Koimonogatari Read online

  001

  Ladies and gentlemen, dear readers, all of you who picked up this book expecting Hitagi Senjogahara to be the narrator have been duped. The lesson you should take home from this is that every sentence ever written down in a book is bogus.

  This is by no means limited to novels.

  Every word ever set down on paper is a lie.

  Even if the cover of a book touts it as nonfiction or labels it documentary reportage, it’s all lies.

  What the hell else would it be?

  It’s just a sales pitch, don’t buy it.

  In fact, trusting the written word is what’s actually strange, if you ask me─the “me” in question ostensibly being Deishu Kaiki, swindler, though even that might not be true.

  Then again, I’m not completely insensible to the very human impulse to believe the unbelievable─after all, my livelihood depends on taking advantage of that very impulse.

  People want to know the truth.

  Or, they want to believe that what they already know is the truth─what’s actually true is secondary. Recently, the rather overwhelming “truth” vouchsafed by Einstein’s theory of relativity, that “matter with mass cannot exceed the speed of light,” has come crashing down around our ears.

  The “fact” was announced that the neutrino, a particle likely unknown to the majority of law-abiding citizens, moves just a few nanoseconds faster than the speed of light─and that shocking, terrifying “fact” sent people into a panic.

  But, if you ask me, it’s a mystery why those people put so much faith in Einstein’s theory in the first place. I find it endlessly fascinating─naturally, it’s not like I, inept and poorly educated as I am, understand a single word of the theory of relativity, but I expect that the majority of law-abiding citizens, too, are as ignorant of it as they are of neutrinos.

  So why were they so invested in the “truth” of this principle that “matter with mass cannot exceed the speed of light”? Probably because it was easier than doubting its veracity.

  Doubting.

  Is stressful.

  Living with even the trivial suspicion that “there may in fact be matter that moves faster than the speed of light” eventually takes its toll─and human beings have a low tolerance for stress.

  The point is that it’s less about not doubting than about “not wanting to doubt”─people want to believe that they can trust in their surroundings, the world they live in, and want to feel secure.

  They want security.

  So they reject the hobgoblins of doubt, and believe.

  Moronically, and mystifyingly, most people would rather have the wool pulled over their eyes than face their doubts.

  Our society could not be more comfortable to live in, for someone like me. Or maybe it’s not a question of society or the system, maybe it’s just about people.

  A question of human nature.

  It’s human nature to believe in people, to believe in theories, and also to believe in apparitions─in aberrations.

  However much society or the world may change, people never will.

  People are people.

  Humans are human.

  They won’t change, and what’s more, they can’t.

  Therefore, ladies and gentlemen, for those of you who readily believed that this tale would begin with a soliloquy from Senjogahara, I encourage you to do some serious soul-searching.

  And I do so shamelessly.

  If you don’t want to spend your life making a mess of things, be skeptical. You’ve got to spend money to make money? Be skeptical of that too.

  If you want to know the truth, first you’ve got to know falsehood.

  So what if your heart and mind grew sick from it.

  Naturally, you should be thoroughly skeptical of the existence of faster-than-light neutrinos, and you really should be skeptical about whether I’m even the swindler Deishu Kaiki.

  I might even be Hitagi Senjogahara pretending to be Deishu Kaiki─after all, there’s precedent, isn’t there? Eleven hundred years ago, a man started off his poetic journal with the words, “I intend to see whether a woman can produce one of those diaries men are said to write.”

  And that might be a lie too, for all we know.

  So if there are any patient readers out there who didn’t slam this book shut in a huff the second they realized they’d been tricked, much respect. In place of the usual introduction, let me give you some advice.

  Some solemn advice.

  Prepare yourself.

  Get ready.

  Unlike some fainthearted and morose nonsense user, or devious, cross-dressing middle schooler (even if they are liars and swindlers, same as me), I have no intention of upholding even a minimal level of fair play in narrating this tale.

  I swear to narrate unfairly in the spirit of a lowdown, dirty Liar-man.

  I will lie to my heart’s content, I will make things up wherever it’s convenient, and I will pointlessly hide the truth and falsify events.

  If lying is like breathing for those guys, it’s like cutaneous respiration for me.

  I advise you to pay careful attention to what is true and what is false as you read on, in other words to doubt everything, to jump at shadows─then again, I hasten to add that at that point you may have already fallen into my trap.

  Now then.

  Interweaving truth and fiction, and throwing in a dash of half-truth just for fun, I will now relate to you the love story of Hitagi Senjogahara and Koyomi Araragi.

