LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT

It all began with a phone call.

Just like every other year, the festive Christmas spirit had vanished as soon as the date had passed, and as we counted down the last few days until the new year, for which Haruhi would no doubt have all sorts of plans, I was afforded a few days of peace.

At the time, I had postponed all the house cleaning that needed to be finished before the new year and was instead wrestling with Shamisen in my room.

“Quit struggling! Just hold still; it’ll be over in a second!”

“Meow—”

Ignoring his protests, I held the tiny predator with his newly grown winter coat under my arm.

Ever since he’d turned my favorite denim jacket into scrap, my human-average memory suggested I should take the lesson to heart, and I made sure to regularly trim his claws. Shamisen’s feline-average memory was good enough, however, that he would sprint desperately away whenever he saw me holding the clippers.

Catching him was a terrible hassle, and holding down the scratching, kicking, biting calico while I trimmed each of his claws to a reasonable length meant that by the time I was finished, both of my hands were covered in countless scratches. But flesh wounds would heal, unlike the embroidery on my denim jacket, so I had to stay vigilant. It made me long for the days when he could understand and use human speech. You were so cooperative then, Shamisen—what happened?

But if he started talking again, that was an ill omen of another sort, so perhaps it was better if he just meowed like a normal cat.

Just as I was finishing his right paw and moving on to his left—

“Kyon! Phone for you!”

My younger sister burst into the room, holding the cordless phone. She grinned as she saw the struggle for dignity currently taking place between human and feline.

“Oh, Shami! Are you getting your nails clipped? I’ll do it!”

Shamisen looked away as if to say “No thanks,” sniffing in a very humanlike way. I’d let my sister clip his claws once. I’d held him down while she did the clipping, but an eleven-year-old fifth grader doesn’t have much sense for clipping nails, and she’d cut Shamisen’s to the quick, annoying him enough to put him off his feed. While I was definitely preferable to her, he still fought me every time. I guess a cat’s brain isn’t very big, in the end.

“Who is it?”

I traded the nail clippers for the telephone receiver. Shamisen saw his chance and twisted free, pushing off my knee and dashing out of the room.

Holding the nail clippers happily, my sister answered.

“Um, a boy. I don’t know who he is. But he said he was your friend.”

With that, she ran out into the hallway in pursuit of Shamisen. I looked at the phone.

Who could it be? If it was a boy, that ruled out Haruhi and Asahina, and if it was Koizumi, my sister would’ve recognized him. My other friends, like Taniguchi or Kunikida, would’ve called my cell phone, not my home landline. I punched the talk button on the receiver, muttering that I wasn’t going to fall for any stupid surveys or sales scams.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Kyon! It’s me! Long time no talk!”

I furrowed my brow at the throaty voice.

Who the hell is this? I couldn’t pretend I had any recollection of the voice.

“It’s me, man! We were in the same class in junior high, remember? Did you forget already? I’ve been sighing over you for months!”

Now that was downright creepy.

“Tell me your name,” I said. “Who are you?”

“Nakagawa! Can’t you at least remember the name of a classmate from a year ago? Or what, you go to a different high school and suddenly you don’t care about your old pals? C’mon, man!”

He sounded genuinely wounded.

“No, that’s not it.”

I cracked the lid on my memories and thought back to my third year of junior high. Nakagawa, huh? I did remember him. He was a well-built, broad-shouldered guy—I thought he was in the rugby club or something.

And yet… I looked at the receiver again.

We had only been in class together that one year, and we hadn’t been close. We hung out in different groups in the class. Sure, we’d say “Hey” or “ ’Sup” when we passed in the hallway, but if you wanted to know whether we talked every day, I could tell you for sure that we didn’t. Since graduation, I hadn’t had a single reason to think of his name or face.

I started picking up the claw clippings Shamisen had left behind as I spoke.

“Nakagawa, eh? Yeah, Nakagawa. I guess it has been a while. So, how’ve you been? I hear you went to an all-boys school somewhere, right? So why are you calling me? Are you working for the alumni association or something?”

“No, the alumni group’s headed up by Sudo—he goes to a public high school. But that’s not important. I’ve got something to tell you, okay? So listen. I’m serious.”

So what was so serious about this phone call out of the blue? I couldn’t possibly imagine what he could be getting at.

“Kyon, you gotta hear me out. This is something I can only tell you. You’re my only lifeline here.”

Sounds like a bit of an exaggeration. But what the heck, I thought, let’s hear him out—let’s hear what this estranged former classmate has gone to the trouble of calling me to say.

“It’s love.”

“…”

“I’m serious. It’s killing me. These last few months, it’s all I can think about, whether I’m awake or asleep.”

“…”

“It’s gotten so bad that I can’t do anything else. Well, no, that’s not true. I’ve been throwing myself into schoolwork and club activities, just to distract myself. My grades have gone up, and I’m on the varsity team after just a year.”

“…”

“And it’s all because of love. Do you understand me, Kyon? Do you understand the suffering in my chest? Once I’d looked up your home phone number in the junior high registry, do you know how many times I hesitated to call you? My body’s shaking right now. It’s love. The incredible power of love has forced me to call you. Please understand.”

“Look, Nakagawa…”

I licked my dry lips. A bead of cold sweat dripped down my temple. This was bad.

“… I’m sorry, but your love or whatever is just too… um… all I can say is that I’m sorry. I just can’t return your feelings.”

A cold shiver ran down my spine, if ever one had. I should say right now that I am 100 percent heterosexual. I don’t have a hummingbird’s weight worth of desire to bat for the other team. Both potentially and unconsciously, I am totally straight. I mean, consider this—it warms my whole body to think of Asahina’s face and figure. But when I think of Koizumi, I just want to sock him. Which means I’m not even bi, right? Right?

I spoke into the receiver without a clear idea of whom I wanted to address my thoughts to.

“So, uh, Nakagawa—we can stay friends, but…”

Not that we had ever been friends to begin with.

“… there’s just no way it can be a romantic thing. I’m sorry. Okay? Good luck at that boys’ school you’re going to. I’m just going to enjoy my normal high school life at North High. It’s been good talking to you after so long, though. If we meet at a reunion, don’t worry—I won’t out you. So, see ya—”

“Wait, Kyon.”

Nakagawa sounded suspicious.

“What are you talking about? You’ve got the wrong idea. I’m not in love with you. What the heck are you thinking? Get your mind out of the gutter!”

So what was that “It’s love” thing all about earlier? Whom had those words been meant for?

“I don’t actually know her name. I do know she’s a student at North High, though.”

Although I had no idea what he was going on about, I breathed a sigh of relief. I felt like a foot soldier in a foxhole at the front line of battle who’d just heard news of a treaty being signed. Getting a love confession from a guy was kind of surprising. In my case, anyway.

“Well, then explain yourself better! Who’re you in love with?”

There was a limit to how vague you could be, after all. I was just about ready to put him on my block list.

---

---

And anyway, what was the big idea, talking so seriously about love while still in his first year of high school? Maybe that was the craziest thing. It was embarrassing just to say it. I mean, love?

“It was this past spring… around May.”

Nakagawa started talking. There was something euphoric about his tone.

“She was walking with you. I can still see it clearly every time I close my eyes. Ah, her form was so fetching, so beautiful. And that wasn’t all. I saw a radiance shining out from behind her. It was no illusion—yes, it was light as though from heaven itself…”

His rapturous tone had a dangerous edge to it, as though he were under the influence of a dangerous drug.

“I was overwhelmed. I’d never felt such a feeling in my entire life. It was like electricity—no, like a thunderbolt had struck me where I stood! I stood there for hours, having lost all track of time. When I came to my senses, it was nighttime. That’s when I knew—it was love.”

“Now wait just a minute—”

Nakagawa’s words were like the feverish ramblings of an Andromeda Strain patient, but I tried to make sense of them. According to him, he’d seen me walking with someone in May, and the sight of that person had overwhelmed him. She was a North High student… which meant there weren’t many possibilities.

I hadn’t walked around town with many girls this past spring, to be honest. If she was a North High student, that eliminated my sister, so it had to be one of the three girls in the SOS Brigade.

Which meant…

“It was a fated encounter.”

Nakagawa continued his intoxicated rambling.

“Do you understand, Kyon? I never believed in anything as superstitious as ‘love at first sight.’ I was a strict materialist. But my eyes have been opened. There is love at first sight—there is, Kyon.”

Why did I have to listen to him go on and on about it? Love at first sight? I asked if he was sure he wasn’t being deceived by outward appearances.

“No, I’m not.”

His reply was decisive.

“I’m not being fooled by either face or figure. It’s the inside that’s important. I saw through to her soul in an instant. A glance was all it took. Nothing can change the impact it made on me. Unfortunately, it’s hard to put into words. But I’ve fallen in love—I feel like I want to keep falling. Do you understand, Kyon?”

Now it was my turn to say no.

“Forget about that, anyway—” I decided to cut off Nakagawa’s inane chatter.

“So you were shocked or whatever by that girl in May, right? But it’s winter now. It’s been months, so what have you been doing all this time?”

“That’s right, Kyon. Now that you mention it, it’s been rough. These past few months have been pure suffering. My mind hasn’t had a moment’s rest. I’m constantly agonizing over what to do. I wonder about what part of me could possibly be worthy of a girl like her. I’ll be frank, Kyon. It was only recently that I realized you were the one walking next to her. That’s why I called you. That’s just how dazzling she is. I’ve never felt this way about anything else in my life.”

The fact that he’d fallen head over heels for a girl whose name he didn’t even know, then mooned over her for months was a little frightening.

Asahina’s, Haruhi’s, and Nagato’s faces appeared in my mind; I decided to cut to the chase. To be honest, I just wanted to hang up, but judging by his crazed tone, if I hung up on him he’d just keep redialing me.

