I was going to ask, but Kyoko Tachibana was already striding back to where we’d come from. Upon reflection, a guy and a girl alone together in a world with no one else was a bit of a problem. This was no time to be thinking about that, though, and I didn’t want to stay here very long. It was too quiet. If there were some
A few seconds after the girl’s form was swallowed by the café’s automatic door, mine was likewise absorbed.
“Hurry, sit.” Kyoko Tachibana sat at her original space in the center of the trio and placed her hands on the table. I sat back down in my seat, where my body heat still lingered.
“Close your eyes and put your hands out.”
I wondered what I would see if I left my eyes open, but I closed them and put my hands over hers. I listened carefully.
Kyoko Tachibana put a slight degree of strength in her grip—
—and then suddenly pulled her hands away. That instant, my sense of hearing returned. No—rather the world around me had been restored.
The Brahms Muzak, the quiet sound of the falling rain, the scent of roasted coffee beans, and the feeling of people all around me—these things all flooded my five senses. I opened my eyes.
Sasaki raised one eyebrow. “Hey. Welcome back… I guess?”
When I looked, I saw Fujiwara feigning ignorance, supporting his chin with both elbows on the table, with Kuyoh’s dazed face showing no reaction at all. Between them was Kyoko Tachibana, who was in the middle of quenching her thirst with some ice water. I hit Sasaki with my question.
“What was I doing just now?”
“Nothing in particular,” she said, glancing at the small watch she wore on her wrist. “You had your eyes closed and were touching Tachibana for maybe ten seconds.” She put her finger to her lips thoughtfully. “So, did you see it? My supposed interior world?”
“Yeah,” I said reluctantly. Assuming it hadn’t been an illusion, I could say I’d been there and back. Although how that had happened in the space of ten seconds with neither Tachibana nor me disappearing from Sasaki’s view was a total mystery to me.
“Any thoughts?”
“Nope.”
“I thought not,” said Sasaki, chuckling. “It’s so embarrassing, like you looked into my mind.”
“Please, Sasaki,” said Kyoko Tachibana, setting down her glass. “The truth is you really are the best-suited person for this. Won’t you please try to think positively about it?”
“Hmm. I wonder.” Sasaki cocked her head slightly, then looked aside to me. “Kyon, what do you think? Is this weird power something I should have?”
This wasn’t the kind of thing you made a list of pros and cons to decide, and anyway, why was she asking me?
If I had to just make a guess based on my impression, even if she had that bizarre cosmic power, she probably would use it just because she was upset about the score of a baseball game, or make the events of a movie transpire in real life, or make August repeat endlessly, or have us dig up paranormal artifacts. At the same time, she probably wouldn’t put on a bunny suit and perform onstage in a rock band in place of an injured upperclassman.
But no, none of that mattered. It wasn’t a matter of what Sasaki would or wouldn’t do.
I feigned nonchalance and looked across the table.
Fujiwara the time traveler. And the other two.
The idea of getting along with them—well, let’s just say that even jokes have limits. The time traveler had spit on Asahina’s name, another had kidnapped her, and the third had trapped us all on a snowy mountain and caused Nagato to faint.
I wasn’t even going to consider it. As much as I wanted to stay friends with Sasaki, if I teamed up with them, my body would immediately exhaust its supply of tranquility and would plunge right into negative numbers.
Just as I took a deep breath in order to make that totally clear—
“Sorry to keep you waiting.” The waitress approached our table with four cups, just as I was about to speak.
I paused my statement, and the rest of the people at the table did likewise. This sort of pause happened during normal conversations too, but I definitely didn’t want anyone overhearing what we were talking about and thinking I was flat-out crazy.
In the oppressive silence, the sound of cups rattling against saucers as they were set down was strangely prominent. One was placed in front of Sasaki, then me, then Kyoko Tachibana, then Kuyoh—
Snap!
Before my very eyes there transpired a startling development.
