Saturday morning. Thank goodness for this new reality. Current time 9:01am. I made sure of it. After waking up early every weekend of my life for about year I'm glad to say that I have been spared of being labeled late despite my efforts and given even more time to snooze off in the comforts of my bed. There's only one problem though, it's not like I don't want to get up. It's because I can't get up. We still have no food and I haven't eaten anything.
"Kyon, get up." Uru nudged.
I didn't have any energy to answer. What's the point? I know we have no food and you probably got some and ate without me anyway.
"We have a guest."
"A guest?" I asked, pulling myself up with all my strength to see who it was. "Who?"
"In the living room. He's been here for quite some time now."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"You don't expect me to care about your guests. Those are your problems."
I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes and limped down the stairs. What a surprise, it was Koizumi on the couch.
"Good morning Kyon. You don't look very energetic this fine morning." He said.
"Not very energetic? I'm about to collapse, I haven't had anything to eat since yesterday's lunch. Has she kept you waiting for long?"
"I was starting to think you wouldn't wake up."
I slowly walked to the couch and took seat at the opposite end of Koizumi. Uru ran down the steps and too a seat in the middle.
"Kyon, can you tell me who this might be?" Koizumi asked.
"You can call me Uru! I'm Kyon little sister." She said politely, by the looks of it Koizumi was buying into this.
"Bullcrap! Koizumi knows you're not related to me!"
"See? This is the way Kyon treats me everyday. He gets really annoying to look at sometimes but I can put up with it. Thanks for being his friend despite his rotten personality."
"Go to hell! Serve some tea or something!"
Uru laughed and ran to the kitchen.
"She feels somewhat out of place with this world." Koizumi said keeping his eyes on her as she went to make tea.
"She's some girl who wouldn't go away no matter how hard I try to avoid. I had no choice but to keep her. I was planning to ask you for quite a while now. Do you know who or what it is?"
"I'm not sure myself. This is the first time I've been in contact with such a person in this world. I'm impressed you noticed. How did you know she was different?"
"Let me guess. She has no parents, nobody's looking for her, and she doesn't go to school."
"That's correct. Why do you think so?"
"I have no idea, don't ask me questions you already have an answer to. I'm sure it's some weird thing I have to put up with while being here."
"All things serve a purpose Kyon, if she's here because it's the best way for things to be. If she was gone you'd find yourself in a difficult position. Be glad, it means that you're doing a good job making connections if you're meeting little oddities like her."
"Why do you think she's different? What's so out of place?"
"There's an aura of nostalgia. She makes me feel closer to the old world than before. I infer that she's some kind of anchor to keep the two realities from spitting completely. It's calming to be around her don't you think so too?"
I leaned back and closed my eyes, listening to the sound of boiling water and clattering cups in the kitchen. Was it she really as calming as Koizumi says she is? All I remember feeling around her are negative feelings like anger, irritation, sadness, sorrow, disappointment, hopelessness, panic, insanity, and for all purposes, doom.
I thought that I'd go insane being in this new reality where nothing makes sense and was different from the things I was familiar with. I'm glad that she showed up when she did, or I just would've lost it. Thinking about the possibility of being alone in this house gave me the creeps. I admit Uru was lively company to have, my head feels clear whenever I ate her meals. Now that I think about it, there was indeed a feeling of nostalgia as she set the dishes in front of me.
"You can say that. She had been pretty helpful over the days I've been here. Cooking, cleaning, and other stuff. I can't imagine a life without."
"It must be nice having someone to do everything for you."
"Don't you have your own little child servant as well?"
"Unfortunately I do not, all the cooking and cleaning are done by me at my residence."
"You can cook?"
"Of course! What idiot can't?" Koizumi shrugged.
Tch...
...
"Here's the tea!" Uru brought the two cups and set it on the table.
Uru's tea, I wonder if this is as good as her dinners. Expecting nothing less from Uru Koizumi and I took a sip.
