Hanamonogatari

by Nisioisin

  I couldn’t chalk it up to it being a long-distance run or anything; he’d passed me in a matter of seconds, so it was nothing but a short-distance contest.

  I’d lost in a sprint.

  It was a massive shock, and I literally crumpled to the ground.

  “Whoa there, you’re a confusing kid. Do you normally prostrate yourself when you’re chased by a guy and fail to escape? Do I really look so villainous? Maybe I do, at that.”

  “…”

  I lacked the energy to rebut Kaiki’s words, which were delivered in an extremely earnest and not particularly mocking tone.

  Was this going to be bad?

  The first wish I’d made on the Monkey’s Paw was “to be able to run faster,” so if anyone proved to be faster than me, did that mean─no, maybe it’d be okay. My left arm was no longer a monkey’s arm, after all─but while that eased my mind a little, it did nothing to mitigate my overwhelming sense of defeat.

  I had lost…

  To this swindler, of all people…

  A con artist who’d broken up Senjogahara-senpai’s family and set an aberration on Araragi-senpai’s little sister, and who even exerted his malice on Shinobu utterly surpassed me in the one and only arena where I excelled, thrashed me so thoroughly there was no room for excuses…

  I felt crushed by my own incompetence.

  I was ashamed. I wanted to die.

  The world could just go ahead and end…

  “Tsk, what are we going to do with you. Are you really Gaen’s legacy?”

  Sounding pained at the sight of me staring despondently at the ground, Kaiki grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and pulled me to my feet like he was picking up a cat, or raising an anchor.

  Being subjected to my foe’s compassion made me want to disappear all the more.

  I wanted to cry.

  If I went ahead and bawled now, though, my sob-fest five days earlier would become a lie, so I mustered my last reserves and held back my tears.

  “What’s your problem? You’re making a hell of a face.” Kaiki, who apparently hadn’t had compassion in mind nor any intention of treating me kindly, readily let go of my neck with those harsh words and threatened, “Don’t try to run away. Like I said before, we’ve met at last. Being as how Araragi and Senjogahara have run me out of your town─I’ve been waiting here ever since last summer for you to leave.”

  “Waiting…for me?”

  “Yes. Though I’m lying, of course.”

  With this swindler-like pronouncement, he started walking. It’s not like he’s grabbing my arm, he isn’t even looking in my direction, so this time I can run away if I want─even yours truly isn’t that optimistic, and didn’t think so.

  In fact, it was because he was absolutely convinced that if I took off running he could catch up and cut me off that he could take his eyes off me without restraining me.

  That was how big the discrepancy was.

  Between his legs and mine.

  I didn’t want to admit it, but that was the fact of the matter.

  “What’s wrong with you? Come on.”

  “Araragi-senpai told me that if I ever saw you, I should run away without speaking a word.”

  “Ah, that’s why you suddenly took off─such a kind senpai you’ve got. But I’d say it was unkind not to advise what to do if you couldn’t get away. The lesson you should take home from this is that some things can’t be solved just by running away.”

  “…”

  Some things can’t be solved─just by running away.

  Time.

  Does not heal all wounds.

  “Don’t worry. I have no intention of deceiving you, or of using you. And of course I have no intention of doing anything unseemly to a high school girl. I just need to talk to you, Gaen’s legacy. Here in front of this busy station wouldn’t do, though, and I want to invite you to a coffee shop─it’s ordinarily unthinkable for me come hell or high water, but I’m making an exception just for today, and just for you, and will even treat you to a tea.”

  Treat me to a tea.

  From what I’d heard, he wasn’t lying─I understood exactly how rare and unprecedented a concession it was for this man.

  “…Fine, I’ll come. Happy?” I assented reluctantly.

  It was terribly humiliating, but I had no choice.

  If I didn’t go, my loss would stand─and I hate to let a loss stand.

  Even though I seemingly couldn’t match him in speed─there was no way I could head home without giving this swindler some kind of payback.

  I wouldn’t be able to face my dear seniors otherwise─and there was something else. He had said “Gaen.”

  He had called me “Gaen’s legacy.”

  Gaen was my mother’s maiden name.

  In other words─the man knew my mother.

  016

  This may speak to how basic my personality is, but a part of me can’t help unconditionally respecting someone who’s a fast runner.

  Clearly I place a lot of value on speed, but I also know that in reality that’s not how it works─being fast or slow has nothing whatever to do with your personality. Of course I know this, but I feel, I can’t help but feel, that anyone who’s “a fast runner” probably isn’t a bad person.

