Monogatari Series - Volume 22 - Chapter 4.03

003

“Ah… Araragi. Why the hell are you here…”

That was what I wanted to say.

Well, no, for a line that sounded like it was spoken to someone who was supposed to be dead, it wasn’t something I could say—it was unmistakably something that Oikura Sodachi should say.

After all these years, I’d once again fallen into a chance encounter with my childhood friend that I’d broken ties with. Once again.

How many more times in my life would I break ties and then reunite with her?

The location was Town Hall.

In preparation for leaving the Rumors Squad, I’d entered the stage of transferring the duties I’d been tasked with. Part of that was submitting various documents, so I’d gone to each section of Town Hall on my own—it was something akin to the work Hanekawa had done when she was erasing her personal history, but in any case, to my surprise, I found Oikura working at one of the positions.

She’d tied up her hair and put on glasses, working with an expression that made her look like a proper accountant—well, I did know that she’d been studying as much in college, so she certainly was a proper accountant, but even so, she looked more like she was performing the role of an accountant in a play.

To the point that it left me dumbfounded when I stood at the window to submit my documents… Eh? How do you have a job here like this? And not to mention in your hometown, in a government job among government jobs, said to be tougher than the police—

“I… I was worried about you. I was wondering if you’d be out on the streets somewhere by now, Oikura…”

“Don’t cast me out on the streets to your own benefit. You wanna die?”

Even though she looked like an accountant, it seemed her personality hadn’t changed much—well, just to me, at least. I see, so after she graduated from college, she came back here to her hometown—hmm.

Although, if she took the civil service exam after that… I guess she loved studying no matter how old she got.

“What, Araragi? You became a police officer…? An assistant inspector? A career man? Compared to me, in the local government, you’re working for the national government? Why, why are you always one step ahead of me…”

“Um, it’s not like I was trying to be one step ahead of you… And in terms of the qualifications needed to be an accountant, I was the one that failed.”

To tell the truth about that, we’d crammed for the exam together. For a certain reason, I’d failed, although it was a long story. Well, to be frank, my mathematical skills had collapsed before I’d turned twenty—though the term mathematician may be too extreme, as Oikura had managed to get the qualifications to become an accountant, I honestly considered her the victor in the mathematics race.

“Heh. I wouldn’t even mind calling you Euler, now, if you want.”

“Don’t mess with me. I cut ties with you two years ago on October 13th, didn’t I? Don’t try to build it back up little by little. I despise you.”

“Whoa, whoa. It’s not like I came here to invade your workplace. …Do you want to get lunch together? There’s something I want to get your advice on.”

“Sure, I’ll hear you out. You can wait over there until lunchtime.”

Though she sounded like she was trying to start a fight, she accepted.

In a way, she was someone that it was useless to cut ties with… I see, haven’t I technically broken up with Oikura more than Senjougahara Hitagi, my girlfriend?

It was impossible to hide my surprise that such a coincidence had occurred. But if I thought about it, since we’d both grown up in this town, and since Oikura had likely been working at Town Hall since our college graduation, there had probably been a lot of chances for the two of us to meet during my training period, both of us being public servants.

I’d found myself at Town Hall dozens of times over the past four months for various reasons—perhaps we’d passed each other in the hallway without noticing. No matter how low the probability was, with this many chances, we would eventually have met—that was also something based on mathematics.

Considering that the probability of running into Oikura was overall higher than running into Kanbaru at the hospital, I could even say that reuniting with her just before I was about to leave town occurred later than it should have.

Whether it was fate or not.

Fortunately, I had a mountain of other documents to submit at other sections until Oikura’s break—though I didn’t remember up to the exact date, it would be around two years since I’d last eaten lunch with her.

It was a long story, but it would be the first time “since that one case”.

Simply put, the first time since Hitagi and I first broke up—or, strictly speaking, was it since the second time?

The third time I reunited with Oikura was in a college classroom. I’d wondered what sort of strange twist of fate this was, but it turned out that it was one of Hanekawa’s arrangements—it seemed Hanekawa had been concerned for Oikura in various ways, even after she’d transferred out of Naoetsu High. In one way or another, she’d encouraged Oikura to move onto college—and while Oikura’s academic abilities exceeded mine overall, the selection of colleges with mathematics departments was small. So, to put it bluntly, our third reunion was also inevitable, in a sense.

While I’d been commuting to college from my parents’ house, Oikura had been looking for a place to stay. She’d been having a lot of trouble, as she couldn’t pay rent and didn’t know any guarantors—and when I let my parents know, “Then call her over to our house,” were the instructions I was given.

