“There’s no sign that he’s even in his room. Even when I visited him late in the evening, it was completely dark. I’m worried.”
Kimidori-san said indifferently, like she was reading from a script, and covered her face with her hands. As Haruhi pursed her lips, she said,
“Mm. I can’t say that I don’t understand how you’re feeling.”
Liar. You couldn’t possibly understand the feelings of a girl in love.
“In any case, it’s amazing how you’ve come to the facilities of our SOS Brigade. First, tell me your reason.”
“Yes. He often mentioned it. So I had remembered.”
“Eh? Who’s your boyfriend?”
At Haruhi’s question, Kimidori-san murmured the young male student’s name. I feel like I’ve heard it somewhere before, but I also feel that it isn’t an acquaintance of mine. Haruhi also drew her eyebrows together,
“Who’s that?”
In a voice like a gentle breeze, Kimidori-san answered,
“He said that he was neighbors with the SOS Brigade…”
“A neighbor?”
Haruhi looked up at the ceiling. Kimidori-san turned to Asahina-san and me, who had tilted our heads to the side, and then to Koizumi and Nagato, but her eyes didn’t meet anyone’s, and she returned to staring at her teacup. And then,
“He’s serving as the Computer Club’s president.”
Was what she said.
I had completely forgotten. It was that pitiful president? I had taken pictures of his sexual harassment of Asahina-san (against his will), and Haruhi, using that as a pretext, acquired their latest model computer (by force), and he was even bullied into doing the wiring in tears; it was the Computer Research Club’s pitiable upperclassman. No, there’s no need to pity him, is there? If he has a girlfriend with such a good atmosphere, it’s more than even. Come to think of it, I wonder where I put that disposable camera.
“Okay, I got it!” said Haruhi, accepting the task easily. “We’ll take care of it. Kimidori-san, you’re in luck! As client number one, you get your case solved for free as a bonus.”
If you’re going to be taking their money, it won’t be a school service activity. However, is this really some kind of a case? This president something-or-other isn’t just simply becoming hikikomori, is he? I don’t know how he could be complaining, having a sweetheart like Kimidori-san, but I think it’d be better to just leave him alone to recover by himself.
Of course I didn’t say that; Kimidori-san left her boyfriend’s address on a piece of paper, and exited the clubroom in a pace like that of an apparition that had materialized.
After waiting for Asahina-san to return from seeing her off to the corridor, I opened my mouth.
“Hey, is it really okay to accept that so easily? What do you plan to do if we can’t find the solution?”
But Haruhi just twirled her ball pen in a good mood.
“We can. That president is surely just hiding away with two-months-late May Sickness. We’ll just march over to the president, hit him two or three times, and drag him outside. Totally simple!” She seems to be seriously thinking that. Well, I was thinking the same thing, though.
I asked Asahina-san, who was again pouring us some fresh tea.
“Are you and Kimidori-san close?”
“No, I haven’t talked to her once. She was in the class next door, so I only saw her when we had joint lessons.”
It would’ve been better if she had told the teachers or the police rather than consult with us. No, could she already have talked to them before? And because she had been ignored, she called out to Asahina-san? It’s probably something like that, I think.
There wasn’t any sense of urgency as we idly sipped our tea. Haruhi was unreasonably elated, and seemed to be thinking about accepting grander and grander commissions, and then resolving them. Although it was lamentable how little was remaining of the first semester, these were the circumstances that were likely to force a second round of the flyer distribution project. Just forget it.
Nagato closed her book with a thump, and, as Haruhi would say it, we proceeded with the investigation.
The club president’s solo dwelling was a studio apartment. Because of the location, I thought that college students were probably the main residents here, in this three-story building that looked neither good nor bad, in a color that just looked well enough that you couldn’t say if it was new or old. Its appearance was exceptionally normal. Ordinary.
Holding the note where the address was written in her hand, Haruhi dashed high up the stairs. The other three and I followed the back of her summer sailor uniform in silence.
“Here, right?”
In front of the steel door, Haruhi confirmed the name on the nameplate. The name that Kimidori-san had said was her boyfriend’s was inside the plastic case.
“I wonder if we can open it somehow.”
After trying to turn the knob a few times to check the lock, Haruhi pushed the button on the intercom. It should be the other way around!
“How about we come up from the veranda at the back? If we smash the glass, then we can get in, right?”
I can only wish she was joking. This room is on the third floor, and we aren’t a group of aimless juvenile delinquents. I have no desire for a criminal record just yet.
“I guess so. Let’s go to the building manager and borrow the key. If we say that we’re friends who came because we were worried, he’ll lend it to us.”
Pretending to be someone’s friend is your specialty. But this club president, even though he’s living by himself, he never gave his girlfriend a duplicate key. That’s like harvesting just the stem of the eggplant and then throwing the fruit away.
Ka-chick.
I turned around at the cold sound, and there was Nagato gripping the knob in silence.
“…………”
Nagato was looking at me intently with eyes like liquid helium. Slowly, Nagato tugged at the door, and the entrance to the room was agape. The air inside was stale, but for some reason there was a chill accompanying it, lurking at our feet – or so I felt.
