The Boredom of Haruhi Suzumiya Read online

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  First released in Japan in 2003, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya quickly established itself as a publishing phenomenon, drawing much of its inspiration from Japanese pop culture and Japanese comics in particular. With this foundation, the original publication of each book in the Haruhi series included several black-and-white spot illustrations as well as a four-page color insert—all of which are faithfully reproduced here to preserve the authenticity of the first-ever English edition.

  PROLOGUE

  Looking back, the memorable inauguration of the SOS Brigade, which had left me, not Haruhi, in a state of melancholy, had been back in the beginning of spring, and the incident involving the production of the independent film, which, naturally, had forced me, not Haruhi, to sigh, had technically happened in autumn if you go by the calendar.

  Approximately half a year had passed in between, of course, and Haruhi sure wasn’t going to sit around and watch six whole months, including all of summer, pass by. Naturally, it goes without saying that we ended up involved in various irrational and incomprehensible events or pseudo-events that shouldn’t even be called as such.

  At any rate, the season was what it was, and baffling ideas were popping out of Haruhi’s head the way insects pop out when the temperature rises. I could live with the popping-out part, but the fact of the matter was, we would be forced to deal with whatever idea had popped out. Seriously, what’s up with that?

  I have no idea how Koizumi, Nagato, and Asahina felt about all this, but my subjective symptoms told me, at least, that while my energy and strength remained at adequate levels, I always ended up feeling like a little round animal that couldn’t move after eating more than it should have, leaving no choice but to roll down the hill.

  I may still be rolling at this very moment.

  After all, Haruhi has a habit that other people would find excruciatingly annoying of thinking about utterly worthless things whenever her head isn’t filled with happy thoughts. Basically, it would appear that she’s unable to tolerate any situation which requires her to do nothing. She’s the kind of person who will forcibly find something to do when no such thing exists. And based on my experience, we can no longer have peace of mind once Haruhi opens her mouth. And we may never have it again. She’s unbelievable.

  Haruhi Suzumiya, the girl who hates boredom above all else, regardless of the good or the bad.

  And so I would like to take this opportunity to fill you in on the various undertakings of the SOS Brigade to counter the boredom during the six months when melancholy turned to sigh. I can’t really explain how this constitutes an opportunity, but it won’t kill me to talk about it, and it’d be pretty satisfying to get it all off my chest and share this indescribable feeling with someone else.

  Let’s see… I’ll start from the stupid baseball tournament.

  THE BOREDOM OF HARUHI SUZUMIYA

  One day in the “Save the world by Overloading it with fun Haruhi Suzumiya Brigade,” or SOS Brigade, hideout (which was technically still the literary club room), Haruhi made the following loud announcement, sounding very much like the captain of a high school baseball team that had drawn the top seed at nationals.

  “We’re entering the baseball tournament!”

  It was after school one day in June. Two weeks after the nightmare-esque incident that had rendered me unable to focus on my studies. Consequently, I was facing my midterm results, the real nightmare, in early summer.

  On the other hand, Haruhi, who didn’t listen to a word in class regardless of how attentive she appeared, managed to score in the top ten for our year. If there is a god in this world, he or she has horrible judgment and a nasty sense of humor.

  … Well, none of that really matters. The issue right now would be Haruhi’s announcement.

  What did she just say?

  I looked around at the faces of the other three people in the room.

  The first one to catch my eye was the baby face of Mikuru Asahina, the upperclassman who looked like she was in middle school. An incredibly adorable girl who looked ready to fly up into the heavens if you were to attach white wings to her back. And I am also aware that she has a dynamite body unbefitting her face and petite stature.

  For some reason, Asahina, the only person in the room not wearing the high school uniform, was garbed in a light pink nurse outfit as she stared at Haruhi with her lovely lips slightly parted. She’s dressed as a nurse not because she’s a nursing student or a costume-wearing fanatic, but simply because Haruhi ordered it. She must have bought it off some shady Internet site again. Haruhi brought the costume and forced Asahina to put it on. Any person would wonder, “What is the purpose of this?” Allow me to answer.

  “There isn’t any.”

  At one point, Haruhi had delivered the decree, “You must always wear this outfit when you’re in the club room!” and Asahina had responded, “Y-You can’t be serious…,” while in tears, yet she obediently followed orders, even when passing out club flyers to the whole school. She’s so sweet that I just want to run up to her and give her a hug, though I haven’t done so yet. I swear.

  Incidentally, her standard attire two weeks ago had been a maid outfit, and that maid outfit was currently on a hanger in the corner of the club room. The maid’s one is cuter and suits her better, plus it matches my tastes, so I’m hoping she returns to her roots soon. Asahina would probably grant my request. While acting all flustered and embarrassed. Yeah, I like it.

  And after hearing Haruhi’s announcement concerning baseball, Asahina, currently a nurse, responded.

  “What…?”

  She reacted in a voice as lovely as a canary chirping before falling silent. An understandable reaction.

