Otorimonogatari

by Nisioisin

  “Repewdiating” someone is hard.

  And Mister Serpent keeps piling it on.

  “I mean, it might be my business─I’ve requested something of you. It would suck if someone butted in and got in my way.”

  “If this is about who asked first, he did,” Nadeko points out reluctantly.

  i want to be smart about keeping everything vague, but it’s difficult for a girl like Nadeko to convey something in a hazy way and shut down any follow-up questions─so her only option is to say it outright from the start.

  “He told me to ‘Do something about the class’s mood.’ A while ago.”

  “Hunh?”

  Mister Serpent opens his mouth like he’s dumbstruck.

  i almost hear a sound effect─guh.

  “Hold on, seriously? If anything, isn’t that the homeroom teacher’s job, not the class president’s?”

  “Yeah, well, you’re right about that…”

  An aberration being completely in the right is unsettling.

  But while i say aberration, Mister Serpent is a god. Of course he’s going to be in the right sometimes.

  “i guess…he’s farming his job out.”

  “Hsshh, hsshh─sounds even worse than me! Just from one glance it’s clear that no kid can fix that situation from the inside all on her own, hmmmm?”

  “It’s fine, though,” Nadeko says.

  i don’t know if Mister Serpent is sympathizing with Nadeko or just amused (i can’t read his expression), but either way, i want to get off this subject.

  Because, for Nadeko─it’s already over.

  It’s run its course.

  It’s like arguing back and forth about what happens in a manga that’s reached its final chapter.

  Nothing will come of it.

  “What do you mean, it’s fine─it’s not fine.”

  “Mister Sasayabu’s request isn’t going to ‘styemie’ your request…so it’s fine.”

  “Hey, it’s not like I could care less about the rest of your life so long as my wish is granted─you know what? If you want, I’d be happy to hear you out.”

  “Hear Nadeko out…”

  A god hearing Nadeko out. It has a strange ring to it.

  So something like confessing at a church? No, Nadeko isn’t seeking to be comforted. Mister Serpent is on the wrong track.

  “It’s not like that… It’s fine because, actually, Nadeko’s not bothered by it…”

  “Not bothered? After being burdened with this stuff? By your classmates and your homeroom teacher?”

  “i’m not bothered. After all,” Nadeko says, “it’s not like Nadeko is doing anything.”

  “You aren’t?”

  “Not her job as class president, nor the task Mister Sasayabu assigned to her.”

  i’m not doing anything, i repeat.

  Then Nadeko begins to climb down the stairs.

  The first bell is about to ring, like Mister Sasayabu said─he’s wrong about a lot of things, but he’s right about the time.

  So i head to class.

  “…………,” Mister Serpent goes quiet.

  Has he read the mood?

  He doesn’t say a word after that, not until school ends.

  011

  That night.

  Just like Nadeko promised Mister Serpent, she goes to find his corpse─and slips out from her home.

  i decide to keep it a secret that i’m feeling excited over acting a little like a bad girl.

  “Hsshh, hsshh─I’m relieved,” the Serpent comments as soon as i’m outside, the first thing i’ve heard from him in a while.

  Could he really have been sleeping, like he said? To─what was it, conserve his energy?

  “It’s because of what you said this afternoon… I thought that maybe you were all talk when you accepted my request, and I was worried that you might not do anything.”

  “…i wouldn’t do that to you.”

  Anyway, Nadeko pleads, don’t talk yet.

  i want him to be quiet until we’re a little farther from Nadeko’s house.

  Otherwise i’ll be a “pitiful girl.”

  For once, Mister Serpent does exactly what i ask─and after a bit, he tells me again, “I was worried.”

  When i hear him repeat it, it makes Nadeko think it wasn’t out of “pretens.” He really must have been worried.

  And he must really feel relieved.

  “It’s not like I interviewed you and took your character into consideration to settle on you as my partner─if you were an irresponsible, half-hearted liar, my hands would’ve been tied. Not that I have any limbs, of course…”

  His snake joke isn’t very funny.

  People say that Nadeko is “proan” to laughter, but i can’t laugh at unfunny jokes.

  “i don’t do what i can’t do… i can’t do what i don’t do, and i don’t do what i can’t do. That’s all,” Nadeko says, walking. “i…might be an irresponsible…half-hearted liar. You might be exactly right… At the very least, i can’t promise that i’m not those things. i can’t. But… Well, as far as finding your object of worship, Mister Serpent…i, uh, think i can do it…”

  “I wonder. Do you really think you’ll be able to find it when you’re being that unenthusiastic?”

