TMoHS: The Anagram of Suzumiya Kurumi 14
Title: The Anagram of Suzumiya Kurumi
Rating: PG
Length: 4500ish
Warnings: Time travel, spoilers, book canon, some coarse language and science fiction themes.
Summary: In 2004, life in the S.O.S Brigade continues as usual for Asahina Mikuru. (Earlier chapters 01| 02| 03| 04| 05| 06| 07| 08| 09| 10| 11| 12| 13)
Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.
Important note: The reviews to Chapter 13 at the pit of voles had me checking and discovering that though I'd set the canon as 'book canon', this does not show up as obviously on ff dot net as it does at other archives I use. I want to clarify here that the kidnapping mentioned is not plot relevant to The Anagram of Suzumiya Kurumi, but is a reference to one of the adventures Kyon and his friends have involving Fujiwara in 'The Scheme of Suzumiya Haruhi' by Nagaru Tanigawa, which is the seventh volume in the series. I'm not taking the plot in a strange direction, I just wanted to write a very short chapter that played around with and referenced back to the books, to show how some of the implications from my plot devices would interact with the source material. As I've had Kurumi mention in the past, aside from relevant details to her story, there won't be any re-hashing of Kyon's experiences with the S.O.S brigade; this is all you'll really see mentioned about any kidnapping and it's not a huge plot point.
I didn't mean to confuse anyone, and I was sure that it was clear I was basing this off the books and not the anime or manga series. I'm very sorry that I didn't check the visible formatting better, or mention my source material more explicitly at the start. I'm putting this note at the end of Chapter 13 and the start of Chapter 14 just in case anyone misses it. I'll also go back sometime and point out in a more visible way that this is fanfiction based on the books and as such relies on an understanding of book canon up to volume nine at times. Thanks so much for reading and reviewing so far, especially since some of the characters I've used recently are more present in the books than any of the other mediums.
April 2025, Suzumiya Residence, Tokyo; 2005, Kyon's Residence, Tokyo
I was used to it, after all my years of training and the non-linear lesson schedules that I was keeping to with my younger self, but that didn't mean that I wasn't exhausted. The last week had been a lesson in endurance and stamina. I'd come back from my busy day in the early 2000s implanting Sasaki and handling Kyon to go right into a full day of teaching. I hadn't had a chance to sleep or rest at all. Luckily my younger self was having her first day of this fatigue-type training, and she was about as able to focus as I was. I set basic reading tasks and didn't bother with more complex equations or science. I could hardly remember any of it myself, my head was so groggy, and I knew for a fact that young Kurumi would stumble into her dorm room after class unable to recall anything that had happened.
When I had been that age, I had been terrified that I'd missed something important. It was a relief, late as it was in my life, to learn that I'd been quite safe and had not missed a single interesting fact.
When I got home at 6am on Saturday morning and stumbled straight into bed, I felt my arms and legs sink heavy with tiredness into the mattress. But I didn't undress or even pull the duvet over myself. I just stared up at the ceiling and let the thoughts I had suppressed in the name of duty come back to wash over me. I felt that I'd had more than enough huge realisations for one year, starting with the abrupt end to my time acting as Asahina. Now there was yet another thing to weigh on my mind and to mention to Aunt Yuki and Uncle Itsuki. Knowing them, they'd already made a note of it somewhere, and had been keeping it quiet until they knew I had been let in on the secret. I could easily imagine that dowager of an old woman that I looked to become one day going back in time with lists on paper, of classified information.
I hadn't really known much about my Aunt Sasaki. We'd never really had any contact with Kyon's family - I had learned of course that Mum kept her pregnancy secret from nearly everyone she knew at the time - and Mum had always kept me so busy that I'd never thought about it. It should have been suspicious, that my father and his sister had vanished at the same time. But she'd never mentioned it, and I'd never asked. I'd never associated the absence of that young ponytailed girl in photographs with the absence of Asahina and Kyon. I suppose it was partly because most of the photographs we had were from S.O.S Brigade activities, and young Sasaki hadn't been invited along on many towards the end.
I didn't feel guilty. Not like I had when I'd finally recognised myself as Mikuru and then myself as Miruku and all my other future selves. Not like when I'd learned more and more about what lay behind the various aspects of my life, and Tanabata had begun to take on a much more significant prominence in my very existence. There weren't really any hints that had been around regarding Sasaki, nothing I could have assimilated in my childhood or training that could have prepared me for meeting and recognising her. Well, nothing more than I'd known at the time. Just enough, barely.
I hadn't trusted myself to look her up in the phone book or databases at the agency, and I had promised myself that I'd look into things on the weekend, away from the observing eyes of my superiors, after I'd caught up on lost sleep. But I couldn't fall asleep with so much on my mind, could I? I'd thrown my biorhythms out with the strange schedule, and so I gave up on getting any rest. I lay there, feeling lethargic and immovable, until staying still itself felt unbearably difficult. I got up again in stages, curling onto my side, placing one foot then the other onto the floor, heaving myself upright again in a dizzy arc of un-brushed hair and crumpled flapping unbuttoned shirtsleeves.
Mum wasn't awake yet, and the house was quiet. I hunted down the tablet PC we kept on the low table for general use, and started searching news article databases for any mentions of Kyon or Sasaki's names, their neighbourhood, and disappearances. I got a few hits almost at once, but they were little more than I had expected. A boy and his sister, missing overnight, no evidence of kidnapping, police continue to investigate. Appeals for witnesses, that sort of thing. I crossed my legs and sat at the small table in the kitchen while the kettle burbled and the stairs creaked a little under Mum's feet.
