“If the flowers bloom, this will be a calming, comfortable place.”
Then, let’s come again some other time. Next time to view the flowers. After about two months, the cold air will disappear, when the warm air comes in, then we come.
“Ah, that, that’s good. Flower viewing. I’ve always wanted to.”
Asahina-san hugged her knees and changed the way she was sitting.
“April, I guess. I’ll already be a third-year when that time comes.”
Probably. I’ll hopefully be a second year too. If Asahina-san passed, she would be a third-year student. Unless she fails.
“Eh, no problem.”
Even though she said this, it seemed like she was saying it while sighing.
“But, it would be good if I could be a second-year again. I slightly think that. I want to be classmates with Kyon and everybody. As of now, there’s only me who’s a year higher than everyone, but I don’t feel like an upperclassman at all…”
Asahina-san caring about something like this is very normal. A childish face, not very tall, yet beautiful, blossoming, charming young girls will idolize her. The one that got her to join on the basis of this unreasonable thing was Haruhi, one you cannot argue with and win. If she ever thought about wanting Asahina-san to be in the same grade as us, she herself couldn’t care less if it took failing a grade or going back a grade. She’d say something like, it’s okay, you just need to be the SOS Brigade’s amazing maid.
“Ufu. Thanks.”
Maybe because she’s worrying since Nagato is sitting near her, Asahina-san softly said,
“It’d be good if we can also do stuff next year……”
Just as I was about to tell her about the other Asahina-san, Haruhi returned, breaking through branches and undergrowth recklessly.
“What, you’re resting already?”
I haven’t for about two hours, I think.
“Fufun, whatever. I’m starting to get hungry too.”
Haruhi looked very happy as she bounced back.
“Mikuru-chan, let’s eat.”
“Ah, yes, yes.”
The form of Asahina-san opening the basket looks very godly. She took out, one by one, handmade sandwiches, triangular onigiri, and several other simple dishes. To me, this is the real treasure, saying I came here today just to eat this isn’t really lying.
“…………”
Nagato silently closed her book, and stared at Asahina-san’s hand. Koizumi, since he had finished filling in the hole, walked over after sticking the shovel in the soft dirt.
“It looks really good.”
I gently said what I thought before I started.
“Of course it’ll be good. Because you’re eating it after exercise.”
Haruhi randomly decided another thing for me. She then poured hot tea into her cup. When she was done, she lifted the thermos into the air.
“Well, I hope we can find some treasure, everyone can have a bit.”
Looking at this scene here, it seems like we’re on a picnic. If you ignore the dirt on me and Koizumi, that is.
Even Haruhi, putting Nori in her mouth while looking sideways, has forgotten that we came here today to look for treasure, as she eats the lunch Asahina-san made. Although Koizumi and I haven’t dug anything up yet, even if we use the shovels and randomly dig, it wouldn’t be considered weird. Today, Haruhi seems almost too happy. It seems as though the whole purpose of coming here today was to eat lunch with everybody.
Like Asahina-san’s (Big) notes from the future, Haruhi’s actions lately have been confusing me quite a bit. Suddenly going into a melancholic stage, and then suddenly wanting to scatter those beans, making me think she was a bit more mature now, at least. But then she used that treasure map to cause this……
Well, is it bad if it keeps going like this? If we compare this with the time I got put into the Avatars’ closed space, or when it was clearly Autumn but the cherry blossoms had appeared and were filling in the classroom, this place is only as difficult as having to choose to return home by either the light of the moon or the Andromeda galaxy. It’s different, more like getting every constellation known to man or riding on the galaxy railroad to places no one has ever gone before. It’s different. Though I have already experienced the autumn anomaly of Closed Space.
Five people eating a picnic together is actually quite fun. The unstopping, continuously eating Nagato made me feel right at home. She’s still the same as when I first met her. And with this, Haruhi’s energy is more than enough and Koizumi’s the same as he always is. If I say Asahina-san’s the same as usual, it’s not wrong, but there’s another little Asahina-san living at Tsuruya-san’s house right now, just like a little lost cat. As soon as I think of this, I lose my easiness.
