by Nisioisin
The total envy I had cut loose from my heart was a minimal amount.
But it crossed a threshold all at once three days ago.
I remember now.
That day, the first day of the new term.
Just like any other day, I was awakened by an automatic vacuum cleaner, I washed my face, I made myself presentable, I headed to the dining room for breakfast, and what I saw there were the persons who should be called my father and my mother already having breakfast.
The sight struck me as a normal one, and I began to make my own meal. But that only means that I immediately severed it from my memory, that I rewrote my memory, because I saw it, clear as day.
He and she were having the same thing for breakfast.
The three of us lived in the same house, but separately─that’s how it was supposed to be, but for whatever reason, one of the two had made breakfast for the both of them and they were eating together.
When I recall it now─yes.
I selected my own cookware to make breakfast that morning─which was a strange thing to be doing.
After all, there should have been no need for me to select any cookware because I was the last person to enter the kitchen─the other two would have used the other two sets.
In other words.
It meant that one of them had made food for two for the other’s sake─it could only mean that they were having breakfast together.
And leaving me out.
That’s what made me jealous.
I felt a clear sense of envy.
I realize this is a ridiculous thing to say… These were two parents who abused me, two persons who lived in the same house as me but could never be called my family, and you’d wonder why I should ever care what they did, whether that meant eating together or anything else.
But it’s not about logic.
And this illogic also explains why I began to feel so averse to the idea of us staying the night at a hotel as an emergency measure after the Hanekawa residence burned down.
I didn’t want to be isolated in a cramped room.
Maybe if we were one and one and one.
But I didn’t want it to be two and one.
It’s not that I wanted us to be three─I didn’t want it to be two and one.
I didn’t want to see that, even if it meant sleeping outdoors.
I wanted to look away.
My oh-so-kind hope that those two would use the fire as an opportunity to begin reconciling was basically nothing but the flip side of these emotions.
There was practically something wrong with me? No.
There was absolutely something wrong with me.
I was scary, creepy─and foolish.
I was unable to notice my own feelings, and when I did I let them loose, only wishing that the two would get even closer and reconcile, in fact─you couldn’t call my heart a human’s.
You’d have to call it an aberration’s.
My true, honest feelings were the result of looking away toward the flip side.
I was the reason that their relationship had cooled off, of course, and since I would be leaving Japan in half a year, it wouldn’t be odd if they began treating each other differently. This was a couple who had become husband and wife because of a connection they felt existed between them. Or maybe another non-aberrational trigger for the change was the time they had spent in the hospital together during Golden Week.
In that case, I was envious of their relationship despite all of this evidence pointing to me being the cause. It didn’t stand to reason.
So like I said, it wasn’t logical.
I was thinking about how much they should just separate.
Yet I was also hoping that the embers between them would reignite.
But I didn’t want to see the two of them getting along.
Whatever the case, I was jealous of their reconciliation.
I was envious to the bottom of my heart that they were now trying to become a family again after all this time.
I was burning with envy.
That was enough for my envy to cross a threshold and give birth to the Tyrannical Tiger.
I gave birth to a tiger at the beginning of the new term, just as I gave birth to you during Golden Week.
If I was able to create a completely original, new breed of aberration this time without relying on a base like an Afflicting Cat, this must be another talent I’ll only hone with practice. You could say that I was attached to the saying “Tyranny is fiercer than any tiger,” but I also feel that Miss Senjogahara was somewhat right, and I was led to the name by Miss Gaen.
And one more thing on that subject. My guess is that the Tyrannical Tiger never would have been born if I hadn’t met Mayoi on the way to school that day.
The tiger was born because my conversation with Mayoi let me know that Araragi’s whereabouts were unknown, which is to say that she let me know that he wouldn’t be able to exorcize the Tyrannical Tiger the way he’d done to you during your last two appearances.
Araragi must have been acting as the brakes on my heart. I’d been more excited to meet him in class that first day than I knew.
It was a case of terrible timing.
But I know for a fact this is why that tiger appeared right after I met Mayoi.
The responsibility is all mine in the end.
The Tyrannical Tiger is a monstrous animal that took form because of how fragile my heart is.
The all-consuming flames of envy.
