by Nisioisin
“Oh, that tsundere?”
“………”
She did remember.
It appeared as though Senjogahara was being granted the “t──e” title all around town… Was she okay with that? I needed to ask her how that made her feel, just so I’d know how to react, on my part.
“She was an endlessly tolerant women, I recall. She carried me on her back the entire time as she showed me the way.”
“Those are some really embellished memories, you know?!”
Senjogahara was functioning like a trauma for Hachikuji. Considering their respective circumstances, that almost made sense…
“Hmm,” murmured Hachikuji, her arms still crossed. “Oh, but…if I’m not mistaken, you and Miss Senjogahara are─well, um, how to put it.”
Hachikuji seemed to be choosing her words with care. I had a good idea what her question was, but I got the impression that she was reluctant to phrase it in a bald way and was searching for a different expression. While I wouldn’t call it curiosity, I was somewhat interested in the selection process her fifth-grade vocabulary would undergo, so I stood there and watched, offering her no lifeline.
Finally, she said, “You’ve entered into a lovers’ contract, correct?”
“You couldn’t have done worse!”
To no one’s surprise, I found myself yelling at her.
Another textbook interaction between us.
“Excuse me? Did I say something odd, Mister Araragi?”
“On the surface, you didn’t use any funny words, but few people would fail to smell something rotten from their nuance…”
“If the word ‘contract’ is the problem…then what about ‘transaction’? A lovers’ transaction.”
“You did manage to make it worse! Just speak like a normal person, I don’t care!”
“Hmph. All right, as you wish. I’ll speak like a normal person. Normal comes easy to me when I feel like it. Here I go, are you ready? If I’m not mistaken, you are Miss Senjogahara’s gentleman caller.”
“…Um, I guess.”
Now she was coming at me with an awfully musty locution.
That was her idea of normal?
“So this claim that she’ll be coaching you is surely no more than a pretext, and you’ll end up trading caresses?”
“………”
Another musty expression.
Something was definitely off about her vocabulary.
“Mister Araragi, if I may, visiting your lover’s home right before a skills test that will ascertain if you can repeat a grade is nothing short of suicidal.”
“It’ll ascertain if I can graduate.” She seemed to think that I was a pretty big idiot. You poor thing, I pitied myself. “And don’t be calling it ‘suicidal,’ either.”
“All right, then. It seems like nothing short of suicide.”
I was being bullied by an elementary school kid. You poor thing, I pitied myself. “Watch it,” I warned her, “or I’ll bust you up, sooner or later…”
“Bust me up? Are you talking about my chest? What exactly are you seeking from my elementary-school body?”
“Shut up. Don’t play gotcha when you haven’t even gotten me.”
I bonked Hachikuji on the head.
In return, Hachikuji kicked my shin.
Draw declared, out of mutual respect.
“Well anyway, Hachikuji, no need to worry on that point… Senjogahara is ridiculously strict about these things.”
“She’s strict about studying? How Spartan. Ah, now that you say so, she didn’t seem the type to suffer fools gladly.”
“Yep. She said as much herself.”
That’s why she found children insufferable.
Including Hachikuji.
Maybe she found me insufferable, too.
Though, of course, I wasn’t only talking about studying when I described Senjogahara as “strict”… Well, let’s just agree that she’s a model student.
“So she’s like Gunnery Sergeant Heartful,” Hachikuji said.
“Whoever that is sounds like the friendliest NCO ever.”
“Um, I believe Miss Senjogahara’s home is near that park─”
“No, I think I already told you, but she moved away a while ago─I’ve already been there once, a little before I met you, and it’s pretty far. If I go home, switch bikes, and head over… Ugh, now that I’m looking at the time, I kind of need to hurry.”
“If you’re in a rush, I won’t be so boorish as to keep you.”
“No, I don’t have my back against the wall or anything yet.”
I may have been heading to Senjogahara’s, but it was still to study, and the honest truth was that I couldn’t quite get in the mood…though who knew what acid-tongued abuse Senjogahara would unleash if I told her that.
Oh boy.
Hitagi Senjogahara.
It was true of Hachikuji, too, but Senjogahara was certainly─
“Hey, Hachikuji…are you─”
Just then.
Mid-sentence, I heard a sound from behind me.
A sound.
The sound of footsteps.
A sharp and lively rhythm, less a series of strides than leaps, outright jumps, tup, tup, tup, tup, tup, tup─such footsteps.
There was no need to glance behind me to confirm.
