Monogatari Series - Volume 9 - Chapter 1.12

012

That night, we hoped to camp out in the ruined cram school like Oshino, but the plan went wildly off track.

I mean, it should have been obvious.

Here, eleven years in the past─the ruined cram school wasn’t a ruined cram school. In fact─I believe it was formally known as Eikow Cram School─the place didn’t even exist yet.

When we arrived at where it should have been, all that was there was a grove of trees.

A grove!

“Yikes… If we sleep among these trees, we’ll get eaten alive by bugs… If we’re not careful, we might even get attacked by wild dogs or something.”

“If the building be not here, let us abandon the plan of staying here altogether.”

Why are you only stubborn about this sort of thing? quipped Shinobu.

A sensible quip.

“But it feels kind of odd,” I said. “I take that abandoned building’s presence for granted, and this is going to sound strange, but I’ve also grown fond of it. It’d be one thing for it to revert to being new, but not even having been built yet…”

In other words, I didn’t know when, but sometime later on, that four-story building was going to be constructed; who-knows-how-many children would pass through its classrooms; eventually, it would close after suffering financial difficulties─that whole future lay ahead of it.

Though it was impossible to predict such a future from the grove.

I muttered, “So the place going under is already woven into the fabric of destiny? That’s…”

“All things and all people have a past, a yesteryear. Because of which they have a present, which continues on into the future. Is that not so? ’Tis no different for thee, nor for me.”

“Okay, in that case, what do we do? Me, I’m so delicate I can’t sleep in an unfamiliar place where I don’t feel comfortable. I’m the type who can’t even sleep with a new pillow.”

“We have no pillows to begin with.”

“Well, I was hoping to use your lap as my pillow.”

“If that is thy desire, I shall not deny thee…”

Deny me, please.

Joking around with this little girl was pretty tricky.

“But why consider sleeping in a grove at all if thou be such a delicate fellow?”

“Why indeed.”

“’Tis less delicate than delete key.”

“Woof, painful.”

Anyway.

This place was already not the place I knew─or rather.

It wasn’t yet the place I knew.

So to speak.

“Well, it doesn’t matter,” I declared. “If worst comes to worst, we can stay up all night. To tell the truth, I’m not feeling all that sleepy.”

My vampiric constitution.

At the moment, my biorhythm was on normal mode, or more like easy mode, so my vampiric nature was at a low ebb. You could say that, physically, I was like a normal human. Still, my recovery and healing parameters were maintaining decent levels.

Thus I didn’t really need to sleep for “rest”─my progress in studying for exams was, of course, due first and foremost to Hanekawa and Senjogahara’s guidance, but also, I was simply in the enviable position of being able to use some of my sleep time as study time.

When I thought about it that way, I felt kind of guilty towards the other examinees, almost like I was doping, but─there were concomitant risks, so let’s let that one go.

“I was thinking we’d go early tomorrow morning,” I told Shinobu, “but why don’t we go check out the place tonight.”

“The Hachikuji residence?”

“Where else?”

“I thought perhaps ’twas Mister Donut’s location ye intended to confirm.”

“Quite a self-serving delusion to be having…”

Wait.

In this era when even the cram school wasn’t yet a sparkle in the architect’s eye, was the local Mr. D up and running?

“By the way, Shinobu, are you not feeling sleepy?”

“Nighttime is my time.”

“It is, isn’t it. But does that mean you’ll be tired during the day tomorrow?”

“An interesting question. Nay, for me, sleep has a strong recreational element. I can remain awake if I tried.”

“I see…”

If I tried was where things got dicey.

Shinobu, more capricious than anyone, might not even try.

If she stayed awake, it would certainly help me out─

“’Tis given to me to slumber within thy shadow, so I might store up on it tonight that I may perform great deeds tomorrow.”

“…”

She seemed somehow enthusiastic.

Not that I could get much of a read on her feelings.

“What? I have no feelings.”

And at that, Shinobu smiled.

Goes to show why she seemed so depraved when she smiled.

“’Tis just that I feel somewhat high, somehow put in mind of spring break being alone with thee like this.”

“I see…”

Well, yeah.

Because Shinobu needed to hide in my shadow, it felt like we spent a lot of time with each other, but being alone together─the feeling of being alone together, was nostalgic for me too.

