It's a Romantic Conquest True Love Story, Haruhi-Chan!
Chapter Ten:
Kyon's Surprise! We Have Something in Common?
Kyon stared blankly at the dull cityscape before him; houses, roads, cars, people, more houses, roads, cars, people, yet more houses- it went on and on in a never-ending loop, like the Penrose Stairs.
It wasn't exactly mentally stimulating.
Nearby, a middle-aged man coughed, at the exact same time a young Genki-girl type burst into a fit of raucous laughter at something her friend had just said (at a volume far too high to be considered decent whilst on public transportation).
Pop!
And that little child stood facing the window would not quit popping his gum.
He must've been chewing the same piece for about ten minutes- it was a wonder the flavor hadn't vanished. Or maybe it had, and the child kept popping, not out of personal satisfation, but to irritate everybody else.
Not that the coughing man or the Genki girl seemed to care- they were far too wrapped up in their own attempts to piss every off within a fifty foot radius.
...Or, maybe it was just Kyon.
Nobody else seemed annoyed by their behaviour.
Mainly because Yuki had her nose burried in a book (like always), and Koizumi was staring off out of the window, a pensive look upon his face (and by 'pensive', Kyon meant 'glassy-eyed and unresponsive'. Seriously. The esper was so still- even despite the uncomfortable lurches of the train- you could've mistaken him for a corpse. Apart from the fact he was still blinking. And breathing. And not dead.)
I'm probabaly getting worked up over nothing, Kyon reasoned with himself.
It was most likely true- Kyon had been feeling snappy and irritabe ever since Haruhi went pyscho on him when they drew the lots.
Being saddled with Itsuki Koizumi as a team member had done little to improve Kyon's mood- and it wasn't like Nagato would make the awkward atmosphere any less so, considering she averaged about five words per week (once Yuki had reached the five-word quota, she then began responding by nodding or shaking her head- or just plain ignoring you altogether). Honestly; when it came to that girl, it was as though each syllable she dared utter cost a fortune, so she had to compensate by being as economical with her words as possible.
Not to mention, Kyon then had to suffer the indignaty of paying for Koizumi's train ticket, because the freeloading bastard had only gone and left his wallet at home. Previously, Kyon assumed Koizumi had been lying about his lost wallet back at the café, because the esper was simply too cheap to pay for any of the drinks. Besides, forgetting anything seemed like a very un-Koizumi-ish thing to do, considering he seemed so 'together' and responsible at school.
But, apparently not.
So, to recap why this day sucks:
1) Koizumi has a personality transplant and acts incredibly rude to Miss Kimidori for no adequately explored reason.
2) Haruhi goes postal (more so than usual, and for something so small and stupid I can't even figure it out. God- Haruhi should just come with a handbook that explains all her moodswings and stuff so poor souls like me don't get completly lost).
3) I get stuck in a group with Nagato and Koizumi- the two best conversationalists in the world.
4) What's more, I have to pay for the privilge of Koizumi's 'scintillating' company, even though he's been acting like a complete tool. I mean, yeah, he's a tool most of the time- but at least he attempts to be a vaguely charming tool.
5) That. Stupid. Child. Won't. Stop. Popping. Gum. And. I. Think. My. Ears. Are. Bleeding. Stop. It.
Pop!
Kyon's left eye twitched. He grit his teeth, and tried to compose himself.
Take deep, calming breaths, Kyon.
Count to ten very slowly.
Don't murder anybody on the train- that's something Haruhi would do...
And because you're not a semi-attractive girl with boobs, you're not going to get away with genocide like Haruhi would.
Sometimes, the advantages of being girl seemed to far outweigh those of being a guy. It seemed rather unfair to Kyon.
"So... Nagato..." Kyon turned to the mute alien sat next to him, heavy book in her lap. She was dressed, as per Haruhi's instructions, in typical Gothic Lolita garb; a black ruffled dress, complete with matching corest top, puff-cap sleeves and an array of lace and ribbons. She didn't seem to care, though (and, funnily enough, neither did anyone else. Probabaly because she was being so quiet, nobody had even noticed her; they were uch too busy coughing/laughing/blowing bubbles of gum).
