Tsukimonogatari

by Nisioisin

  “Huh. I guess you’re right. My bad. But even if it was my bad, you’re crazy if you think I’m going to apologize so easily.”

  “That’s a hell of an attitude… Listen, I’m going to wash your body now, so face that way. Scrub-a-dub-duuub.”

  “That sound effect makes you sound a lot more childish than you think… Come up with something that makes you seem a little more cultured.”

  “Fine, ababababa.”

  “Is that a Ryunosuke Akutagawa reference??”

  Though that story title kind of wrecks the image of him as a literary giant.

  At least, it’s not very refined.

  “Was that the right number of ba’s?” I asked.

  “Of course. Of course it was. Look it up if you want to,” came Tsukihi’s supremely self-confident reply from over my shoulder, as she poured water down my back.

  But it was unusual for her self-confidence to match the facts, which is to say she had a tendency to act self-confident only when she wasn’t, so her attitude suggested a high probability that she’d gotten it wrong.

  “Ababa. Abababababa. Abababababababaaaa!”

  And indeed, while she scrubbed my back, Tsukihi tried to hedge her bets by saying it a bunch more times with varying numbers of ba’s.

  “At any rate, don’t be such a slacker,” I scolded. “Don’t wash me with your hand like that, use that sponge and put a little elbow grease into it.”

  “But scrubbing with your hand lets you really clean all the hard-to-reach spots. And using grease when I’m trying to get you clean? Wait, hang on a sec, is being touched by your little sister getting you all hot and bothered, big brother? You naughty boy, I’ll never let you live this one down!”

  “Just watching your thrilling, moment-to-moment, stopgap way of life bothers me plenty…”

  “Teeheehee, I’ll wash between your toes for you. Think you can stay calm?”

  “Thrilling…”

  For better or for worse (mostly for worse), she only thinks about the immediate situation.

  She only brings her smarts to bear on what just happened and what’s just about to happen.

  It felt pointless to try and tell her to consider her future, to focus on what was coming a little further down the line… You know what they say, you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink. Or, given that she was already perfectly aware of anything I might say to her, maybe this was about beating a dead one. Even Karen, a runaway train who never thought anything through, had slightly better prospects.

  But I’m sure Tsukihi didn’t want to hear that from a guy who hadn’t even tried to get out of ending up in the bathroom with his little sister… Hmmm.

  “Okay, all clean! Sparkling! Like you’ve been shellacked! Switch!”

  “Switch?”

  “Duh. It’s your turn to wash my hair now, obviously.”

  “Grk… You set me up, you bastard.”

  A reciprocity clause.

  Sure, maybe it should’ve been obvious, maybe it was inevitable, but having it dropped on me after the fact filled me with a sense of defeat. Refusing, though, meant promptly exiting the bathroom, so I had no choice but to fall in line with Tsukihi’s scheme and wash her hair.

  Dammit.

  Forced to wash my little sister’s hair─how humiliating… I considered a plot to pay her back by doing it with body soap, but the bottle might get shoved down my throat if she found out, so I let that one go.

  It would be too pitiful, on both our accounts.

  Nothing for it, I’d wash my little sister’s hair like a mature adult.

  And so we switched spots.

  On the surface, abandoning our attempts to wash in tandem and washing each other’s hair one at a time instead was paying off─but in reality not so much. For two people with hair as long as ours to shampoo in succession took a commensurately long time, and as a result neither of us had managed to make it into the tub, when competing to be the first one in there was the whole reason we were sharing the room.

  We weren’t just washing each other’s hair, we were getting in it.

  I’m sure there’s some perfect aphorism to describe our predicament, but it’s not coming to me.

  “But maaan, you really do have a shit ton of hair, Tsukihi… Actually hefting it like this, you know, it’s almost more like cloth than hair.”

  “Cloth?”

  “Cloth for a kimono. It weighs a ton. It’s super heavy, maybe it’s all the water it’s soaking up.”

  “Oh.”

  “What?”

  “I figured it out, little Tsukihi figured it all out. Lately I keep thinking I’ve been getting fat, but no matter how much I diet I haven’t been able to lose any weight. It was my hair all along.”

  “Now I see…that you’re a complete idiot. Gimme a break and cut it already. Though I’m sure you just haven’t found a chance. Well, I’ll cut it for you right now, if you want. I’ll snip it all off for you. Come on, it’s not like it’s the first time I’ve cut a girl’s hair.”

  “I don’t know the details, but that’s a hell of a backstory they’ve given you… No, leave it alone. Leave it leave it leave it. Because I’m making a wish with it.”

  “A wish?”

  “Not a whish, got it? A wish.”

  “Yeah, I get it…”

  What was this all about?

