- Chapter 7: Wuh - tsssh! -

Just as I had fallen asleep with Shingen Chisuga on my mind, I woke up with Shingen Chisuga on my mind.

This was because shortly after dawn (very shortly) he groaned in his sleep like some awful behemoth and turned from one side of his body onto the other, causing one of his legs to lightly tap against a tent pole. Thanks to the shoddy job Taniguchi, Yanami, and I did pitching the tent, this was enough to bring the whole construct down on top of us. The noise of the groan woke me up just in time to see who was responsible.

The tent turned into a tangled mess of poles, cloth, and cursing as the five males within blindly struggled to get out. From the outside, we probably looked like some huge, amorphous movie monster lurching through the woods in search of campers to gobble up.

Our cursing got louder as someone started whacking us with a metal pole of some sort, shouting "Hai! Ho! Bam! Take that!" While you might presume that to be a five-year-old, I could tell from the voice that it was Haruhi.

One of her swings struck me right between the eyes, resounding into my skull. "Damnit!" I hollered. "Knock it off!"

To no avail. Indeed, we soon were joined by additional assailants, as Tsuruya started dealing out karate chops and kicks with even more flamboyant battle cries, and even Ishigaki got in on us with some admittedly halfhearted strokes of a tree branch.

"Enough!" Finally, Chisuga apparently decided that since he got us into this mess, he was going to get us out of it. Like a superhuman mole, he tunneled his way through the crush of male bodies and tent fabric, pushed open the tent flap, and snatched Ishigaki's branch away from her. "I said, enough!"

The rest of us crawled out after Chisuga on our hands and knees, bruised and groaning. All five of the girls were standing around us: Nagato and Miss Asahina in their pajamas, Haruhi of course in the same casual shirt and shorts she'd worn the day before, and for some reason Tsuruya was wearing an outdoorsy jumpsuit and Ishigaki was in a fresh set of loose-fitting casuals and a brown brimmed hat. Nagato was just standing off to the side, observing us all curiously. Miss Asahina had stayed farther back, quivering at the sight of the beating we were taking. Ishigaki was clasping her hands, looking at us with a sheepish, apologetic grin.

"What the hell were you doing?" I demanded of Haruhi.

"Huh?" Haruhi blinked at me, planting the long-poled fishing net she wielded next to her with the netting towards the sky, like a warrior chieftain bearing a spear. It presented an unintentionally cute contrast with her disheveled morning hair. "You guys were pretending to be some sort of blob-like movie monster terrorizing the camp, so we fought to defend the innocent campers. Wasn't that the whole idea?"

I might have pointed out how insane that was, except for some reason it occurred to me that I had about half of that same exact idea right before she started attacking us, and the blow to my head was making it hard to think my way around an argument with Haruhi. "Well, you could have at least been more careful," I remonstrated. "You didn't need to completely brain me just to play pretend."

"Oh, you'll be fine. I didn't hit you that hard."

"Fine? Haruhi, I can feel a lump the size of a baseball forming on... on my..."

That was weird. When I first put a hand to my forehead, the lump felt fairly huge, but as I talked, it seemed smaller and smaller. Little more than a mole. Had my imagination exaggerated its size, or did Haruhi...?

"Pfft, you're just grouchy because you lost." She grinned at me and swung the net over my head, so that the ring rested on my shoulders. I suppose I was caught.

Koizumi, rubbing at the bruise on the side of his face, remarked, "I suppose we should apologize for waking you ladies..."

"Nah, I can't believe you guys were still asleep!" Tsuruya said. "I just got back from my morning jog! Nothing like starting the day strong. Even Yui and Haru-nyan were asleep when I left, though. Lookin' pretty studly in those jammies, Koizumi! Hey Yui, what were you up to?"

"Huh? Oh, just having breakfast. I was going to head out and see if I could clear some paths for us."

No wonder those two get along with Haruhi. Boundless energy, all of them.

"What I was wondering..." she continued with a coy grin, "...is what Suzumiya was doing with Kyon."

"What are you talking about?" Haruhi said, her face completely blank. "I was asleep until the boys started up the blob monster routine just now."

I got it. Apart from Tsuruya, who was out jogging, and Ishigaki herself, Haruhi and I were the only ones not in our pajamas. I hadn't even thought to get changed last night, and Haruhi had dropped off to sleep without changing clothes.

"I was asleep, too," I volunteered, taking advantage of Haruhi's momentary confusion to lift the net off my head. "I guess we both slept in our clothes."

"Did you, now?" Koizumi remarked. "Remarkable how your two minds tend to think alike."

Yeah, on this one occasion. I'll bet even Haruhi and Taniguchi have had the same thought at some point in time.

"What a way to wake a guy up," Taniguchi muttered. "It's always great to see your beautiful face, Miss Ishigaki, but maybe tomorrow you'll wake me up with something a little bit softer than a tree branch to the stomach?"

