Monogatari Series - Volume 17 - Chapter 3.12

012

Hanekawa and I, class president and vice president, should have been happy to know the exact goal we needed to work toward─but when I thought about it, it could also be seen as Oikura brushing us off, a declaration that she wasn’t coming to school if we didn’t find her mother.

“I would be fine with that─the fact that we’re seeing even the smallest signs of the misunderstanding between you and Miss Oikura starting to thaw is really as good as it can get.”

“Signs of it thawing, huh? Well, if you’re okay with it.”

In reality, we must not have done much more than stir Oikura’s emotions. They might settle back into stubbornness by tomorrow─and if not tomorrow, then the day after.

The sculpture that was her hatred for me had spent two, five, or maybe even six years hardening and settling into place. It wouldn’t be that easy to melt it all down─we had to approach this with patience.

“But should you really say that’s as good as it can get, President Hanekawa? Our mission is to get her to go to school.”

“I don’t plan on forcing her to do anything so long as she settles things with Miss Senjogahara, or at least cools them down─high school isn’t worth attending begrudgingly, anyway.”

So even Hanekawa, with her commitment to seriousness, was going to say that─but true, it did feel like I had no right to urge Oikura to go to school. She wouldn’t have to go to school to graduate and head to college, she only needed to make sure she got good grades. There was no need for her to force herself to live a miserable school life─but.

“Yes, but, if she can have an enjoyable school life,” said Hanekawa, “I want her to live it, even if it means forcing her─for the half-year she has left. Your adolescence is your adolescence, even if it’s short. She’s going to have to apologize to Miss Senjogahara.”

“That seems like the toughest problem of all to me…”

“If you’re going to be solving problems, isn’t it more fun to start with the hard ones?”

We left Oikura’s place, climbed down the stairs, exited the building, then moved to the plaza inside the apartment block─it seemed like the kind of plaza where residents would have their children play, but it was deserted, either as a result of the time of day or for some other reason.

The desolate sight was sad, but just right for thinking. We decided to consider things there─to consider the case of Oikura’s mother’s disappearance from the locked room.

Of course, it was only a disappearance from a locked room if you looked at it from a mystery-novel perspective. In fantasy fiction, it was called being “spirited away”─after all, an adult human being had vanished like smoke into thin air.

What I expected was that we’d each go back home and bring our findings to school the next day after a night of consideration, to discuss the matter and come to a conclusion─I assumed we’d be on that kind of schedule. But maybe that’s the difference between genius and mediocrity because Hanekawa said, “Okay, let’s at least figure out what direction to go in while Miss Oikura’s dealing with Town Hall. If we can come up with a good enough conclusion here, we’ll be able to report back to her after this person leaves.”

True, this would let us make a deal before Oikura’s emotions had settled back down, and it would be ideal if she and Senjogahara came back to school the very next day… I could have thought for a century and not come up with the idea.

Putting aside the question of how realistic it was for two high school students to search for a missing person, something a real-life detective would dedicate a huge amount of resources to─smart people are just so quick on their feet. These thoughts ran through my mind as I tried what seemed like a good starting point.

“I know what Oikura said─but I agree, something seems strange. I’m siding with you here. It doesn’t make sense for her mother to lock up if she left on her own. The front door is one thing, but the lock to the room she’d shut herself in? That seems especially─”

“I think the front door is strange enough on its own─I think Miss Oikura is right about that…even if she was just reflexively disagreeing with us. It really doesn’t make sense for someone in that tight of a psychological spot to bother locking the door to a house she’s not planning on returning to,” Hanekawa took the baton from me─even for her this seemed more like a brainstorming session than careful consideration. It felt like she’d replied with whatever came to mind.

It was hard to tell if clearing up those doubts would help us at all…to solve the mystery of the locked room? No, I’ll just say pinning down her mother’s whereabouts. It even seemed unlikely, but it was the biggest clue we could see at the moment.

