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“I figured it all out.”
Kyoya looked up from his notebook, a slight smile curving his lips. “Is that so? And just what, Haruhi, do you think you’ve figured out?”
“You,” she said, and his smile only grew as she did. He didn’t believe her, but then she wasn’t surprised. Kyoya prided himself on being inscrutable, and his actions frequently ran counter to his own words. He often claimed it was for his own personal benefit, but she knew it wasn’t always like that. She’d seen proof of that for herself.
“Indulge me,” Kyoya said, leaning forward and getting into her personal space, a move she knew as meant to intimidate her. “What is it you think you’ve figured out about me?”
“Why you act the way you do,” she said, watching his expression flicker with amusement. “I’ve done a lot of thinking about why you’d do something so counterintuitive and why you spend so much time trying to convince everyone that you’re heartless and thinking only of what you’ll gain or the bottom line, always something about money or power.”
“It is all about money and power. If you have another reason for my actions, you’re sadly mistaken.”
“See, that’s what you want everyone to think, but it’s not the truth. And you have everyone believing all you want in life is to get control of your father’s company, but that isn’t true, either.”
“My, my. Your skills at self-delusion are starting to eclipse Tamaki’s.”
She shook her head. “Don’t put me on Tamaki’s level. He lives in his own reality most of the time, and neither of us are like that.”
“Neither of us? You’re grouping me in with you now?”
She nodded, moving closer to him this time. “Yes. I am. Because I do understand you, Kyoya. Better than you think. Tamaki may have been able to get you to drop one part of your facade, the host part, and show the shadow king, but while both of those personas are part of you, they’re still not the complete you.”
“And you know what that is, do you?”
“I do. I’ve figured it out. It’s so clear when you look at what you’ve done for me—”
He closed the last of the distance between them and cut her words off with a kiss, startling her at first. As soon as his lips met hers, she relaxed, wishing there was a less obnoxious way to describe it than melting into his kiss, but that was what she did. Kyoya might not do as much hosting as the other guys, but he was no slouch at this. Then again, with his perfectionist ways, she wasn’t the least bit surprised.
“I knew you were going to do that,” she said as soon as he stopped to let them catch their breath.
“Did you now?”
She nodded. “I knew you wouldn’t want me to point out what you’ve done for me or anyone else. You’d rather cut off the discussion, so you’d find some line to cross and try and push me away. You wanted me to get offended and leave. It’s not quite that night at the beach house again, but it’s close.”
“Then you believe you called my bluff. You actually allowed me to kiss you.”
She shrugged. “I wanted you to.”
It was rare anyone shocked the shadow king, but she liked being someone who had, even just a little. Kyoya was usually so assured, his plans were steps ahead of any of the players in the game, and few people could turn that on him. She knew that. She’d still been hoping to do it anyway.
“Don’t push me away. Not when this is what both of us really want.”
“You think you know so much?”
“Yes. I do.”
“And if I said I had merely reached the conclusion that covering your mouth was the quickest and most effective way of silencing you?”
“You can try and excuse it like that, and maybe you really did think that, but we both know it’s just an excuse because you wanted to kiss me as much as I wanted to kiss you.”
“Hmm.” He reached up to adjust his glasses, drawing the moment out just to infuriate her. “It is true you let yourself slip.”
“I did?”
“You left off the honorific when you said my name. No ‘senpai’ this time.”
“Oh,” she said, then she had to smile. “I did, but you did it first.”
“How clumsy of me.”
She shook her head, torn between that familiar urge to hit him and the desire to kiss him again. “All right. What about a compromise?”
“Oh? And what exactly did you have in mind?”
“You don’t have to admit it to anyone else… just me.”
“A clandestine affair?”
“We both know you can pull it off. Who better to do it than the shadow king?”
“An excellent point.”
She frowned. “Please tell me I don’t actually have to start rambling every time I want you to kiss me just so you’ll do it to stop me.”
“Why, Haruhi, I thought you knew me better than that,” he said, and she glared at him as he smirked. “You should know the answer.”
She did, and she didn’t have to say anything because he did kiss her again.