Monogatari Series - Volume 15 - Chapter 3.04

004

“Tut!”

“…”

Oshino may or may not have scolded me, but Hanekawa did, unambiguously.

Tut!

I hadn’t been scolded in that way since kindergarten… It happened right after I got home from the park.

I got a phone call from Hanekawa.

Currently, not one but two model students, Senjogahara and Hanekawa, were helping me with my studies, which made me extremely lucky. Since Senjogahara had been on duty that day and our work had been successfully concluded, I had no idea why Hanekawa was calling me─but ignoring a call from my great benefactor was hardly an option, so I answered it.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Araragi? Sorry for calling so late─it’s just, something’s been on my mind. Is now an okay time?”

“Sure, now’s fine…”

Actually, I wanted to wash off the dirt from the sandbox, but I’m not enough of a clean freak to put off Hanekawa in favor of a shower.

“I just received Senjogahara’s regular report…”

“Regular report?! What the hell?!”

It sounded terrifying!

Wait, so, after our study sessions, Senjogahara reported to Hanekawa about how it went? A debriefing about whether or not I was studying properly?

Gaaah…

A serious lack of faith…

“Oh, no, this wasn’t for the Araragi Rehabilitation Program, it had more to do with the Senjogahara Rehabilitation Program─but forget about it.”

“Um, is that really a forget about it kind of an it?”

“In any case, I happened to catch that you were planning to investigate the sand at a certain park on your way home, Araragi… You finished with that? I tried to call when you’d be done.”

“…”

Her ears are a little too sharp, and her timing was dead on. And she doesn’t beat around the bush. If it were me, I would’ve waited until tomorrow─we’d see each other at school.

Frankly, I didn’t think it was worth telling Hanekawa─though I was perfectly willing to, if she wanted to hear about it.

I’m not Hachikuji, so I didn’t demand money for the story, of course. Compared to Hanekawa’s free tutoring, it barely amounted to anything.

I reported the findings of my sandbox investigation.

I didn’t embellish the story much, but I did leave out the reawakening of my inner child and my desire to slide down the slide. No harm done by a few small omissions.

Whether or not I left my inner child out of it, Hanekawa treated me very much like a little kid when she scolded:

“Tut!”

Scolded, or reprimanded, maybe.

What’s she think I am?

“No good, Araragi.”

“Huh? Sure, I know I’m no good, but you’d just come out and say so? Sugarcoat it.”

“No, I wasn’t saying ‘no-good Araragi’─what you did was no good…”

Your persecution complex is in overdrive, she accused.

Sure, fair enough.

Though maybe it was more of an inferiority complex than a persecution complex.

“But what do you mean, what I did was no good? What’s bothering you, anyway? You said you had something on your mind…”

“Yeah. I figured you’d take care of things, so I thought I’d settle for an after-action report.”

“After-action report…”

Who the hell was she, receiving reports from Senjogahara, receiving reports from me.

Our commanding officer or something?

“Wait, then what did I do wrong? I’m pretty sure I did just about everything I could. I envisioned the worst-case scenario, and performed a scrupulous investigation, okay?”

“Mm-hmm, you sure did. Playing in the sand, building a mound.”

“…”

I’d left that out of it…

Had something in my “report” tipped her off? Apparently, since she sounded so sure of it.

Once again, talking to her is freaky.

I feel like she sees through me, though from a different angle than Oshino.

“Mm. Mmmm, you’ve overlooked something important, Araragi. You made an erroneous assumption.”

“Assumption?”

“You’re assuming the sandbox case has to be either the work of an aberration─or a man-made phenomenon. Correct?”

“Yeah, now that you mention, I guess I am, but…what, is there another possibility?”

Hanekawa hadn’t even seen the sand arranged in the shape of a demonic face with her own eyes, she’d only heard about it from Senjogahara, so how could she talk like she knew exactly what was going on─and Senjogahara had only heard an incredulous version of Hachikuji’s fifty-yen tale from me, before I’d even seen the real thing. As with the reawakening of my inner child─how could Hanekawa be so sure?

“There is. Another possibility. A third possibility.”

“Damn, there is? You really do know everything, don’t you?”

Ordinarily I say this line with a sense of admiration, but I can’t deny that just this once there was a little bit of irony mixed in there as well.

Despite my shameful pettiness, Hanekawa treated me to her usual response. “I don’t know everything, I just know what I know.”

This left me feeling utterly benign and coolheaded─which is no great feat, I have to admit. Hanekawa had me eating out of her hand.

Maybe it was thanks to the Rehabilitation Program or whatever.

“A third option… Neither the work of an aberration nor the work of a human being, so, um… Let’s see.” I thought it over inside my newly cooled head. It felt somehow like an extension of my exam prep. “Well, a process of elimination just leaves something like a natural phenomenon, I guess… Maybe the air flow in the park and the position of the slide are such that a face could form by happenstance…”

I said this exactly as it occurred to me, but even as I was saying it, I knew it was nonsense.

Or rather, the nature-as-culprit theory was pretty much the first one you’d consider, and just as quickly, dismiss─a crevice between two buildings was one thing, but no way the wind would be uniform in an open, unobstructed space like a park.

Even supposing the shape didn’t form all the time, Hachikuji and I had visited the park on totally random days─hard to believe the parameters just so happened to line up perfectly.

I’d only said it as conversation filler, and I girded my loins for Hanekawa’s cursory dismissal.

Perhaps another Tut!

Was I making a foolish remark on purpose, hoping for another one of those? I want to believe that I’m not that big of a fool─but if I was, my faint hopes were about to be dashed.

“Bingo, sounds like you’re on the right track, Araragi. No need for me to get involved, then.”

“Huh? No, hang on, you can’t just bail on me like that. Don’t back out now. It’s still your job to explain to me what that actually means.”

“Why’s it my job…”

“I mean, a natural phenomenon? The sand just happened to end up that way because of the wind or whatever? Impossible─”

Even as I spoke, I thought: This is what they mean by “better left unsaid.” Hanekawa not picking up on a problem, when I did? Maybe it’s just my inferiority complex talking again, but…

No, putting that aside.

Even if the “demonic form” were the result of a natural phenomenon, the most placid “solution” here, why would Hanekawa want to scold me for dismissing the possibility out of hand and making my assumption?

Could the Rehabilitation Program really be that strict? Was it a Spartan style of education that punished even the slightest moment of carelessness?

That was my fear, but it was misguided.

Because Hanekawa was quite justified in scolding me.

“Come on, Araragi. Wind and rain aren’t the only natural phenomena.”

“Huh?”