Fic: Lift-To-Drag Ratio 2/? [Suzumiya Haruhi, Haruhi/Kyon, wingfic]
It's the 7th of July and luckily enough, I had the whole day free. That meant listening to Kate Miller-Heidke, marathoning Haruhi Suzumiya and then writing some Haruhi fic. I was going to write a whole new fic today but I though maybe I should try continuing an abandoned one first, so here is more fic where I try to write Kyon/Haruhi using weird slash tropes.
Title: Lift-To-Drag Ratio
Pairing: Kyon/Haruhi
Fandom: The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya
Summary: Kyon wasn't that surprised when he ended up with a place at the same university as Haruhi, and getting a student apartment together in Nagoya just seemed like the most sensible thing to do. Until one morning when Kyon wakes up with a pair of wings, and he realises that living with Haruhi makes it a lot harder to keep her powers a secret from herself.
Part One | Part Two
It wasn't as though I didn't want to see the SOS Brigade again. At a time like this, I certainly didn't regret calling them. It was just that I didn't really think through the space constraints. I couldn't leave the house looking like this, and I couldn't expect them to stand outside and shout to me through the window. Having them stand in the entrance space or the kitchen meant a greater risk of Haruhi seeing them when she finally woke up. But with all three of them in my bedroom, along with my brand new wings, there was absolutely no space to move without breaking things. I was having enough trouble keeping from doing that even before they arrived.
"So you just woke up like this?" Itsuki peered at the wings curiously.
"Yes. I had that conversation with Haruhi about eight hours ago now, and then I woke up with wings."
"I see."
They all stared at me for a moment. Mikuru in particular seemed more interested in the wings themselves than working out how they got there or how to make them go away.
"So, can you do anything about them?" I was particularly hoping that Nagato would be able to help. To my disappointment, she shook her head.
"My powers are no use in this situation either." That's a given. I always thought espers would be useful, but Itsuki usually isn't. "It seems that the only way to rectify this situation is to discover why Suzumiya created it. Is this the first time that she's created any strange occurrences since you've been in Nagoya?"
"As far as I know."
"What could have made her feel the need to do such a thing when she's been quiet for so long?"
"I told you, she stole my drink and thought it would give her wings, and did I mention that she was very drunk?"
Itsuki smiled and nodded. The most annoying thing was how calm they all were. That, and the way Mikuru kept reaching out to stroke my feathers when I wasn't looking. Doesn't she realise I can feel it?
"Yes, I understand the immediate circumstances leading up to the event. But why would Suzumiya feel the need to make something strange now?"
I shrugged, an action that required a lot more energy now. "I don't know. She seems fine. She has the exciting university life that she wanted. Parties every night and so forth."
While Itsuki thought that over, I glanced sideways at Mikuru, who was muttering 'fluffy' and trying to sidle under my wings again. To my discomfort, the three of them had arrived much more quickly than I expected. I hadn't even had time to work out how to put on a shirt before they turned up. It's not that I don't like my body, but I'm not the kind of guy who's comfortable trying to have a normal conversation when I'm naked from the waist up. Especially with two girls and a male of ambiguous sexual orientation. Especially when one of those girls keeps cooing and trying to touch me.
"Hang on," I said, in a moment of realisation. "Did you all move to Nagoya?"
Itsuki and Nagato looked at each other; Mikuru looked at the floor.
"I'm not angry, I just want to know why you didn't tell me."
"We thought Suzumiya might find it a bit suspicious if all five of us wound up here. She brought you with her, so we agreed that if the rest of us had a choice, we should stay under the radar."
"You've been very subtle. Well done. But this is Haruhi we're talking about. She doesn't find anything suspicious unless she wants to."
"Yes, well…"
"I mean, she'd probably take it as proof that the SOS Brigade are destined by fate to stay together and conquer the world."
I ignored Itsuki's attempt to reply as I flapped my wings gently to stop Mikuru from playing with the soft downy feathers just under the bone. It tickled.
