Kya Ootori liked to pair men's suits with heels.
Not short heels, either - I used to think she just liked to feel tall, but the more I watched her, the more I started to think she enjoyed the birds-eye view.

She stepped into the school with authority behind her every step, the tall heels sounding especially heavy against the marble stairs. Fuyumi followed quickly behind, trying to speed up enough to stand in front of her older sister. Once she had, Kya was forced to halt, and looked down to her sister with a glare that said I don't have time for whatever it is you're trying to do right now.

"Me and Akito had a cake made for you!" she said in a soft and whimsical tone resemblant of her sister, before trying to balance the paper box on her knee long enough to flip the lid up. Kya was almost complacent about the idea of a cake, until she looked down and aloud read the words "Happy Birthday Kyoya."

The first thing I noticed when I started observing Kya Ootori is that she approaches everything in her life with a strictly-business attitude. Even the things that she shouldn't - Even the things that should be personal.

Even then, I had a feeling, I knew somewhere in the back of my head that reading that name should've made Kya feel sad. It should've stricken some kind of emotion from her, sadness, maybe anger… But her face and her body language showed nothing, and she responded with nothing more than the mild irritation of a person who's running late to class.

"That's not my name, Fuyumi." She sounded bored. Like she had other things to do.

"O-Oh!" she stuttered a response, handing the cake over to her sister. "I know that! You know I know that. It's just… I think you could've chosen a better name than Kya, you know?"

Kya grew even less interested somehow. "That's... "

"No! I mean!" the younger sister interrupted. "Kya just.. sounds kind of like a stage name, don't you think? Like… an exotic dancer…?"

Kya looked almost stunned for a second, before shaking her head in disbelief. "That's great, Fuyumi. Just great." The sarcasm fell flat, and she stepped around her sister to strut through the cafeteria alone, looking like she had important places to be.

I could see it in her eyes then: Regret. That was the only emotion I ever saw in copious amounts, during my period of watching Kya Ootori.

She left almost every interaction she ever had with regret in her eyes.

She threw the entire cake into a trash bin as she passed it like it was a piece of lint she'd plucked from her shirt.

I stared as she left and weighed whether or not I should follow her. As I pondered, a young-looking blonde went loudly digging through the garbage, outraged that he had just witnessed someone trashing an entire perfectly good cake. I laughed a bit, hopping up from my seat in a last moment decision to run after Kya.

I almost stopped to tell the boy that the cake hadn't been perfectly good, because it'd been addressed to the wrong person. I didn't, though - he was already digging into it anyway.

I think that Kya Ootori probably knew I was following her.

It'd be almost out of character for her not to.

But she never turned to look at me, never asked what it was I was always scribbling down. Then again, she had a habit of scribbling things down, herself, as she always had a clipboard handy. She held it under her left arm, then, as I trailed behind her down the main hall, and she wore the same tight frown she always did when a business transaction had gone southways.

Everything was treated like business to Kya. As I noted earlier in her conversation with her sister, she approaches everything and everyone in her life with a distant business-like attitude… Even herself.

I could tell by the way she always avoided her own eyes in the mirror, that the relationship she had with her own self was strictly professional.

That was probably the second thing I noticed, when I started watching Kya Ootori.
That she looked incredibly uncomfortable in lipstick, but she wore it every day.

I didn't understand at first, but the longer I watched her, the easier it was to see. There was definitely a driving force behind her decisions; there was a reason why she'd sometimes wear ruffled, hot pink dresses even though it was clear she didn't want to wear them.

The interaction with her sister solidified things - Kya wasn't taken seriously as a woman. Not by her family, not by her associates, maybe not even by herself.

So she wore the lipstick.

And maybe she thought that she had to don pink and ruffles to be female. I thought that I would probably feel that way, too.

But I didn't like the regret that glazed her eyes when she dressed that way. I much preferred her in her suits, because she looked happy and confident in them.

But even when she wore them, she always kept the pink lipstick, even though she hated it.

And thinking of Fuyumi, I understood why.

Before stepping into class, she tightened the ponytail at the top of her head and checked her reflection quickly in the glass, and subtle as it was, I noticed that she tried to avoid looking herself in the eyes.

I learned the most about who Kya Ootori was when I saw her alone.

When she was around other people, especially groups of people, she was entirely different - It was hard to even realize that I was watching the same person I was earlier.

She talked a lot. She was very social. Very classy. And even when she felt insecure, she radiated confidence and authority. People answered to her.

She shook hands with her peers, and she grinned, ever so slightly, because business was going well. She was a running machine; a schmoozing, mechanical power house.

