Monogatari Series - Volume 7 - Chapter 1.03

003

I carelessly consumed around eighty pages or almost a quarter of this volume’s thickness playing around with my little sisters, so things are going to get a lot more brisk from here. Araragi novices who came here straight from the anime may have dropped out already, but if you’re still reading, I’d like to ask for your patience as we proceed. Don’t give up, you can do it!

Having ripped off─I’m sorry, borrowed─three thousand yen in funds from my lovable little sister Tsukihi (I might someday lose my line of credit), and after receiving some pertinent advice from Karen (that I’d probably never make use of), I got on my mountain bike and began heading straight to the major bookstore that you could call the only one in our town.

It was to procure dirty magazines, of course.

I was impressed in a way by my own stoicism as I left home for a very plain, everyday task, not allowing myself to be ungracefully excited by the beginning of Golden Week. Wallowing in conceit, I pedaled as fast as I could─and as I did.

I saw Miss H.

No, I’m sorry.

I saw Hanekawa.

Miss HANEKAWA.

“……nkk!”

I didn’t have any particular reason in mind for doing so, but my reflexes made me slam on my brakes. I tilted my vehicle diagonally and dragged the tires (in a two-wheeled drift?) before coming to a stop.

“Whoa… Ohhh.”

I was shocked. What kind of timing was this?

Just after getting into a fierce debate with my little sister about Hanekawa, and just after learning the truth that my feelings for her weren’t ones of love but of sexual frustration, I’d come across none other than the woman as she was on a walk. What an amazing coincidence.

I wondered.

Was she headed to the library again? No, it was Golden Week, so the library might be closed.

Then maybe she was thinking about heading to the bookstore to buy some study guides or something─that would make it a nightmare if we happened to meet up.

I’d have to call off my plan.

My determination, and all the thoughts and emotions Tsukihi put into lending me her allowance, would lose their purpose. How could I let such feelings from my sister, more important to me than life itself, go to waste? It would be on the level of canceling a public works project like the construction of a dam, if not worse.

“…Hm? Oh, I’m safe.”

Upon closer inspection.

Hanekawa was heading away from the bookstore. She didn’t seem to notice me as she crossed the road at a steady pace.

It seemed the bookstore was not her destination.

Hm.

Then where could she be going?

“………”

Allow me to give you an explanation here about Hanekawa─about Tsubasa Hanekawa.

Tsubasa Hanekawa, the president of my class.

A class president among class presidents─a woman who was the personification of a model student.

Even her outward appearance, braided hair with glasses, bolstered her inner personality to a T. Despite the day being part of Golden Week, she was still wearing her school uniform, undoubtedly out of strict adherence to school regulations.

She was frighteningly smart and always got the best grades in our year─and was as casual as could be about it. She got the best score with ease on every test we were given, and everyone in our year knew her name.

And she had a good personality, fair and just and well respected, and I don’t know, she was a high school girl as awe-inspiring as Perfect Cell.

I personally think that the concept of perfection might have been thought up by some ancient mystic who predicted Hanekawa’s birth using psychic powers to model the idea after her.

She existed on a different dimension from washouts like me and was someone I’d never have anything to do with─but just last spring break, she and I started having something to do with each other.

More precisely.

She saved my life.

She was my savior.

You could say I was crushed body and soul by her kindness─which is why I became friends with her after that.

…She did seem to have me mistaken for some kind of delinquent (Washouts and delinquents are apparently the same to her. Her leap in logic is that if you’re a washout, you’re not trying your best) and was eager to reform me. At this point in time, she’d gone so far as to appoint me class vice president. But let’s take that in jest.

In the month since spring break, Hanekawa had been incredibly friendly to a regular, boring civilian like myself.

So much so─that I’d mistaken it for love.

“Heh. I think I should ignore her, though.”

I hadn’t been the most blessed with friendships ever since I started high school, and in that sense I’d become horrible at judging my distance to others. Still, I did know it was normal to say hello to a friend you saw on a day off.

That’s what friends do.

It wasn’t a serious act─but today, this day, was different. I had a mission. My sisters’ thoughts and hopes were riding on my back (not that Karen had said anything), and I needed to spin these pedals to get to that bookstore.

Around and around.

Doing so would protect Hanekawa in the end─I realized when I was talking to Tsukihi that, putting aside all the chest stuff, if my misunderstandings led me all the way down the wrong path and I confessed my love (though I hadn’t meant to), I’d put Hanekawa in an embarrassing spot.

No, she wouldn’t be embarrassed. She’d probably lecture me and try to correct my misunderstanding.

The idea of telling a girl I love her only to get lectured in return was pretty depressing.

Though it also sounded fun in its own way.

Get ahold of yourself! she might scold me.

Even if you discounted that possibility, the manly thing was to grin and bear it and leave stoically, in spite of how much I wanted to say hello.

Farewell, Hanekawa.

Let’s meet again in the classroom once Golden Week is over.

I would become a bigger person that moment─and hey, don’t fall in love with the adult me, okay?

Right when I tried to start pedaling.

My legs froze once again.

Not just my legs─my whole body.

“…Huh?”

All of a sudden, Tsubasa Hanekawa turned the corner and changed direction─and I went from seeing her only in profile to facing her head-on.

Front and center.

And─I noticed the thick gauze covering the left side of her face.

I was at a loss for words.

It was the kind of thing that would leave anyone speechless─a visibly painful mark of treatment.

I couldn’t see the left half of her face at all.

It was obvious that this was no treatment for something like a little scratch or a bruise from running into a wall─the white gauze, held in place with medical tape, hid every inch of that side of her face.

It was more than visibly painful.

It simply hurt.

