Monogatari Series - Volume 27 - Chapter 1.07

007

I didn’t want to break down Meniko’s pure image of me any more than necessary, so the “small talk” that had digressed from our studying ended up being closed down. But as a matter of fact, when it came to my girlfriend that I had been steadily dating since high school, Senjougahara Hitagi, it was actually the second time we had broken up.

Just for reference, to lightly touch upon the reason for our first breakup, it was merely for something that ran in my blood. Because my childhood friend had been about to be left homeless after shouldering the burden of student loans, I had given her refuge at my place just as my parents had done all those years ago, but Hitagi had gotten terrifyingly mad at me for it.

I suppose this was the opposite of Meniko’s Boyfie-kun, but honestly, I still unfortunately did not really understand what I did wrong at all. But after all that, I turned to a realtor that my father knew and was able to introduce Oikura to a cheap place to live without needing a security deposit, a suspiciously lucky find that almost seemed like it could earn her money just by her living there. And somehow or other, things ended without incident… Oikura must have felt a little guilty, because, despite not being one for altruistic deeds, she put her life on the line to mend the rift that had formed between me and Hitagi. That was truly an exceptional situation. It probably won’t happen again.

Not even in the next life.

With that, Hitagi and I had gotten back together, and then, when was it again? Ah, yes, just before the end of winter break, right after the beginning of the new year—originally, we’d made plans to go on our first shrine visit of the year together.

It would be our first date of the year, so to speak, and as you may already know, around the beginning of the previous year, we had been put into a situation where we couldn’t possibly wish to visit the shrine—not because we were students preparing for entrance examinations, but because we had been cursed to death by a snake god until our high school graduation. It was less of a situation and more of a time of war (the war over entrance examinations could hardly compare). So not only was it our first date of the year, but it was also the first time we were celebrating a kind of anniversary since we’d started dating—therefore, this year for sure, we wanted to properly and peacefully greet the new year with a “Happy New Year”.

Even though I didn’t like anniversaries, I had to at least celebrate New Year’s Day, right?

Of course, our destination would be the Kitashirahebi Shrine.

It had formerly been the shrine ruled by the snake god that had cursed us to death, but now it had become the home of a harmless elementary school fifth-grader and a trusted friend. So on top of being the first shrine visit, it was also in part a time for me to pass along my New Year’s greetings.

In any case, at the stylish café that was our meeting place, Hitagi appeared in formal wear that she had probably rented, and the first words out of her mouth were,

“Let’s break up, Araragi-kun.”

Not a respectful greeting of the new year, but a troubling notice of separation.

No, I didn’t want to say it was troubling yet.

What was the point of trying to be funny here?

It was almost embarrassing.

What kind of a joke is this, today isn’t the first of April but the first of January, was the interjection I nearly made by reflex (strictly speaking, it wasn’t the first of January, because I spent that day celebrating New Year’s Day with my family—I even got New Year’s money, despite being a university student). But Hitagi had a completely serious expression—or rather, she was completely calm.

Calm.

After entering university, Hitagi had become much more stylish by dyeing her hair, painting her nails, and getting into makeup, so that expressionlessness of hers reminded me of the days when she was still a closed-off young lady.

Had I gone back in time when I came here? No, no, that wasn’t it.

She wasn’t kidding, and she wasn’t joking.

I knew that she was making a completely serious request… It was the second time, after all.

However, unlike the first time where she’d been enraged beyond all decency, her condition now was clearly different—it was completely and utterly different. That said, her calm expression was not completely identical to the one she showed as a closed-off young lady that was composed yet caustic. She seemed almost as though she was exhausted. I would say that not even on last year’s New Year’s Day, when our lives were in danger, had she looked this desperate.

Of course, such an analysis was something that only was performed somewhere deep in the corner of my mind, and the rest of me was naturally shaken up after suddenly being told to break up at the start of the new year.

“B-break up…? Wh-wh-why?”

