Koyomimonogatari Part 1

by Nisioisin

  Senjogahara must have forgotten about it again.

  And so did I.

  It wasn’t until the end of May that I remembered─

  “I just remembered,” I said, finally telling her about it. “Basically they were part of the school’s roof supervision policy─those bouquets.”

  “Roof supervision?” she reacted as if she’d only remembered because I brought it up. But being the brainy lady she was, it all seemed to come back to her in an instant.

  “Yeah, just like managing the keys and putting up the fence─though compared to that, the bouquets seem more like they’re for peace of mind, like a protective talisman or good-luck charm.”

  “How do bouquets─how does putting bouquets on the roof supervise anything? If it’s supposed to be like a rooftop garden─it’s in bad taste. Almost as bad as your fashion sense.”

  “There’s no call to bring my fashion sense into this.”

  “What’s with that uniform?”

  “Whatever you may say about my civvies, how can you talk smack about my school uniform?! Are you trying to make an enemy of every single boy who goes to Naoetsu High?!”

  “What do I have to fear from them as long as you’re on my side, Araragi?”

  “I’m on their side, dammit! Though it is in really poor taste, isn’t it…”

  “Thank you.”

  “I’m not talking about my uniform, I’m talking about the bouquets! It’s a tasteless tactic─and I don’t know who came up with it, but the bouquets, which basically say ‘someone died here,’ were in fact taking the place of a warning that ‘this place is dangerous’…”

  “Taking the place of a warning? Like ‘Frequent Accident Zone Ahead’?”

  “Yeah. Apparently, there are signs at suicide hotspots to try and dissuade people…though I’ve heard the same signs can also make them suicide hotspots in the first place. Anyway, someone must have decided that ‘danger’ signs are so ubiquitous that they’ve become ineffectual. It sends a pretty intense message, saying ‘someone died here’─”

  “…”

  Although, distracted by a bouquet, Senjogahara had jumped out into the street─Oshino called it “the reverse,” and the normal reaction to seeing one was to think, “There was an accident here, maybe this place is dangerous,” and to be extra cautious.

  The school put the bouquets there.

  To arouse caution.

  “Kind of like how people hang up the corpse of a crow to drive off other crows?” asked Senjogahara. “They see the corpse and are wary of getting too close? But does it really serve any purpose beyond being a good-luck charm? It’d be different if, say, instead of a bouquet of flowers, they left some person who died in an accident…”

  “Where do you come up with such horrifying ideas, are you a demon? Oshino said it was for peace of mind, or just a little playful inventiveness. Keeping the doors locked and putting up a fence is really plenty to keep people from falling─though it’s not a perfect defense. Since there are still students like you who lie their way up to the roof.”

  “Hold it, Araragi. I don’t appreciate being called a liar. I’ve got a silver tongue, that’s all.”

  “Don’t you mean an acid one? That silver’s gotta be pretty corroded by now. Listen, the point is, in the face of imperfect supervision, the school opted for a sort of protective charm to give them peace of mind─it’s not like anyone’s been leaving floral tributes for imaginary deaths.”

  “Hmm…”

  Makes sense, said Senjogahara, seeming convinced.

  I mean, once you hear that explanation it seems obvious, it’s just common sense, no room for doubt.

  Not at all mysterious.

  Let alone aberrant.

  The story held an unseemly interest─but to say the least, it wasn’t the type Oshino was interested in collecting.

  No wonder he thought it wasn’t worth more than pocket change.

  Maybe Hanekawa knew about it─even the truth behind it, which is exactly why she hadn’t brought it to him.

  “But that just creates another mystery, Araragi. How could Mister Oshino be so sure? Had he encountered a similar situation? How could he have come to such a firm conclusion based only on what you told him?”

  “I wouldn’t call it a conclusion, exactly…but look. You and I made the same mistake. Whether it’s an accident or suicide, if someone falls to their death, the roof isn’t where you’d leave a bouquet of flowers.”

  “Ah.”

  “You’d leave it on the ground, where the person landed.”

  With a car accident you obviously can’t leave an offering of flowers smack dab in the middle of the road where the person actually died─but if someone died falling off a roof, you’d ordinarily leave the flowers on the ground. Of course─since that’s where they died, not up on the roof.

  “I see, we were thinking about it all wrong. Though anyone would’ve made the same mistake.”

  “Really covered for yourself quickly there…”

  “It’s meant to deter people from falling, even if it’s no more than a good-luck charm, so whoever put it there had to choose the roof despite the logical inconsistency─although.”

