The Wavering of Haruhi Suzumiya Read Online Free

Haruhi Suzumiya, was up to something again was already spreading like wildfire. I didn’t care if she added another incident to her reputation, but for once, I didn’t want myself or the SOS Brigade getting added to the report.
    “But still, she’s quite good, Suzumiya is. Nagato too, of course.”
    Koizumi smiled and closed his eyes as if enjoying the music. I turned my gaze back to the stage and tried to read something, anything, from Haruhi’s form.
    My opinion of the singing and performance was much the same as Koizumi’s, save for the strange fact that the lead singer was reading her performance from sheet music on the music stand.
    But all that aside, something nagged at me, something I couldn’t put my finger on. What could this ticklish sensation be? I wondered.
    The next song was a slow-moving ballad, as if to throw the previous up-tempo song into contrast. I found myself moved by the music and lyrics. It had been some time since a piece of music had pierced my heart like that. As proof that I wasn’t the only one who felt that way, the audience was quiet, without so much as a single throat-clearing, and when the song ended, the auditorium fell totally silent.
    The room was on its way to being a full house when Haruhi finally spoke into the mic.
    “Uh, hello, everybody…”
    Haruhi’s expression was rigid.
    “Here’s where we should introduce the band, but the truth is…” She pointed to Nagato. “Nagato and I aren’t members. We’re just stand-ins. Due to various circumstances, the real vocalist and guitarist couldn’t be onstage. Oh, and they’re the same person—the real band is just a trio.”
    The audience listened carefully.
    Haruhi moved away from the center of the stage and walked over to the bassist, thrusting the mic at the girl. The girl shied away, whispering something to Haruhi, then finally squeaked out her own name.
    Haruhi next walked over to the drum set and got the drummer to introduce herself, then returned to center stage.
    “These two and the leader who’s not here are the real members. So… sorry. I really don’t have any confidence that I’m much of a stand-in. We only had an hour to rehearse before performing, so this is a little off the cuff.”
    The bunny ears on Haruhi’s head flicked as she moved.
    “How about this—if you want to hear the songs with the real vocals and guitar, bring a tape or minidisc over later and we’ll dub you a copy for free. Is that okay?”
    The bassist nodded awkwardly in response to Haruhi’s question.
    “Okay, it’s decided.”
    Haruhi smiled for the first time since taking the stage. She must have been nervous—or nervous by her standards, anyway—but it seemed the curse was finally broken, and while her smile wasn’t as bright as the one she always showed us in the clubroom, it was still a good fifty watts.
    After smiling briefly to the still-expressionless Nagato, Haruhi shouted as though to blow out the speaker cones.
    “This is the last song!”
    I heard the rest of the story from Haruhi later.
    “I was handing out movie flyers at the front gate when I ran out, and I was going to head back to the clubroom for more,” she said.
    “But then there was some kind of argument going on by the shoe lockers between the members of that band and the festival organizers from the student council. I wondered what was up, so I got closer.”
    As a bunny?
    “Who cares what I was wearing? Anyway, from what I gathered, the band wasn’t going to be allowed to go onstage.”
    The shoe lockers are hardly the place for a discussion like that.
    “It was because the band leader, who played guitar and sang, had suddenly come down with a fever on the day of the festival. Tonsillitis, I guess. Her voice was mostly gone, and she looked like she could barely stand.”
    Rotten luck.
    “I know. Worse, she’d sprained her wrist after getting dizzy and tripping at home. There was no way she could get on that stage.”
    So why bother coming to