The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya (3 page)

That all happened yesterday. I finished giving Taniguchi an abridged rundown of those events as we arrived at our high school.

“A Christmas party, huh?”

Taniguchi passed through the school gate with a half-smile on his face.

“Sounds like something Suzumiya would do. A hot-pot party in the clubroom, eh? Well, you’d better not let the teachers find you. That’ll be a pain.”

“Why don’t you join us?”

I had already told him that we were holding a party, so I gave him an invitation. Haruhi shouldn’t have any problem with Taniguchi. He, Kunikida, and Tsuruya make up the trio who fill in when we need some more people.

However, Taniguchi shook his head.

“Nah. Sorry, man. I don’t have time to chow down on some lame hot pot that day.”

What’s with the creepy laugh?

“Now, look here. Only losers who aren’t popular gather together on Christmas Eve for a hot pot. I’m sorry to say that I’m no longer one of those men.”

Get outta here.

“Right on. I’ve got a red heart-mark on the twenty-fourth in my planner. Sorry. I feel for you, man. Really, I mean it.”

What the hell. While I was busy playing along with the wacky antics of Haruhi and the SOS Brigade, stupid Taniguchi managed to land himself a girlfriend.

“Who is it?” I asked, trying my best to not sound jealous.

“A first-year from Kouyouen. A safe bet, right?”

Kouyouen Academy. The all-girls school in front of the station at the bottom of the hill. It was built at the starting point of our long and painful climb, so I would see girls in black blazers parading by every morning. The place was famous for its rich high-society girls, but I was more envious of how they didn’t have to trudge up this killer slope. I mean, I wasn’t envious of Taniguchi at all.

“What’s your beef? You’ve got Suzumiya, yeah? A hot pot… She’ll be doing the cooking? Though I’m not sure you can call a hot pot cooking, but it’ll still fill you up. I’d love to be in your shoes, Kyon.”

Jerk. He brought up Christmas Eve because he wanted to brag?

“Well, I need to plan out where we’ll be going. Tough decisions to make.”

I was dumbfounded. And speechless.

Nothing significant happened after school that day. Koizumi and I were forced to put up the new decorations that Haruhi had brought to the clubroom while she stood and pointed. Asahina was the tea-serving mascot in a Santa outfit. Nagato was silently reading a hardcover with a Santa hat on her head again.

That was it for the day. We didn’t decide on the contents of the
hot pot. The only apparent decision was that I would be the one to go out and buy everything needed. What kind of hot pot are we going with? I’m really hoping that she doesn’t choose something suspect like a potluck…

Well, that was a little long for a prologue. However, everything so far has only been a prologue. The real story begins now, starting with the next day. Though it may have begun tonight. Not that it really matters.

The next day would be December eighteenth, a day cold enough to freeze the wind. The day I was thrown into the abyss known as fear.

Let me make this clear now.

It definitely wasn’t a laughing matter.

The next morning I was awoken by the usual combination of my sister ripping off my bedcovers while the calico wormed into my blanket. My little sister, the assassin who dutifully carries out our mother’s command every morning.

“Mom said that you should eat breakfast.”

My sister smiled cheerfully as she lifted the stretching cat off of my bed and rubbed her nose against the back of its ears.

“Shami’s breakfast is also ready.”

Shamisen, left in our care after the cultural festival, yawned sleepily as he licked his front paw. The male calico who could formerly talk had lost his voice and established himself as a beloved pet in our household. His transformation into a perfectly ordinary cat made me wonder if I had been hallucinating when I heard him speak in human. He may have also forgotten how to speak in cat, since he barely ever made a sound, which was fine by me. For some unknown reason, Shamisen was sleeping in my room, allowing me to be rudely awoken by the frequent visits from my little sister to play with him.

“Shami, Shami. Time to eat.”

My sister sang out of tune as she struggled to carry the cat out of the room. I was getting goose bumps from the frigid morning air as I looked blankly at the time on the clock, but I eventually shook off the desire to linger in my warm bed, and sat up.

