by Nisioisin
“Or could this be the flip side of love? Do you have a thing for your sisters, Araragi?”
“No. The idea of being in love with your little sister is a delusion held by people who don’t actually have little sisters. That would never happen in real life.”
“Wow, Araragi. It’s very ugly of you to act superior just because they don’t have something you do.”
………
What was she even trying to say?
“You know, like, ‘Oh, money’s not important,’ or ‘I wish I’d never gotten a girlfriend!’ or ‘What school you went to doesn’t matter’… Don’t you hate those kinds of arrogant people?”
“Having a little sister is a bit different from those examples…”
“I see. So you’re not romantically interested in your little sisters? You’d never fall in love with them?”
“How could I?”
“Right, I guess you do strike me as more of a sororate fetishist.”
Sororate?
That was a word I hadn’t heard before.
“You know, like a sororate marriage? Levirate marriage for women, where a man’s wife dies, so he marries her sister.”
“…I’m as amazed as ever by your vast wealth of knowledge, but why would I be a soro-whatever?”
“You have younger sisters, not older sisters. I bet you’ll have a girl who’s unrelated to you call you ‘big brother,’ as her brother-in-law, before you marry her…and make her call you ‘big brother’ even after you’re husband and wife. Now that’s a true, realistic representation of─”
“I bet I also murdered my original wife!” I reacted to Senjogahara’s words before she could finish, a violation of traditional straight-man etiquette.
“Anyway, you sororate fetishist─”
“Just call me a sister-lover, please!”
“You said you’d never fall in love with your biological sisters.”
“I didn’t say I would if it were my sister-in-law!”
“So you’ll be falling in love with a girlfriend-in-law.”
“Again…wait, what? You can have a girlfriend-in-law?”
What the hell.
When I gave it a bit more thought, it made some sort of sense. But in that case, what might a biological girlfriend… No, I was getting way off track…
“You really are a small-minded person if you get worked up by a few minor remarks like that,” Senjogahara said.
“Your remarks are anything but minor.”
“I was only testing you.”
“Why are you testing me? And wait, does that mean you’re holding back?!”
“If I gave it my all, I’d transform.”
“Transform?! Whoa, now that, I wanna see!”
Well, part of me did, but part of me didn’t…
Senjogahara exhaled and looked pensive.
“You’re a very small person for how big your reactions are. I wonder if there’s some kind of relation. But I won’t give up on you, Araragi, no matter how small you are. I promise to be right there by your side, every petty step you take.”
“You and your subtle jabs.”
“I’ll always be by your side. From the mountains in the west to the oceans of the east. Even down into hell, if I must.”
“…You see, that line might cast you in a good light, but what does it say about me?”
“So is there anything bothering you that doesn’t involve your pettiness?”
“………”
Did she hate me or what?
Was I a victim of some severe bullying here?
I was beginning to hope that I just had a persecution complex.
“There’s nothing in particular…” I said.
“And there’s nothing you desire, either─hmm…”
“I wonder what kind of abuse you’ll be hurling at me next.”
“It’s fabulous how much of a broad-minded, accepting person you are.”
“False praise if I’ve ever heard any!”
“It’s fantabulous, Araragi.”
“Like I just said… What was that? Some sort of soda ad?”
“It’s a combination of ‘fantastic’ and ‘fabulous.’ Have you really never heard that before?”
“No…and you must be up to something to go so far as to pull out a neologism that must have died generations ago to praise me.”
And of all the things to say, “broad-minded”…when I was just telling her about how petty I was.
“I just thought I’d strike first. I was afraid you’d tell me ‘no insults for a week’ or something.”
“Like you’d really be able to do that,” I scoffed.
It’d be tantamount to asking her to stop breathing, or for her heart to stop beating.
And if you took insults away from Senjogahara, even for a week, she wouldn’t be Senjogahara. It wouldn’t be any fun for me, either… Hold on, since when did I turn into the kind of character that relied on Senjogahara’s abuse to keep going?
This was getting dangerous…
“Fine, then… Though it was shocking to see you without a single idea the moment I banned erotic requests.”
