The Rampage of Haruhi Suzumiya (14 page)

“Koizumi, I’m trusting you to take care of Asahina and Nagato.”

The esper freak who had failed to be of any use in getting off this snowy mountain shot me a crooked smile and nodded. I took one last glance at Asahina, who was looking up at me with worried eyes, and Nagato, who stood perfectly still in silence.

“Let’s go. The place is so big that it’s possible they couldn’t hear you in the back.”

“Don’t order me around. In these situations, you only need one person in a leadership role! Now do as I say.”

Haruhi’s competitive nature was on full display here as she grabbed my wrist and turned to the three brigade members on standby.

“We’ll be right back. Koizumi, you need to look after the other two.”

“Roger that.”

Koizumi was back to his usual smile as he replied to Haruhi and gave me a slight nod.

I’m pretty sure that he was thinking the same thing I was.

We could search every nook and cranny of this mansion without finding a single person.

I just had a hunch somehow.

Haruhi chose to search the next floor first. Once we ascended the large staircase by the entrance, we arrived at a long hallway that stretched into the distance to right and left and was littered with more wooden doors than I could count. I tried opening one of the doors, and it swung open readily to reveal a Western-style bedroom.

There were more stairs at both ends of the hallway, and Haruhi and I headed up another flight. I let Haruhi lead the way.

“That way. Now this way.”

Haruhi used one hand to point the direction while using her other hand to pull me along by my wrist. I had the urge to cover my ears every time we reached a new floor and Haruhi yelled out, “Anybody home?!” but I wasn’t allowed to do that either. All I could do was follow her orders and tag along.

There were so many doors that we could only manage to open a few at random. As we confirmed that they all led to similar-looking bedrooms, we arrived at the fourth floor. I wasn’t sure if the hallways of the mansion were supposed to be lit at night, but every floor was brightly illuminated.

I was in the process of eyeballing the doors and deciding which to open next when Haruhi broke the silence.

“This reminds me of last summer. When we went outside to check on the boat.”

… Right, something like this happened back then. I vaguely recalled Haruhi dragging me through a downpour the same way she was dragging me around right now.

As I rewound the sepia-colored film that composed my memory, Haruhi came to an abrupt halt and so did I, as she was still clutching my wrist.

“You know.”

Haruhi began to speak in a subdued tone.

“I forget when this started, but it kind of just happened…I decided to take a different path from most people. Ah, I don’t mean a literal path that you walk on. I’m talking about a path in the sense of what direction I want to go. As in a career path or way of life.”

“Uh-huh,” I responded in a noncommittal tone. What’s your point?

“My point is that I have been purposely avoiding any path that the general public would follow. I mean, it wouldn’t be any fun to go with the flow and do what everybody else does. I don’t get why anyone would voluntarily choose to lead a boring life. That was when I realized. If I went against the norm from the very beginning, I might end up having a lot more fun.”

Your typical rebellious spirit would blindly shun anything mainstream and support the obscure, regardless of the benefit or lack thereof. Personally, I more or less felt inclined to subscribe to that particular creed, so I could see where Haruhi was coming from. Still, I have a feeling that you take things to such extremes that concepts like “mainstream” no longer apply.

Haruhi chuckled in a creepy tone.

“Well, none of that really matters.”

What? Don’t ask me for my opinion if you aren’t going to listen. Do you understand the predicament we’re in? We don’t have time to joke around and take it easy.

“Anyway, there’s something that’s been bugging me.”

“What is it now?”

My reply carried a tinge of irritation.

“Did something happen between you and Yuki?”

…

Haruhi wasn’t looking at me. She stared down the hallway before us.

I waited a beat before responding.

“…What are you talking about? Nothing happened.”

“Liar. You’ve been paying extra attention to Yuki since Christmas Eve. Every time I check, you’re looking Yuki’s way.”

Haruhi was still looking down the hallway.

“It’s not because you hit your head, is it? Or what? You better not have any funny ideas involving Yuki.”

