- Chapter 4: Feeling Beautiful
By now, you've probably figured out that we've come to the part of the story where the initial conflict is going to be resolved. This would seem to be the ending, except that it isn't really. This chapter resolves the issue of how things were going wrong, but it doesn't really explain why. I've left that until the last chapter since it didn't occur to me why all this was really happening until then. I just happen to be really good at guessing, and it's probably just a happy coincidence that I'm not too often wrong. And I'm only correct enough to solve the problems I'm faced with. I'm really nowhere near actually comprehending all this.
This is the main thing that bothers me. None of this makes any real sense to me, even many years later. I've tried to be a nice guy and just go along with the genetic mutations explanation, the sympathetic resonance explanation (Koizumi's favorite), the mysterious and inexplicable power explanation (Asahina's favorite). I'll introduce Miss Asahina to you in a few minutes (depending on how fast you read). I must admit that I find it all to be indecipherable gibberish. That is, everything except for Asakura's explanation. She insists (to this day) that this disaster was purely coincidental, and that Haruhi is simply more in tune with the collective unconscious than most people. It's a very compelling explanation, though I should also warn you not to mention it around Yuki. It tends to set her off. Yuki really prefers her more Freudian explanation.
And of course, none of that makes any sense if you consider how Shamisen appears and vanishes from this story seemingly at will. I have to say, I've never met that cat in my life. It's very baffling to me that I had seemed to know him in that one timeline. I've asked Yuki about it, but she seemed just as baffled as me on the issue.
Speaking of Yuki, I remember distinctly seeing her pass by that cafe that evening. She seemed to be depressed, and I was completely baffled about what that was about. It's funny, because I remember this incident as me simply texting her that I'd be at the cafe. When I got there, I had a funny feeling that I should just wait around outside, and that turned out to be a good idea. Yuki took one look at me and then looked at her feet as she continued walking along.
I stood there for a moment, then caught up with her. For a while, we just walked side by side. She didn't seem to mind, and I honestly like this sort of thing every now and then. I also had the brief impression that she was drunk, although I can't remember her giving any signs of being seriously impaired. I did, however, take a moment to give her a serious look. She then gave me a hint of a smile, and that seemed like an invitation.
"Hey," I said.
"Hello," she responded.
"Did you get my message?" I asked.
"I did," she answered.
"And?" I prompted.
"I found it reassuring," she remarked.
She then stopped, and we looked at each other for a few moments. She had a very knowing expression, and I was at once impressed by the many realizations that it spurred in my mind. She knew what I wanted, and although she pretty much wanted the same thing, she needed a little more time to sort out how she felt about herself. She was having some trouble feeling anything but pity for herself, and she was about to explode. She also had this mysterious smirk that suggested that she could just blow it all off if I somehow figured out how to persuade her in a nice way.
"We need to talk," she stated in a very business-like tone.
"Okay," I said, folding my arms and bracing myself for whatever crazy things she wanted to tell me.
"Not now," she then said. "Tomorrow night."
"Oh," I said. "Well, I'll see you then."
- x -
I then decided to wander back toward my place, although I took the somewhat more scenic route of going through town. As I crossed a pedestrian bridge, I was just starting to think of how convenient it was to not have to worry about roads or bridges. Modern engineering certainly does make life a lot less bothersome, although you still have to worry about things like avoiding periods of heavy traffic and such. I then heard this familiar voice calling out to me.
"Hey!"
"Huh?" I said, looking around.
"Kyon! Over here!"
I noticed Haruhi waving at me, and answered, "Oh! Hey, Haruhi. What's up?"
"You never called me back," she immediately complained when she approached me.
"I didn't?" I asked, wondering when that had occurred.
"I left you a message," she added.
I took out my phone and checked. "Really?" I asked, looking through my phone log.
Haruhi seemed very puzzled, and I wasn't sure how to take that.
I asked her, "Are you sure you dialed the right number?"
"Of course, I did!" she protested. "I never misdial."
