CHAPTER 7

A self-proclaimed alien-made, artificial human. A self-proclaimed time traveling girl. A self-proclaimed squad of esper boys. Each one had shown me honest proof of their identity. Apparently the three of them, each for their own reasons, had been focusing on Haruhi Suzumiya. Okay, I could live with that. Or no, like hell I could live with that, but even if I accepted everything that had happened and been said, there was still one thing I just didn’t get.

Why me?

According to Koizumi, aliens, time travelers, and the esper boys were swarming around Haruhi because she wished for it to happen.

Then what about me?

Why was I dragged into this bizarre mess? I’m a one hundred percent genuine normal human being. I never once woke up suddenly with memories of a weird past life. I haven’t done anything worth putting on a résumé. I don’t have any super powers or anything. I’m just an ordinary high school student.

Who came up with this scenario?

Or did someone make me inhale some weird drugs and this was all a hallucination? Was I just in some tripped-out fantasy? Who was pulling the strings?

Is it you, Haruhi?

Yeah, right.

It’s no concern of mine.

Why should I have to worry about this crap? It looked like everything was Haruhi’s fault. In that case, she should be the one worrying about this, not me. There was no reason for me to be mixed up in all this. None. Absolutely none at all, I say. I had made up my mind. As for Nagato, Koizumi, and Asahina, if they were going to bother revealing their secrets to me, why not just tell everything directly to Haruhi? Whatever happened to the world afterward would be Haruhi’s responsibility. It had nothing to do with me.

Run around all you want. Just don’t get me involved.

Summer must have been accelerating its arrival. As I walked up the hill dripping sweat, I took off my blazer to wipe away the perspiration from my brow before undoing my necktie and unbuttoning the top three buttons of my shirt, all at a very slow pace. If it was this hot already, I didn’t want to imagine what it’d be like at noon. As I reflected upon the lack of meaning in this trek to school that had evolved into a natural hiking course, someone smacked me on the back.

Don’t touch me. It’ll make me even hotter. I turned around to find Taniguchi’s grinning face.

“Yo!”

Taniguchi, walking next to me, was also drenched in sweat. He sounded quite cheerful as he spouted nonsense. “What a pain. Spent all that time to get my hair just right and now it’s soaking wet.”

“Taniguchi.”

I interrupted him as he began going on about his dog, a subject I couldn’t care less about, to voice my query.

“I’m a normal high school student, right?”

“Huh?”

Taniguchi had a forced expression of amusement like he just heard some funny joke for the first time.

“Define normal first. We can talk after that.”

I shouldn’t have asked him.

“Kidding, kidding. Just a joke. Are you normal? Now look here. A normal high school student wouldn’t push down a girl in an empty classroom.”

I should have known better, but apparently he hadn’t forgotten about that.

“I’m also a man. I have enough judgment and pride to refrain from prying the whole story out of you. But you know, yeah?”

Not a clue.

“How did you get so close all of a sudden? And Yuki Nagato, an A—by my ranking.”

She’s an A—, huh?

Moving on….

“That was just…”

I explained. “The story going through your mind is delusional, and completely misguided. Nagato was the unfortunate victim when her club room was turned into Haruhi’s base. She had been troubled by the fact that she was unable to engage in literary club activities so she came to me for help. She wanted to know if there was a way to get Suzumiya to withdraw from the room. I sympathized with her, so I felt I should help out the poor girl. We decided to discuss remedial measures somewhere out of Haruhi’s sight, so I had the idea of meeting in the classroom once Haruhi had gone home. Then Nagato’s chronic anemia kicked in and she fainted, so I quickly put myself between her and the floor. That’s when you happened to barge in, Taniguchi. Indeed, once the truth has been brought to light, it seems like such a trivial thing.”

“Liar.”

Instantly rejected. Damn it. I figured my assorted mix of truth and fiction had created the perfect story.

“Even if I believe your lies, the fact that an antisocial girl like Yuki Nagato would come to you for help already makes you not normal.”

Nagato is that well-known, huh?

“Plus, you’re one of Suzumiya’s people. If you can be considered a normal high school student, then I’m as normal as a water flea.”

Guess I might as well ask.

“Can you use ESP?”

“Huh?”

The dumb look on his face got even dumber. You look like you just found out the beautiful girl you picked up was a solicitor for some dangerous religious group, Taniguchi.

“… I see. You’ve finally been infected by Suzumiya’s poison…. Wasn’t very long, but it was nice knowing you. Stay away from me or I’ll be infected by Suzumiya.”

I shoved Taniguchi, and he sputtered, breaking down into laughter. If he’s an esper, I’m the UN Secretary-General.

As we walked across the paved stone between the front gate and the school, I suppose I felt somewhat grateful. At the very least, I forgot about the heat for a while.

