The Intrigues of Haruhi Suzumiya (12 page)

“Actually, about that,” I said, clearing my throat and preparing
the lines I’d rehearsed. “We’ve got a favor to ask you. Could you let Asahina stay at your place for a few days?”

“Wha? I mean, sure, but—” Tsuruya chuckled as though something had occurred to her. She peered at Asahina’s face. “You
are
Mikuru… right?”

Asahina looked surprised, at which Tsuruya narrowed her bright eyes. Had we been found out?

“Anyway, it’s fine. Is there some kinda problem? Like one that’s stopping Mikuru from going to her own house, I mean?”

The conversation was moving right along, thankfully.

“How long does she need to stay, d’you think?”

“Eight days at the most,” I said. Eight days from now, Asahina would revert to being the only Asahina in the timeline. “Will that be okay?”

“Sure, I don’t mind. Oh, right—she can just use the apartment. It’s a separate building, kinda like what we have at the mountain villa. No one’s living there right now. It’s just a little studio—sometimes I go there to think about stuff, ’cause it’s so nice and quiet.”

I looked around the grounds that surrounded us, which you could pretty much just call a forest. Who knew what was hidden in the expanse? I’d heard there was even an old-fashioned storehouse somewhere in the area.

As I felt a strange combination of admiration and envy, Tsuruya’s mouth curved into a perfect half circle. “So anyway, Mikuru—what’s up? You don’t have to be so scaredy-like.” Tsuruya poked at Mikuru’s chin with her finger. “It’s not like you.”

Before the silent Asahina could say anything, I quickly cut in.

“She’s Asahina’s younger twin sister, Michiru.”

“Twin? Michiru?”

“That’s… that’s right! They were separated at birth, you see…”

“Wow!”

“And there were some difficult circumstances, and… Asahina
… what I mean is, Mikuru doesn’t know she has a younger twin.”

“Ooh! So why is Michiru here wearing a North High uniform, then?”

Crap. I hadn’t thought of that.

“How should I put this… Michiru, here, wanted to sneak into North High to catch a glimpse of her sister. So she got a uniform, but then she wound up not being able to pull off her plan. Then she happened to bump into me, and I got her to tell me the story, and after that…”

Tsuruya patted my shoulder. “Don’t worry about it!” she said with a pleased grin. “No need to explain any more. If she’s Mikuru’s sister, she’s practically Mikuru. She only needs a place to stay?”

“Also, you’ve got to keep her a secret from Asahina.”

“But of course!”

“Um…” said Asahina, as though afraid of being left out of the conversation. “Is it really okay?”

“Sure, it’s mega-okay! Right, Michiru, come this way! I’ll show you the apartment.”

Tsuruya took Asahina’s hand and dragged her off through the garden. As she went, Tsuruya looked over her shoulder and shot me a broad wink that just about killed me dead.

The apartment was very similar to the mountain villa we’d been invited to earlier. According to Tsuruya’s explanation, the villa had been built using this apartment as a model; this was the original. It was a pleasant Japanese-style one-floor building.

Asahina sat politely on the tatami-mat floor, like a pretty French doll placed in a simple house.

The room was warming up, thanks to Tsuruya having turned the heater on, and strangely I didn’t really want to leave.

After explaining the hanging scroll that hung in the alcove and telling us where the closet with the futon and sheets was, Tsuruya made herself scarce, saying “I’ll bring some nice hot tea.”

“Looks like this will work out,” I said to Asahina.

“Yes, thank goodness. We’ll need to properly thank Tsuruya,” agreed Asahina
Michiru
. “Michiru, was it? That’s a nice name.” She finally smiled.

I stretched my legs out on the tatami mat and looked at the heater, thinking about Asahina’s name.

Until Tsuruya returned, carrying a basket filled with a kettle, some teacups, and some clothes.

