Melody of Memory
Disclaimer: I do not own Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuutsu.
September 2007
Standing solely on top of the school building, Suzumiya Haruhi had been spending over five minutes by staring intensely on the scenery below; trees, buildings, crowds, busy streets. Engulfed in her carelessly worn high school uniform which flickered in the wind, one could see her strong, rebellious manner almost immediately. The aura hovering within her even gave the kind of self-built wall where people would just instantly keep their distance.
Despite how petrifying she seemed to be, however, Haruhi was just a teenager herself. She loved the feeling she got whenever the cool winds brushed her cheeks off, and the flickering sound of the leaves fluttered in her ears when she looked down from a high building. No need to mention that one of the reason why she liked to be in the roof so much was due to this. Her high school's roof – North High's – was apparently the number one on her top list.
"Ah, there you are Haruhi," a male voice coming behind her interrupted her thought.
Haruhi tensely steered her back to face the source of the voice. "Oh, it's you." Slowly, she began to relax at knowing that it was her friend who came. "Kyon."
As a matter of fact, Kyon could probably be considered the only one in the entire school who befriended with her. The other students? It would be a miracle if they willingly talk to her.
"So what have you been doing by yourself?" Kyon asked, sitting herself on the floor near where Haruhi stood. Opening up his lunch box, he inquired, "Have you eaten yet? Want some of my lunch?"
"No, not really."
"You sure you don't want this yummy omelet right here?" He pointed out the yellowish dish with his chopsticks.
Haruhi stared at the omelet for a second, then answered, "Not interested."
"You know, Haruhi," Kyon muttered while munching her lunch, "It's unusual of you to just let me eat my lunch without touching the smallest bit of it." He gulped down the food in his mouth and continued, "Are you suffering from ano.. anoxia or something?"
"It's anorexia, stupid." Haruhi managed a little chuckle from her only friend's silliness.
Kyon smirked, "Yeah, that! Are you?"
"Of course not, dummy. I am just in no mood to eat. I'm just having such terrible days these past two days."
"Oh well, okay."
The roof then started to sound quiet one more time, save the sound of light breezes winding the air. Not noticing how time passed – not that she paid any attention to it either-, as usual, Haruhi heard Kyon chirped, "Lunch's over, Haruhi. Let's go back to class."
Walking down the stairs back to the class, Haruhi felt some kind of tension was building up on along her way. Not that it was rare or anything, but it tiring her how she had to perpetually accept such treatment. People were eyeing her with such look that inwardly stabbed her deeply, but outwardly did no harm whatsoever. The figure of Suzumiya Haruhi was a mixture of fear for some people, eccentric for some weird students, and a lot others random impression– most likely bad – that the girl herself would not bother to know. Haruhi was not in the group of those who was popular despite her apparent beauty and athletic skills, and nor was she a friendly student. Not that she intentionally built those tough, anti-sociable girl images on purpose, however.
Thanks to her own reputation as an impulsively rebel and brusque girl since junior high, the bad impression was already there when she got in high school. What made things even worse was the fact that her father was a well know yakuza for his impatience and low toleration rate of the poor. It was a miracle as to how her Dad still got a job with such bad social reputation. In front of her Dad everybody would bow down of fear more than respect, and they would not dare say false words upon him or whoever related to him. But behind him, was none else than the harsh world Haruhi unavoidably got herself into when everybody but avoided her, made sarcastic remarks about her, or mocked her. They got even braver when Haruhi made no attempt whatsoever to stop it. Even among teachers, Suzumiya Haruhi's level was judged as the kind of students who would always bring nothing but trouble for their own sake. His father, being a busy man as he was, knew nothing of these circumstances. And for some reason, neither did his daughter bother to say a word about it.
"I'll see you later," Kyon tapped her shoulder and went to his class.
Kyon always opined his disappointment of having different class with her, but Haruhi herself was indeed grateful for the circumstance. Being a good guy as Kyon was, he never got into trouble in purpose. But by hanging out occasionally with her, Haruhi, the girl treated as delinquent in the school, would undoubtedly raised his potential of being harmed, somehow. It always perplexed her how she was the one considered to be delinquent, and not the people who bullied or attacked her. True, it was her sense of justice and balance in the world which she needed to hold back whenever she saw wrong doings. But she was just who she really was – it was her natural personality that she could not forgive evil doings when she could help it. Nevertheless it was always she, she alone who often accused with some false events done by others just because she happened to appear in wrong place, at a wrong time.