Not even Haruhi could bear the heat, apparently. She lay sprawled on her desk looking listlessly at the mountains in the distance.

“Kyon, I’m hot.”

“Yeah. So am I.”

“Fan me?”

“If I’m going to fan anyone, I’ll fan myself. I don’t have enough energy to be wasting any on you this early in the morning.”

Haruhi leaned forward without any sign of having made that speech yesterday.

“What should we have Mikuru wear next?”

After bunny and maid, the next would be… Wait, there’s more?

“Kitty ears? A nurse outfit? Or perhaps a queen?”

I pictured Asahina’s petite frame dressed in each outfit, cheeks flushed. It made me light-headed. She’s so cute.

As I began deliberating the matter, Haruhi narrowed her eyebrows, glared at me, and tucked her hair behind her ear.

“Dumb face.”

That was how she labeled how I looked. You’re the one who brought up the subject. Well, it’s probably an accurate description, so I can’t really protest. As she fanned her chest with her book…

“Seriously, it’s so boring.”

Haruhi’s mouth looked just like an upside-down V. She looked like a character out of a manga series.

The afternoon gym class from hell, being barbequed in the radiation of the sun, came to an end. With disgruntled mutterings of “Okabe, don’t make us run for hours, you idiot!” and other assorted cursing, we headed into classroom 1-6 to change out of our uniforms, now soaked rags. We then returned to classroom 1-5.

The girls had gotten out of gym class early and were already finished changing, but since the last period was homeroom, a few people who had sports team practices right after remained in their gym uniforms. For some reason, Haruhi, who wasn’t a member of any such teams, was also wearing her gym uniform.

“Because it’s hot.”

That’s why.

“Who cares. I’ll have to change again once I get to the club room anyway. And I’m on cleaning duty this week. It’s easier to move in this.”

Haruhi rested her oval face in her hands as she stared out the window, following the huge towers of clouds.

“Guess that makes sense,” I admitted.

We could go with this for Asahina’s next costume. Though it wouldn’t really count as a costume.

“You’re probably fantasizing about something, right?”

Haruhi glared at me after her disturbingly accurate comment. It was like she could read my mind.

“Don’t do anything perverted to Mikuru until I get to the clubroom.”

I swallowed my So it’s okay once you’re there? and raised both hands in the air like an outlaw who’s got a sheriff pointing a gun at him in some Western.

As always, I waited for a response to my knock before entering the room. The maid sitting in her chair like a Therese doll greeted me with a smile like sunflowers in a grassy field. The sight healed my soul.

Nagato, flipping through a book in her corner, looked like a camellia that had bloomed in the wrong season. Yeah, I don’t understand my metaphors anymore either.

“I’ll make tea.”

Asahina adjusted her headband before flopping in her shoes over to the table covered with junk. She carefully placed tea leaves into the teapot.

I sagged into the brigade chief chair and blissfully watched Asahina prepare tea when I was hit by a sudden thought.

I turned on the computer and waited for the OS to boot up. I watched for the mouse icon to switch from hourglass to pointer. Then I opened the freeware viewer and input the password I set to load the contents of the folder MIKURU. I can understand why the Computer Research Society was in tears when they gave this new machine up. The thumbnails for Asahina’s maid outfit image collection loaded instantly.

As I verified that Asahina was still preparing tea with one eye, I enlarged one of the images and zoomed in.

This was when Haruhi forced her into her crouching tiger pose. I checked the edge of her exposed, ample cleavage. There was a black dot on her left mound. I zoomed in again. The dot was rather blurred, but it did indeed look like a star.

“I see. That’s what she meant.”

“Did you just figure something out?”

I closed the window seconds before she placed the teacup on the table. I don’t make mistakes. Asahina stood next to me and looked at the monitor. There was nothing to see.

“Huh? What is this? This MIKURU folder.”

Gah! I slipped up.

“Why is my name on here? Hey, hey. What’s inside? Show me, show me!”

“Uh, this is just, well… Hey, I wonder what this is. I’m sure it’s nothing important. Yep, that’s it. Nothing at all.”

“Sounds like a lie.”

Asahina reached for the mouse with a playful smile on her face and leaned over me, trying to grab my right hand. Not happening, sister. I grabbed onto the mouse. Asahina’s face popped over my shoulder as her soft body pressed into my back. I could feel her sweet breath against my cheek.

“Uh, Asahina. Could you let go….”

“Show me—”

Her upper body was crushing my back as she placed her left hand on my shoulder and reached for the mouse with her right. The sensation I felt was killing me.

Her soft giggling tickled my earlobes. It felt so good that I was about ready to let go of the mouse—

“What are you people doing?”

An icy –273°C voice froze Asahina and me. Haruhi stood in her gym uniform with her bookbag over her shoulder, looking like she’d just caught her dad molesting someone.

