Random Numbers
RANDOM NUMBERS
“Seven hundred seventy-five thousand two hundred forty-nine.”
With a puff of white breath, those words flitted past my ear but were soon swept up in the freezing wind, vanishing into the upper atmosphere.
The weather was so clear and bright, it almost hurt to look at the brilliant blue sky, but cold was still cold. It had only been three days since the start of the year, and there was still quite some time before the northern hemisphere would begin doing warm-up exercises to prepare for spring.
I walked on in silence for a bit, but I could tell my strolling partner was waiting for my reaction, so I mustered my scant reserves of courtesy and said, “What are you counting, Koizumi? How much mochi you’ve eaten thus far in life?”
“Hardly,” the self-professed esper boy said, a touch of self-deprecation in his smile. “There’s no real meaning to that number. It simply popped into my mind as I arrived—or perhaps I just remembered it. A random string of numbers of no significance to you, humanity at large, or indeed anyone besides myself.”
But the fact that those whispered numbers reached my ears completely invalidated this “talking to myself” argument. Monologues meant to be overhead were like junk mail blown in on the wind—whoever wound up with them would generally be annoyed.
“I beg your pardon.”
If that’s how you really feel, then spare me the apologies and just answer the question. What the hell’s seven hundred seventy-whatever? Even what happened last August never reached such insanely high numbers.
“If I said it was the total sum of cash gifts I received from relatives over the holidays, how would you respond?”
Is that even a question? I’d just turn you into the SOS Brigade’s walking wallet. And part of that responsibility would include always arriving after me whenever we meet up.
“That would be difficult. I don’t mind treating everyone, but arriving later than you is nigh impossible.”
How so? Even I’m capable of planning things well enough to arrive ten seconds before you if we’ve made arrangements in advance.
Koizumi shrugged. He was wearing a bulky jacket and didn’t look cold at all.
“I have tried to arrive last any number of times, deliberately lingering behind. But each and every time, you arrived after me without fail. No matter how many adjustments I made. I find it hard to believe this is a coincidence. I have to assume this is one of Suzumiya’s unconscious desires.”
“What a specific and obnoxious desire to unconsciously have.”
Now I was the one breathing out clouds of white.
“Anyway, given what day it is, you’d better stuff somewhere around the average café tab into that offering box. You know, buy yourself some peace of mind.”
I looked ahead at a sturdy stone torii gate, and the larger red-painted gate that yawned open in the frigid air beyond.
January 3, just past noon, in front of the local shrine.
Haruhi had announced the plans for today during our winter retreat, and this was the result—not some cryptic manifestation of her unconscious thoughts but a clear, deliberate decision.
We were doing our New Year’s shrine visit together.
By we, of course, I mean the five members of the SOS Brigade and not a bleak two-guy party with just Koizumi and me. Yet at the same time, we were both a bit reluctant to stand too close to the three girls in our party, which left us trailing a few steps behind.
It was at this point that the one responsible for all this spun around and proclaimed, “We’ll start with this shrine! We’ve gotta hit up every shrine and temple in town, so let’s kick it into high gear and go!”
I’m fairly certain my body doesn’t have a gearbox or a clutch. Maybe she had both, like in her stomach somewhere? If anything, she probably has a turbocharger.
“We couldn’t make it on New Year’s Day, so I’m sure the resident god here has been breathlessly awaiting our arrival. We’ve gotta pray hard to make up for the delay!”
Haruhi was decked out in the kind of fancy kimono you saw on the very top row of a Hinamatsuri display. She was flanked by Nagato and Asahina, each clad in equally elegant fashion.
She thrust a finger toward the heavens and said, “Set plans for the year within three days of New Year’s!” conveniently riffing off an old proverb.
“We’ve gotta make all our wishes today!” she added, almost certainly jinxing us. Her beaming smile gave off so much heat, she seemed like the physical embodiment of a warm anticyclone.
When I came strolling up to our usual station meeting spot, everyone else was already there, waiting. This happened every time. I would always be the last one to show up, even when I purposefully came before our agreed-upon meeting time. This normally prompted a strange sense of guilt that tormented me—but not today. Koizumi wasn’t a major concern, but for once, I was legitimately relieved to have arrived after the brigade’s female trio.
