Monogatari Series - Volume 5 - Chapter 6.02

002

The development seems so entirely out of context that I can only apologize, but apparently I was kidnapped.

The date was July twenty-ninth, approximately ten days after the start of summer vacation─well, I had a feeling that I’d been unconscious for some time, so I suppose it was possible that it was already the thirtieth. In fact, for all I knew the thirty-first had come and gone and it was August. If I could see the watch strapped to my right wrist, I’d be able to ascertain the date and hour, but with my hands bound together behind a steel beam, that was easier said than done. Nor could I extract the cell phone sitting in my pocket. Which is not to say that I had no estimate of the time─it was pitch black outside the window, allowing me to surmise, at least, that it must be night. I say window, but in reality the glass was missing, and the wind blustered into the room. Midsummer or not, the location was far too exposed. I could probably manage to stand up if I tried since my feet weren’t bound, but there didn’t seem to be much point in doing so. I kept my butt planted on the floor and stretched my legs out instead.

I can’t believe Oshino and Shinobu lived like this, I thought absently to myself.

That’s right. I was being held captive in a location I knew all too well, the ruins of the former cram school. It was a four-story affair strewn with garbage and rubble and on the verge of collapse. To someone unfamiliar with the building, every floor and classroom probably looked the same, but if you knew the place as well as I did, small differences were apparent. I could tell that the classroom where I was being held was one of three on the fourth floor, the one farthest on the left viewed from the stairwell.

A fat lot of good it did me, though.

Oshino, of course, was no longer in town, let alone in these ruins, and Shinobu had left them to take up residence in my shadow. Perhaps, at this very moment, she was feeling nostalgic. Or perhaps she wasn’t feeling anything at all. How was I to know what a five-hundred-year-old vampire might be thinking.

So, what to do?

Despite a throbbing pain in the back of my head (I must have been struck there when I was abducted), I went over the situation with a calmness that seemed at odds with my predicament. People can be surprisingly levelheaded at such moments. After all, it’s not like losing your head got you anywhere. The most urgent task, really, was to take stock of the status quo.

I had assumed my hands were tied behind my back with a length of rope or something, but it seemed it was actually a pair of metal handcuffs keeping them in place. If they’d been the toy variety, I probably could have resorted to brute strength to rip them apart─but I tried and they didn’t budge. I’d end up ripping my own wrists to shreds before I even put a dent in the cuffs. If there’s any distinction between real and fake in the handcuff world, these were clearly the real deal.

“Still─vampiric strength would have let me escape without even breaking a sweat.”

Forget about the cuffs, I’d demolish the steel beam, too. Hell, even if I mangled my wrists, the trademark healing skill would restore them soon enough. Six of one or half a dozen of another.

“Vampire…” I muttered, sweeping my gaze over the ruined classroom once more. Even if I couldn’t use my hands, there might be something I could reach with my feet.

My eyes fell on my own shadow. However dark the darkness, it always appeared a shade darker in relief.

“......”

Over spring break, I was attacked by a vampire.

A beautiful vampire with blond hair who drained my blood.

All of it. Every last drop. And as if that weren’t enough─

Drained of blood, I became a vampire.

Over that spring break I’d spent not as a human being but as a vampire, these cram school ruins had served as my lair where I hid from prying eyes.

Usually, people who’ve turned into vampires are saved by vampire hunters, or Christian special ops, or even kinslayer vampires who hunt other vampires, but in my case, it was some older dude who was just passing by─Mèmè Oshino.

Saved by another. Oshino never stopped disliking that presumptuous way of putting it.

But that was how I became human again, while the beautiful blond vampire was reduced to a pale memory of her former self, robbed of her strength and even of her name (Shinobu Oshino was the one she received in exchange), to be sealed inside my shadow in the end.

I suppose you could say we had it coming.

Both Shinobu and me.

That was all there was to it.

Only, I couldn’t leave it at that─and so she and I existed as we did. There was no way for me to know how Shinobu felt about it all, but even if it had been a mistake, I don’t see what other choice we had.

Anyway.

The ruins were all full of memories for me. Maybe I should say awful memories, but that’s beside the point.

