Volume 1 - The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi

by Tanigawa Nagaru

  “You’re late; pay the fine!”

  Do I have to treat you guys again?

  Finally, we ended today’s outdoor activity, after wasting our time and my money.

  “I’m so tired! Suzumiya-san walked so fast that I had a tough time keeping up.” Asahina-san told me as we parted, and then she whispered in my ear, “Thanks for listening to what I said today.” She then lowered her head and smiled shyly.

  Do people from the future all smile so elegantly?

  “Then, see you!” Asahina-san waved goodbye and left. Koizumi softly patted my shoulder and said, “That was fun today! How should I say this? Suzumiya-san really is an interesting person. It’s a pity I couldn’t be with you today, perhaps next time.”

  After Koizumi left with that annoying grin of his, I discovered Nagato had left already.

  That left Haruhi staring at me.

  “What have you been doing all day today?”

  “Hmm, what have I been doing today?”

  “You can’t go on like that!”

  Looks like she’s really pissed.

  “Oh yeah, what about you? You found anything interesting?”

  Haruhi bit her lip and said nothing. If I didn’t stop her she would bite it until her lips bled.

  “Well, it’s not like they’d be so careless as to let you discover them in one day.”

  Seeing me trying to lighten the mood Haruhi turned her eyes away quickly.

  “We’ll have a debriefing the day after tomorrow, in school.”

  Haruhi turned and walked into the crowd, without looking back.

  With the thought of finally being able to go home, I returned to the bank, only to discover my bike was missing. Replacing it was a sign on the lamppost saying, “Your bicycle has been towed away as a result of illegal parking.”

  Chapter 5

  9 First published in 1908 as L’Oiseau bleu, this is a children’s play by Belgian poet, playwright and Nobel laureate Maurice Polydore-Marie-Bernard Maeterlinck (1862-1949). Like Tanigawa Nagaru, Maeterlinck first studied law, then turned to literature.

  In the play, two children, a boy and a girl, are sent forth by a fairy, to seek the mystical Blue Bird of Happiness. On their journey, they visit numerous locales symbolic of human thought and emotion, including the Land of Memory, the Palace of Night and the Kingdom of the Future. The children’s quest is futile, but returning home, they find that the Blue Bird has been in the cage all along. The moral is that happiness can be found at home, and that the journey is as important as the goal.

  Monday came, and the humidity of the rainy season made itself gradually felt at school, increasing to the point where we were sweating buckets. If some politician had made a campaign promise to install an escalator on the hill road, they’d have been assured of my vote once I become eligible.

  I was sitting in the classroom, fanning my neck with a pencilboard as a substitute for a fan, when the bell rang and Haruhi, unusually, was the last to enter.

  Throwing her bag on the desk, she said, “I’d like to be fanned, too.”

  “Do it yourself!”

  Haruhi, whom I’d parted with in front of the station, two days previously, twisted her face into a sour look, pouting. Just when I’d thought her expressions were getting cuter these days, she’d reverted back to her usual scowling self today.

  “Say, Suzumiya. Do you know the story of the ‘Blue Bird of Happiness’[9]?”

  “What’s that?”

  “No, never mind, it’s nothing.”

  “Well, then don’t ask.”

  Haruhi gave me a sideways scowl, then Okabe-sensei arrived and homeroom session began.

  In class that day, an aura of sullenness radiated to all sides from Haruhi’s downer[10], emitting a discomforting pressure against my back. Never before had the chime at the end of the day sounded so comforting. Like a field mouse fleeing from a raging brush fire, I evacuated to the clubroom.

  10 The original text does, in fact, say “downer”: ハルヒのダウナー (Haruhi no DAUNAA)

  The reading figure of Nagato is now the default scenery in the clubroom, to the extent that she seems to be a fixed ornament in the room.

  That said, I turned and said to Koizumi Itsuki, who had already arrived,

  “Don’t tell me you too have something to say to me about Suzumiya?”

