The Sigh of Haruhi Suzumiya (9 page)

And with that totalitarian decision, she started waving her hand. “Come on, everyone! The bus stop’s this way! Get a move on!”

It didn’t escape my attention that her armband now read
Super-Director.
Apparently, Haruhi already believed herself beyond a mere great director. She must have had one hell of a movie in mind. I’ll say it again: An Asahina promotional video would be far more entertaining to film.

After thirty minutes of bumpy bus riding, we got off at a stop in the hills. Then we spent another thirty minutes laboriously hiking up a steep trail.

It was a commonplace forest park you could find anywhere. Being born and raised around here, I was quite familiar with the area. When I was in grade school, we had a hiking field trip to the nearby hills almost every year.

It was a park in name only—in reality just some cleared-off open space with a fountain tacked on. An utterly empty place that made you want to openly question why a person would voluntarily climb up here. The only happy people I saw around were kids ignorant of pleasure and the family members who’d brought them here.

We set up in a corner of the plaza where the fountain was and designated it as our filming base. Empty-handed, Haruhi looked to be brimming with energy, but I was completely worn out. If I hadn’t forced half the stuff onto Koizumi on the way up, I seriously might have collapsed. I leaned against the Wandervogel-issue-looking bag and tried to catch my breath.

“Um, would you like a drink?”

A small plastic bottle was thrust before me. The hand holding the bottle belonged to Asahina.

“If you don’t mind that I already drank from it…” Oolong tea made for gods. It must taste heavenly. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. If I don’t drink it, lightning will strike me down.

As I gladly reached for the offered drink, the evil devil’s hand brushed away the angel’s arm. Haruhi snatched the oolong tea away from Asahina.

“Save it for later. Mikuru, now isn’t the time to be watering the help. We have to hurry or else we might lose this perfect weather. Let’s get the camera rolling.”

Asahina’s eyes opened as wide as saucers.

“What…? We’re going to shoot here?”

“Of course we are. Why do you think we came here?”

“Then I don’t have to change? Since there isn’t a place for me to change around here…”

“Sure, there is. Look, there are places all around us.”

Haruhi pointed to an area surrounded by a jagged ridge of trees.

“N-n-no—H-help…”

Before I had a chance to help, Haruhi disappeared deep into the woods with Asahina in tow.

Once Asahina reappeared, she was clad in the spiffy waitress outfit that would serve as her film attire. Her hair was a tumbled mess as she gazed with quivering eyes at the autumn foliage growing on the side of the road.

One of her eyes was noticeably a different color. Her left eye’s blue. What the hell?

“Color contact,” Haruhi explained. “It’s pretty important to have the left eye be a different color. Look, that’s all it takes to add to her mysteriousness. It’s all we need to make this work. A symbol of sorts, a symbol.”

She grabbed Asahina’s chin from behind and tilted her little face. Asahina just looked dumbfounded as she was being manipulated.

“There’s a secret in this blue eye,” said Haruhi.

“Well, yeah. Wouldn’t be much of a story if her eyes were different colors for no reason.”

The sight of Asahina’s exhausted face was enough to hook me, though.

“So? What’s so secret about that color contact?”

“That’s still a secret,” Haruhi replied with a smirk. “Hey, Mikuru. How long are you going to play dead? Get your act together. You’re the leading actress. The most important person after the director and producer. Chin up! Stand up straight!”

“Wah—”

And with a sob, Asahina began posing per Haruhi’s instructions. Haruhi forced Asahina to hold the pistol (it’s just a model) in her hands.

“Act like you’re a female assassin. And make sure people can tell you’re from the future.”

Just a few of her unreasonable requests. Asahina timidly held the Glock as she glanced sideways at me—the camera—as best as she could. Gotta love how you can feel her pushing herself, yeah. No, I’m serious.

In any case, that freak sure is unnecessarily active. I’ve seen plenty of bad movies, and I’ve never thought that I could do a better job so I should make my own film. I wouldn’t know how to go about making one anyway. Even if I were to make my own film, I don’t entertain the notion that it would be any good. But it would appear that Haruhi seriously believes she has the talent to be a director. At the very least, it’s pretty certain that she intends to make something better than those minor films on late-night TV. What exactly does she have to support all that confidence?

