by Nisioisin
I’d lost count of how many times I’d asked the question over the last three days, but I asked again. “So, Kanbaru. What do you want from me?”
“Ah, yes…” She’d been making quick, eloquent replies thus far, but now for the first time seemed to be searching for the right words. But it only took a second before her cheeks were lit by a smile and she opened her mouth. “You must have read the international section of today’s paper, yes? I wanted to hear your thoughts on the unfolding political situation in Russia.”
“Current events?!”
What a topic to ask about, too. I barely knew anything about Japanese politics, but we were crossing the sea and talking about Russia?
“Oh, would India be more to your taste?” she offered. “But as you can guess, sadly I’m something of a jock, an outdoors type, who’s weak on IT-related topics. I have a better feel for the problems facing Russia.”
“I didn’t read the paper this morning,” I gave an excuse so blatant I couldn’t possibly play it down myself. Actually, I do read it, but can’t make enough of anything to partake in a discussion…
Yet Kanbaru merely said “Oh,” and her eyes took on a tender cast. “Well, you are a busy man. I can see how you might not have the time to read the paper in the morning. I apologize, I should have thought of it before blabbering so inconsiderately. We can put the topic off until tomorrow in that case, if that’s all right with you.”
“Sure…”
“How generous of you. I didn’t expect to be forgiven so easily. There is simply no way someone with your gravitas didn’t find my remark superficial, but you let it go without so much as hinting at your displeasure. Now that’s what it means to be a diplomat. I never thought that I could come to like you even more.”
“Well, thanks…”
“No need for gratitude. I’m only telling you how I feel.”
“……”
Regardless, she seemed pretty smart.
Being both smart and athletic wasn’t playing by the rules at all… It wasn’t like Hanekawa and Senjogahara were bad at sports, but they couldn’t begin to compare to this second-year. Sure, Senjogahara may have been the star of the track team in middle school, but the gap in her résumé after starting high school wasn’t negligible─more so if you added in her special circumstances.
Well, of course, I didn’t really think that Kanbaru wanted to debate me on the political situation in Russia─that was clearly a pretext. No matter how many times I asked her what she wanted from me, she was this way and wouldn’t give a straight reply.
She had to have some objective, but I didn’t have the first clue.
Why in the world was she following me around, and so suddenly? She, the star of the entire school, and I, a third-year washout, hadn’t a single thing in common.
I ought to be a total stranger to her.
“By the way, did anything odd happen to you today?” she asked.
“Hunh? Not really… Everything’s normal.” Aside from her. Well, I was starting to get used to her, too. “I have a headache thanks to the skills test we have coming up, I guess?”
“Oh, the skills test. Hm, yes. It’s been giving me a headache as well. It’s quite a pain, as someone involved in an extracurricular. Our school prohibits any practices for a week before the test, so your only choice is to train solo.”
“Huh.”
So that’s how it worked. I had trouble understanding her logic that if the school banned it, she had to work out on her own, instead of just taking a break. But hers was a different world.
“But Kanbaru, isn’t that a good thing, at least from your perspective? Your sprained left hand should heal by then.”
“Hm? Oh…true.” She looked down at her hand. “Impressive, you simply see things in a different way. Always trying to figure out how to make everyone around you happy. You’re a real master of positive thinking.”
“Hey, I could think positively for a hundred years and never get to your level…”
What kind of upbringing turned out people like her?
It baffled me.
“I know it’s a cliché,” she conceded, “but it is a student’s job to study. As annoying as they are, skills tests are skills tests, and I’m not going to take mine lightly.”
“Good thing it wasn’t your right hand.”
“Well, I’m actually a southpaw,” Kanbaru said. “Being left-handed means you have to deal with a lot of day-to-day inconveniences, but the one place it can be an advantage is the world of competitive sports. I treasure my birthright.”
“Huh, really?”
“Mm. That’s common knowledge for anyone in competitive sports. In Japan, parents still tend to correct their children’s left-handedness, so only one out of ten athletes, at most, is a southpaw. What do you think that ratio means in the sport of basketball? It’s a five-on-five game, so on average there’s only one on the court. And that would be me. It’s one of the reasons I was able to become our ace.”
“Huh…” I felt convinced, but of what I wasn’t sure.
“Still, when something like this happens, be it the result of my own carelessness, all I’m left with is a bunch of inconveniences.”
“A southpaw, eh… I don’t really understand any of that because I don’t play sports, but being left-handed just seems cool.”
That was my honest take.
Well, it was more of a preconception, even a prejudice, but somehow every little thing lefties did seemed more stylish to me.
