Ouran- Fragments No. 13

BRANDED

Ten minutes after the interrogator left, the door opens. A long shadow extends to the table, covering her. She doesn't look up. His cupped hands slide to the middle of the table, into her line of sight. There are visible callouses. So far, no words have been spoken, but the silence is not oppressive. Actually, Haruhi could happily keep it going all night, if only because she's dreading what she's about to face.

"You wanted to see me?"

Haruhi shuts her eyes. He sounds as cool, detached and unlike himself as he did two nights ago. She takes a deep, cleansing breath and lifts her head.

"Hello, Tamaki."

His only reaction is a more pronounced frown. Haruhi's heart started pounding in her ears the second the words were out. His lack of response makes it worse. She feels like a gaping hole is forming in her stomach. He makes to stand.

"If that's all you wanted to say-"

"Wait."

He stops, halfway out of his chair. They stare at each other. He doesn't seem any more willing to look away than she does, but she can't imagine he feels the same anxiety. She has been planning this since that doctor's visit yesterday. In lieu of sleep, she dreamed about what she would say to him and how she would say it. She knew she could get him in to see her if she tried hard enough. That Uragiru fellow didn't like her at all, not that she was fond of him either. She thought he would jump at the chance to pass her off to someone else, and she'd been right. Well, mostly right. He had tried for a little while to get through to her, only to give up after two attempts. He must be so relieved right now.

Haruhi had been too, before Tamaki had actually shown up. Seeing him again brought back everything from two nights ago like furious punches delivered by unforgiving fists. Sunlight streams through the window and bathes him in light. It makes him look bigger, even as he sits down and puts them at relatively equal height. The longer hair hadn't been imagined either. There are little untamed bits framing his face, but mostly it was tied back tight with a plain rubber band. This was the oddest part of his new appearance. The well-groomed Tamaki Suoh she remembers would be appalled if he saw this. Not that the man before he was dirty in any way. Other than the hair, his clothes are clean and properly worn and his face unblemished. He has more mature features, and if nothing else, he has to have retained his popularity with women. Physically, he's been very lucky. Hikaru comes to mind and it shakes her. She pushes it away. She can't afford this right now.

"Well?" Tamaki's voice cuts through her train of thought. Haruhi realizes now that she's been staring.

"I wanted to tell you a story," she says. She keeps completely even in her words and her posture, so there can't possibly be anything upsetting enough that he would leave her.

"A story," he repeats flatly.

Haruhi doesn't falter. "You may already know it. It's about a private school for rich kids. There were a group of students who formed a Host Club, and they would entertain the girls who came to visit them, all in their own different ways."

His eyebrows went all the way up when she mentioned the Host Club, but otherwise, he is still.

"What most people didn't know was that one of the members was actually a girl. She was the only student not from a wealthy family. She got in on a scholarship, and she had joined the club after accidentally breaking an antique vase worth eight million yen."

Tamaki whistles.

"But what I really want to talk about is the Club's president."

Haruhi pauses to breathe, and quickly regrets it. Tamaki's face turns stony and he rolls his eyes contemptuously.

"Let me guess, his name was Tamaki, right?"

Haruhi's toes curl from the harshness in his tone. The way he says his own name, like it means nothing, makes her throat feel like it's constricting, in the worst possible way. He might as well have just choked her.

"He started the club," Haruhi goes on. She will not let him push her down. "He was the son of the school's chairman and he'd spent the first years of his life in France with his mother. His parents couldn't marry because of his mother's health and because his Grandmother wouldn't allow it. She made him move to Japan so he might become the heir to his family's fortune. He started the club because-"

"What do you plan to accomplish with this?"

The interruption came as a surprise when it shouldn't have. Haruhi blinks at the floor, and know immediately why she didn't see it coming: she had stupidly looked away from him. Worse yet, she had looked down at the floor. How much more weak-willed could you get than that? He's leaning back now, glancing above her every now and then for no reason, and Haruhi wonders if there's a clock up there somewhere that she's missed.

"I just think you should hear this," she answers.

