I stared into Yuki's unmoving eyes for several seconds, waiting to see if she had something else to say. I certainly didn't. First you tell me that the mysterious new substitute teacher Haruhi's suddenly obsessed with is really an alien from an entirely different universe. Then you tell me that this alien is so dangerous that you don't dare use powers which would let you run rings around anyone and anything else in existence? And then you show me that you, Yuki Nagato, are actually frightened of something?
My mind wouldn't wrap around that. It couldn't. A scared Yuki had no place in my world.
Finally Yuki lifted her book and resumed reading. About one and a half seconds later the club room door slammed open and Haruhi, smiling her biggest, most arrogant go-to-hell smile, stormed into the room. "Stand up straight, Kyon!" she shouted. "The SOS Brigade has to look its best for a special visitor!"
Mr. Strame shut the club room door behind her. He stalked into the room- there's no other word for it. When he stopped and looked at me and Yuki, I could see his face shift into a friendly, collegial expression- I'm not really so forbidding as all that, I'm quite approachable, you and I share goals, let's be pals, is the message I saw. But I saw his face for one brief instant before he made himself friendly- cold, arrogant, and calculating- and about as interested in the SOS Brigade's headquarters as I was in learning Spanish.
"This is the headquarters of the SOS Brigade!" Haruhi said, gesturing around the room. "Itsuki Koizumi is my vice-commander, but he has cleaning duty today. Yuki Nagato is our required reserved introvert. Mikuru Asahina, our mascot, is absent today. And this is Kyon." She pointed at me. "He's the flunky and unwanted straight man."
Well, thanks again, Haruhi. Any thoughts of gratitude for the small handful of people who are willing to follow you blindly into whatever hare-brained scheme you come up with?
"This," she continued, "is Strame-sensei. He's expressed interest in becoming the official faculty sponsor for the SOS Brigade!"
"Now, now," Strame said, waving off Haruhi's enthusiasm. "I'm only a temporary faculty member at present. I'm only hired to complete the remaining school term- only about a month or so. But if the school sees fit to hire me for a full year, then I admit I see much... potential... in your organization."
Then he held something up. I hadn't realized it before, but Strame had walked into the room holding a copy of the literature club newsletter, the thing we had published to prevent the SOS Brigade from being evicted from its hijacked club room. Where did he find a copy? We hadn't retained any from the one and only printing of two hundred copies.
"I've been reading your articles in this newsletter," he continued. Miss Nagato, your poetry in particular stirred, how shall I put it, familiar feelings of nostalgia in my old heart. And you, Miss Suzumiya, your article on perpetuating your SOS Brigade into infinity contained many fascinating points! I happen to be a bit of a dabbler in the realm of physics, but I confess some of your proposals are revolutionary in their implications!"
I wasn't mentioned, but then I hadn't asked, either. I knew my own little "mystery" wasn't novel or unusual in any way. Besides, I was much more worried about his praise for Suzumiya's article. Asahina had said that article represented the first foundations of her organization's time travel theory. Did he recognize that?
Yuki never looked up from her book.
"I can't see why they're revolutionary!" Haruhi snapped. "It seems to me that anyone who reads the basic physics and five-dimensional geometry texts could see the obvious consequences."
"Alas," Strame sighed, "not all humans are born with such broad vision. Most are cursed to dreary lives of boredom and tedium, briefly enlivened by serving as a menial for more enlightened minds."
"That's exactly right!" Haruhi said.
Oh, brother. Please, Mr. Alien Strame, don't encourage her bad habits any more than that, okay?
The door opened again, and Koizumi stuck his head into the room. "Oh, good afternoon, Strame-sensei," he said. "I've been hearing interesting things about you."
"And I about you, Mr... Koizumi, is it?" Strame smiled.
"Indeed so. Unfortunately, my part-time job has called me in, so I regret I must miss today's activities. Please pardon me, Suzumiya-san."
Haruhi looked a little bit peeved at this. The brigade was already one person down with Mikuru gone. With Koizumi ditching as well, all she had to show for herself was her errand boy and a girl whose world apparently began and ended with the book in her hands.
And if you think we're impressive, Mr. Strame, you should see how we spend most days. Playing board games, passing the time in idleness, sipping Asahina's wonderful tea, and occasionally saving the world from destruction by our fearless leader's subconscious mind. I'm certain you've never seen a school club like us before.
