[FFML] [Lime] The Eclipse of Haruhi Suzumiya, chapter five

[Henry Cobb]

[Lime] The Eclipse of Haruhi Suzumiya, chapter five
By Henry J. Cobb

[The Haruhi Suzumiya characters are the creation of Nagaru Tanigawa,
etc. No infringement of their rights is intended.]

After dinner on Wednesday night, I was working on my homework in my room
when I got a text message.

    H.Suzumiya: Meet at Yuki's now!

Had there been an incident after all? I rushed for the door.

My sister jumped out of her room in her pajamas, "He must really be
something to have you running like this, but what does he see in you?"

Her needling must have finally gotten to me because I turned and said, "I'm
going to see two girls from my school."

"Don't lie Kyon! There isn't a school in the country that has two girls
weird enough to date you."

I left without further comment.

Strangely enough at my school there are at least three who would qualify,
perhaps even three and a half, depending on how you count them. All three
and possibly a half were members, alongside myself, in the self-styled SOS
Brigade. That they were all or at least mostly non-human and that I wasn't
actually dating any of them were the only facts that failed to prove a
counter-example to my sister's thesis. In addition to myself in the
more-or-less male category was the shape-shifter who I'd never seen in any
other shape than that of a boy of my own age. Perhaps the boy I know was
only possessed or just a very good actor?

I walked briskly to Yuki's apartment building and buzzed her number without
response. I didn't even consider buzzing Ryoko Asakura's number. With any
luck she was long gone and if she wasn't, then I didn't want to be alone
with her chilling embrace.

"Kyon!"

I turned to the street. A stretched black limo had pulled up. Energetic SOS
Brigade leader and apparently doomed deity carrier, Haruhi Suzumiya, had
stepped out of the limo along with our monster girl, Yuki Nagato.

"Yes?" I walked over to the limo.

"Get our stuff out of the back!" Haruhi pointed towards the trunk that had
opened to reveal a half dozen bags that were stuffed to overflowing with
clothes.

I managed to get four of the bags, but Yuki rushed forwards to grab the
other two. The brief glance I got at her bags was of underwear and
swimwear. She was perfectly willing to undress for me, but was embarrassed
by clothing she wasn't even wearing? I could never understand girls, human
or otherwise.

The limo drove away as I carried the bags to the building entrance. I
waited there for the girls to catch up, as they had held back to talk to
somebody in the car.

Yuki had her back to Haruhi as she slowly typed in her access code for the
door. Her typing speed on the computer had gotten much faster than that, so
she was obviously showing me the combination. I suspected that she'd soon
drop a spare key for her apartment door in my pocket.

I pondered if this was more her way of welcoming my company any time I had
time for her, or if it was simply that she considered herself to be my
property, and therefore that I should have access to herself and her
quarters at any time, and that she had no rights to refuse me anything that
she had to offer.

I put down the bags in the elevator and asked Haruhi, "So how did you two
afford all this?" And would Yuki be able to make rent?

"Oh, we didn't buy this."

More banditry Haruhi?

"When we were walking to the clothing store, this famous fashion designer
spotted us, and she said that Yuki was the perfect model for her new line
of clothes."

So Yuki's waifish inhuman looks might just kill more young girls from body
image disorders than her chilling touch had killed men. I still didn't
regret having her life spared. In spite of being possibly the least human
member of our so-called brigade, she was also the most human, least
pretentious and the most innocent.

"We've got to try all these on her before we go back Saturday, when she'll
have an all-day photo shoot."

"So no Brigade search on Saturday?" I wondered which of the factions
gathered around Haruhi had intervened to separate me from the two girls on
that day.

"This is more important! Once Yuki's famous, we'll only need to mention
that she's a member on our webpage to get the hits in! Also brigade
meetings are canceled for the rest of the week so I can help her get
ready."

"Just leave the bags here by the door and you can go back home," Haruhi
rushed past Yuki once the apartment door was opened.

I felt a chill at my side, then Yuki stepped back and showed another key
that she put back in her own pocket.

"So much space!" Haruhi looked around Yuki's living room, "And all you have
is a kotatsu in here? Yuki, let's make this the off-site brigade meeting
room!"

Yuki looked at me and I just shrugged, so she turned to Haruhi, "Company
would be nice."

"Great! I was seriously running out of space in the clubroom," Haruhi ran
to a control on the wall, "You've got heating and air conditioning too? It
gets brutal during the summers and winters here, except for the past few
years."

I hadn't noticed particularly gentle weather lately, "The brigade will of
course pay any extra charges for her utilities?"

"What are you still doing here Kyon? I've got to start dressing Yuki."

"There are no drapes on the patio doors, which are all glass."

"So?"