Asahina unfroze. She detached herself from my back, maid skirt rustling stiffly, and stepped back with robotic movements. She plopped into her chair like an ASIMO robot whose batteries are almost dead.

Haruhi made a “hmph” sound before stomping over the desk to glare down at me.

“So maids turn you on?”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m going to get changed.”

Go ahead. I drank the tea Asahina had made and made myself comfortable.

“I said I’m going to get changed.”

What about it?

“Get out!”

I was practically kicked out of the room as I fell into the hallway. The door slammed in my face.

“What’s with her?”

I didn’t even have time to set down the teacup. I tugged at my tea-soaked shirt and leaned back against the door.

Why does something not feel right? Something feels different than usual.

“Oh, I get it.”

Haruhi had no qualms about changing in the classroom, yet she chased me out of the room just now. That’s what was nagging at me.

Well, now. Did she have a change of heart? Or had she finally grown up and learned what shame is? I wouldn’t know since the boys of 1-5 were still in the habit of sprinting out of the room right before gym class. Funny, the person who drilled this habit into us, Asakura, was no longer there.

I placed the teacup on the linoleum floor and sat cross-legged, one leg propped up.

After a short while, the rummaging sounds from within the club room ceased without any voice telling me to go in. I hugged my knees and waited ten minutes, then knocked.

“Come in….”

I heard Asahina’s small voice through the door. I look past Asahina, opening the door for me like a real maid, to see Haruhi, looking bored, elbows propped on the table, and her long, pale legs. On her head were swaying bunny ears. The familiar sight of her as a bunny girl. Maybe she didn’t feel like putting in the effort. Collar and cuffs were absent. Her bare legs weren’t covered in fishnet stockings. But the bunny ears were still there as Haruhi sat with her legs crossed.

“My arms and shoulders feel cool, but this outfit doesn’t allow much ventilation,” Haruhi said as she sipped her tea. Nagato flipped another page.

Surrounded by a bunny girl and a maid, I was at a loss as to how to act. I considered how much I would make if I introduced these two to a part-time job for attracting customers.

“Whoa, what’s going on?”

That was Koizumi’s merry response in a somewhat hysterical voice, all while maintaining a smile on his face.

“Oh? Was today a costume party? Forgive me. I didn’t prepare anything.”

Don’t say anything that’ll make this situation more complicated.

“Mikuru, sit down here.”

Haruhi pointed to the metal chair before her. Asahina was obviously cowering as she timidly sat down in the chair with her back to Haruhi. I was wondering what Haruhi was planning when she took Asahina’s chestnut hair in her hands from behind and began braiding it.

If you just looked at this scene by itself, it was like a beautiful picture of an older sister arranging her younger sister’s hair, but Asahina’s face was frozen in fear and Haruhi had a sour look on her face. She probably just wanted to turn her into a maid with braids.

I turned to Koizumi, chuckling deeply as he watched, and asked, “Up for a game of Othello?”

“Sounds fabulous. We haven’t played in a while.”

We spent the next period of time engaged in the struggle between black and white (Koizumi sucked pretty bad for someone who could turn into a ball of light) while Haruhi braided and unbraided Asahina’s hair, then played around by tying it into two pigtails and then a bun (Asahina would shudder every time Haruhi touched her). Nagato was absorbed in her reading and didn’t look up for a second.

Why are we all gathered here? It was becoming harder and harder to understand.

That day, we simply engaged in monotonous SOS Brigade club activities. No aliens talking about some space-distorting data. No visitors from the future. No blue giants. No red spheres. Nothing at all. We didn’t know what we wanted to do. We didn’t know what we should do. We just let the clock tick by as we lived a routine sort of high school life. The everyday happenings of a natural world.

While I did feel a bit dissatisfied when nothing was going on, I could just tell myself, “Oh, well. There’s still plenty of time,” and aimlessly look to the next day and repeat.

I was still having more than enough fun though. We gathered in the room with no purpose in mind. I would watch Asahina hard at work like a maid. Watch Nagato be as still as a statue of Buddha. Watch Koizumi’s perfectly harmless smile. Watch Haruhi’s face jump constantly between good and bad moods. All these things had their own sort of essence of the unordinary. And it was part of this oddly satisfying school life I was living. As for almost getting killed by a classmate and encountering some rampaging monster in a gray, uninhabited world, those things just don’t happen that often. Though I couldn’t write them off as hallucinations, hypnosis, or daydreams.

I did resent being addressed as one of Haruhi Suzumiya’s lackeys, but I was the only one lucky enough to be involved, in various ways, with such an interesting group of people. For now, I’d just put aside the question of why I was the only one. Another human may join one of these days.

That’s right: I wanted everything to stay this way.

Just about anyone would agree with me on that point, right? Normally, yes.

But there was one person who didn’t.

You know who—Haruhi Suzumiya.