The issue, at the moment, was that while I once possessed the strength of a vampire it was a long time ago, and only a faint vestige of that attribute now remained. Tearing through a set of metal handcuffs was only wishful thinking. If I were Lupin the Third, I’d dislocate the bones in my wrist and slip out of the cuffs as if they were a pair of gloves, but since I was just a high school third-year and not, in fact, Lupin the Third, such sleights of hand were beyond me.

Come to think of it…

Come to think of it, Tsukihi had also been kidnapped, recently─well, maybe “kidnapped” is overstating it, but it was still no laughing matter. Some enemy organization (?), doubting it was a match for Karen in combat prowess, instead hatched a plan to take Tsukihi hostage. Before I could even worry, I had to shake my head at all of them for staging, in real life, hijinks worthy of a weekly boys’ comics magazine, but fortunately, when push comes to shove, Tsukihi can shove back. Getting herself kidnapped had been a ruse, and she ingratiated herself into the “enemy organization” (lol) and managed to bring it down from the inside.

The formidable Fire Sisters.

Incidentally, both girls kneeled before me afterwards and begged, “Please, don’t tell mom and dad!”

They shouldn’t have bothered. I wasn’t about to bring something crazy like that to our parents’ attention. Kneeling down along with her sister spoke well of Karen, but maybe also poorly.

I mean, girls of their age shouldn’t fall on their knees to apologize about nothing. It’s just immature, okay?

“As for me, I bet falling on my knees wouldn’t even cut it… Those two are quick with the waterworks despite their own antics. So, what to do?”

Honestly, though… I already had a pretty good guess as to how I wound up in this situation. A pretty clear picture, you might say.

The truth was staring me in the face, yes indeed.

Whether I wanted to admit it or not.

The writing, as they say, was on the wall.

“Hmph…”

Just then.

Almost as if timed to coincide with my waking up, the sound of footsteps, climbing stairs, echoed through the ruins. Light seeped into the classroom from beyond the door─all of the electricity in the building was dead, so the source was probably a flashlight. It was moving in a beeline straight for the classroom where I was being held.

The door opened. The light was intense, momentarily blinding me─but my eyes soon adjusted.

Standing in the doorway….was a woman whose face I knew well.

“Ah. Araragi, you’re awake.”

Hitagi Senjogahara.

Her tone of voice was aloof, as always, as she pointed the flashlight in my direction.

“Phew, I was worried you might die without ever waking up,” she added.

“…”

I was at a loss for words.

There were plenty of things I wanted to say, but not a single one coalesced into words. Senjogahara closed the door and strutted in my direction, barely acknowledging the approximation of a grimace that crossed my face.

There wasn’t a hint of hesitation to her stride. It was the attitude of a person who harbored no doubts over what she was doing.

“Are you okay? Does the back of your head hurt?” she asked, setting the flashlight to the side─her concern was very touching, in and of itself.

Yet…

“Senjogahara,” I said. “Take off these handcuffs.”

“I will not,” she replied.

She had given it exactly zero seconds of consideration.

Man…

I took a deep breath, wanting to make sure I had plenty of air in my lungs before shouting. And then shout I did.

“So you’re the culprit after all!”

“Ah, you make a compelling case. But you’ll never prove it was me,” Senjogahara uttered a line that sounded like something out of the last chapter of a mystery novel. The speaker was always the culprit.

“The moment I saw I was being held in these ruins, I had a feeling it was you! Besides, no one else I know would have such heavy-duty handcuffs!”

“You have quite the imagination, Mr. Araragi. You don’t mind if I take notes, do you? I could probably use them when I write my next book.”

“In this case, I don’t give a damn about twists where the culprit is a mystery novelist! Just take these handcuffs off already!”

“I will not,” Senjogahara repeated. Lit from below by the flashlight, her stony expression was even more intimidating than usual.

Talk about scary.

“I will not,” Senjogahara said again, her face still a mask. “Also, I cannot. I already threw away the key.”

“You what?!”

“Also, I filled the keyhole with putty to make sure it can’t be picked.”

“Why would you?!”

“I also threw away the antidote.”

“I’ve been poisoned on top of it?!”

Senjogahara’s face finally cracked into a smirk. “I lied about the antidote,” she said.

