Monogatari Series - Volume 13 - Chapter 1.13

013

Although I had told Senjogahara to expect it to take at least a month, I really prefer not to drag my feet.

Patience is important, of course, but I like to deal promptly with anything that can be dealt with promptly. I prize alacrity. So I decided to go straight to the heart of the matter.

And where was the heart of this particular matter?

On the one hand, there was Kita-Shirahebi Shrine─marching in there right off the bat, however, wouldn’t just be reckless, it would be moronic. It wouldn’t be fearless, just scary.

The matter had another heart, so I would go there first. It’s odd to be speaking of multiple hearts, but never mind that, the other one in question was Nadeko Sengoku’s home.

The logic being that if I could begin by getting a handle on the personality of the mark, the rest would fall into place─thus I left the station and made a beeline for the Sengoku place.

By which I mean I started walking in what I assumed to be its general direction, since I didn’t have the address, and called Senjogahara.

“What is it? Any new developments?”

“I’ve completed my preparations and am now commencing operations… Sounds pretty loud where you are. Where’re you spending the holiday, anyway?”

I should’ve just butted out. The work was mine to do, and I didn’t want her butting in, so it didn’t matter where she was or what she was doing.

“Araragi’s house,” she answered. When she really didn’t have to. “They invited us, you see. My dad’s here too, like our families are getting to know each other…”

“Isn’t that cute.”

“Go easy on me. I’m quite aware how ridiculous it is for us to be carrying on like nothing’s wrong,” Senjogahara pleaded, in a sinking voice that was very unusual for her.

Well, that did explain the noise and her whispering. In that case, she could have just not taken the call, but with her and her sweetheart’s lives on the line, I guess she had no choice.

The thing is, while I found them ridiculous, I didn’t think they were wrong to be carrying on like that. Just because you’re dying in seventy-four, no, seventy-three days, whatever, in the near future, you can’t simply neglect your interpersonal obligations.

As long as you’re trying to save yourselves, anyway.

“I need Nadeko Sengoku’s address. By which I mean her legal place of residence, where she was living when she was human. I could find it out myself, but I want to know now,” I cut to the chase, not giving a damn about their complex feelings or delicate situations. “Email it to me, will you?”

“I know Miss Sengoku’s…Nadeko Sengoku’s address, sure, but…”

That “Miss” didn’t escape me─I had no idea what that slip of the tongue might mean, but I filed it away in my mind. I wasn’t sure if it would prove to be useful info, but I didn’t need to know yet.

“I don’t have your email,” Senjogahara stated.

“I’m telling you now. Do you have something to write with?”

“No, but I’ll remember it.”

Smart little girl.

It pissed me off, so I gave the address quickly and indistinctly. I don’t know what I’d have done if she’d gotten it wrong, but she repeated it back to me without any hassle.

She really is smart, I thought, genuinely impressed this time.

When such a smart girl ends up in a bad predicament, nothing to say but life ain’t fair─or wait. Maybe it just balances the equation when someone who’s talented faces hardship.

People who aren’t talented basically facing hardship too pokes a hole in that theory, but I’m just going to let that one go.

It was just a thought, after all, and I don’t have a comeback if you start splitting hairs.

“Okay, I’ll email her address right away… But what are you gonna do once you have it?”

“Send her a holiday card.”

Making jokes in serious circumstances isn’t just bluster, it’s a kind of conversation skill, but this one actually landed.

I could tell that Senjogahara had crouched down on the other end of the line─probably she couldn’t laugh out loud because her family or her sweetheart were on the other side of the door.

The stone-faced girl of two years ago.

She’d become someone who laughed easily─though in the end I was to blame for exacerbating the stone-faced attitude that had been brought on by her mysterious ailment.

“I’m kidding, of course,” I clarified unnecessarily, which Senjogahara also seemed to find funny. She couldn’t get a hold of herself, so there was nothing to do but forge ahead. “I’m going to find out more about Nadeko Sengoku. I assume that, having given up her humanity and become a god, she’s currently being treated as a missing person, a runaway. So I’m going to get the story from her parents, then get permission to search her room. Maybe I’ll find something.”

“W-Wait a sec,” Senjogahara tried to stop me though she still couldn’t stop laughing. “Um… Kaiki. Naturally I’ll leave your methods up to you, but don’t get too rough─”

“I don’t get rough. You should know me better than that. If you’re going to leave my methods up to me, then leave them up to me. And don’t forget, Senjogahara. Don’t ever forget that your life was so shamefully dear to you that you turned to your most bitter enemy rather than lose it.”

Sure, if it had only been a question of her own life, I doubt she would have come to me. But I enjoy saying stuff like that when I know the truth damn well. And the moment I enjoy it, I lose sight of what was so enjoyable about it.

“I know. I haven’t forgotten. But let me ask you anyway… Please don’t do anything too rough.”

“I just told you I wouldn’t.”

Suddenly fed up, I jabbed the off button. I like phones because you can do that. Well, it wasn’t just because I was fed up; if I kept Senjogahara away for too long, Araragi or one of his family members might notice.

And as I discovered later, both of his parents are cops… I really dodged a bullet there.

And then there was Senjogahara’s dad.

Running into him was absolutely out of the question─even more out of the question than running into Koyomi Araragi.

Senjogahara’s email arrived as I was cautioning myself. Man, high school girls have thumbs like lightning. She probably deleted it, too, before it even arrived in my inbox.

The subject line read, “Don’t do anything rough.” Persistent. Really persistent. She was making me sick. Now that she’d made me sick, I felt like honoring her request.

Frankly, I’d been planning to get a little rough at the Sengoku place, but I didn’t want to anymore. Nicely done, Senjogahara.

I checked the address (Even allowing for the speed of her typing, the email arrived too soon for her to have looked it up, so she must’ve had it memorized. That gave me some insight not only into her prodigious memory, but also into how earnestly she had fought by her sweetheart’s side these past few months. Not that I cared) and quickened my pace.

It occurred to me that I needed to add the house’s location to my notebook when I got back to the hotel─at which point I realized that I didn’t even know what Nadeko Sengoku looked like.

No need to panic, I could ask Senjogahara to send me a picture message at a later date─tonight, even. She probably had a pic of Nadeko Sengoku. Or I could just ask to borrow one from her parents when I got to their house.

The streets were oddly empty, which made me uneasy until I remembered that it was still the New Year’s holiday. How quickly we forget. What the hell was I doing during the holidays, anyway? My job─or maybe I was just trying to convince myself of that.