CHAPTER 1

The next day was Friday.

Ever since she was a freshman, Haruhi’s habit was to leave the classroom during breaks, and despite the new school year, this did not change—so when fourth period ended, our fearless brigade chief bolted out of the room, and I was left to eat lunch with the usual combination of Taniguchi and Kunikida.

Never mind Taniguchi—when I saw Kunikida’s guileless face, it reminded me of Sasaki, who I’d seen a few days earlier. Despite my efforts to the contrary, he noticed me looking.

“What’s up? Do you care that much about eel omelets?” asked Kunikida easily, just as Sasaki would’ve done.

“No, it’s nothing,” I hastily replied. “I was just thinking I’m surprised we all wound up in the same class.”

“Yeah, really.” Kunikida stopped pushing his condiments around and looked up. “I’m really happy about it. When I first saw the class sheet, I could hardly believe it.”

I’d naturally thought he’d wind up in the science track, I said.

“That was my plan. But I’m a little weak in the humanities, so I thought I’d emphasize that for a year. I’ll hit the sciences my senior year. Plus, this year they’re only vaguely separated. And there are more electives, so moving from class to class takes a lot of time and trouble. And it’s even worse in the second semester.”

As far as Taniguchi went… eh, who cares?

“It’s too damn cruel, Kyon, buddy!” came Taniguchi’s objection. “I wanted to get into a class with prettier girls. I was aiming for class six, but…” He casually glanced over the girls in the room. “I guess this isn’t much change. Can’t believe I wound up with you guys again.”

He was just as vulgar as ever; there was something pure about that. Hell, why not? Just like last year, once midterm exams came, we could fly low, just above the red line, I told him.

“That’s a promise. I ain’t gonna let that scrap of paper change my life one bit. Count on it.”

He thumped his chest and talked a good line, but I wondered if this was really okay. At the very least, Taniguchi’s existence was not enough to dismiss my mom’s complaints. If only he had some special talent for making the case that school grades were a trivial measure of worth.

“I still can’t believe I’m in the same class as Suzumiya five years running. What rotten luck,” said Taniguchi innocently. But—it did seem very strange. I knew all too well that too-perfect coincidences often had a reason behind them.

Koizumi and I both cocked our heads, although for different reasons. Then, Kunikida spoke up.

“When you’ve got thirty people in a group, the odds are actually better than fifty-fifty that two of them will share a birthday. So maybe it’s not actually that strange,” he said.

I kind of understood and kind of didn’t, I told him.

“Well, want to do the math?”

I didn’t, not particularly. I got my fill of staring at figures and equations in math class. No, he didn’t have to do it in his head either. I didn’t want to compare brainpower. Taking on pointless challenges without any preparation was Haruhi’s specialty, not mine. The only challenge I could participate in with any confidence would be predicting who’s going to wind up sitting behind me when we change seats.

The seat behind me was currently empty, its occupant doing exactly what she did last year, which was to vacate it during lunch. I was sure she was peeping in on the new freshmen’s classrooms. I wondered if anybody thought it was strange.

No doubt if there were even one person who sparked her interest a bit, she’d go charging right into their classroom. I offered silent prayers that any new student unlucky enough to be pounced upon by a bizarre upperclassman wouldn’t head straight for the principal’s office. Not knowing which god or Buddha was responsible for such things, I couldn’t leave any offerings, but in any case, they seemed to have heard my prayers, because just as fifth period started, Haruhi returned, her eyes notably not sparkling.

“Catch anything?” I asked.

“Nothing.” Her answering tone was not so much dejected as it was matter-of-fact. It was like she’d confirmed that the neighborhood pond did not contain any arowana.

After school, I headed for the clubroom with Haruhi, which came as naturally as breathing.

Having advanced a year, we were now in a different school building, and the clubroom was thus closer, although still not what I would call convenient.

“I think it’s convenient,” said Haruhi, swinging her school bag energetically. “The cafeteria and store are closer. Getting a seat in the cafeteria during lunch is pretty hard. I’m always wondering why they don’t add more seats.”

She should take stuff like that to the student council president. If she got some signatures together and brought them to him, the school might actually do something about it, I said.

“I don’t want to owe that jerk a favor,” Haruhi said, quickening her stride and looking away as though suddenly shy. “It’s better not to get help from the forces of evil. I hate people who start taking advantage of you once you owe them. I’ll do something about it on my own power.”

If she started expanding the cafeteria without permission, it wouldn’t go well. The literature club’s budget wasn’t going to cover construction costs.

“If I were going to do it, I wouldn’t ask. Everybody would be happy.”

Maybe, but I hoped she’d give it a miss. Worst case, we’d make the papers. The next time I saw Tsuruya, I’d have to warn her ahead of time, so that Haruhi couldn’t go to her for sponsorship. Of course, a levelheaded person of Tsuruya’s weighty qualifications probably wouldn’t take Haruhi’s proposals at face value, but just in case.

“So, Haruhi, spot any promising new students?” I said, trying to get her attention away from structural changes to the cafeteria.

“Huh?” She went right for the subject change, but still pierced me with a sharp gaze. “I didn’t think you cared. Surprise, surprise. I figured you’d complain about any additions, but I guess even you want an underclassman.”

I did not. Of course, it would be nice if there were a member I outranked, since then I could just pass along all the menial jobs Haruhi assigned to me. With Koizumi as lieutenant brigade chief, Asahina as mascot/secretary/assistant chief, and Nagato, somehow, as literature club president, I was the only member of the brigade without an official role, I said.

“What, you want a title that badly? Fine, I’ll think of one. But you’re gonna have to take a qualification exam. Five written and two practical.”

Forget about it, then. All I wanted was a motor vehicle license.

“There’s a difference between positivity and just giving up. If you stuck to it a little I might give you something.”

If it were something like an armband that said BRIGADE MEMBER #1 on it, I’d pass. That was pretty much the same as FIRST UNDERLING, I said.

“Heh, you noticed?” As Haruhi smiled at me mischievously, we arrived at the door to the clubroom.

