The Wavering of Haruhi Suzumiya Read online

  I took another look at the program. There wasn’t much of interest. I wasn’t interested in the results of the school survey, nor did I have any intention of spending time on ridiculous displays about things like research into the distribution of local dandelion varieties. I’d well and truly had my fill of the kinds of movies each grade seemed to have made one or two of, and I did not care about amateurish art displays or cardboard labyrinths. Was there any point in a handball tournament against other schools’ teams? Only our homeroom teacher, Okabe, seemed to be excited about that.

  “The best thing for killing time would be…”

  My eyes lit upon it. The sole event with any kind of ambition to it—they’d probably been preparing for it more than any other group. Now that I thought about it, I’d recently heard the trumpets blaring away late into the night.

  “The orchestra concert it is, then.”

  I checked the pamphlet again. Unfortunately they wouldn’t be performing until the next day. Lots of groups seemed to have signed up to use the auditorium. The drama club and the chorus club were the next day too. Today, the space was booked up by—

  “The pop music club and other registered bands, eh?”

  It was pretty standard for a school festival, and although it would probably be mostly cover bands, taking in some live music isn’t a bad thing once in a while. They had probably put in a hundred times the effort and enthusiasm that I’d put into making that movie. I’ll go listen to the results of their labor and just kind of space out, I thought. At the very least, I’d be able to put the terrible film I’d made out of my mind.

  “A man needs time to himself sometimes.”

  So I told myself, having no idea that my notions were about to be blown to smithereens.

  I was naive—I thought there were limits in this world. Even though I knew there was a being who could ignore such limits as she pleased, I’d somehow forgotten that. Despite the maelstrom of chaos I’d experienced just a few days previous, I suppose this was what the limits of the common-sense man were. The extraordinary events I was plunged into showed me my own shallowness. I’d like to leave this as a lesson to future generations. Let’s not worry about whether or not such lessons would be taken seriously.

  The auditorium doors were wide open, and from within boomed a terrific racket, as though the god of thunder had decided to hold a concert. It was a bit cheap as venues for the soul of rock go, but so long as the spirit is there, worrying about issues of technique is like quibbling over condiments on your natto. It’s not better without condiments, but the natto is a strong fermented soybean—it’s the main event, so to demand it with stuff on it without even tasting it first seems a bit rude.

  Perhaps a sixth of the auditorium was full, and most of the people seemed to be the organizers. Onstage, an amateur band did their best with a straight-up cover of a pop song that sounded vaguely familiar. You know it’s bad when you can tell they’re “doing their best,” but the broadcast club’s mixing seemed like it might have been part of the problem.

  The lights were concentrated on the stage, leaving the rest of the space rather dim. I searched for and found an empty row of chairs and took a seat at the row’s edge.

  According to the program, the participating groups were the pop music club’s band and two other groups. At the moment it was the pop music club performing. Only the people in the very front row of chairs were standing, and while a few of them moved their bodies to the music, I decided they had to be either fellow club members or plants. And anyway, the volume was pumped up way too high for the kind of laid-back listening I had in mind.

  I clasped my hands behind my head and watched as, during an interlude of their last number, the vocalist rhythmically introduced the other members of the band, and I learned that they were five second-year pals from the pop music club—information I would surely forget within a few days.

  My knowledge of music wasn’t deep enough to say anything on the subject, and without any particular interest in the performers, it was the perfect situation for lulling me into complacency.

  As a result, I actually started to relax.

  And then, as the five members of the current band exited to scattered applause and the next band took the stage—

  I couldn’t help but rub my eyes in disbelief.

  “Guh—”

  I could feel the atmosphere of the auditorium change in an instant. The sound of the audience drawing nervously away from the stage became a sound effect that echoed within my head.

  “What the hell is that idiot doing?!”

  The figure that now walked on from stage left carrying a music stand wore a certain familiar bunny girl costume and a certain familiar expression as she stood there, awash in the stage lighting.

  Bunny ears bouncing and figure scantily clad—I could tell you who she was even if you plucked my eyes out and gave them to somebody else.

  It was Haruhi Suzumiya.

  And she was now standing in the middle of the stage with a serious expression on her face.

  And if that had been all, it would’ve been okay—but no.

  “Hnng!”

  Upon seeing the figure that appeared behind her, the air in my lungs escaped with a groan.

  It was a sometimes evil alien sorceress, sometimes black-clad, crystal ball–wielding fortune-teller.

  “…”

  I could no longer make a sound.

  Yuki Nagato was standing there in that black hat and cape I’d long since gotten sick of seeing, only for some reason she now had a guitar slung over her shoulder. Just what the hell is going on here?

  I might have been relieved if Asahina and Koizumi had shown up after that, but the third and fourth people to take the stage were female students I’d never seen before. From their unfamiliar faces and somehow adult aura, I guessed they were third-year students. One had a bass guitar and the other sat down at the drum set. There didn’t seem to be any further band members.

