bored411: *whispering* so...close...
Alnitak8: Ahhhhh, thank you so much! I can't emphasize how much of a relief it is whenever anyone says that they like Kosuke and her siblings. I really appreciate it!
At last...progress.
Once they make it into the lodge, Kosuke finally just accepts what she sees with the thought of, Okay, whatever.
She should've figured the Ouran students weren't going to just settle for an everyday buffet. All the tables in the dining room have been dressed in red velvet and adorned with crystalline candelabras. Each seat has its own intricate set of plates and silverware, and Kosuke hopes the others won't hold it against the children when they don't know the difference between the salad fork and the dessert fork. Waiters in tuxedos glide between the tables with silver domes in hand—one rises at the nearest table, and what's underneath is not unlike what she'd seen at Ambrosia, food that looked more like a piece of modern art. The whole lodge has been renovated to an elegant ballroom, albeit all the guests are still in their hiking boots and shorts. Kosuke is a touch disappointed still. She'd always liked the quaint, woodsy hominess of campgrounds.
"What do you think, little guy?" Hikaru asks Hitsuji, giving his hand a little shake. "Foi gras or tar-tar?"
Hitsuji's little nose scrunches up into a knot. "I thought tartar sauce was for fish."
Reiko scans the crowd with her dark eyes. "I don't see Kyoya here."
"Maybe he's already eaten?" offers Tamaki. "He came back earlier than us."
Kosuke snaps out of her trance from seeing the food—excessive, yes, but still enthralling to her. Kyoya could probably do good with sharing a meal with his friends. They'd all been too distracted with the challenges today to pay attention to each other. Plus, the possibility that he may be skipping a meal sends off alarm bells in her head, even if their relationship is less than stellar. Kosuke cannot accept anyone skipping meals.
So, she speaks up:
"I'll go ask if he wants to join us. What was his room number?"
"107," Tamaki answers, and points a finger down the hall behind them. "You can drag him out of there, huh?"
"Hey, Boss," the twins chirp as Kosuke takes the first step forward. They're smiling like Cheshire cats. "Maybe someone should go with her. Her and Kyoya in his bedroom, something may happen..."
Kosuke and Tamaki do the exact same thing at the exact same time. They look down at her little siblings—her sweet, innocent little siblings, who can hear them—and then they look up at the twins with eyes filled with murder. "Like. What."
Thoroughly terrified for their lives, the twins backpedal in an instant. "A pillow fight!"
"They're so fun," Hikaru laughs. Nervously.
"And the rooms have so many pillows," Kaoru adds. Fearfully.
Kosuke glowers them down a second more before stomping off down the hall. She's going to leave it to Tamaki to keep the two of them in line while Hitsuji and Minami are around. Because if they do that again, she is going to paint this lodge red.
The hallway is quiet—she doesn't run into anyone on her way to 107. Kosuke is jealous for Kyoya and everyone else in the rooms, even if they're missing the "authentic" camping experience. Just the hallway alone has that woodsy comfiness to it the dining room had been stripped of: oak floors and warm yellow lights.
Though the comfort isn't enough to relieve her nerves completely. She's still on her way to talk to Kyoya alone for the first time since their fight. That means no audience to act for, and no reason to avoid all the clouds that have been hanging over them.
Once she makes it to the golden plate reading 107, she gently taps her knuckles on the wood of the door. She waits, but there's no response, so she knocks again.
"Kyoya?" she calls. "Are you in there?"
No response. Maybe he went to dinner after all. Or literally anywhere else. As Kosuke pushes away from the door, though, it creaks open. She is given a sliver of oak drawers and a red rug.
Did he just leave it open accidentally? Kosuke wonders. Should I just leave it open? What is someone comes into his room and steals someth—Oh, wait, no. These people are too rich to worry about that.
She supposes it won't hurt to just duck her head in and make sure. Maybe he just went down the hall for just a second and didn't bother locking it all the way. Or maybe he was doing something and didn't hear her. Or maybe—Why is she overthinking this so much?
