Monogatari Series - Volume 14 - Chapter 1.04

004

We met in the middle.

Somehow I ended up going into the bathroom with Tsukihi.

“Why…”

How come?

How did it come to this?

You could say it was thanks to our mutual stubbornness.

You could. I don’t want to, but you could.

“Whaaat? You don’t want to? Why, does your little sister’s naked body make you think dirty thoughts? No waaay! Baths are for getting clean, big brother.”

Maybe it’s because I was bamboozled by those words. But in the first place, Tsukihi must have offered her compromise on the assumption that I’d lose my nerve and slink out of the changing room with my tail between my legs.

And precisely because I knew she made that assumption, there was no way I was going to slink out of that changing room. Instead I threw down the gauntlet and said, “What, are you all talk, you little brat? Time to put your money where your mouth is. Or don’t you have the guts to go into the bathroom with me, you chickenshit.”

And now here we were.

All in and going all the way.

Me and Tsukihi, brother and sister, seated side by side in the bathroom washing our long hair. I took this rare opportunity to try out Tsukihi’s shampoo, and what do you know, the lather really did feel different.

“…”

“…”

The thing is.

Here’s the thing.

Getting two, more or less grown-up siblings into the bathroom together was ten times tougher than I imagined… The room isn’t as big as it is in the anime, I mean, it’s just the regular size of a bathroom in a normal family home, so with two teenagers in there, it was pretty cramped.

Like, while we were washing our hair we kept banging elbows.

“Big brother.”

“What is it, little sister?”

“Say something. This is more awkward than I thought it’d be.”

“Yeah…”

You’re not wrong, but you don’t have to come right out and say it.

Though it takes a certain burden off me if you’re the one to bring it up.

It wasn’t going to do much for the narrative either if that silence went on forever.

Every once in a while you hear some media personality tell a funny story on television or the radio about being in the bathroom with their parents as a grown woman, but you don’t hear much about siblings doing it, it just doesn’t happen.

In that sense, Tsukihi and I were delivering a rare piece of reportage in the present progressive, but did anyone ask for rare?

More like well-done.

If it was so awkward, you’d think I might say, “I’m going to get out first, take your time,” or that she would say, “I’m about done. Excuse me, big brother,” but then this was me and Tsukihi.

On the contrary, I tragically blurted out, “If it’s so awkward then get the hell out, Tsukihi. You’re just fronting anyway. If you’re pissed off at yourself for saying what you said, you shouldn’t have said it to begin with.”

“You’re the one who’s pissing in the wind, big brother. All I meant was that it’s awkward looking at your scrawny body. I’m cool as a cucumber about being in the bathroom with you. So cool I’m positively frigid.”

That was our lamentable exchange.

Someone, please, put us out of our misery.

“Scrawny? I resent that, I’m a lean, mean beefcake machine.”

“A lean, mean beefcake machine? Did you mean to say a teeny-weeny beanpole machine?”

“Hey, that’s out of order. But listen, Tsukihi, I might consider getting out if you tell me that’s what you really want.”

“I really, really, really, really want you not to get out,” Tsukihi brushed off the concession I had finally forced myself to offer.

What the hell was wrong with her?

She lived just to be stubborn.

“Are you already clean, big brother? Or do you want to get out so soon because you’re still feeling dirty?”

“Again? You’re going to recycle that joke? When you’re the one who’s so fascinated by my body? What you really want is to touch these washboard abs, I bet.”

“No I don’t, why would I want to touch abs divided into eight like that?”

“You counted them! You counted my abdominal muscles. You’re giving them the eye, aren’t you?”

“You’re the one who’s eyeing your little sister’s boobs, big brother.”

“Yeah right. It’s not like I’ve never seen them before.”

“Isn’t that a little weird? A big brother who’s seeing his little sister’s boobs not for the first time?”

“I’m all about them, I know all about those two hunks of meat.”

“Don’t call them hunks of meat. Don’t talk about a woman’s chest like you’re at a butcher shop.”

“Psh. You don’t have anything to worry about with those melons.”

I must have been rattled by the situation after all, though, because as soon as I said this I realized I’d lost track of what “melons” meant as slang. Did it refer to big breasts or small breasts?

Judging from the huge grin on Tsukihi’s face, probably the former. Dammit, I might as well have sent her a fruit basket along with that one. Or maybe it was just a case of sour grapes.

Not that I know what it is here.

“Though the fact is,” I regrouped.

Again.

“You and Karen happily flounce down the hall half-naked during summer time. Forget half-naked, you’ve got a three-quarters-naked lifestyle. Nudity is one of your essential biogenic needs. So being in the bathroom together is no big thing at all. If there’s a problem, it’s just that we’re a little too close together.”

“That’s exactly the problem. That’s exactly the big problem, isn’t it, big brother? If you came this close to me in the hall in the summertime, you’d get a taste of my elbow.”

“Elbow…” So realistic an attack─in fact our elbows were already touching.

“I’d elbow you even if I were fully dressed.”

