Nekomonogatari (White)

by Nisioisin

  And it was a strange self-introduction.

  “Please don’t call this hitting on her, Miss Gaen─I just happened to meet a familiar face, and the two of us were reminiscing, that’s all,” complained Episode (though I was taken aback to hear him say “that’s all” about our conversation), to which Miss Gaen replied, “Well, that doesn’t matter either way.”

  It really didn’t seem to matter to her.

  “So if you’re done with your reminiscing or whatever it is, why don’t we go─time is wasting and we’re racing against the clock. Yotsugi will probably be coming too, but we can’t wait around for that to happen.”

  “Yotsugi? Who’s that?”

  “It doesn’t matter who, not to you, ’Sode. But there are some folks for whom that isn’t true, and for example, it’s not true for me. Well, to tell you the truth, I wish either Mèmè or Deishu were here. But the two of them are such drifters. By the way, I don’t want Yotsugi to be here, not at all.”

  “You’re really only able to think about yourself when you talk, huh? It’s like you assume whoever you’re talking to knows everything you know.”

  Episode didn’t even try to hide that he was appalled, but paying this no heed, Miss Gaen spoke to me.

  “Hey, Tsubasa,” she said. Her speech was way too free. “I know that normally I should edge my way into this conversation between you and ’Sode, and maybe go to a vending machine and buy you two sodas as the adult in this situation, but the circumstances are like I just gave. Sorry, but I’m taking ’Sode with me.”

  “Oh… Okay.”

  That was fine with me.

  In fact, I would be breathing a sigh if she took him and left─he was still scary to me despite everything (I’d actually lost all my memories about the time he nearly killed me, but my body must still remember. My stomach was swirling), and I needed to complete my trip and get to school.

  Being treated to a soda would only complicate things.

  “So I can’t help you with this tiger problem that you’re having, either. Figure out how to take care of it on your own, okay?”

  “What?”

  My tiger─problem?

  Wait… How did she know?

  Could she have heard me mentioning it in passing to Episode earlier? No, that seemed unnatural given the distance.

  Compared to getting my name right, this was almost another dimension─of unnaturalness.

  It wasn’t like she had read my mind.

  I hadn’t thought about the topic a single time while I was speaking to her.

  “Hm? Why the strange expression? You can’t be that shocked just because I knew about the tiger. There’s nothing that I don’t know.”

  “There’s nothing─that you don’t know.”

  “Yep,” she said, “I know everything.”

  Full of confidence.

  Like she really did know everything─

  Like she had a grasp of the entire tale.

  “Anyway, you’ll probably end up facing the tiger some time today or tomorrow. You’re about to name this peerless and all-powerful aberration the Kako, the Tyrannical Tiger, but no one is going to be able to help you with it. No one is going to save you. Because this problem is your own. It isn’t my problem, and it of course isn’t the problem of the boy you’re in love with.”

  “Wh─”

  What do you, I began to say before losing the words.

  The boy I’m in love with?

  “I’m talking about Koyomi Araragi. Don’t tell me you don’t know that?” said Miss Gaen like it was the most natural thing, like it was common sense─like it was something known by every human other than me.

  And in fact─

  “You don’t know a thing, Tsubasa, do you,” she accused, like she was deriding me, like she despised me.

  Like she pitied me─like she sympathized with me.

  Like she was looking at a poor little child.

  So she said.

  “You don’t even know that you don’t know anything. Not the wisdom of being simple, but the simplicity of being simple─you’re thick and naïve. Ahaha, ‘thick and naïve’ sounds a bit naughty, like I’m talking about how full-figured you are. As a slender person, I’m quite jealous.”

  “……”

  “Then again, maybe you’re better off without the wisdom of being simple─remember how the brainless scarecrow always lamented the unbearable fact of his stupidity?”

  “What…” I said.

  My voice shaking.

  I didn’t know why my voice was shaking.

  Even when I faced Episode over spring break─my voice, my body never shook so badly.

  “What─do you know about me?”

  “I know everything. And that’s why.”

  I know everything, repeated Miss Gaen.

  Again and again.

  Like she’d repeated it time after time in the past.

  Like “good morning” or “good night” or “thank you” or “you’re welcome.”

  She repeated it.

  And repeated it.

  Then repeated it.

  “I even know that you don’t know anything. But that’s nothing to be ashamed of since no human in this world knows anything. People try to make do unknowingly in living. You’re not an exception, you’re not special.”