"Whatever, Itsuki. You could have at least told me you were around."
Mikuru looked guilty, and I realised it wasn't just because she kept playing with my wings. "It's not that we didn't want to see you, Kyon, not at all! We just thought you would prefer… that is, at this stage we agreed that it would be better if…"
She trailed off and stepped back next to Itsuki. I looked at him, but he also seemed mildly uncomfortable. It was Nagato who finally said, "We believed that you and Suzumiya Haruhi may prefer to be left in privacy."
Ah.
"You thought that you should leave us alone so that we could get closer? You thought we'd want to make the most of this time to… date?"
"Isn't that why you got a house together?" Mikuru asked, uncertainly.
I laughed. "In case you haven't noticed, we have separate rooms. We're only staying together because it's convenient. Nothing romantic at all."
Mikuru and Itsuki exchanged a look, and I started to feel worried. "It's just that by the time we got to the end of school, you both seemed pretty interested in each other…"
"Yeah, well, university's a different matter." The wings were heavy; I wasn't used to carrying this much weight. I wanted to sit down, but there was no space anywhere in my tiny room to do it. "Things are different now that we're at university. Haruhi has way more exciting things to do than hang around with me."
They were looking worried now. Itsuki had a very serious look on his face. "Kyon, are you okay with that? It sounds kind of like a problem to me. If you and Haruhi aren't getting along, that could have major implications for her stability."
"We're not fighting." I ran my fingers through my hair. "She's just been doing a lot of different things, that's all. She's met all these new people, and it's a new town, so she's having this really exciting new life, you know? So she doesn't have all that much time to spend with me. And let's face it, I'm not as smart as she is, so I end up spending a whole lot more time studying, which to Haruhi is pretty boring."
"Kyon…" Mikuru was looking at me sympathetically, which almost made things worse. "I'm sorry."
"You're the once chosen by Suzumiya, Kyon!" Itsuki's mind was on other things. "She can't get bored with you. Because then she won't be the one chosen by you. But then who would it be? Is it someone else?" He looked at Mikuru, then at Nagato. "If someone else is her chosen person now, we have to find them right away, before something else happens!"
Nagato blinked him. Mikuru coughed into her hand and tilted her head towards me. Itsuki still stared at me for a moment before he realised what they meant.
"Oh. Right. I guess it's still you, Kyon."
"Lucky me. I'm so glad she gave me these wings to prove she hasn't found a new best friend."
"Mmm." Itsuki didn't seem to notice my sarcasm. "But you have to try to stay close to Suzumiya. It's not good for you two if you're not getting along."
"I don't know what you expect me to do. I didn't try to make her get bored with me."
It wasn't what I wanted to happen. It was just the way things turned out. We came to Nagoya and in all the excitement of unpacking and setting up the house and then starting university, something changed while I wasn't looking and Haruhi was a whole different person.
But it's not as though this is what I wanted to happen.
"Still," said Itsuki, frowning, "I think you should try to get closer to her again. We don't know what might happen if…"
I cut him off. "Things seem to be going along fine. Really. Haruhi's been fine since we've been here. In fact, I think she's the most stable that I've ever seen her. It could be better for her if I'm just a housemate instead of being her best friend or… or something else. It seems to be working out really well. Since we came here, and since our relationship became like this, she hasn't made any trouble at all."
All three of them looked pointedly at the appendages just behind me.
"Well. Except for today, I suppose."
Mikuru bit her lip. "What are you going to do about the wings?"
"I'm so glad you asked! It's great how you're all concerned for my welfare."
Itsuki frowned at me. "Sarcasm isn't really helping."
"You could try to care about me, for once, instead of Haruhi."
"We're trying now, aren't we?"
I rubbed my forehead. By all rights, I should have had more sleep than this. "The only person who can get rid of them is Haruhi, right? So I'll just have to try to stay hidden until… well, stay hidden for a while and hope it goes away. I don't know how long I can stay here."