Haruhi was yelling as she waved the yellow megaphone around.

“Mikuru! Act less embarrassed! Forget who you are! You just need to become your role! You are no longer Mikuru Asahina! You are Mikuru Asahina!”

… Of course, we already knew that there was no basis for Haruhi’s confidence. Causing chaos in natural order with groundless confidence was an ability Haruhi was born with. Or else she wouldn’t be able to proudly wear that armband and act so high and mighty.

Under director Haruhi’s supervision, we began the commemorative shooting of the first scene.

Except that it just consisted of me standing on the side shooting Asahina running across the area. This was supposed to be the opening. She could have at least written a script. But Haruhi said flat-out that no such thing existed.

“It would be bad if I put everything on paper and it got leaked.”

That was her reasoning. Looks like we’re going to film this movie Hong Kong–style. I was feeling pretty damn exhausted at this point, but when I looked through the camera lens at Asahina dual-wielding pistols, jogging along out of breath, I figured I had it relatively easy.

As the rest of us watched, Asahina continuously ran wearily from right to left until the fifth take when the director finally signaled okay, which was when she collapsed on the ground.

“Ha… ha…”

Paying no attention to the waitress with both hands on the ground as her back rose and fell with each breath, Haruhi directed her next instruction to Nagato, waiting on the sidelines.

“Okay, we’re doing Yuki and Mikuru’s battle scene next.”

Nagato, in her favorite black outfit, slowly moved in front of the camera. The outfit was just a pitch-black mantle over her uniform and a black pointy hat on her head, so there was no need for her to be dragged into the thicket like Asahina, fortunately. Then again, Nagato would probably be fine with changing her clothes anywhere. Why don’t we reverse their roles? Make Nagato the waitress and Asahina the mage. That would be curiously appropriate.

Haruhi had Asahina and Nagato stand facing each other three meters apart.

“Mikuru, unload like crazy on Yuki.”

“Huh,” Mikuru responded. She shook her hair, which was a tangled mess after all that running. “But I’m not supposed to fire this at people…”

“It’s fine. With your aim, you won’t hit her much anyway. Even if you were able to hit her, Yuki could probably just dodge it.”

Nagato just stood silently with the star-tipped pointer in hand.

Well yeah, I’d have to agree there. Nagato could have a gun pressed against her forehead and still manage to dodge the bullet.

“Um…”

Looking like a newly hired waitress having to report a broken dish to the scary chef, Asahina nervously glanced up at Nagato.

“It’s fine,” replied Nagato. And with a spin of the pointer, she said, “Shoot me.”

“See, she says it’s fine. Fire away. And just a heads-up, you don’t fire both at the same time. You alternate. That’s a basic principle of dual-wielding pistols.”

Koizumi was holding the reflector board above his head. Haruhi brought it from who knows where. The photography club might be reporting a theft right about now.

“Anyway, Koizumi, aren’t you the leading man?”

“One must adapt to the circumstances as they change. I’m more disposed to being on this side of the camera. I’ve been thinking since yesterday about a way to remain backstage…”

“Unh!”

Asahina, straining to hold up the pistols, fired rapidly with her eyes shut tight. And I stood to the side filming that sight. I couldn’t really see the BB trails, but considering that Nagato was standing completely still without even a flicker of emotion across her face, I guess she really wasn’t scoring any hits. Maybe she’s using magic… or so I was thinking when Nagato slowly raised the pointer and whirled it before her face. Bullets began falling to the ground with a clatter. Even without glasses, her vision was as incredible as ever.

Nagato was staring at the muzzle without a single blink. Not that she blinked much to begin with, but then again, blinking just because “it would be unnatural if I didn’t blink once in a while” would feel even more unnatural. Whether she was walking around with her pupils wide open, breaking through ceilings, or teleporting around, I would no longer be surprised. Which was why I wasn’t surprised right then.

Nagato waved the pointer sporadically like a broken windshield wiper and with each swing, BBs fell with a clatter.

In any case, this sure was a boring battle scene. Nagato was only waving her wand around and Asahina was only firing those two Glocks or Berettas or whatever. And she wasn’t hitting anything. First off, Haruhi only told her to “unload like crazy” and didn’t give her any lines to say. All we could hear was Asahina moaning and wailing in her little, lovely voice.

