Author's notes: Here's the first of what I anticipate will be several Haruhi Suzumiya fics by me (I already have ideas for three more). I'm trying my best to emulate the approach of the source material by explaining the reasons behind the characters' actions as little as possible, leaving them for the reader to figure out.

While I fully intend to read the Haruhi Suzumiya light novels, for the moment I'm only familiar with the television series, so consider this fic restricted to that continuity. Also, I'm not as well-versed in Japanese culture as I probably should be to be attempting a story like this, though I've done research where it was obviously necessary. So please, if you spot any cultural inaccuracies, point them out so I can fix them.

I keep a firm practice of refraining from chapter-by-chapter author's notes, but if you want behind-the-scenes info on the writing of this fic, check out my profile page. I plan to post a new tidbit as each chapter goes up.

The characters and milieu of this fan fiction work are property of Nagaru Tanigawa, Kyoto Animation, and Funimation. This is apart from the handful of newly introduced characters, most significantly Takuma.

And now, an end to my blathering and a start to the fun stuff. (Well, I think it's fun stuff. Hopefully you'll agree.)

Haruhi's Boyfriend

plot and script - Martin III

cover art - Cesar Hernandez

Chapter 1: In which Haruhi has a band rehearsal, goes in search of aliens, and acquires a boyfriend, and Kyon discovers he has strong reasons to be unhappy about all three of these things

Looking back over this past month, I think I can spot more times where the words "I should have..." can be applied than in any other month of my life.

Certainly, being associated with Haruhi Suzumiya is bound to leave you with a lion's share of regrettable events when your life is finally tallied up. Usually, however, I can lay the blame for these solely at Haruhi's door, and feel about as responsible for my own misfortunes as if my home were swallowed up by an earthquake, since Haruhi is just as destructive and unreasoning as that force of nature.

This past month, though, I made an easy target of myself in retrospect.

It started with my usual morning discourse with Haruhi. As I pulled up my chair to sit down, she paid me no attention, just continued to stare thoughtfully at the ceiling.

"Yo," I said to her. "Any plans for this weekend?"

It's tempting to comment that this is a dangerous question to ask Haruhi Suzumiya, but really, is there any question that isn't dangerous to ask Haruhi?

"Not yet," she answered, absently.

Silence followed, and I started to debate whether I should give myself a break and consider that the end of this morning's discussion with Haruhi. But that much was not in my hands.

"Kyon," Haruhi said suddenly, still looking at the ceiling rather than at my face, "...why have you never asked me out in all the time you've known me?"

That was new. But Haruhi rarely did anything old, so I wasn't fazed by the question. "Is there something odd about that?"

"I don't know. But I can't think of many boys I've known who haven't tried asking me out at some point. Still..." She pushed back her hair. "I've known you long enough now that you owe me an honest answer to that question."

I really didn't see how anyone could ever be obligated to answer such a question, but whatever.

Haruhi wasn't looking at the ceiling anymore. She was looking at me, arms folded. "So, why?" she repeated.

Oh, where to start? Could it be, Haruhi, that I haven't asked you out because you're the single most unpleasant person I've ever met? Because I anticipate that even one date with you would be agony equivalent to having screws drilled underneath my fingernails? Or how about the blow which being the boyfriend to North High's resident UFOligist would deal to my already bottom-rung social standing? Or just possibly, could it be that having you in my face twice a day every weekday has given us a relationship where dating you would be comparable to dating my sister?

Haruhi's look of interrogation was turning into a dark scowl. "Are you going to give me some silliness about how I'm like a sister to you?" she demanded.

I hate it when she seems to hear what I'm thinking. Maybe it was that which threw me off. Because really, I know I should have told her our dating would interfere with the SOS Brigade's mission, or that I was clearly not good enough for her.

Instead: "Well, we discussed your thoughts about dating not long after we met. You said that it was a waste of time, and that the only people you would have any interest in dating were aliens, time travelers, and espers." I leaned back and held up a hand of presentation before myself that I am sure would look foolishly pompous if I were to watch it on video. "Being none of those things, I obviously stood no chance."

