Chapter 2 - Vol 4
Nhãn:
Light Novel
Chapter 2
The day of December 18 finally ended as if it were stuck in a bottle of glue, and the next day
began.
December 19.
From today onwards we would be having shortened lessons. The lessons should originally have
been shortened much earlier, but a while ago our school had been outrun by our rival public
school in the aggregated results of the national mock exam. Our principal was spewing fire and
instilled forceful changes with the theme of enhancing academic performance. History does not
change, after all.
There was nothing but change around me, in North High and around the SOS Brigade. As if
caught up in a certain someone's arbitrary scheme, I went to school, only to find more absentees
from Class 1-5. Taniguchi was nowhere to be found, probably finally reaching 40 degrees
Celsius.
And today Asakura was still sitting behind me instead of Haruhi.
"Good morning. Are you awake today? Good, if that's the case."
"We'll see."
I put my bag on my table with a poker face. Asakura propped up her chin with her hands.
"But just having your eyes open doesn't necessarily mean that you are awake. Having a firm grip
of the situation with your eyes would be the first step to understanding. How are you doing? Are
you grasping the situation well?"
"Asakura."
I leaned forward and shot a sparkling gaze at Asakura Ryouko's finely chiseled features.
"Tell me once more: Do you really not remember or are you just playing dumb? Didn't you try to
kill me before?"
Asakura's face suddenly turned gloomy, with the exact same eyes one might use to look at a
patient.
"...Seems like you are still not awake. Here is my advice: Go see a doctor soon! Go before it is
too late!"
She shut her lips from then on, ignoring me as she struck up a conversation with a neighboring
girl.
I turned to face forward, crossed my arms, and stared straight into thin air.
Let's put it this way.
Let's say somewhere there is a very very unfortunate person. This person has been spectacularly
unfortunate, whether viewed subjectively or objectively. This person is in nature the
personification of misfortune, and even the elderly Prince Siddhartha who had mastered the
deepest meaning of enlightenment would have turned his eyes away from this person. One day,
he (this person may be a she, but I will just assume it is a he to skip the trouble) drifts into
slumber while tormented by his usual misfortune, and the next day when he wakes up, the world
has turned completely upside-down. It has become a world marvelous beyond words,
indescribable even by the word "Utopia." In this world, his misfortune has completely been
swept away, and his body and spirit are filled from head to toe with fortune in every aspect. No
misfortune will fall onto his shoulders, and he must have been taken by somebody from hell to
heaven in a single night.
Of course, the person's own will does not play a role here. He is taken away by somebody he
does not know, and that somebody's real identity is completely unknown. It is unknown why that
somebody does this to the person. Probably only heaven knows.
So, in this case, should the person be happy? By changing the world, the person's misfortune is
completely gone. However, this world is a little different from his original world, and the biggest
mystery remains as to what the reasoning is behind such changes.
In this case, using the best evaluation criteria available, to whom should the person express his
gratitude?
With that said, this person is not me. The degree is way too different.
Well... This analogy is bad for my case, I guess. I was not exactly reaching the bottom of
misfortune all the time till yesterday, and presently I am not exactly the most fortunate among all
people.
However, disregarding the problem of extent, the analogy is close, if not exact in illustrating the
point. My nerves had been practically rattled by the strange happenings around Haruhi all the
time, and now such tales are apparently of no relevance to me.
However--
Here, there is no Haruhi, there is no Koizumi, Nagato and Asahina are normal humans, and the
existence of the SOS Brigade has been completely erased. No aliens, no time travelers, no ESP.
Above all, cats don't speak. It is just a normal, normal world.
So how is that?
Which world is more suited to me? Which world will delight me? The world that was, until now?
Or the world now?
Am I happy now?
After school, my feet were auto-piloted towards the Literature Club Room out of habit. It is a
typical reflex action -- the body moves without the brain thinking when the action is repeated
every day. It is the same as the sequence during bathing. There is no predetermined sequence of
how to scrub the body in a bath, but from some time onwards the sequence is pieced up
mechanically every single time.
Every day when classes finish, I head towards the SOS Brigade, drink tea prepared by Asahinasan,
and play games with Koizumi while listening to the delirious talks from Haruhi. It may be a
bad habit, but I find it hard to kick, even if I am told to, exactly because it is a bad habit.
Therefore today the ambiance is a little different.
"What shall I do with this?"
I stared at the blank application form as I was walking. Nagato gave this to me yesterday,
probably implicitly encouraging me to join the Literature Club. But I don't understand; why did
she invite me? Because the Literature Club has no other members and is to be disbanded? But it
was courageous for her to recruit me, who literally appeared from nowhere and attacked her.
Probably even in this wrong world, only Nagato never changes her somehow peculiar logic.
"Agh!"
When walking towards the club rooms block, I passed the Asahina-Tsuruya couple. Asahina-san
literally recoiled upon seeing me and clung to Tsuruya-san, hiding behind her. Pained by the
adorable senior's reaction upon seeing me, I briskly gave a light bow and trotted off. Oh please,
let the common days come back, so I can enjoy my honeydew once more!
I knocked this time and heard a faint response. Only then did I open the door.
Nagato ran her eyes across my facial epidermis and returned them to the book in her hands. Her
movement to push back her spectacles appeared to be her greeting.
"Is it all right for me to come back?"
Her small head nodded firmly. However, her eyes were more interested in the book spread in
front of her, and she did not even lift her head.
I put my bag over there and darted my eyes around for the next thing I should do. However, in
this nondescript room, there weren't many small gadgets I could fiddle with. So without choice
my eyes landed on the bookshelf.
All of the shelves were jammed to the brim with books of all sizes. There were more hardcovers
than paperbacks or novels, which was probably an indication of Nagato's preference for heavy
reading.
Silence.
I should have already been accustomed to Nagato's silence, but today in this room it was quite
painful. I would be on the edge of my seat if I did not say anything.
"Are all of these books yours?"
Immediately came the response.
"Some were here before I came."
Nagato showed me the cover of the hardcover she was holding.
"This is borrowed. From the public library."
On the book was a barcode sticker that showed it was the public library's property. Fluorescent
light reflected off the laminated cover, and Nagato's spectacles shone for a second.
End of conversation. Nagato returned to her silent reading challenge against the thick book, and I
lost my place of belonging.
The silence was unbearably choking. I searched for a random conversation thread and threw out
random words.
"Do you write your own essays?"
After that was 3/4 of a beat of silence.
"I just read."
Her eyes flitted for a fraction of a second onto the computer before hiding behind the lenses, but
that did not escape my eyes. I see. That was why Nagato needed to do something before letting
me use the computer. I developed an irresistible urge to read the story Nagato wrote. What would
she have written? Probably sci-fi. It wouldn't be a love story, would it?
"..."
It was hard to get into a conversation with Nagato in the first place. In this way, this Nagato was
no different.
I restarted my silent operations with the bookshelf.
