by Nisioisin
As before, I didn’t understand what Hanekawa meant, but this time I’d been able to respond in kind.
Hanekawa and I continued to talk a while longer─until nightfall. It was just idle chatter, but chatter that seemed like it might prove useful in the future.
It was stuff I should have paid for in 10,000-yen bills, not small change, but that’d have really made me feel like I was at a hostess bar, so I held off.
I figured I might as well ask her if she had any idea who had left the letter (“Withdraw”) in my hotel room, but her response was, “I’m afraid not.”
Like she said, she didn’t know everything.
Ordinarily, I’d suspect that Tsubasa Hanekawa herself was my tail or the letter-sender, but strangely enough, my suspicion evaporated during the course of our conversation.
A rare event.
But not a first. For instance, about once a month I even go to sleep without suspecting that I might not wake up the next morning.
“But Mister Kaiki, after something like that, shouldn’t you change hotels?”
“Maybe…since I was only planning to stay there for a week to begin with. But the same thing might happen at whatever new hotel I check into. If I react too strongly, whoever it is might decide to push their luck.”
“Hm. I see your point.”
That being said, if I received another letter, I’d definitely consider switching hotels.
“Oh yes. Mister Kaiki…”
Incidentally, our little chat also included the following conversation.
“Araragi told me there’s a ‘sealed closet’ in Sengoku’s room. Whatever’s in it, she told even her ‘beloved Big Brother Koyomi’ that he ‘must never open it.’ You went into her room when you were at her house, didn’t you, Mister Kaiki? Did you look in there?”
“Nope.” Naturally, I kept my breaking and entering a secret from Hanekawa, just like with Senjogahara. I act in bad faith in any sort of negotiation. “A closet, you say? There’s one in her room? I didn’t notice.”
“I see.”
“What do you think is inside?”
“I don’t know. But if she’s that desperate to keep it secret, might it be something important?”
Nope. Just useless garbage.
I very nearly told her as much, but stopped myself on the brink. Strange, why did I almost tell her?
About that trash.
032
Now I can finally say the next few days passed in a humdrum routine of trips to Kita-Shirahebi Shrine, where dwelt the ophidian deity Nadeko Sengoku:
The next few days passed in a humdrum routine of trips to Kita-Shirahebi Shrine, where dwelt the ophidian deity Nadeko Sengoku.
I went there virtually every day, or literally every day, to play with her. “Play with” is terribly insolent of a worshipper, but that’s the most accurate description so what can you do.
I got pretty good at cat’s cradle, and we left the one-person stuff behind and moved on to two-person techniques. Nadeko Sengoku and I played endlessly.
I read, and memorized, many more books on the subject─we cat’s-cradled day in and day out, on and on and on, but even with all that practice Nadeko Sengoku couldn’t progress beyond a certain level (and, to be fair, neither could I).
Cat’s cradle is a deep, even profound pursuit.
We just couldn’t measure up to Nobita─even though we hit that wall, Nadeko Sengoku didn’t get sick of it like I did, she didn’t give up on it, she just happily kept on playing.
I brought her other toys (tops, blocks, basically anything you could play with for a long time that didn’t require electricity) to see if she was into them, and she was, but in the end we always returned to cat’s cradle.
Maybe it meant something to her, but no matter. Anything that helped me connect with her was okay in my book.
And, while I couldn’t do it every day, since Nadeko Sengoku seemed to have taken a shine to saké, I lugged a big bottle of it up to the shrine about twice a week.
I prefer Western liquor so I didn’t join her much, but she became a heroic quaffer of the Japanese stuff.
I hadn’t thought to bring her a cup or anything, though, thanks to which she drank straight from those enormous bottles. Outwardly (or at least size-wise, given that her head was covered in snake hair), she was a middle school girl─so her cradling a huge bottle in her little arms and chugging from it was, how can I put this, not something you see every day, a real sight for sore eyes. I’d gladly pay for the honor.
Nadeko Sengoku gave herself over to the most divine pursuit of guzzling booze like there was no tomorrow, but apparently being a god didn’t mean she couldn’t get drunk. When she was done with the saké, she was even cheerier than usual. This was naturally exhausting for me, and on such occasions I would depart early.
Every time, I’d tell myself never again, but I always ended up wanting another taste of her merriment. While I said about twice a week, I might have brought her saké pretty damn often.
And that was my life for a month.
Go up the mountain.
Pay 10,000 yen.
Have some fun with cat’s cradle, chat.
Imbibe on occasion.
There was no particular trouble, no one tried to get in my way─and a second letter never appeared in my hotel room.
Staying at the same place for over a month, just because no letter appeared, would have been suspicious, so I did move after the first week as planned─but nothing much changed at the new spot.