“Morning, you. Thought you'd be asleep, you said you were going to be out all weekend.”
I shrugged. “Yeah, I wanted to look something up first, though.”
“Oh?” Mum leaned over my shoulder and blinked blearily at the tablet's screen. “Kyon, eh? I thought I told you, no father complexes in my household, missy!”
“Hey, I'm not looking at it for him!” I was perhaps a bit more outraged than I should have been, but really, after all the creepy looks I'd been getting from Kyon, I was pretty sensitive about that issue. I pushed away from her and turned the tablet over, left it face-down on the table as I started making tea.
“Oh come on, brat, make us a real drink!”
I rolled my eyes, and pulled out the French press. Mum was particular about her coffee, even when she was too asleep to really notice what she was drinking.
“Fine. But you're rinsing it out, okay?”
Mum shrugged. We both knew I'd end up doing all the cleaning.
“And I was reading about Sasaki, not Kyon.”
“Who?”
I spooned coffee into the glass jug and poured some hot water over it, left it to sit for a minute or two. I picked the tablet up again and pointed at the little girl in the photograph. “Her. Kyon's little sister.”
Mum nodded and waved her hand at the kitchen bench.
“You do have to wait for good coffee to actually brew, you know?”
“Meh. You're a time traveller, can't you make it go faster?”
“As if you'd know how real time travel works, it takes years of intense study,” I muttered under my breath. I poured the coffee out when it was done, and put it down in front of her. Slamming would be too strong a word for the force I used, but it was pretty close.
“Anyway, I ran into Sasaki at work the other day, so I was just wondering when she'd first come to the agency, that was all.”
I was worried after I'd said it that Mum was going to start leaping to the same conclusions I had - that maybe Kyon was somewhere in the agency too - but instead she just blew on her mug and took a tentative sip before whining.
“Am I going to be the only one in this family who doesn't have anything exciting happen to them?”
I bit my tongue, and just barely held myself back from telling her all of it. She didn't know, I was sure, and we were all still a bit wary of her. Just because she wasn't currently making any closed spaces didn't mean that she couldn't or wouldn't again. I did not want to provoke any reactions like that, no sir!
“You work in TV, isn't that exciting?”
She frowned down into her mug. “About as much as a hole in the head.”
I opened my mouth to reply that I'd thought she liked her job, but she was finishing her coffee in a long painfully hot-looking gulp, cheeks flushed from it and forehead sweating. “About Kyon's sister - Sasaki, you said - there's some papers and stuff in a shoebox in the linen cupboard. I collected them, back when I was sure there was something going on. Maybe that will answer your questions? I gotta get to work.”
It wasn't odd that she was rushing off to work on a weekend. Even when there wasn't a sudden interview or opportunity, she often had ideas and she liked going in to the studio to start feeling out whether or not they'd work for an episode. But it did seem oddly convenient, giving her an out from the conversation. I tried asking her about it as she headed up to her bedroom, stripped, and got dressed, but she remained resolutely silent and dedicated to her tasks. Her expression was grim at times, but at the front door she flicked me in the forehead, smiled, and stuck her tongue out at me.
“Call Yuki and Itsuki, would you? Make sure the gang's all here tonight, I've got a mega super plan for a special edition of the show, and I'll need everyone's help to finish it.”
“Ah, sure, I guess. I can do that.”
She clapped me sharply on the shoulder, and nodded. “Good. I'll see you at dinner, then!”
My mouth was open to ask a question, but the front door had already slammed shut behind her. I stared at the door for a few seconds, then carried my coffee upstairs with me. I doubted that there would be any more information on Sasaki than I'd be likely to find online, but it was worth a shot. With Mum, you never knew when she'd notice something that seemed innocuous but was somehow relevant and important.
I sat on the third stair down, with the shoebox in my lap and the mug on the floor near my shoulder. I sifted through newspaper clippings that were more or less identical to those I'd been reading online, but these were annotated by Mum - Suzumiya at the time to me. Some of the bleakness of her feelings had shown through in the comments. Some articles had Kyon's name scribbled out and the words bastard, arsehole and deserter scrawled across them in angry pen. There were multiple copies of every article, every photograph, as if she'd run out and bought multiple copies of every newspaper that year. Probably she had. I could imagine her sitting in a cafe with Nagato and Koizumi, scissors in their hands as they all clipped out the titbits of officially released information.
It took me a while to notice it, to see it; the date. While the articles had only identified the disappearance of Kyon and Sasaki as happening within a one-week period (their parents had been away on a business trip, there was confusion amongst the neighbours and classmates who claimed to have seen both brother and sister at varying times during the week), Mum had appended every scrap of paper with one date. The day before my mission ended, the day that Kyon had failed to chase after Suzumiya. The day I had been caught wrapped in his arms.
I was too tired. I hadn't slept very much or very well. I was carrying exhaustion from a whole week of overworking myself, and still hadn't gotten used to the idea of Sasaki being part of the agency, for all that it made a kind of sense. I couldn't fight back my curiosity, my desire to know. How had it happened? Why was it Sasaki? What was I missing in all of this? I decided that it would be easier to skip back on an unauthorised trip and apologise than it would be to start appealing to my superiors for information. The last time I'd resolved to investigate, I'd only ended up with more duties and been thwarted in my attempt to demand more transparency.
