Work Text:
The music room’s doors slam open, then close, and then Kyouya hears the sound of a body falling to the ground – with an absurd amount of grace, no doubt.
There’s only one person in this entire school Kyouya knows to be this dramatic, and the student in question doesn’t need prompting. He’ll talk, no matter what Kyouya does, so the latter doesn’t stop in his typing.
There’s some more noise, shuffling, the sound of a ridiculously expensive suit scraping on the parquet, and then the vice-president hears Tamaki’s voice.
“Haruhi…”
It’s terribly muffled, probably because the speaker is lying face-down, and wouldn’t be understandable if it weren’t for the fact that Tamaki only uses this tone of voice for Haruhi-related whining.
Kyouya pauses in his typing for just an instant, scratching out the most recent line on his notepad before resuming. He might manage to get some work done before Tamaki drags him away.
More shuffling, and Tamaki flips on his back, looking at Kyouya with eyes that would put a puppy to shame.
…
…
“Kyouya…”
…
…
Kyouya turns away from the screen to look at Tamaki’s face.
“Yes?”
“Haruhi isn’t replying to me… She’s not online on anything…”
Kyouya resumes his typing. Haruhi being busy is the bane of his existence, because when she’s away, he can never quite predict what the others will do, which forces him to either get involved in their shenanigans or to leave them unsupervised while they accomplish said shenanigans. The second option being a non-option if he wishes for the club to stay afloat – which, he wishes very much, thank you – he always ends up losing valuable time.
“She must be studying, then.” She’s not. Kyouya’s notes indicate that Haruhi doesn’t like studying before having done everything else, unless absolutely necessary. Her class doesn’t have anything urgent or complex to do for the near future, so unless she transformed into a dunce overnight, Haruhi isn’t studying anything yet.
But Kyouya’s notes are private, and he can’t bring himself to give up on trying to use logic to convince Tamaki.
There’s a sniffle, and, still not standing up, Tamaki replies, “Would she turn off her phone for that? Are we… Kyouya… Are we bothering her?”
Tamaki’s eyes fill with tears and the puppy-eyes’ strength is multiplied by ten. Kyouya opens another tab. He almost suggests that Haruhi has forgotten about them, but that would deal Tamaki a fatal blow.
“Her phone most likely ran out of battery.”
Tamaki’s mouth turns into a perfect ‘o’, and all traces of tears disappear from his face. He abruptly straightens up, almost colliding with Kyouya in the process. He’s facing away from the latter, and instead of doing the practical thing and turning around, Tamaki cranes his neck very uncomfortably and looks at Kyouya from upside-down, almost falling to the ground again in the process until he’s found his balance.
Kyouya notes that it would work very well on the club’s guests, and adjusts his glasses.
“Oh that’s too bad! Well, at least I know not to get this model, if the battery is so short.”
Sometimes the lascivious and daring blond is the corniest person you know. Kyouya almost smiles, “Did you want to get matching phones with her?”…and if he goes by the sparkle that suddenly appears in Tamaki’s eyes, no he did not want that, but he certainly does now.
“I simply wanted to get a newer model – but what a grand idea! We could even get matching charms! Phonecases? Wallpapers? So many options!”
There’s something wrong in that sentence. Newer model? He doesn’t even need to check to be sure: Haruhi has one of those old flip phones. With buttons. Not anything near what Tamaki Suoh would use, and definitely not a ‘newer model.’ Kyouya turns slightly towards him, and he continues without prompting.
“Though… Should Haruhi really spend money on that kind of things? Really, someone who cannot afford for a chauffeur to bring them to school probably has better things to spend money on.”
There’s no disbelief coating his voice, because that would be supremely undignified, but, in spirit… In spirit.
“Are you suggesting that Haruhi is somewhat irresponsible in her spendings?”
“Yes.”
Not an ounce of hesitation in Tamaki’s voice, and Kyouya wonders for just a second how a friendship with a dumbass of this magnitude has lasted this long. Now, there are a lot of things he could reply to that, from ‘someone smart enough to get into Ouran on a grant is probably as far from irresponsible as humanly possible’ to ‘the cost of a phone, no matter how new, is wildly different from that of a chauffeur’, passing by ‘you are not in a position to call anyone’s spendings irresponsible.’
However, in his surprise, Kyouya’s mouth has opened before he could formulate his response, and he is forced to improvise.
“You should talk to her.”
Answer that would work with ninety percent of what Tamaki says. It always work, even more so if you replace ‘her’ with ‘Haruhi.’
“I should!”
Tamaki stands up, a sudden spring in his steps as he practically run out of the room, once again slamming the door behind him. Kyouya watches him as he leaves, before focusing on his screen once again. Tamaki alone – without a certain pair of brothers’ influence, cough – is unlikely to cause any type of major incident, Kyouya can work in peace.
**
Kyouya is the one almost slamming open the music room’s doors the next day. He doesn’t, because he’s Kyouya Ootori, third son of the Ootori family, but the motivation is there.
He doesn’t get to express his frustration in any meaningful way however, since a basket filled to the brim with brightly coloured phones is shoved into his face as soon as he enters the room.
“Look! Aren’t those so cute! And vintage! You should pick one, Kyouya! I thought the club could use them so I got a bunch of them!”
Kyouya calmly pushes the basket away and adjusts his glasses while Tamaki continues to gush about the phones. Looking around, it seems every member of the club has been handed one, even Haruhi who is looking at their president with a slightly murderous look.
“... to type, see? But look at the style it gives us! Imagine the guests!” Tamaki’s hair whips his face when the blond suddenly turns around to look at him from over his shoulder, passionately bringing the phone to his ear and purring, “Should I call God and inform him of his missing angel’s location?”
Kyouya adjusts his glasses once again. He tries to calculate how much Tamaki’s phone-related rampage will cost the club. The number almost satisfies him, but then he notices Haruhi signalling him, and finally sees the literal piles of phones laying near the piano.
Tamaki smiles at him cutely, adorably even, and it doesn’t help with Kyouya’s irritation one bit.
“I’m so glad Haruhi introduced me to them! They even have games, look!” Another phone is shoved in his face, dangerously close to his glasses. “Look!”
Kyouya notes that he’s still standing at the door, and finally moves to the nearest seat. This brings him closer to Haruhi, and he doesn’t need to be a genius to understand exactly who she blames for this.
He should have just told Tamaki she was ignoring him.
“Haruhi showed me how those things work, yesterday. Did you know there aren’t letters? You have to press the numbers multiple times to get the letter you need. I thought her messages were a little bizarre, but I thought it was a commoner...”