PROLOGUE

I imagine that everybody has his or her own method for detecting the shifting of the year’s seasons. In my case, over the past six months, the most obvious changes have been in the movements of my calico cat, Shamisen.

Shamisen has stopped crawling into bed with me in the middle of the night, which tells me that the region’s most legitimately praiseworthy months have arrived, but it occurred to me that more responsive than any cat to the changing seasons should be the flora, with their finer sensitivity to changes in environment—and indeed, the cherry blossoms seem to be on the verge of blooming, as though having conferred and decided upon a schedule. The early April sky is so blue it looks as though it’s been colored with a crayon, the sun shining with such brilliance that it must be trying to get in shape for summer. Yet despite the warmth of the sunshine that falls upon the ground, the wind that cascades down from the mountain is still a chilly wind indeed, reminding me that my current location possesses a respectably high altitude.

With nothing better to do, I looked vaguely up at the sky and uttered a statement so utterly pointless that the fact of its utterance can only be attributed to my total boredom.

“Guess it’s spring,” I said.

I didn’t particularly require a response to the statement, but if the person beside me sensed that fact, he nonetheless decided to reply.

“It is without a doubt spring. And a new year for students has begun—a new calendar year and a new academic year. A new year for my heart, as well.”

I supposed his excessively pleasant tone was well suited to spring and autumn. It would’ve been too much for summer, and in winter the only person I’d want close enough to me to hear such a whisper would have been Asahina.

Whether or not he noticed me switch into total-inattention mode, he continued.

“This is our second spring as high school students, though I am unsure as to whether I should say that it has ‘finally’ arrived or ‘already’ arrived.”

Was that really worth agonizing over? I asked. In English, you’d use “yet” either way. I hardly remembered every moment of the past year, so if I were to think back, it would seem to have passed rather quickly, and since there was no way to know what was going to happen in the future, it didn’t really matter whether they happened “sooner” or “later.” As for what I was experiencing at a given moment, it would feel more or less brief depending on whether or not I was having fun. That was all there was to it. Seriously, get a clock. They just tick off the seconds without any complaint—although sometimes your alarm clock will fail to go off even though you don’t remember silencing it, which makes you want to chuck it over a wall. Especially on Monday mornings.

“That is indeed true. A clock’s hands are one of the few things in life that tell us something truly objective. But for humans, who can only experience time subjectively, it is but a guideline. What’s more important is what one thought and enacted within a given span of time.”

“Oh, brother.”

I stopped gazing at the shifting shapes of the clouds and looked beside me.

Next to me was one Itsuki Koizumi, smiling like always. Unlike the airplane contrail I’d been looking at, his face was neither pleasant nor unpleasant, merely normal, and there was nothing to be gained by gazing at it. I looked forward once again.

“In my humble opinion,” I began. As the image of the courtyard fell upon my retinas, Koizumi seemed to wait for me to continue. “I’d say spring is finally here.”

As my eyes followed the forms of the freshmen in their brand-spanking-new uniforms that were gathered there, my brain played back nostalgic scenes from the past year.

And I had to wonder.

Last year, had the second-year students looked down on me with this same feeling?

I’d ended up in this particular high school thanks to the school district, and no sooner had I met the anomalous entity that was Haruhi Suzumiya than I’d heard her unbelievable self-introduction and, reeling, had been dragged into Haruhi’s world and the mysterious organization known as the SOS Brigade, thereby meeting actual aliens, time travelers, and espers. That would’ve been crazy enough on its own, but each alien, time traveler, and esper had his or her own associated events in which I was forced to participate, not to mention Haruhi’s constant wild schemes. There was no telling how much XP I’d earned over the past year. I was pretty sure I could take a mini-boss down with a single hit now.

“The force of habit is powerful indeed.”

I’d become totally accustomed to the uphill walk that made school attendance such a pain, and as a result, I’d started getting up later, scheming to prolong physical exercise until the last possible moment. And I wasn’t the only one who’d gotten used to school—Haruhi had undergone a similar transformation, like a carp swimming up a waterfall to become a dragon.

I seriously wanted to show a photo of the current Haruhi to last year’s Haruhi. This is what you’re gonna look like a year from now, I’d inform her.

But even if I could do that, I wouldn’t.

“I quite agree.” Koizumi half closed his eyes, pursing one corner of his mouth and crossing his arms and legs. “Regarding habit—the adaptability of humanity can be easily observed by noting the many places on Earth in which they live. But I’ve lately begun to wonder if there might be a drawback to that. Once one becomes accustomed to a circumstance, it might become more difficult to adapt to sudden, unforeseen changes.”

What was he talking about, I wondered. If he meant Haruhi, she was being sudden and unforeseen most of the time, I pointed out.

“Yes, that is true, but…”

For once in his life, Koizumi seemed at a loss for words—and this was the guy who was constantly offering his opinion whether you asked for it or not. If I inquired further, I wouldn’t be able to endure the terrible jargon-laden speech I’d be subjected to.

Koizumi looked like he wanted to say something, but I turned away in order to break free of his gaze. He looked in the opposite direction. “…”

Speaking of wordlessness, a certain school-uniform-clad paragon of silence on the level of a Buddhist statue was there, the breeze gently stirring her hair.

It goes without saying that it was one Yuki Nagato, the SOS Brigade’s own secret alien weapon, though at the moment it was more fitting to refer to her as the literature club president. Like Koizumi and me, she’d brought her desk and chair out to the courtyard, and she was situated a few meters away, silently reading. It seemed to be something about a philosopher, an artist, and a musician forming a golden braid of some kind, and as usual for Nagato, it was as thick as a concrete block.

I looked up at the clubroom building from the courtyard. Haruhi still hadn’t returned from her errand to the clubroom; neither had Asahina, whom Haruhi had dragged along. At this rate I would’ve been perfectly happy to go the rest of the day without them returning—an outcome that would’ve been ideal for everyone—but I doubted I’d be so lucky.

So, then.

I’ve been slow in explaining the current circumstances, so here’s a quick breakdown. It’s after school, a few days after the beginning of our second year in high school. We’d brought our desks out to the courtyard, making a space for ourselves in one corner. Many other second- and third-year students had done similarly, though by no means all of them.

I could see members of the computer club among them. They’d set up several computers on a long table and were running some kind of CGish something-or-other on the monitors. It wasn’t the space battle sim from before, but rather some kind of pastel-hued fortune-telling software, it looked like. Jumping at an opportunity, eh, Mr. Computer Club President? The fact that he was there made it clear that he’d managed to progress on to the third year of high school, though I didn’t actually know if he was still serving as the president of his club. It didn’t really matter to me. I’d just ask Nagato later.

Looking elsewhere, I could see various other groups I didn’t recognize busily jostling around. Among them were clubs and associations whose names I’d never even heard before, and the more I looked, the less I cared about any of it. There was absolutely no reason why we should be participating in this kind of event.

The only one of us with even a tenuous reason to be here was Nagato, honestly.

I gave her another look; she was as still and silent as if made of china.

Taped to the front of her desk—which itself was situated away from the main group—was a sign on which was handwritten LITERATURE CLUB in stark serif letters. The paper fluttered in the capricious spring breeze, as did Nagato’s short hair, untouched by the hands of any beautician. Her eyes never left the pages of her book; she was so silent she seemed to be trying to disconnect herself from the surrounding world.

I’m sure you get the picture by now.

School clubs—especially the smaller, weirder ones—must recruit new members and explain their activities.

This was exactly what was happening here and now in the courtyard. The sports teams and clubs were set up in the gym or playing field, and the brass band and art club, who didn’t really need to actively recruit in order to get new members, had set up shop in their respective dedicated classrooms. Here in the courtyard were the rest—the various clubs and societies whose existence and activities would be completely obscure without sufficient explanation.

Whoops, I almost forgot to mention it, since it goes without saying, but all the members of the SOS Brigade had most auspiciously made it to their next year of high school. Haruhi, Nagato, Koizumi, and I were all now second-year students, and Asahina was a third-year. I can’t claim I didn’t experience the tiniest tug at my heartstrings in saying farewell to good old classroom 1-5, but I doubted that much would change here in my second year. I should say that I am once again in the same class as Haruhi, and during the opening ceremonies when I met the rest of my classmates, there she was right behind me, every bit as arrogant as ever, though her arrogance was complicated by a strange expression, as though she were trying to mimic the sound a platypus makes.

“What’s this?” she announced, glaring at her classmates haughtily. “There’s practically no change from last year? I figured they’d shuffle things up, but no!”

I wanted to ask her whether she was happy or upset by that, but in any case, for once I agreed with Haruhi. We’d been placed in class 2-5, as had Taniguchi and Kunikida, and to top it all off, our homeroom teacher was still the famously concerned-for-his-students Okabe. Here and there were a few students whose faces I recognized but whose names I didn’t immediately remember, but the bulk of the class seemed to be composed of students from last year’s 1-5. I’d heard that this year there were barely enough science-track students to make up a whole class, so class 8 had been used to accommodate them, while the refugees from the previous class 8 were sprinkled around among the other seven classes. Also, a handful of students had simply been shuffled about from class to class. It was probably out of consideration to that minority that Okabe was making us do our self-introductions all over again.

Of course I quietly had my doubts about the outcome of the class sorting, and I voiced those doubts to the individuals I knew to be capable of such manipulation.

I received several answers:

“No,” said Nagato succinctly. “It is a coincidence,” she further elaborated.

“I haven’t manipulated a thing. It must have been the decision of the school administration. At the very least, the Agency has taken a hands-off approach to this situation,” said Koizumi with a pained smile. “It must be a coincidence.”

That seemed to be the truth.

I did know of one girl who had the ability to make coincidence into inevitability, but I wasn’t going to quibble.

I wondered if Asahina and Tsuruya were classmates again. If so, it could very well have been due to the Tsuruya family’s machinations, but I wasn’t going to make any noise about that either. Whatever our differences in class or year, we’d all wind up in the same place after school anyway.

What I was worried about—what I had good reason to be worried about—was something else entirely. Who lurked among the new freshmen I was currently looking at?

I personally knew an alien. I had known an upperclassman from the future. I couldn’t escape the fact that the classmate I’d spent the most time talking to was an esper.

However.

That day, that fateful moment, Haruhi’s self-introduction had stunned the entire class, save for those who knew her from East Middle School. Of all the entities that she mentioned in her speech, I cannot forget that there is still one who has yet to make an appearance.

Sliders.

Yes. Of course, while I have no desire for such an entity to appear, she might very well be feeling their absence. And as all of us have successfully moved on to our next academic year, one might very well be even now taking a seat as a first-year high school student…

“Geez.” I moved my head to loosen my stiff shoulders, then commenced observation of the freshmen.

If you see anybody with potential, secure them immediately—thus had our fearless brigade chief ordered. I couldn’t help but wonder what easy-to-spot traits amounted to “potential” in Haruhi’s view.

Incidentally, I may as well say that when class 2-5 held its self-introductions, Haruhi did not repeat her stunt from the previous year. Instead, she was refreshingly simple.

“I am Haruhi Suzumiya, chief of the SOS Brigade. That is all!” was all she said, with a bold smile that stirred the hair on the back of my head.

