Monogatari Series - Volume 7 - Chapter 1.10

010

Let me take the time here to give you an example─no, an explanation of the tale of the Afflicting Cat, an aberration that Oshino said was garden-variety.

A white cat lies dead on the street.

Whether it died of hunger or was kicked by a passerby, it is in any case on its side and completely still.

Judging by its torn tail, it’s doubtful it led any sort of happy domesticated life with a caring human family.

Out of pity─a man traveling the street picks up the cat.

Touches it.

He buries it in another spot, and while he doesn’t hold any kind of service, he does at least say a prayer.

Our virtuous man begins acting strangely that very night.

He’s wild and ill-tempered, like a different person altogether.

He becomes violent.

There’s an uproar as he begins to drink and attack others─and everyone around him, even friends and family, feel tired just being in his presence.

They tremble and say the cat cursed him.

He is even acting like a cat, they say.

We can’t handle this ourselves, they resign themselves, and summon out of necessity an exorcist who tries to cleanse the man of the cat that has possessed him─

But here’s the punch line.

Where the Afflicting Cat truly shines.

The garden-variety truth of this ghost story.

The virtuous man had never been possessed by any cat─

“I don’t know if you’d call it an absurd ending or a surprise ending, but the story is supposed to have a bit of a moral. You know, the kind of preachy structure you see all the time in folktales. There’s no such thing as a wholly virtuous man, and kindness, in the end, is only skin-deep. Everything has an opposite─where there is light, there is darkness; where there is white, there is black. The cat is nothing more than a trigger. The story isn’t just about how cats are ungrateful─it’s an episode meant to shine light on the reverse side of us all.”

The reverse side of us all.

That’s how Oshino explained it.

But why a cat then, I asked, to which he answered, “Because a cat’s always going to come out of the bag,” as if it was obvious. “Just look at missy class president. The cat’s out of the bag for her, isn’t it? It’s because there’s no such thing as someone who’s entirely virtuous, who’s always fair. In fact, trying to act like that all the time─only makes you more stressed out.”

It sullies you.

Those were Oshino’s words.

Blackness.

The class president’s─Tsubasa Hanekawa’s dark side.

“Even then, the cat is usually nothing more than a mask of sorts, so I have no idea what’s going on. Missy class prez has nearly merged with the Afflicting Cat. If the cat ends up being the host and not her, I guess you’d have to call it assimilation instead. What an assailant we’re up against. Actually, it might be better to describe her as unassailable.”

While the way Oshino spoke made it sound like he was only amusing himself by turning phrases on their head, indeed he was describing the severity of the situation.

Frivolously─flippantly.

“What I do know for sure is that it’s going to be bad if we don’t settle this right away. We still run the risk of ending up with that old punch line: missy class prez had never been possessed by any cat. We need to do something before the two fuse, or else─”

…I understood how serious the situation was.

And that it might be beyond Oshino.

Even then─there was nothing I could do.

It was a plain fact.

Not a thing.

I couldn’t do anything for Hanekawa.

I knew about the dark side she had inside her─I was able to see the depths of that hell.

But I couldn’t do anything.

Oshino ended up leaving immediately afterwards─he said he’d been waiting for me, but if he was being flippant about anything, that was it. In reality, he seemed to have only stopped by the building for a quick little break, for a quick resupply between battles with the cat─so I gave some of my blood to the vampire squatting on the second floor today for whatever reason before heading home.

The girl vampire’s eyes.

They seemed to be looking down on me, just as I’d expected.

They barely looked at me at all.

Or so I felt─but that was probably because I was looking down on myself.

So, the next day─May third, Constitution Memorial Day.

I want to say it was the day the Japanese constitution went into effect, or maybe the day it was announced, but I’m not sure. Either way, it was a holiday.

No matter what the reason or name, I don’t like special days.

Since I couldn’t be happy like a kid, I just needed to act like a grown-up.

But on that day, May third, I couldn’t bring myself to stay quietly at home. I decided to sneak out when my little sisters weren’t looking.

I felt like I could put aside for now my fear of the Fire Sisters riding off to do battle with the Changing Cat.

