The Wavering of Haruhi Suzumiya (9 page)

“What characters does she use to write it? What’s her full name?”

“Yuki Nagato. Nagato as in the battleship, Yuki as in ‘hope,’ ” I told him.

“… What a lovely name. Her family name is magnificent and strong, like the
Nagato,
while her given name is pure and clear, full of optimism and the possibilities of the future. It’s neither banal nor overstated, just like the image of her in my mind.”

And just what image was that? How could a single look reflect anything but his own conceited delusion?

“You said it was what was inside that counted, but what does love at first sight have to do with that?” I asked him.

“I just knew.”

He was annoyingly confident.

“This isn’t just a delusion. I know it. I don’t care about outward appearance or personality. It’s her intellect. I saw her. She had a
godlike intelligence to her. I’ll never meet such a highbrow girl again.”

There was still much I didn’t understand; I’d have to look up “highbrow” in the dictionary later.

“So how can you tell all that from a single glance? You only saw her from a distance, and you haven’t said one word to her.”

“I can’t help it—I just know it’s true!”

Why does he have to yell?

“I’m grateful to God. I’m ashamed I never believed in religion before. Now I go to the neighborhood shrine every week to pray, and I’ve been going to the church for confession—both Protestant and Catholic.”

“That just makes you more of an unbeliever,” I said. “You can’t just worship anything. Pick a god and stick with it!”

“You’ve got a point,” said Nakagawa. “Thank you, Kyon. I’ve made up my mind. I need worship but one goddess—and that’s Yuki Nagato. I’ll devote all my life’s love to her—”

“Nakagawa.”

He’d just keep going with his nonsense if I let him, so I cut him off—it was just too corny, and I was starting to get irritated.

“So what do you want? I get why you called, but what of it? What’s the point of declaring your love for Nagato to me?”

“I want you to give her a message for me.”

So said Nakagawa.

“I want you to convey to her my words. Please. You’re my only hope. You were walking right beside her. Surely you must know her well.”

He wasn’t wrong. Everyone in the SOS Brigade was in the same orbit around Haruhi. And he’d said he saw Nagato and me in May, and she’d been wearing glasses along with her school uniform. So it must have been the day the SOS Brigade had gone on its first patrol, when I’d gone to the library with her. I got a little nostalgic thinking about it, but compared to then, I know a
hundred times more about Nagato now—more than I’d like, if I’m honest.

Feeling it a bit keenly, I put a question to Nakagawa.

“So you remembered that I was walking with Nagato…”

It was a little hard to say.

“So, um, did it occur to you that we might not just be friends? That we might, like, be dating?”

“Not even a little bit,” answered Nakagawa without a moment’s hesitation. “You’re into stranger girls. Like back in junior high… I forget what her name was, but you’re not still going out with that one girl?”

There was plenty wrong with the idea that Nagato herself wasn’t weird, but that was beside the point—this guy seemed to have the wrong idea. I remembered Kunikida being similarly mistaken. That girl was just a friend, and I hadn’t seen her since graduating junior high. This was the first time I’d thought of her in a while. I considered whether I should send her a New Year’s card.

I started to feel like I was just digging myself in deeper, so I changed the subject.

“So, what do you want me to tell her? You want to ask her out? Do you just want me to give you her number?”

“No.”

Nakagawa’s response was serious.

“As I am now, I am not worthy to show my face before her. There’s just too much disparity. So that’s why—”

He paused for effect.

“—I want you to tell her to wait.”

“To wait for what?” I asked.

“To wait for me to come for her. Don’t you see? Right now, I’m just a high school student with no value in society at all.”

Sure, I thought, but I’m the same way.

“So it’s just no good. Listen, Kyon. I’m going to throw myself
into study, starting now. No—I already have. I’ll go straight into a national university.”

It was good to have goals.

“I’m going to study economics. I’ll keep working hard, and when I graduate I’ll be at the top of my class. And when I start looking for jobs, I’m not going to go into a government or corporate job, but a smaller company instead.”

