“What are you doing here then?”
“Isn’t that obvious? I’m trespassing.”
You don’t have to announce your criminal activities to the world. There are times when you shouldn’t be aggressive.
“Perfect timing. I don’t know who you are, but if you’ve got time, give me a hand. Or I’ll call the cops.”
I should be the one calling the cops on you. Still, I made a promise with the other Asahina. But yeah, I go back in time and I still have to deal with Haruhi Suzumiya.
Haruhi hopped down from the gate and opened the padlock on the bar. “Why do you have the key?”
“I stole it when I had the chance. Piece of cake.”
That totally makes you a thief. Haruhi slowly slid the metal school gate open and beckoned me inside. I approached the girl, who stood about a head shorter than she would be in three years, and readjusted my hold on Asahina.
As soon as you passed through the main entrance to East Middle School, you would be on the school grounds and the school building was located beyond. Haruhi began walking across the dark grounds in a diagonal direction.
It’s a good thing that it’s dark. She won’t get a clear look at my face or Asahina’s this way. Certainly, Haruhi had never entertained the notion that she’d run into Asahina and me back during her first year of middle school, so we needed to keep it that way.
Haruhi headed straight toward the corner of the sports ground, leading me behind the athletic storeroom. A rusty cart, a rickety, wheeled field line marker, and a few bags of lime lay piled on the ground.
“I took this stuff out of the storeroom earlier this evening and hid them here. Great idea, right?” Haruhi bragged as she piled bags of powder, which appeared to weigh as much as she did, onto the cart and lifted the handle. She looked like a child as she struggled to push the cart along. Guess a first-year in middle school might as well be a child.
I carefully set the slumbering Asahina against the storeroom wall. Please stay asleep for the time being.
“I’ll take care of it. Hand it over. You take the line marker,” I said.
Perhaps I shouldn’t have acted in such a cooperative way. Haruhi abused me in such a frenzy that she’d have worked a rampaging robot to the bone if she’d been given the option. Her personality hadn’t changed the least bit. I can see that her inner character didn’t mature over the next three years.
“Draw the lines exactly the way I tell you to. Yes, I’m talking to you. I have to stand a ways away to supervise your line drawing to make sure you’re doing it right. Ah, that spot’s crooked! What are you doing?!”
Her ability to scream commands at a high schooler she’d never met before made it clear that Haruhi had always been Haruhi. If this had been my first encounter with this middle school girl, I would have thought that she was genuinely dangerous.
Before I met Nagato, Asahina, and Koizumi, at least.
There were no run-ins with teachers on night watch or police cars showing up after some nearby resident called the cops. For thirty minutes, I drew white lines in every direction on the school grounds per Haruhi’s instructions.
I never would have thought that mysterious message that had suddenly appeared on the school grounds had been drawn by me.
As I stared in silence at the patterns I had painstakingly drawn, Haruhi walked over next to me and took the field line marker from me. She proceeded to make a number of fine-tuning adjustments by adding a few lines here and there.
“Say, do you think aliens exist?”
That came out of nowhere.
“Why not?”
Nagato’s face popped into my mind.
“What about time travelers, then?”
“Well, I wouldn’t be surprised if they existed.”
I’d be considered a time traveler myself right now.
“And espers?”
“Walking all over the place, I’d guess.”
I recalled the countless number of red lights.
“Sliders?”
“I haven’t met one of those yet.”
“Hmm.”
Haruhi tossed the field line marker aside and used her shoulder to wipe the dust off her face.
“Oh, well.”
I was getting nervous. Don’t tell me that I said something wrong. Haruhi looked at me with upturned eyes.
“That’s a North High uniform, right?”
“Sure.”
“What’s your name?”
“John Smith.”
“… Are you stupid?”
“Let’s just say that it’s my desired pseudonym.”
“Who’s that girl?”
“My older sister. She suffers from an erratic sleep disorder. It’s a chronic disease. She falls asleep suddenly, so I have to carry her.”
“Hmm.”
Haruhi bit her lower lip and turned to the side with a look that said she didn’t believe me. Let’s change the subject.
“What is this supposed to be?”
“Can’t you tell? It’s a message.”
“To whom? Don’t tell me it’s to Orihime and Hikoboshi.”
Haruhi looked surprised.
“How’d you know?”
“Well, it is Tanabata. I just happen to remember someone doing something similar.”
“Huh? I’d love to meet that person. There’s someone like that at North High?”
“Sure.”
You’re the only person now and in the future who’ll ever be like that.
“Hmm. North High, huh?” Haruhi murmured as she appeared to contemplate something. After staying as silent as a rock for a period of time, she abruptly turned around.
“I’m going home. I accomplished my objective. See ya.”
And then she stomped off. She didn’t even thank me for helping her. Extremely rude behavior, but that’s what I’d expect from Haruhi. And she never told me her name either. Though that works out better for me, I’d say.