That was because according to what Oshino had told me the day before─and according to the rumors that would come into the Fire Sisters’ ears through the full use of their intelligence networks, the Afflicting Cat had indeed claimed many victims in the form of draining their energy, but the actual damage had shown itself to be minor.

It caused people to lose consciousness and faint, yes─but the symptoms weren’t bad enough to require hospitalization.

To borrow a line from Vegeta toward the end of Dragon Ball Z, it only felt “like after you’ve run as hard as you can.”

The only notable victims had been Hanekawa’s parents, and me, who’d gotten an arm ripped off via a physical attack─which meant.

All she was doing─was tiring them out.

So that was one way she was different from a vampire─or no, she was probably controlling herself. She was making sure people weren’t being too harmed when she drained their energy.

She was holding back despite the ability being constantly active─or precisely because it was.

If Oshino’s assumption was right and she was intentionally attacking people─those same intentions were making her not kill them.

Hanekawa’s consciousness still remained─

Maybe that’s what it meant.

…But in that case, I wanted to know why the three of us had been so brutally harmed.

I could figure out why for Hanekawa’s parents.

But me?

I decided to bring this line of thought to a beautiful little halt before it led me to any depressing truth.

Anyway─that’s why I determined that the Fire Sisters could do anything they wanted in the afternoon; they probably wouldn’t get into trouble unless it was night. I didn’t have to worry about them dying. In fact, I almost wanted the Afflicting Cat to drain some of their excess energy─I’m joking, of course.

In any case.

I headed─to school.

Naoetsu Private High School.

The school I attended─but I didn’t have anything in particular I needed to do there.

Actually, I had nothing at all to do there.

It was ridiculous for me to choose to go to school on a holiday when I tended to skip classes on regular days, but what was I supposed to do? I was already there.

Still, time-wise, I was impressively late.

The school’s gates were open for the sake of any students who wanted to diligently apply themselves to their clubs, and its doors were unlocked, too. It was easy to infiltrate compared to Hanekawa’s home─er, I guess that phrasing might give people the wrong idea. It’s not like I have a trespassing hobby or something.

I just didn’t know where else to go.

So I climbed the stairs toward my classroom.

That door was locked, at least─or so I thought, until the back door worked.

Come on. Talk about careless─or so I thought, until I realized that locking the classroom was my job as class vice president.

It must have slipped my mind because I always left everything up to Hanekawa, the president─sheesh.

Could I not so much as lock a door without Hanekawa around?

Now that was depressing.

…No, I wasn’t the kind of person who normally felt depressed over such a thing.

I was the kind of person who didn’t just forget to lock the door at home but left it wide open at times─though I did so knowing how safe our town was, of course.

In any case, I was lax when it came to that kind of thing, or rather, I was irresponsible.

And yet─at that moment, I found myself remorseful about having forgotten to lock the door.

What was it?

These days, it seemed like every little thing about me started from Hanekawa─I needed to pause and think just to remember the kind of principles that used to guide my actions before spring break, which was when I met her.

It felt like I’d been remade as a person.

I hadn’t been just modified but rebuilt from the ground up─it was a scary thought to dwell on, actually, so why was I practically happy about it?

Strange.

“……”

The classroom was empty, of course.

I entered, passed behind the teacher’s desk, and arrived at a seat─not mine, but Hanekawa’s.

The seat Hanekawa usually sat in.

The seat I’d find my eyes looking for during class.

Well─it wasn’t like I was going to understand how Hanekawa felt just by looking at the blackboard from her perspective.

I wasn’t going to understand a thing.

I sighed and listlessly dangled down both of my arms and pressed my face against the desk.

I felt no less despondent.

It wasn’t like I’d come to school as some sort of mental refresher, but now I was even more depressed.

The desk had been unoccupied for over four days, starting from the beginning of Golden Week─I wasn’t going to find any traces of Hanekawa’s warmth there.

Sure, I was only making a show of how listless and lethargic I felt, but I could imagine someone seeing me and thinking I had snuck into the empty classroom to rub my cheeks against Hanekawa’s desk.

When you consider that this really was the desk that the well-endowed Miss Hanekawa always pressed her glorious chest against, I was being no better than a grade schooler licking his sweetheart’s recorder.

