Author's notes: Recognize the phrase "Parallel Sidestory I"? Yep, this is a fic based on a manga-exclusive story. Don't click that back button if you haven't read the HS manga, though; everything you need to know is in this fic's summary. "Parallel Sidestory I" is a very short story which establishes very little about the alternate universe it's set in, so I'm taking its simple premise of the SOS Brigade being a talent agency and running with it.

I have no idea how many stories there will be in this series and even less idea when the later stories will be published, so I'm just marking this as complete (since the component stories are all complete of themselves and the series as a whole will be complete the moment I stop writing it, unlike a novel where I could stop writing without it being complete). However, I do already have rough ideas for two more stories in this series, so I expect there to be at least three.

The cover art was done by the magnificent Pierce, to whom I am most thankful.

The characters and milieu of this fan fiction work are property of Nagaru Tanigawa.

A Dire Shortage of Monetary Assets

"Board meeting!"

Board meeting? I glanced over at the ever-obnoxious president of SO3 Studio, who had jumped to her feet, a sudden urgency in her eyes. "That's quite a difficult request for a company that doesn't have a board," I pointed out.

"Who says you have to have a board?" she demanded. "We're a company, and companies have board meetings!"

Even the "meeting" part would be quite a leap. The SO3 Studio talent agency had just four employees at present: myself, studio idol Mikuru Asahina, Vice President Itsuki Koizumi, and the President herself, Haruhi Suzumiya. And since the lovely Miss Asahina and myself had no rank, we essentially had no say in anything the company did.

"Just talk to Koizumi about whatever you need to talk about, and knock off this 'meeting' nonsense," I muttered.

"All employees must be present!" Suzumiya shouted.

Right. We're all sitting right here in the room.

"Shall I take a roll call, Miss Suzumiya?" Koizumi suggested.

"That won't be necessary," she said, completely oblivious to the mockery of his suggestion. Then her face turned grim. "As you all know, we've been having a hard time since the top idol signed to our agency, Yuki Nagato, mysteriously disappeared. Basically, it's been back to square one."

Maybe if a certain someone had listened to my advice and arranged for Miss Asahina to share a few bills with Miss Nagato, instead of putting all our eggs in one basket, we'd still have at least one idol bringing in money.

"Now, we did have plenty of money in our coffers from our successes with Yuki..."

Or we would have, if you hadn't kept blowing her profits on extravagant parties and insane promotions like that spaceship model on the top of the SO3 skyscraper.

"...and we have had some money coming in, like that breath mint commercial Mikuru appeared in..."

That was me who arranged that.

"...not to mention those 'booth babe' jobs at trade shows..."

Me again. Okay, I'm not exactly proud of scheduling Miss Asahina to appear in skimpy clothes at crowded events with the task of making men in suits drool, but we do have to get money from somewhere, and if I don't contribute a few ideas, I wouldn't put it past Suzumiya to reduce Miss Asahina to posing for photos in dirty magazines.

"...but it's not enough in the long run. Our reserves are dried up." She reached into her desk and pulled out a small bundle of familiar slips. Her face went from grim like a soldier looking an overwhelming horde in the eye to disconsolate like a girl whose puppy has just died. "These are the last paychecks the SO3 Studio can afford to pay you. You're all... free to go. I'll be happy to give any of you a good reference."

Her voice was so desolate as she spoke those words. A little gasp of sympathy came from Miss Asahina, who clutched her hands to her heart and looked at our president with tears brimming. I might have felt some sympathy too, if it weren't for the fact that those were obviously our paychecks for last week's work, meaning she was stiffing us for the days we'd worked this week. Even in defeat, Suzumiya was greedy and selfish.

A silence reigned over the office. Koizumi's usual verbose and logical platitudes would have been no help in the face of our mutual layoff. Miss Asahina was understandably struck mute with distress. I had plenty of things I would like to say to our president, but every one of them would be seen as callous and inappropriate right now. SO3 Studio had met its bitter end. However relieved I personally was that it was over, I couldn't expect my complacent co-workers to feel the same.

