Hi, everyone. I know I'm overdue on an update for Recording, and I promise it'll be up soon, but I was letting this idea stew in my head a bit. I've never written for this series, and so far I've only seen season one, so hopefully I'll do it justice. As the summary says, the S.O.S. Brigade heads on over to summer band camp for a month of mayhem and hilarity. A lot of the plot I have planned for this story is based off my own experiences in marching band, but I highly encourage fellow 'bandoes' (as my band teacher called us) to share their experiences if you'd like to see how it would play out with the S.O.S. Brigade lol. I'm building the story up to this plot bunny: someone gets sprayed by a skunk. Have fun guessing who.

The title is based off the original soundtrack from the movie Breakfast at Tiffany's. I recently got reobsessed with that movie; Haruhi and Holly Golightly are pretty similar, if you ask me.

MOON RIVER

Chapter One

Things You Do Not Want To

Aurulent rays of sunlight filtered through the windows, illuminating lazy dust motes that would otherwise be whipped into a flurry by a certain brunette. As it was, Suzumiya Haruhi, president of the S.O.S. Brigade, had not arrived at the club room yet. Even the dust motes seemed to revel in this as much as Kyon.

Across from him sat Koizumi Itsuki, who rubbed his chin as he pondered the chess board. Probably, Kyon suspected, he already knew the outcome of the game. Still, it never hurt to take the winding path to see how the outcome would be reached. Asahina Mikuru, decked out in frilly maid attire, put on the water heater. And Nagato Yuki sat beside the window, her face heavily shadowed and her right hand concealing the title engraved on her hefty tome.

Outside, a bird twittered. The trees sighed with a gust of summer wind. Finals are over. Summer vacation's in a few days. Sighing, Kyon moved his rook. Today is a great—

BAM! "I'm here!"

…day, Kyon finished sourly as Haruhi rushed in, stirring the dust motes and creating frenzied shadows in the otherwise placid window. She paused long enough to consider the computer, and her eyebrows descended furiously over her topaz eyes. "Kyon, I told you to update the website."

"You never told me to."

"Well, I'm telling you to now!"

Turning his palms toward the ceiling, he complied. If Haruhi's voice was already shrill with anger, it would only get shriller. And sometimes an argument just wasn't worth the effort. That Kyon had settled into this mode of reasoning disturbed him a bit.

"Y'know, it's your club. If you want the website updated so damn badly, you could do it."

"I have other matters to attend to," Haruhi sniffed. "You just have no discipline."

A vein in his neck fluttered. It was eerie how quickly they could stray into this spat. Everyday it was the same, as if they were following a script.

For a moment Haruhi stared listlessly at the monitor as the computer hummed to life. Then, beaming, she returned to her former cheery humor. "Don't think I haven't been busy," she sang. "I've been preparing for our big summer activity!"

It was then Kyon noticed the collection of green-covered booklets tucked under the brunette's arm. She set about distributing them — dropping one on the keyboard before Kyon, setting one over the page Yuki was reading, stuffing one down the front side of Mikuru's outfit, and placing one in Itsuki's waiting hands.

Kyon's eye twitched as he took in the crest printed on the virude cover: a trumpet with two color-guard flags intersecting each other behind it. "You signed us up for band camp?" he exclaimed.

"That's right!" Haruhi's index finger underlined the name of the institution on the cover. "Nara Prefecture Summer Marching Band Camp's famous for its seven mysteries, which I fully intend to investigate!"

"But none of us are musicians!"

Nothing daunted, the Brigade leader waved her hand. "Ahh. Moot point."

"It's not moot!" This time Kyon truly felt like arguing against this. It was called band camp and not seven mysteries camp for a reason. Fallacy of positive instances was one thing, but this was taking it a bridge too far. "Look, it says here: 'Must have at least three years' experience on registered instrument.' Cripes, Haruhi. How did you register us?"

"The administrator was very reasonable," the brunette shrugged.

Meaning she blackmailed him or her. A chill prickled along the back of his neck as he read the rules outlining uniform care without seeing them.

"Ah!" Mikuru gasped happily, reading a randomly selected page from her booklet. "We're going to compete in Hokkaido!"

"Don't get caught up in all the irrelevance, Mikuru-chan." The redhead squeaked as Haruhi caught her from behind, hands reaching around to squeeze her great breasts. Kyon looked away, thinking, It's not irrelevant. "If I catch you slacking off, I'll punish you!"