She clearly considered that more than enough introduction.

And to be fair, for our classmates, it was enough. Not a one of them was ignorant of Haruhi Suzumiya and her SOS Brigade.

If anyone was ignorant—

I gazed vaguely at the school-branded uniform shoes of the students who now milled about the courtyard.

If anyone was ignorant, they would be among these students.

There beside the cherry trees that were just starting to show their leaves, Koizumi and I (with Nagato a short distance away) were idly passing the time when I saw a figure moving effortlessly through the crowd of students, like Moses leading his people out of Egypt.

I remembered his face; in a way, he was the reason I’d wound up out here killing time. The sleeves of his blazer fluttered jauntily, and as he walked through the falling petals, he was the very image of phony influence and power. It made me feel as though I were on a cut-rate stage with a cheap background.

“It has been a while,” said the student council president in a severe voice, stopping in front of us.

Unfortunately, it had not in fact been “a while.” I wasn’t going to forget the face that had subjected the entire assembled school to a lengthy speech during the opening ceremony.

“My regards,” he said, unnecessarily adjusting his glasses as though following a script, then regarding us unpleasantly, like a leader displeased with his disciples. “Where is the brigade chief? I’ve taken the trouble of coming over to address one or two complaints I have, yet nowhere do I see your leader.”

Indeed, wherever might she be? I wasn’t her secretary nor her agent, I said, and I had no idea of the whereabouts of any classmate as restless as she was.

“I suppose it cannot be helped. I will put it to you, then: what exactly are you doing here?”

I’d hoped that if I kept my mouth shut, Koizumi would reply instead, but for whatever reason the pretty boy of the SOS Brigade only smiled beatifically.

“Isn’t it obvious?” I shot back.

His Excellency the President looked down at us, his expression an iron mask. “Indeed it is. I know where we are, and I know what you are, so the answer is quite clear. I am here because I suspected that, however slight the chance, you were planning something quite beyond my imagination. But you are not. In which case, you surely know what I am about to ask next.”

That was because his actions never differed one iota from expectations. Honestly, the conversation probably would’ve gone smoother if Haruhi had been here…

But wait a sec. Why was the president maintaining his haughty act, despite Haruhi not being here? Wasn’t he just a puppet, propped up by Koizumi’s Agency?

Or could it be—was it for the benefit of the other students in the courtyard? Our little corner was removed from the rest, though, and so long as nobody was trying to eavesdrop, it seemed unlikely that our conversation would be overheard. The only person who might hear was Nagato, who sat a few meters away, but anything that would actually worry her was probably something only the CIA or NORAD knew about.

“Then I am done here. My inspection of the humanities clubs is complete. Miss Kimidori, go on ahead to the playing field. I’ll be just a moment.”

“Understood.”

The brief statement from the girl caused me to notice her presence for the first time. I managed to stifle an exclamation of surprise, instead spitting out my recognition.

“… Kimidori?”

“Yes,” she replied, bowing courteously.

Prior to hearing her voice, I hadn’t noticed her at all. I couldn’t hide my shock at that fact. It was as though she’d been concealed in the president’s shadow, revealing her form only when she spoke—that was how sudden her appearance had seemed.

Miss Emiri Kimidori, first-ever client of the SOS Brigade and one-time girlfriend of the computer club president, smiled the smile of the well-brought-up lady, giving another brief bow. I was so taken aback that I couldn’t help but bow in return.

… Ah-ha, so this was the cause of the president’s conceited manner. He was hiding his true nature from Kimidori, though I doubted there was any need to do that.

In any case, where’d the custom of the president always appearing with the secretary come from? He oughta give the treasurer or vice president a shot once in a while, I told him.

“If that is your wish, perhaps I shall,” said the president, pushing his glasses up again. “However, if the treasurer wished to speak with any one of you, it would be with the president of the literature club.”

As far as that went, a little birdie named Koizumi had told me about it. It had been last year, when by the order of the student council, each club had to submit an operating budget. Despite having but a single member, the literature club was technically still a club, and its representative attended the budget meeting. That representative was obviously not Haruhi, but one Yuki Nagato. Right up to the last minute, Haruhi kept offering to go in Nagato’s place or to go along with her, but if the ringleader of the group that was illegally occupying the literature club’s room showed up at that meeting to stir up trouble, things would have really gotten out of hand.

In the end she sulked and pouted, but she listened to Koizumi’s and my pleas, eventually letting Nagato go alone, silently watching her leave like a general sending a hostage to an enemy nation.

Nagato returned about an hour later, budget funds in hand—quite an accomplishment, since the literature club barely had enough membership to even qualify as an inactive organization.

The rumor going around was that nobody had any idea what had happened, what methods she’d used. All Nagato had done was quietly take her seat at the table and stare wordlessly at the student council treasurer. The annual budget meeting was always a disorderly affair, but apparently this time it had been concluded smoothly and quietly.

Sounding self-congratulatory, the president spoke.

“Of course, it’s a meeting in name only, as Kimidori and I had already decided upon the budget. Although—I had my expectations, but the literature club was the only irregular one. It’s a bit late to quibble. So long as you use the budget for club activities, I’ll make no complaints. If you don’t, I will. That’s all there is to say.”

Having silently listened to the president, Kimidori suddenly spoke up. “If that will be all, Mr. President, I’ll be going.”

“Good work, Miss Kimidori.”

Kimidori gave us one last bow, smiling freshly before heading off to the playing field, leaving behind the faint scent of lilies.

The entire time, there had been not a single moment of eye contact between Nagato and Kimidori. Perhaps they were similar enough to be able to communicate without words. Or perhaps it was just because Nagato hadn’t bothered to look up from her book.

“Moving on to the main reason for my visit, then,” said the president, removing his glasses and letting them dangle from his fingertips. “There’s no point in a discussion unless she is here. When will she be back?”

Soon, I said. I doubted that an Asahina costume change would take too much time.

“Fine. I’ll content myself to wait.”

The president was really hamming it up. It was like he’d been president for three years, I said.

“In spite of my best efforts. I assumed that student council work would be nothing but a pain, but…” The president grinned, finally showing a glimpse of his true self. “It’s actually pretty fun. When I’m playing the president in front of the faculty or administration”—he slapped his own cheek lightly—“sometimes I forget which is the real me. Sometimes being somebody else ain’t half bad.”

“It’s fine to be assuming a persona,” said Koizumi seriously, finally speaking up. “But don’t let the mask you’re wearing consume you. How many tomb raiders have become mummies themselves?”

“An archaeologist raiding a tomb doesn’t turn into a mummy—he turns into a corpse.” The president revealed a predatory smile, wiping his glasses lenses on his shirt sleeve, then replacing them on his face. “Don’t worry, Koizumi. I’ve got it covered. Just remember…”

Having replaced his glasses, he’d become once again the perfect student council president, and it was hard to tell which was the real him.

“… Keeping a leash on that insane girl of yours is your job.”

The president’s gaze fell on the entrance to the clubroom building, from which our glorious brigade chief emerged, face full of cheer like a wild animal joyful over the arrival of spring, accompanied by the SOS Brigade’s official maid, the very incarnation of sunshine and warmth.

Haruhi emerged with a cardboard box in one hand, dragging Asahina along in the other, a satisfied grin on her face. But no sooner did she glimpse the student council president than she knit her brows in obvious irritation.

“Hey, hey!” Haruhi strode forward purposefully, not letting go of Asahina, who flailed behind her. “Ah-ha! I knew it. Just as I thought. I leave for one second, and guess who shows up? Well, too bad for you. We’re not doing a single thing that the student council can complain about!”

I wondered about that, actually. Just what was it that she was planning to instigate here in the courtyard, for starters?

“Oh… the president.”

I didn’t care that Asahina was wearing her maid outfit as she blinked her eyes rapidly; that was no more surprising to me these days than seeing weeds growing in a vacant lot.

“Hey, Haruhi,” I said. “What’s with your getup?”

It was the first I’d seen of it. When had she had time to get her hands on that thing? I asked her.

“What, you got a problem? Is there something wrong with wearing a cheongsam?”

Just as she suggested, Haruhi was wearing a long scarlet dress that sported a Chinese dragon gaudily executed in lamé and embroidery. A slit ran down the side to flatter her legs. It was even sleeveless, for crying out loud.

Having so raucously burst upon the scene, Haruhi was now the focus of the gathering students’ attention. Similarly, Asahina the Maid had also wound up the object of many stares, and the sight of her fidgeting awkwardly at their gazes was one I would’ve rather monopolized, anti-trust legislation be damned.

“If you were at a party, then no, there’d be nothing wrong with it. But this is school, and you’re in front of a bunch of new students to boot. Would it kill you to consider being appropriate?”

“I did consider that! That’s why I’m wearing this!” said Haruhi in response to my reasonable logic. “What I really wanted to wear was the bunny-girl outfit, but I knew everybody would just complain, so I went for the China style. You should be thankful!”

She seemed to want to point at the president confrontationally, but then realized that both of her hands were full. She let Asahina go and dropped the cardboard box on my desk. Her hands now free, she pointed grandiosely at the president.

“You should be thankful!” she repeated.

The president, however, was unperturbed. “Your ‘consideration’ is nothing of the sort. As a president sworn to uphold student morality, I cannot accept this. I presume you’re familiar with the phrase ‘six of one, half a dozen of the other.’ Your choice of dress amounts to the same thing.”

“What of it? You’re saying they’re all the same, then?”

“No, I am merely trying to avoid confusing the students who come here full of hope for their futures. I cannot allow things that would inflame the boys’ passions.”

“Inflame their passions? That’s ridiculous. Listen—guys who get worked up by that stuff are going to get just as worked up by school uniforms and gym clothes. Or are you saying we should just come to class naked?”

There was a limit to how much one was willing to argue, and the president seemed to have reached his. “This is pointless,” he spat.

“Is it? I’d hope that you’d learn to respect student independence. Once school’s over, we should be able to wear what we want. It’s not like I’m going to wear it to and from school, right? Don’t you think so, Mikuru?”

“Oh, um, yes, I don’t think I’d want to walk home in—” Asahina shook her head slightly, her voice tiny. She looked at Haruhi’s cheongsam-ed form and sighed, sounding somehow envious. Had she wanted to wear it?

Still, compared with last year when they’d both worn bunny-girl outfits and passed out flyers next to the school’s front gate, this was progress. Certainly the percentage of exposed skin had fallen. Still, I wasn’t sure whether it was a good idea for second- and third-year students to be getting in costume in front of first-years, especially not when there was no real point to it, I said.

“There is too a point! I mean, c’mon, look how much we stand out!”

Yeah, but what point was there in standing out for no good reason? I asked.

Haruhi took a good hard look at me. Just as I was starting to feel like a piece of tiny krill in front of an oncoming whale, Haruhi popped up behind Nagato, who was still silently reading.

“Kyon, have you forgotten exactly what we’re here to do? You have two seconds to answer.”

Umm.

“Time’s up!” she declared, giving me essentially no time to answer. She shook her finger in my face, then rested it on Nagato’s shoulder, who was so motionless she looked freeze-dried. “We are here to help Yuki. This is not about recruiting new SOS Brigade members. Try to understand that much, okay?”

