Disclaimer: I do not own anything.

Well, that sucked.

Something really terrible happened.

How terrible? Suffice to say, the world ended.

Or rather, the world as I knew it ended.

Truthfully, this new world doesn't look too much different compared to the old one. There's really only one major difference.

There's nobody else here.

That sucks.

I wasn't a particularly social creature, but now that I'm facing the prospect of being stuck here alone until Go- no wait, Haruhi knows when, I'm not exactly feeling full of rainbows, sunshine and unicorns.

Damn. How did I get into this mess again?

…Yesterday was Haruhi's birthday. She'll never admit it, but she probably wanted to celebrate it with us, her so-called SOS brigade.

So we obliged.

We didn't exactly have a choice. Haruhi ordered us to appear, so we had to. Otherwise there would be more closed spaces and Itsuki's organization would have even more work to do, even if the regularity of closed spaces does seem to have fallen quite a bit.

Come to think of it, Haruhi does seem to have mellowed out a bit. She's no longer as pushy and bossy as she was at the beginning. It still gives me chills whenever I think back to how she just… grabbed Asahina-san.

And not in a good way, either.

We ran around town following Haruhi's whims. At the end of the day, we went to the café near the station and bought a small cake for her. She ordered us to sing "Happy Birthday" for her, so we did.

She then clasped her hand together and closed her eyes to make a wish. Hmm, that was a surprisingly childish action for Haruhi.

Then it all went wrong.

I don't know if she believed more in this particularly wish, or whether she really, really wanted it to come true.

The world around me suddenly turned a bluish gray, much like in a closed space. Nagato, Itsuki, and Asahina-san were all frozen.

Everyone else was, except me.

Haruhi had vanished from the table.

Itsuki began glowing red. I was reaching my hand out to touch him when there was a bright flash, forcing me to close my eyes.

When I opened my eyes, everything else was gone.

There was nothing around me at all. My mind began to swim as it tried to reconcile all the paradoxical reality of this place Everywhere I looked, the bluish gray solid extended infinitely. I was sitting on nothing, standing on nothing, yet I wasn't falling.

I closed my eyes to stop the nausea welling up within me. When I opened up my eyes again, the café was back around me again, but everyone else had disappeared.

I ran towards the entrance, threw open the door and ran outside.

There was a bicycle in the right in front of me, frozen in mid-stride, as though the rider was suddenly removed from it as it passed. I turned towards the cars on the road. There were no people in the cars.

I wandered through the town, but everywhere I went, the world was completely still, completely silent. The payphone receiver was left floating in the air, and the roadside stalls were left unmanned.

For a long time I went around the town, until finally I grew tired and sat down on a bench.

The sun hadn't moved, my watch was frozen in time, and nothing had changed in this blue, grayish world, so there was no way for me to determine how much time has passed.

And that brings me back to now.

This could only be the work of Haruhi.

I sag into the bench. I suppose since I'm the only one left, again, it's up to me to clean up the mess.

I look around the dreary, lifeless park. Now, where could Haruhi be? I hope it's not the school… it'll be terrible if I had to get to school without the help of public transport.

Nah, I don't think so. Haruhi hates repetition, and even if she believed that it had been a dream previously, she wouldn't do it again… right?

…I guess I had better check out the school.

After what had to be a very long time, and a very long walk, I arrived at the gates of the school.

At least the gates are unlocked.

I open the gates and immediately head towards the courtyard where she had prodded me awake the other time.

I half-expected her to be there, waiting for me to appear so that the process of returning the world to normal can begin.

I turned the corner… but there was no one there.

Damn.

I suppose that would have been too easy, wouldn't it?

I headed towards our classroom, hoping that she would be somewhere easy to find.

I combed the entire school, but eventually, I realized that Haruhi was not here.

Despondent, I slumped against the walls of the school's entrance. I wasn't sure of my next course of action… no.

I knew exactly what I had to do.

Haruhi's in this world somewhere, and the key to getting out would be to find her.

But, why was I the one chosen to do this? Why not Itsuki, Asahina-san, or Nagato? Why was it always me?

I was forced to accept that perhaps that unpalatable thought may be true.

I'm not an idiot, and I could definitely pick up the clues.

The fact that everything that goes through Haruhi depends on me, even though according to Itsuki, I'm a perfectly ordinary person, says quite a bit.

Haruhi's fond of me.

How… terrible.

