Monogatari Series - Volume 20 - Chapter 1.21

021

After that, I went home (just one leap with the Unlimited Rulebook, easy as pie) and snuck under the sheets of the bottom bunk so Oikura wouldn’t notice, while Ononoki slipped back into my sisters’ room.

I treated it like a joke without meaning to, but leaning on Ononoki to revisit Kanbaru’s home probably wasn’t what Black Hanekawa and Shinobu were recommending at all.

We’d formed a common front a number of times in the other world, and she’d saved me a few times too, but partner didn’t describe Ononoki’s relationship to me─she has a master she serves as a shikigami.

A more partnerly partner─a violent onmyoji fighting polar bears at my world’s North Pole right about now. I had no idea what she was doing in this one (maybe she fought penguins at the South Pole, I hear they’re pretty tough), but it didn’t seem right to ignore her and make Ononoki my partner.

Ononoki and I were already allied to some degree during my audience with Shinobu─if milady was suggesting that I turn to the shikigami, why advise me to seek support in that scene?

Who the heck were they talking about? I pondered the question but got nowhere because this time, I managed to go to sleep. I had the faint hope that this was one of those stories where you woke up to learn it was all just a dream, but my expectations were for naught.

“Koyomiiii! It’s morning, it’s morning! Wake up, you big old sleepyhead!”

I had to wonder if it was a dream after all, a convenient and far-too-embarrassing delusion, when Oikura woke me up with a cheerful flying splash.

Ah, so Oikura, not Karen and Tsukihi, roused Araragi awake every morning in this world… My earnest wish had come true of having a childhood friend who would do just that.

Moreover, the custom persisted even after I graduated, a fact that didn’t apply to my cruel little sisters.

“C’mon, get out, I need to change! Or do you want to see me changing? Oooh, such a dirty mind, but I wouldn’t mind if it’s you. Look!”

“S-Stop it, you idiot. You’re gonna make me sick,” I said, leaving the room in a flurry─make me sick might come off as overly harsh, even with family, but I seriously didn’t need that from Oikura, who’d drawn the shortest straw of all in this otherwise lukewarm setup.

Really? This was another side of her?

But when I turned around for an instant to close the door, Oikura had her back to me and both hands on her head.

As if her actions were making her wonder: Is this really who I am?

A negative influence brought on by me, as Shinobu put it─as someone who lived under the same roof, in the same room, Oikura would have spent the greatest amount of time with me. Perhaps that influence was felt most strongly by her.

Yikes, I needed to hurry if that was the case. As cringeworthy as she was, I didn’t want to ruin her bright, cheery life as part of a happy family. Ruining her life three times was enough already.

“Oh, Koyomi! Good morning!”

I crossed paths with Karen on the stairs.

Seeing my already-short sister down them made her look even littler.

She seemed to have gotten out of the bath but wore outdoor clothes─was she planning to go out so early?

“Yep. I’m gonna have fun with Sodachi today!”

“Oh… Well, show her a good time, will you?”

“Excuse me? And who exactly are you to her?” Karen gave a sarcastic chuckle, but seeing her now, I almost wanted to do the same─no, that’d be rude.

She’d always worn a tracksuit when not in her school uniform, but sure, she was free to wear a skirt─wait, was this yet another aspect of her inner self?

A rough girl like her wishing she could look cute was like something out of a manga… I swore to myself that once I made it back to my world safe and sound, I’d be a tad kinder to her.

“See ya,” I said, then walked down the stairs and passed her. Well, even if her appearance and fashion choices had changed, her core personality had stayed more or less the same. In that sense, she seemed to be in better shape than Oikura.

It made me wonder just how much of her emotions my childhood friend had been suppressing, just how much of everything she was keeping bottled up inside.

Where was she now, and what was she up to? All of a sudden, I was worrying if she was okay─and realized that I seriously needed to ask myself why Oikura, who’d left for another town, and Hanekawa, who’d gone overseas, were still here.

My vague, initial thought was that if this world was flipped around, then the girls who’d left were flipped around into still being here. That interpretation fell short if we took Miss Serpent’s inside-out theory, though.

What exactly did you need to turn inside out for Black Hanekawa and my housemate, Sodachi, to stay in town? Thinking, I entered the bathroom.

It was to wash my face, and of course to check the bathroom mirror, but there stood Tsukihi, naked.

Was someone always naked in our house? What kind of home did I live in?

Sadly, it was a question I needed to ask not just in this world but in my original one too… Tsukihi seemed about to take a morning bath after Karen.