"You're out pretty late," I remarked.
"I know," she said. "I can't sleep."
"I know what you mean," I agreed.
"I feel like if I go to sleep," she explained, "something really weird will start to happen."
"So, let's not go to sleep," I suggested.
"Yeah, right," she answered, scowling. "I'll see you later."
"Okay," I said. "Hey, Haruhi."
"What?"
"It was good, seeing you again."
- x -
After having known Haruhi for the past five years (eight, if you hear it from her), it did seem strange any time she went out touring. I hate to admit it, but I do like to see her smiling face. It gives me a warm feeling inside, though not as warm as you might think.
I had another surprisingly warm feeling when I passed by Asakura's place. Asakura was busy defacing one of those concert promotional posters that Haruhi had put up in front of the apartment building. I knew Asakura had it in her, but seeing her in action made me feel all fuzzy inside.
"Hey," I said, sneaking up on her.
"What's up?" she said, casually acting like she wasn't up to anything.
I started, "I know this is going to sound strange, but..."
She guessed, "You couldn't sleep, right?"
"Yeah," I answered.
"It won't matter," she stated.
"What?" I said, wondering what she was referring to.
"Staying awake won't help you," she explained. "It'll come, anyway."
"What are you talking about?" I asked.
"The memories," she answered. "They're how you know you're real."
"I don't know what you're talking about," I casually blew that off, though what she was saying did sound strangely right.
She chuckled briefly and then added, "There is one thing you could do."
"What?" I asked.
"You want to go up to my place and find out?" she asked.
"Is this what I think...?" I started to ask.
"Come on," she insisted. "It's instinctive. Don't fight it."
I then answered, "Tempting as that sounds, I think I'll pass."
"Oh?" she asked.
"You're too damn capricious for your own good," I explained.
"Ouch," she said, then started laughing.
"I would like to go somewhere, though," I added. "You want to come with me?"
"I would love to," she answered.
- x -
Something was nagging me in the back of my mind. At the time, all I could figure out was that I needed to face something really important, and it had something to do with Yuki. It seemed to my mind like standing on the roof of a tall building, daring yourself to stand right at the edge. I got close to doing just that, very shortly afterward.
"I have to face my fears," I told myself.
"Yeah, that's it," Asakura encouraged me. "Go right to the edge."
"I'm not in that big a hurry," I told her.
"Coward," she accused in a very nice way.
"I don't have a death wish," I explained. "A gust of wind could knock me off as it is."
"And then what?" she asked.
I sighed and shook my head, reeling at the thought of it. "I can't do it," I protested.
"You really are pathetic," she nicely added. "Nagato goes through this kind of thing everyday."
"She does?" I asked.
"Any time she goes to read a book," Asakura answered, "it's like standing right on the edge of that ledge on the tips of her toes to her."
"Really?" I asked, finding that hard to believe.
"Yes," she answered, very sincere.
"So, why?" I wondered.
"Like you said," she explained. "You have to face your fears."
I then went right up to the edge and stood there for a few moments. It then struck me that this was the craziest thing I had ever done (and that's saying something). I then pulled myself back.
"I really can't," I said.
Asakura warned me, "You'll never conquer your fears until you do it, you know?"
I then shrugged and said, "Maybe there are things I'm not really meant to conquer."
"You're right," she agreed, smiling wider. "I like you better this way."
I then stood a little further in and asked, "Yuki is really afraid of books?"
"That's right," she answered.
"Why?" I asked. "That's a really strange phobia."
"It's actually pretty simple to understand," she said.
"It is?" I asked.
She promptly answered, "It's the result of a simple hormone imbalance."
"Really?" I wondered.
"Yes," she said, being altogether too casual about it. "And the funny thing is that she attributes it to some mysterious phenomenon."
"You've never told her?" I asked.
"I've told her," she answered, "but she doesn't believe me."
"That's doesn't sound like her," I said, unable to picture it.
