I sort of understood, and sort of didn’t care, but at the moment I was exhausted just trying to lead my normal high school life, and I couldn’t hear any more of these words heavy with implications. You could say that a sparrow couldn’t understand the philosophy of a falcon—the level of their DNA was too different. Sitting on top of power lines trilling birdsong seemed as though it fit me pretty well. I’d leave the rest to people with burning ambition, like Haruhi or good old Julien from The Red and the Black. My biggest ambitions of late seemed to be a desire for sleep, so what else could I do?
“That’s a pathetic declaration of intent.” Haruhi shook her head sadly, looking at me as though I were a cowardly samurai who always wore a sword but never had the courage to draw it. Her lips curled up. “Anyway, I’m not here to critique your life philosophy. Still,” she said, her voice strengthening. “In school, class, and tests, that might be good enough for you, but it’s not good enough for the SOS Brigade. In there, what I say goes. I have extraterritoriality. Whether it’s Japanese law, common sense, traditions, social rules, presidential orders, or the decisions of the Supreme Court, none of that matters in the brigade. Got it? Any problems with that?”
Yes, ma’am. No, ma’am. There was no need for her to restate what I already knew perfectly well. I knew better than anyone else why she’d caught the attention of intelligence from beyond the galaxy. So it’s all up to you, Haruhi. Any decision to be made within the SOS Brigade is all yours.
But Nagato and Koizumi, as well as Asahina the Elder, all felt the same way I did. You’ll forgive me that much, won’t you, Haruhi?
However Haruhi might have interpreted my sighs, she closed the textbook, seemingly satisfied, and began to put her notebook back in her bag. It was the signal that the day’s after-school tutoring plus deliberate ploy to arrive late for the brigade meeting was concluded.
It was only ten minutes, but the time was a precious break for me, like halftime at a game—and yet what was the psychological source of that sense of relief? It introduced only a bit of lag into the process of assembling in the clubroom, and even delayed the time until I could sample Asahina’s tea, and yet for some reason these days I was aware that I was trying to avoid the clubroom.
Why was that? Maybe I just couldn’t face all those bright-eyed freshman applicants, and perhaps I’d fallen victim to an irrational disquiet, a baseless dread, but whatever it was, a halo of light still awaited me in the clubroom, thanks to Nagato (whose sense of self had been nice and strong after Haruhi’s disappearance), Koizumi (who still took delight in solving any problem), and Asahina (who was as lovely as ever).
So long as all of us were together, we were effectively invincible within the school, and yet I felt a strange unease, like trace amounts of helium seeping into the corners of my lungs.
What was it about?
Although the random encounter with Sasaki, Kyoko Tachibana, and Kuyoh definitely worried me, I didn’t get the sense that they were planning anything. Given that Sasaki was on their side, and would thus befuddle them more than Haruhi could, I figured she’d give them a fair amount of trouble—that much wasn’t hard to imagine with even my paltry deductive abilities. I knew Sasaki well. Just like Haruhi, she was a hard person to influence—although the vectors were different, of course. Haruhi wouldn’t listen to anyone, ever. Sasaki would listen, then deliver an eloquent rebuttal. Her identity was extremely solid, and not even an edict from Zeus or Cronos could make her betray it. Although she might listen to Prometheus or Cassandra.
Anyway, even if that crowd were to appear before me as home tutors, I doubted they would be able to make things as easily understandable as Haruhi did. Objective analysis based on hindsight suggested that historical understanding was the most profitable source of information. Although this would never happen, if my name went down in history, I would have no reason to complain about their analyses. I’d be a ghost by then, and the dead do not speak, and only the people of the future have any right to cite people who are dead and buried.
And if someone near me happened to die, I had about a cat’s flea’s egg’s worth of desire to write a eulogy for them. So nobody better die on me. Disappearing without a trace was also right out. So long as Haruhi and I were here, nobody involved with the SOS Brigade was allowed to leave. The membership could grow, sure. But shrink? No. The status quo was maintained, and would continue to be. It was one of the SOS Brigade’s most important rules, and while it may not have been written anywhere, it was still common knowledge.
