"I'm serious, Kyon, what's up with you? How have you been?" Sasaki asked, but as no response seemed to be coming from me, her lovable smile waned for the first time that afternoon. "Kyon, are you all right?"

"I'm just tired."

"No, no you're not, not just physically. Your eyes… there's a sort of exhaustion in them I don't think I've ever seen in any person before, not your age at least. What's wrong?"

"It's… Haruhi, I guess."

"It's always 'Haruhi', isn't it?" Sasaki asked, giving me a comforting smile.

"Yeah, but lately… well, look: last night she sort of had this outburst. She feels like she's settling for something lesser… I think. She feels having a good time is distracting her from what really matters. I think it's really stupid. I don't get it at all."

"Huh," Sasaki said, giving the table between us a thoughtful look.

"What?"

"I never really would have suspected the two of us would share so much."

"What, you too? Why? What's so wrong about being happy?"

"That's not what it's about, at least not for me. For me, an Einstein quote would probably sum it all up best: 'Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds'. What most people like and do is, simply put, not great or even really all that good either. I'm not some sort of emotional masochist out looking for as much excitement as possible. I don't know Suzumiya well enough to make that sort of distinction, but I sort of doubt she's just looking for as much drama as possible either."

"…But what if she is?"

"Well," Sasaki said, placing her elbow against the table as she rested her cute little chin on her palm, glancing at the wall next to her. "If that is the case, then based on what we know of her powers, drama is what you'll find."

"…Great."

"You know, I really hate using the word drama in a context like this. It's simply not true to its actual meaning."

"Aha."

Sasaki sighed before she gave me a warm, sympathetic look. "I guess there really isn't anything I can say to distract you from this issue."

"Well, the girl is the center of my life apparently, whether I choose so or not."

"Mmm," Sasaki hummed affirmatively.

"I just wish people would stop treating my relationship with her as some sort of – I dunno – needlessly important thing. That they wouldn't analyze it from every odd angle, implying things. I just want things to be as they are. I'm fine with Haruhi the way things are. It's everyone else's constant questioning of the situation that's making all of this so freaking hard and tiresome."

"I see…" Sasaki said in a hushed and contemplative voice, as she continued watching me warily.

A waitress walked up to us soon, breaking the odd silence between us, although I would have had no problem if the silent moment had continued between us. Even though Sasaki had kept staring at me unflinchingly, there was something just strangely inviting about her eyes that made you want to stare back, unlike with anyone else I knew, when such an intense stare would usually make me avert my gaze, making me feel annoyingly self-conscious.

"Just green tea, for both of us," Sasaki said, her eyes never leaving me as she placed the order. "Would you like some honey with yours, Kyon?"

"…Sure, why not." It would probably require some sort of sweetener to make me enjoy any tea not made by the sweeter-than-honey Asahina-san and her loving care.

"About Suzumiya… it's rather hard to say what she's thinking right now, for me at least. Though most people often act in a stereotypical manner – you remember why, right? – and quite often fall back into the same cognitive modes of processing and defense mechanisms, I have been sad to note that logic has very little to do with an average person's life, this being the case even more so whenever it is a matter of relationships. It's quite frustrating to be perfectly honest."

"Tell me about it…"

We were silent for a short while but before the moment managed to turn awkward on us, our tea was delivered. While I just let mine be to itself, Sasaki latched onto hers almost immediately, giving it a little shake, making the contents swirl about.

"Hey, Sasaki," I said, something she had said a while back coming back into my mind.

"Mm?" she looked back up at me expectantly from her tea.

"Do you really think some sort of entity beyond all of this is the cause of this?"

"…Huh? What do you mean?" Sasaki asked, actually cocking an eyebrow at me, something I couldn't recall her doing often, or maybe even never before.

"What? Your damn theory about how Haruhi got her power!" I said, feeling oddly frustrated by her lack of understanding.

Sasaki blinked twice like one who had never heard of something, an unsettling thing to see from someone who, as a general rule, always knew at least three times more about whatever area of knowledge you felt confident about. "…Huh?"

"The – the Data-God or whatever! The thing behind all of this!"

"Oh, that…" Sasaki looked lost in thought for a moment. "You know, the word 'theory' is thrown around far too easily nowadays in a really haphazard manner," she said in a contemplative yet authoritative tone, like she was a university teacher preparing to start a long lecture. "Some people toss it around, thinking a hypothesis or just speculation is the same thing as a theory, to give their opinions more weight, but nothing could be further from the truth. A theory must have evidence to support it; concrete, quantifiable, repeatable, verifiable evidence. Hence why evolution is taught in schools as fact, just like we learn about gravity or pretty much anything else considered science, because it's just a theory, supported by a great amount of evidence."

