by Nisioisin
“Whoa… That’s actually solid advice.”
Yeah.
She was right again.
“Hachikuji, all this time I might’ve wrongly thought of you as a dumb kid through and through. Are you actually a fairly passable student? You told me before that your grades weren’t very good, but were you just being modest to avoid hurting my feelings?”
“Who knows? I’ve never studied in my life before.”
“………”
She was a fool.
Or wait, maybe an incredible natural?
Which was she… I needed to test her.
“Hachikuji, let’s play a little word game. I’ll say a word, then you say a word that starts with the last letter of my word, and then I’ll do the same for your word. The first person who ends a word with the letter E loses. Okay? Let’s start with…News!”
“Slug!”
“Gorilla!”
“Apple!”
“What? I’ve never seen anyone lose that fast before!”
What an imbecile.
Actually, she was playing along.
Instead of immediately losing with something like “Snake,” she waited a beat, subtly showing taste. She wasn’t just fun to talk to, she was so talented that I needed to bring her home and make a habit of chatting with her for thirty minutes every night before I went to sleep.
Still, she sounded like an imbecile even if I couldn’t discount the possibility that she was a natural who could play along. I hadn’t come close to accomplishing my initial goal.
I needed to try again.
Time for another test.
“I’m going to ask you a riddle next, Hachikuji.”
“I’ll accept the challenge, naturally. I’ve never turned my back to an enemy. You aren’t one, but if you’re coming at me, I won’t hold back. You’ll learn to fear me.”
“I have two heads and three eyes. I have four mouths and a hundred teeth. I have seven arms and five legs, and I’m small but can swallow an elephant whole. What animal am I?”
“…One of your friends?”
“A loon! Because I’d have to be one to think something like that could exist! So no, I don’t have any friend who fits the description! Would you want that as a friend of a friend?!”
I’m selective about my friends!
Urk… If I considered her answer a clever way to turn the tables on me, I still couldn’t gauge her intellect… As I thought this, Hachikuji opened her mouth.
“Let me ask you one in return. I have the head of a monkey, the body of a tanuki, the limbs of a tiger, the tail of a snake, and the cry of a thrush. What animal am I?”
“A loon, because you’d have to be one to think something like that exists?”
“A Nue.”
“………”
She was right.
I felt like I’d been dealt a loss.
Could this elementary schoolgirl be a natural after all?
Damn. There was too much to her for me to see all of her at once.
“I’m surprised a grade school kid like you knows what a Nue is, though.”
“I study many subjects.”
“Is that so.”
“Anyway, Mister Weraragi.”
“Don’t call me names that make it sound like I’ve transformed. It’s Araragi.”
“Excuse me. Slip of the tongue.”
“No, you did it on purpose…”
“Shlip of the tongue.”
“Or maybe not?!”
“Snip off the tongue.”
“Too pious!”
Now that it was the seventh time we were going through this established routine, I was starting to get the hang of it.
It had gone off flawlessly.
“Anyway, Mister Araragi. You ought to know that studying for exams is no easy task.”
“Yeah, I know that by now.”
“Oh, do you. I don’t, myself.”
“I had my doubts!”
She hadn’t ever sat for such exams.
“Even so,” she said, “I’m really worried about you. I don’t want to sound like an old wife, but will you be able to fill out that college application?”
“That’s what you’re worried about?! Beware the little old wife!”
“If you do complete the application, the rest is staying in good health for the big day. You’ll be able to take your exams.”
“No! I’m trying to do more than just take them, I need to pass them too!”
“So you’re studying for them… Well, I may have been uncharacteristically negative, but I’m sure you’ll be fine. You’re the kind of person who can do it if he tries.”
“Oh. You really think so?”
“Of course. Now that you’ve decided to take those exams, you’re as good as accepted.”
“Wow, you’d go that far?”
“I haven’t gone far enough. You aren’t just as good as accepted, it may not be an exaggeration to say you’ve graduated.”
“Hold on, Hachikuji, that’s definitely overstating things. All I’ve done is decide to take some exams.”
“No, I can already see you with your doctorate in hand. That’s right, from this day onward, I’ll be calling you Doctor.”
“It’s fine, call me whatever you want. So that’s how you see me? Can’t criticize you there.”
“Then allow me to call you by the Latin, to make you sound all the more academic.”
“What’s a doctorate called in Latin?”
