Everyone has their own daily routine, for me it goes something like this on school days. Get woken up by my devil of a little sister, brush teeth, get dressed, eat breakfast and go on a long harsh walk up the hill between my home and North High. Then follows a generally boring school day, at least unless it is a test day, then replace that with a unreasonable amount of of stress.
Finally with school over, I would end up wandering down the hallways and open the door to the SOS brigade club room. Formerly the literature club’s. Though I wasn’t sure if it wasn’t still officially theirs if I were honest. There I lose gracefully to a smirking bastard at chess and enjoy the presence of the adorable Mikuru Asahina while the quietest member of our group reads some kind of advanced psychology book in the corner.
That routine is then broken to pieces the moment the ‘leader’ of our glorious SOS brigade opens the door and greets us in a pointlessly loud manner. "Hello to my wonderful SOS Brigade! Pursuers of truth unparalleled since Sir Isaac Newton!"
I'm pretty sure Albert Einstein, Stephen Hawking, and countless other physicists and mathematicians would have something to say about that. But then, it wasn’t like Haruhi ever cared about the state of reality, rather preferring to focus on whatever delusion she was putting together.. Oh, if only these delusions couldn’t warp reality.
“My adorable brigade members, look what I got!” And there she went, pulling a large chalkboard on wheels into the room. Just about small enough that it fit into the door, but it was close.
“Found this little baby just standing around in an old dusty storeroom. Isn’t it perfect for theorizing and making plans?” Oh right, that was our Haruhi, grabbing whatever she wanted from wherever she wanted without asking for permission. And that was if she felt nice. I still felt bad for the computer club’s president and that unfortunate case of blackmail she had used on him.
“Ah Miss Suzumiya, have you discovered a mystery in need of researching?” And there Koizumi asked the million dollar question, somehow managing to stay calm and friendly even though we both knew something stupid was going to come out of Haruhi’s mouth.
“Hah! A good question my right hand man. Now the answer is an important one!” She raised a piece of white chalk and made a circle, then draw another circle inside that circle. “So far we have always searched for mysteries, for aliens, time travellers, espers and sliders outside of our school.” To punctuate that statement, she wrote the kanji for school inside the inner circle and the one for outside in the outer circle.
“Yes? Are you saying there are aliens hiding in the school toilets?” I couldn’t quite contain a little mocking sarcasm entering my voice even though I knew it was probably wasted. I glanced over towards Yuki, the actual alien present, who had was still reading her book, only momentarily glancing up to check if what was being said was important to her.
“Of course not! But, we must be aware of the possibility that there is some kind of mystery within our school. After all, which place is best to hide from someone than that person's own backyard?” Haruhi continued on with that wide dangerous smile of hers.
I just hoped that didn’t mean we would have to start digging through that girl’s backyard, because I really wasn’t the type for gardening. Still, I watched intently as our leader continued smiling, mostly because that generally precedes some degree of suffering for me.
“Awawa.. w-what sort of mysteries could there be inside the school though?” It was unusual for the sweet miss Asahina to speak up in this sort of situation. But perhaps she was just as worried as me that something ridiculous would happen. Especially since she tended to be forced into all sorts of revealing outfits at such times..
“Hoho, why I already have quite a few things for you to check out. But let us start with #1.” Oh great, I just hoped we wouldn’t have to deal with any sudden monster attacks like that one time-
“You see, I believe that our classmate Taniguchi is secretly a vampire!” My face hit the table with enough force to make it hurt. Oh, oh god this was it? Haruhi had finally lost all pretense of common sense and was now just making up shit on the fly..
“Isn’t that a little unlikely Miss Suzumiya? I may only be an exchange student, but I have seen Taniguchi walking in broad daylight.” Oh, it felt so odd to hear Koizumi of all people being the voice of reason trying to draw Haruhi away from a mad plan. But then, this was probably a bit too ridiculous even for his taste.
“Ah! I am disappointed Itsuki, think about it, this is the 21st century. We have sunscreen for that.” Sunscreen..? Seriously. “Also, I did my research, Bram Stoker's novel has the Count walk around during the day. For all that we know, this thing with the sunlight is nothing but nonsense made up by later authors!”
“Wait, wait.. Why did you even think Taniguchi of all people is a vampire?” I wasn’t even sure if I wanted to understand this girl’s mind, but I couldn’t stop myself. He was a friend after all, had to at least defend him a little.
“Why, it is of course because he always drinks blood during lunch!” I blinked.. then blinked a few more times because my bafflement couldn’t be contained.
“Wait, that is just tomato juice, he is addicted to that stuff but it doesn’t make it human blood of all things!“ I answered, unable to contain a note of force at the inanity she was producing today.
“Oh, really? Well perhaps you are right?” Wait, she backed down there a bit too easily. “But we will need to test this first.”
Without another word she started writing on the Chalkboard again.
“Taniguchi is secretly a vampire.”
As soon as I read these words, I felt panic bubble up inside me. How had Haruhi come to this conclusion? I had known Taniguchi for years now, and he has never visibly grown or started to look older. Not to mention his paleness.. And there was his odd defensiveness about others taking a sip from his “tomato juice” even when someone had forgotten their lunch. And of course there was the fact that he tended to be sleepy during the day but got more and more active as dusk approached.
I had always had suspicions, but with Haruhi herself voicing this out here.. She was probably right.
“Oh yes, we must of course discover his secrets, also!”
”Taniguchi is secretly a crossdressing girl.”
“Haha! See, it all makes sense, the way she acts all perverted is probably just a way to trick us. Not to mention the crossdressing acts as a perfect distraction from the vampire part, if she gets discovered, then she can use that to take away people’s focus from the important part!”
Oh.. this was really damn awkward. I had of course known, we had been friends for years after all. But the thought that she did it just to distract from her potential vampirism.. Now that I think about it though, I had never found out how she managed to make the school let her wear the school uniform for boys.. Had she used some weird vampire powers to do that?
“Now, I want you to come up with ideas on how to discover the true nature of Taniguchi! This will be our first new goal! Part one of the School Mystery Examination Project” She said, writing down the last part on the Chalkboard.
Nodding to herself and still smiling, our oh so glorious leader gave a wave and turned on the spot. “I am going to a church and get some crosses and holy water. I expect your own suggestions at the next meeting!”
And there she went, vanishing through the door like a whirlwind. Probably out to steal some priest out of said objects, or perhaps make up some nonsense about wanting to convert to christianity. Oh, I wasn’t sure if these things would actually work, but I didn’t want to find out.
“Well, this is quite problematic, isn’t it?” Koizumi spoke up, and I turned to find him frowning, the closest he ever showed to genuine panic.
“Oh, oh, this is bad, Taniguchi isn’t supposed to be discovered until Classified Information at Classified Information.” Well, that at least showed that this was indeed not just me imagining things.
“Ah, I had a theory, but wasn’t sure if it was true..” I said, turning from one member of our group to the next. Even Yuki was staring, a serious look in her eyes. Even if she didn’t speak, that girl could manage to bring quite a bit across with a single glance if you knew how to read her.
“So.. what do we do?” I asked.
“We will need to make a plan.” Koizumi said, not saying anything more than that.
Sun Oct 06 17:34:09 2019
2 comments Last updated: Mon Oct 7 16:58:01 2019