Monogatari Series - Volume 5 - Chapter 6.07

007

Twenty minutes later.

I arrived at the samurai manor of a home where Kanbaru lived, a trip that usually took me at least thirty minutes. If I hadn’t run into Karen and wasted time, I could have been there three minutes sooner.

Next to the name plate was an intercom, which seemed out of place for a traditional house. When I pressed the button, it was Kanbaru’s grandmother, the woman who’d just witnessed Kanbaru’s disgrace (or perversion), who answered. I’d been over plenty of times already to help clean and met Kanbaru’s grandparents before, but if they knew it was me their granddaughter was talking to butt-naked on the phone, I doubt Grandma Kanbaru would have let me through the door.

─M-Ma’am…

─Thank you for being such a good boy with Suruga.

She bowed to me as she said this almost apologetically. Kanbaru, a star at school or not, was just a sweet, darling granddaughter to her…and nudity aside, the disastrous state of her ward’s room couldn’t have been a secret.

She had to be worried about Kanbaru.

Trusted her, perhaps, but also fretted.

……

Still, as a high school senior, it was a little embarrassing to be called a boy by someone else’s grandma.

I left her behind and headed toward Kanbaru’s room.

The sliding door was shut.

I could picture her hugging her knees in a little ball in the corner. This was my chance to catch her by surprise, and my heart was racing as I flung the door open without knocking.

Kanbaru was sprawled out on her futon without a single thread of clothing.

“Bfft!”

Suruga Kanbaru─a kinky girl, in others’ estimation as well as her own.

Perhaps it was because she no longer had sports as an outlet that she was breaking her own record every day. Her sexual harassment was so rampant and excessive that Shinobu, Sengoku, and I, along with others, could file a class-action lawsuit.

And yet!

Believe it or not, this was the first time I’d ever seen her entirely naked!

I don’t know, since June, also due to quitting the basketball team, Kanbaru was growing her hair out, which made her look a lot more feminine, so seeing her show off her bits like this…

Wait, she was lying face down!

But the line of her back was incredibly erotic!

And those shoulder blades!

Kanbaru may have retired, but an athlete at heart, she clearly hadn’t been skimping on the training─her toned, compact body was too beautiful! They speak of having “legs like a gazelle,” but Kanbaru was all gazelle, all over!

A Grecian statue!

Behold the beauty of the human form!

I’d noticed Kanbaru’s stunningly chiseled legs, but it wasn’t just her legs, her whole body was a lethal weapon!

You couldn’t blame her for wanting to get naked!

It’d be a shame not to let other people see!

“……”

One caveat, though.

I said “without a single thread,” but the bandage around her left arm─was still there.

“K-Kanbaru…”

It looked like she’d used the last of her strength to close the sliding door and then collapsed on the futon after her grandmother had seen her naked. I called to her though I had no idea what to say.

“Ah… Is it you?” She lifted her head up from where it was pressed into the pillow, and then─

“W-Wait, Kanbaru! Don’t turn over! There’ll be trouble if you did!”

Mainly for me! I might start feeling all sorts of troubled!

“Um…” Right, Kanbaru nodded. “You’ll have to forgive the state I’m in. It’s so embarrassing, being seen like this.”

“Whoa…”

She was feeling embarrassed like a normal person…

But she didn’t try to cover up and just lay there, limbs stretched out languidly.

The only thing she lifted was her face.

“How odd, though,” she said. “The Koyomi Araragi I know is a man of impeccable character who’d never barge into a lady’s room without knocking.”

“I…just wanted to see you looking devastated.”

“Sure, if this wretched vision satisfies you, then by all means, gaze as much as you like…”

“……”

“Don’t be shy. Witness my true form… Suruga Kanbaru, laid bare.”

“No…” True, she was laid as bare as the day she was born. “You know what? I’m sorry…”

I didn’t think she’d look this devastated.

