EPILOGUE

Let’s talk a little about what happened afterward.

By noon, Haruhi had untied her hair and restored it to its former straight style. She probably got sick of that knot. Once her hair grows longer, I’ll try indirectly suggesting she try a ponytail again.

I ran into Koizumi during break, on the way back from the restroom.

“I need to thank you,” he said with an overly easy smile on his face.

“The world remains unchanged. Suzumiya is still here. It looks like I won’t be out of a job just yet. Indeed, you did really well. I’m not being sarcastic. Although we can’t discount the possibility that this world was newly created last night. In any case, I feel privileged to see you and Suzumiya again.”

He said that this might be the beginning of a long friendship as he waved goodbye.

“I’ll see you after school.”

When I went to the club room during lunch, I found the usual sight of Nagato reading.

“You and Haruhi Suzumiya disappeared from this world for two and a half hours,” were the first words out of her mouth. And the only words. As Nagato began to ignore me like I was a stranger and silently read, I opened my mouth.

“I’m reading the book you lent me. I can probably return it in another week or so.”

“I see.”

As always, she didn’t look at me.

“Tell me. How many others like you are on Earth?”

“Many.”

“Will another one like Asakura attack me?”

“Don’t worry.”

For once, Nagato raised her head and looked into my eyes. “I won’t let them.”

I decided not to mention what I had thought of her at the library.

After school, Asahina was, oddly enough, wearing her sailor uniform instead of her maid outfit in the club room. When she saw me, she threw her body onto mine.

“I’m so glad to see you again,” Asahina said in a tearful voice as she buried her face in my chest. “I thought you’d never—sniff—be able—sniff—to return to this world—”

Maybe she felt my arms creeping around behind her. Asahina suddenly thrust her arms into my chest and pushed me away.

“We… we mustn’t. If Suzumiya sees us like this, it’ll happen all over again.”

“I don’t understand what you mean.”

Her large, teary eyes were beyond lovely. You could be born anew looking at them. No man in the world could resist her eyes of pristine innocence.

“You’re not going to wear your maid outfit today?”

“It’s being cleaned.”

That’s when I remembered. I pointed to a spot above my heart.

“I just remembered something, Asahina. You have a star-shaped mole around this spot on your chest, right?”

Asahina wiped the tears from the corner of her eyes and made a face like a passenger pigeon after a shotgun was fired right before its eyes. She quickly turned around and tugged the neckline of her dress to look down her chest. Her ears instantly turned red, which amused me to no end.

“H-how did you know?! I never knew it was shaped like a star! Wh-wh-wh-wh-when did you see it?!”

Even Asahina’s neck was turning red as she hit me with her fists like a child.

Should I tell her the truth? Your future self told me.

“What are you people doing?” Haruhi queried from the doorway, disgusted. Asahina’s clenched fist froze as her face became pale again. But Haruhi lifted the paper bag she was carrying with a wicked grin on her face, like an evil stepmother who had just heard that her stepdaughter had eaten the poisoned apple and died.

“Mikuru, you’re probably sick of the maid outfit, right? Come on. It’s time to change.”

Like a master of ancient martial arts, Haruhi crossed the gap in an instant and captured the stiffened Asahina without any trouble at all.

“No—Ah—Wha—St-sto—”

As Asahina screamed, her uniform was forcefully removed.

“Stop struggling. Resistance is futile. This time, you’ll be a nurse. A nurse! Or do they say hospital attendant these days? It doesn’t matter. It means the same thing.”

“At least close the door!”

I would have liked to stay and watch, but I excused myself from the room, shut the door, and clasped my hands in prayer.

Of course, during this entire sequence, Nagato had been sitting at the table reading her book.

The paperwork for chartering the SOS Brigade had been sitting on the shelf for quite some time, but just now, I finally turned in to the student council a document that vaguely resembled an application. The “Save the World by Overloading it with Fun Haruhi Suzumiya Brigade” would definitely be rejected unless I bribed them, so I arbitrarily changed the name to the “Support the Student Body by Overworking to Make the World a Better Place Student Service Brigade (Student Association)” (a.k.a. SOS Brigade). I listed the club activities as “counseling in regards to school life, consulting services, and participation in local volunteer activities.” I didn’t really know what that all meant, but if the application ended up being accepted, I could stick up a poster on the bulletin board offering counseling. I doubted our counseling would help anyone, though.

Meanwhile, under Haruhi’s supervision, the city-wide “magical mystery patrol” was still going strong. Today we commemorated its second occasion. As always, the plan would be to waste an entire day, but by pure coincidence, Asahina, Nagato, and Koizumi were all unable to go. They mentioned something about important tasks they couldn’t get out of. And so, I was now waiting for Haruhi by myself next to the station’s ticket gate.

I didn’t know if the three of them were just trying to give us some space, or if some emergency had actually cropped up. However, since the three of them were anything but ordinary people, it was quite possible that they had to deal with some funny business that was going down right then in some unknown place.

I checked my watch. I still had thirty minutes until we were supposed to meet. I’d already been standing there for thirty minutes, as I had arrived an hour early. It’s not that I was particularly eager to get cracking, but there was the whole SOS Brigade practice of fining the person who arrives last, regardless of whether that person’s late or not. And there were only two people today.

When I looked up from my watch, I immediately saw a familiar, casually clothed figure in the distance. She probably didn’t expect to find me waiting for her thirty minutes early, seeing as she froze in her tracks before indignantly stomping toward me again. I didn’t know if the creased brow and scowl on her face were lamenting today’s low attendance or lamenting her failure in arriving after me. I would have plenty of time to ask about it later while Haruhi treated me to a drink at the café.

In fact, I had a number of things I wanted to talk to her about. Like what kind of activities Haruhi had planned for the SOS Brigade. The costumes I’d like to see Asahina in. That she should talk to other classmates besides me. Her opinion on Freud and dream interpretation. And so on and so forth.

But when it came down to it, I already knew what I was going to tell her first.

I was planning on telling her about aliens, time travelers, and espers.