“Shamisen?”
I blurted out the name despite myself; the cat really did look like Shamisen. It was a perfect copycat, down to the body shape and pattern—save one big difference: it was female. Male calicos are incredibly rare, and if you want to know why, I suggest asking your biology teacher.
The fake Shamisen sat dazedly on the floor for a moment, then eventually flicked her tail and walked over to my sister and sniffed noses with the real Shamisen, whom my sister was holding. My cat stared round-eyed at the female, then escaped my sister’s clutches and sniffed the female’s tail. The two circled around in pursuit of each other’s tails, which ended about ten seconds later when Shamisen took a swipe at the female.
“Hey! Bad Shami!”
My sister scooped up the growling Shamisen, whereupon the female calico looked around, then for some reason decided to occupy Nagato’s lap.
“…”
Nagato looked blankly down, meeting the gaze of the cat that looked up at her with a demand in her eyes. Eventually, Nagato extended a hesitant hand.
Satisfied with Nagato’s timid petting, the impostor kitty curled up and closed her eyes. She certainly did resemble Shamisen, but there were differences. I’d lived with Shamisen for two months—more than enough time to tell the face of my own household’s cat from some other animal.
“Ah, so that’s why you said you thought my sister or I would have noticed first.”
“Yes. When you got close, I was breaking out in a cold sweat. If you’d actually noticed, I was planning to whisper into your ear to play along. But based on your expression, you didn’t seem to have noticed at all.”
Sorry, pal, I mentally apologized to Shamisen.
“The hardest part of all of this was finding that cat.”
What follows is Master Koizumi’s supplemental explanation.
“As far as cats identical to Shamisen go, when I started looking I had no luck finding one. I had naively thought that all calicos were equal—how wrong I was. After skipping all over the country, I finally found a stray with similar coloration, though not quite exact. Ultimately parts of her fur had to be dyed. But even that wasn’t enough. She also had to be trained.”
What kind of training? I asked.
“She had to learn ‘wait,’ like a dog. If she started wandering around, that would ruin everything, so I had to teach her to sit still and feign sleep until she got a sign from me. If she moved or meowed during the half hour on the cushion, then during the hour and a half inside my rucksack, the trick wouldn’t have worked.”
Koizumi shook his head, thinking about it. If the cat had actually learned that kind of trick, it might have a future in showbiz—and showbiz would be even easier for the guy who’d learned how to hypnotize cats.
“I named her Shamisen the Second, Shami Two for short. I couldn’t think of anything else.”
Having given that strange excuse, Koizumi cleared his throat.
“So, our mystery game has come to an end. I trust no one will mind awarding both Suzumiya and Tsuruya the prize for correctly solving the mystery—said prize will be presented in a moment.”
Koizumi bowed slowly.
“This concludes the day’s entertainment. I thank everyone for their cooperation, particularly Tsuruya for the use of her family’s villa, Keiichi Tamaru for playing the role of the victim, Yutaka for acting solely as a misdirection, and Arakawa and Mori for all their help. Thank you all for your support.”
Haruhi and Tsuruya started clapping like monkeys, followed by my sister, then the baffled Asahina. Seeing even Nagato clapping quietly, Shami Two still in her lap, I wound up applauding as well.
Good job, Koizumi.
The prize was a small electroplated trophy. It was decorated with a stylized cat that actually looked a bit like Shamisen doing a headstand. Haruhi and Tsuruya held it up, their fingers flashing V-for-victory poses, so I gave up and snapped a picture—with Shamisens One and Two, of course.
Later, Arakawa brought out the traditional New Year’s Eve soba noodles a little early. Haruhi and Tsuruya immediately grabbed their chopsticks and went crazy, while Koizumi’s chopsticks barely twitched. Now that I thought about it, I’d never seen him really tear into a meal.
“So, how did you like the game?”
Well now, this was a rare thing indeed. Even in the house of illusions the previous day, Koizumi hadn’t shown me the slightly uneasy smile he now wore. I didn’t really feel like complimenting the scenario, but…
“I guess it was all right,” I said.
