I haven't really read very many Suzu fics, so if there are any similarities between this one and others, then it's probably coincidental. This is the first piece of fiction (at all) that I've written since my last one, and this was written in a hurrty, so I hope you KS waifu fayggots enjoy this.
 
-KingKamor
---------------
 
Sleepyhead Serenade
 
The artificial smell that permeates throughout the entire building stiffens Hisao's nostrils and reminds him of a cleaning liquid that his parents used back home. Sure enough, a glance downward tells him that the carpet of the Karaoke joint is near spotless aside from some bits of trash; not a stain in sight. The contrast of filth on spotlessness is almost striking as he looks around the place.
 
“Right this way, please,” the bubbly employee says as she escorts the group down one of the hallways, snapping her back to attention. Some people stare at the oddball sort of group; a sleepy-looking girl with bluish hair, a guy wearing a terrible sweatervest, another girl without a left hand, and a guy who looks like he just left a Hairy Potter convention. The lazy orange lighting cast from a series of gaudy lamps on the ceiling leave Suzu with a dozy look on her face, an expression that Hisao recognizes almost immediately.
 
“You alright?” He asks with a squeeze of her hand.
 
She had forgotten they were holding hands in the first place, her arm jerking in surprise. She then responds with a nervous smile, “Yeah, I'm good. Nothing out of the ordinary, anyway.”
 
“You sure? We came a long way, so--”
 
She places a hand on his mouth and says, “Hisao. We came all the way to the city to have fun. I'm not getting back on the bus just because I'm a little tired.”
 
After a moment, she removes her hand and Hisao says, “Okay, sorry. But if you feel like you have to sleep, just tell me, okay?” She doesn't respond.
 
As the employee opens the door to the group's private room, the light emanating from it stands in stark white brightness next to the half-assed lighting of the hallway. A small stage sits on the opposite end of the room, with a couch and table occupying the rest of the space. A few magazines, perhaps meant to entertain those not as interested in singing, sit in a stack on the table.
 
“We'll call you ten minutes before your time is up. You can also request an extention whenever yu want. Enjoy your time here!” The poor working girl smiles her fake smile, bows to the group, and walks back towards the front desk.
 
“Okay, let's get this show on the road!” Miki shouts as she bounds into the room and immediately grabs the microphone on the tiny stage, flipping through songs on the little touch pad in the wall. Suzu and Hisao sit down next to each other on the cushy couch as Kenji grumbles to himself. “What sort of music do you two guys listen to, anyway?” Miki keeps her eyes on the playlist as she speaks to him.
 
Hisao glances at Kenji, who remains motionless near the closed door with his arms crossed. Yeah, great idea, Miki. “Bring a friend,” she says. “It'll be fun,” she says. He decides to speak up, “I like a little bit of everything, I guess.”
 
Miki scoffs, “Oh, come on, that's a lazy-ass answer and you know it. You gotta pin down what you like better than that! Take me for example. I like the kind of music that gets you all fired up and ready to take on the night! Like this one!” She touches the screen and flips the lights off, leaving a few colorful and scattered patterns on the stage from the overhead lights. Almost instantly, a heavy metal guitar blazes its way through their ears, causing Hisao to reflexively cover his ears.
 
“Oh great, that sounds like Maximum The Hormone,” Hisao mutters to himself with a grimace. Suzu simply laughs in the seat next to him and leans on his shoulder as their mutual friend metal-growls her throat into oblivion.
 
Kenji grumbles to himself.
 
-----
 
Some time later, after Miki gets four or five songs out of the way, she decides to step down from the stage and plops down next to Kenji on the couch. “Oh, man. Who's next?” She says as she fans herself with one of the magazines from the table.
 
Suzu and Hisao glance at each other. Since Miki began her long string of songs, Suzu had slumped further and further into Hisao's chest, his chin resting on the top of her head. She looks up at him throug her bangs and smiles. “I'll go in a bit, k?” She says as she puts a hand to her mouth to stifle a yawn. “I need a bit more time.”
 
“Understandable. Hisao?” The tan-skinned girl shoots a goading smirk at the young man in question.
 
His heart thumps in his chest, a little harder than usual. For the moment at least, the thought of singing in front of his friends and girlfriend is a bit too much for him to handle. “I'll take a rain check on that.”
 