This last part was directed at the president. The girl in question, Nagato, only turned the page of her book.

“Hmph.” The student council president did not so much as flinch. After adjusting his glasses with his finger, he spoke. “So, Suzumiya, you are saying that despite not being a member of the literature club, you are assisting that club in recruiting new members.”

I appreciated him articulating Haruhi’s motivations so clearly.

“Yup.” Haruhi puffed out her chest even more proudly, then pointed to the desks where Koizumi and I were. “See, those two are just sitting there with their desks doing nothing, right? There’s no paper saying ‘SOS Brigade,’ and Kyon looks even more out of it than usual.”

That last line wasn’t necessary.

“Oh ho.” The president tucked his chin down, his glasses reflecting pointlessly. “Well, then, Suzumiya. What is in the box you just brought out? Some sort of sign, perhaps?”

“It’s a sign.” Haruhi grabbed the stave that was sticking out of the box, pulling it out decisively.

At the end of the white-painted wooden stick were affixed two pieces of plywood, also painted white, upon which had been written LITERATURE CLUB in Haruhi’s handwriting. It went without saying that the menial tasks of cutting the wood, assembling the pieces, and painting the sign had fallen to me.

“See, it says ‘Literature Club,’ right? I’m going to make Mikuru carry it around. After all, if we left it to Yuki, she wouldn’t make any active appeals.”

This was the truth. The first-year students had time in their schedules set aside for club introductions, and that had evidently happened yesterday. I say “evidently” because the SOS Brigade had no opportunity to intervene, as the only person invited had been the president of the literature club, one Yuki Nagato. The students had assembled in the gym, and there in front of them Nagato had, in the voice of a TV news anchor reading off the weather forecasts for major world cities, presented a talk entitled “A Neurological Perspective on the Insufficiency of Verbal Discourse between Individuals.” Obviously this had nothing to do with the literature club, and as a bonus, it managed to put half the first-years to sleep. Thanks to the pseudo-hypnotic speech she delivered, if there had been any students who were interested in joining the literature club, the boredom that suffused the gym that day would’ve effectively purged such notions from them. Yuki Nagato was a force to be reckoned with.

But it didn’t seem to bother her at all. Left to her own devices today, she would’ve probably just gone straight to the clubroom and commenced reading. But Haruhi did not leave her to her own devices.

The prospect of recruiting new members would be too tantalizing for Haruhi’s invisible antennae to pass up.

But wait just a second. To be clear, the SOS Brigade was an unsanctioned organization, and even now was operating illegally within the school. We couldn’t recruit overtly. Once Haruhi might’ve gone for that anyway, but this year the student council president’s eye was on us. So what fun could be had today?

The cash register bell in Haruhi’s head had gone off, and thus on this day—one of those chilly spring days worth their weight in gold—the brigade had been drafted as volunteers for the literature club and were now killing time in the courtyard.

—So that’s the story of how we got here, but every story has its flip side.

The student council president seemed easily able to sense that.

“May I see the other side of that sign?”

“Sure.” Haruhi grinned and flicked her wrist. On the reverse of the sign that said LITERATURE CLUB it said… LITERATURE CLUB. Obviously it didn’t say SOS BRIGADE.

“You seem eminently prepared. Very well, then. I cannot claim there is no logic to what you’ve said.” The president pushed his glasses up by their bridge. “Though it is not in my nature to compromise, it is better than causing a needless conflict. So long as you do not interfere with the other clubs, you may quietly stay here until the day is out. I will be busy with inspections. Forcible recruiting is absolutely forbidden.”

He should’ve told that to the athletic clubs, I said. This was a dreary public school, and every club was short on promising new recruits.

“You’re quite right. I’ll do that. And now, one last question. It is all well and good for you to recruit new literature club members. But should you succeed, what will you do? Will you turn the clubroom over to them?”

“That’s none of your business!” Haruhi’s habit of speaking her mind to upperclassmen hadn’t changed since she’d become a second-year student herself. Haruhi sniffed and looked askance.

“Hmph. That is all, then. Good-bye.”

His Excellency the President looked sharply at Haruhi and Asahina, as if to burn the image of the cheongsam and maid outfit onto film, then calmly followed Kimidori and left.

What had he come here to accomplish? Didn’t he realize standing in front of Haruhi and telling her “no” was practically begging her to do whatever it was you didn’t want her to do? Haruhi’s face was even now splitting into that high-spirited grin of hers.

“Well, that went well. Easy as pie. Tasty, tasty pie.”

Haruhi waited for the president to be out of sight, stuck the pole of the sign she held into the ground, and peeled the veneer from the sign’s surface. As I regarded the construction, I was unsurprised. The poor LITERATURE CLUB lettering was now so much litter, and there was no doubt about what the second layer of the sign now proclaimed—

SOS BRIGADE.

Last May—what day had it been, anyway?—the “Save the World by Overloading it with Fun Haruhi Suzumiya Brigade” had been formed, and it seemed that the name would be remaining in good health for some time to come.

The cardboard box Haruhi had brought contained more than signs.

Haruhi foisted one sign off onto Asahina, then like a magician’s assistant produced item after item from within the box, the skirt of her China dress aflutter.

First was an LCD monitor; then a series of cords, cables, and adapters; followed finally by a new college-style notebook and writing implements.

“C’mon, set it up!” Haruhi ordered me. “Get the monitor working.”

There were no electrical outlets in the courtyard, but Haruhi had anticipated the problem. There would be no point in trying to resist, so I did as I was told, dragging the power cable over to the computer club’s booth.

“Sorry, but could we borrow your power?”

“Sure.” It was the computer club president who replied. Evidently he was still president, since it was written on the ID badge that hung on his chest. “The other members wouldn’t let me go,” he said, sounding vaguely proud of it. “So I said I’d do it for one semester. I have been thinking about my replacement, though. Whoever it is, I’m gonna have to train him or her carefully—”

This speech seemed like it was going to take a while, so I wished he’d have done it later. At this rate, his fellow members were going to start hoping he’d retire.

“Hey, actually,” said the president, lowering his voice and speaking rapidly past the back of his hand, which was raised conspiratorially to his mouth. “I’d like Nagato to have concurrent membership in both our clubs, so she can become president of the computer club too. She’s the most talented computer programmer I’ve ever seen or heard of. No matter the bug or error, she can magically fix it, as easily as flipping a switch. Every time she stops by the club she finds a new way to surprise me. We’ve got a custom-built machine set aside for her, and in practically no time she wrote a new OS that would blow the original manufacturer away. Nobody but her can even begin to understand or use the source code either. It’s perfectly compatible with every piece of hardware and software we tested it with, but we just don’t know how she did it—”

---

---

No matter how long he went on about it, I was only going to be able to tell him that yup, that was our Nagato. If he wanted to make a personal request, he should have been making it directly to the person in question, I told him. She’d probably explain everything. I doubted anyone on Earth could understand the explanation, though.

I dangled the end of the power cable. The third-year president of the computer club correctly inferred my meaning, and he happily plugged it into their extension cord. It was amazing how much the computer club had turned into a branch of the SOS Brigade. If someone didn’t put a stop to it soon, the SOS Brigadification of all humanity might be completed before desertification consumed the world. Although I want to believe that Homo sapiens aren’t quite that stupid.

After getting the cord plugged in, I unrolled the cable as I walked back, and was then greeted by Haruhi, who came up to me like a dog returning to its master with a Frisbee.

It was good to be cheerful. Especially for Koizumi, I thought to myself, and glanced his way. But the self-proclaimed boy esper did not seem especially pleased. He sat with his elbows on his desk, his fingers interlaced and supporting his chin, mouth hidden. What was his preoccupation? He seemed to be gazing unobtrusively at Nagato, which also puzzled me.

What was going on? Was there some rule that the members of the SOS Brigade had to become emotionally disturbed in order? Was it now Koizumi’s turn? Give me a break. Nagato and Asahina were one thing, but I’d been certain that Koizumi was the one guy I didn’t have to worry about.

Perhaps sensing my concern, Koizumi slowly looked my way, his eyes narrowing in a smile. He might have been smiling to make me feel better; I detected something artificial in his expression.

He’d been in Class 9, the math and science class, and along with his classmates had moved right on into the second year of that class as though carried by gondola, so it was unlikely anybody he couldn’t stand was suddenly in his class.

Haruhi was her usual energetic self, so I doubted that she was to blame for his state. I wondered if his boss in the Agency had docked his pay or something. But wasn’t that a good thing? Wasn’t it better for all of us if Koizumi had nothing to do?

Or perhaps even this early in the semester, he’d received a lovely envelope in his shoe locker from a new first-year student confessing her feelings, in which case my sympathy was as pointless as Shamisen’s shed hair. After all, if you lined up Koizumi and Haruhi silently next to each other, both of them had attention-grabbing good looks.

“C’mon, Kyon, play the video already!”

Haruhi ordered me with a smile, holding up her sign like she was the winner of the Miss China competition. I obediently did as I was told, and Koizumi got up to help me. As we were futzing around with connecting the DVD player to the LCD display, Koizumi had his normal pleasant smile on, but I kept getting a strange feeling from him.

Why did he keep glancing at me with that smile of his? Unfortunately, while I might accept meaningful eye contact from Asahina or Nagato, I didn’t have the skill necessary to understand a guy’s intentions from his gaze.

Once we’d gotten the AV equipment hooked up and I’d vaguely informed Haruhi of our completion, she nodded with satisfaction, like a fisherman who’d just discovered a large school of fish.

“Now, then.”

She rummaged through the cardboard box and produced a single disc. The DVD player’s tray opened reluctantly, and Haruhi tossed the disc into it, mashing the play button as impudently as she would ring the doorbell of her own house.

Immediately a suspicious image appeared on the LCD display, accompanied by a familiar sound that leaked from its speakers.

Asahina flinched. “Ah—”

She let slip a heavy sigh, slowly averting her eyes from the screen. The sight of her aroused a manly protective instinct in me.

“Haruhi, turn the volume down, will ya? If the president hears it he’s gonna come back.”

“Who cares! I’m not afraid of him in the slightest.”

Well, you should be, I told her.

“If he comes back, I’ll be happy to hold a public debate with him.”

Don’t you dare, I said.

“God, Kyon, you’re so annoying.” Haruhi adroitly arranged her mouth and eyes into inverted triangles of displeasure. “You and Koizumi can just wait here. Mikuru and I will handle the rest.” She wrapped her arms around Asahina’s waist, then pulled her in, grinning maniacally.

“Eek!” cried a timid Asahina.

Haruhi nuzzled up against the newly minted third-year maid, grinning maliciously. “If anybody interesting comes by, you gotta write down his or her name and class number, got it? And we are not the film club, so if anybody comes over thinking that, you chase ’em off. Are we clear?”

Having made these unilateral declarations, Haruhi forcibly dragged Asahina off for a tour around the courtyard.

“Ugh.” I slumped and pulled the SOS Brigade sign out of the ground and hid it behind a chair, then gazed at the contents of the LCD display, its brightness turned pointlessly up to the maximum.

