Chapter 4
When Haruhi awoke she was alarmed to see that she wasn't in her own room, but instead was in a room with wooden floors and a sliding door going into it. She quickly remembered that she was staying with her cousin Tohru until school started up again and relaxed back onto the mat she was given to sleep in. She looked up at the ceiling in an attempt to wake herself fully for the busy day ahead of her. She turned her head to the right where an old analog clock hung on the plaster wall and squinted in order to read the time without her glasses on. Eventually giving up, she rolled onto the floorboards and grunted while getting up, clearly not a morning person. She shuffled over to where her glasses were and put them on; careful not to leave her fingerprints on the glass. She then turned back to the clock and analyzed the positions of its hands. 6:30. Way too early to be awake…
Haruhi sighed at her misfortune and forced herself to slide the door to her room open despite the fact that her bed was calling out to her trying to make her stay and keep it warm. She made an extreme effort in putting one foot in front of the other going down the stairs and managed not to fall which caused the imaginary streamers to go off in her head in an act of celebration.
The hall in front of Haruhi seemed to get longer as she stared into its abyss, but she figured that if she had already made it this far, a hall was probably the least of her worries. She proceeded down the hall and as soon as she saw the mats on the floor of the dining room she practically dove to sit on one and put her head down on the table. She heard a low chuckle from the door to the kitchen, but only stirred when she heard a cup being placed down in front of her. Reached out to the cup and drank the warm liquid inside. She sighed happily and looked up to her savior, none other than Shigure Sohma.
"You looked like you needed some tea to wake you up. You're kind of like Hatori and Kyo in that way." Shigure smiled softly at Haruhi's silent enjoyment of the cup in her hands and pondered how she and her cousin Tohru could be such opposites despite their lineage and closeness in the past. He then rolled his eyes at his own thoughts while thinking about his own cousins and their personality differences.
Haruhi saw this rolling of the eyes but didn't think much of it as she was too busy guzzling down her tea to care. Once the tea had reached its end, Haruhi smiled pleasantly at Shigure.
"Thank you so much for this tea, Pervert-San number 1."
Shigure began to sulk as he went back to the kitchen when he heard Haruhi's less than adequate nickname for him and Haruhi continued to smile happily getting up to go get dressed up the stairs.
She hopped up the stairs and put on her favorite pink dress and comfortable pink shoes. By the time she got downstairs her cousin Tohru was also dressed and on her way to the kitchen to cook breakfast. Haruhi shook her head. She had not gotten dressed up to stay inside eating all day. She quickly walked over to Tohru and tugged her out of the house and onto the trail leading to town.
"Haruhi, I need to make breakfast for everyone."
"Nope." Haruhi's answer was short and to the point. Tohru would not be those boys' maid while Haruhi was around. There was no way in hell Tohru would be treated the same way she was when she didn't even have a debt. Sure, they let her stay with them, but their were no contracts and there was no private police force to threaten her with. They were going out for breakfast. That was final.