Walking down the hall, then the stairs, and then back to room on the other floor was the longest walk I've ever had. My legs felt like they were attached to several kilos of lead as I dragged them slowly across the floors. The tiles on the floor I stared at throughout the journey were a little comforting. The lines that formed perfect squares on the surface lead me down a straight line I don't think I could have made on my own in my present condition.

Haruhi…

Just… just what had happened? I still couldn't really understand. Her enigmatic behaviour still confused me as much as it had in that dark room. In fact, now that I think about it, since the very beginning it's been like that. But this was the first time I had actually felt at fault for not understanding. Before, it had been easy to scoff at her ludicrous ideas, thinking that she was just silly that way and it was none of my business. But now – now I felt like I had betrayed a sacred trust. For the first time in my life, I can say with absolute certainty, that my heart actually felt heavy.

I think I could read a bunch of poetry from the likes of T.S. Eliot and fully understand it now.

"Ouch." I'd bumped my drooping head on the door of the room in which the others were waiting. I rubbed my sore forehead tenderly. This day was just turning out perfect, wasn't it? As if I wasn't in a foul enough mood already…

"Who's there?" the calm, collected voice of Koizumi rang through the door and the foggy grogginess of my mind, like a bullet through molasses.

I just wanna go home…

"It's me," I could hear myself say in a depressed voice. It was like my body was on autopilot while my mind had found a corner to sulk in.

"Come in," Koizumi said with a newfound urgency in his voice.

I stared at the door's handle, watching the blurry reflection of myself I saw in it. It took a moment for my memory to reboot, telling me how to open the door. Every thought seemed to have slowed down, probably to prevent the more damaging ones from gaining a way out of my subconscious into the blurry numbness I felt.

As I entered the room, my entrance was met with two worried faces and one blank one.

"What?" I asked them, starting to feel extremely apprehensive.

"What did you do?" Koizumi asked, his smirk far gone.

"Wh-what are you talking about?" Immediately I feared the worst. How did they know about what we –

"A reality warping occurrence was registered 2 minutes and 13 seconds ago," Nagato B impassively informed me.

"Huh?"

"I felt it too," Koizumi said. "I've never felt something quite like it. It was like a sealed reality, but only for a brief moment, but even then, it was far stronger than any I've felt before. It was… big."

"I received a report of temporal fluctuations as well," Asahina-san added, looking very worried indeed, but she wasn't fidgeting anymore. She stood straight, with a determined yet grim look on her pretty face.

I averted my eyes from their collective gaze.

"And what does all of that mean exactly?"

"Suzumiya-san has in some way, a rather significant way, changed reality. So far, none of us has any idea exactly how, and seeing as we are all still here, it must've merely been an adjustment, but of what magnitude is impossible to say," Koizumi answered vaguely, stepping forth.

"Aha, I see." For some reason, I just couldn't bring myself to care all that much about this.

"And since this adjustment occurred during or after your discussion with her, we would like to know if she said anything that might help us deduce what she might have changed."

"Well… I'm not really sure… she was kind of upset, I guess."

"You guess?" Koizumi gave me an incredulous look.

"Hey, it was dark." I defended myself lamely.

"Continue please."

"And when she left, I think she was angry at me or something."

"I see…" Koizumi got in my least favourite, pretentious thinking position, casually tapping a finger against his chin. "I think I should have asked instead, what did you say or do to her?"

"Huh? What do you mean?"

We're back to this again?

"Well, you must have obviously upset her in some way. She was rather melancholic when we left her, but then angry after meeting you again. You must have done something."

Oh great, now I have to tell these three everything. Fantastic. I'm really starting to get annoyed by the lack of a private life. Nagato knows pretty much everything about everything, Asahina-san has probably been debriefed about me since they most likely have stuff in a file on me in the future, Koizumi's always giving me little psychological evaluations by asking me questions which he thinks I'll mistake for typical chitchat, and Haruhi is always invading my life with phone calls about meetings and other stupid things. Can't I keep anything to myself? Can't I live my own life for just a while with no apocalyptic or mysterious events? I'd even settle for the usual insanity of everyday life with the Brigade.