Ishigaki's coy grin vanished. "I'll, um..." she murmured. "I'll let Mr. Koizumi wake you up from now on."

"What? No! You don't get it – I want you to wake me up in a different way, not -"

"She gets it, Taniguchi," I broke in. He just didn't know when to take a hint.

"Alright, enough playtime!" Haruhi ordered. "Everyone who hasn't already needs to get dressed and have breakfast. That means you boys need to pitch your tent again, because you are definitely not changing in the girls' tent! We gather around the fire pit at 8:00. Got it? Let's go!"

Our breakfast options were pretty Spartan. Dried fruit, granola, rice, and some berries Ishigaki had picked. I wasn't really a breakfast person anyway, so even though I was already dressed, I helped the other guys with pitching the tent. Of course, even a big project like that had no use for five guys all at once, so we let Koizumi stand back and coordinate things and Yanami sit on the ground where he wouldn't get in our way.

Koizumi directed Taniguchi and me to hold two poles steady while he and Chisuga worked something out. Taniguchi leaned his head towards me. "Hey, Kyon, buddy, you still haven't told me what Ishigaki said about me!"

"You really want to talk about that now?" I muttered back.

"Come on, man! Who knows what Suzumiya is going to have us doing when we meet back at the fire pit? If you don't tell me now, I might not get to hear it until this evening!"

He had a point there. Despite my promise to Ishigaki, I'd already let him hit on her a dozen times since. And now Haruhi was expecting me to deal with him, too. I needed to put an end to this travesty as soon as possible.

"Okay," I sighed. "Look. Ishigaki doesn't want to hurt your feelings, but she's not interested, okay? The fact is... she already has a boyfriend."

Taniguchi screwed up his face. "What, and that's it?"

"What do you mean?" I scowled at him. "Of course that's it. What more could there be?"

"Man, I know she's got a boyfriend. You think I don't keep track of things like that? What I want to know is, what are the chances of her switching him for me?"

"That's it," Koizumi announced from the other side of the tent. "You can both let go now."

I did as he said, and shot Taniguchi a dark glare before stalking off towards the breakfast settings. "You really are a piece of work."

"What?" Taniguchi said in a totally oblivious voice.

"Forget it." I took a seat next to Nagato and scooped some rice into a bowl.

Taniguchi stumbled after me. "No really, man, what?" He took a seat opposite me, totally disregarding the fact that Nagato and Miss Asahina were at the table and he was still in his pajamas. "You have some problem with me wanting a girl who has a boyfriend?"

I shot him a look. "You really need to ask that?"

"Having a boyfriend isn't the same thing as being married. You do realize that, right?"

Miss Asahina was nervously looking back and forth between the two of us. Nagato just sat and put rice into her mouth one grain at a time.

"You can't just steal another guy's girlfriend," I growled.

"Look, if he was a good guy, I might feel guilty. But that boyfriend of hers treats her like dirt. He never even picks her up when she's done with the cooking club. She has to walk home alone, except for that one time where he came by and made her leave early. And, get this, he didn't give her a White Day present until March 16! The stupid jerk completely forgot about it!" His face was getting hot with anger, or with what he wanted me to think was anger. "Do you understand? I'm not just doing this for myself, Kyon! I'm doing it to free her from that creep!"

I tapped my fingers on the table. "Even assuming that's all true..."

"Now you're doubting me? Come on, man!"

"...you're not exactly an unbiased judge where this guy is concerned. Besides, Ishigaki told me that she wants you to stop. So that's it."

"Like hell. Who are you to play high and mighty about this, anyway? You've been eyeballing these two girls while you've got Suzumiya on the hook at the same time!"

Miss Asahina went beet red. Nagato kept on picking grains of rice.

"That's untrue in more ways than I can even count," I said. "But speaking of whom, Haruhi told me straight up that you have to leave Miss Ishigaki alone or else." That made Taniguchi blink. "So unless you feel up to facing all the torments SOS Brigade chief can hurl at -"

"Ah - HAAAAAAAAH!"

For some reason, Taniguchi was now grinning broadly and shoving his pointer finger in my face.

"So that's the real reason why you suddenly won't help me hook up with Ishigaki! Your little girlfriend doesn't want you to!" He sat back and made a whipping motion with his fist. "Wuh - TSSSH!"

"She's not my -"

Taniguchi started talking in a horrendous high-pitched voice. "'Kyon, I don't like your stupid friend, and I don't want any of my friends to be his girlfriend! Make him stop using his irresistible charm on her!' Wuh - TSSSH! 'Yes, Haruhi dear.'"

"So what, you think just because a guy happens to agree with a girl, that means he's her pet slave? That attitude is exactly why you don't have a girlfriend."

"Wuh - tsssh! Wuh - tsssh!"