It was none other than a trailer for The Revenge of Yuki Nagato Episode 00, a short film that one couldn’t help but imagine was a waste of electricity and digital tape.

Before the new term started, there was a not-particularly-long spring break, but of course Haruhi was not going to quietly wait around for the new school year to start.

I imagined she’d started thinking about doing another movie around the time of the baseball tournament and the incident with Sakanaka’s dog. Spring break involves much less homework than the winter and summer vacations, which made it perfect for taking it easy, but the members of the SOS Brigade were summoned to action nearly every day of the break and dispatched by Haruhi to any number of locations like so many Tomahawk missiles.

We went all over the place—antique shops, flea markets, then over to Sakanaka’s place to check up on little Rousseau. We were invited over to the Tsuruya estate’s grand gardens to enjoy a flower-viewing party, which I admit was pretty fun. I was astonished at the way Tsuruya had but to snap her fingers to get mountains of party food brought out from the house.

Basically Haruhi went wherever she was invited to go, and even when she wasn’t invited she’d find a way in, breathing deeply in the spring air as she ran us all over creation. It remains a mystery to me how she didn’t run out of energy.

Among all that running around, what Haruhi devoted the most energy to was the sequel to her school festival film, The Adventure of Mikuru Asahina Episode 00. While I was surprised that a footnote like that had become the main event, I never thought that Haruhi would start planning for the next year’s school festival before she even became a second-year student herself.

So it was that Haruhi once again took up her megaphone and armband, and no sooner had the video camera, which had collected dust in a corner of the clubroom for months, been shoved into my hands than Haruhi began to peel off Asahina’s clothes, at which Koizumi and I immediately did an about-face.

While it was now Yuki Nagato occupying the title role, it seemed that Mikuru Asahina would again be the protagonist (wait, hadn’t Itsuki Koizumi been the protagonist in the last one?), and incidentally, because Mikuru’s true form was a combat waitress from the future, Director Haruhi declared it necessary for her to wear that inappropriate outfit yet again. Yuki Nagato again wore a pointy black hat and cape over her school uniform, and she carried a star-tipped wand; Koizumi again carried the reflecting board around.

Since the spring cherry blossoms were conveniently in bloom, we could easily continue the setting of the previous film. I couldn’t help but feel a little sympathy for the riverside cherry trees, though, having to bloom twice in one year.

But as to why we were doing a trailer, Haruhi broke it to us this way after we assembled, despite it being spring break, in the clubroom.

“Have you ever felt tricked by a trailer?”

I asked Haruhi what kind of “tricked” she meant.

“I’m talking about movie trailers. They play on TV or before other movies all the time. And when you see ’em, you’re like, ‘Whoa, that looks awesome,’ right? And then you get excited and go see the actual film, and it’s total nonsense. For example—”

I didn’t need an example, but Haruhi named an American film that even I recognized.

“You’d think from its trailer that it’d be really good and super funny. It was just a commercial, but I laughed at it a bunch. So I was really excited to go see it on opening day.” Haruhi gave her head an exaggerated shake. “But it was totally lame. You want to know why? They’d taken the only good scenes in the movie and strung them together to make the trailer. I’d already seen them all before going to the movie, and on top of that they were the only good parts! What do you think of that?”

What was I supposed to think of that? Maybe she should’ve called the studio. They probably had some kind of department in charge of trailers, and the workers there were surely good at their jobs.

“Even if it is for the sake of marketing, I just think it’s weird to show all the good parts of a movie ahead of time. That is why, Kyon!” Haruhi’s eyes glittered with their characteristic cosmic light. “We’ll make the trailer first, then work out the rest of the movie later! There’s no limit to how great we can make a short preview film. We don’t need a climax or anything; we just need a bunch of highlights! So that’s the plan.”

That was the plan, so that’s why we wound up making a trailer for a film that didn’t actually exist. Even Haruhi wasn’t thinking about what kind of story would be in the second film. Yet she planned on using the piece to attract new members. We didn’t have a script. What to do? Why, of course! Just shoot a trailer!

Her reasoning was direct; I’ll give her that. I could see she hadn’t given up on burning copies of The Adventure of Mikuru Asahina Episode 00 to DVD and selling them off. We could’ve edited it down for this latest promotional purpose, but she seemed to think that giving people even a glimpse of it would be to our disadvantage. Or maybe she wanted people to join the brigade if they wanted to see more of it. It would just give them a headache, although as a promotional video for Asahina you’d have to give it a twelve out of ten.

I glanced at the monitor we’d brought all the way out here as I returned to my seat and sat down.

It seemed almost reluctant to display the parade of ripped-off scenes, whose only possible justification would be in the name of parody.

There was the one where Koizumi brandished a dimly glowing stick that suspiciously resembled a fluorescent tube, to whom Yuki explained without any particular context, “Itsuki, I am your mother.” Or the one where Yuki puts on glasses and is suddenly an ordinary citizen, but when she takes them off she instantly changes costume and flies right into the sky. Or the one where she drags a black coffin around in the wilderness. Or the one where having finally run out of ideas, Haruhi decided that Mikuru and Shamisen would switch personalities, which involved Asahina walking around saying, “Meow, meow!” while Haruhi recorded Shamisen’s lines, which of course didn’t match the movements of his mouth in the slightest—since he didn’t open his mouth at all. On and on it went, with scenes that might have looked promising at a glance, but without any story simply cascaded like dominoes, with scene after scene having different characters and settings, the tempo of editing so bad it was nonsensical. On top of all that were the special effects, which were so bad it seemed like we’d made them that way on purpose, and the capriciously added music clips, which to be honest were basically noise.

Despite having no obligation to appear, Tsuruya showed up in a traditional kimono, laughing heartily in front of a Japanese-style garden filled with cherry blossoms, with my little sister and Shamisen inexplicably included in the shot. It was no better than a home video. This was thanks to Haruhi having brought the video camera along during our flower-viewing party and pointlessly shooting footage. The junk footage was an insult to bad movies; I didn’t need to see it again to know that it would be worse than the original. At least the scenes of a waitress-outfitted Asahina jumping around succeeded at promoting her. I wondered how many people who saw this would even realize it was a trailer, save for Haruhi shouting, “The Revenge of Yuki Nagato, coming this fall at the school festival!”

Can I just ask one thing? Yuki went flying off into space at the end of the last movie, so how is she back on Earth?

“I’ll think about that next. New enemies too!” said ultra-director Haruhi.

Which meant that she hadn’t thought about it at all. This was the epitome of marrying in haste and repenting at leisure; the film was a sham. If there were any first-year students who would watch it and want to join the club, I’d ask them to withdraw their applications.

The same went for the rubberneckers whose attention had been captured by Haruhi’s cheongsam and Asahina’s maid outfit.

The students milling about the courtyard had all escaped middle school and transcended the bounds of compulsory public education, which meant this was not just an institutional problem, and they circled widely around the desks where Koizumi and I sat, cold-faced, making no move to approach.

Their decision was every bit as wise as that of the rat that deserts the sinking ship. The youths before me would never understand just how fortunate they were to be enjoying a normal, healthy high school life. But I knew, and I didn’t feel the slightest reluctance to inform them. At this age, a year’s difference is like a swallowtail butterfly larva progressing from the fourth to the fifth stage in its development. Even if you were just messing around, you wouldn’t go walking around a field if you knew there were land mines buried there.

I turned the volume down on Haruhi’s terrible movie, then glanced sideways again.

“…”

Nagato was so still she looked like a laptop that had gone into standby mode to conserve energy. No one else was at her desk. I wasn’t sure if I should’ve been happy on Haruhi’s behalf or not, but as yet no first-year students had approached with any interest in creative literary activities.

Last year the literature club’s sole activity was a newsletter Haruhi had happily supervised at the behest of the student council president (who’d in turn been manipulated by Koizumi), and thanks to our careless distribution of it, we had but one copy left, which lay in front of Nagato at her desk as a sample of the club’s functions. Every contributor to the newsletter, including me, had been given a copy, but it seemed that such hard-won spoils were not easily parted from people, and nobody was inclined to offer up their copy as a sample—not even Taniguchi, despite how much he’d complained.

Which all meant that if someone wanted to read the newsletter, their only choice was to read the sample that was normally housed in Nagato’s clubroom library.

I gazed at Nagato, whose deep interest in the book in front of her never wavered.

“…”

She looked up, turning the transparent light in her eyes toward me. It was such a natural movement that it took me a moment to realize that our eyes had met, and as the awareness of it suddenly came to me—

“The cat,” she said in her zephyr-like voice; it took me a full second to realize what she’d said as I endured the scrutiny of her evaluating gaze.

“What about the cat?” I asked.

“How is it.”

“What do you mean, ‘how’?”

Nagato seemed to think for a moment, though her head’s position did not change. “How is it?”

Though she’d only added a hint of the interrogative to her phrasing, I now understood.

“Oh, you mean Shamisen.”

She nodded minutely. “Yes.”

“He’s doing great. Doesn’t seem inclined to talk these days.”

“I see,” was all the reply she gave before returning to her reading.

So she’d been concerned about the strangely clever cat that lived at my house. Oh, right, Nagato was the one who’d turned him into the host for that whatever-it-was data life-form symbiont thing whose name I couldn’t remember.

Ever since then, he hadn’t really changed save for putting on weight thanks to his overeating and lack of exercise. Ever since Haruhi’d found him and foisted him off on me, he’d been living the perfect cat life.

The old phrase “spring, when skies are cloudy and cats fat,” came to mind, but I wasn’t so sure. I’d wanted to laze around cat-style during spring break, but it hadn’t happened that way.

“It certainly was a busy spring break,” said Koizumi, lamenting. He was staring out into space, so I thought he was talking to himself, but—

“Don’t you think?” he prompted.

The smile he directed at me as he asked the question seemed a little tired to me, I said.

“There’s no question about it. You’re quite right. I am a bit fatigued.”

Of course he was, I said. Any normal person would be exhausted if they had to keep up with Haruhi.

“I am not speaking in conventional terms. You do remember my true nature and responsibility, don’t you? The real reason why I am here?”

At first it was to observe Haruhi, and then it became being her flunky, I said.

“Excuse me, but surely you haven’t forgotten that I am an esper, nor have you forgotten when, where, how, and with whom my powers are utilized.”

I remembered all right, having gotten enough of an earful about it. His confession had come after Nagato’s and Asahina’s—in other words, it was the most recent information about a brigade member to come to light.

“That’s good. That will make this easier to explain.” Koizumi gave an affectedly relieved sigh, then lowered his voice. “To be honest, I haven’t been sleeping well recently. I’ve been waking up in the middle of the night or early morning, day after day, and not because I want to. It’s taken quite a toll on my health.”

If he couldn’t sleep at night, why not just sleep in class? I said. They say five minutes of sleeping in class is worth an hour of regular sleep, after all.

“It’s not that I’m suffering from insomnia. And the problem isn’t internal. Surely you can see. We understand each other, after all, so let’s save the circumspection for a different topic.”

Koizumi’s narrowed eyes glinted seriously—how unusual. He usually loved talking in circles, but had he decided to change his habits? Well, fine. He was right that we knew each other pretty well. Although I didn’t know if I’d trust him more than I would Nagato or Asahina.