There were my interactions with Hanekawa and Senjogahara, of course, and various other students at school, and when I got home there were my little sisters and my parents.

However unsociable a guy I may be─I never really found myself alone, at least in a physical sense.

So it was never just the two of us.

Huh.

Spring break.

I repeatedly used “hell” as a metaphor to describe those two weeks, but─but that hell wasn’t necessarily all bad.

Right.

The real reason I can’t recall that vacation without bitterness and abundant regret─even though it was so hellish.

Even so─there were happy memories.

Mixed in there as well.

Unhappiness can’t be transformed into happiness.

But in addition to unhappiness─there was also happiness.

Not as two sides of the same coin─separately.

“Shinobu.”

“Aye.”

“Wanna kiss?”

“Why?! And whence thy middle-school-girlish invitation?!”

Shinobu opened her eyes wide.

Her golden eyes.

“Why not? You’re the one who was inviting me earlier.”

“’Twas a joke! If we did so and it came to light, Miss Tsundere or someone would slaughter me!! Canst thou have forgotten that at present I am in essence a little girl?!”

“Yeah, but, you can beat Black Hanekawa.”

“’Twas because my opponent was an aberration.”

“Hunh.”

It was hard to wrap my mind around that power balance.

Weaker than a human, but stronger than an aberration?

Like rock paper scissors?

Well, I guess it was the same among humans.

“Huh, so we won’t kiss.”

“We shan’t.”

Were we to, ’twould be a hundred years hence, Shinobu footnoted.

Going to take a lot of patience.

That was one hell of a come on.

“I really don’t get your criteria… It’s no good if there are feelings involved? In that case, you should know that just now I meant it in an Americanized way, not an erotic way.”

“Shush. Nothing ever erotic about a kiss,” Shinobu responded with surprising innocence.

Hmmmm.

Probably a feint.

“Anyway, let’s get going. Best find someplace near Hachikuji’s home to bed down.”

“Indeed.”

“Worst-case scenario, we’ll negotiate with the Hachikujis and ask if we could stay over.”

“Even I know how foolish that notion is.”

So we set out for the Hachikuji residence.

With the map drawn for us by the policewoman to rely on─we didn’t get lost.

Unlike on that Mother’s Day eleven years later, we didn’t get lost.

Mother’s Day─that day when I first met Hachikuji.

If my attempt succeeded, that day would never arrive.

How that would be corrected for, how the ends would be made to meet, I had no idea…but my encounter with Hachikuji, and friendship, would all never have happened.

That was fine.

That was good.

Because aberrations were what “never existed” to begin with─and what was weird was that they ever existed.

“Hey, Shinobu. Can I just make sure of something? Something we were talking about earlier. If I succeed in saving Hachikuji, will I completely forget about her afterwards?”

“I know not.”

“Know not? How irresponsible of you.”

“I have no responsibility in this,” Shinobu stated. She had some nerve, the little girl. “Cease thy constant questioning of me. This time slip is my first as well.”

“Time slip…”

A queer new expression.

Or rather, it was way out-of-date.

“All things considered, ’twould be unnatural to retain memories of a girl you never even met.”

“Yeah, you told me a time paradox absolutely wouldn’t occur, but what about it? If I forget about Hachikuji, then I won’t decide to save her─which means I can’t save her?” A theoretical loop kept spiraling in my head, but that was how it seemed to me─and if so, wouldn’t everything I was about to do be a wasted effort?

“If a time paradox cannot occur no matter what, then no matter what efforts thou makest, wasted or proper, perhaps thou cannot save the lost lass,” Shinobu said, clinging onto the back of my neck (like a koala, though I didn’t mention it before. She seemed to be taking a liking to the position). “I remained silent so as not to dampen thine ardor, but if the wheels of fate are already in motion, then so shall it be─because the lost lass of this time is a human, not an aberration. No matter how valiant thine attempt to save her, even if thou assayest to escort her to her mother’s door, some sort of obstacle shall arise to thwart thy aim. Or so it seems to me.”

“Got it.”

“Mm? What?”

“Nothing, I just came to a decision, that’s all─I mean, if that’s how it has to be,” I said, “we’ll just have to trigger a time paradox.”

If nothing or no one exists that doesn’t change.

Then it was fate’s turn to change.