"Do you need anything right now?"
"Yes. Definitely. I need someone to hand in my essay for me. I don't think I'll fit through the faculty office doors right now."
Nagato had stepped forward with a hand outstretched to take my essay, and I reached for the desk to pick it up. When I turned around to hand it to her, though, her mind seemed to be distracted, and she had a faraway look in her eyes.
"Are you okay, Nagato?"
A moment later, I realised why her eyes had glazed over, as Haruhi's voice filtered through, distantly, from the other end of our apartment - not very far away at all. "Nagato? Kyon, is Nagato here?"
Strangely enough, my first instinct was to hide my friends.
"The futon cupboard!" I hissed at them, as quietly as I could, herding them towards the alcove. It was just lucky that I hadn't started to pack up my bedding, or there'd be no space, but as it was I could just fit all of them. I was dimly aware that one of the advantages of having an enormous pair of wings was that it made it much easier to shove three people into a cupboard simultaneously. Then I remembered that the downside to having a gigantic pair of wings was that it was really hard for me to hide when my hungover housemate came looking for me.
But I barely had time to even think about hiding when a sleepy Haruhi opened the bedroom door and stood blinking at me, and my brand new limbs. What are you supposed to do in a situation like this?
"Haruhi. Good morning. How's your hangover?"
She just blinked at me. "You have wings."
"Yeah. Costume party at the university. Wouldn't you rather be in bed right now?"
For a moment she wavered, and I thought that maybe this plan was actually going to work. But no matter how much she'd changed, Haruhi would always let the voice of curiousity win out over the need for sleep, and she stumbled forward to catch herself by grabbing onto the shoulder joint of my right wing. Her right hand dropped onto my chest and slid down a little. Under normal circumstances that would be weird, but then, under normal circumstances, I would be wearing a shirt.
And I wouldn't have wings.
"You have wings," she said, bluntly.
"Yeah, like I said…"
"No, you have actual wings." She slid her hand along the wing to where it joined my back, and although it ruffled my feathers, I also felt a sensual pleasure that hadn't been there when Mikuru was toying with my feathers earlier. I wanted to groan, I wanted to stretch my wings, push into Haruhi's touch, because that felt good. It was the only thing that had, today.
"They're... uh." It was really hard to concentrate while she was doing that. "They're really good props. I know some people at the art college."
The wings gave me away, though; when she buried her fingers in the downy feathers under the bone, one of them twitched and flapped in a way that no prop could ever imitate. She didn't pull her hands away, like Mikuru, just ducked so that I didn't hit her over the head, and caught herself with a hand on my shoulder, still stroking the feathers, but more gently. This time it just made me want to sit down, and maybe fall asleep.
"Don't bullshit me," she said, glaring up at me. The hungover drowsiness was mostly gone from her voice, replaced with her usual imperative tone, at odds with the soothing effect her fingers were having on me. "These are actual real wings. The drink gave you wings. Why don't I have wings?"
There was a tension in the room that only I could feel. There wasn't a sound from the futon cupboard, but I could hear them all holding their breaths.
But what was I supposed to do? She had seen me. There were worse things she could see, things that would be harder to hide, or make her react more dramatically, but that mattered less than the fact that something had happened at all. It didn't matter whether the wall was blown away or whether there was just a tiny crack, as long as she could see through. Haruhi had seen something that she made, and there was nothing I could say that could make her forget it.
I could try, of course, and normally I would. I probably should have. But instead I did something I hadn't done in a long time, and just said what I felt.
"Why do you want wings?"
She blinked at me. "Because they're cool!"
"They're not cool," I hissed. "They're heavy, they take up half my room and I keep knocking things over. I can't go outside because people will see and point and then I'll be a freak celebrity on magazine covers all the time. Which pisses me off because I really want to find out if I can fly."
