The Genderbending Of Haruhi Suzumiya

Chapter 11 -- Portal

What I’m about to say is undoubtedly agreeable between all human beings on the face of this planet: Alarm clocks are annoying.

Walking up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed wasn’t something I was prepared to do at 6:30 in the morning. Especially not for this “job” Haruki had so blissfully arranged for us. It was only day two and I was already sick of it. Not to mention that the day before I had been dragged up and down the city (literally, we had to have gone up and down like 400 staircases) from the time that we got to the station ‘till about 9:00pm, only to find no potential links to the disappearances of the café’s employees what so ever. My legs were killing me, I had a splitting headache, and I swear my mouth was stuck in a permanent smile.

I grabbed the alarm clock from its position just above my head and chucked it without bothering to look up to see where I was throwing the thing. Not that it mattered. The sturdy little bastard just thumped to the floor, ringing and vibrating all the more loudly across the hardwood floor.

“Damn it!” I swamped my face with my pillow and curled into a tight ball in a frivolous effort to ignore the clock and fall back asleep, knowing that any second now my brother would come bouncing in the door and perform his daily “Wakey, wakey, Kyonko!” bit.

Much to my surprise however, I was defeated by something much taller, more annoying, and certainly more likely to be the source of the day’s strife. The commander himself.

“Wake. Up. Kyonko!” Haruki shouted, ripping the sheets from me and nearly flinging my body into the air. I flopped to the ground, my face saved from a meeting with the floor only by the pillow that was wrapped around it. My shins however, didn’t have such protection. Did I already mention my legs hurt?

“What the hell are you doing in my room?!” I winced as I turned to yell at him. Forget my room; how the hell did you even get in my house!?

“Your parents were awake and they let me in when I came to the door. As your leader, it is my duty to-”

“Not that! What do you think you’re doing barging into a girl’s room like this! What would you have done had there been something in here I didn’t want you to see! How do you now I wasn’t in my underwear!” I was too angry to worry about how feminine my problems had become. There would be time to fret about them later. Right now, Haruki needed to learn a thing or two about how to act in another person’s house

“There’s no time to worry about that! Get dressed, we have to leave! C’mon get going, don’t give me that cranky look and get to it!” My face began to turn red. Whether that was from embarrassment or anger is a little unclear, though it was a probably a little bit of both. “Well?! Get changed!”

“GET! OUT!” I rammed the pillow into his face, forced him out the door and slammed it shut, “What do you expect me to get undressed in front of you, you pervert?!” I tried to calm myself down as Haruki tried to apologize from behind the door, though I really didn’t listen to what he had to say. I got dressed and tied my hair back in its usual ponytail, which was beginning to prove to be more difficult to perfect then I originally thought it was. I definitely have a new respect for girls who were them. It kinda gives me a new reason to like the hairstyle.

I walked out my door, past Haruki, and down the stairs, stopping only to put on my shoes and shake my little brother from around my ankles. Knowing that explaining to him that the last thing I would be doing so early in the morning was going to have fun without him –not a chance – would be a pointless task, I left that explanation for Haruki to work out.

After trying to exert myself and put some effort into moving around so early in the morning, trudging up the incredibly steep hill proved to drain all my motivation from me. The walk to the station wasn’t nearly as far as going to school, but the time of day and reasons for walking were not agreeable with my conscious mind, and I didn’t blame it.