“Hey, Kyon. If we find any treasure, what do you plan on doing with it?”
Asked Haruhi after she took a bite out of a pork sandwich. This is the type of thing I frequently daydream about, so I already have an answer.
“I would change it immediately to cash and go buy a new game system. And with the leftover money, I would buy new video games. Then, if I still had some, I would go to the bookstore my mother took me to a couple of years ago, and buy every manga I couldn’t afford before. I would then proceed to save the rest.”
“That’s -. How is that any different from how you use your allowance? You should have bigger and grander dreams.”
Having finished that pork sandwich in the blink of an eye, Haruhi looked at me as though pitying me. She smiled sympathetically. Then you decide what to do with your share, let’s hear it.
“About gold and money, I don’t actually want it a lot. Treasure that can be exchanged for money, likewise. Since it’s something we worked hard to get, we must take extremely good care of it. This is because we are going to bury it somewhere ourselves. Then we’ll give our descendants a treasure map, don’t you feel this is something money can’t buy?”
If it’s children, I guess they would love this kind of treasure hunting game. I shouldn’t only think of using the treasure like my allowance. If it’s something useful, I will keep it happily. If it’s something useless, we might as well bury it or throw it out.
“That’s boring.”
Just like a jester, Haruhi’s lip curled and she started to laugh.
“Maybe. If it’s going to be like Kyon’s foolish idea, I think it would be better if the treasure wasn’t one you could exchange for money. Mikuru-chan agrees too, right?”
“Eh-?”
Asahina-san suddenly got asked a random question. Her half-finished onigiri dropped down, and her graceful hand covered her now-chewing mouth. Her eyes whipped over.
“Ye… Yeah, I agree. Wait, no… Um, that kind of thinking seems to be more joyful…”
I wonder why Asahina-san didn’t finish her sentence, and, after seeing both Haruhi and I staring at her with inquisitive eyes, nervously waved her hands around.
“De, I just hope we can find the treasure.”
“Don’t worry, treasure will be dug up. I know it.”
Haruhi always says these baseless things, and now she has shoved a whole salad sandwich into her mouth, both her cheeks were very full.
Nagato, sitting on the corner, also displayed a Haruhi-like appetite, and steadily ate. Koizumi, at the side, seemed to be pretending to be a young idol, as he knelt on one knee there. As my line of sight moved over, Koizumi just quietly slanted his paper cup and looked at me with a slight smile. As Asahina-san cleaned up the bentos, Haruhi and Nagato just sat there staring off into space.
For this short time, the messages from the future, the other Asahina-san in Tsuruya-san’s house, it all disappeared from my mind. Maybe it’s because our whole group is together and happily eating a picnic lunch that I feel so joyful. An out-of-season mountain hike, a pointless treasure hunt, a content Haruhi, an unchanged Nagato and the same-as-usual Koizumi and Asahina-san, when I see them like this, for the moment I feel that nothing will go
wrong.
No… I might as well assume that nothing will go wrong.
That’s what I should think. So, I should just do what I need to tomorrow and the day after that, in my future.
So, just like that, the vivacious lunch ended. My stomach is very full, and since we have nothing else to discuss, Haruhi and I drank tea while talking about trivial matters. Then Haruhi clapped her hands together and stood up. Things that must happen must happen sometime, said the other side of my heart.
“Okay, the treasure hunt in the afternoon is going to start.”
Haruhi squinted at Asahina-san, who was currently cleaning up the lunch boxes and thermos.
“I just walked down the mountain from there. This mountain is covered in trees, there’s not a good place at all for digging. From this, I came to the conclusion that it must be buried somewhere without trees. If there are trees growing on top, we can’t dig holes there.”
Haruhi made me pick up the shovel.
“But, there’s progress, I found a very suitable place to dig at. Let’s go together. It’s straight down this way. It’s also faster to get home, so we shouldn’t have taken that bus, this is the shorter path.”
