Lavender Roses ~ Kyoya Ootori X Reader
pairing- Kyoya Ootori x Reader
In which a rational head hides a generous heart, but you have always known how to see past his walls and help him bloom into the gorgeous rose he is.
Enjoy a slow burn between an honor student and our beloved glasses character!
summary: You were almost impressed at their acting skills. If they weren’t such a pain in your ass.
word count: 9.7k
legend:
(f/a) = favorite anime
(f/s) = favorite scent
see masterlist!: masterlist
taglist: @abbysblogsstuff @sunukissed @kisskissshutmydoor @idonia-dovahkiin
The Twins Fight! (pt. 2)
Splotches of pink hair dye surround you as orange hair rakes through your gloved fingers, transforming from a deep ginger to a bright shade of bubble-gum. You heave another frustrated sigh as Hikaru once again turns his head from his seat below you in favor of telling you about this anime he has started watching recently. You sit on the bed above him as he rants about dragon-slayers and how the character had the same color hair as the dye splattered onto your fingers.
“Hikaru, I need you to stay still, or else this won’t be even.” You interrupt him in the middle of his sentence, and he pouts and sharply turns back to the front of his room. It wasn’t like anything you had expected a teenage boy’s room would look like. It was clean, surfaces sparkling from their marble surfaces and the duvet on the queen sized bed was kept a pristine white. Nothing was scattered across the sheep’s wool carpet, and every one of their possessions had a place. It was obvious their maids were incredibly thorough, but there were still little figurines and color patterns that made this room unique to the brothers, orange and blue accenting everything it could find.
“Whatever. You clearly weren’t even listening anyways.” His gravelly voice states, arms crossing over his bare torso. You both opted for the ‘shirt off’ approach so that none of the dye accidentally stained one of the immensely expensive clothes his mother designed.
“This Natsu guy was your inspo for your hair color?” You ask, disproving his statement.
You can feel his face twitch slightly at being proven wrong. You laugh a little at his immaturity as he gives you the silent treatment. “You can talk. You just can’t be flopping around like a fucking fish.”
Ever the defiant twin, Hikaru shakes his shoulders, rolling them back and forth, imitating a koi fish that has leaped out of its pond. It rains pink dye as he messes around, and you suddenly want to kill him.
You throw your hands up so as to not get any dye where it doesn’t belong and wait for Hikaru’s poor impulse control to settle.
“I hate you.” You groan as his whipping hair showers droplets of pink onto your leggings. He turns around and puts a hand to his mouth, poorly covering up his snickering laugh.
In retaliation, you take the brush you were using to spread the dye over his strands and make one short swipe down the middle of his back.
“h-HEY WHAT THE FF-” Shivering from the sudden coldness on his skin, Hikaru stands up quickly, turning around his left shoulder over and over again in order to get a good look at his graffitied back. Despite his best efforts, he was just spinning in circles.
Belly laughs came from deep within you as you watched him resemble a dog chasing his own tail, his hair split down the middle with orange and pink. The mischievous twin stopped at your laughter and deadpanned at you, only making you laugh harder.
“Oh-Oh my god!” You try to speak through your absolute guffaws. “You look so stupid, hA!”
“You’re literally the worst person I know.” His gravelly voice spouts an insult into deaf ears, as you were still too occupied by giggles to even care.
As your laughter died down, the door opened, the creaking noise distracting you from the annoyed twin.
Kaoru walks into the room, a plastic shower cap wrapped tightly around his head. He walks out holding his phone. The timer on the screen is going off, his favorite song playing lightly out the speakers.
“(Y/n), can I wash this stuff out now? It burns.” He goes to fidget with the clear cap, spinning it around his newly dyed hair, the blue complimenting his golden eyes.
“In a second, Kaoru, I need to do Hikaru’s otherside.”
The sneakier twin pouts as he fully walks into the room. Kaoru’s eyes are drawn to his brother’s back, seeing it stained with pink. He lets out a laugh similar to the one he expressed in the club room this morning, his shoulders shaking with each breath.
“Oh wow, Hikaru, love the new look.” A mocking tone laces his higher pitched voice, making Hikaru roll his eyes.
“Like you have room to talk, nerd. Who would choose blue over pink?”
“Blue is better than pink by far, you asshole, everyone knows that.”
Hikaru scoffs and turns to face his brother head on. “Since when? I don’t know Kaoru, it seems that ever since you decided to dye your hair, you’ve somehow gotten even more stupid than before.”
Kaoru growls as he stomps closer to his brother. “You’re the stupid one! Who the fuck only dyes half their head?”
Hikaru matches his brother’s annoyance. “(Y/n) hasn’t finished it yet! And it’s going to look even better than yours when she’s done. Ya know why? Cause it’s pink!”
“Blue is better!” Kaoru steps even closer.
“No, it’s pink!” They are nearly nose to nose now.
“Blue!”
“Pink!”
You calmly raise a finger as you watch them argue. “Have you guys ever seen Sleeping Beauty?”
“Shut up!” They shout in unison, their adrenaline carrying over to you.
Your hands fly up to a surrender position, not wanting to be brought into the middle of anything. “Shutting up.”
They continue to argue back and forth. You rest your head on your wrist, careful of the pink and blue dye on your fingertips. They’ve been arguing ever since you got here. They fought over who would answer the door, who would get their head dyed first, and how long the dye should stay on for. It was so aggressive and over the simplest of things, almost as if coming from nowhere. Like they were looking for something to fight about.
When Kaoru asked you to come over to their house to help him with his hair, you thought you might be able to act as a mediator and help them work through whatever was going on between them. But then Hikaru wanted to piggyback onto Kaoru’s hair dye idea, and when you couldn’t dissolve that conflict, you knew you were an under qualified buffer for the two of them.
