by Nisioisin
You couldn’t even guess the word she’d maybe misspoken.
Naturally, I had no idea what she was trying to say, but even as I thought so, Senjogahara changed the subject.
“Hey, Araragi. Can I ask you something? Not that it really matters.”
“Yeah.”
“What did you mean by ‘like the face of the Moon’?”
“Huh? What’re you talking about?”
“You said it earlier, to Mister Oshino.”
“Umm…”
Ah.
Right, I remembered.
“About the crab,” I explained, “that guy Oshino said it can also be a rabbit or a beautiful woman. That’s what I was talking about. People in Japan see rabbits in the moon, while in other countries they say it’s a crab or a person’s face.”
Well, it’s not that I see anything of the sort, but that’s how the story goes.
“Got it.” Senjogahara nodded along, perking up. “I’m surprised you know such a lame fact. You’ve managed to impress me for the first time ever.”
She said lame.
She said the first time ever.
So I decided to double down.
“Well, I know a thing or two when it comes to astronomy and cosmology. I was really into it for a while.”
“It’s okay, you don’t need to try to act smart with me. I already have you figured out. That’s about the only thing you know, right?”
“You must think ‘verbal abuse’ is just a cute expression.”
“Fine then, go ahead and call the verbal police.”
“……”
I had a feeling that the real police wouldn’t know what to do with her.
“Look,” I insisted, “I’m not that clueless. Um, for example, in Japan it’s a rabbit on the face of the Moon, but do you know why?”
“There aren’t any rabbits on the Moon, Araragi. You’re in high school and you still believe that?”
“Hypothetically speaking.”
Wait. Hypothetically?
Did I mean figuratively?
This wasn’t going so well…
“Once upon a time there was a god, or maybe it was the Buddha, but forget which, let’s just say there was a god. For this god’s sake, a rabbit chose to hop into a fire and to cook itself as a divine offering. Moved by its self-sacrifice, the god pinned its form up on the Moon in the sky so people would never forget the rabbit.”
I was going off of some shaky knowledge salvaged from vague memories of a TV show I’d seen as a child, but I was sure those were the details.
“That was a cruel thing for the god to do,” remarked Senjogahara. “It’s like the rabbit got pilloried.”
“No, it’s not that kind of story.”
“I don’t know about that rabbit, either. Its transparent calculation that a display of self-sacrifice would win the god’s recognition is almost grasping.”
“It absolutely isn’t that kind of story.”
“In any case, it’s not for the likes of me.”
Having said this.
She started taking her top off again, her new one.
“…Are you just proud of your body and trying to show off or what?”
“I’m not so conceited as to be proud of my body. It was just inside out, and backwards, too.”
“That’s almost skilled.”
“I will admit, wearing clothes isn’t my forte.”
“So you’re like a kid.”
“No, they’re heavy.”
“Ack.”
That was thoughtless.
Right, if a bag felt heavy, clothes would too.
If everything had ten times the weight, your clothes were nothing to sneeze at.
I regretted it.
It was an insensitive─a careless thing to say.
“This,” she said, “I might get tired of but never get used to─but you’re actually quite erudite, Araragi. You’ve surprised me. There just might be some brain in that head of yours.”
“Of course there is.”
“Don’t take things for granted… The cranium of an organism like you containing brain matter would be an event bordering on a miracle, all right?”
“Wow, that’s a really mean thing to say.”
“Don’t let it bother you. I’m only stating facts here.”
“I’d say someone in this room deserves to die…”
“What? Hoshina isn’t here, though.”
“Could you possibly have just claimed that a mentor to be respected, our homeroom teacher, deserves to die?!”
“Did the crab, too?”
“Huh?”
“Did it choose to hop into a fire, like the rabbit?”
“O-Oh… Well, I haven’t come across anything about the crab. I wonder if there’s a backstory. I never thought about it… Probably because the Moon has seas on it?”
“There aren’t any seas on the Moon. How could you say that so smugly?”
“What? There aren’t? Weren’t there…”
“So much for your astronomy. They’re not real seas, they’re only called that.”
“Oh…”
Hmmm.
I certainly couldn’t hope to keep up with an actual smart person.
“Oh dear, Araragi, it seems you’ve shown your true colors. How rash of me to posit even for a moment that you possess any knowledge.”
“You must think I’m really stupid.”
“How did you figure that out?!”
