The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya (11 page)

Nagato took the glasses and placed them back on her face wordlessly. As though her long speech yesterday was some kind of lie. Maybe it was just a lie. Some kind of elaborate joke.

“Now, let’s commence the first SOS Brigade meeting!”

Haruhi loudly proclaimed that out of the blue while standing atop the brigade chief chair. Where’d that come from?

“We’ve done a lot to make it this far. We passed out flyers, and we even made a homepage. The celebrity of the SOS Brigade in this school has skyrocketed. The first stage can be considered a huge success.”

How can you call emotionally scarring Asahina a huge success?

“However, not a single tale of mysterious happenings has reached our brigade’s e-mail inbox, and not a single student has come in for consultation regarding bizarre troubles.”

That’s ’cause fame isn’t enough to do it. Nobody has a clue as to what this club does yet. Most importantly, the school doesn’t even recognize us as a club.

“Someone once said, ‘Good things come to those who wait.’ However, we live in the modern world now. You have to find good things for yourself, even if it means digging them out of the ground. That’s why we’re going to go search!”

Nobody else was interjecting, so I did. “… For what?”

“The mysteries of this world! If we search every corner of the city, at least one mysterious phenomenon is bound to pop out!”

I would say that your mind is the far bigger mystery.

Completely ignoring the disbelief on my face, the enigmatic smile suggesting little consideration on Koizumi’s face, the absence of emotion on Nagato’s face, and the helpless look of resignation to what fate might bring on Asahina’s face, Haruhi waved her arms around and shouted.

“This Saturday! In other words, tomorrow! Meet at 9 am in front of Kitaguchi Station. Don’t be late. If you don’t show, heads will roll!”

Heads will roll, huh?

If you’re wondering what Haruhi planned on doing with the pictures of Asahina in a maid outfit, it was revealed that the damn girl was going to put the pictures in that digital camera on my half-assed Web site.

I noticed this after Haruhi had finished placing a dozen of those pictures in a row on the top page, all set to greet visitors, mere seconds before she was going to upload them into cyberspace.

This would jump the dead access counter up to five digits in a flash.

Are you an idiot?

I had to draw the line here as I desperately stopped Haruhi and deleted the pictures. If Asahina found out that those unbecoming pictures of her in the maid costume in knockout poses had been spread around the world, she’d definitely faint on the spot.

Oddly enough, Haruhi quietly looked at me as I fervently lectured her, but I can’t be sure if she understood what I meant by the dangers of putting personal information that may reveal your identity on the Internet.

“I get it,” she said sullenly before consenting to delete them. In this case, I probably should have deleted all the pictures, but that would be a waste. I created a hidden folder on the hard drive, stored the pictures there, and set a password instead.

I’ll save them for my private viewing pleasure.

Meet at 9 am on a day off? Screw that.

And with that in mind, I pedaled away on my bicycle toward the station, bemoaning how pathetic I was.

Kitaguchi Station is located in the center of the city and is also a central terminal for the train system. On weekends, it tends to be packed with bored young people. Most of them are on their way to larger cities. The only place to go around the station would be the shopping mall. It’s still a big enough crowd to make me think about how each person in the mob has his or her own individual life.

I illegally (sorry) parked my bike in front of the closed bank and reached the north ticket gate five minutes before nine. Everyone had already gathered in silence.

“Late. Penalty!” she said, looking at me.

“I got here before nine.”

“Doesn’t matter if you weren’t late. The last person here gets penalized. That’s my rule.”

“News to me.”

“ ’Cause I just came up with it,” Haruhi said with a cheerful look on her face, wearing a long, brand-name T-shirt and a knee-length denim skirt. “So buy everyone something to drink.”

Haruhi, standing with her hands on her hips in casual attire, felt a hundred times more approachable than when she was in the classroom with a sour look on her face. Bemused, I ended up nodding. Following Haruhi’s instructions to decide on a plan of action for the day, we headed toward the café.

