The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya (8 page)

I should have skipped school too.

Haruhi was still mad. Not just about the fact that she was interrupted during flyer distribution, but about the fact that a day had passed without a single e-mail arriving at the SOS Brigade address. I was expecting to get one or two prank e-mails, but it looked like the world had more common sense than I thought. I’m positive that was because everyone realized that getting involved with Haruhi would only bring trouble.

Haruhi glared at the empty inbox with a wrinkled brow as she moved the optical mouse around.

“Why haven’t we gotten a single e-mail?”

“It’s been one day. Maybe there are people with incredible tales of supernatural happenings, but they don’t want to tell such a dubious, untrustworthy brigade.”

I said that to appease her. In reality…

Do you know of any mysterious events? Yes, I do. Oh, that’s wonderful. Please tell me about it. I understand. It’s like…

As if that could ever happen. Listen up, Haruhi. That stuff only happens in comic books or fiction. Reality is far more severe and serious. This little prefectural high school in some random corner of Japan doesn’t have any ongoing conspiracies involving the end of the world. There aren’t any non-humans wandering around quiet residential areas. There isn’t a spaceship buried in the hill behind school. None of this will ever happen. Not a single one of them. You understand, right? The truth is that you actually understand, right? It’s just that you have nowhere to vent the frustrations of youth, and that restlessness is leading you down a different path. Snap out of it already. How about you go find some handsome guy and walk home from school together or go see a movie together on Sundays? And join some sports club and knock yourself out. They’d make you a regular member in a flash.

… At least, that’s what I would have liked to tell her, but I got the feeling I’d be eating Haruhi’s fist after about five lines, so I refrained.

“Is Mikuru absent today?”

“She might not ever come back. The poor thing. I hope she wasn’t traumatized by the ordeal.”

“I even brought a new outfit for her.”

“Wear it yourself.”

“Of course I’m going to wear it too. But it’s no fun when Mikuru isn’t here.”

Following precedence, Yuki Nagato and her virtually nonexistent presence had become one with the table. There was no reason to be so particular about Asahina. Haruhi could use Nagato as her dress-up doll. Or I guess that’s not exactly better. But I got the feeling that unlike the crybaby Asahina, Nagato would calmly put on the bunny outfit as ordered. And I realized I wouldn’t mind seeing that.

The long-awaited transfer student had come.

I was informed of this by Haruhi during the short period of time before morning homeroom.

“Don’t you think it’s amazing? One really came!”

Haruhi was hovering over her desk with a stellar smile like a preschooler receiving a present she’d been waiting for.

I didn’t know where she heard it from, but apparently the student was transferring into class 1–9.

“This is a once-in-a-lifetime chance. It’s unfortunate that the student isn’t in our class, but it’s still a mysterious transfer student. No doubt about it.”

“How can you tell before you’ve even seen the student?”

“Didn’t I already tell you? Survey says that a student who transfers in halfway through the year is practically guaranteed to be mysterious!”

Just when, by whom, and how was that statistic derived? There’s your mystery.

If any student transferring in the month of May can be considered mysterious, then you’d have to assume that Japan has an excess of mysterious transfer students.

However, this trademarked Haruhi theory did not follow common sense. Haruhi took off as soon as first period ended. Probably off to 1–9 to scout the mysterious transfer student.

And right before the bell rang, Haruhi returned with a dour look on her face.

“Was the student mysterious?”

“Hmm… Didn’t seem that mysterious.”

Obviously.

“We talked for a bit, but I don’t know enough to be sure yet. Might just be pretending to be a normal student. I’d say that’s the more probable scenario. It’d be a waste to reveal your true identity the day you transfer in. I’ll go do some more questioning during the next break.”

Don’t. You probably startled the 1–9 people.

