Monogatari Series - Volume 25 - Chapter 4.01

Chapter Eye- Mayumi Red Eye

001 

Doujima Mayumi was a member of the Pretty Boy Detective Club. Just from the name “Pretty Boy Detective Club”, it sounded like a rather suspicious and puzzling organization, but I couldn’t help but admit that learning that such an organization existed in this world was very much a new kind of surprise for me, as a male high school student. Well, each land had its own strange features, after all. If my town could even be visited by a vampire, then it perhaps wasn’t any different to be visited by a pretty boy, as well. 

Be that as it may, the Pretty Boy Detective Club was a group that was formed within a middle school, and if I were to look for a similar concept from my own surroundings, then, embarrassing as it was, I could only think of the unit of justice formed by my two sisters, Araragi Karen and Araragi Tsukihi, known as the Fire Sisters, and that made it easier for me to imagine such an unfamiliar situation. However, while the Fire Sisters in their own way were a pretty unfamiliar bunch to begin with (and the fact that I could call my own sisters unfamiliar was something I should probably take seriously, but I’ll put that problem aside for now), there appeared to be one major difference between them that made them fundamentally incompatible. 

Because, if the aim of the Fire Sisters was righteousness. 

Then the aim of each and every member of the Pretty Boy Detective Club was beauty. 

Righteousness was not always beautiful, and beauty wasn’t necessarily always righteous—and, for a minion of darkness like me, I couldn’t even begin to imagine where to start distinguishing between the two. 

However, if it was a matter of distinguishing them, then, even among the Pretty Boy Detective Club, the member named Doujima Mayumi seemed particularly suited to that task. 

Because she was someone who happened to have exceptional eyesight in their possession. 

Beautiful Sight Mayumi. 

It seemed she was known by that nickname among the members of the club. 

As someone who had had the experience of being a vampire, if only for the brief period of time of spring break, I still boasted an eyesight that was capable of, for example, seeing a lost girl, or witnessing a magical girl flying in the sky—but apparently, the eyesight of Beautiful Sight Mayumi was far beyond just that scope. 

Because she had even been able to see a star that didn’t exist, it was almost awe-inspiring—such a thing had to be a treasured episode that someone like Senjougahara, who loved astronomy, would envy. 

Though I didn’t dig any further, it seemed that she’d entered the Pretty Boy Detective Club after having gotten entangled with the discovery of that dark star—although, contrary to such a romanticsounding anecdote, and contrary to the showy image of the words “pretty boys”, Doujima Mayumi’s personality was considerably warped. 

Rather than pessimistic, she was almost spiteful. 

Since I myself also had a rather gloomy character, I couldn’t speak carelessly, but her gloominess was on the level of a dark star—for example, when I brought up the subject of the Summer Triangle that Senjougahara had taught me about, she had this to say. 

“Orihime and Hikoboshi and the constellation Cygnus are together called the Summer Triangle, but, on the day of Tanabata, the ones that form a bridge over the Milky Way are not swans, but herons… That’s why I can’t trust swans at all. But if you think about it, it’s pretty ironic to say that I trust herons more…”  

It’s amazing that you can think of something so negative while looking at such a majestic triangle, was what I’d thought, unable to hide my shock, even as someone who was more a fan of mathematics than astronomy. But, despite the exceedingly negative attitude this pretty boy had, when it came to trying to escape from the trouble she encountered in our town, I want to make it clear that she never gave up at any point. 

“There’s no way I would do that. Normally, I’m the kind of person that gives up immediately—but, if it happened to be our leader, that 

leader would definitely say something like this.” Leader. 

That surely meant the leader of the Pretty Boy Detective Club. 

“‘Giving up on your dreams can sometimes be beautiful—but giving up on reality is never beautiful.’” 

It was definitely something that, not only the Fire Sisters, but also I, their older brother, would never say in our entire lives, but it was an exceedingly beautiful saying. It was flowery prose that was enough to make even that negative girl think more positively—I could even say that, although I was a prisoner to derivatives and not flowery prose,  it still resounded plenty in my heart. 

Anyway, in this case, Doujima Mayumi, who looked up to such a leader, had unfortunately encountered in our town neither swans nor magpies—although, because it was the Milky Way we were talking about, either of those would have been more reasonable. 

What Beautiful Sight Mayumi witnessed was—a fish. 

In particular, a fish that could be described as a symbol of brutality. A piranha.