I hadn’t broken out of my rebellious phase just yet, so I couldn’t just follow those instructions.

But I half-acknowledged that it was different from when we were in elementary school, and I couldn’t just leave a troubled Oikura alone, seeing as I still felt like I owed something to her—I knew she’d fight back against me (that is, refuse) if I asked her directly, so I took the roundabout way of getting my sisters to invite her. And thus, for the first time in seven years, Oikura ended up living at the Araragi household.

That was when we’d studied accounting together.

It was our first study group in a while—but it was soon discovered by Hitagi-san.

I had thought it was barely safe to allow a childhood friend, one that I had no interest in as a member of the opposite sex, a place to stay at my house, but it seemed to Hitagi that this was totally out of the question.

No, I was definitely wrong in this case. There wasn’t anything more wrong than this. It was the worst blunder I’d committed at the end of my teenage years.

Of course it would lead to our first breakup.

It was thanks to Oikura that we were somehow able to repair that relationship—it was Oikura that went to great efforts to get Hitagi and I back together again. That is, her efforts actually meant threatening Hitagi and I by saying, “If you don’t make up, I’ll jump off from here and kill myself”, and there was also some cooperation with Hanekawa, who’d been a “ordinary celebrity” at the time (she was just a volunteering girl and not yet an activist), to mediate between us.

She’d immediately left the Araragi household, too.

Hitagi, who hadn’t been perturbed by the threat of suicide, still ended up feeling guilty at having taken away a working student’s place of residence, and though we didn’t immediately repair our relationship from that, it still gave us a chance to meet and talk things out.

In the end, Hitagi and I returned to normal, and we were able to carry on with our fun campus life for a bit, together with Oikura—it really was fun, at least until our second breakup occurred.

Our second breakup.

We’d broken up for an extremely stupid reason.

And, probably because she felt that the do-or-die efforts that she rarely showed to others had gone to waste, there was no one angrier at this breakup than Oikura.

Or, rather than being angry, she may have just been disappointed.

And though I’d managed to reconcile with Hitagi after that, we never once exchanged words with Oikura on campus until our graduation.

That was the fourth time we’d cut ties.

We’d moved on from college with a bad aftertaste left in our mouths, and had little reason to learn what had happened to Oikura after that—until this very day.

She’s just working normally, isn’t she!?

Well, I hadn’t actually thought that she’d be out on the streets… But I was still relieved.

This was something I just had to tell Hitagi about—was what I’d started to think, before I remembered that I was in a huge fight with Hitagi at the moment.

We were in the middle of our third breakup.

I guess…. I should probably… tell Oikura, huh.

Shit, why did we have to meet at the exact time I broke up with Hitagi? All these bad things that occurred recently really felt very “Oikura Sodachi”-like—although, I shouldn’t be blaming everything on Oikura.

“Thanks for waiting. Let’s go, Araragi. I put aside exactly thirty minutes to deal with you.”

“Well, thank you very much. Is there a place you usually go for lunch? I don’t really know this area too well.”

“What a disgrace. Even though it’s your hometown.”

“Well, all the sights are completely different from how they used to be. They’ve built shopping malls and stuff. C’mon, I’ll treat you.”

“I’d rather die than have you treat me to a meal.”

So she still said stuff like that even at the age of twenty-three… Maybe it was too early to feel relieved about her, but in any case, as we were both employed, I was fine with splitting the bill.

Oikura led the way into a cafe by the Town Hall. I’d thought that it was a place she frequented due to the reasonable prices, but it turned out that it was her first time coming here.

“I don’t want to bring you anywhere I go frequently,” she said.

She really hates me, huh?

I prayed that this was a place that Oikura wanted to visit from a while back but found it hard to come alone—and, betting on that possibility, allowed her to choose what to order.

“So. What? What do you want? From me. From someone of my caliber.”

“Er, well, I was thinking I’d apologize for what happened two years ago—but that’s not really it.”

“Of course it isn’t.”

“To be honest, I didn’t think you’d cut ties with me over that much, back then… But I invited you out to lunch because I was surprised. To see that you were still alive… I mean, to see that you were working at the town hall.”

“Don’t get all surprised to see that I’m still alive. Why would I be dead?”

“Why would you be dead… From the bottom of my heart, it makes me extremely happy to hear you say that.”

“Hmph. Well, it’s not like I made a U-turn back here because I loved this place so much. It’s not like I really consider this my ‘hometown’ in the first place… Since I moved around a lot. And I don’t have any good memories at all,” said Oikura. “But when I decided that I was going to become an adult from now on, that I was going to become a member of society, then I could only think of one person as my role model.”

Role model.