“Aren’t you being a little harsh towards your older brother? But dammit, it really is narrow in here…narrow like a certain someone’s mind. Tsukihi, hurry up and finish washing your hair already. I guess I have no choice, I’ll cede the right to be first into the tub.”

The whole point of the Battle for the First Bath became unclear if I gave up now, but it wasn’t about that anymore.

Forget about the bath or being first, simply feeling superior to Tsukihi, my impudent little middle school brat of a sister Tsukihi Araragi, was my goal now. Bringing her to heel.

I wanted to make the girl who, I’m pretty sure, never once thanked me for anything in her life, say: Thank you, big brother.

I wanted to make her express her gratitude to me verbally.

But the more I pressed, the more she resisted. That’s Tsukihi for you.

Or rather, her mindset might have been similar to my own here.

“Feh. Shouldn’t you be the one, big brother? I’d sooner cede it to you than let you cede it to me. It’s a cedar tub, after all.”

“Cedar? Isn’t it plastic? Quit screwing around and get in there like I told you.”

“And I told you that I don’t want to.”

“Gaaa!”

“Grrr!”

When a battle of wills goes sub-verbal, you know it’s all over.

The end of the world.

Our quarrel descended into a fierce clashing of elbows, our elbows as we both washed our hair clashing like sabers─thankfully we were side by side and both facing front, but at this rate we were going to end up six-pack to boobs.

The awkwardness was quelled somewhat by our loud dispute, but the fundamental problem hadn’t been dealt with.

This was a wildly immoral, or maybe just plain old distasteful situation.

But here again came clever Tsukihi to the rescue─her wheels really do turn faster than mine.

The plan she proposed: “Listen, big brother, let’s wash our hair one at a time. We each have too much hair for us to do it side by side, it’s inefficient. Uneconomical.”

“I’m pretty sure economics has nothing to do with washing your hair…”

But she was absolutely right in terms of efficiency.

Even she could be right once in a while.

We were using good shampoo and everything, but doing it this way was killing its cost-performance index. Not to mention, the stress was liable to make our hair start falling out.

“But Tsukihi, if side by side is no good, what do we do? When you say we’ll wash our hair one at a time, what exactly are you envisioning, logistically speaking?”

“This!!”

Tsukihi leapt up energetically and got behind me. Her tendency to become enthused without warning, written or otherwise, was another element of her peakiness. Her emotions constantly going from positive to negative to hot to cold also made her nothing but a completely unpredictable pain in the ass, but in any event, she got behind me and thrust her hands into my soapy hair.

“I’m going to wash your hair for you!!”

“That…”

This that was of course an abbreviated form of the expression of surprise that’s crazy, but at the same time, of that answers my question. She was right that trying to wash our hair at the same time in such a confined space was tricky, but if we washed each other’s hair, we’d fit into place like puzzle pieces.

It was like two hostages abducted and stuffed together in a small room, with their hands tied behind their backs, having a hard time untying their own bonds but undoing them with surprising ease once they put themselves back to back.

A real paradigm shift.

Like the Copernican Revolution.

I had to doff my chapeau to Tsukihi, she’d won this round. But… “What’s a chapeau, anyway?”

“It’s a hat, isn’t it? That you use to hide the bedhead on your absurdly long hair.”

“Stop making things up. I never wore a hat to hide my bedhead.”

“Well, I have.”

“Don’t tip your hand, I don’t want to know your style tips.”

“Scrub-a-dub-duuub,” Tsukihi added sound effects as she lathered up my hair.

She made it seem like they were coming from my head─either she was a fool or she was making a fool out of me, and I almost told her to quit it, but no point in getting myself all in a lather. I gritted my teeth and let it happen.

Mature amid the moisture, humility in the humidity.

“Hmm. I’m feeling oddly superior washing someone’s hair, I like it. Literally holding someone’s most vital organ in your hands is so pleasurable. Holding their life in your hands. Now I know how a hairdresser feels.”

“Don’t go around acting like you understand other people’s feelings, and stop talking such horseshit. Hairdressers don’t think about stuff like that.”

“But if this were a barbershop, you’d get a shave. I’d shave your face with a straight razor, right? Now that’s absolutely a dominance relationship.”

“A dominance relationship, or…”

A relationship based on trust, more like.

But regardless of how she said it, I got what she was saying.

The reverse was also true.

Although holding my life in her hands was an exaggerated way of putting it, trusting someone else with your head and body can be a very pleasurable experience, depending on the context. In the course of our daily lives, we unconsciously guard ourselves against everyone and everything around us─turning off that security system once in a while might carry with it a certain feeling of liberation.

That comes with the caveat that the other person will do you no harm, of course… But a theory that trust is important in interpersonal relationships because it’s connected to a feeling of liberation, or even of pleasure, might hold water.

Then again, my despicable little sister (where’s this justice you supposedly defend?) saw that relationship of trust as dominance.

Though it’s basically true.

Basically true, and basic psychology.

