"I'm bored."
He ignored her tone, gaze focused on the printed words. She shifted audibly in her seat, piercing eyes drilling into his back.
"And nobody's here."
He could see the flecks of gold in her burning eyes as clearly as if they were glaring at his face.
"I said I was bored."
"Then go do something to entertain yourself."
The chair creaked as she leaned back. He imagined the arch of her back and the skin of her outstretched arms.
"I don't know what to do," she sighed.
Clacking of the keyboard keys and a click of the mouse. Quiet.
He turned a page.
"What are you reading?"
He knew she wasn't looking at him, lips parted and legs crossed.
"Something Nagato loaned me."
A scoff? More restless tapping on the keys before the chair was scraped back and she stood up.
"Kyon."
"What?"
Quiet.
He turned around exasperatedly, not bothering to mark his page, and blinked in surprise.
"What?"
He hadn't heard her walk right up to him.
She was looking at him with a strange expression, as though she was going to say something or nothing at all, or was waiting for him to break the silence. She bit her lip.
She was too quiet and uncertain. She had never been both and he didn't like it.
"Haruhi?"
The question seemed to snap her out of her thoughts. Her subdued features changed to irritated.
"Can't you ever understand anything?" she snapped.
"...Understand what?"
"Anything!"
He only stared as she grabbed her bag and walked to the door, slamming it behind her without so much as a backward glance.
But she never gave backward glances.
He had followed after her a few minutes later, shutting the clubroom door carefully, but chose to keep some distance back, knowing better than to pursue her and ask questions. He could see her, shoulders tense and head high, as she walked outside, purposefully cutting through the crowd with her solitary figure. He had not expected her, in the afternoon sunshine, to turn around suddenly, standing against the current of students moving past her.
She would always be there, he thought. Against the current, with that determined look; because she knew she could fight it, even though she had no idea what she really could do.
He kept walking. Her face was now sour instead of determined, mouth wide.
She was yelling something, tossing the brown strands of hair away from her face as others brushed past her, but she stood firm.
She was yelling at him.
He blinked. "What? I can't hear you," he yelled back, trying to get closer as he was jostled by a passing student. His eyes strained to discern the movement of her lips.
She repeated what she had said, ignoring the passing stares of leaving students, before glaring (most likely cursing his incompetence again) and stalking away. He watched her disappear from the grounds between the school gates, striding somewhat quickly, as though eager to leave as quickly as possible. He frowned, stopping.
Why hadn't she come up and talked to him? Her strange expression from before flashed in his mind. He shrugged to himself, shouldering his school bag more securely, and thought nothing more of it.
"Reverse psychology!"
Whatever that had meant.
A/N: Kyon never understands anything right away.