Monogatari Series - Volume 7 - Chapter 1.13

013

The epilogue, or maybe, the punch line of this story.

At long last we can end, wrap up, drop off─call it the flat line of this story.

The next day, I was roused from bed as usual by my little sisters Karen and Tsukihi─no, my condition was closer to being dead than asleep, so maybe it would be more accurate to say I was revived, not roused, by them.

By the way, my prediction was right. Karen and Tsukihi, the Fire Sisters, seemed to have gone all across town from May third to the seventh to tackle the Changing Cat scare─but it seems they never managed to get a hold of its tail over Golden Week.

But you can say it was only natural since the cat had no tail.

I wanted to lecture them about not wasting time while their own brother was busy on his hands and knees, but it seemed like they were going to continue their search, yet to be discouraged. If that’s what they wanted to do, then fine. I decided I wouldn’t stop them, not this time. It is the way of the world for a tale that’s seen its end to be recited and passed down.

I rushed through another breakfast before getting on my bike and leaving─I was heading to school, which meant my ride was my granny bike, not my mountain bike.

But first, there were a number of places I needed to go.

It’s why I left early.

The first spot I needed to visit was where Hanekawa and I buried the white cat. I guess you can call it a grave─the grave Oshino said was now empty.

I was unfamiliar with the neighborhood, and it ended up taking a little while to get there, but it wasn’t too hard to find─however.

I don’t know how to say this, but when I dug up the spot with the gardening shovel I’d brought─when I decided to desecrate its grave, it was right there.

The cat’s buried corpse.

The remains of the dull-silver cat─were buried in the earth.

It was empty─no longer.

It was a real corpse, one that smelled of decay.

“Hmm.”

Though I said “however,” I knew this would be the case─it was another obvious fact.

Exactly as I’d predicted.

Now the real question is whether Oshino knew─no.

It was probably my description.

He must have mistakenly dug up the wrong spot, tricking him into thinking the carcass had disappeared─even he wasn’t omnipotent, even he could get mixed up.

I satisfied myself with that answer and covered the cat’s remains with dirt, burying it once more.

I put my hands together.

And prayed for its happiness in the afterlife.

“All right.”

Obviously enough, my next stop was the abandoned cram school─I needed to hurry since I’d spent some time finding the grave.

Not that it was an emergency─but with my body so direly wounded last night, I’d been in no place to give my thanks to the girl vampire, and I didn’t want too much time to pass before I did.

I was thinking I’d even pat her head.

A sign of submission it wouldn’t be.

But it did seem like she might let me─she might allow me to thank her, at least.

“……”

But my expectations were far off the mark.

The knowing superiority accorded to me in an epilogue was powerless.

I arrived and went up to a fourth-floor classroom to face the girl vampire only to find her wearing, of all things, a weird helmet with goggles that you might while riding on a scooter.

I couldn’t pat her head like that.

“Ah, that thing? Yes, our li’l vampire begged me for it. She did solve the whole issue with the cat, so I gifted it to her as her reward,” Oshino explained.

What had he done? “I wasn’t off the mark so much as… Well, what a fleeting hope it was.”

Could I not even thank her?

Our relationship hadn’t improved one iota. If anything, a gulf had opened up between us.

Oh, well.

I now felt certain that the voice I thought I heard was a hallucination─and that she really wasn’t hiding her embarrassment or being a tsundere or anything and hadn’t saved me.

She must have held a profound grudge against Hanekawa thanks to spring break, and there was the excuse of protecting me, her source of nutrition, and just maybe, she was repaying me for letting her eat ten donuts from Mister Donut─but that just proved my point.

She was more fickle than a cat. It had been no more than a whim.

Fine.

Whims were part of talent.

Someday I’ll hear that hallucination in reality, and I’ll pat your head, and I’ll muss up your beautiful, golden hair─that can be my goal.

Someday we’ll understand each other.

Without building any fences between us like “human” and “aberration.”