It hurt just to look at it─

Like the throbbing pain was being transmitted straight to me─

No.

If it was a plain injury, I would be running straight over to Hanekawa’s side.

To express my concern.

To ask her what happened, how she’d gotten hurt that bad.

There would be lots of ways to pose the question. Did you trip and fall? Did you run into a telephone pole?

But─my whole body was paralyzed.

Because─no, maybe I was over-thinking it?

Could it have been my violent spring break driving me to brutal thoughts?

Like how most people were right-handed, and if they hit someone in the face, just the left side of the face would be injured, much like hers─

“……”

Hanekawa looked the exact same as ever, aside from the gauze─the braided hair, the glasses, even the uniform, it was all the same as ever, and that actually made it a heroic sight.

It was actually heroic.

Truly intense.

Then Hanekawa seemed to notice her classmate, frozen and unable to move. She noticed my existence.

I’d been found out.

Of course I had─it was one thing to be off to her side, but she was facing me now. I’d noticed Hanekawa, so of course she’d notice me.

I guess you could call this my first failure over Golden Week─my first mistake. If the plan had been to leave without saying anything, to pretend I hadn’t seen her, I should have disappeared at once.

Someone like me?

I should have just disappeared.

But I froze like an idiot instead─which is why Hanekawa ended up recognizing me.

“Oh,” she said.

Pointing at me.

“Howdy, Araragi.”

She approached me with a friendly little jog.

“Yay, doing good?”

Her attitude, too─it was the exact same Hanekawa as always, which was why.

The gauze on the left side of her face stood out so much.

“…Howdy. Yay. Doing good…”

And so, when I replied that way, my voice didn’t sound anything like normal. It was too high, and I might have managed to trip over the short words.

“Hm. Oh.”

And then.

Hanekawa looked as though she’d failed at something.

My awkward, dejected reply that wouldn’t even qualify as spoken in monotone must have made her realize─her current appearance.

This wasn’t a speck of spinach between her teeth, of course. She had to be aware of the gauze on her own face.

So.

She had to have realized what caused my awful reaction─if I’d failed, so had Hanekawa.

She’d been in the same position─she shouldn’t have called out to me even after noticing me.

That was the gist of it.

Hanekawa was perfect─but that didn’t mean she never failed.

Well, maybe it wasn’t a fail.

As far as she was concerned, maybe she was trying to forget about that painful injury─and thanks to her efforts, really, entirely, and perfectly forgotten about it.

In that case.

I was the one who─reminded her of it.

My inability to react well.

If anything.

“Ummmm.”

It was rare to see Hanekawa searching for the right thing to say. Was she racking her brain to come up with some sort of solution to get her out of this tight spot? No, it felt like she was just at a loss.

But I could see.

I could see why she was at a loss for words─the awkwardness of being seen in her state was no longer inconsequential. She was worried that she was causing me to be at a loss for words.

She was thinking of how to deal with that and make me feel better.

Even in this situation.

She was thinking about me.

She was giving thought to others, not herself.

And because I couldn’t help but see─I felt even more awful.

“Um, Araragi─”

“Hup.”

Hanekawa had uttered my name, maybe so she could start explaining herself, or just start by breaking the silence, but then, as if to cut her off─I made my move.

I did, but not out of deep consideration─or to be even more honest, there wasn’t any consideration behind it at all.

Not even the shallowest of thoughts.

What was there instead was an extremely personal desire: I couldn’t bear to watch the pained and painful sight.

I didn’t want to see that gauze on her face.

I didn’t want to see her getting worried for my sake, either.

And so.

And so, imagining myself to be a submarine ace who’d take over the baseball world if he really existed, I scooped upward with my right hand─on a wild attempt to upturn Hanekawa’s long skirt, which reached down below her knees.

In more common terms, I flipped her skirt.

“Hunhh?!”

In response to this bizarre behavior, Hanekawa slapped me across the cheek─behavior that was natural for a girl. A splendid show of snap judgment and instant execution, but calm reasoning would lead you to conclude that she shouldn’t have.

While I say I flipped her skirt, we were quite close to each other, about an arm’s length away (in other words, close enough for a slap to connect). Let’s say she hadn’t hit me. Then the impact wouldn’t have forced me to my knees, and I barely would have seen anything under her skirt, given the angle I stood at.

But Hanekawa held close to nothing back with her slap. It lacked anything you could call mercy, so I really was forced down on one knee─okay, I was actually laid out, made to crawl and lick the gravel. This ended up putting me at an angle almost directly under her, a location from where I was fortunate enough to witness everything there was to see under her flipped skirt─the skirt I’d flipped.

Maybe instead of saying I ended up at that angle, I ought to say I managed to assume it.

I bore holy witness.

It made me want to put my hands together.

In fact, I did as I bore witness.

Not on purpose, but as a natural reaction.

If it were a shrine, I would surely visit it a hundred times a day─no, it wasn’t an exaggeration to say that all my dreams had come true now that I’d been blessed with the sight.

What a miracle.

This is where I have to take back part of my conversation that morning with Tsukihi.

The underwear Hanekawa wore that day was so black it seemed like an all-encompassing darkness─as someone unfamiliar with clothing materials, I couldn’t begin to imagine how it was possible to create something so dark.

It was that strikingly black.

It was beyond my imagination─and enough to disprove my speculation. That’s how erotic it was.

And if I needed to make a retraction, so did Tsukihi─while all my efforts had done nothing to change her mind, if she were to see this sight, she’d surely understand that equating white with seriousness, purity, and chastity was a rigid and mistaken assumption.

White or black didn’t matter.

If the same person wore both colors─it would be the same.

This dark black, this color in close contact with Hanekawa’s body, was so serious, so pure, and so chaste─that it was dazzling.

