Monogatari Series - Volume 2 - Chapter 3.3

003

“I feel like someone said something unpleasant about me,” Hitagi Senjogahara suddenly mumbled.

The comment was so abrupt and unprovoked that, out of shock, the pencil in my hand froze in place on my notebook.

Yet it seemed she was mumbling entirely to herself because she switched topics.

“Still, teaching is so difficult.”

After that, I’d walked back home with Hachikuji talking about all sorts of things, including about Kanbaru, and parted ways when I arrived. The little girl wandered around in one place or another all the time, so I was sure I’d meet her again somewhere. Then, after taking off my backpack, changing my clothes, and stuffing my textbooks, notes, and study-aids into a Boston bag, I switched from the granny bike I rode to school to my mountain bike and headed to Senjogahara’s. My little sisters had already returned and almost got around to interrogating me, but luckily I managed to escape.

As I’d mentioned to Hachikuji, Senjogahara’s place was fairly far from mine, a distance I normally wouldn’t travel by bicycle. But taking the bus actually meant having to walk more, so going by bike felt quicker to me─which was subjective, and since this was only my second time visiting Senjogahara’s, and the first time straight from my place, I couldn’t say for sure.

The Tamikura Apartments─a two-story wooden building.

Room 201.

A hundred-or-so square feet, a small sink.

It was so cramped that two high school students of average build facing each other across a low table with their study materials spread out around them filled up the space. It was what you’d call a single-father household, and Senjogahara what you’d call an only child, and her father what you’d call stuck at work until late at night, so we were, of course, alone.

Koyomi Araragi and Hitagi Senjogahara.

Two healthy teenagers by themselves in a cramped room.

A man and a woman.

Who were officially going out, too.

Boyfriend and girlfriend.

And yet.

“…Why am I studying right now,” I said.

“Hm? Because you’re stupid?”

“What a mean way to put it!”

She was absolutely right. But.

It couldn’t hurt if there was a little more going on.

We started dating on the same day we got ourselves mixed up with Mayoi Hachikuji, on Mother’s Day, May fourteenth. About two weeks had passed since then, but it would be no exaggeration to say that absolutely nothing sexual had taken place between us in that time.

………

Hold on, we hadn’t even gone on a date yet.

Come to think of it.

We met in the morning at school, talked during break…ate lunch together…then walked home together partway…and said see you tomorrow. That was about it. That was the kind of thing that the cooler kids did regardless of gender if they were friends…

I wouldn’t say that I particularly craved a sexual turn of events, but some development you’d expect between lovers would have been nice.

“In my life so far, Araragi, I’ve never struggled at anything involving the word ‘study,’ so I don’t have the slightest idea what’s giving you so much trouble and what you’re stuck on… I don’t understand what you don’t understand.”

“Is that so…”

She really knew what to say to get me down.

How wide was the gap between her academic abilities and mine, anyway? Was it a canyon so vast you couldn’t see the other side?

“Are you acting like you don’t get it,” Senjogahara asked, “just to make me laugh?”

“Like I’d go that far… But it’s not like you were born smart, right, Senjogahara? Isn’t it thanks to blood and tears that you maintain your place near the top of the class?”

“Do you think that’s the kind of thing people who work hard worry about?”

“…Okay.”

“Oh, but don’t get me wrong. There are people whose hard work never pays off, who don’t even know how to begin working hard, like you, and I do pity them.”

“Please don’t pity us!”

“I despair for you.”

“G-Gah! Is the rule that whenever I make a quip about it, you get even harsher?! Even begging for mercy is a risky move!”

Bizarre game we were playing.

“No weed actually goes by that name,” she said, “but ‘small fry’ is an actual species of fish…”

“There’s no such fish, either!”

“No weed actually goes by that name, but there are people who do…”

“Only if other people call them that!”

“Anyway, I’m feeling motivated because helping you pass this skills test will let me take another step forward as a person.”

“Don’t be treating my grades like they’re your rite of passage… And there are other things you ought to attend to first if you want to grow as a person.”

“Oh, be quiet. I’ve strangled you to death.”

“In the present perfect tense?! Am I already dead?!”

Getting her to teach me may have been a mistake… Hmm, should I have just asked Hanekawa?

However.

Despite my protestations to Hachikuji, I had to admit to a motive so cute it would be embarrassing even to call it ulterior, that just maybe something might happen if I was alone with Senjogahara in her home…

I looked up from my notes to glance at her.