Asahina was dressed in a white sleeveless one-piece dress with a light blue cardigan over it. Her hair was gathered in the back by a barrette, and the way it made her hair bounce up and down as she walked was quite charming. Her smile had the air of a little lady dressing like an adult. She also carried a fashionable purse.

Koizumi stood next to me dressed quite formally in a pink shirt with a brown sports jacket. He even had a dark red tie on. Kind of depressing, but I have to admit he looked sharp. Plus he’s taller than me.

Yuki Nagato silently brought up the end of the line wearing her familiar sailor uniform. It seemed like she’d been completely turned into an SOS Brigade member, but wasn’t she supposed to be in the literary club? After hearing that crazy speech in her quiet apartment the other day, I was even more concerned about the lack of expression on her face. But why was she wearing her uniform on a day off?

Our puzzling group of five entered the café through the revolving door and sat in the back. We gave our respective orders to the waitress, except for Nagato, who stared at the menu with unfathomable intensity—but without any expression on her face—and couldn’t seem to make up her mind. After enough time had passed to have made a cup of instant ramen…

“Apricot,” she announced.

I’m the one paying anyway.

This was Haruhi’s plan:

We would now split up into two groups and search the city. If one group found any mysterious phenomena, it was to contact the other group via cell phone while continuing the search. Then regroup at the meeting spot and discuss what to do next.

That was all.

“Let’s draw for it then.”

Haruhi took five toothpicks from the container on the table, marked two of them with a pen she borrowed from the café, and held them toward us with only the heads sticking out for us to draw. I drew marked. Asahina also drew marked. The other three drew unmarked.

“Hmm, so these are the groups….”

For some reason, Haruhi alternated glares between Asahina and me before sticking her nose in the air.

“Kyon. This isn’t a date. Be serious about it. Understand?”

“I know.”

I guess I was looking a little pleased with myself. Lucky me. Asahina held one hand against her flushed cheeks as she gazed at the tip of her toothpick. Excellent. Excellent indeed.

“What exactly should we be looking for?” Koizumi asked rather blithely. Next to him was Nagato, who was periodically moving her cup to her mouth.

Haruhi slurped up the last few drops of her iced coffee before brushing her hair behind her ear.

“Anything that defies common sense. Anything that looks suspect. Any person that seems mysterious. Yes, discovering the location of a distortion in space-time, or an alien masquerading as a human would be good.”

I almost spit out the mint tea in my mouth. Oh? Asahina had a similar expression next to me. Nagato looked the same as always, though.

“I see,” Koizumi said.

Do you really understand?

“So basically, we should search for actual aliens, time travelers, and espers or any signs they may have left behind. I understand perfectly.” Koizumi’s face looked rather cheerful.

“Yes! You show promise, Koizumi. That’s exactly right. Kyon, you should learn to be as understanding as he is.”

Don’t feed his ego too much. Koizumi returned my hateful glare with a smile.

“Then shall we get going?”

Leaving the bill in my hand, Haruhi strode out of the café.

I don’t remember how many times I’ve said this already, but I’ll say it again:

“Good grief.”

With a “This seriously isn’t a date! If you go off somewhere to play, I’ll strangle you!” for a farewell, Haruhi marched off with Koizumi and Nagato following behind her. Using the station as a base, the Haruhi team went east, while Asahina and I were supposed to search west. Search for what?

“What do we do?”

Asahina held her purse as she watched the other three leave before looking up at me. I wanted to take her home with me right then. I pretended to think it over.

“Hmm. Well, there’s no point in standing here, so why don’t we just walk around somewhere?”

“OK.”

She obediently followed me. The way she quickly jumped away when our shoulders accidentally brushed as she hesitantly walked alongside me painted quite the picture of innocence.

We walked north along a nearby riverbed for no particular reason. The cherry trees would have been pink with petals a month ago, but now there was just a disheartening riverside path.

The place was perfect for strolling along the river, so we passed a number of families and couples. From a stranger’s point of view, we would have looked to be a close pair of lovers. They wouldn’t expect us to be a couple of fools on a search who don’t even know what they’re looking for.