So swift, heaven’s vengeance─I’d never thought my prayer would be answered like this.

“I apologize, Kanbaru… Let me take responsibility.”

“Responsibility?” she repeated mechanically, turning to me a pair of dull, vacant eyes that resembled a dead fish’s more than I ever imagined possible of her. “What responsibility?”

“I mean, I was the one you were talking to on the phone, so half of the blame for this situation falls on me.” I wasn’t about to tell her that I’d prayed for divine punishment.

“I don’t think so,” she denied.

Even in her current state, her sense of personal accountability was undiminished. You had to hand it to her. The most impeccable human being I knew was Tsubasa Hanekawa, by far, but maybe Kanbaru came in second?

“Nevertheless,” she said, “if you insist on taking responsibility, I won’t stop you… How, exactly, do you plan on doing so?”

“I can marry you.”

“Bfft!” It was Kanbaru’s turn to act shocked. “Wh-Why marriage?”

“Well, it’s just the back half, but I’ve seen you naked.”

“I think you’re skipping a few steps… By that logic, how many girls would you have to marry?”

“What are you implying?!”

Scandalous.

Not that it was entirely unfounded.

“Ahaha…”

Hey─she laughed.

If only weakly, she did laugh.

Then she said, “While that’s a very attractive offer, there’s no need for you to take responsibility. My other dear senior would be furious if we did such a thing. In exchange, could I ask you to do me a favor?”

“Yeah, you name it. I’m your loyal slave for the day.”

“Would you mind waiting out in the hall while I get dressed?”

“Ha…”

I couldn’t help but laugh. A request, from Kanbaru’s mouth, to be allowed to cover herself up?

It was a sublime moment, like mankind standing erect and walking on two legs for the first time.

I did as Kanbaru asked and went out into the hallway while she got dressed (Ever the jock, it only took her a couple of minutes. So she put them on as fast as she took them off). Then I finally got down to the business of cleaning up her room.

Commence mission!

First I sorted the garbage into general piles, stuffed them into huge trash bags, and set the bags out in the yard. Only the clearly useless items were sorted into trash. Objects that were less obvious were set aside for later. Since this wasn’t my room, it was ultimately up to Kanbaru to decide what was necessary and what wasn’t─well, most of it would get thrown out. It was just being put on hold. Awaiting due process, you could say.

Suruga Kanbaru.

She was actually well off, and actually profligate. She made senseless purchase after senseless purchase and transformed it all into trash through some marvelous magic.

In the end, nearly everything got thrown away.

Of course, that was just the groundwork.

The real tidying up still lay ahead.

Kanbaru had gotten changed only to put on hot pants and a tube top, leaving her not much less exposed than before (no wonder she was so quick, jock or not), but at least she was presentable now. Considering the state of her room, maybe she ought to have chosen something a little more protective like a jersey (the default outfit for Karen).

The funny thing, though, was that jerseys didn’t suit Kanbaru. Was it because she wasn’t very tall?

She did look super-cool when she dashed about in her school uniform.

Maybe it caught my attention only because I was thinking about clothes, but I discovered what appeared to be a basketball uniform in one of the heaps of trash.

The number on the back: 4.

Was that the captain’s number? My knowledge of basketball was limited to Slam Dunk, so I wasn’t sure.

“Kanbaru, what about this?”

“Hm? Oh.”

By the way, she was standing out in the hallway.

Despite her athleticism, Kanbaru has a very clumsy side (She’s terrible at housework. Of course, given the state of her room, this bit of parenthetical explanation is probably unnecessary) and would only get in the way during the current cleanup phase. It was somewhat thrilling to be treating a star of Kanbaru’s caliber like a liability, but it was a pretty low sentiment so I kept it to myself.

“My club uniform,” she said. “So that’s where it went. I was wondering.”

“Huh. You mean your practice uniform?”

“No, it’s a souvenir from when we made it to the nationals my first year. Turn it inside out. You can see all the messages my teammates wrote.”

