- Chapter 6: Meet Aunt Kanae -

Haruhi dictated the conversation and other activities on the train ride, for the most part. Even in the midst of a personal crisis, Haruhi continued to exhibit her usual selfish need to have her own way in everything.

Okay, okay. I'll admit, we had more fun with Haruhi directing us than we would have had with a bunch of awkward silences, which would have inevitably been the result if she hadn't taken charge. I wouldn't want her to be anything other than her selfish, bossy self.

And yes, I did get in one conversation free from her direction. A few seconds after Ishigaki sat down next to me, she muttered, "Um, listen. I'm really sorry I intruded on your trip with Suzumiya."

I gave her a blank look. "'Intruded'?"

"You know, being a third wheel. It's just that Suzumiya totally convinced me that you'd like having me around..."

"I do like having you around." This was strange. Ishigaki didn't usually suffer from low self-esteem.

"...And I swear, if I knew there was even the slightest chance that she wouldn't tell you I was coming, I would have told you myself, and if you said you didn't want me to come along, I would have canceled, no questions asked."

"You're talking nonsense. Why would I not want you to come along?"

She paused a moment. Then her eyebrows clenched at me. "Kyon, when you saw me you were looking at me like I just ruined your whole trip."

...Oh. Crap. I was a bit worried about Ishigaki coming along on this – who knows what impact she could have on Haruhi's fear of death, or why Haruhi chose to bring her over any of her other friends – but I didn't think I let it show. Haruhi is definitely going to give me grief about this. No wonder she was staring bullets at me earlier.

"Okay, I'm sorry about that," I said to Ishigaki. "It just threw me off a little when I saw you there. Haruhi said something about bringing a friend, but I thought she would be taking Miss Tsuruya. I didn't mean to make you feel unwelcome."

"Oh, you don't have to apologize."

"No, I really do," I pressed. It had occurred to me now that if I made this really good, the coming storm from Haruhi might not be so ugly. "You're a good friend of Haruhi's, and you and I are more than just casual acquaintances at this point, so I should be greeting you with enthusiasm when I see you, not slouching and looking glum. That's kind of a bad habit of mine. And it's really bad when I make you feel like you're not welcome. It makes me happier when you come along, and more importantly, it makes Haruhi happier."

She fidgeted. "Thanks. That means a lot, but... I still kind of wish I had let you and Suzumiya go on this trip alone together."

Oh. Of course. Ishigaki is pushing for me and Haruhi to be a couple. "That would never have happened. If you hadn't agreed to go, Haruhi would have brought Tsuruya, or Sakanaka. I guarantee it. What's more, it would have been trouble if we didn't have someone else on this trip. She may not be acting like it right now, but Haruhi has a lot of worries on her mind. She needs a friend."

"Ah." Ishigaki wore a sly grin. "And you can't fill that role because you're more than a friend, is that it?"

"You know damn well what I mean. Sometimes you need someone of the same gender to talk to."

Ishigaki seemed to accept that, though I can't be too sure, since in the next moment I was distracted by Haruhi and my sister giggling like crazy. It struck me that I had heard the phrase "reindeer costume" a moment ago.

The two of them had better not be getting any ideas. Even mentioning the time I wore that costume to her aunt would be crossing the line. Right now I don't think I could stand that kind of humiliation. And the worst part is?

If Haruhi wanted me to do something like that again, I'd do it. Whatever costume she had in mind, she would find a way to get me into it.

But I guess I'm avoiding the crucial incident on that train ride. Whatever that vision Haruhi and I shared was, I died at the end of it.

Dead. Kaput. End of the line. No extra lives. No save files to reload.

What did it mean? Was this some kind of sick fantasy of Haruhi's, for me to give my life to protect hers? Or worse, was Haruhi giving me a vision of the future, possibly one I couldn't avoid? We were definitely college age in that vision, which meant the probability was leaning more strongly towards the latter option. I definitely needed to ask Miss Asahina about this.