It was of course envy toward my parents that caused the Hanekawa residence to be engulfed in flames, and it was envy that caused the abandoned cram school to burn, too.
My feelings toward Miss Kanbaru, the only person Araragi had asked for help.
I was angry at Araragi then─at least, I thought I was, but in reality I think I was intensely envious of Miss Kanbaru, the way I was of Miss Senjogahara.
That’s how it should be.
I had learned of the emotion that was envy─and it suited me very well.
But it must not have been long before I cut that envy loose from myself and transferred it to the Tyrannical Tiger. My envy already had a convenient escape route.
Earlier I described the Tyrannical Tiger as an aberration that is independent, just like you, but autonomy might be a better word. Because unlike you who are bound to my flesh, the Tyrannical Tiger is able to move and act freely.
And as a result.
The abandoned cram school, which had a place in all our hearts, burned down.
Miss Senjogahara’s line of reasoning that said any building I slept in would immediately catch on fire was wrong in the end, but the Tyrannical Tiger has what you might call a unique trait that makes her theory look like an attractive alternative.
Because, you see, that tiger burns down everything I envy.
Both Miss Senjogahara’s apartment and Araragi’s home could easily go up in flames at any moment. Not because I stayed the night, but because I was envious of them. I saw the unshakable bond between father and daughter at the Senjogaharas’ and got that rare inside view of the Araragi family, built on its solid foundation of trust. I’ve forgotten it by now, but how could I not feel envy as someone who’s never known home or family?
I wish I could curse myself to death for the way I’d looked away from that envy and forced it onto the Tyrannical Tiger and so optimistically thought about how great it was to feel included in a family. But it seems my curses are only pointed outwards.
If I can say there’s any saving grace here, I suppose it would be that the Tyrannical Tiger’s fires are limited to buildings and that it isn’t an aberration that burns humans, similar to the way you acted during Golden Week. It seems that one of my firm values is that you should not kill humans.
I say that because I think I know just how much Araragi suffered over spring break caught between human lives and saving lives.
No, that’s not it.
I’m whitewashing it when I say that.
> No part of me during Golden Week was bothering to look at others, at victims including my parents. I did nothing but look away and was desperately working to do nothing but dispel my stress. Life was secondary (in fact, I tried to kill Araragi at the end), I was self-centered and nothing more.
That goes for this time, too.
What I’m truly jealous of, truly envious of, must be places, not people.
Places to live.
Which is why you can say it’s dwellings that I’ve been targeting and not just any building.
Places where people live with others.
I burned down the Hanekawa residence and the abandoned cram school because I was someone who didn’t even have a room and slept in the hallway.
I created that tiger.
I want a place where I belong, and I’m jealous of people who act like it’s natural for them to have those kinds of places.
That’s why I burn homes over humans.
It took all of it on, my destructive impulses of wanting that house to just disappear, my envy that transcended jealousy─and set it all ablaze.
Feelings ablaze.
Yes, I offhandedly asserted that I have the same kind of destructive impulses as everyone else, that I wished for that house to just disappear.
But the same kind of feelings as everyone else?
I hadn’t even known what it feels like─how painful it is to feel like everyone else.
I’d taken that insipid destructive impulse that had already been cut loose and detached from myself to be the way I felt─and convinced myself that I was normal.
It was like I was overprotective of myself.
It was like I was abusing myself.
Yes, that’s right.
I was abused most of all by myself.
I’ve been killing my self all this time.
While I think this self-analysis is correct, that isn’t to say there’s no risk at all of anyone getting burned, like it went during Golden Week.
Both the Hanekawa residence and the abandoned cram school just so happened to be empty when they went up in flames. If anyone was inside, I’m sure they would have suffered the same fate.
If Araragi or Miss Kanbaru happened to be in the building when the Tyrannical Tiger was invoked…
The thought sends a chill down my spine.
And this thought could still become a reality with Miss Senjogahara’s apartment or Araragi’s home.
The relationship between Miss Senjogahara and her dad?
The relationship between the Araragi sisters and Araragi?
I can’t say I’m not jealous.
I bet it’s a lie that I’ve never known envy. I’ve begrudged every person I’ve ever been jealous of.