"…Just what are you saying?"

"That little fable I spun was pretty impressive, I admit, but it's conjecture at best. For starters, it relies on the assumption that time planes are infinite and capable of being destroyed. It's not a theory, Kyon, just speculation. Besides, when I came to you, as impressive as the hasty idea I had come up with in that afternoon felt even for me, what I really cared about was what to do with the powers. I simply wanted to impress upon you the vast repercussions those powers hold, especially when time is concerned, and I think I got a little carried away. I must have really gotten caught up in all the excitement to miss such obvious flaws. But, I mean, it was the first time I was truly a part of your world."

"Yeah, it's a big difference hearing about all this stuff and actually experiencing it, but… are you… so you're saying, that Data-God…"

"Is basically nothing more than creative thinking along with how time travel truly functions. I'd already forgotten it all because it seemed so bad an idea, in all honesty. I don't really dwell too long on fundamentally flawed ideas. Too many unknowables, arguing from ignorance, like one might for the existence of god or aliens (or one would have before encountering such things)."

"It's actually one of the better ones I've heard," I said, finding myself surprisingly reluctant to let go of Sasaki's 'little fable'.

"Well, I for one sincerely doubt it. We simply don't know enough. But if you liked something I was able to come up with within an afternoon, maybe I should try my hand at prose." A smile as warm as any of Asahina-san's sweet teas graced Sasaki's lips.

"…"

Sasaki's smile waned again as she leaned back to look at me in an apologetic way. "All right… I see I've upset you."

"No, you haven't."

"My idea about what was going on must have seemed like a firm frame of reference to latch onto, much like the speed of light is a constant we fall back on."

"Huh?"

"Oh, you don't know about Einstein's theory of relativity and how its name is a misnomer?"

"A what now?"

"Everything is not relative, at least according to Einstein's theory of – heh – relativity. Everything but the speed of light is relative, relative to the speed of light. Light will always travel at the same speed in a vacuum, the highest speed possible, as light is composed of photons, particles that are essentially without mass, allowing them to reach this maximum speed… or so the theory goes based on current data. So the speed of light is a constant value we depend on. And now, to complete the metaphor, you saw my silly idea as a constant and you latched onto it, thinking it would give you better ground from which to attempt to measure the world around you, much like scientists use the constant of the speed of light in order to measure the 'actual' length or passing time of things moving at different relative speeds depending on the observer."

"…Okay, I didn't get most of that but I just have to say… wow."

"Thank you," Sasaki brimmed with pride as she charmingly tilted her head in appreciation. "I just thought of it on the go, but that was an A-grade metaphor, it worked perfectly on all levels. Especially when you consider that Earth too, a thing humans have always held in great importance, is in fact not good as an absolute frame of reference, as the planet itself is revolving while orbiting a sun, which is in turn orbiting a galaxy, which is circling about in its own group of galaxies, which are drifting away from all the other galaxy clusters. So as you can see, there really is no proper frame of reference for you to latch onto as you haven't properly discovered your own constant yet and the world around you, what you only think is real, is just as bad a reference point as Earth actually is in physics."

"…"

"Oh, wait… that wasn't very comforting at all, was it? Sorry. I didn't mean that you were just floating about aimlessly."

"It's okay, Sasaki."

"…Well, there is a sort of constant in your life though, isn't there…?" Sasaki tilted her head, wiping away a few loose strands of her hair from her eyes to look me straight in mine, a private, evocative look reflected in her dark pupils. "Something that everything else is sort of relative to," she spoke softly.

"…You're talking about Haruhi, aren't you?"

Sasaki was silent for a moment, as she continued staring at me intently, like she was conducting a phrenological survey of my skull to determine what I was thinking. "…Well, as the potential demiurge of this realm…" Sasaki straightened up and placed her hands around her tea cup, forming a little mound around it, her eyes now focusing on the spiraling spire of steam escaping from the little 'volcano' in front of her, a white line drawn across her brilliant, reflective eyes. "Yup, she's the only thing that's even close to a certainty, I suppose… though her appearance and proficiency at so many things makes one consider that everything might not be as 'natural' with her either."

"Huoh… you're right on the money there," I said, leaning back into my seat, getting into a more comfortable position.

"So… where were we..? Ah, yes…" Sasaki smirked at me, leaving her tea alone for now, "girl trouble." She gave a gentle little giggle at this, something that felt slightly weird coming from her. "Can you believe it? What with everything going on around us, that is essentially what this all boils down to."

Yeah, pretty insane, making me believe that much more that I've just gone mad and am just imagining all of this secrecy and intrigue around me, just to avoid considering... the alternatives, whatever they may or may not be.

