I didn’t get it. If that was it, they didn’t have to do it in this particular era, right in front of me. I mean, I didn’t doubt that I would remember their forms and actions until I died, but so what? I wasn’t the clerk responsible for keeping court records, nor the editor of a historical textbook. They should’ve just gone back to the time of Tacitus and Herodotus and caused trouble there. Or at least found some people with similar interests in this era.
As I thought Sasaki’s words over, my former middle school and cram school classmate started rubbing her cheeks with her fists for some reason, her eyes narrowing as she did so. What was this? Facial calisthenics? I asked.
“Nope,” said Sasaki, putting her hands down. “It’s just that when I talk with you I always wind up with my face stuck in a smile, so my facial muscles were getting tight. We’re talking about serious stuff, though, so I wanted to see if I could change my expression. What do you think?”
I looked with concentration fit to tell the difference between a seven-spotted ladybug and a twenty-eight-spotted one, but all I could say was that I didn’t see much change. She was sort of grinning, or smiling… come to think of it, I wasn’t sure I’d seen an expression other than some kind of smile on Sasaki’s face since middle school.
As I gazed at her face, something occurred to me.
“So what’s your reason for existing?”
She answered immediately, as though she’d predicted this question in advance. “Speaking as a single human, it’s to pass on my genes, of course. To have children and send the elements of your composition down into the future. This is the nature of all living things. Or at least of all living things on this earth.”
I wasn’t asking about her views on evolutionary theory. I mean from our perspective, even if we knew how we were going to pass our genes on, what then? And anyway, for the moment such questions were not exactly relevant to us.
“Good grief. Questions like why are we born, why do we live… these are no more than Zen riddles. You might think they contain some intellectual value, but in reality they’re meaningless. But given that, if I were to answer again, I would say that my first reason for existence is ‘to think,’ and my second is ‘to think some more.’ I’ll only stop thinking when I’m dead, and likewise, not thinking seems equal to death to me. The individual called ‘I’ would disappear, leaving only an animalistic being.”
Sasaki chuckled her low chuckle.
“I want to keep thinking. About the whole of the universe. Until I die.”
And what remained at the end of all that thinking? I wanted to know. Other than childbearing.
“That’s an excellent question, Kyon. An extremely human question. If you’re going to leave behind something that will endure in this world other than your genes, then there’s no need to be too concerned about twin helices made of amino acids. Since the beginning of history, we humans have left behind all kinds of things—from huge, possibly futile monuments to small but epoch-defining tools, technological innovations, nationally sponsored works of cultural art, or completely new theories that take us into the future…”
From Sasaki’s expression, I could tell that in her mind she was crossing through the eras of history as she considered the issue.
“All the great figures we’ve learned about in world history have left their mark by doing something worthy of the term ‘greatness.’ My mind and body can only be considered small and weak. But if I use my ability to think as the first step, I might well come up with some new idea that endures into the future. To be honest, that’s what I want—to create something, raise it up, and leave it to endure. Something besides my own DNA.”
That was a grandiose ambition, I said.
“I’m fine just leaving behind a word or an idea. If we’re talking about ambition, that’s my only one. But I want to do it on my own power. I don’t want any help from aliens, time travelers, or espers. My thoughts are mine and mine alone, and I don’t want any interference. My reason for existing, as I’ve defined it, is arriving at conclusions on my own. I want to create my own original ideas or words. So they’re an obstacle—Kuyoh and Fujiwara are. As for Tachibana… I feel like we could become good, close friends. She’s that group’s sole redeeming member.”
I was pretty sure I’d never heard Sasaki speak so passionately about something. Or so honestly. Okay, fine, I’d match her candor with some of my own.
“Sasaki. If you had power like Haruhi has, you could make all of this come true.”
“You think so, Kyon? I’m still a regular person, you know. I have all sorts of conflicting desires and emotions. Sometimes I just wish so-and-so would die. But if my wishing for it made that person actually die, I’d be deeply affected and would never forgive myself. I’d have to prohibit myself from ever thinking certain things, even a little bit. I could never be like Suzumiya. If she really does have godlike omnipotent power, then it’s a miracle she’s able to live a normal life in the world. I mean, her very being is essentially equivalent to a miracle.”
Sasaki curled her lips into their usual sardonic smirk, and looked straight at me.
“Of course, I was on the side of those who rejected the notion of a godlike being. Even if such a being existed, they were not in this world, much less unaware of their own powers. Think about it. Would you jump into a goldfish bowl of your own free will? Would you smash the glass at an aquarium or jump the fence into a zoo, to join the fish or the caged animals?”
I felt as if she was dodging the question. This was why I avoided having intense one-on-one conversations with smart people. It would’ve been nice to get some backup from Koizumi.
“What I mean is, a higher being would fall into a lower plane of existence. There’s no difference between gods and humans in that sense. That’s what I think.” Sasaki waved her hand exaggeratedly, and half-jokingly continued. “Suzumiya is supposed to be something like a god. And somehow, people think that’s true of me too. If she and I, both demigods, are directing affection to you, then it’s hardly the case that you can’t do anything. If something happens, you’ll be the one to do it. You’re the one who’s going to lower the curtain and raise it on the next scene. Wake up, Kyon! You are the fulcrum—you hold the master key in your hand.”
