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  PROLOGUE

  The question of how long someone believed in Santa Claus is a worthless topic that would never come up in idle conversation. Having said that, if you’re going to ask me how much of my childhood I spent believing in an old man in a red suit, I can confidently say that I never believed in him to begin with.

  I knew that the Santa at the preschool Christmas pageant was just a fake. Digging into my memories, I’m pretty sure that the other kids watching our principal dressed up as Santa didn’t think he was real either.

  I was a precocious child who didn’t need to see Mommy kissing Santa Claus to question the existence of an old man who only worked on Christmas. However, I wouldn’t realize that aliens, time travelers, ghosts, demons, espers, and evil organizations and the heroes that battle them in cartoons, monster movies, and comics were made up until some time later.

  No, I had probably already realized the truth. I just didn’t want to admit it.

  Deep in my heart, I wished that aliens, time travelers, ghosts, demons, evil organizations, or espers might just pop up in front of me one day.

  Compared to the ordinary world I wake up in every morning, the worlds depicted in cartoons, monster movies, and comics have a certain charm to them.

  I wished I could have been born into one of those worlds!

  Saving a girl who’s been kidnapped by aliens and imprisoned within a huge, transparent pea shell. Repelling a laser-wielding time traveler trying to change history armed only with my courage and wits. Taking out evil spirits and demons with a single incantation. Engaging in psychic battles with espers from a secret organization. Those were the kinds of things I wanted to do!

  Wait a minute. Assuming that aliens, etc. were actually to attack, without having any particular special powers, I would have no way to do battle with them. So I did some brainstorming.

  A mysterious transfer student suddenly arrives in my class one day. That student turns out to actually be an alien or time traveler or something along those lines with unknown powers. Then, the student happens to be fighting against some evil gang and I just happen to get caught up in that fight. The other student is the main one doing the fighting. I’m just a sidekick. Hey, that sounds cool. Damn, I’m smart.

  Or how about this? I’ll just go with suddenly waking up one day with special powers—telepathy or psychokinesis or the like. It turns out there are a bunch of other people with special powers. Naturally, there are organizations recruiting such people. Members of a heroic organization come for me and I end up joining them in their battle against evil espers seeking world domination.

  However, reality is rather cruel.

  Fact is, no one had ever transferred into my class. I’d never seen a UFO. Going to all the local haunted spots yielded nothing in terms of ghosts and demons. Staring intently at the pencil on my desk for two hours didn’t even move it a micron. And I’d be more likely to burn a hole in the head of the guy sitting in front of me than to read his mind.

  You have to admire how well the laws of physics were written while fighting the urge to laugh at yourself. At some point, I stopped being glued to the TV watching specials on UFOs and stories about psychics. They couldn’t possibly exist, though I kind of wished they did. I figured my ability to hold on to my convictions while accepting reality was a sign that I’d matured.

  When I graduated from middle school, I also graduated from those childish dreams and became used to the normalcy of the world. Nineteen ninety-nine was my last hope and it wasn’t like anything was going to happen that year anyway. We reached the twenty-first century without humankind making it beyond the moon. It looked unlikely that travel to Alpha Centauri and back within a day would happen in my lifetime.

  Having pushed such thoughts to the corner of my mind, I entered high school without a care in the world—

  And met Haruhi Suzumiya.

  CHAPTER 1

  My first regret, upon successfully cruising through admission to a local public high school, was that the school was situated atop a rather sizable hill. This meant that I found myself trudging up a winding hill, dripping sweat when it was only spring, feeling like I’d already done enough hiking for a lifetime. The fact that I’d have to embark on this uphill trek every day for the next three years depressed me deeply. Though if I stopped to think for a moment, lying in bed until the last second possible might just be the reason my legs were moving so quickly right then. Which meant that if I were to wake up ten minutes earlier, I’d be able to take a more leisurely pace, and the hike wouldn’t be such a pain. Of course, once I factored in how precious those last ten minutes of sleep were, I realized that waking up earlier was simply out of the question. This meant that I would be required to continue the morning workout, which depressed me even more.

  And so for the duration of the school commencement ceremony, held in a gratuitously large gymnasium, I, unlike the other new students whose faces shone with hope and anxiety in anticipation of life at a new school, merely looked gloomy. A good number of people from my old middle school were there, and I’d been on pretty good terms with a few of them so I wasn’t too concerned about making friends.

  It seemed like an odd combination to have guys in blazers and girls in sailor uniforms. Maybe Principal Toupee up on the podium putting everyone to sleep with his droning sound waves happened to be a fan of sailor uniforms? While I was thinking about this, the trite, monotonous commencement suddenly ended, and I shuffled into my assigned classroom, 1-5, with the rest of my classmates, whose faces I would be seeing for the upcoming year, whether I liked it or not.