Miki slaps the magazine down on the couch next to her leg, causing Kenji to jump nearly a foot off of the couch in surprise. He lets out a quiet hiss that Miki ignores. “Oh come on, guys, I can't be the only one who sings tonight. Suzu, I know for a damn fact that you have a great voice, so you should get up there and--”
 
Kenji, surprising everyone in the room, stands from his seat and tromps up to the mic. “You call that crap music that fires you up?! I'll show you lot what it really means to get fired up!” He flips through the song list, his nose nearly touching the screen so that he could see the words, and selects one after only a few seconds.
 
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEJ-x64_kgg) is his choice in song, surprising absolutely no-one in the room. Hisao lets out a laugh, despite himself, as his dorm neighbor sings his heart out to the manly song. As the tune really gets going, the rest of the group gets into it and claps their hands to the beat, the overwhelming heat of Kenji's mighty voice not deterring them as they join in as the background singers.
 
-----
 
As the evening continues, Suzu sings a couple songs, much softer than the ones Miki or Kenji sang, as Hisao remains in his seat and admires her voice at his leisure. Though the lyrics are sometimes interrupted by a yawn or two, it does not lessen the enjoyment. Except for Kenji, who has gone back to to his grumbling. Their snacks have dwindled in number, their drinks reduced to glasses of melting ice, and the air within the room has grown hot and stagnant with the passing of time. For a few of the songs Suzu sang, Hisao had expected her to fall over in sleepiness, but the generally upbeat nature of the songs she sang manage to keep her on her feet.
 
As Suzu's latest song begins to end, however, Hisao notices her eyes droop slightly lower than usual, catching the tell-tale sign that his girlfriend is running low on gas. With a start, he stands up and prepares himself to catch her just in case she needs to be caught. Miki makes a glance at him, giving a slight smile at the fact that he was able to tell what was going on. Hisao leans against the wall so as not to be noticed.
 
He failed.
 
The song ends without incident, after which Suzu goes to sit back down on the couch.
 
“That was nice,” Hisao says with a smile as he sits down next to her. “Do you want to call it a night? You looked pretty tired up there.”
 
She glances at him, but her drowzy eyes turn to stare at the stage. “Come on, I'm always tired, Hisao. I don't need you to babysit me.”
 
At this, Hisao's eyebrows raise. He remembers what she said back when they first arrived and says, “Uh, okay. Sorry. I was just trying to--”
 
“You don't have to!”
 
For a few unbearable moments, silence reigns over the karaoke room. Not even Miki knows how to continue the session without it being bumbling and awkward. So she does it just like that.
 
“Euh, uh, Hisao!” Miki says more loudly than she intended, “You should pick a song next and sing. You haven't sung yet, so, uh...”
 
Hisao sighs before looking over at Miki, his eyes glazed over. “You know what? I'm not really in the mood anymore.”
 
Completely denied, Miki slumps into a pile of futility on the couch. As the lights dance on the walls of the private room as if everyone were still partying, the phone in the wall lets out a ring that makes both Hisao and Suzu jump in shock of the sudden sound. Their ten-minute warning comes from the other end of the line. They decide to leave early. Hisao never had the chance to sing.
 
-----
 
The busride back to Yamaku is as silent as the walk through campus to the dorms. Even though Hisao and Suzu sat and walked next to each other, they did not hold hands, nor did they strike up a conversation to pass the time. The group splits off at the dorms, the boys going to their rooms while the girls went to theirs. As Hisao and Kenji walk down the hallway of the boys dorm, the one in the sweatervest stews in his own thoughts, agonizing over what to do.
 
“Hey, man,” Kenji says, but Hisao is too lost in his own thoughts to hear him. “Hey!”
 
“Huh? Oh, sorry. What's up?”
 
“What's with you tonight, man? It's my job to be the silent grumbler who pulls out surprises every now and then; you're the one who does all the talking and enhances the surprise by being boring and predictable. I thought we had a thing going! We tricked them good until we all went home!”
 
Hisao sighs. “I'm going to pretend that I know what you're talking about. It's just... I don't know what I'm doing wrong with Suzu.”
 
“The sleepy one?”
 
“The sleepy-- sure, yeah. The sleepy one.”
 
Kenji strokes an imaginary beard in thought, eyebrow raising every now and then, followed by the other one. “Think about it like this.”
 
“Oh boy, here we go.”
 
“Have I ever asked you to read me a sign or anything?”
 