I folded the wings back, as close to my back as I could so that she'd stop touching them, and sat down on my futon. I was too tired for this, and it was only nine in the morning.
Haruhi looked down at me with an odd expression on her face. For a moment I thought she was going to say 'sorry', but that didn't make sense. She didn't know that she'd made this happen, and even if she did, it was Haruhi Suzumiya. She didn't say sorry.
But she did say "Is there anything I can do?"
"You can leave me alone."
She scowled at me. "Anything I can do to help. Since you can't go outside."
"My paper's due today," I said at last, pointing to the desk. I'd gotten the papers back together and stapled them together so that they couldn't fly apart if I accidentally started flapping again.
"Right," she said, and picked them up. "I'll take these over to the university."
"It has to go to the..."
"I know which office it goes to. And I know your student number, I can fill out the cover form for you." She wouldn't meet my eye. "And then I'll come right back."
"Don't you have classes today?"
"Yes," she said, before she shut the bedroom door behind her, "But I don't want to leave you here alone all day."
As soon as she left, the room I could hear shuffling from the futon cupboard, but I held the door shut until I'd heard her key turn in the front door. The three of them tumbled out and sprawled at my feet. Normally I'd laugh, but I was resigned to having a horrible day and it was going to take more than a simple accident to make me laugh.
"Go on, then." I crossed my arms. "How many things did I do wrong there? Is the world going to end?"
"I don't know. You probably did the best thing that you possibly could, really." It was Itsuki who touched my shoulder, and it was oddly comforting. "We should get out of here before she comes back, but we'll talk about what to do and send you an email once we've thought about it."
The girls were already heading out, after some quick goodbyes, but Itsuki lingered for a moment. He put a hand on my shoulder again. "Nobody blames you, you know."
"That's a bit rich coming from the guy who always told me that I had to save the day."
Itsuki smiled a bit sadly. "You needed guidance back then. I trust you to do the right thing now. You've never gotten it wrong before."
"You're not going to tell me what to do this time?"
"Oh, we'll all go and call our superiors and then have a meeting to discuss what we should do next. But I don't see how any of them will come up with an easy solution to this. You're in as good a position as anyone to understand what to do. You might even know better than us."
"Better than the Integrated Data Thought Entity? Or the time travellers? Don't they already know what's best since they've seen it all before?"
Itsuki laughed. "That might be true. But knowing the most doesn't mean knowing best. And I don't think any of us can claim to know more than you do about Haruhi, now that you're living with her."
I might know how late she is on her bills, but I don't think living with Haruhi has given me much more insight on the working of her mind than I had before. If anything, I feel like we're more distant than ever. And the more we talked about this, the more I started to dread seeing Haruhi come through that door again. "If you all helped, do you think I can move out of here before Haruhi gets back?"
Itsuki laughed. "Nice try, Kyon. You know how I said we weren't going to tell you what to do? We all agreed that there's one thing you definitely have to do. Stay here."
"If Haruhi already knows I have wings, I don't think it's going to matter if anyone else does."
"No, but can you imagine what she'll do if she comes back from the university, having seen you with wings sprouting out of your back just now, and finds you gone?"
I couldn't imagine what she would do, but I could imagine that it would probably just land us all in a bigger mess than we were already. With a sigh - and I think I deserved to sigh as much as I liked today - I sank back down to the floor. "Fine. I'll wait. We'll talk. But I can't guarantee that I'll come up with a perfect solution for this one. I might just make things worse."
"You'll do your best. That's all I ever ask of you. And your best has always been very, very good," he said, warmly. Nagato and Mikuru were calling for him, but he still hesitated at the door. "Take care of yourself, too, Kyon. I know that it seems like all we talk about is Haruhi, but our lives don't revolve around keeping her stable. We all want you to be happy, too."
