Chapter 1: The Excitement of Haruhi Suzumiya
"Hey, Kyon!"
Not again. It's too hot for this.
"Kyon!"
"Ow!"
I rubbed my aching head and glared behind me at the grinning, bright eyed beauty behind me, who had just yanked me backwards, smacking my head on her desk. Her name is Haruhi Suzumiya, a close analogue to God, as well as my good friend and bane of my existence.
Right now she's leaning towards the latter. She's gonna break my skull one day.
"What is it? You don't need to try and give me a skull fracture every time you want something."
"Have you heard? There's a new teacher being transferred in! Near the end of the year too, seems veeeeery fishy. The SOS Dan must investigate!"
"How are we supposed to investigate someone who isn't here yet? Besides, some of us have tests to study for."
"Ah geez, is that it? I'll help you study later."
What's with this visual novel style development? Knowing Haruhi it'll turn into studying the Bermuda Triangle or detective stories or something. Or both at once.
"All right, fine. But what are we supposed to do until then?"
Let me guess...
"Tell the rest of the SOS Dan, of course! I need to prepare Mikuru-chan for her role as seductress in case the new teacher is that kind of guy."
Knew it. I've been doing this sort of thing too much.
"And if it's a girl?"
"Hmph, this isn't The World God Only Knows, you know. It'll be a guy, mark my words!"
Well if she says so...Sorry Mikuru, I wish I could stop her, but...
My mind flashed back to the bunny suit, the maid outfit, the nurse costume.
I guess I share some tastes with Haruhi, strange as it is to say that.
After class, we walked to the SOS Dan club room, with Haruhi marching boldly ahead as usual.
"Helloooo everybody!"
"You really shouldn't kick the door in like that Haruhi, it might break."
"What are you, my mother? Once Koizumi gets here I'll make today's big announcement! But before that...Mikuru-Chan~ I've got a surprise for you~"
That kind of sing song shouldn't be coupled with such a dire threat.
I quickly hightailed it out of the room, knowing what was coming. Sure enough, I heard the high pitched pleas of Asahina Mikuru, moe-blob, mascot, and time traveler extrodanaire.
"S-s-suzumiya-san, please, w-what are you doing with those scissors. Nooooooo!"
"Ah, sounds like they're having fun in there."
Here he comes, Itsuki Koizumi, Haruhi's yes-man and mental relaxant, and possessor of possibly the most conditional, useless psychic powers ever.
Wipe that smirk off your face when you talk about harassment, with all the groping and the stripping...
"You seem happy about something."
Ah, dammit.
"Nah, I'm just happy it's something as normal as a new teacher, and not another bug out of an old kaiju movie."
"I see. Well, Haruhi seems to be happy for now. I haven't had a single case of closed space to deal with since that incident, and none for a while before either. It's nice to be able to enjoy my youth. You know, they say youth is a driver of economic prosperity. In fact, there have been a number of studies considering this, and..."
Why does he sound like an economics major. Oh wait, now it's political science and revolutions. All this talk of youth makes him sound like Might Gai, and I'd guess he probably has the same tastes.
"Are you listening to me, Kyon?"
Aaaaaaaaand that would be why.
"Don't put your face so close to mine. The last thing we need is to give Haruhi ideas."
"You can come in now~"
Speak of the horrible, terrible, beautiful devil.
"All right, what have you done to Mikuru-chan this time Haruhi?"
"Come see! I gave myself the same treatment, just in case he's not into the shy ones."
Well, at least she did it fairly no that's no excuse at all!
While it wasn't quite as bad as the bunny girl, Haruhi had still mauled a pair of perfectly good school uniforms. The skirts were cut way too high, the tops too low, and she even cut the bottom of the tops off to show some stomach. Mikuru, is, of course, on the verge of tears. Yuki, as usual, is reading a book. Oh yeah, Yuki Nagato, our resident stoic, although being a magical alien computer interface with no regards for human social norms will do that. Huh, now that I think about it, she's got better powers than Koizumi. Maybe she's the esper and he's the alien. Mikuru's still the time traveler, and everyone says I'm normal. Oh yeah, Haruhi mentioned a slider in that speech of hers on the first day didn't she. I guess she forgot about it or we'd have one already. I went up and spoke softly to Yuki.
"Hey, Nagato, do you think you could do some sort of illusion to make Mikuru's uniform look normal?"
"Why?"
Curse you alien social skills.
"It's embarrassing for her, and if Haruhi doesn't notice it'll be fine right?
"...Understood."
Well, that's that out of the way. Haruhi's had her fun with Mikuru for the day, so my next guess would be...
"Cmon everyone, let's go try and intercept the new teacher while he's being shown around!
I knew WAIT! How do you know the teacher will even be here! Oh right, she's God. Never mind.
So, of course, we all marched up to the teacher's lounge to intercept this mystery man.
"Ehhh! What do you mean he's not here!"
So much for God being omnipotent. Suck it Koizumi. Wait, no that came out wrong, I mean...AAARGH!
Ignoring my silent scream of anguish, Haruhi grilled our homeroom teacher. Turned out the teacher had already gotten his tour earlier in the day, and we were just too late to catch him.
"It's very odd though, I thought he would still be here, but he left very fast. I didn't even see him leave."
"Well, thank you for your time."
Back at the clubroom, Haruhi pouted for a while before finally exploding.
"Jeez, why wasn't he there! A normal teacher would stick around for a while wouldn't they? This seems suspicious."
"Or it could be that he had to go somewhere. It's pretty late in the day, he probably had his tour earlier, stuck around, and then left before we got there."
"Hmph. I'm going home."
Without the magnetic force of Haruhi holding us there, the rest of the SOS Dan scattered to our assorted residences. I hesitate to use the word homes, because Nagato's is just a place to stay so she doesn't arouse suspicion, and I have no idea where Mikuru and Koizumi live. Probably in secret bases or something.
The next day came without incident, aside from my usual climb up that damn hill. I'm probably getting pretty buff from all that walking by now. On the way to homeroom, I ran into Taniguchi.
"Yo Kyon. Hows it goin'?"
"So so. Haruhi's got some crazy idea about the new teacher."
"She's kinda right ya know. It is a bit weird to have a teacher transfer this late in the year. Besides, I hear he's a foreigner."
"Oh that's just perfect, something more to feed her fantasies."
"Look at it this way buddy, in the grand scheme of things, it doesn't matter because she's hot."
I should have known not to expect anything profound from you.
"Well, here we are. Good luck with her."
We entered homeroom and took our seats. Haruhi was already there. I could feel the excitement radiating off her, or maybe that was just her bouncing up and down in her chair. Finally, our homeroom teacher entered, with the new guy in tow. He was a tall thin man, though not quite skeletal. He had hair so black it almost looked blue that kept getting in his eyes, but he didn't look Japanese. Chinese, maybe? No, his nose was too big for that. He had an angular, bony face with the aforementioned nose in the middle.
"Everyone, I know it seems odd, but we have a new temporary teacher for the rest of the year. He's here from America on an exchange program to teach math. Please give Mr. Beleren a warm welcome."
The new teacher stepped forward, and said in flawless Japanese, "My name is Jace Beleren, it's a pleasure to meet you all. I look forward to working with you for what remains of the year."
