Headnote: Please thank *WintermoonQueen for the republication of this story. This is a deleted fic from 2008 that I wrote when I was a teenager. The symbol (*) will indicate when an event or quote is from canon cloth. [Written: 2008 | Revised: 2016]
"Clowns will only let you know where you let your senses go."
―T.A.T.U.
웃유|웃
It wasn't a sight to behold: stratus clouds pillowing the red sky to sensationalize one's eyeshot of the sunset.
It didn't charm him.
'Not when rain could give my melancholy a better rinsing.' Koizumi Itsuki tapped the edge of his token against the table, having long neglected his Mage Knight board game to allow his eyes to feed on the mango light that warmed the windowpane. Even though he favored cat-and-dog weather over sunshine, he was usually able to at least smile at the latter with a sense of nostalgia for those soggier days. Today, a feeling of emptiness honeycombed him. This desolation was compounded with the silence gassing the S.O.S. Brigade's club room.
A few exceptions to the inactivity were the clicking of a computer mouse, the fluttering sound of "Inherit the Stars" being paged through, the purling echo of tea being poured, and―of course―the coquetry between Asahina and Kyon. As for himself, the reliable deputy chief, such inertia dilated the inner void he felt as he played Mage Knight alone. Koizumi Itsuki stared blankly at the board game's cardboard valleys with a smile that was as hollow as his heart, letting his mind fall under the ticking spell of the clock. His eyelids drifted shut like window blinds...
Tick―tock.
Tick―tock.
Tick―tock.
Tick―tock.
Tick―tock.
Tick―tock.
Koizumi Itsuki raised his head and opened his eyes to the clock, smiling with the patience of a pope. "Miss Suzumiya and Kyon are certainly taking their time," he commented while polishing the crown on his white queen.
"A-Ahh~...Koi...z-zumi?"
Itsuki's rag stopped wiping his chess piece. "Hm?" He blinked before looking up.
Standing there in a vision of purple and white was Asahina Mikuru. She held her wrists against her stomach to squelch her anxiety while her legs wobbled. Her trembling lips were buttoned down by her baby teeth to muffle her whimpers. This obnoxious behavior was her modus operandi, but such exaggeration of it was usually reserved for Kyon and Haruhi.
Circumspect by nature, Itsuki rotated his head halfway, double blinked, and then gave her a winsome smile. The tilting of his head perfected the effect. "Yes, Miss Asahina?" His organs contracted at the sound of his own voice—the voice of a saint who had no soul.
"Ehhmm..." Asahina's knocking knees continued to make the sound of maracas. "H-Here's...your~...ah..." She spotted the set of tea cups sitting nearby. "...Tea!" she gushed. "Y...Yes! Your tea! Ah, just a minute—!"
Itsuki observed her actions.
Shoeing feet that were too tiny for them, Asahina's heels chattered across the room as she hurried over to Itsuki with a cup perched on a silver salver. She tripped on her toe—"UWAH!"
—Itsuki rocketed to his feet, causing his chair's groaning hooves to scoot backwards. Nimble fingers caught Asahina's elbows in the nick of time. "Oh, my! Are you alright?" He glacéed his question with solicitude.
"Um..." Two red spots bloomed on Asahina's cheeks. "Y―Yes, thank you. I'm...fine." The time traveler readjusted herself into an agreeable position after he released her. She removed a tea cup from the salver and extended it to her savior, smiling weakly at her wrist. "The tea―it's not as hot anymore, b-but...I...hope that you like it."
Itsuki thanked her before cradling the bottom of the cup and giving it a sip. Having carefully invented his next reaction, he hummed his compliments to the tea maiden, "Although it may have more of a tang than yesterday's, it holds the same excellence. Is this a new brand, Miss Asahina?"
Asahina stared at her apron so hard that he thought she hadn't heard him until he saw her head sprout up ten seconds later. "H-Huh?" She blinked, clueless as to what had been asked. After rewinding his inquiry in her head, she turned pink and waved her hand. "A-Ah...y...yes!" Her queasy smile and shifty eyes made him queasy in turn. "S-Someth-thing like that."
Itsuki paid critical attention to the substance steaming in his cup. He began to consider the possibility that the new tang might be poison.
"Koi―z-zumi..."
Itsuki stopped smiling. He looked up stoically.
