"My goodness, look at what we have here. I thought someone had dumped a dead dog on a park bench, but it was just you, Araragi."
I raised my head, as I thought I heard a greeting so novel it may have been used for the first time in human history, and saw my classmate Senjougahara Hitagi standing there.
This goes without saying, but she was not in her school uniform, as it was Sunday. I began wondering how I should reply to suddenly being called a dead dog, but her standing there in casual clothes, wearing her straight hair up in a ponytail instead of down as she does in school, was such a fresh sight that I couldn't stop myself from swallowing the words that had made it all the way up to my throat.
Wow…
It's not as if she was showing off that much skin, but her outfit seemed to draw attention to her chest in an inexplicable way─not to mention the culottes she wore, which would have been unthinkably short were it part of her school uniform. It wasn't even a proper skirt, but her black stockings only made her legs that much more seductive.
"What's the matter? It's a greeting, that's all. A joke. I wish you wouldn't look like such a wet blanket, Araragi. Are you sure you have anything resembling a sense of humor?"
"Ah, n-no, it's…"
"Or can it be that your innocent little heart is smelted by my charming appearance, and that you're experiencing a moment of bliss?"
"...…"
She was so spot-on, or at least close enough to being right that I couldn't come up with a good retort despite her odd word choice.
"Isn't that such a wonderful word, 'smelt'? They say it has the same roots as the word 'melt,' but it's so much more intense. I mean, you can melt just about anything, but smelting places itself a notch above, and people have high hopes for it as an emotive next-gen term. 'That maid smelted my heart!' or 'I smelt for cat ears!' and that sort of thing."
"…I was surprised by how different you look compared to the last time I saw you wearing something other than your uniform. That's all."
"Oh, I guess you're right. Probably because I was trying to wear more mature clothes then."
"Really? Huh."
"Although I did buy this entire outfit only yesterday. You could call it a way of celebrating my full recovery for the time being."
"Your full recovery…"
Senjougahara Hitagi.
A girl in my class.
She had a problem until very recently. And until that very recent point in time─she'd had this problem her entire high school life.
For over two years.
Constantly.
This problem kept her from making friends, from coming in contact with anyone─it practically kept her locked inside a cage and forced her to spend a tortuous life as a high schooler─but fortunately, her problem was resolved, more or less, around last Monday. I ended up witnessing this resolution─and that was the first time I'd had a proper conversation with her, despite the two of us sharing a classroom our first, second, and now third and final years of high school. You could say it was the moment when a bond was formed between me and her, who until that point I'd seen as nothing more than a silent, delicate, illness-prone student who got good grades.
Her problem was resolved.
Resolved.
It of course wasn't so simple when you looked at it from her point of view, as the party who had dealt with the problem for a few years─how could it be? So she ended up taking time off from school until yesterday, a Saturday. She was apparently busy going to the hospital so they could investigate the issue, or run detailed tests on her, or whatever.
Then, yesterday came.
And she was freed─from all of that.
Apparently.
At long last.
Or conversely, after all.
Or inversely, for once.
"I suppose you could say that, but it's not as if the root of the problem has been fixed," she said. "I don't know yet if I should be honestly happy or not."
"Oh. The root of the problem."
That was the kind of problem she was dealing with.
Then again, most phenomena in the world we classify as "problems" are like that─the nature of most problems is that they're closed and finished matters from the beginning. What's important is the kind of interpretation you stick on to them.
It held true for Senjougahara.
And for me as well.
"It's fine. I'm the only one who has to worry about it," she said.
"Huh. Well, I guess you're right."
That's how it was.
For the both of us.
"I am right," she agreed. "I'm absolutely right. And I'm happy I at least have the intelligence needed to be capable of worry."
"…I wish you wouldn't make it sound like there's some unfortunate soul you know who doesn't even have the intelligence required to worry about something."
"You're an idiot, Araragi."
"And now you said it flat-out!"
She was completely ignoring the context, too.
The way that played out, it felt like she just wanted to call me stupid…
It'd been nearly a week since we last met, but she hadn't changed a bit.
I'd wondered if she was going to be a little less rough around the edges, but…
"I'm glad, though," Senjougahara said with a faint smile. "I'd planned on today being a test run, but my hope all along was for you to be the very first person who saw these clothes."
"…Huh?"
"Because I can wear whatever I want now that my problem's been solved. I can pick from anything, from everything out there to wear, with no restrictions at all."
"Ah…true."
She hadn't been able to wear whatever she wanted.