Since total domination of someone, their total reliance on you, is liberating and pleasant─though I’ve gotten somewhat off track here, and to sum up what was really going on, my little sister was just washing my hair in the morning.

“Hunh,” she grunted.

“What’s wrong, Shampoocifer?”

“Don’t address your little sister like she’s the devil! I haven’t made you sign anything in exchange of washing your head, have I? Anyway, with my hands on your head like this, giving it a scrub scrub and a rub rub, I’m surprised how teeny-weeny it is.”

“Says the littler little sister.”

“Yeah right. We’re almost the same height now. I feel like I’ve really been growing.”

“How tall do the two of you plan on getting, anyway…”

“Not that I want to get as tall as Karen. Seems tough to be that size. But we’re sisters, and I guess I can’t help but keep growing, same as Karen. Actually, we were about the same height back in elementary school.”

“…”

It was terrifying to contemplate.

Both sisters, taller than me, their older brother… To hell with an older brother’s authority and dignity.

My head wouldn’t be the only teeny-weeny thing.

“But maybe there’s hope,” I said. “The hope that I, the older brother, will get as big as Karen yet lies dormant at the bottom of that Pandora’s Box.”

“I hate to rain on your parade, but you’d better rein in those hopes. Your reign as the tallest one in the family is over for good.”

“Don’t crush my dreams with a triple homophone, Tsukihi, don’t dump out Pandora’s Box. Because I’m warning you, if you ever get taller than me, I’ll make you a head shorter again even if it means I have to lop off your feet.”

“That’s horrifying. That amounts to a death threat.”

“Ridiculous. Can’t you divine the brotherly compassion in my threat, you little turd? I could’ve said I’d make you a foot shorter by lopping off your head.”

“You could’ve, my ass.”

She twisted my neck.

I’d forgotten that she held my life in her hands.

“C’mon, I’ll preserve your severed feet in my room,” I offered.

“You keep getting more grotesque. Extra grotesque.”

“Extra, huh?”

“The fact is if I stood my hair straight up, I could crush you and even Karen right now. It’d be a landslide.”

“If you stood all that hair on end, you’d look like a monster. It’d take some serious gel. But your hair’s about as long as your body, so it’s a simple calculation: you’d be twice as tall, right?”

“Yup.”

“I’d say so long to a little sister like that.”

“Hm? Did you say something?”

“You heard me fine!”

Even if she didn’t stand it on end, with hair down to her ankles she looked every inch, every foot, every mile a monster. While I’ve seen illustrations of girls with hair like that in manga, it’d be genuinely scary in real life.

But its fear factor aside, I’d witnessed any number of epic fails where Tsukihi tripped over her own hair.

Don’t fail in front of someone preparing for exams! Such bad luck…

I definitely found myself thinking just cut it already, but I’m sure she simply hadn’t found the right opportunity, same as me.

“At the risk of repeating myself, though, your hair grows insanely fast.”

“Not as fast as yours, big brother. Not nearly. You only started growing it this year, there’s no way it could grow that much normally. What’s your secret?”

“There’s no secret to growing out your hair. It’s just… My metabolism might be even better than yours.”

To be precise.

My metabolism─sped up after spring break.

“Okay, let’s stand it up,” Tsukihi said, beginning to play with my hair.

Making shapes with the foam and molding it to look like Astro Boy’s.

“Awesome. Astro Bro. Super Sibling.”

“Trying to make me sound like a Super Saiyan.”

“Rinse time!” Tsukihi grabbed the handheld showerhead and flushed all the shampoo out of my hair. And she didn’t neglect to throw in a little head massage, like a real hairdresser.

Maybe all that time spent at the salon, back when she was constantly changing her hairstyle, had rubbed off on her.

Next came the conditioner.

This was from Tsukihi’s private stash as well.

Though when I think about it, she’d only be able to wash all that hair about three times before the bottle was empty… Her metabolism might’ve been good, but it got terrible mileage.

“Ooh, this conditioner is like wax, so now we can really shape your hair. Teehee, it’s like you’ve got a pompadour!”

“Hey, quit playing around with my head… In fact, quit doing everything you’re doing.”

Not that I could see what was going on up there.

Something dreadful, I was pretty sure.

“Heheh. Now I’ll wash your body for you.” Paying no heed to anything I said, Tsukihi picked up the family bottle of body soap that’s always in the bathroom. Squirting out an appropriate amount and working it into a lather, she suddenly exclaimed, “Oh! Big brother, big brother!”

“Why the hell are you shouting like you clearly must’ve figured out something.”

“A hilarious gag just came to me.”

“As if. You’re setting me on edge.”

The adjective hilarious doesn’t sound right with the term gag in the first place. That might come off kind of insulting to people who stake their livelihood on them, but gags are fundamentally more about the energy of the delivery than about actually being funny.

“C’mon, c’mon, look over here, look over here.”

“What is it?”

I turned my head and looked over my shoulder like she asked me to.