“You say that, but aren’t you left-handed too? Heheh, I noticed immediately because you have your watch on your right wrist. Lefties are quick to pick up on fellow lefties.”
“……”
I wore my watch on my right wrist just because I felt like it, but now I didn’t dare tell her… Was I going to have to write and use chopsticks with my left hand in her presence going forward? Lefties seemed stylish to me, but not to the point where I’d reverse-correct myself…
“So,” I said, “taking the test will be quite a challenge for you. With your good hand in that shape, the Japanese exam will suck bad.”
“True, but since this is a skills test, we won’t have to write essays in any subject, and a few oddly shaped characters here and there shouldn’t be an issue. I’m sure the teachers will take my situation into account, too. Pardon me, it sounds like I’ve caused you undue concern. I do have to say, though, you really do look out for your juniors. To be able to worry about someone like me because you feel so relaxed. That’s no simple feat.”
“…Uh, I don’t know about relaxed.” Far from it. Putting aside whether I’d worry about my juniors if I were relaxed, I was anything but at the moment. “In fact, I’m about to go to a study session today.”
“A study session?” Kanbaru’s confusion was apparent. It wasn’t ringing any bells for her.
“Um, I guess a simple way to put it would be that my grades until now haven’t been the best…plus I had a pretty bad attendance record during my first and second years of high school, so…”
Why was I having to explain to her?
Star or not, she was a year below me, my junior.
“In short, this skills test is my big chance to make a comeback,” I found myself putting a good face on it. I felt small.
“Hmm. I see.” Kanbaru nodded. “I don’t really understand because I’m not the type to hustle when it comes to exam prep, but now that you mention it, my classmates do gather at someone’s house before a test…I think?”
“Yeah, that’s pretty much what I’m doing.”
“Okay. So you’re about to head to a friend’s house. But,” Kanbaru said a little uncertainly, “unlike with sports, I don’t see how working together can help…”
“Don’t worry. I said it was a study session, but it’s a one-on-one where someone’s going to be teaching me, that’s all. It’s like I’m going to be tutored. There’s someone in my class with ridiculously good grades who’s going to be helping me out.�
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“Huh… Ohh.” As if she’d just remembered, Kanbaru added, “You’re talking about my senior Senjogahara.”
“…What? You know her?”
“Who else could it be if it’s someone with good grades in your class? I’ve heard rumors about her.”
“Huh… Well, yeah.”
Senjogahara was famous, after all. Maybe it wasn’t surprising that a second-year knew about her.
Hm?
But wait. As far as being famous for good grades went, the first person to come to mind should have been the even more famous Hanekawa, who’d never once ceded her spot at the top of our year. At the very least, it didn’t make sense to be saying it couldn’t be anyone else. Also, if someone mentioned a study session, wouldn’t you normally assume that it was a same-sex affair and bring up a boy’s name, not a girl’s?
Why was she bringing up Senjogahara out of nowhere?
“I shouldn’t get in your way, then,” Kanbaru said. “I think I’ll get going for today.”
“Okay.”
It was very Suruga Kanbaru to stick in the “for today” even as she made a show of not overstaying her welcome.
She squatted and stretched her legs.
Warm-ups.
She took her time stretching her Achilles tendon, and then─
“May fortune smile on you.”
No sooner than she said so, she dashed back the way she came, her footsteps ringing tup, tup, tup, tup, tup, tup. She had strong legs─not only was she fast, she was abnormally quick to hit her top speed. While I doubt her hundred or two hundred meter times are that outstanding, she must be a good match even for members of the track team at ultra-short distances like thirty or fifty feet. That’s where Suruga Kanbaru, an athlete specializing in basketball, a sport where you run in every direction within a limited play field, shines…and then, before I knew it, she was out of sight. Her short skirt flew up from her vigorous motions, but that surely didn’t bother Kanbaru, who wore bike shorts long enough to extend below her skirt.
…Still, I thought, she ought to wear a tracksuit when she runs. That way she’d spare onlookers like me from getting our vile hopes up.
Sheesh, though.
It felt like a weight had been lifted from my shoulders.
This encounter had been relatively brief, but…if she didn’t hurry up and reveal why she was following me around, I couldn’t rest easy, since this situation might drag on. Sure, it wasn’t causing me any actual damage or harm, so leaving her be was technically an option, but that personality of Kanbaru’s did more than a little to tire out people like me. No, was there anyone out there who wouldn’t get tired talking to her? If there was─
Yeah. Maybe Senjogahara was the only person on that list.
“Mister Rararagi.”
