"What're you looking at?" Koizumi said, breaking my peaceful moment of reflection with a pat on the shoulder and an unnecessary question.

"What do you expect me to answer with? I think it's pretty obvious." I replied. I guess it was a pretty rude response, but he HAD interrupted me, afterall.

"Heh, alright, alright. I was just making small talk." He stood alongside me, hands behind his back, and stared out at the city streets below…once again, alongside me. Not that I could blame him- the weather was fantastic, perfect for soaking in a little sun and breeze.

"So, you're contemplating, then?" He asked, less than twenty seconds later. He had that relaxed smile on his face, the kind that in any sort of perilous situation would be irritating as hell. And have we been in some perilous situations in the past.

"What would I have to contemplate about?" I asked back, not taking my eyes off of the streets. I saw an old man on a bicycle, narrowly dodging a sack of garbage.

He let loose a little enigmatic chuckle.

"Come on now, Kyon. Isn't there usually a part where you want an explanation for something weird that's happened? You can't say nothing weird's happened in the past week."

I sighed and smiled a little.

"I had expected you to bring the topic up, so I didn't bother saying anything."

Koizumi chuckled again.

"Of course, of course. I have to say, you know me well!" He said. I just sighed and shook my head. I guess at this point I must've come out of my daze, because the voices began to come within earshot again.

"Hey! Hey, hands off the beachball, Tomo! Go get your own!"

"Yo-mi! Give-it-here!"

"Aaaand so begins the first sumo-standoff of the vacation! Iiiiin the red corne- owww! Mio, why'd you hit me?"

"Idiot. Why not try thinking about people's self consciousness before they talk?"

"Heh heh. You know, you two make an awfully good pairing, there…"

"Ugh. Trust you to be a total geek the very first day of vacation, Shorty."

"Ahh! Kagami, how can you say such a cruel and heartless thing? Sakaki, she's being cruel and heartleeeeeess!"

"Uh…um…I don't…"

"AND STOP ALWAYS RUNNING TO SAKAKI BECAUSE YOU KNOW SHE'LL PROTECT YOU!"

"Um…I'm not much of a…um…"

"That's because Sakaki's niiiice~"

"AND STOP SHOVING YOUR FACE INTO HER CHEST!"

I couldn't help but feel a tiny glimpse of serenity as I watched them all…and I guess I was a little thankful, too.

Oh, that's right. I forgot to tell you. After Haruhi and Konata discovered that Tsumugi from the Light Music Club had a summer home that eclipsed the previous standard held by Chiyo, due to her being the daughter of an incredibly rich executive, or something like that. Of course, when they got word of that, summer was settled, right away- everyone pile into Mugi's summer home…regardless of whether we could fit in there or not. At the moment, we were just waiting for the train. All of us, crowded into a relatively small station…clearly, Tomo had gotten ahead of herself and had already blown up the beachball. I think Osaka and Chiyo had gone with Tsukasa and Miyuki to fetch ice cream, and Haruhi, Miss Asahina and Nagato were…I don't know where. It wouldn't surprise me if they came back in bathing suits.

Sadly, Fran couldn't make it due to some experiment having backfired. I thought I heard her mention "mechanical fish" on the phone, but I'm not totally sure of that. Kujo had been asked, but apparently he hadn't shown up…the train was nearly due, so I assumed he wasn't going to make it. I doubt he'd have enjoyed spending an entire summer in our company, especially considering how aloof he was.

"Heh, it's pretty good to see everyone enjoying themselves, huh?" Koizumi said. I jumped a little- well, he was right next to me, after all.

"You freaked me out a little, there." I said.

"Sorry. Just had to say it." He shrugged, before changing tack a little. "I'm interested as to how you haven't asked anything about how the whole situation…resolved itself."

"Do you expect me to ask?" I said. Of course, I was interesting in knowing…but I wasn't going to give me a reason to tease me as if I was some sort of inquisitive child.

"I guess so. I never know with you. Sometimes I kind of think you're playing down your curiosity a little."

He was partially right, I guess. Most of the time I just want to go with the flow, to use some out-dated hipster slang.

"Well, go on and explain it to me, then. You seem pretty desperate to tell me, anyway."

"About what happened after you fainted in the spiral world?"

"I'd like an explanation for pretty much everything in the spiral world. That is, after the point where the fake you died."

"Fake me? There was a fake me?"

"Don't play dumb." I frowned in frustration. "I told you about all of this yesterday."

Koizumi laughed. That's when I knew he was messing with me…for whatever reason.

"Oh, of course! How forgetful of me." He chuckled a little more. Before he could start to speak, however, I heard the high-pitched shrilling voice that signified Haruhi's arrival, and felt my stomach sink.

"We're baaaaaack!"

From out of the women's bathroom burst Haruhi, Nagato and Miss Asahina…and, not entirely to my surprise, they were all wearing bikinis of various patterns and sizes. Oh, and- once again, not surprisingly- Miss Asahina seemed to be wearing the skimpiest swimsuit Haruhi could have found. As awful as it must have been for her, I have to admit, I wasn't totally complaining…though these feelings turned to guilt as soon as she stared at me with those wide, helpless eyes that seemed to cry "help."

