Monogatari Series - Volume 17 - Chapter 3.08

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She looked even more pajamaed than I expected.

I’d prepared myself emotionally for this, and as a man who’d made it through countless battlefields, I felt ready for any strange twist or turn, but there in the public-housing unit stood the very image of a girl in pajamas that a high school boy would conjure, a fastball straight down the middle.

Hanekawa whispered in my ear.

“I think her sense of fashion ended up getting refined in this direction because of how long she’s spent in her room…”

A-ha.

Just as Hanekawa’s household environment caused her own sense of fashion to head in an “underwear” direction? But more pressing than that was the danger posed by Hanekawa whispering in my ear and making me feel like nothing else really mattered. Unlike the sensation of Ogi whispering in my ear─not that the two could be compared.

Oikura undid the door chain and greeted us with an imposing stance, her arms folded. With what seemed like swagger, she said, “I’m impressed you came. I have to admit, I admire your guts, AraraG…”

AraraG?

Huh? I wondered what kind of mean-spirited abuse this could be, but she’d simply misspoken.

“Agh…” She scowled openly. “Why’s your name have to be so impopossible to renounce…” she misspoke yet again (I assume she was trying to say “impossible to pronounce”). It might have been cute if she’d followed up with Sorry, a slip of the tongue, but she only turned her back to me and walked down the hall.

Stomp, stomp.

Hanekawa closed the door behind us and locked it. If I’m being honest, part of me wanted her to leave it unlocked so it’d be easier to escape, but I didn’t see that happening─yes, I needed to emulate Hanekawa’s mental toughness at times like these.

Especially if I was about to face Oikura.

Hanekawa took off her shoes and passed by me.

With these hushed words: “This is a family rental, two bedrooms with a living room, dining room, and kitchen. But there are only two pairs of women’s shoes here, and they’re the same size. We now know for a fact she lives alone. She might be acting that way, but from the smell in the air, I think she made some tea while I went to get you, so be ready to thank her.”

My brain couldn’t process so much sudden info─though it was also incredible that she’d grasped the layout of the entire home just by entering it.

It hadn’t even crossed my mind that we might have bad info, that Oikura might not be living alone─was Tsubasa Hanekawa still in her prime, or what? If anything, she might have grown by facing her past and her self─and she was in fact right, tea sat ready there in the dining room.

She wasn’t entirely right, though. There were only two cups of tea─one in front of Oikura, seated at the table, and another. In short, no tea for me.

I guess even Hanekawa couldn’t fully comprehend just how much Oikura hated me? Not that it bothered me now.

The spartan room actually attracted more of my attention. No, it went beyond attention. The room felt horribly off, like some sort of spot-the-mistake puzzle.

There was a table. But only one chair, which Oikura sat in─even if she’d put them away out of spite for me, she’d have left one for Hanekawa, so there must have only been one from the start.

No curtains. Well, lace curtains. But that was all. Looking up at the ceiling, I found only one fluorescent bulb.

I thought back and remembered the welcome mat at the entrance, but the rooms contained no rugs or carpets. The tea seemed to come with everything you’d want─sugar, milk, spoons─but the cups weren’t on saucers.

There were lots of other things. It felt like just a little was always missing from these rooms─revealing not so much their tenant’s disposition, but the fact that something was off, even uncanny.

If I were to be less delicate, I’d say it went beyond uncanny and made it all the way to unsightly─Hanekawa must have had an even stronger sense of this bizarre feeling but betrayed no signs of it.

“Um,” she began.

With no chair, she of course couldn’t sit, but she faced Oikura from across the table.

“You seem to be doing well, Miss Oikura. I’m glad.”

“Yeah? Does it really seem that way?” retorted Oikura, pointing at her cheek. It didn’t look too bad, but it was red and swollen─you could say that was to be expected, since she’d been punched there. Senjogahara’s slapped cheek was surely still swollen as well, though. “I can’t believe it… Just how big of an act was that girl putting on? I knew she was more than a sickly, mild-mannered girl, but still…”

Then Oikura looked─or glared at me.

“You know, maybe I should sue her for assault. I’ll go to a doctor before this swelling subsides and get a medical certificate. Shouldn’t that be enough to get her recommendation or whatever taken away?”

“You two are even. You did hit her first. It’d be considered self-defense if it came down to it.”

