The Surprise of Haruhi Suzumiya

by Nagaru Tanigawa

  I was grateful for the weekend’s approach, but what happened after school that day would decide not only my fate, but the entire SOS Brigade’s. Despite having awoken so sleepy-headed, I could remember that much.

  But to be fully serious, I would need to be more awake, both physically and mentally. As I wondered whether the uphill walk to school was as good as a morning aerobics workout, I thought about how I’d go and do the radio calisthenics routine over summer break in elementary school, getting my stamp for it and everything before coming home to take a nap, which I supposed was fairly healthy so long as I didn’t take too long a break from it. Why had I applied to this high school? There was a decent municipal high school in the neighborhood, and it made me want to go back and interrogate my homeroom teacher for the last year of middle school. All that talk about college acceptance rates had totally fooled me.

  “Kyon!”

  My early-to-bed, early-to-rise sister was in fine form. She carried Shamisen’s sleepy, slack, morning-hating form around. He somehow reminded me of someone.

  “You said you’ve got something important to do today, right? You told me to wake you up early today. You said if I didn’t you’d never play video games with me again! I don’t want that!”

  I had no memory of any of that, but it was true that today seemed as if it was going to be a very important day for me. Not for school, or for my activities with the SOS Brigade—after classes I would leave the school, and a rendezvous with Sasaki and her rotten friends awaited me.

  “Yeah…”

  I looked at the face of my little sister, who seemed impossibly young for a sixth grader, as she held Shamisen, who yawned. My consciousness gradually cleared. The outline of the previous night’s phone conversation with Sasaki had gotten sorted out during my sleep, and it started to come back to me.

  I had to settle things with Fujiwara.

  Why had he come back to the past and teamed up with Kuyoh and Kyoko Tachibana?

  I had to settle things with Kuyoh.

  For what purpose had the extraterrestrial forced Nagato into bed rest?

  I had to settle things with Kyoko Tachibana.

  After trying to kidnap Asahina, did the harmless-seeming fake esper who respected Koizumi so much really want to install Sasaki as the true god?

  My pathetic little brain was tormented by other questions too.

  Was Kimidori really nothing more than an observer? Would she just neutrally watch if the Heavenly Canopy Dominion tried to take over the Data Overmind?

  Was the temporarily revived Asakura going to sit back and do nothing in such a case?

  After she’d invited me into the past so many times, would I ever see Asahina the Elder again?

  What about Koizumi’s power? What about the Tamaru brothers, Mori, and Arakawa?

  “Beats me,” I said pointlessly, in a hoarsely rattling voice.

  Something would definitely happen today. There was no doubt that something huge was waiting for me after school. It would be nice if I got answers to most of those questions. I wanted to be able to take a bath tonight while singing some vaguely remembered western song. No, I had to.

  If I didn’t end things here, my worries would only persist, and I’d begin my life as a high school junior by continuing to wait in the clubroom for visitors who would never come—that’s the feeling I had.

  I wouldn’t stand by while the place where I belonged was taken from me.

  Ever since that fateful day during my first year of high school when sitting behind me, Haruhi had chosen me, the resulting loose gear wound up matching hers perfectly. Fate? You might as well throw that word into a neutron star. Haruhi wished for it, and I wished for it. And this time, this here and now was the result.

  I didn’t know anything about the future or past, but what I knew I had to protect was the present, not the notions of hypothetical aliens or time travelers. If anybody had a problem with that, they could tell me directly, or send me a text message or a letter. If they had any better ideas, I’d gladly refer to them.

  But this much I couldn’t forget: Everything would come down to me. No matter how clever a thesis was put forth, no matter how bright the genius whose view I was given, if I said no, the answer was no.

  The only people who could convince me would have to be as smooth-talking as Koizumi, as trustworthy as Nagato, and as charismatic as Haruhi.

  If there was someone who believed themselves to be the world’s greatest, then let them show themselves.

  I just wanted to say this much. If you had that much confidence in yourself, you’d better think about your own story first. Because you never knew for sure whether or not there were actually aliens, time travelers, espers, or even sliders all around you.