"You'd be surprised," Asakura remarked. "Nagato isn't as rational as you'd like to think."
"How do you know what I think?"
"It's obvious. I know, for example, that for two years you insisted on thinking of Nagato as an android."
Maybe in the back of my mind. I think I really preferred to think of her as someone who was convinced that she was an android. And a little delusional about her reason for existing.
Asakura nicely added, "I could hardly blame you, though. I mean, she does think of herself that way. She likes to refer to her hormonal imbalance as 'erroneous data.'"
"That's a pretty cruel attitude," I said, getting a little fed up with her being so casual about all this.
"What do you expect?" she complained. "I'd help her, but..."
"But what?" I prompted.
She then sighed and answered, "There was that one time I tried doing just that. I told myself, 'It's just a little hormone imbalance. I'll treat it, and she'll be good as new.' Then all heck broke loose."
"Seriously?" I asked.
"To make a long story short," she answered, "it took months to fix her. I ended up having to do her a huge favor before she'd forgive me. That's all in the past, though."
So, she still thinks of herself as an android? Even after all this? I shook my head and protested, "She seems pretty mellowed out, to me."
"That's because of you," Asakura explained.
"Me?"
"It wouldn't be polite for me to say exactly how, but suffice it to say that she has the most aggressive tendencies out of all of us."
"She does a good job of keeping it bottled up."
"Yes, she does."
- x -
Whatever her reaction to books, I happen to know that Yuki does love to read. I have a pretty decent collection of my own, so I understand the feeling. When I went to my place, I began to wonder if there was something in my collection that she had wanted, so I called and asked her. She answered that she would be right over to give me an answer in person. When she arrived, I presented to her a short bio that someone had written on Haruhi. This book was new to her, so she immediately began reading it, enjoying it immensely.
The rest of that night was a bit of a blur, but I recall Yuki showing me a lot of her more aggressive tendencies, and I don't recall having any serious problem with it. It's difficult to talk about, honestly. I didn't expect her to come around this quickly. And though I did enjoy myself, I didn't really understand what she was going through at the time. I feel a little guilty about it, but it was really no big deal. You readers know what I mean, right? Right.
Later that evening, I was just thinking about going to bed to get some sleep, when my phone rang.
"Hello?" I answered.
"I'm sorry to call so late," said a really girlish voice. "You wouldn't know me."
"So, who is this?" I asked.
"This is Mikuru Asahina," she answered. "I tried to contact you earlier, but..."
"You did?" I asked.
"Is there somewhere we could meet?" she then asked. "Somewhere we could talk in private? It's about something important. It's related to Haruhi Suzumiya."
As she was saying all this, I noticed Yuki approach, looking curious.
"Oh, sure," I answered. "You mind if I bring a friend?"
Asahina replied, "I would prefer if it was just the two of us. You'll understand when I explain."
I then looked at Yuki and silently stated to her Asahina's name. I wasn't sure Yuki would catch it, but she nodded.
"Okay," I said. "Meet me at the park in the morning. Is that okay?"
"The park by the college train station?" she asked.
"Yeah," I answered. "I'll see you then."
I hung up my phone, and then looked around at Yuki. She had undoubtedly overheard most of the conversation, and she seemed to be seriously pondering something.
"Someone you know?" I asked.
"We're acquainted," she answered.
- x -
I'm glad I chose the park for that rendezvous because I really needed a place to collect myself and recover from the previous night. As I'm sure you've probably figured out, I had had a disturbing dream that gave me a whole new appreciation for why Yuki was so depressed. I couldn't recall the whole thing, but just bits and pieces would come to me every now and then.
The dream had seemed real, and I briefly doubted my own existence when I awoke. It was an interesting sensation, I must admit: doubting whether I really was real. I then stirred from bed and saw Yuki, standing in a doorway. It may sound a little cliche but there was sunlight in her hair. I suddenly noticed little things like that or how she had eyes that never seemed to quite be looking directly at me and hands that were very deceptively delicate. It made me really appreciate the fact that I did, in fact, exist.
