Disclaimer – I don't own The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi franchise, any of the characters, or scenarios. Haruhi and all related characters are the property of Nagaru Tanigawa. No copyright infringement is intended and no money is being made, thank you.
Koizumi huffed as he ran down the street. What the Hell was going on?
It had been about half a year since he'd last talked to Toshiro, it seemed the other boy was avoiding him.
He rounded a corner and almost ran into a businessman, talking loudly into his cell phone.
"What –hey, kid, slow down!" the man called after him. Koizumi shook his head and continued running.
It was easy enough to explain why there were people chasing him. Roughly 4 months ago, something very…odd, had happened. He'd been sitting in class, playing with his lighter, and the teacher had taken it off him.
In his frustration, Koizumi had clicked his fingers together rapidly, and all of a sudden, a flame had appeared at the tip of his finger.
Naturally, he had panicked, though the flame didn't seem to be hurting him, and opened his neighbor's bottle of water to put it out. Since then, strange things had been happening all the time – the most recent of which being the fact that he had somehow walked right into some kind of alternate, gray, dimension.
He had mostly kept to himself after that, he didn't want anybody finding out what he could do.
Unfortunately, obviously he hadn't kept his secret tightly enough.
It was earlier that day; he was just walking through the park, when a black van had driven past him.
An hour later, the same van passed him again, and soon after, while he was walking down the street, it had started following him.
Koizumi had ducked down a side street to avoid it, but it was there he ran into two men in black suits. He didn't know who they were, but he could tell they were after him. He bolted.
He turned another corner, having no idea where he was heading, perhaps his home, perhaps Toshiro's home, when he bumped into a woman. She grabbed his shoulders to steady him, and laughed.
"Woah, where's the fire? " She said.
Koizumi frowned, this woman was speaking English, and he didn't know very much of that language.
"I am sorry. I do not speak English very well," he said to her, hoping she spoke Japanese.
"Yes, well, we'll fix that…" she muttered, speaking in his own language.
"H-huh?" he exclaimed. "Are you with those guys who were – let go of me!" he ordered, realizing she had not taken her hands off his shoulders either.
"We'll have to work on your attitude, as well…" she told him, nodding over his shoulder.
He turned around to see the two men in suits approaching, and tried to break away. She had a surprisingly strong grip.
One of the men held out a small black box, and Koizumi felt a jolt go through him, before everything went black.
* * * * *
He awoke in a plain room, with two beds, two bedside tables and two wardrobes in it, but nothing else. Sitting up groggily, he looked around.
"Oh, you're awake!" somebody said, from the foot of his bed.
He turned his attention to the stranger, a boy with long black hair and a friendly smile. Well, 'boy' may not have been the correct term, as he seemed to be roughly 16.
"Yeah. Mind telling me where the Hell I am?" Koizumi asked, irritably.
"You mean you don't know?" the other boy replied, looking surprised.
Koizumi shook his head. "If I knew, I wouldn't be asking, would I?" he countered, rudely.
"Well…you're in a training facility," the young man said nervously, obviously put off by Koizumi's impolite manner.
"A training facility. I see. And who are you?" he asked, wondering what the hell this guy was on about.
"Oh, sorry, my name is Souta. You're Koizumi Itsuki, right?" 'Souta' replied, looking relieved when Koizumi nodded. "Oh, good. I've not had a roommate for ages, they put my last partner out on the field…"
"The field?" Koizumi interrupted.
"Well, yes. They need to have agents out there fixing the closed spaces and stopping the Shinjin's destroying everything, don't they?" Souta asked, looking amazed at Koizumi's apparent stupidity.
Koizumi glared at him. "I don't have any idea what you're talking about. Are you insane? Am I in a mental asylum?" he asked sharply. "Oh…that's it, isn't it. I'm in a fucking mental hospital. I haven't actually been doing anything supernatural; I'm just crazy…" he said to himself, lying back down on the pillows.
"Supernatural? You mean you've been using your abilities before you enrolled here?" his new 'roommate' asked, wide eyed.
"Abilities? What abilities? And what are you talking about? I never enrolled here. I got abducted," he said angrily, sitting up again.
"…How old are you?" this next question came as a surprise.
"Nearly 15. Why?" Koizumi responded, noticing a look of understanding come across Souta's face.
"Wow…you're the youngest person here. Everyone else I've seen is at least 16…" he said, awed. "You really have no idea what's going on, do you?" he asked, speaking quickly as he saw the look of exasperation on the young boys' face. "Okay, I'll try and explain it to you, since it's obvious that you don't – no what's going on, I mean," he looked around himself.
