Monogatari Series - Volume 24 - Chapter 2.15

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I’ve checked all the places according to Hachikuji’s advice, even the places I’d normally never think of, but there’s one place I’d forgotten to check which is the very beginning – the parkade.

How unusual of me, you could say, or you could also say it’s very like me to make such a mistake.

Whichever way you choose, the fact is I left the parkade as soon as I parked my New Beetle, so I couldn’t say I’m sure I checked everywhere around the twenty-four-hour multi-storey car park – I’ve always had in my head that I’ve started from Municipal Primary School No. 4, but once I think about it, that parkade should be where the search had begun.

I’ve never managed to put ‘year five child’ and ‘motor vehicle’ together…to have missed this, even when Hachikuji specifically warned me about things like that, rather misses the point of her giving out advice in the first place.

And on top of that, to set the parkade as ‘somewhere that’s already been checked’ whilst I was jogging, I’m hopeless…I may brag about being prepared, but as it turns out, there’s still one place I failed to account for.

It would then seem that in addition to this parkade, there were many other points that I missed – I guess even with a few cheats on, someone new in town will still mess things up.

‘But isn’t this a great lead? A car park is a great place to hide in. There’s loads of blind spots, and it’s perfectly suited for kids to play hide and seek in.’

‘I wouldn’t say it’s perfectly suited –’

The sheer amount of blind spots also mean it’s a disaster magnet if a child does hide around – yes, it is a rare occasion for me to suddenly think of a new location to look for before leaving town, but it’s a place where I don’t want to find anything. Call it my instinct.

I don’t want to see anybody hiding in there.

But, it is ultimately true that its distance from the Beniguchi residence and the school make it an ideal hiding spot.

The parkade.

More specifically, a multi-storey car park with two storeys and one basement floor, without any staff – presumably it’s used mainly by the people who live around here.

I’m pretty sure the Beniguchis don’t park here though…but on the other hand, I don’t see a garage at their house whilst I was there.

‘They do have a garage. There’s even a car parked inside – it just looks like scrap though.’

‘Scrap?’

‘Looks like it’s never been driven in years, or even maintained, for that matter…I couldn’t imagine it passing inspection in that state.’

Ononoki-chan said as she walked straight ahead.

Given that she knows where the car park is, she could’ve easily left me behind (with her ‘Unlimited Rulebook’), but she doesn’t seem to be planning on doing that – it seems she’s letting me take the lead.

Right now I have the urge to start running to the car park, but I can tell if I started doing that, I’d stall and sputter quite awkwardly…if I did run, I’d probably be out of breath by the time I reached the car park.

Eh, before I actually get there and act on it, now that I’m calm and cool, I could readjust my condition and listen to what Ononoki-chan has to say.

We’re now far away from the Beniguchi residence after all.

‘So I guess you could say the dismal car’s a sign of things to come. Once I got into the house, I started to wonder if there’s even anybody living inside it – er, how do I put this…’

‘Could you mean it’s like a hoarder’s house?’

As far as hoarding goes, there’s one example I can think of from experience, and that’s Kanbaru Suruga’s room – if that sort of mess stretches to fill an entire house, then it would’ve been an unbearably sorry sight.

The kitchen would be unimaginable.

Then again, if the parents treated their children with neglect, then the same mindset of ‘abandonment’ could apply to their possessions, so I guess it’s at least consistent…?

‘But’, Ononoki-chan said, ‘it doesn’t look like a hoarder’s house. It looks empty. Uncomfortably empty.’

‘Empt –’

‘Not in the sense of a newly-inhabited house. I guess “abandoned” is the right way to put it. It’s like the house was built, and then it’s just sat there – you see what I’m getting at?’

If you ask me if I get it, I’d answer no…I’ve never heard or seen anything as peculiar as that before.

A new old house.

They say if a house doesn’t get lived in, then it gets hurt…but then, for the Beniguchis, where do that family of four spend their lives in?

‘Maybe they don’t live there at all. Maybe they devote their lives to some other place – I don’t mean this is their second house, but as in they spend the bulk of their lives at work or in school.’

‘……’

Could that random baseline guess of Benikujaku-chan spending most of her time at school be accidentally true?

No, not only true, I think it might be on the dot.

Not that it makes me happy.

‘I say it’s empty, but it’s not completely devoid of objects. But let me ask you something, Mister Vampy. Do you get it when I say everything feels cluttered despite having barely anything?’

I wonder what unbelievable sight she just saw as Ononoki-chan put that question to me in her flat voice…she may sound as expressionless as ever, but I can hear her seething from her heart.