Though I knew it would spell the end of my life in more ways than one if anyone saw me, I half-jokingly looked at her shiny new desk, (obviously) free of any graffiti or carvings, and stuck out my tongue for a little lick─

“……nkk!”

Someone had seen me.

Someone was staring at me.

From a bit of a distance, in fact from the exact seat that I normally used─a pair of eyes gazed at me.

Eyes.

Cat eyes.

“…Aren’t you a purrvert with no maximum.”

Though I had no idea when and how long she’d been there, looking at me and trembling for some reason in her black underwear was none other than─a white-haired cat.

No.

The Afflicting Cat.

“You scare me… You scare me more than any meowberration. You were just licking a girl’s desk and getting all excited about it…”

“N-No, that’s not what this is!”

That was what it was.

She was dead right.

I’d made an aberration afraid of me.

“A-And who cares about that? Where’d you come in from, and how─”

“‘Who cares’? What are you mewing about, human? What in this world’s bigger than you running your tongue all over my myaster’s desk?”

“I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about! Say whatever you want, I’m not admitting anything in court! So who cares about that! Where’d you come in from, and how?!”

“Mya-hahaha! What are you, stupid? Cats have the patent on sneaking around on our tippy-toes─so I got a good look at just how purrverted you are.”

“……”

Well.

It did seem pointless to ask an aberration questions like why and how…

Standing up from the desk─wasn’t something I felt like doing.

A sudden encounter.

A sudden encounter with the Afflicting Cat.

But─it was as though the way she entered the scene was too much for me, and I couldn’t adjust my emotions.

It didn’t feel like a battle.

And─anyway, I knew I didn’t stand a chance against the cat. Not just in a fight, but even in defending myself. All I could do was play it cool. If I were Oshino, then maybe─no, even Oshino was at a loss.

At the very least, the fact that the Afflicting Cat was here with me meant Oshino hadn’t been able to produce results between the time I parted ways with him the night before and now.

So, over the course of that one night.

How many times had Oshino lost?

“Hrmm? Nyow what’s going on here? You don’t look very hostile─human.”

“I know I wouldn’t be able to lay a finger on you─cat. And it’s not like you’ll be taking my life, right?”

“We’ll have to see about nyat.”

The Afflicting Cat smiled.

With Hanekawa’s face.

It smiled─in a way Hanekawa never would.

Still─this was Hanekawa.

Tsubasa Hanekawa’s─dark side.

“My energy drain isn’t a skill, it’s part of my character, you nyoh─a part that says a flick of my fingers can afflict. It’s nyot something I can control. I can go easy on someone, but it won’t. I might nyot mean to kill someone, but it’s completely possible.”

“That’s still better than you biting and scratching people the moment you see them. It’d be all over for them if you did,” I remarked, making a show of shielding my left shoulder.

This was just a bluff.

I was putting up a front.

I was playing tough─so as not to show her my weakness.

“Hmph. So you’re a vampire,” the cat said. “But to take your bait, I’m nyormally supposed to be the type of aberration who can’t even put up a fight─thanks to my myaster, though, her strategy and tyactics, my existence now is powerful enough to crush even an expert and professional. I’m downright grateful.”

“……”

“I’m nyot the type of aberration who repays favors. In fact, I’m the type that dispenses malice in return─but just this one time, I’m so grateful that I don’t mind paying her back.”

The type of aberration who returned favors with malice─huh.

What a pleasant expression. But it was true.

I responded, “Yes, I’ve heard that cats have a surprisingly strong sense of loyalty. Like the Vampire Cat of Nabeshima─they say it turned into a yokai to avenge its master. They say that dogs become attached to humans while cats become attached to houses, but I’m a little doubtful.”

“You don’t nyoh-kai? Because of that yo-kai?”

Mya-hahaha, the Afflicting Cat laughed.

Hmm.

The Hanekawa I knew would never make a pun that lame.

She was the kind of person who’d lecture you over a bad joke.

Hanekawa’s reverse side, eh?

Her reverse side─her dark side.

