Monogatari Series - Volume 17 - Chapter 3.07

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Childhood friends.

I’d never even considered that I always had one, but it seemed that my relationship with Oikura was something infinitesimally close to that fantasy. She was a childhood friend, or maybe a friend from long ago─in any case, I, Koyomi Araragi, and she, Sodachi Oikura, had been well acquainted.

The circumstances were slightly unusual, though. She didn’t live nearby the way Sengoku did, nor did we go to the same elementary school─so allow me to give a brief explanation of these slightly unusual circumstances before I face Oikura. I’m very sorry to all of you who were looking forward to Oikura in her pajamas, but stay with me for a moment as I talk about the past.

Both of my parents work as police officers, and I’ve done my best not to tell anyone ever since I was little. From before I can remember. A question on my homework might say, “What do your mom and dad do,” and I still wouldn’t reveal their profession. Why did I so assiduously conceal my parents’ job? Looking back on it, the answer is that I did as my parents said, at least as a child. In other words, they’d taught me not to discuss their work if at all possible─it’s not a memory that comes up unless I try to recall it, but this seems to be the reason.

As a too-obedient youth, I did as they said without asking why. And I’ve swallowed it whole from then to the present day─but now that I think about it, the admonition had dual meanings. One was ethical: I shouldn’t be frivolous and recklessly publicize to strangers that my parents are police, a profession with some social significance. My parents sought what was right and wanted to instill a lesson with their gag order─from a reasoning standpoint. As for the other meaning, you could say it was their emotions speaking, not any sort of reasoning. In other words, publicizing that my parents were police officers could expose me to danger─it was a management issue.

Risk management, so to speak─my parents were worried that their jobs could result in harm coming to their kids. While it was overprotective in a way, I don’t think you could call it overblown. At least, I understand their concerns now that I’m eighteen. I’d lived my life simply proud of the fact that my parents were both police officers and wanted to brag about it─so while at first I might have questioned or even felt scared about not being able to tell anyone, I was won over by my parents’ warning that heroes ought to hide their true identities.

Of course, now you have Karen, too stupid to hide her parents’ profession well, and Tsukihi, who makes full and skillful use of the fact that her parents are police officers─the existence of Tsuganoki Second Middle School’s Fire Sisters have made it almost pointless to keep hiding my parents’ occupation─but as they say, old habits die hard. Just as it’s hard to parse the actual meaning of that phrase off the cuff─do old habits suffer intense deaths?─once an act is etched into your mind, it’s hard to correct even if you lose sight of the original goal or your memory of it altogether. So I’ve continued to hide what my parents do, and you could call it meaningless if you want…but there was at least a reason behind my actions or lack thereof back during my first year of middle school. Back when I spent an entire summer with a younger Oikura.

The summer I spent in a derelict house.

The summer I spent growing to love math.

I already knew, thanks to Ogi, what that summer hid─I’d ignored the SOS Oikura sent me, but then, she shouldn’t have known the premise for that SOS, namely my parents’ job.

Even my few friends didn’t know what they did, so how could Oikura have found out? The precise question Hanekawa tossed my way early yesterday morning.

I didn’t have an answer.

I didn’t have any idea─I felt at the time that it hinted at some special relationship with Oikura, but without any basis in fact. What exactly did she know about me? How much did she know? It felt nothing short of uncanny, but if there was something else between me and her, it had to be from back in elementary school…

Yet my memories of our first year in middle school were fuzzy enough. How was I supposed to recall even-more distant memories of my time in elementary?

As I worried myself, Hanekawa, who’d presented the doubt to me in the first place, advised, “If you just can’t remember, why not try asking your parents? Your parents watch you, you know─well, how convincing, coming from me, but as far as I know, your father and mother kept a proper eye on you.”

They did seem proper, she said.

Hmm─I didn’t expect her to understand all the current strife between me and my parents, but the words came from someone who’d come in contact with them. For certain reasons, she’d stayed at the Araragi residence during my own absence.

I could allow it─not that I was in a position to sound so high and mighty. I decided to take her advice without a second thought─these were Hanekawa’s words at the end of the day. She could tell me to eat a shoe and I just might.

Sure enough, the answer became clear.

Oikura and I had met during elementary school─

In other words, we were childhood friends.

To be precise, it happened around the time I was a sixth grader─around the time I played with Sengoku and other friends Tsukihi would bring over.

That’s when I met Sodachi Oikura.

It’s not like we played together, though, and we didn’t attend the same school, either. I’m sure she would have been more memorable if she did─my memory of her might have been different, too. At least, I’d have talked to her and retained memories of her, just like how I spoke to Sengoku and retained memories of her─even if Oikura had a different name back then.

It impressed me that Sengoku did remember her, but according to Sengoku, “Nadeko doesn’t have many memories of her time in elementary, so she really remembers playing with Tsukihi─we called her Rara then. And of course, Nadeko’s time playing with you too, Big Brother Koyomi.”

She says the cutest things─but whatever the case, I never played with Oikura.

We didn’t go to the same school, we didn’t play together, and she wasn’t even a neighbor. I could see how you might want to ask if we could really be called childhood friends─but however temporary a period in your life.

If you live with someone, whether you play with them or not, regardless of how short the time, can’t you call that person a childhood friend?

I think you can, at least.

I might have worded this all in a slightly confusing way, but in essence─something happened one day.

One day.

I say that like I’m recalling all of this, but unlike the class council meeting I never forgot or the summer at the derelict house I did recollect, I honestly and truly don’t remember. It’s nowhere to be found in my memories. I asked my parents, and it’s what they told me─and Sengoku remembered it, so I’ve verified it. For my part, I’ve lost any and all memories of it. I doubt I’ll ever recover them─but anyway, one day.