I gulped down some onions in noodle broth.
“Haruhi’s mood is as good as ever. Aren’t you satisfied?”
“That’s good, if true. It means this was worth arranging—it was all for her amusement, after all.”
There was that—it’d been nothing but a pain for me, and I couldn’t say I felt particularly resolved. Asahina didn’t seem to have understood either, and she was busily drawing lines in a memo pad.
“This is two o’clock, and this is three, and the cat was here from two to three… wait, no, half an hour? Huh? Kitty, kitty…”
Asahina muttered away, slurping up her noodles with a confused-looking face. The person who understood the least was my sister; she hadn’t heard a single thing, but there she sat, happily stirring up the contents of her bowl.
I breathed a sigh of relief to see Nagato’s appetite returning to normal, with the female calico still in her lap. Basically, it was good to see everybody acting like themselves, save Koizumi, who seemed to be trying to elicit sympathy.
“I’ve been totally preoccupied by the planning for this ever since the winter field trip was announced. Thanks to everyone, I’m finally free. I don’t think I’m really cut out to be the killer or mastermind type. I’m happy to leave the detective role to others too. I think being a commentator suits me best.”
If it were up to me, I’d have the commentator role abolished—I didn’t want any more crazy things happening that needed commentary. Just as I was making that wish, an idea flashed through my mind.
“For the next murder mystery, why bother doing a whole performance? If it’s all planned, wouldn’t it be easier to just hand out booklets with the script?”
Koizumi made a face like noodles were stuck in his throat, then spoke like a boxer, bleeding because of an accidental head-butt and being told by the doctor to forfeit.
“… That’s a good point,” he said unwillingly.
“So hey, Koizumi—”
Haruhi spoke up as she got a refill on her noodles from Mori.
“We’re leaving next summer’s event to you! We’ve done an island and a snowy mountain, so next we’ll need someplace even weirder. Like someplace with a weird name! Someplace overseas might be good. Yeah, like a castle! An old stone castle would be perfect!”
Haruhi destroyed my dreams and Koizumi’s as she whipped her chopsticks around like a baton.
“I know the perfect place—my dad’s friend owns a castle overseas!”
Tsuruya joined in, unfortunately, and seemed even more excited than Haruhi.
“Hey, guys, did you hear that? Get your passports ready for summer!”
Koizumi and I exchanged a glance and a sigh, proof that neither of us had the strength to withstand the tag-teaming of Haruhi and Tsuruya. I was just the guy who was going to try to get Haruhi to give up on her overseas travel plans, and Koizumi was the SOS Brigade’s drama producer of last resort. The way things were ending up, battling unseen opponents was starting to sound pretty good.
If I didn’t do something, we’d wind up opening an overseas branch of the SOS Brigade. I really didn’t want things to get too out of hand, or so I told myself as eloquently as I could.
This was probably the first New Year’s Eve I’d ever passed without a single glance at the television.
We played another round of Haruhi’s board game, this time including Mori and the others. As Haruhi had fun and I got worn out, the luxurious dinner and e
vening conversation came to an end, and eventually we realized that the hour was getting late.
“Once we wake up tomorrow, we can write our New Year’s resolutions and play hanetsuki in the snow!” Haruhi shouted.
Hey, at least let us eat some zouni first before we go play badminton in the snow, I thought.
“It’ll be the new year, after all, so we gotta do the basics. Although we already played fukuwarai and my board game a little early.”
Haruhi looked at the wall clock as she continued.
“It’ll be bad if we don’t do the first shrine visit of the year too.”
I didn’t think it would be particularly bad. I didn’t care how generous the gods and Buddhas were; I doubted they really wanted Haruhi coming around their temples. The shrine where we did our location shooting was probably sending out letters saying we were banned from entering ever again, I told her.
