"Hi!" Haruki said expansively, striding through the doorway. "Sorry for being late, but it took a while to hunt down this guy!" He dragged a shorter boy into the room, and then turned and closed the door behind her with an ominous finality.
The boy twitched nervously at the click of the lock. He was small and slim, looking more like a middle school student playing dress-up in a North High uniform. His brown hair was tousled in a strangely irresistably compelling way, and his large puppy-dog eyes cast around with a silent appeal for help. Overall, he'd be pretty cute, if he didn't look so scared. Actually, he looked cute anyway, especially when scared.
"W-where am I?" the boy said tremulously. "What is this place? Why have you brought me here?"
"Shut up."
The boy flinched at Haruki's sudden threatening tone, and gave an involuntary yelp as Haruki pounced on him, a companionable arm around his shoulders, a huge smile beaming on his face. "This is Asahina Minoru," Haruki said, gesturing with his other hand.
I waited, but Haruki had apparently finished talking. What, that's all for the introduction? "Where did you kidnap him from?" I said suspiciously.
"I didn't kidnap him," Haruki protested. "I just made him come with me."
Isn't that the same thing?
"He was off daydreaming in one of the second year classrooms," Haruki continued, "so I grabbed him from there. I've seen him around a lot of times, and I figured that he'd be perfect for our plans."
What plans? "Doesn't that make him an upperclassman?" Asahina Minoru certainly did not look like one, but I was probably in no position to talk.
"So what?" Haruki said belligerently.
Probably best not to argue too much with him, or he'll revert back to his grumpy gangster persona. I glanced back at Nagato; he was still buried in his intimidating doorstopper of a book, and appeared to have exactly zero interest in Haruki's abduction of another innocent victim. Asahina-sempai, meanwhile, was hugging himself, frightened and trembling, and certainly unable to defend himself. "Okay," I said, "just why did you go all the way to find Asahina-sempai?"
"Just take a look!" Haruki slapped Asahina-sempai on the back with some force, causing him to stumble towards me. I took an involuntary step backwards, and Asahina-sempai ended up grabbing the edge of the table for support.
"See how weak he is?" Haruki declared. "See how easily he's defeated? What he needs is guts! Guts and courage! If you have those, then you'll never be beaten, but if you lack them, then you'll never amount to anything! You won't be worthy of being called a man!"
"T-that's cruel," Asahina-sempai sobbed. "I-I'm a man too, you know..."
"Oh? Is that so?" Haruki grabbed Asahina-sempai again. "How much of a man are you, really?" His eyes grew mischievous, and his hand strayed down to...
Oh gods.
I wasn't sure who screamed first, but I like to think that it was Asahina-sempai, because that's less embarrassing for me. "Stop that!" I shouted, keeping a distance from the two guys. "What the hell do you think you're doing? That's sexual harrassment!"
"Hey, you know, this guy's actually pretty big!" Haruki said brightly without a trace of shame. "Wanna feel for yourself?"
"No way!"
Haruki finally released Asahina-sempai, who sagged onto the ground, exhausted. "If we can turn that into the epitome of manliness," Haruki said, pointing at Asahina-sempai, "into a Man among Men, then the rightness of our cause will be proven! It's all part of the plan!"
Like I said, what plan? "Is that the only reason you abducted Asahina-sempai?" I asked wearily. Don't look at me like that, Asahina-sempai, I can't bear to look into those eyes...
"Well, I thought we could use him to advertise our club too. Kind of like a mascot character or something like that."
Haruki is an idiot. A very dangerous idiot.
"Hey, Minoru, you in any clubs?" Haruki demanded.
"Um, the Home Economics club..."
"Ah, just quit it. It'll get in the way of our club activities."
That's way too unreasonable!
Asahina-sempai focused that puppy-dog stare at me, and I had to avert my eyes. There's no way I can ask him to join this random yet-to-be-established club, but I didn't want to risk Haruki's wrath by defying him so openly right now.
Asahina-sempai turned her gaze onto the still-silent person sitting in the corner of the clubroom, who gave him nary a glance. But Asahina-sempai's eyes widened in surprise, and he gasped.
"I... I understand," he said, in the tone of voice usually reserved for the utterly defeated. "I'll quit the Home Economics club, and join your club..." He hesitated. "But I'm not sure what the Literature club usually does..."
"Oh, we're not the Literature club," Haruki said.
"The guy sitting over there is the real and only Literature club member," I explained. "We're just temporarily borrowing the room for whatever club Suzumiya Haruki wants to create sometime in the near future. We don't know what our club name will be, much less what our activities are.
Asahina-sempai blinked slowly in astonishment, his mouth hanging open. Yeah, that's a predictable reaction.
"I've already thought of the name!" Haruki exclaimed. "That's the most important part of forming a club!"
I turned my glare on him. "Okay," I said, injecting as much skepticism into my voice as possible, "let's hear it."
Haruki took a deep breath, in preparation for the momentous revelation of his grand vision.