“You’re talking about closed space and <Celestials>,” I said.

That was pretty much the only place where his powers worked.

“Quite right. Of late they have been appearing with greater frequency, beginning during spring break and continuing up to today. To be accurate, they started on the last day of spring break, but that’s why my little part-time job now has me on twenty-four-hour alert.” Koizumi let slip a self-deprecating sigh. “I truly thought I had gotten used to it. After all, fighting <Celestials> was part of our daily routine. You could say it was our duty. But this past year we’ve gotten out of shape. Ever since she started the SOS Brigade last year, Suzumiya’s mental state has rapidly stabilized. Especially once you and Suzumiya returned from that place.”

It was true that Koizumi had reported the lower incidence of <Celestial> appearance to me just before Christmas. It was right around Christmas Eve, when Taniguchi had been bragging about getting a girlfriend.

And then to make up for it, somebody else had done something totally crazy.

“No, wait a sec—” I sensed an inconsistency. “Koizumi, didn’t you see Haruhi just now? She was totally happy. I had to check to make sure her feet were physically touching the ground. It was like she had wings on her shoes. And you said that closed space nonsense and those stupid blue monsters appeared because of her pent-up stress. But she’s so busy these days she’s got no time to be bored, so it just doesn’t stand up to reason.”

“It’s true; Suzumiya looks quite happy to my eye as well. She certainly doesn’t have too much time on her hands. But I’d like you to think back to the events of the last day of spring break.”

I’d been thinking back to it constantly, I told him.

“Doesn’t anything stick out to you? Surely something does. Something quite important.” Koizumi shrugged. “It was on the last day of spring break. That was the day Haruhi began to shift at a subconscious level. So what happened?”

More subconscious stuff, huh? As if Koizumi’s pseudo-psychological quackery didn’t cause me enough trouble already. “That was the day we went to the flea market, right? Haruhi said she wanted to get in on a flea market, so we took a train to the next town over—”

“It was before we boarded the train. What I’m trying to point out is…”

His roundaboutness was so irritating.

I closed my eyes and drifted out again into the sea of memory.

It was early in the spring break, and we were in the clubroom getting ready to shoot the trailer for the sequel.

Once she’d gotten Asahina into the waitress outfit and Nagato into the witch’s cap and cloak, Haruhi lined them up in preparation for the shoot and regarded them, yellow megaphone in hand, whereupon Koizumi and I returned from our voluntary exile. Haruhi looked up at us.

“Don’t you think there’s too much stuff in this room? I was just looking for my Director armband, but it’s gone somewhere. It’s probably just mixed up with other stuff somewhere, but maybe it’s time to deal with the clutter.”

Haruhi was the one who was always collecting random crap like some kind of crow. Nagato had her books, Asahina had her tea utensils, Koizumi had his retro board games, but it was definitely Haruhi who was responsible for the bulk of our miscellaneous junk.

She flopped down in her special brigade chief’s chair.

“I pretty much keep any flyer for any event I happen to get, but I totally forgot about this one.” Haruhi produced a flyer from within her desk. “It’s an ad for a flea market. It’s a little far, but if we get on an express train we can get there in fifteen minutes or so. I’d really wanted to participate right away, but we’re so busy right now, and it seems like the application would take some time to fill out.”

We were only busy because Haruhi decided we were, but whatever.

I took the flyer Haruhi was waving at me and sat in my own chair. A flea market, huh? Given the season, I supposed it would be a way for people to clear out their old inventory.

I glared at the flyer that had inspired Haruhi to decide upon a new destination.

“Here, have some tea.” A full teacup was placed before me on the table.

Ah, Asahina, how magnificent you are! Even dressed as a movie waitress, you’re still considerate enough to serve us tea, your face adorned with a humble smile—it brings a tear to my eye! The waitress outfit is somehow a fresh and novel change from your usual maid clothing, and… Come to think of it, this kind of job is a much better fit for that outfit, since waitresses don’t actually fight space aliens, as a rule.

Asahina giggled. “I actually kind of like this outfit, as long as I don’t have to go out in it. It’s cute.”

Apparently mindful of her short skirt’s length, Asahina kept her legs close together as she trotted happily back, tray in hand, to where the teapot and teacups were stored. There she carefully poured tea for each club member. Though Asahina fans throughout the school might drool at the prospect, the only people in this wide world who were privy to Asahina’s maid duties were the members of the literature club. The same went for Nagato the witch-costumed bookworm. I felt like I should probably take a picture to remember the scene.

Just as I was immersing myself in the task of wetting my parched throat and eyes—

“Hey, Kyon!” Haruhi had polished off her tea in about five seconds, slamming her teacup back down on the desk and jumping suddenly to her feet. She certainly was busy. “Maybe it’s impossible this time, but next time we gotta sell some stuff at that flea market. Before then, go through your house and fish out anything you don’t need that you think will sell for a good price. You’ve got stuff like that, right? A collection of stuff you don’t use anymore but can’t throw away, or a present you never wound up opening.”

I had a complete set of model robots from some anime I’d never seen before that I’d gotten as part of a magazine promotion, back when I was a kid. Something like that? I asked.

“Yeah, that’ll do.” Haruhi snatched the flyer back out of my hand and smoothed it out carefully. “I bet those models would be much happier with somebody better than you to build them.”

Forget about the kiddie-level models, I said; what about the laptops she’d plundered from the computer club? I bet those would sell for real money.

“Those are precious assets! I’ve gotta call the computer club guys over and get ’em upgraded.”

Haruhi next turned the force of her attention to Asahina, who was blowing on the teacup she held in her cupped hands.

“You seem like you’d have all kinds of stuff, Mikuru. Clothes you don’t wear anymore or pointless cooking utensils. You seem like you’re always going shopping.”

“Ah, um…” Asahina turned her lovely eyes up. “I suppose so. I just can’t help buying cute things. But sometimes when I wear them they don’t look good on me or they feel strange… Wait—how did you know?”

“It’s so obvious! Whenever we walk past shops, your eyes light up, like you’re thinking to yourself, ‘I gotta come back here and buy that.’ You radiate waves of it, like a kid wanting a trumpet. I’m surprised you ever have any pocket change left.”

Asahina looked abashed, but Haruhi soon directed her attention elsewhere. “I bet Yuki’s got a lot of books. We could open a used book stall at the flea market, easy. The bookshelves here in the clubroom are already packed tight and all. I swear, they’re about to break through the floor.”

“…” Nagato slowly turned her head to regard Haruhi, then the bookshelves, then finally me, before looking back down at her book.

I seriously doubted that Nagato would be willing to part with her personal library, and anyway it wasn’t that Nagato had a lot of books at her place, it was more like she had nothing but a lot of books at her place.

“So when we do this, Kyon, you take a cart to Yuki’s place. And help her pack up books too.”

Nagato again turned her head to look at me, and I was struck by the message in her eyes—a familiar sensation. When had I felt this before? That’s right—the winter break, back when Nakagawa had inflicted that idiotic phone call on me. We were cleaning out the clubroom, and as far as the books overflowing from their shelves went, Nagato had maintained a strict no-comment policy. I very much doubted she would be willing to part with a single book from her home either.

“Yes, well,” said Koizumi, teacup in hand, “I did go to the trouble of bringing all these games in, but I’ve had no luck finding people to play with. It might be good to take this opportunity to scale back my collection a bit.”

I wished he would’ve refrained from aiming his pained grin quite so directly at me.

Haruhi restlessly sat herself down on the brigade chief’s desk. “Okay, everybody, make sure you’re free on the last day of spring break. We’re gonna go check out the flea market. And if we spot anything interesting there, we’ll use club funds to buy it!”

It went without saying that those “club funds” belonged not to the SOS Brigade, but to the literature club.

In any case.

Although the school gates were closed during the break, as if to tell the students to relax for a little while, Haruhi made sure the SOS Brigade was not given the luxury of afternoon napping. She dragged us all over the place, and even on the last day of the break, we had to assemble at the station-front rendezvous point.

“So you’ve finally managed to arrive at that point. I was starting to wonder if it had been erased from your memory.”

What good would it do anyone if I’d lost that memory? I asked.

“I can’t guess at the possible profit or loss, but if I could erase it, I would very much like to.”

That didn’t make any sense. I’d never heard anything about Koizumi being able to control memories, and anyway, if he could, then he ought to be doing something about Haruhi’s head.

“You are quite right.”

He didn’t have to sound so wistful about it, I said. Spending his energy worrying about Haruhi’s problems was a waste of a perfectly good life.

“That is not the case. Haruhi’s problems are my problems,” he said, spreading his arms in a gesture of resignation as I returned to my recollection.

The morning of the flea market, I obeyed the cry of my alarm clock and got out of bed.

And that was the part that was bothering me. Leaving behind a nice warm bed was bad enough, and seeing Shamisen still curled up in the blankets made me want to haul him out too, but I would’ve felt bad—so I headed downstairs alone.

As soon as I looked into the kitchen—

“Ah, Kyon! Good morning! Where’s Shami?” said my sister past a piece of toast she held in her mouth.

I opened the fridge and got out a bottle of barley tea, poured myself a cup, and drank it. “He’s sleeping.”

“Want me to make you some toast? There’s fried egg too.”

“Yeah, thanks,” I replied, and headed to the bathroom. When I got back, I saw my sister stick a slice of bread into the toaster, then put a plate with ham and eggs on it into the microwave. It wasn’t that she was being especially considerate—she just enjoyed using the kitchen appliances.

Incidentally my sister—eleven years old and entering sixth grade the very next day—had been invited over to Miyokichi’s house for the entire day, and she wouldn’t be returning until the evening. She’d already dressed up for the occasion in her own way and was waiting for the arrival of her friend, who despite being the same age certainly didn’t look it.

Regarding Miyokichi—three days earlier, I’d happened to run into her on the street, and although it had not been so very long since I’d last seen her, in that short amount of time she’d become even more beautiful and mature, such that when I imagined her walking around with my sister, I couldn’t help but see them as the “big sister” and “baby girl” in a matched set of dolls. What were they feeding her to make her turn out like that?

But seriously, if Miyokichi were my sister she definitely wouldn’t do stuff like barging into my room and borrowing stuff without permission, and I bet she’d employ a more refined method of waking me up in the morning too. She probably wouldn’t chase a traumatized Shamisen all over the house, and I was starting to wonder more and more why I couldn’t have been born as Miyokichi’s older brother…

“No need to brag about your girlfriend,” Koizumi said flatly as he held up a single cherry blossom petal. “It may be that whoever possesses Miyoko Yoshimura as a younger sister is fortunate. But if you regard things from a different perspective, the view that your own sister has qualities enough to recommend her will also emerge. Nevertheless, could you tell me in more detail about someone else? Tell me what happened once you left the house and proceeded to the rendezvous point.”

He was being a little harsh, I said. Having never himself laid eyes on Miyokichi, it was easy enough for him to be indifferent.

But whatever. If he wanted to know about the last day of the spring break that followed the end of our first year in high school, I’d hurry the story along. But Koizumi himself was a character in that story, so he himself should have known full well what was going to happen.