Having been teaching herself a self defense since she was in elementary school, it was hard to deny that she may just be the last person standing had a fight occurred. Then when she did become the
last person standing, people usually interpreted the scene in a totally opposite way from the fact. Haruhi caused the fight first, or Haruhi hired some yakuza to beat them; those types of conclusion were always the final. Being a daughter of the most despicable yakuza, Haruhi just did not have the will or the heart to speak up. She knew her Dad had probably done a hundred times worse that what she received to others, so in this case she would just bear with it. It was stupid, she knew, but she did not care. No matter how smart she appeared to be, or how calm and harmless she seemed to look, people always heaved up their pessimism whenever they looked at her. A delinquent was what she looked like to most people.
It was a tough life Haruhi was having, but she did not hate the people who accused her but rather pitied them because deep inside she knew that they were being fooled and manipulated by social rumors. To tell the truth, she liked it at school better than she did at home. Regardless of the treatment she received, or whether people talked to her or not, she did not feel alone in school. She knew that they would all see the truth some day, and there was no need to rush them to see. It sometimes amazed her also as to why Kyon was able to see the other side of her which other people normally could not see, and even hanged out with her as often as he could. The North High's students were only aware of the fact that Kyon hanged out "occasionally" with Haruhi, but the truth spoke the total opposite. The friendly guy hanged out with her at all school lunches, sometimes after and before classes, and even some times on the weekends. Kyon was the only one who ever met her parents, and the only one whose house she ever stayed and came over to. And probably the only one who got rewarded with her socially-known-to-be-extremely-rare smile, on occasions.
Haruhi did not pay any attention to the class until the rest of the school for the day was over. When the bell rang, she snapped her school bag and walked out from the class idly. After school, the next activity on her list was to go to work. In order to gain money, she must work. Finding a job was really hard when you were known to be such a bad kid, but an old man in a music store sympathized with her and even gave her a job in his store. The old man was really kind and generous, and Haruhi could not help but like him as a result.
The music store was located in the center of the city where there was usually a lot of people shopping. She usually worked from three to eight, and sometimes until ten. It always depended on how many customers they seemed to have for the day. And to the owner's benefits, Haruhi did not mind to work late anyway. Her jobs in the store usually consisted of that of cleaning the display mirror, setting up the right position for the musical instruments to be hung, turning on and off the electrical keyboard, encouraging customer to buy, and as a cashier. It was pretty much everything.
"So, Haruhi, find a boyfriend already?" the old man asked Haruhi while she was setting up the cricket guitar to its former position.
Smiling slightly, she answered, "Not yet, Yamato-san. Sorry to disappoint you."
"You should really get one, Haruhi. It's good for your health," the old man laughed on his own joke. "What about that guy you always hang out with?"
Haruhi almost lost her grip on the guitar when she heard that. "Don't tell me.. you are referring to Kyon?!"
Yamato chuckled. "Yes, him!"
To Yamato's disappointment, Haruhi's reply was interrupted by the arrival of a customer – a lady - who was interested in a keyboard. Immediately Haruhi greeted her, and being an almost professional as she might, blocked off her true personality to that of a cheerful, persuasive seller. The lady was the only customer they had for the day, and at around eight o'clock, Haruhi was let go by Yamato-san.
The old man's last words to her were, "Keep any eye for him! He may turn out to be your type, Haruhi!" which Haruhi replied with a long sigh.
It was a little darker than usual today when she walked back to her house, and the weather was a bit chillier, she noticed. Haruhi slowly trotted her way down out of the city center to where her house was located, which was ten minutes away from the school. Three minutes walking and she was already out of the crowd, off to a more silent environment. She was about to pass an old building when she heard a threatening voice of a male.
"I said, pay it, young lady!" the voice sounded so brutal and rude that if Haruhi were to be smart, she would just want to make no trouble and walked off. Unfortunately, Haruhi was never to be the "smart" one who would just wash her hands out whenever she sensed troubles. Not to mention that this "bad" Haruhi was the same one who often gave her the trouble of being treated as a bad student.
"I had given you the money you deserved," a quiet voice retorted back.