Kosuke opens the door just a little more and pokes her head in. Oh, she's really jealous. With the logs that make up the wall, the soft yellow glow of the lights, the leather couch, the oak drawers, the birch bed...It all just looks like a sweet, cozy little cabin. And the far wall has a stunning view of the dark woodlands. The trees make a dark, jagged horizon, and above it the stars are twinkling silver.
What's really the center of her attention, though, is none other than Kyoya himself, sitting on the leather couch. The coffee table has a few papers and a binder, and there's another stack in his fingers. Kosuke can't tell what it all is, but it must have been either tiring or boring, because Kyoya is fast asleep.
For a second, Kosuke laughs to herself. When she dozes off, she wrestles the sheets and drools a puddle on her pillow. Kyoya looks just as composed as he does when he's awake. If it weren't for his bent head and closed eyes, Kosuke wouldn't think he was sleeping it all.
Should I wake him? she thinks. I don't know how long they're going to serve food, what if he misses dinner? Or what if he already ate? Maybe I should go ask and come back if they're going to stop serving soon—Ohhh my goodness stop overthinking stuff.
Kosuke moves to close the door, but stops when she sees a jacket in a heap on the floor. It must have fallen off the hook. So she bends down and puts it back up there. Kyoya probably wouldn't want it to wrinkle.
Then she sees the pair of shoes that he's left not too far from the coffee table, and remembers the last time she'd left a pair of shoes in the middle of the floor. Her knees sting with the memory. So, she tip-toes over and tucks them beneath the coffee table instead.
...And then, in doing so, she brushes against a paper and sends three ghosting to the floor. Whoops. So she picks those up and puts them back, but figuring she shouldn't just leave them all scattered, she gathers up the rest and straightens them.
Suddenly Kyoya moves, and her heart skips a beat, but he only leans forward a bit more—body weighed down with sleep. His glasses slip off his face, and bounce silently off his lap to the floor.
Well, I can't just leave those there, Kosuke thinks as she picks them up with careful fingers. He might step on them.
So, finally, she puts the glasses atop the papers and stands to her feet, figuring she's lingered long enough. It's not as though he'll starve to death if he sleeps through the dinner service...probably.
Kosuke turns for the door, gives Kyoya one last look—
-and sees him staring right at her.
She jumps a mile into the air. She's not proud, but she can't help it. She reels away from him, sucking in a deep breath as the shock radiates through her limbs, clutching her heart. "Oh my gosh...!"
Kyoya says nothing at first, only leans forward, picks up his glasses again, and sets them back on his face. Then he squints at her.
"What are you doing in here?"
Kosuke takes another calming breath—she didn't realize she was so faint of heart—and answers, "We were all going to eat dinner, and I came to see if you wanted to join us. I knocked, but you didn't answer, so."
"So you just came in?"
"The door was open. Not unlocked, I mean open, so I thought maybe you were in here, and if you weren't then I would just close it back for you—Anyway! Do you want to join us, or should I just let you keep..." Kosuke looks down towards the papers, then back to him. "...working?"
Kyoya looks at his neatly-stacked papers, too, then his shoes tucked beneath the table, then the jacket hung back up on the door. Either he'd been watching her the whole time, or he was very observant.
"I'll be there shortly." Kyoya picks up the papers and shuffles them around. "I'll finish this first."
"Good! Good. See you there." Kosuke walks to the door, but apparently her mouth isn't finished yet. "Just make sure you close the door this time. Don't want anyone sneaking in, or anything. Not that I think anyone here would, I'm sure everyone here is perfectly nice and wouldn't do anything like that. Plus I'm staying in a tent so that's probably hypocriti—Okay. Bye."
Wow. No wonder he thinks I'm an idiot.
Just as Kosuke's hand touches the doorknob, Kyoya speaks up again. "What are you doing?"
She halts. "Leaving...?"
"I mean why are you acting like this?" Kyoya sets the papers down in his lap, fixes her with a flat look. Man, the glasses made him look less scary. "There's no one around."
"I'm sorry...?" The look just gets flatter. "What?"
"You've been going overboard today. You don't have to act like this when we're alone."
"Act like what? Nice?"
