Once upon a time, long, long ago─would take you too far into the past, this was about ten years back. There was once a married couple whose relationship reached an end. A husband and a wife. Together they were a pair. A pair that was the envy of all around them, a pair that everyone was sure would be happy, but in the end, their matrimonial relation was a short-lived thing lasting less than ten years.
I don't think it's a question of right or wrong.
That was normal, too.
It was even normal for that couple to have had an only daughter─and after a dismal little back and forth, it was decided that the girl's father would be the one to look after her.
The marriage was a quagmire by its last days. It didn't end so much as it collapsed, to the point that you were afraid it might have turned bloody had the couple lived under the same roof for even one more year─and the father made the mother vow never to see their only daughter again.
The agreement had nothing to do with the law.
She was half-forced into the vow.
But their only daughter wondered.
Was her mother really forced into it?
The daughter, whose father made her vow likewise that she would never see her mother again, wondered─did her mother, who had loved her father so much, but who now hated him so much, hate her too? How could her mother make such a vow otherwise─if she was half-forced into it, what about the other half? But the daughter could say the same of herself.
She had made a similar vow to never see her mother again.
Right.
Just because it was her mother.
Just because it was her only daughter.
Eternity was not the quality of any relationship.
Whether forced or not, a vow can't be taken back once made. Only the shameless spoke of the fruits of their own decisions in the passive, and not active, the voice─the daughter had been raised in this manner by none other than her mother.
Her father took custody of her.
She was made to abandon her mother's surname.
But─even such thoughts fade.
With time, even such sorrows fade.
Because time is a thing that is kind to us all alike.
So kind it can be cruel.
Time passed, and the nine-year-old only daughter was eleven.
She was stunned.
She couldn't remember her mother's face─no, it wouldn't be accurate to say that. The girl could picture it vividly. But─she was no longer sure whether the face she remembered was her mother's.
It was the same even with photographs.
The pictures of her mother that her father secretly kept with him─she could no longer tell if the woman in them was her mother.
Time.
All thoughts fade.
All thoughts deteriorate.
Which is why─
The daughter decided to go meet her mother.
On the second Sunday of that May.
On Mother's Day.
There was no way she could tell her father, of course not, nor could she tell her mother about it in advance. The daughter had no idea how her mother was faring─and also.
If she hated her?
If she saw her as a nuisance?
Or─if she'd forgotten her?
It would be such a shock.
So that she could turn back and go home at any time, so that the option to abort her plan would be available to her until the very end, the daughter kept the trip a secret from everyone, even her closest friends, to be honest─and visited her mother.
Tried to visit her mother.
She fixed her hair herself and stuffed her favorite backpack full of old memories, ones that would surely delight her mother. To avoid getting lost, gripped in the daughter's hand was a note with her mother's address written on it.
But.
The only daughter never made it there.
She never made it to her mother's home.
But why?
But why?
But really, why?
She was so sure the light was green─
"─And that only daughter was me."
So acknowledged─ Hachikuji Mayoi.
No, maybe it was more like a confession.
It was hard for me to see it as anything else when I saw her repentant face, teetering on the verge of tears.
I looked at Senjougahara.
Her expression was unchanged.
She really─never showed how she felt.
She couldn't possibly not be having thoughts of her own, though, in this situation.
"And so…" I asked, "you've been lost ever since?"
Hachikuji didn't reply.
She didn't even try to look in my direction.
Senjougahara spoke up. "That which couldn't reach its destination keeping others from returning home─Mister Oshino wouldn't confirm it, but for our amateur understanding, it might be like a residual haunting. The way there, and the way home─the the journey and the return. A pilgrim's path from point to point. In other words, Hachikuji, the eighty-nine temples that's what he said."
The Lost Cow.
That's why it was lost itself─and, not the misleading cow.
The reason why it had to be that way.
Right, the aberration itself─was lost.
"But─a snail?"