“Oh.”
Haruhi’s eyes were round, and her lips a semi-circle,
“It was open? I didn’t notice. Well, that’s okay. Come on, let’s go on in. I’m sure he’s hiding under his bed, so everyone, just drag him out and we’ll capture him. At the worst, if he resists violently, you may end his life. We’ll soak his head in beeswax and deliver that to the client.”
Apparently, she doesn’t feel an atom of guilt for plundering his computer. Unlike Salome, she couldn’t even be bothered to get a container for the head. In high spirits, she pushed all of us into the room, and then saw that the single room was uninhabited. Not a single cockroach. Haruhi looked inside the bathroom and under the bed. There wasn’t even a human shape anywhere. This had one-fourth the space of Nagato’s room, and just her guest room at that, but compared to that dreary nothingness, the level of life was four times greater. A bookshelf, a closet, a desk that looked like a low dining table, and a computer rack had been left in precise order. We confirmed through the open window that only a washing machine was hiding in the veranda.
“How strange.”
While hopping on top of the bed, Haruhi tilted her head in disbelief.
“Even though I thought he’d be curled up into a ball in some corner of the room hugging his knees. Could he have gone to the convenience store? Kyon, do you know some other place where a hikikomori would go to?”
So it’s been decided that the Computer Club president is a hikikomori then? Could he be traveling around Central and South America on a tour? Or was he seriously hiding his whereabouts? We should have asked the homeroom teacher of the club president’s class for the story before coming here.
I was looking at the computer-related books lined up in the bookshelf, when someone suddenly pulled on the back of my shirt.
“…………”
Nagato was looking up at
me without any expression, and then shook her chin sideways.
“We should leave.”
Looking small, Nagato whispered to me. It was the first time I’d heard Nagato’s voice today. Haruhi and Asahina-san didn’t notice, but Koizumi brought his face close to my ear.
“I feel the same way.”
Don’t talk so seriously, it’s creeping me out. But Koizumi, with a forced smile and eyes that you couldn’t laugh at, continued.
“I feel a strange discomfort in this room. It’s close to a sensation that I am familiar with. It’s only similar, and it feels fundamentally different, but…”
Haruhi had taken the liberty of opening the refrigerator, “Warabi-mochi, found it! The expiration date was yesterday. It’d be a waste, so let’s eat!” she said, while tearing up the bag. As Asahina-san was flustering about, Haruhi made her taste the proffered convenience store pastry to see if it was edible.
I also spoke in a low voice, naturally.
“Similar to what?”
“Closed space. This room has a similar smell as that place. No, smell is just a metaphorical expression. Feeling is also good, such that it is a feeling that exceeds the five senses.”
“You’re an esper?!” was a reminiscent tsukkomi that I had to restrain myself not to break into. Actually, this person was seriously an esper.
Nagato murmured in a voice that hardly shook the air.
“A dimensional fault is in existence. Phase transformation is being executed.”
I can understand that.
That’s just what I wanted to say, though. If Nagato were to unexpectedly look sad or something, I’d probably be scared stiff right where I stand, so it would be in my best interest not to say it. Ah well.
At any rate, it would be better to withdraw quickly. After signaling to Koizumi and Nagato, I turned my face to the translucent-mochi-devouring Haruhi.
When everyone had left the condominium, Haruhi declared that we were dismissed for the day for hunger reasons, and left for home by herself. The case that had been brought in by Kimidori-san was being put on hold for the moment; “It’ll work itself out, eventually!” she irresponsibly said, and stopped thinking accordingly, and the day’s matters all went up in the air.
Looks like she’s already lost interest.
Haruhi wasn’t the only one who didn’t have lunch yet, but I pretended to go home once everyone parted, and after waiting restlessly for ten minutes, returned a second time to the front of the club president’s condominium.
The other three brigade members were already waiting together. The walking dictionary space alien and the argumentative esper bastard had knowing looks, but Asahina-san asked,
“Um… What’s the matter? You said we should reassemble without Suzumiya-san noticing…”
She was looking up to me with a confused expression. When my eyes wandered over to Nagato and Koizumi, my anxiety strengthened. The one who was waiting for me the most was Asahina-san, that’s how I’ll think about it.
“Those two seem to be concerned about the room we were just in.” I answered.
“Isn’t that right?”
The smiling person and the expressionless person nod at the same time.
“I believe we’ll understand if we go back there. Right, Nagato-san?”
Without saying anything, Nagato started walking. We followed suit. Moving past the stairs without even the sound of footsteps, Nagato quietly opened the door to the club president’s home, silently took off her shoes, and advanced to the center of the room.
The studio that was by no means spacious was already full with just four people standing in a line.
“Within this room,”
Nagato began to talk.
“A localized, non-corrosive amalgamation of asynchronous space is independently occurring in restricted condition mode.”
………….
We waited for a while, but it seems that was the only explanation. Even if you’re speaking with phrases that make it seem like you just pulled words out of a dictionary and lined them up after they caught your eye, I, having no dictionary, am helpless.
