The middle of July, I could remember that day like a midsummer’s night dream; hazy and no doubt absurd, or at least become it. The sun still stared down on the school and I had often found myself wishing it would take a vacation.
Like always, I had found myself inside the Literature Club’s former room; the SOS-dan headquarters, with its only member and of course Asahina-san. I stared at the tea he brewed sitting in front of me, I mused on how feminine he was. I would also think about the results of my mid-term exams. Though I have survived and have gotten over them, the thought of the impending revision classes was still in the back of my head. I started at the cup laid down for Nagato-san, there was less of it now; though I could never see him drink it. Can’t I just live like this? Free from all the worries of life and of course from the adventures always happening whenever I was within a 10 foot radius of Haruki.
Suddenly, I had began to doze off, in a half woken state I was question on how I could convince myself that this was all a dream and that I would wake up.
"Excuse me......are you alright?"
I awoke from the dream of being an alien commander, sending wave after wave of soldiers to drop from the skies and defeat the enemy. Of course I was nothing like that, and telling myself didn’t make that fact change. No amount of dreaming and hope could really do that.
"You look so gloomy today......is my tea not good enough?"
"Not at all."
I answered. Your tea is still as sweet as honey from the sky, even though it's brewed using discount tea leaves.
"That's wonderful."
Asahina-san, dressed in his blazer-less uniform breathed a sigh of relief. He had given me a wide grin of happiness and I couldn’t resist giving him one of my own. Somehow his smile had brighten up the mood, if only just for me. Not even a sage traveling through the most remote mountains could find an elixir as effective as Asahina-san's smile, though as hard as I tried to imagine I doubt the existence of sages wandering the mountains surviving there for anymore than a few days. But I felt burning in my heart, almost enough to make me cry out to the world in happiness. For some reason I could hear the trumpets of angels and chirping of birds.
I felt like spreading my passion to everyone, as St. Francis of Assisi passionately did when preaching to his sister birds, but in the end I gave up. Not because I couldn't be bothered with the use of elegant phrases, but rather at this moment an annoying person came barging in with his melodious tones, who has often bee one to talk in oh-so elegant phrases.
"Hey, everyone! How were your mid-term tests?"
Koizumi placed the Monopoly board she brought on the table while asking me this irrelevant question. Her sudden appearance swatted me down back to the cold ground and had continued to smother my face to the dirt. Why can't you just play your Monopoly quietly? You ought to learn from Nagato, sitting peacefully in the corner reading his book.
Ignoring the continuous musings of Koizumi as she begins comparing the world to Monopoly in which I instinctively tune out, I stare at Nagato-san who has opened another book. His hand flipped the pages of the thick hardcover in a rhythmic manner. He probably knew I was looking at him, but his statue like face concentrated at the book.. From a certain perspective, he is a digitized existence, yet he seems to love absorbing physical data. I wonder if there's some specific reason for that? I frown suddenly, thinking that if I do any more thinking I’ll end up like Koizumi, if not worst.
"......"
Now I think about it, how can everyone in our club have so much free time on their hands?
School finished early today, classes having already ended in the morning. Yet why is everyone still gathered here? Myself included, but I have a justifiable reason to be here! If I didn't drink Asahina-san's tea at least once every day, I'd basically become a zombie. Thanks to that, I usually have to suffer withdrawal symptoms during the weekends.
Just joking. You think I'm serious? It's just that I've learned something since I came to high school - some people tend to take jokes very seriously. I say this from my experiences of the past few months, so I can't be wrong. One needs to draw a fine line between joking and being serious, or something terrible might happen.
Just like my situation right now.
I opened my bag and took out the ham sandwich I got from the Welfare Society as my snack.
As we count down to the beginning of summer vacation, there has to be a reason for us to gather here......or not. I say that because the SOS Brigade was created without any reason at all, in fact, it was created precisely for its lack of reason. It would be even more troublesome if it did have a reason. Instead of doing something really stupid, it's better that it remains in its present meaningless state, because that way I don't have to think much.
"I think I'll have a snack as well."
Asahina-san, so meticulous that he made his own tea, took out a cute looking lunchbox and sat down opposite me.
"Don't mind me, I've already eaten in the canteen."
Koizumi declined. No one asked you. While Nagato's hunger is more about reading books than about eating.
Asahina-san picked up the rice, which had a smiley face drawn with cream, with his chopsticks and said,
"Where's Suzumiya-san? He hasn't arrived yet."
Don't ask me. He's probably somewhere hunting for grasshoppers. It's summer after all.
Koizumi answered for me,
"I saw him in the school canteen. His appetite sure is amazing. If all the food he consumed was converted into nutrition, I wonder how many ergs that'd be?"