  Okabe, our young homeroom teacher, took the podium with a million-dollar smile he had probably spent an hour practicing in front of the mirror. He then proceeded to inform us that he was a gym teacher, that he was the handball team’s advisor, that he played for a handball team back in college which got pretty far in the tournament, that the current school handball team was short on members so you were practically guaranteed a spot as a starter upon joining, and that there was no sport in this world as fun as handball. Having apparently run out of things to say after that long-winded speech, he finished with, “Let’s have everyone introduce themselves.”

  Well, this was the same old way of kicking things off, and I’d expected as much, so it didn’t exactly come as a surprise.

  Starting from the left side of the seating chart, alternating boy-girl-boy-girl, one by one, people stood up and gave their name, the middle school they went to, and an interesting fact (a hobby, favorite food, etc.) about themselves. Some people just mumbled their way through it. Some people sounded completely relaxed. A few told bad jokes which killed any excitement in the room. And all the while, my turn gradually drew closer. Nerve-racking. You know what I mean, right?

  Once I had managed to not stumble over the required autobiography I was practicing in my head, I sat back down in my seat, relishing that liberating feeling you get after taking care of business. In turn, the person behind me stood up—yes, I’ll remember this moment for the
rest of my life—and spoke the words people would be talking about for years to come.

  “Haruhi Suzumiya. From East Middle School.”

  Everything was still normal at this point. Twisting around to look behind me would have been too much of a hassle, which is why I was facing forward as I listened to her energetic voice.

  “I have no interest in ordinary humans. If there are any aliens, time travelers, sliders, or espers here, come join me. That is all.”

  That made me turn around.

  I found a girl with long, straight black hair decorated with a flashy hair band adorning her perfectly proportioned face as she stared back at the gawking students with unusually large, black, determined eyes adorned with long, fringed eyelashes, her soft pink lips tightly pursed.

  I was dazzled by Haruhi’s snow-white skin. A striking beauty stood before me.

  Haruhi let her gaze sweep across the classroom, looking like she was trying to pick a fight, before finally glaring at me, gaping at her with my jaw on the floor, then sat down without so much as cracking a smile.

  Is this some kind of a joke?

  There were probably big question marks in the minds of everyone in the room as they wondered how they were supposed to react. Are we supposed to laugh?

  In hindsight, it was neither a joke nor a laughing matter. Haruhi, no matter when or where, is never joking. She is always dead serious.

  I learned this the hard way later on so there’s no doubt about it.

  Fairies of silence flittered around the classroom for thirty seconds before gym teacher Okabe hesitantly gestured to the next student and the frozen atmosphere finally returned to normal.

  And so we met.

  I deeply hope that it was mere coincidence.

  After capturing the hearts of everyone in the class in every way, Haruhi was relatively quiet for the next few days, playing the role of a seemingly harmless high school girl.

  I now understand very well just what people mean by the calm before a storm.

  Well, everyone who came to this particular high school was a student with average grades from one of the four city middle schools, which included East Middle School. This meant that some of these students had gone to middle school with Haruhi, so they realized that her decision to stay in the background was probably an omen of some kind. Unfortunately, I didn’t know anyone from East Middle, and nobody in the class ever bothered to enlighten me. This led to what happened right after morning homeroom started, a few days after her crazy introduction. This was a moment I’ll never forget. I broke the world record for stupidity and spoke to Haruhi Suzumiya.

  My domino reaction of misfortune had begun, and I was the one who had knocked the first one down.

  But come on. As long as Haruhi Suzumiya sat still with her mouth shut, anyone looking at her would be convinced that she was just a beautiful high school girl. Who’s going to blame me for losing my mind for a moment and assuming that I could use the fact that my seat was right in front of hers to approach her?

  Naturally, there was only one topic to talk about.

  “Hey,” I said, as I nonchalantly turned around with a casual smile on my face. “About the stuff in your introduction earlier. How much of it was serious?”

  With her arms crossed and her mouth forming an upside-down V, Haruhi stared into my eyes unflinchingly.

  “What stuff earlier?”

  “Well, you know. The stuff about aliens and whatever.”

  “Are you an alien?” She asked this with a dead serious look on her face.

  “No, but….”

  “No, but what?”

  “… Just forget it.”

  “Don’t talk to me then. You’re wasting my time.”

  The tone of her voice and the look she gave me were frigid enough to almost make me apologize out of reflex. Haruhi Suzumiya then stopped staring at me the way one would stare at Brussels sprouts, and with a “hmph,” turned to glare in the direction of the blackboard.

  Frozen out of a quick response, I was saved by the timely entrance of our homeroom teacher, Okabe.

  As I dejectedly turned to face the front of the room, I noticed a number of people looking curiously towards me. When our eyes met, each person would half-smile in a knowing way, as if to say, “Thought so.” And then nod as if to offer their condolences.