That had been one of Senjougahara's problems.
She was at the age when girls wanted to start dressing fashionably.
"I guess I, uh, feel very fortunate, or very honored to be the first person you wanted to show them to."
"I didn't say I wanted to show you, Araragi. I said I wanted you to see them. There's a world of difference between the two."
"Hunh…"
She said that, but on Monday, aside from her "mature clothes," she'd showed me much more… Still, I couldn't deny that her clothes, with all of the emphasis they placed on her chest, did quite a lot to attract my eyes. I didn't know what to call it, maybe good fashion sense, but it felt like a powerful magnetic force had captured me and wasn't letting go. She'd once passed herself off as always being ill, but now she seemed to be the complete opposite, almost positive. The outline of her upper body was easier to make out now that she had her hair up. Especially the area around her chest─hold on, I'm using the word "chest" a lot, aren't I… She wasn't showing that much skin…in fact, in her long sleeves and stockings, she wasn't showing much at all considering it was mid-May, but something about her was just exotic. What was it, how could I explain? Could it be that between experiencing Senjougahara Hitagi's case on Monday and class president Hanekawa Tsubasa's case over Golden Week, I now had the ability to find the sight of a fully dressed woman more erotic than one in the nude or in her underwear?
Oh no…
That wasn't a skill I needed, not when I was only in high school…
Though to take a cooler-headed approach, it was rude for me to look at my classmates in that kind of way, plain and simple. I started to feel intense shame.
"By the way, Araragi. What exactly are you doing here in the first place? Could you have gotten yourself expelled from school during my time away? And now you're pretending to go to school while really killing time at the park because you can't bring yourself to tell your family… That would mean my worst fears have come true."
"You're making me sound like some dad who got laid off."
And today was Sunday, anyway.
Mother's Day, remember?
Just as I was on the verge of telling her this, I stopped. Senjougahara lived alone with her father due to her circumstances. Her relationship with her mother was a bit of a complicated one. It wouldn't be good to be overly sensitive to that fact, either, but it still wasn't a topic I should be bringing up for no good reason. I decided to mark the phrase "Mother's Day" as off-limits while Senjougahara was around.
And me too─
I didn't want to be talking about that either.
"Nothing, really. Just passing the time," I said.
"I once heard it said any man who answers 'just passing the time' when asked what he's doing is as good as useless. I do hope that's not true for you, though, Araragi."
"…I'm doing a little bit of bike touring."
And I mean on a bicycle, not a motorcycle, I added.
Senjougahara replied to this with a "Huh" and a nod before looking back around to the entrance of the park. Yes, where the bike parking was.
"So that bicycle was yours, Araragi?"
"Mm? Yeah."
It was so rusted I was wondering if you had an iron oxide-plated frame, its chain had snapped and fallen, and the seat and front tire were missing. I never knew that bicycles could move in that kind of condition."
"Not that one!"
Those were the abandoned bikes.
"Didn't you notice the cool one right next to those two?! The red one! That's mine!"
"Hm… Oh. That mountain bike."
"Exactly."
"MTB."
"Uhh…I guess."
"MIB."
"That's something different."
"Hmph. So that was yours. That's odd, though. It doesn't look anything like the one you took me around on earlier."
"That's what I use to get to school. You think I'd ride a granny bike on the weekends?"
"I see, of course. You're in high school, after all, Araragi."
Senjougahara nodded. I hoped she knew that applied to her as well.
"High schooler, mountain bike," she said.
"I don't know if I like that tone of voice…"
"High schooler, mountain bike. Middle schooler, butterfly knife. Grade schooler, flipping skirts."
"And what exactly is that ominous list supposed to mean?!"
"How do you know if it's ominous or not? It was just a simple list, not any sort of sentence. You shouldn't yell at a girl based on your own assumptions, Araragi. Intimidation is like a form of assault, you know?"
In that case, so were her insults.
But there wouldn't be any point in telling her that…
"Fine, then turn that list into full sentences," I demanded.
"A high schooler with a mountain bike is like a middle schooler with a butterfly knife or a grade schooler who enjoys flipping skirts. Only more juvenile."
"So I was right after all!"
"Really, Araragi? That's not the quip you're supposed to make here, you're supposed to say that I'd used a sentence and a sentence fragment instead of full sentences like you'd told me."
"Do you really expect me to figure that out on the spot?!"
She didn't have some of the best grades in class for nothing.
