- Chapter 16: Unjust Desserts -

I needed to stop these time folds now.

Easier said than done, right? But I had to say it, because this was getting too disturbing.

It wasn't Haruhi refusing to marry me, of course. I expected that part. Hell, only a complete idiot wouldn't have seen that one coming. Nor was it my marrying someone else, though I must admit that my heart felt like I'd swallowed a pack of razor blades at the thought of it for reasons which I do not care to explore.

No, I'm going to stop beating around the bush: What was so disturbing was my putting a gun to my head. It was unfathomable to me that I would ever even consider the dishonorable act of taking my own life. Yet I had had reasons for it which were crystal clear to me while I was in the time fold, though now that I was back in the present I couldn't identify them, no matter how hard I tried.

At the same time, there seemed to be the implication that if you cut excitement out of my life, this was inevitable result. Which was absurd. I could live with boredom. There were even times when boredom was a pleasure, a calming expanse of nothing which cooled and refreshed me after the many stressful occurrences in my life, and made the contrasting shitstorms Haruhi dragged me into easier to appreciate. If every day were a trip back in time or a baseball game for the fate of the world, it wouldn't be fun anymore.

At least talking to Kanae provided a distraction for a while. It was a long interview, covering a lot of points that she must have already covered with Haruhi. Though she didn't come right out and say so, I got the impression that Haruhi had peppered her account with plenty of half-truths, quarter-truths, and exaggerations to make the SOS Brigade's achievements seem more spectacular, take credit for nearly all of my contributions, and generally make herself look good, so Kanae was relying on me to set the record straight. And believe me, I was more than ready to do that.

As I had hoped, going over my history with Haruhi also made me feel better. Partly because I was reminded that, for all her faults, I had had some pretty great times with Haruhi, and she had pulled us all out of some pretty terrifying situations, arguably more precarious than this one.

Mainly, though, because I was reminded that even when she had perfectly good intentions, Haruhi had more than once twisted our entire world inside out, until the universe was practically upchucking us like bad clams. Which meant that I couldn't (or rather, I didn't have to) take it for granted that what I was experiencing in these time folds reflected any form of reality or truth. It didn't have to be the future, or even a "could be" future – Haruhi might be flipping and bending the whole thing around. It would be just like her to believe that living without her would make me want to kill myself. She's never going to learn that the universe doesn't revolve around her.

So that was one less thing for me to uselessly worry about. Now my only concerns were that at least one esper and one alien were spying on us, Haruhi was repeatedly yanking me and everyone else close to her into harrowing chunks of the future, that gas leak story wasn't going to hold up if those chunks kept up after this weekend visit was over and we returned home, Haruhi was in danger of converting to Christianity and bringing half the world into it with her, and closed space was piling up every time one of us got killed in these time folds, potentially leading to the end of the world. Oh, and Haruhi's efforts to avoid my being killed were apparently getting desperate, because she had moved back onto the timeline where I proposed to her.

And... I had no idea what the next step for addressing any of those was.

I guess I should just try talking to her. Maybe something would come to me.

I headed downstairs and found Ishigaki and my sister set up at the table with colored pencils, markers, and sheets of paper, drawing pictures very contentedly. My sister was humming to herself, while Ishigaki was silent and focused. I would like to say they were exhibiting unexpected talent, but the best that could be said of their work was that they were having fun with it. Which I suppose was the whole point to begin with, and I should just keep my stupid thoughts to myself.

"Hey. Where's Haruhi?" I asked.

Ishigaki looked up. "Oh, hey Kyon. She just kind of wandered off."

"Wandered off?" I repeated, not liking the sound of that at all.

"Yeah. She drew with us for a little bit, but then she got up and walked off. She didn't say anything, so I figured she was just using the bathroom, but that was kind of a while ago." She shrugged. "Maybe she got hit with one of her ideas and is making plans for us."

I liked the sound of that last sentence even less. "There's something wrong with the nuclear reactor" would sound less ominous.

I was going to dash off in search of Haruhi when I was struck by something else. "...Do you guys hear music?"

My sister didn't answer, just continued humming and drawing. Ishigaki cocked her head. "Oh, yeah. There's a piano in the other room. I guess Suzumiya is going at it."

