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Chapter Text

Kyouya Ohtori had never really thought of his brothers as brothers, not in the way that other children had brothers and sisters.

By the time he was old enough to know and name things like familial relations, they were already in high school and very rarely home except for breakfast (often not then) and sometimes special family events like charity parties, which Kyouya wasn't allowed to attend anyway. Kyouya's brothers were a towering presence, but that was all they were: two dark, forbidding chess rooks in the distance, as inscrutable and unknowable as gods. They were all subject to his father, who was so far beyond a god as to simply be a force of the universe, but they were powerful and puzzling creatures nonetheless. From a very young age he had known that they were also competition but until he was twelve or thirteen he hadn't bothered to try direct confrontation, knowing himself incapable of succeeding against the divine.

His sister was different -- he loved his sister without qualification and she was the only person in the world he was confident loved him unconditionally in return. But she was also older, already flirting with boys as a junior-high student by the time he was allowed to attend Ouran, the mythical training ground for the gods.

The gap between his brothers was just over a year, and his sister was only a year and a half younger; he had come six years after his sister. The discrepancy did not bother him until biology class, when he realised what all this gestation and ovulation and fertilisation meant.

It meant Kyouya Ohtori was an accident. At best, an afterthought. His father had 'two heirs and a mare' as the English saying went; sons to manage his company and a daughter to marry off in some trade agreement or business merger. He had no need of a third son. Years later Kyouya would read a book of French fairy tales from Tamaki's bookshelf and understand a little better the power of being the third son, but at the age of thirteen he knew only that he had been unwanted, certainly by his brothers, probably by his father, and likely by his mother, who died when he was two.

But all this was information better known than unknown, because information was power. Kyouya did not intend to accept a trust fund from his father and go fecklessly off to Tokyo to live a shiftless life, as he saw some of his peers were preparing to do. At thirteen he was already a gamesman. He played to win, of course, but he played as well for the love of the game, and the higher the stakes or narrower the window of opportunity, the better the game. He wasn't interested in repetition; he wanted games where he had one shot for one goal, preferably a goal he could never achieve again.

The greatest game, the ongoing game, was the game of Inheritance. He had learned to play it by watching his brothers, though he wasn't a serious contender until he was sixteen. Managing a Host Club was fairly classless, of course, but he was managing it, and the club turned a profit.

Now, when the game was speeding up, when his brothers had finally noticed his entry into it -- now was not the time for wandering eyes or thoughts. But sixteen is sixteen, with all the hormones and urges that attend it, and sometimes a chess master longs for the diversion of Daruma-san-ka-koooo-ron-da!

Haruhi was attractive, in her boyish way, and she was intelligent and kind. She understood a great deal about Kyouya, perhaps more than Kyouya liked, but she was also, well -- boyish, and unsubtle. She didn't take hints well. She was a nice person, but as sexless to Kyouya as a doll. No, more like a teacup. Pretty and useful, nice to have around, but ultimately not very challenging.

There were plenty of girls to choose from at Ouran, even more so because Kyouya was one of the elite Host Club. Every day, women paid him for the pleasure of his company. Kyouya did not disappoint. He had senpais, peers, and underclassmen who regularly attended the club, women whose families were in all walks of wealthy life, from shipping to production to farming. These women were accomplished, graceful, gracious, intelligent, subtle, good businesswomen and sometimes keen gamesmen in their own right. And yet...

So was his eldest brother's wife, so was his older brother's girlfriend. His father had made it amply clear that the game was not won by imitating those already in the lead. It didn't work in business, after all. So Kyouya didn't want a woman who would grow up to be a good businessman's wife. Well, not primarily.

There was always Tamaki. He was the son of a powerful family and Homo was on the upswing, becoming very trendy and hip among the young, wealthy crowd. His own careless bisexuality bothered him not at all. Kyouya harboured no illusions that Tamaki was unattainable, either; in a week, two tops, he could have Tamaki eating out of his hand (and naked in his bed).

But Tamaki wasn't much of a challenge, was he.

His eyes fell on Renge, as they always did when he was working and thinking at the same time, especially when the Host Club was open. When she'd come from France he hadn't seen any real need to correct her on her erroneous assumption that she was his fiancee. These things sorted them out in time, and besides, who knew? She might make a good wife.

She knew how to manage business; their costs had gone down fifteen percent since she'd taken over concessions. She seemed reasonably knowledgeable about the world in general. She had a cheerful disposition and made friends easily. And...

She had an understanding of a sort he had never encountered before. She knew about manga and doujinshi and anime, she knew about fashionable trends and loved to discuss popular culture, even if she wasn't really aware she was doing it. She could tap into society, put herself directly in tune with what people were thinking, wanting, needing. She acted foolishly about it, but not indecorously.

Renge was different. She possessed all the things that an Ohtori would desire in a wife, but also a sort of noisy genius that was completely outside of the experience of his father and brothers. Renge was a wild card, and Kyouya liked nothing so well as a wild card.

Unless it was a challenge, and she was that, too. Renge was not Tamaki to be easily manipulated, and though her Otaku heart loved all things romantic, she herself kept a very careful distance from romance. As Kyouya himself did.

