This was the usual scene in this room as of late.
And this peaceful time, as tranquil as the grand Yellow River, was always ruined by Haruhi Suzumiya.
“Sorry I’m late!”
Haruhi apologized for no reason as she jumped in like a cold winter draft.
Her entire face was lit up by a smile, which gave me the creeps. Whenever she smiles like that, something’s bound to happen that will leave me exhausted. We live in a funny world.
As expected, Haruhi had something stupid to say.
“Which one do you want?”
I placed a black piece on the board and flipped over two of Koizumi’s white pieces.
“Which what?”
“This.”
Haruhi held out two sheets of paper. I reluctantly took them.
More flyers again. I looked them over. One was for a soccer tournament. The other was for a football tournament. I’m seriously going to curse whoever it is that prints these things out.
“I was actually planning on doing one of these two instead of baseball. But the baseball tournament just happened to be earlier. So, Kyon, which one do you want?”
I succumbed to my feelings of gloom and looked around the club room. Koizumi smiled wryly as he flicked at his pieces. Asahina was shaking her head with tears in her eyes. Nagato remained buried in her books with her fingers being the only part of her body showing any sign of movement.
“So how many people do you need for soccer and football? Will the roster from last time suffice?”
As I watched the glowing smile on Haruhi’s face, I tried to figure out which one would require fewer people.
BAMBOO LEAF RHAPSODY
Come to think of it, May had been a pretty hot month, temperature-wise, but here we were in July, and it was even hotter. Plus, the humidity was rising at such a ridiculous rate that my discomfort index was off the charts. The cheap-looking buildings that made up our high school were completely free of any fancy comforts such as air conditioners. The interior of the 1-5 classroom felt like a burning waiting room to hell, which made you wonder if the person who designed this place understood what amenities were.
On top of that, we were in the first week of July, with finals around the corner, so my happy feelings had wandered off to somewhere in the vicinity of Brazil and wouldn’t be returning anytime soon.
Midterms had been quite a disaster, and at this rate, I seriously doubted I’d get a decent grade on my finals. And there was no denying that the problem was due to too much time spent on SOS Brigade activities and not enough time devoted to studying. Not that I chose to spend my time on that crap, but a rule had been established in spring that every time Haruhi said something, I had to go from place to place for no real reason at all, and this was now my part of normal lifestyle. I really hated how I was growing accustomed to this practice.
We were sitting in the classroom during a break with sunlight streaming in from the west. The girl sitting behind me poked me in the back with her pencil.
“Do you know what day it is?”
Haruhi Suzumiya said this with a look on her face like she was a grade schooler on Christmas Eve. When she starts showing this much emotion on her face, it’s a signal that she’s up to no good. I spent three seconds pretending to think.
“Your birthday?”
“No.”
“Asahina’s birthday.”
“No!”
“Koizumi’s or Nagato’s birthday.”
“I don’t even know when those are.”
“Incidentally, my birthday is—”
“I don’t care. You have no idea what an important day it is, do you?”
You can say whatever you want, but as far as I’m concerned, it’s just a really hot weekday.
“Tell me what month and what day it is.”
“July seventh… This seems like a stretch, but don’t tell me you’re talking about Tanabata.”
“Of course I am. It’s Tanabata, you know. Every Japanese person is supposed to remember Tanabata.”
First of all, that actually began as a Chinese tradition. And Tanabata, the Star Festival, is supposed to be next month if you go by the Chinese calendar.
Haruhi waved her pencil in front of my face.
“Everything this side of the Red Sea is considered Asia.”
That’s an odd way to describe geography.
“We’re in the same block for the World Cup preliminaries, right? And there isn’t much of a difference between July and August. It’s still summer.”
Oh, really.
“Whatever. We have to do a proper job of celebrating Tanabata. I always throw myself into these kinds of events.”
I’m pretty sure there are better things for you to throw yourself into. And more importantly, why is it necessary for you to tell me this? I could care less about what you want to do.
“It’s more fun if everyone participates. Starting this year, all the brigade members will get together for a big party on Tanabata.”
“Don’t decide that on your own.”
I was watching a needlessly triumphant look on Haruhi’s face as I protested, which left me feeling that it was stupid to bother to try to object.
And once class was over for the day, Haruhi flew out of the classroom the second the bell rang.
“I’ll be waiting in the club room! You’re not allowed to go home!” she said in parting.
I didn’t need her to tell me to go to the club room. After all, there happens to be a person I try to meet at least once a day. The only such person.
The other brigade members had already assembled in the SOS Brigade’s hideout, the literary club room on the second floor of the clubhouse, a place where we would be considered parasites rather than tenants.
“Ah, hello.”
That greeting came from Mikuru Asahina, who had a bright smile on her face. She’s the source of my peace. An SOS Brigade without her would be as meaningless as curry rice without the curry.
Since it was July, Asahina had switched to a summer version of her maid outfit. Who knew where Haruhi had brought the costume from, but upon receiving it, Asahina had sincerely thanked her by saying, “Ah, thank you very much.” She was serving as the SOS Brigade’s maid again today, earnestly making tea for me. As I drank the tea, I looked across the room.
