Ouran Host Club: Play It Again: Chapter 1

Moving much quicker than normal, Haruhi hurried in an “I'm not running” sort of way toward music room three, chancing a quick glance at the hall clock and cursing under her breath. It was ten minutes to eight o'clock. This meant she was nearly thirty minutes late, which consequently meant that she was never going to hear the end of it from Tamaki. There seemed to be no end to her misfortune tonight, and she found herself hoping that whatever encounter Tamaki had planned was going to be worth stealing away from her father's suspicious glances across the dinner table and traipsing all the way back to school in the dead of night.

In all honesty, Haruhi found it a little ironic that due to the overly-helpful servants at the Suoh household and her own father's erratic work schedule, the only place she and Tamaki could have time alone was in such a very public place. Ouran Academy was not exactly an idyllic private location. During the day it was almost impossible to even find a place quiet enough to study. She was fond of irony and found amusement in it whenever she could, but when it came to irony standing in the way of spending time with her-- what exactly was Tamaki to her? Boyfriend? Lover? She supposed it didn't really matter-- sempai, it was not nearly as amusing.

With the handle of the lurid pink double doors closed firmly under her hand, Haruhi still felt the need to brace herself upon entering the music room, although she knew it would be for the most part empty. She was met by the now familiar sight of the music room at night, the shadowy couches covered by sheets, the wide windows letting in moonlight, and the soft sound of Tamaki playing Bach at the grand piano as though his life depended on it.

“Sorry I'm late, Tamaki-sempai,” she said by way of announcing herself as she closed the door behind her. To her surprise, he didn't leap up and rush to her, he didn't shout. He simply smiled and turned his head to face her, pausing in his music to pat the empty space beside him on the lacquered black piano bench. Dropping her bag by the door, she gravitated toward the spot he had indicated and slid herself up onto the seat. Soaking up the surprising calm to his presence, Haruhi allowed herself to lean against him and heard the soft purr of contentment in his throat as clearly as if it was coming from her own.

“Well, you certainly did make me wait,” he replied finally, though the glittering of amusement to his tone made it obvious to her he was not displeased with her. He never was, despite her earlier constant uncertainty of her feelings for him and her harshness toward him that had gradually melted away as readily as snowflakes on skin. Before, in the constant monotony of her fear of loving him, he had been far more patient than an ordinary human being, and she supposed this warranted him the right to tease her whenever he saw fit. After all these months of their relationship, she had grown much better at putting up with it. Pursing her lips, Haruhi smiled and shook her head a bit, ignoring him.

“It's good to see you too, sempai,” she said, at which he stopped playing and turned his head to kiss her.

“I wrote a song for you.” He was certainly to-the-point tonight. His voice was soft against her lips, and for a moment, Haruhi was not entirely sure what to say. “The reason I called you over here at such short notice is because I wanted you to hear it. I just couldn`t wait any longer!”

“You didn't have to--” Tamaki placed a finger to her lips before she could finish, and with a slight smile, he shook his head.

“I know I didn't have to, but I <I>wanted</I> to,” he informed her. “It's something I've wanted to do… for a while. Is it alright if I play it for you now?” he sounded almost apprehensive, as though afraid of her refusal, and it was this that made her nod as quickly as she could so she could watch his expression calm itself. He wasted no time in beginning to play.

Haruhi had never seen such a look of intensity on his face as his fingers began to move across the keys, shaping the beginnings of a floaty melody. Haruhi knew little about music, but she found she didn't have to to find the piece beautiful. She hadn't even known he wrote music, but something about the passionate, lilting tone to the little woven pattern of notes was just so purely Tamaki that she was left in no doubt how skilled he was in the field. He played with a kind of abandon, and it seemed his entire body moved into the music, forming one entire entity from which the music flowed.