“What possibilities can you think of, in that case? If Oikura’s mother wasn’t the one to lock the door─was she abducted? Did a kidnapper grab her mother and return the locks to their original positions as a form of camouflage?”

“Well, yes. That’s possible,” Hanekawa said. “It would make more sense for a kidnapper to resort to camouflage than someone trying to go missing─that, or an accident.”

“Like what?”

“As in she never had plans to disappear. She just felt like going out─so she locked her door to make sure no one came into the room while she was away. And she locked the front door as one does. Then she got into or encountered some kind of accident while she was out, making it impossible for her to return─or it’s possible that she felt like disappearing while she was out.”

“That does seem to be the best explanation we have right now.”

It was pretty hard to imagine what wanting to vanish felt like, but this did seem like a far more likely kind of whim than Oikura’s theory that her mother locked the room and the front door because she felt like it─but then Hanekawa continued, “I don’t understand why she’d randomly go outside after shutting herself in for all that time.” She shook her head. “Despite being a shut-in for two years, one day she randomly decides to go outside and randomly gets the idea to disappear? I could maybe accept one of those things happening, but both seems a little unreasonable.”

“Well, no. It’s only Oikura’s impression that she hadn’t left that room for two years. Who knows, she might have been sneaking out and doing some shopping while Oikura was at school.”

“Why bother sneaking out? We’re talking about an adult, it’s not like anyone would get mad at her if they found out.”

“But in their case, Oikura was taking care of her mother─and maybe she’d quit if she saw her mother strolling around town.”

What kind of a mother was I talking about? It was of course just a hypothesis, an example that I was proposing. Our missing person being Oikura’s mother, who had been under her own daughter’s care, though, was neither a hypothesis nor an example.

“Okay, you’ve convinced me. Keep going.”

“So, then…she left home, the way she always did. Though I’m sure it’d be hard to make sure not just Oikura but no one at all saw her… And then one day she came up with the idea of running off?”

The context didn’t seem to make sense when I tried to connect the dots with the first half of my idea. While it seemed improbable that someone who’d isolated herself from society for two years not only went outside but suddenly had the idea of vanishing while doing so, it seemed even more improbable for a pseudo-shut-in who’d been going outside in good health nearly every day suddenly deciding to vanish. She would have been living a normal life, after all.

While I’m sure disappearances happen more often than locked-room mysteries and humans getting spirited away, it isn’t the kind of thing you’d be thinking about if you’re living a normal life─compared to that, it felt more realistic for a person who’d been a shut-in for two years to make a promise to herself to vanish.

Not that this was entirely about what felt realistic…

“Of all the ideas we’ve had until now, the only one involving someone else is kidnapping─can you think of any reason someone would kidnap not a child, but an adult, an adult at her residence at that? For ransom?”

“No, their family was living on government assistance… It couldn’t have been for money. If they were targeting her in her home, they’d done their research… And it’s not like there was any demand for money in the first place, right?”

“So it was herself they were after? Who could have a motive to kidnap Oikura’s mother─her father? Oikura doesn’t even know where he lives.”

“Hm… I guess he would be one likely suspect.”

At first, Oikura seemed to have suspected that her missing mother had gone to her father’s, but in this case, it would have been the opposite, her father going to her mother. He’d been the one to file for divorce, but it did seem quite possible for an old flame to have reignited in him…

“That also raises the possibility that both of them felt like their relationship had been rekindled─in which case they eloped. I mean, she would have at least put up a little bit of a fight if it had been a forced abduction, right? And Oikura would have noticed whatever marks were left behind… No markings means that her mother could have been abducted after coming to some sort of agreement, even if it was a forced one.”

“Hold on, Araragi. It’s possible for a forceful abduction to leave no traces.”

“Hm?”

“Well, Miss Oikura’s home may be nice and tidy at the moment, but at one point, she didn’t have the time to clean and it was full of trash, remember? If the place was a mess to begin with, she might not have noticed a scuffle.”