Haruhi, Nagato, and Asahina had assembled at the Tsuruya manor before coming here, so we’d decided to meet up later to account for that. Haruhi had arranged the schedule the previous day, and Tsuruya had backed her play. Naturally, no consideration was spared for the needs or convenience of any other parties involved. Still, I surprisingly had no objections.
Why had the three girls taken a detour to Tsuruya’s? See for yourself.
“Well? Aren’t these outfits fabulous?” Haruhi said, puffing up her chest with entirely unnecessary levels of arrogance, beaming with a smile even brighter than the colors of her garb. “Yuki and Mikuru, too!”
She grabbed their shoulders, pulling the two reticent girls closer. For once, Haruhi wasn’t exaggerating. Fabulous was absolutely the right word.
They were nailing that classical Japanese vibe so well that it would’ve been an understatement to say they were drawing the eyes of everyone around us. It was like the three stars in Orion’s belt glittering in the winter sky. Asahina in particular wore hers so well that she looked like the cover model of a pamphlet produced by a kimono company trying to court rich clients with the tagline A must for your lovely daughter’s graduation ceremony. Totally a case of a top-notch outfit being elevated by the person wearing it. And she was neither demanding as much attention as Haruhi, nor stifling it the way Nagato was—she struck that sublime balance on the scales of beauty that marked her as truly a goddess among men. You can always count on Asahina to deliver. I’m not sure exactly what that might be in this situation, but deliver she did.
“You all look splendid.”
Like me, Koizumi was wearing his usual clothes. He offered up this verbal applause and then glanced my way. There was a trace of a smile on his lips that could only be described as reproachful, but Haruhi failed to notice. It was a bit disconcerting that I seemed to be the only one able to discern the subtleties of Koizumi’s expressions. If I could do the same with Asahina, I’d be thrilled. Less so with this dude.
But he only kept this loaded smile on me for a second before turning back to Haruhi.
“Did Tsuruya choose all the outfits?” he asked.
The fact that she had a selection broad enough to flawlessly match three very different girls was itself impressive but also weirdly expected. The place she lived in screamed old money so hard that if you dug a hole in the garden, you’d probably find money from the Genroku era before you hit well water. Tsuruya was the kind of girl whose family owned a villa near a ski resort. We’d actually just returned from an all-expenses paid trip to that villa the day before. It had been an exhausting trip, all told, but on the train home, Haruhi had been going on and on about the first shrine visit of the year and what they should wear. That’s when Tsuruya had readily agreed to outfit them all.
“Feel free to borrow any that strike your fancy!” she’d said, like she was renting out disposable hand warmers. “No, seriously, they’re not doing anything but rotting in a drawer somewhere. Dad would love to dress me up in them, but I can’t stand wearing clothes you can’t run in.”
“Same here,” Haruhi said, clearly meaning it. “But it’s a shame to leave them stashed away like that! We’ll be happy to wear them for you—before they start holding a grudge for being neglected and come back to haunt you like a poltergeist!”
With that, she and Tsuruya exchanged high fives. “Whoo!” “Heyo!” The meaning of this act was unclear to anyone but themselves. All I could do was assume this was the sort of high-energy shit only comprehensible to people whose default state of mind was positive and outgoing.
Asahina was listening to their conversation, uttering a series of yelps and perplexed noises (“Huh?” “Er…” “Polterwhat?”) and clearly not following a word of it.
“………”
Meanwhile, Nagato was sitting perfectly still, only her bangs swaying with the rocking of the train, her eyes never once leaving the unnaturally thick book in her hands. My sister and the crated cat, Shamisen, were both sound asleep.
Incidentally, Tsuruya herself had to board an early flight for Europe and consequently wouldn’t have time to be with the girls, so she told them to just go on in and take whatever they pleased. She’d promised to inform her household, but the idea of just strolling in like that still seemed daunting to me—though not to Haruhi. And what did Tsuruya want as payment?
“Just snap of pic of everyone in those kimonos! That’ll suit me just fine.”
“You got it!”
