Monogatari Series - Volume 15 - Chapter 4.06

006

The epilogue, or maybe, the punch line of this story.

We don’t need to fall back on the Greek myth of Narcissus to say that people love themselves─in a biological sense in addition to self-love or self-infatuation.

They do so out of an instinctual hereditary drive to pass on their genes to future generations.

People hold themselves in high esteem, they idealize themselves.

Senjogahara was the one who said this.

“Huh? What? So, are you trying to tell me Kanbaru’s father thought his own reflection in the bathwater was his ‘soul mate’? I mean, come on, that…can’t be.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s idiotic.”

“Exactly, it’s an idiotic story. And pointing that out is like calling Kanbaru’s father an idiot, so I didn’t tell Kanbaru. I wouldn’t say something that harsh even now, so of course I wouldn’t when I was in middle school.”

“…That’s on the level of the fable you told about the dog. He’d realize. How could anyone in the world not recognize his or her own face?”

“No one in the world knows it that intimately. The face you see in the mirror is flipped left to right. In photographs and videos, the colors and sense of depth are completely different. We ourselves are actually the ones who’re least familiar with the us that people see.”

“That’s not what we’re talking about here…”

“For example, Araragi, people from other families all look alike, right? But the members of those families don’t think so. You and your sisters look disturbingly alike, but I bet you don’t think you look all that similar.”

“Disturbingly? Thanks for that…though I guess I see what you mean. But aren’t you just saying that it’s easier to tell people apart if you’re used to seeing them, than if you’re not? Like how a counterfeit might fool a layman, but an expert would be able to tell the difference─”

“Yeah. Well, no, but it’ll do.”

“No? Whatever, anyone looking at a face reflected in the water would at least be able to tell if it’s their own.”

“Not really. In a mirror, maybe─but…”

“…”

“A watery surface is moving, sparkling, it’s blurry─it’s not the same as looking in a mirror. You’ve heard of the uncanny valley, right? How with CG or robots or whatever, the more humanlike you make them look, the less human they seem─the dissimilarity actually becomes more distinct, and they start to seem creepier. I think you’ll agree that my metaphor is more accurate.”

“The uncanny valley…”

“They also say that once you cross the uncanny valley, the feeling of intimacy grows by leaps and bounds. Though I’ve heard incest and hating your kin are rooted in the same sort of reasons. The point is, your own image, reflected on water, can not look like you─they make mirrors that are rigged so the reflection isn’t flipped left to right, but apparently most people who look in them think: That’s not me. And they say people experience a similar disconnect when they see the reflection of a close friend or relative.”

“…So he didn’t perceive the self he saw reflected in the bathwater as himself because it wasn’t the ‘self’ he took for granted from constantly seeing it in the mirror?”

“Yes. And if he only saw it occasionally, mightn’t that blurry self look like a girl?”

“I mean…that’s possible, I guess, since when you’re a little kid the difference between genders is a lot less obvious─it’s a fine answer if we’re talking about the kind of charms or fortune-telling that girls are into, but once you’re a grownup, or once you’ve reached a certain level of discernment, you’d realize what was going on.”

“And he did. Which is why he stopped seeing her at a certain point.”

“…”

“But it’s another question entirely whether you connect that to recollections of seeing such a thing in the past. Her father must’ve retained his memory of discerning someone’s image in the water.”

“…And thought that it was his ‘soul mate’? That’s a hell of an assumption─though I guess the dad we’re talking about here is Kanbaru’s dad.”

“You’ve got it backwards. He met someone who seemed like his ‘soul mate,’ and she reminded him of the reflection he’d seen in the water all those years ago.”

“Hm? Oh, I get it… Yeah, you must be right, for a third party discussing this in hindsight, the cause and effect are backwards…but that’s not how he felt. As far as he knew, he finally found the answer to a puzzle from his childhood.”

“Love aside, we tend to seek out people like ourselves, so…”

So.

Senjogahara left off there. Instead─

“This is all just my interpretation, of course,” she summed it up.

That summation may have been her way of hiding her embarrassment─or of apologizing for being unable to swallow a romantic story without analyzing it first.

There was no way of knowing the truth.

It was just her interpretation, not the solution─she’d said accordingly.

Kanbaru and her father saw it one way, and she saw it another way, that was all. Senjogahara had decided that Papa Kanbaru’s interpretation was “unlikely,” or even “impossible,” but conversely he might think her quibbling explanation was “unlikely” or “impossible.”

And the fact that Kanbaru’s father had only ever seen “her” in that bath─in that well water, in other words─could lend credence to the idea that there really was something mysterious about the water itself.

Senjogahara would likely dismiss the specificity of the location with an interpretation like a greater chance for tricks of the light. And I have to say I’m with her─I’m also the type who can’t accept romantic notions at face value, who needs to nitpick them all the way down the line. So I wasn’t inclined to say anything uncouth, to use her word, about her take on it.

In that regard.

Maybe Senjogahara and I were a couple of peas in a pod─a couple, and peas in a pod.

“Well, goodbye. Good night. See you at school tomorrow.”

Was not how Senjogahara signed off.

“If you say one wrong word to Kanbaru, I’ll kill you. I’ll never forgive you. Even if it was a slip of the tongue, you’d be better off killing yourself before tomorrow morning.”

Then my girlfriend hung up.

I seriously don’t get her, I thought as I placed a second call, this time to Kanbaru, figuring that it was still probably just early enough.

The pretext for the call was to report that I’d gotten home safely, but the truth was that there was also something I wanted to ask her─believe me, I had no intention of saying one wrong word.

I didn’t particularly feel like killing myself before dawn.

“Hey, Kanbaru. I meant to ask─what about you? When you look into that bathwater, what do you see?”

The reason I asked: If her father’s interpretation was correct, then Kanbaru would see her future mate reflected there. If Senjogahara’s interpretation was correct, however, what my junior saw reflected there might be─

Her mother.

Toé Gaen.

Kanbaru might see her─just like her father had. In the rippling image of herself reflected on the surface, she might well see the mother whose blood ran in her veins. The mother who’d had such an enormous influence on my junior’s life, who affected her even now through that left arm─but then, I have no idea which of her parents she resembles more, so for all I knew it could be her father she saw there. Depending on the movement of the water, she might even see both of them.

Mom and dad.

She might even see─the two of them there together.

And if so─that really was romantic, in its own way. Her departed parents, together, reunited in her eyes…

“Hm? Oh. I see my own boobs, of course. Which are reaaally sexy, if I do say so myself, I spend the entire time I’m in the bath staring at them. The contrast with my abs is reaaally evocative, and I oversoak myself on a nightly basis sitting there captivated by the sight. To be honest, nothing else enters my eyes. But, why do you ask, Araragi-senpai─”

I hung up.