“Tell me what the girl you fell for looks like.”

After a moment of silence, Nakagawa spoke.

“She had short hair,” he said, speaking slowly as he recalled her. “And she wore glasses.”

Aha.

“The North High uniform looked spectacular on her.”

Uh-huh.

“And she was surrounded by a glittering aura.”

Well, I don’t know about that.

“So, you’re talking about Nagato, then.”

This was a surprise. I thought for sure the person he was so crazy for would be either Asahina or Haruhi, but Nagato? I guess there was something to Taniguchi’s A-minus grading. My first impression of her had been that she was an antique doll of a girl, quiet and eccentric, but I guess there are girl-connoisseurs everywhere. Of course, now it’s different—my opinion of her has completely changed in the last six months.

“So her name’s Nagato, then?”

Nakagawa’s voice was strangely aroused.

“What characters does she use to write it? What’s her full name?”

“Yuki Nagato. Nagato as in the battleship, Yuki as in ‘hope,’ ” I told him.

“… What a lovely name. Her family name is magnificent and strong, like the Nagato, while her given name is pure and clear, full of optimism and the possibilities of the future. It’s neither banal nor overstated, just like the image of her in my mind.”

And just what image was that? How could a single look reflect anything but his own conceited delusion?

“You said it was what was inside that counted, but what does love at first sight have to do with that?” I asked him.

“I just knew.”

He was annoyingly confident.

“This isn’t just a delusion. I know it. I don’t care about outward appearance or personality. It’s her intellect. I saw her. She had a godlike intelligence to her. I’ll never meet such a highbrow girl again.”

There was still much I didn’t understand; I’d have to look up “highbrow” in the dictionary later.

“So how can you tell all that from a single glance? You only saw her from a distance, and you haven’t said one word to her.”

“I can’t help it—I just know it’s true!”

Why does he have to yell?

“I’m grateful to God. I’m ashamed I never believed in religion before. Now I go to the neighborhood shrine every week to pray, and I’ve been going to the church for confession—both Protestant and Catholic.”

“That just makes you more of an unbeliever,” I said. “You can’t just worship anything. Pick a god and stick with it!”

“You’ve got a point,” said Nakagawa. “Thank you, Kyon. I’ve made up my mind. I need worship but one goddess—and that’s Yuki Nagato. I’ll devote all my life’s love to her—”

“Nakagawa.”

He’d just keep going with his nonsense if I let him, so I cut him off—it was just too corny, and I was starting to get irritated.

“So what do you want? I get why you called, but what of it? What’s the point of declaring your love for Nagato to me?”

“I want you to give her a message for me.”

So said Nakagawa.

“I want you to convey to her my words. Please. You’re my only hope. You were walking right beside her. Surely you must know her well.”

He wasn’t wrong. Everyone in the SOS Brigade was in the same orbit around Haruhi. And he’d said he saw Nagato and me in May, and she’d been wearing glasses along with her school uniform. So it must have been the day the SOS Brigade had gone on its first patrol, when I’d gone to the library with her. I got a little nostalgic thinking about it, but compared to then, I know a hundred times more about Nagato now—more than I’d like, if I’m honest.

Feeling it a bit keenly, I put a question to Nakagawa.

“So you remembered that I was walking with Nagato…”

It was a little hard to say.

“So, um, did it occur to you that we might not just be friends? That we might, like, be dating?”

“Not even a little bit,” answered Nakagawa without a moment’s hesitation. “You’re into stranger girls. Like back in junior high… I forget what her name was, but you’re not still going out with that one girl?”

There was plenty wrong with the idea that Nagato herself wasn’t weird, but that was beside the point—this guy seemed to have the wrong idea. I remembered Kunikida being similarly mistaken. That girl was just a friend, and I hadn’t seen her since graduating junior high. This was the first time I’d thought of her in a while. I considered whether I should send her a New Year’s card.

I started to feel like I was just digging myself in deeper, so I changed the subject.

“So, what do you want me to tell her? You want to ask her out? Do you just want me to give you her number?”

“No.”

Nakagawa’s response was serious.

“As I am now, I am not worthy to show my face before her. There’s just too much disparity. So that’s why—”

He paused for effect.

“—I want you to tell her to wait.”

“To wait for what?” I asked.

“To wait for me to come for her. Don’t you see? Right now, I’m just a high school student with no value in society at all.”

Sure, I thought, but I’m the same way.

“So it’s just no good. Listen, Kyon. I’m going to throw myself into study, starting now. No—I already have. I’ll go straight into a national university.”

It was good to have goals.

“I’m going to study economics. I’ll keep working hard, and when I graduate I’ll be at the top of my class. And when I start looking for jobs, I’m not going to go into a government or corporate job, but a smaller company instead.”

He was laying out a blueprint with no idea whether it was realistic or just a pipe dream. If a demon overheard him, he’d probably die laughing.

“But I won’t be satisfied with being a member of the proletariat for long. In three years—no, two years—I’ll have gotten the expertise I need to start my own business.”

Nobody’s going to stop you, so go right ahead, I thought. If I haven’t gotten my act together by then, I’d want him to hire me.

“I’ll get my company moving in five… no, make that three years, getting listed in the second section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange, with yearly profit growth of at least ten percent—and that’s gross profit, I mean.”

His spiel was getting harder to follow. But, undaunted, he continued.

“By that time, I’ll be able to take a breath. My preparations will be ready, you see.”

“What preparations?”

“My preparations to receive Nagato.”

I was as silent as a deep-sea shellfish as Nakagawa’s words battered me like ocean waves.

“Two years until I graduate from high school, and four years in college. Then two years of on-the-job training, followed by the three years it’ll take me to open my company and get it publicly traded, so that’s eleven years total. No, let’s round it out to an even ten. In ten years I’ll be a worthwhile member of society, so—”

“Are you completely stupid?”

I think you’ll understand why I said this. What girl would possibly just sit there and wait for a decade? And for a guy she’d never even met? To be asked to wait for ten years for some guy she’d never even met to come and propose to her, and then just sit there and do it, well—no human could do that. Unfortunately, Nagato wasn’t human.

I clicked my tongue.

“I’m serious.”

He really sounded serious too.

“I’ll stake my life on it. I mean it.”

If words could cut, his were slicing right through the telephone wires.

How was I going to talk him out of it?

“Listen, Nakagawa…”

I thought about Nagato’s slender form as she sat alone, reading.

“… This is just my perspective, but Nagato’s actually pretty popular with the guys. It’s kind of a problem for her, really. You’ve got a pretty good eye for girls, I’ll say that. But the chance that Nagato’s gonna stay single for ten years is about zero.”

It was a total bluff. I didn’t have a clue what would happen in ten years—not even to myself.

“And besides, something this important should be told to her in person. I’m not wild about it, but I’ll introduce you. It’s winter vacation, so I’m sure she can spare an hour or so.”

“I can’t do it.”

Nakagawa’s voice was suddenly quiet.

“I can’t do it right now. I’d faint as soon as I saw her face. Actually, I caught a glimpse of her from a distance the other day. It was at the supermarket by the train station… and I just happened to see her from behind, and that was all it took to freeze me in my tracks. Meeting her in person, I just… I couldn’t do it!”

Man, his brain had a bad case of love fever. It was serious, too, if he’d already made his ten-year plan under its influence. I wish there was something to do, but the only cure would be hearing her say “I’m sorry” as she ran away from him on the day he finally worked up the strength to blurt it out.

But if he was so far gone as to tell all this stuff to a guy he barely knew over the phone, I was terrified of what he might say next. I already had one person like that to worry about—Haruhi—and now Nagato had gone and made the problem worse.

What a pain. I sighed loud enough that he’d be able to hear it.

“Fine. Just tell me again what you want me to say to her.”

“Thank you, Kyon.”

Nakagawa sounded genuinely grateful.

“We’ll definitely invite you to the wedding. I’ll ask you to give a speech—the first speech too. I’ll never forget you. If you want, there will always be a position for you at the company I’m going to start.”

“Whatever, just tell me what you want me to say.”

I listened to the excessively hasty Nakagawa while balancing the receiver on my shoulder as I looked around for a piece of loose-leaf paper to write on.

Just after noon the next day, I silently walked up the hill to North High. As the elevation rose, the white vapor of my breath became more visible. If you want to know why I was going to school in the middle of vacation, it’s because the SOS Brigade was holding its regular meeting.

Today we’d also be doing a thorough cleaning of the clubroom. Although Asahina the maid would diligently sweep the floor, in accordance with the law that says that entropy always increases, a constant influx of stuff coming into the room had disrupted its order. The main sources of this chaos were Haruhi, who would swipe anything that her eye fell upon; Koizumi, who kept bringing in new board games; Nagato, who was constantly tearing through thick books; and Asahina, who was devoted to brewing the perfect cup of tea—basically, everybody but me. Left alone, the clubroom would turn into a disaster area. I’d finally proposed that everyone should take their stuff back to their homes, although Asahina’s costume rack would be spared.

“Ugh, what a pain.”

It went without saying that the lack of spring in my step was due to the unwanted piece of paper in my blazer pocket.

I’d written down Nakagawa’s declaration of love for Nagato verbatim. It was so ridiculous that I’d wanted to chuck my pencil across the room any number of times. Only veteran seducers would be able to say such absurd things with a straight face. “Wait ten years for me?” What was this, some kind of joke?

As I walked into the breeze coming off the hill, the familiar school grounds came into view.

I arrived at the clubroom building an hour ahead of the time Haruhi had set for the meeting.

It wasn’t because of the SOS Brigade rule that the last person to arrive for a meeting had to treat everyone else. That rule applied only to after-school activities.

