The Intrigues of Haruhi Suzumiya (25 page)

Yeah, like a voice suddenly calling out to you from behind. Just remembering it made me angry. Just the thought of him smirking as he watched Asahina and me toil away was enough to make my café au lait taste like black coffee. He’d better be ready, the next time I saw him. I’d grab him by the scruff of the neck and make him kneel in front of Haruhi or Nagato—that’d show him.

My irritation must’ve shown on my face, because Haruhi peered at me curiously. But in the end she let it pass with no comment, then smiled an inexplicable smile.

“Oh, well. We’ve got tomorrow. A new day brings new possibilities! It wouldn’t be any fun to just repeat the same day over and over, would it? My guess is that Sunday is the best target, anyway. It just feels the laziest and most laid-back, right? Like it doesn’t get along with Monday, that’s what I think.”

As I listened to Haruhi anthropomorphize the days of the week, I realized that Monday was a vacation day too, and just as I was suddenly afraid I’d wind up looking for mysterious phenomena three days running, I remembered that (Michiru) Asahina hadn’t said anything about that—and anyway, the sight of Asahina the Younger’s bashful laugher at Haruhi’s affable chatter did my heart good.

“So that’ll wrap things up for today,” said Haruhi, dismissing us.

Just as I’d been told, it was exactly five o’clock.

Man, oh man. Today had certainly given me a lot to think about.

Riding my bike into the wind, I reflected on the day’s events—Koizumi’s words before lunch, the two Asahinas, the nameless jerk and his boasting, Nagato’s unwavering face, and Haruhi’s unexpected good spirits. I didn’t even want to think about anything else happening, but things weren’t done yet. I wasn’t so forgetful that I’d just trudge home empty-handed, I couldn’t pretend I hadn’t seen the object in my pocket—and there was tomorrow to think about.

So it was that I stopped by the convenience store and bought a stamp and envelope, then headed over to the home center.

Once there, I wandered over to the pet corner. I found myself rather taken with the dogs and cats there, which, unlike Shamisen, were purebred. Pushing the temptation aside, I found the aquarium tank, inside of which was a clump of pond turtles and green turtles; they seemed to be getting along well. I wished I’d had Asahina with me. I would’ve loved to see her face as she exclaimed at the American shorthairs and shelties in the display. I’d seen my sister do it one too many times.

I looked into the turtle tank.

“All right, then, which one should I get?”

I began my evaluation. The small turtles were mostly unmoving and sat very still upon the rocks, like they were in a diorama. Which was sort of charming, in and of itself. I could understand why one would be a turtle fancier. It seemed a little rude to keep them cooped up like this, but it was winter, so I guessed that couldn’t be helped. On the other hand, I was going to toss one of them into a freezing-cold river tomorrow, which wasn’t much of an improvement. Which one would a turtle enjoy more? Which
had more appeal—a cozy life in an aquarium, or returning to the harsh freedom of nature?

Perhaps sensing my intent gaze, one of the pond turtles craned his neck around to look up at me. Losing his balance, he fell off the rock and plopped into the water, and after drifting about in the bubbles that frothed out of the tank’s filter, finally managed to climb back onto the backs of his comrades—perhaps the water was cold. Yup, I’d found my turtle.

I flagged down a shop attendant to pull out the little guy for me, indicating to the young man—maybe a college student working a part-time job—which turtle I wished to purchase. He happily took out a wide variety of turtle-care-type items. For my part I would’ve been fine with just a paper bag to put the turtle in, but it would’ve been awkward to explain that no, I didn’t plan to keep it as a pet, I was just going to throw it in the river—he’d want to know why, and the fact was, I wanted to know why myself.

In the end, as I was trying to mumble that I didn’t have cash on me to cover all this, he’d already covered the bottom of a small plastic tank with gravel and filled it with water, then carefully picked up my turtle and placed it inside, then handed it over to me along with a box of feed. “This comes free with the turtle,” he said with a big smile as he led me to the register.

It seemed like this shop attendant really liked turtles.

“If you’ve ever got any questions about turtles, just ask,” he said, ringing it up at the register and paying for the case and feed out of his own wallet. I wanted to apologize, since this turtle was going straight into the river tomorrow.

Feeling a bit guilty, I carried the now-turtle-filled case out of the home center, putting it and the feed in my bicycle’s basket and setting off once again.

