But of course I was. Asakura back, Kimidori observing, and now that time traveler had managed to join up with Kuyoh just to bully us—this stuff had been going on since last night and on into today, and I wasn’t born with enough of the Buddha essence to keep a cool head with all of that. I still had a ways to go until reaching enlightenment.
“Also, Kyon. Don’t you have someone besides me you can talk to? To be honest, I have no idea what I should do. If we can get someone to tell us what’s going to happen, that would be very welcome.”
The first person I thought of was Itsuki Koizumi and his above-average face. There was nobody else. The bedridden, horizontal Nagato was out of the question. Asahina the Elder seemed fairly reliable, but so far she had not shown her face. Was this event outside the purview of her fixed events? If so, things weren’t going to work out the way they had on that Tanabata. In which case, game over.
“Kuyoh, do you want to leave with us? Or do you want to finish your parfait? Tachibana paid the bill already, so you can take your time.”
The dark form of the enemy alien did not answer or even move a muscle, her eyes affixed on empty air.
“Are you awake, Kuyoh?” Sasaki waved her hand in front of Kuyoh’s nose.
“—I am not asleep,” she said as though fighting off intense sleepiness.
I couldn’t help letting irritation slip into my tone. “The last part. Were you listening?”
“—Comprehension complete. Execution concluded.”
What did that mean? It would be nice if she meant she had immediately canceled her assault on Nagato.
At Sasaki’s urging I left the table. I was a little worried about leaving that strange nonhuman behind by herself, but my worries were unfounded. Surprisingly, Kuyoh also stood up, and for some reason followed us out. I assumed she would quickly vanish, but she held her position behind me, following a short distance back.
Once Sasaki and I left the café, she kept following us, which was enough to make me rather nervous. On top of that, the sky was mostly dark.
“Is there something you want to say?” Sasaki looked back and saved me the trouble of saying it. But the alien, apparently ignorant of manners, did not answer, her eyes seeming to stare off into the future. I got the sense that she had no interest in humanity, or that our wavelengths were just incompatible. I’d say her personality was unreadable, but I honestly wasn’t sure whether or not she even had a personality. There didn’t seem to be any connection between the version of her that had smiled during yesterday’s battle with Asakura, and this version. Did she have multiple personalities?
I was so focused on what was going on behind me that I didn’t notice what was up ahead. My own fault.
“Hey, Kyon.”
When the familiar voice from up ahead hit my eardrums, I nearly tripped on the perfectly flat asphalt.
Sasaki stopped and I followed suit. Kuyoh did likewise.
“Man, it’s weird running into you here.” It was none other than my classmate Kunikida, wearing his uniform and carrying his bag, obviously on his way home from school.
Kunikida was not looking at me. He was looking at the person next to me, my old middle school pal.
“It’s been quite a while, Sasaki,” he said.
“Has it?” Sasaki chuckled throatily, looking Kunikida over as she spoke. “I feel like I saw you at the national mock exams, but maybe that was just a lookalike?”
Kunikida smiled softly. I think it was the first time I’d ever seen him smile like that. “So you did notice me. I was sure you’d notice the fact that I noticed you.”
“That’s true. I’m hypersensitive to the gazes of others,” said Sasaki in a businesslike tone. “Normally I don’t get very much attention, so when I do the pain receptors on my face go crazy.”
“You never change, do you?” Kunikida nodded as though relieved, when from the side a hand reached out and patted him on the shoulder, accompanied by a grinning face that would’ve made anyone think Why did I have to run into you, of all people.
“Kyon, you cunning son of a—! I just can’t turn my back on you. So this is the girl, eh? Kyon’s mysterious former you-know-what.”
… Taniguchi. I really had no desire to know why he was wandering around with Kunikida in front of the station like this, but all of that aside, I was begging him—please, just go home. With three rocket boosters strapped to his back, if possible. Lift off! Heck, if he’d be willing to go into orbit, I’d get the astronomy club to help with the calculations, I said.