Kuyoh had been motionless up until that moment, when she grabbed the waitress by the wrist.
I didn’t even catch her arm movement; I didn’t even detect any hint of motion, but she held the waitress’s wrist firmly, preventing her from setting the saucer and cup down on the table.
Kuyoh was still motionless and facing forward; no part of her body save her arm had moved.
“… Huh?” I said idiotically.
Even more surprising was that the waitress should have spilled the cup she was holding, but she’d managed not to slosh even a drop out of it. Given the rather impressive force that resulted from the initial wrist-grab, there had definitely been enough impact to spill the coffee.
So why—?
I soon understood.
“May I help you?” The waitress smiled mildly; she didn’t seem the least bit troubled. If anybody else had happened to see it, they’d think her smile was perfectly normal. But it gave me a terrible chill down my spine, and not for no reason. I knew the waitress’s face quite well.
“Kimidori…” I murmured in spite of myself. “What are you doing here?”
“Hello.”
Emiri Kimidori greeted me with a smile as though she were an upperclassman who’d just happened to run into one of her younger classmates—which was exactly what had happened. Her unfazed tone was completely unlike the reality of the situation, which was that a mysterious alien was currently grabbing the wrist of a humanoid interface. I didn’t particularly want to experience Kuyoh’s grip strength for myself, but it appeared stronger than average. Kuyoh paid the stunned Sasaki and Kyoko Tachibana no mind, and with superhuman precision was utterly still—school uniform included.
Displaying an unreal level of calm, Kimidori spoke. “Excuse me, miss,” she said to the silent Kuyoh-object, “might I ask you to let me go? I cannot finish serving your order.”
“—”
The unblinking, goldfish-like eyes were, to be frank, not looking anywhere.
“Miss,” said Kimidori in a serene voice. “If you please. You understand, don’t you, what I am saying…”
I wondered if I was the only one who heard the crack that came from the space between them, like a log splitting in a bonfire.
“—”
Kuyoh slowly loosened her grip. Her fingers opened one by one like inchworms, and once she had fully released Kimidori’s arm, Kuyoh returned her hand to her lap.
“Thank you very much,” said Kimidori politely, still holding the coffee cups, and placing one in front of Kuyoh. As Kuyoh returned to maintaining her tin-soldier countenance, I sighed in relief.
“What are you doing here, Kimidori?” I asked her.
“It’s my part-time job.”
I could tell that by looking. Why would someone besides a waitress put on an apron and serve coffee? I wanted to know why she’d suddenly gotten a job—I was more interested in the answer to that question than I was in the location of the Romanov dynasty’s hidden gold bullion.
But Kimidori simply left the check on the table, whispering to me as she did so. “Please don’t tell the student council president about this. Students on the council aren’t allowed to have part-time jobs.”
But she didn’t care if Nagato knew? No, wait, that wasn’t the important thing.
“Enjoy your coff
ee,” she said, leaving our conversation unresolved as she took the tray and retreated. She seemed used to the work, as though she’d been doing it for three years. Had it always been her bringing us our water and taking our orders? Had we never noticed because crowd psychology had made her invisible to us, or had she used some kind of space-alien power on us? My guess was the latter. If Kuyoh could do that, it seemed likely that Kimidori could too.
“Who was that?” Sasaki asked.
“A senior at my school,” was all I could answer, as I compared Kuyoh’s conspicuous-yet-totally-unnoticed appearance with Kimidori’s, as she efficiently brought water to a customer who’d just arrived.
“Heh,” came a strangely stifled laugh from Fujiwara. “Hah. Now this’s something worth seeing. What a farce. You sure don’t see this every day,” he said, with a tone drenched in irony.
I wanted to dump my hot coffee on his head, but the time traveler seemed to be genuinely amused. His body shook with stifled laughter, as though if I hadn’t been there he would’ve been guffawing heartily.