  Before you worry about other people, you better pay attention to your own surroundings first. This is just my own little piece of irresponsible advice; in the end, it’s all up to you.

  I went to school and took my seat in the classroom to wait for the bell, no differently from any other day. The entire day fit into the category of “ordinary.”

  All except for the owner of the seat behind me fidgeting nervously all day thanks to Nagato’s absence.

  Not even the preview for a rerun of some anime was cause for as much suspense for Haruhi as Nagato’s illness, and she clicked her mechanical pencil noisily all throughout class, and when called on by the teacher to answer a question on the blackboard, wrote unintelligible questions and then seemed to expect someone to go get a Rosetta stone just to translate them. Her lack of concentration made it seem as though her mind was somewhere out on the astral plane, but that was more or less how Haruhi always was, so our classmates seemed happy to let it slide. Haruhi being her Haruhi-ish self did come in handy sometimes. For better or for worse, the results spoke for themselves.

  After class, Haruhi gave me only the most perfunctory of remarks before flying out of the classroom. I imagined she was going to grab Asahina and make for Nagato’s apartment as if she was training for the downhill section of a cross-country race.

  Such was the effect her absence was having. So long as she wasn’t sitting in her usual corner, her small form absorbed in quiet reading, it wasn’t going to feel like the SOS Brigade. We weren’t complete unless all of us were there. That’s how it worked with us. All I had to do was look back over the past year. When Asahina and Nagato and I had gotten tangled up in strange happenings, it was all well and good. And even when it came to the only one for whom that wasn’t true—Haruhi—it still strengthened her friendship. Why? That, I don’t know.

  Or then there was the baseball tournament. Or the trip to the lonely island, or the summer break when we did all kinds of things, or the game against the computer club, or the filming of that ridiculous movie when she’d felt a sense of togetherness, of connectedness—or maybe when she’d helped out the rock band, or when I’d been hospitalized before Christmas, or when we’d had that trouble on the snowy mountain, or when it had been the literature club versus the student council—

  Or it was all of that. Somewhere along the line, Haruhi had changed significantly from her self of a year earlier. I’m remaining adamantly silent on the subject of her physical development, but mentally she was leaving her attitude from earlier behind, and ever so gradually, step by step, she was progressing, although even I had enough observational ability to tell it was happening slower than a sprinting Galapagos tortoise.

  She still had more than enough energy to drag me around by my hand or necktie, but that was a far cry from her previous undiscriminating assaults, which went off like a hedgehog launching its rocket-powered quills in every direction.

  It made me feel a little sad.

  But that was probably only going to last as long as Nagato was sick.

  In which case—.

  I thought.

  I wanted to finish this quickly, and release Nagato from this ridiculous burden. That was the best possible medicine I could formulate—for her, and for Haruhi. />
  “Hey.”

  Sasaki greeted me with a wave of her hand when I arrived at the square in front of the station after having illegally parked my bike. She smiled the same calm smile she’d had the other day, which made her look as though she’d overcome some kind of cynicism—a Sasaki-brand original expression that made you wish she’d just keep quiet and smile. There was definitely a whiff of something Haruhi-like about that.

  There was a time when, as a guy, I would’ve wished both Haruhi and Sasaki were a little more approachable—but that was ancient history now, as both of them gave off a strangely inexplicable attraction that transcended gender, and it had pulled me in like a fly to a bug zapper.

  Ever since Haruhi had dragged me off to the clubroom where only Nagato had been, I felt as if my eyes had seen different scenery than other people saw. I don’t want to think that my tastes had changed, but I honestly just don’t understand myself. I’d leave that kind of analysis to Koizumi or Kunikida. Later.

  Now, the important thing was the fact that Sasaki was flanked by two people, one on each side.

  The boy and girl were Kyoko Tachibana with her small, unassuming form, and Fujiwara, who despite his height kept his gaze low and his face blank. The self-proclaimed esper Kyoko Tachibana, and the time traveler Fujiwara. With Sasaki, that made three, and apparently I’d made them wait.

