Two hours later.
I had left the former cram school where Oshino and the vampire now
known as Shinobu lived and was at Senjogahara's home.
The Senjogahara residence.
The Tamikura Apartments.
A two-story wooden building built thirty years ago, with a sheet metal
communal mailbox out front. It did have a shower and a flush toilet, at least.
A so-called one-room apartment measuring barely more than a hundred
square feet, with a small sink. Twenty minutes walking to the closest bus stop
(not train station, mind you). The rent, including the maintenance fee,
neighborhood dues, and utility, estimated at thirty to forty thousand yen a
month.
It was very different from what I'd heard from Hanekawa.
It must have shown on my face because Senjogahara explained, "My
mother fell for religion, a sketchy one."
Unprompted, like she was making an excuse.
Like she was trying to paper this over.
"She not only gave them everything we owned but took on a huge
amount of debt. A believer and her money are soon parted."
"Religion? You mean..."
She was into some money-grubbing cult.
And we all knew what that led to.
"My father took custody of me after my parents filed for an uncontested
divorce at the end of last year, and now we live here together. Well, I say
that, but I rarely see him because the debts are in his name and he's still
working himself to the bone to pay them off. I'm living alone for all intents
and purposes and love the freedom."
"..."
"But the school still has my old address on file, so you can't fault
Hanekawa for not knowing."
Hey.
Were you allowed to do that?
"I'd rather not announce my whereabouts to people who might become
my enemies one day."
"Enemies..."
It sounded overblown, but perhaps such cautiousness wasn't improbable
in folks with secrets to keep.
"Senjogahara. When you say your mom fell for religion─could it have
been for your sake?"
"What an unpleasant question." Senjogahara laughed. "Who can tell?
Beats me. Maybe that wasn't it."
It was─an unpleasant answer.
But perhaps the natural one to an unpleasant question.
My question really had been unpleasant, so much so that I look back and
loathe myself for it. I shouldn't have asked, and this was the moment when
Senjogahara should have dispensed a lashing with her trusty acid tongue.
Having lived under the same roof, her family couldn't not have noticed
that their daughter no longer had any weight─especially her mother. This
wasn't school where you could just sit there and take the same classes. An
incredible anomaly afflicting the body of their dear only daughter would have
come to light right away. Once the doctors had all but thrown in the towel
and resorted to an everyday routine of exams, no one could blame you for
seeking solace.
Or maybe you weren't free of blame.
I didn't know.
What point was there in acting like I knew?
In any case.
In any case, I was─sitting on a cushion at a low table and staring with
glazed eyes at a teacup that had been filled for me in Room 201, Tamikura
Apartments, Senjogahara's home.
This was her, so I'd expected to be told, "You wait outside," but she'd
invited me right in. She'd even made me tea. It was a bit of a shock.
"I'm going to break your every bone," she said.
"What?"
"I'm sorry. Make yourself at home, I mean."
"......"
"Well, maybe I was right the first time..."
"You nailed it your second try! You couldn't have done better! That's
really impressive of you, Senjogahara, not everyone can correct their own
mistakes like that!"
...But that was the extent of our conversation, so I was flummoxed. It
wasn't like I could utter some naive line about barging into the home of a girl
I'd just gotten to know. All I could do was stare at my tea.
Senjogahara was taking a shower right then.
As a rite to cleanse herself, or something.
She was to wash her body with cold water and change into a clean set of
clothes, new or old would do─according to Oshino.
Essentially, she had taken me along for this. Well, she almost had to
because we'd gone from school to Oshino's place on my bike, and he'd
advised as much.
Having glanced around the spartan hundred-odd square feet that looked
nothing like a young woman's room, I leaned back on the small clothes
drawer behind me─and thought back to what Oshino had said.
"The omoshi-kani. A Crab of Weight."
After Senjogahara had conveyed her circumstances─not her life's story
exactly, but still, her situation from start to finish─Oshino nodded with an "I
see," looked up at the ceiling for a bit, and spoke those words as if they'd just
come to him.
"A Crab of Weight?" echoed Senjogahara.
"It's a piece of folklore from the mountainous areas of Kyushu.
Depending on the locale, it might be called the weight crab, the heavy crab,
the stone-weight crab, or even the omoishi-gami. That last instance is playing
on kani, 'crab,' and kami, 'god.' The details vary, but what the stories have in
common is people being deprived of weight. Encountering it─encountering it
in the wrong way apparently makes your presence fade, too."