Tsuruya invited me to stay for dinner, but if I were away from home for two nights running, my mom would probably get irritated, so I instead expressed my sadness at having to go home. Thanks to finally having found a place for Asahina to stay, I was suddenly tired. If I dithered around anymore, I’d wind up deciding to spend the night.

“Hmm, she’s like Mikuru and yet not Mikuru. Or, like, she’s not Mikuru but she seems Mikuru-ish.”

I told Tsuruya I thought I’d already explained she was a twin.

“Ha ha ha! That’s true. We’ll just leave it at that.”

Walking about a step and a half ahead of me, Tsuruya headed for the huge gate.

As I watched her loose bun of hair gently sway, a question occurred to me.

“Tsuruya.”

“Yeah?”

“How much do you know? You said before that Asahina and Nagato—that the members of the SOS Brigade weren’t normal.”

“Yeah, I guess.” My long-haired schoolmate bounced slightly as she turned around. Her smiling face was as bright as a star. “I really
don’t know that much, Kyon. Just that they seem kinda different. At the very least, they’re not
normal
normal like you and me.”

Even if that was all she knew, that was more than enough. Yet she still hadn’t asked any inconvenient questions, and she hadn’t tried to figure out what Asahina really was.

“How do you know?”

Tsuruya tucked her hands into her kimono sleeves and laughed broadly. “I just really like watching people have fun. Like when someone gobbles down a delicious meal I made for them, or when I just get to watch someone I’ve never met having a great time—I really love that. Yeah, so when I watch Haru-nyan, it makes me really happy. It’s like, I don’t know, she’s just having so much fun, y’know?”

Didn’t she want to join in herself? I asked. Wasn’t it lonely just watching?

“Mm, yeah, y’know—I think movies are super cool, but I don’t really want to make movies myself. Just watching is enough. Or like when I watch the World Series or the Super Bowl, it’s really fun to cheer and stuff, but I don’t start thinking, ‘Gosh, I should totally get out there myself and play!’ Watching the players out there, giving it their best shot, is the best part. I mean, I wouldn’t be any good at it. So I do other stuff, stuff I
can
do.”

In a way, she was the exact opposite of Haruhi. When Haruhi saw something she thought was interesting, she just had to butt in and give it a try.

Tsuruya’s big eyes cast about. “The SOS Brigade is just like the baseball game! I get a kick out of watching you, Haruhi, Nagato, and Koizumi, whatever it is you’re doing!”

Her smile and voice were completely genuine. She was speaking words of truth. I started to feel cheered up just by standing next to her.

“So I really like the position I’m in. I think Haru-nyan understands too. After all, she doesn’t try to drag me into things, y’know? Five people is just the right number.”

She turned back around with another bounce, facing the gate once again.

“It’s totally impossible to figure out everything, y’know? My hands are already full!” She looked over her shoulder at me. “Hang in there, Kyon! The future of humanity’s riding on your shoulders!”

The corner of her mouth twitched a couple of times, and she regarded me for a moment, but soon she was unable to keep herself from breaking into giggles. The guileless, childlike laughter made me feel like my merry upperclassman’s words were a simple joke.

Tsuruya gasped for air, holding her stomach. “Anyway, make sure you always watch Mikuru’s back! But no funny business, you got that? That’s the one thing that’s not allowed. If you’re gonna play tricks, play ’em on Haru-nyan. I’m sure she’ll forgive you, totally.”

These words, I was sure, were meant sincerely. I don’t know why I thought as much—I just did. Not that I’d had any intention of doing anything.

I said goodnight to Tsuruya and pedaled off on my bike, but it wasn’t long before I found myself applying the brakes.

“Good evening.”

My path was blocked by someone standing alone in the gloom of the street.

“You’re certainly working hard. For my part, I can’t say I agree with involving Tsuruya, although that’s surely the safest place she could possibly be.”

I hadn’t seen Koizumi’s handsome, pleasant smile in two days.

“Hey. What a coincidence, meeting you here.”

“You could say that, yes. You could also say that the coincidences started when you and I first met. No, even earlier than that—when you met Haruhi.”