"Suzumiya Haruhi…" Sasaki rolled the name on her tongue, like she was testing a new side dish, "it's so strange to talk so much about a girl I've barely even met, to have so much of my life focused on a stranger…"

"I'd almost forgotten about that, how little contact you've actually had with her."

"Do you think I should try to reach out to her?" Sasaki asked, her eyes once again focusing on mine with laser mounted sniper rifle precision. "It might help me understand the situation we're all trapped in, maybe even help you…"

I had a strong yet inexplicable feeling that as much sense as Sasaki's suggestion made, properly introducing her to Haruhi might very well be just as smart a move as making a joke about a king in his court right after Machiavelli's The Prince had been published way back in the past when the virtues of love and fear in regards to respect where being seriously weighed.

"…I think it'd be best if you just… sort of hung back. The last time Haruhi saw you, it apparently spawned a whole new kind of closed space."

"I see. Different how?"

"Well, you know what a normal one is like, right?"

"Giant avatars of built-up frustration, of whatever kind of emotional stress, appear and wreck havoc, destroying the world around them to relieve pressure. A rather… immature 'response', even if it is happening within her mind."

"Yeah, but when you showed up… the things were apparently dumbstruck, confused."

"Hmm… I see. But why did you use the word 'apparently'? Twice in fact."

"Huh?"

"You don't trust the information you were given?"

"…Well, I wasn't there so… I mean, Koizumi… he…"

Sasaki placed her hand over mine, giving the back of my hand a tender, consoling rub of her fingers. "It's all right, I understand. You don't need to go further."

"It's not like I don't trust him to do the right thing… but what if the thing he thinks is right isn't the best for Haruhi and the rest of us?"

Sasaki took a significantly long enough, or at least it felt like that, moment to stare at me. "Kyon, you can't depend on anyone in the world for something like that. You have no idea what's going on inside anyone's head. You never can know. It's simply impossible."

"So, what? I shouldn't trust anyone?"

"Does trust really have much to do with understanding?"

"Sure it does."

"And yet so many people trust in God, when they can never really answer what he is or understand him."

"That's not what this is about."

"I'm just saying faith in something doesn't necessitate understanding."

"So you either don't trust anyone at all or you implicitly trust everyone, is that it?"

"Neither. I don't assume anything before I meet a person. What you seem to have forgotten is that I am not like most people. I for one do not trust something I do not understand, therefore I seek to understand everything fully. It is why I read, study and ask questions. I want to know the truth because that is the only thing, by its definition, you can trust completely… as difficult as it might be for us to decipher due to our stereotyping mind set and limited perceptions. But what we can find out, limited as it might be, we can use reason to piece together. I trust reason because I think it is the only way to the truth."

"And…?"

"What I think you should do when it comes to Koizumi is be reasonable. Analyze the situation, use that skeptical brain of yours. What are his goals? How will he go about achieving them?"

"I know his goals and methods." A bit too well… or maybe I didn't. May faith in reading people had severely been shaken recently.

"Then, now that you know your enemy, you must know your battleground and control it."

"He's… he isn't my enemy," I said slowly.

"Well, that's good, but moot. Regardless, the stage is set. All relationships function on the same dynamics, whether they are antagonistic, symbiotic or something in-between. You have to analyze the situation he and you are in, the circumstances that control and limit your options. If the paths for Koizumi are blocked, I suggest opening some new ones for him to follow. Lead him where you want him to go. Reach out to him and offer him a firm bridge of trust to cross over. I really think you should check out The Art of War or at the very least The Thirty-Six Stratagems if you do get the chance. They contain very relevant information even in current times, though most of it shouldn't exactly be followed literally anymore. There's no need pilfer every goat just because the opportunity presents itself."

"Huh?"

"Stratagem #12," Sasaki grinned at me.

"Any other stratagems I should be aware of?"

Sasaki's grin widened. "Stratagem #10: Hide a knife behind a smile."

Maybe Sasaki wasn't the only one who had read up on ancient Chinese wisdoms.

"Don't even joke like that. You're one of the few people I can trust fully," I said, none too pleased with what was implied about everyone I knew.

Sasaki gave an amused hum. "So, does that mean you understand me or that you just think you understand me? Because I think you're a lot like me, that you only trust what you can understand."

"I think…"

"Yes?"

"We've digressed very heavily from... what were we talking about?"

"Hmm," another amused hum, "I finally managed to distract you from your worries but I guess you can't deny your troubles forever. We wanted to catch up but what we were really discussing was Suzumiya Haruhi."

Sigh. Haruhi, of course. But you had to admit, Sasaki really had managed to get my mind off that annoyingly troublesome girl.