"Like nothing is wrong."
Kosuke's hand strays to her wrist, scratching. Kyoya looks at her like she knows just what he's talking about, but she doesn't. "So...do you want me to be mean to you?"
"No, I don't want you to be mean," he says, voice dripping with disdain, but he asked the question.
"Then what?" Kyoya takes a deep breath and looks at nothing in particular, but Kosuke persists. "I'm sorry, but I don't recall doing anything today that would've upset you—"
"I'm not upset, but acting like everything is just fine between us is annoying. We're not the best of friends, and we're not actually lovers, so there's no need to act like it—especially when we're alone."
Kosuke's mouth presses into a hard line, but she can't deny the twinge of disappointment in her chest. She knew she hadn't made any progress today, but she didn't think that she had made things worse. "Listen. I am sorry about the date, okay? I really am."
Kyoya looks up at her sharply, brow furrowed. "I'm not angry about the date."
"Clearly you are. Just tell me how I can make up for it. Do you want to go on another one? What do you want me to do?"
"I'm not angry. The only thing I want you to do is to stop acting so cuddly with me."
"Cuddly. Asking if you want to join your friends for dinner is cuddly."
"Singling me out of the crowd to offer me food, trying to start a useless conversation, coming into my room to clean up, fussing over me at the dock—yes, I would argue that all of that combined is rather cuddly."
"Ohhhh. I'm sorry, I didn't realize. Next time I see a sharp hook flying towards your face, I'll push you closer. Didn't mean to overstep my boundaries."
Shut up, her brain is screaming. Shut up, shut UP. What are you doing? You're trying to make move forward, not put them in 'reverse' and slam on the accelerator!
But that little angel on her shoulder gets stifled by the little devil on the other—because Kyoya removes his glasses again just to pinch the bridge of his nose, and more gasoline pours onto the fire. She would squeeze her hands into fists, if she weren't still scratching at her wrist.
"Do you always get so petulant when someone criticizes you?"
"Do you always get so offended when someone is nice to you?"
"I am not upset that you are being nice to me—and you know that. You're just deflecting everything I say. I don't want you to be rude, and I don't want you to be so sugary—those aren't your only two options."
"I'm starting up conversations and asking if you're okay, not smothering you with kisses."
"No, but when compared to our past interactions, your behavior today makes no sense."
"So you are mad at me."
"Circles. We're going in circles."
How did this go so wrong?
Well how was I supposed to know he was going to get offended at me just trying to be nice?
You could have just talked to him, idiot. Asked him to explain why he's so upset.
What does it matter? There's NO REASON to be upset.
He's obviously still mad about the other fight, not the date.
Didn't I already decide that that wasn't my fault?
Why are you so ready to be angry? Since when has your fuse been so short?
"So how would you like to be treated?" she asks.
"Just do what's necessary when we're in public, and talk to me the way you want to when we're alone. I can tell when you don't."
"Clearly not. Could you just take a step back for a second and ask yourself what you're mad about? Then maybe tell me when you figure it out."
"You can keep insisting that I'm angry, but it doesn't change the fact that I'm not."
"Oh my g—"
Kosuke buries her fingers into her hair and pulls until she can feel pain in her scalp. She's never felt this level of frustration before. She needs to tear something apart with her hands. She tries, she tries, to keep it all in, but words start bubbling out of her mouth like water boiling over a pot.
"If you weren't angry, then we wouldn't be having this conversation. If you weren't angry, then you wouldn't have said anything about how I've been acting in the first place. You can't tell me to say what I want to, then turn around and refuse to tell me what your problem is. I just—You—"
Then the water pours down into the fire, spitting and hissing. Her fuse is just gone now. She has to explode.
"You are insufferable. Every conversation we've had, you act like you're the smartest, most perfect person in the world. Any time I say so much as a syllable against you, I become a blathering imbecile that you just can't stand to listen to! The sheer idea that you might be in the wrong is as impossible to you as breathing underwater. You tell me to say what I want to say, you tell me not to embarrass you in public, because doing those things are just unacceptable—but it's okay if you do them! Because you're Kyoya! And you can't do anything wrong, right?"