Once night had fallen, I had dinner, took a bath, and randomly studied whichever words might come up in English tomorrow. Once that was finished, the clock indicated that it was time to sleep. As I lay down in my bed, I perused the novel Nagato had forced on me. I figured a little reading was good every now and then, so I opened up the book. It was unexpectedly engaging as I continued reading page after page. I guess you really can’t judge a book by its cover.

But it was a bit too long for me to finish in one night, so I put down the book once one of the characters finished a long monologue. The demons of sleep were setting up camp on my eyelids. I marked my spot with the bookmark Nagato had written on and shut the book. I then turned off the lights and sank under the covers. Within a few minutes, I was sound asleep.

Incidentally, do you know why people dream? Sleep rotates between cycles of REM and non-REM stages. The first few hours of sleep are deep sleep and spent mostly in non-REM sleep. The brain is in a restive state during this stage. Once the body is resting and the brain becomes semi-active, you’re in REM sleep. This is when we dream. The closer we get to morning, the higher the frequency of REM sleep. Which means that most of our dreams last until right before we wake up. I dream every night, but I lie in bed until the last possible second so once I wake up, I have to frantically get ready for school and end up forgetting what my dream was about. Though on occasion I abruptly recall some dream I’d forgotten about years ago. Yeah, human memory is still an unsolved mystery.

But I digress. None of that really matters.

Someone was slapping my cheek. You’re annoying. I’m sleeping. Don’t interrupt me when I’m comfortably asleep.

“… Kyon.”

My alarm clock hadn’t gone off yet, even though I just turn it off every time it does. I should still have some time before my mother sends my sister to merrily drag me out of my bed.

“Wake up.”

No. I want to sleep. No time for dubious dreams.

“I told you to wake your ass up!”

The hands wrapped around my neck began shaking my head. When the back of my head slammed against a hard surface, I finally woke up.

… Hard surface?

I quickly sat up. Haruhi’s face, which had been staring at me, dodged my head.

“Finally awake?”

Kneeling next to me in her sailor uniform was Haruhi. Her pale face was filled with anxiety.

“Do you know where we are?”

Yeah. School. The school we go to, North Prefectural High. The paved stone between the front gate and the lockers. Not a single light was on. At night, the school building looked like a gray silhouette to my eyes—

Hold on…. There was no night sky.

Just a flat plane of dark gray. A monochrome sky emitting soft phosphorescence. No moon, stars, or clouds. A gray sky that resembled a wall.

Closed space.

I slowly stood up. I wasn’t wearing my sweats that served as pajamas. Instead, I was clothed in my school uniform.

“I thought I had woken up, but then I found myself here, and you were lying down next to me. What’s going on? Why are we at school?” Haruhi asked in an unusually subdued voice.

Instead of responding, I groped around my surroundings. Both pinching the back of my hand and touching my uniform felt far too real for this to be a dream.

“Haruhi, are we the only ones here?”

“Yeah. I know I was sleeping in my bed, so how did I end up here? And the sky looks strange….”

“Did you see Koizumi?”

“No… Why?”

“No reason. Just asking.”

If this is that dimensional fault or closed space or whatever, then the giants of light and Koizumi and his buddies should also be here.

“Let’s leave the school grounds for now. We might run into someone somewhere.”

“You don’t seem very surprised.”

I’m surprised. Especially by the fact that you’re here. Wasn’t this a playground for those giants she created? Or was this just an unusually real dream I was having? Alone with Haruhi in a deserted school. I wonder what Freud would have to say about this.

I maintained a reasonable distance from Haruhi as we stepped through the gate when my nose ran into an invisible wall. I remembered this clammy sensation. I could force my way a bit further but I soon ran into firm wall. An invisible wall stood right outside the school entrance.

“What is this?”

As Haruhi vigorously pushed with her two hands, her eyes grew wider. I walked around the school premises to confirm my suspicions. An imperceptible wall extended seamlessly as far as I could walk.

Almost as if it were trying to trap us inside.

“It doesn’t look like we can get out from here.”

There wasn’t even a breeze. The air was totally still.

“Let’s try circling to the back.”

“Shouldn’t we try to contact someone first?” Haruhi asked. “If there’s a phone, at least. I don’t have my cell on me.”

If we were in closed space, then according to Koizumi’s explanation, a phone wouldn’t do us any good, but we still went into the school building. There should be a phone in the faculty office.

None of the lights were on. The dark school building was pretty creepy. We walked past the rows of lockers and headed into the silent school building. On the way, I flipped the light switches in the first-floor classrooms and the fluorescent lights flickered on. It was just cold, artificial light, but it was enough to make the two of us exchange relieved looks.

First, we headed for the night watchman’s office. After confirming that it was empty, we headed for the faculty office. Naturally, it was locked, so we pulled out a nearby fire extinguisher, smashed its bottom into the glass window, and broke into the room.

