A newsletter? I wondered if that was anything like an anthology.
“Fine,” Haruhi agreed. It wasn’t her line, though—Nagato should’ve been the one to say so.
Nagato, of course, was silent, and she seemed unlikely to say anything, so I supposed it was all right for Haruhi to speak in her place, but something about the particular nature of Nagato’s silence at the moment made me think it was different from her usual taciturnity.
“…”
All the while, Nagato faced Kimidori, neither of them looking away from the other. Nagato was expressionless, while Kimidori had a thin smile.
I wasn’t sure why, but maybe it was fortunate that Haruhi didn’t seem to notice Kimidori, the SOS Brigade’s very first client. Apparently Haruhi was too busy glaring at the president to pay any attention to the secretary. Or maybe she just didn’t remember the face. She hadn’t seen that cave cricket, after all.
“A newsletter, eh?” said Haruhi with an expression like a mathematician who had just proven a theorem. “Is that like a zine? With stories, essays, columns, poems—stuff like that, right?”
“The contents are none of my concern,” said the president. “You are free to use the printing room and may write whatever you wish. However, there is another condition. The completed newsletter will be set out on a table in the main hallway, and that is all. You may not hand it out or solicit readers. Bunny girls are out. If you cannot give away all two hundred from that table within three days, there will be a penalty.”
“What kind of penalty?” asked Haruhi, her eyes shining. She did so love her punishment games.
“We will let you know when the time comes,” said the president, annoyed. “But be prepared. There are a number of ways to use volunteer work. I will say it again—this is a concession.”
The president seemed to be worried about unilaterally bringing about the tragic end of a clan. You didn’t have to know the history of the Ako domain to guess that much—especially not when your opponent was Haruhi. And I doubted Haruhi would be satisfied with just the head of the president. If things went badly, the school itself would be scattered to the wind.
I will leave it for future generations to decide whether the student council truly gave in or not, but in any case this “club newsletter” business was certainly their way of evading the issue.
And while Koizumi might have worked for the Agency, he was no literary agent, which meant the literature club would have to step up. And as an activity of the literature club, the newsletter had to have literary merit of some kind, but what did that even mean? Who was going to write it, and what would he or she write? And why was Haruhi looking so bizarrely delighted?
“Well, isn’t this interesting!” She grinned like a child who’d discovered a new game. “Call it a bulletin, a newsletter, or a zine—if you say we’ve gotta make it, then we’re gonna make it. This is for Yuki, after all. Can’t have the Lit Club disappearing. That clubroom is mine, and I hate it when people take my stuff.”
Haruhi’s hand reached for the nape of Nagato’s neck—not mine, for once.
“Well, since it’s decided, we’ve gotta have a meeting. Yuki, we’ll put your name in the masthead as publisher. I’ll do everything else, of course, so don’t worry about that. First we’ve got to go learn how to make a newsletter!”
Haruhi grabbed the back of Nagato’s collar.
“…”
Nagato was pulled wordlessly along, and easily too, as though she were a balloon. Haruhi opened the door with a clunk, then dashed out through it like a bullet from a rifle.
I looked over my shoulder and saw Nagato’s feet disappear through the doorway, and then she was gone, dragged out by Haruhi, who’d barged into the room like a strong wind but left like a typhoon gaining strength.
“Such an obnoxious girl,” observed the president accurately, shaking his head, then looking down at the table beside him. “Miss Kimidori, we’re finished here. You may leave.”
“Yes, Mr. President.” Kimidori nodded politely, closing her notebook and standing. She put the notebook back on its shelf, nodding briefly at the president before walking out of the room.
She gave me a brief bow as she passed by, walking through the door that Haruhi had opened without meeting my eyes. Her hair fluttered a bit as she went, a pleasant scent wafting behind her. I found myself a bit dizzy.
As I was pondering the nature of Nagato and Kimidori’s relationship, the president snorted and spoke.
“Koizumi, close the door.”
His tone was very different from a moment ago, and I turned my gaze back toward him.
The president watched Koizumi close and lock the door, then roughly sat down on a nearby folding chair and put his feet up on the desk.
What the hell?
But it was too early for me to be surprised, because the president then furrowed his brow as he rummaged in his uniform’s pocket for something. By the time I realized that he’d produced a lighter and cigarette, he already had the cigarette between his lips, a curl of smoke beginning to rise from it.
It certainly didn’t seem like the kind of thing the student council president should be doing. Just as I was beginning to feel like I’d discovered a firefighter committing arson—
“That’ll about do it, right, Koizumi?” said the president, cigarette in mouth as he removed his glasses, put them in his pocket, and took out a portable ashtray. “The plan changed a little, but I pretty much did what you wanted—but damn, keeping up that stupid act was a pain in the ass. You gotta put yourself in my place. Talking in that serious freakin’ voice all the time really takes it outta me.”
The president’s cool demeanor had completely changed as he exhaled smoke and tapped the cigarette’s ash into the ashtray.