In other words, without a shred of embarrassment or anything else, my little sister was demanding that I look at her naked… The way she’d said it was so natural that, naturally, I obeyed, but was that okay?

It was not.

It was not, not, not okay.

My little sister was posing naked for me.

Sitting with her knees up and both hands clasped behind her head. And─with the body soap she’d lathered up so thoroughly in her palms dolloped across her chest, her crotch, and her thighs.

“I call it, The Metropolitan Ordinance.”

“Yikes!”

Leave out the satire!

In a panic I grabbed the hand basin, scooped some water out of the tub, and splashed it on her. Off came the soap bubbles. That might be even worse Metropolitan Ordinance-wise, but contriving to hide the naughty bits is much more objectionable in this sort of situation, in my humble opinion.

Full frontal is more wholesome, and more artistic.

“What are you dooooing?!” she complained.

“What are you doing, you mean!”

“Wait…maybe sticking up my hands and calling it The Skytree is better, less direct?”

Tsukihi adopted just such a pose.

She’d said something back in the changing room about her volume, and it did seem like she’d been working on her weight, but the reality is that she just wasn’t prone to plumpness. So when she stretched her body vertically like that, her ribs were clearly visible, and she did look kind of like the Skytree.

“But if you’re really going for the Skytree, you should stick your hair up. It’s supposedly over six hundred meters tall.”

“Yaaaah. Though my hair won’t actually reach that high. In which case, maybe Karen should be the one to do it.”

“Hmm…”

In fact, Karen might manage to be convincing.

However.

“Tsukihi, actually, Karen’s boobies are just as enormous as you’d expect for someone of her height, and on a tower, that sort of uneven surface spells danger─!”

Tsukihi unleashed a kick at me there in the danger zone of the bathroom, if you can believe it. And a high kick to boot, aimed at my throat. Her retorts, a.k.a. her attacks, are unleashed silently and without warning, making them truly murderous.

“Quit critiquing your little sisters’ boobs. No side-by-side comparisons!”

“Huh. I guess you’re right. My bad. But even if it was my bad, you’re crazy if you think I’m going to apologize so easily.”

“That’s a hell of an attitude… Listen, I’m going to wash your body now, so face that way. Scrub-a-dub-duuub.”

“That sound effect makes you sound a lot more childish than you think… Come up with something that makes you seem a little more cultured.”

“Fine, ababababa.”

“Is that a Ryunosuke Akutagawa reference??”

Though that story title kind of wrecks the image of him as a literary giant.

At least, it’s not very refined.

“Was that the right number of ba’s?” I asked.

“Of course. Of course it was. Look it up if you want to,” came Tsukihi’s supremely self-confident reply from over my shoulder, as she poured water down my back.

But it was unusual for her self-confidence to match the facts, which is to say she had a tendency to act self-confident only when she wasn’t, so her attitude suggested a high probability that she’d gotten it wrong.

“Ababa. Abababababa. Abababababababaaaa!”

And indeed, while she scrubbed my back, Tsukihi tried to hedge her bets by saying it a bunch more times with varying numbers of ba’s.

“At any rate, don’t be such a slacker,” I scolded. “Don’t wash me with your hand like that, use that sponge and put a little elbow grease into it.”

“But scrubbing with your hand lets you really clean all the hard-to-reach spots. And using grease when I’m trying to get you clean? Wait, hang on a sec, is being touched by your little sister getting you all hot and bothered, big brother? You naughty boy, I’ll never let you live this one down!”

“Just watching your thrilling, moment-to-moment, stopgap way of life bothers me plenty…”

“Teeheehee, I’ll wash between your toes for you. Think you can stay calm?”

“Thrilling…”

For better or for worse (mostly for worse), she only thinks about the immediate situation.

She only brings her smarts to bear on what just happened and what’s just about to happen.

It felt pointless to try and tell her to consider her future, to focus on what was coming a little further down the line… You know what they say, you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink. Or, given that she was already perfectly aware of anything I might say to her, maybe this was about beating a dead one. Even Karen, a runaway train who never thought anything through, had slightly better prospects.

But I’m sure Tsukihi didn’t want to hear that from a guy who hadn’t even tried to get out of ending up in the bathroom with his little sister… Hmmm.

“Okay, all clean! Sparkling! Like you’ve been shellacked! Switch!”

“Switch?”

“Duh. It’s your turn to wash my hair now, obviously.”

“Grk… You set me up, you bastard.”

A reciprocity clause.

Sure, maybe it should’ve been obvious, maybe it was inevitable, but having it dropped on me after the fact filled me with a sense of defeat. Refusing, though, meant promptly exiting the bathroom, so I had no choice but to fall in line with Tsukihi’s scheme and wash her hair.

Dammit.

Forced to wash my little sister’s hair─how humiliating… I considered a plot to pay her back by doing it with body soap, but the bottle might get shoved down my throat if she found out, so I let that one go.

It would be too pitiful, on both our accounts.

Nothing for it, I’d wash my little sister’s hair like a mature adult.

