Moreover, no matter how insane Haruhi is, she wouldn’t actually wish for someone to die. If Haruhi were like that, I would have been killed by her impatience already, considering I’ve tagged along with her all this time.
Haruhi didn’t seem to sense my worries, and said innocently,
“Let’s go swimming first! What else is there to do besides swimming when we’re by the sea? Everyone, swim to your heart’s content! We’ll have a race and see who gets swept away by the waves first!”
That’s not a bad idea, provided the coast guard is available and on standby.
But we’ve only just arrived, do we have to go so soon? Don’t you even want to take a break after all the exhaustion from that long boat trip? Speaking of which, even if Haruhi has never felt tired before, she should still be considerate of other people instead of trying to do things by her own standards!
“What on earth are you mumbling about? The sun won’t stop rising and setting even if you offered sacrifices to Apollo’s temple! It would be a waste of time if we don’t go before the sun sets.”
Haruhi stretched both her arms and wrapped them round Asahina-san and Nagato’s necks.
“KYAA~!” Asahina-san closed her eyes and screamed. “……” While Nagato didn’t even have a reaction.
“Swimsuits! Swimsuits! Everyone get dressed in your swimsuits and meet in the hall! Hee hee, I’ve helped choose these two cuties’ swimsuits! You must be looking forward to them, right Kyon?”
Haruhi revealed an expression of “I know what you’ve been thinking already” and smiled evilly, revealing her white teeth.
“You’re damn right.”
I was reinvigorated and stood upright. This was indeed part of my reason for coming here. I will not allow any objections.
“Koizumi, is the private beach here completely booked for us?”
“Yes it is. People usually go to the beach to collect shells anyway. Few people ever come here anyway, but the waves can be strong here, so try not to swim too far. If you were serious about wanting to have a race……”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I was only joking! Mikuru-chan’s bound to get swept away by a black tide to get fed to the fish. Everyone listen up, don’t get too carried away and swim too far! Remain in my field of vision.”
Is it appropriate for Haruhi to be in charge of everyone’s safety? I guess I’ll have to help. At least I need to be careful not to let Asahina-san out of my sight for more than two seconds.
“Hey, Kyon!”
Haruhi’s finger pointed towards the tip of my nose.
“I don’t like that stupid smile on your face, so cut it out! You’re better off frowning. And I’m not handing you the camera either!”
Remaining passionate from beginning to end, the Haruhi Orient Express sped on, ignoring any obstacles, smiling and giving out orders,
“Then, let’s go!”
So, as such, we came to the beach.
The sun was already setting, but the rays and heat were pretty much up to summer standards. The waves washed upon the sand, the clouds floated above in the sky like marshmallows. Our hair was blown by the sea breeze, carrying the scent of the waves.
While it’s called a private beach, there really wasn’t any need to set up any special booking, as no one ever comes to this uninhabited island anyway. I guess the only people who would come here to enjoy a beach spa are probably some foreign tourists conned by those rubbish travel magazines. Besides the five of us, there was no doubt that the beach was pretty much empty. There weren’t even any seabirds.
So, besides me and Koizumi, the only other living beings able to enjoy the sight of Haruhi and the girls in their swimsuits were the barnacles attached on the shore rocks.
I laid the straw mat under the umbrella, and squinted my eyes, enjoying Asahina-san’s every move, looking shyly, while Haruhi came from behind and grabbed her.
“Mikuru-chan, the best way to enjoy the seaside is to swim! C’mon, let’s go! It’s bad for your health not to enjoy the sunshine!”
“Ah, I’m not really fond of standing in the sunshine.”
Haruhi ignored the cowering protests of Asahina-san, and pushed the small and pale skinned senpai into the water.
“Wah! Salty!”
Asahina-san was actually surprised at something so trivially obvious, flapping her arms on the water surface.
Asahina-san was actually surprised at something so trivially obvious, flapping her arms on the water surface.