I should have known better to travel, the state I was in. I wasn't emotionally stable, wasn't fully awake even with tepid coffee sitting bitter and sloshing in my belly. I hardly needed to use the TPDD as a prop anymore, really, but I clung to the childish psychological aid and wrapped clammy nervous fingers around it. I had set the controls not for the clubroom, which in that time-plane was doubtless under supervision from a higher agent than myself, but for Kyon's house on the evening before his disappearance. I would hang around for a day, and observe both Kyon and Sasaki as best I could.
I overshot. There is little more embarrassing to a time traveller than arriving in the wrong time-plane. But I managed one worse than that. I overshot my destination by a month, having not paid strict attention to my preparation. I overshot my location, ending up inside Kyon's house rather than at a safe vantage point. My heart sped up immediately, scared of what might happen were my superiors to notice the mistake I had made. Even if it was just my future self... I knew I'd be screaming and shouting at young Kurumi if she ever made a mistake as bad as this, and I wouldn't expect my future self to be any more forgiving of something this... this... stupid. Just plain stupid.
There were no lights on in the house, no movement at all, from what I could tell. The clock on the wall said it was just past 3pm, but the day was overcast and dark shadows fell over everything. I didn't call out or say a word, just made my way tentatively around the downstairs living area. It was larger than the house I had grown up in, with a small yard and gate and everything outside. I half fantasised about a childhood spent in this house. It would have been surrounded with loving parents, happy laughter, friends. If Kyon hadn't vanished, maybe I would have been brought up here. Surrounded by the adult members of the S.O.S Brigade, with grandparents and an aunt and in an entirely different existence to the one I knew.
I... for once, I didn't like the idea of it. I wouldn't really have swapped my life, my experiences with Kyon, Nagato, Koizumi and even Mum and her young obnoxious self, for anything in the world. Huh. It was a strange thing to realise. I ran a finger along the kitchen bench, not wistful at all, but simple wondering about how different and strange life could be. I knew I'd have to leave soon, and face punishment of some sort from the agency, but I wanted to draw out that moment of peace one second longer.
I couldn't, though. I heard a strange creaking thump from upstairs, and a low moan. It sounded like Kyon, and I cast my mind back to this afternoon. We'd all been busy with schoolwork that week, and the S.O.S Brigade had been on hiatus for a few days while we all got assessment out of the way. Suzumiya had said there was no point in ruining our investigations, no need to have half-distracted Brigade members bungling sensitive UFO stakeouts, so we'd all had a few evenings off.
Was Kyon sick? Injured? I hurried upstairs towards his room, as quiet as I could manage in case there was some sort of monster or danger to be had. I didn't want to go rushing in and get both of us in trouble. From the top of the stairs I could see a sliver of light; Kyon's bedroom door was mostly shut, but not completely. I tiptoed closer, hearing nothing but silence and the slow roll of cloudy weather and the occasional car on the street outside.
There was a rustle of clothing and a gasp. I froze on the spot, no longer moving, just craning my neck to see through the open door as best I could.
I didn't see a monster. Or, rather, I saw a very familiar monster. That flash of hair was... Suzumiya! Her hair, on Kyon's pillow, and from what else I could see through that small opening, there was a strong and manly hand curling around her head, cupping it gently.
“Mmm.” Said Suzumiya.
“Oh, Haruhi!” Kyon moaned.
My brain refused to recognise what it was seeing. I turned on my heel, no longer worried about being heard at all, and walked swiftly downstairs. I made sure the front door was locked properly, and let myself out with shaking hands.
I had known, theoretically, that at some point before Kyon's disappearance they must have had sex. How else could I have been conceived? But to know something is one thing, and to see it is another and far more disgusting thing entirely. I shuddered and wished that I could just wipe that memory out of my brain.
Nope, no luck. Even just that small tiny bit I'd seen - and it wasn't like I'd seen much naked skin, or heaven forbid the actual... ew, all right, no thinking about that ever - was enough to traumatise me, to burn the experience into my memory.
In front of me, the gate opened and a younger Sasaki than I had seen in a long time came up the steps towards me. She was smiling, happy, calling out my name.
“Mikuru-chan, hiya!”
“Hi, Sasaki!” I felt like I was forcing my cheerfulness, but Sasaki didn't seem to notice. “Tell you what, let's go out to dinner, just you and me? I came here to ask Kyon about a question in my textbook, but it looks like nobody's home.”
Sasaki craned her head around to peer into the dark house. She rolled her eyes, and took my hand with a consoling look on her face. “Yeah, it's totally gross, what they do when Mum and Dad are out of town. I've threatened to tell, but Haruhi's really mean when she wants to be.”
“She's pretty mean even when she doesn't want to be,” I pointed out, “but anyway, let's not think about such disgusting things ever again. Where shall I take you?”
I was grateful that Sasaki didn't seem to notice how old I was - I suppose I was only one year older than the Mikuru she knew at the time, and it wasn't like I'd grown that much taller in that year. She reached up to take my hand in her own small one, and we set off down the street. We didn't go far, just down to the local shops and up some stairs into an old place that had been there for years. It was a good price - a lot of kids stopped by on their way home from cram school - and I was pretty sure that the busy staff there wouldn't look too closely at the cash I had in my pockets.
Time travellers tended to carry a variety of cash notes that would suit the time period, but I only had what I'd had in my jeans at home. I hadn't thought very hard about my decision to trip back here, and I certainly hadn't taken the time to stop past the agency and hit up my storage locker for supplies. I had what looked like normal Japanese currency, but I wasn't sure if the serial numbers on the notes existed yet or not. A place with high turnover and a busy register? That was as safe as I could get. I certainly didn't want to risk somewhere with security cameras or a digital register. There was a very low chance of my being identified in any way, but I didn't want to take any risks I didn't have to, given how much I'd already botched up. Let this be a lesson to anyone working in my agency or elsewhere: never go joy-tripping in time, always make appropriate preparations.
