Monogatari Series - Volume 8 - Chapter 1.25

025

There was apparently a conversation that went like so.

“My goodness, look at what we have here. If it isn’t Karen. What a surprise, meeting you in a place like this.”

“Oh wow, look at that. It’s you, Miss Senjogahara! What a coincidence, meeting you like this in front of my home.”

“Yes, it’s almost as if I used my phone’s map to figure out your exact route back from school and was waiting here to ambush you, heheh.”

“Ahaha. Well, maybe some people might be stupid enough to get that mistaken impression. The world is full of idiots, after all. It’s too bad there are so few clever kids like me out there. Wait, but what about school, Miss Senjogahara?”

“School? What’s that?”

“Er, I guess it’s fine if you don’t know…”

“No, I’m just kidding. Of course I know. That was just a ’Gahara Joke. I took the day off due to somewhat unavoidable circumstances. Your middle school has half-days until today, right?”

“Yep. But you’ve got some bad timing. I’m sure you wanted to meet my brother while you just so happened to be here, but he’s actually out right now─he went off somewhere as soon as the new term got started. My guess is that this is his journey of self-discovery part two. He’ll probably be able to shoot a Kamehameha by the time he gets back.”

“Journeys of self-discovery aren’t about that sort of training…no, never mind.”

“He might even be able to shoot an Evangelion.”

“I don’t think Araragi has the talent… Oh, but I just happened to think of something. You know, completely out of nowhere. Did you hear that Miss Hanekawa’s house caught on fire?”

“What?”

“Oh, I’m sorry. That was a stupid question. How could Karen Araragi, the enforcer of those two defenders of justice the Fire Sisters, she who singlehandedly upholds peace in this town, not know about an incident of that magnitude?”

“Hm? Oh, yeah, of course. I know all about that, real rough stuff. I was planning on visiting a visit on her.”

“She wasn’t hurt, fortunately, because it happened while she was at school. But her home did go up in flames, and she doesn’t have a place to stay tonight.”

“Huh? Really?”

“You didn’t know?”

“Well, I did know. I was just thinking of bringing that exact topic up. Why’d you have to go and say it first?”

“I’m sorry, okay? But it really is strange, isn’t it? To think that a good girl like Miss Hanekawa doesn’t have a bed in the world she can sleep tight in. It feels like the most unjust thing imaginable. Like if justice really did exist in this world, what’s it doing not helping her?”

“……”

“So, since that hollow so-called justice won’t do a thing for her, I’m actually taking the day off school looking for a place where she can sleep. Oh, speaking of which, you went to school today like it was any other day? Did you have fun? While Miss Hanekawa was in trouble?”

“……”

“Oops, sorry, sorry. There’s no point in telling you, is there? You’re just Koyomi Araragi’s little sister after all, nothing but a middle schooler. I’d be expecting far too much of you if I started treating you like him. Your big brother is your big brother, and you, Karen, are you.”

“……!”

“This really is some rotten timing. If only Araragi was around. I know he would never abandon Miss Hanekawa. The Fire Sisters (lol), on the other hand.”

“(lol)?!?”

“I’m so sorry, I must only be a nuisance talking to you here when you can’t do a thing without that big brother you love so very much. I didn’t mean to worry you, not when, unlike Miss Hanekawa, you’re enjoying your life. It’s enough that she’s in distress. We’ve been standing here and talking for quite some time now, so I think it’s about time for me to go. After all, I understand now that justice is like a bed for Miss Hanekawa─nowhere to be found in this world.”

“Hold on just a second!”

“Hm? Does something seem to be the matter?”

“A bed for Miss Hanekawa does exist…and so does justice!”

……

Thus, deftly leading Karen along, Miss Senjogahara pulled off what she called her scheme─well, describing it as “deft” might not be right.

It was more like watching a bird fly straight into a window. I suppose that if you really wanted to, you could call it a scheme that she went after Karen and not Tsukihi, the strategist.

So with that.

I had come to the Araragi residence.

To its living room…

“Just make yourself right at home, Tsubasa.”

“Mm-hmm! Treat it like it’s your own home. Just like your own, Miss Hanekawa.”

With those words, Karen and Tsukihi poured me some tea.

While the older sister dexterously took the chilled barley tea out of the refrigerator, the younger sister took glasses from the cupboard. They’d split up these duties without so much as a single advance meeting.