At this moment, Nagato……
“……”
……sat on her beach chair in her swimsuit and quietly read her thick novel.
“Different people sure have different ways to have fun.”
Koizumi, who was playing beach ball, opened his mouth to show me his smile.
“One should spend their free time doing what they like most, otherwise it wouldn’t be called free time. Don’t you intend to enjoy this carefree trip for the next four days and three nights?”
Isn’t Haruhi the only one doing as she pleases? I never once thought Asahina-san, being forced to play along by Haruhi, would understand the true meaning of being relaxed.
“Hey, Kyon! Koizumi-kun! You guys come over as well!”
Haruhi yelled at us like a siren warning. I warily got up. To be honest, I didn’t mind that much. Not counting Haruhi, just being able to stand next to Asahina-san is exactly what I’ve wished for. Taking the blown beach ball from Koizumi’s hand, I began walking on the sizzling beach.
Once we sensed our muscles starting to fatigue, we returned to the mansion, took a bath and had a rest in our rooms. The sky is now littered with stars. Mori-san then led us to the dining room.
During dinner time:
The dinner for that night was quite flamboyant. I don’t think they were meaning to grant Asahina-san’s wish, but there was pickled fish on every one of our plates. Being used to poverty, I had to sit upright in respect after seeing all this. I get to eat all of this for free? Is that really okay?
“Be my guests.”
Keiichi-san smiled and showed his generosity.
“Think of it as a reward for having come this far, because it’s just too boring for me alone here. Actually I’m quite picky in choosing my guests, but of course since you’re Itsuki’s friends, you’re most welcome.”
For some reason, Keiichi-san was now dressed very formally compared to when we last saw him. He wore a black tuxedo with a bowtie on his neck. The dishes were a mix of Japanese and western cuisine. There was lamb, French roast fish, and some steamed stuff, all sorts of things. The only one using a fork and knife was Keiichi-san, since we had asked for chopsticks at the beginning.
“This is great! Who made these?”
Haruhi asked while revealing her amazing appetite worthy of nomination for a speed eating contest.
“The butler Arakawa is also the chef here, his cooking’s not bad, huh?”
“I must thank him, please call him out later.”
Haruhi said as though she were a gourmand who had just tasted a high class dinner.
I looked at Asahina-san, who widened her eyes further every time she took a bite; then at Nagato, who doesn’t seem to eat much, yet she never stopped picking up food with her chopsticks; and at Koizumi, who chatted happily with Yutaka-san.
“Would you like something to drink?”
Mori-san asked, dressed in her maid costume and playing the role of waitress the whole time. She carried a small, long wine bottle and smiled. Probably wine, I guess. While it’s questionable to offer alcohol to minors, I still decided to ask for one glass. I’ve never tasted wine before, but one ought to be more daring. And after seeing Mori-san’s charming smile, I found it hard to refuse.
“Ah, what’s Kyon drinking? I want one too.”
Due to Haruhi’s request, glasses filled with wine had now been passed into everyone’s hands.
I felt this was the beginning of the nightmare.
That day, I discovered Asah
ina-san is completely wine intolerant, while Nagato is a formidable bottomless pit; as for Haruhi, she’s just a hopeless drunkard.
Due to the circumstances, I drank quite a lot and so my memory was quite blurred, but I do remember Haruhi grabbing onto the wine bottle and drinking nonstop while knocking on Keiichi-san’s head.
“Ah……You’re so great! To thank you for inviting us, I’ll offer you Mikuru-chan! Train her well so she can become a better maid! Because this girl is completely hopeless!”
I remotely remember her yelling with a heightened pitch.
The real maid Mori-san placed the wine bottle back on the table like a bowling pin, and quietly sliced the apples and pears from the fruits basket, handing them out as dessert. While the only make-believe maid in the club room, Asahina-san was already lying on the table with her face all red.
Nagato finished the glass of wine Mori-san poured for her. I don’t know how the alcohol in her body gets dissipated. Her face remained the same while she emptied glass after glass like a whale drinking seawater.
