The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya Page 8

  “Hold on.” I said this with my mind all a jumble.

  “I’ll be frank. I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Believe me.”

  I had never seen such an earnest expression on Nagato’s face before.

  “The amount of data transmittable through verbal means is limited. I am merely a terminal, an organic interface for contact with humans. My processing facilities are unable to fully convey the Data Overmind’s thought process. Please understand.”

  Easier said than done.

  “Why me? Assuming that I believe you’re an interface for that Overmind or whatever, then why are you revealing your identity to me?”

  “You have been chosen by Haruhi Suzumiya. Whether or not Haruhi Suzumiya is aware of it, her consciousness has an effect on the environment in the form of unconditional data. There must be a reason why you were chosen.”

  “There isn’t.”

  “There is. You are probably the key to Haruhi Suzumiya. You and Haruhi Suzumiya hold all potential within your grasp.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Naturally.”

  I looked extremely hard at Yuki Nagato’s face for the first time. Here I was, marveling at how the tight-lipped wonder had finally opened her mouth, and out came this winding freakish spiel. I knew she was odd, but I never would have imagined she was out of her mind.

  Data Overmind? Humanoid interface?

  My ass.

  “Now look here. If you go tell Haruhi this story, she’ll be overjoyed. Quite frankly, I don’t understand any of this stuff. Sorry.”

  “A large sector of the Data Overmind has recognized that if Haruhi Suzumiya becomes aware of her own value and ability, there is the potential for indeterminable risks. We must observe the situation for now.”

  “Isn’t it possible that I’ll tell Haruhi everything I just heard?”

  “Even if you do, she won’t take the data you feed her seriously.”

  She had a point.

  “I am not the only interface placed on Earth by the Data Overmind. A sector of the Data Overmind intends on initiating proactive activity and observing the resulting fluctuations in data. You are the key to Haruhi Suzumiya. When crisis approaches, you will be first.”

  I can’t take any more of this.

  I prepared to make my leave. “The tea was good. Thanks.”

  Nagato didn’t stop me.

  She was staring at the teacup with her customary expression devoid of emotion. She looked a bit lonely, but I was probably just hallucinating.

  After answering my mom’s inquiry as to where I had gone with some vague reply, I returned to my room. I lay down on my bed and mulled over Nagato’s long speech.

  If I believed everything Nagato said, that would mean she isn’t human. Not even of this world. Long story short, an alien.

  A mysterious existence. What Haruhi had been passionately searching for.

  And it was right next to her all this time. I guess that’s what they mean by “Can’t see the forest for the trees.”

  … Ha. Ha. Ha. Retarded.

  My eyes fell upon the thick novel I had dropped. I picked it and the bookmark up and stared at its colorful cover before placing it near the head of my bed.

  Nagato probably got those bizarre delusions running through her head because she sits alone in her apartment reading these sci-fi books all the time. She probably doesn’t talk to anyone in her class either. Just stays in her little shell. Forget your books. Try to make some friends, even if they’re superficial. Just enjoy normal school life. The poker face has to go. She’s probably pretty cute when she smiles.

  I suppose I’ll return the book tomorrow…. Well, I might as well read it.

  After school the next day.

  Since I was on cleaning duty, I was late to the club room and found Haruhi playing with Asahina.

  “Stay still! Stop struggling!”

  Haruhi had again half-stripped a resisting Asahina.

  “Kyaa!”

  Asahina screamed upon seeing me enter the room.

  I took one look at Asahina standing in just her underwear before taking one step back through the mostly opened door and shutting it.

  “Excuse me.”

  I waited ten minutes. The duet of Asahina’s lovely shrieks and Haruhi’s shouts of enjoyment came to an end. In its wake, Haruhi spoke. “You can come in now!”

  I entered the room and was promptly struck dumb.

  A maid stood before me.

  Clothed in dress and apron, Asahina, on the verge of tears, sat in a chair and quickly turned to give me a forlorn look.

