Monogatari Series - Volume 24 - Chapter 2.03

003

Isn’t this too secret a secret!?

Isn’t this something not even the journalists are allowed to report on!?

Isn’t this too much for this room!?

Even as I fired off my three-pronged retort, Higasa-chan gave no hint of regret – not even with a triple retort? Should I grab my retort shotgun and let her bathe in retort bullets?

No, actually, if I had a hunting license, I wouldn’t hesitate in showering everything around me in bullets – it’s a kidnapping.

Of a year five primary school girl.

She did mean someone snatched a year five schoolgirl, right?

Please tell me you only meant to say someone snatched a fiver.

If this was a mugging (a mere fiver, too), then I can at least think of things I can do.

To bring such a case into my personal space…I would’ve preferred something less intense.

‘Oh, she’s not actually my friend. She’s a friend of a friend’, Higasa-chan corrected.

That’s not making it any better.

A friend of a friend…you hear this a lot in urban legends.

‘However, for something like this, saying “a friend” lends urgency, doesn’t it? Besides, if someone’s a friend of a friend of mine, then they’re basically my friend.’

She revealed a sentimentality I’m envious of.

Wouldn’t it be great though, if instead of ‘a friend of a friend’, it’d been ‘an imaginary friend’?

If someone still devoted time to their imaginary friend in their third year of high school, I can still marginally accept it – much better than a year five schoolgirl getting kidnapped.

‘When I mention Araragi-senpai to people, I’d never say you were the senpai of a friend, I’d just say you’re my friend. That’s all there is to it.’

‘Can we please stop at “senpai of your friend”?…I feel it’s for the best if we had a bit more time to figure out what to call this relationship…’

Never mind a semi-regular, couldn’t we have found a way to make her only a guest star limited to the last episode?

There must be a way.

‘’Fraid it’s too late. My hair’s all over Araragi-senpai’s bed now. Surely this is irrefutable proof of our friendship?’

‘Isn’t that proof of something beyond friendship? You may find doing this amusing, Higasa-chan, but I would advise not letting yourself be readily mistaken.’

‘Oh my. Araragi-senpai giving advice on morality, how unlike your reputation.’

‘Don’t talk reputation, when I was in high school, I didn’t even have a nickname…’

‘That said, I will heed your advice. It’s an old weak spot of mine. I’ve always had a thing for clever boys. If some guy comes first in a test, I would stop at nothing to approach him. Though for some reason, it’s been the cause of some misunderstanding, and all those boys who got first never seemed to keep that spot for long.’

A devilish charm.

Thank goodness I never made it to the top…

‘And since they outlive their usefulness once they’re not at the top, I go after his successor.’

You’re the one who’s philandering now, aren’t you?

Stop making all the men around you fall; be it falling for you, or falling in their grades.

They don’t climb their way back up so easily.

‘Higasa-chan, I think it’s best if you left my house right now.’

‘O the humanity! Araragi-senpai, abandoning a year five schoolgirl!’

If this was the Naoetsu High School Girls’ Basketball Club at stake, then maybe my answer would’ve been different, but threatening me with a year five schoolgirl that came out of nowhere doesn’t achieve the same effect…

Anyway, I’ll let Higasa-chan reflect on the extent of her sins when she’s on her deathbed…now that I know of this, I can no longer pretend that I don’t.

A kidnapping.

If it’s staying in this room, then I don’t mind hearing more about it – is it happening as we speak?

Right now, right here?

‘Right now indeed. The hottest news item there is; well, I say hot, it’s still a secret. If the police know, then that girl might lose her life.’

‘And Kanbaru never told you who my parents are?’

‘Ah yes, speaking of hot, I do find myself particularly suited to hot pants. I have the fullest confidence in my legs, though not in the same way Ruga does. So when the time comes for my copyrighted image, I don’t want a version of me in uniform, I want to see me in hot pants. That is my one heartfelt wish.’