I wasn’t aware of the fact that I had been constantly staring at Nagato. At most, I’d been staring at her sixty percent of the time, with Asahina occupying the other forty percent…except this wasn’t the time to be saying that.

“Well…”

I could only manage to stammer a feeble reply. As Haruhi had noticed, I’d been trying to be more considerate of Nagato since the disappearance mess, so I felt uncomfortable about denying my concern flat out. Still, I never expected Haruhi to notice, so I didn’t have an appropriate answer ready for her, but I couldn’t tell her the truth either.

“Spit it out.”

Haruhi was being deliberate in enunciating her words.

“Yuki’s been acting weird too. She doesn’t look different, but I can tell. You must have done something to Yuki.”

She’d gone from warning me about having any funny ideas to accusing me of already doing something in the space of two to three sentences. It was entirely possible that if I left her alone, she would reach the conclusion that something had actually happened between Nagato and me by the time we made it back to where Koizumi and the girls were waiting. Though something actually had happened, which made it difficult for me to simply deny her allegation outright.

“Ah. You see…”

“I won’t let you smooth-talk your way out of this. Disgusting.”

“You’ve got it wrong. Neither of us has done anything to be ashamed of. Uh…The truth is…”

Haruhi was looking at me like I was an archery target.

“The truth is?”

As Haruhi stared me down, I finally came up with something to say.

“Nagato has this problem she’s dealing with. Yeah, that’s it. She asked me for advice a while back.”

It’s pretty hard to think and talk at the same time. Especially when you’re making up an entire story.

“Truth be told, her problem hasn’t been solved yet. I guess that…basically…it’s something Nagato needs to deal with herself. I can only listen and try to help her figure out what she wants to do. Nagato doesn’t have a solution yet, so I’m still a little concerned. Which is probably why I keep looking in her direction.”

“What kind of problem? And why would she ask you for help? She could have come to me instead.”

Haruhi still sounded suspicious.

“I doubt that Yuki would rely on you more than Koizumi or me.”

“She probably would have taken anyone that wasn’t you.”

Haruhi’s eyebrows narrowed, but I used my free hand to stop her. My mind was finally becoming clear.

“Here’s a basic rundown. Do you know why Nagato’s living alone?”

“Family issues, right? I don’t know any details, since I find it disgusting to pry into someone else’s private matters.”

“There’s been some change in her family situation. Depending on how everything turns out, Nagato might not be living alone anymore.”

“What do you mean?”

“Simply put, she’ll be moving. Out of that apartment to a faraway place…to live with relatives perhaps. Naturally, she’ll have to switch schools. Transfer out, if you will. They might time it so she’s in a different high school next spring when we all become second-years…”

“Really?”

Haruhi’s expression softened. I’ve got this.

“Yeah, but Nagato doesn’t want to transfer schools, regardless of how it goes with her family. She wants to stay at North High until graduation.”

“So that’s been on her mind…”

Haruhi lowered her head for a moment before looking back up at me, an expression of rage on her face.

“All the more reason to come to me, then. Yuki is an important brigade member. I’m not going to let her run off without a word.”

Those words were all I needed to hear.

“If she had gone to you, you would have made everything more complicated. Knowing you, you’d probably march off to the home of Nagato’s relatives and start a protest against her transferring.”

“Probably.”

“Nagato is determined to settle this herself. She’s a little unsure at the moment, but her heart lies in the clubroom. It’s just that she’s been brooding over this by herself for so long that it’s been an emotional strain on her. She probably wanted to talk to somebody else about it. This was when I was in the hospital, so Nagato told me everything when she came to visit by herself. I just happened to be there at the time when nobody else was. That’s all it was.”

“I see…”

Haruhi sighed softly.

“Yuki, huh...I didn’t realize she was having problems. Looked like she was having fun to me. Before winter vacation started, I was walking through the hallway when I ran into some of the computer society underlings saluting her. And she didn’t seem to mind...”

I tried to picture Nagato with a pleased look on her face, but I couldn’t so I just shook my head to clear my thoughts. Haruhi suddenly lifted her face.

