LIVE ALIVE
LIVE ALIVE
The year I started high school.
Now that I think about it, a lot happened that year—the year that the meteorological anomaly named Haruhi Suzumiya began to unleash its fury upon North High—in fact, so much happened that trying to remember it all is sort of a pain, and if I really head back into the albums of my memory, the various episodes carved thereon would be enough to make your head spin, if I do say so myself, and yet I’d like to relate one of them now.
The heat of summer continued to coil over the archipelago; the calendar claimed it was autumn, but it was hot enough that I began to harbor suspicions that someone somewhere had thrown a wrench into the works of some terrible weather-control weapon.
It was the day of the school festival.
A certain reliably insane director/producer’s mess of a movie, complete with special effects that played havoc with the CHR of the cast and crew, had come all the way from said director’s declaration of intent to complete it solely thanks to my efforts. Today was the premiere of The Adventures of Mikuru Asahina Episode 00, and though I wasn’t sure whether it was a movie or simply a promo reel for Asahina, it was probably being met with rave reviews at the moment in the A/V room.
I say “probably” because, having absolutely no desire to be further associated with a film whose absurdity challenged the borders of surrealism, I’d decided to disassociate myself from it completely after handing over the DV tape to the guys in the film society.
Fortunately, as brigade chief, Haruhi was even more fired up than normal when it came to negotiating the public-relations arrangements, so she had taken the initiative.
While the students and faculty of North High were beginning to get used to Haruhi’s activities, it wouldn’t have killed her to consider the idle parents and other festivalgoers before donning a certain bunny girl costume from the previous spring, but at least her promotional efforts did allow Asahina, Nagato, and Koizumi to participate in their classes’ activities, which, unlike class 1-5 (which included Haruhi and me), actually involved some kind of effort.
Now I felt as though the skies had cleared, and I was as calm as the mirrorlike surface of a serene pool. With the completion of the digital editing of the film, my work was done, and shaking my slightly sleep-deprived head, I had time to maybe walk by Nagato’s fortune-telling booth or snicker at Koizumi’s play. North High might well have been a shabby public school with a shabby festival to match, but still, a festival was a festival and they didn’t happen every day, so it would be nice to enjoy the mood.
Plus, there was one duty I had to fulfill, which took the form of the scrap of paper I had clasped in my hand.
It went without saying that said scrap was a coupon good for a discount at Asahina’s class activity—which was a yakisoba café.
When even the cheapest tea became heavenly ambrosia when prepared by Asahina, surely yakisoba prepared by her hand would be finer than the finest Chinese kitchen could prepare—more than enough to raise the anticipation gauge in my mind to stomach-growling levels. As I ascended the school’s staircase, it felt more like I was flying up on winged shoes.
But just as I crested the stairs and felt as though heaven’s gate lay just before me, the voice of a fellow traveler doused my mood in lukewarm water.
“Man, they could’ve at least let us eat for free.”
Who could be the owner of such an ungrateful tongue? None but my classmate Taniguchi. I had invited him along only out of guilt from the way he’d had to jump into the pond during our location shoot, and he should’ve been grateful to get that much. What more did he want?
“I had to dive into a pond! And I wasn’t getting paid! By the way, nobody invited me to a screening. Don’t tell me my scene got cut. Thirty percent off yakisoba ain’t enough reward for getting wet like that.”
Enough of your grumbling! Asahina went out of her way to give us these coupons. And she was the one who hadn’t been fairly compensated for her work in that movie. It was enough to make me want to call up the Academy and get them to give her an Oscar.
“If you don’t like it, don’t come. Just get lost already,” I said.
“Aw, c’mon, Taniguchi. We were just going to wander around and eat stuff anyway, right? We should be thankful for the company,” said his companion.
It was another classmate, Kunikida, who had a model-student face that was somehow different from Koizumi’s.
He continued. “Plus, if we go with Kyon, we might get something extra. A bigger serving of cabbage, maybe. That’d be worth it, right, Taniguchi?”
Taniguchi readily agreed.
“But that depends on the flavor. Hey, Kyon—Asahina’s not doing the actual cooking, is she?”
Now that he mentioned it, I seemed to recall that she’d said she was in charge of table service—but what did it matter? I gave him a questioning look.
“Oh, I was just thinking she’s probably a lousy cook. Like, I could imagine her putting in sugar instead of salt or something.”
Nobody gave Asahina any credit—not Haruhi, not this guy either. I didn’t care how much of a cartoon maid character she looked like; people that clumsy only exist in the realm of the imagination. All she might worry about would be misplacing her time machine and if she really was a time traveler, though even that was doubtful.
“I’m looking forward to it,” said Kunikida. “I’ve been hearing rumors that it’s a cosplay café. The waitress costume from the movie and that bunny girl outfit from before were crazy enough, but I wonder what she’ll be wearing now.”
“Seriously.”
Taniguchi nodded heartily—neither of them had grown as accustomed as I had to seeing Asahina in her maid outfit. I had to spare them some pity.
