7. End

—-

In the day of prosperity be joyful, but in the day of adversity consider: Surely God has appointed the one as well as the other, so that man can find out nothing that will come after him.

—-

It is said that every new beginning comes at the expense of some other beginning's end.

Kyouya thought it particularly true the moment he proposed to Haruhi, because he got the funny feeling then, that his destiny was being set on course. As if someone up there was playing go with his life, slowly cornering him with only one way out. The destined course. Atari*.

Despite his premonition, Haruhi's reply was a blunt resounding "no". He would have been an idiot to not expect it, although her calmness still miffed him.

"I think of you as a friend, Kyouya-kun"

"I see. I understand" Kyouya pushed up his glasses, deceptively calm in appearance.

"You do? thank goodness" Haruhi beamed in relief. "I would hate to lose you as a friend"

Kyouya smiled. She would be the bigger idiot to think that the shadow king would give up so easily, and Haruhi is anything but an idiot. Haruhi should have known the moment she saw that smile. It was, after all, one that she saw after she broke the antique vase, the very one that had her trapped in the host club.

"You're free tomorrow night"

It was a statement, not a question. Haruhi frowned, blindsided by his sudden change of topic.

"Yes. Kyouya, I'm not sure you understand—"

"Yes I do. You don't currently see me as a potential romantic interest."

"If you put it that way" Haruhi breathed, exasperated.

"I will see what I can do to remedy that."

"What? Why are you—" suddenly realizing her mistake, Haruhi was well on her way to panicking.

"Keep tomorrow night open for me." the raven haired man said with finality.

In the end, Kyouya left without eating the apple pie. Neither did Haruhi. Haruhi ended up wrapping it for her dad.

—

Haruhi should have expected no less from someone whose life story consisted of being the underdog, whose everyday fear is that he would never measure up, but still bravely fought for his goal anyways where most would have given up. Haruhi should have known better.

It was an attrition war, and Haruhi was on the losing side.

Kyouya would visit her more frequently, call her even when there is nothing to talk about but the beautiful weather outside (Sounds like a good weather for a walk, Kyouya would say, and sometimes Haruhi pretended not to pick up the hint.) He never pushed for more, and Haruhi, quickly falling into habit, would sometimes even forgot that he'd even wanted more.

Kyouya told her more about himself, about his dream, even his fears. They were a part of himself that the cool host rarely divulge. Weaknesses. Black mail materials. And Haruhi treated them with care and see them as what they were. A sign of trust.

In turn, Haruhi in her own indifferent way, learned to care. She learned that when he pushed up his glasses, he was afraid of people seeing through him; that he really missed the host club, Tamaki most of all; and that when Kyouya looked at her, really looked at her, she knew that he cared too.

And then somedays, when she let her guard down, he would suddenly pull the rug under her as he did when he had proposed her out of the blue, and reminded her all over that he was there to stay. ( Technology is amazing, ne. Is this why you are in IT now? Haruhi marveled. Ofcourse. Kyouya nodded. Our children will learn programming the first thing after they learn how to read. Haruhi had splurted her tea across the table.)

He and his father would often fight about her, although he never told Haruhi this until much later (I chose her for you once, Kyouya, but our situation was different then, Yoshio stressed, almost regretfully. Then if I change our situation, you wouldn't mind? Kyouya challenged.) The fact that Kyouya tried to have his father's blessing years before she had even agreed to date him would later amuse both the Ootori patriarch and Haruhi.

Kyouya fulfilled his promise 4 years later.

—

Now, there could have been many stories in Kyouya's life: one where he chose his family over his heart; one where he chose to rely on his friends over his pride, and consequently, chose his friendship to Tamaki over his personal happiness; and even one where a grief mistake on his part had in turn saved the Ootori empire and consequently, he never would have to live as a commoner.

These were lives where he would not have chosen Haruhi.

Many years later, Kyouya would look back to that unfortunate day, as if he were standing on the crown of a hill with a beautiful view, looking over one harsh jagged path that led to where he was, and he would think it was not really a misfortune after all. It was a gracious gift from above, one he hardly deserved.

But now, as Kyouya waited patiently for the love of his life to walk down the aisle with her father, there was only a single thought in his mind, circling lazily and warmly over and over.

The guests would promptly agree that the bride was beautiful in a Hitachin White tailor-made dress, and the thought that they'd ever mistook her as a male was now a distant memory. The small chapel where the holy matrimony took place was opulently designed, with exotic plants and fruits sprouting on the walls of the chapel, and under the glass the very bride was threading on (The chapel originally looks like that, Haruhi, Kyouya had assured her, we wouldn't want to change that and offend them, would we?).

Kyouya thought her beautiful, even as she projected dead fish stare trying to ignore the twins spiking the communion wine, Tamaki doing an impromptu dramatized version of Pachebel's Canon (Senpai, she hissed, this is not what we practiced yesterday!) and Mori quietly trying to get his cousin away from the champagne fountain. If the guests were momentarily blinded by the groom's smile, he was readily forgiven. Even the shadow king needed some slack on his wedding day.

There's that thought again, and the raven haired man couldn't help his smile;

I'm one lucky guy indeed.

—

*Atari - Go equivalent of checkmate. A situation where a stone or chain of stones has only one liberty, and may be captured on the next move if not given one or more additional liberties. In Japanese, atari (当たり, あたり, or アタリ) is the nominalized form of ataru (当たる, あたる, or アタル) (verb), meaning "to hit the target" or "to receive something fortuitously" (this is taken from Wikipedia)

A/N: Aand... that's the end! Hopefully the ending ties down everything together in a way I meant them to.

As some of you might have pointed out, the quotes at the beginning of each chapter are from the bible. Or to be exact, they're all from the book of Ecclesiastes (written by the wise king Salomon). I just thought it's a very beautiful book, and nails down existentialism crises quite well (ha!). I think its easy to appreciate, even if you're not a Christian.

Anyways, thanks for reading my first ever completed story. I hope you enjoyed the ride! R&R