The Sternutation of Haruhi Suzumiya

A The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya fanfiction
Setting and all non-original characters are property of Nagaru Tanigawa


[One]

To anyone who didn’t know better, I might look like an ordinary high school student. Anyone who came to that conclusion, however, wouldn’t be looking very closely. First of all there is the fact that three of my four closest friends include an alien, a time traveler and an esper. (That’s a fancy word that basically means ‘psychic.’) How did I come to fall in with such a diverse crowd? Well… the answer to that lies with the fourth person, and the de facto leader of our little group: Haruhi Suzumiya. None of the three has been able to tell me (or convince me of anyway) exactly what Haruhi is, or why they are interested in her; although ‘Were drawn to her’ might be a better way to out it.  To Yuki (the alien) she represents little more than “an explosion of data.” As Yuki has the personality of a laptop, it seems fitting that she views Haruhi that way. Beyond that she can only describe Haruhi as something more than human. According to Miss Asahina, the time traveler, Haruhi caused some sort of temporal anomaly three years ago that prevents time travelers from the future form traveling to any point earlier than that… although as frightened as Miss Asahina is around Haruhi, it would seem that she may have done more than that. It’s possible, at least if you were to believe Itzuki – the psychic, that Haruhi may very well be (or at least have the powers of) a god. His take on Miss Azahina’s investigation is that Haruhi may have actually created time travel three years ago or, more profoundly, created the entire universe just three years ago. Either would explain with Miss Asahina’s people can’t travel back farther than three years ago from the present day. Time travel was either impossible prior to that point or there wasn’t anything to go back to. As for me? All I know is that these three claim to be here for no more important a reason than Haruhi wanted them to be. She wanted to meet interesting people, like aliens, time travelers and espers, and these three just seemed to show up – as if she willed it to happen. What I don’t understand is why Haruhi can’t figure it out – why she still isn’t privy to the knowledge that they’re anything other than normal high school students. Personally, I’m not so convinced of Haruhi’s divinity. My life may have gotten really strange since meets Miss Haruhi Suzumiya, but I somehow doubt that a god could possibly be experiencing what she is right now…

“Haaaaaaaaah-shoo! Haaaah-shoo! Hah-SHOO! Huh… Huh… HAAAAHHSHoo!”

I blessed her.

“Oh man… *sniff* another month, I’m gonna be sneezing…”

I just looked on, mildly amused. I had to admit that I found this more than a little bit entertaining. First off, she was a very beautiful girl, and she looked really cute when she sneezed. (Not that I had like a fetish or anything… *a-hem* Where were we? Oh yeah…) And considering how much trouble she usually caused everyone around her, us four in particular, I found it some how fitting that she was being bothered by something for a change. (At least by something other than her own boredom. That usually led to near catastrophe for the rest of us.)

“So what’s the deal? Are you sick or something?” I wasn’t really that concerned… but I didn’t want to catch anything. (Could a god even get sick?)

“No you moron… haaaaah… I have… *sniff*… HAAAATHOO! Allergies. Do you really think I could be sick for a month, Kyon?”

‘Kyon’ was her nickname for me. It’s kind of become everyone’s nickname for me. I really wish they’d stop calling me that. “If it’s going to be like this for a whole month why don’t you take something? I’m sure…” (I was still talking, but there’s really no point in continuing because from this point on Haruhi was now talking over me. This happens a lot.)

“No, no. None of that stuff works. Plus it makes me tired. Class is already boring enough. If I took anything I’d just fall asleep.”

I tried telling her that it doesn’t all have that effect, or that there are different things she could try, but she just kept taking, so I don’t think she heard any of it. Unfortunately, while I’ve been telling you all of this, I missed most of what she was saying. “What?”

“I said: So don’t forget and make sure to be on time!”

Uh oh. Now I’m in trouble. “Wait… What am I supposed to do?”