"Uru... this isn't tea. You just boiled some water." I said disdainfully looking into the clear liquid
"Of course! Isn't that tea?"
"No Uru, you're supposed to put in tea leaves for the flavor." Koizumi explained.
"Excuse me for a minute." I said as I pulled Uru to the kitchen.
"I thought you were great at making tea!"
"I wasn't trained! This was the first time I tried making it."
I pulled out some old leaves from the cabinet and set it on the table.
"Now this is how you make tea." I pointed to the tea leaves. "First you add these to the water."
Uru watched as I set the pot on the stove and boiled the water with the tea leaves.
"And then you just set it there for a while. After a few minutes it should be done and ready to serve are you clear?"
Uru raised her hand.
"Yes?"
"Are there different types of tea?" Uru asked.
"Of course! The leaves we're using now are the most basic green tea leaves. It's easy!"
Koizumi entered the room.
"It's not that simple, the technique varies depending on your tea leaves. The water temperature is not always boiling point." Koizumi said
"Shut up! Don't complicate this!" I snapped.
Uru jumped up on her chair and looked into the pot in fascination.
"Then if this is green tea leaves then this is the green tea I've heard lots about."
"Yeah."
"And if we boil lemons we shall get lemon tea!"
"Correct!"
"Then if we boil ice, we shall get iced tea!"
"Go for it! Good luck!"
"Yes sir!" She said and continued to look over the boiling tea.
"I'd advise that you research more on the subject before you try anything more than green tea." Koizumi said.
Uru nodded not taking her eyes off the pot as we left the kitchen.
…
If you're wondering what happened yesterday after Haruhi had ran out of the bar, it was exactly as follows. If you remember Mori had offered me a chance to try out the job of being a host.
"I'd rather not work at a place like this. I don't think entertaining girls is my thing, I'm sure there are a lot more people up for the job than I am."
"Don't be silly, try it out." Nagato suggested.
"Why not Kyon, It might be even more fun working together." Koizumi said.
"You see?! Just one day!"
"Alright! Fine then, just one day..."
And that's pretty much how it went down. To tell the truth I was actually looking forward to giving it a go. I've always wanted a job that lets me sleep into the afternoon. I had to be there by 1:00pm. Koizumi and I take the afternoon shifts and evening shifts.
"Don't be late!" Mori said.
…
"We have plenty of time before we are needed at the host bar. Is there anything you would like to do before then?" Koizumi asked.
That's a good question. Since coming to this world, the one thing I can't keep myself on is the TV. I can't put my finger on it, but every channel I turn to seems to have nothing good on. I either go to bed early or read books to pass the time. What about outside? Is there anything to do there? Right now I should be walking around downtown with my partner doing every stupid little thing that the old Haruhi puts us too. I'd rather not think about it, it's getting me aggravated already...
"Can we get something to eat? I'm starving..." I moaned remembering how empty my stomach was.
"I can tell, let's go then. What about Uru?"
"Forget about her, her can take care of herself. She always finds her own food."
"I see."
The both of us left the house to the care of Uru who was now experimenting many types of ingredients for tea. Not knowing where to eat, we wondered into the park near Nagato's apartment.
"Koizumi? Just where are we going?"
"I haven't decided. If you can just tell me what you might want to eat, then I might have a perfect place to go."
"I already told you, I don't care. I'd eat just about anything right now."
"There is just one problem though..." Koizumi said, "There isn't a recognizable restaurant anywhere around these parts. Now that I think about it, I haven't seen any since I arrived here."
"What's up with this reality? Did Haruhi want me to starve to death?"
"I don't think it's that serious of a case. Don't give up Kyon. This is exactly like a puzzle. If there are no restaurants then it must be that we have to find some other way to obtain food."
"Is this some kind of mystery game?"
I collapsed on the grass and looked up to the sky. It was hopeless... I was going to die here from starvation. It doesn't even make sense. No restaurants? Koizumi took a seat on the bench nearby and started thinking.
