Monogatari Series - Volume 2 - Chapter 4.1

Chapter 4- Nadeko Snake

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Nadeko Sengoku was my sister’s classmate. I have two little sisters, and Nadeko Sengoku was friends with the younger one. Unlike the current pathetic state of my personal relationships, I was a fairly normal kid in elementary school as far as how many friends I had, but even back then I suppose you could say that while I enjoyed playing with everyone, I never enjoyed playing with specific someones. So I might have had fun with my classmates during recess, but I rarely did anything with them after school. What an unpleasant kid. Unpleasant to talk about, unpleasant to think about. In fact, I would prefer to not do either. Still, you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, or maybe the other way around, but either way I’m trying to say that I’ve always been like that. Which is why I’d always go home right after school, even though I didn’t take any lessons, and I’d sometimes find Nadeko Sengoku at play when I got there. My two sisters are now attached to each other, side by side no matter when, where, what, or why to the point that I am more creeped out than worried, but back in elementary school they tended to act on their own. The older one was the total outdoorsy type, while the younger mostly stayed indoors, and about once every three days she would bring a friend from school over to our home. Nadeko Sengoku wasn’t particularly good friends with my youngest sister, but more like one of her many friends, I imagined. I qualify that statement with a somewhat uncertain “I imagined” at the end because I don’t remember that time in my life very well to be honest, but when I try, of the friends my little sister used to bring home, I at least do remember Nadeko Sengoku. That’s because, coming home without having played with my friends, I ended up having to play with my little sister (My two sisters and I shared a room back then. My parents only assigned me my own room once I started middle school), mostly to liven things up by filling an open spot in a board game or the like, but I’d be called over with ridiculous frequency if Nadeko Sengoku was the one my little sister was playing with. In other words, my little sister had lots of friends (This can still be said about both of my little sisters, but they’re both incredibly talented when it comes to standing in the center of attention. I couldn’t be any more jealous, as their older brother), but out of all the classmates she brought home, Nadeko Sengoku was the rare girl who liked to do things on her own. To be frank, all of my little sister’s friends seemed the same to me, but I would of course remember the name of the girl who was always on her own, at least.

Her name was about it, though.

Yeah, I didn’t remember much, after all.

And so I’m going to have to apologize for appending yet another uncertain qualification, but Nadeko Sengoku was a reserved girl of few words who constantly looked down at the floor─I thought. That’s what I thought, but, well, I don’t know. Maybe I’m describing another one of my little sister’s friends, or maybe one of my own friends at the time. When I was in grade school, actually, I always found it annoying and irritating when my little sister had friends over. Add to that the fact I was forced to play with them, and of course I’d be left with a poor impression. When I look back at it, it must have been more annoying for those girls to have to play with their friend’s older brother, but in any case, that was in the past, so please understand a grade schooler’s sensibility. Once I started middle school, my youngest sister invited friends over less often, and even when she did, stopped inviting me to play with them. There was the fact that our rooms were now separated, but there must have been some other, bigger reason. That’s how things are. Most of her personal relationships must have been wiped clean when she graduated because both of my little sisters ended up going to a private middle school. Nadeko Sengoku was my sister’s classmate in grade school, but not now, because they went to different schools. So─it’s more than two years ago that I last saw her according to the most favorable estimate, and in truth it’s probably more than six.

Six years.

More than enough time for a person to change.

At least, I thought of myself as having utterly changed. Even when I say I was always like that, back then and now just aren’t the same. Taking a look at my elementary graduation photo album or the like now is just too painful. I know I just said something about a “grade schooler’s sensibility,” but comparing my high school self to myself in those days, I wouldn’t dare argue that I am now better or superior. We tend to look at the past through rose-colored glasses, yes, but what’s cringe-worthy here perhaps isn’t my grade school self, but the person I am now as seen by the grade school me. No, embarrassingly enough, even if he and I ran into each other in the street, we wouldn’t recognize the person standing in front of us as ourselves.

I don’t know if that’s a bad thing or not.

Not being able to boast of my current self to my past self.

But sometimes it’s like that.

Maybe we’re all like that.

Which is why when I met Nadeko Sengoku again, I didn’t realize it was her at first─it took some time for me to remember. If only I’d noticed immediately, or even a little faster─if I’d noticed that she was entwined with a snake, perhaps this story wouldn’t have ended the way it did. A poignant thought, but it’s not as if my regrets mean anything either to her or to the aberration. To start this story off with its conclusion, it seems as though Nadeko Sengoku, a friend of my little sister’s whom I barely remembered, ended up a unique someone that I could never forget.