“Student council president, my ass. I never wanted the job! Pain in the neck, if you ask me. And then I gotta deal with that flighty broad. Ridiculous damn work.”
In only a moment, the president had turned sulky and peevish. He put the stinky, smoking cigarette out on the edge of the ashtray, then got out another one and turned his attention to me. “You want one?”
“I’ll pass.” I shook my head, then looked over at the serenely smiling Koizumi standing next to me. “So the president’s one of your guys?”
I’d sort of figured as much. They’d exchanged suspicious eye contact, plus if you’d really wanted to contact the literature club, you’d skip Koizumi and just go straight for Nagato. I didn’t even have to think about it hard—there was no reason for the student council to go to the trouble of calling me in either.
Koizumi returned my look, making a show of smiling as he answered.
“I suppose you could say that, but he is not an associate in the same way that Mr. Arakawa or Miss Mori are. He is not directly connected with the Agency.” Koizumi glanced at the president, the smoke from his second cigarette now rising to the ceiling. “He is our confederate within the school, cooperating with us in exchange for certain considerations. If Mori, Arakawa, and I are the inner circle, you could consider him the outer circle.”
I didn’t care who was in what circle—how did a guy like this get to be student council president, I wanted to know.
“You could say it was the result of an extreme effort on my part, considering his lack of motivation. I had to make him a candidate, position him to gain the favor of the constituency over the previous council’s recommended nominee, and constantly maneuver to win the majority in the election for president. It took quite a bit of work, all told.”
I was bored already.
“The amount of money it required to win the presidency was probably about as much as it would take a minor political party to run for office in the lower Diet house.”
Now it had gone beyond boring and was actively sapping my will to live.
“Going by what Koizumi here said,” said the president, ill-temperedly exhaling smoke, “I had to become president before that stupid girl Suzumiya—or whatever her name
is—got the idea in her head to try it herself. I wound up getting tapped thanks to my ‘presidential face.’ Friggin’ ridiculous. I even had to wear these fake glasses.”
The conversation had long since turned tiresome.
“Upon fully considering what Suzumiya’s image of a student council president would be, the closest match of that image in this school was him. In this case, his disposition was irrelevant. The only thing that mattered was his looks.”
And he’d made the mistake of falling for Koizumi’s spiel.
He was tall, handsome, and bespectacled—a pointlessly haughty upperclassman. His role was to play a Haruhi-esque villain who would abuse student council power to deal with a small-time humanities club.
He was every inch the quick and easy villain that Haruhi would’ve wanted him to be.
But the fact that Koizumi had needed to go to such lengths in order to create the antagonist that was Haruhi’s fondest wish meant that she wasn’t truly omnipotent. If she was indeed all-knowing and all-powerful, it would’ve been the simplest thing in the world, wouldn’t it? I asked Koizumi whether all his effort didn’t mean exactly that.
“Ah, but the result of our labor was the creation of exactly the student council president that Haruhi wanted, which means that her wish did in fact become reality, does it not? Practically speaking, it does.”
He was talking circles around me again. Only Tsuruya was better at it than he was.
The president irritably crushed out his cigarette. “Anyway, Koizumi. Next year you be the president. If what you want is to avoid Suzumiya running for the job, then just do it yourself.”
“I wonder about that. I’m fairly busy myself, and lately I feel as though Suzumiya wouldn’t make a bad president herself.”
The hell she wouldn’t. If Haruhi set out to conquer the school, there was no telling what would happen. I had a feeling that it would wind up being a huge pain for the rest of the brigade too. She might decide to give the entire student body the SOS Brigade treatment. Knowing her, she’d probably decide that, since she was president, the rest of the students were now her subordinates. The whole school would turn into an alternate dimension.
Still, so long as the election was carried out correctly, I couldn’t imagine that Haruhi would actually win. I still believed in the average North High student’s sense of common decency. So long as Koizumi didn’t pull some kind of stunt, no election could possibly result in Haruhi winning high office.
I sighed. “So basically, Koizumi, this is another one of your games, is what you’re telling me. You’ve just invented this ‘student council plotting to destroy the literature club’ scenario to give Haruhi something to do.”
“It was no more than the seed, though.” Koizumi exhaled a sigh into the drifting smoke. “There are a number of outcomes that are now possible. All will be well if we finish our publication by the deadline, but if we cannot finish, or if we fail to meet the requirements…” He shrugged lightly. “If that time comes, we’ll just think of a different game to play. I’ll be counting on your brain for that too.”
I was happy enough to participate as an observer, but I sure wasn’t interested in trying to think of new challenges that I myself would have to face. What could I possibly have to gain from that? I wanted to know.
“As far as my being the student council president goes,” said the punk prez, “it definitely has its perks. First of all, it makes my school record look great. Of all the reasons Koizumi used to try to talk me into it, that was the biggest one. You said you’d get me through the college entrance exams, right? You better not have forgotten about that.”
“Of course not. I remember. We’re making the arrangements, naturally.”
