Monogatari Series - Volume 31 - Chapter 43

Nadeko Eye Level

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“By the way, Sengoku. Those bangs of yours that you grew out–and of course I mean they grew out in a good way–but doesn’t it hurt?”

“It, i-it, i-i-it, it doesn’t hurt at, a-a-at, a-at, at all?”

The one who responded to my exceedingly eloquent question was none other than my sister’s friend, Sengoku, whose agitation was all but natural at this point–she had an expression that looked like a caricature of agitation, and her way of record scratching on the first sound of her sentence was a technique that followed the fundamentals, although scratching towards the end of the sentence was a novel sort of fade-out.

What was she, a DJ?

Though her posture was that of a kabuki actor–an unexpected blend of East and West.

“It’s not like I grew them out to hide the third eye on my forehead or anything…”

“No, that’s not what I meant by it ‘hurting’…[?] I was just wondering if the tips of your hair would get into your eyes and poke at them.”

For someone like me, who sometimes had the eyesight of a vampire, it wasn’t really necessary for me to dramatically improve my eyesight, but it wouldn’t really be funny if I lost my eyesight because of my hairstyle.

Although, a Sengoku in glasses wouldn’t be bad.

“There’s nothing to worry about there. It’s true that the ends of my hair can taper off a bit, though.”

“Are you talking about a shaggy haircut? You sound like an artisan.”

“But I like to walk with my eyes closed so that they don’t poke at me.”

Rather than an artisan, this made her sound like an expert.

Hold on, you close your eyes?

Even now? Behind those bangs?

“Well, even if the ends of my hair didn’t get into my eyes, just by being alive, your eyeballs will start to deteriorate over time. In that case, I think it’s better to not misuse my eyesight, and instead keep my eyelids closed and fresh normally so that I only use them when I absolutely need to.”

Misusing eyesight (shiryoku)… She said it like one would say misusing political power (kenryoku).

I’ve heard of athletes reading books, watching TV, or playing smartphone games only in moderation so as to take good care of their eyes, but to think that those bangs acted as a defensive wall.

In the first place, it was common knowledge that one grows hair in order to protect their head–so perhaps Sengoku’s bangs were playing the role of goggles to protect her eyes from the sun’s rays. Even the hat she wore low over her eyes was a sun visor, huh…

However, if you didn’t use them at all, then by not using them, I felt like they would still deteriorate… Or rather, they’d degenerate.

Just look at those deep-sea fish that live in a world of darkness.

“I can’t look at them. Because my eyes are closed.”

“You got me there.”

She sure showed me up, could have been the punch line I used, but why don’t we continue the conversation for just a bit longer.

“In the first place, you’re the type of person who does play games, aren’t you?”

“I turn the screen off, and play with sound only.”

That was a super-advanced way of playing.

If she could do that, then it seemed like she would be able to play without not only the controller, but without even the console itself–her eye level was at a high level.

“You know. The essential things in life are seen not with the eyes. You’d be able to see the world better if you looked with the eyes of your heart, Koyomi-onii-chan.”

The eyes of your heart… I couldn’t say it didn’t sound even more shady than a third eye, but perhaps that depended on how you looked at it. Just with the eyes, that is.

Perhaps the eyes of my heart were too dull to take a straight look at the wise sayings of the little prince.

“I’ve seen too much of this filthy world, after all.”

“That’s so cool, Koyomi-onii-chan…”

Can you retort with something instead?

Can you not stare at me with those eyes sparkling like the stars, visible even through those long bangs?

That gaze was too radiant for me.

However, now that I realize it, saying that “you shouldn’t judge people by their appearance” involves the premise that “we unconsciously like to judge people by their appearance”, and I think that’s something we should keep in mind. Especially since, at some point, the teachings started to become “it’s not just etiquette that’s important, but your personal appearance, too.”

If you’re going to be caught up by those misleads and feints, then it might be a valid strategy to just ignore your eyesight, and not look at all.

“That reminds me, the goddess of justice at courthouses is blindfolded while carrying scales, isn’t she? In order to lay down fair judgments without being led astray by appearances…”

For those sorts of people who are at a poor station in life with the possibility of being brought to court for some crime or other, they may be thankful for this policy, but if possible, I would like for the courts to keep it in their hearts and not actually wear blindfolds during trials.

It’s unthinkable (shingai) for someone to ascertain the truth with just the mind’s eye (shingan).

Plus, aside from the defendant’s appearance, can’t you see your scales being tilted?

“They say that eyes speak louder than words, and that seeing is believing. Even with me having a reputation for having eyes on my back, I still think it’s important to make frequent eye contact, Sengoku-uji. Or should I say, Kaga-Hyakumangoku-uji?”

“You shouldn’t make fun of people’s names, Koyomi-onii-chan…”

Rather than a retort, I ended up just being admonished normally.

But if that was the case, then I would prefer you told Hachikuji that… But I guess they’d never actually come into contact before? Regardless, after being told that, especially after being told that by Sengoku, I had to apologize.

The act of teasing someone using their name can be as delicate as an eyeball.

