“Hello, Asahina?”

Don’t tell me that she’s calling to say good-bye forever. This better not be anything like the famous folktale of Princess Kaguya going back to the moon. I realized that the “present time” was only a temporary residence for her. I understood that she would eventually have to return to the future. Had the time come? I won’t accept a farewell over the phone.

However, the lovely lady on the other end of the phone continued.

“I…ah, something terrible has…sobhic… at this rate…I, waahhh…”

She was making about as much sense as a grade-schooler with her words all slurred together. I was wondering what I was supposed to do when—

“Why hello. This is Koizumi.”

The cheerful voice of a damn man took over.

What? Why are they together at this late hour? Why am I not there? Your head will be separated from your body in five seconds, Koizumi, if you don’t appease me with an answer I can accept.

“We have a bit of a situation on our hands. A particularly difficult one, which was why Asahina contacted me.”

Before contacting me? I’m not very happy about that.

“There wouldn’t have been any point in consulting you…no, excuse me. In fact, I was also unable to provide any help. A perilous predicament.”

I scratched my head furiously.

“Is Haruhi on the verge of ending the world again?”

“Technically, no. In fact, it would be the exact opposite. As things stand at the moment, the world can never end.”

Huh? Am I still dreaming? What is this guy talking about?

Koizumi sensed my confusion and continued.

“I already contacted Nagato. As expected, she was already aware of the situation. The details will become clear if we ask Nagato. Which is why I must ask, would it be possible for us to meet up right now? Minus Suzumiya, naturally.”

Of course it’d be possible. Any person capable of abandoning a weeping Asahina would deserve to be sliced up seven times and more.

“I’ll be right there. Where are you?”

Koizumi told me his location. In front of the usual station. The SOS Brigade’s official meeting place.

   

And so I got changed, sneaked through the hallway of my house, and took off on my bicycle to find three shadowy figures waiting upon my arrival. The streets weren’t completely deserted, as I’d spotted a few students here and there. As a result, we were able to blend in with the crowd of fools with nowhere to go on a summer night and conduct our dubious meeting without any worries. Though I was definitely starting to nod off.

Asahina, dressed in pastels, was crouching in front of the station with a disheveled Koizumi and Nagato in a sailor uniform flanking her like a pair of decorative pine trees. Asahina must have thrown on whatever was handy because her clothes didn’t match at all. She must have been in a real panic or pressed for time.

The tallest of them apparently noticed me, as he waved me over.

“So what’s going on?”

The faint glow from the lamppost illuminated the soft expression on Koizumi’s face.

“I apologize for calling you out at such a late hour. However, Asahina is rather distraught, as you can see.”

Asahina was squatting down and sobbing like a melting snowman. She looked up at me with a tearful face and dry eyes. Eyes so captivating that I was on the verge of throwing away everything to help her out.

“Wah, Kyon, I…” Asahina sniffed before murmuring to herself.

“I can no longer return to the future…”

 

“Allow me to summarize. Basically, we are stuck in an infinite time loop.”

Hard to believe something so ludicrous when you have a smile on your face. Did Koizumi have any idea what he was saying?

“Of course. I am fully aware of the implications. I was discussing the matter with Asahina earlier.”

Call me. So I can be part of that discussion.

“As a result, we realized that something was odd about the recent flow of time. You should credit the discovery to Asahina. She was able to confirm my suspicion.”

What suspicion?

“That we are experiencing the same period of time over and over.”

I’ve already heard about that.

“To be precise, it would be the period from August seventeenth to the thirty-first.”

Koizumi’s words sounded rather hollow to me.

“We are currently in the middle of a summer vacation with no end.”

“We’re certainly on summer vacation right now.”

“A literally endless summer. In this world we will never see September, much less autumn. There is no future after August. That is why Asahina cannot return to the future. It all makes sense. It’s only natural that she cannot communicate with the future when the future no longer exists.”

How could the physical lack of a future be natural? Time marches on, regardless of what we do. I stared at the top of Asahina’s head as I spoke.

“Who would ever believe that?”

“I was hoping that you might believe me, since I couldn’t possibly tell Suzumiya.”

Koizumi also looked down at Asahina.