  Let me be clear, I understand perfectly well that it’s no reason to put faith in anybody’s character. I’m not stupid. Well, I am, but I get it─it’s just that we never cast aside all of our childish pieties.

  So while I resented Kaiki for overtaking me not once but twice, and wanted revenge─I also admit that his victory softened my stance enough that I was at least willing to hear what he had to say.

  It did pain me a little─no, a lot─to think that I might be betraying my dear seniors…

  The place Kaiki took me to was in fact a Korean barbecue joint, and not a coffee shop at all. It had such a high-class atmosphere, though, that the catchall “barbecue joint” fell short. There has to be a more appropriate term, and who knows, maybe “coffee shop” was meant to hint at that, but lacking the vocabulary, I can only call it a barbecue joint.

  “I have a reservation under Kaiki,” the man announced upon passing through the curtains.

  He had a reservation.

  Since when?

  This was all arranged a little too neatly for my taste.

  We were reverently shown into a private room (private room?!) that had been prepared for us, and I was even put in the seat of honor. Hang on, when did Suruga Kanbaru become some kind of princess? I was thoroughly perplexed.

  Araragi-senpai labeled me a rich kid, but all it meant was that I could buy whatever I wanted, and it was my grandma and grandpa who were the ones with the money; I never felt like anything but a regular high school student.

  So being in this restaurant, with its unfamiliar atmosphere, made me antsy.

  Dammit, offering me tea and treating me to meat, what’s more at some fancy barbecue place where the bibs are made of cloth instead of paper, this guy’s up to something, he’s a swindler just like I’ve heard─I tried to rile myself up like that but also knew I was being kind of unreasonable.

  “Come on, eat up. Have some meat. No reason to order veggies at a barbecue place. If that’s what you want, get thee to a grocer. And leave the grilling to me.”

  Even as he spoke, Kaiki wielded a pair of tongs to pick up, and ferry to the brazier, the slices of meat that had been served. Rather than actually grilling them, he just seared the outside a little, exposing them to heat for only the briefest moment.

  I guess he liked it rare?

  Well, at such a fancy place, the meat was of a quality where you could even have it raw…

  True to his word, he ordered neither lettuce nor kimchi, and in fact the only thing he ordered other than meat was a medium rice.

  He gave the not-particularly-winning impression of being a control freak, the Grill Master, but it actually wasn’t all that unpleasant.

  No harm done.

  I
n fact it could be seen as generous─he was an adult minding a minor who was flustered at being in an unfamiliar restaurant. I even thought: He’s sticking with oolong tea for my sake when he’d rather be having beer with his barbecue.

  Shit.

  How could I see him as a good guy?

  “Eat meat while you’re young. Eating meat makes people happy, Gaen’s legacy. Old or young, the worries never cease, but eating delicious meat takes care of all worries.”

  “…”

  Quit it.

  Stop being nice.

  You’re my dear seniors’ archenemy─so stop saying things that make it hard for me to hate you.

  But thinking so didn’t actually make a whole lot of sense. Sure, he sounded preachy, but really all he was doing was trying to get me to eat some meat. And his words seemed to gently caress the surface of what I’d been dealing with.

  There was no reason to be spiteful; hell, I should thank him.

  But it wouldn’t do for me to thank my savior’s bitter enemy, so I spat out, “Quit calling me weird names like ‘Gaen’s legacy’” with all the venom I could muster, in full faultfinding mode.

  “Hmph, I see. You’re right. But calling you ‘Kanbaru’ really chaps my hide─that name has nothing to do with Gaen. But are you sure? Because I’d have to call you Suruga.”

  “…It’s better than Gaen’s legacy.”

  “Ah, how casual high school girls are these days. You’d let a man you’ve never met before call you by your first name. Well then, Suruga. Eat up, quickly now. There’s no victory in cold meat.”

  Did a barbecue meal need winners and losers? When that thought got tangled up with the realization that I’d ended up requesting to be called by my first name like a little hussy, my feelings became even more preternaturally jumbled.

  But I couldn’t just sit there and watch the meat Kaiki had put on my plate get cold.

  The meat had done nothing wrong.

  Hate the sin, love the dinner.

  Itadakimasu, I said formally, and picking up the chopsticks with my right hand, began to eat. I thought in the back of my mind that I should text my grandma if I got the chance to tell her I wouldn’t be needing dinner.

  “What’s this? You’re right-handed? Gaen was left-handed─no, is it because of your injury that you’re using your right hand?”

  “…”

  I couldn’t answer. I had no obligation to answer.

  But he’d guessed correctly.