“Of course, while we both have the ability to drain energy, Afflicting Cats and vampires are nothing like each other,” I said. I was just parroting Oshino, of course. “Vampires drain energy to feed─while Afflicting Cats drain energy to curse.”

“Hm. Well, yes.”

“The thing that I don’t get is why you’re attacking people for no reason. If we’re talking about types of aberrations, aren’t Afflicting Cats not supposed to attack people?”

“……”

The cat─fell silent.

It didn’t seem like she was going to give me an honest answer.

Actually, was it even a conversation if you weren’t going to answer questions that you didn’t want to answer or say things you didn’t want to say? It didn’t feel like there was any kind of communication going on. Our words got across to each other, but probably not their sense.

True, you could say the same thing about conversations between humans, but what I’d asked was the one thing I hoped to tease out of her─I didn’t want to waste our chance meeting here in this classroom.

…Hold on.

Was this a chance encounter?

It felt like meeting her in our classroom meant something completely different from meeting her near her home─

“Hey, cat. Are you─”

“It’s nyot like me to do this kinda thing,” the Afflicting Cat said, annoyed.

Her legs were crossed like she couldn’t be any more bothered.

This wasn’t the time to be having such thoughts, but god, were Hanekawa’s legs long.

I could see just how long they were now that she wasn’t wearing a skirt. Her bare legs were visible all the way to the top.

Despite being shorter than me, she might’ve been the one with longer legs.

Oh, did I want to lick every inch of them.

Er, wait. No, that’s not what I meant to say.

I wanted to stare at them like I was licking them clean.

…Is that a bad attempt at smoothing things over?

“You could say that I’m ignyoring the role I’m supposed to play as an Afflicting Cat right nyow─I’ve gone completely out of character. Well, I guess I’m still in character, but there’s no meowstaking that it’s irregular.”

Of course, it’s nyot me who’s irregular.

It’s my myaster─

Said the Afflicting Cat.

When I thought about it─Oshino had said something similar.

“It’s─nyot like me.”

“……”

“Mreh. Venting, that’s all.”

“Huh?”

“Why I’m attacking people. You wanted to know why I’m going around indiscriminately draining energy from everyone I see. So I told you─I’m just venting. Like a ding-dong ditch! Or putting graffiti on a wall! It’s the same as that!”

In other words.

I did it because I was in a bad mood.

The only purrpose was to relieve stress─

The Afflicting Cat─disclosed this to me with a pained smile on her face.

What?

What did she just say?

“You’re doing it to…relieve stress? That’s… What? Wait…what do you mean?”

“All of it means purrcisely what you think it means─you peeked inside that house, didn’t you?”

“Do you mean─”

“My myaster’s house. You nyoh, don’t you? And I nyoh, too─cats have pretty good nyoses. When I went back to the house to change, it was full of your scent.”

Meow, you deviant little stalker─the cat said like she knew.

She’d gone back to change?

Oh, she had. She was still clad in black, but her underwear looked different from what she had on when we met on the twenty-ninth, or technically the thirtieth.

Just how addled was my brain?

How could I not notice? It was embarrassing.

Of course she wasn’t going around for two or three days in the same underwear. Well, true, a cat would never think to change clothes─was this proof that quite a lot of Hanekawa’s consciousness as a high school girl still remained?

Something like her Hanekawa-ness?

Now that I knew there was some of her left in the cat─I felt relieved.

Wanting to be careful about your personal appearance was─a very normal, girlish sentiment.

Sure, we were late─but we weren’t too late.

We could still get Hanekawa back.

There was all of that consciousness left.

Hanekawa’s unconsciousness.

…No, if we were considering worst-case scenarios, maybe Oshino had fought her the night before and been dealt a decisive loss─it was all over then─but that didn’t seem to be the case when I saw how the cat was acting.

What was it?

Wait, no. That’s what it was.

Of course.

Her underwear wasn’t the only thing that had changed between the twenty-ninth and now.

The Afflicting Cat had felt nearly demonic, violent─more like a tiger than a cat, but the edge had come off─she seemed mellower.

……

She’d been relieved─of her stress?

