Chapter 4:
Yet another Sunday with the SOS Brigade. I was last to arrive. Again. Which meant that I picked up the bill. Again. My wallet was protesting as I handed several bills to the smiling waitress, and caught the triumphant gleam of Haruhi's expression. It seemed that everytime I was late, she punished me more severely by purchasing larger, more expensive meals. I had the feeling this wouldn't be the last time, either.
She cleared her throat and drummed on the table for our attention. Nagato looked up placidly from her book. Koizumi and Asahina turned from where they had been in a serious discussion.
"It's time to split up," she announced, "but I'm not changing partners this time. Whoever you get, you're stuck with for the rest of the afternoon." She sent a smirk in my direction. I didn't like to think about what it meant. She held up in her hand the straws, hiding the colored ends in her fist. "Yuki, you first."
What Haruhi didn't know was that this time, Koizumi had cheated. If Asahina-san hadn't warned me beforehand, I wouldn't have known, either, but the plan was for me to distract Haruhi while the three of them went searching for the Won Ring of Pawah. It would be absolutely disastrous if she got her hands on it, after all, even accidentally.
"Unmarked," Asahina-san chirped cheerfully. Nagato pulled, and then held up the unmarked stick wordlessly. Haruhi then held out her fist to me. If I didn't know better, I could've sworn she was chanting under her breath, "Marked, marked, marked..."
I pulled, as a minute signal from Koizumi warned me beforehand which to take, and announced, "Marked."
Koizumi pulled and said, "Unmarked."
Haruhi's mouth fell slightly open as she opened her fist to reveal the final marked straw. This had never happened before, if you don't count the "date" we had in which the other three conveniently didn't show up. "Well, then," she said, and I didn't know if she was pleased or furious.
Koizumi laughed a little. "Orders, captain?" he asked, smiling.
She seemed pulled out of her own little world for a bit as she said, "You know what to do." And left it at that.
.
"Ne, Kyon, look over there! Doesn't that seem suspicious?"
Half-hearted glance. "Sure, Haruhi."
Glare from out of the corner of the eye. "You're not even looking."
Sigh. "Look, Haruhi, just because two kids dropped their ice cream at exactly the same moment doesn't mean that it's a signal from aliens that they're going to land their space craft there tonight."
"Of course not. That would be too obvious. They'd pick the top of that building over there."
It was about now that I realized exactly how ineffective Haruhi's method of "looking for mysteries" was.
It consisted mostly of snooping around corners, spying on people, and asking random people if they'd seen anything strange. Let me give you a brief catalog of the kinds of answers we received:
"Well, yeah I've seen some strange things. Just last night, I was watching TV, and there was this show about how male seahorses give birth..."
"What's that, honey? Oh, yes, strange happenings. Well, the other day me and my friend Kikyou were sitting out on the back porch, and suddenly, out of the blue, this skater boy came rushing down the street, young kids these days, tch, and you wouldn't believe his hair..."
"Hm...let me think...Right! Last week the price of eggs went up fifty yen, just like that! Seriously, isn't that weird?"
"I don't know about strange happenings, but the way my secretary is acting recently is certainly starting to make me wonder, you know?"
After a long half hour of this, I'd had enough.
I sighed. "Geez, Haruhi, don't you think you're approaching this in a really, really, inefficient way?"
"What do you mean?"
"Well, going around like this, prowling about or asking everyone individually, 'Have you recently witnessed any strange occurrences?' is not only going to get us a lot of garden-variety answers, it's also a load of wasted time. Why can't you just hang out with friends and enjoy your Sundays peacefully for a change?"
I immediately regretted tacking on the last sentence when I saw Haruhi's eyebrows draw together darkly, and the inevitable scowl of an impending storm gather.
"What, you're telling me this is all a waste of time, huh?" she snapped. "That you'd rather be doing something else?"
"Not quite," I said hastily.
"Well, then, what?"
In my reckless state of mind which everyone must acquire at some time or another being around an about-to-spurt-forth-volcanic-ash-everywhere Haruhi, I did something that I could never, ever, in a thousand years have imagined myself doing.
I glanced around me for the best spot, and then, dragging her along by the hand, climbed the steps of a tall fountain in the middle of the square and began shouting gleefully at the top of my lungs.
"Sumimasen, minna-san, I have an announcement to make," I began, while Haruhi blushed violently and began tugging away to try to escape, which I didn't let her do. "If anyone here is an alien, a time-traveler, or an esper, this young lady here", I held up our enjoined hands, while she tried to pull away again, whining, "Kyon...", "...would like to meet you. 'That is all!'" I finished, quoting the lady next to me with a grin, and stepped down from the fountain with a wink at the by-now-beetroot red Haruhi.
The people on the streets, which had paused from amazement during my speech, gave a little collective laugh and glanced around, like they suspected that they were on the scene of a movie-filming, or Candid Camera, and continued their shopping or whatever.
I shrugged at Haruhi. "Well, nothing here. Guess we'll have to move on to the next corner and do it all over again." I began walking again, still holding firmly onto her hand. She ground her feet into the pavement and refused to move, and looking back, I saw that her eyes were shining. It occurred to me suddenly that she was red as much from holding in her laughter as from embarrassment.
"You. Are. Insane!" she said, finally, when she thought she could control the buttoned-up giggles.
