The Assassination of Haruhi Suzumiya

Chapter 8: Closed Circles & Enclosed Spaces

By this stage, it was already in the dark early hours of the morning, and the long standing cold of the day that had already been lingering finally set in. The icy wind I started to experience outside on my way to school had already begun to take effect inside the school walls, decreasing the indoor temperature even more so. Everything I touched felt cold. All the fancy equipment aside, Koizumi should have used his funds to provide us with heaters.

I could see the goosebumps on Haruhi's legs as she walked in circles around the empty library as a way of keeping body heat. She should be thankful to me, as if it wasn't for my generosity, her arms would be cold too. I'd like my jacket back thank you very much.

Our cold winter misery was interrupted by an abrupt alert on our cell phone that we had not been expecting.

It soon became clear to us that Koizumi had a lot more to deal with than I initially anticipated.

Apparently, according to a group message every team had received, Koizumi's associates had now lost all contact to the main school building and that all rumours would now have to be sent through a group messaging system. Miraculously and to my surprise, the timers continued to operate perfectly.

This defect, while a source of pain for Koizumi, had now given us an advantage to move around without cameras spying on us. That being said, Haruhi interpreted the situation to mean that we could carry out our own investigation outside of the rules of the game while no one was looking.

Part of myself felt grateful for the systematic glitch. Not only did this mean that we could now take efficient action against a serial killer, but I now felt excited. The grotesqueness of the situation aside, the night had been pretty boring while we were waiting for one movement every 10 minutes or so. Maybe even longer. This had given us the perfect opportunity to get into the action.

"Alright!" Haruhi practically jumped at the news. "Time to get our vengeance! We'll show them that they messed with the wrong brigade!" She declared as she marched towards the entrance to the library forcing me to follow her if I didn't want to lose her in the darkness.

I hadn't thought of our actions as vengeance, but it gave us a further sense of purpose and determination, so I didn't object to it. Minus the obvious differences Haruhi and I shared in theory, the two of us could actually make a very good team when need be- provided on the rare occasion we shared similar determination for a particular outcome. Yet, multiple examples came to mind. Perhaps it wasn't as rare as I thought. Unconsciously, we worked well together. Just not on a daily basis.

Unfortunately for us, we were situated in a pretty remote spot. Our original plan to follow anyone we saw went bust after a solid seven minutes waiting by the library door. People would only be in this part of the school if they were wanting to reach the library, the locker room or the gymnasium. To put it plainly, we were far from the action.

I had only just begun to suggest to Haruhi that we should make a move when a sudden noise from the end of the corridor echoed down to our location. I closed my eyes to listen closely- a pair of footsteps, a male student's loud projecting voice, a female's giggles, (rather put-on I admit) and walking at a slow pace too.

My bets were on it being the Black team as they were the only team consisting of both genders besides the White team, and I was pretty sure it wasn't Kunikida's voice I was hearing. It sounded as if they were having a great time as a couple, which pissed us off beyond belief- Myself, as a straight regular guy without a chance of a girlfriend, accompanied by Haruhi Suzumiya (bisexual) who as a general thing was disgusted by romance itself and must have also felt as irritated by the sight as I was.