I have described everything I know of the events leading up to the exceedingly strange disappearance of my old friend and classmate in detail to the police. Despite this, I feel compelled to write this account, although I have no logical reason for this compulsion. I suppose that, in the end, I am no more rational than he is, or was, assuming the worst has happened. But I have a horrible inkling, that whatever strange ideas he may have held contained more than a hint of truth to them. Perhaps that is why, like him, I have developed a terrible fear of the night, and the sight of the stars above fills me with a horror that is indescribable in human terms.
I fear that it is these things from the stars above, or from beyond the very borders of this universe, that may be responsible for Kyon's disappearance.
Of course, that wasn't his real name, for that the curious reader can go the police records concerning his odd vanishment. It was simply what everyone at our middle school called him, and thus how I have always known him, and how I shall refer to him forevermore. I knew, from the times we spoke, that his nickname annoyed him, through the pauses he made whenever he heard his it, but his real name, royal and imposing as it was, hardly suited him at all.
Kyon was always a strange individual, given to odd fancies and strange notions about the world and the place of ordinary humans like ourselves in it. It struck me as odd that a friendship should have grown between us, given our vast differences in personality. Perhaps it is due to the fact that we were both regarded as abnormal by our peers, Kyon for his odd obsessions, and myself for the disregard I have for some of society's norms. That I was of the opposite sex from Kyon led to rumors that there existed a relationship other than the purely Platonic between the two of us, and to the idea that Kyon liked "weird girls". I accepted the implications of this assessment on my personality willingly enough, while Kyon strenuously denied the implications.
As I said before, Kyon had some odd fancies about the world. "Sasaki," he would say, "have you ever wondered about the existence of anything other than the mundane?"
"Such as?" I replied.
"Well, anything strange, really. Aliens, time travelers, espers, even sliders. Beings from other planets, or people who can read and influence minds, or even people from other dimensions entirely."
"Yare yare," I replied, "Kyon, you know that such things can't exist in this world."
We of course argued at length about my assessment of what was possible or impossible. My arguments clearly had the stronger logic, but Kyon was remarkably obstinate. Still, I found the time we spent together enjoyable, and it was a little disappointing to me when we went to different high schools. Of course, Kyon's chronic disinterest in academics made it practically inevitable that we would end up in different high schools.
That said, I worried about Kyon. While he was able to reform his academic act to a sufficient extent to obtain a decent score on his high school entrance exams, I feared that without my influence, he would soon fall back into his old, disinterested ways. I felt obligated to check up on him, from time to time, via Kunikida, our classmate who also went to North High. Why Kunikida, a much more studious individual than Kyon, who probably performed far better on his entrance exams, would choose to attend an average school such as North High is a question that has puzzled me greatly, but it is fortunate given my concerns. I am uncertain why I never contacted Kyon directly. Some vague force seemed to prevent me from doing so, which was why I had to rely on Kunikida for my information.
The reports that I received from my former classmate left me with mixed feelings. As expected, Kyon's academic performance regressed somewhat from his later middle school days, but thankfully had not fallen to its most abysmal lows. However, his withdrawal from school life, his lack of interest in extracurricular activities, excited some comment from his classmates, and I wondered what oddities Kyon was engaged in after school. I feared that he might be immersing himself in fantasies of the supernatural, as he had in the past, perhaps even allowing his mind, formerly reasonable enough not to dwell too obsessively on the supposed existence of aliens, time travelers, espers, and sliders, to take a turn for the abnormal.
My fears were excited in late December, when Kunikida reported to me that Kyon had begun spouting delusions in class, accusing his class representative of attempting to murder him, and declaring that one Haruhi Suzumiya should be present at his school. He had also apparently assaulted one student, an upperclassman named Mikuru Asahina. However, Kunikida reported, a few days after this apparent madness began, it subsided, with Kyon attempting to lead a normal life. He even, uncharacteristically, joined the literature club shortly thereafter. This was strange to me at first, given that Kyon had never seemed the literary sort. Kunikida confided that he believed it was due to an infatuation with the literature club president and thereto sole member, a Miss Yuki Nagato, and commented also that he considered this strange given that Kyon "liked weirder girls". When Kunikida realized his audience and the implications of his statement, he was of course profusely apologetic, which I found amusing more than anything else. This development assuaged my worries caused by Kunikida's previous piece of information, and I hoped that perhaps Kyon's interests had taken a turn for the more normal.
For the next several months, I heard very little about Kyon from Kunikida. Evidently, he had applied himself more to his studies, and had even assisted the literature club in gaining several new members, alleviating the concerns of Miss Nagato that her club might be shut down due to a lack of interest. They had even published an organ of literary work to which Kyon contributed. I requested this sample of Kyon's work, but Kunikida never got around to delivering a copy to me. While I was curious to see what subject matter had interested Kyon enough to put a significant amount of effort into it, I did have my own academic life to attend to, and I was satisfied that his bizarre obsessions of the past had apparently fallen by the wayside.
It appeared that my formerly strange and oddly-minded friend had fit into a normal life. He had even, apparently, begun a relationship of the romantic variety with Miss Nagato. Although I regard "love" as merely an outgrowth of the evolutionary drive to reproduce, it's nonetheless a normal part of human nature, and so the normality of Kyon's activities was reassuring to me. Gradually, I pressed Kunikida less and less for information, and soon these reports fell off altogether.
So it came as a profound surprise to me when Kyon himself showed up at my house one clear night, rapping loudly on the door and yelling frantically to be let in. While I was at first fearful of who this visitor might be, upon recognizing my friend I was grateful that there was no one else her to witness his outburst, lest he be arrested and placed under observation for his outburst. Still, I hesitated slightly before opening the door for him. Only the earnestness in his voice, and the memory of our friendship led me to set aside my reasonable concerns about his reasons for coming to my home.