“Aw, don’t be like that, Kyon. Why not make the most of this coincidental meeting?” Taniguchi grinned lazily, his gaze flicking back and forth between me and Sasaki. “Seriously, look at this guy. He’s already surrounded by so many babes, and yet it’s not enough? C’mon!”
I knew perfectly well what he was trying to say, which made me hate myself a little bit. Just as I was getting ready to assume a crouch in preparation for a high-speed sprint escape, Taniguchi finally calmed down.
“So are you gonna introduce me? I’m your pal, aren’t I? Just say what’s on your mind.”
“This is Sasaki. We went to the same middle school.”
Although it wasn’t as if he couldn’t stand to watch it any longer, Kunikida took the baton from me anyway. “Sasaki, this is Taniguchi. We’ve been Kyon’s classmates since our freshman year.”
It was a textbook introduction.
“Nice to meet you,” said Sasaki, bowing smoothly. “You seem like fine friends. Though it doesn’t look like Kyon causes you too much trouble.”
Ignoring her candid observation entirely, Taniguchi flashed his white teeth at me and pressed his attack. “Still, man, I gotta give you credit—you’ve got an eye for looks. Must be nice. Can’t imagine you have any complaints about your life. Kinda pisses me off, really… Kyon… K-Kyo—?!”
What was his problem? Was that his impression of the call of some tropical bird? Was this kind of teasing popular now?
Half–fed up with Taniguchi, I was considering staring him to death with my patented thousand-yard stare, but—what was this? Taniguchi wasn’t looking at me. Nor was he looking at Sasaki.
“… Wha?!”
Taniguchi jumped back, and froze in place awkwardly as though halfway through a stick-up. His eyes were wide in surprise, his expression stiff with something like terror. I didn’t have to guess what it was that was inspiring Taniguchi’s face to look even stupider than it usually did. My beloved classmate’s gaze was taking in the sleepy catlike face of the person standing behind us—Kuyoh Suoh.
So far normal people had completely ignored her, and even I forgot about her existence occasionally. So why could Taniguchi see her?
“—”
Now this was even more surprising. Kuyoh had reacted to Taniguchi. The school uniform–clad girl raised her left arm, turning her hand to reveal her pale wrist. I realized for the first time that around it was fastened a strangely stylish watch. Even more shockingly, it was cute, and analog.
“—I thank you. I—… will not return it.”
Huh?
“Aw, it’s fine. It wasn’t expensive, so if you don’t like it you can just pawn it or throw it away. I mean, please do.”
Taniguchi and Kuyoh were having an actual conversation. Although Taniguchi was sweating way out of proportion to the season, his arms and legs fidgeting weirdly in a suspicious way that would catch the attention of any officer who happened to be on patrol. And yet—this was some kind of miracle.
“He said he sent her a Christmas present.”
Hearing Kunikida’s explanation did nothing to dispel my astonishment. On the contrary, it doubled. A watch? Kuyoh thanking him? Christmas? What the hell was going on here? Was I dreaming?
After casually tossing me and my surprise-dislocated jaw into a lake of question marks, Kunikida turned his attention to Sasaki.
“Can I ask you one thing? What’re you doing with Kyon, after all this time?”
After all thi
s time? That was full of strange implications… but no, this was hardly the time for that. Taniguchi and Kuyoh were far stranger than Sasaki and I.
But Sasaki seemed to ascribe significant weight to Kunikida’s question. “It’s a long story, and I don’t have any intention of shortening it. When you’ve got time, ask Kyon about it.”
“I don’t think I care quite that much, so I’ll pass. Still, it’s a small world indeed, meeting both you and Kuyoh at the same time.”
“You know her too, Kunikida? I would never have guessed. I’m sure I’m more surprised than you are. How did you meet Kuyoh?”
I was rather interested in knowing that myself.
“Kuyoh… you mean, Suoh? It was over winter vacation. This guy here—wait, where’d he go…?”