She looked unconcerned as always.

Her expression never really changed.

She wasn’t going to reveal a special face that she’d never show anyone else just because we were going out… In that sense, she wasn’t a tsundere at all.

Her attitude didn’t change one bit, either.

Hmm.

Or was I expecting too much, as I tended to do? I’d vaguely imagined that conversations grew more special once you started going out, but maybe what you discussed with another person didn’t change all that much whatever your relationship? Were my thoughts of sweet talk between lovers nothing more than an idiotic fantasy?

“………”

In all likelihood.

Considering Senjogahara’s experiences, the events that made Hitagi Senjogahara into Hitagi Senjogahara─she certainly had her notions regarding chastity and all, but apart from that, in all likelihood she was satisfied with the current state of our relationship.

She’d told me she didn’t like silent partnerships.

Since she said so, she probably didn’t.

…No.

Even then…

It was hard to imagine that Senjogahara didn’t feel a thing in this situation. In fact, it had developed in a much more sexual way the last time I’d visited the Tamikura Apartments… It wasn’t like she was too unworldly not to have a clue about what it meant to invite her ostensible boyfriend to her home with no guardian around… And when I looked at it that way, Senjogahara did seem to have put a little bit of work into the outfit she was wearing across the low table from me, but the awfully long skirt sat on my mind. Her stockingless legs were bare, but I could hardly see them thanks to that long skirt of hers. It felt like it was caution she had put into her outfit, not thought.

Phew.

Or maybe it was my role as the man to show some initiative? Of course, I’d never gone out with a girl before, so I hardly even knew what initiative looked like.

“What’s the matter, Araragi? Your hands have stopped.”

“Nothing… I was just thinking about the high challenge rating.”

“But this one isn’t so hard. What am I going to do with you?”

Showing no interest in making out my mood, Senjogahara just gave me an utterly appalled look. Her eyes seemed accustomed to dispensing condescension.

Then she mumbled, melancholically, “I guess that’s it.”

“Huh? Hold on, Senjogahara, you’re putting your mechanical pencil aside like you’re fed up and giving off this tired air, but is quitting on me actually an option for you?”

“I won’t say that it isn’t,” she declared. “60-40…no, 70-30, maybe?”

“Whichever is the seventy, that’s an awfully realistic ratio…”

It would have been easier on me if she’d said 90-10.

Really, which was the seventy?

“I’m conflicted, you see. Trying and failing would hurt my pride more than not trying and failing.”

“Please don’t quit on me…”

If she did, I’d have to ask Hanekawa after all.

At the end of the day, that wasn’t something I wanted to do.

Being tutored by our class president, who bought wholesale the commonsensical notion that you did well in school if you just tried, was out of the question…

“Well, if you’re going to go that far, then I won’t quit on you.”

“You’d really be helping me out.”

“Not at all. I accept all comers and won’t let any go.”

“What a frightening philosophy!”

“Don’t worry. If I’m doing this, I might as well die doing it.”

“You don’t have to die! Maybe just tire yourself out! What the hell do you have in mind for me?!”

“…Then again, Araragi. I want to say you’re good at math, at least?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah.”

How did she know?

Before I could throw the question at her, Senjogahara said, “Hanekawa told me.”

That made sense. Hanekawa knew my grades better than anyone.

“Huh,” I grunted. “I never saw Hanekawa as the type to go around discussing other people’s grades, though.”

“Oh, maybe I didn’t word it right. I was secretly listening in when you and Hanekawa were talking the other day.”

“…You certainly didn’t word it right.”

Hearsay was bad enough, but now we were at eavesdropping.

“You think?” deadpanned Senjogahara.

She was such a handful.

“I do all right in math because it isn’t all about memorization,” I explained. “Aren’t formulas and equations almost like special moves? An Ultra Beam or a Kamehameha or something. If only other subjects had them, too…”

“If things were so convenient, no one would have a hard time of it. But putting aside actually learning about the subjects, there are tried-and-true techniques, if not special moves, when it comes to studying for tests.” Senjogahara picked her mechanical pencil back up. “One of them is trying to guess what’ll be on the test, which you don’t want to make a habit of because it’s like gambling. While I generally don’t recommend it, stopgap measures might be our only choice at this point. If we get down to it, you just need to avoid getting F’s. If we say the cutoff line is half of the average score…”

She scribbled numbers in her notebook.

