The Boredom of Haruhi Suzumiya

by Nagaru Tanigawa

  He easily dodged that one.

  “Even if we allow for a margin of error on the estimated time of death, we still have to assume that it happened around an hour before we found the body. However, we were already awake and in the dining hall by that time. But we didn’t see any sign of Yutaka or even hear a single sound. Even with a hurricane outside, that would be unnatural.”

  “What does that mean?” Haruhi said in a sullen voice.

  Her arms were crossed as she glared at Koizumi and me. You’re not going to learn anything by glaring at me. If you want answers, tell the smiling boy next to me.

  Koizumi continued in a light tone as though we were talking about the weather.

  “This wasn’t a sinister murder. It was merely a tragic accident.”

  “You don’t look too upset about it.”

  “There is no doubt that Yutaka stabbed Keiichi. Or else there wouldn’t be a reason for Yutaka to escape.”

  Well, that makes sense.

  “I do not know the motive or circumstances involved, but Yutaka attacked Keiichi with a knife. He probably had it hidden behind his back as he came from the front. Keiichi had no time to brace himself so he was probably unable to resist at all when he was stabbed.”

  He sounds like he saw the whole thing happen.

  “However, the tip of the knife had yet to reach his heart. I’m not sure it had even touched his skin. The knife was thrust into the notepad in Keiichi’s chest pocket, meaning that the notepad was the only casualty.”

  “Huh? What do you mean?”

  Haruhi’s brow creased as she spoke.

  “Then how did Keiichi die? Someone else killed him?”

  “Nobody killed him. There was no killer in this case. Keiichi ended up that way purely by accident.”

  “What about Yutaka? Why did he run away?”

  “Because he believed that he had killed Keiichi.”

  Koizumi answered calmly as he raised his index finger. Does he think he’s one of those famous detectives?

  “Allow me to explain my thinking. The sequence of events went as follows: Last night, Yutaka went to Keiichi’s room with murderous intent and stabbed Keiichi with the knife. However, the knife was lodged in the notepad and didn’t deliver a fatal wound.”

  I have no idea what he’s getting at, but I’ll just listen for now.

  “However, this is when it got complicated. Keiichi believed that he had been stabbed. He still would have felt the force of the knife hitting the notepad. Furthermore, we can assume that he suffered a psychological shock at the sight of a knife sticking out of his own chest.”

  I was beginning to understand where Koizumi was going with this. Come on, now. No way.

  “That misconception led to Keiichi fainting. When collapsing, he would have either fallen sideways or backwards.”

  Koizumi paused to take a breath.

  “Upon witnessing Keiichi’s collapse, Yutaka believed that he had killed him. What followed was simple. He could only escape. This wasn’t a premeditated murder. Rather, he had merely used the knife in a heated moment of rage. So he stole the cruiser, despite it being nighttime in the middle of a storm.”

  “Huh? But then…”

  Haruhi spoke up before Koizumi interrupted her.

  “Please allow me to continue my explanation. The actions taken by the unconscious Keiichi afterwards. He remained unconscious until this morning. We were wondering why he hadn’t woken up so we came to knock on the door to his room.”

  So he was still alive at that time…?

  “The knocking on the door woke up Keiichi and he stumbled to the door. However, he must have been in a daze, considering how hard it was for him to get up in the morning. He was probably unable to think clearly. He was approaching the door half-asleep when he finally remembered.”

  “Remembered what?” Haruhi asked. Koizumi smiled at her.

  “That his brother had tried to kill him. And once he recalled the sight of Yutaka with a knife in his hands, Keiichi promptly locked the door.”

  I couldn’t hold myself back so I interjected.

  “Don’t tell me that’s supposed to explain the whole sealed room deal.”

  “I’m afraid so. After being unconscious for so long, Keiichi had lost sense of time. He believed that Yutaka had returned. We were probably only a second or two late. The instant I grabbed the doorknob from the outside, it was locked from the inside.”

