Monogatari Series - Volume 13 - Chapter 1.02

002

On that day I had gone to visit a certain famous shrine in Kyoto, Kyoto Prefecture, Japan─if it got around that I had been there, though, the shrine’s reputation might suffer, so I won’t reveal its name. That day shall henceforth be celebrated as the anniversary of my embranglement in Araragi and Senjogahara’s puppy love, but the fact that I, desultory fellow that I am, remember the precise date is by no means an indication that those two are particularly memorable to me.

The reason I remember is simply that that day is by far the easiest to remember out of all 365 in the year─in other words, it was January first.

New Year’s Day.

I was at the shrine to ring in the new year, like all the other faithful.

That’s a lie. I’m not a religious person (in fact, it’s doubtful whether I’m a person at all), so I don’t believe there are gods or buddhas in this world, and I have no desire to be around people who throw away their money─that thing I prize more than anything, more than life itself─as though it were worthless garbage.

If that’s what it means to be human, I’ll pass.

I’m the kind of guy who, once upon a time, bankrupted an entire religious organization with a little con that I had concocted─a cold and heartless person in a cold and godless world.

Such a person wouldn’t make the traditional New Year’s shrine visit, and even if he would, I doubt that whatever gods might be there would accept his offering. They wouldn’t sign for the goods; the alms would leap right back out of the offertory box. Not that I have any interest in testing that theory, even as a lark.

So why would I willingly be on the grounds of a shrine at New Year’s, surrounded by teeming hordes of worshippers? Because I work part time as a priest, obviously─nope, not a chance. I’m aware that there’s a shortage of part-time shrine maidens, but I really don’t think priest is a part-time kind of job─though I wouldn’t have thought shrine maiden was, either.

If you ask me, it’s one hell of a con.

I’m not trying to criticize─more like I want a piece of the action. After all, most of the worshippers are just there to enjoy the atmosphere.

Anyone who would readily believe that some college co-ed is a shrine maiden simply because she’s wearing a shrine maiden’s outfit is just asking to get taken for a ride.

As I see it, believing = begging to be bamboozled.

And that is exactly why I was at that shrine on New Year’s Day, doing nothing but people-watching─I had come in order to observe them as they visited the shrine half-ironically, throwing away their money, that thing more precious than life itself, as though it were nothing but trash─in order to research the ecology of such people.

The law-abiding citizenry.

The law-abiding citizenry, afraid to doubt.

Every New Year’s I visit a shrine to remind myself that I’ll never be like them, if I end up like them it’s all over. And it doesn’t have to be New Year’s; even in the middle of summer, if I’m feeling down or if I’m depressed because a business venture has failed, I visit some shrine somewhere and reset myself.

New Year’s is when the shrines are most crowded, of course, but there are always at least one or two worshippers throwing away money like discarded candy wrappers.

There are always a few fools around.

Always some people around.

And watching those people, I remind myself I’ll never be like them, if I end up like them it’s all over.

A warning.

A self-admonition.

Maybe that sounds like a convincing explanation, but maybe I was really there for a different reason entirely. Maybe I was actually there to pray for good health for the coming year, or for a likely bride to come along.

There’s no end to the “maybes” that we could pursue about me. Maybe.

All of that said, why I was at the shrine has no bearing on any of the tale to come, so it makes no difference why I was there. The important thing is that, at that moment, I was at a shrine in Kyoto.

Naturally Kyoto is not where I’m from. I had not popped down to my local shrine. That is to say, there is no place that I think of as “where I’m from.” You may say, Oh, but your family register must be somewhere, but I sold it off when I was a teenager.

Well, “when I was a teenager” is a lie, and “sold off” is only half true, but the fact is that I am currently a man without a family register─the man called Deishu Kaiki died in a traffic accident some years ago. And I received some percentage of the insurance money paid out at the time, as was my legitimate right.

Does that sound fishy, even for a fabrication?

Nevertheless, I swear by all that is holy that I am at present a vagabond with no fixed abode─not the sort of thing to say at a shrine, perhaps, but oh well.

In that regard, I’m living a life not so different from that of my best buddy Mèmè Oshino─if there is a difference, it’s only that he prefers to sleep in abandoned buildings, while I prefer to sleep in gorgeous hotels.

I’m not making a value judgment; it’s just a question of preference, a matter of taste, so to speak─just as I would rather die than sleep rough, old Oshino despises gorgeous hotels, and cell phones, and filthy lucre.

Then again, where his peripatetic lifestyle has an element of professional fieldwork to it, mine is more of a life-on-the-run kind of a thing, so if we’re going to make a value judgment after all, then I guess it turns out that he’s the one who should be valued, and I’m the one who should be judged.

In any case, I was not in Kyoto at the time because I’m a Kyotoite─unlike Kagenui, I don’t make fluent use of a boundlessly suspect Kyoto dialect, nor I am well-versed in the city’s onmyodo of auspicious directions and locales.

The only reason I always spend New Year’s in Kyoto is that it’s where one spends New Year’s─does that sound miserably fishy?

Listen, in reality it could have been anywhere─a famous shrine in Tokyo, a famous shrine in Fukuoka, it doesn’t matter.

If you want to think, He just said Kyoto for the sake of convenience, that doesn’t bother me at all─if you want to believe that I actually passed an elegant New Year’s in Hawaii, that’s no problem at all, and hell, you can believe that I spent it in some warzone for all I care. The one thing that is true beyond a shadow of a doubt is that I absolutely was not in that idyllic, peaceful little town from which I am barred entry, but you don’t even have to believe that if you don’t want to.

Basically, I don’t give a shit.

It just doesn’t matter.

What sort of place I was in, how I felt, or what I was doing has no bearing at all on where this tale began.

I was an outsider wherever it began, and I’ll still be an outsider when we cross the finish line. I’ll never be anything but an outsider, to the bitter end.

The important thing is when.

When.

It was New Year’s─that’s the only important thing. The reason that New Year’s, out of all the days of the year, leaves the strongest impression and remains most clearly in your memory is, of course, that it’s a special day, and this is true even for someone like me─even for an old codger like me, whose memories of summer vacation and winter vacation and spring break have all faded. I expect it’s even truer for high school students, what with receiving money and greeting cards and all. For them it must be a real red-letter day.

And on that red-letter day, I received a phone call.

A phone call from a high school student.

“Hello, Kaiki? It’s me, Hitagi Senjogahara.”

She wielded her name at me like a sword.

Hearing only her voice, you would absolutely never think she was still in high school.

“There’s a person I want you to deceive.”