Monogatari Series - Volume 8 - Chapter 1.60

060

I’m sure there isn’t a single person in modern-day society who hasn’t thought of how great it would be if the human brain worked like a hard drive.

When I say that, I mean the ability to immediately erase any memories (records) that we want to forget as if they never happened, to overwrite any elements of reality that we want to avert our eyes from, and to never have to be brought down after suddenly recalling our traumas and fears─how wonderful would it be if you had such a brain?

And howsoever it came to be─that wonder seemed to be mine.

Cutting a memory loose, from the mind.

To take the most recent example, my morning conversation with Episode on the way to school was a good illustration─I, being me, in my own way recalled what happened over spring break and felt like I was speaking to him in fear, but any observer would have seen my actions as utterly bizarre.

I was having a nice chat with someone who had tried to kill me.

How abnormal can you get?

I was merely taken aback by how much of a normal conversation we were having? No, it might be one thing if we were characters in a manga or drama─but how could I do something that frighteningly eccentric as an actual human being?

There was something clearly abnormal about it.

The only person who didn’t notice was the person doing it.

So─I’d forgotten.

While I naturally had forgotten the moment that my organs were sent flying (I thought the shock had caused those memories to disappear, but that wasn’t it)─I’d also forgotten the fear, the terror I must have felt for him.

My body remembered.

But my mind had forgotten.

No, I’d go so far as to say that even my body had forgotten.

Which is why I was able to carry on with a healthy life even after that happened to me─I didn’t live each day tormented by regret like Araragi.

I didn’t know when it started.

I didn’t know when I first learned to act like some kind of computer.

Judging from my current state, though, it was from before I became Tsubasa Hanekawa─it only made sense if I could do so unconsciously even before I was old enough to be myself.

I had no idea why I was able to acquire this supremely convenient ability that put an aberration to shame, this thing you could call a kind of skill.

I had a feeling─that the memory of whatever caused it was the very first thing I cut loose from myself.

So then─I’d been something of an aberration prior to my encounter with the aberration known as the Afflicting Cat. More than anyone else, I was close to being a monster, and at long last I began to feel the weight of Mister Oshino’s remark that aberrations are nothing more than triggers.

No, maybe there was no Afflicting Cat at all.

Maybe Black Hanekawa─was always inside me.

And, or possibly.

The Tyrannical Tiger, too.

Just like the way the past always follows our lives─no matter how much we feel like we forgot it, how much we pretend it never happened.

Maybe it haunts us.

Maybe it never ends.

Mister Oshino had set a bar at twenty years old, but even that seemed unreliable to me─at least, so long as I wanted it that way.

So long as I continued to be me.

Forever─

Maybe I could continue to be me forever.

Just as Sherlock Holmes was forced to take the stage after he retired, not even allowed to die─like he continued.

Maybe I would continue.

I probably would continue.

…But this was it.

I was going to end it.

I had to end it─I was at my limit.

If anything, having been able to do it for all this time, fifteen years, maybe eighteen years, was bizarre.

Fooling myself so I could go on.

What was truly bizarre was being able to make such an absurd thing work for all this time─the only possible endpoint was bankruptcy.

I couldn’t paper over it any longer.

I hadn’t reached a limit─this was a terminus.

I continued to work on making a house of cards with the Araragi sisters (Tsukihi was the winner all the way. I’d make it pretty far but could never finish my tower. So, Miss Hanekawa, there are things you can’t do, Tsukihi remarked), had dinner, together with Araragi’s parents, after they got back from work, and shut myself in Araragi’s second-floor room, alone.

It was only day two, but I already felt oddly used to the room. It must have been because it was Araragi’s.

So first, in a show of bad manners, I collapsed on the bed with my uniform on and buried my face in a pillow.

“Phew…” I let out a lethargic voice.

Exhausted─I was not.

If anything, I felt on edge.

“We may never be able to meet again─Araragi.”