The more she speaks, mouth burning hot, the more Kyoya's face darkens until she's looking at nothing more than a shadow. He stands to his feet. Maybe she should be scared—not that he's going to hurt her, but now she knows why her classmates told her he's called the "Shadow King" among their peers.
She isn't scared of him, though, because Kosuke has just decided that this man—no, this boy, is just a spoiled brat raised to think everyone around him was lesser. It was no wonder he had to learn how to act in public the way kids learn how to add numbers. No one would want to be near him, or his family, if they were what produced such a person.
When he speaks again—and she's tempted to just not give him the satisfaction, to just storm out of there now before he comes up with another patronizing lecture—his voice is dark and slow, and dripping with derision.
"Alright. You are correct. I am angry. I am angry that you are acting as though we are friends, when we are absolutely not. I'm not angry that you forgot about the date, I'm not even angry about our argument at the party anymore. I'm angry that you have just decided that everything is fine now, when you know for a fact it is not. What was your plan, exactly?" Kyoya rounds the table, but he doesn't come any closer to her. "The last thing you said to me, truly said to me, was that I was a 'proud jerk.' Did you think that you could go from that to just casually striking up conversations, making sure that I'm okay? There is no way you honestly believed that I was going to smile and go along with it, yet when I proved that, you still got so angry about it. The only choice I had was to go along with your game of pretend—otherwise I was the bad guy. You didn't want to fix anything, Kosuke, you just wanted to put a bandage on it and pretend that it didn't happen."
Even though she keeps glaring at him, refusing to back down for even a second, she can't deny that every word he's saying is spearing right into her gut.
Because he is absolutely right.
Just—
What would she have done? If Kyoya, after scolding her and talking down to her and making her feel like an idiot, suddenly started to fuss and fawn over her? Act like everything was A-okay?
It wasn't just an awkward, butchered attempt to remedy things. She'd just decided that he wasn't allowed to be angry anymore. Whether or not he was justified did not matter. You can't just tell someone to stop feeling something.
But.
But—
"Okay, so what do we do, then?" Kosuke holds out her arms, gesturing to...everything. Them. Their world. Kyoya finally walks away, apparently unable to even look at her anymore. Kosuke glares at his back as he retreats to the window. "You're not angry at me anymore, so there's nothing to talk about, but we can't move forward, either, apparently. Do we just stay out of each other's way? Spend the rest of our lives trying to see as little of each other as possible?"
"That sounds perfect to me."
It shouldn't...
But it hurts.
Kosuke can only hope that she doesn't flinch, but she feels like she just got slapped. But again, it shouldn't feel like that. She doesn't want him around either, does she?
No. But the rest of her life is looking pretty miserable at the moment.
She's going to have to let the wound bleed later, though, because at the moment she can't stay silent a moment longer. She can't let him know he hit her that hard. If his ego gets any bigger, it's going to crush her against the wall.
Kyoya continues to look out into the woodlands, hand still over his mouth, completely oblivious to her mental turmoil. Or that she's still scratching at her wrist like crazy.
Speaking of, Kosuke looks down and sees she's scratched her skin raw—courtesy of the angry red mosquito bite. It was a bad habit she'd had ever since she was a kid: made worse by living in the mountains, were bugs were hardly scarce. "Kosuke, come on," Emiko would say as she stuck polka-dot Band-Aids on her daughter's wounds. "It only looks so bad because of you clawing at it!"
She doesn't want to walk around bloody for the rest of the weekend, or the night for that matter, and considering she and Kyoya are far past being 'rude,' she lowers her backpack to the floor to fish out Tamaki's weird perfume-bugspray stuff.
"Great. I'm so looking forward to matrimonial bliss."
"This isn't what I signed up for when I agreed to this, you know."
She squeezes the bulb on the end, but nothing sprays from the bottle. Perplexed, and thoroughly annoyed, she tries again. "Yes, Kyoya, you did it because of DomenMed. The secret that everyone knows but isn't supposed to."
