Dear Reader,
Thank you for reading my fourth novel, 'The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya'. As always, I am honoured by your tremendous support. Thank you.
I had a tough time choosing the title for this story. It occurred to me that it wasn't just Haruhi who disappeared, it was the whole Brigade.
Asahina-san, Koizumi, and Nagato.
Haruhi.
Me.
So consider the honorary title to be: The Disappearance of the S.O.S. Brigade
Well, let it be a reminder that this is just a fictional story. All events and persons depicted in this story is fictional. Some names and locations are a reference to my own personal life.
I hope you enjoy my—no, our story.
With best regards,
Kyon, and the entire S.O.S. Brigade
-Except from Author's Notes (Pg. 2), "The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya"
Written by Kyon, Illustrated by Yuki Nagato
The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya by: Kyon
Part 1:
Asahina Mikuru
This story dates back to our senior year in North High.
I realize that the time skip might be a bit jarring so let me give you a brief overview.
About my light novel series. My fourth book did really well. I called it 'The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya' and it was based off of the events from that December. It did really well and it even spawned a movie by the same name. Go check it out when you have the time (shameless advertisement).
Oh yeah, and I was still dating Haruhi, surprisingly enough.
Yes, I had my doubts at first. Keeping up with Haruhi's exploits was near impossible for a mortal being such as myself. It was like trying to catch lightning with your bare hands, it just wasn't possible.
Still, I tried my best. And the result? Well, my efforts resulted in an extremely volatile relationship that could go off at any second. And no, this was not an exaggeration.
This is a list of what I had to deal with in the past year alone. There was the good old fashioned closed spaces, then the occasional rifts in space-time, then there was the reality bending time paradoxes, and many other world ending events that shouldn't ever transpire, ever!
And it was all due to my psychotic, and transcendent girlfriend, Haruhi Suzumiya.
Speaking of which—
"Hey Kyon, are you even listening to me?"
No, I wasn't listening at all, but I wasn't going to say that was I?
Haruhi yanked on my tie and her face was suddenly so close to mine. I had this animalistic desire to kiss her.
You see, if a healthy young man like me was ever to come in such close proximity with a beauty like Haruhi, well even I might start to lose my sanity. In fact, it seemed that I was descending deeper and deeper down the lurid steps of lunacy.
And who was it that dragged me down deeper and deeper into psychosis?
Yes, you guessed correctly. It was the commandeering girl in front of me, the self-proclaimed Brigade Chief of the world.
"Haruhi, can you step back a little?"
She looked at me in wonder. "Huh? Why should I—"Her features lit up as she recognized my predicament. "Oh, I see. Can't control yourself around me, can you?"
Although her wording was heavily biased against me—well, she wasn't far off from the truth. I could smell her fragrance and it was driving me completely nuts. I suddenly felt very combustive, as if my body would instantaneously implode at any given moment.
Haruhi's cheeks coloured somewhat as she gave me a quick peck on the cheek. "That'll have to do for now, Casanova, the other's will be here soon."
Ah yes, the others. I almost forgot about them. I was momentarily mentally decapitated at the time so I couldn't get my thoughts straight.
It took me awhile to asses my then immediate situation.
Haruhi and I were waiting for the others at the usual café. I was actually on time for once, yes, let's take a moment to let that sink in.
I was on time.
Yes. This isn't some fanciful fabrication of my deluded mind. I was actually on time.
Let the heaven's fall, let the Earth be swallowed up by the sun, just—let every apocalyptic occurrence happen and destroy us all, because clearly something that shouldn't happen happened.
Okay, enough with the dramatics.
So the first to arrive was Nagato. If you've been wondering what happened to her this past year, well, a lot happened actually.
You wouldn't believe how human Nagato was, I mean, how she'd improved over the year. She made a lot of friends from her classes, and she even had a study group! We were all very supportive of the new Nagato, especially Haruhi. The Brigade Chief gave Nagato special permission to skip meetings just so the soft spoken girl could attend some of the other clubs that she joined.
"Understood—thank you," were Nagato's words of appreciation.
I was proud. So proud. I felt like a father seeing his kid winning an award, or graduating high school, or something like that.
Anyway, so Nagato arrived, silent as usual. She gave us a small wave of the hand, that was her signature greeting those days, and then she sat down across from us. A waitress took her order and she ordered a black coffee. Business as usual.
"So Nagato," Haruhi chirped, "how's your study group going?"
Nagato took a sip of her coffee, her movements were precise like always, and then she regarded Haruhi with her ice-like eyes. "It is fine. We are progressing smoothly. The one who calls himself Taniguchi has raised his grade point average by .85 and Kunikida raised his mark by—"
And she went on and on. She'd turned into a chatterbox during that time. Well, she still spoke in that monotone, robot-like voice, but she spoke way more than before. Which was an improvement, but hearing her talk with such quantity in that dreary voice was enough to make anyone sleepy.
Well, Haruhi and I didn't have the heart to tell her to shut up so we just listened to her recount the details of Taniguchi's academic growth. And I assure you, nothing was as uninspiring as Taniguchi's academic exploits.