Kyoko Tachibana’s expression shifted gradually from shock to resignation, shrugging as though openly admitting she couldn’t keep up with these events. Sasaki and I looked to each other, both of us wordlessly asking the other what Fujiwara had meant, but of course neither of us had any idea. Kuyoh’s pale face was faintly obscured by the steam rising from her cup.
Thanks to the sudden intrusion of Kimidori the unexpected part-timer, the trio of standard high schoolers (including me and excluding Kuyoh and Fujiwara) was totally dumbfounded, while the time traveler laughed like he was remembering something uncomfortable, and the android remained as quiet as a broken crystal radio, not touching her coffee. Just as I was thinking I was sick of this—
“—”
Without any warning, Kuyoh stood and walked smoothly toward the automatic door, moving more silently than a high-level ninja master. Despite the fact that people didn’t notice her, the door’s sensor did, and it opened. Kuyoh retrieved her convenience store umbrella and was gone. Perhaps she’d sensed the shift in mood among us. But what had she come along to accomplish?
“I should be going too,” said Kyoko Tachibana with a weak smile. “I wanted to talk a bit more, but I’m rather tired. Sasaki, I’ll talk to you later. Oh, and please leave the check to me. It’s fine. Thank you for coming.”
She spoke firmly, then stood and headed for the cashier. “A receipt too, please. And leave the name blank,” she said, finishing paying and heading out into the rain with her umbrella after giving us a small wave.
As I wanted at the very least to stop being mocked by the time traveler, I decided to take my leave. I needed to get back to my bedroom for a nap with Shamisen.
“See you later, Sasaki.”
“Sure,” said Sasaki solemnly. “I think I’ll be contacting you soon. I know it’ll be a bother. But Kyon, I honestly don’t want to drag this out too long. The next national mock exam is coming up, so we’ve got to settle things quickly.”
“You got that right,” I agreed heartily. She was every bit the Sasaki I knew from middle school.
Fujiwara had regained his arrogant expression as he listened to our conversation, but in the end said nothing, nor did he do anything to irritate me. While it felt as though Kimidori had shown up just to shock me, I could imagine that her goal had actually been to observe Kuyoh. If it had been Nagato facing Kuyoh, it seemed unlikely they could have accommodated each other, and I was just happy Asakura hadn’t come back to life. Even given my ridiculous life, I absolutely drew the line at getting stabbed again.
Having thus left the café, I don’t know what Sasaki and Fujiwara talked about.
And I didn’t want to know. Not then.
CHAPTER 3
α—5
Monday. Morning.
After I spent the whole of Sunday relaxing, both my feet felt light.
As we began to approach the middle of April, I’d managed not to accidentally head for the freshman classrooms, and as I sat promptly down in my designated seat, I faced the black-haired figure behind me and addressed her.
“What’s wrong? Mid-semester slump hitting you early?”
Haruhi had arrived at school before I did, and she was slumped lethargically over her desk. “No.” She raised her head and groaned, even yawning. “I’m just a little short on sleep, is all. I was up late. I’ve been really busy with things these days.”
Now that she mentioned it, what did she do on her day off? Listen to late-night radio?
“I don’t have to tell you about my private life.” She sneered like a crocodile. “I helped a neighborhood kid study, cleaned my room, made plans for the week—all kinds of stuff. Although I do listen to the radio sometimes. Also I had to create materials.”
I thought of the bespectacled little professor-kid as I asked, “Materials? What materials?”
“Hmph, you’re such a child. Always asking, ‘What’s that, what’s that?’ Why is it that boys’ mental age never seems to go up, no matter how old they get? Childlike curiosity is cute and all, but when you give me that prying face, it makes me not want to tell you anything. You’re old enough to be figuring out what I’m up to on your own.”
Was I somehow mistaken, given that the more I thought about the kinds of things Haruhi seemed likely to do, the less it seemed like she belonged at school at all?
“Kyon, listen. You’ve been in the brigade for a year. You need to learn how to read your brigade chief’s intentions and act on them ahead of time. It’s why you’re still such a low-level member. In my mental staff performance chart, you’re charging into last place.”