“What’re you talking about? We’re lucky enough to live in a country that mixes up all kinds of religions, so it’d be a waste not to do everything! Celebrating Christmas without doing New Year’s would be like ordering a gourmet meal and then leaving after just looking at the utensils! We can’t miss doing the first shrine visit!”
Well, in that case, why not just build a snow temple out in the yard and stick an offering box in front of it? Of course, we’d dress up Asahina as a shrine maiden and put her inside the temple. That way we wouldn’t have to slog all the way to some existing shrine, and for my part I’d pray there day and night. Eventually word would get around, and we’d get people making the pilgrimage to see her all the time—and I promise the donation box wouldn’t run empty, I said.
“Idiot!”
Haruhi clung to Asahina’s shoulder.
“Although it’s hard to give up on the idea of shrine maidens, I want to see Mikuru in a full kimono! We’ll do shrine maidens after we get back from the trip. We’ll find some temple or shrine to go to. Oh, obviously Yuki has to dress up too—and so will I!”
Once Asahina’s earlobe turned red from her nibbling, Haruhi checked the time again.
“Hey, everybody, it’s time!”
At Haruhi’s direction, we all sat in a circle, kneeling down in the traditional way. In addition to the five SOS Brigade members, Tsuruya was also part of the circle, and next to her sat my sister and the two cats. Also, the bonus quartet of the Tamaru brothers, the butler, and the maid joined us at Haruhi’s behest. Were they really all right with that? I wondered. If things went badly, they’d wind up getting ordered around like brigade members.
But my worries aside, everyone was smiling their own unique smiles. And why not? Show me a guy who’s frowning on a day like this, and I’ll show you a guy who doesn’t have a calendar. I couldn’t think of a reason to complain.
When Haruhi gave the signal, we all bowed and said the standard Happy New Year phrase: omedetou gozaimasu.
It’s old and boring, but if we changed it, we’d surely miss that phrase.
THE MELANCHOLY OF MIKURU ASAHINA
All kinds of things had happened over the winter break, but stuff had turned out pretty much the way I’d expected, just like when you buy a lottery ticket and wind up not winning anything. The events of this story happened after I’d trudged up the hill to school again, cursing the school’s cheap construction that made the bitterly cold weather seem even more bitterly cold.
Perhaps thanks to global warming, there hadn’t been much snow, but that small favor was made up for by the fact that my classroom’s lackluster heater seemed to keep the room’s temperature roughly at the level of the South Pole. As I wondered if I’d be stuck with heaters like that until I graduated, I started to feel like I’d made a terrible mistake by picking North High, and I was ashamed of my junior high school self—but I was here now, so there was no helping it.
Today, as usual, I was headed to the SOS Brigade’s headquarters in the clubroom building, to idle away the after-school hours.
The room had originally belonged to the literature club, but the previous year it had been annexed by the SOS Brigade for use as its hideout—it’s hard to imagine a better example of giving someone an inch, only to have them take a mile. I got the feeling that the student body was beginning to forget there had ever been a literature club, and given Nagato’s feelings as the sole member of said club, I wasn’t inclined to worry about it too much. And if I wasn’t worrying, you could bet Haruhi wasn’t either.
In any case, this was where I went after school, and I had to admit I had nowhere else to go. Although I did occasionally consider ditching the brigade and going straight home, I would imagine a certain someone sitting behind me during class and staring killer laser beams at my back all day, and such fantasies would vanish like mist. This risk calculation was based on real-world experience, though whether that experience would help guide humanity down the right path, I had no idea.
Such things went through my mind as I arrived at the clubroom door and knocked, as was my habit. If I just opened the door without any notice, there was a decent possibility that I would be greeted by a heavenly vision—but the knock was performed precisely to avoid that happening.
Going by the normal after-school routine, my knock would be answered by a soft “Come in!” and a beautiful second-year student so lovely you’d think she was an angel or a fairy or a spirit—take your pick—would open the door with a modest smile.
“—”
I waited, and waited some more—and there was no answer.
