back, and doesn't even realize that one of them is holding a piece of paper and a pen until she's right in front of her. "Hi! You're Kosuke, right?"
"I am." The two of them are dressed like they stepped right out of a fashion magazine. One in a navy dress with long sleeves laced up to the elbow, the other in a flowing white shirt with a deep neckline to highlight the thick gold band around her neck. Kosuke has kept her uniform clean, but she feels so clumsy in her chunky black shoes and baggy pants. "Is there something I can help you with?"
"That soup is sooooooooooo good," the one in the dress trills. She bestows the paper and pen to Kosuke. "Could you write down the recipe for me? I need to know how to make it."
"Oh! Of course, of course." Kosuke's laughing probably a bit stupidly, but she can't help it. There is no higher compliment than someone asking for your recipe. It's happened before, but every single time, it fills her with such a bubbly joy that she thinks she's about to float off the ground. "Just a second..."
She clicks the pen and starts scribbling—already wondering if this is going to be enough paper, because her notes go into a lot of detail. She doesn't hear the footsteps approaching, but thankfully she doesn't jump as Tamaki's voice exclaims, suddenly so close, "You may want to take that to a copier. Everyone's asking for it."
Kosuke bites her tongue because she is honest-to-God about to sing. Her hand is trembling, and she presses the pen harder to the paper.
"Do you ever do caterings, or anything?" The girl with the gold wrapped around her throat asks. Her perfectly manicured hands come together. "I'm sorry if that's a dumb question, but I would honestly pay you anything."
It's a good thing that they are all on the other side of the station. Kosuke's foot is lifting up off the ground, curling up behind her. It's out of her control. "That's so kind of you to say, but I think I'm a little too busy with school right now."
She feels so stupidly happy right now, the unbridled joy of a child that just one a blue ribbon. Professional chefs like Matsuhisa accept praise with a nod and a mature smile, nothing more than a "Thank you." Here Kosuke is about to start tap-dancing.
It's probably for the best that she won't end up being a chef. If this is what it would be like, she wouldn't be able to take it. People wouldn't come to her restaurant, the one where the cook looked like she was about to have an aneurysm every time someone complimented her cooking.
The girl in the laced dress looks around the crowd. "Where's Kyoya at?"
So much for that.
Kosuke pauses in her scribbling. The balloon has popped. The record has scratched. Her joy is gone and now everything is just beige and bland and boring.
Of course people will ask, he's your fiancé. Better get used to it, hun, this is going to be the rest of your life.
"He—well." Kosuke unclicks the pen, clicks it again. Taps it on the paper, dotting it with ink. "I texted him about it, but he never responded. I think he may be busy."
They're not going to ask for proof, right? Why would they do that? It would be so snoopy. Kosuke wonders if she should text him, though, just so he has proof in case anyone asks. But to do that, though, she would have to see their past texts, the address to Chapels, her confirmation, her apology, and nothing else. The summary of their relationship.
Kosuke wonders, would he even come if she had texted him? He may say that it would look bad for him not to come, because they are in love, and they come running when the other calls. But he may really be busy, and unable to come on such short notice. Or maybe he'd just give her a taste of her own medicine—
"Kyoya never responds when he's at work," Tamaki sighs. He folds his arms over his chest, almost sulking. Right, he would've already texted him—"It's Thursday. That means he's busy from eleven in the morning to eleven at night."
"Right," Kosuke says quickly, and throws in a dash of embarrassment. "What was I thinking?"
She's relieved that Tamaki came to her salvation without being asked—without even knowing. But her relief melts into confusion, because she's remembering what Kyoya's class schedule is—not that she's too interested in it—and...
"Doesn't Kyoya's class end at eleven?"
For a breath's length, she frets in the wake of her mistake. That shouldn't be a question, she should know his class schedule, she does.
No one seems to notice, though, and Haruhi, having walked up for her third serving, readily answers, "He said his professor uses the last ten minutes of class time to let them work on their assignments and discuss projects. Kyoya uses that time to gun it to work as quickly as he can."