“My myaster spent fifteen years in that house, that home─you can imyagine how crushed she must have felt by that pressure, that weight, can’t you? How could you nyot tell how harassed she felt? And she’s letting that out by playing pranks on upstyanding citizens. Making herself feel better by causing trouble to random strangers. That’s all this is─it’s got nyothing to do with afflictions or curses or anything.”

“Nothing to do with them…”

But that─wasn’t like it?

Is that something an aberration would ever do?

Aberrations were always true to their character─they basically had to do the impossible to ignore who they were, just like with that vampire─

The impossible. An aberration immolating its nature─was all but impossible.

“I’ll tell you one little thing─about those two,” the cat offered. “Since I’m an aberration that possesses people, I’ve taken over my myaster’s body─in nyother words, her brain. And that’s why I share her knowledge.”

That’s what Oshino had said: it was so tough to deal with this aberration because it shared Hanekawa’s knowledge. That’s why we were in so much trouble.

“I nyoh─just how my myaster spent those fifteen years in that home.”

“……”

She knew.

She only knew─what she knew.

“Of course, I only nyoh about it as nyowledge. I hardly nyoh how she felt. My myaster wasn’t the type to keep a journal, either─maybe a diary over summer break for school, but they all ended with the same cookie-cutter line, ‘I had fun today.’”

“She had─fun.” In that house? What could have been fun about it? “There’s─no way that’s true.”

“Nyope. That’s what I think too─for the most part, I’m only as smart as your average cat. That’s the kind of character I am─but even I could figure out that much. So─I decided to help get rid of my myaster’s stress.”

“But…if that’s the case, why is there any need for you to go around attacking random people─”

“Sorry. That’s the only way I nyoh how─”

It’s fun to be bad.

It’s fun to make trouble for total strangers.

“I’m nyot being rational, I’m nyot being irrational─but don’t you think I’ve calmed down a little bit, considering that I’m her inverted, indecent personyality? Compared to when I tore your arm off, at least?”

“Yes, I was thinking that.”

“Right? So my meowthods are effective!”

Which means you don’t have to worry, the cat said.

“I only need to attack anyother five hundred people─and my myaster will be stress-free. Then my role as an aberration will be fulfilled, I’ll have repaid her, and I’ll disappear─of course, like my intelligence, my habitat is the same as an average cat’s. Five hundred won’t be easy. But I should be able to take care of it all in anyother month or so.”

“…A month.”

“Yep. So tell that Hawaiian shirt guy to stay out of my way. I don’t understand what he’s trying to do, but he wants to save my myaster, right? Then he should just leave it to me!”

That─didn’t seem to be Oshino’s motive.

He wasn’t thinking about how much he wanted to save her.

Even if you discounted the unique perspective he brought to things as a pro─he wasn’t the kind of guy who believed that you could save another person.

People.

People just go and get saved on their own─that was his philosophy as a human being.

…But this cat probably wasn’t smart enough to understand such an explanation.

We couldn’t understand each other.

A human and an aberration─couldn’t understand each other.

“You could say I’m an aberration who’s a personality that meownifested itself out of my myaster’s stress. A new breed, I’m different from the so-called textbook example of an Afflicting Cat─no expert’s moves will work on me. None of his exorcisms, exhortations, or exculpations are going to do a thing. Tell him he’s just dragging me down. All that pointless stuff he’s doing is just wasting my time.”

“So you want us to leave Hanekawa in your hands?” I asked, staying silent about Oshino’s personality. “But why would you go that far? Aren’t you like an evil spirit who possessed Hanekawa? Why actively do something for her sake?”

“How many times do I have to tell you? It’s nyot like me, but I’m repaying her─”

The Afflicting Cat grinned─and stood.

Or rather, she moved from chair to desktop─on all fours, stretching her back as if she didn’t care how she came across to me.

“─But you nyoh, that’s all a lie.”

And then.

Once she finished stretching, she continued, “I can’t quite ignyore the part of my character that says I’m an ungrateful cat. That’s just how aberrations are─like how a vampire has to suck blood. So I’m nyot doing this to repay her─because really, the only thing I have to be grateful to her for is this knowledge she gave me.”

“Huh?”