I nodded, "Thanks," and turned to go, but then Ishigaki had to add:

"Going to make up with her, huh? Go for it."

So Ishigaki misunderstands the situation between me and Haruhi yet again. Oh well, it saves me the trouble of coming up with a cover story. Still annoying, though.

I was also having trouble with the fact that Kanae Suzumiya apparently has a second living room. This still was nowhere near the opulence of the Tsuruya mansion, but it was rather excessive for a woman living all by herself.

As I approached, the music became louder. The tone of the piano was unusual: strangely sharp, almost crystalline, like the strings of some extraterrestrial harp being plucked. Though the melody was curiously meandering, it was striking emotional chords right in the pit of my soul. The notes and the chords floated adrift, intelligently related to each other, yet somehow separate. It was the song of someone lost, yearning to be found, someone abandoned and forgotten, yearning to be remembered.

I stepped into the room and saw Haruhi seated at the piano, eyes closed, fingers skipping over the keys easily and naturally. I stood there in silence, waiting for her to finish the song. And, okay, rather enjoying it. There's something about listening to a good pianist and watching them as they play.

A couple minutes later, or maybe half an hour, she plunked off the last few aching notes and leaned back on the piano stool.

Then she spotted me. She blinked. "Kanae isn't cooking dinner already, is she?"

"Not yet," I said. "I just came to listen."

She gave me a blank look. Which I guess was better than her remembering that she was supposed to be angry at me, but it was strange and awkward. I mean, wasn't this where she would say "Well, of course you did. Who wouldn't be drawn to my playing like a moth to a shining light?", or "Hey, I didn't give you permission to listen! The next time you want to listen to me, ask first!"?

But I guessed it was up to me to break the silence. "I'd offer up applause, but since I'm just one person, it would probably sound sarcastic."

"...I wasn't playing for applause."

Of course not. And isn't that part of what makes a performance like that special, Haruhi?

"This piano is completely out of tune," she said, as if by way of explanation. "Getting a piano tuned is unbelievably expensive, and Kanae doesn't play much anymore, so she hasn't bothered for years. Every time I come visit, it's a little more out of tune. That's why it sounds so honky-tonk. If I had a properly tuned piano, I could have played something really beautiful."

"I don't doubt it. But you really made that out of tune sound work for you. I don't think you could have created that same desolate sound with a piano that was perfectly tuned."

She didn't say anything to that, just looked down at the keys.

"I didn't even know you played piano."

She sniffed. "It's not difficult. Keyboards are the one family of instruments that are basically rigged up so that you have individual buttons for each note, arranged in order from low to high." She played an octave, going from lowest to highest, as if to illustrate. "It makes my head hurt knowing that people actually pay for piano lessons. They need to have someone explain to them that higher notes come after lower notes? That's sad."

"I don't think that's why they need lessons. It probably has to do with learning how to move your fingers over the keys fast enough and accurate enough."

"Well, that's not something that needs teaching. That's something that comes with practice."

I decided to concede that one to her. "Still, not everyone can play piano that well. I'd show off that talent more often if I were in your shoes."

She nodded. "The problem with that is, we don't have a piano at my house. We could never afford something like that. That's why I always take the opportunity to play this one while I'm over here, even though it's so horribly out of tune."

"Well, I'm glad that you do."

Again, she didn't have anything to say to that. And it was time I moved on to a more important topic, as unpleasant as it was. If Haruhi had dreamed up me putting a gun to my head, then I needed to make sure she understood that it was only a dream.

"Hey, Haruhi." I took a seat on the piano stool. Just because I was getting tired of standing. "I know I've been trying to convince you to just take it easy on this whole death thing, but the truth is, I'm scared to die, too."

"Did you think that would be some sort of shocking surprise to me?" she snorted. "Anybody who has known you even a tenth as long as I have could have guessed that."