  It’s just the three of us in this place. Haruhi has cleaning duty for today, while Asahina-san has yet to arrive.

  “Ah, judging by your reaction, I guess the other two girls have approached you already.”

  Koizumi took a quick glance at Nagato, busy reading her book as usual. I found his know-it-all tone quite annoying.

  “Let’s find another place to talk. It would be troublesome if Suzumiya-san hears us.”

  Koizumi and I went to the cafeteria and sat at one of the tables. On the way, Koizumi even bought a cup of hot coffee for me. I know it’s odd for two guys to share the same cafeteria table, but that can’t be helped.

  “How much do you know?”

  “That Suzumiya isn’t an ordinary person, I guess.”

  “That makes things easy for me. You are correct.”

  Was this some kind of joke? All of the other three members of the SOS Brigade have told me that Suzumiya isn’t human. Has global warming heated their brains so much that they short-circuited?

  “First, tell me who you really are.”

  Since one has told me she’s an alien while the other a time traveler, I already had an idea, so I followed,

  “You’re not gonna tell me that you’re an esper, are you?”

  “Now, there’s no need to assume!”

  Koizumi shook his cup softly.

  “While not exactly accurate, you’re more or less correct - I am what you call an esper. That’s right, I possess paranormal powers.”

  I drank my coffee in silence. Mmm, too sweet, he should’ve bought it with less sugar.

  “I’d have preferred not to transfer to this school so suddenly, but there has been a change in circumstances. I never thought those two girls would have approached Suzumiya Haruhi so quickly already. Before that, they had always been silently observing her.”

  Stop treating Haruhi like some treasured endangered species!

  Noticing that I was frowning, he continued,

  “Now calm down. We’re trying our best as well! We have no intentions of harming Suzumiya-san, rather, we want to protect her from danger.”

  “You said we? That means there are other espers like you?”

  “Well, there aren’t quite as many as you think. Since I am among the lowest-ranked, I don’t really know much, I only know there are about ten in this world. All are under the supervision of the ‘Organization’”.

  Great, now we have an ‘Organization’!

  “I do not know what the ‘Organization’ consists of, or how many members there are. Everything seems to be run by the bigwigs higher up.”

  “……So, this secret group, this ‘Organization’, what does it do anyway?”

  Koizumi wet his lips with the cooled coffee.

  “Just as you have guessed, the ‘Organization’ was founded three years ago, and their priority is to observe Suzumiya Haruhi. To put it bluntly, they exist solely to observe Suzumiya Haruhi. I’m sure you understand by now? I’m not the only ‘Organization’ member here in this school. There have already been a number who have infiltrated here before me; I’ve just been temporarily transferred here to assist them.”

  I suddenly thought of Taniguchi’s face. He said he’s been in the same class as Haruhi since junior high. Could he be an esper like Koizumi as well?

  “You’re joking, right?”

  Koizumi pretended not to hear that and continued,

  “However, I can’t guarantee that they’re all on Suzumiya-san’s side.”

  Why does everyone like Haruhi? She’s just an eccentric, crazy girl that creates trouble for other people, not to mention, she’s extremely self-centered. I
s she really worth having an ‘Organization’ using all its resources to protect? Though I must admit she is attractive in looks.

  “I don’t know what really happened three years ago. All I do know is, I suddenly realized I possessed paranormal powers one day three years ago. I was really scared, I didn’t know what to do. Luckily for me, it wasn’t long before the ‘Organization’ took me in, or I would’ve killed myself thinking something is wrong with my brain.”

  I had already been thinking something must be wrong with your brain ever since that time.

  “Well, that’s not impossible. Though we’re more afraid of the terrible unforeseeable possibilities that exist.”

  Smiling at his own flaws, Koizumi sipped his cup of coffee, and then started giving me a serious look.

  “When do you think this world began its existence?”

  He asked quite a shocking question all of a sudden.