“What I’m feeling is close to a closed space. The source origin of that is Suzumiya-san, but this somehow has a different scent.”
Koizumi said what seems to be a follow-through for Nagato. You make a fine combination. Hanging out would be good for you. You should teach Nagato some hobbies other than reading.
“I will make considerations regarding that matter afterwards. However, there’s something we should be doing right now. Nagato-san, did this abnormal space cause the president’s disappearance?”
“Yes.”
Nagato raised one hand, in a gesture that seemed to be gently stroking the space right before her.
An unpleasant premonition ran up my spine and stimulated my brain. Maybe I should have said, “Hold it!” But before I could even utter those two words, Nagato had whispered something in a voice that was like a tape running on twenty-speed fast forward, and, in one moment, a change took place as the scene before my eyes flickered.
“Hahi-!?”
Asahina-san leapt and grabbed my left arm with both hands, holding on to me tightly. But I didn’t have the time to savor that long-awaited sensation, as I was desperately trying to verify my location, myself.
Let’s see, I was in the club president’s cramped studio. Definitely not at an eerie place like this. I was not in a wide, flat space, with an ocher haze hanging in the air such that I couldn’t see the horizon. Who could have taken me to a place like this?
“Intrusion codes analyzed. This place is overlapping normal space. A phase has simply slipped off.”
Nagato explained. Well, isn’t this person the only one who seems like she can do this sort of thing? Koizumi, the only one who can go head-on with Nagato in a discussion, said,
“It doesn’t seem to be Suzumiya-san’s closed space.”
“It is deceivingly similar. However, a portion of this data space is integrating with junk information originating from Suzumiya Haruhi.”
“Up to what extent?”
“A negligible level. She was merely the trigger.”
“I see. So that’s how it is.”
Asahina-san and I are getting along fine with being left out of the conversation. It doesn’t bother me at all. I really should be grateful. As it is, though, I’d be even more grateful if we could return to the original world.
Asahina-san was clinging to me nervously as she looked around at our surroundings. It seems like this space was an unforeseen thing for her. I was the same; my eyes were flying in all directions, observing. Though I could breathe, will it be safe to inhale this stuff that seemed like a yellow-brown mist? The temperature of the floor that had felt pleasantly cool through my socks went right through to the soles of my feet. Whether it was the floor or the ground, the ocher plane continued everywhere. To think that such storage space would accompany a room that was no more than six tatami mats large. So this was a cross-dimensional space? Well, I had thought that such an atmosphere would arrive soon. I was calm, if I can say so myself.
“Is the Computer Club president here?”
“It would seem so. This differing space appeared in his own room and trapped him somehow.”
“Where is he? I don’t see him.”
Koizumi simply turned his face towards Nagato with a smile. Like it was a signal, Nagato again raised one of her hands.
“Hold it!”
This time I was able to make it. In all seriousness, I asked Nagato, who had frozen up,
“Could you tell me what you’re doing? I at least want some time to prepare myself mentally.”
“Nothing.”
Nagato answered like chattering glasswork; with fingers curled, she tilted her hand upwards by about seventy-five degrees, and extended her index finger again. She then said a single word,
“It’s coming.”
I turned my gaze to where Nagato’s fingertip was pointing.
I groaned unconsciously.
The ocher haze was slowly coiling into a swirl. It was a whirlpool as the particles that made up the fog gathered into one place, grain by grain. I had a feeling like I was a pathogen that had just invaded a body. Somehow, an image sprung from somewhere of how this ocher swirl was taking it upon itself to carry out its duty like a white blood cell. My spirit’s only solace was that Asahina-san’s hand was warm.
“I sense definite hostility.”
The freely talking Koizumi’s voice, however, didn’t make me any more strained, and I had no reaction as Nagato stood like an android that was in the middle of breaking down, her hand still stretched out. Nevertheless, I could not relax. These people might have the means to defend themselves, but I didn’t. It looks like Asahina-san also didn’t, as she was hiding behind me. This was just the right time to want to bring out a futuristic item, though. Don’t you have a ray gun or something?
“Carrying weapons is prohibited. It’s dangerous.”
Asahina-san answered with a quivering voice. I can understand that. Even if [this] Asahina-san had a weapon, not only will she not be any help, she’s likely to just go and forget it on the train. You would expect that she would improve a little as an adult, but when I think about it, [that] Asahina-san was also very much a careless person; she might just be a scatterbrain by nature.
As I was thinking about that, a figure in the haze was gradually displaying the features of solid matter. There’s probably some reason for this as well. I didn’t want to know, but for some reason I understood what kind of shape the ocher mass was taking.
“…Hieee!”
Asahina-san was the only one being frightened. It’s certainly not something that makes you feel like you were looking at a pretty sight, and it’s something you rarely see in town. Even I, who had last seen it how-many-years ago, under the floorboards of my grandmother’s house in the countryside, was silent for a while.
Are you familiar with the insect known as the kamadouma? If you aren’t, I’d like to show you the spectacle before my eyes.
Are you familiar with the insect known as the kamadouma?
Volume 3 - The Boredom of Suzumiya Haruhi Page 10