Don't get me wrong, I don't hate her. I just don't like her. Not in that way, not in any way. On my own, I would never have really befriended her. Being acquaintances? Sure. Being friends? …Maybe.

Being lovers? No.

I search my brain for places where Haruhi could be. Places where things Haruhi would deem to be important have occurred. I hope that, at least, I'm somewhat related to it so that I don't have to eventually search the entire place.

Please don't make it such that I have to search for her for a really long time.

Even after the long walk and the lack of food, I wasn't feeling the slightest trace of fatigue or hunger.

I'll wager that somehow, I'll survive for as long as I have to take to find her.

Now… where could Haruhi be?

Important bits of dialogue between us… right. I see. That could be it.

Let's try the train intersection where she first told me about the feelings of helplessness in the world.

I slowly stroll towards the place. There was no point in hurrying anyway, since I had all the time in this world.

She's waiting for me, and I knew it. I had to be prepared for this.

The fact that this happened while she was making a wish, means that she probably already knows something.

That would mean that she was, in fact, creating this situation, and that that she had something that she wanted me for. Something important enough, that she was willing to freeze the entire world for.

Granted, Haruhi operates at the extremes, and her single-mindedness would probably lead to such a situation every single time… in the event that she knew of her powers.

In the distance, I can see the train tracks. There was a train, but it was stopped right in front of the walkway.

She's there.

As I approach, she turns around and glares at me.

"What took you so long?"

I sighed. As expected, it's always my fault, and I'm always expected to clean up. "Well, I had to get used to this new place, didn't I?"

She brushed me off. "Anyway, isn't it exciting? I've realized that the last time when I appeared in the school and there were the large blue monsters, it was because I really wished to! I wanted the world to be more exciting, and I've had enough of normal humans, who are insignificant compared to the thrilling people such as aliens and time-travelers."

She then turned and waved her hands in the air, gesturing towards the surroundings. "I am in control of this world! I can do anything!"

As if to demonstrate, she stepped off the tracks, color returned to the train and it began to move forward. There was a terrific noise from the train moving at full speed, and it shattered the strange silence I had gotten accustomed to in this world.

It's time for me to fix this.

"I know, Haruhi. I know."

She narrowed her eyes at me. "What? How would you know about this?"

"The SOS brigade was created by you, you know… think about it, hasn't the brigade been going along too well so far? Did you think there would be an open clubroom right when you needed it? That an exchange student would appear right when you wanted one? That any normal girl would put up with what you do to Asahina-san?"

I look her in the eye. "All of them know, Haruhi… and all of them are there specifically to keep tabs on you."

For some reason, a look of hurt and betrayal flashed across her face, before her eyes gained a glimmer of hope. "What about you then?"

I looked her in the eye. "I'm just a normal student, caught up in your crazy ideas."

She perked up. "That's great! Kyon, I want to tell you why I have you here, I want to tell you that you're the only one I…"

I raise a hand to interrupt her.

"Haruhi, I'm sorry."

"…what?"

"I don't like you in that way. I never have, and I'm not sure I ever will."

Her face scrunched up in a painfully pitiful way. Her expression was as though everything in her life had lost its meaning, and as walked closer towards me tears began flowing down her cheeks.

"No… Kyon… you have… become the reason for my… for everything… I… love you…" She began running towards me, as if to embrace me.

I catch her right before she was able to wrap her arms around me.

"Haruhi, this has to stop. There's no reason for you to do things such as reducing the world to this state. I'm not even sure how that relates to your liking of me, and everything in this world has been ruined because of your whims."

She looked up at me, and I pitied her, but I could not bring myself to like her as she was now.

"I… I wanted the two of us to be together… alone…"

"We can't. The world is beyond the two of us, and I cannot bring myself to like a person who's as unpredictable as you can be. Please try to return the world to what it once was."

She shook herself free of my grasp. She looked away.

When she turned back, the tears were gone and her entire demeanor changed. She looked content… happy, even.

Yet there also appeared to be something horribly broken within her.

When she spoke, her tone was cheerful, but the words sent a chill down my spine.

"It's alright if you don't love me now… we have an eternity in the world after all…"

A/N: Okay, this took quite a bit of time. I'm afraid to say the story just ran away from me, and I couldn't quite restrain it to what I would have liked it. It ended up pretty bad, so flame me if you wish. I would like if you could point out any mistakes though. Thanks for reading!