“…You’re asymptotically closer to the right pronunciation compared to the last thing you called me, but Hachikuji, don’t sing my name like you’re a cartoon dog. My name is Araragi.”
“I’m sorry. A slip of the tongue.”
“No, you’re doing it on purpose…”
“It was a srip.”
“Or maybe not?!”
“It was a trip.”
“What were you seeing?!”
Hachikuji was suddenly back by my side.
She must have returned after realizing that Kanbaru had left. I couldn’t be sure, as this was Hachikuji I was dealing with, but given how promptly she’d come back, maybe she felt her fair share of guilt for running off and leaving me on my own. Perhaps this time, she really had mistaken my name on purpose, to hide her embarrassment.
“What was with that person?” she asked.
“You couldn’t tell by watching us?”
“Hmm. Since she referred to you as her senior, if I may don my thinking hat, is she your junior at school?”
“…That’s some impressive thinking hat.”
If I were Kanbaru, this was where I’d whip out Marlowe or some other classic detective to praise Hachikuji to high heaven, but no─for a moment I thought I might try to borrow a page, but my heart was refusing to let me…
“Even so, Mister Araragi. I was all ears, but it was very hard to understand what that person was getting at. To the very end I couldn’t figure out the gist of your conversation. Had she chased after you to chat about nothing in particular?”
“Um… Well, Hachikuji, don’t ask me because I don’t know, either.”
“You don’t? I can’t help but be receptacle.”
“So you turned into a trashcan while you were gone?”
Skeptical, I assumed.
I decided to tell Hachikuji exactly what was going on. “That girl’s been stalking me.”
“Stalking? Like what women wear over their lower bodies?”
“That’s a stocking.”
“Are you sure?”
“Do you really not know the word? She’s been following me no matter how much I try to skirt around her.”
“Skirt? Like what women wear over their lower bodies?”
“How did Mister Araragi become so obsessed with what ladies wear below their waists in your mind?”
I thought for a bit to see if I could come up with a word Hachikuji might confuse with bike shorts. Unfortunately, my vocabulary wasn’t up to the task, so I gave up and kept the conversation moving.
“I don’t understand why, but for about three days now, she’s been shadowing me blatantly and then popping up and starting a conversation. One-sidedly, so like you said, I can’t figure out what she’s trying to get at… I don’t know if you’d call it chatting, and I honestly have no idea what her goal is.”
Her goal─well, she had to have one.
But I didn’t have the first clue what it was.
She was deflecting my attempts to find out, for sure.
The athletic grounds are about the only place third- and second-year students see each other, which means we almost never meet by coincidence─in other words, Kanbaru was making the most of short breaks during the day to seek me out… I’d figured that out, but not much else.
“Hmm. You know, Mister Araragi, isn’t there an easy answer sitting right there? Doesn’t she just like you?”
“Wha?”
“I believe she said something to that effect.”
“…Oh, I guess? Nah, give me a break. It was just a manner of speaking. I’m not a dating sim protagonist, it’s not like I’m going to wake up one day and suddenly have girls all over me.”
“You’re right. Because if you were a dating sim protagonist, I’d be one of your flagged targets, and that’s absolutely not happening.”
“……”
Did elementary school kids know about dating sims?
Not like I had ever played one, either.
“But if you were,” Hachikuji continued, “I’m sure I’d have a high difficulty rating.”
“No, I get the feeling you’d be a pushover…”
If not for her shyness attribute, it’d all happen very quickly… In a game with six heroines, she’d be around the fourth to go down.
Of course, if you took the age issue into account, she’d be a highdifficulty character indeed.
“Kanbaru isn’t,” I objected, “that kind of… Ah, now that you mention it, I guess there are rumors that she goes from one wild romance to the next. Still, she and I had literally nothing to do with each other until now, okay? Unlike them…unlike Kanbaru and others, I’m not a school celebrity or anything.”
But upon further thought, I realized she had at least known my name and what class I was in when she first spoke to me.
Why?
Could she have…asked someone?
“Maybe she saw you picking an abandoned cat off the street,” Hachikuji said.
“I’ve never done that.”
In fact, I’d never once stumbled upon a so-called abandoned cat. In the first place, would a cat plunked in a cardboard box labeled “please adopt me” just sit in place?
That
would be one well-trained cat.
“Then perhaps she saw you picking garbage off the street?”
“Hold on, did you just put cats on the same level as garbage?”
“It was only a manner of speaking, as you put it, so stop scrounging for reasons to criticize me. That’s a very vulgar hobby you have, Mister Araragi, finding sport in castigating weak little girls for things they never said.”