He was laying out a blueprint with no idea whether it was realistic or just a pipe dream. If a demon overheard him, he’d probably die laughing.

“But I won’t be satisfied with being a member of the proletariat for long. In three years—no, two years—I’ll have gotten the expertise I need to start my own business.”

Nobody’s going to stop you, so go right ahead, I thought. If I haven’t gotten my act together by then, I’d want him to hire me.

“I’ll get my company moving in five… no, make that three years, getting listed in the second section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange, with yearly profit growth of at least ten percent—and that’s gross profit, I mean.”

His spiel was getting harder to follow. But, undaunted, he continued.

“By that time, I’ll be able to take a breath. My preparations will be ready, you see.”

“What preparations?”

“My preparations to receive Nagato.”

I was as silent as a deep-sea shellfish as Nakagawa’s words battered me like ocean waves.

“Two years until I graduate from high school, and four years in college. Then two years of on-the-job training, followed by the three years it’ll take me to open my company and get it publicly traded, so that’s eleven years total. No, let’s round it out to an even ten. In ten years I’ll be a worthwhile member of society, so—”

“Are you completely stupid?”

I think you’ll understand why I said this. What girl would possibly just sit there and wait for a decade? And for a guy she’d never even met? To be asked to wait for ten years for some guy she’d never even met to come and propose to her, and then just sit there and do it, well—no human could do that. Unfortunately, Nagato wasn’t human.

I clicked my tongue.

“I’m serious.”

He really sounded serious too.

“I’ll stake my life on it. I mean it.”

If words could cut, his were slicing right through the telephone wires.

How was I going to talk him out of it?

“Listen, Nakagawa…”

I thought about Nagato’s slender form as she sat alone, reading.

“… This is just my perspective, but Nagato’s actually pretty popular with the guys. It’s kind of a problem for her, really. You’ve got a pretty good eye for girls, I’ll say that. But the chance that Nagato’s gonna stay single for ten years is about zero.”

It was a total bluff. I didn’t have a clue what would happen in ten years—not even to myself.

“And besides, something this important should be told to her in person. I’m not wild about it, but I’ll introduce you. It’s winter vacation, so I’m sure she can spare an hour or so.”

“I can’t do it.”

Nakagawa’s voice was suddenly quiet.

“I can’t do it right now. I’d faint as soon as I saw her face. Actually, I caught a glimpse of her from a distance the other day. It was at the supermarket by the train station… and I just happened to see her from behind, and that was all it took to freeze me in my tracks. Meeting her in person, I just… I couldn’t do it!”

Man, his brain had a bad case of love fever. It was serious, too, if he’d already made his ten-year plan under its influence. I wish
there was something to do, but the only cure would be hearing her say “I’m sorry” as she ran away from him on the day he finally worked up the strength to blurt it out.

But if he was so far gone as to tell all this stuff to a guy he barely knew over the phone, I was terrified of what he might say next. I already had one person like that to worry about—Haruhi—and now Nagato had gone and made the problem worse.

What a pain. I sighed loud enough that he’d be able to hear it.

“Fine. Just tell me again what you want me to say to her.”

“Thank you, Kyon.”

Nakagawa sounded genuinely grateful.

“We’ll definitely invite you to the wedding. I’ll ask you to give a speech—the first speech too. I’ll never forget you. If you want, there will always be a position for you at the company I’m going to start.”

“Whatever, just tell me what you want me to say.”

I listened to the excessively hasty Nakagawa while balancing the receiver on my shoulder as I looked around for a piece of loose-leaf paper to write on.

Just after noon the next day, I silently walked up the hill to North High. As the elevation rose, the white vapor of my breath became more visible. If you want to know why I was going to school in the middle of vacation, it’s because the SOS Brigade was holding its regular meeting.

Today we’d also be doing a thorough cleaning of the clubroom. Although Asahina the maid would diligently sweep the floor, in accordance with the law that says that entropy always increases, a constant influx of stuff coming into the room had disrupted its order. The main sources of this chaos were Haruhi, who would swipe anything that her eye fell upon; Koizumi, who kept bringing in new board games; Nagato, who was constantly tearing through thick books; and Asahina, who was devoted to
brewing the perfect cup of tea—basically, everybody but me. Left alone, the clubroom would turn into a disaster area. I’d finally proposed that everyone should take their stuff back to their homes, although Asahina’s costume rack would be spared.