I'm trying to establish an honest and heartfelt rapport with you here. Do you think you could refrain from cutting in with snide commentary for a minute? "I don't know if there's much I can do to stop myself from dying, but if I'm honest about it, I really love my life. Not just all the good things I have now, like my friends, and my family, and the SOS Brigade, but just being alive in this world. That's something I don't want to ever end, and I don't think I'll ever want it to end, even if everything else changes for me." I paused, willing that last sentiment to sink into Haruhi's thick head, so that I wouldn't have to worry about a bullet sinking into my head. "So I understand where you're coming from. It's just that I think we have to accept that eventually we have to die. You said yourself, we can never get back the time that we've lost, right? And anyway, it's better than never living at all, isn't it?"

She was staring down at the piano keys. "...I don't accept that."

"You have -"

"This is a problem, and I'm going to find a solution. If you don't have any ideas along those lines, then just shut up."

I wasn't sure what to say to that, or even if there was anything I could say to that that would make any difference. Haruhi clearly had her mind set on this.

She got up from the piano. "I'm going to help Kanae make dinner."

"Okay," I said, and followed her back to the rest of our little group.

I had thought Haruhi was going to essentially orchestrate dinner, but she announced that she would be making us desert, and from the sound of it she was focusing all her attention on that and more or less left Aunt Kanae to do her thing.

I say "from the sound of it" because I was not allowed to watch the culinary artists at work.

"The kitchen is no place for boys," Haruhi snapped, pointing a finger out into the living room. I'd heard this line from her before, so I knew the drill. It's not like I was interested in hanging around them while they were cooking, anyway. I respect their craft and its fruits, but it is very obviously not a good spectator sport. I don't care how high the ratings for cooking shows are.

"Come on, your sister's picked out a board game we can play while we're waiting for dinner," Ishigaki said, pulling me with her.

I figured I was in for a tedious and embarrassing time, but it turned out my sister had picked out an interesting murder mystery game. We all had a fun time making guesses and deductions, and since Haruhi wasn't one of the players, everyone had a good chance of winning. I suppose that made it all the more humiliating that I lost the first game to my little sister, but I didn't mind too much. We were enjoying ourselves, and for the moment Haruhi's grudge match with the Grim Reaper was forgotten.

With my sister pondering her next move, Ishigaki leaned towards me and said softly, "So are you and Suzumiya good now?"

Oh right; she thought me and Haruhi were having a makeup conversation. Well, I didn't see any reason to disillusion her on that score. "We're not fighting, but I wouldn't say Haruhi is good."

"Huh? She was fine on the mountain. Did you say something to her?"

She probably didn't mean that to sound accusatory, so I repressed my usual defensiveness about Haruhi and just said, "It's complicated. You and Kanae and my sister have all been good for her, but this is a war that won't be won with a single battle."

"Oh." She toyed with her cards. "I sure hope Suzumiya has the patience for it, then."

My sister made her move then, but as the game went on, Ishigaki's words continued to bug me. Patience was one quality that Haruhi did not have in abundance. Being of a more calm and reasonable nature myself, it had not occurred to me before that whatever move Haruhi was going to make to beat death, she would be making it before this weekend visit was over.

But since I still had no idea of what move that would be, I put that thought aside when dinner was served. Aunt Kanae saw fit to foist her love for trying new things on the rest of us, so she had prepared Thai cuisine. It wasn't particularly to my liking – all those sauces gave the whole meal a watery consistency – but Haruhi and Ishigaki were both heartily enjoying the exotic flavors and, more importantly, the adventure of it, and that was enough to keep me happy. Even my sister was keeping her complaints to a minimum. Besides, I had to hold back any grumbling while eating dinner if I was to get any desert.

When we were finished, Haruhi came out with a rich looking mousse pie. After serving up healthy slices to Ishigaki, Aunt Kanae, and my sister, she glared at me and said, "You really don't deserve this after the way you defied my orders earlier, but I'll let you have one slice." I guess she had remembered that she was supposed to be angry at me. She cut into the pie and served me a piece that, to my surprise, seemed even larger than the ones she gave the others. "Just one, got it?"

I nodded. "Thank you." One slice like that would be plenty.

Or so I thought.

There was good reason to be skeptical about this dessert. While Haruhi seemed to have a wide arsenal of recipes, she didn't dabble much in foreign cuisine, and following Kanae's Thai food with Haruhi's French was a potentially disastrous clash of palettes. But one bite of that pie and I was transported to a plane of culinary peace and enlightenment. It was nothing but smooth creaminess and rich chocolaty taste, and it dissolved right in my mouth like cream. If Haruhi was right about there being a heaven, then they're very likely to turn a blind eye to her numerous sins and let her in, because the whole afterlife reward/punishment system would be upended if the only place you could get pie like this was hell.