The previous day, Nakagawa had said this:

“You can’t just hand over the note. You’d just be a notetaker, then. She might not even read it. You’ve got to read it out loud in front of her, and with the same passion I just used in telling it to you.”

It was an unreasonable request. I had no reason, nor was I simpleton enough, to just do as he said, but I was just enough of a believer in the goodness of humanity to be slightly moved by his entreaties. So to do it, I needed to get Nagato alone, with nobody else around. If I showed up an hour early, I was sure nobody besides Nagato would be there, and Nagato would definitely be there—she was the most reliable alien-built android I knew, after all.

After a perfunctory knock on the door was met by silence, I opened it.

“Hey.”

Did that sound too forced? I scolded myself and tried again.

“Hey, Nagato. I figured you’d be here.”

There in the tranquil midwinter air that filled the room, Nagato sat quietly in a chair, as still and cold as though she were a life-size doll. The title of the book she was reading sounded like the name of a disease.

“…”

She regarded me expressionlessly, raising her hand to her temple briefly, then lowering it.

It was the same movement she would have used to adjust her glasses, except she didn’t wear them anymore. I was the one who’d told her she looked better without them, and she was the one who’d left them off. So what was that just now? Had her habit from a few months ago returned?

“Nobody else is here yet?”

“Not yet.”

Nagato answered concisely, then returned her gaze to the densely typeset pages of her book. I wondered if she considered blank spots a waste of space.

I awkwardly made my way toward the window, letting my eyes drift from the clubroom building down to the courtyard below. It was winter vacation, and there was hardly anybody on campus. All I could hear through the drafty window was the faint chanting of one of the more cold-resistant sports clubs.

Standing there, I turned to face Nagato. She looked the way she always did—the same porcelain features and lack of expression.

Now that I thought about it, we’d been short a glasses girl for some time. Haruhi would probably make a play to fill the spot again sooner or later.

I thought about such pointless things as I fumbled for the folded piece of loose-leaf in my pocket, then pulled it out.

“Nagato, there’s something I need to tell you.”

“What is it?”

Nagato moved a finger to turn a page. I took a deep breath.

“There’s this idiot who’s obsessed with you, and as his agent I’m going to tell you what he told me. So how about it? Will you listen?”

If she said no, I’d planned to tear up the paper and throw it away right on the spot, but Nagato looked silently up at me. Despite the icy color of her eyes, when they looked at me they seemed to have a warmth that could melt snow—had my explanation been that good?

“…”

Nagato stared at me, her lips closed. Her gaze was like a surgeon peering at a patient.

“I see,” she said, watching me unflinchingly. She seemed to be waiting for me, so I helplessly unfolded the paper with Nakagawa’s confession on it and started to read.

“My Dearest Miss Yuki Nagato, though I could not help myself, please forgive me for conveying my thoughts to you in this way. In truth, from the very first day I saw you—”

Nagato looked at me and listened. It was I who felt weirder and weirder as I read. The more I spat out Nakagawa’s declaration of love, the dizzier I felt, as the stupidity of it all reached a crescendo. What was I doing? Was I crazy?

The final stage of Nakagawa’s life plan, as I read it out, involved a leisurely lifestyle in a nice house in the suburbs, with two kids and one white West Highland terrier. Nagato silently watched me as I read. A keen sense of the absurdity of what I was doing rose up within me.

It was stupid.

I stopped my emotionless reading. If I had to read any more of this nonsense, I’d go crazy. I’d never reach any kind of understanding with Nakagawa. There could be no relationship with anyone who possessed a mind capable of putting forth such oppressive lines. No wonder we were never close friends in junior high. He’d fallen in love at first sight, let it stew for half a year, then suddenly had a messenger deliver an insane love confession—he was beyond help.

“Yeah, so, it goes on like that for a while, but you get the point, right?”

To which Nagato replied, “Understood,” and nodded.

Seriously?

I looked at her, and she looked at me.

Time passed quietly, as though the very word “silence” had sprouted wings and was flying around us.

“…”

Nagato tilted her head just slightly but took no other action, simply fixing me in her gaze. So, uh, what now? Was I supposed to say something?

As I was riffling through my vocabulary for a response—

“Message received.”

Her gaze never wavered.

“But I cannot comply.” Her voice was as calm as always. “There is no guarantee that I will remain autonomous for the next ten years,” she said, then closed her mouth. Her expression did not change. Her eyes did not move away from me.

“Yeah…”

I looked away first, pretending to shake my head just to look away from those deep, dark eyes that threatened to suck me in.

“Yeah, I guess so. Ten years is too long for anyone.”

There were other problems with the confession besides the length of time, but for the time being I was relieved. As to where this sense of relief came from, the short version is that I didn’t care if it was Nakagawa or not—I didn’t want to see Nagato walking around with some other guy. I can’t deny that the image of the way Nagato looked back when Haruhi disappeared had stuck with me. It wasn’t that Nakagawa was a bad guy—he was actually okay—it’s just that I couldn’t forget Nagato’s distressed face as she pulled softly on my sleeve.

“Sorry, Nagato.”

I crumpled up the loose-leaf slip.

“This is really my fault. I shouldn’t have so faithfully written down all that stuff. I should’ve just told Nakagawa ‘no’ when he called me. Just forget all about this. I’ll give that moron a good talking-to. He’s not really the type to turn into a stalker, so you don’t have to worry about that.”

Of course, if Asahina were to get a boyfriend, I’d probably wind up stalking him.

Wait—Ah, so that’s how it was.

I realized what the hazy feeling in my chest was.

To put it bluntly, I didn’t like the idea of some other guy getting between Asahina and me or Nagato and me. It just bothered me—hence my relief. I guess I was pretty transparent.

What about Haruhi? I didn’t have to worry about her. She rejected any guy who got close to her. If there were some kind of natural disaster and Haruhi actually started going out with someone, she wouldn’t be constantly looking for aliens and time travelers, would be nice to Earth, and would make things easier for Koizumi too.

And the craziness I seemed to be constantly getting tangled up in would come to an end too, surely. Perhaps that day would actually come, but it definitely wasn’t here yet.

I opened the window. The sharp winter chill cut through the indoor air, which had been warmed by our body heat. I wound up and chucked the crumpled-up ball of paper as far out the window as I could.

The ball caught the wind and traced a steep arc down. It soon fell in the grassy area beside the covered path that led to the clubroom. I imagined it’d be blown along the ground, winding up in one of the gutters that ran along the school buildings, and eventually decompose along with the rotting leaves.

How wrong I was.

“Oh, shi—”

Just then, a person walking down the covered path to the clubroom changed direction and made for the grassy area. She looked up and glared at me as though I’d tossed a cigarette butt, then strode over and picked up the paper I’d just tossed.

“Hey, stop! Don’t look at that!”

Ignoring my protests, she picked up the trash that no one had asked her to pick up and, uncrumpling the paper, began to read.

“…”

Nagato continued to regard me wordlessly.

I know it’s sudden, but let’s put on our thinking caps.

Thus did Haruhi Suzumiya scan the paper intently for a few minutes, eventually looking back up to me sharply, then for some reason grinning unpleasantly.

… That cinched it. Today was not my day.

Just ten seconds later, she had already burst into the clubroom with ferocious speed and seized me by the collar.

“What the hell are you thinking? Are you an idiot? I’m gonna set you straight this instant—jump out the window! Now!” she shouted with a grin. That grin looked pretty forced, but if you converted the force with which she dragged me to the open window, it’d be enough to power a heater all day. She didn’t let up even a little as I frantically tried to think of the words I could use to explain the situation.

“No, look, this is—there’s this guy I knew from junior high named Nakagawa, and he—”

“What, you’re gonna try to make this someone else’s fault? You wrote this, didn’t you?”

Haruhi dragged me along, then stared right in my face from maybe ten centimeters away, her eyes large and clear.

“Just let me go. This is no way to have a conversation.”

Just as I was wrestling with Haruhi, a fourth person appeared, his or her timing seriously bad.

“… Wha—”

Asahina’s eyes were as big as saucers as she stood in the open doorway, then she covered her mouth elegantly.

“… Um… are you busy? Maybe I should, er, come back later…”

We were at each other’s throats, but that didn’t really count as “busy.” There wasn’t anything fun about wrestling with Haruhi, and if I had to wrestle, I’d take Asahina, thanks—so come on. I’d never once denied Asahina the right to enter, nor did I plan to.

Anyway, Nagato was sitting right there doing nothing, so there wasn’t any reason why Asahina couldn’t come in too. And I’d owe her one if she could help me out of this.

I tried to smile at Asahina as I grappled with Haruhi.

“My goodness.”

The last brigade member had arrived, and he stood next to Asahina.

“Am I a bit early, perhaps?”

Koizumi smiled brightly and brushed his hair aside.

“Asahina, it seems we’re intruding here. It’s best not to interfere in domestic quarrels, so perhaps we should excuse ourselves for the time being and return once things are settled. I’ll treat you to a coffee from the vending machine.”

Hang on, Koizumi. If he thought this was some kind of lovers’ quarrel, he needed to get his eyesight checked. And don’t use this to abduct Asahina either—this is no time for her to be nodding in agreement with you!

Haruhi had grabbed my shirt with her madman’s strength while I gripped her wrist. At this rate I was going to tear a muscle, so I called out for help.

“Hey, wait, Koizumi! Where are you going? Help me out!”

“Hmm, what to do?”

Koizumi decided this was the time to play dumb, while Asahina cowered like a scared rabbit, blinking rapidly. She didn’t seem to notice Koizumi putting his arm around her waist as though escorting her somewhere.

When I looked to see what Nagato was doing, she was unsurprisingly reading her book, as though none of this had anything to do with her. This was all about her to begin with, so couldn’t she spare a few words of explanation?