"I'm not really sure I know how to help with her, but if there's any way, I'll do my best to help you."

"Thanks."

"No need... So, let's talk shop. Suzumiya has been acting oddly? Well, that can only really mean one thing: something's changed for her."

"Yeah, but what?"

"You know her best."

"So everyone keeps saying, but I really don't get her at all. She's like quic- ah, never mind. I have no special connection with her or anything. We're just... friends. Good ones, sure, why not. I mean, I'd just be insane not to accept that she's fun to hang around with. Most of the time."

Sasaki breathed out loudly, like a sigh released through her nose, before she brought her fingers together in a downwards lock, her hands joined at the knuckles in front of her on the table, and slowly turned her head and surveyed the crowds. When her head stopped turning, her sharp eyes focusing on something, I turned my head too to see what she had found, and was surprised to see the same couple I'd seen when I had been waiting for a train with Haruhi once again lip-locked in a fight of passion.

"It's funny," Sasaki said, snapping my attention back to her immediately.

"What is?"

Sasaki's eyes remained focused on the pair, though she directed her words at me. "Ask any person on the street what philosophy is about and they'll always answer, 'about trying to figure out what's the meaning of life'."

"...Sorry, I didn't really get the punch line."

Sasaki finally turned away from her target of observation and smiled gently at me, before she leaned her chin against her propped hands, chin resting against the knuckles of her index fingers as she held her hands together.

"In reality, no philosopher worth her degree or mental prowess would waste time on such a trite and, quite frankly, easy to answer question."

"Easy?" I think this was the first time I had ever heard anyone ever state that the meaning of life was easy to answer, especially as how much people kept going on about it all the time everywhere you turned.

"Oh, it's an extremely easy question to answer. Life is defined as matter formed from organic compounds, capable of respiration, homeostasis and reproduction (there might have been a few other criteria, but you get my point). Strictly speaking, from a biological perspective, the actual study of life, with bio meaning living, the purpose of life is life in itself. It's that simple."

"Really?"

"Life is just a matter of reproducing and passing down genes, producing a generation that will be tested out under the new surroundings of their time. What everything boils down to is that all life, even in regards to humans, is a matter of biological machines, or organisms, housing genes in order to allow them to reproduce and spread. Overall, it's rather pointless in the end, in the final analysis, but all things are. But as subjective beings, this explanation has always lacked a certain romantic flare to it, one I can actually understand. As beings possessing both sentience and sapience we require something more. I have no problem with this purpose, I've accepted this truth, but we are beings capable of removing ourselves from the hold of natural selection. Darwinism doesn't apply to us all that strictly anymore, as we have all sorts of 'unnatural' means to circumvent nature and our surroundings, such as medicine, gene screening and our own effect on the environment is much greater than its on us (unnatural, what a weird concept, as if something that has come to exist could somehow be 'unnatural'). We are free to choose our purpose and we exercise that freedom. The meaning of life is as subjective a thing you can get."

"I thought you were... what did you call it? A determinist?"

"Hmm, more of a soft determinist really... although compatibilism is something that I also think shows promise."

"A… what now?"

"As self-reflective beings, entities capable of thinking about our being with relation to the world, we are capable of analyzing situations and choosing accordingly, even capable of becoming aware of most of the factors influencing us. However, we are still tied down by our facticity."

"Fact- what?"

"Oh, I'm sorry, I really am. It's just that whenever I talk about a subject I'm interested in, I start prattling on about it thinking I'm doing so with someone who is as informed as—I'm sorry, I didn't mean that you were –"

"No, it's true. I have no idea what you're talking about. Go ahead and call me stupid."

"No, you're not stupid, you're just..."

"An ignoramus?"

"Well, obviously not, since you know the word," Sasaki said with a pleased smile.

I smirked at the witty compliment. "Whatever, continue."

"You sure?" Sasaki raised an eyebrow the tiniest amount.

"Sure, why not? I might gleam something useful through whatever you have to say. I'd be a real fool to say no to you. You have a... certain way with philosophy that Koizumi just lacks."

"Perhaps I'm more of a realist and perhaps that appeals to you, or maybe you find my material monism more attractive than his possible dualistic or idealistic thoughts on existence."

Yeah sure, why not. That definitely sounds better than 'I could just stare at your quaintly smiling face no matter what it spouted'. It was true, after all. There was something about Sasaki's faint smile that always set me at ease, made me feel incredibly comfortable.

"All right. No, my point was... Ah yes... No, what I've always thought to be more of an interesting philosophical question is something that has puzzled mankind's mind for several millennia."

"What's that?"

"'What is love?'"

"Love?"