As we crested the stairs and entered the hallway, I imagined the scene. Speaking of waitresses, my brain had already been tainted by the image of her wearing that sexual harassment–inspiring waitress costume in the movie, so what could be better for cleansing both eyes and mind than the sight of her elegantly bringing us our yakisoba wearing a proper waitress outfit? I’d always felt Haruhi’s tastes were too gaudy. She had the ironclad nerve to stand at the school entrance dressed as a bunny girl, which might have suited her perfectly, but if she thought everyone possessed such nerve, she was sadly mistaken.
Asahina wearing a waitress uniform handmade for her by her class…
On this matter, I had no choice but to agree with Taniguchi. I was very much looking forward to seeing it. Oh, yes.
Green rubber sheets had been laid down to cover the floor of the school hallways, like some sort of cheap red carpet. Normally, inside shoes were required inside the school, but out of consideration for visitors, outside shoes were allowed for the two days of the festival. There was quite a variety of people walking around too. The art and culture clubs all had presentations set up, and many attendees seemed to be related to the members. The festival was also a place for neighborhood residents to kill some time. It was also pretty common for students to invite their former middle school classmates who’d wound up going to different high schools. This made it the year’s only chance to make a pass at the students from the girls’ school at the bottom of the hill. It wasn’t just guys like Taniguchi who were looking for love.
There in the hall where anything besides a North High uniform would stick out, the three of us forged ahead like sardines swimming toward bait as we navigated the second-year students’ classroom displays, finally stopping between the Whac-A-Mole game room and the one doing balloon animals.
The mouthwatering scent of frying wafted out, and there was a sign that proclaimed YAKISOBA CAFÉ ACORN. The line that snaked out of it was longer than for any other classroom. But that wasn’t what first jumped out at us.
“Hey! Kyon and his pals! Over here! Welcome, welcome!”
It was a voice and smile totally unmistakable, even from ten meters away. Save Haruhi when she’s thought of something annoying, I know only one person who can smile that brightly.
“A table for three, then? Welcome!”
It was Tsuruya—and dressed as a waitress, to boot.
Standing in front of a desk placed outside the classroom entrance, she seemed to be in charge of selling tickets. And probably attracting customers, come to think of it.
“Hey, whaddya think of my getup? Looks pretty schweet, eh?”
Tsuruya moved agilely along the line toward us.
“It sure does.”
I kept a pointlessly low profile as I gazed at Tsuruya.
I’d been so occupied with my visions of Waitress Action Asahina that I’d totally forgotten that Tsuruya was in the same class. Taking in the sight of this long-haired upperclassman, Taniguchi and Kunikida looked like fishermen who’d caught a trout, only to find a bass attached to its tail. And who could blame them? I didn’t know who’d designed the outfit, but evidently there was a master dressmaker in Tsuruya’s class. It had a different look than the outfit Asahina had been made to wear for the movie; neither too gaudy nor too plain, it gave the wearer an elegance without being distracting, working with her natural charm to bring it to a maximum; it deserved a Costume of the Year award, surely.
The point is, the effect was enough to make me resort to abstract terms like this. And if that’s what seeing Tsuruya did, a glance at Asahina would no doubt render me immediately unconscious.
“Business looks good,” I said.
“Ha ha ha! Yeah, they’re really biting!”
Tsuruya lifted the hem of her skirt slightly and, ignoring the glares of the rest of the line, continued.
“It’s terrible yakisoba made from the cheapest ingredients, but look at how many people there are! I can’t stop laughing!”
Her laugh seemed genuinely happy. It wasn’t hard to figure out why the line out the front door was composed entirely of guys. Looking at Tsuruya’s smile made even me feel strangely pleasant. I suppose it’s true that men are the more easily wiled sex.
We took our place at the end of the line, and Tsuruya directed her smile at us free of charge as she spoke.
“Pay up front, if you please! We’ve got yakisoba and water on the menu—the noodles are three hundred yen, but you can down all the water you want for free!”
Upon seeing my coupon, she added, “Hmm, so there are three of you, right? We’ll say five hundred yen for the lot of you! Big discount!”
She put the coins we gave her in her pocket and then shoved three yakisoba tickets into my hands.
“Alrighty then, just wait a teensy bit! Your turn’ll be up in no time!” she said, then returned to her place behind the desk at the classroom’s entrance. Once she disappeared at the head of the line, Kunikida spoke.
“She’s got energy, that’s for sure. You’d think she’d get tired, being like that all the time.”
Kunikida sounded impressed as he spoke. Taniguchi lowered his voice and added this:
“Kyon, I’ve been wondering about this for a while—what’s with her? Is she in your and Haruhi’s gang or what?”
“Nope.”
Tsuruya wasn’t in the club. Just like Taniguchi and Kunikida, she’s a special guest we bring in when we’re short on numbers. And yet somehow, she keeps turning up.
Tsuruya’s notion of “no time” turned out to be about half an hour. After waiting for thirty minutes, we finally made it to the front of the line and were allowed to enter the room. Incidentally, the line behind us grew constantly longer, and it was all guys—unbelievable. Though I suppose we could hardly complain. After all, we were in the line too.