Asahina's head dropped. Her pupils were dappled with sadness as she spoke in an airy whimper, "According to―...within an axiomatic transgression...you are...―ah no, this isn't right." Although she kept her head still, she blinked off to the side like she was trying to remember what she had rehearsed. "U-Um...one's responsibility as beta reader...ahh, this isn't right, either! Uwah!" Asahina held her cheeks, tossing her head from side to side. She stopped to shiver from where she stood, hyperventilating. "U-Um, th―...there is a message...something that I...! I have been assigned to pass on an important message!"
Itsuki absorbed her bibble-babble without speaking. The unsmiling esper closed his eyes and seated his cup on the table. He crossed his legs and hatted his knee with both hands, reopening his eyes to smile at her. The half-moon on his lips was steely before it transformed into a sheepish grin. "What kind of message, if you don't mind my asking?"
Asahina cracked her eyes open. Her nose reddened into a purple hue. As if a player had just powered her up, she suddenly snapped her eyebrows into a frown and balled her hands into fists, nodding to herself in determination. The time traveler lifted her head and looked him straight in the eyes. "Please do not underestimate your role in this temporal plane."
Itsuki's immortal smile didn't die.
Asahina's confidence lopped over. "U-Um..." Sweat glazed her forehead. "Ahm..." She frowned at her fists for self-encouragement. "The event is...unpreventable, because it is a predetermined event, but...it would be b-better if...'you figured out what you wanted to do with your present and future, because your past has nothing to do with Suzumiya Haruhi or the SOS Brigade.' Only then will you―..." Asahina's breath snagged on her own saliva. Her eyes enlarged as she clapped her hand over her ear.
Nagato, who commonly turned a blind eye from her colleagues during club time, had now looked their way.
Itsuki looked from the frozen Asahina to the stolid Nagato with the preying eye of a Siamese. At the end of his scrutiny, he shut his eyes and dropped his shoulders, smiling helplessly. The same two fingers that were used to press against his third eye were latterly used to brush his fringe away from his brow. "So I see now." He let the hair fall back into place. "Then, I presume, that that must've been an omen of some kind." He met Asahina's gaze with a strange smile. "Do I have that right?"
Tick―tock.
He blinked calmly.
Tick―tock.
Asahina whimpered despite the glare she wore.
Tick―tock.
Nagato elevated her glasses with her finger.
Tick―tock.
"I understand." Itsuki turned and drank his tea, pinning his deputy chief smile back onto his face.
Tick―tock.
"I understand it all perfectly."
Tick―tock.
Tick―tock.
Tick―tock.
Tick―tock.
Tick―tock.
Tick―tock.
Koizumi Itsuki surfaced from the memory by lifting his heavy eyelids. 'I don't understand any of it at all.'
"Deputy Chief!"
Itsuki's sightline panned horizontally until it paused on his pissed off commander. To the average viewer, her cynical grimace and childish pout, coupled with her arms akimbo, would've been no more threatening than a toddler's in her terrible two stage, but to Koizumi Itsuki, they were the harbingers of perdition.
"Oh," he coolly responded. "Miss Suzumiya!" Itsuki exhumed the grin of her ex-transfer student despite the look on her muzzle telling him that he was on the brink of extinction. "Would you like to join me for a round of Mage Knight? It's quite―"
Suzumiya stuck her face into Itsuki's to inspect it, which made his smile stiffen. His shameless sovereign was so close that he could smell last period's chewing gum on her breath, along with the mounds of deodorant coating the musk she had accumulated during gym class. "What cloud do you have your head in?!"
Itsuki's closed eyes remained uplifted to hide his discomfort, but the sweat on his cheek gave him away.
Suzumiya squinted. "You've been super-glued to this window all afternoon, and your performances haven't been top-of-the-line lately, either!" The heteroclite searched him―head moving up and down as she examined his condition―before staring him square in the face again.
Sighing theatrically, the court jester held his palms out in defeat. "As guilty as charged, Miss Suzumiya." His head rocked from side to side. "Fortunately, the crime isn't as felonious as it appears. I've simply been preoccupied with my test results. After I receive them on Thursday, I should be back to my normal self before you know it."
"Test results...? Hmph! Don't lie to me, Deputy."
His face almost turned a deathlike shade of blue.
"Vice Commanders can't have their nuts and bolts unscrewed no matter what's going in their personal lives!" She wagged her finger at him, completely oblivious to the distress she had stirred in him. "He always has to be on his toes! If he can't keep up with the requirements his position demands, then he should turn in his badge! So unless you want out, start acting like you want to be here! Is that understood, Deputy?"
