Chapter 1 A Story told differently
This is a story you've no doubt heard many times about a high school boy named Kyon, which is his, I mean my name, A story you have heard before I'm sure.
This is different because I live somewhere else. It's another alternate time plane or something, a different universe where opposed to the one you would call "normal", which is quite ironic. I have no connection to Haruhi Suzumiya, or the SOS Brigade.
Here there are actually no aliens, time travelers, espers, or reality-altering schoolgirls, just the normal kid. And I have to say my life was pretty lonely up to this point. Just me and my two friends Taniguchi and Kunikida, so I'd be by myself most of the days on end.
But we've already gone into enough detail about this, that, and the other thing.
If I'm remembering this day right It was the day we had to hand in our essays on the effects of Globalization. It was minimum 2 page, 5 paragraphs where we had to talk about the pros and cons of Globalization concluding with personal opinion.
I gave it a modest effort of work sprinkled with somewhat appropriate amounts of laziness and procrastination, after all I wouldn't want it to make it 'look' like I tried to right this junk anyway.
I shouldn't beat myself up about this but it was just the beginning paragraph of the essay that bothered me so much. It was an analogy about Icarus and his flight the idea of making man's possibilities of the world reach new heights as flight, once believed impossible becoming reality. And today the World's boundaries have now become too small for us it would become time for another 'presumed' impossibility to become possible and thus a new horizon of potential.
Every word of that was bullshit, the majority of us never really had an opinion of globalization until we were assigned and graded on it, and the analogy of Icarus didn't make any sense to the context of Globalization itself. Besides the parable of Icarus was about human greed or something how man dares to touch the sun and is punished. I ended up not cutting it out only realizing the day before and not able to come up with a more sensible one...
"You're babbling again." Thank you Kunikida!
"I should just ask the teacher to give me one more chance to rewrite it before I hand it in, I mean its not just the beginning but the ending keeps kinda neutral on my stance to the whole thing, all I really did was restate all the points I made and researched."
"Kyon, you're way, way waaaaaaaaay over the OCD factor on this thing. You said you did the B rated job so you get the B rated mark." My man Taniguchi here I say true that. But the launch codes for self-destruct was already counting down, now it's just time to watch. 10...9...8
"No, I can't hand this thing in! I'll run home fast, and print it... No! I'll E-mail it to myself and..." 7... 6...5 plus am I even noticing if I was talking or thinking at this point?
"No way I can fix this junk, I'll need to rewrite it... after school! Beg the teacher and..."
4... 3...2
"I could just throw this away! Damn you Wright Brothers!" 1...0.
And the breeze kicked in an instant, no doubt those damn Wright Brothers' fault too. The papers I were planning to destroy so they may never see the eyes of the educational community flew in the air like Icarus... shut up it was the only flight thing I could think of.
"Well, nice scene Kyon, we're gonna leave you to it" were the last words I heard from Taniguchi before chasing after my papers.
Fortune brought me, and my "Magnum opus" to a puddle. In desperation I try to gently grasp the soggy paper as it limps in my hands and I remember muttering and repeating something like "Its still good" and "No no no!" in a frantic tone.
My breakdown complete I carefully place the wet homework in my knapsack and praying to the gods that this bad enough work survives until I get to class.
The rest of my walk up the hill to North High was alone, and the indication of no other students in front or behind me meant that I was unavoidably late to class. Daring as I was running as much as I could uphill the conclusion was the same as me trying make my homework not land in a puddle.
I enter the classroom, or interrupt however you want to put it huffing in my breath and sweat on my brow. The room pauses a moment to look at me being late and resumes when Okabe says "Running late now Kyon?"
No kidding Sherlock "Well go on I wanna hear it this time." I mean come on! I'm already put on the spot enough, not to mention the shattering of my psyche over a poorly written analogy today is just enough.
I attempt to respond in tired breath and anxiety. " My Globalization paper...*huffs* dropped it...*gasps* in a puddle" Okay maybe I wasn't that tired but if you put me in the spotlight you can expect a show.
"What? Ugh, Kyon you have until Tuesday to finish that you realize?"
Tuesday! You mean that whole freak-out was pointless! Well more so than before, But then that means... I Can still rewrite it! Thank you Kami!
Okabe decides to let me off my tardiness in sympathy for my desperation to hand in my work which I can finally resolve and put this obsession behind me. I can now take my seat behind... some girl with medium brown hair, and a yellow band in her hair?
No one sat at that desk in that class, not in the year and a half I had been in this classroom. A new student maybe? Must've missed the introduction at the start of class or whatever I thought.
Anyway I just sat down and tucked my bag under my seat and took out the wrinkly paper in front of me to edit down that insufferable introduction.
