Monogatari Series - Volume 11 - Chapter 1.13

013

“Listen to me, Sengoku. If I were anyone else, I would be furious right now.”

Our location has changed to Koyomi’s house.

Big Brother’s room.

i’ve come here to play a few times since June, and it’s clean and tidy like you’d expect of him, but today─this one night, there’s no sense of fun and excitement in the air like on Nadeko’s other visits.

Just like the first time i came here, there’s strong tension.

…Unlike back then, Nadeko is being made to sit up straight on her knees, so you might even say it’s worse.

The difference is about as big as an amusement park and solitary confinement.

“Listen to me,” he repeats.

He just said something about not being furious, but he’s clearly angry.

It might be Nadeko’s first time ever seeing the Furious Version Koyomi. So this is how and why he gets mad.

It’s quite wonderful.

“Sneaking out of your house in the middle of the night and wandering around town for fun… If you keep that up, you’re going to turn out like me or Karen or Tsukihi.”

“…”

Whaaat.

That’s an odd way to put it.

If you’re wondering why he’s mad at Nadeko, he’s scolding her for playing around at night─while i can understand chewing someone out for sneaking away when their parents aren’t watching, Nadeko’s playing around was just building something resembling Nagoya Castle. It doesn’t seem so bad that he has to take her to his room and make her sit on her knees.

Well, i guess as someone with little sisters of a similar age as Nadeko, he couldn’t help but feel anxious over her “dalinquent” behavior…

He even made Nadeko take off her cap.

Nadeko feels like she’s in her birthday suit.

“I don’t want to nag you or anything, but Sengoku, nighttime is for sleeping. Unless you’re a vampire.”

“…”

i can’t tell him that i was looking for something.

Then again, he was searching, too, for Nadeko─when Nadeko’s Mom and Dad noticed she had “runaway,” the first person they thought to call was Tsukihi, or Big Brother Koyomi’s little sister.

Tsukihi’s fame extends to the PTA.

Tsukihi being Tsukihi, her reaction was, “It’s fine, what’s one night,” and she even lied for Nadeko and said i was staying over, but Koyomi happened to pass by his little sister’s room (pass by his little sister’s room?) and to overhear this.

“What are you, stupid?! What if Sengoku goes extinct?!”

He apparently dashed out of their house to go looking around town for Nadeko.

i wasn’t able to find what i was looking for, but Koyomi found Nadeko through his instincts alone. Even if you account for the fact that he used his bike, he has incredible dowsing skills─quite unlike Mister Serpent, you might say.

On the topic of Mister Serpent, he’s been silent for a while─he seems to be “adhearing” to his promise that he won’t talk in front of people, but now that i think of it, he knows who Koyomi is.

That’s what he said. That day in June.

He was watching from the shrine when Nadeko and Big Brother Koyomi and Miss Kanbaru conducted that richual at Kita-Shirahebi Shrine─so.

So i wonder what he’s thinking watching Big Brother Koyomi now.

“Tsu…”

i feel like we’re going nowhere at this rate, so i nervously begin to talk.

Nadeko wants to try her best to change the subject.

Not that Nadeko likes trying her best.

“Tsukihi… What’s she up to?”

“Hm? Tsukihi? She’s such a cold person that she’s already getting her fill of sleep next door. Want me to wake her up?”

Swoosh, swoosh, Nadeko shakes her head.

That’s not what i want at all… In fact, what a scary thing to say.

Koyomi might not really understand because she’s his little sister, but Tsukihi is basically scary.

Tsukihi the Terrible.

They don’t call her one of the Fire Sisters for nothing… Some of the stories about her aren’t even funny.

She’s a good girl, though. And i’m not saying that to smooth things over, she’s really, truly a good girl.

It’s just that her absolute energy is on a different level from people like Nadeko.

You could even say a different dimension.

Not all good girls are law-abiding, you see.

“Sengoku? You don’t need to feel like it’d be a problem. Whether she’s awake or asleep, Tsukihi is always gonna have droopy eyes.”

“Leave her droopy eyes alone… But no, i already made trouble for Tsukihi… i even made her lie.”

i’ll need to get our stories straight soon─and before that, i need to thank her.

“Right. But first things first, you ought to apologize to your parents, Sengoku. I know I’ve told you again and again not to be so quick to say ‘I’m sorry’ since that’s your favorite phrase. Still, you need to apology to them properly this time around.”

“Y-Yeah… You’re right…”

“Sheesh, if i hadn’t found you, who knows what might have happened…”

Koyomi shrugs his shoulders like he’s both annoyed and relieved.

Um, “who knows what might have happened”? Probably nothing in particular…

i might have finished flattening the sandbox, tidied up the thing resembling Nagoya Castle, gone home…and, well, after getting yelled at by Mom and Dad, gone to sleep, woken up, and headed to school.

This is a safe town, anyway, not a big city like Tokyo.

Not much happens here.

Koyomi tends to worry a little too much about girls younger than him as you can tell from his interactions with Tsukihi and Karen.