"Your presence..."
Evanescent.
So─evanescent.
And─so much prettier now.
"Not just your presence," Oshino elaborated. "In some nasty cases, your
entire existence. They've got something in the Chubu region called the
'stone-weight stone,' but I think that's something totally different. I mean,
that's a stone, and this is a crab."
"A crab? Is it really a crab?"
"Don't be silly, Araragi. They don't catch too many in the mountains of
Miyazaki and Oita. We're talking about a legend." Oshino sounded
thoroughly appalled. "Sometimes being absent better lends itself to talk.
Don't delusions and backbiting tend to get people going?"
"Are crabs Japanese to begin with?"
"Araragi, are you thinking of crawfish? From America? Are you not
familiar with Japanese folktales? The Crab and the Monkey. I believe there's
a famous crab aberration in Russia, and a good number of them in China, too,
but Japan can hold its own."
"Oh, yeah. The Crab and the Monkey. I guess, now that you mention it.
But Miyazaki and─why something from those parts?"
"Don't be asking me when you were attacked by a vampire in a
backwater in Japan. It's not as if the location means anything, really. Given
the right situation─it arises there, that's all."
Of course, geography and climate were important factors, Oshino
supplemented.
"In this case, it doesn't even have to be a crab. Some say it's a rabbit or
a beautiful woman─not to bring up little Shinobu."
"Huh, it's like the face of the Moon."
And hold on. He just called her "little Shinobu."
I felt a pang of sympathy for her, despite myself.
She was a legendary vampire, and yet...
How poignant.
"But since the young lady says she came across a crab, we must be
dealing with a crab. That's standard, at the end of the day."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Senjogahara asked Oshino
unshrinkingly. "What it's called is all the same to me, but─"
"I wouldn't say so. Names are important. As I just told Araragi, there
aren't any crabs in the mountains of Kyushu. It might be different up north,
but they'd be rare down south."
"You can probably find freshwater crabs, though," I noted.
"Maybe. But that's not the real issue here."
"Then what is?" demanded Senjogahara.
"It's that it may have originally been a god, not a crab. That omoshi-kani
derives from omoishi-gami─but this is my personal theory. Most people think
it's a crab first and the god bit is an afterthought. True, the straightforward
view would be that they emerged simultaneously at the latest."
"'Most people'? 'Straightforward view'? I don't know of any such
monster," Senjogahara objected.
"You wouldn't not know. After all," Oshino said, "you've encountered
it."
"..."
"And─it's still right there."
"Are you saying you─see something?"
"I don't. Not a thing," Oshino replied with an all too cheerful and
lighthearted laugh that seemed, indeed, to bother Senjogahara.
As it did me.
Anyone would think he was mocking her.
"It's quite irresponsible of you to admit that you don't," Senjogahara
said.
"Is that so? Spirits and such are basically invisible to the human eye. No
one can see them or in any way touch them. That's the norm."
"That is─the norm."
"They say that ghosts don't have legs or that vampires don't show in
mirrors, but that's not the point. Basically, things of their kind aren't
identifiable in the first place. But I have a question for you, missy. Do things
that no one can see or in any way touch really exist in this world?"
"You're asking me? You said yourself that it's right there."
"Why yes, I did. But isn't something that no one can see or in any way
touch as good as nonexistent, scientifically speaking? Its being there and not
being there are exactly the same."
That's what I mean, Oshino said.
Senjogahara hardly looked convinced.
It certainly wasn't a convincing line of reasoning.
Not from her standpoint.
"But, missy, consider yourself as being on the luckier side of
misfortune. Araragi over there didn't just encounter something, he was
attacked. By a vampire, at that. What a disgrace for a modern-day human
being."
Get off my case, man.
As far off as you can.
"You're in fine shape compared to that, missy."
"And why is that?" Senjogahara asked.
"Because the gods are everywhere. They're everywhere, and they're
nowhere. It was around you before you became the way you are─and we
could just as well argue that it wasn't."
"That almost sounds like a Zen koan."
"It's Shinto. Maybe Shugendo," Oshino said. "You'd be wrong, missy,
to think that you became the way you are because of something you did─it's
just that your perspective shifted."
It was so from the beginning.
That─but that was barely any different from what the doctors who'd
thrown in the towel maintained.
"My perspective? What are you trying to tell me?"
"I'm saying that I can't stand you playing the victim, missy," Oshino
abruptly unleashed some harsh words.
