The newsletter was finished on time. It was printed on sheets of copier paper, stapled into booklets with a giant business-grade stapler, and the content—minus any personal bias I may have here—was pretty solid.
One particularly excellent section was the adventure story that Tsuruya wrote. The crazy piece—“Tough Luck! The Tragedy of Boy N”—had every single person who read it rolling on the floor in laughter. I myself had tears rolling down my face. It had been a long time since I was so surprised to read something so entertaining. The only one who kept a straight face while reading it was Nagato, but Tsuruya’s lively slapstick comedy was so hilarious that I can easily imagine Nagato having a private chuckle, once she was alone in her own room.
I’d suspected before, but the notion came to me anew: was Tsuruya actually a genius?
As far as the other SOS Brigade affiliates went, Taniguchi wrote an impressively boring slice-of-life essay, and Kunikida produced study columns filled with trivia. Between that and the rest of the material Haruhi’d been dashing around the school to collect (including things like the four-panel comic that someone in the manga club drew for us), the final product was almost too thick for a literature club newsletter. It took quite a bit of effort to staple each individual issue together, and the two hundred issues we printed flew away without us having to run around at all. I guessed that all the running around Haruhi had done had worked as accidental advertising for the project.
As for Haruhi, she wrote material too, just as she’d promised. In addition to a haughty “Letter from the Editor,” she wrote a short essay.
“Save the World by Overloading it with Fun, I: A Memo on the Path to the Future” was the title, and her thesis was filled with charts and symbols that, according to Haruhi, were the result of her thoughts on how to ensure the brigade continued indefinitely into the future. As for me, I found it totally incomprehensible. But there was still an order to the chaos, I felt, like Haruhi’s mind had somehow overflowed directly onto the page.
But when Asahina read it, she was so stunned she looked as though she might fall over.
“That’s… I can’t… so this is how…”
Her shock was so total that I was afraid her pupils were going to fall right out of her widely opened eyes, but when I asked her why she was so surprised—
“I can’t tell you; the details are classified.”
—she said.
“These are the fundamentals of time-plane theory. In my time… um… this is the first thing people like me learn. But who originated it, and when, has always been a mystery… and now, to find out that it was Suzumiya all along…”
She was then rendered speechless. I, likewise, was speechless, as the following notion appeared in my mind:
Haruhi would surely keep at least one copy of the newsletter to bring home with her. It was entirely possible that the bespectacled little boy would have a chance to see it. Haruhi was his tutor, after all. While Asahina and I had ensured a variety of conditions for the boy’s future, there were surely more to come. Was Haruhi the ultimate trigger? Even if she wasn’t, there seemed to be many composite elements in play. The number of questions I had for Asahina the Elder increased by one.
Having fully distributed the newsletter the same day it was completed, Haruhi made a point of going to the student council room to inform them. That she was practically radiating pride from her body goes without saying.
The president didn’t so much as twitch an eyebrow at Haruhi’s victorious entry. His glasses shone as he spoke. “A promise is a promise. We’ll approve the continued existence of the literature club. However, concerning this ‘SOS Brigade’ of yours, it is none of our concern. Do not forget that there is quite some time left in my term,” he said in a transparent ploy to get one last parting shot in, before turning his back on us.
Haruhi took it as an admission of defeat, and she returned to the clubroom in high spirits, dancing a victory dance with Asahina as Nagato looked on indifferently. So it goes.
In any case, that was the end of that particular madness. All that was left was to wait for spring.
At this rate, so long as nothing happened, we would each of us move on to the next grade. If I had to guess at the next likely point where Haruhi would get up to something, it would be spring break.
Strangely, the year had felt both long and short. It’s a secret, but I’m putting a circle on a day in April this year. It’s the same day as last year’s school entrance ceremony.
Even if everybody forgot, even if Haruhi herself forgot, it’s the anniversary of a day I’ll always remember.
I’m confident that so long as I live, I’ll never forget the day I met Haruhi.
So long as I don’t lose my memory, that is.