I wondered how long I would have to sit here in awkward silence before I could take my paycheck and leave this wretched office, which was sweltering hot in the summer months and chill and drafty the rest of the year.

"Um... Miss Suzumiya?" Miss Asahina timidly raised her hand. Haruhi was staring down at her desk, so she didn't see this gesture, and Miss Asahina decided after a few seconds that it would be okay to proceed. "I, um, don't have many prospects out there... By now even you must realize that nobody wants to hear a timid, squeaky-voiced girl like me sing."

Then everybody is a bunch of fools. You'll always be an idol in my eyes, Miss Asahina.

"You've kept me on, even with how unpopular I am, and I..." She clenched her fist with sudden resolve. "...I really believe that this agency is the only place which will even give me a chance to succeed! Even if someone else signs me, after a few weeks they'll just forget about me while they focus their efforts on promoting their big stars."

You mean like Suzumiya did to you the moment Yuki Nagato showed up?

"So, if... if it's okay with you... I want to stay with the agency. I'm sure we'll get another break sooner or later, and I can go without pay until then!"

Haruhi stared at her. "Mikuru..."

Koizumi had been stern-faced for a while, but now he cracked one of his smiles. "Well, if the hard-working Mikuru Asahina is willing to stay on without pay, then I suppose I must, as well. I come from a wealthy family, and while I would loathe to have to turn to them for money, I do have a safety net in case the agency's luck remains bad. I can afford to put my faith in SO3 Studio."

Miss Asahina's speech was more moving.

Everyone turned to look at me. When it occurred to me why, my one thought was: Good grief.

"Well," I sighed. "I guess I don't have any good job offers lined up yet anyway, so I might as well stay on too. Work without pay is still better than having another gap in my resume."

"Very true," Koizumi said, grinning like he knew I was hiding my true sentiments.

In fact, I was, but not in the way Koizumi thought. I had been looking for a better job for months now, and just recently had had two promising interviews. One in particular, with Bic Camera, had ended with the interviewer all but promising me a job. I just needed to wait until someone called me back, and then I could confidently say goodbye to SO3 Studio. Even if I didn't get either job, I still was going to quit SO3 Studio by the end of the day tomorrow. I'd rather be unemployed than work for Haruhi Suzumiya for no pay, but it wouldn't hurt to play along with the group camaraderie for one day. I didn't want my leaving to become a big scene. With Haruhi involved, that would be hazardous to my health.

"It's settled, then!" Haruhi thrust a finger towards the sky. Or towards the ceiling, I suppose. "SO3 Studio lives on!" With a smile powerful enough to fire off lazer beams, she turned her finger on us. "So I'm expecting each and every one of you to be back here tomorrow by 9:00 sharp! We've got to continue our search for the star of tomorrow!"

Rah, rah.

"For now, you can all go home and enjoy your paychecks. I'll lock up."

We got up and gathered our things. Despite knowing we were now off the payroll, we all had cheerful faces on. Koizumi and Asahina perhaps because they were foolishly thinking that Haruhi's optimism was enough to turn our fortunes around, and me because I already had a lifeboat ready to disembark from this sinking ship.

Oh, I was a little worried about Miss Asahina. Not too much, though. Loyal though she was to Suzumiya, she did have enough survival instinct to get out before she starved. If necessary, I could talk her into leaving. After all, once I quit Haruhi wouldn't be able to ban me from talking to her outside of work anymore.

As I was bending down to pull some things from one of my desk's lower drawers, I heard Koizumi speak up: "Not packing everything up, are you?"

I fumbled around. "What do you mean?"

"You usually don't bring your 3DS home with you."

Creepily observant as usual. I kept it cool, though. "I'm at a good spot in this game. I want to get through it tonight."

"Ah. Well, I'll see you tomorrow."

