“But she’s very popular with the guys!”
Taniguchi piped in:
“She’s cute, athletic, and smart. Even though she is peculiar, if she keeps her mouth shut, she’s actually not bad.”
“Where did you learn all this gossip?” Kunikida asked, with his lunch box twice as full as Taniguchi’s.
“There was a period of time where she switched boyfriends non-stop. From what I heard, the longest relationship lasted a week, the shortest one ended 5 minutes after the confession. In addition, the only reason Suzumiya gave for dumping her boyfriends was ‘I don’t have time to socialize with normal humans.’”
Taniguchi seemed to be speaking from experience. After he noticed my stare, he became a bit flustered.
“I heard this from other people! Honest! For some reason, she wouldn’t turn down a confession. By the third year, everyone understood; so no one wanted to confess to her anymore. I have a funny feeling that history will repeat itself in senior high. So I am warning you now: give up. This is coming from someone who was in the same class as her.”
Say whatever you want, I was not interested in her in that way.
Taniguchi put his empty lunch-box back into his bag, and let out a sinister giggle.
“If I had to choose one, I would choose her, Asakura Ryouko.”
Taniguchi nodded his chin towards a group of girls a few desks away. In the middle of the conversing group, with a rosy smile on her face, was Asakura Ryouko.
“Judging from my analysis, she definitely enters the ‘Top Three Cutest First Year Girls’ list.”
“You have every single first year girl in this school checked out?”
“I group girls into A to D categories and, believe me, I only remember the names of the A girls. You only get to go through high school life once— I want mine to be as happy as possible.”
“Then that Asakura Ryouko is an A then?” Kunikida asked.
“She is AA+! Come on, just look at her face, her personality must be first class.”
Even ignoring Taniguchi’s egoistic comments, Asakura Ryouko was quite a different kind of cute girl than Suzumiya Haruhi was.
First of all, she was very pretty; plus she always let off a smile-like caring impression. Second, her personality did seem to match Taniguchi’s description. These days no one dared to talk to Suzumiya Haruhi anymore, except for Asakura Ryouko. No matter how harsh Suzumiya Haruhi was, Asakura Ryouko still tried to talk to her from time to time. She was so passionate that she almost acted like the class monitor. Third, from the way she answered teachers’ questions in class alone, you could see that she was very smart. She always answered the questions correctly — in the eyes of the teachers she was probably a model student. To top it off, she was extremely popular with the girls. The term had only been going for a week, and she was already well on her way to being the center of the female students in the class. It was as though she had fallen from the sky and had been born with extreme attraction in mind!
Compared to the often scowling, science fiction-obsessed Suzumiya Haruhi, the choice was obvious. Then again, these two candidates were both probably too high up the hill for our hero Taniguchi to climb. No way was he going to get either of them.
It was still April then, and, at that time, Suzumiya was actually behaving quite nicely. To me, this was quite a relaxing month. At the very least, there would be a month to go before Haruhi started going astray.
But, even during this time, I’d observed some of Haruhi’s eccentric behaviors.
Why would I say that?
Clue #1: She changed her hairstyle every day. Furthermore, judging from my observation, there was some sort of a pattern going on. On Monday, Haruhi would come to school with her long hair down, without tying it up whatsoever. On the next day, she would tie it up in a ponytail. As much as I hate to admit it, that hair style did look good on her. Then, she would tie two ponytails on the next day, and three ponytails the day after; by Friday, she would have four ribbon-tied ponytails on her head. Her actions were really enigmatic!
Monday = 0, Tuesday = 1, Wednesday = 2…
As the day of the week increased, so would the number of her ponytails; by next Monday, the whole process would start again. I couldn’t see why she was doing it. Following the previous logic, she should have had six ponytails on Sunday… I suddenly wanted to see her Sunday hairstyle.
Clue #2: For PE, classes 1-5 and 1-6 would combine and have PE together, with the boys and girls separated. When we changed clothes, the girls would go to the 1-5 classroom, and the boys would go to the 1-6 classroom; meaning at the end of the previous period, the guys from our class (1-5) would move to the other room to change.
Unfortunately, Haruhi totally ignored the guys in our class, and removed her sailor uniform before the guys had left.
It was as if, to her, the guys were pumpkins or potato sacks, and she couldn’t care less. Without any expression, she would throw her uniform onto the desk and start to get into her sweatshirt.
At that moment, Asakura Ryouko would drive the goggle-eyed, frozen guys, myself included, out of the classroom.
According to rumors, the girls, with Asakura Ryouko as their leader, tried to talk Haruhi out of doing that, but to no avail. Every PE class, Haruhi would ignore the rest of the class and take her uniform off without so much as a glance. And so, we guys were asked to leave the classroom the second the bell rang— at the request of Asakura Ryouko.
But seriously, Haruhi has a really great figure… argh, this isn’t the time to say that kind of thing.
