Bakemonogatari Part 2

by Nisioisin

“Yes, thank you for waiting. This is Hanekawa speaking.”

  “……”

  Sure, that was a very proper way to answer a call, but wasn’t it a bit odd on a cell phone?

  Tsubasa Hanekawa.

  The class president─a high-end model student.

  A woman who seemed like a born class president.

  A class president among class presidents elected by the gods themselves─I’d meant it as a joke at first, but after spending two months working alongside her as class vice president, I came to see how seriously fitting the description was. All knowledge ought to be cherished by human beings, but I wish I’d been spared this particular tidbit.

  “What’s the matter? It’s not every day that you call me, Araragi.”

  “Nothing, really─it’s just, I had a question I wanted to ask you.”

  “A question? Sure, that’s fine with me. Oh, is this about what our class will be doing for the culture festival? I think it’d be better if you didn’t give it much thought until after the skills test─you’re in a pretty tight spot, right? I can take care of all the busywork, of course. Or did you want to rethink what we’re doing? That’d be tough since we took a survey. Oh, or is there some problem and do we have no choice? We need to deal with it right away in that case.”

  “…You didn’t even give me a chance to nod along.”

  Hanekawa really advanced the conversation all on her own.

  Not only was she quick to make assumptions, she was an even quicker talker.

  It was hard work to find your opening with her.

  Eight at night.

  I was on my way back from the Tamikura Apartments, Senjogahara’s home, and was pushing my bike down the asphalt road instead of striding the saddle. It wasn’t because Hachikuji was by my side, nor because Kanbaru had spotted me and dashed up to me, that I was pushing my bike rather than pedaling. I just needed to think a little.

  I ended up cramming until eight at night.

  Despite naive hopes that maybe I’d get the chance to eat Senjogahara’s cooking for dinner, she didn’t even hint at it. When I casually brought up feeling hungry, unable to bear it any longer, she sent me on my way with nothing more than, “I see. Then let’s call it a day. I’m sure you remember, but there aren’t many streetlights in this area so do be careful on your way home. See you later, alligator.” Hitagi Senjogahara essentially lived alone because her father often worked late into the night, so she had to know how to cook, but…

  She had such a high difficulty rating.

  Of course, I didn’t get very hungry anymore, so my complaint was mostly a lie.

  In any case.

  I needed to think, but this was me we were talking about, someone whose tutor, Senjogahara, didn’t trust to earn an average score, so it wasn’t going to be particularly productive. It was mostly for my own satisfaction. Now, self-satisfaction did for some matters in the world, but not others, and this was the latter.

  So.

  Pushing my bike with my right hand and walking, I’d called Hanekawa on her cell. It was eight-thirty at night─whether that’s an appropriate hour to call a girl you aren’t that close to is a question I couldn’t answer, but Hanekawa’s reaction suggested that it fell within the boundaries of acceptable behavior. The incarnation of seriousness, a moral paragon, she’d tell me if I were acting out of line.

  “Um, Hanekawa. This might go a little long, do you have a minute?”

  “Hm? That’s fine. I was only doing some light studying.”

  “……”

  Saying that without a hint of sarcasm was what made her a class president among class president elected by the gods themselves.

  Light…what sort of studying could she mean?

  “Well, okay,” I said, “I’ll try to keep it as brief as possible… You went to the same middle school as Senjogahara, right? What was it called again─oh, Kiyokaze Public Middle School?”

  “Yup, that’s it.”

  “So you must know a girl a year younger than you called Suruga Kanbaru.”

  “Well yeah, of course? I mean, is there anyone who doesn’t? Even you know who she is, don’t you? She’s the captain of the basketball team, a school-wide star. I’ve gone with my friends to cheer from the stands at some of her matches.”

  “No, listen. I’m not talking about now─I wanted to ask about the middle-school Kanbaru.”

  “Hmm? You do? Why?”

  “Why not?”

  “Huh… Well, it was more or less the same in middle school. She was the star of the basketball team and everyone knew her. It sounds like she was team captain there, too, starting around the second half of her second year. Why do you ask?”

  “Oh, um─”

  I couldn’t tell her.

  I couldn’t say the words.

  I couldn’t possibly convince her.

  That of all things, that star was, to put it unkindly, stalking me, of all people.

  As it was, how much of this I should be babbling about was an issue, but then again we were talking about Hanekawa, so maybe it was okay to share a bit of my predicament. I’d of course fudge certain aspects as needed.

  “I heard that she and Senjogahara were friends in middle school─were they?”

