002
“I’ll go on a date.”
So said Hitagi Senjogahara─okay, that’s a pretty abrupt way to begin a story, and maybe you don’t follow. Let me add a little more in the way of stage directions.
The date was March thirteenth.
In other words, the evening of the day I was doomed to an eternity in hell on account of my actions before immediately reviving on account of my doings─and also the evening after taking the entrance exams for my first-choice school in an exhausted condition (top condition, I’d insist if I were my little sister Karen) and coming out of it thinking, At least I filled in the whole answer sheet! Dead tired from my first time undergoing the rite since I got into Naoetsu High, I returned home so spent that being sent back to hell might have been preferable─to find Hitagi Senjogahara waiting in front of the Araragi residence.
My girlfriend.
By the way, it wasn’t my first time seeing her that day─I’d been with her that morning too. Or rather, she escorted me to my first-choice school like a Secret Service agent so I wouldn’t get caught up in any unnecessary trouble. She’d kept her right arm in her pocket the whole way, not because she carried a weapon there, I hope… Well, before she joined me as my bodyguard, I’d gotten caught up in the unthinkable bit of trouble that was being sliced to pieces by Miss Gaen, but thanks to Senjogahara’s presence, or maybe not, I didn’t get into any further trouble─as I said, I at least managed to fill in the whole answer sheet.
She, along with Hanekawa, had supported my studies for the last year or so, in fact. On a fundamental level, as someone whose catchphrase used to be I just need to graduate, ninety percent of my motivation when it came to my exams was attending the same college as my girlfriend Senjogahara─it wouldn’t be brown-nosing at all if I said I’d taken that test thanks to her.
So no matter how tired I felt, no matter how defeated my psyche, I planned to call her as soon as I got home─to my surprise, however, she was right there as if she’d anticipated my move, like she had a head start.
I learned later that she’d felt like Hachiko the faithful dog, but from my point of view, she was a bandit waiting to ambush me. I mean, whatever your angle, the glare in her eyes was saying, “You’re back, bastard,” and not “Good job, Araragi!” You can’t blame me if I faltered in front of my own home.
What could it be? Did she somehow find out that I’d gone to hell that morning? Did Miss Gaen tweet about it (I could see her having an account)? I hadn’t told her because I didn’t want her to worry, or rather because I knew it’d make her mad, and put it off to after my exams… Maybe her stern expression made sense. Finding out your boyfriend went to hell has to be pretty shocking.
I braced myself.
Just one more battle…
Determined, cautiously piecing together my plan to vindicate myself, which is to say apologize, I approached Senjogahara, only for her to speak in a tone as stern as her expression.
What was once her standard tone, a flat delivery that knew neither intonation nor accent.
“I’ll go on a date,” she said.
I’d heard those words before.
Yes, the move she’d made back in June when we went on our first date─
“No, that’s not it,” she continued, which was again a perfect replay as far as I remembered.
“I-It’s not?” I replied, confused.
My reaction just as fresh and innocent.
How adorable, Araragi!
“Well,” she said, “it’s been so long since I had a proper appearance that I lost track of my personality.”
“…”
Don’t be sounding like Ononoki. That girl’s a rare type of side character who loses track of her characterization even when she has plenty of appearances…
Which is better, I wonder─a side character with lots of screen time, or a principal character without any?
“What sort of person was I, again?”
“That line’s a lot to take in…”
“I want to say a cool, beautiful woman who waves around staplers and paper cutters.”
“If you’re going that far back, I need to devise an approach and plan for a tougher trial than the exams I just took…”
Having mentioned them, I fully expected her to respond, “Oh, so how was it? Do you think you did well?”─since there’d be no point in beating myself up anymore, I’d answer “I did what I could” and thank her, or so the simulation in my mind went, but that wasn’t the direction our conversation headed in.
She rephrased herself as if she didn’t even know about my exams:
“Date me or else.”
Her tone had changed─it was even more stern. She wasn’t this tyrannical even back when she hadn’t turned over a new leaf and was still a character who swung around staplers and paper cutters.
Date me or else?
That was just a threat.
“I-Isn’t your characterization straying, Miss Senjogahara?”
“Tomorrow.”
My retort, or my offer to interpret my girlfriend’s bizarre and incomprehensible statement as a joke, my blurring of her wording, was flatly ignored and nullified.