‘Copyrighted image…’

So this kid’s trying to get herself onto the anime scene too – trying to get yourself on the cover of Newtype, are we?

And for her to be this off-topic right now – whatever happened to secret hot news?

‘Apologies, that went somewhere completely different. Ah, right, speaking of going off-topic, I’m a natural at lower body reflexes. I might not be as flexible as Ruga overall, but I dare say I can arch backwards better than her. Observe my superb pose!’

‘Can you not do a reverse arch stretch on my bed?’

‘Why’s it called a “shrimping stretch” in Japanese anyway?2 Surely this looks like it’s arching in the exact opposite way as shrimp do. Oh, and this all happened in the next town over.’

‘The shrimping?’

‘The kidnapping.’

Oh right, the kidnapping.

I thought she was about to introduce me to some local delicacy – I was getting ready to cook some kakiage tempura.

The next town over…that’s not nearby at all.

We aren’t in some giant metropolis, so a single ‘town’ covers quite a lot of land…of course, the same applies to ‘the next town over’.

I don’t have a good feeling about this.

Well, it’s not really ‘a feeling’, it just ticks all the boxes…I’ve recently had many chances in solving cyphers with Meniko in uni (see? I don’t just hang out with my juniors), so I’m used to picking out something from nothing.

A year five primary schooler.

The next town over.

A kidnapping – that is to say, she’s missing.

‘You sure she’s not just – lost? Y’know, the sort of thing where the parents love their kid so much they kick up a fuss saying their child got kidnapped as soon as a few hours tick past their curfew?’

‘Wouldn’t a few hours still be sufficiently worrying? In the state of Hawaii, it’s illegal to leave a child under the age of twelve alone for more than a few hours.’

Who told you to bring up Hawaii?

The next town over isn’t that far away.

‘This stays in this room’ is going global – but well, when it comes to having a law compelling parents to keep watch over their children, speaking as someone who now has the vote, I do support it in principle.

‘Just like me, I always keep an eye on young girls.’

‘Isn’t that something quite different…? If anything, it’s more of a crime if you don’t keep your eyes away from them’, Higasa-chan said, bemused.

‘It’s hard to tell. I don’t think it’s a lost child’, she continued.

But for me, I really did mean something completely different…for the blonde, gold-eyed young girl sleeping in my shadow, as soon as I take my eyes off her, I’d have no idea what she’s up to.

Although I guess the same goes for any young girl.

Every young girl – every year five girl.

‘By the way, I found three mistakes in Araragi-senpai’s speech just now.’

‘Why are you trying to sound like a famed detective…’

Are you trying to take over the whole series?

Becoming a main character in those hot pants?

‘First, it hasn’t been hours since she disappeared, it’s been days.’

‘Well, if that’s the kind of mistake I made, then there’s no need to elaborate on the oth –’

‘The second mistake –’

My admission of defeat went unnoticed as Higasa-chan carried on…looks like she’s the kind of person who likes pointing out people’s mistakes.

She’d make a good detective.

‘That kid’s family doesn’t have their own curfew.’

‘Hmm. Isn’t that quite progressive? To treat a child as an individual, not as some body double to be micromanaged. Shows they care about autonomy.’

‘The third mistake, by extension, is that there aren’t any overprotective parents at all – and the fourth is, they didn’t kick up a fuss.’

Since when did you add in a fourth mistake? – this seems to mirror my own life somewhat (it is expected for my number of mistakes to stack up with a geometric progression); however, the fourth I cannot ignore.

They did not kick up a stink?

‘So – what’re they up to? The parents, I mean.’

‘Nothing in particular…well, they’re probably equally confused and have no idea what to do.’

‘…What?’

Ah, I see – so they received a ransom call from the kidnapper (or do they just text a ransom note these days?) that said if they called the police their daughter would come back in a body bag, or said they had to keep it a secret from everybody, and just live life as they do?