Sasaki seemed to be happy enough, perched beside me on high stools at the end of a table crowded with other students. We ordered our food over the hubbub of voices and cooking, and settled down beside each other, both of us resting our arms on the worn wooden table.
“I didn't know you knew my name,” Sasaki said happily. She swung her legs and smiled happily up at me, “I thought I was just, you know, someone you guys had around because you had to.”
I turned to her and smiled back. I felt pretty awful inside, though. We really had been quite dismissive of Sasaki, thinking that our agendas took priority over basic polite decency. Given that I now knew Sasaki would find out all about Suzumiya, myself, Kyon, and the whole mess, the whole thing seemed pointless.
“You've wonderful, and you've been useful more than once to us, you know. Of course I know your name!”
She grinned, and then the food arrived. I realised with shock that that exact moment and sentence from my own lips was why the older and trained Sasaki was so surprised when I had helped establish her in the year 2000. She seemed happy enough even with that, but what a terrible faux pas to make! What a heartbreakingly stupid and inevitable mess. Far more than the repulsive thought of my parents actually... erk, well, yes, that... with each other, I regretted that my impulsive and poorly thought out mistake had - was going to have - hurt Sasaki.
We chatted about a lot. About pretty simple things, like homework and food and films and tea. We shared funny stories about Kyon with each other, and finally were were full. We were a little splattered from an accident with a bowl of udon and an elbow early on in the meal. Smiling and red-cheeked from the warmth in the restaurant, we jostled out downstairs onto the street.
Perhaps I had grown used to the company of children that age, having taught my younger self for a few months. Or maybe I just felt guilty and really wanted to make sure Sasaki had a nice night, one not spent suffering the side-effects of... er... no, I still can't breach that topic. You know what I mean.
We were halfway to the convenience store to get some ice-cream for dessert when Sasaki's phone rang. I hadn't known the kid even had a phone at that age, but it did seem practical. Especially since Kyon's parents, to my recollection, had spent a lot of time away from home on business trips and the like.
“Hello? Ah, Kyon, I...” Sasaki didn't get to say any more, because I gently lifted the phone from her and put it to my ear.
“...do you think you're doing? It's after five, you can't stay out all night at your age, idiot!”
“Kyon.” I said very loudly and sternly into the phone. “It's me.”
“M-mikuru?!”
“In a way. Is Haruhi still there?”
There was silence at the other end of the line. I could just imagine the look on Kyon's face. Yes, Kyon, I knew. Oh, how I knew. How I wished I didn't know.
“Er, no. She um, went home.”
“Good, I'll bring Sasaki back, then. We'll be there soon.”
It was a terrible thing for a child to have witnessed, whether that child was your younger sister or your future offspring. So Kyon deserved to wait while we stopped by the store, and spent a good twenty minutes browsing for the exact right ice-creams. It was cold, and so Sasaki and I walked as fast as we could. With our legs warm from activity and our tongues and faces cold from the night air and our treats, we arrived back at Kyon's house in good spirits.
Kyon must have been shaken by our phone conversation. He didn't chastise Sasaki at all, just shooed her up to her room and then stood by the front door with me, looking as shocked as a guy with a face that passive and bland possibly could. Not much, but you could see it in him if you knew where to look.
“You're the... older Asahina?”
“Not much older, but yes.” I confessed. “But that's beside the point. It's a lousy thing to do, letting your sister come home to that sort of thing. You could simply, for example, ask my past self or Nagato to babysit her. It's not as if you haven't got experience at lying to people, you've had years of it with everything that's happened.”
“True.” He agreed, still frowning slightly. “So is that what you came back for, to take care of Sasaki?”
I shrugged, and was never more grateful for routine phrases than in that moment. “Classified Information.” I replied.
“Ah, right, yeah. Fine. Something else, then, before you go? Does the current Asahina know about us - me and Haruhi - or is it something you find out about in the future?”
“Classified Information.” That was one kettle of fish I did not want to open. I really just wanted to go home and get into bed and sleep, like I should have instead of coming on this stupid pointless trip.
“Ah, ask a stupid question, I guess. I suppose I'll see you when I see you.”
I nodded. “I'm not sure if I'll be appearing in your future or past next, but I hope you will be well.”
I got away and then back to my native time-plane as fast as I could, head reeling. I just wanted to collapse dizzily into my comfortable bed, but when I got back the phone was ringing. I'd only left a few minutes between my departure and return, but even so when I picked up the phone Mum's voice came out angry and exasperated.
“Don't bother about calling them, this idea's a total bust. No real scope for a series in Australia, can you believe it?! I mean, there's heaps of sinister, deadly things down there. I thought the network would jump at the idea, all that indigenous art and mystical stuff. Ah well.”
“So, um, should I cancel with Aunt Yuki and Uncle Itsuki?” I hoped she'd say yes; I hadn't even called them yet.
“Nah, I'll need some company to drown my sorrows with. Be home soon!”
I sighed heavily and hung up, dialled Aunt Yuki's and then Uncle Itsuki's numbers. I'd have maybe an hour's nap before Mum was back in the house, clattering around and demanding attention. Still, I changed into pyjamas and curled up in bed, cocooning myself in the warm dark safety of my duvet.