Half of the classroom was devoted to cooking, while the other half had tables for seating customers. Several hot plates sizzled away, cooking piles of yakisoba. Some white-aproned girls manned the hot plates, while others chopped away at ingredients with cooking knives, and suddenly I wondered where all the boys in this class had gone.
Later, I heard from Tsuruya that the poor boys had been drafted into running errands for the girls—going to get ingredients they were running low on or fetching water and rinsing vegetables. Alas, there was nothing to be done. The Age of Aquarius was truly nigh.
Tsuruya showed us to our table.
“Okay, just sit right there at that table. Hey! Three waters over here!”
A charming reply came in response to Tsuruya’s call.
“Coming right up! Oh, welcome!”
Surely I needn’t mention who the perfect waitress was who now came, bearing a tray with three cups of water on it.
After she finished placing the three cups of water on our table, she clasped the tray in both hands and bowed politely.
“Welcome, and thank you for coming to our shop!” she said with a beatific smile. “Kyon, and your, er—the extras from the…”
My two companions reacted instantly.
“Taniguchi!”
“Kunikida!”
“Hee hee. I’m Mikuru Asahina.”
I could see why there was a handwritten sign dangling from the ceiling that said PLEASE REFRAIN FROM TAKING PHOTOGRAPHS. If they were to allow pictures, there’d be no avoiding a minor stampede.
That’s just how lovely Asahina was. Unsurprisingly, my consciousness went winging away to some far-off place, and surely no more words are necessary to describe her charm. To see her and Tsuruya both wearing the outfit that itself rated a Best Costume Design award, well—it’s hard to imagine a finer sight. Heaven must be a place where such views are commonplace.
Asahina held the tray under one arm as she tore the yakisoba tickets in half, leaving the stubs on our table.
“Please wait just a moment,” she said.
She hurried back to the kitchen, monopolizing the gazes of all the boys in the room.
Tsuruya smiled and explained.
“Mikuru’s taking tickets, clearing plates, and serving water. That’s all we let her do! Can’t have our main attraction tripping and spilling yakisoba everywhere, after all!”
Wise words, Tsuruya.
A different second-year waitress brought us our food. In exchange for giving extra cabbage, they seemed to have skimped on the meat, and as to whether or not the food was good, well—it tasted like normal yakisoba sauce. Asahina was kept very busy as she jumped robinlike from table to table, putting out paper cups of water and tearing tickets, and it was all she could do to stop by our table once to provide refills of not particularly cold water. Tsuruya shuttled between the classroom and the shop front, smiling all the while, and I felt a bit uncomfortable staying for much longer.
So after finishing our yakisoba in about five minutes, we left, putting the place behind us, though we didn’t feel particularly full, nor did we have anywhere else to go.
“So, what next?” It was Kunikida who’d asked. “I kind of want to see the film that Kyon and his friends made. Plus, I need to see how I look in it. What about you, Taniguchi?”
“I’ve got no interest in seeing that thing,” said Taniguchi flatly, taking a festival schedule pamphlet out of his uniform’s pocket. “That yakisoba wasn’t nearly enough. My plan is to head over to the science club’s barbecue party, but before that…” He grinned. “This is a rare and golden opportunity—for picking up some chicks! The trick is to go for girls wearing street clothes. Surely we can spot a group of three all walking together. Chat ’em up a little, and my experience indicates that they’re surprisingly likely to go along with whatever you say.”
What experience? What good is the experience of a guy whose success rate is just about zero? I shook my head immediately.
“Forget it. You guys go on without me.”
“Hmph.”
Taniguchi smiled unpleasantly, and Kunikida nodded with a self-satisfied smile, which grated on me, but I couldn’t find a retort. It wasn’t that I was afraid I’d be spotted by somebody inconvenient if we started hitting on girls, it was just, uh… just because.
“Fine by me. That’s just the kind of guy you are. No, don’t bother with excuses. I guess that’s friendship for you.”
Taniguchi sighed dramatically, and Kunikida spoke up to mollify him.
“Actually, Taniguchi—I think I’ll pass on the girls too. Sorry, but if you have any luck on your own, could you introduce her friend to me? That’s friendship for you, after all,” he said, sidestepping the issue. “See you later, okay?”
Kunikida walked briskly away. As Taniguchi stood there staring like an idiot, I decided to follow Kunikida’s example.
“See you later, Taniguchi. You can tell me tonight about your success rate—that is, if you succeed at all.”
So, where to go next?
If I went back to the clubroom, there’d either be nobody there or I would bump into Haruhi, and if we wound up walking around the school together, no doubt she would do something insane that would destroy my reputation, so my feet naturally took me in another direction. If she had kept conducting her PR campaign at the front gate in that bunny girl outfit, someone might have stopped her by now, and she could well be sulking all alone in the clubroom. Please, just let me do something else today! My mom and sister were coming the next day, and I could just imagine Haruhi crashing the proceedings.
I took another look at the program. There wasn’t much of interest. I wasn’t interested in the results of the school survey, nor did I have any intention of spending time on ridiculous displays about things like research into the distribution of local dandelion varieties. I’d well and truly had my fill of the kinds of movies each grade seemed to have made one or two of, and I did not care about amateurish art displays or cardboard labyrinths. Was there any point in a handball tournament against other schools’ teams? Only our homeroom teacher, Okabe, seemed to be excited about that.