The fact that Asakura had prophesied all that told me how routine the experience was for her, and I had to collect myself at the realization of what that could mean in terms of there being perhaps ten or so different worlds. Surely, Haruhi was wrong on that point, but then I began to wonder when she had said that. I wasn't sure. All I could recall of that reference was this cat staring up at me like he knew me altogether too well.
As I said, it was a good thing that I went to the park. The beauty of late autumn put the craziness out of my mind just in time for the craziness to start up again from some new quarter.
"Hello," a girl said. "Nice to finally meet you."
I looked, and this girl was vastly more attractive than I had anticipated. And young.
I remarked, "A little young for a time traveler, aren't you?"
"Jeez," she complained.
"Does your mother know you're here?" I asked.
She then firmly stated, "I'll have you know that I'm a year older than you."
"Wow," I said. "Really?"
"So, what do you think?" she then asked.
"Of what?"
"My accent. Is it convincing?"
You'll have to forgive me for not noticing. The suddenness of realizing who this girl was, combined with the fact that she was stunningly beautiful, well it made it hard to notice subtle things like the slightly odd hitching in the tempo of her voice or the fact that she didn't quite seem to understand the right way to augment words for emphasis. She sounded more like someone acting in a soap opera than a real human being. It gave her a somewhat childish demeanor that highlighted the youthfulness of her appearance. And her voice. It was exactly how Haruhi had described it. This was definitely the time traveler she had told me about.
"Oh!" I said. I then commented, "It's really good. I didn't even notice until you mentioned it."
She explained, "I've had a lot of practice in immersion sessions."
I could just stand here and stare at her all day, but I'd probably start to feel insecure about that if I really started to do it. I promptly asked, "Okay, so what's the job?"
"Right," she answered. "Down to business. Like I said, this is about Haruhi Suzumiya."
"Okay," I said.
She then explained, "We need to create a chain reaction event at the latest possible time to avoid a potential situation in the future."
"Why the latest possible time?" I asked.
She answered, "That way, there's less that can go wrong."
"And what's the situation?" I asked.
She replied, "Alternate spaces growing out of control. It could destroy the world."
Could? It then struck me with crystal clarity that this is exactly what was already happening. I was immediately seized by the impression of this girl's incredibly cute ineptness, and I had to close my eyes and shake my head to dismiss the thought of it.
"I'm here to prevent that," she added, very enthusiastically.
"I see," I said, gradually regaining control. "And what do you think of Haruhi? I mean, personally?"
"I think she's great!" she replied, beaming with sincerity.
"You do?" I asked, a little baffled at how anyone could view Haruhi that way.
Asahina then admitted, "I've never actually met her, but I really admire her as a person."
In other words, she had seen Haruhi on TV or something like that and had developed a hero complex of some kind. "What exactly is it about her that you like?" I asked.
She answered, "Well, you should know this better than me."
Precisely why I asked. What on Earth could possess a normal person to think of Haruhi as anything resembling great?
Asahina remarked, "She does have incredible self-restraint, don't you think?"
"She does?" I asked, wondering where that had come from.
"Oh, jeez," she then said. She admitted, "Maybe I'm comparing two different time planes, here."
"Maybe," I agreed, wondering what the heck a time plane was.
She then softly added, "It's probably not a good idea for me to offer my opinion, actually."
I then told her, "On the contrary, Miss Asahina. I welcome it."
"Thank you," she said.
I then started, "I should probably just get this out of the way..."
"What?" she asked.
I explained, "You're very beautiful, Miss Asahina. And I'm having a hard time thinking straight, so..."
"Okay," she said in a really cute, super shy manner. "I'll get straight to it, then."
