I thought about it for a moment.
“Are you trying to get me to ask Haruhi out on a date? Are you crazy in the head?”
“Goodness, I don’t seem to recall saying anything like the word ‘date.’ But if that’s how you feel about it, I’m certainly fine with that. And why not? Why not take the brigade chief to a movie and get to know her better? No, even better—distance yourselves from the SOS Brigade entirely and just do something fun as two normal high school students? You might discover something new.”
Annoyingly, Koizumi looked at me like a mother bird watching her fledgling about to leave the nest, so naturally I had to put him in his place.
“If I actually did anything like that, it would be a major symptom. Honestly, I’d want you to tell me. Even if the Earth stopped spinning on its axis, I would never do such a thing. If I did, it would mean there was something wrong with me and I just hadn’t noticed it yet. If that ever happens, I’m counting on you. You’ll have to get me back to normal. I’d want you to do whatever you had to.”
“As you wish. Although I must say that would be the exact opposite of what I would wish for…”
Just when Koizumi was getting a nasty smile on his face as though he were going to add something to that—
“Kyon! Do you have the chairs yet or what?!”
Haruhi’s raucous voice echoed from inside the clubroom, at which Koizumi and I both slumped like identical twin mimes, then headed for the folding chairs that had been left in the hall.
Just as I was leaving the clubroom entrance, I heard the sound of the printer whirring and spitting out sheets of paper. What was she printing?
I soon found out.
1. Explain the reasoning behind your ambition to join the SOS Brigade.
2. If you are admitted, in what way can you contribute?
3. Of aliens, time travelers, sliders, and espers, which do you think is best?
4. Why?
5. Explain any mysterious phenomena you have experienced.
6. What’s your favorite pithy phrase?
7. If you could do anything, what would you do?
8. Final question: Express your enthusiasm.
9. If you can bring along anything really interesting, you get extra credit. Please try to find something.
The printer was nearly out of ink, so it labored mightily to print the above letters onto its copier paper, but that’s definitely what they spelled out. Written test, indeed.
Koizumi and I finished setting up the folding chairs, and once the freshmen were all settled and ready, Haruhi passed out the brigade entrance examination.
“The time limit is thirty minutes. There’s no limit on length. You can write on the back if you like. If you’re caught looking at anybody else’s test, you’re instantly disqualified, so make sure to use your own head.”
She then made a flourish with her pointer.
“Begin!”
Haruhi and Nagato were the only ones allowed to watch the freshmen hastily follow her directions, so once again Koizumi and I were exiled into the hallway. I grabbed an extra copy of the written text that had been printed.
“Put this on the door,” said Haruhi, her tone indicating that she would brook no argument, and left me with a piece of paper with KEEP OUT scribbled on it before slamming the door closed. Helplessly, I tacked the warning up and stood still there in the hallway.
I gave the test I’d picked up to Koizumi. “What kind of exam questions are these, anyway?”
“Indeed.” Koizumi gave the paper the once-over and stroked his chin. “This isn’t all that different from a real examination. The questions themselves aren’t terribly difficult, so answering them should be easy. It won’t require much thought to get a good score.” He flicked the printout, amused. “This is a cognition test. Suzumiya wants to know how the examinees think and answer questions. Given those answers, she can determine the examinee’s capacity for speculation. It’s a kind of psychological evaluation. Of course, she probably intends to use this as an entirely serious examination.”
It ought to be serious, given how much time she’d spent coming up with the questions.
I took the paper back from Koizumi. “But if you want to kiss up to Haruhi, how would you answer? I’d have no idea. What does a person’s favorite proverb tell you about them?”
“I’m rather more interested in question three. Which would be your pick?”
—Of aliens, time travelers, sliders, and espers, which do you think is best?
“That’s way too abstract.” I turned my face away from Koizumi’s pleasant inquiry. “What does ‘best’ mean? They’re all totally different. Now, if you want to know which one is the most useful, that I can answer.”
“Oh, and which would that be? I’m fascinated to hear.”
Since that depended on the circumstances, I couldn’t really be definitive. My usual answer would obviously be Nagato, but Nagato aside, there was no telling what aliens as a group were thinking. Being able to freely manipulate time would let you amass vast wealth, but having access to easily understandable forecasts and insights along with teleportation like Koizumi had seemed as though it would be pretty interesting too. They all had their advantages and drawbacks. The only one I could easily rule out was sliders, who didn’t seem particularly convenient in any way.
As I was staring at the Haruhi-made entrance exam to kill time, Asahina returned, carrying the heavy-looking kettle like some kind of spring-water fairy.
“Oh, can we not go back in?”
“Looks that way.”
I took the kettle from Asahina’s hands, and since standing there holding the heavy thing made me feel like some dope who was being punished, I set it down on the floor by the wall.
“I thought I’d make tea for everyone, but I wonder if there’s going to be time to boil water…” Asahina gazed at the clubroom door as she worried about the freshmen. How charming she was! I would’ve liked to have kept gazing at the beautiful senior who always wanted to make sure there was fresh tea for her friends, but standing guard out there for half an hour was going to be boring, so I tried to figure out what to do.
