Me and My Husband

Kyoya's smile is starting to fall, you note. In this little room, you shift on the leather couch next to your husband, the marriage counsellor's stare feels intrusive suddenly, as if she's taking note — well she is, it's her job to — of every move you both make, every move that only seeks to reveal the divide between the two of you despite being husband and wife.

Husband and wife.

It's an interesting term, you muse in your head, considering that the title is emptier than the space between Tamaki's head. There is little love in your marriage, mutual respect perhaps, but the union was one that was made for progressing your respective family businesses.

You had known that you would one day marry Kyoya since you were young, the same way you knew the sky was blue, the same way you knew your husband's hair was black, although in recent years, sparse white hairs had started to sprout, lacing his dark hair with signs of age.

"So how have things gone since the last session Mrs Ootori?"

Ah Mrs Ootori. That's you isn't it? You're Kyoya's wife before you're human. Kyoya's wife before any of your achievements. That's the reality of a married woman you suppose, your husband is seen before you are.

You put on a smile, and it's the smile you put on when someone in public asks you for directions. "Me and my husband? We are doing better," you say, because that's all you can say. How can you tell an outsider that you feel like you barely recognise the man you grew up with? How can you tell an outsider that the marriage bed feels more and more like you're sleeping on the edge of a cliff without a safety harness? How can you tell an outsider about the things that are supposed to be something solved inside?

The edges of Kyoya's lips quirk up with some emotion you can't recognise. But as his hand moves to wrap around your waist and pull you closer to his side, rewarding you with the affection you crave of him, you know you've done well.

"It's as my wife says, we are doing better," he smiles forwardly as you look up at him.

"That's good, I'm glad you've been progressing," she says, before scribbling something down, perhaps yet another commentary on the half-lies that spill out of both your mouths, an attempt to end these sessions that Tamaki and Haruhi insisted that the two of you go for.

You've lost Kyoya.

You feel like a fool. You had walked into the party, holding onto his arm, smiling curtly to the people you needed to smile to. It felt amazing for a while, maybe the counselling sessions had progressed, perhaps they had fixed something, then Tamaki had called out your husbands name joyously, his faint french accent curling around Kyoya's name in a way that yours could not.

And then your husband had unlinked your hands, heading straight for his friend, and leaving you behind, ever the fool.

You curl in on yourself, the makeup on your face, that Kyoya insisted you put on, has started to feel like paint, heavy and cloying, clogging the pores of your sensitive skin. People do not approach you, they give you a wide berth, even as your breaths begin to run ragged, as you spiral into a cycle of self-destructive thoughts. Of course they do. Everyone here has been born with a silver spoon in their mouth, and they are determined to die with a silver spoon in their mouth.

They care little for the hyperventilating wife of Kyoya Ootori, who holds nothing but their husband's title to their name. The hyperventilating wife of Kyoya Ootori, who runs both his own company and his wife's. They have no reason to help you, not when it is your husband who pulls all the strings.

God you need air, you need it. You can't breathe-

Your name is called, snapping you out of the haze.