It was possible for Eros to coexist with the serious, pure, and chaste, a color that did so existed.

Such a person existed, and Tsukihi and I needed to take these truths to heart.

Both brother and sister needed to repent.

During our conversation, I’d jumped from the topic of underwear to Miss H. in the first place due to all the occasions─two, three, four, maybe more─I had to see the vast and colorful array of underwear Hanekawa wore─but to think that her tastes reached all the way into the color black.

My goodness, Tsubasa Hanekawa─what a fearsome woman.

“…No, I’m quite sure you’re the one who needs to be feared here.”

While I lay there with barely a sign of getting up, thoughts racing through my mind like a revolving lantern hooked up to a turbocharged engine, Hanekawa had already regained her composure and was talking to me in the coldest of tones.

“You’re out of middle school and still flipping girls’ skirts… What are you thinking, Araragi?”

Come on!

She was mad at me.

This straightforward anger left me shocked and speechless.

There was only one answer to give if she wanted to know what I was thinking. I wasn’t thinking anything.

What was I doing?

Flipping skirts?

Even elementary schoolers didn’t do that these days.

“Um, Hanekawa?”

“I know.”

Here, Hanekawa presented a hand. As in, Grab onto this!

I’d fallen flat, but it wasn’t as if I’d been seriously injured. I should have been able to get up without a helping hand but couldn’t refuse Hanekawa’s offering.

I took her hand as though to shake it.

I stood.

“……”

I had to wonder.

My heartbeat quickened when I took her hand, when we held hands─but was it just another product of my sexual frustration?

I didn’t know.

“You’re so kind, Araragi,” Hanekawa said.

Smiling.

Smiling with her face half hidden in gauze.

“You’re such a good and kind person.”

“……”

How do I put it?

Her smile─scared me.

I felt an honest fear.

Hanekawa was capable of smiling at me in this situation─showing me again that she was different from a washout like me.

Not different in the sense that anything was wrong.

It was closer to awe.

Yes, fear.

Speaking of which, wasn’t Oshino more blunt about it? He’d even called Hanekawa “creepy,” hadn’t he?

“That’s what I like about you, Araragi.”

Unbelievable words spoken casually.

This was, of course, Hanekawa as usual─but why?

I felt happy to hear her say she liked me, but part of me also felt wounded.

Like she was gouging out my heart with a soft blade.

I felt so sad.

Really, why was that?

Then, Hanekawa continued, “Let’s walk. Just for a little.”

She invited me to join her and began walking, not waiting for my response.

Though I was confused, I didn’t hesitate─I kicked up the stand on the bike at my side, grabbed the handles, and began pushing it. I caught up to Hanekawa in no time.

From there, I walked beside her.

I’ve heard before that it’s good manners for the man to walk closer to the car lane when he’s with a woman. But here, that would force me to be on her left, so I found myself going on the other side.

Of course, I felt ready to offer my own body to protect her if a car came careening into the sidewalk─but Hanekawa probably didn’t want me to be to her left right then.

She didn’t want me to stand on the same side as that gauze.

That was my thinking.

“Hanekawa,” I began once we were side by side, deciding to start our conversation with a harmless question, “where were you heading?”

“Hm? Mmm, nowhere, really,” she answered. “I go walking on days off. I’m just strolling around with nothing to do.”

“You must at least have somewhere you’re heading, though.”

“No, I don’t. I don’t have plans to go anywhere.”

“……”

“It’s not like there’s anywhere I can go, anyway.”

“……”

“I can’t go anywhere,” Hanekawa said. Then she asked me in turn, “Araragi─you have little sisters, right?”

It didn’t seem like she was abruptly changing the subject.

“I think I remember you telling me that during spring break.”

“Ah…”

So I’d told her?

I was about to be amazed she remembered─but maybe there was no reason to be.

You could compare Hanekawa’s memory to a supercomputer’s. If she remembered every conversation we’d had, that wouldn’t be surprising.

Then again, I did remember every piece of underwear I’d ever seen on her!

“You’re not thinking about anything weird right now, are you?”

“Nope, not at all,” I denied before replying, “Yeah, I have little sisters.” Tentatively.

I did everything I could to probe and search my brain for a reason why she was on this topic.

“Two little sisters the world would never miss.”

“Never miss?” echoed Hanekawa with a teasing grin.

I mean it, I asserted a bit petulantly. I’d be upset if she thought I’d been bashful.

I’m neither tsundere nor reverse tsundere.

In fact, I’m anti-dere. I’d never act fawning, thank you very much.

“Sisters that annoying are one of a kind─or two of a kind. Do you have any idea how far off a nice, regular path those two have caused me to stray? How much they’ve ruined my life? I feel lost and confused just thinking about it. I feel dizzy when I think about how normal of a life I could’ve led if only they weren’t around.”

“Well, listen to you. You say that, but I feel like you get along pretty well.”

Hanekawa’s grin wasn’t going anywhere. If anything, it was only spreading.

“I bet you show off your underwear to each other.”

“……”

How much dirt did she have on me?!

Well, it’s not like we’d showed off our underwear…but it almost seemed like she knew everything about my interaction with Tsukihi that morning.

In that case, she might even know where I’d been biking to and why… It was a frightening thought.

What was she, the mind-reading monster satori?

Was I going to have to nickname her Satty?

“We absolutely don’t,” I answered in no uncertain terms with my manliest expression. Imagine a Fist of the North Star character. “All we ever do is fight. We haven’t spoken in five years. And if they try to talk to me, I ignore them.”

“You big liar.”

“No, I’m telling the truth here. We only communicate using body language.”

“Sounds like you get along fine.”

