scars from the sun: Thanks so much! Sometimes when there's a scene of "character calls out other character they just met" in a work, it feels forced to me, like the narrative wants me to root for the character when they really just come across as self-righteous. Glad that you thought it was natural!
Lillyann: Don't EVER apologize for giving me full-on character analyses of my writing, it makes me SCREAM with joy! That's exactly it. Like obvs I think Kosuke was in the right because Yuuichi and Akito are kind of d-bags at this point in the story, but the problem is that this is the norm for the Ootori family. Kyoya honestly didn't notice because it wasn't anything new. Anyway thank you sooo much!
bbymojo: Thank you! I'm glad you thought it was handled well.
bored411: Thanks! Yeah, one scolding from a stranger ain't going to do it. TBH if all it took to make Yuuichi and Akito be nice was one new person calling them jerks, that would be straight out of a children's cartoon imo. They heard her but didn't like being called out. Kosuke was right in that explaining it very camly would've been more effective, but alas. Emotions. Thanks so much!
Thank you all for your feedback for the last chapter! Was hoping to get this one out a little sooner but my mental health tanked recently U._. Anxiety is a beast. Thankfully I'm much better now and will hopefully get another chapter out next week.
Disclaimer that this will be the fluffiest chapter so far. Beware, but also, enjoy!
Kyoya wouldn't call himself scheming. Pragmatic, yes. Someone who plans ahead, absolutely. Cunning, if he were to flatter himself. Not scheming, though. He just knows how important it is to hide all the cards in your deck.
So he doesn't tell Kosuke that he knows her tells well enough to make an itemized list.
If she spins her toe on the floor, she's nervous and doesn't know what to say.
If she chews on her cheek or her lip, she's considering her words very carefully.
If her spine is especially straight, she's fuming mad about something. This last one he found out after their reconcile at the lodge. He knew there was something new about her when he saw her the next morning, and that "something" was that she wasn't walking like a ruler with legs.
Considering getting her to talk about anything is as hard as breaking a diamond, he's going to keep that knowledge to himself. When he sees her twisting her family ring on her finger in the limousine, he knows that something has shaken her. Though, to be fair, she'd outright said as much and promised to tell him.
She made good on that promise. They spent his birthday with the others, eating at a nice restaurant and strolling through an art museum. The twins say that Kyoya's birthday is "always the boring one," but it was perfectly fine in his book. That evening they'd talked over the phone about what had happened, and Kyoya didn't have to see her to know she was twisting a hole into the floor. Shame and apology were dripping from every word as she explained everything that had been said in the Hall of Mirrors.
Kyoya maybe should have been upset. Not angry, but more disturbed that he ended up being. He and his brothers only talk once in a blue moon as is; he doubts they particularly care to complain to him about his fiancée's "disrespect." He tells Kosuke as much, which she accepts—but only after a long, pregnant pause that Kyoya couldn't decipher.
He'd thought that she'd be a bit more chipper the next time they saw each other, but ever since that day, it seems she's been going down a constant decline.
When she tucks locks that aren't there behind her ears, and when her jaw is taut as a guitar string, Kosuke is just generally upset—stressed, worried, tired. And for the past two weeks, it's been non-stop lock-tucking and jaw-clenching.
Finals has to be part of it, but it can't be all of it, not when her grades have been at a steady climb since their study sessions. Kyoya voices this to Haruhi over the phone one evening. She was going to be coming back soon for a winter break, so maybe the conversation could have waited until she was there in person. Kyoya was just concerned that Kosuke was going to break some of her teeth at that point.
"That sounds about right," Haruhi sighs on the other side of the Pacific Ocean. "She was the same this time last year, too."
"So it's not school," he deducts.
"It probably is now, at least part of it. But then she stressed out about what she was going to get Hitsuji and Minami for Christmas, or what was going to happen the next year."
Which also makes sense, but if her circumstances are so polar to what they were last year, Kyoya doesn't see how the same problems could be there. She doesn't have to keep a whole house by herself anymore. She's attending not just any college, but the best Japan has to offer. Now she lives close to all of her friends, and her grandparents, and—
Kyoya closes his eyes and breathes. There's a little triumph of finally realizing it, like finding the last piece of a puzzle. More than that, though, there is embarrassment. Shame, even.
"Do you think it's her parents, too?"
Haruhi lets out a sad sigh. She could not tell him much in the way of the late Emiko and Marti Nakahara. Kosuke quite understandably did not like to talk about it. She could tell him what he needed to hear, though: "I think so. This'll be the first full year she had without them. I know I was like that after my mother passed. The new year just made me realize how much things had changed; everything I'd gotten 'used to' that I didn't want to."
Kyoya comprehends, even if he does not understand. Even he experiences the melancholy that the year's end brings, the full weight of all that has happened, good and bad. For someone to lose what Kosuke lost, though, it just can't be the same.
"Have you talked to her about it?" asks Haruhi.
"No. She..." Kyoya purses his lips before he can blurt something rude out. Kosuke is his friend, truly. It's just this one trait of hers that gets right under his skin. "She hasn't spoken up about it."
"You mean she refuses to acknowledge it?" Kyoya could almost collapse with relief. Haruhi can read one friend's mind when they refuse to speak and another friend's mind when they're thousands of miles away. "Yeah. She's not very forthcoming about personal issues."
"Even when someone asks about them outright, though. That's what I don't understand."
"Well, she doesn't want anyone to worry about her. If you ask me, it makes her feel guilty. So when it takes more than just asking to get her to open up, it doesn't surprise me."
Logically, Kyoya already knew that. It isn't impossible to be both sympathetic and exasperated to the traits of your friends, though. For example: literally all of Kyoya's friends.
Kyoya cannot lie here, though. Friendship, confiding...He's not very experienced in this department.
"I don't suppose you have any suggestions, then."
Haruhi hums. "To be honest, I still steer clear of talking about her parents. There are some things where 'I don't want to talk about it' is just the end of it, you know? So I guess for right now I could recommend that you maybe try to cheer her up?"
Kyoya had actually meant suggestions for going forward, i.e. for the rest of the time he and Kosuke know each other, i.e. for the rest of their lives, i.e. not just right now. He will take what he gets, however.
"We can try to do something when I get back next week," Haruhi continues. "We never did get to do that double date."
"That could work. I know she hasn't been around much of anyone with her studies lately."
"Really? I dare say I'm hearing a pot calling a kettle black."
"Haruhi, I think you're breaking up. Long-distance calls, so finnicky. I'll see you soon."
He hangs up on her mid-sigh, and sits down on his bed for a moment. It's funny. He can still remember calling Haruhi to lie through his teeth about how much he was looking forward to marrying her best friend, and now he's calling to seek advice on how to cheer her up.