I was the key figure when Haruhi disappeared, but this time I wasn’t so confident.
“You will end up resolving this matter. That’s a little prophecy I can make in this moment.” Sasaki laughed, and it sounded like the cry of a dove in the morning. “I’ve put the whole of my trust in you, Kyon. You’re my dearest, dearest friend.”
No matter how much she massaged her face, all I could see in it was that soft smile.
“I know you can do it. In fact, I think you’re the only one who can. So you should. If it’s impossible for Suzumiya the god, Nagato the extraterrestrial, Koizumi the esper, then it falls to you, the representative of the normal. It’s your nature, and it’s also your great advantage. Kyon, you didn’t meet them and us for no reason. You have a role you’re meant to play. I’d bet the beloved stuffed cat I’ve kept since childhood on it.”
As though that were some kind of ending signal, Sasaki glanced around my room, then stood. “I should be going,” she said, smiling at me. And then almost as an afterthought, added, “No need to see me out. You’ve already improved my mood. Give my best to your lovely little sister and that magnificent cat. I hope to play with them more the next time I come by.”
There was a strange pause.
Standing, Sasaki fixed me in her gaze. Not knowing what to do, I didn’t react at all, and eventually Sasaki spoke, this time with a hesitation in her voice I’d not heard before. “Actually, Kyon, I had another reason I came today. It’s nothing particularly deep. It doesn’t have anything to do with Fujiwara, Tachibana, or Kuyoh. It’s just about my school life. I just thought I’d talk to you about it a little bit…”
I didn’t think I was a good enough student to give Sasaki any kind of advice about her own li
fe—I wasn’t going to be able to figure out anything that had already stumped her. But maybe Sasaki agreed, because she continued.
“No, forget it. I’m glad I got to talk with you like this. I feel a lot better. I get it now. In the end, you have to solve your own problems. I shouldn’t have said anything. It’s my own weakness, I guess. I shouldn’t have talked about something that wouldn’t have been helped by talking about it, much less started to ask your advice. I presumed too much. My apologies.”
Saying you wanted somebody’s advice on something, then suddenly going back on it, was like handing someone a blank test sheet, then immediately snatching it back. Since I would have been unable to give any useful advice to whatever problem Sasaki had considered bringing to me, maybe I should have been grateful that my pride was spared.
“Still,” Sasaki said, quirking one corner of her mouth up in that distinctive smirk of hers, “I’m glad I could come see you and chat. I feel like my mind’s made up now.”
I saw her off as far as the front door, accompanied by my sister holding Shamisen. She had what looked like a sleeper hold on him, and Shamisen looked rather put out by the position.
“Come again!” called my sister, her face full of joy.
Sasaki smiled and waved to the two humans and one animal, then walked energetically off, not turning around.
From the front door I watched her go until she rounded the corner and was out of sight. She really didn’t look back once. I didn’t know what it was that she’d wanted to ask me about, but—.
It was a very clean, very Sasaki-like exit.
It wasn’t until evening, when I was in the bath, that I started to really wonder what it was she’d come to do.
I was staring at a plastic Takkong figure that bobbed in the bathwater; my sister had left it here. I’d been in the bath for a good while, so my circulation was good, but the answer simply wasn’t jumping out of the depths of my mind. In the end all I knew for sure was that the final matter that she’d brought up but refused to ask me about wasn’t the main issue, but her just shelving the question left a bad taste in my mouth.
Also, I had the feeling that there was a word during my conversation with Sasaki that I’d somehow skipped over and forgotten, but what had it been? It was as if I’d mistyped a computer command and erased that sector of the hard drive. Seemed like a hint that my mental storage was getting overloaded. Maybe it was time to buy a heat sink to cool things down if I wanted to be able to think properly. That said, taking a bath and getting my blood moving wasn’t going to chill anything, but it was my habit never to skip a bath or a tooth-brushing, and there wasn’t a thing wrong with that. I wasn’t some kind of neat freak, but I felt gross if I missed a day, and I know I’m not the only person in the world like that. Right?
Anyway, thanks to Sasaki coming by today I have to confess that I felt relieved. Having talked with her, I understood—she really was trustworthy. Her way of talking and thinking was a little eccentric, but she really was a normal high school girl, and hadn’t changed a bit from when I’d known her in middle school. If Sasaki hadn’t gone to that prep school, and instead come to North High, I wonder what would’ve happened? Maybe Koizumi and Tachibana would’ve transferred in at the same time, making my first year of high school even crazier. But there was no point in dwelling on what-ifs. I had other things to think about.
“Still—” I said to myself with a sigh. “All that said…”
My voice echoed off the walls of the bathroom. To be honest, it was pathetic that I couldn’t think of anything.
“At this rate, I might as well go to sleep and ask for some divine inspiration in my dreams.”