It was Haruhi’s habit to open the door without bothering to knock and walk right in like it was her own room, but in case Asahina happened to be in the middle of changing clothes, I immediately turned around, then made sure it was safe to enter by checking through the door’s gap, so nobody could criticize me.

“…”

Nagato was the only one there.

She sat at the corner of the table in her beloved folding chair, quietly reading the memoir of a mathematician. No matter how quickly we came, she always seemed to be here first. Did she never draw cleaning duty? It was possible.

Haruhi tossed her bag onto the table, then sat down at the brigade chief’s desk and pushed the power button on the computer. I left my bag next to Haruhi’s and parked my butt in the seat that had somehow become my usual one.

As I listened to the computer’s hard drive crunch away, I stared at the beat-up go board we’d left on the table yesterday. It was an unfinished game. The mosaic of black and white pieces was on the verge of completion. If played through, black was going to win by three and a half pieces. Even I could tell that, so it had to be a pretty amateur-level go problem.

“Kyon, tea.”

Just wait until Asahina came, I said. It wasn’t an overstatement to say that her skill with tea was on par with that of legendary tea master Oribe Furuta, if he got reincarnated somehow.

“No, that is an overstatement. What’re you thinking—this isn’t tea ceremony. Although I guess she’d be certifiable as the founder of the Asahina School of Tea. Sounds like a cult.”

Haruhi’s eyes scanned the screen. She pulled the keyboard toward her and started typing something. I wondered what she was composing.

“Come to think of it, you were doing that yesterday too. What’re you typing? An updated journal page for the site?” I asked.

“It’s a secret. A classified composition. If it leaked out of the brigade, there’d be big trouble. And if it gets out, I’m blaming you.” She grinned and continued her skillful typing. She was pretty good at it.

I shrugged, then wandered over to the refrigerator and got a bottle of oolong tea out. I poured some into my own cup, then gave some to Nagato and Haruhi.

Nagato didn’t look at the cup I put in front of her, while Haruhi snatched hers out of my hand and drained it in one go. I stole a glance at the computer. It looked like there was a new word processing document open on the screen.

“Another flyer?”

“Wrong,” said Haruhi, thrusting her empty teacup at me. “This is in case something goes wrong. It’s like a pop quiz. Don’t give me that look. I’m not gonna make you take it.”

So whom was it a test for? I asked.

“Does it matter? Don’t look. It makes it harder to write.” Haruhi covered the screen, so I retreated to my seat.

I nursed my cold oolong tea, and with nothing better to do, played pieces on the go board, and shortly Koizumi arrived. When I saw his face it made me feel a little better—though it pains me to admit it, it’s what I felt. I’d been starting to wonder if he was going to use his “job” as an excuse to miss the club entirely. Plus, playing games by myself was boring.

“Homeroom ran long,” he explained needlessly, closing the door behind him. He looked down at the board, faintly pleased. “I don’t see any plays left. I resign.”

His standard smile. It might have been forced, since Haruhi was there, but it looked normal to me. Koizumi sat across from me, taking the pieces off of the go board and placing them back in their container. “How about a match?”

Sure, why not. But it better be a handicap match. It wasn’t much fun beating the same person over and over again. Unlike Haruhi, I cared about the contents of the game more than winning or losing, I said.

“That’s a relief.” Koizumi chose black and put four handicap pieces on the board.

Koizumi and I silently played through the opening. Nagato was absorbed in her reading. The only sounds in the room were the clacking of the keyboard on which Haruhi typed and the shouts of the sports clubs that leaked in through the window.

It was a quiet early spring day. Nice, peaceful, and nothing was changing.

About five minutes passed that way, but eventually there was a hesitant knock on the door.

“I’m sorry I’m late.” Asahina entered with her ever-pleasant demeanor. Next to her—

“Yahoo!” Tsuruya waved her hand energetically, shining her full-face smile into the room. “Greetings, my friends! I have once again brought tidings of an invitation! Ha ha ha, ’tis the second annual flower-viewing party!”

It was, she informed us, to be held during our upcoming break in the spring, the next Golden Week.

The invitations that Tsuruya passed out were on high-quality rice paper, and it was like they were handwritten by Yan Zhenqing himself, where the only thing I could read was the date. If Haruhi hadn’t read them aloud, I would’ve had to look up an art expert at a museum somewhere in the phone book.

Once Asahina finished changing into her maid outfit—Koizumi and I removed ourselves from the room during this—she served tea, which the SOS Brigade’s occasional guest drank from with an “Aah,” then spoke.

“Last time we went to see the Yoshino blossoms. This time we’re having a Yaezakura viewing party! ’Cause I mean, back in ancient times, that’s what they were talking about when they said ‘cherry blossom’! They get a lot of caterpillars on ’em this time of year, but they’re still so elegant.” Tsuruya gulped down the rest of her tea, closed her eyes, and began:

“Yaezakura blossoms, that at Nara, ancient seat of our state, have bloomed—”

Haruhi picked up the second part of the poem:

“—In our nine-fold palace court, shed their sweet perfume today,” she recited from the Hyakunin Isshu poetry collection with a firm nod. “It’s true, it’s worth criticizing the modern tendency to praise new varieties of gardening. While they’re blooming, the poor little yae trees are still working hard—we should definitely try to find a spot to see them. Good job, Tsuruya.”

I doubted there was anyone who deserved the phrase “good job” as much as Tsuruya did. I asked if the Tsuruya clan happened to be a noble family that could be traced all the way back to the Asuka period.

“That’s ancient history, so heck if I know! If you want to find out, you can have a look at our genealogy, but it’ll be a pain!” she rattled off, sounding rather knowledgeable. I hoped she stayed friends with Asahina. They were like a pair of queens—hearts and diamonds. So long as Tsuruya was with her, no miscreant would ever dare make a pass at Asahina. Haruhi? Oh, yeah—she was the joker. The kind you need for five-card stud.

As I gazed happily at Asahina in her maid outfit, a sight I doubted I’d ever tire of, Tsuruya and Haruhi continued.

“In the peaceful light of the ever-shining sun in the days of spring—”

“—why do the cherry’s new-blown blooms scatter like restless thoughts?”