A ringtone rang through their bickering. They both froze in the middle of intense stances to turn to your phone vibrating on one of their nightstands. You hold your hand up in a ‘one-moment’ formation and walk over to check who it was.
The twins watch in frustrated silence as your face lights up from seeing the caller ID. The light off the screen shines upon a soft but bright smile, the grin reaching all the way to your eyes.
“Hey Kyoya.” Your smile only grows wider at his name, and their eyes squint in suspicion. You nod your head along to your conversation. Sometimes you compliment him, sometimes you bit your lip, sometimes your fingers even twiddle with the ends of your hair. They look back at each other with a knowing look, rolling their eyes in the process.
“Yeah, no, that’s what I was thinking.” You speak into the receiver, your voice taking a delicate, calm tone as you speak to their director. Their assumptions are only confirmed when you laugh at something the Shadow King said on the other end.
To them, there was only one reason that anyone would think Kyoya-senpai was funny.
“Okay, yeah, bye. I’ll see you tomorrow.” There might as well have been a heart emoji plastered at the end of your words with the way a sigh unknowingly passed through your lips as you ended the call.
They almost gagged as you looked like you were riding on air from just hearing his voice, dazed and zoned out in your own little fantasy.
“Who was that, (Y/n)?” Hikaru and Kaoru speak in unison in a monotone voice, their eyes sliding to each other and back to you.
Snapping out of it, you turn to them once more and smile slightly before standing and dusting yourself off. “It was Kyoya. He was just asking about our project.” You sigh, and the twins could swear there was romantic glitter shuffling off your shoulders.
“You ready to get rinsed?” You say, turning to the twin with the shower cap.
Kaoru nods and follows you out of his room, but not without turning back to his brother. A silent conversation passes between them as they meet eyes before he disappears through the doorway.
Find out what she’s hiding.
“Is that too cold?” You say, taking one of the hand held shower spouts and aiming it towards Kaoru’s hairline, water cascading down his hair and dripping off the ends.
“No, that feels fine.” Kaoru closes his eyes and sighs, enjoying the feeling of your fingers twining through his hair and the lukewarm water on his scalp.
He nearly forgot his mission.
Peaking one eye open, he decides to go for a more subtle approach.
“(Y/n)?”
“Hmm?” You hum, concentrating on the task in front of you.
“Have you ever liked someone?”
At his question, you give him a side eye as you work more towards the back of his head. Shrugging, you don’t really think about it too hard.
“I mean, yeah. I’m pretty sure everyone has.” You chew on the inside of your cheek awkwardly, not wanting to shoot down this abrupt change of topic in case it was something Kaoru needed to get off his chest. “What about you?”
The blue-haired twin can’t really shake his head from his posture on the rim of the bathtub, his bare back pressed against the porcelain as he leans his head back over the rim, allowing the stained water to rush straight to the drain.
“Nah, not really.” He tries his vulnerability tactic, hoping that it will pull on your heartstrings and push open the drawbridge to the secret you’re so clearly hiding from them. “I mean, it’s always been Hikaru and I for as long as I can remember. We didn’t have a lot of time for anyone else.”
You nod, and he sees a sympathetic look crease your face. Good.
He sighs, “But now that we’re fighting, I was thinking of branching out a little bit more. Finding someone else to take the asshole’s place.”
You roll over your reply in your head a million times, trying to find the right words between ‘yes, broaden your horizons’ and ‘but your brother is your best friend for a reason.’ But before you could say anything else, Kaoru directs your thoughts with another question.
He tries again.
“Do you like anybody?”
You freeze your movements and turn to him fully.
“Uh, no? Why?”
Kaoru raises an eyebrow, and when you motion for him to sit up from the edge of the bathtub, he keeps his stare as he slowly leans forward, sitting in a criss-cross position in front of you as you kneel on the opposite side.
Your pupils scan him accusingly as he sits, and you notice his eyes widen a little too much to keep up his nonchalant, innocent façade.
You roll your eyes as you throw a towel at him, figuring out why his questions were so sudden and direct.
“You really got to work on your act, Kaoru.” You say as he freezes with the towel in his hands. He huffs when he realizes you found him out. “What do you already know?”
You study him as a small smirk plays on Kaoru’s face as he sucks on his tongue, trying to choose the words that won’t scare you off right away. He raises the towel to the top of his head to begin to dry his hair.
“Nothing, yet. Is there something that I should know?”
You give him a ‘really?’ look as he stays true to his character, keeping his cards close to his chest.
You hum a light note, busying yourself with packing up the dye and throwing away the stained plastic gloves.
“No. I guess if you haven’t figured it out yet, then there isn’t.” You squint your eyes at him as he towel dries his hair, and suddenly you two are at a standoff.
This wasn’t uncommon, the two of you waiting for the other to crack. Kaoru’s patience was miles long compared to Hikaru’s, and you both could go days beating around the bush and acting like you know nothing, until the other breaks.
It was petty, but that was one thing you and the twin had in common.
His jaw clicks once more before shrugging and standing to hang the towel on the rack posted on the wall and grabbing his shirt that hung right next to it.
Kaoru looks at you once again and holds his hand out, offering to lift you up from your position on the pristine tile.
“I guess there isn’t.” He says, and another smirk slithers onto his lips.
You take a deep breath as you accept his hand, knowing that he sees right through you. His patience drives his technique, letting you slowly open up to him second by second, like a hunter watching its prey. It was a different kind of slyness compared to Hikaru’s, but it was slyness nonetheless.
You and Kaoru go to walk out the door, but when you open it, Hikaru trips into your view, the door that he was just leaning on swinging out from under him.
This motivates another eye-roll from you as you make eye-contact with Kaoru. “Were you eavesdropping, Hikaru?”
Having caught himself, and still only half his hair dyed, Hikaru gives you a brief ‘caught-with-his-hand-in-the-cookie-jar’ look before going back to his usual visage.