"There should be some clues on where to get food. If we look around long enough an opportunity should present itself."
"That means if we sit around long enough a chance might come to us... What are the chances of running into anyone that has the heart to feed us?"
"Don't you find it strange that there aren't any people here?" Koizumi asked musingly
"No people? I haven't noticed. How come? It's just the way this reality is created, right?" I asked, rolling on to my stomach to look around the park which was indeed empty.
"That is correct, the reason being, if we went up to a stranger and tried to become close what would the person be like?"
"How am I supposed to know, it's a stranger. Why would I even walk up to one in the first place? I don't see any reason to care unless they approach me themselves."
"Precisely, you don't know the person, thus you don't have any interest in what kind of person they might be. Haruhi cares not about the people she has no connections with, so she created this world to have the least distractions as possible. As you see now, all the people that Haruhi had no special connection with are not present."
Really? That explains why my parents aren't present. God knows where my sister might be. Nagato, Koizumi, Taniguchi, Kunikida, and of course Mikuru were all present at the school. I couldn't remember any of my classmates' faces or what any other people you see everyday on the streets looked like. They were all just nameless dolls just created to fill in for the people that used to exist.
"One must remember that this is an artificial, limited reality. It would be impossible for me to pack my bags and embark on some vacation in a foreign country because this world doesn't go that far." Koizumi continued. "It's in every way a closed circle."
"What are you trying to say? What does that have to do with me? I never had any intentions to get close to anybody I never knew." I said taking a seat on the bench next to Koizumi.
"Even if you wanted, you won't be able to. Currently, everything that isn't visible from this park doesn't exist, do you understand my concept?"
"I get it, is this your Anthropic Principle."
"Don't get too attached to this world Kyon." Koizumi said.
"Attached? What do you mean by attached?"
"Aren't you getting comfortable with the surroundings?"
"I think of it as a more sane reality that the one I came from. Without the old Haruhi it's been very peaceful. This place isn't effected by closed spaces or in any other means related to her powers."
"This is a closed space Kyon."
"You told me that Haruhi had created this world so I can remake her. What's the point? If this Haruhi isn't the one from the old then it's just a whole new person, the girl in this reality isn't Haruhi."
"Just a complete stranger?"
"Yeah! Just that."
"Then why didn't you ignore her? The total stranger. Is it because she shared the same name? Because she wore the same clothes? Certainly there must've been something deeper you felt that drove you to interact."
"..."
"This Haruhi is very much the same, her original personalities are sealed away so you can unlock the ones you want to keep and the ones you don't want locked away."
"What happens when it's over?"
"I believe like all closed space, once all the problems are taken care of, the space shatters and everything returns to it's color."
"How do we know the problem had been taken care of?"
"When enough connections have been made. If Haruhi spends enough time with you she'll learn little by little about the type of person you like."
"Be more specific..."
"When the time is right, you will be able to make the final connection and set everything back to it's original state."
"Final connection? What kind?"
"It's a spur of the moment. Quite literal to say the least." Koizumi chuckled. "Look Kyon, here comes someone now."
Coming in from the empty horizon was Asakura Ryoko, apparently making her trip back from the grocery store carrying some heavy looking bags.
"Hello Kyon!" Called Asakura from the distance. "What are you doing outside?"
"Good morning Asakura, the two of us were trying to decide where we should go to have breakfast. Do you know of any good restaurants around this area?"
"Not that I would know about." She said doubtfully. "Eating breakfast is best done at home. Would you like to come over? There are always leftovers when we eat."
To Our Beloved Reader: This chapter came out fairly faster than I had expected. With the long gap where I was rendered unable to write due to a cold, I feel that a few quick releases are in order. I hope you enjoyed this chapter. I made it clear to some people what that main plot of the story is, heh.
Thanks for Reading: LordPlagus777
