The story of a North High student (Part 1)
Note: This part based on The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya (涼宮ハルヒの憂鬱) novel, but summarized in a 3rd person point of view. Reason I'm doing this is that I'm stumped as to what to write for my stories. This part, however, has too much important details that very few are skipped.
Kyon never believed in Santa, he knew that that the Santa that appeared in kindergarten was a fake. However he still wants to believe that there are aliens, time-travelers, ghosts, monsters and espers.
After middle school, he completely grew out of that fantasy world and became grounded in reality. Mankind did not go beyond the moon in 1999, let having anyone to take a trip to Alpha Centaur being possible in his lifetime. As for the name "Kyon", his aunt that he has no seen for a long time started it with "My goodness, Kyon has grown so big!". His sister thought that it was funny and his friends called him that too when they heard his sister doing so.
Kyon's life was just a normal, carefree high school student, until he met Haruhi Suzumiya.
Kyon regretted choosing the school at such a high hill that it would be torturing just climb up in the summer. Each time he is reminded of this, he has to do it for the rest of his high school days.
Guys were wearing sport jackets, and the girls were wearing sailor uniforms: an odd combination. After the entrance ended, he entered the 1-5 classroom.
His homeroom teacher, Okabe-sensei, gave a self-introduction. He is their PE teacher and talked about how great handball was during his university days. It seem that he could go on forever until he suddenly asked the class to introduce themselves.
Everyone took their turns to introduce themselves. Kyon gave his very short introduction before the person behind him goes next. He won't forget the words she said:
"I am Haruhi Suzumiya, graduated from East Middle School. Normal humans don't interest me. If there's anyone who is an alien, time traveler, or an esper, please come and find me. That's all!"
Haruhi looked around to see the speechless faces of her classmates and then at Kyon before sitting down. Based on her conclusion and her solemn face, she wasn't trying to be dramatic or funny: She is always serious.
The tense atmosphere of long silence was only lifted when the teacher indicated Taniguchi to continue.
Some days later Kyon turned around to talk to Haruhi about the introduction. Her arms crossed her chest and lips sealed together and stared at him.
"Hey, the stuff you said in your introduction, were you serious?"
"What about it?"
"Aliens and all that stuff..."
"Are you an alien?", she said with a serious look.
"...No."
"If not, what do you want?"
"...It's nothing"
"Then don't talk to me. You're wasting my time!", she said with a cold stare.
Kyon wanted to talk to her even more, but can't think of anything good to say. Fortunately, the homeroom teacher entering at that time saved him. He turned to his desk to see that most of his classmates were looking at him with great interest and the same feeble expression on their faces. He learned later on that they graduated from East Middle School too.
Not wanting others to think that Kyon is a loner during lunch, he ate with his middle school classmate, Kunikida, and someone who graduated from East Middle School, Taniguchi, with him.
"Did you try to talk to Suzumiya?" Taniguchi asked. Kyon nodded.
"And then she said some weird stuff and you don't know how to react?"
"That's right!"
"If she's interested in you, she wouldn't say weird stuff like that. All I can advice you is to give up! You should know by now that she's not normal. I was in her class for 3 years. I know how she is. I thought she would at least try to control herself after she got into senior high; apparently she hasn't. You herd her right?"
"You mean the alien stuff?" said Kunikida.
"Yeah, that. Even back in middle school, she always said and did lots of weird things. For example, there was this school vandalizing incident."
"What happened?"
"There's this tool where you use plaster dust to draw field lines, right? What is it called... Anyway, she sneaked into school at night and, with that thing, drew a very huge symbol in the middle of the field.", said Taniguchi as he was remembering the incident.
"That as so shocking. I went to school early that morning, and all I saw were big circles and triangles. I couldn't figure out what they were supposed to be, so I went up to the fourth floor to
get a bird's eye view. That didn't help: I still didn't know what that symbol was."
"Ah, I think I saw that before. Didn't the newspaper have a story on it? It even had a helicopter view of it! The symbol looked like a broken Nazca pictogram," Kunikida said.
Kyon doesn't remember hearing about it before.
"I saw the article, I saw it. The headline was something like 'Mystery Vandal Strikes Middle School At Night,' right? Well, care to guess who pulled that stunt?"
"Don't tell me it's her."
