The Boredom of Haruhi Suzumiya (16 page)

“Um, well, th-the beach.”

“Yep, yep. You’re getting warmer now. And what does the beach make you think of?”

What is this? Some kind of word association game?

Asahina tilted the hairband on her head.

“Beach, beach, um… Ah, seafood?”

“Totally wrong. You’re getting away from the subject of summer. What I’m trying to say is that you have to go on an overnight trip during summer vacation!”

I glared at Koizumi’s increasingly irritating smile. This was the big announcement you were talking about?

“An overnight trip?”

I voiced my question and Haruhi nodded her head up and down.

“Yep, an overnight trip.”

It makes sense for people in clubs to do an overnight trip or something during the summer, but what would be the purpose of our overnight trip? She couldn’t be trying to get us to go into the mountains and capture some cryptid that’s nowhere to be found.

I looked at Asahina, Koizumi, and Nagato, whose faces were surprised, smiling, and blank.

“An overnight trip, huh… For what purpose?”

“For the SOS Brigade,” Haruhi replied.

“I mean, what are we going to do?”

“We’re going on an overnight trip.”

Hah? We’re going on an overnight trip for the sake of going on
an overnight trip. Isn’t that like saying that a headache hurts, a tragedy is sad, or grilled fish is grilled?

“Who cares. In this case, the means and the ends are the same. Besides, isn’t a headache supposed to hurt? It’d be weird if a headache felt good. So that statement’s right.”

Her mangling of the language made me wonder what dialect she was even using at this point, but in any case, the real problem here was the overnight trip thing.

“Where do you intend on going?”

“I intend on going to a remote island. In the middle of the ocean. One that requires a superlative adjective tacked on.”

Well, I don’t remember hearing anything about
Two Years’ Vacation
being on the assigned reading list for summer vacation, so I wonder what she’d read to put that into her mind.

“I did a fair amount of thinking about potential destinations.”

Haruhi was all smiles.

“I was fretting over whether to go to the mountains or the beach. At first, I thought that it’d be more convenient to go to the mountains, but you can only get trapped by a blizzard in a mountain retreat during winter.”

You could just go to Greenland or something… I mean, I have to wonder why that’s necessary.

“You want to go to a mountain retreat to be trapped in there?”

“That’s right. Or else it wouldn’t be any fun. But forget about the snowy mountains for now. We’ll save that for the winter trip. We’re going to the beach this summer! No, we’re going to a remote island!”

I was thinking that she was awfully fixated on the remote island thing, but I didn’t really feel like dissenting. Not that dissenting would have accomplished anything anyway. Besides, the beach is quite an attractive location this time of year. “So does this remote island in the middle of the ocean have a beach?”

“Of course! Isn’t that right, Koizumi?”

“Yes, I believe so. Though it would be a completely natural beach without any lifeguards or carts selling roasted corn on the cob.”

As Koizumi nodded, I shot him a questioning look. Why are you answering for her?

“That’s because—” Koizumi said before he was interrupted by Haruhi.

“Koizumi is providing us with a place to stay during this trip!”

Haruhi had her hand stuck inside the desk as she scrounged around before pulling out what appeared to be an unmarked armband. She then wrote the words “Deputy Brigade Chief” on it in permanent marker.

“For this achievement, be happy, Koizumi, I’m promoting you two ranks and naming you the SOS Brigade deputy brigade chief!”

“It is an honor.”

Koizumi respectfully accepted the armband before turning to me and winking. Just to be clear, I’m not jealous of you or anything. Why would anyone want a novelty item like that?

“And so, we’ll be on an extravagant four-day three-night tour! Get psyched up and ready!”

Haruhi had a look on her face that suggested this discussion was over and we understood what was going on. Of course, we didn’t.

“No, hold on a second.”

I stepped up to speak on behalf of Asahina and Nagato.

“Where is this island you speak of? We’ve been invited? What’s that? Why is Koizumi inviting us to this place?”

Koizumi, who had been defined by Haruhi as a mysterious transfer student, was obviously a shady character, but the stupid organization out there known as the “Agency” was even fishier. It could be some sort of trap in which our destination turned
out to be a research facility where they would dissect Haruhi or Nagato or something.