“In fact, we haven’t met in ten years. We only communicate by leaving each other notes. We call each other pen pals.”

“Then you do get along fine.”

Sure.

From an outsider’s perspective, we did.

“Even today, though. Just today, this morning in fact, my littlest sister and I got in a fight. It was awful, she groped my hands with her chest.”

“Groped your hands with her chest…”

“That’s right! I’m never playing blackjack with her, she’d bust every one of my hands!”

Sadly, despite my indignant tone, Hanekawa didn’t seem to sympathize.

Or rather.

Her eyes were wide with shock.

It was an honest reaction, too…

She’d lost any will to poke fun at me.

“Um,” I tried to reboot our conversation, “while I say that, we are family. There’s no hostility, but it’s also true that they cause me all kinds of trouble─though I’m sure I’ve caused them at least a little bit of trouble as well.”

“So it goes both ways. What’s wrong with that? Sounds like family to me.”

“Family?”

“Yep. Kin.”

Hanekawa walked at a fixed pace as if she’d calculated everything out in advance. Matching her speed, I pushed my bike.

“Did I ever tell you I’m an only child?”

“No─I don’t think you did.”

But it did make sense now that she told me. Male or female, older or younger, I couldn’t really see Hanekawa having any siblings.

“Which is why, Araragi─I don’t have a family.”

Hanekawa followed up with that line─like it was a normal thing to say.

It sounded so normal that I nearly didn’t catch it.

I was on the verge of letting it go by with nothing more than a grunt of agreement.

She didn’t have one? She didn’t have a what?

“Whoa, Hanekawa, hold on─you can’t say that you don’t have a family just because you don’t have any siblings. What about your dad, or your mom, or your grandpa, or your grandma─”

“I don’t have one.”

She didn’t say it in a normal tone this time.

Hanekawa’s words─were decisive and adamant.

Obstinate.

“I don’t have a dad or a mom. I don’t have anyone.”

“……?”

As embarrassing as it is.

I didn’t have any idea what she was talking about at this point. I couldn’t even make a guess─it seemed like something I’d be able to figure out with a bit of thought, but.

It ran contrary to my image of Hanekawa.

The implications of what she’d said.

The way she’d said it.

“You need to cherish your family, Araragi.”

“Hanekawa…you─”

“Oh, don’t get the wrong idea.”

That was a typical tsundere line, but Hanekawa of course meant it in the normal fashion.

“It’s not like I don’t have a single living relative or anything. You’re right, sorry. That was hyperbole. It wouldn’t be an overstatement to call it an exaggeration. I do have a dad and a mom. We live under the same roof. All three of us together.”

“Oh… You do? But in that case─”

“We’re just not a family, that’s all.”

That’s all.

As Hanekawa said this, her pace─stayed the same.

“My mom and dad aren’t my true mom and dad, that’s all.”

“‘True’…?”

“They’re false, I guess,” Hanekawa replied a little too simply.

Like she couldn’t do otherwise, even if she wanted to.

“Okay.” Her legs kept moving. “Where should I start─I guess seventeen years ago, with once upon a time there was a cute girl?”

“A girl?”

“Think of her as a seventeen-year-old, the same age as me.”

“Ah…” I nodded despite not understanding, and Hanekawa continued.

“One day, the girl found herself with child.”

She tossed out the words, when it would be a big deal.

“W-With child?”

“Yes. She became pregnant. She also didn’t know who the father was. She was a woman of many loves, you see─and she gave birth to me.”

“Wait…”

Perplexed, I wheeled around, bike and all, to block and stop her.

“Hold on. You’re moving too fast for me to follow─what? You?”

“Me.”

“……”

There wasn’t a thing different about Hanekawa.

She was acting completely normal─the same Tsubasa Hanekawa as always.

“It means I was born out of wedlock. That’s why. M-hm.”

“Wait─that doesn’t make sense. You don’t know who your dad is? But you just said you lived together with your mom and dad, didn’t you?”

“Oh, sorry. That dad’s a different dad. What I meant is that I don’t know who my biological father is.”

Strictly speaking, I wouldn’t say I have no clue, but what’s the point of looking into it. Hanekawa tilted her head, then circled around me and kept moving.

She didn’t have anywhere she was going.

But she kept moving.

“By the way, my current mom is also a different mom. The mom who gave birth to me committed suicide soon afterwards.”

“Suicide?”

“Suicide. She put a rope around her neck and hanged herself. A common enough form of suicide─though the one novel part about it was the location. Right above the crib.”

She looked like a mobile.

Hanekawa said it like it meant nothing.

As if she were explaining the plot of a TV drama she’d watched years ago, she recounted her life.

Her memories from a time she’d have no memory of.

“But she got married right before she killed herself. It was financially difficult to raise a child when she didn’t have a single relative she could rely on─it was for the money.”

“For the money…”

“I think loveless marriages are understandable in certain situations, but I don’t know about this one. What a tragedy it must have been for the man. A tragedy, or maybe a hassle. He had to take in a child she had with god-knows-who. Oh, and the man was my first dad.”

“First dad?”

“Also different from my current dad.”

“……”

Different dad, huh?

Different dad─but I wondered, different to what extent?

“I honestly don’t know what caused my mom’s suicide. It sounds like she was always emotionally fragile and sensitive, but she might have been a little too romantic to be able to weather a marriage of convenience.”

Still, I think the victim there was my first dad, Hanekawa stated her opinion.

That cool tone of voice.

That cold tone of voice, which wasn’t like her.

My mind grew more agitated with every word she spoke.

“I barely remember this guy I’m calling my first dad, but he was a textbook workaholic, serious and single-minded─not someone who could raise a child, apparently. And so, another marriage. I guess you could say this one was ‘for the childrearing.’ Why not just hire a babysitter, though?”