Let’s picture it: Haruhi, who’s practically never initiated a conversation with anyone, suddenly comes into your classroom and grabs the nearest person. “Which one’s the transfer student?” she asks, and the second someone answers, she charges in that direction. Then she probably barges into a happy cluster of friendly students getting acquainted and makes her way to the center, drawing close to the surprised transfer student. “Where did you come from? What’s your true identity?” Like a cross-examination.

I thought of something.

“Was it a guy? Or a girl?”

“Could have been disguised. But for now, he looked male.”

Then it’s a guy.

Which means the SOS Brigade would finally get another male member. He would probably be forced to join no matter what he said, for the sole reason that he was a transfer student. But he might not be as good-natured as Asahina and me. Would things really go so well? No matter how overbearing Haruhi is, a stronger-willed person would probably be able to resist her, right?

If she assembled enough members, we would really have to make this foolish student association, “The
S
ave the World by
O
verloading It with Fun Haruhi
S
uzumiya Brigade” official, huh? Setting aside the matter of whether or not the school would accept it, the person who would have to complete the paperwork would be, ten to one, me. And then I’d be stuck with the label “Haruhi Suzumiya’s subordinate” for the next three years.

I hadn’t actually thought about what I’d do after graduation, but I somewhat wanted to go to college, so I hoped to avoid doing anything that would be put on my record. But as long as I was with Haruhi, that didn’t seem very possible.

What was I going to do?

I couldn’t do a thing.

I should have stopped Haruhi and made her disband the SOS Brigade, even if my arms were virtually tied behind my back.

Then I should have soundly lectured Haruhi and convinced her to live a normal life.

Forget about aliens, time travelers, and espers. Find some random guy and put your effort into a relationship, or work out your body on some sports team. I should have forced her to spend the next three years as an ordinary student.

If only I had.

If I had a stronger sense of purpose or will to act, I wouldn’t have been washed away by this current called Haruhi Suzumiya and forced to swim in an ocean of idiosyncrasies. The world would have retained its dignity. We would have lived normal lives for three years and then graduated in a normal fashion.

… Maybe.

The only reason I say this now is because I experienced things that were anything but normal. If you look at the flow of this story, you should have figured it out already.

Where do I begin?

I guess I’ll start around the time when the transfer student came to the club room.

Asahina, after being recognized as one of the two bunny girls, bravely recovered just one day later and showed up at the club after school.

Not that our club had anything to do. I had brought an old Othello board I’d dug up from home and was currently playing a game with Asahina as we chatted.

It was good that we had a homepage up, but seeing that the access counter wasn’t going up and we weren’t receiving any e-mails, it was pretty much useless. The computer was now used solely for surfing the Internet. This would make those Computer Society guys break down in tears.

Yuki Nagato continued reading silently to the side as Asahina and I began our third round.

“Suzumiya seems to be late,” Asahina murmured as she stared at the board.

Her expression didn’t look overly downcast. That was a relief. All things considered, being in the same room as a cute girl one year my senior was enough to make my heart flutter.

“A transfer student came today. She probably went off to solicit him.”

“Transfer student…?” Asahina tilted her head like a little bird.

“Some guy transferred into 1–9. Haruhi was overjoyed. She must really love transfer students.”

Place one black piece. Flip one white piece.

“Hmm…?”

“In any case, Asahina, I’m amazed that you were willing to come back to the club room.”

“Well… I was a bit hesitant, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have my concerns.”

Didn’t you say something similar before?

“What are you concerned about?”

Click. Pitter patter.
Her willowy fingers flipped the pieces.

“Umm… It’s nothing.”

I suddenly felt something next to me and turned to find Nagato. Her facial expression resembled that of a china doll, as always, but for the first time, I could see glimmers of light in her eyes behind those glasses.

“…”

The look in her eyes reminded me of a newly born kitten seeing a dog for the first time. Her eyes remained glued to my fingers as I placed and flipped pieces.

“Want to take my place, Nagato?”

My question was met with a robotic blink of her eyes and a nod of her head so subtle that you’d have to be looking really hard to notice it. I exchanged positions with Nagato and sat down next to Asahina.