I savored the experience to the utmost of my ability, but in what seemed like too little time to write my name, my piece of pie was gone.

"Mmm, that was sooo yummy!" my sister giggled happily. "May I have another slice, please?"

"Of course! I'm so glad you like it!" Haruhi replied, serving one onto her outstretched plate.

"I really shouldn't, but can I have another too?" Ishigaki said. "Just a small one this time."

"No problem." Haruhi accordingly cut her a roughly one-third size piece. I was starting to feel like I would kill for even a one-tenth size piece.

"Aren't you going to have any yourself, honey?" Aunt Kanae asked.

I hadn't noticed it before, but she was right; Haruhi didn't even have a plate in front of her now that the Thai food had been cleared away. "Nah, I already filled up on your good cooking, auntie. I just wanted to see you guys enjoy it."

"Well, it really is incredible."

That was a bit odd. Usually Haruhi had the appetite of a swarm of locusts, and given her average daily energy output, I didn't wonder at the fact that she downed so much without putting on weight. On the contrary, I wondered at how she able to extract so much energy from so few calories. For her to turn down food on the grounds she'd had enough was pretty much unprecedented. Maybe she was in more of a depressed mood than she was letting on.

My sister was eating her second slice delicately, taking small bites and closing her eyes while gracefully lifting the fork to her mouth, as though pretending she was at a royal banquet or something. Families should share with each other, so I snuck my fork onto her plate and nabbed a little piece.

"Hey!" Haruhi snatched up her fork and swung it down at mine, disarming me and knocking the precious little piece of mousse into an ugly splatter on the dining table. "I told you, you can only have one slice!"

"I just wanted one more bite," I protested. Which was of course a lie. If you offered me another whole pie that I could have all to myself, I would have gladly eaten the whole thing, and indigestion be damned.

"Stealing from your sister makes the crime twice as bad! Penalty!"

"Yeah, yeah," I sighed.

"I don't know how I could have made it any simpler for you, Kyon: Only. One. Slice!" She jabbed me in the arm with her fork on that last word.

"Ow!" As I rubbed the injured spot, my sister stuck out her tongue at me and ate another piece. Brat. "Look, how about I pay for lunch for everyone tomorrow and we just forget about the one slice limit?"

Ishigaki grinned at Haruhi. "He really likes your pie, Suzumiya. If you let him have more, you'll have his gratitude at no cost to you."

"No! My penalties are not negotiable!" She took away my fork, as though concerned that I might try again to sneak a piece. "Besides, Kyon should already be grateful that I let him have one slice."

Well, you couldn't really argue with that. Haruhi had been under no obligation to prepare dessert, and if I were in as glum a mood as she was, I would be much more inclined to sit back and let everyone else take care of things. Haruhi wasn't generous very often, but that was all the more reason why you couldn't help but be grateful when she was.

But of course, it would have made everyone feel awkward if I put that into words. So I just shrugged my shoulders and let it go. Even Ishigaki, in spite of her brief intervention on my behalf, seemed to realize this was not the big deal Haruhi was making it out to be.

After we finished and cleaned up the plates together, we played a little trivia game, but Kanae was starting to look drowsy already, Ishigaki was slowly fading, and my sister was absolutely pooped. Seeing her yawn like she was trying to suck all the oxygen out of the room, I couldn't help but yawn myself. After Kanae identified the subatomic particle with a positive charge as the mitochondria, we all agreed to turn in early so we could start fresh tomorrow.

At this point my sister had already flopped down against my arm, so I had no choice but to carry her up to bed. Turning to face her, I bent down, and picked her up so that the side of her face was resting against my shoulder.

"Aw, the prince carrying the little princess," Ishigaki smiled at us.

That comment worried me a little. I know in the gun fold I said that memory of the time folds fades after a while, but it made me uncomfortable that that time fold was on Ishigaki's mind even if only for the time being.