Speaking of, he thinks as he lies back on the mattress, knowing there's work to do but for once telling himself he'll be just a minute. It looks like it's not much of a lie anymore, either.
At least now that he and Kosuke are friends, good friends, then they are spared a life of misery. They'd be spared a life of romance, sure, but that's not a need for survival. Companionship is just as good, Kyoya thinks. He finds that there are certain images, could-be's, that don't bother him at all. Him hard at work at his desk, and Kosuke, just a few feet away, reading one of her food-books. Eating breakfast together at the table. Probably she'll seize the opportunity to force snack bars into his workbag every day.
Not that Kyoya was ever opposed to the idea of living alone, but that would be far from a bad life, too. Still, it's a life still far into the future, and as difficult as it is at the year's end, he needs to focus on the present.
Kosuke, of course, has no objections to the idea. She agrees before he's done talking, really. Tamaki is the one who decides that they'll all go ice-skating, which Kyoya has no objections to. No enthusiastic agreements, either, but no objections.
Object next time, Kyoya scolds himself on that decided Saturday evening, chilled cold despite all the layers he's wrapped himself up in. Including the earmuffs that Jin refused to let him leave the mansion without. Snow is supposed to start falling sometime tonight or tomorrow, but Kyoya is surprised he isn't already breathing in ice.
The skating rink is already filled with people—couples holding hands, friends laughing at each other's slips. To stop himself from looking at his wristwatch again, Kyoya watches two parents steer their young daughter along the ice so carefully, cheering her on, telling her she's doing so well. Has Kyoya ever gone ice skating? Maybe once, when he was little. He must have been quite young; it's too faded to even be called a memory. Maybe Jin led him on the ice like that. Akito and Yuuichi would have been older; maybe they laughed when one of them slipped and fell.
Another stiff breeze has his teeth grinding, but finally he has company in this frozen hell. Kosuke is jogging over, waving her arm so high in the air she's on her tiptoes. She looks very snug in her knit scarf and peacoat, but the tip of her nose has turned red. Some word tickles at Kyoya's mind when he sees her, but he can't figure it out.
"Hiiiiiii," Kosuke sings as she comes to him, grinning from ear to ear. Her scarf ends in a fluffy pink pom-pom that bounces on her chest as she walks.
Well, this worked wonders. We haven't even started yet. "Hello. You seem excited."
"Course I am! It's been forever since I've been, uh...um..."
Her face just—blanks. A 404 error.
Kyoya prods, rather unnerved, "Ice skating?"
"Yeah, yeah, that!" She nods so hard her earmuffs fall down around her neck. It takes a full five seconds for her to fix it, thoroughly perplexed. "Not since I was back home in Karuizawa."
Probably she's tired and trying to overcompensate for it, Kyoya thinks. "Do you know what you're doing, then?"
"Mm-hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm." It stretches out so long it cracks at the end. "Did it every year! On a real pond, though, not like th—Well. Not every year. I made Kohta fall one time and he hurt his tailbone and I didn't wanna go back the next year 'cuz I was embarrassed..."
Her voice collapses into a mumble at the end, and Kyoya just barely makes out what she's saying. She reaches up to rub at her red nose, and remembers she's wearing mittens instead of gloves. Instead of just pulling one off, she just...claps them together, seemingly fascinated by the soft sound of it.
"Who's Kohta?"
It takes a few more mitten-claps for her to realize she's been spoken to. "Wha?"
"Kohta. Was that a friend of yours back at Karuizawa?"
The 404 face again. Her hands fall back to her sides. "Who said anything about Kohta?"
"You did. Just now."
She blows a raspberry—a very loud, wet one that earns some offended looks. "I'd never mention Kyoya to you, Kohta. That'd be dumb."
Okay.
Needless to say, something is wrong.
Is she drunk? She doesn't smell like it, and her eyes aren't bloodshot. She doesn't regularly drink, anyway. Has she been concussed? Pupils are the same size. Her motor skills seem fine.
"Kosuke."
"Yeah," she says, like he was asking if that was her name.
"What's wrong?"
She blinks owlishly at him. "I don't know."
"What do you mean, you don't know?"
"Huh?"
What is wrong with her? Has her brain turned to mush?
Kyoya pulls his gloves off and tucks them into his coat pocket. Probably it won't yield any results, but he presses the back of his hand to her forehead. A little warm, maybe. But then, it's freezing.
"Lift up your head a little."
She obeys. Gently, Kyoya presses his fingertips under her jaw. Her lymph nodes don't seem swollen.
Suddenly his fingers are being squished between Kosuke's neck and her scarf. She's smiling like a cat stretched out in a sunbeam—and practically purring for good measure. "Your hands are warm..."
Now it's Kyoya's turn to 404, but he at least has the sense to pull his hands back. Kosuke whines in protest, then perks right up not a second later, grabbing his wrist and bringing his hand so close to her face his palm is almost against her nose.
"And big," she exclaims. "Big hands. Piano hands."
He pulls away again, and fixes her with a look she must be familiar with by now. The tell me what's wrong look, the stop pretending everything is alright look. It's proven to be effective.
Not now, though. It bounces right off of her. "Wha?"
She's not on the planet. She's not even in this solar system.
Kyoya bends down enough to be eye-level with her. "Kosuke."
This time she actually has to think about it. "Yes."
"Have you hit your head recently?"
"Nuh-uh."
"Do you feel dizzy? Is your vision impaired in any way?"
"Mm...No? Yeah, no."
"Have you eaten or drunk anything out of the ordinary today?"
Her distant stare almost has him dragging her to the ER then and there, but then she jumps up as suddenly as a Jack-in-the-Box. "There they are!"
She waves her arm high and wide, and Tamaki does the same. So she waves her arm a little higher and a little wider, and Tamaki does the same, and eventually the competition has turned their arms into wind turbines and Kyoya and Haruhi have to restrain their respective fiancés before they blow themselves right off the pavement.
Kosuke somehow still has enough strength to throw her arms around Haruhi with a strength that could have put Tamaki to shame. Haruhi stumbles under her weight.
"Heeeeey!" Kosuke trills, squeezing Haruhi and swaying her from side to side. "I missed you sooo much!"
Haruhi reciprocates with much confusion. "I've seen you every day since I came back."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah."
"Hm."
"I don't see the issue." Haruhi groans as Tamaki joins in, squeezing her and Kosuke both in a tight knot. "I still miss you even when you're back! That's how much we care about you."
Haruhi wriggles free, and pulls her knit cap straight again. "Let's go get our skates before too many people show up."
Tamaki takes her hand and leads the way. Kosuke takes her other hand. Haruhi doesn't even blink at this.
Well. Alright, to be fair, Kosuke holds hands with people a lot. Particularly in large crowds and while crossing the street.