Yeah, I guessed not…
In terms of not being able to enjoy some peace and quiet, I was burdened with another dire threat on top of the skills test…
Just when I thought I’d shaken it.
Tup, tup, tup, tup, tup, tup.
The footsteps got closer and closer.
There was no need to confirm, but still─
I couldn’t help it.
Tupp!
Just as I completed my reluctant, recalcitrant turn─she leapt.
She, Suruga Kanbaru, was leaping through the air.
Across more than just several feet, as though performing a long jump, airborne with an ideal form and trajectory that seemed to ignore the law of universal gravitation─and passing me to my right still airborne, almost at eye level─
She landed.
Her fluttering hair settled when she did.
A school uniform.
This time, needless to say, it was my school’s.
Her scarf was colored second-year yellow.
By the way, leaping in her uniform meant that her skirt, modified to be shorter as they are these days, had flown up as well, but since she wore bike shorts that reached to her knees─the pleasure wasn’t mine.
Her skirt, too, fell back into place just a moment later.
Suddenly, I noticed a smell like burning rubber.
The source seemed to be intense friction between the asphalt and the soles of her unmistakably expensive sneakers… How exceptionally athletic was she, anyway?
Then our basketball ace, Suruga Kanbaru─turned around.
Though not thoroughly adult, her expression was cool and commanding in a way most third-years couldn’t pull off, and her handsome eyes─looked straight at me.
She placed her hand on her chest as if she were about to make a pledge.
Then she flashed a little grin.
“Hello there, my senior Araragi. What a coincidence.”
“I’ve never heard of such a contrived coincidence!”
She’d obviously sprinted in my direction.
When I looked around, Hachikuji was clean gone. Despite being blunt and brusque toward me, Mayoi Hachikuji was a surprisingly bashful kid, and she’d exercised a snap judgment and fleet-footedness to go with it. Of course, just about anyone would flee if a strange woman came dashing at such an unholy speed (it must have looked like Kanbaru was heading straight for her from where she stood).
Still, she really wasn’t much of a friend, was she…
Fine, fine.
When I looked back at Kanbaru, she was nodding over and over again like she was utterly enchanted and profoundly moved for some reason.
“…Wha
t’s the matter?”
“No, I was just pondering your words, to engrave them deep in my heart. ‘I’ve never heard of such a contrived coincidence’… The perfect line for the occasion, the kind that everyone hopes to come up with but fails to. That’s what I call a razor wit.”
“………”
“Yes, you’re right,” Kanbaru said. “I did come chasing after you.”
“…Um, yeah. I know.”
“Ah, so you did know. Anything a fledgling like me tries to pull is transparent to someone of your caliber, I take it. This is awkward, and I could not feel more embarrassed, but I am duly impressed.”
“………”
What are you supposed to say to that?
God knows what kind of expression was stuck on my face at that moment, but Suruga Kanbaru paid no mind and brandished her vivid smile at me.
Three days earlier.
As I walked down the hallway, the very same Suruga Kanbaru approached me with resonant footsteps and began talking to me like it was nothing. So much so that I ended up replying normally, but this was the star second-year, a celebrity known the school over, someone whom even I, a third-year estranged from such gossip, knew of─but never dreamed of having anything to do with in any conceivable way─so I was quite surprised.
But what really surprised me was her personality. Well, I don’t know what to call it, but I do know it’s bizarre… Suruga Kanbaru possessed a disposition, a character I’d never encountered in my whole life.
And.
Ever since, meaning from three days ago to this exact day and moment─I’d been followed around by her like this. No matter when, no matter where, no matter who might be watching, tup, tup, tup, tup, tup, tup, Kanbaru was dashing towards me.
“Putting break periods aside,” I asked her, “didn’t you have practice after school? Should you even be here?”
“A-ha. So astute, as I’ve come to expect. You’re like the hero of a detective story who never misses the slightest discrepancy. You’d give Philip Marlowe a run for his money, a barefoot run.”
“A national-tier basketball player shouldn’t be here at this hour, it’s just odd, so enough with the flattery.”
If that was all it took to send the hero of a detective story running to his mommy, then I didn’t want to read that series.
Kanbaru was beaming. “Such modest words of self-admonition, you never fail to value humility as an asset that’s second only to your life… I’m prone to overestimating myself and ought to learn from you, starting right now. Ha ha, they say that one bad apple spoils the whole barrel, but I can feel myself growing as a person just from being with you. Now I know what ‘emulating’ is all about.”
There was no malice in her smile.