I couldn’t stay in this place forever so I attempted to wake Asahina up. This was after I’d returned the cart and lime stolen by Haruhi to the spot behind the storeroom.
The sight of Asahina sleeping like a kitten was enough to make me lose control, but I resisted those urges and lightly shook her shoulder.
“Mmm… Hmm. Huh? Wha—”
Once Asahina had opened her eyes, she began looking all around.
“Wha-Wha—!”
She stood up.
“Wh-Wh-Wh-Whe-… Where am I? What how when are we right now?!”
How am I supposed to respond? As I racked my brain for an answer, Asahina emitted a short gasp before staggering. Even in the darkness, I could tell that her face had turned pale.
Asahina began searching herself with both hands.
“My TPDD… is gone. It’s gone.”
Asahina looked like she was about to cry. Soon enough, she really was crying. She looked like a little girl as she cried with her hands to her eyes, but it appeared that this wasn’t the time to be in high spirits.
“What’s a TPDD?”
“Sniff… That would be considered classified… It’s kind of like a time machine. That’s what I used to come to this time… but I can’t find it anywhere. We can’t return to our original time without it…”
“Uh, why is it gone?”
“I don’t know… It should have been impossible to lose… Yet I lost it.”
I recalled the other Asahina touching this one’s body.
“Maybe somebody will come save us—”
“That’s impossible…” she sobbed.
Asahina began explaining as she continued to sniffle. Established events on the time plane were supposed to be predetermined, so if a TPDD were to exist, it would be on her person. The fact that it was gone would be an established event, which would mean that its “absence” had been predetermined… and yeah. I don’t get it.
“So in other words, what’s going to happen to us?”
She sobbed, “ In other words, we’
re stuck. We’ll be stranded on this time plane, three years in the past, unable to return to our original space-time.”
We’re in big trouble, was how I felt in my heart, but I didn’t feel nervous at all. The adult Asahina hadn’t given me any particular warning about this situation. She was probably the one who swiped the TPDD or whatever and created the current predicament. I presume that Asahina (Big) came to the past for that very purpose. An established event, right? From the perspective of the Asahina who came from farther in the future than this Asahina, it was predetermined.
I looked away from the sobbing Asahina to glance across the school grounds. The baffling jumble of white lines designed by Haruhi and drawn by me was sprawled across the field. The East Middle School staff and students who had no idea what had transpired would probably find this creepy when they showed up tomorrow. I’ll just have to pray that there aren’t any aliens out there who would consider this an insult… and that’s when I had a sudden revelation.
After all, it’d been dark. The only lighting in the school was provided by a few flickering streetlights and the mess of white lines had been large in scale, so I couldn’t tell what the whole thing looked like until I was a fair distance away.
Which is why it took me so long to notice.
I pulled the card Nagato had given me out of my pocket. The one with a number of unintelligible figures on it.
“There might be a way,” I said as Asahina looked at me in tears. I continued to stare at the card.
The drawings on that card were exactly the same as the ones Haruhi and I had scribbled all over the school grounds.
After leaving East Middle in a hurry, we came to a stop in front of a fancy apartment in front of the station.
“Is this… Nagato’s home?”
“Yes. I never heard any specific details about how long she’d been on Earth, but knowing her, she should have been on this world three years ago… probably.”
I pressed the button for Room 708 on the intercom at the apartment’s entrance. There was a buzzing sound to let us know somebody had picked up on the other side. I could feel the warmth of a trembling Asahina’s hand through my sleeve as I spoke into the mic.
“Is this Yuki Nagato’s residence?”
“…” was the response through the intercom.
“Ah—How should I put this…”
“…”
“Would it help if I were to say that I’m an acquaintance of Haruhi Suzumiya?”
I could feel a chilling presence on the other side of the intercom. There was a brief period of silence. Then…
“Come in.”
There was a click as the door unlocked. I got into the elevator with the nervous Asahina in tow. We rode it to the seventh floor as our destination was Room 708, the one I’d previously visited while in the future. As soon as I rang the doorbell, the door opened, albeit slowly.
Yuki Nagato stood inside. This suddenly felt surreal. Had Asahina and I actually traveled to the past?
I had to wonder because Nagato looked exactly the same. The fact that she was wearing a North High uniform, the way she impassively stared at me, and even her inorganic appearance, which seemingly had no body warmth or presence, added to the impression that she was exactly the same as the Nagato I knew. However, there was something this Nagato had that the more recent one didn’t. The glasses she had been wearing when I first met her.
The glasses Nagato had worn before she had stopped being a glasses girl at some point were sitting on this Nagato’s face.
“Yo,” I said as I raised one hand and gave a friendly smile. Nagato, as always, showed no expression on her face. Asahina was trembling as she hid behind me.
“Can we step inside?”
“…”
Nagato silently walked into the room. I took that as a yes and entered with Asahina. We took off our shoes and headed toward the living room. The room was as empty as it would be in three years. Nagato stood still, waiting for us to enter the room. I had no choice but to remain standing as I attempted to explain our situation. Where do I even begin? From the first day of school when I met Haruhi? That’ll take a while.
