The Duplication of Haruhi Suzumiya
by Haruhi Suzumiya and the SOS Brigade
"All your life you live so close to truth it becomes a permanent blur in the corner of your eye. And when something nudges it into outline, it's like being ambushed by a grotesque." -- Guildenstern, from Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, by Tom Stoppard
Important note: This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual people or places in this story is purely coincidental.
Author's notes: Please be aware that there was no actual author. Any resemblance of this story to existing stories is purely coincidental.
- Chapter 1: A Missed Meeting
Despite what anyone tells you, it's never fun getting hit in the face. I know this for a fact because just this morning, somewhere between the desk and my closet, I somehow managed to trip and hit myself. I know this happened because when I briefly glanced in the mirror on my way out, I noticed a nice little bruise on my cheek. It didn't hurt before I walked out the door, but man did it hurt when I walked to school. Not fun.
Thankfully, I bumped into Miss Mikuru Asahina on the way. Just seeing her pretty face made me forget all about the bruise on mine. At least until she said, "Oh my! You're hurt!" She then immediately touched the bruise and then recoiled, as if from an electric shock.
I reflexively touched it, myself. And that's about when the throbbing set in.
Mikuru must have noticed the pained expression on my face, because she winced in sympathy and said, "Oh Kyon, I'm sorry. I really shouldn't have touched it."
"No problem," I said, deflecting my thoughts of pain with looking at her face. When she looks at me like that, with so much sympathy and distress, it really does take my mind right off the pain. I wonder if she knows that her face is like a pain-killing drug?
"Maybe you should go see the nurse?" she suggested.
"No," I replied, "that's okay. It's just a little bruise." At this point, I was apparently giddy from the effect of her face, and I laughed in a nicely reassuring way.
"Are you sure?" she asked.
"I'm fine, really," I replied. "So, how are you doing?"
I didn't really expect a reply, but she said, "Oh, I'm okay." Then, maybe to take her mind off of my bruise, she added, "It's awfully cold, lately."
"Yeah," I said, not really sure where she was going with that.
Mikuru looked around in a strangely nervous way and then said, "It's really nice to see you again."
Having just seen her yesterday, I thought she was joking, so I said, "Well, it's good to be back."
Mikuru laughed nervously and then asked me, "So, how's your little sister doing?"
"Huh?" I asked, genuinely convinced that she was not joking now. "Umm... Little sister?"
She appeared surprised for a moment, then she blushed strangely and said, "Oh! I'm sorry! I think I got you confused with someone else."
I was just about to say that I was an only-child when I saw something a little more familiar. Haruhi was standing in front of some guy looking irritated. She barked something at him and then turn around in a huff. I was too caught up in feeling sympathetic pity for this poor guy to notice that Miss Asahina had hurried off.
"See you later," Mikuru said as she dashed off into school.
"Later," I said to the air behind her, stopping to scratch my head for a moment.
Little sister? I know Mikuru's a time traveler, so maybe she got me confused with some alternate-history version of me. That's not the part that bothered me, though. As I stood there, I wondered how different my life would have been if I had had a little sister. Maybe I'd have never met Haruhi, and my life would have been completely normal. Maybe I could have had a nice, normal high school life with a nice, normal girlfriend and nice, normal, everyday problems...
Yeah, right.
If I have a sibling in this world like a little sister, it would be Haruhi. She's such a little brat all the time, I feel like I'm her big brother. The way she cut her hair definitely reinforces that notion, plus the way she treats me. You'd think we were related if you didn't know better.
I just knew she wouldn't notice my bruise, much less dote on it like Mikuru did earlier. I was right, too. Haruhi spent most of the time in class in her own world, furiously writing things and then scratching them out. They weren't notes, that's for sure. I know that because she would stop and glance at me for a moment, then get a big grin on her face and write something down. Then she would write and write and write, and then grimace and scratch out a few things. Knowing her, it had something to do with whatever she was planning to ruin my next weekend with.
I didn't hang around in class to find out, but went straight to the club room. Itsuki Koizumi and Yuki Nagato were already there, playing some card game. Since Mikuru wasn't there, I decided to consult the next best thing: pictures of Mikuru stored on the computer.