“You look genuinely shocked!”
So she thought she was hiding it.
Really?
She lamented, “Because of me, Araragi, you’ve noticed how pitiful your mind is… I feel responsible.”
“Hey, hold on, am I really that severely stupid?”
“Relax. Discriminating against people on account of their grades is something I’d never do.”
“The way you phrased that is already setting off alarm bells!”
“Could you not spray your spittle? I might catch your truncated schooling.”
“We go to the same high school!”
“Yes, but what about after that?”
“Urk…” She had me there.
“A graduate degree for me, while you’re going to drop out of high school.”
“I’ve made it to my senior year and I’m not quitting now!”
“Soon enough, you’ll be crying and begging to be let off.”
“A villain’s line that I only ever hear in comics just rolls off your tongue?!”
“Let’s compare test percentiles. Ninety-ninth for me.”
“Guh…” She beat me to the punch. “Th-Thirty-fifth for me…”
“So zero, if you round.”
“What?! Liar, a five gets… Wait, are you rounding by the tens?! How dare you do that to my percentile!”
She had more than sixty percentage points on me, she was beating a dead horse!
“I don’t feel victorious until I’m up by a hundred points.”
“You’d round yours by the tens, too…”
Merciless.
“So from now on, I don’t want you coming within a 20,000-kilometer radius of me.”
“Did you just order me off the face of the Earth?!”
“By the way, did the god do the rabbit the favor and actually feast on it?”
“Huh? Oh, you’re back to that. Did he feast on it… If you pursued it that far, it would become a tale of the bizarre, okay?”
“It already is, pursued or not.”
“Oh yeah? Why would I know, I’m stupid.”
“Don’t pout. You’re gonna wreck my mood.”
“Are you ever going to start feeling bad for me?”
“Pitying you alone won’t rid the world of war.”
“Don’t be theorizing about the world when you can’t even save a single human being! Start by helping the sad little life in front of you! I know you’re up to it!”
“Hmph. All right, I’ve made up my mind,” Senjogahara said, ha
ving dressed herself at last in a white tank top, a white jacket, and a white flared skirt. “If this all goes well, it’s going to be crabs in Hokkaido.”
“I’m pretty sure you can eat crabs without going all the way up to Hokkaido, and I don’t think they’re in season now, but sure, if that’s what you want to do, be my guest.”
“You’re coming with me.”
“Why?!”
“Oh, you didn’t know?” Senjogahara smiled. “Crabs, Araragi, are delicious.”
006
Our town in the provinces is also out in the country.
It gets incredibly dark at night. Pitch blackness. The contrast with daytime is such that the interior and exterior of an abandoned building becomes nearly indistinguishable.
For me, having lived here my entire life, that hardly feels off or strange, and really, that’s how nature is supposed to work, but according to someone like Oshino, a drifter─the contrast tends to be entangled with the root of the problem more often than not.
It made the root easier to discern and comprehend─he told me that, too.
Either way.
It was now a little after midnight.
Senjogahara and I biked back to the cram school ruins. We used an actual cushion from Senjogahara’s home for the rear seat.
I was mildly hungry, as I hadn’t eaten anything.
When I parked my bike in the same spot I’d used in the evening and entered the grounds through the same hole in the fence, Oshino was there waiting for us at the entrance.
As if he’d been there for ages.
“Wha…” Senjogahara voiced surprise at his attire.
Oshino was wrapped in a white robe─a Shinto priest’s. His scruffy hair was set neatly in place, and he at least looked tidier and was barely recognizable from the evening.
The robes make the man.
That he somehow looked the part was, actually, offensive.
“You were─a Shinto priest, Mister Oshino?” asked Senjogahara.
“What? Um, no?” he casually denied. “I’m no chief holy or ritualist. It’s what I studied in school, but I never went to work for a shrine. I had too many objections.”
“Objections…”
“Personal reasons. Maybe the truth is that it all started to seem silly to me. These clothes are just a way of dressing up for the occasion. I didn’t have any other clean ones, that’s all. We’re going to meet a god, missy, so I have to look my best too. Didn’t I tell you? Setting the mood. For Araragi, it was holding crosses, dangling garlic, and fighting with holy water. The situation is what matters. Don’t worry, I might be lacking in manners, but I know what the deal is. I won’t wave around a rod offhand or toss salt all over your head.”