The silence (punctuated, of course, with coughing, laughter and popping) was begining to get to Kyon; he needed to talk about something with someone (absolutely anyone!) before he went insane and tried to strangulate the chewing gum kid with his own intestines. "Where did you get that book? You didn't have it this morning."
Nagato looked up. She blinked once. Very slowly.
Kyon doubted she was even going to reply, before-
"I found it."
"Really?" Kyon tried to feign interest. "Where?"
"In a trash can."
At this, Kyon's eyes widened in surprise. "In a trash can? Why?"
"I don't know. I didn't think to ask it."
Kyon was even more surprised by this comment. Not only had Yuki reeled off two full sentences of her own accord, but there also seemed to be a touch of sarcasm to those words. Was that a hint of humor?
"No, I didn't mean 'why was the book in the trash can'," Kyon clarified. "I meant, why did you pick it up?"
"It looked interesting."
"But you don't take things out of the trash."
"Why not?" Yuki was staring at Kyon intently now. She tilted her head slightly, looking just a tad confused; as though this had not occured to her before. Who knew, maybe on her planet, everyone dug, possom-like, through other people's garbage?
...Kyon doubted that somehow.
"Becuase," he tried to explain, "you don't know where it's been. It could have... germs... or something?"
Really, Yuki knew so little of Earth, it was almost scary; and it made Kyon want to protect her. Yuki did not seem like the sort of girl who needed protecting- she was pretty stoic and emotionless, and Kyon knew she could defend herself (her fight against Asakura had proved that).
But Yuki seemed vulnerable in that she knew almost nothing about the planet she lived on.
She hadn't even known what a 'glasses fetish' was.
Of course, despite her lapse in general knowledge as far as Earth terms and customs were concerned, she could still hold her own in a fight against anybody- so perhaps Kyon was being silly to think he could help her in any way.
She obviously didn't need help.
But that was just his brotherly instinct kicking in.
"I scanned the book before retrieving it- it has been deemed harmless," Yuki said, in her usual monotone.
"Oh... okay... You can do that?"
Yuki nodded.
"Haha..." Kyon laughed sheepishly, and rubbed the back of his head. "I guess you didn't need my concern then...?"
"No."
Yuki glanced back down at her book. She clutched hold of the spine (perhaps a little harder than necessary?)
Kyon didn't think she was going to say anything else, and was all set to embrace the silence once more, when-
"But... I appreciate it."
"Hngh?"
Kyon turned back to look at Yuki.
Her back was bent, head bowed. Her face was obscured with short strands of choppy silver hair. He couldn't tell what her expression was.
"I appreciate your concern," Yuki reiterated. Her voice remained cool and distant; but maybe there was a hint of something else in there?
Or maybe Kyon was just being fanciful.
At any rate, it still felt nice.
"Thanks, I guess?"
"No problem."
"Haha..."
Silence enveloped the compartment once more.
At least, until an exicted clamour began;
"Oh my gosh, I know, isn't that awesome? I thought he, like, didn't even like me- he likes that girl with the brown hair, you know, she has those mad MIDRIFF POWERS that she, like, shows off every chance she gets- but then he sent me this text message and he said he always liked me! Isn't that amazing?"
"Wow, Mii-chan! That's amazing!"
"Yeah, especially since he always looked so friendly with Mei-chan, too..."
"Yeah, but her wild midriff powers are no match for my adorable face! Right, right?~"
"Of course!"
"So, you wanna see the text message he sent?"
"Yeah! Show us, show us!~"
"Of course we do!"
"Okay~ Hehe~ But don't tell anyone else, right? It's a secret!~ Hehe!~"
Kyon stared blankly at the huddle of girls on the seats opposite. They were jostling the middle girl (it was the Genki girl before; she seemed to be the leader. Kyon deduced this after realising she was talking louder than everyone else), trying to get a good look at her cell phone.
For some weird reason, there were a couple of leek phone straps, and one of an ice-cream cone, dangling from the shiny piece of technology.