You could even call him overprotective… i’m glad that he’s kind to Nadeko, but i really do think he overdoes it with his attitude toward his little sisters.

He can go past protective and be prying.

What’s he being so cautious of, anyway?

“You really need to be more cautious. Not just you, Karen and Tsukihi, too… It’s almost like you don’t realize that you’re kids.”

“i-i realize that…i think.”

i’m not sure about Tsukihi or Karen─it can feel like they’re trying too hard to act older than they are─but Nadeko thinks of herself as a kid.

A kid who doesn’t know anything.

All i know is that a sandbox has a bottom.

“Well, no, it’s not that you don’t realize that you’re a kid. You don’t realize how indecently the world gazes upon children.”

“…”

What an opinion.

i’m at a loss for words.

i have to wonder if Big Brother Koyomi is actually fighting against no one other than himself.

But also thinking that trying to make that point would be wrong, Nadeko apologizes.

“i’m sorry.”

Nadeko’s favorite phrase. Call it a conditioned reflex─in any case, it’s a magical spell that ends conversations.

A magical spell, like one of those charms.

i’m not sure how effective it is, though.

“Well, as long as you realize what you’ve done… Hm? Wait, so what’s going on? Why was a good girl like you walking around in the middle of the night?”

This also seems like the wrong time to argue that i’m not a good girl, and it doesn’t make the question any easier for Nadeko to answer honestly.

The real reason is that i’m looking for Mister Serpent’s object of worship…but i can’t tell Koyomi that. If i were going to now, then Nadeko would have asked him for help from the beginning─and not lied on the phone.

This time.

i’m keeping it a secret─from Big Brother Koyomi.

After all─unlike June.

Nadeko isn’t the victim.

Nadeko is guilty─of killing lots of Mister Serpent’s breathren.

“Sengoku? Don’t tell me…” Big Brother sounds suspicious that Nadeko has clammed up. “Don’t tell me what you said on the phone yesterday was somehow a lie and you’ve gotten wrapped up in something bad…”

“…”

Nadeko’s mouth turns into a straight line.

He really does have great instincts.

In fact, i feel like they’re a little too sharp─i guess it’s due to all his experience facing off against aberrations, the result of his long service record.

Well, i didn’t get wrapped up in something, this time i’ve been enwrapped, so to speak.

This is what i think as i look at Nadeko’s right wrist.

“N-No, that’s…not it,” i then say.

i won’t claim to have spoken clearly or firmly─anyone would have heard the words as a makeshift excuse, a knee-jerk denial.

“Oh, really, it isn’t? Good,” Koyomi accepts them, sounding relieved.

…He seems to believe Nadeko.

i shouldn’t be saying this as the person who lied to him, but he’s a bit naïve.

He’s too much of a good boy.

“I was so sure you weren’t telling me how some aberration conned you into doing something for it, like searching for a lost object, and how that’s why you were digging up that sandbox.”

Bingo.

The only thing he didn’t get right was that the aberration was taking advantage of Nadeko’s weakness, her sense of guilt─Koyomi knows i chopped up and killed lots of snakes, but a serpent coming to complain to Nadeko about it is beyond even his imagination.

He really seems to believe─Nadeko is a decent person.

“N-No… That’s not it at all. i-i just had… Well, there’s a lot of issues in Nadeko’s class right now, and…Nadeko is the president, and…”

i try to think of an appropriate excuse, but unable to come up with a lie out of thin air, Nadeko ends up telling a story adapted from her reality.

It’s still a lie, of course.

“S-So…i’ve been feeling kind of tired…and suddenly felt like wanting to leave the house.”

“Oh, I see. Yeah, that kind of thing happens.”

Koyomi seems convinced.

It doesn’t quite make sense for Nadeko to leave her house in the middle of the night because something bad happened at school, but the excuse seems to do a pretty good job persuading Koyomi, who hasn’t had the best relationship with his parents after he started high school, and who even went through times when he didn’t come home.

That must be why he’s scolding Nadeko like this today, in particular.

He must have lots to say when he looks back on his own life.

“I do understand how you feel, Sengoku. But running away isn’t going to fix things.”

“Running away…isn’t going to fix things.”

“In that case, you should have come to me. So…what’s this classroom trouble? Does it have anything to do with Kaiki’s charms?”

“…”

He has such good instincts. He really does.

Yes, i did talk to him about it a little in the past─but he should already consider the case closed. Well, not just Koyomi, but everyone─Nadeko, her whole class. The case was solved as soon as Mister Deishu Kaiki left town.

There are problems that come out of solutions─new things to end that come out of endings─but this, too, Big Brother Koyomi would know a lot better than Nadeko.

“Nope,” i barely manage to deny.

But even Koyomi won’t swallow this one whole. He starts to look unpersuaded.

And─

“Sengoku,” he says. “You’re in middle school, so I’m sure you have problems and issues to spare─but you know you don’t have to take them on alone, right? True, I’m not someone who should be dispensing advice, but I can at least lend you an ear.”

“…”

He looks serious as he lets this be known.