Haruhi’s grip tightened.

“I’m such a dope, letting someone into my brigade who’s so stupid that they wrote a ridiculous letter like this. I should resign in shame! I feel like I stuck my foot into a shoe filled with roaches!”

Despite her anger, Haruhi was still smiling incomprehensibly. It was as though she didn’t know what expression to use in a situation like this.

“I’d already thought up thirteen different punishments before I got here! First, I’m gonna make you jump on top of a wall with a dried mackerel in your mouth and make you fight for territory with the rest of the alley cats! And you’ll have to wear cat ears!”

Now if Asahina had worn cat ears with her maid outfit, that would’ve been something to see, but if I did it, I’d get hauled off in one of those legendary super ambulances.

“We’re fresh out of cat ears.”

I looked toward the open window and sighed.

Sorry, Nakagawa. If I didn’t spill my guts, I’d wind up getting tossed out that window just like your love letter. It wasn’t what I’d wanted to do, but if Haruhi’s misunderstanding wasn’t cleared up, it could mean trouble for the whole of the natural world.

I looked into the brigade chief’s eyes and used the same calm tone I used when trying to calm Shamisen as I trimmed his claws.

“Listen. First, put me down. Haruhi—let me explain things. I’ll make it clear enough to get through even your thick skull, all right?”

Ten minutes later.

“Hmph.”

Haruhi sat cross-legged on a folding chair, sipping a cup of hot green tea.

“You’ve got some weird friends. I mean, he can fall in love at first sight all he wants, but the letter’s going too far. It’s so stupid.”

Love could cause brain damage as well as make someone blind. Not that I disagreed with her last statement, though.

Haruhi held up the wrinkled piece of notebook paper and waved it around.

“I thought for sure you’d teamed up with that moron Taniguchi to give Yuki a hard time. It’s the kind of thing he’d do, and Yuki’s so quiet. She’d be easy to fool.”

I figured there wasn’t anyone less easy to fool than Nagato anywhere in the galaxy, but I listened without interrupting. Haruhi seemed to notice me exercising my self-control and gave me a glare before her features relaxed.

“No, I guess you wouldn’t do that. You don’t have the cunning for this kind of thing.”

I wasn’t sure if she was complimenting me or just being nasty, but at least she didn’t think I would do the kind of thing a thoughtless elementary school kid would pull. And even Taniguchi had a reasonable amount of discretion for his age.

“Still…”

It was the angelic pride of the SOS Brigade that lit the fuse.

“… It’s lovely, isn’t it?”

Asahina spoke in a dreamy voice.

“If someone were like that over me, I think I’d be kind of happy. Ten years? I’d love to meet someone who would wait ten years for me. It’s so romantic…”

She clasped her hands, her eyes shining.

I wasn’t completely sure if Asahina’s definition of “romantic” was the same as the one I’d learned or not, but it didn’t seem to be. Maybe some words’ definitions have changed in the future. And she was the kind of person who didn’t understand how boats floated until you explained it to her.

Incidentally, Asahina was just wearing her school uniform today. We’d taken the maid outfit, nurse outfit, and all the other costumes to the cleaners—even the frog costume. When Haruhi and I had gone to the cleaners with the stack of clothes all scented with Asahina’s fragrance, the old man behind the counter had given us both a stare so unnecessarily hard that I felt a little traumatized afterward.

“True romance and Nakagawa are worlds apart.”

I swallowed the last of the tea in my teacup and continued.

“Trust me, he’s a big, thick guy who’d never in a million years wind up as the hero of a girls’ romance comic. In animal fortune-telling terms, he’d be a bear with a crescent moon on his chest.”

---

---

As I spoke, I thought of ad copy to perfectly match the image I had of him from junior high.

“Yeah, like a gentle giant,” I said.

I didn’t have much to go on, but that was the image that came to mind. His physique was well-developed, anyway. In a different sense than Asahina’s, I mean.

I should’ve apologized to Nakagawa for this, but soon Haruhi had given a dramatic reading of the words he’d dictated to me—I didn’t have the stamina for such a reading—and Koizumi’s impression was rather different from Asahina’s.

“That was an excellent composition, I must say.”

His smile was as pretentious as ever.

“Above all, it was concrete. While it was a bit too idealistic, the honest way in which he’s clearly looking at reality is appealing. One does get the sense that he’s lost himself in the passion of the moment, but reading between the lines, one can feel his rising spirit and heart. If he keeps up the effort, this Mr. Nakagawa will become a formidable man indeed.”

It sounded like something a cut-rate psychoanalyst would say. There was a limit to what you could say about other people’s lives, I thought. I could think of all kinds of things to say, as long as I didn’t actually have to take any responsibility for them. What was he, a bogus fortune-teller?

“However—”

Koizumi smiled again.

“He certainly is bold, composing a letter like this. And you’re a good person, too, for writing it down. I’m afraid my fingers would’ve refused to do it.”

Was that a roundabout way of giving me a hard time? Well, unlike you, I actually care about my friends. At least enough to play part-time Cupid, even when I knew what the outcome would be.

I shrugged and gave Koizumi my reply.

“Nagato told me her response before you guys got here.”

I spoke for Nagato, who was paying equal amounts of attention to Haruhi and Koizumi.

“Ten years is too long, she says. I mean, of course it is, right? That’s what I’d say too.”

Then, after having been silent the entire time, Nagato spoke.

“Let me see.”

She reached out with slender fingers.

Now that was unusual, I thought. Haruhi seemed to think so too.

“Oh yeah? So you’re interested, are you?” she said, peering past the unevenly cut bangs of the sole member of the literature club. “Kyon’s the one who wrote it down, but you should hang on to it anyway, as a memento. You don’t see this kind of half-direct, half-roundabout love confession much nowadays.”

“Here you go.”

Koizumi took the wrinkled paper from Haruhi and passed it to Nagato.

“…”

Nagato lowered her eyes and read the words I had written, over and over, her eyes flicking up and down over the same lines, as if silently digesting their contents.

“I cannot wait.”

Well, of course.

But Nagato continued.

“I will see him.”

The room fell silent at her statement, and then, as if to deliver a final blow to my slackened jaw:

“I am interested,” she said, looking at me. Her eyes looked the way they always did.

I knew those eyes well—honest, pure, like handcrafted glass pieces.

The big cleaning day wound up being a normal cleaning day. When I suggested we dispose of the books on the bookshelves, Nagato didn’t give me a straight “yes” or “no,” but just stared at me with a vague sadness that left me unable to say anything more, and the only game from Koizumi’s collection we threw away was a cheap dice game from a magazine that we’d played only once anyway.

Asahina didn’t have any personal items save her tea set. And the disposal of anything that Haruhi had brought in was met with a flat “No!”

“Now listen here, Kyon. I don’t ever waste anything I can use. If it can be reused, it should be, and so long as it’s holding together, I won’t throw it away. That’s the spirit of environmentalism!”

I wondered if this was how hoarders got started on their hoarding. If you wanted to be an environmentalist, you shouldn’t do anything but the minimum for survival, I thought.

Haruhi tied a kerchief over her hair and had Nagato and Asahina do likewise, giving them a mop and a duster, while Koizumi and I got buckets and washcloths along with orders to wash the windows.

“This will be the last time we’re here this year, so in order to face the new year with a nice, clean feeling, we’re going home with the place sparkling.”

Thus ordered, Koizumi and I got to work on the windows. After a while, I glanced at the trio of girls, wondering whether they were cleaning the room or just spreading dust around, when my cleaning partner spoke quietly.

“This is just between you and me, but there are other organizations besides the Agency trying to get close to Nagato. Right now she’s every bit as important as you and Suzumiya. Nagato is in a unique position even among her fellow humanoid interfaces, which is probably a recent development.”

I sat on the windowsill and breathed on my wet hand to warm it up while washing with the other hand; the winter chill robbed them of warmth all too quickly.

What the hell was this—

It was easy to play dumb. Recently I’d had experiences with both Nagato and Asahina that had nothing to do with Haruhi or Koizumi, and as a result I was still here, so I couldn’t just ignore this.

“I’ll figure something out,” I answered casually.

This whole situation had been caused by me. I’d have to be the one to fix it.

“Indeed. I’m counting on you. I have my hands quite full with planning the SOS Brigade’s winter mountain trip. And may I just say that while you can release stress by quarreling with Suzumiya, I have no such sparring partner.”

Who was the tomcat now?

But the handsome smile on Koizumi’s face twisted.

“Isn’t it about time for me to take off this harmless-looking mask and change the character I’ve been playing for so long? It’s quite tiring being so polite to my classmates all the time.”

If it was so tiring, he should’ve just stopped. I have no desire to control how he talked, I told him.

“That won’t do at all. My current self fits with the image Suzumiya wishes. I’m quite a specialist in her psychology.”

Koizumi gave an exaggerated sigh.

“On that count, I am rather envious of Asahina. After all, she needn’t change a single thing about herself.”

Didn’t he once say that Asahina’s manner might be an act? I asked him.

“Oh, did you really believe what I said? If I’ve actually won your trust, perhaps there’s been some value in all this effort.”

As evasive as ever. His untrustworthy speech patterns hadn’t changed all year. Even Nagato had undergone some internal changes, but Koizumi was the same as always. For Asahina’s part, she didn’t need to change. I’d met the other Asahina, so I knew for certain that she’d mature both physically and psychologically.

“If I were to change somehow…”

Koizumi wiped more vigorously.

“… that would not be a good sign. The status quo is my duty. I can’t imagine you’d want to see me look serious.”

You’re right, I wouldn’t, I told him. His grinning face was perfectly suited to cleaning up Haruhi’s messes or setting things up for her in advance. I was really looking forward to whatever play waited for us in the snowy mountains. That is enough, right? I said.