"So, what if some freak in those buildings has a camera with a powerful
lens?"

"Easy enough to fix!" Haruhi started peeling the landscape posters off the
walls and pasting them against the patio doors.

Yuki looked at me, but I just shrugged and left.

During classes on Thursday, Haruhi sketched out outfit combinations on a
slim Yuki-style frame, then went around the room between classes to badger
the other girls about their opinions. Some of the teachers tried to trip
Haruhi up with pop questions, but she handled them all and went right back
to sketching. The class seemed to almost enjoy the diversion as we all
missed Ryoko's sympathetic touch, even though she really was an ice cold
killer.

I admitted that my male ego was pleased at seeing the overbearing Haruhi
cast in a more feminine role. My only regret was that instead of the
(inwardly at least) willing Mikuru, Haruhi's attentions were focused on
Yuki, who could not resist without my agreement.

Friday was more of the same. I worried that I had betrayed Yuki by not
going with her to pick out a phone, but as long as Haruhi was stuck to her
like a barnacle, she wouldn't miss a call.

I was doing homework in my room on Friday night (I had no idea what strange
adventures Itsuki would drag me into over the weekend, and I so I thought
it best to be prepared), when my sister came into my room, as usual, and
most unusually closed my door.

"It hurts, doesn't it?"

"What?" I looked over at her.

"The way your boyfriend dumped you."

"I don't have a boyfriend."

"It's that bad? Don't worry Kyon, the best guys are always married or gay
so that should help your chances," She turned and opened the door, "Mom!
Kyon's heartbroken, so let's do something special for him on Saturday."

"Forget it squirt, I've got school activities on Saturday."

"Oh? ''Activities''? That's great Kyon," She ran up and hugged me, "Have
fun!"

After she left I mentally went over the Haruhi checklist with respect to my
sister, energetic, assertive, imaginative, insane, delusional, oblivious,
possessed by a foreign spirit that would destroy her? Well, I hoped that
last one wasn't true.

I set my alarm for six a.m., and by seven on Saturday I was waiting out on
our porch as a taxi pulled up. As promised it was both raining and clear. A
traditional wedding then? I thought as I prepared to walk over to the taxi.

My sister ran out the door in her pajamas, in the rain, and tapped at
Itsuki's window.

He rolled the window down, "Hi there, so you must be Kyon's sister?"

"Nice to meet you sir," She bowed to him, "I know that my dumb brother
isn't much of a boyfriend, but please look after him. He's got terrible
taste in girls."

"Go inside now," I grabbed her shoulders and turned her towards the door,
"And dry off before you catch something," Like say kitsunetsuki, I thought.

She ran to the porch and waved back, "Take care!"

"Be seeing you," Itsuki rolled his window up.

I got in the other side, "Don't encourage her."

"She seems to be a charming young lady."

I thought of how to change the topic away from my family. I nodded to the
taxi driver man and said to Itsuki, "May I speak freely?"

"Of course, you're among friends."

"When did your pack become interested in our Miss Suzumiya?"

"Yes, let me see how to explain the concept to you. Do you know about the
Sistine Chapel?"

"The place with the painting of Adam and God reaching out to each other?"

"Yes, that exactly. Three years ago, in her first year of middle school,
Haruhi Suzumiya made an offering of herself on Tanabata. At the exact same
moment Amaterasu was reaching out for comfort. We felt the reaction all
over the world, but we are still unable to figure out where Haruhi found
that formula."

"So somebody pushed her into this?" Yeah Haruhi is easy enough to lead
around by her nose, I thought. She's another pawn in the same game I'm in,
only she's playing blindfolded.

"Nobody has admitted to it yet, but we doubt that Amaterasu would have
willingly endangered a human being in such a way."

"So are all you foxes of the opinion, that we should let sleeping goddesses
lie?"

"My lord Inari Okami has said that we should only observe the situation
for now, but at the wedding you will have a chance to meet other factions."

"So what's the big problem then? If Haruhi can manage to keep willfully
blind of her own condition, then why should anybody else care?"

"Human scientists have yet to discover that the activity level of the Sun
is diminishing. If this extends for a full human lifetime then we might
encounter another mini-ice age, or worse."

"So much for global warming," I looked out the window and saw that we were
leaving the city. Then I turned back to Itsuki, and I said with far too
much snark, "And we can't toss Haruhi in front of a bus or train because?"

"When the goddess is upset she tends to behave erratically."

"So it's freeze or fry? What exactly do you intend to do about it?"

"I suspect that something is in the works, but at a much higher level than
my own."

"Humor me just once and show me your true form."

"As you wish," Itsuki was instantly replaced in his seat by a white fox, of
the kind seen in the arctic, "This is all real. You may pet my fur if you
like."