Kosuke pours another ladle, the last of the soup, into Haruhi's bowl. She nods, but she's still processing.
She still doesn't fully understand what working at a medical company entails (which she isn't proud of.) But knowing how massive Ootori Medical is, she can only guess that Kyoya's job would be a demanding one, whatever it is. An easy job wouldn't keep him until almost the next day.
Kosuke's strings are being pulled tight as-is. If she had a job pulling on them, too, they would surely snap. Even when she was supposed to be going to Seneca, her mother would tell her—if not because she was too lazy to ever pull it off—that she wouldn't want Kosuke to get a job. College was demanding, she'd always warned, and a job would demand too much of Kosuke's time. Kosuke had typically ignored her, due to the immature outrage of, "You're right that I'm too lazy, but hey!" and the unspoken snark of, "How do you know, you didn't even go to college."
Her and Kyoya's studies must be similar, but at least Kosuke's schedule is...flexible, to a degree. The second she gets home, she has to study and work and watch the children, but she isn't shackled once she commits to one thing or the other. She can walk away from her homework for just a minute to help Hitsuji find a toy, she can take a break from studying Amida Health to take a shower. You can't double-task at a job.
Pursing her lips, she says, "I don't understand how he can do that and be a college student full-time."
"It's been a mystery for years," Hikaru tells her. "How Kyoya manages to get so much stuff done in no time. If you told him he had three days to create a cure for a disease, he'd get back to you in an hour."
Kaoru adds, "We have a few theories. I think that he has some kind of time-travel powers. Hikaru and Hani think that he doesn't sleep; he uses the night to get caught up on everything."
"If he didn't need to sleep," Haruhi cuts in, "then he wouldn't have been so angry about you all kidnapping him to the mall."
"What?" Tamaki's hand comes up to his heart. Aghast, horrified. "We didn't kidnap him!"
"Yeah," the twins chorus. Kosuke doesn't think she's ever going to get used to their voices saying the exact same thing at the exact same time at the exact same speed. "We're sure he would have agreed to come if he was awake!"
"So..." Kosuke runs a finger on the lip of the pot. "We don't really talk about his work that much. Why does he...do it...?"
"Because he wants to," Kaoru explains simply. "Kyoya's been waiting to work at his family business since the day he was born. Once his dad gave him the opportunity, he jumped on it."
"Kyoya never lets a chance pass by," Tamaki says aloud, but almost too himself. He runs his spoon along the porcelain of his bowl, hardly making a sound, looking down at the floor. "His older brothers both waited until they were done with college to work at Ootori Medical. They wanted to focus on their studies, but Kyoya was just so eager to get started."
"Why is that?" Kosuke rubs at the back of her neck. Strands of her hair are still damp from running around the kitchen. "It's admirable, don't get me wrong, but..."
Hikaru shrugs a shoulder. "Probably because he knew he'd be good at it. After years and years of training for something, you'd probably get tired of waiting. Want to get right into it."
Kosuke just nods like she's the understanding but still new fiancée eating up all the information about her beloved that she can. Inside though, a seed of doubt is rooting in her mind, watered by that same wariness of that couple who were not "arranged" just "encouraged by their families..."
What does she know about Mr. Ootori, her future father-in-law? Next to nothing. He is serious, calm, with features made of stone. A future version of his youngest son, it seems. His children are all in arranged marriages. His daughter loves her husband, but did he choose a man who would suit his daughter well, or did she just get lucky?
If he would decide when and who his children married, what else did he decide? Fuyumi didn't work at Ootori Medical, but she wasn't the firstborn. She knows Kyoya's older brothers both work at Ootori Medical with their father. Did they decide that? Did they want that, and if they did, was it a true burning desire to help in the family business, or years and years of being told that it was the only right choice?
She thinks of having a job right now, and already exhaustion seeps into her muscles. Yet Kyoya supposedly jumped right to it. For no other reason than that he wanted to. Supposedly.
