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Loving Suoh Tamaki was like shooting heroin, as morbid as the comparison sounded.
Though, Kyoya only had to guess that it really was as such; after comparing notes with what sources on the internet had to say doing such a drug was like and his own experience with loving the stupid, smug idiot himself.
When you were in the moment, it was like you were floating on a cloud; like you were giddy yet peaceful and calm all at the same time. You were at contentment, until the high wore off and you were thrown into the withdrawal of it all. Until you were looking for your next hit of it.
The next taste of peace, the next welcomed cling of happiness.
For Ootori Kyoya, love has always been a slap to the face; a shake of the hand.
“Son, you are a man,” on the first day of high school, and a look of distance that was appropriate for the arm’s length the father shook hands and held his son at.
“You are an embarrassment to the Ootori name,” at a test with missing marks, eyes cold and hidden behind glasses for the minutes that are appropriate to witness after a father slaps his son.
“You know what you are meant to do, Kyoya,” on a cold evening where all a father’s son will eat for dinner is bread before he leaves to research a boy he will soon be meeting under the guide of his father’s will, accompanied only by a brief flicker of a father’s gaze.
For Ootori Kyoya, love has been something he could keep on a leash, much like everything else, every other emotion he possessed. And yet.
“Suoh Tamaki,” this— blond-headed, violet-eyed, stupid french boy of a teenager introduced, one hand propped on his hip with the other outstretched. “It’s a pleasure to meet you!”
“This is our Class Rep. Ootori Kyoya-kun, and Vice Rep. Jounouji Ayame-kun.” The principle—slim man, sloped face, slicked back, black hair peppered with grey—introduced alongside, his voice monotone; much unlike the french boy—the halfer, Kyoya’s mind supplied, then corrected to, the Suoh—who displayed so much, so brightly. So much energy, so fast—
“Your hair is very straight and beautiful, princess. Your heart must be as straight and beautiful as your hair.”
Ayame had blushed, Kyoya had let his mind drift.
He doesn’t remember where it went when it had left at 10:34 AM that fateful morning, because since then the only place Ootori Kyoya’s mind ever went when it drifted was right back to the damn blond it was avoiding.
Suoh, Tamaki.
Somewhere, between trying to please that crazy fucker of a french boy to please his father and finding a ladder to climb as the third son, Ootori Kyoya learned what it meant to love him.
It meant pulling out your hair because nothing he did ever made any sense and somehow he still expected you to make it happen while trying to look collected about it—
It meant flipping over tables, cracking teacups, spilling sugar, and grabbing that stupid fucker of a french boy and demanding him tell you just who the hell he thought he was.
It meant listening to him telling you, “damn, you really look evil right now.” still caught in your grasp, as you tossed your head back and cackled at the strange, insane anomaly that even was Suoh Tamaki.
Loving Suoh Tamaki was like doing every drug imaginable, being painfully sober throughout your overdose, and somehow living peacefully with a permanent headache between your eyes.
And loving Suoh Tamaki was bringing tea to a kotatsu he just demanded you order especially for him while the snow fell outside the window as he grinned toothily at you, exploding with a gush of—
“Kyoya! I’ve just got such a great idea!” Tamaki drapes his torso over the kotatsu, his fingertips brushing against the complete opposite side of the built-in table before he flings himself up again.
It is not unlike an excited puppy greeting its owner, with its tail wagging furiously and tongue hanging out with its anticipating pants.
“We should start a host club.”
And, of course, loving Suoh Tamaki is listening to his stupid ideas, and then vetoing them immediately.
With a shoving from Kyoya’s foot to Tamaki’s shoulder, the blond dramatically falls onto the floor, yet when the bullshit ideas stop the laughter comes and Suoh Tamaki only knows how to laugh a laugh that sounds like a melody the angels would weep for.
Or, something like that.
“Sleep first, then dream,” Kyoya chastises, rolling his eyes as he sets down their tea. Tamaki keeps laughing.
Oh, and, don’t forget the part of loving Suoh Tamaki where you eventually give in to his stupid and crazy ideas just to see him grin like the sun itself had a meeting with you.
Truly, being madly in love with Suoh Tamaki is letting him wrap you around his pianist pinky only to pretend you didn’t.
….And, don’t ever forget that loving him means playing along with practically everything he sets his heart on doing.
“Mama!!!”
Haruhi shrugs the King of the host club off, eyebrows pinched tightly together in annoyance as he continues to make a scene. Oh, how Kyoya does pity them.
It only gets worse from here on out.
“Haruhi’s using those dirty boy words again!” He sways back and forth, wiggling with great despair as his self-decided daughter does not immediately bend to his strange antics and demands.
“Who’s Mama?” The twins ask in unison, and Kyoya knows it’s to que poor Haruhi in. They’ve just been shoe-horned into this whole mess of a Suoh Tamaki production, and nobody has bothered to give them a script.
Kyoya pushes up his glasses, popping out a hip as he says, “Going off of club positions, I assume it’s me.”
Somewhere between the twins asking that question and Kyoya answering it; Kyoya can catch a brief—it speeds by like a race car before he can get a good look—glance at the moment where Suoh Tamaki breaks his distressed father character to grasp his victory.
Loving Suoh Tamaki is also, regrettably, walking right into traps without realizing it. Even if you are the third Ootori son, who is supposed to be six steps ahead.
“....Why is Tamaki-senpai pouting over there?” Haruhi asks, and it only spurs on the twins.
The King sets the trap, and the Cheshire Cats come to reap the rewards.
“Because Mommy was keeping a secret from Daddy,” Kaoru informs, and it only makes Tamaki curl further into his pity ball.
Renge, another member soon to join their band-wagon of a family, had made her debut announcing that she and Kyoya were engaged; and that made Daddy—Suoh Tamaki—pout.
“Oh, whatever. I don’t know why you all insist on calling us that, like we’re husband and wife,” is what he replies, lying straight through his pearly white teeth.
Because, at the end of the day—
“Come on, idiot. Growing mushrooms in the club room will be bad for business,” Kyoya tells Tamaki, placing a hand on the crown of the host club King himself. His touch looks annoyed and agitated, but it’s soft and kind as it combs through the hair that shines like golden honey as he waits.
—loving Suoh Tamaki is breathing him in, and pushing yourself out between the words; knowing they will be caught in his pale, french palms.
“Sorry, Mommy Dear,” is what Tamaki replies, leaning into the touch. His words and tone are remorseful, but somewhere between loving Suoh Tamaki and learning who that stupid fucker of a french boy is, Kyoya knows it conveys the same message as his touch.
Loving Suoh Tamaki is dangerous because Suoh Tamaki loves Ootori Kyoya right back.