Her facial expression regressed back to thoughtful. "So what you're saying is, the only reason you didn't ask me out is because you thought I would say no anyway."

"Exactly." Again, I know now I should have nipped that idea in the bud as soon as Haruhi voiced it. But at the moment, it seemed so benign. I'd given her an answer which satisfied her and avoided an argument. What was the harm in that?

That afternoon was band rehearsal. There were still brief formal SOS Brigade meetings, but band rehearsal had pretty much taken over the club's activities ever since Haruhi had put the SOS Brigade Band together.

The lineup was Haruhi on vocals and guitar, Nagato on lead guitar, yours truly (and unhappily) on bass, and a fellow named Takuma on drums. Koizumi has assured me that, aside from appearing to be half chimpanzee, Takuma is a perfectly normal human being, which he takes as a promising sign that Haruhi is beginning to see there is value in people who are not aliens, time travelers, espers, or sullen homeroom classmates.

I think he's getting his hopes up too much. Takuma had been playing with us for three weeks; I was willing to give him two more days before he gets fed up with Haruhi's bossiness and quits. Also, I suspect the fact that Takuma's home has a fancy soundproof music room for the band to rehearse in probably had more than a little to do with Haruhi's decision to recruit him.

Koizumi got excused from joining the band by telling Haruhi he doesn't know how to play any instruments, even though I know for a fact that he can at least play flute. Somebody explain to me why that excuse didn't work for me, who really and truly could not play a musical instrument. In fact, it would be a fair criticism to say that I still can't. Haruhi had somehow managed to get me to pluck bass strings so that they actually make an appreciable sound, and once my fingers had finished bleeding from that effort, she even taught me a whole bunch of notes, but I managed to forget half of what she taught me from day to day, and when it came to actual playing I simply could not keep up with the rest of the group. Knowing how to play a set of notes is an altogether different thing from being able to move your fingers from one to the next at the requisite speed.

But I digress. Even though Koizumi was excused from being an actual band member, none of the SOS Brigade were exempt from service of some form with the band. Koizumi was assigned the tasks of sound technician (which amounted to turning the knobs on our amplifiers when and how Haruhi directed him to) and concert promoter (designing posters and flyers in anticipation of the fearful day when we would actually play in public), while Miss Asahina was our designated stage decoration. I had a bad feeling that Takuma took that designation a little too seriously from the way he leered at her, but it was hard not to stare when she was wearing that costume that Haruhi had cruelly forced her into. It involved a slight vest with the SOS Brigade logo on the back, a top which did little more than push up her immense cleavage, and a pair of jeans with the legs cut off at just below crotch level.

Our songs were all written, in a bizarre manner, by Haruhi. On our first day we'd used the songs Haruhi and Nagato had played at the last festival, supplemented with a couple standards, for our rehearsal material, but Haruhi was eager to do original material, and that very day she'd proudly presented to us two sheets of paper which she announced as her first songs for the new band. Upon examination, each sheet contained a dozen lines of lyrics accompanied by melodies written in Haruhi's own proprietary, incomprehensible form of musical notation. When we asked where the rest of each song was and what in the world we were supposed to play, she hand waved, "Little details like that can be worked out later. Starting tomorrow, we'll be rehearsing with just my songs!"

It didn't take us long to figure out that "little details" like bass lines and second verses would have to be worked out by the rest of the band. Nagato, as usual, had no input to offer, though you could at least rely on her to know where and where not to include her stunningly perfect guitar fills when it came to rehearsal time.

Thus, most of our songwriting sessions were taken up by me talking Takuma out of using phrases like "grab my love thing" and "flashed my titties" (I repeatedly pointed out that there was no way Haruhi would ever be willing to sing such things - though in actual fact, I'm not so sure she wouldn't) and the two of us hashing out rhythms that I could handle yet which at least somewhat fit with what Haruhi had written. Somehow, miraculously, the neanderthal and the non-musician between them managed to work up viable song structures.

So the next day we rehearsed "Haruhi's" songs, and midway through the first one Haruhi called a halt. "Kyon! Have you lost your mind?! The bass line goes like this!"

