Such were my thoughts as I rested my eyes by gazing at Asahina in her shrine-maiden costume.
Man.
I never thought for one second that something even harder to explain than a ghost would appear in front of us.
To get to Sakanaka’s house, we walked down the hill from school to the local train stop, got on the train, switched to a main line, and took it another stop to her neighborhood. It was the opposite direction from the station the SOS Brigade used as its usual meeting point, so I wasn’t familiar with the area, but as I recalled, it was a pretty high-class residential district.
Even people who didn’t live there knew the place’s name was famous for having a lot of celebrities and so on, from what I’d heard, and it proved that Sakanaka was a real high-class girl. Her father was an executive at some construction or architecture firm, and her brother was studying medicine at a big-name university, and it was hard for me to believe I was learning this about a classmate of mine so late in the term.
“It’s really not that big of a deal!” said Sakanaka on the train, waving her hands humbly. “The company where my dad works isn’t that big, and my big brother’s at a public university.”
That just said to me he was smart enough not to waste his money. But anyway—
Sakanaka’s brother got called “big brother” by his younger sister. It made me feel pleasantly nostalgic, hearing those words.
I thought of my little sister’s giggling face and looked around the train.
Since we were all on our way to Sakanaka’s home, we were traveling in a group. I got the feeling that our group—the entire SOS Brigade plus one classmate—was just a bit too big for people to think we were just friends heading home, but we still didn’t stick out too badly on the train. For one thing, the train was filled with other students commuting home. Students from Koyoen Academy were especially numerous—honestly, the train was packed with ’em—and we North High students were forced into a corner by their private-school girl powers and their curious gazes.
“Umm…”
The reason for the stares was Asahina, who was on the verge of tears as she hung on to a strap in the train car.
To be fair, there was no way a shrine maiden on a crowded train car wasn’t gonna get stared at, and when you consider that even a real shrine maiden doesn’t commute in the white kimono and crimson trousers, it would’ve been weirder if she weren’t getting any attention.
Of course, Asahina had ridden a train and run around a shopping area wearing a bunny-girl costume in the past, and I hoped she found the lack of exposed skin at least some consolation.
Of course, the culprit responsible for forcing Asahina into the shrine-maiden clothing, Haruhi, was totally ignorant of the curious gazes of her fellow train riders.
“Mikuru, spells or chants to use on evil spirits will probably come in handy—do you know any?”
“… N-no, I don’t…” Asahina answered quietly, curling in on herself even more.
“I guess I’m not surprised,” said Haruhi, who in contrast to the humiliated Asahina was totally cheerful. She turned to Nagato. “Have you read anything about demon-banishing or exorcism in those books of yours?”
“…”
Nagato had been staring out the window at the passing scenery, but she slowly inclined her head. She moved it back, taking about two seconds to do so.
I felt like I understood what she was trying to say, and so did Haruhi.
“Huh. Okay,” Haruhi said agreeably. “I guess it’s no surprise you don’t remember those kinds of details. But don’t worry; I know one, so I’ll just have you chant that one, okay, Mikuru?”
What was she gonna make Mikuru chant? If it wound up summoning something weird, she’d better be the one to take responsibility for it and not Mikuru, I said.
“That’s stupid,” said Haruhi delightedly. “If I knew something that awesome, I would’ve used it a long time ago! No, actually I tried it in middle school. I bought a book of black magic and did just what it said. But nothing happened. In my experience, everything written in books you can get via the usual distribution channels is worthless. Oh, I’ve got a great idea.”
For just a moment, I thought I saw a lightbulb flicker on in the air above Haruhi’s head. Apparently she’d thought of another terrible idea.
“Next time we go on a city patrol, we should visit some used bookstores and antique shops. We’ll target dingy old shops with suspicious owners and look for real magic books or ceremonial artifacts. Like the kind where a genie appears when you rub it!”
