Tsukimonogatari

by Nisioisin

  “You’re the one who’s eyeing your little sister’s boobs, big brother.”

  “Yeah right. It’s not like I’ve never seen them before.”

  “Isn’t that a little weird? A big brother who’s seeing his little sister’s boobs not for the first time?”

  “I’m all about them, I know all about those two hunks of meat.”

  “Don’t call them hunks of meat. Don’t talk about a woman’s chest like you’re at a butcher shop.”

  “Psh. You don’t have anything to worry about with those melons.”

  I must have been rattled by the situation after all, though, because as soon as I said this I realized I’d lost track of what “melons” meant as slang. Did it refer to big breasts or small breasts?

  Judging from the huge grin on Tsukihi’s face, probably the former. Dammit, I might as well have sent her a fruit basket along with that one. Or maybe it was just a case of sour grapes.

  Not that I know what it is here.

  “Though the fact is,” I regrouped.

  Again.

  “You and Karen happily flounce down the hall half-naked during summer time. Forget half-naked, you’ve got a three-quarters-naked lifestyle. Nudity is one of your essential biogenic needs. So being in the bathroom together is no big thing at all. If there’s a problem, it’s just that we’re a little too close together.”

  “That’s exactly the problem. That’s exactly the big problem, isn’t it, big brother? If you came this close to me in the hall in the summertime, you’d get a taste of my elbow.”

  “Elbow…” So realistic an attack─in fact our elbows were already touching.

  “I’d elbow you even if I were fully dressed.”

  “Aren’t you being a little harsh towards your older brother? But dammit, it really is narrow in here…narrow like a certain someone’s mind. Tsukihi, hurry up and finish washing your hair already. I guess I have no choice, I’ll cede the right to be first into the tub.”

  The whole point of the Battle for the First Bath became unclear if I gave up now, but it wasn’t about that anymore.

  Forget about the bath or being first, simply feeling superior to Tsukihi, my impudent little middle school brat of a sister Tsukihi Araragi, was my goal now. Bringing her to heel.

  I wanted to make the girl who, I’m pretty sure, never once thanked me for anything in her life, say: Thank you, big brother.

  I wanted to make her express her gratitude to me verbally.

  But the more I pressed, the more she resisted. That’s Tsukihi for you.

  Or rather, her mindset might have been similar to my own here.

  “Feh. Shouldn’t you be the one, big brother? I’d sooner cede it to you than let you cede it to me. It’s a cedar tub, after all.”

  “Cedar? Isn’t it plastic? Quit screwing around and get in there like I told you.”

  “And I told you that I don’t want to.”

  “Gaaa!”

  “Grrr!”

  When a battle of wills goes sub-verbal, you know it’s all over.

  The end of the world.

  Our quarrel descended into a fierce clashing of elbows, our elbows as we both washed our hair clashing like sabers─thankfully we were side by side and both facing front, but at this rate we were going to end up six-pack to boobs.

  The awkwardness was quelled somewhat by our loud dispute, but the fundamental problem hadn’t been dealt with.

  This was a wildly immoral, or maybe just plain old distasteful situation.

  But here again came clever Tsukihi to the rescue─her wheels really do turn faster than mine.

  The plan she proposed: “Listen, big brother, let’s wash our hair one at a time. We each have too much hair for us to do it side by side, it’s inefficient. Uneconomical.”

  “I’m pretty sure economics has nothing to do with washing your hair…”

  But she was absolutely right in terms of efficiency.

  Even she could be right once in a while.

  We were using good shampoo and everything, but doing it this way was killing its cost-performance index. Not to mention, the stress was liable to make our hair start falling out.

  “But Tsukihi, if side by side is no good, what do we do? When you say we’ll wash our hair one at a time, what exactly are you envisioning, logistically speaking?”

  “This!!”

  Tsukihi leapt up energetically and got behind me. Her tendency to become enthused without warning, written or otherwise, was another element of her peakiness. Her emotions constantly going from positive to negative to hot to cold also made her nothing but a completely unpredictable pain in the ass, but in any event, she got behind me and thrust her hands into my soapy hair.

  “I’m going to wash your hair for you!!”

  “That…”

  This that was of course an abbreviated form of the expression of surprise that’s crazy, but at the same time, of that answers my question. She was right that trying to wash our hair at the same time in such a confined space was tricky, but if we washed each other’s hair, we’d fit into place like puzzle pieces.

  It was like two hostages abducted and stuffed together in a small room, with their hands tied behind their backs, having a hard time untying their own bonds but undoing them with surprising ease once they put themselves back to back.