Somehow my eyes stopped on the spine of a book.
It was a familiar title. The time when the SOS Brigade sprouted, Nagato lent me this first volume
of a long foreign sci-fi series, a book with a scary amount of words.(ED note: Dan Simmons's
Hyperion according to the anime) Now that I mention it, Nagato was still a spectacled girl then,
and she pushed this book onto me without allowing any excuses. "Take this," she threw those
words behind her and left briskly. It took me two weeks to read the whole thing. For me it
seemed like years ago when this happened. Too many things had happened in the meantime.
Strange nostalgic sentiments grew, and I took the hardcover from the bookshelf. I was not
standing and reading in a bookstore, so I was not really putting any effort into reading. I
randomly flipped over the pages and was about to put the book back in its original position when
a small rectangular piece of paper dropped beside my feet.
"Hmmm?"
I picked it up. It was a bookmark with flowery drawings. It looked like one of those bookmarks
that bookstores would throw in without asking -- bookmark?
It was as if the world began to spin around me. Ah... At that time... I opened this book in my
bedroom... Found the same bookmark... Then I dashed off on my bike... I could recite the phrase
from the back of my head.
Seven o'clock tonight, waiting for you at the park outside the station.
Holding my breath, I rotated my shaking hands -- and I saw.
"Program Run Condition: Collect the keys. Deadline: Two Days Later."
The sentence, as if it were a message from some time ago, was written in computer-font-like neat
characters on the bookmark that fell out from the hardcover.
At once, I turned and hurried to the front of Nagato's table in three steps. Fixing my gaze on her
widening black pupils, I asked, "Did you write this?"
Staring at the back of the bookmark I held out for a while, Nagato cocked her head. In a puzzled
expression she replied, "It is similar to my writing. However... I don't know. I do not remember
writing that."
"... I see. Just as I thought. Well, it's alright. I would be troubled if you knew. There is something
bothering me, you know. Oh well, never mind my babbling..."
Babbling lines of excuses from my mouth, I felt like my mind had flown somewhere else.
Nagato.
So this is a message from you all right. It is just a drab and dry line of characters, but I am glad.
May I treat it like a present from the Nagato I have known for long? It's a hint how to break the
current situation, right? Otherwise you would not write such a reminder-like comment?
Program. Condition. Keys. Deadline. Two Days Later.
...Two days later?
Today was the 19th. Should I count two days later from this exact moment onwards? Or should I
count from yesterday, when the whole world started to go crazy? Worse comes to worst, the
deadline would be tomorrow the 20th.
The one-shot surprise gradually cooled off like magma that oozed at a slow pace out of the
earth's crust. I don't know a thing, but it sounds like I have to gather some keys in order to boot
some programs. But what are the keys? Where are they dropped off? How many of them are
there? After collecting them all, where should I bring them in exchange for the souvenir?
Question marks hovered in swarms above my head, and finally joined into one large question
mark.
If I start up this program, will the world return to normal?
Hurriedly I took books in and out of the shelves starting from the far end, and checked if there
were other bookmarks sandwiched within. Bearing Nagato's astounded gaze I kept on digging,
but to no avail. There were no others.
"Just this one, huh?"
Well, if one gets too greedy for too much and grabs for every souvenir he can find, the weight
would in the end bring him down, back to square one. Moving at random without a fixed goal is
a mere waste of both time and HP. First thing's first; get the keys. The summit was still far away,
but at least I managed to spot the pointer sign.
After asking for permission, I unpacked my lunchbox and settled diagonally from Nagato.
Munching my lunch, I also unpacked my mind of thoughts. Nagato seemed to direct her eyes
from time to time in my direction, but I just operated my chopsticks mechanically, and
concentrated on the urgent matter at hand -- to continue feeding nutrients sedulously into my
brain cells.
As time ticked by, my lunchbox emptied. I was about to order some tea when I realized that
Asahina-san was not with us. I was frustrated, but I continued thinking. This was the moment of
truth. I could not let this hard-earned hint go to waste. Key. Key. Key. Key...
For probably two hours, I was immersed in red-hot brainstorming.
Filled gradually with disgust towards my own stupidity, I was overwhelmed by dejection.
"I don't get it at all!" I cursed myself under my breath.
The keys were too ambiguous to begin with. No way would it mean real keys for locking and
unlocking, so my guess was that they were keys like keywords or key personnel. But the scope
was still too large. Was it an item or a phrase? Was it mobile or immobile? I would certainly
want to ask for further hints like these. I tried to picture what Nagato was thinking when she was
writing on the bookmark, but I could only imagine her reading a difficult book, or giving an
impressive but painfully long dictum -- just the Nagato that I had known all along.
With a sudden interest I turned my head in a diagonal direction, and there was the motionless
Nagato, as if she was taking a snooze. Probably it was just me, but she was staying on the same
page without progress. However, as counter-evidence that she was not taking an afternoon nap,
her cheeks began to get a brush of red as she took notice of my absent-minded gaze. This Nagato
the Literature Club member was either terribly shy in nature, or unaccustomed to others'
attention.
On the outside she looked exactly the same, but she kept reacting in an unfamiliar way that
stimulated my interest. Deliberately, I fixed my eyes on her in observation.
"..."
Though her eyes' focus was on the pages, it was clear she was not reading a single word. Nagato
gasped silently with her lips slightly apart, and her chest's subtle heaving rhythm became
gradually visible. The faint blush around her cheeks became redder by the minute. To tell the
truth, this Nagato was quite -- no, very cute. Though just for a moment, an idea flashed across
my mind: It might not be such a bad idea to just join the Literature Club and enjoy the whole
new world without Haruhi.
But no. I would not throw in the towel just yet. I took out the bookmark from my pocket and
gripped it without crushing it. Slipping this bookmark into this world meant that the Nagato who
read with a triangular hat on still had some business with me. I had some business myself as
well! I hadn't tried Haruhi's handmade dishes. I hadn't burnt Asahina Santa's image on my retina.
My game with Koizumi was halted on my advantage as he was busy decorating the room. I
would win in the end if we continued like that, so I would lose my rightful hundred yen
otherwise.
The setting sun shone through the window, and time had come for it to hide behind the campus
block as a huge orange ball.
I grew tired fixating on my seat, and nothing beneficial would come out of my brain no matter
how much harder I wrung it. I stood up and reached for my bag.
"Let's call it a day."
"Okay."
Nagato closed her hardcover which she might have been reading or not, stuffed it in her bag and
stood up. Was she by any chance waiting for me to say it aloud?
I grabbed my bag. She did not move an inch, as if she would forever stay still until I stepped out
first.
"Hey, Nagato?"
"What?"
"You live alone, don't you?"
"...Yes."
She was probably thinking, how on earth did he know that?
I was about to ask whether she lived with her family, but stopped short when I saw her eyelashes
cast down subtly. Memories of her room void of almost all furnishing came back to me. My first
visit was seven months ago, and the cosmic telepathic talk on a scale that knew no bounds was in
many ways plain scary. The second visit was Tanabata three years ago, and I was with Asahinasan.
