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BUT! If you will give me your ear! I am going to go off on a ramble of why I think they actually really work in both personality and story!

(It's been a hot minute since I've read the manga so forgive any discrepancies. I do not have the manga memorized despite what my friends say.)

They are both business minded and ambitious people. We see throughout the manga that Kyoya takes his duties as VP of the host club very seriously. He acts as a behind the scenes man, pulling strings and manipulating situations to get the outcome he wants. He IS the cool and calculating businessman that dramas live for! Whereas Kyoya's business savvy is very quiet and cunning Renge's sense of business is more extroverted and personal. Kyoya may be the calm and collected businessman but Renge is the bright and charismatic businesswoman. Her strength lies in understanding what other people like and what will have the best response which makes her an asset to the host club on multiple occasions when she helps with cosplay events and the club photo journals. She commands a room and not just because she appears via motor powered platform wherever she is. When the two work together they accomplish much.

Renge is the dreamer to Kyoya's realist personality. Now we see this a lot in Kyoya and Tamaki's dynamic too but whereas Tamaki's dreamy personality is part of a coping mechanism to deal with the unfair situation he was put in as illegitimate child in a line of succession based society, Renge's dreamer tendencies are rooted in her interests. Being a hard core otaku Renge's antics and ideas come across as a bit silly and cringey but show a great passion across a wide variety of subjects that comes back around into practicality. Kyoya acts as the grounding force that pulls this interest back to reality where they can be of the most use. He understands that what creates great ideas is a vivid imagination which is what Renge provides. Kyoya then works those initial dreamy ideas and ideals into something sustainable.

Now, Renge did not get as much attention as she was initially supposed to in the manga. She was meant to have a bigger role as a recurring character but Tamaki kept filling in for her roles. That being said, I think that if the manga had continued on with more appearances from Renge we would have seen her character have a bigger overreaching arc. Her arc in her introductory chapter was about her breaking the fantasy she was projecting onto Kyoya and learning to get to know someone first before claiming to be in love. So while her crush moved onto Haruhi at the end of the chapter not much else changed in terms of character. She was still loud and silly and daydreamed a lot but outside of her glimpses of being a good businesswoman we don't get to see her change in any meaningful way. If she had been allowed to be in more of the story I could very well see her maturing a bit, still being herself but her friendship with the hosts, specifically the bond she shares with Kyoya as the club's manager would help ground her a lot, taking her obsessions into something more palatable for an adult set to inherit her family's business. (I think of it a lot in the same vein as Mori cracking down on Honey when they graduated that he could still like cute things but he too needed to mature.)

Now Kyoya's character development is tethered to the host club, mainly Tamaki and Haruhi. It is his relationship to Tamaki that gets him to lose his obsession with surpassing his brothers and lets him create something even better for himself, which ends up working out in his favor since it is the change that makes his father consider giving the company to Kyoya over his older brothers. It is Tamaki and Haruhi who make him more "humane" for lack of a better word. What I think Renge could bring to his character is emotional honesty. Kyoya isn't afraid to joke and he certainly doesn't hold back his annoyance and anger when he gets overwhelmed. But Renge is the kind of person that wears her heart on her sleeve, she feels everything fully and without apology. She loves romance and moe and for someone like Kyoya who never shows much interest in that kind of thing outside of his host club duties she could bring some romantic sincerity out of him that lets him acknowledge any latent feelings he had for Haruhi and then letting them pass to push her towards someone who could make her happiest. Then using that new founded emotional and romantic sincerity he opens up to the possibility of finding an actual love match further down the line. Maybe with the girl who helped with his realization in the first place.

I JUST REALLY THINK IT WOULD HAVE BEEN THEMATIC IF THEY ENDED UP TOGETHER AT THE END! Think about it! Renge is introduced to us and the host club as Kyoya's fiancee. Now that's just her fantasies at play and those will soon be destroyed by Kyoya's actual personality and Haruhi's advice. But would it not have been cute if at the end of the manga they got together and she actually did end up as his fiancee! Maybe instead of her introducing herself as his fiancee he'd introduce himself as her fiance, completing the circle. They're looked at by others as such an unlikely couple because she's so loud and ridiculous but he just puts a hand on top of her head to keep her still and she quiets down with a serene smile but is still bouncing in place with energy. Then she's the one dragging him out onto the dance floor instead of letting him keep his distance at the sidelines. Maybe even a cheeky joke about how everything worked out to her ultimate design which makes Kyoya wonder if the entire time she's been working some master plan to get them together without him ever noticing. Which just makes him admire her all the more because he didn't think someone could get one over on him but she did and it ended up being a win-win in the end.

If I wanted to I could go back and reread the manga and write a whole freaking essay on these two but I have enough going on rn that I'm not going to fall down my Ouran spiral again. There's a lot about them that I'm probably leaving out and could do a better job explaining but I've been talking for a while now.

They just have such good potential grumpy x sunshine, introvert x extrovert, sun x moon dynamics! And I know that people are going to tell me that if I want that I should just ship Kyoya and Tamaki like everyone else. And do not get me wrong! I love them. I see the vision. I get it. I've read plenty of fanfic about my boys being in love with each other.