I should mention that Asahina at least tried to explain. To the accompaniment of intermittent sobs.

Sniff, um…I normally use <classified information> to contact the future…sniff. But after a week without <classified information>, I was starting to wonder if something was wrong. And then <classified information>…I was so surprised that I tried to <classified information> in a rush, but there wasn’t any <classified information>…sob. Hic. What do I do…?”

I have no idea what you should do, but does that <classified information> work like some kind of censor?

“Are we trapped in some kind of weird world created by Haruhi? Like a real-life version of that closed space thing?”

Koizumi had his arms crossed as he leaned against the vending machine and rejected my hypothesis in a light tone.

“The world has not been recreated. Suzumiya has cut off a sector of time. The period from August seventeenth to the thirty-first. Thus, we are currently in a world that only consists of two weeks. Any point before August seventeenth or after August thirty-first has disappeared. This is a world that will never see September.”

He exhaled in what sounded like a failed attempt to whistle.

“There is a process right before midnight on August thirty-first where everything is reset and returned to the seventeenth.”

What about our…I mean, everybody’s memories?

“Those are also reset, as if the two weeks leading up to that point never happened. Everybody starts over from the beginning.”

Somebody must really love to screw with time. Though I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised when there’s a time traveler among us.

“No, Asahina has nothing to do with this incident. The situation is not as simple as you have deemed.”

How do you know?

“Only Suzumiya would be capable of such a feat. Or did you have somebody else in mind?”

You’d have to be delusional or a chronic daydreamer to have a list of potential psychopaths on hand.

“What am I supposed to do?”

“The matter will be as good as solved when we figure that out.”

Koizumi appeared to be enjoying himself. He certainly didn’t seem to be very worried. Why?

“I finally know the source of the strange sensation I’ve been experiencing the past few days.”

Koizumi revealed the reason why.

“You must have felt the same way. Starting from the day we went to the public pool, there have been intermittent, intense flashes of déjà vu. In retrospect, I would say that they were remnants of the memories from previous loops—for lack of a better way to describe it. We were sensing the parts left over from the reset.”

Could the whole world be feeling the same way?

“I doubt that. You and I are the exceptions. People who are close to Suzumiya appear to have a higher chance of noticing the anomaly.”

“What about Haruhi? Is she aware of what’s going on?”

“It seems that she’s utterly clueless. Though you could say that it’s better this way…”

Koizumi gave Nagato a sideways glance before casually posing a question.

“So then, how many times have we repeated the last two weeks of August?”

Nagato answered with a calm expression on her face.

* * *

“This would be the fifteen thousand four hundred ninety-eighth incarnation.”

 

I felt faint for a moment there.

Fifteen thousand four hundred ninety-eight. That’s over thirty characters written out, while 15,498 feels considerably smaller. Yay for Arabic numerals. I feel like offering a prayer of thanks to whoever it was who came up with the idea. This derailment only serves to show how disturbed I was.

“We have repeated the same two weeks over ten thousand times. If an ordinary person were to be aware of this loop and retain the memories from each incarnation, he would experience a mental breakdown. I believe that Suzumiya’s memories have been completely wiped clean, cleaner than ours,” Koizumi explained.

This is when you turn to the most knowledgeable person around. I checked with Nagato.

“Are you serious about this?”

“Yes.”

Nagato nodded.

So wait, we’ve already done the stuff scheduled for tomorrow in the past? Along with the Bon Dance and goldfish scooping?

“That is not necessarily the case.”

Nagato’s voice wasn’t showing much emotion either.

“Haruhi Suzumiya has not followed the same course of action in each of the previous fifteen thousand four hundred ninety-seven incarnations.”

Nagato gave me an unconcerned look as she spoke in that unconcerned tone.

“Over the course of the previous fifteen thousand four hundred ninety-seven loops, there were two instances without a trip to the Bon Dance. There were four hundred and thirty-seven instances where the trip occurred without goldfish scooping. At the moment, every loop has included a visit to the public pool. There were nine thousand twenty-five instances of working part-time, but there have been six different variations. Aside from distributing balloons, we have also been carrying objects, manning cash registers, passing out flyers, working a call center, and modeling for a photo shoot. Of those, there were six thousand eleven instances of balloon distribution and three hundred sixty instances of two or more jobs performed. The incarnations with multiple jobs can be divided into—”

“Yeah, that’s enough.”