“Oh. Yeah… I guess you could compare it to Kanbaru’s room?”

A room on the level of Kanbaru’s might actually end up tidier if you had a fight in it, but assuming it hadn’t been quite that messy, Hanekawa was right.

“But of course, it’s possible that she agreed to leave, that she decided to set off on a journey─maybe even with someone else, not necessarily Miss Oikura’s father.”

“Like who? Do you have anyone in mind?”

“No, no one─I just wonder if she’d really leave her daughter behind like she was eloping if it was her ex-husband.”

“Elopement, huh─but in that case, getting a new start with her old husband seems like a possible explanation for leaving Oikura behind. They could try to make it work again if it was just the two of them─or something like that.”

“You seem quite familiar with male psychology, Araragi.”

“No, hold on, I don’t mean it like that─”

“I’m joking. That is something we’ll have to look into if we’re going to figure out where Miss Oikura’s mother went, though.”

Hanekawa clapped her hands together as if to mark a take. Maybe she wanted to punctuate the conversation here. I think it goes without saying, but she wasn’t applauding.

“I think we should consider at this point that locating her won’t necessarily be desirable for Miss Oikura. Of course, it was unlikely from the start that we’d end up with any happy outcome…”

“Well, yeah… If the signs really do point to a conclusion like her parents eloping on their own and leaving Oikura behind, I’d have a tough time telling her. No matter how I think about it.”

“It could be worse than just having a tough time. We might not be able to tell her at all.”

“What do you mean?”

“We should think of this separately from the locked room─but we can’t ignore the possibility that her missing mother is no longer with us. To take that a step further─her mother may have been killed by someone before this disappearance, or by the time she went missing.”

“Killed…”

“I know people are split on whether it’s easier to carry a corpse as compared to a live body…but the perp thought that a dead body would be easier to carry, since it wouldn’t struggle.”

“Hmm… You just as often hear that it’s hard to carry a corpse because it’s stiff and won’t try to support itself. People do seem to be split on that…but I guess there’s room to speculate which side of the argument the perp would be on. But,” I said. “Now that we’ve come this far, I think we need to tell Oikura about whatever we find, no matter how painful─or maybe not ‘we,’ it’s my duty. I’m sure she doesn’t expect to see her mother again, either.”

“That’s the thing.”

“Hm?”

“It comes down to why Miss Oikura gave us this important mission of finding her mother─isn’t that hard to understand?”

“Well…”

It vaguely seemed like a reasonable assumption that a daughter would want to find her mother, so it’d be a request she might make, but…it wasn’t as if she liked her mother. Her mother was only a bit better than her father, and the difference between the two may not have been that large. I didn’t know how Oikura mentally classified her mother or processed their relationship─but I did know for sure that this wasn’t about her finding her mother because she wanted to live with her again.

What was Oikura after when she sent us looking for her mother? She surely would have gone with something else if she was only looking for an excuse to shoo us away…

Oikura’s goal.

What was it─that she wanted to know?

“I don’t know,” I said, “but…there’s probably something that she just can’t come to terms with, and it’s been nagging at her all this time… Don’t you think that’s possible? In other words, despite everything she said to us, she thinks there’s something strange about the circumstances of her mother’s disappearance in her heart of hearts. Vanishing out of the blue like that… She mentioned that she takes after her mother, and who knows, maybe that’s why she’s scared. She’s afraid that she might disappear all of a sudden herself, for no reason at all─that she might fade away like a puff of smoke.”

Vanish.

Just like she did in elementary school.

Not funny… I wasn’t letting her.

I wasn’t letting Oikura vanish─not again.

Practically speaking, even if locating her mother proved to be impossible, we would certainly get another chance to speak to Oikura if we came up with some line of thinking that provided a hint─not that I wanted her thanks or anything.

You know what it was?

This is what I thought─

It might not be so bad if I lowered my intensity as a human yet another degree from where it was now.

“Okay.”

Hanekawa again.