  Or only half correctly─my left hand had turned into a monkey’s, and it was literally to cover that up that I’d wound the bandage around my arm, so I was only pretending to be injured─and as part of that deception, I was holding the chopsticks with my right hand even though I’m actually left-handed.

  I’d gotten used to it in no time, but writing had taken longer. Only recently had I gotten good enough to write as smoothly with my off hand.

  My handwriting’s always been terrible, though, so “smoothly” doesn’t amount to much.

  There was no reason to keep using my right hand now that my left had returned to normal…but as long as I kept wearing the bandage, at least, I had no choice but to continue. And who knows, maybe it had been so long that I’d lost my left-handedness.

  “How is it, good? It’s good, isn’t it.”

  “…”

  “Hey now, not much for courtesy, are you. You’re eating meat, don’t be so sullen.”

  “…You won’t get any courtesy from me.”

  “It’s not courtesy towards me. I mean towards the meat. Meat is life. Don’t forget that what you’re eating right now is life.”

  “…It’s delicious.”

  What else could I say when he held the cow hostage like that?

  What a coward, excuse the pun─but then, from what I’d heard, he should have said: The money for that meat came from my wallet. My money, meaning my life. Right now you’re eating my life, so wipe that sulky look off your face.

  Something along those lines?

  But the real Kaiki sitting before me and eating meat, his own expression hardly joyous, didn’t utter a single word about money and instead asked me, “Is there some meat you’d like to order?”

  He still didn’t seem inclined to treat me to anything other than animal flesh, but apart from that, he was acting like an “unsociable but kind uncle.”

  Give me a break.

  Say something reprehensible.

  Trash boys’ love novels or something.

  Proclaim your support for the metropolitan ordinance and censorship.

  Otherwise I can’t come to terms with this.

  My personality isn’t complicated enough to keep disliking someone who treats me kindly, and to a delicious meal, after beating me in a head-to-head contest in my field of expertise.

  I’m a simple person.

  When someone is nice to me, I want to thank them.

  “So you’re a third-year in high school now─preparing for exams. And you left town to attend an open campus? I can still remember when I was preparing for exams. Not that I ever actually studied for them, of course. Even back then, all I was good at was gaming the system…so I don’t have any advice to give you about exam prep.”

  You don’t seem to have much on the ball.

  At least eat up so you can study hard.

  Now he was really sounding avuncular, and I was the one who finally advanced the conversation. “What do you want?”

  The trick to swindling the average patsy is to “make them ask questions,” so I was very likely dancing right along to Kaiki’s tune, but I simply couldn’t take being treated kindly by the man for another second.

  “Wasn’t there something you wanted to discuss?”

  “Ah…yes, well. Now that you mention, there was.” The swindler shrugged his shoulders as if he’d forgotten it until I pointed it out. “Though I rather think the matter has already been settled at this point.”

  “Huh?”

  “I imagine you’ve already figured this out, Suruga, but I knew your mother.”

  “…”

  “Let’s see, last August, was it? Didn’t you meet someone who was your aunt? Izuko Gaen─”

  “No,” I shook my head in response. I was kind of glad to be able to answer Kaiki in the negative, and also felt some self-loathing for being a bit twisted. “That person gave me a different name. It was only after she’d left town that I knew she was a Gaen.”

  “Really─how very like her.”

  “I figured maybe she just had the same last name…”

  Okay.

  I see.

  That person really was─my mother’s younger sister.

  She didn’t resemble her all that much, nor had she hinted at the connection─still, I’d wondered.

  “The Gaen clan is full of peculiar women. And among them, Toé Gaen and Izuko Gaen were always exceptionally so─and in such contrast with each other. Izuko and I never saw eye to eye, but…your mother looked out for me.”

  “…”

  “We stumbled across each other when I was even younger than you─and our relationship continued through my college days. I guess she was something like a tutor to me? She tried desperately to set me on the straight and narrow.”

  ……

  Does that mean that Kaiki and I lived in the same town in Kyushu?

  If so, then when I was little.

  I might have met him─I fixed my gaze on Kaiki’s face for the first time.

  But it didn’t trigger anything.

  I’d never seen him before─I was sure of it.

  “Gaen asked something of me back then. ‘If anything should happen to me, please watch out for my daughter.’”

  “…My mother asked you to do that?”

  It was a lie.

  My intuition told me so.

  She’d died along with my father in a car accident─unexpectedly, in other words. She couldn’t have foreseen her death like that.

  And why would she ask Kaik
i─I mean, even if he hadn’t become a swindler yet, to saddle a college student with something so huge─