Tomorrow, she said.
“Tomorrow, we’ll make full use of the day on a half-year’s worth of dates, Araragi─do you understand what I’m saying?”
“No, sorry, haven’t got a clue…”
Despite being lovers, our minds were far from one─she was still a difficult individual and partner.
That did mean I never got tired of chatting with her, so maybe I should accept it with open arms. In certain tense situations, though, it was a negative and an accident risk.
“Then I’ll provide commentary,” she said, “like on the alternate audio track.”
“…”
I didn’t know much about those, having not been a part of many, but the word was that the audio commentary didn’t do much to explain what’s going on in the main story…
And in terms of commentary, right now I wanted some on those exam problems─but things hadn’t cooled off to a point where I could ask her.
Though in fact, it felt ice cold.
It was March, but still chilly out…
Then Senjogahara continued as if she hadn’t forgotten at all about my exams.
“First off, good job, Araragi,” she appreciated my effort at last. But the appreciation seemed a bit sarcastic, almost as if she was mad… “You worked so hard that even if you’re left empty-handed, you have nothing to be ashamed of. You’ve already succeeded.”
“Could you not make it sound like it’s a given that I won’t make it in? That’s consolation, not appreciation. Don’t foreshadow a situation where I need to be soothed. I haven’t said anything yet, have I? It’s not over until the results are in.”
“It’s over already,” she insisted.
She’d decided on a direction, and nothing I said could change our course─I guess I just had to sit back and watch.
When there’s no point in saying anything, you should stay quiet.
“Your battle ends here.”
“…”
“And so, after six months of self-control, I want us to begin dating anew. I’m spending all the points I’ve saved up. And what do you know, tomorrow is March fourteenth, White Day. The perfect special day for a date.”
“…”
“Did you just think about how much you hate special days?”
How did she figure that out when I was silent? What a unilateral unspoken connection.
But with this, my frazzled mind finally caught a glimpse of her point─so that’s what.
She hadn’t blurted out anything outrageous─in fact, she’d petitioned me with a very proper request.
While doing so on the heels of my exams betrayed what you might call her unreconstructed agility─she was right, we’d been dating since last May, and we’d spent a lot of time together as home tutor and pupil or whatever, but only gone on a few dates you could actually call dates. Not only that, the majority were during first term, and to get into shocking specifics, we hadn’t gone on a single one since I’d gotten serious about my exams. It wouldn’t be an overstatement to say that after second term, we were quite the stoic couple for two high school students.
Yes, so despite spending a lot of time with her in her capacity as my tutor or what have you, whether at school or at home─we never once went somewhere to go have fun, on a trip, or the like.
I prepared for exams, and she instructed her pathetic boyfriend-cum-pupil, forcing us both to abstain─moreover, since the middle part of second term, Sengoku’s case put both my life and Senjogahara’s in extreme danger for an extended period of time, which wasn’t conducive to seeking anything like a date.
As soon as the state of emergency lifted (thanks to a disagreeable conman), my body began growing vampiric on its own… The deluge of troubles had left me unable to come up for air; studying for exams had left me with no time to take a breather.
“Graduation is the day after tomorrow,” Senjogahara said. “In other words, our glorious lives as high school students would come to an end having barely gone on any dates─isn’t that sad?”
“Well, if you put it that way…”
“We had most of third term off from school, too. It went by so fast. I can see why they say that January jumps away, February flies, and March marches on.”
“You’re right. Third term did end in the blink of an eye.”
“I can see why they say that April absconds, May makes a break, June jumps, July jogs, August ain’t long, September stirs, October outruns, November is not long for this world, and December is like a sled pulled by reindeer.”
“Hey, you cheated there at the end!”
“How will we ever tell the daughter we’ll have one day that despite dating in high school, we graduated having barely done anything that lovers do?”
“That’s a heavy question. A daughter?”
“Huh, you’d prefer a boy?”
“This isn’t about gender.”
“But I’ve already decided on a name.”
“Now it’s actually getting heavy…” So weighty, you’d never imagine she once struggled with having no weight at all. “You know, I think I’ll ask. What’s the name?”
“Tsubasa.”
“Too heavy too heavy too heavy too heavy!”
And Hanekawa would agree! Cherish your friendship with other girls some other way!
