It was a picture-perfect scenario. The one in the heart of all this was always Nagato. Though that all-purpose alien terminal having done something to Kimidori-san, which resulted in her having brought her case to us, would have been an elaborate method, I wouldn’t be surprised at all.
Perhaps she had thought about staging a pretend-client to relieve Haruhi’s boredom even just a little. If it was an incident of this level, Nagato could have finished it off by herself without having to involve any of us. Hasn’t it been always like that? Without saying anything to anyone and keeping silently behind the curtains, could she have been preventing these strange things before they happened?
A breeze blew in through the window, tossing Nagato’s hair and the pages of her book.
A breeze blew in through the window, tossing Nagato’s hair and the pages of her book. Her white finger pressed softly down on the margin, her white face lowered; unmoving except for her eyes, which chased the book’s letters.
Or… Could it have been Nagato’s wish to involve us? Living in a dreary room for years, an alien-made organic android. Only seemingly emotionless, could it be that she also has them?
Those feelings of loneliness one has when secluded.
Lone Island Syndrome
The scene before me is so shocking that I have totally forgotten the pain in my shoulders.
Right now I’m lying on the floor, unable to even get up, as I’m too stunned by what I see. The reason I can’t move is because something as heavy as an anchor is on my back, and I can’t remove it, but that doesn’t matter to me right now. Koizumi, who was above me as we burst the door open and is now lying on top of me, is probably just as stunned as I am. Get off me! I didn’t even have the wits to tell him that. You can imagine how astonished I was.
How can this be possible? I can’t believe this is actually happening. This is no laughing matter. What should we do?
A bright light flashed outside the window. A few seconds later, the sound of thunder roared through my stomach. A true thunderstorm. It’s been covering this island since yesterday.
“……How can this be?”
I heard a groan. That would be Arakawa-san, who burst open the door alongside me and Koizumi, and fell to the ground together with us.
Koizumi finally got off my back. I rolled over and sat upright.
I look once again at the unbelievable scene before me.
On the carpet near the door lies a man who has fallen backwards just like I did. He is none other than the middle-aged owner of this mansion, who did not come down to the dining hall this morning. We recognized him by the suit he was wearing, it was the same suit he wore yesterday after bidding us good night. The only person to wear a suit unnecessarily in this midsummer island would be him. He is the employer of Arakawa-san, and the owner of this island and mansion:
Tamaru Keiichi-san.
Keiichi-san lay on the ground with a shocked expression, not moving a muscle. It is absolutely normal for him not to move, because it seems like he’s already dead.
How did I know this? Well, the answer was obvious. The object on his chest looked very familiar. It was the handle of the fruit knife that was inside the fruit basket from the dining hall during dinner last night.
I can bet with you, that attached to that handle is a sharp metal blade, or it would have been impossible for it to stand upright on a person’s chest. In other words, the knife is thrust into Keiichi-san’s chest.
I don’t suppose anyone can live if they’ve had a knife stabbed straight into their heart?
And right now that’s the status of Keiichi-san.
“KYAA……”
From the broken door behind me came a small terrified scream. I turned and saw Asahina-san covering her mouth with her hands. Nagato stood behind Asahina-san, who was slowly retreating behind and clutching Nagato’s shoulders. Nagato looked at me with her ever calm expression, and then lowered her head as though in deep thought.
Of course, wherever we go, she would be there.
“Kyon, that person……could he be……”
Haruhi seemed to be shocked as well, sticking her head from Asahina-san’s side to see what was going on, and staring at Keiichi-san at eternal rest, with her dark cat-like eyes.
“Dead?”
It’s quite rare for her to speak so softly, and with a small tingle of anxiety. I turned and was about to say something, only to see Koizumi, his usual cheery smile replaced with a confused look. Mori-san the maid also stood in the corridor.
Only one person, who was in the mansion all day yesterday, was now missing.
A room that needs the door burst open in order to enter, a dead owner, and a missing person. What does this all mean?
“I say, Kyon……”
Haruhi spoke again, her face showing an unfamiliar look of discomfort. I even had the illusion that she was about to lean into my chest.
Another lightning flash, illuminating the whole room. The thunderstorm that raged from yesterday was beginning to calm down. The fierce waves smacked down upon the island shores, creating a terrifying sound effect along with the thunder.
The owner of a lone island, lying dead inside a sealed room with a knife stabbed through his chest, in the middle of a thunderstorm. This is the scene I was seeing.
I can’t help but think.
Hey, Haruhi.
Did you create all this?
I recalled the journey leading the SOS Brigade to this scene.
Back to a few days before summer vacation began……
………
……
…
It was midsummer, in the middle of July. The sun was so hot that I wished it would take a vacation for once.
As usual, I was hanging out in our underground headquarters, formerly the Literature Club room, enjoying Asahina-san’s tea. Though I had recovered from the results of the mid-term tests, once I started thinking about the impending revision classes, I could no longer relax. At that moment, the only choice I had was to escape from it all.
