Monogatari Series - Volume 10 - Chapter 1.18

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“When I was still in school, I thought it was the rudest thing in the world when my classmates addressed our teacher without proper honorifics. I thought they were shameful, acting like they were adults when they were still just kids and pretending to be on equal footing with someone who actually earned a salary. I felt strongly that a teacher should be spoken to with respect, so I addressed them properly even if they sucked, regardless of what the other kids did. I thought it was overfamiliar and impolite to throw people’s names around. What a proper kid I am, with real manners, I used to think.”

The next morning.

When I hauled myself into my new third-year classroom that I was just starting to get used to, Numachi was sitting there all by herself─in my seat, no less─with her legs crossed obnoxiously like it was the most natural thing in the world.

Mister Oshino would have said, I’ve been waiting.

It’s not like I’d arrived particularly early─in fact, since my morning schedule is packed, I often arrive later than my schoolmates, and that day was no exception.

And yet, there was no one in the classroom other than Numachi.

Had she chased them out? No, if a girl with her demeanor, clearly an outsider, planted herself in the center of the classroom, Naoetsu High’s quiet, indoor-kid herbivores wouldn’t even be able to cross the threshold, as if some kind of force field were in place.

Even I might do an about-face if I didn’t know her─if it weren’t for our fateful meeting the other day.

Her wild brown hair alone, less dyed than punished in some kind of self-flagellation, had that much power.

The wise man avoids danger, as they say.

Then again, the proper aphorism for the occasion was probably: Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

“But when I think about it now, maybe it was actually the kids who called them by name who had it right. Etiquette aside, I think they did─because they weren’t worried about someone’s position, they only cared about who they were as a person. By getting the etiquette right, I got it wrong. I’ve completely forgotten all those teachers whom I supposedly revered. I have no idea what their names were. Japanese, Math, Science, Social Studies─Technology and Home Ec, Music, Phys Ed. I thought of all of them only as ‘teachers,’ and I never got it that each of them were real people with their own individual lives.”

“…”

“Middle school and high school are different in some ways, of course, but those are the, what, the impressions that came to me upon visiting a school for the first time in ages.”

With this, Numachi gave a leisurely shrug, and taking hold of the crutch that had been leaning against the desk, she stood up (in a leisurely fashion, of course).

“Why are you here? Or actually…” I asked, confused. Yes, confusion. The Lord Devil whom, up until yesterday, I couldn’t find no matter how hard I tried, was right there in front of me─in the classroom I’d totally thought of as my own turf.

I felt like I really was face to face with a devil.

“…Why have you come here?”

“I just happened to be passing by─not. In fact, it was a hell of a stealth mission sneaking into this school without being detected. And I came to see you, obviously. I thought maybe you wanted to see me.”

“Well…”

All I could muster was that vague response.

In my head, I wondered if yesterday’s call to Karen had already borne fruit, but that didn’t seem likely.

It was simply too soon.

Then─thanks to my investigations the previous week, so to speak… Numachi somehow got wind of it…

And she was here to see me.

But why?

She was here to see me?

How come?

Total confusion.

“What’s the matter, Kanbaru,” she said. “Isn’t there something you want to ask me? That’s why I so kindly legged it over here to see you.” She raised her leg laboriously─the leg that was encased in a plaster cast.

Laboriously.

Nastily.

“I don’t need to ask it anymore,” I told her.

“Hm?”

“Now that we’ve met face to face like this─now that I’ve seen that left arm.”

I pointed.

At Numachi’s left arm, also encased in a plaster cast─the end of which was peeking out of the sleeve of her baggy jersey.

She hadn’t been wearing the cast the other day.

Had she had an accident since then and broken her arm?

No, that hypothesis itself was too laborious, noxious.

There was no need to quibble with the evidence, but if I were to anyway, she was using that encased left arm to hold her crutch.

If you really had a broken arm, you could never pull that off. And even if you could, you wouldn’t.

So─there was only one answer. A single possibility.

“You,” I said, “stole─my left arm.”

“I hauled away your junk. Or─I collected it,” Numachi rephrased, taking some gum out of her pocket like she couldn’t care less about our conversation.

Not a stick of gum, but the kind that comes in a bottle. The whole bottle seemed to have been shoved into her pocket. Which wouldn’t have worked if her jersey weren’t so big.

Opening the lid, she shook six or so pieces out onto her palm, threw them all into her mouth, and started chomping.

A thrilling display.

“Want some?”

“Nope…”

“’Kay.”

Her offer having been declined, Numachi returned the bottle to her pocket, a little disappointedly but without any hesitation.

She performed the entire operation with her left hand.

It was in a plaster cast, but her fingers were sticking out and merely bandaged─so she could use it normally.

“When? When the hell did you take it?”

“While you were enjoying that little breast massage I gave you. Though that was the prep. It took effect the next morning, right?”

Her prediction was accurate─but for the planner to guess the plan wasn’t in the least bit impressive.