As relieved as I was to hear that, apparently that meant she was telling the truth about throwing away the key and filling the keyhole with putty. I slumped my shoulders in defeat. How was I going to get out of these cuffs now?

“Oh well,” I conceded, “I should be glad that the part about the antidote was a lie…”

“Right. Don’t worry, the antidote is safe and sound…”

“So you did poison me?!”

I tried to thrust myself forward as I quipped, but the handcuffs caught on the steel beam and I didn’t make it very far. Maybe it wasn’t a big deal, but for someone like me, that’s extremely stressful.

“I lied about the poison, too,” Senjogahara told me. “But if you won’t be a good boy, who knows?”

“…”

Scary!

So, so scary!

“I float like a butterfly, sting like a butterfly.”

“Butterflies don’t sting!”

“My mistake. You must be so proud of yourself, pointing it out. Are you gonna brag about this for the rest of your life?”

“What a novel way of admitting your mistake!”

“Correctly, it’s bee.”

“Bee poison─is potent…”

I gulped hard, taking another look at the woman standing in front of me─at Hitagi Senjogahara.

One of my classmates.

She had a pretty face and looked smart, which in fact she was. With grades regularly in the top ten of our year, she had a reputation for being a cool beauty. What was known to only a select few, however, was that those who got too close to her were guaranteed, without exception, to pay the price.

The beautiful rose has its thorn. But in Senjogahara’s case it was nothing so poetic─Senjogahara, herself, was one beautiful thorn.

In terms of a disconnect between interior and exterior, my sister Tsukihi rivaled her, but in Senjogahara’s case there was no question of hysteria, just composed antagonism. Tsukihi was touchy, while Senjogahara was always on a combat footing at her normal temperature. She was like a security device programmed to lavish indiscriminate attacks on anyone who approached within a certain perimeter.

For instance, in my case, I got a staple punched into the inside of my mouth. One wrong step could have spelled disaster─and step I did, so it’s a wonder everything worked out in the end.

Well, Senjogahara did have good cause for acting the way she did. Back in May we managed to resolve that issue, even if it was a compromise of sorts─but unfortunately that programming was a part of her, and disabling it was proving to be quite a challenge. Which brings us to today.

“Still, you’ve actually been pretty quiet lately. Why up and kidnap your boyfriend out of the blue? Is this some new trend in domestic violence I haven’t heard of?”

By the way, Senjogahara and I were going out.

We were boyfriend and girlfriend. Sweethearts.

Not to be hokey, but you might say she stapled together our hearts─okay, I suppose that’s a little hokey. Besides, you don’t staple ties, you weave them.

“Relax,” Senjogahara stated. I felt like I was talking to a brick wall. “Relax, Araragi, I’m going to protect you.”

“…”

So scary!

The horror!

“You won’t die. Because I’m going to protect you.”

“As much as I appreciate the random Evangelion allusion, Miss ’Gahara…”

Miss ’Gahara. I’d come up with the nickname recently.

It wasn’t catching on very well. Sometimes, it seemed like I was the only one trying to make Miss ’Gahara happen.

“I’m starting to get hungry,” I continued, “and…maybe a little thirsty, too? Do you think we could get something to eat around here?”

I didn’t have much choice but to ask nicely─for the moment, my life was in Senjogahara’s unrelenting hands. If I didn’t tread lightly I might get stung for real, no joke about it. Regardless of how she was these days, Senjogahara would never come into a situation like this unarmed, though I had no idea what kind of stationery it might be…

“Hah,” Senjogahara snorted. It sounded nasty, like she was jeering at me. “Hungry, thirsty… You’re like an animal, all you do is eat and sleep. It’s disgusting. Why don’t you try living in a productive manner for a change? Oh, I’m sorry. I guess ‘living’ is too lofty a demand for Koyomi Araragi.”

“…”

What had I said to deserve that? Nothing, right?

“But when it comes to dying in a productive manner,” she elaborated, “I’m sure you’re second to none. A tiger leaves behind its fur upon dying, or so the proverb goes, and in that sense I suppose you’re a tiger.”

“That doesn’t sound like a compliment, either.”

After all, she was still calling me an animal.

Did she think I wouldn’t notice?