Haruhi grinned triumphantly, then opened my first-period Modern Japanese notebook and began drawing some kind of freehand graph on it with a mechanical pencil, just out of my view.
“To explain it in a line graph, it’s like this.”
The longest bar was Koizumi, and the ones labeled Mikuru and Yuki were about the same length. Mine was only good for about five millimeters of brigade service. Not that my feelings were hurt.
“The computer club president would be about here, and Tsuruya would be around here. Look! Even non-members are doing better than you! Your manuscript for the newsletter was a total joke.”
Was this because I wasn’t living up to my reputation as the first and oldest brigade member? The computer club president was kind enough to have bestowed five computers upon us, and I’d never outrank Tsuruya in a million years. Out of sympathy for the computer club, why not raise his bar a little higher? It was a small price to pay.
Haruhi looked like a home-team fan booing an opposing player for using delay tactics. “You idiot. Have some spirit! There’s only a month to go until the SOS Brigade’s one-year anniversary. We’ve got to start racking up some heroics! What kind of example are you going to set for the new members? Let me say right now that seniority isn’t going to get you anything!”
So she was using Nobunaga Oda’s tactics. Capturing famous enemy commanders was all well and good in the warring states period, but at this high school, only the student council had the power to defy the SOS Brigade as the cancer that it was. And Koizumi controlled the current student council president, and while Tsuruya didn’t seem to know it, her family backed Koizumi’s Agency. If the president’s corruption were exposed, I wondered if I’d be promoted up from foot-soldier status. Not that I wanted to be.
Haruhi seemed to want to continue her lecture, but the bell ringing and Mr. Okabe striding swiftly into the room cut her off.
Anyway—Haruhi was still trying to recruit new members? Goal aside, how did she plan to accomplish that?
There was no point in thinking about it, though. I was more worried about having run into Sasaki, Kyoko Tachibana, and that weird alien girl Kuyoh on Saturday morning. That time traveler guy hadn’t been there, but he seemed likely to reappear, so that was another problem—but so long as he didn’t pick a fight, I resolved to leave him alone for the time bein
g.
I felt like my fighting spirit—the part of me that said, “Bring it on!”—was a stag beetle larva, and I was nurturing it through its chrysalis phase. He could bring whatever tricks he wanted. I’d make him pay dearly for every one. In boxing, a counterpunch was better than a jab. At least, that’s what they were always saying in the boxing manga I read. And Haruhi was the kind of person who repaid all debts, favors, and grudges two hundred million-fold.
The history of the world was eloquent. The sorts of things you should never do had been recorded and passed down since ancient times.
No—there was no point in wasting words.
There was only one thing I wanted to say.
If you make yourself an enemy of the SOS Brigade, don’t think you’ll get off easy.
At lunch break, I begged off eating with Kunikida and Taniguchi and headed to the literature club room, boxed lunch in hand.
No matter where you went in the school, there was no place more stuffy than there—it was like a humidifier had been left on, and I didn’t even have to bother to guess at what Nagato would be doing. She was following her usual movement patterns.
“Can I come in?”
Nagato sat in her chair reading some kind of western occult book and did not raise her head. “…”
“You gotta let me eat in here. The classroom is way too noisy. I was thinking it would be good to eat somewhere calm for once.”
“I see.” Nagato looked up, almost in slow motion, her gaze scanning me, then returning to her book.
“Did you already eat?”
“…” She answered me with a slight nod of her head.
It was pretty questionable, but investigating Nagato was not something done over lunch.
“So, about that alien Kuyoh or whatever”—I said, sitting on a folding chair and undoing the napkin wrapped around my box lunch—“she’s a minion of the guys who tried to freeze us to death last winter?”
Nagato used her hand in place of a bookmark as she returned her eyes to me. “Yes.”
The Dissociation of Haruhi Suzumiya Page 13