The expected average score, and a number that was half of it.

I had to say, when she put them out there like that, it did seem attainable─as my perfect score, that is.

“In memorization-heavy subjects, teachers have ‘questions that they have to ask,’ so we need to set our sights on those. In other words, we’re taking a laser-focused approach instead of making wild guesses. You don’t want to get bogged down by questions you can’t answer and miss the chance to score on ones you can. Do you understand what I’m saying so far, Araragi?”

“…Sure, I get it.”

Still, smart kids really did see tests in a completely different way… The teacher’s mindset in preparing them was something I’d never given any thought to. Actually, no, maybe I did back in middle school, when I still got decent grades… But that felt like a forgotten fable.

Back in middle school.

I didn’t miss those days at all.

“So,” Senjogahara said, “let’s start with an easy subject. World history.”

“World history is an easy subject?”

“It is. All you have to do is memorize all the important terms.”

“……”

“But like I said, I’m not going to expect you to do even that much. Still, Araragi. You’ll probably pass this skills test if you start studying right now with my help, but what in the world are you planning on doing after that?”

“After that?”

“After you graduate,” replied Senjogahara, pointing the tip of her mechanical pencil at me.

“After I graduate… This is kind of sudden.”

“You’re at the end of your second month of your last year of high school. You must have given it at least a little bit of thought. I know you said something along the lines of only caring about making it to graduation, but does that mean you’re going to find a job right away? Do you have some sort of concrete plan? A connection or an in at some company?”

“Umm…”

“Are you going to be a temp at first? Or maybe you’ll just be a NEET? I don’t really like any of that terminology because they oversimplify a real issue, but of course, your own views and wishes take precedence. Oh, but I suppose you could always learn a trade at a vocational school to start off?”

“What are you, my mother?”

She was getting very detailed about this.

Peppering me with all these questions wasn’t going to drag an answer out of me… Couldn’t Senjogahara tell that I was already overwhelmed by the skills test staring me down?

“Your mother? What are you talking about. I’m your girlfriend.”

“……”

The straightforward reply.

Her special move.

In a way, it was even deadlier than her acid tongue.

For me, at least.

“After I graduate… Hmm. You’re right, I do need to decide soon. Well, how about you, Senjogahara?”

“College. Probably on a recommendation and scholarship.”

“…I see.”

“Was saying ‘probably’ too modest of me?”

“By your standards.”

“Anyway, college.”

“College, huh.”

She said it like it was only natural.

Maybe it was, for her.

As with what she’d earlier, it was probably going to be a mystery to me for the rest of my life if I didn’t get it now, but I wondered how it felt like for a smart person to be a smart person.

She added, “The tuition issue certainly narrows down my path. Saying ‘fortunately’ might be too self-deprecating, but it’s not like there’s anything in particular I want to do, so I guess I’m letting that path guide me.”

“Well, no matter where you go, you’ll be you, I’m sure.”

“Right. But,” Senjogahara said, “I’d like to walk the same path as you if I can.”

“Er…that’s a little…”

I was honestly happy to hear that, but the laws of physics practically ruled it out…

Right, Senjogahara nodded. “Ignorance is a crime, but stupidity isn’t. Since it’s not a crime, it’s the punishment. If you’d only been more virtuous in your past life like me, poor Araragi, then this wouldn’t have happened. Now I know exactly how the ant felt as it watched the grasshopper freeze to death. Getting me to identify with a bug is no mean feat, mind you.”

“……”

Bear it…

A retort would only cause the knife to dig in deeper…

“Why not just let it go and drop dead?” Senjogahara continued. “Even a grasshopper becomes useful as a carcass when the ant deigns to feed on its nutrients.”

“Next time we meet, it’ll be in court!”

I couldn’t bear it.

I lacked the necessary mental fortitude.

“You say so, Senjogahara, but doing different things after graduation doesn’t have to mean not walking down the same path, yeah?”

“True. You’re absolutely right. But if I have a sudden change of heart in college because I’m going to co-ed mixers all the time, what will I do?”

“Ready to make the most of campus life, are you?!”

“In that case, should we live together after graduation?” she suggested all too casually. “That way, even if we’re doing different things, we might spend even more time together than we do now.”

“Well…that’s not a bad idea.”

“Not a bad idea? I don’t like your tone.”

“…Yes, I’d like to. Please, let’s do that.”

“You think?”

