Work Text:
Yuki had come to appreciate the drifting snow as it fluttered past the clubroom window. She had a sort of kinship with the stuff. She’s named for it. The Data Overmind cares not at all about poetic trivialities like pairing the name of its interfaces with the personalities they are meant to convey, but secretly, privately, Yuki liked to believe she could have been named for it.
She matched the cold of course, but more than everything else, she felt she matched the muffling effect of the frozen blanket. Snowy days are quiet; people tend to speak a little quieter around her. She has difficulty putting together why this little behavior happens so often. She has done a number of tests on her clubmates to see why this could happen so often.
At first she thought it was the book in her hand, that maybe they were just being polite to her studies. She leaves the book at home, the room still gets quieter when she enters. She began to wonder if it was the number of people in the room, that people would naturally speak a little lower as the total volume went up, but even in rooms with only herself and Kyon, Mikuru or even Haruhi were made just a little more still by her existence.
None of her little tests ever really solved it. She crosses each and every emotion off the list as she tests for it again and again, respect, rejection, annoyance, exhaustion, relaxation, and anything else her tired head could possibly think to examine. Her methods imperfect, her data made unclear. A mystery unsolvable without direct intervention. She would never know without asking.
She’s here to observe, here to write reports and take notes, here to make sure that these clubmates manage to hold the world together. She’s a safety net for the people doing the real work. They appreciate her for this act, she knows because they ask her to do it often. She knows she’s performing a service to them. But she also knows that outside of her narrow use, she’s an afterthought. She also knows what happens for acts of disobedience. She still can’t help but wonder if that endless summer was a punishment for overreaching. She’ll never know, she doesn’t deserve to know.
She pinpoints the quiet that falls when she’s in the room, and it saddens her greatly. The quiet is comfort. As long as she’s in her chair, book in hand and blanket over her lap, the fragile pieces of the world are holding together. She’s a sign post for the state of things. When Kyon’s life is falling apart, when Koizumi and Mikuru are beginning to panic about their individual parts and pieces, it’s Yuki they look to to see if things are okay enough to continue. When the snow is quiet outside, you know that it’s safe and warm inside.
She tries to hold it close to her chest as an honor. She’s doing something important. But as she makes the freezing walk back to her entirely empty apartment, it doesn’t keep her warm. Her place is empty because it’s expected of her, because she’s here to observe and that does not require the comforts of a daily life, because she knows she doesn’t deserve it after tearing the world apart for her own selfish wants. She does her job well, that should be enough.
As she makes herself a warm cup of tea, she’s drawn to thinking about Mikuru, as she sits down at her table, she reminisces about the time Kyon came to visit her. She might be an afterthought to them, but she’s never forgotten. Even Haruhi remembered to ask if she had plans for Christmas before dragging her into something new. These are her friends, they exhibit friendship towards her, even if she has a great deal of difficulty showing it back to them.
She’s not a whole person to them, she’s not a whole person at all, but they still offer her the warmth she craves so deeply. The kind of warmth that blossoms in her chest when she thinks about the times she was remembered, the times she wasn’t needed but wanted. She wants more so badly, but the hot cup of tea in her hands would have to suffice.