Monogatari Series - Volume 10 - Chapter 1.04

004

Returning to my room, I noticed that my nails were getting pretty long. It was the kind of thing that didn’t bother you at all if you didn’t notice it, but once you did, it drove you crazy.

I surveyed my room, muttering, “Nail clippers…”

They had to be here. Somewhere in this room, there had to be nail clippers, and not just one, but probably two or three.

Suruga, put your nail clippers back where it was when you’re done, my grandmother always tells me, or scolds me, I should say, so I was certain, but a diligent excavation would be required to discover them. My room was “a wee bit” messy, and finding what you were looking for was a tall order─Araragi-senpai described the mess as a “sinkhole,” and I have to say, he really hit the nail on the head. His way with words is something I strive to emulate.

Hmm, if I looked for the nail clippers now, I was definitely going to be late for school.

He described looking for something in my room as a “treasure hunt,” by the way, hitting the nail on the head once again. True, looking for something the size of nail clippers amid this “heap after a landslide” seems hopeless.

Like looking for a needle in a haystack.

I’m sure my grandma would lend me other nail clippers, but she’d chew me out first so I was hesitant…

I didn’t want to get scolded.

Sigh.

Why do nails have to grow, anyway?

“People who feel uncomfortable about their nails growing are ill-suited to life. It means they don’t want to grow up.”

My mother said that to me while she was clipping my toenails when I was little. It seemed more like a monologue than something that was actually addressed to me, but looking back on it now, maybe she was talking to me after all.

That someone’s gaze isn’t directed at you doesn’t mean the sentiment isn’t─and vice versa.

Someone who’s looking at me isn’t necessarily looking at me.

I was facing down a stark choice─either head to my grandma’s room and gird my loins for a scolding, or head to school and stop to buy new nail clippers at a convenience store on the way─when all of a sudden a third option appeared before my eyes.

To be precise, all of a sudden, when I took my uniform, fresh from the cleaners, down off the hanger on the wall and cut off the tag with a pair of scissors.

Huh.

If I had to, I could use the scissors to cut my nails.

A revelation.

A spectacular paradigm shift, a small insight that allows humanity to progress by leaps and bounds, like the seal on a glass milk bottle─though I guess I don’t see those anymore.

You might be surprised to learn that I’m a regular MacGyver, substituting things like that.

Whether to call it a paradigm shift, or adaptability, or what, I don’t know.

But this wasn’t the first time.

I once purchased a certain electrical appliance, which was great and all, but for ease of transport the box had been sealed up with industrial-strength vinyl packing tape.

And I didn’t have any scissors.

It’s no easy feat to get through industrial-strength vinyl packing tape without scissors.

So what brilliant idea did Suruga Kanbaru hit upon?

“I’ll cut it with my watch.”

I made the bold judgment that something on the order of industrial-strength vinyl packing tape wouldn’t stand a chance if the sharp side of my watch buckle could be exploited in conjunction with the principle of leverage.

More of a sharp judgment than a bold one, you might say.

And what happened?

Well.

As is so often the case with cutting-edge thinking, it was the watch buckle rather than the tape that gave.

Packing tape is really something.

What a sticky situation─(shouted quip) oh, cut it out!

Wait.

I was trying to tell you how paradigm shifts are my specialty…but ended up relating one of my fails.

Hang on a sec, there was this other time when…

Hmmm.

Maybe I’d better hold off on using scissors in place of nail clippers?

Since I was seeking a fresh start and a new outlook for the new semester, I went ahead and offered sincere praise to myself for coming up with the idea.

But that lasted only while I was cutting my right nails with my bandaged left hand.

I’m left-handed so I was using left-handed scissors, which on the flipside are difficult to use with my right hand.

It would be a real trick to cut the nails on my left hand, which was exposed at the moment.

The nails on my left, monkey hand…

“Bad move.”

Not a paradigm shift at all.

More MacGuffin than MacGyver (sorry, not funny).

Fine.

It was going to stay hidden under a bandage anyway.

Just cutting half of my nails definitely left me feeling almost half-refreshed. Next, I dug out a mirror from where it was buried and trimmed the stubborn bedhead that a 20-km run, a shower, and a hairdryer had done nothing to fix.

Snip.

Somehow my hair had gotten all grown-out.

I considered a drastic stroke instead of fiddling bit by bit but couldn’t work up the courage.

I guess I’m a waffler.

It must undercut everyone’s image of me, but that’s who I really am.

I’m a waffler.

Always putting off decisions.

No, I’m neither warm nor sweet like a waffle, so that expression probably doesn’t suit me─in which case I’m just plain old greedy.

I’m like Greed.

Desiring everything, I lose everything.

This Greed loves Hitagi Senjogahara.

Given everything in the beginning, left with nothing in the end.

That’s Suruga Kanbaru, my life in a nutshell.

I’d even lost my nail clippers─okay, discussing a fatalistic view of life and my room’s messiness in the same breath might get me a scolding from my senpais Senjogahara and Araragi.

I don’t want to get scolded.

I really don’t.

When I thought that far, I realized something.

They wouldn’t take it upon themselves to scold me anymore─because they weren’t around anymore.

They were gone.

Even now I felt them with me, but that was only an illusion.

Snickering at my inability to let go, I finished changing into my uniform and headed to school.

To Naoetsu High, now bereft of both Koyomi Araragi and Hitagi Senjogahara.