The Boredom of Haruhi Suzumiya (2 page)

Meeting? Like those meetings that are held so she can arbitrarily force us to do stuff that makes no sense at all?

Haruhi had her arms around the struggling Asahina like an albino Japanese rat snake.

“You’re okay with baseball, right? Just to be clear, we’re aiming for first place! I won’t accept a single loss! Because I really hate to lose!”

“Awawawa…”

Asahina trembled with her eyes darting around and her face flushed.

Haruhi, who was practically executing a sleeper hold, suddenly bit down on Asahina’s ear as she glared at me. Maybe because I looked at her like I wanted to be in that sleeper hold.

“Okay?!”

Why do you care? You’re just going to ignore us anyway.

“Why not?”

Koizumi voiced his agreement.

Hey, don’t just cheerfully support her. Throw in an objection every once in a while.

“In that case, I’ll go get equipment from the baseball team.”

Haruhi shot off like a miniature tornado. The emancipated Asahina sank into a chair as Koizumi offered his interpretation.

“Aren’t you relieved that we aren’t capturing aliens or going on a camping trip to search for cryptids? If we’re playing baseball, we shouldn’t have to worry about encountering any of those unrealistic phenomena we dread.”

“I guess so.”

At the time, I agreed. Not even Haruhi would say that you would need aliens, time travelers, or espers to play baseball. When the alternative is to look around town for supernatural phenomena that couldn’t possibly happen (that was the SOS Brigade’s main activity), I’d much rather play some baseball. Plus, Asahina was bobbing her head up and down.

In hindsight, our conjecture was completely off the mark. I
could have lived with being off the mark, but it ended up piercing the wall behind the bull’s eye and flew off lord knows where, but I didn’t realize any of this until later on.

Basically, in my opinion, it didn’t have to be baseball. She would have been fine with whatever happened to catch her eye. First off, this not-quite-a-student-association with the embarrassing name “SOS Brigade” that still isn’t recognized by the school was basically just created by Haruhi on a whim. After all, the long and frightfully conceited official name of this enigma of a brigade is the “
S
ave the world by
O
verloading it with fun Haruhi
S
uzumiya Brigade.” My plan to change the name to something slightly better went to pieces unfortunately, and ever since, there hasn’t been an opportunity to change it.

At one point, I had asked Haruhi what the purpose of this club was, and she’d responded with a look on her face like a foot soldier who had just killed an enemy general.

“To find aliens, time travelers, and espers and have fun with them!”

The famous words that would confirm Haruhi Suzumiya, already known in our school for her bizarre behavior, as a complete freak.

And yeah, much like how a crow goes after shiny things, how a cat instinctively jumps after anything small that rolls around, or how a person who sees a cockroach in the kitchen goes for the insecticide, anything that draws her attention, be it dodgeball, gateball, or portball, will lead to her saying, “Let’s do this!” I should probably be happy that it wasn’t a rugby tournament. Since that would require finding even more members.

In other words, Haruhi was bored.

I have no idea what kind of negotiations were involved, but Haruhi returned like a whirlwind carrying an assortment of baseball equipment. The cardboard box, which looked as though an abandoned puppy could fit into it, contained nine beat-up gloves, a chipped-up metal bat, and a few dirty baseballs.

“Wait.”

I took a close look at the flyer again.

“This tournament uses softballs. What’s the point in bringing hardballs?”

“A ball is a ball, right? They’re the same. You hit it with a bat and it goes flying, guaranteed.”

“The last time I played baseball was at my grade school. But I still know the difference between softballs and hardballs. Hardballs hurt more when you get hit.”

“So don’t get hit then.”

Haruhi said it simply with a look suggesting she had no idea what I was talking about.

I gave up.

“So when is the game?”

“This Sunday.”

“That’s the day after tomorrow! That’s way too soon.”

“But I’ve already registered us. Ah, don’t worry. I put ‘SOS Brigade’ for the team name. No mistakes in that department.”

I felt exhausted.

“… Where do you plan on finding the other members?”

“Just grab any bored-looking people we see walking around.”

She seriously meant that. And anybody who catches Haruhi’s eye, with one exception, is not a normal person. The only
exception would be me. And I have no intention of becoming acquainted with any more people I can’t understand.

“I got it. You just sit tight. I’ll find members. First off…”

I went through the boys of class 1-5 in my mind. Who would be willing to come if I asked… Only Taniguchi and Kunikida, probably.

Once I mentioned them, Haruhi responded.

“Those are fine.”

She referred to her own classmates as objects.

“Better than nothing.”

Everybody else would probably run away the second the name “Haruhi Suzumiya” came up. Let’s see, what to do for the remaining two?

“Excuse me.”

Asahina timidly raised her hand.

“If you don’t mind, my friend would be…”

“Then we’ll do that.”

Haruhi replied instantly. Anyone works, apparently. You probably don’t care since you’re completely in the dark, but I’m a little worried about this. Asahina’s friend? Her friend from when and where?

Asahina must have noticed the concern on my face since she turned to me.

“It’s okay. She’s from this age… ahem, someone I met from my class.”

She said to reassure me. And then Koizumi opened his mouth.

“Then allow me to also bring a friend. In fact, I can think of an acquaintance who has expressed interest in our—”

I cut him off before he could finish. “You don’t need to bring anybody. Anyone associated with you is bound to be a weirdo.”

“I’ll take care of it.”

“If she’s willing to take anyone, I have other people to turn to.”

Haruhi nodded in a generous fashion. “Then let’s start training.”

Well, that was where the conversation was headed.

“Right now.”

“Right now? Where?”

“The school field.”

I could hear the soft sounds of the members of the baseball team going “Hey, batta, batta” through the open window.