He doesn't want to marry her. She knows that. They're getting married to help their companies—their fathers' companies.
Kosuke recalls all the dreaded thoughts that had creeped into her mind after she agreed to it. She would never be able to fall in love. She might have to have children with this stranger. She will forever have "his wife" as a title, never to be shed, tattooed into her identity.
There was no telling if he'd had the same thoughts.
Perhaps he had agreed, but again, because it was the only right option. Maybe he thought working at the company despite so much hard work was his only choice. She does not know Yoshio Ootori, but she cannot ignore the sinking feeling that he may be just like the parents of that engaged couple. He will give his children decisions, but he will point to the right answers.
She reminds herself, That's no reason to treat me like garbage.
She knows that, but as she thinks it, she realizes that she's trying to make herself be angry. She is angry, but it's old now. The fire has died down to ashes, still there, but lifeless. She can be angry about how he treated her—treats her—without boiling with rage. But should she be boiling with rage?
She does not want to be the owner of Amida Health, and maybe Kyoya doesn't want to work at Ootori Medical. Neither of them want to marry one another, that's a fact. All these changes, though, they happened to her not so long ago.
For Kyoya...It could have been his whole life. Since he was a child, being told that this is what you will do, end of story.
That kind of frustration would fester and blister under her skin for years and years. Could she be blamed if she was a little snippy to people? Could she be blamed if she just couldn't make herself be lovey-dovey with the partner in her jail cell?
Still that one hand hangs onto that desire to be angry. She thinks it is embarrassment. If there was an understandable reason for Kyoya's behavior towards her, then that means she was wrong to be angry, and everything she's said to him since has been nothing more than her being petty. She hates to think that she has wasted so much energy being angry at someone who didn't deserve it.
"Doesn't he ever..." Kosuke swallows. Her lips feel dry. "Does he ever seem bothered by it? He tells me he's fine, but...I don't know, sometimes I think he's lying."
The reactions are varied. Kaoru and Hikaru both look up towards the ceiling, thinking. Hani does the same, looking downward. Haruhi and Tamaki are the only ones who look at each other, and when Haruhi breaks the silence, her voice is restrained with hesitance.
"It seemed like that for a while, yeah." She purses her lips. "It seemed like...work and school were starting to overwhelm him, but he wouldn't let himself admit it. Like he was embarrassed."
"Really?" Hani's brows knit together tightly between his brows. He looks between all his friends, distressed. "I didn't notice!"
"To be fair, he wasn't around as much to notice," says Hikaru. "We stopped hanging out as often since he was so busy. It's just now that I'm looking back on it that he seemed pretty irritable. Like, more than usual."
"I don't know if I was ever really worried, though." Kaoru goes on to explain, folding his arms across his chest. "Kyoya's always been a hard worker. Even if he seemed moodier, he wasn't collapsing."
"Just because he can do something doesn't mean that he should," Haruhi tells them. Her mouth has pulled into a deep frown. "You can take a break every now and then and still be a hard worker. I don't mind that he wasn't hanging out with us, but doing nothing but work, work, work for so long starts to hurt you after a while."
Kosuke stays as the audience for a minute. They don't seem to hear their words the way she does. They hear that Kyoya pursued something he desperately wanted and only realized after the fact that it might have been too much. Kosuke hears that maybe Kyoya never wanted this and is just trying to save face.
Saving face. That seems so important to him.
"Guess I should've been paying more attention," she tries to laugh. She means for it to sound lighthearted. She knows she sounds embarrassed instead. "I don't think I'd be able to do that much work all at once."
"Don't beat yourself up over it," the twins tell her together. Finally, despite their nonchalance, she hears some sincerity seeping through. No matter all the horror stories Tamaki has told her about them, they are friends nonetheless, and there must be a reason.
"Kyoya is not an open person," Reiko tells her. Her hands are clasped together in front of her waist. "If you haven't been close to him for some time, you won't pick up on his cues. He and I aren't well-acquainted; I never noticed anything that's been mentioned."
