The Boredom of Haruhi Suzumiya (24 page)

“Suzumiya also realized this truth, the way you did. That’s why she stopped herself when she was about to tell us. She didn’t accuse us of any wrongdoing. She may have wanted to protect her good friends.”

Koizumi had a solemn look on his face. But I still couldn’t accept what he was saying. My neocortex hadn’t deteriorated to the point where I would be tricked by his second fake deduction.

“Hmph.”

I snorted and glared at Koizumi.

“Sorry, but I don’t trust you.”

“What do you mean?”

“Your goal may have been to sell the second explanation with your tricky deduction, but you’ll have to try harder if you want to fool me.”

Didn’t I sound pretty cool just now? I’ll keep going.

“Just think about the fundamental problem here. As in focus
on the murder itself. Got it? There is no way that something like that could have happened under such convenient circumstances.”

Now it was Koizumi’s turn to silently motion me on.

“I don’t know if the hurricane was a coincidence or Haruhi’s doing, but it doesn’t really matter in this case. The problem would be that we’ve got a dead body on our hands as a result.”

I paused to lick my lips.

“You would probably claim that the whole thing happened because Haruhi wished for it. However, despite what she says, Haruhi does not actually wish for anyone to die. That should be obvious if you’ve watched her. Which means that this whole incident wasn’t caused by Haruhi. And, are you listening? It wasn’t a coincidence that we were here when it happened.”

“Oh,” said Koizumi. “So what does that mean?”

“The true culprit behind this incident… or actually this trip, the SOS Brigade summer camp, would be you. Am I wrong?”

Koizumi’s smiling face froze for a few seconds as he was caught off guard. However—

A chuckling sound came from Koizumi’s throat.

“You’ve got me. How did you know?”

As Koizumi said that, he looked at me with eyes that were the same as when we were in the literary club room.

I guess my brain tissue wasn’t gray for no reason. I continued, feeling somewhat relieved. “Back when you asked Nagato for the body temperature of the corpse.”

“What about that?”

“You used that temperature to estimate the time of death or whatever.”

“Indeed, I did.”

“Nagato can be very useful. As you should know, she can pretty much tell us anything. You should have asked Nagato for the estimated time of death instead of the body temperature. No, it
wouldn’t be an estimate. She could probably tell you the exact time of death now to the exact second.”

“I see.”

“If you had asked for the time of death, Nagato would have answered that he wasn’t dead. Also, you never referred to Tamaru’s body as a corpse.”

“I was trying to be fair.”

“There’s still more. I’m actually an attentive person, though it may not seem that way. The interior side of the door to Keiichi’s room. According to your explanation, the door hit the handle of the knife with a fair amount of force. Enough to drive a knife into a human body. If that much force had been involved, there should have been some kind of indentation on the door. But there wasn’t. The door looked brand-new, without a scratch.”

“What splendid powers of observation.”

“And one more thing. It concerns Arakawa and Mori. The story that they hadn’t even been here for a week yet. You said they were hired a week ago and that’s when they came to this island, right?”

“That’s right. Is there something odd about that?”

“There is. There definitely is. Your behavior was odd. Remember the first day we were here. What did you say when Arakawa and Mori came to pick us up when we got off the ferry?”

“Well, what did I say?”

“ ‘It’s been quite some time.’ Those were your words. Why would you say that? You said that this was your first time on this island. So this should have been the first time you ever met them. Why would you greet Arakawa and Mori as though you were already acquainted with them? Shouldn’t that be impossible?”

Koizumi chuckled.

I took his laughter to be an open confession. All the tension left my body as I finally understood the whole picture, and Koizumi began to talk.

“That’s right. This whole affair was a setup. A grand act. Though I didn’t expect you to realize it.”

“Don’t underestimate me.”

“Excuse me. However, I must admit that I was surprised. I had intended to reveal the truth at a later time, but I didn’t expect to be caught so soon.”

“Which means that Tamaru, Mori, and everyone else were all in on it? They’re probably members of that ‘Agency’ thing, right?”

“That is correct. Pretty good acting for a bunch of amateurs, don’t you think?”

The knife in the chest was a trick one with a retractable blade, the red bloodstain was actually paint, Keiichi was only pretending to be dead, of course, and the missing Yutaka had merely moved the cruiser to the other side of the island.

Koizumi revealed the truth in an easy manner.

“Why did you come up with this plan?”

“To ease Suzumiya’s boredom. And to lessen our burden.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m pretty sure that I’ve already told you this. Basically, we were trying to provide Suzumiya with entertainment to prevent her from getting any strange ideas. For the time being, Suzumiya is focused on the current turn of events, is she not?”

“Except that Haruhi thinks we’re the killers. Is that a good idea?”

After the presumed murder, Haruhi had been unusually quiet. She’d appeared to be deep in thought. Creepy as hell.

“Then I’ll have to move up the schedule,” Koizumi said. “According to our plan, we would return by ferry to the harbor on the mainland to find the four of them, Keiichi Tamaru and Yutaka, along with Arakawa and Mori, greeting us with smiles—that was the ending we’d prepared. Naturally, we would
hide anything concerning the ‘Agency’ and stick to the story that they’re my relatives.”

So you actually had a surprise party planned.

I sighed. I hope Haruhi has a good sense of humor. If she gets seriously pissed, you’ll have to deal with her. ’Cause I’ll be long gone.

Koizumi winked at me as he smiled.

“That would be quite the predicament. I should probably apologize to her soon then. I shall go with Tamaru and everyone else to bow our heads in apology. I’m sure he’s getting tired of playing a corpse.”

I kept my mouth shut as I looked out the window.

