"You are wrong… Or rather, I should say that instead of being 'wrong', you are simply 'mistaken'." Nagato said quietly to me. I had invited her to go out on a date with me on Saturday. She accepted. I was amazed, frankly, that she didn't turn me down, so I was sure that I would succeed. Maybe overconfidence ruined my chances. I don't fully understand her rather succinct answer to my question, or rather, to my statement. "I love you, Nagato…" is all that I said to her. How could that be 'wrong'? How could I be 'mistaken' about that? I don't understand, and if that's the way it has to be, I'm not sure I want to. The moment she said that, it felt like my heart had been torn out of my chest.
Hi. Kyon, here, real name Kyosuke… But everyone calls me Kyon, and I've gotten so tired of correcting people that I've just accepted that stupid ass nickname. I suppose that I should start by saying with absolute certainty that I have never felt so strongly about anyone before the cute, and lonely little bibliophile crossed my path. I never thought that it was possible to have such powerful feelings. I feel ridiculous, now. Humiliated, miserable, lonely, depressed, and absurd all at the same time. Maybe it was insane of me to confess my feelings to an alien. Maybe it was mad for me to fall in love with her in the first place…
"I-I don't understand… I-I thought… You… A-and me… And I…" I couldn't help but stutter. If I had to be known for anything in my class, in my group of friends, it would probably be for always having something to say. But this time, I just didn't. I didn't have anything to say. I was at a loss for words. My heart was in my stomach, and a lump was rising in my throat, like I wanted to cry, but my own body wouldn't allow it.
"Kyosuke…" Nagato said. She must have been talking to me, although I was never sure if she knew my name. She never referred to me by name. She never had to. I always just knew when she was talking to me. Something about her manner of speech just instantly caught my attention whenever she had something to say to me. She wasn't outspoken, but she wasn't exactly shy. She was just quiet, and somehow, she seemed lonely… And that was one of the things that made me fall in love with her.
"Please walk with me for a little while. Perhaps when we are done, you will understand…" She said. I gaped at her. That was probably the most she had said to any of us in months at one time. Sure, little by little, she spoke, and explained complicated theories that probably didn't even have names yet to us, or rather, to me in particular… Ironically, I was the one least likely to understand her mumbo jumbo. However, right now, I was compelled to accompany her. No force in the world could stop me.
"Kyosuke… It is understandable that you would believe yourself to have feelings for me. We have been comrades for almost two years, now. I have saved you on multiple occasions, and you have witnessed moments of great weakness for me, and risen admirably to help me through them…" Nagato… No. This wasn't Nagato. I can't call her that anymore. She's too important to me. Perhaps I should start calling her Yuki? Would she mind? She doesn't complain about much of anything, but that doesn't mean that she doesn't have opinions and feelings.
"People who are in such situations alongside each other often begin to develop feelings for each other. However, you must never forget that I am not a person. I only appear to be a person because that is the form most suitable for data gathering, and for watching over Haruhi Suzumiya, and thus, you mistake mechanical failure for human eccentricity and emotion. I was not created with the ability to love, nor was I created with the intention to be loved. Any 'attractive' physical qualities that you attribute to me are merely coincidental, and were simply deemed by the Data Overmind to be the most efficient way to create me in order to fulfill my purpose. That is why you are misguided in your belief that you have developed feelings for me. Feelings of romantic attachment are meant to be shown by one person toward another…"
As she continued this longwinded and irritating explanation of why I wasn't really in love with her, I could feel my temper growing shorter and shorter. Finally, I snapped. I'm not necessarily proud of what I said… But I'm not sorry, either.
"Not a person? Not intended to be loved? Who the hell gets to decide that for you!" I shouted. It's fortunate that we were in a quiet neighborhood, because otherwise, I would have been causing a pretty big scene. "For an all knowing entity, the Data Overmind is the biggest fucking dimwit I've ever heard of! I'm not mistaken in believing that I love you, and I won't let anyone convince me otherwise! So the Data Overmind can shove it! You may not be human. But you're as much a person as I am!" It was then that I realized that I had been shaking Yuki rather hard, and with not a small amount of guilt, I released her, and started to walk away, muttering an apology. I suddenly felt her grab my hand, though. She looked at me for a moment. I looked back at her, and slowly, a smile came to her face… It was something that I had never seen before on her. It was too cute… She pulled me closer, and kissed me. I wasn't sure if this was really alright, but at the moment, I was too dazed to argue.