The second visit happened earlier on the timeline than the first visit, which is some
accomplishment to me.
"How about keeping a cat? Cats are great! They may look flaccid all the time, but sometimes I
just wonder if they can understand what I am saying. I wouldn't be surprised if there are cats that
can speak. I am not joking here."
"Pets prohibited."
After the response, she grew silent for some time, fluttering her eyes in sorrow. Like the sound of
the wind from a soaring swallow, she took in a breath, and spoke in a brittle voice.
"Want to come?"
Nagato looked at my fingernails.
"Where?"
My fingernails asked back.
"My home."
A half-note rest of silence.
"...Can I?"
What on earth had happened? Was she shy, timid, or aggressive? This Nagato's psychological
curve was just discontinuous! Or, is the mentality of an average high school girl nowadays just
as irregular as the light curve period of Mira A?
"Sure."
Nagato stepped out, escaping from my sight. She turned off the room lights, opened the door and
disappeared into the corridor.
Of course, I followed. Nagato's room. Room 708 in a luxury apartment. I would just take a peek
at the living room. I might find some new hints there.
If I found another me sleeping there, I would wake him at once with my fist.
On the way back from school, Nagato and I didn't talk at all.
Nagato only walked straight ahead down the slope in silence, stepping as if some strong chilling
wind was beating against her. Her hair was ruffled, blown about by sudden gusts of wind.
Looking at the back of her head, I only continued to move my legs matter-of-factly. There were
not many topics I felt right to talk about, and I sensed that I had better not ask why I was invited.
After walking for some time, Nagato finally stopped her tracks in front of the luxury apartment.
How many times had I visited here? I had visited Nagato's room twice, Asakura's room once, and
the rooftop once. Punching the password into the entrance's keylock, Nagato unlocked the doors
and stepped into the lobby without even looking back.
She was even silent in the elevator. At the eighth room on the seventh floor she inserted the key
into the door and opened it, but even then she only invited me in with a gesture.
I walked in without a word. The room's arrangement was not different from my memory's
impression. It was just one nondescript room. There was no other furnishing in the living room
except a kotatsu. As usual, there were not even any curtains.
And then there was the guest room. It should be the room separated by a slide door.
"May I take a look in this room?"
I asked Nagato, who went out of the kitchen with a Japanese tea set. Nagato blinked slowly.
"Go ahead."
"Sorry for intruding."
The slide door slid open, as if there were bearings attached to it.
"..."
There were only tatami mats inside.
Well, I should have guessed. There was no way I could have traveled to the past so many times.
I slid the door back to its original position, and showed my open hands to Nagato who was
watching over me. The gesture must have meant nothing to her. However, without a word,
Nagato put two tea cups on the kotatsu table, sat up straight with her legs tucked under her, and
started to pour tea.
I sat opposite to her with my legs crossed, the same position I sat in when I visited her for the
first time. I had meaninglessly drunk several cups of tea prepared by Nagato, and then listened to
that monologue about the universe. It had been a season of fresh greens and extreme heat, a
completely different dimension from the current coldness. Even my heart was more chilled now.
Drinking tea face-to-face in silence, Nagato's eyes drooped down behind her spectacles.
For some reason Nagato was hesitating. Her mouth opened, but then shut. She looked up at me
as if she had gathered her courage, but then looked down again. She repeated this a couple of
times. Finally, she put her teacup aside and forced her voice out with great effort.
"I met you before."
As if in addition,
"Outside school."
Where?
"Do you remember?"
What?
"Library."
Upon hearing this word, the gear at the back of my brain squeaked into action. The memory in
the library with Nagato popped up. It was the inaugural first Search for the Mysterious.
"This May,"
Nagato drooped her eyes,
"You helped me make a library card."
My psyche was electrocuted by a bolt, and failed to function.
...Yes. Otherwise you would have been stuck in front of the bookshelves! Haruhi's summoning
came like prank calls, and there was no other way to bring us back to the gathering point
quickly...
"You..."
However, as Nagato continued to explain, I found her description of the situation different from
my impression. Here was Nagato's explanation using her faint murmuring voice:
Around mid-May Nagato visited the city library for the first time, but she did not know how to
create a library card. It would have been good enough if she asked one of the librarians, but the
few librarians were all busy. Moreover, as an introvert who was bad with words, Nagato could
not bring up her courage to ask, so she started to wander around the counter in vain. Probably
unable to stand watching her like that, a high school boy who passed by volunteered all the
procedures in her place.
"That was you."
Nagato turned her face towards me, and our eyes met for half a second, before she dropped her
eyes again on the kotatsu.
"..."
The dot-dot-dot was shared between Nagato and me. Silence returned to the void of the living
room, but I could not come up with any words. That was because I could not possibly answer her
question whether I could remember. My memory and hers were subtly different. It was true that I
created the library card for her, but I was not a passer-by; instead, I was the one who took her to
the library in the first place. Giving up on the Search for the Mysterious patrol that was doomed
to fail, we chose to go to the library to loiter away our time. Even if my ability to remember was
as tiny as an infant sea anemone, I could never forget the image of the silent Nagato in uniform.
"..."
Unsure of how to deal with my silence, Nagato twitched her lips with a tinge of sorrow, and
made circles around the teacup rim with her slender finger. Watching the barely visible shaking
of her finger, I was even more withdrawn from bringing up any topic, and the silence thickened.
It would be simple to just answer that I remembered. It would not be a plain lie. There were just
some gaps from the truth. In this case, these gaps became the biggest issues at hand.
Why was there such a difference?
The alien I had known had gone off to somewhere else, leaving behind only a bookmark.
Ding-dong!
The intercom bell broke the eternal silence. I nearly jumped in my sitting posture upon the
sudden sound. Nagato's body was shocked with surprise, and turned towards the entrance.
The bell rang again. A new visitor had arrived. However, who on earth would visit Nagato's
room? I could not imagine a single person except a delivery man or a bill collector.
"..."
Like a soul just detached from its body, Nagato stood up and slid towards the wall without even
the sound of footsteps. She punched some keys into the intercom panel and listened to
somebody's voice. Then she turned to me with a slightly troubled expression.
Nagato spoke softly over the speaker, probably uttering rejections like "But..." and "Well..."
"Wait."
Apparently Nagato was overpowered. She hovered towards the entrance and unlocked the door.
"Look at who is here?"
The girl barged in with her shoulder against the door.
"Why are you here? That's new -- Nagato-san bringing in a guy."
The girl in a North High uniform was holding a pot with both hands, and skillfully took off her
shoes by pressing her toes against the door sill.
"Don't tell me you forced yourself in!"
Tell me first, why you are here in the first place? It is a surprising scene to see your face outside
the classroom!
"I am like a volunteer. It is a real surprise to see you here!" The beautiful face turned into a
smile.
