Monogatari Series - Volume 27 - Chapter 2.04

004

“So? The classmate that confessed to you and then cursed you in retaliation when you rejected him, the sports star, Sajou Sunshi-kun—did he not apologize to you, in the end?”

“Yeah—well, he did apologize, you see? He did apologize, but then he said something like, ‘Sorry, sorry. But Sengoku, it’s partly your fault, right? I apologized, so you’d better properly apologize, too.’”

It was a visit that wasn’t the least bit refreshing, leaving me with a hazy feeling… It might have even been a more unpleasant and tortuous conversation than the visit with Nakuna-chan.

The unbalanced nature of him promptly apologizing and then demanding a formal apology from me really didn’t make any sense, even as I remembered it now, after quite the number of days had passed.

It irritated me every time I thought about it.

“Ha ha. Each person has their own subjectivity, after all. Perhaps the way Sunshi-kun sees it, he was seduced by you, a wicked girl, and then ended up riddled with holes as a result.”

Though I had never done anything like seducing him.

It was completely baseless.

And, to call me a wicked girl… Though I’d been referred to as a last boss before.

Because of the thing with Nakuna-chan, I had actually turned him down rather decisively considering the kind of person I had been at the time… If that ended up being bad, then yes, maybe Ougi-san’s words were right.

“There’s etiquette to rejecting people, I guess.”

“That’s right. Sengoku-chan, he must have been left bewildered by your stubborn behavior after he thought you would be easy. More than just a chance, he thought he had ten chances with you, so of course a playboy like him wouldn’t stay put after you gave him the cold shoulder.”

“I don’t think your words are that right. But, hmm… I can’t help but think about why, of the two people that cursed me, both of them ended up riddled with holes.”

“It’s amazing to hear that you’re thinking about something, Sengoku-chan.”

“Do you take me for an idiot?”

“At the very least, your life plan isn’t exactly sensible. To start living on your own even before graduating from middle school, and to aim to become a courtroom sketch artist.”

Perhaps I’ll dabble in courtroom sketches for a bit.

Want me to draw you? Defendant, Oshino Ougi?

“Give me a break. If you were to draw me, I might end up vanishing, like being sucked into a black hole. But Sengoku-chan, shouldn’t you explain what the situation was at the time? There might be readers that have started from this volume.”

“Would, would there really…?”

What mistakes would they have made to begin reading from the fourth volume of Monster Season?—but, well, for the sake of reviewing the material myself, I may as well go over it.

Last year, I’d been cursed by two snakes at the same time—naturally, the two people that had set those snakes were Nakuna-chan and Sunshi-kun.

I was cursed at the same time from two different directions.

Nakuna-chan couldn’t forgive the fact that me, a lower-class minion and small fry, was confessed to by the boy she liked; Sunshi-kun couldn’t forgive the fact that a girl that seemed easy to him rejected his confession. Thus, each of them cast their own curses.

They hadn’t arranged things beforehand. It had simply been trendy at the time.

Those sorts of “charms”, at Nanahyakuichi Middle School—not just “charms” relating to romance, but lots of different variants like “raising your grades” and “improving your reflexes”. Basically, they were “charms” aimed towards middle school students.

The majority of those were harmless, just “merchandise” that were charms in name only, but mixed in were several “real ones”—in my case, they doubled up.

“Ha ha. Rather than ‘real ones’, it’s more like they were ‘fakes’. Inferior goods of low quality. However, out of the two snakes that were coiled around you, Sengoku-chan, one of them was completely purified by the talisman that Meme-oji-san gave you, right? There should have been only one snake that didn’t get exterminated and got away… So why is it that both the boy and the girl were equally hit by the curse reversal?”

“I can only think that the two of them cursed more than just me… Otherwise, they would be way too hole-ridden for them to have been bitten by just the one snake that returned.”

Ononoki-chan had brought up the idea that the victim had cursed themselves, and perhaps that wasn’t impossible for the two of them, but from my estimations, it felt like they would need to be cursed by dozens of people to end up like that.

That would mean that I wasn’t particularly special to them… I wasn’t her irreplaceable right hand, and I wasn’t his fated partner connected by a red string.

I was no more than one of the many classmates that had been innumerably, or even indiscriminately, cursed.

