A/N: What's up all! I am a terrible writer lately, seeing as how I've had almost no motivation to write whatsoever. Now I have three ongoing stories to work on with this one included... I'm back though, and hopefully I will update more often now! Anyways, this is going to be a potentially very long story about Kyoya. I hope you all enjoy it. It starts at episode 8 right after Tamaki rescues Haruhi. I probably won't do every episode, just some of the important ones, and maybe some of my own stuff after the anime ends. I've never read the manga, so I can't really go into anything that happens after the anime ends anyways. I'll probably just come up with something of my own. Anyways, I don't own Ouran in any way shape or form, or I would be living very differently. Enjoy!

In the Shadows

Kyoya watched, quietly observing, as Tamaki fought with Haruhi over whether or not she should have done what she did, that being protecting two ladies from a couple of drunk locals. Both had a point, but Tamaki may have had more of one. Holding his black book and writing slowly, the raven paid close attention, but remained quiet. He would have his chance to share his opinion later. He wasn't sure when, but not now, and not in the heat of the moment. He would have to let things cool down a little first.

The evening passed mostly quietly from that point on, returning to the small (by rich standards) beach house to change and have a dinner made from the crabs that Honey and Haruhi had caught earlier that afternoon. There was one more small incident between the quarrelers, and it ended up pulling Kyoya away from the table to show Tamaki to his room.

The blonde ranted to Kyoya all the way up to the next floor and down the hallway. Nothing the blonde said was new information, but the raven allowed him to rant and get it out of his system. When they reached the door to Tamaki's room, the blonde turned to face Kyoya and address him. "Am I not right, Kyoya? Seriously, you can be honest with me."

"You make a good point." Kyoya responded without really answering the question.

"But was I right?" Nothing was getting past Tamaki, apparently.

"I can't answer that for you, Tamaki. 'Right' is a matter of perspective, and I can't choose your perspective for you."

Tamaki sighed. "Fine. Thank you, Kyoya. I will come find you if I need anything." He turned back around, entered the room, and closed the door behind him.

Kyoya pushed his glasses up on his nose and went back down the hall and down the stairs to his own room close to the dining room. Thus far, Kyoya was the only one who didn't have much of a relationship with the only girl in the Host Club. He had stood quietly in the shadows for much of the time they had known her, and up until now, hadn't had any interest in her. He was simply her debt collector, counting her guests in near silence, observing to make sure she didn't add on any more debt, and bribing her when needed.

He had decided years earlier that he wanted to help Tamaki achieve any and all dreams he had, even if it meant he had to push himself farther away from the others in their little group. He happened to agree with the blonde this time, and would just have to find a way to help him prove his point. He just didn't expect it to happen the way it did.

When he arrived at his room, he stripped and stepped into a hot shower, washing the remaining sand and salt from his body. When he stepped out, he put a towel around his waist, and left the bathroom. He was about to reach into his bag to grab a clean pair of pants when the door flew open, and slammed closed again. He turned, startled, just in time to see the hem of a pink dress enter his bathroom, and soon he heard the poor girl retching into the toilet.

The raven didn't quite know what to do, but quickly formed a plan. He pulled on a pair of boxers and his pants, and went to sit down, now using the towel to dry his hair, and leaving his glasses in front of him on the table. After a minute or so, he heard the toilet flush, and the faucet turn on. Then, the bathroom door opened again, and Haruhi poked her head out the door, looking slightly lost, and embarrassed.

She bowed quickly when Kyoya spoke up and she realized someone was in the room, sitting at the table in the middle of the open area. "Are you alright?"

"I'm apologize, sir. I didn't mean to intrude." She spoke formally, not knowing who it was.

"Don't be silly. It's just me." Kyoya continued to towel dry his hair.

It was then that the girl noticed the glasses on the table. "Kyoya-senpai? Senpai, I'm sorry. I really didn't mean to make everyone worry about me today." So she understood after all.

Kyoya played it off coolly, standing up as he spoke. "Thanks, but I wasn't especially worried." What a lie that was, he realized as he said it. He took a drink from his water bottle to hide the emotion he was sure was present in his eyes, and pushed it away before looking back at the girl. He wasn't about to let some girl see his true core, what he was really made of. He continued as he normally would instead. "…although, I did have a hard time separating Kaoru and Hikaru from those two punks. They almost beat them half to death. And because of you, I had to send each of the girls a bouquet of flowers to apologize." He had started walking toward her by now, starting to carry out his now-formed plan.

The girl looked like she might be sick again as she claimed she would pay him back for the flowers. "Each bouquet cost me fifty thousand. That's a grand total of 600,000 yen, Haruhi." He placed his finger on the light switch, and pushed it down, turning the lights off.