With that, she cast her eyes back down on her textbook in the most unassuming manner. She was acting nonchalant, and the timing of her remark had made it sound almost frivolous, but even someone as unobservant as me saw by now that she wasn’t the type to jest at such a moment.

This was Hitagi Senjogahara I was dealing with.

…Anyway, she seemed to be thinking two steps ahead.

Or instead of taking it that way─maybe I should receive it as a sign of Senjogahara’s earnest interest in our relationship. Not many high school couples took going out as seriously as she did.

Going out, though. What did that mean?

It was a verbal promise not backed up by anything.

Sigh.

It was no good. I’d never gone out with a girl before, so I didn’t just not know how to take the initiative, I had no idea how to react in my situation.

Not even the first clue.

May I ought to have played some dating sims.

They’d have served as reference, at least.

Then again, beating a game was one thing, while you could never “clear” reality.

“You’re sighing a lot, Araragi. Did you know that a small happiness slips away every time you sigh?”

“If that’s true, I’d have to measure my loss in K’s…”

“How many you’ve let away doesn’t concern me at all, but I wish you wouldn’t sigh around me. It makes me sick.”

“You’re horrible.”

“What I meant is lovesick.”

“…Er, as the straight man, I don’t even know how to respond to that one.”

I was even feeling a little happy.

A clever trap for the straight man.

“By the way, Araragi,” Senjogahara said, “I’ve never broken up with a boy before.”

“………”

No, this was an example of why wordings mattered.

She made it sound like she was a smooth gal with many suitors, but wasn’t she simply announcing that she had no prior experience whatsoever with men?

“So,” she continued at any rate, “I don’t intend to break up with you, either.”

Her expression remained placid. It didn’t shift even a little, not an eyebrow moving. It made me wonder if she had any emotions at all. But─she still had to be thinking about it.

Two years.

Since the time between middle school and high school, when she’d been neither a middle schooler nor a high schooler nor even on break, Hitagi Senjogahara had shunned all contact with other people. If she had forgotten how to interact with human beings, if she’d grown extraordinarily passive or unnecessarily timid─you couldn’t blame her for it. It was like dealing with a cautious stray cat─though Hanekawa fit the bill better as far as cats go.

Maybe neither of us knew how to take the initiative.

“…Hey, Senjogahara?”

“What is it.”

“Are you still carrying staplers and stuff?”

“Now that you mention it…not lately.”

“Ah.”

“I must have gotten careless.”

“Careless, huh?”

Well─you could still call that progress.

It wasn’t big enough of a change to make her a tsundere, but if that was her personality─

…Hm, by the way. Speaking of Senjogahara two years ago─

“Hey, weren’t you the star of the track team when you were in middle school?” I asked.

“Correct.”

“You don’t do that anymore?”

“Correct. Because there’s no reason to,” she answered pretty much instantly. “I have no desire to go back to that time in my life.”

“Hmph…”

Apparently, Senjogahara had been a nice, sociable person, kind to everyone, a hard worker, not at all stuck-up, the respected star of the track team in middle school─cheerful and full of energy. It was no more than a rumor, but I found it pretty credible.

That all changed right before high school.

Then, two years later.

What had changed about her was back to normal.

Back─but not everything, of course.

Certainly not if she lacked the desire.

“I don’t see the need or necessity, and above all, the good it would do me at this point, Araragi─there’s a lot more I have to carry with me now. I’m already a third-year, anyway. But why do you ask?”

“Oh, I was just interested in what you were like back when you played sports… And yeah, given the hiatus, I see why you might not bother.”

Just as cats meant Tsubasa Hanekawa, sports were now synonymous with Suruga Kanbaru for me, and I’d asked with her in the back of my mind, but…that’s what you called a brusque response.

You could say Senjogahara was facing forward─but.

Was refusing to look back the same as facing forward?

Senjogahara, I began to think, was still…

“Don’t worry,” she said. “I don’t need to play sports to maintain my figure.”

“…Hey, that’s not why I was asking.”

“You were drawn to these supple, carefree limbs that have never known a breakup, weren’t you?”

“Stop assuming that I’m after your body!”

And that phrase “carefree limbs”…

It was a bit much.

“Oh. So it wasn’t my body?” she inquired innocently. “I guess that means you can wait for a while.”

That’s what she wanted to say?

If so, it was so roundabout─and awfully devious, quite unlike her trademark straightforward approach.