That’d be all well and good if it were the kind that just grants your three wishes, then disappears politely back into its bottle, but knowing Haruhi, we’d release some kind of dark god that would try to plunge the world into terror. Somehow all this talk of banishing evil spirits had turned into the precise opposite of that, and all I could do was quietly hope that all the vintage bookstores and antique shops in the city would close before she discovered them.
Standing next to me, Koizumi chuckled as though he’d read my mind. Since both his hands were full—one with his own book bag and one with Asahina’s—he wasn’t able to hold on to a strap, and thus swayed with the train’s movement. Incidentally I also carried an extra bag over my shoulder; it contained Asahina’s school uniform. I wanted her to at least be able to change into it before she went home. If she’d left it in the clubroom, she’d be forced to either come to school tomorrow wearing the shrine-maiden costume or skip school entirely. And if she skipped school, who was going to make tea in the clubroom?
“Do not worry,” said Koizumi easily. “While I might not be able to make tea, Asahina’s school commute is simple. I can simply send a car to take her to and from,” he continued, shutting me up.
I imagined the “car” he mentioned would be something connected with the Agency. If it were just Arakawa, that would be fine, but I got a strange feeling from Mori, whose age I’d never been able to determine. It was enough to make me wonder if she were actually Koizumi’s superior. And I’d feel even less comfortable if it were someone besides those two. And while I still owed the Agency for helping out when Asahina’d been kidnapped, I didn’t want to owe them any more, I said.
Koizumi chuckled again. “I’ll make sure to tell Mori about that. I’m sure it will make her grin.”
The train bumped and swayed, and then began to slow. Our station would be coming up soon.
Now was not the time to be worrying about the organizational map of the Agency, nor the agenda of Haruhi’s next citywide patrol.
I wondered what we would find on Sakanaka’s dog’s walking route.
Once we disembarked from the train, we wound up heading back toward the hills, led by Sakanaka. However, unlike the road that led to North High, it was a comparatively less steep city street, and everybody we saw walking on it was somehow fashionable. Fortunately, our group with its shrine maiden did not have to answer any unpleasant questions from an overzealous police officer as we made our way to Sakanaka’s house, which took about fifteen minutes.
“Here we are.”
Looking at the building to which Sakanaka pointed so easily was enough to make me mutter a few choice words regarding the unfortunate circumstances of my own birth—that’s how grand of a house it was. Everything about the three-story building exuded an aura of “a wealthy person lives here,” from the outer walls to the entryway to the open, grassy lawn.
While it didn’t have the magnitude of sheer area that Tsuruya’s purely Japanese-style mansion has, even a common high school student like me could feel its modern grandeur. There was a security company’s label next to the family nameplate, and two very nice domestic cars were parked under a roofed garage, with space left over for a third. I wondered how many good deeds I would have to perform to be reborn into a place like this.
As I was standing there feeling sort of discouraged, Sakanaka pushed open the front gate and beckoned Haruhi inside. Haruhi being Haruhi, she strode on
in as if she belonged there, with Nagato, Koizumi, and Asahina following. I brought up the rear.
“Wait just a moment.” Sakanaka produced a key from her book bag, slotting it into the keyhole of the door to the house’s entryway. The door had three separate locks. “It’s kind of a pain,” said Sakanaka as she unlocked them with practiced ease. I wondered if nobody was home, but no—evidently her mother was in. I guess they just tended to keep the doors locked.
Haruhi looked out over the yard. “Where’s the dog?”
“Mmm, he’ll be here in a second.”
No sooner had Sakanaka opened the door—
“Arf!” cried the white ball of fur that came bounding out the front door. He wagged his short tail like crazy as he jumped up at Sakanaka’s skirt.
“Wah… He’s so cute…” Asahina squatted down, her eyes shining. The white dog put his paw in her offered hand, then ran circles around the shrine maiden, round eyes gleaming. I had no doubt that there was a certificate somewhere of his purebred lineage.
“Rousseau, sit.”
The well-trained dog sat immediately upon hearing his master’s command. Asahina rubbed Rousseau’s head. “Um, can I hold him?”