“Whatever.” He says, and completely walks away from the two of you, crossing his arms as he re enters his bedroom.
“So you know nothing, then?” You ask Kaoru fleetingly as you pass him, following Hikaru into their space.
Kaoru grumbles at Hikaru’s stupidity as he follows you.
You laugh as you walk, their failed plan to catch whatever they were trying to get out of you clearly failing right before your eyes.
But that’s when you got to thinking: since when were they making plans together?
“Hold on.” You spin once you are fully back into the room, both boys who fell into step behind you freezing in their place as you point at them.
“Did you two just work together on some sort of scheme, or whatever? Some sort of set up?”
Still frozen, they look at eachother, then back at you before taking a step to either side, growing the distance between them.
“After a whole day of fighting, did you two just coordinate?”
Mirroring each other, they both spin, turning their backs to the other twin and raising their chin in disgust. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
You groan as their voices blend into another perfect unison, confusion utterly apparent in your expression. “One minute, you're at each other's throats. Next, you’re conspiring together on how to mess with me. Can one of you tell me what the fuck is going on?”
Hikaru and Kaoru both chew over your question as they each take a look over their shoulder at the other. Twin telepathy happens right before your eyes as they come back close together, an arm wrapping over a shoulder, while another comes behind a hip.
“We will tell you our little secret, but only if you tell us yours.”
An exasperated exhale falls out of your mouth as you look at the irritating boys in front of you.
You deny them immediately. “Absolutely not.”
But they didn’t let up.
Immediately, the twins joined you on the bed that you sat upon, resting their heads on your shoulder, and you whined as you felt Kaoru’s dripping wet hair and Hikaru’s fresh dye soak into one of your favorite t-shirts.
“Tell us, (Y/n).” They pleaded, and you swore they batted their eyelashes.
“Get off of me.” You stood, knocking them away from you as you paced. “Why would I tell the two of you who I have a crush on?”
“Ah ha!” Hikaru jumps from his spot and points an accusing finger in your direction.
“So you do have a crush on someone!” Kaoru finishes, mirroring his brother’s position.
A blush runs to your cheeks when you realize what you just admitted. “Okay fine! But it’s none of your business who it is!”
“Tell us, tell us, tell us…” They begin to chant repeatedly as you become more and more annoyed with their immature antics. Can’t they just let you have one thing to yourself?
“I’m not telling you guys anything.”
A sigh emits from the boys. “Then I guess..” Hikaru starts.
“You’ll never know.” Kaoru finishes as they each cast a fake sympathetic gaze, looking at you like you were a poor soul.
You scoff and brush past them. If they didn’t want to tell you, fine. That kind of line might’ve worked on Tamaki, but you were better than that.
“Forget it. Here.” You reach over to grab the remote to the TV, being careful not to touch it too much and stain it with the dye on your fingers. “Let’s keep watching (f/a). What episode were we on?”
“We don’t want to watch anything, (Y/n).” Hikaru whines.
“We just want you to tell us.” Kaoru finishes, sulking as they make their way towards you once more. You are sat on the edge of the bed now as they look down at you.
“You can trust us, ya know.” Hikaru grumbles from your right, half his hair still wet from the processing dye job you haven’t been able to complete.
“It’s not like we are gonna tell anybody.” Kaoru puts a hand on your shoulder in earnest, but you squint your eyes at them, not sure if you can trust them or not.
Of course you could trust them. No matter how much they annoy you, Hikaru and Kaoru have always been in your corner. No one else could irritatingly terrorize you but them. That was what they always said.
You grasp your bottom lip in between your teeth, breaking your gaze from the twins and zoning out on the wall behind them as you roll over how you could turn this around. You did want to tell them, but only for the greater good.
The greater good. A smirk develops on your face as you glance back up at the boys, and their genuine looks turn into something cautious.
“How badly do you wanna know, hm?” You ask, leaning forward slightly, an eyebrow arching on your forehead as your canines peek out from behind your mouth.
“Bad enough to share your secret first? Before hearing mine?”
Both their chests hitched, air caught in their throats at your proposal. You just gave them a bet where there wasn’t a 100 percent chance of winning. There was no guarantee that you weren’t going to leave them hanging after giving away the plan that they have been playing out for the past 24 hours. There was nothing stopping you from blowing their cover, or using it as blackmail, all without giving them a single hint of what you had promised.
They would know. They’ve done it before.
To you.
“Awe, c’mon guys.” You nearly laugh at their calculating expressions as you parrot their persuasions back to them. “You can trust me, ya know.”
Hikaru and Kaoru both deadpan at you, before looking at each other, connecting their twin-telepathy once more.
“And there is no other way…” Kaoru starts, giving you another displeased look.
“...That we can get you to talk?” Hikaru ends, sighing out an annoyed exhale.
“Nope.” You reply as you shake your head, popping the ‘p’.
A clothed Kaoru and a shirtless Hikaru seem to weigh it more in their minds before sighing and sitting down next to you.
The bed creaked as they settled on either side of you. You gave them each an expectant look as they prepared their statements.
“It’s not a big deal or anything.” Hikaru prepped you for the news, and at this point, you knew exactly what was coming.
“We’re faking the fight going on between us.” Kaoru admitted nonchalantly, shrugging his shoulders.
Your jaw clicked as you exhaled another sigh, letting your head tilt back so much so that you inevitably flopped onto the comforter behind you.
The twins leaned back onto their palms while you groaned. “I really hoped I was wrong.” You looked at both of them as they chuckled at your defeat. “I mean, of course I’m right, but I really hoped I wasn’t.”
You flop your hands out in front of you as a way to punctuate your next question. “But why?”
They meet eyes before shrugging their shoulders and looking down at you again. “Meh, we were bored. It’s been fun so far.” Another groan emits from your throat as you put your hands over your face.