I bet he thought not having a mother would be bad for my upbringing, being a serious guy, Hanekawa rationalized the actions of her so-called first dad.

“And that dad ended up working so hard it killed him. The mom he left behind, my second mom, is also my current mom, and my current dad is the man she remarried.”

That’s it, Hanekawa wrapped up with a smile.

So innocuously that if she’d followed up with, “Just kidding, that’s all a lie. When I go home I’ll have a warm bowl of soup, a kind dad, and a scatterbrained mom waiting for me,” I’d have believed her on the spot.

In fact.

It sounded so much like a lie─the whole story was absurd.

You could even say it didn’t make sense.

It wasn’t particularly complicated. It was a pretty comprehensible family tree if you drew it out.

But.

If it was true, then the people Hanekawa lived with─the mom and dad she lived with who weren’t family…

“Yup, if you want the gory details, I’m completely unrelated to the mom and dad I live with. Heh, calling the fact I’m not related by blood to someone ‘gory’ would sound like a funny joke to a vampire.”

“…It wouldn’t.”

That was coming from me─so I was sure.

I doubted the little girl who was probably sitting with her arms around her legs in those abandoned ruins would crack a smile, either.

Not that I’d seen her smile in general since spring break.

“So what does that even mean?” I asked.

“It means I’m as orphaned as Hutch the Honeybee. Don’t get me wrong, we went through the whole process and they’re my father and mother on paper. My mom and dad. But they’ve never done a thing you could call motherly or fatherly.”

All while I’m trying so hard to be daughterly.

I might have misheard that last bit, which sounded tacked on.

I couldn’t believe Hanekawa, of all people, would gripe in such a self-regarding way.

But what did I know?

Maybe I didn’t mishear her. Maybe I misunderstood her.

What did I know about Hanekawa?

Did I think that someone like her─would never feel worried or troubled?

Tsubasa Hanekawa.

Did I think she was free of wounds?

That she, at least, was free of remorse and regret?

That she never hated or disliked anything?

Did I think it was a given─that she would always be happy?

How pushy was I?

She continued, “I used to believe it, too─that you can still be family even if you’re not related by blood. I used to think I’d do my best to get along with the family I’d ended up in after being tossed from one person to the next. But it just doesn’t work.”

It doesn’t work.

And it’s so tedious.

As soon as Hanekawa said that, she whipped around. This time she was the one stepping ahead of me and blocking the way.

“Sorry, Araragi. That was mean of me, wasn’t it.”

“Why? What are you talking about?”

I was confused, unable to figure out why she’d want to apologize to me.

Meanwhile she went on.

“Well, I’m just venting at you. What are you supposed to say in this situation, right? You’d wonder, ‘Okay, so what,’ it’s not like it has anything to do with you in the first place─but then you start to feel a little pity for me until you feel guilty for pitying me when it didn’t make sense to, right? You…felt bad just now, like you did something wrong, didn’t you? Don’t you feel depressed now, like you just peeked into a friend’s private affairs?”

She spoke quickly, and I could sense the remorse gushing from her.

Her face suddenly took on a timid expression, as if one wrong move might cause it to crumble past the point of no return─and I found myself unable to object to her.

Was the gauze on her face augmenting that mood?

“That’s why I told you,” Hanekawa said. “That was my aim. I used you to cheer me up.”

“……”

“I tried to feel better about myself by making you feel bad─I can’t even call it griping.” Hanekawa sounded so apologetic that I couldn’t bear to look at her. “I’m just trying to relieve my frustration.”

“Your─frustration.”

To be honest.

By now─I had a pretty good idea.

I was sure that my apprehensions were correct─and of what being correct meant.

The gauze covering Hanekawa’s face.

The reason for it.

Because if the reason I had in mind wasn’t it─then Hanekawa wouldn’t have gone into her personal history so suddenly.

Why else would she have vented herself?

Why else would she need to use me?

“Still─I’m surprised you know all that,” I said. “Don’t they usually not tell kids about that kind of thing? Like, they’ll keep it a secret until your twentieth birthday or something.”

“Well, I had some very open parents. I knew about it from before I started elementary school─I really do feel like I’m in their way.”

“…Hanekawa.”

I made up my mind─and began to ask.

I couldn’t let this slide.

Avoiding a clear answer, not checking my solution against hers, might have been the best course of action, but─

It was already too late.

I was already too deep into Hanekawa’s tale.

Her heart.

Her─family.

I barged in.

“Your face─who did that to you?”

I didn’t have any proof.

If I calmed down and gave it a bit of thought─actually, it wouldn’t take much at all─I could come up with lots of other reasons for her face to be injured. What an awful assumption to make that someone had done that to her.

Yet.

“Why would you ask me that?” she demanded. She wasn’t even rejecting my question. She sounded like a confused child blurting out what was on her mind. “Why would you, Araragi, ask that?”

“…Well.”

I hesitated.

This must have been Hanekawa giving me a chance. No─“chance” makes it sound too positive.

If you want to pull back, do it now.

It could have been a letter of warning─Hanekawa presenting me with an ultimatum.

Or maybe firing a shot across the bow.

Yet─I didn’t pull back.

“Must be because I’m your friend.”

“…Friend.”

“Isn’t that what friends do? Ask each other about stuff? In situations like these? Not like I’d really know.”

Hanekawa had been my first friend in a while.

And that was why─I couldn’t judge our distance.

I couldn’t tell where she was, almost like in a 3D movie─there was some parallax.