The one great mercy was that I had time before I needed to talk to Haruhi about it. The look in her eyes when I came out of the vision said that she had seen it, and knew that I had seen it too (damn mind reader), but for whatever reason, she looked away from me after a moment. Maybe she was prudent enough that she would only discuss it in private, which was impossible due to our seating arrangements. There was a time when it would have been perfectly in keeping with Haruhi's behavior to shout across a crowded train that she had just experienced a future vision in which people were trying to kill her and I told her that aliens, espers, and time travelers are real and then took a bullet for her, but even I had to admit that Haruhi had been showing some propriety of late. Which meant that she wouldn't confront me about this until the train ride was over, and at that point she'd be occupied with greeting and catching up with her aunt for a while. I had a few hours, at least.

This was a crisis, though. Even if she ignored the bit about aliens, espers, and time travelers and interpreted the vision as a hallucination rather than a prophecy, sharing a vision with another person was definitely a paranormal event. There was no telling how Haruhi's powers might react, especially with her brooding over death thrown into the mix.

I wished I could consult Koizumi or Nagato about this. But the same lack of privacy which protected me from having to discuss it with Haruhi prevented me from talking about it on my phone. Although, maybe a text message...?

No, to explain this whole situation, even to someone familiar with Haruhi's powers and such, would require the most obnoxiously long text message in the history of mankind. Even with her strong respect for people's privacy, Ishigaki was bound to take a curious peek at my intriguingly long missive.

So I was just going to have to figure out a way of dealing with this on my own.

Okay, first things first: aliens, espers, and time travelers. I guess there's really no reason to overthink that one. If she asks, I'll tell her the truth; if she doesn't, I won't say a word. I've been wanting to tell her about her powers and the rest of it for a while now, but after we got back from that alternate world, she made it pretty plain that she doesn't want to know that stuff just yet. So if she asks, I'll take that as a sign that she wants to know now, and tell her everything, Koizumi and the rest be damned. And if she doesn't ask, I'll just continue to suffer with the secret.

In that case, though, I'll need an ordinary, mundane explanation for our shared vision. Like... mass hypnosis. Except then we would need to explain why Ishigaki and my sister weren't affected.

And now that I think about it, since this seems to have happened twice now, the first time being that "dream" where Haruhi and I kissed and were going to class together, I have to expect more to come. I need an explanation that will fit regardless of the circumstances the visions appear under. Maybe we're soulmates, sharing visions of each other's most feared and most desired futures? Ugh, Haruhi would give me a double penalty, or at any rate a harsh rebuke, for such a bad joke.

Wait. What's so bad about that? One penalty more or less isn't going to kill me, and it might distract Haruhi from the subject. Anyway, I don't have a better idea right now. I mean, whatever explanation I come up with, it has to involve some sort of mental connection between me and Haruhi, right? Otherwise it can't explain why the visions are seen by the two of us and by no one else.

That probably should have been my cue to start pondering what the actual cause of the visions was. After all, I had already started on that track, and it was something I really ought to be figuring out before it shaped up into something world-threatening. But I was relieved to have an answer ready for Haruhi, so I settled back and enjoyed the train scenery.

I didn't have long, anyway. In just a few minutes, the train ground to a halt at the station.

We piled off in as orderly a fashion as could be expected from a contingent of the SOS Brigade. Not that any of us were here as members of the SOS Brigade, not even Haruhi and me, but... Look, the point is that as soon as the train stopped, if not a second or two sooner, Haruhi leapt out of her seat and led the way off. To a stranger's eyes, she probably looked like a criminal making a getaway. Ishigaki scampered along after her, while I stuck behind to carry our luggage (mine and Haruhi's) and make sure my sister got off safely.

As my sister and I stepped up to the train's doors, we heard a jovial, feminine voice crying out "Haaaaaruhiiii!" Whoever it was sounded like a squealing teenager greeting her favorite classmate after a long school vacation, only much older.

I got off the train to witness the strange sight of Haruhi being half-smothered in the embrace of a large, dark-haired woman. I don't think it would be really accurate to describe her as fat, but her shape was roughly that of an average woman wearing two winter coats. Everything about her was broad, including her face and the smile that seemed to fill her every pore.