“Is cherishing such memories a foreign concept for you?”

“I’ve got all the memories I need right here in my heart.”

“Great line, but!”

They were here too! In physical form!

It was such a sad story that I was reminded of Hachikuji and her amnesia (even if I did make that one up).

“Back then you weren’t captain yet, were you?” I asked. “I mean, you were still a freshman. How come it says ‘4’ on the back?”

“There’s no law saying only the captain can wear the number. It’s conventional…but in my case, the captain let me have it for being the ace.”

“I like that. You had a bighearted captain. But I don’t remember this being here the last time I cleaned.”

“It was hanging on the wall of our clubroom to help light a fire under the new players’ feet, but I brought it home right before summer vacation.”

“Huh.”

“I figured it was about time for me to move on from my glory days─I retired from the team, after all. It just felt like I was throwing my weight around. Besides, the club doesn’t have much of a future.”

“Hmph…”

Even after quitting, Kanbaru had still been focusing a lot on the team─but I guess this was her way of making a clean break.

Maybe it was also a kind of penance for her.

The club had stayed on her mind.

“I took it off the wall without telling anyone, so it wound up becoming a police matter.”

“So that’s why there was a patrol car at school our last day!”

“A perfect crime. No one knows I’m the culprit yet…”

“But there’s this piece of evidence!”

That said.

She’d only brought home her own clothing, so it was no big deal.

Still, given its background, we couldn’t throw it away─not because the police might find it, but because it was a memento.

“You know, I don’t think I ever saw you play basketball except maybe once. Hey, why don’t you try it on for me?”

“If you insist.” My request may have been a little insensitive since she’d already left the team, but Kanbaru consented readily. She was always generous that way. “My hair’s longer now, so you probably won’t get the full impression.”

“It grew out super-fast, by the way…”

When we first met, her hair had been cut a little shorter than mine, even, but now there was no comparison. I had deep scars on the nape of my neck from where Shinobu had bitten me, so I kept my hair longer than normal to cover them up… But Kanbaru’s was so long she could tie it back.

“You think?” she asked.

“Yeah. I’ve heard that hair usually grows about half an inch per month─but yours must have grown by two inches.”

“Probably because I’m such a kinky girl.”

“Just like that, as a statement of fact?”

I’d been thinking the same thing!

But trying not to blurt it out!

“In particular,” she said, “I’m so kinky that for years I thought ‘pepperoncino’ was a dirty word.”

“Even after you had some?!”

“I also thought mobile family rate plans were family ‘rape’ plans.”

“………”

She really shut me up with that one.

“Wait, no,” she corrected herself, “I thought a family data plan was a family dating plan.”

“That’s still a little too much family feeling!”

“And I used to think an exhibition game is where everyone plays naked.”

“That’s not a misunderstanding but a wish! Who thinks that in this day and age?!”

“Indeed. I came here in a time machine from a world that’s always five seconds ahead.”

“What a waste of a great invention!”

“And until recently, I thought ‘bracelet’ had something to do with relaxing.”

“That’s not even dirty!”

“I shouted it out at a game once and made a fool of myself. I can’t forget the look on my teammates’ faces.”

“Stop! It’s even worse with an example!”

“As bad as thinking a homemaker is a carpenter?”

“Help!”

Geez.

I bet I’ll get along with you in our next lives, too!

“You also knocked off the Senjogahara impersonation,” I pointed out.

“Hm? Oh, you mean the bangs?” she answered me absentmindedly through the sleeves of the uniform as she slipped it on. “I wasn’t really trying to copy her─then again, who knows. I can’t be trusted, after all.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Heh. In any case, what’s past is past─no need to be sensitive about it. Well, what do you think?”

“……”

It was nice of her to put on the uniform for me, but since she was only wearing hot pants and a tube top, it looked like she was naked underneath. It was pretty sexy.

