Haruhi’s outrageous babbling only served to make the computer society bunch hang their heads lower. Asahina stepped in, either out of pity or because she couldn’t bear the tension in the room.
“Ah…yes. Would you like some tea?”
The ever-considerate Asahina stood up and headed for the kettle. Koizumi looked amused as he took out a pack of paper cups from a pile of assorted crap. Nagato remained seated in her metal chair as she stared with humorless eyes at the subdued male students lined up in front of Haruhi.
Haruhi was giving some kind of impassioned speech when one of the members, the president, drifted over to me.
“Say,” he said in a thin voice. “Who was responsible for that feat? The amazing superhacker who could probably crack anything in the world?…Well, I can guess who it was…”
Nagato slowly looked up at me while the president looked at her.
Pretty obvious. An outsider could still tell that Nagato was the most likely candidate when brains were involved.
“I have a proposition.”
The president turned to Nagato.
“If you ever happen to have free time, would you be interested in participating in computer society activities? I mean, could you please?”
And now the guy’s trying to solicit her. Just a moment earlier, his eyes had been as dead as the eyes of a frozen Pacific saury that had been left under the sun for three days, and now they were full of life. Once a human hits rock bottom, his only choice is to fight back.
Nagato turned her face to the president before turning back to me with a slow, mechanical motion. She said nothing as she stared at me with a questioning glint in her dark glassy eyes.
“…”
What is this? Is she trying to communicate with me through telepathy? Or does she want me to make the decision for her? You can’t just give me a look (blank as it may be) and expect me to solve everything. The question was for you. You can make up your own mind. In fact, that’s what you’re supposed to do.
I followed Nagato’s lead as I attempted to silently beam my response to her.
“Hey, hey. What do you think you’re doing?”
Haruhi walked over to butt in.
“You don’t get to rent Yuki without my permission. Talk to me first.”
Uncanny hearing. She was actually listening to our conversation. Haruhi placed her hands on her hips as she struck a haughty pose that deserved commendation.
“Understood? She’s the SOS Brigade’s indispensable reticent character. I saw her first. You’re too late. She won’t be going anywhere!”
I’m pretty sure that you wanted the clubroom, not Nagato.
“Doesn’t matter! Yuki came with the clubroom. I refuse to give up anything in this room, even if it’s a can of soda without any fizz.”
Haruhi puffed up her sailor uniform–clad chest as she laid claim to everything in the room.
“Just hold on a sec.”
I interrupted Haruhi before pausing to think.
I considered myself to be a better judge of Nagato’s expressions than anybody else out there. After all, I actually met Nagato three years ago. True, she was able to completely avoid showing any emotion on her face, but I had come to realize that she still had feelings. There was that summer vacation in loop mode, and this game made it clear. Yes, just like that one time way back when I took her to the public library.
There had to be something out there that interested Nagato.
In fact, Nagato had been the most passionate one in our
I’m sure that even Nagato would get tired of observing Haruhi all the time. An alien-made organic humanoid interface would still go for some recreation every now and then.
“Do what you want.”
Just this once, I took the president’s side.
“Did you enjoy playing with computers? In that case, you can go next door whenever you feel like playing with their computers. They’d probably appreciate it if you debugged their homemade games or something. They probably have better toys than the ones here.”
Nagato didn’t say anything, but I could notice a micron of movement in the expression on her face as she stared at me. She seemed to be seeking permission and guidance at the same time. I could sense a flicker of hesitation pass over Nagato’s black, candylike eyes.
It felt like she was taking forever, but in reality, it only took her as long as three blinks of the eye.
“…Yes.”
I didn’t get a chance to ask what she was saying yes to before Nagato nodded stiffly and looked up at the president before speaking in that same neutral tone.
“Every now and then.”
Haruhi was sulking, naturally.
“We were the ones who won, so why do I have to rent out one of my precious brigade members? This is going to cost you. Yes, a thousand yen per minute as a bare minimum.”
I’d be willing to pay a thousand yen a minute.
“Your Excellency.”
Koizumi had apparently finished his tea as he walked over with that trademark smile of his.
“A person of your station must on occasion afford the vanquished tribute for their efforts. A leader must not only be strong, but demonstrate that she can be magnanimous.”
“Huh? Really?”
Haruhi puckered her lips like a duckbill.
“Well, if Yuki’s okay with it…But! I’m not giving back the laptops. Oh, one more thing.”
She had apparently come up with a brilliant idea while she was talking. Haruhi shot the president a glare before smirking. Her face was certainly busy.
“Listen up. You people are the losers. You have to do whatever the victors tell you to do. This is war.”
She snatched a cup of tea (Karigane, was it?) from the tray Asahina had quietly brought over and gulped it down before continuing.
“All of you must pledge absolute fealty to me. Yep, I won’t treat you badly. I’m a fan of meritocracy. Depending on your performance, I may promote you to full brigade members. For instance…yes, I’ll work you hard when we declare all-out war on the student council. Until then, you’ll be junior brigade members.”
