Monogatari Series - Volume 18 - Chapter 1.32

032

“Huh… What is this?”

A message from Tsubasa Hanekawa.

Yet the body and subject were blank, with only a lone photograph attached. The e-mail seemed odd enough already─but the bizarre photo that appeared to be a selfie was truly beyond description.

That Tsubasa Hanekawa.

Had taken a selfie in my room, wearing my clothes.

That’s what this one-of-a-kind photo showed (well, I guess it wasn’t one of a kind since it was on both our phones as data).

“Wh-What’s been going on at school while I’ve been away?”

My desire to see class president among class presidents Miss Hanekawa in street clothes had come true in an incomprehensible way, but I couldn’t just sit there and enjoy the moment.

The clothes were mine in the first place, an outfit I was familiar with… While part of me felt like accepting the situation as it presented itself, the whole thing gave off such a strange vibe.

I was wearing Kanbaru’s jacket and shoes and standing next to her as she wore my hoodie and weird shoes, and looking at a photo of Hanekawa wearing a full outfit belonging to me in my room? What a mess of a situation.

“What happened to Hanekawa… Kanbaru, do you know anything?”

“No, I don’t have a clue… The only thing I could think of is that after her house burned down, she got introduced to Karen and Tsukihi through Senjogahara-senpai and asked them if she could stay at your home.”

“That’s probably it! …Wait, a fire? Her house burned down?! When did that happen?!”

“Oh, right. I guess you didn’t know. In a nutshell, her home burned down on the first day of second term.”

In a nutshell, indeed.

No way… I thought I’d been on a rough adventure since the last day of summer break, but it seemed like Hanekawa was having a tougher time…

Still, Kanbaru amazed me. She knew just how fanatical I was about Hanekawa, and yet she managed not to tell me for just about the whole day? Is this what Senjogahara meant when she described her as frightening? Oh, but Kanbaru and Hanekawa didn’t have much of a relationship… Now that I thought about it, hadn’t Kanbaru muttered something about Hanekawa while we were surrounded by flames at the abandoned cram school?

Hm? Could that fire have been─

“What’s this? Looks like she’s getting to the good stuff herself─what’ll you do, Koyomin?”

Leaping in as if to sneak a peek at my cell phone, Miss Gaen called me Koyomin for the first time since that morning.

“Wait… The good stuff? Miss Ga─” Nope. “Miss Izuko, is there something you know? About Hanekawa─wait, do you know Hanekawa? And what do you mean, what’ll I do?”

“I know everything─I’m trying to say it’s a tiger, Koyomin. Ironically, it was also a tiger that saved you at the abandoned cram school. It seems that Tsubasa has made up her mind and decided to face that great tiger who wields its purgatorial flames. Heh, no wonder Mèmè was scared of her. I never expected her to make such a move. Still…it is convenient.”

“Convenient… How?”

A tiger?

Wait, no─Shinobu had done all that talking about cats, too─what exactly was happening on Hanekawa’s side right now? People said they knew, and even explained it to me, but I wasn’t getting any kind of clear picture at all.

The only thing I knew─something pretty strange was taking place over there if Hanekawa had sent me a picture like this.

A distress signal─no, more like a cry for help.

“That’s right, your precious Tsubasa is in trouble. So, what will you do, Koyomin?”

“What will I do? Again, like what?”

“If you’ll allow your lady friend here who knows everything to give you a quick rundown, it’s not actually just Tsubasa who’s in trouble─your girlfriend, Senjogahara, is as well.”

“What?”

It was Kanbaru who reacted first. You couldn’t blame her, when Hitagi Senjogahara stood at the top of this ever-faithful junior’s internal hierarchy, but it’s not as if I wasn’t surprised too. I mean, what about our phone call just now? It’s not like she’d…shown any signs…or maybe she had, and…

…I hadn’t noticed.

How could I be so negligent?

“Those girls just might be going up in flames as we speak─if you want to go rescue them, you should go as soon as humanly possible. Forget about this meaningless duel,” Miss Gaen said, as if to lay it on me emotionally.

