[FFML] [Haruhi] (title witheld)

[Brian Randall]

     [Title witheld]

	Prologue: In which a plan is decided upon.

	A 'Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi' fanfiction.

	Note: This fic is a sequel to The Blunt Force Trauma of Suzumiya
Haruhi.  It may not make much sense if you haven't read that, first.

	Disclaimer: The novel 'Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuutsu'/'The Melancholy of
Suzumiya Haruhi' is the creation of Nagaru Tanigawa.  I do not know
the producers yet, but the animation company responsible is Kyoto
Animation.  No disrespect is intended by the posting of this
fanfiction, as I do not own the characters or settings involved.  I'm
merely dabbling with another set of paints.  ;)
	---------------------------------
     Every story has a begining, but it's hard to look for the start
of this one.  I could say it started when I met her.  I could say it
started when she rewrote the world.  Or, I suppose, I could say that
it started four years ago, when everything came into alignment.

     And by 'everything', I mean autoevolution: the control of memetic
information through social structures to realign reality.  The advent
of the espers: their battles to save reality from destruction at the
hands of Celestials in Closed Space.  A fracture in time-plane
conjunction: a rift that that prevents all time-planes prior to this
one from lining up correctly, denying access to the past from the
future.

     I think I got that right.

     Anyway, I suppose it would be easiest to say that it started long
before I let myself realize it.  Most of these things do, really.  The
risk of reacting rather than acting.

     So, why don't we go to the point where I stopped reacting?  Let's
call that the begining, even though it isn't, really.

     This would be about a month and a half after Suzumiya Haruhi was
assaulted by a classmate, a Taniguchi Yosho.  At that point, I knew
what I had to do.

     I just hadn't done it yet.

     Patience; these things require time!

     Our club room has become very comfortable, after all of the work
that Haruhi put into it.  Presently, it is myself, Mikuru, Yuki-chan,
and Koizumi, because our leader is absent.

     "Where is Suzumiya?" Koizumi finally asks, once the calm becomes
nerve-wracking.

     I'm trying an experiment, though it mostly boils down to trying
to unnerve Koizumi.  The trick is to do it without frightening Mikuru
-- which is quite difficult.  "Well," I say finally, "as it happens,
she's trying to convince the faculty to release the SOS brigade from
standard school responsibilities for a few days to take a trip to
Hokkaido."

     "Hokkaido?" Mikuru asks wonderingly, peering down into her
teacup.  "Why there?"

     Koizumi nods.  "A mysterious death, according to the papers," he
says after a pause.  He looks down at his teacup.  "A high school
student was found beaten to death in a train station, and there are no
witnesses to see how he arrived.  Security camera footage didn't show
him entering the station, so no one is sure how he got there."

     Yuki-chan, unpreturbed, merely flips to the next page in her
book.  Today it's 'Interface'.

     "O...oh," Mikuru says, voice trembling.  "W...why would
Suzumiya-san want us to go there, though?"

     "It's mysterious," I say, before Koizumi has to explain further.
"And it has to do with that time that Haruhi knew what she was."

     He nods, and explains anyway.  "According to the dream ... the
backup that Nagato-san gave me," and for this she looks up, but
doesn't raise her face; her eyes shift to him momentarily, and then go
back to her book, "this matches what happened there, almost."

     "Oh," Mikuru says in a tiny, timid voice.  "Is it dangerous?"

     And then Koizumi gives me that patently superior and
condescending gaze -- if I hadn't learned that it was as friendly as
he could get, I'd have gotten quite sick of him, I assure you --
grins, and says, "I have no idea.  He wasn't one of the Agency,
though.  I can tell you that much."

     "S...so, are we going there?" Mikuru asks worriedly.

     "I doubt it," I tell her.

     Koizumi looks over sharply.  "Is that so?" he asks, his facade
fallen.  Excellent; a strong step towards unnerving him.

     Mikuru is even more agitated, not the intended goal.  "I have
things well in hand," I tell her.  "Haruhi will almost certainly be
shot down by the teachers today.  She might make a stronger effort
tomorrow, but I can interrupt her with a suitable distraction."

     This calms Mikuru down, and Koizumi readopts his aloof
expression, though I sense a certain nervous tension hidden behind it.
 "Will you share your brilliant plan with us, then?" he asks.

     Damnation.  He's unflappable, I tell you.  That's the best I'll
get out of him.  No way to do it without making Mikuru sob.

     "Yes," I allow tiredly, trying to keep the annoyance from my
gaze.  No need to let him know.

     But this is a good time to enjoy my tea and allow the silence to
stretch dramatically, anyway.  It's not like I'm wasting minutes of
animation, or anything.

     Koizumi waits patiently.  Mikuru waits, glancing nervously
between myself and the other club members.  Yuki finishes her current
chapter, moves her bookmark, which I doubt she actually needs, closes
the book, and stares forward blankly, not really meeting anyone's
gaze.