"Right, because you think I'm this Tamaki guy of yours," he says. Then he places his hands in his lap and stands up. He walks around the table, spending much more time behind her than in front. Haruhi makes sure to meet his eyes whenever she can, even as he continues talking. "I guess you're thinking you can recite random facts at me until something rings a bell. I'm sorry I interrupted, by the way. Why don't you tell me his shoe size next?"

On the seventh lap, he breaks pattern by walking ahead of her. His hands are clasped behind his back, accentuating his broad shoulders and the all too assured way he carries himself. The sunlight shines against the metal strapped to his back. Haruhi's heart beats faster. She thinks it's a sword at first, but it's too small and not shaped right (as far as she knows). However, it's too big to be a knife. Just seeing it bothers her, whatever it is. Tamaki must notice her whitening skin out the corner of his eye. He turns his head, curiosity piqued.

"What now?" he asks- more like demands really. When Haruhi doesn't answer, but to flick her gaze one more involuntary time the blade's way, Tamaki's eyes widen. "Oh, so you like it?"

He reaches over his shoulder to pull the blade from its sheath. It looks somehow bigger now that she can see it with her own eyes.

"It's a machete," he tells her. He expertly waves it through the air above her head; the light gleaming off of it leaves her momentarily blinded. Her eyes clear just in time for her to see the eerie smile spreading across his face. "Do you want to know how I got it? Or how to use it? Or how many throats I've slit with it?"

Haruhi swallows. 'He's bluffing,' she tells her herself. 'He's bluffing, he's bluffing, he's bluffing.'

Tamaki purses his lips and lowers the weapon. "Hm… I didn't think so."

He returns it to its proper place. Haruhi almost sighs with relief, and though she doesn't, he looks decidedly smug.

"Look, we can keep playing this game all day long, and we won't get anywhere." He goes back to sitting- lounging really- with his legs crossed over each other. His hand on his chin, he studies her wordlessly, for enough time that Haruhi's steel resolve starts to crack. It's not so much the hardness of the eyes on her. Like always, it's just that it's Tamaki.

"How long did I supposedly live in France?" he asks suddenly.

"Fourteen years," says Haruhi at once. "You were born there."

He snorts. "I was born and raised in a country I've never been to. I see."

"I know that it's you, Tamaki. I don't know what's happened to you, but-"

"Nothing has happened to me," he says, his voice going dangerously low. "Nothing at all, Fujioka, because I don't know you."

Haruhi bites her tongue. What she wants to say, she can't say, because there is too much at risk right now and she won't give him any reason to leave her. She has a feeling the silent treatment won't work so well next time.

Tamaki throws away all intimidation now, thankfully. His face and body language soften, though Haruhi remains on edge.

He leans in close. "Moving on to matters of actual import, I think it's clear you're not working with the others. You're the third person in a little over a week to try and break in, including your cellmate back there. The first one killed the two men on guard, and the second injured another. You, on the other hand, don't lay a finger on anyone unprovoked. And then, of course, there's you little problem with delusions."

"I didn't want to hurt anyone," Haruhi says, choosing to ignore that last part for now. "I just wanted to go."

There is a pregnant pause.

"Is that so?" Tamaki asks, smirking slightly. He gets back up, and stands still behind his chair, looking down on her. Haruhi is quickly coming to hate that. "I want you to understand how imperative it is that we stay safe. As far as I know, this town is the only one left with anything resembling luxury. The wall surrounding us was there already, but over the years, we've fortified it. We do whatever is necessary to keep out bandits and other unsavory folk. There was a time when visitors were allowed in. Needless to say, that time has passed."

He waits for all that to sink in, and then continues.

"I recommend you behave for the next few days, Fujioka. Stay in your cell, do what Dr. Kosaka tells you, and eat the food you're given. If you continue to spit on our generosity by refusing it, I can easy oblige you and tell them to stop sending it."

He starts to walk away, but Haruhi isn't ready for him to leave yet. Not by a long shot. She has no idea what to say, though. Everything she'd planned and rehearsed, he cut down before it even got out of her mouth. Little by little, negativity eats away at her. How can this possibly be him? Tamaki would have never acted this way. That's where Haruhi leaves it. She knows how that thought is going to end and she will erect a brick wall in her mind if it means keeping it at bay. No matter how he acts or what he calls himself, his is a face permanently imprinted in her mind, every inch of it.