"She admitted it herself. There's no mistaking it. Naturally, she got called into the principal's office. Every teacher was there, questioning her on why she did it."
"Why did she do it, then?"
"I don't know," Taniguchi answered flatly.
"I heard she refused to say anything. Of course, when you're getting glared at by her, you tend to give up on whatever you're planning. Someone said that she drew the symbol to call out to UFOs, others said that it was a magic symbol and was used in summoning monsters, or that she was trying to open a portal to different worlds, etc... There were many speculations, but as long as the perpetrator refuses to talk, we may never know if those rumors are true or not. To this day it's still a mystery, but that's not all!"
He continued to finish his lunch.
"Once I came to the classroom in the morning and discovered that all the desks were moved out to the corridor, or that there were printed stars on the school roof. Another time she was going
around the school Ofuda all over the place... you know, those Chinese ones where you put the paper talisman on a vampire's forehead. I just can't understand her."
Haruhi seem take and unusually long time if she had headed to the cafeteria during lunch. Other odd things Kyon notices about her include:
Quite soon, there was not a single person who didn't know who Haruhi Suzumiya was even though they might not know who the principal was.
The May after the Golden Week arrived.
"Hey, Kyon", said Taniguchi as he approached him from behind. "Where did you go for Golden Week?"
"Took my little sister to see my grandmother in the countryside."
"How boring"
"Fine, what did you do then?"
"Part time jobs all the way!"
"You don't look like that kind of person..."
"Kyon, you are in high school now. Why do you still bring your sister to your grandparents? You got to at least look like a high school student.
"It is a tradition of my family's to have a cousin gathering during Golden Week," Kyon replied.
Haruhi was already sitting at the desk behind his when he entered, staring at the outside. Her hairstyle suggests that it's Wednesday. Before he knew it, he was talking to Haruhi.
"Do you change your hair style each day because of the aliens?"
"When did you notice?"
"Hmm... for a while."
"Really?" Haruhi put her chin on her palm, looking irritated.
"At least that's what I think, because you look and feel different to me everyday."
"For color: Monday is yellow, Tuesday is red, Wednesday is blue, Thursday is green, Friday is gold, Saturday is brown, and Sunday is white. Then that means if we use numbers to represent the color, Monday is zero and Sunday is six, right?"
"That's correct."
"But shouldn’t Monday be one?"
"Who asked for your opinion?", Haruhi scowled at him.
"Have I seen you somewhere before? A long time ago?"
"Don't think so."
Okabe-sensei soon entered the classroom, and their first conversation ended. What shocked Kyon the most was that Haruhi actually answered properly. He originally thought that she would go like, “You are annoying, moron, shut up! Whatever!”
The next day, instead of tying three ponytails, Haruhi had cut her long and slender hair short. The waist length hair has been shortened to shoulder length. Though Kyon finds the hairstyle to suit her, her cutting her hair the day after he talked to her about it is just strange. When asked for her reason, however:
"No reason."
She answered with her trademark irritated tone but didn't show any sort of special expression. Kyon had expected that kind of reply.
"Did you really try to join all the clubs? Is there a club that is more fun than the others? I'd like to consider joining some myself."
"None." Haruhi answered flatly. "Absolutely none."
She emphasizes this again, then slowly let out a breath.
"I thought that high school would be a bit better. In the end it's the same as mandatory education. Nothing changes at all. Looks like I joined the wrong school."
"I overheard something the other day... It's not something important anyway... Did you really dump all your boyfriends?"
"Did that Taniguchi tell you about it? God, I can't believe that I'm in the same class as that idiot even after I graduated middle school. He isn't one of those stalking psychos, is he?”'
"I don't think so"
"I don't know what you heard, but it doesn't matter, most of them are true anyway."
"Isn't there someone out there you want to have a serious relationship with?"
"Absolutely no one! Every single one of them is a moron, I just can't engage in any serious relationship with them. Each one of them would ask me to meet him at the train station on Sunday, then for sure we would go to movies, amusement park, or to a ball game. The first time we eat together would always be a lunch date then we would rush off to a café to drink tea. At the end of the day they
would always say 'see you tomorrow'!"
"I don't see anything wrong with that!"
"Then, without fail, they would confess over the phone. What the Hell! This kind of important things should at least be told face-to-face!!"
"Hmm, you are right. I would ask the girl out and tell her directly."