I can't be the only one who thinks she's acting bizarre. Kyoya follows and watches the back of Kosuke's head, which may or may not be swaying. Hard to say. Maybe she's just joking around?
Now, Kyoya doesn't know why, but when Haruhi had explained that it wasn't necessary to bring skates, he'd just assumed they sold them here, like souvenirs. Not the case. They line up in front of a long table covered in boxes, with many of the same stacked up in towers behind the attendees flitting about. A patron gives an attendee a pair of skates, not the other way around, and the attendee sets them into a marked box. Just a moment later, an identical box is passed to the next person in line.
"Hey. What's that look on your face?" Tamaki chuckles at him. "You look like you just swallowed a lemon!"
"I didn't think we were going to be using skates that who knows how many people have already used." Kyoya tries not to sneer. Then he does, because no, this deserves it. "I don't find it very sanitary."
Haruhi clicks her tongue. "I'm sure they clean them between uses. Besides, I think everyone here is wearing a million layers of socks, anyway. Kosuke, you're up."
She nudges the blonde forward. The attendee smiles and says, "Hello, miss! Shoe size?"
After the five seconds it takes for her to comprehend what has just been asked, Kosuke looks to the bottom of her shoe. Or she tries, by grabbing the back of her leg and lifting it up behind her, craning her neck back to look, bending like a pretzel. When she teeters, Tamaki puts a hand on her back.
"Seven and a half!" Kosuke sounds very proud of herself, but looks surprised when her answer gets her a box.
Still no one says anything, so Kyoya asks outright.
"What do you mean?" Tamaki gives the strings of his skate a hard pull, squeaks, and loosens them again.
"Doesn't she seem a little scatterbrained to you?" Kyoya nods his head to where Kosuke and Haruhi are getting their skates on. Kosuke is trying to get a knot out of the strings, and is sticking out her tongue as she does so—something that she never does, and in fact she once complained to Kyoya that a culinary classmate did it in the kitchen, 'so unsanitary!' "Silly, even."
Tamaki shrugs. "She's a little peppier than usual, maybe, but I bet that's just because she's happy. That's good. She needs a break."
Kyoya agrees with half of that statement, at least. He supposes this is better than worrying herself into an early grave. Probably.
Haruhi is the first after Kyoya to stand to her feet. She walks a few shaky steps, walking along the railing. "Alright. Kosuke, are you ready?"
"No!" Kosuke taps her feet on the floor, pouting again. "They feel weird."
Haruhi looks down. "You have your skates on the wrong feet."
She taps her feet again. "So I do."
At last Haruhi gives her a quizzical glance, but all that's done about it is Tamaki teetering his way over to her to help her out.
Their start is not great, to say the least.
Haruhi is a bit shaky, but she's done this a few times before and gets out on the ice just fine. Kyoya takes to it surprisingly quickly. He won't be doing any stunts any time soon, but he feels sturdy on his feet.
Tamaki sweeps gracefully onto the ice. Then he stops cold. Stuck. Haruhi tries, but she can't help him get a momentum going.
Kosuke is just confusing. It's like she doesn't grasp that she's stepping on ice, and that ice is slippery, and that that's the whole point of ice skating. Three minutes in, and she hasn't even stepped into the rink. Every time her foot even slightly shifts on the first step, she draws it back in and tries again.
After maybe the fiftieth time, Kyoya can't help but say, "You said you've done this before."
She shushes him. Full concentration, and not another inch out.
"Wait...Wait!" Tamaki slides forward a few inches on one foot, then a few inches on the other. He still keeps his arms spread out for balance, but it's infinitely better. "I think I've got it! Here, you two go on ahead and I'll stay here with Kosuke. Come on, Kosuke, it's one foot and then the other!"
Kosuke takes this to mean that she should swap the foot that she's trying to walk out on. While Tamaki tries to explain, Haruhi and Kyoya glide away.
Aside from the other skaters that they have to steer through, and the icy wind, it's relaxing. Only once does Haruhi slip, and she catches onto Kyoya fast enough to save herself. It's weird, the feeling he gets when she does—because it used to be different, he thinks. Cliched and sappy as it was, his heart used to skip a beat every time they grazed. Now, his heart still does something, but it's calmer. He doesn't have to worry if she noticed.
"So," Haruhi says about a quarter through the circle, "this is kind of a weird question, but...do you and Kosuke go out a lot?"
He answers, but not without raising a brow. "I'd say so. Once a week at least, a few times at most."
Haruhi nods, and Kyoya asks, "Why?" What he really wants to ask is, You noticed she's acting strange, too, right?
"Just making sure. She tells me she does, but I didn't know if she was just saying it. I know she barely got out of the house when she was in Karuizawa."
Kyoya tries to look at her, but focusing on not barreling into the back of the man in front of him is probably more important. "Kosuke was taking a skip year before this, wasn't she?"
Haruhi braves a glance at him. Something about that was wrong, but she doesn't say what, only, "Sure, but she had a job at a store in town. She was working almost every day, but even then..."
"Even then?"
She takes three more glides before she answers. "She just didn't have a lot of friends in Karuizawa. Or any friends, maybe. She had a best friend, but she moved away before we met, and I think they just fell out of touch with each other."
Kyoya had tried a few times to imagine what Kosuke's life was like before Shigeo came to her. Whether it was her walking the mountain trails or walking the children to school, he'd always imagined faceless strangers there with her. But then, Kosuke had never mentioned them, had she?
"Anyway," Haruhi goes on, "that's why I'm happy that she's actually getting out. It seemed to me she was always lonely but never knew it."
Lonely but never knew it. Is that even possible? Kyoya wonders, but he knows the answer.
"Perhaps that's why she's acting so bubbly."
Haruhi tries to shrug, but doesn't trust herself not to fall without her arms out to balance her. "I just thought she was joking around. It's not like this is normal for her."
My point exactly, and yet you still missed it.
They take the rest of the loop to the sound of laughter and skates whisking across the ice. Lights have been strung up around the rails, violet and cobalt, and the colors catch onto the sheen of Haruhi's hair as it tousles in the wind. Her lips are pursed in concentration. She's captivating, as she always has been—not stunning, not striking, but enthralling like a flame is to a moth.
Except this time Kyoya just notes this as he would note that it is very cold tonight. His mind is more on what she's said of Kosuke and her unrealized loneliness. He takes this as a good sign that his love is starting to wear off and he's returning back to normal. In fact, if Kyoya can keep going the way he is now, and go for days at a time without even thinking about his two lost Lenores, then soon enough he should be able to look back on this and laugh. Or cringe.
As a test, he tries to see if Tamaki's infamously good looks will affect him any, like if the whiteness of his coat will make him look like he's glowing, or if the lights will make the violets of his eyes look like galaxies.