Hisao furrows his brow in thought. “No, now that I think about it.”
 
“Yeah, I think it's like that.”
 
They stare at each other in the hallway for a minute in silence. “Wait, that's all the advice I get?”
 
“Hey, beggars can't be choosers. Because if they could, then they wouldn't be beggars, they'd be choosers, and that's the point.”
 
“Right, right.” Hisao sees his room number come up and reaches for the handle. “Either way, thanks for coming, Kenji.”
 
The bespectacled young man flashes one of his friendlier smiles. “No problem, man. It's always a good idea to spy on the usual Feminist hideouts.”
 
-----
 
“May I just ask, what the hell was that?” Miki says to Suzu as they walk down the hallway of the girls dorm.
 
Suzu stretches her arms above her head and lets out a lion-sized yawn. “What was what?”
 
“The thing! That happened earlier with Hisao! You were being a total bitch!”
 
Suzu opens the door to her room, “I wasn't being bitchy, I was just... I don't know.”
 
Miki follows the blue-haired girl into the bedroom without permission and responds, “He was just being a gentleman, you know.”
 
Suzu scoffs. “I know, but it gets so annoying, you know? He treats me like I'll fall apart at any second.”
 
Miki smacks herself in the forehead with the stump on her arm. “Because you CAN! That's kind of your thing! He likes you. He doesn't want to see you hurt, so he was being careful!”
 
Suzu looks at her friend and plops down on her bed. “I can get ready for bed myself, okay? I'll see you in the morning.”
 
“... You know, you never got mad at me when I thought I should get ready to catch you in case you fall.” Miki gives the sleepy girl a stern look before walking out of the room without a word.
 
-----
 
No matter how Hisao tried to dispel his thoughts on his girl troubles, they always drift back to the tired girl of his affection. The thought that he had slighted her that night refuses to leave the surface of his thoughts. As he tosses and turns in his twin-sized bed, his sheets and blanket never felt more ill-suited for sleep. He checks the clock next to his bed.
 
Monday 12:37 AM
 
“Fuck!” He calls out, messing up his hair with both hands as he sits up in the bed. “Should I talk to her first thing tomorrow? Would she be too tired in the morning to talk about anything? Will that disrupt her daytime sleep schedule? Is this irrepairable? Damn it, I'm thinking like a woman. Damn it! I'm thinking like Kenji!”Deciding to settle down a little, Hisao takes a break from worrying and looks around his dorm room. The window is open, letting a nice cool breeze and some fresh moonlight throughout the room, giving it a sterile white glow similar to that of the hospital he stayed at for so many months. For a moment, he finds himself back in that very place, devoid of any friends or lovers, of parents or relatives. A chill rises along his back as he clutches his chest at an imaginary pain. “Never again, come on...”
 
He looks around once more and, for a brief moment, he imagines Suzu sitting near the window, her hair touseled by the breeze and her figure outlined in a bluish glow reminiscent of the color of her hair. In his mind, she is smiling. Hisao wonders if her window is open to let in the breeze as well.
 
With a deep breath and heavy sigh, he kicks his blankets off and grabs the clothes he had discarded on the floor earlier. After buttoning up his shirt and sliding on his pants, sans belt, in the dark of his room, he rushes over to the door.
 
The moment his hand clutches the knob, a knock sounds from the other side of the door. He freezes in place, his hand still grasping the handle, as if waiting for something else to happen, or perhaps not believing what just happened actually occurred.
 
“Hisao...?” A familiar voice whispers from the other side. He opens the door to see Suzu, wrapped up in a fuzzy blanket, standing in the middle of the corridor.
 
“Uh... hey, sorry, I...” he says without any regard to the words coming out of his mouth, the things that he wants to say spilling out incoherently.
 
Suzu is the same. “No, I'm sorry, there's just, uh... can I come in?”
 
This snaps Hisao to attention. “Yeah, come in.” He steps out of the way and flips on the light. Suzu trudges into the room, careful not to step on her blanket, and sits down in the desk chair that Hisao presents to her. “So, uh, what's up?”
 
She laughs nervously, “Nothing unusual, I just can't really sleep right now, and...” She stops, avoiding making eye contact with the young man sitting on the bed.
 
Before she has a chance to continue, he says, “I'm sorry about how I acted before.” Suzu looks at him wide-eyed. “I sort of treated you like a kid, I guess. I'll give you help only if you need it from now on, okay? I'll... try not to overstep my bounds again.”
 
