Where is Haruhi?
Where are you?
Show your face, now! Is this unnerving or what?
“…Damn. Why do I need to search for you?”
Or, don’t you exist at all here, Haruhi?
Stop the joke, will you!? I don’t know why the heck I would think like this, but the story can’t go on without you showing up! It is plain unreasonable to throw such depressing mournful emotions at just me! What’s the matter with you?
With a lingering image of professional slaves carrying gigantic boulders up a slope for constructing a mausoleum, I looked up at the slightly overcast chilly sky from the connecting hallway.
The club sign-up form rustled inside my pocket.
When I returned to my bedroom, it was Shamisen and my sister who greeted me.
When I returned to my bedroom, it was Shamisen and my sister who greeted me. My sister, with innocent laughter, was wielding a rod with a rumpled furball at the tip. Shamisen, lying flat on the bed, was repeatedly hit on the head by the rod. Shamisen narrowed its eyes as if it was annoyed, and sometimes raised its paws against my sister’s attacks.
“Oh, welcome back~”
My sister looked up at my face with a smile.
“Dinner is about ready. Dinner-da-nya, Shami~”
Shamisen also lifted up its head, but soon gave a big yawn, and lazily fought back against my sister’s continuous bristle grass attacks.
Ah, there was still one remaining hope in this.
“Hey.”
I snatched the bristle grass rod, and hit my sister’s forehead lightly.
“Do you remember Haruhi? How about Asahina-san? Nagato? Koizumi? Weren’t we playing at the baseball match together, and appearing in the film?”
“What~, Kyon-kun? Not a clue~”
Then I held up Shamisen in my arms.
“When was this cat in this house? Who brought it here?”
My sister’s round eyes became even closer to circles.
“Humm… Last month. You brought it back, Kyon-kun, didn’t you? Remember? You got it from a friend who had moved abroad. Right, Shami~?”
Snatching the tri-colored cat from my arms, my sister brushed her cheek against it affectionately. Shamisen, which sleepily narrowed its eyes, looked at me from afar with an I-give-up expression.
“Give me that.”
I grabbed the cat back. Shamisen’s whiskers were shaking, apparently annoyed by being treated like merchandise. Sorry, I’ll reward you with dried food afterwards.
“I need to have a word with it. Just the two of us. So, get out of my room. Now!”
“Hey, I’d like to talk too. That’s unfair, Kyon-kun! Eh… You’re talking with Shami? Eh? Really?”
Without further answers, I lifted my sister by her waist, and dropped her outside the room. “Don’t open the door! No matter what!” I shut the door after the harsh warning.
“Mom~, Kyon-kun’s brain has turned to noodles!”
My sister could be heard walking down the stairs, saying a line which might turn out to be right.
“So, Shamisen.”
I sat cross-legged, and started talking to the precious tri-colored cat sitting on the floor.
“Okay, I told you before to stop talking no matter what. But now, never mind that. Rather, it would comfort me at this moment if you speak up. So, Shamisen. Say something. Whatever is fine. Philosophy, natural science, your choice. Even if it is difficult to understand. Please speak!”
Shamisen looked up at me with a bored face. As if bored off its ass, Shamisen began to lick its fur.
“…Do you understand what I said? Do you mean you cannot speak, but you can still listen and understand? Why not put out your right paw when it’s a Yes, and your left paw when it’s a No?”
With my palm up, I poked my hand against its nose. Shamisen smelt my fingertips for a moment, but as expected, it returned to lick its fur, without saying anything or showing any understanding.
Normal, I guess.
This cat spoke only when we shot the film, and it was only for a short moment. At the same time we stopped shooting the film, this cat turned back to a normal cat. A normal cat that could be found anywhere, and could only be associated with verbs like eat, sleep and play.
I know one thing. In this world, no cat can speak.
“Isn’t that normal?”
Exhausted, I fell flat on my back, and stretched my arms and legs. Cats don’t speak. So the strange time was when Shamisen had opened up to speak, not now. Or was it?
