The Wavering of Haruhi Suzumiya (20 page)

Of course, if the girl waiting for me in front of the station were Asahina the Elder, with her mysteriously knowing smile, that was another matter entirely.

I mean, I had a pretty average first-year high school student’s brain. Given my experiences thus far, I could imagine the way the future might turn out. Asahina (the Elder) was part of it. I was sure I’d come across her again eventually, and if that were today, I wouldn’t have been surprised.

“Aw, crap.”

I muttered to myself as I left my bike in the shadow of a telephone pole.

My thoughts were starting to favor weirder explanations. At this rate, I wouldn’t be surprised if something really did happen,
and that lack of surprise itself would taint my sense of danger. You’ve got a few screws loose if you don’t get surprised at things that should be surprising. I wanted to be a normal human, or at least preserve my sanity. I wanted to be able to laugh when I was supposed to laugh, even if I was a little late.

So I smiled hugely.

It was the usual Asahina who was standing at the SOS Brigade’s traditional meeting place.

When I noticed her standing amid the weekend swell of traffic, waving at me with those small hands of hers, it was almost too much to bear.

Her outfit was chic and feminine, and her hair was done differently too—the subtle beauty of a girl making an effort to be grown-up and stylish. I was nearly moved to tears.

I stopped suddenly in front of the warmly dressed Asahina and gave her my best Koizumi smile, which I’d practiced many times in the mirror.

“Hi there. Sorry I’m late,” I said, despite having arrived fifteen minutes early.

“Oh, no…”

Asahina breathed into her clasped hands—but her eyes were warm.

“I just got here myself…”

She smiled softly.

“Well, shall we go?”

I nodded quickly and took the first step.

Asahina’s hair was tied up, exposing the nape of her neck; a feeling I found hard to name filled me. I walked like a knight sworn to protect a princess who was journeying to flee the internal strife of her family.

Her stride, like her features, seemed too youthful, and it was hard to believe she was really a year older than me. There was
something childlike about her walk; it was like my younger sister’s. Her unbalanced steps, so hard to imagine coming from a girl who was supposedly a second-year high school student, stirred up my protective instincts. When she occasionally looked up at me with her worried eyes, they conveyed an emotion that was hard to comprehend.

After all, the current activity was entirely out of the ordinary in a variety of ways. Normally we were in the clubroom with Haruhi or Nagato or Koizumi, and my emotions in that chaotic place swung between joy and sorrow.

But now it was just Asahina and me. And this was a secret from everyone else. The despotic brigade chief, omnipotent alien, and limited esper were nowhere to be found. How refreshing.

I felt like announcing it with all my strength. I am on an outing alone with Asahina, and I am incapable of responsible decisions!

To be honest, I was floating. Compared with the honor of walking side by side with the prettiest face of North High (by a wide margin), the Purple Ribbon was nothing; I would’ve happily chucked it into the ocean as fish food. Not that Japan would be crazy enough to give me an honor like that. Our destination was a shopping center near the station.

I occasionally came here to shop with my family. The buildings sold mostly clothing and food, though there was a large bookstore—but that was Nagato’s territory, not mine. Unsurprisingly, Asahina led me to where the foodstuffs were sold.

We headed past a line of registers to an area that specialized in tea, with cases of a huge variety of Japanese-style green tea lined up in neat rows.

“Good afternoon!”

Asahina delivered a charming greeting, and the old man behind the counter cracked a smile like asphalt splitting on a hot day.

“Hey, welcome back!”

Evidently she was a regular customer.

“Hmm, which one should I get today…?”

Asahina murmured to herself, deep in thought as she gazed at the pots on which names and prices were handwritten.

It goes without saying that I don’t know more about tea than she does, so I didn’t try to give her any advice, instead simply staying at her side, my nose twitching at the unfamiliar scents of the various teas.

Asahina took her tea leaves seriously, and she talked passionately with the shopkeeper about things like how many times the leaves were dried and how long to let them steep, while I stood there uselessly like a scarecrow after the harvest.