Yutaka-san asked curiously,
“Is she really okay?”
He looked really worried, I still remembered that scene.
That night, it seems that Koizumi carried an unconscious me back to my room. That’s what Koizumi told me afterwards. He said I reeked of booze just as much as Haruhi, but since I don’t remember anything, I pretended not to hear that, and refused to remember that such a thing happened. I’ll treat it as one of Koizumi’s jokes.
Because something happened on the second day that pushed our hangovers to the back of our minds.
A storm brewed suddenly on the morning of the second day.
The rain water splattered diagonally on the window surface, the strong wind had an ominous sound. The forest around the mansion rustled as though demons were living in it.
“Such bad luck, of all the times to have a typhoon.”
Haruhi said dejectedly while looking outside the window. We were gathered in Haruhi’s room, discussing how we should spend the day today.
This was after we had our breakfast. Keiichi-san was absent from the table. Arakawa-san said Keiichi-san always felt terrible in the morning after waking up, so for him to wake up before noon was very rare.
Haruhi turned towards us,
“This has now really become a lone island. This is the situation of a lifetime, maybe something will happen!”
Asahina-san gasped and moved her eyes around, while Koizumi and Nagato’s facial expressions remained business-like as usual.
The waves were still and calm yesterday. Now they’ve reached tsunami alert status, impossible for any ship to sail in. If this goes on until the day after tomorrow, we’ll really be stranded on a lone island against our wishes, just as Haruhi had wished for. A closed circle, right?
Koizumi gave a smile, trying to calm everyone down,
“This typhoon seems to be moving quite fast, I think it’ll get better the day after tomorrow. As they say, things come and go quickly.”
According to the weather report, this would be correct. But there were no reports of a typhoon coming in yesterday’s report! Just whose mind conjured this storm!?
“It’s coincidental.”
Koizumi said with ease.
“This is a normal natural phenomenon, it comes with the summer weather package, I guess? There’s always one big typhoon every year.”
“We were supposed to explore around the island, but it seems we have to cancel that.” Haruhi said bitterly, “Ah well, let’s find some games that we can play indoors!”
Haruhi seemed to have completely forgotten the original purpose of this field trip, as the emphasis now moved into having fun. Now this was something worth cheering for, because I didn’t want to walk to the other end of the island to find some unidentified creature’s carcass being washed ashore and stuck between the boulders.
Koizumi made his suggestion,
“I seem to remember there’s a game room here, I’ll go ask Keiichi-san to open it for us. Which do you like? Mah-jong or pool? If we asked, we could even get a snooker table set up.”
Haruhi agreed,
“Then let’s have a table tennis match! We’ll decide the winner of the first SOS Brigade Table Tennis Tournament in a round-robin format! Sorry for those who want to play pool, I’ll treat them to drinks on the boat trip back. Don’t hold back now!”
The game room was located in the basement. In the wide hall was placed a Mah-jong table and a pool table. They even had a roulette and Baccarat table. Do Koizumi’s relatives secretly run a casino here?
“What do you think?” Koizumi replied with a foolish smile, pulling out the folded snooker table from the side.
By the way, after an intense battle with me, Haruhi won the table tennis tournament. She then held the Mah-jong contest, but besides Koizumi, no one in the SOS Brigade knew how to play Mah-jong, so we had to learn as we played along. During the game, the Tamaru brothers also joined in, making it a lively Mah-jong contest. Haruhi distorted the rules and created yaku to suit herself, racking up win after win with puzzling combinations like “Nishoku Zetsu Ichimon,” “Chantamodoki,” “Iishanten Paralysis” and so on. Well, it made me laugh, so I let it pass. And we weren’t playing for money, anyway.
“Ron! That’s about ten thousand points!”
“Suzumiya-san, that’s yakuman.”
I secretly sighed, perhaps it was better to look on the bright side and enjoy the fun the trip brought. As things stand, it seems unlikely a huge sea creature will appear, or natives coming out from the forest. After all, this is a lone island far way from the mainland. There won’t be strange things coming in from outside so easily.
