- Chapter 6: Decision? -

Miss Asahina's eyes were wide with astonishment, and wet with brimming tears. Her left hand clutched at her right arm in a desperate attempt to steady it, while her right hand was clenched adorably at her chest, yet still lay far enough to the right to offer a view of her white blouse's buttons and the wonderful gap between them. Her rosy lips were parted, seemingly allowing the release of a cry that her voice box could not produce.

I wanted to say something myself, but I couldn't think of anything, and I was afraid to break the quiet of the evening, the only noise being insect hums and the conversation of our companions by the fireside.

Then Miss Asahina turned and strode away into the woods.

I plunged in after her. "Miss Asahina!" I hissed in a whisper, wanting to stop her but afraid of drawing the attention of the others. "Miss Asahina!"

She didn't stop, but she didn't break into a full run, either. I could have reached out and grabbed her arm, but the thought of being at all forceful with her seemed so repugnant. So I just kept pace with her, tossing out whispered cries that were completely ignored.

At last she stopped. "L-l-leave me alone, Kyon," she choked out.

"Miss Asahina, it's not what you think." I almost laughed, because the situation suddenly seemed so ridiculous. Here we were, running through the woods, getting thwacked by twigs and cut by thorns, and for what? "I was just putting Haruhi to bed. She was too tired to walk back to the tent herself."

"Oh, really." She humphed and folded her arms. "I suppose that explains why you were holding hands, too."

"Well, uh..."

"Yes, it all makes sense." She was starting to sound giddy. "Miss Suzumiya was so tired, she had to get up and walk into the woods to fetch you, since of course only you could take her to bed, and not any of the six people seated around her."

"That's not exactly how..."

"And of course the simple task of ordering you to carry her back to the tent she just walked away from takes a half hour."

"A half hour? Come on. You're exaggerating."

"Naturally there's nothing suspect about the fact that when Yanami came back from talking to you two, he had no idea what you were still doing out there."

I flung up my hands. "Miss Asahina, will you please just let me explain?"

She didn't answer me, but the caustic tone suddenly dropped from her voice. "It's alright, Kyon. Really. I could see from the beginning that you were drawn to Miss Suzumiya. It started small, but lately it's like you can't hold yourself back from her anymore."

This was beyond ridiculous. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"I first noticed it when we were in the last stages of our literary magazine, and I walked in to see you ripping each other's clothes off -"

"I told you, no one was ripping anyone's clothes off! You completely imagined that!" It was really starting to feel like I was talking to Haruhi here. "Haruhi was just fighting to get the last piece of my story from me."

She sniffed. "That doesn't make any sense. Why wouldn't you want the editor of the literary magazine to see the story that you'd written for the magazine?"

"Well, ah..."

"Unless of course," her voice got higher. "...you were looking for an excuse to wrestle with her."

"Why would I do something like that, even if I were attracted to Haruhi?"

"Really, Kyon, you don't have to deny it for my sake anymore. It's obvious now." She heaved out a breath that seemed to release her tension, and her voice turned low and resigned, like the heroine in the final act of a tragedy. "It doesn't make sense to fight it, either. You were meant to be together... In my present, it's already happened..."

"What?" Miss Asahina's words dealt an unpleasant shock to my heart. "What are you saying? Do you mean that in the future you come from, there's a historical record of Haruhi and me being romantically involved?"

She turned to face me, and slowly nodded. "I didn't want you to end up with her... but I always knew you would..."

"There has to be some mistake. Couldn't it be referring to that one week where Haruhi and I dated?"

She shook her head. "It... It goes much deeper than that."

No way. "It has to be wrong." The whole idea was too absurd. Too terrifying. Flat out insane. "The SOS Brigade's enemies could have falsified those records."

"That's not possible. Ever since time travel was fully developed, people have been monitoring for those sorts of alterations." She sighed. "This... this is the way it has to be…"

The way it has to be? The only outcome? I knew Miss Asahina too well to think she might be mistaken. So that's what the future is? There's nothing for us to even decide? All of it is just predetermined, set in stone, with no allowance whatsoever for our free will?

