Seven Wonders Overtime- the second short story of "The Intuition of Haruhi Suzumiya" (novel 11)
Set at the end of May.
Kyon and Koizumi are trying their best to play a classical Japanese poetry game in the literary club room, with Asahina trying to help the boys, and Nagato instantly coming up with the answers.
After giving up that game, they just start getting into a new card game, when bam! The club room door is hit hard from the other side. Everyone looks at the door and then a tap tap could be heard from the bottom of it.
Asahina opens the door to be greeted by a blonde girl holding a mountain of books and notes. That explains the door kicking, thinks Kyon.
The student asks to be let in. She is apparently helping 'Haru' by delivering these books to the SOS club room. Standing there, she asks Kyon for help with the books, saying his name wrong. She catches him off guard by calling him 'Kyam', saying its hard to pronounce his 'Kyon' nickname (Later on, Koizumi thinks this could pose troublesome if Haruhi finds out that a girl has a new nickname/pet name for Kyon).
Kyon helps the girl, recognising her as a fellow classmate from 2-5.
The books are all supernatural based. The girl explains that Haruhi ran into her during lunchtime that day, asking her if she knew anything of the schools '7 wonders'.
The girl explains that she is a member of the Mystery Research Society. She goes on to say that after Haruhi asked the question, she went to the chairman of her society and asked if there was anything regarding a possible 7 wonders that could have been passed down from previous generations of pupils. The answer was no, so the girl reported this back to Haruhi.
Kyon asks the girl how she ended up having to carry such a large amount of books to the SOS club room. She replies that even she doesn't know. He asks her to take them back, but she refuses, implying he is being rude. She then asks him why he doesn't call her by her name, in which he replies that he cant remember everyone's names from the new class after only 2 months of school term. Besides, she is a transfer student for this new school year.
The girl turns her attention to Nagato, requesting politely of her to compile a club journal for the mystery society. She pleads for it to be ready for the cultural festival in the autumn, saying that Nagato is a great writer.
Nagato looks up to Kyon, questioningly. The girl takes this as a form of a positive response. She quickly shakes Nagato's hand, then eyes up a book she likes from the bookshelf, almost in disbelief of the fact its a first edition. She again pleads with Nagato to borrow the book, once more asking Kyon to translate Yuki's answer of 'Yes'.
The girl once more shakes Nagato's hand excitedly and takes her leave.
Koizumi and Kyon discuss these 7 wonders, hopeful they dont turn into a reality of Suzumiya's making.
Koizumi picks out a book left by the girl from the mystery society. He tells two stories in Japanese folklore about instances of demons being recorded, but also explains logically how it was humans who were involved after all.
The group are trying to come up with a plan to dispel any weird consequences of Haruhis current interest.
They conclude that whats needed to be done is to create North High’s seven wonders themselves, under a safe environment and not just magically created by Suzumiya. Kyon says it would be a bad idea to plan such a scheme in the club room, in case she bursts in with their notes and plans scattered on the long table, but Koizumi rests assured that his people know where she is, and is keeping him up to date on her location via his phone.
They share their thoughts and wonder if Haruhi could jump ship from school wonders into full blown looking for world wonders instead. Kyon says that she would make a great archeologist, but Koizumi retracts that by asking about the repercussions of finding something that could change humanities known past (This reminds me of the metallic object they found on Tsuruyas estate).
One idea they come up with is to change the alloy composition of a possible Ninomiya Kinjirō statue, that could magically reveal itself in the school grounds, so that it could potentially change its look slightly at night, returning to its original composition when the sun rises.
Another idea is to have some sort of music playing in an empty music room, playing it off as being an alarm once Haruhi catches wind of it.
Another idea is to create a mystery around a school passageway mirror, so that in the dead of a night with a first quarter moon, if a person’s whole body is reflected in it, the molecule structures of their body’s amino acids are then reflected. Also, if they execute the second round of radio exercises, their reflection in the mirror will have a slight discrepancy in the stopping action at the final moment. Occasionally, a doppelganger might come out of the mirror, but chance of that happening is very low. It is rumored that even if the doppelganger does show up, it immediately disappears.
Their next idea is a door which seldom opens. They say the mystery could be a toilet cubicle that upon exit, takes you out of the cubicle door next to it. But if this is too boring, it could be a door where a person could be transported to a different world, in which they live in for two months. However, on their return, they find that only one hour has passed in the real world, and they also lose all their memories of the other world. Without ironing out the finer details, they move on to the next mystery.
The next story is one that was actually reported from the mystery society, about a biology dummy that freaks people out by being in different places. But the more they research the incidents, the more they conclude that the mystery society probably fabricated the story just to please Haruhi.
The Seventh Wonder of the Seven Wonders is unknown, and cannot be known. That is the mystery of the Seventh Wonder.
Nagato types the rough notes into a polished copy within seconds, and prints it out.
Haruhi then barges into the club room not long after, to announce that they should create some mysterious wonders of school. She says the school hasn't been around for such a long time, so naturally there wouldn't be so many stories, but that shouldn't stop them from creating such strange stories about the school, to pass down to future generations of pupils.
Kyon takes control of the situation and passes the printout to her. Reading it, Haruhi seems dejected at first but claims she is proud of her brigade members.
All this time she was forced to play Shogi by the school principle whilst she was questioning him for school wonders (meaning he is on Koizumi's team).
She gets upset that she couldn't help them coming up with ideas for the wonders, so she says she will think up an eight wonder.
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6-10. This wasn't the greatest of continuations that I've ever read, but none the less at least it actually IS a continuation. So far this is the most recent we have seen the story go to, end of May 2004, other than the moment Kyon was taken to the future with an older Haruhi in college. The new girl could be very interesting indeed, but who knows! I look forward to a possible continuation with this nameless character.
You know I cant help but think if they didn't want Haruhi to create any 'seven wonders', they could have simply consulted in Yasumi and ask her not to do so? They should always have asked Yuki of Yasumi's whereabouts and simply requested for Haruhi not to do anything dumb. But I guess we wouldn't get any more stories if this happened? I dunno. This to me is still a major plot hole from here on out.
Up next: Tsuruya's Challenge
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