The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya Page 6

  “Coming?”

  Nagato was staring at my fingernails.

  “Where to?” I asked.

  My fingernails heard her reply.

  “My house.”

  After a half rest of silence, I spoke.

  “… You’re okay with it?”

  What was going on here? I couldn’t tell if she was shy, timid, or pushy. This Nagato seemed to be in an unstable mental state. Or was the mentality of an average girl in her first year of high school supposed to be as irregular as the light curve of Alpha Ceti?

  “Yes.”

  Nagato began walking as if to escape my gaze. She turned off the lights in the clubroom, opened the door, and disappeared into the hallway.

  Naturally, I followed her. Nagato’s room. Room 708 in the fancy condominium. I should take a peek in her guest room. There might be a new hint inside.

  If I found another version of me sleeping there, I’d immediately wake him up.

  Nagato and I didn’t say a word on the way back from school.

  Nagato looked straight ahead in silence as she descended the hill as though a strong, chilly wind were blowing at her back. I was moving my legs in a businesslike fashion as I stared at the back of her head and the hair that had been ruffled by the gusts of wind. There wasn’t anything for me to say to her, and I had a feeling that I shouldn’t ask why she had invited me.

  After a prolonged period of walking, Nagato finally came to a stop before the usual fancy apartment. How many times have I been here? I’ve been inside Nagato’s room twice, I’ve been outside Asakura’s room once, and I’ve been to the roof of the building once. At the entrance Nagato inputted the password to unlock the door and walked into the lobby without looking back.

  She remained silent as we rode the elevator up. After inserting her key into the door of room 8 on the seventh floor, she opened the door and motioned for me to go inside before she entered.

  I stepped in without saying a word. The layout of the room was exactly as I remembered it. A desolate place. The living room had a kotatsu and nothing else. There still weren’t any curtains.

  And there’s the guest room. It should be the room beyond that sliding door.

  “Mind if I look inside this room?” I asked Nagato as she walked out of the kitchen with a teapot and teacups. Nagato slowly blinked.

  “Go ahead.”

  “Excuse me for a sec.”

  The door slid open as smoothly as if it had wheels.

  “…”

  There was only tatami flooring to be found.

  Well, that makes sense. I can’t keep going back to the past…

  I slid the door back in place and held out my open hands for Nagato, watching attentively. My actions must have seemed pointless. However, Nagato didn’t say anything as she set the teacups on the table of the kotatsu, knelt down in a formal posture, and began to pour tea.

  I sat down cross-legged across from her. It had been like this the first time I came here. I had downed cup after cup of Nagato’s tea for no real reason before listening to her cosmic monologue. That had been back during a particularly hot transition from spring to summer, a world from the current frigid weather. Even my soul felt colder.

  We sat face-to-face in silence as we drank the tea. Nagato’s eyes were focused downward behind her glasses.

  It appeared that Nagato was hesitating, as she opened her mouth and then shut it. She would appear to reach a decision and look up at me before looking back down, a motion that she repeated many times, but finally she set her teacup down and spoke in a strangled voice.

  “I have met you before.”

  And then, almost as an afterthought…

  “Outside of school.”

  Where?

  “Do you remember?”

  Remember what?

  “What happened at the library.”

  As soon as she said those words, I could hear the gears in my brain begin to turn. The memory of the time I had spent with Nagato at the library surfaced. The first stage of that memorable magical mystery tour.

  “Back in May.”

  Nagato was still looking down.

  “You helped me get a library card.”

  I froze as I was hit by a mental shock.

  … That’s right. Otherwise you would have never budged from the bookshelves. Haruhi was chain-calling me to get our butts down there and I didn’t really have a choice if I wanted to hurry back to the meeting point…

  “Hey.”

  However, as Nagato continued with her explanation, her description of that incident differed from the one in my memory. According to the soft, faltering voice of this Nagato—

  Nagato had set foot in the public library for the first time ever around mid-May but she hadn’t known how to get a library card. The matter would have been settled by asking a librarian, but the few librarians around were all busy. On top of that, she was a reserved, poor speaker who lacked the courage. Then a male high school student who happened to see her loitering around the counter was unable to stand the sorry sight and offered to handle the entire procedure in her stead.

  And that was…

  “You.”

  Nagato turned to meet my eyes for half a second before returning her gaze to the top of the kotatsu.

  “…”

  That particular ellipsis came from both of us. Silence returned to the living room with no furniture as I ran out of things to say. I couldn’t respond to the question of whether I remembered the incident or not, because her memory was oddly different from mine. I had certainly helped her get a library card, but I hadn’t simply happened to pass by, since I was the one who had taken Nagato to the library in the first place. I had chosen the library as a place to kill time after giving up on the hopeless magical mystery patrol. It wasn’t possible for me to have forgotten the sight of Nagato in her uniform following after me in silence, even when my memory was at the level of an infantile sea anemone’s.

  “…”

  Nagato must have been unsure about how to react to my silence, as she bit her lip despondently, and her slender fingers traced the rim of her teacup. Those fingers appeared to be trembling ever so slightly. Her unease left me feeling disinclined to say anything. In fact, I didn’t.

