The harsh rain, splattered its own form of blessings onto the island. The wind gave an ominous howl as though we were sure to be eaten by demons.
"What the hell?! Why is there a typhoon now?!"
Haruki screamed up as she too was awoken by the sound of the heavy rain. We were all sitting around in Haruki’s room wondering what we could do inside today.
This was after we had our breakfast. Keiichi-san was absent from the table. Arakawa-san said Keiichi-san always felt terrible in the morning after waking up, so for her to wake up before noon was very rare. It must be nice to be able to sleep late, for me I have always found that waking up early for school only made me more grumpier for the adventures that would come; with Haruki of course.
Haruki turned towards us,
"This has now really become a lone island. This is the situation of a lifetime, maybe something will happen!"
Asahina-san gasped and moved her eyes around, while Koizumi and Nagato-san's facial expressions remained business-like as usual. Though I’m sure Koizumi was thinking like I “Damnit! We’re all going to die!” then again; I’m never quite sure what Koizumi was ever thinking about.
The waves were still and calm yesterday. Now they've reached tsunami alert status, impossible for any ship to sail in. If this goes on until the day after tomorrow, we'll really be stranded on a lone island against our wishes, just as Haruki had wished for. A closed circle, right?
Koizumi gave a smile, trying to calm everyone down, inside she’s probably scheming something,
"This typhoon seems to be moving quite fast, I think it'll get better the day after tomorrow. As they say, things come and go quickly."
According to the weather report, this would be correct. But there were no reports of a typhoon coming in yesterday's report! Just whose mind conjured this storm!?
"It's coincidental."
Koizumi said nonchalantly. I really doubt that it could be a coincident, after all it shouldn’t happen at all, right?
"This is a normal natural phenomenon, it comes with the summer weather package, I guess? There's always one big typhoon every year."
"We were supposed to explore around the island, but it seems we have to cancel that." Haruki said bitterly, "Ah well, let's find some games that we can play indoors!"
Haruki seemed to have completely forgotten the original purpose of this field trip, as the emphasis now moved into having fun. Now this was something worth cheering for, because I didn't want to walk to the other end of the island to find some unidentified creature's carcass being washed ashore and stuck between the boulders.
Koizumi made his suggestion,
"I seem to remember there's a game room here, I'll go ask Keiichi-san to open it for us. Which do you like? Mah-jong or pool? If we asked, we could even get a snooker table set up."
Haruki agreed quickly, perhaps he’d include penalties for the losers,
"Then let's have a table tennis match! We'll decide the winner of the first SOS Brigade Table Tennis Tournament in a round-robin format! Sorry for those who want to play pool, I'll treat them to drinks on the boat trip back. Don't hold back now!"
The game room was located in the basement. In the wide hall was placed a Mah-jong table and a pool table. They even had a roulette and Baccarat table. Do Koizumi's relatives secretly run a casino here? Maybe in reality Keiichi-san is a secret Yakuza boss and Yutaka-san is her enforcer. Wait… wouldn’t it make more sense if they were males? No, in actually being females would be the perfect way to elude the authorities. Yes in reality Keiichi-san and Yutaka-san are-!
“Kyon!”
Haruki shouted into my ear.
“What is it?!”
I replied.
“Have you ever played Mah-jong?”
He suddenly asked.
“No… why?”
I told him.
“No reason really.”
He concluded and gave me a wide smirk. What are you scheming exactly Haruki?
"What do you think?" Koizumi replied with a foolish smile, pulling out the folded snooker table from the side.
Haruki would win the table-tennis game by defeating me, his loud gloating laugh was enough to shake the foundations of the mansion. Surprisingly no one upstairs had seemed to notice.
He then proclaimed that it was time for the Mah-jong contest. During the game, the Tamaru sisters also joined in, making it a lively Mah-jong contest. Haruki had gone and proceed to create rules to suit his game and created yaku to suit himself, racking up win after win with puzzling combinations like "Nishoku Zetsu Ichimon," "Chantamodoki," "Iishanten Paralysis" and so on in an addition to his ten fold brigade chief bonus. Well, it made me laugh, so I let it pass. And we weren't playing for money, anyway.
"Ron! That's about ten thousand points! With my bonus that gives me one hundred thousand! Pay up Kyon!"
"Suzumiya-san, that's yakuman."
I secretly sighed, perhaps it was better to look on the bright side and enjoy the fun the trip brought. As things stand, it seems unlikely a huge sea creature will appear, or natives coming out from the forest. After all, this is a lone island far way from the mainland. There won't be strange things coming in from outside so easily.
I decided to think like that and relax myself. Tamaru Keiichi-san and Yutaka-san, Arakawa-san, Mori-san are all acquainted with Koizumi, they all look normal. We're still short of characters necessary to trigger a strange event.
I hope everything goes well. I prayed in my heart.
Yet the gods just never seem to answer my prayers. I wonder why I continue to pray then? Maybe because I’m praying to the wrong god? Either way I doubt either of them; the one in heaven and the one who smiles brilliantly for no reason down here on Earth, really wants to listen to the plights of a high school girl.
They really don’t listen to me at all, because it would happen on the third day.
We spent the whole second day playing and eating, and as the weather worsened by nightfall, the same dining hall scene repeated itself again. On the third day, I struggled to wake up with a splitting headache from the hangover, if Koizumi and Mori-san hadn't carried us back to our rooms, I guess I would still be sleeping in the dining hall with Haruhi and Asahina-san.
I stared at the window to my dismay the rain had continued to fall. Staring at the scene before me; how it differed from the scene I saw two day ago, wondering, why am I depressed now? Perhaps I’ve become bored of staying inside. Saying to myself;
“How melancholic.”