I smiled at her. "So?"
She paused for a second. "I like it when you're crazy," she admitted, the fading color on her cheeks springing to life again.
And I blushed, too.
.
The afternoon passed quietly, and for once in her life, Haruhi was actually sparkling. She was laughing, smiling, talking, and guess what? I was having fun with her. I even completely forgot that Koizumi, Nagato and Asahina-san were out there somewhere, bravely searching for the ever-elusive Ring of Pawah.
What was it about her that made her so enjoyable to be around right now, anyway? Normally, I'd try to avoid her as much as possible, but today was different. She was relaxed, talking to me as if I was a person and not a subject of the Holy Realm of Suzumiya, and, by golly, it was like going out with a normal girl for once.
Afternoon lengthened into early evening, the sun drawing out all the hills, and still she made no sign of wanting to rejoin the others for a "follow up". Vaguely, I wondered if she'd completely forgotten the point of meeting today in the first place, or maybe even why she and I were out all alone in this park, anyway.
Call me irresponsible, but right now, it seemed like she wanted to be in this exact park, with the kids laughing and running around on the playground, on this exact bench, with me. When a late ice-cream stand rang its way by us, I bought fudgsicles for both of us, which, to me at least, were a little too sweet, and when a very small drip landed on her blouse, I couldn't help desperately wanting to wipe it off. But I didn't tell her about it yet.
At a certain point, she noticed where my eyes kept wandering and shot me a look that tinged on pleased masked by fury. "Oi, Kyon, up here!" she said commandingly, and I blushed as I became aware of her implications.
"Sorry, it's just...ummm..."
"What?"
I pointed, looking away as I did so. "You just have...a stain..."
She gave a wordless exclamation as she jumped up, rubbing at it determinedly with the napkin left over from the ice-cream. "Warui! This is one of my favorites, too! Augh...it looks so noticeable, doesn't it?"
I laughed a little as I stood up and put a heavy hand on her shoulder to force her to sit back down. "It doesn't look that bad," I told her, unconsciously slipping my arm around the back of the bench where she sat, lest she make an escape attempt.
"Really?" she asked worriedly, ceasing her (rather enjoyable) rubbing at the spot.
"Really," I assured her, smiling a little to myself. Who knew that Haruhi Suzumiya could get so worried about such an insignificant thing like a stain on her shirt?
"Thanks," she replied shyly (shyly?) and scooted ever so slightly closer to me on the bench.
That moment ushered in a silence that was neither awkward nor uncomfortable, just the two of us ignoring the spinning world around us, and looking at each other in comfortable quietness.
Children were called away by their parents; the ice-cream guy took his music elsewhere; the sun also began to say goodnight. Aside from a couple of random comments here and there, we were oblivious to the passing of time and the fading of light, until the street lights began to flicker on, and at last we both stood, laughing and stretching a little, and began to walk down the emptying streets.
"I suppose the others already went home," I commented, a little reluctant to bring them into this private moment that belonged to just us two, but deeming it necessary.
She gave a start of surprise as she remembered. "Yeah...I guess so," she answered quietly, and looked up at me. "Would you...walk me home?" she asked in a small voice.
"Okay."
From this angle of town, it was slightly out of my way, but I didn't care. I wanted to preserve this moment with her. It was like a little drop of honey; it sweetened every experience I'd had with her.
And then the banana peel showed up.
Now, this must seem so extraordinarily cartoon-ish that you might not believe me. After all, have you ever, in your entire life, actually seen someone, with your own eyes, slip on a banana peel? It's called propaganda. But it was there tonight, and in the fading light, I didn't see it.
I didn't go heels over head, like they show in comics; I didn't even go up in the air, but I will admit that, in order to catch myself from falling, I grabbed onto the closest thing in the vicinity and held on for dear life.
That "closest thing" just so happened to be Haruhi.
To make matters worse, she'd just turned to say something else, and so it was that I crashed into her magnificently, and we stumbled about blindly, trying not to fall over.
My mouth collided with hers painfully as I fell. I swear, that's not the sort of thing that you'd expect in real life. Exactly how often do you get an "accidental kiss" really, huh? But then again, exactly how often do you meet aliens, time-travelers, espers, giraffe-tall praying mantises, and rings that allow you to hear other people's thoughts?
My point exactly.
But...I know these lips; I kissed them, once upon a dream.
She froze under me, under my lips, under the weight of my body on hers, and I immediately pushed myself away, face red with embarrassment. "Go...gomen nasai!" I shouted, perhaps too loudly, and shot backwards.
My mind was whirling, as you can imagine. Numbly, as I fled, I was aware of her calling, "Kyon! Kyon!" back at me.
It was a stupid thing to do, I know it. But I am a guy, after all. Give me a break.
Author's Notes: Yay, more Eddie Izzard! (The banana thing). I have the feeling this chapter ended up a lot more static than I intended, but I'm a little clueless as how to fix it. Oh, well.
Translations:
Sumimasen, minna-san: Excuse me, everyone
Gomen nasai: I'm really sorry!
The Japanese apologize a lot, from what little I know. I use these a LOT, even with my English friends, hehe. That and "shitsureishimasu", which literally means something along the lines of "I'm going to make a terrible nuisance of myself, so please excuse me before hand."