Work Text:
On Thursday afternoons, the host club did not open its doors to the student body. Thursdays were their rest and meeting days, where they would spitball ideas for future themes and routines, and some form of playful harassment would always ensue. Almost always, it was either Tamaki or Haruhi who were the victims of said harassment, and so naturally, the twins were regularly responsible. It was a simple routine, and one that everyone was ridiculously fond of. It was a kind of calm in the midst of the storm that they relied on, giving each of them the space to decompress from whatever issues they had, either within or outside of the club.
This particular Thursday did not diverge from that, as after plans for farm and pirate themes were discussed, the twins began to try and hassle Haruhi into some dress they had brought in with them. Haruhi, of course, vehemently denied being shoved into the dress, running from the twins as she shouted a list of obscenities towards them.
As that went on, the others mostly minded their own business. Kyoya was typing away on his personal laptop (Tamaki was sure he’d seen the screen of a popular rhythm game, though Kyoya had a privacy screen that made it hard to tell,) Honey and Mori were relaxing with tea and sweets, and Tamaki was reading a book on one of the lounge seats.
Though, as invested in his book Tamaki had been originally, he couldn’t quite peel his attention away from the antics of the first years. More specifically, his eyes kept focusing on the dress the twins had brought.
It was from their mother’s fall collection from the year past, one of the dresses that had been worn on runways all around the world. It was the only one that existed of it- the only one from the collection that hadn’t been sold for millions of dollars. If Tamaki was to be perfectly honest, he didn’t understand why the dress hadn’t sold. It was gorgeous, if a bit simple. But what did he know about fashion? Mrs. Hitachiin may have just chosen not to sell it. It wasn’t his business, after all, and he returned back to his book after watching their antics for another minute.
Haruhi did not stay long for the harassment, and was the first one out of the large doors of the music room. The others filed out after her; Honey and Mori, the Twins, and finally Kyoya leaving within moments of each other. Kyoya, the last one out besides Tamaki, left with a call of “lock the door behind you.”
When the door shut behind Kyoya, the silence in the room was deafening. The sound of rain could be heard outside, tapping against the windows as the shower began. It had been in the forecast earlier, Tamaki recalled. He let himself stand there a moment, in the center of the silent room, watching as the rain began to truly come down. It wasn’t a storm by any means, but forgetting an umbrella would be unfavorable.
Tamaki let himself take a deep breath for what felt like the first time in weeks. It wasn’t often that he was the last person to leave the club meetings; that spot was often reserved for Kyoya, their resident workaholic with no sense of when to stop. Tamaki did try to stay with him whenever he could, leaving together and parting ways at their respective cars.
He was glad that he was the last one left today. The past weeks had been particularly stressful; Antoinette had gotten sick and had to be taken to the vet, where she had to stay for the week for treatment. Then, after he’d gotten home, he was told that his grandmother would be hosting guests for a few evenings, and he would be expected to entertain their children- Children who were the same age as him, and both young women. It hadn’t been a colossal feat to entertain them, but they both reminded him horribly of Ayanokoji. Combining both situations with finals steadily approaching, Tamaki felt as though he could melt from the inside out.
Tamaki looked around the room once again. It was different when it was empty-- when there were no giggling school girls or rambunctious friends. It gave the room a feeling of abandonment and disuse, though the fact that it was referred to as “the abandoned music room” made that idea quite understandable.
Still, it was odd. Not in an uncomfortable way, though, so Tamaki didn’t let it bother him. His eyes kept wandering around the room, his feet taking echoing steps in any which way they chose. For once, Tamaki decided he'd walk around without a purpose. Even if it was in the solitude of a club room, he figured it counted.
Tamaki didn’t pay any mind to where he was going- looking instead at the walls and ceiling- until he found himself standing in front of one of the tables in the center of the room. He looked down, expecting to see nothing but the familiar mahogany wood, or maybe a stack of meeting notes left behind by someone.
Instead, to Tamaki’s slight confusion, he was met with the same dress the twins had been chasing Haruhi with just minutes earlier. His eyebrows raised; surely Mrs. Hitachiin wouldn’t be alright with her one-of-a-kind dress being left behind. Then, immediately after, a different thought occurred to him, effectively making him forget anything previous.
It was less of a thought, really, and more of an urge. He looked down at the dress, laid out flat on the table, hanger abandoned next to it, the flowing material sprawled out across the surface.