And so we switched spots.

On the surface, abandoning our attempts to wash in tandem and washing each other’s hair one at a time instead was paying off─but in reality not so much. For two people with hair as long as ours to shampoo in succession took a commensurately long time, and as a result neither of us had managed to make it into the tub, when competing to be the first one in there was the whole reason we were sharing the room.

We weren’t just washing each other’s hair, we were getting in it.

I’m sure there’s some perfect aphorism to describe our predicament, but it’s not coming to me.

“But maaan, you really do have a shit ton of hair, Tsukihi… Actually hefting it like this, you know, it’s almost more like cloth than hair.”

“Cloth?”

“Cloth for a kimono. It weighs a ton. It’s super heavy, maybe it’s all the water it’s soaking up.”

“Oh.”

“What?”

“I figured it out, little Tsukihi figured it all out. Lately I keep thinking I’ve been getting fat, but no matter how much I diet I haven’t been able to lose any weight. It was my hair all along.”

“Now I see…that you’re a complete idiot. Gimme a break and cut it already. Though I’m sure you just haven’t found a chance. Well, I’ll cut it for you right now, if you want. I’ll snip it all off for you. Come on, it’s not like it’s the first time I’ve cut a girl’s hair.”

“I don’t know the details, but that’s a hell of a backstory they’ve given you… No, leave it alone. Leave it leave it leave it. Because I’m making a wish with it.”

“A wish?”

“Not a whish, got it? A wish.”

“Yeah, I get it…”

What was this all about?

So it wasn’t that she just hadn’t found a chance, she had a real reason for letting her hair grow that long? Unexpected. That someone like Tsukihi Araragi, who lives only in the present, would do something so forward-looking.

True, given that she used to change her hairstyle every month, I probably should’ve realized something was up the second she started letting it grow out.

A shameful failing as an older brother.

“Huh, okay. Well, what are you wishing for? Spill it.”

“Not a chance. I can’t. If I tell you, my wish won’t be granted.”

“Oh yeah? I guess they do say wishes won’t come true if you tell them to other people… But it’s fine, don’t be such a stickler, your older brother’s a special case. Tell me.”

“You don’t get to act like a big brother only at times like this.”

“Hmmm. In any case, look at all this hair…”

I’d given it a shot, but the truth was that I wasn’t all that interested in why she was growing out her hair, so I returned my focus to the hair itself.

Crap.

There was so much hair I couldn’t even work up a lather.

No scrub-a-dub-dub sound effect.

I couldn’t bear it if that got ascribed to a lack of skill on my part─I never had much of a way with shampoo to begin with, but what a sorry situation for an older brother to find himself in, after Tsukihi managed to work up such a lather.

On behalf of the older brothers of the world, I couldn’t let my position slip any further.

“Looks like there’s not enough shampoo… You want to talk about uneconomical, this hair is it. Your special shampoo is a terrible waste. Though I guess since you don’t have to go to the salon, maybe you actually come out ahead. With a little pocket money, even.”

“But I do go to the salon.”

“What?”

“Unlike you, I’m not just letting my hair grow wild… I have to keep the ends even and stuff.”

“Really, when no one ends up giving a stuff about your hair?”

“Don’t get snippy. Your words cut deep. Don’t forget, it was the repetition of cruel words like those that gave birth to me and Karen’s twisted brand of justice.”

“You’re calling your own justice twisted?”

Oh.

When I added about twice as much shampoo, even Tsukihi’s ginormous mane started to lather up nicely. It also looked like she had even more hair than she already did.

“Heeheehee. Latherrr, more latherrr. This is actually fun, a guy could get used to washing people’s hair. I have to say, makes even a cool guy like me feel all bubbly.”

“You’re having to say it? Sounds like you’re going to pop.”

“Makes me wanna bury myself in all this hair. To be bound hand and foot in your hair.”

“That’s a little too kinky. I’d flee this bathroom at top speed. I’d be willing to accept defeat.”

“You washed my body with your hands and fingers; I want to wash your body with this hair.”

“Don’t, you’ll damage it. I’ll end up with a ton of split ends. Just its length makes it a lot more susceptible to wear and tear. If you’re going to do it, at least use your own hair.”

“I bet if you wrapped yourself in all this hair, you could walk down the street totally naked. No one would know.”

“And why would li’l miss Tsukihi ever want to walk down the street naked?”

“Hmmm.”

As I was washing her hair, it just naturally transitioned into a head rub. I was massaging her scalp. Now I understood what she meant about holding someone’s life in your hands. Now I saw why she liked it.

It does give you a full-on sense of superiority.

“It’s amazing feeling so above you like this… Straight up amazing, it’s the tops. Like your head might come right off if I gave it a little twist.”

“That hadn’t occurred to me.”

“Rubbing your head gets me even more excited than fondling boobs.”

“That’s scary. And rude.”

“Fondle fondle fondle fondle.”