  “Didn’t it begin at the Big Bang?”

  “Right now that’s what’s being said. However, for us there is another possibility - this world came into being three years ago.”

  I looked at Koizumi’s face again and again. What he was saying was too absurd to be true.

  “That’s impossible! I can still clearly remember what happened three years ago. Besides, my parents are still alive. I still have the three stitches I got from falling into a drain when I was young. And how do you explain all the stuff that I’ve been memorizing like hell from the history textbooks?”

  “OK, then how can you be sure that all humans, including you, are not created with their earlier memories? If that’s the case, then there’s no need to dwell on three years ago. There is no evidence in this world to disprove that the world didn’t begin five minutes ago, and that all life began there.”

  “……”

  “For example, try to imagine a virtual reality. Your brain has been plugged by electric wires, everything that you see, smell and even touch are actually all transmitted by the electric signals from the wires to your brain, yet you yourself believe that what you’re experiencing is real. This so called ‘real world’ is actually surprisingly fragile.”

  “……Let’s say I agree with what you said, it doesn’t matter whether the Earth was formed three years ago or five minutes ago. The thing is, what does your ‘Organization’s’ existence have to do with Haruhi?”

  “The leader of the ‘Organization’ believes that this world is really a person’s dream. We, no, it should be the whole world itself is all but a dream. Because it’s just a dream, for that person, to create and alter this reality we’re in is as simple as clockwork. And we all know who this person is.”

  Perhaps it’s his referential use of words, but Koizumi’s face looks surprisingly mature.

  “Humans have called those who can create and destroy the world at will as God.”

  ……Hey, Haruhi! You’ve become a god already, oh my god! (Pun intended.)

  “That’s why the ‘Organization’ has always been very careful. If God becomes displeased with this world, she could just completely destroy the old world and replace it with a new one. Just like a kid who doesn’t like his sandcastle and decides to demolish it and build a new one. Even though I feel there are numerous unresolved conflicts in this world, there’s still some good in this world that makes it worth living in. This is why I’ve assisted the ‘Organization’ in protecting this world.”

  “Why don’t you just go and directly ask Haruhi? Tell her to stop destroying this world, she might even listen.”

  “Of course, Suzumiya-san doesn’t know that, she’s not aware of her own powers. Our job is to make sure she never does, and lives her life peacefully.”

  Koizumi began smiling once again after saying all that.

  “As of right now, she’s still an incomplete god, unable to completely control the world at will. Even though she hasn’t completely evolved, we’ve already seen some signs of it.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Think about it. Why would espers like me, as well as people like Asahina Mikuru and Nagato Yuki exist? It is because Suzumiya-san wishes for it.”

  If anyone here is an alien, a time traveler, slider, or an esper, then come find me!

  I instantly remembered Haruhi’s self introduction at the beginning of the semester.

  “Since she hasn’t discovered them yet, she is unable to completely utilize her powers, she could only subconsciously release them randomly. Yet for the past few months, Suzumiya-san has continuously released powers far beyond what humans can comprehend. As you well know, this resulted in Suzumiya-san having Asahina Mikuru, Nagato Yuki and even me joining her club.”

  Does that make me the sole outsider?

  “Not quite. For us, you’re a mysterious presence. I’ve done quite a lot of background checks on you, I hope you don’t mind. And I can assure you, you are just a normal human being without any special powers.”

  Should I take that as a compliment or should I be disappointed?

  “I don’t know either, but the fate of the world could very well rest in your hands. Therefore, you need to be careful not to let Suzumiya-san feel any despair for this world.”

  “Since you think Haruhi is God,” I suggested, “Why don’t you just abduct her, perform an autopsy on her and see what her brain’s made of? You might even learn the secrets of the universe!”

  “There do exist some extremists within the ‘Organization’ who believe the same way as you do.”