I gave her a general rundown, abridging various spots. I must have spoken for five whole minutes as she impassively stared at me through her glasses. A summary of Haruhi’s story that lacks any real point, if I do say so myself.
…“And so. The you from three years later gave this to me.”
Nagato scrutinized the card I presented without batting an eye and traced her finger over the weird characters. Kind of looked like she was reading a bar code.
“Understood.”
Nagato simply nodded. Seriously? Wait, hold on. There was something else that bothered me.
I put my hand on my forehead as I did some thinking.
“I’ve known Nagato for a while now, but three years ago… Today for you… So in other words, the present you. Today would have been the first time you met us, right?”
I have to admit that I had no idea what I was saying. Nevertheless, Nagato responded as the edges of her glasses flashed. In a calm and indifferent voice she answered.
“Yes.”
“And so…”
“Requesting permission to access the memory corresponding to my time-divergent variant. I have downloaded reversible border regression data.”
No idea what you’re talking about.
“The ‘me’ in three years and the ‘me’ at this time are the same person.”
“So? Of course you’re the same person. That doesn’t mean the Nagato from three years ago would share memories with the Nagato from three years later.”
“We do now.”
“How?”
“We have synchronized.”
Yeah, I don’t get it.
Nagato removed her glasses without any further response. She looked up at me with her emotionless eyes and blinked. That was definitely the familiar face of the book-loving girl. The Yuki Nagato I remembered.
“Why are you wearing a North High uniform? Did you already enroll?”
“I have not. I am currently in standby mode.”
“Standby… You’re going to stand by for three whole years?”
“Yes.”
“That’s just…”
That’ll take a world of patience. Won’t you be bored? But Nagato shook her head.
“That is my role.”
She stared directly at me with clear eyes. “There is more than one method of time travel.” Nagato spoke in a flat voice.
“The TPDD is merely a device for controlling time. Both unreliable and primitive. There are a number of theories concerning the process of movement through the time continuum.”
Asahina squeezed my hand again.
“Um… What exactly do you mean…”
“When transportation of organic life forms is conducted with the TPDD, noise may occur. We believe it to be imperfect.”
By we, she means the Data Overmind, right?
“You’re capable of perfect time travel?”
“The process does not matter. The transfer of identical data suffices.”
“Going from the present to the past or to the future, huh…”
If Asahina can do it, maybe Nagato can do it too. I assume that Nagato’s the one with an excess abundance of power. In fact, after doing some comparing to Nagato and Koizumi, I’m starting to suspect that Asahina’s the one who really has no idea what’s going on.
“That’s nice and all.”
I interrupted Asahina and Nagato. “Now isn’t the time to be discussing the finer points of time travel. We need to figure out how Asahina and I are going to get back to the future three years later.”
However, Nagato simply nodded.
“It is possible.”
She then stood and opened the sliding door that led to the room next to the living room.
“Here.”
It was a Japanese-style room. With tatami flooring. The fact that the room was completely
empty except for the tatami mats was what you would expect from Nagato, but why were we being shown into this guest room? Could there be a time machine hidden in here? As I wondered, Nagato removed a futon from the closet and spread it on the floor. And then a second one.
“I’m pretty sure I’ve got the wrong idea… but are you telling us to sleep here?”
Nagato, still carrying a futon, turned to look at me. I could see Asahina and myself reflected in her amethyst eyes.
“Yes.”
I glanced next to me to find Asahina fidgeting with her face completely red. That’s how I’d expect her to react.
But Nagato didn’t seem to care.
“Sleep.”
Don’t be so direct.
“Just sleep and nothing else.”
Well… That was the plan. In any case, Asahina and I looked at each other uncertainly. Asahina’s face was bright red while I just shrugged. We had no choice but to rely on Nagato in this case. If she’s telling us to sleep, then that’s what we’ll do. Just hope that it’s as simple as waking up in the morning to find ourselves back in our world.
Nagato reached toward the switch on the fluorescent lamp next to the wall. Then she muttered something. I was wondering if she was saying good night when the light disappeared with a click.
It appeared that I had no choice but to sleep so I pulled the covers over myself.
And the next thing I knew, the light turned on. The fluorescent lamp made clicking sounds as it flickered and stabilized. Huh? Something feels wrong here. It was still dark outside.
As I sat up, Asahina also woke up, clutching the edge of her blanket.
The expression on her lovely, childlike face was one of bewilderment. She looked at me questioningly, but naturally, I had no answers.
Nagato was standing there. She had her hand on the light switch, just like before.
It didn’t seem like Nagato’s face. I could feel some emotion as I stared at the pale face. Like she had something she wanted to say but was unable to because of conflicting interests. It was the slightest expression of emotion that couldn’t be perceived without being accustomed to her poker face for a long period of time. Though I couldn’t be sure that I wasn’t just imagining things.
The Boredom of Haruhi Suzumiya Page 7