Monogatari Series - Volume 10 - Chapter 1.12

012

Still, I wasn’t so carried away as to think that Numachi had miraculously solved my problem with some kind of mystical power in her capacity as Lord Devil.

There was no way that was it.

In the first place, she just listened and didn’t actually do anything to solve your problems. And in my case, all I did was go and see her, I never even asked her for help, never said a word about it.

Mystical power my ass.

I was pretty sure Numachi believed my arm’s state was the result of an accident during basketball practice.

She didn’t know that I was worried, so how could she take care of my worries? I hadn’t even talked about it, and I was going to feel better?

The only ones who knew the truth about my arm were my seniors Araragi and Senjogahara and Mister Oshino.

And maybe Hanekawa-senpai and…Ogi? But no one else.

Not even Higasa knew, and she’d been my teammate.

Numachi couldn’t have known.

Even on the off chance that she did, there was nothing she could do about it. While the great unhappiness collector might be thrilled to hear me “pity-bragging”─though as a fellow basketball player she might actually take offense at the lie─there was no way she could make the problem go away.

I understood that.

But even so, even considering that─she was what came to mind when I looked at my newly restored arm.

That woman, with her dyed-brown hair and her jersey, and her leisurely movements.

“What do I do now…”

Realizing that I’d been naked the entire time, I quickly put on some clothes. I am still traumatized from the time my grandmother saw me naked in my room.

Even at a time like this, I couldn’t let my routine lapse, and I put on my jogging outfit to go for my morning run.

The one that clearly showed the outline of my body.

It made me tense to put it on.

Liberated, but at the same time, tense.

I collected my hair, quite long now, into a ponytail, and finally, I rewrapped my left arm in a bandage. Since it had returned to human form, there was no longer any reason to hide it underneath a bandage, but having kept it wrapped up for almost a year now under the pretext that I was “injured,” it wouldn’t do to go out without one all of a sudden.

The outline was totally different, but there was nothing I could do─and I didn’t realize until after I’d wrapped my arm back up that I’d forgotten to finish cutting my nails, the whole reason I’d unwrapped it in the first place. Too late now.

It’s like the ensorcelled bandage Hiei uses to seal the black dragon─such a frivolous idea popping into my head at this juncture made me wonder if I’m stupid, after all. It made me think, yes, I must be stupid.

Numachi said that my earnest playing style was my weak point, which would mean I’m stupid and earnest.

What a clown.

In that sense I’m a lot like Araragi-senpai, who’s pathologically incapable of not joking around whatever the situation, and we make for a good match.

I put on my sneakers, went out into the chilly gloom, and started running─gradually upping my pace as I went.

“Gaaah….”

My balance was all off.

No, with my bilateral symmetry restored, it was the right balance, but my left side was suddenly lighter, so the faster I went, the more my body leaned to the side and threatened to fall over.

Which is to say, I did fall over.

I failed to take the corner, and with a plomp─no, too cute, that doesn’t do it justice─with something more like a scrush, my left side smote the asphalt.

It hurt. It hurt a lot. It goddamn hurt.

I’d tried to regain my balance and failed.

If I could have gotten my left hand on the ground I probably could have lessened the damage, but I was having difficulty controlling an arm whose size had subtly changed (back), and my reflexes swung and missed.

“Ow, ow, ow…ow.”

When I looked, I saw that the powerful friction with the asphalt had torn the bandage, and my left arm, which had only just returned to normal, was all scraped up and bleeding. It was the first time in a long time that I’d fallen while running, and getting scraped up was refreshing.

I felt as though I’d dropped a brand-new cell phone on the ground and given it a nasty scratch the day I got it─in other words, I was really able to feel that this was my own arm.

This, was my own arm.

With blood, nerves, feeling.

My left arm.

My left arm─that always handled the basketball, that always supported me.

“Ow, ow… Haha, ouch, ouch─ahahaha.”

It was not just due to any masochistic tendencies I might have that I burst out laughing as I sat there on the ground where I’d fallen cradling my hurt left arm with my whole body.

Because I was also crying.

Because holding my recently returned left arm─I was shedding tears like crazy.

“Ahahaha, haha… Ow, ow… Haha, ouch─ouch, ow…”

I’m so happy.

That’s what I said.

Oh, dammit.

All that rhetoric about being more bewildered than happy, about discomfort overshadowing joy, that was all a pose.

The hell with reasons.

I was just happy.

It was the only thing I felt then.