Koyomimonogatari Part 1

by Nisioisin

  A rock.

  A stone statue, if she had to call it something─but only because I’d pressed her, because she had to call it something, and it didn’t resemble a “statue” at all.

  It just sat there.

  It was in and of itself nothing but a rock, but whether you had to or were pressed to, calling it a “stone statue” was not entirely without basis.

  Because it was ensconced in a small shrine─ensconced it was, surrounded by dutiful offerings to boot.

  “…”

  No, “dutiful” might be a bit of an exaggeration. The arrangement of the offerings and the shrine’s construction were both anything but─a better word might be haphazard, or even crude. It didn’t seem like any sort of proper procedure had been followed, or rather, the whole thing seemed like some kid’s art project, like the product of playing house.

  “One kick is all it’d take to smash this shrine to pieces…”

  “Where do you even get ideas like that, Araragi? Kicking a shrine…”

  You’d be punished, Hanekawa warned.

  Well, she was right─since spring break, my ideas were tinged with a touch more violence than before.

  And, possible divine retribution aside, the shrine just looked to be some wooden boards held together with a few nails, so one kick probably would leave it in pieces, but the rock enshrined in it was another story.

  A story where I’d probably break my foot.

  It definitely wasn’t big enough to be called a boulder, but nor was it small enough that you could just kick it out of the way.

  I don’t walk around with a tape measure in my pocket so I couldn’t say precisely, but I’d estimate it was about the size of a rugby ball.

  An uneven rugby ball─and a somewhat dirty one at that. Judging from its size, I gauged that it would be too heavy for Hanekawa, as a girl, to lift─but I didn’t think that I, as a boy, could lift it either, so best not to rush into anything.

  I didn’t want to embarrass myself in front of Hanekawa.

  A vain high school boy, that’s me.

  “Hanekawa. Is that the rock you were talking about?”

  “Yup. That’s it.”

  “Umm…”

  With that confirmation, the conversation came to a grinding halt. But then, what was the appropriate question to ask to keep things going?

  “…Were you the one who left these offerings here?”

  “As if. I never bring sweets to school.”

  “Thought not…”

  Our conversation had gotten derailed.

  We seemed to be in sync but weren’t.

  But, well, whether she’d actually bring such things to school or not, the cheap sweets on the wooden altar, which was rustic, or obviously handmade like the shrine itself, hardly reflected her sensibilities.

  I imagine she eats slightly classier snacks─and since she goes about life with a drive that must burn through a lot of blood sugar, I doubt she dislikes sweets altogether.

  “At first, actually─well, you know how Mister Oshino really looked out for us over spring break? I was wondering if there was some way to repay him─”

  “Repay him…”

  Wait.

  It was just me, not “us” that Oshino looked out for over spring break, plus he demanded a fee (five million yen total). It didn’t add up for her to worry about “some way to repay him,” but she was a girl who didn’t add up when it came to stuff like that.

  When you get right down to it, I ought to be thinking about repaying Hanekawa herself─and I definitely had been, which is why I’d agreed to take on the ill-fitting mantle of class vice president…and meekly followed her to the quad at this particular moment. That said, was there anything someone like me could do that could benefit her in the first place?

  The thought left me feeling hollow.

  Unaware, however, that I was thinking such thoughts─or well aware of it, for all I know─Hanekawa continued her explanation.

  “─And Mister Oshino collects tales of aberrations, right? That’s his real occupation or…his job, right?”

  “His job? Does that guy even work? Now that you mention it, I do remember him saying something about collecting tales of aberrations, but…wouldn’t that be more of a hobby?”

  I doubted he had a goal in mind like putting together a book of them or giving a presentation at an academic conference. The guy just lived one day to the next, he didn’t even have a permanent address…

  “Collecting tales of aberrations can’t possibly be lucrative. He’s not exactly stimulating the economy.”

  “Working isn’t about money, Araragi.”

  “…”

  Heavy stuff.

  What kind of high schooler was she? At the same time, maybe only a high schooler could go and say that. But this was Hanekawa, and I suspected she’d go on saying it even after joining the workforce.

  “Getting back on topic. Hop! The point is, if there were anything like seven wonders, or a ‘school ghost story’ at Naoetsu High, we could tell Mister Oshino about it. As a thank you.”

  “Would it serve…as a thank you? I’m not trying to throw cold water on the thought itself…but the aberrations Oshino collects, aren’t they more like the real deal? Vampires, for instance…”

  “A ‘school ghost story’ can be the real deal. And in terms of name recognition, ‘school ghost stories’ are among the elite of the aberration world. There may not be all that many people who’re familiar with the Cackling Woman, but everyone knows Toilet Hanako, don’t they?”