     Sadly, my tea, and thus my ability to taunt Koizumi (I apologize,
Mikuru, but justice dictates that I at least try) are not infinite.  I
set the teacup down, glance towards the silent hall, and ponder.  In
an anime, Haruhi would appear just in time to hear my plan, and ruin
everything.  In a novel, she would hear it through the door without me
realizing it.  Other mediums would undoubtedly offer other, equally
annoying and transparent devices to destroy my plan, or make things
unneccesarily difficult.

     So I rise from the table and turn to the teapot, filling my cup
again.  As I do so, the door slams open, and Haruhi growls, "They
won't let us go!"

     "Go where?" Koizumi asks, as I turn around and retake my seat.
Mikuru collects herself and shuffles a deck of cards before her,
shooting one brief, questioning glance at me before she deals them
out.  What are we playing, anyway?

     "Hokkaido," Haruhi says, taking her seat at the computer, resting
her chin on her fist, glowering at the keyboard.  Her pensive gaze
tells me that she's more upset and worked up about this than I had
expected.  "There's a mysterious circumstance there -- the kind of
thing that we should investigate!  But the school board doesn't want
to let us have time off!  They have no respect for the importance of
the SOS Brigade!  Sometimes I wish--"

     "Hey," I interrupt her, before she can finish vocalizing her
desire, "it seems that you're still forgetting context.  This group is
supposed to investigate mysterious circumstances, but right now the
police are investigating it.  I've read the papers, and obviously you
must have too, or you wouldn't have known.  We've seen somewhat more
mysterious things in our time, and all the same, it happened on a
train.  What would we investigate?"

     "Maybe it's the place itself!" she protests, distracted from her
railing against the faculty.  Probably that is for the best, I might
add.  "The station where it happened!"

     "Or the train car, which I'm sure is either a crime scene we
can't access, or already moving who-knows-where across Japan."

     Mikuru blinks at this, her face paling.  "Y...you think ... a car
that someone had died in....  I mean, when I get on the train
myself...."  She looks faint, with the cards only half-dealt, her
hands trembling.  "Ooooh," she groans, sinking in her chair.

     Haruhi glances at her, frowning, then turns her attention to me.
"You're such a kill-joy," she grumbles.  "This could have been
something big!  Why are you so against it?"

     "Maybe I'm not," I counter.  "But hear me out, let me explain
that first, will you?"

     "Fine," she grumbles, while Koizumi unobtrusively takes the cards
from Mikuru and resumes dealing where she left off.

     "We can easily make a project out of investigating it from here,"
I say, when I am left with five cards.  Koizumi picks up his, then
absently passes stacks of chips to the other players.  Poker, I
suppose, which I am terrible at.  Haruhi raises one eyebrow in
skepticism, as though to say I am suggesting we all buy into a
cover-story for a complex conspiracy.

     "Running off wildly without paying any attention is the kind of
activity that will only land you in trouble -- as I think a certain
notebook a month or so ago should remind you."  This prompts a wince
from Haruhi.  Koizumi makes a thoughtful noise, and nods to Mikuru.
She shakes her head, rousing herself from her faint, though she's
still somewhat pale.  After a glance at her cards, she pushes some
chips into the center of the table.

     "But, we'd just read the news?" Haruhi asks doubtfully.  "That's
it?  That's a whole plan?"

     Yuki breaks from her book long enough to study her hand, and push
a slightly larger stack of chips into the center of the table.  I pick
up my cards and pretend to look at them, though in reality, I don't
care.  Koizumi or Yuki always win this game.  I push slightly more
chips onto the table than Yuki.

     "'Just read the news'," I say sighing.  "Information analysis and
logic can carry us a good distance, can reveal facts that a casual
glance could overlook.  Going in head first would allow anyone with
something to hide to know that we were people to hide things from."

     Koizumi matches, calls, and then Mikuru hesitantly discards two
cards.  Yuki discards three cards, and then ignores the replacements
Koizumi deals her, turning the page in her book.  I rest my hand on my
five cards and shake my head slightly at Koizumi.  I'm sure his cards
are better than mine anyway.  When he draws only one replacement card,
my upcoming loss is a foregone conclusion.

     "We're not information experts," Haruhi says, crossing her arms
over her chest.  "What is that kind of long-range analysis good for?
That's such a boring method!"

     "If there is a conspiracy or coverup, would we want to alert the
people involved that we were people to be dealt with?" I ask, raising
one eyebrow.

     Haruhi's eyes widen slightly.  "Well....  Maybe," she says.  Then
she becomes more animated, her face lighting up as she leans forward.
"No, we'd absolutely want that!  That would be a huge landfall!  With
open opposition, we can prove that a conspiracy exists for certain!"

