Monogatari Series - Volume 13 - Chapter 1.30

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Not for free, I won’t, I declared, and began by making Hanekawa pay for the cab. She made a face like she couldn’t believe her ears, but that was the extent of her protest, and she paid the fare with a credit card.

Seemed a little uppity of her to use a credit card when she was only a high school student, but these days you probably need one if you’re going to go traveling overseas.

“Thank you very much,” I said, getting out of the taxi.

Getting out after me, Hanekawa noted, “You’re surprisingly decorous, aren’t you, Mister Kaiki.”

“Eh?”

What was she on about, I had just made her pay the cab fare. Did she mean “devious”?

“Oh, nothing. Anyway, where shall we go? Preferably somewhere where we can talk at our leisure without being seen.”

Right. Having returned secretly to Japan, she had to sneak around, just as much or probably more than me, even if it wasn’t under duress.

The Mister Donut Senjogahara had taken me to would work…but it might be too crowded during the day.

“We can speak back at my hotel, if that’s all right with you,” Hanekawa proposed. “The room was inexpensive, so I’m sure it’s not where you’re staying, but it’s in this area too.”

“I don’t mind, but are you─”

“It’s fine. I’m not finicky about that sort of thing, and anyway, I like to think I’m a good judge of men.”

Hanekawa smiled, and I had a mind to say something, but the more I argued, the guiltier I might feel, all on my own, so I thought better of it. Going to her hotel room probably looked better than going to mine, too.

But it takes a hell of a lot of swagger to tell a swindler to his face that you’re a good judge of character, so I had to take my hat off to her.

“You’re very frank─or open,” was all I said.

I fell in behind her, and she led us to her hotel, where I soon sat facing her across a narrow single room.

I said, “Should we order room service?”

“No…please don’t start ordering things on my tab. I may have a credit card, but that doesn’t mean I have a lot of money.”

“Oh, really?” She did tell me the room was inexpensive.

“I worked my fingers to the bone until I found a ticket so cheap that I couldn’t even believe it was legal, and I’m making my way around the world by taking advantage of as many discount tour packages as possible.”

“Wow.” I nodded.

I could brag about my Premium Pass 300 to blow her mind, but that wouldn’t be very mature, so I let it go.

Okay, not because it wouldn’t be mature. If I bragged about a card costing three million yen, such an erudite young lady might quibble, Oh, but, since you could rack up 200,000 miles with that, if you converted it into Edy or into tickets, you’d get a much better bargain.

I’m not even imprudent with my spending, it’s more of an easy come, easy go thing. I had no hope of getting the better of someone like Tsubasa Hanekawa, who strides firmly down the sunny side of the street and keeps out of the shadows.

In fact, working her fingers to the bone was like bragging to me. I almost wanted to pick a fight: people who lead decent, respectable lives need to realize that that, in and of itself, is deeply hurtful to people who don’t lead decent, respectable lives.

“People who lead decent, respectable lives need to realize that that, in and of itself, is deeply hurtful to people who don’t lead decent, respectable lives.”

I picked it.

At which Hanekawa took off her coat and hung it in the closet. With a decent, respectable smile, she said, “Yes, that’s one way to look at it.”

I wanted to punch her in the face, but I wasn’t sure I could salvage the situation afterwards, so I restrained myself.

“Listen, Hanekawa. You need to talk to me about something, and vice versa. I’m ready and willing to discuss those things, and very much want to, but before that, how about we sort out a unity of purpose?”

“Unity of purpose?”

“Yeah. ’Cause all kinds of people with all kinds of motivations seemed to be mixed up in this.”

Not to mention my “tail” (a possibility), Gaen-senpai’s “watchdog” (a possibility), and the person who wrote the mysterious letter (a certainty).

“For someone in my line of work, how people feel is important.”

“Uh huh,” Tsubasa Hanekawa, who of course knew that my line of work was swindling, gave a most, or the most, equivocal reply.

So what. If that was going to make me fold, I couldn’t call myself a swindler. You’re no good until you’ve had a million NOs thrust in your face.

“Which is why I want to know up front. Hanekawa, you’d prefer for Senjogahara and Araragi to be ‘saved,’ right?”

“Isn’t that obvious? Didn’t I just implore you to save her?”

“But to play devil’s advocate, maybe you want me to save them because you don’t want to save them yourself. By leaving it to somebody else, you get to double down on closing your eyes to the problem. Also, you might have gone overseas searching for Oshino just to get to him before Senjogahara and Araragi─to pull the wool over his eyes and make him not come back to Japan under any circumstances, or more directly, to ask him not to save them.”

“So you’ve managed to live this long being that suspicious of people,” Hanekawa said, turning a little pale. Just that level of mistrust was something of a culture shock for her, it seemed.

What a way to think of me.

What an honest life she must have led.

But being the grounded person that she clearly was, Tsubasa Hanekawa kindly came down to my level. “I want to save Miss Senjogahara and Araragi, but I don’t have to be the one to save them. I just don’t want them to die, so it doesn’t matter who saves them. It could be me, or Mister Oshino, or you.”

“Swear to god?” I asked.

Given that we were dealing with Nadeko Sengoku, this was meant to be arch. “Swear to cat,” Tsubasa Hanekawa replied with a straight face.

What the hell? Not an expression I was familiar with, but maybe it was some recent high school girl slang? Dammit, I’d fallen behind the times.

“Any questions on your part?” I ushered.

“Hunh?”

“Don’t you want to ask me about my perspective, how I feel? My client, at least, is terribly concerned. Don’t you want to know why I accepted this job from Senjogahara, or confirm that I intend to see it through?”

Even as I harassed her, I didn’t have a clever response lined up if she threw those questions back at me. If she actually asked me, “Well, why did you?” or “If I asked, are you going to tell me?” at that point, I’d have been at a loss for words. And who knows, I might’ve gotten pissed off and washed my hands of the whole thing.

Back to Okinawa, done with Hitagi Senjogahara and Nadeko Sengoku, and through with cold climes.

I might have told Senjogahara that an adult doesn’t just abandon a job, but that was yesterday, and this was today.

Hanekawa didn’t ask either question, though. She just smiled and said, “I’m not going to ask you anything.”

“…”

“Okay then, if you don’t mind, I’d like to get down to business─”

“Hang on. Why aren’t you? Are my feelings so transparent to you?” I ended up asking her instead, belligerently, more than a little annoyed, even though the girl was over ten years my junior.

But Hanekawa just kept on smiling. Stuck in a room with an older man who was trying to intimidate her, she showed no sign of fear.

“You don’t even need to ask, huh? You know everything, don’t you, missy.”

“I don’t know everything. I just know what I know,” Hanekawa replied, still smiling.

That shut me up. I was overwhelmed by those words, so reminiscent of Gaen-senpai─nope.

Not a chance. Hanekawa didn’t have Gaen-senpai’s oppressive aura.

And yet I’d been silenced. How can I put this, it felt silly, being so cautious, probing every intention; she’d suddenly put things into context.

“Fine…”

“I’m sorry?”

“Let’s get down to business. We’re exchanging information, aren’t we, Hanekawa? That said, you’ve got your own ideas about how to settle this, don’t you, quite apart from me and Senjogahara’s plan. I’ll give you the info you need for that─and you’ll tell me everything you know.”