by Nisioisin
After giving it some thought, I decided to bring a bottle of saké, and succeeded in locating a decent liquor store. I figured most guys who were going after a girl at a hostess bar wouldn’t pick a local saké.
You could also say I was just in a playful mood since I had money to burn.
Any ethical opprobrium that I was trying to get a middle school girl drunk would be off the mark here. She was no longer a middle school girl. She was no longer human.
She was a god.
They say no god can refuse a tipple, so in fact it would disqualify her from divine status if she didn’t drink the saké, which in a certain sense would solve the whole problem.
I wanted to avoid being the jackass who upended the whole story by slipping and breaking the saké bottle on which so much was riding. I exercised the utmost care in climbing the snowy mountain path, and it was high noon by the time I arrived at Kita-Shirahebi Shrine.
It was grueling carrying a magnum of saké up that mountain.
I never wanted to do it again, but I had a feeling I was going to have to. Many times over.
I was about to put 10,000 yen into the offertory box when a thought struck me and I took out another 10,000-yen note. Twenty thousand yen altogether.
If 10,000 yen bought such an entertaining entrance, I was dying to see what 20,000 would get me.
Becoming free with my money the second I make an easy buck isn’t great, but as far as I’m concerned money exists to be spent, so no big deal.
I slipped the 20,000 yen into the offertory box.
“H-H, here, eeek!”
Nadeko Sengoku dashed out from the shrine hall as vigorously as ever, but this time her agitation got the better of her and she went tumbling. She smacked her head on the corner of the offertory box so hard I thought she might be dead.
For better or for worse she was a god, so she got right back up, seeming relatively unhurt. She was unable to hide her agitation, however.
“T-Twenty thousand? M-Mister Kaiki, did you mean to do that? You know you can’t have it back, right?!”
“…”
Apparently, Nadeko Sengoku was only comfortable with donations of up to 10,000 yen. Her position that, such limitations notwithstanding, money once put into the offertory box couldn’t be returned was laudable. She was like a contemporary videogame arcade.
“It’s fine.”
“A-Are you paying for tomorrow in advance?”
“That’s just for today…and I brought this.” I placed the bottle of saké on the offertory box; I couldn’t get it to stand up on the uneven surface, so I lay it on its side. “A special treat for you.”
“Oh! Saké! Nadeko’s been wanting to try some!”
A real boozehound─unfortunately, she was a “god” after all. Though basically all monstrosities have a taste for alcohol, not just gods.
But something about the way she said it bothered me. Was it a craving carried over from her time as a human being?
“Dad only ever drank, like, beer, so this’ll be Nadeko’s first time drinking, like, saké!”
“…”
Roger. I wasn’t going to pursue it too deeply, but I got the impression that back when she was human, Nadeko Sengoku had been sneaking sips behind her parents’ backs.
The kind of people who would say, “She doesn’t look the type,” or, “That’s not like her,” had almost certainly driven her to her current state, so I didn’t feel like I could say anything. Not that I’m the kind of moralist who gets preachy over a bit of booze to begin with.
“Mister Kaiki, what’s the difference between beer and saké!”
“If it’s made from barley, it’s beer, and if it’s made from rice, it’s saké.” With this crude explanation I wrapped up that portion of the conversation and moved on to the next offering, or present. “I brought you this,” I said, handing Nadeko Sengoku the cat’s cradle. “Now you don’t need to use a snake. I got you a bunch of spares as well, so you can pass the time playing to your heart’s content.”
“Thanks! With this Nadeko can kill time until it’s time to kill Big Brother Koyomi!”
Because she always spoke in the same excited tone, it was hard to tell if the kid was actually excited, present-progressive. She was excitable, sure, but that could simply be because she was amped up, high, which is precisely why a sudden mention of killing Araragi, for instance, froze my blood.
I’m not a moralist, nor am I so fragile that I can’t bear to see someone die, but that didn’t mean I could remain calm in the face of such blithe deployment of the word kill.
Naturally my expression remained placid.
The two are totally separate.
“It’s not just a way to kill time, Sengoku, cat’s cradle is a deep, even profound pursuit.”
I taught her some new tricks from among the ones in A Cat’s Cradle Compendium that I’d memorized the day before.
I judged it best to stay focused on cat’s cradle and not let the conversation drift for that day. We played for a few hours, then I said, “See you tomorrow,” and left the shrine.
I could tell that Nadeko Sengoku was waving goodbye behind me, but ignored it. It wasn’t like I’d swallowed what Senjogahara said, but I might as well exercise caution about being won over by Nadeko Sengoku’s devilish wiles and not be too impatient in my bid to make friends with her.