“We’re surprised you didn’t catch on sooner.” Kaoru said as he opted for laying on the bed, propping his head up with an elbow as to not let his freshly dyed hair stain his duvet.
“Yeah,” Hikaru followed, mirroring his brother’s position, “seems like you’re kinda dense when you’re distracted by someone else.” A ginger eyebrow arches over a golden eye as Hikaru gives you the perfect segway to hold up your end of the deal.
A strained look is apparent in your features as you actually consider just up and leaving the bedroom altogether. But that would break a trust deeper than some stupid crush, and that’s not something you were really willing to lose.
“Fine…” You cross your hands behind your head, stretching to prepare for your confession.
“I have a teensy, tiny, itty bitty, completely temporary crush on Kyoya.”
You close your eyes immediately after speaking the ravenete’s name, wincing as you feel the bed shift around you as the twins process your news.
But, when you open your eyes again, the twins are looking down at you with soft simpers.
“Yeah, no shit, (Y/n).” Hikaru says, laughing at your confused expression.
Kaoru is chuckling along with him. “We kinda gathered that.”
Your mouth opens and closes, but no sounds come out except an occasional bewildered squeak as the boys stretch themselves back into a seated position.
You whip up, feeling completely betrayed.
“You knew already? Why did you make me confess, then?”
Laughing once more, they both turn towards you, pointing at you in a way that younger siblings tease their older sister. “Because look how much you’re blushing!”
A dry whine escapes from your lips as you slap your palms onto your cheeks, proving the twins were right as you feel heat on your cheeks.
“You guys are the worst.” You moan, but a small smile escapes you from their antics.
Their laughter dies down as they sit back down next to you, bumping their shoulders with yours as you hide in embarrassment.
“It’s cute though.” Kaoru assures you, making you look up from your fingers and turn to your right.
“Yeah, now that I think about it.” Hikaru points a finger up in the air as you turn to the left. “You and Kyoya together actually makes sense.”
“You really think so?” A gentle, anxious expression takes over your features, and the twins giggle. They swing their arms over your shoulders, giving you a bear hug as you're sandwiched between them.
“Of course!” Their antics cause you to laugh as well, and the air feels lighter around you as your friendship grows even closer than it was.
A grateful grin glides over your cheekbones as you look at them, and you’re reminded why they are your chosen family.
You get a glimpse of ginger hair and you remember why you were invited over here in the first place.
You playfully shake them off. “Ew, gross, get off of me.” Chuckling through your words, you reach behind Hikaru to grab the discarded bowl and brush. “Go ahead and sit down, Hikaru.” You say as you gesture to the floor in front of you. “I still have to do your otherside. With that split dye, you look like an off brand Todoroki.”
Hikaru’s mouth twists into a frown as Kaoru chuckles. He shoves his brother before making his way back in front of you, rolling the tension out of his shoulders as he still feels the coolness of the dye on his back from where you brushed it onto him.
“Fuck you, bro.” He mumbles as he settles, and you and Kaoru laugh again. The atmosphere becomes lighter as Kaoru picks up the remote.
Shaking his head, Hikaru pulls his knees to his chest, elbows circling his calves and pulling them closer. Kaoru sits next to him, copying his brother’s position.
Kaoru presses play, and you slowly brush the bright pink onto Hikaru’s scalp, smiling a little. As the twins’ shoulders touched, you realized it was nice to see them sit together again. Be normal again.
And so, as you all watched the anime and secretly stained each other with pink and blue dye, there were a few moments of peace. A rare thing in the Hitachiian household.
Walking alone to the cafeteria was a weird experience for you. Sometimes, you and Haruhi would meet up and eat lunch in the music room. Or you, Honey, and Mori would group up before walking down the cafeteria. Other times, Kyoya would be waiting outside of your classroom and walk you down to the refectory himself so that he has time to go over the bills and the numbers with you before the club meets in the afternoon.
But, because you had stayed late in one of the computer labs to work on the coding for your up and coming invention, it left you no time to catch up with any of the club members as they made their usual way to the cafeteria. You just hoped Kyoya had gotten your message about running late.
You pushed open the large, wooden doors to the cafeteria. This refectory was built with such an elegant intention, the sparkling peach tile paired with white pillars and molding. The dishes that were served with the lunches were made out of decorated porcelain, and the students here were literally fed with silver spoons.
Such a delicate, graceful place.
So how in the world was it so chaotic?
Your flinch as a bowl of soup flies past you and crashes against the wall.
And just as you try and face whatever madness is going on in front of you, your face is suddenly covered in icing as cake splats across it.
Oh. My. God.
Even though you can’t see due to the icing that is covering your face, you still feel the presence of five hosts suddenly appearing in front of you. You stand frozen as they watch you, holding your boxed lunch in front of you with bits of dessert slowly drooping from your head onto the tile below you.
“Oh, you poor thing.” Tamaki’s voice resonates as hands grasp your shoulders and turn you slightly to the left.
“What the hell is going on?” As you open your mouth to talk, strings of icing form as you part your lips, the sugar falling onto your tongue.
“(N/n)-chan! You have to stop them, they’ve gone crazy! I tried to offer them cake, but I didn’t know who wanted the strawberry, and they got mad at meee~!” You heard the tears in Honey’s eyes and your eyebrows crinkle in confusion and sympathy.
“Who’s ‘them’?” You ask, but, unfortunately, you already know the answer.
“The twins. They are still fighting.” Mori’s deep voice echos against the formerly pristine walls of the refectory. The same pair of hands that were originally on your shoulders, cradle the right side of your face as another wipes something over one of your eyes.
Of course the twins would start a literal food fight in one of the most public places to make a scene.
Last night, you were sworn to secrecy on grounds of both trust and blackmail. If you told your friends that it was all an act before they were ready to give it up, the brothers had full freedom to tell your secret to anyone they wanted, even Kyoya himself.
