It had been a rather unextraordinary day all things considered. School was boring, the walk to it tediously uphill and in all honesty Kyon didn’t particularly expect that to change too much. He and Koizumi would spend some time playing games while Asahina would serve tea in her adorable maid outfit and Nagato would sit in the corner silently reading a book. Then at the moment he would least expect it, Haruhi would burst into the room and announce her latest madcap scheme for them all to prevent from somehow destroying the world.
Except that upon opening the door and entering the clubroom, Kyon was rather surprised to note that the chair in the corner sat empty, disappointed to note that the maid outfit was untouched, mildly relieved to see that there was no game set up and waiting for him to play, and curious to see one Haruhi Suzumiya pacing around and around the table with such a furious pace that for a moment Kyon worried she might wear a hole in the floor.
Now, the word “furiously” was used in that last sentence to indicate terms of the pace that Haruhi was using rather than her emotional state. If it makes things easier, imagine that the word “rapid”, “energetic” or “enthusiastic” was used instead. Her demeanor was anything <i>but</i> furious. There was no trace of anger, nor the usual impatience or frustration that accompanied such feelings whenever she happened to have them. Instead, there was quite the opposite reaction. Happiness unto the point of mirth. Tears forming in the eyes from the barely restrained laughter at a joke of which only she seemed aware.
And those laughter-induced-tear-stained eyes were staring in rapt attention at a device clenched within her fist. A device with a variety of buttons that her fingers were periodically tapping at and in the very middle of it a screen containing images that were passing by Kyon’s range of vision far too quickly even to begin to see. Particularly with the way that light from the window was bouncing off it at the angles from which he could see it.
“I didn’t imagine you would be much of a game enthusiast,” Kyon said. He hung his bag around the back of a chair and sat down to wait for the others.
A manic gleam shone through those eyes, which stayed glued to the screen with the immobility of mountains. “Haven’t you heard that the fruit of life is tasting new experiences?” Haruhi replied. Her pace almost developed a slight skip to it. “If we are going to find any trace of aliens, espers or time travellers we must learn to look in the most unexpected places! Therefore, is it not appropriate for us to indulge in experiences we might normally avoid? Altering our behaviour in this manner might catch them off guard, allowing us to in turn catch them out!”
Flawless reasoning, as usual. Oh well. At least an interest in games might keep her overactive imagination directed in a less harmful area than usual? Perhaps it might let her boundless energy find a new outlet, keep her entertained long enough to prevent the universe from collapsing in on itself. Yes, Kyon really did think these things. And he would continue to think them even as the conversation continued, even if they did require a little more… adjustment.
“That sounds like an interesting strategy,” Kyon conceded. “So, what sort of game are you playing? What is it called?”
“<i>Harem-Master 5000: Exiled to Japan</i>!” Haruhi beamed.
Kyon fell off his chair. Then he twitched a little nervously, and yelped when Haruhi stepped on his back in her endless circling of the table.
“Wh-what sort of ga-game is that supposed to be?” Kyon mumbled in that way he did. He clawed his way back to his feet with the table as support and perched himself back upon the chair with renewed wariness. “What sort of girl would decide to play a game like that? And in school no less!”
“Oh, Kyon! That innocence act isn’t fooling anyone. I bet you have five - no, ten! - copies of this game and its prequels stashed away in some wardrobe somewhere.”
“… Prequels?” Kyon goggled. “You don’t mean to tell me they made four thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine games with a ridiculous title like ‘Harem Master’, do you?”
“Of course not,” Haruhi nonchalantly replied. “Just five! For some reason they add another thousand to the number each game.”
Ah. So <i>this</i> was what a migraine felt like. Good to know for the sake of future reference. “What is the game about?” Kyon instantly regretted asking. Damn fool mouth. Always trying to get him into trouble, it seemed!
“It’s about an alien called the Harem Master, who gets exiled to living in a Japanese student’s body,” Haruhi said, the corners of her mouth twitching slightly as though attempting to refrain from a sudden outburst of laughter. “The only way he can free himself is to build a brand new harem in the present day with the help of his futuristic technology!”
“That… sounds… fun…” Kyon ventured.
“It’s not! It’s terrible, and it’s stupid, and I can’t stop playing! Whoever made this has to be an alien, because no girl behaves like that! The situations are unbelievable, the dialogue contrived, and it’s all so -”
And at that point her attempts to hold back the laughter completely failed, prompting her to collapse against the table and pound down upon it while Haruhi let out what must surely have been hours of highly pressurised giggly fits in a long and steady stream of gut-bursting laughter. There were several points during this that Kyon could do little more than stare at her and try to will her to inhale, because the “ha”s were coming so quickly and forcefully it seemed to him that she didn’t have the remotest opportunity to do anything of the sort.
“Well, well,” Koizumi said from the doorway. “With a joke that funny, Kyon, it would be cruel not to share it with the rest of us!”
