Nisenmonogatari Part 2 Page 11

  Given the case.

  Given the case, all right?

  Maybe the sensible thing to do was to call out to her casually, to offer clear proof that Hachikuji meant nothing to me, the way you might attend a class reunion just to demonstrate that you weren’t hung up on whatever.

  You had to honor the past for what it was. Growth and change were important, but yeah, something taking you back was a valid emotion, and keeping in touch wasn’t a bad thing.

  Nostalgia.

  Who hasn’t thumbed through a photo album? Perused old memories?

  People talk about learning from the past. Sometimes that’s how you take a new step in life.

  It’s not like always looking ahead lets you see the future.

  You could say that real spiritual growth comes not from neglecting the past but from valuing it.

  There. I couldn’t argue with a conclusion like that. Why resist or have any misgivings? If I didn’t get home soon and start studying, Hanekawa would scold me, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t spare a minute for Hachikuji.

  “Now then.”

  No more preliminaries. It was time for the drama to begin.

  I was getting impatient too, I can assure you.

  As if to make up for the time I spent on those preliminaries, I sped forth like the howling wind.

  I couldn’t break the light-speed barrier, but I could have broken through a speedway barrier.

  Okay!

  I’ll grab her tight!

  I’ll rub my cheeks all over her!

  Touch and fondle her!

  Love her to my heart’s content!

  Today is the day I embrace Hachikuji!

  “Hachikujiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii…gahhh!!”

  Just as I was about to bury my talons into her, my feet tripped on something, and I splattered against the asphalt like a rotten apple against a grater.

  Zlik zlik zlik.

  The amazing sound came from my skin.

  Or more like my flesh.

  “A-Ack?! Mister Araragi?!”

  Turning around at the noise, Hachikuji yelped in surprise.

  It was the most surprised I’d ever seen her.

  And she’d noticed me…

  Now I wasn’t going to get to grab her. Or rub my cheeks on her.

  Touch or fondle her.

  Love her, or embrace her.

  Oh, the despair… That my great fortune, running into Hachikuji, should end so ignominiously!

  They say to seize opportunity by the forelock, and the expression seemed meant for the situation.

  Dammit. What kind of bizarre haircut was that anyway?

  Opportunity was so high fashion.

  Crushed more by my disappointment than the pain of having my skin scraped off, I was unable to get up for a while.

  My clothes were in tatters to match my body and soul, but I couldn’t care less.

  It was my heartache that consumed me.

  It hurt.

  Oh, I felt so alone it hurt.

  Then I noticed something else.

  Amidst the pain that afflicted my whole being, there was a different sensation against my skin, something that wasn’t quite pain.

  It was my ankle.

  A small hand was gripping my ankle firmly, sock and all.

  I caught just the briefest glimpse, but the small hand, so pale it didn’t look Japanese, immediately sank into the ground─no, not into the ground.

  It sank into shadow.

  My shadow.

  My shade.

  “Hey, Shinobu! You did that?!”

  I’d begun to think that I was pasted onto the ground and might never get up again, that the Creeping Chaos was none other than me, but buoyed by anger, I sprang to my feet and madly stamped on my own shadow like I was dancing the Twist.

  Not that it would do any damage to Shinobu, but I had to vent somehow.

  “Shit! You! You! How dare you? How dare you get in my way? In the way of my biggest goal in life! No more blood for you, you golden-eyed blond! I should’ve just abandoned you!”

  I couldn’t snap out of bizarre antics that any bystander would have found completely mystifying and unhinged. Meanwhile, there was no reaction from my shadow─I looked like a total lunatic.

  Urk.

  She was going to play dumb.

  What an inconsiderate jerk.

  “U-Umm,” a voice called from behind me, “Mister Kikirara?”

  It was Hachikuji.

  How rare, she was addressing my back instead of the other way around─obviously, she didn’t try to hug me. If anything, she seemed to be keeping her distance.

  “There’s so little of it left that I’m not even sure you’re mispronouncing my name,” I answered, “but don’t be referring to me like I’m a Little Twin Stars collectible figurine. I’ll keep telling you until you remember, my name is Araragi.”

  As I spoke, I turned around. Cutting short my impotent Twist.

  “Besides, when I fell down just now and surprised you, you said it perfectly fine.”

  “Sorry, a slip of the tongue.”

  “No, it was on purpose.”