“That may be true, but I didn’t have any ideas before you banned them either.”
“Okay, Araragi, I get it. Then I’ll allow them, as long as they’re only mildly sexual. Upon my name, I hereby allow you to unleash your desires.”
“………”
Did she actually want me to?
Great, now I was feeling overly self-conscious. This was getting dizzying.
“Do you really not have anything? You don’t want me to help you with your homework?”
“I’ve given up on that already. Just as long as I can graduate.”
“Then how about being able to graduate?”
“I’ll do that fine if I just proceed normally!”
“Then how about just being able to proceed normally?”
“You’re picking a fight with me, aren’t you, aren’t you?!”
“Then how about, say─”
Senjogahara made a show of waiting a measured pause, of getting her timing right, before continuing.
“Having a girlfriend?”
“………”
Was this─another case of being too self-conscious?
It seemed to be a meaningful statement.
“And what would happen…if I said yes?”
“You’d get a girlfriend,” she coolly replied. “That’s all.”
I sat there in silence.
Yeah…
If you felt like it, it was definitely the kind of line you could read into.
To be honest, I had no clue what kind of situation I had gotten myself in─but it seemed wrong to take advantage of someone who’s in your gratitude, regardless of what happened and how. Forget about ethics and morals, it simply didn’t feel right.
A girlfriend-in-law─was it?
What Oshino said was starting to make sense.
You just got saved on your own.
From Oshino’s perspective, what I’d done─for Senjogahara, for the class president, and for that woman over spring break…for the demon─may have been beautiful, but it wasn’t right.
No one else solved Senjogahara’s problems, her own sincere thinking did.
In that sense─it would be uncouth.
No matter what I asked for.
So.
“No, nothing like that either, really,” I said.
“Hmph. I see.”
Even if there was some deeper meaning hidden in what she’d said, it turned unknowable once more, whatever it may have been─as Senjogahara spoke those emotionless words.
“Buy me a soda next time or something, and we’ll call it even.”
“I see. A stranger to greed.”
You really are broad-minded, she said, as if to tie in everything.
It must have been her way of signaling that she was done with the topic.
So.
I decided to face forward. It
felt like I had been looking at Senjogahara’s face for a long while, so I focused on something else, whether intentionally or out of awkwardness─and there.
And there I saw a girl.
A girl carrying a large backpack.
003
The girl looked to be in late elementary school, and she was heading toward a metal sign at the edge of the park─a residential map of the area. Her back was to me, so I had no idea what she looked like, but the large backpack she carried was just so notable─which meant I recognized her immediately. That’s right, she was facing that residential map in the same way only moments earlier, before Senjogahara showed up. It didn’t take long for her to run off that time─but she seemed to have returned. From the looks of it, she was comparing a note she carried with what was printed on the sign.
Hmm.
In other words, she was a lost child. The note must have had a handwritten map or an address written on it.
I focused my sight on her.
And when I did, I noticed a nametag sewn onto her backpack─“Grade 5, Class 3,” and her name inscribed with a thick permanent marker.
I wasn’t a hundred percent sure how you read the characters for her first name, but…it was probably “Mayoi.”
Her last name, though… How was it read? I’d never seen it before. “Yakudera”…maybe?
Language arts wasn’t my strong suit.
In that case, I thought, I’d try asking someone for whom it was.
“…Hey, Senjogahara. You see that grade schooler in front of that sign? How do you read that last name written on her backpack?”
“Huh?” Senjogahara looked puzzled. “Are you kidding me? I can’t even see it.”
“Oh…”
Right.
I’d forgotten.
My body wasn’t normal anymore─and I’d fed Shinobu my blood the day before, on Saturday. At that moment, my physical abilities were far greater than normal, though not to the degree they had been over spring break. That of course went for my vision, too. If I wasn’t careful─I’d see things in the far distance like they were right in front of me. It’s not as if making them out posed a problem, but seeing stuff that other people don’t─isn’t such a good feeling.
It creates discord with others.
Senjogahara had that problem, too.
