A/N: I don't own SHnY. That's written by Nagaru Tanigawa. Tanigawa Nagaru. What order am I going for, again? Also: on June 9th, 2007, I rewrote some stuff a little. It's not important, but this is the June 9th Version. Or something. Have a cupcake. They're chocolate.
They play a dangerous game. She hands him a teacup, and his fingers touch hers for a moment too long. They pass each other by, and the backs of their hands meet for a split second. It's Russian roulette, only played with skin instead of bullets. The chamber spins, and perhaps this time, Haruhi will burst into the room and catch them--
He glances around the room, trying desperately to avoid eye contact.
There's nothing he'd like better than to look at her in the eyes, but he's afraid that if he did, his betrayal would instantly become obvious. Haruhi can never know. It's a reoccurring nightmare for him: she finds out somehow, and then--
He turns his thoughts away from such unpleasant things and tries to keep his mind absolutely clear. He tries his hardest not to think about long brown-colored hair and amber eyes--failing miserably.
And it doesn't help that the girl in his mind is right there, coming even closer to him. He wonders if she's as worried as he is. She probably is. They should both be happy--in fact, they are happy, most of the time--but at the moment they're scared that it'll suddenly be taken away, burnt up like a leaf in a bonfire.
Lost in his thoughts, he suddenly realizes that he's done exactly what he didn't want to do. He's staring at her--and she's staring back at him. For a fleeting moment, they're the only two people that exist in the world.
And then Haruhi elbows him in the stomach, and the rest of the clubroom fades into view again. Though gritted teeth, he curses his stupidity. Everything has a price, he reminds himself. You can have everything you want, or anything you want, or the one thing you want--you just have to be willing to pay the price for it. And his price is to sit through club meetings and keep a vengeful god occupied.
He keeps his eyes deliberately fixed at the tabletop for the rest of the meeting.
"I'm very sorry," he says after everyone else has left the clubroom.
"It's okay," she answers, and they sit and drink tea and talk of meaningless things, like weather and sparrows and the end of the world.
"You should really try not to...make her angry so much."
They're sitting on a park bench, eating ice cream. He has vanilla in a cup, while she has a scoop of strawberry ice cream on a cone. Hot fudge, since it's getting cold.
He pauses his motions, the small spoonful of vanilla halfway to his mouth, and mumbles something quietly under his breath about girls with godlike powers and stupid clubs.
An entire conversation passes between them, conveyed through minute gestures. She touches his shoulder with her right hand (she's holding her cone with her left) and makes a face somewhere between a grin and a grimace, and it means a sympathetic 'it's something that has to be done'. He lets out a thin breath and looks miserably downward, a simultaneous 'I know' and 'I'm sorry'. She smiles warmly, the apology is accepted, and the subject is changed.
"It's kind of warm today, huh?"
"It'll probably be colder than usual during the spring--I think. I'm really not sure."
It's meaningless conversation, but that's okay.
"Hey--your ice cream's dripping."
She looks down at her hand. Somehow, without her noticing, a drop of pink has traced its way over her fingernail. "Ohh, it is." She blinks at it stupidly for a moment, then turns towards her companion. "Do you have any tissues--"
He traces his fingertip lightly over her nail, wiping the frozen dessert from her hand, and licks the offending drop off his finger.
She blushes, and it makes him smile--not some lusting, sex appeal-fueled smirk, but a real, happy smile, just because he's able to sit there together with her. And seeing that smile makes her smile back.
'I'm not supposed to do...this sort of thing.'
That's what he'd say if he were a more open person. Sometimes, when he lies awake at night, he remembers a promise he made with an older woman in a clubroom, broken now.
The closest he ever gets to saying it to her is muttering it under his breath as he hugs her to his chest after everyone else has gone home. Every day he says to himself that he'll confess, and every day he doesn't.
He'd have admitted it by now if he knew that the same thoughts run through her head as well.
'In order to stabilize the future, it is necessary to input the correct value.' Nagato said that once, explaining it to him, and neither of them are blind. It was her mission to adjust that one terrible variable--Haruhi--to an acceptable value.
Except, someplace along the line, what was 'acceptable' to her changed drastically.
So when he says "I'm sorry," to her in the glow of the sunset, she's able to turn to him, smile determinately and say "I don't care."
And they don't talk about it anymore.
One day, she takes the device she used to contact her superiors, puts it in a cardboard box, and buries it by the roots of a tree.
"If it's like this, it's okay, right?" she asks out loud, knowing she isn't going to get an answer.
It's impossible to communicate with a future that doesn't exist, of course.
She wonders if it hurts to be erased from existence. She wonders if what she's done is the same as murder. She wonders for a long time, standing there, before she shakes the thoughts from her mind and leaves to prepare for her date.
Everything has a price, as long as you're willing to pay.