We put the tree-lined riverside path behind us and headed to rendezvous with Sakanaka at her house. We’d left our bags there, and we needed to deliver our report to the client.
“But, um…” Diagonally behind me walked Asahina, who spoke in a hesitant voice. “But I really wonder what was going on. Even today, Rousseau didn’t want to walk that way.”
Koizumi jumped on this. “According to the fellow we just talked to, it was three days ago that he solved the problem. We know that there was definitely something alarming dogs until that point. But now it seems there is not. The fact that according to Sakanaka, other neighborhood dogs won’t approach the area—it is probably because their memories are still making them sense danger. If that Shiba Inu’s master hadn’t forced him back onto the path, he probably wouldn’t have come near it.”
Weren’t there two kinds of dogs? Those who excelled at remembering difficult events and those who didn’t? Upon reflection, Rousseau was on the smart side of things, and that Shiba Inu had a pretty good brain too.
“…”
I felt better seeing Nagato remaining silent. If she said there wasn’t anything here, then there definitely wasn’t anything here. At the moment, I didn’t care that someone had tossed his vote in favor of the theory of a hibernating bear having left the area and returned to the mountain three days ago.
It was still the time of year when the air becomes chilly at dusk, and Haruhi’s pace brought us quickly to the Sakanaka mansion. Perhaps it wounded our brigade chief’s pride to have to tell a rare client that we hadn’t been able to figure anything out, since she was rather irritable, but knowing her personality, she’d soon recover. It was Haruhi Suzumiya’s habit not to spend time worrying about things that don’t work out, instead moving on to the next adventure.
As expected, Haruhi’s mood immediately improved upon arriving at the Sakanaka residence, where we were invited into the living room and served handmade choux à la crème pastries.
“Whoa. Yum. These are tasty. You could open a shop with these!”
The living room’s furnishings were chic and tasteful, and the sofa I sat on was so fluffy that if Shamisen got on it, he’d probably sleep for twelve hours straight. The beautiful Mrs. Sakanaka’s dog was even high-class—everything from the appearance to the aura of a wealthy person’s home was just different. I wondered if Haruhi’s personality would’ve been closer to Sakanaka’s if she’d been raised in this kind of environment.
While we were partaking of choux à la crème and Earl Grey tea, Koizumi related the details of our investigation. Sakanaka held Rousseau and stroked his head while nodding in response to the report. However, when the explanation was over, she seemed to still find something puzzling.
“I understand that it seems safe now,” she said, looking at Rousseau’s alert ears, “but seeing how scared Rousseau got earlier, I don’t think I’ll make him walk that path until he and the other neighborhood dogs don’t mind it anymore. I’d feel bad for him otherwise.”
That was certainly her decision to make as the dog owner. Rousseau was lucky to have such a considerate caretaker, although it seemed to me she spoiled him a little too much.
Delighted at Haruhi’s and Nagato’s devouring of her choux à la crème, Mrs. Sakanaka was busily making more, and for a while the topic was dominated by Sakanaka’s tales of her dog. Rousseau himself was lying on his belly beside Sakanaka, ears initially pricked and alert, but eventually his eyes began to look sleepy. Asahina adoringly watched him, a wistful sigh escaping her lips.
“You’re so lucky to have a dog…”
I wondered if pets were banned in the future, but to be perfectly honest, I’d take Asahina in my house over a pet any day. Having a maid to see me off in the morning and welcome me home—was that not the proper job of a maid? It certainly suited her better than brewing tea in a dingy clubroom.
Oh, well. I’d just leave that one in the world of my thoughts.
The day ended with us having all gone to Sakanaka’s house, playing with her dog, going on a walk, having Asahina dressed as a shrine maiden and chanting the Heart Sutra, taking choux à la crème and tea, then going home—just a normal day having fun with a classmate.
And what I expected would happen was that the mystery would go unsolved, disappearing from my memory as well as Haruhi’s…
But a few days later, something unexpected happened.