“I was surprised enough that our li’l vampire let you borrow her enchanted blade, but she even got up and went to save you? People are just supposed to go and get saved on their own, you know. Ha haa, and I’d already given up on you and missy class president.”

“……”

He really knew how to toss out a cold remark, didn’t he?

I wasn’t sure how serious he was being─but then he was always serious when it came to these matters.

Well.

That coldness was part of his flavor.

“It’s a miracle that your plan even worked─I held my tongue because I didn’t want to be a wet blanket, but missy class prez herself had turned into an aberration, so there was a real chance the enchanted blade would’ve cut through her too.”

“What?! You’re telling me this now?!”

I’d gone ahead with the plan thinking I had an expert’s seal of approval!

I knew he was cold, but that crossed a line!

“If she was really in a trance─it would’ve been bad,” he said.

“……”

Right─of course Oshino had known.

No wonder he’d had a difficult time against her.

“By the way, Oshino. I don’t mean to complain or anything when I’ve asked you to handle the aftermath, but…about Hanekawa. Is she okay?”

“Hm?”

Oshino tilted his head like he was playing dumb.

This was the last thing I needed to do before going to school─something I had to make sure of.

“Oh, she’s fine. You have my guarantee on that─missy class prez isn’t going to remember a thing about this Golden Week. All of that stuff─her memories as Black Hanekawa─it’s completely gone,” Oshino assured, putting an unlit cigarette in his mouth in the most affected manner.

“Black Hanekawa? Huh?”

“I’m talking about her in that state. It’s not quite right to call that an Afflicting Cat─a new breed requires a new name. Black Hanekawa, a new yokai for the contemporary age.”

“You’re horrible at naming things,” I badmouthed him while thinking that it was pretty spot-on.

It neither overreached nor fell short.

It was just right─name expressing form.

Dark black.

Not because of the color of her underwear─well, yes, that was of course part of it, but more essentially.

That dark, dark, dark, blacked-out being, too─was unmistakably Tsubasa Hanekawa.

“A new breed, huh? Well…I guess she herself said the same thing, but─couldn’t you call it an honest-to-goodness case of a split personality instead of an aberration or anything?”

“Mm. Nope, that’s not it. It really is an aberration. That’s how we ought to explain it,” Oshino went and declared. “I took missy class prez back to her home after it all, while she was only half-conscious─and she said a lot to me on the way.”

“Half-conscious? Wasn’t she unconscious?”

“Well, yes. I wouldn’t have been able to get those answers from her otherwise─it was a little like hypnosis.”

In other words.

Oshino’s field of expertise.

“Collecting stories of aberrations, huh?”

“Yep. It’s rare to see a new breed these days, in the height of the mechanical age─which is why I wanted to get the story straight from the source. Well, and I did also bill her for the work. Around a hundred thousand yen.”

A hundred thousand? That was way too cheap compared to my bill… No, but as Oshino admitted, the girl vampire had played a large part in solving the case. Maybe it was an appropriate amount given his share of the work.

He was probably charging her for expenses and nothing else.

“So,” I asked him, “what did you get out of her through your hypnosis or whatever?”

“Nothing that I hadn’t guessed for myself, really─the cat seemed to have been a plain and proper Afflicting Cat at first. But that phenomenon was done and over with in no time at all.”

“Done and over with?”

“The moment she drained her parents’ energy─the moment she took out the closest people who happened to be around─missy class president regained her consciousness for a time. I guess that means─her wish was granted at that point.”

“Her wish…”

Her desire.

For her─for Tsubasa Hanekawa─to face her parents in violent revolt, that was her─

“But then it came right back. No─I ought to say missy class prez craved its return, so she brought back the cat that had left her and won it over to her side. She won over something that had taken over her. An aberration she should have been able to let go of and reject. She let it continue. I’m the one who said the Afflicting Cat and missy class prez were made for each other, but I’d add, almost too well for each other─they matched too perfectly, so she couldn’t let go. In other words, she was ensorcelled by the cat’s mysterious charm─she grew attached to it, and at that moment a new breed of aberration, Black Hanekawa, was born.”