I could only arrive at such a reaction that was lacking in individuality—I could not muster up any of my usual wit. However, if I’d said that I had absolutely no idea what the reason could be, I would be lying. After all, this was already the second time… Now that we were on this subject, it was true that I had done something similar to what I’d done to cause my first breakup. After over half a year as a university student, I’d eventually begun to feel the limits of commuting to the campus by car and thus had moved out to live by myself.

The dream lifestyle of living alone.

I’d moved in next to Oikura. The place I’d mentioned before—that apartment building that was too good to be true.

To be honest, on top of my commute having gotten tiresome, I had also been concerned about Oikura-chan living all on her own, so I spoke to the same realtor and managed to migrate into her neighborhood (rather than close to a station, it was terrifically close)25. So I could only think that was what had touched a reverse scale for Hitagi.26 In Oikura’s case, her reverse scale was her entire body, but recently, Hitagi’s reverse scales had been found scattered around the general area of this subject.

She must have found out.

I didn’t really get the logic behind it, but whenever I worried about Oikura, Hitagi would get angry. In spite of that, Hitagi and Oikura were on relatively good terms, curiously enough… It was such that the two of them would regularly hang out.

Invite me too, please.

Even on campus, though they were in different departments, they still moved around and did various things together. While keeping it a secret from me… (Speaking of which, in her first year of high school, Oikura was also a closed-off young lady, so maybe that’s why they got along.) But regardless, that wasn’t the reason.

I was completely off base.

She had this to say, instead.

“I simply do not have the right to go out with you, Araragi-kun. I’ve been far too presumptuous.”

“......?”

Having expected to be persecuted, I couldn’t help but treat her words with suspicion… She didn’t have the right? Presumptuous? It didn’t make sense to me at all.

“And yet, to think I took advantage of your compassion and dragged this awful relationship on for so long. From the bottom of my heart, I apologize. I am truly sorry.”

“S-sorry? You are?”

Senjougahara Hitagi, apologizing? That haughty girl who rarely bowed her head, who would stop after only doing two claps on a shrine visit27—had she really just spoken words of apology without faltering, as if it were entirely natural?

According to my common sense, this was an impossible situation.

What in the world was going on? This world… Had I reincarnated into a different world at the start of the new year? A bizarre new world in which Senjougahara Hitagi apologized?

How terrifying.

Even different worlds had to have their limits.

At the very least, I could tell that it wasn’t that she had simply regressed back to being that closed-off young lady… There was no such reversion here. After all, her closed-off young lady era was, out of all of Senjougahara Hitagi’s eras, the one in which she was the most aloof and the least likely to apologize. Her expression and tone of voice might have been similarly calm, but her true state was the complete opposite.

Opposite—like one’s front and back sides.

“Did something happen, Hitagi? Tell me something, anything. I’m always here for you. That’s the kind of guy I am.”

Thinking about it, I’d said something pretty irresponsible at the time, too, and if I did say so myself, I was a bit fed up with my own rashness. But Hitagi had no response to this dangerous provocation, instead shaking her head feebly.

“How kind you are, Araragi-kun. How much have I depended on you up until now, without ever realizing that kindness? Just thinking about my sinfulness makes me want to die.”

Makes you want to die?

I couldn’t hide my bewilderment at hearing this girl, who I considered to be the embodiment of self-esteem, speak of suicidal thoughts. She didn’t seem like she was lying or joking, but honestly, she hardly seemed to be in her right mind.

I glanced at my shadow.

The iron-blooded, hot-blooded, cold-blooded vampire, Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade—or her previous existence, “Princess Beauty”. When in front of her, anyone would start to want to kill themselves due to their own sinfulness, and I couldn’t help but be reminded of that after hearing Hitagi’s ludicrous statement.

It was something I’d experienced myself, after all.

A bitter, yet delightful, experience.

However, from my shadow produced by the indirect lighting of the café, there was naturally not a single sound or movement.

