Monogatari Series - Volume 27 - Chapter 1.25

025

“Though this was my first-choice university that I’d studied frantically to get accepted into, that underclassman famous for being the biggest dropout in the history of Naoetsu High managed to enroll without a care in the world, huh. Rumor has it, his aim was just to be with a girl. Well, it’s not my place to complain, but I dunno, I’d like for him to apologize a little.”

That was apparently what Boyfie-kun had said before.

It was pretty awful to hear that people were talking about me like that without me even knowing, and also that they were saying that I was the biggest dropout in the history of Naoetsu High, and especially that my aim was just to be with a girl. But thanks to that, the mystery was solved.

Like synapses linking up.

The missing link had been found.

Or rather, the pattern had been the one where there had been so much information that it had confused me… If I hadn’t heard about Boyfie-kun's aggressive apologizing from Meniko, I would have simply looked for the commonality between Hitagi and Oikura. Well, actually, in that case, I might have just treated Hitagi’s New Year’s greetings-like breakup and Oikura’s ambush-like prostration94 as separate things without connecting them… In the first place, Oikura had dropped out of Naoetsu High (or had she just transferred schools?), so that childhood friend of mine didn’t even feel like a fellow alumnus of my dear old alma mater.

Perhaps I would’ve only seen them as “people around me”... However, now that I’d discovered that the random variable of Boyfie-kun had actually been one of my high school upperclassmen, it was obvious what the point in common was.

They were alumni of Naoetsu High. Or those that would call themselves such.

And, at present, they were enrolled in Manase University.

Honestly, for me… For me, who was supposedly the biggest dropout in the history of Naoetsu High, I had never joined any clubs, so I had barely formed any senior-junior relationships while I was enrolled there.

And, without even needing to discuss the aforementioned Oikura-chan, the circumstances were the same for Senjougahara Hitagi, who had acted as the closed-off young lady during her first and second years… Well, in the case of that closed-off young lady that was full of precaution, she might have shrewdly gotten a handle on the personal information of every student in the school, but a one-way relationship was the same as no relationship at all.

There would be no awareness of being a related party.

In other words, if any relationship would have formed between those three, it would not have been during high school, but almost certainly during their campus life at Manase University—I’d taken quite the detour, but after figuring out this much, I may as well have already arrived at the correct answer.

There definitely had to be a LINE group chat of all the Naoetsu High graduates that didn’t include me—well, Oikura wasn’t even a graduate, so the new mystery was why only I had been excluded, but that was something I could think about later tonight while crying into my pillow…

“Meniko. I’d like to know the history of Boyfie-kun’s actions. Outside of the club research club, were there any major events that he took part in on campus? Something related to international relations… Or mathematics?”

Logically speaking, it would have been better if I could hear from my direct acquaintances, Hitagi or Oikura, but unfortunately, it would be impossible to hold a conversation with those two, considering I was the target of their apologies—well, Meniko and Boyfie-kun would similarly be unable to hold a conversation, but there was a higher chance that he’d heard something before all this happened.

“Hmmm? Unlike me, I don’t think Ex-Boyfie-kun was in more than one club, thooough?”

“Is that so… Then, maybe they were in the same class…”

Even if they were in different years and departments, it was possible for them to take the same class… But it didn’t seem to click. And it was hard to believe that there was a class that only former students of Naoetsu High were taking—though I hadn’t fit in at all, Naoetsu High was still quite the prestigious private high school, so maybe there was something like an alumni association.

“Aaaah, now that you say thaaat? It was a bit different from a club or associatiooon, but around the end of last yeeear? Before winter breeeak, I think Boyfie-kun said something about thaaat?”

Back when we were still lovey-doveyyy?

Well, I didn’t care when their honeymoon period was, but if it was before winter break, then that fit perfectly into the chronology. Although, it was possible that he had simply been badmouthing me…

Had they met as a trio to enthusiastically badmouth me?

The biggest dropout in the history of Naoetsu High, was it?

I had never really been conscious about what others thought of me when I was in high school, but now that I was hearing about all this, it was pretty difficult to bear.

It was one thing to say it myself, and I could handle hearing it from people I knew, but hearing it from complete strangers was tough. It was a shock to my mentality.

And it was hard to refute.

I mean, it wasn’t like my grades had ever been the lowest within the school, so it was true that I didn’t deserve to be talked about like that, but what really put me at a loss for words was what came after that evaluation… “I’d like for him to apologize a little.”

Aha.

It was true that, until my third year in high school… More precisely, until June of my third year in high school, before entering university or even entrance exams, I’d been worried I might not be able to graduate.

The exact opposite of Higasa-chan’s case.

