Monogatari Series - Volume 8 - Chapter 1.24

024

I headed home while being assaulted by a powerful sense of self-hatred.

I considered asking Miss Kanbaru if I could go with her, but if Araragi’s message said “alone,” it seemed best that I didn’t─I understood that much.

What did give me pause was whether or not I should tell Miss Senjogahara about this. The honest way to look at it was that I should, Araragi being her boyfriend, but I knew I’d absolutely cause her worry─and on her part, she’d get unreservedly angry at him.

I arrived at the Tamikura Apartments still unable to reach a conclusion─

“Oh, welcome back, Miss Hanekawa. That took a while.”

“Yeah, I went to the supermarket to buy ingredients to replace what I used this morning…hm?”

Then, as I opened the door, I noticed that there was another individual in the room other than Miss Senjogahara.

A man with long, salt-and-pepper hair tied neatly in the back.

He looked striking in his suit, and as serious as could be─to use a bit of an old phrase, he was like a corporate warrior.

His appearance suggested professions like lawyer or bureaucrat, but I knew that wasn’t the case.

I’d heard from Miss Senjogahara.

That her father works as a consultant at a foreign company─

“Nice to meet you,” he greeted me first. He was seated at the low table but got up for me and bowed his head. “I’m Hitagi’s father.”

“Ah… Um.”

I was at a loss.

Now that this was happening, I realized she’d said her father was coming home today. I just didn’t think he’d be returning at such an early hour.

He doesn’t work at a foreign company for nothing and won’t let himself be bound by time, I thought, weirdly impressed.

“I’m Tsubasa Hanekawa. I apologize, I stayed the night yesterday.”

“M-hm,” Mister Senjogahara nodded.

And then he was silent again─he seemed reserved.

He struck me as the type of man who stayed extremely quiet as I stood there in the entrance, my shoes still on, when he glanced my way.

Saying, “I’ll make some tea,” he headed to the kitchen.

From there, he put a kettle on the gas burner.

His words, along with his actions, freed me from my nerves in an instant, and I could take my shoes off at least.

A pause.

I sat next to Miss Senjogahara, making sure to keep her dad in my line of sight.

“I’m sorry, Miss Hanekawa. He seems to have taken care of his work earlier than expected, and so he also came back earlier than expected,” she whispered.

“Oh, no. It’s not a problem or anything,” I whispered back. I was the one barging into their apartment, after all. “But in that case, you could’ve sent me a message or called me to let me know.”

“Well, I was curious to see if you’d be surprised.”

“……”

Yes, I was. Of course I was.

When I began to wonder whether these kinds of surprises awaited Araragi daily, his life started to seem like a lot of trouble in spite of its sunny appearance.

“You have a very cool dad,” I said.

And not as flattery.

It made a little more sense now. Putting aside how serious she was being when she said it, I could see why Miss Senjogahara might be a self-described daddy’s girl─living with a father like that would surely make every boy in your class look like a kid.

I had mixed feelings about the thought, but it was impressive that Araragi managed to win over her trained eye.

You often hear that women fall in love with a man who resembles her father, but in that sense, the person preparing tea leaves at the moment was nothing like Araragi. Forget about them being different types of people, they nearly seemed to be made of different stuff.

Araragi could play at being cool and collected, he could even be called the “unmoving silence,” but the truth is that he rather likes talking─you could almost call him the polar opposite of Miss Senjogahara’s dad, an actual reserved individual.

And─though this is an incredibly tautological way to put it─while Mister Senjogahara was indeed cool, there was something so fatherly about him, like he was more cool as a dad than cool as a man.

And what that indicates─

…Oops.

Why am I even trying to analyze my friend’s dad?

I thought I already stopped doing that kind of thing.

Yes.

It seemed that I, of all people, was slightly shaken by a “dad” appearing out of the blue.

Not that anything about me is special enough to warrant the “of all people.”

An ordinary girl─I may not be, but even then.

There was nothing to be shaken by to begin with─it’s not as if I had any mental image of what a “father” or “dad” is.

I may know a person who should be called my father.

But what I didn’t know─was a person I ought to call my father.

I didn’t know anything.

“Anything interesting happen at school?” asked Miss Senjogahara, moving along to a regular line of conversation as if to conclude the topic of her father’s presence.