I wanted a dad like that.
I wanted little sisters like them to wake me up every morning.
Those feelings─turn into flames.
I think we can say it was a very good move on my part to have never slept over at friends’ homes until now. Well, maybe we should call that another thing I was unconsciously avoiding.
No.
If the Tyrannical Tiger got “better” at what it did─if it set fire after fire and grew proficient, then forget sleeping over at one home after the next, every house in the world could very well burst into flames.
Schools.
Libraries.
Parks.
I could see them all burning too.
That’s how it was for me.
That’s how jealous I was of warm homes.
Jealous enough to want to take that warmth and burn it to a crisp.
To be honest with you, I don’t know what kind of values you, which is to say the aberration known as Black Hanekawa, have. We may share memories and knowledge, you may be able to face even the things I once looked away from, but it seems like we have completely different personalities. (What would be the point in having a split personality otherwise?)
So I’m also unsure of how you feel about this Tyrannical Tiger’s presence or about my line of reasoning. Maybe you think things are fine the way they are, and I think that would be correct from an aberration’s point of view.
Maybe you would tell me that there’s nothing to be worried about because while arson may be a grave crime, this isn’t the kind of thing that can be judged by the law.
Yes, that’s one opinion.
And I won’t lie, part of me wants to be comforted by those words.
But I just want to put an end to this.
I’d be cutting loose a piece of my heart every time something happens, endlessly creating one aberration after another, offloading any responsibility to elsewhere, and forcing others to meet terrible fates while being completely unaware of any of it, living a happy and carefree life. Could there be any worse nightmare?
I’ve torn so many people to shreds since Golden Week, spread so much damage, and been ignorant of it all.
Like I was pinching my cheeks but they didn’t hurt.
Can’t you say that’s the life I’ve been living?
It’s not as if I want to be a good person or a virtuous person. Being moral or ethical doesn’t mean anything if you have to use something else to get you there.
You.
Or the Tyrannical Tiger.
I don’t want to live if it means stepping on others.
Even if we resolve this issue with the Tyrannical Tiger, I’m just going to give birth to a lion or something next time, and then maybe a leopard after that, over and over, right?
I can imagine all of you saying that you don’t mind, it’s what you were created for, and that’s why I’ve made my decision.
I’ve made a decision in my heart, this thing so whittled down that nothing is left, even its core.
I’m putting an end to all of this.
No. I’m going to begin at last.
I’m going to stop looking away and point my eyes straight forward.
Not only at the Tyrannical Tiger, but at you too.
I’m opening the eyes I’ve kept closed.
Sleeping Beauty has slept for eighteen years now, and she needs to wake up.
So please, Miss Black Hanekawa.
I want you to return.
I want you to go back inside my heart.
I want you and the Tyrannical Tiger to come home.
Please, I’m begging you.
My heart is your home.
I won’t leave you to be on your own, so please, don’t leave me on my own.
If Mister Oshino is right, when I turn twenty─or maybe even before that─you, and the Tyrannical Tiger too, might disappear.
My girlish, adolescent fantasies might die off and disappear once I become an adult.
Even now, you must be something like an echo.
So eventually.
I’m sure you’ll vanish and disappear.
I’m sure that’s the way it’s supposed to be.
But please. That’s why I’m asking you.
Please don’t vanish. Please don’t disappear.
Please. Come home.
Let’s stop living apart.
I know there’s not much space in my heart, but let’s live as a family, colliding and crashing into one another inside of it.
I won’t ever tell you again to just go to sleep if you’re feeling sleepy.
I swear to you now that I’ll love it all, my stress and my envy, my anxiety and my suffering, the bad possibilities and the deep darkness.
I know it’s a shameless request.
But I’ve decided to live shamelessly.
I’m sure Araragi is going to be disappointed.
What he values in me is what Miss Senjogahara would call my pure whiteness, my deficiencies as a creature.
To be honest, that’s the one thing that I can’t do.
I don’t want to disappoint Araragi.
In the end, I never once told him that I love him.
I was the only party to our love, from beginning to end.
It was fra
nkly strange to me that I was so attracted to him when we’d never even spoken until spring break, that I still pine for him like this and refuse to let him go. But now I finally understand.