The piano was little more than a middle man to Tamaki's fervent movements. The calm bits of music fell away to give room for the rising, passionate crescendo that seemed to come from Tamaki himself rather than the keys. Haruhi was touched in the realization that it seemed to be far more like hearing a bit of Tamaki's soul than hearing a simple piece of music he had composed for her. In Tamaki's case, the two were apparently one and the same, and as he played the final bars and let his hands rest still on the ivories, Haruhi was left deeply shaken by the depth of the emotion in both his posture and his music.

“That is how I feel about you, Haruhi,” he said, his voice a little hushed in the quiet moonlight of the room. “I don't know if you understand, but…” turning his head to face her, he smiled. The intensity that that been on his face as he played was still there, and he fell to her then, swooping her into his arms and kissing her breath away. “I love you so much…”

“I love you too,” Haruhi was still deeply affected and little breathless, and she allowed Tamaki to kiss her with the same tender abandon as he played the piano, pulling her into his lap and lacing his fingers in her hair as though he hadn't seen her in a thousand years.

“I don't think you understand, Haruhi… just how much,” he spoke between kisses, sometimes not bothering to fully part his lips from hers, and Haruhi fell quickly into the swing of fervent kisses, into the splendor that was kissing and being kissed by Tamaki. He never did anything half way, that much was certain. No matter how many times she found herself locked in this mad, often sensuous embrace, she could never fully prepare herself for how weak it made her body, how suddenly out of control she could feel. “Saying `I love you' doesn't feel like enough anymore, and I thought maybe writing music for you would help me express myself better.” he looked a little apologetic as he said this. “I don't think I'll ever really be able to express how I feel toward you.”

“I know… that you love me,” Haruhi assured him, trying to get words in between his frenzied kisses. She wasn't exactly sure how to tell him that she could <I>feel</I> the intensity of the emotion whenever he touched her, whenever his lips pressed hers. “We're only teenagers, Tamaki. I'm sure someday we'll learn how to express ourselves, right?”

“Of course…” her practicality seemed to reassure him slightly, and he smiled and kissed her again, this time not letting her stop for breath until it became crucial. It was nice, Haruhi mused, to be free from club duties and having to act civilized and friendly toward him in front of the customers… to be able to act the way she really <I>wanted</I> to act. When his tongue grazed hers and when his hands pushed up under her yellow cotton blouse to caress and heat the skin there, she could feel free to gasp and to pleasantly mutter expletives against the warm silk of his mouth. There was no longer the worry of seeming inappropriate or giving anyone the wrong idea. They weren't hosts, they weren't friends, they weren't playthings for the rich and the famous. They were simply Tamaki and Haruhi, caught up in the little world of each other and, for this short and blissful time, oblivious to all else.

“Haruhi…” his voice a little breathy, Tamaki made short work of her jacket and pushed her top up to bunch around her shoulders. It had been decided long ago that during these encounters, clothes were never to be actually discarded. There was always the possibility of being discovered, and it had been so long since she had seen Tamaki fully naked that she had almost forgotten what it looked like. There had been those early times before Tamaki's grandmother grown wise and made sure never to leave them unsupervised at the Suoh manor that they had been able to strip fearlessly with Mozart playing around them and make love with a wild recklessness that she had to admit she missed now. She felt risky enough tonight to unbutton his shirt, at least, and press her hands to the warm skin there.

“Tamaki-sempai,” she whispered in reply against his mouth, smiling as he caressed her breasts and pushed her skirt up around her hips, shifting her so she could wrap her delicate legs around his waist. “I've really missed this…” it had been quite a while since they had managed to steal away long enough to touch each other this way, and Haruhi knew now that he was making up for it with the long, lingering touches that he slid up and down her body, with the way his skilled musician's hands plucked her nipples, caressed her lips.

“Me too,” he didn't blush anymore at the implication of having sex with her; they had spend far too many breathless sessions pressed tight against each other for him to pretend he didn't want it just as much as the average male. There had been a rather long time in the beginning of their relationship when they were both wholly innocent, a time when they would blush when their hands brushed each other and each kiss was as embarrassing as it was heartfelt. Time had a way of mending these things, if the heavy feel of his breath on her neck as he pressed her cotton underwear delicately aside and stroked lingeringly at her sex was any evidence. Slowly, his hand edged her up into that old place where her breath came in an array of tiny gasps, sliding leisurely up and down her clit, stroking the building moisture across her flesh to make the motions easier. She sought his mouth and he obliged, pressing deep kisses to her as naturally as breathing.