In my case, it was my parents. But for Oikura, her parents were not those kinds of parents—in fact, she most likely had a strong desire to not become like those adults.

However, if there were any other adults… She didn’t even admire any teachers from school. If you took into account the circumstances of why she stopped attending, school was not a fun place for her at all.

After thinking as much, I suddenly understood.

“Ah, I see. When you were living in that apartment, you were looked after by that Town Hall employee, right? Even after you transferred out of Naoetsu High… That’s why.”

“Don’t make me out to be so simple. I resent that.”

She’ll get mad no matter what I say.

She could hardly be considered an adult as she was now.

Was it too early for her to have gone out in society?

“For the record, and I’ll just say it outright, I don’t have the tiniest bit of any kind of admirable desire to care for kids so that they don’t turn pitiful like me. This is just for my own self-help.”

“Why would you intentionally go out of your way to say something so unlikable…”

What an easy-to-understand tsundere.

Well, a tsundere past the age of twenty was really just a nuisance… but I couldn’t help but think about how much easier it would be if Hitagi was this easy to understand.

“Haaah. If only I was in love with you, instead.”

“What’s with those utterly repulsive words? Go die, and then apologize for ruining my mood. By the way, I’m constantly thinking about how I’m glad that I hate you.”

It seems that she could be honest at times. When she’s hating me, at least.

But anyway, it was good that she had a mostly steady reason for her steady job.

I wondered if she’d ever met back up with the Town Hall employee that had been in charge of the Oikura household—it would be wonderful if that would bring forth a teacher-student relationship, but it was probably a bit intrusive to ask something like that.

I’ll save it for next time.

“Where do you live now?”

“And why do you want to know my address? What are you trying to do to me?”

“Don’t be so obviously suspicious of me. I don’t know about now, but after you left the Araragi household, didn’t you constantly move from place to place? What, will you die if you don’t keep moving?”

“You got a problem with that? I was desperately trying to keep you and Senjougahara and Hanekawa-san from tracking me down.”

“If you ask me if I have a problem with that, and that’s your reason, then yeah, I do have a problem. …And you, of all people, add ‘san’ to only Hanekawa’s name, huh?”

“You can’t refer to ‘TSUBASA HANEKAWA’ without honorifics, after all. …Last month, even Town Hall was in a huge uproar.”

“Really? Well, that makes sense.”

In fact, it was probably more hectic for Town Hall than it was for the police.

They’d be the ones to handle all the procedures.

“Did Hanekawa ever come to visit you?”

“No. When I broke off ties with you two, I did the same with Hanekawa-san, too.”

“Well, it’s another thing entirely to be involved with her now.”

“She probably doesn’t even remember me anymore. Why do you say that?”

“Never miiind. I’m just jealous that you could cleanly cut her off like that.”

Although it didn’t seem like she forgot about you. She probably even knew about Oikura working at Town Hall and was just playing dumb.

“So, Oikura. Where do you live now? What place are you renting out?”

“Don’t be so stubborn about my address. Are you planning on burning my place down? I’m calling the police.”

“Although I am a policeman. If you want, I’ll set up a police box near your place.”

“Don’t do anything unnecessary.”

“I can actually put in a request for an officer at a police box to do a focused patrol. My connections are worth that much.”

“What, to protect me? Or to keep an eye on me?”

“I’m sincerely worried about you.”

“Shut up. Make all your cardiopulmonary functions stop working.”

In spite of her abusive language, it seemed that it got through to her that my concern actually was sincere, as she told me that she wasn’t renting.

“I bought a place. With a government employee loan. They say purchasing a house is better in the long run.”

“……”

Was that really okay?… No, wait, it’s way too premature to decide that…

In the debate between whether renting or buying was better, both sides had their reasons so I couldn’t really say either way, but when I heard that Oikura had bought a house (especially with a loan), it completely got rid of any impression of steadiness I got from her. But I’ll hear her out to the end.

It may end up that I’d have to cooperate with her not just as a childhood friend but also as a police officer, but I’d do anything for Oikura… As long as this idiot was happy…

“What… What kind of property did you buy?”

“It was like a haunted house that was mostly run-down, so it was fairly cheap… It’s all right, no need to stand up. It’s already been properly renovated.”

“I don’t know if you know about them, but nowadays there are these things called ‘renovation scams’…”

“Don’t treat me like I’m the biggest fool in the world. It’s a place you know about, too. It’s the house I lived in when I was in middle school.”

“……”

That—I did know about. A place I visited dozens of times.

The place where Oikura and I had spent our quietest years—for Oikura, they were certainly some of her most turbulent years, but I see, she decided to purchase that house.

