Monogatari Series - Volume 27 - Chapter 1.09

009

“Ah, but even if I asked if there could be anything else, there are actually many other things. Uncountably, immeasurably many. Of my sins, my grave sins. Before I stapled your cheek, I put a box cutter of all things into your mouth, and not only that, I hurled verbal abuse at you. Araragi-kun, even though you were only showing concern for me, I said you were trash, scum, a living corpse that should be ashamed to be alive.”

“I think it’s my first time hearing that I’m a living corpse that should be ashamed to be alive, though…”

“See? I’m so sinful. I can’t be forgiven.”

My retorts had weakened, but Senjougahara Hitagi did not falter. As though a dam had burst, she continued to lay bare the “sins” she’d committed.

“That’s right, there was that time I abducted and confined you, wasn’t there? How awful of me. Even if you were to forgive me, Araragi-kun, I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself. The fact that Kanbaru turned into your stalker is essentially my fault. Even the fact that Sengoku-san started wanting to kill you is my fault, too. If you hadn’t started going out with me, then right now, you and that middle school girl that is nothing but cute could be living happy lives.”

After all this time, I couldn’t help but think that that “happy life” would be particularly happy for anyone involved. Putting aside the stapler, the box cutter, the verbal abuse, the abduction, and the confinement, it was clearly wrong for Hitagi to bear the burden of the case with Sengoku.

She had mistaken the facts.

If anything, she’d been the one to protect me…

“I even made you into an accessory after the fact for my sin of secretly obtaining a driver’s license during high school…”

“Huh? Even that?”

Anything goes, huh.

“After all, Araragi-kun, you were super angry at me, weren’t you? And yet I ignored and turned a deaf ear to such selfless advice, dragging you around all over the place… In a broad sense, that could also be considered abduction and confinement. It’s a repeated offense. I confined you in my car, restrained you with the seatbelt, and took you here and there…”

“......”

The possibility that she really was just messing with me flashed through my mind, but my girlfriend’s expression was the picture of seriousness. You could even say it had surpassed “serious” into “grave”.

Although, I suppose she was no longer my girlfriend but my ex-girlfriend…36 Hold on, I needed to calm down.

I needed to think.

But I was still a bit drunk on the New Year’s mood, so it was hard for me to face reality… It was true that I was still a bit giddy from receiving New Year’s money, and there was also the fact that Hitagi looked so captivating in her formal wear, so my thoughts were all jumbled up.

What was she saying?

Was she apologizing for all those past things, after all this time? She’d called them not just sins, but grave sins, but along those lines, this wasn’t just in the past, but the far past.

“After all, those were almost fifteen years ago, you know?”

“Fifteen years? Not a year and a half?”

“Ah… That’s right, it was a year and a half.”

Although, to be precise, it was a year and eight months… Regardless, they were all things that had long since passed, stories that had long since been over. I could only think, was there really any point in bringing those back up now?

“Even so, after we resolved the case with the crab, you properly apologized… What kind of a crab canon are you trying to turn this into?”

“It’s not so simple of a matter that it would be resolved just by apologizing. No, a verbal apology like that can’t even be considered an apology. Back then, Araragi-kun, you were simply caught up in the atmosphere and just pretended to forgive me.”

Even if she decided that all on her own.

She’d said something like, “Even if you were to forgive me, Araragi-kun, I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself,” but this was an episode from so long ago that the matter of forgiving or not forgiving hardly mattered.

What was this, crab shumai?

“Anyway, even that wound from the stapler was something that quickly healed because of my vampire constitution…”

“But the wound on your heart has yet to recover, right? When I was treating you like a bundle of papers to staple, did you think I didn’t notice your trembling hands?”

That was just me being awkward and trying to be cautious with my hands…

The way she was apologizing for even the minutest of details was almost frightening. I could almost say that I felt more at peace when I had constantly been the target of her verbal abuse.

Unable to find a way to improve the situation, I could only keep my mouth shut, and then…

“With all the ways I’ve hurt you in minute detail, Araragi-kun, it’s clear that a sinful person like me has no right to love you. A more innocent girl is appropriate for you. Like Oikura-san or Tsubasa-chan,”

Hitagi said.

“It’s hard to say that those two are all that different from you in that respect…”

I couldn’t say even White Hanekawa was all that innocent.

As for Oikura, she was still biting at me. Really.

Do you wanna see them? Her bite marks.

Incidentally, I was someone with a vampire’s bite marks on my neck.

Not to mention I had often been bitten by that lost girl… I’d really been bitten a lot, huh.

“Now then, please be kind to that Oikura-san from now on. You don’t have to worry about me anymore. I’ll text Oikura-san and let her know, too.”

“Please stop?”

She was saying something completely different from the first time we broke up… When I provided lodging to Oikura when she was in dire straits, she had seemed as though she would never forgive me, but where had the remarks from back then disappeared to?

Had she really matured? Into a grown woman.

Was that what it meant to be an adult?

“Go on to the first shrine visit with Oikura.”

“Considering that girl lives in the first district of hell, I don’t think she’d ever pray to a god…”

I happened to be living in that same district, but the situation had moved into a category where that wouldn’t be enough… The one that had changed residences was not me, but her heart.

However, that change of heart was just too abnormal.

“You don’t need to worry about me anymore.”

The girl that had once been caught by a crab, Senjougahara Hitagi, as though wrapping everything up, as though cutting everything off, spoke those words.

“I am truly sorry for everything up until now. I, Senjougahara Hitagi, would like to express this apology from the bottom of my heart. Now, please find happiness with another girl.”