Nisenmonogatari Part 1, page 5
part #5 of Monogatari Series
Hmm. Now that I mention it, they’ve never met or talked to each other, directly or indirectly, have they?
Anyway, I decided to play along with Hachikuji, and not just because I’d been reminded of Oshino. “What do you mean…something to gain?”
“In a word? Money,” replied Hachikuji.
Just one word, but a word too many!
“There’s gotta be something else,” I objected.
“Huh?” Hachikuji wrinkled her nose in disgust, and her brow knitted together in contempt─oi, what a face for a grade schooler to make. “What else is there in this world besides money?”
“There’s plenty! Like…love!”
“Mm? Love? Ah, of course, of course. They were selling it at the convenience store the other day.”
“They were selling it?! At the convenience store?!”
“Right. 298 yen.”
“So cheap!”
“When it comes down to it, what are humans but a transportation system for money?”
“Geez, what happened in your life to screw you up so bad?! If you want to talk about it, I’m all ears!”
“Think about it. Between Billionaire A, who says ‘money makes the world go round,’ and Billionaire B, who says ‘money isn’t everything,’ don’t you actually prefer Billionaire A?”
“That’s relative!”
I prefer neither!
“Money talk aside, Mister Araragi, I’m dying to know what sort of dance they’ll have us do for the ending song.”
“Why is dancing a premise?!”
“I hope it’s something sexy, like for Cat’s Eye.”
“If you don’t mind just being in silhouette!”
Honestly, though…what a dated reference for a grade schooler. A classic or not, these days not even teenagers knew the ending animation to Cat’s Eye.
“That’s not it, Hachikuji. Actually, I can talk to you about it, can’t I? Remember my vampiric nature?”
“You don’t say?!”
“Don’t forget such a crucial bit of backstory!”
Hachikuji looked so genuinely surprised, it didn’t seem like an act.
“I thought you were just some guy who likes ramen noodles,” she said.
“Since when is liking ramen part of my backstory?!”
“Didn’t you know every instant noodle flavor in the country?”
“I didn’t and I don’t!” What kind of sad expertise was that? At least have me sampling real ramen.
“Koyomi Araragi, the man who sampled every local ramen… If I recall correctly, your current favorite is Yubari King Melon instant ramen, correct?”
“There’s no way that’s a real flavor!”
Then again…I wouldn’t bet against it. They sell some pretty weird specialties as souvenirs sometimes.
“Hmph.” Hachikuji crossed her arms and frowned. “I stand corrected, Mister Asuragi.”
“I almost want to change my name now, that sounds so badass. But I keep telling you, Hachikuji, my name is Araragi.”
“Sorry, a slip of the tongue.”
“No, it was on purpose…”
“Spill of the tongue?”
“It wasn’t?!”
“Pills on my tongue?”
“I’m not a convenience store!”
Love, too? Were we going to go buy love?
298 yen!
“I see, Mister Araragi,” Hachikuji pronounced my name just fine. “A vampire. Now that you mention it, you might be right. Well, what about it?”
“Hey, I can’t just come out and tell them even if they’re family. I’m starting to wonder how much longer I can keep it a secret, though. Sure, I’m human again, but the aftereffects remain.”
“There’s such a thing as being too honest, isn’t there? It’s only natural to keep a secret or two, even from family members.”
“Hachikuji…”
Right. With everything she’d gone through, Hachikuji had her own distinct perspective when it came to family issues. Mine might just sound trivial to the point of being insensitive.
“After all,” she said, “when you tell someone a secret, you get that person involved, whether they want to be or not. Maybe sharing would make you feel better, but wouldn’t you just be burdening them?”
“Hm…true.”
“Besides, if I had a son and he came home one day with some delusional story about being a vampire or aberration or whatever, I’d rush him off to the hospital to be committed.”
“Too true!”
But there was certainly that.
Maybe they didn’t commit her, but in Senjogahara’s case, that’s the way her family, at least, saw it. They treated her aberration as an illness. And then there was Kanbaru. Hers meant that her left arm still hadn’t returned to normal… How was she coping with it? She couldn’t keep her family from noticing simply by wrapping her arm up in bandages, could she?
“Mister Araragi, what you need right now is…yes! The courage to keep secrets!”
“Ah! Now that’s inspiring!”
“All I did was add ‘courage to’ to make it sound positive. Actually, it’s just a secret!”
“You let yours out of the bag!”