Saying those words I couldn’t help but feel a sense of déjà vu suddenly.
I washed off the dizziness from my face with some cold water, trying hard to walk in a straight line. I walked down the stairs with caution, not wanting to trip and tumble over.
There gathered in the dining hall were Haruki and Asahina-san with the same miserable face as mine, and Koizumi and Nagato-san with their usual expressions.
The Tamaru sisters haven't come down yet, maybe they've reached their limits after drinking for two consecutive nights? I remembered Haruki pouring wine over their glasses. Haruki was already reckless when sober, with alcohol he became worse, and just thinking of his antics last night simply worsened my headache. I decided never to force myself to drink endlessly.
"I don't want to drink wine anymore."
Haruki suddenly told me with a frown, perhaps he had learned his lesson after all.
"I don't know why, but all my memories after dinner seem to have disappeared. Isn't that a pity? I felt as if we had wasted a lot of time. Argh, I don't want to get drunk again. Tonight is 'alcohol free night'."
Normally, high school students are not supposed to get drunk. Perhaps I ought to compliment Haruki for actually saying something responsible for once? I dare not imagine again the expression when he looked at me with his drunk eyes. Then again my own view was blurry and I didn’t know if I could actually tell Haruki apart from the others.
"Then it's decided!"
Koizumi nodded and agreed right away, she then said to Mori-san who just came in pushing a cart with our breakfast on it,
"We won't be needing any wine for tonight. Please just prepare some juice instead."
"Understood."
Mori-san bowed politely and started handing out the bacon and eggs plates on to the table.
Yutaka-san had still not appeared after we had finished our breakfast. As Keiichi-san normally feels ill during morning, his absence was expected, but not Yutaka-san's. At this moment......
"Excuse me."
Arakawa-san and Mori-san appeared before us. I noticed a troubled expression within his usually calm butler face. I have a bad feeling about this.
"What happened?" Koizumi asked, "Is there a problem?"
"Yes." Arakawa-san said, "I believe it is sort of a problem. I had asked Mori-san to go check Yutaka-sama's room."
Mori-san nodded his head, Arakawa-san continued,
"As the door wasn't locked, I opened it to find that Yutaka-sama's not inside."
With a voice as clear as a bell, Mori-san said glancing at the table cloth,
"The room was empty, and the bed doesn't seem to be slept on at all."
"I tried to contact the master's room using an internal phone line, but there was no response."
Haruhi released the glass of orange juice she was holding after hearing Arakawa-san said that.
"What does that mean? Yutaka-san is missing while Keiichi-san doesn't answer the phone?"
"To put it bluntly, that's how it is." Arakawa-san replied.
"Couldn't you enter Keiichi-san's room? Do you have a backup key?"
"I have the backup keys to all the rooms save the master's bedroom. As his room has a lot of work-related documents, only she has access to the backup keys, just to be safe."
The bad feeling has begun to hover as a dark cloud, shrouding two-thirds of my heart. The mansion owner who hasn't woken up, and her sister who was missing.
Arakawa-san bowed slightly. It was a curt one, as if she was sorry she couldn’t do more.
"I would like to visit the master's bedroom in a moment. If you do not mind, would you please accompany me? I hope I'm wrong, but I have a bad feeling about this."
Haruki quickly gestured something to me with his eyes. What is he trying to say?
"Maybe we should come along."
Koizumi stood up without hesitation.
"Maybe she's so ill she couldn't get up. We may have to break the door down."
Haruki swiftly jumped up from his chair,
"Kyon, let's go! I'm getting all uneasy. Yuki and Mikuru-chan, you two come along as well!"
In this moment, Haruki revealed a hitherto unseen serious expression on his face. This look sank into my heart as if his eyes were silently telling me “Something wrong” and your eyes never lied to me have they Haruki? Because as you look into me I can sometimes look into you, but somehow I don’t feel like I can appreciate that link between us.
Let me summarize the situation which followed.
Keiichi-san's room was located on the third floor, as we cried out to her, knocked the door and did all sorts of common and the few uncommon way so that hopefully she would respond. However no amount of “Open Sesames” would ever open the door and the door suddenly became a part of the wall.
Before going there, we also went to Tamaru Yutaka-san's room. As Mori-san had described, the bed sheets were tidy, as though no one has slept on it. Just where did she go? Could both of the sisters be hiding in Keiichi-san's room? That seemed unlikely as I’m sure that if they were that close Yutaka-san would be already living here.
"The room is locked from the inside, that means there's someone inside."
Koizumi held her chin and gave a look of thinking deeply. She said in an unprecedented intense tone,
"Looks like we no longer have a choice. We'll have to break down the door. Things are getting serious that lives may be at stake here."
So Haruki proclaimed it was the duty of himself, Nagato-san and Mori-san as strong men (Asahina-san was not included though it left him free from such physical straining, deep inside he was probably hurt!). Though I’m sure Nagato-san could easily have done it himself and not in such a grand way; he too played along. As they began to smack the door continuously. Haruki with all his might, Mori-san with his general fervor and Nagato just tapping the door, but most likely doing more than the other two, it would seem that Nagato-san would bee to use his magic to save us until;
The door finally burst open like a spring.
Losing their balance they all managed to fall down, though it seemed to me that Nagato-san stood perfectly, looked at the scene below him and he too fell like a tree. Very subtle Nagato-san you really did blend in. However before I could continue on with my sarcasm, you know what happen, yes; we all saw the scene in front of us.
Yes, we have now returned to the scene at the beginning. It took a long time to catch up. Now, back to the present.
2008-03-23, 20:31
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