Monogatari Series - Volume 26 - Chapter 1.32

032

“However, I didn’t manage to die there.

“In fact, the one who died was Daddy.

“After discovering me with a fruit knife stuck in my back, Mommy became frantic and stabbed Daddy in the face, and so he died tragically.

“And after that, Mommy disappeared… Or should I say she fled? Since she concealed herself after killing her partner.

“Though I failed to get killed, I guess you could say I succeeded in destroying the bond between my parents… And so, staff members at Mommy and Daddy’s workplaces visited the house, concerned about the two of them not showing up for work, and discovered Daddy’s dead body.

“They also discovered me, on the verge of death… Well, I had always been a baby on the verge of death, but now, with a fruit knife stabbed in my back, it was a ‘verge of death’ easy for even a beginner to understand.

“For what it’s worth, the only reason I survived was because of my malnutrition… Daddy, being a doctor, apparently aimed precisely for my heart, but apparently my heart was thinner than a normal baby’s? It was teeny? So the blade of the fruit knife didn’t even graze it.

“I wonder if it was good luck.

“I suppose the fact that it was from behind was another factor in his failure. If Daddy had had the guts to face me from the front, it surely would have been fulfilled.

“Both his aim and my desire.

“This isn’t about the legend of the hagoromo, but since nobody knew the two of them had a baby, there was a huge uproar—or not.

“I was unconscious and in critical condition, and they couldn’t get a read on the situation externally. They were also afraid that it would have too much of a negative impact on the public, so they kept it from reaching the news. Nowadays, it would be easy for that information to reach the Internet somehow, but back then, computers were not as common.

“Yes, that’s how long ago it happened. If I were to be more specific, it would reveal my true age, so…

“And just like that, I was admitted to the hospital and placed on absolute bed rest—not just because I was stabbed, but because I was so skinny and tiny that they had no idea how I was still alive.

“Finally, some peace for me, who’d been neither peaceful nor quiet.

“From there, my life finally began. The life of a baby doll, who was far behind in the race—about twenty laps behind. And even though I wouldn’t be able to catch up no matter how I struggled, my life still began.

“Days of nutritional intake and rehabilitation.

“It wasn’t easy, but it was a lot more luxurious than being stuck in a cage and not being able to move. I wondered if it was okay to feel like I was slacking off so much every day.

“I’m truly grateful to everyone at the hospital that took care of me… Seriously, I even wanted to stay at the hospital permanently.

“It was probably the first time I’d ever met anyone besides Daddy and Mommy, but I wasn’t a shy baby. And frankly, I wasn’t in a position where I could care about the other person’s personality or appearance.

“But, you see.

“Saying that I felt like I was slacking off was about ninety percent bluffing, but the reason I was able to press forward without getting discouraged was because I felt, ‘I had to leave the hospital as soon as possible’—why, you ask?

“Well, that’s because even though Daddy, who had failed to kill me, was killed—Mommy, who was the one to kill him, was still alive.

“So I had to escape.

“I had to run away from the runaway.

“I thought that Mommy would lock me up in a cage again… Or maybe she’d scold me for going against her love and growing up in a medical facility.

“It may sound strange, but I was more afraid of being scolded than being killed. After all, my mental age was that of a ‘twenty-year-old baby’.

“If I thought about it calmly, I would have realized that there was no way Mommy, wanted for the murder of her husband, would come to me just because she knew I was alive. But it’s hard to think calmly, isn’t it.

“But maybe I was in more danger than I thought.

“Maybe the reason they never publicized Mommy’s murder of Daddy and my survival was for my protection.

“A privacy policy that guarded you from your guardians was a theory a bit hard to accept… At any rate, I did my best to grow up in order to escape from Mommy.

“I kept thinking of places to escape to.

“At the very least, I had decided to leave Europe, but in the end I chose Japan because that’s where Daddy and Mommy were from.

“It wasn’t nostalgia.

“Having listened to their conversations, it seemed they’d either left their home countries because they couldn’t stay there, or because they were sick of it. I figured that no matter where in the world Mommy escaped to, she wouldn’t show up in Japan.

“…Although, if I were thinking calmly, I would realize it was shallow thinking.

“After all, because she’d run away from her home country in such a way, it was possible she’d make it her last resort.

“To be honest, I start to doubt myself. Maybe I really wanted to see Mommy again, and lay in wait in Japan, hoping that she’d come back to her home country?

“After failing to get killed by Daddy, did I want Mommy to kill me this time—or did I want to get revenge on her?

“Did I think that my life would truly be able to begin if that happened? Since I continued to write over my thoughts, I can’t say for sure what my mental state was at the time.

“In the end, my true feelings remain a mystery, but I decided to go to Japan as if I’d been led there. After I was discovered, I had naturally been granted Swiss citizenship, but I had no intention of coming back and decided to obtain a visa to become a permanent resident in Japan.

“For that reason, I got married.

“Marrying for the sake of residency might sound like a sham marriage, but that wasn’t what I did. What I did was much worse.

“Instead of a pretense, it was a forgery.

“I picked out a man who met the requirements and submitted a marriage certificate with his name on it to the municipal office—there were various requirements that needed to be met, but in short, he needed to live in an environment where ‘he wouldn’t notice if someone registered his marriage without permission’.

“It wasn’t an easy requirement, and it took a lot of investigation and research. In fact, I was almost caught several times and was forced to withdraw from my plans. But in the end, I was able to marry a man with the last name ‘Iesumi’ and successfully obtained the qualifications.

“Although it was a felony.

“Compared to that, falsifying my work history to sneak into a national university as a professor is almost cute.

“There’s nothing you can’t do if you’re desperate, even if it’s a crime.

“Of course, even my age was fraudulent. As stated above.

“It wasn’t just making myself look younger for a career.

“Beyond that, all I did was lie. Since the lies began from my name, I had to lie in every aspect of my life. To live in this country, to live a normal life.

“After having lived in a cage, my second life had me enclosed in lies—I was living in a cage of lies.

“Honestly, I still don’t feel like I’m alive.

“Sometimes I come to my senses and think, ‘What in the world am I doing?’ I wonder if this is what it feels like to be ‘alive’.

“Or is this how it feels to be ‘dying’?

“The meaning was uncertain. My life-death status was uncertain.

“At least I had been sincere when I was in the cage, interacting with Daddy, trying to get him to kill me.

“Those are my true colors. That’s my true form.

“The true form of Associate Professor Iesumi, the professor you took classes from for half a year and then accepted a request from—but there was no true form in the first place.

“I was nothing but an illusion.”