As I turned all this over in my head, Haruhi’s special tutoring session ended, Haruhi turning her back to the vague smiles of the students who’d pulled cleaning duty and striding purposefully out into the hallway like a young member of the Nazi party off to attend a national convention of the Hitler Youth.
With the remainder of Haruhi’s Special Review Course put off until the next day, I enjoyed a few moments of peace, but as we walked side by side and reached the dim hallway that led to our final destination, the clubroom, I couldn’t very well forget the lingering doubts I felt. While I found them deeply befuddling, Haruhi seemed not to notice in the least.
I wondered which was more important to her—improving my test scores or examining new members. As we walked down the hallway, her footsteps nearly sounded like tap dancing, and I realized she enjoyed all sorts of things. I wondered if the new freshman candidates looked like so many hamsters to her.
I hoped the applicants had the animalistic nonchalance of the feline order, rather than the quick reflexes of the rodents. It would be a lot better for their long-term prospects to relax and curl up into a ball than it would be to become the animal subjects of Haruhi’s psychological experiments. There was only one person with enough doglike, tail-wagging loyalty for Haruhi, and that was Koizumi. The kind of person most likely to blend into the clubroom would have the inscrutable empty-headedness of an iguana, but from what I’d seen the odds were slim that any of the new applicants were like that.
It was likely that Haruhi was thinking the same thing—that instead of dragging out the examination process, quickly and decisively sorting things out would be better for both the SOS Brigade and the fresh-faced new students.
And just as I’d expected, the number of provisional new members—or hamsters, from Haruhi’s point of view—was indeed slightly reduced. There was a full house in the clubroom: three boys and two girls. That was one down from the previous day, but it still seemed like quite a few remaining. I really wanted to ask them all individually just what it was about the SOS Brigade that they found intriguing, but unfortunately that was Haruhi’s job, and when the highest-ranking brigade member, in whom resided all rights of supervision and control, entered the room, she made a loud-voiced proclamation.
“The SOS Brigade admission examination has begun!”
Asahina was already in the room, and her hand froze in the middle of pouring tea as she blinked, while Koizumi, who’d been ruminating alone over a children’s shogi board, spread his hands helplessly. Nagato sat in the corner, turning the pages of a used book, giving no reaction whatsoever. After ten seconds of silence, I finally spoke up.
“So this is the end, already?”
“Yup,” said Haruhi haughtily. “It’ll just make everybody’s lives difficult if we take too much time. Plus I’ve already gathered more than enough data. All I need to see now is guts! Friendship, effort, and success aren’t necessary at all. I mean, you haven’t been around us long enough to foster feelings of friendships, and ‘effort’ is just an excuse people who can’t deliver results use. And as for success, what’s important is triumphing over something, not someone. In this case, if you can’t beat me, you haven’t achieved anything at all.”
Haruhi looked over the assembled five freshmen with a weather eye, then nodded.
“Well done, everybody. You all listened to what I said and brought your gym clothes. All right, change into them.”
The group of freshmen sitting in foldin
g chairs looked each other over. Well, of course they did. They’d been told to change, but where exactly were they supposed to do it? Still, while I had no idea when they’d been informed of the required equipment, I was impressed that they’d each brought bags containing their gym clothes. It was the time of year—everything was new to them. They had to be wondering why this club, which was about as far away from a sports team as it was possible to get, required gym clothes, but this year’s freshmen still dutifully complied with the orders of our tyrannical brigade chief.
“Ah, yes.” “Yes, ma’am.”
Such things they murmured, standing and taking their uniforms in hand.
But standing was all they did. Evidently here in this mixed-sex room, their feelings of embarrassment were strong enough that coed clothes-changing was a bit too much for them.