She proceeded to demonstrate on her guitar a riff that was energetic, passionate, in every way worlds better than what Takuma and I had come up with - and well beyond my ability to play. For a few seconds I just stared at her in dull stupefaction while Takuma glowered at her in cold rage at having his songwriting efforts so coldly, cleanly, and promptly cut from the band's repertoire.

Eventually I did manage to, if not exactly play, at least fake the bass line that Haruhi had come up with. And so the whole process I've detailed became something of a routine: Haruhi came to us with an unfinished song, Takuma and I crudely finished it so that we'd have something to play at the next rehearsal, only to have Haruhi promptly rewrite most of what we'd come up with, correcting our playing and completely ignoring any lyrics we'd added on to her little sheets.

Anyway, that was how it was. On the afternoon of the day on which Haruhi questioned why I had never asked her out, she sent Miss Asahina off to try to drum up some interest in the band. While I was somewhat concerned about what sort of appearance she was going to make in her band outfit, her absence was a boon to the rehearsal performance. Without her as a distraction, I actually managed to keep up somewhat through all the songs we played.

Which is not to say that I measured up to the rest of the group by any stretch of the imagination. Nagato was of course inhumanly virtuoso, Takuma at his worst maintained both the beat and the energy level, and Haruhi, unbelievably, just seemed to get better and better with each rehearsal, to the point where it seemed it wouldn't be long until she left all three of us behind.

"Alright, that's enough!" she declared at last. "Kyon! You keep holding the rest of us back! Your playing has got to have some feeling and enthusiasm!"

I was surprised. Haruhi was never shy about letting me know how much I outright stank at playing bass, but usually she reserved her criticisms for when she was giving me one-on-one instruction. I had thought she had the sense to see that there was no sense in eating up rehearsal time with chewing me out. And now, when I'd given the best performance of an admittedly miserable career?

I also wasn't in much mood to sit and take it. "I'm doing the best I can. If that's not good enough for you, I don't see why you insisted I be in the band in the first place."

"The best you can, my ass! You played this song better when I first taught it to you! You haven't been practicing, have you?!"

"I'm here every weekday to rehearse with the rest of you. What I do with my free time is my business."

That really seemed to light her dynamite. "Free time? Your business? What kind of SOS Brigade member are you?!"

"That rare kind that has a life of his own, I suppose."

"Watch it, or I'll go ahead and replace you. Mai could do a much better job."

Now I was the one morally outraged. "You're a hero to those girls, and you're thinking about stealing away one of their band members?"

I noticed Takuma looking very pleased at the idea, though I couldn't tell whether it was because then he wouldn't have to work with an incompetent bassist anymore, or because there'd be another cute girl in the band. Probably both. It wouldn't surprise me if he was already picturing himself on a magazine cover with Miss Asahina, Nagato, Mai Zaizen, and Haruhi all half-naked and draped over him, the pervert.

"Rules of larceny don't apply to bands! In the world of rock, there are only two laws: rebellion and music! As the leader of this band, it's my responsibility to make sure we have the best musicians available!"

Well, you sure abrogated that responsibility when you recruited a guy who can't play any instruments.

"But I'm a reasonable person..." Haruhi said, spinning her back to me and raising her index finger to the air. "...and I believe you have the potential to be just the bass player the SOS Brigade Band needs. You are to remain here after rehearsal, and I will personally instruct you in playing your instrument."

Takuma sniggered. At first I was bewildered by that, but then I remembered that Takuma's mind inevitably jumped to sex whenever members of the opposite met one-on-one. Assuming he has a male doctor, I'm sure he sniggers in exactly the same manner every time a girl is called into the examination room.

Haruhi spun back upon me, finger still raised to the air. "Understood?" she demanded.

"Yeah, sure." I had a feeling this one-on-one instruction wasn't going to leave me with much time to do my homework, and coming on top of homeroom, SOS Brigade meeting, and band rehearsal it was a quadruple dose of Haruhi Suzumiya for the day, which is a good three doses more than I'd like. Why couldn't she find a boyfriend to spend her spare time with? But I figured I could argue the point after the others had left. No sense in starting a fight when Koizumi was there to be her yes-man, Takuma was there to spot sexual innuendos in every insult that passed between us, and poor Miss Nagato was standing silently there having her time wasted.