Deep inside, Haruhi prayed. She knew this kind of conversation was always the one who got her attracted to a fight. The typical bad guys bullying over the weak ones. Please don't make this a robbery or anything like it that I will be unintentionally involved with. Well, not completely unintentionally..
"As I said, it's not enough!" the manner-less voice cried, a male's. Then all of the sudden his tone changed to a little more sweet, eerie one, "So I suggest you pay with what your sweet, little self. How 'bout that? Easy, eh?"
To Haruhi's surprise, the other voice - apparently a girl - still got the guts to reply, "No."
Even though she did not see it Haruhi could sense that the man was smirking in his reply. "You can't escape, young lady. Here I come-"
The next thing Haruhi heard was a loud slam of a metal thing, a noisy scream of the guy who seemed to be in pain, and unfortunately the next moment, a laughter coming from more guys. It appeared that the guy was not alone, and the girl was helplessly surrounded.
Sighing, Haruhi cursed herself of being unable to see anymore unjust. She already had a father who somehow did wrong things for living, and she did not want to have it 'more' in her life. Haruhi could not even stop herself of saying, "Hey there, bastards!" out loud.
A group of men's voice muttered something unintelligible, but Haruhi had successfully gained their attention. The group walked their way out of the dark aisle they were in before, to the road Haruhi was standing in.
"Oh, it's the bad ass kid, Haruhi!" said the man in the center, who had the same voice as the first man he heard and who also appeared to be the leader of the gang. He was a muscular, huge man with a nasty spiky black hair hanging straight up his skull like an antenna. Haruhi did not remember having an encounter with this guy before, but he seemed to memorize her.
Must have been those fights I got into before..
"Beat her up, boss! She pissed me off last time!" a voice claimed from the right. The owner was another huge man with black tattoo all over her neck who was now looking at Haruhi with so much disgust.
"Yeah! Yeah!" the others' spirits got all pumped up to beat the crap out of Haruhi.
"Shut your dirty mouths!" Haruhi bellowed, silencing the entire gangster. "I don't know what's going on in your minds, but apparently I haven't done anything to any of you today."
"Don't mess around!" the guy who appeared to hate her utterly growled. "You haven't done anything here yet, but you had in the past."
"..I don't remember that." Haruhi stated calmly.
"Well, well," the gang leader moved forward. "We can't just expect a stupid girl like her to remember, can we?"
Cautiously, Haruhi stepped back but shut her mouth this time, sensing a rampage aura coming.
"After all," the huge guy's eyes stared on hers mockingly. "She was born in the most worthless family ever."
They gang laughed in union as if to make fun of Haruhi. They seemed to enjoy harassing her with words so much that the laughter was getting stupider and stupider they even started to point their fingers at her and just laugh because of it. Haruhi could feel her blood was boiling to kill this guy in front of her who had just insulted her personal problem. She could barely hold herself any longer. Her patience was wearing down by every second she stood there doing nothing.
"Shut up," Haruhi said in a seriously menacing tone. The tone was so cold that everybody stopped laughing in an instant. "You don't have any rights to criticize me."
"Although," she continued on. "I don't think speaking with a bunch of fools like you will make any difference." Haruhi directed her icy cold stares to all the guys and said, "Pathetic."
"How dare you.. How dare you say we're pathetic!" The leader cried in anger. "I'm gonna kick your ass Haruhi!"
"Yeah, kill her boss!"
"Yeah, yeah!"
"Oh well," Haruhi launched her evil grin and maintained a battle position, "Bring it on."
And before the guy could even react, Haruhi kicked his "thing" and slipped off to where the girl was being held by the group in the dark, kicked them "there" as well, grabbed the girl's hand, and tried to escape.. But was stopped by another heavy muscular-built man, and therefore was again surrounded.
Damn!
"Not so easy, Haruhi," he mocked, standing in front of her while grinning in satisfaction. "Big in your mouth as usual, huh?"
Being in the center with the almost-rescued girl on her right, Haruhi could feel the sweat started prickling its way down her forehead. She accidentally miscalculated this battle from the beginning. Fighting this many people could be pretty much an inconvenience on her side, and she must think of the most effective way to save the girl. It was not that she could not fight them, but saving the girl was the first priority for now. To protect is always harder than to attack, that was the fact. She forced her brain to think of a way to run away as hard as she possibly could when she heard an almost inaudible tone whispered, "Fight."