"Now that's a crazy enough concept to waste pondering about," Sasaki said with an even brighter smile. "Love is just so delightfully indefinable, so lurid, so confusing... and as someone looking at it from the outside, someone who has never really understood it, I've always held a certain interest in it."

"But you don't really hold that much stock in it, do you? I mean... you've never..." suddenly I was having a hard time speaking, as the topic had turned to something rarely discussed between us: Sasaki's personal feelings on something, and not just thoughts.

"I guess I simply can't help my sense of curiosity. It's such a crazy thing, essentially just a reaction to stimuli and hormones, but there is so much poetry and literature and stories about it, that I just can't help but try to understand it better. Why is it so important? What is its purpose? What is it?"

"All right, so what have you discovered about it? What do you think?"

Sasaki was silent once again, no doubt weighing her following words, cutting off the fatty, brainy parts, dumbing them down for me.

"You know, I don't think a man and a woman can even love each other fully, at least not as things are."

"Huh? Why's that?"

"You know how they always say men will never understand how the female mind works? Well, I think it pretty much applies the other way as well. So if we can never really understand the opposite sex, how can we love them? Isn't that what love is supposed to be, full and complete understanding of another 'soul', that the two of you are practically one? But a man can never really get inside a woman's mind and vice versa. We simply have too many distinctions, not just physically in hormones, but socially. Women and men are pushed into these roles. There's no way we can really understand the issues of another gender when we have our own issues to deal with. I think I can see why the Ancient Greeks and later medieval societies from Japan to the Middle East to the Northern Americas and Europe practiced pederasty. They probably felt that only a man can understand and truly love another man. Although the way they practiced it, between a younger and older male, feels a bit odd by current standards."

"…You can't be serious."

"Look, I'm not just talking about sexual love here. I think, and this is pretty much hearsay but it makes some sense, those men in ancient times had wives along with their same-sex lovers. Maybe the women were seen as a way to continue the man's legacy. Sure, demeaning and degrading if they were seen as nothing more and they acted accordingly, giving up their worth, but I don't see why we couldn't have something similar to this in modern society as well. Every person could have one opposite-sex partner, who they would love to the extent they can, but also a partner who would be able to understand them perfectly; sex would be optional."

I was starting to have a hard time looking Sasaki in the eye.

"Look, don't you feel a greater deal of camaraderie with guys than girls? That they just get you? This doesn't mean you have to sleep with them. It's... platonic love, like friendship, like... what we share, I suppose. There aren't any... illusions... no miscommunication. That's what love should be, right?" Sasaki asked, her dim eyes focused on me, as she brushed some of her loose bangs away.

I gave the back of my neck a rub, suddenly feeling a bit uncomfortable, but in an oddly excited way, in a way that was both off putting and welcomed.

"You could still have sex with your wife because you are sexually attracted to her, but spend the meaningful and soulful moments with your true soul mate, the guy who understands you. I really think we're only coupled together with the opposite sex because it's biologically necessary; we feel attracted to the opposite sex because it's sort of pre-programmed into us. I think most 'normal' amorous relationships are built around this aesthetic attraction and passing passion. It's great and nice, but not meaningful and long lasting like true companionship. The passion usually runs out of relationships in three or something years and only the ones where there is true love remain along with the ones that are simply... well off, I suppose. Or trapped by a feeling of obligation. Marriage is more of a business contract, no matter how we as societies dress it up in romanticism. It's an exchange of legal and monetary privileges."

"What if... what if there was a girl, who acted like a boy? You know, well, not like a stereotypical girl, but a very passionate, driven, assertive girl? If she was sort of your soul mate, but you didn't exactly feel any romantic attraction to her, like you had a platonic relationship with her. You'd treat her like one of the guys. But then there would be this other girl, pretty atypical as well, but still... hm, girly I suppose, sort of 'emotional'. I'm not sounding condescending, am I?"

What the hell was I mumbling about now?

"No, no, not at all," Sasaki said quickly, seeming to only gain more steam from what I'd said. "I'm actually glad you noted that gender roles are not so clearly cut anymore, that they are starting to, not necessarily break apart, but change. Women were pressed into this serving role as docile peons and they accepted it for the most part. This is the only reason why people still see girls as generally being more peaceful and mature than boys even though this isn't always the case. There are plenty of idiots on both sides.

There are probably just as many racist women as there are men, though men might just feel a stronger urge to act on and voice these feelings as this is the role they have been given, this sort of active doer. I mean, take a look at the way entertainment is typically divided when it comes to kids, how there's action stories for the boys and love stories for the girls. It's pretty unfair how we push both sexes into these roles. There's all this talk of female liberation and them being the oppressed sex, but men are fairly oppressed as well, of course not to the same extent but relatively well as well. You know that universal rule of 'not striking a woman', at least in a majority of cultures, right? Well, I think it's pretty damn stupid."