“Keep your perverse feelings out of my head rub. Or at least cap the sound effect at scrub-a-dub-dub. Sad as I am to admit, though the shampooing wasn’t much to speak of, this head massage is actually pro-quality pleasant.”

“Mm-hmm,” I replied smugly.

Then again, that didn’t seem like a skill with broader applications. No matter how things shake out, I doubt a future as a hairstylist is waiting for me.

And I can’t think of any other line of work where you rub other people’s heads.

“Okay, time for the condition…er?”

“What’s wrong, big brother?”

“There’s not nearly enough. Mister Conditioner is nearly empty.”

“Whaaat?!”

Tsukihi flipped out.

You might even say she was flippant.

Well actually, you can’t.

She flipped out─but whatever amount the bottle still contained had been used up by none other than Tsukihi, to wash my hair. It wasn’t something I, the beneficiary, should blithely say, but I said it anyway: “Your fault.” Easily, unambiguously: “You should’ve checked first.”

“I don’t care whose fault it is. I think we can all agree that what’s important here is that my hair is going to be a mess? That PreCure is going to die?”

“PreCure is going to die? That is a big deal.”

For a moment I couldn’t figure out what she’d meant to say, but it had to be cuticle. Not even close! But then, there was a character called Cure Cool or something, wasn’t there…

“In any case,” I said, “the point is that Smile PreCure! was a good show.”

“That wasn’t the point at all?”

“The theme was smiling, so all the heroines did their best to keep smiling even when they wanted to cry. It was awesome.”

“I don’t want to hear about your fetishes, big brother. I don’t care about your smile fetish. Just let a smile be a smile.”

“Then there’s Kenji Miyazawa.”

“What? Quit changing the subject.”

“Kenji Miyazawa asked his students what the longest word in the English language was, and the answer was ‘smiles.’ Because there’s a mile between the first s and the second one.”

“So true. I hope he got some good smileage out of it, too. Pretty funny guy, this Miyazawa-san.”

“Don’t call our great poet ‘Miyazawa-san.’ Show some respect.”

“I said ‘san,’ didn’t I?”

“Which oddly sounds too familiar… It’s strange, huh, that adding ‘san’ sometimes feels more intimate, not less.”

“Definitely. With Miyazawa-san, dropping the honorific actually feels more respectful. What’s that all about… Seems like it’d be interesting to try and figure out the criteria for that.”

“Maybe, but it might just have to do with whether or not you know them personally, and whether or not they’re still alive…” As I said this, I turned on the showerhead and rinsed the lather out of Tsukihi’s hair. “Okay, all finished. Now let’s wash that body. With your hair.”

“Were you even listening?” Tsukihi’s temper flared and she blurted out the first retort that came to her: “What are you trying to do to this hair of hair? Ruin it?!”

“Hair of hair?”

“Head of hair!! Mane! My beautiful tresses!” she shrieked in my face.

Her delivery lacked a certain je ne sais quoi, was wanting in panache.

“But what choice do we have,” I demanded to know. “We’re out of conditioner, and I want to wash your body with your own hair.”

“The second one is just your preference! We definitely have a choice!”

“Hmph. Well, when you put it like that, I can’t deny it. You’re a perspicacious one, I’ll give you that. Tsukihercule Poirot.”

“Just put something on it! Anything!”

“Hm. That gives me an idea.”

I removed the cap of the virtually empty conditioner bottle and used the showerhead to spray in a small amount of hot water.

Then, replacing the cap, I shook the bottle, for all the world like a classy bartender. To get it properly mixed.

In my mind I was wearing a vest.

“What’re you doing, big brother?”

“Well, the bottle may be ‘empty,’ but there’s got to be some conditioner still stuck to the walls, and watering it down should supplement it enough to cover your hair just this once.”

“Stop it, that’s something a poor person would do.”

“A poor person?!”

To hear that kind of bourgeois talk coming from my own sister… I was shocked. I couldn’t believe my ears, when had she become so arrogant? But then I realized she’d always been that way. No doubt about it.

I guess anyone could have inferred that aspect of her since she’d gotten an obviously expensive conditioner to use just for herself.

“I’d rather let my hair take its course, and end up looking like a Super Saiyan, than act like a pauper,” she sniffed. “I’m me, after all.”

“Hrmm.”

My little sister, soon to be a middle school third-year, had gotten a Super Saiyan confused with a Great Ape. Stands to reason that kind of game of telephone would happen across the generations.

But then again, there’s Dragonball GT, where Super Saiyans can achieve a further transformation thanks to the power of the moon. So maybe she was just an obsessively knowledgeable Dragonball fanatic.

“The stuff’s going to mix with the water that’s already been absorbed by your hair, so it’s just a question of timing,” I reasoned with her.

“Don’t call my fancy conditioner ‘stuff.’ Don’t talk about my ’ditioner that way.”

“Look, it’s not as watered down as you think. I just added a few air bubbles, it’s a fantastic conditioner. ’Ditioner.”