She was the class representative that sat behind me.
In other words, Asakura Ryouko had called in.
"I probably made too much. It was so hot and heavy!"
Smiling, Asakura put the large pot on the kotatsu. If one dropped by the convenience store in this
season he would be greeted by this smell as well. There was oden in the pot. Was it made by
Asakura?
"Exactly. I share something like this, which does not take much time to prepare in large
quantities, with Nagato-san from time to time. If you left her alone, she would just be
malnourished."
Nagato went into the kitchen to prepare plates and chopsticks. Some clanging of dishes could be
heard.
"So? May I ask now why you are here? That interests me."
I ran out of words. I was here because Nagato invited me, but I don't know why I got invited.
Because of the story about the library? It would be just fine to talk about that in the club room.
For me, I obediently came because I thought there might be some hints here as to what the
"keys" were, but I could not just say that out loud. It would be bad to make her worry if I have
mental problems.
I made up a random lie.
"Well... Sure. I went home along the same route with Nagato... Yeah, I am a little troubled
whether I should join the Literature Club now. So I walked with her, asking for her opinions. We
arrived at the apartment, but the discussion was still unfinished, so she invited me in. I was not
forcing myself in."
"You, in the Literature Club? Pardon me, but I cannot see the match anywhere. Do you even read
books? Or do you want to write them?"
"My trouble is whether I should be reading or writing from now on. That's all."
The pot lid had been lifted, and an appetite-seducing aroma filled the whole room from the
kotatsu. The boiled eggs that floated and sank in the sauce had turned a great color.
Asakura-san, who sat up straight with legs folded at the left corner, threw suspicious glances at
me. It might be just me, but the glances were so sharp, if they had weight, my temple would have
lots of small holes. The Asakura before turned into a serial killer midway, but for this Asakura,
one could discern the deep-rooted confidence behind her dignified posture. There was no doubt
this oden would be far more delicious than any other on earth. That aura put pressure on me. At
this moment, I was running out of confidence in many ways. I was just wandering back and
forth, nothing else.
Unable to take it anymore, I grabbed my bag and stood up.
"Oh, so you are not eating with us?"
Meeting Asakura's jeering tone with silence, I decided to retreat from the living room in stealthy
footsteps.
"Oh."
I nearly bumped into Nagato who was coming out from the kitchen. In Nagato's hands was a
stack of small plates, with chopsticks and a tube of ground mustard on top.
"I am leaving. Sorry for intruding. See you."
I was about to walk off, when I sensed a tug as soft as a feather on my arm.
"..."
Nagato was pulling my sleeve with her fingers. The tug was very soft, just like how much force
one might use to pick up a newborn baby hamster.
Nagato was pulling my sleeve with her fingers. The tug was very soft, just like how much force one might
use to pick up a newborn baby hamster.
It was a faint expression. Nagato just looked down while touching my sleeve with only her
fingers. Was it that she did not want me to leave? Was it that she felt suffocated being alone with
Asakura? In any case I was fine with it, especially when I saw such a bitterly desperate Nagato.
"...Just kidding! I'm gonna eat! Oh my, I am starving! If I do not have something in my stomach
right now I couldn't even survive on my way home!"
Her fingers withdrew at last. I missed the scene somehow. Normally there was no way I could
see Nagato expressing her ideas so apparently. This moment had value in its scarcity.
Watching me hovering back to the living room, Asakura narrowed her eyes, as if she had
understood it all.
I focused wholly on stuffing oden into my mouth. My taste buds screamed from the delicious
pleasure, but the bottom of my heart failed to recognize exactly what I was eating. Nagato's focus
was on her every tiny chew, and she took almost three minutes just to chew and swallow her
tangle (konbu). Among the three of us, only Asakura was talking cheerfully and I bounced back
half-hearted answers at her from start to end.
As if having a bivouac outside the Gate of Hell, the meal went on for more than an hour, and my
shoulders had grown very stiff.
Finally, Asakura stood up.
"Nagato-san, please put the remaining portions in another container and put it in the freezer. I
will come to get the pot tomorrow, so please keep the pot till then."
I followed her. It was like being released from all bindings. Giving an ambiguous nod, Nagato
drooped her eyes as she saw us off at the door.
I confirmed that Asakura had left first before I whispered to Nagato.
"See you. Can I visit the club room tomorrow too? I have nowhere else to go to after school."
Nagato fixed her eyes on me, and...
...Gave a faint but definite *smile*.
I was literally dazzled.
During the elevator's descent, Asakura chuckled.
"Hey, do you like Nagato-san?"
Well, it's not that I hate her. Choosing between Like or Hate, I would choose the former, but I
have no reason to hate her in the first place. She is my savior. Yup. Asakura, it is Nagato Yuki
who saved me from that murderous blade of yours, so how can I hate her?
... I could not say the above. This Asakura was not that Asakura, and the same went for Nagato.
In this world I seemed to be the only one that had a different perspective on things, and
everybody else had turned normal. There was no SOS Brigade at all.
How did this beautiful classmate of mine interpret my silence to her question? She just laughed
through her nose.
"No way, I see. I've been reading too much, I guess. Your favorite type would be much more on
the weird side, and Nagato-san just doesn't fit the profile."
"How do you know my favorite type?"
"I just happened to hear that from Kunikida-san. You were in the same class in junior high,
right?"
That bastard, nosing around with such crap. That was just Kunikida's misconception. Please
ignore.
"But you! If you want to date Nagato-san, you'd better be serious about it. Otherwise, I will
never forgive you! Nagato-san might look otherwise, but she is emotionally fragile inside."
Why is Asakura paying so much attention to Nagato? In my original world, Asakura was
Nagato's backup -- that I would understand. Well, in the end she ran berserk and was deleted
though.
"It is a friendship fostered by living in the same apartment block. Somehow I just cannot leave
her alone. Looking at her from afar, I sense her in danger. And somewhere within me grew the
desire to protect her, see?"
I might have gotten her meaning, or I might not have.
The conversation ended there, and Asakura left the lift on the fifth floor. Room 505, I remember.
"See you tomorrow."
Asakura's smiling face was shut away behind the closing doors.
I stepped out of the apartment block, and the dark atmosphere outside was as chilling as a fresh
food freezer. The north wind snatched from my body something else along with my body heat.
I thought about greeting the old caretaker, but then decided not to. The caretaker station's glass
windows were firmly shut, and it was dark inside. He was probably asleep.
I would just like to return to bed as soon as possible. Even a dream would be fine with me. That
girl could just as easily get into others' dreams subconsciously.
"You are just trouble whether you are here or not, so just get the hell out here in such a critical
moment! Can't you just listen to my wish for once...?"
I whispered to the starry sky, and suddenly recognized with a shock what I had been thinking
about. I would like to hit myself hard on the head for daring to think such sinister ideas.
"What on earth..."
The murmur from my mouth turned to white breath and dispersed into thin air.