“I have no interest in myself,” he said, continuing to play with the petal between his fingers. “The person I’m interested in cannot be found there. To be blunt, while I do worry about how I’m perceived through your eyes, in the end it is a triviality.”

He flicked the petal away.

“Do continue.”

As usual, I got on my bike and rode over to the train station.

When it came to excursions, rule number one of the SOS Brigade was that whoever was last to arrive had to treat the other members. This rule was still active, and thus far I had yet to be treated by anyone other than myself. The possibility that I might yet enjoy a feast with someone else paying the bill—especially if that person were Haruhi—urged my legs on as usual. Yet somehow Haruhi always managed to beat me. It was like that was her true goal, that she was hiding somewhere and watching me, waiting to strike.

As such thoughts occupied my mind, I searched for an empty spot in the bike racks next to the train station when a voice rang out from behind me.

“Heya, Kyon!”

“Wha—”

It was so close it felt like a surprise attack. I mean, the voice was right behind me. I’d been vaguely pushing my bike into the rack, and it was hardly surprising that my legs suddenly propelled me into the air.

I turned around reflexively, and as soon as I saw the voice’s origin, a name rose to my mouth even before it appeared in my mind. “Oh, it’s you, Sasaki.”

“ ‘Oh, it’s you’? What the hell kind of greeting is that? It’s been forever!”

Sasaki also held her bike by the handlebars and had a gentle expression on her face, quite in contrast to her words.

“Hey, come to think of it, Kyon, I was just on the phone with Sudou. Seems he wanted to have some kind of get-together with the people from our third-year junior high class. He didn’t come right out and say it, but given the nuances of the conversation and various other pieces of evidence, I think he’s still carrying a torch for one of the girls in the class. From what I can tell, I’m wondering if it isn’t Okamoto—she got into a girls’ high school. Okamoto as in the one with the curly hair, from the rhythmic gymnastics club. Anyway, he wanted to know if we could do it this summer vacation, and I was thinking that’d be good. I mean, not that it really matters to me. What do you think?”

I thought if they put it together, I’d go. There were several classmates I’d been decent friends with but hadn’t seen since graduation. And since I couldn’t quite remember Okamoto’s face, I’d be happy to leave the seat next to her open for Sudou.

Sasaki’s lips curled into an inscrutable smile. “That’s what I thought you’d say. But Kyon—I suppose I would be one of those good friends you haven’t seen since graduation, wouldn’t I? In fact, the last time I saw you was when we received our diplomas together. It’s been a full year.”

Sasaki had taken one hand off her bike’s handlebars, and she now rotated her palm over to indicate the passage of time.

“You got into North High, right? How is it? Are you having a pleasant high school experience?”

Pleasantness wasn’t necessarily related to something’s value, but at the very least at the moment it wasn’t especially unpleasant. I could almost say it was fun. Although, I said, explaining all the wondrous things I’d experienced during my first year at North High would take some time.

“Well, that’s good. I don’t have much to talk about. It’s not boring, exactly, but there’s nothing happening at my school that’s violating any laws of physics.”

Well, that was a relief. If anything like that were happening at a high school somewhere, it would go right past “fun” and straight on into “national panic.”

I fixed my former classmate’s face in a firm gaze, trying to determine if anything had changed since junior high. “You went to some fancy private school outside the city, right? The one that gets people into famous colleges.”

The hue of Sasaki’s smile shifted. “I’m relieved you haven’t forgotten all the details. Yes, that’s right. Which means I’m going crazy trying to keep up with the classes. Even today”—she said, pointing in the direction of the train station—“I’ve gotta get to cram school. On a train. It’s seriously like I’m studying just to study more. Doesn’t feel like I got a spring break at all. And tomorrow an even longer train ride to school is waiting for me. I haven’t gotten used to riding a packed train, nor do I really want to.”

It was a decent challenger to the steep hike up the hill to get to North High, I said.

“At least that’s good exercise. I should’ve gone to a city school. I’m jealous of Sudou.” I had no idea what was so funny, but Sasaki suddenly chuckled in a way I couldn’t possibly imitate. “By the way, Kyon, what brings you to the local private rail line today? If we’ll be boarding the same train, we’ve got more catching up to do, and I wouldn’t mind sitting with you.”

I checked my watch. Crap. Only three minutes to go until the rendezvous.

“Sorry, Sasaki, I’ve got to meet up with my cohorts. One of them’s really picky about punctuality, and if I’m late there’s no telling what’ll happen to me.”

“Cohorts? From school? Huh, how ’bout that. Well, I’d better hurry up and park my bike, then. Oh, don’t worry—since I lock it up here every morning, I’ve got a monthly pass to a parking area. As for where it is—”

Sasaki placed her bike into an open space in a nearby bicycle parking area, locking it up and then peering at me.

“—it’s right here. Kyon, would you mind terribly if I came with you to meet your companions? Any friend of yours is a friend of mine, after all. I’d very much like to see their faces.”

She’d receive no benefit for paying her respects, but if Sasaki wanted to meet them, I didn’t mind. Introducing her to them wouldn’t bring anything positive into her life, but I always felt a little bit of pride in showing off the lovely Asahina, even though that didn’t have anything to do with my own achievements.

I looked for an open space in the bike parking area, then parked my bike and paid for the spot, while Sasaki followed me, bag over her shoulder. As we walked we chatted about junior high, but just as the SOS Brigade’s official meeting spot in front of the station came into view—

“Kyon, you haven’t changed at all,” Sasaki murmured.

“I haven’t?”

“Nope. It’s a relief.”

Why would Sasaki be relieved? She hadn’t changed a bit herself, I pointed out.

“If so, then I haven’t matured a bit. If my physical measurements are to be believed, there should be at least some change.”

Okay, sure, I’d gotten a little taller too.

“Sorry, that’s not what I meant. You can change your appearance if you want to. Even something as simple as growing or cutting your hair can make a pretty big difference in impressions. What you can’t change is what’s inside—either for the better or for the worse. If human consciousness is material in nature, then without changing the medium there won’t be much change in patterns of thinking or perception.”

This was strangely nostalgic. I remembered now—back in junior high, Sasaki was always going on about obscure stuff like this.

“At least,” she continued as we walked, “so long as there’s no St. Paul–like change in direction or no Copernican revolution. Changes in the world equal changes in ideology. You could say that’s all there is, because humans can’t understand any phenomena whose cognitive ability exceeds their own. Our eyes can’t see infrared radiation, but snakes have heat-sensitive vision. When the frequency of sound rises above a certain level, our ears can’t hear it, but dogs can hear into ultrasonic ranges. While neither of them is detectable to humans, both infrared rays and ultrasonic sounds do exist. We merely cannot perceive them.”

Man, I wish you’d come to North High, Sasaki. I know a guy who sounds just like you. Lucky for us, he will be at the meeting spot we’re headed to, I said, so shall I introduce you to each other?

As I made the proposal, the forms of every SOS Brigade member—save myself—came into view a short distance ahead of us.

“You certainly did bring a singular individual along with you,” said Koizumi, diluting the shade of criticism that had colored his speech a bit. “In a way, she would’ve made a good counterpart to me. But in essence, I’m nowhere near her level. Our positions are too different. Since I know my own limits, there are quite a few people whose viewpoints I envy. You would be one of them, in fact.”

He could flatter me all he wanted—not unlike a priestess of Delphi, I would not convey his words to the Oracle.

“Oh, I know. There is nothing so terrifying as an act of God—something you can see and hear but can do nothing to control.”

Anyway, I knew that Sasaki was a force to be reckoned with, since I’d gone through my last year of junior high with her, but how did Koizumi know that? I wanted to know.

“It’s hardly surprising. Surely you must know that the Agency has thoroughly investigated you. We’ve gone through most everything in your life. And the conclusion is that you are an entirely normal individual.”

Gosh, thanks. So I had a Certificate of Normalcy from his organization, huh?

“If you wanted one, I could arrange it. Sorry, that was a joke. What isn’t a joke is how I felt once I learned that you attended junior high with Sasaki and were even close friends.”

And why is that? I wondered.

Koizumi continued as though reciting poetry. “Because while she appears to be a normal person, when viewed another way, your friend Sasaki may be something quite different. She may seem like a particle but accomplish the work of a wave. Just like light.”

I didn’t know anything about acts of God. I was tired of hearing the word “coincidence.” To say nothing of things like the dual nature of light, which I hoped never to concern myself with.

In any case, Sasaki and I continued on toward the station, stopping at the spot that had become the club’s usual meeting place.

It was a familiar area, and four familiar faces greeted me. Three of them were wearing casual clothes; the fourth was in a school uniform.

And then there were the words from the brigade chief I so longed to hear.

“You’ve got some guts being late. I’ve told you over and over, but not only are you the last to arrive, but you’re actually late! Is the spring weather making you lazy? Kyon, you’ve gotta treasure every single second. Your time does not belong only to you. It’s equal to the time you’ve kept all of us waiting, so I’m gonna add a penalty charge to make up for the lost time. We can’t do anything about the time that’s passed, but at least it will cheer us up a little bit.”

Haruhi finished her spiel, took a deep breath, and regarded strangely the person standing next to me.

“What’s that?”

“Oh, this is my—” I started to introduce Sasaki.

“Close friend,” interrupted Sasaki, finishing my answer.

“Huh?” Haruhi’s eyes widened, and Sasaki shook her head slightly and explained.

“From junior high, I should say. Just third year, though. Maybe that’s why he’s been so stingy about keeping in touch. I guess that goes both ways, though, but I think if you can have a conversation with someone without many pleasantries at all, that counts as a close friend. As far as I’m concerned, Kyon, that’s what you are.”

I supposed that was what a friend you were close to amounted to. I hung out with her quite a bit, and of the friends I hung out with after school, she was probably the one I spent the most time with, I thought. But—

I was getting a bad feeling about this for some reason. Let me just say that I have no memory of ever doing anything that would be cause for gossip, because I did no such thing. But for some reason when Sasaki stood next to me and claimed to be my close friend, the strange expression on Haruhi’s face made me feel like I’d gone outside without an umbrella despite an impending thunderstorm. Why was that?

When I thought back, I realized that the frequency of Asahina’s blinking rose, and I seemed to recall Koizumi making a thoughtful expression and putting his finger to his chin. I don’t remember any change in Nagato’s silent uniform-clad form, but I was really only looking at Haruhi’s face at the time.

I sensed movement beside me, and Sasaki took a half step forward, her mouth curved into a crescent moon of a smile as she extended a hand to Haruhi. As if trying to shake her hand.

“I’m Sasaki. And you’re Suzumiya, I presume. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

Haruhi’s eyes flicked toward me, as though she’d been falsely charged with some crime.

“I didn’t say anything about your evil deeds! Sasaki, why do you know about Haruhi?”

“Because I live in the same city she does, and rumors about interesting people get around. You’re not the only person from our junior high who went on to North High, Kyon.”

Oh, right—Kunikida, I said.

