Monogatari Series - Volume 17 - Chapter 3.06

006

And so, Hanekawa and I now arrived at Oikura’s home.

Given how many times she’d moved, I was a bit worried, but as if to allay my fears, what stood before us was at least an apartment building that didn’t seem very old─and not a derelict house.

“Room 444? The number for death three times in a row, I guess the management here isn’t too spiritual.”

“This might actually be public housing, not a commercial apartment building.”

We climbed the stairs as we talked. The place had no elevator─while it wasn’t old, it was hardly modern. It somehow lacked the kind of glamor we youngsters associate with living on one’s own. If anything, it looked like a place for families…

That she would be living alone in a place for families seemed off in its own way─here was Hanekawa’s view on that.

“She─Miss Oikura─must be getting some sort of subsidy.”

“A subsidy?”

“Yes. From the government─and it feels like they might have introduced her to this complex as a part of that.”

“…”

If Hanekawa’s conjecture was right and Oikura did receive a subsidy from the state or local government─it wasn’t hard to see why. She’d been living in a house that could be mistaken for an abandoned home─and when I considered her circumstances at the beginning of our relationship, during our time in elementary school…

But why had I forgotten something that even Sengoku remembered? No, it wasn’t just me─what about my sisters?

I still hadn’t gotten an opportunity to ask them, but…I wondered, did Karen and Tsukihi remember Sodachi Oikura?

“Now that I think of it, maybe I’m a cold guy─I’d forgotten about Sengoku too, after all. I didn’t recognize her at first.”

“I don’t think you can be blamed for that. You didn’t have a particularly memorable relationship with Sengoku or Miss Oikura at the time, right?”

Well, sure.

Still, it was one thing to forget Sengoku, whom Tsukihi had brought over as a friend─I should’ve established the kind of relationship with Oikura that persisted in my mind. Had I done so, I probably wouldn’t have overlooked her SOS during our first year of middle school. Even the class council meeting during our first year of high school─might never have taken place.

“Don’t blame your past self too much. That’s not reflection, you know,” Hanekawa said upon seeing my expression. “Making your past self the villain and protecting your present self will make you repeat the same mistakes forever─just imagine. Living the kind of life where you’re always being blamed by your future self? Does that seem like fun to you?”

“There’s nothing fun about it.”

Not fun.

The words felt different when they came from a girl who didn’t blame or attack the past but faced it head-on. They carried weight.

That’s right.

This was about the here and now, not the past.

How I acted here─how I faced Oikura. Not the old Oikura, but Oikura now. It was about what I was going to do, not what I did back then─however trite that may sound.

We arrived on the fourth floor, where Oikura lived. As a mockery of a vampire, my breathing was of course unbothered by the trip, but Hanekawa’s was calm too. She really was an all-powerful class president. Even her base stamina was impressive.

“Okay, Araragi. Just wait a second.”

“Hm? Here in the stairwell? Why?”

“Miss Oikura lives alone, right? It might be embarrassing if we rang the doorbell and she came out still in pajamas or loungewear.”

“…”

I couldn’t believe she had such an unlikely scenario in mind… With defenses like that, no wonder I never had the chance to see Hanekawa in street clothes.

I just did as I was told.

The stuff about pajamas aside, it was probably a good idea to have Oikura speak to Hanekawa alone at first─though of course I’d leap out if I detected even the slightest attempt to harm Hanekawa coming from Oikura.

And so, Hanekawa went up to Oikura’s door alone and rang the intercom. Judging by the sound, it wasn’t a modern one with a camera or the feature to talk through it─more of a doorbell. You could either talk to someone from the other side of the door or open it and come outside─only increasing the chances of an embarrassing moment.

The class president was amazing.

She’d managed to avoid an entire scene.

But while I was busy admiring her judgment, what happened surpassed her judgment─or undercut it.

The door did open.

It seemed to have a chain attached to it, so I could hear a clang as it ran its length.

I then heard Oikura’s voice.

“Who’s there.”

While I thought her careless for simply opening her door for an unidentified visitor, chain or not, maybe she’d seen someone wearing her school’s uniform through a fisheye lens. Even if she couldn’t identify Hanekawa, a girl she’d barely crossed paths with a few days earlier, she’d at least open the door for someone from school, a student and a girl─making me think that she may not have opened it had I been standing there.

Good thing I hadn’t come on my own, I thought as Hanekawa and Oikura began going back and forth. I call it a back and forth, but it didn’t seem like much of a conversation─Hanekawa was doggedly trying to persuade Oikura.

Even she couldn’t make it happen, though…

I heard them both talk for a bit, in the dark about what they were discussing─was Hanekawa asking for Oikura to let her in, or to come back to school? No, it seemed like something else. What could they be arguing about?

While I say arguing, it was nothing like what happened earlier by the school gates with Ogi. I decided I didn’t need to leap out of the shadows.

What was that ghastly showdown, anyway?

Many of you might have gotten the wrong idea, but I didn’t choose Hanekawa to be my partner over Ogi because I was ensorcelled by her chest─I chose her because I sensed something far out of the ordinary if the situation was pushing her to say what she did.

Perhaps, as Ogi said, Hanekawa was past her prime, and I should have come here with Ogi given the flow of things. Perhaps Hanekawa was all wrong about Ogi, and I was putting my friend in harm’s way for no good reason.

But I didn’t want to become someone who couldn’t choose Hanekawa after she went that far─after she said that for me. Even if Hanekawa was wrong, even if I was wrong, Tsubasa Hanekawa had to be the right answer to that question.

I did feel bad for Ogi, though…

I’d make sure to follow up. Yes, I’d become the kind of person capable of that, too.

That’s right, I don’t know about stationary sushi, but I could at least take her to a revolving place…

As I was thinking about all this, Hanekawa returned to where I stood─she seemed somehow exhausted. Maybe she’d been turned away unceremoniously? No, she wouldn’t just give up. What was it, then? What happened?

“It’s okay, Araragi. Come out,” she said listlessly.

Her eyes were dead… Just how unproductive of a conversation was it?

“I can come out? But─”

“You can go in. Into her apartment. But to spoil it for you, she’s still in her pajamas.”

“Hm? Wait, but isn’t that exactly what you were trying to prevent?”

“She said you aren’t worth the effort of changing clothes… I tried my best to convince her otherwise, but the more I argued, the more stubborn she got. Eventually she said she wouldn’t change under any circumstances, and that if I kept arguing she’d come out here naked.”

So I bent, Hanekawa said.

Oikura had been menacing─though on a matter that was as stupid as could be.

“Don’t worry. Even I’m not so shallow enough to get excited over a girl wearing pajamas in this kind of situation.”

“I don’t know,” Hanekawa said, wounding me with a doubtful look. “Coming from someone who’s just after my boobs…”

“…”

She understood less about the way I felt than anyone.

Sad, but then, who could blame her─let bygones be bygones (though we’re talking about my own past behavior), and face the present instead.

Hanekawa was one thing, but why wasn’t Oikura shooing me away─probably because it’d spell defeat. She’d refused to change clothes for the same reason. Now that the gates were open, though, I had to step through them. Even if she’d raised the portcullis just to declare war, my only choice was to accept.

Because that─was probably my role as Sodachi Oikura’s childhood friend.