  It would have been simple to say that I remembered. I wouldn’t necessarily be lying. There just happened to be a few discrepancies. And in this situation, those discrepancies were the big problem at hand.

  Why were our memories different?

  The alien I knew had run off somewhere else. Leaving only a bookmark behind.

  Ding-dong—

  The perpetual silence was broken by the bell from the intercom. The sudden sound was enough of a surprise to make me jump while seated. Nagato was probably surprised as well. She turned toward the door with a quiver.

  The bell rang again. A new visitor, huh? Still, who in the world would visit Nagato’s room? I could see only bill collectors and deliverymen ever showing up.

  “…”

  Nagato stood up like a spirit who had just broken away from her body and moved to the side of her room without a sound. After pressing a button on the intercom panel, she leaned in to listen to whoever was talking on the other side. And then she turned to me with a look of distress on her face.

  She was talking softly into the speaker with phrases like “But…” and “Now’s not…” in what was likely an attempt at refusal.

  “Hold on,” she said in a defeated voice as she glided to the entrance and unlocked the door.

  “Oh?”

  A girl appeared to force the door open with her shoulder as she entered. “Why are you here? That’s odd. Nagato would never invite a boy to her place.”

  The figure in a North High uniform held a pot in both hands as she deftly pressed her toes against the bottom edge of the door to remove her shoes.

  “Don’t tell me that you forced your way inside.”

  And why is she here? I never expected to see your face outside the classr
oom.

  “I’m like a volunteer of sorts. Your presence here would be the bigger surprise.”

  The beautiful face that burst into a smile belonged to the class representative who sat behind me.

  Ryoko Asakura had come calling.

  “I made too much. It was hot and heavy to carry.”

  A smiling Asakura set the large pot on top of the kotatsu. This is the smell you’ll find in any convenience store this time of year. The pot contained oden, which had pieces of radish, fish cakes, and boiled eggs stewed in the steamy kelp broth. Had Asakura made it?

  “That’s right. Anything that I can easily make in large quantities, I bring to Nagato from time to time. If you leave Nagato alone, she’ll barely eat anything.”

  Nagato was in the kitchen grabbing plates and chopsticks. I could hear the clatter of tableware.

  “So? Are you going to tell me why you’re here? I’m quite curious.”

  I was hard-pressed to come up with an answer. I was here because of Nagato’s invitation, but I didn’t know the reason for the invitation. To talk about what had happened at the library? We could have done that in the clubroom. I had only taken her up on the invite because I was hoping for a clue or something about those keys, but I certainly couldn’t say that out loud. Asakura’ll go back to questioning if I’m okay in the head.

  I made something up on the spot.

  “Oh, right. I was walking home with Nagato… Yeah, I happen to be considering joining the literary club at the moment. I was walking with her while discussing that very topic. We were approaching this apartment building and our conversation wasn’t finished, so I decided to come upstairs. No force involved.”

  “You join the literary club? Sorry, but you really aren’t the type. Do you read books? Or do you write them?”

  “I’m wondering if I should read or write. That’s all.”

  Once the lid was removed from the pot on top of the kotatsu, a mouthwatering aroma spread through the room. The boiled eggs floating up and down in the broth were an appetizing color.

  Asakura, who had knelt down to my diagonal left, was sending peculiar looks at me. If her glances had had any mass, my temple would have been filled with tiny holes. That was how penetrating her stare felt, though I may have been a little self-conscious. The previous Asakura had turned into a homicidal maniac at one point, but I could see hints of confidence and poise behind this Asakura’s biting facade. This oden probably tasted better than anything you could find anywhere else. That only served to put more pressure on me. At the moment I didn’t feel very confident about anything. I was running all over the place, pretty much.

  Unable to take any more of this, I grabbed my bag and stood up.

  “Oh, you aren’t going to eat?”

  I responded to Asakura’s teasing question with a stony silence as I tiptoed out of the living room.

  “Ah.”

  I almost collided with Nagato as she exited the kitchen. Nagato was carrying a stack of plates, chopsticks, and a tube of mustard paste.

  “I’m leaving. Since I’m probably being a nuisance.”

  I bid my farewell and turned to leave when I felt a feather-like tug on my arm.

  “…”

  Nagato was holding my sleeve between her fingers. A pull with as little force as you’d use to pick up a newly born hamster.

  She looked as though she would break down at any moment. Nagato had her head down as her fingertips brushed against my sleeve. Did she not want me to leave? Did she feel that being alone with Asakura would be too suffocating? Though it didn’t really matter once I saw Nagato looking so fragile.

  “—Or that was the plan, but I’ll stay and eat. I’m about to starve to death. I won’t make it home if I don’t get something in my stomach right away.”

  Her fingers finally let go. I felt a twinge of regret. Under normal circumstances you’d never see Nagato express herself in such a straightforward fashion. A very rare occurrence.

  I returned to the living room to find Asakura narrowing her eyes and giving me a knowing look.