The sky was now well and truly dark, but I still couldn’t head home. There was one more thing I had to take care of—one more thing to do.

“Heya! Kyon! I figured you’d be back! Evenin’!”

My destination was none other than the Tsuruya mansion, where a certain cheerful girl dressed in a perfect traditional Japanese-style outfit let me and my bike through the gate, beneath the starry sky.

“Huh? What’s that? A souvenir?” said Tsuruya, peering into the bike basket. “Aw, a pond turtle. Thanks, but our garden’s pond is already lousy with the things. They just multiplied like crazy. If you put a little guy like that back there, they’d just beat up on him.”

Sorry, Tsuruya—this wasn’t a present for her. I’d actually gotten it for Asahina, sort of, I told her.

“Oh, too bad! Also, Kyon, I’m sorry I couldn’t take Michiru to the library today. I just couldn’t skip out on my thing.”

I leaned my bike up in the corner of the absurdly large garden, then walked alongside Tsuruya, carrying the turtle case with me.

“Did you have plans?” I asked.

“It was a memorial service. The whole family gets together to remember our ancestors. It was my dad’s grandfather this time—he actually had a really interesting life. With so many crazy episodes, his memorial was really busy!” Tsuruya chattered like she was a hare racing a tortoise and had just decided to take the race seriously. “But are you really that worried about Michiru? Do you want to sleep in the same room with her? I’d sleep next to her too, but if you don’t feel like it, that’s fine.”

Tsuruya smiled at me cheerfully. She sounded just like a fairy godmother bringing Cinderella a fancy ball gown, but I knew that if I naively took her up on her offer, she’d really give me an earful. I wouldn’t fall into such an obvious trap. Tsuruya knew that too, which was why she’d laid it in the first place.

“I think I’ll pass; thanks.”

Tsuruya was smart enough to get my drift. And even if somehow it’d become a reality, if I were to sleep between two older schoolmates like that, I’d be way too nervous to sleep even a little bit. I’d only wind up more exhausted.

Maybe because of the cold, the little pond turtle had retreated into his shell in one corner of the case, and he stayed there, unmoving. I felt like it would’ve been kinder to leave him in the Tsuruya family’s pond, but I couldn’t very well go against Asahina the Elder’s instructions, though the dilemma still nagged at me.

“Oh, Kyon?”

I was let into the apartment, at which point I was greeted by (Michiru) Asahina’s surprised voice. She probably hadn’t expected to see me again so soon after we’d parted ways, but she’d forgotten about the turtle. I presented her with the case.

“Could you bring this tomorrow?” I asked.

Consider, if you will, the contents of letter #4:
“On Sunday, by 10:50
AM
, throw a turtle into the river.”
That was going to be the last action Asahina and I would carry out. Since we’d be doing another city patrol tomorrow, it made the most sense to leave the turtle with this Asahina now, since I’d have to meet up with Ha-ruhi and the rest at nine
AM
, and we’d lose around an hour to eating at the café and drawing lots. If I showed up with a turtle, there’d be no end of questions to answer from Haruhi.

“Oh, yes. That’s right,” answered Asahina. “You didn’t bring anything to the patrol, I remember.”

Ahem
. I heard a deliberate-sounding cough. It was Tsuruya, preparing tea on the tea table. She closed one eye in a half wink. “Should I take Michiru somewhere else tomorrow?”

“Would you mind?” I asked.

Tsuruya smiled. “About that—I’m swamped tomorrow too. I’ve got to show up at this family meeting. But don’t you worry! I’ll have someone from the house drive her. About what time?”

I asked her to take Asahina to the riverside cherry blossom grove at ten forty-five. Asahina would know the exact place—not even
she
has such a lousy sense of direction that she’d forget that fateful park bench.

“Okay, gotcha. Leave it to me! Just use a taxi for the way back, ’kay?” Tsuruya smacked her chest smartly. “I understand why you’re worried, Kyon. I walk around the shopping streets with Mikuru all the time, y’know? She gets hit on every couple hundred meters. Such a pain! I guess it’s her superpower.”

I figured Tsuruya’s superpower might also have something to do with that.

“Mikuru just looks so defenseless, though. That’s what worries me. I’d feel a little better if she had a nice boyfriend.”

That wouldn’t make me feel better at all. I’d spend my days imagining things I didn’t want to imagine, I told her.