By the way, I know I shouldn’t just mention this out of nowhere, but the truth is that the other four people in the club room aren’t ordinary humans for various reasons. Haruhi’s the only one who doesn’t realize what she is. The other three revealed their identities to me unsolicited and urged me to understand their situation. Their claims were so far beyond my comprehension that if my common sense were to be considered Earth, they would have been somewhere out past Pluto’s orbit. However, after my experiences during the previous month, I had learned that apparently it was all true. I didn’t really want to know that, but you could say that ever since I was included as one of Haruhi’s flunkies, my wishes have had almost no chance of being granted.

Simply put, Asahina, Nagato, and Koizumi were in this school because Haruhi was. Everybody seemed to be extraordinarily concerned about Haruhi.

As far as I could tell, she was just a hyper girl, but apparently I was the only one who felt that way, and my conviction had begun to waver in recent days.

I swear. My head hasn’t snapped.

The world has.

And so, I was standing on the dusty sports grounds along with the other brigade members who had strayed off the beaten track.

The members of the baseball team who had been chased out of their practice space were shooting us annoyed looks. That was to be expected. This strange group of people showed up out of nowhere, and then the leader, a girl in a sailor uniform waving a bat around, started yelling unintelligible things, leaving them dumbfounded. The next thing they knew, the baseball team’s allotted space on the grounds had been occupied and they’d been ordered to fetch and toss balls. If that isn’t considered annoying, I have no idea what is.

Plus our group was a bunch of people in regular school uniforms with a nurse mixed in.

“Let’s start with a thousand hits!”

Per Haruhi’s announcement, a rain of hits came pelting down on the bunch of us who were standing in a line near the pitcher’s mound.

“Eek—”

Asahina crouched down, covering her head with her glove. I turned toward the incoming white balls, determined to prevent her from being hit. At any rate, Haruhi was sending out a real flurry of killer lasers. She’s a pro at whatever she does.

Koizumi had his usual smile on his face as he blithely fielded hits.

“Indeed, it’s been a long time. This brings back memories.”

Koizumi bared his white teeth at me as he lightly stepped around Haruhi’s wild barrage. If this is such a breeze for you, help cover Asahina.

I glanced at Nagato to find her standing erect facing forward.
She stood perfectly still, paying no attention to any balls that flew her way. She didn’t even flinch when a ball passed her ear by mere millimeters. Occasionally, she would slowly move the glove on her left hand with robotic motions to catch and drop only the balls that were on a collision course with her. You could move a little more, you know. Or am I supposed to praise your dynamic visual acuity?

I probably shouldn’t have been paying any attention to other people as a ball took a weird hop and grazed the bottom of my glove, landing a direct hit on Asahina’s knee. What a mistake.

“Wah!”

The nurse version of Asahina shrieked.

“It hurts…”

She began sobbing. I couldn’t watch anymore.

“Take care of the rest,” I said to Koizumi and Nagato before I helped Asahina up and moved outside the white line.

“Hey! Where are you going?! Kyon! Mikuru! Come back here!”

“She’s retiring due to injury!”

I raised one hand to counter Haruhi’s protest as I took Asahina’s arm and headed for the nurse’s office. A much more appropriate place for her nurse outfit than the dusty club room or the rough sports grounds.

Asahina, with one hand covering her tearing eyes, apparently didn’t realize I was the person she was clinging to until we were already in the hallway.

“Eek!”

She jumped away, releasing a little shriek so cute I wanted to record it, and looked up at me me with a slightly red face.

“Kyon, if you’re so nice to me… it’ll happen again…”

What will happen again? I shrugged.

“Asahina, you can go home now. I’ll tell Haruhi that it’ll take two days to recover from the hit to your leg.”

“But…”

“Don’t worry. It’s all Haruhi’s fault anyway. There’s no need for you to worry.”

I waved my hand. Asahina looked up at me with her face lowered. Her teary eyes made her twice as sexy.

“Thank you.”

Asahina flashed me a smile so lovely my knees were buckling, as she turned back to look at me, before reluctantly walking away. Haruhi could learn a thing or two about how to behave by watching her. It’d do her a world of good.

When I returned to the sports grounds, I found that fielding practice was still going on. What amazed me was that the members of the baseball team were doing the fielding while Koizumi and Nagato stood behind the fence.

Koizumi smiled cheerfully upon spotting me.

“Why, hello there. Welcome back.”

“What’s she doing?”

“Exactly what it looks like. It would seem that we weren’t responsive enough for her as she’s been that way for a while.”

She had perfect control. Every ball she hit flew exactly where she said it would.

The three of us had nothing to do as we watched Haruhi’s impressive batting before that crazy girl finally set down the bat and wiped the sweat off her brow, looking satisfied. Koizumi spoke with an amused look on his face.

“Quite amazing. That was exactly one thousand hits.”

“The fact that you counted to one thousand is what’s amazing.”

“…”

Nagato turned around in silence. I followed her lead.

“Say,” I proposed to the petite, sailor uniform–garbed girl, who was turned sideways. “Could you make it rain on the day of the game? Something big enough to cancel it?

“It is possible.”

Nagato responded plainly as she continued walking.

“However, it is not recommended.”

“Why’s that?”

“Alterations to the local environmental data may result in aftereffects to this planet’s ecosystem.”

“How long will it be before these aftereffects show up?”

“Between a few centuries and ten millennia.”

That won’t be for a while.

“Then I guess we probably shouldn’t.”

“Yes.”

Nagato nodded her head about five millimeters as she continued walking at a fixed pace.

I turned to look behind me and saw Haruhi, still in her school uniform, on the mound ready to begin pitching.