It's been a long time but I return to fanfiction at last. If any of you are waiting on the next chapter of No Need For OVA Kiyone, I apologise for the lateness. I've known for about two years now exactly what I want to do with the story but am finding it intensely difficult to get it written down right. I'm hoping that if I turn my attention to something else for a bit I can get continue so I present to you the first chapter of something completely different. On an unrelated note, I really dislike the last paragraph of this and a rewrite will probably turn up at some point.
If I am ever to die of a heart attack while still in my youth I want it made clear that the hill on the way to school is to blame. In all likelihood the positioning of the school upon such a hill is part of a conspiracy. Forcing the entire student body to climb that Everest every day is clearly an attempt to keep us too exhausted to do anything but sit quietly through our lessons. The joke's on them though, I'm normally too exhausted to do anything but sleep through most my lessons. Whether the hill is part of a conspiracy or not, it clearly has no effect upon Haruhi. Every morning you can find her without fail sitting at her desk on time, as annoyingly hyperactive as if she'd climbed the hill the previous night and then slept here. Thus when one Monday morning Haruhi failed to turn up on time and instead arrived halfway through homeroom, a big excited grin on her face I had that sinking feeling on impending doom that I had learned told me that life would soon get annoyingly busy.
"Did you hear about Johnson Sensei?" Johnson Sensei was the school's English teacher and had the advantage over many other English teachers in that he actually came from England. Of course him being an "exotic foreigner" had made him the target of many of Haruhi's more outlandish theories and I was already resigning myself to another morning spent convincing her that he was not an undercover member of MI6 investigating a secret Japanese nuclear weapons program.
"He's gone!"
"What?"
"Back to England. Apparently he won the British lottery and went home to claim his winnings; sixteen million of whatever currency they use!"
Even I had to admit this was suspicious, a couple of weeks ago he had infamously launched into a massive tirade about how foolish people who wasted their money on such things were.
"That's not all! According to the teachers who I heard discussing it in the hall, he didn't even enter! He received the winning ticket in the post a couple of days ago. Whoever sent it to him must have known he'd win!"
I sat bolt upright in my seat. I only knew of three people who could do such a thing. Asahina would have theoretically been able to find out what the winning numbers would be in advance, Koizumi would certainly have been able to pull strings to fix the lottery and it was well within Nagato's power to pick the "randomly selected" numbers. Any one of the SOS Brigade could have done this, but why would any of them risk drawing Haruhi's attention just to remove a high school English teacher? But if one of the SOS Brigade was not responsible then who would have the means or the motive to do so?
The morning passed in a blur as I pondered these questions and Haruhi got more and more excited about the upcoming English lesson. Personally I expected it to be cancelled and was quite looking forward to a free period but I was proven wrong as a substitute teacher arrived. I noted that although clearly a westerner he spoke Japanese with no trace of an accent but as there seemed nothing else mysterious about him I returned to contemplating the answers to the questions. However when the teacher wrote his name in English on the board Haruhi gave a loud gasp and I realised with a growing sense of horror that a man in a blue jacket had just entered Haruhi's life under deeply mysterious circumstances and introduced himself as Dr JOHN SMITH...
Crap.