OT-kun's Story

--------DAY TWO--------

A ringing sound wakes you from your peaceful sleep.  It takes you a few moments to gather your thoughts into one cohesive entity and you realize it’s time for Haruhi’s next plan of events.  You muster up enough strength to grab the phone, answer it, and let it rest in your hand as you let Haruhi think she’s talking to you.  It doesn’t matter; you know what to do anyway and she doesn’t expect you to reply.  Sure enough, once she’s finished giving orders the phone goes silent.

So…yukata shopping and then the Bon festival tonight.  With a yawn you make your way out of bed.  Maybe you shouldn’t have been so active last night.  You scratch your side and that’s when you notice something funny.  Looking down, you see a hole in the crotch of your pajama shorts.  What…how did that happen?  After a moment of thought, you decide to not worry about it for now.

The afternoon sun is high up in the air, greeting all of the summer vacationers in town happily.  You’d much rather it not put off so much heat, but that’s just because it’s a long bike ride to the store Haruhi picked out.

You arrive at the store last, of course, and after a berating from Haruhi you five SOS Brigade members enter the shop.  Haruhi insists that you and Koizumi stand and wait somewhere in order to be surprised by the outfits she picks out for her, Nagato, and Asahina-san.  You simply yawn in reply.  Man…so tired…that bike ride certainly didn’t help.

You and Koizumi casually peruse through the store, although it’s mostly women’s attire.  You do notice when the girls enter the changing room, though, and suddenly a wild idea pops into your head.  The store is fairly empty, and you haven’t noticed any security cameras.  Maybe a little peeping session is in store?

“OT-kun, do you have a minute?” Koizumi suddenly asks.  That esper sure has impeccable timing.

“Uh…” You reply.

“…Yeah, sure, it’s not like we’re doing anything, anyway,” You tell Koizumi.  It’s probably not a good idea to try to peek on the girls anyway.  Just because you don’t see any cameras doesn’t mean they don’t have some sort of security.

“Indeed,” Koizumi says.  “Well, I’m sure you remember the little…goof-up, as I think you put it yesterday?”

“The Bottomless Affair?” You ask to make sure.

Koizumi chuckles. “Yes, that.  Well, I think you should know that there were no problems that I had to deal with because of that.  I had a colleague call me right after saying there were signs of something starting, but when you went to talk to Suzumiya-san later everything seemed to clear up.”

“Is that so…”

“It is so,” Koizumi says.  “You prove time and time again you have a knack for keeping Suzumiya-san happy.  I don’t think you know just how wonderful that is.”

You glance over at Koizumi.  That last line seemed a little weird.  Maybe it was just your imagination.

“Anyway, I would also like to ask you a favor.” Koizumi says, looking up at the ceiling.

“…What is it?” You reply hesitantly.

“I need you to not do anything else that might cause Suzumiya-san stress this summer vacation.  Even though we’re in the clear right now, your refusal to her bike idea and ‘The Bottomless Affair’ yesterday are likely to be putting you on very thin ice with her.  I can’t guarantee one more incident won’t make her snap.”

You sigh.  “Alright, alright, I’ll try I guess.  She really should learn to accept she can’t have everything.  Life isn’t always fun and games.”

“Indeed.  Oh, there is one more thing that has been bugging me.  Have you been getting these strange sensations of déjà vu?  I normally wouldn’t bring this up but they have been occurring very freque…”

“We’ve entered an endless recursion of time.”

“…What?” Koizumi asks.

“We’ve entered an endless recursion of time.”

“I…don’t know what you mean…” Koizumi says looking around.

“We’ve entered an endless recursion of time.”

“Um, OT-kun…” Koizumi says, now looking worried.

“We’ve entered…just kidding.  Haruhi’s got us stuck in some time loop of the last two weeks of summer, no biggie.”  You say. 

“Oh…I see.” Koizumi says.  His face is very surprised and you relish in the moment.  It’s about time you got revenge on that bastard.

Before you can say anything more the girls finally arrive with their new outfits gloriously exemplifying their individual beauty.

“These look great, don’t they?” Haruhi asks.  They sure do.  You think about making a comment about the outfits looking good at the foot of your bed, but decide against it.

With the outfits chosen, you and the group waste away the rest of the day waiting for the Bon festival.

Once at the festival, everyone else seemed to be looking around to see what to do.  You didn’t really care, though, because it’s not like you weren’t here two billion other times already, right?

“Mikuru, there’s some goldfish scooping over there!” Haruhi eagerly yells and promptly grabs Asahina-san’s arm, dragging her away.

Meanwhile, Nagato has directed her attention to a mask vendor a little ways off and starts making her solemn walk over.  Koizumi decides to head that way as well.

Hmm, you know Nagato is going to just buy a mask.  Maybe goldfish scooping might be fun?  But you’ve never abandoned Nagato in this part in the past…have you?

Eh, Nagato is just buying her stupid mask.  It’s not like she’ll get to keep it when the loop resets, anyway.  You need to see what Haruhi is up to after not getting a good chance to talk to her yet today.