Just like he'd done with me.
Or like he'd done with Hanekawa.
I was concerned about how Senjogahara would react─but she didn't
reply.
It almost seemed like she was meekly accepting it.
"Huh." Oshino sounded impressed as he took in her state. "Not bad. I
was sure you were some stuck-up princess."
"Why─did you think so?" Senjogahara asked.
"Because most people who encounter the Crab of Weight are like that.
You don't come across it by choice, and it's normally not a harmful god. It's
not like a vampire."
Not harmful?
It's not harmful─and doesn't attack?
"Nor does it actually possess people. It's there, that's all. Unless you,
missy, have some wish, it doesn't manifest. Mind you, I'm not gonna dig that
far into your circumstances. It's not as if I want to save you."
"..."
She was─going to get saved all on her own.
Oshino always said that.
"Stop me if you've heard this story, missy. It's a fairy tale from another
country. There was once a youth. A virtuous lad. In town one day, he comes
across a strange old woman, and she asks him to sell her his shadow."
"His shadow?"
"That's right. The very shadow that grows from your feet when you're
in the sun. Sell it to me for ten pieces of gold, she said. The lad agreed
without a moment's hesitation. For ten pieces of gold."
"...Then what happened?"
"What would you have done, missy?"
"Who knows─it's hard to say without being in that situation. I might sell
it, and I might not. It would depend on the price, too."
"That's the right answer. People sometimes ask which is more valuable,
your money or your life, but that's a flawed question. 'Money' could mean
one yen, or it could mean a trillion, while on the other side, not all lives are
equal across individuals. I utterly detest the vulgar dictum that all life is
equal. But putting that aside─the lad couldn't imagine that his shadow was
more valuable than ten pieces of gold. Why would he? In what way does not
having a shadow inconvenience you? It wouldn't handicap you in any way."
Oshino continued, gesticulating. "But here's what happened as a result.
The lad is persecuted by the townspeople and his own family. It creates
discord with those around him who say─it's creepy not to have a shadow. Of
course they would, because it really is. People talk about a creepy shadow,
but not having any is much creepier. Something that ought to be there not
being there─right? In other words, the lad sold what ought to be for ten
pieces of gold."
"..."
"He searched for the old lady to get his shadow back but couldn't find
her no matter how long or hard he tried─so tells the tale, flourish of music."
"And─" Senjogahara responded, her expression unchanged, "and what's
your point?"
"Eh, there's no point. I just thought that, well, maybe it would strike a
chord with you. The lad who sold his shadow and the lass deprived of her
weight, you see?"
"It's not─as if I sold it."
"That's right. You didn't sell it. It was a barter. Losing your weight
might be more inconvenient than losing your shadow, but in terms of not
fitting in, it's the same. Still─is that all?"
"What do you mean?"
"Is that all, is what I mean." Oshino clapped his hands before his chest
as if to say he was done with the topic. "Okay. Understood. You want to
recover your weight, and I'll help. You obtained Araragi's introduction, after
all."
"...You're going to─save me?"
"I'm not saving you. But I can help."
Let's see, Oshino said, checking the wristwatch on his left arm.
"The sun is still up, so go back home for now. Once you're there,
cleanse your body with cold water and change into a clean set of clothes,
okay? I'll make my own preparations in the meantime. Since you're
classmates with Araragi, you must attend that buttoned-down school, but will
you be able to leave home in the middle of the night?"
"I can do that much."
"Then can we say to meet here again at midnight?"
"Fine─but a clean set of clothes?"
"They don't have to be new, but your school uniform won't do. You
wear it every day."
"...And your fee?"
"Huh?"
"Please don't play dumb. You're not saving me as an act of charity, are
you?"
"Hm. Hrm." Oshino turned to look at me, appraisingly. "I guess I'll take
one, missy, if that would make you feel better. All right, then, a hundred
thousand yen."
"...A hundred thousand yen," Senjogahara parroted the sum. "A
hundred thousand yen─huh."
"You can make that kind of money in a month or two working part-time
at a fast food place. I think it's reasonable."
"...This is nothing like the treatment I got," I remarked.
"Was it not? I want to say that it was a hundred thousand yen for missy
class president, too," Oshino countered.
"I'm saying that you charged me five million yen!"
"What do you expect? That was a vampire."
"Stop chalking everything up to vampirism! I hate when people rely on
fads like that!"
