It's been a weird couple of weeks. I'd almost forgotten about all of the notes I took during my investigation, I've been so busy, but I should at least wrap things up. I've found out a lot more in this past two weeks about everyone, after all.

As far as Yuki goes, she's been a huge help. Once I got a better explanation of what had happened with her and the data entity that sent her here, one of the first things I did with my power - and some hints from Yuki herself - was to get her protected from them. According to what she and Kyon had to say, it's probably not going to make me popular with them, but there's not really much they can do about it, either. Both of them said that there'd probably still be other interfaces around to watch me - like the computer society president's so-called girlfriend - but as long as they leave us alone, I don't really care. Anything like what happened between Asakura and Kyon back in the beginning part of the year, though, and I'll definitely end up doing something more permanent - and less pleasant - about them!

For her own part, though, Yuki seems pretty happy with the way things have turned out. She's not in any more danger from the data entity, and she says she wants to stay around with us - both to protect Kyon and to learn as much as she can from all of us. It's a little weird to see her actively taking an interest in things, though; aside from the contest with the computer society last year I've never seen her get fired up about much of anything. It's definitely not a bad change, just one that'll take some getting used to.

She's been helping me learn a lot about my powers, too; apparently what she can do is similar enough to what I can do - although it's not the same - that a lot of the things she had to keep in mind when 'manipulating data' is useful for me to know when I'm trying to make changes. A lot of it is about things like the scope of the changes I make and what consequences they can have that I didn't intend when I made it; I learned a little of that on my own before we really started talking about it, too - I tried making my hair longer, only I didn't say how much longer. Do you have any idea how much eight feet of hair actually weighs?

Anyway, while I'm still figuring out the limits on the kinds of things I can change safely, I'm trying not to make many changes at all. Apparently I still make some small ones without thinking about it, but Yuki can usually pick up on them and let me know, and I can change it back if it looks like it might be a problem. There hasn't been much of that so far, at least; the school cafeteria food has improved quite a bit, and somehow the school managed to pick up a central air conditioning system.

Koizumi, on the other hand, hasn't been around much. I did at least apologize for hitting him a couple of days later at the next Brigade meeting, but it seems to have taken a lot of the wind out of his sails. Kyon's talked with him more than I have, though, and apparently his whole Organization thing has been turned upside-down by this - according to what he told Kyon, he's not even sure whether it'll hold together at this point. A couple of days after that, though, he took a leave of absence from school.

Kyon said he went home to see his family; apparently after being assigned to join the Brigade when he transferred in last year, he hasn't been back to see them for more than a couple of days at a time, and with everything that had happened he wanted to get some time away to think, anyway. Kyon's been keeping in touch with him via email, and he expects that Koizumi will come back in time; he's just got a lot to sort out at the moment. I'm leaving it to him to handle, though - while I can understand that, it still kind of creeps me out to think that he's been completely aware of everything I've been feeling since before he even met me.

In regards to that, though, the mental link that the espers had with me also seems to be permanently gone. Apparently when I wished that no one could see my thoughts while I was thinking about the possibility of Koizumi being able to read my mind, I cut the link with all the espers, not just him. Given how far my ability seems to go I could probably put it back, but I'm in no hurry to let other people back into my head, thank you very much. The closed spaces that used to form when I was upset seem to have vanished completely, too, so it's not like there's any need for them to know how I'm feeling. From what I understand, they hadn't been much of an issue for a long time anyway, and they're guessing that now that I know they happen, they won't anymore - which makes sense. No doubt I'm still going to get frustrated with the world, but remaking the whole thing just because I'm upset? Come on, I'm not that spoiled!

Mikuru... with Mikuru I'm still trying to figure out how to deal with her. Apparently after I blew her cover she was convinced that her bosses in the future were going to call her back for having failed her 'mission', but it still hadn't happened by the time school started up the next Monday. What I saw in the cafe, just before Kyon and I had our long talk, was her saying goodbye - she had no idea how long she'd be able to stick around after that.