“The depths of the hearts of humankind cannot be known, but in my birthplace—”

“—the plum blossoms smell the same as in the years gone by.”

It seemed the two of them had started a Hyakunin Isshu recitation contest.

“On a mountain slope, solitary, uncompanioned, stands a cherry tree—”

“—except for you, lonely friend, to others I am unknown.”

“If I lay my head upon his arm in the dark, of a short spring night—”

“—this innocent dream pillow will be the death of my good name.”

“When I look up at the wide-stretched plain of heaven, is the moon the same—”

“—that rose on Mount Mikasa, in the land of Kasuga?”

“From Mount Yoshino blows a chill, autumnal wind. In the deepening night—”

“—the ancient village shivers: Sounds of beating cloth I hear.”

By this point, the poems they were reciting didn’t have anything to do with spring blossoms. They’d gone right past summer on into fall.

“Hah! You’re pretty good. How about this one?” said Tsuruya, amusement on her face. “The mountain blossoms have bloomed, and in the far-off clouds—”

“Huh?” Haruhi, despite completing every other poem, was stumped. “I don’t remember that one. Whose is it?”

Someone unexpected answered Tsuruya’s trick question. It was the first time that day I heard her flat voice: “—I see the white thread of a waterfall.” Nagato turned the page of her book. “By Toshiyori Minamoto,” she added.

“Wow, impressive. That’s the omniscient sorceress Yuki for ya!” Tsuruya complimented Nagato with a cackle, but Nagato’s eyes were unmoved. I wasn’t sure what was supposed to be so funny. Maybe I’d ask later.

Tsuruya rattled off the openings of three more poems, all of which Nagato completed.

---

---

“Right!” said Tsuruya, satisfied. “Thanks, Mikuru—the tea was tasty! I’ll be counting on you this year again!” she said with gusto, and left the room. She was like a speedy, small-scale typhoon. Just when you thought she’d arrived, she was already long gone.

You couldn’t deny that Tsuruya was a genius at brightening a room. But something about her bothered me. I couldn’t conceive of what her face would look like if she were crying. She’s something else, that’s for sure.

Haruhi continued slurping her tea. “Well, that’s one more thing to do over Golden Week. Hmm, yeah, we should all compose short poems while looking at the blossoms. Ones good enough to put in a compilation and pass on through the ages.”

Apparently bored with typing, Haruhi gazed at the invitation Tsuruya left behind as though it were some sort of historical artifact. Just when I was about to ask her to let us compose jokey haiku instead, she seemed to suddenly remember something.

“Be that as it may, I’ve got to present what we’re doing tomorrow.” Haruhi jumped up on her desk, straddling it triumphantly. “I now pronounce the SOS Brigade’s first meeting of the new school year open!” she cried with a first-rate smile.

Like me, Haruhi seemed to have neither memory nor record of the total number of meetings we’d had, so she was happy to reset it and continue on to the rest of her agenda.

“This Saturday—that’s tomorrow!—we’re all meeting in front of the station at 9:00 AM. Don’t you think it’s about time for the mysteries of the world to show up already? We’ve been doing setup work for a long time now, and I get the feeling they’re ready to answer our efforts! And it’s springtime! The weather’s warming up, so we’ll catch them while they’re napping!”

This wasn’t exactly the retired-from-active-duty Shamisen we were talking about, and anyway, you couldn’t even catch a stray cat that way, I pointed out.

“Listen up, Kyon. Pretty soon it’s going to be a year since I started the club. The deadline’s approaching. So far, we’ve got exactly zero to show for our efforts.”

To show whom?

“Ourselves! You can afford to be kind to other people, but you have to be hard on yourself, or you’ll never amount to anything! What’s the phrase again? ‘Small profits, big sales’? No… ‘self-sufficiency’? That’s not it…‘Trials and tribulations’? No… Mikuru, do you know it?”

“Huh?” Asahina, suddenly called upon, put her index finger to her chin. “Umm, ‘self-insurance’?”

“Perhaps you mean ‘reward the good, punish the bad,’ ” suggested Koizumi as he gazed at a black stone he held between his fingers. Just as I was trying to think of the right word—

“No compound term describing that concept exists,” said Nagato flatly, and I happily abandoned my turn to say something. Haruhi would have to invent her own term. Maybe something like, “Love thy neighbor, criticize thyself.”

Haruhi turned not to me, but to Nagato. “Really? I could’ve sworn there was one.” This seemed to satisfy our brigade chief, who normally gave us no more credence than she would an ill-fitting wooden door. “Okay, then, that’s it for the meeting. You’re free until it’s time to go home!”

She flopped down into her chair and started fussing with the computer again.

When the chime rang to drive away what students remained on school grounds, Nagato closed her book, and with that as our signal, we brought our day to a close. In a way, it was similar to how cicadas measured and signaled time with their buzzing.

After we were done waiting for Asahina to change, we put the clubroom behind us. The sun was on the verge of setting, and the air still had a chill to it.

As we descended the slope that began the route home from school, a gap naturally opened up between the boys and girls. Haruhi and Asahina walked side-by-side ahead, with Nagato stepping along silently behind them.

A few meters back, Koizumi and I quietly took in the sight of the three girls ahead of us. It was a good chance, so I went ahead and asked.

“So, how’re you doing lately?”

“Today’s the same as yesterday. Currently no change,” Koizumi answered with a brittle, dry-noodle smile. “I may be worrying over nothing. From Nagato’s and Asahina’s reactions, they don’t seem to have taken any special notice of Sasaki. Hopefully the recent incidences of closed space are merely a fluke.”

A bit of time had passed since the new semester started, but neither Nagato nor Asahina had made mention of my former classmate. Of course they hadn’t. I’d have a nervous breakdown if I had to be so careful every time I wanted to talk to an old acquaintance, I said.

“For anyone else, you needn’t be so careful. This is a problem because of Sasaki specifically.”

She was just a slightly eccentric girl, and I just happened to run into her, I told him.