Itsuki returned to the present with a little piece of his mask missing. "Understood, Miss Suzumiya."
Tapering her eyes at the feline one last time, Suzumiya Haruhi stomped off without a second look back. "You better have if you know what's good for you!"
Itsuki's grin eroded into a smile. Contradictory to his relaxed appearance, he was troubled. His brigade leader cradled her chin with her palm as she tapped her computer mouse fumingly.
Had he really been so butter-fingered with trying to hide his fatigue that she was able to read his moods now? 'Or is she becoming more receptive toward our moods because she's changing with us?'
The new year had shown its changes in mostly Suzumiya Haruhi, and as the saying goes, change does not always equal improvement. In the physical range, the short haircut that once personified the length of her attention span had grown back into wild streamers. While it didn't spill down her calves like it did in her first year, it was long enough to middle her back. He had projected his speculations onto Kyon by telling the cynic that she must have specifically grown it out to wear ponytails. Ducking and dodging such adventurous topics in their persiflage had become a ritual for Kyon, so the nonbeliever had deflected with wisecracks.
In the mental range, the year had trifled with Suzumiya's emotional altitude. Housing a type of raw longing in place of last year's eccentricity, repressed feelings and fantasies were now locking horns with her conscience.
―"I am an energetic girl after all, plus my body has its needs, but I'm not dumb enough to take on this troublesome stuff...!" (*)
Of course, subliminal desires had been "operating below the threshold of her consciousness" before then. She had decided to determine a diagnosis for herself by combining existing statements:
―"A mental illness," she had guessed. "All feelings are white noise." She'd whispered that so-called "All A are B" syllogism over and over on her mattress as she had twisted her bedsheets at night, using denial to narcotize her "hormonal imbalance."
The only imbalance Koizumi Itsuki had detected was her guilt. It was human nature to daydream about authoring one's own romance, but romance was a villain in red to her. With Kyon's attention still rollicking around Asahina and passionate pairs kissing in bathrooms, it was no wonder she aimed her pistol at the human heart itself. She was alone. Craving physical intimacy behind the back doors of her mind had caused moodiness.
She could be sitting quietly, twirling her hair with that Suzumiya glare of hers, and he would still sense her state of daze and unsorted melancholy. It was as if she couldn't make sense of her feelings and opted for depositing the hairiest ones into a trash bag. Closed Space had reacted like a cancer cell, draining Itsuki of his own health for months. He was concerned about the outbreaks, but he felt likewise when, "Miss Suzumiya was not herself."(*) Itsuki's grin dimmed by three watts as he watched her yammer on about how a boneyard had more life than their club room.
"The event is...unpreventable, because it is a predetermined event, but...it would be b-better if...'you figured out what you wanted to do with your present and future because your past has nothing to do with Suzumiya Haruhi or the SOS Brigade.'"
Asahina's two-week-old forecast had added to his blue funk, and now bunny eyes with the adorable face of a grade schooler were haunting him.
"I almost completely forgot...—Kyon! Help Koizumi find his nuts and bolts while I swing by the computer room!"
"What happened to those blackmail photos?" Kyon complained from the entrance, having been fairly happy with the lax atmosphere he was walking back into. "And how many more payolas do you need to milk their president, Emperor Showa [Hirohito]?"
The voice of reason was automatically ignored by the voice of impulse. "Seventh sense tells me they're planning on pulling some shenanigans on our firewall, and eighth sense"—'There is no eighth sense!' Kyon's head ululated—"tells me they thought I wouldn't be able to sniff 'em out beforehand, so our goal is to colonize them, enslave their leader, and then force them to pay off their debts with elbow-grease!"
'So Adolf Hitler is now donning sailor uniforms,' Kyon thought. 'Go figure.'
"PLUS, we could use a few extra hands on those mops over there!"
Kyon pinched the pleat between his eyebrows. 'I'm guessing Toyotomi Hideyoshi forgot to tell Haruhi that the idea of banning slavery was quite popular in the late 1500s.'
"And since Mikuru's behavior has been subtracting half of her points, too, it's time to earn back those tally marks, Mikuru~!" The computer chair Haruhi kicked aside went wheeling past Nagato in a whirlwind that took the chapters of her book with it.
Eyes chasing the flying pages, Nagato moved her hand up to hold them down, but the back shelf's sudden earthquake caused her to turn and blink at the pyramid of books on the floor. If Kyon had to guess, it might've even made her eyes sore.