I would just want to be a cat. Then I could quit thinking about anything, and live my life on basic instincts.
I remained in such a position, until my sister came back telling me dinner was ready.
Chapter 2
The day of December 18 finally ended as if it were stuck in a bottle of glue, and the next day began.
December 19.
From today onwards we would be having shortened lessons. The lessons should originally have been shortened much earlier, but a while ago our school had been outrun by our rival public school in the aggregated results of the national mock exam. Our principal was spewing fire and instilled forceful changes with the theme of enhancing academic performance. History does not change, after all.
There was nothing but change around me, in North High and around the SOS Brigade. As if caught up in a certain someone’s arbitrary scheme, I went to school, only to find more absentees from Class 1-5. Taniguchi was nowhere to be found, probably finally reaching 40 degrees Celsius.
And today Asakura was still sitting behind me instead of Haruhi.
“Good morning. Are you awake today? Good, if that’s the case.”
“We’ll see.”
I put my bag on my table with a poker face. Asakura propped up her chin with her hands.
“But just having your eyes open doesn’t necessarily mean that you are awake. Having a firm grip of the situation with your eyes would be the first step to understanding. How are you doing? Are you grasping the situation well?”
“Asakura.”
I leaned forward and shot a sparkling gaze at Asakura Ryouko’s finely chiseled features.
“Tell me once more: Do you really not remember or are you just playing dumb? Didn’t you try to kill me before?”
Asakura’s face suddenly turned gloomy, with the exact same eyes one might use to look at a patient.
“…Seems like you are still not awake. Here is my advice: Go see a doctor soon! Go before it is too late!”
She shut her lips from then on, ignoring me as she struck up a conversation with a neighboring girl.
I turned to face forward, crossed my arms, and stared straight into thin air.
Let’s put it this way.
Let’s say somewhere there is a very very unfortunate person. This person has been spectacularly unfortunate, whether viewed subjectively or objectively. This person is in nature the personification of misfortune, and even the elderly Prince Siddhartha who had mastered the deepest meaning of enlightenment would have turned his eyes away from this person. One day, he (this person may be a she, but I will just assume it is a he to skip the trouble) drifts into slumber while tormented by his usual misfortune, and the next day when he wakes up, the world has turned completely upside-down. It has become a world marvelous beyond words, indescribable even by the word “Utopia.” In this world, his misfortune has completely been swept away, and his body and spirit are filled from head to toe with fortune in every aspect. No misfortune will fall onto his shoulders, and he must have been taken by somebody from hell to heaven in a single night.
Of course, the person’s own will does not play a role here. He is taken away by somebody he does not know, and that somebody’s real identity is completely unknown. It is unknown why that somebody does this to the person. Probably only heaven knows.
So, in this case, should the person be happy? By changing the world, the person’s misfortune is completely gone. However, this world is a little differ
ent from his original world, and the biggest mystery remains as to what the reasoning is behind such changes.
In this case, using the best evaluation criteria available, to whom should the person express his gratitude?
With that said, this person is not me. The degree is way too different.
Well… This analogy is bad for my case, I guess. I was not exactly reaching the bottom of misfortune all the time till yesterday, and presently I am not exactly the most fortunate among all people.
However, disregarding the problem of extent, the analogy is close, if not exact in illustrating the point. My nerves had been practically rattled by the strange happenings around Haruhi all the time, and now such tales are apparently of no relevance to me.
However—
Here, there is no Haruhi, there is no Koizumi, Nagato and Asahina are normal humans, and the existence of the SOS Brigade has been completely erased. No aliens, no time travelers, no ESP. Above all, cats don’t speak. It is just a normal, normal world.
So how is that?
Which world is more suited to me? Which world will delight me? The world that was, until now? Or the world now?
Am I happy now?