Koizumi, Asahina, and Nagato made no move to leave the room, seemingly implying “Don’t mind us, go right ahead.” Koizumi grinned (he was being awfully quiet), while Asahina went with the flow of things, looking for enough teacups to serve everyone. There in the corner, Nagato kept her head down, as though she were reading the minutes of a student council meeting.
It seemed the only person remaining to lend a hand to the dubious-faced freshmen was me. Just when I took a deep breath and braced myself for impact—
“Right, current members all have to leave the room. You too, Yuki! You can read your book in the hallway.” Haruhi was showing surprising initiative. “Girls change first. Boys wait in the hallway, and change once the girls are done. I believe in gender equality, but in my view you’ve got to account for physical differences. Hurry, now—out, out!”
You would never have guessed that she was once a girl who would start changing clothes in the middle of classroom 1-5, paying no mind to the boys’ gazes. But maybe that was just my imagination; maybe Haruhi’s smile had slowed down my thinking a certain amount.
But there was one thing I did have to ask her.
“Just what are you going to make them do?” I assumed it would be something athletic.
“Didn’t I tell you? A marathon!” said Haruhi, folding her arms and looking as though what she’d just said was totally reasonable. “A long, boring series of tests just isn’t my style. But deciding quickly, like this, will give a nice decisive result. Anyway, the trial club membership period is ending soon, and I have to be considerate to the students who don’t make it, because they might have other clubs they want to try. So I started thinking. To be really decisive in times like this, it’s gotta be a test of strength! Of energy! And what’s better for that than an endurance run?”
As I wondered whether the SOS Brigade had ever done anything that tested our endurance, I spoke. “Hey, c’mon now.” I thought about not saying anything, but there didn’t appear to be anyone else in this small room that would protest Haruhi’s rampancy. “What about the stuff you’ve done so far? You’re just gonna toss all that out and decide things with a marathon? You should’ve done that from the beginning!”
“Tsk tsk tsk!” Haruhi clicked her tongue disapprovingly, like an examiner who’s just received a question she’d expected all along. She continued, her attitude like an elder monk enlightening a young apprentice who was repeating secondhand information. “You’re not thinking this through, Kyon. Listen, the other tests and interviews were certainly not wasted effort. I have a good eye for people. I’ve got as much perception and concentration as an eagle on the wing, hunting for mice hiding between the crags below.”
Yeah, and pretty soon one of those poor little mice was going to be caught and served up on a plate back at your nest.
“The reason I’ve been constantly talking about tests all the time is, um, like… the MacGuffin in a suspense movie!”
“Wouldn’t that be more like a red herring, then?” Koizumi calmly stepped in, but I kept silent, not knowing what herring and pound cake had to do with each other. Haruhi seemed not to know either.
“Whatever, who cares. The point is, any measure of aptitude worth being called a ‘test’ is… umm… well, it’s based on human observation, which I’ve been doing. I’ve been testing them. The nature of the tests wasn’t important. It was all just to filter out the new recruits who didn’t make it this far, that’s all. And so…” Haruhi extended her index finger and gestured across the noses of the assembled five students. “You’ve all successfully crossed the hurdle. Congratulations. You’ve gained the right to undertake the final challenge. Rejoice! While you still can. But the real test is just beginning. I’ll just say now that it’s going to be a lot tougher than what you’ve done so far. You’ll need strength, guts, courage, and the most important skill humans possess—the persistence never to give up! Beyond this challenge awaits the ultimate victory!”
It felt as though she was just trying to say sort of generically inspiring things, but I couldn’t claim that they didn’t fit the occasion. Haruhi Suzumiya played things by ear, every time. If she couldn’t manage that this time, then who in the world could have?
I couldn’t help letting slip a pained smile. It was because Haruhi was like this that I sometimes…
With effort, I stamped the thought out. Dangerous—too dangerous. Even if the words had only existed in my mind, never to be vocalized, only ever heard by me, the very fact of them being so meant I couldn’t pretend not to have heard them.