All of which is true, but again Kyoya just notes it. Mostly because Tamaki's state when he and Haruhi return is more noteworthy.
Haruhi asks the obvious question of, "What are you doing?"
Tamaki and Kosuke are half-sitting, half-lying down on the ice, arms wrapped around each other in a desperate embrace. "If we just sit here," Tamaki explains, "then neither of us can get hurt."
"Tamaki, come on. It's not that hard."
Haruhi coaxes her fiancé back onto his feet, but Kosuke looks content to just lie there on the ice. Kyoya hauls her upright, too. She latches onto the railing before he lets go, with nothing but the strength of her arms to keep her upright.
"Watch me," Kyoya tells her, even though this is not new to her. He skates around in a small circle to demonstrate. "Just step and push."
"Step and push." Kosuke inches one skate forward, and then the other, hands still a vice on the railing. "Step and—Oh, wait. Now I remember."
Then she just straightens up and glides away.
Kyoya watches her go on in long, easy, expert strides, all while she just has that same vacant look on her face. He has to push himself to catch up with her, giving quick apologies to the other skaters, and she doesn't even seem to notice.
"Kosuke."
She frowns. "Why do you keep asking me that? You know my name is Kosuke!"
"Can you really not tell me what's wrong."
"Nothing's wrong. I'm having fun! Here, watch this!"
She keeps skating. And just...keeps skating.
"Tada!"
Kyoya can feel the years of his life shaving off the longer this continues. "What do you mean, 'tada'?"
At this she glares ferociously at him and harumphs. "Well I'd like to see you try to land a jump, if you're so unimpressed!"
"Alright, come on."
Kyoya takes a hold of her arm, but that's as far as he gets. They can't just go against the flow of traffic, and it looks like there's only the one entrance. Maybe he should lift her over the railing...
"Ooh, where are we going?"
"Out of here so we can take you to a doctor."
"Wha?! But I'm not sick!"
"You're not exactly healthy, either."
Kosuke pulls her arm out of his grasp and skates away from him, far enough away for some skaters to slide between them. "I don't wanna go!"
"Kosuke, please don't make a scene."
"I'm having fuuuun! I wanna stay."
"Kosuke, you could be sick. Or injured. Maybe both."
"Do I look sick or in-joor-ed?" She scoffs a great pu-sha! and sweeps back over to him, somehow looking equal parts graceful and unhinged. "You can't just—just take me to a doctor 'cause you don't like me!"
"I never said I didn't like you."
"Yes you did!"
"When?"
She harumphs again. "I wanna stay. Pleeeaase?"
Kyoya doesn't answer and he doesn't blame himself. This isn't Kosuke, but who it is, he can't begin to guess.
Suddenly Kosuke slides right in front of him—it's a miracle that he stops before they can crash. She takes his gloved hands into her mittened ones and presses them together, a double prayer.
Then she blinks up at him with huge, sad blue eyes and says again, "Please?"
Oh, that was the word he couldn't find earlier: cute.
He throws it away just as quickly. Since when does he look at her and think 'cute'? Her sickness must be wearing off on him...
Even so, her plead feels very genuine. A little bit of the real Kosuke comes through, desperate, wanting. It shakes his resolve.
"If you start feeling unwell, you have to tell me at once."
"So we can stay?"
"Yes, we can—"
"Yay! Come on." She releases both of his hands—why didn't he pull away sooner?—to grab one, and slings him forward. A few skaters have to veer away, some better than others. Kyoya tries to apologize to all the glares and sneers, but Kosuke is blissfully unaware. "Go faster!"
They go through several more loops, although that 'they' is arguable. Sometimes she sticks by his side and sometimes she speeds away. Once she stops dead in the middle, captivated by the little pom-poms on her scarf, and Kyoya has to go through the entire loop to get back to her.
Kyoya is the only one who notices this, and all of the other alarming things. Everyone else gets to see a woman who tells a young couple, "Aww! You two are so cute!" or does a moving squat on the ice to pick up a wallet that had fallen out of someone's pocket. Kyoya gets to see her look at the shavings that litter the ice and mumble, "I want a snow cone," or suddenly turn around because it would be fun to go the other way.
Not helping is that she's still a better skater than him, even when her brain is as scrambled as a breakfast omelet. Haruhi and Tamaki seem none the wiser as they go in slower, more careful circles. Tamaki is getting the hang of it quickly. The only time he falls is when Kosuke gives a "You're doing so good!" and a clap on the back that makes him plummet. Many apologies follow.
Being the only one to see the truth isn't half as unfair as watching Kosuke glow with joy. She's smiling more tonight than she has for the past two weeks. She tries to skate on one foot, and even though she only makes it a few feet, she gives a rare, open laugh. Kyoya feels happy for her when he should be worried.
No one keeps track of how many loops they go through, but it's at least a double-digit number when they decide it's time for a break. Haruhi, Tamaki, and Kyoya slow down at the entrance. Kosuke goes right by them, calling, "I forgot how to stop!" So she and Kyoya go one more loop and then they leave.
No discussion is needed to know it's time for something hot to eat. They all turn their skates in, and now Kyoya is starting to feel the numbness in his toes and fingers. Even with the earmuffs, he's sure his ears are cherry-red.
While Haruhi and Tamaki discuss their options, a flash of pink pulls Kyoya's attention away. Kosuke is wrestling with her scarf like it's a boa constrictor trying to eat her alive. She isn't wearing a turtleneck underneath, so her neck is open to the blistering cold, and that makes Kyoya comes over and ask what's going on.
"I can't get it back on!" Kosuke tries to just wrap it round and around her neck, but it isn't as snug and tight as it was before. "Ugh!"
Kyoya just takes it before she can strangle herself. It's not exactly the way she had it before, but it's tight enough. He wonders if this means someone else had to tie it for her before, or if this only started after she'd bundled herself up for the evening.
Kosuke burrows into her scarf to show her satisfaction, so Kyoya turns back to Haruhi and Tamaki—both of whom are watching them, Tamaki with a glow that could melt the ice.
"So cute," he croons at them.
Haruhi taps on his arm to get his attention, but even she's watching them with a little pleased smile. "Let's try that place over there."
It's a hole-in-the-wall ramen shop hardly bigger than a hallway, but it's warm and the smell is mouth-watering. Kosuke has an intense stare in her eyes, and that gives Kyoya hope. Even like this, she still scans every restaurant she enters like a computer, seeking all signs of quality.
Then he realizes that the front desk has a maneki-neko with a waving paw, and that's what she's staring at. She waves back to it.
