The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya Read Free Page A

smirked.
    “If you ask me, then yeah, that’s the best one in the class over there. Ryoko Asakura.”
    Taniguchi stuck his chin toward a cluster of chatting girls with their desks close together. In the center of the cluster with a cheerful smile on her face was Ryoko Asakura.
    “As far as I’m concerned, she’s gotta be in the top three for our year.”
    “Did you check out all the freshman girls already or something?”
    “Oh, yeah! I assigned them ranks from A to D, and I learned the full names of the ones who ranked A. You only get to live the high school life once. Might as well have fun doing it.”
    “And Asakura is an A?” Kunikida asked.
    “An A+, for sure. Once you’ve reached my level of expertise, you can tell just by looking at their face. She’s definitely a nice person too.”
    Well, even if you assume that half of Taniguchi’s opinionated rambling was a load of bull, Ryoko Asakura was, in fact, a girl who stood out in a different way from Haruhi Suzumiya.
    First off, she was a hottie. It was also really sweet how she gave you the feeling she was always smiling. Second, Taniguchi was probably correct in judging that Ryoko was a nice person. By this point, there pretty much wasn’t anybody left foolish enough to try to talk to Haruhi Suzumiya. The only human undeterred by the constant rude reception was Ryoko Asakura. She had the temperament of a class president. Third, judging by her responses in class, she seemed to be pretty smart, too. Every question directed toward her was guaranteed to be answered correctly. She was a student any teacher would love to have. Fourth, she was also popular among girls. It had only been a week since school started, and she’d already succeeded in becoming the ringleader of the girls in the class. She definitely had enough charisma to attract the masses.
    If you pit her against Haruhi Suzumiya, with her perpetually furrowed brow and incomprehensible thinking pattern, everyone’s going to take the former. Myself included, I guess. Either way, they were both way out of Taniguchi’s league.
    It was still April. At this point, Haruhi Suzumiya had yet to act up. Which meant that for me, it was a month of relaxation. It’d be almost another month before Haruhi started rampaging.
    However, I should mention that I was able to gradually observe Haruhi’s eccentric behavior during this period.
    And so, peculiarity number one.
    Her hairstyle changed every day. I noticed a sort of pattern after looking at her for a while. It basically went like this: On Monday, Haruhi would show up with her long, straight hair flowing down her back in a normal fashion. The next day, she would walk in with a ponytail, looking flawless from every angle.
The way it looks so perfect on her is almost more than I can bear.
But then on the next day, she would come to school with her hair tied into two pigtails. The day after that, it would be three. And on Friday, she would have four random spots tied off by ribbons. It was quite an odd sight.
    Monday = 0, Tuesday = 1, Wednesday = 2…
    In other words, she tied off another part of her hair for every day that passed. After resetting on Monday, she added one per day until Friday. I had no idea what it was supposed to signify. Based on the pattern, she’d eventually end up with six tied-off spots. I wondered what her head looked like on Sunday. I would have liked to see it.
    Peculiarity number two. Boys and girls are split up for gym class so classes 5 and 6 are combined. Girls change in odd-numbered rooms and boys move to even-numbered rooms. Once the class before gym ends, the boys grab their gym clothes and prepare to move to class 6.
    As that was happening, Haruhi Suzumiya completely ignored the fact that boys were still present in the classroom and began taking off her uniform.
    She would then toss her uniform on her desk and pick up her gym clothes with an indifferent look on her face, as though she viewed the gallery of guys on the same