- Chapter 5: Family Talk -

"This is quite delicious, Miss Suzumiya," Chisuga commented after downing another piece of sashimi.

"It's just like in the restaurants," Miss Asahina agreed.

"Heck, it's better!" Tsuruya added.

"Hey, don't forget that Yui helped make it!" Haruhi bestowed a shining grin on those assembled. "And Mikuru, Tsuruya, and Taniguchi helped catch the fish!"

A nice thought. But this sashimi really was suspiciously exquisite. I was willing to bet that Haruhi's powers were still in action, ensuring that top quality fish swam right towards their hooks and that every slice of her knife was perfect.

I was also rather annoyed that everyone seemed more concerned about the deliciousness of the sashimi than about the possibility that Yanami had been taking advantage of Nagato out in the woods.

Although, at least one person's interests were focused even lower than his stomach.

"Man, that salmon was a real fighter!" Taniguchi leaned a half inch closer to Ishigaki. "But I knew I had to bring him in. I couldn't let you ladies go hungry!"

"Um, thanks." Ishigaki was displaying none of the assurance and confidence she'd showed when walking with me. This time she'd managed to get a seat at Haruhi's right, but we were all seated in a big circle, so Taniguchi had just nabbed the seat to Ishigaki's own right after shaking his fist at Koizumi to move him out of the way. I'm sure Koizumi could have trounced Taniguchi in a fist fight, but he was evidently following the way of the pacifist.

I might have intervened on Ishigaki's behalf, but I was busy defending another pure maiden from a licentious male. Yanami was seated next to Nagato on her right side. I would have nabbed the spot to her left, if Koizumi hadn't taken it prior to being ousted by Taniguchi. So I sat to Yanami's right instead, keeping my eyes pointedly on him and Nagato both.

"Kyon!"

Haruhi's sharp call brought me out of my observation. A side-benefit of being seated at Yanami's shoulder was that I was at the point in the circle which was farthest from Haruhi, but that didn't discourage her from talking to me, apparently.

"You're the only one who hasn't said anything about the sashimi we made! Do you not like it, or what?"

"It's great!" I called back to her across the crackle of fire and the long diameter of the circle.

She didn't look entirely satisfied. "You really need to learn to compliment the chef! I shouldn't have to prompt you like this!"

"Sorry!" My voice carried more bitterness than it did sincere apology. Yelling across the campfire like this was a nuisance, it was embarrassing, and it was distracting me from monitoring Yanami's behavior with Nagato. Luckily for me, Haruhi was in too good a mood for it to bother her. She just turned to talk to Miss Asahina and Tsuruya.

I supposed I really should thank Miss Asahina later for catching the fish. Especially considering the fears she had to overcome to do it.

When I turned my eyes back to Yanami, his left hand was making contact with Nagato's wrist. An instant later, he snapped his hand back to his plate, obvious realizing I was watching. What the hell was he doing to her?

Yanami started to fidget. "I have to go to the bathroom," he said to Nagato.

She just looked at him.

"Be right back," he said.

She nodded. I wondered if she understood that he wasn't heading to an actual bathroom out here in the wretched wilderness, or if she just accepted that he was leaving and would return shortly.

Either way, he headed off, and I saw my opportunity. "I have to go to the bathroom, too," I said to Nagato, setting down my plate of half-eaten sashimi.

She just looked at me too, as though pondering why males were suddenly so eager to share their defecation status with her.

"In case anybody wants to know where I am," I explained.

She nodded.

I headed off after Yanami. He wasn't following much of a path through the woods, but it's not like there was one around for him to follow. You got the vague impression that paths had been cut through these woods at some point, but they had all been reclaimed by the forest to varying extents. Your choice was between thick overgrowth and ragged overgrowth. So we both crashed through branches and got slapped back by twigs in retaliation as we proceeded to a secluded spot.

Yanami presumably had noticed that I was following him, but he didn't look back to acknowledge me. Probably he assumed I was just going to take a nearby spot to relieve myself. I didn't, but I averted my eyes when he unzipped.