“The best thing for killing time would be…”
My eyes lit upon it. The sole event with any kind of ambition to it—they’d probably been preparing for it more than any other group. Now that I thought about it, I’d recently heard the trumpets blaring away late into the night.
“The orchestra concert it is, then.”
I checked the pamphlet again. Unfortunately they wouldn’t be performing until the next day. Lots of groups seemed to have signed up to use the auditorium. The drama club and the chorus club were the next day too. Today, the space was booked up by—
“The pop music club and other registered bands, eh?”
It was pretty standard for a school festival, and although it would probably be mostly cover bands, taking in some live music isn’t a bad thing once in a while. They had probably put in a hundred times the effort and enthusiasm that I’d put into making that movie. I’ll go listen to the results of their labor and just kind of space out, I thought. At the very least, I’d be able to put the terrible film I’d made out of my mind.
“A man needs time to himself sometimes.”
So I told myself, having no idea that my notions were about to be blown to smithereens.
I was naive—I thought there were limits in this world. Even though I knew there was a being who could ignore such limits as she pleased, I’d somehow forgotten that. Despite the maelstrom of chaos I’d experienced just a few days previous, I suppose this was what the limits of the common-sense man were. The extraordinary events I was plunged into showed me my own shallowness. I’d like to leave this as a lesson to future generations. Let’s not worry about whether or not such lessons would be taken seriously.
The auditorium doors were wide open, and from within boomed a terrific racket, as though the god of thunder had decided to hold a concert. It was a bit cheap as venues for the soul of rock go, but so long as the spirit is there, worrying about issues of technique is like quibbling over condiments on your natto. It’s not better without condiments, but the natto is a strong fermented soybean—it’s the main event, so to demand it with stuff on it without even tasting it first seems a bit rude.
Perhaps a sixth of the auditorium was full, and most of the people seemed to be the organizers. Onstage, an amateur band did their best with a straight-up cover of a pop song that sounded vaguely familiar. You know it’s bad when you can tell they’re “doing their best,” but the broadcast club’s mixing seemed like it might have been part of the problem.
The lights were concentrated on the stage, leaving the rest of the space rather dim. I searched for and found an empty row of chairs and took a seat at the row’s edge.
According to the program, the participating groups were the pop music club’s band and two other groups. At the moment it was the pop music club performing. Only the people in the very front row of chairs were standing, and while a few of them moved their bodies to the music, I decided they had to be either fellow club members or plants. And anyway, the volume was pumped up way too high for the kind of laid-back listening I had in mind.
I clasped my hands behind my head and watched as, during an interlude of their last number, the vocalist rhythmically introduced the other members of the band, and I learned that they were five second-year pals from the pop music club—information I would surely forget within a few days.
My knowledge of music wasn’t deep enough to say anything on the subject, and without any particular interest in the performers, it was the perfect situation for lulling me into complacency.
As a result, I actually started to relax.
And then, as the five members of the current band exited to scattered applause and the next band took the stage—
I couldn’t help but rub my eyes in disbelief.
“Guh—”
I could feel the atmosphere of the auditorium change in an instant. The sound of the audience drawing nervously away from the stage became a sound effect that echoed within my head.
“What the hell is that idiot doing?!”
The figure that now walked on from stage left carrying a music stand wore a certain familiar bunny girl costume and a certain familiar expression as she stood there, awash in the stage lighting.
Bunny ears bouncing and figure scantily clad—I could tell you who she was even if you plucked my eyes out and gave them to somebody else.
It was Haruhi Suzumiya.
And she was now standing in the middle of the stage with a serious expression on her face.
And if that had been all, it would’ve been okay—but no.
“Hnng!”
Upon seeing the figure that appeared behind her, the air in my lungs escaped with a groan.
It was a sometimes evil alien sorceress, sometimes black-clad, crystal ball–wielding fortune-teller.
“…”
I could no longer make a sound.
Yuki Nagato was standing there in that black hat and cape I’d long since gotten sick of seeing, only for some reason she now had a guitar slung over her shoulder. Just what the hell is going on here?
I might have been relieved if Asahina and Koizumi had shown up after that, but the third and fourth people to take the stage were female students I’d never seen before. From their unfamiliar faces and somehow adult aura, I guessed they were third-year students. One had a bass guitar and the other sat down at the drum set. There didn’t seem to be any further band members.
Why? I wanted to avert my eyes at the sight of Haruhi and Nagato in their festival costumes. But why—why were they part of a band that was supposed to be made up of members of the pop music club, and why was Haruhi holding the mic like she was the band leader?
As the questions fought each other in my head, all four members of the mysterious group seemed to have taken their places. The audience murmured, and as I looked on, dumbfounded, the bassist and drummer nervously tinkered with their instruments; Nagato did not so much as move to play her guitar. Her face was as expressionless as it usually was.
Haruhi placed what looked like sheet music on the music stand in front of her, then looked slowly over the auditorium. Given the darkness in which the audience sat, I doubted she saw me. Haruhi tapped the mic to make sure it was on, then turned around and said something to the drummer.
