Kyoya Ootori's Guide to Self-Deception for Fun and Profit

Chapter 4: Chicken curry rice

Cambridge: Late September

It's Saturday evening, and a rare and lovely thing has happened: Kyoya's been stood up. He's already at the restaurant where he was due to dine with a junior business acquaintance of his father's, and while it's a little irritating to have his time wasted, he feels like he's been given an unexpected gift: a couple of hours by himself, with no one expecting anything from him.

He calls Tachibana and arranges for flowers to be sent to his dinner companion's hospital bed – the unfortunate idiot tripped over his own suitcase in his hotel room, as he understands it, breaking a small bone in his foot – and then summons the waiter and orders the grand omakase.

The recently-opened sushi restaurant is small and stylish, all dark wood and brick walls, and he's tucked in a discreet corner where he can people-watch, at a two-seater table he now has all to himself. He can see the chefs, and they all look reassuringly Japanese, so he hopes the food won't be too disappointing. To be honest, he's mostly just looking forward to eating something that doesn't involve swipe cards, disposable paper cups and overcooked pasta. The food from the canteen leaves much to be desired. Last year, when he had his own apartment, he'd hired a Michelin-starred personal chef. The privations of living in shared dorms are undoubtedly character forming, but on the whole he likes his existing character just fine.

He sets his phone on the table, and then doesn't know what to do with himself. He has his tablet with him, so there's plenty of things he could do – productive and useful things. He doesn't want to be productive and useful. He wants to turn off his brain and let someone else do the thinking for a while. He finds himself wondering what Haruhi's doing right now. It's already Sunday morning back in Tokyo. He has very little idea what regular people do on Sunday mornings. Laundry? Food shopping? Cleaning?

What you are you up to today? he messages her, and then scrolls through the texts he's been ignoring from his sister to check it's her usual friendly nagging and nothing important.

Normal Sunday things, Haruhi replies. You?

Kyoya sips his water, thinking with mild irritation of the sake menu – he doesn't drink much, but it's frustrating to be denied the option – and calls Haruhi.

She picks up, and he can hear the murmur of voices around her, punctuated by the sound of a tannoy. "Is this a bad time?" he asks.

"It's fine," she says, matter of fact. "I'm just at the supermarket. I can shop and talk, if that's OK?"

"Of course," he says politely. "It was me who disturbed you."

"Curry rice or ginger pork?" Haruhi muses, and he's not sure if she's talking to him or to herself.

It's Tamaki who's always hungering for Haruhi's home cooking, but for once Kyoya feels sympathetic to this urge. It's chilly today, and the thought of his luxurious, hand-crafted sushi is suddenly less appealing. He wants to be eating curry rice in Haruhi's poky little apartment.

He wants to be eating dinner with Haruhi.

He pushes his glasses up his nose and tells himself it's perfectly normal to feel homesick when you're ten thousand kilometres away from your whole family and your closest friends, even if you've been living in a foreign country for over a year, but it doesn't help him feel better. "Curry," he says firmly.

Haruhi laughs. "All right," she says peaceably. "Oh! I suppose it's dinner time for you right now. What are you going to have?"

Kyoya can't remember. He opens up the elegant menu. "Various sushi," he says. "Sea urchin and caviar. Foie gras, miso and yuzu. Otoro and wasabi. And so on."