Monogatari Series - Volume 14 - Chapter 1.15

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“Well─what took you so long, Araragi-senpai? My dear Araragi-senpai. I was getting tired of waiting for you.”

As Ononoki and I alit from the sky at the foot of the mountain beneath Kita-Shirahebi Shrine, who should be crouching there by the red light at the intersection of the road and the footpath, bip-booping away on her cell phone (I guess she had never changed the factory settings, so the typing sounds were still enabled), but Ogi Oshino.

Ogi Oshino.

She was a freshman who’d transferred to Naoetsu High at the end of last year.

I had no idea how much she meant it when she said, I was getting tired of waiting for you─I wasn’t even sure what she really meant by it in the first place. But a glance at the screen of her cell phone showed that Ogi wasn’t texting away like your average high school girl. Instead, she seemed to be reading an e-book.

Man, people use their cell phones for literally everything these days.

It was no time to start quibbling about why the nickname for smart phone is sumaho and not sumafo─plus people don’t even say smart phone anymore, lately they call them smart devices or whatever.

But maybe it’s actually a pretty good idea to start making smart-phone screens large enough for e-books─readers care about what kind of tool they use to read “works” that are, ultimately, only data, and when it comes to hardware, familiarity’s more important than portability.

“Ogi, hey…”

I released my grip on Ononoki’s waist and, getting her to stay there, trotted over to my junior.

Given the current situation, I didn’t have time to stand around shooting the breeze, but I couldn’t just breeze right by the “I was getting tired of waiting for you” part.

Especially not when it was Ogi Oshino who said it.

Mèmè Oshino’s niece.

“It’s dangerous for a high school girl to be out here alone this time of night. Always living on the edge, huh? Come on, I’ll get you home.”

“Hahaha, the same way you just arrived, Araragi-senpai? In a single bound? I’m all set, thanks. Not that I have a home to go to anyway─forget about that, totally didn’t mean it, and you’re in a hurry anyway, aren’t you, Araragi-senpai? I just wanted to give you some words of encouragement on your way to the front lines and have been waiting here since morning.”

“Since morning?”

Morning.

This morning it was still up in the air whether I had a reflection or not─well, she was probably just kidding like always. It was obviously one of Ogi’s inflammatory jokes. She loved throwing people off balance with a steady stream of flamboyantly outlandish and bizarre humor.

Even if it wasn’t since morning, though─she’d probably been there since around seven in the evening. That was the kind of kid she was.

The kind of niece.

Who put people off balance even without making jokes.

As a firm believer in the Nuance Proposition, I assumed that all nieces were also nice, but I guess she was the exception that proved the rule.

“Huh? What happened to your little blond loli slave? I never see you without her. Seems odd, according to your character background, you can’t accomplish much of anything without her, Araragi-senpai.”

“I didn’t use to think that was true,” I answered. Honestly. “But yeah, I do now. That’s how our characters were written. And you know what? I’m not ashamed of it─nothing wrong with getting a little help from your friends.”

“But you overdid it, didn’t you? My uncle kept telling you, didn’t he? Let’s see…what was it again? You know, that catch phrase my uncle is always spouting, um…that one, that one, that one, that one.”

There was no way she’d forgotten it.

Nonetheless, Ogi seemed to want to hear it from my lips.

With her train of thought so obvious, so transparent, I actually felt less reluctant to get on board than I would’ve otherwise. Though maybe she was just taking me for a ride.

“People can’t save other people. I can’t save you. You’ll just have to go and get saved on your own, Araragi─something like that, anyway.”

“Oh right, right, that’s the one. How could I forget. I’m so scatterbrained, forgetting my own uncle’s catch phrase.”

“Yeah, your uncle’s catch phrase. Not mine,” I said. “Which is why I feel astonishingly unrepentant about it─I messed up, I was rash, I should have thought things through, I should have been more prudent, I don’t think any of those things. At all. Though I do feel bad about betraying your uncle’s expectations and his faith in me, Ogi, and honestly I don’t know what to say… You know, maybe I did mess up, maybe I was rash, maybe I should have thought things through and been more prudent, but even so─that is, even if I’d known ahead of time, I’m almost positive I would’ve done exactly the same thing. As Ms. Kagenui said─it’s certainly not Oshino’s fault for not telling me.”

I was intentionally leaving out the most important part.

But I assumed that Ogi already knew everything─she knew my situation, knew the trouble I was in─knew why I didn’t regret it. I was pretty sure she did, anyway.

She knew, but was purposely making me go to the trouble of telling her about it─playing with me, you could say.

Outwardly she didn’t resemble Oshino, but personality-wise she was the spitting image of that Hawaiian shirt-wearing bastard─though for some reason Hanekawa said they were “nothing alike.”

“Absolutely. Even if you’d known, you would’ve done the same thing, Araragi-senpai─which is the whole point.”

“What do you mean, the whole point?”

“I mean the whole point, no more, no less. Which is to say, I’m only here like this, as me, because that aspect of you is so alluring─I think you’re the kind of person who’s capable, you know, of distorting things.”

“Distorting what things?”

“I mean, all kinds of things. All kinds of things that aren’t supposed to be. And I hate it when things are distorted─or should I say I love it when they’re fair and balanced? I want to put things right, is what I’m trying to say.”

