Monogatari Series - Volume 17 - Chapter 3.04

004

Pay a visit to my girlfriend’s home, or pay a visit to my mortal enemy’s home.

Quite the extreme choice, but I ended up picking the latter─you might say that I was making a masochistic, self-flagellating decision to corner myself, just like Oikura. And you’d be right, I did let my self-flagellating impulses take over.

Someone like Koyomi Araragi would never face Sodachi Oikura otherwise─and whatever she thought of me, I wouldn’t be able to think about myself in any way at all unless I made a change.

I gave myself over to that feeling─Oikura would only find it annoying, and she probably hated that part of me, but regardless of how much hate I attracted, it wasn’t as if I could suddenly stop being me.

I am me.

Koyomi Araragi is Koyomi Araragi.

But there was another, no, two other elements here─one being my exact relation to Oikura. As Hanekawa pointed out the day before, why did Oikura know what my parents did? And indeed, following her advice led me to the answer, miraculously solving the mystery. Miraculously, or promptly. And no, I’d only found an answer, I didn’t know for sure if I could call it a solution─but in any case, my relation to her during our first year of high school, during our first year of middle school, and now, during elementary school, all sat there in my mind.

I wanted to use that as a base.

And I wanted to talk to her again.

…To be honest, I didn’t, and I knew we wouldn’t have a proper conversation in more ways than one, but there are times when you just have to leap into a bottomless swamp even if it’s illogical or straight-up suicidal.

It had to happen.

The second element, though, was extremely practical, or perhaps pragmatic, which is that if I went to visit Senjogahara, I would without a doubt treat her with kindness─which wouldn’t help her. To be fair, she’d helped me, or even taken my place by confronting Oikura for me, so I had no right at all to act stern even if you disregard the fact that we’re going out. No, sorry, don’t disregard that. Anyway, I had a better relationship with Senjogahara than I did with myself─an ironclad case for letting Hanekawa, who could be open and unsparing with her, handle that situation.

“Yes, you’re right, I agree. I thought you’d choose Miss Senjogahara despite all of that─but I guess this is part of who you are,” Hanekawa said. “Then let me handle Miss Senjogahara, and you do whatever you can to drag Miss Oikura back to school. It might be impossible to make them friends, or to get them to reconcile…but leaving things as they stand is just going to bring both of them unhappiness.”

We needed to get Senjogahara to stop playing hooky so that her college recommendation wouldn’t be rescinded─and we couldn’t allow Oikura to keep doing this either, not after she’d returned to school, however halfheartedly. The two might come to blows if they met in class again─but taking care to make sure that didn’t happen was part of the class president and vice president’s job.

Even if we weren’t up to it, we had to do all we could.

That might sound snide, considering that Oikura once abandoned her own job as class president─but whatever, the decision was made for me, class vice president, to wait until after school to visit her current place of residence.

Hm?

You want to know why I met up with Hanekawa again, when we were going to act separately? Well, this is how that happened─and I personally see this as one of her ordeals, or rather an illustration of her fretfulness. After the final bell, I got Oikura’s address from Hanekawa, who still had some business at school, and started off on my own─but just as I neared the school gates.

“Hmmm? Well, if it isn’t Araragi-senpai!”

Ogi Oshino called out to me.

“Oh… Ogi.”

I.

I kind of felt like the air had been let out of my balloon just as I was getting ready to take off─nothing in particular had happened, but it was as if I’d finally prepared myself to go off and tackle a very important matter only to have someone offer me a cup of tea and a seat. I doubt you understand what I’m trying to say here, and I don’t either. But if someone offers you some tea, you can’t leave as soon as you take it.

“Ogi…are you heading home?”

“Home? Um…no?” She clapped her hands. With a smile. “What are you talking about? We agreed to meet here, remember? Our promise was to meet by the school gates at 3:42 p.m. And look at you, right on the dot, you’re so punctual. You’re so serious when it comes to this kind of thing─you fool.”

“Hm??”

I tilted my head.

I couldn’t recall making the promise─it was nowhere to be found in my memories. But, well, it had to be true, if Ogi said so. Though the way she called out to me just now didn’t make much sense in that case. Not to mention, 3:42 p.m. seemed like too exact of a meeting time.