Every once in a while I sensed someone tailing me, but no big deal. Perhaps because I never tried to unmask them, they didn’t take it to the next level─and who knows, it could be my imagination after all. Under the circumstances, it was entirely possible that it was just a case of nerves.
Other than that, nothing worth mentioning.
I suppose there was this one thing.
I’d heard from Hanekawa that there was─or strictly speaking, “had been”─an abandoned cram school where Oshino had holed up during his stay, and I went to visit it on a whim sometime around the middle of January.
Just a stark white expanse.
The building was gone and snow was piled up high─the place had caught fire in August or September of last year and burned to the ground.
The incident involved Gaen-senpai and Episode, as well as Koyomi Araragi and Shinobu Oshino─and was also an underlying cause of the present fix.
Because on that occasion, Araragi received a certain important item from Gaen-senpai that ended up turning Nadeko Sengoku into a god; Gaen-senpai, however, had wanted him to use it on Shinobu Oshino.
I wasn’t there, so I don’t know if Araragi made the right decision─which is to say, I don’t care to know, or so much as think about it.
I’m not Araragi, nor am I Shinobu Oshino or Nadeko Sengoku, nor am I Gaen-senpai─in other words, that story has nothing to do with me. What Hanekawa had told me gave me some sense of Gaen-senpai’s motives, but again, I wasn’t interested at all in pondering whether they were good or evil, right or wrong.
While part of me hoped to find a clue to aid me in my current task, I basically went to the ruins, or the former site of those ruins, half out of curiosity and half just for the hell of it.
It wouldn’t hurt to see where Oshino had spent his time─the building itself was gone, though, so I can’t say I got much satisfaction on that account.
But there was an interesting coincidence.
The thing worth mentioning.
In that now-empty lot, I happened to run into a girl I know named Roka Numachi.
I’d met her elsewhere some years before─turns out, she was from this town. That seemed like a potentially useful piece of information. If I wanted to involve myself with Suruga Kanbaru somewhere down the line, for instance.
And so January came to a close.
They say that January jets, February flees, and March makes its getaway─and so thirty bills, I mean thirty days, were gone. Thirty-one if you include New
Year’s Day, when I got the call about the job.
My plans and records, and to-do lists, had ballooned to ten notebooks─to be torn up and thrown away once the job was over, but looking over them at night in my hotel room before going to bed filled me with this sense that “I’d worked,” with satisfaction.
A swindler’s fulfillment.
I spoke to Senjogahara on the phone throughout the month, but the meeting at Mister Donut was the last time we met face to face─I probably wouldn’t be billing her for any further expenses, and if I could finish the job without us seeing each other again, that seemed for the best.
Hanekawa left the country on January fifth, the day after we met─though that might be untrue. Maybe she stayed in Japan or secretly returned right away, searching for Oshino or trying another approach. Whatever the case, I wasn’t going to pay her too much mind. I had a job to do, and she could keep on doing things her own way.
I didn’t get in touch with Mr. and Mrs. Sengoku again─and they didn’t contact me. However the job turned out, I wouldn’t have to deal with that law-abiding couple for the rest of my life.
Oh, also it came time for the national exams.
I never once ran into Araragi jumping the gun on visiting Nadeko Sengoku during the course of my “hundred-day pilgrimage,” so I guess he’d gotten real about prepping for them.
By the by, according to Senjogahara, he sat for them properly, and properly failed to obtain good marks.
Made sense, since his life was on the line─at least he had an excuse. If I pulled off my grand deception of Nadeko Sengoku (“helped her fall for it,” as Hanekawa put it), he’d have no excuse for his secondary exams. That provided me with some extra incentive to get it done. Assuming his low scores hadn’t already put him out of contention.
And so January came to a close.
February began.
And the appointed day arrived.
033
“I see. So today’s the day, at last.”
“Yeah, at last is right.”
Before leaving the hotel, I placed an early-morning phone call to Senjogahara─winter break was over, and third term had begun. Which is why I had to call early in the morning─though Senjogahara, who was in her final year, didn’t actually have to show up every day.
She’s serious about the oddest things. A serious, odd girl is what she is.
“Is it going to be okay? I’m kind of tense.”
“Don’t be,” I said in a calm voice. Naturally, I felt a certain tension as well when I thought the job was coming to an end─to fruition. Remaining calm was the mature thing to do, though. “I’ll call you tonight to give my final report─all you have left to do is prepare for a celebratory toast with Araragi.”
“A toast…” I don’t know what was going on in Senjogahara’s head, but the words came out like a sigh. Not like the tension or strain was getting to her─she just seemed kind of listless. What was up with her?
Slightly concerned, I asked, “Did something happen?”