  “Well, sure, if getting talked about is the barometer of aberration-hood, then name recognition would be important…” It’s a cultural paradox, isn’t it? Becoming too well-known can make something seem cheap or vulgar. It’s a far cry from so-called sophistication, anyway. “It’s by achieving widespread popular recognition that they become urban legends and secondhand gossip… Maybe it’s just a matter of degree? Like, you know it when you see it…or there’s no point in trading rumors once everyone knows about something?”

  “But I don’t think Mister Oshino cares about sophistication. Rumors are a kind of popular culture, after all.”

  “Hmmm. Maybe so, but I wonder. I know it’s the thought that counts, but wouldn’t Oshino just snort at a ‘school ghost story’?”

  “Mister Oshino isn’t that kind of person.”

  “…”

  To me he was precisely that kind of person, but apparently she felt differently.

  “No, that’s not what I mean. Listen, Hanekawa, what I’m trying to say is that I’m not sure Oshino is looking for something so well-known, with as much name recognition as a ‘school ghost story’… If it’s such common knowledge, maybe he already knows about it?”

  “I wonder. He might, of course, but every school has its own variations on a ‘school ghost story’─plus, once you’re an adult, it’s harder to waltz into a school. As far as tales of aberrations go, a school ghost story might be a difficult type for Mister Oshino to get his hands on.”

  “Difficult…”

  Ah.

  Sure─as a student I take going to school for granted, so it took me a minute to see what she meant. But yeah, a school might be a closed space, the hardest place there is to get into if you’re a stranger, and moreover, an adult.

  Particularly an adult like Oshino… Lacking anything resembling a steady job or a fixed abode, a guy like him might get nabbed the second he set foot on school grounds.

  So if he wanted to take stock of any tales floating around the school, he’d have to interview the students individually, which would seem just as shady.

  Since he wasn’t with some TV show, even if he made a formal request he’d probably just get the door slammed in his face…

  “I’m back on board. So you decided to investigate a ‘school ghost story’ with an eye to teaching him about it.”

  “That sounds so presumptuous─I would gift it to him. Maybe you’re right, Araragi, maybe he wouldn’t n
eed it. Still, don’t we want to do everything we can?”

  “…No, I’m not that proactive about life.”

  Forget about doing everything you can, the guiding principle of my life is to do as little as possible.

  Be that as it may, sighed Hanekawa. “It’s like I said. I looked into it, but Naoetsu High doesn’t have the history, and nothing like a ghost story has coalesced yet. ‘Well, a swing and a miss,’ I thought.”

  She sounded perfectly natural slipping the words “a swing and a miss” into conversation.

  Tsubasa “Want to Do Everything We Can” Hanekawa must have swung and missed more times in her life than I could guess─but that hadn’t broken her spirit, and she kept on “swinging and missing,” as well as hitting the odd “home run,” which I thought made her a real iconoclast.

  Oshino had put it so well─what was it he’d said?

  “But there was one thing that bothered me. Bothered me─or somehow, that I wanted to bother about.”

  “…You mean, this rock? Or stone statue, or whatever?” I asked, glancing at the thing again.

  It still looked like an ordinary rock─and yet, with the little shrine over it and the offerings surrounding it, the stone did seem like it might be “graced” with wondrous spiritual power.

  Like a stone statue carved into that particular shape.

  Ah, and speaking of─wondrous spiritual power (I’m not at all knowledgeable about this stuff so maybe I’m speaking out of turn here), aren’t there stories about stones that turn into protective amulets for their owners, “power stones” or something?

  Though talking about “power stones” and “power spots” takes things in a bit of a different direction from tales of aberrations.

  “Mm-hmm, yup. That’s what I mean.”

  “So, while you were looking into all sorts of stuff, you came upon a mysterious rock way out in this quad’s flowerbed─but you can’t for the life of you figure out what’s up with it, something like that?”

  I tried to get everything I’d learned thus far straight in my mind. Organization isn’t exactly my forte, but I don’t do well with a chaotic mess, so I have a bad habit of wanting to sum everything up as simply as possible as soon as possible. Though I’m well aware that it’s not the best way to arrive at the truth.

  Hanekawa’s ability to process information, on the other hand, was on a different order of magnitude─or was measured with entirely different units, so apparently she could cope with this level of chaos as if it were “perfectly well-ordered.”

  “That’s not it,” she unceremoniously, but gently, deflected my summary.

  I had to wonder if her room was actually a total disaster. Well, not just hers, geniuses’ rooms are always messy in the collective imagination.

