Monogatari Series - Volume 24 - Chapter 2.16

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As far as the five circles theory goes, Beniguchi Hibari should be ‘a friend of a friend of a friend’, but now that she’s actually a university classmate – I felt buzzed about the hand fate has dealt me.

It’s the kind of uneasiness that you find when a ghost story ends with ‘it’s you!’ – truth really is stranger than fiction.

One can say it’s not only out of the ordinary, it’s odd.

Then again, it’d be quite the tale if it was the same high school, but there are far more people at university, and I don’t know if she’s in the same department as mine, so I guess this kind of coincidence really isn’t that much of a surprise –

But, to boldly proclaim moving out, then to end up in nearby Manase University, of all places…she could easily move into the metropolises and make it big herself, but the distance between that town and Manase University is such that, if one wills it, it is easily within commuting distance.

Driving to school can be said to be a preference, and I want to move out at some point too, so maybe it’s not that strange a choice…could it be because she’s worried about her little sister?

Much as she wanted to move out, she doesn’t want to go too far – it could be she wanted to be able to return home quickly in case of an emergency, so she ended up picking MNU.

‘The sort of distance where the soup wouldn’t get too cold – well, with how derelict the family is, consider it lucky it hasn’t frozen. Look, we’re here, Mister Vampy.’

Ononoki-chan’s summary of her investigation left me surprised, as well as uncomfortable, as we reached the parkade.

The multi-storey car park.

I parked my car on the rooftop…although it’s always better to pay less since they charge by the hour, I can’t jump in and drive away just yet.

This is, for now, the last search location, so I have to do a thorough check…even if I come home empty-handed, at least I have the comfort of knowing that I tried.

So maybe I should start from the basement? I think the only reason why I thought that was because I had the word ‘sneak’ in my head one too many times…

‘Since we’ve been on the same boat, I may as well help you with the search here too. I want something to do.’

She probably wanted to help in order to wipe away the shock in seeing what the Beniguchis were like…an admirable work attitude, that.

Compare that with me, someone who sneaked into the Hanekawa residence and came back home weeping and needing my younger sister to console me…thinking back on it, what a pathetic sight that was.

With no reason to refuse her, I went to the floor plan with Ononoki-chan, before going our own separate ways and commencing our search.

If the small girl flies out from nowhere, then what we’re doing is akin to something hunters do – no, that’s not right; as I’ve said before, that sort of phraseology would only get mistaken.

This isn’t a big multi-storey car park, but there are a lot of cars parked around here, which makes for an abundance of blind spots…two storeys from the ground up, one storey beneath, plus the rooftop, how many cars does that make?

Assuming fifty cars a floor, that’d make it two hundred?

It may not be full because it’s night time, but if we went through all the blind spots, car by car, then even with two of us, wouldn’t it take until at least dawn to finish checking? No matter how speedy Ononoki-chan is…

That’s fine though. If we have to continue through the night until dawn, then we shall.

Regardless of whether we can find anything, it’s the most we can do through the night – though speaking of which, the interior of the car park is mighty dark in the underground level, and even the lights flicker; truly an ideal situation for a game of hide and seek.

I’m honestly amazed at how I didn’t think to search this place to begin with – you really can’t see what’s under your nose, or under the lamp, for that matter.

Of course.

I wouldn’t say something regretful along the lines of ‘I should’ve looked around here first’. It’s not like I’d find Benikujaku-chan here anyway, and after that, even having had Shinobu do some hard work, I still would’ve had to run around the entire town.

I’d still probably end up doing the same things but in a different order – looking around the car park, flying around town, then running around town.

Like a snail.

No, by what I said above I didn’t mean I failed to find anything in the parkade despite our efforts.

I did manage to find something.

But it was that something that made me think I’d do the same things again – flying, gliding, and running, albeit in a different sense.

It can be concluded that Benikujaku-chan was found in the emergency exit area on the first floor of the carpark – more accurately, we found a part of Benikujaku-chan and her belongings.14

On the landing between the first floor and the rooftop, there was a school backpack, a child’s blouse, a skirt with suspenders on it, underwear, socks, indoor shoes, and a bright tulip yellow hat. There was also something else:

Nineteen teeth scattered across the floor.