It was easy enough for Itsuki to say that. I was pretty sure that Haruhi was the only person that Haruhi cared about. All of a sudden, she knew I had wings, and now I had to stay here for her on pain of terrible things happening. If normal, boring old Kyon had moved out of the house yesterday, I doubt she would have even noticed.
Previous
This entry was originally posted at http://little-cloud.dreamwidth.org/10284.html.
Title: Lift-To-Drag Ratio
Pairing: Kyon/Haruhi
Fandom: The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya
Summary: Kyon wasn't that surprised when he ended up with a place at the same university as Haruhi, and getting a student apartment together in Nagoya just seemed like the most sensible thing to do. Until one morning when Kyon wakes up with a pair of wings, and he realises that living with Haruhi makes it a lot harder to keep her powers a secret from herself.
Part One | Part Two
It wasn't as though I didn't want to see the SOS Brigade again. At a time like this, I certainly didn't regret calling them. It was just that I didn't really think through the space constraints. I couldn't leave the house looking like this, and I couldn't expect them to stand outside and shout to me through the window. Having them stand in the entrance space or the kitchen meant a greater risk of Haruhi seeing them when she finally woke up. But with all three of them in my bedroom, along with my brand new wings, there was absolutely no space to move without breaking things. I was having enough trouble keeping from doing that even before they arrived.
"So you just woke up like this?" Itsuki peered at the wings curiously.
"Yes. I had that conversation with Haruhi about eight hours ago now, and then I woke up with wings."
"I see."
They all stared at me for a moment. Mikuru in particular seemed more interested in the wings themselves than working out how they got there or how to make them go away.
"So, can you do anything about them?" I was particularly hoping that Nagato would be able to help. To my disappointment, she shook her head.
"My powers are no use in this situation either." That's a given. I always thought espers would be useful, but Itsuki usually isn't. "It seems that the only way to rectify this situation is to discover why Suzumiya created it. Is this the first time that she's created any strange occurrences since you've been in Nagoya?"
"As far as I know."
"What could have made her feel the need to do such a thing when she's been quiet for so long?"
"I told you, she stole my drink and thought it would give her wings, and did I mention that she was very drunk?"
Itsuki smiled and nodded. The most annoying thing was how calm they all were. That, and the way Mikuru kept reaching out to stroke my feathers when I wasn't looking. Doesn't she realise I can feel it?
"Yes, I understand the immediate circumstances leading up to the event. But why would Suzumiya feel the need to make something strange now?"
I shrugged, an action that required a lot more energy now. "I don't know. She seems fine. She has the exciting university life that she wanted. Parties every night and so forth."
While Itsuki thought that over, I glanced sideways at Mikuru, who was muttering 'fluffy' and trying to sidle under my wings again. To my discomfort, the three of them had arrived much more quickly than I expected. I hadn't even had time to work out how to put on a shirt before they turned up. It's not that I don't like my body, but I'm not the kind of guy who's comfortable trying to have a normal conversation when I'm naked from the waist up. Especially with two girls and a male of ambiguous sexual orientation. Especially when one of those girls keeps cooing and trying to touch me.
"Hang on," I said, in a moment of realisation. "Did you all move to Nagoya?"
Itsuki and Nagato looked at each other; Mikuru looked at the floor.
"I'm not angry, I just want to know why you didn't tell me."
"We thought Suzumiya might find it a bit suspicious if all five of us wound up here. She brought you with her, so we agreed that if the rest of us had a choice, we should stay under the radar."
"You've been very subtle. Well done. But this is Haruhi we're talking about. She doesn't find anything suspicious unless she wants to."
"Yes, well…"
"I mean, she'd probably take it as proof that the SOS Brigade are destined by fate to stay together and conquer the world."
I ignored Itsuki's attempt to reply as I flapped my wings gently to stop Mikuru from playing with the soft downy feathers just under the bone. It tickled.
"Whatever, Itsuki. You could have at least told me you were around."