- x -
I could recall in some detail the events of Haruhi's life, so it was no big deal to narrow down what the best time would be to create some weird chain reaction. It really had to be the seventeenth of June in the year 1994. That was the day that Haruhi's mother decided that she needed a little vacation from being an adult, and she decided to inflict that stress on Haruhi. Miss Asahina protested at first that it was far too early, but I then explained that at any later date, we would have to confront Haruhi's crazy lust for significance. Tanabata in the year 2000 was okay if all you wanted to do was make sure she went to North High rather than a more convenient school. That seemed to me to be the reason for the temporal phenomenon that Haruhi had already related to me.
In particular, we really needed to go to a time before July, 1999. That was the time of Haruhi's infamous baseball incident. Afterward, the only thing we would be doing is feeding her insecurities. If we could make her more secure about her past, she might have more trouble maturing, but she'd be less insecure about her own ego. That seemed to me like a good estimation of how to fix this little situation. It was also convenient, that particular day, because Haruhi already had a vivid memory of what had happened. I knew pretty much where to go and when to be there (give or take a couple hours). Miss Asahina resisted the suggestion from a number of different angles, but I eventually persuaded her. I realized later that the main thing she objected to was the fact that that date had been Yuki's idea to begin with.
The best place I could think of to actually do any time traveling was at the club room, so we quickly went to the college and entered the room.
"As I suspected," I observed, "there's no one here."
"Great," she said. "If you could just look that way."
"Okay," I responded, turning toward the windows. "You have some kind of portable time machine you don't want me seeing?"
She explained, "It isn't a good idea for you to even look at a TPDD. It could create a paradoxical wave of..."
"What?" I asked, wondering why she'd stopped.
"Oh, jeez," she said. "No, please don't look!" she added when I began to glance around.
"Sorry," I said.
"I'm just going to have to..." she started, then sighed deeply. "Oh, come on!" she softly shouted, and I heard a soft thud after that.
"I don't hitting it will make it work better," I remarked.
"I'm not hitting it," she protested. "Well, not very hard."
"Is something wrong?"
"Give me a moment."
I then heard a few strange taps and clicks, and it really made me wonder about this girl. Was she really qualified to handle this sort of situation? I mean, wasn't the reason Haruhi was messed up in the first place partly her fault?
"You can look, now," she said.
"So..." I prompted, starting to look around again.
"I don't get it," she complained. "This has never happened before! I can't get a readout on anything!"
"Is it working?" I asked.
She replied, "The diagnostic said it was working fine, but..."
"So, maybe the diagnostic isn't working?" I guessed.
"Oh, jeez!" she exclaimed, looking a little panicked. "Don't say that."
"What's the problem?" I asked.
"Okay, well..." she answered. "Normally, when I'm about to make a jump through time, I try to recalibrate my chrono with a future chrono. Just to make sure we don't end up too far ahead or behind."
"You have to have precision?" I realized.
"Yes," she said. "The TPDD uses absolute positioning, and the Earth itself moves at a pretty good velocity. You don't want to be off by more than a few microseconds. Especially if we're talking about traveling more than a few days. Even slight perturbations become significant."
"Sounds scary," I remarked. Especially the concept of absolute positioning. Did that even make sense in the context of relativity?
She explained, "It's like standing on the edge of a cliff. The amount of time you travel can make the trip pretty scary. It can take a while for the mind to adjust when you arrive."
"So, you're stuck here?" I guessed.
"Oh no!" she said, looking very shocked. "Please don't even think that."
"But you just said..." I started to point out to her.
"I need to sit down," she said, sitting at the table and putting her hands on top of her head.
"I'll go make some tea," I said, recognizing that state of mind she was in.
- x -
Back in high school, Haruhi had often made me feel like panicking. For example, when Haruhi had started the web page for her little club, there had been mysterious hackers messing up the logo somehow. She had become convinced that it was the work of some of the teachers, and she wouldn't back down from that idea. Even when we later discovered some strange closed space with a giant camel cricket had been the real culprit, she insisted on her version of events. Nagato later admitted that letting Haruhi know the truth of the matter was a mistake.