“Even though someone like me never had any right to be treated kindly by you, Araragi-kun, or even anybody at all. Thinking about it, everyone must have been watching over me warmly until I realized it myself. At that, I can only show remorse. No matter how much I repent and repent, it will never be enough.”

“Just explain to me what’s going on, please. You don’t need to repent, just start from the top. If there’s something I did, then I’ll apologize. If it has something to do with Oikura, then—”

Or did it have something to do with Meniko? Had she found out that Meniko was calling me “Koyomi-chan” recently?

“It’s me who should be apologizing, Araragi-kun. I’m truly sorry that I made you feel that way. I no longer have any ground to stand on. It would not be an exaggeration to say that my sinfulness knows no bounds.”

Rather than not having any ground to stand on, I have nothing left to cling to.

As she continued to say such things, I realized that my assumption that she was throwing a curveball to indirectly express her discontent with my moving next door to Oikura was not just me reading too much into things, but rather me misreading her entirely… In the first place, she wasn’t the kind of person that would express her emotions in such a bizarre way.

For better or for worse, she was completely straightforward.

Whether it had to do with entering university or rehabilitating herself, that part of her never changed—so, in this case, it was probably correct to think that she meant exactly what she said.

Hitagi was “seriously” apologizing to me.

And she was “seriously” trying to break up with me—there was no way that she’d visited some other shrine on the way here and was obeying the fortune slip that she drew. Like, “Love—break up with him” or something.

After drawing “huge luck”, perhaps.

In fact, even the first time, when she broke up with me, she was not trying to fake me out or bargain with me. She had simply broken up with me without any exaggeration, and, as someone who had known her since she was in high school, I could only feel a sense of helplessness akin to fatigue or futility, knowing that anything I said was pointless—and I’m sure Kanbaru Suruga, who had known her since middle school, would also agree. Even so, it wasn’t like I could just give up now.

Channeling the spirit of Kanbaru from her stalker era, I said, “Let’s calm down for a bit, Hitagi,” going from a New Year’s mood to my serious mode.28

“You don’t have to call me ‘Hitagi’ anymore. That’s nothing but an expired name now. You can call me ‘Senjougahara’ without honorifics like you used to, or you can call me ‘pig’ without honorifics like you used to.”

“I’ve never called you ‘pig’!”

Not to mention, there was something wrong with describing your real name of “Hitagi” as an “expired name”.

“Then, please call me ‘Iberian pig’ from now on.”

“Why are you suddenly so high-class?”

Considering she was keeping me from maintaining my serious mode by saying something amusing, it seemed Hitagi—or perhaps, Senjougahara—had not completely lost her mind, but in that case, I couldn’t let her avoid my questions.

If this kept going, she’d gradually wear me down until this reached its natural end.

That would be bad.

“No, Araragi-kun. You’re the one avoiding me—avoiding me for my own sake. You’re avoiding me as though you’re hugging me29. How grateful I am, for your kind character that could never be found elsewhere. I know that you understand everything, even if you’re pretending not to. But it’s fine. You don’t have to keep being nice to me anymore, after all this time. My meager character, which you have so carefully raised, has grown enough to understand that much. Just barely.”

“Uh-huh…”

Uh-huh.

She was saying that I understood everything, but I was perhaps the most clueless I’d ever been… If I were to simply go along with this, would I be ending up in the sorry state of breaking up with Senjougahara Hitagi without ever having understood her, not even the tiniest bit?

As I remained silent, the incomprehensible girl continued.

“Araragi-kun, if you were to be any kinder to me, then I’d become spoiled. I can’t be pampered by you forever. The new year has just begun, so I think we had better draw the line here. I have to set you free from being tied down to a blockhead like me. That’s the best favor I’m capable of giving you in return.”

“If you’re going to say that, then it would’ve been better if we never started the new year… I’d be fine with it being last year for the rest of my life.”

I wanted to go back in time.