Koizumi arrived with Asahina-san. Those two—well nothing really changed about them per say. I mean, if anything, I guess Koizumi got more honest about his feelings. And once in a while I'd see him smile, and it was a genuine smile. Honestly, I was sort of proud of him too. He seemed more like a normal high school student rather than an organization agent pretending to be one. Okay, enough about Koizumi, who said that I cared about Koizumi anyway?
Asahina-san. Well, what can I say about Asahina-san? She'd been her usual bubbly self, but she'd been acting weird those past few weeks. Even the self-involved Haruhi began to take notice. Asahina-san seemed melancholic, she couldn't hide it, no matter how hard she tried.
Once in a while you'd see her flipping through the Brigade's yearbook and she'd have that listless smile on her face, completely lacking the signature Asahina-san joviality. And it depressed me just seeing her like that. I just wished that there was something I could do to help her, and I knew that Haruhi felt the same way, but I didn't even know what to do. I didn't even know what was wrong with her.
"Okay guys!" Haruhi declared, once everyone had gathered. "It's almost the end of our high school careers and to ensure that we all go to the same college we have to study like crazy in the final stretch. Got it?" She looked at me for some reason, but I didn't know why.
"Why? Why?! It's because you're dragging us down Kyon! I already lowered our college standards just for you!"
Okay, in the first place, Oxford University was too high a ceiling. And so was Harvard. It seemed that Haruhi just didn't know my limits. "Well, I'm sorry."
Haruhi huffed. "Well, as long as you understand. And—we'll aim for the local institutions instead so don't worry. I—I just want us all to be together, you know?"
I almost kissed her right then and there, public etiquette be damned.
So yeah, the meeting went on and on but I sort of just spaced out. The only thing I really noticed was Asahina-san. She looked so depressed for some reason, and her smiles seemed so fake, she looked like the old Koizumi. Hey, all my years of Nagato observation gave me a feel for these things so trust me. There was something wrong with Asahina-san.
So the meeting ended with Haruhi's ever dramatic, "Dismissed!", and then we all filed out of the café as we headed out to our own homes.
I was walking home and all, with my hands in my pockets, when I heard a familiar voice calling out to me. I turned around to see Asahina-san running after me.
"W-Wait Kyon-kun! Y-You *pant* *pant* you walk so fast!"
My pace was relatively average, but I let it slide. "What can I do for you, Asahina-san?"
I waited for her to catch her breath.
"Kyon-kun—can I talk to you for a minute?"
We ended up going to a familiar bench, the same one where Asahina-san told me that she was a time traveller.
It took a while for Asahina-san to get started, and when she did, she went off on a complete tangent. She talked about what she had for breakfast, and the programs she watched the other night. It was going nowhere.
"—and then The Doctor took out this screwdriver and—"
"Asahina-san," I placed a hand on her shoulder to get her attention, "the point—please."
She took a deep breath. "Right. I should just tell you, and get it over with." She looked up at me with determined, yet regretful eyes. "Kyon-kun, I'm going back to the future."
I was shell shocked. I had been speculating that possibility for a while, but hearing it from Asahina-san herself, and so suddenly. I found myself going into Nagato mode.
"I see."
"I will be leaving around graduation."
"I see."
"We—will probably never see each other again."
"I see."
"Kyon-kun, are you listening?"
"I see."
She grabbed me by the shoulders and she gave me a little shake. "Kyon-kun—geez, I'm trying really hard to tell you all this so can you please listen?"
I tried to give her my full attention. "Okay, I'm listening."
Asahina-san gave me a small, pained smile. "Thank you. I didn't tell the others about this, and I know that this is going to be a huge burden on you, but I'll leave it up to you to tell them—or not. I doubt that Nagato-san and Koizumi-kun would be much of a concern but—well, of course I am referring to Suzumiya-san here."
Wait, so what was she implying there? And why was it my sole responsibility? I bet that Nagato, and even Koizumi could handle this better than I ever could.
"No, it's definitely you, Kyon-kun. You have the choice. You can tell Suzumiya-san a lie. You can make something up. You can tell her that I went to Canada or something."
Canada. I doubted that she'd fall for that again.
"Or you can tell her the truth."
"The truth? So that means—"
"Yes, but like I said. It's completely up to you."
Up to me. Huh, when have I heard something like that before?
And so I went home and pondered about all this. Well obviously I had to lie. I didn't want the world to end or anything like that. And I knew that Asahina-san's superiors didn't actually give her permission to say all that. I figured that Asahina-san went on a limb just to have that conversation with me.
I had to lie—right?
Well, I was actually tired of lying, to tell you the truth. I just couldn't take it anymore.
Haruhi had been completely honest with me—mostly, and I knew that she deserved the same.
I hated making decisions.
I booted up my computer and I started writing. I wrote about all the possible scenarios that could unfold. I had to make some sort of game plan.
Needless to say, but I didn't get much sleep that evening.
To be continued
