The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya (2 page)

With her arms crossed and her mouth forming an upside-down V, Haruhi stared into my eyes unflinchingly.

“What stuff earlier?”

“Well, you know. The stuff about aliens and whatever.”

“Are you an alien?” She asked this with a dead serious look on her face.

“No, but….”

“No, but what?”

“… Just forget it.”

“Don’t talk to me then. You’re wasting my time.”

The tone of her voice and the look she gave me were frigid enough to almost make me apologize out of reflex. Haruhi Suzumiya then stopped staring at me the way one would stare at Brussels sprouts, and with a “hmph,” turned to glare in the direction of the blackboard.

Frozen out of a quick response, I was saved by the timely entrance of our homeroom teacher, Okabe.

As I dejectedly turned to face the front of the room, I noticed a number of people looking curiously towards me. When our eyes met, each person would half-smile in a knowing way, as if to say, “Thought so.” And then nod as if to offer their condolences.

That kind of left me feeling uncomfortable. It was only later that I learned they had all gone to East Middle.

So yeah. Given that my first contact with Haruhi would probably fall into the “worst ever” category, I had begun wondering if it would be better not to get involved with her. A week went by without anything happening to prove that idea wrong.

However, there were other people in the class who hadn’t grasped the situation or were just plain blind to their surroundings. Those classmates would approach Haruhi, who was always in a foul mood, brow wrinkled and mouth looking like an upside-down V, and attempt to start a conversation about one thing or another.

They were just some nosy girls who saw this girl who had isolated herself from day one and wanted to bring her into their circle of friends. I’m sure they were well-intentioned, but you have to take into account who they were dealing with.

“Did you watch that TV show last night? The one that starts at nine.”

“No.”

“What—? Why not—?”

“Don’t care.”

“You should try watching an episode. Oh, but you won’t know what’s going on if you start now. That’s right. In that case, I can fill you in on what’s happened so far.”

“Shut up.”

That’s how it went.

It’d be one thing if her response had been devoid of emotion, but Haruhi’s facial expression and tone of voice were clearly broadcasting irritation, leaving the other person feeling like she’d done something wrong. In the end, all the girl could say was, “Um… Well, you know…” before slinking away with drooping shoulders. “Did I say something strange?”

Rest assured, you didn’t. The only thing strange here is Haruhi’s mind.

I don’t particularly have a problem with eating alone, but picking at your lunch by yourself while everyone else is chattering at their tables might make people wonder. I’m not saying that’s the reason, but when it came time for lunch, I would move my desk next to the tables of Kunikida, someone I’d been relatively close to in middle school, and Taniguchi, a guy from East Middle who happened to sit near me.

That’s when the subject of Haruhi Suzumiya came up.

“Hey. You talked to Suzumiya the other day, right?” Taniguchi suddenly asked. “She probably drove you away with some random nonsense.”

You got that right.

Taniguchi placed a boiled egg in his mouth and chewed.

“If you’re interested in her, I won’t mince words. Just let it go. You should be well aware that Suzumiya’s a freak.”

He mentioned by way of introduction that he’d been in the same class as her for three years in middle school, so he knew what he was talking about.

“She’s the strangest girl you’ll ever meet. I thought she might calm down after becoming a high school student, but she hasn’t changed one bit. You heard her introduction, right?”

“The thing about aliens or whatever?” That was Kunikida, busily picking bones from his grilled fish, cutting in.

“Yep. She said and did a bunch of strange things back in middle school, too. The most famous one would be the graffiti incident on school grounds.”

“What’s that?”

“There’s this machine that uses chalk to draw white lines, right? What was it called again? Whatever. Anyway, someone used that to draw some huge, bizarre pictograph on the school grounds. And whoever it was snuck in at night to do it.”

Taniguchi grinned. Maybe he was remembering what had happened?

“You’d be amazed. I arrived at school in the morning to find giant circles and triangles scribbled all over the ground. I couldn’t tell what it was supposed to be from up close, so I tried looking at it from the fourth floor. I still couldn’t tell what it was supposed to be.”