“Hey, I wholly agree with you. I’m confident you’re right. From our perspective, that’s that, with no further reasoning necessary. What I’m worried about is other people misunderstanding—and those who would deliberately abuse that misunderstanding.”

“The heck are you talking about?” I couldn’t believe Kunikida or Nakagawa had anything to gain from that.

“Within your circle of friends, those two are harmless. However—” Koizumi said to my doubts, carefully re-shouldering his bag and shrugging. “No, never mind. If my worries are baseless, then so much the better. Oh, you can relax on one count, though. Sasaki will not be subject to any additional harm. The Agency will do no such thing. There is no reason to.”

Of course there wasn’t. What was he talking about?

“My apologies. I was merely attempting to dispel your anxieties, but please forget it. It was unnecessary.”

Wearing a sad, sad smile that would probably melt the heart of any obliging freshman girl, Koizumi faced forward. He was looking ahead past Nagato’s head to Asahina’s and Haruhi’s profiles as they happily chatted.

Later that day.

The usual walking-home-from-school scene played out, and we all went our separate ways in front of the Koyo Park train station.

“See you tomorrow.” Haruhi gave me a look that seemed to say, Try to show up before me for once, though I wasn’t sure. She turned her back and walked away, her school uniform’s ribbon and skirt hem fluttering. Asahina waved and followed the brigade chief. When I thought to look for her, Nagato was already receding into the distance toward her apartment.

“I hope nothing happens tomorrow,” monologued Koizumi quietly, and I thought that was exactly what would happen.

—However.

Koizumi was naive. And I was naive too.

Things were already happening. It was just that nobody had noticed, but things had already started. Starting with me, all of us had long since been tossed into the maelstrom. It wasn’t just the SOS Brigade, it was everyone—Kunikida, Taniguchi, Nakagawa, Sudoh, regardless of whether I knew them or not.

But days would pass before I would realize what was really happening. The next day? Hardly. But something that seemed like an omen would happen the next day.

Was it merely foreshadowing, was it a fated coincidence, or had someone arranged it…?

Saturday morning, 9:00 AM. I reunited with two individuals, was introduced to someone I’d never met before, and was told that someone else I knew was hiding nearby…

That morning, I somehow woke up ahead of both my alarm clock and my sister, and went about my morning routine of putting Shamisen—who slept with his head on my pillow—on the floor, then sitting up properly.

The refreshing awakening was cheer itself, and one I had not experienced on a weekend morning in some time. My feet were so light it felt like my body weight had been halved. Maybe the secret to good health was waking naturally, instead of relying on my sister or the alarm clock.

I stepped lightly out of my room and enjoyed my first sister-free breakfast in quite some time, then changed clothes, got on my bike, and headed off. So early! The clock hadn’t yet struck eight. At this rate, I had a chance to beat Haruhi. Or maybe Koizumi would’ve caught my drift and taken the trouble to show up last. Not that it would’ve been unreasonable to have Haruhi treat us all for once, but no doubt the Agency’s wallet was deeper than a high school student’s. I bet Koizumi made good money at his “part-time job.”

As I pedaled happily along, I saw a confetti-scattering of pink out of the corner of my eye. All it would take was one more good rain shower to bring this year’s cherry blossom display to an end.

Once I rode my bike to the entrance of the parking lot in front of the station, I took a look around.

I had the premonition that Sasaki was going to pop out of nowhere, but it goes without saying that my self-proclaimed middle school “really good friend” was nowhere to be seen. For Koizumi’s sake, I was relieved. Not for my sake.

A look at my watch told me that I still had half an hour before the arranged meeting time. I had time to kill.

Humming as I left my bike in a paid parking space, I made my way calmly toward the rendezvous point and saw that nobody from the SOS Brigade was there.

But I was unable to enjoy a satisfied smile. Quite the contrary—I felt as though clouds had suddenly obscured the once-bright rays of the sun.

I stopped dead in my tracks, stunned.

“Heya, Kyon,” Sasaki greeted me with the grin of someone who’s successfully fooled another. “We meet again. I’m genuinely pleased. You might not be, but I definitely see a bit of fun in this situation. Although I must say it’s a bit more interesting than it is exciting.”

I stood there like a dead tree.

Sasaki was not alone. Two other girls attended her, one on each side. One of them had a face I’d never forget. It was carved into a wanted poster in my mind. The only reason I didn’t slug her right on the spot was the self-control I’d built up over the past year.

“You…!” How dare she be so nonchalant.

“Hello.” She ducked her head and smiled. “It has been a while. How is your little time traveler, Asahina? Hee hee, don’t make such a face. We’ve pulled back from such methods.”

The incident from months earlier, in mid-February, went running through my mind.

Asahina had come back from eight days in the future. I’d called her Michiru Asahina. She and I had run around together, accomplishing various goals as directed by letters from Asahina the Elder. We’d played a prank by nailing an empty can to the ground, placed the gourd-shaped rock on the Tsuruya family mountain, dealt with the turtle and the boy—and then there was the thing with the mysterious data chip and the nasty rival time travelers…

And finally, Asahina’s kidnapping.

At the end of a long car chase, one of the kidnappers who’d appeared with that other new time traveler guy was now standing right in front of me. She’d seemed like their leader. The girl who’d faced down Miss Mori’s terrifying smile without even flinching.

She was now standing next to Sasaki, right before my very eyes.

Whether she knew about the history between the girl and me or not, Sasaki cut in with one arm. “I’ll introduce you, Kyon. This is Kyoko Tachibana, my… well, let’s call her my acquaintance. I’ve just come to know her and haven’t shared enough discourse to call her a friend yet. Though some of what Tachibana says is very interesting indeed.” Sasaki chuckled throatily. “By your face, I’d guess you’ve already met her somewhere. And that it wasn’t a very happy meeting. I expected that, though.”

“Sasaki…” I said in a hoarse, ancient-sounding voice. “Stop hanging around with jerks like her. She’s—”

—our enemy.