Haruhi had shot her a thumbs-up, and without prophecy or prior planning, Koizumi and I both hung our heads.
As my flashback ended, Koizumi said, “I remember. It was just yesterday.”
He emphasized that last word, a note of gloom in his voice.
“But that is not where your memories of yesterday end, is it? Although, that was all I witnessed—and all Suzumiya saw.”
Despite her kimono, Haruhi was taking great strides forward, leading us through the shrine grounds. It was still the third day of the year, so the place was packed. Fortunately, Haruhi’s pace was as conspicuous as a wild rabbit’s. Plus, she wasn’t alone—Nagato was shuffling along on one side, and Asahina was valiantly trotting after her on the other, so keeping them in sight wasn’t an issue. That said, there was an overwhelming number of stalls on both sides of the path, and the crowds were so dense that it made me wonder where all these people had even come from, barely leaving us any room to breathe—which was exactly the sort of stimulation Haruhi lived for. She was living her best life, you might say. All the tantalizing scents were really doing it for me, too. I hadn’t had takoyaki in a while.
Still, either Haruhi or one of Tsuruya’s servants had a real eye for dressing people, and the costume change had apparently gone rather smoothly. My fears of standing in the frozen winds rolling down from the mountain peaks, just me and Koizumi stuck waiting forever—a chilling idea on multiple levels—had been thankfully averted. For once, arriving last was a good thing.
I was deliberately and actively pretending I hadn’t heard what Koizumi said, but he clearly saw through my ruse and let out a sigh that materialized as an extra-large cloud.
“You, Nagato, and Asahina weren’t yet done with the winter trip. The three of you enjoyed extra innings together, correct? It was quite impossible to not feel left out after learning what had happened. I am the SOS Brigade’s deputy chief, after all.”
Aha, that explained the faint whiff of despondency I thought I noticed in his elusive smiles.
After we’d split up at the station post-trip, Nagato and Asahina had pulled off a feat I’m not sure can be described in Japanese in a way that makes any sense; it was essentially Let’s go to December 18 of last year and come back sixty-two seconds after we left. Naturally, it didn’t leave us tired at all. In fact, I felt great. I didn’t ask, but I think Nagato felt the same. Asahina had been thoroughly confused the entire time, so everything Nagato and I did must have been extremely weird. Then again, if you thought about it, nobody who could be found in Haruhi Suzumiya’s wake was ever not weird, so I wasn’t too worried…
But apparently, this dude was pissed we hadn’t invited him along on our time-crossing jaunt.
“It certainly feels like you were deliberately excluding me and Suzumiya.”
Oh, come on. We couldn’t invite Haruhi! That would’ve created a mess way beyond a simple time paradox.
“Couldn’t you have managed something if it was just me?”
No use asking now. You weren’t there at the time. Complain to the me who made the second time leap. If that me had seen you or even heard your voice, you’d have been a part of the chaos whether you liked it or not. That much I can guarantee.
Koizumi still had a faint and possibly reproachful smile on his lips, so I said, “You’ve already got your hands full with the closed space. Becoming the boy who leaped through time is just working way too hard. Show some restraint.”
“If it comes up again, please do ask. At least retain the notion in a corner of your mind…”
I certainly hoped no such opportunities arose. And save your wishes for the god of this shrine, not me. If you drop an offering between each wish, you might feel better. Then again, I guess your Agency doesn’t worship the many gods of Shinto, but Haruhi herself.
Haruhi was lined up with Nagato and Asahina, plodding along in front of us. Everything they had on was borrowed from Tsuruya, not just the kimono, but the traditional zori, tabi socks, obi, obi fasteners, and hair decorations, too. With my low-income mentality, I couldn’t even begin to guess how much it all cost, but I was pretty sure if we took it to a pawnshop, we’d get a pretty penny. Maybe not the most productive line of thought.
By this point, we’d reached the designated hand-washing spot. Haruhi was super slapdash about most things but extremely meticulous when she chose to be, and she made sure we all picked up the ladle, cleaned our hands, and rinsed out our mouths.
“Like this? Wah, that’s cold!” Asahina squeaked, blinking furiously and trying to copy Haruhi’s movements. She looked like she was getting ready for an early coming-of-age ceremony.