I brought my sister upstairs and, after wishing everyone a good night, set her down on her bed and tucked her in. Then I got in bed myself and quickly dozed off.

"Kyon, are you listening to me?"

I didn't turn towards her, keeping my eyes focused on the road ahead. "Yes, Haruhi. But I'm not letting you drive."

"Unbelievable," she grumbled. Even though I still wasn't looking at her, I somehow knew she was leaning back and squirming in the driver's side seat. "Ever since you got this car, you won't let anyone else have the wheel. It's like it's possessed you."

"Let's not talk about demonic possessions, please. And it has nothing to do with the car. I'm not letting you drive because we're carrying precious cargo, in case you've forgotten."

"Of course I haven't forgotten! What does that have to do with not letting me drive?"

Come on, Haruhi. You're the most insanely dangerous driver who ever put their foot to a pedal. I haven't yet figured out how you got that examiner to give you a pass on your driver's test, but if photos were involved they must have been pretty spicy ones.

"If I'm such a bad driver, how come I've never gotten into an accident? Huh?"

Believe me, I'm as mystified by that as you are. It's enough to make me suspect there's some truth to the adage that God looks after fools. Actually, a lot of things about you make me suspect that. "Look, everyone has never been in an accident until they get into an accident. I think about that every time you drive. The only reason I'm willing to accept that potential nightmare in your case is because knowing you, even if you did get into an accident, you would somehow come out of it without a scratch. And there's no way I can stop you from driving entirely. If I took your license you'd just drive without one. But I don't have that reassurance with our precious cargo, and while I can't stop you from driving entirely, I can most definitely stop you from putting them at risk. So I'm not letting you behind the wheel when they're in the car."

"Ever?"

"Ever."

"What if your right arm gets cut off with an axe and someone has to pick them up from camp?"

"They don't go to camp, I don't work around axes, and if I had to I would drive them one-armed rather than entrust their lives to your driving skills."

Haruhi's tone of voice did a sudden shift. "That's it. Pull over."

"I'm not letting you drive, Haruhi."

"I didn't tell you to get out of the driver seat. I told you to pull over." She added, in a deadly note, "Now."

I sighed, put on my right signal, and slowed down to drive onto the shoulder. By now Haruhi and I had both learned each other's tells, and could recognize when the other wasn't going to give in on an issue. The good news was that that meant Haruhi knew I wasn't going to let her drive, and while that wouldn't stop her from arguing the issue, it did make her less stubborn about it, and less bitter when she finally gave in.

The bad news was, that also meant I knew that Haruhi wasn't going to give in on me pulling the car over. The longer I stayed on the road in defiance of her order, the harsher the penalty was going to be.

Once I had pulled to a stop, I put the parking brake on and turned to Haruhi, who was unbuckling her seat belt, her face showing grim intent. "Look, I know that you love to drive, but even you have to mmmmph!"

Haruhi had just silenced me with an exceptionally effective gag: her mouth. Her arms had simultaneously wrapped around my neck, holding the gag firmly in place, and the force of her sudden embrace knocked me back against the car door. In no time at all, she had her tongue in my mouth and was very passionately making out with me.

And I, shamefully, was not complaining. For the moment, I totally forgot about the fact that we were parked at the side of a moderately busy road and put my arms around her, meeting her halfway on the kiss. She seemed to approve of that.

What brought me to my senses was when she removed her hands from the back of my head and reached down to start pulling up her shirt. I had my left arm grasping her back, so I immediately felt what she was doing, and pulled my lips free of hers. "H-Haruhi! What the h-"

I narrowly avoided uttering a profanity in the wrong company. But now she had her shirt up past her bra, apparently having assumed that my motive for breaking off the kiss was to allow her to remove her top. With an incoherent cry of alarm, I grabbed the bottom of her shirt and yanked it back down to her waist.

Haruhi blinked at me in surprise. "What's the problem?"

This was too much, even by Haruhi standards. "Our children are in the back seat!"

She didn't even glance back at Sayomi and Eiji, both of whom were staring at us in alarm. Sayomi was also starting to squirm in her car seat, as if trying to escape from her crazed parents.