"Come on," Senjougahara chided. Coolly. "The metamorphosis into a snail─must be posthumous. Mister Oshino didn't call it a residual haunting, but he did use the word 'ghost.' Couldn't that be what he meant?"
"But─that…"
"But that's exactly why this isn't like a regular ghost. It doesn't follow the pattern of ghosts as we generally think and conceive of them. It must be different from the crab too…"
"That…"
That was true, though… Just as it didn't have to be a cow despite having that name, it didn't necessarily take the form of a snail simply because it was called a snail. I'd misapprehended─the essence of what an aberration is.
Names give shape to nature.
The body of it.
Seeing shouldn't necessarily be believing─and on the flip side, not seeing isn't necessarily counterfactual, Araragi─
Hachikuji Mayoi.
Lost Hachikuji.
Mayoi─a word originally used to describe the warp and weft fraying and tangling. That's why, in addition to meaning "lost," it refers to attachments that keep dead spirits from resting in peace. Moreover, while the character "yoi" on its own means the time around dusk, that is to say twilight, the hour when you encounter the weird, the character "ma," which usually means "true," acts as a negative prefix in this instance, so that the archaic term "mayoi" signifies the middle of the night, two in the morning to be precise─yes, the so-called dead of night. Sometimes a cow, sometimes a snail, sometimes humanoid─but, come on, really, just as Oshino said─
That would be too obvious─wouldn't it.
"Umm…are you actually telling me that you can't see Hachikuji? Look, she's right here─"
I wrapped an arm around Hachikuji's shoulders as the girl hung her head and, practically lifting her, pointed her toward Senjougahara. Hachikuji Mayoi. She was right there─I was touching her. I could feel her warmth, her softness. I could even see her shadow on the ground. It hurt when she bit me, and─
It was fun when we chatted.
"I can't see her," Senjougahara insisted. "I can't hear her, either."
"But you were acting like you─"
Wait─no.
I was wrong.
Senjougahara had told me from the start.
─I can't even see it.
"All I saw was you mumbling to yourself in front of that sign before miming out a crazed fight─I had no clue what you were doing. But according to you─"
According to me.
That was it. I'd conveyed all of it to Senjougahara─in every instance. Ah, of course that's why, that's why Senjougahara─never took the note with the address on it.
Forget taking it, she saw nothing.
There was nothing.
"But─" I objected, "if you'd just told me that to begin with─"
"Like I said, how could I? I couldn't. When something like that happens─if I can't see what you see, it's only normal for me to assume that I'm the funny one for not seeing it."
"...…"
For more than two years.
Senjougahara Hitagi had to live with an aberration.
─I'm the funny one, the abnormal one.
The mentality was hammered into her with a scale-busting ferocity. After you come across an aberration, even once, you carry that burden with you for the rest of your life. To a greater or lesser degree─if, I had to say which, then greater. Once you learn that these things exist in the world, no matter how powerless, you can't feign ignorance.
That was why.
Yet Senjougahara, who'd been freed from her problem at last, didn't want to think that something had gone wrong with her again, and not wanting to think that something was wrong with her, nor wanting me to think so─she acted like she could see Hachikuji when she couldn't.
She went along with me.
Ah ha…
That was why Senjougahara seemed to be turning a blind eye to Hachikuji… The words "blind eye" were almost stupidly apt. And Hachikuji must have been acting that way…hiding behind my legs as if she were trying to avoid Senjougahara─for the same reason.
They hadn't said a word to each other.
Senjougahara and Hachikuji.
"Senjougahara… That's why you said you'd go meet Oshino─"
"I wanted to ask him. I wanted to ask him what was going on. But he chastised me when I did─or actually, he was appalled. No, he might have even laughed at me."
I could see why. What a silly little situation. It was like a joke.
So ridiculous it wasn't funny.
"So the one who'd come across the snail─was me."
First a demon─and then a snail.
Oshino, too─he'd told me from the very beginning.