Brushing away my complaints, Oshino asked Senjogahara, "Can you
pay it?"
"Of course," she replied. "Of course, without fail."
And so─
And so now, two hours later, here we were.
At Senjogahara's home.
I took a look around─another one.
A hundred thousand yen isn't a small sum by normal standards, but her
single-room abode made me think it was a particularly large one for
Senjogahara.
There was nothing there other than the dresser, the low table, and a
small bookshelf. Considering how voracious a reader she made herself out to
be, her collection was meager, which meant she probably relied heavily on
used bookstores and libraries.
Like the struggling student of yore.
Well, I guessed, that's actually what she was.
She said she was even on financial aid.
According to Oshino, Senjogahara got off easy compared to me─but I
wasn't so sure.
Yes, being attacked by a vampire is no joke for the threat to your life
and the trouble you end up causing. More than once I thought things would
be easier if I were dead, and even now, after a single misstep, I find myself
feeling that way.
So.
Maybe Senjogahara was on the luckier side of misfortune. But─given
what Hanekawa had told me about Senjogahara the middle schooler, it felt
wrong to box it up so tidily and see it that way.
The two weren't equal, to say the least.
Then a thought came to me.
Hanekawa─what about Hanekawa?
Tsubasa Hanekawa's case.
A woman whose first name meant "wing," and whose last name started
with another character for the same, a pair of mismatched appendages.
Just as I was attacked by a demon and Senjogahara encountered a crab,
Hanekawa was bewitched by a cat. That's what happened during Golden
Week. It was so intense that it felt like the distant past as soon as it was over,
but it had been just a few days.
Hanekawa, though, barely had any memories of Golden Week and
seemed only to know that it was thanks to Oshino that she was fine, or maybe
she knew nothing at all, but at any rate─I remembered everything.
It really was an awful case.
And that's coming from me, who had dealt with a demon at that point.
I'd never imagined that a cat might be scarier than a demon.
So from the perspective of being life-threatening and all, you could
simply say that Senjogahara's case was less dire than Hanekawa's─but
considering what Senjogahara must have felt to get to where she was now...
Considering her current predicament.
If I did consider it.
What sort of life had gotten her to a place where generosity was deemed
hostile behavior?
The lad who sold his shadow.
She who was deprived of her weight.
It was beyond me.
It wasn't for me to─understand.
"I'm done with my shower."
Senjogahara came out of the bathroom.
As naked as the day she was born.
"Gaaahhh!"
"Move out of the way. I can't get my clothes with you there." Coolly,
annoyed with her wet hair, Senjogahara pointed to the drawer behind me.
"Clothes, put some clothes on!"
"That's what I'm trying to do."
"Why now?!"
"Are you saying I shouldn't?"
"I'm saying you should have already!"
"I forgot to bring them in with me."
"Then wear a towel or something!"
"No way, how classless," she pronounced with a serene expression.
It was clear as day that arguing with her would be futile, so I crawled
out of the way of the dresser, toward the bookshelf, and focused my vision
and my mind there as if to take inventory.
Urrgh.
I'd seen a fully nude woman for the first time...
B-But─something was wrong, it wasn't as I'd pictured it. While I don't
think I harbored any illusions, what I'd wanted, what I'd dreamed of, wasn't
this childlike streaking, this letting it all hang out...
"Clean clothes," she said. "Do you think white would be better?"
"Don't ask me..."
"I only own patterned underwear."
"Don't ask me!"
"I don't understand, why are you screaming like that when all I'm doing
is asking you for advice? Are you going through menopause?"
The sound of a drawer being opened.
The rustling of clothes.
Ahh, too late.
The image was burned into my mind and wasn't going away.
"Araragi. Don't tell me you were sexually aroused at the sight of my
nude body."
"Even if I was, it's not my fault!"
"Just try to lay a finger on me. I know that biting off your tongue will
end the ordeal."
"Well, aren't you a chaste one!"
"I'm talking about your tongue, not mine."
"Okay, now you have me scared!"
I was starting to suspect that trying to understand this woman from my
perspective was a fool's errand.
It's beyond humans to understand humans.
That should have been obvious.
"Okay. You can look now."
"Oh yeah? Sheesh..."
I turned away from the bookshelf and toward her.
She was still in her underwear.
She wasn't even wearing socks.
And she'd assumed a terribly provocative pose.
"What's your goal here?!" I yelled.
"Come on. This is my special thanks for helping me out today, so act at
least a little happy."