“RRRRRRR! We’ren’t you listening?! We’re going… *sniff* hang on… haahAAAHTCHOO! *sniff* Man! We’re going to have a club meeting! So don’t… for… get… haaah… HAHTCHoo. Hey… what’re you lookin’ at?!”

I hadn’t realized that I’d been staring. “I’m sorry. Tissue?” She didn’t seem to have any, so I offered. It probably wasn’t polite for me to be staring. (Or to feel as amused as I did at her suffering.) She blew her nose and dropped the tissue back on my desk.

“Thanks… Hey… Why *sniff* why do you keep looking at me like that?”

“Huh? Oh… I didn’t realize… was I…”

“HAAAHTchoo! Would it kill them to close the window? Geeze! Just once I’d like everyone else to feel like I do. Nobody understands at all. Just once I wish everyone else could go through what I have to. *sniff*”

It occurred to me that if she wasn’t so eccentric, it might be easier for people to understand her, but that wasn’t really the issue here. As she put her head down on her desk, sniffling and blowing her nose (and still giving me the tissues back! – I mean, come on! She never returns anything else she borrows, what makes her think I want these back?!) I did feel a little sorry for her. (And that wasn’t easy.) But if she hated it so much, and if she had the power that Itzuki claimed she did, why couldn’t she just will it away? Or had she actually wished for this at some point? I’d never heard of anyone being allergic to cherry blossoms… did she bring this on herself? Suddenly I didn’t feel so good. I got that same nervous creeping sensation, kind of like a tingling in my spine, that I got every time Haruhi got some wacky idea in her head. What did she say? ‘I wish everyone else could go through what I have to’? I wonder… Nah… Itzuki’s just crazy. Still… you never know…


[Two]

That afternoon, at the club meeting, Haruhi didn’t show up. As usual, I was the first to arrive – well, except for Yuki, but I’m not entirely sure she ever leaves this room. She gave me a nod, which from her is about the same as getting someone else’s life’s story. After a few minutes Miss Asahina showed up. I left so that she could change into her maid’s outfit (I have no idea why she lets Haruhi make her wear that thing!) When I went back in, she already had the tea ready. I was almost finished with my cup by the time Itzuki arrived.

“No Haruhi today? That’s a surprise.”

I told him there was a note on the desk, apparently from Haruhi. I didn’t open because… well, frankly because I don’t care what it says. I still have no idea why I keep coming to this ridiculous club. Itzuki read the note.

“SOS Brigade Members,

I am not coming to the meeting today, but that doesn’t mean you can go home! Meet without me today, and we’ll have our regular meeting tomorrow.

- Haruhi Suzumiya
- SOS Brigade Chief”

“I wonder why she’s not here?” He asked, putting the note back on the desk.

“Allergies, I guess. She wasn’t feeling to well.” Miss Asahina looked at Itzuki as if I’d said something important. Itzuki just shrugged his shoulders and Yuki never looked up from her book. (She rarely does.)

So after playing a few rounds of Othello, we got ready to go home. Although it was a relatively quiet afternoon without Haruhi, Itzuki finally brought up the question that had been on everyone’s mind. “I wonder if she has anything planned for tomorrow. Kyon, did she say anything to you?”

I answered only that she just said that she wasn’t feeling well, and that just once she’d like everyone to know how she felt. Itzuki gave me a strange look, but I just shrugged my shoulders. What? Would everyone suddenly become bored, haughty and eccentric for a day? Whatever. I’ll let these three worry about whatever Haruhi has planned. As usual, I’ll just be dragged along for the ride. Sometimes I wish my life was normal… but if nothing else hanging around with Haruhi is never boring. It certainly keeps the reflexes sharp.


[Three]

“HAAAARshooo!”

I woke up the next morning with a sneeze. As rare as that was, I was keenly aware of something else – I was going to sneeze again.

“HAAAARshooo! Ha… HAAAAtchoo! Ha… ahhh…. ahHATCH-oo.”

What was that all about? A double was very uncommon for me, but four in a row? Unfortunately I didn’t have much time to ponder. Looking over at my alarm clock I realized that I’d overslept. Crap, I’m late!

