009
The long-awaited summer break has begun! Yay!
Now, what kind of fun should I have with everybody?
…Of course it wouldn’t end up being like that. It wouldn’t end with that sort of development, and it certainly wouldn’t feel like it—as if I would let it. It was just a troublesome matter. “How did things turn out like this?” was practically my favorite phrase at this point, but I particularly thought so for this particular matter. I was sure I didn’t make any mistakes up to this point—or perhaps, should I have not responded to the summons from the professor at all?
As if I could have known that that professor would disappear right after talking to me… How was I supposed to know that I would be the last person to see her? I hadn’t had a bad feeling about it at all. Perhaps I hadn’t introduced myself yet, but I was a former vampire, not a prophet. I couldn’t, and didn’t want to, say anything that would make it seem as if I’d seen into the future, like some Hawaiian-shirt guy who was off wandering about somewhere.
A university professor went missing right after exams. Naturally, the campus would be in an uproar, and it would be a big deal… As a matter of course, various places also came to ask me about the situation. Well, I pulled through it decently enough… A decent amount of deception was basically my specialty, and I wasn’t so inconsiderate as to tell others about the state of the nursery in Room 333 without the owner’s permission. First of all, how was I supposed to tell someone about something I didn’t even understand?
It seemed the exams were graded by one of the office aides or the professor, so my exam paper was safely returned to me—apparently, the disappearance of one person was not enough to hold up the academic institutions of the present. In other words, there was no job that could only be done by one person in particular. Incidentally, I received a grade of C and the corresponding number of credits. Although that was the last thing on my mind at the moment.
If I wanted to interpret this situation realistically, without bringing in any oddity phenomena like spiriting away or the “replacement child”, then… Associate Professor Iesumi, who sent me to check on her house, belatedly regretted her actions, which could only have been an expression of unsound mind… The most likely explanation would be that she feared that the abuse of “her own child” would become public and cause a fuss, and she thus made the decision to “flee”.
It wasn’t a crime to abuse a handmade doll, and it wasn’t a crime to stab that doll in the back—so, even if I were to find out and spread that information out to the world, there was no need to run away out of desperation, but that was just in legal terms. And, as Ononoki-chan said, it was unclear to what extent Associate Professor Iesumi was self-aware.
Her symptoms and awareness could have varied depending on the day, as well—so perhaps I shouldn’t be trying to force some sort of consistency, when both the request and the escape felt illogical.
This wasn’t a mystery novel. Nor was it a game to find the culprit.
There were some absurd conspiracy theories being whispered around at the university that the professor had been abducted by a special agency because of her top-secret research that had been commissioned by the state, but if I had to guess normally, I would say that Associate Professor Iesumi had simply left all her memories behind and returned to her birthplace of Switzerland… She’d said that she’d come to Japan to escape from her parents, with whom she’d had a bad relationship, but even if she went back, there must be a way to avoid meeting them.
I could even force myself to imagine a happy ending where they let go of their differences and mended their relationship.
The power of one’s imagination was limitless, for better or worse.
Especially for the worse—even though there was no need for me to do so, when I imagined Associate Professor Iesumi running from one place to another, it wasn’t exactly relieving for me… No, in the end, no matter how I interpreted it, when I thought that I could be the direct cause of her disappearance, well… It left me depressed.
It left me empty inside.
In theory, I knew. If I, a “specialist of child abuse”, had refused her request, Associate Professor Iesumi would have simply reached out to another student who would have listened to her, and the situation would have converged towards something similar…In the end, everything, including her abusive behavior towards her “three-year-old daughter”, was really just her one-woman show.
From beginning to end, the control of the story had been firmly within her grasp.
But that was just in theory. My emotions were different.
So, instead of a glorious start, my first summer break in college got off to a rather unpleasant start… I wouldn’t go so far as to say that it was hellish, but the trip to Hokkaido with Hitagi, which I’d made plans to make plans for, had to be postponed once again.
We’d met briefly to discuss it, but as expected, she was very astute and didn’t fail to miss my lack of excitement.
Well, in the first place… The promise was that we’d go in winter, when it was crab season.
With that, if I had been left alone, I could have spent the entire summer brooding over Associate Professor Iesumi, but my socializing ability had become better than it was before, so it was hard for me to be left alone.
How wonderful.
So, that morning, I received a message on my cell phone.
It was from a high school girl and my friend, Higasa-chan.
