Unknown, page 2
Sorry about that.
“So Yasumi-chan, could you play around with this computer and make our site more presentable? Oh yeah, this is the first training task for new members. It’s a big mistake to think that those entry trials ended just like that. It’s not easy to become a true member of the brigade.”
“Okay! I’ll do it! I’ll do it! Please let me do it!” Whether or not Yasumi understood the full implication of Haruhi’s words, she had given a prompt reply for the time being. “I want to try it! I’ll do it! Lemme do it!!”
Like a drum echoing heavily after being hit, her transparent, upbeat reaction induced little surprise on my part. And then finally, “Hey, have you tried making a website before?”
“Nope!” She replied, beaming like my little sister upon receiving an animal chess set as a present. “But wait! I feel that I can do it! Cause I’d love to be of assistance to all of you. So, since it’s just a computer, I’ll show you that I can break it in!”
Computers were just boxes that performed calculations. No matter how much breaking in you did, it still wouldn’t obey your orders like a hunting dog. What do you think it was? An omnipotent tool?
However, there wasn’t enough time to stop her. Brushing aside Haruhi, who was sitting at the desk, Yasumi pulled the keyboard towards her, grabbed the wireless mouse, and started working away busily like a female office clerk on her work. Looks like her typing skills were quite good.
After browsing through the data on the hard disk, “Ah, this tool has lots of things in its collection. But, what's this? If this app is available then I think you could have made a more fancy-looking site before. Who made this site? It’s so full of useless tags. Ah, I haven’t seen such a textbook site in some time. The table designation is also ugly. Umm, source display…Ah, whoa! It’s horrible. What does this bunch of font tags mean… Ahh! You didn’t even use Style Shot? Something like this can be done by middle-school students with a tiny bit of computer knowledge, Senpai.”
Didn’t Haruhi just clearly state that I was the one who made this website? Those were rather rude comments coming from an underclassman, don’t you think? I’ll remember that one, Yasumi Watahashi!
“Well then, let me play with this for a bit!” Announcing her intent in a bright voice as if she was enjoying herself, Yasumi started operating the computer freely. While doing that, Yasumi hummed something like a mixture of tunes. Upon closer hearing, she was actually humming a proper tune. I thought I’ve heard that tune before. Then I realized that it was one of the songs Haruhi sang while participating as a stand-in vocalist for the Light Music Club due to some emergency during the cultural festival last year. Since she’s in her freshman year now, she would still have been in middle school back then. Looks like she had come over and heard it by chance.
Even I could not deny how brilliantly Haruhi shined that time. After that occasion, Haruhi, who had awakened to band activities, basically pulled us in to help out. That turned out to be a miscalculation.
Standing behind Yasumi holding her second cup of tea, Haruhi exuded an air of satisfaction. She was in a good mood, clearly delighted like a manager who after putting in much effort had found a capable subordinate. From this day onwards, the miscellaneous difficult duties would be assigned to her. Such determination could be seen growing slowly on Haruhi’s countenance like fungi spores scattered about the land.
Finally I could be relieved from these miscellaneous responsibilities. But that would only be my naïve dream. It was still up to Haruhi, who was always unsurpassed in making obstinate and unreasonable decisions. The best I could expect was a treatment even worse than Yasumi received. To be overtaken by an underclassman in one day... It looked like I am standing on gradually thinning ice. Well I’m not too beat-up about it.
As soon as the game of Chinese chess between Koizumi and I ended, we finished the tea Yasumi served. Obviously, I won but I didn’t feel too overjoyed. Probably it was because I wasn’t used to the game yet. Thus I was a bit tired.
“How does another game sound?”
Ignoring Koizumi’s invitation doubling as a search for vengeance, I lazily stretched my limbs. My eyes chanced upon a cardboard box in front of me. The SOS Brigade’s ”spoils of war” were stuffed into the box located on the rack a long time ago. They were tentatively the furnishings of our brigade.
Inside the box were the bats and gloves we used in the baseball competition last year.
This uncomfortable feeling was perhaps due to the presence of this foreign entity, the new underclassman/brigade member, and also a faint wariness towards her. Well, there was the incident on the phone too. I realized this and said,
“Hey Koizumi, how about playing catch?” It was a baffling suggestion, especially one coming from me.
“Oh?" After gazing into my eyes for a second Koizumi beamed. “That sounds good. Our bodies will deteriorate if we don’t participate in some physical activity. Moderate exercise is also good for your health and improving your creativity.”
After the decision was made, without so much as a stretch Koizumi promptly took down the cardboard box from the shelves and took out two grubby pairs of gloves and a tennis ball. There were soft and hard balls inside, but knowing Koizumi he had already read and understood my intentions.
There have been five of us in the SOS Brigade for the past year. The first underclassman, who had slipped in and filled the void of freshmen we left behind when we moved into our second year, couldn't yet be considered part of our group. Maybe it was because the five of us had been plunging into various occult and scientific happenings as a group of five, but now that the pentagram had become a hexagram I felt a sense of instability deep within me. This conclusion I was able to reach.