  “Kuyoh’s not here.”

  Given Nagato’s condition, Kuyoh was the one I had the most pressing business with. Or was she merely invisible, and standing right there? Apparently suspicion was written all over my face, as Sasaki answered.

  “We couldn’t contact Kuyoh. Her whereabouts are unknown at the moment. Of course, that’s normally how she is, so even if we keep waiting, there’s no telling when she might show up. But in any case, when she’s needed, she’ll appear. I guarantee it.”

  “Is that so?” I prodded Fujiwara.

  “… Yeah.” His face was as scornful as always, but there was something rigid in his expression. Almost serious—no, that wasn’t it. As though he was nervous, or unsure, and trying to hide it by making little jabs at other people. “She’ll come.” Fujiwara spat the words out like they were solid objects. “When it’s necessary, she’ll appear. It doesn’t matter who might wish it. Must be nice to be an alien and have that kind of freedom, honestly. It’s enough to make me wish I never had to deal with her again. Earth doesn’t belong to aliens, nor does it belong to the people of the past. For us, you all have about as much value as common fossils. We’re running out of space to throw you away.”

  … It was nice that I could count on him to always try to piss me off more. I could hate him as much as I wanted to.

  “Uh, er—” Kyoko Tachibana stuck her face in from one side, blocking the murderous gazes that Fujiwara and I were directing at each other. “I’ve prepared a taxi. Shall we depart? Oh, and thank you so much for coming today.”

  I gazed at her hair as it bobbed in a quick little bow, and I just couldn’t find it in myself to resent her. Her organization just lacked any sort of PR discipline. Actually, from a certain perspective, wouldn’t she have been perfect for the job?

  Well, it would take two years for me to start to doubt her. And given that Sasaki was here too, I decided to mark only Fujiwara as an enemy. Kuyoh’s absence was something of a relief, since it meant Asakura wouldn’t make a surprise reappearance. Or would it be a re-reappearance?

  “This way, please.” Kyoko Tachibana made an awkward gesture like some kind of bus tour guide, and led us on.

  She seemed to be pretty nervous herself, tapping clumsily on the door of a cab that was stopped at the taxi stand. Surprisingly, it really did seem to be a public taxi waiting for passengers, with the driver dozing off in front of the open sports section of a newspaper. After several knocks the old cab driver opened both his eyes and the back door, and Sasaki, Fujiwara, and I climbed in. Kyoko Tachibana took shotgun.

  “Where to?” asked the cab driver, stifling a yawn.

  “North Prefectural High School, please.”

  With Kyoko Tachibana’s words, I finally knew the day’s destination. “Geez, right back where I came from?” I muttered to myself as the taxi started moving, making the four of us into traveling companions as we headed for the end of the journey. If I’d been told ahead of time, I could’ve just waited at North High.

  “That’s what I thought too.” Fujiwara’s words. “We probably didn’t need to go to such trouble in today’s course of events. Still, hmph. This too was a fixed event. There’s no need to turn such a triviality into an adventure.”

  “Mm,” said Sasaki, stroking her chin. “A fixed event, eh? So the four of us getting in a taxi and going to North High is, from the perspective of the future, an unchangeable matter of historical fact?”

  “Yes.” Fujiwara’s answer was brusque. His face made it clear he didn’t want to be questioned further.

  Just then, Kyoko Tachibana turned around from where she sat in the passenger’s seat. “You want to end this, don’t you? This is a fixed event, so it’s only logical to go along with it.” She looked at me. “Heh, you’ve been rather abused by the ‘fixed events’ of various time travelers, haven’t you? Well, this is just one more of those.”

  I opened my mouth to talk back, but surprisingly it was Fujiwara who took the initiative.

  “Shut up,” he said in a low, quiet voice that strangely resonated in my gut. It seemed to have an immediate effect on Kyoko Tachibana, whose face went pale as she sat back down in her seat.