  “Hmm? No, I think I told you, but it wasn’t like Senjogahara and I had any physical contact to speak of just because we went to the same middle school. She was a celebrity, so frumpy old yours truly just knew about her unilaterally─”

  “I’m as moved as ever by your modesty, but if we could put our usual exchanges aside for today─”

  “The Valhalla Duo.”

  “Wha?”

  “You just reminded me. That’s what they were called, the Valhalla Duo. Senjogahara from the track team and Kanbaru from the basketball team.”

  “The Valhalla Duo? What does that word mean again, I feel like I’ve heard it somewhere. And why’d they be called that…”

  “Kanbaru’s ‘baru’ and Senjogahara’s ‘hara’ gives you ‘Baruhara.’ And Valhalla, from Norse mythology, is the heavenly hall where Odin, the supreme deity, resides and welcomes the spirits of heroes who died in battle. It’s like holy ground for the war god, so─”

  “…Ah, Kanbaru’s name starts with the character for ‘god’ and Senjogahara’s with the ones for ‘battlefield.’”

  “Thus the Valhalla Duo.”

  “Phew…”

  You couldn’t hope for a more snug fit.

  How some people exercised their wits to come up with a mere nickname… If I were to nitpick, it sounded too pretty, so you could only sigh and actually found yourself in a hard spot, but that’s just the career straight man in me griping.

  “Since they were called a duo,” Hanekawa noted, “I assume their relationship at least hadn’t been bad or hostile. Senjogahara was on the track team until right before graduation, so they must have hung out as fellow athletes at the minimum.”

  “You really do know everything.”

  “I don’t know everything. I just know what I know.”

  The same exchange as always.

  In any case…I had confirmed their background.

  And now that I had─what next?

  How would I approach the foreground?

  “I know I’ve already asked you this before,” I said, “but when Senjogahara was in middle school…she was nothing like she is now, right?”

  “True, she wasn’t. Senjogahara seems to be changing a little bit lately, but she’s still not who she used to be.”

  “Oh…”

  She was changing.

  But only when it came to me.

  So─she wasn’t who she used to be.

  “I guess she must have been popular with her juniors?”

  “Yes, both the boys and the girls. And not just her juniors, you know. Her seniors loved her when she still had seniors, and she was well-regarded by students in her year─”

  “Loved by everyone─young or old, male or female.”

  “M
iddle school only lasts for three years, so ‘young or old’ would be an overstatement. But if I had to choose one specific group, then she might have been most popular with girls who were her junior. That’s what you were trying to ask, yes?”

  “…I’m glad you’re so observant.”

  She was a little too observant, though.

  She wasn’t Oshino, but it felt like she saw through me.

  “But, Araragi, you like Senjogahara as she is now, regardless of who she was in the past, right?”

  “………”

  I hoped she knew she was acting just like a fifth grader.

  By the way, while we hadn’t particularly stated the fact to anyone at all, everyone knew that Senjogahara and I were going out. We weren’t openly mocked or excessively teased about it. Senjogahara was considered a mild-mannered model student by our class, so of course she wasn’t, and for my part I was simply not the type of classmate who attracted that kind of behavior. But even so, the entire situation was common knowledge, a tacit understanding.

  Rumors were scary things.

  It must have taken the rumor a little bit of time, at least, to hop the wall between third-year and second-year students and reach Kanbaru… Well, when you considered that Senjogahara was a celebrity together with the fact that she weighed on Kanbaru’s mind, it had taken quite a while, but that’s how it is between different years.

  “Araragi, I know I’ve told you this over and over, but keep your relationship proper and platonic. Watch out so there won’t be any indecent rumors. Senjogahara seems like a serious girl, though, and I doubt your relationship will turn crass.”

  “Serious, huh…”

  Come to think of it, Hanekawa still didn’t know the real Senjogahara… Our other classmates were one thing, but deceiving the Amazing Class President Hanekawa, who knew we’d be going out before we actually did─Senjogahara, too, was a formidable player. In that respect, you could say she was showing me a side of herself she showed no one else… Hmm, but that didn’t make me particularly happy. That’s not what being a unique exception is supposed to mean.

  But really, that was more or less the state of our relationship. She wouldn’t even cook for me, so how could our relationship ever become sleazy?

  ……

  Oh.

  If she was rebuffed─then regardless of how it had been in middle school, Kanbaru knew Senjogahara’s true nature quite well. If she was coming up to talk to me anyway, then she─

  “Senjogahara is a tough one, okay?” Hanekawa said suddenly.

  When she did─I recalled that she’d said something similar to me in the past, too. This was Hanekawa talking, of course, so it couldn’t be about Hitagi Senjogahara’s challenge rating.