"Look, Kai-chan got me this one!~" The Genki girl jabbed at the ice-cream cone strap. "Isn't it, like, adorable?"
"Eee! So cute!"
"Super cute!"
"You're so lucky, Mii-chan, having such a good boyfriend!"
"I know, right? Hahahaha!"
Their laughter was nothing short of painful.
The topic of conversation (of the boyfriend and girlfriend variety), however, struck a chord with Kyon.
Once again, he was reminded of Haruhi's outburst. He knew Haruhi got angry all the time (usually about stupid things, like why did the vending machines only serve boring drinks ((Kyon was quick to point out that, whilst milk tea was hardly daring, at least it wouldn't give anyone food poisoning, like some of Haruhi's more experimental concotions)), and why were there good shows on TV ((Kyon's reply was that there were good shows, but you actually had to watch them first- and by watch them, that meant more than the opening credits and first five seconds- before deciding that, because it contained no aliens, it was mind-numbingly boring))).
But last time had felt different.
She had seemed properly angry; not just peturbed, or annoyed, or disgruntled.
Angry.
And Kyon felt he should know the reasoning behind it, but he didn't.
It was... worrying.
"Don't you think Haruhi was acting strangely earlier?" Kyon asked Koizumi; partially because he was tired of listening to these loud girls loudly discussing their love lives in a very loud manner and needed to distract himself from their loudness before he went insane, and also because he honestly wanted to understand why Haruhi had been so hacked off. And if anyone was good at unravelling Haruhi's mysterious moodswings, it seemed to be Koizumi.
Stupid esper.
Damn him to hell for being so (very irritatingly) perceptive.
Kyon woudn't have talked to him at all otherwise; giving Koizumi the opportunity to talk usually resulted in a load of complex psychobabble and a headache.
"Hmn?" The esper, distracted from his window-gazing, turned about to face Kyon. He seemed quite surprised Kyon had deigned to talk to him- but his moment of wide-eyed shock was so quickly replaced by one of Koizumi's many, Itsuki-brand fake smiles Kyon was left doubting if the previous expression had ever existed at all. "Would you care to define 'strange' for me?"
"I mean..." Kyon frowned. "She acted so angrily when I drew my lot... You noticed, right?"
Only you were kind of zoning out for a while, esper-boy.
Like when you forgot your wallet.
And when you were doing a really, really good impression of the dead person on the train up till a few seconds ago.
"Ah... Yes, I did notice," said Koizumi. "I'm surprised you did, though."
Kyon couldn't help but feel a bit annoyed at that comment. "Of course I did; I'm her boyfriend. Haruhi's emotional stability rests on my shoulders, right?"
"I guess you could say that."
"I just did. So, since you're so good at reading other people's emotions, could you tell me why she blew up like that?"
"I would've thought it was simple. She wanted to be with you, of course. Just you. Me, Miss Asahina, Nagato... She didn't much care where we went. Such is the burden of being a side character, unlike you two." Koizumi sighed, though his smile didn't falter.
"I figured that out on my own," said Kyon shortly. "But what I don't understand, is why she didn't just fix the lots, then? Or outright say 'Kyon, you're with me- if you don't comply, I'll break all the bones in your fingers'?"
"My... You've grown quite good at impersonating Miss Suzumiya." Koizumi grinned.
Kyon deadpanned. "You know, I'm not going to take that as a compliment."
"Suit yourself." Koizumi shrugged. And smiled. Smile, smile. "Anyway, back to the subject at hand. I believe that Miss Suzumiya purposely didn't do as you said because she was testing you."
"Testing me?"
"Yes." Koizumi nodded. "She waiting to see that, even if you didn't pick the same colored lot as she did, you would ask to go with her regardless."
"...What?" Kyon frowned at this particular nugget of information. "But nobody in their right mind would go against Haruhi. I didn't want to complain in case she tried to execute me!"
"I'm not saying what she did was reasonable, but it's understandable."
Kyon scoffed. "Really?"
"Yes. She wanted to know if you cared about her enough to ignore her rules- that was the test."
"So I failed?"
"It looks like it."