“Perhaps we should go to the cafeteria. The food line is probably closed, but I can at least treat you to some coffee from the vending machines.”
Since Koizumi had primed the pump, both Asahina and I nodded our agreement. That was an awfully reasonable suggestion. The last half of his proposal was particularly attractive.
Koizumi gave me a light wink. “I did lose that bet, after all.”
Which was true, now that he mentioned it.
The three of us first headed to the vending machines installed along the outside wall of the cafeteria, and once we’d all obtained drinks in paper cups, we sat at the round tables out on the terrace.
The cherry blossoms that were spring’s main event were fading in favor of the deepening green of the season. It occurred to me that a year earlier, I would never have imagined I’d be sitting here with these particular people.
I savored the sweet au lait as I drank it.
“Kyon, what kind of entrance examination is she using?” Asahina asked, her hands wrapped around her cup of black tea as though to keep them warm. I gave her the exam sheet I’d folded up and slipped into my pocket.
“It was this thing. Honestly, I have no idea what kind of person she’s actually looking for.”
“Hmm.” Asahina looked intently at the paper, like a grade schooler trying to memorize the sevens column of her multiplication tables. It was adorably heartwarming.
“Still, this is a rare event,” said Koizumi, his cup seeming like Meissen porcelain as he inclined it to his lips. “This combination of the three of us, I mean. We should appreciate these thirty uninterrupted minutes we have.” He smiled still more charmingly. “Don’t you agree?”
The thought had occurred to me. With all the time-travel craziness, I’d spent a lot of time together with Asahina and Nagato, which for various reasons meant
Koizumi was relegated to a mere supporting character. There wasn’t a lot of opportunity for an esper to play the hero, save the occasional cave cricket–type incident. Although I did have the Agency to thank for their handling of our kidnapping problem.
Just when I thought I’d try to get some kind of consensus from Asahina the time traveler on what kind of things might be happening with Haruhi next, I instead wound up making small talk with Koizumi. Asahina made small sounds of agreement as she took tiny sips of her black tea.
The topics of Haruhi’s strange powers, what they might mean for the world, and our enemies’ capabilities were not spoken of at all as we chatted about things happening at school—our amusing classmates, jokes our teachers had made, what board games to buy next. This must be what they mean by “small talk.”
Asahina smiled happily or nodded her head in interest, and from the outside it would have looked as though she were an ordinary senior enjoying a pleasant chat with some younger students. And given that we were just trying to pass the time, maybe this was the best way to do it.
With a time traveler, or an esper—
No, none of that mattered. We were just fellow club members occupied in some unofficial activities, that was all.
The moment was all the more precious for its ordinariness, I suppose. In that one moment I was free of all obstacles. There was no new time traveler or alien causing me trouble, and while leaving Haruhi alone was always risky, it was only for half an hour.
I thought about it, and I really couldn’t imagine the SOS Brigade gaining a sixth member. My mind just couldn’t picture another member in addition to Nagato, Koizumi, and Asahina, never mind the idea of losing one of them.
Who was it that had said change was the only constant? I felt as if I wanted to argue the point with them. There were things in the world that never changed. My memories of the past, for example. Even if it wasn’t in any photo album, the memory of me, then, with Haruhi and everyone else—that would always remain.
My mind busied itself filing away the image of Asahina’s happy smile, and I couldn’t help feeling rather sad. In only a year, the seniors would be graduating.
But here and now, this single page of memory would live on within me and Asahina and Koizumi.
That was the way it should be, I mused to myself, sipping my hot au lait. It wasn’t especially tasty, and so I didn’t feel particularly thankful to Koizumi for having treated me.
But it was its own pleasure, in a way.
In that moment, I could still take the time to enjoy the small things in life.
Ten minutes after the prescribed half-hour exam time, we returned to the clubroom to see that the only two people there were a satisfied brigade chief flipping through the completed tests, and a silent Nagato more invisible than any Invisible Man.
“Where’d the freshmen go?” I asked, and Haruhi told me.
“They went home. This is it for the written exam, and regardless of whether they passed or failed I told them all to come back here tomorrow, so I bet the really motivated ones will stay.”
“How are you deciding whether they passed or not?”
Haruhi tapped the stack of tests against the desk to even them up. “I have no intention of making a hasty decision just based on this test. I mean, there weren’t any ‘correct’ answers to the questions, but if they came up with interesting things to say, I’ll take that into account.”
It seemed as though she just wanted to make them take a test. I could accept that going along with the brigade chief’s crazy ideas was part of our responsibility as brigade members, but it seemed unfair to make the poor freshmen do it too.
“That’s stupid—obviously I’m thinking about this. Taking the test is itself part of the test. I’m testing their endurance. The unmotivated ones just won’t come back tomorrow, don’t you get it?”
So she was separating the wheat from the chaff. Well, it was a pretty coarse screen, if you asked me.
“I was thinking it would be nice to make tea for everybody,” said Asahina, sympathizing with the freshmen. “Have they all left already? That’s too bad.”
I couldn’t help feeling bad for them, having not gotten a second chance to drink Asahina’s tea.