It was Friday. The school-wide sports tournament as well as final exams had come to an end, so the last thing the first-year high school students had to do was wait for spring break to start while worrying about what their class assignments would be for the next year. The graduation ceremony had happened at the end of February, and with a third of the student body gone, the school buildings were somehow quiet, although come next month they’d be filled again with fresh-faced new students, just as we ourselves had once done.
Was I now going to be called “senpai”? It was hard to imagine the SOS Brigade getting any new members, but what were Haruhi’s plans?
Sitting in the second seat from the back in the row against the windows, I yawned widely and stretched in the rays of spring sunshine that shone through.
“Kyon.” Someone sitting in the seat behind me, the last one in the row, poked me in the back with a mechanical pencil.
“What?” If she wanted me to try and persuade incoming freshmen to join, she could forget about it, I said.
“That’s not it. That’s my job, anyway. But whatever.” Haruhi gestured to the rest of the classroom with the point of her pencil. “Did you notice that Sakanaka was absent today?”
“No… Was she?”
“She was. She’s been gone since this morning.”
That was surprising. Aside from pointing out how stupid Taniguchi was, the only time Haruhi’d ever said anything about one of our classmates was during the Asakura incident, I pointed out.
“Well, we had her as a client, so I was going to ask whether her dog-walking route had returned to normal. Don’t you care? Plus, the dog was cute and those cream puffs were delicious. I’m not that forgetful, you know.”
Normally I would’ve been delighted to hear that Haruhi had finally become good enough friends with a girl in the class that she cared about where she was, but now that she mentioned it, it did bother me. After all, it was undeniably true that there was an area near Sakanaka’s house where her dog would refuse to go, and that being the case, we’d left the matter unresolved. But now she was absent from school. It wasn’t inconceivable that there was a connection, but—
“Well, the seasons are changing. Maybe she caught a cold. And it is the end of the semester, after all. If she’s ditching, it’s not that big of a deal.”
“Maybe.” Happily, Haruhi agreed. “I guess if I didn’t have the SOS Brigade, I wouldn’t see any use in coming to school now. But Sakanaka seems too serious to just up and turn a normal weekday into a holiday on her calendar.”
Given that Haruhi was constantly taking holidays and making them into SOS Brigade activities, I wouldn’t have expected her to be so particular about sticking to the calendar.
“Mmm.” Haruhi held her pencil between her nose and upper lip. “Maybe we should go investigate again. I’ll have Mikuru wear a nurse outfit this time.”
Having her wear a nurse outfit without having any actual credentials was only going to cause trouble, I pointed out. And wasn’t she just after more choux à la crème?
“Idiot. I want to see J.J. Don’t you wonder what would happen if you sheared that wool-like fur off of him?”
Bored, Haruhi began spinning her pencil around her fingertips, as the bell signaling the beginning of third period rang.
After school, things started moving all at once.
I was in the clubroom playing shogi against Koizumi, Nagato was reading, and Asahina was busy making tea, wearing the maid outfit that suited her much better than the shrine-maiden one did.
Then—Haruhi barged in the room, having been delay
ed by classroom cleaning duties.
“Kyon, I knew it!”
Normally when she made these sorts of pronouncements, Haruhi was smiling, but that day she seemed vaguely melancholy. I had a premonition that strange things were happening.
“I figured out why Sakanaka is absent. She’s fine, but it’s Rousseau—he’s been taken to an animal hospital. But even the vet doesn’t know what’s wrong with him, so she’s really depressed. She was so upset she couldn’t come to school! I talked to her on the phone, and she sounded like she was about to cry. Her stomach’s been hurting so badly she hasn’t eaten anything, but since Rousseau isn’t eating either, it just makes her feel worse—”
“Hang on, calm down,” was all I could think of to say, but interrupting Haruhi in the middle of her sentence only got me a harsh glare—not angry, exactly, but as though I was a heartless bastard who’d abandoned a drowning child.
“What’s your problem? You’re just sitting there drinking tea while Rousseau’s in agony! J.J.’s so weak he can’t even drink water!”