"Hi, honey!" she gushed, squeezing Haruhi tight and rocking back and forth, like she was trying to stuff every ounce of affection she had into the hug. "Ohhh, it's so good to see you! How have you been?"

As Ishigaki looked on with quiet amusement, Haruhi managed to pry her face free of the woman's bosom, if not the rest of her body. "I've been... great, Aunt Kanae!" I picked up the pain and confusion in her voice before that little pause, signaling that the matter of our shared vision had not left her mind, but no one else seemed to pick up on it. "I've had tons of adventures since the last time I saw you!"

"Well, you'll have to tell me about them, then! Are these your friends?" She was looking at me and Ishigaki, who were conspicuously loitering around the two Suzumiyas. My sister was still a bit too short to catch someone's immediate attention.

"That's right! This here is Yui Ishigaki, tomb raiding adventurer, and this is Kyon and his intrepid sister!"

I sighed, and told Aunt Kanae what my sister's and my actual names were.

"But of course, if you call Kyon by that name, I'm just going to say 'Who?'"

Between this and my encounter with her mom, I gathered that Haruhi had no compunctions about being rude in front of her relatives. I did, though, so for Aunt Kanae's sake I kept it polite when I told Haruhi that I was aware that she knew my real name, and while I could not force her to use it, if she started playing games like that I could and would take my sister on the next train home.

"Geez, why are you so touchy all of a sudden?"

Touchiness had nothing to do with it. I usually didn't worry too much about having my sister around Haruhi, because ordinarily Haruhi was very well-mannered around adults, but if she intended to be her usual unfiltered self around Aunt Kanae then I was going to put my foot down as soon as possible. I wasn't going to stand by while Haruhi set a bad example for my little sister, who was already showing disrespectful tendencies.

But of course I couldn't explain all that with my sister standing right there, so I just retorted, "Why are you so rude in front of guests, and not even all of a sudden?"

"Whoa, settle down guys," Aunt Kanae cut in, half laughing. "I like the name Kyon anyway, so there's nothing to fight about."

Great, another Suzumiya who kowtowed to the mighty Haruhi's demands. Were all of Haruhi's relatives like this? I supposed it came with being an only child, and your aunt having no children of her own. I'd bet Haruhi's uncles were all childless too.

"And how are you, little miss?" Aunt Kanae squatted down to face my sister. "Boy, you're even cuter than Haruhi was when she was in second grade!"

"And she's nearly in middle school!" Haruhi boasted, as if she had somehow coached my sister to her current level of cuteness.

My sister just giggled happily at getting such accolades from the two Suzumiyas.

Ishigaki, meanwhile, was casting side glances at me and the load of luggage I bore. "Hey, um, want me to give you a hand with that? Actually, I think that bag there is mine..."

This was getting a little out of hand. Silently handing Ishigaki her bag, I attempted to put a halt to the chaos. "Haruhi, are you going to properly introduce us or not?"

"Oh, right. Everyone, this is my aunt, Kanae Suzumiya, lover of excitement and cancer survivor par excellence."

I gave her a bow and said, "Pleased to meet you, Miss Suzumiya. Haruhi has already told me great things about you."

Ishigaki hesitated, looking unsure whether such a conventional response should follow such a grandiose introduction, but ultimately she and my sister both followed my example.

"Well, let's not just stand around here," Aunt Kanae said. "Let me help you get that luggage to the car."

She grabbed a bag from me and we followed her to her car. Though really, it was more of a jeep. We were able to pile all our things into the back and seat ourselves quite comfortably, with my sister taking the middle seat between me and Ishigaki, and Haruhi of course riding shotgun. I wouldn't have expected such a spacious vehicle from a single woman, but of course I had the common courtesy not to ask about it.

"Boy, this is a lot bigger than the car you had the last time I visited," Haruhi remarked. "Are you planning on having kids?"

And hither comes the queen of tactlessness. I hid my face with one hand, hoping the question would be ignored.

