The Indignation 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.

  EDITOR IN CHIEF, FULL SPEED AHEAD!

  “No good,” said Haruhi flatly, thrusting the manuscript back.

  “It’s not good enough?” whined Asahina. “But I thought about it really hard…”

  “Yeah, no way. Not even close. It’s got no punch.” Haruhi leaned back in the chair at her brigade chief’s desk and grabbed the red pen she’d stuck behind her ear. “Just for starters, this introduction is such a cliché. ‘Once upon a time’? It’s got no freshness to it at all. It needs a twist. The intro has to be super catchy, got it? First impressions are critical.”

  “But,” said Asahina tremulously, “that’s how fairy tales are supposed to start…”

  “That thinking is obsolete!” Haruhi’s rejection was haughty and total. “You need to transform your approach. If you think you might have heard something before, then do the opposite. That’s the way to bring something new to life.”

  I got the feeling that the reason it felt like we were leaving the original point of all this activity far behind was thanks to the system Haruhi had just described. It certainly wasn’t like the threatening feint of a pitcher who’s trying to hold a fast runner at first base, but just doing the opposite wasn’t going to work either.

  “Anyway, this is no good.” Haruhi deliberately wrote “rewrite” with her red pen on the copy-paper manuscript, then tossed it into a cardboard box beside the desk. In the box (which formerly had contained oranges) was a mountain of papers she’d decided was bound for the incinerator. “Write something new.”

  “Ugh…”

  Shoulders slumping, Asahina made her way back to her own seat. She looked truly pathetic. I felt violently sympathetic to her as she picked up a pencil, then held her head in her hands.

  I cast my gaze over to a corner of the table from which emanated nothing at all, and there was that most important fixture for the clubroom: Nagato, who was not reading.

  “…”

  She stared at the display of the laptop computer in front of her, stock-still, typing something on the keyboard every few seconds, whereupon she would turn inanimate yet again.

  Nagato was using the laptop we’d won in our battle against the computer club. Similar machines were in front of both Koizumi and myself, their CPU cooling fans spinning away despite the CPUs themselves not really having anything to think about. Koizumi’s fingers typed away deftly, the sound of each keystroke grating on my nerves. How nice for him, that he’d decided what he was going to write about.

  Asahina, the only one of us to express a prejudice against using machines, was writing by hand on a sheet of copy paper, but she’d stopped, as though synchronized with me.

  Of course I’d stopped. How was I supposed to type with nothing to write?

  “That goes for everybody else too!” Haruhi alone was strangely energetic. “If you don’t hurry to hand in those manuscripts and get the editing done, you won’t make it in time for publication. Time to shift into high gear! Just think a little harder and you’ll be able to write something. It’s not like we’re writing epics or aiming for literary prizes here.”

  As usual, Haruhi’s cheerful face bloomed with that strange energy of hers. Like she was about to devour an insect.

  “Kyon, I don’t see your hands moving. Sitting there staring at the screen isn’t going to get a sentence written. Just write the thing, then print it out and let me take a look at it. If it’s good, it passes, and if it’s not, then it won’t.”

  My sympathy for Asahina turned into pity for myself. Why did I have to do this, anyway? And it wasn’t just me—shouldn’t the moaning Asahina beside me and the beatifically smiling Koizumi across from me be raising some kind of flag of mutiny?

  All that said, the brigade chief known as Haruhi Suzumiya specialized in not listening to anything anybody said. Still, why had she decided on this particular role, of all things?

  My gaze moved from Haruhi, who sat there just itching for people to toss their manuscripts into the cardboard box, to the armband wrapped around her arm.

  Normally it read “Brigade Chief,” though in the past it had also been “Detective” and “Ultra Director.” But now a new title was scribbled on the cloth in large Magic-Markered letters.

  It was: “Editor in Chief.”

  This all started a few days earlier.

  It was a day in the third term of school as the footsteps of the approaching New Year were starting to become audible. It happened during an otherwise peaceful lunch hour—a bit more warning would’ve been nice.

  “Summons.”

  It was Yuki Nagato who spoke. For some reason she was accompanied by the ever-composed Itsuki Koizumi. The two of them coming by my classroom together didn’t give me so much as a single micron of anything like a good feeling, and although I’d been the one who’d interrupted the business of stirring up my lunch to come into the hallway, I wanted nothing more than to get back to my own desk.

  “What do you mean, ‘summons’?”

  I could only think of my current situation. Taniguchi had been on his way back from buying some pastries and a melon drink when he’d called out, “Hey, Kyon, your cohorts are here,” which was why I’d gotten up and was now standing where I was. The particular pairing that confronted me was wholly unlikely, but as far as a suitable partner for Nagato to pair up with went, I couldn’t think of a single person I’d approve of.