  I guess they won’t be doing that anymore─said Senjogahara, looking up at one of the roofs, which were currently being renovated: a towering new fence was being erected around the perimeter.

  Yes.

  The roof improvement project was what made me remember the whole incident in the first place. And I finally made my report to Senjogahara, almost twenty days late…but that didn’t mean I felt relieved or that a weight was lifted from my shoulders.

  In fact, I’d felt much more at ease when I’d let the whole thing slip my mind─the reason being that the project had been deemed necessary thanks to rumors about “a student climbing up the outside of the building and onto the roof.”

  The school probably never imagined anyone would be stupid enough to try and get onto the roof from the outside─and a bouquet of flowers wouldn’t be terribly effective against such a trespasser.

  The cost of erecting new fences.

  A hell of a lot more than a hundred thousand yen.

  And if it came out that I was the trespasser in question─they’d do a hell of a lot more than just expel me. Senjogahara, who had put me up to it, naturally wouldn’t be spared, either…

  “Araragi.”

  “I know, I know, this is our secret.”

  “No, secret isn’t good enough.”

  “Then what do we do?”

  “What we’ve been doing.”

  “What we’ve been doing?”

  “We forget.”

  Though I’ve got to do something about the hundred thousand yen I owe Mister Oshino, before I forget─said Hitagi Senjogahara, in her usual level tone, devoid of any discernable emotion.

  001

  I first became aware of Mayoi Hachikuji─we first became aware of each other─in a park with an unreadable name, but thereafter our encounters always took place out on the road.

  She’d gotten lost on the way to visit her mother, which was also how she ended up in that park, so I thought she might have her own take on the subject of roads, and at some point I asked her about it.

  How.

  How do you view the roads you walk down─which is the same as asking, How do you view your own life?

  Just to be clear, I didn’t necessarily think I was in much of a position to be asking such a question─and I was well aware as I asked it that whatever thoughts and feelings lay behind the way she chose to live her life were inconsequential to me.

  If calling them inconsequential sounds inconsiderate, all I really mean is that it’s Hachikuji’s business how she lives her life─and if that sounds like I’m giving you the business, then let me rephrase: I just think she’s free to do as she pleases.

  Even a friend.

  Even a selfless, peerless friend like Hanekawa─has no right to meddle in how a person lives.

&
nbsp; Though maybe in how a person dies…

  “Roads,” replied Hachikuji, “are just someplace to walk, as far as I’m concerned.”

  Uh-uh.

  That’s just the literal meaning of a road─I don’t mean that, or I mean that too, but I was thinking about roads in a more conceptual sense.

  “No, no, Mister Araragi. It’s still the same. Roads are for walking.” Hachikuji didn’t budge in the face of my amended question. She just continued on with an amiable grin, as always. “A road, whatever road it might be, is a space that connects one place to another─wherever it begins, wherever it ends, that never changes. You wouldn’t normally call a dead end a road, would you?”

  In other words, continued Hachikuji.

  “You can think, What kind of road is this, anyway, or Where does this road lead to, or This road is unstable, it seems like it might collapse at any moment, or I’d like to be on a different road─but there is one thing you mustn’t do. The moment you break that taboo, the road ceases to be a road.”

  I asked Hachikuji, seasoned veteran of wandering lost, what this taboo act might be, and here’s what she told me: “To stop walking.”

  Once you come to a stop, that place ceases to be a road.

  002

  “Oh, hello, Mister Enoughararaready.”

  “Come on, Hachikuji. Don’t make it sound you’re so fed up with our conversations that you’ve got tedium coming out your ears. My name is Araragi.”

  “My bad. A slip of the tongue.”

  “No it wasn’t, you did it on purpose…”

  “A tip of the slung.”

  “You telling me it wasn’t on purpose?!”

  Sometime in mid-June.

  Right in the middle of the month.

  I caught sight of Hachikuji while I was walking down the street as usual, and I addressed her just like always─and as usual, she mangled my name.

  In a nasty way.

  Enough already?

  We haven’t chatted enough for that. There’s a chat deficit here.

  Lemme chat with you some more.

  “Please don’t try to place the blame on me for mangling it. I was chatting away normally, but someone with an easily mangled name chanced to appear.”

  “Why are you separating your chatting from the fact of my appearance? They’re inextricably linked. You didn’t start chatting until after I showed up with my easily mangled name.”

  “And yet consider this, Mister Araragi. I frequently maul your name, but you’ve never once mangled mine. The situation here is that only your name is getting mauled. You’re the one at fault here.”

  “Don’t try to logic it into being my fault. There are a few steps missing from your reasoning. You’re the one who mauls my name, so it’s your fault.”