“I wonder about that,” Oikura threw out. True, it might be hard to claim self-defense in that situation. Not so much even, they were both losers here.

I sighed and glanced at Hanekawa. I tried to make eye contact with her. Would my point get across to her─I wondered, but forget about reciprocating, Hanekawa was already on the move.

How sharp was she?

I’d tried to make eye contact with air─what could feel emptier than that? Anyway, with a natural motion, Hanekawa reached for the cup of tea.

It’s human reflex to notice motion in your field of vision─and the glaring Oikura was no exception as her eyes followed Hanekawa.

I quickly went around the table as if to leap on this moment and touched Oikura’s cheek, which is to say her injury, with my index finger.

“Hey… What’re you…”

Oikura’s chair swung back and thunked against the floor, but it was too late. I’d returned to my original position like some kind of touch-and-go─not that I particularly needed to rush back once I’d accomplished my goal, but I might get slapped if I stayed around for too long…

“Wh-What’re you… Poking my cheek? Again and again?! You think we’re so close it’s okay to mess around with me like that? Are you trying to get yourself sued?!”

Putting aside whether or not poking someone’s cheek is a crime (and I didn’t do it again and again)─I pointed at Oikura with the opposite hand as the one I poked her with. The index finger of the hand I used to poke her cheek was still bleeding from a safety-pin prick─though it would soon heal.

Just like her cheek.

“I don’t think you’d be able to get a medical certificate if you went to a doctor with that cheek, Oikura.”

“Huh? Hm? What?”

She seemed to marvel at the cheek I’d healed using my blood─which is to say, a vampire’s─as if she didn’t know what was going on. Well, of course she didn’t, who would ever think that a poke would heal your cheek? She must have interpreted it as nothing more than a way to ascertain whether or not it had healed.

While part of it must have been her unwillingness to believe in a supernatural phenomenon, I also think she hated having any kind of favor bestowed on her by me. I doubt she was being serious when she said she’d sue Senjogahara, but it was also true that my girlfriend had gone a little too far in hitting Oikura with a closed fist. Sorting out the aftermath seemed like the right thing to do.

“Gah… That swelling healed after just two nights? I can’t believe how fast my body recovers…”

She credited her own recuperative abilities for erasing her basis for harassing me, and seemed chagrined that her anger had lost its focal point.

Hanekawa didn’t take the cup she’d reached for. Instead, she returned to her original position.

“It looks like you’re healthy and fine,” she said. “You’ll be able to come back to school starting tomorrow, won’t you, Miss Oikura?”

“So you’re here as class president? Um…Miss Hanekawa, was it?”

Whether Oikura really didn’t remember Hanekawa or was just playing dumb, I couldn’t be sure. As someone who hadn’t been to school since the first term of her first year, she wouldn’t know just how much of a threat Hanekawa posed…which meant that Oikura faced a towering foe without even realizing it. The power imbalance between the two seemed comical from where I stood, but it also presented a problem.

Sodachi Oikura─the current Sodachi Oikura was just so weak, so notably fragile that a jab from us to test the waters could demolish her.

“That’s right. Tsubasa Hanekawa,” Hanekawa replied with a smile.

Well, she didn’t have any sort of vested interest in Oikura the way Senjogahara and I did. The situation between the two couldn’t turn that oppositional.

I was feeling glad that I’d come here with Hanekawa─but I couldn’t allow myself to rely on that fact. She’d tried to send me here on my own at first because she thought that would be the better move. Either for my sake or Oikura’s.

Ogi prevented that from happening─and the current situation wasn’t what Hanekawa had hoped for.

“So I guess you came to get me because the teachers asked you? Um… Who was our homeroom teacher again?”

“Hoshina, a very good homeroom teacher.”

“A good teacher? Are you trying to claim that good teachers exist?”

Oikura had a grin on her face. It might be a grimace, but it was probably the former─there was no need here to grin through any pain.

So she did know about Tetsujo.

Ogi’s reasoning that said Oikura had come to school because Tetsujo was gone seemed to be right on the mark.

“I know because I used to be class president myself─aren’t you just letting yourself be used however the teachers want, Miss Hanekawa?”

“Hm. Hmm. I never thought about it that way, but you’re right, I suppose you could see it that way,” Hanekawa deflected Oikura’s spiteful words. This kind of reply, neither a denial nor an acceptance, was the most effective way to deal with Oikura as she was now. You could really see Tsubasa Hanekawa’s skill from the fact that even her small talk had a point to it.

