Between nearly every pair of opposites is a gradual change as opposed to an instant switch. Hot can't become cold without briefly becoming lukewarm, day and night are joined together by either dawn or dusk, and for most people, 'asleep' and 'awake' were also on opposite ends of such a spectrum.

Mikuru Asahina was gradually moving from the former to the latter one morning when she noticed a number of details out of the ordinary. They were, in the order they occurred to her: This isn't my bed. This isn't my bedroom. This isn't my house. Yuki Nagato is lying next to me. And so she tried to force herself further along the road from 'asleep' to 'awake' in hopes of finding answers along the way.

Her location was the first thing she understood. Haruhi had dragged the rest of the SOS Brigade with her on one of her spontaneous adventures, the details of which Mikuru couldn't really follow regardless of how awake she may or may not have been. Something about a hotel that was rumored to be haunted or something along those lines. Haruhi had the entire brigade stay there for a night to see if anything happened. Of course, no rational thought suggested that anything actually would, but Mikuru wasn't feeling rational enough to make it through the whole night on her own.

Solving the first three of her conundrums made the fourth and last much easier for Mikuru. The reason she and Yuki had agreed to share not just a room but also a bed was because, although the rest of the brigade didn't know it yet, they'd been in a relationship for about a week now. But even so, this was the first time they'd done something like this, and…

Mikuru's eyes widened as more memories came to her. Memories such as Yuki clinging tightly to her, the two letting out gasps and cries that nobody, themselves included, would have expected to hear from them, and neither of them even considering the possibility that they might have been heard, the feeling of one's bare skin against the other's almost making them forget which part belonged to whom...

She had to stop there. Her thoughts had become so steamy that she couldn't make out anything coherent. After spending an unknown amount of time trying to clear her mind, she found herself with a new question: Was I really ready for this?

She sought steady ground by going over the things she didn't have any doubts about. For example, she didn't have any doubts about her feelings for Yuki. It was love at first sight; on the fateful day Mikuru was dragged into the Brigade, seeing Yuki's calm face was what brought stability to the chaotic situation, and convinced her to join this strange group. It wasn't until she returned to the future that she found out that this was all part of her mission, which she'd been thrown into with no prior information by her superiors. By her own admission, she couldn't act, so this was usually the best way for her reactions to "seem" authentic.

Mikuru suddenly realized that she was getting sidetracked by the resentment she felt towards her superiors. Another beacon of certainty in her confused mind, but not an entirely relevant one. Unlike the first point, it didn't really give her an idea of where to go next. She was left at her original point, the belief that they'd gone too far too soon.

Wait… Mikuru thought. How far did we go? What kind of things did we do?

If the wasn't panicking before, she certainly was when it occurred to her that the memories were suddenly much more hazy than they were before. How had that happened? She suddenly found herself worrying that the answer involved at least a sip of alcohol. Mikuru couldn't believe how suddenly the whole relationship had fallen to pieces. The question of whether or not this had happened too soon had left her mind, being replaced with the thought that regardless of when it happened, the first time was still far too important to forget like this.

But Yuki would still remember, Mikuru realized. If they really had been drinking, then Yuki would be completely unaffected, like she always was. On top of that, she was also able to remember every iteration of a time loop that lasted several centuries, so the night before would be extremely trivial compared to that.

"Yuki…" Mikuru gently tapped her shoulder. "Yuki?"

Yuki instantly snapped from fast asleep to wide awake. "Good morning, Mikuru." A hint of concern was suddenly visible in her eyes. "...is something wrong?"

Only then did Mikuru become aware of how distressed she must have looked, and it probably didn't help that she didn't know what she wanted to say first.

"Y-Yuki…" That seemed like a good start. "Last night… something happened here, but I'm not sure about the details. Please Yuki, I have to know… what happened last night?"

Yuki briefly considered how to reassure Mikuru in this kind of situation. For most couples, a smile would probably have been enough, but in Yuki's case that was sadly asking a bit much. So instead, she decided to rest a hand on Mikuru's shoulder.

"Nothing happened last night," she said. "What you recall must simply have been a nightmare. This hotel is not haunted."

Yuki expected Mikuru to look confused when faced with this revelation, but only for a few seconds. When the reaction lasted longer than that, her mind searched for any explanation as to why she could have been mistaken until one detail became clear to her.

"Actually…" Yuki's voice adopted what Mikuru had come to recognize in the past week as a playful tone. "Your body's response to your dream suggests that it was arguably the opposite of a nightmare."

Finally, Mikuru took as long as Yuki predicted to process the explanation, as indicated by the intense blush that suddenly appeared on her face. "Oh. Oh."

Yuki spent the rest of the day trying to work out whether she'd heard relief or disappointment in those two 'oh's.

A/N: Shortly after I started writing this story I sent its premise to the OTP Prompts blog and I wanted to see if I could get this finished before it appeared there. I didn't meet that deadline, but the next I decided on was Valentines, and hey look it's Valentines.

...if you're reading this after Valentines, then you're in serious trouble.