What?

"I'm not promoting violence, I just think it's an unfair prejudice. You shouldn't hit anyone. Restricting that rule to just women is sexist. It only enforces the stereotype that women aren't as strong as or even equal to men. Now because of this rule, women themselves don't even see it as being so wrong to strike a man, as no such cultural value exists. I mean, look: the motif of an offended woman going ahead and slapping a man, it's everywhere! (And kind of offensive and belittling towards the female gender, if you ask me)

There was actually a survey recently, and according to it, women in relationships tend to dish out more corporal punishment than men. Sure, a big strong guy can physically withstand more than a woman, but what about psychologically? Being assaulted by someone you love and care about deeply? That's got to leave a deeper psychological scar than a physical one, all the time. And men can't even say anything about it! That's the worst part. It's part of their role in society, being this strong guy who bottles everything up, while women can cry and be 'emotional', just as long as they stay submissive and silent most of the time, typically while they work.

See how we're all oppressed by these gender ideas? Because of them, our chances of finding a soul mate are even lower, as we've alienated the other sex from our own and limited the only ones who can understand us in this society of oppression to those who we aren't necessarily sexually attracted to. We need to let go of these gender roles if we're ever really going to love one another as we're supposed to, fully. Once these roles are gone, we can have those passionate and romantic exchanges and fully understand the other.

If you ask me, this Suzumiya seems to be doing a delightfully strong attempt at subverting traditional gender roles, being an extremely active and assertive person, opening herself up to more possibilities, seemingly a very decided act on her part. And I say good for her; she might actually be a better fit for a man, as long as he's able to overcome his own cultural, gender biases."

There was an uncomfortable lump in my throat, having developed to the unbearable size of a grapefruit. I tried to swallow inconspicuously but I ended up coughing to my embarrassment as Sasaki continued talking about genders and stuff. My cheeks felt warmer than they should have.

"Now as much as I've talked about the differences between the sexes and how they separate us, I really don't think we're really all that different deep down. The differences are just superficial, but unfortunately, superficiality has taken on a greater role in the information age where patience has decreased and we must gain what we can as quickly as possible. The differences are superficial social constructs, but we have let them take too great a hold on us, fuelling this impression of difference. Remember what I told you about stereotypes and their actual usage before? Not that phony prejudiced thinking everyone always thinks stereotyping means.

I'm not saying it's impossible for a man and woman to fully love each other, just more difficult than it need be. Soul mates are in short supply."

"…Soul mate…" I muttered, feeling I should try and contribute even a little, rolling the words in my mouth and head, "what a weird idea, that there's only someone right for you out there…"

"Well the idea of a soul mate is rather common across societies, but the Greeks I believe were some of the earlier ones to truly delve into the idea."

"Wow, you really have put a lot of study into this."

"Heh, I guess, although what follows I sort of stumbled upon by accident, as I'd simply been studying Plato. The idea of a soul mate was essentially created like this according to the Greeks' myths: Long ago, humans did not exist like they do today. A human had four legs, four hands and two faces. They were happy, content creatures. The gods saw this happiness and became jealous; only gods should possess such contentment. Zeus took his lightning and cast it upon humanity, smiting us so that we were split in two, a being with only two hands and legs and just one head. Now humans wander around, looking for their other half. Sometimes it's someone of the opposite sex, sometimes it's not. We come together in love, both physically and mentally, trying to complete our souls like they once were in ages past. It's sort of beautiful, in a way, isn't it? Although, perhaps a bit self-serving."

Sasaki took a big sip of her tea before she continued, "I'm going to paraphrase Plato now."

Go right ahead, it's not like I could call you out on plagiarism even if I wanted to.

"What is love? Simple desire to have and hold what we don't have? If love desires good and beautiful things, then is it beautiful and good? For if love desires these things, then it shouldn't posses them, as there is little point in desiring what one already possesses. Love is neither beautiful nor good, nor wise either. This however doesn't mean it is ugly, bad or ignorant. Don't fall into the trap of thinking things can only be one or the other. Love is something in between. According to Plato, love is a desire for ultimate Beauty, in accordance to his theory of Forms. In a way it's a force that transcends even a possible God. It defines what's right."

"What do you mean, greater than God?"

"Does God say what is right because he decides so, or does God say something is right because it is so, beyond his defining? If right and wrong, or even love, are not answerable to God, then there must be something even greater than God. One of those things could be love."

"Do you really think that?"