  I’ve never been interested in high-school puppy love, even when I was in high school, but those kids did so much to hinder my business dealings that I feel it’s only fair to have a little fun at their expense.

  Urban legends.

  The word on the street.

  Secondhand gossip.

  And slanderous talk─all of these fall within my area of expertise.

  They’re my bread and butter. The proof that I am me.

  I can’t guarantee honesty, but I can guarantee quality─and I hope that when we reach the conclusion of their tale, every one of you reading at home thinks, “Serves them right.” From the bottom of my heart.

  If I have a heart, that is.

  If there is an “I,” that is.

  So let the games begin.

  As we begin what will be the final tale─though obviously that may not be true either.

  002

  On that day I had gone to visit a certain famous shrine in Kyoto, Kyoto Prefecture, Japan─if it got around that I had been there, though, the shrine’s reputation might suffer, so I won’t reveal its name. That day shall henceforth be celebrated as the anniversary of my embranglement in Araragi and Senjogahara’s puppy love, but the fact that I, desultory fellow that I am, remember the precise date is by no means an indication that those two are particularly memorable to me.

  The reason I remember is simply that that day is by far the easiest to remember out of all 365 in the year─in other words, it was January first.

  New Year’s Day.

  I was at the shrine to ring in the new year, like all the other faithful.

  That’s a lie. I’m not a religious person (in fact, it’s doubtful whether I’m a person at all), so I don’t believe there are gods or buddhas in this world, and I have no desire to be around people who throw away their money─that thing I prize more than anything, more than life itself─as though it were worthless garbage.

  If that’s what it means to be human, I’ll pass.

  I’m the kind of guy who, once upon a time, bankrupted an entire religious organization with a little con that I had concocted─a cold and heartless person in a cold and godless world.

  Such a person wouldn’t make the traditional New Year’s shrine visit, and even if he would, I doubt t
hat whatever gods might be there would accept his offering. They wouldn’t sign for the goods; the alms would leap right back out of the offertory box. Not that I have any interest in testing that theory, even as a lark.

  So why would I willingly be on the grounds of a shrine at New Year’s, surrounded by teeming hordes of worshippers? Because I work part time as a priest, obviously─nope, not a chance. I’m aware that there’s a shortage of part-time shrine maidens, but I really don’t think priest is a part-time kind of job─though I wouldn’t have thought shrine maiden was, either.

  If you ask me, it’s one hell of a con.

  I’m not trying to criticize─more like I want a piece of the action. After all, most of the worshippers are just there to enjoy the atmosphere.

  Anyone who would readily believe that some college co-ed is a shrine maiden simply because she’s wearing a shrine maiden’s outfit is just asking to get taken for a ride.

  As I see it, believing = begging to be bamboozled.

  And that is exactly why I was at that shrine on New Year’s Day, doing nothing but people-watching─I had come in order to observe them as they visited the shrine half-ironically, throwing away their money, that thing more precious than life itself, as though it were nothing but trash─in order to research the ecology of such people.

  The law-abiding citizenry.

  The law-abiding citizenry, afraid to doubt.

  Every New Year’s I visit a shrine to remind myself that I’ll never be like them, if I end up like them it’s all over. And it doesn’t have to be New Year’s; even in the middle of summer, if I’m feeling down or if I’m depressed because a business venture has failed, I visit some shrine somewhere and reset myself.

  New Year’s is when the shrines are most crowded, of course, but there are always at least one or two worshippers throwing away money like discarded candy wrappers.

  There are always a few fools around.

  Always some people around.

  And watching those people, I remind myself I’ll never be like them, if I end up like them it’s all over.

  A warning.

  A self-admonition.

  Maybe that sounds like a convincing explanation, but maybe I was really there for a different reason entirely. Maybe I was actually there to pray for good health for the coming year, or for a likely bride to come along.

  There’s no end to the “maybes” that we could pursue about me. Maybe.

  All of that said, why I was at the shrine has no bearing on any of the tale to come, so it makes no difference why I was there. The important thing is that, at that moment, I was at a shrine in Kyoto.

  Naturally Kyoto is not where I’m from. I had not popped down to my local shrine. That is to say, there is no place that I think of as “where I’m from.” You may say, Oh, but your family register must be somewhere, but I sold it off when I was a teenager.

  Well, “when I was a teenager” is a lie, and “sold off” is only half true, but the fact is that I am currently a man without a family register─the man called Deishu Kaiki died in a traffic accident some years ago. And I received some percentage of the insurance money paid out at the time, as was my legitimate right.

  Does that sound fishy, even for a fabrication?