"...No."

I refused. I could accept all the other burdens Haruhi Suzumiya had carelessly tossed onto my shoulders, but not this. It was much too soon for writing off the rest of my life.

"Listen to me," – I grabbed Miss Asahina by the shoulders, drawing an adorable gasp from her – "The future may be your reality, but I'm not going to let it run my life! I decide my own fate, you got that?"

"Y-y-yes..." She trembled. "B-but then... What exactly is it that you decide? What are you going to do?"

I didn't even have to think about it. I didn't want Haruhi. If someone else out there does, good for you. Ask her out so that I can get a break from her. But however much I might like her and even care about her, I emphatically did not want her.

Miss Asahina was small and trembling in my arms – except for her chest, which was large and heaving. In her eyes was the faint hint of expectation, and fragile hope. Her lips quivered, wet and smooth.

It was utterly obvious. I don't know what kind of guy might want someone else over Miss Asahina, but only an idiot or a homosexual would want someone else over her at that moment. Instead of being controlling, Miss Asahina was accommodating. Instead of being tough and argumentative, she was soft and vulnerable. Miss Asahina's sweet femininity was in every way a breath of fresh air.

I bent my head toward her waiting mouth. She showed no fear or inclination to back away, and I didn't expect any. This was right, and we both knew it. I closed my eyes to let myself be immersed in the sweet embrace.

The universe may have chosen another girl for me, but I had chosen this one.

...I stopped. Not because my lips had connected with Miss Asahina's. Opening my eyes, I saw I was still a mouse's breath away from her.

My heart, my entire body, had been gripped with the iron hand of fear. What if Haruhi is watching you two right now? it whispered. What if she sees you kissing Miss Asahina?

I swallowed, and pulled back a portion of a centimeter.

It was enough to make Miss Asahina realize something was wrong. "What is it?" she asked.

Her voice stirred me enough to fight the fear. I had let Haruhi take control of too much of my life already. I couldn't let her take control of my feelings and affections. Kiss her, you idiot, and damn Haruhi if she's watching. You've got the most beautiful girl in the world in your arms. How long have you waited for this moment? Are you going to let it slip by just because of the shadow of a girl who wants to run your life?

It was no good. The more I argued, the more I felt sick with fear. It reached the point where just the thought of my lips contacting Miss Asahina's made me feel like throwing up.

"Kyon! What is it?" Her eyes were pinched with worry.

It was no use. For Miss Asahina's sake if nothing else, I had to give up this losing battle. "It's late," I said. "I've got to get to bed."

"But..."

Her eyes searched mine.

"...But you do believe... that I care for you... Don't you, Kyon?"

She looked at me as though her very life depended on the answer. "...Yes," I said. "I'll see you tomorrow."

What a lame answer. At least she didn't look too horribly hurt by it. She just nodded weakly, and headed back to the girls' tent.

Which left me standing there in the middle of the woods, probably looking every bit the fool I was.

Crap. Crap. Crap! The one girl who's worth hanging on to more than any other you've met, and you just let her walk away. You really are completely stupid. When it comes to girls, even Taniguchi is a genius compared to you.

The fear that Haruhi would see us didn't hold up from any angle. Haruhi was sound asleep in her tent, and I would know, because I'd put her there. If I were paranoid, I could argue that she might have been woken by my encounter with Miss Asahina and crawled out of her sleeping bag to investigate, but the fact was that Haruhi was too sound a sleeper for that to be believable. Even if she had done that, she couldn't have followed us into the woods without alerting us to her presence with snapping branches and crunching leaves. The possibility of Haruhi observing me kiss Miss Asahina was positively 0%.