“It certainly looks that way,” said Sasaki, unconcerned. “But she doesn’t seem to be my enemy. It’s very interesting, actually. She’s told me some truly unbelievable things. They’re hard for me to understand, but just thinking about them is a nice diversion. Like mental aerobics. Concepts I can’t accept, but which I can recognize.”

The kidnapper—Kyoko Tachibana—smiled, her lip twisting slightly. “Oh, but Sasaki, I want you to accept them, by all means. Otherwise”—she looked at me with eyes like a caged puppy’s at the front of a pet shop—“he doesn’t seem like he’ll listen. You won’t hear even three seconds of what I have to say. Am I wrong?”

She wasn’t wrong. She was dead right. Anyone who would dare to kidnap Asahina should be sent off to a courtroom to be judged, without a lawyer. Why wasn’t Koizumi here yet? What about Miss Mori and Mr. Arakawa, or the Tamaru brothers?

“Kyon, are you listening?”

I told Sasaki to wait. I was in the middle of looking around for someone, anyone I could trust.

“Sorry about that. But there’s one more person I feel it would be good to introduce you to. Could you let me have the initiative to do that?”

Who was it, I wanted to know. If it was that nasty time traveler guy, then I didn’t need any introductions.

“I think I have an idea of who you’re talking about, but that is not who I’m talking about at the moment.” Sasaki gestured with her hand to the person standing opposite Kyoko Tachibana. “She told me she wished to occupy a shared space of a radius of two meters with you. So I figured why not introduce you, since she gave me the sense that if we let her be, she’d become even more of a problem for you. I guess I’d describe her as being more queer than strange, somehow.”

I looked where Sasaki indicated I should.

At first I didn’t know what I was seeing.

Like a drop of black ink plopped into water, a dark and hazy fog… that was my first impression, and it took a few seconds for my brain to recognize that the image received by my retinas was that of a girl—a girl wearing the black uniform of Koyo Academy.

Yet the moment of recognition came with the sense that this girl had been standing stock still, right here, for a century. What could this aura be, I wondered.

She stood out in a crowd—it was a tired old phrase, but I’d never seen anybody in my life more deserving of it.

“Wha…?”

It was absolutely the first time I’d met her. Even a glance at this girl would’ve been unforgettable.

But what was this wintry, snow-covered-mountain chill that I felt? It seemed like I’d felt it before—

She slowly raised her head, and the moment her face and eyes were revealed, every hair on my body stood up. She had to be a ghost. She wasn’t a person. She was no human.

“—”

Her face was an inorganic white, with eyes like black crystal, and she had dark hair, so dark it seemed sprayed with a matte finish. Her hair was long enough to extend past her waist, and it was wavy to boot—in its volume and length it was like a great mop. It spread out left and right as much as it fell down, such that you could say most of her surface area was comprised of hair. It was like nothing I’d seen before, and it wouldn’t have surprised me if she’d flapped her hair like wings and flown up into the sky. It was inescapably prominent, but I hadn’t even noticed it until Sasaki had introduced her, which was deeply strange.

A quick look around me revealed that, indeed, while passersby were noticing Sasaki and Kyoko Tachibana, they were not looking at her at all.

“Who are you?”

“—”

She stood there, not so much as making a sound or blinking, staring at me as if she were trying to identify a single pigeon among a flock at a shrine. It was a more mechanical gaze than any machine. Even the cheapest digital camera’s lens had more emotion than her eyes.

“—”

Her expressionlessness was similar to Nagato’s, but of a different type. The manufacturer and designer were different. If Nagato was like an icicle in a field, this girl was like dry ice. She wouldn’t melt; she would just sublimate and disappear.

Her pale lips moved out of obligation. “—Ah…” Her mouth opened and from it emerged, surprisingly enough, not white smoke but a regular human voice. Contrary to what I expected, I must confess that I was taken aback.

“I am—an observer. The time—in this place… moves very… slowly. The temperature—tiresome.”

The quality of her voice made her sound so drowsy she was on the verge of death. If voices could have a color, hers was the monochrome sepia of old film.

Not taking her eyes off me, she continued. “—This time… there is—no mistake—you are… him,” she said incomprehensibly.

Her appearance being what it was, it overlapped with my impression of what was going on here. Still, what was this unease? This feeling of déjà vu?

“—I am—” she said, very slowly, then continued. “Kuyoh—”

“Kuyoh?” The instant I was going to ask what characters she used for that surname, she continued.

“Suoh—”

“Huh?” So it was Kuyoh Suoh, then?

“…—Suoh—Kuyoh—”

What? Which was it? Having two surnames was strange enough, but now it sounded like she was short a gear or five in her head.

Sasaki chuckled quietly, which brought me back to reality. “Kyon, she’s always like that. Interesting, isn’t she? I call her Kuyoh, but what she’s lacking isn’t gears, but a sense of concrete individuality. She doesn’t fully understand the notion of being an individual. No, no—she’s not sick. That’s just the way she is. I can’t explain it any other way.”

Whatever her problem was, trying to talk to this Kuyoh girl was way harder than conversing with Nagato, even back when I’d first met her. Wait—Nagato?

—Could she be somewhere nearby?

—It was possible.

The SOS Brigade’s winter trip. The blizzard on the ski slope. The phantom mansion that had appeared in the snow. Nagato collapsed with a fever there, and with her hint, Haruhi’s intuition, and Koizumi’s quick wits, we escaped, and now the whole episode seemed like a daydream.

Extraterrestrial beings unrelated to the Data Overmind—the Macro-Spacial Cosmic Entity.

“I see.” I burned the image of her face into my brain cells so I’d never forget it. “So it’s you. The other aliens, not like Nagato.”

“—Aliens…—? What—is that…”

“Don’t play games with me.” It was immediately obvious, even to me, what was going on here. The kidnapper, Kyoko Tachibana, was in opposition to Koizumi’s Agency. That nasty guy from the future was Asahina’s counterpart, no question. So by elimination, the answer was clear. The one dealing with Nagato was this Kuyoh Suoh girl—bingo. I was assaulted by the urge to yell, Tallyho!

A conversation I’d had with Koizumi on the way back from the Tsuruya mansion suddenly came back to me.