Tamaki ran his hands along the fabric of the dress. It wasn’t soft- he hadn’t expected it to be. It was a little rough, though not unpleasant. The feeling reminded him, very suddenly, of going through his mother’s closet as a young boy. He had run small hands along each and every dress, examining the gorgeous and expensive fabrics in his quest to find whatever it had been he was looking for. He didn’t know if he’d found it or not, but what he did find was his mother, just having slid into what he still thought of as the most gorgeous dress in existence.
It looked quite similar to the dress in his hand, if he could still recall it correctly. They both hugged close to the body and were held up by thin straps, though his mother’s may have had lace on it, as well.
The truth was, he didn’t remember much of his life with his mother any more. He had been quite young when she fell ill, and she was often ordered to bed rest for the rest of their time together. But the memory of the dress was one of the clearest he still held.
He looked back down at the dress in his hand. The fabric was a soft yellow color, not quite gold and yet not not gold, and it reminded him inexplicably of the sunset over a parisian skyline.
The fabric moved almost like water with his hand as he ran it down the dress, eventually taking a gentle hold of the skirt and lifting it up towards himself. He assumed that it was made to hug as close to the body as possible, without constricting or hindering movement.
The presumption brought him back to his original train of thought; the feeling that had spurred the impromptu trip through his memories. For a moment, and probably a little bit after that as well, Tamaki had felt an overwhelming urge to take the dress and slide it on.
Though he was no fashion expert, he could say with some certainty that it would fit him fine. It may be a bit loose in the hips, but that was really it. He could even imagine it, the golden fabric of the dress would hug against his body, complimenting the porcelain tone of his skin and the baby blue of his eyes. And he would smile and he would be gorgeous, like the women who wore dresses for events or just for any reason at all.
Tamaki blinked, once, twice, pulling himself very suddenly out of his self-indulgent daydream. Dresses were for women-- that was what he had been told for his entire life. Men wore suits and ties, with nice polished shoes and well-kept hair and expensive watches. That was what men were supposed to go out in, beaming with pride as a gorgeous woman hung off his arm in a dress that costs as much as a new car.
So then why did Tamaki, still looking at the dress with a wanton desire in his heart, yearn to see himself in the dress? Why did he want to put on a dress and shoes and jewelry and go out, to feel like an elegant woman and a dashing man at the same time? It made his head dizzy with how hard he thought about it. So dizzy, in fact, that he hadn’t realized when he began walking, dress still in hand, towards the changing rooms. He continued to not realize he was walking until he stood before the curtains, hand inches away from pushing it back to let him walk in.
Tamaki hesitated, hand flying back towards himself like the curtain would burn him. He would say that he wasn’t sure what he was afraid of, but that wasn’t true. He knew exactly what he was afraid of.
The look on the hosts’ faces when he walked in tomorrow, Kyoya brandishing a photograph of Tamaki in the dress. His friends suddenly finding new excuses to not be around him; new clubs and activities and classes that did not involve Tamaki any more.
His father, shaking his head and speaking to Tamaki in that tone of voice that said everything it needed to before he could finish his sentence. His grandmother yelling at and berating him, back to the way they had been when he had first moved here. Being sent away to live in the guest house again, where it was immaculate but so lonely .
Being tossed aside, forgotten once he showed a sign of imperfection.
But then Tamaki looked down at the dress again, held so delicately in his arms; tender and fragile like it may shatter at any moment. And he felt this inexplicable longing, the same longing he’d felt when he looked at Haruhi and he thought about what it could really be between them. It was something he wanted so badly that the ache went down into his bones, coursing through his veins. He felt like he was addicted before having a taste, and he knew that if he didn’t try on the dress now, in a moment of solitude, it would bother him well into his time with the others. It would eat away at him like a parasite until he finally felt the closure of trying on the damn dress.
So, with a little bit of hesitation and a building feeling of suspense, Tamaki pushed open the curtain of the dressing room and took a step in. The sound of the curtain closing behind him was loud in the confined space; resolute. If he wanted to turn back now, it would have to be his own hand that deliberately pushed back the curtain. His own hand that pushed back this part of himself that was begging to be let free, just this once.
The light in the changing room was dimmer than the light in the main room. Tamaki liked it that way; it gave him a feeling of secrecy and being hidden safely away. In here, no one could reach him unless he let them.
As he undressed, Tamaki could not force his eyes to look up into the mirror in front of him. Instead, he focused on the movements of his hands as they pulled each piece of clothing off methodically. Porcelain skin slowly revealed itself underneath all of the layers, fragile in a way he did not often enjoy being.
