Chapter Text
Haruhi knew that the host club was keeping something from her. She had only recently realized this because her boys were becoming more obvious about it. She could tell that they wanted to tell her. She knew that they wanted to. But she assumed that whatever it was, they couldn’t tell her.
It hurt a little that there was something else that they all had together that she wasn’t included in. There was still so many things about rich culture that she didn’t understand. But she couldn’t blame them for having secrets, not when she had such a big one herself. One they wouldn’t believe even if she could tell them. But it did hurt that they could tell each other but not her. Whatever it was.
Saying goodbye that day had felt heavy. Painful. Like she was drowning all over again. Like she had a weight pressing in on her from all directions. It made her feel anxious and jumpy. She hoped that whatever it was that they could past this tension.
“Haruhi?” Her fathers voice broke through her train of thought.
“Sorry dad.” She tried to smile for him.
“Trouble with the host club?” Her dad asked, not falling for it for even a second.
“No… well I guess. Tensions are just a bit high right now. And I think the finals are actually affecting them as well. It’s strange to think the school year is already almost over.” Haruhi sighed.
“You really love those boys don’t you.” Her father said a bit wistfully.
“You know I can’t.” Haruhi snapped. “I can’t love them, even if it would make me so happy. Because each of them are so wonderful.”
Her father nodded and took another bite of his food. “Did you finish all of the studying you needed to do tonight?”
Haruhi knew her father was changing the subject to spare her feelings. But at this point she was fine with letting him. “Yeah, Hikaru and Kaoru actually got all the studying done that we needed for tomorrow done during lunch. They’re strangely efficient when they want to be. I’ve never felt more prepared.”
“That’s good, I know you haven’t been getting enough sleep from studying. You’ve been so tired.” Her father sighed.
“I have been really tired.” Haruhi agreed. “Physically, mentally, and emotionally. The last few weeks have been so hard.”
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Haruhi was wearing a long flowing blue dress for a nightgown. It felt sort of poetic to her. She let a bit of light in through her curtains on her window. The moon was full and beautiful shining down from the sky. She sat in a full bathtub, fully clothed staring at it for a moment. The water brought a numbness that she had needed. The emotions of the world had been just too much for her today. She sighed, no more stalling. She grabbed two handles at the bottom of the tub and pulled herself under the water. She gripped the handles tightly to keep herself under the water no matter how much her body wanted her to float. To breath. The familiar pressure was only a dull ache in the back of her mind. Only a few minutes more and it would fade away.
Her lungs burned… desperate for air she couldn’t give them.
At one point it just became to much and her mouth opened of its own accord. Water rushed in and with it relief. The world faded away. And all that was left was darkness.
…
…
Awareness crashed into her all at once. She sat up and gasped air back into her lungs. The sun had already risen outside, but her clock said it was still fairly early. She rubbed her eyes and then inspected her body quickly. She was soaking wet of course but other then that she was perfectly clean, and the ache she had got in her shoulder yesterday from one of the twins pulling just a bit too hard was completely gone. She was fresh as new.
Haruhi leaned her back against the tub and sighed.
For almost as long as she can remember this had been a fundamental truth of her life.
In order to sleep, she had to die.
Or more specifically she had to stop breathing. Calling it death made it a bit complicated considering she would always wake up. And she still felt alive mostly. She needed to breath and eat, and she still felt pain. She lived and felt like a normal alive human, but in order to sleep her heart had to stop. She preferred drowning most, her body wouldn’t always heal while she was “sleeping” either wise. And she wouldn’t wake up feeling good or clean. It also was more difficult to wake up somehow from other methods of death. She wasn’t conscious during that part but it worried her father and made her start the day late, so she tried to avoid it.
She doesn’t fully remember the event that caused this to be a part of her life. She was very young at the time. But she did remember looking into bright green eyes, she remembered being scared and in a lot of pain, it was hard to breath. She had made them a promise, “I will wake up.” She had told them. She had begged them to trust her. He had called her human. And then the darkness had come. She was never the same again.