I noticed Koizumi had already put the shovel onto his back and was prepared to descend down. Nagato folded the mat and held it, Asahina-san held both the baskets, and I got ready very quickly too.
Haruhi was just like a Kamoshika, and she quickly jumped through the rocks and branches. And even on this steep path, Nagato’s still walking with ease.
“Ah, that was close.”
Nagato pulled on Asahina-san, who almost fell several hundred times. Koizumi and I both have heavy shovels in our hands, we couldn’t help her at all. I really want to throw away this shovel and help Asahina-san, but I guess I can just leave her to Nagato. Asahina-san, who always says thank you after being helped, is extremely polite.
It’s a good thing our path is pretty much just going in a straight line down the mountain. Compared to our climbing time, it’s almost faster than I can imagine, and we got to the site faster than I expected.
“Here. Look, don’t you think this is an unnatural plateau?”
We stopped and looked like she told us to. No doubt about it, this is the place Asahina-san (Michiru) and I came to two days ago. It’s shaded by tall trees and the sunlight is dull and dim. The ground is littered with leaves that form an odd crescent shape. I strongly feel that I’ve seen this somewhere before.
The stone gourd is still in the position where we left it. This is the rock I moved three meters west, and just like that other day, I have another situation to go through. At least the rock isn’t as white as it was two days ago. Ah, I see, it’s because it rained. Because the whole stone got extremely wet, the color turned darker, but it also got rid of the excess dirt. If you don’t look closely, the colors of the previously exposed and buried parts are not that differentiable.
Ah, Haruhi. As she walks in a circle around the rock, I’m already becoming slightly nervous. I hope her extremely sharp sixth sense doesn’t sense anything weird. Haruhi suddenly put one foot on the rock, and expressionlessly pushed it to the side. After that, she didn’t care about the rock and just sat on it.
“Kyon, Koizumi-kun. The second phase starts now. We can’t just randomly dig, now can we?”
The smile she showed was just like a small girl playing a prank. Koizumi immediately said, “I understand,” and followed Haruhi’s instructions. I, however, have a better spot to dig.
Asahina-san (Michiru)and I had attempted to camouflage the original spot of the gourd-shaped rock, but if someone took the time to inspect it, they will find a lot of unnatural things there.
“…”
For some reason, Nagato has already set up the mat exactly at that spot. She looked past the hair at the side of her face at me. Nagato didn’t do any code-like movements, just sat on the mat, silently reading. The corner-liking alien left a large space on the mat, so Asahina-san politely sat down. This type of scene is like a goddess, rare. The person sitting between them looks especially important.
“Kora-! Kyon, this isn’t the time to be spacing out, go and help Koizumi-kun dig.”
This SOS Brigade leader is yelling just like someone on a construction site making sure her subordinates aren’t slacking off. She really is a person who likes bossing others around. Haruhi already has minions and the forcefulness required to be a boss, even though she hasn’t even graduated yet. Just something I noticed. And as I thought that, I realized I didn’t have to think of this that way. I picked up the shovel and began to dig into the wet ground faster than Koizumi was.
I guess I’ll tell you all what happened.
It was pretty much what I expected it to be. No matter how we dig, even if we got a digging machine, we will never dig anything up. It was exactly as Asahina-san (Michiru) said, so I wasn’t surprised at all. I, who was afraid of making a mistake and digging up something weird, could finally relax, yet I got a complex feeling of disappointment. Was this actually good? Did I think too optimistically?
“U-n. We didn’t find anything, any buried treasure that is,” said Haruhi, looking perplexed. She held a chocolate bar and munched on it while looking at me. Haruhi was still sitting on top of that gourd-shaped rock.
I stopped filling in the hole and surveyed the clearing. The ground has been dug everywhere, there’s a whole bunch of holes and holes that were filled up, just like a bird dug it. It’s better if natural things are left undisturbed.
“I guess that’s it.”
