The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya (9 page)

He smiled, showing his white teeth.

Hello? You’re going accept that explanation? Were you even listening?

As I stood pondering, he walked over and extended his hand to me.

“I’m Koizumi. Seeing as how I just transferred here, I’m sure I have a lot to learn from you. I hope you’ll show me the ropes.”

I shook Koizumi’s hand.

“Yeah, I’m…”

“That’s Kyon.”

Haruhi dismissively introduced me and moved on. “The cute one over there is Mikuru and four-eyes here is Yuki.” After pointing to those two, she looked quite satisfied with herself.

Thud.

There was a dull sound. That was the sound of Asahina hitting her forehead against the Othello board after trying to stand up in a hurry and tripping over her chair.

“Are you OK?”

Asahina responded to Koizumi by shaking her head like a bobblehead doll and looking up at the transfer student with dazzling eyes.
Meh.
I didn’t really like the expression on her face.

“… Yes,” Asahina answered in a voice soft enough to be mistaken for a mosquito speaking, while looking shyly at Koizumi.

“There you have it. We have five members now so the school can’t complain about anything!”

I realized Haruhi was saying something.

“All right, SOS Brigade! It’s finally time to unveil ourselves to the world! Everyone! Let’s join together as one and give it our all!”

What do you mean by unveil?

When I turned to look, I found that Nagato had returned to her customary position and was taking another crack at her hardcover.

You’ve been arbitrarily included as a member, you know. Are you OK with that?

Haruhi left with Koizumi in tow, saying something about giving him a tour of the school, and Asahina left because she had other things to do, so the only people left in the club room were Yuki Nagato and myself.

I wasn’t in the mood for Othello at that point, and there was nothing fun about watching Nagato read, so I opted to go home pronto. I slung my bookbag over my shoulder. Then I spoke to Nagato.

“See ya.”

“Did you read the book?”

My legs came to a halt. Yuki Nagato’s dark eyes shot straight through me.

“Book. Do you mean that strangely thick hardcover?”

“Yes.”

“No, not yet…. Should I return it?”

“Not necessary.”

Nagato never minces words. One sentence is all she needs.

“Read it today.”

She sounded like she didn’t actually care.

“As soon as you get home.”

Except she sounded rather commanding for someone who didn’t care.

Lately, I hadn’t read any stories that weren’t out of our Japanese textbook, but I figured if she was that serious about it, it must be good enough to recommend to other people.

“I understand.”

Once I responded, Nagato returned to her reading.

I furiously pedaled away on my bicycle in the twilight.

After leaving Nagato and returning to my home, I ate dinner and lounged around before returning to my room to peruse the sci-fi novel that had been loaned to me. Or rather, forced on me. The dense ocean of text was making me dizzy. As I flipped through the book wondering if I could possibly finish this monster, a bookmark fell down onto the carpet about halfway through.

A fancy bookmark with floral printing. I casually flipped it over and discovered there was writing on the back.

7
PM
.
I’ll be waiting in the park in front of Kouyou Park Station.

It was written in beautiful handwriting, almost like it was typed. The laconic handwriting did indeed look like it could belong to Nagato. But that would raise a few questions.

I received this book a number of days ago. This 7
PM
would mean 7
PM
that night, right? Or would 7
PM
tonight work? She couldn’t possibly have been waiting every night in the park on the off chance that I might see this message, could she? Did she insist that I read it today because she wanted me to finally find the bookmark? But if that was the case, she could have just told me directly in the club room. And I don’t see the point in calling me to the park at night.

I checked my watch. Just past 6:45
PM
. Kouyou Park is the closest station to our school, but it takes me at least twenty minutes by bike to get there from my house.

I spent no more than ten seconds mulling it over.

I put the bookmark in my jeans pocket, shot out of room and leapt down the stairs like the March Hare. I ran into my sister walking out of the kitchen eating ice cream, answering her “Where are you going, Kyon?” with “The station.” I unchained my crappy one-speed bicycle by the entrance, hopped on, and set off, using my foot to flip on the light. Pedaling furiously, I reminded myself to put some air in the tires when I got back.

I’d laugh if Nagato wasn’t even there.

Looked like I wouldn’t be laughing.

Since I was abiding by traffic safety regulations, it was around 7:10 when I reached the park. It’s removed from any major roads so there weren’t many people around at that time of night.

With the rush of cars and trains behind me, I pushed my bicycle along as I walked into the park. I barely spotted, next to one of the wooden benches underneath the uniformly placed lamp posts, the faint silhouette of Yuki Nagato.

She seriously had no presence. A stranger casually passing by might take her for a ghost or something.

Nagato noticed me approaching and stood up like a puppet whose strings had been yanked.

She was wearing her uniform.

“Was today OK?” I asked.

Nod.

“Could it be that you’ve been waiting here every night?”

Nod.

“… Is it something you can’t talk about at school?”

Nod. Nagato stood before me.

“This way.”

She walked off. I couldn’t hear her footsteps. She moved like a ninja. Seeing as how Nagato was rapidly melting into the darkness the further she got, I had no choice but to quickly follow.

After a few minutes of walking along while I watched her short hair sway in the gentle breeze, we reached a condominium not too far from the station.

“Here.”

She input the password into the number pad at the entrance to open the glass door. I parked my bike nearby and followed Nagato to the elevator. Once inside the elevator, Nagato stood silently with an unreadable expression on her face. She just stared at the buttons. We reached the seventh floor.