After school, my feet were auto-piloted towards the Literature Club Room out of habit. It is a typical reflex action — the body moves without the brain thinking when the action is repeated every day. It is the same as the sequence during bathing. There is no predetermined sequence of how to scrub the body in a bath, but from some time onwards the sequence is pieced up mechanically every single time.
Every day when classes finish, I head towards the SOS Brigade, drink tea prepared by Asahina-san, and play games with Koizumi while listening to the delirious talks from Haruhi. It may be a bad habit, but I find it hard to kick, even if I am told to, exactly because it is a bad habit.
Therefore today the ambiance is a little different.
“What shall I do with this?”
I stared at the blank application form as I was walking. Nagato gave this to me yesterday, probably implicitly encouraging me to join the Literature Club. But I don’t understand; why did she invite me? Because the Literature Club has no other members and is to be disbanded? But it was courageous for her to recruit me, who literally appeared from nowhere and attacked her. Probably even in this wrong world, only Nagato never changes her somehow peculiar logic.
“Agh!”
When walking towards the club rooms block, I passed the Asahina-Tsuruya couple. Asahina-san literally recoiled upon seeing me and clung to Tsuruya-san, hiding behind her. Pained by the adorable senior’s reaction upon seeing me, I briskly gave a light bow and trotted off. Oh please, let the common days come back, so I can enjoy my honeydew once more!
I knocked this time and heard a faint response. Only then did I open the door.
Nagato ran her eyes across my facial epidermis and returned them to the book in her hands. Her movement to push back her spectacles appeared to be her greeting.
“Is it all right for me to come back?”
Her small head nodded firmly. However, her eyes were more interested in the book spread in front of her, and she did not even lift her head.
I put my bag over there and darted my eyes around for the next thing I should do. However, in this nondescript room, there weren’t many small gadgets I could fiddle with. So without choice my eyes landed on the bookshelf.
All of the shelves were jammed to the brim with books of all sizes. There were more hardcovers than paperbacks or novels, which was probably an indication of Nagato’s preference for heavy reading.
Silence.
I should have already been accustomed to Nagato’s silence, but today in this room it was quite painful. I would be on the edge of my seat if I did not say anything.
“Are all of these books yours?”
Immediately came the response.
“Some were here before I came.”
Nagato showed me the cover of the hardcover she was holding.
“This is borrowed. From the public library.”
On the book was a barcode sticker that showed it was the public library’s property. Fluorescent light reflected off the laminated cover, and Nagato’s spectacles shone for a second.
End of conversation. Nagato returned to her silent reading challenge against the thick book, and I lost my place of belonging.
The silence was unbearably choking. I searched for a random conversation thread and threw out random words.
“Do you write your own essays?”
After that was 3/4 of a beat of silence.
“I just read.”
Her eyes flitted for a fraction of a second onto the computer before hiding behind the lenses, but that did not escape my eyes. I see. That was why Nagato needed to do something before letting me use the computer. I developed an irresistible urge to read the story Nagato wrote. What would she have written? Probably sci-fi. It wouldn’t be a love story, would it?
“…”
It was hard to get into a conversation with Nagato in the first place. In this way, this Nagato was no different.
I restarted my silent operations with the bookshelf.
Somehow my eyes stopped on the spine of a book.
It was a familiar title. The time when the SOS Brigade sprouted, Nagato lent me this first volume of a long foreign sci-fi series, a book with a scary amount of words.(ED note: Dan Simmons’s Hyperion according to the anime) Now that I mention it, Nagato was still a spectacled girl then, and she pushed this book onto me without allowing any excuses. “Take this,” she threw those words behind her and left briskly. It took me two weeks to read the whole thing. For me it seemed like years ago when this happened. Too many things had happened in the meantime.
Strange nostalgic sentiments grew, and I took the hardcover from the bookshelf. I was not standing and reading in a bookstore, so I was not really putting any effort into reading. I randomly flipped over the pages and was about to put the book back in its original position when a small rectangular piece of paper dropped beside my feet.