  After looking for about three seconds at the alien girl who stood there after delivering her mysterious “summons,” I gave up and regarded Koizumi’s handsome face.

  “So are you going to explain?”

  “Of course, that is why I have come,” said Koizumi, craning his neck to look inside Class 5’s classroom. “Do you think Suzumiya will be out for a while?”

  She’d taken off right after fourth period ended. I figured she was munching away on her lunch in the cafeteria right about now, I said.

  “Excellent. This is something I’d rather she not hear.”

  I got the feeling it was going to be something I’d rather not hear too.

  “Actually—” Koizumi lowered his voice.

  It seemed like he was enjoying this, I told him.

  “Well, whether or not one finds this enjoyable depends on the person.”

  “Just tell me what it is already.”

  “We’ve received a message from the student council president. We’re to appear in the student council room today after school. In short, it is a summons.”

  Ah hah.

  I suddenly understood.

  “So it’s finally come, eh?”

  An order to appear in front of the student council president—I
wasn’t so naive that I couldn’t imagine why such a thing would happen. I was too good of a person to ignore the many misdeeds perpetrated by the SOS Brigade both in and out of the school this past year. Had it been the time we’d scammed computers from the computer club? No, wait, we’d settled that in trial by video-game combat the previous autumn. I’d heard that the president of the computer club had withdrawn his complaint with the student council after the loss.

  Was it because we’d gone too far when we filmed our movie? That had been a while ago by now, and student council elections had been after the school festival. Had the current council suddenly remembered the business left to them by the previous administration? Or had the physical descriptions of the brigade members that had surely circulated among the neighborhood shrines and temples finally made it to North High? We’d visited a few too many places during our first shrine visit of the New Year, after all.

  “Guess there’s nothing we can do about it,” I said, shrugging and looking back at my unoccupied desk next to the window. “I bet Haruhi’ll be thrilled to go mano a mano with the president. Depending on their attitudes, this could turn violent. I’m counting on you for mediation, Koizumi.”

  “You misunderstand.” Koizumi pleasantly refuted me. “It is not Suzumiya who is being summoned.”

  So, what, it was me? C’mon, that didn’t make any sense. It would be the height of injustice if I had to bear the full brunt of the backlash just because Haruhi was as defiant and stubborn as a mule. I knew the student council members were basically the school administration’s puppets, but if they were that cowardly, I’d be pretty disappointed.

  “No, it is not you,” said Koizumi, even more pleasantly, like he was happy about something. “It is Nagato alone who has been summoned.”

  What? That made even less sense. She was great as a target for lecturing, since she’d certainly sit there and silently listen to whatever you said, but I didn’t think it’d be very satisfying for the lecturer, since she’d just as certainly stick to her “no comment” policy.

  “Nagato?! The student council president wants to see Nagato?”

  “Your subject and object are both correct. Yes, the president has indicated Nagato.”

  As for Nagato herself, she simply stood there, as though she had no thoughts of herself at all. She accepted the wave of surprise that emanated from my eyes, her hair fluttering minutely.

  “What do you mean? What business does the student council have with Nagato? Don’t tell me they want to make her secretary.”

  I wanted him to just spit it out already. Was his infuriatingly roundabout manner carved into his DNA?

  “My apologies. I’ll explain it as understandably as I can. The reason Nagato has been summoned is simple: they want to discuss the literature club’s activities, particularly in regards to its ongoing existence.”

  “The literature club? What does—”

  What does that have to do with anything? I was about to say—but choked back the words.

  “…”

  Nagato, still unmoving, looked down the hall.

  Her pale, once-bespectacled face looked just as it had back then. I would never forget how she looked when Haruhi had burst into her clubroom, dragging me along, and Nagato had looked slowly, expressionlessly up at us.

  “I see. The literature club, eh? So that’s how it is.”

  The SOS Brigade’s long occupation of the literature club’s room for its headquarters was the very embodiment of the present progressive tense. Nagato was the only proper member of the literature club, whereas we were freeloaders at best, and possibly illegal occupants. Haruhi surely felt we’d long since asserted exclusive rights over the space, but the student council was undoubtedly insisting upon a different standard.

  Koizumi must have read my facial expression. “They want to talk to the club president about exactly that, face-to-face, after school. The notice came to me first. I passed it on to Nagato.”

  Why’d it go to him? I wanted to know.

  “Perhaps because they knew it would be ignored if they gave it directly to her.”

  Maybe that was so, but Koizumi and I were just about equivalent in our total lack of association with the literature club, I pointed out.

  “That is true, but things aren’t necessarily so simple. That may make things even worse. Since we’re occupying the literature club’s space without doing anything even remotely related to literature, you wouldn’t have to be the student council to find that questionable. Honestly, given how infamous we are, I’m surprised they’ve overlooked it for as long as they have.”