Taniguchi, eh? He seemed to have done his best impression of the failed hit-and-run strategy of General Takeda during the Battles of Kawanakajima. He’d run off. I had to admit, the speed of his escape was impressive.
“Anyway, Taniguchi, who was here up until a moment ago, introduced me to her. He said she was his girlfriend. Isn’t that right, Suoh?”
“—Yes,” answered Kuyoh, though it was hard to distinguish from a breath or a sigh. “—My memory supports your accuracy.”
“And you broke up about a month ago?”
“—Confirmed.”
Ugh. What the hell.
So the girlfriend Taniguchi had mentioned last December was Kuyoh? The one he’d split up with just before Valentine’s Day? That had been Kuyoh all along? Now wait just a second.
Stunned, I spoke. “Which means, before Naga—… I mean, before that thing happened to her, you were already here on Ear—I mean, you were already here?”
“—I was. I cannot find any problems with that sequence of events.”
I didn’t know whether I was angry or just flabbergasted.
“… Why were you dating Taniguchi?”
“—It was a mistake,” she answered readily.
“What?”
“That’s what Taniguchi said she said. That’s what she told him when they broke up,” said Kunikida simply. “When did you meet Suoh, Kyon? Did you already know her?”
Nope, I’d just met her.
At a loss for words, I looked sideways, and saw Sasaki chuckling.
“I met Kuyoh just recently. As luck would have it, Kyon met her through me.”
“And she’s Taniguchi’s ex on top of all that. What an amazing coincidence. I wonder what the percentage would be?” said Kunikida, cocking his neck curiously.
“Are you talking about probability theory? If we assume that synchronicity happens constantly, then any improbable event, no matter how hard to believe it might be, can be described in terms of its probability. But in this case…” Sasaki smiled mischievously, tilting her head slightly. “… Perhaps we should ascribe it to an omnipotent, omniscient deity in the sky.”
“That doesn’t really sound like the kind of thing you’d say, Sasaki.”
I had to agree. Wasn’t God on vacation somewhere?
Kunikida shrugged, at a loss. “Kyon, Sasaki is saying that all of us meeting here at this moment is a coincidence—she’s just being really roundabout, is all. It’s nothing to get worked up about.”
What part of that wasn’t worth getting worked up about? One or two events like this could be written off as coincidence, but three or four made me suspect that someone had a rope around my neck and was pulling me around. It was a pain unique to me, given how much stuff I’d been dragged through. Even though I knew that seriously agonizing over it was a waste of time.
Somehow Kunikida seemed to notice that I was whirling helplessly in a vortex of silence. “There’s a book I’ve ordered from the bookstore in front of the station. I came to pick it up after school. Taniguchi was free, so he came along. And since we were already here, we thought we’d come by the café.” He looked back in the direction of the escaped Taniguchi, then shook his head. “But he’s gone now, so…”
Maybe this whole thing should be called Taniguchi the Coward’s Magnificent Retreat.
“Anyway, I’d feel bad if I messed up your plans, so I’ll be heading home.”
Just as Kunikida turned his back to go, Sasaki spoke up. “Kunikida, should we meet again somewhere; please don’t hesitate to speak up. Reminiscing about the shared experiences of the past is one of life’s great pleasures, after all.”
“How like you to say that.”
I couldn’t begin to keep up when clever people talked, each one of them planning three moves ahead.
“Yup. So long,” said Kunikida by way of parting words, evidently satisfied with his discourse with Sasaki, and without asking anything further about Kuyoh—he didn’t seem to think much of her one way or another.
I watched his form shrink as he receded into the distance, then decided to stop worrying about the Kunikida/Taniguchi combo. I doubted either of them would say anything about the encounter to Haruhi. Kuyoh had apparently traumatized Taniguchi, and Kunikida was the kind of guy who understood the nuances of these situations.