When he'd finished, and zipped back up, he finally glanced back at me. He still didn't look concerned, though. He just looked away from me and headed back the way he came.

He didn't get more than a couple steps before I planted a hand on his shoulder, bringing him to a halt. "Hey, Yanami. It's time we had a talk."

He raised his eyes way up to my face, but he didn't say a word, and his expression looked blank.

"We both know that Nagato is pretty naive." There was no point in beating around the bush with this guy. "I guess you didn't know that her friends aren't so naive. Tell me what you really did with Nagato this afternoon, and I'll consider letting you off with just a warning."

His expression was still blank. "We talked, like we said."

"Nothing else?"

He blinked. "What else were you expecting?"

Okay. Let me be perfectly clear: I was only interrogating him like this because I wanted to be absolutely sure of what was going on. Despite my aggressive stance, I was ready to believe that Yanami had not laid a finger on Nagato. I was even ready to believe he had no intentions in that regard, that they both saw each other as just friends.

But that innocent little monk act? I wasn't going to believe that for one second.

I seized the front of his t-shirt and leveled my fist at him. "Tell me what you've been doing with Nagato, right now!"

"N-Nothing!" His voice was suddenly a full octave higher. "She's an intellectual colleague, s-s-someone to trade knowledge and ideas with..."

I felt white hot rage at the thought of this vermin manhandling Nagato and now lying to me about it. I gave him a shake that made his jaw rattle. "The truth! Now! Or I swear, I'll punch you."

He flinched and squeezed his eyes shut. "Okay! Okay! I... I have sort of a crush on her. But I swear, I'd never do anything about it." His face flushed with the love confession, but he didn't pause. "I know she's out of my league. She's smart, and kind, and beautiful, and a better programmer than the rest of us put together, and I know I'm a pathetic dweeb." He squeezed eyelids started to press out tears. "I just want to be near her, that's all. She's treated me as a friend, so what was I supposed to do when she invited me on this trip? Say no? When just getting to be with her, and talk with her -"

Much more of that and I was going to be sick. I gave him another shake to shut him up, and opened my mouth to deliver one final warning.

"Kyon!"

I froze.

"A word." She'd delivered that same clipped phrase to me once before, after we found Keiichi Tamaru's "body" in the island mansion. As then, it wasn't a request (did Haruhi ever make requests?), but this time it felt like even less of a request than it was before.

"I'll be with you in one minute," I said. Probably not enough time to get Yanami to tell the truth, but I could tell him exactly what I would do to him if I ever caught him with his hands on Nagato.

"Now."

The implication of that one word was that death would be far preferable to delaying by one more second.

I sighed, let go of Yanami, and walked back to where Haruhi was standing with her arms and her eyebrows both crossed.

Her eyes went briefly to Yanami. "Don't worry about Kyon," she assured him. "I give you my word as chief of the SOS Brigade, no one is going to come to harm on this trip. Are you done with your bathroom break?"

He nodded.

"Good. Go back to the campfire. We'll be back in a few minutes."

Yanami nodded again, and scampered off.

After watching him go, Haruhi grabbed me by the arm and pulled me along with her deeper into the woods. I guess since I wasn't wearing a tie, her choice of things to grab was more limited. "I can't believe what you did back there," she growled. "Acting like a common bully. I let you join the SOS Brigade because I thought you were better than that."

You don't think I'm better than anything. You made me join because you think I'm the lowliest person on the face of the Earth, and therefore more likely to go along with whatever gutter task you give me.

She swiveled her face up towards me. "Why are you sticking your nose into Yuki's personal business, anyway?"

That's rich, coming from you.

"Answer the question! Why were you harassing Yuki's friend?"

I met her glare. "Oh, come on. You don't honestly believe that 'I only wish to be near her divine presence' nonsense?"

"Well, of course not. Only a naive romantic idiot would believe something so stupid. That's not the point. He's Yuki's invited guest, so when you bully him, you disrespect Yuki."

"Even when her invited guest is plotting to defile her?"

"Of course! If he tries something, don't you think Yuki should be the one to put him in his place?"

