Suzumiya Haruki no Seitenkan:Volume2 Chapter1
Our school, just like any other stereotypical public school in Japan, likes to host a variety of schoolwide events at random points in the year. Such as last month, where Haruki indefinitely proclaimed that the SOS Brigade would be participating in a relay for North High's athletic festival. Now, I can't say I wasn't expecting him to do something strangely bizarre like that, but I certainly wasn't expect us to blow away the track team and rugby team. Haruki took up lead in the anchor position, finishing around 13 meters in front of the 2nd place runner. As a result, Haruki's club, the SOS Brigade (that I totally am not in), grew.
Let's just say that our reputation went from being a small candle of interest, to spreading like wildfire over the school. We won basically every event that we participated in the athletic festival, with Haruki's athletic body being the cause. The second runner, Nagato, also shares the blame. I certainly hadn't expected him to run as fast as he did. I still don't know if I should compare him to a comically fast running bird straight from a cartoon, or an alien who used teleportation. Please Nagato, tell me before you do something like that okay?
After the race when I asked Nagato what sort of magic he used, he replied unenthusiastically using terms like "quantum leap" and "enhanced energy measures". While I appreciated his dumbed down explanation, I still didn't quite get it. Looks like I won't be choosing science and liberal arts as my field of expertise. Oh well.
When the athletic festival ended, I gave a sigh of relief in hopes that this girl wouldn't have to do any more strenuous tasks the following month. I was sadly mistaken. North High had decided to host a cultural festival, complete with public access to school grounds. At this very moment, the entire school is preparing for such an event; the word "entire" being an over-exaggeration since the only ones actually doing work are teachers, cultural club members, and the student council.
The SOS Brigade still hasn't been officially recognised as a club, so we really had no reason to do anything. Knowing Haruki, he probably would have wanted to display some stray cat in a cage and call it an "extraterrestrial creature"; knowing full well that such an embarrassing joke would be scowled upon by those who don't get it. At least doing that doesn't put anyone's sanity and/or body on the line, so if Haruki did actually decide to cage up an animal I wouldn't mind as much.
By the way, Haruki and my class, Class 1-5, decided to do a simple survey. With so many people just wanting to get the cultural festival over with in a simple, tireless manner, no one even proposed an idea. We didn't even know what we were going to make the survey on. Regardless of the content, no one would care about it anyways. Work hard people, and maybe we won't appear like a worthless group of idiots to the other bustling classes.
The lack of an exciting event, of course, knocked Haruki's patience off balance. This was causing him to grumble while we walked to the clubroom later that day.
"Surveys are useless." He gave a face that looked like a 12 year old would have given if his parents bought clothes for Christmas presents instead of some new toy.
'Give it a break. If it's so boring, then why didn't you speak up when we were proposing ideas for it?' In all seriousness, you should have... Okabe-sensei looked like she was ready to rip her hair out from the lack of ideas. That would not be pretty...
"I don't want to do anything with this class. It's full of boring people."
Boring people? Realize that you're apart of the class, meaning you just called yourself boring. And hold up. Aren't these the same boring people that you won the relays for in last month's athletic festival? Or was that someone else named Suzumiya Haruki?
"That's completely different?"
Sigh. Might I ask how?
"This is the cultural festival. It is the pinnacle of our school; the most exciting time of the year for its students."
It is?
"It is!" Haruki puffed up his chest in excitement, preparing to decree his word. To me. Alone.
"This is why the SOS Brigade will be doing things far more exciting and fun!" His face shone like Xerxes' when a battle was won during the Persian Wars.
The smile was deceptive; to the average standbyer, Haruki's face just looks like someone who was happy. I knew otherwise.
During our time in the SOS Brigade, Haruki's 'fun' events were never fun. Ever. In fact, every instance was tiresome. Myself and Asahina-sempai can attest to that. Given we were always the ones who were being acted upon, but we're still human. I highly doubt Koizumi's passive behaviour counts as normal, and Nagato is an alien so he's not exactly capable of showing his exhaustion. But if he were human (with emotions), he would probably be in the same boat as this normal girl and the timetraveler.
