- Chapter 6: An Interesting Day

Having successfully eluded capture by Haruhi, I set out to thoroughly enjoy myself with Yuki. I also wanted to show her that there was more to life than reading books and sipping tea. Fortunately, I had recently had a small windfall, and I had no intention of letting it go to waste on something as trivial as a trip to Europe.

I knew Yuki had experienced (at least vicariously) things of this nature, but I felt like Yuki and I needed to have some honest experiences, and not the bluntly contrived experiences that Haruhi seemed to think were important. Somehow, I had already felt that things were heading toward an important climax that would leave me filled with regret had I not at least attempted to express myself to her. I also had the feeling that, though she never showed it, she did truly appreciate it.

If this were a TV show, I suppose now might be a good time for a montage: Yuki and I visiting an art shop, Yuki and I sharing some snacks at a cafe, Yuki and I walking along a busy sidewalk. Yuki would be the one looking blandly disinterested while I made excited noises and chit-chatted about things that had been going on with other people.

Riding the train toward our five o'clock destination, we were spotted by the other me. "Hey!" he said, getting our attention.

"Oh, hey!" I answered. "Fancy meeting you here."

"I was just about to say the same thing," he remarked.

"Yeah, I know," I said.

"So, what's up?" he asked me.

"Oh, just going to see a movie," I replied. "You want to come along?"

"No thanks," he declined. "Three's a crowd, you know?"

"Right," I said, realizing. "Oh, and it might not be a good idea to hang around with me considering we might run into somebody we know."

"You missed one hell of a show this morning," he informed me, suddenly.

"Did I?" I wondered. "The usual weirdness or...?"

"No, no, no," he answered. "I'll tell you all about it at the station."

"Okay," I said.

Once we got off at the station and began walking toward our destination, the other me stated, "Yeah, my whole day was interesting. So, how did it go for you last night? You have any fun?"

"Well..." I replied. "I'm not really sure that's..."

The other me had a glance at Yuki and said, "Whoa! Forget I asked."

As I watched in amazement, Yuki blushed softly all the way to the ears. She innocently noticed and then asked me, "Why is there...?"

"Don't worry about it," I casually told her, thinking that this was the cutest that Yuki had ever proven to be.

"I know I said to have fun," the other me said, "but don't you think that might be going a bit overboard?"

"You may be me," I told him, "but you should really mind your own business."

"If you know me," he persisted, "you should realize that I can't do that."

I scowled and admitted, "You're right."

"I told you not to do anything I wouldn't do," he added.

"Can we just drop it?" I asked him.

"Okay," he said, relenting.

"Great," I said, relieved to be moving on. "So, about this morning?"

"Right," he said, eagerly continuing. "I figure it's a Sunday, so I can just lie around reading all day, right? Wrong."

"You got a special visitor?" I guessed.

"That's right," he replied. "Miss Suzumiya came over at about eight-thirty. She demanded to know why I wasn't answering my cell phone. I said, because no one called."

"We really need to do a better job of this, next time," I commented, a little disgusted with myself.

"Next time?" he wondered.

"It's nothing," I replied. "You were saying?"

"Miss Suzumiya had come over, as I said," he restated.

"And she was angry?" I prompted.

"She was beyond angry," he said with some mild amusement. "She was livid. I don't think I've ever seen a person so angry. She was so angry, she was trembling and barely able to form coherent sentences."

"What was she so angry about?" I asked.

"Something to do with the computer, was all she could say to me," he replied. "Then she said to come to the school club room. I go there, and we meet up with Koizumi, some techs, some teachers, the principal..."

I began laughing, picturing that scene. "Oh, wow!" I said. "I can't wait to hear what this is about."

"Yeah..." he answered. "Apparently somebody had installed some blogger software which wasn't exactly known for its robustness, and there had been an intrusion."

"Oops," I interjected, not actually regretting being so careless.

"Naturally," he continued, "Miss Suzumiya is itching to punch me because of the software, but she was too mortified by all the unwanted attention from the school officials, not to mention this other trivial matter."

"You seem to be leaving out the best part," I commented.

"You know me too well," he said. "Yes, anyway I slowly find out the reason for all this official investigation. It seems whoever had hacked the club's computer had also defaced the website with some rather rude fake pictures."

"Fake pictures of what?" I asked.

"Yeah, that's what I wanted to know," he replied. "I was questioned for about an hour. Naturally, I had no idea there was even any blogging software on the computer. I slowly realized that that was all your fault. Something you had neglected to mention."

"Interesting," I said, finally thinking over everything he had said. "I think I see where this is going, but please continue."

"Well, since you've already guessed the punchline," he said, "I'll go straight into the joke itself. I do a little digging around of my own at the local computer cafe. Nothing was amiss, of course. The website had been reverted to a recent backup."

"Yeah, I wrote a script that does that automatically," I explained.

"You did?" he asked.

"This isn't the first time the site has been hacked," I added.

"Okay," he acknowledged me. "Well, anyway, I do a little more digging around on some of the local message boards. Funny thing, but there were plenty of people talking about that incident. Some of the pictures were even still going around. Suffice it to say that they were not very flattering."

"Somebody had an axe to grind with Miss Suzumiya?" I concluded.

"That would be my guess," he agreed. "One of the postings was some guy calling attention to it just a few minutes before anyone else had noticed the site had been defaced. It doesn't take a genius to figure out the rest."

"So, needless to say," I added, "you didn't have a discussion about clones."

"Clones?" he said, plainly confused.

"Miss Suzumiya's topic for this week," I explained. "She had started research into the topic last night."

"Not a word," he answered, "but now that you mention it, clones does seem appropriate. I noticed the two Miss Asahinas looking for me. They didn't realize it was me because of the necklace. Hey, at least we got one thing right."

"I'm glad you remembered that," I said, thankful to salvage something from that mess.

"Excuse me for prying," he asked, "but is this a date?"

"I guess you could put it that way," I admitted. "Sure."

He turned to Yuki and asked, "Um... No offense, but what do you see in this guy? You realize he's just an ordinary loser, right?"

"I'm so modest," I muttered, a little mortified at myself.

"I'm being serious," he said. "This is just the kind of thing I would have bet money against."

I thought she would just answer him with her usual silence, but she replied, "Mind your own business."

"Ouch!" he said. "I guess my money is still safe as far as I'm concerned."