Monogatari Series - Volume 8 - Chapter 1.21

021

“Mgh.”

Miss Senjogahara made an indescribable face as soon as she put a cucumber from her salad into her mouth.

I thought it would be wrong to tamper with someone else’s kitchen too much, so I’d prepared a very simple breakfast. Leftover bread from the day before with hot milk. A simple salad and a fried egg on top of bacon. When I laid it out on the table, though, she did comment on how good it looked.

Everything was fine as she chugged down her milk, but her demeanor changed when she put the first bite of salad into her mouth.

Like a switch had been flicked.

“Could I ask you a question, Miss Hanekawa?”

“What is it?”

“Oh, no, hold on. First let me be sure that this unbelievable situation really is happening.”

She continued to fill her cheeks with more salad. She kept going, silently eating her eggs and bread.

The grave expression stuck to her face the entire time.

I’m not a dull person. I could tell pretty much what she was thinking, based on her reaction, but…hmm?

Had I messed something up?

I started to think, and then I took my own fearful bite of the food I’d prepared─nothing seemed particularly strange. At least, it didn’t seem like I’d done something like burn the eggs or get dish detergent in the food.

Then what could have been bothering her so?

“Hmm,” she said suggestively, noticing that I was now the one with suspicion in my eyes.

“Uh, Miss Senjogahara─”

“Miss Hanekawa. Do you know what dressing is?”

“Huh?” The question caught me by surprise. “Well, of course I know what it is. The stuff that people sometimes put on salads.”

“I see, I see.” She gave a deep, understanding nod. “There are three competing factions in Japan when it comes to fried eggs. People who put Worcestershire sauce on them, people who put soy sauce on them, and people who put salt and pepper on them. What’s your stance there?”

“Oh, I’ve heard of those people before. Yes, apparently some people put things on fried eggs.”

“Yup, yup.” She nodded again like she was conducting an experiment and was pleased with the results. “Did you notice the spread and the jam in the fridge?”

“I saw them, but…we had those just yesterday. Oh, oops─did you want to use them?”

“Hm.”

But rather than get up to grab butter or anything else from the refrigerator, she tore off another piece of bread, put it in her mouth, and silently chewed.

Silently.

“I have a few more questions.”

“Please, go ahead.”

“They’re about your culinary lifestyle.”

“My culinary lifestyle? I think my eating habits are very ordinary, but okay.”

“How much soy sauce do you use on sushi?”

“None.”

“How many times do you dip your tempura in sauce?”

“None.”

“Spoons of sugar in your yogurt?”

“Zero.”

“What do you write on your meals with ketchup?”

“A blank.”

“Any sauce on your okonomiyaki?”

“Plain.”

“Do you salt your rice balls?”

“Just rice.”

“What syrup do you get on your shaved ice?”

“Simple.”

“How many sugar cubes in your after-meal coffee?”

“I take mine black, thank you.”

Okay, she said, ending her questions.

It felt like I had just undergone some sort of psychological test, but I did understand now what was making her so upset.

“Oh, I get it, I get it. I’m sorry, Miss Senjogahara, you’re one of those people who puts dressing on their salads. And that’s why you were making such a funny face.”

“No, it’s that I didn’t know there was a no-dressing faction. And it’s my first time seeing a plain fried egg, and it’s also my first time being served just a piece of bread. Are you, let’s say, someone who rejects the idea of seasoning food? Perhaps you want to savor the ingredients as they are?”

“Hunh?”

It took a moment for me to understand what she was saying, and then it took a few more for me to think it through before I replied, Ah, no.

“It isn’t like that at all. I think salad tastes just as good with dressing on it, and I can eat fried eggs all the same even if they do have Worcestershire sauce, soy sauce, or salt and pepper on them, and I love pizza just the same with or without pineapple on it.”

“We’re not talking about pizza toppings,” she shot back.

Aw, I was so happy.

My setup hadn’t been for nothing.

“But doesn’t food taste good even if it doesn’t have any flavor?” I asked.

“And there we have it. The clincher.”

“What? But all I said is that food’s the same whether or not it has flavor.”

“So this is why they say the best way to get a secret out of someone is to ask them how their day went.”

Though I guess all I did was ask you directly, she added, putting down her chopsticks.

She hadn’t given up on her meal, though. It was very much like her to have cleaned her plate.

“Thank you for the meal,” she made sure to say, before continuing, “I take back every word I said about the two of us having similar tastes.”

They’d been annulled.

“You’re like the opposite of a picky eater, aren’t you? But it’s not that you don’t have dislikes, either.”

“I’m sorry, I still don’t understand what you’re trying to say.”

“The taste of home cooking, huh?” she ignored my query, as if lost in thought. “But no, it’s not like that. Maybe you’re someone who accepts the taste of anything… It might be an exaggeration, but you only care that your food provides you with nutrition. No, maybe nutrition doesn’t even matter so long as you’ve filled your stomach…”

“Don’t make it sound like I’m a warrior or something.”

“In that case, your sense of taste is only a burden. If you aren’t enjoying the flavor of the ingredients─then, in the end, you aren’t bothered by trivial details? When I think about it, being fixated on how something is seasoned might be a luxury.”

Still, you did manage to smash straight through what I believed to be common sense, she said, staring straight at me as my portions sat on my plate. “But you know…I’m not so sure about living that way. It’s not just how you deal with food. You, well─”

She seemed to be choosing her words carefully.

That was rare.

“─you accept everything that comes to you, don’t you?” she went with the same verb she used earlier. “It’s important to have things you love, but isn’t it just about as important to have things you hate? But you accept it all. And I wonder if that’s what you’re doing with me, and with Araragi, too.”

“Huh?”

Did our conversation change subjects?

Did our conversation get derailed?

Did our conversation just turn into something bigger?

No─it hadn’t.

We were on the same subject, and we hadn’t been derailed.

The scale of our conversation was the same, too.

We were talking about how I lived my life.

Tsubasa Hanekawa’s lifestyle.

“It wasn’t that we have similar tastes, my tastes are simply subsumed by yours─no, maybe I shouldn’t call what you have tastes, Miss Hanekawa. It’s probably better that I don’t. After all, if you like everything that’s out there, it’s like everything is all the same to you.”

“……”

“Miss Hanekawa?” she asked, still looking into my eyes.

And it was just a hint.

But something in her tone sounded flat─the way it used to.

“Did you really love Araragi?”

And then another question.

“Are you still able to say, now, that you love Araragi?”