Monogatari Series - Volume 27 - Chapter 1.06

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“Vampires are sometimes called ‘nightwalkers’, but if that is interpreted elegantly, would they become ‘night-crawlers’?—sorry, just making small talk.

“I’m not trying to imply anything.

“Although, since they prefer the blood of virgins, and since they create thralls by sucking blood—in other words, breeding—I can’t deny the apparitions known as vampires are already suggestive themselves.

“Night-crawling.

“I suppose I would describe it as ‘exchanging vows’.23

“That’s also a bit suggestive.

“It may not be as much as a deal, but it is a promise—it’s something that won’t occur without the consent of both parties. At the very least, in the legal sense.

“Legal—consensual.

“That’s the key point of the phrase, ‘If you do something wrong, you say “sorry”.’ Earlier, I talked about how a police officer’s job isn’t just to crack down on bad guys, but strictly speaking, it’s not bad guys.

“The ones they crack down on are lawbreakers.

“Because something that is wrong is not necessarily a crime.

“No matter how bad of a person you are, as long as you don’t violate the law, you’ll never be taken in—you might even be able to become a board member of some large company, surely.

“Therefore, rather than, ‘If you do something wrong, you say “sorry”,’ the corrected version should be, ‘If you violate the law, you say “sorry”’—though that might be too complicated of a motto to teach children.

“It’ll be for the slightly older children.

“Although, you’d need to explain what laws are to them.

“Oh, maybe it’s not an explanation, but a justification.

“That would almost make it sound as though you were the one in the wrong—but after all, how else would you explain the rule of law other than, ‘There are a bunch of vague statements that were determined a long time ago and are arbitrarily administered, and no one really understands them that well, but we have to treat them as absolute.’

“The fact that the interpretation of the law could change based on who was reading it made it sound like a worthy challenge for me, as an avid reader myself—it really lit a fire under me, like a book that most people didn’t find readable.

“In other words, instead of explaining or interpreting, it was deciphering that was required—for the law, which had no solution.

“However, there are people who think that that’s a pain, and in fact, those people make up the majority in this world. There are more of them, they are stronger, and yet, they are correct.

“That’s why everybody simply apologizes.

“They do so as easily as taking a step forward.

“‘All right, now in times like these, we should apologize, right?’ As though following instructions like these, they repeat their routine apologies—but I won’t get swept away so easily. I won’t let them sweep me away.

“I’ll interrogate. Like the prosecution.

“I’ll advocate. Like the defense.

“I’ll interpret. Like the judge.

“No matter what happens, I won’t get swept away and apologize, and in fact, even if I’m wrong, I won’t apologize.24

“For as long as I live, I won’t apologize.”