We played one last song, during which I slapped my bass strings with the simmering anger I felt at Haruhi and her domineering ways. The increased intensity did not improve the quality of my playing, and Haruhi and Takuma both kept shooting glances at me that showed they were wondering what the hell I was doing. To escape their death glares, I turned my eyes upon Nagato, only to find she was looking at me as well. It was just her usual blank stare, but the mere fact that she was watching me suggested she was equally perplexed at the level of crumminess in my playing.

Still, we all lived through it, and Nagato, Takuma, and Koizumi dispersed, leaving me at Haruhi's mercy.

She took a seat and strummed out a chord on her guitar. "You seemed to have forgotten this part, Kyon. Did you just forget that this chord comes after G in 'Reaching the Mystery', or did you forget how to play your part there entirely?"

I sat down beside her with a sigh; the strap of my bass was really wearing on my shoulder by this point, and I wished I could take the damn thing off. "Haruhi, I really don't have time for music lessons today..."

"Good, because neither do I." Come again? "That was just a cover. But it'll be suspicious if they don't hear us playing as they walk away, so show me that bass line anyway."

I had in fact forgotten how to play that bit entirely, so I peered at where her fingers were on her fretboard and mimicked her.

She nodded her approval. "Don't get the wrong idea. You really do need to put a lot more practice into that instrument if you don't want to get kicked out of the band. The fact that it's true is what makes it such a good cover. But right now we have something more important to deal with."

Give me three guesses what it is. That's all I need.

"I think one of the SOS Brigade members may be an alien spy."

"You mean me?" I said this in jest, instinctively trying to somehow deflect suspicion off Nagato. As soon as I said it, however, it hit me that it very well could be me she was talking about. She was certainly foolhardy enough to confront someone with accusations of being an alien spy right to his face.

"Of course not. You'd never lie to me." She took off her guitar and set it on its stand. I assumed that meant I was relieved of musical duties for the day, so with considerable relief I unstrapped my bass and dumped it on the floor. Haruhi scowled. "Can't you treat that thing with more respect? I'm the one who got it for you, after all."

That was true, essentially. When I'd pointed out to her that in addition to not being able to play an instrument, I did not own one, Haruhi had said, "Leave that to me!" with a wicked gleam in her eye. I'd feared she had in mind a scam along the lines of the one she'd used to get the SOS Brigade a computer, but I suppose even Haruhi had the sense to realize that if I were practicing at home with an expensive musical instrument, that would lead to questions, and that I would not be willing or able to lie convincingly. Instead, she walked home with me and talked my parents into loaning me enough to buy an electric bass and amplifier.

I'm not sure how she pulled it off. But if I had to make a guess, I'd say her firm promise to tutor me in how to play the thing played a big part. Some weeks before, I was sitting playing a video game by myself, and I caught my mom looking at me like she could see any hope of grandchildren slipping away. My parents were well aware of the platonic nature of my relationship with Haruhi, but I think they were at the point where they were ready to jump on any opportunity for their son to spend quality one-on-one time with one of his peers, whether prospective wife or no.

Bass tutoring was usually held in the clubroom, but one day we had our amplifiers turned up to full band volume and consequently got kicked out due to the noise. Haruhi declared we would finish up the lesson at my house. In due order we were seated together on my couch, plucking strings, Haruhi showing me above average patience. Before long she bored of this and yanked me to my feet, declaring that it was time for me to "really get into it."

As near as I could tell from Haruhi's demonstration, this meant playing simple riffs while moving, swaying, and jumping as though the music you were playing had complete control of your body. I followed suit in my own awkward way, though probably too much of my concentration was taken up by the sight and sound of Haruhi doing her wild thing. At one point my mother glanced in at the two of us romping around and nodded with approval, as if to say, "Cost of electric bass guitar, justified."

But all that said nothing about how I felt about the thing. "I never asked for it," I answered Haruhi. "In fact, I specifically told you that I had no interest in playing in your band."