Sigh. Who am I kidding? Deep down, I probably enjoy this a lot more than I would an existence without them. But right now, I sure as hell don't feel that way. I've had enough for one day. Can I just go home now, please?

"Kyon-kun, please, we need to know," Asahina-san asked, hands crossed as if in prayer.

Damn it, how could I say no with that desperate look in her eyes?

"I told her – I told her I wanted things to go back to normal, like they were the day before yesterday."

The three stared at me silently, both Koizumi and Asahina-san giving me slightly worried looks while Nagato B just stared expressionlessly at me.

"Nothing else?" Koizumi asked.

"No, before that, I'd only asked her what was going on, if something was wrong, like you guys told me to."

"Hmm… perhaps a bit too direct for my taste, but you are closest to her, after all…" Koizumi mused half-heartedly, massaging the bridge of his nose. "And then she got angry?"

"Yeah, she seemed almost hurtful." I rubbed the back of my head guiltily. "She asked me what I wanted, and then I told her I wanted things to go back to the way they were the day before yesterday, that's when she really got mad. She pushed me into a wall as she ran out."

Koizumi and Asahina-san traded apprehensive looks. They obviously knew more than they were letting on.

"What?" I asked in an irritated voice.

"I think I'm starting to see a connection here…" Koizumi said, "Suzumiya-san calls a meeting about your behaviour and Nagato's, and then you repeat your earlier strange behaviour, after which you tell her you want things to go back to normal, like they were earlier, before your different approach to her."

Maybe I just wasn't in the right state of mind at the moment, but I couldn't understand at all what Koizumi was implying. Most of my thought processes were focused on my home, where my bed was, into which I could crawl into and hide from the light under the covers.

Koizumi sighed. "Sometimes I really wonder about you, Kyon. You have such a weird approach to life and people."

What is he talking about? I'm perfectly normal. I'm the every-guy, the average Joe! The loser stuck in extraordinary circumstances, forced to meet and solve problems even the mystical forces he encounters can't handle as he grows up during it all from a boy to a man!

"Look, if it's all right with you guys, I'd really just like to go home…" I said.

"You're not worried, Kyon-kun?" Asahina-san asked with wide eyes.

"About Haruhi destroying the world or something? No. I really don't think she'd do something like that anymore, just because she's angry with me. She actually does care about us, all of us, I think. She'll be back…"

"Perhaps… but even you don't sound perfectly sure," Koizumi said, still lacking that stupid smirk of his.

"With Haruhi, I don't think I'll ever be a 100% sure of anything," I said with a small grin. "Now if you'll excuse me, I'll be going home. It looks like it's stopped raining." I pointed at the world beyond the window, where rays of light penetrated the thick clouds. Koizumi and Asahina-san looked too, both amazed at the sudden change of weather. Nagato B was still staring at me, in fact, I don't think she's moved a single muscle since she spoke last. She's like a perfect statue.

I decided to merely let them wonder at the changes by themselves (except maybe the new Nagato, she seemed to be even less fazed than the regular Nagato would have been by theses events, at least Nagato would have offered some input). I turned away and walked to the door, turning the handle so I could finally escape from this hellish day. There didn't seem to be anything more I could do anyway. Nagato was still not back to her old self and Haruhi had already left.

Finally, I'll get some peace of mind, at least for a short while. I'll get back to this madness tomorrow and try to fix it, but I just can't handle anymore at the moment.

As I opened the door, something even stranger than anything that had occurred in the past two days was waiting for me on the other side.

"No, it can't be!"

Koizumi and Asahina-san gasped as one as they noticed the same thing I had.

Standing in front of me in the hallway, was none other than Nagato Yuki, staring impassively back at me.