The Sigh of Haruhi Suzumiya (15 page)

She’s as selfish as ever. You can’t have what you want unless you’re extremely rich or powerful. Go become a politician or something.

As my face cycled through a variety of grimaces and frowns, Koizumi continued talking with a smile on his face.

“Of course, Suzumiya is not aware of that. She believes that she is creating a fictional world within the movie. Her earnest passion is focused on the production of this film. I would presume that her passion is so great that she’s unconsciously affected the real world.

“It’s like rolling a die that only has negative numbers on it. We can’t just continue filming and let Haruhi’s delusions run wild. We can’t stop filming and put her in a bad mood. Both choices lead straight to bad endings.

“Nonetheless, if we must choose between the two, I would prefer to continue.”

“Give me a good reason why,” I asked.

“I’ve grown tired of hunting Celestials…. I’m just kidding. Sorry about that. Let’s see, the reason is basically as follows. Allowing a few alterations to the world would appear more conducive to our survival than letting the entire world be reset.”

So we just allow Asahina to become Superwoman in the real world?

“This time, the alterations to reality are quite modest when compared with Celestials. After all, Nagato is able to effectively utilize protective revisions. When compared with the prospect of starting the world over from scratch, wouldn’t you agree that dealing with supernormal phenomena case by case sounds vastly preferable?”

“I’d have to say that neither scenario sounds very good. What if we whack Haruhi from behind and knock her out until the cultural festival’s over?”

“What a frightful notion. But if you take full responsibility, I won’t stop you.”

“I can’t shoulder the entire world.”

And with that reply, I turned to look at Asahina, who was picking dirt off the waitress costume with her fingers. She looked like she’d pretty much given up hope. Upon noticing my gaze, she quickly opened her mouth.

“D-don’t worry about me. I’ll get through this somehow….”

So sweet. Her face looks pretty pale, though. Well yeah, I’m pretty sure she doesn’t want to be bitten by Nagato every time something comes up. Even if the tooth marks do disappear shortly, it doesn’t change the fact that it’s creepy. After all, if I were to give Nagato a long-handled sickle, she’d look like Death-girl from the thirteenth tarot card or an ageless space vampire. Either way, she’s going to be sending you to the beyond.

Of course, in Asahina’s case, it was injecting instead of sucking. Still, even if you attribute this all to carelessness, Asahina seems to have a weak sense of danger for someone from the future. Maybe it’s because I don’t know how she really feels. Since it involves a bunch of classified information.

Well, I’m sure she’ll tell me one of these days. And of course, we should all be alone in a confined space when it happens.

It was finally time for Taniguchi and Kunikida, along with Tsuruya.

When Haruhi revealed their roles in the movie, we learned that they would play nameless bit characters. Their roles were listed as “Normal people being manipulated as slave puppets by evil alien Yuki.”

“In other words,” Haruhi explained with an unpleasant grin on her face, “Mikuru fights for justice so she can’t harm normal people. Yuki is taking advantage of that weakness. She’s using hypnotic magic to control normal humans. Mikuru, unable to fight against ordinary civilians, gets all beat up.”

Asahina’s pretty beaten up already. What more do you intend to do to her? By the time I finished that thought, Haruhi was already talking again.

“Start by throwing Mikuru into the pond.”

“What!”

Asahina was the only one reacting with surprise. Tsuruya was guffawing to the side. Taniguchi and Kunikida looked at each other before turning to Asahina’s bewildered face.

“Hey, now,” Taniguchi said with a strange half smile on his face. “The pond? The water might be warm, but it’s fall already. Even the most generous fool in the world wouldn’t call this water clean.”

“Su-Su-Suzumiya, at least use a warm-water pool….”

Asahina was presenting her earnest objection, on the verge of tears. Even Kunikida was defending her.

“That’s right. What if it’s a bottomless bog? She’ll never float back up again. Look, there’s a bunch of black bass.”

Don’t say stuff that’ll make Asahina faint. Also, it’s already been proven that the more you resist, the more stubborn Haruhi gets. True to form, her lips were puckered like a duck’s bill.

“Shut up. Okay? Sacrifices must be made for the sake of realism. I wanted to use Loch Ness or the Great Salt Lake for this scene. But we don’t have the time or money for that. It is our duty as humans to do the best we can in the limited time we are given. Which means we have to use this pond.”