  Despite the suddenly leaden atmosphere within it, the taxi kept moving, and evidently our driver wasn’t particularly attuned to subtleties. “So, you guys in high school? Nice to be young!” he said, unprompted. “Yeah, my kid just started sixth grade this spring. He’s so into studying it’s hard for me to believe he’s my boy!”

  “Ah.”

  Evidently Kyoko Tachibana felt it was her responsibility to be the driver’s conversation partner, and so the talkative driver continued, pleased at having found someone to talk to.

  —My sixth-grade son is really into science and chemistry, and is always talking about these crazy things. We’ve tried sending him to cram school, but he stopped going, saying something about the level being too low. We just didn’t know what to do with him. For now we’ve hired a neighborhood high schooler to come and tutor him, but his grades still aren’t going up. Still, the boy himself can’t get his fill of study, and if he’s got a notebook he’s always writing figures and equations in it, but I wonder if it ain’t just scribbling. The tutor kinda takes a hands-off approach, and I just don’t know what to do—

  At the appropriate times, Kyoko Tachibana would respond with “Oh,” or “Ah,” or “I see.” I couldn’t help thinking that our having gotten such a chatty driver was either good or bad luck. Given that she had arranged for the car, I assumed she was paying for it herself, which I admit was surprising, though unlike Koizumi’s Agency her financial situation might not be especially rosy. She’d gotten a receipt at the café, after all. Anyway, I felt as though I’d heard the cab driver’s tone of voice somewhere, but trying to place it would have been a pain, so I busied myself concentrating on the individuals sitting on either side of me.

  “Is this some kind of trap?” I asked Fujiwara, whose attention was focused straight ahead.

  After a moment of hesitation, he replied. “It’s not a trap. We just have to confirm something. I don’t know what it means either. I just know what we have to do. This is both the plan and the result.”

  Why did we have to go to North High? And where in the school were we going? Even if we went straight to the literature club, there wasn’t going to be anyone there, I said.

  “I’ll bet not.”

  Did Sasaki have to come too? I asked.

  “She is here, so yes.”

  What about Kuyoh? I thought she’d been the guy’s most useful companion.

  “I’m sure she’ll show. When the time comes.”

/>   After delivering his brief answers, Fujiwara fell as silent as a wooden statue. If he hadn’t been drawing breath he would’ve looked like one too.

  “Those are perfectly reasonable questions, Fujiwara. I’m starting to wonder if you just don’t like riding in cars very much.”

  Fujiwara was silent.

  “I can only guess at what your future world is like. But I’ll bet you’re not used to riding around in petroleum-based-internal-combustion-engine-powered vehicles like this one, are you?”

  Fujiwara’s cheek twitched.

  “So, what of it?”

  “There’s nothing to say.”

  Sasaki brightened. “Scientific development is one of my very favorite things. Naturally there are things I hope will happen in the future. The world has all sorts of problems in this age. My hope is that in your future, you will have left behind the folly of the past. Humans are a species that should learn, and keep learning. I want to believe that a higher level of scientific understanding will eliminate the destructive ideas and technologies that still plague us. How about it, Fujiwara? Don’t you think people in the past can be forgiven for embracing such hopes?”

  “Hope what you like. Wish for what you like.” Fujiwara stared daggers at Sasaki. “That hope of yours made the future. Along with your recklessly misplaced confidence. Beyond that… heh, I suppose it’s classified. And even if it weren’t, I’m not so generous as to explain it the likes of you.”

  “Classified information… I don’t think so,” replied Sasaki. “You said this was a fixed event, didn’t you? But, Fujiwara, you don’t know what that means. All you know is that it’s been specified in advance that you have to go to North High at a certain time today. You don’t know who you’re going to meet there, or what’s going to happen. All you’ve been given is the reasoning that it’s established history. So how could you even answer?”

  Fujiwara snickered. “Impressive. If you were otherwise, you wouldn’t be qualified to act as our instrument. Sasaki, you’ve proven yet again that you have that capacity. You’re the only other key to this universe besides Suzumiya. I’m sure you’ll realize it soon. Although—you may not have that luxury.”