"Renge," he said, as they were going over accounts one day, far from the rest -- Tamaki and the twins planning their next cosplay, Mori and Hunny studying with their heads bent low over their coffee cups, Haruhi clearing away the last of the debris from that day's activities. "Renge, do you like games?"

"I like some," she answered cheerfully. "I like role-playing games, and strategy games -- "

"What about bigger games?" he asked, and she cocked her head, more shrewdly than many would have imagined she could.

"Are you playing one?" she asked.

"I am."

"Third son?"

"Well, I call it Inheritance," he said with a smile.

"That's a game of risk."

"Do you like games of risk?"

Renge tapped her finger on her chin thoughtfully. "What do I get if we win?"

"Wealth. Power. Me," Kyouya added temptingly.

"And if we lose?"

"You've wasted a little time, maybe a little money."

"The risk is all on your side, then," she observed. "Do you mind?"

"Not at all. Would you like to have dinner at the Ootori home on Friday night?"

"Thank you, I'd be pleased to meet your family," she said.

Then she smiled knowingly.

"Tell me, Kyouya, how much of you do I get, when we win?"

Chapter Text

"Mother, isn't there anyone you like?"

Kyouya looked up at Tamaki over his clipboard and smiled slightly. "Why, are you afraid some girl's going to steal me away?"

"I was just wondering. Women seem to bore you and it isn't natural not to want to please women," Tamaki remarked. "Unless you're gay, of course."

"Would it matter if I was, Father?"

"It would make you a better host. A gay man has very pure motives when he tries to please a woman. He works with never a thought for his own gratification."

"You must be the gayest man in school, then," Kyouya murmured. Tamaki laughed.

"Me? Everyone knows I'm a narcissist," Tamaki replied, leaning his head over the end of the couch to actually study Kyouya, albeit upside-down. "I love it when women adore me."

"You'd never act on it though," Kyouya observed, bending over his book again. "I don't know why you're so afraid of women."

"ME? Afraid of WOMEN?" Tamaki asked, eyes widening.

"You'd never actually kiss one. You'd never actually ask one out. You just like to make them swoon without backing up any of your promises," Kyouya remarked. He sounded uninterested.

"I -- I -- !"

"It's interesting. If you were gay, of course, that would explain it."

"I'm not gay!" Tamaki almost howled.

"Oh? How's your courtship of Haruhi coming along? Even Honey's copped more of a feel than you have."

"It isn't Kinglike to indulge in vulgar things like that," Tamaki sulked.

"If you're really that afraid of her -- "

"I'm not afraid!"

Kyouya smirked. "Not gay, not afraid, and yet not Haruhi's boyfriend. Like I said. Interesting."

"HARUHI!" Tamaki called across the music room. Most of the girls being entertained looked up. Haruhi turned around in her chair, resting her hand on the back of it.

"Yes, senpai?" she asked. Tamaki swung his long legs off the couch, darted forward, and kissed her soundly.

Most of the girls at the table fainted. The twins burst out laughing. Even Mori deigned to roll his eyes a little. Hunny beamed widely.

"So cute!" all the girls chorused in unison.

Tamaki turned around to give Kyouya a triumphant look.

"Very well done," Kyouya murmured. Next to the running total column in his accounts book, he made a note to buy more biscuits for the coming weeks. When word got out that Tamaki and Haruhi were in love, their clientele would no doubt triple.

"See?" Renge said, calmly sipping her tea as she sat nearby. "Girls love the Forbidden Gay Relationship!"

"How could I ever have doubted you," Kyouya murmured with a smile.

Chapter Text

Kyouya was not, actually, a particularly bookish boy. He appreciated books, because they provided information, but books weren't valuable to him in and of themselves. He was more...informationish.

Still, his quest for information had led him deep into the stacks of the Ouran High School Research Library, which had led him through L-Space (which was a cakewalk once you got the hang of it) and out into the library of the Patrician's Palace of Ankh-Morpork. He understood in an intellectual sort of way that Ankh-Morpork was not of his world, but the language spoken there was a sort of thickly-accented dialect of English and he got along all right.

He had explored the Palace (well, he was there, why not) and in his explorations had stumbled across the Patrician, who was working in the garden, paperwork under several half-bricks on his left and a chessboard on his right. The first time, Kyouya had merely meant to make contact with someone who was clearly an important man; but he kept returning because, well, it was stimulating.

"I sympathise with your plight," Vetinari said, moving a piece with one hand while he signed a payroll chit with the other. "Playing the game for the joy of it is considered barbarous when it is against one's own family. I have none, fortunately."

"Have you any advice?" Kyouya asked. He was playing with most of his attention, but he kept a sharp watch on the paperwork Vetinari handled.

"Choose which you value more, your brothers' happiness or truth to your own nature," Vetinari replied. "And always be prepared."

"For what?" Kyouya asked.

"Everything. Bad leaders know what has happened; good leaders know what is happening. True leaders know what will happen."

"And how is that done?"

Vetinari's lips quirked upwards. "Research, of course."

Kyouya's smile matched his own. "I see."

"I suspect you do."