Author's notes: This is a simple idea that came to me very suddenly. I actually finished it way back on November 7 of last year, but held off on publication because I didn't want to put out two Haruhi-centric fics in quick succession, and "Don't Ignore Me" took precedence.

The characters and milieu of this fan fiction work are property of Nagaru Tanigawa, Kyoto Animation, and Funimation, except for the middle school's staff, who are mine.

The Day After Tanabata

"John Smith wishes you the best of luck in spreading excitement all over the world." Haruhi Suzumiya mouthed the words to herself quietly. It was the day after some boy had shouted those words to her, but she still was trying to wrap her head around the mystery they presented.

What was mysterious about it was that, just ten seconds or so before those words had been shouted to her, Haruhi had been thinking to herself, I'm going to spread excitement all over the world. How could "John Smith" have known that? Or was it just an extremely weird coincidence? Or... the weirdest possibility of all... had some third party made both her think that and John Smith say it?

Something extraordinary was out there. She felt certain of that.

"Attention, everyone." Mrs. Ishii, after signaling an end to lunch break, waited for the chit-chat of Haruhi's classmates to die down. "I have to talk to you about a safety issue. Last night, someone broke into school grounds and drew some graffiti on the quad. We don't know who did it yet, but last night someone spotted a teenage boy, carrying an unconscious girl, near the school. Both the boy and girl were wearing uniforms from a local high school, so the police are looking into that. If – Yes, Miss Suzumiya?"

Haruhi put her hand back down and said, "Mrs. Ishii, that boy had nothing to do with the graffiti. And that girl is his sister. She just has narcolepsy." She didn't actually believe that, any more than she believed that the boy's name was John Smith, but she didn't believe that he might have beaten a girl unconscious and kidnapped her, either.

"Oh, you know the boy?"

"Sure."

"What makes you so sure he didn't draw the graffiti?"

She folded her arms. "Because I'm the one who drew it."

Everyone turned around in their desks to stare at her. Many of them started whispering to each other.

Haruhi took it all in. The recognition that she was someone exceptional. Even if it came from a bunch of (probably) normal humans, it felt good. And it felt earned.

They kept Haruhi waiting in the principal's office for several minutes. She could hear the principal talking to Mrs. Ishii outside the door, but she didn't bother to eavesdrop. She knew she could handle whatever they had to dish out.

Finally the door opened and the principal came in. He sat down at his desk and sighed. "So, Miss Suzumiya, I'm told that you upset your class today by telling them you were the one responsible for last night's vandalism. Is that true?"

"Yup."

The principal gripped his glasses by the right lens, adjusting them on his steep nose. "Mrs. Ishii thinks you may be covering for someone."

"That's ridiculous."

"She says you confessed the moment you heard that a certain young man had come under suspicion."

"Yeah, so?"

He sighed again. "Miss Suzumiya, do I really have to draw you a map?"

"You think I'd put myself in trouble just to help some teenager that I never even met before I bumped into him while breaking into the school? That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard."

"Miss Suzumiya." He gave her the stern-but-compassionate authority figure look. Pathetic. "I think what you're trying to do is very noble. But if he's done nothing more than make graffiti, the only punishment he'll get is the simple academic discipline you're facing now. And if he has done something more than graffiti, you shouldn't be protecting him. He could be dangerous to your classmates, and most of all, to you."

This was really starting to try her patience. "Mr. Principal," she growled. "I'm not protecting anyone. I don't need to protect anyone. I did it. Do you want me to prove it? Just give me a pen and a sheet of paper."

The principal considered for a moment in silence. Then he took the requested items from his desk and handed them over. Haruhi proceeding to painstakingly draw on the sheet while the principal waited.

Once finished, she handed the sheet back to him. "There. Those are the symbols drawn in the quad, right? And they were drawn in chalk with a line marker. Mrs. Ishii didn't say anything about that; she just said graffiti."

The principal looked at her drawing briefly and sighed. "Miss Suzumiya, I'm not questioning that you were present at the scene. But carrying those heavy bags of chalk and pushing a line marker are a bit beyond the strength of a girl your age."

"How about I put you into an arm lock, and then you tell me again that I'm not strong enough to have done it. Or just talk to my physical education teacher. She'll back me up. You can take my fingerprints, too. They're all over the place." They'd find the boy's fingerprints, too, but Haruhi doubted a mysterious character like John Smith would have his prints on record anywhere. And hers were the only prints on the gate and the bags.

"We're not the police, Miss Suzumiya. We can't take students' fingerprints."

"Then bring the police here. Mrs. Ishii said they were investigating this."

"They're investigating the possible abduction. The vandalism is an incidental matter as far as they're concerned. Let's consider a simpler point, Miss Suzumiya: If you're not protecting anyone, then why are you so determined to take the blame for this?"

"Because I want people to know the truth." She stood up from her chair and planted her palms on the principal's desk. "Because I don't want people saying that someone else did something I did. Because I hate nonsense like that. I'm not scared of what the punishment is, either. Do your worst."

He raised an eyebrow. "Miss Suzumiya, are you looking for attention?"

"Yes, but not from normal humans. If I wanted attention from ordinary people like you, there are a lot easier ways of doing that than drawing those symbols, aren't there? I'd just pick a fight or throw a rock through a window."

"You're not listening, Miss Suzumiya. I never said I was convinced that you drew those symbols. Claiming you drew them would be a very easy way to get attention."