“Hello, how are you doing?”
Itsuki Koizumi nodded to me from his seat in front of a chessboard at the long table as he moved pieces around with one hand and held a book of chess problems in the other.
“I’ve been going insane ever since I started high school.”
Last week, Koizumi had brought the board after saying something about trying out chess since he was getting tired of Othello. Unfortunately, I didn’t know the rules, and neither did any of the other people here so he was left playing chess by his lonesome, which I supposed was an indication that he had nothing to worry about regarding the upcoming exams.
“I wouldn’t say that I have nothing to worry about. This is merely a means of exercising my brain while taking a break from studying. Every problem solved improves the blood circulation in my brain. Would you care to join me?”
No thanks. I don’t feel like doing any more thinking than I have to. Plus, I have a feeling that if I learn any of this weird stuff, it’ll boot the English vocabulary words I have to remember out of my memory.
“That’s unfortunate. Shall I bring LIFE or Battleship next time? Yes, it would be a good idea to bring something that everyone could play. What would you recommend?”
Anything works. Though at the same time, nothing would really be acceptable. This is the SOS Brigade, not a board game club. Incidentally, the objective of the SOS Brigade’s activities remains a mystery to me, so I still have no idea what this enigmatic brigade is supposed to do. Not that I really want to know, and I’m probably safer off not knowing. Which is why I don’t feel like doing anything. My logic is perfect.
Koizumi shrugged and returned to his book
of problems. He took a black knight and moved it to a new position.
Next to Koizumi was Yuki Nagato, buried in a book and showing less emotion than an animatronics puppet in some B movie. It appeared that the reticent and curt pseudo-alien had finally developed a taste for reading original texts instead of their translated versions. The book she was currently reading looked like some kind of ancient and heavy spell book with a title scribbled in some kind of Fraktur script I couldn’t decipher. I’m pretty sure it was written in ancient Etruscan or something. Nagato would probably have no problem reading a Linear A inscription on a stone tablet.
I pulled back the metal chair and took a seat. Asahina immediately set a cup down in front of me. It’s really a bad idea to drink hot tea in this sweltering weather—except that I most definitely was not harboring such a wrongful thought. I simply sipped my tea with a heartfelt sense of gratitude. Yep, it’s hot and sweltering.
An electric fan that Haruhi had brought in from who knows where was whirring away in the corner of the room, but it was about as effective as pouring boiling water onto hot stone. She should have just stolen an air conditioner from the faculty office.
I looked up from my English textbook with its pages flipping in the breeze, and leaned back into the metal chair to stretch.
It wasn’t like I was going to study when I got home, so I figured I might as well try to get some studying done after school in the club room, but as I discovered, a change in location isn’t going to make you want to do something you don’t want to do. It’s bad for both the body and the mind to do something you don’t want to do. In other words, you’ll live a healthier life if you don’t do what you don’t want to do. Okay, I quit. I spun my pencil, shut the textbook, and decided to watch my sedative. I was referring to the sedative for soothing my pessimistic soul, by which I mean the maid sitting across the table and working on her math problem set.
She stared earnestly at her problem set as she periodically scribbled in her notebook before becoming deep in thought with a listless look on her face until she jumped as though a lightbulb had gone off in her head and her pencil raced across the paper. And naturally, the girl repeating this cycle was none other than Mikuru Asahina.
The mere sight of her is enough to calm me down. I was feeling so amiable that I would have been willing to donate more than just a few coins to the bell ringers on the streets. Asahina was so focused on studying math that she didn’t even notice me watching her. Every one of her movements was enough to make me smile. In fact, I had a big grin plastered on my face. I felt like I was watching a baby seal.
Our eyes met.
“Ah. Wh-What is it? Did I do something strange?”
Asahina looked herself over in a fluster. That was quite a fine sight and I was about to deliver some form of angel metaphor when…
“Hey, hey!”
The door flew open and the rude girl made her rude entrance.
“Sorriez. Didn’t mean to be late.”
No need to apologize. Nobody was waiting for you.
Haruhi showed up speaking in a boisterous voice with a chunky stalk of bamboo over her shoulder. It was a fresh one, thick with deep green bamboo leaves.
“Why did you bring that here? Are you planning on making a safe box or something?”
Haruhi puffed up in response.
“To hang wish cards on, obviously.”
Why? For what reason?
“No real reason. I just suddenly felt like doing it and it’s been a while. Plus we get to hang up our wishes. Since today is Tanabata after all.”
… As always, her actions truly had no meaning.
“Where’d you get that from?”
“The thicket behind our school.”
Pretty sure that’s private property. Damn bamboo thief.
“Who cares, really? The roots are still under the earth so it doesn’t matter if one stalk on the surface is missing. Though it might be considered a crime if I stole a bamboo shoot. Anyway, I’m all itchy after being bitten by mosquitoes. Mikuru, could you apply some ointment to my back?”
“Ah… yes! At once!”