I wanted to see Haruhi.
The day of December 18 finally ended as if it were stuck in a bottle of glue, and the next day
began.
December 19.
From today onwards we would be having shortened lessons. The lessons should originally have
been shortened much earlier, but a while ago our school had been outrun by our rival public
school in the aggregated results of the national mock exam. Our principal was spewing fire and
instilled forceful changes with the theme of enhancing academic performance. History does not
change, after all.
There was nothing but change around me, in North High and around the SOS Brigade. As if
caught up in a certain someone's arbitrary scheme, I went to school, only to find more absentees
from Class 1-5. Taniguchi was nowhere to be found, probably finally reaching 40 degrees
Celsius.
And today Asakura was still sitting behind me instead of Haruhi.
"Good morning. Are you awake today? Good, if that's the case."
"We'll see."
I put my bag on my table with a poker face. Asakura propped up her chin with her hands.
"But just having your eyes open doesn't necessarily mean that you are awake. Having a firm grip
of the situation with your eyes would be the first step to understanding. How are you doing? Are
you grasping the situation well?"
"Asakura."
I leaned forward and shot a sparkling gaze at Asakura Ryouko's finely chiseled features.
"Tell me once more: Do you really not remember or are you just playing dumb? Didn't you try to
kill me before?"
Asakura's face suddenly turned gloomy, with the exact same eyes one might use to look at a
patient.
"...Seems like you are still not awake. Here is my advice: Go see a doctor soon! Go before it is
too late!"
She shut her lips from then on, ignoring me as she struck up a conversation with a neighboring
girl.
I turned to face forward, crossed my arms, and stared straight into thin air.
Let's put it this way.
Let's say somewhere there is a very very unfortunate person. This person has been spectacularly
unfortunate, whether viewed subjectively or objectively. This person is in nature the
personification of misfortune, and even the elderly Prince Siddhartha who had mastered the
deepest meaning of enlightenment would have turned his eyes away from this person. One day,
he (this person may be a she, but I will just assume it is a he to skip the trouble) drifts into
slumber while tormented by his usual misfortune, and the next day when he wakes up, the world
has turned completely upside-down. It has become a world marvelous beyond words,
indescribable even by the word "Utopia." In this world, his misfortune has completely been
swept away, and his body and spirit are filled from head to toe with fortune in every aspect. No
misfortune will fall onto his shoulders, and he must have been taken by somebody from hell to
heaven in a single night.
Of course, the person's own will does not play a role here. He is taken away by somebody he
does not know, and that somebody's real identity is completely unknown. It is unknown why that
somebody does this to the person. Probably only heaven knows.
So, in this case, should the person be happy? By changing the world, the person's misfortune is
completely gone. However, this world is a little different from his original world, and the biggest
mystery remains as to what the reasoning is behind such changes.
In this case, using the best evaluation criteria available, to whom should the person express his
gratitude?
With that said, this person is not me. The degree is way too different.
Well... This analogy is bad for my case, I guess. I was not exactly reaching the bottom of
misfortune all the time till yesterday, and presently I am not exactly the most fortunate among all
people.
However, disregarding the problem of extent, the analogy is close, if not exact in illustrating the
point. My nerves had been practically rattled by the strange happenings around Haruhi all the
time, and now such tales are apparently of no relevance to me.
However--
Here, there is no Haruhi, there is no Koizumi, Nagato and Asahina are normal humans, and the
existence of the SOS Brigade has been completely erased. No aliens, no time travelers, no ESP.
Above all, cats don't speak. It is just a normal, normal world.
So how is that?
Which world is more suited to me? Which world will delight me? The world that was, until now?
Or the world now?
Am I happy now?
After school, my feet were auto-piloted towards the Literature Club Room out of habit. It is a
typical reflex action -- the body moves without the brain thinking when the action is repeated
every day. It is the same as the sequence during bathing. There is no predetermined sequence of
how to scrub the body in a bath, but from some time onwards the sequence is pieced up
mechanically every single time.
Every day when classes finish, I head towards the SOS Brigade, drink tea prepared by Asahinasan,
and play games with Koizumi while listening to the delirious talks from Haruhi. It may be a
bad habit, but I find it hard to kick, even if I am told to, exactly because it is a bad habit.
Therefore today the ambiance is a little different.
"What shall I do with this?"
I stared at the blank application form as I was walking. Nagato gave this to me yesterday,
probably implicitly encouraging me to join the Literature Club. But I don't understand; why did
she invite me? Because the Literature Club has no other members and is to be disbanded? But it
was courageous for her to recruit me, who literally appeared from nowhere and attacked her.
Probably even in this wrong world, only Nagato never changes her somehow peculiar logic.
"Agh!"
When walking towards the club rooms block, I passed the Asahina-Tsuruya couple. Asahina-san
literally recoiled upon seeing me and clung to Tsuruya-san, hiding behind her. Pained by the
adorable senior's reaction upon seeing me, I briskly gave a light bow and trotted off. Oh please,
let the common days come back, so I can enjoy my honeydew once more!
I knocked this time and heard a faint response. Only then did I open the door.
Nagato ran her eyes across my facial epidermis and returned them to the book in her hands. Her
movement to push back her spectacles appeared to be her greeting.
"Is it all right for me to come back?"
Her small head nodded firmly. However, her eyes were more interested in the book spread in
front of her, and she did not even lift her head.
I put my bag over there and darted my eyes around for the next thing I should do. However, in
this nondescript room, there weren't many small gadgets I could fiddle with. So without choice
my eyes landed on the bookshelf.
All of the shelves were jammed to the brim with books of all sizes. There were more hardcovers
than paperbacks or novels, which was probably an indication of Nagato's preference for heavy
reading.
Silence.
I should have already been accustomed to Nagato's silence, but today in this room it was quite
painful. I would be on the edge of my seat if I did not say anything.
"Are all of these books yours?"
Immediately came the response.
"Some were here before I came."
Nagato showed me the cover of the hardcover she was holding.
"This is borrowed. From the public library."
On the book was a barcode sticker that showed it was the public library's property. Fluorescent
light reflected off the laminated cover, and Nagato's spectacles shone for a second.
End of conversation. Nagato returned to her silent reading challenge against the thick book, and I
lost my place of belonging.
The silence was unbearably choking. I searched for a random conversation thread and threw out
random words.
"Do you write your own essays?"
After that was 3/4 of a beat of silence.
"I just read."
Her eyes flitted for a fraction of a second onto the computer before hiding behind the lenses, but
that did not escape my eyes. I see. That was why Nagato needed to do something before letting
me use the computer. I developed an irresistible urge to read the story Nagato wrote. What would
she have written? Probably sci-fi. It wouldn't be a love story, would it?
"..."
It was hard to get into a conversation with Nagato in the first place. In this way, this Nagato was
no different.
I restarted my silent operations with the bookshelf.
Somehow my eyes stopped on the spine of a book.