At any rate…

Judging from the level of venom, Senjogahara wasn’t actually angry or in a bad mood. She had an acid tongue and was always lashing out, so there were only a few people in the world capable of gauging her mood. Myself, and I guess Kanbaru and Senjogahara’s father, and that was it. Normally you’d take her to be someone who was irritated all the time.

“Fine, Araragi. I’ll be kind this once and show you mercy. I knew a pathetic bug like you would ask for food, so I bought all sorts in advance.”

Senjogahara proudly thrust out her other arm─the one not holding the flashlight─at pathetic bug-like me to present what appeared to be a plastic convenience-store bag.

It was semi-transparent so I could make out its contents.

Beverage bottles, rice balls, and such.

Rations, for my confinement.

How unexpectedly considerate of her…how unpleasantly considerate.

“Ah, I see─then water, first. I need water.”

Originally I had asked to eat hoping she would untie me, but it was true that I was feeling hungry and thirsty. Thanks to the aftereffects of my past vampirism I could hold off on eating, but even I had my limits. Who knows how long I was unconscious for, and in particular, water was a necessity for humans.

Senjogahara reached into the bag and pulled out a plastic bottle─mineral water─and unscrewed the cap. Since I was tied up, I expected her to help me drink, but she held the mouth of the bottle just a hair’s breadth from my lips before yanking it back.

I should have known… Senjogahara had a mean streak that went deeper than words.

“Aww, you want some wa-wa?” she teased.

“W-Well…yes…”

“Huh. But I’d rather drink it myself.”

Senjogahara began gulping it down.

Some people just have a way of doing things, I guess. Drinking straight from the bottle didn’t make her seem crude. In fact, she looked downright classy.

“Ahh, that hit the spot.”

“…”

“My my, such a greedy expression. Who said I was going to let you have any?”

Um, was she sure about that? That almost made it sound like she’d gone out of her way to buy water just to make me watch her drink some once I got thirsty.

Not that she wouldn’t ever do such a thing.

“Heheh. Araragi, did you think I’d pass it to you mouth to mouth? You nasty boy. You little perv.”

“Only Kanbaru would expect that in this situation.”

“Is that so? What about the other day when we traded a big sloppy kiss…”

“Don’t be talking about that now!”

I’d yelled. Not that there was anyone else to overhear, but I didn’t like her talking about that stuff so openly.

We boys are delicate that way.

“Fine,” she said. “If you want a drink of water that bad, I could let you have some.”

“I want a drink of water that bad…”

“Ha! Does this man have no pride? Bleating a shameless line for a mere sip of water… How about just dying, at this point? If I were you, I’d bite off my tongue instead.”

Senjogahara seemed to be enjoying herself…

I hadn’t seen her so animated in a while. She must have really been bottling it up lately…

“Fine. I can hardly turn a blind eye to such deplorable begging. I’ll show sympathy and allow you to quench your thirst. I hope you’re grateful, you dippy bird.”

“‘Dippy bird’ isn’t exactly an insult…”

“Heheh.”

With a more sinister laugh than ever, Senjogahara tipped the plastic bottle over and began dripping water onto her other hand. What in the world was she up to? Actually, considering how spiteful she could be, I already had a perfectly clear picture.

She held out her fingers, wet with mineral water, toward my lips.

“Lick it,” she ordered. “You said you were thirsty, didn’t you? Then stretch out your filthy tongue and slurp like a giraffe.”

“……”

That wasn’t exactly an insult, either… But with Senjogahara, somehow nearly anything could come out sounding venomous.

“Uh, Senjogahara…”

“What? I thought you were thirsty. Or were you lying? Liars need to be punished─”

“I’ll lick! I’ll lick it! Please let me lick it!”

I was already in a horrible fix without extra punishment.

I did as she said. I stretched my neck out toward Senjogahara’s fingers like a giraffe (whatever that meant) and extended my tongue.

“Absolutely disgraceful,” Senjogahara continued to belittle me. “I’ve never seen anything so pathetic. Who’d go so far for just a sip of water? I bet this is what you wanted all along, isn’t it? You’re probably just a pervert who likes to suck on girls’ fingers.”

Miss Senjogahara was definitely getting into this.

Regardless, licking her fingers helped quench my thirst some.

Now then.