“How do we always… go so long without…” she began, finding herself unable to bother with finishing and finding that she didn't care enough to search for the words.

“I have no idea,” Tamaki gasped into the side of her neck, and Haruhi guided his mouth back to hers. She didn't want any more visible marks like the ones she had been forced to hide so awkwardly in the past. They were both learning, more or less, the things it took for them to be together so discreetly. Though her own father's disapproval of the couple would most likely be short-lived, he couldn't be trusted to keep his mouth shut. Tamaki's father, she guessed, had some secret knowledge of their relationship as he did about most things about the school, and didn't seem to have any ill feelings about it. If the Suoh matriarch, however, learned that things between them had gotten farther than the mild and awkward flirting she had somehow detected in the past, Haruhi didn't even want to think of what would happen. Haruhi knew that somehow, the woman would find a way to send her away again, and it was this that kept her ever wary, even now with her small breasts beneath Tamaki's lips and her hips bucking against his skilled hand.

“You have no idea how much I've wanted this these past few days,” Tamaki's breath was hot against her skin, and he lifted her a bit to slide one long finger inside of her, shifting her weight against him and then slowly beginning to move the digit inside of her in a `come hither' motion. Haruhi moaned out a garbled response and kissed him hard. She fumbled past his hand and blindly worked his pants open, drawing his member out rather clumsily without being able to see where her hand was going. It was with a slow tenderness that she stroked him, and he moaned audibly into her mouth and slipped another finger slowly in to join the other.

With two fingers stroking her and his thumb rubbing quick circles on her clit, Haruhi could not contain herself. It had stopped embarrassing her long ago, and she felt free to whisper her encouragement into his hair and feel his organ swell further in her hand at her saying things so dirty they would have made her cringe internally in the past. They were bolder now, and they could articulate their desires in ways that she never before could have imagined. Moaning “harder” now seemed almost natural to her, and when Tamaki begged her to go faster, it aroused her rather than embarrassed her. Now, when Tamaki stopped touching her to lift her up onto the piano keys with a loud and rebellious crash of notes only to return the fingers that teased inside of her and add his tongue to the orchestra of stimuli, she welcomed it with bliss rather than shock. In some perverse way, she supposed, they were growing up.

“God, Tamaki…” he knew exactly how to move his tongue and fingers in that perfect harmony that made it seem as though it was as natural to him as playing the piano that sat a cold and glossy voyeur beneath her flushed body. While his fingers probed quick and hard inside of her, his tongue stroked in alternating slow and fast patterns across the span on her cleft, making her buck against him and issuing more jumbled notes from the keys she rested on. It was a rather perverse song that he made her play with his perfect ministrations, and she was sorry when it was over. Tamaki drew back to pull a condom from his shirt pocket, and in the dimness of the room he drew it from its wrapper and painstakingly slid it into place.

Already Haruhi's body trembled with anticipation, and as he reached for her she came readily back to rest in his lap. She was dimly aware of her name as it fell softly from his swollen and glistening lips, of the gentle way his hands held her hips as he guided them down to meet his. Somewhere along the way he pressed inside of her and she hissed his name in a flurry of relief and anticipation into his soft curtain of blonde hair. All her life, the difference of genders had been of little importance to her, but at these moments she was sure of the reason for it all; it felt perfect this way, as though his body was molded precisely to fit with hers. She supposed, however, that this had absolutely nothing to do with gender and everything to do with the fact that this was Tamaki and it wouldn`t matter if she was a man or he was a woman or they were both absolutely genderless. With him, everything seemed to fall into place, and sex was no exception.