It was a familiar title. The time when the SOS Brigade sprouted, Nagato lent me this first volume
of a long foreign sci-fi series, a book with a scary amount of words.(ED note: Dan Simmons's
Hyperion according to the anime) Now that I mention it, Nagato was still a spectacled girl then,
and she pushed this book onto me without allowing any excuses. "Take this," she threw those
words behind her and left briskly. It took me two weeks to read the whole thing. For me it
seemed like years ago when this happened. Too many things had happened in the meantime.
Strange nostalgic sentiments grew, and I took the hardcover from the bookshelf. I was not
standing and reading in a bookstore, so I was not really putting any effort into reading. I
randomly flipped over the pages and was about to put the book back in its original position when
a small rectangular piece of paper dropped beside my feet.
"Hmmm?"
I picked it up. It was a bookmark with flowery drawings. It looked like one of those bookmarks
that bookstores would throw in without asking -- bookmark?
It was as if the world began to spin around me. Ah... At that time... I opened this book in my
bedroom... Found the same bookmark... Then I dashed off on my bike... I could recite the phrase
from the back of my head.
Seven o'clock tonight, waiting for you at the park outside the station.
Holding my breath, I rotated my shaking hands -- and I saw.
"Program Run Condition: Collect the keys. Deadline: Two Days Later."
The sentence, as if it were a message from some time ago, was written in computer-font-like neat
characters on the bookmark that fell out from the hardcover.
At once, I turned and hurried to the front of Nagato's table in three steps. Fixing my gaze on her
widening black pupils, I asked, "Did you write this?"
Staring at the back of the bookmark I held out for a while, Nagato cocked her head. In a puzzled
expression she replied, "It is similar to my writing. However... I don't know. I do not remember
writing that."
"... I see. Just as I thought. Well, it's alright. I would be troubled if you knew. There is something
bothering me, you know. Oh well, never mind my babbling..."
Babbling lines of excuses from my mouth, I felt like my mind had flown somewhere else.
Nagato.
So this is a message from you all right. It is just a drab and dry line of characters, but I am glad.
May I treat it like a present from the Nagato I have known for long? It's a hint how to break the
current situation, right? Otherwise you would not write such a reminder-like comment?
Program. Condition. Keys. Deadline. Two Days Later.
...Two days later?
Today was the 19th. Should I count two days later from this exact moment onwards? Or should I
count from yesterday, when the whole world started to go crazy? Worse comes to worst, the
deadline would be tomorrow the 20th.
The one-shot surprise gradually cooled off like magma that oozed at a slow pace out of the
earth's crust. I don't know a thing, but it sounds like I have to gather some keys in order to boot
some programs. But what are the keys? Where are they dropped off? How many of them are
there? After collecting them all, where should I bring them in exchange for the souvenir?
Question marks hovered in swarms above my head, and finally joined into one large question
mark.
If I start up this program, will the world return to normal?
Hurriedly I took books in and out of the shelves starting from the far end, and checked if there
were other bookmarks sandwiched within. Bearing Nagato's astounded gaze I kept on digging,
but to no avail. There were no others.
"Just this one, huh?"
Well, if one gets too greedy for too much and grabs for every souvenir he can find, the weight
would in the end bring him down, back to square one. Moving at random without a fixed goal is
a mere waste of both time and HP. First thing's first; get the keys. The summit was still far away,
but at least I managed to spot the pointer sign.
After asking for permission, I unpacked my lunchbox and settled diagonally from Nagato.
Munching my lunch, I also unpacked my mind of thoughts. Nagato seemed to direct her eyes
from time to time in my direction, but I just operated my chopsticks mechanically, and
concentrated on the urgent matter at hand -- to continue feeding nutrients sedulously into my
brain cells.
As time ticked by, my lunchbox emptied. I was about to order some tea when I realized that
Asahina-san was not with us. I was frustrated, but I continued thinking. This was the moment of
truth. I could not let this hard-earned hint go to waste. Key. Key. Key. Key...
For probably two hours, I was immersed in red-hot brainstorming.
Filled gradually with disgust towards my own stupidity, I was overwhelmed by dejection.
"I don't get it at all!" I cursed myself under my breath.
The keys were too ambiguous to begin with. No way would it mean real keys for locking and
unlocking, so my guess was that they were keys like keywords or key personnel. But the scope
was still too large. Was it an item or a phrase? Was it mobile or immobile? I would certainly
want to ask for further hints like these. I tried to picture what Nagato was thinking when she was
writing on the bookmark, but I could only imagine her reading a difficult book, or giving an
impressive but painfully long dictum -- just the Nagato that I had known all along.
With a sudden interest I turned my head in a diagonal direction, and there was the motionless
Nagato, as if she was taking a snooze. Probably it was just me, but she was staying on the same
page without progress. However, as counter-evidence that she was not taking an afternoon nap,
her cheeks began to get a brush of red as she took notice of my absent-minded gaze. This Nagato
the Literature Club member was either terribly shy in nature, or unaccustomed to others'
attention.
On the outside she looked exactly the same, but she kept reacting in an unfamiliar way that
stimulated my interest. Deliberately, I fixed my eyes on her in observation.
"..."
Though her eyes' focus was on the pages, it was clear she was not reading a single word. Nagato
gasped silently with her lips slightly apart, and her chest's subtle heaving rhythm became
gradually visible. The faint blush around her cheeks became redder by the minute. To tell the
truth, this Nagato was quite -- no, very cute. Though just for a moment, an idea flashed across
my mind: It might not be such a bad idea to just join the Literature Club and enjoy the whole
new world without Haruhi.
But no. I would not throw in the towel just yet. I took out the bookmark from my pocket and
gripped it without crushing it. Slipping this bookmark into this world meant that the Nagato who
read with a triangular hat on still had some business with me. I had some business myself as
well! I hadn't tried Haruhi's handmade dishes. I hadn't burnt Asahina Santa's image on my retina.
My game with Koizumi was halted on my advantage as he was busy decorating the room. I
would win in the end if we continued like that, so I would lose my rightful hundred yen
otherwise.
The setting sun shone through the window, and time had come for it to hide behind the campus
block as a huge orange ball.
I grew tired fixating on my seat, and nothing beneficial would come out of my brain no matter
how much harder I wrung it. I stood up and reached for my bag.
"Let's call it a day."
"Okay."
Nagato closed her hardcover which she might have been reading or not, stuffed it in her bag and
stood up. Was she by any chance waiting for me to say it aloud?
I grabbed my bag. She did not move an inch, as if she would forever stay still until I stepped out
first.
"Hey, Nagato?"
"What?"
"You live alone, don't you?"
"...Yes."
She was probably thinking, how on earth did he know that?
I was about to ask whether she lived with her family, but stopped short when I saw her eyelashes
cast down subtly. Memories of her room void of almost all furnishing came back to me. My first
visit was seven months ago, and the cosmic telepathic talk on a scale that knew no bounds was in
many ways plain scary. The second visit was Tanabata three years ago, and I was with Asahinasan.