In the blink of an eye, I thought up various ways to convince myself that the reality I’m in is all a lie. As I pondered which one to use……
“Excuse me……are you alright?”
I awoke from the dream of myself being an alien paratrooper, parachuting from the back of the moon and storming the parliament building.
“You look so gloomy today……is my tea not good enough?”
“Not at all.”
I answered. Your tea is still as sweet as honey from the sky, even though it’s brewed using discount tea leaves.
“That’s wonderful.”
Asahina-san, dressed in a summer maid costume, breathed a sigh of relief. She gave a gentle smile, so I answered her with a smile of my own. Your happiness is my happiness. Not even a sage traveling through the most remote mountains could find an elixir as effective as Asahina-san’s smile. My mind is now clearer than the surface of Lake Mashu in Hokkaido. I can even hear angels blowing their trumpets……
I felt like spreading my passion to everyone, as St. Francis of Assisi passionately did when preaching to his sister birds, but in the end I gave up. Not because I couldn’t be bothered with the use of elegant phrases, but rather at this moment an annoying person came barging in with his melodious tones…
“Hey, everyone! How were your mid-term tests?”
Koizumi placed the Monopoly board he brought on the table while asking me this irrelevant question. Thanks to him, I’ve now returned to the dark side of the moon, hiding in the satellite orbit thinking how to make all these thoughts stop. Why can’t you just play your Monopoly quietly? You ought to learn from Nagato, sitting peacefully in the corner reading her book.
Opening a hardback book as thick as an encyclopedia, Nagato sat on the foldable chair, in her summer sailor uniform. She had her eyes fixed on the book with that glass statue-like face of hers. From a certain perspective, she is a digitized existence, yet she seems to love absorbing physical
data. I wonder if there’s some specific reason for that?
“……”
Now I think about it, how can everyone in our club have so much free time on their hands?
School finished early today, classes having already ended in the morning. Yet why is everyone still gathered here? Myself included, but I have a justifiable reason to be here! If I didn’t drink Asahina-san’s tea at least once every day, I’d basically become a zombie. Thanks to that, I usually have to suffer withdrawal symptoms during the weekends.
Just joking. You think I’m serious? It’s just that I’ve learned something since I came to high school - some people tend to take jokes very seriously. I say this from my experiences of the past few months, so I can’t be wrong. One needs to draw a fine line between joking and being serious, or something terrible might happen.
Just like my situation right now.
I opened my bag and took out the ham sandwich I got from the Welfare Society as my snack.
As we count down to the beginning of summer vacation, there has to be a reason for us to gather here……or not. I say that because the SOS Brigade was created without any reason at all, in fact, it was created precisely for its lack of reason. It would be even more troublesome if it did have a reason. Instead of doing something really stupid, it’s better that it remains in its present meaningless state, because that way I don’t have to think much.
“I think I’ll have a snack as well.”
Asahina-san, so meticulous that she made her own tea, took out a cute looking lunchbox and sat down opposite me.
“Don’t mind me, I’ve already eaten in the canteen.”
Koizumi declined. No one asked you. While Nagato’s hunger is more about reading books than about eating.
Asahina-san picked up the rice, which had a smiley face drawn with cream, with her chopsticks and said,
“Where’s Suzumiya-san? She hasn’t arrived yet.”
Don’t ask me. She’s probably somewhere hunting for grasshoppers. It’s summer after all.
Koizumi answered for me,
“I saw her in the school canteen. Her appetite sure is amazing. If all the food she consumed was converted into nutrition, I wonder how many ergs that’d be?”
I’m not going to calculate such things. If she intends to lock herself up in the canteen, then she can stay till evening.
“Don’t think so. She said she has something important to announce today.”
I just don’t understand, how can you remain so cheerful? Whatever it is that she announces can’t be anything beneficial to society, can it? Is your memory storage lower than a five inch floppy disk’s?
“Besides, how do you know about that anyway?”
Koizumi said casually,
“Hmm, I wonder how? I could tell you, but Suzumiya-san would prefer to tell you herself. It would be a great problem if I spoiled her mood by telling you before she does. I’d best stay silent for now.”
“I’m not interested anyway.”
“Is that so?”
“Yup, because from your tone, it seems that idiot is up to something stupid again. I don’t know how many more minutes my peace of mind will last, but I’m sure it’s going to get less peaceful soon……”
As I was about to continue, I was interrupted by a slamming sound from the violent opening of the door.
“Great! Everyone’s here!”
Haruhi’s eyes shone as bright as a spectrometer.
“As today we’re having an important meeting, I intend to have anyone arriving after me be treated as target practice for can throwing from now on as punishment. But it seems you’ve all begun to nurture that team spirit already. This is excellent!”
Needless to say, I never knew there was an important meeting today.
“You sure have a lot of free time.”
I was trying to humble her.
“You listen. The secret to eating in the school canteen is to go just before they close. By then the old ladies will scoop more for you. But the timing is very important, it’d be useless if you went when they were completely sold out. So today’s a lucky day!”
“Really?”