“Kuyoh.” I turned to face the mop-topped girl who stood there motionless, like a chick that had fallen from its next. “You had already come to Earth last December, right? And then you got close to Taniguchi.” I had a mountain of questions I wanted to ask, but this was the first thing I wanted to get straight. “Did you approach Taniguchi because you wanted to get close to Haruhi and me?”
“It was a mistake—” She sounded like a talking scrub brush as she delivered the short reply.
“What was a mistake?”
“—Mistook him for you.”
“You…”
So Kuyoh had mistaken Taniguchi for me, and started dating him? Hey, hey, c’mon, why did I have to be confused with Taniguchi, of all people? That was a hell of a way to destroy a guy’s confidence in himself.
“It seems that data was confused somewhere. The possibility of jamming by some party also…” said Kuyoh softly, “… exists.”
At the very least, it didn’t seem as if Nagato would’ve had a chance to do that.
“When Nagato screwed up the world, what happened to you?”
“I was not changed.” Kuyoh lifted her head up. There was a bit more color in her lips, which spoke, whose movement made it seem as though I were looking at a frame-by-frame playback. “You all were in illusory space. It made us feel a novel surprise. Overlapping worlds. A world that had formerly existed, but currently did not. Exclusive action. Localized alterations. Fascinating.”
What the hell was she talking about? And why had her tone changed again? It was as though she really did have multiple personalities. I remembered her smile from the previous day.
“—Today has no tomorrow—yesterday has no today—tomorrow has no yesterday—it was there.”
Uh, what?
Sasaki raised an eyebrow. “She sounds more like a fanatic than a lunatic. I would’ve liked to hear more about such things back in the café, not just standing here. And maybe with a notebook handy.” Sasaki glanced at Kuyoh’s wrist and continued, teasingly. “In any case, if you’re still wearing the watch he gave you, you must still have a bit of lingering affection for that interesting fellow.”
Kuyoh’s gaze fell to the analog watch (surely bought on discount) like drops of india ink.
“—I said… I wanted it.”
I was getting tired of being stunned.
“—Time is not a unidirectional, irreversible phenomenon. To engage in biological activities on this planet’s surface it is necessary to stabilize pseudo-objective time flow.”
Hence the watch? But it was just made of tiny springs and gears. A watch doesn’t dictate the flow of time. It’s just a convenient way of numbering the progression of people’s activity in the day, I said.
“—Time is randomly generated. It is not continuous.”
I rubbed my eyes. Just what was this alien talking about?
Sasaki’s innate curiosity had e
vidently been aroused. “So how do you interpret past and future, then, Kuyoh? Or are you saying that Akashic Records exist?”
“—Time is finite.”
“So what does that mean? Show me proof by infinite descent. How much time is there between one second and the next?”
“None. However, there is no danger in thinking otherwise.”
This seemed to be a debate Sasaki could really get her teeth into.
“Hmm, so what about this—if there are parallel worlds, can’t they be infinite in number? As Hugh Everett would have said.”
“—Nothing unobservable can exist.”
“Really?” Sasaki had the look of a budding young scientist who’d just witnessed a new phenomenon.
“—Already recorded—questions… pointless.”
“I see.” Sasaki stroked her chin, seemingly understanding all of this. I couldn’t stop myself from shooting my mouth off.
“ ‘You see’?! Why don’t you finish digesting what you ‘see’ so you can explain it to me, huh? Make sure a complete idiot could understand.”
“Yeah, hmm. Listen, Kyon, that’s impossible. All I’ve understood is that Kuyoh and whoever made her are fundamentally different from us humans, that they possess a totally different way of thinking. So I believe that true understanding is impossible, no matter what.”
So no matter what happens, things would be the same? I asked.
“Not necessarily. Discovering that language is a poor method of communication of our intentions is a big step forward. Here and now, her words are basically noise. But what if a more effective translation device could be invented? Human ingenuity may make such a device possible someday. Humans have already accomplished many feats that pessimists would have called impossible.”
The Surprise of Haruhi Suzumiya Page 11