“Ha ha! So what
would
make you feel better, Kyon m’boy?”

“Kyon m’boy” couldn’t think of anything that would make him feel better, but Asahina had turned beet red at Tsuruya’s words and was frantically waving her hands. Her strangely ineffable expression must have come from the fact that she was trying to preserve the fiction that she was not
Mikuru
Asahina, but rather
Michiru
Asahina. I didn’t really care about that now, and I doubted Tsuruya did either, but Asahina might as well keep her secret. I’d told her to, after all.

The preparations for tomorrow were pretty much settled. I drank some of the bitter tea Tsuruya had brewed, looking at Asahina. I couldn’t help but smile as she looked at the little turtle, tapping lightly on his case. I wondered how long I should keep her here. At this rate, this Asahina would come to replace Asahina the Younger in this timeline, but was that really safe? Or did I need to find a way to return her to eight days—no,
three
days now—in the future?

I thought about the numbers on the letters I’d gotten: #3, #4, and #6. Assuming that counting systems hadn’t changed in the
future such that six came after four, that meant letter #5 was still out there somewhere. It just hadn’t reached me yet.

I’d kept the contents of #6 a secret from this Asahina. There was really nothing I could say about it. It was this:

“When everything is over, come to the park bench where you and I met on Tanabata.”

The tea at Tsuruya’s house was fancier than what we usually drank in the clubroom. I was grateful to Tsuruya for not asking unnecessary questions about the turtle I’d brought with me. I watched my two older schoolmates peer into the case as my mind wandered.

When everything is over—
In other words, Asahina traveling eight days into the past was a predetermined event from the perspective of Asahina the Elder. This would all be concluded after not too long.

You and I—“
I” had to mean Asahina the Elder, and not the Younger or Michiru. And Tanabata referred to the Tanabata of four years ago. I’d met the same person there, two different times.

I pursed my lips, wondering if I should just tell Asahina everything—tell her that it was the future version of her who was leaving these letters in my shoe locker. How far ahead had Asahina the Elder read? Would this all become a predetermined event?

And how much had this Asahina realized, from the instructions from the future, and from my following them? I’d done nothing but prevaricate. Had that been the right thing to do…?

I shook my head slightly.

This wasn’t good. If all I was going to do was come up with bad ideas, I might as well be asleep. This was all thanks to the stuff that jerk had said to Asahina and me. There was no point trying to figure out who was right. That was one of the things Nagato had taught me.

Nothing could come from agonizing about the future. Your
present self was responsible for your future self. That’s why you’d wind up cursing at your past self. At the moment, I was just trying to avoid being cursed by my eventual future self. I didn’t have time to think about it.

I just had to move.

Eventually I took my leave of the Tsuruya house and returned home. Shamisen was asleep on my bed, his face the image of serenity. If he was so unconcerned about the world, then the world must be okay. And no matter what happened, I couldn’t imagine him getting insomnia over it.

“Guess it all happens tomorrow…”

I’d put an end to all this tomorrow. On day two of Haruhi’s citywide investigation, I’d leave the turtle in the river. That was all I had to do. There wasn’t anything particularly difficult about it. I wouldn’t be digging holes in search of treasure I’d never find, nor taking perfect strangers to the hospital, nor moving random rocks, nor retrieving data storage devices—oh, wait. I still had to deal with that before I forgot about it again.

I wrote the name and address from letter #3 on the envelope I’d bought at the convenience store, then put the memory chip inside it. I stuck enough stamps on the envelope to get it anywhere in the world, then stashed it back in my coat pocket. Naturally, I didn’t include a return address.

After I’d dropped it in a post office mailbox, I prayed there wouldn’t be an accident. There was a limit to what I could plan for—I hoped Asahina the Elder realized that.

I was sure my hopes would be answered. I’d definitely ask her about that—on that Tanabata bench, when everything was over.

The fated Sunday arrived.

I rode my bike to the station front at nine
AM
, just as I had the day previous. And just like the previous day, everyone else was already there, so we visited the café on my dime and drew lots, whereupon Nagato and I were once again grouped together. Nagato would never forget anything I said to her. I knew I could trust her. It was a lesson I needed to learn myself, honestly. For Nagato more than anyone, I wanted to keep every promise I made her, even if it killed me. That’s how much she’d done for me.