"Kya!" Asahina walked backward as Haruhi stalked forward like a bloodthirsty hunter with a rifle. "H―Hah, M-Miss Suzumiya! Can't we consider an―nother way to negotiate with the president?"
"Come on~, Mikuru!"
Asahina's voice planed into a squeak when Haruhi's shadow covered her face. Kyon's compassion for the victim cranked up five dials as he watched the drama. Seeing such a bitsy, lily-white beauty decide to use his back for shelter motivated him to believe it was his duty as a man to protect the Cherubim from the Apollyon, but his heroic deed resulted in Haruhi mistiming her step and crashing into his chest. That hadn't been a part of his strategy at all, so when he suddenly felt his nipples being burned off through his blazer by the girl's glare, he wondered if it was too late to throw courage back into the sea. He compared Haruhi's face to Kiyo's because her eyes were wildly similar to the dragoness in Japanese myth who'd been said to have sought revenge on a priest who'd fallen out of love with her.
Evidently reenacting the fate of that very priest, Kyon felt his soul bid farewell to his body. 'Honestly, why me?' He was still determined to get his spirit back, so he tried to give her tooth and nail, "Look, Your Excellency." Kyon folded his arms, sounding braver than he actually felt. "If you plan on navigating in this world, then why don't you hear Miss Asahina out and negotiate diplomatically for once? You'd get what you wanted at a faster rate, Miss Asahina wouldn't have to play God's sacrificial lamb, and we'd all be happy for a change." 'No irony intended on the God metaphor.'
The weight of Haruhi's scowl was still sitting on his blazer, and unless his eyes were playing optical illusions on him, he thought he saw a grain of melancholy in it.
"Mikuru!"
The mascot's head popped up. "A-Ah! Y―Yes?"
"Get over here!"
"Wha―?! Hey―! Haruhi―"
Haruhi elbowed Kyon out of her way and snatched Asahina's wrist. The fire was everywhere―in her temper, in her snarl, and in her breath―but to make matters worse, she spat not one insult Kyon's way. If she had, this could've been passed off as a normal event. "Yuki! You're coming with us, so borrow my bookmark!"
"Uwah! W-Wait! Pl...please, slow down~!" Asahina's breathless sobs didn't stop Haruhi from dragging her past the door frame.
Nagato decamped with them, and the room was left with Kyon and Haruhi's deputy chief.
Slouching, Kyon closed his eyes and held the side of his hand against the center of his forehead in prayer. 'Sorry, Miss Asahina.'
"...Couldn't you have executed that with better...'craftsmanship'?" asked Koizumi.
'This guy―is he complaining already?' "I was never good at arts and crafts." Kyon glared at the tall figure judging him from his end of the table.
There was nothing too dangerous about this person's smile, but the message in Koizumi's eyes was transmitting very unpleasant signals.
"I understand that I didn't have much tact with it, but it's not like it was done to make her..."—Kyon tried to find a synonym for the word he pictured—"sourpussed." 'Okay, so I didn't want to say 'angry,' but didn't that sound too goofy just now?' He accidentally let his thoughts escape into the current conversation: "Then again, there couldn't have been a better way to phrase that with Haruhi as the subject."
It would have been more sensible not to reply to his self-talk, but Koizumi invited himself to Kyon's reflections anyway: "You needn't worry about phraseology. Everything you said prior may be true, but that truth doesn't necessarily repair the situation. Instead of making excuses for the outcome, we should try to come up with a solution."
Making a point of that kind sounded like this sphinx of a person was scolding him. His approach was seriously as polite as could be, enough to even make the Red Queen from Alice in Wonderland curtsy for him, but it didn't change the accusatory subtext. Nothing was more two-faced than Koizumi's Charles Grandison act because it was often used as a pipeline to splurt out careless opinions and indirect arrogance. He wasn't the only one with a tongue on him, though.
Armed to the teeth, Kyon sassed him right back, "There's nothing wrong with my gray matter, so you don't have to be a broken record. Don't you think I experienced some trauma from that whole thing myself?" He was positive that he was far more unsettled by Haruhi's actions than this slippery eel was.
Because Suzumiya was in the same class as a flammable liquid with high volatility, it was odd for such a detonative girl to keep her feelings bottled up without eventually exploding. The situation could be compared to lighting a gas can on fire and finding the gas station completely intact.
"I do have a theory in mind―"
'It's for the birds!'