Once I finished changing and washed my face, I headed downstairs to the dining room, gobbled down breakfast in five minutes, and exited through the door two steps in front of my sister. It was another bitterly cold day.

Everything had been normal up until this point.

I was climbing up the hill as always when I spotted the back of a familiar-looking head. The figure walking ten meters or so ahead of me was definitely Taniguchi. He normally seemed so energetic as he practically bounced up the hill, but he was unusually slow today. I caught up to him in no time.

“Yo, Taniguchi.”

I figured that I should also get to slap him on the shoulder on occasion, so I did just that.

“… Meh. Kyon, huh?”

Taniguchi’s voice was muffled, which was to be expected, since he was wearing a white flu mask.

“What’s wrong? Did you catch a cold?”

“Ah…?” Taniguchi replied sluggishly. “As you can see, I have a cold. I wanted to stay home today, but my dad was being a pain.”

You were perfectly fine yesterday. This cold came out of the blue.

“What are you talking about? I was feeling pretty crappy yesterday. Cough.”

I was completely thrown off by the peculiar sight of a subdued Taniguchi as he coughed up a lung. But wait, he was already
feeling sick yesterday? I recalled him being his usual conceited self.

“Hmm… really? It sure didn’t seem that way to me.”

I smirked maliciously at Taniguchi as he cocked his head.

“You sounded so happy as you went on about your plans for Christmas Eve. Well, you’d better recover in time for your date. Opportunities like this one are probably hard to come by.”

However, Taniguchi merely cocked his head a little further.

“A date? What are you talking about? I don’t have any plans for Christmas Eve.” Taniguchi coughed.

And what are you talking about? What happened to your little girlfriend from Kouyouen? Did you get dumped last night?

“Hey, Kyon. Seriously, what are you on? I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Taniguchi shut his mouth peevishly and returned his head to a forward direction. I guess he’s been hit really hard by the cold symptoms, since he doesn’t seem to be faking his infirmity. And judging from his reaction, I probably guessed right when I suggested that his date had fallen apart. No wonder he’s all worn out. It must hurt to look at my face after all the bragging he did. I see how it is.

“Don’t get too down on yourself.”

I patted Taniguchi on the back.

“You up for the hot-pot spectacular? It isn’t too late to join in.”

“What hot pot? Where is this alleged event going to be held? I haven’t heard anything about it…”

Oh, really. I can see that the shock means he won’t be hearing anything I say for the time being. I’ll just back off in that case. Everything will be solved in the course of boundless and perpetual time. I won’t say another word about it.

I joined the plodding Taniguchi in climbing slowly up the hill.

It would have been impossible to notice at this point.

I was surprised to find that the cold had spread through class 1-5 while I wasn’t paying attention. I barely made it inside the classroom before the bell rang, yet there were plenty of empty seats, and a fifth of the present students were sporting flu masks. I’m guessing that incubation periods had been synchronized to the point where symptoms showed up for everyone at the same time.

But the real surprise came when first period began and the seat directly behind me was still empty.

“Well, how about that?”

Even Haruhi’s sick? Do we have a really nasty cold going around this year? I find it hard to believe that there are pathogens brave enough to invade her body or that Haruhi would lose to bacteria or viruses. I’d be more inclined to believe that she was busy at work on some new crackpot scheme she’d hatched up. Does she have something besides the hot pot in mind?

In any case, the frigid air in the classroom wasn’t because of a lack of heating. I didn’t expect there to be a sudden epidemic of absent classmates. It almost felt as though there’d been a drop in the population of class 1-5.

The absence of Haruhi breathing down my neck may have been a factor, but the classroom somehow felt like a different place.

And after rambling through class, it was time for lunch.

I pulled the cold lunch box out of my bag, and Kunikida walked over with lunch in hand to sit down in the seat behind me.

“Doesn’t look like she’s here today. It’s okay for me to sit here, right?” he said as he unwrapped the napkin around his Tupperware. I’ve grown half-accustomed to eating lunch with this guy after ending up in the same class for high school. I looked around
for our other lunch buddy, Taniguchi, to find that he wasn’t in the classroom. I guess he went to the cafeteria or something.

I turned my chair to the side.