“I can’t imagine a finer compliment. I’ll accept that.”

I didn’t know whether he meant it or not, but in any case his words ended up as white condensation on the window.

Later that evening.

Shamisen was curled up on my bed, and I looked at his sleeping face, feeling warm and pleasant. I wondered where this pleasant feeling came from and pondered the particular distinctions between love and lust. Just as I felt I was upon an answer—

“Kyon, telephone! The boy from yesterday!”

Once again my sister opened the door to my room, holding the receiver.

She handed me the receiver, which was playing some easy listening version of a famous classical tune, then she sat on the edge of the bed and began tugging at Shamisen’s whiskers.

“Shami, Shami, Shami’s so furry, Mommy’s gonna…”

I watched Shamisen open his eyes slightly to glare at, then ignore, my sister, then watched my happily singing sister as I put the phone to my ear. What had I been thinking about earlier? I wondered.

“Hello?”

“It’s me.”

My junior high classmate Nakagawa couldn’t hide the urgency he was feeling.

“How did it go? What was her answer? You gotta tell me. I don’t care what it was; I’m ready to hear it. C’mon, Kyon, out with it…!”

He sounded like a politician up for reelection, desperately listening to the news of the results.

“Unfortunately, I couldn’t get a favorable answer.”

I looked to my sister and shushed her as I tried to sound grim.

“She said she won’t wait. She said that she can’t imagine what will happen in ten years, that there are no guarantees.”

Since I was just relaying the facts, the words came smoothly. But just as I was wondering what to do about Nagato’s problematic statement that she would see him—

“I see.”

Nakagawa’s voice was surprisingly calm.

“I guess I’m not surprised. I didn’t think she would agree that easily either.”

I kept waving my head, and my strangely singing sister groaned her irritation before hauling Shamisen off the bed and leaving the room. She was probably going to go sleep with him in her own room, but give it an hour and Shamisen would probably come slinking back to my room. Cats didn’t like being given too much attention.

Once my sister left, I put my question to the phone.

“That’s all you have to say after making me read out that humiliating letter?”

If he had anticipated that reply, he shouldn’t have asked me to deliver the message.

“I realize that getting a heartfelt declaration of love from a complete stranger is bound to be difficult,” he said.

If you realized that, then don’t do it! You had to have a pretty obscure hobby indeed to go around knowingly stepping on land mines.

“But this should have at least piqued her interest a bit.”

You have to be at least a little impressed at Nakagawa’s plan. It was true that he was the first one to get Nagato to say she was interested. His message had had enough power to do that much, anyway. It’s enough to make me want to guarantee that he’s currently the most shameless guy on the planet.

“So about that, Kyon. I have another favor to ask.”

What was it now? My spirit of community service was at low ebb.

“Did you know I joined the football team when I started high school? I mean American football, not soccer.”

“That is the first I’ve heard of it,” I said.

“Ah. Well, I did. And that’s the favor I need. My team is going to host another school’s team for a game. I want you to bring Nagato to watch. I’m a first-stringer, of course.”

“When?”

“Tomorrow.”

I really didn’t need another person like Haruhi in my life. Why were their schedules always so cramped?

“If Nagato won’t wait ten years for me, there’s nothing I can do about that. If it’s come to this, I’ll have to show off some heroics and get her attention that way.”

Such a simplistic notion. He could’ve given a little thought to my position, at least—or at least thought about how busy the end of the year was.

“Is it not convenient for you?”

It wasn’t inconvenient. I had no plans tomorrow at all. Nagato probably didn’t either. It wasn’t inconvenient at all, so at this rate I was probably going to get sucked into watching his “heroics” or whatever. I told him as much.

“Great. Please come. It’s a friendly game, but we’re going to play for keeps. Our football team plays the school from the next town over every year. The outcome of the game is going to determine whether or not we have a pleasant new year. If we lose, it’s going to be the winter vacation from hell. There won’t be a break for New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day. It’ll just be more practice.”

Nakagawa sounded serious, even pathetic, but it wasn’t my problem. I told him that there was a pile of annoying things I needed to take care of by the end of the year. There weren’t many days before the mountain trip, after all.

“Kyon, I don’t care about whatever plans you have. What’s important is Nagato. Please, just ask her. If she refuses, then I’ll give up. But so long as there’s even one chance in a thousand, I’ll take that chance. Dreams will always stay mere dreams without action.”

That sounded like a load of nonsense to me, but I couldn’t bring myself to say it—my old weakness.

“Fine,” I said.

I flopped down on the bed and sighed.

“I’ll call Nagato after this.”

I had a premonition. Nagato would not refuse.

“Where was your school again? If Nagato says okay, I’ll bring her over.”

I’d probably bring some other people too—that was all right, wasn’t it?

“You’re a great matchmaker! I’ll be calling on you again for the wedding—no, perhaps I’ll name our first child for you—”

“Bye,” I said coldly, then hung up. If I let Nakagawa go on, I felt like worms would start coming out of my brain.

I put the cordless phone receiver on the shelf and got out my cell phone, then looked up Nagato’s number and gave her a call.

The next day came very quickly.

“You’re late! You’re the one who called us out here, and you’re the last to arrive? Do you even care about this?”

Haruhi smiled and pointed at me. We were at the station where the SOS Brigade always met. Three others were also waiting for me—Nagato, Koizumi, and Asahina.

My original idea had been to just bring the silent android along with me, but going to the game with just the two of us simply wasn’t possible. I didn’t even want to think about what punishment awaited us if the brigade chief found out we’d done something without her. Everyone would have to come along. After I’d called Nagato to get her answer, I called up the other three to invite them along as well. The fact that everybody had come said a lot about how much free time we all had, thanks to winter vacation. Or maybe they just wanted to see what kind of guy would fall in love with Nagato at first sight.

Owing to the midwinter chill, everyone had bundled up. Asahina’s outfit was particularly notable—the fluffy furriness of her white synthetic fur coat made her look as lovely as an innocent white bunny rabbit hopping through the mountain snow. She was the one people should be falling in love with.

Nagato wore a simple duffle coat over her school uniform, the hood drawn over her head. Unsurprisingly, the pseudo-alien was able to handle our Earth’s chill.

“…”

Her face was so expressionless you’d never have guessed she was going to see the guy who’d confessed his love for her.

“All right, let’s go! I can’t wait to see what this guy looks like. Also, it’ll be my first time watching a football game!”

Haruhi wasn’t the only one who seemed like she was up for a picnic. Asahina and Koizumi were both smiling. My own face was hollow, and Nagato’s was blank.

“I checked the bus map in advance. It’s about thirty minutes to the boys’ school from here. Here’s the entrance.”

With a voice like a tour guide, Koizumi showed us the way. I had less and less to say.

---

---

They sure seemed to be having fun—Koizumi and Haruhi, and maybe Asahina too.

As we walked, Koizumi casually drew alongside me and whispered significantly into my ear.

“You certainly do have some mysterious friends.”

I waited for him to say more, but he only smiled and went back to his role as tour guide.

Nakagawa was mysterious? Maybe. One thing was certain—no ordinary person would take one look at Nagato and be instantly struck down with love.

As we made our way to the bus station, something felt amiss about it all.

I had a bad feeling about this.

After half an hour of bouncing along on a private bus, it was a few minutes’ walk from the bus stop to Nakagawa’s school. When we got there, the game had already started.

Thanks to my oversleeping, we’d missed two earlier buses, and it was now fifteen minutes past the start time Nakagawa had given me.

It didn’t seem like we could enter the school grounds, so we walked alongside it until coming to a field enclosed by a chain-link fence, which was where the football scrimmage was being held.

“Wow, it’s such a big field.”

Asahina gave voice to her wonder, and I had to nod. Unlike North High’s grounds, dug forcibly out of the hillside, the flat, expansive field of this private boys’ school spoke of money. The place where we were standing was roughly one floor higher than the level of the field, which gave us an excellent view. Aside from us five, there seemed to be a few old guys passing by and some girls who seemed to be groupies, cheering on the two private schools’ teams.

The sound of colliding uniforms and helmets in blue and white reached our ears, and we five lined up in an empty spot to watch.

Nagato was silent and betrayed no reaction.

Even now.

I had only a casual understanding of the rules of football. After our mostly effortless victory in the baseball tournament, Haruhi had brought in forms for participation in the football and soccer tournaments. We wound up not participating in either (after much hassle), but just in case, I’d gone and looked up the basics. It seemed simple but was actually quite deep—not impossibly so, but hardly something a club like ours could just pick up and do, I could tell.

Watching from here, I could tell that my decision had been a correct one.

The offense carried an oblong ball similar to a rugby ball and tried to advance down the field by passing and running with it, while the defense tried to stop that advance by chasing down the guy with the ball, their protective gear clattering loudly whenever they collided with one another.

It definitely felt like an American sport.

“Huh.”

Haruhi clung to the chain-link fence and watched the clump of players.

“So which one is Nakagawa?”

“Number eighty-two on the white team.”

I explained according to what Nakagawa had told me the previous day. Nakagawa was a tight end, which meant he was at the edge of the offensive line, responsible for both blocking and catching passes. Nakagawa was quick despite his bulk, so it was the perfect spot for him.

“Wait—why are the players trading places? They look the same.”

“There are offensive players and defensive players. Nakagawa’s on offense.”

“Since everybody’s wearing helmets, I’m sure they’re allowed to head-butt, but how far does it go? Only judo throws? Or does anything go?”

“None of that. No head-butting either,” I said.

“Huh.”

Haruhi gazed at the field intently. North High didn’t have a football team, but if it did, there was no question she’d try to get on and wreak havoc. And with her speed and blind energy, she might even have been a worthwhile player.

“It sure is an exciting sport! Perfect for winter.”