"Maybe, maybe not. It's all rather inconsequential for me, really. Love just isn't much more than a curiosity for me. At first I merely assumed it must be some form of evolutionary by-product, to aid in the K-strategy for reproduction utilized by homo sapiens, as they are creatures who multiply relatively rarely in comparison to most of the animal kingdom and care for their young. But that just didn't really fit, not when society is so strongly centered around it, how it has continued to be a presence in mankind's history since times of oral tradition. Treating love as simply nothing more than a biological response is a bit naïve, though far from wrong either.

Anyway, I don't think things like love and morals really exist, except as concepts, totally dependent on minds, which are dependent on physical bodies. I don't believe in something transcending physicality. If there is something beyond this world, it's in no way connected to ours. Even the data beings are limited by physicality, unable to break the laws of physics and tied down to time like we are, even if they are capable of perceiving it differently. And I don't think souls exist as anything more than concepts, no more than morals or love. Does this mean I don't value them? No, of course not. People need to believe in them, they give our lives worth and content. They make our lives better, richer. In a way… they are very beautiful lies, half truths. I understand their worth for others, especially in a world lacking any inherent meaning, but for me, they're not enough. I'd still much rather have the truth, no matter what it is, no matter how cold or cruel."

"So how does love define what's right?" I asked.

"Well, here's one way of looking at it, inspired by my readings on the likes of Plato and Jean-Paul Sartre, but in no means a definitive theory: Love is selfish, it has to be. We're all egoists, whether we admit it or not, whether we acknowledge it or not. Even love is selfish. This is to motivate it and help it work better. If it concerns you directly, you're more inclined to work on it. If you're not personally involved, you're disconnected from it, you won't understand it and the target of love fully. You need to be selfish for the other person. Sartre put it best I think; the other person sees you differently than you ever could, and when they are in love with you they focus on you, and you gain a better insight into your own being from them along with your introspection. The other person helps in your self-fulfillment and vice versa.

Of course, there are problems with this. Being in someone's control like this is dangerous, it causes 'bad faith', allows you to deceive yourself into believing your worth and existence are solely determined by someone else and not by you alone. And as all lives are subjective, how can we rely on another's perspective? Wouldn't seeking as many lovers and their perspectives be a good idea? Then again, Sartre was of the opinion amorous relationships shouldn't be exclusive."

Just where exactly are you going with this? First pederasty made sense to an extent, 'not striking women' is a dumb rule and now you seem to be... advocating polygamy?

"But the point is we need other people, they help us understand ourselves. The self, as far as I see it, is the product of all the factors around you, stretching all the way back in time to when we first developed sentience. We are all one, formed by our interactions, memories and societies but viewing reality in a unique way, each with our own specific perspective on the whole. Unfortunately, the self is indefinable as it is a being-in-itself as well as a being-for-itself, respectively something that simply exists and something that is self-aware, to simplify the matter for you, Kyon.

A person is not just an object in the world, but something that is completely free and always attempting to understand and define itself, according to Sartre. But if we were to define ourselves, even with the help of others, this would limit our freedom and our choices, because being defined is a lmitation. For example, if a human sees themself as only a slave they will just remain as one. This limitation would only cause more genuine 'angst' of the existential kind, as the word was originally used and not as that synonym for pathetic whining from immature people as it is used for nowadays. The world is absurd and we are always free. Denying this or believing otherwise is 'bad faith' for Sartre. There is always choice, like even death for those who chose to become slaves. They weren't truly deprived of choice in a Sartrean worldview.

We are always separated from ourselves and others by a metaphorical nothingness, a wall if you will. As we consider ourselves, we only consider ourselves in relation to the world, as limited things, things tied down by facticity. But as I've already explained, this does not work in defining the self. Others can give us fresh insight into ourselves so we use them to our advantage. This is how we use love. Yes, it's sort of degrading, treating others as means, but this way there's a way to help others, as this is a social interaction and as such works both ways, and isn't helping others moral behavior? This love extends to us all. It's what all the philosophies, ideologies and religions have been saying for nearly three thousand years if not more.

Unfortunately, especially with religions, many people have snuck in little rules and such, commandments if you will, that don't really gel with this existential love they wish to advocate. Christianity is a great example of this. Jesus is a character all about love, about it setting us free, although he fails to see its selfish design. Now the real problem arose as some people added values to his words in order to control the populace, as Nietzsche pointed out. It's master/slave morality. Christianity, as it was shaped into by various people, took the dominant values of Rome that were derived from ancient Greek culture, like pride and assertiveness, and twisted them, raising their opposites, humility and meekness, as new Christian virtues just so control could be exerted over the culturally strong and weak as well. Now the weak, who already possessed these values, had their values imposed on the stronger, but fewer ones in society. The ones in high regard in the old system were pulled down so they could be controlled, down to the same level as the low slave-like mentality possessing people, who were weak in the sense that they could not create values but merely followed those created by others, living lives of skepticism and pessimism, full of weak-willed indivuduals who would waste time with Christian values and dreams of heaven, never truly affirming life and just living it. Jesus' message was lost as humanity's Will to Power took hold of his words. We always want to control the world around us as it creates a feeling of safety. It's why we think the world makes sense... We want to control everything, when it's us who is controlled by something that is neither truly chaotic or orderly, but what simply is..."