  So it wasn’t that she just hadn’t found a chance, she had a real reason for letting her hair grow that long? Unexpected. That someone like Tsukihi Araragi, who lives only in the present, would do something so forward-looking.

  True, given that she used to change her hairstyle every month, I probably should’ve realized something was up the second she started letting it grow out.

  A shameful failing as an older brother.

  “Huh, okay. Well, what are you wishing for? Spill it.”

  “Not a chance. I can’t. If I tell you, my wish won’t be granted.”

  “Oh yeah? I guess they do say wishes won’t come true if you tell them to other people… But it’s fine, don’t be such a stickler, your older brother’s a special case. Tell me.”

  “You don’t get to act like a big brother only at times like this.”

  “Hmmm. In any case, look at all this hair…”

  I’d given it a shot, but the truth was that I wasn’t all that interested in why she was growing out her hair, so I returned my focus to the hair itself.

  Crap.

  There was so much hair I couldn’t even work up a lather.

  No scrub-a-dub-dub sound effect.

  I couldn’t bear it if that got ascribed to a lack of skill on my part─I never had much of a way with shampoo to begin with, but what a sorry situation for an older brother to find himself in, after Tsukihi managed to work up such a lather.

  On behalf of the older brothers of the world, I couldn’t let my position slip any further.

  “Looks like there’s not enough shampoo… You want to talk about uneconomical, this hair is it. Your special shampoo is a terrible waste. Though I guess since you don’t have to go to the salon, maybe you actually come out ahead. With a little pocket money, even.”

  “But I do go to the salon.”

  “What?”

  “Unlike you, I’m not just letting my hair grow wild… I have to keep the ends even and stuff.”

  “Really, when no one ends up giving a stuff about your hair?”

  “Don’t get snippy. Your words cut deep. Don’t forget, it was the repetition of cruel words like those that gave birth to me and Karen’s twisted brand of justice.”

  “You’re calling your own justice twisted?”

  Oh.

  When I added about twice as much shampoo, even Tsukihi’s ginormous mane started to lather up nicely. It also looked like she had even more hair than she already did.

  “Heeheehee. Latherrr, more latherrr. This is actually fun, a guy could get used to washing people’s hair. I have to say, makes even a cool guy like me feel all bubbly.
”

  “You’re having to say it? Sounds like you’re going to pop.”

  “Makes me wanna bury myself in all this hair. To be bound hand and foot in your hair.”

  “That’s a little too kinky. I’d flee this bathroom at top speed. I’d be willing to accept defeat.”

  “You washed my body with your hands and fingers; I want to wash your body with this hair.”

  “Don’t, you’ll damage it. I’ll end up with a ton of split ends. Just its length makes it a lot more susceptible to wear and tear. If you’re going to do it, at least use your own hair.”

  “I bet if you wrapped yourself in all this hair, you could walk down the street totally naked. No one would know.”

  “And why would li’l miss Tsukihi ever want to walk down the street naked?”

  “Hmmm.”

  As I was washing her hair, it just naturally transitioned into a head rub. I was massaging her scalp. Now I understood what she meant about holding someone’s life in your hands. Now I saw why she liked it.

  It does give you a full-on sense of superiority.

  “It’s amazing feeling so above you like this… Straight up amazing, it’s the tops. Like your head might come right off if I gave it a little twist.”

  “That hadn’t occurred to me.”

  “Rubbing your head gets me even more excited than fondling boobs.”

  “That’s scary. And rude.”

  “Fondle fondle fondle fondle.”

  “Keep your perverse feelings out of my head rub. Or at least cap the sound effect at scrub-a-dub-dub. Sad as I am to admit, though the shampooing wasn’t much to speak of, this head massage is actually pro-quality pleasant.”

  “Mm-hmm,” I replied smugly.

  Then again, that didn’t seem like a skill with broader applications. No matter how things shake out, I doubt a future as a hairstylist is waiting for me.

  And I can’t think of any other line of work where you rub other people’s heads.

  “Okay, time for the condition…er?”

  “What’s wrong, big brother?”

  “There’s not nearly enough. Mister Conditioner is nearly empty.”

  “Whaaat?!”

  Tsukihi flipped out.

  You might even say she was flippant.

  Well actually, you can’t.

  She flipped out─but whatever amount the bottle still contained had been used up by none other than Tsukihi, to wash my hair. It wasn’t something I, the beneficiary, should blithely say, but I said it anyway: “Your fault.” Easily, unambiguously: “You should’ve checked first.”

  “I don’t care whose fault it is. I think we can all agree that what’s important here is that my hair is going to be a mess? That PreCure is going to die?”

  “PreCure is going to die? That is a big deal.”

  For a moment I couldn’t figure out what she’d meant to say, but it had to be cuticle. Not even close! But then, there was a character called Cure Cool or something, wasn’t there…

  “In any case,” I said, “the point is that Smile PreCure! was a good show.”