Koizumi raised his hand in greeting and began to approach me. How long had he been skulking around in the night streets waiting for me? I asked. He wouldn’t have any cause to complain if someone mistook him for a pervert and called the cops on him.

Koizumi chuckled softly. “You seem to be up to something interesting again, but I suppose I haven’t won the participation lottery.”

I chose to sigh, exhaling whitely. “This is my and Asahina’s problem. It’s got nothing to do with you. You should just run along and hunt those celestials of yours.”

“These days they never call, they never write. Sometimes a man just needs to get out and take a walk.”

The only people who were out at this hour without a dog to walk were writers stuck for ideas, I said—and I knew for certain running into him was no coincidence.

“If this were a coincidence, one could hardly be blamed for thinking it was just a little too perfect.”

“What do you want?” I asked, but immediately changed subjects. “No, never mind—that much I can guess, more or less. How much do you know?”

“You mean about there being two Asahinas?” Koizumi casually mentioned the crucial point. “How did you manage to explain that to Tsuruya? Twins, I suppose? Surely you didn’t tell her the truth.”

“Not that it would’ve mattered.”

“Maybe not. It
is
Tsuruya, after all.”

He said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world. Just what kind of person was Tsuruya, anyway? Our cheerful schoolmate seemed to know everything about us, yet was still keeping her distance.

“My superiors have warned me not to interfere with Tsuruya.” Koizumi’s face became slightly more serious. “She’s actually not related to this. Originally, we weren’t supposed to encounter her
at all, but there was a mistake somewhere and we wound up coming into contact. That’s Suzumiya for you, I suppose.”

What mistake, where? Was he talking about Tsuruya being in Asahina’s class? I asked. Or her being a substitute player on our sandlot baseball team?

“We do not interfere with her, and in exchange, she is no more involved with us than necessary. Those are the rules by which the Agency and the Tsuruya clan conduct their relationship.”

He shouldn’t just mention an absurd inside story like that, I told him.

Koizumi chuckled. “To be clearer, the Tsuruya clan is among the many sponsors of the Agency. However, our activities may be irrelevant to them; they are entirely indifferent to everything we do. Which is fine, since it’s frankly more convenient for us that way, but Miss Tsuruya is the successor to the entire clan.”

Tsuruya, you…
I thought. To think we’d been just casually hanging out with a person like that. Now I
really
wanted to know—what was she? I asked.

“She’s an ordinary high school student. She’s a second-year student at the same public school we attend; she just commutes from a bigger house. Meanwhile, she might be fighting the forces of evil somewhere, or she might have solved some intractable problem, but none of that has anything to do with us.”

The words Tsuruya had just recently spoken now were clear in my memory. She’d said she was happy not being too involved with us. Maybe the same was true of us, for her. It would definitely be best to just keep relating to her the way we always had. Whatever she was, whatever she was doing, none of that was important. Just as Haruhi was Haruhi, Tsuruya was Tsuruya. She was Asahina’s cheerful, happy, over-perceptive friend. The SOS Brigade’s faithful advisor. That was the best way to think about it.

But how much of a coincidence had her meeting Asahina been? Were there parts of the past that were mysterious even to time travelers, in the same way that Haruhi was a mystery to them?

And then I remembered.

“Koizumi, earlier you said things with Asahina would work out just fine. What did you mean by that?”

“I meant that the future can be changed.” Then, as though he’d predicted my next question, he continued. “You might be thinking that people from the future regard the past as freely changeable and consider the future to be superior to the past, but the future is actually quite a fuzzy thing.”

If you knew past history and could travel back, you could change the future however you wanted to. I’d done it myself—I’d gone back in time with Nagato to fix the world after it had gone all wrong.

Koizumi smiled. “You could also have done the same thing from the past. If you’d known the future in advance, you could’ve changed it right at that point and time.”

“How can you possibly know the future? That’s impossible.”

“Do you really think so?”