“…”

“That’s what I mean when I say convenient. It makes things easier for me if you don’t take part in this duel. Because it’d be an issue if you died─just as the First said, we’ve tried to set things up in a way that should keep you from dying, but it’s not as if we can avoid it no matter what. I can’t break the rules, which means I’d really appreciate it if you did instead. And this is good for you too, Koyomin. Now you have a perfect reason for calling the duel off.”

Miss Gaen shut me down and silenced me completely.

I knew I was getting in a fight that no one wanted me in, but this made me keenly aware of just how little my involvement was desired─it made me realize there was no self-improvement involved in what I was doing, only self-satisfaction.

“It’s time to choose, Koyomin,” Miss Gaen said─in a nasty tone. “Stay here to fight in an idle duel, or run off to save Tsubasa and Senjogahara. Will you choose Shinobu, or will you choose Tsubasa, or will you choose Senjogahara?”

Choose.

Compare and choose.

A multiple-choice relationship problem.

Compare that which is important to me─and define which is more important.

Score them and differentiate them.

“Out of those three─whom do you love the most?” Miss Gaen seemed to joke. “Would a time limit of five minutes not be enough? Really, I think you could come up with an answer in five seconds. Shinobu hasn’t even come here, while Tsubasa is your savior and Senjogahara is your girlfriend─oh?”

Still wordless, I handed the phone to Kanbaru─Miss Gaen was right. It took longer than an instant to come up with the answer, but five seconds was enough.

Just because an answer is simple to come up with, though, that doesn’t mean it’s an easy one.

Ah, so this is what it means to choose.

In that case, the right to decide─the final say─isn’t really desirable.

But I had to choose.

And I had to decide.

“Kanbaru. Please handle this.”

“I’ve got it,” she answered at once.

I knew that this answer wasn’t the one that Kanbaru, who treated Senjogahara like an older sister, wanted to hear─still, she nodded immediately.

Don’t mistake who you’re trying to save here, Kanbaru had said to me once─but she’d know better than anyone that there was no such thing as a right answer to such a question.

Not being able to make a mistake isn’t necessarily right.

“I just need to go to your home?”

“Yeah. You’re free to use that phone, so tell Karen to let you in─I doubt Hanekawa is still there, but there might be something left in my room. I’ll be right behind you, so I want you to look into it until then.”

Roger that.

Kanbaru was already off running by the time she signed off. It was hard to believe she had on my weird shoes as she sprinted away from Naoetsu High’s athletic field at a speed faster than the eye could see, drilling into the earth with each step.

“Are you in your right mind?” asked Miss Gaen, appalled. Or maybe more like she couldn’t begin to understand my decision. “That’s unthinkable─do you really only consider whatever is in front of your eyes? How do you think Tsubasa and Senjogahara would feel if they learned about your decision here? Isn’t chasing after that girl still the right thing to do?”

“…”

“True, Suruga Kanbaru is far more mobile than you, and she might be able to handle both situations with her running speed─and Tsubasa might be able to face her troubles on her own. You’re the only one who can fight here, so it might be right for you to stay behind, but that’s all logic─it’s might this and might that. People have emotions. Don’t you think she sent you that message believing in you? And you’re going to betray her trust like this?”

Miss Gaen continued in her detached tone, but it also felt like the convenience she’d get out of me not taking the duel wasn’t her only reason for saying all this.

The thought helped calm my mind to some small degree.

So she had a regular side to her, too─though maybe I didn’t.

“After betraying them like this, those two might never trust you again,” Miss Gaen said as if to hammer the point home.

“Maybe,” I replied. Coolly, and without shame. “But I believe in them. From the bottom of my heart. In Hanekawa, and in Senjogahara.”

I believed they’d understand.

Those two, who treated someone as un-special as me in such a special way─would never betray my trust.

Not those two special people in my life.

Not Tsubasa Hanekawa, not Hitagi Senjogahara.

“I believe they’ll understand─that over any savior or any lover, the man known as Koyomi Araragi─is going to put a little girl first.”