"Who the hell cares about you!"
"The problem is, are all the boys in this world such dim-witted creatures? I have been agitated by this question since middle school."
"Then, what kind of boy would you consider 'interesting'? Is it going to be aliens after all?"
"I am fine with aliens or similar things as long as they are not normal. Be they male or female."
"Why do you always insist on something other than human?"
"Because humans are no fun at all!"
"That... maybe you are right."
"THAT'S WHY!"
Haruhi suddenly stood up and knocked her chair down, causing everyone to turn and look at her. That was when Okabe-sensei rushed in.
"Sorry I am late..."
"THAT’S WHY I AM WORKING SO HARD!!"
"Er... Homeroom is about to start!"
Haruhi sat back down. The teacher was disoriented from Haruhi's yelling.
After class, Taniguchi, with his mystified face, tried to corner Kyon.
"What kind of magical spell did you cast?"
"What magical spell?"
"This is the first time I've seen Suzumiya talk to a person for so long! What did you guys talk about?"
"Kyon has a history of liking strange girls," Kunikida popped up from behind Taniguchi.
"It doesn't matter if Kyon likes strange girls. What I can't understand is why Suzumiya would talk to you? I don't get it at all."
"Maybe Kyon is as weird as her?"
"Probably. I mean you can't expect someone with a nickname like Kyon to be normal."
"I want to know too," said the voice of a cheerful girl that came out of nowhere. It was Ryouko Asakura, she was elected as the class representative during the previous lengthy homeroom session.
"I tried talking to Suzumiya-san a few times already but nothing came of it. Could you teach me how I should talk to her?"
"I dunno."
"I am so relieved now. She can't go on being isolated from her classmates like that, so it's great that you've become her friend.”
"Friend, huh?"
"You need to continue helping Suzumiya-san so that she can get along with the class. We're in the same class after all so we're counting on you!"
"If there is anything I need to tell Suzumiya-san, I could just ask you to pass the message to her!"
"Hold on! I'm not her spokesman!"
"Please?" she asked sincerely, putting her palms together.
Asakura took Kyon's "um" and "ahh" as a yes and went back to the other girls. They were looking at him too.
"Kyon, we are good friends right...?" Taniguchi asked, staring at him suspiciously.
"What the hell is going on here?"
Even Kunikida, with his eyes closed and arms crossed on his chest, nodded.
Kyon never believed in Santa, he knew that that the Santa that appeared in kindergarten was a fake. However he still wants to believe that there are aliens, time-travelers, ghosts, monsters and espers.After middle school, he completely grew out of that fantasy world and became grounded in reality. Mankind did not go beyond the moon in 1999, let having anyone to take a trip to Alpha Centaur being possible in his lifetime. As for the name "Kyon", his aunt that he has no seen for a long time started it with "My goodness, Kyon has grown so big!". His sister thought that it was funny and his friends called him that too when they heard his sister doing so.
Kyon's life was just a normal, carefree high school student, until he met Haruhi Suzumiya.
Kyon regretted choosing the school at such a high hill that it would be torturing just climb up in the summer. Each time he is reminded of this, he has to do it for the rest of his high school days.
Guys were wearing sport jackets, and the girls were wearing sailor uniforms: an odd combination. After the entrance ended, he entered the 1-5 classroom.
His homeroom teacher, Okabe-sensei, gave a self-introduction. He is their PE teacher and talked about how great handball was during his university days. It seem that he could go on forever until he suddenly asked the class to introduce themselves.
Everyone took their turns to introduce themselves. Kyon gave his very short introduction before the person behind him goes next. He won't forget the words she said:
Haruhi looked around to see the speechless faces of her classmates and then at Kyon before sitting down. Based on her conclusion and her solemn face, she wasn't trying to be dramatic or funny: She is always serious.
The tense atmosphere of long silence was only lifted when the teacher indicated Taniguchi to continue.
Some days later Kyon turned around to talk to Haruhi about the introduction. Her arms crossed her chest and lips sealed together and stared at him.
"What about it?"
"Aliens and all that stuff..."
"Are you an alien?", she said with a serious look.
"...No."
"If not, what do you want?"
"...It's nothing"
"Then don't talk to me. You're wasting my time!", she said with a cold stare.