He left. I grabbed my things and ran off after him for the exit before Suzumiya could think of some strange new task to throw at me at the last second. It wouldn't be the first time she'd coerced me into working while off the clock. Labor laws were like an alien language to her.

I boarded a bus and headed back to my cozy little bachelor pad. Okay, okay... I can't lie to you. I moved back in with my parents a couple months after Yuki Nagato left us. What else could I do while working for a poor outfit like SO3 Studio? During the year of Nagato, Haruhi had been generous enough with the bonus checks that I could rent a place of my own, but with the superstar cash flow gone, sooner or later I had to face reality and return to being that greatest of social stigmas: the grown man still living with his parents.

While swaying along with the bus's movements, I decided I might as well call Bic Camera and follow up. I slipped my hand into my pocket, and...

Nothing.

There was a brief moment of confusion, and then the urge to bang my head against the metal pole I was holding onto. I'd forgotten my phone back at the office.

This was worse than an inconvenience. If Haruhi locked up without noticing my phone, I'd likely miss that key phone call. On the other hand, if the phone should ring while Haruhi was still there, she would think nothing of answering it in my stead. And if it were Bic Camera calling, she would make very careful, purposeful inquiries until she had figured out exactly who was calling, why they were calling me, and exactly how long ago I had applied for this job so she could calculate the exact number of consecutive death penalties I merited. And to ensure she had the opportunity to exact them, she'd give the good people at Bic Camera a less than glowing review of my job performance.

I informed the bus driver of the situation, being careful to use the appropriate tone of voice and the correct gestures to indicate my sheer panic and urgent need to get off the bus. Once I'd disembarked, I ran the three blocks back to the office.

I arrived back at the office doors sweating and panting heavily. Working at a talent agency does not exactly keep you in shape. The doors were still unlocked, and I couldn't let Haruhi see me in this state. I straightened up and took a few deep breaths to get my breathing back to normal. Then I went in.

Suzumiya was not immediately in sight. Maybe I could get in and out without bumping into her. That would be the sort of crazy good luck I never had, but who knows? I hurried over to my desk.

That was when I noticed the noise. It was definitely subtle, but strange. I turned.

It was Haruhi. Pacing between the filing cabinets, wearing a t-shirt and sweatpants, eyes dreamily looking up at the ceiling, stirring some curry in a pan.

I gaped for a moment, partly because of the incongruous combination of her domestic accoutrements and demeanor, and partly because her figure looked damn good in a t-shirt. Then I managed: "Haruhi?"

"Hrmm?" She took her eyes off the ceiling and looked at me. "Kyouaaauughhhh!"

The surprise had caused her to tip her hand a bit, spilling hot curry on the front of her white t-shirt. Her eyes now wide with pain and something resembling alarm, she fled back to the office kitchen. While listening to the charming sound of her cursing as she washed curry off her t-shirt, I glanced around for some explanation of this bizarre encounter. On the floor, between two of the desks, was set a sleeping bag and pillow.

Haruhi came racing back and seized me by my tie, strangling me. "What are you doing back here?!" she demanded.

After a couple of seconds of choking, she realized that she wasn't allowing me the air I needed to respond, so she gave my tie a bit more slack. "I forgot my cell phone," I gasped. "Haruhi, are you sleeping in the office?"

"Why didn't you just borrow someone else's phone and call me and ask me to bring it to you, instead of coming all the way back here and bursting in without warning? Honestly, you have no common sense!" She flung me away from her, nearly making me trip over the chair behind me.

Right, like you'd ever agree to bring my cell phone all the way over to my apartment. You just wish I'd given you notice that it was here so you could snoop through it without me around. But I wasn't going to let her get me off topic. I repeated: "Are you sleeping in the office?"

"Hmm? Oh, yeah," she said, as though it had just occurred to her now that I had walked in on her cooking dinner. "Yeah, it seemed like a good night for a sleepover."

