Omake and Author's notes

Omake: Three Heavenly Kings (and their sister; the Heavenly Queen).

It was nine o'clock on the Saturday after Tanabata, the Bar on the End of the Universe was quickly filling up with patrons from all over the various pantheons. Three Anunnaki stood on the stage, butchering a version of 'Piano man' whilst the various gods, fays, spirits and associated anthropomorphic personifications made merry throughout the establishment. In the far corner from the stage, near to the pool table three brothers and a sister sat under a light playing a most strange game.

"Okay, I've got five kings. Whose calling?" said the sister, a beautiful young woman with flowing red hair and deep blue eyes.

"But I've just rolled a six," said her younger brother; a tall thin man.

"These rules don't make any sense," complained a third sibling. He scratched his nose.

"Well I wanted to play chess, "Death interjected.

"You can't play with four people," War replied and set her cards onto the table. "and besides-"

"-I don't know the rules," Famine said. "Is anyone else really hungry all of a sudden?"

"You're always 'suddenly hungry', it's a wonder you remain as thin as you do," Pestilence said.

"Yeah, well at least I don't ask for tissues every five minutes...for 'wiping your nose',"

"Are you accusing me of something?"

"What do you think?"

"I'm the anthropomorphic personification of Pestilence, Plague of-"

"Where: the British county of Wankashire?"

"That's it, you and me outside, now!" Pestilence stood up in anger. His seat fell to the floor.

"Guys, calm down," War said to her brothers. Death looked on approvingly. "It's Saturday night, we're out. Can we not be civilised for once?"

The siblings looked at each other disapprovingly for a moment before stepping back from total annihilation.

"This isn't going to work," Famine said.

"It's worked for the past thirteen billion years," War added.

"I mean the game. It's not going to work as long as well keep on making up new rules every round,"

"What's happening over there? Who's coming in?"

In the corner of the room energy began to convalesce. It swirled about until it converged into Kyon's shape.

"Kyon, over here!" Death shouted. Kyon treaded closely with the eyes of all those Gods on him, waiting for him to make a mistake.

"Yo," Kyon said as he approached the table where the four horsemen were playing their ridiculous game.

"Sorry about this Kyon, you've been sort of 'tethered' to me," Death said. "It will wear off in a while but until then you might end up here whenever you fall asleep. Like when Haruhi dragged you into her closed space."

"That's well and good but are you going to introduce us?" War asked. "You already know my brother Death Kyon, I'm the loveliest; War and these two idiots are Pestilence and Famine, my older and younger brother respectfully."

"Yo," Kyon said and sat down. "So how long am I going to be here?"

"I'll drop you off in a little while," Death replied. "A game of cards first?"

"Sure, you're shuffling?"

"Off course; now remember Kyon, play fairly. You can't cheat Death," War said. In the corner the two brothers were taking bets on who would win.

Author's notes

Well, I didn't see it going like that! The ending was a lot more WAFFy than I had originally intended it to be but I think at heart I'm an unrepentant Haruhi/Kyon shipper (even if both of them do think of Mikuru Asahina whenever the Marvin Gaye song 'Sexual Healing' comes on the radio) and I think this came in as a more physical side of the Angst/Healing genre as a result of that. It's still a fairly strong story however, even if it does divulge genre a bit.

Technically now this story is AU because of course in either cannon Haruhi's father is not a pro baseball player, nor is he dead but I've tried to fit it into the cannon as best I can (I don't like to diverge too much), I've rationalised the whole thing with Haruhi's father as her being something of a very private person and it's just not something that she wants to talk to people about. This is a behavioural characteristic which I've noticed in my cousins since my uncle's death so that sort of came from that.

I'm slightly worried that this chapter makes the characters look slightly out of character, and so that's something that I'd like to hear your opinions on. Nagaru Suzumiya (whom is named after series creator Nagaru Tanigawa) was envisioned as another one of Haruhi's modifications to the universe-essentially I created him as a cross between Doctor Who and James Bond and I like to imagine that his job within the Haruhi-verse is something similar to the latter's. This is based off of my own belief as a child that my uncle was a spy (he was actually at cooking school). It's interesting to note that the Kidon is a (supposedly) real section of the MOSSAD which specialises in Black Ops and such like if you've ever seen NCIS you'll be familiar with them. The fact that Nagaru was able to take out a whole team of them just shows you how good he is at his job.

I didn't want to develop Mrs Suzumiya in case later stories make her completely different to what I imagined her to be (as has happened to the brilliant 'Meet the Suzumiya's'). In case you're wondering I imagine that she's the one who owns the motorcycle because of a fear of cars she developed after her husband's death.

I'm sort of tickled that Microsoft word doesn't recognise my colour/physics joke as grammatically correct. If you haven't gotten it it's a play on the Doppler Effect wherein the faster one speeds the 'redder' the colour would appear on the colour spectrum. That's how I understand it anyway.

The Hanshin Tigers are a real baseball team that operates in the general vicinity of Nishinomiya Japan, where the series takes place. All geographic locations mentioned are real places, and the restaurant mentioned does serve crispy chicken (it's very good as well).

This project has been extremely fun and has given me tons of cool ideas for a sequel, something from Kyon's point of view this time I think with a more 'epic scope'. I think with this project it was about replicating grief without going through the five stages step by step and I think for my next project I'm going to go for something much happier (not that emotional catharsis isn't happy off course).

Please note that I am British (which is where the term 'use your loaf' comes from) so if I've gotten something wrong regarding baseball terminology or rules I'm very sorry.

Anyway, thank you for reading my story. It has been a pleasure to write for you. Thank you very much for reading; I would be very grateful if you would please review.