The second visit happened earlier on the timeline than the first visit, which is some
accomplishment to me.
"How about keeping a cat? Cats are great! They may look flaccid all the time, but sometimes I
just wonder if they can understand what I am saying. I wouldn't be surprised if there are cats that
can speak. I am not joking here."
"Pets prohibited."
After the response, she grew silent for some time, fluttering her eyes in sorrow. Like the sound of
the wind from a soaring swallow, she took in a breath, and spoke in a brittle voice.
"Want to come?"
Nagato looked at my fingernails.
"Where?"
My fingernails asked back.
"My home."
A half-note rest of silence.
"...Can I?"
What on earth had happened? Was she shy, timid, or aggressive? This Nagato's psychological
curve was just discontinuous! Or, is the mentality of an average high school girl nowadays just
as irregular as the light curve period of Mira A?
"Sure."
Nagato stepped out, escaping from my sight. She turned off the room lights, opened the door and
disappeared into the corridor.
Of course, I followed. Nagato's room. Room 708 in a luxury apartment. I would just take a peek
at the living room. I might find some new hints there.
If I found another me sleeping there, I would wake him at once with my fist.
On the way back from school, Nagato and I didn't talk at all.
Nagato only walked straight ahead down the slope in silence, stepping as if some strong chilling
wind was beating against her. Her hair was ruffled, blown about by sudden gusts of wind.
Looking at the back of her head, I only continued to move my legs matter-of-factly. There were
not many topics I felt right to talk about, and I sensed that I had better not ask why I was invited.
After walking for some time, Nagato finally stopped her tracks in front of the luxury apartment.
How many times had I visited here? I had visited Nagato's room twice, Asakura's room once, and
the rooftop once. Punching the password into the entrance's keylock, Nagato unlocked the doors
and stepped into the lobby without even looking back.
She was even silent in the elevator. At the eighth room on the seventh floor she inserted the key
into the door and opened it, but even then she only invited me in with a gesture.
I walked in without a word. The room's arrangement was not different from my memory's
impression. It was just one nondescript room. There was no other furnishing in the living room
except a kotatsu. As usual, there were not even any curtains.
And then there was the guest room. It should be the room separated by a slide door.
"May I take a look in this room?"
I asked Nagato, who went out of the kitchen with a Japanese tea set. Nagato blinked slowly.
"Go ahead."
"Sorry for intruding."
The slide door slid open, as if there were bearings attached to it.
"..."
There were only tatami mats inside.
Well, I should have guessed. There was no way I could have traveled to the past so many times.
I slid the door back to its original position, and showed my open hands to Nagato who was
watching over me. The gesture must have meant nothing to her. However, without a word,
Nagato put two tea cups on the kotatsu table, sat up straight with her legs tucked under her, and
started to pour tea.
I sat opposite to her with my legs crossed, the same position I sat in when I visited her for the
first time. I had meaninglessly drunk several cups of tea prepared by Nagato, and then listened to
that monologue about the universe. It had been a season of fresh greens and extreme heat, a
completely different dimension from the current coldness. Even my heart was more chilled now.
Drinking tea face-to-face in silence, Nagato's eyes drooped down behind her spectacles.
For some reason Nagato was hesitating. Her mouth opened, but then shut. She looked up at me
as if she had gathered her courage, but then looked down again. She repeated this a couple of
times. Finally, she put her teacup aside and forced her voice out with great effort.
"I met you before."
As if in addition,
"Outside school."
Where?
"Do you remember?"
What?
"Library."
Upon hearing this word, the gear at the back of my brain squeaked into action. The memory in
the library with Nagato popped up. It was the inaugural first Search for the Mysterious.
"This May,"
Nagato drooped her eyes,
"You helped me make a library card."
My psyche was electrocuted by a bolt, and failed to function.
...Yes. Otherwise you would have been stuck in front of the bookshelves! Haruhi's summoning
came like prank calls, and there was no other way to bring us back to the gathering point
quickly...
"You..."
However, as Nagato continued to explain, I found her description of the situation different from
my impression. Here was Nagato's explanation using her faint murmuring voice:
Around mid-May Nagato visited the city library for the first time, but she did not know how to
create a library card. It would have been good enough if she asked one of the librarians, but the
few librarians were all busy. Moreover, as an introvert who was bad with words, Nagato could
not bring up her courage to ask, so she started to wander around the counter in vain. Probably
unable to stand watching her like that, a high school boy who passed by volunteered all the
procedures in her place.
"That was you."
Nagato turned her face towards me, and our eyes met for half a second, before she dropped her
eyes again on the kotatsu.
"..."
The dot-dot-dot was shared between Nagato and me. Silence returned to the void of the living
room, but I could not come up with any words. That was because I could not possibly answer her
question whether I could remember. My memory and hers were subtly different. It was true that I
created the library card for her, but I was not a passer-by; instead, I was the one who took her to
the library in the first place. Giving up on the Search for the Mysterious patrol that was doomed
to fail, we chose to go to the library to loiter away our time. Even if my ability to remember was
as tiny as an infant sea anemone, I could never forget the image of the silent Nagato in uniform.
"..."
Unsure of how to deal with my silence, Nagato twitched her lips with a tinge of sorrow, and
made circles around the teacup rim with her slender finger. Watching the barely visible shaking
of her finger, I was even more withdrawn from bringing up any topic, and the silence thickened.
It would be simple to just answer that I remembered. It would not be a plain lie. There were just
some gaps from the truth. In this case, these gaps became the biggest issues at hand.
Why was there such a difference?
The alien I had known had gone off to somewhere else, leaving behind only a bookmark.
Ding-dong!
The intercom bell broke the eternal silence. I nearly jumped in my sitting posture upon the
sudden sound. Nagato's body was shocked with surprise, and turned towards the entrance.
The bell rang again. A new visitor had arrived. However, who on earth would visit Nagato's
room? I could not imagine a single person except a delivery man or a bill collector.
"..."
Like a soul just detached from its body, Nagato stood up and slid towards the wall without even
the sound of footsteps. She punched some keys into the intercom panel and listened to
somebody's voice. Then she turned to me with a slightly troubled expression.
Nagato spoke softly over the speaker, probably uttering rejections like "But..." and "Well..."
"Wait."
Apparently Nagato was overpowered. She hovered towards the entrance and unlocked the door.
"Look at who is here?"
The girl barged in with her shoulder against the door.
"Why are you here? That's new -- Nagato-san bringing in a guy."
The girl in a North High uniform was holding a pot with both hands, and skillfully took off her
shoes by pressing her toes against the door sill.
"Don't tell me you forced yourself in!"
Tell me first, why you are here in the first place? It is a surprising scene to see your face outside
the classroom!
"I am like a volunteer. It is a real surprise to see you here!" The beautiful face turned into a
smile.
She was the class representative that sat behind me.