Simply speaking, I somehow felt, not thought, that Yasumi’s abrupt appearance in this previously stable room was a foreign existence. Henceforth, whatever duties would be assigned to Yasumi, and whether Haruhi felt satisfied by Yasumi’s current role, I found it very hard to fully approve of any of it.
The call I received from her while I was bathing was another thing. Even if that was due to her premature and overeager desire to join the club, why did she call me? Well, there was probably no point calling Nagato, Asahina-san or Koizumi. That was because the three of them had special, behind-the-scene responsibilities. Even so, there wasn’t supposed to be any meaning in calling me either. Yasumi had even hung up without properly introducing herself! Geez, looks like we have an underclassman whose intentions couldn’t be understood just like Haruhi!
In other words, I felt like escaping from this room in which Yasumi was present. Thus I had come up with the practical excuse to play catch. That was certainly an activity that definitely couldn’t be done in the clubroom.
“Well then…” I started speaking to Haruhi, who was watching over Yasumi’s work, Asahina-san, who had begun to research brewing new types of tea, and Nagato, who was completely absorbed in reading her book. “We’ll go out for a bit. I suppose there’s nothing we can help with even if we stay behind. We might even get in the way of you three. I’ll leave the preliminary training of the new brigade member to you guys.”
With two pairs of baseball gloves already in his hands, Koizumi displayed a faint smile to no one in particular. “That’s right. During times like this, we should let the girls in our brigade carry on with their activities undisturbed and without restraint. Since we men would only be in the way, we shall be taking our leave for a short while.”
The best wing-man one could have in this world was this assistant brigade chief.
After shooting a fleeting glance at me Haruhi replied, “Why not have a girls’ day in? You bring up a good point Koizumi-kun. I want to teach what Kyon's done so far as a brigade member to Yasumi-chan too just in case something happens. Yasumi-chan, did you hear me? I’ll tell you why this guy is the only one in our brigade without an official rank. I guess this is what we’ll have to do today. We’ll use him to teach you what not to do. The main principle of our brigade is absolute contribution to the whole. You'll be able to overtake Kyon in no time at all.”
Ah, okay, okay. Well, as long as you see things this way, I’m relieved. It was my desire to graduate peacefully this way, without being forced into any bizarre rank in the brigade.
I gave Koizumi a meaningful look. Seemingly receiving my eye signal correctly, Koizumi tossed the grubby-looking gloves at me.
“Well then, we’ll excuse ourselves first. We’ll return after we’ve had fun playing.”
With a huge wink that I could easily hear the “kink!” sound effect, he put his hand over my shoulder. “It’s been a long time since we've had our guys-only time. Let’s have fun together.”
Turning back before I left the classroom, I observed that Nagato was immersed in reading her book as usual. Asahina-san was saying to herself “I wonder if I should blend this tea with something different,” while analysing the tea set with a serious face. Finally, with a mysterious and complicated expression on her face and her mouth half-opened, Haruhi was observing Yasumi, who seemed to be skilful with computers, as if she understood what Yasumi was doing, but in fact she didn’t.
With just the addition of a new freshman brigade member it looks like the atmosphere, and even the room itself, had changed a lot.
Leaving the clubroom building, Koizumi and I started playing catch in the courtyard. No matter how we tried, we couldn’t appear like two male students with too much spare time in their hands trying to kill time. Fortunately, there was a lawn between the school block and the clubroom block. This spot could be easily seen from the open window of the third-floor literature clubroom. We could also look up and, even at our distance, we would realize instantly if one of them was at the window.
“Just one extra girl, and now things have become colorful,” Koizumi said and threw the ball which zoomed right towards me.
“Hmm? You mean it would have been better if it was a boy?”
Catching the slow ball I threw back at him, Koizumi replied. “It’s about balance. Don’t you think it’s not good that there are only two guys and yet there are four girls? Our right to speak out wasn't properly balanced before this. Now it’s only going to get worse due to our new member.”
Pathetic words, but that was the truth. Frankly speaking, our problem was that Haruhi expressed her opinions as loud as a bass loudspeaker.
“It won’t be easy handling that girl too.” Koizumi’s throw became increasingly powerful.
“Is there anything strange about Yasumi’s background?”
With a sound, I caught the bright-colored ball with my gloves.
“Nope,” Koizumi replied with a mysterious smile. “You can be assured of that. There isn’t any strange organization backing her. She’s completely innocent. Not belonging to anything, not being directed by anyone, that girl is her own master. Because of that, I find her a very interesting person.”
I grasped the ball, and looked hard at it as if it was a fresh-picked lemon. “Stop beating around the bush, Koizumi. If you know something, just say it. What’s her intention in infiltrating the SOS Brigade?”
“I don’t know her reason.” Koizumi lifted his hands as if in surrender. “I could only guess, or rather conjecture it.” And then he easily caught the ball I threw with a wind-up motion.
Shall we hear that one conjecture? “Suzumiya-san desired it.”
That kind of reasoning again?
“There was a decision that Yasumi Watahashi must be made into a member of the SOS brigade. Suzumiya-san wished for that and chose for things to be this way. The new brigade member selection test was probably the result of her she firm belief that Yasumi is a necessary person. Perhaps she manipulated reality subconsciously.” Above all, Koizumi looked at me. “Why did you suddenly think of asking me out to play catch? An invitation from you... Well, let me see how many times that’s happened.”