Or perhaps, they may have just decided to try out the “charms” that they paid money for, without any real reason to do so… Like testing out the sharpness of a knife. And, among the many classmates cursed by Nakuna-chan or Sunshi-kun, there was probably someone that had been more capable of handling it—if anything, I had been the one to fail miserably after teaching myself to deal with it.

By attempting self-help using the knowledge from browsing at a bookstore, I’d amplified the amount of harm I received.

“You don’t need to abase yourself that much, Sengoku-chan. Because of that self-reliance, you were able to reunite with Koyomi-onii-chan and Tsukihi-chan, right?”

“But now, I’ve already let go of him, so that’s not really something I can be glad about…”

Our relationship had begun from a strange twist of fate, huh.

However—and this was the main point of concern—the snake that had failed to be purified should have gotten away and returned to either Nakuna-chan or Sunshi-kun, but in the end, it seemed things would be resolved without learning who.

“I see. Until we learn whether or not you were able to carry out your revenge, it certainly won’t be very refreshing. It would leave me with a hazy feeling.”

“That’s not the reason why this isn’t refreshing!”

“But, well, if both of them ended up in that tattered state now, then that’s enough for me to refreshingly think, ‘Serves you right!’ It’s exhilarating. There’s nothing more refreshing than this.”

It seemed that the less I felt that way, the more Ougi-san would feel that way to make up for it… Really, he was like a high school boy personifying the back sides of people.

Or, a high school boy (?).

“Even if it was under Gaen-san’s guidance, you shouldn’t have bothered lifting their curses.”

Was this fellow aware that, if I really wanted to plot revenge, he would be the target of it…?

“Yes, I’m aware. So that’s why, in order to overthrow humanity… Er, in order to atone for my sins139, I’m letting you use me as an errand boy.”

Did he just say, overthrow humanity?

Was he saying he was the Demon King or something?

Trembling in fear, I accepted the rolling suitcase from Ougi-san. It was oversized luggage fitting as much as sixty liters, meant for particularly long trips, but inside were the manuscripts that I had drawn long ago.

When I left home, I’d carelessly forgotten about my closet… I was calling it “leaving home”, but I’d essentially run away after a big argument with my parents, so I’d basically left everything unattended to, taking with me only a pen and a sketchbook.

Like some Showa-era novelist.

That happened at the start of the year.

I’d been able to avoid talking to my parents about what I would do after graduation, but we had all become careless over the New Year’s holidays… As a result, I’d ended up starting to live by myself much earlier than I’d originally planned.

The lease that I’d signed thanks to Gaen-san’s influence after the events of last time started in January, which made things worse… After all, I was the type of person to run away more easily if there was a place I could run to.

Incidentally, Ononoki-chan came with me.

That girl can be a bit snappy, but I could tell she really loves me.

But then, I remembered what I’d left behind—or rather, more than anything else, I didn’t dare want to leave those manuscripts under my parents’ noses. But I couldn’t go back and get them myself, so there was no one else but Ougi-san I could ask for help.

Well, to be precise, I’d asked Tsukihi-chan first, but she refused.

“Refusing something like that is what makes Tsukihi-chan Tsukihi-chan, isn’t it? Ha ha.”

“Was it all right? Nobody saw you, right?”

“I’d been planning on dropping by after finishing what I was doing with Kanbaru-senpai, but because I had to accompany Koyomi-onii-chan, I ended up dropping the spare key you lent me. Since no one was home, I broke a window to get in, but as I was rummaging around, your parents returned much earlier than I expected, so I had to knock them out to escape.”

He did everything that he shouldn’t have.

He knocked out my parents…

There was a limit to how much of a scoundrel you could be.

“I’m joking. It was all a lie.”

“I hope so…”

“Aside from dropping the spare key.”

“If that’s true, then that means you breaking a window is true, too!”

Don’t act even more destructive than Ononoki-chan at my parents’ home—incidentally, the place where I was talking to Ougi-san like this was a place not too far from my parents’ home, the famous Shirohebi Park.

The apartment that Gaen-san had introduced me to was located in a great spot near the capital (by capital, I wasn’t talking about Tokyo—my hometown’s downtown area was called the capital by us locals), but I’d come a great distance today to pick up my luggage.

Even though I didn’t want to see my parents, I couldn’t ask Ougi-san to come all the way to the capital, so I made a small return to my hometown.

An empty-handed, triumphant return.