“… You’re probably better off not knowing,” Kyon sighed. Well. It wasn’t as if he’d be unable to find out later on anyway if he really did want to. Suddenly this seemed like it was going to be one of their more unusual meetings after all…
“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” Haruhi said, wiping a tear away from her mirth-filled eyes. “My brigade strives for the unusual! We seek out the weird and the baffling! That is our stated purpose, our reason to exist! We will search high, we will search low, and just to be absolutely certain we’ll search in the middle area too!”
“Even in an ero-game?”
“Especially in ero-games!” Haruhi slammed her fists onto the edge of the desk so hard that for a second Kyon ducked back a little to try and prevent it from clipping his chin. “If that’s what it takes to find aliens and espers and time travellers, then so be it!”
“I see, I see!” Koizumi chuckled. “That’s our leader for you. Such imagination and energy! If anyone can sniff out those pesky interesting beings, it must certainly be her!”
“Please don’t suck up to her while pretending she’s not there.”
“Ah, but that was not praise for the sake of praise! Please do not misunderstand me. My point was that I would never have thought to search -”
“Sorry, sorry, sorry I’m late!” Miss Asahina breathlessly gasped as she strode inside the room. “Sorry again. I was held back by other important business in class, and -”
And whoever heard of a time traveller being late? Kyon mentally reprimanded the part of him that found that supposed joke funny. Anything at Asahina’s expense was simply going too far!
Speaking of going too far, it was right about then that Asahina’s eyes fell upon the handheld console still lying on the table. Oh dear! The sight of her turning beet red and trembling was simply too adorable, and the urge to run over and hug her and tell her it would all be alright was becoming more and more overpowering by the second.
“K-Kyon… I didn’t know you were the sort to enjoy that sort of thing! Kya! So nasty!”
“Eh? What’s this? Is our mascot shy about ero-games? Come on, there’s nothing to be scared of! See?”
“M-Miss Suzumiya! Please! Take it away! It-It’s so inappropriate!”
Some men might have stared for hours at the two girls wrestling around like that, but Kyon and Koizumi… well, by now they’d been made rather immune to it. Not that Kyon particularly expected Koizumi would have ever reacted to that sort of thing at all anyway.
“This time, why don’t I play black?” Koizumi asked, gesturing towards the chess board he’d moved to the table while Kyon was mildly distracted by the ruckus over there. Forgive him, Miss Asahina! Stepping into a skirmish involving Haruhi Suzumiya seemed like a suicidal prospect at the best of times!
“So cute! You’d fit right in one of these games, you know that?”
“Noooo!”
“… What? It’s not like I’d make you star in any such thing! What sort of monster do you take me for?”
“The sort that might make her dress in a bunnygirl outfit and wave signs around at the front gate.”
“Kyon! Penalty!”
All in all, just another day in the SOS Brigade.
<hr>
The next morning came with a loud buzzing noise and an odd chime. “Kyon!” his sister’s voice called. “You’re going to be late for school, Kyon! Hurry up!”
His body started to beg in that usual way it does when a night’s sleep is not quite sufficient. It starts by reminding you of how cold it is out there, and how there’s that little twinge in your leg that still needs a little more time in bed to sort out, and feel how heavy your eyes are right now? Need a few more hours to sort that out at the very least. No, sir, you’re staying in bed if you know what’s good for you!
Come on, be reasonable! Don’t move those bedcovers - see? See how cold it is out there? Curl up in bed, pull that bedcover back over yourself and - Come on, just a few more minutes. Surely that couldn’t hurt anyone, could it? No? Do you really want to go to school today? Could easily feign sickness, avoid that long walk. Avoid the boring class. Avoid Haruhi and all her…
Wait. Something’s wrong here.
Kyon turned left, and could quite clearly see his wardrobe directly in front of him, with the door to the left and the window to the right. Kyon turned left again. Wardrobe in front. Door left. Window right. He stepped back, and the room stepped with him. He turned around and so did everything around him.
See? A couple more minutes sleep will sort out this little spatial awareness problem. No trouble at all!
Kyon rubbed his forehead and ignored that particular impulse. He really did not have the time right now to barter with his urge to sleep. Instead, he reached for the wardrobe… and it flew open the moment his fingertips brushed against it, revealing five complete outfits stacked together in a better manner than anything within had been in years. Had Mother been in here to do this? Well. Whatever. Kyon reached for his school uniform, and - suddenly it was replaced with his pyjamas, as if by magic.
What the hell?
A quick once over revealed that he was indeed wearing his school uniform, but he couldn’t remember putting it on. Or even removing it from the hanger. All he did was reach for it, and suddenly he was wearing it. Kyon shook his head and reached towards the door, doing little more than touching a hand against it before finding himself outside in the corridor. Right. That is getting really quite unsettling. In point of fact it smacked of Haruhi, now that he was thinking about it.