In Sengoku’s case, while her family name was just cool, her given name did seem like something she’d get teased for… I felt like, when I was in elementary school, I constantly asked about why it wasn’t “Nadeshiko” instead.

Perhaps I’d poked at a trauma of hers–emotional scars are also invisible to the naked eye, after all.

For me, it would be that hellish spring break.

Though it was certainly a large cut, I wouldn’t exactly call it precious to me.

“Sorry, sorry. I’d like to apologize, including for the stuff I said in the past. If you could look the other way.”

“Nadeko is sorry, too. It was a lie when I said that I grew out my bangs to preserve my vision.”

“Well, of course.”

“The truth is that I’m not good with making eye contact.”

Rather than hiding my third eye, I was hiding my embarrassment.

That was what Sengoku said.

Because she’d been hiding something, I’d assumed it was something that was worth hiding, and mistaken it for some sort of valuable truth, but once I dug into it, it turned out to just be hiding her embarrassment–after having seen through it, it was quite the anticlimax.

The skilled hawk may not always hide its talons–it may not be talons (tsume), but dreams (yume).

And not dreams, but nightmares.

“When someone looks straight into your eyes and it feels like they can read your mind, isn’t that scary? It’s something that Tsukihi-chan often does.”

It was true that that girl liked to look straight into your eyes without wavering.

You may as well call it, direct heat.

“It almost feels like my retinas are being scanned. Like all my personal information is about to be leaked. That’s why I end up closing my eyes.”

Thanks to my sister, such a cute girl ended up becoming the kind of character that uses her mind’s eye… I couldn’t help but feel responsible.

I couldn’t turn a blind eye to this.

“All right. In that case, I’ll be your eyes from now on. Just like Swimmy.”

“Y-you don’t have to go that far…”

I was rejected.

You could say that she was just looking at me from a distance, but my feelings were always looked down on with a bird’s-eye view.

“It’s hard making eye contact with my homeroom teacher, to the point that I want to wear sunglasses in class, but of course I can’t actually do that, so I’m enduring it.”

“So don’t tell me, those bangs were actually the result of a compromise?”

There was nothing harder to get across than the endurance and compromise of someone that wasn’t you… Just like the pain of being strangled by a snake.

“But, but, Koyomi-onii-chan, in the end, maybe the reason I isolate myself by not wanting to look at people’s eyes is that I’m constantly looking into people’s eyes. Because I was constantly aware of the gazes of others, I ended up thinking that maybe other people were aware of Nadeko’s eyes, too.”

That was, quite literally, an insight.

Or should I say, the focus of her attention was different.

When you think that everyone thinks a certain way, it’s usually because you’re the one thinking it the most–when I thought that all my classmates considered me to be a dropout in school, it’s because I was treating myself as a dropout the most.

It’s the kind of self-contradiction where you’re worried that someone set up a security camera, so you end up setting up your own security cameras. If you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you–that is, if you’re feeling that way, it’s because you were gazing into the abyss.

Thinking about it, there was no way my smaller younger sister was staring into people’s eyes in order to understand their feelings. It’s because she loved herself to the point that she believed, without a doubt, that everyone else loved her, too.

In other words, she was a self-siscon.

“That’s true. Rara-chan just turns on the direct heat towards the other person for no reason at all.”

“Scary… My sister is scary…”

However, it was an extremely apt metaphor–after all, she was the advisor of Tsuganoki 2nd Middle School’s Fire Sisters.

“This idea has been shelved for quite some time now, but originally, in Nisemonogatari volume 2, my lovable sister was supposed to have fallen into despair at the idea of justice and turned into a pyromaniac, setting fire to the abandoned ruins of the cram school. Just a side note.”

“I, i-i-i-i, i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i, isn’t that too much for just a side note?”

Her record scratching went so far that she almost sounded like a chicken.

Allow me to call her, Chicken Nadekko (although, if I showed no signs of remorse from earlier, she was sure to get mad at me).

“After hearing that idea, I realized it’s better to keep unseen things unseen… Let sleeping dogs lie.”

“Oops. Once again, it appears my quick wit has come and gone. It’s been exposed, my knowledge.”

Incidentally, while this idea was not used, it was carried over into Nekomonogatari (White)–in a sense, it was Hanekawa’s calamity, her calamity of fire.

Perhaps she didn’t see the light of day, but she saw the light of the fire.

In conclusion, whether it’s truth or deception or light or darkness or fire or water, or perhaps like oil and water or like oil to a fire, it’s enough to look at with a wink.

“Right. Nadeko can’t become like Tsukihi, who always says 'Look right into my eyes and speak’, but I do think that I’d like to cut my bangs short someday. It’s really hard being cursed because I had no idea about my friends’ feelings or even my own feelings–it was too terrible to even look at.”

In Nadeko’s case, it wasn’t the light of the fire that I saw, but snake eyes.

Saying that, Sengoku turned her face downward, as if lowering a shutter–taking a wait-and-see approach for the looks of her downcast eyes, it didn’t seem like those eyes, or rather, that day would come. But when the day comes that Sengoku did show her eyes as if she were rolling dice, if you asked whether a demon would show up or a snake would show up, then, well, of course what would show up would be a snake.

And they all lived happily ever after.