Nagato picked up an Othello piece between two fingers and stared closely at it. Then, as though startled by its completely unanticipated mass and magnetic adhesion to the board, she drew back her hand.

“Nagato, have you ever played Othello?”

She slowly shook her head from left to right.

“Do you know the rules?”

“Negative.”

“Well, you see. You’re black so you’re placing black pieces while trying to surround white pieces. Surrounded white pieces become black. Whoever has more pieces at the end wins.”

“Affirmative.”

Nagato placed her pieces in an elegant fashion and clumsily began changing her opponent’s pieces to her own.

Asahina, with a new opponent, began acting rather strangely. It looked like her fingers were trembling, and she refused to look up. On top of that, she repeatedly snuck glances at Nagato before quickly looking away. It was like she wasn’t even paying attention to the game. Black quickly took an advantage across the board.

What was going on? Asahina seemed overly conscious of Nagato. I had no idea why.

The match quickly ended in an overwhelming victory for black, and just when they were about to begin the next match, the root of all our troubles appeared with a new sacrifice in tow.

“Hey, sorry for the wait!”

That would be Haruhi’s fundamentally flawed attempt at a greeting as she firmly gripped a male first year’s sleeve.

“This is the transfer student from class 1–9 who arrived today and is already making himself useful! His name is…”

She cut off at that point directing a look behind her suggesting that he should handle the rest. The captive young man smiled thinly and turned to the three of us.

“Itsuki Koizumi. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

A slender guy who had the whole energetic athlete feel to him. A tactful smile. Benign eyes. He was handsome enough that if they took a picture of him in some random pose and stuck it on one of those supermarket flyers, he’d attract a solid group of diehard fans. He’ll probably be pretty popular if he happens to be a nice guy to boot.

“This is the SOS Brigade. I’m the brigade chief, Haruhi Suzumiya. Those three are members number one, number two, and number three. And incidentally, you’re the fourth one. Everyone get along now!”

If that’s your idea of an introduction, I’d rather you not introduce us at all. The only things established were your name and the transfer student’s name.

“I have no problems with joining.”

The transfer student, Itsuki Koizumi, said this while maintaining a composed smile on his face.

“But what does this club do?”

If you put one hundred different people in this situation, all one hundred of them would ask this same question, looking for the answer so many people have sought. The same answer which has consistently eluded me. If you managed to find somebody who could explain Fermat’s last theorem, he still wouldn’t be able to answer this question. If someone out there can explain something he doesn’t know anything about, he’s got some incredible swindling skills. However, Haruhi wasn’t even fazed. In fact, she even had a fearless smile on her face as she looked at us one by one before speaking.

“I’ll tell you just what activities the SOS Brigade engages in. Those would be…”

She took a deep breath. Was she trying to be dramatic or had she just been waiting to say these words? Whatever the case, Haruhi proceeded to speak the shocking truth.

“To find aliens, time travelers, and espers and to have fun with them!”

I could feel the entire world grinding to a halt.

Just kidding. My reaction was more along the lines of “thought so.” But the same couldn’t be said for the remaining three people in the room.

Asahina was completely petrified. Her eyes and mouth formed three perfect circles as she stood frozen, staring at Haruhi’s blossoming smile. Yuki Nagato wasn’t moving either. She stayed motionless with her head tilted towards Haruhi, looking like her batteries had died. I got the impression that her eyes had widened, just a little bit, which was unexpected. I guess even I-have-no-emotions girl was surprised.

Last was Itsuki Koizumi. He was standing with an expression that could be interpreted as a smile either out of bitter mocking or plain surprise. Koizumi was the first to recover.

“Ah, I see.”

He sounded like he had just reached some form of enlightenment. After exchanging glances with Asahina and Yuki Nagato, he nodded with an expression of understanding, then voiced an incomprehensible sentiment.

“Just as one would expect from Suzumiya. Very well. I shall join. I hope to have a good time with everyone.”