Asahina quickly ran over with the first aid kit in her hands. She looked like a nurse in training as she took out the tube of ointment and stuck her hand under the hem of Haruhi’s sailor uniform to reach her back. Haruhi continued talking as she bent forward.
“A little more to the right… That’s too far right. Yeah, that’s the spot.”
Haruhi closed her eyes like a kitten being scratched on its chin, but once the bamboo was placed next to the window, she stood on top of the brigade chief’s desk before pulling a number of paper cards out of nowhere. She smiled cheerfully.
“Come on, write down your wishes.”
Nagato abruptly looked up. Koizumi had a mocking smile on his face. Asahina’s eyes were as wide as saucers. This came out of nowhere, and now she’s pulling leaves off the bamboo. Haruhi hopped off the desk with a flip of her skirt.
“But there are conditions.”
“What?”
“Kyon, do you know who grants wishes on Tanabata?”
“Orihime and Hikoboshi, right?”
“Correct, ten points. Then, do you know what stars Orihime and Hikoboshi refer to?”
“No clue.”
“Vega and Altair, I believe.”
Koizumi promptly answered.
“Exactly! Eighty-five points! Those are the exact stars I was referring to! In other words, we should hang the wish cards facing those stars. Got it?”
“What are you trying to say? And what would the remaining fifteen points cover?”
“Ahem,” was the arrogant response from Haruhi.
“Allow me to explain. First of all, it is impossible to travel faster than the speed of light. That fact is based on the special theory of relativity.”
What’s with the lecture out of nowhere? Haruhi reached into her skirt pocket, pulled out a crumpled up sheet of notepaper, and glanced at her notes.
“By the way, the distances from Earth to Vega and Altair are twenty-five light-years and sixteen light-years respectively. Which means that any data sent from Earth will naturally take twenty-five years or sixteen years to reach its respective star, right?”
So what? And you actually bothered to research this stuff?
“So it means that it’ll take a fair amount of time before either god can read your wish. So our wishes won’t be granted for a while. Make sure you write down whatever you want to happen in your future twenty-five years from now or sixteen years from now! If you put down something like, ‘I want a cool boyfriend by next Christmas!’ it won’t be granted in time!”
Haruhi stated this emphatically as she waved her arms around.
“Hey, hold on a second. If it takes around twenty-five years to make the trip there, shouldn’t it take just as long to return? So wouldn’t our wishes be fulfilled in fifty years or thirty-two years?”
“We’re talking about gods here. They’ll work that out somehow. This only happens once a year, like a fifty percent summer sale.”
And she ignores relativity when it suits her purpose.
“Okay, everyone. You all understand what’s going on, right? We’re doing two different kinds of wish cards. One set goes to Vega and the other goes to Altair. So, write down whatever wishes you want to be granted in twenty-five years or sixteen years.”
An unreasonable statement. First of all, you have to be pretty shameless to ask for two kinds of wishes. Besides, how can I make any wishes when I have no idea what I’ll be doing in twenty-five years or sixteen years? The only thing I can think of would be that Social Security and Wall Street haven’t gone belly-up and are still functioning properly. Pretty sure that both Orihime and Hikoboshi would be annoyed by such wishes. They only get to meet each other once a year so they probably feel that the government should deal with those issues themselves. At least, that’s how I’d feel.
Still, she always comes up with these pointless ideas. Does
she have a white hole inside her head or something? I wonder what universe her common sense is from.
“You can’t say that for sure.”
Koizumi sounded like he was taking Haruhi’s side. Except he spoke in a soft voice that could only be heard by me.
“Suzumiya’s actions may be eccentric, but nevertheless, she has a strong grasp on her common sense.”
Koizumi flashed his usual cheerful smile at me.
“If her pattern of thought were abnormal, this world would not be as stable as it is. The world would become a bizarre place governed by odd principles.”
“How can you tell?” I asked.
“Suzumiya wishes for the world to become a stranger place. And she happens to possess the power to reconstruct this world. You should be well aware of this.”
I sure am. Though I still have my doubts.
“However, the world has yet to lose its reason. Which means she is putting common sense before her personal desires.”
“This is a rather childish example,” Koizumi said by way of introducing his next little spiel.
“Assume, for instance, that she wanted Santa Claus to exist. However, common sense dictates that Santa could not possibly exist. It would be impossible for someone to sneak into highly secured houses late at night without being spotted by anyone, at least in modern Japan. And how does Saint Nicholas know what every single child wants? He couldn’t possibly have time to visit the home of every single good child in the world in one night. It’s physically impossible.”
Any person who seriously thinks about this stuff has issues.
“You are absolutely right. Which is why Santa Claus does not exist.”
I was only arguing against him because I didn’t like how he was defending Haruhi, but I just voiced another question.
“If that’s the case, shouldn’t aliens, time travelers, and espers not exist the way Santa doesn’t? So why are you here?”
“That is why Suzumiya is growing frustrated with her own common sense. Her common sense denies her desire for a world where supernatural phenomena frequently occur.”
The Boredom of Haruhi Suzumiya Page 5