While she was out-argued as far as the pajamas, you could say she was conceding a point she could afford to lose, letting Oikura save face ahead of time.

Or perhaps─it was just making Hanekawa more serious.

As for Oikura, she wasn’t even a shadow of her former self, but once upon a time she’d been the brave and widely known leader of our class. She seemed to realize through this brief exchange that Tsubasa Hanekawa was no mere class president, and stopped saying anything unnecessary that might come off as aggressive. She must not have wanted to find herself on the wrong side of a surprise attack.

Pride had something to do with her inviting us into her room, but it was her terrain, quite literally her home turf (and in fact, she did act more self-assured compared to the way she’d been in our classroom). But it appeared as though she noticed the situation before her wasn’t exactly what she’d imagined. Not that the Oikura we now faced would ever consider retreating─unlike two years ago.

Her eyes, which is to say her crosshairs, were back on me.

She focused her gaze and took aim.

“So,” she said. “I can see why Miss Hanekawa is here, but why you? A─A, ra, ra, gi.”

She said my name slowly this time so as not to stumble over it.

“I don’t want to have to see your face, and I’m sure you don’t want to have to see mine either. As far as I remember, the two of us are on horrible terms. Or perhaps I am mistaken?”

I could hear her forcing herself to sound polite─like some sort of elementary school student.

But I saw this as an opportunity─it’d be pointless to wait for the perfect moment. There was no such thing as a best or right moment when it came to me and Oikura. Even if one did exist, it was two years, five years, maybe even six years ago. It had long passed. For now, I’d just think about avoiding the worst possible moment.

I’d just think about Oikura.

For now, I’d exist for her.

“You’re not mistaken. But I think there’s more to it than that─isn’t that what you taught me the day before yesterday?”

“!”

She looked shocked.

Was my recollection of the derelict house that unforeseen? Or maybe─she just found it unfortunate.

But if it was, I doubled down.

“There’s even what happened in elementary school.”

“Ah… Mh─”

Oikura then did something unexpected. She snatched her teacup and threw it at me!

This left a bitter taste in my mouth. No, not the tea, the situation.

A ballpoint pen was one thing (though she did get me with one of those as well), but how could I dodge an airborne splash of liquid? I wasn’t capable of the kind of teleportation that would require. I’d be covered in freshly brewed tea─the burns would be one thing, but what really worried me was that Oikura would see them healing. She might even connect the dots and figure out that I’d healed her cheek.

My mind worked through all of this, but my body didn’t react. Even if it did, this was the kind of crisis where I could only hunch over─but Hanekawa saved me yet again.

I don’t know when, I really don’t, but she’d taken a half-step in my direction and stopped the flying cup before it could hit me.

No.

She didn’t stop it, she took it.

She didn’t sacrifice herself to protect me, not at all. She simply reached out, grabbed the handle of the cup as it spun through the air, twirled it in her hand seemingly around the overflowing liquid to kill its momentum, and placed it right back on the table. A little spilled out when she put it there, but no more.

Oikura’s eyes were wide open.

The girl who had her thin-eyed glare on me this entire time. Not that I could blame her, I knew just how amazing Hanekawa was, and I bet I was just as wide-eyed.

It really did seem like she’d leveled up after what happened on the heels of summer break… Or maybe, in the past, she wouldn’t have spilled a single drop at the end there.

“Hm? Oh, you know. I was prepared, thinking it might be dangerous if Miss Oikura threw her tea… I learned my lesson after being unable to stop Miss Senjogahara the day before yesterday.”

“…”

Lesson? She’d earned an entire degree.

You could never be too careful around this girl when she learned her lessons.

So far, the only issue she hadn’t been able to neutralize was Oikura’s pajamas… It was like I couldn’t even get into trouble around her.

Even if she’d conceded or surrendered the point with the pajamas, it felt like she’d already earned it back─I began to think that I might go right back to my conversation with Oikura, but of course, life is never that simple.

Whatever inhuman danger-foiling skills Hanekawa boasted, in the end, it was Oikura that I had to face, not her.

Koyomi Araragi did.

“Oikura,” I said.

With resolve.

“Let’s talk─about the past. About you and me.”

“…”

Oikura went quiet for a moment. And then─

“I hate you,” she said.

Words I’d heard a number of times already.

Even so, they hurt me every time she said them.