The things I would do with timetravel... I'd love to prevent myself from meeting Haruki. That would save me from the amount of psychological trauma he oh-so-indirectly put me through. I definitely, without a doubt, don't want to go through what happened 6 months ago. That bunch of nonsense is so utterly stupid that -someone quick, give me a wall, door, or other flat-surfaced object- I want to repeatedly smash my face against anything. Well actually, there are plenty of walls around me right now...
I devised ways to completely destroy any thoughts regarding the SOS Brigade without completely terminating my number of braincells. Whilst doing so, I didn't regard any of the blabbering idiot's comments.
"Oi! Kyonko, are you listening to me?"
'No. What were you saying?'
"I was talking about the cultural festival."
'Oh... right.'
"Kyonko! Snap out of it!" Haruki yelled, yanking my hair back. As my eyes watered up from the pain, I turned to look at Haruki with now-undivided attention. "This is the cultural festival, you should be more excited!"
Easy for you to say. I rubbed the back of my head while he continued.
"You're only a first year once. Your first cultural festival is something to look forward to. It's not a cultural festival if it's not something worth going crazy over. I hear about tons of things that happen in other schools' festivals."
'So I guess your middle school was like that?'
"Nah, that was boring. We didn't do anything even remotely fun. This is why our high school experience should be something to enjoy! We get to choose what makes it fun!"
'That's not grounds of fussing over it.' I said. My hairtie ended up coming loose, so I pulled it off.
"Aha, but that's where you're wrong Kyonko." Haruki wagged his finger at me. "Festivals are the most active in the school. For that, you need to pay attention to cool things."
Like what? A motorcycle driving through the halls?
"Well if the motorcycle doesn't have a driver, then yeah! Something like that!" Haruki nodded. "Or maybe haunted houses having real monsters jump out, or ghosts actually appearing behind fortune tellers. Stairs to climb, that you walk up forever, or eagles nesting on a teacher's head. Or even better, a school gets put under attack by a mecha pilot!"
Haruki's continued ramblings eventually lost my interest around the fortune teller part. Can I get someone to send me an email containing the rest of his ideas? I'd really appreciate it? Sorry I can't give anything back in return though.
"Alright whatever. When we get to the clubroom, I'll tell you more about it."
The magical inspiration that sparked Haruki's interest had now simmered down. We continued our walk in silence, reaching the club room door in a matter of minutes. The Literature Club's number plate hanging above the door had been replaced by a piece of paper which Haruki scrawled SOS Brigade on top of. "We've been residing in this room since the school year started. It belongs to us now." With that, he replaced the plate before I could stop him. Not that I would have stopped him, since it'd take too much effort to drag out a chair, climb on it, take the scrap paper off only to have it replaced another day. In fact, standing on a chair would probably just give Haruki some stupid ideas.
Yeah. Those stupid ideas.
Haruki pushed the door open, giving anyone inside no time to hide anything embarrassing. Of course, the person inside wasn't able to do anything about that... he'd been forced into embarrassing costumes time and time again. Back when Haruki adopted Mitsuuru as the club's 'project' he had forced him into a ridiculous maid outfit. Thankfully, the maid outfit has since been replaced by a butler's uniform, which was what he was currently wearing. My eyes met his, and my heart skipped a beat. Asahina-sempai's face donned a smile upon seeing me. Dusting the bookshelves with a feather duster presumably got from his home, he worked like a cute little elf.
Asahina-sempai has dressed up in a number of outfits, each one more ridiculous than before. Chippendales, nurse, and even a cheerleader with a skirt. How this manages to make him more 'manly' defies all logic, but it still doesn't change his metamorphosis from student to cosplayer every day just after school in the club room. I have to say that my favorite would be the butler outfit. It's somewhat flattering towards him, and isn't at all suggestive. I'd rather not have to deal with the cheerleading outfit again though.
"Mitsuuru! I thought I told you already to wear the maid outfit! A butler is too plain."
"Eh, but I-..."
"No 'buts' about it. Get changed! Here, let me do it."