There are a surprising number of options for a place so small, and it stumps Kyoya. When he eats, it's either a meal served to him from the kitchen staff, or from a menu with no more than three options. It seems unnecessarily complicated, to have so many different-but-not-that-different choices.
"Kosuke." She gives him an annoyed look. Right. That's her name. "What do you want to eat?"
She blinks up at the signs hanging overhead, then the yellow lights, and her faces scrunches. "Ramen? But the lights aren't out..."
He begs that Haruhi has heard that, and maybe that she can decipher just what on earth that means. But no. Haruhi turns back to them and says, "Do you guys know what you want?"
He tells them to just get whatever she and Tamaki are getting. Then he leads Kosuke away to find seats. She waves goodbye to the cat as she goes.
Though he's without Kosuke's knowledge of all things restaurant safety, the ramen is delicious, and warms them all from the inside-out. Somehow they end up sitting with Haruhi and Tamaki in the middle and Kyoya and Kosuke on the ends. Two people away, Kyoya can hear Kosuke giving one of her trademark food lectures, though this one is different, to say the least.
"There are over 20,000 ramen shops in Japan today. There are a few in Karuizawa. My favorite one served the ramen in bowls painted like animals, like bears and pandas and—Pandas are bears, aren't they? Anyway, the ramen was soooo good. The shop was owned by a couple, but one day the wife found out her husband was cheating on her, and when they got divorced they closed the shop. Then someone else took it over. I don't know if the ramen there was good or not. I stopped going because they didn't serve it in the animal bowls anymore."
Haruhi nods. Not many other ways to respond to that. Tamaki was apparently too lost in the deliciousness of the ramen to listen, because all he says is, "Kosuke sounds like she's having a lot of fun tonight!"
"She does, doesn't she?" Kyoya mutters. Kosuke rears her chopsticks and waits, waits, waits, and then stabs down on a fishcake, like a fisherman striking with a spear.
Tamaki nudges his arm against Kyoya's. "I knew you two were perfect for each other! I only wish I'd introduced you two sooner. How lucky is it that it turned out this way, huh?"
Lucky. Is that the word he would use? Before, he would say it was bizarre, or a one-in-a-million chance, that the new friend of his friends turned out to be none other than his fiancée.
It is lucky, he supposes. He thought he was going to have such a hard time adjusting to Kosuke, but it turned out seamless. In some ways it was like she was always here. Even today he and some of the others will reminisce on stories about the past and remember she wasn't there for them.
Which reminds him that while he and the other Hosts were going out on their little misadventures, Kosuke was alone in Karuizawa.
Maybe he's not the lucky one here.
He only realizes that he'd been staring at Kosuke when Tamaki sings a note. "You—are—lovestruck!"
Kyoya just shakes his head and turns back to his food.
Once they all feel brave enough to face the cold again, they leave the shop and return to the ice rink. There are fewer people now that the night is getting older. There is no line anymore, so getting skates again is a near-instant process.
However, once he has his in hand, Kyoya realizes that Kosuke is not behind him, nor is she with Haruhi and Tamaki tying their skates back on. She was right there just a second ago...
After much turning, Kyoya spots her a little further down the street, sitting on a bench they had passed earlier. She looks like she's waiting on the next bus.
Kyoya gives his skates back and goes to her, swallowing his annoyance. She's not doing this on purpose. Something is wrong with her.
And despite that 'something,' she'd been a bubble of energy all night. Laughing and chatting away.
Now, sitting on the bench, she looks to be losing air. Her shoulders are drooped and her chin is only being kept up by her bundled scarf. Her eyes are open, but with how slowly she's blinking, they might as well be shut.
Kyoya reaches out and taps her shoulder. She stirs but has to look around to find him. "Hi."
"What are you doing over here?"
"'M tired. Wanna rest a minute."
Kyoya leans back to see Tamaki and Haruhi. There's a tree and a city almanac right in his line of sight, so while he can spot them through it, probably they can't do the same. They're obviously looking for the other half of their double-date. Haruhi searches the street while Tamaki scans the rink.
Thinking he can coax her to at least come sit back over there, Kyoya turns back to Kosuke.
And grabs onto her coat sleeve.
"What are you doing?"
She wriggles, but he doesn't let go. She's already halfway down, one elbow propped on the seat and one leg curled up. "I just need to take a nap real quick. Quick nap."
When she can't break free of him, she lets herself go boneless, forcing him to keep her up. Kyoya has to grab her other shoulder and haul her upright. She whines as her head lolls.
"You cannot take a nap on the bench."
"Well I don't want to take a nap on the ground!"
The night is officially over. Kyoya is done. He tells her, "Wait here," but the second he lets go of her, she tries to curl up again. "No, don't sleep here."
"Just for a minute?"
"Listen. I'll go and get you a pillow and a blanket. But you can't fall asleep until I come back."
She grumbles, but at last her boots touch back down on the pavement. "Okay..."
Kyoya glances back at her every five steps while he walks back. In this state, if she wanders off, he doubts she'll ever be found again. Still, he wants to preserve some of her dignity.
Haruhi waves him over. "Hey! Where did you guys go?"
"Unfortunately, I'm going to have to take Kosuke home," he answers. "She's not feeling well."
"Oh, no!" Tamaki frets. "Is she sick?"
"She needs to get some sleep. I'm sure it's nothing."
Disappointed though they clearly are, Haruhi and Tamaki both nod. Tamaki shoos him away. "Well, you should get going, then. Tell her I said goodnight!"
Kyoya promises he will and leaves, mourning the rest of the night that could have been. They'll have more chances, he's sure. Getting Kosuke home safe is leagues more important.
She kept her promise to stay upright, and even smiles when she sees him approaching. She lifts a weak arm upwards and coos, "Look."
Far above their heads, only visible by the black expanse of the sky, snow is drifting down. It melts before it even comes close to them, but it's still there, moving in flurries and freefalls. Kosuke waves her hand at them to stir them, like dust motes in sunlight.
"Yes, it's snowing."
"I like the snow. I like making snowmen."
"Kosuke—"
"Okina always made better snowmen than me. I could never lift the heads up on the bodies."
"Listen—"
"Kohta could, though. But he didn't like snow. I wonder where he is right now?"
Finally Kyoya claps his hands in front of her face, which succeeds in snapping her awake. She claps back at him, eager for a game, but Kyoya just sits down beside her and pulls out his phone. She doesn't need to go to the emergency room, surely, but a doctor should see her. Problem being, Kyoya doesn't know what's wrong. The doctor would have nothing to work off of.
He puts his phone away without dialing, and tries to keep Kosuke's eyes on his as he speaks slow and carefully.
"Kosuke, I need you to try and remember something for me, alright?"
"Is it something important?"
"Very important."
"Okay." Kosuke squeezes her head between her hands to concentrate all her brain power. "What is it?"
