Nekomonogatari (White) Page 12

  She moved so fast it was like she’d teleported.

  Two tassels of hair arrived a moment later.

  “Well, look who it is! It’s been a while, glad to see you’re doing well!”

  “…Yeah.”

  She was awfully excited.

  This was more than being upbeat.

  I could only nod, not sure how to react.

  Judging from her demeanor, the news of the Hanekawa residence burning down had somehow yet to reach her. Then again, given her personality, there was a chance that she could be this excited even if it had.

  Good manners, zero consideration.

  That was her personality.

  “I was actually on my way to go see my dear senior Senjogahara,” she said, with good manners and zero consideration, “but is she in her classroom right now?”

  “Umm.”

  It was hardly surprising.

  It went without saying.

  At least, I hadn’t thought that dashing over my way the way she did meant that she had some kind of urgent business with me─generally speaking, she was only interested in Miss Senjogahara.

  It was to the point that she applied to our school, Naoetsu High, in order to follow Miss Senjogahara here.

  Araragi seemed to have somehow broadened her frighteningly narrow horizons, but─

  Well.

  I envied how straightforward she could be.

  Or maybe I should say single-minded?

  At the very least, I doubted Miss Senjogahara would look at her and feel frustrated.

  She was strong.

  Reliable─that would be the impression.

  Suruga Kanbaru, a second-year student at Naoetsu High.

  Miss Senjogahara’s junior since middle school (which meant that she also went to the same middle school as me, but I never met her then. I’d only heard stories about her), the two together are called the Valhalla Duo.

  The Valhalla Duo, from the character for “god” in Kanbaru, the characters for “battleground” in Senjogahara, and the character for “field” in both of their names, which could be read both “baru” and “hara.” I later learned that Miss Kanbaru was apparently the one to come up with the moniker herself. While I did think it was a cool name, there was something sad about it when I learned the title was self-assigned.

  Also, she’s the best-known student in all of Naoetsu High. At a private prep school that places no focus whatsoever on sports and club activities, she led its girls’ basketball team to the national tournament. She’s an awe-inspiring superstar (while they’d never admit it, the faculty seems a little annoyed, as in: won’t she read the room?).

  Of course, as you could tell by the bandage wrapped around her left arm, she’d retired early.

  A monkey.

  For Miss Kanbaru, it was a monkey─I want to say.

  But even so, I think.

  While she’d sported an athlete’s short, boyish haircut as an active player, the girl in front of me had hair almost as long as mine used to be, though she didn’t braid it.

  Putting aside the fact that her hair grew at a supernatural speed─Miss Kanbaru.

  Looked girlish, you could say?

  She looked cute now.

  And what got her to do that─like with the way Miss Senjogahara was now─must have been Araragi.

  Broadened horizons, huh?

  “She’s taking the day off from school… She’s sick with the flu.”

  I’d become a party to her lie.

  But what else could I do?

  If we looked back at the circumstances, she’d lied for my sake─I had to make sure our stories were straight. Even if it was fine to tell Miss Kanbaru, she struck me as someone with loose lips.

  She was so candid that it felt like whatever she wasn’t supposed to say could slip out of her mouth at any moment. And I couldn’t see her feeling bad about it afterwards, either.

  She wouldn’t even try to defend herself because she couldn’t see anyone taking offense.

  “Ah, the flu,” she said, mildly surprised. “That’s like the devil getting sunstroke.”

  “……”

  It was an awful way to talk about her “dear” senior, an excellent example of her showing good manners and zero consideration─in fact, of her being “politely rude” as Araragi put it. She was probably just using a phrase she’d heard somewhere, though, and I doubted she ever stopped to consider its meaning.

  I’m sure Araragi would interrupt the conversation with a quip here to correct her, but I wasn’t that close to her. All I could do was reply with silence and a vague smile.

  Grin.

  “…Wait, maybe that means something else.”

  She’d understood.

  That made me honestly happy.

  Hmm. I still had to admit, it was difficult to figure out where I stood with people who were friends of friends (whether via Miss Senjogahara or Araragi).

  A big part of it was that I was dealing with Miss Kanbaru, though.

  “Hmm, I see. So she’s not here. What should I do.”

  I was sure she’d turn around and go back to her classroom once she learned Miss Senjogahara was absent, but instead she stood there with her arms folded like she was at a real loss. The cafeteria was going to get crowded with our school’s cafeterians if I didn’t hurry, but I couldn’t leave her in that state.