“Pedophiae Doltoris.”
“Shut up! And that setup took forever!”
Even I was getting tired waiting for the punch line!
I was starting to think there might not be one!
“A pedo and a dolt, Pedophiae Doltoris… It’s as if the term was made for you.”
“No term ever gets made for me, okay?! I’ll admit I’m a dolt, but I’m no pedo! I lead an upstanding life!”
“And if you squint your eyes, you may start seeing ‘dope’ in the first word, too.”
“Stop! Stop it right now before you ruin the word ‘doctorate’ for me forever!”
“Just don’t get drunk on sweet platitudes like ‘You can do it if you try.’ The only people who say that are those who don’t try.”
Hachikuji sounded all serious now.
Big words coming from someone who’d never studied before…
“Gosh,” I objected, “you think you can get away with saying anything. What a fresh brat, I’m starting to want to punish you.”
“‘What a fresh boob, I’m starting to want to punish you?’ You sometimes say the lewdest things.”
“That’s not what I said!”
“I’m shocked you came up with a line that sounds so lewd if we just replaced ‘brat’ with ‘boob.’”
“What line wouldn’t sound lewd if you replaced a key word with ‘boob’?!”
What a conversation. We were saying things based on momentum alone.
“But yes, you’re right,” I admitted. “I’m going to need to hang in there.”
“Yes. Go hang yourself in your room.”
“I’m not gonna! But you know, thanks to my excellent tutors, I think I’m good. They’d never allow me to slack off. I’m going to be studying day in and day out, whether I want to or not. Heh, actually, I’m unstoppable with the best and seventh-best students in my year on my side.”
“Good, how forward of you.”
“………”
She thought that meant “positive” or “optimistic,” didn’t she…
“But Mister Araragi, will things really go so smoothly? Those two ladies, however renowned, are taking on the absolute worst student in their year…”
“I’ve never scored last, thank you! I actually did pretty well this time around! You need to listen to what I say!”
“To your boasts? I don’t think so. You’re only interesting when you air your misfortunes. Explore that subject a little further, will you?”
“Why should I b
ully myself like that?!”
“Then allow Mayoi Hachikuji, as unqualified as she is, to speak on your behalf. It’s time for Mister Araragi’s Proud Tales of Misfortune. ‘Everything came up smelling like roses, but Mister Araragi was allergic to them!’”
“Stop making up sad stories about me! I like roses! They smell great! And I’m fine with pollens, as far as I know!”
“His selling point is that when things seem to be going well for him, they’re actually not when he stops to think about it.”
“That’s not me! Stop giving me weird character traits that will make me think twice whatever I do!”
“Mister Araragi’s Proud Tales of Misfortune, part two.”
“You even have a part two?! Did the first one become a top-grossing Hollywood hit or something?!”
“‘Mister Araragi felt his tummy grumbling in the middle of the night, so he decided to make some instant noodles. But despite being billed as instant, they were surprisingly hard to make!’”
“D-Damn! I want to shoot you down, but that’s actually happened to me more than once! A rare example of the sequel being the real masterpiece!”
“It’s Friday the thirteenth for Koyomi Araragi, now and forever.”
“That really makes me want to give up!”
“Still, the best and the seventh-best in your year, huh,” Hachikuji brought us back on track there. “Miss Hanekawa…I met the other day. The lady with the braids, correct?”
“Yeah… Now that you mention it, I guess you know both of them.”
“And Miss Senjogahara─is your girlfriend.”
“Yep.”
“Hmm.” Hachikuji folded her arms with a troubled expression. She seemed to be thinking about something, a look that didn’t suit her.
“What, got something to say about that?”
“No, simply that the normal choice between the two would be Miss Hanekawa. It struck me as odd that you chose Miss Senjogahara instead.”
“Odd…”
How was I supposed to answer that one?
Why was she wondering?
“I think both of them are pretty,” she continued, “but their personalities are like day and night. Miss Hanekawa is like a kind older sister─while Miss Senjogahara is, well…malice personified.”
“Well, I don’t think Senjogahara would want to hear that coming from you.”
Then again, Senjogahara had said some awful things to Hachikuji, so it made sense. In comparison, Hanekawa had been kind to Hachikuji.
She was kind─and stern.
Just like an older sister should be.
The choice might have seemed odd to a child.
