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Monogatari Series - Volume 15 - Chapter 4.01




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Chapter Four- Koyomi Water

001

I bet Suruga Kanbaru thinks of a road as a place for running rather than walking─given that she runs full-tilt down whatever road she’s on, no matter the circumstances, regardless of wind or weather. In fact, this junior of mine seems to have a hard time even slowing down, let alone proceeding at anything like a leisurely pace.

A hard time, yeah.

Hardly her forte.

But even though she’s always hoofing it at top speed, maybe it’s not so much that a fast pace is her specialty, especially, but rather that a slow pace is so difficult for her to maintain that it’s out of her hands─though not so difficult that she’s bound hand and foot.

In fact, Kanbaru, who has no qualms about embarking on a wild goose chase, probably never even considers taking a leisurely stroll─anyway, a road.

Not trod but raced down.

Ever since she became a star, garnering the attention of the entire school─and even now, having lost none of her luster even after quitting the basketball team, Kanbaru has been in possession of a roadmap depicting an altogether different route from my own.

“Hm. A road─isn’t how I think of it, Araragi-senpai.”

This was her response when I broached the subject one time. As always, she looked directly at me when she spoke.

“When running is a part of everyday life like it is for me, the place where you run isn’t a road, it’s a track.”

A track?


Sure, that’s definitely what you’d call the “road” where the runners run in track-and-field─for a guy like me, though, whose everyday life does not involve running, for whom running is a big deal, calling it a “track” didn’t sit well.

How can I put this?

Doesn’t “track” strongly suggest an absolute, fixed route from which you can’t deviate?

“What? I’m surprised at you, Araragi-senpai. Even when it means ‘street,’ a road is still fixed, something you can’t deviate from. If you just up and move into the next lane, you’ll cause an accident. Changing lanes is never a simple matter, no matter what road you’re on.”

True.

“Street” or “track,” it’s merely a question of context, nothing more than semantics.

In practice, whether you’re running or walking.

Whether it’s a street or a track, a road is a road.

People talk about a life where “the roadmap is already laid out for you,” but since everyone is traveling down the road of life, we’re all following some set of rules.

Obeying some set of traffic regulations.

It’s not so easy to drop out of the race─to deviate from the fixed path. Changing lanes is all well and good, but you have to be careful, or you might drive straight off a cliff.

And there’s always the possibility of a head-on collision.

So we have no choice but to keep chugging along down the road.

“Well, that said,” qualified Kanbaru, “dropping out isn’t actually all that hard─the truth is, even if you don’t stray out of your lane, you can still drop out. Going full-tilt down the road, down the track, is certainly ‘chugging along,’ but it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re ‘moving forward’─people can ‘chug along backwards’ too.”

They can and do, she said.

“Because every route comes with an escape route.”





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