“Let’s start again from the very beginning and summarize all our doubts about her mother’s disappearance. We’ll decide which to keep and which to throw out─I know we didn’t come up with any decisive plans for a solution, but I really do think this is the most vital part. In other words, how did the room get locked? You don’t know, do you?”

“Right. I don’t know.”

“Reaaally? You don’t know?”

And then.

Darkness suddenly interrupted my time with Hanekawa─a blackout, like day had switched to night in an instant.

It was only an illusion, though. It was still before dusk─grown-out black hair had fallen across my face, that was all. It belonged to Ogi Oshino.

Ogi Oshino─Ogi.

Ogi was here.

“Huh, that’s kind of disappointing. You can’t figure out the mystery behind a locked room? I know that you’re a fool, Araragi-senpai, but even you, Miss Hanekawa?”

“…”

Hanekawa looked up.

Why is Ogi here─is that what she thought? No, not at this point. Hanekawa herself said that while it had taken some time to look up Oikura’s current address, it wasn’t by any means impossible─the “annoying” scenario she’d brought up. Ogi going back to school and looking up the address.

She grinned at us.

But even her smile was pretty scary in that case.

“Oh, I was just so curious, so I decided to come and check in on you, even though I knew I was being invasive. I thought there might be a chance you couldn’t be of any help, Miss Hanekawa…and I was right, sure enough. Heheh, I really do think you might be past your prime. Heheh, heheh. And to think that someone of your level snatched Araragi-senpai from me and walked off with him. It makes me want to laugh─my goodness.”

Ogi forced herself between Hanekawa and me, squeezing her body to fit there like some kind of battle for seats in a crowded train.

Even Hanekawa had to give in.

Part of her seemed baffled─though she couldn’t have been confused by the fact that Ogi was here, having predicted that she’d make it here before us. If Hanekawa found anything strange about this situation, it wasn’t Ogi’s presence, but why she was speaking to us now, at this exact point in time.

I didn’t know either─a grudge over what happened at the school gate?

“Yes, all that work you did luring him with those lumps of flesh on your chest─and nothing to show for it? Hah hah hah.”

A serious grudge…

I’d planned to follow up the next day, but it seemed I was too late. My leg work was only that of an average person, and I was going to have to pay for my torpor.

“Oh, how embarrassing. How embarrassing. I’d be so embarrassed that I couldn’t keep going. Getting him to pick me by seducing him with my feminine charms, only to cause him more trouble than if he’d gone alone? Even I look pitiful here, when I think about it. He wouldn’t have had to feel this way if only I’d been with him, but now it’s turned out like this because I let your breasts steal him away.”

Ogi turned to face me. She really seemed to be enjoying this. She was savoring the situation from the bottom of her heart. In other words, she enjoyed wedging herself in between me and Hanekawa.

“I’m sorry for making you feel so uneasy. Really, I am. If only you’d picked me back there. But I won’t blame you! I won’t blame you. That’s right, I won’t. Everyone makes mistakes, after all─isn’t that right, Miss Hanekawa?” she said, twisting her head to look at Hanekawa next. “You’ll forgive him too, won’t you? For making the huge blunder of choosing you. You know, why don’t you say it to him out loud? ‘You aren’t to blame for my foolishness, Araragi’─”

“…”

Hanekawa continued to say nothing to Ogi’s show of utter disrespect─maybe she couldn’t say anything? I had to, though. Ogi could act however she wanted towards me, but I wouldn’t stand for her being this high-handed with Hanekawa.

“Hey, Ogi─”

“Personally…” Ogi swung back around to face me. It felt for a moment like only her neck had rotated 180 degrees to face me, but I must have been seeing things. “Personally, I’ve already figured out that locked room.”

“What?”

“And where her mother might have gone off to─well, for the most part.”

To some degree.

Ogi chuckled faintly─as if to laugh at Hanekawa behind her. Though she faced me, her words were meant to attack Hanekawa.