I’ll never bother with calculations Koizumi ever brings up, mostly because they end up to be a waste of time or entirely irrelevant to what’s happening currently. If Haruki decides to lock himself up to the canteen, then there’ll be more peace in the world, everywhere except in that canteen of course.
"Don't think so. He said he has something important to announce today."
How can you be so cheerful? Has anything he has ever done or proposed become beneficial in any way?
"Besides, how do you know about that anyway?"
Koizumi said casually,
"Hmm, I wonder how? I could tell you, but Suzumiya-san would prefer to tell you himself. It would be a great problem if I spoiled his mood by telling you before he does. I'd best stay silent for now."
I should have know, he always seems to know something, and apparently he knows what happening. You seem to always be by his side Koizumi, and I can’t remember a time whenever that ended nicely for me or Asahina-san.
"I'm not interested anyway."
"Is that so?"
"Yup, because from your tone, it seems that idiot is up to something stupid again. I don't know how many more minutes my peace of mind will last, but I'm sure it's going to get less peaceful soon......"
As I was about to continue, I was interrupted by a slamming sound from the violent opening of the door.
"Great! Everyone's here!"
Haruki's eyes shone as bright as a spectrometer. Which obviously meant something bad was going to happen. I braced myself for the worst. I stare at Asahina-san who looks at him perplexed but somehow full of anticipation. Asahina-san! How can you still trust him?
"As today we're having an important meeting, I intend to have anyone arriving after me be treated as target practice for can throwing from now on as punishment. But it seems you've all begun to nurture that team spirit already. This is excellent!"
Needless to say, I never knew there was an important meeting today.
"You sure have a lot of free time."
I was trying to humble her.
"You listen. The secret to eating in the school canteen is to go just before they close. By then the old ladies will scoop more for you. But the timing is very important, it'd be useless if you went when they were completely sold out. So today's a lucky day!"
"Really?"
For someone like me who rarely goes to the canteen for lunch, this new piece of information wasn't of that much use, no matter how generously it had been given.
Haruki sat down on the commander's seat.
"Anyway, let's leave that aside."
"It was you who started that topic."
Haruhi ignored me and called out to Asahina-san, who was eating carefully with his chopsticks.
"Mitsuru-kun, what do you think of when you mention summer?"
"Huh?"
Asahina-san covered his mouth, munching and swallowing the food that he had cooked.
"Summer......um......the O-Bon Festival?"
Haruki blinked his eyes nonstop at such a nostalgically traditional answer. It was plainly obvious that wasn’t the answer he looked for. Haruki, if you want us to know something say it yourself!
"'O-Bon Festival'? What on earth's that? Have you got it wrong? I'm not asking you that, what I'm saying is, when it comes to summer, what's the first thing that comes to mind?"
What the hell are you talking about?
Haruki said matter-of-factly,
"Summer vacation! Does that need thinking?"
This way of thinking is a bit too straightforward.
"Then what comes with summer vacation?"
Haruki asked his second question, and then looked at her watch while mimicking the sound of the clock ticking, "Tick tock, tick tock."
Perhaps feeling pressurized by him, Asahina-san began to think frantically.
"Um, that is, ah......the sea!"
"That's right! Close enough. And what comes with the sea?"
What the hell's this? A guessing game?
Asahina-san tilted his head,
"Sea, sea......ah, pickled fish?"
"Wrong! Summer would be over by the time you guessed right. What I'm saying is, we need to go on a field trip for the summer holiday!"
I turned my head from Haruki’s bright smiling face to the one sitting near me; Koizumi. Was that the announcement you were talking about all along?
"Field trip?"
I asked slowly, Haruki nodded energetically,
"Yes, a field trip."
Maybe it's normal for school clubs to organize field trips or whatever, but is it really okay for us to have one as well? He can't be having us go deep into the mountains to search for Unidentified Mysterious Animals (UMAs) that will never be found, can he? No wait, even if he wasn’t allowed to; he still would.
I looked at Asahina-san, Koizumi and Nagato-san in turn, and observed a stunned face, a smiling face, and a blank face from them respectively. I then said,
"A field trip, huh......field trip for what?"
"For the SOS Brigade."
"I meant, what will we be doing?"
"Having a field trip."
What?
Going on a field trip solely for the purpose of experiencing a field trip.
Isn't that the same as saying "my headache hurts", "the tragic play is tragic", or "frying a fried fish"?
"What does it matter? In other words, the means and ends of this activity are the same. Besides, of course a headache hurts, who's heard of anyone enjoying a headache?"
I don't know whether there's something wrong with Haruki's grammar, or if he's speaking in a different dialect. But the real problem lies with the field trip itself.
"Where do you intend to go?"