  A white apron and wide-hem flared skirt with blouse. The pristine white stockings had a very fine luster.

  A flawless maid.

  “Well? Isn’t she cute?” Haruhi said proudly, as though she had something to do with it, while patting Asahina’s hair.

  I can agree with that. I feel sorry for Asahina, sitting dejectedly with a pitiable look on her face, but she looks ridiculously cute.

  “Anyway, that’s a job well done.”

  Ignoring the whispered “No, it isn’t,” from Asahina, I turned to Haruhi.

  “What’s the point in dressing her up as a maid?”

  “When it comes to turn-ons, you can’t forget about maids.”

  Again, I have no idea what she’s talking about.

  “I thought hard on this matter.”

  You only think about things that are better left alone.

  “Stories set in a school always have an alluring character present. In other words, stories begin wherever an alluring character is present. You could say it’s inevitable. Understand? Mikuru is a Lolita and a timid person and also possesses an important element of turn-ons, being well-endowed. If you put her into a maid outfit on top of all that, her turn-on factor will jump up like crazy. Anyone can see that she’ll set records for turning on people. It’s like we’ve already won.”

  What are you trying to win?

  While I was basically struck speechless, Haruhi had gotten her hands on a digital camera and was saying something about taking pictures to commemorate.

  Asahina, face flaming red, shook her head.

  “Don’t take pictures….”

  You can get on your knees and pray or whatever. If Haruhi says it will be so, then it must be so.

  Haruhi forced the entreating Asahina into a number of poses as the flash went off over and over.

  “Ahh…”

  “Look this way. Tilt the chin a bit. Clutch the apron. That’s it. Bigger smile!”

  Haruhi relentlessly took pictures as she rattled out commands. When I asked her where she got the digital camera from, she said that she borrowed it from the photography club. Isn’t it almost certain that she swiped it?

  During this photo shoot, Yuki Nagato sat in her usual spot, engaged in her usual activity of reading. She said a lot of crazy stuff yesterday, but she was as tight-lipped as ever today. I was somehow relieved.

  “Kyon, take over as cameraman.”

  Haruhi handed me the digital camera and turned towards Asahina. She grabbed Asahina’s little shoulders the way an alligator would creep up on water fowl.

  “Haha….”

  Haruhi smiled kindly at the scrunched-up Asahina.

  “Mikuru. Let’s make you a little sexier.”

  The moment she said that, Haruhi removed the ribbon from the bodice of the maid outfit. She then quickly unbuttoned three buttons to reveal cleavage.

  “Hey! No… What are you…”

  “It’s fine! It’s fine!”

  How is this fine?

  Asahina was then forced to place her hands on her knees and lean forward. I had to avert my eyes from the ample valley of her chest, a mismatch with her petite body and baby face. Except that if I averted my eyes, I couldn’t take pictures, so I was forced to look through the finder.

  I repeatedly pressed the shutter per Haruhi’s orders.

  Cheeks flushed with embarrass
ment as she was forced into poses accentuating her chest, Asahina awkwardly smiled at the camera, her eyes watering close to tears. She was oozing incomparable charm.

  Crap. I think I’m in love.

  “Yuki, lend me your glasses.”

  Nagato slowly looked up from her book, slowly removed her glasses, handed them to Haruhi, and slowly went back to reading. She could read without glasses?

  Haruhi placed the glasses on Asahina’s face.

  “It looks good when they’re slightly slipping off. Yeah, it’s perfect! A Lolita with shapely breasts in a maid outfit wearing glasses! It’s magnificent! Kyon, keep taking pictures!”

  I wasn’t refusing to take pictures, but what were all these pictures of Asahina dressed as a maid going to be used for?

  “Mikuru, from now on, wear these clothes when in the club room.”

  “You can’t be serious….”

  Asahina did her best to voice her objection, but Haruhi continued.

  “ ’Cause it’s so cute! Man, even a girl like me can’t help herself!”

  She grabbed Asahina and rubbed her face against hers. Asahina cried out while struggling to escape before finally succumbing to Haruhi’s will.