Now I had no idea what was going on, but the walk to school was miserable. I couldn’t stop sneezing every few seconds and I felt like a wreck by the time I’d gotten there. What I didn’t notice until I took my seat was that I was apparently not alone. Looking around it seemed like I was sitting in an entire classroom full of sniffly, sneezy classmates. Even the teacher seemed affected. Every couple seconds someone would sneeze, or sniff, or blow there nose. I couldn’t tell you for the life of me what the teacher was lecturing about. Halfway through I think she just gave up. Everybody was in a state of misery. Well… everyone except Haruhi.

Don’t get me wrong. She still issued the occasional sneeze, followed by a hearty sniff and a wipe of her nose on the back of her hand or the cuff of her sleeve, but, while everyone else seemed to be miserable, Haruhi appeared ecstatic.

“Kyon!” Her enthusiasm was almost terrifying.

I looked at her through red, itchy eyes as I wiped my nose on the back of my hand.

“Isn’t it amazing?!”

“Huh?” I sniffed, and it would have been louder than etiquette normally would dictate, except that it could barely be heard over the sound of everyone else doing the same thing.

“What could have caused this? I mean… what could make everyone sick on the same day… all at once?! This is amazing. Maybe it’s some kind of super-bug! Maybe it’s a government weapon! Or maybe aliens have infected us with some kind of extraterrestrial microbe! Or maybe they’ve seeded the world with a new kind of tree that everyone’s allergic too!”

Who’s ‘they?’ Is she still talking about aliens or is she back to the government? “Haruhi… hang on… hah… HAAAARshooo! It’s probably just an outbreak of something that’s going around. Someone probably came to school yesterday with a really contagious cold or flu or some… suh… sah-HAAAAshooo! Something.” Or maybe someone with latent god-like powers made everyone sick or allergic just for their own amusement.

“NO WAY! Nothing could something to be this widespread, so quickly! It just HAS to aliens… or maybe something from the future! Maybe they’re trying to….”

I stopped listening. She’d be on like this until class started, and probably during class as well. (And I’m still not sure who ‘they’ are.) If there was some scenario she could imagine that involved psychics, then every member of our little clique would be represented in her ridiculous fantasy. Well, everyone except me, who represents the mundane everyday occurrences of the real world. I’m sure it would never occur to her that this could just be a really virulent strain of infection, and that maybe we should actually be concerned. Still, I wonder… maybe it would be worth asking Yuki or Miss Asahina about what’s going on. I’d just as soon not deal with Itzuki right now.

“Kyon! Are you listening?!”

Oh boy. No, I wasn’t. I’m in trouble now. “I’m sorry Haruhi. I missed that last part, what did you say?”

“Not ME, you idiot! The teacher just said that since everyone is sick, including the teachers, that classes will be cancelled today!”

“Thank god. Now I can go home and get some…” I felt Haruhi grab the collar of my shirt… too late to brace for impact… she pulled and my chair toppled backwards. I hit my head on the edge of her desk. *WHAM!* “OW!”

“NO WAY! Just because classes are out doesn’t mean that the SOS brigade members are getting off so easy! We got to investigate this! I want you in the club room ASAP!”

Another sneeze stifled my protest. It was a lost cause anyway. Whenever Haruhi gets an idea in her head, resistance is futile. Still… a few minutes in the air conditioned club room might be good before starting the trek home anyway.


[Four]

After class let out, I had no idea where Haruhi went, but wherever it was, she was in a hurry and didn’t have any plans of informing me about it. I shuffled to the club room, feeling miserable, wiping my nose on my sleeve and sneezing every few seconds. At least the club room was air conditioned – although why I thought that would help is beyond me. Why am I assuming that it’s allergies and not a cold or flu or something anyway? I mean… just because it’s weird doesn’t mean it has to be Haruhi’s doing, does it?

“Kyon!” It was Itzuki.