  “I’m not an exception─I’m not special.”

  “It makes you happy to hear that, doesn’t it?” Miss Gaen said, still as if she derided me. “I know.”

  “……”

  “And of course, I also know quite well that the ruins of that abandoned cram school, a spot that should have a place in all of your hearts, including Mèmè’s, burned down last night… Oh, is that another piece of information that you don’t know yet? My cute little Tsubasa who doesn’t know a thing.”

  055

  Miss Kanbaru was absent.

  Having dashed into class just before the late bell (this is, of course, a figure of speech. I would never run in the hallways. I walked how a competitive walker might, which was sort of suspicious─well, nothing short of suspicious), I only visited Miss Kanbaru’s second-year classroom during our break after first period.

  “Oh, it’s Miss Hanekawa.” “The senior?” “It is, it’s really her.” “Miss Kanbaru is always talking to her.” “That’s Miss Hanekawa, she’s classmates with Miss Senjogahara.” “No, we should be calling her Mister Araragi’s savior.”

  …For some reason, I was extraordinarily famous there.

  I wanted to hide my face and run away but stood firm and asked about Miss Kanbaru─and received the aforementioned answer.

  She hadn’t contacted anyone, not her homeroom teacher, not her friends in class (and while it may be obvious when you think about it, I was relieved that she had friends among her classmates).

  “She’s an incredibly serious girl, so it’s really rare for her to have an unexcused absence. We’re all worried about her.”

  “……”

  While I knew this was a case of the same person having different reputations in different communities, there seemed to be a particularly steep gap in the way Miss Kanbaru appeared to our eyes and her classmates’.

  No.

  Maybe that was as it should be.

  People like me─who appeared the same to everyone, like a carbon copy, were the strange ones.

  It wasn’t to be expected.

  It wasn’t normal.

  Someone that everyone saw as a model student─would be abnormal.

  “Do you know something, Miss Hanekawa?” I was asked.

  I could only reply, “No. I’m sorry, I don’t know anything.”

  The words must have rung cold, and the girl I was talking to gave me the most dubious look she could manage. Embarrassed, I left the classroom as if I was running away.

  After that experience, I couldn’t put myself into any of my classes from second period onward, and I want to give my sincerest apologies to all of the teachers who took the time to conduct
them─but how could I not be worried?

  Unsurprisingly, Araragi had taken today off as well. What could have happened last night?

  No, if I’m being honest about it, I couldn’t put myself into my first-period class either─I couldn’t calm down after hearing from Miss Gaen that Eikow Cram School had burned to the ground.

  Not only did it have a place in all of our hearts, it was where Araragi and Miss Kanbaru were going to meet. And it caught on fire?

  I of course had searched for the news online using my cell phone after parting ways with Miss Gaen and Episode and discovered that she wasn’t lying.

  There was even an image attached to the story.

  I saw the photo of a plain concrete building that had literally turned into a pathetic pile of rubble─the place in my heart where so many things had happened.

  It had up and vanished from this world.

  Wondering what Miss Senjogahara would think once she found out, and at the same time struck with an indescribable feeling of the transience of life, I also understood that this was no time for sentimentality.

  Last night─really, what could have happened?

  Were Araragi and Miss Kanbaru okay?

  I was so worried that, whether I was in class or on break, I couldn’t sit still the whole day.

  Even so─the fact that I was able to keep taking classes throughout the day and not leave early must have meant that some part of me was sure that the two were safe.

  Somewhere inside me was a me who was certain that they hadn’t been harmed in any way by the fire.

  I thought these feelings were trust at first.

  That this was Araragi and Miss Kanbaru, so I didn’t need to worry. That I believed those two could get out of any situation, no matter how dire.

  But it didn’t take much for me to realize that was wrong.

  I couldn’t rest easy about Araragi in that sense at all. He was a boy who clung precariously to life, who could very well die at any moment, someone whose tendencies were more self-punishing than self-sacrificing. My familiarity with him was what made it all the harder for me to believe that he was okay in this situation.

  And as for Miss Kanbaru, she and I were, unfortunately, not close enough that I could just decide to believe that she was safe (maybe she even saw me as an enemy given my relationship with Miss Senjogahara).

  So why was I sure that the two were safe─or at least that they weren’t harmed by the fire?

  “It’s because I know,” I muttered.

