“Where’d you e-mail from?” Haruhi asked.
“Home. We got back today, and I’ve just been lying around the house.”
Asahina got out the mug with a circled tsuru kanji written in permanent marker and handed it to her.
“Couldn’t afford to miss any of the wiretap feed,” she said, like a hardened criminal. “But I had what you’re calling ‘episodes’ written out in advance, so all I had to do was bang out the bodies of the e-mails.”
She flashed a smile my way.
“And just as I was putting my uniform on to head on over here, someone decided to blow out my headphones. I mean, maybe I deserved it, but…”
She took a slurp of the properly sugared blend of tea.
“This trip didn’t require a passport, which made it perfect for springing the mystery story on all of you. We’d have preferred to give it a few more drafts first, but heyo.”
“I know the president looked a bit unhappy,” T said, nibbling at one of the boro. “Nevertheless, he was rightfully concerned that if we missed this opportunity, we’d never get another. Also, these Japanese cookies are rather delish.”
Haruhi took a bite of the yokan she’d been ignoring, then reached for the souvenir cookies.
“You and the mystery club tight?” she asked while closely examining Tsuruya.
Tsuruya made a face, not sure how to answer. “Lie told me their plan, and it sounded like a blast and a half, so I hopped on board. And I’d been wanting to try writing up some stories from my life. Which was pretty tough in practice! I compared notes with that president while I was working on ’em, but it still took way longer than I thought.”
“As a result, we learned a lot about T’s background,” Haruhi said, grinning at our classmate. “And the Notobe clan! I haven’t met any of them, but I feel like I already know Shouko.”
The two non-Brigaders glanced at each other, grinning. Must be an inside thing only people who knew both Shouko and Haruhi would get. Which didn’t include me.
Since the initial flurry seemed to have subsided, I had a question.
“Okay, Tsuruya, how long were you on standby outside the door?”
“Wut? I did no such thing.”
She was a third-year student. King of the school.
“I was just in the hall on my way here when Haru-nyan called. So I just kept going and slammed my way in!”
But once again, your timing was uncanny. It was like an act of god that Haruhi had called you right at that moment, but… Okay, we’ll chalk that one up as a coincidence.
“But how’d you know I was close by?” Tsuruya asked.
“Hunch,” Haruhi declared. Her confidence as boundless as it was baseless. Her way of thinking had never once been constrained by the concept of logic.
“Then say no more,” Tsuruya said. We kept coming back to that one. “Not surprised it was Nagato who picked up on the mic. Can’t fool you!”
The hairpin made its way back to Tsuruya.
How did that flimsy bit of metal manage to pick up all our voices? I really wanted to know how that worked.
Tsuruya closed one eye.
“I could tell you, but you’d have to sign an NDA.”
I had made a rule of not signing things I didn’t understand. You never could tell what might lead to you finding yourself in the French Foreign Legion.
That got a big laugh from her, and she flicked the hairpin into the air.
“Kyon, even with Yukikko’s help, I can’t believe you figured this one out. I was sure no one would notice!”
It was kinda obvious. She never wears a doohickey, then today of all days, she wears one, and it isn’t even holding her hair back? You gotta wonder what’s up. I dunno the names for all the stuff girls put in their hair and can’t exactly hold forth on the finer points of fashion. That’s the only reason I didn’t say anything.
T brushed the cookie crumbs off her skirt.
“I should have started wearing it a few days back to compensate. Only reason I didn’t…”
Because that was the intent, right?
T’s beatific smile was all the answer I needed.
After that, the conversation circled around Tsuruya.
Where she’d been, what she’d been up to, requests to share more travel stories in person, not as essays. Haruhi, T, Asahina, and Nagato all listening to her, absorbed in their girl talk, and as I watched from the outside, someone came over to me.
Koizumi gave me a meaningful glance, and I caught his drift, swallowed the last of my tea, and stood up.
“Gotta hit the can.”
“I’ll join you.”
In the hall outside the room, he shot me that damn faint smile of his.
“That hairpin,” he said. “I feel like I’ve come face-to-face with a Chekhov’s gun.”
A what? Was this like Pavlov’s dog? No, wait. I might have heard of this one. Tell me more about this gun.
