Monogatari Series - Volume 17 - Chapter 1.16

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A major reason that actual debates and negotiations don’t proceed in the smooth, logical way they do in plays is that people don’t listen to each other─accepting neither their opponents’ statements nor their right to make them, interrupting before any points can be made, cutting others off with their own, yelling over everything from start to finish. Moving down a terrible path that’s the precise opposite of smooth logic, it all brings only fatigue. If you forced me nonetheless to produce minutes for the meeting after that, it would look as follows.

“Whatever, this is pointless. Let’s just say I’m the culprit and be done with this discussion.” “How is that supposed to settle anything? Are you covering for someone? I bet you know who did it, don’t you?” “Is there really a culprit here to begin with?” “We said we’d assume there was while we talked about this. Don’t try to make us go back on it.” “I mean, realistically speaking, could anyone really steal test questions out of the teachers’ room?” “You’re asking if it’s physically possible, not ethically?” “No, I’m talking about guts here.” “Don’t be ridiculous. What does that have to do with our discussion? Everyone’s lying here, that’s all.” “I’m sorry, can we please all raise our hands before speaking from now on?” “I can’t stand listening to any more of this.” “Teachers make test questions on computers these days. You could get them without sneaking into the teachers’ room if you hacked them.” “You watch too many TV shows.” “To repeat myself, I think it was Oikura who taught us the last question on the test during the study session. I’m not certain, though.” “If you’re not certain, then don’t speak up. How would you take responsibility for ruining someone’s life? You’ve always been like that, you know.” “Please raise your hand.” “Listen, I just want to go home. Can you do this somewhere without me?” “We’re not letting you leave.” “They might say you did it if you leave.” “Fine with me─I just have to be the bad guy, right?” “Gross, stop trying to act cool. What’re you trying to pull here? The other day─” “Higuma would never.” “You were invited to the study session, but didn’t show up. May I ask why?” “Are you really going to suspect me?” “I thought you weren’t that kind of person.” “Excuse me. Everyone. Please settle down. Let’s stay calm.” “How are we supposed to be calm?!” “Haven’t we had enough? If something’s suspicious, why not let sensei handle it?” “I think there’s meaning in trying to correct our own mistakes. We ought to handle our own business.” “I said I don’t have anything to do with this!” “Raise your hand before you speak─” “And anyway, if Araragi got a perfect score, it was possible to solve every problem on the test. Claiming that there had to be cheating or foul play makes no sense.” “Ugh. I’m starting to get annoyed. I want to leave already.” “Leave if you want. Become the culprit.” “What right do you have to talk? You didn’t even get the trig problems right.” “What about you? Who gets the geometry questions wrong?! You could tell the figures were similar just by looking at them!” “Why don’t we do it this way? We put up the names of everyone who got the three big problems right but not the smaller ones, and─” “What’d be the point?” “Why’re you acting like that? Stop being so emotional. Let’s think about this logically, everyone.” “Don’t think. Feel.” “This isn’t the time for jokes, Nagagutsu!” “Senjogahara, you’ve been quiet this whole time. What do you think?” “I don’t know.” “Hey, everyone. There’s something I want to say.” “Say it later!” “Keep your voice down. It’s pathetic.” “Pathetic!” “What are you scared of? Feeling guilty much?” “The one thing we’ve established is that I didn’t do it!” “You’re the only one dumb enough to believe that.” “Excuse me? I’d like you to take that back.” “Araragi, you need to lead us.” “Easy for you to say─” “Couldn’t it have been plain cheating? Like a whole group of students cheating.” “That’d still implicate someone from the study session.” “And the other subjects? There weren’t polarized scores for them, were there?” “It’s not like we had study sessions for them. With a little thought you’d realize that yourself.” “Why should I know?” “So, the culprit didn’t steal any other tests? Why not steal tests for other subjects while you’re there?” “Stop acting like you’re an expert. What do you think you are, a detective?” “Then anyone with high scores in other subjects is suspicious?” “Why did we only have a study session for math to begin with? I would’ve attended a history one.” “Obviously because it’d look bad if the math average was low for a class whose homeroom teacher taught math. In other words, it’s about appearances. Our dear class president wanted to score points with sensei.” “That’s not why. It’s because mathematics is the most beautiful of all the disciplines.” “You’re literally the only one who thinks that. What does that even mean? Beautiful? So, you just felt like it.” “It always has to be about you, huh?” “I hate math, personally.” “You don’t understand the beauty of math?” “Schoolwork isn’t about love or hate. Why are you even at Naoetsu High?” “What, jealous?” “What’d you just say?!” “Please don’t fight.” “We’re not fighting, it’s because a certain someone is spouting nonsense that it’s weird for me to be at this school─” “I didn’t go that far!” “I don’t care about math, I’m a humanities person. I’m planning on applying to a school that doesn’t have a math exam.” “Oh, me too.” “Stop trying to piggyback on other people’s comments, will you?” “Why are you lashing out at me?” “All of you have gotten so quiet all of a sudden. What gives?” “I’m just staying silent because there’s nothing for me to say.” “I have an alibi!” “An alibi, when we don’t even know when the crime took place?” “I have someone to testify. On my behalf. Someone who’d guarantee I’d never do such a thing.” “What about motive? Would someone do this just for kicks?” “Generally speaking, the culprit wouldn’t stand to benefit if the class’s average score rose. Wouldn’t you normally be happier if the overall score went down?” “Then this isn’t a general or normal case.” “Are you trying to say something here? Out with it.” “I’m saying there isn’t, and there’s nothing I want to say.” “These are leading questions.” “Are you all done yet? I’m sick and tired of this. I had plans to go on a date today.” “Wait, you two are still going out?” “It’s my call, isn’t it?” “Can I take a nap?” “Come on, let’s go through and think about what happened in order. It started with news about a study session getting passed around in class, and─” “Why didn’t that note make it to me? I’d have never found out if Hishigata hadn’t told me. Were you trying to avoid me? Are you bullying me? Do you not like me?” “No, of course it wasn’t intentional… It’s just that you weren’t there…” “Let’s all get along, okay?” “It’s too late for that. I mean, people think I did it! I haven’t done anything wrong!” “There’s no smoke without fire.” “You know, that’s the thing with you.” “Oh?! That’s my line!” “Yeah, why ever have a study session! Studying is something you do alone!”

