Monogatari Series - Volume 24 - Chapter 2.35

035

I put a front tooth in the post outside the house before I went to where big sis Hibari lives. If you ask me if I was making a little prank, I would say no.

It was not a prank. It was for mummy, and for the uncle who lives with us – the uncle who lived, then stopped living with us, it was an act for revenge.

I am admitting it.

I am no longer an innocent little child.

I made a decision to move out as soon as I became a grown-up, and similarly, I made a decision to take revenge on that kind of people when I become a grown-up.

I am not like big sis Hibari. I think big sis would think she has a father who believes in her, even if she had already left home.

If somebody were to see the human tooth in the post, they would be frightened. Because it would be like getting bitten when you are getting your letters.

At first, I thought about putting all the teeth that fell out into the post, but then I thought it would be too scary, so I thought I would put half the teeth into the post.

Putting in half the teeth into the post is still too scary, I thought.

In the end, out of twenty teeth, then ten, then five, then three, I cut the number in half until I decided to put in only one tooth.

The tooth was the front tooth that fell first.

The reason why I chose this tooth was because it was the first one to have rot – if you look closer, you will find marks of it having a cavity before. Big sis Hibari took me to the dentist for this tooth. If he saw this, he would probably recognise it to be my tooth, but I was not thinking of that back then.

But, as frightening as this revenge plan is, even though it scares even me, it was in the end a quick, casual plan – if I were to go to sis’s address from the car park I hid for one day (I did not have money, so all I could do was walk there without any money), I would have to pass by the house no matter what, so I wanted to have a reason, I wanted to make myself brave enough so that I could walk past there.

It was a revenge plan I did do.

I did something that I did not need to do at all. I am reflecting on this. For my shameful revenge to cause big sis to be suspected as a kidnapper was something I had never ever thought of.

I am a bad girl.

I am a bad grown-up.

The gods did punish someone like me in the end. While I was walking at night, I became a lost child (not a lost child, a lost grown-up?), and it took me a long time to get to big sis’s block of flats (I am not sure if nobody saw me), but Hibari was not home.

Entering the place even though she was not there feels very wrong – but I have not eaten anything in two whole days (even though I am used to not eating much), and I am tired from having been walking a whole night. If I stayed in the walkway naked, I think that would not have been a good thing either.

I thought it would not be too long before she came back. I could not wait for sis to see me grown-up now.

In the kitchen, I saw a set of children’s silverware, which I think sis bought them for me when I go there and visit her.

It was very touching.

But it was silverware that I could not put to my use. That was because I was now the same age as my big sis. I felt a little happy at the thought of that.

I ate the things in the refrigerator, and I helped myself to the bathtub in the flat. I have been feeling cold ever since I was naked, so I lent some clothes too. There is an air-conditioner inside the flat, but I do not know how to use it.

By the way, big sis Hibari’s place really has ‘planty’ of stuff inside, it felt like it was paradise.

Unlike my house, I could make myself very comfortable here (the emergency stairs that I thought were comfortable before were in the end only emergency stairs) – I felt if I stayed in this place here, I can take all the time I want in waiting.

But even after waiting and waiting, big sis never showed up.

Even after a few days.

I got scared once again.

Could something have happened to my big sis, I wondered. Maybe some would say these are foolish thoughts, but a part of me thought that in order for me to have become a grown-up, big sis Hibari had to turn into a child in some way.

So, I have to save her.

Now, it is my turn to protect Hibari – I started looking for clues as I held on to that incorrect train of thought.

I pretended that it was like the detective stories I had been reading in the library.

I only checked the computer last. Because I cannot use those things well. The uncle who lives together with us sometimes uses one for work at home, but I only saw him using it a few times – however, after I had looked around the entire flat, this computer had become the last chance I could maybe find any clues.

The password on her computer was Benishouga.

Damn you, Hibari-onee-chan.

I did not want to save her as much as I did any more – but, however, I saw a ? on the corner of her email blinking, and my sense of responsibility came back to me.

I am not sure what an email looks like, but I can see from the words that the uncle who lives with us has been arguing with my big sis and has argued with her.

There were lots of kanji I could not read, and I do not know all the details, but it looks like they think I had become kidnapped.

Someone in the same year as Hibari had found the clothes, the teeth, and the backpack that belonged to me. Why would that guy go to some place like that?

So there are people who go and do something so strange.

And also, my sis has become a suspect – the uncle who lives with us, Hibari’s ‘real father’ was now angry.

Would that make me a relative of the criminal? He said some really bad words to her – sis’s real father is really mad at her now.

I could not look at it any more.

I have to tell big sis that I am fine, but I have no idea how to send an email. If I press the wrong buttons, this machine could blow up into pieces, and plus, what should I write in that email? How should I tell her that she is now suspected of being a kidnapper even though that is wrong?

Do they give kidnappers the death penalty?

Even so, I wanted to send an email without the computer blowing up, so as I ‘manuvered’ for results, I learnt to read the things sent between my big sis and other people.

There was someone called Shounou Mitono.

I do not know who this person was, but in the middle of this, I found the name of the person who went to the emergency stairs.

He is in the same year as big sis is.

The guy is called Araragi Koyomi.

All I can do is meet with this person. I will just have to ask him the things I had missed from the emails. Because it looks like they have never met each other, I thought if I dressed up and pretended to be like my big sis, I could get him to tell me everything.

I am pretending to be Hibari. I am Hibari.

I know this was not the right time, but I started feeling giddy at the thought.

Maybe the thing I wanted to be was not a grown-up, but Hibari, I thought this thought to myself.

Anyway, in order to avoid Araragi Koyomi-san realising that I am the younger sister as well as a child, I must look more grown-up, and looks as much like big sis Hibari as I could.

If I wore the clothes that was in the closet, I would definitely look like big sis Hibari.

Clothes that look grown-up…I can probably find that on the computer. I may not know how to send emails, but I know how to do a web search. It is something that is easy.

A computer is like a magic box that can teach me anything. This computer is paper-thin though. A magic paper?

I wonder if I can search for anything else through it.

It would be for later. An exit path.

If I am making trouble for big sis Hibari, I could not stay there forever…I have to escape from this place.

But, where can I go? Where can I go to go back?

I do not have anywhere I can go, nor do I have a home to go back to.

Having become a grown-up, there is nothing more I can become any more.

Because I am already grown up.

For me, everything is over already.