Monogatari Series - Volume 13 - Chapter 1.07

007

“Never thought I’d hear from you like this. So what’s up? Something happen?”

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

My client Hitagi Senjogahara, whom I can finally stop calling Senshogahara, a high school senior at, what was it, Naoetsu High, repeated what she’d said to me over the phone. Like she could only make her pitch as if she were reading it straight off a cheat sheet.

From her attitude, it seemed possible I had misheard her after all when I thought she said, “I owe you one.” Maybe it had been wishful thinking.

But again, I couldn’t care less.

It’s an open question whether there’s anything I could care less about.

I wouldn’t be surprised if those mumbled words had been a trick to lure me out─in reality, though, now that I had been lured to Okinawa and was listening to her pitch, there was no end to how much less I couldn’t care about the call’s particulars. It was ancient history.

History was never my favorite subject.

It was all the same to me whether the woman sitting across the table was someone I had swindled a long time ago, a passing tourist, or the daughter of my greatest benefactor. I couldn’t care less, across the board.

“There’s a person I want you to deceive,” she said again─not so much to me, by this third time, but as if she were trying to persuade herself. As far as I was concerned, she was getting tedious. “I wonder if you can pull it off.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence. There’s not a soul in the world I can’t deceive─”

I was intentionally talking big because I figured Senjogahara hated that kind of braggadocio more than anything. When I don’t have a handle on the conversation, my first move is to say and do whatever I think will displease my interlocutor.

What’s the point, you ask?

No particular point.

I just feel more comfortable being hated than liked─if anything, lessee, maybe it’s because being liked equals being taken lightly, while being hated at least means you’re being taken seriously.

Or whatever.

“─But until I hear some concrete details, I can’t say one way or the other.”

“I only couched it as a job offer so you could save face, since even if you’re not my better you’re at least my elder. This is something you were going to have to do all along.”

“What the hell?” I shrugged my shoulders at Senjogahara’s statement. I had no idea what she was talking about. Talk about pointless. “Is this about atonement? You want me to make up for putting you through the wringer once upon a time? What can I say, you’ve really grown, Senjogahara, and I don’t just mean your boobs.”

I threw in that dash of sexual harassment to make myself that much more hateful, of course, but maybe it didn’t have the desired effect on the girlfriend of a pedophile─and anyway, she had penetrated my “make them hate me first” defense a couple of years ago.

Penetrated it like a sword, or maybe with the sharp tip of a writing implement.

So maybe it was pointless, after all. However adept the sleight of hand, it was like performing a magic trick after the secret has been revealed─even if it’s easier for the victim of a con to be victimized again, this young lady, who’d been so harshly deceived, falling for my tricks a second time was unthinkable.

So I didn’t think it.

“I’m not asking you to make it up to me,” Senjogahara continued seamlessly as though she’d taken no damage.

I didn’t care for her knowing attitude. Didn’t care for it at all.

“Araragi already healed the wounds I suffered at your hands.”

“Oho. That’s splendid. Aren’t you two cozy.”

“I’m asking you to make it up to someone else─and you have absolutely no choice in the matter.”

“I’m getting a little tired of you dictating my actions to me.” For once, I was being honest about how I felt─maybe the word sounds hollow coming from me, but it was how I honestly felt. “I’m going to take off now, if that’s all right with you,” I announced.

“Try it and I’ll stab you. Don’t think for a moment that I came here unprepared.”

“…”

My instinct told me she was lying.

An instinct, but not a true intuition─just the same simple conclusion anyone would come to. Since she came by plane, any kind of knife or blade she might have had would have been confiscated.

Then again, who knows, maybe she concocted an elaborate scheme to smuggle one in her checked baggage…and even if not, even if she hadn’t prepared a weapon, one false move and she would probably leap over the table and try to kill me anyway.

That’s how much she had suffered at my hands.

How much I had made her suffer.

That said, I had no intention of making it up to her. That would be plain rude to the money I made back then.

When it comes to money, you mustn’t forget your manners.

Never, ever, ever.

But while on the one hand I felt nothing but antipathy at having my actions dictated to me like that, I was also overcome with curiosity.

If this wasn’t about making it up to Senjogahara, who was I supposed to make it up to?

Who, and why?

Could it be that other girl?

Koyomi Araragi’s little sister?

What was her name…Karen? Quite the brave little thing─not that we could ever be friends, but I have a soft spot for stupid kids like that. You might be surprised to learn that I actually really like kids. Which is why I remember her.

Hmm, maybe I could get on board if she was the one I was supposed to make it up to.

Like hell─why should I do anything for a cheeky little brat who would beat the shit out of me the second she saw me?

I’ll pass, even if there’s money in it. Actually, if there’s money in it I’ll consider it. At the very least I’ll come to the negotiating table. After that, it’s a question of how much.

“I’d prefer not to be stabbed. Fine, I give up. I’ll hear you out. Whether I actually pay attention or not is another story…”

Curiosity 1, Antipathy 0.

I was pandering to a high school girl.

My pride would remain intact─pandering didn’t begin to express my attitude towards her when she was a freshman, so why be haughty now.

“Let’s hear it, Senjogahara. Who is it you want me to deceive? From your tone, I’m getting the sense that it’s someone I know.”

“Nadeko Sengoku.”

Her response was concise and perfectly clear, which was a welcome change, but I had been wrong. It was a name that I had never heard before in my life.