A sleepover by yourself? No, not buying that. You hate being alone so much, you even hired staff for this agency before you had any clients or connections. Either Koizumi is here, hiding in a closet, or -

"Okay, okay! Fine!" Her face went red. "You caught me. I'm living here! I've been living here ever since we moved into these offices! Haruhi Suzumiya, president of the SO3 Studio, is homeless. Are you happy now?"

For a moment I just fumbled for words, lips moving feebly but without anything coming out of them. There she stood, Haruhi Suzumiya, face red with humiliation, her humble means laid out before me. It was a bizarre sight, a sight I now knew I never wanted to see.

"But why?" I finally managed. "You draw a paycheck three times as big as mine."

She gave me a condescending scowl. "Which part of 'We have no more money for paychecks' don't you understand? Once we had to give up the skyscraper space for our offices, I knew I had to make some sacrifices to keep SO3 Studio afloat. I took the money I had been spending on rent and put it towards our capital. The only alternative was to fire someone." Then she looked away in shame. "I thought if I stuck it out for a while, we'd turn things around and I'd be able to have a nice apartment and give everyone fat bonus checks again. In the end, I just postponed the inevitable for a little while."

So that was it. Now I understood why Haruhi hadn't told us until today that these would be our last paychecks. She didn't mean to take advantage of us. She just didn't see where SO3 Studio was headed. She had honestly believed, right up until the last minute, that we would find another big star before it was too late. That there was no point in telling us we were down to our last paychecks, because before it came to that we'd get our big break and our pay would continue to come out week after week. She'd believed in this agency with all her heart, and assumed that the universe would play fair with her. But the universe never played fair. And the universe certainly never played by Haruhi's warped rules.

Even though sometimes, I wish I lived in a universe that did.

"Okay, you've had your laugh," Haruhi said, though I hadn't so much as snickered since entering the building. "Now take your stupid phone and get – No, wait. First, clean up that mess!" She pointed to a spoonful of curry that had ended up on the floor instead of on her. "It's your fault, after all."

"My fault? You were the one carrying it."

"What kind of sense does that make? You come in here without advance notice, lunge out of the shadows and startle me, and say it's my fault just because I was carrying it? That's like a bank robber saying it's the bank's fault because they were holding the money."

"All I did was say your name. You didn't have to freak out."

"'Freak out'? I didn't freak out. You've never even seen me freak out."

Good grief. If that's true, I hate to even imagine what you freaking out would entail.

"Now, get cleaning!"

Clearly I wasn't going to win this argument. I got out the paper towels and did as the boss said.

The boss. Funny how the boss had humbled herself to living in our shabby little office, just so she could keep her employees on the payroll. I couldn't think of many bosses who would do that.

And here I had been thinking of how greedy and selfish she was. Dammit.

I'd gotten the whole thing wrong. I had liked Haruhi less and less the longer I knew her, because she never showed any humility or generosity. But that was only because for someone in her position, running a failing company, the only way she could be humble or generous was by making sacrifices. And to Haruhi, making sacrifices was a sign of failure. She had to keep it hidden from us, so she wouldn't be humiliated.

I thought back on a lot of the conclusions I'd drawn about her over the years, and questioned them for the first time. I questioned whether she'd really organized that benefit show to help the homeless for publicity reasons. I questioned whether giving Koizumi's little nieces and nephews a tour of the SO3 Studio offices was really just because she got a kick out of annoying me. I questioned whether it had really been Miss Asahina who had put a little leftover sushi plate on my desk last Tuesday, or if it was the woman who had been living here.

I walked over to the kitchen, where Haruhi was back to stirring the curry. She barely gave me a side glance. "What, do you need me to say goodbye? Goodbye."

"Haruhi, listen," I sighed. "I know it's been hard since Nagato left us, and not just because of the money flow issues. We all miss having her quiet, stoic face around."

"Actually, I'm not too bothered by that."

"You're... not?" After the inner monologue I'd just had, this show of insensitivity was rather jarring.