Don’t ask me. I don’t know why I had a feeling I had to use baseball equipment at a time like this. Since the gloves and the ball had been left aside for a long time, I disliked the idea of letting them turn into tsukumogami
6 .
“I see.” Seemingly accepting the explanation on the spot, Koizumi continued. “If the things in the clubroom possess will of their own then it will finally accelerate the clubroom’s evolution into a different time-space. Nevertheless, I can understand how you feel. I also felt like playing catch, or rather felt like I had to play catch. It was as if I was seized with this strange compulsion to do it.”
The ball hit Koizumi’s palm and dropped. He picked it up.
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know. But, there’s a possibility that it was an inevitable outcome. That we were required to play catch ball here. It's just like what the time-travelers would say. This would be a predetermined event.”
I don’t get it. If that’s the case, Asahina-san or Asahina-san (big) should have sent me messages in a roundabout fashion. But that isn't happening. First, what does my make-believe game of baseball with you signify to the future?
“It’s better if you ask Asahina-san about that I think…” Glancing at the third-floor clubroom, Koizumi sighed softly. “She looks like she doesn’t know anything about this. What’s more, we did this voluntarily. There is a higher possibility that we are just imagining things. If we are suspicious of even something like this it will be more like what the time-travelers thought would happen. As people of the past, we do not want to lose our perspective of what we have now solely to what we expect would happen in the future. It's not related in any way to espers and the Organization, but rather it would be our respective pride as those living in the present.”
I doubt this was his real reason.
Sensing something unexpected he continued with his diatribe, “It’s fine to be looked down upon. Our opponent belongs to a bigger organisation with more power. However, I personally find it unacceptable to resign myself to being looked down upon. The stronger the enemy is, the more likely it is that they will face sudden revolts. All over the world and across generations, wouldn't one call this the ’path of royalty’?”
Like the battle royales from those weekly magazines huh? If there was such a thing as instant training, or perhaps the sudden awakening of a hidden ability that could nab Kuyou and the others in one swoop, then the curtains won’t have to close on me.
“You’re quite—“ Koizumi executed a change-up pitch throw “—suitable for that role. Suzumiya-san is backing you up, and you her. Together there is nothing in this universe which cannot be done by the both of you.” And then, grinning broadly, he continued. “I’ve said this before, but it would be better if both of you start off again as Adam and Eve. Or rather in the context of Japan, Izanagi and Izanami
7 . As long as you continue to be fruitful and multiply, in time the earth will be filled with people like Suzumiya-san and yourself. A rather surreal but pleasant scene to behold. Wouldn't you agree with that?”
You’re already entering the domain of incredulity. I have no intention of playing the tsukkomi
8 . Moreover, since all of the people will be descendants of Haruhi, I doubt history would continue like in the days of Noah’s Ark. If the captain had any common sense, he would abort the mission.
Even if it was for historical scholarship, I would still downright refuse such a suggestion. Go ahead and dig up the frozen soil underneath Mount Ararat. You might even find a spaceship made of wood.
“It’s a shame.” Holding the ball in his hand, Koizumi swung his arm like a windmill. “But at the same time I am relieved. I would like to see you guys for a while longer. Nagato-san, Asahina-san, and the rest as well. Humans are born on this world as the only living being with imagination and inquisitiveness. As one of them I intend to see it through to the end.”
At this point, Koizumi changed the subject abruptly. “Are your after-school lessons with Suzumiya-san going well?”
How would I know? In order to preserve the tranquillity I summed it up. “Thanks to it, I’m doing better in schoolwork now. But it’s not exactly being tutored. Rather, it seems as if she really enjoys the fun in teaching.”
“That’s good. Both you and Suzumiya-san will go for post-secondary education, right? If both of you could go to the same university and enjoy your lives, it would help me as well. Please study hard for the university entry examinations.”
It’s fine. Financial woes are more than enough worries for my future. Luckily, since I am still at my second year, I don’t have to panic now and study every day like for students in their final year. I have more important things to do.
“Oh? And what might those be?”
…For example, a new game I didn’t get a chance to buy, or the accumulating pile of games I heard were good, but haven’t tried yet.
Koizumi displayed a faint smile. Looking at the student in the same year as me, who was killing time with me and smiling faintly as if out of exasperation, why did it get on my nerves so much? Damn it. Sometimes I wanted to smile like that too—maybe when I was engulfed by cigarette smoke around me. That smirk of his…
“Well then, what kind of pitch do you want next? I can throw a Cutter, Knuckleball, Slider, or one of a few others that I know of.”
Please just pitch a ball that I can catch. Unfortunately, I don't have the experience of a catcher. Just call me the eternal Player Two.
Koizumi’s next pitch was a super straight ball. Perhaps it was a certain declaration of intent. It was a pitch with a force that should have been impossible coming from Koizumi’s arm. Since you have such amazing pitching skills, you should have stood for the relief mound in last year’s baseball match. If you have any other hidden skills, it’s high time you disclosed them.
