Summary: From the empty crowds of the city, Koizumi has learned to fall in love with her melancholy, to bring cracks of light to her sky. Written for September 19: The hustle and bustle of the traffic greets you. Koizumi-centric, with some Itsuki/Haruhi (one-sided) and Kyon/Haruhi.

a kingdom fit for God

There is the city; there is the girl.

There is the shadow of the city created by the girl.

Then there is him.

(which is the one that doesn't belong?)

--l--

She's such a surprising girl, Suzumiya. He hadn't expected to be pulled into the SOS Brigade in that way, with the likes of Asahina Mikuru and Nagato Yuki as well. He hadn't expected to become Brigade Vice Commander and to go on daily excursions with the group and to see his observation subject so much, so closely.

Suzumiya keeps things nice and surprising – well, except for the time that he got a larger part in the movie, that wasn't so much – and it keeps life pleasant and unbalanced and suddenly not so ordinary.

Though that story had started three years beforehand, hadn't it.

--l--

There is the city. Creeping smell of gas, smoke in mirrors, taillights flashing and crosswalks glaring.

Koizumi opens his eyes.

(red light, green light. red light, green light.)

He's back.

(stop.)

The closed space was, as usual, dark. Foreboding. Empty and without. No one walking on the streets, no one driving down the sidewalks. A blue giant in the horizon bringing pillars of glass and steel down, twisted and broken on the pavement, and little red spheres of fire humming through the sky.

He joined his companions, as usual, and together they cut through the blue mass until it was no more, until the roar of destruction ground to a halt. Until the empty quiet echoing in their ears matched the empty stillness of the city block.

The clouds started to crack and break off into shops and street signs, and he closed his eyes, waiting for the hum of the traffic to greet him again. Because then he would be standing on the corner of here and there amidst all the people and the cars and the noise again.

(yield.)

But now that he's back, he can't help but think that the hustle and bustle of the city seems so much emptier than that dark wasteland of a god's despair.

(now go.)

--l--

When Kyon finally tells him about what happened that one time he fell into a coma for three days, he's…moderately surprised, verging on slightly shocked. To say the least.

He hears of this world where the brigade members never met, where Kyon and Asahina and Nagato went in their own circles at North High while he and Suzumiya were at Kouyouen. He'd transferred there, and the only reason that she took interest in him was because of that fact.

Kyon then tells Koizumi that he said he fancied Suzumiya and, since the novelty of his being a transfer student was fading, that he was worried that one day, what was there of their relationship would simply cease to exist; that he wouldn't mean anything to her any more.

He laughs to himself afterwards, mirthlessly and in vain, and knows that he's the only one who recognizes the irony.

(No matter the world, some things never change.)

--l--

There is a side of her here in these spaces that only he gets to see. There is her loneliness painted white on the crosswalk and her melancholy a dark glow against the black night, her true feelings stripped bare in the sky and her despair allowing structures to crumble and fall.

No one else gets to see this. Not the Integrated Data Sentient Entity. Not the organization from the future. Not Kyon.

He opens his eyes and sees her intent. He takes a breath and breathes in her belief.

With every step here he feels what she does, and it's hard not to fall in love with a force such as Suzumiya Haruhi.

(the queen who keeps pushing the sky and crumbling it all to kingdom come.)

--l--

It had started with a desire to save the world, because its destruction would be so very lonely despite it all, he thought.

(But if he had to be honest, not really, because he was only loosely embedded within the Agency, only loosely believed some of their creed, only loosely thought that the world was so very important. The anthropic principle? Those in the organization that believed it, well. What could he say?)

When had it changed to this?

--l--

He walks into the clubroom one day and sees Suzumiya and the expression she wears, the smile that's not a smile that vanishes into a frown that she doesn't even bother to hide at the corners, the ominous omen of danger to several persons known –

(though sometimes it's the sadness that creeps underneath her melancholy and into the gold of her eyes, sometimes it's the despair that she tastes slowly radiating outwards inside)

- and he realizes, oh, he will have to go closed space hunting that night.

He tries to keep smiling, and it only gets easier and harder over time.

