EPILOGUE

Well, I thought.

Closing ceremonies were over and homeroom teacher Okabe had handed out report cards. That ended my high school life for the year.

Today’s date was December twenty-fourth.

The members of 1-9 who had disappeared with their classroom were back and Koizumi, who hadn’t played much of a role this time, was also there. Asakura had disappeared from class 1-5 over half a year ago. Taniguchi was still in a celebratory mood. Haruhi was still positioned in the seat behind mine. There was no flu epidemic at our school. When I saw Nagato in the auditorium she wasn’t wearing glasses, and when I happened to run into the Asahina/Tsuruya duo after the closing ceremony, they both said hi. And on my way to school I’d checked to see that the private Kouyouen Academy was once again a school for rich high-society girls.

The world was back to normal.

However, I still had a choice to make. Nagato, Asahina, and I would have to return to the past—early in the morning on December eighteenth—again to preserve the restored world. That trip was what turned everything back to normal. However, I haven’t decided when to go. I haven’t told Asahina about any of this yet. I doubt that she’d heard anything from the adult version of herself. From what I’ve seen over the past few days, she doesn’t have a clue.

“Man.”

I sighed for no reason and stepped into the corridor that led to the clubhouse.

Maybe there was a rule in place that I had to keep returning to the same point, like a race car on a closed circuit. The second and third laps wouldn’t feel very different. Even if they did, it wasn’t for me to decide. The opening and final laps would be set on the exact same path with the exact same scenery, yet hold completely different meanings. I just had to make my way to the finish line while being careful to avoid elimination. Yes, until the checkered flag came down.

… Well, I realize that I’m going overboard with this line of reasoning.

It was useless to try to make excuses, because I had chosen this world. This wasn’t like when Haruhi went on a merry rampage unconsciously. I had consciously chosen to live in a world where we ran in circles while making a mess.

In that case, I had an obligation to see things through.

Not Nagato. Not Haruhi. It was my responsibility, now that I’d thrown my lot in with them.

“Serves me right, huh?”

I tried to knock myself off my high horse. The end result was rather ugly, but I didn’t really care. Nobody was watching. Or so I thought when my eyes met the eyes of a nameless female student. She quickly looked away and scurried off as I watched.

“Merry Christmas Eve,” I said softly, in a voice that couldn’t be heard.

If this were the last episode of a hackneyed TV drama, a white flake would come fluttering down and land in my palm as I gasped, but it seems that we weren’t meant to have a white Christmas. It was an incredibly sunny day.

I placed my foot on the first step.

I had been completely transformed into an interested party. My role as an innocent bystander was a relic of the past, banished to the depths of the galaxy.

“So what?”

What was the point in realizing this now? I was one of them. I knew that a long time ago. After Haruhi dragged me to the literary club room and declared that she was taking it over.

Like the other members of the SOS Brigade, I was on the side that was actively protecting this world. And I hadn’t been pushed into this. I voluntarily raised my hand.

As I climbed the stairs, I switched to thinking about the event that was scheduled to begin soon. Haruhi and Asahina had done the shopping in the end. I’d been excused from my assigned role of carrying stuff, since I was fresh out of the hospital. Though this really wasn’t an example of Haruhi’s being considerate, since her goal was to hide the menu until the very last second so she could surprise everyone—at least, that was her plan. She might be attempting to use her experience from the remote island. An economical mystery pot Christmas party.

What would we find inside? Knowing Haruhi, her priority was to surprise, so we might end up with some kind of experimental and bizarre hot pot, the like of which hasn’t occurred in the history of mankind. Still, most stuff was edible if you boiled it long enough. Haruhi wasn’t going to throw in anything that her own stomach wouldn’t be able to digest, unless she had the stomach of a monster. But I would assume that Haruhi, master of defying common sense, still had a stomach that conformed to human standards. The only part of her that’s transcended human norms would be whatever’s inside her head.

And I was supposed to perform in the reindeer costume as a sort of sideshow to the hot-pot party. Try to consider how hard it was for me to come up with material to work with.

“Good grief.”

I voiced the interjection I had determined to seal away last month, but yeah, whatever. The words may have sounded the same, but they might as well have been completely different words, since the meaning was different.

And with that follow-up explanation, I added an item to my mental schedule book.

That item was established information. Something I absolutely had to do to remain here in this present.

—I would have to go restore this world in the near future.

As I approached the clubroom, a fragrant aroma tickled the mucous membranes of my nose. That was enough to make me feel like my stomach was full, but I had to wonder why there was a sense of satisfaction. I still needed to travel through time soon. It was too early to feel satisfied.

—But, yeah. Before that.

There was still time. A future version of me would be handling that. Not that it would happen in the distant future, but it wouldn’t come in the immediate future.

As I placed my hand on the literary club room doorknob, I posed a question to the world.

Hey, world. Could you wait a bit? Hold on a little longer until I go to retransform you.

—I mean.

I should at least have time to enjoy Haruhi’s special hot pot, right?