"So?" Haruhi said. "Children should know their parents love each other. They should see them express that love!" This time she grabbed hold of my shirt, yanking it up over my stomach. Not that I had any intention of cooperating, but I wondered how she planned to get it over my head and arms with me lying sprawled across the car seat and the back of my head against the car door.

"They are two decades too young for sex education, never mind sex education involving a personal demonstration by their parents!" I shot back. Haruhi was now nibbling her way up my rib cage. "C-can't we do this some other time?"

"Mmmm. Now," she muttered against my skin, still nibbling, and started roaming her hand over my chest.

"H-Haruhi. Stop, stop." I forced myself to inhale. "Look, would you at least let me get us to a love hotel first? Apart from everything else, you have to realize this is not going to be a comfortable place for you-know-what."

Haruhi pulled back and scowled. "A love hotel? What decade are you living in?"

"It beats doing it by the side of the road in front of our kids and whatever strangers pull over for a look-see." Recalling that you can catch more flies with honey than vinegar, I added, "Come on, you can pick whatever room you want."

"Of course I can pick the room! Did you seriously think for one second that I might set foot in a love hotel room that you picked out?" She hopped back into her seat and put her seat belt back on. "Okay, but my hormones aren't going to wait forever so step on it! You got 10 minutes!"

Knowing Haruhi, this was undoubtedly an exaggeration, but the essence of the threat was true; if I didn't get us to a room before Haruhi's motor stopped running, then sexual activities would be canceled for the day. Maybe longer. I snapped on my seat belt, put the car in drive, and burned rubber pulling back out onto the road while Haruhi pulled up directions on her phone.

Eiji's bewildered voice piped up, "Daddy? What's going on?" Yeah, the kid already knows that if you want sense and reason, ask Daddy. Definitely not Mommy.

"Nothing to worry about, Eiji," I reassured him. "Mommy just had an emergency that we need to take care of."

"Like diarrhea?" he said, with obvious enthusiasm.

"Not diarrhea, but kind of like that, yeah."

Haruhi rolled her eyes.

A thought hit me. No, not a thought... more like deja vu. "Um, Haruhi?"

"What?"

"Do you remember those time folds you made back in high school?"

"I have a raging urge to make passionate love with you that is fading with each second you delay, and that's what you're choosing for the topic of conversation?"

Yeah, any allusion to Haruhi's powers is a sore point with her. She knows that giving them away to Sasaki was the right move – we'd never have been able to start a family with aliens, espers etc. on our case all the time, and Sasaki could be trusted to not abuse the powers or allow harm to come to our friends – but losing the power to make anything she dreamed up real was something that she'd never fully get over. I had to address this, though.

"Do you..." I paused to thread my way between two cars which were not going far enough above the speed limit for my current liking. "Do you remember experiencing what we're doing right now in a time fold?"

"I thought you and Mikuru both said that you can't remember what happens in a time fold for more than a day or two later." Her voice was dripping with dislike for this topic of conversation.

"That's not exactly what either of us said. I mean, it's like a dream, isn't it? You can't remember them as sharp and clear as something that happened in the here and now, but there are things about them that you remember, aren't there?"

"Maybe. So what?"

"I'm saying that I seem to remember being in a time fold where we had a son and a daughter, and you jumped me after I pulled over to the side of the road, and I drove us to a love hotel while explaining to the kids that you have something like diarrhea."

"I repeat: So. What?"

She was really being difficult about this. "Haru, when you did that first set of time folds, I hadn't even seen you naked yet. I really don't want to make it so that we lose our virginities in a time fold."

"That would be pretty unromantic," she admitted. "But if that had happened, we would have remembered it, right? And we don't, so that means the time fold ended before we got to our room at the hotel."

"That's assuming that what we experienced in the time folds is set in stone, and that nothing we do now can change them. I don't think that makes -"

"Hey, Kyon. When would you like us to next make love? Within the next 10 minutes, or more than a week from now?"

I shut up and drove.

You might think, from my eagerness to get in an impromptu lovemaking session with Haruhi, that the two of us were a lot more in sync when it came to sex than with other matters. Not true. Years of marriage had proved that we had drastically different tastes with regard to our shared sex life.

