007
I woke up.
I woke up?
Oh no, I’d dozed off─even if I was tired, and even if I was in an environment as cozy as a planetarium, who falls asleep during a date?
Me, of all people? Or rather─even by my standards, really?
I’d somehow managed to wake up right as the show came to an end, but I remembered nothing about any projections or starry skies displayed on the dome.
I’d fallen asleep and hadn’t even dreamed.
How embarrassing.
What kind of approach did I need to take with Senjogahara, sitting to my right? Should I talk to her pretending I’d been awake the whole time, or should I be honest and tell her I’d nodded off, then apologize for ruining our first date in forever?
I turned to face her, still unable to make a decision─
“…”
Senjogahara was also sleeping.
She slept there in total silence.
The way she slept involved such a lack of vital reactions that I wondered for a moment if she might be dead… I guess I’d never seen her fully asleep─this was how she slept?
To be honest, it scared me.
Though nothing about her seemed like Sleeping Beauty or Snow White, a comparison with them could be drawn given how borderline comatose she appeared.
Wait, don’t tell me she really was dead…
“Senjogahara?”
“I’m not sleeping.”
Blink.
Both of her eyelids opened simultaneously without having betrayed the slightest sign of doing so.
It was more like an awakening than waking up.
Like a computer that boots in one second.
“I wasn’t sleeping at all. I wasn’t sleeping at all. I was just thinking with my eyes shut.”
“…”
An artless excuse, but one that I started to believe when she said it with such a straight face.
Still, how shallow of a sleeper was she if whispering her name could wake her up?
Then again, considering her past experiences─and considering just how long she had to live with a constant threat looming over her, I could understand why she might have trouble kicking a habit of sleeping like some kind of wild animal.
“I’m sorry. To tell you the truth, I was asleep,” Senjogahara now gave me an honest apology.
Perhaps she realized she wouldn’t be able to make her excuse work─but apologizing at all showed how much more of an honest person she’d become.
She used to be the type to say she’d rather die than apologize.
No one needs a personality that strong.
I still can’t believe that I agreed to start going out with her back in those days…
Anyway, it felt like my nap had been canceled out thanks to Senjogahara being asleep. I felt like thanking her, if anything…but it didn’t feel right to let her be the only one afflicted with guilt, and to keep all my relief to myself.
“It’s okay. I was sleeping a little too,” I confessed. In fact I’d been sound asleep, but allow me that small flourish.
“Oh. I suppose we were both tired─going on a date the day after your exams was too much of a rush job, I guess,” Senjogahara said as she stretched. Our seats hadn’t been too comfortable or anything, and I did the same. “It’s also because we’re able to relax. Two of your problems were settled on the same day, your entrance exams and your vampiric body.”
“Yeah, you’re right.”
My issues might have bothered her even more than they bothered me─now that I thought about it, I’d done nothing but worry her for the past six months.
What an awful boyfriend.
True, I caught Senjogahara when she slipped and fell from the stairs in May, and I played a role in resolving something that had plagued her for some time─and true, she must have felt grateful, but on the balance, I was the greater beneficiary by far.
I was the one who’d been repaid threefold.
Was there a couple any more poorly matched than us? I couldn’t even start to pay her back with something like marshmallows.
“What should we do, Araragi? It’ll ruin our plans, but do you want to give this another run if we were both asleep for it?”
“No…” I shook my head. “We’ll have plenty more opportunities in the future, so some other time. Let’s stick to your plan for today’s date.”
I tried to stress in the future─and while I don’t know if this came across, Senjogahara said, “Right, it’s not as if we’re guaranteed to get tickets for the next show at this point,” and stood right up. Briskly, like she hadn’t been asleep until just now─I followed her lead, as if to learn from her example.
“So, what are the plans from here?”
“As I said in the car, we’re going to learn about contemporary, cutting-edge science in the attached museum. While I don’t know about flying cars, they do seem to have lots of different hands-on exhibits.”
“Hm. Well, I guess I shouldn’t lose interest in studying… It’s something we’ll have to keep on doing once we’re in college.”
“Yes. To become an astronaut,” Senjogahara said with a smile.
Her smile was difficult to read. Still, even though I didn’t know if I’d be accepted, I needed to start thinking about that kind of thing too once I finally became a college student.
That future thing.
College would be four years of trying to find out, because I’d enter not knowing what I wanted to do─but I knew I’d be able to describe the four years as something out of a dream, after spending a year nearly losing that future again and again.
“Do you have dreams for your future?” Senjogahara asked me as we left the planetarium, as if she’d read my mind─dreams for the future.
What an uncomfortable phrase.
“No, not really…”
“Like a job you’re aspiring to.”
“Can’t say I do. I’ve never even wanted to become a baseball player growing up… I wasn’t raised in an environment that made me aspire to work in any kind of profession.”
“Well, your parents are in a pretty unique line of work─not that I’m one to talk… I would personally like it if you didn’t take after Miss Hanekawa and try to become an expert in yokai extermination out of an admiration for Mister Oshino,” Senjogahara stated, though in a reserved way.
I couldn’t blame her.
She’d had five terrible experiences with so-called experts in the occult. Nothing could keep her from distrusting that whole endeavor.
Though her return to society was made possible in part by Oshino, that fact and her personal feelings must be two separate things.