"God." Kyon sighed. The boy had no idea how many times he had done this after meeting Haruhi, but for what had to be bordering on the thousandth time, he brought his head and hand together with a dull thud. A few more braincells were vaporised, surely lamenting, as they died, over the nice, normal, pre-Haruhi days, when their existance had not been jeopardized by constant face-palming. "Why can't she ever do things simply? How does she expect me to know what she wants all the time? I'm not a mind reader!"
"Miss Suzumiya isn't simple, though. She's very complicated. And so are her thought-patterns. Although..." Koizumi's pensive face returned; though the faint smile remained. "What she did was not so uncommon when it comes to girls."
"What?"
"She wanted to know how much you liked her, but she did it in a subtle manner." Koizumi smiled. "Lots of girls do it. Some girls don't like being upfront about their emotions."
"Hey..." Kyon let his hand fall away from his face. "If you're so good at understanding Haruhi, why don't you just go out with her?"
Koizumi- as always- smiled. Though, once more, it seemed a little more sincere than the usual plastic perfect Barbie expressions Koizumi displayed.
"Becuase she doesn't like me. She likes you."
"Yeah, but you'd piss her off less."
"That may be... But it wouldn't work," said Koizumi. "I like Miss Suzumiya, but I don't think I could cope with being anything more than her friend. I imagine it would be very mentally draining."
"Yeah, no kidding." He leant back in his seat- though, as he did so, a thought occured to him. "Hey, Koizumi..."
"Mn?"
"You don't have to go out with Haruhi- I'll spare you that."
"Thank you for being so considerate."
"Plus, I don't want to share. It'd be weird..."
"That is the general concencus when it comes to threesomes, yes."
Kyon raised a brow at this comment, but chose not to remark.
"But I've been wondering," Kyon continued, "why don't you have a girlfriend? I mean... You know a whole load about 'feelings' and stuff, and you always seem pretty popular with them."
It was true, too (unfortunately). For some bizarre reason, girls seemed drawn to him. He was always smiling, which probabaly made him look approachable and friendly, and his manners were above-par. And (there was no denying it), he was rather good-looking. Definitely not the sort of person Kyon would introduce his girlfriend to (expect, of course, he had. Haruhi. Ha ha. Not that Koizumi had any interest in Haruhi at all; which was quite sensible, really. All the boys foolhardy enough to have crushes on Haruhi were all left crushed and disappointed, and occasionally with a few broken limbs). Kyon remembered last Valentine's Day, when a crowd of girls had ambushed Koizumi on his way to the SOS Brigade meeting after school, and forced practically a whole confectionary store upon him. Not to mention all the chocolates Koizumi found in his locker...
It had been insane, like a scene from a girls' manga.
Kyon hadn't even known such things could happen in real life.
(Then again, Kyon hadn't believed in time travellers, aliens or espers, either. It seemed life was out to prove Kyon wrong over everything.)
But no matter how many girls asked Koizumi out (and there had been a lot), Koizumi still remained curiously single.
It seemed so foolish to throw away so many girlfriend opportunites; a guy like Taniguchi would've been over the moon if the female students showed him one eigth of the amount of attention they showed Koizumi.
"Well..." Koizumi shifted a little in his seat. Although his smile was still there (just barely), Kyon couldn't help but think he looked a little... embarassed? Maybe even flustered? How very odd.
And exceedingly un-Koizumi-like.
Just like the forgetting his wallet, and being cruel to Emiri, and ignoring Haruhi...
Hmn.
"I just... Um... Never really paid girls that much attention before," said Koizumi, after a short pause. His words sounded awkward and fragmented and- was he blushing?
Was Itsuki Koizumi blushing?
No- he couldn't be!
It had to be a trick of the light.
What next? Kyon thought dazedly. Mikuru becoming the leader of the yakuza? Yuki becoming a cheerful Genki girl like those ones over there? Haruhi being - God forbid - normal?
"I don't get how you can't pay attention to girls when they're practically throwing themselves at you," said Kyon. "Like Valentine's Day...?"
"Yes." Koizumi gave a small laugh. "Everyone got a bit carried away, didn't they? It was quite surreal."
Oh yeah.
