by Nisioisin
“I see…”
I didn’t.
“But that kind of question is a boomerang, big brother, you know? Your bangs are plenty long too, so right back at you.”
“For some reason mine don’t bother me.”
“Speaking of bangs,” Tsukihi said suddenly─as I massaged her scalp─“Nadeko’s out of the hospital.”
“Yeah? Glad to hear it.”
“Hm? You’re not as excited as I expected. I thought you’d do a little dance of glee.” Tsukihi turned around a little to look at me. Her expression was sincere. “A naked dance of glee.”
“As if.”
“I thought it’d be a cinch to get you to do a naked dance. I specifically waited until we were in the bathroom to tell you and everything.”
“Don’t add some frivolous rider to such a serious subject.”
“Yessir. Anyway, she’s out.”
“Huh.”
Huh.
What else could I say? What else did I have the right to say?
I was certainly glad she was out of the hospital, though.
Not that I could ever face Sengoku again─
But I was glad anyway.
Somehow I was able to be.
“Big brother?”
“What?”
“Owowowowowowowow. Are you ow trying ow to crush my ow head ow like a vice owowow?”
“Oh, sorry, sorry. I guess I was overdoing it.”
“You probably don’t want to hear this from me, which is exactly why I’m going to say it, but haven’t you taken on too much? You are overdoing it. Nadeko wasn’t your responsibility or your problem.”
Tsukihi was talking like she knew it all, but in fact she didn’t know the truth about Nadeko Sengoku and her mysterious disappearance for the past few months.
While I wouldn’t say my sister wasn’t involved in any way, it was hard to say she was─which is exactly why she could say something about it, I guess.
She could say something.
That I didn’t want to hear.
“It’s fine,” she said. “Nadeko’s been a lot livelier lately. She’s cheered up some, gotten more optimistic.”
“Really… That’s great.”
“She even laughs sometimes.”
“That’s…even better.”
Things really were looking up.
To the point that I didn’t need to worry anymore about not seeing that face, that smile, ever again.
“You should go see her sometime. She’s laid up at home, and you’ll be busy with exam prep for a while so it might be tough…”
Tsukihi said this in all innocence, knowing nothing─if she’d been speaking with full knowledge of the situation, it would’ve been scathingly ironic. But, for better or for worse, Tsukihi Araragi is a frank, straightforward person, so I can’t imagine her saying something like that on purpose.
And yet there was something that still concerned me.
Concerned me─so much I was still something of a wreck.
It was impossible for me not to worry─about what Nadeko Sengoku might have told Tsukihi Araragi regarding Koyomi Araragi.
It wasn’t a question of a lack of closure.
But the word regret didn’t even begin to cover it─
“Still, Nadeko talked a ton of shit about you, big brother. What did you do to her, anyway?”
“Seriously?!”
“What? No, I was kidding.”
“…”
Some joke.
The timing was positively scary.
Almost like it was guided by a divine hand.
“Right, well─I suppose that problem remains,” I muttered.
Nadeko Sengoku had left the shrine─and her “disappearance” had come to an end, which was of course a good thing, a fabulous thing, but that good, fabulous thing also meant that the town was spiritually unstable again.
That was the problem I was referring to.
I didn’t know all the particulars in perfect detail myself─but in any event, Kita-Shirahebi Shrine was once again a hollow vacuum.
Not resolving that issue or at least trying to do something about it meant endless trouble for our town─and I had to admit that I was reluctant to move away and leave my little sisters behind with the problem as it stood.
Even if I couldn’t fully solve the problem.
I at least needed to bring things back into balance─
“Balance? That’s not really my job, though, is it…”
Job.
I’d thought I’d muttered the words under my breath, but as if she’d heard my whole inner monologue, Tsukihi responded, “It’s not your job.”
My heart skipped a beat. Was it synchronicity, or a psychic connection between siblings? No, it seemed to be nothing more than a coincidence since Tsukihi continued, “You’re taking on too much, big brother,” returning to her previous topic. “You can’t fix everything on your own. Some things you’ve just got to let go of, some things you’ve got to leave be. Know your limitations, it’s okay to let other people handle things sometimes, you know? You’re too concerned about Nadeko, about Karen, and about me too.”
“…”
Huh.
So that’s what she wanted to tell me?