“O-Okay…”
Senjogahara seemed a bit daunted.
True, his outfit was striking, but coming from her, it seemed like a bit of an overreaction. It made me wonder.
“Yup, missy, you look clean and pure. Well done. Just to make sure, are you wearing any makeup?”
“No, I thought it would be better not to.”
“I see. Well, for now, that was the right choice. And you, Araragi, you did take a shower?”
“Yeah, don’t worry.”
I hadn’t had a choice since I was going to be present for this, and the little incident that ensued when Senjogahara tried to sneak a peek as I showered could stay a secret.
“Hmph. You, though, look your same old self.”
“What’s that got to do with anything?” I retorted.
I mean, even if I was going to be present, I was an outsider. Not having changed clothes too, unlike Senjogahara, of course I looked my same old self.
“Then let’s get this over with. I’ve prepared a space on the third floor.”
“A space?”
“Yep,” Oshino said and disappeared into the darkness of the building. Despite his glaringly white robes, he was soon invisible. I took Senjogahara’s hand just as I’d done in the evening and followed after him.
“You know, Oshino, you say ‘over with’ and are acting awfully laid back, but are you sure?”
“Sure? About what? I’ve summoned a boy and a girl of a tender age out here in the middle of the night. Any adult would want to finish up as quickly as possible.”
“What I’m asking is if it’ll be that easy to beat back this crab, or whatever it is.”
“What a violent line of thought, Araragi. Something good happen to you?” Oshino shrugged without so much as turning around. “This time isn’t like little Shinobu in your case or that lust-besotted cat in missy class president’s. And don’t forget, Araragi, I’m a pacifist. My basic policy is non-violent total obedience. You and missy class president were assaulted with malice and hostility. This crab is different.”
“That’s not true─” It’d done harm, in fact, so why not judge that it bore malice or hostility?
“Didn’t I tell you? We’re dealing with a god. It’s just there and hasn’t done anything. As a matter of course─it’s just there. Araragi, once school is over for the day, you go home too, don’t you? It’s like that. Missy’s been wavering all on her own.”
It doesn’t harm, it doesn’t attack.
It doesn’t possess.
“All on her own” sounded kind of mean, but Senjogahara said nothing. Did she simply have no thoughts pertaining to that, or was she, given what was to follow, trying not to react too much to his words?
“So Araragi,” counseled Oshino, “whether it’s beating back or up or down, lose those dangerous ideas. We’re about to ask a god for a favor. Be humble.”
“A favor, huh?”
“Right. A favor.”
“And if we ask nicely, it’s going to say here, and give it back? Senjogahara’s─weight. Her body weight.”
“I won’t say definitely, but probably. This isn’t like spending New Year’s Eve at a shrine. Well, they usually aren’t so hard-headed as to turn down a sincere request. The gods are a fairly undiscerning bunch. Especially Japanese ones. Putting aside humans taken as a cluster, they couldn’t care less about us on an individual basis. They really don’t, okay? In fact, in face of a god, you, me, and missy over there are indistinguishable. Age, gender, weight, none of that matters, and all three of us are the same to them, humans.”
We were─
Not just similar, but the same to them.
“Huh… So this is fundamentally different from a curse.”
“Hey,” Senjogahara said, her voice full of resolve, “is that crab─still near me?”
“It is. It’s there, and it’s everywhere. But if we seek its advent here─then certain steps will be necessary.”
We arrived at the third floor.
We entered one of the classrooms.
A straw warding rope had been hung around the walls. The chairs and tables had been taken elsewhere, and an altar sat in front of the blackboard. Considering that the space was complete with stands filled with offerings, it couldn’t have been slapped together after our earlier talk. Small lamps stood in each of the room’s four corners and filled it with a dim light.
“Think of it as a spiritual field,” Oshino explained. “The realm of divinity, as they say. It’s nothing to get worked up about. You don’t need to be so nervous, missy.”
“I’m─not nervous.”
“Is that so? Fantastic,” Oshino said, proceeding into the classroom. “Could the two of you please lower your heads and cast down your eyes?”
“What?”
“We’re already standing before a god.”
Then─the three of us lined up in front of the altar.
These were nothing like the measures he took for me or Hanekawa ─speaking of nervous, I was the one feeling nervous. Such a stuffy mood─just this mood was making me feel funny.
My body shrank.
I couldn’t help but be on guard.