“………”
Meanwhile, Nagato was standing perfectly still, holding the ladle, like a folktale ghost that had shown up at the Shichi-Go-San festival.
Either way, they soon moved on, coins ready for the offerings, only to discover that the crowd by the front of the shrine building open to the public was even more packed. I was worried Haruhi’s typical impatience would result in her charging into the slightest gap in the crowd like a unit of heavy cavalry spotting a weak point in the enemy formation, but apparently even our brave chief hesitated to resort to violence in the presence of a god.
“Obviously!” she said with a full duck face. “I know how to pick the time and place. I mean, if prayers were first come, first served, I might not have a choice, but…” Then she pulled Asahina closer. “Oh, Mikuru! What do you say we try that outfit next?”
Haruhi was pointing at the part-timer selling wishing plaques and fortunes at the office window. She was wearing a miko uniform, and the white top and red hakama were certainly easy on the eye.
“A proper miko! A shrine maiden in the flesh! We should definitely get you a miko outfit. We’ll have to buy a fortune later and ask if they sell those outfits somewhere.”
We didn’t “have to,” and they probably didn’t sell them, but fine. I’d like to see Asahina in a miko outfit, too. This habit of forcing Asahina into different costumes was one of the few Haruhi impulses I was always up for.
Even Asahina didn’t seem to object this time.
“Is that a genuine miko? Wow, real clergy!” she said, eyes glittering. Maybe they no longer existed in her time.
For a while after that, we were swallowed by the crowd. Progress slowed to a crawl as we simply went with the flow of traffic. It was hard to stay in a group, but we didn’t seem to be in danger of being overwhelmed by the press of bodies.
Special occasions tended to get our chief worked up. No matter how dense the crowd, she stood out like a mole popping out of a snowfield. Asahina was sticking to her like they were sisters, and that only made them even easier to spot.
Nagato was right behind them, her eyes at least three degrees frostier than normal, observing, like a navigator hunting for reefs, a stall selling masks for the festival.
Koizumi and I wound up walking side by side, and I finally remembered to ask, “So what was that number all about?”
“Seven hundred seventy-five thousand two hundred forty-nine.”
Writing it out like that was confusing. It’s 775,249, right?
“A prime number?” I said, guessing.
“Close, but not quite,” Koizumi said, like his heart wasn’t in it. “It’s the result of multiplying three prime numbers together. Since prime numbers are integers greater than one that are divisible only by one and themselves, your answer is incorrect.”
Man, he was really nursing that grudge about not inviting him to come time traveling with us. Wasn’t like him to be this depressed. Being the boy who leaped through time really wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. Maybe being the girl was a different story…
“So what meaning do those six digits have?”
“None,” Koizumi said firmly. “I simply multiplied some prime numbers I happened to know together. The resulting number doesn’t even mean that much to me. But, well…”
Here, he smiled his best client-facing smile.
“Can you guess what the three primes were?”
Was this a quiz now?
“I’ll give you a hint—there’s two two-digit numbers, and one three-digit number. Simple, right? Trial and error will get you there soon enough.”
What a pain.
“Suzumiya would likely solve it instantly. She’d just say a random prime number, and it would almost certainly be one of the three. I promise you when she visits that fortune booth, she’ll draw the best one possible.”
We all know she defies probability, but I’m not her.
“Also, asking Nagato would be cheating. Let’s say you have until we leave this shrine.”
Is there a prize for getting it right?
“I’ll consider it. What would you like?”
“Lemme see…”
But ultimately, I was never forced to pit my antimath brain against this problem. Or rather, we never got the chance.
“Kyon! Koizumi! What are you doing? Keep up!”
Haruhi had reached the front of the shine and was beckoning us with both hands.
For the next several minutes, Haruhi let her love for festivals run wild like a puppy on the savanna, dragging all of us along in her wake. I started to seriously consider adding more synonyms for geez to my vocabulary.
Let me quickly run through what happened next.