“…”

To put things right─to put everything in order.

?

“It makes me feel good to put things right─though it seems like you prefer it when things feel a tiny bit bad, Araragi-senpai.”

“I don’t think you’d get on very well with Hanekawa. We hate those most similar to us, or whatever… She believes so strongly, almost pathologically, that everything ‘has to be put right.’ Twice as much as anybody else.”

“How much is twice as much in cat terms?” asked Ogi, then peered past me at Ononoki, who stood waiting like a doll just as I’d told her to. Still looking at the familiar, Ogi continued, “And here you are, getting a little help from your friend even as we speak. A friend or─tween girl? That’s the term you use, right? Asking a teensy little girl like her for help is pitiful.”

“Yeah…maybe you’re right. Maybe it is pitiful. But you just saw for yourself, the girl is no ordinary─”

“I’m well aware. I’ve heard about her before.”

“?”

Had I told her?

I guess I must’ve.

But then why call her a teensy little girl, in that case? Talking with Ogi always made me feel like I was lost in the clouds.

Like the conversation would never end, or like I’d never find a place to land.

Not that finding a place to land meant the conversation would end.

What did she know, and what didn’t she─and how much had I told her?

“So does having a not-ordinary tween girl on your side make you feel like you’ve got an army at your back, Araragi-senpai? Well done, tonight’ll be another easy victory.”

“Easy victory… How dare you. Have you forgotten that until recently I was making the pilgrimage up this very path to Kita-Shirahebi Shrine almost every day, and every single time the tables were turned and I barely survived?”

“Yeah? I guess I must’ve forgotten. I only ever remember the cool things about you, Araragi-senpai.”

Ogi played dumb.

That certainly reminded me of her uncle.

Still, I was worried about her future─about what that kind of attitude would do to her future, about whether she had a future at all.

Like I was about Tsukihi.

“Nope, no good,” I said. “Maybe I do worry too much about other people─like, what am I doing worrying about other people when I can’t even watch out for myself? So see you around, Ogi. At school, I guess.”

“But you won’t come to school anymore, Araragi-senpai.”

Her words stopped me cold.

How can I put this, I felt like I’d been gently but firmly informed that I’d never again return to the familiar halls of Naoetsu High.

But I was reading into it too much, of course, and Ogi continued, “It sucks, why do seniors get to stop coming to school, what kind of a system is that? I wish they’d consider us sad and lonely underclassmen who’re feeling left behind. Though it’s not like you’re banned from attending school, Araragi-senpai, so please come back. Your adorable kohai here is oh so sad and lonely.”

“Yeah…well, sorry for ditching you. But with my grades, I have no choice, I have to shut myself up at home and study.”

Sounding disappointed, Ogi replied, “Do you really though? It’s not just me who’s lonely, you know, Kanbaru-senpai’s lonely too. I wonder what she’s up to right about now.”

“Who knows,” I said, waving to Ogi as I turned away─though to be honest, I did want to walk her home. “See you around.”

“You’ve really grown up, Araragi-senpai. Don’t you think so too?”

“…”

I don’t know if she hadn’t heard my goodbye or if she’d just ignored it, but Ogi kept on talking even after I turned my back.

“You’ve really become an adult these past few months, don’t you think? You’ve become very mature. You don’t get worked up as easily as you used to. A while back, there’s no way you could’ve stayed so calm in this situation, don’t you agree?”

“…”

“I mean look, over spring break, when you thought you’d never become human again, you shut yourself up in the P.E. storage shed and cried. So how come you can keep your cool now? Do you think all the experiences you’ve had this past year helped you grow, that you’ve grown up thanks to everything you’ve had to give up, thanks to the prices you paid? Since you learned the hard way that all your tricks, your games, your workarounds won’t get you anywhere? Boy, what a treat. To get to watch someone grow up right. I much prefer a bildungsroman to a success story. There’s nothing like watching people learn from their mistakes, and grow through their failures.”

“…”

“You failed with Hachikuji and Sengoku, Araragi-senpai, but if that helped you grow, then don’t you feel like it was worth it? Ultimately, no one can protect everything or get everything they want, so when you can’t get the things you want, when you can’t protect the things you love, what’s important is how you process that experience. Or I guess people just have certain expectations of how you’ll behave in that kind of situation. Life never goes as planned, so on the occasions when it doesn’t, what’s important is how you avoid being crushed by that, how you turn it into a springboard─right?”

“Maybe so.”

It may very well be so.

That my accumulated experiences─my accumulated failures─have matured me. That they’ve turned me into an adult. In that sense, maybe humans do learn more from failure than from success, from a bildungsroman than from a success-roman.

Maybe, maybe, maybe.

But.

“But even so, Ogi. I refuse to believe that failure and misfortune, sacrifice and sadness, are ‘good things’─once you start believing that, you’re screwed.”

“…”

“I’d always rather mature through success. Duh,” I said, returning to where Ononoki stood.

I couldn’t waste any more time, and while it was undeniably an abrupt cliffhanger on which to end our conversation, well, we’d see each other again soon.

Whatever happened.

I was pretty sure we’d have to see each other again.

And I doubt the conversation was as much of a cliffhanger as it seemed to me. Since Ogi Oshino saw through you, just like her uncle.