“Sure, go ahead.”
Asahina clumsily picked up the little dog, and little Rousseau whiffled while licking this new person’s face. If I could be reborn as a dog like this in my next life, being a dog wouldn’t be so bad.
“This is Rousseau? He’s like a little battery-powered toy! What kind of dog is he?” asked Haruhi, petting the head of the well-bred and well-mannered dog that Asahina held.
“He’s a West Highland White Terrier, I believe,” said Koizumi, beating Sakanaka to the tongue-twisting breed name in a shameless attempt to pander to her.
“You know quite a bit,” said Sakanaka, looking down fondly at the little guy Asahina held. “Isn’t he cute?”
He was pretty cute. With his curly white fur and partially hidden black eyes, he looked like a stuffed animal. In breeding and social caste, he was far removed indeed from the former alley cat that wandered around my house these days. Although Shamisen did have his virtues, as a cat.
Nagato stared intently at the white terrier for around ten seconds, as though she herself were Shamisen, but eventually seemed to lose interest in him and turned her gaze elsewhere. Hmm, it seemed that the number of things in which she was interested was low, and this dog was not among them.
“C’mon, Mikuru, how long are you going to hog him for? I wanna play with him too!”
At Haruhi’s words, Asahina reluctantly handed over Rousseau, who seemed to be excited at the prospect of so many new people, and he leaped into Haruhi’s arms. Her way of holding him was rather clumsy too, but he seemed not to care, wagging his tail anyway.
“He’s so fluffy! Aren’t you, Jean-Jacques?”
C’mon, Haruhi, don’t go giving other people’s dogs nicknames, I wanted to say, but before I could—
“Ha ha! Suzumiya, that’s the same nickname my dad uses on him.”
Somehow Haruhi had managed to have the same sense of humor as Sakanaka’s father, and she unconcernedly lifted the dog-with-a-philosopher’s-name above her head. “So, Jean-Jacques here sniffed something out along his walking route, did he? Is that right?”
She was addressing the dog, but of course he didn’t answer and instead merely wagged his tail. His owner nodded.
“Yes. Well, but I don’t know if it’s anything mysterious or not. It’s not just Rousseau, though, it’s other dogs too, and it freaks me out. Which is where the ghost rumor came from.”
It seemed to me that Sakanaka and her various dog-owning acquaintances were jumping to conclusions, but since I knew of the existence of beings just as mysterious as ghosts—aliens, time travelers, and espers, for example—maybe that’s just what you’d expect me to think. But Nagato, Asahina, and Koizumi were all physical beings that you could see with your eyes. What was invisible, yet caused dogs to freak out? A genuine unquiet spirit? Surely not.
After that, Sakanaka invited us into her house to have some tea, but Haruhi turned the invitation down, wanting to head to the mysterious place in question as soon as possible, and when Sakanaka went inside to change, she passed by her mother, who’d come out into the entryway. No matter how I looked at her, Sakanaka’s mother seemed more like a beautiful older sister in her speech, dress, and manner. Astonishing.
Sakanaka’s stunning mother regarded Asahina’s shrine-maiden-outfit-clad form curiously, laughing musically as she heard what occasioned our visit, and suggested that her daughter tended to spoil little Rousseau a bit too much. Haruhi, true to form, had no problem dealing with such an impressive lady, whereas I stood there stunned, feeling as though I should apologize for dirtying her beautiful home’s entryway with my filthy feet.
Mrs. Sakanaka informed us that we would all be welcome to come inside when we returned, and somehow just at the right moment, Sakanaka herself emerged, having changed into normal clothes.
“Sorry to keep you waiting!”
I supposed one had to get dressed up for early spring walks around the neighborhood.
We left our things at the Sakanaka residence, and the six of us plus one dog left the house. Was I the only one who felt a little relieved? I wondered.
For some reason, it was Haruhi who wound up at the vanguard, holding Rousseau’s leash as she headed straight out into the street.
“Okay, J.J., let’s go!”