—Let us suppose, hypothetically, that there are Nations A and B, who (redacted) are opposed by nations C and D, respectively, whereupon C and D ally themselves—

So it had finally happened. If Nagato’s Data Overmind were F, then this girl was the adversary of F.

I stood there on my guard, and she looked at me like I were a bronze bell in a temple somewhere.

“—Your—” she said, in a voice that wavered like an old cassette tape. “—Eyes—very—beautiful…”

It was a perfectly meaningless line.

Conclusion: she was an interface far cruder than Nagato, Kimidori, or even the late Ryoko Asakura. Trying to uncover her true intentions was nothing more than a waste of time. And I didn’t want to know, anyway. I had no intention of getting to know her, I said.

“That’s what you would say, Kyon,” said Sasaki, holding her stomach to keep from bursting out laughing. “But they’re all I have. Nobody else would get close to me. Is there a wide variety of interesting people like Kuyoh at North High? That seems quite nice, but unfortunately I’m not a North High student. I might complain about it, but I have to spend two more years where I am. If I can manage to get into the college I’m aiming for, I have every intention of enjoying it to death.”

“Sasaki,” I said to my former friend. “Do you know what these people really are?”

“They made me listen, so yes, I know. It’s a rather incredible story. If you want to know whether I believe it or not, I wasn’t sure.” Sasaki’s eyes crinkled as she smiled. “But I can tell by your reaction—they’re the real thing.” She cast her gaze over Kuyoh and Kyoko Tachibana. “An extraterrestrial humanoid interface and a limited superhuman. And a time traveler, was it? Seems closer to triple trouble than it does to three of a kind.”

Knock it off, Sasaki. Don’t give me this pointless chatter. You’ll only repeat my mistake. Damn—Kuyoh the ghost was one thing, but I probably would’ve treated Kyoko Tachibana differently if this had been our first meeting. But since I already knew her smug, indifferent face, I couldn’t help but have an attitude. But Sasaki had a sharp mind and sharp eyes. Even if I tried to sway her now, my arguments wouldn’t have any teeth.

Kyoko Tachibana the ringleader still had that warm smile of hers on; you’d never guess she was a criminal. Had her actions back in February just been a deliberate setup for her performance now? Which meant the same was true for that smug time-traveling bastard. Where the hell was he, anyway?

I was looking around suspiciously when Kyoko Tachibana spoke up.

“He said he was going to skip this ‘ridiculous errand.’ He’s around somewhere, but he won’t be showing up today.”

She emphasized the word “today,” making it clear that she was delivering the word from him.

Well, the feeling was mutual—I didn’t want to see his face either. In fact, I wanted to decline acquaintance with the two mysterious girls in front of me too, I said.

“Well, we can’t have that. No matter how much we might delay it, it would always come to this eventually. And we’ve waited quite some time. Hasn’t it been long enough?” She closed her mouth and laughed a voiceless laugh. “I’m sure he feels the same way. That which must come, will come. The quicker wound is the lighter one, isn’t it?”

She stressed the word “he,” and I thought she was still referring to the time-traveler guy, but I was wrong.

Kyoko Tachibana’s gaze passed through me as though I were invisible and looked behind me. A chill of terror ran up my spine. It’s often occurred to me that you see words like “chill” or “terror” or “indescribable” all the time, but the experiences they actually describe are very rare—as rare as seeing a spider carrying a piece of mochi or onion on its back.

All was lost. I knew that now. I felt the chill of an indescribable terror.

I looked behind me.

Koizumi was standing there. He must’ve come from the ticket booth and was dressed in a casual but completely flawless outfit, hands in his pockets as though he’d been waiting for me to notice him.

And if it had been just Koizumi, that would’ve been great. He was the only North High student I could count on to debate the trio of opponents I faced.

“Uh…” I said, feeling a drop of nervous sweat.

In what could only be thought of as the worst possible situation, next to Koizumi stood the wielder of absolute power over the SOS Brigade, Haruhi Suzumiya, regarding me as though she were a powerful feudal lord returning to punish a corrupt magistrate. Nagato stood diagonally behind her, and even Asahina was there.

In other words, the members of the SOS Brigade had, at some point, assembled at the rendezvous point. And worse, they now formed a wall, like defenders trying to stop a free kick, keeping Sasaki and me out.

I checked my watch and saw that I still had fifteen minutes before nine o’clock. I didn’t know how long they’d been there, but it looked like despite my not being late, I was still going to be last to arrive.

But this was not the time to be worrying about such trivialities.

Haruhi met my gaze and immediately started striding over. Behind her trailed the rest, like three ladies in waiting. Koizumi was dressed impeccably—it must be tiring, keeping that up—while Nagato, it went without saying, was wearing her school uniform, and Asahina wore a conservatively fashionable spring outfit.

I felt like an air traffic controller who was watching huge clouds and a low-pressure front closing in on the radar screen.

Haruhi stopped like an airport drug-sniffing dog having caught the scent of cannabis. “I was about to compliment you for managing to arrive early, but what’s this? A prior engagement?”

“It’s just a coincidence,” answered Sasaki—but looking at me, not Haruhi. “If you live around here, this is the obvious place to meet up. I promised to meet with some friends here. Kyon, just like you, I have some friends I’ve made who are unbeknownst to you. We’ve now met up, and we’ll be leaving.”

That was a relief. Sorry, but I wanted them gone as soon as possible. And could she do me the favor of not going to the café nearby? I asked. That’s where we were headed next. We’d be in trouble if there weren’t enough seats.

“Very well. I’ll consider that. It would be awkward if we met up again just after parting ways. I think we’ll be getting on the train and going elsewhere,” Sasaki answered, understanding my intention, then bowed to Haruhi. “Suzumiya, I’ll leave Kyon in your hands. No doubt even in high school he doesn’t put much effort into studying or club activities, does he? If he doesn’t do something before his mother’s patience runs out, he’ll be forced to go to cram school, just like he had been in middle school. I imagine that’ll happen around summer vacation.”