"That's..." I stumbled over my thought. "Okay, so that would be better. But what if she doesn't put him in his place?"

She turned her head from me, back to the "path" ahead. "Then that's her decision."

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. This, from the all-powerful, all-benevolent, she whose will is never to be questioned, chief of the SOS Brigade? This from the girl who was ready to bring all of North High crashing down around the ears of the Student Council President just to protect Nagato from him?

"What?" Haruhi snapped. "You're thinking something. Out with it!"

I bent my head under a branch. She was still pulling me along by my arm, after all. "You should be more concerned about Nagato. Think about what it would be like for her if Yanami used her like that."

"Of course I'm concerned about Yuki!" Her words were moderate by Haruhi standards, but her face was now flushed and her eyes glared outrage at me. "I care about her ten times as much as you do! You think there's even a day that goes by that I don't worry about how she's going to get along and take care of herself when she doesn't have us anymore?"

Struck dumb, I just averted my eyes from the intense emotion in Haruhi's face.

"But that's the whole thing, Kyon – we can't look after our brigade members forever. We have to let them make some decisions for themselves, and take responsibility for the consequences. Yuki's not a little girl anymore, you know?"

I'm not so sure of that. She know a lot about a lot of things, but not much about love.

"Huh." Haruhi's gaze was suddenly soft. "You think she's still like that? Well, you're wrong. Remember that football player friend of yours? She dealt with him just fine, didn't she?"

"I guess you've got a point," I admitted.

"She's learned a lot since we first met her. She still needs us, for now, but she can handle boys on her own." She shrugged. "Who knows? Maybe Yanami will even turn out to be the guy who makes her happy."

"I really doubt it."

"Yeah, me too. But let Yuki decide that herself, okay?"

"...Okay."

At some point, I couldn't tell you when, Haruhi's hand on my arm had softly slid down to grasp my hand instead. And my hand was grasping hers in turn. It wasn't a big deal, though. In all honesty, it felt perfectly natural, as intuitive and obvious as putting one foot in front of the other.

After a pause, I deferred, "But..."

"What?"

"Nagato has already been spending a lot of her time with the Computer Society instead of the SOS Brigade."

"You were the one who said we should let her go there in the first place."

"Yeah, but I didn't mean for her to leave us for them."

"Honestly, Kyon. You need to have a little more faith in her." She spoke as crisply as the leaves crushing under our feet. "Right now Yuki is having fun with them, learning new things. Maybe she really likes being with Yanami, too. But like you told me, her heart is in the SOS Brigade clubroom. She'll always come back to us, and we'll all be stronger because we supported her. If we forbid her from spending time with the Computer Society now, she'll hate us."

"...I guess that's true." Even if it does sound like you're paraphrasing something you saw on a cheesy sitcom.

"Trust me. Yuki isn't going to abandon the SOS Brigade. Not unless we push her away."

I wondered whatever had happened to the girl who just thought that whatever she said went and that's all there was to it. The girl who thought that if someone rebelled against her orders, the solution was to yell and threaten. Had Haruhi actually learned something from all the times I'd put my foot down and refused to put up with her nonsense?

There was a peaceful silence for a moment, but of course Haruhi had to break it. "Another thing. What the hell is your friend doing with Yui?"

"He has a crush on her. I could have sworn you were just now arguing that it's okay for a guy to have a crush on a girl."

"Ordinarily, yeah. But not when the girl already has a boyfriend!"

I blinked. "Wait, what?"

"Maybe you two think polygamy is all well and good," she sniffed. "But Yui is faithful to her man, and hitting on her right here under my nose is low and disgusting, even for you."

"Whoa, hold on a minute. No one told me Ishigaki had a boyfriend."

She raised an eyebrow. "What are you, deaf? I must have mentioned it to you fifty times."

Haruhi's exaggeration was undoubtedly in action. Besides... "I just met her for the first time on this trip. Do you just expect me to remember who all of your friends are and which of them have boyfriends, like some sort of computer database?"

"Right," she huffed. "Why should I expect you to remember anything that's important to me?"

Good grief. "Look, I didn't know she had a boyfriend, okay? Taniguchi might not know, either."