Had the circumstances changed this close to the finish line? That happens all the time, in fact. That’s work for you. It’s always, and I do mean always, right before the finish line that everything goes belly up.
“No…it’s just… Realizing that I’m only going to talk to you one more time after this makes me feel a little blue,” Senjogahara lamented, clearly insincerely.
Somewhat insulted that she thought she could fool me like that, I returned, “I feel the same way. Being in frequent touch with you really brought me back, it was a real pleasure,” with equal insincerity.
It was more like insensitivity in my case.
I wouldn’t have been surprised if she hung up on me (It had happened plenty of times over the last month. I’d hang up on her, she’d hang up on me─how did we ever get to today without the job getting cancelled?), but Senjogahara just chuckled, “Heheh.”
It gave me the creeps. She wasn’t much of a laugher─or no, was that assessment two years out of date?
She was different now, more so than if she were a different person altogether.
“Of course I’ll raise a toast with Araragi, but Kaiki, do I need to do something to show my appreciation? Should we meet one last time?”
“No need, lay off the bad jokes. Thanks to Gaen-senpai, I don’t have to bill you for expenses and am coming out ahead, there’s no reason to show me any gratitude… Oh, and this isn’t a follow-up or anything, but Senjogahara.”
“What?”
“Do you remember what we said at the beginning of January? Let me remind you just in case: give Araragi strict instructions. He might be busy right now with exam prep, but if he waltzes up to Kita-Shirahebi Shrine to see Nadeko Sengoku after I’ve duped her─everything will go to shit.”
“Yeah, about that…” Senjogahara already seemed to have the issue in mind, and she sounded troubled. “It’s gonna be a real problem. Leveling with him means fessing up that you were involved… It could make him that much more stubborn about going up to see Nadeko Sengoku.”
“He’s your boyfriend. So if it comes to it, seriously, play up to him and persuade him with some line about just doing it for your sake, or having to choose between you and her.”
“Don’t you get it? If I could, my life wouldn’t have turned out this way.”
Fair enough. But with their lives on the line, couldn’t she pull together such a performance, even if it was hard?
“It’s not an issue of can or can’t. Even if I did, Araragi wouldn’t buy it. I’m an excellent performer, but if I do that out of nowhere, it’s going to seem blatantly unnatural.”
“Sure. So don’t do it out of nowhere. Just like I spent all of January buttering up Nadeko Sengoku, take February to butter up Araragi.”
“Butter up…” echoed Senjogahara, disgustedly. “Any relationship is just a game to you, I take it.”
“I don’t play games,” I denied without a moment’s hesitation, but depending on how you looked at it, our conversation itself was a sort of game. I’d groomed myself to be someone who couldn’t be gamed, but that didn’t necessarily mean I didn’t play games. “Anyway, at this point the time constraints have been lifted. If you want to rescue Nadeko Sengoku, it’s not too late to do it once you guys are in college.”
I was of course keeping my meeting with Hanekawa secret from Senjogahara, but I had her words in mind as I continued, “So if you really can’t persuade Araragi, then dream up any old reason for him not to go near the mountain. Your lives depend on it, so get it done.”
“You’re right… Our lives depend on it.”
Yes. Senjogahara’s life was on the line, and so was Araragi’s─whatever she tried, it wouldn’t be in bad faith.
Or would it? Should lovers keep no secrets for any reason?
I had no idea. I really didn’t.
“Hey, Senjogahara, can I ask you something?”
“What is it?”
“What do you love about Araragi?”
“That he isn’t you.” Maybe she thought this was clever and sarcastic, but the basis for her selection of a lover seemed to be centered on me, if only via a process of elimination, and she corrected herself: “Because he’s Araragi. If Araragi wasn’t Araragi, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have fallen in love with him.”
“You’ve lost me,” I said. “You’re so passionate about him, so into him you’re willing to sacrifice your life on his behalf, but I bet you’ll break up when you get to college.”
“…”
“Or maybe once you graduate from college. High-school couples don’t usually make it all the way to the altar. It’s just bullshit puppy love.”
“I’m going to let that one slide… Even I’m not so reckless as to pull the rug out from under everything at this point. But will you at least tell me why you’re being so mean?”
I was genuinely surprised to hear her respond with such an admirable attitude instead of a retort. And since she’d asked, why was I being so m
ean to a high school kid?
Whether it was puppy love or not, if they were enjoying themselves, then wasn’t that good enough? Why was I throwing shade on their romance?
Wasn’t it like telling a kindergartner playing house in the sandbox, “Married life isn’t really like that”?
I was ashamed of myself, so I cut the conversation short without addressing her question.
“Anyway, congrats. I’m glad you and your beloved Araragi will make it through this in one piece.”
