this piece was an exercise for me to draw up a character study of Itsuki Koizumi. it deals with the period of time before he met Haruhi and the rest of the SOS Brigade, and so it is all speculation. all the same, I hope you all enjoy reading this and maybe see something in a new light.

In Which It Began.

He had told Kyon (when he asked, of course, although he himself had honestly been intending to bring it up first) that he woke up one day and just knew. That was really only glossing it over, but yes: that was pretty much what it was.

He woke up and knew who she was and what he was and what he had to do. He had sat there, half-awake with the bed sheets tangled around his legs as the facts and images slowly sharpened into focus.

Like someone adjusting a camera lens, he'd thought fleetingly.

And then he had lain back down and tried to let sleep reclaim him, to convince himself that this was only a bad dream and when he woke up it would disappear, he would go to school. And everything would be normal again.

A few minutes later, it still wasn't.

He remembered the cold fear that had risen in his chest, painfully tight as a vice, when he realized that this was real—it wasn't going to go away. None of it.

The name suddenly burned into his mind, one of a girl he was sure he had never heard of. The unforeseen, impossible powers he knew he and she had. The organization he knew he belonged to, but didn't know had existed until now. And, above all, the unshakable knowledge of what he was expected to do.

At this point, he had decided that staying in his room for as long as humanly possible was the best solution.

So he had stayed in bed, watching the minutes drag by on the clock on the wall. But its unmoving face, each tick as the seconds passed, and the new information pulsing in his mind disrupted any silence in the room. His head felt so loud and chaotic, like each new piece of information was scrambling to remind him of its existence first, that he was becoming increasingly sure it would explode at any second.

He'd screamed in anguish, then, burying his face into his bedding. Still, nothing changed.

And so he decided to go to school that day, in an attempt to clear his thoughts. Instead, he ended up drifting in and out of his subconscious during classes, walking aimlessly, misty-eyed, through the hallways. Passing remarks from his classmates slid over and around him and he only nodded dumbly, missing their questioning glances and worried gazes.

But why me? he could only think repeatedly. Why am I different and everyone else is the same?

When he looks back on it, brow furrowed and eyes serious (different, so different from his new, neutral face), he distantly remembers contemplating if he had entered some sort of parallel universe. One where such things as ESPers and a god who was a flawed girl existed.

(he doesn't know until later that there are far more odd, far more dangerous alternatives out there)

But everything else was found to be normal: students talking, teachers lecturing, the world rotating on its axis. He could only stop and stare—life was moving on and leaving him behind, confused and standing still. And he had not been expecting that.

(later, he realizes that everything really was different and only painstakingly hidden to look the same; he figures that this knowledge wouldn't have changed much, anyway)

Sometimes, in the middle of class or between the sentences of a book, he remembers that first day. He remembers stumbling dazedly from the school gates, oblivious to the dulled chatter of his classmates. His head was still loud and muddled, effectively drowning out all other noise, even as students milled around him.

He'd never felt so alone.

He had come to the conclusion that what his mind was telling him was a lie. There could not be such things that defied the laws the world was set on, the beliefs others had, or his own common sense. But still the swirling eddies in his head begged to differ.

He'd found himself standing at the crosswalk not far from his school, watching cars go by and feeling sicker by the second. He failed to notice the light turn green and the other pedestrians walk around him. Instead, he focused on the sensation of his nails biting into his palms, as though that light pain would distract him from everything else.

He could feel. Not the way someone feels sad or warm or unsure, but a heightened awareness—a deeper perception. The things he sensed were something like an object submerged, on the brink of surfacing. But he was unable to tell what they were, for they scuttled away from his grasp. Everything was open and alive and aching for his attention. He felt like a beacon, one that attracted the sleepy stares of a million sentient beings.

It was in this moment of weakness that he wondered if he ought to run forward into the lights and sounds of traffic. Leave everything behind for good.

He left the crosswalk with phantom car horns and screeching tires ringing in his ears. Maybe he would wake up tomorrow and it would all have disappeared; he could continue living his ordinary life with its ordinary circumstances. He thought this as he reached home and locked the door of his room behind him, resolving to wait for morning.

Morning came, after a long and fitful sleep, and greeted him with fresh whispers of her name and his power. His despair was cut short when they found his house a few minutes later.

This is the part in his memory where he fails to remember exactly what happened and how; it is all blurred and blunt edges. He remembers being found, being taken someplace where others waited with him. They were all the same: confused and hopeless and helpless in a reality they were reluctant to confirm.

But he remembers their faces turning upward with his, watching a sky that wasn't blue, or even a sky at all, as red, disembodied voices spoke calmly and flatly.

And so he learned that the girl that they had never met and never known before was Haruhi Suzumiya, this world's God and Creator. He existed as he was now solely because she wanted his kind to exist, he was to help monitor her behavior, to prevent any fluctuations from destroying all they knew, and the world had been reborn yesterday.

He thinks to himself now that it was a lot simpler back then.

{…prelude}