That much I could - and did - do something about. After she filled me in at the Brigade meeting on that Monday, I changed things so that her bosses couldn't pull her back from the future if she didn't want them to, but she could still go back if she decided for herself that was what she wanted to do - it's definitely not fair that she could get yanked out of this time if she doesn't want to be, but if I keep her here when she doesn't want to be, I'm no better than they are. Yuki was able to help me make sure I wouldn't mess anything up doing that, and aside from getting chewed out for it by her boss, Mikuru said it didn't seem to have changed anything that she could find out about. I'd like to let her have complete control over her ability to time travel, too, but we'll all probably need to have a long talk about that before I try anything - me, Kyon, Mikuru, and Yuki.

As far as Mikuru and Kyon go, though... I'm really not sure what to do about that. It was pretty obvious that she likes him a lot, and while I don't think he was lying at all about being interested in me when we talked, I don't think he's completely uninterested in her, either. I haven't really talked with anyone about this yet, but I'm considering whether it might be possible for all three of us to... well. Kyon would have to be an idiot to turn down two good-looking girls that both say they're interested in him - what normal teenage guy wouldn't dream of something like that? - but I'm not sure how Mikuru will take the suggestion.

After Kyon and I both confessed to each other, I have to admit that I'm a lot less worried about Mikuru - or anyone else, really - taking him away; he's John Smith, he's admitted that he likes me too, and you'd better believe I'm not letting go of him after all of that came out. All the same, though, I can see that he means a lot to other people, too - and for pretty good reasons - and so maybe, just maybe, it might be possible to share. I'm still not entirely how to broach the idea with Mikuru, though, so for now I've just been trying to get to know her better to figure out how to phrase it. Even that's been something of an education, though; she comes from far enough in the future, apparently, that some of the stuff we take for granted has been lost in the past - some of the things she finds interesting are just weird - but seeing her surprise at some of those things has made me realize that there can be a lot more weird and cool things in the world than just what I'm interested in myself.

And then there's Kyon himself. Now that I've got a better excuse to watch him (not that I didn't before, but if we're dating I have a lot less reason to have to make excuses), he's actually a lot more amazing than I ever gave him credit for. When we finally got together and met after that weekend, I did officially make him second-in-command; Koizumi didn't really put up any argument, and Kyon basically took charge of the meeting anyway - for once, I really didn't know what to say to everyone else. He took over and filled them all in, though - told them I knew about my power now, and that he'd told me about it himself, since I'd worked everything out about all of them and there wasn't any good way to explain why they were all there without telling me about myself.

The reactions said a lot, really. Yuki didn't seem surprised at all, Mikuru was slightly startled but not really that shaken up, and Koizumi looked like he was about to have a heart attack; his face went completely gray, and he gave Kyon this incredibly frightened look. Kyon picked up on that himself, though, and told me later that he called Koizumi and talked about it that night. He didn't really go into any details about what he said, but Koizumi did at least seem less worried in the few meetings he was around for after that - just really, really tired.

Most of that meeting we spent talking about all the things that had happened over the last year. Some of it I knew - like that bizarre time gap we had up in the mountains at New Year's. Some of it I had absolutely no clue even happened; the 'cave cricket' sounded pretty crazy for something I'd only assumed was a dead end, and the fact that there really were some kind of alien organisms causing the problem with Sakanaka's dog Rousseau is kind of freaky to consider, especially when I found out they're still around and living in Kyon's cat (who apparently was able to talk at one point!)

Some of it was kind of disturbing, though. Finding out the full story about Kyon's coma was... I was pretty upset with Yuki, actually - creating an entire new world just because she was annoyed with me, and dragging Kyon into it too! I can kind of understand why; six hundred years of the same two weeks over and over again would probably drive anyone crazy, but that's still no excuse - she should have said something to someone first! Kyon, if no one else, should have been able to talk to her about it. It sounded like they'd already been through that talk when I brought it up, though, so I didn't really hammer it in myself.