( chapter 15)
Rating: PG
Length: 4500ish
Warnings: Time travel, spoilers, book canon, some coarse language and science fiction themes.
Summary: In 2004, life in the S.O.S Brigade continues as usual for Asahina Mikuru. (Earlier chapters 01| 02| 03| 04| 05| 06| 07| 08| 09| 10| 11| 12| 13)
Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.
Important note: The reviews to Chapter 13 at the pit of voles had me checking and discovering that though I'd set the canon as 'book canon', this does not show up as obviously on ff dot net as it does at other archives I use. I want to clarify here that the kidnapping mentioned is not plot relevant to The Anagram of Suzumiya Kurumi, but is a reference to one of the adventures Kyon and his friends have involving Fujiwara in 'The Scheme of Suzumiya Haruhi' by Nagaru Tanigawa, which is the seventh volume in the series. I'm not taking the plot in a strange direction, I just wanted to write a very short chapter that played around with and referenced back to the books, to show how some of the implications from my plot devices would interact with the source material. As I've had Kurumi mention in the past, aside from relevant details to her story, there won't be any re-hashing of Kyon's experiences with the S.O.S brigade; this is all you'll really see mentioned about any kidnapping and it's not a huge plot point.
I didn't mean to confuse anyone, and I was sure that it was clear I was basing this off the books and not the anime or manga series. I'm very sorry that I didn't check the visible formatting better, or mention my source material more explicitly at the start. I'm putting this note at the end of Chapter 13 and the start of Chapter 14 just in case anyone misses it. I'll also go back sometime and point out in a more visible way that this is fanfiction based on the books and as such relies on an understanding of book canon up to volume nine at times. Thanks so much for reading and reviewing so far, especially since some of the characters I've used recently are more present in the books than any of the other mediums.
April 2025, Suzumiya Residence, Tokyo; 2005, Kyon's Residence, Tokyo
I was used to it, after all my years of training and the non-linear lesson schedules that I was keeping to with my younger self, but that didn't mean that I wasn't exhausted. The last week had been a lesson in endurance and stamina. I'd come back from my busy day in the early 2000s implanting Sasaki and handling Kyon to go right into a full day of teaching. I hadn't had a chance to sleep or rest at all. Luckily my younger self was having her first day of this fatigue-type training, and she was about as able to focus as I was. I set basic reading tasks and didn't bother with more complex equations or science. I could hardly remember any of it myself, my head was so groggy, and I knew for a fact that young Kurumi would stumble into her dorm room after class unable to recall anything that had happened.
When I had been that age, I had been terrified that I'd missed something important. It was a relief, late as it was in my life, to learn that I'd been quite safe and had not missed a single interesting fact.
When I got home at 6am on Saturday morning and stumbled straight into bed, I felt my arms and legs sink heavy with tiredness into the mattress. But I didn't undress or even pull the duvet over myself. I just stared up at the ceiling and let the thoughts I had suppressed in the name of duty come back to wash over me. I felt that I'd had more than enough huge realisations for one year, starting with the abrupt end to my time acting as Asahina. Now there was yet another thing to weigh on my mind and to mention to Aunt Yuki and Uncle Itsuki. Knowing them, they'd already made a note of it somewhere, and had been keeping it quiet until they knew I had been let in on the secret. I could easily imagine that dowager of an old woman that I looked to become one day going back in time with lists on paper, of classified information.
I hadn't really known much about my Aunt Sasaki. We'd never really had any contact with Kyon's family - I had learned of course that Mum kept her pregnancy secret from nearly everyone she knew at the time - and Mum had always kept me so busy that I'd never thought about it. It should have been suspicious, that my father and his sister had vanished at the same time. But she'd never mentioned it, and I'd never asked. I'd never associated the absence of that young ponytailed girl in photographs with the absence of Asahina and Kyon. I suppose it was partly because most of the photographs we had were from S.O.S Brigade activities, and young Sasaki hadn't been invited along on many towards the end.
I didn't feel guilty. Not like I had when I'd finally recognised myself as Mikuru and then myself as Miruku and all my other future selves. Not like when I'd learned more and more about what lay behind the various aspects of my life, and Tanabata had begun to take on a much more significant prominence in my very existence. There weren't really any hints that had been around regarding Sasaki, nothing I could have assimilated in my childhood or training that could have prepared me for meeting and recognising her. Well, nothing more than I'd known at the time. Just enough, barely.
I hadn't trusted myself to look her up in the phone book or databases at the agency, and I had promised myself that I'd look into things on the weekend, away from the observing eyes of my superiors, after I'd caught up on lost sleep. But I couldn't fall asleep with so much on my mind, could I? I'd thrown my biorhythms out with the strange schedule, and so I gave up on getting any rest. I lay there, feeling lethargic and immovable, until staying still itself felt unbearably difficult. I got up again in stages, curling onto my side, placing one foot then the other onto the floor, heaving myself upright again in a dizzy arc of un-brushed hair and crumpled flapping unbuttoned shirtsleeves.
Mum wasn't awake yet, and the house was quiet. I hunted down the tablet PC we kept on the low table for general use, and started searching news article databases for any mentions of Kyon or Sasaki's names, their neighbourhood, and disappearances. I got a few hits almost at once, but they were little more than I had expected. A boy and his sister, missing overnight, no evidence of kidnapping, police continue to investigate. Appeals for witnesses, that sort of thing. I crossed my legs and sat at the small table in the kitchen while the kettle burbled and the stairs creaked a little under Mum's feet.