"And what about you? Because I seriously doubt that relation or not, you agreed to marry a stranger at your father's command."
As she fiddles with the bulb, Kosuke grinds her teeth. What reason does she have to tell him? As if she's going to get any sympathy from him. "I didn't do it for this."
"Finally, we're on the same page."
Fully willing to just tune him out now, Kosuke instead focuses on the bottle, more specifically how on earth it works. Seriously, she's been squeezing the bulb for two minutes now. Does she have to move the top so it'll spray? She tries, and she thinks she sees the actual nozzle appear on the gold, so she again—
AH.
OH GOD.
OH GOD, THE PAIN.
Kosuke just drops the bottle, not caring if it was a one-of-a-kind priceless concoction made by some famous in France or what, because holy crap, her eyeballs are on fire.
What did you think was going to happen, you idiot?! her brain screams at her past the agony that's flaring throughout her head. She stumbles up to her feet, as if to get away from it. She squeezes her eyes as hard as she possibly can, but the pain is relentless. Is this what Hell is like?
She's only very vaguely aware that she's still alive, now that her vision is gone and her body is going into DEFCON 5. Kyoya is still talking. Unfortunately.
"I'll come out in just a minute. If anyone asks what took so long, just tell them we were talking. Just make sure you don't act...strange..."
Kosuke doesn't really pay any mind to how his voice trails off. Does it matter? Her eyes are melting out of her fa—Oh, wait, no. Those are tears. She just thought so. That's how bad the pain is.
Is she blind now? Is she ever going to see again? Does she need to get help, call an ambulance? What if this SUBLIME stuff has some kind of chemical that causes permanent blindness, or—
"Don't..."
What? Kyoya is still speaking. About what? What did he say? Can't he see that she's dying—
"Don't cry. Please don't—I'm sorry. I'm sorry for what I said, please don't cry."
Crying?
Crying?
She isn't—
Well, she is. But not because of him, it's...
Oh.
He sounds guilty.
Actually guilty, and even if it's terribly awkward, like he's trying to comfort her. She'd laugh, if she weren't still in agony.
Maybe she shouldn't, though. She'd gotten it into her head once that he wasn't human, pulled herself out of it, and then got right back into it again.
What is she doing?
She jumps when she feels a hand on her shoulder—hesitant, unsure. She gets the feeling he doesn't touch people often. "Do you want me to leave? I will, if you want to just be left alone for a minute—"
"I'm not crying."
He pauses. "I really am sorry for what I said. I take it back. Please don't—"
"I am not crying! I sprayed Tamaki's stupid French bug perfume in my eyes!"
He pauses again, longer. "French…bug perfume?"
Kosuke just blindly kicks her leg out and hits the backpack. She hears a shuffle, then silence. She guesses Kyoya has successfully pulled it out to examine it.
"Oh." More silence. "Here."
The hand returns to her shoulder, but his other one gently takes her wrist and guides her forward. She feels helpless and stupid for it, but what is she supposed to do?
After an eternity of blind shuffling about, she hears the squeak of a knob, then gushing water. Oh. Right.
Kyoya lets go of her and lets her splash around in the sink for three pathetic minutes. She's at least happy that his anger is gone now. If she had to deal with an attitude of oh, you idiot, I can't believe you sprayed bugpsray into your eyes, she might just scream.
Finally her vision returns to her in clouds, and she's able to look up at the mirror hanging above the sink. It is not pretty. Her eyes and the skin around it are puffy and red. She's getting flashbacks of being six years old and bawling when she got sent to timeout.
Now she can see Kyoya, and doesn't know what to make of the sight. He's behind her, slightly leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, but there's no impatience on his features, no still-burning anger. He locks eyes with her in the mirror, but just as quickly he stands up straight again and pushes up his glasses.
Kosuke uses one of the fluffy hand towels to dab the rest of the water away, then turns to him just because she has to eventually. "Thanks."
"Sure." Kyoya's hand rubs across the back of his neck, and then he gives a heavy sigh, closing his eyes and lifting his chin up. "I'm sorry for what I said—"
"I wasn't crying."
"I know, but still. I'm sorry."