It just has to be him.

"Tamaki," Haruhi whispers. She's not exactly calling out to him, but he hears it anyway.

"And that's another thing," he says, turning around. He looks at her with that freezing gaze again. "My name is Kaito, understand? Not Tamaki, Kaito. Kaito-sama to you."

Haruhi meets him with all the stoicism she can muster. He will not get to her.

"I'm not finished yet," she says.

"We'll see."

Haruhi doesn't watch him go.

**

Back at her cell, Haruhi lays flat on the ground, on her uninjured cheek. Her time is spent rolling around a circular gray stone she's found. She flicks it too hard and it flies through the bars and into the next, darkened cell. She hears it clatter to a stop as she rolls over onto her back. The moon is out again, but the sky is not as pitch black as should be. Something crackles outside and when she concentrates, she hears talking right out the window as the steadily thickening coil of smoke rises to the sky.

A bonfire, huh? The last time Haruhi saw one of those, it was during her summer stay in Karuizawa. Tamaki had suggested it…

Haruhi closes her eyes. Sleep won't come, but it's easier for her to see things other than his face when there is no light. It's not late enough for that anyway, unfortunately. She's pretty sure dinner is about to be delivered, unless Tamaki has chosen to make good on his 'promise' to bar her from it. A darkly humorous part of her thinks she's going to get nothing but a steaming cup of instant coffee. Then Tamaki will burst into the room, stars in his eyes and squealing exuberantly as he pulls her into his arms and tells her it's all been just an awful prank and that he's missed her so much and will never let her go or get hurt again.

Hell, maybe she will fall asleep, and wake up in the Third Music Room, still sixteen years old and with the last ten years having been nothing but a vivid dream. Everything and everyone in her life would be safe and sane and completely whole.

Wouldn't it be nice?

The food cart arrives. There is only one tray, and two men Haruhi has never seen before follow on its tail. Haruhi sits up abruptly, but then the man with the food makes a beeline for her, while his companions open the cage and pull out the bearded man. For once, he is fully conscious, and completely silent. The man with the foot cart is the same one Haruhi attacked. He doesn't look worse for the wear, but he gives Haruhi a hateful glare and kicks the food tray at her. A few loose bits of sliced apple fall into the dirt. Haruhi isn't concerned, about that or him. She watches the bearded man get pulled into a standing position and led out the door. It looks like it's finally his turn to be questioned. What took them so long?

Haruhi picks at her food. There is a pile of blackberries mixed in with what remains of the apple. A pretty meager fruit salad, but Haruhi's stomach is growling. The first bite proves to be fresh. It reminds Haruhi of how long it's been since she ate anything so good (or at all) and she devours it like a ravenous animal. Her stomach whines a little more when it's all gone. She kicks the dirt covered bit of apple away before she gets that desperate.

It's been a while since they took the other guy; an hour perhaps, maybe more. The solitude is in equal parts soothing and suffocating. She has all the time she needs to reflect, which would be great if she actually wanted to. It gets to the point where she almost misses that man and his disjointed ramblings waking her up all night. It must be fun trying to get answers from him.

A door slams in the distance, but that doesn't alarm her. Little sounds like that -voices, footsteps, the occasional banging- they're not uncommon. Knowing that it's from people who seem really, truly happy with their lives is a comforting thought. It would be even better if she could join them, her and all of her loved ones: happy, sane and whole.

Following the door, there are voices. Both are male and they are getting too loud too fast. They're arguing about something, Haruhi realizes with a frown. What a way to kill the mood.

There might be another man with them, but if there is, he's too quiet for her to make out properly, or even be sure that he's real at all. What little is clear to her is cryptic at best. Phrases like, 'unreal,' 'should have used the light,' and 'you're right about that at least,' mean nothing to her. Regardless, the way their words morph into startled cries and something like a gunshot cracks in the air tell Haruhi everything she needs to know. They start shouting.

"Dammit, not again!" someone says near her door.