I’d left behind the huge bottle, so the descent was a breeze. And then, when I reached the bottom of the mountain, it happened. I meant to keep my eyes out for anyone following me on the walk back to the station, but as it turned out there was no need.
Because there she was, in plain view.
Waiting for me at the entrance to the stairway that led up to the shrine.
029
Black and white.
She gave the impression of a mix between the two─no, I’m not claiming I got some insight into her inner self from a single glance, it was just a simple impression created by the girl’s hair, a mixture of stark white and midnight black.
I naturally had no way of knowing who the hell she was, this girl wearing winter boots, with her rough duffel coat and earmuffs.
But I intuited from her brazen attitude, her total lack of subterfuge, that she was not my “tail” from the day before, nor the one who had stealthily delivered the letter to my room. I intuited this.
No─she made me intuit this.
“Hello, Mister Deishu Kaiki. We meet at last. My name is Tsubasa Hanekawa. I’m a classmate of Miss Senjogahara and Araragi’s,” she─Tsubasa Hanekawa, that is, said, bowing deeply to me, swindler that I am. When she bowed, she naturally took her eyes off me for a few moments, during which time I could almost certainly have dashed away to safety.
That’s how much confidence I have in my speed.
Unfortunately, however, it wouldn’t have been a sure thing on that snowy road, and, for some reason, I didn’t feel like running away from this girl.
Which was rare for me─or virtually unthinkable, but standing before this girl, I couldn’t imagine being so cowardly as to flee.
Even though I had never once in my life thought that fleeing was in any way cowardly.
“I’m…” I finally managed, “Deishu Kaiki─though it seems an introduction is unnecessary. I can only surmise that you’ve heard of me from Senjogahara or Araragi, am I right?”
“You are,” replied Hanekawa, raising her head with an earnest look.
Something about that expression, combined with her fine features, threatened to overwhelm me. In possessing an intensity beyond her years, she was not unlike Senjogahara.
Birds of a feather flock together?
Yet this was─
“But to be perfectly honest, I knew of you even before they told me about you. Having previously assisted the Fire Sisters with their investigation─”
“No need for a kid to speak so formally,” I cut her off. “You need to talk to me about something? I’ll listen. Please go ahead. I may have a few things I want t
o talk to you about as well.”
“…”
Brushing away a loose strand of hair with an “Mm,” Hanekawa said, “Fair enough, though perhaps this isn’t the place.” Her tone was still polite, which is to say it didn’t swing all the way to informal, but her attitude seemed to soften somewhat.
“There’s something I need to ask you first, though. Do Senjogahara and Araragi know that you’ve come to see me?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Ah.”
Every last one of them.
In my mind another player took the stage in the tale of the watch-fob and comb, but anyone trying to get in between those two lovebirds would be more like comic relief.
Who was I to talk, though, when my own role had to remain every bit as surreptitious as Hanekawa’s.
Two clowns standing by the side of a snowy road.
The thought even popped into my head that the two of us were in some sense birds of a feather ourselves.
“No skin off my nose, I couldn’t care less. I’m not going to rat you out, don’t worry. I have no intention of using your secret against you.”
“No need to spell it out, I’m not worried on that score,” Hanekawa stated with a wry smile. Her smile was also─how can I put this─roomy, expansive, capacious. Unfortunately, however, under that coat, I couldn’t gauge the size of those breasts Senjogahara had mentioned. “And from my perspective, our meeting doesn’t need to be such a closely guarded secret anyway.”
“Oh, no?”
I felt like I had missed an opportunity, but I supposed so. I began to walk along the snowy road.
“But then, I’m a pariah in this town. Got to keep my presence a secret. It might be best not to be seen with you of all people. By virtue of which I was thinking of hailing a cab, that okay with you?”
“Yes, it is,” Hanekawa assented without ado.
Never mind waiting for me out in the open like that, getting into a car with a swindler was beyond ballsy.
And also beyond my ken.
So much so that I, myself, shrank from the situation instead, but as the one to suggest it, I couldn’t back out now.
Hanekawa and I walked away from the mountain and found a taxi, skipped the train entirely, and headed straight to the shopping district. Maybe I was being too cautious, but this Tsubasa Hanekawa girl cut an overly conspicuous figure, so I don’t think I was.
If I were to be thoroughly security-conscious, I’d part ways with her temporarily and rendezvous elsewhere a few hours later.
Unlike Nadeko Sengoku, though, it seemed Tsubasa Hanekawa wasn’t very aware of her “cuteness” or “beauty,” for better or for worse.
“Yes, my hair really is conspicuous, isn’t it. I’m sorry, when I was still going to school I dyed it black every morning, but what with winter break it completely slipped my mind.”
She said this with a bashful air.
“…”
And during the ride, as we chatted idly and gossiped about nothing in particular, it struck me.