Until that is a few minutes later that girl started looking over my shoulder on what I was scribbling down. I tried to cover it with my hand after noticing thinking she would copy me, or laugh at how bad it is. Insecurity issues and what not. Then wanting to find out the 'big' thing I was holding out just snatches it from me after first bell.
"This is what you were making a scene about." Did she just read whole thing in a couple seconds? Must be like one of those photographic memories or something.
The nerve of that girl! Pointing out the absurdity of my antics surrounding this assignment. " Who do you think you are?" She didn't like that at all.
"That's it Kyon! You can expect Triple Death Penalty! Such insubordination will not go unpunished! You'll be licking boots and paying tabs until your Four hundred years old!"
That doesn't make any sense! A girl yells at me because I don't know her or something and I get triple death penalty? And the other students while watching the scene aren't even paying much attention and its certainly not because she isn't making herself audible. In a fit she stormed off saying some things I wish not to repeat to any of the younger readers here, and again I ask what did I do?
I didn't see that girl who we can go ahead and just call her Haruhi now as you already know who she is this point, though continuing through the mindset that I don't this far.
And by lunch time I was looking to get some answers from my friends.
"Way to go Kyon, it's like watching a train wreck, followed by a airplane crash, and an oil spill. I hope I don't catch your bad luck just by association" Which I then proceed to fake cough my illness into his sleeve, that'll teach you for giving me ideas.
"I have no words for what I just witnessed after first bell."
"Just more of the same when you're friends with Haruhi Suzumiya."
"Whoa, friends? After what she said about me in public? I Don't even know this girl!" Something changed from that walk to school. There was no existence of Haruhi Suzumiya or her 'antics'. Like I had caught a case of amnesia instead of bad luck, well more like half n' half bad luck amnesia.
Resuming class after Haruhi blowing up on me kept me on edge, I was going to die after class I just knew it! Triple Mega death penalty.
While writing down my last will in testament splitting my possessions to my family and charity I could feel the eyes of a malevolent teenage demoness looking into my soul. All I could do was wait for the end, knowing the hospital would have to use dental records to identify my body, torn apart as though it were from a wild animal. Please God you saved me from having to do my homework on time, surely you could do just one last thing for your son Kyon right? Right?
*BBBBBBBBBBRRRRRING!*
"GAAAAAAH!" I jump up from my seat. Schools over? YES! Saved by the bell! Hallelujah! Thank you! Thank you Kami! And in no time to even clear out my locker or put on my shoes properly I ran, I ran as fast as a coward could run away from death, the devil with Yellow eyes!
Returning to my house I locked the door behind me, and checked the window locks as well. Sanctuary at last. I collapsed face down on the couch, I don't think my heart can take much more of this.
Vrrr vrrr. Not my phone. No don't answer it you know who it is, Of course she has your phone number, why? Why is it like I'm being dragged into something I have no part in?
Vrr vrrr. The phone vibrates for a good nine calls, Nine! So I remove the batteries from my cell. Ha! Now the home phone is ringing, don't you know how to give up? I pick up the phone.
"WHAT!" Almost immediately I find out this Was not Haruhi. And then there was a little girl crying...
If this is what happens when you're 'friends' with Haruhi Suzumiya I hate to see what she does to her enemies.
In the evening when the events prior had calmed down I had finally rewritten my entire Globalization paper front to back a much more pleasing version now that I got that beginning sorted out. Just so you know Icarus you are the source of all my misery.
And it's all going to happen again tomorrow. Can't hide from that girl forever, maybe I could, live in New Zealand or something, all the way to Greenland where no one can find me. We'll if it's New Zealand or the North pole it wouldn't hurt to get some rest then. my heart has had just about enough.
I awoke some time later in the night, the tree in front of my window was knocking it with the wind I opened the latch to try and snap that pesky branch intruding my slumber. And with that settled I could finally turn around and... see a female intruder. I'll give you a hint, she is the alien. I couldn't make words, not audible ones.
"You do not belong here." No, this is my room. You don't belong here. But I was starting to get the feeling she was right, half asleep though I was.
"Go to the literature club room before class begins." And if I don't? I thought.
"Termination" She's reading my mind now. Excellent. And in a blink of an eye and the window opening again purely for dramatic effect of course she was gone.
No matter what I did it seemed a chain of effects sprung into motion, a calamity began the moment the number hit 0. Regardless if these actions were my fault or scripted I still took the blame for it.
Author's note: I've been spit balling a slider self insert comic for a while but after the whole introduction of the slider kid it became difficult to keep focus on Kyon, either dual narrating or keeping Kyon's POV only as usual. Then the solution was to have a Alternate Kyon! More adventures and drama will come, please read and review! :D