And she hadn’t just picked up on it because I’d brought up Karen’s abilities, she seemed to have sensed it for a while.
Sensed that I was using graduation, and my exams as a chance.
To take care of a bunch of things─to solve them, to settle some accounts.
That I was trying to wrap up some things.
Things that I’d let go.
Things that I’d fudged.
“We─or I’ll just speak for myself, I, will manage somehow. After Karen graduates and I’m alone at the middle school, I know I’ll feel off balance, but I’ll manage somehow, in my own way. So you don’t need to worry, okay? It’s fine, everything’s A-OK. And Karen’ll manage too, of course. We’ll all manage somehow. Even Nadeko. So for now, you should just focus on the exams staring you in the face.”
“…”
Just moments ago, I’d wanted to admonish my little sister for only paying attention to what was right in front of her, to get her to think more about her future. For her to tell me to focus on the now─what could I say?
It wasn’t funny.
But it didn’t piss me off, either, didn’t make me want to throw it back in her face─I definitely was taking on too much, and couldn’t fix everything on my own.
There were limits to what I could do.
In fact, there were things I hadn’t been able to fix.
With Hachikuji.
With Sengoku.
Nothing would have gotten done without help from the experts. In fact, was there a single goddamn thing this past year that I’d managed to fix on my own?
When I tried to count them, there was nothing to count.
Even with my exams, and the graduation on which they hinged, I hadn’t gotten anywhere on my own. So yes, she was right, I’d taken on too much. She was absolutely right.
I’d spouted some line about the duties of an older brother.
But sensing your duty doesn’t necessarily mean being able to carry it out─there are times when you have to get help from someone else, times when you have to leave it to someone else.
Tying up every loose end by the time I graduated, by the time I left town, might be inherently impossible─but that didn’t mean I could be irresponsible and just neglect everything.
It isn’t good to take on too much.
But there are things you have to do.
And things that you have to try to do, even if you know you can’t.
“So how are things going with your exam prep, big brother? One month to go, think you’ll manage?”
“I…think so, I guess,” was the only reply I could give.
Even if I didn’t think I’d manage, that was the only reply I could give.
A lamentable attempt at autosuggestion
.
Senjogahara had been recruited, and there was no question about where she was going to college. So all I could do was try and follow her─too late at this point to even shoot for a backup, it’d be impossible.
Here I was, not taking even a single backup exam in an ultimate display of manliness─though actually it was only because my parents didn’t have much faith in me and hadn’t been willing to shell out more in the way of exorbitant exam fees.
“Okay,” my sister said, “then listen to me when I tell you that this isn’t the time to be taking more on, you moron. It’s crunch time. I’m giving you good advice here, big brother. Given the circumstances, is this any time to be giving your little sister a sponge bath?”
“Well, on that score, I’m not trying to shoulder some kind of responsibility, I’m not appointing myself to some role, I’m not helping you with your bath… I’m not lathering you up and fondling you.”
“The fundamental problem remains, though. Taking turns washing each other solved the issue of how small the bathroom is─but not of how small the bathtub is.”
“You’re absolutely right… The tub’s size makes it hard enough to enact the idea of cozy co-existence with a little girl, let alone a middle schooler.”
“A little girl?”
“Nothing. Obliviate.”
Ultimately I decided against using the showerhead and took the washbasin, like I’d done earlier when Tsukihi tried out her horrifying gag, to scoop water from the bathtub-which-was-kind-of-small-to-share-with-a-middle-schooler, this time dumping it over her head from behind.
I contrived this rough-and-ready method of flushing it all out at once instead of relying on the shower’s water pressure since that conditioner clung tenaciously to hair.
“Aaagh!”
It was so gratifying to hear this cry of apparent pleasure from my client that I doused her two more times, on the house.
“Aaagh! Aaagh aaagh aaagh!”
She seemed to be enjoying it.
“Aaagh! Do it again!”
A little too much.
If I complied with her request, complied a little too much, there wouldn’t be enough hot water left in the tub, so I stopped there and reached for the showerhead, intending to use that to finish the job.
And as I did.
I froze.
There was a full-length mirror on the wall by where we’d been shampooing each other’s hair, but up until then, up until that very second, it had been all fogged up and beaded with water so that nothing could be reflected there, and nothing had been─yet as I was dumping all that water from the washbasin over Tsukihi’s head, the spray had splashed forcefully onto the mirror as well.