…In my life so far, I’d taken “a good person” to mean someone like Hanekawa, but I wondered if the ultimate specimens were actually more like Kanbaru.
In other words, they were even worse than Hanekawa.
Even more of a pain than our class president.
“But see, my hand is like this right now,” Kanbaru said, sticking out her left arm.
Her left arm, wrapped tight in a white bandage. Over every inch, from all five of her fingertips to her wrist. The long sleeves of her school uniform hid the rest of her arm, but the bandage probably extended up to around her elbow. I’d heard that a little while ago, she’d suffered a mishap during a solo workout and given herself a nasty sprain, or something─well, I’d heard that as a rumor, right before Kanbaru talked to me.
Rumors are rumors.
Suruga Kanbaru with her athletic prowess and flexibility spraining herself, solo workout or not, was hard to take even with a grain of salt─but since her arm was bandaged, I supposed it was the truth. Everyone makes mistakes, to err is human, even monkeys fall from trees.
“Since I can’t play, I’d only get in the team’s way at the gym. That’s why I’m refraining from going to practices now.”
“Still, aren’t you the captain? Even as it is, the team’s morale is sure to drop without you.”
“I’m disappointed to know that you think I’m carrying the whole team on my back. My team isn’t so feckless that their morale would drop just because I’m not around,” Kanbaru said in a tougher tone. “Basketball is a harsh sport. You can’t count on any single person to win the game. Sure, the position and role I play means that I stand out, but it’s only thanks to everyone else. The praise that gets showered on me ought to be shared by the whole team.”
“…Uh, I guess you’re right.”
What was the word for someone like her?
Decent? Virtuous?
What was it.
It seemed that, not just now but in general, Kanbaru was incredibly sensitive to people insulting her teammates (not that I was trying to). When she was a first-year, she flipped a table when the school newspaper was interviewing her because they said something rude about one of her elder comrades─or so one rumor went (if you’re curious, the rumor ended up being false, but something similar did happen).
Heheh, a laugh escaped Kanbaru’s lips. “I know. You were putting my aptitude as a captain to the test, weren’t you?”
“………”
What was this second-year saying to me now with such a smug and triumphant look?
Turn that gaze away from me.
“My senior, in recording your words for future generations, the writer better bold and underline them so their impression is imparted to the readers. The weight you invest in each word is overwhelming. ‘It’s not what you say, but who says it’─they often mean that in a negative sense, but you’re the one person who gives it a positive spin. Please, relax. I don’t intend to abandon my responsibilities as captain; I’m not so self-absorbed as to be that negligent. I’m aware that I have to live up to being our ace and made sure to issue workout routines. If anything, they’re focusing on practice with greater ease thanks to my absence. When the devil’s away, the mice will play.”
“The devil, huh? Well, I’m relieved to hear it anyway.”
“Sport or not, it’s just a club activity for students. Moreover, ours is a prep school. At the end of the day, an extracurricular is a way for us teens to have some memories, so fun, free, and friendly does it. Even so, most of my betters wouldn’t bother to have anything to do with me, but not only are you looking out for my relationships, you’re even thinking of my teammates. I feel bad for making you so concerned. Such depth of character expands my own horizons─to think that you’d even play the villain for the basketball team’s sake. Only someone who truly cares about his juniors could go that far. I’ve never met a person like you before, sir.”
“I’ve never met a person like you before, either…”
She was breaking new ground…
A natural-born killer with kindness…
“Is that so,” she said. “There’s no greater honor than to hear that from you. Heheh, what is this feeling, inspiration? It’s as though getting praised by someone as gracious as you has opened up a whole new well of courage in me. I feel like I can do anything now. From this day on, whenever I feel down, I’m going to come to you. A few words from my mentor will make me pick myself back up again, I know it.”
Kanbaru’s smile refused to leave her face even for a moment.
Her expression almost looked unguarded─but it wasn’t, due to an undeniable strength that resided at its core. Only someone with absolute confidence in herself could wear such a smile.
We belonged to completely different worlds.
We belonged to completely different categories.
Well, that went without saying─not even counting our personalities, the athletic girl Kanbaru, the school star, and Koyomi Araragi belonging to different worlds, different categories, was self-evident, so the question was why someone like Suruga Kanbaru had chosen to talk to me.
Not just chosen. Why she continued to.
Why she dashed toward me─and continued to do so.
It couldn’t be that she was, in her own words, coming to me because she felt down and needed to cheer herself back up. I didn’t have that kind of supernatural power. If I did, I’d be using it liberally on myself.