“Araragi☆senpai☆we☆are☆having☆a☆girlsbas☆senior☆junior☆social☆at☆the☆Naoetsu☆High☆gym☆from☆one☆pm☆today☆and☆you’ll☆be☆extremely☆popular☆if☆you☆came☆as☆a☆guest☆!☆First☆let’s☆meet☆up☆at☆Ruga’s☆house☆!☆GO☆GO☆right☆now☆!☆☆☆☆”
It was hard to read.
With her name meaning a rain of stars, perhaps she was trying to make a meteor shower occur in her messages, but in the first place, wasn’t this pretty hard to type out?
I tried deciphering it… Hmm… A senior-junior social…? It seemed that, within the span of a few months, the Naoetsu High girls’ basketball team, which had been on the brink of collapse, had finally gotten back on its feet enough to do something like that.
Since I’d helped to the best of my limited ability, it was great news to hear, and I would be happy to visit my alma mater if my attendance at the meeting would bring the club any closer to what it was in its heyday.
No, I wasn’t expecting anything about popularity, and to be honest, I didn’t want to take one step inside my alma mater again…
But I guess it could be a change of pace.
It wasn’t because I’d screwed up on a mission, but I still wanted to feel like I was being useful to someone—oh yeah, speaking of deciphering.
I wonder how that “thing” I gave to Meniko was going? I hadn’t heard anything from her since then… Since it was her, it was possible she forgot about it.
Well, it didn’t hurt to give it a shot.
If it didn’t work out, then that was fine. I would almost prefer it if it didn’t work out.
The first thing to do was to meet at Kanbaru’s house (did she even get approval for this? Higasa-chan did have the habit of using a friend’s house without permission), so I got changed and went downstairs in order to leave the house.
And, at the entrance, I ran into Tsukihi.
My sister in a kimono, Araragi Tsukihi… My smaller little sister changed her hairstyle from time to time, and her current hairstyle such that all her hair, including her bangs, was tied up in one big ponytail.
Her forehead was cute, to the point that it made me irritated.
“My, my, if it isn’t onii-chan. Just the right time. Have you seen my precious stuffed doll?”
“Stuffed doll—”
Ononoki-chan, huh.
That tween girl must have gotten fed up with being used as a dress-up doll again and evacuated from my sisters’ room… If so, she might be rolling around in the back seat of my New Beetle again, but I didn’t care how much Tsukihi was my beloved sister—I couldn’t let her know that.
I’d caused a lot of trouble for Ononoki-chan, so I wanted to at least protect her from the clutches of my little sister… In the end, I didn’t talk to her at all about the incident with Associate Professor Iesumi, but being a doll herself, Ononoki-chan may have had her own thoughts when she saw the doll stabbed in the back.
Well, it was just that we didn’t discuss the case of Associate Professor Iesumi. We talked as usual about TV dramas or the new Häagen-Dazs ice cream, so there was a strong possibility that Ononoki-chan decided to leave the case as “settled”.
At any rate, there was only one answer I could give.
“Sorry, I have no clue. I don’t know everything, I just know what I know.”
“Whose line was that, again? I feel like I’ve heard it before.”
Even though you adored Hanekawa so much last summer, you’ve already forgotten about her… I was a little jealous of her refreshingly forgetful nature.
I wished I could split my low spirits with her.
“Oh, whatever. Forget that stuffed doll. It’s about time to buy a new one, anyway.”
“That’s a little too refreshing!”
“So, onii-chan. Where are you headed, all dressed up like that?”
“Oh? This area’s famous fashion advisor, Tsukihi-chan, thinks that I’m dressed up?”
“Yep. It looks like you’ve dressed up to get high school girls to fawn over you.”
How shrewd.
I’ll take it as a compliment.
“I’m going to meet Higasa-chan.”
“Ah. Her. Hasn’t she been coming over, like, three times a week?”
It seemed they’d become acquainted.
Well, she was coming over three times a week.
“Incidentally, about her given name, you write it as ‘rain of stars’, right? But how are you supposed to read it? Seiu? Hoshiame?”
“Either way is fine, she says. It’s the same as how Abe no Seimei can also be read as Abe no Haruaki.”
“Is, is that allowed…?”
“And where are you headed out to? That kimono is for outdoors, right? Patrolling with Karen-chan?”
“It’s been a while since the Fire Sisters broke up, onii-chan. For me, that’s just one of my past hits. Karen-chan’s gone hiking with her high school friends, and I’m going hiking with my middle school friends.”
Hiking?
Is that a trend with middle schoolers right now?