"Relying on pure hindsight, it's possible that your words were not the cause of Miss Suzumiya's change in mood. Perhaps the sight of you rescuing Miss Asahina and condemning her as the villain did trigger it, but the root must lie elsewhere."
"Is it even more possible to call this another example of her brain simply being a madhouse?"
"Is it? I would classify this as a matter of the heart." Itsuki chuckled inappropriately. "I'm sorry, but I was under the impression that you might've understood the way this worked after all of our discussions concerning Miss Suzumiya's subconscious mind."
'That smile on his face is really starting to get on my nerves.' "Your so-called scientific psychoanalyses for the anatomy of Haruhi's brain have always detonated mine, so naturally, I might not be in sync with you."
"The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking."
Kyon's sarcastic look spoke volumes. 'No, you are not Albert Einstein, and I wouldn't call your beliefs science until Haruhi-tology has been printed in the text books.' "Your belief system about Haruhi being God and recreating this world four years ago 'was aided by invention,' wasn't it? It's a hair away from Thales's, 'the Earth is flat and floats in water like a log,' so commercializing beliefs like that would be an insult to people with common sense. I'd also like to throw Einstein's quote right back at you:
'In so far as the statements of your geometry speak about reality, they are not certain, and in so far as they are certain, they do not speak about reality. You should take care not to make that intellect your god.'"
"Are you implying that the Agency's theory about this reality is false?"
"I'm implying that beliefs of this nature have some personality, but they butt heads with the just-as-justifiable beliefs of Miss Asahina and Nagato, and unfortunately, this god does play dice with the world."
"But can we deny that Miss Suzumiya is a person with a sun and crown of twelve stars upon her head, while the Earth lies beneath her feet?"
'What sappy Greek novel did you plagiarize?' "What you call 'God' is an eccentric girl who makes a mess."
"Unlike the Agency, I don't believe in singular gods or deities obliviously living in a world that they themselves have created. I've expressed these plot holes with you. The subconscious power of Miss Suzumiya has changed everything except mankind's need to rationalize the paranormal, and thus we, the Agency, lean towards paralleled explanations to rationalize the phenomenon that is Miss Suzumiya. There is faith in the possibility that our way of interpreting this reality could turn out to be malarkey, but as I've said once before, Miss Suzumiya is the source of our powers. This universal fact is irrefutable."
The belief that she can either reconstruct or accidentally destroy this world is something each faction has agreed upon. If we were made to think otherwise, we would be troubled by our existence. This is the side I am with, and that can not be changed."
"From a subjective point of view," Kyon began, "I think Western films like 'Inception' and 'The Matrix' had better roots for their axiological approaches on reality. Speaking of which, haven't you yourself referred to ours as a possible dream or virtual world? (*)"
Koizumi flashed an elusive grin. "So you remember, then. I hate to disappoint you, but that was my third eye speaking out. Please don't think much of that type of imagination. After all, there is no evidence to support a feeling in the bones. I have the talent of making incredibly useless things sound premonitory."
"I pledge 'agreeance' with both hands, but I'm not as troubled by it as you are. Though as Thomas Jefferson might've said, 'speeches measured by the hour, die by the hour,' and I'll admit that I've been looking at the clock every once in a while for the past eight minutes."
With a penitent smile, Koizumi freed Kyon from the debate and returned to the window. No one said a thing for the remaining ten minutes, but Kyon was perceptive enough to key into his counterpart's plight. As Koizumi sat in brown study, a sinister look remained on his face that should've never been there to begin with. It could be guessed that the expression was symptomatic of his mood towards the destruction Haruhi's Celestials were bound to create, but...
Kyon sighed. He didn't want to do it, but he did it anyway, and while he was doing what he didn't want to do, he sooner than later discovered that nothing could save him from another hour of rambling now:
"Are you sure you're not just being too paranoid?" Kyon squinted. "Your interpretation of it is already negative, and calling Miss Asahina's message an omen is over the top. There isn't enough evidence to throw it into the apocalypse-cubbyhole just because the undertone sounded scary."
"I suppose I should be grateful for your concern," Koizumi lilted half-heartedly as he tapped his marble queen against their chessboard.
If Kyon hadn't known any better, he would've called this unusual show of impatience a sign of a hurricane. He began to wonder whether or not the serious person who might've been Koizumi's potential self would ever materialize in front of him. It couldn't still be hibernating at a time like this! "I wouldn't call the feeling 'concern' compared to actual nausea, but I'm not as heartless as you think I am."