“Pretty much anything can come out sounding positive if you just slap ‘courage to’ on it.”
“Come on… Language isn’t as simple as that. It’s a sophisticated communication tool formed over millennia. Have a little respect, Hachikuji.”
“Want me to prove it?”
“Go ahead. If you can convince me, I’ll do a handstand right here in the middle of the street.”
“A handstand.”
“Yeah, think of it as advanced genuflection. But if you can’t convince me, then you’re the one who has to do a handstand…skirt and all! You’re gonna expose your kiddy underwear to the public gaze until I say okay!”
Case in point!
I still sounded like a creep, no matter how cheerfully I said it!
There’s language for you!
Hachikuji replied, “Fine, I accept your challenge.”
“Hmph. At least you’ve got guts.”
“You’re like a phoenix to the flame, Mister Araragi.”
“That sounds kinda cool?!”
“Ahem,” Hachikuji cleared her throat. She was showboating. “Let’s start off small… The courage to lie to your lover.”
“Gulp.”
That wasn’t half bad.
You were just lying to your boyfriend or girlfriend, but adding “courage to” made it sound like a pious lie─without even trying to make the point.
“The courage to betray one’s friends.”
“Gosh.”
That was amazing. In the end, you merely betrayed your friends, but─without even trying to make such a point─it sounded like you were trying to protect them.
“The courage to do harm.”
“Ungh…”
A groan escaped my lips. You were just being a nuisance, but why did I see a man willing to suffer pariahdom in order to do the right thing? Without even trying to make the point, too.
“The courage to grope.”
“Sh-Shit.”
This was turning into a bloodbath.
Even a crime as low as groping sounded like it was driven by some higher purpose for whose sake the perpetrator had no choice but to stand falsely accused. Without even trying to make the point, again!
“The courage to be indolent.”
“I-Incredible…”
My back was against the wall.
You were just wasting time and doing nothing, but it sounded like you were abasing yourself and living in poverty for some great cause─without ever trying to make such a point at all!
B-But!
It was still too early to admit defeat!
“The courage to admit defeat.”
“…I admit defeat!”
Ahh!
Enchanted by the sound of it, I’d gone ahead and admitted defeat!
There’s language for you!
It’s quite a simple thing, really.
“Now then, Mister Araragi, let me see how advanced your genuflection is.”
“Of course…the courage to stand on one’s head.”
I dropped into a handstand.
In the middle of my own neighborhood.
I was glad Karen and Tsukihi weren’t here to see this. Well, in fact… Tsukihi aside, Karen used to walk to school on her hands all the time before she started junior high. She’d been a laughingstock. She’d boast that she was training her arms, but what she was really working out was my capacity for shame.
“Yikes…” winced Hachikuji. “Watching someone your age do a handstand just feels wrong. You can stop now.”
“…”
“Really, you can stop, Mister Araragi.”
“…”
“Seriously, I’m begging you. It’s even more embarrassing to be watching next to you. Why persist on standing on your head like it’s a promise to a friend who passed away?”
“Actually,” I said, staring up at Hachikuji from my upside-down position, “as disappointed as I am that I didn’t get to see you do a handstand, from this angle I can see your panties just fine.”
Our wager.
Either way, I was never going to lose.
“Hnnrk?!”
Li’l miss Hachikuji flushed red in embarrassment, but her first reaction wasn’t to “hold down her skirt” but instead to “kick me in the face.” Thanks to the angle, her low kick hit me full-force square in the face. Not many situations where a low kick does that.
“Mister Araragi! You pervert!”
“The courage to be branded a pervert!”
“Wow, cool! When you put it that way, I’m tempted to let you look all you want! Especially since you managed to maintain your handstand even after getting kicked in the face!” It was a near miraculous feat of balance, if I do say so myself. “The very technique I created, turned against me… Oh, the irony!”
“Ahaha! Your hubris was your downfall, Hachikuji! I stole your secret technique and perfected it!”
“Wh-What have I done… I’ve unleashed a monster!”
“I’m sorry for saying you were wearing kiddy underwear, though. I would’ve never imagined you’d be wearing see-through black panties.”
“Excuse me?! What are you talking about, look closer! You’re going to damage my brand! I know what’s demanded of me and stick to kiddy underwear! Can’t you see the bunny on them?!”
“I don’t see any bunny. If you want me to, you’re gonna have to come closer.”
“L-Like this?!”
Well.