“Looks like a cold epidemic came out of nowhere. Hope I don’t catch it.”

“Hmm?”

Kunikida turned to me with a quizzical look on his face as he methodically set the container on the spread-out napkin and scrutinized its contents. He was snapping his chopsticks together like crab pincers.

“There were signs that a cold was going around a week ago. It doesn’t seem to be influenza, though it might have been better that way. Since there’s a vaccine now.”

“A week ago?” I asked as I stopped in the middle of tearing into my spinach omelet.

I don’t believe that there was anybody doing anything a week ago that would have spread germs. I’m pretty sure that nobody was absent, and I can’t recall anybody coughing during class. So a disease had been spreading out of my sight, despite the fact that every student in 1-5 looked perfectly healthy?

“Huh? There were quite a few people absent. You didn’t notice, Kyon?”

I had no idea. Is that true?

“Uh-huh, it sure is. It only got worse this week. I hope they don’t quarantine the entire freshman class. That would probably cut into our winter vacation,” Kunikida said as he carried some seasoned rice to his mouth. “Taniguchi’s been looking sluggish the past few days. His dad believes that you can cure a cold by using sheer willpower, so Taniguchi isn’t allowed to stay home unless his temperature’s over 104 degrees. I’m pretty sure he needs to do something before it gets worse.”

I stopped my chopsticks in midair.

“Kunikida. Sorry, but I thought that Taniguchi only started looking sick today.”

“Huh, no way. He’s been like that since the beginning of the week. He sat out gym class yesterday.”

I’m getting confused now.

Wait, Kunikida. What are you talking about? As far as I can remember, Taniguchi was going wild enough in the soccer match during yesterday’s gym class to make you wonder if he was on steroids. I know because I was on the other team, trying to slide tackle him. Not because I was jealous of his getting a girlfriend or anything, but I probably would have held back if I had known he would be so sick today.

“Really. Huh? That’s funny.”

Kunikida cocked his head as he picked out the carrots in his burdock root stir-fry.

“Maybe I was mistaken,” he said.

He sounded pretty laid-back.

“Mmm, we’ll know once we ask Taniguchi later.”

What’s going on today? Taniguchi and Kunikida aren’t making much sense, and Haruhi’s absent. This had better not be an omen of some disaster that inconveniences every human being who isn’t Haruhi. My nonexistent sixth sense was sounding an alarm as I felt a chill creep up the back of my neck.

Bingo.

My intuition wasn’t too shabby. This was, in fact, an omen of things to come. But my intuition was unable to determine who would be inconvenienced. Every human being who isn’t Haruhi… was the wrong answer. Oddly enough, there was only one person who would notice this situation and find it disturbing.
The rest of the world wouldn’t be inconvenienced in any way. Because they were completely oblivious to what was going on. They’re not going to pick up on something they can’t pick up on. As far as they’re concerned, the world hasn’t changed one bit.

So who was the person inconvenienced by this turn of events?

That goes without saying.

Me.

I was the only one left dumbfounded amid these bewildering circumstances while the rest of the world moved on without me.

Yes, I finally realized what was going on.

It was lunchtime on December eighteenth.

The physical manifestation of my bad omen opened the door to the classroom.

A cheer came from the girls near the door at the front of the classroom. It came in response to the entrance of a classmate. I peeked through the crowd of sailor uniforms to see
that person
arrive in grand fashion.

With book bag in hand,
that person
smiled at the approaching flock of friends.

“Yes, I’m fine now. I went to the hospital this morning to get a shot, and I feel much better. I thought I might come in for the afternoon classes.”

That came in response to the person inquiring about recovering from a cold and was delivered with a gentle smile. After a quick joke
that person
, with medium-length hair swaying… slowly… walked… toward… us.

“Oh, I should move.”

Kunikida stood up with his chopsticks clamped in his mouth. Meanwhile, I was staring at
that person
as though my vocal cords
had been robbed of their ability to speak. Actually, I had completely forgotten to breathe. It felt as if an eternity had passed, despite the fact that only a few steps had been taken. Eventually,
that person
came to a halt right next to me.