Chastity, eh?

But it had to be about more than that.

“Araragi, I know you aren’t a shameless, stingy bastard who pays for an all-you-can-eat buffet only to wonder if you’ve ‘eaten your money’s worth’ and rushes to ‘try a little more so it won’t be a waste’ when it’s going to be the same price anyway.”

“……”

I wasn’t quite sure what her analogy was trying to imply, but it had to be some sort of pickoff move…

She was timid with people.

Prudent in her relationship with me.

Well, I was willing to go along with that.

I still didn’t get what going “out” with her was about, but if that’s what I was doing, then I was going along with all of her.

“…Oh, right,” I remembered─and decided that I needed to tell Senjogahara about Suruga Kanbaru. I’d kept mum not so much because Senjogahara might get worried over nothing, but rather simply to avoid annoying her, but interpreting Suruga Kanbaru’s motives in light of Hachikuji’s eminently grade-school take and the remote possibility that she was right, it didn’t feel all that fair, given my position, to withhold the fact from my (ostensible) girlfriend.

And I did have Kanbaru in the back of my mind just a moment ago.

There was something I was curious about, too.

“Hey, Senjogahara.”

“What is it.”

“Do you know Suruga Kanbaru?”

“………”

She replied with silence.

Or I should say, made no reply.

In terms of what was and wasn’t fair, my question itself probably wasn’t fair at all─I mean, who didn’t know about the school star, Suruga Kanbaru? The fact that she was stalking me would circulate as a rumor by the beginning of next week at the latest, if it wasn’t out already. I could rest assured that it would be treated as a false one─but that was precisely why my question took on an odd significance. I was suffering the silence I’d brought about and restraining myself from following up, when─

“Yes,” Senjogahara said, “Suruga Kanbaru. That name takes me back.”

“…Oh.”

So─they were acquainted after all.

I’d thought they might be.

When I mentioned my study session, Kanbaru had immediately named Senjogahara and not Hanekawa, who has the best grades in our year─and that wasn’t all. I’d picked up the same suggestion from various remarks that she’d made. The possibility that Hachikuji raised had eluded me thanks to my vague, no, clear sense that Kanbaru wasn’t after me, but some other goal─

“Is that why you asked me about middle school just now?” added Senjogahara. “Yes, she used to be my junior, in middle school.”

“Well, she still is. You go to the same school, don’t you? Or wait, do you mean that girl was on the track team in middle school?”

“No, she was on the basketball team from the time she was in middle school. ‘That girl’… You sound awfully close with her.”

In an instant, the look in Senjogahara’s eyes turned hostile. Normally free of any emotions at all, they now gleamed with danger. Not waiting even a second to see if I’d offer some sort of explanation, she took the mechanical pencil in her right hand and thrust it forward, the tip homing in on my left eye at an alarming velocity. My first instinct was to get out of its way, but even as she moved her right hand, she climbed over the low table on her knees, indifferent to all the notes she sent flying in the process, and used her left hand to cradle the back of my head, preventing me.

The tip of the mechanical pencil─was so close to my eyeball it seems absurd to say she stopped short of anything. It was so close I couldn’t blink, freezing me in place. In fact, I had to wonder if the left hand cradling my head was a considerate gesture meant to hinder extraneous movements on my part that might spoil her precision, that’s how perfectly orchestrated it was.

…H-Hitagi Senjogahara.

You might not be carrying a stapler now, but you haven’t changed one bit!

“What about that girl, Araragi?”

“……!”

Hold on!

Was she this jealous?!

It was almost laughable how committed she felt… And how did that even sound like we were close? I’d referred to a junior as “that girl,” no more. This was my punishment for merely knowing another girl without Senjogahara’s knowledge? What in heaven’s name was she going to do to me if I actually cheated on her?

While I did find myself in a ghastly situation, I was also relieved that I’d decided to tell her early.

Thank goodness─I’d learned about this side of Senjogahara through a case where I had plenty of excuses to give!

“You heal from injuries incredibly fast, right? So a single eyeball can’t be that bad, can it?”

“Stop, no! No, an eyeball would still be bad! There’s nothing here I ought to feel guilty about, I don’t see us as close at all, you’re the only girl for me, Senjogahara!”

“Oh, am I? I like how those words make me feel.”

And then─she pulled back the mechanical pencil. She spun it around a couple of times in her palm, placed it on top of the low table, and rearranged the scattered notes and textbooks. I tried to calm my still-pounding heart as I watched her.