"No, it's..." Kosuke pushes the wet strands of hair away from her face—her hair is already a mess from the day's activities, and she just pulls her ponytail tie out. "I'd be angry at me, too, if I were you."
She sighs. She has to get it together and spit it out already.
"Look, I was being childish. I didn't want to talk about anything, but I wanted things to be better, so I just pretended everything was all sunshine and daisies. That was stupid—and so was getting angry when you didn't go along with it. So I'm sorry."
It's awkward to say the words, as it always is when she apologizes. She doesn't think any human being takes joy in acknowledging when they were wrong, when they were so wrong that it was nothing short of humiliating—still, she feels a weight lift off her shoulders afterwards.
Why didn't she lead with this? She should've said this as soon as she realized he was awake.
Kyoya listens, never interrupting, or looking away. Though he keeps his arms crossed, it's just human. Kosuke doesn't keep her eyes on him, for fear that she'll find something she doesn't want to see. Indifference, or worse, smugness. But no. Instead:
"You weren't wrong." One of his pointer fingers taps on the bend of his elbow—it's strange, how even his tics have to look smart. "I suppose I have been...hypocritical. And patronizing. I could have simply told you what I was upset about, but I didn't. You're not a child, and I can't demand you to do something just because I said so."
Kosuke listens, too, and feels more of that weight sap away. She wonders if Kyoya is feeling the same thing that she is: the embarrassment, realizing how much trouble they could have spared themselves if they just talked.
Ugh, we're just like the girls back in primary school, not talking to each other for weeks for nothing…
And again, there's the reminder that he's human, just like her. Even after she just apologized, she was holding her breath to see if he'd only focus on the white flag. Maybe she just made him out to be some kind of monster to justify her anger more. She couldn't hurt him if he couldn't be hurt.
For a minute the two of them stand in silence in the bathroom, and even though she's grateful for the exchange, she knows it isn't enough. For some reason she thinks back to that soup she made in class, and how taking one bowl out didn't make any difference. (Maybe she's hungrier than she thought...?)
Now she has to figure out where this puts them now. They won't be best buds after this, but neither will they be enemies, hopefully. So maybe they'll just avoid eye contact and speak in monosyllables to one another. She thinks she's going to hate that more—being in private with him and being as awkward as sitting in the waiting room of the doctor's office.
Knowing that she should seize the opportunity, she opens her mouth, then closes it. She doesn't know where to begin—with the forgotten date, their argument at the party? Maybe neither. Kyoya waits for her patiently.
"Can I be honest with you for a minute?" Kyoya nods, so she takes another breath and goes on, "I think I was just trying to be angry. Like, if I stopped being angry, then I would have admitted defeat, as if there was a fight to begin with. But—ugh."
The image intrudes into her mind: the two of them, gray-haired with crow's feet at their eyes, still snapping and snarling at one another. She buries her palms into her still-stinging eyes as if to scrub the vision away.
"I don't want to be angry anymore—that's why I was acting so chummy with you. Just..." Kosuke tucks more wet hair behind her ears, feeling about as composed as she looks. "If we're going to be...together, then I want us to at least get along. We don't have to be best friends, but I don't want us to always be going for each others' throats. I don't hate you, and I don't want to, and I don't want to act like I do. I know I've done a crummy job of showing that, but…"
She wants to sound mature and earnest, but to her own ears she sounds like she's begging. She hadn't even realized how badly she'd wanted that peace. The idea of spending the rest of their lives in such a sorry state had exhausted her so deep to the bone.
At some point his eyes have peeled off her to look down at the floor, but still at nothing in particular. She doesn't know how to pin it, but it isn't defensiveness, and she's grateful for that.
Finally he unwinds his arms to slowly clasp his hands together with a soft sigh.
"I think it's only fair to acknowledge my part in this," he says. "Despite everything else, I was the one who made things start so poorly. I was very rude to you, ignoring you and walking out of the dinner, and instead of trying to fix that, I just scolded you for how you were making me look. I would've been just as insulted as you were."