"I never had such impressions of you. It's been said in the past, but you are a very kindhearted person by my standards."
"You know, I honestly don't feel my ego being fed when you try serving it glib compliments."
"As expected of you," Koizumi laughed, but not enough to distract Kyon from his melancholy.
The assistant leader wouldn't share any eye contact with him―a nuisance that triggered the emergency alarm in Kyon's brain―and now the cynic felt himself struggling to pick a feeling to be ill with. Nonchalance didn't suit the situation, sarcasm would be like serving Koizumi cold fish, and apprehension might've made the atmosphere heavier than what was necessary. Although Koizumi's mood was distracting, he highly doubted that he could ask the esper to lie horizontally on a couch and unleash his dormant feelings. Something like that required a crowbar over friendly chatter and rhetorical questions. Similar to many actors, Koizumi wanted to keep his private self private.
Koizumi had changed his entire personality for Haruhi to fit the way her conscience had imagined him to be, but to counterbalance her mysterious-transfer-student stereotype, he had to act like the exact opposite of one to parallel with her more rational thinking. It was in Koizumi's best interests to stabilize Haruhi's mentality, so even if she got bored with him in the future and carelessly tossed him aside like a paper ball hitting the rim of a waste basket, the outcome of her mental stability was more important to him.
'But Koizumi's eyes aren't matching his act, and Haruhi noticed―not too happily, I'll add,' Kyon thought.
Koizumi's lap-dog behavior and Colgate smiles weren't masking the new exhaustion he felt. He was obviously malnourished to some extent as well, and if it had Haruhi paying any kind of, "Ehh?" attention to it, then it was certainly more than him just having an off-week.
Kyon glared at Koizumi's dimples. 'I also can't write off Haruhi's behavior.'
Opening slowly, Koizumi's catlike eyes sliced into Kyon's face for longer than what was comfortable. Without warning―and really, there should've been a warning for this―he exploded into the type of laughter that would have made a trick-or-treater skip his house on purpose. Muffling this shuddersome racket with his fist, Koizumi went on to giggle, "For whatever reason, all of this has been causing my usual brain pattern to fluctuate; my withdrawal from reality is really quite phenomenal."
'Don't you mean troublesome? A normal person would be troubled by that, I think.'
"As an overseer of Miss Suzumiya's status quo, I would not encourage obstacles for either of you, and this goes without saying."
"I figured that much." 'I mean, you're a Kyon x Haruhi shipper or something creepy like that, even if you know your wishful thinking will never happen.'
Koizumi folded his hands on top of the table and smiled like a devout Catholic boy. "Then, you can see why I don't understand Miss Asahina's perspective."
"To be frank with you, this almost reminds me of the time when the adult Miss Asahina from the future told me not to get too friendly with the Miss Asahina in this temporal plane."
"Is that so?"
"...Gch!" The odd noise that came out of Kyon's mouth when he came to another realization made them both jump.
"...Hm?" Koizumi blinked. "Oh! Were you considering what I think you were?" He leaned across the table to taunt Kyon. "If you don't mind me saying, these are very bold thoughts for you."
"Tch! Don't try and act like you weren't thinking the same thing just now! You read my mind by coincidence, so that must mean you were assuming something similar to me!"
"What you're assuming is something that is not in my role to play. As I've said before, that role was given to someone else, wasn't it? I wish for the story to carry on the way it was written. Miss Suzumiya and I..." Koizumi giggled against his balled hand again. "Yes, since this is coming from you, I should feel honored by that kind of assumption, but such an assumption would be false."
"You aren't giving my psychic skills enough credit here. After a year of this, you should know when I can tell you're talking backward to convince yourself of the very same half-lie you're telling me in that moment."
"Oh? Can you also sense a few demons residing in me?"
"That's Lorraine Warren-psychic, you bastard."
Toying with his bangs as he grinned at him, Koizumi began to ramble, "Then taking your earlier hypotheses out of the picture, I still can't quite put my finger on Miss Asahina's meaning. Cryptograms and Da Vinci Codes of this nature are really not my specialties, you see. Perhaps you can help me with this?"
"That's the language you speak in all the time!"
"Let's change the angle, then. Why do you believe her superior decided to toss me such a prophecy in sophomore year? I've proven myself to have more than enough self-control after over four years of the same business, don't you agree? This recommendation from her could either be a predetermined event or a lie to elude me. If the former, it may mean that I somehow rewrite what was meant to occur in the future and lapse reality single-handedly. Or maybe you have some affiliation with this omen?"