A crazed laugh precedes an anguished scream and then several sickening thuds on the brick wall. Someone else starts yelling, heavy with expletives and then there is another shot fired. A single name is called over and over again. Haruhi strains to make it out while trying to push her face through the bars. It's not clear to her how she came be standing here when she could've sworn she was sitting a moment ago. The pounding of blood in her things is making everything a little unclear. Outside, there is more laughter, and voices that are getting louder, and closer, and angrier. Someone else screams in pain, another person curses. A newcomer approaches now, and the ceasing of his steps coincides with that horrible laughter cutting off. It is replaced by choking.

The door is thrown open.

Haruhi backs away as her cellmate is thrown into the middle of the room before her. He is more awake and alert than ever. He crawls backwards on his behind, palming sharp stone and shards of broken glass that cut into his skin and leave a trail of blood. It's nothing compared to the amount soaking his shirt and face. His breaths are shallow. An odd laugh slips free more than once, even though it's clear nothing is funny to him anymore. Looking at the man bearing down on him, Haruhi can't blame him, and she is just as terrified.

Tamaki is stone-faced, even those eyes of his say nothing. He needs no more than two strides of his long legs to get to the man, and corner him completely. As if he needed any more help in that, four or five men arrive to flank him. One is also covered in blood, but Haruhi doubts it's his and unlike Tamaki, he wears his rage on his sleeves, and in the angry tears slipping passed his cheeks.

The bearded man looks out at all of them, a maniacal grin frozen on his face. Tamaki has his machete in hand and it is brilliant, even in the growing darkness.

"I hope you realize what you've just done."

His words are low enough to be a whisper, and full of terrible promise. Haruhi has to force herself not to look away, and her struggle goes unnoticed by all.

"Hehehehehe…" the bearded man can't seem to stop himself anymore. "Hehehe- you're fun. You're really fun. I've had fun today."

He continues chortling pathetically, and puts his hands on his head, pulling at wispy hair like he's trying to rip his scalp in half. If possible, Tamaki's eyes go smaller.

"He might not make it," he says. "Those wounds were deep."

"Real deep," the bearded agrees. "Yeah… last guy I did that to didn't last an hour. And if you think that's bad… just wait 'til Ryuuga gets ahold of you, Kaito-sama."

Tamaki hums. "Funny. That's the most you've said all day."

"I don't like to talk," the man violently shakes his head. "Too hard… too much thinking. I just like to do, you know?"

He carelessly laughs a little longer, but it finally dies away when Tamaki lifts the blade to his face. Haruhi's breathing stops.

"H-hey there!" the bearded man says. "Why're ya doing that?"

Tamaki doesn't answer. A few of the men nod at him in anticipation. The one with the blood on him smiles for the very first time.

"Come on! Come on, we're having fun here, aren't we? I didn't mean to hurt that guy, he just got in my way! Can't we talk? I- I didn't mean it, really!"

"I know," Tamaki says with finality. "I understand perfectly."

The bearded man's next plea comes out as a gurgle. The blade penetrates his neck and digs deep, deep down until the point comes out the other way. Blood spurts out all over the place, showering Tamaki's front and most of his neck in deep red. Another few drops ricochet onto his chin. He seems to notice none of this. He withdraws the knife and flicks spare droplets into the air. The bearded man falls on his shoulder, life blood pouring from his wound in both directions.

"Just… you wait…" he rasps. "Ryuuga will… get… you… kill… you…"

He falls silent and still, and then it's over. Haruhi breathes in; it like the first breath she's ever taken. Her whole body is shaking with adrenaline. It's all she can do to keep filling and emptying her lungs until it stops. Meanwhile, Tamaki still holds his knife aloft. He examines the stains distastefully.

"Now I'll have to clean it again," he says.

He wipes off a little more with his glove before putting it away. His men surround the body. The bearded man is carried off like a sack of garbage. The bloodied man is the last to leave, and he bows to Tamaki first, murmuring a thank you. Soon, it's just her and Tamaki, but he doesn't appear to have stayed behind for her. He only addresses her when he's at the door.

"Looks like you have your own room now, Fujioka," he says.

Haruhi opens her mouth. She has no words, and what comes out is more like a cry or a gasp. Tamaki turns around, growling in annoyance.

"What is it?"

Some of that horrible ice has melted off, but she still can't stand to have him look at her this way. There is no point in denying anymore that she's afraid. Afraid of him. It's as painful as it is true.