  “The killer wouldn’t knock on the door if he came to finish him off.”

  “Keiichi’s mind was still hazy so he made a poor spur-of-the-moment judgment since he wasn’t thinking clearly.”

  That’s some pretty arbitrary reasoning.

  “And so, Keiichi backed away from the door after locking it. His instincts must have told him that he was in danger. That was when tragedy struck.”

  Koizumi shook his head the way a person would when telling a tragedy.

  “Keiichi tripped over his feet and fell to the floor. Like this.”

  Koizumi bent his body as though he were falling forward.

  “As a result, the knife stuck in the notepad near his chest was pushed into his body by the force of the handle hitting the floor and the blade pierced his heart, leaving him dead…”

  Koizumi looked at Haruhi and me with our mouths wide open like idiots before he continued in a firm voice.

  “That is what really happened.”

  What was that?

  Keiichi died for such a stupid reason? How could everything happen so conveniently? The whole knife perfectly missing then not missing is one thing, but Yutaka should have realized if he’d killed Keiichi or not.

  I prepared my rebuttal.

  “Ah!” Haruhi suddenly shouted, which made me jump. Where’d that come from?

  “Koizumi, but…” Haruhi said before freezing all of a sudden. Her face was filled with shock. Why was she shocked? Was there a part of Koizumi’s story she couldn’t accept?

  Haruhi’s eyes drifted over toward me. When her eyes met mine, she quickly looked away and turned back toward Koizumi before deciding against it and looking up at the ceiling for some odd reason.

  “Eh… Never mind. I’m sure that’s what happened. Mmm. How should I put it?”

  After muttering incomprehensibly for a while, she fell silent.

  Asahina was still asleep, while Nagato stared blankly at Koizumi.

  For now, the meeting was adjourned. We returned to our individual rooms. According to Koizumi, the police would be coming once the storm calmed down so we should have our belongings packed up by that time.

  After killing some time doing nothing in particular, I had come up with a number of questions so I headed to a certain room.

  “What is the matter?”

  Koizumi looked up from where he was folding his clothes and smiled at me.

  “We need to talk.”

  There was one reason I had come to Koizumi’s room.

  “I can’t accept it.”

  That’s right. Koizumi’s deduction hadn’t explained everything. There were gaping holes.

  “If we go by your explanation, the corpse should have been found facedown. But Keiichi was lying faceup. How do you explain that?”

  Koizumi stood up from where he’d been sitting on his bed and turned to face me.

  “There is a simple reason for that. The deduction I revealed to everyone was a false explanation.”

  I didn’t show any visible reaction.

  “Figures. The only one who would have eaten up that story was Asahina and she wasn’t even conscious. I could just ask Nagato to tell me everything, but that’d feel like cheating so I’d rather not. Tell me what you were really thinking.”

  Koizumi’s handsome face broke into a smile as he chuckled in a low voice that grated on my ears.

  “Then I should tell you that the explanation I previously gave was true up to a point. However, the last part was different.”

  I kept my mouth shut.

  “Ke
iichi approached the door with the knife stuck in his chest… Everything up to that point was true. So was the locking of the door by reflex. That was when the story diverged.”

  Koizumi motioned for me to sit down in a chair, but I ignored him.

  “It appears that you’ve realized the truth. I must admit that I underestimated you.”

  “Just keep talking.”

  Koizumi shrugged.

  “We rammed into the door and destroyed it. Or to be specific, myself, you, and Arakawa. And then the door was opened. Our momentum carried us inside.”

  I kept quiet as I motioned for him to keep going.

  “You should already know the end result. Keiichi was standing right next to the door when it burst open and hit the front of his body. And the handle of the knife.”

  I tried to picture that scene in my mind.

  “And consequently, the knife was driven into Keiichi’s chest and led to his demise.”

  Koizumi sat back down on the bed and looked up at me provocatively.

  “In other words, the culprits were…”

  Koizumi smiled as he whispered to me, “Myself, you, and Arakawa.”

