“So, Kyon.”

I had taken care to enjoy the tea more than usual, while Haruhi, who had never learned about being thankful, downed the entire scalding cup in three seconds. One hundred grams of that stuff cost six hundred yen—it wouldn’t have killed her to savor it a little.

“What?” I answered, glancing at the smiling Asahina, goddess among maids, out of the corner of my eye.

“Oh, would you like more tea?”

Just as Asahina hurried to pour more tea into Haruhi’s empty cup—

Haruhi leaned forward from the reclining position she’d assumed in her brigade chief’s chair, then rested her chin atop her clasped hands, her elbows on the table, and said a strange thing.

“I have this strange habit of talking to myself.”

Did she now? I never knew. This was the first I’d heard of it in close to a year.

“I don’t even pay attention to the people around me when I do it.”

Well, you should probably get that looked at before someone decides to publish a collection of your “wisdom,” I thought.

“So I’m just gonna talk to myself for a while. You’ll probably hear me, but don’t worry about it.”

Before I could point out how stupid that was, Haruhi started talking in a strangely casual voice.

“So a little ways from my house, there’s this really smart kid. He wears these glasses like a miniature professor, and he’s got a super clever-looking face. His name’s—”

Haruhi mentioned a name I had definitely heard recently. My back broke out in a sweat, and it wasn’t because of the heat.

Just as she was tilting the teapot to pour, Asahina froze.

Haruhi seemed unaffected, and she continued.

“Aaaanyway, sometimes I help the little guy study. Like yesterday, for example. And so he says to me, ‘I saw the bunny girl with a boy.’ ”

Haruhi assumed a truly unpleasant grin.

“Apparently he saw us when we were doing location shoots for the movie last autumn, and he really remembered seeing Mikuru in her bunny outfit. And so while we were on the subject, I asked him what the boy she was with looked like. And here’s the composite sketch.”

From somewhere, Haruhi produced a piece of paper torn from a notebook. On it was a rough but relatively skillful sketch of—hmm, somehow it looked like the face I saw every morning in the mirror. I mean, it was me, definitely.

“Heh heh heh.”

Haruhi laughed meaningfully.

That talky brat was surprisingly good at drawing. Wasn’t he supposed to become a scientist or something in the future? Was he aiming to be an artist? If I’d known, I would’ve bought him off to still his wagging tongue and scribbling hands.

My gaze swam for about three seconds as I held out hope that someone would come and save me.

Asahina simply stood there and trembled, her voice having apparently lost all function. It seemed very unlikely that a new character would burst into the clubroom, so my options were limited.

“…”

My eyes met Nagato’s, which had warmed to about minus-four degrees Celsius. For some reason, my stomach hurt.

Meanwhile, Koizumi wore a little half smile, as though he was going to enjoy sitting this one out. Wait a sec—did these two know everything? Were they just going to sit there?

“So?”

Haruhi spoke with an expression that looked like she’d just downed a finely crushed mix of chili powder and psychedelic mushrooms—that is to say, somehow bulge-eyed yet also like she was finding something indescribably funny.

“I want you to tell me exactly what you did and where you went with Mikuru yesterday. Don’t worry, I won’t get mad.”

I looked at Asahina out of the corner of my eye; she was turning so pale that if she went any further, she’d look like a tree frog drenched in blue paint; for my part, I was sweating like a toad surrounded by three dozen anacondas.

I seem to remember some kind of hallucination. Haruhi’s primary-colored aura taking some sort of fighting shape and slamming into an invisible wall behind Nagato, shattering into fireworks—or something like that.

“Pardon me.”

Koizumi stood up as if wanting to avoid the invisible fireworks, and he picked up his chair, moving it toward the windowpane.

Then, as if to say, “By all means, please continue,” he spread out his hands and gave a benevolent smile.

Damn you, Koizumi! I’d get him back for this. Maybe in a high-stakes game of Seven Bridge. Just you remember this.

“Um… er…”

So, what sort of lie did I need to tell? I didn’t have a lot of time, so any help would have been very much appreciated. A telegram would have been best; express mail would not have been fast enough.

As I muttered, Haruhi put it to me again.

“Spit it out! All the way through to the end, nice and simple so Yuki and Koizumi and I can all understand it. Or else…”

Haruhi took a deep breath, then assumed a deliberate smile.

“… I’ll give you two a punishment unlike anything you’ve ever seen before! Let’s see, how about… this!”

The punishment that Haruhi smoothly laid out made falling to hell sound vastly preferable; Asahina and I could only look at each other and tremble.

There’s no need to waste words on what happened in the clubroom after that.

Faced with Haruhi’s unnatural, unpleasant grin, Nagato’s colder-than-usual gaze, and Koizumi’s amused spectating, I searched desperately for an excuse, any excuse, like a man trying to wring water from a sponge left out to dry in the desert, while beside me Asahina clutched the kettle and tea container, cowering desperately.

I really don’t think I need to say any more.