Clue #3: At the end of every block, Haruhi would go AWOL. When the school bell came rolling around, she would grab her backpack and shoot out of the classroom. Logically, I thought that she went straight back to her house; I would never have thought that she would go and participate in all the clubs in the school. One day, you would see her passing balls in the Basketball Club, and the next you would see her sewing a pillow case in the Sewing Club. By the following day, you would see her waving her stick in the Hockey Club. I think she also joined the Baseball Club. So, basically, she had participated in every sport club in our school. All the clubs tried to persuade her into joining them of course, but she turned them all down. Her explanation was: “It is annoying for me to do the same club activity everyday.” At the end of the day, she didn’t join any clubs.
What is that girl trying to pull?
From this alone, news of a “weird first year girl” spread throughout the school almost instantly. Within a month, there was not a single person who didn’t know who Suzumiya Haruhi was. Fast forwarding to May, people may still not have known who the principal was, but Suzumiya Haruhi was a household name.
So, with all this stuff going on—and Haruhi always the cause—May arrived.
Though I personally think that destiny is even less believable than the Loch Ness monster, if destiny, at some unknown place, is actively influencing human lives, my wheel of fate had probably begun to turn. Conceivably, in some remote mountain there was probably some old guy who was busy rewriting my destiny.
After the end of the Golden Week holiday, I walked to school, not sure what day of the week it was. The unnaturally sunny May weather blasted onto my skin and made me soaked with sweat— the steep hill didn’t seem to end either. Just what is it that the Earth wants? Is it suffering from yellow fever or something?
“Hey, Kyon.”
From behind, somebody clapped me on the shoulder. It was Taniguchi.
His blazer hung slovenly on his shoulders, his necktie was wrinkled and skewed to one side.
“Where did you go for Golden Week?”
“I took my little sister to see my grandma in the countryside.”
“How dull.”
“Fine, what did you do, then?”
“Part-time job all the way.”
“You don’t look like that kind of person.”
“Kyon, you are in senior high now— why do you still bring your little sister to see your
grandpa and grandma? You gotta at least look like a senior high student.”
By the way, Kyon would be me. My aunt was the one who first called me that. A few years ago, my long-time-no-see aunt suddenly said to me “My goodness, Kyon has grown so big!” My sister thought it was funny and also started to call me Kyon. After that the rest is history— my friends, upon hearing my sister calling me Kyon, decided to follow her lead. From that day on, my nickname became Kyon. Damn it, my sister used to call me “Onii-chan”!
“It is a tradition of my family’s to have a cousin gathering during Golden Week,” I answered as I climbed the hill.
The sweating sensation made me feel uncomfortable.
Taniguchi, long winded as always, boasted how he had met some cute girls at his workplace, and how he planned to use the money he saved to go on dates and such. Frankly, topics like what dreams people have, or how amazing or cute someone’s pet is, are in my book, some of the dullest topics in the world.
As I listened to Taniguchi’s date schedule (apparently he wasn’t stopped by little problems such as how no one was going with him), we arrived at the school gate.
Suzumiya Haruhi was already sitting behind my seat staring at the outside when I entered the classroom. She had two bun-like hair clippers on her head; I guess today is Wednesday. After sitting down— for some reason which I do not know, the only explanation being that I was going nuts, before I realized it— I found myself once again talking to Suzumiya Haruhi.
“Do you change your hair style each day because of the aliens?”
Like a robot, Suzumiya Haruhi turned her face slowly towards me, and stared at me with her dead serious expression. It was pretty scary, actually.
“When did you notice?”
Her tone was so cold that it was as though she was talking to a rock on the side of the road.
I paused for a while to think about it.
“Hmm… for a while.”
“Really?”
Haruhi put her chin on her palm, looking irritated.
“I think that each day of the week gives off a different image.”
This was the first time we’d had a proper conversation!
3 Haruhi’s choice of color is based on the Japanese weekday naming system. For example, Wednesday in Japanese is suiyobi, literally water-day, and therefore is blue. Friday, Kinyobi, or gold-day, is gold.
“For color: Monday is yellow, Tuesday is red, Wednesday is blue, Thursday is green, Friday is gold, Saturday is brown, and Sunday is white.”[3]
I can sort of understand what she is trying to say.
“Then that means if we use numbers to represent the color, Monday is zero and Sunday is six, right?”
“That’s correct.”
“But shouldn’t Monday be one?”
“Who asked for your opinion?”
“… Yeah, right.”
Seemingly unsatisfied by my answer, Haruhi scowled at me. I just sat there uncomfortably and let time slip by.
“Have I seen you somewhere before? A long time ago?”
“Don’t think so.”
After I answered, Okabe-sensei lightly entered the classroom, and our first conversation ended.
Even though our first conversation is nothing to write home about, this could become the changing point I have been looking for!
Then again, the only chance I could talk to Haruhi was the bit of time before homeroom session, as she’s usually not in the room during recess. But as I sit in front of her, I am fairly certain that my chances of talking to her are far greater than those of others.
But the thing that shocked me the most is that Haruhi actually answered me properly. I originally thought that she would go like, “You are annoying, moron, shut up! Whatever!” I guess that I’m just as weird as her, for actually finding the guts to go and talk to her.