“So, where are we going?”

Yuki responded as we walked down the corridor of doors. “My home.”

I froze in my tracks. Wait a sec. Why was I being invited to Nagato’s home?

“Because no one’s here.”

Holy—wait a sec. What was that supposed to mean?

Nagato opened the door to apartment 708 and stared at me.

“Enter.”

For real?

Trying my best not to show the consternation I felt, I warily stepped in. I removed my shoes and had taken one step in when the door closed behind me.

It felt like I’d just crossed the point of no return. When I turned around after hearing that ominous sound, I was met by Nagato’s stare.

“Go in.”

And with that said, Nagato took off her shoes in one swift motion. If it had been completely dark inside the room, I would have dropped everything and run for it, but the large room was filled with the hollow shine of bright light.

Her place had three bedrooms, a kitchen, and a dining room. Factoring in its proximity to the station, it was probably an expensive place.

But still, the room looked utterly devoid of life.

We passed through the living room, which had a tiny table and nothing else. Amazingly enough, there weren’t even any curtains up. There wasn’t any carpeting on the fifteen square meters or so of light brown wood tiling.

“Sit.”

She said this before disappearing into the kitchen. I sat down cross-legged near the table with my back slouched.

As I ran through the possible reasons a teenage girl would bring a teenage boy to her home when her family’s out, Nagato placed a tray holding a teapot and teacups on the table, moving like a marionette, before sitting down across from me, still wearing her uniform.

Silence.

She didn’t pour the tea. She stared expressionlessly through her glasses, which only served to increase my discomfort.

I figured I needed to say something.

“Ah… Where’s your family?”

“They aren’t here.”

“Well, I can see that. Are they out?”

“I am the only one who is ever here.”

That was the longest sentence I’ve heard from Nagato yet.

“You’re living alone?”

“Yes.”

Aha. A girl who was barely in high school living all alone in such an expensive apartment. Probably some special circumstances there. But yeah, I was relieved I didn’t have to meet her parents so soon. Or it was too early to be relieved, wasn’t it?

“So what did you want?”

She poured the contents of the teapot into a teacup and placed it before me, almost like an afterthought.

“Drink.”

Okay, I guess. I drank the roasted green tea as Nagato watched me the way you would watch a giraffe in the zoo. She wasn’t even touching her cup.

Crap, it’s poison!… Yeah, right.

“Is it good?”

I think that was the first time she’d asked a question.

“Yeah…”

The moment I set the empty cup down on the table, Nagato refilled it with more yellowish-brown liquid. Having no real choice, I drank it. Once I finished that, it was instantly refilled a third time. Soon, the teapot was empty, and Nagato stood to go refill it when I stopped her.

“Forget the tea. Could you tell me why you brought me here?”

Nagato, frozen in a half-risen state, returned to her original position in a rewinding fashion. She still didn’t open her mouth.

“What is it that you couldn’t tell me at school?”

I tried to get her to speak. She finally spread her thin lips.

“About Haruhi Suzumiya.”

She gracefully knelt on the floor with her back straight.

“And also, about myself.”

She shut her mouth for a moment.

“That is what I need to talk about.”

And with that, she fell silent again.

Can’t you speed it up or something?

“What about you and Suzumiya?”

That was the first time I’d seen Nagato show emotion on her face. Almost like she was troubled or hesitating. Either way, you’d have to look really closely to notice it. Her expressive face only differed by a few millimeters from her expressionless face.

“It is difficult to convey in words. Discrepancies may arise during the transmission of data. Regardless, listen.”

And Nagato began talking.

“Haruhi Suzumiya and I are not ordinary humans.”

She was already saying weird stuff.

“I kind of knew that already.”

“That isn’t what I mean.”

Nagato stared at her fingertips crossed on her lap.

“I am not referring to the absence of universally accepted personality traits. I mean what I said. She and I are different from the vast majority of humans like yourself.”

“I don’t get it.”

“A humanoid interface created to make contact with organic life forms by the supervisor of this galaxy, the Data Overmind. That would be me.”

“…”

“My job is to observe Haruhi Suzumiya and report all obtained data to the Overmind.”

“…”

“That is the task I have performed since I was born three years ago. During the past three years, no uncertain elements appeared. The situation was extremely stable. However, recently, an irregular factor which cannot go unheeded has appeared near Haruhi Suzumiya.”

“…”

“That would be you.”

“The Data Overmind.

“A data life form possessing no physical body with a high level of intelligence, born from the sea of data which covers the galaxy. Make that the entire universe.

“Initially born as data before congregating with other data and becoming sentient. Evolved by gathering data.

“Possesses no tangible mass, exists only as data, and is impossible to observe through any form of optical measures.

“Has existed since the creation of the universe, magnified in accordance with the expansion of the universe, broadened its database, and developed while growing to enormous proportions.

“Held knowledge of the whole universe since the birth of Earth and this solar system long ago. From the Data Overmind’s perspective, this solar system on the edge of the Milky Way held no significant merit. For there were a large number of other planets on which organic life forms occurred.

“However, the third planet in that system was home to the evolution of bipedal organic life forms who developed cognitive ability, which could be considered intelligence, and consequently, Earth, as this oxidized planet is called by its present inhabitant life forms, grew in significance.

“For it was previously believed that organic life forms, possessing unconditionally limited data accumulation and transmission capabilities, could never develop intelligence.”

Yuki Nagato said all this with a deathly serious expression on her face.