Kyon wanted to talk to her even more, but can't think of anything good to say. Fortunately, the homeroom teacher entering at that time saved him. He turned to his desk to see that most of his classmates were looking at him with great interest and the same feeble expression on their faces. He learned later on that they graduated from East Middle School too.Not wanting others to think that Kyon is a loner during lunch, he ate with his middle school classmate, Kunikida, and someone who graduated from East Middle School, Taniguchi, with him.
"And then she said some weird stuff and you don't know how to react?"
"That's right!"
"If she's interested in you, she wouldn't say weird stuff like that. All I can advice you is to give up! You should know by now that she's not normal. I was in her class for 3 years. I know how she is. I thought she would at least try to control herself after she got into senior high; apparently she hasn't. You herd her right?"
"You mean the alien stuff?" said Kunikida.
"Yeah, that. Even back in middle school, she always said and did lots of weird things. For example, there was this school vandalizing incident."
"What happened?"
"There's this tool where you use plaster dust to draw field lines, right? What is it called... Anyway, she sneaked into school at night and, with that thing, drew a very huge symbol in the middle of the field.", said Taniguchi as he was remembering the incident.
"That as so shocking. I went to school early that morning, and all I saw were big circles and triangles. I couldn't figure out what they were supposed to be, so I went up to the fourth floor to
get a bird's eye view. That didn't help: I still didn't know what that symbol was."
"Ah, I think I saw that before. Didn't the newspaper have a story on it? It even had a helicopter view of it! The symbol looked like a broken Nazca pictogram," Kunikida said.Kyon doesn't remember hearing about it before.
"I saw the article, I saw it. The headline was something like 'Mystery Vandal Strikes Middle School At Night,' right? Well, care to guess who pulled that stunt?"
"Don't tell me it's her."
"She admitted it herself. There's no mistaking it. Naturally, she got called into the principal's office. Every teacher was there, questioning her on why she did it."
"Why did she do it, then?"
"I don't know," Taniguchi answered flatly.
"I heard she refused to say anything. Of course, when you're getting glared at by her, you tend to give up on whatever you're planning. Someone said that she drew the symbol to call out to UFOs, others said that it was a magic symbol and was used in summoning monsters, or that she was trying to open a portal to different worlds, etc... There were many speculations, but as long as the perpetrator refuses to talk, we may never know if those rumors are true or not. To this day it's still a mystery, but that's not all!"
He continued to finish his lunch.
"Once I came to the classroom in the morning and discovered that all the desks were moved out to the corridor, or that there were printed stars on the school roof. Another time she was going
around the school Ofuda all over the place... you know, those Chinese ones where you put the paper talisman on a vampire's forehead. I just can't understand her."
Haruhi seem take and unusually long time if she had headed to the cafeteria during lunch. Other odd things Kyon notices about her include:
- She changes her hairstyle every day with a pattern of some kind.
- When changing for PE, class 1-5 and 1-6 would combine with the girls and boys separated. Girls would change at 1-5 and boys at 1-6. Unfortunately, at the end of the period before, Haruhi started changing before the guys had even left without caring. Ryouko Asakura requested the guys to leave the classroom as soon the bell rang.
- At the end of every period, Haruhi would go missing and at the end of school, she would grab her bag and shoot straight out. Turns out that she would go and participate all the clubs in the school, but leaves them shortly, despite persuasion from the club. Her explanation was: "It is annoying for me to do the same club activity everyday." At the end of the day, she didn't join any clubs.
Quite soon, there was not a single person who didn't know who Haruhi Suzumiya was even though they might not know who the principal was.
The May after the Golden Week arrived.
"Took my little sister to see my grandmother in the countryside."
"How boring"
"Fine, what did you do then?"
"Part time jobs all the way!"
"You don't look like that kind of person..."
"Kyon, you are in high school now. Why do you still bring your sister to your grandparents? You got to at least look like a high school student.
"It is a tradition of my family's to have a cousin gathering during Golden Week," Kyon replied.
"Do you change your hair style each day because of the aliens?"
"When did you notice?"
"Hmm... for a while."
"Really?" Haruhi put her chin on her palm, looking irritated.
"At least that's what I think, because you look and feel different to me everyday."
"For color: Monday is yellow, Tuesday is red, Wednesday is blue, Thursday is green, Friday is gold, Saturday is brown, and Sunday is white. Then that means if we use numbers to represent the color, Monday is zero and Sunday is six, right?"