“And I guess─that’s when her crime spree began.”

Draining energy as a way to relieve her stress.

Night after night, like a crazed slasher─

Like a deviant, she attacked people.

You could absolutely justify draining her parents’ energy. Who couldn’t see the extenuating circumstances in her motive? But there was none to be found in what followed.

Nothing even resembling any.

If you asked her for a reason.

Hanekawa probably would have replied thus:

I did it because I felt annoyed. For no reason─

─I just felt pissed off.

How laughable.

Justified while the aberration still possessed her, only becoming wicked after winning it over─but that’s what made her human.

Tsubasa Hanekawa, human being.

“I don’t know,” I said, “it’s like the cat was left holding the bag it was let out of. Hanekawa is to blame for a lot of this, but Oshino? If that thing, the Afflicting Cat─no, Hanekawa─or Black Hanekawa─kept on attacking people, would it have eventually gotten rid of all her stress and disappeared?”

My doubts were directed just as much at my own actions.

How do I put it─the thought that I got involved when I didn’t need to, that I’d been a busybody, wouldn’t go away.

That I’d been self-absorbed, that I should have left it alone, that she never requested anything of me.

That she never relied on me─and that I still forced my way in.

I couldn’t help feeling regretful over getting in Hanekawa’s way.

“It’s not the case─remember what I told you, Araragi? If we didn’t do anything, she’d be won over by the cat and disappear. Our only option at that point would have been to kill her. If simply going wild could get rid of your stress, it wouldn’t be such a problem. That only causes more stress, if you ask an easygoing guy like me─you do want to retain an easygoing amount of stress. You could say that if anything caused missy class prez’s transformation into Black Hanekawa, her rampage, it was that her stress over her parents vanished.”

“What? But─”

“Maybe it’s like tensile stress? Or like a strut that would fall over without any pressure on it─being freer than anyone only means being less free than anyone─but even if you discount all that, relying on an aberration to relieve your stress is asking too much. You were right to do what you did.”

“I was right…”

I was right? When there was no right or wrong?

What was right, and who was right─could be so arbitrary.

Yes, I may have been right.

But it’s not like Hanekawa was necessarily wrong.

She’d merely been dark, and bad.

Black─didn’t mean unserious.

It didn’t mean impure.

I said, “So this Black Hanekawa thing took whatever memories that would be inconvenient for Hanekawa along with it─that’s a pretty convenient aberration, if you ask me.”

“It’d be closer to say it’s shouldering those memories for her, like a cosignatory. It’s an aberration missy class president created─so of course it’s going to be convenient for her. As her work, it’s going to be conveniently ideal. Not that forgetting is necessarily a good thing,” Oshino noted. “As for her parents, it seems like the powerful energy drain caused their memories of being attacked by their daughter to vanish─and that’s just putting a lid on something rotten. The source of the smell─is still right there.”

“Still right there, huh.”

The strain, the discord.

The domestic violence, the child abandonment.

All of it.

It was still there─still existing, not ending.

Even so, I thought that would be okay for now─it was better for her to forget.

Losing what was in your heart beat losing your very self.

Pretending this Golden Week was nothing more than a dog bite, nothing more than a cat scratch, a bad dream─

Pretending that we didn’t see anything.

We should forget it.

Because whether or not we remembered.

What happened did happen─and nothing was going to change, anyway.

“Conveniently ideal, huh? Like an original aberration character?” I asked.

“Right, exactly. I bet you came up with original superhero wrestlers when you were in grade school.”

Wrong generation.

But to be fair, I did come up with my own original Stand.

“A convenient hero who saves you─and because missy class prez couldn’t search for one outside of herself, she nurtured one inside herself.”

“When you put it that way, it really does sound like she has a split personality.”