I took off the cap again and squirted some of the hot water/conditioner mixture into my hand to show her. She knit her eyebrows as she peered at it, then hung her head and said, “I suppose I have no choice. I’ll let you save face this time, big brother.”

The hanging her head part was purely physical, though; she was just trying to make it easier for me to apply the conditioner.

Putting up her hair, or putting up with her, I resumed my task.

I’d hoped to get enough for one go-around by diluting the conditioner, but it was easier said than done, given the full shock of Tsukihi’s hair─I had to be very careful about how I applied what I had.

I had to be deliberate beyond deliberate.

Deliberate like a lacquerware artisan applying gold leaf.

“Hrmm… Hey, Tsukihi. I don’t mean to nag, and I don’t know what your wish is all about, but how about at least cutting your bangs?”

“If I’m half-hearted about it, the ends would poke me in the eyes. And no matter how tenderly you care for it, there’s no way to achieve hair that doesn’t hurt when it gets in your eye.”

“I see…”

I didn’t.

“But that kind of question is a boomerang, big brother, you know? Your bangs are plenty long too, so right back at you.”

“For some reason mine don’t bother me.”

“Speaking of bangs,” Tsukihi said suddenly─as I massaged her scalp─“Nadeko’s out of the hospital.”

“Yeah? Glad to hear it.”

“Hm? You’re not as excited as I expected. I thought you’d do a little dance of glee.” Tsukihi turned around a little to look at me. Her expression was sincere. “A naked dance of glee.”

“As if.”

“I thought it’d be a cinch to get you to do a naked dance. I specifically waited until we were in the bathroom to tell you and everything.”

“Don’t add some frivolous rider to such a serious subject.”

“Yessir. Anyway, she’s out.”

“Huh.”

Huh.

What else could I say? What else did I have the right to say?

I was certainly glad she was out of the hospital, though.

Not that I could ever face Sengoku again─

But I was glad anyway.

Somehow I was able to be.

“Big brother?”

“What?”

“Owowowowowowowow. Are you ow trying ow to crush my ow head ow like a vice owowow?”

“Oh, sorry, sorry. I guess I was overdoing it.”

“You probably don’t want to hear this from me, which is exactly why I’m going to say it, but haven’t you taken on too much? You are overdoing it. Nadeko wasn’t your responsibility or your problem.”

Tsukihi was talking like she knew it all, but in fact she didn’t know the truth about Nadeko Sengoku and her mysterious disappearance for the past few months.

While I wouldn’t say my sister wasn’t involved in any way, it was hard to say she was─which is exactly why she could say something about it, I guess.

She could say something.

That I didn’t want to hear.

“It’s fine,” she said. “Nadeko’s been a lot livelier lately. She’s cheered up some, gotten more optimistic.”

“Really… That’s great.”

“She even laughs sometimes.”

“That’s…even better.”

Things really were looking up.

To the point that I didn’t need to worry anymore about not seeing that face, that smile, ever again.

“You should go see her sometime. She’s laid up at home, and you’ll be busy with exam prep for a while so it might be tough…”

Tsukihi said this in all innocence, knowing nothing─if she’d been speaking with full knowledge of the situation, it would’ve been scathingly ironic. But, for better or for worse, Tsukihi Araragi is a frank, straightforward person, so I can’t imagine her saying something like that on purpose.

And yet there was something that still concerned me.

Concerned me─so much I was still something of a wreck.

It was impossible for me not to worry─about what Nadeko Sengoku might have told Tsukihi Araragi regarding Koyomi Araragi.

It wasn’t a question of a lack of closure.

But the word regret didn’t even begin to cover it─

“Still, Nadeko talked a ton of shit about you, big brother. What did you do to her, anyway?”

“Seriously?!”

“What? No, I was kidding.”

“…”

Some joke.

The timing was positively scary.

Almost like it was guided by a divine hand.

“Right, well─I suppose that problem remains,” I muttered.

Nadeko Sengoku had left the shrine─and her “disappearance” had come to an end, which was of course a good thing, a fabulous thing, but that good, fabulous thing also meant that the town was spiritually unstable again.

That was the problem I was referring to.

I didn’t know all the particulars in perfect detail myself─but in any event, Kita-Shirahebi Shrine was once again a hollow vacuum.

Not resolving that issue or at least trying to do something about it meant endless trouble for our town─and I had to admit that I was reluctant to move away and leave my little sisters behind with the problem as it stood.

Even if I couldn’t fully solve the problem.

I at least needed to bring things back into balance─

“Balance? That’s not really my job, though, is it…”

Job.

I’d thought I’d muttered the words under my breath, but as if she’d heard my whole inner monologue, Tsukihi responded, “It’s not your job.”

My heart skipped a beat. Was it synchronicity, or a psychic connection between siblings? No, it seemed to be nothing more than a coincidence since Tsukihi continued, “You’re taking on too much, big brother,” returning to her previous topic. “You can’t fix everything on your own. Some things you’ve just got to let go of, some things you’ve got to leave be. Know your limitations, it’s okay to let other people handle things sometimes, you know? You’re too concerned about Nadeko, about Karen, and about me too.”