“Uh. Er. Yeah.” Haruhi mumbled some vague words in order to avoid being totally speechless; her eyes were round like a kid who found a bug she’d never seen before in the mountains.

If it had been someone’s goal to shake me up, these two were more than enough. But I was well aware that there was more going on.

On a weekend in front of a busy train station, there was nothing particularly noticeable about a group of high school students.

But on that corner, powerful forces had collided with each other—somehow I could hear the impossible sound of their grating.

Just as Sasaki showed Haruhi a smile, Kyoko Tachibana and Kuyoh were looking in different directions. In Kyoko Tachibana’s eyes I saw the reflection of our stylishly dressed lieutenant brigade chief.

They did not greet each other. Koizumi’s smiling poker face did not change. He seemed somehow annoyed, but I think I was the only one who noticed. On the other hand, Kyoko Tachibana had the satisfied smile of the young actress finally being on the big stage for the first time.

But they were not the source of the discordant sound. Two opposing humans could never produce such a thunder.

It was like a continental plate colliding with an ocean shelf, and it inspired a psychologically unsettling sensation—

“…”

“—”

The two forms of Nagato and Kuyoh stared at each other, unmoving.

Now that I thought about it, I’d borne witness to Nagato’s anger a few times. The challenge against the computer club, and when the student council president had threatened to dissolve the literature club. I hadn’t had the time to take note of her expression when she’d fought Ryoko Asakura, and it’s possible she hadn’t yet developed that emotion at the time.

But now, I finally understood.

My ability to detect changes in Nagato’s emotional state, that ability I was so proud of, was still only at a middling level.

“…”

Nagato’s clear, honest eyes and intently expressionless face were radiating a terrifying emptiness. In her transparent eyes was reflected the form of Kuyoh Suoh, the alien pseudo-human representative of some other intelligence.

The bustling noise of the people passing by us seemed to come from somewhere far, far away from where we were. I wouldn’t have been surprised if the earth split and a giant cave cricket emerged.

The sense of unreality made it feel as though we were trapped in some alternate dimension.

“Um, excuse me…”

The feeling was dispelled by a fairy who had descended to Earth, a figure who engaged both my optic nerve and my protective instincts.

“Er, Kyon… what’s wrong? You don’t look well…” said Asahina, looking up at me worriedly. “Have you caught a cold? Oh—you’re sweating. Let me get a handkerchief…”

She reached into her purse and retrieved a flower-patterned handkerchief, which she offered to me.

---

---

It was thanks to her that I snapped out of it. “I’m fine, Asahina.”

I didn’t want to soil her lovely little handkerchief with my sweat. My shirt sleeve would suffice just fine for that.

I was briefly thankful to that future bastard. Since he wasn’t here, Asahina didn’t have anyone to glare at, unlike Koizumi or Nagato.

I was sweating like I’d been thrust onto the stage of a live televised broadcast of a presidential campaign speech without a script. I wiped it off.

“I’ll be going, Kyon,” said Sasaki, who’d been having some kind of a conversation with Haruhi. “Oh, that’s right—when you have time, could you give Sudou a call? He’s started planning the reunion, see. He got in touch with me again, and I guess he wants you to be in charge of contacting people at North High.”

Why would he tell that to her instead of me? Maybe he was more interested in Sasaki than Okamoto, I said.

“Hardly,” said Sasaki immediately. “I’ve never done anything to make somebody like me. Never treated anybody that way either. You should know that better than anyone, right, Kyon?”

I did not, in fact, know that.

“Oh, really?” Sasaki chuckled. “We’ll just leave it at that, then,” she said cryptically, then waved her raised hand. “See you.”

Sasaki walked past me toward the ticket booth, and Kyoko Tachibana and Kuyoh quietly began to move. The former affected an air of blithe ignorance, while the latter seemed like a vague fog.

Koizumi and Nagato remained silent as though practicing Zen meditation, while Asahina was the only one who stared. She never failed to put me at ease. She was so lovely it made me dizzy. I love you, Asahina! I want to hold you in my arms!

As we watched the three forms disappear toward the station, Haruhi muttered, “What a weirdo. Hmm, still, she is awfully interesting, considering she’s one of your friends. Although she does seem a little contrived.”

I bet she’d consider that a compliment. That’s just the kind of person Sasaki was, I said.

“Yeah, she does seem to have more friends than you.”

It was true that she was a more social person than I was. But still, Sasaki.

I suppressed a sigh, and turned the thought over in my gut.

She didn’t have to go and make friends with aliens, time travelers, and espers. There’s gotta be a limit to expanding your horizons.

But maybe I shouldn’t have been thinking about that stuff. My head wasn’t exactly in the game at the time.

Kyoko Tachibana’s match was Koizumi, Kuyoh Suoh’s was Nagato, and the nameless time traveler guy’s was Asahina.

So what about Sasaki? She had completely slipped my mind.

It had never occurred to me to wonder who she’d be matched up against.

A few minutes after parting ways with Sasaki and her two superfluous sidekicks, the five of us piled into the café out of a sense of obligation. This was done in order to quietly listen to Haruhi regale us with her plans for the day.

This time, at least, the café visit shouldn’t be my treat. This was the second time I’d been the first to arrive at the rendezvous point, and while I should’ve been able to commemorate the occasion, I wasn’t taking any pleasure in it at all, since I’d hadn’t actually been able to feel like I was waiting for anyone. It made me nostalgic for the one time I’d waited for Haruhi alone, when Koizumi, Nagato, and Asahina were absent. I mean, I’d wound up paying then too, but still.

“We all came to the ticket booth together, right?” said Haruhi, slurping her ice cream loudly. “Therefore, nobody was last. You just happened to be first. Therefore, we’ll just split the check.”

“Therefore,” my foot. She even said it twice. Reusing adverbs made her sound stupid. And she shouldn’t just go making new rules off the top of her head. Maybe I’d just conspire to show up doing the Oklahoma Mixer with Asahina or Nagato, I said.

“That’s right out,” she said, stirring her straw around. “I can’t have you coordinating ahead of time. And I might as well tell you that I’m impossible to trick. If I find out, that’s ten times the usual fine.”

