Bakemonogatari Part 2

by Nisioisin

  To borrow a phrase from Oshino─just like with Senjogahara.

  Kanbaru simply had gone and saved herself all on her own─

  “………”

  But yes, I couldn’t deny it.

  Indebtedness or misunderstanding or whatever, it seemed like I needed to do at least something to adjust Kanbaru’s overblown image of me. Or maybe to destroy my image… If her impression of me stayed too positive, she’d be that much more disappointed when everything went south.

  Which is why I hatched Operation Ruin Koyomi Araragi’s Image.

  Part One.

  A man who was loose with money.

  “Kanbaru, I forgot my wallet. Think you could lend me some cash? I promise to give it back right away.”

  “Okay, sure. Is thirty thousand yen enough?”

  She was rich!

  Hmm…someone who was loose with other people’s time…wouldn’t be very convincing after I’d arrived before her at our meeting spot today…

  Operation Ruin Koyomi Araragi’s Image, Part Two.

  A hopeless lecher.

  “Kanbaru, you know what I’m interested in right now? Girls’ underwear.”

  “Oh, what a coincidence. Me too. I consider women’s underwear works of fine art. I never thought we’d agree on this point.”

  She agreed!

  Right, I could never hope to match Kanbaru when it came to smuttiness… Wait, no! Regular lechery might be out, but maybe I stood a chance if I went in some strange direction…

  “I’m particularly interested,” I proclaimed, “in elementary schoolgirls’ underwear!”

  “I couldn’t agree more! Wow, I always knew you weren’t the type to be constrained by what society thinks. You know how to live!”

  “My stock rose?!”

  Why?

  Hmm. Okay, then it was time for Operation Ruin Koyomi Araragi’s Image, Part Three (I was having too much fun with this and already losing sight of my original goal).

  A megalomaniac who goes on and on about his dreams.

  “Kanbaru, you’re talking to a man who’s gonna be big one day!”

  “You don’t need to be telling me that. In fact, I think you’re already huge. I don’t know if there’ll be any space left by your side if you get any bigger.”

  “Nkk…!”

  No, this much was to be expected!

  I needed to keep going!

  “I’m gonna become a musician!”

  “Oh? Then I think I’ll become your instrument.”

  “I don’t even know what that means, but what a cool line!”

  Her stock had gone up in my ledger.

  Man, why?

  “What’s all this about?” Kanbaru asked me. “You don’t need to tell me these things because I couldn’t possibly love and respect you more than I already do.”

  “Yeah, it’s useless…” Just as she was happy whatever I told her, she was going to worship me no matter what kind of person I was. “I don’t get it, though. Why do you overrate me that much?”

  “Listen to you.” Kanbaru laughed. “Until just now, I’d always thought that there was no such thing as a stupid question, but I stand corrected.”

  “………”

  It sounded like a cool line to me for a brief moment, but then I thought about it and realized that someone here was just an idiot.

  “I vowed to devote this life of mine to you,” she added. “Not because you helped mediate between me and her, but because I think you’re worthy of that kind of vow.”

  “A vow, you say…”

  “Yes. I thought I’d make my vow to the sun, which never stops shining upon us and bestowing its gifts, but the thought came to me at night, so I chose the closest street lamp instead.”

  “That’s the most arbitrary thing I’ve ever heard of!”

  “But street lamps shine upon us and bestow their gifts, too, don’t they? Life would be pretty tough without them.”

  “True, but…”

  Vow to the moon, at least.

  Maybe it had been cloudy.

  “But perhaps,” Kanbaru conceded, “I, myself, am not worthy of vowing to spend my life preying upon your good graces.”

  “I don’t know where to begin with you, but that spelling mistake…”

  Urkk.

  Operation Ruin Koyomi Araragi’s Image was at an impasse!

  “…Hmph.”

  Koyomi Araragi.

  Suruga Kanbaru.

  Come to think of it, there’s one thing other than Senjogahara that we have in common.

  Neither of us is human.

  Well, actually, both of us are mostly human. Only─

  Koyomi Araragi’s blood.

  Suruga Kanbaru’s left arm.

  Each is something other than human.

  No small part of my blood is a demon’s─and Kanbaru’s left arm is altogether that of a monkey. Just as I grew out my hair to hide the fang marks left on my neck by a vampire, Kanbaru hid her monkey’s left arm by wrapping it in a long bandage. That’s the real reason the once bright and shining star was forced to retire from the team early. What else could she do? There’s no playing basketball with a monkey’s arm.

  Both Kanbaru and I had gotten ourselves involved with aberrations.