"Why are you asking me?"
"What could possibly happen, I wonder? It's beyond absurd, isn't it? I put you and Miss Suzumiya before myself; I have no interest in my own affairs."
"I don't feel like that last sentence was relevant unless you were pleading your case for something else, but do you want my honest opinion?"
"I'm not too sure. I feel an anchor of sarcasm dropping in."
Kyon's eyebrow trembled. "Buy yourself a sense of humor before you leave here."
"Just kidding. Sorry about that. As you were saying?"
"I would discuss this again with Miss Asahina herself. Running around in circles with questions, unless you're asking questions you already know the answers to, won't take you anywhere other than a dead end. It really can't be so predetermined, but maybe you are inviting your own destruction. After all, 'any man who insists on faking an innocence that isn't there turns himself into a monster.' At the same time, I have a hard time believing this isn't something deeper than own your loose screws."
Koizumi propped his chin up on his fingers like a solemn detective exchanging secret information under a lamplight. "Then you too believe this involves Miss Suzumiya's psychological state." He closed his eyes and smiled coolly. "I am a being who is an embodiment of Miss Suzumiya's unconsciousness (*). Therefore, our psychological states intersect. In this way, we are...linked."
A flashback of scattered phrases from another conversation hit Kyon's mind:
"I'm envious of the deep level of trust between you and [Miss] Suzumiya. [She] always seems to count on you a lot, while you place a great deal of trust in her as well. Now do you understand why I'm envious of you?" (*)
Curiosity gleamed in Kyon's eyes. "Do you find that unlucky or honorable, Koizumi?"
Melancholy gleamed in Koizumi's. Kyon correlated the look of half-cloaked feebleness with the same look the other world's Koizumi had given him after he had revealed his feelings for Haruhi (*).
"I suppose somewhere in between," Koizumi answered lightheartedly.
"Then maybe this is why Miss Asahina predicts you'll be the one to alter something without even being conscious of it. If there's something you're building up or putting off, your breakdown might be similar to Nagato's (*), so maybe something has to change, and maybe it'll end up being necessary."
"I have to reject this theory. You see, I have more faith in myself than in Miss Asahina's premonition."
"If that were true, then why would you let it eat you up for so long?"
...A tickled esper sat back in his chair and folded his arms. "How is it that you can see through my own smokescreen better than I can?"
"You're not exactly the Morse Code, and if this does involve Haruhi...what's so funny? Do you always have to be giggling like that?"
"Sorry, I just couldn't help but...espy an onslaught of jealousy when you came to that name."
"Don't get poetic about your hallucinations and just use grammar normally!" Kyon tried to keep his cool on a reasonable temperature. "That whole sentence combination was grammatically incorrect because of its subject alone!"
"Listen,"―Koizumi's lightheartedness evaporated at a frightening speed―"I don't want you to misunderstand my earlier bias."
"What exactly are you trying to get across to me by making a statement like that?" Kyon's monotonousness didn't switch like Koizumi's mood. "This conversation was more or less about why Miss Asahina—"
"What about 'Miss Asahina'?"
Kyon and Koizumi found themselves facing the wrath of their brigade leader as a duo. It was a quiet type of wrath, one that was bottled up in the stance of her hands on her hips, the bonfire in her eyes, and her sickly-sweet chirp.
"Dah―I…" Kyon felt like flapping his arms. 'Wait, why the hell should I be so nervous about this? I don't even know what I did wrong!'
"Did everything go as planned, Miss Suzumiya?" It was a good thing Koizum was there to save the day. "Kyon and I were just debating over if we should check up on you, Miss Nagato, and Miss Asahina."
"..." Her eyes tightened into slits before zipping back to Kyon.
Inside of Haruhi's pupil, Kyon could see the reflection of himself being burned alive as his fists banged on her cornea. "W―Wait, where's...Miss Asahina?" Kyon's vision scooted to the left―'I mean, Nagato's standing by the computer with Haruhi's manga, but...―wait, why IS Nagato looking at Haruhi's things?' Kyon watched the interface flip through Haruhi's possession conscientiously. 'It's almost as if she's scanning for something.'
"Idiot! You're so predictable. Your face looks more retarded than what's normal for you when it squinches up like that." Haruhi threw a thumb over her shoulder to point at the sniffling Asahina.
Although he was watching the silver-haired second year return to her chair, Kyon rebuked Haruhi, "You didn't use Miss Asahina as your sacrificial lamb again, did you?"