  “Well, you could certainly say that I maul so involved.”

  “Ha ha, very funny. You’re the only one involved.”

  My mind flashed to how I might mangle Hachikuji’s name─Hachikuji, Hachikuji, Hachikuji…

  Dammit.

  Pretty easy to say.

  “So, Mister Araragi.”

  Switching gears.

  Hachikuji asked me, “Where’re you headed today?”

  “As you can see, I’m off to school. I told you the other day, didn’t I? I’ve class-changed from a worthless washout to a responsible high school student. So I’m going to school.”

  “Irresponsible students go to school too, though, don’t they.”

  “Listen, Hachikuji. Don’t underestimate my previous irresponsibility. Where do you think I was going these past two years while I was pretending to go to school?”

  “Where were you going?”

  “Shopping, at the mall.”

  “Pretty weak irresponsibility…”

  “And since I didn’t have any money, I was only window shopping.”

  “Are you an adult girl?”

  Well. Leaving aside how weird the turn of phrase “adult girl” is, I must admit that in retrospect my behavior was puzzling.

  I ran the risk of getting caught by a truant officer because I wanted to look at the shop windows so badly?

  My experiences from that period didn’t teach me a damn thing… They weren’t beneficial to my life in any way.

  “…”

  But I don’t think that was the point, I think I just didn’t want to go to school back then─and being at home was rough, too.

  So I was probably happy to be literally anywhere else─that alone must have made me feel like I’d been rescued.

  From what, I have no idea.

  But like I’d been rescued.

  “Phew… My, my. What an airy way of escaping from reality. Surface-to-air evasion, I’d call it. I’ve always known you were hopeless, Mister Araragi, but I never imagined you were so hopeless.”

  “Hey, that’s kind of harsh.”

  “Would you like me to call you Mister Sohopeless from now on?”

  “Don’t do me any favors! You’re mangling my name so badly they’ll have to identify it from dental records!”

  “Not exactly a name to leave for posterity, though, is it?”

  “I’m not interested in going down in history, but even if I were, I sure as hell wouldn’t want it to be as Mister Sohopeless!”

  Well.

  “Surface-to-air evasion” just made it confusing, but an airy way of escaping from reality? She hit the nail on the head there─how can I put this, if I’d gone on like that, things might’ve gotten pretty bad by now.

  A lot worse.

  Than simply straying from the path…

  In which case, meeting Hanekawa over spring break, meeting Shinobu.

  Meeting Senjogahara─might have been a huge turning point in my life.

  “Hmm, you may be right,” Hachikuji conceded. “Walking down the road also means meeting people.”

  “Whoa. Did you just say something positive, Hachikuji?”

  “Yes I did. It’s true, meeting those people might have been the halfway point in your life.”

  “No, a turning point, not a halfway point! I’m too young to be over the hill!”

  “Well, they say geniuses and fools die young.”

  “You’re clearly lumping me in with the fools! Halfway point, my ass! I’m eighteen, which means I’d die when I’m thirty-six!”

  “Hm, that was unexpected. Who knew you could do arithmetic.”

  “J-Just how incompetent do you think I am?”

  Don’t you know math is my forte?

  It’s the sole basis for my class-change from washout to college hopeful, the only guiding light.

  “But you know, Mister Araragi. Mathematical aptitude or lack thereof aside, isn’t it kind of amazing that everyone can do multiplication and division? Everybody ends up more or less getting the hang of it, but it’s actually pretty advanced stuff.”

  “Now that you mention it…yeah, for sure. I don’t know who decided it, or when, but whoever decided that kids would learn their times tables in second grade is kinda impressive.”

  In which case, maybe it isn’t such a bad idea to teach kids in our country English when they’re little.

  “Well, before I can tackle my college entrance exams I’ve got to graduate from high school first. I may have told you this before, but that’s why I’m still showing up for school. Impressive, huh? As impressive as whoever decided to teach kids multiplication in second grade.”

  “But everybody goes to school…”

  “By virtue of which, Hachikuji, I don’t have time to talk with you.”

  I’d been pushing my bicycle along as I walked in step with Hachikuji, but now I re-straddled it. My school-commuter granny bike. Then again, my non-commuter mountain bike got smashed to bits in an unforeseen accident the previous month, so the prefix “school-commuter” was no longer really necessary.

  When you think about it, it’s kind of odd to call it a granny bike when the rider isn’t a granny… And why shouldn’t grandma these days ri
de, say, a monster bike?

  “Fare thee well,” I bade. “Be not downhearted. When you wish to see me again, I shall appear before you once more like a knight in shining armor.”