Or maybe I was the only one in my class who wouldn't have noticed that immediately…
Language arts wasn't my strong suit.
"Hey, forget about me," I told her. "I don't even like mountain bikes that much. And I've managed to build up a bit of a tolerance to all your verbal abuse after all this time, or maybe you could say I've learned to accommodate it, but anyway, there's like, a million high schoolers around the world who ride mountain bikes. Do you really want to make enemies out of all of them?"
"Mountain bikes are incredible, aren't they? Fine articles that any high school student would naturally desire," Senjougahara Hitagu said, flip-flopping in the blink of an eye.
It seemed she was more interested in self-preservation than I'd originally thought.
"So incredible that the degree to which they don't suit you, Araragi, caused words that I in no way intended to slip out of my mouth."
"And now you're blaming me…"
"Stop nitpicking every little thing. If you're so desperate to rush to your death, I'd be happy to bring you halfway there whenever you want."
"That's as cruel as it gets!"
"Do you come around here often, Araragi?"
"You don't even hesitate to change the subject, do you? No, this is probably my first time here. I was riding around at random and happened to find a park, so I figured I'd take a break here, that's all."
To be honest, I thought I had made it much farther─maybe to the tip of Okinawa or so, but if I was running into Senjougahara, that (obviously) meant my bike hadn't even managed to get me out of town. It was like I was an animal on a farm.
Aw, dammit.
Getting a drivers license started to seem appealing.
Nah, probably after I graduate.
"What about you, Senjougahara? You said something about today being a test drive? So, what, does that mean you're walking around for physical therapy?"
"The test drive remark was referring to my clothes. Do you not do that kind of thing, Araragi, being a boy? You must at least with your shoes, don't you? But to put it simply, yes, I'm walking around."
"Huh."
"This part of town used to be my home turf."
"...…"
Did she just say "turf"?
"Oh, that's right," I recalled. "You moved when you were a junior, didn't you. So you lived in this area until then or something?"
"Yes, you could say that."
So that was it.
Now it made sense─in other words, this wasn't simply about taking a walk or trying on clothes. Essentially, this was also about her feeling nostalgic for the past now that her issue had been resolved. Even Senjougahara acted like a human being now and then.
"It's been a while, but this area─" she began.
"What? It hasn't changed at all?"
"No, the opposite. It's completely different," she shot back. She must have already done a good bit of exploring. "It's not like this place is going to get me sentimental, but─it's hard to explain, it drains your motivation when you see that a town you grew up in has changed."
"It's not like you can expect it to stay the same."
I've lived in the same place ever since I was born, so to be honest, I didn't understand the feeling Senjougahara described at all. I didn't have a place I could call my country home, either…
"You're right. You can't."
Senjougahara didn't argue with me, to my surprise. It was rare for her to not come back with one opinion or another. Or maybe she thought she had nothing to gain from discussing the topic with me.
"Hey. Araragi? Do you mind if I sit next to you, then?"
"Next to me?"
"I want to talk to you."
"..."
She was always so direct about things like this.
If there was something she wanted to say or do, she stated it outright.
Right there, out in the open.
"Sure," I said. "I was just starting to feel a little guilty about monopolizing this four-person bench."
"Oh? Then I think I'll take a seat," Senjougahara said before sitting next to me.
She sat right next to me, so close our shoulders nearly touched.
"......…"
Um… Why was she sitting on this four-person bench like it was made for two? Aren't you a little close, Miss Senjougahara? She was so close that while, sure, our bodies weren't actually in contact, they would be with the slightest fidget. It was impressive how close she was cutting it to that line, and it seemed a little much for two classmates, or even two friends. Still, if I tried to put some distance between us, it might give the impression that I was fleeing from her. I found it hard to move when I thought about the persecution that would be brought upon me if Senjougahara happened to see it that way, even if I didn't mean it that way. The result? I froze.
"About the other day."
In this situation, in our relative positions.
Senjougahara continued to speak in a calm tone.
"I wanted to thank you for everything one more time."
"…Oh. Don't worry, there's no need to thank me, really. I didn't do a thing when you think about it."
"You're right. A piece of trash would've been more useful."
"..."
Her sentence meant the same thing as mine, but it was the meaner.
What an awful woman.
"Then you should thank Oshino," I told her. "That's all you need to do."
"Mister Oshino is a separate matter. And anyway, we agreed that I'd be paying him a set fee. A hundred thousand yen, I think?"
"Yeah. So you're going to start working part-time?"