I listened to Haruhi’s commentary and took a look at Nagato, who was following the ball, evidently not thinking about anything in particular.

The five of us stood there and watched private school boys smash into one another for a while.

“Um, would anyone like some tea?”

Asahina took a thermos and some paper cups out of her bag.

“I thought it would be cold, so I brought something warm to drink.”

The smiling Asahina might as well have been an angel. I thankfully accepted her tea. I had only been getting colder as we stood out there beneath the chilly sky, watching the game.

There we watched the two teams play football, sipping Asahina’s delicious hand-brewed tea.

The second quarter came to a desultory end as we sat there and watched; it was now halftime. The white uniforms of Nakagawa and his teammates coalesced at the opposite end of the field from us, where a tough-looking older guy started chewing them out. It was hard to make out faces from that distance, but I did catch occasional glimpses of jersey number eighty-two.

As for the game, it wasn’t anything special. There were no long, showy passes or thirty-yard runs; each team just kept creeping along with first downs, and the score represented only the handful of field goals they’d managed; there hadn’t been any touch-downs. That might have meant they were evenly matched and that the defenses were both working hard.

However, I do know a certain someone who hates it when things get boring, and her name is Haruhi Suzumiya.

“This isn’t much fun at all,” she said.

Haruhi stomped her feet as she frowned. She wasn’t the only one whose breath was coming out white either.

“At least the players get to run around.” Haruhi wrapped her arms around herself. “But we’re just standing here getting cold. Is there a café around here somewhere?”

The picnic mood seemed to have been blown away by the chilly winter wind. Asahina did not have an infinite amount of tea, and we’d long since run out. And even when we’d had it, the last half had gone cold before we could finish it, irrespective of the amount of love she’d made it with, so it wasn’t much good for warming up. Even worse, today marked the arrival of the coldest cold front of the winter, and Haruhi wasn’t the only one whose teeth were chattering from the chill; Koizumi, Asahina, and I were right there with her. The only one who didn’t seem to mind was Nagato, who never seemed to care what the temperature was.

“I guess it’s really no fun unless you’re playing. Maybe I should get them to let me join the game. I bet I could throw that ball.”

Haruhi squinted her eyes in the face of the wind that tried to rob her of body heat.

“And if I don’t do something like that, I’m just gonna freeze here. Kyon, do you have anything? Like hand warmers?”

If I had, I would’ve been using them myself. If she wanted to warm herself up that badly, she could’ve run laps around the school grounds or played Red Rover. That made the most economic and environmental sense.

“Hmph. Fine then, I’ve got a perfectly nice hand warmer right here. Human-size too!”

Haruhi slowly came up behind Asahina and embraced her, wrapping her arms around the poor girl’s delicate neck.

“Wha—what’re you—?”

Asahina was unsurprisingly dismayed.

“Ooh, Mikuru, you’re so warm! And soft too!”

Haruhi buried her chin in the unsullied snowlike fur of Asahina’s collar, embracing the petite (and occasionally abundant) figure of her upperclassman.

“I think I’ll stay like this awhile. Hee hee, are you jealous, Kyon?”

You’re damn right I was. Although if I had my choice, I would’ve wanted to hug her from the front.

“Hmm?”

Haruhi pursed her lips.

“Wh—”

She cut herself off, then took a breath.

“So, with Mikuru, then?”

I looked back and forth between Haruhi’s mischievous face and Asahina’s terrified eyes as the former held her embrace on the latter, and I tried to think of a way to answer. From behind me, my rescue appeared.

“Would you like to play Red Rover with me, then?”

Butting into the conversation, the disgusting Koizumi smiled disgustingly.

“I wouldn’t mind going for a jog, but I’d also be just fine wrestling around with another man.”

Well, I wasn’t fine. I’ve said it before, but I don’t bat for that team. Koizumi should’ve stuck to giving football commentary. This was all about me, Nagato, and Nakagawa, anyway—Koizumi was just a bonus. In fact, given the circumstances, Asahina and Haruhi were bonuses too.

I gave him a sidelong glare.

“I couldn’t care less.”

The central character for the day—Nagato—was as silent as always, unmoving as she watched the field. I got the feeling she was following Nakagawa with her eyes, but there was no way to know for sure.

Meanwhile, Nakagawa never once looked our way, whether he was moving around the field as part of the offensive line or sitting on the sidelines. I’d gone to all the trouble of bringing Nagato out here and now—nothing? Even now, during halftime, he was gathered with his teammates in a circle as they had a serious-seeming meeting. Had his desire for victory won out over all other considerations?

Or was this all on purpose? If the things he’d said were true, he’d been struck completely dumb upon seeing Nagato from a distance. I’d thought that had to be an exaggeration, but if it were true, he definitely wouldn’t want to be stricken thusly during the game.

“Eh, whatever,” I muttered, looking at the back of Nagato’s head as the wind brushed the nape of her neck.

I guessed we could meet up with Nakagawa once the game was over and he came out of the school. If the second half ended smoothly, Nakagawa’s team would win and he’d be free.

The previous day, Nagato had said she wouldn’t mind seeing him, so having them meet up wouldn’t bother anybody. Truth be told, I wasn’t thrilled with the idea, but that didn’t mean I was so callous as to mercilessly crush somebody else’s hopes and dreams. I could hear a guy out, after all.

And yet.

Unfortunately, things did not go smoothly. The whistle signaling the resumption of play had blown, and we were about five minutes into the third quarter when—

Nakagawa was taken away in an ambulance.

Allow me to describe the circumstances of his injury. It went something like this.

The second half began with the opposing team’s kickoff. The returner got tackled at his own twenty-yard line, whereupon it was time for Nakagawa’s team to take the offense.

The teams lined up and hunched down at the line of scrimmage; Nakagawa was at the far edge. In the center, the white-uniformed quarterback seemed to call out some kind of signal to his left and right. At the signal, Nakagawa moved sideways along the line. At the same time, the quarterback received the ball and took two or three steps back as the tackles and linebackers of the defense came rushing forward like wild beasts.

Nakagawa sprinted, heading to the inside—he then turned and moved as though he were receiving a pass. But it was a fake—the quarterback flicked his wrist and sent the ball past Nakagawa to the wide receiver.

“Oh—!”

I wasn’t sure whether Haruhi or Asahina had raised her voice in surprise.

The ball spun like a bullet shot from a rifle, but the trajectory was a bit off. An opposing linebacker made a desperate jump but couldn’t quite manage the interception. Nakagawa’s team narrowly avoided a turnover as the ball brushed his fingers, but that was enough to perturb its path.

Just then—

I saw Nagato, up until that point as still as a bodhisattva’s statue, move her hand.

“…”

She drew her hood over her head, tugging it down a bit to obscure her line of sight. But from what of her face I could still see, I could tell that her lips were moving.

“—”

She was definitely muttering something—and fast too.

I only caught it out of the corner of my eye, since my attention was on the field.

“Whoa—”

I leaned forward, eyes widening.

I thought the ball had only been deflected slightly, but then I realized that its destination was the place where Nakagawa was currently dashing to at top speed. I saw him make a perfect leap, grab the ball in midair, and try to make a stable landing—

—but no.

Just as Nakagawa jumped, the cornerback who had been covering him also jumped. His goal was the same ball that every player prized nearly as much as his own life.

The cornerback had taken his broad jump just as Nakagawa was reaching the ball. As humans do not possess the wings they would need to change direction in midair, the player’s energy dropped to zero as he collided with the falling Nakagawa. Given that both players bounced off of and away from each other, you can imagine how intense the impact was.

The opposing cornerback spun ninety degrees and fell onto his back, while the defenseless Nakagawa rotated a full half turn, landing perfectly vertical on his head.

“Eek!”

Asahina cried out in concern.

I yelled too. Nakagawa had clearly landed in the worst possible way for a human being to land—like a pro wrestler who receives a Tombstone Piledriver or Sukekiyo in The Inugami Clan. But at least wrestlers had the mat, and Sukekiyo had the swamp. All Nakagawa had under him was the hard, cold earth.

Lagging just behind the sight came the sound—a sound nobody ever wants to hear.

Thok!

If he was lucky, that dull crack was the sound of his helmet splitting—otherwise it was his skull.

The referee blew his whistle and stopped the game. Nakagawa lay still. He’d stopped moving, clinging to the ball as though it were some precious memento from his parents—no, he hadn’t moved at all. This wasn’t even funny anymore.

“Is he going to be okay?”

Haruhi clung to the fence, her brow furrowed.

“Eek—”

Asahina half hid herself behind Haruhi’s shoulder, as though turning away from a violent scene in a horror movie.

“Oh… there’s the stretcher…” she said, her voice tremulous.

Surrounded by his teammates, Nakagawa’s prone form was quickly moved to the stretcher and taken to the sidelines. His determination admirable, he still clung to the ball. The scene was so moving, it would be unbelievable if his team didn’t now rally and defeat their opponents.

Lying there on the stretcher with his helmet removed, Nakagawa seemed to have dodged the bullet. He opened his eyes in response to the calls of the people around him, nodding to answer their questions. He tried to sit up, only collapsed back down, but at the very least he was still breathing.

“Probably a minor concussion.”

Koizumi made his diagnosis.

“I doubt there’s much to worry about. These things happen in sports like this.”

I didn’t know where he got off making that call from a distance, and not being a doctor to begin with. Hopefully he was right, but the head is a bad place to take an impact. The coach and faculty advisor seemed just as concerned as I was, and soon the wailing siren of an ambulance approached.

“Your friend has rotten luck,” said Haruhi, sounding regretful. “He tries to show off to Yuki and gets injured instead. Maybe he got too eager.”

She sounded sympathetic. Did she really want Nakagawa and Nagato to hit it off? Even though she’d slammed the door in the computer club president’s face when he’d wanted to borrow Nagato?