Haruhi was probably thinking the same thing. "That's all right, Koizumi," she said. "I have some things I want to discuss with Strame-sensei about possibly sponsoring the SOS Brigade. I hereby declare today a no-activites day. We'll pick up where we left off tomorrow!"
"That's quite a relief," Koizumi nodded. "Thank you for being understanding. I'll be on my way now. Excuse me."
I looked at Strame's face as Koizumi closed the door again. They narrowed for just a moment. For whatever reason, he hadn't liked what he'd seen. Was it possible Strame could detect esper powers as well as alien powers? Or was I just seeing things?
(No, I couldn't use that as an excuse. I'd seen too many things in the past year to ever believe I was "just seeing things.")
"I believe your young friend has a capital idea," Strame said. "I believe the teacher's lounge will be empty at this time of afternoon. Why don't we go there and discuss the SOS Brigade, this marvelous article, and your vision at our leisure?"
"Sure! Kyon, Yuki, lock up as you leave!"
The dark cloud left first, pushed out by the human whirlwind.
Yuki kept right on reading, long after the door had closed.
* * * * * * *
I decided to go home early, since Asahina's tea would not be available and my only companion had exhausted her quota of words for the month in our earlier conversation. All the way down the hill my mind raced around the mystery of Mr. Strame. He scared Yuki and Asahina- the elder Asahina- enough that they tried to avoid his notice. Koizumi had ditched him as soon as he could. Haruhi thought he hung the moon. He acted a bit suspiciously, and his history lecture had been disturbing...
... but was that enough evidence for anything? I trusted Asahina (big) and Nagato implicitly, but they each had their own agendas. And certainly I didn't have any proof I could put in front of anyone else- especially not in front of Haruhi.
And if Strame really was a dangerous alien who wished Haruhi ill, what could I do about any of it- me, a human so ordinary that I fell entirely beneath his notice, with my dreary life of boredom and tedium, briefly enlivened by serving as a menial for Suzumiya?
That was my thinking when I walked up to the station and saw Koizumi standing by the bike racks. Given my preferences I would have ignored him, but he was standing right in front of my bike. Actually, standing isn't the right word. He was hopping back and forth from one leg to another, covering one eye, then the other, looking away, then snapping his head back forward.
"Is this some new power you've developed?" I asked quietly. "Or do you intend to warn me about Strame using interpretive dance?"
"I'm sorry, but I can't talk to you just now," he said. "I have to concentrate on not concentrating."
Why would you want to do yet another impossible thing? Aren't the impossibilities of Suzumiya enough?
"This may be very important. I have the absolute conviction that there's something right in front of me, but I can't see anything there. My eyes keep wanting to slide away from a certain spot. Something doesn't want anybody to know it's there."
"Can you point to it?"
Koizumi's hand went up, but before he could point it seemed to jerk a bit to the right. "Not... not there," he said. He tried to correct his aim, and his arm jerked again over to the left. "And not there. In between... I think."
"And you can't see it."
"I'm afraid I can't."
Neither could I. There wasn't anything there. I walked forward in a straight line through the point where Koizumi had not-aimed, then walked back. "Did I walk a straight line?" I asked.
"Indeed you did," he said. "So long as I kept my eyes on you, I had no trouble. If I looked at anything else, though, my eyes wandered again. It's most upsetting."
I was about to say his behavior was even more upsetting when I felt a sudden chill through my blazer. I heard a faint sound, a sort of grinding whoosh, all around me. I stepped forward towards Koizumi and, for a moment, it went away. Then it grew louder, and louder, and louder, until I thought everyone else in the station could hear it.
"Is there something wrong?" Koizumi asked.
"Don't you hear it?"
"Indeed I don't. But the problem with my senses is growing much worse. I can barely look straight at you anymore." Almost as soon as he said it his head twisted as if it had been slapped.
The grinding sound terminated with a loud thunk, like a door sliding shut. I did a slow turn, looking around me, until I found what I hadn't known I was looking for.
It had been only a foot behind me- and it hadn't been there two minutes before.
"Koizumi," I said, "the think you said you couldn't see?"
"Do you see it?"
"I see it," I said. "It's a phone box."
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(Posted Sun, 28 Apr 2013 07:07)
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らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
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