The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya

by Nagaru Tanigawa

  “Sorry I’m late!” Our homeroom teacher, Okabe, looking bright, cheerful and out of breath, rushed in, took a look at Haruhi, standing with her fist in the air and glaring at the ceiling, and at everybody else in the classroom looking at Haruhi in unison, and froze in bewilderment.

  “Ah… homeroom’s starting.”

  Haruhi plopped back into her chair and began fervently staring at a corner of her desk. Whew.

  I turned back toward the front of the room, the rest of the class did the same, and teacher Okabe staggered over to his podium and cleared his throat.

  “Sorry I’m late. Ah… homeroom’s starting.”

  And with that reiteration of his opening remarks, we returned to our daily mundane routine. This daily mundane routine is probably what Haruhi detested most.

  But isn’t that how life goes?

  Still. I couldn’t ignore this crazy feeling in the dark corner of my heart that envied Haruhi’s way of life.

  She was still eagerly waiting for a chance encounter with the extraordinary, something I had given up on long ago. And you can’t deny that she was going all out for it. It’s not like aliens are going to fall out of the sky if you wait long enough. Haruhi’s point was that in that case, we should reach out to them. Thus, the markings on the grounds, the painting on the roof, and the talismans around school.

  Geez Louise. (Do people even say that anymore?)

  I don’t know when Haruhi began doing things to make spectators think she’s some sort of mental patient. But I guess that if she had already spent a long time waiting before running out of patience, and attempting bizarre rituals with no results, it would make perfect sense for her to end up always looking like she hated the whole world, right? Or I guess not.

  “Hey, Kyon.”

  During break, Taniguchi came over with a moody expression plastered on his face. “That expression really makes you look like a moron, Taniguchi.”

  “Screw you. Forget about that. Anyway, what kind of magic did you use, Kyon?”

  “What do you mean by magic?” I responded, as I recalled the saying that sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

  Sticking his thumb at Haruhi’s seat, which Haruhi, true to form, had vacated the instant class ended, Taniguchi said, “I’ve never seen Suzumiya talk that long before. What did you say to her?”

  “Dunno. What did I say? I get the feeling I just asked whatever was on my mind.”

  Taniguchi had this overly exaggerated look of shock on this face. “It’s the end of the world.” Kunikida popped out from behind him.

  “Kyon’s always liked weird girls.”

  “Don’t say things that can be misconstrued,” I replied.

  “I don’t give a damn about whether or not Kyon likes weird girls,” said Taniguchi. “What I want to understand is how Suzumiya and Kyon managed to hold an actual conversation. I can’t accept it.”

  “If I had to guess, wouldn’t it be because Kyon would also be categorized as a weirdo?”

  “Well, yeah. A guy with a nickname like Kyon can’t be normal. But still.”

  Stop going “Kyon, Kyon.” Hell, I’d rather have you call me by my actual name. I would at least like my little sister to call me “Big Brother.”

  “I’d also like to know.”

  A girl’s voice suddenly descended upon us. A clear soprano. I looked up to find Ryoko Asakura with a sincere smile on her face.

  “Suzumiya never responds no matter how hard I try. How did you get her to talk to you? Is there a trick to it?”

  I gave it a little consideration. Or I should say, pretended to give it consideration before shaking my head. The answer was obvious, after all.

  “I don’t know.”

  Asakura laughed.

  “Hmm. But I’m relieved now. I’d be worried if Suzumiya kept isolating herself from the rest of the class. It’s a good thing that she’s managed to make a friend.”

  If you’re wondering why Ryoko Asakura was acting concerned as though she were class president, that’s because she was the class president. It had been decided in the long homeroom period earlier.

  “Friend, huh….”

  I tilted my head. You think so? I get the feeling I’ve only ever seen her with a sullen expression on her face.

  “Keep up whatever you’re doing to make Suzumiya open up to the class. We were fortunate enough to be put into the same class, so we should all be friends, right? I’m counting on you.”

  Counting on me, huh? Easy for you to say.

  “If I need to tell her anything from now on, I’ll ask you to pass on the message for me.”

  Wait, hold on. I’m not her spokesperson or anything.

  “Pretty please?”

  She even clasped her hands together. I could only stammer grunts in the form of “ah” and “uh” which she apparently took to mean my consent. And with a smile like a yellow tulip in our direction, she returned to the cluster of girls. The fact that every girl in that cluster was turning their attention this way was enough to sink my mood another two notches.

  “Kyon, we’re buddies, right?”

  Taniguchi said this with a suspicious glint in his eyes. What was he talking about? Even Kunikida was standing there with his eyes closed and arms crossed while nodding his head for no reason.

  Guys are all idiots.

  Apparently, it was decided at some point that the seating order was to be changed every month. Class president Ryoko Asakura went around with a cookie tin of quadruple-folded pieces of paper to be drawn. I drew a quite excellent seat next to the window facing the courtyard, second from the back of the room. And as for the person in the seat behind me, I don’t know how it happened, but Haruhi Suzumiya sat behind me looking like she was suffering a cavity.