  A real paradigm shift.

  Like the Copernican Revolution.

  I had to doff my chapeau to Tsukihi, she’d won this round. But… “What’s a chapeau, anyway?”

  “It’s a hat, isn’t it? That you use to hide the bedhead on your absurdly long hair.”

  “Stop making things up. I never wore a hat to hide my bedhead.”

  “Well, I have.”

  “Don’t tip your hand, I don’t want to know your style tips.”

  “Scrub-a-dub-duuub,” Tsukihi added sound effects as she lathered up my hair.

  She made it seem like they were coming from my head─either she was a fool or she was making a fool out of me, and I almost told her to quit it, but no point in getting myself all in a lather. I gritted my teeth and let it happen.

  Mature amid the moisture, humility in the humidity.

  “Hmm. I’m feeling oddly superior washing someone’s hair, I like it. Literally holding someone’s most vital organ in your hands is so pleasurable. Holding their life in your hands. Now I know how a hairdresser feels.”

  “Don’t go around acting like you understand other people’s feelings, and stop talking such horseshit. Hairdressers don’t think about stuff like that.”

  “But if this were a barbershop, you’d get a shave. I’d shave your face with a straight razor, right? Now that’s absolutely a dominance relationship.”

  “A dominance relationship, or…”

  A relationship based on trust, more like.

  But regardless of how she said it, I got what she was saying.

  The reverse was also true.

  Although holding my life in her hands was an exaggerated way of putting it, trusting someone else with your head and body can be a very pleasurable experience, depending on the context. In the course of our daily lives, we unconsciously guard ourselves against everyone and everything around us─turning off that security system once in a while might carry with it a certain feeling of liberation.

  That comes with the caveat that the other person will do you no harm, of course… But a theory that trust is important in interpersonal relationships because it’s connected to a feeling of liberation, or even of pleasure, might hold water.

  Then again, my despicable little sister (where’s this justice you supposedly defend?) saw that relationship of trust as dominance.

  Though it’s basically true.

  Basically true, and basic psychology.

  Since total domination of someone, their total reliance on you, is liberating and pleasant─though I’ve gotten somewhat off track here, and to sum up what was really going on, my little sister was just washing my hair in the morning.
r />   “Hunh,” she grunted.

  “What’s wrong, Shampoocifer?”

  “Don’t address your little sister like she’s the devil! I haven’t made you sign anything in exchange of washing your head, have I? Anyway, with my hands on your head like this, giving it a scrub scrub and a rub rub, I’m surprised how teeny-weeny it is.”

  “Says the littler little sister.”

  “Yeah right. We’re almost the same height now. I feel like I’ve really been growing.”

  “How tall do the two of you plan on getting, anyway…”

  “Not that I want to get as tall as Karen. Seems tough to be that size. But we’re sisters, and I guess I can’t help but keep growing, same as Karen. Actually, we were about the same height back in elementary school.”

  “…”

  It was terrifying to contemplate.

  Both sisters, taller than me, their older brother… To hell with an older brother’s authority and dignity.

  My head wouldn’t be the only teeny-weeny thing.

  “But maybe there’s hope,” I said. “The hope that I, the older brother, will get as big as Karen yet lies dormant at the bottom of that Pandora’s Box.”

  “I hate to rain on your parade, but you’d better rein in those hopes. Your reign as the tallest one in the family is over for good.”

  “Don’t crush my dreams with a triple homophone, Tsukihi, don’t dump out Pandora’s Box. Because I’m warning you, if you ever get taller than me, I’ll make you a head shorter again even if it means I have to lop off your feet.”

  “That’s horrifying. That amounts to a death threat.”

  “Ridiculous. Can’t you divine the brotherly compassion in my threat, you little turd? I could’ve said I’d make you a foot shorter by lopping off your head.”

  “You could’ve, my ass.”

  She twisted my neck.

  I’d forgotten that she held my life in her hands.

  “C’mon, I’ll preserve your severed feet in my room,” I offered.

  “You keep getting more grotesque. Extra grotesque.”

  “Extra, huh?”

  “The fact is if I stood my hair straight up, I could crush you and even Karen right now. It’d be a landslide.”

  “If you stood all that hair on end, you’d look like a monster. It’d take some serious gel. But your hair’s about as long as your body, so it’s a simple calculation: you’d be twice as tall, right?”

  “Yup.”

  “I’d say so long to a little sister like that.”

  “Hm? Did you say something?”

  “You heard me fine!”

  Even if she didn’t stand it on end, with hair down to her ankles she looked every inch, every foot, every mile a monster. While I’ve seen illustrations of girls with hair like that in manga, it’d be genuinely scary in real life.