“I was surprised at how much you had. You sure are prolific, Sengoku-chan. I’ll lend you the suitcase, so you can just take the whole thing back. It’s the least I can give you as a farewell gift, for you about to walk the path of an outlaw.”

“Um, thanks…”

It certainly seemed like a sturdy suitcase that could handle the most uneven of roads… I was afraid that its sturdy appearance would make it look like it was filled with cash.

Though it only contained my rough scribbles.

When I thought about how he brought over this giant suitcase in the sidecar of his BMX, I realized I’d been rather thoughtless in my request.

“B-but, I can’t accept something that seems so expensive.”

“Don’t worry about it. This is left over from when I used to imitate my uncle and do all sorts of fieldwork here and there. There’s no reason for me to do any traveling anymore, so I’ll be glad if you could inherit it, Sengoku-chan.”

Oh, well, in that case.

Though I couldn’t shake the feeling that he was just foisting onto me something that just took up space and was hard to get rid of… Though Ougi-san had given off the impression of being a wandering transfer student, had he finally decided to put down roots in this town?

It was the exact opposite of me.

“Not to mention, the exact opposite of that Koyomi-onii-chan, who has also left this town. Like the front and the back. That reminds me, Tsukihi-chan was angry that you left without telling her at all, Sengoku-chan. If you’d like, then after this, let’s go and apologize to her.”

“No, no, no, no!”

So that’s why she refused me…

When I’d called her, she didn’t seem that way in the slightest, and she’d refused with the same cheery tone of voice as always, but yikes. So that was what she was like when she was really mad.

It wasn’t a simple comparison, but ultimately, Tsukihi-chan was far scarier than Nakuna-chan.

Although, after Tsukihi-chan refused me, the fact that I had no choice but to rely on Ougi-san, whom I had no direct connections to… It really showed how poor my personal connections were.

I felt awkward relying on the professional Ononoki-chan for my errands, too—but even if Ougi-san took on the job as a form of atoning for his sins (or overthrowing humanity), he wasn’t doing it for free.

Even if he had quit traveling, it seemed his habit of performing fieldwork had not gone away, as he requested a story from me in exchange for running my errand.

Of the current circumstances, I suppose.

Or of my nostalgic reconciliation tour that had happened last summer—although, in the end, there had been no such reconciliation, and I hadn’t heard from them for months after that.

I didn’t even know if the two of them had been discharged.

And I myself had left home…

“That’s fine as it is. I’m sure not even Gaen-san actually wanted you to reconcile with your old friends—sheesh, not even I can read her true intentions.”

Right.

Considering her amiable disposition that could get her to make friends with anyone, it was possible that she wanted to seriously intervene in the squabbles of kids, but that was secondary, or even tertiary, to our goal.

The primary goal was, ultimately.

The collection—of the curses.

“It seemed she wanted some samples. Of the snake’s curse.”

It was quite an important task, and I was sure that (even if it was outside Ononoki-chan’s area of expertise) Gaen-san had any number of talented people who were suited for it, but as specialists, they probably wouldn’t bother entering those hospital rooms for free, especially if they weren’t requests.

As such, she connected it to my training, or perhaps she was connecting me to my old friends—with that level of ability, her caliber as head honcho was much more imposing than Nakuna-chan or Tsukihi-chan.

“On the other hand, maybe Gaen-san considered it a case so serious that she had no choice but to mobilize you, who’s just a specialist apprentice.”

That was Ougi-san’s analysis.

Aha, I hadn’t thought of it like that—how discerning of him. No wonder he only ever suffered a crushing defeat from Gaen-san.

“Who are you saying suffered a crushing defeat? You could just as easily say that I won that round.”

He was surprisingly bothered by that.

I didn’t exactly know the details of the battle that had occurred between Ougi-san and Gaen-san… Ononoki-chan would probably tell me if I asked her, but I didn’t feel the need to go out of my way to learn about it.

“Personally, I would call it a tie. In other words, a draw.”

“It’s pretty muddy140, how bothered you are by that…”

“At any rate, it’s true that we’ve reached a conclusion, or rather, we’ve drawn the line. Not with Koyomi-onii-chan, but between me and Gaen-san—after all, I’m not under protection, but under surveillance. If you see it from that point of view, Sengoku-chan, then didn’t you draw the line, too? Between you and your former friend, and between you and your former boyfriend.”