  “I wonder if students will start disappearing one by one. Or maybe a teacher will be found murdered inside a locked class-room.”

  “That’s some dangerous stuff.”

  “There was a Mystery Research Society.”

  “Heh. How was it?”

  “A joke. They haven’t encountered anything remotely resembling a case. All the members are just mystery novel fanatics. None of them look like detective material.”

  “Well, duh.”

  “I was expecting more from the Supernatural Phenomena Research Society.”

  “Really.”

  “But it was just a bunch of occult freaks. What do you think of that?”

  “Not much.”

  “Oh, man. It’s boring! Why doesn’t this school have a single decent club?”

  “You can’t do anything about what doesn’t exist.”

  “I expected high school to have more radical clubs. I feel like a stupid baseball player aiming for the national championships who just discovered that this high school doesn’t even have a baseball team.”

  Haruhi glared at the sky with crocodile eyes like those of an enchantress ready to begin a one-hundred-prayer ritual and sighed like a breeze.

  Was I supposed to feel sorry for her?

  All else aside, Haruhi hadn’t even specified what kind of a club would satisfy her. Did she even know? She was just vaguely thinking, “I want to do something fun.” What would the “something fun” be? Solving a homicide? Looking for aliens? Exorcising demons? I got the feeling she hadn’t even decided yet.

  I offered my opinion: “In the end, humans have to settle for what’s in front of them. If you think about it, the only humans who couldn’t were the ones who made discoveries or inventions and advanced civilization. Planes were invented because people wanted to fly. Cars and trains came to be because people wanted easier means to move around. But this all came from a limited number of people who had innovative plans and concepts. In other words, geniuses made it all possible. Average people like us are best off living ordinary lives.”

  “Shut up.”

  Haruhi cut me off and turned away, just as I was getting into a groove. She looked like she was in a really bad mood. Well,
nothing new about that.

  That girl probably didn’t care what it was as long as it was a phenomenon that defied the tedium of reality. But such a phenomenon wasn’t going to readily appear in this world. Or rather, it wasn’t going to appear, period.

  Long live the laws of physics! They’re what allow us to live life in peace and quiet. Too bad for Haruhi.

  At least that’s what I thought.

  That’s normal, right?

  What was the catalyst here?

  Maybe our last conversation gave her the idea.

  It happened so fast.

  Bright rays of sunlight were putting me to sleep as my head perilously swayed back and forth, to and fro. I felt something grab my collar and pull with frightful vigor. Exhausted, I felt the back of my head meet the edge of the desk behind me with a fierce crash. I could feel fresh tears in my eyes.

  “What are you doing?!”

  When I turned around in rage and indignation, I found Haruhi standing and grabbing my collar with—for the first time ever—a smile reminiscent of a blazing sun in an equatorial sky. If you could take the temperature of a smile, hers would have matched the climate in the middle of a rain forest.

  “I figured it out!”

  Don’t spit on me.

  “Why didn’t I realize such a simple thing sooner?!”

  Haruhi looked at me with her eyes shining as brightly as Alpha Cygni. I had no choice but to ask.

  “Realize what?”

  “If there aren’t any, I just have to make one myself!”

  “Make what?”

  “A club!”

  It appears that being pressed up against the desk wasn’t the only reason my head was hurting.

  “I see. That’s great. By the way, you can let go now.”

  “What’s with your reaction? You should be a little happier about this discovery!”

  “You can tell me all about your discovery later. Depending on the circumstances, I may even share your joy. But for now, just calm down.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “We’re in class right now.”

  Haruhi finally released her grip on my collar. As I turned my ringing head back toward the front of the room, I could see my fellow classmates with their mouths half-open and the female teacher, fresh out of college, with a piece of chalk in one hand, on the verge of tears.

  I gestured behind me for Haruhi to hurry up and sit down. Then I turned my hand palm-up and held it out toward the poor English teacher.

  Please continue with class.

  As she muttered something under her breath, Haruhi finally took her seat, and the female teacher went back to writing on the board.

  Make a new club?

  Hmm.

  She couldn’t possibly be including me as a member, right?

  The throbbing in the back of my head boded of ill things to come.

  CHAPTER 2

  In retrospect, that was exactly how it played out.

  The following break, Haruhi didn’t leave the room by herself like normal. Instead, she walked out with my arm forcibly in tow. After exiting the classroom, she rapidly proceeded through the hallway and flew up a flight of stairs before stopping in front of the door which led to the rooftop terrace.

  The door to the roof was usually locked and the staircase leading up from the fourth floor was mostly used for storage, probably by the Art Club. Stuff like huge canvases, broken easels, and noseless busts of Mars were all piled up, leaving the corridor feeling cramped. Scratch that, it was cramped. And the lighting was dim to boot.

  What was the point of bringing me to a place like this?

  “Help me,” Haruhi said. She was currently grabbing my necktie, pressuring me with her penetrating eyes. It felt like extortion.

  “Help you with what?”

  I already knew the answer, but I asked anyway.

  “Making my new club.”

  “Why do I have to help with your idea? Tell me that first.”

  “I’ll go secure a room and members and you go get the chartering paperwork.”