It was only after Tamaki had stripped down to his underwear that he managed to look into the mirror. He felt shame as he looked at his body, hunching in on itself subconsciously. Everything looked the same as it always had; that freckle on his left thigh was still there, and so was his birthmark on the edge of his hip. But somehow, something felt different this time. He was about to do something that would make him a different person. Before this afternoon, Tamaki had never considered such a notion as wearing a dress for his own enjoyment (The incident with the Zuka club, Tamaki decided, did not count. That was in the interest of keeping Haruhi with the Hosts.)
He looked at the dress, which had been draped over the bench against the back wall of the dressing room. It didn’t look any different than it had before. It hadn’t transformed when he had his back turned, and when he reached out and picked it up it didn’t burn him. Instead, despite all of the nastiness he’d felt so far, excitement bubbled up within him.
As he went to hold the dress over his head, Tamaki faced himself away from the mirror. He didn’t want to watch his metamorphosis into this different person; one who wore dresses with no shame. He didn’t want to see the shame on his face when he realized that it wasn’t what he wanted and that he was just being silly for no reason. He didn’t want to see anything.
Pulling the dress on was easy. It slipped down his shoulders, fitting snug in the torso and just a bit loose in the hips. The breast cups poked out ever so slightly, though that didn’t bother him much.
After the dress was on, and before his nerve could be lost, Tamaki turned and looked into the mirror. He was right about the color complimenting him; the golden fabric stood out against his skin gorgeously.
Much to his own surprise, Tamaki did not feel much different from when he had first put the dress on. In all honesty, he didn’t really feel much different now than he had when he was watching the twins chase Haruhi with the dress just a half hour ago. As he ran a hand down his side, feeling the fabric against his skin, something about it felt as normal as wearing his school uniform. It was almost disappointing, though Tamaki wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting.
He admired his figure in the mirror; it fit him well in the chest, save for his lack of breasts to fill out that area, and it was a bit loose around his hips. A hand came up to his waist as he admired it; the dress fit his form quite well, and his waist was delightfully thin in it.
Putting on the dress felt anticlimactic, to be quite honest. From all of his anxieties he’d felt while just holding the stupid thing, he almost felt ripped off by how normal it felt.
Normal. Tamaki’s mental track paused at the word, rolling it around. Normal was probably how any woman would feel trying on a dress, getting ready for a night on the town with a date who would flaunt them like a precious jewel.
Tamaki humored the idea of himself getting ready for something like that; he wasn’t in a club room, he was in his closet putting on his favorite dress, about to go and do his makeup and fix his hair before his date arrived, and his shoes were waiting just outside the door. He would be picked up at his front door, and his date would kiss him on the hand and lead him around for an evening of pure romanticism. He pointedly ignored the fact that his imaginary date looked suspiciously similar to Haruhi, down to the fond smiles and soft laughter.
The idea almost gave him butterflies, and he supposed that was his answer. Tamaki finally brought his eyes up to look at his face, his lips pursed and uncertainty shining in his eyes. He ran a hand through his hair, pushing it back from his face.
It was the same face he’d looked at for the past sixteen years. The same nose, the same eyes, the same lips and jaw and cheeks. On the surface nothing substantial had changed. And yet, as blue eyes stared themselves down in the mirror, something felt different. It didn’t feel wrong; he could still recognize himself. But it was off, like everything had gone askew when he hadn’t been looking.
Though Tamaki didn’t have much time to contemplate that before a particularly loud clap of thunder sounded. He wasn’t sure if it was the paranoia or the thunder itself that made him feel the walls shaking around him; still, it shook him out of his reprieve.
He looked back at himself again. This time there was no complex feelings or resurfaced memories; just some stupid teenager taking his sweet time in leaving when he had a driver waiting for him outside (unless he’d already left, in which case he would have to wait on a new one to show up.)
And as Tamaki pulled the dress off, quickly and with much less reverence than had been involved in putting it on, he couldn’t help but feel like Cinderella. The clock had struck midnight and his ball gown had turned back into rags. (though the uniform was certainly not rags, the metaphor fit.)
He hung the dress back on its hanger, carried it out of the dressing room, and laid it back on the table. Undoing his little escapade felt almost anticlimactic, a rushed ending after pages of exposition. Still, it was relieving; being rid of the aching worry in his body that had carried him into the dressing room. Now it was contentment that carried him around the room as he gathered his things, his bag left by the table and his book left sitting open on the couch.
And as Tamaki eventually pushed his way out of the door in a hurry, his uniform unkempt and his face flushed from the excitement of the afternoon, he couldn’t help but smile as he pictured himself hanging off of Haruhi’s arm in a dress as gorgeous as the ones his mother wore.