The president eyed Koizumi suspiciously, as though he were interrogating a suspect. He then sniffed. “You’d better be. Doing this ridiculous job has been a pain in the ass, but I’ve learned some things in the last few months. The student council really has been totally useless so far. It might as well not exist. Which means I can mess around with it as much as I want.”
The president then smiled for the very first time. There was a certain degree of malice in it, but it was more a human expression than it was a calculating one.
“ ‘Uphold student independence’ really is a great slogan. Depending on the interpretation, it can mean anything. That budget is especially interesting, let me tell you. I’ll bet there are some delicious details in there.”
Some president we had. He was definitely up to Haruhi’s expectations of villainy.
“We’ll permit a modest abuse of authority,” said Koizumi, miffed. “But please do not get carried away. There is a limit to how much support we can provide.”
“Oh, I know. I won’t pull anything that’d get the teachers’ attention—I’d lose my hold on the sympathies of the council. I’ve already swept away the remaining members of the student council. There’s no one left to oppose me.”
I was starting to like this president guy. He was obviously up to no good, but for some reason he was strangely compelling. It was a little strange to be feeling as though following him would be all right, but…
Suddenly alarm bells went off as Tsuruya’s face appeared in my mind. I remembered what she’d told me when I’d encountered her in the hallway. Her keen, almost extrasensory perception had told her that the student council and its president had a hidden agenda. The student council’s spy—that wasn’t me, Tsuruya; it was Koizumi. He was more than a spy, though; he was a puppet master.
I didn’t particularly care if the president used his powers to his own advantage, but if Haruhi realized it, she might press for an immediate recall and recommend Tsuruya as his replacement. I could imagine Tsuruya laughing heartily and charging straight in, right along with her. Koizumi and I would automatically wind up being on Haruhi’s side too, and the president would be overthrown.
I wish you luck in your future secret maneuverings, Mr. President. Just keep them where we can’t see them.
He probably didn’t need me to tell him that, though. And while his role would probably bring him into occasional conflict with Haruhi, I just wanted him to choose his battles carefully.
I walked out of the student council room side-by-side with Koizumi, then remembered there was something I needed to ask him.
“So I understand that the president is under your supervision. But what about the secretary? Is Kimidori one of your confederates too?”
“She is not,” said Koizumi, like it was nothing. “Kimidori took the secretary post rather unexpectedly. The truth is that when I thought to check, she was already there, which is why I hadn’t noticed until that point—even though I feel that in the early days of the current student council administration, we’d appointed a different student to that position. But when I checked later, all the records said she was there from the start. Even my memory. Nobody, not even the president, has any doubts about it. If it is a case of falsification, it’s an extraordinary example of such.”
If it were so extraordinary, I asked, why didn’t he sound a little more surprised?
“If I were surprised to such an extent, if anything more unexpected were to happen, I might very well go into cardiac arrest.” Koizumi turned his head to regard the windows as we walked leisurely down the hall. “Emiri Kimidori is one of Nagato’s comrades. That much is unmistakable.”
I’d figured as much. Her coming to us with the cave-cricket trouble had been too perfect of a coincidence. If it had been just that, I might’ve believed that Nagato had set up the whole thing herself, but given the current situation, our previous encounter could hardly have been an accident. What worried me was not knowing how closely Nagato and Kimidori were tied.
“There was the trouble with Ryoko Asakura, yes. But I don’t think we need to worry too much on that count. It seems that Kimidori and Nagato are comparatively closely related. At the very least, they do not oppose each other.”
How did he know that? They didn’t look l
ike they got along very well. Although they didn’t look like they got along especially poorly either, I admitted.
“We in the Agency would like to test our intelligence-gathering capabilities. We contacted some—not many but a few—TFEIs like Nagato, in an effort to convey our intentions. While they were by no means cooperative, we can make some deductions based on the fragmentary conversations. It seems that a different faction within the Data Overmind sent Kimidori than the one Nagato is associated with. But we know that, unlike Ryoko Asakura, they are not hostile.”
I wasn’t sure what to think of the things I heard Koizumi saying so casually, but it wasn’t anything new, so neither of us was particularly worried.
Still, I’d known there were different kinds of aliens, but to think that Kimidori was one of them… Given the way she’d calmed down the furious Nagato in the student council room, perhaps her faction was a peaceful one, I said.
“Quite possibly. We have concluded that there is no need to be excessively conscious of her movements. In my opinion, Kimidori’s role is to observe Nagato. I don’t know how long it’s been the case, but that seems to be the job she’s currently settled into.”
Koizumi’s voice sounded like he was in the middle of climbing a mountain during a long hike, so I didn’t press him on the matter. As far as Nagato went, I had quite a few memories of her myself, many of which I preferred not to share. Even if he was a member of the SOS Brigade, Koizumi wasn’t someone I wanted to explain these things to over and over again. I’d play them back in my head as many times as I wanted to, though.
I fell vaguely into silence as we walked quickly to the clubroom, Koizumi likewise keeping his mouth shut.
The Indignation of Haruhi Suzumiya Page 4