The esper boy said something was surreal.
Isn't that a bit ironic?
"If you're worried about what the girls think of you or something, you're really shouldn't. I mean, it's not like you're bad looking or anything..."
"Oh, really?" Koizumi's sincere smile was now in place; a lot more asthetically pleasing than the plastic one. That smile was beginning Kyon feel quite insecure over his own looks now... "Thank you for the compliment."
"Haha..." Kyon was now feeling rather inadequate. Not to mention stupid, for adding to Koizumi's ego. Like he needed it.
Well, at least I'm the one with the grilfriend.
"Well, you're not hideous- that's all I said," said Kyon. "And I only brought the subject up anyway because I thought, maybe if you had a girlfriend you'd stop poking your nose into my relationship."
"But I didn't, not this time," Koizumi grinned. "You asked for my help all by yourself."
"Yeah, and I'm regretting it now."
"Your regret is a lie," Koizumi said smoothly. There was a slight teasing edge to his voice. "Moreover, even when I do- ah, 'poke my nose' into your relationship with Miss Suzumiya, it is only for the greater good. People didn't call it 'interfering' when Sailor Moon went to go and save civillians from monsters and the like, now did they?"
The first thing that came to Kyon's mind was: "Are you calling Haruhi a monster?"
And then the second was: "...Wait a minute, why do you watch Sailor Moon?"
"You've seen it too, I assume?" asked Koizumi.
"Well, yeah! I have a little sister- I have an excuse. But you..." Kyon stared suspciously at Koizumi. "You don't have any brothers or sisters, do you?"
"You don't know that."
"I'm asking you right now: do you?"
"No."
"So what have you been watching kids' cartoons for?" The twitch in Kyon's eye was begining to come back. "T-this isn't why you haven't dated any girls, is it?"
He's not a pervert, right?
Although...
That would make so much sense...
Koizumi, however, seemed geniunely amused by this. He began to laugh.
Kyon glared at him.
"No!" Koizumi said, trying to stifle his laughter. "My old part-time job used to babysitting. It's a lot less exciting than my current one, but, y'know."
Oh.
Kyon knew.
Koizumi hadn't said anything about the blue giants and the general destruction that took place in closed space, but he didn't have to; Kyon would never forget that. Even now, he could remember the sky cracking open like a melon, as sunlight filtered through into real world...
It had been so cold in there.
So lonely.
Kyon shuddered.
"There was this one girl who absolutely loved Sailor Moon; she made me watch it with her. It was pretty dire." Koizumi smiled. "Alright, no- I lie. It was awful."
Okay.
That explanation was an awful lot better than believing Koizumi was some kind of creepy peadophile. Now, Kyon wouldn't have to fear for his sister's safety whenever the esper came over to his house- not, of course, that Kyon was planning to invite him over.
"My sister had that wand thing- I remember her begging mom for it for weeks and weeks," Kyon said. "And then, when she got it, she kept hitting me with it, so I buried it in the garden... I think I was about eight."
"I feel sorry for everyone forced to watch it," Koizumi agreed. "There should have been a law against it."
"Definitely. Then I wouldn't be so emotionally scarred."
Koizumi began to laugh again at this, and - to his surprise - Kyon found himself joining in.
He'd never dreamed he would ever bond with Koizumi, especially not over a children's cartoon they both despised.
But they had.
Now, there was a surprise.
a.n: you can has character bonding time, yes?
hopefully vaguely in-character character bonding time as well nyaa XP
i was gunna put more conversation between itsuki and kyon in here but i decided to save some of it for the next chapter ^.^
lol this update is really really quick because, um...
i felt motivated?
it's a very strange feeling, i don't get it a lot XDD
also, there were a couple of cameo appearances in here, i hope i didn't make it totally obvious who they are XD
and now, to finish my author's notes, a poem:
I don't like jellyfish
They're not a fish, they're just a blob.
They don't have eyes, fins or scales like a cod.
They swim around blind stinging people in the seas
And no one eats jellyfish with chips and mushy peas.
Get rid of them!
if you know where this poem is from you're officially very nifty XD
renahhchen xxx