“Hmm, okay. Yeah. You might be right,” Hanekawa nodded in reply. Rather than press me any further, she nodded. “You are right. Stopping here would mean I actually am just venting at you─and I guess that would be too much to call payback for flipping my skirt.”

“……”

No, it was easily enough.

In fact, I felt like I wanted to show her my boxers as change.

But I wasn’t saying that.

“Promise you won’t tell anyone?”

“Yeah, of course.”

“Anyone. I mean it, not a person. Not your sisters─not your family. It’s a secret.”

All her emphasis seemed half-playful─but you could also take it as deadly serious.

If I were to take the shrewd view, she was making me go on the record.

That was the kind of tone she used.

And though I felt intimidated by it─I nodded.

“I…promise.”

“My dad hit me this morning.”

Her reply came at almost the exact moment I gave my consent.

She wore a quick, easy smile.

A grin.

The way she said it, it sounded almost normal, like it happened all the time in any family.

“That’s…”

My voice─was shaking.

With rage. With fear.

“That’s not all right!”

Of course.

This was the conversation’s natural conclusion given the way it had been going. Not something to be surprised about. If I had been wrong, it couldn’t have been by much─maybe it wasn’t her father who hit her but her mother, or she wasn’t punched but hit with an object.

“He’s never done a thing you could call fatherly for me─but I never imagined he’d do something you could call unfatherly to me. Whatta surprise.”

“‘Whatta surprise’?” There was no hiding my bewilderment. “I thought you said─you didn’t have a relationship with anyone in your family?”

“We’re not a family. But no, I don’t,” Hanekawa said, now in a truly cold tone. “Maybe too much so─maybe I’d become a stranger. Or maybe I thought I could start one. Despite everything having balanced itself out. I guess that puts me in the wrong.”

“No─why would you be in the wrong? How could it possibly be your fault?”

After all.

You’re─always right.

“Why would your dad hit you in the first place?”

“It was nothing, really. I made a remark about some work he brought home, and then he hit me. My mom watched and didn’t say anything. That’s all.”

“What do you mean, ‘that’s all’?”

I bet─it was nothing, really.

Indeed, that must have been all.

So simple it was superfluous to say: That’s all.

Yet.

“Why would a father hit his daughter─over nothing?”

“I mean, just think about it, Araragi. If you were about forty─and some seventeen-year-old complete stranger starts mouthing off to you like she knows it all? You wouldn’t blame yourself if you got a little upset, if you lost your temper, don’t you think?”

“──”

A seventeen-year-old complete stranger?

Why would she─degrade herself like that?

It was actually scarier to hear that than learning she’d been hit.

No, wait─it wasn’t fear.

I figured out why my body was shaking.

I figured out why my mind was so agitated.

I felt─creeped out.

Not even to borrow from Oshino.

It was what I felt in my heart─my own words, my own feelings.

Tsubasa Hanekawa creeped me out.

She didn’t call them family, they were her false mom and dad, complete strangers─even so, Tsubasa Hanekawa was trying to cover for her parents.

From whom, I didn’t know. From me? From society?

In any case.

She was trying to cover for them.

These parents who weren’t her parents.

These parents who would hit their daughter.

And being her friend─her behavior just creeped me out.

What was with her?

What was going on?

“You’re saying you can’t blame someone for getting violent? Are you sure you should be saying that? Isn’t it the most unforgivable thing you─”

“Wh-Why not? It was just once.”

That’s what she said.

No.

I made her say it.

“Well, didn’t I just hit you?” she asked. “Are you mad at me for it?”

“No─that was…”

That was my fault.

While mine may have qualified as a just cause, you can’t blame a girl for hitting a boy flipping his classmate’s skirt.

“Right? You can’t blame anyone.”

A guileless grin stretched across Hanekawa’s face, as if she’d spoken not out of false courage or as an attempt to garner sympathy, but because she believed it from the bottom of her heart.

“You can’t blame anyone for hitting me─because I’m me.”

“……”

I’d say I was at a loss for words─but I wasn’t.

There were no words for me to be at a loss for.

There was nothing for me to say to Hanekawa as she was now.

Who knows how she took my speechless reaction?

“You promised, Araragi, right?” she checked to make sure.

Taking a step toward me.

Like she was getting me in the fold.

“You promised, Araragi. You won’t tell anyone─you promised, okay?”

Anyone.

Neither my sisters nor my family.

And─neither the school nor the police.

No.

That wasn’t it. That wasn’t all.

She was telling me I’d promised never to bring the subject up again─more than anyone, not to Hanekawa, herself.

That’s what she was saying.

What she was doing was trying to tie my hands by telling me every last detail.

She’d made me mark my own words and was using that to trip me up─for her parents’ sake.

For the father who hit her.

For the mother who just watched.

To protect─complete strangers.

“B-But─how am I supposed to promise something like─”

“…Please, Araragi.”

That was what she said to me as I wavered and minced words.

Faced with an insincere person who was getting ready to break a promise without a second thought, the ever-sincere Tsubasa Hanekawa─bowed her head.

Deeply.

I was worried her back might snap, so deeply, as though into some kind of void, sank her braided head.

“Don’t tell anyone about this, please.”

“Hanekawa… But…”

I still showed signs of resistance, but she mechanically repeated the same line, Don’t tell anyone about this, please.

“I’ll do anything if you stay quiet.”

“Wait, seriously?! You’ll do anything?! Awwright!”

I bit.

“A-Araragi?”

As I pumped both fists, jumped up and down, and screamed with joy, Hanekawa looked at me wide-eyed, making no attempt to hide her shock. She’d taken a step toward me earlier, but now she took a step back. No, two steps. Three steps? About that far.

Like her heart had grown more distant than that.

But I couldn’t care less at the moment.

Hanekawa would do anything for me?