  …And speaking of aberrations, Hitagi Senjogahara, my girlfriend and Kanbaru’s senior, had also encountered one.

  For me, a demon.

  For Kanbaru, a monkey.

  For Senjogahara, it was a crab.

  But Kanbaru and I were different from her in a decisive way─Senjogahara faced her aberration every day for over two years but finally exorcised it and became human again. Kanbaru and I got rid of our aberrations─but parts of our bodies were still not human. You could say that we were like aberrations ourselves─we’d gotten involved with them and become them.

  It was─

  A sad thing to have in common.

  “Hm? What’s the matter?” she asked me.

  “Oh… Er, nothing.”

  “You’re going to spoil this date with that gloomy expression of yours.”

  “Date… Fine, whatever.”

  “By the way, I meant to ask you earlier, but what are we going to do once we get to this mountain? Is there anything to do up there, other than our deed?”

  “If you’re being serious right now, please stay far away from any Wandervogel clubs… But I take it you haven’t been to the mountains very much?”

  “My team did do some runs through the mountains as part of our training back in middle school, kind of like mock cross-country races. We ended up having to cancel them after some students started getting sprains, though.”

  “Hunh.”

  So to her, even the mountains were just a spot to work out.

  Then again, it wasn’t her technique per se that had made her our basketball ace, but rather that overwhelming leg strength of hers that easily hopped over my height.

  “Does that mean you’re at home in the mountains?” she asked me.

  “No, not particularly…”

  “But don’t boys scrounge around for rhinoceros and stag beetles when they’re little?”

  “Stag beetles…”

  “Yes. So precious they’re like black mold.”

  “That doesn’t sound too valuable…”

  But why would I look in the mountains for them?

  That was called illegal dumping.

  “I suppose it’s not exactly the kind of place to go on a date─especially considering the season,” I admitted. “I’m pretty sure I gave you a full explanation yesterday, but you know, it’s a job from Oshino.”

  “Oshino? Oh, Mister Oshino.”

  Kanbaru’s expression turned ambivalent as soon as she heard the name. The reaction was an uncommon one from her, but it did make sense.

  Mèmè Oshino.

  Me, Kanbaru, Senjogahara─the man had saved all of us. No, he would never agree to that word choice. We’d gotten saved on our own, that was the only way to put it
.

  An expert on aberrations, and a rolling stone and vagrant.

  A frivolous man who wore a tacky Hawaiian shirt.

  He was by no means a respectable adult, but it was the immutable truth that we were obliged to him.

  “Yeah,” I said. “There’s apparently a small shrine up in the mountains that isn’t being used anymore, and he said to stick this talisman on its main hall─that was the job he gave us.”

  “…What’s with that?” Kanbaru sounded mystified. “The talisman part doesn’t make any sense, but to begin with, can’t Mister Oshino just do it himself? He has all the time in the world, doesn’t he?”

  “I agree, but that’s our job. I went into a ridiculous amount of debt when he helped me out… Doesn’t the same go for you, Kanbaru?”

  “Huh?”

  “I know it’s a little fuzzier in your case, but he’s a professional, despite everything else about him. He’s not so kind that he’d lend you a hand pro bono. You’re indebted to him, and you need to work to pay it off.”

  “Ohh, so that’s why...” Kanbaru nodded, seemingly convinced.

  “Yup,” I picked up where she left off, “that’s why I asked you to come out here. Oshino asked us to do this yesterday when I went to have Shinobu drink my blood. He said to make sure to bring you along.”

  “Now that you mention it, Mister Oshino did insist that he was lending me a hand… Huh. I see, it meant that I’d be in his debt.”

  “There you go.”

  “All right. No point in arguing if that’s the case.”

  Kanbaru squeezed and latched on to my arm even tighter. There seemed to be a complicated meaning behind the act that I couldn’t hope to understand, but at any rate, it looked like she’d made up her mind. She certainly came across as the upstanding type who honored her end of the bargain.

  “Still,” she said, “I’ve been near that mountain a few times but never knew there was a shrine.”

  “Me, neither… Even if it’s fallen out of use, you’d at least expect to have heard about it. Why does Oshino know about spots that locals like us aren’t aware of? I guess the same goes for that abandoned cram school he’s living in now.”