"Yes. But someone with my personality isn't fit for labor, so I'm still coming up with a plan."
"Well, at least you realize that."
"There must be some way I can skip out on this bill…"
"So what's what you meant by a plan."
"I'm joking. I'll pay my fair share. But like I said─Mister Oshino is a separate matter. I wanted to thank you in a different sense, Araragi."
"If that's the case, then you've already said enough. Even words of gratitude start to feel hollow once they're repeated too many times."
"What do you mean? They were empty from the beginning."
"They were?!"
"I'm joking. They weren't empty."
"Joking all the time, aren't you?"
I was just appalled.
Senjougahara let out a small cough.
"I'm sorry. For some reason, I always want to deny or contradict every little thing you say."
"...…"
As far as apologies went, that was a hard one to accept…
It was like she was telling me that she couldn't bring herself to get along with me.
"I think I know what it is," she mused. "It's probably the same attitude that little children have of wanting to bully someone they like."
"Are you sure it isn't more like the attitude that big grownups have of wanting to torment someone they see as weak?"
Wait.
Did she just say she liked me?
No, she was just making a comparison.
It seemed pointless to adopt the middle-school mindset that every girl who smiles at you is in love with you (Smiles Are Free!), so I brought our conversation back on track.
"Really, though, I don't feel like I did anything deserving of your gratitude, and to borrow a phrase from Oshino, 'You just get saved on your own.' You don't need to bother with gratitude and that kind of thing. It'll only make it harder for us to get along from here on out."
"To get along," Senjougahara echoed without changing her tone one bit. "I─Araragi? Is it all right for me to think of us as close?"
"Of course it is."
Each of us had revealed our own problems. We weren't strangers any longer, nor simple classmates.
"Yes…yes, you're right," she said. "Each of us has the other's weakness in our hands."
"What? Is our relationship that tense?" She made it sound like it'd be strained. "It's not about weaknesses or anything, think of it as feeling close and being able to take it for granted. If you can look at it that way, I will too."
"But you're not really the type to make friends, are you, Araragi?"
"Until last year, yeah. And it wasn't my 'type' as much as it was my rule. But I had a bit of a paradigm shift over spring break, and, well… What about you, Senjougahara?"
"That was me until last Monday," she said. "To elaborate, it was until I met you, Araragi."
"...…"
What was with this girl…
Actually, what was with this situation…
It practically felt like she was confessing her love to me. The air felt heavy, even stifling��like I hadn't had time to prepare myself emotionally for the moment. I would've paid more attention to my clothes and my hair if I knew this would be coming, and…
Wait, no!
I was feeling embarrassed for putting honest thought into how I should react if she started telling me she loved me! And why were my eyes getting drawn to Senjougahara's chest as soon as I started thinking about that?! Was I that trite of a person?! Was Koyomi Araragi the kind of classless, vulgar man who judged a girl on the basis of her (chest's) appearance─
"What's wrong, Araragi?"
"Oh, um…I'm sorry."
"Why are you apologizing?"
"I'm starting to think my very existence is a crime…"
"Uh huh. You ought to be illegal."
"...…"
Hold on.
Again, she was repeating what I said but with a completely different nuance.
"Anyway, Araragi," she said. "Regardless of what you say, I want to pay you back. Because if I don't, I'll always feel like you have something on me. If we want to become friends, I think we only can after I pay you back first. That way we can be friends on an equal footing."
"Friends…"
Friends.
What could it have been?
I knew it was supposed to be an emotional, touching word, but it felt like a part of me was disappointed to hear it, like I was feeling despondent after putting too many expectations on it…
No, that wasn't it…
That wasn't it at all…
"What's the matter, Araragi? I thought that was a pretty good speech just now, but you look let down for some reason."
"No, no, I'm not. It just looks that way because I'm doing everything I can to hide how I really feel. Hearing you say that makes me so excited I could do the can-can."
"I see."
She gave one of those unconvinced nods.
She might have even thought that I had some kind of ulterior motive.
"Well, in any case─Araragi. Is there anything you want me to do for you? Whatever you want, just this one time."
"…A-Anything?"
"Anything."
"Oh…"
A girl in my class had just told me that she'd do anything I asked her to do…
It suddenly felt like I had accomplished something truly great.
...…
But she had to know what she was doing.
"Anything, really," she assured. "Any one wish you have, I'll grant. Whether that's world domination, eternal life, or to defeat the Saiyans on their way to this Earth."
"Are you telling me that you're more powerful than Shenlong?!"