Suffice it to say that it wouldn't do any good to worry about what was beyond your control. With this and a few other amusing anecdotes, I managed to help Miss Asahina calm down, and she decided to retreat to her "home" for the time being.
After my early classes, I decided to hit up the local library. That seemed to me like a good way to calm myself down. I find shelves full of books to be a very calming sight, and I picked out a book of puzzles. It would be amusing, I told myself. On my way to a table to read, I noticed Miss Asakura approaching.
"Hello," I softly greeted her.
"Hey there," she answered, following me. "You must really like to read."
"What is it this time?" I asked, starting to think that my encounters with Asakura were a regular thing.
"Figured it out, yet?" she asked.
"What?" I asked.
"How to fix this scenario," she answered. "Because I'm out of ideas."
I hadn't expected Asakura to be the one expressing something like this. This was a surprise.
She added, "This particular iteration has the added bonus of Miss Asahina now participating in our adventure."
I pulled out a seat at the table I was approaching. "Great," I said sarcastically, wondering how Asahina would react to the thought of being destroyed over and over.
"What is she doing here, anyway?" Asakura softly complained.
I answered, "She's here to prevent the world from being destroyed. A little late, I'd say."
"I do so like puzzling situations," Asakura remarked, sitting next to me.
"Yeah," I said, taking a look at the first puzzle in this book. "Well, we've already figured out what we need to do. It's just a matter of time machine problems."
Asakura then said, "I could take you back in time, if you wanted."
"You can do that?" I asked.
"Yeah," she answered. "I do it all the time."
She sounded quite serious when she said that, and I immediately wondered how often she had gone meddling with the past.
"I'm just kidding," she then softly stated. "No, I'm not permitted to time travel. My superiors would undoubtedly have objections."
"Jeez," I complained. "Don't scare me like that."
"So, you've figured it out?" she asked.
"No," I replied. "I have no idea how to fix a time machine."
"I meant this situation," she said, looking a little annoyed.
"Yeah..." I answered, looking up and wondering if I should really admit this. "Well, I have a feeling I know what I need to do. It's just a matter of convincing myself to do it."
"Oh, is that it?" she asked. "We've been waiting for you to have the nerve to say what needs saying, huh?"
"Yeah," I answered.
"This is what it takes," she said, looking like she'd made some huge realization. "You need to see someone like Mikuru Asahina on the verge of being swallowed up by the fiery cataclysm that inevitably erupts if you don't have this little chat."
"You make it sound like I'm a big jerk," I complained.
"Did I say that?" she asked, grinning.
"No," I answered, "but I'm definitely getting that gist."
- x -
The puzzle book was nice. Simple answers to simple problems. A test of your means-end analysis skill. Would that everything in life worked like that. No, life is pretty messy at times. People talk to people, and what they often talk about is what people are saying to people about them. You have more than four people in a room, the logic goes flying right out the window. In Haruhi's case, the logic is frequently missing from the start.
Yuki would, of course, point me toward an appropriate linear approximation and tell me that it's within a certain margin of error. That's great if what we're talking about is some predictable form of turbulence. People and their problems aren't weather patterns. But good luck convincing Yuki of that. Then again, maybe Yuki was starting to figure that out. Maybe that's why she was so depressed. It would certainly explain quite a few things Yuki had been complaining about, yesterday evening.
I go by my hunches, and my hunches were telling me that I should take my lunch to the club room. The club room was strangely peaceful, which had always been an ill omen. As I started eating, Koizumi entered, smiling as he took notice of me.
"You seem awfully cheerful," I complained.
"I know," he admitted. "I saw you with a pretty girl I've never seen before. I was wondering..."
"Yes," I answered. "She's that time traveler Haruhi's been looking for."
"I see," he said, sitting across from me at the table. "I have to admit, I wasn't expecting that girl to be quite so attractive."
"You don't tend to believe what Haruhi tells you?" I asked.
"Nonsense," he answered. "If anything, I tend to believe that she understates things. However, in this case, I was thinking that she might have... Well..."