“Oh, I remember seeing that. Wasn’t that in the local section of the newspaper? They had an aerial photo. It looked like a failed attempt at a Nazca geoglyph.” That was Kunikida. I didn’t remember any of this.

“It was. It was. Headlined
Mysterious Graffiti Found on Middle School Grounds.
So it came time to figure out who the culprit behind this ridiculous stunt was.”

“And she was the one who did it?”

“She admitted to it, so it had to be her. ’Course, they wanted to know why she did it. They even called her to the principal’s office. Seems like all the teachers got together to question her.”

“Why’d she do it?”

“Dunno.”

With that offhand response, Taniguchi began gulping down his white rice.

“Seems like she never ’fessed up. You try dealing with Suzumiya when she refuses to say a word and gives you that killer glare. Can’t do a thing about it. According to one account, the drawing was to invite UFOs. Another said it was a summoning circle for evil demons. Yet another said it was to open a gate to another world. A bunch of rumors popped up, but since she never gave a reason, no one can really say. It’s still a mystery.”

In my mind, I could picture Haruhi Suzumiya drawing white lines in the pitch-black darkness of the school grounds with an earnest expression on her face. The clattering line marker she’s dragging around and the heap of bags of lime were probably taken from the gym storeroom beforehand. She might have at least brought a flashlight. I couldn’t help but think that in the flickering light, Haruhi Suzumiya’s expression seemed filled with an overwhelming sense of tragic heroism. Only in my imagination, though.

Haruhi Suzumiya was probably genuinely trying to invite UFOs or summon demons or open up a gate to another world. She might have spent the whole night toiling away on the middle school grounds. And then finally, after nothing showed up, she must have been really demoralized.

Just some baseless speculation on my part.

“She also did a bunch of other stuff.”

Taniguchi was in the process of finishing off the remaining bits of his lunch.

“One morning, we showed up at the classroom to find all the desks out in the hall. She drew stars on the roof in paint. She even took a bunch of weird talismans, like the ones they stick on a corpse’s head to reanimate it, and stuck them all around school. I really don’t get her.”

By the way, Haruhi Suzumiya wasn’t in the classroom right then. We wouldn’t have been able to have this conversation otherwise. Though I got the feeling she wouldn’t care, even if she had been there. Speaking of Haruhi Suzumiya, she made a habit of leaving the room the moment fourth period ended and not coming back until right before fifth period started. I’d never seen her bring a lunch so she probably ate in the cafeteria. Still, it can’t take an hour to eat lunch. Come to think of it, I could safely say that she was never in the room between classes. I wondered where she wandered off to.

“Even so, she’s pretty popular…” Taniguchi was still talking. “It’s because she has the looks. Plus she’s great at sports and probably gets better grades than most. You can’t tell she’s a freak when she just stands there and keeps her mouth shut.”

“Are there any stories about her love life?” That was Kunikida, who hadn’t eaten even half as much as Taniguchi.

“For a while, she kept switching from one guy to another. As far as I know, the longest lasted a week, and apparently the shortest was five minutes after she agreed to go out with him. It was always Suzumiya doing the dumping, without exception. She always used the same line. ‘I don’t have time to deal with ordinary humans!’ Then don’t agree to go out in the first place!”

Taniguchi was probably speaking from experience. I guess he noticed me looking at him since he hurriedly went on.

“It’s just a story I heard. Really. I don’t know why, but apparently, she doesn’t turn anyone down. Everyone had it figured out by the third year so there wasn’t anybody left trying to ask her out. But I get the feeling that the same thing’s going to happen in high school. That’s why I’m warning you before you get any weird ideas. Give it up. Consider it a friendly warning from a classmate.”

There’s nothing to give up on. I’m not even interested.

Taniguchi placed his empty lunch box in his bag and smirked.

“If you ask me, then yeah, that’s the best one in the class over there. Ryoko Asakura.”

Taniguchi stuck his chin toward a cluster of chatting girls with their desks close together. In the center of the cluster with a cheerful smile on her face was Ryoko Asakura.

“As far as I’m concerned, she’s gotta be in the top three for our year.”

“Did you check out all the freshman girls already or something?”