"Of course I am."
She said yes?!
"But don't lump me in with a traitor who becomes your enemy in the end after being useless when it matters the most… Really, though, I'd prefer to be asked to grant wishes that are more personal. Those are easier, after all."
"I'd imagine so…"
"But it looks like you're having trouble coming up with something after being put on the spot like this, Araragi? In that case, we could always go with, well, you know. The standard wish in this kind of situation. Where for your one wish you ask for a hundred wishes or something."
"…Huh? Wait, is that allowed here?"
That was one of the most standard taboos in this kind of situation. I'd have to be shameless to even attempt that one.
And she said it herself.
That'd be like pledging her obedience to me.
"Please, whatever you want. I'll do my best to make it happen. There must be lots of things that appeal to you, like me ending all my sentences with '-mew' for a week, or me going to school with no underwear on for a week, or me coming to wake you up every morning in nothing but an apron for a week, or me helping you use enemas to go on a diet for a week."
"Is that the kind of pervert you think I am?! That's just rude!"
"Well…um, I'm sorry, but I don't think I could bring myself to do any of those for the rest of my life…"
"No! No, no, no! I'm not mad at you because you thought I was less of a freak than I am, it's the opposite!"
"Is that so?" Senjougahara said primly.
She was clearly toying with me…
"And wait, Senjougahara. Are you saying you'd actually go along with any of those if it was for a week?"
"I'm prepared to, yes."
"...…"
Well, you don't need to be, I thought.
"For your reference, my personal recommendation would be the apron for a week. Not only am I a morning person, I'm already getting up early every day, so I'm even willing to make breakfast for you while I'm at it. Still in nothing but an apron, of course. Isn't watching a girl do that from the back one of the great male fantasies?"
"Hey, don't talk about 'male fantasies' like that! They're all way cooler! Plus, if you did that at my home when people were around it would tear my family apart faster than you could say gale-force winds!"
"You make it sound like it wouldn't be a problem if your family isn't around. All right then, would you like to stay at my home for a week? I assume the end result would be the same, though."
"Listen, Senjougahara," I said, this time in a stern voice. "Even if we somehow came to an agreement like that, I don't think it'd be possible for us to keep being friends afterwards."
"Oh. Now that you mention it, you're right. Yes, of course. In that case, nothing erotic."
Of course not.
And wait, so Senjougahara saw ending all of her sentences with "-mew" as an erotic request… She had some pretty out-there interests despite her cool demeanor.
"I know you would never ask me for something erotic, anyway," she said.
"Oh. You really trust me, don't you?"
"You're a virgin, after all."
"...…"
I guess I had told her that.
Just last week, in fact.
"It's nice and easy being with a virgin. They never ask for much."
"Um… Wait a second, Senjougahara. You've been saying stuff about virgins since the other time, but it's not like you have any experience yourself, do you? So it's hard to appreciate anything you say regarding the topic─"
"What are you talking about? I do have experience."
"You do?"
"I do it all over the place," Senjougahara let slip casually.
All she cared about was contradicting every single thing I said, it seemed…
And "all over the place"? Really?
"Uhh, I don't know how I should respond to that, but even if, hypothetically, that were somehow true, what could you possibly gain out of telling me that fact, Senjougahara?"
"…Hrm," she murmured.
Not without blushing.
I was the one doing the blushing, though, not her.
This conversation was reaching a lot of limits.
"All right, fine… Allow me to make a correction," Senjougahara finally said. "I don't have any experience. I'm a virgin."
"…Okay."
She was confessing to me, but not in the way I'd imagined at all.
Though she did force me to say the same thing the other day, so technically speaking, we were even now.
"In other words!" Senjougahara then thrust her index finger toward me and began yelling in a voice that might have carried throughout the park, "The only kind of girl who would ever talk to a lame, virgin loser like you is a crazy spinster like me!"
"…!"
So… So she was even prepared to degrade herself if it meant more verbal abuse to hurl at me…
I didn't know which I wanted to do more, take my hat off to her or wave a white flag at her.
I was prepared to surrender unconditionally.
Of course, there was no need for me to dig too deep into this subject after learning about Senjougahara's fixation on chastity in a traumatizing manner the week before. With her, it wasn't a personality issue but something of a condition.
"We've gotten off track," I said.
Senjougahara began speaking to me in a composed voice again. "Really, isn't there something, Araragi? Something that's bothering you on a simple level, maybe."
"Something that's bothering me, huh?"