  A biased assumption, either way…

  “In fact, I already knew this rock was here.”

  “You really do know everything.”

  “I don’t know everything, I just know what I know. But,” she added, “it didn’t use to be like this.”

  “What didn’t?”

  “When I was a first-year─right after I started here, in other words? I did a general survey of the school.”

  “Why the hell would you…”

  “Well, I wanted to see where I’d be spending the next three years of my life, I guess? Out of curiosity?”

  “Curiosity…”

  You’re the curiosity here.

  A model student’s behavior was rife with mysteries. Her prodigious eccentricity went far beyond thoroughly researching Naoetsu High before taking its exam─which, admittedly, was just a figment of my imagination.

  This was no time to be nattering on about such things, though.

  “So two years ago, when you surveyed…or explored the school, this flowerbed didn’t have any rock?”

  “I never said that. Listen, okay? I’m saying it was here. I almost tripped over it, so I remember it clearly.”

  “Tripped? Seriously? You trip over things too?”

  “What do you take me for, Araragi…”

  Hanekawa looked fed up─no attempt to hide it.

  The fact is that she hated being treated like a model student, or a superwoman.

  “Yes, even I almost trip over things sometimes.”

  “I’m…surprised to hear that.”

  True, she’d tripped over a rock named Araragi and stumbled into something horrible over spring break, so maybe she wasn’t so perfect after all.

  Let us note, however, that she said almost tripped, meaning she didn’t actually.

  “But if it was here, what’s the problem?”

  “That’s what I’m trying to tell you: it didn’t use to be like this. The rock was here─but the shrine wasn’t.”

  “?”

  “Nor the offerings, nor the altar they’re sitting on.”

  In other words, someone, continued Hanekawa.

  “Someone, in the past two years, dolled up this rock like an icon─enshrining it.”

  “…”

  004

  That night.

  I headed to a certain abandoned building.

  The ruins of a cram school that had gone out of business a few years back─it had taken up the entire building so it must’ve been a sizable enough cram school, but unable to stand up to the furious onslaught of a major exam prep-chain that had moved in over by the station, it was forced to retreat, or to abscond under cover of darkness─you hear all kinds of stories, but who knows what really happened.

  Well.

  Hmmm.

  In that sense, I was heading from a high school whose origins I didn’t really have a handle on to an abandoned building whose origins I didn’t really have a handle on. Even I’m a little shocked that I could tread such a vague path without any sense of danger whatsoever.

  But, not being Tsubasa Hanekawa, I didn’t want to know about any of it badly enough to do my homework.

  “Hey, Araragi─I’ve been waiting for you.”

  Oshino.

  Mèmè Oshino, Expert, greeted me with the same mock-innocent line as always─when I arrived at a certain classroom on the fourth floor.

  There was a little blond girl in the corner, but I’ll omit a description of her.

  I informed Oshino of the situation.

  I may have added a few dramatic flourishes.

  “Hm. A stone, huh?” said Oshino─an older guy in a Hawaiian shirt. “Stones often become objects of worship, don’t they─the power stones you mentioned are somewhat different, but you can lump them in.”

  “Huh…like precious stones taking on magical properties?”

  “Maybe, though these days─in modern society, it tends to be their value and not their appearance that fascinates people─”

  Oshino chuckled softly.

  He always came off as totally flippant, which is honestly not a type I do well with.

  But Mèmè Oshino wasn’t just a flippant old fart─he was an old fart who had saved my life, my dignity, and my humanity.

  Flippant though he most definitely was.

  “You said it was about the size of a rugby ball, right, Araragi? So, which way was this rugby ball enshrined?”

  “Which way?”

  “Vertically? Horizontally? You said it was like a rugby ball, so I’m assuming it has a width and a height.”

  “Oh…”

  A pretty detailed question, I thought, but on the flipside, I’d come in Hanekawa’s stead to give a detailed explanation, so it was really an oversight on my part.

  Maybe it would’ve been best if Hanekawa herself had come, but since it wasn’t a crisis or an emergency, my conscience had prevailed against the idea of marching a youthful maiden around town in the middle of the night.

  “It’s kind of like a Jizo statue…and when you include the shrine, maybe it actually is patterned after one… Let’s see. Was Jizo a Buddhist deity?”

  “This Araragi kid really knows his stuff.”

  “You don’t h
ave to say it like that.”

  Not so naturally, anyway.

  Though it was just a random fact I happened to have picked up, and the first and last I could muster on the subject.

  I wasn’t even sure what Jizo was the Buddhist deity of.