“Oh, yeah! I assigned them ranks from A to D, and I learned the full names of the ones who ranked A. You only get to live the high school life once. Might as well have fun doing it.”

“And Asakura is an A?” Kunikida asked.

“An A+, for sure. Once you’ve reached my level of expertise, you can tell just by looking at their face. She’s definitely a nice person too.”

Well, even if you assume that half of Taniguchi’s opinionated rambling was a load of bull, Ryoko Asakura was, in fact, a girl who stood out in a different way from Haruhi Suzumiya.

First off, she was a hottie. It was also really sweet how she gave you the feeling she was always smiling. Second, Taniguchi was probably correct in judging that Ryoko was a nice person. By this point, there pretty much wasn’t anybody left foolish enough to try to talk to Haruhi Suzumiya. The only human undeterred by the constant rude reception was Ryoko Asakura. She had the temperament of a class president. Third, judging by her responses in class, she seemed to be pretty smart, too. Every question directed toward her was guaranteed to be answered correctly. She was a student any teacher would love to have. Fourth, she was also popular among girls. It had only been a week since school started, and she’d already succeeded in becoming the ringleader of the girls in the class. She definitely had enough charisma to attract the masses.

If you pit her against Haruhi Suzumiya, with her perpetually furrowed brow and incomprehensible thinking pattern, everyone’s going to take the former. Myself included, I guess. Either way, they were both way out of Taniguchi’s league.

It was still April. At this point, Haruhi Suzumiya had yet to act up. Which meant that for me, it was a month of relaxation. It’d be almost another month before Haruhi started rampaging.

However, I should mention that I was able to gradually observe Haruhi’s eccentric behavior during this period.

And so, peculiarity number one.

Her hairstyle changed every day. I noticed a sort of pattern after looking at her for a while. It basically went like this: On Monday, Haruhi would show up with her long, straight hair flowing down her back in a normal fashion. The next day, she would walk in with a ponytail, looking flawless from every angle.
The way it looks so perfect on her is almost more than I can bear.
But then on the next day, she would come to school with her hair tied into two pigtails. The day after that, it would be three. And on Friday, she would have four random spots tied off by ribbons. It was quite an odd sight.

Monday = 0, Tuesday = 1, Wednesday = 2…

In other words, she tied off another part of her hair for every day that passed. After resetting on Monday, she added one per day until Friday. I had no idea what it was supposed to signify. Based on the pattern, she’d eventually end up with six tied-off spots. I wondered what her head looked like on Sunday. I would have liked to see it.

Peculiarity number two. Boys and girls are split up for gym class so classes 5 and 6 are combined. Girls change in odd-numbered rooms and boys move to even-numbered rooms. Once the class before gym ends, the boys grab their gym clothes and prepare to move to class 6.

As that was happening, Haruhi Suzumiya completely ignored the fact that boys were still present in the classroom and began taking off her uniform.

She would then toss her uniform on her desk and pick up her gym clothes with an indifferent look on her face, as though she viewed the gallery of guys on the same level as pumpkins or potatoes.

At that point, the completely dumbstruck guys, myself included, were kicked out of the room by Ryoko Asakura.

It seems that afterwards, Ryoko led the other girls in lecturing Haruhi, but yeah, it didn’t accomplish anything. Haruhi continued to change without giving a damn about her male audience. Which is why when the bell for the break before gym rang, the guys were obligated—per Ryoko’s orders—to immediately sprint out of the room.

But damn, she was hot… I mean, let’s move on.

Peculiarity number three. Haruhi would invariably be absent from the classroom during breaks. And you could count on her to be out the door carrying her bag the second school was out. At first, I thought she went straight home, but apparently not. To my amazement, she had been temporarily joining a wide range of school clubs. You’d see her dribbling around with the basketball team one day only to find her sewing a pillowcase in the handicrafts club the next day and swinging a stick on the lacrosse team the next. She even joined the baseball team, so it didn’t look like she was leaving anything out. Every sports club, without exception, fervently pursued her membership. Turning their requests down, she would arbitrarily join a different club every day. In the end, she didn’t stick with a single one of them.