  I looked down at Koizumi. If I’d had a mirror, I could have seen the chilling look on my face. Koizumi didn’t seem to care as he continued talking.

  “Suzumiya also realized this truth, the way you did. That’s why she stopped herself when she was about to tell us. She didn’t accuse us of any wrongdoing. She may have wanted to protect her good friends.”

  Koizumi had a solemn look on his face. But I still couldn’t accept what he was saying. My neocortex hadn’t deteriorated to the point where I would be tricked by his second fake deduction.

  “Hmph.”

  I snorted and glared at Koizumi.

  “Sorry, but I don’t trust you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Your goal may have been to sell the second explanation with your tricky deduction, but you’ll have to try harder if you want to fool me.”

  Didn’t I sound pretty cool just now? I’ll keep going.

  “Just think about the fundamental problem here. As in focus on the murder itself. Got it? There is no way that something like that could have happened under such convenient circumstances.”

  Now it was Koizumi’s turn to silently motion me on.

  “I don’t know if the hurricane was a coincidence or Haruhi’s doing, but it doesn’t really matter in this case. The problem would be that we’ve got a dead body on our hands as a result.”

  I paused to lick my lips.

  “You would probably claim that the whole thing happened because Haruhi wished for it. However, despite what she says, Haruhi does not actually wish for anyone to die. That should be obvious if you’ve watched her. Which means that this whole incident wasn’t caused by Haruhi. And, are you listening? It wasn’t a coincidence that we were here when it happened.”

  “Oh,” said Koizumi. “So what does that mean?”

  “The true culprit behind this incident… or actually this trip, the SOS Brigade summer camp, would be you. Am I wrong?”

  Koizumi’s smiling face froze for a few seconds as he was caught off guard. However—

  A chuckling sound came from Koizumi’s throat.

  “You’ve got me. How did you know?”

  As Koizumi said that, he looked at me with eyes that were the same as when we were in the literary club room.

  I guess my brain tissue wasn’t gray for no reason. I continued, feeling somewhat relieved. “Back when you asked Nagato for the body temperature of the corpse.”

  “What about that?”

  “You used that temperature to estimate the time of death or whatever.”

  “Indeed, I did.”

  “Nagato can be very useful. As you should know, she can pretty much tell us anything. You should have asked Nagato for the estimated time of death instead of the body temperature. No, it wouldn’t be an estimate. She could probably tell you the exact time of death now to the exact second.”

  “I see.”

  “If you had asked for the time of death, Nagato would have answered that he wasn’t dead. Also, you never referred to Tamaru’s body as a corpse.”

  “I was trying to be fair.”

  “There’s still more. I’m actually an attentive person, though it may not seem that way. The interior side of the door to Keiichi’s room. According to your explanation, the door hit the handle of the knife with a fair amount of force. Enough to drive a knife into a human body. If that much force had been involved, there should have been some kind of indentation on the door. But there wasn’t. The door looked brand-new, without a scratch.”

  “What splendid powers of observation.”

  “And one more thing. It concerns Arakawa and Mori. The story that they hadn’t even been here for a week yet. You said they were hired a week ago and that’s when they came to this island, right?”

  “That’s right. Is there something odd about that?”

  “There is. There definitely is. Your behavior was odd. Remember the first day we were here. What did you say when Arakawa and Mori came to pick us up when we got off the ferry?”

  “Well, what did I say?”

  “ ‘It’s been quite some time.’ Those were your words. Why would you say that? You said that this was your first time on this island. So this should have been the first time you ever met them. Why would you greet Arakawa and Mori as though you were already acquainted with them? Shouldn’t that be impossible?”

  Koizumi chuckled.

  I took his laughter to be an open confession. All the tension left my body as I finally understood the whole picture, and Koizumi began to talk.

  “That’s right. This whole affair was a setup. A grand act. Though I didn’t expect you to realize it.”