Tsubasa Hanekawa?

And all I had to do was stay quiet?!

“Oh man, what should it be? What should I have her do, what should I have her do? What’s the best thing I could have her do? Wait, no, hold on, Araragi. Don’t get too worked up. Don’t get crazy, it’s times like this when you need to play it cool. Be dignified. This is a once-in-a-lifetime chance, you’ve got to make the most of it.”

“Wh-What? That’s how you’re going to react? Is that how this scene goes? I thought you were going to be impressed by how serious I am and reluctantly promise to keep your silence.”

“How serious you are? I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

Throw that to the cats!

I couldn’t bear to stand still for any longer and began to wander in aimless circles. Any passerby would immediately peg me as suspicious, but I didn’t care about how others saw me now. I didn’t care about Hanekawa’s scowl, either.

“Anything, huh? I don’t know how to reply to that, though. Damn, I hate how indecisive I am. It would be so manly if I could answer right on the spot.”

“No, I think that would make you the worst man ever…”

Hanekawa was plain grossed out by me.

It felt like she might run off at any moment.

“Hey, Araragi? Do you remember all that really serious stuff we were just talking about?”

“I don’t.”

“You don’t.”

“Who’s Araragi?”

“So you’ve even forgotten your own name…”

I didn’t expect this turn of events, Hanekawa lamented with her head in her hands. While I was happy she was this shocked at me forgetting my own name, who cared about me? I was just chopped liver.

The line she’d spoken was the only thing I needed to remember.

“That’s right. Her line just now, ‘Missus Hanekawa’s gonna do anything Araragi-kun begs for☆’…”

“I never said that!” she yelled.

She could be as mad as she wanted, but it wasn’t going to have an effect.

“And who’s Missus Hanekawa?”

“Hm? Oh, sorry. I was wondering what it’d be like if I had you act like a teacher, and it just slipped out of my mouth.”

“Why would you?!”

“Um, what exactly was it that you said?”

“Ngkk…”

An endless amount of distress was welling up in Hanekawa, but she was too sincere of a person to take it back and deny my request.

“…Don’t tell anyone about this, please.”

“No! The thing you said after that!”

What did she mean, about this?!

I’d never heard those words in my life!

I couldn’t believe how fresh they sounded to my ears!

“I’ll do anything if you stay quiet…”

“Sorry, I couldn’t hear you very well thanks to electromagnetic interference from space! Could you repeat the first half just one more time?”

“……”

By now, her scowl had turned into what you could call a withering glare.

Hmm.

I wanted her to say it with an embarrassed blush on her face, but I wasn’t going to push my luck. Having her disdain me in her heart but still vow absolute obedience was nice in its own way, though.

…I may be imagining things, but is more than just Hanekawa looking at me with disdain here? In fact, am I feeling the looks from those of you sirs and madams who got into it through the anime as you flap this book shut?

That’s fine.

I’m sure some great man of yore once said it’s important to live your life in your own way, no matter what others think. Thank you, man of yore.

“I’ll do anything,” Hanekawa repeated.

Her tone couldn’t be any flatter.

“……”

Not much could bother me now, but that tone did.

“Put, you know, a little more feeling into it, please,” the guy who was seeking absolute obedience asked in an oddly modest manner.

“Think of that flat delivery as containing all of the feelings I harbor for you right now.”

“Bosh. Believe in yourself, Hanekawa! I know you can put more soul into it.”

“I. Will. Do. Any. Thing.”

Her tone wasn’t flat this time, it was so full of soul it shook. Furious, indignant soul.

It felt like she wasn’t going to do anything for me.

Like she wouldn’t even stick her tongue out at me.

“Gah… I’m not gonna lose.”

I wasn’t bending to this power.

She’d made a clear promise.

That meant I was free to do whatever I wanted.

It was time for me to take the stage.

It was time for Koyomi Araragi to shine.

“You’ll do anything, hmm? But really, what should I make you do? There are so many options that it’s hard to choose! I feel like I need to write a whole essay about this! My composition skills are being put to the test!”

If only I’d studied more!

Why had I missed the morning bell so often, when I attended a prep school?!

They say that excessive happiness can induce panic, and that’s exactly what happened to me. I was in danger of making an impossibly huge mistake if I didn’t calm down before acting.

“Hold on a second! I just realized, Hanekawa, that you didn’t put a limit on the number of requests! Doesn’t that mean you’ve agreed to grant an unlimited number of wishes?!”

“You get one!” she immediately corrected herself. “I’ll do any one thing!”

“Damn… I got you to clarify.”

Life wasn’t going to be that easy.

But fine.

I always liked Earth’s Shenlon better than Planet Namek’s. It’s way handier when you can bring your dead friends back to life at once.

“You’re honestly starting to give me a headache…” Hanekawa actually cradled her head. “It hurts more than where my dad hit me on the cheek.”

“You have a headache?”

“Yeah. I’ve had one ever since I got mixed up with you during spring break.”

“Hm.”

That was quite concerning.

But we were going to put that aside for the moment.

“Why don’t we head somewhere more abandoned, Hanekawa?”

“Um, I think there’s already plenty of abandonment here already…”

“I’m talking about people, not feelings.”

This way, I beckoned her.

“Ugh… Okay, fine. It’s not like I have anywhere to go, anyway.”

She let out a conspicuous sigh and followed after me.

Heh. She could try to sulk to make me feel guilty, but it wasn’t working.

I had her entire being in the palm of my hand─I wasn’t such an amateur that I was going to pass up this opportunity. This great challenge I now faced was going to be where I showed her just how much of a man I was.

Finding a safe-looking spot and parking my bike (I had to guard against theft since it was a pretty nice mountain bike), I brought Hanekawa to some nearby bushes.