I was getting a first-hand look at how well the Fire Sisters (lol)…sorry, the Fire Sisters worked as a team.

They were communicating silently.

Your own home, huh?

This wasn’t actually the first time I’d entered into this house─I’d already gone in a number of times. I did work as Araragi’s home tutor, after all (though I held classes at the library, not here), and I’d stayed late into the night in the past, like the time that Karen had collapsed with a fever.

But it was a little different on this occasion. This was my first time (at this late date) being invited to the home as “a guest.”

It made me weirdly nervous. Or maybe it’s better to say that it made me feel oddly uncomfortable.

“……”

Karen Araragi and Tsukihi Araragi.

Araragi’s little sisters.

The more I looked at them, the more they resembled him.

You could even say they were his spitting image.

I know it’s a strange way to describe them, but they were like triplets who weren’t the same age.

Of course, their personalities, or rather their character traits, were quite different─Karen was a martial arts-obsessed, handsome girl, and while there was something calm about Tsukihi, you could tell she had a firm core.

It did surprise me that both of them had changed their hairstyles from when we’d last met… Karen had chopped off her distinctive ponytail to give herself bobbed hair (her bangs were straight, just like me and Miss Senjogahara in the past), while Tsukihi had a thick braid wrapped around her neck like a scarf (Wasn’t she hot? It was summer).

“You know, Tsubasa, you’re too standonish,” Karen said, sitting down on the sofa with just her own glass of barley tea in hand.

She must have meant “standoffish.”

“You shoulda come straight to me if you didn’t have a place to sleep. I was really just waiting for you to say something. But I did think it might be hard for you, which is why I went and made the proposal on my own.”

She had yet to realize that she’d been manipulated by Miss Senjogahara. Even the lie that she knew about the Hanekawa residence burning down─she seemed to believe it more than anyone else. I’d have worried about her future if I weren’t so concerned for our middle-school girl’s dangerous here and now.

“Mm-hm. You proposed it, Karen. All on your own!” Tsukihi said, trailing behind her sister with both her tea and mine in hand. This girl who sat smiling next to Karen seemed to have made a conscious decision to go along with Miss Senjogahara’s plan.

Yup.

The younger one was pretty black-hearted.

By the way, Karen was in her third year of middle school, while Tsukihi was in her second. When I saw the two of them seated there in the same clothes (Tsuganoki Second Middle School uniforms), they really did seem like twins (there’s a height difference between the two, so they don’t when they’re standing).

“I was thinking. So, barley tea is a tea made out of barley, right?” Karen burst out about a random topic. “Does that mean that it can become beer if it tries really hard?”

She had such an incredible sense of closeness to others.

This wasn’t a conversation you had with someone five minutes after inviting them into your home.

I wished she would start by calming my nerves.

I told her, “They do both start off as barley, but I guess the difference is that it’s roasted for barley tea and fermented for beer. So, well.”

Though I didn’t know about “trying really hard,” you could say they were like relatives in the beverage world. I’d intended to say that they were completely different, but I had to admit, her question actually did address the truth of the matter.

“Huh. No wonder I get all excited when I drink barley tea.”

Her conclusion, on the other hand, was a disappointing one.

Karen chugged down an entire cup of barley tea in a succession of gulps─how stirring.

Actually… Upon closer inspection, these cups seemed really nice.

Were they Baccarat crystal?

They were nice enough that it almost felt rude to call them cups.

What’s more, judging by the way Karen and Tsukihi used them, they probably didn’t know what these cost…

Was the Araragi family, in fact, affluent?

“Anyway, Miss Hanekawa,” Tsukihi said, shooting Karen a sidelong glance. She gave me the feeling that as Karen’s little sister, she’d gotten used to her wild ways. “If you don’t have a place to stay, you’re welcome at our home for as long as you’d like. Conveniently, our big brother isn’t home right now. So use his room.”

“Araragi’s─room.”

“Yeah. He has one of those pointlessly bouncy beds, pointlessly enough.”

This was something─that I knew.

It was also what you might call the crux of Miss Senjogahara’s scheme.

I couldn’t help but feel more than a little guilty that it took advantage of Tsukihi and Karen’s youthful earnestness and sense of justice as the Fire Sisters─but I couldn’t stand on ceremony, either, not when their favor came from a place of benevolence.