  “That wasn’t the point at all?”

  “The theme was smiling, so all the heroines did their best to keep smiling even when they wanted to cry. It was awesome.”

  “I don’t want to hear about your fetishes, big brother. I don’t care about your smile fetish. Just let a smile be a smile.”

  “Then there’s Kenji Miyazawa.”

  “What? Quit changing the subject.”

  “Kenji Miyazawa asked his students what the longest word in the English language was, and the answer was ‘smiles.’ Because there’s a mile between the first s and the second one.”

  “So true. I hope he got some good smileage out of it, too. Pretty funny guy, this Miyazawa-san.”

  “Don’t call our great poet ‘Miyazawa-san.’ Show some respect.”

  “I said ‘san,’ didn’t I?”

  “Which oddly sounds too familiar… It’s strange, huh, that adding ‘san’ sometimes feels more intimate, not less.”

  “Definitely. With Miyazawa-san, dropping the honorific actually feels more respectful. What’s that all about… Seems like it’d be interesting to try and figure out the criteria for that.”

  “Maybe, but it might just have to do with whether or not you know them personally, and whether or not they’re still alive…” As I said this, I turned on the showerhead and rinsed the lather out of Tsukihi’s hair. “Okay, all finished. Now let’s wash that body. With your hair.”

  “Were you even listening?” Tsukihi’s temper flared and she blurted out the first retort that came to her: “What are you trying to do to this hair of hair? Ruin it?!”

  “Hair of hair?”

  “Head of hair!! Mane! My beautiful tresses!” she shrieked in my face.

  Her delivery lacked a certain je ne sais quoi, was wanting in panache.

  “But what choice do we have,” I demanded to know. “We’re out of conditioner, and I want to wash your body with your own hair.”

  “The second one is just your preference! We definitely have a choice!”

  “Hmph. Well, when you put it like that, I can’t deny it. You’re a perspicacious one, I’ll give you that. Tsukihercule Poirot.”

  “Just put something on it! Anything!”

  “Hm. That gives me an idea.”

  I removed the cap of the virtually empty conditioner bottle and used the showerhead to spray in a small amount of hot water.

  Then, replacing the cap, I shook the bottle, for all the world like a classy bartender. To get it properly mixed.

  In my mind I was wearing a vest.

  “What’re you doing, big brother?”

  “Well, the bottle may be ‘empty,’ but there’s got to be some conditioner still stuck to the walls, and watering it down should supplement it enough to cover your hair just this once.”

  “Stop it, that’s something a poor person would do.”

  “A poor person?!”

  To hear that kind of bourgeois talk coming from my own sister… I was shocked. I couldn’t believe my ears, when had she become so arrogant? But then I realized she’d always been that way. No doubt about it.

  I guess anyone could have inferred that aspect of her since she’d gotten an obviously expensive conditioner to use just for herself.

  “I’d rather let my hair take its course, and end up looking like a Super Saiyan, than act like a pauper,” she sniffed. “I’m me, after all.”

  “Hrmm.”

  My little sister, soon to be a middle school third-year, had gotten a Super Saiyan confused with a Great Ape. Stands to reason that kind of game of telephone would happen across the generations.

  But then again, there’s Dragonball GT, where Super Saiyans can achieve a further transformation thanks to the power of the moon. So maybe she was just an obsessively knowledgeable Dragonball fanatic.

  “The stuff’s going to mix with the water that’s already been absorbed by your hair, so it’s just a question of timing,” I reasoned with her.

  “Don’t call my fancy conditioner ‘stuff.’ Don’t talk about my ’ditioner that way.”

  “Look, it’s not as watered down as you think. I just added a few air bubbles, it’s a fantastic conditioner. ’Ditioner.”

  I took off the cap again and squirted some of the hot water/conditioner mixture into my hand to show her. She knit her eyebrows as she peered at it, then hung her head and said, “I suppose I have no choice. I’ll let you save face this time, big brother.”

  The hanging her head part was purely physical, though; she was just trying to make it easier for me to apply the conditioner.

  Putting up her hair, or putting up with her, I resumed my task.

  I’d hoped to get enough for one go-around by diluting the conditioner, but it was easier said than done, given the full shock of Tsukihi’s hair─I had to be very careful about how I applied what I had.

  I had to be deliberate beyond deliberate. />
  Deliberate like a lacquerware artisan applying gold leaf.

  “Hrmm… Hey, Tsukihi. I don’t mean to nag, and I don’t know what your wish is all about, but how about at least cutting your bangs?”

  “If I’m half-hearted about it, the ends would poke me in the eyes. And no matter how tenderly you care for it, there’s no way to achieve hair that doesn’t hurt when it gets in your eye.”