"Did you drink anything alcoholic today?"
"No!"
"Did you hit your head on anything today?"
"No!"
"Did you eat or drink anything strange today?"
"No—Wait. Yes. No. Yes. Does medicine count as eating something?"
Panic spikes his veins. Is this an overdose? She doesn't look like she's overdosing. She hasn't said anything about nausea, she's not turning blue.
"What medicine did you take?"
She ponders long and hard about it, and answers with a proud smile. "Relievera!"
Kyoya's never heard of such a thing. Unless she's having a stroke and speaking gibberish. "'Relievera'? That's what you took?"
"Mm-hm! It's OCT. COT. TOC."
"It's an over-the-counter medicine."
"Yeah-huh. You take it when you have a fever, or when your nose is runny, or when you're getting achy, or when your throat hurts, or when your eyes are teary..."
"Why did you take it?"
She rewinds through the days' events to find out. "Because...Hm...It was an hour before I needed to leave and I had a headache...I thought it was going to get better, but it didn't...then my back started to ache...and I felt warm so I took my temperature and it was a little high..."
"How high?"
"One hundred! Wait, no. That's when water boils...Eighty! No, that's what chicken needs to be...Ten seventeen! No, that's my birthday."
Kyoya's fingers ache to grab something and throw it. "Was it under forty?"
"Umm...Um, um, um...Yes! But I still felt bad so I took some Relievera."
"Does Relievera usually make you act like this?"
"Like what?" she asks, trying to stir the snowflakes again.
He pulls her hand down. "Did you notice anything different when you took Relievera this time?"
"Mmm..."
"Think about it."
"Mmm...Oh, yeah! Relievera is the medicine Mom always gave us when we were sick. Mom always gave me medicine even when I was a teenager because she wouldn't let any of us into the medicine box even though I was old enough and sometimes I was sick and she wasn't home to open the lock and that made me mad—"
"Yes, yes, I understand. But what was different when you took it this time?"
"Sooooo the store nearest to our house stopped stocking Relievera so when I was there with the kids I just bought some different OCT—TOC—over. the. counter. medicine. And then I saw some in the medicine box back at the mansion and I was like 'oh, hey, I know what this is,' but since I never got to take it myself I had to read the box for instructions."
"Alright. Then what happened?"
"Um..." She puffs her cheeks. "I was in a hurry to get ready because I wanted to put another layer of clothes on just to be safe and I couldn't find my phone and Hitsuji needed me to get something down from the top shelf—"
"The medicine."
"The medicine. Right. I read the box really quick and I thought it said take two pills of Relievera. So I did. But then I started feeling woozy and I checked the box again and it turns out that part was only part one, and the, uh...the sequel was on the other side of the box, and it didn't say 'take two pills' it said 'take two pills six hours apart a day.'"
Kyoya purses his lips at that. An over-the-counter cold medicine. Two pills wouldn't be enough to cause an overdose, and if it's been hours since, there'd be much more than this by now. "But you never felt woozy when you took Relievera before?"
"Nuh-uh."
"So you've only felt bad this one time because you took two pills by accident?"
"Yeah-huh."
"Do you feel woozy now?"
"Yeah, but now I'm woozy and happy, so it's okay!" Her eyes drift back upwards, and she bounces, shouting, "Look, they're coming closer!"
"Try and catch one." He gives her an encouraging pat on the shoulder as he stands, the number of his chauffeur already on his phone screen.
"So you're saying she should be okay?"
"I'm saying that in all the cases I've seen of people taking too much of Relievera, they just act loopy for a few hours and then they're fine. Maybe some nausea and vomiting. You're sure it was only the two pills?"
"I'm sure."
"Then just get her home and make sure she drinks some water."
"Alright. Thank you, Yuuichi."
Yuuichi doesn't say goodbye before hanging up.
Suddenly Kyoya is hit with a gust of cold wind and a tiny flurry of snowflakes. He leans over Kosuke to slide the window up again, rubbing his glasses clean of ice.
"You can't see them in here." Kosuke presses her cheek to the glass that must be ice-cold. "It's too dark."
"You can look at them later. Just don't do that again."
Kosuke falls back into her seat. For all of two seconds, and then she jumps forward again. "Hey, why do we have to take a limo back to the rink anyway? It was right there. We could've walked!"
"We're not going back to the rink, we're taking you home."
"We can't just drive home without planning! Karuizawa is hours away!"
"I meant your home here in Tokyo. The mansion."
"The mansion? Oh. The mansion." She rolls her eyes. "Are Haruhi and Tamaki meeting us there? Are we going to drink cocoa? That'd be nice."
"No, they're not going to be there. You need to go to bed."
She blinks. "So the date's over?"
"Yes."
She blinks again. "That's it?"
"Yes. Haruhi and Tamaki aren't mad, they understand that—Kosuke, no!"
He's too late to stop her from unlocking the limo door, but not too late to stop her from opening it. But it's a close call, and the next is even closer, as her fingers actually grab hold of it.
There's a very intense and incredibly demeaning struggle, as Kosuke—who is much stronger than a medicine-loopy person has any right to be—clamors for the door. They end up on the floor, his arms wrapped around her middle and pinning one arm to her side. The other claws for the door handle to no avail.
"Would you stop it already?!"
"We gotta go back! The date can't be over now! We barely did anything!"
"We did just enough, and we can go on another date!"
"Not with Tamaki and Haruhi!"
"Yes, with Tamaki and Haruhi!"
"No! You're just saying we can do it again but then we never will. We'll be too busy and Tamaki will be all the way in Wakayama and Haruhi won't answer my messages and I won't answer her messages and I know that and that's why I took the medicine even when I felt sick and..."
Whatever else she says, it's muffled into the floor. She's going to crash any moment. Kyoya wishes that moment would be now.
Though it looks like all he'll get is incoherent babbling at this point, Kyoya still says, "Tamaki isn't going to Wakayama and Haruhi will answer your messages. Would you please calm down?"
She goes limp. He lets go, and she stays there. Relief. Then worry. Then relief again, when she pulls herself up to slump back against the seat, fold her arms, and pout. Kyoya stays seated on the floor with her, too exhausted to get back up.
"You're mean."
He pushes his glasses up his nose. He thought she'd broken them for a moment. "Sorry."
"You're a mean person."
"Sorry," he says again. A toddler could come up with meaner insults.
"And your glasses are dumb."
"Mm-hm."
Silence.
"I'm sorry."
"It's okay."
"I'm sorry I said you're mean."
"It's okay."
"Your glasses aren't dumb. I like your glasses."
"It's fine, Kosuke."
She leans her head back against the seat, and looks to the window. It is too dark to see out, so she must just be imagining.
"It's December."