“I might have gotten a little excited there. Did I surprise you, Araragi?”

“…You know you’re going to kill someone one of these days.”

“And when I do, I’ll make sure it’s you. You’re going to be my first guy. I wouldn’t choose anyone else. I promise.”

“Don’t spout scary stuff like they’re sweet lines! Listen, I love you, but not enough to be killed by you!”

“To be loved to death, to be killed by the one you love. Could there be any better way to die?”

“I’d rather take a pass on that kind of twisted love!”

“Really? That’s too bad. And I can’t believe you’d say that. If it was by your hands, Araragi─”

“You wouldn’t mind being killed?”

“…Hm? Oh, uh, well, I guess.”

“What a vague answer!”

“Well, um, I suppose I would?”

“Followed by a vague refusal!”

“What’s the big problem? Just accept it for what it is. If I were to kill you, Araragi, I would be the one by your side during your final moments. Isn’t that romantic?”

“No. If I’m going to get killed, you’re my last choice for the killer. No matter who kills me in what way, for me, it’s better than getting killed by you.”

“What? I won’t have that. If someone else ever kills you, Araragi, I’m going to kill whoever did it. Aren’t promises made to be broken?”

“……”

Her love was already pretty twisted.

I did feel loved, nevertheless…

“In any case, we were talking about Kanbaru,” Senjogahara tossed aside our frightening line of discussion and put the conversation back on track with her usual aplomb. “While we played different sports, I was the star of the track team while she was the star of the basketball team. Even though we weren’t in the same year, we did associate─and also.”

“And also?”

“Well, it’s not really worth mentioning now, but in our private lives away from sports, you could say that I caused her a bit of trouble, or maybe that I troubled myself over her… Wait, Araragi.” Senjogahara turned the subject to me. “What we should be talking about right now is why you brought up that kid. If you’re not guilty of anything, you shouldn’t mind explaining.”

“S-Sure.”

“Of course, if you were guilty, I’d have you explain anyway.”

“………”

Senjogahara might actually kill me if I tried keeping secrets from her, so I told her that Suruga Kanbaru had been stalking me for the past three days. A second-year who dashed up to me with a quick and rhythmical tup, tup, tup, tup, tup, tup, who rambled for a while, and who left without hinting at any objective at all─Suruga Kanbaru. She had to have one, but I didn’t know what it was.

As I explained this, I began to think.

Kanbaru was probably choosing moments when Senjogahara wasn’t around and coming up to me then. With the exception of today, when she dashed over my way even though I was with Hachikuji, she was basically lying in wait for me to be alone. In other words, it wasn’t by chance that Senjogahara hadn’t known about the stalking until now.

And there was something else I started to think about.

Wasn’t Senjogahara the one referring to Kanbaru in a familiar way? Calling her “that kid” even if she’d been a year behind in middle school sounded more than a little─no, maybe it was just a manner of speaking, too.

Just as Senjogahara’s emotions didn’t show on her face, they didn’t seep into her voice. No matter what she said, it was almost all in the same flat tone. You shuddered to fathom the strength of will she was exerting to control herself.

But─that kid.

“I see,” Senjogahara finally nodded after hearing most of the story. And yes, she still had the same expression and flat tone. “Um, Araragi?”

“What is it.”

“What’s flooded on top and in blazes on the bottom?”

“…”

Why a riddle all of a sudden?

Wondering when she’d turned into the kind of character who asked riddles, I decided to humor her for the time being. I knew the answer to this one, fortunately.

“A cauldron, right?”

“Bzzt. The correct answer is,” Senjogahara enlightened me in the same monotone, “Suruga Kanbaru’s house.”

“What are you planning on doing to the home of our school’s basketball star?!”

Now I was really scared!

Her eyes were so still, too!

“Jokes aside,” she said.

“Your jokes are no joke, okay? Not when you might follow up on them.”

“Really? But since you insist, Araragi, I’ll keep my jokes non-practical.”

“That’s only normal…”

“Kanbaru found out about my secret a year before you,” Senjogahara told me like it was nothing special─in her usual tone, only a tad irritated. “I’d just become a second-year, so it was right after Kanbaru started at Naoetsu High. Considering its location, I’d already foreseen that a junior who knew me would be coming to our school, so I’d thought about what to do─but with Kanbaru, I guess I let my guard down a little.”