…No one was raising a hand at this point. It’d become an assembly where everyone just said what they felt like saying. The template of a fruitless discussion, a space where every line sounded typical and devoid of any creativity. I mentioned plays earlier, and at this point it was like a bunch of hammy actors rehearsing their flat delivery.

We were managing to hurt one another, but without speaking our minds. A true wasteland. A true hellhole.

I remained on top of things as long as it was still one discussion, but once smaller squabbles started popping up, it got impossible to control. I don’t mean to justify myself, but regardless of who was chair, it was probably the fated outcome─and in the chaos, I weaved my way through the rows to where Oikura sat glumly.

“This isn’t going any further. There’s no way to get it back under control.” It was 5:58, and I gave her my notice─or rather, declaration of surrender. What I’d been defeated at, I didn’t know, but I certainly couldn’t fulfill the role assigned to me, out of spite or not, by the class president. “Give me a break. We should end this before it gets any worse.”

“What are you whining for? You got a better score than me and you want to give up?”

Oikura glared at me─but her glare lacked the intensity it had at the beginning. She was exhausted, too. While my surrender was nothing more than me throwing in the towel, I also told myself that I was rescuing her.

“That’s right. I’m giving up. It’s hopeless.”

“I’m not letting anyone leave…until we find the culprit.”

“There’s no way. Everyone’s going home once the closing bell rings. You must know that yourself,” I leveled with her─maybe I shouldn’t have. Someone had to say it, but even if I didn’t, Tetsujo or Shui could. That it was me of all people, though, incited her.

I’d forgotten.

Just how much Oikura hated me.

I should have passively, irresponsibly ceded the awful task to someone else. Was I really dispensing advice to her out of some sense of duty? Or was I hoping for something? She simply saw me as a rival, and down deep, didn’t really hate me? Was I so conceited that I thought we’d be on good terms one day─since she was just playing hard to get?

The truth was different.

With heartfelt contempt, which surpassed her exhaustion, she spat, “I hate you.”

She stood─and made a beeline to the teacher’s desk, leaving me behind. She slammed her hands on it to get everyone’s attention. She did, yet the commotion didn’t abate─which is why she shouted:

“Everyone!”

With this, the room finally fell silent, but everyone looked gloomy and disgusted, and wasn’t hiding it─they must have thought that a new chair at this point would do nothing to tighten all the screws that had come loose. I myself felt like reorganizing the meeting would only bring us back to square one─any change in chairs should have come earlier. Just as I expected, Koma, the first student to have complained, was about to lodge another complaint─but Oikura held even that at bay.

“Everyone!” she repeated. “I think we’ve discussed the matter sufficiently.”

Oh, I thought, forgetting her parting show of contempt and breathing a sigh of relief. So Oikura, too, had given up and wanted to wrap this meeting. As the one who’d convened the class council─or perhaps who’d arranged the study session─she was going to draw the line and bring this to a close. We hadn’t come to a conclusion, nor had we found the culprit, nor had the culprit come forward, but we all did our best, came together─she’d spout such lines, maybe make us give ourselves a round of applause, and let everyone go. Yes, the mood would be awkward and unpleasant in our class for a while, but she was going to choose the best way to settle this…

Nope, no such luck. She would search for this culprit until the bitter end. A smart girl like her didn’t need me to tell her that we had to bring things to an end─but dead set on coming to a conclusion no matter what, if adjourn we must─she said, “So I’m going to take a vote.”