  She’s not listening.

  I untangled myself from Haruhi’s grip.

  “What kind of club are you planning on making?”

  “Why does that even matter? Creating the club comes first!”

  I highly doubted the school would accept a club engaging in undisclosed activities.

  “Understand? Find out what you have to do before school’s over. I’ll find a room before then. Got it?”

  No. Except I got the feeling that if I gave voice to that thought, I would be clubbed to death on the spot. While I was trying to say the right thing, Haruhi had already flitted down the stairs with an oddly spry skipping motion, leaving behind a very confused boy at the top of the dusty stairway.

  “… I didn’t say yes or no yet….”

  No point in talking to a plaster bust. I set off, now thinking about what I would say to my curious classmates when I returned to the classroom.

  Here are the provisions for chartering a “student association.”

  Five or more members. Determine faculty advisor, name, responsible party, and club activities. These must be approved by the student council club administration committee. Club activities must adhere to the policy of leading a productive and active school life. Based on future activities and performance, the administration committee may press a motion for a raise in status to “research society.” Furthermore, as long as the group remains a student association, no funding will be provided.

  There was no need for any real digging. This was all written in the back of the student handbook.

  We could take care of the member requirement by randomly asking people to let us use their names. A faculty advisor might be hard to find, but there was always the option of using deceit. The name just needed to be something inoffensive. The responsible party would obviously be Haruhi.

  But I was willing to bet that her club activities weren’t going to “adhere to the policy of leading a productive and active school life.”

  At least that’s what I told her. However, Haruhi Suzumiya is the kind of person who only hears what she wants to hear.

  Grabbing the sleeve of my blazer with a vise-like grip the moment the bell rang, Haruhi dragged me out of the room the way a kidnapper would and zoomed off. It was all I could do to prevent my bookbag from being left behind in the classroom.

  “Where are we going?” The question any sane person would ask in this scenario.

  “The club room!” was Haruhi’s curt response before she fell silent as she moved forward with enough vigor to bowl over the darting students in front of us. At least let go of my arm!

  We navigated through a passage and descended to the first floor before exiting. Then we entered a different building and headed back upstairs before Haruhi came to a stop in the middle of a dimly lit hallway, forcing me to brake as well.

  A door stood before us.

  Literary Club.

  That’s what it said on the affixed, slanting nameplate.

  “Here.”

  Haruhi opened the door without even knocking and barged in without the slightest hint of reservation. I followed suit, naturally.

  The room was surprisingly large. Maybe because it only contained a long table, metal chairs, and steel bookshelves. The two or three cracks running across the ceiling and walls told the tale of the decrepit state of the building structure.

  And seated in one of the metal chairs, like an addition to the room, was a girl reading a thick hardcover book.

  “This room is now our club room!” Haruhi proclaimed in a dignified fashion, throwing her arms into the air. Her face was painted with a divine smile. I decided not to voice my opinion that seeing such a smile on her face in the classroom every day would be a good thing.

  “Wait a second. Where are we?”

  “The cultural department clubhouse. The art club and wind ensemble have the art room and music room, right? Clubs and societies that don’t have spe
cialized classrooms have rooms in this clubhouse. Also known as the old shack. This is the literary club’s room.”

  “So this belongs to the literary club.”

  “But the third-years all graduated last spring so it has zero members. It was the only club that would have been cut if nobody new joined. And this girl is the first-year who joined.”

  “Then the club wasn’t cut, right?”

  “It might as well have been. It only has one person.”

  Unfreakingbelievable. She planned on taking over the room. I directed my attention toward the girl who was apparently a first-year literary club member, indulging herself in reading at the folding table.

  A girl with short hair and glasses.

  She hadn’t even looked up once during Haruhi’s clamoring. The only movement was when her fingers turned the page every once in a while. The rest of her body hadn’t moved the slightest bit. She was completely ignoring our presence. She was quite the weird girl.

  I lowered my voice and whispered to Haruhi, “What about her?”

  “She said she’s fine with it.”

  “For real?”

  “I ran into her during lunch. When I asked her to lend me this room, she said to go ahead. She doesn’t care as long as she can read apparently. I suppose you could call her an oddball.”

  You’re one to talk.

  I took another look at the strange literary club member.

  Pale skin with a face devoid of emotion. Robotic finger movement. Her hair was shorter than a bob cut yet managed to cover her arranged features. It made me want to see what she looked like without glasses on. Her doll-like demeanor meant she had a lack of presence. If I had to classify her, the simplest way would be to say she’s the mysterious, stoic type.

  I’m not sure what she thought of my blatantly fixed stare. The girl pushed up the bridge of her glasses without preamble.

  Dark-colored eyes stared at me from behind the lenses. Neither eyes nor lips revealed any emotion at all. A top-notch poker face. Unlike Haruhi’s, her default expression appeared to show no emotion at all.

  “Yuki Nagato,” she said. Seemed to be her name. She had a flat voice you could forget in three seconds.

  Yuki Nagato looked at me for about as long as it would take to blink twice. She then apparently lost interest and returned to her reading.