Doesn't that seem odd to them? Kosuke's eyes go to each of them in turn, but she finds nothing. No suspicion. No wariness. If I'm so in love with him, I should know that.
"You know..." Tamaki's voice pulls her attention back to him. She's surprised by the gleaming smile she sees there. "Ever since he met you, he's been so much better!"
Something happens to her chest. It goes hollow, or it fills completely. Something unpleasant. "Really?"
"Absolutely! He's so much happier now, you can tell."
"Now that you mention it," Kaoru says, peering up at the ceiling once more. "Last Friday we actually had a conversation that didn't begin and end at, 'I have to go to work now.'"
"Yeah, yeah!" Hani nods his head with such enthusiasm that his honey-blond curls go bouncing. "He really likes talking about you, and your wedding. It really perks him up! Right, Mori?"
Mori had only arrived a few minutes prior, standing to the back to just listen in on their conversation. Kosuke has never see the man's facial expression change from anything but neutral—it still doesn't as he tells her, in his very low voice, "He's happier."
"It seems almost magical, how greatly his mood has improved since you've arrived." Despite the romantic words, Reiko's voice is...wary. Her eyes narrow just so on Kosuke. "Have you placed a spell on him?"
Kosuke laughs before she can help it.
"I'm not joking."
"Oh. Uh—no?"
Reiko's eyes stay narrowed. Tamaki continues talking, as if Kosuke had not just been accused of actual, literal witchcraft. "I haven't been able to drag him out of the house for so long, but he was so looking forward to our double-date…I think being with you relaxes him. He finally put time aside to do something that would make him happy."
"Ah, that is so sweet," says one of the girls, who have just been listening in this whole time. Kosuke realizes she has been writing out the recipe in a daze, the words going from detailed and passionate to robotic and blunt. "You're so lucky!"
That...thing in her chest continues. Kosuke just suddenly feels so wrong. Her shoes are too tight on her feet. Her skin doesn't fit on her bones. She is out-of-place. A puzzle piece in the wrong box.
"Here's the recipe." Kosuke hands the girl the paper and grabs the empty bowls on her station with maybe too much force. The spoons rattle. "I'm going to...Get started on these. I probably already have a mountain back there."
She flees to the dish room before anyone can stop her. She isn't lying. Some have already been kind enough to bring their used bowls and spoons to the back, but none have gone through the washer or dryer yet, and many have not been sprayed out into the grinder. Kosuke rolls her sleeves up and takes a breath. She tries to get her skin to fit right.
All this time, she'd only felt guilt when she thought of her mother, for shaking the hand of the man who had hurt her. Maybe she felt a little bad for making Haruhi worry, but that was different.
Now she was feeling guilty for Kyoya, who'd she'd called—whether out loud or in her head—a bastard, a jerk, pompous, pretentious, smarmy, smug...
He can't be a bad guy if he has that many friends. Especially if Tamaki and Haruhi are among them.
She puts her hands into the rhythm of grabbing bowls, spraying them with the nozzle, and setting them into the washing racks. She hopes the monotony will help her space out, but it doesn't. She keeps thinking a mile a minute.
Would all of this have been avoided if I'd just practiced some empathy? She wonders. If I hadn't just assumed things before he could explain them, if I wasn't so defensive?
The devil on her shoulder tries to remind her that she does have reason to be angry with him. He was so rude to her at their first meeting, as if she'd done something to insult him.
But the angel on her other shoulder reminds her that he was probably just stressed and angry. He wasn't right to lash out at her, but he had a reason.
He stormed out of the room to talk on his phone, but she didn't know he was going to talk on his phone, and he thought that she was texting away on hers instead of paying attention to him, but he couldn't have known that she was talking to Haruhi about the children...
This whole situation is just a hurricane brought on by misunderstanding after misunderstanding, Kosuke realizes.
If things had gone differently, she and Kyoya may not be like they are now. Kyoya might still be angry with her for forgetting their date, and rightfully so, but it wouldn't be more gasoline on the fire.