"Kyosuke… Thank you, but you don't understand…" She said, looking somewhat distressed, and seeming so human in that moment that her look of distress made me want even more to cry.
"Then help me to understand… You're right, Yuki… I don't understand… But I do know that no matter how much you try to convince me not to, I won't stop loving you…"
"Kyosuke… I am sorry… An apology is not enough, though. I never intended, in the course of involving you in my observation of Haruhi Suzumiya, to seduce you. I have committed perhaps the worst sin that I could have done… A-and yet, I don't understand why you feel the way you do about me… I am speaking now in unscientific terms, violating the terms of my programming because there are no scientific words in my databank that can describe how I feel… Love was not meant to compute with my programming. I was made to be more or less an emotionless automaton, but ever since you reset my programming on December 20th, one year, five months and seven days ago, I have been unable to stop accessing my memories of you. I attributed it at first to something akin to a virus, possibly created inadvertently by Suzumiya Haruhi, in order to express her own interest in you by forcing me to experience the same interest through a medium that would be more suited to my own nature. Thus, I scanned my databanks, and found no malicious files of any sort. I therefore attributed it thereafter to simple déjà vu. The problem is that I do not fully understand the emotion that humans call 'love'. So I cannot accurately assess my current state of mind, except to say that I am somehow anomalous."
"Y-Yuki… Love isn't something that can be researched and quantified. It feels different to each person, and everyone just has to learn what it feels like to them. For me, when I'm around you, I get a feeling of warmth, and a sense of safety, like nothing could possibly harm me. When you told me that I was wrong about being in love with you… Well, have you ever felt a pain in your chest, like your heart was about to stop beating?"
"I cannot say that I have… However, there have been occasions where I have been physically injured, and felt something akin to what you call 'pain'. Such sensations are not as powerful for me, as what pass for nerves in my body do not register pain except as a mental trigger to exert a greater amount of force in order to defeat the enemy that is in front of me. Do you understand?"
"I think so. Does that mean that you didn't feel anything when you kissed me?" I asked. Maybe my question was rude. I don't know. I can't begin to fathom what Yuki thinks about that she doesn't share with the rest of us.
"That is incorrect. When I kissed you, my internal body temperature rose by 1.2 degrees Celsius, and I felt something akin to the fluttering of Nymphalidae in my stomach, and I experienced the sensation of vertigo. It was not an unpleasant feeling, though, and I would like to experience it again, if only to catalog it in order to understand it better." She said. I sighed. Leave it to Yuki to turn "I blushed, had butterflies in my stomach, and felt lightheaded" into a long scientific explanation of physiological reactions. I couldn't say no to an earnest request like that, though.
"Do you mind if I kiss you again, Yuki?" I asked. I was sure that she wouldn't push me away if I just decided to. But it was bad form to do things like that.
"In keeping with my earlier explanation, I am expected to say no. However, I personally do wish to kiss you again, Kyosuke…"
And so, I did. I kissed that lonely little bookworm whom I swore to myself just last February that I had no feelings for. I was lying to myself then, and until just recently, I had continued to lie to myself. I love Yuki, and not Haruhi, Koizumi, Miss Asahina, or even Yuki herself can convince me that I don't.
"Kyon… Why did you reset the world again on December 20th? You could have lived a normal life, you could have dated the other me more and had an easier time of it. Instead you chose to come back to this world. Why?"
"Because after I had experienced so much excitement, a normal world would just be boring… And besides, I couldn't leave you behind. You've grown immensely since I first met you, and I didn't want to lose my chance to watch you continue to grow…"
"No physical changes have occurred in me, Kyon… You are imagining things."
"Not physical changes. Changes here…" I said, pointing to her heart, "And here…" I said pointing to her head. I couldn't believe I was being so mushy. The old me would have ripped my arms off for doing something this stupid, but Yuki just blushed, and actually smiled for once.
My mouth was hanging open. I couldn't believe it. She just smiled. And it was the most beautiful thing in the world. She had a shy little smile, like she was embarrassed, but also happier than ever at the same time. I couldn't believe how cute she was. Seeing this, I pulled Yuki into a hug, again, and held her there.
"You're really pretty already… But you look amazing when you smile…" I whispered. Yuki hugged me tightly after that, and rested her head on my shoulder. You've heard that song, right? You know?
This is the story of a girl,
Who cried a river and drowned the whole world.
And while she looked so sad in photographs.
I absolutely love her,
When she smiles.
Somehow, this song came up in my mind as the girl with the deadpan poker face smiled for the first time in her five years of life, and it was a rush like nothing I had ever felt.