Haruhi held the phone out to me. “Doesn’t seem to work.” I took it and put it to my ear. No sound at all. I tried pushing the buttons a few times but nothing happened.

We left the faculty office and headed up, turning on all the lights in the classrooms as we went. Our classroom was on the top floor. If we looked down from there, we might learn something about our surroundings. At least that’s what Haruhi said.

As we walked through the school, Haruhi tightly clenched the sleeve of my blazer. “Don’t expect much from me, Haruhi. I don’t have the power to do anything. But if you’re scared, just cling to my arm. It creates more of an atmosphere.”

“Idiot.”

Haruhi glared at me with upturned eyes, but her fingers didn’t release their grip.

Nothing looked different about classroom 1-5. Looked just the way it did when I left it that afternoon. The eraser marks on the chalkboard. The thumbtack-filled mortar wall.

“Kyon, look….” Haruhi said after rushing over to the window before falling silent. I stood next to her and looked down at the world below.

The gray world extended as far as I could see. Our school was built on the side of a mountain so you could see the shoreline from the fourth floor. I looked 180 degrees to the left, then 180 degrees to the right. Everywhere I looked, I saw no light suggesting human life. All the houses were plunged in darkness. Even the ones covered by curtains didn’t have any light spilling out. As though every last person had vanished from this world.

“Where are we…?”

It wasn’t that everyone else had disappeared. We were the ones who had disappeared. In this case, we would be the intruders who had slipped into this deserted world.

“This gives me the creeps,” Haruhi murmured as she hugged her shoulders.

We didn’t know where to go. And so we made our way to the club room we had just left that evening. We had swiped the key from the faculty office, so we had no trouble getting in.

Under the fluorescent lights, we sighed with relief at returning to our familiar headquarters.

I turned on the radio but there wasn’t even any white noise. Without the slightest hint of wind, the only sound in the club room was the sound of me pouring water into the teapot. I didn’t feel like bothering to change the tea leaves, so it was just diluted tea. I’m the one who brewed it. Haruhi was just half-dazed, staring at the gray world outside.

“Want tea?”

“No.”

I carried my teacup and pulled out a metal chair. I took a sip. Asahina’s tea is a hundred times better.

“What’s going on? What is this? I don’t get it. Where are we? Why am I in this place?” Haruhi said all this without turning around, still standing at the window. From behind, she looked really thin. “And why is it just you and me?”

“Hell if I know.” Haruhi flipped her skirt and hair and looked at me with a pissed-off look on her face.

“I’m going to go explore a bit,” she said as she headed out of the room. I began to stand up.

“You stay here. I’ll be right back.”

And with that, she left the room. Hmm, I guess that’s typical of her. As her lively footsteps faded into the distance, I sipped my unsavory tea. That was when he finally showed up.

A small red ball of light. At first, it was the size of a ping pong ball. Then its outline gradually grew in size while flickering like a firefly before settling into the shape of a human.

“Koizumi?”

Though it had a human shape, it did not look human. No eyes, nose, or mouth. Just a shining red doll.

“Why, hello.”

An optimistic voice broadcasted from within the red light.

“Took you long enough. I was expecting you to appear in a more tangible form.”

“Regarding that, I need to tell you a few things. No beating around the bush. I’ll be frank. This is an abnormal situation.”

The red light flickered.

“With normal closed space, I am easily able to gain entry. However, that wasn’t the case this time. I could only appear in this incomplete form after borrowing the power of all of my colleagues. And it probably won’t last very long. The power that rests within us is beginning to disappear.”

“What’s going on? Are Haruhi and I the only ones here?”

“Precisely,” Koizumi responded. “In other words, what we feared has already begun to happen. Suzumiya has finally given up on the current world and decided to create a new world.”

“…”

“As a result, our superiors are in a state of panic. Nobody knows what will happen to our world once it has lost its God. If Suzumiya happens to be feeling merciful, our world may continue to exist without change. But it could also return to nothing in the next second.”

“Why did this happen?”

“No one knows.”

The red light faltered like a flame.

“In any case, you and Suzumiya have completely vanished from our world. You are not in ordinary closed space. It is an entirely new dimension created by Suzumiya. Perhaps all the previous instances of closed space were merely practice runs.”

“Funny joke. Tell me which part I’m supposed to laugh at. Ha. Ha. Ha.”

“That wasn’t a joke. I am dead serious. The world you are in is probably the manifestation nearest to the world Haruhi desires. Though we aren’t sure what it is that she wants. Indeed, who knows what will happen?”

“Setting that aside, why am I here?”

“Do you really not know? You have been chosen by Suzumiya. The only person from the old world Suzumiya truly wanted to be with. I thought that you had realized this long ago.”

Koizumi’s light was about as dim as a flashlight running out of batteries.