Much as I might hate Haruhi's bratty way of treating me, her hobbies have some very nice perks. Namely, the ever-changing pictures I get to transfer to this computer of Mikuru in many and assorted costumes. Frankly, the only reason I bother with this club sometimes is because of these pictures, but mostly I come here in the hope of seeing her smiling face in person. I'm always unwaveringly nice to her, not just because she's a pretty face, but also because I don't think this club would exist without her.
Speaking of unwavering niceness, Koizumi didn't neglect to mention that he noticed my bruise, and he apologized for it. His opinion I can do without, especially since he always comes across as a creep, a nice creep though he may be. I'm not so heartless as to refuse to speak with him, though, and I must admit that I do enjoy the lunatic ideas he has about Haruhi. It's entertaining, if disturbing and horrific.
Today was a relatively strange day, and somehow we ended up talking about Haruhi and her irritation with being confessed to.
"Six times?" he asked, skeptically. "Six times? You mean, this month? Six times, right?"
"This week," I corrected him, emphatically.
"How many days has there been?"
"Five."
"So," he concluded, "at least two times on one particular day."
"Twice on Monday," I clarified, "once Tuesday, and three times just today. I'm surprised you don't already know."
He countered with, "Why do you say that?"
"Aren't you empathic or something?" I asked him. "I thought you said you were linked in with Haruhi's wavelength or something like that."
Koizumi laughed and replied, "Give me a break. It's not like I can just rewind a tape and look for details."
I think Koizumi doesn't like explaining his "powers" to me, especially with Yuki Nagato in the room. This was just too good an opportunity to see how open he was willing to be. "Really?" I asked him. "I mean with something like this..."
"Miss Suzumiya's love life is really none of my business," he replied.
"You could have fooled me," I muttered.
Koizumi had spent so much time trying to shove Haruhi and me into some kind of relationship, he must have known how absurd it was for him to try to deny it, now. "Listen," he explained. "I don't really know the whole process myself, but it isn't like I can just look into a magic mirror and find important events in Miss Suzumiya's life. I have to wait until we start seeing the consequences of her moods--"
"You assume," I injected.
"I assume," he added, smoothly patronizing me. "Indeed. Anyway, I'm well aware of how frequently guys hit on Miss Suzumiya. I just can't be bothered with the exact number."
"Well," I said, "the number is six just this week."
"Six," he said, pondering. "She sure leads a busy life."
"She sure is late," I added, instantly regretting it. I don't really want her to show up on time. In fact, I'd prefer if she just stayed away from the club. "Hey Nagato," I said, trying to steer the conversation away from my own remark, "have you been confessed to, lately?"
Now, Yuki isn't the type of girl you'd normally think of as being popular, though she does have a pretty face. At this moment, she turned to me and looked blankly confused. I wasn't completely sure how I had arrived at this question for her, and it struck me funny. Seeing her serious expression, however, reminded me that she was alien to this notion of interaction.
Before I could say anything, Koizumi persisted, "At least six times that you know of?"
"As far as I know," I replied, turning back to Yuki.
"What type of confession?" she asked.
"Has anyone confessed their love for you?" I explained to her.
"Oh," she said, turning back to her card game.
Okay, while this awkward pause is occurring here, I should explain that Yuki Nagato is an alien in the quite literal sense of the word. I know for a fact that she has some freaky superhuman abilities, but even more than that, she has a very stoic attitude. Sometimes, I get the impression that she's more of a machine than a person. To any normal person or Haruhi, Yuki appears to be just a shy and studious girl, but she has proven herself to me to be the strangest person I know.
"I have not noticed any such incidents," she said, greatly exceeding her usual verbosity.
I think even Koizumi was a little embarrassed by that exchange, because he cleared his throat and added, "Anyway, like I said. Miss Suzumiya's love life is really none of my business. I was just curious when you said that she was getting really fed up with all the confessions lately."
"Really fed up," I confirmed. "I think she was about to punch one guy."
"This is all news to me."
"No sudden closed spaces? No celestials?"
"No."
Apparently, Koizumi is comfortable with the idea of discussing some of his strange duties in front of Yuki. I had a feeling he might be, but it was nice to see for sure. "Okay," I said. "I was just curious, myself."
"Right," he added, nicely.
I could sense that he was getting tense about this issue, so I observed, "I mean, it could just be a coincidence."
"Not every frustration in her life translates into a world-class phenomenon," he stated, a little defensively.
"You sure?" I asked, gently probing.
