☢｜tamaki x reader. 2,4k words. sorry this is so late i literally forgot to post it last week anw the next n final part is coming in 2 weeks while i work n post some other stuff hehehe
“mum?”
“yes, love?”
“how did you not lose it when you realised dad was going away for good?”
that was the first thing you’d asked your mum on a saturday morning after waving her good morning. needless to say, the woman was taken aback to hear this question from you. she knew her daughter never asked about her parents’ divorce, not wanting to dissect those wounds.
it took her some time to come up with a response.
“i had you to look after.” she lied, not looking at you and instead focusing on her cake. “you kept me going.”
“but how was i helping in that situation? wouldn’t i make it worse?” you pressed on. if there was one thing your mum knew about you, it was that you were weirdly emotionally intelligent for a teenage girl.
she frowned, putting down the fruit she was decorating her cake with, and sighed deeply. she didn’t like lying to you.
“well.” she inhaled, “your question is phrased wrong.” she finally looked you in the eye. “because i did lose it. but before i was too far gone, i got back up. i couldn’t have you suffer like i did.”
the conversation replayed over and over in your head for the following week back to school. you wondered if heartbreak ran in the family. while not knowing much about your parents’ separation, you knew your grandparents also had a bad history. maybe love was just something the gods didn’t want to bestow upon your bloodline.
tamaki’s visit had, surprisingly, not been very pleasant. partly because your sickness made you… well, sick, and partly because tamaki was distracted the whole time. he’d brought you commoners’ food (haruhi’s recommendation), along with some more commoner candy ‘to sweeten your mood’ (what haruhi’s dad would take to work, according to haruhi). oh, and of course, you can’t forget how he would glance at his phone every so often. you ignored it at first, figuring out it’s the host club group chat, but your patience had its limits.
he’d come to your house, to check up on your health - his friend. supposedly. had you already been demoted to client status? well, you had the entire week to think about it as you rested.
during that time, tamaki seemed to reach out a bit more than usual, and once more, you believed he cared. you believed he realised you were important to him, even if your feelings weren’t exactly reciprocated.
and once again you’d been wrong.
because as time passed and you started making weekly appointments again, you began to feel that something was off. what exactly it was you couldn’t tell, but your gut was telling you to be suspicious. ‘suspicious of what, or who? tamaki?’ you didn’t like that feeling one bit.
no matter how many times he screwed up and misunderstood or failed to satisfy you in a host-client setting, you couldn’t give up on him. your mum’s words echoed in your ears, reminding you that men are a waste of time, that they just suck the soul out of you, that they’re not worth the heartbreak — but you were weak. and especially weaker than your mother. she disagreed, of course, but what did she know?
time seemed to start flowing normally again, tamaki wasn’t distant, haruhi and you never spoke to exchange more than greeting words, and your obsession was flourishing once more. you’d shower the halfer with gifts, spending a stupid amount of money — which the host club’s “mum” greatly appreciated — and you didn’t regret it one bit. everything was going smoothly, except for that tiny voice in your head.
it wasn’t until one of the host club’s organised excursions at the beach when your gut proved to be right. you wore your favourite swimwear for tamaki, and his compliments became straight up electricity up your spine. and just as you went to flirt with him like always,
“yo milord don’t forget about y/n’s gift today!” a familiar voice echoed by the palm trees. you could immediately tell it was hikaru, but you didn’t really understand what he meant. ah! perhaps they were expecting you to bring tamaki a gift again? well, you did, but this one felt a bit more personal so maybe you should tell him not to talk about it with the hosts— “even if it’s something stupid again, you ought to thank her for—”
the twins emerged from the bushes only to see you standing by the corner, hidden by the wall from their previous view. tamaki stood there, next to you, frozen. his facial expression almost screaming at the ginger to shut up but he’d been too late.
you furrowed your eyebrows at the two boys before turning your head to that stupid boy you were head over heels for.