I murmured what amounted to wishful thinking, then climbed out of the bathtub. I slid the folding door open, whereupon Shamisen, who’d been waiting impatiently on the bathmat, bolted into the bathroom and began drinking from the sink basin, his tongue lapping noisily for a while. Eventually he looked up at me.
“Myar!”
He said, more or less. It was as if he was speaking cat-ese to point out the error of my thinking. Before I had the chance to interrogate him, his cat claws scratched against the floor as he hurried away and up the stairs. Not that it mattered—I knew he was heading for my bed.
Maybe I’d bring him along the next time I met Kuyoh. Maybe the whatever-they-were life-forms in his head could be of some use with her. It was a faint hope, but one never knew—
And yet.
“Better not.”
I’d abandoned the doctrine of depending on others for aid. I’d have to get this done on my own. I needed to think less about whether or not I could do something, and instead just give it a try. That’s what Sasaki had suggested, and anyway, putting my hopes in a life-form stupid enough to blunder into Earth and wind up stuck to a dog by accident would itself be pretty stupid. Why not prove that the natives of this solar system had the home-court advantage over any Andromeda Strain virus?
That’s right, it was time to prove to Kuyoh and Fujiwara that they couldn’t just walk all over modern-day humanity. I probably should’ve entrusted this task to someone whose position, name, and IQ all exceeded my own by several ranks, but I could hardly expect some random stranger to handle all the crazy things that happened around Haruhi Suzumiya. I didn’t think anybody would want that job, and honestly, I didn’t want to give it to them. This pop quiz had fallen to the SOS Brigade to solve, so we had to be the ones to do it.
And somehow I’d been assigned the central role in all of this, and was the one who would have to do the most running around. I was the only one who’d heard the sickened Nagato’s true wishes. Whether or not she herself was aware of it, Nagato was depending on me. If I couldn’t save the few members of a tiny organization like the SOS Brigade, then just what could I save? All I’d be good for was helping my sister with her homework and stopping my mom from shaving Shamisen’s fur. If I was stuck in the flow of events like this, I might as well try to swim upstream like a salmon heading home.
My ultimate goal was very simple: to get Nagato back to normal.
I felt energized.
My willpower spiraled into the heavens. If I could have directed that kind of energy to my studies, my mother would’ve wept with joy. But that had nothing to do with this—sorry, Mom. Anyway, there were no intelligent life-forms on or off the Earth that could stop my determination. That’s right—had the quality of a heroic protagonist begun to bloom within me? If I hadn’t just gotten out of the bath and been stark naked, I would’ve raised my right fist into the air in a display of how pointlessly energized I was.
There was no inaccuracy in saying that there was no one who could dampen my spirits. I was sure that Sasaki had come by to give me a smack on the head, given that even a glum snail being rained on in the height of the monsoon season would’ve laughed at me. In the process of talking about all that unrelated stuff, she guided the listener’s mind to a new place—she was actually quite the psychologist. It was a little scary.
“Might as well go for it. I’ve got an alien, time traveler, and esper to smack out of my line of sight.”
It went without saying that Asahina the Younger, Nagato, and also Koizumi weren’t part of this. And what about Mori and Kimidori…?
I felt like I was drunk on optimism, but as I talked a big game, in the corner of my mind there lurked my coolly sarcastic other self, cynically deriding me. If I’m honest, that other self was more like the real me. Even I can’t deny that superego, who always threw cold water on me at the most crucial moments.
And that other me said this:
Wasn’t there someone besides me who could take up the role of the transcendent hero?
It was none other than—had to be—her.
It had to be her.
Or something.
VOLUME 2
CHAPTER 7
α—10
The next day, Thursday.
The day with its routine of regular classes crawled along, until the end of
homeroom freed Haruhi and me from Class 5’s room.
Evidently my personalized instruction with Haruhi was only meant to run until the previous day, which brought an end to the strange tutoring that the students on cleaning duty had been able to watch, and so we just left the classroom. And let me just say that our honorable brigade chief was dragging me by the arm, so this was more or less compulsory. I’d like that much to be clear. Although I’ll admit I was overjoyed not to be subjected to any further after-school academics.
And just as the route that we took side by side to the literature club room was the same as it always was, so too was the spring atmosphere of the school totally normal. By mid-April, we were entirely used to the season. Not for nothing was it that the faithful, unasked-for reappearance of the seasons controlled life on Earth, I suppose.
But one couldn’t resist the constant march of time. Since spring of the previous year, even the SOS Brigade had undergone changes that were impossible to ignore.
Waiting for us was someone who could act as a perfect Exhibit A for that should we need to present evidence at court.
She stood up from her folding chair as though having waited for the precise timing when Haruhi and I would open the door.
“Ready and waiting, ma’am!” shouted the sole freshman to pass Haruhi’s absurdly difficult entrance examinations, her voice high like a swallow chick greeting its mother upon the latter’s return to the nest. Her hair was a wild tangle, like a failed perm, and to it was affixed that same smiley-face barrette. Her eyes shone like Christmas lights as she looked to us expectantly. “As of today, I’m a member of the SOS Brigade! It’s very nice to meet you!”
The Surprise of Haruhi Suzumiya Page 18