"Stop that."

"E-excuse me." Miss Asahina got up with a pained look on her face and headed over to the fire pit. Thanks a bunch, Taniguchi.

"'Kyon, come with me on a camping trip to the middle of nowhere!' Wuh - tsssh!"

"You're making an idiot of yourself, you know that? You're hitting on a girl with absolutely zero interest in you, and setting yourself up to get your internal organs rearranged by both her boyfriend and Haruhi."

"'Kyon, you and the other boys sleep in the shoddy tent!' Wuh - tsssh! 'Kyon, go hunting for aliens and time travelers!' Wuh - tsssh!"

Clearly, he'd stopped listening. I checked the time on my phone. Then I pushed aside the remains of my breakfast and stood up. "I'm going to the fire pit. In case you hadn't noticed, it's past 7:50 and you're not even dressed." I turned to leave.

"Yeah, that's right. 'Kyon, be at the fire pit by 8:00 or it's a penalty for you!' Wuh - tsssh!"

One of these days, that guy is going to push me too far.

I reported for duty at the fire pit. "Nice to see you on time for a change," Haruhi said.

"I'm always on time."

"Hmmph. I guess you are, in a way. But remember, that by itself is not enough! Only 15% of success is showing up!"

I was 80% sure she got that percentage wrong, and almost completely sure she'd gotten the essence of the notion wrong. At least she seemed to be enjoying herself. It actually seemed like a shame to break her mood by disappointing her. But better to break the news to her than let her learn it for herself.

The others were sufficiently distracted. Koizumi was talking with Chisuga, Yanami was playing video games, and Misses Asahina, Ishigaki, and Tsuruya were chatting together. Haruhi looked like she was in on the conversation, too, but I sidled up to her and said to her quietly, but not furtively, "You know how yesterday, I told you Taniguchi is a reasonable guy?"

"Yeah?"

"I was wrong."

She snorted. "I'm not surprised."

Why does she have to look so damn good when she says that? Even after sleeping in her clothes, she looks like men would risk their lives in battle just for the privilege of kissing her hand. "Wait a minute, you said you trusted me."

"Trusting you is completely different from thinking you're right more than one time out of ten." The wind swept some hair into her face, and she brushed it away. Even the fact that she hadn't combed wasn't hurting her looks. "That's why I made plans for today which involve keeping him away from Ishigaki."

Maybe it was our surroundings. Out in the wilderness, having slightly disheveled clothes and hair made Haruhi look appropriately like a jungle adventurer. Miss Asahina was actually coming up short right now, since the white dress and demure blouse she'd changed into looked out-of-place, as chaste and clean as if she'd just stepped out of a Victorian novel. Right now you could easily imagine Haruhi sleeping in trees, subsisting on berries and the meat from tigers she'd slain with a knife.

Damnit, Kyon, focus. "What plans?"

That made her grin. "You'll have to wait and find out with everyone else!"

Nagato arrived, and I cringed a bit, having been too busy dealing with Taniguchi to notice until that moment that she was still wearing the same shorts and summery blouse as yesterday. At times Nagato seemed to be getting the knack of rotating her ensemble on a daily basis when not in school, but at others she seemed to regard variety of attire as completely pointless, and this was one occasion where I would rather she had changed. I couldn't find anything less than innocent in the way Yanami looked at her, but I didn't like that he was looking at all.

At 8:00, Taniguchi still hadn't showed, but Haruhi went ahead. "Okay everyone, we took care of SOS Brigade duties yesterday, so while you should still keep an eye out, today we're going to focus on making our guests' wishes come true." She obviously expected everyone to be enthralled by this promise, but to me it just sounded ominous. "I've already talked to Yui, and she says she'd like to search for tombs."

"Not just tombs," Ishigaki interjected. "Any subterranean site."

"Right," Haruhi said. "So Tsuruya, what would you like to do?"

It was good to hear her putting such importance on Ishigaki's wishes. I guess Ishigaki really was a better friend to her than anyone in the SOS Brigade. Not that I'd ever doubted that, but I hadn't thought Haruhi smart enough to realize it.

"Nah, I'm good." Tsuruya waved off the offer. "I'm just interested in whatever adventures you guys have got."

"Hrmm. Okay, you there! Yuki's friend!"

"Tetsuya Yanami," Nagato spoke up.

"Right, Yanami. What do you want to do?"

Apart from the pause to look at Nagato when she arrived, Yanami hadn't turned away from his video game. He did so only briefly now. "Um, whatever you guys like is fine with me," he said to Haruhi, then unpaused his game.

Haruhi growled in frustration. "Shingen Chisuga! There's something you'd like to to do on this trip, right?"

He smiled at her carefully. "Mainly I'm just looking to get plenty of exercise and fresh air. Nothing too specific."