“Oh my. Good day to you, my brother,” she greeted, and for a moment I suspected she’d undergone a change as well. But this little sister of mine could never be so refined on the inside. I figured she was only messing around as usual.

“Don’t you good-day me.”

“What, need to brush your teeth?”

“No, I’m washing my face…”

I checked the mirror as I spoke. Standing at an angle meant seeing Tsukihi reflected in it in nothing but her panties, so it felt like a joke, but in any case, it was just a regular old mirror.

I remembered what Oikura said about reflectivity─and indeed I could tell the nude Tsukihi in the mirror and the actual nude Tsukihi weren’t identical.

They say that the ink stands out more in manga e-books, clearer than in print, but was it that kind of a difference?

Reflectivity… I got oddly hung up on the word─but maybe I only felt partial and lingered on it because it came from Oikura’s lips.

It was just simple trivia about mirrors, right? She said standard mirrors are about eighty percent reflective, but what about non-standard ones? Were there hundred-percent-reflective mirrors too?

Would this world be different if I’d passed through one of those? Maybe I only thought this thanks to how inconsistent and sloppy around the edges, how eighty-percent-finished this world seemed…

“What’s wrong, Koyomi? Aren’t you gonna wash your face? I can’t take my bath until you do.”

“Why not? You can, either way. Actually, it’d be easier for me to wash my face if you went in.”

“Fine, I get it. Say no more. You want your adorable little sister to wash your face, don’t you? Okay, then get ready.”

“For what? I’m washing my own face, obviously.” I pushed her aside to stand in front of the sink─only for her to reach over my shoulders from behind me like in some skit.

“I’m not good enough for you, huh?” she said.

“Why are you turning this into a shojo manga? With me as the heroine, too.”

“Bellyflop!”

Gluing herself to my back like a baby koala, she hooked both of my arms as if she’d be attempting a backbreaker next. She wasn’t Karen, though, and didn’t know the first thing about martial arts. All she did was work the faucet.

With such force that a good amount of water came rushing out… She sure lived in this world the way she turned the correct handle, unlike me.

“Now let’s get you all nice and clean!” she said, scooping warm water into both hands and washing my face─doing a surprisingly proper job of it despite her comedic posture.

A very versatile young lady.

It felt strange to have hands, or rather fingers that weren’t my own touching my face. She repeatedly squished and squashed the meat and flesh that clung to my skull─hmm.

“Your hair’s really in the way. Why don’t you cut it?” she asked.

“Like you’re one to talk. I bet we look like a yokai from behind.”

Or from any angle.

“Gah, big brother, get outta my way. I can’t see the soap. Could you use your mouth to take it from the dish and drop it into my hands?”

“Why should I after being treated like an obstacle? And with my mouth?”

In spite of my retort, I, the ever-kind older brother, grabbed the soap with my mouth. Tsukihi made a lather with it in her hands, then returned it to my mouth.

Don’t use my mouth as a soap dish.

When I spat it out, it fell into the sink, so the pooled water naturally turned soapy even as it swirled towards the drain.

“Close your eyes, okay? You could go blind.”

“Maybe if you got bleach in them, but that kind of warning is unwarranted over face soap.”

“No, it’s because this is my first time washing someone’s face. I might poke your eyeballs with my fingernails.”

“It’s a little late for that warning.”

“Eat lather!” yelled Tsukihi, covering my face in soapy bubbles─as powerful as her scream was, her hands were gentler than before. She seemed pretty good at this for her first time, but apparently wasn’t satisfied. “Hmm, I don’t know… Maybe I’ll go ahead and borrow Sodachi’s foam cleanser.”

“No, you shouldn’t─glurp! Glorp!”

She really made me eat lather.

You mustn’t try to talk when your little sister is washing your face, but it was my first time too, you see.

“Well, I guess I’ll let you off with this for today. I wash your face of you!” she said, starting to wash the soap off my face. The water had been running this entire time, and when I opened my eyes a crack, the sink was full and on the verge of overflowing.

I’d have shut it off with my hand if I could, but Tsukihi had tied up my arms with her own─fine, I just had to use my mouth again.

As I did…

“Grrf?!”

The foam was mostly gone from my face, but I still made that noise─actually having eaten lather.

I opened my eyes.

Right below─was a pool of water.

Closing the faucet calmed its surface, but it was soapy thanks to the bar I’d dropped, and opaque─increasing its reflectivity.

In other words, I saw my own face reflected there, albeit imperfectly, as my little sister washed it. And that face looked at me.

With a smirk.