“Hmmm?”
I picked it up. It was a bookmark with flowery drawings. It looked like one of those bookmarks that bookstores would throw in without asking — bookmark?
It was as if the world began to spin around me. Ah… At that time… I opened this book in my bedroom… Found the same bookmark… Then I dashed off on my bike… I could recite the phrase from the back of my head.
Seven o’clock tonight, waiting for you at the park outside the station.
Holding my breath, I rotated my shaking hands — and I saw.
“Program Run Condition: Collect the keys. Deadline: Two Days Later.”
The sentence, as if it were a message from some time ago, was written in computer-font-like neat characters on the bookmark that fell out from the hardcover.
At once, I turned and hurried to the front of Nagato’s table in three steps. Fixing my gaze on her widening black pupils, I asked, “Did you write this?”
Staring at the back of the bookmark I held out for a while, Nagato cocked her head. In a puzzled expression she replied, “It is similar to my writing. However… I don’t know. I do not remember writing that.”
“… I see. Just as I thought. Well, it’s alright. I would be troubled if you knew. There is something bothering me, you know. Oh well, never mind my babbling…”
Babbling lines of excuses from my mouth, I felt like my mind had flown somewhere else.
Nagato.
So this is a message from you all right. It is just a drab and dry line of characters, but I am glad. May I treat it like a present from the Nagato I have known for long? It’s a hint how to break the current situation, right? Otherwise you would not write such a reminder-like comment?
Program. Condition. Keys. Deadline. Two Days Later.
…Two days later?
Today was the 19th. Should I count two days later from this exact moment onwards? Or should I count from yesterday, when the whole world starte
d to go crazy? Worse comes to worst, the deadline would be tomorrow the 20th.
The one-shot surprise gradually cooled off like magma that oozed at a slow pace out of the earth’s crust. I don’t know a thing, but it sounds like I have to gather some keys in order to boot some programs. But what are the keys? Where are they dropped off? How many of them are there? After collecting them all, where should I bring them in exchange for the souvenir?
Question marks hovered in swarms above my head, and finally joined into one large question mark.
If I start up this program, will the world return to normal?
Hurriedly I took books in and out of the shelves starting from the far end, and checked if there were other bookmarks sandwiched within. Bearing Nagato’s astounded gaze I kept on digging, but to no avail. There were no others.
“Just this one, huh?”
Well, if one gets too greedy for too much and grabs for every souvenir he can find, the weight would in the end bring him down, back to square one. Moving at random without a fixed goal is a mere waste of both time and HP. First thing’s first; get the keys. The summit was still far away, but at least I managed to spot the pointer sign.
After asking for permission, I unpacked my lunchbox and settled diagonally from Nagato. Munching my lunch, I also unpacked my mind of thoughts. Nagato seemed to direct her eyes from time to time in my direction, but I just operated my chopsticks mechanically, and concentrated on the urgent matter at hand — to continue feeding nutrients sedulously into my brain cells.
As time ticked by, my lunchbox emptied. I was about to order some tea when I realized that Asahina-san was not with us. I was frustrated, but I continued thinking. This was the moment of truth. I could not let this hard-earned hint go to waste. Key. Key. Key. Key…
For probably two hours, I was immersed in red-hot brainstorming.
Filled gradually with disgust towards my own stupidity, I was overwhelmed by dejection.
“I don’t get it at all!” I cursed myself under my breath.
The keys were too ambiguous to begin with. No way would it mean real keys for locking and unlocking, so my guess was that they were keys like keywords or key personnel. But the scope was still too large. Was it an item or a phrase? Was it mobile or immobile? I would certainly want to ask for further hints like these. I tried to picture what Nagato was thinking when she was writing on the bookmark, but I could only imagine her reading a difficult book, or giving an impressive but painfully long dictum — just the Nagato that I had known all along.
Volume 4 - The Disappearance of Suzumiya Haruhi Page 5