Haruhi is never like this. She hunched her shoulders together,
“It doesn’t look like there’s any more places to dig, let’s just end it like this.”
After using her finger to point and instruct us, Haruhi walked back to the gourd-shaped rock and sat right in the middle.
Koizumi and I have been listening to Haruhi and digging all this time. No matter where we dug, all we found were empty holes. Koizumi and I once again returned the dirt to its original position.
So all we did was turn the hard dirt into soft soil suitable for earthworms to live in.
Nothing was found, and it ended just like that. I don’t know how Haruhi will choose to vent her anger this time.
“Go home, I guess. The sun’s already setting, if we stay on the mountain any longer, we’ll freeze. If we go down from this side, it’s quicker. It’s not that far from the road up to North High.”
Koizumi and I cleaned up the baggage without haste after resting a bit and drinking tea Asahina-san had steeped. When we were rested, we all went down together. I really couldn’t see any regrets about leaving the mountain and the treasure in Haruhi, who was descending the mountain in high spirits. What the hell happened? The picnic in cold weather and the digging?
Koizumi put his hand on a disappointed me’s shoulder.
“Isn’t this quite good?”
You don’t need to talk to me in a teaching tone. As I got angry, I suddenly remembered my mother’s words.
“Sorry. But I am also really tired. Before Suzumiya-san finds a place that looks like it was dug on before, we should leave as soon as possible.”
This I also agree with. Nagato, who only brought a mat today, was already leaving with Asahina-san. I was just wondering if what I did had a point to it.
“A point?”
“Suzumiya-san never has patience or perseverance, and is always changing. Isn’t it like that every time?”
Haruhi, who didn’t want to look for treasure anymore, was walking very fast, leading us. Asahina-san and Nagato both followed behind. A little further back was me and Koizumi.
Sometime later, about halfway home, Koizumi quietly said,
“But, if there wasn’t any treasure at all, that’s really weird.”
This phrase of yours, why do I feel like agreeing?
“Really? If Suzumiya-san really felt something was there, it doesn’t matter if Tsuruya-san’s ancestors buried anything at all, there
would be something there. If it’s Suzumiya-san, she still has this kind of power.”
Yes. According to what you said before.
“But, for some reason, we didn’t actually FIND anything. Why do you think that is?”
To tell you the truth, I think it’s because Haruhi doesn’t think it exists. It’s not possible to have such a clear map, so it must be some old grandpa’s practical joke.
Koizumi nodded mystically.
“You’re good, Kyon, you already know what I mean. Right, Suzumiya-san doesn’t actually want treasure or anything passed down from a long-ago dynasty. I think there’s only one explanation for this. I think she just wanted to come out and picnic with everyone.”
Well, just say so then, don’t just say that you want to dig up some treasure. I wouldn’t be against us all going out together on a picnic.
“This is something that goes on inside a girl’s mind. From winter vacation all the way up to now, her spirit has been very stable. Maybe I should say she might be bored with this kind of stabilized life.”
Your work is very easy, right? Regardless of whether those blue giants appear or not, Koizumi’s wage will not be changing anytime soon……
“No, wait.”
I clutched my fist and asked,
“Haruhi’s stable right now? Since February began?”
“Yeah. There are slight fluctuations, but there’s no change that’s negative. How should I say this… In fact, she’s been even more stable than before.”
Then, what was that temporary melancholic period? Was my intuition wrong?
“What did you feel?”
Koizumi showed a slightly surprised look.
“What I see is just the normal Suzumiya-san.”
Aren’t you the expert on Haruhi’s mental state? Something even I could see you didn’t even notice. Are you planning not to do this analyzing thing anymore?
“That wouldn’t be a bad idea.”
The easily smiling Koizumi looked at me with a light gaze.
“If we compare ourselves, you can actually understand Suzumiya-san’s feelings better than I do. I will have to give this job to you. That includes the Avatars in Closed Space. You haven’t been to one in a while, that world has –”
Volume 7 - The Intrigues of Suzumiya Haruhi Page 17