"If you don't bother to find out whether or not a girl has a boyfriend, then you don't really have a crush on her."

I couldn't really see the logic in that, but it was true that someone as fastidious about girls as Taniguchi had to know that Ishigaki had a boyfriend. "I'll talk to him, okay? It's probably just some mistake. Even if it's not, I'll get him to back off."

"You'd better. People making my friends uncomfortable on an SOS Brigade trip is one thing I won't stand for!"

"Trust me. Taniguchi is a more reasonable guy than he seems."

"Well, of course I trust you."

It struck me that we'd been walking for quite a while at this point, and I still had no idea where we were headed. Presumably Haruhi knew, but – No, cancel that thought. It would be perfectly in character for Haruhi to lead me through miles of woods without ever giving consideration to what our destination might be.

Oddly enough, that didn't bother me in the least.

In fact, at that moment none of it bothered me. Nagato's relationship with Yanami, Taniguchi's hopeless pursuit of a girl who was spoken for, Ishigaki's mistaken ideas about me and Haruhi, Goro Mishima's mysterious plan, even Haruhi's wayward powers... They were all just problems for us to confront and either solve or just push through. Nothing could overcome us.

I suddenly felt the weight of Haruhi's head leaning against me. She was still walking, hand still holding mine, but her eyes were closed and her head was resting on my side.

"What's up?" I said.

"I'm tired."

Not too surprising. Haruhi's constant hyperactive state meant that she went very abruptly from belting out orders and running up and down the walls to being barely able to lift her head. She'd probably spent her last energy arguing with me.

"Come on," I said, turning in the direction of the camp. "Let's get you to your tent."

She made a murmur of weak disapproval.

"Don't be difficult. We've got a big day tomorrow, remember? Can't have the fashion show ruined because the brigade chief was too tired to do the rehearsal."

"You don't give the orders," she grunted. But she didn't pull her head away from me.

"If anyone asks, we'll tell them you ordered me to bring you back to the tent."

"Mmm. Sounds good..." She yawned, and leaned her head a little heavier against me. Her hand relaxed, and I allowed it to slowly slip away from mine.

It was funny. It hadn't even been half a day that Haruhi had been using our camping guests to create distance between the two of us, and already her annoyance with me seemed cured. Or maybe it was just a random shift in her mood. It didn't feel like it, though.

It belatedly struck me that there was something familiar about Haruhi leaning her head against me. She'd done the same thing on our first date, right here at Lake Tenapa. That was just coincidence, though. There was nothing romantic about her leaning against me; she really was sleepy. Don't ask me how, but I could tell she wasn't feigning.

When we reached the girls' tent, the campfire was still burning, and though it was a bit distant, it looked like everyone else was still gathered around it. I gave a light rap at the entrance just to be sure, and then parted the flap and stepped inside. By this point I had to put an arm around Haruhi's shoulders to keep her from flopping over. Thankfully she'd left her sleeping bag open and ready for her, no doubt in preparation for her sudden sleepiness, so I was able to just lay her in.

My plan was to then get out of there so she could change into her pajamas, but she muttered, "Zip me up."

If she had no problem sleeping in her clothes, well, I couldn't find a real objection to that order. I tucked her arm and leg in and pulled the zipper all the way up to her shoulders. She looked just as she did when I woke from my coma, like a caterpillar pupating, sleepily awaiting the day she could emerge as a butterfly.

"Not bad," she murmured. "You're a pretty decent underling, you know..."

That was apparently her last bit of strength, because with one last sigh her breathing fell into a low and even pattern.

A really weird urge hit me. I wished I could crawl into the next sleeping bag and go to sleep there. Not with any perverted ideas that I might somehow get to see the other girls undress, but because I wanted to be close to Haruhi.

I guess I was pretty tired myself. And Haruhi really did look like a piece of heaven when she was sleeping.

Even so, it was just a fleeting thought. After taking a moment to carefully push a few stray strands of hair out of Haruhi's face, I backed out of the tent and closed the entrance.

When I turned around, I saw Miss Asahina standing there.