If things hadn't gone like this, keeping this secret would have been easier, Kosuke thinks with a sigh. The second rack slides into the washing machine, the soapy water sloshing behind the curtains. She walks over to push the first set into the dryer. I can't just stand there and listen to all his friends talk about how I've made him happier when I know I've done just the opposite.
"Kosuke, let me help you with that!"
Tamaki's voice makes her jump, and she almost drops a spoon down into the grinder. Tamaki has beelined for the other end of the dryer, pulling the pristine sleeves of his shirt up before taking out the steaming bowls one-by-one.
"Oh, no, you don't have to—"
"No, no. It's not fair for you to cook for all of us and have to take care of all the dishes." Tamaki grabs a tower of porcelain bowls in either hands. The idea alone makes Kosuke feel clumsy, but with Tamaki's long, piano-playing fingers, it seems not a problem at all for him. "Where do these go?"
Kosuke lets out a sigh, unsure if she's thankful to him for interrupting her nervous breakdown or upset that her solitude has been destroyed. "In that cabinet over there."
Somehow he manages to open the door and keep all the bowls together. They fall into a new rhythm: Kosuke sprays the dishes and feeds them to the washing machine, then Tamaki pushes them into the dryer and puts them back to their rightful places. It never crossed Kosuke's mind to be bothered by dealing with the dirty dishes. Somehow she enjoys that part of the culinary experience, too.
"I'm sorry if what I said made you feel bad," Tamaki says out of nowhere. She pulls her attention away from the bowl in her hands and instantly regrets it. The man's violet eyes look so unbearably guilty. "We all know you couldn't make it the other night, no one holds it against you. Especially not Kyoya!"
Wrong. "No, no, it's fine. I know no one's angry. It's just..."
Kosuke says the words without even knowing what she's going to say. Tamaki watches her as he pushes the next set of dishes through the dryer. "Just what?"
"I feel...sorry for him, I guess." It's easier to lie when there's a grain of truth to it, she thinks. She's still in shock that her schoolgirl-with-a-crush act managed to convince Haruhi. "I knew he was busy, but I didn't realize he was that busy."
"Like we said, Kyoya's always been a hard worker." Tamaki puts on an easy smile. "He never backs down from a challenge, and he likes to prove himself."
"But Haruhi said he was pushing himself too hard."
"He can do that, too. But before you get too worried, just know that it wasn't just work and school that was stressing him. You already know what happened with DomenMed."
Kosuke nods. "Maybe not every single fine detail, but I think I get the gravity of it, yeah."
"When everyone found out DomenMed was leaving Ootori Medical, there was almost a panic. Supporters of the company were considering leaving because they wondered if it would survive a blow like that. People started gossiping about what would happen to the workers." Tamaki shakes his head and sighs. "I knew Kyoya needed space when that happened, but it was hard not to worry about him. It was like everyone in Japan was watching his family, trying to see what they would do next."
As the washing machine rumbles, Kosuke thinks back to the Lily Bowl, alone back in Karuizawa, with no one entering its doors to fill its walls with life. She'd always morbidly wondered what might happen if it had to close for good, and then it had. No income, no support, nothing but the big question, "Now what are you going to do to keep yourselves afloat?"
She doesn't think the Ootoris would ever hit that low. They're wealthy enough that if you burned half their money, they'd still have too much to fit into one bank vault. Not once had she ever thought about the employees, though. Was it not just common sense that a company whose income had just been slashed would have to let employees go just to make up for the loss?
I have to take care of the children, but at least I don't have to think about hundreds of men and women and their children, too.
"He couldn't help but think he had to do something. It was his family. Honestly..." Tamaki taps a finger on his temple, sighing again. "If I'd known it was all going to happen, I never would have thought about asking him to help us with our wedding plans. No doubt that didn't help. Even before DomenMed left, there was Amaya he had to deal with."
"Amaya?" Kosuke tests the name on her tongue, but the sound isn't familiar. Another company, or a person? Perhaps she should know, but it's too late now that she's parroted the word aloud. "Who's Amaya?"