"Eep! Let go! …Oww, that hurts, Suzumiya-san…"

Grumbling, Kyon let his gaze roam over to Yuki. As ever, the lilac-haired girl sat like a sentinel over the club room, pale eyes focused on the booklet which she read cover to cover. Her face bore the oxymoron of blank intensity. Nagato, what are you thinking when you're reading? Kyon wondered.

When it came right down to intellect, Yuki really did interest him the most. Part of him wanted to believe that underneath that cold, impassive exterior roiled desires the depths of which no human could fathom. A human created by the Data Integration Thought Entity was still a human with basic needs for protection, for belonging, and for love. How did Yuki monitor these needs?

Kyon pondered this as he turned back around…to find Mikuru whimpering and thrashing futilely with her apron bunched around her waist and Haruhi's hand inside her bra.

"What are you doing?" he choked. Behind him, Yuki looked up from her booklet briefly before reapplying herself to it.

"Y'know, you don't wear the right bra, Mikuru-chan," Haruhi admonished over the copper-haired girl's wailing protests. "You need the kind that pushes them together and up." She tightened her hold, and Mikuru's pupils dilated with either fear or arousal or both. Her panicked scream was so passionate, there was no sound for a second, only a choked breath.

"Okay, that's enough!" Kyon roughly shoved his chair aside and stood. Long ago, he had made a promise to protect Mikuru from the lust of Suzumiya Haruhi, and now was the time to make good on that. However, as he advanced upon them, ready to pull them apart, Mikuru shook her head vigorously. She threw her trembling arms over her chest, sweat beading her brow as she cried, "No! Please…Don't look at me!"

Kyon paused, realizing how inappropriate it would be for him to come so close to her when she was wearing so little. Groaning in despair, he hastily turned away. His eyes darted between Yuki and Itsuki. The latter returned his glance with a nod, and queried, "What section did you register us under?"

Haruhi released Mikuru, who gasped in relief and hurriedly gathered up her outfit. "Melonphones— I mean, mellophones."

So you blackmailed the administrator to register non-musicians into band camp, and you registered us under an instrument no one's heard of? "Haruhi, do you know what a mellophone is?"

"No, but all the other sections were filled up." The Brigade leader's golden eyes turned upward, and she pursed her lips. There was something else she had arranged in accordance to this seven mysteries project…She snapped her fingers, sending the dust motes whirling again. "Ah-ha! I rented out five mellophones from Quinlan and Fabish. They should have arrived by now."

Kyon wasn't the one with ESP, yet he could already see Haruhi's finger straying towards him, her voice barking, "Make yourself useful and pick them up, would you? It's a brisk half-mile's walk, perhaps. Nothing difficult."

"But what about the site?" He almost laughed. The website he loathed so much had now become his excuse from fetching a bunch of unheard of instruments.

"I'll get Koizumi to do it. He's better at site editing, anyways." Haruhi looked at Itsuki, who had already seated himself before the computer.

Kyon's brain scrambled futilely for an excuse, any excuse, but there was none he could make while looking Haruhi in the eye. It was a nice day, and a half-mile really was nothing difficult. Besides, after all the hilarity that had ensued not ten minutes into their meeting, it might have done Kyon some good to get away from the chaos. Away from the craziness and back into the quiet he preferred.

"Fine, I'll do it," he growled, heading towards the door. He made a show of aggravation just to show Haruhi he wasn't happy taking orders from her.

"Chotto matte." Mikuru's whisper-soft voice reached him, and he halted. When he turned around he found the redhead grabbing her uniform from the hanger. "Let me get dressed and I'll help you carry them."

Yuki once more glanced up from her book at the same instant Haruhi snatched Mikuru by the knot of her apron. "No. You stay," she ordered gruffly, yanking Mikuru back so roughly she almost fell into the brunette. Haruhi peered over her shoulder. "Yuki, you go with him."

Without a word, the lilac-haired girl bookmarked her place and stood. As lithe and silent as a cat, she crossed the club room to stand beside Kyon. The clacking of keys and the muffled yelps of Mikuru were the last things the two of them heard as they left.

"You can close your eyes to the things you do not want to see, but you cannot close your heart to the things you don't want to feel."

-Anonymous

AUTHOR'S NOTE

Wow, I feel bad for Kyon. Five mellophones...I don't like to think about that.

Admittedly, I mostly worked with character dynamics for this first chapter, to see if I could get a feel for the series. Please leave me a review with some constructive criticism. My work could always use improvement.

NEXT CHAPTER: Yuki does a favor that puts Kyon in a difficult position.