"I mean, at first I was, but when I sat and thought about it, I started to feel like her meeting us when she did was sort of a cosmic mistake. Like, we were actually supposed to meet her later in life, and she left us because she realized that mistake. And that means we'll meet her again. It may be years from now, but someday we'll meet again, and this time our friendship will last."

She sounded like she really believed it. The way she said it, I could almost believe it myself. I must have hit my head or something.

"Anyway, what's your point?" she demanded.

I took a second to recall my train of thought. "Just, I know this is hard, but we're going to get through it."

"I know that," she said, but her suddenly sullen tone said she didn't know it at all. "Damn it." She turned off the stove. "I had barely enough for a meal as it was, and then you made me spill a bunch."

"Sorry."

"Why didn't you just quit when I gave you the option, anyway?" she snapped. "You obviously hate working here."

This startlingly brutal and even more startlingly accurate assessment came completely out of nowhere. And maybe it should have left me taken aback, and maybe even feeling a bit guilty, but Haruhi looked so cute when she was in the grip of depression and despair that I could only smile. "Do I really, though?"

"Yes." Her eyebrow raised at my response.

"Maybe I've just had a bad attitude, because I didn't see that you were struggling just as hard to make this agency work as any of us." I had her caught off-guard now, and I wanted to press my advantage. So I said this without giving it any thought: "Let me make it up to you. Forget the curry and let's go out someplace, my treat."

Now I had really thrown her for a loop, much to my satisfaction. "Y-you can't afford that!" she protested. "You're on your last paycheck!"

Didn't you just say that you knew we were going to get through this? "It's my paycheck. I'll spend it how I want."

"And you can't expect me to go out looking like this!"

This was an objection for the books. Haruhi's idea of "formal" was a wrinkled shirt and tie.

I looked at the office clock. "I'll give you ten minutes to get changed or whatever."

"What!? You can't give me orders!"

"Of course not." I gave her a very pleasant smile. "You don't have to come if you can't get ready that quickly. I'll just have to do without your company."

I knew I'd win this one. Haruhi would never turn down a free meal, even if she were a billionaire.

"Hmmph." She abandoned the curry and stomped off into a storage room, which I guess was where she'd been keeping her clothes. "If you leave without me, I'm docking your pay!"

Uh, I don't have any pay for you to dock. ...Old habits die hard, I guess.

While she was getting changed, I looked around for my phone. It wasn't on top of my desk, which is the only place I could think of where I might have left it, so I started aimlessly opening up desk drawers. There it was, in the top one.

I brought it out of sleep to see if I had gotten a call from either of my job prospects. Not that it mattered; there was no way that I could take another job now. But the only new thing was a text message from Koizumi: "Let me know when you find it."

Find what? What was I supposed to be looking...

I went rigid. "That... bastard..."

I hadn't simply forgotten my phone. And Koizumi hadn't been fooled by my agreeing to stay with SO3 Studio. While I was digging things out of my desk drawers, he must have covertly taken my phone off of my desk and slipped it into a drawer I had already gone through.

He knew that Haruhi was living here. He knew that I'd come back to get my phone, and that I'd find her still here. He knew that once I saw what she was doing to keep this agency alive, I'd change my mind.

Damn him. Someday, I'll get him back for this.

"Alright, let's go!" Haruhi chirped behind me.

I turned around. She was wearing a red sleeveless blouse and a studded black skirt. It was enough to do justice to her natural good looks, yet not enough to make me look underdressed in my simple business suit. I had to admit that Haruhi had a good intuition for certain things.

She grabbed my arm and hauled me with her towards the exit. "So, where are we going?" she asked.

"Wherever you like." Even though she asked, I'm sure she'd prefer going somewhere she'd picked herself. Besides, I couldn't think of any good places off the top of my head.

"You better hope those aren't famous last words. I'm not a cheap date!"

Only an idiot would think you might be.

The ironic thing was, I don't think either of us gave a thought to our monetary situation for the rest of the night.

END