"Don't change the subject! Musical instruments are to be treated with care and respect, all the more so when they come as a favor from your brigade leader." She folded her arms. "Anyway, Mikuru's the one I think is an alien spy. Doesn't she seem a bit too conveniently moe? No one could really be that adorably helpless and distressed all the time."

I think after the trauma you subjected Miss Asahina to in her first few days with the SOS Brigade, practically anyone would have been reduced to a similar quivering, whimpering state as her.

"And certainly no human of her height could have breasts that large!"

I'll admit she's shorter and more buxom than you, but you're still hardly in a position to complain about someone having unfairly large breasts. Or an unfairly attractive body in general.

"To say nothing of that dulcet voice. Do you see what I'm getting at, Kyon?"

"Yes," I sighed. "But you've forgotten a few things. Moe girls are supposed to be adorably clumsy. As you yourself have noted, Miss Asahina has yet to spill a drop of tea on me or Koizumi, and despite North High's conveniently short-skirted uniform, and the even shorter skirts of the costumes you make her wear, she has not once accidentally flashed her panties to the best of my knowledge. More importantly, she did not seek membership in the SOS Brigade; you captured her and took her in against her will."

"Because she lured me in with her moe appeal, remember? Get it?"

"And how would she have known you were looking for a girl with moe appeal?"

"Alien intelligence, Kyon. Try to keep up." She stood up and started pacing. "We need to set up surveillance quick, before she realizes we're on to her."

"That's another thing. Why does Miss Asahina's nature suddenly seem suspicious to you now, after you've known her for six months?"

"Now, pay attention. I got Mikuru's address from school records." Clearly, my voice was not being heard. "I told her to spend two hours drumming up attention for the band, so if we head to her home now we should have at least a half hour lead on her."

Uh oh. I could imagine what Haruhi's reaction would be if she found out that another North High student was living in an apartment with no parents about. Ordinarily I might play neutral on that, since it would at least keep Haruhi from being bored for a while, but I owed it to dear Miss Asahina to keep North High's paranormal super sleuth off her case. I needed to think of something quick.

Haruhi's voice was getting increasingly excited. "First we'll question her landlord and neighbors, pretending that we're trying to get together with Mikuru on a club project. With luck, in the process we'll hit upon a way of getting into her apartment. If we do get inside, we can have a look around and set up a camera to catch her shifting back to alien form, or any other suspicious behavior. If not, we'll find a hiding place, and when she gets back -"

"Hold on," I interrupted. "Didn't Miss Asahina tell you? She and her family are going on a camping trip for the weekend. She won't be coming back home today, and even if you did set up a camera, it would run out of memory long before the camping trip was done. And of course her landlord and neighbors would get suspicious of us if we acted as though she were supposed to be at home."

Yes! Brilliant thinking! I congratulated myself.

Haruhi bit her lip with anger. "No, Miss Asahina certainly did not tell me she was going on a camping trip! I'll be sure to discuss that with her when she comes back - or when we expose her as an alien spy, whichever comes first. Do you know where they went camping to?"

"Yeah, Lake Tenapa."

Obviously, I should have denied knowing. It doesn't take a genius to figure that out. But I was making the story up as I went along, and with the exceptional level of idiocy I was demonstrating this month, I blurted out a location, thinking for that split second that details like that made the story more credible.

"Hmm." Haruhi had stopped pacing. She looked thoughtfully at the ceiling, in almost the same manner as she had that morning in homeroom. By this point I was realizing my mistake, and Haruhi's odd manner had set my morbid imagination running wild at what she might have in mind. I could feel my heart pounding.

Then she turned and looked at me intensely and very deliberately. "Kyon," she said. "Would you like to go with me to Lake Tenapa tomorrow?"

What the heck? She's asking me? Not ordering me?

"We could observe Mikuru and her family right when they must think that no one's watching them," she elaborated when I didn't answer right away. "But if you already have weekend plans..."

Now I know something's not right here. Just asking if I want to do something doesn't mean she can't say "Tough beans, you're going anyway," if I say no, but she really sounds like she's willing to let me turn her down. Why in the world would Haruhi be willing to take "no" for an answer?