"She's...You know what?" Tamaki waves both his hands at her, shaking his head. "If Kyoya hasn't told you, he probably doesn't want you to know." Tamaki tugs the next rack through without looking at it. His attention is all on her, gaze as soft as his voice. "Anyway, none of us knew how to help him, or what would happen. But then you came along."
"I…came along."
"I know it was lucky for the Ootoris, financially. Amida Health will be a great partner for them, and you're the unmarried heiress around Kyoya's age, and all that...But more than that, you made Kyoya happy!" Tamaki's hands curls into fists and shake with his intensity. "He told me before that he was probably just going to marry whoever would be best for his family, but I always told him that his father would never force him to be unhappy. I know Mr. Ootori can be very..."
Tamaki's shining face shifts for just a moment, as though recalling a memory with a bitter taste. Kosuke wonders what it is. "...critical sometimes, but I know he thinks about Kyoya's happiness. And I was right! Now Kyoya has someone he's happy with, and who will be there for them."
Listening to all of this, Kosuke reminds herself that Tamaki isn't stupid. He isn't. He's naive, yes, and emotional, but not stupid.
But how he is not piecing this together is beyond her. DomenMed leaves Ootori Medical, the Ootori children already have a history of marrying the most financially profitable people, and here comes a girl who not only just received the offer of heirdom for her father's business, but also just so happens to click with Kyoya instantly. How does he not realize that Kyoya did not 'get lucky' with her? How does he not see that her father sought her out for the specific purpose of marrying her off?
He doesn't, and Kosuke doesn't get to look at the gears turn in his head as he does. All she sees is a sweet man so happy for his dearest friend, who has been suffering for so long—more than he realizes.
New guilt mutates in her heart. The mother who tried to protect her daughter from a monster, her efforts poured down the drain. The man forced to marry someone he never wanted to, because there are too many voices telling him he must. The best friend watching him heal, who would break if he discovered it was all a lie.
I'm sorry, Kosuke doesn't say as she looks at him. I'm sorry I've made such a mess of things with your best friend, Tamaki. I'm sorry your reason not to worry anymore is a lie.
"Thanks, Tamaki..." His eyes sparkle back at her. She turns back to the dishes, unable to look at them anymore. "You're too sweet, you know?"
"I only speak the truth!" Tamaki sweeps up the next clean bowls and spins on his heel with all the grace of a ballerina. "I can't think of anyone better for him."
If she exists, I've stolen her spot.
The bowls that she washes are still whole. No chips, no damages. Still Kosuke sees thousands of broken shards in front of her, and she doesn't know how to fix them. She doesn't think she can, not perfectly. She's lost some of the pieces already.
But she thinks, that if she tries, maybe she can make it work. She can put some of them back together. It won't be perfect, but it'll be less of a mess than what it was.
"Tamaki." She turns away from the sink to him. He stops his stacking in the cabinet to give his full attention. "Since Kyoya's been busy lately, I haven't actually had the chance to cook for him yet."
"I heard. I feel bad for him...But you'll have plenty of chances to do it now! I think if you just serve him boiled water, it's going to impress him."
"Right," she laughs, unsure of what else to do. She's wringing her fingers, looking down at them in the breaks where she can't look up at him anymore. "So...I feel stupid that I even have to ask this, but what do you think I should make for the first time?"
Tamaki presses a long finger against his lips, thinking hard. Kosuke can almost physically see the lightbulb over his head when he realizes his answer. That, and the tail wagging behind him. "Oh! So one time we were on a school trip to Barcelona, and at one restaurant he got seafood paella. I think that's the one time he was really impressed with a restaurant's food! Do you think you could to that?"
That evening, sitting in her four-poster spaceship of a bed, Kosuke squints through the glow of her laptop at the twenty-plus tabs of paella recipes. She needs to find the right one. The best one. Then she'll just have to figure out when she's actually going to cook it for him.