I asked her as much, to which she replied, “Listen, Kyon. I think that love is a kind of disease, but I’m not going to interfere in other people’s love lives just for kicks. Everybody has their own path to happiness.”

I shrugged, letting Haruhi’s overlong philosophy of romance go in one ear and out the other. Sorry—if Asahina’s boyfriend turned out to be a loser, I don’t care how happy she seemed, I wasn’t confident I’d be able to be happy for her. I might even try to interfere. I don’t think anybody could blame me, though.

“I hope your friend is all right.”

Asahina clasped her hands together in front of her fluffy fur coat, an expression of true concern on her face. She definitely wasn’t faking it. That’s just the kind of person she was. Her prayers could heal you in half an hour even if every bone in your body was broken. I was sure Nakagawa would be fine.

The ambulance finally arrived, and Nakagawa was loaded into it, as carefully as though he were a cardboard box marked FRAGILE—HANDLE WITH CARE.

As soon as he was inside the ambulance and the doors were shut behind him, the siren blared back to life, the almost painfully bright flashing lights winking red as it headed off into the distance.

“…”

Nagato had been at least 50 percent less voluble than even she normally was, and she watched the ambulance go, as though trying to confirm the existence of redshift with her own dark eyes.

So, what next?

Nakagawa’s demonstration was unavoidably canceled thanks to his withdrawal, but with his departure went our desire to watch the rest of the scrimmage. It was freezing cold, after all, and our primary reason for standing here would soon be arriving at the hospital.

“Shouldn’t we go to the hospital too?”

Haruhi spoke suddenly.

“He was our whole reason for coming, and that’s where he’s going, so if we follow him, we can see how this turns out. It’ll be a great scene, with the worried Yuki going to visit him at his bedside! I’ll bet he’d be really moved. Plus, the hospital will be heated. Whaddaya think?”

She obviously thought it was a grand idea, but I didn’t really feel like entering a hospital for a while. I’ve been sustaining trauma ever since meeting Haruhi.

“Aren’t you worried about your friend? Let me tell you, when you got taken away in an ambulance, I definitely worried about you. You know, a certain amount.”

Haruhi dragged me along by the arm, her tone brusque.

“Honestly, you caused so much trouble.”

She walked a few steps with me, then stopped.

“By the way, which hospital did that ambulance go to?”

How the hell was I supposed to know?

“I’ll look into it,” said Koizumi, brandishing his cell phone with a smile. “This will just take a moment.”

Koizumi turned his back to us and walked a few steps away, then pushed a button on his phone and had a quiet exchange with whomever he’d called. Maybe a minute later, he flipped his phone closed, then turned back to us and smiled.

“I’ve found his destination.”

I didn’t know who he’d called, but I’d bet it wasn’t 911.

“It’s a hospital we know quite well. I doubt I need to tell you how to get there.”

A wave of memory hit me, my mind recalling the white of the sheets and the red of the apples. Koizumi smiled at me.

“Yes, that’s the one. The general hospital you were taken to not so long ago.”

As in, the one where his uncle’s friend was the director. I glared at Koizumi. This had better be a coincidence.

“It’s a coincidence.”

Koizumi chuckled as he saw my thousand-yard stare.

“No, it really is. Quite unexpected. Honestly, I’m quite surprised myself.”

I didn’t trust him anyway, so his trustworthy smile was wasted on me.

“All right, let’s go to the hospital. Can we get a cab somewhere? With five of us, we can split the fare and it’ll be cheap.” Haruhi immediately started lining things up.

“Suzumiya, I was thinking that we should have a meeting regarding the upcoming trip to the mountains. We’ll leave the hospital visit to these two, while you, Asahina, and I nail down the details of the trip. We haven’t sorted out things like luggage, precise dates, and so on, and we need to finalize these details.”

Haruhi wobbled midstep at Koizumi’s statement. “Oh, really?”

“Yes,” said Koizumi, continuing. “New Year’s Eve is right around the corner. A holiday in a snowy mountain lodge is a big event. Honestly, I’d planned to hold the SOS Brigade’s winter trip meeting today, but some unexpected things came up.”

Well, excuse me, I said.

“Not at all. But in exchange, I’ll leave Nagato in your hands. You should hurry to the hospital and check in on Mr. Nakagawa. Regarding what to do there, I’ll leave that to your discretion. Asahina, Suzumiya, and I will be in our usual café. Will that do, Suzumiya?”

Haruhi pursed her lips and frowned.

“Mmm, I guess so. There’s definitely no point in me going to the hospital. Kyon’s friend only cares about Yuki.”

She looked a little irritated, though.

“All right, Kyon. You go with Yuki to see your friend. If he can write a love letter like that, he’ll probably jump right out of the hospital bed after he sees Yuki for five seconds.”

But then she pointed at me harshly.

“But! You’d better tell me everything that happens! Got that?” she said with a half-angry, half-amused expression.

We took a bus back to our rendezvous point, then split into two groups to go our separate ways—Nagato and I would change buses to head to the hospital, while Haruhi and the rest would continue to be regulars at the nearby café.

Nagato never looked back, so I was determined to. I saw Haruhi and the others watching us go, with Haruhi making some kind of strange gestures as she walked. Not wanting to imagine what her body language was suggesting, I soon looked to my companion, bundled up in her duffle coat.

So, then.

I’ll put it simply. Worries encrusted my mind like barnacles. I was worried enough about Nakagawa, who’d gotten injured just as he was trying to impress Nagato, but I was even more concerned about what Koizumi had said: “You certainly do have some mysterious friends.” The “mysterious” part especially bothered me. I didn’t have any friends who were particularly exceptional, and if I had to pick one, it would be Koizumi himself. What was it about Nakagawa that he thought was so “mysterious”?

And then there was the strange incantation that Nagato had been chanting. Nakagawa’s accident had happened immediately afterward, and even the dumbest person imaginable would be able to put the two events together, given the pattern so far. Yes, Nagato was quite an artist, if she could turn me into an ace reliever capable of striking out three consecutive batters.

“…”

Her face buried within the hood of her coat, Nagato said nothing—but the answer would soon be revealed.

Upon asking at the reception desk, we learned that Nakagawa had already been examined and treated, and he was now resting in a hospital room. Though not serious, his injuries apparently required observation. I headed to the room number we were given, Nagato trailing behind me like a ghost.

Hardly a “hospital room.” We found Nakagawa in a six-person ward.

“Nakagawa, you doing okay?”

“Hey, Kyon.”

My former classmate wore a blue hospital gown and lay there on the bed. He didn’t look especially injured with his close-cropped jock haircut. He sat up like a panda awoken from a nap.

“You’ve got great timing. They just finished examining me. I’m gonna stay the night for observation. I kinda tweaked my neck and got a concussion when I fell, which is why I felt like I wanted to throw up. I called my coach and told him I’d be out tomorrow, so he didn’t have to come visit—”

As he was talking, he noticed the ghost standing behind me. His eyes widened.

“Is that… could it be…?”

It was indeed.

“This is Nagato. Yuki Nagato. I brought her along to cheer you up.”

“Aaahh—!”

Nakagawa suddenly straightened his sturdy frame, sitting bolt upright. Well, aren’t you feeling healthy? I thought. Apparently his head was well enough.

“I’m Nakagawa!” he shouted by way of self-introduction. “ ‘Naka’ as in ‘Chuya Nakahara,’ and ‘kawa’ as in the Yellow River! Humbly at your service!” He sounded like a rural daimyo at his first audience with the shogun.

“Yuki Nagato.” She gave her name, her voice unmoved. She hadn’t bothered to take off her duffle coat or even to pull back the hood. Unable to watch any longer, I flipped back the hood. We’d come all the way out here to meet him—it would’ve been a waste if he never got a proper look at her face.

The silent Nagato just stared at Nakagawa. After about ten seconds, he finally cracked.

“Huh? Um…”

Nakagawa’s expression turned somehow dubious.

“You’re Nagato… right?”

“Yes,” said Nagato.

“The one who was walking with Kyon this spring…”

“Yes.”

“At the supermarket near the station?”

“Yes.”

“I… I see…”

Nakagawa’s face darkened. I had expected him to cry tears of joy or faint dead away, so what was this sudden unpleasantness?

Nagato looked at Nakagawa as though he were a motionless flatfish in an aquarium, while Nakagawa regarded her as he would a manhole cover in the middle of the street.

Such a staring match can only go on so long, and sure enough, the first to turn away was Nakagawa.

“… Kyon.”

He tried to speak quietly, but all the other patients in the ward would have easily heard. But he was gesturing with his finger to quietly call me closer, and I couldn’t very well ignore him.

“What?”

“Listen, uh… we need to talk. About… y’know…”

I could see him constantly glancing over at Nagato. Evidently he wanted to ask something about her.

I looked over at Nagato to confirm.

“Yeah,” he said.

Despite the lack of telepathy, Nagato turned around and walked out of the room as though carried by a conveyor belt.

Once he saw Nagato slide the door shut behind her, Nakagawa sighed in relief.

“Is she… really Nagato? The real one?”

I’d never seen a fake Nagato, that was for sure. I’d seen her act rather differently sometimes, but that was ancient history.

“Hey, be happier,” I said. “Your future bride came to visit you—can’t you show a little gratitude?”

“Uh… yeah…”

Nakagawa muttered and nodded.

“That… that was Nagato. Not a twin sister or a look-alike.”

What was he trying to say? Don’t tell me you need her to wear glasses, I told him. Hadn’t he bumped into her recently? She quit wearing them at my request, so if he had a glasses fetish, I didn’t want to hear about it.

“No, that’s not it.”

Nakagawa looked up at me with a pained expression.