“Huh.”

Hitagi Senjogahara.

The secret she’d borne─

I’d learned it by catching her after she’d tripped on the stairs─by chance, so to speak. But on the flip side, you could say her secret was so precarious that mere chance was sufficient to expose it. In fact, Senjogahara had told me I wasn’t the first to find out─so Kanbaru…

Knowing Kanbaru’s personality.

“I bet that gir…Kanbaru probably tried to save you or something, didn’t she?”

“Yes, indeed. Though I refused,” Senjogahara replied calmly, as if coupling those phrases were a standard construction, a grammatical staple. “I dealt with her the way I did with you. You tried to get involved anyway, Araragi. Kanbaru never came back after that. That was all our relationship amounted to.”

“…She never came back.”

So that was a year ago.

The refusal─must have been thorough. It must have been immeasurably more intense than in my case since Kanbaru knew about Senjogahara’s past as a middle school track star quite well. Otherwise─Kanbaru, given her nature, wouldn’t have given up without a fight. I recalled that according to Senjogahara, at the May eighth stage, when I learned her secret─the only person who knew about it at that moment apart from me was Harukami, the health teacher.

At that moment.

In other words, Suruga Kanbaru had noticed her secret in the past, but Senjogahara had forced her to forget. One of the poor victims…no, casualties─but had Kanbaru, of all people, really been able to forget about Senjogahara?

“…You were friends, weren’t you?”

“Yes, in middle school,” Senjogahara admitted. “It’s different now. We’re complete strangers.”

“But your…situation has changed compared to a year ago. I mean, we cleared up that secret of yours, so─”

“Didn’t I just tell you, Araragi?” she cut me off. “I don’t intend to go back to any of that.”

“……”

“That’s how I’ve decided to live my life.”

“Oh…”

Well.

If that was her decision about her own life, it didn’t seem like my place to butt in─at least that’s how the logic usually went. And Senjogahara wasn’t so glib as to offer to bury the hatchet with someone she’d rejected so harshly just because her condition had become a thing of the past.

“Still…” I said. “I get your relationship with Kanbaru, but that doesn’t explain why she’s following me around, does it.”

“She must have found out that we’re going out. We started dating two weeks ago, and the stalking started three days ago, so the timing seems to work out fine.”

“What? You mean she’s curious what kind of guy Hitagi Senjogahara’s boyfriend is…and she’s checking me out?”

“I think it’s something like that. Sorry for the trouble, Araragi. I won’t mouth any excuses. This is on me for not being able to liquidate my relationships.”

“Liquidate…”

What a word to use.

Knowing her, it didn’t even sound figurative.

“Not to worry,” she assured. “I’ll take responsibility for─”

“Don’t! Don’t take responsibility! God knows what you mean by that! This is nothing, it’s my problem so I’ll take care of it!”

“Why so shy? Don’t be so standoffish.”

“I’m just afraid you’ll turn it into a different kind of standoff…”

Hrrm.

In any case, or even so, it didn’t make sense to me.

“You shooed Kanbaru away in no mild fashion a year ago, right? And it’s been that way since? Would she still care if you got a boyfriend?”

“If it were an everyday case of an estranged senior finding a boyfriend, then sure─but this is different, isn’t it? Araragi. You did something she couldn’t, so actually I’m not surprised. The way she sees it, you succeeded where she failed.”

“Ah…I get it.”

She learned Hitagi Senjogahara’s secret…but was turned away, rejected, harshly and mercilessly. A little reasoning was all it took to arrive at the assumption that I, as the boyfriend, couldn’t possibly not know the secret, and seeing me by Senjogahara’s side even as I knew surely must have given Kanbaru some food for thought.

At the same time.

Kanbaru probably didn’t realize that the secret itself had been resolved. Because if her reasoning were that good, she’d have reached out to Senjogahara instead of me, or so I assumed.

“Hitagi Senjogahara was someone Kanbaru looked up to, if I do say so myself,” Senjogahara divulged, averting her gaze from me. “I knew I was in that position, and I did try to act the part. What could I do? I think there was nothing else I could do. So in rejecting her, I was extra careful to make a clean break─yes. But I guess the kid hasn’t forgotten about me after all.”

“…You shouldn’t say that like she’s annoying. She’s not doing it out of malice, right? And anyway, people forgetting you is a pretty depress─”

“She’s annoying,” Senjogahara declared without a shred of hesitation. “The presence or absence of malice isn’t the issue.”

