Monogatari Series - Volume 27 - Chapter 1.16

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“The timing of an apology is important, too.

“If the other person is in a good mood, or if they’re eating something tasty, or if a third party is present—you have to aim for one of those timings. Conversely, if they’re in a bad mood, or if they’re hungry, or if the two of you are alone on an empty street at night and the other person is carrying a sharp implement, it wouldn’t be wise to apologize then.

“But that might actually be the opposite.

“A poorly-timed apology out of simple honesty, without even considering any of those calculations, might be more likely to touch the person’s heart—otherwise, they might think, ‘Ah, this person waited for a timing that was good for them to apologize.’

“It would get that much harder if they were to come to the misconception that you were thinking only about how to be forgiven—even if you weren’t entirely devoid of those feelings, you might have been aiming for a good timing so as not to hurt the person’s feelings even more.

“Was it really so wrong to want to be forgiven?—but yes, it was wrong. On top of having committed a crime, for you to want to be forgiven for it.

“Rather than doing something and apologizing for it, it was better to do something and not apologize for it—but that wasn’t exactly right, either. Perhaps, in the view of the public that’s kicking up a fuss, the best option would be to apologize and not be forgiven.

“It was like the polar opposite of the selfish idea that there was no point in apologizing if you wouldn’t be forgiven—however, no matter how hard they steel their heart to not forgive, in the end, time will heal even that wound.

“Getting straight to the point, they’ll forget their anger.

“They’ll lose sight of the anger that once made them lose control.

“Then, would it be appropriate to apologize at that time? Would they be bewildered, saying, ‘Even if you apologize for that after all this time, I honestly don’t care,’ or would it just rekindle their anger, with them saying, ‘Apologizing for that now, are you making fun of me?’

“Even though they’d managed to forget.

“To drag it back up again now.

“However, ‘forgetting’ and ‘forgiving’ were, fundamentally, completely different—I’d even say that they weren’t even backward compatible.

“Someone saying that they’ve already forgotten is in itself a very strong expression of forgiveness, but no matter how much they’ve forgotten, if they are reminded of it even once, the feeling that they’ll never forgive will easily rise back up.

“For anger and for resentment, forgetting those feelings doesn’t mean negating them. Though there may be exceptions.

“From a malicious standpoint, I can even think of it as saving those feelings up. If forgetting doesn’t mean forgiving, then in other words, it means that they could revitalize their anger at any time.

“It’s the idea that they’re putting aside their anger for later.

“A trump card of sorts for use in interpersonal relations.

“A Joker that’s played, not after all this time, but because it’s the right time.

“But, there’s a converse to that, too.

“By forgiving, they allow themselves to forget.”