The stillness between them was only momentary, and before she could think, Haruhi was moving against him, grinding her hips haphazardly against his and reveling in the soft sounds that escaped his mouth as she shifted herself around his member. He held her close to him for a moment, tenderly clasped in his arms as though she was a porcelain doll, before he had to let go and hold onto the seat to steady himself so he could move against her in unison. It was a messy but perfect melody that they built together, and she reveled in ever second of it. Tamaki looked more beautiful than she could recall with his eyes locked with hers, intense but slightly unfocused and his rosy mouth hanging partly open. Already sweat was prickling on his forehead, and his soft hair was beginning to cling to the skin there in a way she would always find attractive for reasons she could never quite place.

“This is perfect,” he whispered breathlessly, and she had to agree. The logical part of her knew that nothing was perfect, but perfection was certainly in the eye of the beholder. Always in these frantic moments, to her, Tamaki was perfect. She told herself that no matter what, she would always want to remember him this way; passionate and reckless with love and lust mixing together to cloud his eyes in an absolutely delicious hue of desire. This was Tamaki without etiquette and breeding and status getting in the way. He was raw and unscripted in his moments when he was caught off guard by his passion, and it was her favorite side of him of all.

Reaching back, Haruhi grabbed onto the piano for leverage and moved faster, making him whimper deliciously and try to match her pace. As she moved against him, her hands unavoidably shifted repeatedly on the piano keys. There it was again, that muddled song she would play only for him. She could never hear a child bang messily on the keys of a piano in that unpolished way the same way again. Always a not quite guilty but certainly sly smile would flicker across her lips and she would think of him and not be able to resist the temptation to pick up her phone and hear his voice. Being with him changed absolutely everything. There was an entirely different color to the world now, and she could not deny loving it.

“Haruhi…” his voice was hoarse, strained, and his jerking motions more and more frantic. The hot, slick friction of him inside of her was making her mad with need in return, and without restraint she writhed against him, glad to be the one who was most in control of their position so she could please him in all the ways she wanted. As slowly the heat within her rose, she bucked out of control and was aware of him whispering nonsense.

The wave of growing pleasure was quick to engulf her and she moved faster, moaning with the want and need and struggling to press him harder against the place inside her that so desperately needed to be touched. When he bucked desperately against her and cursed softly under his breath as he spent himself, she went over the edge. The orgasm was as intense as it was achingly brief, and she cried out his name in its fiery center and let go of the piano to cling to him with all the desperation of an animal struggling for survival. Slowly, slowly, she came back down to Earth and rested with him in the sweaty relief of the afterglow. His arms came up to hold her once more, and he kissed her for a long moment and then drew back to look at her.

“Haruhi,” her name sounded musical when he said it even when he was exhausted, and she smiled and whispered his in return. It wasn't until their clothes had been pushed back into place and the condom tied and discarded that either of them spoke again.

“I didn't think I could be so happy,” Tamaki's voice sounded both enchanted and weary as he spoke.

“Me either,” Haruhi knew how he felt in this moment, barely able to grasp this sense of contentment that she hadn't thought it possible to feel simply from being in the presence of another person. He held her in comfortable silence, her cheek resting happily against his chest.

“I love you.”

“I love you too,” the exchange was soft and pleasant, and Haruhi found herself wondering briefly if it had always been this easy. It was unclear to her even how much time had passed in the dim room, and it astounded her that they had come to a point when things like time didn't matter anymore. It was as though they had left behind all the normal, practical matters of daily life, and it surprised Haruhi that she somehow reveled in being so frivolous. She really was growing up, if that was what she could call letting go of her normal sensible nature and acting, for lack of a better word, more like Tamaki.

“Will you play it again?” she asked finally, almost shy of making such a request when he had already done so much for her. Nonetheless, Tamaki shifted forward on the bench with a soft smile on his lips. He kissed her chastely, demurely as he had so many times in the past and then began to play the song he had played her in the moments before their lovemaking. He played rather awkwardly with her still in his lap, but even with the small mistakes, the piece's meaning was clear. Slowly her Maestro drove up again that melody of love that he did so well and let the clear, pure notes drift up toward the high ceiling and finally, into the expanse of the glittering night sky.