“Hey. *sniff* You don’t look so bad. I though everyone was sick.”

“Well, I figured it would be a bad day for allergies, so I took something before I came to school.”

“You normally have allergies?” I didn’t know that.

“No. It was just something that you said yesterday, when Miss Suzumiya didn’t show for the club meeting. You told us the she said she wanted everyone to feel like she did. You also mentioned that Miss Suzumiya was really being bothered by her allergies yesterday. Based on Miss Suzumiya’s propensity to make things happen, I figured that something like this might happen.”

“You figured all that out just based on what I said at club yesterday?”

“Well… that… and I am psychic.” He flashed what some people might call his ‘winning smile.’ In my sickened state it made me want to punch him.

“And you didn’t think to clue me in on your little brainstorm? *sniff* Thanks, buddy.”

“Oh. I hadn’t thought of that. Sorry!” He put his hand on the back of his head and bowed. “Listen… I’m going to be a few minutes late, but I WILL be make the meeting today, so please let Miss Suzumiya know OK?”

“Oh don’t worry… *sniff* whatever she has planned, I don’t intend to let you miss out on any of the fun.”


[Five]

When I got to the room, Yuki was there by herself. (Does she ever leave?) I noticed right away that she didn’t seem bothered by what whatever was affecting everybody else either. But then, since she wasn’t exactly human, I wasn’t too surprised.

“So, I guess you managed to avoid whatever’s going around?”

“Negative. As I am programmed to blend in with humans in order to facilitate the collection of data, I was affected the same as everyone else.” The monotone she spoke might seem creepy to some, but I found it oddly soothing.

“But you don’t seem to have any symptoms. Did you take something? Some medicine I mean?”

“Negative. As I am not biologically human, what you consider medicinal would have no affect on me.”

“Then how *sniff* are you keeping yourself from… whatever’s going on? Do you actually know what’s going on?”

“According to the data I’ve gathered, there is strong probability that Haruhi Suzumiya has caused all of the humans around her, including at lest everyone at the school, to develop a severe allergy to the pollen in the air this time of year.”

“*sniff* So that’s it. But y-you… hang on… HAAAASHooo! *sniff* you don’t seem affected.”

“Negative.”

“Why not?”

“I am modifying the data of the atmosphere immediately surrounding my vessel to create a small amount of breathable air that is free from irritants.”

“Heh. That’s handy. *sniff* think you could send me some?”

“Negative. Any more dramatic change to the environmental data could have devastating consequences at some point in the future.”

We’ve had this conversation once before, when I wanted her to make it rain in order to cancel a baseball tournament Haruhi got us into. At this point I was willing to chance it, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to persuade her. “Do you know how Haruhi managed to cause this? Are you even sure it was her?”

“The data is insufficient for certainty. It is only the most probable explanation based on available data. As for the method by which this was accomplished, I am still collecting data.”

“Are you counting… how… ha… HAAAATchoo! How many times I’ve sneezed in that data of yours?” I was kidding of course. But with Yuki… you never know.

“You have sneezed exactly 39 times since entering the area of observation. Based on that symptom alone, your level of reaction is 0.6 standard deviations below the mean of all observed subjects.”

*sniff* Was that supposed to make me feel batter? I’d hate to see how someone above the mean was doing. From that point on we sat in silence, something you get used to if you spend any significant amount of time hanging around Yuki, until Miss Asahina arrived. She seemed nervous, like she thought she was late, but also seemed unaffected by whatever had happened to everyone else.

“Oh! Hi Kyon! Hi Yuki! Ummmm… Is Miss Suzumiya not here yet then?”

“Not yet. Say… you seemed to be coping with the situation pretty well.” My god, she was cute.

“Well… ummm… I was briefed about this event, so I was able to… eeep!” She put her hand over her mount as if she had just said something she shouldn’t have. “That’s classified! I’ll make the tea!”

As I went to the door so that she could change into her maid’s outfit, I asked her if, since this was such an important event in history, she knew how long it would last. She just smiled and said: “That’s classified.”