  Nevertheless, I swear by all that is holy that I am at present a vagabond with no fixed abode─not the sort of thing to say at a shrine, perhaps, but oh well.

  In that regard, I’m living a life not so different from that of my best buddy Mèmè Oshino─if there is a difference, it’s only that he prefers to sleep in abandoned buildings, while I prefer to sleep in gorgeous hotels.

  I’m not making a value judgment; it’s just a question of preference, a matter of taste, so to speak─just as I would rather die than sleep rough, old Oshino despises gorgeous hotels, and cell phones, and filthy lucre.

  Then again, where his peripatetic lifestyle has an element of professional fieldwork to it, mine is more of a life-on-the-run kind of a thing, so if we’re going to make a value judgment after all, then I guess it turns out that he’s the one who should be valued, and I’m the one who should be judged.

  In any case, I was not in Kyoto at the time because I’m a Kyotoite─unlike Kagenui, I don’t make fluent use of a boundlessly suspect Kyoto dialect, nor I am well-versed in the city’s onmyodo of auspicious directions and locales.

  The only reason I always spend New Year’s in Kyoto is that it’s where one spends New Year’s─does that sound miserably fishy?

  Listen, in reality it could have been anywhere─a famous shrine in Tokyo, a famous shrine in Fukuoka, it doesn’t matter.

  If you want to think, He just said Kyoto for the sake of convenience, that doesn’t bother me at all─if you want to believe that I actually passed an elegant New Year’s in Hawaii, that’s no problem at all, and hell, you can believe that I spent it in some warzone for all I care. The one thing that is true beyond a shadow of a doubt is that I absolutely was not in that idyllic, peaceful little town from which I am barred entry, but you don’t even have to believe that if you don’t want to.

  Basically, I don’t give a shit.

  It just doesn’t matter.

  What sort of place I was in, how I felt, or what I was doing has no bearing at all on where this tale began.

  I was an outsider wherever it began, and I’ll still be an outsider when we cross the finish line. I’ll never be anything but an outsider, to the bitter end.

  The important thing is when.

  When.

  It was New Year’s─that’s the only important thing. The reason that New Year’s, out of all the days of the year, leaves the strongest impression and remains most clearly in your memory is, of course, that it’s a special day, and this is true even for someone like me─even for an old codger like me, whose memories of summer vacation and winter vacation and spring break have all faded. I expect it’s even truer for high school students, what with receiving money and greeting cards and all. For them it must be a real red-letter day.

  And on that red-letter day, I received a phone call.

  A phone call from a high school student.

  “Hello, Kaiki? It’s me, Hitagi Senjogahara.”

  She wielded her name at me like a sword.

  Hearing only her voice, you would absolutely never think she was still in high school.

  “There’s a person I want you to deceive.”

  003

  There’s a saying that “only the idler works on holidays,” but while I don’t think of myself as an idler, and in fact fancy myself to be quite industrious, I have no objection to working during New Year’s. It’s my personal belief that the swindler always has to put his nose to the grindstone.

  Because swindling is a purely, indefensibly criminal act in any constitutional state, the cost performance index is typically poor─hounded, hated, it pretty much sucks. On occasion I’m gripped by the thought that I might do better in an honest line of work, but if I were doing honest work I honestly wouldn’t work as hard as I do.

  How can anyone work hard when they’re guaranteed job security within some big organization? That said, it’s not like I was so hard up for work that I would blithely accept a job from someone with a private number calling on New Year’s Day, like a car sideswiping me out of nowhere.

  It’s not like I was about to starve to death.

  In fact, at the time I had five or six other cons going simultaneously─five or six might be inflating my numbers a little bit, but only a little. I wouldn’t go so far as to call it a lie, exactly. And who doesn’t fudge the numbers a little bit when it comes to work?

  So I shot back, “Come again?”

  Come again?

  In other words, I was pretending not to have caught what the person on the other end of the line had asked of me. No, rewind, I was pretending not to have heard her confirm my identity, before she even got to the rest of it.

  “Don’t play dumb. This is Kaiki, right?”

  In response to a high
schooler’s hounding, I replied, “My name is Suzuki. Suzuki, written with the characters for ‘bell’ and ‘tree.’ As in, doesn’t ring a ‘bell’ and you’re barking up the wrong ‘tree.’ I’m terribly sorry, but I think you may have the wrong number. Senjogahara? I’m afraid I don’t recognize the name.”

  I stubbornly continued to play dumb, but she was having none of it, and just said, “Sure, Suzuki then, whatever.” She just fucking played along. “And I won’t be Senjogahara, you can call me Senshogahara.”