Kosuke wants to just go right ahead and accept the apology—which she is—but she can't help but finally ask, "Can I just ask...Why were you so upset? At our first meeting. Did something happen?"
Again something comes to his face and she can't identify it—but the closest thing she can guess is discomfort. Kyoya's hands twitch together and pull towards him, and his brows furrow together just so. A muscle in his jaw pulls tight. He's not trying to find the answer, just how to give it.
"DomenMed leaving our company was...dangerous. I don't know what other word to use. We didn't know how we were going to recover, or convince people that we would. If we didn't do anything, we would have been forced to let countless employees go. All while we were being watched."
Of course, Kosuke had an idea that DomenMed leaving Ootori Medical was nothing short of an emergency. She just didn't appreciate the gravity of it until she heard it right from the source, she supposed. It was hard enough to just let go of the tiny staff of the Lily Bowl. She couldn't imagine the weight of firing hundreds who depended on the job to keep bread on the table.
"I was sure that we were going to be able to find a solution by ourselves. I suppose that I was disappointed when that solution was to ask another company for help—embarrassed, even. But that was no reason to take it out on you. I should have spent that entire dinner trying to make the best impression that I could, and instead I spent it pouting like a child."
Kosuke almost doesn't hear the last part of that—not because his voice has dropped, but because his words have given her a horrible, terrible idea. "Wait, wait. So—did your dad force you to...I mean, you didn't want to get married, right? You don't."
Kyoya shakes his head fervently before she's even finished. "No, no, no. That's not what I meant. I'll do whatever helping my family entails."
"Right...but...you don't want to marry someone just because you love them? It doesn't bother you that you won't be able to do that?"
She shuts her lips shut before she gives too much away. Even still, she thinks he's seen her mask slip.
Kyoya's lips purse for just a moment, and that one moment is enough to let her know that whatever he's about to say next is not the whole truth.
"I've been expecting this all my life," is what he says. "Every marriage in my family was arranged for the most benefit, and this was no exception. Though the circumstances turned out to be more frustrating than I imagined, I've always been eager to assist my family in any way that I can—so no, I am not bothered to do that."
Now it's Kosuke's turn to purse her lips, but she pauses longer than he did. He is absolutely not telling her something. It doesn't matter how high he raises his chin, she isn't buying that he is utterly numb to this engagement. Yet, they were the worst of enemies three minutes ago, and they are still strangers regardless. She cannot demand that he bare his soul to her. He does not owe her his secrets.
Doesn't mean it can't bother me, she still thinks. She knew they were in the same boat, but now she's wondering if they're in the same seat.
Looking back at him, Kosuke sees gears turning behind his eyes—and realizes with a start what he is probably concluding. He'd said it before, but just to try and stab past her armor. Now he must truly be wondering: why would she ever agree to this?
Agreeing to apprentice her highly successful father and becoming heiress, alright. That was believable because she had much to gain from that. But what did she have to gain from a marriage with a stranger? He could only naturally and correctly assume that it was part of an agreement.
And now Kosuke wants to slap herself from asking him if he was worried to never be able to marry someone he loved. She just gave him a ball to throw right back at her.
"Alright," she says before he can voice his thoughts. She had to take the first shot. "That makes sense. I guess I can see why that would be frustrating."
"As I said," he replies after another pointed pause, "not a reason to be as rude as I was."
"Well…I probably wasn't easing your fears any, huh?" His head turns just so-slightly, curious. She clarifies: "I mean, the whole reason you're marrying me is because I'm going to run Amida Health one day, but I didn't even know where I was going to live for the semester, let alone how the company even works…"
He doesn't deny it, and she doesn't expect him to. She knew since he brought it up that it was fair, but his delivery made her forget anything else. Forget about making him look bad—it was a terrible reminder that this whole decision was ridiculous.
"I shouldn't have been personally offended," is what he settles on when he speaks again. She nods in acceptance. "I suppose everything with DomenMed just…"
"Made it worse? Yeah. I get that…" She coughs. Now that they're having the talk that should've been had weeks ago, she can't help but rewind their conversation and wonder how they ended up here. Not that she wasn't happy about it. "For what it's worth, I have been studying up on—"
He holds up a hand, stopping her.