"No, I don't have any weekend plans..." I answered.

"So it's a yes, then?"

Alien hunting with Haruhi was not my idea of a fun way to spend a Saturday. But I'd dug myself into a bit of a hole. If Haruhi went to Lake Tenapa by herself and found Mikuru not there, there'd be hell to pay. If I tagged along, maybe I could figure something out to misdirect her. At the least, my participating in the search for extraterrestrial life would make it much less obvious that I'd lied. Besides, itching at my brain was the irrational belief that if I said yes on this, the first occasion Haruhi had offered me a choice, I would be rewarded in some way. Perhaps she might even stop ordering me around entirely and start routinely asking for favors like a normal well-adjusted human being.

So I nodded. "Yeah, I'd like to go with you."

I really, really should have said no.

After that comment, you're probably dying to know the juicy details of my Lake Tenapa adventure with Haruhi. But as regrettable as it would later prove, that adventure of itself has very little that can be said about it. A few minor oddities aside, it was as dull a day as I could have hoped for.

Though Haruhi had firmly stated that our mission must remain secret to avoid tipping off the Asahinas, I of course asked my parents for permission, which they gave readily. I had promised to be back by nightfall, and Lake Tenapa was a public area, so they had little to worry about.

I also called Miss Asahina to fill her in on the situation so she would be prepared when Haruhi asked her about her camping trip. She very sweetly offered to get some people to pose as her family and go with them to Lake Tenapa in order to corroborate my story, but I begged her not to. It would only further complicate the lie, and I didn't want the lovely girl to be in harm's way when Haruhi was in full alien hunter mode - there was no telling what could happen. She cooed her gratitude for my concern, making my heart go a flutter.

I met up with Haruhi bright and early. She was wearing a ponytail and a sweatshirt that I'd always thought she looked particularly good in. I really hope that the sweatshirt at least was a coincidence, because I'm pretty sure I never said anything about it out loud. Naturally, I provided the transportation, wearily pedaling while Haruhi just clung to my shoulders and enjoyed the ride.

After we reached the camp grounds, we walked around for a couple hours before Haruhi called a break. She'd prepared lunches for us, and we sat and ate them while relaxing against a tree and idly discussing the nearby flora and fauna.

I'm only covering the highlights, and the day still sounds incredibly boring.

The only thing that happened that was even mildly interesting was in the mid-afternoon. After walking through the woods together for a few more hours, I scratched my head and said, "I just don't get it. We've searched every campsite, and I'm sure Miss Asahina said they'd be here... Maybe I misunderstood, and she was talking about a later weekend?"

But Haruhi just shrugged. "Don't worry about it." She went and sat down by the edge of the lake.

She seemed so completely unconcerned... Suddenly I had the weird feeling that I was the one who had come there under false pretenses.

She picked up a little stone. "Have you ever skipped rocks?"

"Sure."

She gave me a daredevil grin. "Well, come on, show me what you've got!"

I bent down, scooped up a suitably smooth one, and flung it across the water. It did a double skip and then cut beautifully into the lake. Grinning, I said, "Not bad, huh?"

Without a word, Haruhi pulled back the stone she'd been holding and give it a throw as focused as that of any major league pitcher. It skipped across the water... one, two, three... four, five... six times.

I gawked at it in defeat. "Do you have to be the best at everything?" I demanded.

"Nope! I just am."

"Good grief." I dropped to sit beside her.

She looked at me seriously. "That really bothers you?"

"What? Oh, I guess not. It's more that I wish I was good at just one thing too."

"You could be," she said, "If you would just spend more time practicing that bass."

"Alright, that's enough about that." I picked up another stone. "Show me again. So I'll know that first one wasn't just a lucky fluke."

She grabbed a stone and threw it out. Five skips.

Well, at least she didn't get six skips again - or even more. For the heck of it, I threw the stone I was holding. It got a sort of half skip, rudely splatting the surface of the water once and then hitting again to sink completely.