"There's enough whispers linking us at school and now you've started my
sister on it. Just one thing bothers me. Where are your clothes?"

"I don't wear any."

"Too much information, but no wonder your tie seems to be always exactly in
place," I turned to the window and we rode in silence after that.

I pondered what the foxes had said on the return from the wedding until my
phone beeped. We must have just reentered the coverage area, I thought as I
pulled it out of my pocket. I selected the text message that had been sent
from Haruhi's phone a half hour previously.

    H.Suzumiya: Please come to the apartment - Nagato.

I turned to Itsuki and said, "Drop me off at Yuki's, please," and then I
looked down to study the message again. I could be very sure indeed that
Haruhi had not sent this herself. She would never bother to type in
complete words and even with spell-check features of modern phones, this was
a bit much. To top it off the message was a request instead of an order.

So the most likely sender was Yuki herself. Even if Ryoko Asakura had
captured the two girls and sent this message as a trap, I would still have
to go there.

But there were other signs that pointed directly at Yuki. She had written
"the apartment", because she truly believed that she owned nothing, not
even herself. Everything was mine, but she could not call it my apartment
because I didn't live there. It would have been somewhat frightening if she
had written "our apartment", in the hopes that I would move in so she could
provide live-in maid service.

I could just imagine the response if I said, "Mom, I got married over the
weekend and I'm moving in with my new bride." My sister would of course
respond with, "Don't lie Kyon. No woman would ever marry you."

The taxi stopped and I looked up. We had arrived at Yuki's apartment
building. I got out and then turned back to Itsuki, "Thanks for the ride."

"No, thank you for your time. Just be careful in there."

"As if your pack doesn't have the place under constant
surveillance. Someday I'll be rich enough to afford a house with a yard so
I can keep a dog in it," I shut the taxi door then walked to the building
entrance. I considered using Yuki's entry code, but instead I just punched
in her room number and said, "Hi, I'm here."

There was no reply, but the building door opened. My estimate of this being
a trap jumped up a notch, not that the response was at all unlike Yuki. At
her apartment door I left my keyring with her key in my pocket and rang the
bell.

The door opened and Yuki was standing there. She nodded over to where
Haruhi was sitting with arms crossed, looking down at papers spread over
Yuki's kotatsu.

"That stupid, stupid," Haruhi muttered then looked up at me. She ran over
and grabbed me, while I was changing from my shoes to the pair of slippers
in my size that Yuki had added recently.

I almost lost my balance, so I pushed Haruhi away and asked her, "What is
it?"

"Oh, why can't she see my genius?" She grabbed me even tighter.

"Creative differences?" I stood there with Haruhi's head resting against my
left shoulder, and looked up.

Yuki was sitting at her kotatsu with hands in her lap and head bowed. She
wasn't even reading a book. She must have been really upset. It was with
me. Not only had I handed her over to Haruhi to use as a toy and invade
Yuki's only privacy for the past few days, but at that very moment I was
allowing Haruhi free use of the only comfort that Yuki was herself denied.

I grabbed Haruhi's shoulders, pushed her back to arm's length, and asked,
"So now what? Back to hunting for extraterrestrials?"

Haruhi seemed confused for a moment. Then she stepped back out of my grasp
and composed herself, "Well yes, eventually. But first I must crush the
fools who run the fashion world, make my own name in the field, and use
that notoriety to attract clients for the SOS Brigade."

As I followed her logic, I saw that as usual it consisted of the most
improbable leaps and bounds, all powered by her own bravado. So I asked the
obvious question, "And how exactly will you start on this?"

"At the cultural festival!"

"What?"

"We'll have a fashion show at the school's cultural festival," Haruhi
dashed back to the kotatsu, picked up her phone and dialed, "Hi Mikuru, can
you get a hold of Tsuruya today? Drag her over to Yuki's place and bring
some food. I'm starving and Yuki has nothing to eat here."

The scenario was now clear to me. Haruhi had pulled out her phone some time
back, and had either made a call with an unfortunate ending or had
chickened out of calling. Yuki had picked up the phone, while Haruhi had
been self-absorbed, and had sent me a text message instead of speaking up
and thereby alerting Haruhi to the connection.

My role in the drama had been as usual, just a stepping stone for Haruhi's
flight of fancy. I had played my part, and now needed to depart before
Haruhi remembered that she should have some questions for me, such as where
I had been this morning.

I put my shoes back on and turned back at the door. Haruhi was looking over
her sketch pages and making notes on them, while Yuki sat and looked at me.

I mouthed "Please" and bowed to Yuki. She nodded back to me and pulled out
a book. I wondered if Haruhi even heard me close the door behind me as I
left.

-HJC