  Next, I turned my gaze to the other girl in the room.

  Yuki Nagato was about as tall as Asahina, but if you were to compare how much they stood out, it’d be like comparing horsetails to sunflowers. As usual, she appeared to be oblivious to everything going on around her as her eyes were firmly locked on the pages of her thick hardcover. Her fingers would move to turn the page every ten seconds or so, and you would finally know she was still alive. You could probably get more chatter out of a parakeet that knew Japanese and more movement out of a hamster in hibernation.

  It doesn’t really make a difference whether she’s here or not, so there isn’t much point in spending effort on a thorough explanation, but I suppose I should at least try to introduce her. She’s a first-year, just like Haruhi and me, and the only member of the literary club that originally occupied this club room. In other words, our student association known as the SOS Brigade is renting this room, or it’s more like we’re parasites who’ve turned this room into our stronghold. Naturally, we still haven’t been recognized by the school. The charter application I turned in a while back was refused by the student council.

  “…”

  I turned away from the apathetic Nagato to find the grinning handsome face of Itsuki Koizumi next to her. He looked at me with an amused expression on his face. It pisses me off for no real reason. This guy’s less relevant than Nagato. The mysterious transfer student—excep
t that Haruhi’s the only one who calls him mysterious—brushed aside his bangs and that annoyingly good-looking face broke into a smile. Our eyes met and he shrugged so naturally I wanted to beat him down. Does he want me to beat him down?

  “What are we entering?”

  Nobody else reacted, so as usual, I reluctantly posed the question. Why does everyone want to treat me like Haruhi’s interpreter? I don’t think you could find a more painful role.

  “Here.”

  Haruhi triumphantly handed me a flyer. As I noted Asahina, who had nothing but bad memories when it came to flyers, covertly huddling up out of the corner of my eye, I read the flyer out loud.

  “The Ninth City Amateur Baseball Tournament is seeking participants.”

  This town apparently holds a single-elimination tournament to determine a champion baseball team. The event is organized by government officials so it’s an officially sponsored annual event with a lot of history.

  “Hmm…”

  I muttered as I looked up. Haruhi’s bright shining face was 100 percent smile and practically touching me. I reflexively took half a step back.

  “So, who’s entering this baseball tournament?”

  I already knew the answer, but I asked anyway.

  “We are, obviously!” Haruhi declared.

  “Does your ‘we’ include Asahina, Nagato, Koizumi, and me?”

  “Of course!”

  “Do we have a say in this?”

  “We’ll need to find four more people.”

  As always, she hears only what she wants to hear. I suddenly thought of something.

  “Do you know the rules for baseball?”

  “I have a general idea. It’s a sport where you throw, hit, run, slide, tackle, all that good stuff. I joined the baseball team for a bit so I know the basics.”

  “How many days were you on the baseball team?”

  “A little under an hour, I think. But it was dead boring so I left immediately.”

  “So why do we have to participate in a baseball tournament if you found it dead boring?”

  Haruhi’s response to this obvious question was as follows:

  “It’s a chance to make ourselves known across the land, Kyon. If we win this tournament, it may be the spark which will eventually allow the SOS Brigade name to stand on its own. A golden opportunity.”

  I would prefer that the name of this brigade not spread any more than it already has. Besides, what’s the point of making the name stand on its own? How is this a golden opportunity?

  I was perplexed, and Asahina was flustered, while Koizumi murmured, “I see, I see,” with an unperturbed look on his face. I couldn’t tell if Nagato was troubled by any of this or if she’d even been listening at all, but she had the usual stiff porcelain expression on her face.

  “Right? Isn’t this a nice idea, Mikuru?”

  Faced with that abrupt question, Asahina panicked.

  “Huh? Huh? B-B-But…”

  “What is it?”

  Haruhi circled around Asahina the way an alligator would approach a fawn drinking water on a riverbank and suddenly threw her arms around the bent-over, petite nurse, or hospital attendant rather, from behind.

  “Wah! Wh-What are you—What are you doing…?!”

  “Listen up, Mikuru. In this brigade, the leader’s orders are absolute! Insubordination is a severe offense! If you have anything to say, we’ll listen to it during the meeting.”

  Meeting? Like those meetings that are held so she can arbitrarily force us to do stuff that makes no sense at all?

  Haruhi had her arms around the struggling Asahina like an albino Japanese rat snake.

  “You’re okay with baseball, right? Just to be clear, we’re aiming for first place! I won’t accept a single loss! Because I really hate to lose!”

  “Awawawa…”

  Asahina trembled with her eyes darting around and her face flushed.

  Haruhi, who was practically executing a sleeper hold, suddenly bit down on Asahina’s ear as she glared at me. Maybe because I looked at her like I wanted to be in that sleeper hold.

  “Okay?!”

  Why do you care? You’re just going to ignore us anyway.

  “Why not?”

  Koizumi voiced his agreement.