Uh oh, had I forgotten a promise I’d made to a junior? What an awful example I was setting. How was I supposed to put on airs now?

“Yaaay, hooray! My senior Araragi is taking me to a sushi restaurant, and not one of those cheap revolving ones either.”

“Did I really promise you that?! Me?!”

“Of course you did. You said it was to celebrate my transferring into this school.”

“A nice sushi meal to celebrate transferring schools… What in the world has transferred here into my school?” I said jokingly, but it was also a very sincere question─what exactly had transferred here into my school?

“And you promised you’d take me out to a bar afterwards.”

“A bar? Like a salad bar?”

One expensive junior had transferred into my school. Even if she meant a salad bar.

But whether or not I’d made such a promise, today was the one day I couldn’t go to a sushi restaurant or a bar─feeling bad, I gave her a sincere apology.

“I’m sorry to say, Ogi, I won’t be able to make good on my promise.”

“Huh, that’s a pretty cool-sounding line. Wow, a cool line as you’re breaking a promise. What, no money?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I’m a multimillionaire.”

If I was going to break a promise, I might as well lie while I was at it.

As if I was barely sorry─well, maybe I was being a different kind of sorry.

“I have to drop by Oikura’s place.”

“Ohh? Back to that abandoned home, then?”

“No, not the abandoned one. Her current one…”

Mmf.

I was running my mouth again with her─I needed to reel this in, lest I get a reputation as someone with loose lips.

I shut them tight.

Then─Ogi touched my lips with her index finger. She brushed it across them, like she was putting lip gloss on me.

“What’re you doing?!”

I couldn’t keep from reacting to this fetishistic move, but it seemed there was no sexual meaning behind it.

“No, I was just seeing if I could unzip your lips,” she said brazenly, breezily. “Though I’m sure it’s more like velcro─please, tell me more. What happened? Just look at how fast you’ve unlocked her heart, you’re on good enough terms to get yourself invited to Miss Oikura’s home after what happened yesterday─or the day before that, I guess. What leaps and bounds you’ve made, you need to report on how this has all come to be, you fool,” she ended with an order.

Something about the way she spoke was just so unnatural.

“No, we’re not on good terms, and I didn’t unlock her heart or anything. I haven’t been invited, I’m basically forcing my way in. She stopped coming to school again yesterday─though she’d barely showed up the day before that,” I said, having no choice but to explain.

I did have some degree of accountability here, given that I’d broken my promise to celebrate her transfer.

I reported the current dilemma: Tsubasa Hanekawa had decided to act because both Senjogahara’s position and Oikura’s future were in a bad place unless we did something─wait, reported? That makes it sound like she was my superior…but it feels like the right word to use, so I’ll leave it be.

“─And that’s what happened.”

“So that’s what happened? Hm… You know, it’s going to turn into a fight if you head there by yourself,” Ogi said with a thoughtful look after hearing me out. “You’re just going to resume the argument you had in the classroom, only in Miss Oikura’s home─don’t you think?”

“Yeah, part of me does… That is a worry.”

“You should’ve handled Miss Senjogahara, while Miss Hanekawa handled Miss Oikura─you’ve been assigned to the wrong post.”

“Hmm, well, you might be right.”

Her remark did seem on point if the idea was to settle this peacefully─but peace in this situation looked awfully like closing our eyes, and I didn’t think we could arrive at a solution with our eyes shut.

Hanekawa had the kind of personality that hated work for the sake of work, work in order to create an alibi─and in this case, even I, her vice president famous for his slipshod work, felt the same way.

“Hmm─but what about her family environment?” asked Ogi. “It seemed pretty dire, didn’t it? Charging into that seems more than dangerous, it seems foolish. I can’t recommend it.”

“Oh, we don’t have to worry about that… I haven’t heard the details, but it looks like she’s living away from her parents.”

“Away from her parents? A-ha. So she’s been placed under the care of her relatives?”

“No. Living alone, apparently.”

“Huh─well, how interesting.”

Her heart may have been sent racing by a “backstory” you only saw in manga─a high schooler living by herself.