“It would appear that I’m almost out of time. The way things look now, I probably won’t be seeing you again, but I suppose I’m rather relieved, for I will no longer need to go hunt Celestials.”

“Do I have to live in this gray world all alone with Haruhi?”

“Adam and Eve. If you reproduce enough, it’ll work out, won’t it?”

“… Don’t make me hit you.”

“Just a joke. All kidding aside, I would assume that this closed area of space will only last momentarily. It should soon turn into a familiar-looking world. However, it probably won’t be entirely the same. You could say that the world you are in is now the real world and the former world would be closed space. It’s a pity I won’t be able to observe the differences between the worlds. Well, if I happen to be born into the new world, please treat me kindly.”

Koizumi was turning back into a ping pong ball. His human shape collapsed and shrank like a burned-out star.

“We can no longer go back to the old world?”

“If Suzumiya desires it, then perhaps. The possibility is slim though. As for myself, I would have liked to spend more time with you and Suzumiya, so I regret this turn of events. I enjoyed being in the SOS Brigade. Oh, that’s right. I forgot to deliver the messages from Mikuru Asahina and Yuki Nagato.”

Koizumi said the following words before completely disappearing:

“Mikuru Asahina wanted to apologize. She said, ‘I’m sorry. It’s all my fault.’ Yuki Nagato’s message was ‘Turn on the computer.’ I’ll be going now.”

The end was quite quick. Like a candle being blown out.

I pondered Asahina’s message. Why is she sorry? What did Asahina do? I decided to think about that later and turned on the computer per the other message. As the hard drive produced sounds of seeking, the OS logo showed up on the monitor… except not. The OS screen, which should have booted up in a few seconds, didn’t show up. The monitor remained black. There was only a blinking white cursor on the left edge of the screen. The cursor began moving soundlessly to spell out a curt message.

YUKI.N> Can you see this?

After a brief period of bewilderment, I pulled the keyboard towards me. My fingers began typing.

Yeah.

YUKI.N> The connection has not been completely severed with your spacetime. But it is only a matter of time. The connection will be closed soon. That will be the end.

What should I do?

YUKI.N> Nothing can be done. The eruption of abnormal data in this world has completely vanished. The Data Overmind is in despair. The possibility for evolution has been lost.

What was that whole possibility of evolution thing anyway? What part of Haruhi could possibly be considered evolved?

YUKI.N> A high level of intelligence refers to data processing speed and accuracy. The intelligence of organic life forms has limited processing capabilities due to error and noise data from their physical bodies. As a result, once they reach a certain level, evolution stops.

So our physical bodies are the problem?

YUKI.N> The Data Overmind was created from data to begin with. It was believed that their data processing ability would increase infinitely until the universe burned up. But that was wrong. Just as the universe had its limits, evolution had its limits. At least, as long as they remain a discarnate entity of data.

And Suzumiya?

YUKI.N> Haruhi Suzumiya possessed the ability to create data from nothing. An ability the Data Overmind does not have. A human, a mere organic life form, is creating more data than it can process in its lifetime. If we could analyze this ability to create data, we could find a clue regarding autoevolution, or so we thought.

The cursor flickered. I could feel her hesitance before the words began racing again.

YUKI.N> We are counting on you.

Counting on me?

YUKI.N> We wish for you to return to this world. Haruhi Suzumiya is a vital observation subject. An important being that may never be born into this universe again. I also individually feel that I want you to return.

The letters were fading. The frail cursor slowly produced words.

YUKI.N> Another visit to the library would

The monitor blacked out. Increasing the brightness didn’t help. Nagato’s final typed words were brief.

YUKI.N> sleeping beauty

The loud rattling of the hard drive scanning almost made me jump up. The access light blinked and the monitor displayed the familiar OS screen. The whirring of the computer fan was the only sound in this world.

“What are you telling me to do, Nagato? Koizumi?”

I let out a deep sigh and casually, really, just casually looked out the window.

The window frame was covered in blue light.

A giant of light stood in the courtyard. Up close, it looked like a blue wall.

Haruhi jumped into the room.

“Kyon! Something’s here!”

Haruhi almost ran into me as I stood at the window before coming to a halt next to me.

“What is that? It sure is big. A monster? It isn’t a mirage, right?”

She sounded excited. Like her earlier gloom had never happened. Her eyes shone without a hint of anxiety.

“Maybe it’s an alien. Or the revival of some super weapon developed by an ancient race! Is that what’s keeping us from leaving the school?”

The blue wall stirred. My mind flashed back to the scene of skyscrapers being trampled down. I immediately grabbed Haruhi’s hand and ran out of the club room.

“Wha—H-Hey! What are you doing?”