"It is."
"The year's almost over."
"Almost."
"Last December I was back home. Last December we hadn't even met yet."
"That's true."
"All this stuff happened this year."
"It did. It's been very eventful."
She's not looking at the snowflakes anymore, imagined or not. "I can't tell if it was really long or really short."
He hums. "I think everyone thinks that at the year's end."
"Like this year I met my dad and moved to Tokyo and started going to college and I met you and I went to a lot of parties and read a lot of books."
"Yeah?"
"But sometimes when I wake up in the morning I get confused because I'm not in my bedroom."
It takes him a second to understand. He's not sure what to say, so he says nothing.
"What do you think?"
He takes a deep breath. "I agree. Very slow and very fast at the same time."
She hums. "Were we fast or slow?"
He lolls his head on the seat to look at her. "What do you mean?"
"Sometimes I just think it's really weird."
"What is?"
"Mm...Like right now. We're sitting here. And it wasn't even a year ago when I met with that weird lady to dress up and put on makeup and we had that dinner with the sorbet and I met you."
"How is that weird?"
"Cause like..." Her mittens reach for the words. "When I met Tamaki and Haruhi they were nice people and we just talked more and more until we were friends. Like, it was like this..."
She drags her hand in an incline through the air.
"But with us it was like..."
She drops her hand in a very steep incline, then lifts it upwards.
"I know what you mean."
"I didn't like you."
"I know."
"I didn't like you a lot."
"Yes. I know."
"Like I thought you were mean and condescending and uptight and conceited and stuffy and—"
"I get it."
"And I was sooo angry that we were gonna have to get married because I thought we were gonna be miiiiiserable and every time I saw you I was like, 'Man, I can do so much better than that'—"
"Yes. I know. I understand."
"But now we're friends. And I like you. Even if you're still kind of all that other stuff a little bit. You give me movie tickets and help me study for my classes and you gave me Tako and—"
"Tako?"
"Tako. My cat."
"You named your cat Tako."
"It's short for Takoyaki. And you told me not to worry about those old ladies who were saying mean things about me and you taught me how to dance and you helped Hitsuji when he was scared and you let me talk about food stuff without interrupting me and when something's wrong you ask me about it."
Never works though, does it?
"And alllll that happened this year. And I like that. Cause last year I thought the same thing, but it was all the bad stuff that happened with Mom and Dad and Kohta and Okina and the shark and the Blue Suit."
That last part is lost on him—shark? As in the fish? The rest makes him watch her, waiting for a break. He's terrified that she's about to start crying and he'll be useless to help her. Instead, she just keeps looking out the dark window with that same wistful look.
"It's like every year is just going to be a coin toss. Really good or really bad."
"I suppose it is."
"And there's nothing anyone can do about it."
"No, there isn't."
She gives a little groan. It's true. If she was sad that it was going to rain tomorrow, Kyoya couldn't promise her sunshine. Life is equal parts beautiful and terrifying. He again comprehends but cannot understand. This is more than just existential dread for her, it's a fear that has proven itself to be legitimate.
"But," he says, voice quiet, "you can have a really good year with all your friends and family. And if you have a really bad year, you'll still have it with your friends and family."
He doesn't know if it's poetic or pathetic. Kosuke's face does not change, it doesn't crumple. She agrees.
Even when the strength returns to their bones, they stay on the floor of the limousine, legs stretched out side-by-side. The pom-pom of her scarf bounces against his arm. Five, maybe ten minutes pass in this silence.
Kosuke's arm nudges into his, and she says, "Say something mean about me."
"What?"
"Say something mean about me." She nudges him again, harder. "Just do it. Say something you don't like about me."
His instant response is you act like nothing is wrong when I know otherwise, but that would hit too hard. Even if he has no idea why he's doing this to begin with. "You can be stubborn to a fault and difficult to work with. You're quick to worry about things you shouldn't. Also, my stomach hurts because you drove your elbow into it a minute ago, if that counts."
She nods along the whole time, maybe not even hearing him. When he's done, she gives his arm a satisfied pat. "Good."
"What is?"
"I felt bad about all that stuff I said about you a minute ago. But it was true, so you had to say something mean back to me for us to be even."
For the first time that evening, Kyoya cracks a smile. That's definitely the real Kosuke coming through.
"You disliked me that much, huh?"
"Mm-hm. But you disliked me, too. So."
"And I had no redeeming qualities? None at all?"
He means it as a joke, maybe to take advantage of this under-the-influence honesty, or to keep the real Kosuke out.
Instead of laughing or answering, Kosuke turns to look at him very intensely. She is quiet and still as stone, and Kyoya's smile falls, curious.
Kosuke pulls one of her mittens off, and even though she moves slow and steady, not at all fast, Kyoya is still frozen in place as she reaches her bared hand right for his face and pulls his glasses off.
She stares at him, and he stares at her. Something spreads through him, panic without fear. The longer she stares, the more this electric sensation consumes him—and he realizes too late that it was not just her eyes, but her face coming closer and closer as she leans to him. The blue eyes that had just a few hours ago blinked up at him to beg to stay, now seem to be picking his whole being apart piece by piece.
Then, nothing. She pulls away. She puts the glasses back on his face. And then she rests her head against his shoulder and gives a sleepy sigh.
"I always thought you had pretty eyes."
The rest of the car ride is silent. Kyoya couldn't have spoken even if he tried. Definitely not the real Kosuke.
It's still early when they finally make it back to the Amida mansion, about eight thirty. Most of the windows are dim. The cold has only intensified. Kyoya worried that he wouldn't be able to wake Kosuke, but the chill zaps her right awake.
Though her feet drag, Kosuke makes it up the steps to the front door. The door is opened by the same attendee as always, though for once her professionally still face quirks up a brow at them.
"Miss Amida," she says, but her focus is more on Kyoya. "You've come back early."
"She's not feeling well," Kyoya explains. "I think it's best if she lies down."
"Of course." The attendee steps aside, then leaves altogether to give the couple some privacy.
In this interaction that doesn't even last fifteen seconds, Kosuke has propped her weight against one of the doors. She's wiping at her eyes, and her bones are getting heavier by the second. It's going to be a struggle to get her into bed, and even then, Kyoya needs to keep an eye on her for a while just to be safe.
He leaves Kosuke there at the door and jogs back to the limousine. He taps on the driver's window, and it isn't even down all the way before he explains, "I'll call later. I'm going to stay here for a while."
"Yes, Mister Kyoya, sir," the chauffer says in a thin, strained voice, not even looking at him. Then he takes off.
What was that about? Kyoya wonders as the limousine disappears behind the gates.
Then it occurs to him that even though the privacy partition had been up in the limousine...the chauffeur probably heard Mister Kyoya and his fiancée rolling around in the back. Along with a few shouts and groans.