I’d bet that nobody could have foreseen this future. Not even my parents… With that in mind, in spite of my hellish spring break or my nightmarish Golden Week, I had been extremely fortunate.

Or rather, it was almost as though I’d cheated.

That was how I wanted to confess—that was how I wanted to repent.

But I wasn’t talking about how the two brightest minds of Naoetsu High had been in constant attendance as my private tutors to bring up my standard score.

I’d put in the corresponding amount of effort. That, I could be proud of.

However, that effort itself was backed up by ridiculous vampiric powers, and with inexhaustible stamina, a manga-like level of concentration, and an ability to stay completely fine after all-nighters, of course I’d be able to cram as much as I wanted.

If that wasn’t unfair, then what was?

Of course, I had my own complaints. During the critical final stretch of winter break, I’d been going and getting killed by a snake god on a daily basis, and even on the morning of the exam itself, I’d fallen head first into hell—but it was hard to classify things into distinctly separate concepts like merits and demerits, and it wasn’t something to talk about in terms of simple gain or loss.

But objectively speaking, if it weren’t for my vampire constitution, and if my life hadn’t become entangled with oddities, then the university student Araragi Koyomi would not exist—he would instead be the held-back-a-year Araragi Koyomi, or even the dropout Araragi Koyomi.

There would be a high probability that I shared a class with Kanbaru or Higasa-chan. With the two of them, whom I would never have become friends with if we’d been in the same year.

It was with all that included that I was who I was now, so I didn’t think of it all that negatively… But, at the same time, this was all coming from me alone.

It was personal information, and it was a private matter.

It wasn’t as though I lived my life wearing a T-shirt that read “vampire constitution”. There was no way that Boyfie-kun would know about the unfairness—or, to put a positive spin on it, the advantages—that I had.      

I’d like for him to apologize a little.

It shouldn’t have been my place to have to hear something like that… It shouldn’t have been, but I remembered my conversation with Higasa-chan.

Just by attending university “without a care in the world”, it was possible that it could breed resentment from someone like Boyfie-kun or Higasa-chan… It wasn’t like there was something in particular that I wanted to be, and with the reason that “my girlfriend got into this university on a recommendation,” I picked a trivial career path like the mathematics department simply because math happened to be my best subject, and not because I wanted to be a mathematician or anything. I wasn’t a passionate youth with a high respect for Euler like Oikura was.

For the students that were seriously laboring away day after day, it may have seemed like I was mockingly skipping ahead of them… It would be a misunderstanding, but it made sense why people would misunderstand. Depending on the person, they might even turn delinquent, like Higasa-chan.

Thinking that I was some cheat character that they couldn’t possibly imitate…

I’ve heard that if students that devoted themselves to club activities were to focus on their studies with the same level of motivation after they retire, their grades would improve to an unbelievable extent… Kanbaru might be like that, but that pattern didn’t apply in my case.

From an outsider’s perspective, it might have seemed as though I was just screwing around… Of course, it wasn’t as though Boyfie-kun was seriously fixated on the idea of wanting me to apologize to him.

In the end, it was just a part of idle chatter.

Just a way to vent his stress.

If he had seriously believed it, then he wouldn’t have accepted that “command” from me… I’d assumed that, when facing contradictory commands, he chose to obey the one from me because it was a command riding on the coattails of the authority of the “King of Oddities”. But to think that it was because I was Boyfie-kun’s delinquent underclassman…

A vampire couldn’t contend against it.

But I—was Boyfie-kun’s enemy.

Perhaps, in that sense, my high school misconduct ended up helping me out in the end—a lesson like that was worthy of opposition, but in terms of “people can only help themselves,” I had unexpectedly put that into practice, hadn’t I.

“So, Meniko. What did Boyfie-kun say?”

“The professor asked hiiim, for the sake of the examinees taking exams in Maaarch, can you help out with the final open campus being held this yeeear, or something like thaaat? Even for us, we had something like an alumni visit, riiight?”

“Well, I’ve never gone to visit alumni before—or rather, I never even went to tour the campus.”

“Ahahaaa. Koyomi-chan, you’re like a genius, aren’t youuu.”

If you were saying something like that, it would be the end for Koyomi-chan. It did make me think that humans were a lot like kaleidoscopes, showing lots of different sides to them—but I see, I see.

An open campus… Who would’ve thought that, instead of Ougi-chan or Hachikuji, it was the chat with Higasa-chan, which I’d thought was the most inconsequential, that ended up actually being foreshadowing?

You never know.

But, an alumni visit, huh?

It was starting to look like I’d have to make a round trip back to my hometown—even though I’d taken great pains to move in next door to Oikura, this wasn’t really any different from when I’d been commuting via car.