  “Smile of the month. Tee-hee!”

  “That’s so adorable!”

  Now it was my turn to be surprised.

  What was this? She’d switched up her usual routine.

  While I stood there unable to respond to my unexpected cue─

  “Hah. Mister Araragi, you’re still so bad at improvising.”

  She turned on her heel and began to walk away.

  W-Wait!

  She couldn’t flash a smile like that and just leave me!

  Dammit, lately she was setting the bar way too high for our exchanges.

  Just what did she expect from me?

  What kind of guy did she want me to be?

  It probably took someone of Hanekawa’s caliber to come up with a proper reaction to that on the spot.

  Hachikuji could try to leave, but she had the gait of a grade schooler. I caught up with her right away.

  I thought about yanking on her pigtails, but that would be like bullying so I decided not to. She’d flipped out on me once for it, too.

  Hmm. Come to think of it, of all the people I knew, she was the only one who hadn’t changed her hairstyle from the initial setup. As I said earlier, Senjogahara now wore her hair boldly short, and after this and that, Kanbaru had hers down in two strands. Sengoku often pulled her overly long bangs back with a headband these days, and Hanekawa ditched not only her braids but also her glasses.

  Karen also cut her ponytail off this morning on the spur of the moment, and that reminds me, at the beginning of August, Tsukihi also changed her hairstyle─though in her case she always is so I didn’t make much of it.

  Well, I’ll come back to Tsukihi’s image change later.

  As for me, I’d been growing my hair out ever since spring break, while Shinobu didn’t have a hairstyle in the usual sense.

  In this regard, too, Mayoi Hachikuji was a precious character.

  Although…that lack of change─that stasis─was far from a good thing for her.

  In fact, it was sort of tragic.

  Always the same, down the road.

  Incapable of alteration or transformation, eternally unchanging.

  A snail.

  A snail, spiraling like a vortex.

  “Hey, Hachikuji, you want a ride on my shoulders?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Come on, it’s perfectly normal. A high-school boy giving a grade-school acquaintance of his a fun ride on his shoulders.”

  “It’d only be fun for you…” grimaced Hachikuji.

  My attempt to support
and console had fallen flat. I don’t think even the sentiment got across to her. If anything, she resented it.

  “With times being what they are,” she warned, “please be more careful about what you say. You’re really starting to come off as some sort of sex offender in your dealings with me.”

  “True, the word on the street is that my love approaches criminal proportions. You can’t blame them. At its most potent, love has brought kingdoms to their knees. But unlike the statesmen of yore, I’d never lay the blame on a ruinous beauty. I’d take responsibility as the ruinous dude.”

  “Ahaha. How annoying.”

  Hachikuji laughed merrily at me.

  Well, at least I made her laugh.

  I guess she didn’t need any support or consolation from me regarding her circumstances. It was none of my business and maybe only puzzling for her.

  Man, my own characterization was so ad hoc. Bullshitting about Sima Qian had come back to bite me.

  “Anyway, Mister Charabuki….”

  “Ugh, Hachikuji. Please don’t mispronounce my name like I’m a veggie ingredient simmered in soy sauce for true connoisseurs. It’s Araragi.”

  “Sorry, smile of the month. Tee-hee!”

  “You skipped a step!”

  Why was I getting the abridged version?

  Yet when she smiled like that, it was hard not to let it slide.

  “Hmm,” she pondered, “if I wanted it to be food-based, maybe I should have gone with Arrabiata.”

  “You’re very strict on yourself…”

  Not that she was lenient with me.

  “Anyway, Mister Araragi, you seem pretty fancy-free today, strolling around town in the middle of the day. Did you give up on studying for your exams?”

  “Fancy-free strolling…”

  “Have you gotten tired of trying to impress Miss Hanekawa by pretending to be serious?”

  “That’s defamation!”

  “If this were a twelve-step plan, she wouldn’t be taken in by your act forever. Let me guess, did she catch on to how you were gazing at her in her camisole in the name of entrance exams? Half your motivation has to do with her breasts, anyway.”

  “What do you take me for?!”

  “The other half owes to my bodacious body, if I do say so myself.”

  “Exactly what part of your body is bodacious? I’d say it’s chunky, like a nice beef stew.”

  She was developing nicely enough for an elementary schoolgirl, but only for an elementary schoolgirl.

  Also.

  Hanekawa still wore her uniform even outside of school, despite her image change.