There was no introduction and no stage patter. The drummer counted off the beat on her drumsticks, and the band was suddenly playing. The intro alone was enough to blow me away. Nagato’s guitar technique was up there with Mark Knopfler’s or Brian May’s. And I’d never heard the song before. No sooner did I think What is this? than Haruhi began singing, as if to deal me a final blow.
Her voice was clear and bright—so clear and so bright it could’ve reached to the moon.
But her eyes never wavered from the sheet music.
I didn’t recover from my stunned state for the entire duration of the first song. I wondered if this was how a monster in an RPG feels when “Silence” has been cast on it.
Onstage, Haruhi was mostly still as she stood there belting out the lyrics, but I guess it’s hard to read sheet music and dance at the same time.
The first song wrapped up. Normally that’s when the audience would erupt into cheers and applause, but everybody else was just as stunned as I was.
I had no idea how this had happened. It was strange enough to see Haruhi up there, but I was even more amazed by Nagato’s melodious guitar technique, and no doubt the other members of the pop music club were filled with the same questions I was. And the people in the audience who didn’t know who Haruhi was had to be wondering: Why a bunny girl?
We were frozen like sailors aboard a tattered sailing vessel who’d just heard a siren’s song. When I looked more closely, I saw that the bassist and drummer were looking at Nagato and Haruhi with similar expressions. Apparently it wasn’t just the audience who’d been stunned.
Haruhi just stood there staring straight ahead, but eventually her brow furrowed and she looked behind her. The drummer, chastened, hastily counted off the next song.
Setting aside the various personages, the mysterious band was now on their third song.
Now that I’d finally gotten over the shock, I could appreciate the lyrics and music I was hearing. It was an up-tempo R&B number. The song was unfamiliar yet pleasant in my ears, and I had to admit it was pretty good. That might have been thanks to the absurdly good guitarist, but Haruhi was, well—how do I put this? Maybe I was too used to hearing her yelling all the time, but I had to admit she had an excellent singing voice.
The rest of the audience, too, seemed to have shaken off its petrifaction and were now genuinely drawn toward the stage.
When I thought to look around, I realized many more seats had filled up. My eye soon fell on one audience member in particular, who walked toward me wearing what looked like the civilian clothes of a knight of Denmark.
“Hi there,” he said, coming in close to speak into my ear, perhaps concerned his voice would be lost in the loud music. “What exactly is going on here?”
It was Koizumi.
How the hell should I know? I shouted back to him in my head, glancing at his costume. You’re in a festival getup too, eh?
“Changing clothes seemed like it would be a bit of a bother, so I came in my stage outfit.”
And what’re you doing here?
Koizumi looked over to Haruhi onstage pleasantly, then flicked his bangs.
“Oh, I just heard some rumors.”
So it’s a rumor already, eh?
“Oh, yes. She’s wearing that outfit, after all, so it would be stranger if there weren’t rumors. People do talk.”
Evidently, news that North High’s prize weirdo, Haruhi Suzumiya, was up to something again was already spreading like wildfire. I didn’t care if she added another incident to her reputation, but for once, I didn’t want myself or the SOS Brigade getting added to the report.
“But still, she’s quite good, Suzumiya is. Nagato too, of course.”
Koizumi smiled and closed his eyes as if enjoying the music. I turned my gaze back to the stage and tried to read something, anything, from Haruhi’s form.
My opinion of the singing and performance was much the same as Koizumi’s, save for the strange fact that the lead singer was reading her performance from sheet music on the music stand.
But all that aside, something nagged at me, something I couldn’t put my finger on. What could this ticklish sensation be? I wondered.
The next song was a slow-moving ballad, as if to throw the previous up-tempo song into contrast. I found myself moved by the music and lyrics. It had been some time since a piece of music had pierced my heart like that. As proof that I wasn’t the only one who felt that way, the audience was quiet, without so much as a single throat-clearing, and when the song ended, the auditorium fell totally silent.
The room was on its way to being a full house when Haruhi finally spoke into the mic.
“Uh, hello, everybody…”
Haruhi’s expression was rigid.
“Here’s where we should introduce the band, but the truth is…” She pointed to Nagato. “Nagato and I aren’t members. We’re just stand-ins. Due to various circumstances, the real vocalist and guitarist couldn’t be onstage. Oh, and they’re the same person—the real band is just a trio.”
The audience listened carefully.
Haruhi moved away from the center of the stage and walked over to the bassist, thrusting the mic at the girl. The girl shied away, whispering something to Haruhi, then finally squeaked out her own name.
Haruhi next walked over to the drum set and got the drummer to introduce herself, then returned to center stage.
“These two and the leader who’s not here are the real members. So… sorry. I really don’t have any confidence that I’m much of a stand-in. We only had an hour to rehearse before performing, so this is a little off the cuff.”
The bunny ears on Haruhi’s head flicked as she moved.
“How about this—if you want to hear the songs with the real vocals and guitar, bring a tape or minidisc over later and we’ll dub you a copy for free. Is that okay?”
The bassist nodded awkwardly in response to Haruhi’s question.
“Okay, it’s decided.”
