To the fictional character I looked up to,

Hello. How are you? It seems weird to be writing a letter to a literary figure, but since you mean so much to me, it only seems fair that I include you among this list of most influential people in my life as well as write a letter to you as a part of the 24 before 24 blog. It was around ten years ago that I was first introduced to the eccentricities that you exhibited during your high school. I mean to say that declaring in front of the whole class that you are only ever interested in aliens, time travellers and people with superpowers is a very bold statement, especially since it was made on your first day. It was in the following months that you took your classmate under your wings and had him become a part of this amazing set of adventures in your world that has captured my imagination. It has been nearly 8 years since your last appearance in any literary form, barring the couple of filler short stories. Your story has not yet come to an end and I am only one of the millions that eagerly await your further adventures. There are two primary reasons that I am writing this letter to you. Both of them have to deal with the way that I have been able to so very much able to relate to you.

The first is the way I could relate to your melancholy. It seems funny for me to mention that specific word, since it is also a part of the title of the book. But Haruhi, if I may call you that, the way you described what you were feeling to Kyon, who narrates these stories, it resonated with me perfectly. You recalled an event in your childhood when you had been to a baseball game and were awed by the number of people you saw there. It led you to correctly figure out that nothing in your life is exclusive and that everyone in the world was having similar experiences and that no one is unique. It led you into despair and you sought to find a way to become more interesting than what passed for norm. The day I saw the anime episode wherein you mention this was during the time I was struggling with my mortality and self-identity. To be fair, I still am. But at that moment in time, I had resigned myself to the fact that my life was only ever doomed to be unspectacular and the only way out was by reading and watching enough stories in all forms possible. I became obsessed with trying to find the perfect story, and then perhaps even try to live it. And that was when I started truly envying and relating to the narrator of your stories.

It seemed to me that Kyon was the luckiest guy in the world. He had always dreamed of being a sidekick to a superhero, which sounded perfectly good to me. The front row seat to a whole set of adventures without any of the underlying responsibilities of seeking out these adventures. He complained and sighed in exasperation a lot, but deep down he was truly enjoying himself. I knew in that moment that I needed someone like you in my life. Someone who was charming and radiant and full of energy and a whole lot of ideas for adventures. In my head, I was the perfect sidekick. I was always up for adventures, but most of my ideas in my head were never in the physical realm. I knew this in my heart by the time I was done going through your anime show and the light novel series that I needed to find myself a Suzumiya. I searched for her everywhere. Every guy has a criterion for the girl of his dreams. For me, it was someone whose personality matched yours as much as possible. The first time I thought I had probably found her, it was a false alarm; like a big huge glaring ambulance siren but as big as a lighthouse alarm, that I somehow missed like the titanic had missed the iceberg. Boy, I had a very close shave there. The only other time I felt that I had found her, turns out, I am much better at handling melancholies than Kyon. Safe to say that I kind of calmed the crazy out of her. For the last four years, I have always been struggling with this fact. I have been unhappy because I have been very very bored in my life. It has left me frustrated and frankly, depressed.

It was only when I started to read your novels again that I realized what my mistake was. To quote your book, “In the end, humans have to settle for what’s in front of them. If you think about it, the only humans who couldn’t were the ones who made discoveries or inventions and advanced civilizations.”

I knew what I needed to do. If I couldn’t find one, it was because I had to be one. If I couldn’t find someone to be crazy for me, I just have to make the effort and be crazy myself. I decided to take your words to heart. I decided that all the inhibitions that I feel in life area result of my own mental machinations and that I needed to promptly ignore them in order to barely scratch the surface of my own potential. I guess you can say that it took me ten years to actually get what your story was trying to teach me. I promise I will never forget this truth again.

I still feel very weird about writing a letter to you.

Yours sincerely,

A prospective SOS Brigade Member.