And just who was going to investigate that? If we made sure our stories matched, there’d be no way to catch us, and the fair trade commission would be all over Haruhi, but—whatever. For ten times the fine, she’d have to have the bank issue a notice of deficit.

“Anyway, about today’s plan.” Haruhi finished her ice water and looked over the group. I did likewise, looking at the other three members.

Asahina clasped her cup of Ceylon tea elegantly between both hands as she listened with her usual intentness to Haruhi, Nagato gazed into her barely touched glass of apricot juice, and Koizumi had his arms folded, wearing his usual smile.

Appearance-wise, there was no change in the members of the SOS Brigade. Nagato aside, Koizumi’s dedication to business-as-usual was admirable. I’d have to mention it to them later, I thought.

It would have to be later, I thought, because the next scene would surely be Haruhi making us draw lots to split up, but then—

“I’ve decided to stop splitting into groups,” she said. “I’ve been thinking that maybe the reason we haven’t found anything is because we’re splitting into groups of two and three. Even if we can only cover one spot at a time, it’s easier to notice something when there are more people looking. Five people is more than double two, after all.” Haruhi gave me a questioning look. “Especially you, Kyon—you haven’t been seriously looking for mysterious phenomena at all. You were even sleeping in the library once!”

So she remembered that. I spotted Nagato and Asahina move slightly out of the corner of my eye.

“Hey, Haruhi. These mysterious things you’re looking for—what are they, again? Sorry, I’ve forgotten them, so could you refresh my memory?”

“This is the most basic of basics, so remember it well!” she said, irritated, brushing a strand of hair from her cheek. “Basically anything bizarre is fine. Anything questionable, anything puzzling, anything that seems like a mystery or riddle, places where time or space are distorted, aliens pretending to be humans, and anything else like that.”

Most of the things she was suggesting could be explained by the people that surrounded her right now, I thought, and sighed inwardly.

I’d have to find another time to have a talk with Nagato and Koizumi. Trying to secretly converse while we were all together was not a good idea. It was way too risky.

Given Nagato’s and Koizumi’s expressions, and the fact that Asahina was being her normal self, and the fact that my future self hadn’t appeared to stir things up, I could conclude that I wasn’t particularly cornered at the moment.

That was the important thing, I thought, as I gazed at Haruhi.

Her curiosity was on full-blast. Which was fine. Nothing was going to happen, so there was no need for me to talk her out of anything.

The existence of the SOS Brigade was itself absurd, but we’d weathered many storms and were all in the same boat; we would sink or swim together. While our captain was still drawing breath, we could continue to rampage over the seas in flagrant ignorance of the maritime safety code. We could set course for the Indian subcontinent and wind up on the peak of Mt. Ararat, no problem.

Sensing from Haruhi’s overpowering aura that she was about to stand, I drank the last of my iced café au lait and swallowed the now-tiny ice cubes whole.

“Well, shall we go?” Haruhi began to reflexively pass the bill to me, but she then seemed to remember her promise to split the tab. With exaggerated nonchalance, she put her drink’s straw, still thrust into her empty glass, to her mouth.

We walked around the neighborhood of the station for several hours after that.

A bit off the main street, there were new buildings and shops that hadn’t been there a month ago, and others that were gone as though they’d simply been erased, and while it made me feel that time was passing awfully fast, perhaps this was normal in our commercialism-poisoned age. No sooner was a convenience store built than it was closed, with a new one taking its place with Russian-rouletteish ephemerality—but still, seeing old haunts that remained unchanged was strangely comforting.

Thankfully we did not encounter Sasaki’s group again. I prepared myself for it every time we rounded a corner, but Sasaki seemed to have actually gotten on a train and gone elsewhere. I was still not thrilled that she brought those two along, but I could tell that she was being considerate. I’d have to thank her later.

All day the five of us moved as a group, even during lunch, when we ate at a little curry shop whose owner ran it as a hobby and was very proud of his menu. It honestly felt like Haruhi and Asahina were window-shopping and the rest of us were just along for the ride; that’s certainly what it would’ve looked like from the outside.

Asahina standing, eyes a-sparkle, in the accessories shop; Nagato being forced by Haruhi to try on various pairs of sunglasses in the glasses store; Koizumi making small talk about the weather or his classes at school—

Thus the day passed, so normally that it was weird.

Sure, it was fun. Got a problem with that?

That night.

Once the first mystery tour of the year ended without us being led to even one mysterious phenomenon, Haruhi gave the order to disperse, and I headed immediately home, eating dinner and then idling around for a while before taking a bath after my little sister.

I washed my hair with shampoo that was cheaper than the stuff made for cats, washed the day’s dust and dirt from my body, then soaked in the tub for a while. For some reason I was humming the “Dinner Song” my sister had made up, maybe because I’d heard it so many times, when suddenly the door to the bathroom opened.

“Kyon! Telephone!” My pajamaed sister poked her head in the door.

Telephone? I’d wondered if I might get a call. I myself had business to discuss, after all. I prepared myself for either Koizumi or Nagato as my sister held the receiver with a huge grin on her face.

“They wanted to know if my big brother was in, and I said if they meant Kyon, you were!”

I told her to use the former term to address me. “Who is it?”

“A gi-i-i-rl,” said my sister, drawing out the word’s pronunciation. I wiped my hands on the towel wrapped pointlessly around my head and took the receiver from my sister.

Aren’t you normally supposed to ask who’s calling? It could’ve been some fishy telemarketer doing a hard sell.

“Oh, and Kyon, when you’re out of the bath, could you help me with math homework? Arithmetic dri-i-i-lls—” she sang in a strange melody, then stuck her tongue out, skipping clumsily out of the dressing room like a kindergartner.

A girl calling me now?

If it wasn’t Haruhi, who could it be? Given the morning’s events, maybe Nagato. Or possibly Asahina… though surely not the Elder. I wasn’t in the mood to hear a bunch of bizarre warnings.

“Hello?” I hung my head over the edge of the bathtub to avoid dropping the receiver in the bath.

“Hello,” came a voice like a mountain echo.