"You don't want to go canoeing down a waterfall, or climb a mountain?"

His smile held steady. "There aren't any mountains or waterfalls around here."

"Any interest in hunting? What about lake monsters? Would you like to photograph a giant lake monster?" She was practically crackling with pent-up energy.

He considered. "I'd rather climb a tree. It seems like you could get a good view of the lake from some of them."

"Alright! So you have two activities to choose from, people! Everyone who wants to go tomb hunting, raise your hand!"

"Hold on," I said. "You haven't asked Taniguchi what he wants to do."

She didn't even glance at me, continuing to proclaim to the assembled campers. "He's late to the meeting, so he doesn't get to choose an activity!"

So much for having a non-strenuous option, then. Seriously, why can't you just let everyone relax for once? Yesterday you had us lug camping equipment for miles, pitch tents, unpack, and hike all over looking for aliens, espers, and time travelers. Now you're making us choose between Ishigaki's archaeological hunt and climbing trees. What I wouldn't give to be able to just take a nice hot bath before the fashion show rehearsal.

"Hmm?" This time Haruhi looked right at me. "What's that, Kyon?"

"I didn't say anything."

"I know I heard your voice."

"I believe he was muttering something," Koizumi contributed with a smile.

Damn them both. "I was just thinking all that exercise is probably going to make the girls sweaty and dirty. You won't look your best for the fashion show rehearsal."

"It's just a rehearsal," she snorted. "Still, I guess we could all go for a swim afterwards. We are at a lake, after all."

Not really a lake for swimming, but I kept my mouth shut.

"Alright, now. Everyone who wants to go tomb hunting, hands up!"

There weren't many lovers of heights in our group, apparently. Everyone but Haruhi and Chisuga himself raised their hands.

"And just to confirm, everyone who wants to go tree climbing, hands up!"

Chisuga's hand was the only one in the air.

"Hmm? Miss Suzumiya, you didn't raise your hand for either one," Miss Asahina pointed out.

"Well, of course not. As your generous leader, I let everyone else pick first."

I might have pointed out that there was nothing generous about that, since it just meant she was the only one who got to see who else was going on each expedition before she made her pick, but we were loudly interrupted by the late arriving member of our party.

"Alright, who's the stupid asshole who stole my clothes?!" Taniguchi stomped up in a rather absurd fashion, since he was still in his pajamas.

"Watch your language," Haruhi snapped. "In case you've forgotten, ladies are present!"

Taniguchi probably didn't rate Haruhi as a lady, but after stopping short he turned to Misses Asahina, Tsuruya, Nagato, and Ishigaki and offered them a sheepish grin and awkward apologies. Miss Asahina accepted them with good grace, though it wasn't hard to see she was upset, but Tsuruya looked like she was barely holding back from clocking him on Miss Asahina's account, and Ishigaki just looked away, seemingly wishing she were somewhere else. Or more likely, that he were somewhere else.

"As for your clothes," Haruhi said, "...I took them while you were goofing off at the breakfast table instead of getting dressed. Here." She pulled a small bundle of clothes out of her pack and tossed it to Taniguchi, who scowled at her. "Maybe next time you'll think twice about harassing one of my friends."

I couldn't help but smirk at that. There's no way Haruhi could have planned out the timing, but she'd been stealing his clothes at the very moment that Taniguchi had been refusing to leave Ishigaki alone. Justice had never struck more promptly.

"And since you're late to the meeting..." Haruhi continued.

"I was looking for the clothes that you stole!"

"...you lose your right to choose this morning's activity. You're going with Shingen Chisuga's group."

"Fine, whatever. What are we doing?"

So that was Haruhi's plan for separating Taniguchi from Ishigaki. It was a crude plan, but what could you expect from Haruhi. And it worked, anyway; it didn't even occur to Taniguchi to consider who he'd been grouped with.

"Miss Suzumiya," Koizumi said, raising his hand. "You haven't yet said which group you will be going with."

"Hmm..." She put a hand to her jaw. "I think I'll go with the tree climbing group."

Once again Haruhi had put herself and me in separate groups. There wasn't even the ambiguity of whether her powers had influenced the random drawing; she'd actually chosen to be in a different group.

Okay, maybe I was being too egotistical. Haruhi's decisions were influenced by plenty of things other than me. Still, you have to admit her choosing not to be in the same group as Misses Asahina and Ishigaki just to go tree climbing was pretty striking.

But that wouldn't be the weirdest thing about our Saturday morning adventures.

Author's notes: Thanks to Parry the Churro and Pierce for their input on the whip sound effect. Also, since this fic is turning out to be longer than expected and my progress on it has been steady but slow, with chapter 10 still being written at the time of this posting, I'm switching to a bi-weekly schedule for the next two chapters. So chapter 8 will appear on July 11, and chapter 9 on July 25. That should be enough time for me to get caught up.