Koizumi stepped back into the repartee with a rescue mission, "We were patiently waiting for all three of you, Miss Suzumiya―"
"Just be quiet already!" Snapping her eyes shut, Suzumiya threw her nose in the air and gave them her cheek. She dragged her office chair away from the pile of books Nagato was collecting and plunked into it, angrily whirling around to face her computer. Her hot blue flames could almost been seen engulfing her body and the chair as one.
Kyon sighed. 'Is that smoke piping out of her nostrils or is that my unshakable imagination at work again?'
"All of you, clear out in the next five minutes! I'm locking the club room early today."
Koizumi facepalmed. Kyon was Haruhi's ripcord; he released gas from the hot air balloon during emergencies, but this year he seemed to be inflating Haruhi with even more hot air, which meant more work for an esper or ten.
"I'm sorry! This is all my fault!" Asahina sniveled into her palms.
Kyon gave her a half-smile. "There's no reason for you to blame this on yourself, Miss Asahina."
Two minutes passed, and already Haruhi was kicking everyone out of the club room. Her barking combined with Kyon's, "It hasn't even been five minutes yet!" was loud enough to make listeners in the corridor hug their books and blink pityingly.
As each member lined up in the hallway, Itsuki began to wonder whether Kyon was simply unaware of the danger when he accepted Asahina's after-school invitation or downright soft in the head. Worse still, their dialogue took place in front of Suzumiya. Asahina whispered the location into Kyon's ear with a few stammers and forefinger-twirls before the chowderhead finally nodded in agreement. Itsuki studied the languor movements of Asahina and Kyon as their backs became specks.
The esper checked his LCD screen for a signal, heaving his book bag's strap a little higher onto his shoulder, and then glanced at Suzumiya Haruhi's route. She was power-walking at top speed. He scanned the halls like he'd done earlier, appreciating the white walls and tall ceiling. It was not hard to picture that very hallway being showered in avalanches of cement as a cytoplasmic fist bulldozed the school house. Tonight, there was no doubt the world as they knew it would be altered. Itsuki had been blamed for allowing the world to be sucked into a black hole the first time, and then testified against for insufficiently guiding Kyon the second.
He too questioned his value and if "Miss Suzumiya" had actually chosen him. The three factions orbiting Suzumiya Haruhi questioned it as well. Three strikes, fifty votes, and someone else would replace him. The esper watched the bottom of her swaying hair. Tonight will be his third strike.
"...Mm?" Because Itsuki had been too busy pitying himself, he really hadn't heard the soft steps of the taciturn bibliophile approaching him―if there had been any to begin with. "...Miss Nagato," he acknowledged with a half-in-character and half-himself nod, reacting to her presence with a guarded attitude.
Holding out a stack of notepads to him like a monk egging a foreigner to look into their future, Nagato's orbs held Itsuki's with purpose. She looked at the book bag under his arm, which carried his communicator, and then looked at him.
Giving her the expression of someone who was amused by the exchange, the smiling sycophant took the materials she offered to get a closer look. "...Miss Suzumiya's homework." He frowned. "Did she leave this in the club room?"
In truth, he'd concluded that last. What stood out to him first was the Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle manga sandwiched between two textbooks, and according to his observation in the club room, it caught the diligent android's fancy as well. When he looked back to her face, her pupils were directed at someone other than himself. He quickly found that point of attraction to be their Walter Mitty brigade leader, who was watching the sunset.
Suzumiya's glumness wasn't odd, but the sight of her inanimate face in this tranquil moment left Itsuki reflecting on the disasters that would come out of it. Hardening at the heart, he turned back to his company. "Miss...Nagato?"
She was gone.
Itsuki stood alone in the hallway with Suzumiya Haruhi's homework in hand. He closed his eyes and smiled emptily to himself. The esper pressed his finger against his forehead, and...―with the pause of his trembling left foot―...changed course.
2016 Author's Note
This takes place before Sasaki's ingress, so this is an AU.
"-San" is not used because I feel that since this series has been translated into English, the English interpretation of "-San" would be "Ms/Miss" or "Mr/Mister" and should be written as such. Collaterally, the English translations of the Japanese names for Haruhi's cerebral monsters and Koizumi Itsuki's faction are used here because I saw no reason for the dubbed anime to alter them.
*Koizumi Itsuki calls himself "Itsuki" in his POV because it's how he separates his true self from the mask everyone so fondly calls "Koizumi."