If drinking tea were now a crime, then Koizumi and Asahina were my accomplices, but in any case, I wanted her to tell me just how she’d already known the circumstances in the Sakanaka household by the time she’d come barging into the room.
“I called Sakanaka’s cell phone while I was cleaning. I was just really worried about her. And then—”
That was the second surprise of the day. Since when had Haruhi been good enough friends with Sakanaka to trade cell phone numbers?
“—I knew it wasn’t any time to mess around with cleaning!” Haruhi brandished her cell phone. “There was something in that area. What I think is that whatever’s there is the cause of the sickness. I mean, Sakanaka said it herself. Other dogs in the area have been affected too.”
I’d heard that part too; I remembered it as soon as Haruhi mentioned it.
“If the symptoms are the same, then maybe…”
“The symptoms are the same,” said Haruhi flatly. “I asked her about it. She said when she went to the animal hospital, the vet said they’d gotten a similar case in a few days earlier. When she asked about it, it turned out it was Higuchi’s dog.”
Who was this Higuchi?
“Geez, Kyon, you’re so stupid! Sakanaka told us about her before. Higuchi, who has a bunch of dogs! She lives close to the Sakanaka house. Didn’t you hear that one of them wasn’t feeling well?”
Yeah, I’d just now remembered, I told her. I bet she’d forgotten all about it too until she called; it wasn’t fair that she was attacking me for it. But anyway—Rousseau was sick? He’d been so healthy.
“What’s he sick with?” I asked.
“They don’t know, she said.” Haruhi just stood there, as though she’d forgotten to sit at her brigade chief’s desk. “Apparently it’s got the vet totally stumped. There’s nothing wrong with his body, his health is just failing, and Higuchi’s Mike is the same way. They’ve just lost their appetites and collapsed. He’s not barking or sniffing and Sakanaka’s getting more and more worried.”
Haruhi glared as me as though it were my fault, then looked over the other occupants of the clubroom.
Asahina clasped her serving tray, looking stricken from worry about Rousseau. Nagato looked up from her book to Haruhi. Koizumi put the shogi piece in his hand back from where he had picked it up and spoke.
“It seems we’ll need to reinvestigate the area,” he said with a smile like a veterinarian encouraging a worried pet owner. “This is, after all, a case brought to us by Sakanaka. We cannot shut our eyes to this. You could say it’s our duty to see it through to the end.”
“Th-that’s right. We should go visit them at the hospital.” Asahina nodded her agreement with Koizumi’s stance.
“…”
Nagato closed her book and silently stood.
The entire brigade seemed to be united in its worry about Rousseau. The dog had frightening charisma to have inspired such concern in all of them over only a day’s worth of activity.
“What about you?” Haruhi glared at me, accusation in her eyes. “What’s it gonna be?”
Naturally I felt badly about the fluffy little guy being in bad shape. Unlike, say, Shamisen, he was a purebred terrier from Scotland, raised in a comfortable home his whole life—he probably wasn’t that tough.
And that aside, I was worried about the unknown cause of this affliction. I looked away from Haruhi to avoid her glare, my eyes fixing upon another person.
“…”
Yuki Nagato, who’d promised that there wasn’t anything out of the ordinary at that location, was in the middle of picking up her book bag.
After a bit of time spent waiting for Asahina to change clothes, we headed out of school, walking as fast as we could down the hill and catching a train that was literally on the verge of departing toward Sakanaka’s house. Having commenced her action, Haruhi’s mobility and command were greater than any commander in the Mongolian horde.
We arrived shortly at the expensive neighborhood, and when we got to the house, I watched Haruhi’s finger as she pressed the doorbell button.
“Coming…”
When Sakanaka emerged, it was obvious by looking at her that she was totally dispirited. Her face was weary, and her eyes were moist from recently crying.
“Come in. Suzumiya, everybody… thank you so much for…” Her words trailed off as she beckoned us in, toward the living room we’d been in before. There on the fine couch, probably in Sakanaka’s own personal spot, was Rousseau, his legs drawn in beneath him as he lay there. His white fur seemed to have lost its luster, and he rested his head on the sofa’s cushion, evidently too exhausted even to look up at the large group of people that had just entered the room. His ears didn’t so much as twitch.