  I was on my way back from school.

  No, I couldn’t call it my way back─because I wasn’t going straight back to the Araragi residence and was instead planning on taking a detour.

  “Yes, I know─that the fire had nothing whatsoever to do with Araragi or Miss Kanbaru.”

  I knew.

  I might not know.

  But a me who wasn’t me knew.

  Probably last night, when I became Black Hanekawa─I saw it and knew. Knew that the two of them were safe. Knew that Araragi and Miss Kanbaru must have met and moved to a different location─knew that they and the fire were mostly separate problems.

  So just like Miss Gaen said.

  This case─was mine.

  “To begin with, these fires must be─me.”

  The Hanekawa residence had burned down just three days ago.

  And the Eikow ruins went up in flames a day ago.

  In three short days─two buildings I was deeply involved with had burned to the ground.

  There had to be something wrong with you if you didn’t consider the two connected.

  Plus, both incidents happened right after I saw the tiger─how could you not mind that?

  They didn’t know what caused the Hanekawa house fire, and as far as the online news articles said, the cause was also unknown for the abandoned cram school. Given that there didn’t seem to be any potential for fire there, they did of course suspect arson, but─

  “Arson…”

  The worst of all possibilities crossed my mind.

  I, as Black Hanekawa, am the culprit. In other words, the possibility that I’m the arsonist.

  When I thought back to the outrageous spree that Black Hanekawa had perpetrated over Golden Week, it seemed like a very real scenario. And in fact, I couldn’t deny having thought again and again about the Hanekawa residence, I hope it just disappears─and in a way, my wish had come true.

  So you could say it was a strong possibility.

  But this seemed wrong.

  Not to say that the chain of events couldn’t have happened─but that it was the worst thing that could happen.

  I didn’t know how to express it, but it felt like there was an even worse conclusion waiting for me at the end of this tale. A conclusion I was averting my eyes from─had its gaping mouth wide open and awaited me without mercy.

  Yes, the truth.

  The inconvenient truth─was waiting for me.

  The path to it was the path I walked.

  “If I want to turn back─now is probably the time.”

  Now.

  If I just kept my eyes closed for a little longer─if I looked away.

  If only I could hold on until tomorrow, it was unlikely that I would have to encounter the truth.

  Like always.

  I could continue being the Tsubasa Hanekawa I’d always been.

  Still Tsubasa Hanekawa, Araragi’s best friend─still me.

  I could stay me.

  Nothing had to change.

  “…But.”

  But.

  But, but.

  I didn’t know what Araragi was fighting this time.

  I knew that he had to be fighting something, though─together with Mayoi or maybe Miss Kanbaru, probably with help from Shinobu too, and as always with his life on the line.

  So I would fight too.

  If it wasn’t going to count as running away, then I wasn’t going to look away either.

  This time I was going to face─me.

  My heart that I’d cut loose.

  I had a feeling that this─was such a tale.

  “Yes…the tiger.”

  That day, the day the new trimester began.

  I saw it on my way to school─a gigantic tiger.

  “This all started when I first saw that tiger.”

  That was the feeling I had.

  I wasn’t certain.

  But I could tell that’s what it was.

  I knew.

  “The Tyrannical Tiger… Is that what Miss Gaen called it?”

  If I was going to approach it, that’s where I would start.

  I arrived at the library.

  056

  I realize I’m bragging about my own town when I say this, but we have an extremely extensive library. It boasts a significant collection despite its size, and though I’m unsure whether it’s due to a long-standing tendency or the librarians’ tastes, its shelves focus on fanatically niche titles rather than bestsellers.

  It feels in some ways like a museum.

  As a side note, when Mister Oshino was still here, I’d come to this library multiple times to borrow books on his request (he couldn’t make a card since he wasn’t a resident).

  Its only notable flaw is that it’s closed on Sundays, but I’ve gone to this library ever since I was a child. I’ve never attended a cram school or taken lessons in anything, but you might say that all the things I needed in life I learned here.

  All the things my parents never taught me.

  I learned them here in this library.

  By myself.

  Lately, I’d been using it a lot as a place to study with Araragi, but even when it was Miss Senjogahara’s turn to be his tutor, I ended up visiting alone. To tell you the truth, I’d read most of the books in the collection by the time I was fifteen, but I liked the building’s air, its atmosphere, and found myself coming here even when I didn’t need to.

  It was a perfect spot for studying.