Everything feels cluttered despite having barely anything…

Definitely out of the ordinary, I’d say.

Kanbaru’s room is unkempt because it’s chock full of stuff, but if you ask me to imagine the opposite, then frankly, I can’t.

I’d probably have another panic attack if I actually saw the house’s interior with my own two eyes…

‘Mm. So, Ononoki-chan, does that mean the parents aren’t there? Or that you didn’t see them?’

‘They’re fast asleep. In the bedroom. Is it a bedroom, that? It’s empty save for a couple of easily-transportable thin mattresses. And the father and mother don’t share a room.’

A piece of intelligence that sent chills down my spine – even though this wasn’t some supernatural tale at all.

Sleeping in separate rooms – I think that’s called living separate lives under the same roof? No, it’s not a must for wed couples to sleep in the same room; that’d be too premature a judgement…but there’s a bigger elephant in the room.

Even though their daughter is probably kidnapped, or at least definitely missing, they’re still sleeping soundly; they didn’t even realise they had an intruder. That’d be the bigger problem in what they’re doing – or what they’re not doing.

Since they’re fast asleep.

‘……’

‘Speaking of blind spots, there aren’t any in the house. I thought sneaking in would be the difficult bit, but that wasn’t the case at all – the reason why I say there aren’t any blind spots is because there isn’t much to see in the first place. But since I couldn’t find the things we wanted to find, I wouldn’t say I’ve made any progress. Yet at the same time, I’d imagine what I’ve relayed to you was plenty helpful, right?’

It was plenty helpful indeed. Plendifermaxigargantuapocalypticalifragilisticexpialidociously helpful.

That explains why she high-fived me when I ended my jog – there’s a reason why the investigation was done so quickly.

On that, there is a strong possibility that the front tooth was placed in the postbox on the very first day she went missing…with that family leading that kind of life, they probably don’t check their own postbox daily.

If they discovered it on the second day, but it got thrown in on the first day…then there’s little meaning in searching the parkade.

‘…Let me just confirm something. Is it true that, in addition to the parents’ rooms and the living room, both daughters’ rooms are next to empty too?’

‘Mm. But there are signs that both sisters shared the same room.’

So both daughters have a room they can call their own – and don’t sleep on the corridor, for that matter.

Of course, this isn’t consolation at all…though the chances that they shared the same room comes as a bit of salvation amongst all this mess.

The parents sleep in separate rooms.

The sisters spend their time in the same room.

Compared to what I heard from Higasa-chan, maybe the two sisters shared more amity than I thought.

‘That would make the older sister leaving the younger sister alone an even more pertinent lead – by the way, Mister Vampy. I might not have been able to find much on Transistor Slender, but I’ve got some pretty solid info about where the older sister, Hibari, ended up in.’

‘Eh? But I’d imagine we’d find out less about her. Since she moved out.’

‘When I say “info”, I meant leaving a mark. There’s some traces of paper that was once stuck on the wall.’

‘Paper stuck on a wall? You mean a poster?’

‘Not quite. Didn’t you remember, Miser Vampy? You were a university candidate up until spring. Didn’t you write one of those motivational sheets of paper that you then stuck on the wall? With “Standard score 25 or bust!” written on it?’

‘That’s a very low bar.’13

But now I see, that kind of paper.

Well, you could say it’s something like a talisman…I personally don’t have fond memories related to talismans, so I never made that kind of self-encouragement artefact, but it seems popular if you’re a candidate – a candidate?

‘So the sheet’s still there in the sisters’ room?’

‘The sheet itself’s gone, but she probably stuck it on before the ink dried, because I can still see what’s written on it. Hibari’s an impatient one, it seems.’

‘…But to stick that kind of thing on, then peel it off, doesn’t that mean Beniguchi Hibari was studying for uni? That means – ’

She wasn’t employed, nor was she on an overseas trip; she would be studying right now, at university, right? Then again, she could’ve failed miserably, and tore up that sheet of paper in fury…

But, even if we know she’s at university, we don’t know which. I heard that Japan alone has over seven hundred universities – and of course there’s a non-zero chance she decided to study abroad, so the possibilities are endless.

So I guess we have to ask Mitonon…this isn’t something I want to do. I don’t want her knowing that I’m acting on my own, nor do I want to involve her.

‘The fact that her name is seemingly getting set to “Mitonon” aside, I don’t think we need to do that, Mister Vampy. I don’t know if she passed, but I do know what her first choice was.’

‘How?’

‘Here’s what she wrote on the wall: Manase University or bust!’