Intimate Refraction [Ouran Host Club Kyoya]

Chocolate Chip of Bribery

Yoshio Ootori was one of the most influential and wealthy men of Japan. He was a man that respected order and procedure, all of the Ootori corporation working as an efficient bureaucratic machine was a homage to that respect. Everything had it's place and should remain where it was assigned. 

He acknowledged that he could simply walk into any fine dining establishment and request a table, but he followed the procedure of always diligently asking one of his assistants to make a reservation. Board meetings always started right on the dot, not a minute before and not a minute after. Every minuet detail from the type of pen he used on official documents to how his mail was presented to him followed rules and procedures. This attention to detail helped build the Ootori name into what it is today, it was known as a trait that not only the company possessed but the Ootoris themselves.

For all of Yoshio Ootori's children were astute to some degree that mirrored there father. Yuuichi set the tone for his siblings, achieving top marks and setting a high bar. While Fuyumi matched her elder siblings grades she turned her attention to detail elsewhere, her mind always focused on obtaining perfection in the arts. Her countless awards and a reprisal role of being the prima ballerina not once but twice at the most elite ballet school for minors in Japan made that abundantly clear. Akito fell nothing short of the bar set from his older siblings. He too climbed to top marks in education, his decision to focus on business rather than medical brilliance like the eldest son. Already he had passed through one masters program achieving an MBA, the process of obtaining another and plans to proceed onward to a doctorate level were nothing but exceptional. The youngest of the Ootoris was often given sympathetic glances for these reasons.

For he had siblings who had achieved so much already in life when he was still learning to walk. Time, that was the curse of a disadvantage that Kyoya Ootori had been born with. He was brilliant sure, nothing less than exceptional just like all of the Ootori children were, but was that ever going to be enough? Kyoya was cursed to forever play a game of catch up it seemed, aimlessly sprinting after the backs of his siblings. By the time he achieved one goal their age had already allowed them to achieve two more, it seemed like a unwinnable game of tag.

He was the fourth child, the third son. Medical expertise accomplished by Yuuichi, social grace had blessed Fuyumi, an astute mind of business to Akito-what was left for Kyoya? To work under one of his brothers maybe? It was a questioned that had tugged at Yoshio Ootoris mind for quite some time. For everything had an assigned place, even his children. He needed a plan for Kyoya's future, Harvard was the next step.

It hadn't come as a surprise to Yoshio when he glanced over the list of Universities his son had applied to. His other children had all furthered their education within Japan, of course there was many study abroad opportunities, but all of them had degrees from the finest of Japan's Universities. Kyoya though had branched out substantially. Harvard, Cambridge, there were of course Japanese institutions as well, but he knew his youngest had no intention of attending those.

Kyoya didn't want to settle on his education, the boy never wanted to settle on anything. You would think being the youngest he would understand the assigned role that was to be expected of him, but he had quite adamantly fought against the constraints that Yoshio had perceived to be the handicap of being the youngest. Instead Kyoya had surprised him time and time again.

He could have skipped a grade, maybe two, Suoh had told him as much himself. What did his son say when he informed him?

'I don't believe that would be a wise decision, father'

Thirteen year old Kyoya had then gone on to explain how it was better for him to remain within his current grade. How it would give him a chance to better socialize with those in his class, to become acquainted further with his class mates and make connections with them for the future. He wasn't naive, he recognized that many of those in his grade would go on to become CEOs of companies the Ootoris did business with. Yoshio accepted his decision, he respected it. It was a well thought move, he could have closed the gap by a year or two to his siblings but instead he was thinking ahead for the long term-which brought him back to his current predicament.