What kind of logic is that? And this conversation seems to assume that Asahina has to suffer water torture. You could just switch the background you know. Why can’t you use your mind that way?

As I was pondering whether I should stop her, someone tapped my shoulder from behind. I turned back to see damn Koizumi with a thin smile on his face, wordlessly shaking his head. I know. Tamper with Haruhi the wrong way and weird stuff will start happening. If Asahina starts shooting plasma fireballs from her mouth, we might have the Japan Self-Defense Forces coming after us.

“Ah, I’ll do it!” Asahina announced in a bitter voice.

She must be heartbroken. Here’s a poor girl sacrificing herself for world peace. An incredibly cliché development that would probably be the climax of the making-of video. Except the camera isn’t rolling.

Haruhi was simply thrilled.

“Mikuru, that’s great! You look divine right now! That’s what I would expect from one of my handpicked brigade members! You’ve really grown!”

It’s more like she’s learned rather than grown, I’d say.

“Then the two of you each take one of Mikuru’s arms, and Tsuru can hold her legs. When I say ready, go. Once I’ve said it, toss her into the pond.”

The following scene played out under Haruhi’s direction.

The three extras started by standing in a line in front of Nagato with their heads hanging as the black-garbed mage waved the antenna pointer. It almost looked like some kind of Shinto exorcism ceremony. As I watched Nagato’s blank face while she moved the pointer, she did have a sort of shrine-maiden feel to her.

Afterward, having received Nagato’s command to target Asahina, the three of them moved toward the heroine, walking stiffly like zombies seeking fresh meat.

“Mikuru! Sorry. I really don’t want to do this, but I’m being mind-controlled and stuff. Really, I’m sorry.”

Tsuruya, who looked like she was having the absolute time of her life, crept toward the waitress with a smile reminiscent of a cat-shaped bus. Taniguchi, always timid in a pinch, pretended to hesitate while Kunikida scratched at his head as they both approached Asahina, who turned pale, then red.

“Hey, you two morons! Be serious about this!”

You’re the moron. But I swallowed that comment and continued looking through the camera. Asahina, knees buckling, slowly backed up to the edge of the pond.

“Prepare yourself!” Tsuruya said brightly as she shoved Asahina down and hoisted an exposed thigh under each arm. What should I say? This is getting dangerous.

“He… hee!”

Asahina was seriously scared. Taniguchi and Kunikida each grabbed an arm.

“W-w-wait, actually I… i-i-is this really necessary?”

Paying no heed to Asahina’s painful cries, Haruhi nodded solemnly.

“It’s to make this scene better, in other words, for the sake of art!”

A common expression, but I have to wonder where the art is in this half-assed amateur film.

Haruhi barked the order.

“Now! Ready, go!”

Splash. A large amount of water sprayed out as the aquatic inhabitants of the pond had their lives disturbed.

“Ah, hel… wah…!”

Really good job of acting like you’re drowning, Asahina… or I’m getting a feeling that she’s really drowning. Who knows.

“My feet… won’t reach… Ah!”

Good thing we weren’t in the Amazon region. If she were splashing around like this down there, she’d make an easy target for the piranhas. I wondered if black bass attacked people—as I looked through the viewfinder, when I discovered that Asahina wasn’t the only one splashing around.

“Crap! I swallowed water!”

Taniguchi was drowning. Apparently, the momentum from throwing Asahina had carried him into the water. We didn’t need to worry about him.

“What’s that idiot doing?”

Haruhi apparently agreed and ignored the moron as she pointed the megaphone at Koizumi.

“Okay, Koizumi. It’s your turn! Go save Mikuru.”

The leading actor, who had been stuck on lighting duty, smiled elegantly as he handed the reflector board to Nagato and ran over to the edge of the pond, extending his hand.

“Please grab on. Calm down. Try not to drag me in as well.”

Asahina clung to Koizumi’s arm like a shipwreck victim clinging to a piece of driftwood. Koizumi gently lifted the soaked time-traveling combat waitress and held her close to his body. Hey, that’s too close.

“Are you all right?”

“… Ugh… it was cold…”

Her already tight costume, now soaked, was practically transparent. If I were a member of the Motion Picture Code of Ethics Committee, I would ban anyone under fifteen from watching this movie without any hesitation. To be honest, this feels worse than full nudity. It feels like we might get arrested.