If it was in that state, then even someone in their early twenties could easily afford it. Or rather, to put it clearly, she was resolving the problem of a vacant house as a member of Town Hall—which was perhaps even good enough to be granted a bonus.

Although renovation didn’t exactly sound easy…

“Regardless, you’re the same as ever, hurting yourself like this… How is this self-help? You’re just returning to where you started from. Do you really like going back to square one that much?”

“I’m the opposite of ‘TSUBASA HANEKAWA’. I’m going to live by taking back my past.”

Oikura Sodachi spoke as if making a vow.

“I’ll paint over my memories in my own colors. I’ll build a new family in that house. Although unfortunately, I don’t have a partner yet—that reminds me, Araragi. How’s it going with you and Senjougahara these days?”

“Well, if you want to keep your remodeling costs down, you can call me. We can do our best with DIY stuff to get it down cheaply. It might sound a bit shameless for me to say this, but I do have a lot of memories in that place. I’d like to leave a bit of my own color there, too.”

“Don’t try to so shamelessly avoid the question. Didn’t you two come back here together?”

“You seem to be under a misunderstanding, but I haven’t exactly returned definitively to my hometown yet. It’s just for my training period…”

“Do you think I’ve forgotten how to use this fork?”

And she tightly gripped the cutlery in her hand—I had the feeling I was going to learn exactly how she was going to use that fork.

I guess there’s no choice. The time had come for me to tell her.

Though I’d been able to sort of bring good vibes to the conversation through reminiscing in spite of our unexpected reunion, I wasn’t sure if she’d cut ties with me after I told her, but I knew that it wouldn’t be good if I didn’t tell her properly… I told Oikura everything about my present situation, Hitagi’s present situation, and our present situation.

The three of us, who had at one point been a trio, had all but fallen apart now—and as expected, when Oikura heard all of it, she held up her fork like a dart, pointed it at me, and… didn’t throw it at me.

Instead, she laughed, “You’re so dumb,” as if she was amazed—almost as if she was enjoying it.

Well, if this ended just with her exposing the bad side of her personality and not with her cutting ties with me once again, then I was glad.

Perhaps it helped to highlight the fact that it was a completely different reason from when we broke up the first time because of Oikura. Because she hated when something was her responsibility.

I knew my childhood friend’s personality very well.

“But really, it’s like that, isn’t it? Something so run-of-the-mill. Surprisingly, couples seem to break up more not when they go to college but when they get jobs. Upupu.”

“Hey, a laugh that can hardly be considered human is leaking out.”

“Didn’t you two discuss this? When you were job hunting. If one side is aiming to work overseas, and the other is aiming to work as a government official, then it should have been obvious that you two would end up going in separate ways.”

“Miraculously enough, we decided at the time to cheer for each other. And just like that, she was charging on ahead getting qualifications in the finance industry. I wanted her to get a job where she could use that to the fullest.”

“What a progressive mindset. I would also cheer for any woman who chooses to work. No matter how much that woman spreading her wings overseas looks down on me for returning to my hometown.”

“I don’t think she looks down on you, though… She was also worried about you, you know? About what happened to you after graduation.”

“She was probably just curious about if I’d been left on the streets.”

“Well, I can’t deny that.”

“Deny it, will you!”

And after being laughed at for quite some time by Oikura (she sure is something), she finally asked, “…But, what are you planning on doing?” as if showing a bit of concern for me.

It’s too late to react like that now.

And it was only a bit. And she was still half-smirking.

“In the end, isn’t it a pretty lethal thing to fight over? With the way things are now, it just seems like either you or Senjougahara will have to quit their job and change where they are. So? What’ll it be, what’ll it be?”

“Don’t say it like you’re trying to corner me. If you’re assisting with citizens’ needs like that, you’d be a terrible government worker.”

“Oh, please, ‘citizens’? And don’t worry. Even like this I can properly keep my public and private lives separate. Hello, thank you for waiting! How may I be of assistance?”

“Wow, the difference is amazing.”

If she can do a proper customer service smile, then I’ll approve.

“If only you would quit your job and move overseas and then break up catastrophically…”

“Hey, your secret desires are leaking out.”

“I’m making sure my wish doesn’t come true by telling it to someone else.”

“Telling your wish to the person in question just makes you unbearable.”10

Well, there was no need to emphasize it again. It was a situation where we couldn’t just reconcile halfheartedly—no matter what, a critical decision was necessary.

“If only you two just broke up forever.”

“Just stop wishing for anything about me. Don’t even wish me well.”