It’s not that they aren’t doing anything, it’s that they can’t do anything.

Is that’s what’s going on here?

‘No, I don’t think anybody’s approached them this specifically, but even so, without any contact, they don’t think telling the police is a good thing. Uhh, where to start…’

Higasa-chan said, her face frustrated (all the while still arching, so you could say she’s frustrated while holding a frustrating pose).

‘Wait, am I allowed to say this?’

She tilted her head.

Of course not, right?

‘Ah shit~ I was getting all up and close with Araragi-senpai that I blurted everything out. You’re really good at letting people’s guards down~ As expected from the son of a family of detectives! You really are the Great Huntsman Koyomi!’

‘I have never gone by that name.’

Besides, my parents may be police officers, but they aren’t detectives…not that there’s any use in squabbling over that mistake.

This slow, oblivious Hysterics-chan, no, Higasa-chan only realised she said too much just now. I thought she’d know when to shut up.

‘Well, I guess there’s no going back. If one is having poison, might as well lick the plate clean – if one is spitting venom, might as well spit the plate out, too.’

It seems she’s going to let everything that’s supposed to ‘stay in this room’ out – I just hope she doesn’t actually spit any venom.

That’d be the job of my childhood acquaintance.

I don’t want to imagine a world with two of them.

If Higasa-chan stopped telling me about the thing that’s supposed to ‘stay in this room’, then I would’ve had to use my last resort (that is, to make her fall for me using my seduction technique – which is to say, tears falling down my face) to get to the bottom of it…this is, after all, shaping up to be a highly delicate case…however, since she’s willing to keep going, I’m not going to stop her just yet.

You could blame it on curiosity, or simply plain ol’ FOMO – whichever it was, I’m in.

I’m involved in this case now.

‘Relatedly, Araragi-senpai, could you keep this a secret as well? If you don’t tell anyone, I’ll send you some sexy photos of mine as a reward.’

‘Have you not had any lessons in digital literacy?’

‘Where were we again?’

‘We’re talking about how you’re retarded, we’ve just been through this.’

She could probably outstupid Kanbaru.

If there’s something I’ve learnt at uni, the world really is full of all kinds of people; I just hadn’t had the displeasure of knowing about them before.

‘Ah yes, I finally remember now, clever me. I’ve just said “where to start”, which in the script would be on page 175.’

‘So this is all lines from a script?’

I thought she was troubling herself over what to say, but turns out she’s reading all this from a script…the 175th page, no less.

We’re pretty far in, aren’t we?

‘Also, I still have no idea on even the basics of the case. I don’t even know the name of the year five primary schoolgirl who got abducted.’

‘It’s Beniguchi Kujaku-chan [紅口孔雀, lit. “Peafowl Redmouth”].’3

I guess anonymity never crossed her mind.

She just blurted out her full name.

I thought she wouldn’t have out of privacy…or could it be an alias? Though ‘Beniguchi Kujaku’ isn’t the kind of name you’d make up in the spur of the moment…of course, I’ve never heard that name before.

She might be ‘the younger sister of a friend of a friend’, though for all I know she could be the sister of one of the members in the Girls’ Basketball Club; but if memory serves me right, there weren’t any ‘Beniguchi’s in that list she gave me earlier.

‘When it comes to odd family names, I don’t think Araragi-senpai’s one to comment. What do you think about shortening it to “Benikujaku” [紅孔雀, lit. ‘red peafowl’] though? Seems easier that way.’

‘It’s so easy I don’t think I’ll ever remember her full name…’

‘That said, you really are impressive, Araragi-senpai. Quite the instincts you have. It is true that there are no “Beniguchi”s in the Girls’ Basketball Club, but on the first part of “a friend of a friend” – this “friend” was a basketball player herself. She’s part of the original basketball team. Like me and Ruga, she’s in her third year of high school.

‘She’s part of the OG Club I’ve introduced to you earlier, remember that?’ – Higasa-chan said.