For someone like me who rarely goes to the canteen for lunch, this new piece of information wasn’t of that much use, no matter how generously it had been given.
Haruhi sat down on the commander’s seat.
“Anyway, let’s leave that aside.”
“It was you who started that topic.”
Haruhi ignored me and called out to Asahina-san, who was eating carefully with her chopsticks.
“Mikuru-chan, what do you think of when you mention summer?”
“Huh?”
Asahina-san covered her mouth, munching and swallowing the food that she had cooked.
“Summer……um……the O-Bon Festival?”
Haruhi blinked her eyes nonstop at such a nostalgically traditional answer.
“‘O-Bon Festival’? What on earth’s that? Have you got it wrong? I’m not asking you that, what I’m saying is, when it comes to summer, what’s the first thing that comes to mind?”
What the hell are you talking about?
Haruhi said matter-of-factly,
“Summer vacation! Does that need thinking?”
This way of thinking is a bit too straightforward.
“Then what comes with summer vacation?”
Haruhi asked her second question, and then looked at her watch while mimicking the sound of the clock ticking, “Tick tock, tick tock.”
Perhaps feeling pressurized by her, Asahina-san began to think frantically.
“Um, that is, ah……the sea!”
“That’s right! Close enough. And what comes with the sea?”
What the hell’s this? A guessing game?
Asahina-san tilted her head,
“Sea, sea……ah, pickled fish?”
“Wrong! Summer would be over by the time you guessed right. What I’m saying is, we need to go on a field trip for the summer holiday!”
I stared and got more and more pissed at Koizumi’s smiling face. Was this the important announcement you were talking about?
“Field trip?”
I asked slowly, Haruhi nodded energetically,
“Yes, a field trip.”
Maybe it’s normal for school clubs to organize field trips or whatever, but is it really okay for us to have one as well? She can’t be having us go deep into the mountains to search for Unidentified Mysterious Animals (UMAs) that will never be found, can she?
I looked at Asahina-san, Koizumi and Nagato in turn, and observed a stunned face, a smiling face, and a blank face from them respectively. I then said,
“A field trip, huh……field trip for what?”
“For the SOS Brigade.”
“I meant, what will we be doing?”
“Having a field trip.”
What?
Going on a field trip solely for the purpose of experiencing a field trip.
Isn’t that the same as saying “my headache hurts”, “the tragic play is tragic”, or “frying a fried fish”?
“What does it matter? In other words, the means and ends of this activity are the same. Besides, of course a headache hurts, who’s heard of anyone enjoying a headache?”
I don’t know whether there’s something wrong with Haruhi’s grammar, or if she’s speaking in a different dialect. But the real problem lies with the field trip itself.
“Where do you intend to go?”
“I’m going to a lone island, and it has to be a lone island in the middle of the ocean.”
I don’t remember ever reading “Two Years’ Vacation” as a summer vacation report. Just what on earth did she read to come up with such an idea?
“I’ve thought of a few locations.”
Haruhi’s excitement showed on her face.
“I was troubled by whether to go to the mountains or the sea. At first I thought it’d be more convenient to go to the mountains, but the only time to get
ourselves isolated in a hillside mansion is during a blizzard in winter. Besides, that’s way too hard.”
Maybe you can try going to Greenland……no, the question is why must we do such a thing?
“You want to go to a hillside mansion just so you can get stuck there?”
“Well yeah! Or it wouldn’t be fun. But let’s forget about the mountains! We’ll save that for the winter field trip. This summer we’re going to the sea, no, a lone island!”
Don’t be so obsessed with lone islands. I thought, but I could find no reason for opposition. It’d be useless for me to oppose her anyway, and for this time of year, the sea sounds more charming; besides, there should be seaside spas in these lone islands far away from the mainland, right?
“Of course there are! Right, Koizumi?”
“Hmm, I should hope so. Though it’s a natural seaside spa without any lifeguards or food stalls.”
I quickly looked at Koizumi, with my eyes full of suspicion. Why are you helping her recite all this?
“That’s because……”
Koizumi’s explanation got interrupted by Haruhi.
“Because the location for the field trip this time is being provided by none other than Koizumi!”
Haruhi stuck her hands inside the desk drawer, and took out a colored armband. She then used a felt-tip pen and wrote “Vice Commander” on it.
“As a result of this achievement, Koizumi-kun, you should feel honored. I hereby promote you to SOS Brigade Vice Commander!”
“I am grateful for this honor.”
Koizumi gracefully accepted the armband. He glanced at me and gave me a wink. Let me set this straight, I am not the slightest bit jealous at all. Who’d want such a weird present?
“That’s it. This is a four day three night luxury tour! Let’s get ourselves mentally prepared!”
Haruhi gave a look saying “That’s all folks!” Thinking we’re all happy with this decision, which was of course, never the case.
“Just a moment.”
I stepped forward and spoke on behalf of Asahina-san and Nagato.
“Where is this island? Provide? What the hell’s this? Why is Koizumi providing all this for us?”
Volume 3 - The Boredom of Suzumiya Haruhi Page 12