“One of my distant relatives happens to be quite wealthy,” Koizumi said as he flashed a harmless smile.

“He has enough money to buy a deserted island and build a villa there. In fact, he did just that. The manor was just completed a few days ago, but it’s so far away that none of our acquaintances were inclined to make the trip. As he went down the list of friends and family for guests to invite, my turn eventually came around.”

That’s a suspicious-sounding island. I was reminded of the young adult book
Robinson Crusoe
that I’d read long ago.

“No, it was just a small deserted island to begin with. Summer vacation is coming up and it would be more fun if the members of the SOS Brigade went on a trip together. The owner of the villa is also looking forward to having us.”

“There you have it!” said Haruhi.

She was smiling that peerless smile which tended to show up when she was making trouble for us.

“It’s a remote island! And a manor! A rare situation. It’s like, who’s supposed to go if we’re not going? This is an ideal stage for the SOS Brigade’s summer camp!”

“Why?” I asked. “What does a manor on a remote island have to do with those searches for the supernatural you love?”

But Haruhi was already in her own little world.

“A remote island in the middle of the ocean, surrounded by water on every side! With a manor! Koizumi, your relative knows what he’s doing! Yep, I have a feeling I’ll hit it off with him.”

Any person that can hit it off with Haruhi is guaranteed to be a deviant with no exceptions, so the master of that manor must be a deviant. If he hits it off with her, at least.

I had no idea if Nagato was even listening to Haruhi’s little speech, but Asahina was in a slight daze and she’d stopped eating her lunch.

“Don’t worry, Mikuru. You’ll get to eat all the fresh seafood you want. Isn’t that right?”

“It’ll be arranged,” said Koizumi.

“There you have it.”

Haruhi took another unmarked armband out of the desk. How many extras do you have?

“We’re off to the remote island! I’m certain that something fun awaits us there. My role has already been decided!”

She was writing on the armband with a permanent marker as she spoke. Her wild handwriting spelled out, as far as I could tell, the words “great detective.”

“Why don’t you tell me what you’re plotting?”

“Nothing at all,” Koizumi said in casual denial.

Once Haruhi had been satisfied by delivering her important announcement, she called it a day and left. Asahina and Nagato also left the club room to head home. Only Koizumi and I remained.

Koizumi ran his hands through his hair.

“I’m telling the truth. Suzumiya would still have planned a trip of some sort if I hadn’t spoken up. Since summer vacation feels short yet long. Would you have preferred hunting for
tsuchinoko
instead of going to the beach or the mountains?”

“What’s this
tsuchinoko
thing—no, never mind. Don’t explain what a
tsuchinoko
is. I can figure it out for myself.”

“Three days ago, I ran into Suzumiya at the bookstore by the station. She was staring intently at a map of Japan. She was also looking through an occult magazine that was doing a special on cryptids.”

A trip to search for cryptids, huh? The thought is enough to send shivers up my spine. We’re talking about Haruhi here. I’m scared that we might actually find something.

“Right? It appears that Suzumiya intends to go catch something. I have a hunch that the Hiba Mountains are at the top of her list
of potential destinations. In which case, you could say that sunbathing on the beach would please the greatest number of people possible. And I happened to have an appropriate destination.”

No idea how you happened to conveniently have such a perfect destination ready. Well, if you compare hiking through the mountains under the blazing sun with watching the female brigade members wearing swimsuits on the beach, it’s like comparing hell to a utopia.

“The deciding factor was the fact that this was a privately owned deserted island. She mentioned something about a closed circle.”

Naturally, I had to ask. It’s a good idea to ask questions when you don’t know something.

“What’s a closed circle?”

Koizumi had a smile on his face that was completely free of sarcasm. I could plainly see that if someone felt he was being sarcastic, they were blind.

“This may only serve as a loose explanation.”

Koizumi paused for a moment without losing his smile.

“I suppose that you could say it’s closed space.”

I had no idea how the expression on my face could be considered funny, but Koizumi chuckled.

