Free The Wavering of Haruhi Suzumiya by Nagaru Tanigawa Page B

friends? That we might, like, be dating?”
    “Not even a little bit,” answered Nakagawa without a moment’s hesitation. “You’re into stranger girls. Like back in junior high… I forget what her name was, but you’re not still going out with that one girl?”
    There was plenty wrong with the idea that Nagato herself wasn’t weird, but that was beside the point—this guy seemed to have the wrong idea. I remembered Kunikida being similarly mistaken. That girl was just a friend, and I hadn’t seen her since graduating junior high. This was the first time I’d thought of her in a while. I considered whether I should send her a New Year’s card.
    I started to feel like I was just digging myself in deeper, so I changed the subject.
    “So, what do you want me to tell her? You want to ask her out? Do you just want me to give you her number?”
    “No.”
    Nakagawa’s response was serious.
    “As I am now, I am not worthy to show my face before her. There’s just too much disparity. So that’s why—”
    He paused for effect.
    “—I want you to tell her to wait.”
    “To wait for what?” I asked.
    “To wait for me to come for her. Don’t you see? Right now, I’m just a high school student with no value in society at all.”
    Sure, I thought, but I’m the same way.
    “So it’s just no good. Listen, Kyon. I’m going to throw myselfinto study, starting now. No—I already have. I’ll go straight into a national university.”
    It was good to have goals.
    “I’m going to study economics. I’ll keep working hard, and when I graduate I’ll be at the top of my class. And when I start looking for jobs, I’m not going to go into a government or corporate job, but a smaller company instead.”
    He was laying out a blueprint with no idea whether it was realistic or just a pipe dream. If a demon overheard him, he’d probably die laughing.
    “But I won’t be satisfied with being a member of the proletariat for long. In three years—no, two years—I’ll have gotten the expertise I need to start my own business.”
    Nobody’s going to stop you, so go right ahead, I thought. If I haven’t gotten my act together by then, I’d want him to hire me.
    “I’ll get my company moving in five… no, make that three years, getting listed in the second section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange, with yearly profit growth of at least ten percent—and that’s gross profit, I mean.”
    His spiel was getting harder to follow. But, undaunted, he continued.
    “By that time, I’ll be able to take a breath. My preparations will be ready, you see.”
    “What preparations?”
    “My preparations to receive Nagato.”
    I was as silent as a deep-sea shellfish as Nakagawa’s words battered me like ocean waves.
    “Two years until I graduate from high school, and four years in college. Then two years of on-the-job training, followed by the three years it’ll take me to open my company and get it publicly traded, so that’s eleven years total. No, let’s round it out to an even ten. In ten years I’ll be a worthwhile member of society, so—”
    “Are you completely stupid?”
    I think you’ll understand why I said this. What girl would possibly just sit there and wait for a decade? And for a guy she’d never even met? To be asked to wait for ten years for some guy she’d never even met to come and propose to her, and then just sit there and do it, well—no human could do that. Unfortunately, Nagato wasn’t human.
    I clicked my tongue.
    “I’m serious.”
    He really sounded serious too.
    “I’ll stake my life on it. I mean it.”
    If words could cut, his were slicing right through the telephone wires.
    How was I going to talk him out of it?
    “Listen, Nakagawa…”
    I thought about Nagato’s slender form as she sat alone, reading.
    “… This is just my perspective, but Nagato’s actually pretty popular with the guys. It’s kind of a problem for her, really. You’ve got a pretty good eye for girls, I’ll say