Don’t tell me that she’s planning on recruiting the entire student body into the SOS Brigade. However, Haruhi was too elated to pay any heed to my fears.
“Koizumi, prepare the treaty at once.”
“By your command, Your Excellency.”
Koizumi smiled like a custodial minister manipulating a young emperor before he began typing away on his newly acquired laptop.
* * *
The clubroom didn’t see much change over the next few days, just the addition of a few laptops that were completely wasted on us. Asahina was tidying up the place in her maid outfit while boiling water in the kettle on the portable gas stove. Koizumi was playing backgammon by himself. Nagato sat at the corner of the table reading. A brief moment of peace before Haruhi told us her next brilliant scheme.
As we savored this constant everyday SOS Brigade period after school, the book-loving alien would be absent on rare occasion. A few minutes after I noticed she was missing, she would pop back up and start reading again. As far as I was concerned, Nagato was the true master of this clubroom.
“…”
As I watched Nagato read a foreign mystery novel, I couldn’t notice anything different about her on the outside. On the inside…well, I wouldn’t know that.
Nagato was here, just as always. She would drift next
door from time to time like a fickle breeze. That was enough.
“Kyon, here you go. I tried making Chinese tea this time. Hee hee…how is it?”
I accepted my personal teacup from the demurely smiling Asahina and slowly savored the tea, but my taste buds were unable to discern any difference from the other tea leaves she used before. She could serve wheatgrass juice and it would taste heavenly.
As I searched my vocabulary for the right words to express my thoughts to the eagerly waiting Asahina, I came to the conclusion that nothing weird would be happening for a while.
I wouldn’t realize how wrong that prediction was until a month later, halfway through December, with winter vacation and Christmas right around the corner.
It all became clear once Haruhi mysteriously disappeared.
PREFACE · WINTER
A whole plethora of words come to mind when discussing Haruhi Suzumiya, naturally, but if I had to describe her in a single sentence, it would go something like the following.
Here we have the last person in Japan who should be allowed near the launch mechanism of a nuclear missile.
Though common sense dictated that an ordinary girl in high school had virtually no chance of ever gaining access to such an item, we were dealing with a girl who defied the highest of exponential odds. Any outcome was possible when she was in the mix. However, despite the fact that she was a loose cannon on a level that was far more ruinous than that of a time bomb without a countdown or a nuclear reactor that was guaranteed to experience a meltdown, it wasn’t necessary to disable her completely, as the implementation of a “pause mode” would suffice to make her manageable, a lesson that I finally learned after enduring a significant amount of agony.
Long story short, we simply had to prevent her from getting bored and she wouldn’t bother with stuff like nuclear missiles. We simply had to redirect her enthusiasm to something else for brief periods of time, much as I would toss the cap of a plastic bottle to our calico Shamisen so he could nibble on it for three minutes or so, though we would need to devote a great deal of energy to finding that something else for her to focus on—
That more or less summarized the reasoning Koizumi had asserted way back when. And he still subscribed to that line of thought.
Which was why we found ourselves in another ridiculous predicament.
Predicament? Yes, I kid you not. Predicament with a capital “P.” I doubt you’d be able to find a more appropriate situation to apply that word to.
For at the moment we were absolutely, positively, and completely stranded.
SNOWY MOUNTAIN SYNDROME
“We’re screwed.”
Haruhi gave a rather frank assessment of our current situation as she walked ahead of me.
“Can’t see a thing.”
You want to know where we are? We went to a remote island during summer vacation. Now guess where Haruhi would want to go over winter vacation.
“That’s odd.”
I could hear Koizumi’s voice from his position at the end of our group.
“My sense of distance tells me that we should have reached the foot of the mountain a while ago.”
Here’s a hint. We’re in a cold and white place.
“I’m freezing…brr.”
The howling wind made it difficult to catch her words. I looked behind me to confirm that the girl in skiwear was waddling along like a duckling. I gave her a nod of encouragement before turning back to the front.
“…”
I got the feeling that Nagato’s strides were growing heavier as she led the way. White crystal snow was sticking to our ski boots so that more accumulated with every step taken. Where would such a phenomenon occur?
This is too much effort. I’ll just give you the answer.
An expanse of white as far as the eye can see with icy snow in every direction.
Yes, we were clearly on a snowy mountain.
We’d arrived at a ski lodge in the middle of a blizzard, and now we were stranded on this snowy mountain—that would be the most accurate description of our current situation.
Now then. Who arranged for this scenario? For once, I was hoping that this whole mess was scripted. Otherwise the five of us would simply freeze to death and our frozen corpses wouldn’t be discovered until spring, when the snow melted.
Koizumi, deal with this.
“Easier said than done.”
Koizumi looked down at his compass.
