Free The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya by Nagaru Tanigawa Page A

You’re black so you’re placing black pieces while trying to surround white pieces. Surrounded white pieces become black. Whoever has more pieces at the end wins.”
    “Affirmative.”
    Nagato placed her pieces in an elegant fashion and clumsily began changing her opponent’s pieces to her own.
    Asahina, with a new opponent, began acting rather strangely. It looked like her fingers were trembling, and she refused to look up. On top of that, she repeatedly snuck glances at Nagato before quickly looking away. It was like she wasn’t even paying attention to the game. Black quickly took an advantage across the board.
    What was going on? Asahina seemed overly conscious of Nagato. I had no idea why.
    The match quickly ended in an overwhelming victory for black, and just when they were about to begin the next match, the root of all our troubles appeared with a new sacrifice in tow.
    “Hey, sorry for the wait!”
    That would be Haruhi’s fundamentally flawed attempt at a greeting as she firmly gripped a male first year’s sleeve.
    “This is the transfer student from class 1–9 who arrived today and is already making himself useful! His name is…”
    She cut off at that point directing a look behind her suggesting that he should handle the rest. The captive young man smiled thinly and turned to the three of us.
    “Itsuki Koizumi. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
    A slender guy who had the whole energetic athlete feel to him. A tactful smile. Benign eyes. He was handsome enough that if they took a picture of him in some random pose and stuck it on one of those supermarket flyers, he’d attract a solid group of diehard fans. He’ll probably be pretty popular if he happens to be a nice guy to boot.
    “This is the SOS Brigade. I’m the brigade chief, Haruhi Suzumiya. Those three are members number one, number two, and number three. And incidentally, you’re the fourth one. Everyone get along now!”
    If that’s your idea of an introduction, I’d rather you not introduce us at all. The only things established were your name and the transfer student’s name.
    “I have no problems with joining.”
    The transfer student, Itsuki Koizumi, said this while maintaining a composed smile on his face.
    “But what does this club do?”
    If you put one hundred different people in this situation, all one hundred of them would ask this same question, looking for the answer so many people have sought. The same answer which has consistently eluded me. If you managed to find somebody who could explain Fermat’s last theorem, he still wouldn’t be able to answer this question. If someone out there can explain something he doesn’t know anything about, he’s got some incredible swindling skills. However, Haruhi wasn’t even fazed. In fact, she even had a fearless smile on her face as she looked at us one by one before speaking.
    “I’ll tell you just what activities the SOS Brigade engages in. Those would be…”
    She took a deep breath. Was she trying to be dramatic or had she just been waiting to say these words? Whatever the case, Haruhi proceeded to speak the shocking truth.
    “To find aliens, time travelers, and espers and to have fun with them!”
    I could feel the entire world grinding to a halt.
    Just kidding. My reaction was more along the lines of “thought so.” But the same couldn’t be said for the remaining three people in the room.
    Asahina was completely petrified. Her eyes and mouth formed three perfect circles as she stood frozen, staring at Haruhi’s blossoming smile. Yuki Nagato wasn’t moving either. She stayed motionless with her head tilted towards Haruhi, looking like her batteries had died. I got the impression that her eyes had widened, just a little bit, which was unexpected. I guess even I-have-no-emotions girl was surprised.
    Last was Itsuki Koizumi. He was standing with an expression that could be interpreted as a smile either out of bitter mocking or plain surprise. Koizumi was the first to