Imaginative title, I know. Anyway, I hope you enjoy reading this more than I half-liked writing it.
Disclaimer: I do not own either the franchise of Haruhi Suzumiya or what would be her dream come true.
Prologue
Just like every day, I walked uphill to school that day. However, just before I reached the school gates, a man suddenly walked up to me and asked me something.
"Excuse me, could you tell me where this place is?" I thought he would need it for directions, so I answered.
"Nishinomiya, Japan."
"And what year is it?" Now I was wondering if he was joking, but I answered nonetheless.
"2010."
"Right, arigatou then." and he walked back to where he came from.
Nothing interesting happened during school, and just like every day, I went to the SOS Brigade club room afterwards. After knocking on the door and hearing Asahina-san welcome me inside, I saw the other members were already there. Koizumi sitting at his end of the table already preparing yet another board game -seems its chess today-, Asahina-san in her maid uniform already making me some tea, Nagato in her usual chair already reading a hardcover book and lastly Haruhi behind the brigade leader desk, already working with the computer.
For about 30 minutes, most everyone didn't say a word. Then Haruhi stood up and walked to the door, breaking the silence.
"I'll be right back."
"Where are you going?" I asked.
"None of your business." she replied in a neutral tone just before she walked out the door. This actually relieved me since I didn't want the following conversation to reach her ears.
"Koizumi, you're the local expert."
"Is something on your mind?" That smile of yours, for starters
"This morning, just before I reached the school, some man asked me where he was."
"Maybe he needed it for directions?"
"That's what I thought too, but then he asked me what year it was."
"Maybe he was joking?" Are you sure you don't have powers outside of Closed Space?
"What kind of person would ask something like that?"
"Well, I can think of one." Koizumi turned his head toward Asahina-san, which gave her an "Eh...?" expression.
"Now if we assume that's true," Koizumi continued "the reason he asked for his location wouldn't be far away either." Now he was looking at Nagato, who had raised her head.
"This morning, a disturbance in the flow of data was detected. Its data signature carries something that is 29% similar to Asahina Mikuru, 22% similar to Koizumi Itsuki and 27% similar to myself."
"So that would be the man that asked me those questions."
"Negative, there were 2 beings detected. The man who asked about the current location and time plane and the one previously described. According to the history of the data, the latter has not moved since its arrival except for the movement on molecular level. This is a large anomaly as not even us Humanoid Interfaces could do that for the amount of time they are. The data signature for the man is similar but deviates approximately 5% from the other."
I kind of understand, when Nagato reads her books, she's frozen like a statue. But even excepting the movement of her arm to turn a page, I sometimes see her blink her eyes.
Seeing Koizumi move his piece, I turned back to the game and was wondering if I should end it now or prolong it just a bit. When the clubroom door opened with Haruhi saying "Dismissed.", I immediately moved my castle to his end of the board and said "Checkmate, you're buying me a drink."
"When did we agree on that?"
"We didn't, just buy me a drink."
End prologue
So who's this mysterious man? (It's a rhetorical question, don't answer.)
Stay tuned for more chapters.