“This is the first time I’ve ever walked around like this.”

“Like this?”

“All alone with a boy…”

“That’s very surprising. You’ve never gone out with someone before?”

“I haven’t.”

“Really? But you probably have guys asking you out all the time.”

“Well…” She hung her head shyly. “But I can’t. I’m not allowed to get involved with anyone. At least, not in this…”

She suddenly became quiet. Three couples looking like they didn’t have a care in the world passed behind us before she spoke again.

“Kyon?”

I was counting the number of leaves floating by in the river when her voice brought me back to the real world.

Asahina looked at me with a brooding expression on her face. She then spoke in a firm voice.

“I have something to tell you.”

I could see the determination glimmering in her doe eyes.

She sat next to me on a bench under the cherry trees. But she was finding it hard to start talking. After mumbling things like “Where do I start,” “I’m terrible at explaining things,” and “You might not believe me,” Asahina eventually caught herself and said this.

“I do not belong in this epoch. I come from further into the future.”

“I can’t tell you exactly when and which time plane I come from. I couldn’t tell you if I wanted to. The information about the future that can be revealed to people in the past is severely restricted. I was required to undergo mental conditioning and receive mandatory hypnotism before boarding the trans-time vehicle. So if I try to say anything beyond what’s necessary, I will automatically be blocked. Please keep that in mind as you listen.”

Asahina spoke.

“Time cannot be viewed as something that flows continuously. Rather, time is an accumulation of punctuated planes.”

“I’m already lost.”

“Um, let’s see. Picture it as animation. It looks like it’s moving, but it’s actually composed of a sequence of still frames. Time can be considered a similar kind of digital phenomena. Would it be easier to understand if I compare it to a flip book?

“Breaks exist between one time and another time, though their rate of occurrence is close to zero. That is why time appears to have no breaks in continuity.

“Time travel means moving in a three-dimensional direction across the accumulated time planes. Being from the future, my presence on this time plane is similar to that of an extra picture added into a flip book.

“Because time has no continuity, even if I tried to change history in this epoch, those changes wouldn’t be reflected in the future. The changes would only affect up to the end of this time plane. If you only scribble on one part of a flip book with hundreds of pages, the story won’t change, right?

“Time isn’t analog like this river. Every moment is a digital phenomenon made up of accumulated time planes. Do you understand now?”

I considered if I should press my hand against my forehead. I ended up doing it.

Time plane. Digital. I didn’t care too much about those things. But a time traveler?

Asahina stared at the edge of her sandals.

“The reason I came to this time plane was because…”

A couple with two children passed by, their shadows falling across us.

“It was three years ago. A large timequake was detected. Oh, um. Three years ago if you count from the current time. Back around when you and Suzumiya became middle school students. After arriving in the past to investigate the matter, we were shocked. No matter what we tried, we were unable to go any further back in time.”

Again with the three years ago business, huh?

“The conclusion was that a large time fault had appeared between time planes. But we couldn’t figure out why the fault was limited to this epoch. We only learned the possible reason recently…. Ah, recently for the future I come from.”

“… And the reason is?” Don’t tell me it’s that.

Unfortunately, my wish wasn’t granted.

“Suzumiya.”

Asahina said the dreaded word.

“We found her in the center of the time warp. Don’t ask how we discovered this. It goes into classified information so I’m unable to explain any further. But it is certain. Suzumiya was the one who sealed the path to the past.

“I really don’t think that Haruhi is capable of something like that….”

“We didn’t think so either. Truth be told, we are still unable to explain how a single human was able to interfere with time planes. It is a mystery. And Suzumiya is unaware that she’s doing any of this. She has no idea that she was the origin of a timequake. I was sent to observe if any new time variations will appear near Suzumiya…. Um, I can’t think of a good word for it, but it’s like surveillance.”

“…” was my response.

“You probably don’t believe any of this.”