"Uh… Why'd you turn the lights off?" He leaned in closer to the now confused freshman.

"If you want to, you can pay me back with your body." He took hold of her wrist, and pulled her to the bed, startling her as he threw her down, and climbed on top of her, holding her down. He didn't actually plan to do anything, not yet anyways, but he did want to scare her. He knew no one could see through his façade. "Surely you aren't so naïve as to think a person's sex doesn't matter? You've left yourself completely defenseless against me." He kept a hard look on his face, waiting for her response: a scream, crying, begging… something other than what actually happened.

"You won't do it Kyoya-senpai." He made a surprised sound, not sure how she knew. "I know, because it wouldn't do you any good." He swore she was reading his mind it this point. "You wouldn't gain anything from it."

Kyoya's mind was reeling. How the hell did she know? Who the hell is this girl, anyways? She can see through me? Only one person in the world has ever been able to do that! He kept his face calm, though. He still wouldn't give himself away. He smiled slightly, acting as if he wasn't disturbed by what just happened. "Hmm. You're right. You're a fascinating young woman, Haruhi."

This still didn't make sense. He hadn't given much away about himself to anyone, yet she could see everything. He had thought that his position in the shadows would help keep himself a mystery to all, excluding Tamaki of course, but apparently this girl was far more observant than he had originally thought.

He sat up, now facing away from the girl so that she couldn't see his face, especially his eyes. "But, I've learned something from this. I guess I never realized what a nice guy you are, senpai." Kyoya reached across from the bed and to the table to grab his glasses and put them on. He turned to her as she spoke; pushing his glasses up his nose. She caught his full attention again as she started to explain. "I know what you're doing. You're just trying to prove what Tamaki-senpai said earlier." Kyoya stood up, his heart dropping farther into his stomach as she continued to speak. "I know that you're trying to prove his point; that you're just posing as the bad guy."

Kyoya didn't even have anything to say at that point, nor did he know what to think. She had completely figured things out, figured him out. He thought, until this point that no one but Tamaki could figure him and his motives out.

His head was spinning, and no words came. He was actually grateful when Tamaki barged into his room asking for lotion. He left the room for Haruhi to take the heat for whatever it was Tamaki thought had happened.

As the door closed behind him, and he stood in the hallway, one phrase Haruhi had said came back to him. "I know, because it wouldn't do you any good. You wouldn't gain anything from it." The boy pushed his glasses up again, realizing that she was only partly right.

Images flashed in his head: a moment of pure pleasure and ecstasy, two bodies becoming one, two hearts beating, and heated flesh slick with sweat. He had yet to experience such a thing outside of one or two porn videos, but the mere thought had him shuddering slightly as he walked down the hall. "…Nothing to be gained from it, huh… an interesting thought, in its own way."

He left for the dining room, and when he entered all of the other boys were sitting around the room quietly. Honey senpai had found a spare piece of cake and was munching gleefully with Mori Senpai close by. The twins were sitting in chairs by a window watching the lighting split the sky with light and listening to the thunder roar just beyond the simple pane of glass that separated them from the falling rain.

The door closed behind Kyoya at the same time as a bigger clap of thunder, so no one noticed his entrance. He slowly made his way to stand behind the twins and look up at the sky through the big windows. "Rather large storm…" The twins whirled around, surprised to hear someone standing behind them, but took a deep breath at the realization that it was only Kyoya.

"Where are Haruhi and Tamaki?" Hikaru looked up at the raven as he spoke.

"Yeah, is Haruhi okay? She left pretty quickly." Kaoru clarified after his brother.

"Haruhi is fine. She probably just ate too much, and she and Tamaki are finally talking things over." The twins nodded in unison, and Honey and Mori joined the trio by the window, cake finished and Usa-chan held tightly. "We should probably go check on them soon, though."

After sitting quietly for a little while longer the twins spoke up again. "Are you sure it's a good idea…"

"…to leave the two of them alone." Kaoru finished for his brother. Kyoya pushed up his glasses with his middle finger once again.

The raven turned to smile at the two younger boys. "She's with our prince, Tamaki. What could possibly go wrong?" He sounded fairly confident, but after a short time realization dawned on them that a lot could go wrong with Tamaki in charge, so they left the dining room to go find the other two hosts.

The twins knocked on the door and announced their entrance when they reached Kyoya's room. The door swung open to reveal Tamaki and Haruhi both kneeling on the floor. Haruhi had a blindfold on, and Tamaki was obviously the one who put it on her. Haruhi had no idea what was going on, naturally.