I could certainly learn from the audacity she showed at times like this. “What do you mean by that?”

“Was Araragi there?”

So that’s what she wanted to ask.

I hesitated for a moment, but it felt wrong to hide it. I decided to tell her what happened at school.

“He texted Kanbaru?”

“Yes. He seems to need her help with whatever’s keeping him occupied at the moment… But it was so short that we couldn’t figure out why he was summoning her…”

“How unbearably unpleasant.”

Her words, surprisingly direct, were mirrored by her expression.

“Direct” was actually an understatement. She was furious.

What’s more, she was angry at Miss Kanbaru, not Araragi.

Her ire was pointed at her junior, not her boyfriend.

I immediately found myself regretting telling her.

Was it going to create a rift between the Valhalla Duo?

“That woman got Araragi to ignore me and seek her help instead? What should I do to her? Starting with her organs─”

“Miss Senjogahara, you’ve gone back to being your pre-rehabilitated self.”

“Uh oh,” she noticed, pulling her own cheeks until her face formed a smile.

It was such a forced smile that it hurt to look at…

“I’m sure there’s a reason─for why that happened,” I said. “Especially because he wants to ask her something. And unlike the two of us, there’s still an aberration remaining in her left arm.”

“I suppose─there is.”

The Monkey’s Paw.

Miss Senjogahara continued, “So could that mean it’s not Kanbaru he needs─but her left arm?”

“It’s just a guess, of course.” I doubted it was that simple, but broadly speaking, it seemed likely.

“So if it’s Kanbaru’s fighting abilities he’s after─does that mean even more fight scenes down the line?”

“It’s hard to say. But as far as combat, Araragi has Shinobu now─so I doubt he’s necessarily looking for more people to help him in a fight.”

All of this was based on conjecture.

Miss Senjogahara and I didn’t know what kind of situation Araragi was in. We could talk all day and never arrive at a conclusion.

“So, Miss Hanekawa. What are you going to do?”

“What am I going to do?”

“Are you going to their meeting spot? Or are you not? Whatever the situation, you’d be able to meet him there, yes?”

“…I considered it, but I don’t think I will. I feel like I’d only get in his way if I did─”

“Oh,” she nodded at my reply. “Then I won’t go either.”

“Really?”

I’d assumed she’d insist on going and was ready for a heated argument, but instead I was fooled, or maybe tripped up.

I’d been wondering what I could possibly do to stop a determined Miss Senjogahara who insisted on imposing upon him.

“I’ll take his lack of correspondence as proof that he’s doing well─it doesn’t seem like he’s trying to hide anything the way he did with Kanbaru’s monkey,” she said. “If anything, he’s being out in the open with it. He has to know that any message he sends to Kanbaru is going to make its way to us.”

That was true.

But still.

“You’re not going?” I asked as if in confirmation.

“I’m not,” she replied. “I feel the same as you. I could go, but all I’d do is get in his way─and it also feels like there are other things I might be able to do.”

I didn’t have a clue what her suggestive addition was supposed to mean─but that’s how things stood.

His lack of correspondence was proof that he was doing well.

A sign of trust.

Yes, I was going to accept that convenient interpretation─

“But it does seem like Araragi and Kanbaru aren’t the only ones with lingering aberrations in their bodies.”

“What? There’s someone else?” I tilted my head at her remark. “Araragi’s demon and Miss Kanbaru’s monkey are the only aberrations around us left, aren’t they?”

“Purrcisely,” she responded, making for some reason what sounded like a cat pun.

I wanted to press her, but just then Mister Senjogahara brought tea and teacakes for three, and our whispered conversation was cut short.

No, it probably would have been at that point even if he’d taken a little longer to make tea.

I say this because at that moment, there was a knock at the door of Room 201, Tamikura Apartments─it didn’t have an intercom, if you were wondering.

“Oh. Looks like they’re here,” Miss Senjogahara said, getting up, so she must have been expecting the guests.

Expected or not, I was on guard, in the dark as to who could be visiting. But when she opened the door and I saw who was standing there, I understood everything.

Including the nature of the “scheme” she’d mentioned the day before.

I didn’t need any explanation.

And I didn’t need any introduction.

Outside the door were Araragi’s little sisters, Karen Araragi and Tsukihi Araragi. The Fire Sisters.