When he’s being serious, he looks kind of trustworthy and also a little scary.

Because, usually, he’s just messing around.

“Listen, Nadeko. No man is an island.”

Now he’s starting to say stuff that’s making him sound like a school principal.

It’s so “buy the book” that i have to gulp─i nearly burst out laughing.

i can’t believe someone is saying it unironically in this day and age!

“…If I told you that, some people out there would complain, ‘I can’t believe someone is saying it unironically in this day and age’!” he turns the argument upside down.

i didn’t expect it to go in this direction. A surprise twist.

“Some would even say, ‘Sure, but you’re talking to an independent woman!’”

“…”

His tone is getting so heated i dare not talk.

If Nadeko were that elementary schooler Hachikuji who’s apparently friends with Big Brother, i doubt she’d leave him alone when he’s in such a state, but all i can do is watch and listen.

i can’t even slip in a comment.

“What a sad interpretation. I bet people who say such things don’t read books. That’s one of the most famous lines of poetry out there!”

“…”

Technically, it isn’t a poem.

“Or what, are we really islands, off on our own sticking our heads in the water instead of at least being peninsulas?!”

“…”

What could have happened to him over the last few months? i never knew him as the type to go on in this vein, even as a joke.

No.

That must be just how much Nadeko made him worry.

i feel ashamed.

i feel bad about what i’ve done.

i’ll make sure i don’t get caught next time.

Before going out, i’ll make sure Nadeko’s parents are completely asleep.

“Y-Yeah,” i nod and agree as these thoughts go through Nadeko’s head. “You’re exactly right. From now on, i’ll come to you if i’m ever in trouble instead of wrestling with it alone.”

“I hope you do. You must be exhausted, so rest for today.”

“Rest?”

“Hold on a second,” Koyomi says before leaving─and Nadeko finds herself all alone in his room.

Where did he go?

“H-Hey, Mister Serpent… Are we going to be okay? He didn’t catch on, did he?” i whisper. “Mister Serpent?”

Hm. There’s no reaction.

He’s just enwrapped around Nadeko’s right wrist, not moving an inch like he really is nothing more than a scrunchy, a plain, tacky scrunchy… i try shaking him, i try smacking him, i try smashing him into things, i try poking at him with the trowel, but he doesn’t even twitch.

Why not?

Sure, i want him to act like an accessory when we’re around people, and right now there’s no telling when Koyomi might return, so maybe the Serpent is being “prewdent” by just staying put…

Eventually─

“Thanks for waiting.”

Big Brother Koyomi is back.

In one hand he’s holding what looks like a thin kimono─a yukata for women, apparently.

“Here you go.”

“?”

“You can sleep in this. I borrowed it from Tsukihi.”

“What…”

i’m speechless.

i can sleep in it? In other words, pajamas?

Is he sure he didn’t mean to say i could weep in it?

It would be strange if he said that, too, but… Is Big Brother Koyomi implying that Nadeko should stay over?!

“Stay the night here. It’s late, after all.”

Forget implying it, he said it outright.

Directly.

“We have to get our story straight to cover for the lie Tsukihi told, too.”

“Tsu, Tsu-Tsu-Tsukihi… You borrowed this from her,” i stammer, panicked. “S-So, in the end, you woke her…up?”

“Hm? Oh, no. I just barged into her room without asking, fished through her drawers without asking, checked on Karen’s and Tsukihi’s sleeping faces up close without asking, and borrowed it without asking. I don’t think Tsukihi would mind.”

“…”

i feel like there was a completely unnecessary step in there, but maybe it’s Nadeko’s imagination. She can’t tell.

Still, sleeping over.

i can’t hide how bewildered i am by the sudden new development crashing down on Nadeko’s head.

As i take the pajamas (sleeping in a yukata─it’s like i’m at a traditional inn) from Big Brother Koyomi, i’m still panicking.

“Wh-Which room should i sleep in?”

“Huh? Well, it’s not like our house has that many rooms. You’re just gonna have to sleep in here.”

“I-In Big Brother’s room…in Big Brother’s bed!”

My panic starts to accelerate.

It’s not like he said anything about his bed.

i’m getting carried away.

“Hm? Well, yeah. You must be tired, so use the bed.”

Nadeko’s jumped gun landed a bullseye.

Nadeko is sharp today.

“Wh-What… Y-You use your bed, Koyomi! N, N-N-N, Nadeko can just sleep under the bed!”

“How do you even come up with that?”

That’d be terrifying, Koyomi mutters.

Yeah, i guess anyone, and not just Big Brother, would have trouble getting a good night’s sleep knowing that someone is lurking right below.

“Just use the bed. It’d turn into a huge problem if it ever got out that I made a middle school girl sleep under my bed. I’d be marked for the Fire Sisters’ terrible retribution.”

“B-But Nadeko can’t hog Big Brother’s bed and enjoy it all by herself…”

“Oh. No, no, it’s fine.”

While i continue to show as much consideration as possible, Big Brother Koyomi gets a smile on his face like nothing’s the matter.

“Two people could sleep in this bed no problem.”