“Calling him my former boyfriend is wrong, and calling her my former friend is also a little wrong—”

Not that I wanted to say that she was still my friend. Rather, I wanted to explain that it was doubtful whether or not she was even my friend in the past.

But it was wrong to glorify the notion of friendship, too—it was more like a mutually beneficial relationship.

However, I was reluctant to agree to the idea that I’d drawn the line between us. As I’ve already said, a hazy feeling still lingered within me, making me constantly wonder if I could’ve done things better.

“Ha ha. Maybe what you’re feeling is regret, or even guilt, that you’ve arbitrarily and unconscientiously turned a blind eye to wicked people that should really never be forgiven?”

“Aah. Maybe that’s it…”

“In that sense, deciding whether to forgive or not to forgive isn’t something you can do superficially. Because it’s possible to forgive not because you’re generous, not because you’re broad-minded, but simply because you’re weak—because you’re weak, you can’t condemn. You’re simply forgiving them for your own interests. ‘I can’t forgive him for what he’s done, but I have to forgive him for the sake of the future.’ ‘If I forgive him now, it’ll help me out later on.’ There are many such cases—the pattern where it’s not the person apologizing who’s giving in, but the person forgiving who’s giving in. Even if a court tells you to ‘reconcile’, it’s not like you’re actually consenting to making peace with them, right? This is like the back side of the ‘ayamarei’.”

“The ‘ayamarei’?”

“Koyomi-onii-chan’s enemy this time around. His bonus story is included in this volume.”

“That part’s the bonus story?”

“He managed to pull through this time, but, well, it’s the kind of oddity that you have to keep an eye on for the rest of your life.”

My, my. He’s as active as ever.

Judging from the name, it must be an apparition that had something to do with apologies.

“That’s right. If anything, it’s like a law that I would want to have enacted on your former friend and former boyfriend—but even if they were to apologize from the bottom of their hearts for their past wrongdoings, it’s a different matter entirely as to whether or not you would forgive them, right?”

“Hm? What do you mean?”

“Sengoku-chan, you’ve experienced how tough it is to forgive someone who isn’t really repenting for their actions. But what if they’d repented a bit and were regretting their actions? Even though you would want to get even more angry, you would have no choice to forgive them, and that can make you feel pretty hazy, too.”

Ah.

It was true that, if Nakuna-chan or Sunshi-kun had hung their heads and professed a heartfelt apology, I probably would not have been able to hide my anger.

It was possible I’d say something like, even though you did all those things, you think you can just resolve everything with an apology?

“You might go into Anti-Nadeko mode and say something like, ‘Y’think you have the right to repent or reform, hmmm!?’”

“Your imitation is pretty good… And I really could say that.”

But, thinking about that imitation objectively, the question becomes, what exactly were you supposed to do?

You wouldn’t be forgiven whether you apologized or not, and you wouldn’t be forgiven whether you repented or reformed, so what would you need to do to make up for your actions? If you bow your head, they’ll say that there’s no meaning to that pose, and if you try to pay money, they’ll just say that this isn’t a matter that can be resolved with money—atoning for your sins.

Just as humanity has survived the history of the Earth without being overthrown, could sins not be atoned for?

“Hmm. The idea that you won’t be satisfied until you condemn the other party to the point of ruin… Now that’s sinful in itself. Being the side that condemns is also a burden to bear. After all, you’re bringing resentment and hatred as shadows into your heart.”

That was true.

It did feel like Gaen-san had unnecessarily dragged things back up.

Like piling salt on top of an old wound.

“For Nakuna-chan, it did make me feel hazy when I remembered her, but for Sunshi-kun, I’d pretty much forgotten everything about him—even though I barely realized who he was from hearing his name, meeting him directly made me feel hazy all over again.”

“That’s awful, and it was probably a similar feeling for them, too, but Nadeko-chan, if you were to condemn Gaen-san for that, I’m sure she would easily apologize. With a formal apology. And when she does, you’ll be faced with another choice. When that adult apologizes to you in a friendly way, will you helplessly forgive her, or stubbornly refuse to forgive her?”

“...I’d have to helplessly forgive her.”