“Him, too, yes. How’s he doing? Taking it easy as always, I’ll bet. He could’ve gone to a tougher high school, but that weirdo went out of his way to get into a so-so public school.” Having offered her comment on her fellow alumnus, Sasaki regarded Haruhi once again. “I hear Kyon’s been under your care quite a bit at North High. Thanks again.”

Sasaki’s proffered hand remained extended, and she smiled pleasantly.

Faced with Sasaki’s Western-style greeting, Haruhi at first looked like she’d put a piece of chocolate in her mouth only to discover it was a pebble, but she soon accepted the hand.

“Sure,” she said, gripping Sasaki’s hand and looking her straight in the eye. “I guess I don’t have to introduce myself, then.”

“I guess not.” Sasaki returned Haruhi’s gaze with a smile, then laughed like a tree frog making the first croak of its life. “So who are your friends?” Sasaki reluctantly let go of Haruhi’s hand and looked over the group.

Perhaps realizing that introducing the brigade members was the chief’s duty, Haruhi rapidly did so. “The cute one there is Mikuru; the one in the school uniform is Yuki. This is Koizumi,” she said, pointing to each one in turn.

“O-oh, hello, I’m Mikuru Asahina.” Wearing a cheerful spring ensemble that would no doubt fly off the shelves if an Asahina brand were ever launched, the brigade’s sole upperclassman stiffened and hung on to her purse, reintroducing herself.

“I’m Koizumi,” said the assistant brigade chief, with a pleasant courtesy that made me wonder if he’d been studying under Arakawa.

“…” Nagato, wearing her uniform as though she were still at school, did not move a muscle.

After hearing each of the trio’s different responses, Sasaki skipped the handshake—maybe it would’ve been too much trouble—and simply said, “Nice to meet you,” gazing at them amusedly.

Asahina fidgeted slightly, Koizumi returned to his usual serene smile, and Nagato observed Sasaki with her eyes like pools of water ladled up from the deep ocean.

Sasaki paused for a moment as though carving their names and faces into her memory, but then turned to me.

“Well then, Kyon, I’ve got to catch my train, so you’ll have to excuse me. I’ll drop you a line later. See you!”

She gave a quick little wave, smiled again to Haruhi, then strode off toward the turnstiles.

She was rather brisk about everything. I was vaguely stunned, and watched her go until she disappeared.

Although we hadn’t seen each other in quite some time, we hadn’t had much of a conversation. At this rate it would be another year before we met again.

After a few seconds of silence, Haruhi spoke. “She was a bit odd.”

For Haruhi to think someone was odd, they had to be seriously weird, I said.

Haruhi turned her gaze away from the turnstile gates. “So your friend—has she always been like that?”

“Yeah. She hasn’t changed a bit, outside or in.”

“Huh.” Haruhi cocked her head slightly, as though trying to pour whatever thought she was having out through one ear. But she soon gave it up, righted her head, and spun around with a little hop. “Well, whatever. Anyway, Kyon, we’re going to the café. Your treat. You better have brought extra money. If there are any treasures to be had at the flea market, we gotta buy ’em!”

Haruhi smiled like a fluorescent light display at an appliance store and took up the lead as she began to walk.

Geez. I guess I didn’t mind having to carry her stuff around, but couldn’t she at least use her own money to buy whatever crap she wanted? I’d have to keep an eye out for Nagato’s sake, lest Haruhi lay a hand on the literature club’s budget.

“As for what happened later,” I said to Koizumi, “you know the rest. We went to the café and I paid the tab, then we headed to the flea market where Haruhi bought a whole pile of crap we don’t need, then we headed back to that fancy little ocean view place for lunch, stopping by Sakanaka’s house on the way.”

Koizumi better not tell me that just because he carried around a go board he bought from an old couple at the market, he’d forgotten that it was me who’d lugged most of our stuff around all day. I’d wound up hauling our “bargains”—like desert rose mineral samples—all over the event grounds. The only good parts were Asahina looking through a kaleidoscope that looked like it was made by a little kid and exclaiming, “Wow, such a primitive toy! It’s lovely!” and Nagato staring intently at a random tribal mask that seemed perfect for a sorcerer.

“Is your memory of things any different?”

“Fortunately, it seems not,” said Koizumi, looking carefully at the back of the monitor. “As far as the objective events go, your explanation is quite correct. However, regarded subjectively, your interpretation and mine have some serious inconsistencies.”

Koizumi gave me an appraising look. I didn’t like it at all.

“Here, then, is the question. Earlier I told you that incidents of closed space were on the rise. To be accurate, it’s at about the level it was when Suzumiya started high school. The amount at which I was called upon to perform my ‘job’ had been decreasing last year and on into this one, but it suddenly returned to its former level right after spring break. Why do you suppose that is?”

I fidgeted. “What’re you trying to say?”

“I don’t want to have to come right out and say it, but some things cannot be conveyed otherwise. In fact, times when wordless communication suffices to transmit an idea are quite rare. There is a causal relationship. In this case, the cause can be traced back to a significant event on the last day of spring break. The effect is clear: closed space and <Celestials>. So what does this mean? That is my question to you.”

“…”

I sank into a Nagato-like silence. The back of my head itched.

Koizumi wore a smile like a mask excavated from a Jomon-era archaeological dig, an expression that couldn’t be described as anything other than a smile.

“Since Suzumiya began creating closed space at the same time the new semester started, we can conclude that whatever the problem is, it began at the end of spring break. When we consider what happened that day, it seems to have been typical SOS Brigade activities, with nothing especially momentous happening. We simply enjoyed ourselves at the flea market. There was only a single irregular element that interrupted our routine. I’m quite sure you’ve already realized what that was.”

Sasaki.

“But why?” I said. “I just happened to come to the meeting spot with a classmate from junior high. Why would that have anything to do with Haruhi’s stress levels?”

Koizumi closed his mouth as though surprised and regarded me more triumphantly than searchingly, just like Shamisen watching a cicada brought home for him by my sister. He did this for a full ten seconds.

I was considering waving my hand in front of his face to check for consciousness when the harmlessly handsome esper slowly and heartily shook his head.

“If you must know,” he said exaggeratedly, “this girl Sasaki, who proclaimed herself to be your good friend, is such an attractive girl that she’d probably catch the eye of eight out of ten guys!”

Koizumi’s voice sounded like a grand vizier who’d decided to assassinate the king.

It was two years earlier, around this time of year.

It was the spring I’d entered the third and final year of middle school, and I had been forced to attend cram school by my mom, who feared for my high school future.

Sasaki was in the same class and was the only one there who also wound up in the same classroom as me in school—what’s more, our desks were even pretty close. That’s how we wound up talking, without either of us really being the one to initiate it, if I remember right. I’m not sure, but it was something like, “Oh, hey, you go here too?”

That was the trigger, and it got so we’d chat sometimes in the classroom.

I didn’t pay much attention to it, but I soon noticed that she had a certain stiff formality to her speech that she only ever used when she was talking to boys. When she was with other girls, she talked the same way they did.

I wondered if there was a reason for that. Perhaps her use of masculine language was because she didn’t want to be seen as “just” a girl—it was a signal not to view her as a romantic object. Maybe I was overthinking this.

Of course it didn’t matter to me, so I didn’t give her any trouble about it. For one thing, I didn’t have so much confidence in my own grammatical usage that I felt qualified to critique others’.

Sasaki was interested in my name.

“Kyon is a rather unique nickname. How’d you get it?”

I reluctantly explained the episode behind it, and my younger sister’s antics.

“How about that. So what’s your actual name?”

I gave her its pronunciation, at which Sasaki tilted her head and eyes in different directions.

“And you get ‘Kyon’ from that? What kanji could possibly—wait, no, don’t tell me. I want to try and figure it out.”

Sasaki was quiet for a while, then snickered to herself.

“It’s probably something like this, I bet.”

Her mechanical pencil scratched on her notebook paper. I looked at the characters that appeared and felt genuinely impressed. She’d correctly written my given name.

“Can I ask how you got it? There’s got to be a reason for such a grand, majestic name.”

I repeated the reason my dad had given me when I’d asked him the same question as a kid.

“Hey, that’s nice.”

When Sasaki said it, it made me feel like I actually did have a good name.

“Gotta say, though, I like ‘Kyon’ better. It’s got a nice ring to it. Is it cool if I call you that? Or should I propose a different moniker? Seems like you’re not a huge fan of your nickname.”

How did Sasaki know I didn’t like my nickname? I wanted to know.

“Because you respond more quickly when called by your real name than by your nickname. About point two seconds quicker.”

That was because the only time people called me by my real name was when they had serious business with me. Like when a teacher called on me in class to answer a question or when someone who didn’t know me well—especially a girl—talked to me… and anyway, I asked, point two seconds? How could she even tell the difference?

“That’s about how long it takes for your brain to process information and take action. When someone uses your name, you respond instantly. But when someone calls you ‘Kyon,’ you’re that much slower, perhaps because of some deep-seated psychological reason. It made me wonder if subconsciously you really don’t like the name.”

Thinking back, I’m pretty sure I’d never been subjected to so much psychobabble in my life.

Cram school classes happened three times a week, on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, and always in the evenings.

Not counting the Saturdays on which there was no school, I got accustomed to making the trip on Tuesday and Thursday with Sasaki. The cram school was near the biggest train station in the area, and to walk there from our middle school, the tedium of traversing the distance would’ve bored us to death. The bus route was circuitous and lengthy. The quickest way to get there was to ride directly there by bike, which took a mere fifteen minutes.

My house was along the direct route from school to the cram school, so the most logical plan was to get the bike out upon returning home and pedal to the cram school. And since Sasaki was already with me, it became habit for me to have her ride on the back. It saved her the bus fare, for which she was grateful.

Though we were in the same classroom at cram school, it wasn’t as though we had free time every day for pointless chatting. The surrounding atmosphere ensured we both studied seriously. That might have been why the gently decreasing curve of my grades during my second year of middle school started to come back up, which I was thankful for—and it certainly provided some relief to my mother, whose dismay at the grand countdown that had been my grades had prompted her to take serious action and toss me into cram school.

It would’ve been even better if it had gotten her to stop saying stuff like, “If you don’t improve your grades more, you’ll never be able to go to the same college as Sasaki.” I didn’t understand why I had to go to the same college as her.

Once class at the cram school was out, the world had fallen into night. I’d look up at the celestial zits that were Earth’s natural satellites as I pushed my bike home, Sasaki following just slightly behind me. We’d walk to the nearest bus stop, since she took the bus the rest of the way home.

---

---

“See you tomorrow at school, Kyon,” she would say as she stepped into the bus, and then I would ride straight home.

Okay, enough reflection.

“I can hardly believe you’d already progressed so far,” said Koizumi, his middle finger pressed to his brow. “It’s like a page out of an innocent middle school love story.”

He could say that if he wanted to, but Sasaki and I didn’t have anything like that kind of pleasant boy-girl relationship. For it to be “pleasant,” it would’ve had to exist in the first place, I pointed out.

“Oh, certainly. If that’s what you think, I’m sure that it’s true. But I wonder about the people around you. What did they make of the pair of you, do you suppose?”