"......"
It was her way of thanking me.
I didn't get it.
If anything, I wanted an apology more than any thanks.
"Act at least a little happy!"
"Now you're getting mad at me?!"
"It'd only be polite to provide some feedback."
"F-Feedback...!"
That would be polite?
What should I tell her?
Uhh...
"Like," I ventured, "Th-That's a nice body you've got there?"
"...I can't believe you," she spat with the kind of disgust reserved for
piles of rotting garbage.
Actually, there was a bit of pity mixed in there, too.
"This is why you're a life-long virgin."
"Life-long?! Are you a time traveler or something?!"
"Could you please not spray your spittle? I might catch your virginity."
"Virginity is not something a woman can catch!"
Well, not that a man could, either.
"Hold on, we've been talking like it's a given that I'm a virgin!"
"Well, isn't it? No grade schooler would ever give you the time of day."
"I have two objections to that one! First, I'm not a pedophile, and
second, some grade schooler somewhere would!"
"Why state the second point if the first is true?"
"..."
Why indeed.
"But you're right," she conceded. "I was jumping to conclusions."
"As long as you understand."
"Stop with the spittle. I might catch your except-for-pros virginity."
"In that case I admit that I'm a total cherry boy!"
Having cornered me into making a shameful confession, Senjogahara
gave a satisfied nod. "You should've come out and said so from the start.
This moment of happiness is easily worth half of your remaining lifespan, so
just appreciate it."
"Are you the Grim Reaper or what..."
A deal to see a woman in the nude?
A new sort of evil eye.
"I wouldn't worry," Senjogahara assured as she took out and wore a
white shirt over her aqua-blue bra. It seemed ridiculous to do another count
of her books, so I just stared at her instead. "I wasn't going to tell Hanekawa,
you know?"
"Hanekawa?" I asked.
"Don't you have a crush on her?"
"Not true."
"Oh. I see you two talking all the time, so I was under that impression
and thought I'd try a leading question."
"Keep leading questions out of everyday conversations."
"Shut up. Do you want to be disposed of?"
"Just what kind of authority are you purporting to be?"
Still, it seemed that Senjogahara was observing her classmates more
than she let on. I'd wondered if she even knew that I was class vice president.
No, actually, was this just another instance of her never knowing who might
become her enemies one day?
"We talk all the time because she starts conversations with me," I
explained.
"It sounds like you're forgetting your place. Are you trying to say that
it's Hanekawa who has a crush on you?"
"Absolutely not," I said. "Hanekawa only does it because she's caring.
Simply and overly caring. She has this funny, misguided notion that the worst
loser in class is most in need of her sympathy. She thinks losers don't get
enough of a break or something."
"You're right, how funny and misguided." Senjogahara nodded. "The
worst loser is just the worst simpleton."
"...Hold on, I didn't go that far."
"It's written on your face."
"It isn't!"
"I knew you'd deny it, so I wrote that there a moment ago."
"You can't be that good at setting me up!"
In the first place─
Even without my clarifications, Senjogahara had to be familiar with
Hanekawa's personality. When I spoke to Hanekawa after class, she sounded
quite─concerned for Senjogahara.
Or maybe that was precisely the issue here.
"So─Mister Oshino helped Hanekawa out too?"
"Mm. I guess."
Senjogahara finished buttoning her shirt and was going for a white
cardigan. She seemed to be figuring out the top half of her outfit before
starting on the bottom. I see, I thought, so we all have our own way of
dressing ourselves. Maybe my gaze didn't bother her one bit; she was facing
toward me, if anything, as she continued to get dressed.
"Hmph," she said.
"So─I think it's all right to trust him. I know he doesn't act serious, and
he's a happy-go-lucky, flippant, and frivolous guy, but one thing I can say
about him is that he's good at what he does. You can relax. It's not just my
testimonial, Hanekawa agrees, so there's no mistake."
"I see. But you know, Araragi, I'm sorry but I don't even half-trust
Mister Oshino yet. I've been tricked far too many times to believe him just
like that."
"..."
Five people─had tried similar lines on her.
All were frauds.
And─that probably wasn't the full extent of it.
"I visit the hospital out of habit, at this point. To be honest, I've all but
resigned myself over the way my body is."
"Resigned..."
What did she resign herself─to?
What did she give up on?
"I can't expect to find any Van Helsings or Lord Darcys out there in our
peculiar world."
I had no reply.