“Umm…” I said to her, “it’s written with the characters for the numbers eight and nine, followed by the one for ‘temple’…”
“…? Well, you’d read that as ‘Hachikuji.’”
“‘Hachikuji’?”
“Yes. Are you that illiterate, Araragi? At your academic level, I’m surprised you managed to graduate kindergarten.”
“I could graduate kindergarten with my eyes closed!”
“That is a gross overestimation of your own abilities.”
“Now you’re even nitpicking my retorts?!”
“You’re not going to impress anyone with those kinds of conceited remarks.”
“You’re impressing me, for what it’s worth…”
“But seriously, anyone with so much as a slight interest in Japanese history or classics, which is to say anyone with any intellectual curiosity, would know how to read it. There are such things as dumb questions, Araragi, and you’re dumb whether or not you ask them.”
“Yeah, okay, whatever. I’m a bad student.”
“You’re sorely mistaken if you think recognizing that fact makes it any better.”
“……”
Had I done something to her?
I could have sworn we were just talking about how she was going to thank me…
“Sheesh… Well, anyway,” I said. “So I guess that means her name is read ‘Mayoi Hachikuji.’”
What an odd name.
Then again, it might have been more normal than “Hitagi Senjogahara” or “Koyomi Araragi.” Whatever the case, it wasn’t in good taste to go on about people’s names.
“Um…” I began, looking toward Senjogahara.
Hmph.
I couldn’t imagine her being the type to like little kids… She seemed more the type to toss a ball in the opposite direction if one came rolling her way. I could see her punting a crying child for being too loud.
Which meant that it’d be safest to go alone.
If it were anyone other than Senjogahara, I’d want to bring a girl with me so the child might lower her guard.
But that was off the table.
“Hey, could you wait here for a minute?”
“That’s fine with me, but where are you off to?”
“I’m going to talk to that elementary school kid.”
“I wouldn’t if I were you. You’ll only end up feeling hurt.”
“………”
She really didn’t think twice before saying some awful things, did she?
Whatever, we could discuss that later.
For now, that child.
Mayoi Hachikuji.
I stood up from the bench and jogged across the park─to where the metal sign stood, where the girl with the backpack was. She seemed engrossed in comparing the map to her note and didn’t notice me approaching her from behind.
I called to her when only a step remained between us.
I tried to sound as friendly and sociable as I could.
“Hey there. What’s the matter, are you lost?”
The girl turned around.
She wore her hair in pigtails, with bangs so short her eyebrows were showing.
Her face gave me the impression that she was bright.
The girl─Mayoi Hachikuji─scrutinized me first before opening her mouth.
“Please don’t speak to me. I don’t like you.”
“………”
………
I returned to the bench in a zombie-like gait.
Senjogahara looked at me quizzically.
“What’s the matter? Did something happen?”
“I’m feeling hurt… I only ended up feeling hurt…”
The damage was even worse than I expected.
It took a dozen or so seconds for me to recover.
“…I’m going again.”
“And where are you off to, and why?”
“Can’t you tell just from watching?”
With that, I tried anew.
The girl, Hachikuji, had returned to looking at the sign as if her encounter with me had never taken place. She was checking it against her note. I took a peek at it from over her shoulder─and on it was an address, not a map. I wasn’t sure, not knowing the area, but it had to be nearby.
“Hey, you.”
“………”
“You’re lost, right? Where do you want to go?”
“………”
“Here, let me look at that note.”
“………”
“………”
………
I returned to the bench in a zombie-like gait.
“What’s the matter? Did something happen?”
“I got ignored… I was given the silent treatment by an elementary school girl…”
The damage was even worse than I expected.
It took a dozen or so seconds for me to recover.
“This time will be different… I’m going.”
“You know, Araragi, I don’t really understand what it is you’re trying to do, or why you’re doing it…”
“Just leave me alone…”
With that, I tried for the third time.
The girl, Hachikuji, was facing the sign.
Figuring that the first to act had the advantage, I smacked her in the back of the head. Her guard all the way down, Hachikuji’s exposed forehead bumped into the sign.