“Ugh, what a pain.”

It went without saying that the lack of spring in my step was due to the unwanted piece of paper in my blazer pocket.

I’d written down Nakagawa’s declaration of love for Nagato verbatim. It was so ridiculous that I’d wanted to chuck my pencil across the room any number of times. Only veteran seducers would be able to say such absurd things with a straight face. “Wait ten years for me?” What was this, some kind of joke?

As I walked into the breeze coming off the hill, the familiar school grounds came into view.

I arrived at the clubroom building an hour ahead of the time Haruhi had set for the meeting.

It wasn’t because of the SOS Brigade rule that the last person to arrive for a meeting had to treat everyone else. That rule applied only to after-school activities.

The previous day, Nakagawa had said this:

“You can’t just hand over the note. You’d just be a notetaker, then. She might not even read it. You’ve got to read it out loud in front of her, and with the same passion I just used in telling it to you.”

It was an unreasonable request. I had no reason, nor was I simpleton enough, to just do as he said, but I was just enough of a believer in the goodness of humanity to be slightly moved by his entreaties. So to do it, I needed to get Nagato alone, with nobody else around. If I showed up an hour early, I was sure nobody besides Nagato would be there, and Nagato would definitely be there—she was the most reliable alien-built android I knew, after all.

After a perfunctory knock on the door was met by silence, I opened it.

“Hey.”

Did that sound too forced? I scolded myself and tried again.

“Hey, Nagato. I figured you’d be here.”

There in the tranquil midwinter air that filled the room, Nagato sat quietly in a chair, as still and cold as though she were a life-size doll. The title of the book she was reading sounded like the name of a disease.

“…”

She regarded me expressionlessly, raising her hand to her temple briefly, then lowering it.

It was the same movement she would have used to adjust her glasses, except she didn’t wear them anymore. I was the one who’d told her she looked better without them, and she was the one who’d left them off. So what was that just now? Had her habit from a few months ago returned?

“Nobody else is here yet?”

“Not yet.”

Nagato answered concisely, then returned her gaze to the densely typeset pages of her book. I wondered if she considered blank spots a waste of space.

I awkwardly made my way toward the window, letting my eyes drift from the clubroom building down to the courtyard below. It was winter vacation, and there was hardly anybody on campus. All I could hear through the drafty window was the faint chanting of one of the more cold-resistant sports clubs.

Standing there, I turned to face Nagato. She looked the way she always did—the same porcelain features and lack of expression.

Now that I thought about it, we’d been short a glasses girl for some time. Haruhi would probably make a play to fill the spot again sooner or later.

I thought about such pointless things as I fumbled for the folded piece of loose-leaf in my pocket, then pulled it out.

“Nagato, there’s something I need to tell you.”

“What is it?”

Nagato moved a finger to turn a page. I took a deep breath.

“There’s this idiot who’s obsessed with you, and as his agent I’m going to tell you what he told me. So how about it? Will you listen?”

If she said no, I’d planned to tear up the paper and throw it away right on the spot, but Nagato looked silently up at me. Despite the icy color of her eyes, when they looked at me they seemed to have a warmth that could melt snow—had my explanation been that good?

“…”

Nagato stared at me, her lips closed. Her gaze was like a surgeon peering at a patient.

“I see,” she said, watching me unflinchingly. She seemed to be waiting for me, so I helplessly unfolded the paper with Nakagawa’s confession on it and started to read.

“My Dearest Miss Yuki Nagato, though I could not help myself, please forgive me for conveying my thoughts to you in this way. In truth, from the very first day I saw you—”

Nagato looked at me and listened. It was I who felt weirder and weirder as I read. The more I spat out Nakagawa’s declaration of love, the dizzier I felt, as the stupidity of it all reached a crescendo. What was I doing? Was I crazy?