“A playwright from the days of the Russian Empire, Anton Chekhov, once said, ‘If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired.’ In other words, an item of significance should not merely be part of the decor; if that item is not part of the story, it should never appear in the first place. An important dramatic principle. Put more simply, don’t use foreshadowing without following up on it. It’s become a core aphorism vis-à-vis plot construction.”
A principle that had yet to have the slightest bearing on my life, then.
“In the case of her hairpin, she was wearing an accessory she’s never worn before—the sort of minute change in routine that Chekhov euphemistically referred to as a gun. Foreshadowing you only picked up on because you see her every day in class.”
It seemed a little too obvious, but they’d clearly wanted it pulling double duty as a bug and a hint. These people were definitely keeping an eye on their consumer-satisfaction index.
“Also,” Koizumi continued, “Chekhov might be most famous for his plays and fiction, but among his many works were some orthodox mysteries. A comedic short story called ‘The Safety Match,’ despite being written over a century ago, reads like a satire of modern mysteries, proving the passage of time has not fundamentally altered our sensibilities, or perhaps that the debates the mystery genre spurs are destined to repeat themselves like the Buddhist cycle of death and—”
Sorry, but I don’t have a euglena’s flagellum of interest in the finer points of Russian literature, so save this topic for T and Nagato.
By this time, we’d reached the men’s room. But I didn’t actually have to go or have any real business in this dimly lit corner of the school building, so for lack of anything better to do, I washed my hands and checked myself in the mirror.
Still, this concept where every item had to serve a purpose was like writer’s bondage. There had to be some useless things around to add visual interest, surely.
Alarm bells started ringing in the corner of my mind.
A hairpin that looked like a simple piece of metal but was actually a directional mic. A bit of tech that was hard to believe modern science was capable of making. Show that to anyone not aware of the background, and they’d think you were lying to them. At best, they’d say:
It’s like an OOPArt!
Reminded me of the fake-treasure-map mess Haruhi got us mixed up in back in February.
That day, I’d told Tsuruya where to dig, and she’d obtained a device. I’d seen a photo of it.
It was a metal rod about ten centimeters long. An alloy of titanium and cesium, which made no sense for an object supposedly buried there for three hundred years.
…I couldn’t escape the feeling that we’d need that artifact eventually.
Was that a harbinger?
“No, can’t be,” I muttered, talking to myself. I could tell Koizumi was giving me a look. But he soon realized I was still thinking and left me to it.
Tsuruya was a lot, but she wasn’t a superpowered wonder girl. Unlike Nagato, Asahina, and Koizumi, there was nothing about her beyond the ken of any mere mortals. The fact that she was still not a permanent member of the club proved it. Even if she had any supernatural powers, Haruhi’s unconscious power would long ago have assigned her to the SOS Brigade’s roster—or ensured she was a founding member.
The fact that this had not happened proved she was actually normal.
Tsuruya was involved with the club but kept her distance; whether that decision was based on raw instinct or some level of conscious understanding, I couldn’t tell, but I liked her where she was.
She was the one upperclassman I could count on in a pinch. Except when it came to alien/future/esper-based sci-fi gadgetry.
Why not? Well, she might be as proactive as Haruhi, and her family might have the structural power of Koizumi’s agency, but she wasn’t like them—she was a normal person residing in the realm of common sense. Ordinary high schoolers could hardly be expected to deal with Data Overminds, Kuyoh Suoh, or hostile time travelers.
So I couldn’t count on her for that kind of stuff.
I’d just have to handle those things myself. The mystery metal rod Tsuruya was holding on to was definitely a thing I’d have to deal with in due time.
But that notion was tugging at the back of my mind, like a mild premonition.
I had no such powers, so it was definitely just gut instinct, probably not worth taking seriously, but…
“Then again, you didn’t accompany me here to discuss Russian firearms, did you?” I said, drying my hands with my handkerchief.
“When did you realize the truth?” Koizumi asked, doing the same.
What truth?
“I had it pegged at midway through Episode Two.”
He put his handkerchief in his pocket.
“You make an excellent Watson,” he said. “You ask perfect questions with perfect timing.”
Timing was clearly gonna be the word of the day.