  Hey, now. I’m getting pretty envious here, Haruhi. Or, like, yeah, I should be stopping her.

  “That’s enough now, Haruhi.”

  I grabbed the back of Haruhi’s neck as she continued her open sexual harassment of Asahina. I was having a hard time pulling her away.

  “Hey. Cut it out already!”

  “What’s wrong? You can do perverted things to Mikuru, too.”

  A fine idea. But seeing as how Asahina was rapidly turning pale, I could not offer my consent.

  “Whoa. What is this?”

  That would be Itsuki Koizumi, standing in the doorway, his bag in hand, watching us struggling.

  He looked curiously at Haruhi, trying to thrust her hand down Asahina’s open dress, me, holding back that hand, Asahina, trembling in her maid outfit, and Nagato, calmly reading without her glasses.

  “Is this some kind of game?”

  “Koizumi. Great timing. Let’s all have fun with Mikuru!”

  What the hell are you saying?

  The corners of Koizumi’s mouth turned upwards. If he expressed assent, I’d have to treat him as an enemy.

  “I’ll pass. I’m scared of what will happen afterward.”

  He set his bag on the table and took one of the chairs propped against the wall and unfolded it.

  “May I sit in and observe?”

  He sat down and crossed his legs, looking at me with an amused face.

  “Don’t mind me. Please continue.”

  You’ve got it wrong. I’m helping her, not assaulting her.

  Confusion over with, I managed to get between Haruhi and Asahina. As Asahina weakly collapsed backward, I hurried over to support her. I was surprised by how light she was as I guided her to a chair. The sight of Asahina exhausted in her disheveled maid outfit was, quite honestly, extremely hot.

  “Oh, well. We already took a bunch of pictures.”

  Haruhi removed the glasses from the beautiful face of Asahina, her body slouched back with her eyes closed, and returned them to Nagato.

  Nagato took the glasses and placed them back on her face wordlessly. As though her long speech yesterday was some kind of lie. Maybe it was just a lie. Some kind of elaborate joke.

  “Now, let’s commence the first SOS Brigade meeting!”

  Haruhi loudly proclaimed that out of the blue while standing atop the brigade chief chair. Where’d that come from?

  “We’ve done a lot to make it this far. We passed out flyers, and we even made a homepage. The celebrity of the SOS Brigade in this school has skyrocketed. The first stage can be considered a huge success.”

  How can you call emotionally scarring Asahina a huge success?

  “However, not a single tale of mysterious happenings has reached our brigade’s e-mail inbox, and not a single student has come in for consultation regarding bizarre troubles.”

  That’s ’cause fame isn’t enough to do it. Nobody has a clue as to what this club does yet. Most importantly, the school doesn’t even recognize us as a club.

  “Someone once said, ‘Good things come to those who wait.’ However, we live in the modern world now. You have to find good things for yourself, even if it means digging them out of the ground. That’s why we’re going to go search!”

  Nobody else was interjecting, so I did. “… For what?”

  “The mysteries of this world! If we search every corner of the city, at least one mysterious phenomenon is bound to pop out!”

  I would say that your mind is the far bigger mystery.

  Completely ignoring the disbelief on my face, the enigmatic smile suggesting little consideration on Koizumi’s face, the absence of emotion on Nagato’s face, and the helpless look of resignation to what fate might bring on Asahina’s face, Haruhi waved her arms around and shouted.

  “This Saturday! In other words, tomorrow! Meet at 9 am in front of Kitaguchi Station. Don’t be late. If you don’t show, heads will roll!”

  Heads will roll, huh?

  If you’re wondering what Haruhi planned on doing with the pictures of Asahina in a maid outfit, it was revealed that the damn girl was going to put the pictures in that digital camera on my half-assed Web site.

  I noticed this after Haruhi had finished placing a dozen of those pictures in a row on the top page, all set to greet visitors, mere seconds before she was going to upload them into cyberspace.