“But, mmm, well, yeah. I guess that sounds like the Yuki I know.”

I was able to breathe a sigh of relief as she apparently bought my story. I found it odd that she could attribute any part of this made-up scenario to typical Nagato behavior, but it seemed that my tale-spinning matched Haruhi’s impression of Nagato. I tried to wrap things up.

“Everything I just said is off the record. You definitely can’t tell Nagato. Don’t worry. She’ll still be reading quietly in the clubroom when the new school year starts.”

“Of course. I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

“But.”

The wrist caught in Haruhi’s iron grip was starting to feel very warm as I continued.

“If, on the off chance that Nagato ends up deciding to transfer schools or is taken away against her will, you’re free to go on a rampage. If it comes to that, I’ll back you every step of the way.”

Haruhi blinked a couple of times before staring up at me in a daze. And then she flashed me an absolutely dazzling smile.

“Of course!”

Haruhi and I made our way back to the entrance lobby on the first floor, where we were treated to three idiosyncratic greetings by the members, who had removed their skiwear while waiting for us.

For some reason, Asahina was on the verge of tears.

“Kyon, Suzumiya…I’m so glad that you’re back…”

“Mikuru, why are you crying? I said that we’d be right back.”

Haruhi patted Asahina’s hair in good humor, but the expression on Koizumi’s face ruined the moment. What’s with the eye contact? You’re not going to grab my heart with looks that don’t make any sense at all.

The last member, Nagato, just stood there in a haze and stared at Haruhi with her black eyes. She seemed to be even more out of it than usual, but I just assumed that an alien-made organic life-form would be hard-pressed to carry out the task of plowing a path through the snow like one of those Russell snowplows. This assumption also took into account the fact that Nagato wasn’t perfect. I was fully aware of that now.

“Do you have a moment?”

Koizumi casually walked over to me and whispered in my ear.

“I would like to keep this a secret from Suzumiya.”

When you put it that way, I don’t have any choice but to listen.

“A rough estimate will do. How much time would you say has passed since you and Suzumiya left us?”

“Hasn’t even been half an hour.”

During that time, I had to listen to Haruhi’s little speech and make up a story to tell her, but it didn’t feel that long to me.

“I was expecting you to say that.”

I couldn’t tell if Koizumi was satisfied or disturbed by my response.

“For those of us who were left behind, three hours have passed since you and Suzumiya set off on your search.”

Nagato was the one who kept track of time, according to Koizumi.

“Since you were taking so long to return.”

He brushed aside his bangs, now dry, before flashing me a nihilistic smile.

“So I came up with a little experiment. I requested Nagato to move to a slightly removed location that was out of sight. We synchronized our count first, and then I asked her to return after ten minutes.”

Nagato apparently complied without complaint. She walked down a hallway to the side of the entrance before eventually turning the corner and vanishing from sight—

“However, Nagato returned before I could count to two hundred. I found this puzzling, as less than three minutes had passed in my mind. However, Nagato asserted that she had positively counted to ten minutes.”

Nagato was obviously correct. You must have nodded off or counted wrong.

“Asahina was also counting in a soft voice and our counts were very close.”

Well then…I still think that Nagato would be the one who’s right, though.

“I have no intention of questioning the accuracy of Nagato’s count. It shouldn’t be possible for her to make simple arithmetic mistakes.”

So we’re in the realm of what else could it be?

“The flow of time varies within this mansion depending on your location…or your sense of time becomes distorted here. Either explanation is valid. It’s possible that both apply.”

Koizumi glanced over at Haruhi, who was in the process of roughing up Asahina before turning back to me.

“It would be best to move together as a group. Or else our sense of time will become increasingly distorted. That is not all. If the temporal deviation is limited to the interior of this building, we can still cope. However, what if the distortion began before we were seemingly lured into this place? How did you feel about the sudden blizzard and our inability to reach the bottom of the slope? If we were to assume that we had already slipped into a different dimension at that point…”