"I'm not very good with words so this is hard for me to say well, but I really do want to help you."
I wasn't so sure about the "not very good with words" part.
If anything, she was too good with them, and that was her problem─but still, Senjougahara Hitagi.
She wasn't a bad person─at the root.
So even if it hadn't been banned…
I'd have a tough time tossing any kind of immodest request her way.
"For example," she offered, "maybe you want me to teach you how to overcome being a shut-in."
"How could I possibly be a shut-in? In what world would a shut-in own a mountain bike?"
"You never know, there might be one. I won't let you discriminate against shut-ins like that, Araragi. They probably take the tires off then pedal away inside their room or something."
"That'd be an exercise bike."
What a healthy shut-in that would be.
But yeah, maybe they did exist.
"Either way, it's hard to come up with something that's bothering me on the spot."
"Yes, I can see that. You don't have any bed head today, after all."
"Are you saying that the only problems I have to deal with are things like having messy hair?!"
"Where are you getting all of that from? I never knew you had such a strong persecution complex. You read between the lines too much, Araragi, you know that?"
"What else could you have meant by it?"
Sheesh.
She was like a rose whose petals were made out of thorns, too.
"I should be able to help you with other problems, like if there's a girl in your class who's nice to everyone except for you."
"Next subject!"
It felt like the conversation would go on like this forever unless I forced myself to come up with something.
Agh…
Seriously.
"Something that's bothering me, you say… Well, if I had to come up with something, it might not exactly qualify as bothering me, but─"
"Oh, so you do have something."
"Sure, of course I do."
"What could it be? Tell me."
"You really go straight for it, don't you?"
"Of course. This is the moment of truth when I learn whether or not I can pay you back, Araragi. Or is this something that's awkward to talk about?"
"No, not really."
"Then let me hear it. Just talking about it will make you feel better─or so they say."
...
I don't know, it wasn't convincing coming from someone who used to be as secretive as her.
"Umm… I got in a fight with my siblings."
"…I'm a little doubtful I can help you with that."
So quick to give up.
She hadn't even heard the details, either…
"But go ahead," she said, "you might as well tell me the whole story."
"I might as well?"
"Okay, tell me the whole story, for the time being."
"Was that rephrasing even worth it?"
"Time's a-wasting, then."
"…Well, uh, sure."
I'd just told myself the words were off-limits, but…
I had to use them, given where the conversation had taken us.
"Today's Mother's Day, right?" I asked.
"Huh? Oh, I suppose it is, now that you mention it," Senjougahara replied normally.
I guess I was being overly sensitive after all.
Which meant all that was left─was my own problem.
"So, which of your siblings did you fight with? You have two little sisters, right?"
"Right, I guess you knew. If I had to say just one, it'd be the older of the two─but I basically fought with both of them. They're inseparable wherever they are or whatever they're up to, the Five W's."
"They are Tsuganoki Second Middle School's famed Fire Sisters, after all."
"You know them by their alias?"
Something about that bothered me.
Not as much as the fact that my sisters had an alias, though.
"Both of them are tight with our mother, too─and she treats the two of them like her favorite little pets. So─"
"I see," Senjougahara cut me off as if she now understood the situation. She all but told me that I didn't need to finish my thought. "So you, the oldest son of the family, feel like there's no place for you at home today on Mother's Day, being the failure that you are."
"…That's right."
While Senjougahara probably considered the "failure" remark to be on a continuum with her standard arsenal of verbal abuse, it was unfortunately the unexaggerated, stark truth. I had no choice but to agree.
It was a stretch to say there was no place for me at home.
But I wouldn't have said there's no place like home, either.
"And that's why you've toured your way up here. Hmph. I don't understand, though. Why would that cause you to get in a fight with your sisters?"
"I tried to sneak out of the house early this morning, but my sisters caught me as I was trying to get on my mountain bike. Then we had an argument."
"An argument?"
"They wanted me to spend Mother's Day together with everyone─but it feels like, you know, I can't do that kind of thing."
"You know, you say. I can't, you say," Senjougahara repeated meaningfully.
Maybe she was trying to tell me something.
Like, what a nice problem to have.
Senjougahara lived alone with her father─so it would be, from her perspective.
"A lot of us girls start to hate our fathers around middle school─are boys the same way with their mothers?"
"Eh… It's not that I don't like her, or that I hate her, it just feels awkward around her, and well, when I'm around my sisters, I more or less feel the same way, and─"
─You know, Koyomi, that's why.