As a result, the moisture covering it was momentarily washed away, and reflected there was Tsukihi’s naked body as she sat facing the mirror─a simple natural phenomenon. Perfectly natural.
But there was also something unnatural.
No.
Supernatural.
My figure, that of Koyomi Araragi, which should have been standing there behind Tsukihi─was nowhere to be seen.
I had no reflection.
Just like─the immortal aberration we call a vampire.
005
The nail on my pinky toe that Tsukihi had crushed earlier in my room was still split─still miserably, painfully split. Which meant that, at present, I was not in vampiric form. And yet, I had no reflection─how was I to interpret this?
Whatever the answer, it was at the very least not a phenomenon I could approach with a cool head.
Because this was happening for the first time since I’d become a vampire over spring break─but maybe bringing up all this stuff out of the blue will make you think I’ve finally lost my marbles, things having been weird ever since I went into the bathroom with my little sister. So let me give a brief explanation.
Over spring break I was attacked by someone─by something. By a vampire.
A vampire beautiful enough to freeze your blood.
I was attacked by the iron-blooded, hot-blooded, yet cold-blooded vampire─Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade.
She sank her teeth into my neck, clung there like a leech.
She possessed me utterly.
And she sucked me dry, of all the blood, all the spirit I possessed.
She wrung out my very being.
Then hung me out to dry as the vampire I’d become.
“Become.”
I had mutated─into an aberration.
That was the end of Koyomi Araragi the human being, and the beginning of Koyomi Araragi the vampire─and those two weeks of spring break were hell on earth.
Fourteen ghastly days.
The upshot is that, as you can see, in the end I became human again─there were some lingering side effects, but I went from being a demon to being a person once more.
What I had to give up in return was not insignificant, the price I had to pay was a heavy one indeed, but at any rate─if nothing else, at least I became human again.
Happily, proudly.
I revere Tsubasa Hanekawa like a second mother, like my own personal Mother Teresa, because of the debt I owe her for saving me back then─but if I start in on that story we’ll be here all night, so shameful as it is, I’m going to skip that part for the moment.
The hell came to an end.
It came to an end after fourteen days.
Or I thought it had, anyway.
Of course I’m not trying to say that everything was wrapped up tight with a neat little bow on top, that there were no hard feelings and no more troubles waiting for me down the line. My experiences over that spring break became the catalyst for a catalogue of catastrophes─but at least that single issue, of me personally becoming a vampire, well, that at least I thought had been sorted out.
I thought I’d become human again─but if I had.
Then why the hell didn’t I have a reflection?
Isn’t the lack of a reflection one of the primary characteristics of a vampire? Immortality, drinking blood, turning into a shadow, turning into mist, shapeshifting, flying, using bats as servants.
And.
No reflection.
Not appearing in mirrors.
That made it seem like I wasn’t a misbegotten, half-assed vampire─but the real deal.
Wasn’t that the inescapable conclusion?
“…”
“What’s wrong, big brother?”
I’d fallen silent without realizing it, and naturally enough, when I clammed up all of a sudden, Tsukihi sensed that something was wrong and nonchalantly turned to face me─with her eyes still closed, since I’d just been dumping buckets of water over her head, which meant she’d yet to notice my lack of a reflection.
It would be a disaster if she ever did.
So I took Tsukihi’s face, turned towards me as it was, in both hands and held it there.
Not massaging it.
Holding it firmly in place.
Reflected in the mirror beyond her, needless to say, was just her body. Just the nakedness of her developing body. My reflection, which should have been visible beside her nakedness, was nowhere in evidence.
The wall of the bathroom was reflected instead as if nothing stood there─just the towels on the towel rack affixed to the wall.
Nothing else.
No one else.
“Wh-What are you doing, big brother?” asked Tsukihi in consternation.
And consternation seems like the reasonable reaction if your big brother grips you by the head when you idly turn around. However fast the wheels in there might turn, no other spin you could put on that turn of events.
Well, if your wheels turn quickly enough, apparently there’s one conclusion that might, in its own way, present itself─
“I see. It’s okay, big brother, go ahead,” Tsukihi said, gently closing her eyes and puckering her lips.