I really didn’t want my neighbors to start gossiping about this. I shifted my weight over and planted my feet back on the ground.
Aw, shucks… My hands were dirty.
I clapped them together to clean them.
It was probably my soul that was stained now, but there was no clapping it.
“Anyway, Hachikuji, what were we talking about?”
“About how much you love panties.”
“Honestly, I could take them or leave them. Just ask Hanekawa.”
“……”
Hachikuji offered no rejoinder, which was rare.
Had Hanekawa told her something?
If so, I was in hot water. Damn, the survivors’ group was a menace. I was going to have to nip it in the bud.
“Ah, right,” I brought the conversation back on track, “we were saying it would be better if I kept all the aberration stuff secret.”
“Yes, indeed.”
“Well, I suppose I wouldn’t like being committed. Since I’m still a tiny bit undead, they might turn me into some sort of science experiment.”
“True, I hope they just treat you as a nutcase.” With that callous preamble, Hachikuji reminded, “To know about aberrations is to become involved with them. If that’s true, forget about other people─you’re the one who’ll wind up getting sucked into more funny business.”
To know about aberrations is to become involved with them.
Hadn’t Oshino said something like that?
Coming into contact with an aberration, even just once, supposedly gave that world a hold on you, and you got sucked in, unable to escape.
Hanekawa, enchanted by a cat.
Senjogahara, met by a crab.
Hachikuji, misled by a snail.
Kanbaru, heard by a monkey.
Sengoku, entwined by a serpent.
And of course, it went without saying…
Me, bitten by a vampire.
We were all semi-denizens of that world now. It was like having one foot in the grave─and not just metaphorically. In which case…
If I cared about the other person. If I cared about Karen and Tsukihi… It was safer for them not to know.
Hachikuji continued, “You could lay everything bare, including the risks, so that your family is steeled for whatever may come. But that option seems pretty risky.”
“Yeah. It would definitely be high-risk, plus it doesn’t sound like it would be very high-return. In that case, I’d rather go the low-risk, low-return route.”
“Loli-risk, loli-return? Oh my. What a stunning philosophy.”
“I’ve never heard of such a route!”
Hachikuji liked to pretend I had a Lolita complex. Which wasn’t true. I don’t have a pedophiliac bone in my body.
Just look at my actual girlfriend, Senjogahara. There’s not an ounce of Lolita about her. If anything, she’s mature beyond her age.
“But you’re just a sham couple, right?” asked Hachikuji.
“Why would you think that?! I guess there are sham marriages, but a sham couple?”
“You’ve got a Lolita complex and are actually in love with me, while Miss Senjogahara is a lesbian who is in love with Miss Kanbaru.”
“Ack, that doesn’t sound like a joke! I don’t want to think about it!”
I like you well enough, Hachikuji, but the second half is too much! The Valhalla Duo is getting too cozy lately! As if they have some emptiness to fill!
“Anyway, Mister Lol-ing Araragi…”
“I don’t need a funny tag line! And ‘lol’ doesn’t have any pedo nuance, okay?”
“You say that, but when you move out to live on your own, I bet you’ll be rolling out a carpet.”
“These days most apartments don’t have tatami mattresses, but so what?!”
“When you go fishing, try trolling.”
“Damn if I knew what you meant!”
What a compendium of rhymes! And she was a grade schooler, too!
“Phew,” Hachikuji sighed.
She was using a pause as punctuation.
“Anyway, Mister Claragi…”
“That’s actually some fine wordplay, Hachikuji, but this isn’t Girl of the Alps, and I’m not a well-off young lady trying to stand up from her wheelchair. Miss Claragi is going to stay put. My name is Araragi.”
“Sorry, a slip of the tongue.”
“No, it was on purpose…”
“I slip on the tongue.”
“It wasn’t?!”
“I slip on the dung.”
“What a place to land on!”
Hell, the way she talked…these weren’t slips of the tongue but somersaults.
“Anyway, Mister Araragi,” she said─or re-said. “Aberrations are the backstage, so to speak.”
“The backstage?”
“Usually, all you see is the actual stage─that’s what we know as reality. But sometimes some lame-o comes along who wants to peek behind the curtain.”
“…”
“It’s the sort of thing where, if you don’t need to know, it’s better not to. You might convince yourself that by knowing what goes on backstage you’re unraveling the secret mysteries of the world─but in fact, by learning about aberrations, all you’re doing is creating more questions without answers.”