"Child aberrations," Senjougahara continued, "little girls, in particular─are apparently quite common. I already knew that to some degree, of course. They're even in our Japanese-class textbooks. A ghost in a kimono who causes travelers to lose their way in the mountains, a girl who sneaks in among children who're playing and snatches one of them near the end─though I wasn't well-versed enough to have heard of the Lost Cow. You know, Araragi, this is what Mister Oshino told me. For you to meet one─you have to wish not to go home. Well, it's a little passive to be called a 'wish,' but we've all thought that before. We all have family issues."
"…Ah!"
Hanekawa Tsubasa.
It was the same for her.
Her home was a troubled, warped one─so she went out for walks on Sundays.
Just like me, or maybe even more.
And so Hanekawa─could see Hachikuji, too.
She saw her, touched her─and spoke to her.
"An aberration…" I muttered, "that grants a wish."
"It sounds nice when you put it that way, but you could also say it's taking advantage of a person's weakness. It's not like you really don't want to go back home, Araragi. So maybe we shouldn't say a passive wish, but a certain reason."
"..."
"But Araragi, that's exactly why it's so easy to deal with a Lost Cow. Remember what I said in the beginning? Don't follow it. Distance yourself. That's all you need to do."
Wishing─to lose your way.
That was true─it made sense. Following around a snail whose destination eluded it for all eternity was a sure way never to come home.
Put into words─it was very simple.
Hanekawa was able to stroll out of the park.
Likewise, going home was all it took to go home.
You couldn't if you followed a thing that went on and on.
But.
Not wanting to come home? In the end, it's the only place a human being can return to.
"It's not a particularly malicious aberration, nor a particularly powerful one. It usually isn't all that harmful. That's what he told me. A Lost Cow is a prank─a small bit of mystery, nothing more. So─"
"So?" I interrupted her.
I couldn't bear to listen─not anymore.
"So what, Senjougahara?"
"..."
"That's not it, and you know it isn't. That's not it at all, Senjougahara─I get what you're saying, and sure, this is a neat little explanation for all those things that were nagging at me this whole time─but you know that's not what I wanted to ask Oshino. Thanks for the etymological erudition, but it wasn't for such a lesson that I asked you to go to him."
"…Then what was it for?"
"Come on!"
Clench.
My hand clamped down harder on Hachikuji's shoulder.
"What I wanted to ask him was─how to bring her, Hachikuji, to her mother─that was it, remember? That was all, from the beginning. Who am I supposed to impress with all that minutiae? Useless trivia─is nothing more than a waste of brain space. That's not what matters here─and you know it."
It wasn't about Araragi Koyomi.
It was about Hachikuji Mayoi, and no one else.
I just had to distance myself from her? No.
That was what I shouldn't do.
"…Don't you get it, Araragi? That girl─isn't really there. She's not there, nor anywhere else. Hachikuji… Hachikuji Mayoi, was it? The girl…is already dead. She's not meant to be─she hasn't been possessed by an aberration, she, herself, is the aberration─"
"So what?!" I yelled.
I yelled─at Senjougahara.
"Not meant to be? Then who is?!"
"..."
Not me, not you─and not Hanekawa Tsubasa.
Nothing─lasts forever.
Even then.
"M-Mister Araragi? That hurts."
Hachikuji squirmed helplessly under my arm. I hadn't realized that I was holding her too tight, and she seemed to be in pain from my fingernails digging into her shoulder.
She seemed to be in pain.
She continued.
"U-Um, Mister Araragi. The lady, Miss Senjougahara, is right. I-I'm���"
"Shut up!"
No matter what she said─her words didn't reach Senjougahara.
They only reached me.
But in that voice that only I could hear, she'd announced honestly from the beginning that she was a lost snail.
She'd done her best to announce it.
She'd also said─
The very first thing she said.