“Yep, perfect!”

Haruhi was whacking the megaphone as she shouted triumphantly. I ignored Taniguchi, still splashing away in the pond, and hit the stop button on the video camera.

We had enough crap to open up a vending stall, yet we didn’t have a single towel?

Asahina’s eyes remained shut tight as she wiped her face with Tsuruya’s handkerchief. I stood next to Haruhi, breathing silently, as she diligently checked the video.

“Yeah, not bad.”

Haruhi nodded after playing back Asahina’s drowning scene three times.

“The scene of their meeting was adequate. You can feel how Itsuki and Mikuru are still awkward around each other at this point. Yep, yep.”

Really? Koizumi looked the same as always.

“The second step is next. Itsuki, after saving Mikuru, decides to hide her in his own home. That’s where the next scene will start.”

“Er, wait. That doesn’t flow at all. Where did Nagato, the one controlling Taniguchi and the others, go off to? And Team Taniguchi, what about them? How were they stopped? Even underlings need a proper portrayal or the audience isn’t going buy it.”

“You sure are annoying. People will understand what happened without us filming it. You can just skip the boring parts!”

Freak. You just wanted to throw Asahina into the pond, huh?

As I grew enraged, Tsuruya raised her hand and spoke.

“Heya. My house is close by. Mikuru looks like she’s about to catch a cold so can I get her a change of clothes?”

“That’s perfect!” Haruhi cried as her shining eyes focused on Tsuruya.

“Can we borrow your room, Tsuruya? I want to film Itsuki and Mikuru getting friendly there. What a smooth turn of events. This movie will definitely be a success!”

For Haruhi, whose main theme in life is apparently opportunism, that’s probably a convenient proposal, yeah. I can’t get rid of the gnawing suspicion that Tsuruya only brought it up because Haruhi wished it to be so. Except that Haruhi accepted Tsuruya as an underling, so she should be just as ordinary as me.

“Uh, what about us?”

Kunikida raised that question. Taniguchi stood next to him wringing out his shirt.

“You guys can go home,” Haruhi said heartlessly. “Good work. Bye, so long. We may never meet again.”

The names of those two classmates must have been erased from Haruhi’s mind at that point. Without another look at Kunikida, with a shocked look on his face, or Taniguchi, shaking water from his hair like a dog, Haruhi dubbed Tsuruya our guide and walked off. Lucky for you guys. Your job is done. Apparently, you’re worth as much as expended BBs as far as Haruhi’s concerned. That’s actually something to be happy about.

Tsuruya was also pumped up for some reason as she talked happily.

“Okay. Everybody, it’s this way!”

She stood at the head waving the flag around.

It’s not like Haruhi’s arbitrary behavior was anything new. She’d probably been born with it. In five hundred years, they’ll probably have a story going around about how she was proclaiming that the universe belonged to her the second she came out of the womb, just one of the many legends in the Haruhi Suzumiya chronicles. Well, who cares about that.

Haruhi and Tsuruya, walking at the front of the group, had hit it off at some point and were singing the chorus of Bryan Adams’s “18 Til I Die” over and over in ridiculously loud voices. It was excruciatingly embarrassing to be an acquaintance walking behind them.

I’m amazed the silent black Nagato and reflector-board-carrying star Koizumi can tag along without bothering to keep their distance. You should learn from Asahina, walking along with her shoulders slumped and head down. And you should help share the load of stuff I’m carrying. We’ve been going uphill for quite a while now. I’m starting to understand how it feels to be a racing horse training by running uphill.

“Okay. We’re here. This is my house,” Tsuruya shouted as she stopped and stood in front of a house. Her voice was big, and her house was big too. Well, I assumed it was big. Since I couldn’t actually see the house from the gate. But there was more than enough to support the notion. If you can’t see the house from the gate, that must mean it’s a great distance away, and if you look to the left and right, you find a wall looking like something from a samurai residence stretching as far as the eye can see. I wonder what kind of crimes you’d have to commit to live in a place like this.

“Here. Come on in.”

Haruhi and Nagato must not have known what the word “restraint” meant, seeing as how they just barged on in as if it were their own home. Asahina appeared to have been here before, since there was no sign of surprise on her face when Tsuruya pushed her in.