The Smile of a Shadow

Chapter 5

As Kyoya laid in his queen-sized bed, he gazed out the window on his right and groaned as the sun was nowhere to be seen; the digital clock on his small bedside table read three o'clock. He slowly sat up as he stretched and immediately reached for his glasses before grabbing a baggy grey shirt from his clothes drawer and trudged out of the bedroom. He stared absently at the television, the images whizzed by without being absorbed into the boy's brain, until Kaoru's voice from their last phone call floated gently into his mind. Staring intently at his phone, he searched the nearest fashion event taking place nearby and the search results revealed Vogue Japan's logo and magazine cover, but he was pleased to see the Hitachiin brand logo as one of the most popular brands being showcased. Kyoya could feel a slight warmth warm his chest as he thought of how embarrassed Kaoru must have been when he mentioned the fashion show and he chuckled quietly. While the young Ootori couldn't deny that he felt jealous of the twins to some degree because of the certainty that they would inherit the family company without familial competition, but he also felt proud of the twins as they continued to progress as two separate individuals within their own lives and still maintain a close connection with each other. Even so, Kaoru had mentioned his worries of losing his twin, but Kyoya knew all too well that they couldn't live apart from each other for very long whether they liked it or not. They were brothers after all.

The young Ootori took out his laptop and returned to the unfinished finance spreadsheet, inputting the newly suggested trip ideas from the one and only King of the Host Club into the column of 'not going to happen'. He created the list idea so the Hosts could include their suggestions without telling him directly since that got annoying pretty quickly at the beginning; Tamaki who had the most ideas for their club endeavors.

Why does he keep insisting on going to places outside Japan when he knows that Haruhi doesn't have a passport? What an idiot. Kyoya chuckled quietly but then paused as he noticed a suggestion made by Kaoru. A festival. So this is why he suggested going to one next week, though I'm pretty sure he said that he just wanted to hang out. So why would he suggest it as a club activity as well? Maybe he just wanted to avoid Hikaru for some reason. A feeling of disappointment washed over him, but he quickly dismissed it as he added it to the 'affordable' section. 

Within a couple of hours, he completed the final touches, glanced at his phone and yawned. Time had passed quickly and it was soon reaching six-thirty in the morning, yet his body begged for more sleep. But before he could lay down and shut his eyes, his small blue cell phone blared with an upbeat and bouncy ringtone that could only mean one person.

"Yes, Tamaki?"

"Kyoya! Mon ami! We should go see Haruhi today since it's Sun-"

"Sorry Tamaki, but I have plans today so I cannot go along with your charade to annoy Haruhi at this time. Why don't you be a big boy and go by yourself."

"But Kyoya!" Tamaki whined, extending the 'A' in his best friend's name, "I can't go by myself! It should be a club excursion to see our cute Haruhi...we could even go to the commoner's supermarket!"

Kyoya rubbed his forehead in frustration and removed his glasses. "Look, I'm really not in the mood for this, so please just find someone else to go with you."

Tamaki went silent for a few seconds before piping up again, "Okay, Kyoya." Then the line went dead.

Kyoya dismissed Tamaki's usual abruptness and placed his phone beside his glasses on the small table before falling back on his bed. Unfortunately, when he woke up several hours later, he was no longer in his own bed. Kyoya felt extremely disoriented and quickly sat up as he tried to find his bearings. The room was about ten times smaller than his own; decorated with cream wallpaper and pastel pink curtains that covered the small square-sized window beside the young Ootori. The bed had shrunk from his own queen bed down to a single that had been squeezed into the far corner across the sliding doors that led somewhere else in the unknown space. Within the tiny room, there was a small dresser beside the door with an uncovered wig stand and a mass amount of makeup materials that covered the surface and a tall mirror stood beside it. Kyoya glanced downward at his shirtless body, but noticed a crumpled shirt laying on the floor.