by Nisioisin
“Apologize to catkind. Cats can be scary, you know.”
“In any case, love at first sight does exist. They even say that relationships between people in general are based on first impressions. At least, looking at it that way explains why you’re being followed around, doesn’t it?” Hachikuji was yelping gleefully. She was an elementary schoolgirl in that way. “I’m certain of it, the woman in me is telling me that I’m right. So what will you do, Mister Araragi? She’s only nibbling now, but she might confess her feelings for you soon enough. What will you do, what will you do, what will you do?”
“Listen. I don’t like how people try to see everything in romantic terms. The ‘power of love’ they go on about in old foreign films? Imagine how peaceful the world would be if that did solve everything. No way, no how. Some simple, small-time, realistic goal makes much better sense.
“And anyway,” I said. “I’ve already cleared the highest difficulty character of all.”
003
“I feel like someone said something unpleasant about me,” Hitagi Senjogahara suddenly mumbled.
The comment was so abrupt and unprovoked that, out of shock, the pencil in my hand froze in place on my notebook.
Yet it seemed she was mumbling entirely to herself because she switched topics.
“Still, teaching is so difficult.”
After that, I’d walked back home with Hachikuji talking about all sorts of things, including about Kanbaru, and parted ways when I arrived. The little girl wandered around in one place or another all the time, so I was sure I’d meet her again somewhere. Then, after taking off my backpack, changing my clothes, and stuffing my textbooks, notes, and study-aids into a Boston bag, I switched from the granny bike I rode to school to my mountain bike and headed to Senjogahara’s. My little sisters had already returned and almost got around to interrogating me, but luckily I managed to escape.
As I’d mentioned to Hachikuji, Senjogahara’s place was fairly far from mine, a distance I normally wouldn’t travel by bicycle. But taking the bus actually meant having to walk more, so going by bike felt quicker to me─which was subjective, and since this was only my second time visiting Senjogahara’s, and the first time straight from my place, I couldn’t say for sure.
The Tamikura Apartments─a two-story wooden building.
Room 201.
A hundred-or-so square feet, a small sink.
It was so cramped that two high school students of average build facing each other across a low table with their study materials spread out around them filled up the space. It was what you’d call a single-father household, and Senjogahara what you’d call an only child, and her father what you’d call stuck at work until late at night, so we were, of course, alone.
Koyomi Araragi and Hitagi Senjogahara.
Two healthy teenagers by themselves in a cramped room.
A man and a woman.
Who were officially going out, too.
Boyfriend and girlfriend.
And yet.
“…Why am I studying right now,” I said.
“Hm? Because you’re stupid?”
“What a mean way to put it!”
She was absolutely right. But.
It couldn’t hurt if there was a little more going on.
We started dating on the same day we got ourselves mixed up with Mayoi Hachikuji, on Mother’s Day, May fourteenth. About two weeks had passed since then, but it would be no exaggeration to say that absolutely nothing sexual had taken place between us in that time.
………
Hold on, we hadn’t even gone on a date yet.
Come to think of it.
We met in the morning at school, talked during break…ate lunch together…then walked home together partway…and said see you tomorrow. That was about it. That was the kind of thing that the cooler kids did regardless of gender if they were friends…
I wouldn’t say that I particularly craved a sexual turn of events, but some development you’d expect between lovers would have been nice.
“In my life so far, Araragi, I’ve never struggled at anything involving the word ‘study,’ so I don’t have the slightest idea what’s giving you so much trouble and what you’re stuck on… I don’t understand what you don’t understand.”
“Is that so…”
She really knew what to say to get me down.
How wide was the gap between her academic abilities and mine, anyway? Was it a canyon so vast you couldn’t see the other side?
“Are you acting like you don’t get it,” Senjogahara asked, “just to make me laugh?”
“Like I’d go that far… But it’s not like you were born smart, right, Senjogahara? Isn’t it thanks to blood and tears that you maintain your place near the top of the class?”
“Do you think that’s the kind of thing people who work hard worry about?”
“…Okay.”
“Oh, but don’t get me wrong. There are people whose hard work never pays off, who don’t even know how to begin working hard, like you, and I do pity them.”
“Please don’t pity us!”
“I despair for you.”
“G-Gah! Is the rule that whenever I make a quip about it, you get even harsher?! Even begging for mercy is a risky move!”
Bizarre game we were playing.