We practically fell into the hallway. At the same time, a large roar vibrated through the air. I pushed Haruhi to the floor and covered her with my body. The clubhouse shook violently. I could hear the sounds of hard, heavy objects crashing into the floor down the hallway. Based on the volume of sound, the giant apparently hadn’t targeted the clubhouse with its attack. It was probably the building across the way.

I grabbed Haruhi’s hand and pulled her up as she sputtered. I then took off running. Oddly enough, Haruhi followed without complaint.

Is it my palm that’s sweating? Or is it Haruhi’s?

The taste of dust in the decrepit clubhouse was gone. As I dashed as fast as I could to the stairs, I heard a second crashing sound.

We raced down the stairs. I could feel Haruhi’s body heat through her hand. We cut across the courtyard and headed down the slope to the track. Upon first glance, Haruhi’s face next to me looked, though I may be mistaken, somewhat happy. Like a kid on Christmas morning finding all the presents she’d wanted next to her bed.

We kept running to put some distance between us and the building. When I looked up, I became truly aware of how big the giant was. The one in the place Koizumi took me to had been about as big as a skyscraper.

The giant raised its arm and smashed its fist into the school building. The first hit had already split open the cheap four-story structure, so it collapsed rather readily. Debris flew in all directions, causing deafening noise.

We stopped after advancing to the center of the two-hundred-meter track. A gigantic blue humanoid rose against the gloomy monotone canvas like a Hollywood special effect.

I was thinking about how this was what Haruhi should be taking pictures of for our Web site. She didn’t need to put up pictures of the Computer Research Society president groping Asahina, much less pictures of her in costumes. This scene is what she should put on the Web site.

As I was thinking about that, the sound of Haruhi rapidly speaking reached my ear.

“Do you think it’ll attack us? It’s just a hunch, but I don’t think it’s anything evil.”

“Dunno.”

As I responded, I was thinking to myself about what Koizumi explained when he first took me into closed space. If we left the destructive actions of the Celestials unchecked, the world would eventually be replaced. As in this gray world would take the place of the former world. And then…

What would happen next?

According to Koizumi, a new world was apparently being created by Haruhi. Would the Asahina and Nagato I know be in it? Or would it be a world where abnormal became normal, where these Celestials walked freely and aliens, time travelers, and espers were everywhere?

If that were to happen, what would my role be in that world?

There was no point in thinking about it, since I didn’t have a clue. I didn’t know what Haruhi was thinking. I’m no master at reading other people’s minds. I have no skills at all.

As I stood deep in thought, Haruhi’s cheerful voice sounded near my ear.

“What is all this? This weird world and that giant.”

It looks like you made them. Both this place and that thing. Anyway, what I want to ask is why I’ve been dragged into this. Adam and Eve, you say? That’s just dumb. I won’t accept such a clichéd turn of events. I refuse to.

“Don’t you want to go back to our old world?” I asked, sounding like I was reading off a script.

“Huh?”

Haruhi’s shining eyes seemed to dim. I turned to her white face juxtaposed against the gray backdrop.

“We can’t stay in this place for the rest of our lives. It doesn’t look like there’s a place to eat when we get hungry. There probably aren’t any stores open. And if that invisible wall extends around this entire place, we won’t be able to get out. We’ll surely starve to death.”

“Hmm, you know. It’s kind of strange, but I’m not really concerned about any of that. I just get the feeling it’ll work itself out. I know something’s wrong, but I just, I don’t know… I’m having fun right now.”

“What about the SOS Brigade? It’s the club you made. You’re just gonna ditch it?”

“That doesn’t matter anymore. After all, I’m really enjoying myself right now. There’s no need to go look for anything mysterious anymore.”

“I want to go back.”

The giant suspended its dismantling of the school.

“I discovered something after being thrown into this situation. I may complain all the time, but I actually liked how my life was. Including that idiot Taniguchi and Kunikida. Koizumi, Nagato, and Asahina. You can even include the vanished Asakura.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I want to see them again. I feel like I still have so many things to tell them.”

Haruhi’s head lowered a bit. “I’m sure we’ll see them. This world won’t be covered in darkness forever. The sun will rise tomorrow. I can tell.”

“That’s not what I mean. I don’t mean in this world. I want to see the old them in the old world.”

“I don’t get it.”

Haruhi made a pouting face and looked up at me. She had this strange mixed look of hatred and sorrow like some kid who had her present taken away.

“Weren’t you fed up with that boring world? It was just an ordinary world where nothing special ever happened. Didn’t you want something more interesting to happen?”

“I did indeed.”

The giant began walking. It kicked down the wreckage of the collapsed school building and advanced into the courtyard. It karate-chopped the passageway between buildings and punched the clubhouse. Our school was being blown apart. And our club room.

I looked over Haruhi’s head to see the base of more blue walls standing in different positions from the giant. One, two, three… I stopped counting once I got to five.