“………”

I brought Hanekawa to some nearby bushes.

I brought Hanekawa to some nearby bushes.

I brought Hanekawa to some nearby bushes.

I don’t know, the somehow criminal ring to those words…sent shivers down my spine!

No!

This was consensual! It wouldn’t be a crime!

In fact, given the situation, it’d be more correct to say that Hanekawa was making me bring her to some nearby bushes!

Wasn’t this a case of her being a bossy bottom?!

Or maybe a tsundere bottom!

…Fine, there’s barely anything about Hanekawa you’d describe as tsundere. For some reason, though, it seemed that way with how cold she was being.

A limited-time-only tsundere.

“Okay. Now what, Araragi?”

She was the first to speak this time, almost as if she didn’t care anymore.

She was leaning on the tree behind her, and something about her demeanor suggested that she was a nice older girl playing make-believe with a kindergartener.

Saying, Yeah. Sure.

“What’s going on, Hanekawa? You seem awfully composed.”

“I am,” she taunted, as calm and collected as can be. “I know what’s going to happen next. No matter what request you make, once I start following your every word, you’ll get scared and do nothing in the end.”

“Wh-What did you just say?!”

Get scared?!

I couldn’t believe this insult!

When have I ever been scared?!

“Spring break. In the P.E. shed.”

I received a pointed reply.

All I could do was fall silent.

I felt as silenced as a lamb.

That would make her a very cute serial killer, though.

Hanekawa Lecter?

“I remember it like yesterday, Araragi─you acting like the big chicken you were during spring break. Even someone who’d never seen a poultry bird could have taken one look at you and more or less figured out what sort of animal it is.”

The dripping sarcasm wasn’t the usual Hanekawa. She could remember it like it was yesterday but didn’t seem to want to reminisce about it for a second.

“So, Chicken Araragi. What should I do? I know I won’t have to do anything, but I’ll at least hear you out. Tell me. Do you want me to strip? Down to what?”

“……”

Hmm.

Hanekawa seemed to have an extremely low estimation of my manliness.

As a guy, I couldn’t be any more humiliated─but then again, she seemed to have misunderstood something.

Yes, I was a chicken over spring break.

I admit that.

But she was dead wrong if she thought all chickens stayed chickens. Just as a baby chick will grow into a rooster in time, I, too─wait, I’d still be a chicken.

That wasn’t it.

I may be a chicken, but I was a Nagoya cochin, the best money could buy!

I needed to take this on and make up for all the face I’d lost over spring break.

Heh.

The gods were merciful to give someone like me an opportunity to avenge myself.

……

Seriously, someone like me.

Shouldn’t the gods be a little pickier?

“Hmm…”

I put my hand to my chin and began to ponder. I walked my eyes across Hanekawa’s body from the tips of her toes to the crown of her head.

“Urk…”

Though Hanekawa seemed to flinch at my gaze, she stood firm, held her hands behind her back as if to stretch her spine, and actually gave me a better look at her body.

Gah.

Was this her acting brave?

Or did she really believe from the bottom of her heart that I was a chicken?

…Probably the latter.

Hmph, in that case, I’d just take advantage of the fact─there was no way the anime of a series like this would continue all the way to the seventh installment, so no matter what I did, not too many people would find out.

The scene wouldn’t be fit for TV, but it shouldn’t affect my favorability rating if it stayed print-only!

There’s no regulatory agency for novels!

“What’s gotten into you, Araragi? You’re acting awfully pompous─or are you not able to come up with anything? Oh, or is that what you want to do? Ogle my whole body like you’re licking me clean?”

“……”

Hm.

Oh─okay.

Hanekawa might have said that to provoke me, or maybe just to discourage me─but she’d actually given me a huge hint.

That was my opening.

Yes.

Hanekawa’s wording, “I’ll do anything,” had drawn me down the path of thinking only about what I could get her to do─but the opposite approach was on the table, too.

I didn’t need to get her to do something for me─I could also do something to her.

In terms of her offer, I’d be telling her to put up with something─yup.

This was a very real possibility.

And that wasn’t the only hint her words contained─it wasn’t like her to make such a foolish move.

She’d pretty much given me a guide on how to defeat her. Or was it her being a bossy bottom, after all? In that case, there was no need for me to hold back.

The last thin layer of my conscience had just been peeled away─wait, wasn’t that terrifying?

My conscience?

If I didn’t have a conscience…

“Hanekawa.”

“Yes?”

“Ogling at your whole body like I’m licking you clean isn’t what I want.”

“Well, of course not…” Hanekawa tilted her head. “That’s what you’re always doing to me, anyway.”

“She knew!!”

She knew my eyes were fixed on her (chest) during class and whenever else! I wanted to dig a hole and die in it!

“I think it’d be better if you looked at the blackboard, for your own good. Why let all the work our teachers are doing go to waste?”

“Ghukk…”

Saying it like she was giving me a mild warning!

It would’ve been easier if she’d started blasting me… My heart couldn’t take much more!

You can do it, me!

Stay strong!

Reinforce that wounded heart of yours!

If you can get through this, paradise awaits you…probably!

“And to give you one more piece of advice for your reference, girls are surprisingly sensitive to people’s gazes, so be careful when you look at them.”

“Damn you… As hell-bent on breaking my will as you seem to be, saying these things won’t work…”

My knees were giving out by this point, but I somehow pulled myself together and rose back up.

“Hanekawa. Ogling at your whole body like I’m licking you clean isn’t what I want.”

“Well, of course not.”

“I…” Looking right at Hanekawa, but this time straight into her eyes, I said, “I want to lick the wound under that gauze, where he hit you.”