Haruhi smiled for the first time since taking the stage. She must have been nervous—or nervous by her standards, anyway—but it seemed the curse was finally broken, and while her smile wasn’t as bright as the one she always showed us in the clubroom, it was still a good fifty watts.
After smiling briefly to the still-expressionless Nagato, Haruhi shouted as though to blow out the speaker cones.
“This is the last song!”
I heard the rest of the story from Haruhi later.
“I was handing out movie flyers at the front gate when I ran out, and I was going to head back to the clubroom for more,” she said.
“But then there was some kind of argument going on by the shoe lockers between the members of that band and the festival organizers from the student council. I wondered what was up, so I got closer.”
As a bunny?
“Who cares what I was wearing? Anyway, from what I gathered, the band wasn’t going to be allowed to go onstage.”
The shoe lockers are hardly the place for a discussion like that.
“It was because the band leader, who played guitar and sang, had suddenly come down with a fever on the day of the festival. Tonsillitis, I guess. Her voice was mostly gone, and she looked like she could barely stand.”
Rotten luck.
“I know. Worse, she’d sprained her wrist after getting dizzy and tripping at home. There was no way she could get on that stage.”
So why bother coming to school?
“Yeah, she was determined to do it even if it killed her. But the student council people just wanted to get her to the hospital right away, and she wound up getting carried off like an alien bound for Area Fifty-One. Push came to shove, and they wound up by the shoe lockers.”
How did she propose to perform in that condition?
“By sheer willpower.”
Sounds like something you’d do.
“I mean, they’d practiced so hard for this day. It’s one thing if she were the only one who was going to suffer if it went to waste—but wasting the efforts of your friends too? That’s awful.”
You make it sound like it was your own efforts.
“And the songs too—they weren’t generic cover songs, but originals the group had written and composed themselves. You’ve just got to perform them, right? If the sheet music could talk, it’d say, ‘Play me!’ ”
So that’s when you decided to roll up your sleeves and do something about it.
“Didn’t have any sleeves, but yeah. The student council festival committee is nothing but a bunch of incompetents who do whatever the teachers tell them, so you can’t just let them push you around. But… even I knew there was no way the band leader was going onstage in her condition. So that’s when I said, ‘How about I go onstage instead?’ ”
I can’t believe the bassist and drummer went along with it.
“The singing part was easy. The sick band leader thought about it for a second and then said, ‘Yeah, you might be able to do it.’ She had a tired-looking smile.”
There isn’t a North High student who doesn’t know who Haruhi is, and what kind of girl.
“But then a teacher had to hurry off to the hospital with the band leader, and I started frantically trying to learn the chords from a demo tape and the sheet music. I only had an hour, after all.”
So what about Nagato?
“Yeah, I wish I could’ve played the guitar too, but there just wasn’t enough time. It was all I could do to learn the melody, so I wound up asking Yuki to handle the guitar. Did you know she was such an all-around player?”
As a matter of fact, I do know that—better than you do.
“I crashed her fortune-telling stall, and when I told her the circumstances, she came right away. She just took one look at the sheet music, then played it perfectly! Where do you think she learned guitar?”
Probably right on the spot, as soon as you asked her to.
A couple of days later, on the following Monday—
The school festival, complete with its unscheduled events, had ended. It was the break before fourth period.
Haruhi sat behind me, happily scribbling something down in her notebook. I didn’t particularly want to know what it was, but I knew Haruhi was pleased by the audience the SOS Brigade’s foray into independent filmmaking had managed to reach, and she seemed to be plunging into the planning of the sequel as I agonized over how to banish such notions from her head.
“You’ve got visitors.”
It was Kunikida who’d said so, having returned from the bathroom.
Haruhi looked up and saw Kunikida point to the doorway, thus fulfilling his duties as a messenger boy. He returned to his seat.
Three female students stood outside the open door, poised and mature. One of them had her arm in a sling.
“Haruhi,” I said.
I gestured with my chin toward the door.
“Looks like they have something to say to you. Better go see.”
“Mmm.”
Haruhi seemed strangely hesitant. She stood slowly but did not immediately walk. Finally she wound up saying this:
“Kyon, you come too.”
Before I could protest, she grabbed me by the collar and hauled me with her absurd strength right out of the classroom. The three upperclassmen girls giggled at the sight.
Haruhi forced me to stand right next to her.
“Is your tonsillitis better?” she asked the one girl, whom I was just now meeting for the first time.
“Yes, mostly,” she answered in a voice that was just slightly husky. “Thank you, Suzumiya.”
All three girls bowed deeply in gratitude.
It turned out that practically the whole school (especially the girls) had requested copies of their songs. They said they were now going around to all the classes and distributing minidiscs.
“I can’t believe how many requests there were.”
When I heard the figure, I was surprised myself. There’d been quite a ripple effect indeed if people were going to such lengths to get the original songs instead of the one with Haruhi on vocals and Nagato on guitar.
“And it’s all thanks to you.”
All three girls had the same grateful smile for their helpful younger classmate.