“what?” you asked, obviously confused. but it didn’t take long to understand the situation.
tamaki thought your gifts were stupid, and he discussed it with his friends. and none of them thought to tell you. at least that's what the situation told you.
for what reason? well it could be a) manners or b) they didn’t care enough to.
but jokes on you because it wasn’t any of the above, it was c) they had to keep you happy because your mother asked for a favour. the favour being to make sure tamaki didn’t abandon you.
well, that’s not exactly what tamaki said when he pulled you to the side to explain, but it’s what the twins confessed to when you started poking for the truth.
you were more than disappointed with the news, your gut feeling now transferring to your throat and making it so tight you couldn’t get any words out, so you returned to your beach bed, dragging it away from tamaki’s. but the universe seemed to really hate you that day.
“miss l/n, is everything okay?” haruhi’s ever-annoying voice reached your ears and all you wanted to do was turn around and strangle her small little neck until it snapped. it was her fault. it was because of her that the boy you swore would become your boyfriend before graduation would no longer be apart of that plan. her. her, that stupid bi—
“i’m fine haruhi.” you smiled at her and continued dragging your bed across the sand to get away from this madness. you didn’t bother with any formalities.
“do you need help? i could bring your things so you don’t—”
“for fuck’s sake will you shut up?!” you snapped, raising your voice at the host. she didn’t say anything, just nodding and bowing before leaving. thankfully nobody else had been around to witness the scene, or you would’ve been involved in ouran gossip. only gods know how tiresome that is.
tamaki didn’t come to talk to you after that, you wanted to believe he wanted to and the hosts told him to give you space, but at this point you gave up all hope. he wanted haruhi, some cross-dressing nobody, a commoner, and you could do nothing about it.
the bracelet you had in your bag stayed there, and there it would remain for the rest of your trip. you’re kind of glad you never got to give it to him, at least it saved you the embarrassment of possibly being ridiculed by a bunch of boys calling themselves “hosts” with no shame.
but you guessed you were the one who should be ashamed; for wanting a host — a man notorious for seeing women as bank accounts.
when you went back home, you didn’t talk to your mum about the twins’ confession. sure, you were angry, but you knew she just wanted you happy. as for tamaki, he’d texted you a couple times but you knew if you called him you’d just burst into tears, so you went straight to bed, not bothering to wash the sand and sea salt off your body.
—
the following month had been… weird. you didn’t bother dropping by the host club anymore. kyouya, expecting this, just sighed and deleted you from the list of clients. he didn’t think you’d come back again after the fiasco at the beach.
haruhi, however, felt bad for some reason. like, okay, yeah, you were a bit more than mean sometimes and yeah, you barely looked at her if not to glare at her to get lost, but you didn’t seem like a bad person. your affection toward tamaki seemed genuine, and your last interaction didn’t sit well with her. it wasn’t the usual glare, eye roll, scoff, avoidant gesture or whatever else you “greeted” her with. this time it seemed more hurt, more… defeated. and she was right. because you’d been defeated.
haruhi had won.
she didn’t know, but she didn’t have to. because at the end of the day, it was all one-sided. one-sided affection, and one-sided dispute.
the twins both had different reactions to this revelation. kaoru (being the emotionally intelligent one) felt guilty for not handling the situation better but hikaru (the… other one) told him not to bother, and that they did what they could. he’d miss having you around, but you were never super close to begin with.
as for tamaki, he didn’t really register what had happened at first. when his hosting routine started again but without you in it, his clients had some questions.
“is it true that you kicked l/n out of the host club?”
“i mean what did you expect, she had it coming after harassing haruhi like that.”
“yeah, i agree. i mean, i understand some jealousy, but wasn’t that a bit too much? it’s not like tamaki’s her boyfriend.”
“i don’t think she was too harsh, but i guess the hosts know better…”
tamaki didn’t know what to make of this. he’d never kicked you out of the club, he thought you’d come back. you always did. if you were jealous, all you had to do was say you wanted more attention and he’d give it it to you. after all, you were a client, you had every right.
wait, what was that?