I sighed. "I know," I held up a hand to hold off what I figured she would say. "I know. I could get better with practice. But is it worth it, just to be good at skipping rocks?"

It was silent for a moment. Then she said, "You are good at something. I pick my SOS Brigade members very carefully."

Which was such a ridiculous lie that I could have laughed out loud. Hell, she picked Koizumi just because he was an exchange student.

To make it even more ridiculous, she lay her head on my shoulder. I stole a glance at her just to be sure, and no, she didn't look the least bit tired. So I didn't have a clue why she was putting her head on my shoulder. Looking back, I really should have started to put two and two together at that point, but instead I just sat there, blissfully ignorant.

We examined the grounds for another hour, and then went home.

Monday morning Haruhi looked bright and cheerful, even signaling me with a wave as I entered the classroom. More madcap activities were in store for the SOS Brigade, I feared.

"So," I said to her as I sat down, "did you check out the Asahinas' apartment yesterday to see if they were around?" Miss Asahina had informed me that she was reporting back to the future for the weekend, so I was confident Haruhi could have found nothing there to contradict the camping story.

"No." Suddenly she sounded bored. "It would have been a waste of time. If they were there, it would just mean you were mistaken about the date. If they weren't there, it would just mean we overlooked their campsite. Or they were using cloaking technology." She raised her eyes to me. "You didn't think I'd have gone there all by myself, do you? I would have at least brought you along for protection."

The thought that you rarely leave me out of your misadventures had occurred to me, yes. However... "Aren't you in a hurry to find out whether or not Miss Asahina is an alien spy?"

"Not anymore. If you think about it, Mikuru's been at North High for longer than I have, and there's no way aliens could have known that far ahead of time that I'd come here, start the SOS Brigade, and look for a moe girl to join us."

Isn't that basically the same thing I said when you first suggested that Miss Asahina might be an alien?

"By the way," she said, looking out the window as though she wasn't really paying attention to what she was saying anymore. "I suppose I should give you advance notice. I'm going to tell the rest of the SOS Brigade at today's meeting."

"Tell them what?"

But class was called to order before Haruhi could answer me. I should have (there's that phrase again) pressed her for an answer at the risk of being chastised for disrupting the class, but the way she said it, it didn't sound terribly important. Anyway, I'd find out like everyone else in a few hours, right?

When I got to the SOS Brigade clubroom, Koizumi and Nagato were already there, and Miss Asahina was making the tea. Surprisingly, Haruhi was also already there at the computer. Maybe my hypothesis about her having big plans for the group today was off the mark?

"You're late," she grunted, as though her mind was more occupied with something else. "Penalty!"

"Sure," I said, and sat down. By this time Haruhi's power games bored me more than they annoyed me.

She got to her feet. "Everyone, I have some news! It is of a personal nature, but you're all bound to find out about it eventually, so better I just announce it now. I have a boyfriend."

Did she just say...?

Nagato must have heard the news, and presumably had some sort of opinion on it, but she just kept reading. The rest of us were not so mute. Koizumi, Miss Asahina, and I broke into happy applause. It was all I could do to keep my clapping polite and not break out into whooping and cheering.

Yes! Yes, yes, yeeeeesssss! No more having to spend my after-school hours slaving away to Haruhi's insane demands! Finally, she has something to do with herself besides make my life a living hell!

Haruhi was beaming at the applause, but she kept her tone officious. "I want to assure you all that whatever you might hear to the contrary, this will in no way interfere with my duties as leader of the SOS Brigade."

Ha ha, not if I can help it, Haruhi! I'm going to meet with this boyfriend of yours and - well, first of all, I'm going to shake his hand! But then I'm going to tell him everything I've learned about you in the months I've spent as your personal doormat, so he knows every trick there is to making you happy! I'll collude with Koizumi too, since he always seems to know what's going on in your head on any given day. Your boyfriend is going to have every possible asset in making you so romantically blissful that you won't even want to think about the SOS Brigade!

"So," I said aloud, "Who is it? This lucky boyfriend of yours, I mean."

Haruhi glared at me as though I'd just asked the stupidest question she had ever heard. "You, moron."