“Sure, that’s part of it, but I also find it hard to forgive Mister Oshino for being such a bad influence on my angel, Miss Hanekawa. I barely got to cuddle with her during the second half of this school year thanks to that location hunt or whatever she’s on.”
“…”
That hardly seemed fair.
And my angel?
Sure, Hanekawa’s future plans did involve roaming the planet after graduation, but Oshino wasn’t to blame for her going on a location hunt while still a student.
That was on someone else with the same surname: Ogi Oshino.
Everything that was happening─while not only Mèmè Oshino was away, but just as Tsubasa Hanekawa was as well.
That was now clear.
“Even if it’s too late for Miss Hanekawa, I’d at least like to keep you from living that way.”
“Well, I don’t think I could.”
My somewhat vague answer had to do with my suspicion that steering clear of aberrations for the rest of my life would be very difficult, or rather, absolutely impossible.
Given Shinobu Oshino.
I’d never cut ties with aberrations when I considered my relationship with her─even if it meant going to hell.
“I’d be fine with you not working at all, as long as you don’t follow in his footsteps. I’ll care for you for the rest of my life.”
“Aren’t people like that called spongers?”
“And I’ll be known as a magnanimous woman.”
“No, I’m pretty sure people wouldn’t be so positive. They’ll say I’m a no-good man and you’re a no-good woman.”
“Bring it on. A sponger and his sucked-dry woman. Seems like a perfect couple to me.”
“Perfect in a very sad way…”
Made for each other, we’d deserve each other as well.
Hm.
Having (provisionally) completed my goal of making it through my entrance exams, there were many issues I needed to consider─it made me realize anew that life has lots of checkpoints but no finish line.
Which is exactly why it’s so hard to always win in life. You have no choice but to lose at some point─hm? Where did that come from?
Was it something Miss Gaen said?
No, elsewhere. Like a dream I just had─but what kind of dream? Hadn’t I not dreamed?
“We’ll do a lap of the science museum, and then we’ll have lunch. And while we won’t be getting fast food, please think of it as just a light snack. A big lunch will interfere with my evening meal, you see,” Senjogahara went back to explaining her plan for our date.
It was her father, let us note, that she’d be dining with… She was making lunch with her boyfriend a modest meal to better accommodate an event with Daddy, let us note.
Not that I could do anything to change her mind.
In fact, I needed to cheer her on.
During our first date in June, their relationship was still a rocky one. I wanted to be happy for her if it had improved so much, even if it meant putting up with a little bit of neglect.
Like Tsukihi had said the day before, I’d repaired my relationship with my little sisters, which hadn’t been too great in the past, to the point where we could even go out on the town together. I saw this as a positive, and so I understood─just how valuable it is to have a family that gets along.
I wanted the same for Senjogahara.
She needed to value her ties to her father in particular since her mother was out of the picture─that said, I still found it a bit regrettable.
I can’t be that understanding of a person.
I hoped our afternoon plans would be enough to make up for our perfunctory lunch─I felt ready to cause a ruckus and a scene if she said they were going to be just as light so she wouldn’t be tired out by dinner.
Her professed desire to experience a high school-ish date while still a high schooler was no lie, though.
“Our morning plans were academic in focus, and now our afternoon plans, revolving around fun, await us,” she explained. “We’ll drive a bit over to town for some bowling and tea during the first half, then karaoke for the second.”
“Whoa…” I was moved. Bowling was one thing, but karaoke felt so unlike her that she left me staggered.
“Yes. Well, I came up with the bowling, but I included karaoke on Miss Hanekawa’s advice.”
“Her advice.”
“It seems that according to her, the two of you go to karaoke quite often? How should I describe it─as your girlfriend, I feel like I don’t want to lose to Miss Hanekawa, even if it is her.”
“…”
Not quite what you called taking someone’s advice… How was I going to enjoy our karaoke session when that was her reason?
But I did want to hear Senjogahara sing. I’d allow it.
“And what’s with the bowling? Are you…the bowling type?”
“I haven’t been since I started high school, but I bowled a lot during middle school, with Kanbaru or celebrating with the track team. I used to carve out some artistic scores, so I felt like revisiting my roots for the first time in a while. What about you, Araragi?”
“Hm?”
“Bowling. What’s your high score?”
“Oh, I’m a beginner when it comes to bowling. I don’t think I’ve ever played before, in fact… I’d appreciate your instruction.”
“Understood. So we agree? Loser gets punished?”
“You decided that after you found out I’m a beginner.”
“Loser shows absolute submission to the winner’s commands.”
“That’s way too harsh!”
To recap.
Her plan for our date seemed to be “Drive → Planetarium → Science Museum → Lunch (light meal) → Drive → Bowling → Move → Tea Time → Move → Karaoke → Disperse.” A grueling schedule liable to fill you up, even if that meal was light.
“There were a lot of other places I wanted to go and things I wanted to do… Oh well. Love may be infinite, but time is finite,” Senjogahara muttered, sounding dissatisfied with the tough schedule she’d put together herself, including dinner with her father after it all. “I guess it’s fine… This may be our last date as high school students, but we can go on all the dates we want after this one. All the dates we want, every morning and every evening, from dawn to dusk. Isn’t that right?”
“…”
When she worded it that way, there was only one possible answer.
“Yeah, that’s right. Of course.”
But I wasn’t feeling as confident as I sounded─considering what came next.
When I considered Ogi Oshino.
Nothing was certain.
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