"Though you might find a useless, bumbling sidekick or two," she said
in her most sarcastic tone. "Which is why, Araragi, I─couldn't possibly be so
optimistic as to think that a classmate who happened to catch me when I
happened to slip on the stairs happened to be attacked by a vampire over
spring break, and that the man who happened to save you happens also to
have been involved with the class president─and moreover happens to be
willing to help me."
And then─
Senjogahara started taking off the cardigan.
"You finally put that thing on, so why are you taking it off now?"
"I forgot to dry my hair."
"Wait, could it be that you're just an idiot?"
"Please watch your mouth, Araragi? What if you hurt my feelings?"
Her hair dryer looked absurdly expensive.
It seemed she did pay a lot of attention to her getup.
Viewed from that angle, Senjogahara also seemed to be wearing fairly
fashionable underwear, but that target of my adulation, so enchanting an
overlord of the better part of my life until a day ago, somehow looked like no
more than a scrap of cloth now. It felt as though a terrible trauma were being
planted in me in the present participle tense.
"Optimistic, huh," I said.
"Don't you think?"
"Maybe. On the other hand, why not be optimistic?"
"..."
"It's not like you're doing anything wrong or cheating, so be
unapologetic about it. Just like now."
"Like now?" Senjogahara looked puzzled. The lady didn't seem to
realize how unflappable she was. "Hm─not doing anything wrong."
"Right?"
"I suppose."
Senjogahara wasn't done.
"But," she continued. "But─I might be cheating."
"Huh?"
"It's nothing."
She finished tending to her hair, put away her dryer, and turned to
getting dressed again. She searched her drawer for new clothes, having
placed on hangers the now-damp shirt and cardigan she'd worn with her hair
still wet.
"If I'm reincarnated," Senjogahara said, "I'd like to be Sergeant Major
Kululu."
"..."
Not only was this unprompted, but I felt her sadistic and self-centered
behavior already put her halfway there...
"I know what you want to say," she accused. "Not only was that
unprompted, but I could never in a million years?"
"Well, you got it half right."
"I knew it."
"...Couldn't you have at least said Lance Corporal Dororo?"
"For me, the words 'trauma switch' are too close for comfort."
"I see... But you know─"
"No ifs or bts."
"What the hell is a 'bts'?"
You couldn't even guess the word she'd maybe misspoken.
Naturally, I had no idea what she was trying to say, but even as I thought
so, Senjogahara changed the subject.
"Hey, Araragi. Can I ask you something? Not that it really matters."
"Yeah."
"What did you mean by 'like the face of the Moon'?"
"Huh? What're you talking about?"
"You said it earlier, to Mister Oshino."
"Umm..."
Ah.
Right, I remembered.
"About the crab," I explained, "that guy Oshino said it can also be a
rabbit or a beautiful woman. That's what I was talking about. People in Japan
see rabbits in the moon, while in other countries they say it's a crab or a
person's face."
Well, it's not that I see anything of the sort, but that's how the story
goes.
"Got it." Senjogahara nodded along, perking up. "I'm surprised you
know such a lame fact. You've managed to impress me for the first time
ever."
She said lame.
She said the first time ever.
So I decided to double down.
"Well, I know a thing or two when it comes to astronomy and
cosmology. I was really into it for a while."
"It's okay, you don't need to try to act smart with me. I already have you
figured out. That's about the only thing you know, right?"
"You must think 'verbal abuse' is just a cute expression."
"Fine then, go ahead and call the verbal police."
"..."
I had a feeling that the real police wouldn't know what to do with her.
"Look," I insisted, "I'm not that clueless. Um, for example, in Japan it's
a rabbit on the face of the Moon, but do you know why?"
"There aren't any rabbits on the Moon, Araragi. You're in high school
and you still believe that?"
"Hypothetically speaking."
Wait. Hypothetically?
Did I mean figuratively?
This wasn't going so well...
"Once upon a time there was a god, or maybe it was the Buddha, but
forget which, let's just say there was a god. For this god's sake, a rabbit
chose to hop into a fire and to cook itself as a divine offering. Moved by its
self-sacrifice, the god pinned its form up on the Moon in the sky so people
would never forget the rabbit."
I was going off of some shaky knowledge salvaged from vague
memories of a TV show I'd seen as a child, but I was sure those were the
details.
"That was a cruel thing for the god to do," remarked Senjogahara. "It's
like the rabbit got pilloried."
"No, it's not that kind of story."