After dropping my change from the vending machine in the offering box (look, that counts as splurging for me), I rang the giant bell (what is that bell for anyway, some sort of ancient intercom?), bowed twice, clapped twice, bowed once more—the standard routine for shrines—then made some sort of prayer while looking all serious (I prayed Haruhi wouldn’t pray for anything that would piss off the resident god), drew fortunes, and had a good time checking one another’s results (everyone drew basically what you’d expect them to draw), then browsed the still densely packed stalls (worried Haruhi would eat something and stain her kimono), kept an eye on Nagato, who kept trying to wander off and read the signs on the grounds (they explained the origins of the shrine and the god worshipped here), watched over Asahina, who was delightful in all things (the way she was acting was much like the way I would act if I was suddenly flung back in time to the Kofun era), so basically, all the stuff you’d expect to happen at the first shrine visit of the year.
I don’t really remember how it happened, but at some point, Haruhi and I got separated from the others. Not sure if it was good or bad that it happened in that brief interval.
In any case, that was when the strap on Haruhi’s sandal broke.
“Well, that’s rotten luck,” I muttered.
Haruhi was crouched down, struggling with the strap, and she looked up at me like she was demonstrating how to furrow a brow.
“Very! I want my offering back. Is the god here taking a nap?”
Slightly relieved her anger wasn’t directed at me, I said, “Crouching here is just gonna block the path. C’mon, I’ll lend you a hand.”
We were right in the middle of the main shrine thruway. One stream of people on their way to say a prayer, and the other on the way back out. If we stopped moving, both of us would be in everyone’s way.
“Nah, this is nothing.”
She snatched the broken zori off her right foot and tried to hopscotch away on her left alone. This might have been doable in street clothes, but with those long, dangly sleeves, she quickly lost her balance.
I caught her before she fell.
“Let’s just hurry and move to the side.”
With her leaning on my shoulder, we beat a hasty retreat over to a nearby lantern. Definitely getting some uncomfortable looks here.
“There won’t be any fixing this, huh?” Haruhi said, inspecting the strap. She sighed.
This was unlike her. Was being stuck to me like a morning glory on a fence post putting her in a strange mood?
“It’s not about you,” she said, applying a bit more pressure to my shoulder. “If I hop the rest of the way back, I’ll end up ruining this zori, too. I don’t believe in returning things I’ve borrowed in worse condition.”
You’re more the type to borrow things and then claim they’re yours now, yeah.
“Say that again.”
I dodged her glare and pulled out my phone. Probably best to regroup with the others sooner than later. Koizumi would most likely love having Haruhi cling to him like this.
He picked up, but his answer surprised me.
First, he was with Asahina and Nagato.
Second, they were already by the shrine’s main gate.
Third, in a crowd this big, even covering that short distance was a lot of work, especially if they were just going to end up going back the way they came. I conceded this point.
Fourth, even if they did come back, the only thing that would accomplish is making somebody else help Haruhi walk, so I might as well be the one to do it.
Fifth, we’d already done everything we’d planned to do at this shrine. Time constraints dictated we should get out of here as soon as possible, and retracing our steps back to the entrance was the optimal choice. Deliberately picking a new route seemed entirely unnecessary.
For these reasons, it was simple, clear, and objective logic that decreed Haruhi and I should go to them, rather than any or all of them come back to us.
In summary:
“It won’t be that hard.” Even through the phone, I could tell Koizumi was enjoying this. “All you have to do is give Suzumiya a piggyback ride to our present location. You could carry her in your arms like a princess, if you prefer. I leave that decision in your capable hands.”
He really had to add a ridiculous suggestion, dammit. Then the asshole hung up.
Haruhi had been watching my expression become more haggard as the phone call went on, frowning all the while, but when I informed her of Koizumi’s terrifying suggestion, a look of horror appeared on her face. Her gaze flitted across the passing crowd.
“There’s no other option?” she rasped, sounding like a frontline officer who knew the war was lost and had just been ordered to retreat even if it meant abandoning allies on the field.
I wasn’t exactly pleased about this, either, but carrying her sounded less awful than running a three-legged race through these crowds. Mostly because it would be faster. Needless to say, the princess carry was absolutely, 100 percent out of the question. Do you even realize how many people would stare?
Haruhi was dangling the zori with the broken strap in front of her, glaring at it balefully.