No one in the SOS Brigade, including me, knew anything about tea. Haruhi would gulp down any vaguely colored liquid that was in a teacup, up to and including hydrogen peroxide. It wasn’t even clear whether Nagato had taste buds. And Koizumi would never complain.

For my part, I was prepared to drink anything she prepared, even if it were a goblet full of hemlock. A promise was a promise. So long as I left myself in the care of a certain person afterward, I’d probably survive.

Being useless in the role of advisor, I stood guard next to Asahina in front of the store as she methodically picked out tea. Eventually she settled on a variety of green tea called something like “Master Wizard.”

“We came all the way out here, after all…”

Asahina looked up at me with even more bashful eyes than usual.

“Would you like to have some of this tea with me? The snacks here are tasty too, and they’ll let you brew tea you’ve just purchased.”

Even in this store basement, there was a café with a little bit of seating. I wouldn’t have refused even if the sun had exhausted its helium fuel. I happily followed Asahina, sitting down at a table to order dumplings and fine tea.

I was already starting to worry.

Asahina seemed to be very concerned with the time. She fidgeted constantly and kept stealing glances at her watch. Her actions seemed natural enough, so I doubted that she was doing it for my benefit—rather, she seemed to be trying to keep me from noticing—but unfortunately, I noticed. I mean, she kept checking her watch and letting these sad little sighs escape. It was impossible to ignore.

“These dumplings are tasty. Tea’s good too. You’ve got great taste as usual, Asahina. Mmm, delicious.”

I pretended not to notice. It was hard not to praise myself for being a considerate guy.

“Yeah…”

Asahina took a bite of her dumpling, then looked slowly down and checked her watch again.

My feeling that something was going on here continued to grow.

I’d been carried away all along. The notion of being able to go out with the unofficial Miss North High, whose legendary proportions were clear even in her adorable winter outfit, was enough to make me want to yell out my joy from the rooftop.

I sipped my tea; the hot liquid filtered down into my stomach as my suspicions grew.

There had to be a catch.

There was a large body of circumstantial evidence that pointed to the fact that Mikuru Asahina, the sole second-year student in the SOS Brigade, was a time traveler. For some reason, she had come to the past. Regardless of that reason, under Haruhi’s tyranny she had become the SOS Brigade’s mascot, a job that had nothing to do with her original duty.

Yes, her official assignment was to observe Haruhi and occasionally drag me into the past to fix certain events—yes, no matter how you looked at it, that was her job.

Today had to be something like that. The tea errand was some prologue to another incident. Did Asahina know that? Her worried expression and bearing were worrisome.

We finished our dumplings, and the time came to pay the check. Asahina strongly refused to let me contribute.

“No, it’s fine. I’m the one who asked you along today. So let me—”

No, no, I couldn’t possibly let you, I told her.

“It’s okay, really! I mean, Kyon, you’re always treating me…”

Well, that was because Haruhi had made the rule that whoever was last to assemble for a club meeting had to treat the whole club, and for some reason I was always last to arrive, but that was just the evil nature of the SOS Brigade. The situation here was totally different—we were practically on a date—and the cash in my wallet was dying to be freed.

“Please.”

Asahina pleaded with me.

“Just let me.”

She was so sincere, I found myself nodding.

Asahina and I left the mall, and with nowhere in particular to go, we found ourselves gazing at the passing crowds there beneath the cold midwinter sky.

When you’re done with activities, normally you’d say, “Good-bye, see you tomorrow,” but isn’t that sort of lame? I wasn’t cool or sociable enough to pull it off, and there was still a good amount of time before the sun would set. We were only a month into winter—the sun was only just starting to set early.

As I was trying to decide where to ask her to go, she beat me to it.

“Would you accompany me for a little walk? Please, Kyon.”

Again with those pleading eyes. That face and voice could turn anyone’s legs into jelly; I was powerless to resist.

Asahina smiled mistily.

“This way. Shall we?”

She started walking without hesitation. I had hoped she would take my arm, but unfortunately that seemed too high a hope.