  But its fear factor aside, I’d witnessed any number of epic fails where Tsukihi tripped over her own hair.

  Don’t fail in front of someone preparing for exams! Such bad luck…

  I definitely found myself thinking just cut it already, but I’m sure she simply hadn’t found the right opportunity, same as me.

  “At the risk of repeating myself, though, your hair grows insanely fast.”

  “Not as fast as yours, big brother. Not nearly. You only started growing it this year, there’s no way it could grow that much normally. What’s your secret?”

  “There’s no secret to growing out your hair. It’s just… My metabolism might be even better than yours.”

  To be precise.

  My metabolism─sped up after spring break.

  “Okay, let’s stand it up,” Tsukihi said, beginning to play with my hair.

  Making shapes with the foam and molding it to look like Astro Boy’s.

  “Awesome. Astro Bro. Super Sibling.”

  “Trying to make me sound like a Super Saiyan.”

  “Rinse time!” Tsukihi grabbed the handheld showerhead and flushed all the shampoo out of my hair. And she didn’t neglect to throw in a little head massage, like a real hairdresser.

  Maybe all that time spent at the salon, back when she was constantly changing her hairstyle, had rubbed off on her.

  Next came the conditioner.

  This was from Tsukihi’s private stash as well.

  Though when I think about it, she’d only be able to wash all that hair about three times before the bottle was empty… Her metabolism might’ve been good, but it got terrible mileage.

  “Ooh, this conditioner is like wax, so now we can really shape your hair. Teehee, it’s like you’ve got a pompadour!”

  “Hey, quit playing around with my head… In fact, quit doing everything you’re doing.”

  Not that I could see what was going on up there.

  Something dreadful, I was pretty sure.

  “Heheh. Now I’ll wash your body for you.” Paying no heed to anything I said, Tsukihi picked up the family bottle of body soap that’s always in the bathroom. Squirting out an appropriate amount and working it into a lather, she suddenly exclaimed, “Oh! Big brother, big brother!”

  “Why the hell are you shouting like you clearly must’ve figured out something.”

  “A hilarious gag just came to me.”

  “As if. You’re setting me on edge.”

  The adjective hilarious doesn’t sound right with the term gag in the first place. That might come off kind of insulting to people who stake their livelihood on them, but gags are fundamentally more about the energy of the delivery than about actually being funny.

  “C’mon, c’mon, look over here, look over here.”

  “What is it?”

  I turned my head and looked over my shoulder like she asked me to.

  In other words, without a shred of embarrassment or anything else, my little sister was demanding that I look at her naked… The way she’d said it was so natural that, naturally, I obeyed, but was that okay?

  It was not.

  It was not, not, not okay.

  My little sister was posing naked for me.

  Sitting with her knees up and both hands clasped behind her head. And─with the body soap she’d lathered up so thoroughly in her palms dolloped across her chest, her crotch, and her thighs.

  “I call it, The Metropolitan Ordinance.”

  “Yikes!”

  Leave out the satire!

  In a panic I grabbed the hand basin, scooped some water out of the tub, and splashed it on her. Off came the soap bubbles. That might be even worse Metropolitan Ordinance-wise, but contriving to hide the naughty bits is much more objectionable in this sort of situation, in my humble opinion.

  Full frontal is more wholesome, and more artistic.

  “What are you dooooing?!” she complained.

  “What are you doing, you mean!”

  “Wait…maybe sticking up my hands and calling it The Skytree is better, less direct?”

  Tsukihi adopted just such a pose.

  She’d said something back in the changing room about her volume, and it did seem like she’d been working on her weight, but the reality is that she just wasn’t prone to plumpness. So when she stretched her body vertically like that, her ribs were clearly visible, and she did look kind of like the Skytree.

  “But if you’re really going for the Skytree, you should stick your hair up. It’s supposedly over six hundred meters tall.”

  “Yaaaah. Though my hair won’t actually reach that high. In which case, maybe Karen should be the one to do it.”

  “Hmm…”

  In fact, Karen might manage to be convincing.

  However.

  “Tsukihi, actually, Karen’s boobies are just as enormous as you’d expect for someone of her height, and on a tower, that sort of uneven surface spells danger─!”

  Tsukihi unleashed a kick at me there in the danger zone of the bathroom, if you can believe it. And a high kick to boot, aimed at my throat. Her retorts, a.k.a. her attacks, are unleashed silently and without wa
rning, making them truly murderous.

  “Quit critiquing your little sisters’ boobs. No side-by-side comparisons!”