  My taste buds wanted to scream in joy, but deep down I had no idea what I was eating as I focused on stuffing oden down my throat. Nagato was going at a slow pace: it took her three minutes to nibble through a piece of kelp. Asakura was the only one trying to lighten the mood with conversation, as I was limited to vague responses.

  After an hour of this bivouac-at-the-gates-of-hell meal, my shoulders were completely stiff.

  Asakura finally stood up.

  “Nagato, you should put the leftovers in another container to refrigerate. I’ll come for the pot tomorrow, so have it ready.”

  I followed suit. I felt as if the chains had finally been removed from my body. Nagato barely nodded as she walked us to the door with her face down.

  I made sure that Asakura was already gone.

  “Later then,” I murmured to Nagato in the doorway. “Mind if I go to your clubroom again tomorrow? I don’t really have anywhere else to go after school these days.”

  Nagato stared at me before flashing…

  … a smile, faint but plain to see.

  Dazzling.

  As we rode the elevator down, Asakura turned to me with a chuckle.

  “You like Nagato, don’t you?”

  I sure didn’t hate her. If I had to choose between the two, then sure, I liked her. I mean, there was no reason for me to hate her. She’s saved my life before. Right. How could I possibly hate Yuki Nagato after she saved me from your dagger of death, Asakura?

  … But I couldn’t say that out loud. This Asakura was a different Asakura. The same could be said for Nagato. I was the only one on a different page, since they had all turned into ordinary humans. There was no SOS Brigade.

  I’m not sure how my beautiful classmate interpreted my silence as she snorted.

  “I guess not. I must have been mistaken. You prefer weird girls. Nagato wouldn’t qualify.”

  “How would you know my preferences?”

  “I happened to overhear Kunikida mention it. That’s how you were in middle school.”

  Bastard’s making up crap again. Kunikida has no idea what he’s talking about. Just ignore him.

  “Still, if you intend to go out with Nagato, you’d better be serious about it. Or else I won’t allow it. Nagato is more sensitive than she looks.”

  Why was Asakura so concerned about Nagato? I might have understood if we had been in the old world, where Asakura was Nagato’s backup. Well, in the end she went postal and had to be eliminated.

  “We live in the same building, after all. I can’t bring myself to leave her alone. I always start to worry when I look at her. It makes me feel awfully protective of her, you see?”

  Kinda, but not really.

  That ended our conversation as Asakura stepped off the elevator at the fifth floor. Room 505, was it?

  “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  Asakura flashed a smile at me as the elevator doors shut.

  I exited the apartment building. The night air was as cold as an industrial freezer. The biting winds were robbing my body of its warmth and more.

  I considered saying hello to the old landlord for a moment before abandoning that idea. The glass window to his office was shuttered, and the lights were off. He had probably gone to bed.

  I would love to do the same. Or at least start dreaming. She was probably capable of entering other people’s dreams without even trying.

  “You’re always making trouble for me whether you’re around or not, so you could at least show up when it matters. How about listening to one of my wishes for a change…”

  As I talked into the night sky, I was given a sudden jolt as I realized the hateful thought going through my mind. I had an urge to smack my head against a hard surface.

  “You gotta be kidding me.”

  My words formed a white puff that dissipated into the air.

  I missed Haruhi.

  CHAPTER 3

  December
twentieth.

  On the third morning after the world had gone insane, I woke from my dreamless sleep to get out of bed, once again feeling like I had a dozen 30 mm–caliber bullets in my gut. Shamisen fell from his perch on my covers, where he had been sleeping, to land on the floor, where he stretched himself out. I toed his soft belly as I sighed.

  My sister peeked in through the doorway. A look of disappointment appeared on her face once she saw that I was awake.

  “Hey, did Shami say anything?”

  She’d been pestering me with the same question since the night before last. The answer hadn’t changed.

  “Nope.”

  I was rubbing my toes in the cat’s soft fur, when my sister grabbed Shamisen and walked off while singing her “Time to Eat” song. Cats have it easy; their job is to eat, sleep, and groom themselves. I’d love to trade places with one for a day. Who knows? He might have an easy time helping me find what I’m looking for.

  That’s right. I still haven’t found the keys. I don’t even know what the keys are. Program execute condition. I have to figure something out today, or the world will be stuck this way. Though I’m worried that something worse might happen. Deadline, huh… Why was a deadline set? Was this limited time frame the extent of Nagato’s abilities?

  With plenty of questions and no answers, I headed for school. The overcast sky had people glancing up to check for flakes of snow. We might have a white Christmas this year. The weather would suggest that we’ll have accumulation if it snows. I hadn’t been paying attention to how much snow we’d gotten the past few years, but this year’s winter was more than cold enough for snow. Haruhi would be happier than a kid in a candy shop as she planned a winter event. If Haruhi were here.

  I didn’t come across anything attention-grabbing as I climbed the hill to North High like always and reached the 1-5 classroom. I suppose that my lack of willpower had filtered down to my legs, as I barely sat down before the bell rang. Many of my classmates were absent, just like yesterday, but I was pleased to see that Taniguchi was back after one day of rest. He still had a flu mask on, but at least he was in class. I never knew that he was such a big fan of school.