And she buzzed like a bee from flower to flower, flower to flower, dipping her hands in but never lingering.

The people she left watched her with awe; with stars in their eyes. And I wondered, quietly from my station, how much more awe they would be in if they knew she lived a secret life.

Kya's only down time was her lunch break.

Lunch would seem to be the most optimal time to socialize, but she liked to eat in peace. So she always came to lunch a bit early, to beat the rest of the crowd, so she could buy her food and slip quietly out the door to eat her lunch outside.

On a regular day, I knew better than to follow her outside. Maybe she was already aware that I was watching her all the time, but still I knew better than to follow her out into an empty area alone.

Usually I just sat by the window inside, so I could watch her without being too close.

But she didn't grant me the opportunity to do so that day.

She pushed open the door that lead to the outdoor tables with one elbow, lunch tray balanced on her hand and clipboard still tucked under her arm. I waited for her to walk outside so that I could get closer, but she never did.

It took her a few moments, but she eventually turned and looked at me, still propping the door open with her elbow. And then she nodded at me. Like "Come on, I'm holding the door open for you, you dumbass."

I was stunned for a couple of seconds, and then it became very clear to me that we were the only two people in the cafeteria. I froze.

"... So, you'll follow me around for weeks, but you won't keep me company over lunch on my birthday?" she asked, her usual smugness accented in her voice.

My face lit up in red and I quickly scurried across the cafeteria and to her side. "I-I… Of course, I'd… I'd love…"

I could tell by the look on her face she'd already stopped listening. Idiot!

Okay. I was going to have to try this again. Kya Ootori's interest is a hard thing to keep. She continued holding the door open for me, waiting for me to step through, but instead I held the door myself and ushered her forward. "Ladies first!" I insisted, trying to recollect myself and maybe somehow come off charming.

She stared for a moment, before cocking her head ever so slightly in wonder. A light clicked behind my eyes, and I knew I'd done it. I'd managed to intrigue her, and that was all that mattered.

She stepped outside into the sunlight, dainty and blossoming, before settling gently down into a seat. Her movements were very feminine, then, and after having watched her for so long, I knew that was intentional. I wondered for a moment if she was… trying to impress me?

Endearing.

I started to sit at a table of my own and she laughed at me. My face turned red again. "What?"

"Come sit over here, you idiot."

Oh. I slowly turned on my heel, red faced and stumbling. "S-Sorry.." I muttered, moving back over towards her. So much for the 'charming' thing.

She grinned a little and began cutting at her food. My first thought was that watching Kya Ootori was a thousand times more incredible from this close. I almost reached to write that down, like I'd gotten into the habit of doing, but stopped myself.

For a few moments, things were silent. I sat up a bit straighter and tried again.

"Happy birthday, Kya…" I said quietly, and she looked up at me again. She made that face again - cocked her head slightly to the right the way she does when something interests her. I wondered then if no one ever spoke to her correctly.

"... Thank you." she responded, and crossed her feet beneath the table. "Suoh, correct?"

I knew that she already knew that was right. "Yup."

Things fell silent again and I could feel my stomach turning in circles. This wasn't how this was supposed to happen. I knew that eventually I would approach Kya Ootori, but I expected to have time to prepare! I hadn't been ready for this interaction to just be sprung at me, and I was finding myself without the grand gesture of friendship that I was hoping to present to her.

Unless…

I smiled to myself suddenly, reaching into my bag and retrieving a notebook. It was a nice notebook, Suoh embossed in gold on the left hand corner, filled with pages and pages of articulate notes. I flipped through it for a moment before setting it on the table and pushing it towards her.

She stared at it for a moment, puzzled by it, then looked back up at me. "What is this?"

".. A birthday gift." I said, and I grinned, mimicking her head tilt as I spoke.

She raised one eyebrow before slowly lifting the book and flipping the cover. I watched her eyes tick left to right across the lines of writing, and as she read words like "beautiful" and "elegant" and "brilliant", I saw her face begin to light up pink.

"... This is… About me…?" she asked slowly, turning a few pages.

I felt a little self conscious, but smiled. "Yeah. It is."

What followed was the widest range of emotions I had ever, ever seen from Kya Ootori: from shocked to embarrassed to flattered, within the turn of two pages.

She read quickly, and with the turn of another page her face went from pink to red, and her expression from flattered to elated.

She slowly lowered the book then, and her hands shook. I watched her with a full blown infatuation as she laughed, acting in a way that can only be described as giddy.

Someone else had been let in on the secret, now.