  Koizumi nodded while adding,

  “Yet the majority still think it best to leave her alone. After all, if God becomes unhappy because of this, a catastrophe would most likely occur. We hope for the world to remain as it is, so naturally we hope that Suzumiya-san can live peacefully. We have nothing to gain if disaster does strike……”

  “……Then what should we do?”

  “That I do not know.”

  “Oh yeah, what would happen to the world if Haruhi suddenly dies?”

  “Would the world be destroyed alongside her death? Or would God simply cease to exist? Or a new one would simply come to replace her? Before that happens, no one really knows.”

  The coffee in the paper cup had become cold. I shoved it aside as I didn’t want to drink anymore.

  “You said you possess paranormal powers?”

  “Well, that’s not quite precise, but more or less you’re correct.”

  “Then show me some of your powers, then I’ll believe you. Let’s say, make this coffee warm again.”

  Koizumi smiled cheerfully. This is the first time I’ve seen him truly smile.

  “I’m sorry, I can’t do that. My powers aren’t that easily comprehensible. Under normal conditions, I don’t have any particular powers. I have to satisfy a certain number of conditions before I can use them, but I believe you’ll get the chance to see them one day.”

  “Sorry I’ve taken your time, I guess I’ll go home now.” After saying that, Koizumi left with a smile.

  I watched Koizumi stroll away until he disappeared, then I thought of grabbing the paper cup.

  Just as I thought, the coffee’s still cold.

  When I returned to the club room, I stumbled upon Asahina-san standing inside in her bra and panties.

  “……”

  Asahina-san, with the maid costume in her hands, stood with her eyes wide open, looking at me frozen to the spot with my hand on the door knob. Slowly her mouth started to open as she prepared to scream.

  “I’m sorry.”

  Before she had the chance to yell, I pulled out the foot that was in the room and shut the door quickly. Thanks to that, I was able to avoid her screaming.

  Really, I ought to knock first. No wait, she ought to lock the door if she wanted to change!

  Just as I was wondering whether to store that image of her smooth white half-naked body into my long-term memory banks, a soft knock came from the other side of the door, “You can enter now……”

  “Sorry about that.�
��

  “It doesn’t matter……”

  I looked at Asahina-san’s lowered head as she opened the door and apologized. She blushed and said,

  “Sorry, I always show my embarrassing side……”

  I don’t really mind at all actually.

  She’s really quite an obedient girl, wearing her maid costume as Haruhi told her to.

  She’s just too cute!

  I was afraid if I continued to stare at Asahina-san like that, the image I had just received would begin to tilt towards the dirty side. Mustering all the reason I had to take on those frustrating desires, I swiftly sat in the commander’s seat and turned on the computer.

  Noticing someone watching me, I lifted my head, I found Nagato Yuki actually looking at me for a change. She pushed her glasses up slightly, then returned to her book. Her moves are quite human.

  I opened the net browser and went to the club homepage, trying to edit something out of the ever static page, but I didn’t know where to start. I used to think editing webpages was a waste of time, and I would close the window and sigh. Yet here I was bored as hell, I’ve gotten tired of Othello as well, I needed something to kill time.

  As I muttered under my breath with my arms crossed, suddenly someone placed a cup of warm tea in front of me. I glanced upwards and found Asahina-san in her maid costume smiling while standing with a tray in her hands. She’s completely like a real maid.

  “Thanks.”

  I just got treated to a cup of hot coffee by Koizumi, but I still gladly accepted this cup of warm tea.

  Asahina-san then placed another cup by Nagato’s side, she then sat beside her and silently sipped her own cup of tea.

  In the end, Haruhi never came to the club room that day.

  “Why didn’t you come yesterday? Didn’t you want to hold a debriefing?”

  As usual, I turned and spoke to Haruhi behind me before the homeroom session.

  Lying flat on the desk, with her chin on the surface, Haruhi said with an annoyed look,

  “You’re annoying! I’ve already had the debriefing on my own yesterday already!”