Just as I was feeling irritated at her persistent use of the nickname, she started trotting ahead. J.J. Rousseau seemed unworried by the fact that he’d only just met the person holding his leash, which made me wonder about dogs’ reputations as humanity’s constant watchful companions through the ages.
“Ah, Suzumiya, not that way! This is the route we walk, over here!”
Sakanaka was behind them, scoop and doggy bag in hand, and she stopped and waited for the smiling Haruhi to return. I was beginning to think these two made a good team.
Barring sickness or eccentricity, dogs generally love walks, and Rousseau had indeed inherited that proclivity. The little white dog trotted along, and trotting happily along behind him was Asahina, whose look alone made the scene seem like something out of a fantasy story.
Incidentally, since with Haruhi holding the leash she wouldn’t have any idea where to go, somewhere along the way she handed it off to Sakanaka, behind whom the SOS Brigade formed up as we walked leisurely along.
“Which way is it? J.J., can’t you run any faster? C’mon!” Haruhi tried to come alongside Rousseau and urge him along.
“It’s too far for that, Suzumiya. We’re going on a walk, not a run,” answered Sakanaka mildly as Rousseau tugged on the leash.
Aside from Haruhi and her desire to run ahead and Asahina trailing single-mindedly behind the dog, Nagato was totally silent, and Koizumi had unfolded a city map.
I peered over at it. “What’re you doing, looking at that? Are there sightseeing points around here or something?
When asked, Koizumi took a pen out of his pocket. “I was thinking of investigating places that are difficult for dogs to approach. Even if we can’t walk to every single corner, once we have a vague idea of the territory, we should be able to figure out its shape on the map.”
I decided to leave that to the diagram-lover here. Whether or not there actually was an area dogs refused to approach, just looking at the Sakanaka family dog’s cheerful demeanor was enough to make me feel like I was out on an ordinary walk. I sort of wanted a dog of my own now. It didn’t have to be one as fancy as this guy, though. I would be happy with a mutt. I looked at Haruhi, and it seemed like she, too, had totally forgotten about all the ghost talk. She was just jumping around like a bunny, playing with Rousseau.
Our strange little group—all of us in our school uniforms save Sakanaka and one shrine maiden—faithfully traced the route of Rousseau’s daily walk. Whether or not it was normal or strange, Sakanaka seemed quite serene as she walke
d along the path. It felt like we were heading east. If we kept heading this way, we’d encounter the river—the same cherry tree–lined river I’d thrown that turtle into, only to pick it back up and give it to the boy in glasses. It did have a walking path that would have been the perfect place to take your dog for a walk…
Just as I was contemplating it, Sakanaka came to an abrupt stop.
“Oh. Look, see, here’s where he stops.”
Rousseau had frozen in his tracks, feet firmly planted on the asphalt. Sakanaka tugged on his leash, but he resisted and backed away.
His owner wasn’t the only person to heave a sigh of dismay at this end to our progress.
“Huh.” Haruhi’s eyes went wide as though she’d just remembered our real reason for being here. She surveyed the area. “This doesn’t seem like a particularly suspicious area.”
It was a residential neighborhood, but also close to the river, and greenery was plentiful. To the north, a mountain just about as high as North High’s mountain was visible. There weren’t bears around here, but I’d heard stories of wild boars occasionally coming down. But even so, it would be strange for them to appear in such a built-up area, and so near a train station; I’d never seen any news along those lines.
Sakanaka held the obstinate Rousseau’s leash. “Up until last week I’d continue straight on ahead here, heading up the riverbank steps and walking along the path. After walking a while, I’d come back down the steps and come home. That was the route. But a week ago Rousseau started refusing to go near the river.”
Asahina bent down and scratched the unmoving Rousseau’s ears. Looking at the white, flicking points, Haruhi grabbed her own earlobe.
“Isn’t the river pretty suspicious? Maybe it’s been polluted with toxic waste. Maybe there’s a chemical plant upstream or something!”
The Indignation of Haruhi Suzumiya Page 13