  “Did you have something you needed to tell her? I’d be happy to listen if I could be of any help.”

  “Hmm.” She thought for a brief moment. “Well, I guess you’d do.”

  Now she was just being rude.

  Not even politely so.

  This, I thought, was something I ought to warn her about, but she said, “I just got a message from my dear senior Araragi,” and silenced me by shoving her phone’s screen in front of my face.

  We weren’t allowed to use our phones on school grounds, they were supposed to be off while at school, the words “just got a message” implied that she received his e-mail during class─all of these were more words I found suppressed.

  By the message I was seeing.

  ─come to second floor classroom tonight at 9 alone i need to ask you something

  “What do you think this means?” asked Miss Kanbaru.

  “What else could it mean?”

  Such a short message didn’t leave any room for interpretation─it didn’t even seem possible that it was in some sort of code. Yes, the text was a bit sloppy (the “alone” was misplaced), but that only meant he was in a rush─

  “It means that Araragi has a question for you, and that he wants you to come alone to the second-floor classroom tonight at nine in the evening, no?”

  “So my hunch was right. Hrm,” she grunted. She looked serious. “I presume─he isn’t at school today either?”

  “Yup,” I nodded. She was sharp in unexpected ways─or rather, she had the uncanny ability to pin down the gist of a conversation, and wasn’t to be underestimated. “In his case, it’s not like he has the flu, but…he hasn’t come to school ever since the new term started.”

  I’d asked our teacher just to be sure, but it seemed that he hadn’t attended the day before, either. Miss Senjogahara, Araragi, and I had all missed school on the same day, which apparently sparked a bunch of groundless speculation.

  Groundless speculation…I wish they’d stop.

  Please, don’t spark anything.

  Hrm, Miss Kanbaru grunted again.

  “I know he’s my senior, but sometimes I don’t know what to do with him. The second-floor classroom? That’s way too vague to be a meeting spot. How many buildings does he think Naoetsu High has?”

  “Well, I don’t think he means our school. It has to be that abandoned cram school, right?”

  “Oh, I see,” she agreed as if she’d just realized.

  She was dull in unexpected ways.

  “But if that’s the case, why doesn’t he just call me? I tried calling him several times just now, but he wouldn’t pick up.
”

  “……”

  Miss Kanbaru had made these calls at school, and my silence here was of course─not to scold her for that. It was because this new info made it absolutely impossible for me to imagine the kind of situation Araragi was in.

  I thought it had something to do with Mayoi, but…why would he summon Miss Kanbaru?

  It seemed unlike him…

  It didn’t make sense.

  “So…he’s inviting me on a date! And he must not be picking up the phone because he has some kind of surprise ready!”

  “Um,” I objected, “doesn’t the way it’s written make it sound more serious?”

  A surprise… How happy-go-lucky was she? And she wasn’t kidding, either.

  Just talking to her was exhausting!

  “Okay, all right, now I understand,” she said. “I had a book I wanted to read tonight, but if he’s inviting me out, there’s only one thing for me to do: answer his call, come hell or high water!”

  “Hell or high water…”

  She just wanted to read a book, right?

  She was blowing everything far out of proportion, and her old-timey phrases made her more likely to sound like she was joking the more serious she got. She was losing out thanks to that quirk.

  Perhaps it didn’t make her frustrating, but her earnestness really was concerning.

  “Uh, Miss Kanbaru…”

  “Hm? What is it?”

  “Uhm…”

  I thought about what to say, but I couldn’t find the right words in the end and settled on nothing but:

  “Be careful.”

  And.

  “Say hi to Araragi for me.”

  “Okay. Thank you for everything!”

  “No, not at all… You’re welcome.”

  “When I heard that your house caught on fire, I thought you might be feeling down, but I’m glad that doesn’t seem to be the case! There’s the senior I know!”

  “Oh.”

  So she actually did know.

  She knew, and that was how she approached me? For reals…

  No.

  But still, I wasn’t feeling down?

  “May fortune be with you on the battlefield!”

  Raising a hand, Miss Kanbaru returned the way she came.

  Not running, but walking.

  I was planning on warning her if she started running down the hallways again, but it wasn’t as if she always ran everywhere she went.

  She was annoyingly random.

  “……”

  Now that Miss Kanbaru had left, I needed to hurry to the cafeteria─in part to make up for lost time, if I were actually doing so─but was unable to move a step.

  Not─because her last line still echoed inside me.