“You see,” I explained, “I don’t see Hanekawa in that way─she’s someone I’m indebted to. I can’t go into details, though. Hanekawa would probably turn me down, anyway. And Senjogahara’s personality is part of the reason why I…”
Uhm.
Yeah, it was hard to finish that sentence.
I trailed off and left it at that.
“I see.” Instead of being mean and hounding me, Hachikuji nodded. “How ironic.”
“What do you mean?”
“You don’t understand? Then let me put it another way. How ionic.”
“That makes even less sense to me??”
“Well, you’re the type to pursue Lindt in Quiz Nanairo Dreams. You must have odd taste in the opposite sex.”
“Don’t you think that reference needs to be explained?!”
This one was really obscure.
Okay, a while back there was this dating-sim quiz arcade game that CAPCOM developed called Quiz Nanairo Dreams: The Miracle of Rainbow Village, where you answered trivia questions and got to become friends with seven featured female characters. You raise their impression of you over half a year before finally defeating the resurrected Demon King at the end to live happily ever after with your favorite girl; only, along the way, there is this character named Lindt, one of the Demon King’s flunkies who gets in your way, and though she happens to be a girl, you sadly can’t end up with her no matter what tricks and techniques you may try. There’s no telling how many hundred-yen coins disappeared into those machines in search of a happy end with her. As a note, there was a proper route for Lindt in the home release of the game, perhaps due to player demand. Okay, commentary over!
“Very impressive of you to know, Mister Araragi.”
“Oh, it’s nothing… Hey, don’t bring up references that require this much explanation in the first place! Even Bikkuriman was better! I think I’m the first person to go on about Quiz Nanairo Dreams since we entered the twenty-first century!”
“But if we continue to wage a low-key grassroots campaign, they might create a remake some day.”
“Too low-key!”
“But if you say you prefer Miss Senjogahara, that must be how it is. To each his scorn.”
“‘To each his own,’ yes?!”
“Incidentally,” Hachikuji said, suddenly changing the subject. Why was she pouring cold water on the subject right as we were getting warmed up? It was unlike her. “You told me the other day about a vampire─a vampiress who went and turned you into a mockery of a human of a mockery of a vampire. Oh, what was she called now. Miss Shinobu Oshino?”
“Huh? Oh.”
I did tell her.
I guess on Mother’s Day, when we first met?
Hachikuji continued, “A child of about eight, with blond hair, and a helmet with goggles on top…I believe you said?”
“Yeah. What about her?”
“I’ve never been introduced to her so I have no way of saying for sure, but I spotted your Miss Shinobu yesterday.”
“What?”
Shinobu?
Hachikuji─had seen her?
“Was this shabby older dude near her?” I asked. “Visibly frivolous, and in a tacky, psychedelic Hawaiian shirt that no self-respecting person would wear nowadays?”
“Hmm? I’m having difficulty understanding you, but are you trying to ask me if you were by the girl’s side?”
“No! Do you see me as a shabby older dude?! And never in my life have I worn a Hawaiian shirt, not even with the most boring design imaginable!”
“You shouldn’t say things about others that you wouldn’t want said about yourself.”
“You’re absolutely right!”
The truth hurts.
It always does.
“In any case, Mister Araragi, this blond child was alone. No one was near her.”
“Hmm… Around what time was this?”
“I believe it was about five in the afternoon.”
“Five…”
I would have still had my hands full preparing for the culture festival.
Before I talked to Sengoku by the gates.
“Where was this?”
“Near the donut shop along the highway.”
“Oh, there… You take some long walks, don’t you? That’s a pretty big habitat for a kid… But okay, a donut shop.”
It was a Mister Donut.
The detail made the story seem a bit more believable.
But Shinobu─alone?
Could that really have happened?
Of course, we were in a boring town in the middle of nowhere, Japan… You rarely saw anyone with their hair dyed brown, so a blond? Who else could it be but Shinobu? If you added the helmet and goggles on top of that… But could Shinobu travel that far from the abandoned cram school? I’d convinced myself for no real reason that Shinobu couldn’t leave, but…now that I thought about it, Oshino had never said anything like that. Would he really allow her to act on her own, though?
“Yes. I thought the same thing,” Hachikuji said. “If she really is a vampire then I’m no match for her, so I dared not get a step closer. But I did think it would be best to inform you, which is why I was waiting here today to ambush you.”