“…”

Huh.

So that’s what she wanted to tell me?

And she hadn’t just picked up on it because I’d brought up Karen’s abilities, she seemed to have sensed it for a while.

Sensed that I was using graduation, and my exams as a chance.

To take care of a bunch of things─to solve them, to settle some accounts.

That I was trying to wrap up some things.

Things that I’d let go.

Things that I’d fudged.

“We─or I’ll just speak for myself, I, will manage somehow. After Karen graduates and I’m alone at the middle school, I know I’ll feel off balance, but I’ll manage somehow, in my own way. So you don’t need to worry, okay? It’s fine, everything’s A-OK. And Karen’ll manage too, of course. We’ll all manage somehow. Even Nadeko. So for now, you should just focus on the exams staring you in the face.”

“…”

Just moments ago, I’d wanted to admonish my little sister for only paying attention to what was right in front of her, to get her to think more about her future. For her to tell me to focus on the now─what could I say?

It wasn’t funny.

But it didn’t piss me off, either, didn’t make me want to throw it back in her face─I definitely was taking on too much, and couldn’t fix everything on my own.

There were limits to what I could do.

In fact, there were things I hadn’t been able to fix.

With Hachikuji.

With Sengoku.

Nothing would have gotten done without help from the experts. In fact, was there a single goddamn thing this past year that I’d managed to fix on my own?

When I tried to count them, there was nothing to count.

Even with my exams, and the graduation on which they hinged, I hadn’t gotten anywhere on my own. So yes, she was right, I’d taken on too much. She was absolutely right.

I’d spouted some line about the duties of an older brother.

But sensing your duty doesn’t necessarily mean being able to carry it out─there are times when you have to get help from someone else, times when you have to leave it to someone else.

Tying up every loose end by the time I graduated, by the time I left town, might be inherently impossible─but that didn’t mean I could be irresponsible and just neglect everything.

It isn’t good to take on too much.

But there are things you have to do.

And things that you have to try to do, even if you know you can’t.

“So how are things going with your exam prep, big brother? One month to go, think you’ll manage?”

“I…think so, I guess,” was the only reply I could give.

Even if I didn’t think I’d manage, that was the only reply I could give.

A lamentable attempt at autosuggestion.

Senjogahara had been recruited, and there was no question about where she was going to college. So all I could do was try and follow her─too late at this point to even shoot for a backup, it’d be impossible.

Here I was, not taking even a single backup exam in an ultimate display of manliness─though actually it was only because my parents didn’t have much faith in me and hadn’t been willing to shell out more in the way of exorbitant exam fees.

“Okay,” my sister said, “then listen to me when I tell you that this isn’t the time to be taking more on, you moron. It’s crunch time. I’m giving you good advice here, big brother. Given the circumstances, is this any time to be giving your little sister a sponge bath?”

“Well, on that score, I’m not trying to shoulder some kind of responsibility, I’m not appointing myself to some role, I’m not helping you with your bath… I’m not lathering you up and fondling you.”

“The fundamental problem remains, though. Taking turns washing each other solved the issue of how small the bathroom is─but not of how small the bathtub is.”

“You’re absolutely right… The tub’s size makes it hard enough to enact the idea of cozy co-existence with a little girl, let alone a middle schooler.”

“A little girl?”

“Nothing. Obliviate.”

Ultimately I decided against using the showerhead and took the washbasin, like I’d done earlier when Tsukihi tried out her horrifying gag, to scoop water from the bathtub-which-was-kind-of-small-to-share-with-a-middle-schooler, this time dumping it over her head from behind.

I contrived this rough-and-ready method of flushing it all out at once instead of relying on the shower’s water pressure since that conditioner clung tenaciously to hair.

“Aaagh!”

It was so gratifying to hear this cry of apparent pleasure from my client that I doused her two more times, on the house.

“Aaagh! Aaagh aaagh aaagh!”

She seemed to be enjoying it.

“Aaagh! Do it again!”

A little too much.

If I complied with her request, complied a little too much, there wouldn’t be enough hot water left in the tub, so I stopped there and reached for the showerhead, intending to use that to finish the job.

And as I did.

I froze.

There was a full-length mirror on the wall by where we’d been shampooing each other’s hair, but up until then, up until that very second, it had been all fogged up and beaded with water so that nothing could be reflected there, and nothing had been─yet as I was dumping all that water from the washbasin over Tsukihi’s head, the spray had splashed forcefully onto the mirror as well.

As a result, the moisture covering it was momentarily washed away, and reflected there was Tsukihi’s naked body as she sat facing the mirror─a simple natural phenomenon. Perfectly natural.

But there was also something unnatural.

No.

Supernatural.

My figure, that of Koyomi Araragi, which should have been standing there behind Tsukihi─was nowhere to be seen.

I had no reflection.

Just like─the immortal aberration we call a vampire.