“We should be going in the right direction. Nagato’s navigation is impeccable. Yet we’ve been unable to find our way off this mountain after trudging through the snow for hours. Completely unthinkable under normal circumstances, wouldn’t you say?”
So what’s going on here? We’re never getting out of this?
“I am positive that unnatural forces are at work here. There was no way to predict this happening. Nagato doesn’t know the cause either. After all, we only know that this was entirely unexpected.”
I can figure that out for myself. If we can’t find our way back with Nagato in the lead, something’s definitely wrong.
Again? Did Haruhi have another one of her worthless ideas?
“That is not a certainty at the moment. I have a hunch that Suzumiya would never desire the occurrence of such a phenomenon.”
How can you be so sure?
“After all, Suzumiya was looking forward to a murder mystery drama playing out at the mountain lodge. I had everything planned out to accommodate her expectations.”
There was a “murder game” planned for this winter ski trip, as a follow-up to the one the preceding summer. The previous attempt had been more along the lines of a prank that failed, while this time we were simply playing detective with everyone knowing beforehand that the crime was staged. In fact, the cast from the first take had made a reappearance, with Arakawa the butler, Mori the maid, and the Tamaru brothers acting in the same roles as before.
“You have a point…”
I mean, Haruhi was dying to identify the killer and reveal her brilliant deduction, so she wouldn’t subconsciously wish for something to happen that night that would prevent us from returning to the lodge.
On top of that, Tsuruya and my sister, who served as temporary extras on occasion, along with Shamisen, were waiting for us to return.
Truth be told, the lodge we were staying at belonged to the Tsuruya family. That bright and cheerful young lady offered to provide lodging on the condition that she could tag along. Shamisen was needed as a prop for the scheme Koizumi had cooked up, and my sister attached herself to my luggage. The pair of girls plus one animal weren’t part of the motley crew stranded out here. Shamisen was probably curled up in front of the fireplace while Tsuruya was keeping my skiing-impaired sister company building snowmen. That was the last I had seen of them.
The three of them were essentially junior SOS Brigade members, as far as Haruhi was concerned. There was no reason for any of us to be against the idea of seeing them again, and that went double for Haruhi.
So why? Why weren’t we able to return to the heated lodge that was serving as the SOS Brigade winter vacation site?
If Nagato’s powers weren’t enough to get us to our destination, what was going on here?
“We ran into a hurricane last summer, and now we have a blizzard…”
Was there some kind of rule that stated that we were required to encounter logic-defying phenomena every time our school had an extended period of vacation?
I was feeling a mix of doubt and unease as I recalled our past adventures.
“Why did things turn out this way?”
That would be the cue to switch to flashback mode.
………
……
…
It was more or less inevitable that we would go on a trip during winter vacation. I mean, we wouldn’t have been any less surprised by its happening if we had somehow been able to see the future.
After all, it had been loudly announced on the ferry ride b
ack from the remote island murder tour (hurricane included), which had started on the first day of summer vacation. By whom? Who else but Haruhi. The rest of us had no choice but to accept her declaration, while Koizumi was named the tour guide.
I’d been hoping that Haruhi might find something else more interesting by the time winter came around, but our brigade chief apparently had an excellent memory when it came to having fun.
“Counting down to the new year in a blizzard.”
Haruhi distributed a number of stapled papers before grinning at us the way a kidnapper would at a child.
“We’ll be going to a snow lodge this winter, just as planned. Part two of our magical mystery tour!”
This was taking place in the clubroom on the twenty-fourth, right after the closing ceremony. A bubbling ceramic pot sat atop the portable gas stove that was sitting on the long table as we tossed an assortment of ingredients into the pot to serve as our lunch.
Haruhi was adding meat, fish, and vegetables in the wrong order while Asahina the maid, with a scarf around her head, was using a pair of long chopsticks to dish out the food after letting it drain a bit. The rest of the SOS Brigade, Nagato, Koizumi, and I, simply ate, and we were joined by a special guest today.
“Whoa, good stuff! What is this? Munch…is Harls a chef prodigy? Chomp…whew. The broth is exquisite. Slurp.”
It was Tsuruya. The owner of that cheerful voice was in a virtual eating contest with Nagato the silent connoisseur as she exclaimed with glee at intervals while using her chopsticks to rapidly scoop food from the pot to her plate.
“A hot pot really hits the spot when it’s winter! And it was a riot to see Kyon in that reindeer getup. Man, this day has been a blast!”
You were the only person to appreciate that act, Tsuruya. Haruhi and Koizumi were smirking at me the entire time, while Asahina had covered her face halfway through and started to shake with mirth. Nagato was clearly wondering where the humor was, an exceedingly logical response. Honestly, the experience was so nerve-racking that I was dripping cold sweat the entire time. I clearly lacked the necessary talent for making people laugh. Not that I ever had any intention to become an entertainer, but whatever.
The Rampage of Haruhi Suzumiya Page 11