─That's why you'll never─
"…But you see, Senjougahara, that's not the problem here. Not having fought with my sisters, not Mother's Day, it's not the specifics that are bothering me─this stuff tends to happen on any kind of special day. It's just…"
"It's just what?"
"What I'm trying to say is that regardless of the circumstances, I'm not able to bring myself to celebrate Mother's Day, and I'm getting honestly upset at something that my sister who's four years younger than me said, and, I don't know, I'm just so annoyed at how petty of a person I am that I can't take it."
"Huh─what a complicated problem to have," Senjougahara said. "You've gone all the way around and turned it into a meta-problem. Like which came first, the chicken or the chick."
"The chick, of course."
"Is that so."
"It's not a complicated problem, it's a paltry one, that's all. Woe is me, I'm a petty person. But still, I really don't want to go home when I think about how I'm going to have to apologize to my little sister. I almost want to live here in this park for the rest of my life."
"You don't want to go home, huh?"
Senjougahara sighed.
"Unfortunately, fixing your pettiness is beyond my abilities…"
"…Can't you at least try?"
"Clearly, fixing your pettiness is beyond my abilities…"
"…"
Even if it was clear, it only further depressed me to hear her put it in such a succinct and crestfallen manner. Of course, this wasn't serious enough to get depressed about, but precisely the degree to which it wasn't serious made me feel uncomfortably small.
"I feel like I'm such a lame person. If I had to have worries, I wish they could at least be about world peace or how to bring happiness to all of humanity. But instead, my worries are this small-minded thing. That's─what I can't stand."
"Small-minded─"
"Maybe 'pathetic' would be a better word. The way it'd feel if every time you got a scratch-off lottery ticket, all you ever won was another free ticket."
"You shouldn't degrade what makes you so charming, Araragi."
"Charming?! My charm is the ability to win free lottery tickets?!"
"I'm joking. And when I think of how pathetic you are, that isn't how I would describe it."
"I'd never win anything, no matter how many tickets I bought?"
"Are you kidding me? That'd be impressive in its own way. When I think of how pathetic you are, Araragi…"
Senjougahara made sure to wait a few moments in order to give extra weight to what she was about to say.
"It's the kind of pathetic that would win the jackpot and tell all his friends about it, only to realize later that it's a nominal sum."
I slowly chewed on and digested the words.
"God, that's pathetic!" I screamed.
That was as pathetic as you could get…and she'd come up with that on the spot. A frightening woman, as always─more than ever, really.
"Putting aside the stuff with your mother for now, the fighting with your sister part does seem petty. I would have thought you were the kind of brother who doted on his little sisters."
"All we ever do is fight," I said.
And today─today was especially bad.
Because it wasn't a weekday.
"So instead of finding them cute, they make you cringe?"
"There's nothing cringe-worthy about my sisters!"
"Or could this be the flip side of love? Do you have a thing for your sisters, Araragi?"
"No. The idea of being in love with your little sister is a delusion held by people who don't actually have little sisters. That would never happen in real life."
"Wow, Araragi. It's very ugly of you to act superior just because they don't have something you do."
...…
What was she even trying to say?
You know, like, 'Oh, money's not important,' or 'I wish I'd never gotten a girlfriend!' or 'What school you went to doesn't matter'… Don't you hate those kinds of arrogant people?"
"Having a little sister is a bit different from those examples…"
"I see. So you're not romantically interested in your little sisters? You'd never fall in love with them?"
"How could I?"
"Right, I guess you do strike me as more of a sororate fetishist."
Sororate?
That was a word I hadn't heard before.
"You know, like a sororate marriage? Levirate marriage for women, where a man's wife dies, so he marries her sister."
"…I'm as amazed as ever by your vast wealth of knowledge, but why would I be a soro-whatever?"
"You have younger sisters, not older sisters. I bet you'll have a girl who's unrelated to you call you 'big brother,' as her brother-in-law, before you marry her…and make her call you 'big brother' even after you're husband and wife. Now that's a true, realistic representation of─"
"I bet I also murdered my original wife!" I reacted to Senjougahara's words before she could finish, a violation of traditional straight-man etiquette.
"Anyway, you sororate fetishist─"
"Just call me a sister-lover, please!"
"You said you'd never fall in love with your biological sisters."
"I didn't say I would if it were my sister-in-law!"
"So you'll be falling in love with a girlfriend-in-law."
"Again…wait, what? You can have a girlfriend-in-law?"
What the hell.
