how to love . ootori

v.

She couldn't stand to think about Kyoya.

Not because he'd done anything particularly bad to her the night they almost danced, but because he hadn't. This confused her, because even if he was being nice to her on occasion, his courtesy was always disguised by varying degrees hostility and sarcasm.

Nagako asked him to dance in mid-Spring (although the blossoms only just began to bloom) half as a joke and the other half out of boredom, but hadn't entirely expected him to say yes. It was clear that he wasn't anticipating this, either, and didn't quite know what he was doing when his head bobbed obediently up and down and the one word left his lips.

She remembered them meandering towards the dance floor, a nervous trace of a smile playing at the corners of her mouth. If Kyoya felt anything at all, he didn't show it, and led her with a small sort of tranquility.

His hand wasn't soft in the way she expected, but he had no callouses and the complexion of a boy who hadn't worked a day in his life.

"I don't know how to do this." She admitted seconds after his fingers danced upon her waist, "I don't know why I even asked you to, I- I should probably go back and play for the res-"

"Forgive me for saying so," he interrupted, as he tended to do, "But you didn't look as if you were enjoying yourself much up there, anyways." She bit her lip when he grinned, realizing that he probably enjoyed guessing these things correctly.

"It's not..." She started, and said something that even Kyoya Ootori couldn't have predicted, "It's not about me enjoying myself, Ootori-san. But thank you." His grip on her side, once firm, slackened when she guided herself away from him. Nothing was going to keep her there. "I ought to go back over to the podium and do my job."

It was when Nagako began to walk away from him- her posture awkward and stiff in the dress, much fancier than she was used to- that his body stopped acting on its own accord. His hand felt a magnetic attraction to her arm, lifting before he could do anything about it, and held her wrist light enough to let her know it was there, but still giving the chance to pull away.

She turned around, slowly, to look at him. Like he just touched a hot stove, Kyoya's hand shot backwards. "I understand." He said, slowly. "If you'd change your mind in the future, I wouldn't mind waiting."

And waiting is precisely what he did.

He waited until the party drew to a dull close, and even a bit after (although he mainly stuck around to help clean up), but it didn't come as surprise to either of them when the clock struck way late and she hadn't made any move towards him. It was a stupid notion to being with, they both knew, and perhaps it was only the mood of the night and the faint scent of cherry blossoms that drew them together.

And when she walked home alone, away from the constantly dimming lights of Ouran Academy, the spell broke. Everything, for the most part, was to go back to the way things were.

But something in Nagako wasn't okay with this something going back to nothing. As much as she admired normalcy as a principle unattainable to her, for once in her life, she didn't want the routine that came with it.

Because Kyoya Ootori, no matter how much he'd try to be, was definitely not normal.

Hours of thinking became days and days became weeks, until eventually Nagako couldn't think of what brought her to take the extra step with him. But the weeks cycled around again, and dancing was near the back of her mind, now, All she struggled to think of was practice.