  Koizumi’s sensible position was accompanied by a smile that made me wonder which side he was on, anyway.

  Put that way, I myself might’ve wanted to quibble with our arrangement, had I been on the council. But still—why now? The student council had thus far ignored the SOS Brigade like a lazy landlord neglecting to fix a leaky roof, I pointed out.

  “They have indeed. However, the current council president may not be so easy to deal with.”

  Koizumi smiled, showing his white teeth, then looked at Nagato out of the corner of his eye.

  Nagato, naturally, had no reaction, but she shifted her gaze from the end of the hallway down to my feet. It sort of seemed like she was apologizing for causing the trouble.

  I, of course, did not feel like she was causing the trouble at all. Obviously. I knew only a single entity who inconvenienced the very air she moved through. The inconvenience’s name was—

  I exhaled and spoke the name.

  “It’s Haruhi’s fault—like always.”

  It had been, ever since she’d announced that the space would henceforth be her clubroom.

  “I’d ask you to keep this a secret from Suzumiya,” said Koizumi. “I fear she would only complicate things. So after school, please make your way to the student council room without her seeing you.”

  Yeah, sure, I started to say, then stopped short at a strange detail.

  “Wait just a minute. Why am I going? I’m not the kind of Johnny-come-lately who just wanders into a situation uninvited.”

  Of course, if Nagato asked me to go, I’d accompany her without a second thought, but Koizumi had no business asking me. Plus, if Nagato went alone, she’d be that much more likely to just scare the crap out of them, I figured.

  “The council is well-informed. That’s why I was appointed as messenger. I would be quite happy to act entirely as Nagato’s representative, but should things go poorly, there could be problems later, and being her agent is not part of my job description. I suppose I can put it simply by saying: you are Suzumiya’s representative.”

  “Why not just send Haruhi herself?”

  “Are you being serious?” Koizumi exaggeratedly widened his eyes.

  I answered his clumsy acting with a snort. If he wanted to know whether I understood the situation or not—yeah, I understood it. If we tossed a bomb like Haruhi in front of the student council, we’d be lucky if all we got was an explosion. Given the concern she’d shown for Nagato during the winter trip, if she found out Nagato had been called before the council, we’d only get as far as “Nagato’s gotten a message from the student council…” before Haruhi would leap straight to breaking down the council room’s door—or she might cut right to the chase and assault the staff room or the principal’s office. Which might make her feel better, but I’d be the one to suffer afterward. Unlike Koizumi, I had no desire to transfer schools without any good reason.

  “Well, then, I’ll leave the matter in your hands.” Koizumi smiled as though he’d known from the start what my answer would be. “I’ll inform the student council president. We’ll meet in the council room after school.”

  Koizumi’s stride was light and long-legged as he walked away from classroom 5. When Haruhi wasn’t around, he really did have quite an attitude. I watched Nagato follow behind him, feeling somehow that the end of our first year really was upon us.

  At any rate, maybe
Koizumi and Nagato were perfectly comfortable being the faces of the SOS Brigade. We were all cooperating, but the number of secrets we were keeping from Haruhi was increasing by the month…

  Maybe I was being pointlessly sentimental.

  Thanks to my sentimentality, I didn’t get to ask Koizumi why he was going about normally as the student council’s carrier pigeon.

  Incidentally, the ever-perceptive Haruhi immediately picked up on my suspicious behavior—though she didn’t realize it—during the break following fifth period.

  A sharp object poked me in the back, and I turned around.

  “What’s got you so restless?” Haruhi demanded, twirling a mechanical pencil in her fingertips. “It’s like someone’s called you out or something.”

  I’d prepared a 100 percent unfalsifiable contingency plan for just such an occasion.

  “Yeah, Okabe wanted me to see him. He went out of his way to call me over during the lunch break,” I answered casually. “I guess there’s some kind of problem with my grades. Depending on the final exam results, they might even be notifying my parents. He said that I have to change my ways now if I want to go on to college.”

  Of course, it didn’t make sense to change my ways, given that nothing needed changing—not that I would’ve been able to anyway—but what I was saying wasn’t complete nonsense. For one thing, Taniguchi’d gotten a similar earful, though not in so many words, and the conclusion I’d drawn after comparing notes with him was that our homeroom teacher was proportionally compassionate enough to be worried about his students’ educational futures.

  Of course, since I was pretty close to Taniguchi’s level myself, we each had a sense that if one of us was slacking off, the other could afford to do so as well, which tended to dilute the feeling of tension. It was enough to make me think that Kunikida—who was careful to get decent grades—was the weird one.

  “Huh?” Haruhi held her chin in her hands, elbows resting on her desk. “Were your grades that bad? I thought you were more serious about listening in class than I was,” she said, gazing out the window. The speed of the passing clouds told of the wind’s strength.