Haruhi's Birthday

Chapter 17

"What just happened?" Kyon asked Itsuki as he helped him up.

"Haruhi created another reality and sent us there to fight. The people outside didn't see what we saw."

"Then what did they see?"

"That's our problem. When we got out of the reality warp, nobody seemed to notice anything so…"

"I'm leaving. I'm done."

"What! You can't leave!" Itsuki grabbed his shoulder.

"Space! Personal space!" he called. Kyon slapped Itsuki's hand away. Kyon exited the party and went into the hall. He sat on the floor and just thought, but not for long, because Haruhi approached him.

"What happened out there Kyon?" She asked.

"I don't know… what did you see?" Kyon asked back.

"You getting beat."

"Oh. Awesome," Kyon responded sarcastically.

"But—somehow it seemed so… weird."

"We're all weird Haruhi. It's the circle of life."

"Okay…?"

Out of the blue, Itsuki's phone went off. "I've got to take this, excuse me." He briskly jogged away, leaving Haruhi and Kyon alone. Haruhi sat down next to Kyon. Kyon sighed.

"What?" she asked.

"You are really annoying," he answered.

Haruhi punched him, but in a playful way. "I guess I am. But you don't mind. That's the kind of relationship we have."

"What do you mean?"

"Like, uh…" she paused. "Okay, for instance, I annoy you—sometimes to the point of driving you mad—but you always come back to me." She gazed at the ceiling, as if trying to avoid eye contact with Kyon. "But don't get all sappy with me. You're still demoted."

Kyon nodded. "I guess you do make my life interesting."

Haruhi blushed, "Uh, I got to go do something, somewhere…else." She stood up and began to leave. "And don't look at me as I walk down the hallway you perv."

"Sure." It was Kyon's turn to smile. He and Haruhi did have a love-hate relationship. Love-hate. They fought but they still loved each other.

A shudder rippled through Kyon's body. He stood up quickly. "I did not just think that," he said to himself. "I have to go home." Kyon stood up and stretched for a moment. He sighed and began to walk away. As he walked he was still thinking, and in his absent-mindedness, bumped into something. At first, he thought it was a wall (Haruhi kept changing up the place) but then the boy realized it was too soft to be a wall. For a split second, he thought that Haruhi was creating soft walls, but he actually looked up and saw it was a woman that he bumped into. Not just any woman either…

"Mikuru?"

"Shhhhh!" the woman ordered. "I'm older Mikuru. We have to be quiet. Come with me."

"Mikuru!"

"Kyon, shush please."

"Why are you here?"

"Do you want me to leave?"

"No! Stay! Stay, here. Stay here, right here."

Older Mikuru smiled. "You always were amusing Kyon. I need your help."

"Again?" Kyon groaned.

"Yes, I'm sorry," she apologized, "but it was your fault originally, if I remember correctly."

"Oh! You mean with my Mikuru… yeah, uh, my bad." He held his head down to avoid staring at the beauty of Older Mikuru. "What do you need me to do?"

"Well, let's walk and talk," she ordered as they briskly strolled down the hall. Older Mikuru led Kyon into an elevator (another addition) and explained as it rose. "As younger Mikuru, I have no recollection of this party, therefore, in order to keep time straight, I have not rescued her. The only problem is that she shouldn't be wandering around in time. It's dangerous. We need to bring her forward to her 'current' time and put her to sleep."

"Just like last time," Kyon added.

The pair entered the room where the incident occurred. It brought back guilty feelings to Kyon.

"Exactly," Older Mikuru said with a smile. "But I cannot touch younger Mikuru, or exist in the same time plane as her, so you have to rescue her and then put her to sleep. The last time I made that minor mistake and there were minor repercussions—"

"Wait! So that whole thing with everywhere being different and Yuki wasn't an alien and Haruhi wasn't weird and I had to recorrect the stream Yuki did and I got stabbed by Asakura—"

"That's classified."

"What?"

"Certain information is classified. It's on a need to know basis only."

"I know that but… never mind. What do you need me to do?"

"I need you to hold on to this," she as she handed him a small device. "I've preset it to locate and retrieve Mikuru. All you need to do is click the button when it beeps."

"What button?" Kyon asked. There were at least six of them.

"The white one," Older Mikuru replied.

"When will it beep?"

"That's classified."

"What the he—"

"Sorry Kyon, I can't tell you. All I can say is that'll beep when it beeps."

"But what if I miss the beep?"

"It's going to beep really loud."

"So I definitely should not miss it?"

"Kyon, please don't worry about the worst case scenario. You always were a pessimist. You would always say 'What if something goes wrong?' or 'What happens if we don't win?' Just think positive. Think like Tsuruya."

"But—" Kyon began, but older Mikuru shook her head.

"I've got to go now." And with that, she left.