He starts walking- back to her. Haruhi's good sense screams at her to get as far away as she can. She doesn't listen to it. Alone and behind bars, there is nowhere she can go anyway. He stops and leans over, hands on the bars. His lips curve up with a little teeth showing, and it makes them look sharp. He must be enjoying this.

"Let me guess," he says silkily. "Tamaki would never have done this."

Haruhi cannot answer that, and he probably doesn't want her to. He waits all of three seconds before moving. Walking away, he stretches his arms all the way out in different directions.

"But I suppose it's for the best that you saw that," he says amid relaxed sighs. "Hopefully it's enough to disillusion you."

Haruhi closes her eyes. She wants him to leave now, and if she can't say it, she'll make him feel it as much as possible. After what just happened, it would be so nice to believe him, to believe that he is right and she is wrong. He's not Tamaki, he never was. He's just some monstrous stranger with his face and she's been too long living with only her memories of him to know the difference. She clings onto a fantasy so she can believe that he's still alive. It's a miserable thought that gives her solace all the same.

His vicious little smile has lost most of its bite by the time he leaves. He must be bored already. Tamaki- Kaito- whoever he is, he takes his leave now. He has his hair up again, as Haruhi sees when his back is to her. It's gathered at the nape and shows the bare expanse of his neck, the only clean bit of naked skin left. Nothing mars it except a little, circular dot that is too dark in color to be blood. Haruhi zeros in on it, her stomach going tight as if an ice cold hand is twisting it around.

"Sorry, Senpai. There's a little bit left on your neck that won't come off."

"That must be my birthmark you're scrubbing at. It's definitely not chocolate."

"Oh, I never noticed that before."

"Really? I've always had it."

So then it's true.

She was right.

He was wrong.

Tamaki leaves her alone in this cell. Tamaki speaks to a man outside the door and tells him to stand guard just in case. Tamaki stood before her not one minute ago and once again denied his true name.

Tamaki just killed a man without remorse while she watched.

Haruhi's whole body weakens. It's becoming depressingly common, but there is nothing she can do about it. She lets herself fall and lay down. There is no more singing to disturb her sleep. Maybe she'll get a full night's rest tonight.

Maybe her wish will come true, and she'll wake up in the Third Music Room again, with all of them standing around her like the wonderful idiots they used to be, and this will all have just been a horrible, horrible dream.

**

The man behind the desk runs a little shop in a rotting building along a destroyed strip of buildings. Despite all of that, they are somehow still inhabited, and so here he is. Calling what he has a 'shop' isn't really accurate since he never makes any money, but who does anymore? The most he hopes for is bartering, or another lucky find on one of his scavenging expeditions. Sometimes, people come with a specific need or purpose in mind, they just want someone to talk to. That's what he thought about his latest visitor at first, because he had nothing in his hands except a neatly folded piece of white paper.

The man examines the drawing. It's not really the best way to go about searching for someone, but he can't hold it against this guy. It's the only way these days. At least there are distinctive features in this sketch. It helps him pinpoint exactly how much he can help his visitor.

"I've never seen this guy before in my life," he says, passing the picture back. "The most I can do for you is give you some beans for the road. I found a proverbial treasure trove of canned goods the other day in somebody's bomb shelter. Most of it was still good too."

The visitor's one eye blinks at him. He folds the paper along the creases until it's the size of a matchbox. He slides it back in his pocket.

"You're absolutely certain?" he asks neutrally.

'He's definitely done this before,' the man thinks. Honestly, he'd like this guy to leave now. As a rule, he never trusts anyone with parts missing, even if it's just an eye. They must have crossed somebody to get that kind of treatment. That's the last thing the man needs in his shop, to be associated with some troublemaker, even if just for a few seconds of one day.

"I'm sure," he answers, and nods once as a way to dismiss him without actually saying anything that rude. The visitor understands perfectly.

Somehow, though, the man is curious.

"Why are you trying to find him anyway?"

The visitor doesn't stop or turn back around. He's finished his business here and now it's useless to him. The man knows the type; he's never liked them either.

"It's extremely important that I find him as soon as possible," the visitor answers vaguely. "He's an old friend of mine."