“Morning, you. Thought you'd be asleep, you said you were going to be out all weekend.”
I shrugged. “Yeah, I wanted to look something up first, though.”
“Oh?” Mum leaned over my shoulder and blinked blearily at the tablet's screen. “Kyon, eh? I thought I told you, no father complexes in my household, missy!”
“Hey, I'm not looking at it for him!” I was perhaps a bit more outraged than I should have been, but really, after all the creepy looks I'd been getting from Kyon, I was pretty sensitive about that issue. I pushed away from her and turned the tablet over, left it face-down on the table as I started making tea.
“Oh come on, brat, make us a real drink!”
I rolled my eyes, and pulled out the French press. Mum was particular about her coffee, even when she was too asleep to really notice what she was drinking.
“Fine. But you're rinsing it out, okay?”
Mum shrugged. We both knew I'd end up doing all the cleaning.
“And I was reading about Sasaki, not Kyon.”
“Who?”
I spooned coffee into the glass jug and poured some hot water over it, left it to sit for a minute or two. I picked the tablet up again and pointed at the little girl in the photograph. “Her. Kyon's little sister.”
Mum nodded and waved her hand at the kitchen bench.
“You do have to wait for good coffee to actually brew, you know?”
“Meh. You're a time traveller, can't you make it go faster?”
“As if you'd know how real time travel works, it takes years of intense study,” I muttered under my breath. I poured the coffee out when it was done, and put it down in front of her. Slamming would be too strong a word for the force I used, but it was pretty close.
“Anyway, I ran into Sasaki at work the other day, so I was just wondering when she'd first come to the agency, that was all.”
I was worried after I'd said it that Mum was going to start leaping to the same conclusions I had - that maybe Kyon was somewhere in the agency too - but instead she just blew on her mug and took a tentative sip before whining.
“Am I going to be the only one in this family who doesn't have anything exciting happen to them?”
I bit my tongue, and just barely held myself back from telling her all of it. She didn't know, I was sure, and we were all still a bit wary of her. Just because she wasn't currently making any closed spaces didn't mean that she couldn't or wouldn't again. I did not want to provoke any reactions like that, no sir!
“You work in TV, isn't that exciting?”
She frowned down into her mug. “About as much as a hole in the head.”
I opened my mouth to reply that I'd thought she liked her job, but she was finishing her coffee in a long painfully hot-looking gulp, cheeks flushed from it and forehead sweating. “About Kyon's sister - Sasaki, you said - there's some papers and stuff in a shoebox in the linen cupboard. I collected them, back when I was sure there was something going on. Maybe that will answer your questions? I gotta get to work.”
It wasn't odd that she was rushing off to work on a weekend. Even when there wasn't a sudden interview or opportunity, she often had ideas and she liked going in to the studio to start feeling out whether or not they'd work for an episode. But it did seem oddly convenient, giving her an out from the conversation. I tried asking her about it as she headed up to her bedroom, stripped, and got dressed, but she remained resolutely silent and dedicated to her tasks. Her expression was grim at times, but at the front door she flicked me in the forehead, smiled, and stuck her tongue out at me.
“Call Yuki and Itsuki, would you? Make sure the gang's all here tonight, I've got a mega super plan for a special edition of the show, and I'll need everyone's help to finish it.”
“Ah, sure, I guess. I can do that.”
She clapped me sharply on the shoulder, and nodded. “Good. I'll see you at dinner, then!”
My mouth was open to ask a question, but the front door had already slammed shut behind her. I stared at the door for a few seconds, then carried my coffee upstairs with me. I doubted that there would be any more information on Sasaki than I'd be likely to find online, but it was worth a shot. With Mum, you never knew when she'd notice something that seemed innocuous but was somehow relevant and important.
I sat on the third stair down, with the shoebox in my lap and the mug on the floor near my shoulder. I sifted through newspaper clippings that were more or less identical to those I'd been reading online, but these were annotated by Mum - Suzumiya at the time to me. Some of the bleakness of her feelings had shown through in the comments. Some articles had Kyon's name scribbled out and the words bastard, arsehole and deserter scrawled across them in angry pen. There were multiple copies of every article, every photograph, as if she'd run out and bought multiple copies of every newspaper that year. Probably she had. I could imagine her sitting in a cafe with Nagato and Koizumi, scissors in their hands as they all clipped out the titbits of officially released information.
It took me a while to notice it, to see it; the date. While the articles had only identified the disappearance of Kyon and Sasaki as happening within a one-week period (their parents had been away on a business trip, there was confusion amongst the neighbours and classmates who claimed to have seen both brother and sister at varying times during the week), Mum had appended every scrap of paper with one date. The day before my mission ended, the day that Kyon had failed to chase after Suzumiya. The day I had been caught wrapped in his arms.
I was too tired. I hadn't slept very much or very well. I was carrying exhaustion from a whole week of overworking myself, and still hadn't gotten used to the idea of Sasaki being part of the agency, for all that it made a kind of sense. I couldn't fight back my curiosity, my desire to know. How had it happened? Why was it Sasaki? What was I missing in all of this? I decided that it would be easier to skip back on an unauthorised trip and apologise than it would be to start appealing to my superiors for information. The last time I'd resolved to investigate, I'd only ended up with more duties and been thwarted in my attempt to demand more transparency.