And even if she were watching us, so what? Haruhi of six months ago might have destroyed the world in outrage at my defiling her precious Mikuru, but today's Haruhi wouldn't destroy the world for any reason. Today's Haruhi had friends, real friends, and she enjoyed her life. The days where the only thing of value she saw in this world was a sullen classmate who she'd only known a few weeks were well behind her. She could lose both her parents in a car accident and it still wouldn't make her want to destroy the world right now.

If anything, I should have been hoping Haruhi was watching us kiss. It would be one more thing to ensure that the future where Haruhi and I are together never comes to pass.

Damn it all. Why does Haruhi have control over every part of my life?

I slumped back towards the boys' tent. I really was ready for bed. Especially knowing that Haruhi was bound to wake us all up early tomorrow.

What made Haruhi's interference in my attempted kiss worse was there was something familiar about it. I hadn't been able to pinpoint it at first, but as soon as I tried to forget about the whole thing and think about something else, it came to me. During those time traveling missions, when I left Miss Asahina at Nagato's apartment, and she asked me to stay with her, and I thought about spending the night in that little apartment with just the two lovely girls, my fantasy was interrupted by the image of Haruhi mocking me.

So that's how it is, Haruhi? I can hold your hand without the least bit of worry that Miss Asahina will see, but I can't even think about other girls without seeing you looming over me? You can spend a whole week making out with that toad Takuma, but I can't see what it's like to kiss Miss Asahina just once?

I knew that Haruhi wasn't actually doing it deliberately. She clearly had no interest in my love life, much less a desire to control every element of it. It was just that she was so controlling and authoritarian in general, I had let it become a part of my subconscious and grow into my personal superego. It was ultimately the fault of my own weakness. But even recognizing that, I couldn't help but vent my internal frustration at Haruhi.

I opened the tent flap, careful not to disturb it too much. With the shoddy job we'd done, it wouldn't take much for the tent to collapse.

"Good evening," Koizumi said, nearly giving me a heart attack. It had gotten pretty dark out, and while Miss Asahina had still been visible enough by moon and fading daylight, the lopsided, often overlapping fabric of the tent created some heavy shadows.

My eyes darted around, but so far as I could see we were the only two people in the tent.

"She's getting rather desperate, isn't she?" he remarked.

"Good night," I said, rolling out my sleeping bag. I was in no mood for an extended conversation with Koizumi.

"My comment about Miss Suzumiya wanting to rekindle your relationship was intended to bait her into tipping her hand, but this is even better than I had hoped."

"Provide context, or I'm just going to let your words bore me to sleep." I climbed into my sleeping bag.

"I thought the context was obvious from the mere fact that I am sitting here right now." I had my back to him, but I heard him shift so that he was looming over me. "While I could not follow the two of you into the woods without giving myself away, by careful listening I was able to pick up the general tone of your discussion with Miss Asahina, if not the details."

Now he had my attention. "You were spying on us?"

"Not by design. When Miss Suzumiya excused herself from the campfire, I positioned myself to see what mood she was in when she got back from talking to you. I was more than satisfied to see you escort her to bed – and devilishly curious, as well, but I'll let the two of you have your privacy."

"Such as it is," I muttered.

"Please don't fret. I assure you, I neither saw nor heard anything else of what transpired between you and Miss Suzumiya," – a grin crept into his voice – "...even if it would be very easy to speculate from that one image."

"You'd speculate wrong."

"At any rate, my position allowed me to witness Miss Asahina arrive. You could hardly expect me to cover my eyes and ears at that point."

"You could have spoken up."

"And that would not have irritated you? If true, I find that astonishing."

I fully sat up. "All right. What's your point?"

"I have no point. I was merely commenting on something that you surely noticed yourself."

"Which is what?"

"That Miss Asahina, to put it in simple turns, put on a Haruhi Suzumiya act for you. She realized that despite her being utterly docile and accommodating, she was losing your heart to Miss Suzumiya. So she finally resorted to imitating her competition's tricks, or what she thought were tricks: Being possessive and unreasonable." He shone the light from his cell phone in my face, making me squint. "But I see that you did not yield to her temptations. Not a trace of Miss Asahina's lipstick."