"We're in a training facility…a 'school', if you want to call it that. Have you heard of something called ESP?" he waited until Koizumi had nodded, then continued.
"Well, you might have noticed a little while ago, something inside you seemed different. Although it seems that your abilities have already begun to manifest themselves, even in this plane…" he said, almost to himself.
"So you're saying that these things I've been doing – it's all ESP?" Koizumi asked, doubtfully.
"Well, yes. You see, we may not seem at all the same, but that's something we have in common – we're both Espers," Souta told him.
"Right. And I've been dragged here to help me 'master' these 'abilities', to act in your little army? Forget it," Koizumi said skeptically, privately thinking that Souta was completely off his rocker.
"Well…sort of. You see, you are here to train, but it's to help neutralize closed spaces – they're these weird, gray worlds-"
"I've seen it," Koizumi muttered, cutting Souta off.
"Y-you have? How?" Souta asked, amazed.
"I don't know. Accidentally, I guess," Koizumi answered. "Anyway, what are they?"
"They're called Close Space. I can't explain what creates them, all I know is that when they appear, sometimes these blue giants appear, and destroy everything inside the Closed Space. We call them Shinjins, and that's what we're in training for. You see, Closed Space is usually the only place we can utilize our abilities, and we need to destroy the Shinjin before it destroys everything and escaped into our reality. Is any of this making sense?" he asked, concerned.
"I suppose. Why do I have these 'powers', though?" Koizumi asked, annoyed. "Did this place choose for me to have them, or what?"
"Apparently, it's random. It would have started about four months ago, right? That was when I first noticed something weird going on. Soon after, this man came to visit me and asked if I'd like to train my 'unique talent', and here I am! People have been showing up ever since."
"I'm guessing not many of them were kidnapped, like I was," Koizumi murmured.
Souta looked at the brunette's disheveled appearance, taking in the too-big leather jacket, torn jeans, and devil-may-care expression, and tried to reply politely.
"Uh…well, no offence to you, but perhaps they didn't think you'd come willingly?" he winced, waiting for Koizumi to explode. Rather, Koizumi let out a bark of laughter.
"Not come willingly? Hell, I would have done anything to get away from my ordinary life!" he exclaimed, a relaxed look taking over his reserved and careful facial expression for a moment. It barely lasted a few seconds, but Souta was quick to notice how much it changed his features.
"Anyway…I still think you're completely insane, but at least you're interesting. Okay, where is all this training?" he asked, the serious look back on his face.
* * * * *
"Apparently, we have a new recruit joining us!" a severe looking man announced from the front of the room, wherein Koizumi and Souta were squeezed towards the back of the group of people. Supposedly, if what Souta said was true, all 'Espers'.
"I hope somebody has caught him up on what we do here, because I won't be doing it. Souta, he's in your group now," the man addressed Koizumi's roommate, who nodded in response.
"Well, you all know what you're supposed to be doing. Go!" the man barked, and the group split into smaller groups, all muttering to each other and occasionally glancing at Koizumi, who glared at them.
"Come on, this way," Souta said, touching Koizumi on the arm to indicate he was supposed to follow him.
Koizumi jerked his arm away. "Don't touch me," he mumbled, but Souta was already walking off, along with some other teenagers Koizumi didn't recognize.
They travelled down a long hallway; finally stopping at a door marked 'Training Room 7'.
Koizumi looked curiously and apprehensively as Souta pushed open the door, and was startled to feel an almost static buzz go through him once he entered the room.
"I told you we couldn't use our abilities outside of Closed Space, didn't I?" Souta turned to look at him. "Yeah, I think I did. Anyway, this room, and a lot of the other training rooms like it, are linked to a device that resides in Closed Space. It's like a miniature version of the real thing – we can't use the same amount of energy as we would in an actual scenario, but we can still train ourselves," he explained.
Koizumi looked around and saw no teacher. "What are we supposed to do?"
"Well, we're still training on how to even activate our so called 'power's properly. I'll help you along," Souta offered.
"No. I'll be fine," Koizumi shrugged him off, and walked over to a corner of the room.
Now…how did I do it that first time… he wondered to himself, clicking his fingers absently.
His mind drifted back to thoughts of his family, and whether they would notice he was gone. Probably not, he scowled. He then jumped as he noticed a flame had appeared on the tip of his finger, same as the first time it had happened.
Right. Energy. Got it.
The rest of the 'lesson', which went for just over an hour, he attempted to keep the flame burning, and to channel more energy into it to make it bigger.