He grabbed a slice of toast and suddenly felt as though he’d eaten something. He reached for the front door; the next thing he knew he was staring at a sign with a single arrow and the word “school” underneath it. Well, yes. That direction did lead to school. The long uphill walk that he did every single day -
Vanished outright when he turned to face that direction. Somehow he was out by the school gates, looking inside the grounds as other students milled around and yawned as they made their way to class. A tremendously bad feeling about all of this was starting to creep down his spine at about this point, and he felt the rather desperate need to speak to Yuki Nagato. Whatever was going on here, she’d know for sure!
And if it was Yuki he wanted to talk to there was only one place to do it. He moved towards the school building, found himself inside, and from there found himself in front of a noticeboard with two rooms upon it. His homeroom on one side and the club room on the other.
“I think I understand how this works by now,” he mused out loud. “I move in the direction of the room I want to go in, and -” And he was outside the club room, suddenly feeling a little bit groggy. Sudden movement like this is more disorienting than one might understand until it is experienced firsthand! “Hmph! If only I could move this fast in gym, I could race for the school!”
The room itself was in a fairly normal state of being. Yuki Nagato sitting in the corner, reading through a book as though she never, ever went to class. In all honesty, she didn’t really need to. This girl had access to more knowledge about the universe than the school’s library could dream of holding, even if every square inch was used to contain a distinct piece of information.
“Miss Nagato,” Kyon said. “Something weird is going on! I think Haruhi has - Gah!”
The source Kyon’s surprise was simply the sudden appearance of a second Yuki, standing in front of him - no! Hovering in place so that they were talking eye to eye, even though she was in all honesty a much shorter person than he! As well, for whatever reason he could not see below this second Yuki’s waistline, though he could quite clearly see the original Yuki sitting in the chair by the window occasionally flicking through the pages of a book. Almost as though she was a part of the background.
To add to the number of confusing manifestations that were by this point multiplying over the course of his morning was a strange blue box, within which appeared three small dots. They soon vanished, and were replaced by letters appearing one by one by one.
“Yuki: This space has been altered as of midnight last night. Analysis indicates the transformation originated from subject Haruhi Suzumiya. Research conducted towards the nature of this present reality alteration reveals a number of illogical discrepancies, including but not limited to: Warped spatial effects resulting in instantaneous motion between locations that are otherwise far apart. Ability to create data regarding a specific point in time and return to it at any desired interval. A substantial increase in what can best be described in human language as erotic causality. Alteration of communication ability resulting in spoken words appearing as written text. Obfuscation of reality alteration to all humans save one subject, ensuring that only that person is remotely aware it has even transpired.”
And through it all, Kyon could do little more than nod his head. By now, even he was starting to get a bit of understanding about what was happening around him. Particularly since her lips were moving, but no sound was being made at all. “Nagato, did you say all of that just now? That text in the box, I mean.”
“Yuki: Yes.”
That was about as expected, but it didn’t quite explain what the hell was going on around here. Kyon concentrated, wondering if there was something in what she’d said about this situation. It wasn’t as though he particularly expected to understand it, keep in mind. But at least he could pretend to be following along! Maybe a little understanding about the situation could let him give a perspective that might have been missed otherwise? In the storm of words that had been thrown at him just a moment ago, he had the vague impression that there was one or two in particular he should have been paying attention to. But what was it?
But here was another concern. By this point he had become rather adept at reading the emotional state of the alien being standing before him. It may not seem obvious to anyone else, but by now he had learned enough to spot the slight muscular twitches. Expressions that altered just the tiniest amount from the normal seemingly emotionless state, even if he could not explain it to anyone else. He knew. Even if just from a subconscious level, he knew at a glance what Yuki Nagato was feeling at any given time.
Right now? She was barely able to stand.
“Are you feeling alright?” Kyon asked. “You appear to be a little flushed.”
“Yuki: Performing consistent analysis on reality alteration is interfering with regular function. My internal temperature is rising in a similar manner to a fever. Close proximity to focal point of alteration will provide heightened stability with an effect proportionate to proximity.”
Before Kyon could ask her to be a little more concise in her answer, he was suddenly aware of something pressing rather firmly against his chest. Looking down revealed Nagato’s flushed face pressing firmly against him. Her arms - surprisingly strong- slipped around his back, pulling the two of them closer still.
“Yuki: Not close enough. Further closeness required.”
She looked up at him with eyes more vulnerable than he’d ever seen her with, a stark and surprising demonstration of precisely how much this was affecting her. Had she been like this since Haruhi’s latest change kicked in? Was it a consequence of the reality that even she could not resist?
“Yuki: Your assistance is required. Help me.”
Once again, Kyon was unable to respond. This time he was interrupted by a second blue box that appeared over the first, obscuring Nagato’s helpless expression. Words appeared on it in list form, and Kyon found that no matter how he tried he could not look away or step away or even interact with anything without having to touch the screen! More to the point was that Nagato appeared to have frozen as well! He had little choice, then. What else could he do but interact with this screen and the options that were written upon it?
- What do I need to do?
- Hold on, we should get the others first.
- Did I ever tell you how cute you are?
- Stick it in.
- Something else
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