But there was nothing I could do about that.

Because if my reasoning was correct─and it was correct─the Tyrannical Tiger presented itself in this town precisely because Araragi was absent.

I continued to roll around on the bed for another five minutes or so.

Not for no reason. There was a reason.

In animal terms, this was marking behavior─me leaving behind traces of myself on Araragi’s bed.

The traces I didn’t want to leave behind at the Hanekawa residence.

I was trying to leave them behind here─in Araragi’s room.

Knowing him, he would notice.

Even if we never met again, some small part of him would probably remember me whenever he slept in this bed.

And I would content myself with that.

I’d be satisfied. Self-satisfied.

If my reasoning was correct, and if everything I was about to do went well─then no, I didn’t think I would ever be able to meet Araragi again.

If he got back safely and I was able to be there, waiting for his return─that me would no longer be the me that he knew.

Episode had said the current me and the spring break me seemed like different people, and this would be even more dramatic─Araragi would meet a me that was practically a different person.

Because confronting my past.

Because defeating this tiger─meant that.

“Okay. That’s enough.”

By the end, I wasn’t sure if I was leaving behind my scent or smelling Araragi’s, but I finally decided to make my move around half past seven.

“Uh oh. I need to hurry a bit.”

I had rolled around too much.

Of course, since the Hanekawa residence had burned down in the afternoon, there didn’t seem to be much proof that the tiger was nocturnal like the cat─but it was still a point of reference.

I started by taking off my uniform and putting it on hangers.

After that, rummaging through a clothes case for some of Araragi’s casual wear that looked relatively easy to move around in, I wore those.

Pajamas were one thing, but I did have a few qualms about borrowing regular clothes without permission. Araragi, however, was the one who always wanted to see me in something other than my school uniform, so I hoped this would in fact be a dream come true.

A mischievous thought even popped into my head, and I considered taking a picture of myself and sending it to Araragi─though I still had no idea what kind of situation he was in.

It might annoy him, so I decided not to contact him─but when I thought about it, that was a convenient excuse. Me acting like I was being a sensible person. I’d have immediately tried to get in touch with him like Miss Senjogahara if I was really worried─wasn’t that the human thing to do?

In that case, I’d be shameless. I’d send him a pic to cheer him on. I felt like I was still able to encourage him.

I took my cell phone out of the pocket of my now-hanging uniform─then held out my arm and snapped a photo of myself. I am a high school girl, so I’d been using a cell phone for a decently long amount of time, but it was my first time taking a selfie.

I messed up a few times but quickly got the hang of it and managed to take a pretty good picture, if I do say so myself. I attached the image to an email and sent it to Araragi without adding a word of text─then turned my phone off.

The next time it was on.

I’d no longer be of this world.

So it was closer to harassment than an innocent prank.

It was like I’d sent him a funeral portrait.

It was like bullying by a girl who’d always been called a model student.

A horrible thing to do, if I do say so myself.

Now there was nothing in my heart I would regret not having done.

There was nothing of my heart I would regret not leaving behind.

With a lightened heart─I could start getting ready.

I took a notebook and a pencil from my bag, sat in the chair, and faced Araragi’s study desk. I wasn’t reviewing my lessons for the day or preparing for tomorrow, though.

Yes, I was going to write a letter.

A proper letter.

I didn’t know how to begin it at first, but then realized there was no point in being awkwardly formal. So I began with a regular opening line:

“Dear Miss Black Hanekawa”

Maybe it wasn’t anything that I actually needed to do.

Maybe I was wasting my time.

Because while I had no memories as Black Hanekawa─Black Hanekawa would have memories as me.

Still, I wanted to express how I felt, and I wanted to do it as me, speaking to the now-independent me who wasn’t me, to her.

In my place, she had taken on the burden of every dark part of me, every black part of me, and I wanted to convey to her─my feelings of gratitude and my final request.

Then.