“whatever do you mean, princess?” he questioned in that melodic voice of his. “haruhi and y/n are on perfectly good terms, we’re all friends here!” he smiled widely and sat his cup down, using his pinky to erase the klank! noise.
“come on tamaki, you don’t have to keep such appearances around us.” one of the clients giggled. “we could all see it. to be honest, i never really noticed her much until haruhi came around.”
another girl continued, “yeah, totally. i hope it wasn’t a repeat of anayokoji, at least.” she rolled her eyes. “she seemed nice… such a shame.”
“i… don’t understand, ladies. what are you saying?” tamaki looked puzzled. the four girls looked back at him and at each other. it was times like these that tamaki showed he was a little dumb.
“tamaki… l/n is totally into you. she’s, like, super jealous of haruhi.”
tamaki didn’t know what to do with this information. he was pretty annoyed when kaoru made fun of him for not noticing until now. and really, he didn’t notice. he was told.
“why do you think our mums got involved? this is what the female sex calls ‘girl issues’, sir.”
tamaki resisted biting their heads off; he had no time for their bullshit. he had to meet with you and apologise, right?
y/n>.< : y/n? can we talk please?
you didn’t respond. neither to that, nor to the other 10 messages he spammed you with. calling you sent him straight to voicemail, and he swore if he heard that damn automatic message voice again he would explode.
why did it happen this way? why were you even jealous of haruhi? did he look gay to you? but then you wouldn’t want him, right? his head was filled with so many questions, until haruhi answered them all with a single sentence.
“don’t sulk too much senpai, it was inevitable that she’d find out about me and get suspicious.” she patted his shoulder, “i guess that’s what happens when you’re a popular boy surrounded by women.”
tamaki’s head rose from his knees, his eyes wide staring at haruhi’s. “wait, what do you mean ‘she’d find out about you’?”
haruhi sighed and sent him a look of pity. “oh yeah, you guys don’t know. y/n’s known about my sex for a while now.” she shrugged. “she saw me changing.”
a light bulb went off in most of the hosts’ heads (wait, i’ve seen this before) before they all glanced at each other in mutual understanding.
“i wish we would’ve gotten closer since we’re both girls and you’re so obsessed with me having female friends, but i would feel horrible if i made her feel sad whenever she’s around me.” haruhi continued.
oh, so he didn’t look gay, you just knew haruhi was also a girl.
but why would you get jealous of his little girl? he was just protecting her like a father would.
“oh will you stop with that crap, milord?” hikaru whined “we all know, there’s no point in denying it anymore.” he stopped when his brother slapped him on the head and they left the room.
“well, club activity’s over. we’ll see you guys tomorrow.” they all waved goodbyes and soon enough so did haruhi, but tamaki just sat on the club couch, thinking about his (very) recent discovery.
so he came to the conclusion:
you like(d?) him → he likes (???) haruhi → you realised and grew jealous → he prioritised her over you → he ended up looking like an asshole.
because he is an asshole.
“guess that’s what happens when you’re just too pretty.” he joked to himself, but he had a feeling you wouldn’t find it funny if you were here.
“mum, why did you and dad divorce?” you finally found the courage to ask the woman when she was relaxing in her bedroom one night. she sighed and looked at you, putting her book to the side and patting the spot on the bed next to her. you got in, looking at her expectantly.
“i didn’t want to tell you this because you were so young. you looked up to him very much.” she gave you a sad smile and caressed your cheek. “your father fell in love with someone else, darling.”
you stayed quiet for a bit, and your mum grew worried. should she not have told you?
“is that why you asked tamaki not to leave me?” you asked and your voice cracked. your mother sighed and apologised, wrapping her arms around you.
“i want you to be happy, y/n. don’t be like me. please.”
maybe love really wasn’t something the gods wanted to bestow upon your bloodline.