The very thought made dread take over your entire body.
Speaking of the ravenet, as your vision is restored when the icing is wiped away, gray eyes focus in front of you. Kyoya switches to your chin and your forehead, using one of his pocket squares to clear the most vital aspects of your face, still holding your face with his fingers.
“Because this square is made out of silk,” he begins, cupping the ball of icing that was accumulated from the accident into his palm, the pocket square becoming the only barrier between his skin and the chunks of pound cake. “It wasn’t really all that absorbent. The icing is still smeared every which way.” Kyoya gives you another observing glance, trying to see if he at least got most of it out of the way. His smirk turns into an amused one when he takes in your sugar-covered state.
“But at least you are able to see.” With another charmed look, he folds his pocket square up and you’re alarmed to watch him throw it away. Only he could be so okay with ruining such an expensive piece of fabric like it’s nothing.
Bringing a hand up to your face, you touch your cheek to still feel a film of the icing on your skin, but most of it was cleaned by the Ootori son.
He meets your eyes again, and something courageous sturs in him as he makes a horrible pun. “Looking sweeter than usual.”
“Thank you, Kyoya.” Your heart warms at his words as you laugh slightly, but your attention is quickly grabbed by the noodles that whiz past your head.
“Here, Tamaki, can you hold this? It seems there is a situation that needs to be taken care of.” You shove your boxed lunch into his arms and march towards the twins. Unbeknownst to you, Tamaki’s eyes glaze over as he stares at your wrapped box, and then they glance at Haruhi’s, whose lunch looks almost identical to yours.
She was the one who taught you how to make them, after all.
The theater in Tamaki’s mind goes rampant with images of Haruhi making him one, and his train of thought goes off the rails as one thing leads to another.
“I don’t care if my boxed lunch is in an embarrassing heart-shape!” The blonde suddenly bursts out into a dramatic pose, gesturing an open palm to Haruhi, who was currently caught in the middle of a Hitachiian food fight, and nearly dropping your lunch. “I will eat it!”
Kyoya catches the toppling lunch from his grasp and holds it securely in his palm, watching Tamaki critically from behind his glasses. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, but it’s evident that your fantasies are completely incoherent.”
Shaking his head, he turns his attention back to you. He watches as you walk to the twins, your palms balled into fists from the tension in your expression. The food fight is still going on, and the interactions that ensue remind him of a comic strip, your depictions suddenly becoming more and more animated the further you are away from him.
From a distance, he sees you tap one of the boys on the shoulder, and the blue haired one looks back. Kaoru jumps and they both stop throwing things at each other, scared at your angry face.
Then, you’re scolding them. Kyoya isn’t an expert lip reader, but based off of previous interactions with you and the twins, he assumes you’re yelling at them to stop and ‘shut the fuck up.’ You have quite the mouth when you’re around them.
You make a sweeping gesture with your hands as you make them notice the destruction they’ve caused, but of course, the twins aren’t listening.
Hikaru’s mouth moves as he points to your face, most likely noticing the crumbs of vanilla cakes scattered across your eyelashes and cheekbones.
Oh dear.
Pink and blue heads jostle as the twins begin to laugh at you, breaking the last of your patience. Your lips move in what can only be described as a growl, and an irk appears above your forehead. Moving around to a frozen Haruhi, you pick her up and push her towards the club, moving her out of the splash zone.
As the twins laugh at you, Kyoya observes the stealthiness of your movements as you reach over and grab some soft food from their plates with your bare hands, and chuck each of the handfuls into their faces.
This receives an amazed look from the Ootori son – as expressive as it gets for someone like him – and the cafeteria falls silent as they watch the three of you.
Both Hikaru and Kaoru blink, their golden irises shining through the mushed grain/potato/whatever it was. Time froze as you each held a stare, daring the other to move one inch closer to the trays of food in front of you.
All three of you call the others' bluff as Kyoya works to avoid the sudden onslaught of food that erupts from your table. Soup, pastries, fruits, smoothies, sandwiches, salads, hot tea, all being hurled into every direction.
The ravenet’s jaw ticks as he makes eye contact with Tamaki, who meets his gaze as they give each other a ‘we-should-have-expected-this’ look.
Haruhi appears in front of the duo with her lunch in hand, an exhausted look on her face as she deadpans at the three of you from over her shoulder.
“I think I’m gonna go eat in my classroom after all.” She says tiredly, and hurries away, leaving Tamaki and Kyoya to rush into the food fight head first and peel you three off of each other.
Steam seeped into your lungs as you tried not to slip on the tile below you. Warm water cascaded down your collarbone and over your hips, collecting crumbs and splashes of various sauces from your skin. You inhaled a deep sigh before turning the shower dial to the right and stepping out of the small cubicle that your school calls a bathroom, grabbing the towel you rented from the receptionist off the rack. The floor shined with moisture and new polish as you made your way to one of the lockers, grabbing a new uniform from the shelves.
After the food fight in the cafeteria, Kyoya had ordered an emergency club meeting to talk about the twins behavior. You were worried, to be honest. There wasn’t much that wasn’t your fault based on the events from this afternoon, and your head hurt from the absolute chaos that seems to follow the twins wherever they go. Or at least, more chaos than usual.
So it was nice when Kyoya suggested that you get cleaned up before the meeting tonight as he picked leaves of spinach from the stained collar of your suit jacket. The steam and the (f/s)-scented soap helped you clear your mind from the stress of keeping the Hitachiian’s secret, and prepare you for the consequences of engaging in a food fight with the twins.
You rolled down your shirt sleeves as you stepped out of the bathroom, your jacket draped over one elbow as you adjusted the cuffs. But someone in front of you cleared their throat, breaking your attention away from your apparel.
“Hey.” You say lightly, a smile on your face your heartbeat picks up just a little over its usual speed.