I was starting to get a bad feeling about this. Now that he mentioned it, Kunikida and Nakagawa had both gotten the wrong idea about it…

“I’d probably get the wrong idea about it too, if I’d heard the situation from someone else. And I’m certainly not the only person who’d think so. It’s entirely possible that Asahina and Nagato are thinking likewise. But both of them have some knowledge of your circumstances, so it would probably remain an empty concern on their part, but I can think of one person who’s supremely unlikely to let this slide.”

“… And who’s that?”

Koizumi’s smile took a turn for the malicious. Something in his eyes looked distinctly critical of me. “If we’ve gotten this far and you still don’t know, then we may have to cut your head open and write the name directly on your brain.”

I knew whom he was talking about. “Can’t really believe it, though.” I felt strange, as though there was a large mass of caterpillars on top of my head. “So Haruhi saw Sasaki, heard her refer to herself as my close friend, then got all fuzzy-headed for some reason? Is this her subconscious again?”

“You’re familiar with the concepts of closed space and <Celestials>, but of late their behavior has changed. Closed space is as it always was, but the <Celestials> have been so placid it’s unsettling. Though they still appear, where they would usually be actively destructive, they’re now listless, at loose ends. Only occasionally do they bother striking a building, as though suddenly remembering what they’re supposed to do.”

So those blue monsters were finally acting rationally. What was the downside? I asked.

“As far as we in the Agency are concerned, it matters little. We must destroy the <Celestials> to eliminate closed space.” Koizumi continued: “We have to conclude that the <Celestials>—and consequently, Suzumiya’s subconscious—are at a loss. It’s as though she doesn’t even know what she’s thinking or what she should be thinking. Her subconscious is wandering, lost.”

Freud would laugh in his grave. I’m sure he never imagined his theories would be used so frequently to analyze someone like Haruhi.

“For my part, it seems quickest to assume that Suzumiya is feeling some jealousy toward Sasaki.”

I was gonna have to object to that statement—if for no one’s sake but Haruhi’s. “She’s the kind of girl who thinks of romance as a mental illness, you know.”

“So let me ask you this: do you think Suzumiya is such a keen psychological observer that she’s an authority on the various ways men and women relate to each other?”

Not even remotely, I said.

“Nor do I. She may seem to understand, but she often does not in fact understand. In any case, her heart is no more mature than other girls of her age. From that perspective at least, she is a normal girl. She just assumes rather contrary positions at times.”

You’re one to talk, I told him. Koizumi had no shortage of contrarianism in him.

“You think so?” Koizumi smiled as though having removed a mask, then put his finger to his cheek theatrically. “I must not be making enough effort, for you to so easily see through me.” He spread his hands and shook his head. “To analyze the situation, I would say that Suzumiya has discovered that you have a friend from your past who she never knew about and couldn’t have even imagined up to this point, and it’s causing her to feel things she has trouble articulating. The word ‘jealousy’ is an oversimplification—it’s a more basic, fundamental emotion. Let’s call it ‘surprise.’ Of course you have one or two old friends, and maybe even a girl among those—even Suzumiya understands that much. But for Sasaki to refer to you as her ‘close friend,’ well, nobody would expect that. Not even me, who already knew of her existence.”

“I don’t really get it… No, I don’t get it at all, in fact.”

“During middle school, Suzumiya was mostly isolated, or perhaps even lonely, so hearing the words ‘good friend’ may have caused her to feel a certain pang.”

“But that’s what she wanted. She’s so aloof.”

“And yet still. For example, suppose I had a friend of the opposite sex you knew nothing about, and she suddenly appeared. What would you think?”

“What, do you?” I pushed. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if this guy turned out to have had a secret girlfriend all along.

Koizumi smiled, chagrined. “Perhaps that was a bad example. Let’s not talk about me. What if Asahina had a male friend from her past who was acting overly familiar toward her?”

It would bug me, of course, but—“That’d never happen. Asahina and Nagato did not come to this world to play around.”

Honestly, it wouldn’t kill either of them to play around a little more. And anyway, Asahina’s past was our future.

“This is merely hypothetical. If there were such a situation, how would you feel? I am only guessing, but I’ll bet you’d feel a strange emotion, difficult to put into words. Neither jealousy nor uneasiness. For one thing, Asahina has never appeared particularly aware of the fact that her friend is of the opposite sex, and on the surface seems the same as she’s always been. So being suspicious of her friend is ridiculous. Thus, erasing these feelings from your subconscious is the best course of action. Now consider this situation, but replace Asahina with you, and you with Suzumiya.”

Across the courtyard, a small cheer went up. Evidently a new freshman had decided to join one of the clubs.

Koizumi looked up. “But elements outside our ordinary consciousness are not so easily changed. Thus her unconscious frustration gives rise to closed space and these sluggish <Celestials>. While the root cause may seem clear, it is in fact not so, which is why there is no obvious means to counter it. Although such means may yet exist—” His eyes got narrower still.

“Kyon! Koizumi!” Haruhi strode toward us with heavy footsteps, as though she were trying to break the cobblestones of the courtyard, her body pressed against Asahina’s.

“Wah, whaaaah—!” Asahina’s feet got tangled, owing to Haruhi’s half-again-as-long stride, but Haruhi ignored this and dragged her along like so much captured prey.

I figured she’d bring back some unlucky lemming of a freshman, but much to my surprise, she was empty-handed. So the tag team of maid and Chinese dress hadn’t hooked a single one, eh? It looked like this year’s crop of freshmen was full up on common sense.

Haruhi stopped in front of the monitor that was looping the trailer. “Have there been any interesting applicants? What about with you, Yuki?” she said, still holding on to Asahina.

As I was deep in thought, I got the sense that Nagato shook her head minutely.

“We walked all over the place, but it was totally no good. The guys who started leering at the mention of being able to drink as much of Asahina’s tea as they wanted were obviously disqualified. Whenever we went up to girls, they just ran away, so I guess this year’s just a bad crop.”

Or maybe they’d been mistaken for the cosplay club.

“But I’m sure there’s at least one suitable person somewhere; we just haven’t found him or her yet. Not yet. Kyon! In middle school, did you know any interesting students younger than you? There definitely weren’t any in my school, so anybody from East Central is out. I forgot to mention that until now,” said Haruhi loudly. Her face—

—Her face was shining with a brilliance like the nuclear fusion of a triple star system.

I don’t think it could’ve gotten any brighter.

We strolled back to the room with no results to show for the day’s efforts.

Asahina looked relieved as she straightened her posture and, still in her maid outfit, set about putting the kettle on the portable burner and preparing to make tea. Koizumi and I set about putting away and replacing the tables and cables.

Nagato, being Nagato, crumpled up the literature club flyers and tossed them into the trash bin like so many used tissues, then carefully put the club newsletter sample back on the shelf as though it was some sort of treasure. She then sat mechanically in the corner of the clubroom and opened a hardcover book. Though she was a moderate distance away, I couldn’t imagine she hadn’t heard the conversation between Koizumi and me, but she had the same mutely cool expression and demeanor that she’d had a year ago, which for some reason made me feel better.

Haruhi sat at her desk and rested a finger atop the point of her pyramidal “Brigade Chief” plaque, rattling it around. “There just weren’t any freshmen with a spark. Maybe we’ve gotta expand our search area. All the real talent’s probably going to the athletic clubs. They’re not going to come to us if we just wait. It’s always better to cast your net more, and in a bigger sea.”

Her legs emerging from the Chinese dress, Haruhi wore an impish expression, like a clever child deciding on her next prank. She was excited.

For my part, I thought you’d catch better fish by using a pole than by dredging with a net, but I had no intention of sharing my ideas and thereby being complicit in her plan to entice new members.

“I’m not gonna let the big fish get away either. In fact, I’m thinking of having a look around all the other clubs, like I did last year. I definitely want to stop them from snatching away potential members. With so many students, as least one of them has to be tasty.”

And just what flavor of freshman did she want? I asked. One we could cook and eat would be nice.

“Someone cuter than Mikuru, more obedient than Yuki, and politer than Koizumi—someone like that.”

That was a heck of a hurdle. For one thing, Asahina was the only member she’d had a good reason for bringing in. Statements like “glasses are a turn-on” aside, Nagato was only here as a bonus, since she’d been in the literature club when we took over the room, and Haruhi’s only attraction to Koizumi was because he was a transfer student. I hoped she wasn’t planning on snagging the next student to transfer in around May, I said.

“Our transfer student spot’s already filled by Koizumi, so we don’t need any more. He’s a great lieutenant brigade chief, and we don’t need another character like him. It’s gotta be someone more interesting. The SOS Brigade admits only a select few.” Haruhi booted up the computer and clicked the mouse, her chin cupped in one hand. “I was careless.”

Her carelessness was not a new development.

“Last year we should’ve gone to all the middle schools in the district and recruited promising students early. It’d be a shame if all the best potential members went to other schools. Maybe we should start a satellite brigade in another school. Or establish a prep brigade in a middle school.”

Haruhi’s fancies flew free. I sighed. “Why do you care whether we get more members? Are you trying to field a football team?”

“My SOS Brigade has to go worldwide. Isn’t computer memory increasing all the time? Our goal is the globe! We’ve got to advance along with the rest of the globalizing world!”

So first was computerization, then globalization? I was rather fond of my quiet life. I was a high school student with no special status at all. I knew my place, and I had no intention of trying to shake up the world.

For her part, Haruhi should just start her own school, set herself up as principal, and call it the SOS Academy. She could force every student to join the SOS Brigade. Although now that I thought about it, that was horrifying.

“Ha ha! You’re so stupid, Kyon. I don’t want to set up a corporation,” said Haruhi, laughing it off. “We’re not doing this as a commercial venture!”

Perhaps this was progress. She was talking big, but the Haruhi of last year would’ve forced people to attend an explanatory lecture about the brigade, printed huge numbers of flyers, and foisted them off on absolutely everybody. Maybe it was the glare of the student council president, but this year she seemed to be taking a more underground resistance–style approach.

It seemed she didn’t have any interest in founding new branches or recruiting just anyone into the main brigade. If I had to guess, I’d say she was hoping for someone to come along with some kind of mysterious phenomenon—someone who’d been abducted by aliens, or a time jumper from the future who’d suddenly woken up in the past, or a superpowered human battling evil from another dimension—something like that.

Those were tales I’d once wanted to hear myself.

Now I had no use for them.

I thought about it as I played go with Koizumi, wetting my throat with Asahina’s tea, glancing at a straight-backed Nagato reading her book.

The SOS Brigade couldn’t get any bigger, I thought.

Even if people like our honorable adviser Tsuruya showed up, or we got more clients like Sakanaka, or we even wound up messing around with more people like we did with the computer club, it didn’t seem like anyone other than the five of us could start hanging out in the clubroom the way we did.

That was just my guess, though. I didn’t have any reason for it, and the only people who’d be able to explain why my subconscious had settled on that conclusion were the late Doctors Freud and Jung.

As it would turn out, my premonition was half right and half wrong. The clichéd old phrase “Little did I know” applies.

Nobody could’ve guessed how much of a problem was going to develop. Not Koizumi, probably not Nagato, and perhaps not even Asahina the Elder.

And as for the person responsible, well, who else could it be?

It was Haruhi Suzumiya.