  That kind of left me feeling uncomfortable. It was only later that I learned they had all gone to East Middle.

  So yeah. Given that my first contact with Haruhi would probably fall into the “worst ever” category, I had begun wondering if it would be better not to get involved with her. A week went by without anything happening to prove that idea wrong.

  However, there were other people in the class who hadn’t grasped the situation or were just plain blind to their surroundings. Those classmates would approach Haruhi, who was always in a foul mood, brow wrinkled and mouth looking like an upside-down V, and attempt to start a conversation about one thing or another.

  They were just some nosy girls who saw this girl who had isolated herself from day one and wanted to bring her into their circle of friends. I’m sure they were well-intentioned, but you have to take into account who they were dealing with.

  “Did you watch that TV show last night? The one that starts at nine.”

  “No.”

  “What—? Why not—?”

  “Don’t care.”

  “You should try watching an episode. Oh, but you won’t know what’s going on if you start now. That’s right. In that case, I can fill you in on what’s happened so far.”

  “Shut up.”

  That’s how it went.

  It’d be one thing if her response had been devoid of emotion, but Haruhi’s facial expression and tone of voice were clearly broadcasting irritation, leaving the other person feeling like she’d done something wrong. In the end, all the girl could say was, “Um… Well, you know…” before slinking away with drooping shoulders. “Did I say something strange?”

  Rest assured, you didn’t. The only thing strange here is Haruhi’s mind.

  I don’t particularly have a problem with eating alone, but picking at your lunch by yourself while everyone else is chattering at their tables might make people wonder. I’m not saying that’s the reason, but when it came time for lunch, I would move my desk next to the tables of Kunikida, someone I’d been relatively close to in middle school, and Taniguchi, a guy from East Middle who happened to sit near me.

  That’s when the subject of Haruhi Suzumiya came up.

  “Hey. You talked to Suzumiya the other day, right?” Taniguchi suddenly asked. “She probably drove you away with some random nonsense.”

  You got that right.

  Taniguchi placed a boiled egg in his mouth and chewed.

  “If you’re interested in her, I won’t mince words. Just let it go. You should be well aware that Suzumiya’s a freak.”

  He mentioned by way of introduction that he’d been in the same class as her for three years in middle school, so he knew what he was talking about.

  “She’s the strangest girl you’ll ever meet. I thought she might calm down after becoming a high school student, but she hasn’t changed one bit. You heard her introduction, right?”

  “The thing about aliens or whatever?” That was Kunikida, busily picking bones from his grilled fish, cutting in.

  “Yep. She said and did a bunch of strange things back in middle school, too. The most famous one would be the graffiti incident on school grounds.”

  “What’s that?”

  “There’s this machine that uses chalk to draw white lines, right? What was it called again? Whatever. Anyway, someone used that to draw some huge, bizarre pictograph on the school grounds. And whoever it was snuck in at night to do it.”

  Taniguchi grinned. Maybe he was remembering what had happened?

  “You’d be amazed. I arrived at school in the morning to find giant circles and triangles scribbled all over the ground. I couldn’t tell what it was
supposed to be from up close, so I tried looking at it from the fourth floor. I still couldn’t tell what it was supposed to be.”

  “Oh, I remember seeing that. Wasn’t that in the local section of the newspaper? They had an aerial photo. It looked like a failed attempt at a Nazca geoglyph.” That was Kunikida. I didn’t remember any of this.

  “It was. It was. Headlined Mysterious Graffiti Found on Middle School Grounds. So it came time to figure out who the culprit behind this ridiculous stunt was.”

  “And she was the one who did it?”

  “She admitted to it, so it had to be her. ’Course, they wanted to know why she did it. They even called her to the principal’s office. Seems like all the teachers got together to question her.”

  “Why’d she do it?”

  “Dunno.”

  With that offhand response, Taniguchi began gulping down his white rice.

  “Seems like she never ’fessed up. You try dealing with Suzumiya when she refuses to say a word and gives you that killer glare. Can’t do a thing about it. According to one account, the drawing was to invite UFOs. Another said it was a summoning circle for evil demons. Yet another said it was to open a gate to another world. A bunch of rumors popped up, but since she never gave a reason, no one can really say. It’s still a mystery.”

  In my mind, I could picture Haruhi Suzumiya drawing white lines in the pitch-black darkness of the school grounds with an earnest expression on her face. The clattering line marker she’s dragging around and the heap of bags of lime were probably taken from the gym storeroom beforehand. She might have at least brought a flashlight. I couldn’t help but think that in the flickering light, Haruhi Suzumiya’s expression seemed filled with an overwhelming sense of tragic heroism. Only in my imagination, though.

  Haruhi Suzumiya was probably genuinely trying to invite UFOs or summon demons or open up a gate to another world. She might have spent the whole night toiling away on the middle school grounds. And then finally, after nothing showed up, she must have been really demoralized.