Monogatari Series - Volume 13 - Chapter 1.34

034

I hung up, then checked out of the hotel and walked outside. My luggage had proliferated considerably as I went about my business, what with the notebooks and changes of clothes, so checking out empty-handed wasn’t an option. I left pulling along behind me a rolling suitcase I had acquired.

There was no way I was going to drag the damn thing up that mountain, though, so I left it in a coin locker at the station. Or maybe coin locker is an outdated term─since I locked it using the chip in my cell phone.

Either way, since I was going to dispose of almost everything in the suitcase after the job was done, I probably could have gotten rid of it all right then, suitcase and all, but you never know what life is going to throw at you.

The teachers at school always used to say, “You’re still on the field trip until you get home,” which is more than just cautious and a little pathological, but there’s something to it.

And so I took one other precaution before going to Kita-Shirahebi Shrine that day─like I said, you never know what life is going to throw at you. And boy was I right about that.

After I put the suitcase in the locker and got on the train to that town─I’d missed rush hour, so it was empty─during that very trip, a little girl sat down next to me.

It was the shikigami Yotsugi Ononoki.

“Yaaay,” she’d said, flashing a sideways peace sign.

Expressionless as ever.

“What now?” I asked, facing straight ahead without so much as a glance at the girl beside me. “I thought Gaen-senpai disowned me.”

“Well, it was only ever Ms. Gaen who cut ties with you, not me. You’ll always be Big Brother Kaiki to me, nothing can change that.”

“Change it, already.” Call me Kaiki.

Okay, okay, she said, then went on impassively─exceedingly, and extremely, impassively─“But, so, you really do intend to defy Ms. Gaen. I thought, and hoped, that you’d change your mind at the last minute…”

“Are you sure Gaen-senpai didn’t send you?”

“Hunh? Definitely not. I’m just going to play with Le Monstieur.”

“…”

Was that another nickname for Koyomi Araragi? Not bad at all, for Ononoki.

“He always pampers me. Anyway, it’s just a coincidence that I happen to be sitting next to you like this, Kaiki.”

“Hell of a coincidence. The world’s a funny place.”

“Yup. It’s funny all right. Downright hilarious.”

I mulled things over.

Ordinarily, I’d suspect that she’d been ordered to come and issue a final warning, by Kagenui maybe, if not Gaen-senpai.

But maybe it was a coincidence.

Under any other circumstances I’d never believe it in a million years, but just this once I did.

Alternately, perhaps Ononoki, the corpse tsukumogami who supposedly had no will of her own to speak of, had come to warn me for her own reasons.

Which was impossible, but also, why not.

“Three million yen. Doesn’t amount to much in return for defying Ms. Gaen, I have to say… It’s going to get harder for you in the biz, Kaiki, even if that’s not what Ms. Gaen intended.”

“Life isn’t a free ride. I’ve often thought that my life is cheap, but a free ride, never.”

“…”

“Even Gaen-senpai has enemies─I’ll work my magic on them and ride things out for a while.”

“Is someone else’s girlfriend that important to you?” An odd thing to say─I guess hanging out with the wrong crowd warps your personality. “Someone else’s girlfriend─and your former woman?”

“Seems like you’ve got the wrong impression. Not that I care to correct you.”

Best to let people’s misunderstandings be. An aberration’s too, for that matter.

Ononoki, wrongheaded as she was, ran with her misunderstanding. “It’s not like you, Kaiki. No good can come of doing things that aren’t like you. It’s not like you haven’t made the same mistake before.”

“…”

“Oh, but maybe it’s not so unlike you after all─two years ago, was it? You bankrupted a pretty large-scale religious organization with your scams.”

“…”

“I remember because I was made to help, if only indirectly. Wasn’t that for Senjogahara’s sake, too? Her mother had fallen for a shady religion, or rather it had entrapped her mother, and you put them out of business even though you didn’t get much money out of it. For that girl’s sake, yes? Though in the end, her mother just transferred her allegiance to another group one step up the ladder, and nothing actually got solved.”

“Don’t go getting any funny ideas… It just happened to come to my attention in the middle of a job that this religious organization was trying to take a cut of my earnings, so I did what I had to do. But it’s true that I didn’t get much money out of it, and you can think whatever you like. It doesn’t do me any harm to be thought of as a good guy. As a business venture, the whole thing was a bust.”

“And is this time going to be any different? That’s what Ms. Gaen’s really worried about. Not some no-name town she has no ties to─it’s you that she’s concerned about. You doing something else that’s not like you.”

“I don’t care for such a patronizing attitude, not from such a patron.”

“You tore apart the Senjogahara household─and backed her parents into a corner from which divorce was the only way out─because nothing else was going to work, right? You judged that their only daughter would have no future if you didn’t cut her mother off from the family.”

“Uh huh, that’s right. That’s exactly right, I was actually a stand-up guy. A real sweetheart, just looking out for a kid. I was only putting on a show of being nefarious. You’ve got all the details, don’t you? You’re really well informed. But don’t tell anyone, okay, it’s embarrassing.”

“That was a bust too… You didn’t understand a daughter’s feeling for her mother.”

“You’re right, you’re riiight, I really didn’t get it back then, did I? Gotta be careful not to make the same mistake again. Well, life goes on, I’m going to try to do better.”

“Is that the sort of guy you are?”

“Yup. I’m that sort of guy.”

“Maybe you just don’t know what you’re doing.”

“Does anyone know what the hell they’re doing? Do you even know why you’re talking to me and telling me this?”

“You’ve got a very high probability of success. It should be a snap for you to dupe Nadeko Sengoku. Generally speaking. But─you always fail in these instances. You always have failed.”

“…”

“At least Ms. Gaen seems to think so…and that’s all I have to say.”

“I see,” I replied curtly. I didn’t have much of a reaction, didn’t tell her what I thought of that.

I spent the rest of the train ride listening to her talk about Kagenui’s recent exploits─sounded like she was the same as ever. Marching to the beat of her own drum, same as ever.