  Let alone a camisole, her everyday clothes remained an enigma. Really, what did she wear?

  ……

  In the first place…

  I don’t know. Did she own any? Her home situation was complicated, but the neglect couldn’t be that severe…

  Hmm. A bit of mysterious darkness?

  “Um, Mister Araragi, I’d like to talk to you about serious stuff for a moment,” Hachikuji said with a serious, stuffy look.

  I smelled a setup. These expressions of intent had never once led to a serious conversation.

  “People not sticking to their fashion and hairstyle choices is hardly helpful,” she grumbled, “for the anime adaptation.”

  “Again with the anime!”

  “They won’t be able to reuse those cells.”

  “Why is reusing them the premise?! Don’t make it so low-budget!”

  “Good grief. The only part they’ll be able to recycle now is my transformation scene.”

  Yeah, like there’d be any.

  Since when was she the magical girl?

  “Well, true,” I admitted, “anime characters’ clothes and hair and stuff do stay the same. Sometimes you even see them going to bed with their hair up.”

  “That’s partly for the studio’s convenience, but apparently it’s also for the viewers’ sake.”

  “Oh?”

  “When the design changes, you honestly can’t tell who’s who anymore.”

  “……”

  Baloney, I wanted to say.

  But to the uninitiated, all of the Gundam designs supposedly look the same. Or all the girls tend to look the same─you hear that a lot.

  “My goodness,” sighed Hachikuji. “Thanks to everyone just fooling around, I have to sound like a spoil sport. Please, give these matters some thought. What about the second and third seasons? If a character nobody recognizes starts cavorting across the screen, they’ll just turn the channel to something else.”

  “Nope. No second or third season. First time’s the charm, and that’s it.”

  It was icky to plan so far ahead.

  And “turn” the channel? That was some musty diction.

  Did she have a rotary phone at home, or what?

  “But I guess Senjogahara is the worst offender,” I pointed out. “It’s not just her recent haircut, she was always tying it up and letting it down and arranging it all sorts of ways.”

  “It’s going to be difficult to reproduce that in the anime.”

  “Yep.”

  “To begin with, though, do you think it’s okay to broadcast a character like her?”

  “Uhh…”

  I couldn’t reply straightaway.

  Her successful rehabilitation made it all the more clear how flat-out bonkers Miss ’Gahara used to be. Without her, though, the story wouldn’t make much sense.

  “Fine, then what about this,” Hachikuji suggested. “In the anime version, I could play the heroine for you.”

  “Ambitious, much?”

  “Why not? Time to forget that woman who’s the heroine in name only.”

  “Don’t be so harsh to somehow who just turned over a new leaf!”

  “That’s my point. Getting reborn turned her into a completely uninteresting character. Am I right?”

  “You sound like Kaiki!!”

  “Tee-hee. I’d wear a camisole, you know? I totally would.”

  “Is there any demand out there for you in a camisole?”

  “Maybe a bra top?”

  “Bra top… Putting aside the demand issue, wearing something so provocative in my presence would not end well for you.”

  “I’d strip if it’s necessary!”

  “You’re not safe for broadcast, either.”

  What a dangerous grade schooler.

  I’m begging you, show a little moderation before the sponsors start to pull out.

  “Et tu, Brute? Right in my flat chest!”

  “Sorry, Hachikuji, I can’t bring myself to laugh at that. Remember, you’re a girl. Stay away from smutty jokes.”

  “Did you tune out at the mere of mention of my flat chest?!”

  “Well, Hachikuji. You know I love you, but it’s not because boobless Lolitas are my type.”

  People get me wrong on this. My preference is actually for busty, bodacious bodies.

  “I only spare time for you,” I explained, “because you have large breasts for your age. It’s just that I have high expectations for their future, as nearly nonexistent as they may be today.”

  “Did a human being just say that?”

  “You know, though, Hachikuji. While I’m dating Senjogahara and totally love Hanekawa, I can’t picture myself marrying anyone other than you.”

  “My precious first time getting proposed to isn’t something you, Mister Araragi, ought to snatch away from me.”

  In fact, it’s best if you didn’t propose to anyone still in grade school, chided Hachikuji, shaking her head.

  Urk.

  She wasn’t giving me the time of day.

  How might I transmit the passion overflowing in my chest to hers? Maybe if I touched hers directly? Or massaged it, to increase conductivity?