…It's simply stunning... Just amazing how similar Sasaki and Haruhi are... and yet how different they are as well. Like two sides of a coin, like Asahina-san (small) and Asahina-san (big), what one is and will become, or might. Although I highly doubt Haruhi will ever develop to the same level as Sasaki. You might as well ask a mollusk to do binomial functions. Sasaki was just so beyond everyone else.

"So we're all just a bunch of greedy bastards... not something I'd like to agree with, but it certainly does make a lot of sense, generally speaking of course," I admitted.

"Of course, I understand. We have to generalize, how else could we ever speak of anything if all exceptions were accounted for? Seeing how long it takes me to express just these simple generalizations, we'd be stuck here for months if I were to try and give an all inclusive theory of everything that accounted for all possible exceptions, both known and unknown, but in a manner that could be explained. The human mind simply works in a generalizing way. Recall my explanation of stereotyping as useful mental tools, for learning for example?"

"Yeah, yeah…"

"In the end, people are all the same, and as interesting a psychological phenomenon love is, I think it's rather weak in comparison to the more primal feelings of mankind, like fear and anger. Love didn't bring mankind together, it never does, never as effectively as fear. When there's us and them, someone to fear and hate, people band together. I think that's how society was formed in the first place; scared people coming together to fight and run from others, not because they loved one another."

"People could change, they could be better."

"Yes, they could, but they won't. That's what makes it all so tragic. That's what makes things truly dramatic, in Aristotelian fashion. Our hubris…"

We both fell silent, the dark warmth of our secluded corner growing heavy and stifling for a moment. I stared at my untouched tea, looking for something just under the surface, something that was hidden and held the solution to everything, but as always, it was an empty hope.

"Oh, look at the time. We've addressed so many issues and yet it still doesn't feel like enough, like we've only scratched the surface. After all, philosophy isn't just one topic or subject but everything, and everything is quite a lot to discuss," Sasaki said, standing up, giving her bangs a little, familiar looking flick. "We really must do this again. I enjoyed this immensely, but next time, let's try and focus on only what's going on in our lives and none of this silly highbrow stuff you always spring up on me," she said, smirking a little at me.

Haha, very funny, very funny indeed. Maybe next time I'll lock you up in a room with Koizumi and see how you like being cornered like this. This way we could also find out which one exits with their head having not been blown apart by the sheer awesome power of the perfect logical argument. At least that way there'd be one less of you to deal with and the winner would be known across the lands as the Unquestionable. I would honestly stop rolling my eyes and sighing and accept anything the Unquestionable would say as absolute truth. But I guess that would have to wait.

"Don't worry, I'll leave you with something that will have you simply begging for another fulfilling meet with me," Sasaki said, wearing an old playful smirk I hadn't seen on her since back in cram school, when she'd once gone on a weird wild streak by screwing loose a pen I had borrowed from her, causing a great dark stain on my desk the two of us ended up cleaning, with Sasaki feeling especially silly and apologetic after her first and probably last attempt at a friendly prank.

Okay, that doesn't really fill the criteria of something crazy for the current me, but prior to meeting Haruhi, something like that had seemed ridiculously nonsensical for me. Ah, good old times of yore... when homework had still been a fairly serious, though often ignored, concern for the distant future that had always snuck up with unexpected slyness.

"There's a reason I don't often visit this café, though I love their tea, you know. But don't worry," Sasaki said as she got up. "I'll pay back next time," she finished with a tiny wink and smile as she quickly strode out of the quaint tea house.

Wait, just what the hell was she –

"Your bill," the waitress said as she arrived like a diving hawk at the first sign of an opening, placing the little scrap of offensive paper that sat smugly on a little pretentious plate onto the table right in front of me. I gave the number laden, nearly two-dimensional villain an unwilling inspection.

You gotta be kidding me! It's just boiled water with leaves in it!

Damn right I'm going to see you again, Sasaki! This is just ridiculous!

Sigh... The world is just so unreasonable in so many ways... I thought as I dug deep into my pockets for any and all loose change I might have had left. All the weird girls in my life were simply bankrupting me.

So unreasonable…