“Come on, don’t be like that… If she looked up to you, and she’s still concerned about you…well, it might be weird to call it ‘making up,’ but don’t you have some room in your heart for her?”

“I don’t. It’s already been a year, it was in middle school that we were friends, and yes, it would be weird to call it ‘making up.’ I told you I’m not going back to any of that. Or are you saying I should walk up to her after all this time and apologize for making her wait so long? That would be the height of idiocy.”

Then, as if to close the door on that conversation, and also as if she’d just come up with something, Senjogahara changed the topic. She was, as always, slick.

“Oh, right. By the way, Araragi, do you have plans to meet Mister Oshino anytime soon?”

“Oshino? Well, I guess you could say I do…”

Maybe not Oshino─but I needed to let Shinobu drink my blood, and it was about time for me to go by that abandoned cram school. It was Friday, so I’d make some time tomorrow, or maybe the day after tomorrow…

“Okay. In that case.”

Senjogahara silently stood up, grabbed an envelope from atop her dresser, came back to me, and held it out. The envelope had a post office mark printed on it.

“Could you give this to Mister Oshino for me?”

“What is this… Ohhh.”

I realized as soon as I’d asked.

Mèmè Oshino─

That frivolous Hawaiian-shirted bastard’s payment for services rendered.

What he required to remove Senjogahara’s secret, the calamity that had befallen her─his remuneration, or simply put, his payment.

A hundred thousand yen, if I remembered correctly.

I checked inside to make sure, and indeed, ten ten-thousand-yen bills were inside. Exactly ten bills, crisp and probably fresh from the bank.

“Wow…you got that together faster than I thought you would. You made it sound like it would take you a while. Weren’t you going to take a part-time job or something?”

“I did,” Senjogahara said nonchalantly. “I got my father to let me help him out with his work. Well, I guess it’d be more accurate to say I forced him, but that’s how I earned the money.”

“Huh.”

Senjogahara’s father worked at some foreign company─and maybe that was the right choice for her? Regular part-time jobs didn’t seem suited to her personality, and our school forbade us from taking them in the first place.

“I was reluctant because getting help from my father somehow felt like cheating, but as someone who grew up in a family mired in debt, attending to money matters is a must. There was a little bit left over, so I’ll buy you lunch some time at the cafeteria. The food at our school is pretty good but reasonably priced, so you know, order anything you want.”

“…Thanks.”

Still, it was the cafeteria.

A weekday lunch break.

Did she not intend to go on a date with me, ever?

“But in that case,” I asked, “why not just go and give it to him yourself?”

“Nope. Because I hate Mister Oshino.”

“Understood…”

She was so direct about her savior.

What was mature about Senjogahara, though, was that she still felt grateful towards him.

Of course, it wasn’t like I loved Oshino, either.

“If I had my way,” she said, “I’d never meet him again, and I don’t want to have anything to do with him in the future. Not with someone who acts like he sees through people.”

“Yeah, I think you’re right that you and Oshino are incompatible. He has that frivolous and mocking attitude, and it clashes with your personality,” I said, placing the envelope next to my floor cushion. I slapped the envelope and nodded at Senjogahara. “Okay, I get it. If that’s how it is, I won’t say another word. I’ll take good care of this, and I’ll be sure to give it to Oshino the next time I meet him.”

“I appreciate it.”

“Yup.”

Then I thought─

Compatibility.

Attitude.

Personality.

Wasn’t that second-year Suruga Kanbaru’s out-of-left-field character─the exact flip side of Senjogahara’s? In terms of compatibility, attitude, personality, and everything else.

Senjogahara had been the star of the track team in middle school.

Moreover, she’d been admired. The worshipping gazes that she’d drawn─couldn’t have been Kanbaru’s alone. In that position, Senjogahara had played a certain character─she must have played a character that was the polar opposite of her current verbally abusive, acid-tongued self.

Abuse and flattery.

Acid tongue, soothing tongue.

Polar opposites.

Flip side.

Which meant.

“So, Araragi.” Senjogahara’s eyes were devoid of emotion. “Let’s get back to studying. Are you familiar with Thomas Edison’s famous observation? He said that genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration. A great quote, worthy of a genius. But I bet he thought the one percent was more important. Don’t they say that’s about all that separates a human’s genes from a monkey’s?”