"You are so stubborn. Look, I don't want your attention, and if I did, I certainly wouldn't want it for something someone else did. If you won't believe me, and you won't even look for the evidence that proves I'm telling the truth, then there's no use in even talking to you."

She sat back down with a huff.

The principal turned to his computer and started typing. "Alright, Miss Suzumiya. If you want a punishment, we'll give you one. Two weeks' detention. I'll cut it to three days if you tell the whole truth about what happened, including everything you know about that boy."

"I've already told you the whole truth," she muttered. "You just don't listen."

As Haruhi walked home, she tried not to let it bother her too much that the principal and Mrs. Ishii didn't believe her. After all, her classmates all believed her, and sooner or later evidence proving her guilt would come forth, or perhaps it would finally occur to the principal that a student at the school with a history of incidents involving paranormal displays was a much more logical suspect than some random boy seen in the area. And if they did manage to track down said boy, he would unquestionably finger her as the guilty party in order to escape suspicion. After all, he'd immediately caved to the threat of being reported that night.

The fact that she tried not to let it bother her didn't change the fact that it did. People were so stupid.

The familiar front door of her home was a strangely unwelcome sight. Unwelcome because it looked the same as it did yesterday, and the day before. Things should be different now, Haruhi felt.

After stepping inside, she threw her bag on the floor. "I'm home!"

Her dad was at the opposite corner of the living room, his back to her as he put on his tie in the mirror. "Hey, sweetie. How was your day?"

"I got sent to the principal's office because I vandalized school grounds last night."

"That's nice." He gave his tie a good pull to tighten the knot.

"He gave me two weeks detention."

"Thatta girl." He pulled on his suit and grabbed his briefcase.

"It's all here in this letter," Haruhi said, taking it out of her bag and holding it out to him in one hand, a pen in the other. "I need to bring it back signed to show that you've read it."

He took the pen and signed it, kissing her forehead as he did so. "Listen, sweetie, I've got to run. Have a good time on your field trip."

And with that, he was out the door.

Haruhi folded up the signed letter and put it back in her bag. She knew how to forge her parents' signatures, of course, but she didn't care if they knew what she'd done. And apparently, they didn't want to know.

Her mother was off visiting a friend for the week (something she'd been doing a lot ever since Haruhi started cooking for herself), so she had the house to herself. And left alone, pacing through the halls, she started to realize what really bothered her about the principal not believing her. If the authorities didn't call off their hunt for John Smith, they might scare him into fleeing, and that would ruin any chance she had of tracking him down herself.

She had to do something about this.

And just like that, a plan came to her. She plopped down in an armchair, took out her phone, and dialed a number.

A male voice answered. "Hello?"

"Hi, Mr. Principal," she chirped.

"Who is this?" He already sounded upset. He probably wasn't used to being addressed by that title over his home phone.

"Haruhi Suzumiya."

He groaned. "How did you get this number?"

"That doesn't matter. What you should be thinking about is, if I got this number, and I broke into the school at night to draw alien symbols all over the grounds, what might I do to the shrubs in front of your house? Or where might I post the photos I have of your extramarital affair?"

"Miss Suzumiya, if you hang up now and don't call here ever again, I'll refrain from adding another week to your detention."

"I make the demands here, Mr. Principal. If you don't call the police and tell them I'm the one who vandalized the school within the next half hour, I'm posting those photos on a news site."

"What are these photos you're going on about?" he demanded. "I've never cheated on my wife."

"Hmm." Sounded truthful. "Statistics show that 85% of husbands cheat on their wives. I thought it was worth trying the bluff."

"85%? You have your statistics a little mixed up, Miss Suzumiya."

"Never mind that. I have a pair of hedge trimmers and some real rude designs with your shrubs' names on them. That part's no bluff."

The principal gave a weary sigh. "Miss Suzumiya, if I can assure you that boy from last night won't get into any trouble, will you promise to never call here again?"

"I don't care about that boy, Mr. Principal. I care about the truth. ...But yeah, I guess that'll be good enough."

"The witness who saw the suspect and the girl he was carrying didn't get a good look at them. It was too dark. She saw that the boy was wearing a school blazer, and the girl a school uniform, but she couldn't make them out well enough to identify them as being from any specific school. At present, the police are still looking for leads, because they can't check every high school in the area trying to match the witness's vague description."

"But Mrs. Ishii said..." She trailed off, realization dawning on her.

"You're not the only one who can bluff, Ms. Suzumiya. It was important to assure your classmates that the situation was being taken care of."

"And to try to trick me into letting out information on the boy's identity, by making me think you already knew," Haruhi deduced. "I'll admit, when Mrs. Ishii didn't specify the high school he was from, I assumed that was just to avoid slandering the school's reputation."

"Well, there is that, too."

"You're not as stupid as I thought, Mr. Principal."

"Don't think you can get a decrease in your detention just by flattering me. I'm already beginning to think you really were the one who drew those symbols. Now, do you promise never to call here again?"

"Yeah, yeah."

They hung up.

"Idiot," she muttered. She wasn't sure if she was talking about the principal or herself. What had she accomplished? Nothing. The police had no real leads on "John Smith", so calling the principal had been redundant. He still wasn't convinced that she was the one who drew those symbols, either.

Most importantly, there'd been no response from Orihime and Hikoboshi yet. No aliens, no summons to fight evil, nothing. What was taking them so long? How long would it be before something interesting happened?

She set her phone aside. She made herself dinner. She ate it, by herself. She did her homework. She brushed her teeth. She changed into her pajamas. She got into bed. Pulling the blanket over herself, she stared out her window, at the stars.

And waited.

END