"That's correct."
"But shouldn’t Monday be one?"
"Who asked for your opinion?", Haruhi scowled at him.
"Have I seen you somewhere before? A long time ago?"
"Don't think so."
Okabe-sensei soon entered the classroom, and their first conversation ended. What shocked Kyon the most was that Haruhi actually answered properly. He originally thought that she would go like, “You are annoying, moron, shut up! Whatever!”
The next day, instead of tying three ponytails, Haruhi had cut her long and slender hair short. The waist length hair has been shortened to shoulder length. Though Kyon finds the hairstyle to suit her, her cutting her hair the day after he talked to her about it is just strange. When asked for her reason, however:
"No reason."She answered with her trademark irritated tone but didn't show any sort of special expression. Kyon had expected that kind of reply.
"Did you really try to join all the clubs? Is there a club that is more fun than the others? I'd like to consider joining some myself."
"None." Haruhi answered flatly. "Absolutely none."
She emphasizes this again, then slowly let out a breath.
"I thought that high school would be a bit better. In the end it's the same as mandatory education. Nothing changes at all. Looks like I joined the wrong school."
"I overheard something the other day... It's not something important anyway... Did you really dump all your boyfriends?"
"Did that Taniguchi tell you about it? God, I can't believe that I'm in the same class as that idiot even after I graduated middle school. He isn't one of those stalking psychos, is he?”'
"I don't think so"
"I don't know what you heard, but it doesn't matter, most of them are true anyway."
"Isn't there someone out there you want to have a serious relationship with?"
"Absolutely no one! Every single one of them is a moron, I just can't engage in any serious relationship with them. Each one of them would ask me to meet him at the train station on Sunday, then for sure we would go to movies, amusement park, or to a ball game. The first time we eat together would always be a lunch date then we would rush off to a café to drink tea. At the end of the day they
would always say 'see you tomorrow'!"
"I don't see anything wrong with that!"
"Then, without fail, they would confess over the phone. What the Hell! This kind of important things should at least be told face-to-face!!"
"Hmm, you are right. I would ask the girl out and tell her directly."
"Who the hell cares about you!"
"The problem is, are all the boys in this world such dim-witted creatures? I have been agitated by this question since middle school."
"Then, what kind of boy would you consider 'interesting'? Is it going to be aliens after all?"
"I am fine with aliens or similar things as long as they are not normal. Be they male or female."
"Why do you always insist on something other than human?"
"Because humans are no fun at all!"
"That... maybe you are right."
"THAT'S WHY!"
Haruhi suddenly stood up and knocked her chair down, causing everyone to turn and look at her. That was when Okabe-sensei rushed in.
"Sorry I am late..."
"THAT’S WHY I AM WORKING SO HARD!!"
"Er... Homeroom is about to start!"
Haruhi sat back down. The teacher was disoriented from Haruhi's yelling.
"What kind of magical spell did you cast?"
"What magical spell?"
"This is the first time I've seen Suzumiya talk to a person for so long! What did you guys talk about?"
"Kyon has a history of liking strange girls," Kunikida popped up from behind Taniguchi.
"It doesn't matter if Kyon likes strange girls. What I can't understand is why Suzumiya would talk to you? I don't get it at all."
"Maybe Kyon is as weird as her?"
"Probably. I mean you can't expect someone with a nickname like Kyon to be normal."
"I want to know too," said the voice of a cheerful girl that came out of nowhere. It was Ryouko Asakura, she was elected as the class representative during the previous lengthy homeroom session.
"I tried talking to Suzumiya-san a few times already but nothing came of it. Could you teach me how I should talk to her?"
"I dunno."
"I am so relieved now. She can't go on being isolated from her classmates like that, so it's great that you've become her friend.”
"Friend, huh?"
"You need to continue helping Suzumiya-san so that she can get along with the class. We're in the same class after all so we're counting on you!"
"If there is anything I need to tell Suzumiya-san, I could just ask you to pass the message to her!"
"Hold on! I'm not her spokesman!"
"Please?" she asked sincerely, putting her palms together.
Asakura took Kyon's "um" and "ahh" as a yes and went back to the other girls. They were looking at him too.
"What the hell is going on here?"
Even Kunikida, with his eyes closed and arms crossed on his chest, nodded.
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