When I gave it a bit more thought, it made some sort of sense. But in that case, what might a biological girlfriend… No, I was getting way off track…
"You really are a small-minded person if you get worked up by a few minor remarks like that," Senjougahara said.
"Your remarks are anything but minor."
"I was only testing you."
"Why are you testing me? And wait, does that mean you're holding back?!"
"If I gave it my all, I'd transform."
"Transform?! Whoa, now that, I wanna see!"
Well, part of me did, but part of me didn't…
Senjougahara exhaled and looked pensive.
"You're a very small person for how big your reactions are. I wonder if there's some kind of relation. But I won't give up on you, Araragi, no matter how small you are. I promise to be right there by your side, every petty step you take."
"You and your subtle jabs."
"I'll always be by your side. From the mountains in the west to the oceans of the east. Even down into hell, if I must."
"…You see, that line might cast you in a good light, but what does it say about me?"
"So is there anything bothering you that doesn't involve your pettiness?"
"...…"
Did she hate me or what?
Was I a victim of some severe bullying here?
I was beginning to hope that I just had a persecution complex.
"There's nothing in particular…" I said.
"And there's nothing you desire, either─hmm…"
"I wonder what kind of abuse you'll be hurling at me next."
"It's fabulous how much of a broad-minded, accepting person you are."
"False praise if I've ever heard any!"
"It's fantabulous, Araragi."
"Like I just said… What was that? Some sort of soda ad?"
"It's a combination of 'fantastic' and 'fabulous.' Have you really never heard that before?"
"No…and you must be up to something to go so far as to pull out a neologism that must have died generations ago to praise me."
And of all the things to say, "broad-minded"…when I was just telling her about how petty I was.
"I just thought I'd strike first. I was afraid you'd tell me 'no insults for a week' or something."
"Like you'd really be able to do that," I scoffed.
It'd be tantamount to asking her to stop breathing, or for her heart to stop beating.
And if you took insults away from Senjougahara, even for a week, she wouldn't be Senjougahara. It wouldn't be any fun for me, either… Hold on, since when did I turn into the kind of character that relied on Senjougahara's abuse to keep going?
This was getting dangerous…
"Fine, then… Though it was shocking to see you without a single idea the moment I banned erotic requests."
"That may be true, but I didn't have any ideas before you banned them either."
"Okay, Araragi, I get it. Then I'll allow them, as long as they're only mildly sexual. Upon my name, I hereby allow you to unleash your desires."
"...…"
Did she actually want me to?
Great, now I was feeling overly self-conscious. This was getting dizzying.
"Do you really not have anything? You don't want me to help you with your homework?"
"I've given up on that already. Just as long as I can graduate."
"Then how about being able to graduate?"
"I'll do that fine if I just proceed normally!"
"Then how about just being able to proceed normally?"
"You're picking a fight with me, aren't you, aren't you?!"
"Then how about, say─"
Senjougahara made a show of waiting a measured pause, of getting her timing right, before continuing.
"Having a girlfriend?"
"...…"
Was this─another case of being too self-conscious?
It seemed to be a meaningful statement.
"And what would happen…if I said yes?"
"You'd get a girlfriend," she coolly replied. "That's all."
I sat there in silence.
Yeah…
If you felt like it, it was definitely the kind of line you could read into.
To be honest, I had no clue what kind of situation I had gotten myself in─but it seemed wrong to take advantage of someone who's in your gratitude, regardless of what happened and how. Forget about ethics and morals, it simply didn't feel right.
A girlfriend-in-law─was it?
What Oshino said was starting to make sense.
You just got saved on your own.
From Oshino's perspective, what I'd done─for Senjougahara, for the class president, and for that woman over spring break…for the demon─may have been beautiful, but it wasn't right.
No one else solved Senjougahara's problems, her own sincere thinking did.
In that sense─it would be uncouth.
No matter what I asked for.
So.
"No, nothing like that either, really," I said.
"Hmph. I see."
Even if there was some deeper meaning hidden in what she'd said, it turned unknowable once more, whatever it may have been─as Senjougahara spoke those emotionless words.
"Buy me a soda next time or something, and we'll call it even."
"I see. A stranger to greed."
You really are broad-minded, she said, as if to tie in everything.
It must have been her way of signaling that she was done with the topic.
So.
I decided to face forward. It felt like I had been looking at Senjougahara's face for a long while, so I focused on something else, whether intentionally or out of awkwardness─and there.
And there I saw a girl.
A girl carrying a large backpack.