Mikuru looked guilty, and I realised it wasn't just because she kept playing with my wings. "It's not that we didn't want to see you, Kyon, not at all! We just thought you would prefer… that is, at this stage we agreed that it would be better if…"
She trailed off and stepped back next to Itsuki. I looked at him, but he also seemed mildly uncomfortable. It was Nagato who finally said, "We believed that you and Suzumiya Haruhi may prefer to be left in privacy."
Ah.
"You thought that you should leave us alone so that we could get closer? You thought we'd want to make the most of this time to… date?"
"Isn't that why you got a house together?" Mikuru asked, uncertainly.
I laughed. "In case you haven't noticed, we have separate rooms. We're only staying together because it's convenient. Nothing romantic at all."
Mikuru and Itsuki exchanged a look, and I started to feel worried. "It's just that by the time we got to the end of school, you both seemed pretty interested in each other…"
"Yeah, well, university's a different matter." The wings were heavy; I wasn't used to carrying this much weight. I wanted to sit down, but there was no space anywhere in my tiny room to do it. "Things are different now that we're at university. Haruhi has way more exciting things to do than hang around with me."
They were looking worried now. Itsuki had a very serious look on his face. "Kyon, are you okay with that? It sounds kind of like a problem to me. If you and Haruhi aren't getting along, that could have major implications for her stability."
"We're not fighting." I ran my fingers through my hair. "She's just been doing a lot of different things, that's all. She's met all these new people, and it's a new town, so she's having this really exciting new life, you know? So she doesn't have all that much time to spend with me. And let's face it, I'm not as smart as she is, so I end up spending a whole lot more time studying, which to Haruhi is pretty boring."
"Kyon…" Mikuru was looking at me sympathetically, which almost made things worse. "I'm sorry."
"You're the once chosen by Suzumiya, Kyon!" Itsuki's mind was on other things. "She can't get bored with you. Because then she won't be the one chosen by you. But then who would it be? Is it someone else?" He looked at Mikuru, then at Nagato. "If someone else is her chosen person now, we have to find them right away, before something else happens!"
Nagato blinked him. Mikuru coughed into her hand and tilted her head towards me. Itsuki still stared at me for a moment before he realised what they meant.
"Oh. Right. I guess it's still you, Kyon."
"Lucky me. I'm so glad she gave me these wings to prove she hasn't found a new best friend."
"Mmm." Itsuki didn't seem to notice my sarcasm. "But you have to try to stay close to Suzumiya. It's not good for you two if you're not getting along."
"I don't know what you expect me to do. I didn't try to make her get bored with me."
It wasn't what I wanted to happen. It was just the way things turned out. We came to Nagoya and in all the excitement of unpacking and setting up the house and then starting university, something changed while I wasn't looking and Haruhi was a whole different person.
But it's not as though this is what I wanted to happen.
"Still," said Itsuki, frowning, "I think you should try to get closer to her again. We don't know what might happen if…"
I cut him off. "Things seem to be going along fine. Really. Haruhi's been fine since we've been here. In fact, I think she's the most stable that I've ever seen her. It could be better for her if I'm just a housemate instead of being her best friend or… or something else. It seems to be working out really well. Since we came here, and since our relationship became like this, she hasn't made any trouble at all."
All three of them looked pointedly at the appendages just behind me.
"Well. Except for today, I suppose."
Mikuru bit her lip. "What are you going to do about the wings?"
"I'm so glad you asked! It's great how you're all concerned for my welfare."
Itsuki frowned at me. "Sarcasm isn't really helping."
"You could try to care about me, for once, instead of Haruhi."
"We're trying now, aren't we?"
I rubbed my forehead. By all rights, I should have had more sleep than this. "The only person who can get rid of them is Haruhi, right? So I'll just have to try to stay hidden until… well, stay hidden for a while and hope it goes away. I don't know how long I can stay here."
"Do you need anything right now?"