  “Not that I’m some kind of expert,” Hanekawa continued, “but she’s created an impregnable force field around herself like in a game.”

  “………”

  “And you’re someone else with one, Araragi. Everyone has one around them, putting aside how strong it is─call it a sense of privacy─but you and Senjogahara have built fortresses where you’ve holed up. People like that find human interaction annoying in general. Rings a bell, doesn’t it?”

  “Are you talking about me? Or about Senjogahara?”

  “Both of you.”

  “Well, yeah.”

  Of course.

  But in that case.

  “Still, Araragi, not liking to deal with people and not liking people are two different things.”

  “What? Aren’t they the same?”

  “‘Annoyances come / In forms none greater than that / Of the visitor’…” recited Hanekawa in a calm and quiet voice, “‘But then of course I speak not / Of yourself, my esteem’d friend’… I don’t care how bad you are at literature, Araragi, you must get what that poem is saying, right? And what I’m trying to say?”

  “…I get it.”

  I couldn’t reply any other way.

  I did resent being treated like a child, though.

  Even so─all I could do was thank her.

  “Thanks. Sorry for wasting your time with this nonsense.”

  “It isn’t nonsense. It’s normal for you to want to learn more about your special someone.”

  Hanekawa actually said that.

  She didn’t think twice about saying something so embarrassing.

  A class president among class presidents, indeed.

  “But,” she added, “I think it’s better not to go digging around your lover’s past too much. Don’t let it turn into fun and games. Stay within limits.”

  Having put one last fat point on it, she appended a “Bye, then,” and fell silent.

  I was puzzled as to why she said bye but didn’t hang up, until I remembered how she’d taught me over spring break that the etiquette was for the caller to do so.

  Oh, what a frighteningly correct girl…

  Thinking such thoughts, I told her, “Bye, see you tomorrow at school,” and pressed the button to end the call. I folded my cell phone and put it in my back pocket.

  So, now what.

  As someone who once stood in the same position and underwent the same kind of experience as Senjogahara, I of course understood her words and deeds to some degree─but I found my sympathies lying with Kanbaru.

  If possible─I thought.

  If only.

  It would be a needless intervention, an overstepping of bounds, an unsolicited favor─Senjogahara had revealed her eccentric philosophy to me whereby generosity was an act of aggression, and this didn’t even smack of generosity.

  After all, part of it was my own underhanded calculation. A motive so conceited that I balked at the thought, let alone expressing it.

  But I couldn’t help but think─

  I wanted Senjogahara to get back what she’d lost.

  I wanted Senjogahara to pick up what she’d thrown away.

  Why?

  Because those were things I could never do─

  “Asking Oshino about this wouldn’t do any good… That jolly idiot probably doesn’t give a damn about aftercare and following up. Not that I’m one to talk… Wait, hold on.”

  Important but forgotten details often come back in a flash for no reason whatsoever, and that was exactly what had happened. I opened the zipper of the Boston bag hanging off my shoulder and checked inside. I didn’t need to in order to find out, but I was hoping against hope. Sure enough─the envelope I received from Senjogahara wasn’t inside.

  The envelope containing Oshino’s fee for services rendered.

  “I left it on that cushion next to me… Ugh, what now?”

  This was about money, so it was best taken care of at the earliest convenience, but there was no need to feel that rushed, and I could get it from Senjogahara when I saw her at school the next day, but…what to do? Though I doubted it, I couldn’t rule out the possibility that I’d put it in one of my pockets and that it had fallen out without me noticing as I walked talking on the phone with Hanekawa, so maybe I should call Senjogahara and make sure, just in case… No.

  I was pushing my bike alongside me as I walked, so I couldn’t have covered that much distance. If I biked my way back to the Tamikura Apartments, I would be there in no time. In that case, the right course of action was to go back immediately to get it. There was the risk that I’d end up having to meet Senjogahara’s father considering how late it was, but the probability seemed negligible given what I’d heard about how hard he worked.

  Sure, a phone call would get the job done just the same, but I wanted to see Senjogahara as often as I could.

  Not that I knew how to take the initiative.

  I could be forgiven for acting at least a little like her boyfriend.

  “Okay, then.”

  I straddled my bike seat, turned around─

  And wondered if it had started to rain.

  Not because a drop of water hit my cheek or anything, but because of what I saw right in front of me after turning my bike around─a hu
man figure, right in front of me as if it had been tailing me the whole time, entered my vision.

  A human figure.

  Dressed in a raincoat from head to toe.

  It wore its hood deep.

  Black rubber boots…and a pair of rubber gloves.