I guess there was no point in asking her why she couldn’t have been bothered to tell me about it ahead of time. I already knew the answer.


[Six]

Once Haruhi arrived, with Itzuki in tow, it’s hard to describe the events that followed. We basically spent several hours, split into groups, going around campus trying to “gather information” or “investigate the mystery.” If you’ve ever spent any time with Haruhi, you’d know that, once she’s in “the zone,” chaos and confusion are the order of the day as her enthusiasm overwhelms what little organizational skills and common sense that she has. Of course she was thoroughly dissatisfied with the small amount of information we were able to get. (As if running around accosting random strangers was any way to investigate something!) What we found out was that the phenomenon was apparently limited to the people in the school and, as everyone from the school went home, except for the SOS Brigade, very few people had any idea what we were talking about. Somehow this was all my fault and, in addition to the nearly perfect misery I was feeling in my nose, I had to put up with Haruhi’s constant verbal abuse as well. Of course, there was no way that Haruhi would have let me stay in the air conditioned club room and risk my doing anything useful like searching for news about what we’re investigating on the web or something sensible like that. Come to think of it, I don’t think she said “bless you” a single time that day either!

This went on until early evening. Yuki, Miss Asahina and Itzuki left for wherever they all call home and I was left walking down the big hill will Haruhi. We stopped (well… she stopped and I took the hint) and sat on a sidewalk bench. There didn’t seem to be anyone else around.

“Kyon?” She asked, in a serious tone that suggested we were about to have an actual conversation. “What do you think happened today? Whatever was going on, it was all over the school but…” She just trailed off.

“I don’t know.” I wasn’t about to give her any of Yuki’s, Itzuki’s or Miss Asahina’s theories. “Probably a really bad 24 hour bug that we all caught, being in such close proximity to one another.”

“Hmmmm. I feel kind of bad. Usually I’m the only one getting… sick this time of year. At first I was so fascinated by what was going on. It really felt like something… interesting might have happened. And I… huh… well I hate to admit it but a small part of me was kind of happy not to be the only one suffering for a change.”

She looked at me. I wasn’t aware of it, but my expression must have looked judgmental.

“What I mean is,” she continued quickly. “It was good not to feel so… *sniff* alone.”

“Hmmm. I guess I can understand that. I hope everything’s back to normal tomorrow.”

“Yeah… me too.” (That was a relief!) “I was glad that everyone else got to see what I go though… but seeing everyone like that… I just felt really… sorry for them.”

Wait a sec… ‘Everyone?’ Everyone got to go home early. And ‘everyone’ she was hanging around with all day was fine. Everyone but me anyway!

“Ha…ru…hi… hang on… haaAARSHOO!” It’s too bad Yuki wasn’t around. I was curious to know if I’d topped a hundred yet. “I’m sure people are more sympathetic towards you than you think. You’re just always so strong, and a bit hard-headed.” I didn’t exactly like the look she was giving me, but there was a bit of a concession in it. “What I mean is that you pretty much always follow your own path. You follow your heart. And you do it with such strength and enthusiasm that some people might find it a little bit… intimidating. *sniff* You’ve got friends though, you know. And people who care about you.” That sounded sappy, but at times like these (which were rare) sappy sometimes went over well with her. Would she realize that I was trying to say that I cared?

“*sniff* Thanks Kyon. And bless you. Hey, by the way… I’ve got one pill left. I’m supposed to take it in a little while but... Would… you want it instead?”

“Huh?” That was a surprise. “Do they work?”

“Not really. They don’t do much for the sneezing, just the congestion. And the headache, if you’ve got one.”

“All right. Thanks. What about you?”

“I’ll be all right. They don’t really seem to help anyway. Besides, like you said, everything will be back to normal tomorrow right?”

“After all that’s happened? I think everything is going to be fine.” I took the pill, grateful to get some relief and we walked the rest of the way home sharing a very comfortable silence.