Read Online The Sigh of Haruhi Suzumiya by Nagaru Tanigawa - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Nagaru Tanigawa
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foreign wrestler being manipulated by an evil manager.
But then, remember that we’d visited another sponsor earlier. No need to remember, I guess. Haruhi had been planning on another commercial for that sponsor to begin with.
Haruhi was walking through the center of the shopping district as she dragged along the bunny Asahina, who was releasing cute little squeaks and squeals. Trailing behind her like a ghost was Nagato, trudging along expressionlessly in her witch getup. Koizumi and I followed in suit.
My blazer was wrapped around Asahina’s shoulders in a feeble attempt to comfort her. It might be making her stand out more, though. This world is full of people with strange tastes. Not that I’m interested in this kind of thing by any means.
We reached the second stop, the model shop, and went through a repetition of the earlier proceedings. With all eyes on her, Asahina turned her teary eyes to me—in other words, the camera—and spoke.
“Th-this model shop was apparently opened last year after Keiji Yamatsuchi, twenty-eight, escaped his life as a white-collar worker. It coincided with his hobby… so he just kinda went for it…. Sure enough, he hasn’t experienced the sales growth he’d like. Growth rate for this year’s first term is about eighty percent of what it was for last year’s first term. The sales line graph is moving down and right… apparently! Everyone be sure to stop by!”
The trembling of Asahina’s voice made it sound like she didn’t mean a thing she was saying. At any rate, did Yamatsuchi, the manager, even okay this little speech? I’d expect this to just depress him. Who would want to be judged like that by a high school student?
The bunny girl was pointing the assault rifle that had been forced into her hands in an upward direction.
“You mustn’t fire this at people. Settle for shooting empty cans or something!”
Nagato was standing behind her holding a placard that read
Yamatsuchi Model Shop
with an unreadable expression on her face. It was a surreal sight. Since Ryoko Asakura looked like a normal person with emotions, I assumed that not all alien-made artificial humans acted like robots. Was Nagato’s lack of emotion by design?
Asahina then proceeded to point the rifle at some empty cans on the ground and opened fire.
“Eek—! I’m pretty sure it’ll hurt a lot if you get hit. Eek—!”
She even performed a demonstration by fearfully discharging the weapon, riddling the aluminum cans into beehives, which caused a stir among the peanut gallery. Her accuracy was only around ten percent though.
I was feeling pretty guilty about recording this kind of a scene onto a DV cassette tape. I felt like I should apologize to both Asahina and the person who’d developed this technology. He sure didn’t invent the video camera to record this crap.
And so we were done for the day once the stupid commercials were finished.
We returned to the school momentarily and lounged around the club room while Haruhi informed us of the schedule for the next stage of filming.
“Tomorrow’s Saturday and we have the day off, so we’re meeting up in the morning. Be in front of Kitaguchi station at nine. Got it?”
Incidentally, the commercials already ate up fifteen minutes of time. How long would the actual film be? If you screened some three-hour-long epic at a cultural festival, nobody would stick around to the very end. I doubt there’d be much of a turnout either.
I mulled this over in my mind as I watched a discouraged-looking Asahina. She’d been in a waitress outfit for the trip there, and then she’d been forced to wear her bunny-girl outfit on the train for the ride back before finally being allowed to change back into her uniform. She lifelessly collapsed onto the floor. At this rate, we’ll have to watch out for the lead actress falling asleep during filming.
I finished off the tea Koizumi had brewed in place of the exhausted Asahina.
“Hey, Haruhi. Can’t we do
But then, remember that we’d visited another sponsor earlier. No need to remember, I guess. Haruhi had been planning on another commercial for that sponsor to begin with.
Haruhi was walking through the center of the shopping district as she dragged along the bunny Asahina, who was releasing cute little squeaks and squeals. Trailing behind her like a ghost was Nagato, trudging along expressionlessly in her witch getup. Koizumi and I followed in suit.
My blazer was wrapped around Asahina’s shoulders in a feeble attempt to comfort her. It might be making her stand out more, though. This world is full of people with strange tastes. Not that I’m interested in this kind of thing by any means.
We reached the second stop, the model shop, and went through a repetition of the earlier proceedings. With all eyes on her, Asahina turned her teary eyes to me—in other words, the camera—and spoke.
“Th-this model shop was apparently opened last year after Keiji Yamatsuchi, twenty-eight, escaped his life as a white-collar worker. It coincided with his hobby… so he just kinda went for it…. Sure enough, he hasn’t experienced the sales growth he’d like. Growth rate for this year’s first term is about eighty percent of what it was for last year’s first term. The sales line graph is moving down and right… apparently! Everyone be sure to stop by!”
The trembling of Asahina’s voice made it sound like she didn’t mean a thing she was saying. At any rate, did Yamatsuchi, the manager, even okay this little speech? I’d expect this to just depress him. Who would want to be judged like that by a high school student?
The bunny girl was pointing the assault rifle that had been forced into her hands in an upward direction.
“You mustn’t fire this at people. Settle for shooting empty cans or something!”
Nagato was standing behind her holding a placard that read
Yamatsuchi Model Shop
with an unreadable expression on her face. It was a surreal sight. Since Ryoko Asakura looked like a normal person with emotions, I assumed that not all alien-made artificial humans acted like robots. Was Nagato’s lack of emotion by design?
Asahina then proceeded to point the rifle at some empty cans on the ground and opened fire.
“Eek—! I’m pretty sure it’ll hurt a lot if you get hit. Eek—!”
She even performed a demonstration by fearfully discharging the weapon, riddling the aluminum cans into beehives, which caused a stir among the peanut gallery. Her accuracy was only around ten percent though.
I was feeling pretty guilty about recording this kind of a scene onto a DV cassette tape. I felt like I should apologize to both Asahina and the person who’d developed this technology. He sure didn’t invent the video camera to record this crap.
And so we were done for the day once the stupid commercials were finished.
We returned to the school momentarily and lounged around the club room while Haruhi informed us of the schedule for the next stage of filming.
“Tomorrow’s Saturday and we have the day off, so we’re meeting up in the morning. Be in front of Kitaguchi station at nine. Got it?”
Incidentally, the commercials already ate up fifteen minutes of time. How long would the actual film be? If you screened some three-hour-long epic at a cultural festival, nobody would stick around to the very end. I doubt there’d be much of a turnout either.
I mulled this over in my mind as I watched a discouraged-looking Asahina. She’d been in a waitress outfit for the trip there, and then she’d been forced to wear her bunny-girl outfit on the train for the ride back before finally being allowed to change back into her uniform. She lifelessly collapsed onto the floor. At this rate, we’ll have to watch out for the lead actress falling asleep during filming.
I finished off the tea Koizumi had brewed in place of the exhausted Asahina.
“Hey, Haruhi. Can’t we do
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