That two weeks, though... wow. There's absolutely nothing that stands out to me at all about the end of last year's summer vacation, other than Kyon being unusually fired up about getting homework done. To think that we all went through that same two weeks thousands of times... At least the others just remember some weird deja vu, but for Yuki? I can't really imagine, and I'm not sure I'd want to if I could. So while I'm upset over what she did to Kyon... I guess I can understand why she'd be a bit annoyed with me, and so I'm willing to let it go since he doesn't seem that upset about it himself.

And even those things are just scratching the surface. I heard so many things, from everyone there - even Kyon heard about a few things that happened that he hadn't known before. It's still kind of surprising how many things I caused to happen, or made happen around me, even when I wasn't the immediate cause, but it does really drive home how little attention I really paid to what was happening around me a lot of the time. Like with the movie - I didn't even remember all the crazy things Yuki did to try to keep everyone safe, or a lot of the 'accidents' that were caused by all of Mikuru's eye beams.

It's definitely a lesson I'll be keeping in mind from here on out, though.

As far as the rest goes... hmm. Well, I did talk to Tsuruya last week, to thank her for the tip about Mikuru's 'sister'; I didn't fill her in about much else, but she'd apparently picked up the news about me and Kyon getting together from the rumor mill. Most of that call ended up with me explaining that - and, well, dealing with a few jokes at our expense. So what if it took us a year to get together? That's between me and Kyon, not her!

It really does point out that she seems to know a lot more than she usually lets on, though. I could probably stand to learn something from her as far as that goes.

And for Sakanaka and the other girls in my class, well... I still owe them a big favor for all their help in those last couple of days. I still haven't talked to the others very much, but Sakanaka came over the day after Kyon and I had the really long talk and we had another really long talk, although we didn't get into anything except my relationship with Kyon. It... was actually really nice to have someone as a sounding board that wasn't tied up in all the stuff about me like the other Brigade members are, and that could stay focused on just one topic - with everything that's been running through my head lately, that's actually been kind of a struggle for once.

She helped me sort out a lot of thoughts about Kyon, and even some about Mikuru - although I don't know what she'd think if I actually told her about what I'm considering trying there; that's something I'll need to get settled with Mikuru and Kyon first anyway. But Sakanaka did help a lot in getting my feelings sorted out from the tangled mess they were in. Looking back, most of our talk probably just sounded like typical high-school romance gossip, but in the end... the important part was that I could tell someone that I trusted about how mixed-up I was feeling, and know that she wouldn't run off and blab everything I had to say to the rest of the world. It's another thing that kind of pointed out that things don't have to be strange to be interesting or good; she's even more normal than Kyon is, but I was really grateful to have her around to talk to, especially once the gossip started flying about the two of us - well, more so than before.

Yeah, unsurprisingly, it didn't take long for the rumors to explode that Kyon and I were an item; apparently it had been hinted at for a long time before now, but within a few days it seemed like just about everyone was shooting knowing looks at the two of us. Kyon suspects that Taniguchi was probably behind it, but in the end it doesn't really matter all that much - if they weren't gossiping about us, they'd be talking about something even less interesting, and even with the crazy rumors going around about us they don't even come near the real truth.

And as far as Kyon and I are concerned? It's been... really nice, actually. He's still a snarky jerk sometimes, and I can still be a pushy bitch sometimes, but we're starting to find some kind of happy medium in there somewhere. I won't say there haven't been some bumps along the way; he can be a lot more dull and uninspired than I like sometimes, and he's carped at me plenty for being unrealistic. Him arguing with me is nothing new, though, and I have to admit that it's a lot more fun to make up afterwards, now!

It really seems like we couldn't possibly be any more different, sometimes, but I'm starting to realize that it's those differences that can make other people a lot more interesting. Somewhere in all those differences, though, there's room for all of us to have fun and be happy - whether we're espers, aliens, time travelers, reality warpers, or just boring, normal, everyday humans.

I'll make sure of that!