  This would jump the dead access counter up to five digits in a flash.

  Are you an idiot?

  I had to draw the line here as I desperately stopped Haruhi and deleted the pictures. If Asahina found out that those unbecoming pictures of her in the maid costume in knockout poses had been spread around the world, she’d definitely faint on the spot.

  Oddly enough, Haruhi quietly looked at me as I fervently lectured her, but I can’t be sure if she understood what I meant by the dangers of putting personal information that may reveal your identity on the Internet.

  “I get it,” she said sullenly before consenting to delete them. In this case, I probably should have deleted all the pictures, but that would be a waste. I created a hidden folder on the hard drive, stored the pictures there, and set a password instead.

  I’ll save them for my private viewing pleasure.

  CHAPTER 4

  Meet at 9 am on a day off? Screw that.

  And with that in mind, I pedaled away on my bicycle toward the station, bemoaning how pathetic I was.

  Kitaguchi Station is located in the center of the city and is also a central terminal for the train system. On weekends, it tends to be packed with bored young people. Most of them are on their way to larger cities. The only place to go around the station would be the shopping mall. It’s still a big enough crowd to make me think about how each person in the mob has his or her own individual life.

  I illegally (sorry) parked my bike in front of the closed bank and reached the north ticket gate five minutes before nine. Everyone had already gathered in silence.

  “Late. Penalty!” she said, looking at me.

  “I got here before nine.”

  “Doesn’t matter if you weren’t late. The last person here gets penalized. That’s my rule.”

  “News to me.”

  “ ’Cause I just came up with it,” Haruhi said with a cheerful look on her face, wearing a long, brand-name T-shirt and a knee-length denim skirt. “So buy everyone something to drink.”

  Haruhi, standing with her hands on her hips in casual attire, felt a hundred times more approachable than when she was in the classroom with a sour look on her face. Bemused, I ended up nodding. Following Haruhi’s instructions to decide on a plan of action for the day, we headed toward the café.

  Asahina was dressed in a white sleeveless one-piece dress with a light blue cardigan over it. Her hair was gathered in
the back by a barrette, and the way it made her hair bounce up and down as she walked was quite charming. Her smile had the air of a little lady dressing like an adult. She also carried a fashionable purse.

  Koizumi stood next to me dressed quite formally in a pink shirt with a brown sports jacket. He even had a dark red tie on. Kind of depressing, but I have to admit he looked sharp. Plus he’s taller than me.

  Yuki Nagato silently brought up the end of the line wearing her familiar sailor uniform. It seemed like she’d been completely turned into an SOS Brigade member, but wasn’t she supposed to be in the literary club? After hearing that crazy speech in her quiet apartment the other day, I was even more concerned about the lack of expression on her face. But why was she wearing her uniform on a day off?

  Our puzzling group of five entered the café through the revolving door and sat in the back. We gave our respective orders to the waitress, except for Nagato, who stared at the menu with unfathomable intensity—but without any expression on her face—and couldn’t seem to make up her mind. After enough time had passed to have made a cup of instant ramen…

  “Apricot,” she announced.

  I’m the one paying anyway.

  This was Haruhi’s plan:

  We would now split up into two groups and search the city. If one group found any mysterious phenomena, it was to contact the other group via cell phone while continuing the search. Then regroup at the meeting spot and discuss what to do next.

  That was all.

  “Let’s draw for it then.”

  Haruhi took five toothpicks from the container on the table, marked two of them with a pen she borrowed from the café, and held them toward us with only the heads sticking out for us to draw. I drew marked. Asahina also drew marked. The other three drew unmarked.

  “Hmm, so these are the groups….”

  For some reason, Haruhi alternated glares between Asahina and me before sticking her nose in the air.

  “Kyon. This isn’t a date. Be serious about it. Understand?”

  “I know.”

  I guess I was looking a little pleased with myself. Lucky me. Asahina held one hand against her flushed cheeks as she gazed at the tip of her toothpick. Excellent. Excellent indeed.