In other words, Asakura Ryouko had called in.
"I probably made too much. It was so hot and heavy!"
Smiling, Asakura put the large pot on the kotatsu. If one dropped by the convenience store in this
season he would be greeted by this smell as well. There was oden in the pot. Was it made by
Asakura?
"Exactly. I share something like this, which does not take much time to prepare in large
quantities, with Nagato-san from time to time. If you left her alone, she would just be
malnourished."
Nagato went into the kitchen to prepare plates and chopsticks. Some clanging of dishes could be
heard.
"So? May I ask now why you are here? That interests me."
I ran out of words. I was here because Nagato invited me, but I don't know why I got invited.
Because of the story about the library? It would be just fine to talk about that in the club room.
For me, I obediently came because I thought there might be some hints here as to what the
"keys" were, but I could not just say that out loud. It would be bad to make her worry if I have
mental problems.
I made up a random lie.
"Well... Sure. I went home along the same route with Nagato... Yeah, I am a little troubled
whether I should join the Literature Club now. So I walked with her, asking for her opinions. We
arrived at the apartment, but the discussion was still unfinished, so she invited me in. I was not
forcing myself in."
"You, in the Literature Club? Pardon me, but I cannot see the match anywhere. Do you even read
books? Or do you want to write them?"
"My trouble is whether I should be reading or writing from now on. That's all."
The pot lid had been lifted, and an appetite-seducing aroma filled the whole room from the
kotatsu. The boiled eggs that floated and sank in the sauce had turned a great color.
Asakura-san, who sat up straight with legs folded at the left corner, threw suspicious glances at
me. It might be just me, but the glances were so sharp, if they had weight, my temple would have
lots of small holes. The Asakura before turned into a serial killer midway, but for this Asakura,
one could discern the deep-rooted confidence behind her dignified posture. There was no doubt
this oden would be far more delicious than any other on earth. That aura put pressure on me. At
this moment, I was running out of confidence in many ways. I was just wandering back and
forth, nothing else.
Unable to take it anymore, I grabbed my bag and stood up.
"Oh, so you are not eating with us?"
Meeting Asakura's jeering tone with silence, I decided to retreat from the living room in stealthy
footsteps.
"Oh."
I nearly bumped into Nagato who was coming out from the kitchen. In Nagato's hands was a
stack of small plates, with chopsticks and a tube of ground mustard on top.
"I am leaving. Sorry for intruding. See you."
I was about to walk off, when I sensed a tug as soft as a feather on my arm.
"..."
Nagato was pulling my sleeve with her fingers. The tug was very soft, just like how much force
one might use to pick up a newborn baby hamster.
Nagato was pulling my sleeve with her fingers. The tug was very soft, just like how much force one might
use to pick up a newborn baby hamster.
It was a faint expression. Nagato just looked down while touching my sleeve with only her
fingers. Was it that she did not want me to leave? Was it that she felt suffocated being alone with
Asakura? In any case I was fine with it, especially when I saw such a bitterly desperate Nagato.
"...Just kidding! I'm gonna eat! Oh my, I am starving! If I do not have something in my stomach
right now I couldn't even survive on my way home!"
Her fingers withdrew at last. I missed the scene somehow. Normally there was no way I could
see Nagato expressing her ideas so apparently. This moment had value in its scarcity.
Watching me hovering back to the living room, Asakura narrowed her eyes, as if she had
understood it all.
I focused wholly on stuffing oden into my mouth. My taste buds screamed from the delicious
pleasure, but the bottom of my heart failed to recognize exactly what I was eating. Nagato's focus
was on her every tiny chew, and she took almost three minutes just to chew and swallow her
tangle (konbu). Among the three of us, only Asakura was talking cheerfully and I bounced back
half-hearted answers at her from start to end.
As if having a bivouac outside the Gate of Hell, the meal went on for more than an hour, and my
shoulders had grown very stiff.
Finally, Asakura stood up.
"Nagato-san, please put the remaining portions in another container and put it in the freezer. I
will come to get the pot tomorrow, so please keep the pot till then."
I followed her. It was like being released from all bindings. Giving an ambiguous nod, Nagato
drooped her eyes as she saw us off at the door.
I confirmed that Asakura had left first before I whispered to Nagato.
"See you. Can I visit the club room tomorrow too? I have nowhere else to go to after school."
Nagato fixed her eyes on me, and...
...Gave a faint but definite *smile*.
I was literally dazzled.
During the elevator's descent, Asakura chuckled.
"Hey, do you like Nagato-san?"
Well, it's not that I hate her. Choosing between Like or Hate, I would choose the former, but I
have no reason to hate her in the first place. She is my savior. Yup. Asakura, it is Nagato Yuki
who saved me from that murderous blade of yours, so how can I hate her?
... I could not say the above. This Asakura was not that Asakura, and the same went for Nagato.
In this world I seemed to be the only one that had a different perspective on things, and
everybody else had turned normal. There was no SOS Brigade at all.
How did this beautiful classmate of mine interpret my silence to her question? She just laughed
through her nose.
"No way, I see. I've been reading too much, I guess. Your favorite type would be much more on
the weird side, and Nagato-san just doesn't fit the profile."
"How do you know my favorite type?"
"I just happened to hear that from Kunikida-san. You were in the same class in junior high,
right?"
That bastard, nosing around with such crap. That was just Kunikida's misconception. Please
ignore.
"But you! If you want to date Nagato-san, you'd better be serious about it. Otherwise, I will
never forgive you! Nagato-san might look otherwise, but she is emotionally fragile inside."
Why is Asakura paying so much attention to Nagato? In my original world, Asakura was
Nagato's backup -- that I would understand. Well, in the end she ran berserk and was deleted
though.
"It is a friendship fostered by living in the same apartment block. Somehow I just cannot leave
her alone. Looking at her from afar, I sense her in danger. And somewhere within me grew the
desire to protect her, see?"
I might have gotten her meaning, or I might not have.
The conversation ended there, and Asakura left the lift on the fifth floor. Room 505, I remember.
"See you tomorrow."
Asakura's smiling face was shut away behind the closing doors.
I stepped out of the apartment block, and the dark atmosphere outside was as chilling as a fresh
food freezer. The north wind snatched from my body something else along with my body heat.
I thought about greeting the old caretaker, but then decided not to. The caretaker station's glass
windows were firmly shut, and it was dark inside. He was probably asleep.
I would just like to return to bed as soon as possible. Even a dream would be fine with me. That
girl could just as easily get into others' dreams subconsciously.
"You are just trouble whether you are here or not, so just get the hell out here in such a critical
moment! Can't you just listen to my wish for once...?"
I whispered to the starry sky, and suddenly recognized with a shock what I had been thinking
about. I would like to hit myself hard on the head for daring to think such sinister ideas.
"What on earth..."
The murmur from my mouth turned to white breath and dispersed into thin air.
I wanted to see Haruhi.
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