“It is what it is…,” I said, kneeling down in front of her. She hopped on board readily enough.
Feeling her weight on my back, I tried to secure her legs with my hands, but…
“Hey! Watch where you grab me!”
…not being familiar with the proper piggyback procedures, I had imagined, based on the concept of fulcrums, that securing her thighs under my arms would be best for balance. Better than grabbing her butt, clearly. Just grin and bear it.
I made sure I had a grim look on my face before peering over my shoulder. When I did, I saw the edges of her brows were drooping like weeping willows.
“The hem,” she said, refusing to meet my eyes.
“Oh,” I said, catching her drift.
That made sense. Being a guy, I had no experience with long-sleeved kimono, and I had neglected to account for this garment’s construction. But if I just considered it like a fancier yukata, then it made sense that hopping on someone’s back while wearing one would cause the hems to part, revealing a lot of leg. Maybe at night, that wouldn’t be too bad, but this was broad daylight. We stood out like two jewel beetles in a swarm of drab drone beetles. The attention alone might not be so bad, but a witness from North High might well leap to alarming assumptions. I could say I was using Haruhi as a weight for some hill work like I’m a racehorse, but nobody would believe me. Not that they should or anything.
“Try to get a little higher,” I said, squatting like a prematch sumo wrestler. If I couldn’t support her weight with my hands, then all the work would fall squarely on my neck and back. And I couldn’t exactly crawl around like a doggy. This was the only option.
“If you can just lean against me like you’re on your stomach, that should be good enough.”
“Undignified, but better than doing it face-to-face. And this should stop the kimono from riding up too far.”
Well, good. But it was definitely more ungainly than the usual piggyback posture and left the rider’s arms one short slip away from strangling the courier. The slightest tightening of her arms and… Well, it was tough to feel safe.
“Don’t mess around back there,” I said.
Basically, everything from my waist up was parallel with the ground, and Haruhi was thrashing her arms, yelling, “Just go! Get it over with!”
I was all in favor of spending as little time causing a scene in full view of the public. Sadly, the sneakers I was wearing did not have golden wings on the sides, and the crowd was too dense for running to be a real option.
“It was shaping up to be a good New Year, too,” she muttered in my ear. “Yesterday and the day before were nothing but fun. I guess my luck ran out today.”
Her hands were dangling on either side of my neck, one holding the zori, the other her kinchaku pouch.
“If I’d known…” She trailed off.
“What?”
“Never mind. Just keep moving. Move!”
Maybe this was divine punishment. Was this shrine dedicated to a goddess by any chance? Koizumi says you basically are one yourself, so maybe you unwittingly rankled her. How dare you be such a wild and impulsive deity! or something like that.
“By the way, you’re heavier than I expected,” I said. “How much mochi did you gobble up?”
She hit me with the kinchaku.
“Kimono weigh a lot! Say another word, and I’ll bite your ear off!”
Don’t scream in my ear, please. My back ain’t a car service with a kindhearted taxi driver behind the wheel.
I once saw a knickknack that had a frog carrying a smaller frog on its back.
Feeling like that frog, I wasn’t sure if the time it took to carry my grumbling passenger through the red gates was more accurately measured in minutes or seconds. Internal clocks were really unreliable at times like these—and either way, it was a minor detail of no concern to anyone else.
The group members waiting for us each reacted differently.
Koizumi had his arms folded, grinning. Asahina had both hands covering her mouth, gasping, “Oh my!” For some reason, Nagato was facing sideways and crouching, but she soon stood up and fixed her unwavering gaze upon me.
It had been a short journey that felt improbably long, but I knew we just had to get through that torii and go our separate ways, so I was starting to feel better about the whole endeavor. Haruhi had quickly scrambled down from my back, leaving me unburdened in more ways than one. But how would we manage the final leg of our journey? Was there someone out there who could deliver us a replacement shoe?
“I know of no such service,” Koizumi said. “But I think we can do some emergency repairs. We spoke a moment ago, and Nagato professed to have some skills in that area.”
Much later on, I’d wonder why she wasn’t dispatched to our location to perform those emergency repairs. (I mean, sure, it wasn’t an actual emergency, but still.) Why did it take so long for this thought to cross my mind?
