Monogatari Series - Volume 17 - Chapter 2.14

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“Basically, Miss Oikura wanted something in return for─how would you put it, teaching you how fun or whatever math could be.”

Two minutes later.

Ogi divulged the solution without giving me a single second of extra time─just how antsy was she to go home?

“In return?”

“Yes─of all the things Miss Senjogahara did or said, that bothered Miss Oikura the most, didn’t it? She’s teaching you without seeking anything in return─this irritated the girl who once conducted study sessions with you.”

Enough to make her get physical.

“Don’t tell me you actually believed her. That she’d be happy so long as you loved math and kept loving it forever? It’s something a fairy would say.”

“…”

“What was it, she turned down the snacks you brought her to show your gratitude? But if you read into that, perhaps she wouldn’t accept them because she needed more from you in return than some snacks? Seems like you couldn’t look at yourself objectively once your eyes were opened to how much fun math could be, but from an outside perspective, those envelopes at the beginning were suspicious. They smell like a trap.”

A trap.

Or I guess a baited hook─Ogi continued.

“Sending letters to other students but you being the only one to show up was a lie. A total fib. Actually, she wanted to reel you in and no one else. Doesn’t it seem hard to believe that you were the only one to bite if she sent letters to multiple people?”

“Hard to believe? Okay, maybe it’s conceited to think that I’m special, but it seems possible. In terms of probability.”

“In terms of probability, you are special. Without a doubt.”

“…”

“We’ll talk about how you’re special later, but she targeted you alone precisely because you’re special─if young Oikura wanted to invite more people to her study sessions, she would have kept casting her lines, don’t you think? There should have been ways for her to promote them even after summer break began. Yet no one but you showed up all summer. What does that mean? What does it mean if you two were alone the entire time?”

So that was her line of reasoning.

Refuting it was difficult, I couldn’t deny it─she was probably right. Had Oikura picked her targets and planted letters for all of them, it’d be strange for her plan to have worked only on me. To begin with, it was hard to imagine a large study session getting together at this abandoned home, in this room.

From the very start.

I was to be the only participant.

That’s what she ran.

That’s what the young girl─planned.

“Miss Oikura knew your math grades were falling, so she must’ve played to that and planted letters that would interest you in your shoe box. A math problem for a boy thinking about how he needed to do something about his math score─I’d say that’s a good lure.”

“In that case, what does that say about me for waltzing in here…”

Oikura met me with a smile, but she might have been trying to stifle a laugh─it had all worked on me so perfectly.

“No, no. It didn’t work on you perfectly─turns out making other people act exactly according to plan is hard. Personally, I’d say that while you’re a fool, Miss Oikura is quite the fool herself.”

In short, the real world doesn’t work as neatly as math does, Ogi said. The kind of line a math-hater relishes─I wanted to argue the point as a math-lover, but I had to keep quiet here.

Indeed, I didn’t know.

What Oikura wanted from me in return back then─I didn’t have the first idea what she’d tried to make me do.

Ogi looked at me, satisfied.

Then spoke again.

“But if I had to say which of you was the bigger fool, it would have to be you─because if not for your misunderstanding, I doubt any of this would be happening.”

“My misunderstanding?”

“That said, your future might have turned out differently if not for your misunderstanding. You might not be getting along with Miss Hanekawa and Miss Senjogahara the way you are now─so maybe it was a good outcome for you. In that sense, you had great foresight, so don’t feel down,” Ogi comforted me.

Not that I could tell if she was comforting me or insulting me.

All I knew was that I didn’t have any foresight at all.

“Ogi, there’s no need to console me, just say it. What kind of misunderstanding was there on my part five years ago?”

“Tell me,” she said, as if to deflect my demand─but she wasn’t going to drag this out more than necessary if she really wanted to go home.

In fact, she gave it to me straight.

Mercilessly, in a way.

“You’re quite familiar with the ruins of the cram school in this town where my uncle, Mèmè Oshino, once lived.”

“Hm? Yeah, of course. I told you I even stayed the night there.”

“You also said something else. This abandoned home is just about as rundown as those ruins─right?”

“Yeah, and?”

“Don’t you find that strange? Why would a cram school, freshly abandoned as of just a few years ago, look just as rundown as a home that had already fallen into disuse five years ago?”

“Huh?”

Hm?

Well, that’s… Hm?

Was that─strange?

Yes─it was.

The abandoned school and abandoned home shared something in common, which was that they were deteriorating, unoccupied buildings─but it seemed strange that they’d age in such different ways, at such different speeds.

This house had already been abandoned five years ago. It should have deteriorated far worse over the last five years─but it was in a similar state as a building that had been in operation until just a few years ago, which was impossible. A few years, so two or three…at the most, five years, meaning…

The notion that time had stopped here was mere sentiment.

In reality, five years had passed.

Right─the logical conclusion would be…that until a few years ago, the building we found ourselves in wasn’t an abandoned home─but what did that mean?

“…”

I put my hand over my mouth. So that I wouldn’t make any weird noises.

So that I wouldn’t scream in the face of the truth confronting me.

Let’s just say.

If, when I visited this place during my first year of middle school, it hadn’t been an abandoned home…

“This isn’t the place I was visiting five years ago? The abandoned home where I met with Oikura that summer is in a totally different place─”

“No, that’s not it. We followed a map to come here, remember? The same map as five years ago.”

Then we’d read the map wrong.

And there was no guarantee that the map from five years ago was identical to today’s─it seemed a little late to say this, but it was also weird that the letters I received five years ago were there today.

This excuse came to mind, but I didn’t give voice to it─because I was the expert witness here. I knew for certain that this was the same house I’d visited five years ago─which meant.

Which meant only one thing.

This wasn’t an abandoned home five years ago─and so.

And so.

“That’s right,” Ogi said.

With less mercy than ever. And with less ado.

“Five years ago─this wasn’t an abandoned home. That’s what you misunderstood─this was Sodachi Oikura’s home.”