"I mean," he said, clearly grasping for a convincing reason, "there is the possibility that we just don't see everything she does to vent her frustrations. It could also be that she isn't exactly fed up to get hit on all the time. Maybe she finds it flattering. Heck, maybe having guys confess to her all the time and acting fed up about it is one of those things she truly wishes for, deep down inside. Who knows?"
Koizumi, the devout priest of the Goddess Haruhi, was reduced to admissions of agnosticism. I couldn't help celebrating this betrayal with a further observation, "You have an awfully convenient way of explaining things, there."
"And," he added, "I'll be the first to admit it. Yes, maybe I'm completely wrong."
With some disgust, I remembered then that Koizumi has a knack for waffling his way around tricky arguments.
"Look," he said, "I'm just telling you how I see it."
That wasn't even worthy of a response, so I looked to Yuki and asked her, "Not even once?"
"Correct," she replied.
"Now, that's hard to believe," I said, truly disgusted. Stoic or not, a girl as pretty as Yuki deserves to be confessed to, at least once. I was about to apologize to her on behalf of all men when Haruhi threw open the door in her usual, not-so-subtle way.
"Okay, everybody!" Haruhi exclaimed, still looking a little fed up. "Listen up! Our task for this weekend is to look for sliders!"
"That was awfully straight-forward," I commented.
"What?" Haruhi pointedly asked my way.
"Huh?" I said, then realizing, added, "Oh, sorry. I can't believe I said that out loud."
Haruhi then strode up to me, her usual defiant attitude looming my way, and said, "Look, Kyon. Finding sliders isn't going to be a walk in the park. They aren't just going to walk right up to you and say, 'Hi there! I'm from an alternate universe!' It'll be tricky, but I have a serious plan for finding some. You better not screw this up!"
"Whatever it is, Miss Suzumiya," Koizumi chimed in, "I can't wait to get started."
"All right!" Haruhi answered, gratefully. "That's what I like to hear. As usual, Koizumi is the only one who has the right attitude." Haruhi then looked around for a few moments, then scowled and added, "Dammit! Where's Mikuru?"
"Not here, apparently," I replied, helpfully.
"I know that!" Haruhi stated, then complained, "What I want to know is where she is."
Since obviously no one knew, Haruhi then seemed resolved to whine about it. She wasn't content to do so from a standing position, so she dragged me out of the chair I had been sitting in, and then sat there, herself.
"This sucks!" she whined, just as I had expected. "What could she be doing?"
"Maybe she's on a date," I supplied, hoping to further her irritation.
"Oh, don't give me that!" Haruhi barked at me. "I know she isn't the type."
I then suddenly wondered when Haruhi had had the chance to observe this behavior in Mikuru, and I just couldn't even imagine it. "Really?" I asked.
"Is this what you guys were talking about before I got here?" Haruhi asked, suddenly changing the topic.
"What?" I said, starting to get annoyed with myself.
"About dating and romance and stuff," she replied. With an unusually stern expression, she then added, "You're pathetic."
I was about to protest, when Koizumi interrupted, "I admit, the subject did come up."
"You see?" Haruhi asked no one in particular. "It's all about sex with you guys, isn't it? Geez, you all have one-track minds."
"We weren't talking about sex," I was finally permitted to say.
"Do I have to punch somebody here?" Haruhi continued, once again ignoring me. "I want to know where Mikuru is."
Koizumi mercifully smothered the topic with, "I think I recall Miss Asahina said something about... helping out someone with some gardening... or something." It was such an obvious lie that I couldn't help grimacing.
"Okay," Haruhi said, apparently done whining. "Here's what we're going to do. We're going to meet up on Sunday morning at eight. I'll try and get in touch with Mikuru before then. If you see her, however, make sure you relay those instructions. We'll go over the plan, then. Okay?" Then, without bothering to wait for an acknowledgement, she got up and marched toward the door.
There was no need for us to discuss where this meeting was going to take place. We nearly always met at the same coffee shop every week.
I was relieved to think that Haruhi was finally finished, but then she stopped and looked at me, demanding, "And don't start talking about sex, the moment I leave." She glared at me for another long moment and then finally left.
Very smoothly, Yuki asked, "How long should we wait, first?"
It took me a moment to realize that Yuki had said something, and then it took another moment to realize that she had spoken in reference to what Haruhi had just said to me. So, when Yuki spoke again, it again hit me by surprise.
"That was a joke," she added, still with that deadpan delivery.