“I can’t explain it… just give me a second to think, Kyon. I’m really sorry…”

He just sat there on his hospital bed, groaning. Had that blow to the head really messed something up, after all? His reactions were incomprehensible. No matter what I said to him, he just groaned and looked up at the ceiling, as though deep in thought. Eventually he even clutched his head as though in pain. I gave up and decided to leave.

“Nakagawa, I’m gonna want to hear a reason for this eventually. What am I going to tell her?”

My report to Haruhi was going to be pointless too. If I told her the truth now, a flinty-eyed glare would be all that greeted me.

I left the hospital room, where Nagato was leaning against the hallway’s wall, waiting for me. She turned her dark eyes to me for a moment, then looked back at the floor.

“Let’s go.”

Nagato gave a slight nod, then fell in step behind me.

Just what the hell was that all about?

I stalked tiger-beetle-like ahead of the quiet Nagato, heading for the bus terminal.

The scene that followed at the café barely merits explanation. Haruhi talked merrily away about her plans for the winter vacation, while Koizumi mechanically agreed with her. Asahina seemed to be enjoying her Darjeeling tea as she sipped it, while I sat there, discouraged, and Nagato played the role of silent listener as she watched the proceedings.

We split the bill, and today’s SOS Brigade activities came to an end. When I went home, I was greeted by this:

“Oh, Kyon! Perfect timing—there’s a phone call for you!”

My sister smiled, holding out the receiver with one hand while dragging Shamisen around with the other. I took both the phone and the cat and went into my room.

As I’d expected, the call was from Nakagawa.

“This is really hard to say, but…”

Nakagawa had informed me that he was calling from a pay phone at the hospital, and from the tone of his voice, he indeed sounded reluctant to continue.

“Could you give her the message that I’m withdrawing my marriage proposal?”

---

---

He sounded like a midsize company president begging for an extension on a loan.

“Want to tell me why?”

Meanwhile, I sounded like an irritated creditor facing a helpless business owner.

“After creating this one-sided fantasy, you’re backing out after one day? What have you been doing the past few months? You meet Nagato face-to-face, and suddenly you’re not interested? Depending on your explanation, I may not have much to say to you.”

“I’m sorry. I don’t really understand it myself, but…”

Nakagawa sounded genuinely contrite.

“When she rushed over to the hospital to see me, I was so happy. I should thank you for that. But when I saw her, she didn’t have that luminous aura. No matter how I looked at her, she looked like an ordinary girl—no, she was an ordinary girl. I just don’t understand what happened.”

I thought of Nagato’s face, with its uncertainty-inspiring expression.

“Kyon, I’ve been thinking about it, and I’ve finally come to a conclusion. I thought I had fallen in love with Nagato, but that feeling’s gone. I can only assume that I was completely mistaken.”

I asked what he was mistaken about.

“Mistaken about love at first sight. When you really think about it, there’s just no such thing as falling in love. I was wrong all along.”

Aha. “So then, Nakagawa, what of your description of being struck dumb at the sight of the angelic light surrounding Nagato? Of being frozen stiff with a single look?”

“I just don’t know.”

He sounded as apologetic as a meteorologist who’d been asked to give a weather forecast for the next century.

“I just have no idea. I can only guess that it was all in my imagination…”

“I see.”

I sounded brusque, but I didn’t really mean to attack Nakagawa. Actually, I wasn’t that surprised. Things had turned out mostly how I guessed they would. As soon as Nakagawa had made me listen to his mad ravings, I’d wondered if this would be the way of things.

“All right, Nakagawa. I’ll pass that on to Nagato. She won’t think badly of you. I don’t think she was that into the idea to begin with. She’ll forget it in an instant.”

I heard a sigh of relief through the receiver.

“Okay. I hope so. Please tell her how sorry I am. There must’ve been something wrong with me.”

Most likely, there had been. Nakagawa hadn’t had any doubt, but something happened to him. And now, he was back to normal—as though someone had cast a restoration spell on him.

I chatted with Nakagawa for a while, and when his phone card ran low on time, we said our good-byes. We’d probably meet again, eventually.

After hanging up, I called another number.

“Can you meet? Soon?”

I arranged a time and place to meet up with the person on the other end of the call, then picked up my scarf. Shamisen was sprawled out asleep on my coat; he rolled onto the floor and gave me an accusatory glare when I pulled it out from under him.

Yesterday had been difficult, and with all the running around, today had been no better, but soon the day would come to an end.

I rode my bike to that mecca for weirdos, the park in front of the station near Nagato’s apartment. This was the place where Nagato had first called me to back in May, as well as the place where I’d first awoken when I traveled back in time with Asahina to the Tanabata festival three years previous. And more recently, I’d sat here with Asahina the Elder during my second trip back in time. Ah, the memories. They all came flooding back to me.

Sitting on that same old bench waiting for me was a hooded Jawa-like figure. Lit only by the streetlamp, she looked as though she was emerging from the darkness itself.

“Nagato.”

I called to the small figure that was looking right at me.

“Sorry for calling you out so suddenly. Just like I told you on the phone, Nakagawa changed his mind.”

Nagato stood naturally, then nodded.

“I see.”

I looked into her dark eyes.

“Think maybe you could tell me the whole story now?”

I’d ridden over pretty quickly, to keep my body warm. I could withstand the night’s chill a little longer.

“I can understand why Nakagawa might have fallen in love with you so quickly. Everyone has a type, after all. But why would he suddenly change his mind today? It’s unnatural. And with the football game… it’s just too much to swallow that he would get an injury today that just makes him forget about his feelings.”

“…”

“You did something. I know I saw you doing something during the game. You were the one who made him have that accident. It was you. Am I right?”

“Yes.”

Nagato’s answer was simple. She looked up at me.

“I am not the one he saw.”

She sounded as though she were reading an essay aloud.

“What he saw was the Data Overmind.”

I listened quietly while Nagato continued.

“He has the ability to use me as a terminal to access the Data Overmind.”

The cold wind made my ears hurt.

“But I doubt he understood what he was seeing. Mere organic life-forms like humans are on a different level of consciousness than the Data Overmind.”

I saw a radiance shining out from behind her… light as though from heaven itself. That’s how Nakagawa had explained it.

Nagato continued her emotionless explanation.

“What he probably saw was accumulated transcendental knowledge and understanding. While what would have passed through the terminal was insignificant, the information would have overwhelmed him.”

So it was a misunderstanding, then. I looked at Nagato’s tousled hair and sighed. What Nakagawa was sure had been Nagato’s true inner nature had simply been a bit of the Data Overmind. I don’t really understand the details, but Nagato’s boss possesses a history and a power far beyond the reckoning of any human. It’s hardly strange that by accidentally accessing that, Nakagawa got overwhelmed—like a computer freezing when its browser crashes.

“And Nakagawa got confused and thought he’d fallen in love or whatever, then?”

“Yes.”

“And then you… corrected his feelings?”

The messy bowl-cut hair nodded.

“I analyzed, then deleted, his powers,” answered Nagato. “Human intellectual capacity is insufficient for interfacing with the Data Overmind. I projected that eventually he would suffer adverse effects.”

I could believe it. One glance at Nagato had been enough to send Nakagawa into a daze, making ten-year plans a few months later. I shuddered to think how crazy he might have gotten if he were left alone.

But there was still one thing I didn’t understand.

“Why did Nakagawa even have that power? Has he always had the ability to see the Data Overmind through you?”

“He probably acquired it three years ago.”

So it all goes back to that again, eh? The reason Nagato, Asahina, and Koizumi are all here can also be traced back to something that happened three years ago. Or rather, something Haruhi made happen.

That was when I realized it.

The ability Nagato had mentioned—I understood now. Nakagawa might very well have been a candidate to become an esper like Koizumi. Haruhi had definitely done something three years earlier. Something unimaginable, to create a temporal rift, to create an explosion of data, to create espers. So it was entirely possible that Nakagawa could be something like Koizumi. Koizumi’s strange statement made sense now. Whether he knew all along or just found out in the last couple of days, he must have known about Nakagawa’s power. That’s what he meant by “mysterious friends.”

“Possibly,” agreed Nagato.

Or it might be… I felt a shiver that wasn’t just because of the cold. There was no reason that such events were limited to three years ago. Was Haruhi still giving people supernatural abilities? Just like she made cherry blossoms bloom in autumn or turned shrine pigeons into doves? Like that, but with humans?

“…”

Nagato stood and began to walk away, not answering—or perhaps she’d said all she came to say. I stood still as she passed by me, beginning to fade into the darkness like a wandering spirit about to ascend to the Buddha.

“Wait. Can I ask you just one thing?”

I called out to her form, feeling something I couldn’t put into words.

Nakagawa had fallen so deeply in love with Nagato that he’d entrusted an incredibly embarrassing love letter to me. To my knowledge, no one else has ever confessed their love to her so directly. What did she think when I read the proposal to her the next day? What did it feel like, hearing someone say, “I love you; I want to spend my life with you,” only to find out it was all just a mistake?

The question spilled out of me:

“Were you disappointed?”

In the months since I met her, we’ve done a lot together. That’s true of Haruhi, Asahina, and Koizumi too, but nearly all the incidents involved Nagato somehow, and you could say that she makes my internal pendulum swing the farthest. Haruhi will always get by on her own power. Asahina is fine the way she is, and who cares what happens to Koizumi? But Nagato—

I had to ask. I couldn’t help myself.

“When you found out his confession was a mistake, were you a little disappointed?”

“…”

Nagato stopped, then turned her head just enough that I could tell she was looking back. A sudden wind blew her hair across her face.

The night wind was bitterly cold as it sliced over my ears. I waited for a bit, and eventually these small, quiet words were carried to me on the chilly air:

“… Just a bit.”