There was nothing even remotely sporty about it.

Not the Kanbaru I’d been meaning to see…

Although the uniform suited her, what did that say in this instance?

“Heh.” Apparently unaware of the impression she was imparting, Kanbaru smiled happily. “This reminds me of back then.”

“Back then? You mean when you still played basketball?”

“No, the naked summer camp.”

“You’re fully aware!”

And wasn’t that supposed to be a joke?!

Don’t be rehashing it!

Who knows what wearing the uniform actually reminded her of, but I guess the feeling wasn’t half bad because she didn’t try to take it off right away.

Not that I was complaining.

It wouldn’t interfere with cleaning up or anything.

“You know, Kanbaru, even if basketball is out of the question, couldn’t you still play other sports despite your left arm? What about soccer?”

“I don’t think there’s any sport where you never use your arms. For instance, with soccer, even if you’re not the goalie, you still have to use your arms for throw-ins.”

“Ahh.”

“Besides, I don’t understand the offside rule.”

As we spoke, I made another unexpected find in the same pile, right under where the uniform had been. Not that it was a rare item these days, but I didn’t expect to come across one in Kanbaru’s room.

“I didn’t know you had a digital camera, Kanbaru.” It was the newest model, too (from what I could tell): ultra-thin and ultra-light.

“Oh, I bought it just the other day.”

She nodded.

Huh, it was a pretty high-tech purchase for someone who was such a klutz when it came to gadgets that she barely knew how to use her cell phone.

“I know it’s unlike me,” she explained, “but some photos, you don’t want to send out to get developed.”

“What kind of photos…”

“Self-nudes?”

I did a pratfall into the nearest trash heap.

After all the trouble I went to cleaning up.

I yelled, “You bought it just for that?! This piece of modern engineering is way too advanced for you!”

“It’s not the only reason. I use it for other stuff, too.”

“Like what?”

“Taking nude pics of all those freshman kitties.”

“……”

She meant portraits of cats that first-years kept as pets, right? Because cats went around naked, right?

“I ask for permission first, of course, so there’s nothing illegal about it.”

“Kanbaru, you’re not making sense. How do you get a kitty’s permission? You surely mean its owner’s?”

“Hm? I don’t like that kind of language, it tramples on their dignity. But as for the owner, that would be me─”

“I sure love cats!” I interrupted with all I had.

The truth is, I don’t.

They scare me.

“Hm, understood,” Kanbaru said. “I’m afraid it would be a violation of privacy to show them to just anyone, but if you must, please take the memory card home. I’ll take full responsibility.”

“I never said I wanted to see them!”

“Heheh. No need to be shy.”

Kanbaru received the digital camera from my hands.

I was wondering where it’d gone, she muttered.

Usually, a digital camera wasn’t the kind of thing you misplaced… Her ability to lose things was truly epic.

USEMONOGATARI: Lose Tale.

“Since even Sengoku can’t beat you when it comes to bashfulness,” Kanbaru asserted, “I’ve arranged a little surprise for you. Wait until school starts back up to find out what it might be.”

“Huh, a surprise?”

“I’ll give you two hints: ‘freshman’ and ‘breasts.’”

“……”

It sounded like something big was waiting for me next term.

I was excited already.

The next thing I spotted in the pile of trash was a manga.

This cleaning session was starting to turn into a real treasure hunt. If she had the money for a digital camera, though, why not buy a damn bookshelf? Hm, what I mistook for a comic book from the cover was actually a novel…

The Bespectacled Secretary and the Bespectacled Prince.

I could tell just from the title that it was a “boys’ love” novel.

“This gets thrown away,” I said. “What do you think…burnable trash?”

“It might be fiery, but it’s not for burning.”

Kanbaru grabbed my arm as I reached for the garbage bag.

When did she get so close?

Maybe that uniform was a +speed item.

“Rotten or not,” she added, “it’s quite necessary.”