  What was gripping my mind instead was Araragi’s present situation.

  He had to be in some sort of trouble─that much was already a definite fact. But he wanted Miss Kanbaru to come see him, which probably meant that whatever he “needed to ask her” was necessary to escaping the crisis.

  Only, it didn’t feel like he was simply seeking assistance.

  It felt far, far more serious.

  “……”

  That’s why it seemed misguided.

  Araragi had texted her out of some necessity and was requesting her help rather than mine─so dwelling on that fact was misguided.

  But I wondered.

  Although understanding this perfectly and being satisfied was what Miss Senjogahara found so “frustrating” about me─it still didn’t sit well with me to be called pure and white for it.

  I did envy Miss Kanbaru for getting that message from Araragi.

  I was properly mad, too.

  Araragi hadn’t texted me─and I was mad at him.

  024

  I headed home while being assaulted by a powerful sense of self-hatred.

  I considered asking Miss Kanbaru if I could go with her, but if Araragi’s message said “alone,” it seemed best that I didn’t─I understood that much.

  What did give me pause was whether or not I should tell Miss Senjogahara about this. The honest way to look at it was that I should, Araragi being her boyfriend, but I knew I’d absolutely cause her worry─and on her part, she’d get unreservedly angry at him.

  I arrived at the Tamikura Apartments still unable to reach a conclusion─

  “Oh, welcome back, Miss Hanekawa. That took a while.”

  “Yeah, I went to the supermarket to buy ingredients to replace what I used this morning…hm?”

  Then, as I opened the door, I noticed that there was another individual in the room other than Miss Senjogahara.

  A man with long, salt-and-pepper hair tied neatly in the back.

  He looked striking in his suit, and as serious as could be─to use a bit of an old phrase, he was like a corporate warrior.

  His appearance suggested professions like lawyer or bureaucrat, but I knew that wasn’t the case.

  I’d heard from Miss Senjogahara.

  That her father works as a consultant at a foreign company─

  “Nice to meet you,” he greeted me first. He was seated at the low table but got up for me and bowed his head. “I’m Hitagi’s father.”

  “Ah… Um.”

  I was at a loss.

  Now that this was happening, I realized she’d said her father was coming home today. I just didn’t think he’d be returning at such an early hour.

  He doesn’t work at a foreign company for nothing and won’t let himself be bound by time, I thought, weirdly impressed.

  “I’m Tsubasa Hanekawa. I apologize, I stayed the night yesterday.”

  “M-hm,” Mister Senjogahara nodded.

  And then he was silent again─he seemed reserved.

  He struck me as the type of man who stayed extremely quiet as I stood there in the entrance, my shoes still on, when he glanced my way.

  Saying, “I’ll make some tea,” he headed to the kitchen.

  From there, he put a kettle on the gas burner.

  His words, along with his actions, freed me from my nerves in an instant, and I could take my shoes off at least.

  A pause.

  I sat next to Miss Senjogahara, making sure to keep her dad in my line of sight.

  “I’m sorry, Miss Hanekawa. He seems to have taken care of his work earlier than expected, and so he also came back earlier than expected,” she whispered.

  “Oh, no. It’s not a problem or anything,” I whispered back. I was the one barging into their apartment, after all. “But in that case, you could’ve sent me a message or called me to let me know.”

  “Well, I was curious to see if you’d be surprised.”

  “……”

  Yes, I was. Of course I was.

  When I began to wonder whether these kinds of surprises awaited Araragi daily, his life started to seem like a lot of trouble in spite of its sunny appearance.

  “You have a very cool dad,” I said.

  And not as flattery.

  It made a little more sense now. Putting aside how serious she was being when she said it, I could see why Miss Senjogahara might be a self-described daddy’s girl─living with a father like that would surely make every boy in your class look like a kid.

  I had mixed feelings about the thought, but it was impressive that Araragi managed to win over her trained eye.

  You often hear that women fall in love with a man who resembles her father, but in that sense, the person preparing tea leaves at the moment was nothing like Araragi. Forget about them being different types of people, they nearly seemed to be made of different stuff.

  Araragi could play at being cool and collected, he could even be called the “unmoving silence,” but the truth is that he rather likes talking─you could almost call him the polar opposite of Miss Senjogahara’s dad, an actual reserved individual.

  And─though this is an incredibly tautological way to put it─while Mister Senjogahara was indeed cool, there was something so fatherly about hi
m, like he was more cool as a dad than cool as a man.