     Mikuru raises, Yuki glances at her three new cards, and also
raises, and I absently push the rest of my chips into the pile,
causing Koizumi to emit a quiet, frantic strangling noise before he
slides all of his chips in, too, shaking his head.  After a moment of
hesitation, Mikuru gives me a weak smile and slides her chips in.
Yuki follows suit, and Koizumi sets his cards on the table, face down.

     "Open opposition might prove to be dangerous, if such a thing
exists," the esper remarks, though his expression is still genial.  I
wonder if that will get through to Haruhi; Koizumi is almost never
willing to go against her ideas.

     "I don't want people to chase us!" Mikuru says quickly, shaking
her head and clutching her cards to her chest.

     Yuki turns the page in her book.

     "Don't be a coward like Kyon, Koiuzumi," Haruhi encourages him.
"That's _exactly_ what we need!"

     "Assuming this conspiracy and coverup exist," I say, holding one
hand out to forestall further commentary from Haruhi, "we would be
best informed by knowing what the cover story is.  The more known
details from the official story we have, the better prepared we will
be when we we actually investigate.  If there is a discrepancy, we
will know it immediately, perhaps well enough not to react, and stay
below the radar of any watchers."

     "But, if we're subtle like that it'll take forever!  Wouldn't it
be better to be found and chased?  Think about it!  Action movie
escape sequences!  Car chases!  Explosions, and, and--"  Ah, Haruhi
... so excitable.  She is much more formidable when she's fixated.

     "Haruhi," I say sternly, dropping my extended hand to the table.
"A boy was killed.  If he is only the merest obstacle in some vast
conspiracy, we're only highschool students ourselves.  Why don't we
just keep an eye on things and look for conspiracy-like coverups
beforehand?"

     "I....  I could handle myself," Haruhi begins hesitantly,
nervously glancing between the other club members.

     "Haruhi...."  I won't finish the statement aloud, but unspoken,
the implication of Taniguchi's assault does not need to be voiced a
second time.

     "W...well....  Okay," she says, shifting her shoulders
uncomfortably and looking away.  It pains me to use those difficult
memories on her, and I have little doubt that Koizumi's workload will
be increased by it.  "I...it wouldn't hurt to do research beforehand."

     "And if it's nothing, truly nothing, then we'll know without
taking a very long and boring trip to a very remote and cold place," I
add.  I really don't want to go to Hokkaido.  I especially don't want
to become embroiled in a spy novel, or a conspiracy-theory thriller.

     "Fine," she mumbles, looking defeated and nervous.  Perhaps I was
too harsh.

     "I apologize," I say, sighing.  "But ... we should discuss this later."

     She blinks in alarm, the light coming back into her eyes as she
focuses on me.  "What?  If it's club business, we can talk about it
here."

     I give a small, lopsided smile.  "I'm afraid I have to go home;
my little sister needs help with a school project."

     "That's the real reason you don't want to go to Hokkaido!" she
explodes, leaping to her feet and pointing at me in accusation.

     "Absolutely untrue," I tell her, shaking my head quickly.  "I did
the same project years ago in the same school; repeating it is a
monotony I do not look forward to.  Going to Hokkaido would be an
escape from that.  But, alas, we are here, cautious and safe, so I
should help her."  It is true I am not exactly eager to work with my
little-sister on her photo collage ... and going to Hokkaido truly
would be an escape.

     But the photo collage is easily preferable to whatever madness
Haruhi would bring upon us.

     "W...we're not done here," Haruhi grumbles.  "I'm walking home
with you to make sure this isn't some ploy!"

     "If you insist," I say with a shrug, rising from my seat.
Koizumi reveals his hand of cards, then looks at me questioningly.  I
turn over my cards without checking them, or his, and ask, "Is the
entire club coming with us?"

     Mikuru makes a strangled noise, and stares in dismay at her own
cards.  Yuki blinks and looks over, then blinks again.

     "My, my," Koizumi murmurs.  "A royal flush ... I should have put
my money on you, Kyon."

     "What?" Haruhi asks, suddenly distracted.  "That's got to be an
omen of some sort!  Luck like that doesn't just happen!  I am
_absolutely_ following you home tonight."  So much for revealing the
plan to the rest of the club.  I'm sure they can figure it out,
though.

     It probably doesn't take a genius to understand anyway, but....  So begins:

     The Courtship of Suzumiya Haruhi
     ---------------------------------
     Author's note: Probably way too much effort for a years-late
one-shot gag.  Also, the card thing was written before I saw season
two or read the novels.  Damnit. -_-

     In further news, this will also be my last Haruhi anime fanfic,
as I have been hopelessly sucked into the world of the novels.  They
are my Obsession of the Moment.  Apologies.

-- 
Brian Randall
--
I write fanfiction. Too much of it. You can read it here, thanks to a
kind grant from the Larry F foundation:
http://www.florestica.com/brandall/
--
Together. Allegiance or death. BIGFIRE!
--
Haiku of my lament:

Forgive my spelling,
my U.S. education,
is the source of blame.