The Surprise of Haruko Arakawa

"The book is called WHAT?"

"I told you, I don't remember! It's been a while. If you don't shut up we're both gonna get in trouble," Haruko said.

She swung into our classroom. I paused to leave a comfortable gap of time before following in after her. Luckily, our homeroom teacher, Ms. Yamada, hadn't yet arrived. This time, on the way to my seat, I was the one to stare down the girl who sat behind me.

"Oh, hey!" Takamoto, the boy who sat next to me, caught my attention with a friendly gesture. "I almost thought you weren't going to show up today."

"Yeah, that bell does not give you enough time to get here."

"Really? The school isn't that big, I mean unless you were on the third floor or something."

Or outside by the club buildings. Though, I guess Takamoto wouldn't have expected me to be in a club yet. Speaking of which, who the hell goes to club before class?

As much as the case of the mysterious cloaked girl interested me, I was more interested in the book Haruko mentioned. Any avid fan of light novels, hell, any fan of anime as a whole will have likely heard of The Melancholy of… yeah, you know it. But how exactly did it prove she was a god?

I leaned over the back of my chair and for a brief moment, I wondered how many more times I would be doing that in the year.

"You're going to have to explain to me how that book proves anything."

"The way you keep talking about it sounds like you've heard of it," Haruko said.

"OF COURSE—"

I stopped myself, getting a little too loud; nearly the entire class looked over at me.

"Of course I've heard of it, I've read the damn thing."

"Oh! That'll make this way easier!" she said. "Hmm… you know what? I'm still gonna need to see it. I can barely remember the characters' names."

I rolled my eyes so intensely that it nearly knocked me off my chair. Too bad it didn't, I could've fallen and hit my head hard enough to forget everything I've had to endure so far. Who am I kidding? This girl would probably force the memories back in me.

"Why don't you just tell me how a book can prove—"

Takamoto interrupted me this time, tugging my sleeve rather harshly and bringing my attention towards Ms. Yamada, who had entered the class silently. Talk about frustrating. Not you, Takamoto. I owe you one.

The rest of the classes until lunch were hell. One of them was painfully dry, the other was a review of what I'd done over the summer, and the last was more icebreakers. Once the free lunch period rolled around, Haruko began rustling through my bag unprompted.

"Did you lose something?" I asked with as much sarcasm as Mr. Horiguchi.

"Where the heck do you keep your lunch?"

I tenderly shoved her off of the bag and pulled the lunchbox out myself.

"Great! Now come on already!" She stood there, already stuffing her face with an onigiri.

"You see, I would come if I hadn't promised to eat lunch with Takamoto over here."

The boy looked at me, puzzled for a moment before catching on. "Oh, yeah! That's true. I was looking forward to talking about uh… Striker Masters!"

Is that even a real game?

Haruko made the face of a disappointed lizard. "Fine, you can come too."

I looked over at Takamoto and mouthed sorry. He said something back that looked like screw you, but that didn't seem right.

With the two of us in tow, Haruko weaved her way through the maze of desks and bags and outstretched legs. It was clearly not her first time. On our way out the door, Mr. Horiguchi gave us some nasty side-eye too. Seriously Takamoto, my bad miscalculating this one. If we end up getting in trouble because of this, I'll let you borrow my computer or something.

"We're headed to that clubroom? I thought you told her we would be back after school, not in the middle of it."

"Change of plans! It'll take too long if we can't find Mr. Booky-book. Plus, I still want to get home before dark." She saw my mildly confused look and clarified, "Parents, y'know?"

Being reminded of Haruko's parents was somehow jarring. What kinds of people raised a girl like this?

Before we made it out of the main school building, Haruko took a turn upstairs.

"You two can wait down here, it'll look suspicious if there's three of us," she said.

Fine by me, we could finally sit and eat. Or at least we could've if she hadn't reappeared before we had the chance to sit down. There was another person following close behind her. I almost hadn't recognized the girl without her cloak on.

In the daylight, her otherworldly beauty was clear as the day itself. She stood much taller than I'd have expected and her face was flawlessly proportioned. Her long, straight, silver hair framed it as if planned out by a painter.

"Let's go!" Haruko said.

She started off towards the exit without allowing anyone a moment to meet each other. For a second, I thought I heard Takamoto groan. I bowed my head to greet the mysterious girl, and again she looked at me as if my existence itself was a shock. Would you stop it with that already?

Upon arriving at the clubroom, Haruko politely asked Takamoto to wait outside and "keep watch" for us, whatever that meant. For some reason, Takamoto obliged, even though Haruko had addressed him as "Tako-moto" which has many potential interpretations, one of which is: originating from octopuses. Or is it octopi? Either way, don't worry buddy, I know you're not an octopus.

Closing the door and locking it behind her, Haruko immediately headed to the back wall and drew the curtains wide open. With the plume of dust they gave off, I wouldn't have been surprised if you'd told me those drapes hadn't been touched in twenty years. The light flooded in, blinding both myself and the mysterious girl standing next to me. Wait a minute, when did you have time to put that cloak back on?!

At this point, well past noon, all I could think of was the food inside my lunchbox. I bet Octopus Boy was sitting outside and eating right about now. Before Haruko had the chance to scold me, I propelled myself onto a stool that had been tucked underneath the central table and wiped a layer of dust off before placing my meal in front of me. Our God girl grumbled about how difficult it was to find useful subordinates these days, having already flung a couple dozen books onto the floor.

By the time I finished eating, both girls had looked through two full bookshelves without any luck.

"What hue was the cover again?" the cloaked girl asked.

"I don't know, bright?" Haruko said.

I'm not so sure that's what hue means, Haruko.

"What makes you think you'll even find it?" I asked.

"Well, there's got to be a thousand books in here. If I've read it then it has to be pretty popular, and if whoever stocked these shelves did the sensible thing and got the most popular books in all of Japan then it'll definitely be here!" Haruko said.

How is that sensible? "You've gone through half the shelves. Do they look like the most popular books in Japan to you?"

"Do I look like a librarian to you?" she said.

Not in the slightest.

I turned to the cloaked girl who was hunched over and looking through the shelf on the opposite side of the room, "Sorry, I never quite got your name."

She didn't even turn around.

"Noiji Sato," Haruko said.

A bit quiet for someone named Noiji.

"Then would you mind telling me what kind of club this is, Sato?"

No reply.

"Noiji, what club is this?" Haruko asked.

"The varied interests club…" she said.

You'll answer her but not me? Moreover, what the hell is "the varied interests club?" Isn't that a little broad? Whatever, all I have to do is go through some books until they decide it's in another castle, and we can move on with our day.

I stationed myself on the opposite side of the room and reached for a book on the top shelf. Before I pulled it out though, from the corner of my eye, something stole my attention. As if begging to be found, I recognized a long row of books. Shifting my full attention over, surely enough, it was the entire series. For a moment I considered hiding them under my shirt… or in my pants? But I doubted my ability to hide a dozen books in my clothing. I pulled out the first one and waved it above my head.

"Found it."