“Araragi, that was an excellent image. I almost want to use it as the waiting screen on my cell phone.”

“Oh yeah? How top of the line. Maybe we could move on to those rice balls?”

“Why not? I’m feeling unusually generous today.”

No wonder, after all she’d done. You’d feel at least a little magnanimous.

“What filling would you like?” she asked me.

“Any.”

“You don’t seem very excited. Did you prefer bread by any chance?”

“Not really… Besides, as far as I can tell, you didn’t buy bread.”

“Nope. All I have are rice balls.”

“There’s no point in asking for what I can’t have.”

“If they don’t have bread, why don’t they serve us cake instead?”

“What an oppressive regime!”

There’d be a revolution in an instant.

It took the tart.

“I had a sheltered upbringing,” Senjogahara claimed. “I don’t know the ways of the world.”

“I think it’s your own ways that are the issue here.”

“I can’t help it, I was spoiled. I was the apple bee of my father’s eye.”

“‘Apple’! Just ‘apple’ sounds plenty painful coming from you!”

As we continued to banter, Senjogahara took out one of the rice balls, carefully removed the plastic wrapper, and suddenly shoved the whole thing into my mouth.

“Nmph! Ngh,” I sputtered. I could barely breathe. I couldn’t but lodge a complaint. “What the heck?!”

“Well, asking you to open your mouth and say ‘ahh’ was kind of embarrassing.”

“So you just shove it in my mouth? Khak! Th-There’s rice stuck in my throat. W-Water! Water! Quick, the whole bottle!”

“Wha… No. It’d be like we were kissing indirectly.”

“You’re feeling shy about that after making me slobber all over your fingers?!”

Senjogahara did supply me with water, but it was by cramming the bottle into my mouth. While the grains of rice stuck in my throat got washed down, it also felt like I was about to drown─a unique experience on dry land.

“Uh oh. Look at the mess you made,” Senjogahara deadpanned. “You’re a bad little boy.”

I didn’t know if “acid tongue” was the right term anymore. If Japan ever lost its freedom of speech, the first one to be locked up would almost certainly be her.

“If you don’t mind,” she announced, “I’m going to take my meal too… Today I only had the time to bring convenience-store fare, but don’t worry. Tomorrow it’ll be a proper, homemade lunch.”

“……”

“What? You have a problem with my cooking? I’ve been getting pretty good lately, if I do say so myself.”

No, my problem was with the fact that my confinement seemed to involve long-term planning. I’d been playing along so far figuring it was some sort of game, but I had no idea what her goal was.

Hmm? Ah, of course…

She’d told me, hadn’t she?

─Relax.

─I’m going to protect you.

To…protect me. I had a feeling she was being serious. If she was really trying to protect me, I shouldn’t be dismissive.

Though maybe that was less kind than spoiling.

Probably because I’d been struck on the back of my head, my memory was fuzzy─but it was all starting to come back.

Protect─what she meant by the word.

How this situation had come to pass.

“I have to say, Senjogahara, you’ve got some skills up your sleeve, knocking me out with a single blow to the back of the head. According to my sister, it’s a lot harder to knock someone out than you’d think.”

“What single blow?”

“O-Oh?”

“You refused to pass out. It took me twenty tries.”

“You could have killed me!”

Unbelievable.

Well… Speaking of unbelievable, there was something else I had to ask her.

Honestly, I’m not sure I wanted to know. But I didn’t have much of a choice.

“Senjogahara… You said you’d make lunch next time, and I’m grateful, I really am. But while I’m here, how am I supposed to, you know…do my business?”

I lobbed─the mortifying question.

But as cool as a cucumber, without so much as raising an eyebrow, as if she had thought of everything, Senjogahara reached into the plastic bag and pulled out an adult diaper.

“M-Miss ’Gahara? You’re kidding, right? Is that, like, a joke item? As always, what an edgy sense of humor.”

“Relax, I’m prepared to do anything for your sake, even change diapers.” Her face was expressionless as she spoke. “Don’t you know? I love you, Araragi. So much that even if you were covered in filth from head to toe, I’d embrace you without a moment’s hesitation. Starting with respiration and ending with excretion, I’ll control every nook and cranny of your body, including your brain.”

……

Oh, the weight of love!