"I don't know about that rabbit, either. Its transparent calculation that a
display of self-sacrifice would win the god's recognition is almost grasping."
"It absolutely isn't that kind of story."
"In any case, it's not for the likes of me."
Having said this.
She started taking her top off again, her new one.
"...Are you just proud of your body and trying to show off or what?"
"I'm not so conceited as to be proud of my body. It was just inside out,
and backwards, too."
"That's almost skilled."
"I will admit, wearing clothes isn't my forte."
"So you're like a kid."
"No, they're heavy."
"Ack."
That was thoughtless.
Right, if a bag felt heavy, clothes would too.
If everything had ten times the weight, your clothes were nothing to
sneeze at.
I regretted it.
It was an insensitive─a careless thing to say.
"This," she said, "I might get tired of but never get used to─but you're
actually quite erudite, Araragi. You've surprised me. There just might be
some brain in that head of yours."
"Of course there is."
"Don't take things for granted... The cranium of an organism like you
containing brain matter would be an event bordering on a miracle, all right?"
"Wow, that's a really mean thing to say."
"Don't let it bother you. I'm only stating facts here."
"I'd say someone in this room deserves to die..."
"What? Hoshina isn't here, though."
"Could you possibly have just claimed that a mentor to be respected, our
homeroom teacher, deserves to die?!"
"Did the crab, too?"
"Huh?"
"Did it choose to hop into a fire, like the rabbit?"
"O-Oh... Well, I haven't come across anything about the crab. I wonder
if there's a backstory. I never thought about it... Probably because the Moon
has seas on it?"
"There aren't any seas on the Moon. How could you say that so
smugly?"
"What? There aren't? Weren't there..."
"So much for your astronomy. They're not real seas, they're only called
that."
"Oh..."
Hmmm.
I certainly couldn't hope to keep up with an actual smart person.
"Oh dear, Araragi, it seems you've shown your true colors. How rash of
me to posit even for a moment that you possess any knowledge."
"You must think I'm really stupid."
"How did you figure that out?!"
"You look genuinely shocked!"
So she thought she was hiding it.
Really?
She lamented, "Because of me, Araragi, you've noticed how pitiful your
mind is... I feel responsible."
"Hey, hold on, am I really that severely stupid?"
"Relax. Discriminating against people on account of their grades is
something I'd never do."
"The way you phrased that is already setting off alarm bells!"
"Could you not spray your spittle? I might catch your truncated
schooling."
"We go to the same high school!"
"Yes, but what about after that?"
"Urk..." She had me there.
"A graduate degree for me, while you're going to drop out of high
school."
"I've made it to my senior year and I'm not quitting now!"
"Soon enough, you'll be crying and begging to be let off."
"A villain's line that I only ever hear in comics just rolls off your
tongue?!"
"Let's compare test percentiles. Ninety-ninth for me."
"Guh..." She beat me to the punch. "Th-Thirty-fifth for me..."
"So zero, if you round."
"What?! Liar, a five gets... Wait, are you rounding by the tens?! How
dare you do that to my percentile!"
She had more than sixty percentage points on me, she was beating a
dead horse!
"I don't feel victorious until I'm up by a hundred points."
"You'd round yours by the tens, too..."
Merciless.
"So from now on, I don't want you coming within a 20,000-kilometer
radius of me."
"Did you just order me off the face of the Earth?!"
"By the way, did the god do the rabbit the favor and actually feast on
it?"
"Huh? Oh, you're back to that. Did he feast on it... If you pursued it that
far, it would become a tale of the bizarre, okay?"
"It already is, pursued or not."
"Oh yeah? Why would I know, I'm stupid."
"Don't pout. You're gonna wreck my mood."
"Are you ever going to start feeling bad for me?"
"Pitying you alone won't rid the world of war."
"Don't be theorizing about the world when you can't even save a single
human being! Start by helping the sad little life in front of you! I know you're
up to it!"
"Hmph. All right, I've made up my mind," Senjogahara said, having
dressed herself at last in a white tank top, a white jacket, and a white flared
skirt. "If this all goes well, it's going to be crabs in Hokkaido."
"I'm pretty sure you can eat crabs without going all the way up to
Hokkaido, and I don't think they're in season now, but sure, if that's what
you want to do, be my guest."
"You're coming with me."
"Why?!"
"Oh, you didn't know?" Senjogahara smiled. "Crabs, Araragi, are
delicious."