"You couldn't hear her, Senjougahara─so I'll repeat it for you. You wouldn't believe the very first thing she said to me, and to Hanekawa, out of what seemed like nowhere─"
Please don't speak to me.
I don't like you.
"Do you get it, Senjougahara? Having to say that line to every single person she meets because she doesn't want anyone to follow her─do you understand how she must feel? Someone who has to bite any hand that pats her head? Because I can't."
You should ask people for help─cruel words.
She was it, herself.
She was a funny one.
How could she bring herself to say that?
"But even if we don't understand, feeling like you have to say such things even though you've lost your way, even though you're all alone─haven't both of us go through that in a different form? We might not have felt the same, but we felt the same pain. I came into an immortal body─and yours was burdened with an aberration, too. Isn't that so? Isn't that the truth? Then whatever it is, a lost cow or a snail─if that's what she, herself, is, that changes everything. I know you can't see her, hear her, or even smell her─but that's exactly why bringing her to her mother's side─falls on me."
"…I thought you might say that."
I started to calm down after my entirely misdirected outburst, and of course, I knew that what I was proposing was ridiculous─but Senjougahara responded without her complexion changing shade or a single twitch of an eyebrow.
"Finally─I'm getting you, Araragi."
"…What?"
"It looks like I was mistaken about you. No, not mistaken. I had a creeping, or maybe nagging feeling about it─I guess you could say I'm no longer under any illusions. Araragi, hey Araragi. Last Monday, thanks to a slight misstep on my part, you found out about the problem I'd been living with… And that day, that very same day─you reached out to me, yes?"
I might be able to help you out.
I reached out to her, saying so.
"Honestly," Senjougahara said, "I've been having trouble figuring out what your action signifies─why would you ever do that? It's not like you'd get anything out of it. You had nothing to gain from saving me─so why? Could it have been that you saved me because it was me?"
"..."
"But that wasn't it. It seems not to be. Instead, it's simply that…you'd save anyone, Araragi."
"Save? I wouldn't go that far. You're exaggerating, anyone would do what I did in that situation and you said it yourself, I just happened to have a similar problem, just happened to know Oshino─"
"Even if you hadn't had a similar problem or known Mister Oshino, you would have done what you did right? It sounds that way from what he told me."
What did that bastard tell her?
A bunch of lies peppered with half-truths, I was sure.
"At the very least─" she continued, "I wouldn't think to speak to a grade-schooler I'd never met just because I'd seen her standing in front of a residential map twice."
"..."
"When you're by yourself for long enough, you start to think that maybe you're special. After all, when you're on your own, you aren't merely 'one of them.' But it's because you can't be, that's all. What a joke. Plenty of people actually noticed my problem in the two-plus years after I came across the aberration─but whatever the end result, the only one who was anything like you, Araragi, was you."
"…Well, sure, I'm the only person who's me."
Yes. Exactly."
Senjougahara smiled.
Then, although it must have been a stroke of luck that the angle was right ─ Senjougahara Hitagi stared straight at Hachikuji Mayoi.
"Araragi, I have one last message for you from Mister Oshino. He said, 'I bet Araragi is going to spout starry-eyed nonsense, so being the kind, kind person that I am, I'm handing down a little trick that ought to work just this time.'"
"A little…trick?"
"Really─like he sees through it all. I don't have the slightest idea what that man thinks he's doing with his life."
Okay, let's go, Senjougahara said, straddling my mountain bike with ease. With practiced ease, like the machine was already her property.
"Go? Go where?"
"To Miss Tsunade's home, of course. Being good Samaritans, we're taking Hachikuji there. I'll lead the way, so follow after me. Also, Araragi?"
"What now?"
"I love you," she said in English.
"...…"
Pointing at me, in the same tone as ever.
...…, I thought for a few more seconds, before realizing that I seemed to have become the very first man in Japan whose classmate confessed her love for him in English.
"Congratulations," Hachikuji said.
The word was out of place and off the mark in every possible sense.