"I'm going to a lone island, and it has to be a lone island in the middle of the ocean."
I don't remember ever reading "Two Years' Vacation" as a summer vacation report. Just what on earth did he read to come up with such an idea?
"I've thought of a few locations."
Haruki's excitement showed on his face.
"I was troubled by whether to go to the mountains or the sea. At first I thought it'd be more convenient to go to the mountains, but the only time to get ourselves isolated in a hillside mansion is during a blizzard in winter. Besides, that's way too hard."
Maybe you can try going to Greenland......no, the question is why must we do such a thing?
"You want to go to a hillside mansion just so you can get stuck there?"
"Well yeah! Or it wouldn't be fun. But let's forget about the mountains! We'll save that for the winter field trip. This summer we're going to the sea, no, a lone island!"
Don't be so obsessed with lone islands. I thought, but I could find no reason for opposition. It'd be useless for me to oppose him anyway, and for this time of year, the sea sounds more charming; besides, there should be seaside spas in these lone islands far away from the mainland, right?
"Of course there are! Right, Koizumi?"
"Hmm, I should hope so. Though it's a natural seaside spa without any lifeguards or food stalls."
I quickly looked at Koizumi, with my eyes full of suspicion. Why are you helping her recite all this?
"That's because......"
Koizumi's explanation got interrupted by Haruki.
"Because the location for the field trip this time is being provided by none other than Koizumi!"
Haruhi stuck her hands inside the desk drawer, and took out a colored armband. She then used a felt-tip pen and wrote "Vice Commander" on it.
"As a result of this achievement, Koizumi-kun, you should feel honored. I hereby promote you to SOS Brigade Vice Commander!"
"I am grateful for this honor."
Koizumi bowed and accepted the armband. She winked at me, don’t kid yourself! I would never want such an absurd present!
"That's it. This is a four day three night luxury tour! Let's get ourselves mentally prepared!"
Haruki gave a look saying "That's all folks!" Thinking we're all happy with this decision, which was of course, never the case.
"Just a moment."
I stepped forward and spoke on behalf of Asahina-san and Nagato-san. Asahina-san who seemed as shocked as ever and Nagato-san not caring at all, give me support damnit!
"Where is this island? Provide? What the hell's this? Why is Koizumi providing all this for us?"
Koizumi, defined by Haruhi as a mysterious transfer student, is of course an unnatural person, and this 'Organization' that she belongs to is even more suspicious. Could they be taking us to some secret research lab of theirs, trying to perform live autopsies on Haruhi and Nagato?
"I have a very rich distant relative."
Koizumi gave a harmless smile.
Liar.
"She's so rich that she can buy himself an uninhabited island and build a mansion on it. The fact is, she's already built the mansion. It just went through the opening ceremony a few days ago, but as no one was willing to travel that far to such a place, she's decided to invite some friends and relatives over. And this is where I came in."
Is the island that bizarre? I started to recall the story of "Robinson Crusoe" I read a long time ago. I can only imagining myself trapped on there and end up calling Asahina-san a day of a week eventually.
"No, it was supposed to have been an uninhabited island. Summer vacation is approaching, and if the SOS Brigade is going on a trip, it would be more fun if we go there together. The owner of the mansion seems to welcome us coming as well."
"And that's how it is!" said Haruki.
She gave out a smile that would get us in trouble.
"A lone island! And a huge mansion! This is a rare situation! I can't wait to go there. This is the perfect stage for the SOS Brigade!"
"Why?" I asked, "What does a lone island and mansion have to do with your favorite mysterious events?"
Alas, Haruki is already lost in his own world. I ask myself “Why don’t you remember? He never listens!”
"A lone island in the middle of the sea! And a mansion! Koizumi, your relative is really understanding! Hmm, I think I'll get along well with her."
The only people who can get along well with Haruhi are mostly weirdos. The mansion owner must be a very weird person.
I couldn't tell if Nagato-san had heard what Haruki had announced; it was easy with Asahina-san, who had stopped eating, with an astonished look on his face.
"Don't worry, Mitsuru-chan. You can have all the pickled fish you want there! Am I right?"
"I'll try and arrange it." Said Koizumi.
"That's how it is."
Haruki took another colored armband from the drawer of the commander's desk. I have no idea how many he's made. Though I really doubt that the SOS-dan will ever grow large enough for all the armbands he has hidden to be actually used.
"Towards the lone island! A lot of interesting things await us there. As for our mission there, I've already decided!"
He said while writing on the armband with the felt-tip pen. The letters looked scribbled, but it seemed to say "Master Detective".
What are you thinking? You’re not really expecting a mystery do you? Do you think life is really like the movies? Life is supposed to be normal!
Of course with Haruki, life has never been normal.