“No weed actually goes by that name,” she said, “but ‘small fry’ is an actual species of fish…”
“There’s no such fish, either!”
“No weed actually goes by that name, but there are people who do…”
“Only if other people call them that!”
“Anyway, I’m feeling motivated because helping you pass this skills test will let me take another step forward as a person.”
“Don’t be treating my grades like they’re your rite of passage… And there are other things you ought to attend to first if you want to grow as a person.”
“Oh, be quiet. I’ve strangled you to death.”
“In the present perfect tense?! Am I already dead?!”
Getting her to teach me may have been a mistake… Hmm, should I have just asked Hanekawa?
However.
Despite my protestations to Hachikuji, I had to admit to a motive so cute it would be embarrassing even to call it ulterior, that just maybe something might happen if I was alone with Senjogahara in her home…
I looked up from my notes to glance at her.
She looked unconcerned as always.
Her expression never really changed.
She wasn’t going to reveal a special face that she’d never show anyone else just because we were going out… In that sense, she wasn’t a tsundere at all.
Her attitude didn’t change one bit, either.
Hmm.
Or was I expecting too much, as I tended to do? I’d vaguely imagined that conversations grew more special once you started going out, but maybe what you discussed with another person didn’t change all that much whatever your relationship? Were my thoughts of sweet talk between lovers nothing more than an idiotic fantasy?
“………”
In all likelihood.
Considering Senjogahara’s experiences, the events that made Hitagi Senjogahara into Hitagi Senjogahara─she certainly had her notions regarding chastity and all, but apart from that, in all likelihood she was satisfied with the current state of our relationship.
She’d told me she didn’t like silent partnerships.
Since she said so, she probably didn’t.
…No.
Even then…
It was hard to imagine that Senjogahara didn’t feel a thing in this situation. In fact, it had developed in a much more sexual way the last time I’d visited the Tamikura Apartments… It wasn’t like she was too unworldly not to have a clue about what it meant to invite her ostensible boyfriend to her home with no guardian around… And when I looked at it that way, Senjogahara did seem to have put a little bit of work into the outfit she was wearing across the lo
w table from me, but the awfully long skirt sat on my mind. Her stockingless legs were bare, but I could hardly see them thanks to that long skirt of hers. It felt like it was caution she had put into her outfit, not thought.
Phew.
Or maybe it was my role as the man to show some initiative? Of course, I’d never gone out with a girl before, so I hardly even knew what initiative looked like.
“What’s the matter, Araragi? Your hands have stopped.”
“Nothing… I was just thinking about the high challenge rating.”
“But this one isn’t so hard. What am I going to do with you?”
Showing no interest in making out my mood, Senjogahara just gave me an utterly appalled look. Her eyes seemed accustomed to dispensing condescension.
Then she mumbled, melancholically, “I guess that’s it.”
“Huh? Hold on, Senjogahara, you’re putting your mechanical pencil aside like you’re fed up and giving off this tired air, but is quitting on me actually an option for you?”
“I won’t say that it isn’t,” she declared. “60-40…no, 70-30, maybe?”
“Whichever is the seventy, that’s an awfully realistic ratio…”
It would have been easier on me if she’d said 90-10.
Really, which was the seventy?
“I’m conflicted, you see. Trying and failing would hurt my pride more than not trying and failing.”
“Please don’t quit on me…”
If she did, I’d have to ask Hanekawa after all.
At the end of the day, that wasn’t something I wanted to do.
Being tutored by our class president, who bought wholesale the commonsensical notion that you did well in school if you just tried, was out of the question…
“Well, if you’re going to go that far, then I won’t quit on you.”
“You’d really be helping me out.”
“Not at all. I accept all comers and won’t let any go.”
“What a frightening philosophy!”
“Don’t worry. If I’m doing this, I might as well die doing it.”
“You don’t have to die! Maybe just tire yourself out! What the hell do you have in mind for me?!”
“…Then again, Araragi. I want to say you’re good at math, at least?”
“Huh? Oh, yeah.”
How did she know?
Before I could throw the question at her, Senjogahara said, “Hanekawa told me.”
That made sense. Hanekawa knew my grades better than anyone.
“Huh,” I grunted. “I never saw Hanekawa as the type to go around discussing other people’s grades, though.”
“Oh, maybe I didn’t word it right. I was secretly listening in when you and Hanekawa were talking the other day.”