Which meant that not only was the resident angel/fairy/spirit not here, but neither was the board game–loving pretty boy; if someone were there, it would have to be the near-silent literature freak. And I was willing to bet just about anything except my own life on the fact that Haruhi wasn’t there.
So I grasped the doorknob and opened the door as casually as I would open my refrigerator at home.
Haruhi was indeed not there. Nor was Koizumi. Not even Nagato.
However—
Asahina was there.
The petite, well-endowed second-year student wore her maid outfit, her profile as lovely as ever. She sat on a folding chair, hands grasping a broom as she sat there dazed, her mind elsewhere.
What could this be? Such a mood hardly suited her.
She didn’t seem to have noticed that I’d entered the room as she stared off into space, a quiet sigh escaping her lips. Even her ennui was picture-perfect, like a scene from a movie that had required countless takes to capture. So nice.
After watching her for a while, I spoke up.
“Asahina?”
The effect was instantaneous.
“Huh? Oh, um, er—yes!”
Asahina jumped up from the chair, half standing, half sitting as she clutched the broom to her chest and looked at me with surprised eyes.
“Ah, Kyon! When did you…?”
When? After I knocked, I told her.
“Oh goodness, I didn’t notice you at all… I-I’m sorry.”
Her cheeks flushed with embarrassment and she hurriedly tried to explain.
“I was just thinking about… um… things. I’m sorry, really.”
She hurried to put the broom away in the supply closet, then looked back to me. Her eyes were amazing. Everything about her was amazing. All hail Asahina! If I wasn’t careful, I’d wind up just hugging her out of nowhere. It almost felt like I had to. Yes, fine, I’d do it! No, wait, get a grip, Kyon. But just before the desperate battle between the angel and devil in my mind reached its conclusion—
“Where’s Suzumiya? Isn’t she with you?”
That was all it took to bring me back to reality. That was a close one. I nearly could’ve caused Haru-mageddon. I feigned calm and put my bag on the table.
“No, she’s got classroom cleaning duty. She’s probably sweeping dust all over the music room by now.”
“I see…”
Asahina closed her lips, as though not terribly interested in Haruhi’s whereabouts.
I co
uldn’t help but wonder if something was up. Asahina definitely seemed strange. The girl from the future always greeted me with a smile like a single sunflower blooming in a vase (that part’s a bit delusional) but at that moment, everything about her, from her fine features and soft hair to her obviously sweet breath, was overflowing with ennui.
Radiating unhappiness, Asahina stood directly before me, looking at me with her hands clasped and fingers intertwined. Despite whatever was troubling her, she seemed unsure of what to do about it. Perhaps unfortunately, she wasn’t searching for the right words to confess her love. Though I wasn’t searching for the memory, it came to me unbidden—the time I’d last seen her this way. It was the same expression she’d worn at Tanabata last year, when she’d asked me to go three years back in time with her (the first time).
It had been six months since then, and while Asahina was constantly improving her cuteness level, I remained as stupid as always. Nonetheless, as I tried to rein in Haruhi and the SOS Brigade a bit, I reflected on the fact that little by little I was starting to get used to it enough to tell myself, “Hey, this isn’t so bad.” I was sure nothing Asahina could tell me would really surprise me, and I had no intention of refusing her.
As I busied myself trying to burn the image of Asahina’s maid-outfit-wearing countenance onto my retinas, she finally initiated conversation. Opening her always glossy lips, she spoke.
“Kyon, um… I need a favor…”
Ka-click.
The door made a quiet click, then slowly opened. What I saw as I reflexively looked behind me was a short-haired, expressionless girl who walked quietly into the room.
Nagato mechanically closed the door.
“…”
She took a glance at Asahina and me, then, like a ghost, walked over to her usual spot.
Emotionlessly, she took her seat, then produced a paperback book from her bag and opened it. She probably had no particular interest in the fact that Asahina and I stood facing each other midconversation, but if she did, it was evidently outweighed by the bulky, difficult-looking paperback.
The Wavering of Haruhi Suzumiya Page 14