You walk in the direction the two girls went and soon find them staring intently over a small pool of water, scoopers in hand.  Haruhi seems to be excelling at this game while Asahina-san…not so much.

“You’ve got to anticipate their movements, Mikuru!” Haruhi exclaims.

“Eh…um…ow!” Mikuru yelps.  Seems she hit her hand on the edge during a failed attempt.

“Hey.” You say to acknowledge them of your presence.

“Oh, OT-kun,” Haruhi says looking up at you.  “You didn’t need to come, we were just going to be a few minutes.”

“Well, Nagato wanted to buy a mask and Koizumi is with her so she’s safe.” You explain.

“Oh, OK, that’s good,” She says.  Haruhi then stands up at motions you to walk a few paces away from Asahina-san, who is still fervently trying to capture an elusive goldfish.

“What is it?” You ask.

“I’m thinking about going on a cicada hunt tomorrow.” Haruhi says.  “I was wondering…if you’d mind coming in the morning to help me get the materials we’ll need?  I…I just need help carrying stuff is all!”

Ah yes, the bugs.

“Well, I suppose I could help out,” You answer. “I was going to catch up on some sleep but if you insist.”

Haruhi smiles.  “Good.  I was going to make you come anyway because as Brigade leader I have the authority to tell my subordinates what to do!”

Uh…OK.  You watch Haruhi cheerfully skip back to Asahina-san, who has miraculously caught a fish.  You didn’t keep an eye on her the entire time, so you begin to wonder if someone came along and helped her.

The two girls and you soon meet back up with Koizumi and Nagato, who now has her mask.

“Yuki, where’d you get that mask?” Haruhi asks.  You just told her that she was looking at them, didn’t you?  Whatever…

“I bought it,” Nagato replies.

This time is a weird black scary face thing…kind of strange.  Maybe she felt connected to it or something.  You know, as an alien.

“I know you bought it, but where did you get…nevermind,” Haruhi says giving up.  Well, maybe she did know what she was talking about.  “Anyway, I’ve got some fireworks that we can shoot off so let’s go!”

And with that she rushed off to wherever she stashed her dangerous items while the rest of us were forced to follow.

Soon you and the others are shooting off all sorts of small firecrackers in celebration.  You don’t really care to do anything yourself so you just sit and watch instead.  Haruhi ends up sitting next to you after awhile while the other three are next to the lake.  Suddenly, a thought pops into your head.

“Haruhi…” You begin, “did you finish your homework?”

“Homework?  Oh, I finished that ages ago.  It only took me like three days,” She replies.

“Three days?!” You say in shock.  For some reason you seem to have forgotten about this bit happening before.

“Yeah, it’s best to get your work out of the way so you can focus on playing!” Haruhi exclaims.

Three days…there’s no way that much homework can be done that fast.  More importantly, why’d you even bring it up?  Oh whatever, it’s probably not that big of a deal so you just forget about it and move on.

“Oh, what time tomorrow am I supposed to meet you?”  You ask.

“Sorry, uh…let’s say 9 a.m. in front of the station like normal,” She replies with a smile.  “Then we have to make sure to meet with everyone else by noon.”

“Alright, got it,” You say.

“OH!  That reminds me!” Haruhi exclaims.  She stands up and gets the attention of the other three.

“Tomorrow we are having a Cicada Hunt, so meet at the station at noon!  OT-kun and I will already have the necessary items so you just bring whatever you normally bring.  Oh, and…to make it fun, the winner gets to be Brigade leader for one whole day!  So you better try your best!”

Well, at least she told the others.  It’d certainly be bad if no one else showed up, although you don’t know if it’d be a good thing or bad thing if she were told it was her fault.

Sometime later everyone finally had their fill of fireworks and it was called a day.  Haruhi briefly said goodbye but mostly checked to make sure you remember what to do tomorrow.  Asahina-san and Nagato also bid their farewells.  Koizumi, however, decided to walk with you.

“So you’re helping out Suzumiya-san tomorrow?” He asked.

“Um…yeah, that’s what she said didn’t she?” You reply.

“Interesting…” Koizumi simply says.  “Well, just make sure to not do anything…”
“I got it,” You interrupt.  “I’ll behave like a good Brigade member and all that crap.”

“You seem to acting differently to Suzumiya-san than you are to the rest of us, OT-kun,” Koizumi retorts, his face losing his patented smile.  What’s with this guy?

“Look, can we just call it a night?  I didn’t get much sleep last night and I could really use all the rest I can because I have to wake up early tomorrow, too,” You say.

“…Fine.  I’ll see you at the hunt tomorrow then,” Koizumi says before flashing one of his fake smiles.

With that Koizumi heads off home and you walk the rest of the way in silence.

Once home, you head to your room and set your alarm early enough to get ready before leaving.  With a yawn, you hop into bed looking forward to a good night’s rest.  Man…these short nights are gonna kill you one of these days.

Proceed to Day Three