“It is? If it’s so important to you, take better care of it. Don’t you think you’re being rude to the author?”

Said the guy who was about to throw it away.

True, once too many books started piling up, it was hard to know what to do with them.

“These type of books all look the same to me, though,” I noted. “Can you even tell them apart when you’re reading them?”

“Of course I can,” replied Kanbaru. “That’s as narrow-minded as saying all SF is the same. If you aren’t familiar with something, you can’t tell the difference. It takes knowledge, erudition, to form an accurate judgment.”

“Ah. Still…” There were several other BL novels in the pile, so I compared their covers to the one in my hand. “In the end, they’re all handsome, aren’t they?”

“Huh?”

“Well, it’s like you’re into handsome men, after all. Maybe you’re not really that perverted.”

“Nrk?!”

Kanbaru reeled in genuine shock.

If this were a cartoon, it would be more than vertical lines on her face─the background would have turned black and white.

I guess she’d meant it: There was nothing worse you could say about her.

“Come to think of it,” I pressed, “tons of girls read BL these days. It’s proof that you’re well-adjusted. It’s normal. Perfectly normal.”

“Normal?! I, the self-appointed successor to Freud, am normal?!”

She’d appointed herself…

Well, her inclination to bring any and all subjects around to sex did qualify her, maybe.

“I mean,” I went on, “being into handsome men is run of the mill for girls. Wanting to see a bunch of them together is natural. It’s no different from being into boy bands.”

“D-Don’t make such apt comparisons!”

“It’s not like you love that old-people smell or are left cold if the guy doesn’t weigh more than three hundred fifty pounds.”

“N-No, but…”

Kanbaru was at a loss for words. She was acting suspicious.

“H-Hold on, hold on a second!” she pleaded. “Don’t say that! I’m finished if my dear senior sees me that way! I’ll strip! I’ll strip right here!”

“Now, now, now, like you said, what’s so strange about getting comfortable at home? And you only get naked outside at a public bath? And self-nudes? Why wouldn’t an athlete want to see how her body is coming along? I was wrong to get on your case.”

“I’m not asking for an apology! Please, just stop and listen to me!”

“Well, take today. You’re not much of an exhibitionist if your family seeing you naked gets you down. I’d assumed, listening to you, that maybe you never wore anything, ever, at home! Let me just say that you’re striking me as a big fish in a pond called your own little room.” I was picking on her. I was practically a jock. “As you put it on the phone earlier, maybe I have the dirtier mind.”

“A-Aghhhh!”

Kanbaru’s eyes spun around. She seemed totally panicked.

Araragi casts Kafuddle!

“Y-You’ve got it wrong,” she beseeched. “There just happened to be books like that where you were looking, but dig deeper and you’ll find hardcore BL. Like I don’t know that BL isn’t all about handsome men! Please, keep searching!”

“Now, now, Kanbaru, it’s not the real you if you’ve got to search─”

As I uttered what sounded like an admonition against the tired notion of self-discovery─

Kanbaru tackled me down.

Worse, we landed on top of the futon.

“I-In that case,” she threatened, “I’ll have to clear my name─through deeds!”

Even apart from her left arm, Kanbaru was too strong for me. She was better built than I was. She had me pinned tight from hip to shoulder, and I couldn’t move.

“Prepare yourself!” she warned.

“Prepare for what?!”

“It’s not like you haven’t been deflowered already!”

“That’s because I’m a boy!”

“Don’t worry, it only hurts in the beginning! Soon it’ll start feeling good!”

“Eeeek!”

“Mmm, you’ve got a fine body─my kind of muscles! So nice to the touch!”

“Eeek! Eeek! Eeek!”

“Tut! Stop squirming so much! I can’t get off your underpants!”

“Aiiieeeeeeeeeee!!”

I swore.

No matter how high I was feeling when I ran into Hachikuji, I wouldn’t sexually harass her the first thing, ever again.