What was she saying?

It had been hit by a car and was dead on the street─and Hanekawa had buried it. And it had taken advantage of that compassion and kindness, which I thought was why─

“Nyope, that’s nyot it─true, those were her actions that day. I was stretched out on the road when my myaster picked me up, carried me to a spot with a wonderful view, and buried me. That’s all correct. It was exactly like you saw from her side─oh, and by the way, you’re nyot afflicted because you just stood by my myaster’s side and only helped dig a hole. You didn’t lay a finger on my dead body. I suppose it takes some courage to touch a carcass since you might get cursed or something, and in reality, you woulda been.”

“Oh… Well yeah, I do admit that I was scared. But that’s exactly why I think it’s so incredible that Hanekawa did it without seeming the least bit concerned─and look at how she got repaid, with a curse. Didn’t her kindness just backfire on her?”

“Nyo, that’s where you’re wrong.”

If I’d stopped Hanekawa then, even if I probably couldn’t have, none of this would have happened─or if I’d been the one to carry the cat’s corpse instead of being scared…

Hearing me say so regretfully, the cat responded, “My myaster─didn’t feel any sympathy at all for me.”

“──”

“My myaster didn’t feel the slightest bit sorry for me─there wasn’t a shred of kindness in her. As an aberration who works by taking advantage of such feelings, I can tell you that much for sure.”

Meow.

The Afflicting Cat finished speaking with what sounded like an extra noise thrown in─maybe that was another one of its character traits.

Tacked on for the moé factor.

She was pretty adorable, though.

But the side of Hanekawa that the aberration exposed with that factor─the dark side of Hanekawa.

It was just so black.

Just so blemished.

Just so─grotesque.

“I was dead on the street, and my myaster held a service for me like it was a routine chore─nyot an emotion inside of her. Like she didn’t pity me at all. So she didn’t really have any openings for me to take nyadvantage of at all─”

“No, but Hanekawa─”

“My myaster’s one wish is to be a regular girl,” the cat said. “It’s her innermost wish─but my myaster’s idea of normal is being ethical. My myaster wants to do the right thing. If you see a dead cat in the street, you bury it─nyow I do suppose that really is the right thing to do. A law, even. A formewla. My myaster followed that law and formewla─that’s all.”

“……”

The impact, of the cat’s words, their weight─there was nothing I could say in reply.

No.

I couldn’t reply in any case.

I’d known for all this time just how unusual Tsubasa Hanekawa was when it came to following rules and regulations to the letter─I knew about her values.

I knew about her ethics, and to be frank, there was something wrong with them.

The cat had used words like routine, chore, law, formula─but I would say precept.

An adherence to precepts born from a modest pride─she didn’t want anyone thinking she’d strayed off the path due to her peculiar upbringing─however.

“No ‘regular’ person could stick to such precepts,” I said. “Most people wouldn’t think to bury a dead stray cat even if it’s the right and beautiful thing to do. Well, they might think it─but they won’t do it. People are too embarrassed even to give up their seat to an old person on the train.”

At most, it was in service of pretending to be some defender of justice as with the Fire Sisters─the best you could do was play at it.

Even my little sisters would move on from their fun and games by the time they started high school.

Even them.

They’d become regular girls.

Something Hanekawa could never become─regular girls.

“Whether it’s in terms of temperament or ability─you shouldn’t be able to. But Hanekawa pulls it off.”

“Yep. My myaster pulls it off─dispassionately. She can be purrfectly ethical without a thought in her head, like a myachine. That was unusual, and I say so as a cat who’s had a few funerals. Hence─I felt like I wanted to save her. In other words, this is all on a whim. Just like a real cat, right?”

The Afflicting Cat raised its left hand to pose like a Lucky Cat─as a joke.

“So you’d better tell him─that Hawaiian shirt guy─to ignore me. I’m only a cat playing pranks. Unless he wants to get charged with anyimal abuse─’cause I’m overlooking that.”

“What do you mean?”