Language was cognition. And if I became conscious of that, there was a real possibility that I could become aware of a notion that would pose mortal danger to a life I hoped would be a long one. It might have been cheeky of me, but at the moment I was determined to remain free of all ideologies or policies.
Consequently, I immediately canceled my train of thought, and decided to think about happier things—like the flower viewing party at Tsuruya’s villa, or my anticipation of a sequel to a video game I’d beaten.
“…”
Perhaps having caught me trying to hide something away in my mind, Nagato lifted her face smoothly up, then dropped her eyes back to the book.
“Aw…”
It was fine. It didn’t matter who knew—so long as it wasn’t Haruhi, the world would remain at peace. Still, maybe it wouldn’t hurt to let her know a little bit… or at least the thought occurred to me for a moment—sorry, I took leave of my senses for a second there. No, seriously. Seriously.
Sigh. Needing to make yourself listen to your own excuses would only result in years of agonizing experiences. The human brain is an ill-made thing, letting you remember with perfect clarity only those things you most want to forget. I hoped someone was nearing completion of the human felinization project—cats didn’t seem to worry much about the future at all.
Haruhi must have concluded that going to the locker room was a waste.
She oversaw the alternate clothes-changing of the boys and girls in the clubroom, and as a matter of course Koizumi, Asahina, and I all withdrew to cool our heels in the hallway. But even when it was the boys’ turn to go and change and Haruhi ordered Nagato matter-of-factly out of the room, Nagato remained nose-in-book, not moving a muscle. And yes, I did think about asking Nagato to give a little consideration to these poor little freshmen who would have to change in front of an older girl, but honestly the three boys didn’t seem too worried about what she might see at this point, plus this might have been part of Haruhi’s exam. It then occurred to me that if that was so, I should’ve been allowed to stay in the room when the girls changed, at which point the freshmen had all finished changing and we were heading for the field.
I wasn’t too upset about it, if I’m honest. It wasn’t something that was in either my nature or my ethics to do, plus what would Asahina have thought?
Thus, after much ado, Haruhi finally introduced her long-awaited SOS Brigade Final Entrance Examination, which was all well and good, but for some strange reason she had also changed into her gym clothes, which worried me. Also worrying was the inner state of the girl who strode unhesitatingly along, taking great
bouncing strides like some sort of street hip-hop performer about to improvise a lyric. But the biggest outstanding issue was the fact that we were currently heading to the school’s sports field.
No exposition is required to explain that the grounds were the site of fierce competition among the sports clubs, and here at a prefectural school where no special facilities were apportioned to any of the sports teams, such competition was a daily occurrence. At the moment, major players like track and field, soccer, and baseball, along with more minor sports, were constantly pushing for more territory, like tiny nation-states making shows of strength along their borders, always trying to expand.
The track and field team had a legitimate claim to the four-hundred-meter track, but Haruhi strode spiritedly toward them, her five freshmen in tow. Her lack of restraint made her seem like the leader of a school of baitfish leading a charge.
Though I’d come along this far owing to circumstances, I decided to hold position at the top of the stairs that led down onto the field, given that I participated in no athletic activities save PE class and the daily uphill trudge to school. Koizumi and Asahina did likewise. They both had been hanging around Haruhi long enough to have a good idea of what she was planning to do next. Nagato had been disinclined to observe the proceedings all along, and at that very moment was probably enjoying a book in the clubroom. It goes without saying that she had excellent judgment.
Essentially, the three existing SOS Brigade members—us minus Nagato—had chosen to act as mere rubberneckers. I would brook no clumsy attempts to get us to participate further.
As I watched, Haruhi started by taking issue with somebody on the track and field team, and taking no notice of the increasingly irritated aura of the team as a whole, lined up the brigade candidates at the starting line.
The Surprise of Haruhi Suzumiya Page 13