“So,” a nonchalant Senjogahara put us back on topic─a move that was so uniquely her. “We’re spending all of tomorrow to have an entire half-year’s worth of dates─an abridged edition, in other words. A recap episode of our time in high school.”
“A recap episode…” How do you recap something that hasn’t aired yet? I took her meaning, though. Simply put, now that my exams were done, she wanted to go on all the dates we’d missed, and why not do it tomorrow, on White Day.
“I’ve got the scoop, Araragi.”
“…What?”
My what wasn’t asking “what scoop?” so much as “what’s with that phrasing,” but Senjogahara seemed to interpret it as the former.
“It seems you’re back in good health,” she elaborated.
“Oh, er…”
It took me a moment, but not long, to understand what she meant: my transformation into a vampire, which should have been irreversible, and having returned as a human after going to hell.
I knew this, of course, since it was my own body.
But how did Senjogahara?
“Well, in the mirrors at the street corners and such as I walked you to the college campus, you had a reflection.”
What a sharp girl.
I’d kept quiet about it, thinking I’d explain later. For her part, she hadn’t said anything or grilled me because it wasn’t appropriate when I was just about to take my exams─both of us were surprisingly considerate people.
“In other words, your outstanding problems, be it your exams or your body, have been taken care of. They’ve come to an end, right? Then there’s no reason for you not to go on a date with me. There’s no better time to resolve our undatedness.”
“Undatedness…”
She had such a knack for coining and using awkward words.
Still, even if those two outstanding problems had come to an end… No. That was neither here nor there.
It wasn’t about having no reason not to─I wanted to go on a date as much as she did. I’d been repressing myself despite being a healthy young high schooler and wanted to go on one asap.
Okay, if she actually asked to go right now, I might beg her to let me rest for the day (not only was I exhausted, I lacked any vampirism and my stamina recovery was notably sluggish─or rather, like a normal person’s), but honestly, if it was tomorrow, which is to say after a good night’s rest, I’d happily go anywhere with her.
There was Miss Gaen.
There was Miss Kagenui.
There was Hachikuji.
There was Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade.
And─there was her.
In fact, I had all sorts of concerns I needed to think about, and maybe I also needed to be acting like an exam-taker until I received my results, the way a school trip isn’t over until you get home.
Still, I wanted to value our desire to do high school things while we were high schoolers. In which case, I couldn’t stand around and hesitate forever─I needed to man up and respond to her feelings.
“And so, Araragi, you’ll go on a date with me,” Senjogahara propositioned once more, as if she’d finally remembered the correct phrasing─not that it was at all correct, but it reminded me of the days when we first started going out, and I felt a little high.
“If you don’t go on a date with me, I’ll bite off my own tongue as we speak.”
“…”
Or a little down.
“You’ll never be able to French kiss me again,” she warned.
“That’d be the least of our worries if you bit your tongue off…”
Of course, it would’ve been my tongue being threatened in the past. When I thought of it that way, what a harmless cute thing Senjogahara had become.
Well, she’d done more than simply mellow out─I guess neither she nor I had stood still.
We needed to graduate.
To move forward.
I did hate arbitrary special days but would make an exception for tomorrow and not say that. It was likely to be my last date as a high school student, so I might as well allow myself to act like a high schooler.
“All right,” I said. “It won’t be a recap, we’ll be capping it off─we’re spending tomorrow to the fullest to have a half-year’s worth of dates.”
“Oh, sorry, I don’t know about the fullest part. I have plans that night.”
Slump─I almost did a pratfall.
“So let’s start early in the morning and go to about the evening. Don’t worry, I already have it all planned up here,” Senjogahara said, tapping her temple. The gesture made her look smart, but I felt a tinge of anxiety over a date mapped out by her.
I mean, the way our first date turned out… Still, I couldn’t trample on her feelings by asking for an immediate review. I just had to hope she’d become harmless on this point too.
Okay. In that case, my plans for tomorrow night were good, too. Yup, I’d be sticking to them.
“Copy that, I hear you loud and clear. By the way,” I threw out what I thought was a casual question, “what is it you need to do tomorrow night?”
“Well, it’s White Day,” she restated the obvious. “I’m having dinner with my dad.”
“…”
Just another regrettably heavy reply from her that I needed to take in.
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