I should have known better to travel, the state I was in. I wasn't emotionally stable, wasn't fully awake even with tepid coffee sitting bitter and sloshing in my belly. I hardly needed to use the TPDD as a prop anymore, really, but I clung to the childish psychological aid and wrapped clammy nervous fingers around it. I had set the controls not for the clubroom, which in that time-plane was doubtless under supervision from a higher agent than myself, but for Kyon's house on the evening before his disappearance. I would hang around for a day, and observe both Kyon and Sasaki as best I could.
I overshot. There is little more embarrassing to a time traveller than arriving in the wrong time-plane. But I managed one worse than that. I overshot my destination by a month, having not paid strict attention to my preparation. I overshot my location, ending up inside Kyon's house rather than at a safe vantage point. My heart sped up immediately, scared of what might happen were my superiors to notice the mistake I had made. Even if it was just my future self... I knew I'd be screaming and shouting at young Kurumi if she ever made a mistake as bad as this, and I wouldn't expect my future self to be any more forgiving of something this... this... stupid. Just plain stupid.
There were no lights on in the house, no movement at all, from what I could tell. The clock on the wall said it was just past 3pm, but the day was overcast and dark shadows fell over everything. I didn't call out or say a word, just made my way tentatively around the downstairs living area. It was larger than the house I had grown up in, with a small yard and gate and everything outside. I half fantasised about a childhood spent in this house. It would have been surrounded with loving parents, happy laughter, friends. If Kyon hadn't vanished, maybe I would have been brought up here. Surrounded by the adult members of the S.O.S Brigade, with grandparents and an aunt and in an entirely different existence to the one I knew.
I... for once, I didn't like the idea of it. I wouldn't really have swapped my life, my experiences with Kyon, Nagato, Koizumi and even Mum and her young obnoxious self, for anything in the world. Huh. It was a strange thing to realise. I ran a finger along the kitchen bench, not wistful at all, but simple wondering about how different and strange life could be. I knew I'd have to leave soon, and face punishment of some sort from the agency, but I wanted to draw out that moment of peace one second longer.
I couldn't, though. I heard a strange creaking thump from upstairs, and a low moan. It sounded like Kyon, and I cast my mind back to this afternoon. We'd all been busy with schoolwork that week, and the S.O.S Brigade had been on hiatus for a few days while we all got assessment out of the way. Suzumiya had said there was no point in ruining our investigations, no need to have half-distracted Brigade members bungling sensitive UFO stakeouts, so we'd all had a few evenings off.
Was Kyon sick? Injured? I hurried upstairs towards his room, as quiet as I could manage in case there was some sort of monster or danger to be had. I didn't want to go rushing in and get both of us in trouble. From the top of the stairs I could see a sliver of light; Kyon's bedroom door was mostly shut, but not completely. I tiptoed closer, hearing nothing but silence and the slow roll of cloudy weather and the occasional car on the street outside.
There was a rustle of clothing and a gasp. I froze on the spot, no longer moving, just craning my neck to see through the open door as best I could.
I didn't see a monster. Or, rather, I saw a very familiar monster. That flash of hair was... Suzumiya! Her hair, on Kyon's pillow, and from what else I could see through that small opening, there was a strong and manly hand curling around her head, cupping it gently.
“Mmm.” Said Suzumiya.
“Oh, Haruhi!” Kyon moaned.
My brain refused to recognise what it was seeing. I turned on my heel, no longer worried about being heard at all, and walked swiftly downstairs. I made sure the front door was locked properly, and let myself out with shaking hands.
I had known, theoretically, that at some point before Kyon's disappearance they must have had sex. How else could I have been conceived? But to know something is one thing, and to see it is another and far more disgusting thing entirely. I shuddered and wished that I could just wipe that memory out of my brain.
Nope, no luck. Even just that small tiny bit I'd seen - and it wasn't like I'd seen much naked skin, or heaven forbid the actual... ew, all right, no thinking about that ever - was enough to traumatise me, to burn the experience into my memory.
In front of me, the gate opened and a younger Sasaki than I had seen in a long time came up the steps towards me. She was smiling, happy, calling out my name.
“Mikuru-chan, hiya!”
“Hi, Sasaki!” I felt like I was forcing my cheerfulness, but Sasaki didn't seem to notice. “Tell you what, let's go out to dinner, just you and me? I came here to ask Kyon about a question in my textbook, but it looks like nobody's home.”
Sasaki craned her head around to peer into the dark house. She rolled her eyes, and took my hand with a consoling look on her face. “Yeah, it's totally gross, what they do when Mum and Dad are out of town. I've threatened to tell, but Haruhi's really mean when she wants to be.”
“She's pretty mean even when she doesn't want to be,” I pointed out, “but anyway, let's not think about such disgusting things ever again. Where shall I take you?”
I was grateful that Sasaki didn't seem to notice how old I was - I suppose I was only one year older than the Mikuru she knew at the time, and it wasn't like I'd grown that much taller in that year. She reached up to take my hand in her own small one, and we set off down the street. We didn't go far, just down to the local shops and up some stairs into an old place that had been there for years. It was a good price - a lot of kids stopped by on their way home from cram school - and I was pretty sure that the busy staff there wouldn't look too closely at the cash I had in my pockets.
Time travellers tended to carry a variety of cash notes that would suit the time period, but I only had what I'd had in my jeans at home. I hadn't thought very hard about my decision to trip back here, and I certainly hadn't taken the time to stop past the agency and hit up my storage locker for supplies. I had what looked like normal Japanese currency, but I wasn't sure if the serial numbers on the notes existed yet or not. A place with high turnover and a busy register? That was as safe as I could get. I certainly didn't want to risk somewhere with security cameras or a digital register. There was a very low chance of my being identified in any way, but I didn't want to take any risks I didn't have to, given how much I'd already botched up. Let this be a lesson to anyone working in my agency or elsewhere: never go joy-tripping in time, always make appropriate preparations.