"Though I'm happy to hear it, you don't have to assure me of that. As I said, I don't have the right to tell you what to do."
She almost laughs, realizing that they're going in circles again. Good circles, at least.
"I don't hate you, either," he says. She looks back up at him, and his shoulders twitch as though he was about to shrug, but he doesn't commit to it. "Just to clarify."
Such a bare-minimum thing to say to someone, yet it has to be said here. Finally Kosuke lets herself laugh, a short exhale of breath. He gets that she's not laughing at him—in fact he makes a similar sound of his own. At least now she can look at the mess of broken porcelain pieces on the floor and laugh a little as she puts a few of them back together.
"Good place to start," she tries to joke. She tucks back a nonexistent hair behind her ear.
She was so caught up in fixing this train wreck that she'd forgotten all the words that made it up: engagement. Marriage. Fiancé. Husband. Wife. They are getting married. That's not ever going to not sound weird, she thinks. He's it for her, and she's it for him. Even if either of them falls in love with someone else—well, no, if he does. She's not going to let that happen, personally.
Of course, of course, her brain decides to procure an image of Kohta right now. She doesn't even know if she still loves him (in that selfish, childish way that she had)—when her heart squeezes at the memories, she doesn't think it's because of him.
She thinks it's the memory of someone holding her, of being kissed, of being looked at with tender adoration. Now it's not just her guilt at being so uncaring to him in their relationship that will have her fretting for the rest of her life. If only she'd known back then that the affection he'd given her would be the only she would ever have…
All the more reason to make this as tolerable as possible.
"So…" She says, and cringes. Such a weird conversation to say 'so…' in. "Where do you want to go from here?"
He's perplexed. He folds his arms again, resumes his elbow-tapping. She finds that she likes this version of Kyoya: not just calm, but real. She'd only seen the disdainfully angry and the falsely romantic versions of him. Which, she supposes, means this is the first time she's ever met Kyoya Ootori.
"Obviously, anything would be better." She nods. "Just as obviously, I don't think we'll be joined at the hip from now on…"
"Right. So…" Stop it! Stop saying that! Kosuke twists the toe of her shoe on the hardwood floor. "Why don't we just…pretend that everything else never happened? We're not enemies, and we're not best friends. Let's just do what normal people do and get to know each other. Because at the end of the day, we're still strangers. So…" Oh my god.
Awkward and unsure and stiff, Kosuke lifts up her hand to him, and smiles as sincerely but calmly as she can. "Hi."
Kyoya blinks at her hand for a second, but one second is enough for her to want to shrivel up in the corner. Could you embarrass yourself any more?
Then Kyoya smiles, too. It's not blinding, and it's small. He does not show any teeth, it doesn't really bring any light to his eyes. Better: it's real. He takes her hand in his and gives it a little shake. "Hello."
As far as first meetings go, Kosuke thinks this has worked out just fine.
Though of course, time goes on, and the world keeps spinning. As soon as Kosuke retracts her hand again—how many times have they touched now? When they met, when he gave her the drink, when he kissed her hand—she remembers that she's taken about a hundred times longer than a "do you want to come to dinner with us?" visit should have taken. And she is not going to fuel the twins' suspicions. Kyoya realizes the same, and looks at his wristwatch curiously.
Kosuke almost says 'so,' realizes it will be the fourth, and instead says: "Soookay. Do you want to join us, or…?"
"I'll be right behind you," he promises. He takes a look at himself in the mirror, as if he's the one with the pepper-sprayed eyes and the messy hair.
"Alright."
As she turns to leave, Kyoya calls her name, but then says nothing after.
"Yes?"
One, five, ten seconds pass, and finally he shakes his head. "Nevermind. Go ahead."
She doesn't think anything more of it—or rather, she tells herself not to. She leaves him in his bedroom, re-entering the lounge hallway and what seems to be her life from here on out. She has a peculiar feeling in her chest, a fluttering sort of happiness. She hates to call herself giddy, but she supposes lighter is a fine word for it.