In fact it was ridiculous, like a culprit boasting about her crime.

“Hey, why are you glaring at me like that? Shouldn’t you be thanking me, Kanbaru? After all, I took care of the arm that was the source of your worries.”

“My arm wasn’t─”

“It wasn’t worrying you? Really? Says the girl who made such a face─when she saw my leg?”

“…”

What sort of face had I made? Seeing the broken leg of my former archrival who’d been forced to retire due to it─wait.

“Wait a sec… Speaking of your left leg. Don’t tell me it’s also…”

Even as I began to voice the thought, I arrived at the conclusion that no, it was inconceivable. I mean, unlike my (fictional) situation, Numachi’s injury had come in the middle of a game, hadn’t it?

In other words, she was surrounded by spectators when it occurred, so she couldn’t be faking it.

Her injury was real.

But that said─since she really had stolen my arm…or if not my arm, the devil’s arm, it wasn’t unreasonable to assume that she was the “collector” that Deishu Kaiki had mentioned.

I felt uneasy, but this was an unease that had an answer.

“Kaiki…” I began─knowing full well that it was absolutely not the kind of thing to ask Numachi point blank─“didn’t know you were the collector?”

Hedging and using the interrogative form was my last little act of resistance. The question assumed that Numachi was Kaiki’s “junk man.” Come to think of it, she’d already admitted that she’d stolen my left arm, so I was the questionable one here.

“Oh. So he did find you yesterday. Glad to hear it.” Her response, though, was that blithe remark. She continued, “And yes, that swindler knows the truth about me perfectly well. We’ve known each other for a while, and we’re very well acquainted. He’s a weird fellow─I’m not talking about his swindling technique, I mean that no matter who he’s talking to, he always seems to give the other person only half the information he has. I don’t really understand his philosophy myself, but he seems to always want to be a ‘bona fide third party.’ Or is it more like he ‘sets aside’ information, on principle? Like he doesn’t want to be the director. In fact, he doesn’t even want to appear in a supporting role. You could say he’s devoted to working behind the scenes. He knew all about my secret identity, and I’m sure he realized that your arm had been taken. But he didn’t talk about it. Why, I have no idea. Maybe it’s his policy, or more likely he didn’t want to jinx it.”

“…”

Only say half of what you’re thinking.

What such a principle could be based on, I will never understand─but the fearsomely systematic mechanism made some kind of sense to me.

It did match up with the portrait of Kaiki that my seniors had painted for me─they both agreed that he was always oddly reluctant to give out information.

Interesting.

So─he was also being stingy with his info yesterday?

Accusing him of deceiving me would be going too far, but realizing that the man was indeed a congenital swindler was strangely calming.

But, that was interesting. Numachi was the “collector” in question, after all─yet in that case.

“What were you up to, telling a guy like Kaiki that I’d be going to that open campus yesterday? Thankfully, nothing bad came of it─but it could have.”

“But it didn’t. Right?”

“Don’t hide behind the outcome.”

“You say that like the outcome isn’t what matters most─listen, I’d been hearing about you from Kaiki. He also wanted to see you, but for some reason he couldn’t. I can’t just turn a blind eye to a person in need, can I?”

“Give me a break.”

“Just kidding.”

“All right, I don’t care what you were up to─but I’ll never feel comfortable unless you tell me how you knew I’d be going to the open campus.”

“Gathering rumors is where I shine.”

“…”

She was slippery as an eel, this one.

I couldn’t even have a proper chat with her.

In which case, I was just going to get down to business.

“Numachi…you weren’t only collecting unhappiness, I take it. You were a collector not only of unhappiness, but of a devil? I don’t get it, why would you─”

“That’s what I’ve come to this schoolhouse full of good little boys and girls to explain to you. Say, Kanbaru, you free after class today?”

“…Yeah,” I answered. I would have said yes even if I wasn’t.

“Then I’ll be waiting for you after school at the gym. Looks like it’s about time for the first bell to ring, so I’m going to pull back for the moment. We can talk more then.”

It was unclear to me how she had the nerve to select a public place like the school gymnasium for our appointment. The gym after school, full of students engaging in club activities, seemed like an especially untenable choice if she was worried about being seen─but when she pushed that arrangement on me so authoritatively, I couldn’t think of anything to say.

She was the kind of woman who barged into my classroom.

She probably had something in mind─in reality, after meeting up at the gym, we might move to another location.

So we could talk some more.

So she could talk to me some more.

“Sounds good… I’m looking forward to hearing your story.”

“And hear it you shall. And I want to hear what you have to say as well, about this arm─”

She approached and thrust the arm out at me as she said this.

That arm that so very recently had been my own.

She shoved it at me.

Like she was shoving me away.

“What are you talking about? Why would you want to hear about my left arm─”

“Isn’t it obvious?” asked Numachi, a smile creeping ever so slowly onto her face.

A touch of monomania tinging her voice.

“Knowing the provenance of the pieces is crucial for any precious collection.”