“Rousseau…” Asahina immediately approached him, kneeling down and stroking his nose. His little black eyes moved, looking sadly up at Asahina, then shifted slowly away. Asahina laid the palm of her hand on Rousseau, but all he did was reflexively move his ears slightly. Whatever his affliction, it was definitely serious.
“How long has he been like this?” Haruhi asked.
Sakanaka’s voice was strained. “Probably since yesterday evening. I thought he was just sleepy, so I didn’t worry about it at the time, but when I woke up in the morning, he was still the same way. He won’t move from this spot, and he won’t eat. He couldn’t do his morning walk either. I got worried so I took him to the animal hospital, but…”
So everything Haruhi had been shouting about in the clubroom was true—that the cause was unknown, and that there was another dog with a similar problem, I said.
“Yes. Higuchi’s dog Mike. He’s a miniature dachshund and good friends with Rousseau.”
Asahina stroked Rousseau’s head sympathetically, with the special kindness of someone who believes that small animals must be treasured. Her sadness at Rousseau’s condition was obvious even to me, and as I tried to prevail over the sudden tightness in my chest—
“May I ask something?” said Koizumi. “If that’s the case, then Higuchi’s Mike should have been affected five days ago. What is Mike’s condition now?”
“I called around noon today. He said Mike’s been bad for days and still is. Since he won’t eat, he was put on an IV to get some nutrients into his body. I don’t know what I’m going to do if they have to do that to Rousseau…”
If things kept up this way, he’d just keep getting weaker. I thought about the difference between the images of the healthy, happy dog I’d seen just a few days before and the one I saw now. He suddenly reminded me of the way Shamisen would lie lethargically on the heater, but this was a dog, so his circumstances were different. I was starting to get genuinely worried.
“One more thing,” said Koizumi. “Is it just Mike and Rousseau who’ve been affected? I believe you said there are many dogs that Rousseau goes on walks with.”
“I haven’t heard if anyone else is like this. When Mike got
sick, there were a lot of rumors about it, so if other dogs are sick, I’m sure I would have heard about it.”
“And this Mike, is the owner’s residence nearby?”
“Yes. It’s across the street, just three doors down. What about it?”
“Oh, nothing.” Koizumi ended his questioning.
Wilting, Sakanaka said, “I wonder if it really is a ghost. I mean, the vet at the animal hospital couldn’t figure it out…”
Haruhi furrowed her brow, her voice small and desperate. “Maybe… It is strange, isn’t it? Whether or not it’s a ghost, it’s sure no laughing matter.”
Her expression made it seem like she was regretting jumping so quickly on the idea of a ghost, dressing Asahina up as a shrine maiden and making her chant sutras. It seemed like she was thinking ruefully that a real vengeful spirit was going to take more than a costume to beat. For Haruhi, it was a serious regret.
“Hey, Yuki, can’t you do something?”
It was strange that she’d suddenly ask Nagato, but in response, the quiet girl naturally took action. She set down her book bag and moved toward Rousseau, kneeling down in the space beside the worried Asahina and looking directly into the dog’s eyes.
I held my breath and looked on.
“…”
Nagato slipped her finger beneath Rousseau’s chin and lifted up his head, looking steadily into Rousseau’s black eyes. Her eyes were even and serious, like lasers reading data directly from the surface of a DVD. Their noses were so close they were almost touching as Nagato gazed into Rousseau’s eyes, which she did for about thirty seconds.
“…”
She stood up slowly, seeming almost more ghostly than an actual ghost, and we all watched as she walked back to her original place in the room, and slowly, minutely cocked her head.
Haruhi sighed.
“You don’t know either, Yuki? I guess that’s natural. Hmm…”
I don’t know what I expected from Nagato, but evidently treating this problem was beyond the scope of Nagato’s considerable power. I supposed even aliens weren’t gods, and I slumped in discouragement—when from behind me I felt a strong presence.
The Indignation of Haruhi Suzumiya Page 15