Maybe this girl hadn’t been “doted on” while she was growing up. Maybe her parents had been strict, or laissez-faire.
It’s not like we were discussing anything deep, so I couldn’t say for sure, but the kid’s oddly un-childlike attitude made me imagine such a past.
“I heard from Senjogahara that you were overseas at the moment… What was that about? Was she trying to keep us from interacting? In other words, was she lying to me?”
“Oh, no. It wasn’t a lie,” Hanekawa responded to the question that had been uppermost in my mind. “Or rather, Miss Senjogahara thought it was true when she said it. She and Araragi both think I’m still overseas.”
“Oho…”
What in the world was this girl trying to sell, what kind of gift was she trying to give? It was a mystery. Aside from making contact with me, there was no reason for her to keep her return to Japan secret, was there?
“Yes… Well, at this point,” she went on, “it’s kind of a waste of effort, or a vain struggle for peace of mind. I’d hoped that such a feint might lead to a breakthrough.”
“A breakthrough…”
“Yes… I was pretty sure Mister Oshino wasn’t really overseas, so while I had a feeling it was doomed from the start, I thought maybe I could throw some sand if I left the country for a while. Or put up a smokescreen.”
“Sand─in whose eyes? Nadeko Sengoku?”
“Her too, but Ms. Gaen, mainly.” Having said so, Hanekawa seemed to catch herself and apologized, “Oh, I’m sorry, Mister Kaiki, for speaking like that. It’s rude of me when she’s your senpai. Pardon me.”
“She’s not my senpai anymore. Gaen-senpai disowned me.” I sounded ludicrous, persisting in appending the honorific. But I didn’t put an ounce of respect into the word in the first place. “So don’t worry about it… Right, I heard you’d gotten a direct warning from her. What can I say… That must’ve been tough.”
For a second I almost started apologizing to Hanekawa, but I realized there was no reason to.
Heheh, she chuckled. “I wanted her to think that I was on the wrong track…which is why I’m only back for a moment. I’ll be off again tomorrow morning.”
“Only back for a moment… You sure you want to be spending any of that precious time with me?”
“Yes, I am.” Hanekawa nodded emphatically. Funny, her saying so seemed to imbue our little tête-à-tête with some deep significance. “It might not mean much against the all-knowing Ms. Gaen, but if my overseas trip freed up Miss Senjogahara and made her get in touch with you─then I’m glad. A happy accident, or should I say a happy according-to-plan? Mister Kaiki.”
She looked me in the eye. I’d never met anyone who could look another person so squarely in the eye.
“Please save Miss Senjogahara, okay?”
030
Not for free, I won’t, I declared, and began by making Hanekawa pay for the cab. She made a face like she couldn’t believe her ears, but that was the extent of her protest, and she paid the fare with a credit card.
Seemed a little uppity of her to use a credit card when she was only a high school student, but these days you probably need one if you’re going to go traveling overseas.
“Thank you very much,” I said, getting out of the taxi.
Getting out after me, Hanekawa noted, “You’re surprisingly decorous, aren’t you, Mister Kaiki.”
“Eh?”
What was she on about, I had just made her pay the cab fare. Did she mean “devious”?
“Oh, nothing. Anyway, where shall we go? Preferably somewhere where we can talk at our leisure without being seen.”
Right. Having returned secretly to Japan, she had to sneak around, just as much or probably more than me, even if it wasn’t under duress.
The Mister Donut Senjogahara had taken me to would work…but it might be too crowded during the day.
“We can speak back at my hotel, if that’s all right with you,” Hanekawa proposed. “The room was inexpensive, so I’m sure it’s not where you’re staying, but it’s in this area too.”
“I don’t mind, but are you─”
“It’s fine. I’m not finicky about that sort of thing, and anyway, I like to think I’m a good judge of men.”
Hanekawa smiled, and I had a mind to say something, but the more I argued, the guiltier I might feel, all on my own, so I thought better of it. Going to her hotel room probably looked better than going to mine, too.
But it takes a hell of a lot of swagger to tell a swindler to his face that you’re a good judge of character, so I had to take my hat off to her.
“You’re very frank─or open,” was all I said.
I fell in behind her, and she led us to her hotel, where I soon sat facing her across a narrow single room.
I said, “Should we order room service?”
“No…please don’t start ordering things on my tab. I may have a credit card, but that doesn’t mean I have a lot of money.
”
“Oh, really?” She did tell me the room was inexpensive.
“I worked my fingers to the bone until I found a ticket so cheap that I couldn’t even believe it was legal, and I’m making my way around the world by taking advantage of as many discount tour packages as possible.”
“Wow.” I nodded.
I could brag about my Premium Pass 300 to blow her mind, but that wouldn’t be very mature, so I let it go.