My parents brought a girl home with them.

This girl, of course, was Sodachi Oikura, as she’s called now. Apparently, they told me and my two sisters that she’d be staying with us for a while, so we should be nice to her─without any real explanation.

At the time, I was a child who saw no one and nothing as more important than my parents. Karen and Tsukihi were still young, in third and second grade, respectively─so we didn’t particularly object to this sudden and unexplained notification, but I now know why, and I also know why they couldn’t tell their elementary-aged children why.

In other words, my parents had taken the juvenile Oikura to their own home as a way to protect her from her “household”─the “household” where violence must have been running rampant.

This is only a guess, since I don’t know for sure how society worked at the time, but I assume it was even harder than it is now for a public agency to enter into a private household. My parents’ actions─temporarily taking Oikura into their own home─were probably what you’d call borderline, or at least not something to be officially recognized. What you might call extralegal measures─my parents didn’t go into details here. What’s important is that Oikura lived in my home, and that she met me then, and─however obvious this might be, she knew what my parents did.

So it was simple.

Oikura had met my parents, police officers─it wasn’t about having any info.

In that case, Ogi’s reasoning required a bit of correction, or maybe a few small adjustments─the outline might not change, but it did also answer Hanekawa’s question. I’ll start getting into that later─but as far as how the juvenile Oikura whom I didn’t remember at all acted, according to my parents, and according to Sengoku, she was a girl who didn’t talk at all. It must have been extreme if an introvert like Sengoku described her that way─at the same time, I’ve met another girl who wouldn’t talk, making it easier for me to imagine. I mean, of course, Shinobu Oshino back when she lived in the abandoned cram school and not in my shadow─Shinobu back when all she did was glare at me without a single sound making it out of her mouth.

“It seemed like you had someone kind of strange with you. She didn’t want to play with us, but she didn’t try to leave the room, either─and she wouldn’t talk.”

Sengoku’s words.

The more I heard about this girl, the more she sounded like the former Shinobu, but the former Shinobu had a good reason not to talk or budge─in other words, we should assume that juvenile Oikura had one as well.

Her household environment, most likely─juvenile Oikura wouldn’t open her heart even after being taken into protection, which is to say at our home. No, it’s hard to tell if she even understood what a household was─my mother said.

It also seemed like she didn’t understand why she was with us, causing her to stiffen up─my mother continued.

She might have actually seen it at the time as being abducted and taken to an unknown home. Even if she didn’t, she might not have known what it meant to be taken into protection─according to my mother again.

God.

Not something you could tell a child.

In any case, what I heard about Oikura’s personality back then was different from her personality at any of the times I’d known her. It seemed inconsistent. Weren’t we talking about a totally different person who happened to be around the same age? But as far as I could tell from descriptions of her appearance, it was indeed Oikura.

Sodachi Oikura.

I couldn’t help but wonder which was the true Sodachi Oikura, but I suppose the answer would be: They’re all Sodachi Oikura. She wouldn’t want me talking about her “true self” like I knew anything about her, at the very least─so.

I was totally unable to recall the fact that juvenile Oikura had temporarily stayed at my home, that we once lived together─I felt a little bewildered at this truth delivered by my parents and Sengoku (I’d be lying if I said that no part of me wondered if they might be conspiring to trick me, but how would my parents and Sengoku get their stories straight?). However, it did bring one clear fact back to mind. Not about Oikura, or about when she was around, but…

I remembered how the juvenile Oikura disappeared.

The feeling that someone had left our home─that I’d lost something.

I could liken it to the feeling of losing sight of what is just and right during that class council meeting─or of losing a kindred spirit at that abandoned home.

That feeling of loss.

She’d been the first one to plant it in me.

I didn’t know what it was, but I’d experienced losing something, or having lost something─and I now recalled it clearly.

That feeling of loss.

I remembered.

However it happened, she suddenly disappeared─though it seems that juvenile Oikura had decided on her own to return to her home.

On her own…

Her parents hadn’t come to get her back, nor had mine decided they couldn’t keep her under their protection anymore for whatever reason─juvenile Oikura decided on her own to leave my home to return to her home.

I guess that at the end of the day, children’s parents are their parents, and their only home is their home─however wretched those parents and miserable that home may be.

That’s how my dad put it─and maybe he was right. At least, juvenile Oikura must have thought so and found her actions to be correct when she disappeared.

My parents didn’t go into detail about that, either, but I’m sure there were more troubles after she returned home─when I think of the future that awaited her, Oikura’s case must not have been resolved in any way my parents had hoped for.

It’s hard for a DV situation to be resolved unless someone on the inside sends out an SOS─if no one thinks the problem is a problem, no one is going to go solve it.

That’s how my parents wrapped things up.

They must have jumped to the conclusion that I’d suddenly recalled something from when I was a child─that I’d remembered the juvenile who once lived with us. I’d come to ask them about her─but in fact, I hadn’t remembered anything at all and only knew about the episodes that followed.

About what was in store for Sodachi Oikura.

Her tragic life.

She’d tried to send out an SOS to my parents through me about a year later─and her SOS had stopped at me.

I didn’t remember Oikura when we found ourselves at the same middle school─I never had the chance to see her there because we were in different classes, but I still had no clue who she was even when we met in the derelict house. Of course, her personality had changed completely, and of course, she gave off a very different vibe, but─

Given the fact that she left our home without any notice, without a word, I can’t help but think that the reason I didn’t was that I’d lost her in more ways than one.

She vanished.

And I was a cold person.