“Good afternoon.” Kyoya looks at you over his black book with his usual sharp gaze, and you don’t miss how his gray eyes quickly scan your figure. He leans against the wall adjacent to the entrance to the women’s locker room. You get flashbacks to your physical exam, how he waited for you when you needed to return his jacket.
He seemed to have a habit of leaning up against walls and waiting for you so you two could walk back together, and you weren’t complaining.
“It seems the extra uniform suits you well.” He says as he closes his notebook, tucking it under his arm as you fall into step with him.
“It does! I was surprised we had a spare.” You say brightly, maybe a little too eager to be talking to him.
Once you realized that you had a crush on the ravenet to your left, you’ve had trouble acting normal around him. You take note of every stutter, flutter, and blush that appears in your persona whenever he is around. Your stomach turns as you pray that while Kyoya is extremely at reading other people like the back of his hand, his lack of romantic experience would keep him from picking up on your unintentional, embarrassing mannerisms.
“After the Princess Ayanokoji incident., I felt it would serve well to have multiple spares of every kind of uniform in case we ran into another incident that was similar.” He smirks as he remembers the food fight. “I’m glad I was more prepared this time.”
You laugh, and your body and mind calm down as you fall into the comfortable banter that is familiar when it comes to your best friend.
“Me too. Although this shirt is clearly new…” You stretch the collar of your shirt, pulling the itchy, starchy fabric away from your skin. “It hasn’t been worn down at all.”
Kyoya’s eyes drop down again as you fiddle with the fabric, squinting as they fall onto an oddly colored patch on the back of your neck.
“(Y/n)...” His tone drops deeper as he tries to keep his composure. His jaw ticks as he gently moves your hands, shoulders tensing as he moves the white shirt farther away, revealing a pink splat on the side of your neck.
He’s seen the movies, and Hikaru and Kaoru have bragged on and on about the multiple dates that they’ve taken girls on that resulted in this exact kind of thing.
But who…with you?
He swallows. He thought that you had been acting differently in the past couple days because maybe, just maybe you had realized his feelings for you. The way you bounced up to greet him or the way you two would catch each other’s gazes during late night study sessions.
Clearly, as usual, he was reading into it too much.
He cursed himself as his mouth ran dry. “Is this a, uh,” He cleared his throat again, forcing the words to be as calm as he could make them. “Is this a hickey?”
He tries not to stare at it as his thoughts uncontrollably spiral. Of course you were involved with someone else, of course he hadn’t done the best he could to-
A nervous laugh cuts him off.
“What?!” You sputter, craning your neck and nearly turning in a circle so that you could try to get a view of the spot that was forever going to be out of your line of sight.
“What are you talking about?” You ask the ravenet, turning back to him to see his shoulders slump lower than they were and a sigh escapes him at your immediate confusion to his question.
It couldn’t be a hickey if you didn’t even know what he was talking about.
Which means there was still a chance he wasn’t reading into things.
“There’s a pink spot on the side of your neck.” Kyoya will forever know how to dig himself out of a situation where he was wrong; to confront it dead on. It was a rare occasion, but it still happened nonetheless. “At first glance, it looked like a bruise, but that seems to be the wrong assumption.”
Now that he took a closer look, the color was too bright of a pink to be produced from the skin. It was too artificial.
He scolded himself for letting such a strong emotional reaction motivate his thought process.
You breathe a sigh of relief and laugh. “Oh my god. I was really concerned for a second there.” You shake your head and move to one of the windows that both of you were passing, moving the collar of the shirt once again to glance at what your best friend was talking about.
“Oh, I see what you mean.” You fix your shirt and continue walking by his side. “It’s hair dye.” Holding up your fingers, you feel a tingle under your palms as you invite him to scan the spots of pink and blue that hid under your fingernails and the sides of your knuckles.
“The twins asked me to help them dye their hair, and things got a little out of hand.” Another giggle escapes you. “Clearly, they’re only way of handling arguments is to throw things at each other, and I was caught in the middle.”
Kyoya feels his ever increasing heartbeat slow when you explain yourself, relief flooding through his nervous system.
He smirks as you both round a corner and begin climbing the stairs to the music room. “You seem to be around them quite a bit lately.”
“Yeah, it’s exhausting.” You watch his Adam's apple bob as he swallows a laugh from your joke while you sigh dramatically. “I was just trying to see if there was anything I could do to get them to form some common ground, but, uh…” The other night flashes back into the front of your mind, an image of the twins holding their finger over the call button on Kyoya’s contact spurring you to not give away their secret. “I guess I couldn’t get through to them.”
“We still need to find some sort of solution.” The Ootori son states as he reopens his black book, tilting it over slightly in order to give you a better view. “The club can’t afford to lose its Brotherly Love package.”
Black ink scribbles across the page as equations and dollar signs scatter the paper. It was clear that Kyoya had been busy creating and calculating different solutions to the absence of the twins’ services. But, despite his efforts, you find red ink circling obscene numbers. Numbers that the club definitely could not come up with on its own.
You meet his gaze and as much as he debates you on how much he cares for this club, you find a sense of worried alarm churning in his irises.
“Give them a few more days.” You assure him, giving him your most comforting smile. “I’m sure they’ll get bored at some point, and everything will go back to normal.”
And if it didn’t end soon, you would make it end.
Kyoya gives a grateful smirk at your attempt to calm his anxieties about the budget as he pushes the door open. He holds it open for you as you pass through it, and the megane watches you walk past him, not being able to tear his gaze away from you.
You turn back to look at him, and although he could never show it, his heart lurches in his chest.
A closed mouth smile follows the thought that he couldn’t let this club fail, because then where would he be, if not with you?
Biting your lip, you look around the club room. Because you and Kyoya had been the first to arrive, you were able to continue working on your project while Kyoya typed on his computer. You both talked about everything and nothing, enjoying the comforting silence of each other’s presence and only talking when you felt motivated too.