Kyoya could barely hear anything the others were saying through the blood pounding in his ears from the anger that stirred in him. Tamaki was obviously trying to defend himself, but Kyoya had seen enough, regardless of the situation. He entered the room, pushing gracefully passed the twins, and got down on one knee in front of Haruhi. He reached behind her head to undo the knot as the twins pulled Tamaki out into the hallway, and the door shut behind them. He could hear their voices fading as they drug Tamaki through the house to take him to his own room.

He looked back down at Haruhi, who was looking nervously out the window. He watched her for a moment until a bolt of lightning flashed, lighting up the room, and the girl shivered, whimpering slightly. Kyoya quickly deduced that she was afraid of Thunder and lightning, which would be why Tamaki had put the ear plugs and blindfold on her. It made sense, but it still looked wrong. Instead of putting the blindfold back on her, he stood up to find his ear buds and his phone. When he found both, a crack of thunder shook the room, and he turned to see Haruhi huddled under the table. He approached her, pulled her up into his arms without a word and set her down on the bed, gently this time.

He placed her so that she could lean back against the head board, and sat next to her. Her eyes were wide as she watched him untangle the cord to his ear buds, and placed them in her ear. He plugged them in, then, and chose some music on his phone that he thought she might like. When the music was playing he turned it up just enough to keep out any sound, but still keep her hearing intact. He reached forward to close her eyes by stroking an eyebrow, and crawled up the bed to sit next to her.

He had planned, originally, to just sit next to her for company, but before long she was leaning against him, and had fallen asleep to the music playing in her ears while the thunder continued to roll and lighting flashed outside. He moved her so that she was lying with her head on the pillow, and debated what he should do. In the end, he quietly got up without disturbing her to get his laptop from the table, and opened it to start typing. He told his computer everything that had happened to him that day, and included his unsure feelings.

Until this day, he hadn't realized that he did actually care for the girl that was currently asleep in his bed. He knew now that he would be willing to give anything to protect her. He wasn't sure if that's what they called love, but it was a start.

After a few hours at his computer, he decided to just lie down on the other side of the bed and try to get some sleep. So, that's what he did, and found that with Haruhi near him sleep came easy.

The next morning he was up before the girl, and could hear the music still playing in the ear buds, but they had fallen out sometime in the night, and were lying next to her head. He reached across the bed to retrieve the phone, and turn the music off. The device was nearing the end of its battery life, so he got up to find the charger. With the phone plugged in he turned to figure out what had him waking up so early. At finding that he had no idea, he just shrugged and decided to be grateful that he was awake first. He knew his own tendencies to be a real demon when he was woken up by someone else, and he decided that he did not want Haruhi to be victim to that.

He made his way to the bathroom, brushed his hair and his teeth, and made sure he was somewhat presentable before going back into the bedroom. When he exited the bathroom he noticed that Haruhi was sitting up, and that she was looking around slightly confused. He closed the door quietly and cleared his throat to announce his presence.

The girl's head whirled around and their eyes locked for a split second. She looked down and went slightly red in the face. "Kyoya-senpai… why am I still in your room?"

"Well, Haruhi, you fell asleep here last night during to storm, listening to music on my phone." Realization dawned on her features, and she blushed a slightly darker shade of red.

"So I slept with you last night?" Kyoya chuckled at her choice of words and approached the bed.

"Well, you could say that. But I promise all we did was sleep, there was no romance involved."

"That's not what I meant, and you know it." Kyoya watched her turn even more red and chuckled at her again. He didn't know she could get so flustered from the thought of something so human and as normal as sex. Well, he supposed it wasn't normal for a sixteen year old girl, but it was still human, so it was something that Kyoya thought would not even faze the young girl. She hadn't reacted to it like this last night when he had threatened to actually do it. He wondered what had changed. Consent, maybe?

"Well, regardless, it's getting late, and we need to leave soon. You should pack, and we will meet everyone out front. Sound good?" The girl nodded and got up from the bed. She walked passed him to the door, and just before opening it, she turned back to the raven.

"Thank you, senpai. Thank you for helping me last night." Kyoya turned half way around to look at her and nodded a 'you're welcome' before she opened the door and disappeared into the hallway to go to her own room, leaving Kyoya with nothing but his own thoughts.

He supposed then that he wouldn't be able to stay in the shadows with her much longer now. She had him figured, and he knew he couldn't hide from her now. He was officially in the race to win her heart, along with Tamaki and Hikaru, who already had feelings for her, and a head start, but Kyoya knew that if he wanted to win, he would have to take a different approach than everyone else. He didn't want to see her roll her eyes at him from annoyance. He would just have to take it one step at a time, while remaining in the shadows with everyone else, but bringing himself to light for her and only her.