The Rampage of Haruhi Suzumiya by Nagaru Tanigawa

calmed down, this was the creation of another memory that needed to be erased from my hippocampus. The surrounding patrons and employees, along with Haruhi, turning around from her position in front of the automatic door, focused their attention on me.
    Words came pouring out on their own.
    “That’s right, my homework!”
    Every person in the café was frozen by my sudden outburst.
    “What are you talking about?”
    Haruhi walked over while looking at me like I was crazy.
    “Your list? Homework?”
    “I haven’t touched my summer homework. I have to finish that before my summer can end.”
    “Are you insane?”
    The look she gave me implied that she thought I was. Don’t care right now.
    “Hey, Koizumi!”
    “Yes, what is it?”
    Koizumi also appeared to be taken aback.
    “Did you finish yours?”
    “No, we’ve been so busy that I’m only halfway through.”
    “Then we can do this together. Nagato, you too. You aren’t done yet, right?”
    I didn’t give Nagato a chance to respond as I turned to Asahina, whose mouth was hanging open like a puppet’s.
    “While we’re at it, I would also like Asahina to come. We’re going to finish our summer list.”
    “Huh…?”
    Asahina was a second-year, so her homework was different from ours, but that really didn’t matter right now.
    “B-but, um, where?”
    “We can do this at my house. Bring all your notes and problem sets so we can get them all done. Nagato and Koizumi, let me copy what you have done.”
    Koizumi nodded.
    “Is that all right with you, Nagato?”
    “Yes.”
    The head with a pseudo–bob cut nodded slowly before looking up at me.
    “Okay. Tomorrow, then. We start tomorrow morning. We’ll make it happen in a single day!”
    I pumped my fist in the air.
    “Hold it right there!”
    Haruhi had her hands on her hips as she stood next to our table.
    “Don’t decide everything on your own. I’m the brigade chief. You’re supposed to ask for my opinion first! Kyon, it’s a serious violation of regulations for a brigade member to make an independent decision!”
    And with that, Haruhi gave me a glare before shouting at the top of her lungs.
    “I’m coming too!”
     
    —The next day, the next morning.
    Looks like I guessed right. I woke up in my own bed to find that the ordeal was over.
    Because I could remember…That I had returned from the countryside after the Bon Festival. Going to the pool, catching cicadas, and all the other August memories involving Haruhi and everybody else. And best of all, I even remembered what yesterday’s date was.
    Yesterday was August thirty-first, and today was September first.
    According to my newest memories, there had been an SOS Brigade study session in my room on the last day of summer vacation. I recall being completely exhausted. When you consider the amount of effort it took to copy all the notes in one day, I can’t even imagine how much effort it would have taken to do the work on my own. I can guarantee that my vitality, energy, and spirit gauges were so low when I fell asleep last night that a single little punch would have taken me out.
    Yesterday Haruhi came up to my room carrying the mountain of homework she had already finished, gave a look of disdain to Koizumi, Nagato, Asahina, and me, scribbling away with our pencils, and ended up playing with my sister the whole time.
    “Don’t copy word for word.”
    Haruhi was playing video games with my sister in the room, and she continued talking while jamming away at the controller.
    “Like reword stuff and tweak calculations. The teachers aren’t a bunch of idiots. Yoshizaki, the math teacher, is especially tricky. He pays extra attention to those things. Though in my opinion his own solutions aren’t very elegant.”
    My room already felt cramped with five people plus my sister, and then my mother kept coming in with juice or lunch or snacks to make it feel even more crowded, but Haruhi, unlike the rest of us, who were engaging in so much