“Her parents must have gotten divorced or something five years ago, just like you said─or I guess you could say her family fell apart. Then she returned here two years ago. I’m sure that technically─or legally speaking─she has guardians…”

“I see. So the blind guess was the right one. Though that does create its own problem, my foolish senior. In essence, you are about to visit the home of a girl who, for all intents and purposes, is living alone. That’s no good.”

“It isn’t?”

“It isn’t, at all. No gentleman should ever do that. Miss Hanekawa may trust you, but I’m sorry to say that in general, a boy going on his own to visit a girl living by herself will raise doubts. It’s not something he should do if he already has a partner.”

“Hmm.”

Hearing her put it that way…made me think she might be right.

While I didn’t think I needed to be so concerned about how every little social grace and matter of manners between the sexes reflected upon me when I was only in high school, I did want to avoid any unnecessary misunderstanding. It’d be one thing if it was just me, but if those kinds of rumors got started about Oikura, someone who hated me, she might seriously end up committing suicide.

Suicide…

The inauspicious word happened to come to me, and I shivered when I realized just how realistic it sounded─right.

Whether or not Hanekawa was the more appropriate choice for the visit, regardless of how Oikura now lived, no matter what misunderstandings might be created─I needed to approach her in a way that didn’t put her in any worse of a situation.

Not as atonement for failing to give her the help she sought five years ago, and it certainly wouldn’t be enough to make amends for it─but I was faced with a very real question.

“I see you’re having trouble coming to a decision.”

Ogi shrugged as if to sigh. She seemed quite serious about stopping me from going to Oikura’s home, and I could tell that her advice came from a place of kindness. I felt like I had no choice but to accept it, and she seemed to realize this.

“I was so looking forward to that unrevolving sushi…”

Or maybe it came from a place of hunger, not kindness? Either way, as bad as I felt about having to cancel our plans, my feelings of relief trumped all.

I couldn’t stand around and talk for too long, in any case. I began to wrap things up.

“Anyway, Ogi.”

“Oh, right! I just might have an idea,” she cut off my wrap-up.

Because she just might have an idea.

“Why don’t you bring my humble self with you to the home visit?”

“Wait. You, Ogi? I appreciate the offer, but…”

Hm? Did I appreciate it?

What about her accompanying me made me feel appreciative? Oh, but Ogi’s earlier reasons for me not visiting Oikura’s home only applied if I went alone.

“In other words, you’re fine just as long as you’re not alone. Especially because, you know, I’m a girl. I’m sure Miss Oikura’s heart will be a bit soothed if I’m with you.”

“She’s not really the type to be soothed because she’s dealing with a girl…”

Maybe if she was dealing with a junior?

No, she’d unleashed a slap on Senjogahara who, better or not, Oikura saw as a weakly girl… I couldn’t see someone who wasn’t kind to the sick being kind to her juniors.

Still, it did beat the two of us being alone─yes, it was a good idea. It even made me wonder why I hadn’t come up with it myself.

“I’m a good listener, as you know─Miss Oikura might tell us all kinds of things if I’m there.”

“All kinds of things.”

“At the end of the day, socializing is information warfare. There’s no downside to knowing about your opponent. You’ve been able to recall who she was after remembering what happened at the class council and during summer break when you were a first-year middle schooler, but you haven’t had any sort of proper conversation with the present Miss Oikura. I’ll insert myself so that the situation between you two doesn’t escalate into an argument. It’s too late to get off this ride, just let me handle the burden,” Ogi said with a smile, as if her proposal came from a place of pure benevolence.

There seemed to be no reason for me to reject her offer. If I had to come up with one, it would be my hesitance to take a junior to an utter war zone instead of the stationary sushi meal I’d promised… Then again, Ogi also seemed the type to enjoy raw fights over raw fish.

She loved fieldwork, probes, investigations, inquiries─though in reality, she was also nothing more than a rubbernecker.

How could I turn down this wildly curious girl’s offer? As long as I was prepared, how could I possibly fail to protect one underclassman even if Oikura ended up going berserk again?

“Okay then, Ogi. Come along with me.”

“All right, thanks for asking.”

“Don’t ask her!”

Hm?

Whose line was that last one? There’s no speaker tag attached to it, I thought as I turned─to find Hanekawa, apparently finished with whatever business she had, catching up to me as I wasted time standing and talking by the school gates.