Therefore when I came to school the next day and discovered that instead of tying three ponytails, Haruhi had cut her long and slender hair short, I felt quite depressed.
The waist length hair has been shortened to shoulder length. I mean, even though the hairstyle does suit her, she cut her hair the day after I talked to her about it! She is obviously looking down on me. What the hell!
When I asked for her reason, however:
“No reason.”
She answered with her trademark irritated tone but didn’t show any sort of special expression. She was not going to tell me the reason.
But I expected that, so that’s all right.
“Did you really try to join all the clubs?”
From that day on, talking to her using the bit of time before the home room session became my daily routine. Of course, if I didn’t try to start the conversation, Haruhi would show no sign of reaction. Another thing is that if I talk to her about how last night’s TV show was, or how the weather is, etc.— those she deemed as “idiotic topics”— she would just ignore me. Knowing that, I carefully picked the conversation topic whenever I talked to her.
“Is there a club that is more fun than the others? I’d like to consider joining some myself.”
“None.” Haruhi answered flatly. “Absolutely none.”
She emphasizes this again, then slowly let out a breath. Is she sighing?
“I thought that high school would be a bit better. In the end it’s the same as mandatory education. Nothing changes at all. Looks like I joined the wrong school.”
Miss, what criteria did you employ when you decided which school to attend?
“Sports clubs and cultural clubs are all the same. If only there were some unique clubs in school…”
“Well, what gave you the right to decide if other clubs are normal or not?”
“Shut up. If I like a club, then it’s unique; otherwise it’s plain.”
“Really? I knew you would say that.”
“Hmph!”
She turned her face away in annoyance, marking the end of the day’s conversation.
She turned her face away in annoyance, marking the end of the day’s conversation.
Another day:
“I overheard something the other day… It’s not something important anyway… Did you really dump all your boyfriends?”
“Why do I need to hear this from you again?”
She brushed her hair by her shoulders, and stared at me with her bright black eyes. God, other than being expressionless, this angry expression seems to appear often on her face.
“Did that Taniguchi tell you? God, I can’t believe that I’m in the same class as that idiot even after I graduated junior high. He isn’t one of those stalking psychos, is he?”
“I don’t think so,” I thought.
“I don’t know what you heard, but it doesn’t matter, most of it is true anyway.”
“Isn’t there someone out there you want to have a serious relationship with?”
“Absolutely no one!”
Total dismissal seems to be her motto.
“Every single one of them is a moron, I just can’t engage in any serious relationship with them. Each one of them would ask me to meet him at the train station on Sunday, then for sure we would go to movies, amusement park, or to a ball game. The first time we eat together would always be a lunch date then we would rush off to a cafe to drink tea. At the end of the day they would always say ‘see you tomorrow’!”
“I don’t see anything wrong with that!” I thought personally; but I didn’t dare say that out loud. If Haruhi says it’s bad, then it must be bad for her.
“Then, without fail, they would confess over the phone. What the hell! This is a sober subject, at least tell me face-to-face!!”
I can sympathize with those guys. Making such an important― to them, at least― confession to someone who looks at you like you are a worm would probably make anyone feel uneasy. They lost their nerve just from seeing your expression! I’m imagining what those guys were thinking as I respond to Haruhi.
“Hmm, you are right. I would ask the girl out and tell h
er directly.”
“Who the hell cares about you!”
What the… Did I say something wrong again?
“The problem is, are all the boys in this world such dim-witted creatures? I have been agitated by this question since junior high.”
Now it’s not any better is it!
“Then, what kind of boy would you consider ‘interesting’? Is it going to be aliens after all?”
“I am fine with aliens or similar things as long as they are not normal. Be they male or female.”
“Why do you always insist on something other than human?”
When I blabbed that out Haruhi looked at me with disdain.
“Because humans are no fun at all!”
“That… maybe you are right.”
Even I can’t counter Haruhi’s idea; if it turns out that this cute transfer student is half earthling and half alien, even I would think that’s cool. If Taniguchi, currently sitting next to me and spying on Haruhi and me, is a detective from the future, it would be even cooler. If Asakura Ryouko, who for some reason keeps smiling at me, has any sort of supernatural power, then my school life would be as exciting as one can get.
But none of it is possible— no aliens, time travelers, or supernatural powers exist in this world. Okay, let’s say they do exist. They wouldn’t just appear right in front of us humble citizens and say, “Hello, I’m actually an alien.”
“THAT’S WHY!”
Haruhi suddenly stood up and knocked her chair down, causing everyone to turn and look at her.
“THAT’S WHY I AM WORKING SO HARD!!”
“Sorry I am late!”
The always-optimistic Okabe-sensei, who is pretty out of breath, rushed into the classroom. When he saw the whole class looking at Haruhi standing, her fists clenched, eyes fixed at the ceiling, he became just as surprised and just stood there.
“Er… Homeroom is about to start!”
Haruhi sat down immediately and glared at the corner of her desk. Phew!
I turned around, the whole class followed suit and turned their heads as well. Then Okabe-sensei, obviously disoriented by the commotion, wobbled to the stage and let out a soft cough.
Volume 1 - The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi Page 2