  Why? I wanted to avert my eyes at the sight of Haruhi and Nagato in their festival costumes. But why—why were they part of a band that was supposed to be made up of members of the pop music club, and why was Haruhi holding the mic like she was the band leader?

  As the questions fought each other in my head, all four members of the mysterious group seemed to have taken their places. The audience murmured, and as I looked on, dumbfounded, the bassist and drummer nervously tinkered with their instruments; Nagato did not so much as move to play her guitar. Her face was as expressionless as it usually was.

  Haruhi placed what looked like sheet music on the music stand in front of her, then looked slowly over the auditorium. Given the darkness in which the audience sat, I doubted she saw me. Haruhi tapped the mic to make sure it was on, then turned around and said something to the drummer.

  There was no introduction and no stage patter. The drummer counted off the beat on her drumsticks, and the band was suddenly playing. The intro alone was enough to blow me away. Nagato’s guitar technique was up there with Mark Knopfler’s or Brian May’s. And I’d never heard the song before. No sooner did I think What is this? than Haruhi began singing, as if to deal me a final blow.

  Her voice was clear and bright—so clear and so bright it could’ve reached to the moon.

  But her eyes never wavered from the sheet music.

  I didn’t recover from my stunned state for the entire duration of the first song. I wondered if this was how a monster in an RPG feels when “Silence” has been cast on it.

  Onstage, Haruhi was mostly still as she stood there belting out the lyrics, but I guess it’s hard to read sheet music and dance at the same time.

  The first song wrapped up. Normally that’s when the audience would erupt into cheers and applause, but everybody else was just as stunned as I was.

  I had no idea how this had happened. It was strange enough to see Haruhi up there, but I was even more amazed by Nagato’s melodious guitar technique, and no doubt the other members of the pop m
usic club were filled with the same questions I was. And the people in the audience who didn’t know who Haruhi was had to be wondering: Why a bunny girl?

  We were frozen like sailors aboard a tattered sailing vessel who’d just heard a siren’s song. When I looked more closely, I saw that the bassist and drummer were looking at Nagato and Haruhi with similar expressions. Apparently it wasn’t just the audience who’d been stunned.

  Haruhi just stood there staring straight ahead, but eventually her brow furrowed and she looked behind her. The drummer, chastened, hastily counted off the next song.

  Setting aside the various personages, the mysterious band was now on their third song.

  Now that I’d finally gotten over the shock, I could appreciate the lyrics and music I was hearing. It was an up-tempo R&B number. The song was unfamiliar yet pleasant in my ears, and I had to admit it was pretty good. That might have been thanks to the absurdly good guitarist, but Haruhi was, well—how do I put this? Maybe I was too used to hearing her yelling all the time, but I had to admit she had an excellent singing voice.

  The rest of the audience, too, seemed to have shaken off its petrifaction and were now genuinely drawn toward the stage.

  When I thought to look around, I realized many more seats had filled up. My eye soon fell on one audience member in particular, who walked toward me wearing what looked like the civilian clothes of a knight of Denmark.

  “Hi there,” he said, coming in close to speak into my ear, perhaps concerned his voice would be lost in the loud music. “What exactly is going on here?”

  It was Koizumi.

  How the hell should I know? I shouted back to him in my head, glancing at his costume. You’re in a festival getup too, eh?

  “Changing clothes seemed like it would be a bit of a bother, so I came in my stage outfit.”

  And what’re you doing here?

  Koizumi looked over to Haruhi onstage pleasantly, then flicked his bangs.

  “Oh, I just heard some rumors.”

  So it’s a rumor already, eh?

  “Oh, yes. She’s wearing that outfit, after all, so it would be stranger if there weren’t rumors. People do talk.”

  Evidently, news that North High’s prize weirdo, Haruhi Suzumiya, was up to something again was already spreading like wildfire. I didn’t care if she added another incident to her reputation, but for once, I didn’t want myself or the SOS Brigade getting added to the report.

  “But still, she’s quite good, Suzumiya is. Nagato too, of course.”

  Koizumi smiled and closed his eyes as if enjoying the music. I turned my gaze back to the stage and tried to read something, anything, from Haruhi’s form.

  My opinion of the singing and performance was much the same as Koizumi’s, save for the strange fact that the lead singer was reading her performance from sheet music on the music stand.

  But all that aside, something nagged at me, something I couldn’t put my finger on. What could this ticklish sensation be? I wondered.

  The next song was a slow-moving ballad, as if to throw the previous up-tempo song into contrast. I found myself moved by the music and lyrics. It had been some time since a piece of music had pierced my heart like that. As proof that I wasn’t the only one who felt that way, the audience was quiet, without so much as a single throat-clearing, and when the song ended, the auditorium fell totally silent.

  The room was on its way to being a full house when Haruhi finally spoke into the mic.

  “Uh, hello, everybody…”

  Haruhi’s expression was rigid.