“In fact, I can’t believe there’s someone who hasn’t figured it out, especially that there’s someone with big breasts who hasn’t. You have to be pretty stupid to be unable to figure out this mystery. I bet even you’ve figured it out actually, haven’t you, Araragi-senpai? You’re only playing along for the sake of a certain someone whose name starts with an H. It’s unthinkable for anyone not to have figured this out. At least, anyone who tried to plunder someone else’s fieldwork partner.”

“O-Ogi─hold on, it’s not like you’ve heard much about this situation yourself. You only heard a few scraps of our conversation as you arrived here, right? I don’t see how you could solve this mystery with that alone…”

“No, a few scraps are more than enough here. So long as you don’t have big breasts.”

“…”

Her hostility toward big breasts was relentless.

It seemed that what really got to Ogi wasn’t the fact that her fieldwork partner had been taken away, but that he’d been taken away by big breasts─I felt like I was finally getting a glimpse of her younger age.

Leaving that aside─what did it mean? Ogi claimed the locked room was simple, even if she was exaggerating to annoy Hanekawa.

Ogi’s main investigatory tool was listening. As far as I knew, she wasn’t like one of those master detectives who solved a mystery immediately upon arriving at a scene─no, but at the same time, I couldn’t imagine it all being an act when she’d so deftly dismantled what happened at the class council meeting and in the derelict house. If she said she’d solved it, she really must have─the mystery of Oikura’s mother’s disappearance.

Ogi even claimed to know where she’d gone─qualified with a for the most part, of course, but it’d still be impressive. It might be enough to satisfy Oikura─getting her to come back to school.

Even then, it was hard to believe.

Mèmè Oshino’s niece or not, how much could she have understood after hearing so little info?

“Ogi. Ogi─Ogi Oshino. What exactly─do you know?”

“I don’t know anything. It’s you who knows─her in elementary school, her in middle school, her in high school. You know Sodachi Oikura─so it shouldn’t be too difficult to pin down the truth about her mother.”

So long as you don’t have big breasts, she insisted.

“Speaking of, Miss Hanekawa. You used to have braids and glasses, right? It was a good choice to stop wearing those. You’d be committing fraud dressing up to look that smart when you can’t even solve a problem like this one. You’d be arrested, nabbed. But while this might have been an extremely simple practice question for me, if you seriously can’t figure it out, Miss Hanekawa, I suppose I could indulge you, since I want to be a good underclassman to you two. All you have to do is apologize for your big breasts.”

Apologize for her big breasts?

The weirdest situation ever.

Ogi seemed to mean it, though. She stood up from her spot between us to stand directly in front of Hanekawa─facing her.

“‘I let all of my nourishment go to my boobs. Ogi, my junior, I just can’t solve this paltry question, so please, tell me the answer. I promise I’ll never snatch Araragi away from you again.’ Say that to me and I wouldn’t mind giving you the model answer.”

Clearly enjoying herself, Ogi stood there smirking─of course, none of this had anything to do with her since she’d never met Oikura, who was just an investigation topic. It made sense that Ogi was treating it as some kind of game.

For me and Hanekawa, though, this was no game at all─we could afford to be stubborn here if it was, but this involved Oikura’s life.

Afraid that Hanekawa was going to fold, I stepped in.

“Ogi!” I yelled her name a little emphatically. “I’ll ask you. I’ll be the one to ask. That’s good enough, isn’t it? So if you know, please, tell us. What happened to the Oikuras three years ago?”

“Really? Now, what should I do? I’m legitimately mad at Miss Hanekawa, but I can’t say no if you’re asking. You just have that effect on me.”

She seemed to be enjoying herself even more.

“What do you think, Miss Hanekawa? Shall I do as he asks? Shall I forgive his betrayal? Even you’d be able to figure it out then, so please, don’t stay so silent and answer me, I’m going to the trouble of asking you so that you can save face.”

Hanekawa didn’t answer. She only looked at Ogi─even in this situation, she seemed to be analyzing the presence that was Ogi Oshino.