"Aaaaalriiiight! And the SOS Brigade (with new recruits) Summer Expedition to Mugi-chan's Awesome Huge Summer Home is gooooo!" Haruhi practically screamed. Characteristic of Haruhi, she just HAD to turn the few heads in the station that hadn't been turned by the girls in tiny bikinis.

"Ugh, moron." I murmured at her, taking off my jacket to at least give Miss Asahina a tiny bit of dignity, "You know we've got an hour-long train journey before we come anywhere near the summer home, and we'll probably be too exhausted to go on the beach when we get th-"

"Oh, Kyon, you're so damn boring!" She pouted, like a petulant child throwing a tantrum. Rather than say something back, I turned to the rest of the group for emotional support. Instead…

"Yeah, Kyon, seriously, I mean geeeeeeeez!" To my dismay, Konata leapt out of the crowd and went to stand next to Haruhi. "Besides, when you've got someone with so many moe-points as Mikuru there, you gotta show it off!"

"That's right, stop trying to spoil our fun, you jerk! Just when I went out and bought a super-sexy swimsuit to show off, too!" Takino bounced over to the other side, turning the coalition against me into a fully-fledged Three Stooges. I rested my forehead in my palm in despair and was slightly comforted to see that Yomi and Hiiragi was expressing the same disapproval. For a moment, I felt a slight sense of kinship with them- the three of us were all involved with annoying, single-minded individuals, afterall.

"Hmph! Well it looks like they've formed a team against us!" Haruhi declared, pointing directly at us. To be honest, I hadn't noticed that we were standing so close together as to be classified as a "team," but whatever. Haruhi would probably have said it regardless.

"Ice creaaaaaaaaaaaam!"

Another loud yell came from the entrance to the station, breaking up the Mexican stand-off that seemed to be developing between our two factions. I guess I was never much of a Clint Eastwood type anyway.

As we all turned round, we saw the remaining members of our party- Osaka, Chiyo, Tsukasa, Miyuki, Mugi (Our hostess) and the one who yelled, Yui, who I can remember as being the guitarist from the Light Music club that played on that one fateful performance. I wasn't even sure how long ago it was…in fact, I wasn't 100% sure I knew what the date was.

Each of them were holding 2 ice creams in each hand, which made me wonder why we sent the smaller members of our group out to get the ice creams, especially since they seemed to be struggling somewhat. Well, it wasn't my decision, I guess. Koizumi, Yomi, the other dark-haired girl in our group (I think her name was Mio, a friend of the Light Music Club) and myself went to relieve them of their ice creams. The Three Stooges snatched their ice creams from my hands less than a second after I'd taken them off of Tsukasa, before chomping away at them and fixing me with malevolent stares.

"Ignore them." Said Yomi, rolling her eyes.

"You don't have to tell me twice…" I replied. My eyes caught Sakaki's, who was licking what looked like a raspberry flavoured ice cream, and she smiled sympathetically. I returned an appreciative grin, and was about to go over and talk with her, when…

"Hey! What do you think you're doing?"

The yell came from behind us, just by the snack bar. We all seemed to simultaneously turn around to see what looked like a scraggly-looking detective, with messy hair and a similarly-messily-tied red tie running out of the bar with a cup of coffee in one hand and what looked like some sort of pastry in the other.

"You…you can't wear swimsuits like that in here! Don't you girls have any decency?" He exclaimed. My first instinct was to turn to Miss Asahina, who was trembling nervously. Kagami took the initiative.

"Sorry, officer, we didn't-"

"What? The Hell're you saying sorry for, anyway? Hey, jerk! We're just about to go on vacation so don't you dare try and spoil it for us now!" Haruhi interrupted, screaming at the poor guy. Surprised by this sudden outburst, he backed off a little, holding his hands up as if to say "whoa, whoa there…"

"Hey, hey, don't be like that…oh, man, I've never been able to deal with screaming girls, and Gumshoe's gonna chew my butt out if I don't get his coffee to him…"

In the middle of his self-deprecation, I heard Osaka dreamily mention something to Mugi…

"Hey, Mugi…d'ya know when our train gets here…?"

"Hmmm, I thought it was at about 11…why do you-"

"Eleven?" Yomi exclaimed, having overheard them. She began to check frantically around for a clock…

"Ahhh! It's eleven now!" Mio followed, looking at her phone as if insects had started to burst from it. As if on cue, we heard the sound of a train pulling in on the other side of the platform…and a glance outside showed us that it was our train.

"We're gonna be late! Laaaaaate!" Takino yelled, and straight away, our entire group took off running outside, heading straight for the stairs that would lead to the bridge over the railway, and to the other side. The suitcases clattered loudly across the floor, sounding like a parade of horses or something.

"Hey, what the- stop! Stoooop!" The detective yelled again, though this time he seemed somewhat hesitant to pursue us. "Ohhhh man, but if I don't get this coffee back…and Chief Gant said if I screwed up again he'd send me out to the countryside, and man that'd be boring and…"

"Uh…" I paused on my way to the door and thought for a second. "…sorry about this."

Yeah, it was all I could come up with, but I was faced with a time limit, after all. Leaving the poor guy behind, I followed everyone else (Haruhi leading the way, of course), in the race to the platform. I hoped this would be the last "race against all odds" type scenario for a long, long time…

Well, what do you want me to say? Long story short, we made it.