“…You certainly didn’t word it right.”
Hearsay was bad enough, but now we were at eavesdropping.
“You think?” deadpanned Senjogahara.
She was such a handful.
“I do all right in math because it isn’t all about memorization,” I explained. “Aren’t formulas and equations almost like special moves? An Ultra Beam or a Kamehameha or something. If only other subjects had them, too…”
“If things were so convenient, no one would have a hard time of it. But putting aside actually learning about the subjects, there are tried-and-true techniques, if not special moves, when it comes to studying for tests.” Senjogahara picked her mechanical pencil back up. “One of them is trying to guess what’ll be on the test, which you don’t want to make a habit of because it’s like gambling. While I generally don’t recommend it, stopgap measures might be our only choice at this point. If we get down to it, you just need to avoid getting F’s. If we say the cutoff line is half of the average score…”
She scribbled numbers in her notebook.
The expected average score, and a number that was half of it.
I had to say, when she put them out there like that, it did seem attainable─as my perfect score, that is.
“In memorization-heavy subjects, teachers have ‘questions that they have to ask,’ so we need to set our sights on those. In other words, we’re taking a laser-focused approach instead of making wild guesses. You don’t want to get bogged down by questions you can’t answer and miss the chance to score on ones you can. Do you understand what I’m saying so far, Araragi?”
“…Sure, I get it.”
Still, smart kids really did see tests in a completely different way… The teacher’s mindset in preparing them was something I’d never given any thought to. Actually, no, maybe I did back in middle school, when I still got decent grades… But that felt like a forgotten fable.
Back in middle school.
I didn’t miss those days at all.
“So,” Senjogahara said, “let’s start with an easy subject. World history.”
“World history is an easy subject?”
“It is. All you have to do is memorize all the important terms.”
“……”
“But like I said, I’m not going to expect you to do even that much. Still, Araragi. You’ll probably pass this skills test if you start studying right now with my help, but what in the world are you planning on doing after that?”
“After that?”
“After you graduate,” replied Senjogahara, pointing the tip of her mechanical pencil at me.
“After I graduate… This is kind of sudden.”
“You’re at the end of your second month of your last year of high school. You must have given it at least a little bit of thought. I know you said something along the lines of only caring about making it to graduation, but does that mean you’re going to find a job right away? Do you have some sort of concrete plan? A connection or an in at some company?”
“Umm…”
“Are you going to be a temp at first? Or maybe you’ll just be a NEET? I don’t really like any of that terminology because they oversimplify a real issue, but of course, your own views and wishes take precedence. Oh, but I suppose you could always learn a trade at a vocational school to start off?”
“What are you, my mother?”
She was getting very detailed about this.
Peppering me with all these questions wasn’t going to drag an answer out of me… Couldn’t Senjogahara tell that I was already overwhelmed by the skills test staring me down?
“Your mother? What are you talking about. I’m your girlfriend.”
“……”
The straightforward reply.
Her special move.
In a way, it was even deadlier than her acid tongue.
For me, at least.
“After I graduate… Hmm. You’re right, I do need to decide soon. Well, how about you, Senjogahara?”
“College. Probably on a recommendation and scholarship.”
“…I see.”
“Was saying ‘probably’ too modest of me?”
“By your standards.”
“Anyway, college.”
“College, huh.”
She said it like it was only natural.
Maybe it was, for her.
As with what she’d earlier, it was probably going to be a mystery to me for the rest of my life if I didn’t get it now, but I wondered how it felt like for a smart person to be a smart person.
She added, “The tuition issue certainly narrows down my path. Saying ‘fortunately’ might be too self-deprecating, but it’s not like there’s anything in particular I want to do, so I guess I’m letting that path guide me.”
“Well, no matter where you go, you’ll be you, I’m sure.”
“Right. But,” Senjogahara said, “I’d like to walk the same path as you if I can.”
“Er…that’s a little…”
I was honestly happy to hear that, but the laws of physics practically ruled it out…
Right, Senjogahara nodded. “Ignorance is a crime, but stupidity isn’t. Since it’s not a crime, it’s the punishment. If you’d only been mor
e virtuous in your past life like me, poor Araragi, then this wouldn’t have happened. Now I know exactly how the ant felt as it watched the grasshopper freeze to death. Getting me to identify with a bug is no mean feat, mind you.”