Miss Senjogahara must have called it a “scheme” because she’d foreseen my own reaction to the situation too. That’s probably why she didn’t tell me.

So I didn’t have to have known.

She’d let the villainy of it fall on her own shoulders, so to speak.

It was a complete mystery to me what kind of mental state you had to be in to place another woman (not just any, but me) in your boyfriend’s house to stay the night, but maybe her old self-punishing streak was still alive and well.

She’d done it for me.

And put up with the pain.

Karen’s earlier sentiment came back to make my heart ache when I considered that.

I was standonish─standoffish.

You shoulda come straight to me if you didn’t have a place to sleep.

I was really just waiting for you to say something.

Just like when I stayed the night at Miss Senjogahara’s, I never sought help for myself─and this seemed to be a totally different problem from what Mister Oshino liked to say about “people just going and getting saved on their own.”

Yes.

I probably─stopped caring about me.

I wasn’t even trying to get saved on my own.

I recalled what Miss Senjogahara had told me earlier in the morning.

I accepted blandness.

Dull when it comes to darkness.

A failure as a creature.

“Tsubasa? What’s wrong, why are you all spaced out? Your face looks so stupid.”

“……”

Karen didn’t pull her punches when she spoke.

My face looked so stupid?

“Is it shock from your house burning down after all? The only other case I know of is what happened to Nagasawa’s place in Chibi Maruko.”

“Oh, no. I’m fine,” I said. I’m fine, I found myself saying─though there was no way I could be. “But yes, I think I’ll take you up on your very kind offer to put up with me─until Araragi gets back, then.”

I didn’t know when that would be, but it’d probably take about as long as it took the persons who should be called my father and my mother to find a rental home.

Without the slightest idea about either, there wasn’t any point in thinking too deeply about it.

“Thank you very much.”

“No prob!”

“You’re welcome.”

This somehow led to us shaking hands.

There were three of us too, which made it look more like we were in a huddle.

Were we about to start playing volleyball or what?

I didn’t know what Miss Senjogahara had said about the Hanekawas’ domestic situation (actually, she didn’t know about the Hanekawas’ domestic situation), but I was honestly grateful that neither of them asked about it.

“Let’s have a pajama party and all, Tsubasa!”

“I think I’ll pass.”

“We could play pro wrestlers!”

“I think I’ll refuse.”

“Man, I’ve always wanted an older sister since I’m the eldest girl in our family. Can I call you Big Sis while you’re staying over?”

Karen was saying things that made her sound a little like Sengoku. Tsukihi looked on with a smile─the picture made it hard to be sure which of the two was the older sister.

That’s when I noticed.

Well, I guess I didn’t notice anything. I’d known from the start.

“Right, if I’m going to be intruding here for a while, I’m going to have to say hello to your parents.”

I’d never properly met their father or mother during my previous visits to the Araragi residence, in part because all three siblings wanted it that way─yet while the sisters could give me as much permission to stay over as they wanted, I’d have no choice but to leave if her parents said no.

Hmm. How would this go?

Faced with a high school girl walking around town from bed to bed like some kind of net café refugee, wouldn’t any sensible adult’s judgment be to simply lecture her and convince her to go back to her parents’ side?

“I don’t think you have to worry about that,” Tsukihi said. “These are the people we and our big brother call Mommy and Daddy. I think that gives you an idea of their personalities.”

“Really… Still─”

“They both have a hot-blooded sense of justice. They’re not going to look at someone in trouble and tell them to get out.”

For some reason, Tsukihi was brimming with confidence.

Now that I thought about it, I had no clue what kind of people Araragi’s parents were. I suppose that’s obvious since I’d never met them, but it was also in large part because Araragi didn’t like to discuss the topic─I didn’t pay this any particular mind, as it’s natural high-school-boy behavior to be tight-lipped about one’s parents, but…he seemed particularly gauche about them.

A sense of justice, though?

A hot-blooded sense of justice, at that?

Something about it sounded unnatural.

“Hey, Karen? Tsukihi? I just wanted to ask─you said that both of your parents work, right?”

“Yup.”

They nodded in unison.

“I think they’ll come back at around six today.”

“What exactly is it that they do?”

The two answered in unison.

“They’re police officers.”

……

No wonder Araragi’s been so guarded about it, I thought. And also: we must be living in the end times.