“That’s not what it is, but yes, I’m wording it in a way that makes it sound that way. Because it’s best for us to agree that’s what it was─that’s how aberrations are to begin with.”

“To begin with?”

“We agree to blame something on a yokai because while it may not be the fact of the matter, it would feel so hopeless to come out and speak the blunt truth─it’s a way to shift responsibility. Missy class prez was so crushed by her domestic stress that it made her act in eccentric ways─instead of that conclusion, isn’t there a saving grace in just saying that it was all an aberration, or an Afflicting Cat, or Black Hanekawa, or a case of split personalities?”

“In just saying.”

It wasn’t like Oshino, the balancer─in fact, it seemed like he risked refuting his own theories, but maybe it was his way of compromising here. Because he believed that he had utterly failed to do his job as a professional.

In other words, it wasn’t a compromise─so much as it was him redrawing the lines.

The punch line of this story.

It was irrational, it was surprising─

“Neither black nor white. Leaving it at gray…”

What a punch line─relying on wordplay.

“It can’t be helped. It’s the conclusion that missy class prez chose for herself. I can’t butt in and run my mouth, and neither can you. The most you can do is to keep on treating her the way you’ve always treated her.”

“…Yeah.”

Just saying so, huh?

For the sake of a friend who’d searched for a hero inside herself, unable to look for one outside. As someone who failed to become her hero, it was all I could do.

Yeah.

I couldn’t even die for Hanekawa.

“Oshino. If you’re going to call that a new breed of yokai─couldn’t you say that Hanekawa’s also been possessed all this time by a yokai called family?” A vague thought had popped into my head─and so I asked him. I tried asking him. “Not a cat, not a demon, but─”

“Family. But missy class president didn’t think of her parents as family, did she?”

“Exactly─that’s exactly what I mean.”

Family is something that’s supposed to be a natural part of life for just about anyone, the way Karen and Tsukihi are like a given part of mine. Yet, for Hanekawa, it transformed into something supernatural─which would mean that it wasn’t just these nine days of Golden Week, or even fifteen years. From the day she was born─she was bewitched by family.

“Couldn’t you say that the idea of a family had always been an aberration to Hanekawa?” I submitted.

“I wonder about that.” Oshino had his head tilted, like he didn’t agree. “I mean, real, actual families can be pretty annoying, depressing things, no? Kids have their rebellious phases, and even some birth parents can be pretty worthless─tell me, Araragi. Can you draw a map of Japan?”

“Huh?”

I was dumbstruck.

What was this grown man saying to me all of a sudden?

Had he not been listening to me?

“Sure, of course I can. What’s your point?”

“Well, I suppose most Japanese people are able to draw a map of Japan─but I think that’s thanks to weather reports. We learn the shape of our country by watching weather forecasts.”

I sighed.

Hmph.

Well, now that he mentioned it.

If you asked me to draw a map of Japan, I’d be picturing the kind of weather map they showed on TV.

“Okay, that might be true,” I conceded. “We spend a lot more time looking at weather reports than at atlases. But so what?”

“It’s a grave mistake to think you know Japan because you’ve watched some weather forecasts─that’s what I’m trying to say.”

Don’t act like you know what you’re talking about when all you have is a half-baked understanding─that’s what he seemed to be telling me.

Now it made sense.

“By the way, Araragi, aberrations that embody the concept of family already exist─the kinds of things you think up have already been conceived of in the past.”

“I imagine. Well, sorry for trying to play expert,” I shrugged. “But Hanekawa still being herself the whole time she was a cat─just gets me thinking.”

“Why don’t you marry her?”

Casually.

He went and said that.

Dared to.

“What?”

“No, really, why don’t you get married to missy class prez? Doing that would give her the family she never had.”

“Um…”

Just listen to how frivolous he was being with that word.

Marriage?

“That’s not funny, Oshino.”

“Oh yeah? I think it’s a good idea. It seems like a fair deal if you want to repay her for offering a helping hand over spring break.”