"Oh," I said. She might have been trying to intimidate me with thoughts of my own inadequacy. In other words: "She might have been jealous, is what you're saying?"
"How plainly you put it," he remarked.
"It seems pretty obvious," I stated.
He then thought for a moment and asked me, "Miss Suzumiya hasn't seen her, has she?"
"Should she have?" I asked.
"An interesting question," he answered. "I wonder."
"You aren't that desperate, are you?" I then asked.
"I do have this odd dilemma," he began to explain.
"You do?" I prompted.
He continued, "I've heard this warning from the elders in my organization that a terrible event is approaching. My duty is to try anything I can to stop it, no matter how strange or unusual it may seem."
"You sure they aren't overreacting?" I asked.
He answered, "I did seek out the wisdom of Miss Nagato. This is something I've been warned many times not to do. Nevertheless, she told me not to worry."
"Really?" I said, a little surprised by that.
"Yes," he answered. "She told me that either you would resolve this situation or we would vanish as if we had never existed."
"That does sound like something she would say," I grimly remarked.
He then predictably added, "I can't help but want to make myself available to you, should you need advice or something of that nature."
"Thanks," I answered, "but I think I know what I need to do."
"Oh, okay," he said. "Well, then. I'll just tell you to do your best, and I'll trust that you won't fail."
"Thanks again," I said. "I just have one little thing to ask."
"Yes, what is it?" he prompted.
I then asked him, "What do you think of Yuki? Do you like her at all?"
"I..." he started, then stopped and thought for a moment. He then admitted, "I think we have a lot in common."
"That's not what I asked you," I said.
He responded, "I know what you're asking me, but I'm telling you that it's not something I would casually talk about. Even at the risk of losing my existence."
"So, you like her?" I guessed.
"I don't hate her," he stated. "But I do think she is a little neurotic."
"You make that sound like a bad thing," I complained.
He sighed and then looked very annoyed as he admitted, "She isn't interested in me. Not on a personal level. Okay?"
"Okay," I said.
- x -
I had that itch in my mind that I couldn't scratch again. It felt like this was the second time, but I couldn't figure out how. I just wandered around the town until I noticed Haruhi playing a game at an arcade. It felt like the right time, so I just sighed and entered.
"Hey!" I said, getting her attention away from the fighting game.
"Oh, hey Kyon," she answered. "Here to watch me beat all the high scores?"
"I was just passing by," I said.
"Lucky you," she remarked.
"Yeah," I agreed.
"Anything you feel like confessing?" she asked.
"Anything you wanted to hear?" I asked her.
"Yeah," she answered. "There is one thing."
"What is it?" I asked.
"Why?" she asked, still playing away at her game. "Why do people hate my album?"
This question hit me like a hard punch in the gut. I had thought she might feel a little upset about the reaction to her album, but hate? That's a pretty strong reaction. She then stopped playing and looked directly into my eyes.
"I just don't get it," she bitterly complained.
"No, you don't," I said, matter-of-factly.
"What's that supposed to mean?" she asked, sounding a little upset.
I felt a little upset myself, so I informed her, "It means that you haven't been listening to me. Again."
"What are you trying to say?" she demanded. "Just spit it out."
"I'm saying you really piss me off," I answered. "Okay? You're infuriating."
"What?" she said.
"I really hate how good your music is," I admitted. It really pissed me off to have to admit that, too.
"What?" she softly asked me, as if she wasn't sure whether she believed me.
"I'm jealous," I said.
"That's it?" she asked, still sounding very skeptical.
"Yes," I answered, very direct and very firm. This was all straight from the heart, so even Haruhi couldn't possibly doubt it.
"So, why...?" she started to ask.
"I don't know," I interrupted, getting really annoyed. "Maybe everybody is just stupid. But trust me. It isn't you. It's them."
"Damn right," she said. She was still so annoyed that her hands were shaking, but I think she was okay, now.