“No, no! It's fine, I just-- I guess that I'm not yet used to someone other than Miki or my parents helping me out like this. I'm... I want to be more independent than I am, so...”
 
Hisao chuckles, “I know that feeling. Sorry.”
 
“Sorry.”
 
After a pause, the pair chuckle to themselves and manage to wear their normal smiles again.
 
Suzu speaks up. “Is it okay if I... stay here tonight?” Hisao looks at her with a hint of confusion, a thousand different possibilities firing through his mind at the same time, nearly causing a short-circuit. “I sort of had a nightmare before coming here, and... I'm still a bit shaken by it.”
 
Only a few possibilities remain and he manages to calm his thoughts. “Are you okay?”
 
“Yeah, Miki took care of me. But I couldn't sleep after she left, and I really really wanted to talk to you, and get all of this crap out of the way and make up so--”
 
“You can stay here, Suzu.”
 
-----
 
“No, you really don't have to take the floor, Hisao, I'm fine!” Suzu says after she gets situated in his bed.
 
“I know, but I need to play the gentleman at this juncture. I'm sleeping down here, okay?” He had already begun to set up his blanket and pillow down on the floor despite Suzu's dissent.
 
“Hisao, please, we don't need both of us to be dead-tired in the morning.”
 
“You're the one who needs the most rest and I honestly don't mind, I can just--”
 
“Hisao.” Suzu says in a stern voice, grabbing his sleeve before he has the time to lay down. She smirks at him and says smoothly, “Don't make me have to tell you to sleep with me in your own bed tonight.”
 
The pillow that was in his hand drops to the floor as he slides onto the bed next to Suzu, the warmth of her fuzzy white blanket already present from her lingering body heat. Though it takes them a moment to position themselves correctly on the twin-sized bed, they eventually find a comfortable position with her head resting on his chest and his arm around her shoulder. Their legs entwine between the blanket as Suzu rests a hand on his shoulder.
 
Suzu says, “There, this is,” yawn, “much better than the floor, isn't it?”
 
“Yeah, it really is,” he says with a chuckle.
 
“I heard somewhere that falling asleep with your boyfriend is the highest luxury in the world.”
 
“Among other things.”
 
“Yeah. None of that tonight. It's a school night.”
 
“I know.” He kisses the top of her head, the scent of her hair filling his senses. Her shampoo, a bit of the karaoke place, and-- “Do I smell a granola bar?”
 
Suzu laughs and scoots in closer to him, “Yeah, my parents sometimes send me some healthy stuff. They don't trust the school with my diet for some reason. They're big health freaks.”
 
“What kind of stuff do they send?”
 
“Power bars, vitamins, crap like that,” another yawn, “Ugh, if there's one thing that my parents' house is never short on, it's health food and ice cream sandwiches.”
 
He laughs, “That's two things”
 
“Hush.”
 
The pair enjoy the feeling of each other's warmth, Hisao's fingers sometimes sliding through Suzu's hair while her legs wrap around his own. Thinking back to the terrible thoughts he had before she arrived, cooped up in a hospital without a friend in the world, he begins to believe that his life will never be like that again.
 
“Hisao?”
 
“Mm?”
 
“Do you mind if I sing one more time before we doze off? I think that this song fits... what I'm feeling right now.”
 
He smiles. “Not at all.”
 
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ss6uEO6MQPk)
 
She hums what Hisao assumes to be the instrumental part of the song, which he appreciates, given that there is no karaoke machine to play that part for them. To his surprise, the lyrics are in English, and she speaks them perfectly. Though she sings in a language he cannot understand, her quiet voice and whispy breath are more soothing to his ears than if she sang into a mircophone.
 
“I didn't know you could speak English?” Hisao interrupts.
 
She stops for a moment, “My cousin goes to America on business. He introduced me to this band. Now hush.”
 
As she hums the final strings of the song, Hisao lets out a sigh, on the very edge of sleep. “Next time, I promise that I'll try to sing at karaoke, too.” Alas, there is no response from the girl laying next to him. As his chest rises and falls with his breaths, her head nuzzles up into the crux of his neck. It does not take long for him to follow suit, falling into the realm of dreams, though he could not think of a single scenario where his dreams could win over the realitiy he was living.