"Yes. Definitely. I need someone to hand in my essay for me. I don't think I'll fit through the faculty office doors right now."
Nagato had stepped forward with a hand outstretched to take my essay, and I reached for the desk to pick it up. When I turned around to hand it to her, though, her mind seemed to be distracted, and she had a faraway look in her eyes.
"Are you okay, Nagato?"
A moment later, I realised why her eyes had glazed over, as Haruhi's voice filtered through, distantly, from the other end of our apartment - not very far away at all. "Nagato? Kyon, is Nagato here?"
Strangely enough, my first instinct was to hide my friends.
"The futon cupboard!" I hissed at them, as quietly as I could, herding them towards the alcove. It was just lucky that I hadn't started to pack up my bedding, or there'd be no space, but as it was I could just fit all of them. I was dimly aware that one of the advantages of having an enormous pair of wings was that it made it much easier to shove three people into a cupboard simultaneously. Then I remembered that the downside to having a gigantic pair of wings was that it was really hard for me to hide when my hungover housemate came looking for me.
But I barely had time to even think about hiding when a sleepy Haruhi opened the bedroom door and stood blinking at me, and my brand new limbs. What are you supposed to do in a situation like this?
"Haruhi. Good morning. How's your hangover?"
She just blinked at me. "You have wings."
"Yeah. Costume party at the university. Wouldn't you rather be in bed right now?"
For a moment she wavered, and I thought that maybe this plan was actually going to work. But no matter how much she'd changed, Haruhi would always let the voice of curiousity win out over the need for sleep, and she stumbled forward to catch herself by grabbing onto the shoulder joint of my right wing. Her right hand dropped onto my chest and slid down a little. Under normal circumstances that would be weird, but then, under normal circumstances, I would be wearing a shirt.
And I wouldn't have wings.
"You have wings," she said, bluntly.
"Yeah, like I said…"
"No, you have actual wings." She slid her hand along the wing to where it joined my back, and although it ruffled my feathers, I also felt a sensual pleasure that hadn't been there when Mikuru was toying with my feathers earlier. I wanted to groan, I wanted to stretch my wings, push into Haruhi's touch, because that felt good. It was the only thing that had, today.
"They're... uh." It was really hard to concentrate while she was doing that. "They're really good props. I know some people at the art college."
The wings gave me away, though; when she buried her fingers in the downy feathers under the bone, one of them twitched and flapped in a way that no prop could ever imitate. She didn't pull her hands away, like Mikuru, just ducked so that I didn't hit her over the head, and caught herself with a hand on my shoulder, still stroking the feathers, but more gently. This time it just made me want to sit down, and maybe fall asleep.
"Don't bullshit me," she said, glaring up at me. The hungover drowsiness was mostly gone from her voice, replaced with her usual imperative tone, at odds with the soothing effect her fingers were having on me. "These are actual real wings. The drink gave you wings. Why don't I have wings?"
There was a tension in the room that only I could feel. There wasn't a sound from the futon cupboard, but I could hear them all holding their breaths.
But what was I supposed to do? She had seen me. There were worse things she could see, things that would be harder to hide, or make her react more dramatically, but that mattered less than the fact that something had happened at all. It didn't matter whether the wall was blown away or whether there was just a tiny crack, as long as she could see through. Haruhi had seen something that she made, and there was nothing I could say that could make her forget it.
I could try, of course, and normally I would. I probably should have. But instead I did something I hadn't done in a long time, and just said what I felt.
"Why do you want wings?"
She blinked at me. "Because they're cool!"
"They're not cool," I hissed. "They're heavy, they take up half my room and I keep knocking things over. I can't go outside because people will see and point and then I'll be a freak celebrity on magazine covers all the time. Which pisses me off because I really want to find out if I can fly."
I folded the wings back, as close to my back as I could so that she'd stop touching them, and sat down on my futon. I was too tired for this, and it was only nine in the morning.