Point of contention number one: Frequency. My personal preference is for a steady, consistent three times a week. ...Well, okay, five times a week would be more like it. But with Haruhi, I wasn't even guaranteed one time a week.

Consistency simply isn't in Haruhi's vocabulary. At times she seemed insatiable, pushing me to limits I didn't know existed and then making me go beyond them. There has been more than one weekend during which every time I tried to leave our bed, Haruhi wrapped her arms around my shoulders and pulled me back, and I heard her say in a tone that was soft but clearly not a request: "More." More often, she went through phases of boredom with sex, reacting with complete disinterest to my most desperately amorous overtures for as long as two weeks in a row. She also was quite willing to use abstinence as a penalty whenever I disappointed her. She was well aware that I craved sex more often than she did, and took advantage of it.

Point of contention number two: Cosplay, or the lack thereof. I don't think there's any point in denying that a good costume is a major turn-on for me. But Haruhi was firmly against incorporating them into our love life. "That's like you want to have sex with someone else," she said. "When we make love, I want you making love to me. Just me, the real me, as I am." I offered a fair exchange: I'd be happy to wear any costume she wanted me to. She replied, "That's no incentive. I only want to make love to you." Put that way, I felt like kind of an asshole for even wanting Haruhi to dress up as something other than herself. But I still wanted it.

Although, the ban on cosplay wasn't quite absolute. On our fifth anniversary, I entered the bedroom to the delightful sight of Haruhi in belly-dancer attire. I rather foolishly remarked that I thought she had said no costumes when we make love, and she answered, "This isn't a costume. A costume makes you look like something you're not. I am a trained belly-dancer." She then proceeded to demonstrate, to my even greater delight. Apparently all those times she told me she was meeting with friends from work, she was actually taking belly dancing lessons in preparation for that anniversary. Given the principle behind this exception, I considered asking Haruhi how she felt about working as a waitress for a week or two, but wisely decided against it.

Point of contention number three: Positions. While Haruhi employed quite a wide variety, including some I had never dreamed of, she generally avoided any position where she was on top. I pointed out to her that this was stupid because she was clearly better at sex than I was. "I like how you do it," she would answer with a coy smile that left me with no choice but to give her exactly what she wanted. Even though it was obviously a lie; the reason she didn't want to be on top was because, as with everything else, she wanted me to do all the work.

In spite of all that, sex with Haruhi was always a can't-miss opportunity. She treated it with the same fierce enthusiasm she treated any other activity, making love with incomparable energy, passion, and imagination. And while I couldn't claim to anywhere near measure up to her performance, expressing my love for Haruhi in such an unreserved manner was fulfilling to me like absolutely nothing else. When I was with her in that way, I just wanted to give her everything, and that was a feeling I always wanted to revisit.

"Hey, Daddy?" Eiji said. "What's a time fold?"

"Nothing important, buddy. I'll tell you when you're older."

"Igooboo," Sayomi said, touching her cheek with one finger.

Haruhi answered, "We love you too, sweet girl." Yeah, she translated pretty much whatever stream of gibberish that came out of Saymoi's mouth as "I love you, Mommy and Daddy." I debated this practice with her for over a half hour once and got nowhere.

I heard a text alert come from Haruhi's phone. She picked it up and read. "Yuki texted me back," she said. "She'll meet us at the hotel and watch the kids while we're busy."

"Wait, you told Nagato that we're going to, uh, you know?"

"We can't just leave the kids unattended, idiot. What's the problem with her knowing, anyway?"

I reminded myself that I don't want to say anything that could jeopardize my chances of having sex with Haruhi, so I replied, "Nothing. I was just curious."

Nagato was indeed waiting for us when we got to the love hotel. I gave her a wave. A very awkward wave. She just nodded in return.

"Come on," Haruhi told me, heading for the entrance. "You didn't make bad time, but I'm not in the mood to wait one second longer than I have to, got it?"

I turned to the kids. "Hey guys, wait here with Miss Nagato, okay? Mommy and Daddy will be back in 15 minutes."

"An hour!" Haruhi sharply corrected. "45 minutes, bare minimum!"

Good grief. Five years of marriage and Haruhi still has unrealistic expectations about my staying power. Well, I'll give it my best shot, but the fact is it'll be a miracle if I have anything left after a half hour. ...Wait, maybe she's planning on multiple rounds? I don't know how I feel about doing that with Nagato and the kids waiting for us.