The whole thing felt more like a halfhearted battle scene between a viper and mongoose who had agreed to avoid any fatal blows beforehand.

“Yeah, that should do it.”

Once Asahina had run out of bullets, Haruhi tapped her shoulder with the megaphone. I lowered the video camera and approached Haruhi, sitting cross-legged on the director’s chair.

“Hey, Haruhi. How is this a movie? I have no idea what the story is about.”

Super-director Suzumiya gave me a side glance.

“That’s fine. I planned on having a lot of cut-and-paste work done during the editing phase anyway.”

Who’s going to be doing it? That cut-and-paste work. I have a feeling the word “editing” has been included in my list of duties.

“At least put in some lines,” I suggested.

“We can just remove the noise and dub over later if we have to. We’re going to have to add sound effects and background music. There’s no need to think too much about it at this point!”

Well, yeah. Considering that the story’s only in your head at this point, there’s nothing for us to think about. At the very least, I have to take care to keep Haruhi’s sexual harassment of Asahina to a bare minimum. No other males are allowed to touch her body. That’s where I draw the line. No one’s got a problem with that, right?

“Let’s move on to the next scene, then! Time for Yuki’s counterattack. Yuki, wreck Mikuru with your magic!”

Nagato’s eyes, darker than her costume, turned to me from under the brim of her black hat. Her head tilted at an angle only I could distinguish. I basically got the message. Nagato was asking if it was okay.

No!
was the obvious response. Magic aside, I couldn’t give permission to hurt Asahina in any way. Look, she’s all pale and trembling.

Of course, Haruhi had no idea that Nagato could use incomprehensible, spontaneous magic. She just wanted her to
act
like she was using magic.

Nagato appeared to understand and, while remaining completely silent, raised the antenna pointer and began waving it around the way audience members at a concert wave glow sticks.

“That’s good enough,” said Haruhi. “We’ll add visual effects to this scene. Kyon, make it so there are beams shooting out of Yuki’s wand later.”

How am I supposed to add in effects like that? I don’t have the ability. If you’re planning on borrowing staff and equipment from Industrial Light & Magic, though, that’s a different story.

“That’s when Mikuru should scream! And then fall down in pain.”

After a moment of nervous hesitation, Asahina murmured, “… Eek,” before suddenly falling straight onto her face. Nagato stood next to a fallen Asahina like the Grim Reaper come to claim her soul. I stood filming the whole scene while Koizumi stood next to me, still holding up the reflector board.

The stares from all of the families around us were starting to hurt.

Having been granted a brief respite in a most compassionate act by Haruhi, we sat in a ring on the ground.

Haruhi was replaying the film I had shot with a deliberate look on her face as she nodded to herself.

A number of children had scurried in between Asahina and Nagato and were asking questions like, “What show is this for?” Asahina shook her head with a weak smile while Nagato completely ignored them, becoming one with the land.

I had no idea what kind of scenes the footage I was taking would be used for since Haruhi refused to tell us, but the super-director informed us that we would be going to a nearby shrine next. Break’s over already, huh?

“There are doves there.”

That’s the case, apparently.

“We’re going to film Mikuru walking with doves flying all around in the background. I’d prefer doves that are completely white, but I’m willing to take any color at this point.”

I was pretty sure we were only going to find typical park doves. With her arm linked in the already worn-out Asahina’s arm (so she wouldn’t be able to run away), Haruhi walked through the forest park toward the street. Koizumi and I divided up the equipment and followed like local Sherpas trailing a film crew doing a piece on the jungle. We eventually arrived at a large shrine in the middle of the mountains. I hadn’t been there in a while. Not since a field trip in grade school.

Haruhi stood in front of a sign on the grounds that said
Do not feed
while spreading bread crumbs like she was trying to make flowers bloom on a wilted tree. I guess she can’t read.

All at once the ground was covered by a swarm of doves, endlessly dropping from the sky. The sight of the shrine grounds covered in doves was quite disturbing. Asahina was standing alone within the carpet of doves. The waitress stood, lip trembling, with her feet being pecked. I was filming the scene from the front. What the hell was I doing?