“This means our songs won’t have gone to waste. We really appreciate it. You’re something else, Suzumiya. This was going to be our last memory as members of the pop music club, so I wanted to go onstage if I could, but this was way better than missing out entirely. We just can’t thank you enough.”
It felt a little embarrassing to have three seniors being so grateful, and I wasn’t even the one being thanked. Why do I have to stand here and be embarrassed along with Haruhi?
“We were hoping we could do something for you in return,” said the leader, but Haruhi waved her off.
“Don’t worry about it! It was fun for me to sing, and the songs were good, so it was like getting to do karaoke with a live band for free—you don’t need to thank me, really. I’d feel bad.”
Something about Haruhi’s tone was odd, as though she’d prepared the speech ahead of time—although it was very like her to speak so casually to upperclassmen.
“So really, don’t bother. If you want to thank someone, thank Yuki. I forced her into doing it, after all.”
The girls explained that they’d already been by Nagato’s class.
Evidently, after listening to the girls’ words of gratitude, the stoic Nagato had nodded once, then pointed to this classroom. I had no trouble imagining it.
“Well then,” said the leader. “We’re going to try to have a concert somewhere before graduation, so you should come if you want. With your…”
She looked at me and narrowed her eyes just slightly.
“… friend.”
But why had there been such demand for the girls’ original recording?
I’d found this out later. You can’t really call it a mystery, but in any case it had been solved by a certain talkative fellow. He does come in handy, I’ll admit.
“Did you notice any discrepancy between the timing of Suzumiya and that of the rhythm section? Or more properly, between the melody Suzumiya was singing, Nagato’s riffs, and the bass and drums?” asked Koizumi.
“It was only noticeable on a subconscious level. All four of them were playing together so well, you’d never guess they were winging it. What’s most surprising is Suzumiya’s ear. Keep in mind she’d only heard the demo tape three times.”
I wanted to be impressed with Nagato’s professional-level playing as well, but the fact is that kind of thing is easy for her.
“Yet it wasn’t perfect. Those were original songs, after all. There’s simply a huge difference between the performers who wrote those songs and practiced them endlessly and Suzumiya, who performed as an emergency stand-in.”
Well, obviously.
“Yes. So between the original bassist and drummer, Suzumiya’s idiosyncratic performance of songs she rushed to learn, and Nagato’s guitar following those idiosyncrasies, there were discrepancies—tiny, but they were there. And as the audience listened, they would feel the tension, if only subconsciously.”
He was being as plausible as he always was. Do you think anything is possible with enough psychobabble?
“It’s what I concluded after my analysis. Moving along, then—when they played the second and third songs, the feeling of tension only increased, and then they reached the final song. And what did Suzumiya do then?”
She’d explained that the real guitarist and vocalist weren’t onstage, that she and Nagato were just stand-ins, and then she introduced the drummer and bassist… right?
“And that was enough. In that instant, the mystery was solved—the reason for the strange tension in everybody’s chest. ‘So that’s where that strange uncertainty came from,’ they thought.”
When he put it that way… it did make a certain sense.
“Suzumiya’s singing and Nagato’s guitar works were by no means bad; far from it, they were well beyond the pop music club’s level, but the audience probably thought about it like this: ‘If they were this good with stand-in vocals and guitar, they must be amazing with the real leader.’ ”
So that explained why there were so many requests for minidisc copies.
“Suzumiya’s singing was excellent, almost perfect. But in not being too perfect, she created the best possible outcome. I must say, I’m impressed.”
He might have been right. Haruhi popping up had certainly turned out well for those three girls.
So what about us?
“To which ‘us’ do you refer?”
I’m talking about the SOS Brigade—you know, the people more involved with Haruhi than anyone else at the school! Do you seriously think there’s something good waiting for us too?
“I suppose we won’t know that until the very end. If we don’t think things went too badly once it’s all over, I’d say you could call that ‘something good.’ ”
The three older girls left just as the bell announcing fourth period began to ring.
Bafflingly, Haruhi returned to her seat with a complex expression on her face, and it stayed there as she daydreamed straight through the period. She disappeared from the classroom as soon as lunch started.
I wolfed down my lunch as I listened to Kunikida and Taniguchi make their excuses (“Yeah, man, there just weren’t any decent chicks at the festival. It’s this school’s crappy location, I’m telling you—it needs to be on flat ground.”), then shoved my lunch box into my school bag and vacated my seat.
For no particular reason, I just felt like taking a walk to digest.
After wandering around for a while, my feet brought me to the courtyard in the middle of the school. I veered off the path that would take me to the clubroom building and walked the patchy, balding lawn in the center. And there, who should I happen across but Haruhi, lying there on the grass.
“Yo,” I said. “What’s up? You’ve been wearing that expression since the last recess.”
“What of it?”
Haruhi had replied quickly, staring at the clouds as though she were talking to the sky. I did likewise—that is, I looked up at the sky, saying nothing.
I wonder how long we stayed that way, quiet. It didn’t feel like more than three minutes, but I don’t have a lot of confidence in my internal clock.
It was Haruhi who finally broke the pointless silence contest. Her tone was somehow stiff, reluctant.
“I just can’t seem to calm down. I wonder why.”
Her tone seemed genuinely puzzled. I felt a sardonic smile coming on.