Shrugging my shoulders in the chilly air, I followed the petite second-year student.

We walked for some time after that.

She seemed to have a destination in mind, occasionally glancing at me to confirm I was still there beside her as she walked.

I was realizing more and more that something was strange about her today, but I said nothing as I strolled along with her.

How to put it? Asahina’s usual mode was funnier, charming all around with her adorable mannerisms, but today she was like Taniguchi or me as we trudged up the hill to school on the day of a physics exam.

And on top of that, she kept peering around us.

It was like she thought she was being followed… no, that wasn’t it. Whatever she was worried about wasn’t behind her. She seemed to be concerned about her front arc. Glancing around like an elementary schooler who’d missed an orienteering checkpoint on a field trip, she looked like either a criminal or a tourist. If she had been a middle-aged man instead of a fetching lass, she probably would have been questioned by a passing patrol car. But with her charms, she would probably be pardoned of any offense. Not that any of that mattered.

Maybe her suspicious manner was why I wasn’t paying attention to anything else.

I realized I was feeling somehow nostalgic, and I started to slow down.

It was a strange feeling—I’d played around this neighborhood my entire life, and the scenery was entirely familiar to me, so why—

“Ah.”

My breath caught in my mouth at the understanding. I see.

I suddenly understood why the path we’d taken from the station had felt so familiar, as well as where this strange nostalgia came from.

It would be hard to forget the day last May when the SOS Brigade conducted its first citywide search for mysterious phenomena. The memory of Asahina and me walking aimlessly together after having drawn straws and getting paired together was engraved particularly deeply upon my mind, and I doubt I will ever forget it as long as I live.

And we were now walking down that same path. The nostalgia came from the situation—walking that same way, again with Asahina. Not even a year had passed since then, but it felt like the distant past. After all, I now knew for certain that Asahina was a time traveler, but back then I hadn’t had a clue. Until I heard her shocking statements on the bench beneath the cherry blossoms, I’d thought she was just an ordinary, if well-endowed, girl.

But all that was gone now. It was in the past. No wonder I was feeling nostalgic.

As I expected, Asahina was heading to the place where the memories were thickest. Only this time, she was glancing around like a nervous herbivore upon the grasslands, and she was still constantly checking her watch.

Her strange behavior continued; I knew better than to expect a response if I spoke up.

We continued to walk, our breath constantly white in the winter air, until finally we reached the place.

The cherry trees beside the river.

The Yoshino cherry trees along this path had bloomed twice last year—in the spring and again in the fall. I just hoped they had enough life in them to bloom again the coming spring.

I was feeling rather emotional, but Asahina didn’t seem to care. Even when we passed the bench where she’d delivered her explosive
revelation, she didn’t seem to notice at all. She was the very embodiment of absentmindedness. What was she so worried about?

As I rather desolately tried to guess, she suddenly sighed to herself.

“Isn’t it time yet…?”

She checked her watch.

“It should happen any moment now… but…”

She didn’t seem to realize she’d spoken as she let out another sigh again, then looked around.

I pretended not to notice and concentrated on walking.

Great. Any idea that this had been a date now seemed like a distant memory. I’d hoped for a more relaxed, romantic stroll, but clearly it was not meant to be. I guess that’s life.

We didn’t see so much as a leaf, to say nothing of an actual flower petal, and soon the desolate cherry trees were behind us.

Asahina was heading upstream. If we kept going, we’d reach another memorable place—Nagato’s apartment. If we continued even farther, we’d wind up going all the way back to North High.

Thanks to all the walking, my body was warming up—apparently not all of the warmth was coming from the girl next to me.

Eventually we descended down off the riverbank and made for the train tracks. We walked along the private rail line; I’d once walked this way with Haruhi too.

With all the memories surfacing in my mind, even I started to feel a little uneasy.

“Kyon, this way.”

“Huh?”

If Asahina hadn’t tugged on my sleeve, I would have just kept going.

“We need to cross the street.”