We went into the hotel, Haruhi picked out a room, and I paid for a "rest". It was a much plainer room than I would've expected her to pick. Not that it mattered, so long as she was in it. I'm sure that if this is part of a time fold, my high school self was thoroughly nauseated at my expressing such a sentiment about Haruhi, but right now I don't give a damn about his reaction. Haruhi Suzumiya is the love of my life, and every single day our two kids bring a smile to my face; take that and choke on it, kid.

Haruhi didn't waste any time. Once we stepped in the room, she yanked off my shirt, threw her arms around my neck, and, while my mouth was occupied with kissing her, fell directly onto the bed, pulling me down with her so that we landed on our sides, facing each other.

She gave me a very serious look. A look that said she had been burning for this moment for the past 15 minutes, or however long it had been since she told me to pull the car over. "You did this to me, you know," she whispered.

"What did I do now?" I asked, in a voice that made clear that I wasn't complaining.

She didn't like that answer. "If you don't know, then I'm not telling you," she huffed, and started unbuttoning her blouse.

I counted to myself as she went along. One button, two buttons, three -

I jerked awake, the sudden ending of the time fold pulling me right out of slumber. If I hadn't been snugly tucked in, I might have fallen out of bed. My eyes shot open, staring into the darkness. I was immediately thankful for that. Darkness was such a preferable sight to what I would have seen had that time fold gone on a few seconds longer. I mean, I'm sure it would have been a beautiful sight, but I emphatically did not want to see it right now. Future Me had it completely right on that point.

Hold it. Maybe that insane scene just now wasn't a time fold. Maybe it was just a garden variety dream. I mean, it had certainly felt like a time fold. The smell of the hotel air, the sound of the children's voices, the pressure of the car door against my back, the – uh, the other sensations I experienced – they all felt as real and present as anything that had ever happened to me. But people can have vivid dreams, right? I'm sure they brought that up in class at some point.

Anyway, it's a lot more believable than what I just experienced being my actual future. Maybe, due to what I said to Haruhi over the phone in the last time fold, she might agree to marry me to avoid the ugliness we saw in that time fold, but that's a stretch. Even if she did, she wouldn't be happy like she was in that dream. If she were married, she'd be miserable all the time. And Haruhi and I having children? That's absurd. Anyone who knows Haruhi even a little would know she'd rather spend the rest of her life confined to a padded cell than have kids.

...Wait. Something's off here.

I said I was snugly tucked in, but now that I thought about it, I didn't tuck myself at all when I went to bed. And considering the sensation more carefully, it was less like being tucked in than having an unaccountable weight pressing down on the bed on both sides of me.

And now that my eyes were starting to adjust to the darkness, I could see very faintly, hovering just ten centimeters or so in front of my face...

No. No, it had to be my imagination!

"Kyon," Haruhi said in a breathy, excited whisper. "I want you to impregnate me right now."

Author's notes: I nicked Sayomi and Eiji from ArvisJaggamar's classic fic "Bedtime Stories". They don't have much chance to show off their endearing personalities here, especially with Sayomi being too young to talk yet, but hopefully I'm doing them justice.

On the off-chance that anyone I know personally should ever read this: While this chapter was written and published after my niece was born, I had planned out the whole children thread before I even knew my sister was pregnant. So, no connection.

The car scene has been bopping around in my head in varying forms for years. I don't know why, since at its essence it has neither depth nor originality; I toyed with the idea of making it part of a collection of short future fics, but most of the time I was more realistic and figured it would never be written. Once I realized how naturally it would fit as one of the time folds, though, I couldn't resist the temptation to use it. It just seemed to have so much more meaning as part of this fic than it ever had on its own.

While I'm making copious author's notes, I might as well note that this is where I finally break my pattern of alternating perspectives: Next chapter is also from Kyon's perspective. There was no way I could pass up the opportunity to use this chapter's ending as a cliffhanger, and for dramatic purposes it didn't make sense to have either side of that cliffhanger from anyone's perspective but Kyon's.

Thanks to all who are still reading and reviewing!