“Huh, is that so?” Haruhi curled the corners of her lips strangely. “Well, you’re still young. Things happen.”
In point of fact, Haruhi was even younger, but I had no intention of taking such a cheap shot. Ignorance was the key here. And in any case, Kimidori’s actual age was probably the same as Nagato’s. Her seniority was doubtful. I bet she’d just happened to be enrolled as a junior.
Not that I could very well say anything about that. Going by Nagato’s reaction, Kimidori was not an enemy. I glanced casually over at Asahina out of the corner of my eye. At the very least, she knew that Nagato was an alien. Her shock when she was first dragged to the clubroom was proof enough of that. So my concern that she might also know the truth about Kimidori was entirely founded.
Still—
“Hmm. Oh, ah—mmm.”
Thanks to the intensity of her picture-drawing efforts, the lovely upperclassman seemed not to have noticed the two intruders in the room. I wasn’t sure whether to applaud her intense concentration or worry about how close she was getting to that klutzy-girl stereotype. If the latter were true, it was the result of Haruhi’s training of her.
As I stood there dumbly, Haruhi and the president continued their verbal combat.
“It seems you’re doing a fiction anthology,” said the president nihilistically. “But are any of you even capable of writing a proper story?”
“I’ll say it again: sucks to be you,” Haruhi shot back. “I’m not the least bit worried.”
Her face brimmed with confidence; I wanted to know what wormhole that confidence had sprung from.
She continued. “We don’t need anyone to teach us. Writing a story is easy. Even this idiot Kyon can do it. Most people know how to read and write, don’t they? If you can write letters, then you can write sentences, and all you have to do is connect those sentences. It’s not like you need special training to learn how to write. We’re high school students. We don’t have to practice writing stories! We can just write them.”
The president pushed up his glasses. “I can’t help but be impressed by your optimistic outlook. It is, however, infantile.”
I totally agreed, but I wished he would refrain from provoking Haruhi any further. Even if her ire were directed solely at the president, all of us in the room would have to endure her burning aura.
As expected, the angle between Haruhi’s eyebrows and eyes became sharply acute. “You think you’re a real big shot, huh? Well, even if you are, I hate big shots! And I hate small-fry people who think they’re big shots even more!”
She certainly wasn’t under-equipped for a war of words. I wondered for how long they’d keep up this performance. After all, the president did outrank Haruhi. It might have been just another act, but the ability to stay cool in the face of Haruhi’s blazing anger was impressive. The president was pulling it off, as was Kimidori.
“Hmph. I am not particularly important. You judge people by their rank, do you? If I have anything to boast of, it is having gained my position through a legitimate public election. And how is it you’ve come to sit in your seat there? What was it again? ‘Brigade chief’?”
I had to admit that Koizumi’s choice of personnel was impressive. The president had real guts. There probably wasn’t a single other student in the whole school who could face down Haruhi with such vicious sarcasm.
But Haruhi was a force to be reckoned with herself. I knew that all too well.
“There’s no point in trying to provoke me,” said the leader of this unauthorized student organization. “The student council may want to destroy the SOS Brigade along with the literature club, but it won’t work.”
Haruhi glanced at me briefly. What the hell was she looking at?
Her flashing eyes turned quickly and sharply back to the president.
“I am absolutely not moving from this spot. Want to know why?”
“I’d love to,” said the president.
If Haruhi’s words had been microwave radiation, then the volume she spoke at would’ve been more potent than any microwave oven.
“Because this is the SOS Brigade’s room, and I am the chief of that brigade!”
Having said what he’d come to say and let Haruhi speak her piece, the president and his attendant left.
“Argh, so irritating! What did that idiot president come here to do, anyway?” Haruhi grumbled, her lip curled in a sneer as she flipped through the old literature club booklets that Kimidori had left.
Haruhi’s war cry had finally gotten Asahina to realize that guests had entered the clubroom, but by the time she had, in a panic, started to make tea for them, it was too late—but thanks to her haste, I was able to finally enjoy her delicious tea and apply myself to my own writing… Well, no, not that last part.
Somehow, now that the mood had been wrecked, my motivation was gone. The fact that my theme had been chosen by lottery didn’t help; neither did the fact that I was trying to write an episode out of my past.
But that wasn’t going to be good enough. Thanks to the president’s visit, Haruhi’s zeal had been enflamed, and it seemed ready to blacken the ceiling with its intensity.
“Listen up, everyone.” Haruhi pursed her lips before opening her mouth to speak. “It’s come to this. We’re going to make this newsletter if it kills us, and it’s going to be great. We’re not going to have a single copy left over, and we’re gonna take down the president. Got that?”
The newsletter wasn’t going to be sold; it was going to be given away, and furthermore I had no interest in dying for this particular cause—but I had a feeling that if I missed the deadline, whatever punishment Haruhi dreamed up would make me wish I were dead. I knew that it was all part of his act, but did that president really have to go this far? Ditto, Koizumi—this was no time for his self-satisfied smile.
“For my part,” whispered Koizumi, right on cue, “I am extremely satisfied. So long as Suzumiya’s attention is turned toward ordinary activities, I can stay away from Closed Space.”
That might be good for him. But what about me? I really didn’t want to get tangled up in intrigues with the student council. I understood that the president was just playing a part, but Haruhi didn’t know that, and there was no telling what she’d resort to. If our newsletter didn’t live up to the president’s standards, I knew for a fact Haruhi wouldn’t just turn over the clubroom to him. I definitely didn’t want to wind up on the receiving end of a siege, being starved out of our castle, I told Koizumi.
He chuckled. “You’re overthinking things. What we need to focus on now is finishing the publication. The rest will fall into place. If it doesn’t”—a cunning expression flashed across his smiling face—“we’ll simply put a different scenario into play. Starvation tactics, eh? That might do nicely.”
Tsuruya had compared the student council president to the general Sima Yi; I wondered whom she’d compare Koizumi to. Maybe the warlord Kanbei Kuroda?
I was starting to feel like the lord of Takamatsu Castle after its water supply had been cut off, and I prayed that Koizumi didn’t indulge his taste for school intrigues too much.
It turned out that I wasn’t able to finish my manuscript that day. After being interrupted by the president, I didn’t write another word.
Fortunately, once Haruhi finished checking the pieces that had been finished, she rushed out of the room. Had she hit upon another outside source for material, or had she just gone off to deliver more “motivation”?
She returned just as the chime signaling the end of the school day rang; at the same moment, Nagato closed her book. Koizumi had made steady progress, and Asahina had put forth admirable effort. I grabbed my bag and stood.
Surprisingly, Haruhi didn’t suggest I take the laptop home and continue working on it. She might have merely forgotten to be angry, but in any case, I was grateful for it.
We all left school together, and as the chilly wind came down from the mountain, it nonetheless felt like a breath of spring air, and as I made my way home, I wondered idly what would happen if a new student appeared, wanting to join the literature club. Would they be automatically drafted into the SOS Brigade?
I continued my autobiographical story the next day, after classes were over.
Let’s see, how far had I gotten? Ah, that’s right—we’d just bought the movie tickets.
We’ll pick up from there.