  Maybe he was actually more knowledgeable about ruins than he was about aberrations. At the same time, like our pay phones, it really is the mark of a rural town that a forgotten shrine and cram school aren’t getting overrun by weirdoes… Then again, that could be exactly how you described that cram school since Oshino and Shinobu lived there…

  “But─if you’re going to put it that way,” questioned Kanbaru, “why hasn’t my other dear senior come along with us? Both of you owe Mister Oshino a─”

  “Senjogahara is astute about that kind of thing, so she already paid back her debt. Remember I gave Oshino a hundred thousand yen when you were there? That was it.”

  “Ah, now that you mention it, you did discuss some such matter. I see, so that’s what you meant… Hm, now there’s my senior.”

  “In her case, it’s not so much about being upstanding, it’s more like she hates being indebted to people. She’s the kind of person who’d endure life all alone.”

  “Did she say anything about today?”

  “Hmm? No, not really. Not even a ‘be careful.’”

  She really hadn’t.

  Since I was technically bringing “her” junior along with me, I did make sure to bring it up with her before calling on Kanbaru, but Senjogahara’s reaction had been bland, as if I shouldn’t have troubled her with such a trivial matter. I found myself wanting to complain that it was thanks to her attitude that I’d ended up going on a date with her junior before I went on one with her, conveniently turning a blind eye to my own weak will.

  “Did she say anything to you, Kanbaru?”

  “Mm. She said to have you pamper me.”

  “………”

  She really did indulge Kanbaru.

  Jeez, a tsundere was supposed to show her sweet side to her boyfriend, not her junior.

  “She told me something else. ‘If Araragi tries to lay a finger on you, don’t hide it from me but report it right away. He can choose between being buried in the mountains and becoming fish food, whichever he hates more.’”

  “Whichever I hate more?!”

  She was merciless.

  But─well.

  It did seem like Hitagi Senjogahara was heading in the right direction. She’d encountered an aberration before entering high school, and apparently she’d thrown everything away, given up on everything─so this meant she was getting back to where she used to be. For someone who’d endure life all alone─learning how to interact with others couldn’t be a bad thing.

  I was actually glad to see it.

  Since she was human─that was good.

  “Oh, right, Kanbaru. Talking about Senjogahara reminds me. It’s her birthday soon, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. July seventh.”

  “…Sounds like you don’t need to check your calendar for that one.”

  “We’re talking about someone I love.”

  “Well, I have a request about it.”

  “Anything you want. This body belongs to you, to begin with. There’s no need to check with me over every little thing, use me as you see fit.”

  “No, it’s nothing that big, just that it’s a special day that I thought we could celebrate. The only thing is that I’ve been fairly detached from those kinds of events for a while now, and I don’t know how they go. That’s where I was hoping you could help me out, Kanbaru.”

  “I see. You need me to strip?”

  “Even I know that birthdays aren’t that kind of event! What kind of occasion are you trying to turn my girlfriend’s special day into?!”

  “Ah. I jumped the gun.”

  “There isn’t going to be a time when that gun ever goes off. Go back and sit on the bench. For the rest of your life. Well, actually, I’d appreciate it if you could help out with the setup and planning. I know there was a gap in your relationship, but you probably know more about Senjogahara than I do. That’s all.”

  “Hmm. I don’t know, this is her first birthday since you started going out, so don’t you think you should set the mood and spend the day alone together? I feel like me trying to help out would only get in the way.”

  “Get in the way?”

  “Yes. An unwanted kindness can be a pain in the butt, just a nuisance.”

  “Ahh. I did consider that, but I thought a livelier celebration might be good for our first birthday together. I was thinking of inviting Oshino and Shinobu, and maybe this one grade schooler that I know, and holding a nice little birthday party.”

  The idea did have issues in that Senjogahara disliked Oshino, Shinobu, and Hachikuji, but that was something I needed to power through. I had to do my best to create a situation where she couldn’t say so outright.

  “Well─if you’re okay with it, so am I,” Kanbaru consented.

  “Really? That sounds evasive.”

  “Well, if you don’t mind me saying so, while I do have the utmost respect for your intentions, she might want to spend the time alone with you.”

  “You think she’s that sanctimonious about our relationship?”

  She hadn’t even gone on a date with me.

  I’d been asking her out pretty clearly, too.

  Of course, it hadn’t been the right time, what with Kanbaru and the skills test right afterwards.

  Her defenses were just so tight.

  “At any rate,” I noted, “you seem to care about me and Senjogahara in a pretty normal way when you and I are supposed to be rivals fighting over her.”

  “Well, true… But right now, it’s like I’m in love with her even as she’s going out with you… And I love you, her boyfriend, almost as much as I love her.”

  “……”

  Did she just confess to me?

  Uh oh, my pulse was rising.

  She might even feel my heartbeat through our arms.