It was hard to catch up with the trends of youngsters these days.
In Karen-chan’s case, I could bet that it was some severe mountain climbing again… But Tsukihi shouldn’t have been the outdoors type?
“Right. Y’see, I heard a rumor that there was a dead body buried deep in the mountains of a neighboring town, so we all decided to go check it out. Like, pretending it’s Stephen King’s The Body.”
“…The Body?”
“Yeah. I’m a fan of the original work.”
How pretentious.
Well, maybe it was a little healthier than the Fire Sisters pretending to be heroes of justice… As an older brother who had just had an adventure that could have led to the discovery of not a dead body deep in the mountains, but the body of an abused child, it was somewhat difficult to rebuke her.
In my case, even my companion had been a corpse… But, seeing as how Tsukihi was also looking for Ononoki-chan, she might have been planning to go hiking with that stuffed doll in hand.
Perhaps that was an example of her shrewdness.
Like equipping yourself with jewelry to go on a treasure hunt.
In any case, after becoming a college student, I shouldn’t meddle too much with my little sister’s behavior… Being swept up in such inappropriate gossip was also a part of youth.
It was also a good thing that the two sisters, who had a very close relationship, were now taking a healthy distance from each other after being separated by middle school and high school.
“But if you actually find a corpse, then make sure you call the police, okay?”
“Of course. Who do you think I am?”
“Tsukihi-chan, of course.”
Hm.
But with all three kids going out on their own, the Araragi household was at peace—at the very least, none of them were locked in cages.
“Tsukihi-chan. We’re truly blessed, you know.”
“Hmm? What are you saying, all of a sudden?”
“I mean, we didn’t have to worry about what to wear, what to eat, or where to sleep. Maybe I should be more grateful to our parents.”
“What’s the matter? What happened to that onii-chan that would run off somewhere every Mother’s Day?”
“I didn’t run off anywhere this year! As promised.”
“You weren’t here for Father’s Day. Neither hide nor hair.”
“I didn’t promise anything for Father’s Day.”
I haven’t exactly become upfront about my feelings regarding my father yet.
Well, putting Mother’s Day and Father’s Day on the same day was something I’d already discussed with Ononoki-chan, so I wasn’t going to repeat myself here.
“Well, there was a bunch of stuff like you jumping off rooftops and being kidnapped by a group of delinquents.”
“There was, wasn’t there.”
“But I’m really thankful that our house is at peace.”
I’d experienced things like a hell of a spring break and a nightmare of a Golden Week, but basically, all of those had happened outside my home.
It wasn’t like my home became hell or my family became a nightmare… No matter how bad the parent-child or sibling relationship got, I never felt like my life was in danger.
I’d always had a seat at our dinner table.
The filial piety that Senjougahara Hitagi was forced to show her mother; the fact that Hanekawa Tsubasa slept and woke up in the hallway; those were things I still couldn’t digest very well… No matter how close we cuddled, no matter how harshly I was yelled at, I would never truly be able to understand their suffering.
Even when I was confronted with an incident that put me close to death, it was still just a temporary accident—a limited-duration tragedy, so to speak.
It wasn’t anything like an unforeseeable eternity where I wouldn’t be protected by a guardian.
“That’s true. If there were problems at home, then Karen-chan and I wouldn’t have had to go out to look for evil, would we? The only problem that the Araragi family has is that the older brother looks at his younger sisters in a sexual way.”
“That’s too big of a problem. And I don’t do that. I look at you with contempt.”
“I should be grateful. Well, I’m sure parents remember the joys of parenthood, so I guess you could say it’s mutual.”
“That’s not something you can say. You’re on the children’s side.”
“I swear that when I’m reborn, I’ll become a mother to Mom and Dad, and take good care of them!”
How complicated.
Well, when you in particular talked about rebirth, there was a fair amount of truth to that… Considering you were a cuckoo.
A shide-no-dori.
And—a phoenix.
“In that case, Tsukihi-chan. Shouldn’t you be saying that when you’re reborn, you want to be a daughter to Mom and Dad again?”
“For sure! I’m really glad I was born into the Araragi family! I’m so happy to be born the daughter of Mom and Dad and the sister of onii-chan and Karen-chan! I never asked to be born, though!”
“You said a little too much, there.”
“If I’m going to be greedy, I’d like to be reborn as your older sister, onii-chan! I want you to be my little brother that I can pick on!”
“Again, a little too much.”
I could do without being on the receiving end of your abuse.
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