Because it was at this moment that Haruhi said, “When you think about it, it’s not fair that we’re all dressed up, but Kyon and Koizumi are both just normal.”
It was like a light bulb had lit up over her head. The gloom that had been hanging around her mere moments ago was nowhere to be seen, leaving only her I’ve got a great idea! grin.
“Make like some proper Japanese gentlemen celebrating the New Year and come back in hakama with your family crest on them! You’ve got ten seconds!”
Don’t be ridiculous. My family doesn’t even have a crest.
“In that case,” Koizumi said, doing his thing again, “an acquaintance of mine runs a clothing rental shop in the area. I’ll see if he can set us up.”
At least feign reluctance, Koizumi. Are all your acquaintances this absurdly generous? I mean, come on. The New Year was only days ago, but every person in the Agency is standing by, around the clock, to satisfy Haruhi’s every whim? There isn’t even a chance to catch your breath, sheesh.
I dunno if she read my mind, but Haruhi curiously simmered down.
“We can’t just show up at a shop like that without prior warning. They’d need to know your measurements beforehand. So…” Her eyes gleamed. This was going be an extra-special idea. “Tell me your heights and weights! And waist sizes!”
If that’s all it takes, sure. Not like you knowing those numbers would bother me any.
But Koizumi seemed less than comfortable with this. Where he normally responded to any request with a flawless business smile, on this one occasion, he was abruptly left at a loss for words.
He pondered the matter a moment.
“You’ve done it again, Suzumiya,” he said cryptically. That half smile suggested he’d worked through whatever was bugging him. “Mind if I tell you over here? I consider it a private matter requiring the utmost delicacy.”
He glanced at me and then helped Haruhi hobble a few steps away. The two of them began whispering furiously. Haruhi was being Haruhi and making a grand show with her exaggerated, conspiratorial nods.
What need was there for secrecy? He’s not a boxer getting ready for the weigh-in…
Then it hit me.
That number he’d muttered earlier: 775,249. The sum of three primes. A pair of two-digit numbers and a three-digit number.
Feeling eyes on me, I turned…
…and found Nagato staring at me. Seemed like she wanted to say something. Or wanted me to ask.
But I’m not always that desperate.
“Nah, Nagato. Don’t tell me the answer. I can figure this one out myself.”
“Okay,” she said flatly.
She then rubbed out the numbers she’d written in the dirt at her feet.
A few days later…
Winter vacation was almost over, and my mind was starting to consider doing the warm-up exercises needed to survive the trip over the long hill that led to our beloved school.
On one such day, I was hanging out in my room, when my sister burst in (as usual, she didn’t knock).
“Letter for you! From Koizumi!”
She handed it to me, then picked Shamisen up off my bed and took him away with her.
I flipped the envelope over. The sender’s name was written on the back, in rather square handwriting. Definitely Koizumi’s.
I ripped it open and dumped the contents out. Two photos fell onto my palm. No letter or postcard or anything, but this was plenty.
One photo featured me and Koizumi in our rented haori and hakama, surrounded by Haruhi, Nagato, and Asahina, each striking a pose in their long-sleeved kimono.
On the way from the rental shop to the next place of worship, Haruhi had found an old-fashioned photographer. The photos they’d taken had been sent to Koizumi and forwarded on to me. Man, I hate to admit it, but I had a really dumb look on my face. I can’t pull off those clothes at all… Oh, I get it.
Impressed that Haruhi had gone to such lengths to fulfill Tsuruya’s request, I picked up the second photo.
The framing, illumination, and photography skills were nowhere near as good as the pro’s. This was just a printout of a photo taken with a cell phone, and it was clearly done surreptitiously, with no consideration for angle or light sources—clearly just Koizumi hastily grabbing the shot. I was in the photo, I could tell.
But something about it drew the eye, far more than the first photo. A tingle ran up my spine—possibly tickling out some memories.
“Not the look I thought she had…”
The square-framed photo showed me with legs splayed under the strain of Haruhi, my talkative burden.
I suppose Koizumi intended for this to be my prize.