“How should I know?” I said. Here’s what I really wanted to say to her:
It’s because you’re not used to people thanking you. You’re always doing things that no normal person would look you in the eye and say “thank you” for. You were probably secretly wondering if you were butting in when you offered to help them out. If it’d been you, you would’ve dragged yourself onstage even if your vocal cords were blown out or both your arms broken. The people around you telling you to stop would only have given you more energy, and you’d never have thought to turn to anybody else for help.
So how does it feel to have helped out those girls? Their songs are hits thanks to you arguing with the festival committee people. When they thanked you, they really meant it. It was almost the best thing you could’ve done. So how does it feel, Haruhi? Has this awakened you to the possibilities of good deeds? How about swearing to work only for the good of the world and humanity henceforth?
… Of course I never said any of that stuff. I only thought it. All I was doing was standing next to Haruhi and looking up at the sky. A mountain breeze blew thin clouds through the sky, as though the school festival itself had triggered the autumn weather.
Haruhi said nothing. She wore an intentional-looking scowl on her face, but within her head was probably another emotion entirely.
“What?” Haruhi directed an annoyed glare at me but remained where she was. “You got something to say? Then say it. I’m sure it’s nothing worthwhile, but it’s bad to just stew on things.”
Her eyes glittered.
“Not really, no,” I said.
Haruhi sat up and grabbed a handful of grass to throw at me. But evidently the weather gods were on my side, as a sudden odd gust of wind blew up and set the green blades back into her face.
“Ugh!”
Haruhi flopped back down on the grass as she sputtered to get the grass out of her mouth.
I looked vaguely up at the clubroom building. I could see the brigade room’s window from here. I wondered if a certain slender, short-haired figure would be looking down at us, but there was nobody there. Not surprising, I guessed.
The silence continued for a bit longer but was eventually broken by Haruhi’s voice.
“Concerts are fun. I sort of wonder if that was good enough, but… yeah. It was fun. How should I put it? It felt like I was really doing something.”
If dressing as a bunny girl and getting up onstage to sing lyrics from a music stand as a substitute vocalist was her idea of fun, then she had serious guts. Of course, I knew that already.
“I can see why that injured girl argued so much with the festival committee,” she said.
“Yeah.”
I couldn’t help but feel sort of moved. I guess that’s what I get for letting my guard down.
“Hey!”
The tranquil mood was shattered when Haruhi suddenly bolted to her feet, then loomed over me ominously. I tried to back away, but my foot slipped.
The volatile Haruhi smiled brilliantly and spoke in a high, excited voice.
“Hey, Kyon! Can you play an instrument?”
“Nope.”
I shook my head rapidly. I had a very bad feeling about this.
“Huh. Well, we’ll fix that with practice. We’ve got a whole year, after all.”
Hey, now.
“We should perform as a band next year! We don’t have to join the pop music club if we pass the audition, and that’ll be a cinch. I’ll do vocals, Yuki can play guitar, and we’ll give Mikuru a tambourine and put her onstage as decoration!”
Oh hell no.
“Of course, we’ve got to make the sequel to the movie too. We’re gonna be busy next year—but you always gotta set more goals, right?”
Now hang on just a second!
“All right, Kyon, let’s go!”
Hey, wait—go where, to do what?
“To get some instruments! They’ll have some spares in the pop music club room. And I’ll have to ask those three girls about tips for writing songs. Gotta strike while the iron’s hot!”
Haruhi ignored me as I considered how hesitating before striking was probably the best idea. She grabbed my wrist and began to drag me behind her.
Her strides were long. Purposeful.
“Don’t worry; I’ll handle the songwriting and composition. And the arrangement and choreography, of course.”
Oh, great. The mysterious switch in Haruhi’s head had been flipped, and she was off on some new obsession. Even alien abductors would drag me off more gently than she did. I looked up at the sky for someone to help me.
No one was standing at the clubroom window. Apparently our own genius-level guitarist/magic-wielding alien was absorbed in a book right now. It was autumn, after all.
“C’mon, Kyon, walk with your own two feet. Three stairs at a leap, got it?”
Haruhi turned and looked back, eyes glittering with all she was imagining, and she lengthened her stride into a run.
There was no helping it. I ran too.
Why, you ask?
Because it would be some time before Haruhi let go of my hand.
Thus did my first school festival come to a hurried end, as though linked with the changing season—though the festival’s energy seemed to echo in Haruhi’s mind, and behind that echo danced boldly typeset headline copy like, “Pre-Sale Tickets Now Being Designed!” or “(Hopefully) A Smash Hit in the US!” or “A Year to Plan, A Month to Shoot (More or Less).”
She was already thinking about the sequel she wanted to make for next year’s festival. You might think that no one would be so hasty—but you’d be wrong.
For my part, I felt like I’d just managed to finish delivering a heavy package, and just as I was feeling like I could go home, suddenly I had to deliver an even heavier load. I was escorting the terrified leading lady down a treacherous jungle path, waiting to be ambushed by a Bengal tiger, the two of us quivering in fear, all because of that insane thing we’d just screened.
How insane? Read on, my friend.