Though I’d already done something like that before.

“Araragi-kun, I hereby release you to be with Oikura-san or Tsubasa-chan.”

“If those two are my only options, then I’d prefer Tsubasa-chan…”

However, seeing as Hanekawa Tsubasa’s current whereabouts and activities were completely unknown, making my release to her effectively impossible, I was going to end up under Oikura at this rate. A hell that not even spring break could compare to.

A hell that not even actual hell could compare to.

“Ah, speaking of which, I have constantly been in the care of both Oikura-san and Tsubasa-chan, too… I had better apologize to them as well. Kanbaru… Well, Kanbaru’s fine.”

“Why is only Kanbaru fine?”

The spirit of my underclassman that I’m channeling is kicking up a fuss.

“Anyway, Araragi-kun. Go ahead and help other girls out. I’ll be all right on my own, now. Totally fine. I’ll live out this lonely and pathetic life by myself.”

“There’s no way anyone who says that will actually be okay on their own! Don’t be pathetic. If you’re going to be like that, I can’t release you out into the world.”

“Heheh.”

At that, Hitagi chuckled.

It was not a scornful chuckle meant for an ex desperately clinging onto her after being cut off, but a laugh that seemed as though she was recalling a fond memory.

“How nostalgic. Even back then, Araragi-kun, you chased after me when I was trying to leave in solitude.”

“Back then…? When?”

“Again, you’re pretending not to remember. I was trying to be gone with the wind.”

“Were you supposed to be Scarlett O’Senjougahara?”

“By the way, when you say ‘gone’, does that mean that you’re already gone or that you’re about to be gone?”30

“If you don’t know that, how in the world did you get a recommendation for university?”

Since she was insisting on it, I couldn’t say for sure, but… I didn’t have any memory of her going like the wind.

Ah, but, there was one time.

One time when she went like a storm—perhaps?

“...Could you be talking about the very first time we met? The time I caught you after you fell from the stairs, and I figured out your secret—”

If that was the case, it was too far back to even be nostalgic, but there was no way I could forget. After all, that was the beginning of Araragi Koyomi and Senjougahara Hitagi… Our starting point. From that time in Class 1-3, Hitagi and I had been in the same class in high school for three years, but our story undoubtedly began on that day, at that time.

The beginning of our romance.

With that in mind, it was an anniversary that was far more precious and unforgettable to me than New Year’s Day, but…

“How unpleasant,”

Hitagi said.

As though that anniversary was actually a day of mourning.

“If only it weren’t for that day. Then I would have been able to continue my association with Araragi-kun with no shame whatsoever. No matter how much I repent and repent and repent and repent and repent and repent and repent, it won’t make things better.

No matter how much I repent.

Like how, no matter how much I suffered from that disease, I never got better, she said.31

“No, hold on, why are you saying that? If it weren’t for that day… If it weren’t for that May 8th, we wouldn’t be in a relationship like this right now…”

Although, we were in the middle of a breakup right now…

“Araragi-kun, please stop. How much longer are you going to remain so overprotective of me? I’m not a child anymore. I’m not just a little girl. I’m a grown woman.”

Hitagi spoke as though she’d finally gotten fed up—rather than a grown woman, she sounded more like a spoiled brat, but she began to reluctantly confess to me, who was chasing after her like on that day.

“As someone who committed that unforgivable act of violence against you, Araragi-kun, I simply do not have the right to be your girlfriend. I should just be happy that I was able to have a good dream, if only for a moment. A fleeting dream.”

“...Huh? What? If you mean…”

If she maybe, perhaps, possibly, meant that, then… Excuse me?

“Hitagi, if I’m misunderstanding, then I’d like for you to immediately correct me, but… Could you perhaps be apologizing for when you stapled my inner cheek on that day, at that time?”

“Could there be anything else?”

Sure enough, with an expression calmer than the one she had a year and eight months ago after the end of Golden Week, Senjougahara Hitagi nodded.