I wondered how Haruhi would react. Would she go into a mad rage about being tricked, or would she just smile and laugh it off? Either way, she’ll end up in a mental state that’s easier to understand than the one she’s in now.

Koizumi smiled wryly as he continued, “I had people ready to play the roles of detective and forensic expert, but it appears that those preparations will go to waste. In any case, I didn’t expect such an uneventful ending. The original agenda included a search of the mansion as well as gathering evidence from the scene of the crime… It didn’t work out too well.”

That just shows that you didn’t think this through enough.

As I looked up at the clouds, I wondered how clear the skies would be in a few hours.

In the end, Koizumi wasn’t stripped of the title of vice brigade chief. The hurricane quickly disappeared and we took the ferry back under a bright, blue sky. Haruhi was in a good mood that lasted the entire trip up until we parted ways in front of the station. It’s a good thing that Haruhi knows how to take a joke.

In return on the ferry trip back, Koizumi had to buy box lunches and canned juice for everybody. I felt that he’d gotten off pretty lightly.

Nagato, who probably knew what was going on from the beginning, showed no reaction. Asahina woke up to yell, “That was so mean!” and pout in an adorable manner, but once Koizumi and the Tamaru brothers along with the two servants bowed their heads in apology, she quickly said, “Ah, it’s fine. Please don’t worry about it!” I figured I should include that little episode in here.

Incidentally, Haruhi had made the following request when we were all lined up to take a picture on the deck of the ferry during the trip back to the mainland.

“I’ll be counting on you for our winter camp, Koizumi. Come up with a better scenario this time. We’ll be going to a mountain retreat. And there has to be a blizzard. You better provide an appropriately designed manor this time or I’ll be mad. Yep. I can’t wait!”

“Well… What to do?”

Koizumi turned to me for salvation, looking like a rookie German officer who’d received a direct order from the Führer himself to capture the Supreme Allied Commander with a single squad on the European Western Front during the waning years of World War II.

I looked at Koizumi the way you would look at a defender who had just made a beautiful shot into his own goal, during what had been a tied championship match up to that point, before speaking insincerely.

“Beats me. I’m also looking forward to it, Koizumi.”

I assume that I can at least expect a solution that isn’t so weak that even I could figure it out.

And so Haruhi won’t be so bored with the ordinary to the point that she would cause extraordinary phenomena to happen.

I don’t know the story behind the practice of including an afterword at the end of a book, but it’s become as universally accepted as holes in Swiss cheese. Additionally, I should mention that I was told that I could write as many pages as I wanted for this section, an offer that would normally make me dance for joy, but I’ll save that for a later opportunity. I would like to take this chance to write a few comments on each of the stories included in this book.

My overall impression will come across as “a year goes by in no time, but two months go by even faster,” a no-brainer, so I hope that I don’t bore you to death.

“The Boredom of Haruhi Suzumiya”

The namesake for this book was also the first printed edition of the SOS Brigade’s exploits. I believe it appeared in
The Sneaker
around two months before “The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya” was published.

I was pretty worried about publishing a story about later events before the first book, but it appeared that I was the only person who harbored such doubts as nobody else questioned the idea, which was a big relief for me. After all, I wrote this story on the spur of the moment so I was worried about the quality, but in the end, there weren’t any positive or negative comments that reached my ears so I just had to live with it.

Incidentally, I’ve only played baseball around ten times, as far as I can remember. I probably don’t need to tell you about my exploits as a second baseman who couldn’t catch a fly ball. I just now realized that I can’t recall ever hitting the ball, which is quite a shock, albeit late in coming.

“Bamboo Leaf Rhapsody”

The original title was “The Confusion of Mikuru Asahina.” However, there was some discussion about how it would be hard to recognize the series title so we ended up with this title. At the time, I didn’t expect these short stories to be published on a regular basis, so I can vividly remember how horrified I was when I saw the words “to be continued in the next issue” on the last page when it appeared in the magazine.

Since I had a time traveler to work with, I felt that I was obligated to write a story about time travel, but there was a sense that this episode would foreshadow the next volume—which was my goal.

“Mysterique Sign”

Owing to extenuating circumstances, I believe that this story
was a personal best in terms of the time it took from idea to completion. I was considering what to put the group through, and the next thing I knew, this is what I ended up with. This was around the time when I started considering changing the title of the series to
Fight On, Nagato
, but I gave up on the idea since the story wouldn’t go anywhere. Still, she appears to be the most effective character in the bunch. I have high expectations for her. Really, I’m counting on you, Nagato. By the way, what should I do about her glasses? Does she look better with them?

I had intended to give the computer society president some more action, but for now, I don’t have any specific ideas so I can’t really say how that will work out.

“Remote Island Syndrome”

I actually began writing this before “Mysterique Sign,” and this story was supposed to appear in the magazine, but as I continued, it just kept getting longer and longer, so owing to various circumstances that were entirely my fault, it ended up as an extra story in this book. Which is why it boasts the highest page count in this volume as an extra story which was too long to run in the magazine and too short to publish as a stand-alone book. This episode gave me much to reflect on. I’m always thinking about how to work things out, but if thinking was all it took, everything would be so much easier. In fact, when I look back at my life, I can only count a few examples where something happened the way I wanted. And that is the reason my brain is in amoeba status now.

I wonder if someone might allow me to stay a week at a fancy resort on a remote island. I’m pretty sure I could at least serve as a witness. Though I’ll probably spend the whole day sleeping.

And so, I was able to publish this third volume. I would like to express my gratitude to everyone who made it to this point. I would love to list everybody’s name, position, and nickname, but the list would include all the readers out there, many of whom I do not know the names of, so I’ll have to scrap the idea as there would be no end if I began. Instead, I can only offer my sincere appreciation.

I hope to see you again somewhere.

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