  “Don’t underestimate me.”

  “Excuse me. However, I must admit that I was surprised. I had intended to reveal the truth at a later time, but I didn’t expect to be caught so soon.”

  “Which means that Tamaru, Mori, and everyone else were all in on it? They’re probably members of that ‘Agency’ thing, right?”

  “That is correct. Pretty good acting for a bunch of amateurs, don’t you think?”

  The knife in the chest was a trick one with a retractable blade, the red bloodstain was actually paint, Keiichi was only pretending to be dead, of course, and the missing Yutaka had merely moved the cruiser to the other side of the island.

  Koizumi revealed the truth in an easy manner.

  “Why did you come up with this plan?”

  “To ease Suzumiya’s boredom. And to lessen our burden.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m pretty sure that I’ve already told you this. Basically, we were trying to provide Suzumiya with entertainment to prevent her from getting any strange ideas. For the time being, Suzumiya is focused on the current turn of events, is she not?”

  “Except that Haruhi thinks we’re the killers. Is that a good idea?”

  After the presumed murder, Haruhi had been unusually quiet. She’d appeared to be deep in thought. Creepy as hell.

  “Then I’ll have to move up the schedule,” Koizumi said. “According to our plan, we would return by ferry to the harbor on the mainland to find the four of them, Keiichi Tamaru and Yutaka, along with Arakawa and Mori, greeting us with smiles—that was the ending we’d prepared. Naturally, we would hide anything concerning the ‘Agency’ and stick to the story that they’re my relatives.”

  So you actually had a surprise party planned.

  I sighed. I hope Haruhi has a good sense of humor. If she gets seriously pissed, you’ll have to deal with her. ’Cause I’ll be long gone.

  Koizumi winked at me as he smiled.

  “That would be quite the predicament. I should probably apologize to her soon then. I shall go with Tamaru and everyone else to bow our heads in apology. I’m sure he’s getting tired of playing a corpse.”

  I kept my mouth s
hut as I looked out the window.

  I wondered how Haruhi would react. Would she go into a mad rage about being tricked, or would she just smile and laugh it off? Either way, she’ll end up in a mental state that’s easier to understand than the one she’s in now.

  Koizumi smiled wryly as he continued, “I had people ready to play the roles of detective and forensic expert, but it appears that those preparations will go to waste. In any case, I didn’t expect such an uneventful ending. The original agenda included a search of the mansion as well as gathering evidence from the scene of the crime… It didn’t work out too well.”

  That just shows that you didn’t think this through enough.

  As I looked up at the clouds, I wondered how clear the skies would be in a few hours.

  In the end, Koizumi wasn’t stripped of the title of vice brigade chief. The hurricane quickly disappeared and we took the ferry back under a bright, blue sky. Haruhi was in a good mood that lasted the entire trip up until we parted ways in front of the station. It’s a good thing that Haruhi knows how to take a joke.

  In return on the ferry trip back, Koizumi had to buy box lunches and canned juice for everybody. I felt that he’d gotten off pretty lightly.

  Nagato, who probably knew what was going on from the beginning, showed no reaction. Asahina woke up to yell, “That was so mean!” and pout in an adorable manner, but once Koizumi and the Tamaru brothers along with the two servants bowed their heads in apology, she quickly said, “Ah, it’s fine. Please don’t worry about it!” I figured I should include that little episode in here.

  Incidentally, Haruhi had made the following request when we were all lined up to take a picture on the deck of the ferry during the trip back to the mainland.

  “I’ll be counting on you for our winter camp, Koizumi. Come up with a better scenario this time. We’ll be going to a mountain retreat. And there has to be a blizzard. You better provide an appropriately designed manor this time or I’ll be mad. Yep. I can’t wait!”

  “Well… What to do?”

  Koizumi turned to me for salvation, looking like a rookie German officer who’d received a direct order from the Führer himself to capture the Supreme Allied Commander with a single squad on the European Western Front during the waning years of World War II.