“That was a joke. ‘Closed circle’ is a mystery term. It refers to a situation where contact with the outside world has been severed.”

Speak in a language I can understand.

“It’s one of the common settings the characters of classic mystery stories find themselves in. Allow me to offer an example. For instance, say that we were to go on a skiing trip in the middle of winter.”

That reminds me that Haruhi said something about snowy mountains.

“So we’ve managed to find lodging on said snowy mountain, but then we run into a record blizzard.”

If you’re going to a place like that, you should check the weather forecast first.

“Well, now we’re in trouble. Storm force winds and snow accumulation prevent us from descending the mountain. And nobody else can make their way to the mountain retreat.”

So deal with it.

“It’s called a closed circle because nothing can be done. And then something happens under these circumstances. The most popular incident would be a murder. This is where the setting is truly allowed to shine. The culprit and other characters are unable to escape the building. At the same time, there won’t be any new characters coming from the outside. It would be especially unreasonable for the police to show up, since it wouldn’t be very interesting to use a forensic investigation to identify the culprit.”

As always, I have no idea what this guy is talking about.

“Oh, excuse me. To summarize, Suzumiya’s desired theme is to become involved in a situation out of a mystery.”

“And that requires an island?”

“Yes, a remote island. She may be envisioning a serial murder case where we’re trapped on the island and nobody can escape. As far as closed circles go, a mountain retreat during a blizzard and a remote island are exceptional settings able to cancel out any potential intervention by authorities.”

“I can’t say I’m too thrilled about how you seem to be enjoying yourself.”

Haruhi’s tendency to run wild wasn’t limited to summertime or anything, but there wasn’t any need for you to cheer her on. And it’s not like I’m sulking because I wasn’t named deputy brigade chief.

“To be honest, I also happen to enjoy such situations.”

I have no intention of criticizing somebody else’s tastes, but let me say one thing. I don’t like this at all.

However, Koizumi paid no heed to my tastes and continued in a tone that sounded like he was reading an essay.

“Let us consider famous detectives. It would be rare for people who live ordinary lives to become involved in bizarre murder cases, correct?”

“Well, yeah.”

“However, the great detectives found in literary work are somehow caught up in one baffling case after the next. Why do you think that is?”

“There wouldn’t be a story otherwise.”

“Exactly. You are absolutely correct. Such incidents are fiction. They only exist in the unrealistic world of storytelling. However, it would be rather blunt to say such metafictional things. After all, Suzumiya fully intends to cast herself into the world of fiction.”

Now that you mention it, that was the reason she made the SOS Brigade, wasn’t it?

“One must travel to the appropriate locations to encounter such unrealistic and mysterious happenings. For that is how the great detectives of literature become involved in cases. You could say that it is necessary to become a relevant party in the case. Cases won’t come flying in by themselves unless there’s a relative that’s a police bigwig or the main character is a police officer or we’re dealing with a running series that’s gone through multiple books.”

I see. I knew that Nagato was a science fiction fan, but I had no idea that you were a mystery lover. And I’m guessing that Haruhi loves both.

“For an amateur to play the role of detective, that person must first be unintentionally dragged into an incident that has occurred in the vicinity and the case must be solved swiftly.”

“There’s no way that something is just going to happen around you so conveniently.”

Koizumi nodded.

“Yes. Reality is unlike the world of fiction. There is a minimal chance of an interesting sealed room murder occurring in our school. In that case, we should go to a place with a higher likelihood of something occurring; at least, that must be what Suzumiya is thinking.”

I was reminded of the phrase “the tail wagging the dog.”

“That would be the location of this trip, the remote island. I do not know the reason, but such a place is generally accepted by society as an appropriate stage for a murder.”

What society are you talking about? That’s one narrow-minded society.

“Putting it another way, you could say that strange happenings occur wherever a great detective goes. Humans labeled as great detectives possess the supernatural ability to attract trouble instead of merely happening upon it. That is the only explanation I can think of. Cases do not lead to the appearance of detectives. Rather, the presence of a detective leads to the birth of a case.”