  Hey, don’t just cheerfully support her. Throw in an objection every once in a while.

  “In that case, I’ll go get equipment from the baseball team.”

  Haruhi shot off like a miniature tornado. The emancipated Asahina sank into a chair as Koizumi offered his interpretation.

  “Aren’t you relieved that we aren’t capturing aliens or going on a camping trip to search for cryptids? If we’re playing baseball, we shouldn’t have to worry about encountering any of those unrealistic phenomena we dread.”

  “I guess so.”

  At the time, I agreed. Not even Haruhi would say that you would need aliens, time travelers, or espers to play baseball. When the alternative is to look around town for supernatural phenomena that couldn’t possibly happen (that was the SOS Brigade’s main activity), I’d much rather play some baseball. Plus, Asahina was bobbing her head up and down.

  In hindsight, our conjecture was completely off the mark. I could have lived with being off the mark, but it ended up piercing the wall behind the bull’s eye and flew off lord knows where, but I didn’t realize any of this until later on.

  Basically, in my opinion, it didn’t have to be baseball. She would have been fine with whatever happened to catch her eye. First off, this not-quite-a-student-association with the embarrassing name “SOS Brigade” that still isn’t recognized by the school was basically just created by Haruhi on a whim. After all, the long and frightfully conceited official name of this enigma of a brigade is the “Save the world by Overloading it with fun Haruhi Suzumiya Brigade.” My plan to change the name to something slightly better went to pieces unfortunately, and ever since, there hasn’t been an opportunity to change it.

  At one point, I had asked Haruhi what the purpose of this club was, and she’d responded with a look on her face like a foot soldier who had just killed an enemy general.

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

  The famous words that would confirm Haruhi Suzumiya, already known in our school for her bizarre behavior, as a complete freak.

  And yeah, much like how a crow goes after shiny things, how a cat instinctively jumps after anything small that rolls around, or how a person who sees a cockroach in the kitchen goes for the insecticide, anything that draws her attention, be it dodgeball, gateball, or portball, will lead to her saying, “Let’s do this!” I should probably be happy that it wasn’t a rugby tournament. Since that would require finding even more members.

  In other words, Haruhi was bored.

  I have no idea what kind of negotiations were involved, but Haruhi returned like a whirlwind carrying an assortment of baseball equipment. The cardboard box, which looked as though an abandoned puppy could fit into it, contained nine beat-up gloves, a chipped-up metal bat, and a few dirty baseballs.

  “Wait.”

  I took a close look at the flyer again.

  “This tournament uses softballs. What’s the point in bringing hardballs?”

  “A ball is a ball, right? They’re the same. You hit it with a bat and it goes flying, guaranteed.”

  “The last time I played baseball was at my grade school. But I still know the difference between softballs and hardballs. Hardballs hurt more when you get hit.”

  “So don’t get hit then.”

  Haruhi said it simply with a look suggesting she had no idea what I was talking about.

  I gave up.

  “So when is the game?”

  “This Sunday.”

  “That’s the day after tomorrow! That’s way too soon.”

  “But I’ve already registered us. Ah, don’t worry. I put ‘SOS Brigade’ for the team name. No mistakes in that department.”

  I fel
t exhausted.

  “… Where do you plan on finding the other members?”

  “Just grab any bored-looking people we see walking around.”

  She seriously meant that. And anybody who catches Haruhi’s eye, with one exception, is not a normal person. The only exception would be me. And I have no intention of becoming acquainted with any more people I can’t understand.

  “I got it. You just sit tight. I’ll find members. First off…”

  I went through the boys of class 1-5 in my mind. Who would be willing to come if I asked… Only Taniguchi and Kunikida, probably.

  Once I mentioned them, Haruhi responded.

  “Those are fine.”

  She referred to her own classmates as objects.

  “Better than nothing.”

  Everybody else would probably run away the second the name “Haruhi Suzumiya” came up. Let’s see, what to do for the remaining two?

  “Excuse me.”

  Asahina timidly raised her hand.

  “If you don’t mind, my friend would be…”

  “Then we’ll do that.”

  Haruhi replied instantly. Anyone works, apparently. You probably don’t care since you’re completely in the dark, but I’m a little worried about this. Asahina’s friend? Her friend from when and where?

  Asahina must have noticed the concern on my face since she turned to me.

  “It’s okay. She’s from this age… ahem, someone I met from my class.”

  She said to reassure me. And then Koizumi opened his mouth.

  “Then allow me to also bring a friend. In fact, I can think of an acquaintance who has expressed interest in our—”

  I cut him off before he could finish. “You don’t need to bring anybody. Anyone associated with you is bound to be a weirdo.”

  “I’ll take care of it.”

  “If she’s willing to take anyone, I have other people to turn to.”

  Haruhi nodded in a generous fashion. “Then let’s start training.”

  Well, that was where the conversation was headed.

  “Right now.”

  “Right now? Where?”