I silenced the alien-made artificial human before putting my thinking cap on.

We’d been through the back half of August fifteen thousand four—oh screw it—15,498 times. Everything was reset on August thirty-first, and we started over from August seventeenth. I had no recollection of this happening, but Nagato did—why?

“Because Nagato, or the Data Overmind, to be precise, is an existence that transcends space-time.”

Koizumi’s smug smirk seemed a bit forced, or maybe it was just the light.

Or whatever, doesn’t matter. Moving on. I understand that Nagato and her boss are capable of such a feat. But that wasn’t my concern. This all meant that…

“So, Nagato. You’ve actually experienced this two-week period fifteen thousand four hundred ninety-seven times?”

“Yes.”

Nagato nodded like it wasn’t a big deal. Yes? Don’t you have anything else to say? Not that I can think of anything else to say. But still…

“Well, you see…”

Hold on. Fifteen thousand four hundred ninety-eight times. Multiplied by two weeks. That comes out to 216,972 days. Uh, around 594 years. She’s gone through centuries, loop after loop, just standing there and watching us impassively? How could anyone not be sick and tired of that? I mean, after 15,498 visits to the public pool?

“Man…”

My mouth remained open as my voice trailed off. Nagato cocked her head like a small bird as she stared at me.

I recalled that feeling I’d had when I saw Nagato sitting by the pool. Guess I might have been correct when I thought that she looked bored. I’d assume that even Nagato would get sick of all that repetition. She never says anything, but she might have clicked her tongue or something while no one was looking—and that was when a sudden thought hit me. I more or less understood the phenomenon we were dealing with, but I didn’t know why this was happening.

“Why is Haruhi doing this?”

“This is merely speculation.”

Koizumi gave a little disclaimer.

“Suzumiya doesn’t want summer vacation to end on a subconscious level. That is why our summer vacation won’t end.”

Because she’s acting like a little brat who doesn’t want to go back to school?

Koizumi absently traced his finger around the rim of his can of coffee.

“I would presume that she feels there still is something left to be done during summer vacation. She can’t begin the new term until that’s been done, or else she’ll have lingering regrets. And when she falls asleep on the night of August thirty-first with that gnawing regret…”

She wakes up to find that the clock has been turned back two weeks. Yeah, I’m just about ready to give up on her. I knew she was capable of doing just about anything, but this takes her lack of common sense to a whole new level.

“What will it take to satisfy her?”

“I haven’t the slightest. Do you know, Nagato?”

“I do not.”

Didn’t take her long to respond. You realize you’re the only one we can depend on here. I attempted to voice that thought.

“Why didn’t you tell us? That we’ve been engaged in an endless two-week-long waltz.”

After a few seconds of silence, Nagato’s thin lips parted.

“My job is to observe.”

“…I see.”

I already knew that, more or less. Nagato had yet to actively involve herself in any of our activities. But she got involved, in the end, almost every time. However, she’s only initiated contact once, when she invited me to her apartment. Barring that exception, Nagato’s merely accompanied us in her extremely vital position.

How could I forget? Yuki Nagato was a humanoid interface created by the Data Overmind. An organic android dispatched to observe Haruhi. There might be a safety mechanism on her ability to feel emotion.

“But none of that matters.”

What mattered was that I considered Yuki Nagato, the book-loving, reticent, petite, and ever-so-reliable classmate, one of us.

If you looked at the SOS Brigade members, Nagato had the most knowledge as well as the ability to apply that knowledge. So I had a few more questions for her.

“When did we first realize this?”

I asked this question on a whim, but Nagato answered as though she’d been expecting it.

“The eight thousand seven hundred sixty-ninth loop. Revelation has become more frequent as of late.”

“Since we are consistently finding ourselves disoriented by déjà vu.”

Koizumi seemed to agree.

“However, during those past sequences, we were unable to correct the flow of time after realizing our situation.”

“Yes,” said Nagato.

Which explained why Asahina was crying right now. Because she now knew the truth. And then, two weeks’ worth of memories, experience, and growth would be reset…and she’d find herself crying after learning the truth again.