The giants, unhindered by the red balls of light, began destroying the gray world as they pleased. It must have been my twisted mind telling me they were probably having a good time doing this. Every time they waved their limbs, the landscape vanished, like a piece of space being shaved off.

Half the school was gone without a trace.

I was unable to sense if the closed space was expanding. Plus I really didn’t know anything about the whole “expanding until this space becomes the new reality” thing. I just knew that was how it was. Right then, if a drunk middle-aged guy sitting next to me on the train were to say, “Don’t tell anyone, but I’m actually an alien,” I probably would have believed him. I already had three times the amount of experience I’d had a month ago.

What can I do? It would have been impossible a month ago, but now, I could do it. I’d already received a few hints.

I resolved myself and spoke.

“Haruhi, I’ve been through some really fantastic experiences the past few days. You probably don’t know, but there are actually a bunch of extraordinary people interested in you. You could even say that the world is revolving around you. These people, they consider you to be a unique girl and are acting accordingly. You may not have realized, but the world was definitely moving in an interesting direction.”

I wanted to grab Haruhi’s shoulders when I realized I was still holding her hand. Haruhi, however, had a look on her face like she thought I had mad cow disease.

Unconsciously, Haruhi avoided my eyes and watched a giant take apart the school like it was completely natural.

As I looked at her from the side, I become newly aware of the softness of the curves of her face. Nagato said she was the “potential for evolution.” According to Asahina, she was a “time warp.” Koizumi treated her as “God.” Then what about me? What did “Haruhi Suzumiya” mean to me?

Haruhi was Haruhi and nobody else. I wasn’t going to use such overblown language to dodge the question. But I didn’t happen to have a decisive answer. Isn’t that natural? If someone points to the classmate sitting behind you and asks, “What is she to you?” how are you supposed to respond?… No, sorry. Guess that’s still dodging the question. Haruhi wasn’t just a classmate to me. Of course, she also wasn’t the “potential for evolution” or a “time warp,” much less “God.” She couldn’t possibly be.

The giant turned toward the track. It has no face or eyes, yet I could feel it looking at us. It began walking. Each step carried it meters. Despite its sluggish movements, the creature’s approaching figure loomed before us.

Think. What did Asahina say? Her warning. And Nagato’s last message. Snow White. Sleeping Beauty. Even I should know what Sleeping Beauty was referring to. What do the two have in common? The answer became clear once I factored in our current situation. So clichéd. Way too clichéd, Asahina. And Nagato. I wouldn’t accept this stupid turn of events. No way in hell.

Or so my rational thought insisted. Nagato might call it “noise.” Humans are not rational creatures. I released Haruhi’s hand, grabbed the shoulders of her sailor uniform, and turned her toward me.

“What is it?”

“Actually, ponytails turn me on.”

“What?”

“That ponytail you used to wear looked so good it was criminal.”

“Are you an idiot?”

Her black eyes appeared to reject me. As Haruhi raised her voice in protest, I forced my lips onto hers. It’s expected to close your eyes in such situations so I did, which is why I didn’t see the expression on Haruhi’s face. Maybe her eyes were wide open in shock. Maybe her eyes were closed like mine. Maybe she had her arm raised over her head about to smack me. I have no way of knowing. But I wouldn’t have noticed being smacked right then. I’m willing to bet that anyone in this situation with Haruhi would feel the same way. I strengthened my grip on her shoulders. I didn’t want to let go just yet.

I could hear roaring sounds in the distance. The giants were probably punching and kicking the school again. But in the next second, a sense of weightlessness threw me off balance. I fell, experiencing an excruciating impact on my left side. My kiss shouldn’t have warranted a judo throw. But then I opened my eyes and froze upon seeing a familiar ceiling.

I was in a room. My room. I looked to the side to find my bed and discovered that I had fallen onto the floor. Naturally, I was wearing my sweats. Half of my disheveled blanket had fallen off the bed. My arm was behind my back and my mouth was wide open like an idiot’s.

It took a while before I regained my senses.

I stood up half-conscious and pulled open the curtains to look outside. I could see a few stars and street lights shining here and there. Once I saw a flickering light on in one of the houses, I began walking in circles in my room.

A dream? Was it all a dream?

Stuck in a world all alone with a girl I know and I end up kissing her. Freud would have a field day with this. Did I really have a dream that’s such an easy read?

Gah, I want to hang myself this very second!

I should probably be grateful that Japan eliminated the right to bear arms. If an automatic handgun had been within my reach, I would have popped myself in the head without hesitation. If it had been Asahina, I could have picked at my honest desires within the dream. But it was Haruhi, of all people. What the hell was my subconscious thinking about?

I sat wearily on my bed and threw my arms over my head. If it was a dream, it was the most realistic one I’d ever had. My right hand was covered in sweat and I could still feel a warm sensation on my lips.