I pushed his phone out of the way. "All right, I admit that storming off and not listening to a word I say is more of a Haruhi line than a Miss Asahina line. But if you think I'm going to mistrust her because of that, you're dead wrong."

"You misunderstand me. I don't want you to mistrust Miss Asahina. We both may need to rely upon her in the future. No pun intended." He held the phone light up to his own solemnly smiling face. "I merely want you to recognize that she has been making a play for you, whether for honest reasons or dishonest ones, and that it is failing. You have reserved your heart for someone else. The sooner you recognize that and stop your playing with Miss Asahina, the better for all of us, Miss Asahina included."

"That song is old," I yawned. "Shouldn't you be more concerned with Goro Mishima than my personal life?"

"While Mishima is dangerous, there is little we can do until he makes a move. In all likelihood he is just routinely observing Miss Suzumiya."

I felt like slapping myself upside the head. I'd been so worried about Nagato and Yanami, it didn't occur to me that I hadn't actually told Koizumi about the scheme Mishima had referred to, and that I hadn't told Nagato or Miss Asahina that he was around at all. I summed up what he'd said for Koizumi.

"That is concerning," he agreed.

"Do you have any idea what he's planning?"

"Even assuming he's not using misdirection, I have only very general ideas to suggest. Even those I cannot share with you, since they involve secrets which are my colleagues' and not just my own. However, I will say this: It is likely that his plan involves harming one of our party. And not necessarily one of the SOS Brigade."

Damn. "We'll have to talk Haruhi into calling the trip off."

"I doubt we could succeed at that. Besides, Goro Mishima will execute his plan at some point. Canceling this trip would only delay the threat by a few days. At least this way we'll have a rough idea of when and where he'll strike, and there are fewer innocent people in the way. I'll inform Miss Nagato and Miss Asahina right now, and my own comrades of course. We'll take every precaution."

I heard him move through the flap of the tent entrance, and I lay back down. It was a nice night, for a change. Cool but not chill, with a faint breeze that whispered through the surrounding woods like a forest spirit gently hushing the wildlife under her care.

Why did I trust Koizumi, anyway? Mishima was right about him not having done anything to earn my trust, and I wasn't gullible enough to believe in him just because Haruhi happened to select him for the SOS Brigade. If anything, that selection made me wonder if he hadn't worked some underhanded influence on Haruhi. I wasn't trusting him based on all the times he'd told me I shouldn't trust him, either. I'll admit I'm not one of the brightest guys on the face of the planet, but I do know how reverse psychology works.

He'd done plenty of stuff to make me distrust him, too. I had no reason to believe him when he said he didn't anticipate how upset Haruhi would get about the remote island mystery. His fingering Goro Mishima as the one who written those love letters to me and Haruhi was a bit suspect too. Even so, while I didn't trust Koizumi's word about everything, you could still say that I generally trusted him. I believed him when he told me that his loyalty was to the SOS Brigade first, and the agency second.

I guess what it came down to was that Koizumi was too obviously suspicious. He was constantly spewing out double talk and nonsense theories, and being evasive when he didn't need to be. A genuinely dishonest person would try to not seem so suspicious. And wouldn't give me information that he didn't need to give me, as Koizumi often did without even being asked.

Goro Mishima, on the other hand, seemed to want nothing more than to seem not suspicious to me. That not only made me suspicious; it annoyed me. It was like he thought I was some gullible idiot.

Whatever you've got, Mishima, bring it on. You'll find the SOS Brigade ready for you.

With that thought in mind, I snuggled deeper into my sleeping bag and resolved to go to sleep. As my thoughts drifted away, briefly I wondered if Haruhi had something to do with the pleasant weather. And then, just before I faded away into unconsciousness, I realized...

I'd forgotten to ask Koizumi about Chisuga again.