When Haruhi's response was nothing but her stiffening sign of body and grip of the girl, she again was shocked by the movement done by the girl. She remembered having the girl slipped off her palm out of hers, and rushed to the group of men, kicking and throwing with an unbelievable judo-like skill. Flabbergasted, it took her a couple of seconds to register the circumstance before fighting the men with all she got. She always had the advantage of being fast and flexible, and she was also good in hand to hand combat, thanks to 6 years experience in intense taekwondo. And now dealing with the men was made easier thanks to the unexpected performance of the girl beside her.
After ten minutes of some loud kicking, jumping, screaming and punching from the battle, it was over. And the winner was undoubtedly, the combination of somewhat judo and taekwondo skill. Two high school girls had won over a battle against one gang consisted of huge, brainless men.
Unfortunately for Haruhi, a public crowd had by now gathered near the spot where they fought, and most of them were now looking directly at her. Some even pointed their hands at them, some whispering something amongst themselves, and some blurted out the look of utter surprise at what had happened. They must have made quite a noise to make these many people huddled up.
Knowing full well of what would happen next, Haruhi looked at the very same girl who just fought with her and whispered in urgency, "Go. Don't let them see you with me."
Silence briefly fell upon them, and when Haruhi pursued the matter further, she was met with the most calming pair of amber eyes whose owner apparently refused to obey her command.
More anxiety grew in Haruhi's heart by every seconds passing. "Don't be stupid. Just go."
"Come." To Haruhi's surprise, the other girl's voice had a somewhat commanding aura in it.
Haruhi was quite taken aback by it, and as if the decision was final through the smaller girl's stern sentence, Haruhi nodded quietly as the answer. The two of them then sprinted back in the dark aisles and climbed through their way with whatever they could find to aid. Either nobody noticed them, or they were the ones who were too fast for eyes to see, Haruhi did not hear any stupid insults being directed at them when they escaped. They sprinted in an amazing pace, and never stopped running until at least half kilometer away from where the crowd was. As the two of them started to go back down to the street, they could see only a vague sight of the people who gathered around them before. Feeling safe enough to stop, the two started to slow down their pace.
Pausing to regain her breath, Haruhi commented, "You are crazy."
The girl questioned did not answer but take a deep breath, and it was then that Haruhi got the full chance of seeing the face of the rescued girl. The girl was a little shorter than Haruhi was, with a short purple hair adorning her adorable, child-like face. Her eyes were that of golden brown, while her figure was somewhat diminutive. The most surprising fact she found however, was that the girl was wearing the same uniform as Haruhi was – the North High's uniform.
"Do you go to North High?"
The girl glanced at her. "Yes."
Puzzled by this surprising encounter with her own schoolmate, Haruhi did not know how to react. Instead she placed her gaze at the uniform; it was looking extremely sharp in colors and sharp in the curves, just like a new uniform.
"…."
"…"
Silence fell upon them, and Haruhi was about to turn around and get back home when she heard the girl's voice.
"Thank you," the purple haired girl whispered softly, her sharp gazes went onto Haruhi's eyes.
Haruhi, never been thanked by somebody else before, was quite taken aback by the act. "No.. problem," she managed to say in the end. She focused her eyes on the other girl, feeling strangely suspicious. For a North High student, the girl acted as if she was utterly clueless of who Haruhi was. She
had just started in school too, however, thus deciding whether somebody was new student was not something she was capable of doing. Curiosity raised in her mind, causing her to ask, "Are you.. new?"
The smaller girl, now looking impassively at her, nodded her head as a response.
"Oh," Haruhi replied, somewhat relief as to having her bad reputation unknown yet to one person, at least for this day. "Nice to meet you, uh-"
The girl's eyes fell upon hers for a second as if analyzing the need of introducing herself, but said her name in the end regardless, "Nagato Yuki."
"..Nice to meet you then, Nagato-san."
"…" the purple haired girl gave Haruhi a solemn look, and a questioning look at the same time. Haruhi was a little confused at the look given at her at first, but understood it in the end. The quiet girl was most probably asking her name, tough in an unspoken question.
A name for a name, she decided.
"..Suzumiya Haruhi," Haruhi said casually in the end.
As you may already predict, the romance will be up kinda slow in this fic.. So please bear with it, because I am going to make it as good as I can! After all Haruhi x Yuki is one of my favourite pairs!
Thank you for reading. Review is greatly appreciated!