I was only able to run away from home right now because I was being supported by Gaen-san… She was the one that had introduced me to my current place of residence, and I could only make ends meet because of the specialist training that she was giving me. A fifteen-year-old middle schooler living on her own was unreasonable, but it was only made possible thanks to her personal connections… If I were to sever ties with her, I’d end up out on the streets… In order to maintain my current relationship with Gaen-san, forgiving her with a vagueness like, “Ah, um, well, I’m not really that mad…” would be the only form of resistance I could take.

Even now, I lived under the umbrella of a powerful person…

“Ha ha. In that sense, Koyomi-onii-chan really is incredible. He cut ties with Gaen-san without a second thought, so now he’s magnificently living his life out on the streets.”

“So that could happen…”

It might sound heartless to say it this way, but from the bottom of my heart, I hoped that it wouldn’t come to that. Of course, there was no such thing as cutting ties with Gaen-san through sheer willpower—that’s why it’ll weigh on you even after that.

But it seemed she had calculated everything… Putting me in a situation where I would have to forgive her, regardless of whatever I thought—it was heartbreaking to realize that I’d have to give in for my own interests.

However, there’s another way to think about it.

It’s actually kind of a relief, in a way, to know that you have a pretext to forgive someone that’s hard to forgive. The excuse that I didn’t give in out of my own volition could serve as a cast and crutches for me later on.

That naturally applied to Gaen-san, but even in the case of Nakuna-chan and Sunshi-kun, if it hadn’t been for my specialist training, it was very likely I wouldn’t have been able to forgive them, even if they had apologized… I see, then in that case, it was as Ougi-san said. I may have drawn a line in between us.

It’s not like you had to forgive her—that was what Ononoki-chan had said, but it may be true that forgiving allowed you to proceed forward.

In terms of whether you were helped or harmed, you would be harmed, but in terms of profit and loss, it was a profit.

At the very least, if I continued to hate, resent, and curse Nakuna-chan and Sunshi-kun, it wouldn’t provide any sort of fuel for me.

“Right. Not to mention the concern that, if any grudges were to be left behind in your emotions, Nadeko-chan, you might become a god again—Gaen-san was probably trying to keep that in check, too. When you have a huge job ahead of you, you want to take away any risk factors.”

“When you say that, I guess I can’t refute it.”

“I suppose the lesson here is, if you’re seeking forgiveness, then instead of apologizing sincerely, you should have the forethought to provide a pretext to forgive. It would have been nice if that unforgiving ayamarei that tormented Koyomi-onii-chan so much came with such a clause—that wouldn’t be an interpretation of the law, but an amendment to it. On the other hand, it might be brilliant to act like Tsukihi and make them think, ‘It’ll be useless no matter how much I get mad at them,’ in order to be forgiven.”

“That wouldn’t be brilliant at all.”

It barely made sense.

With that as the punch line, Ougi-san said, “Then, the delivery is complete,” and sat back on his bicycle.

“Thanks for telling me about your past. It was very interesting—oh, that reminds me. There are people that hold the opinion that your friends or your family are those that you have to grit your teeth and forgive, even if they’ve done something unforgivable.”

“That’s not an opinion I can get behind. Don’t bring it up like it’s something heartwarming.”

It was no longer possible for me to be unconditionally moved by the word “family”.

“Speaking of which, it’s been quite a while since you reunited with your former friend and former boyfriend, but even after the passing of those days and months, the changing of the seasons, and the start of the new year, you still haven’t been approached by Gaen-san?”

“Ah, yeah… I’ve been constantly receiving a bunch of annoying assignments through Ononoki-chan, but there hasn’t been anything new on that front. It’s possible that I was cut from the job.”

Maybe the sketches I’d passed along through Ononoki-chan weren’t of any use… No, to wonder if they were of any use sounded too much like the occupational disease of a courtroom sketch artist aspirant.

“Although you’re not actually employed. So it’s a non-occupational disease.”

Saying that, Ougi-chan handed me some metallic object from atop his bike—perhaps, as a high school boy, he was giving a runaway middle school girl like me some pocket change, but what he’d actually given me was a key.

It was the spare key he had said he dropped.

“Ha ha. There’s no way I’d drop the spare key that you entrusted with me, Sengoku-chan.”

“Oh… C’mon. No more bad jokes, Ougi-san.”

“Sorry, sorry. Will you forgive me?”

“Well, this isn’t something you really need to apologize for… So basically, when you said that you broke a window to get into our home, that was also a joke, right?”