Haruhi looked down at me with an odd expression on her face. For a moment I thought she was going to say 'sorry', but that didn't make sense. She didn't know that she'd made this happen, and even if she did, it was Haruhi Suzumiya. She didn't say sorry.
But she did say "Is there anything I can do?"
"You can leave me alone."
She scowled at me. "Anything I can do to help. Since you can't go outside."
"My paper's due today," I said at last, pointing to the desk. I'd gotten the papers back together and stapled them together so that they couldn't fly apart if I accidentally started flapping again.
"Right," she said, and picked them up. "I'll take these over to the university."
"It has to go to the..."
"I know which office it goes to. And I know your student number, I can fill out the cover form for you." She wouldn't meet my eye. "And then I'll come right back."
"Don't you have classes today?"
"Yes," she said, before she shut the bedroom door behind her, "But I don't want to leave you here alone all day."
As soon as she left, the room I could hear shuffling from the futon cupboard, but I held the door shut until I'd heard her key turn in the front door. The three of them tumbled out and sprawled at my feet. Normally I'd laugh, but I was resigned to having a horrible day and it was going to take more than a simple accident to make me laugh.
"Go on, then." I crossed my arms. "How many things did I do wrong there? Is the world going to end?"
"I don't know. You probably did the best thing that you possibly could, really." It was Itsuki who touched my shoulder, and it was oddly comforting. "We should get out of here before she comes back, but we'll talk about what to do and send you an email once we've thought about it."
The girls were already heading out, after some quick goodbyes, but Itsuki lingered for a moment. He put a hand on my shoulder again. "Nobody blames you, you know."
"That's a bit rich coming from the guy who always told me that I had to save the day."
Itsuki smiled a bit sadly. "You needed guidance back then. I trust you to do the right thing now. You've never gotten it wrong before."
"You're not going to tell me what to do this time?"
"Oh, we'll all go and call our superiors and then have a meeting to discuss what we should do next. But I don't see how any of them will come up with an easy solution to this. You're in as good a position as anyone to understand what to do. You might even know better than us."
"Better than the Integrated Data Thought Entity? Or the time travellers? Don't they already know what's best since they've seen it all before?"
Itsuki laughed. "That might be true. But knowing the most doesn't mean knowing best. And I don't think any of us can claim to know more than you do about Haruhi, now that you're living with her."
I might know how late she is on her bills, but I don't think living with Haruhi has given me much more insight on the working of her mind than I had before. If anything, I feel like we're more distant than ever. And the more we talked about this, the more I started to dread seeing Haruhi come through that door again. "If you all helped, do you think I can move out of here before Haruhi gets back?"
Itsuki laughed. "Nice try, Kyon. You know how I said we weren't going to tell you what to do? We all agreed that there's one thing you definitely have to do. Stay here."
"If Haruhi already knows I have wings, I don't think it's going to matter if anyone else does."
"No, but can you imagine what she'll do if she comes back from the university, having seen you with wings sprouting out of your back just now, and finds you gone?"
I couldn't imagine what she would do, but I could imagine that it would probably just land us all in a bigger mess than we were already. With a sigh - and I think I deserved to sigh as much as I liked today - I sank back down to the floor. "Fine. I'll wait. We'll talk. But I can't guarantee that I'll come up with a perfect solution for this one. I might just make things worse."
"You'll do your best. That's all I ever ask of you. And your best has always been very, very good," he said, warmly. Nagato and Mikuru were calling for him, but he still hesitated at the door. "Take care of yourself, too, Kyon. I know that it seems like all we talk about is Haruhi, but our lives don't revolve around keeping her stable. We all want you to be happy, too."
It was easy enough for Itsuki to say that. I was pretty sure that Haruhi was the only person that Haruhi cared about. All of a sudden, she knew I had wings, and now I had to stay here for her on pain of terrible things happening. If normal, boring old Kyon had moved out of the house yesterday, I doubt she would have even noticed.
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