Her true form.

Trying to see into her.

Trying to see past her.

“It’s so boring when you don’t say anything. You really aren’t as impressive as my uncle made you sound. You know, I bet you weren’t even that much to speak of in your prime. Everyone around you just held you up higher than you deserved. Fine, then. In that case, Araragi-senpai.”

Ogi let out a sigh, as if she was bored of poking fun at Hanekawa, and spoke to me.

“‘I made a mistake in choosing someone as unimpressive as Hanekawa. You are my only partner, Ogi. I like you more than Hanekawa, Ogi.’ Say that and I’ll give you the answer. The truth and all.”

“Wha…”

I hesitated.

She expected me to say that?

“I’m not compromising on this condition. I don’t want you changing a single syllable, okay? Not even, ‘Ogi, I like your just-right chest over Hanekawa’s giant breasts.’ What’s the matter? There’s no need to hesitate, is there? Miss Oikura is sure to be happy to learn the answer─isn’t now the time for you to repay her for all she did? Or are you still going to prioritize Miss Hanekawa’s chest?”

Mixing in all that chest talk made it confusing, but she was right.

If this was for Oikura’s sake─for Oikura’s sake.

There was only one decision I could make. I could never abnegate my beliefs with words like those, but if I were to refuse, she might force Hanekawa to make a request she should never have to make─she might be forced to admit defeat to Ogi. That’d be even worse. Even if Ogi reached the solution before Hanekawa here…I didn’t want Hanekawa to admit defeat.

I didn’t want to see Hanekawa like that.

It was a terrible prisoner’s dilemma, but I was just going to have to fold before she did…

“You’d better not, Araragi.”

Then.

Hanekawa spoke.

“Don’t say it─even if it’s a lie, even if it’s for my sake, I still don’t want you saying anything like that.”

“B-But, Hanekawa─”

“I won’t say it, either. I’m going to snatch you away as many times as I like.”

Then she stood.

“Ogi. I want you to give me ten seconds to prove it─that Araragi was right to pick me.”

“Ten.”

Ogi began her countdown. No discussions, no negotiations. Right, the lightness of Ogi’s footwork, the speed at which she made decisions was brilliant. Her rivalry with Tsubasa Hanekawa existed on more than a verbal level.

“Nine.”

Hanekawa began to move swiftly. What was she doing, where was she going? She headed toward the water fountains in the corner of the plaza. The water fountains? She felt thirsty? At a time like this?

“Eight.”

No.

Once she turned the spigot, she plunged her head into the stream below!

“Seven.”

The valve was as open as it could go. What seemed like a waterfall drenched Hanekawa’s head. She was like one of those ascetics. Was she trying to cool her head? That forcefully? Was she trying to cool down─because Ogi’s provocations had gotten her worked up?

“Six.”

Half of her time limit had passed. If this were a test, Hanekawa would already be checking her answers, but no, she was still busy bathing. She must have said ten seconds to keep Ogi at bay─I panicked. Shouldn’t she have asked for at least thirty seconds, if not a minute? Then again, she must have thought that Ogi wouldn’t accept the duel otherwise.

“Five.”

She closed the spigot. Hanekawa quickly shook her head, like a cat who’d been in the rain─and something appeared different about her hair. Any dye in it had fallen off, showing about half a head’s worth of white hair mixed in it. From afar, the black and white blended to make the whole look gray.

Gray matter, Ogi muttered before continuing─

“Four.”

Hanekawa returned to us with quick, long strides─forget about her head, even her uniform was drenched. It looked like a storm had opened up on her and no one else. She returned, then sat again, grandly. Water flew from her speed and force, but her intensity kept me from trying to wipe it off.

“Three.”

Hanekawa thought.

“Two.”

Hanekawa thought.

“One.”

Hanekawa thought.

“Z─”

“You don’t need to count to zero.”

Hanekawa finished thinking.

“I win.”