“You know we need to consider Hanekawa’s feelings too, right?”

“I’m sure she has them,” Oshino replied─blithely, his attitude as goading as ever. “She has feelings. That’s why she was bewitched.”

“……”

“And she can become a victim or a perp. Even an aberration,” he reminded. “But what about you, Araragi? Shouldn’t we consider your feelings too?”

“My─feelings?”

“I was convinced that you’re in love with missy class prez.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

I smiled.

I grinned.

Yes─this was my moment to grin and act cool.

“I’m not in love with Hanekawa.”

“Oh, really?”

“Really.”

We’ll just say so.

The happiest choice.

Ha haa, Oshino laughed as well. A small laugh.

“Yeah, if you’re okay with that, Araragi, then I am too. And despite my question, it’s missy class prez’s feelings that are the most important here, not yours─because no matter what you or any Afflicting Cat does, people just go and get saved on their own.”

“And Hanekawa isn’t asking to be saved, either.”

She was unable to ask for outside help.

She was unable to ask for anything.

“If only she’d asked me,” I let out, sounding like a poor loser. It was something I had to say. “I’d have done anything for Hanekawa if only she’d leaned on me.”

“She must have thought you wouldn’t be of any use,” Oshino responded in the sharpest, most direct way possible. “She thought her own fantasies would be far more helpful, that’s all. Or maybe she actually did seek your aid.”

“Hunh?”

“It’s not like saying ‘Help’ is the only way to seek help. Just as you don’t have to say ‘I love you’ to love someone,” commented Mèmè Oshino─in his trademark tone, like he saw through everything. “We all have words that aren’t easy for us to mouth, Araragi.”

“……”

“Ha haa! But whether or not they ask to be saved, people just go and get saved on their own. You know what’s sad? That poor new breed of aberration that got sucked up by our li’l vampire and disappeared. In the end, it was a new breed with a brief history, a spontaneous mutation. No match for the old king. It’s not like people are going to be interested in an original aberration character until it takes root. The newer the better for machines and tatami mats, but when it comes to aberrations, it’s the other way around.”

“The king of aberrations─the vampire.”

I glanced in its direction.

But she wasn’t looking at me, only squatting in silence.

Oshino spoke again. “Hmm, you know, it doesn’t feel right to always be calling her ‘our li’l vampire’ or ‘the girl vampire.’ And fortunately, it looks like we’ll be able to communicate with her via the means we call feeding her Mister Donut, so why don’t I give the kid some kind of name─”

I hadn’t noticed the time pass, but we’d been talking for a while. The day’s classes were about to begin, so without giving much thought to his words, I left the abandoned building and headed to Naoetsu High.

I would be late at this rate.

When I’m late, Hanekawa gets mad at me.

So I pedal as hard as I can─and whether or not I can face her at school and carry on a normal conversation when she’s forgotten everything doesn’t even enter my focused mind.

I arrive at school just in time, park my bike in the parking lot, and start dashing up the stairs─but I’m not worried about anything.

I’m not anxious.

Hanekawa will smile at me like always.

And I’ll return her smile like always. I’m certain of it.

I love you─isn’t something I’m ever going to say to her.

“Hanekawa.”

I whisper─so that no one can hear.

Hanekawa.

Miss Hanekawa.

I know that someday, I’ll love someone who isn’t you.

I’ll love someone who isn’t you, for the first time in my life.

I learned what it means to care for others from you, and I’m sure the day will come when I fall in love with someone other than you.

But these nine gold-gleaming days that you’ve forgotten─I bet I’ll remember them forever and never forget them.

No matter what the future has in store for me, no matter what’s to come, these feelings I have for you will never change, will never not have happened.

And so.

That is how, during the Golden Week of his third year in high school, his May as an eighteen-year-old, something that wasn’t quite Koyomi Araragi’s first love came to an end.

I climb the stairs.