  “Here’s where we should introduce the band, but the truth is…” She pointed to Nagato. “Nagato and I aren’t members. We’re just stand-ins. Due to various circumstances, the real vocalist and guitarist couldn’t be onstage. Oh, and they’re the same person—the real band is just a trio.”

  The audience listened carefully.

  Haruhi moved away from the center of the stage and walked over to the bassist, thrusting the mic at the girl. The girl shied away, whispering something to Haruhi, then finally squeaked out her own name.

  Haruhi next walked over to the drum set and got the drummer to introduce herself, then returned to center stage.

  “These two and the leader who’s not here are the real members. So… sorry. I really don’t have any confidence that I’m much of a stand-in. We only had an hour to rehearse before performing, so this is a little off the cuff.”

  The bunny ears on Haruhi’s head flicked as she moved.

  “How about this—if you want to hear the songs with the real vocals and guitar, bring a tape or minidisc over later and we’ll dub you a copy for free. Is that okay?”

  The bassist nodded awkwardly in response to Haruhi’s question.

  “Okay, it’s decided.”

  Haruhi smiled for the first time since taking the stage. She must have been nervous—or nervous by her standards, anyway—but it seemed the curse was finally broken, and while her smile wasn’t as bright as the one she always showed us in the clubroom, it was still a good fifty watts.

  After smiling briefly to the still-expressionless Nagato, Haruhi shouted as though to blow out the speaker cones.

  “This is the last song!”

  I heard the rest of the story from Haruhi later.

  “I was handing out movie flyers at the front gate when I ran out, and I was going to head back to the clubroom for more,” she said.

  “But then there was some kind of argument going on by the shoe lockers between the members of that band and the festival organizers from the student council. I wondered what was up, so I got closer.”

  As a bunny?

  “Who cares what I was wearing? Anyway, from what I gathered, the band wasn’t going to be allowed to go onstage.”

  The shoe lockers are hardly the place for a discussion like that.

  “It was because the band leader, who played guitar and sang, had suddenly come down with a fever on the day of the festival. Tonsillitis, I guess. Her voice was mostly gone, and she looked like she could barely stand.”

  Rotten luck.

  “I know. Worse, she’d sprained her wrist after getting dizzy and tripping at home. There was no way she could get on that stage.”

  So why bother coming to school?

  “Yeah, she was determined to do it even if it killed her. But the student council people just wanted to get her to the hospital right away, and she wound up getting carried off like an alien bound for Area Fifty-One. Push came to shove, and they wound up by the shoe lockers.”

  How did she propose to perform in that condition?

  “By sheer willpower.”

  Sounds like something you’d do.

  “I mean, they’d practiced so hard for this day. It’s one thing if she were the only one who was going to suffer if it went to waste—but wasting the efforts of your friends too? That’s awful.”

  You make it sound like it was your own efforts.

  “And the songs too—they weren’t generic cover songs, but originals the group had written and composed themselves. You’ve just got to perform them, right? If the sheet music could talk, it’d say, ‘Play me!’ ”

  So that’s when you decided to roll up your sleeves and do something about it.

  “Didn’t have any sleeves, but yeah. The student council festival committee is nothing but a bunch of incompetents who do whatever the teachers tell them, so you can’t just let them push you around. But… even I knew there was no way the band leader was going onstage in her condition. So that’s when I said, ‘How about I go onstage instead?’ ”

  I can’t believe the bassist and drummer went along with it.

  “The singing part was easy. The sick band leader thought about it for a second and then said, ‘Yeah, you might be able to do it.’ She had a tired-looking smile.”

  There isn’t a North High student who doesn’t know who Haruhi is, and what kind of girl.

  “But then a teacher had to hurry off to the hospital with the
band leader, and I started frantically trying to learn the chords from a demo tape and the sheet music. I only had an hour, after all.”

  So what about Nagato?

  “Yeah, I wish I could’ve played the guitar too, but there just wasn’t enough time. It was all I could do to learn the melody, so I wound up asking Yuki to handle the guitar. Did you know she was such an all-around player?”

  As a matter of fact, I do know that—better than you do.

  “I crashed her fortune-telling stall, and when I told her the circumstances, she came right away. She just took one look at the sheet music, then played it perfectly! Where do you think she learned guitar?”

  Probably right on the spot, as soon as you asked her to.

  A couple of days later, on the following Monday—

  The school festival, complete with its unscheduled events, had ended. It was the break before fourth period.

  Haruhi sat behind me, happily scribbling something down in her notebook. I didn’t particularly want to know what it was, but I knew Haruhi was pleased by the audience the SOS Brigade’s foray into independent filmmaking had managed to reach, and she seemed to be plunging into the planning of the sequel as I agonized over how to banish such notions from her head.

  “You’ve got visitors.”

  It was Kunikida who’d said so, having returned from the bathroom.

  “For Suzumiya,” he added.

  Haruhi looked up and saw Kunikida point to the doorway, thus fulfilling his duties as a messenger boy. He returned to his seat.

  Three female students stood outside the open door, poised and mature. One of them had her arm in a sling.