It wouldn't be fair to fire him, but Kyoya doesn't think he's ever going to be able to look at the man again.
The mansion is warm as a hug inside. In mere seconds Kyoya wants to shrug off his coat, but he stays to the mission at hand: get Kosuke to bed. There are three stages, he thinks: to the stairs, up the stairs, and to her bed.
Stage One goes fine. Stage Two sees a hurdle.
Kosuke doesn't even go up a single step of the stairs. "Nuh-uh."
"Come on, Kosuke, you have to get to bed."
"I can't," she protests. She's leaning, almost laying, against the banister. "'M too tired."
Kyoya weighs his options. He could seek some house staff for help and take away some of her dignity, and probably fail to convince them that no, she's not drunk. Or he could coax her up, and risk her falling face first and maybe smashing her teeth against a step.
The third option, the one that he takes, is to lift her up under her back and legs and carry her bridal-style up to her bedroom.
It's not difficult, physically, but the whole time Kyoya is praying that no one else is going to come out and see them. It is a victory to make it all the way up the stairs and to her bedroom door without being spotted.
It's not a perfect victory, however. Just as Kyoya wonders how he's going to open her door when his hands are full of...well, her, he hears a small voice say, "Kyoya?"
Hitsuji is wiping the sleep from both of his eyes in the doorway of his bedroom. A moment later, Minami appears behind him, as equally dead on her feet. She looks too tired to even glare at Kyoya tonight.
"Why're you here?" Hitsuji asks through a face-splitting yawn. "And what're you doing with Kosuke?"
This might be a victory after all. Kyoya shifts Kosuke in his arms, careful not to let her head loll back, and whispers back to the children, "Kosuke got very sleepy and had to come back home. Can you help me get her to bed?"
Hitsuji doesn't even say anything; he just goes straight to Kosuke's door and opens it. Minami only follows once he and Kyoya walk in first.
Hitsuji pulls the covers back as best as he can. Once Kosuke is eased onto the mattress, Minami pulls her boots off, then her earmuffs. Unwinding her scarf is a suspense, and getting her coat off is a balancing act, Kyoya holding her upright while Minami wriggles it off. Hitsuji comes out of her bathroom with a toothbrush, and Kyoya has to explain that maybe Kosuke can go to bed without brushing her teeth just this once. So Hitsuji tucks her in instead.
Hitsuji hasn't stopped yawning for a second, and he still asks Kyoya, "Are you going home now?"
"I will soon. You and Minami need to go back to bed, though."
Minami just leaves. Going to sleep means getting away from him faster. Hitsuji lingers, not to ask to play or to stay up, but to explain, "I can't go to bed if someone doesn't tuck me in."
So Kyoya tucks Hitsuji to bed.
After that (and two hushed "goodnights") Kyoya comes back to Kosuke's room and sits in the armchair. She's sleeping like a rock now, her chest rising and falling in a steady rhythm. She looks fine, really, but Kyoya still worries. She could still get nauseous and vomit, though he doesn't necessarily need to be here to help with that. Unless she gets sick while she's lying on her back, in which case—
The door creaks open; Kyoya had left it cracked. He braces himself for a sibling, maybe asking for a glass of water or complaining of a bad dream, but it's the same attendee who had opened the door.
"I thought you were still here," she says. Halfway through she catches sight of Kosuke's sleeping form, and drops to a whisper. "Is everything alright?"
"Yes, everything is fine. I'm sorry. I'll be leaving now."
"Well," says the attendee, "the snow has picked up quite a bit since you've been here."
Kyoya looks to the window at the other side of the room. It definitely has. There's more white than black outside, and if he could see out that far, he's sure the trees would be topped with blankets.
"And it is rather late," the attendee continues. Kyoya looks to the clock on the wall and almost blanches. He'd been here for over an hour now, most of that time just watching over Kosuke. "It might be safer for you to stay here tonight, if you can."
Kyoya considers. It's not as though anyone will miss him back at the mansion, and all it would take would be a few quick phone calls. And frankly, he's had enough moving around for the night.
"I wouldn't want to be an inconvenience."
"You wouldn't at all. We have many guest rooms available, and some sleeping clothes if you need them."
The night ends thus in the last way Kyoya thought it would, with him climbing into bed in a room of the Amida mansion, wearing borrowed sleeping clothes and watching snow fall past the window.
He wonders if Kosuke will remember anything in the morning. He hopes not. It'd spare her a great deal of embarrassment.
Speaking of...As Kyoya lies there on satin sheets and feather pillows, he tells himself that Kosuke will be fine. That the worst must have passed by this point, that Yuuichi would've told him to watch out for sickness during sleep if it was a threat. That makes sense.
He grabs a pillow and a blanket and goes back to Kosuke's room.
The armchair isn't as comfy as the bed, but he's fallen asleep at his desk before and came out worse. He sits down and closes his eyes. If anything happens, he'll be there. And his internal clock must be earlier than Kosuke's, so he can get out of here before she awakens.
He's been sitting for perhaps ten minutes when Kosuke stirs, groaning in her sleep. One eye opens, then the other. They blink. They go to him.
"Kyoya?"
Definitely Kosuke. He hadn't realized it, but the whole time before, her voice had been a bit high-pitched, goofy. It's her voice now, albeit creaking with slumber.
"What are you doing here?"
"This is a dream. Go back to sleep."
She stares at him.
Then she turns over, grumbling, "Okay."
So that's that. Kyoya's last thought before he, too, succumbs to slumber is wondering if they will ever have a normal date.
Another 10k+ chapter. Whew! Sometimes it's hard to figure out what should be left out and what shouldn't. Techncially everything after Kyoya brings Kosuke home could've been left out, but I was on a streak and threw it in for fun. If only I posted this chapter a month earlier, then it would've fit the holiday!
Also, I found out recently that apparently FFN just...randomly deletes words from stories. Apparently this is a known glitch that has been going on for a while now. Which very much sucks.
Tl;dr for this chapter:
Kosuke has been down in the dumps for the while, so Kyoya takes her on a double-date to go ice-skating with Haruhi and Tamaki to cheer her up. Kosuke acts cuckoo from the second she shows up, but Kyoya is the only one who notices. The four of them have a fun time, but eventually Kyoya decides to take Kosuke home when she starts to crash. It turns out she's acting so loopy because she took too much OTC cold medicine. On the drive back to the Amida mansion, Kosuke and Kyoya talk about all the things that have happened in the past year, and how Kosuke is scared for the new year. Kosuke tells Kyoya she thinks his eyes are pretty and flusters the hell out of him. Kyoya gets Kosuke to bed with Minami and Hitsuji's help, and stays to make sure she's alright.