And once again, I find myself with the same reaction I’ve had more times than I care to remember since meeting Haruhi back in spring. The same reaction I’ve had every time Haruhi created some kind of godforsaken mess. The same reaction I have right now.

What the hell.

And I’ve had that reaction 8,769 times in the past two weeks.

Seriously…

Chalk up another ridiculous conversation.

   

We went stargazing the next day.

The location was the roof of Nagato’s apartment. Koizumi brought a bulky telescope that he mounted on a tripod. It was around eight PM.

The sky was dark, and so was Asahina’s mood. She just stood there in a dazed stupor. This really wasn’t the time to be looking at the stars. I wasn’t in much better shape myself.

Koizumi, who seemed to have recovered his composure, busied himself with setting up the telescope with a smile on his face.

“This was a hobby of mine when I was young. I was deeply moved when I saw the moons of Jupiter for the first time.”

Nagato was the same as always, just standing there on the roof.

I looked up at the night sky, but there were only a handful of stars. The polluted air made them difficult to see. You could even say that there was no sky to see. Come winter, the atmosphere would clear and Orion would be visible, at the very least.

The telescope was pointed at Earth’s neighbor. Haruhi was peering through the finder.

“I wonder if any exist.”

“Any what?”

“Martians.”

I’d rather they didn’t. I pictured a bunch of octopus-like monsters wriggling around as they plotted world domination, and it certainly didn’t sound entertaining in the slightest.

“Why? They could be a friendly bunch. Look, there’s nobody on the surface. I’m sure they’re just a really reserved race who live in underground caverns. They’re trying to avoid scaring us Earthlings.”

The Martians in Haruhi’s head sound like residents of Hollow Earth. Can’t you make up your mind? Are we talking Pellucidar or Mars Attacks!? You’ll only make things more complicated if you combine them. Think simple, simple.

“I’m sure they have a plan to pop out and welcome us when the first manned spacecraft lands on Mars. They’ll be like, ‘Welcome to Mars, neighbors, denizens of our neighboring planet!’ I’m sure of it.”

That’d be a bigger scare. Practically an ambush. I have no idea who’s going to be the first to step on Martian soil, but we should probably warn that person. Do I address the letter to NASA?

Time passed as we took turns using the telescope to observe the patterns of Mars and lunar craters. I suddenly noticed that someone was missing and began glancing around before I found Asahina sitting against the rooftop railing and hugging her knees. She had her head bowed down and her eyes were shut. Doubt she got much sleep last night, so I’ll let her rest for now.

Haruhi had apparently grown tired of a night sky that showed no signs of dramatic change.

“Let’s look for UFOs. They’re probably targeting Earth. There must be alien scouts standing by in orbit.”

She cheerfully began turning the telescope this way and that but soon lost interest again. She sat down next to Asahina and leaned against her slender shoulder before falling asleep.

Koizumi turned to me and spoke in a soft voice.

“She must have worn herself out.”

“I don’t see how she would be more tired than the rest of us.”

Haruhi was sound asleep. I was tempted to draw on her face. Still, she looked her best when she was asleep, yeah? If only she would keep her mouth shut. If she swapped personalities with Nagato, that would be perfect. Well, a subdued Haruhi is one thing, but I can’t even begin to imagine a talkative Nagato whose moods swing all over the place.

A night breeze blew by as I watched Haruhi and Asahina sleeping side by side. Haruhi wasn’t surrendering anything to Asahina in terms of looks at the moment. Some might even rank her above. I guarantee it.

“What does she want to do?”

I sighed to myself.

“Have fun with her friends? Something like that.”

“I would assume that is the case. And we would be the friends you mentioned.”

Koizumi looked off into the night sky.

“So then, which fun activity are we supposed to engage in? This won’t end until we figure that out. We will be forced to repeat this two-week period until we determine what Suzumiya desires, which she herself does not know, and grant her wish. I suppose we should be grateful that our memories are being reset. Or else we would have suffered mental breakdowns long ago.”

Fifteen thousand four hundred ninety-eight times.

Seriously? Isn’t Nagato just trying to fool us? Quite frankly, I find