You had been sanding down the plastic on the shell of your invention when the rest of the host club walked through the door, save for the gingers in question. Haruhi and Honey sat next to you, intrigued by the peculiar mechanics you had laid out across the table as you waited for everyone else to show up. Tamaki sat at the head of the table while Mori took the seat across from you.
But even as all of your friends showed up, the silence still remained. Honey kicked his legs below the table as he watched you work, sadly placing his head in his palm. His cheeks spilled over his hand, and there was a distant look in his eye. Tamaki also wasn’t pleased, and when you glanced over at him, sympathy filled your heart at the exhausted look that overtook his entire posture.
You were about to say something, but Kyoya cleared his throat.
“Looking at the numbers, if this situation isn’t resolved, I’m afraid we are going to have to stop offering our Brotherly Love package.” He pauses to look around the room, noting the absences of each twin. “We’re down one pair of loving brothers.”
His eyes land on Haruhi as she sits to the right of Honey, unexpecting of the passive aggressive host smile that has taken over his face. “Oh, and Harurhi, I just want you to know there is no reason for you to feel responsible.” The Ootori son looks back to hsi computer, his tone too light and too forgiving to be genuine. “Even though it was your tactless comment that started this whole feud between the twins in the first place, right?”
You gawked at him while Haruhi sweatdropped, both of you clearly picking up his sarcasm. You kicked him under the table, but he just rolled his eyes, not caring about what drama he may have stirred up. If you wanted to work with Kyoya, you had to deal with all of the blunt confrontation that comes with him.
Haruhi looks down at her feet, still deadpanned. “Clearly he blames me for this.”
“Clearly, he’s stressed, and trying to find a scapegoat for a problem he can’t solve.” You assure her, still pointing a warning gaze to Kyoya. Just because you liked him doesn’t mean you couldn’t call him out.
His jaw ticked, but there was no back-handed comeback. A white flag of surrender.
As you returned to your work, Honey’s pout deepend. “It’s weird for Hika-chan and Kaoru-chan to be fighting like this. It’s never happened before.” The lolita boy has made a game of gathering the dust from your sanding into a small mound and drawing shapes into the particles.
Haruhi lifts her head. “They’ve never fought before?”
You shake your head, focusing desperately on a sharp edge that won’t dull. “I’ve only known Hikaru and Kaoru for a couple of years now, but I’ve never seen them not together until now.”
“I’ve known them since preschool.” Honey pitches in, his high voice carrying back into the conversation. “We weren’t in the same year, so I never really got to talk to them. But I remember that the two of them always played together.”
“It’s true.” A sad sigh blows out form Tamaki’s lips as the blonde leans his elbows onto the mahogany below him. “I mean, I met them in middle school, and they always stood out. It seemed like they kept everyone at a distance except each other.”
You look back to the other night as you pause your engineering, how comfortable they felt around you, how easy it was fitting into their small circle.
“They’ve really come a long way. Sounds like they were even more warped back then.” You say, meeting the blonde’s violet gaze.
He nods, and you notice the absence of typing as Kyoya tunes more into the conversation.
“But when you stop to think about it,” The prince continues, brightening up just a little bit. “Maybe this whole thing is good for them.” He shrugs, his hands and shoulders moving into a hopeful shrug.
“Maybe it means that the twins are broadening their horizons a bit!” His voice lilts at the way you turn your head slightly to look at the table in front of you. “We should really just leave them alone.”
Kyoya doesn’t miss the way your brow furrows.
“What’s wrong, (Y/n)?” The ravenet’s voice ripples through your hesitance, and you look up to see the club staring at you with worry.
“I just…” You start, but you pause to take a breath. You know the twins are faking, and yet you haven’t done anything to stop them. Seeing it affect the club so much is frustrating, and as you notice Kyoya’s under eyes and Tamaki’s misshapen head of hair, you begin to worry. If you leave them alone, then how long would it be till they ‘made up’? The twins are so stubborn, how long would this last until they got bored?
You try to steer your friends in another direction. “What if they don’t fix it, ya know?” Please take the hint, you internally beg. “I mean, they’ve never fought before, do they even know how to make up?”
Haruhi nods beside you, drawing your attention. “They probably need someone to tell them when it’s time to give in and call it quits.” She gives you a stern nod, as if she’s already decided to take on the responsibility. “We’ll give them another couple of days.”
Your head pounded.
Your face in your hands, you couldn’t see the absolute chaos going on in front of you, but you could hear it. The creaking of chairs and the shattering of porcelain as the twins toss objects back and forth, catching them and throwing them back to the other.
The pulse at the forefront of your skull got larger, swelling and deflating dramatically as their pitches got more sporadic, and the light from the chandeliers floods through the cracks of your fingers as you find Honey at the top of the pile the brothers have formed in the center of the room.
A disapproving face crawls it’s way onto your face as you groan and let your head flop forward on the table, the impact worsening the pain in your head.
To your left, Kyoya types on his laptop, and you turn your head to see his eyes drooping slightly, another effect of the twin’s escapades. The poor manager already didn’t get enough sleep as it was, and now all hope was lost for your crush.
And to his left, Tamaki slouches. Slouches. The man who believes that the quality of posture is directly related to his class and elegance bends his spine into the shape of a cashew, his cheeks bulging over his palm. You two meet eyes before you fold your head back into the crease of your elbow, welcoming the darkness after the light magnified your budding migraine.
A weak, princely voice tries to break through the noise. “Don’t you guys think that maybe it’s time for you guys to stop fighting?” Another whine breaks from his lips. “It’s driving me insane.”
Hikaru turns to the boss, a vein nearly popping out of his forehead from the sheer effort of chucking chair after chair.
You were almost impressed at their acting skills. If they weren’t such a pain in your ass.