I watched Asahina as she set about boiling some water.
“You should be thankful, Kyon—you got into the brigade without having to take any tests.” Haruhi sat in her seat and folded her arms. “If you’re not careful, you might get passed by an up-and-coming member. If anybody manages to pass the final stage of the exam, they’re going to be a person to be reckoned with. Although I’m planning an interview for the last stage.”
Haruhi busied herself marking up the tests she’d received with a red pencil.
“Hey, do you want to give the interview a try? Depending on your answers, I’ll consider giving you a promotion. It’s good practice for job interviews too.”
That didn’t sound as though it was going to have any practical relevance to any industry I could think of. If Haruhi were the company president and were directly conducting interviews, it wasn’t as if normal answers would get you the job. The idea of anyone learning interviewing habits from her crazy brigade interviews, thereby wrecking their own future prospects, was too terrible to consider.
“I’ll pass.”
“Fine.” Haruhi didn’t seem the least bit concerned as she happily returned to the tests. Honestly, even I was sort of interested in seeing them.
“Hey, Haruhi, let me see those. I want to see what kind of answers those little freshmen came up with.”
“Absolutely not,” said Haruhi flatly. “That would be a betrayal of confidence. They contain personal information, so I can’t just go flashing them around. I’m the one making the decision, anyway, so there’s no point in showing them to you.” She glared at me with large, shining eyes. “Curiosity’s an especially bad reason. Choosing brigade members is the brigade chief’s job.”
I slumped. Good grief. If the chief was the sole arbiter of new member selection, then it looked as if she was just going to ignore anything we happened to say. Aside from Nagato and me, who’d essentially been drafted on her whim, Asahina and Koizumi were both Haruhi-designated appointees.
But still, I wondered how many of today’s six applicants would reach Haruhi’s final stage.
“Hm?” I was watching Asahina from behind as she poured water into the teapot when something occurred to me. Had all six of today’s freshmen been in yesterday’s group of eleven? One of them might have come for the first time today. There wasn’t any guarantee that all of the interested freshmen would come on the same day, so it was possible that the dropout rate was more than fifty percent.
I tried to connect the memories.
Wait—had that girl been here today? The one from yesterday who’d caught my eye—she’d seemed so familiar. If I hadn’t been shoved out of the clubroom so quickly, I could’ve taken the opportunity of the exam process to get a better look at the six faces.
Something bothered me.
Koizumi produced a set of Uno cards and started shuffling them. I didn’t have to look twice to know that watching his face as he dealt the cards wasn’t going to give me any answers. Even after Asahina finished setting cups of richly fragrant tea in front of each member and the three of us (having nothing better to do) started playing a game, unease weighed heavily on my mind. It felt as if I had thirty seconds left to finish a test, and couldn’t figure out a question that should’ve been obvious—but why?
I gave Nagato a casual glance.
The still-reading literature club member had no reaction, and had not moved a single millimeter from her chair. I had no trouble imagining her exactly this way during the test, still as a bronze statue, but the fact that Nagato was neither moving nor talking meant that nothing was happening. At the very least, none of the new freshmen were from the Heavenly Canopy Dominion, like the embarrassingly named Kuyoh.
“…”
In the space of an ei
ghth-note rest, Nagato turned the page, her finger stopping as though she’d spotted a misprint, then looked up mere millimeters.
With eyes like a stone tablet just wiped clean she gazed at me, then, as though nothing had happened, returned to her book.
That was all it took to set me at ease. So long as Nagato was in the clubroom absorbed in a book, the world wouldn’t be thrown into a poisonous mandrake soup of a crisis. Haruhi was absorbed in grading the tests, and Koizumi, Asahina, and I were passing the time by playing a card game.
I had to feel sorry for the poor freshmen who’d come by the SOS Brigade out of random curiosity, but it was nice of them to amuse Haruhi for a while.
If it were possible, it would be nice if three of them returned tomorrow. We’d probably lose a fair number of them given the dropout rate, but it wouldn’t be any fun for Haruhi if they all left at once. I hoped they lasted until the weekend.
β—8
The next day, Tuesday.
You’ve got to admire the construction of the human brain. Despite finding it terribly difficult to fall asleep, my body was too anxious to let me enjoy a few more minutes of sleep, so thanks to my eyes snapping open before my alarm clock went off, I was able to take my time trudging up the brutal hill to school. But I didn’t feel remotely good about any of it, and as I melted into the utterly clichéd scene of freshmen walking to school, my feet took me through the school gates a bit earlier than normal.
At this rate I was only going to feel more depressed. The best course of action would be to unload my sorrows, and the first step in that would be articulating to Haruhi just how un-merry I felt.
When I got to the classroom, Haruhi’s seat was empty, and I realized I must have arrived before she did. There were all sorts of things I wanted to say, and the fact that the number of things I could actually tell her was so small had nothing to do with my vocabulary. I knew all too well how Asahina must have felt. How are you supposed to communicate things you can’t say with words? Body language? Should I draw a picture?
The Surprise of Haruhi Suzumiya Page 6