My feet quickly turned around and walked my person out the door. I wasn't going to spectate Haruki's scary actions. Through the door, I could hear Asahina-sempai's protests, but to no avail. Forcing him into a maid uniform is just weird Haruki... just about as weird as getting me that stupid bunny girl outfit.
"We're done!"
I walked back inside. Mitsuuru wore the maid outfit as expected, though he looked a little red in the face. All other comments aside, this pointless outfit just managed to make him look cuter.
"Um, I'll just-... I'll get the tea prepared then."
I watched as he nervously grabbed cups from the shelf and started heating up water. Then a sharp pain met my head, namely my scalp. Apparently Haruki yanked on my hair again. "Hmm... your hair isn't a pullstring? Oh, and you're drooling."
I scowled at him, wiping the drool off my chin. "Better." Haruki said, walking to the computer desk and putting on his red armband labeled "Chief". He sat down at the rolling computer chair and stared across the room.
So now I know that I naturally drool when staring at Asahina-sempai too long. Even if there were other girls that would do the same, I found myself slightly embarrassed. Drooling is reserved for my pillow when I sleep, and solely for my pillow alone.
Realizing his other comment about my hair, and not wanting him to think that I was "seeing Nagato" again, I quickly tied my hair up. The world ending is a bad thing... I don't want to have to do that stupid thing with Haruki again in Closed Space.
The alien which I was supposedly seeing (according to Haruki and my little brother, but believe me I wasn't) in question was sitting down, reading a book in his designated corner.
"..."
Reading a thick covered book, this person was rigidly posed, examining every word on the page (and possibly even the pages themselves) in a relatively quick manner. He was none other than Nagato Yuuki, SOS Brigade saviour and full time watchdog over Haruki for the alien Data Integrated Sentient Entity. Strangely, his background makes more sense than Haruki's which makes no sense at all. This alone just confuses my mind, so I'll stop talking about that for now. It's better to just believe Haruki's mindset of him being a quiet bookworm that excels in many things.
Though from my viewpoint, I can't help but laugh at that stupid description. It's whatever.
"Hey, where's Koizumi-san?"
Haruki shot Mitsuuru a glare. The maidboy instinctively flinched.
"I-I'm not sure. I haven't seen her. It's not like her to be late."
While he started changing tea leaves in the automatic dispenser, I followed Haruki's example and started surveying the room. My eyes eventually met the costume rack. The bizarre sight held a froghead, (dreaded) bunny costumes, cheerleading outfits, a number of capes, a nurse, summer variations of the butler's outfit, and a few other articles of clothing that I had never really paid attention to.
All of these outfits had at least one of us (Asahina-sempai, me, or Koizumi) in them at some point in time. Wow, there's a lot of clutter here. Why does Haruki have two spare maid outfits? Is he going to force Asahina-sempai to do some spring cleaning next year? Wait, spare maid outfits?! No way am I wearing that. You can't treat me like a doll!
"Mitsuuru, where's that tea?"
"Ah, right. Coming right up."
The pseudomaid quickly poured tea in a plastic teacup with "Haruki" written on the side. He then placed it on a tray and walked over to Haruki and placed it on the desk.
"Incorrect!"
"E-eh?"
"Our contingency plan! You also need to learn the basics of becoming a passable woman, in case our attempts at making you manly fail."
"What? B-but I-"
"A proper maid would trip over herself and spill her tea just as she comes in close proximity of the person she serves. It's pure common knowledge that maids, waitresses, and hostesses are clumsy."
"Uh, right. Sorry."
'What sort of contingency plan is that? And Mitsuuru don't listen to him, not every girl is clumsy. Haruki's just using one of his ludicrous jokes."
"I'm not joking. In fact, Kyonko! Demonstrate for him."
"What?! No way. You can't make- hey!"
My protests didn't reach him. He pulled me to my feet and made Mitsuuru take my spot. Then he placed an apron over my head and handed me a tray with a teacup in one swift motion. He tapped the back of my head rather hardly, causing me to fall over on top of Asahina-sempai. I instinctively said sorry for spilling hot tea on him, but there wasn't anything to be sorry for... Haruki had used an empty teacup.
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