“If I had to say it, Araragi, Senjougahara’s path sounds pretty clearly decided, while yours seems pretty uncertain. As for what you want to do… Will you return to your hometown, or will you launch yourself to the big city? Since you’re working for the national government, if you’re thinking within all of Japan, your footing isn’t really solid, yet, right? I’m just a local government employee, so it’s easy for me to decide to just plant my roots here. And I bought a house and all.”

After having bought assets and having become a property owner, she sure was acting like she was above me… Well, to be honest, it was surprising to see that Oikura was in a much more solid situation than I’d expected.

Although, unlike with Kanbaru, I didn’t get the feeling that she’d gotten ahead of me.

“In that case, I can see why you think it’d be better for me to be the one to move overseas.”

“No. I think it would be better if you died.”

“It’s a shame that I really enjoy talking with you. Should I come visit Town Hall every day after this?”

“If you do that, I’ll abuse my authority and have your personal history be erased.”

“Don’t actually abuse your authority like that. Although rather than abusive (ranyou), you’re deranged (ranshin).11 On a regular basis.”

“Can I be serious with you for a moment? My wish is for you to move overseas, break up catastrophically, and then be left out in the streets in some foreign country.”

“Rather than being serious, this has actually gotten rather severe. That is, your personality.”

“If I’m going to grit my teeth and seriously consider your futures, then I can only say that you’re going to have to take care not to get caught up in any transient emotions. Like when you took pity on me and made me live with you.”

“…That’s right.”

If I wrote a letter of resignation, it wasn’t unlikely that Hitagi would use that as a reason to break up with me.

Though she wasn’t as thorny as she was as a teenager, she was still a close friend of Hanekawa’s, and thus a girl with strong convictions.

“Although, for someone like her, if you talk to her in a reasonable manner, Araragi, then I don’t think she’d be reluctant to return to Japan and get a job in her hometown. She’s a girl that’s starved for affection, after all.”

“That’s an awful way of putting it. But I don’t want her to quit her job because of me. I feel like it would be terrible for the world at large if we allowed something like that to happen.”

“That’s a very government-official-like way of putting it. You want to set an example for the world? In that case, Araragi, if you decided to go out on the streets for Senjougahara’s sake, wouldn’t that also set a bad example?”

“Don’t try to force me out on the streets at all costs. It’s like you’re doing everything you can to put me there! At least let me get a job overseas! I can even stay with my sister at first.”

“That’s a super lame thing to say… But anyway, regardless of whatever the world thinks, you should really think about Senjougahara for her sake. Because she’s not ‘TSUBASA HANEKAWA’—hm? Thinking about it, if she erased her past, then even that name shouldn’t be valid anymore… What should we call that honors student from now on?”

“Well, she is a cat. We can just say, ‘as yet she has no name’—or I suppose ‘no longer does she have a name’. But if I think about Senjougahara for her sake, I can’t exactly tell her that I want her to come back to Japan.”

“Then you can just break up.”

Her words felt like a slap to the face.

Oikura wasn’t saying this with the intention of trying to hurt my feelings or punish me—she was just stating the obvious in an obvious manner.

Those words could even be spoken as an employee of Town Hall.

“Well, regardless of whatever either you or Senjougahara decides to do about your job or career, the fact of the matter is that neither of you are kids.”

“Neither of us are kids, huh? Well, that’s for sure.”

A twenty-three-year-old that didn’t care about his partner would be better off just breaking up then and there. In my teenage years I would’ve thought it would be hypocritical to break up with someone for their sake, now that I’ve gotten to this point, I can’t say that I agree completely.

“Considering she spent the best parts of her youth on you, it would be criminal to have her sacrifice her twenties, too. Just saying.”

Oikura pulled out her cell phone—and, after tapping on the screen, she held it out to me.

On the screen was her address book.

It was apparently a request to go ahead and put in my personal information… So cutting ties for the fourth time was officially canceled.

“Don’t make any decisions right now, okay? Because that would just make me feel responsible. Just make a follow-up report. I’d like to laugh like this again. One smile, please, my personal Mr. Clown.”

“……”

“What? I can abuse my authority to collect all your personal information, anyway. Do you want me to become a criminal?”

“Of course I don’t. But I can’t help that I can very clearly envision a future where I’m putting you in handcuffs. I want to send in a letter of resignation to avoid that.”

“For the record, it’ll be better if you don’t use my opinion as a reference. Like I said before, it’s not like I have a partner.”

And after that, Oikura suddenly spoke as if she thought of something.

Her words were like a surprise attack.

“Maybe… if both of us are still single when we hit our thirties…”

“Then?”

“Let’s strangle each other to death.”

What a lovely proposal. If that meant I’d get to quarrel with her all the way to my thirties.