Sasaki seemed to be happy enough, perched beside me on high stools at the end of a table crowded with other students. We ordered our food over the hubbub of voices and cooking, and settled down beside each other, both of us resting our arms on the worn wooden table.
“I didn't know you knew my name,” Sasaki said happily. She swung her legs and smiled happily up at me, “I thought I was just, you know, someone you guys had around because you had to.”
I turned to her and smiled back. I felt pretty awful inside, though. We really had been quite dismissive of Sasaki, thinking that our agendas took priority over basic polite decency. Given that I now knew Sasaki would find out all about Suzumiya, myself, Kyon, and the whole mess, the whole thing seemed pointless.
“You've wonderful, and you've been useful more than once to us, you know. Of course I know your name!”
She grinned, and then the food arrived. I realised with shock that that exact moment and sentence from my own lips was why the older and trained Sasaki was so surprised when I had helped establish her in the year 2000. She seemed happy enough even with that, but what a terrible faux pas to make! What a heartbreakingly stupid and inevitable mess. Far more than the repulsive thought of my parents actually... erk, well, yes, that... with each other, I regretted that my impulsive and poorly thought out mistake had - was going to have - hurt Sasaki.
We chatted about a lot. About pretty simple things, like homework and food and films and tea. We shared funny stories about Kyon with each other, and finally were were full. We were a little splattered from an accident with a bowl of udon and an elbow early on in the meal. Smiling and red-cheeked from the warmth in the restaurant, we jostled out downstairs onto the street.
Perhaps I had grown used to the company of children that age, having taught my younger self for a few months. Or maybe I just felt guilty and really wanted to make sure Sasaki had a nice night, one not spent suffering the side-effects of... er... no, I still can't breach that topic. You know what I mean.
We were halfway to the convenience store to get some ice-cream for dessert when Sasaki's phone rang. I hadn't known the kid even had a phone at that age, but it did seem practical. Especially since Kyon's parents, to my recollection, had spent a lot of time away from home on business trips and the like.
“Hello? Ah, Kyon, I...” Sasaki didn't get to say any more, because I gently lifted the phone from her and put it to my ear.
“...do you think you're doing? It's after five, you can't stay out all night at your age, idiot!”
“Kyon.” I said very loudly and sternly into the phone. “It's me.”
“M-mikuru?!”
“In a way. Is Haruhi still there?”
There was silence at the other end of the line. I could just imagine the look on Kyon's face. Yes, Kyon, I knew. Oh, how I knew. How I wished I didn't know.
“Er, no. She um, went home.”
“Good, I'll bring Sasaki back, then. We'll be there soon.”
It was a terrible thing for a child to have witnessed, whether that child was your younger sister or your future offspring. So Kyon deserved to wait while we stopped by the store, and spent a good twenty minutes browsing for the exact right ice-creams. It was cold, and so Sasaki and I walked as fast as we could. With our legs warm from activity and our tongues and faces cold from the night air and our treats, we arrived back at Kyon's house in good spirits.
Kyon must have been shaken by our phone conversation. He didn't chastise Sasaki at all, just shooed her up to her room and then stood by the front door with me, looking as shocked as a guy with a face that passive and bland possibly could. Not much, but you could see it in him if you knew where to look.
“You're the... older Asahina?”
“Not much older, but yes.” I confessed. “But that's beside the point. It's a lousy thing to do, letting your sister come home to that sort of thing. You could simply, for example, ask my past self or Nagato to babysit her. It's not as if you haven't got experience at lying to people, you've had years of it with everything that's happened.”
“True.” He agreed, still frowning slightly. “So is that what you came back for, to take care of Sasaki?”
I shrugged, and was never more grateful for routine phrases than in that moment. “Classified Information.” I replied.
“Ah, right, yeah. Fine. Something else, then, before you go? Does the current Asahina know about us - me and Haruhi - or is it something you find out about in the future?”
“Classified Information.” That was one kettle of fish I did not want to open. I really just wanted to go home and get into bed and sleep, like I should have instead of coming on this stupid pointless trip.
“Ah, ask a stupid question, I guess. I suppose I'll see you when I see you.”
I nodded. “I'm not sure if I'll be appearing in your future or past next, but I hope you will be well.”
I got away and then back to my native time-plane as fast as I could, head reeling. I just wanted to collapse dizzily into my comfortable bed, but when I got back the phone was ringing. I'd only left a few minutes between my departure and return, but even so when I picked up the phone Mum's voice came out angry and exasperated.
“Don't bother about calling them, this idea's a total bust. No real scope for a series in Australia, can you believe it?! I mean, there's heaps of sinister, deadly things down there. I thought the network would jump at the idea, all that indigenous art and mystical stuff. Ah well.”
“So, um, should I cancel with Aunt Yuki and Uncle Itsuki?” I hoped she'd say yes; I hadn't even called them yet.
“Nah, I'll need some company to drown my sorrows with. Be home soon!”
I sighed heavily and hung up, dialled Aunt Yuki's and then Uncle Itsuki's numbers. I'd have maybe an hour's nap before Mum was back in the house, clattering around and demanding attention. Still, I changed into pyjamas and curled up in bed, cocooning myself in the warm dark safety of my duvet.
( chapter 15)