--l--

A girl meets a boy meets an alien and a time traveler and an esper.

A boy who's an esper meets said girl last of all, and then.

From that point onwards, the story can't be simplified into such easy words.

--l--

"I don't think that Suzumiya-san is God," he'd explained to Kyon at one point. It was another group in his organization that thought so, but not him. To carve her down into a larger-than-life being, to turn her into the savior and the saint, the fault and the blame: it was too little and too much.

Too little, because she is so much more than that. So much more than the obsession of a religion, the worshipped of a cult.

Too much, because after knowing her, how can anyone not believe that she is so painstakingly real, so tangible, despite whatever powers she has? So human, so fallible?

So incredibly charismatic and something all her own?

But he keeps calling her God because it's an easy monosyllabic thing to say; it keeps the other faction happy and it keeps Kyon somewhere between lost for words and amused.

And it's sort of amusing, to think that you personally know God.

--l--

When she smiles at him, sometimes he thinks that he should feel his insides clench.

Sometimes he does, like heartstrings at his chest.

Sometimes, he does.

And then he smiles right back.

(until his heartstrings bleed)

--l--

To love a god who loves another who doesn't even love her back.

(yet, at least. one of these days he will realize how lucky he is, how lucky, and then. Then.)

Koizumi has lived with it for a year, has done so through demureness to his brigade leader and smiles that are far too sharp and gleaming.

But his job is not this. His job is to watch, to observe. To enter closed spaces and exit into open air.

To exist for her.

Nobody ever said that love had to be a two-way street.

--l--

Can he even call it love? He's not sure he can call it 'love'.

Even more, he's not sure if it is really love.

(it's really just pins and needles into a cushion filled with fluff and tipped steel, didn't you know

but you don't know

and I will never let you know)

--l--

Koizumi steps onto the white bars lining the street, takes two steps forward no steps back, and there's the closed space one more time, suddenly engulfing his vision.

Three steps forward no steps back, and he leans against one of the buildings on the avenue, would sink into it and feel everything if he could, if only he could.

Four steps forward two steps back, and the telltale blue glows in the ever-nearer distance. And it's time for him to get up and let go and just go.

Five steps forward four steps back, he's all flame and fire and heat condensed to the point of calcification and red, red, red.

Everything burns.

And then it's over and he's done and he falls against the rooftop and he can see miles of gray, miles of sky cracking white, and he simply looks back and feels and sees.

(meters of her melancholy, leagues of her despair)

He doesn't live for the organization, the checking in, the meetings and the lies. He doesn't live for the air sea sky rain three years ago world will end and pain.

He lives to walk with the brigade, to breathe in this darkened air, to bring light and fire to this shell of a world and to let the white stream in.

He lives for her, he lives for the world, and he wouldn't have it any other way.

--l--

In reality, he doesn't mind this static situation. It's like what he said to Kyon – if it was up to him, he'd just leave those two together and see how the world changes.

It'd be cheesy to say that their happiness is his happiness, but the thing is, he doesn't really mind.

He knows his place.

(And he knows hers.)

--l--

There is the city. There is its shell.

(there is she, and she is it is everything is all semblance of existence if only if only if only she would have room for one person more.)

He is building her tower, and she is acknowledging his demise.

(but she does have room – it's just not for him, and he doesn't mind doesn't think)

Empires fall and oceans overflow, the brightest flames burn out the brightest, and futility is somewhere between tumblers and teacups and the horizon.

Koizumi wouldn't have it any other way.

(as long as it's never known that he's the odd man out, he can stay forever.

and then? the story can never end.)

The best ones have no endings, after all.

--l--

Why am I writing SH so much? I don't know. Maybe it resonates with me. I saw the theme and thought of closed spaces immediately, and my love for Koizumi soon took over. Or something.

So much for that DOGS theme that I'd been planning to write.

And yeah, my trippy writing style started to come back full force in this one, so eh, dunno. If you don't like it, you don't need to leave me that review telling me that parentheses and italics are not to be abused, because I get it already. I have no control of my muse either. XD

Major thanks to Rae for editing, and comments are loved. :D