"Oh no, not me, honey," Kanae said. "I just figured, after I came so close to dying, that I might as well go out and buy the kind of vehicle I've dreamed of owning. Otherwise, all that money is just lost when I die, right?"

It struck me as a bit insensitive to cavalierly state that you plan to burn through your niece's inheritance as fast as you can spend it, but then, Haruhi was the sort of person who didn't care much about money. It was tempting to think otherwise, with the way she was always making me pay for everything, but that was a clear-cut case of money just being the means to an end. She wanted a lot of things that cost money, and had no compunctions about making me empty my wallet to get them, but she never doled out a penalty where I had to simply give her money. In all probability, it had never even occurred to her that a large percentage of whatever moola her aunt had would go to her when she died.

"Yeah... a lot of stuff is lost when you die," Haruhi said with sudden ennui. "That's something I wanted to talk to you about while we were here. I mean, because of the cancer and everything, you've had to think about death a lot, haven't you?"

"Well, sure. Is this for a school project you're working on?"

"No, it's more of a save-the-world project." She said this with none of the cheerfulness she would ordinarily put into that phrase. "I'm trying to find a way to deal with death. You know, getting around the fact that one day we won't exist anymore. Some form of immortality would be ideal."

"Oh, honey," she cooed with sympathy. "You're too young to be thinking about dying."

"That's probably what people would have said about you, before you got cancer," I pointed out. And immediately felt the urge to smack myself in the face. Why was I pushing Haruhi further down that morbid track, especially right in front of my sister?

Not that my sister seemed troubled by any of this. She was busy leaning across me to look out the window, apparently operating under the assumption that I wouldn't mind having her hands planted on my legs to support her weight or her hair occasionally bobbing up into my face. I was starting to think that squishing myself into the middle seat would have been the better choice.

"Yeah, you're never too young to die," Haruhi agreed. "Just think of how many babies die from miscarriages and -"

"Aaaaannd I think your aunt gets the idea," I hurriedly cut in.

Haruhi must have been more down then I thought, because she didn't keep talking over me, or even snap at me for interrupting her. She was almost ominously silent.

The silence held sway over the whole car for a moment, and then Kanae spoke up: "Well, I don't know if I can help you guys that much. Really, the whole cancer thing made me think a lot about life more than it did about death. It put everything in perspective, and made me realize how precious all the moments that I'm living are. In fact, I'm working on writing a memoir now."

"A memoir?" Ishigaki said. "You mean a book?"

"Yup. Well, I hope it'll be a book – I have to get a publisher to take it, you know."

Actually writing it is a pretty big prerequisite, too.

"Wow, that's pretty neat." Ishigaki's enthusiasm was so pure, it made me wish I had something other than harsh reality to offer for comment. "I've never met someone who's written a book."

"A book," Haruhi repeated, so softly that I doubted anyone but me heard her. "A book."

"So, your niece said we might go hiking while we're visiting you."

"Oh, you guys want to go hiking?" Kanae said. "Sure, there are lots of great places to do that around here! How about we head up Mount Narobu tomorrow? It's a couple kilometers up and back down, so it'll be good exercise, but not too much for the little one. And there's a beautiful view of the town from up top."

"Sounds great. I always love looking out of airplane windows."

My sister piped up, "We're going to climb a real mountain?"

"Well, not really a mountain, sweetheart," Kanae replied. "But it's a couple hundred meters high, so it's -"

"That's it!" This exclamation from Haruhi was so sudden that I flinched like a man who has just had a gun shoved in his face. I heard a yelp from Ishigaki.

Kanae let out a breath. "Don't do that while I'm driving, honey."

"That's it, a book!" Typical for her, Haruhi was completely unconcerned with whether or not her shouting was taking years off of anyone else's life. "That's how we can get immortality!"

"What are you talking about?"

Haruhi leaned towards her aunt so far that she had to put her hands on the median for support. From that angle, I could see her face in profile - with the terrifying smile it bore. "Aunt Kanae, you just have to write a book about all of us!"