“Isn’t it obvious? If I─well, if my myaster was really serious about hurting him, I coulda killed him the very furst time we met. I’m going easy on him because my myaster knows him─and you…well, you don’t look like you’re gonna do anything,” the cat said, hopping off the desk─she was only about two feet off the ground, but she managed to spin around before landing. “You’ve made the right mewve. If you care about my myaster, the right mewve is to do nothing─it’s not like you want to die, right?”

She turned her back to me and began walking toward the door with silent footsteps─they say the paw pads on a cat’s foot are what let them move around quietly, but it wasn’t as if Hanekawa’s soles had transformed into having any.

Or.

Was it─part of her character?

Her character─which transcended theory, reason, physics, and ethics.

This was a lot more than a puss in boots.

“Farewell. You nyoh…you do your best to have a good life, human.”

And with that.

The Afflicting Cat exited the classroom into the hallway─

“Wait!”

Until.

I stopped it without thinking.

Hm? the cat said, turning its neck and nothing else─literally a beauty looking back, like in a woodblock print.

No, her expression was a little too puzzled for that.

“If you’re saying your goal is to get rid of Hanekawa’s stress─it’s impossible.”

“Eh? Why’s that?”

“Well─Hanekawa’s parents are at the root of that stress, aren’t they? So even if you did manage to get rid of all her stress, it’ll just start building up again once she goes back home.”

Those two might be in the hospital now─but they wouldn’t be forever.

In time.

They were going to return─to that house with no place for their daughter.

“You can spend a month attacking five hundred strangers as stress relief, but she’ll eventually be right back where she started.”

“Hmm. Well, yeah. In that case.”

The shortsighted, shallow-minded cat took in what I’d pointed out, and then─spring break…

Exactly as the vampire had so often done─a gruesome smile appeared on her face.

“Then I’ll have to hurt them so bad with these they nyever want to come back again.”

And she─showed me the claws on her right hand.

They looked like they could kill.

Those five sharp claws looked like they could stab you to death.

“I’m gonna do more than drain their energy this time. I’m gonna answer domestic violence with domestic violence─if that’s what my myaster wants.”

“That…!”

Hanekawa─wouldn’t want that!

I rose out of my chair so fast I nearly kicked it aside─before closing in on the Afflicting Cat.

No, before I tried to close in.

Just as I tried to grab her shoulder─I somehow made myself stop.

“Myep, that’s the right thing to do. Just one flick and you’ll be afflicted─that’s why they call me the Afflicting Cat. Don’t get close, don’t touch! Nyot a finger. You shouldn’t have anything to do with me─and probably with my myaster.”

“Wait, cat, you─”

“Farewell. Go have a happy life,” she bade once again.

And then the Afflicting Cat left, this time for real─she didn’t even bother to look back.

“……”

I’d been left alone in the classroom.

I retreated back to Hanekawa’s seat, put the chair I’d knocked over back on its legs, and sat in it again.

Then, just like I’d done before the cat showed up─I leaned all of my weight on the desk.

The Afflicting Cat hadn’t even touched me.

But I was tired─drained.

“Ah…”

I muttered.

Weakly.

I made sure no one else was around─no, I probably would have muttered the same thing even if someone was.

I had to mutter it.

The sentiment just seemed to spill out of me.

“It’s no good. I really─do love Hanekawa.”

I had to put it into words.

I had to give it form.

“I love her so much I daren’t even touch her.”

Not a finger.

The most I could bring myself to do was rub my cheek against her desk like this.

It wasn’t because of what happened over spring break.

It wasn’t any gratitude I felt over being saved.

It wasn’t because she was pretty, and it definitely wasn’t out of pity.

It wasn’t like there was a reason.

I loved her.

Thinking I loved her.

Feeling I loved her.

I knew that I loved her.

“It’s just as Tsukihi said.”

And then.

I continued to mutter to myself.

Dispassionately, indeed─without thinking.

“I love her so much I can’t stand it─but these feelings aren’t romance.”

I continued to mutter─as I made a resolution.

I remade a resolution.

It had probably been set in stone from the beginning.

It was decided, unmoving─and I’d only now realized it.

My feelings for Hanekawa had gotten so out of control─

That they’d gone beyond romance.

The idea of spending my life with her seemed weak.

“I mean, I feel like I want to die for her.”