“It’s driving you insane?! You’ve gotta be kidding me! How do you think I feel right now?” The pink-haired twin’s voice grated against his vocal chords, his tone rougher than usual. “Everytime I look in the mirror I see his face! I’m sick and tired of being mistaken for you Kaoru! The truth is, I hate your guts!”
Your head spins as you whip it up, staring at the brothers. You knew they were acting, but those were harsh words.
Kaoru scoffs, eyebrows cinching together as he yells back at his twin. “You took the words right out of my mouth!”
His blue hair shuffles as he reaches into his jacket pocket. “In fact, I hate you so much, I brought this!” Kaoru whips his hand out, a familiar looking doll in his grasp.
You stand too suddenly, your headache increasing tenfold. “Beelezenef the curse doll?!”
Tamaki also stands, and his face goes white as he remembers his past with the club of dark magic.
Kyoya pauses his typing at your sudden outbursts, watching the blood drain from both your faces.
A wicked smirk curls onto Kaoru’s lips as he pulls a sharpie from his pants pocket. “I’m going to complete the curse, Hikaru. I’m going to write your name on his back!” Evilly, he begins to scribble on the back of Beelzenef. “From this day forward, you’re going to experience nothing but misfortune and sorrow!”
Footsteps sound across the floor, strides too large to be seen as anything but urgent. You and Haruhi are one, a power duo as you finally reach the twins and do something you both have been wanting to do for a long time, even if you never admitted it.
You each picked a twin, and as you stepped up to blue and Haruhi appeared in front of pink, you punched Hikaru and Kaoru in the face.
The twins toppled, losing their balance from the force and tumbling to the ground below them. Behind you, you heard a princely gasp and a laptop slam closed.
“Will you guys knock it off?” You say, seething from both ears. “What do you think you’re doing?!” You reach down and pluck the doll out of Kaoru’s hand. “You don’t bring something like this into a petty fight!”
Haruhi is as angry as you are. “Both of you are at fault, but what is really sad is that you’ve brought everyone else around you into your big mess!”
“Yeah!” You chime in, trying to tell them off without revealing that you knew about this whole thing. “Look around you. Everyone is so sick of this.”
Haruhi points a motherly finger to the boys. “Now apologize to each other!” She takes a breath. “If you don’t make up right now, I’m never gonna let you come over to my house! Have I made myself clear?”
Oh fuck.
You whip around to your best friend as she fumes, unknowingly sealing her fate.
Haruhi, you lovable idiot.
If the twins were only fighting to fill their boring lives, they needed something else to entertain them if you wanted them to stop.
Who better to entertain them than their new toy?
The twins’ shocked expressions morph into twisted smiles, and their golden eyes flash with a sense of victory.
“So what you’re saying is…” They leap up, and you can imagine the whiplash your friends experience as they move in perfect sync, wrapping their arms around Haruhi’s shoulders as you’re pushed to the side. “...if we make up, then we can come to your house?”
The doll in your hand feels heavy as you turn it over, the Japanese script for “BLANK” written on the back.
“Not like this.” You whisper as you show the honor student.
Her face blanches.
The Hitachiian’s embrace suddenly, caressing each others faces passionately, rubbing the fact that they were able to make up so easily into everyone’s face.
“I’m so sorry Kaoru, even though I was only following our script, I said such awful things to you.” The pink-haired brother sniffs. “I’m not fit to be your brother.”
Kaoru shakes his head. “Don’t say that Hikaru! I was so worried. I couldn’t live with myself if I ever hurt you!”
The overacting was too much, but you were glad the chaos had finally stopped.
Honey walks over to you, the rest of the club having seen everything from a distance. “You’re kidding me! You’ve been faking it this whole time?!”
The twins, to your annoyance, just shrugged. “We were bored!”
Your eye twitched as you dropped the doll onto the floor. “Twins with too much time on their hands are the devil.”
:::
“So,” A deep voice sounds behind you as you watch the club activities. “How long did you know?”
You spin to see your favorite megane appear next to you. A teasing smirk is lightly placed on his face as he looks down at you from the corner of his eye, his glasses reflecting the sunlight streaming through the windows in the club.
Around you, the club bustles, the previous tension from the twins fight completely dissolving as they get back to work, much to the guests’ delight.
You debated denying it, but from the knowing simper on his face, you couldn’t find the use.
A guilty smile made its way onto your face. “Only a couple of days. Dying hair is a bonding experience.”
A rumbling hum passes through his chest as he looks at you. “And you didn’t tell me?”
Shrugging, you looked around the room. “I figured you already had your suspicions.”
“I don’t appreciate being kept in the dark, (Y/n). You owe me another favor.”
Exasperated, you turn to him. “Wha-! I didn’t tell you because I physically couldn’t! That isn’t fair.”
His raven eyebrow arches. “Why couldn’t you tell me? Did they blackmail you?”
You blow air out from between your lips. “More or less.”
Kyoya almost laughs. He couldn’t think of anything from the background check he had done on you a year ago that would be bad enough for blackmail. “With what?”
“If I told you, that would defeat the entire purpose of me keeping a Hitachiian secret.”
Kyoya swallows, a new glint in his eye. A secret? About you? This would be fun. “Who knew you were so mysterious?”
You laugh, and he sees you sparkle in Music Room #3. “I try to keep people on their toes.” You say, teasingly.
Your eyes shine even more as you watch Haruhi correctly choose which twin was Hikaru even though they had you re-dye their hair last night, this time with swapped hair colors.
“Haruhi is really making her way into their world.”
“She’ll be good for them. They need a star in their night sky.”
Just like Kyoya had found one in his.
Next Time on Lavender Roses!
“Rejoice Haruhi! You’re going to have an underclassman! Someone new wants to join the club!”
“But he’s in elementary school.”
“I wonder what he’ll be like, all grown up.”
The Grade School Host Is The Naughty Type!
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