I decided to think like that and relax myself. Tamaru Keiichi-san and Yutaka-san, Arakawa-san, Mori-san are all acquainted with Koizumi, they all look normal. We’re still short of characters necessary to trigger a strange event.
I hope everything goes well. I prayed in my heart.
Yet the gods just never seem to answer my prayers.
It happened on the morning of the third day.
We spent the whole second day playing and eating, and as the weather worsened by nightfall, the same dining hall scene repeated itself again. On the third day, I struggled to wake up with a splitting headache from the hangover, if Koizumi hadn’t carried us back to our rooms, I guess I would still be sleeping in the dining hall with Haruhi and Asahina-san.
I opened the curtains on the morning of the third day. The storm continued.
“I wonder if we can return tomorrow?”
I washed off the dizzyness from my face with some cold water, trying hard to walk in a straight line. I walked down the stairs with caution, not wanting to trip and tumble over.
There gathered in the dining hall were Haruhi and Asahina-san with the same miserable face as mine, and Koizumi and Nagato with their usual expressions.
The Tamaru brothers haven’t come down yet, maybe they’ve reached their limits after drinking for two consecutive nights? I remembered Haruhi pouring wine over their glasses. Haruhi was already reckless when sober, with alcohol she became worse, and just thinking of her antics last night simply worsened my headache. I decided never to force myself to drink endlessly.
“I don’t want to drink wine anymore.”
Haruhi frowned and said as if she had learnt her lesson.
“I don’t know why, but all my memories after dinner seem to have disappeared. Isn’t that a pity? I felt as if we had wasted a lot of time. Argh, I don’t want to get drunk again. Tonight is ‘alcohol free night’.”
Normally, high school students are not supposed to get drunk. Perhaps I ought to compliment Haruhi for actually saying something responsible for once? Yet, Asahina-san’s dreamy expression when she was drunk looked just so seductive, I must admit I wouldn’t mind drinking so much.
“Then it’s decided!”
Koizumi nodded and agreed right away, he then said to Mori-san who just came in
pushing a cart with our breakfast on it,
“We won’t be needing any wine for tonight. Please just prepare some juice instead.”
“Understood.”
Mori-san bowed politely and started handing out the bacon and eggs plates on to the table.
Yutaka-san had still not appeared after we had finished our breakfast. As Keiichi-san normally feels ill during morning, his absence was expected, but not Yutaka-san’s. At this moment……
“Excuse me.”
Arakawa-san and Mori-san appeared before us. I noticed a troubled expression within his usually calm butler face. I have a bad feeling about this.
“What happened?” Koizumi asked, “Is there a problem?”
“Yes.” Arakawa-san said, “I believe it is sort of a problem. I had asked Mori-san to go check Yutaka-sama’s room.”
Mori-san nodded her head, Arakawa-san continued,
“As the door wasn’t locked, I opened it to find that Yutaka-sama’s not inside.”
With a voice as clear as a bell, Mori-san said glancing at the table cloth,
“The room was empty, and the bed doesn’t seem to be slept on at all.”
“I tried to contact the master’s room using an internal phone line, but there was no response.”
Haruhi released the glass of orange juice she was holding after hearing Arakawa-san said that.
“What does that mean? Yutaka-san is missing while Keiichi-san doesn’t answer the phone?”
“To put it bluntly, that’s how it is.” Arakawa-san replied.
“Couldn’t you enter Keiichi-san’s room? Do you have a backup key?”
“I have the backup keys to all the rooms save the master’s bedroom. As his room has a lot of work-related documents, only he has access to the backup keys, just to be safe.”
The bad feeling has begun to hover as a dark cloud, shrouding two-thirds of my heart. The mansion owner who hasn’t woken up, and his brother who was missing.
Volume 3 - The Boredom of Suzumiya Haruhi Page 16