  “…”

  i feel pretty annoyed that Mister Serpent is still trying to “cuarrel” with me, and it does make Nadeko less interested in doing this, but yes, i guess you can’t blame him for thinking that Nadeko isn’t a serious girl after seeing the kind of class president she is and the way she acts towards her homeroom teacher.

  And it’s not like Nadeko is actually a serious girl… Of course, i don’t like being called unserious, either…

  “Will you listen to Nadeko, Mister Serpent?”

  “Hm? What?”

  “Well, it’s…a grype, but will you listen?”

  “…? Sure, I will. Go ahead.”

  “Well-behaved girls who are shy and bad at talking…quiet girls like Nadeko…weak girls who are bad at making friends and who cry over anything… For some reason, they’re always thought of as ‘virchus.’”

  “‘Virchus’?”

  Oh, virtuous, Mister Serpent says.

  Nadeko nods.

  “And that’s probably why everyone tried to make Nadeko be the class president, and why Mister Sasayabu made that ridiculous request… But it’s not true… Nadeko’s not virchus or innocent, she’s not a ‘good girl’… Honestly, it’s kind of tough when you have to let down people who decided on their own to expect that of you,” i say, recalling Mister Sasayabu’s disappointed expression.

  It really is a grype.

  Not something i should be sharing.

  But it’s just as tough to betray someone’s expectations as it is to have your expectations betrayed. Even if they’re unfounded.

  “Which is why i ought to tell you now, Mister Serpent… Nadeko wants to do everything she can to atone for cutting your ‘breathren’ into pieces and killing them. But that’s not a guarantee that i’ll absolutely find your object of worship. And if that time comes, please…”

  Don’t be disappointed.

  Nadeko speaks the words then keeps walking.

  She doesn’t look at the Serpent on her right wrist.

  It took a good bit of courage just to say that. Courage has surprisingly bad cost-performance. It feels like i should have saved more for later when i think about the kind of work i’ll have to do─

  “Hsshh, hsshh. Well, I don’t mean to force you to give me an absolute guarantee. I just can’t bear to have the search conducted unseriously─after all, you’re the only one I can rely on.”

  “You just Kanbaru?”

  “I just can’t bear to.”

  “Can’t bare to… Um.”

  In that case, Nadeko switches topics.

  Not the way she changes the subject when it’s inconvenient with an “anyway” or a “that aside.” It feels like we’re finally about to dive into the real i
ssue.

  “Nadeko has to sleep at night, too, so i can’t stay up until morning searching…Mister Serpent. How should Nadeko look for your object of worship?”

  The dowsing example was just a guess, not anything definite.

  Unless he starts by telling Nadeko a way to find this object of worship, whose location and form we don’t know, there’s no figuring out where to go from here…

  “Hsshh, hsshh. Just wander around this area for now─despite what I said earlier, it actually shouldn’t be too far from the shrine.”

  “…Why?”

  “I don’t really know how to answer that, but it seems only proper to start at the original location, no? It’s not like it was stolen or anything.”

  “…”

  So it wasn’t stolen?

  But─even if it wasn’t, Nadeko somehow assumed it was taken away by someone.

  After all, since an object of worship can’t move on its own, how could it disappear unless someone had it with them? It’s not going to walk off, is it?

  …Still, it’s an aberration.

  Not to mention it was a corpse worthy of being enshrined as a god. Maybe it really can walk on its own. It’s only common sense that holds that dead bodies can’t move. Vampires are like immortal corpses, so maybe you could say that corpses “night-walk,” too.

  “When it comes down to it, this object of worship is my body, a real, physical body. I’ll certainly react if we pass near it─my body’s going to vibrate, like a cell phone. At that point, you can look around the area and close in on the spot.”

  “So Nadeko just needs to keep wandering like this?”

  That would kind of feel like a letdown.

  i’m wearing a baseball cap right now, not a knit hat, but i still pull down the brim thanks to this feeling of being faked out.

  Not that it means anything.

  Just a habit.

  “We start with that.”

  The Serpent’s words seem to hint at a violent future, but Nadeko pretends not to notice.

  She probably wouldn’t hear a very good answer even if she pressed him.

  i pretend not to know what i don’t want to know.

  And i pretend not to understand what i don’t want to understand.

  “…Do objects of worship get buried in the ground or stuck inside walls? In other words, could it be hidden somewhere?”

  “Well─dunno. I have no idea what state it’s in, either. Like you suggested, maybe it’s even been sliced into pieces and scattered all around. Forget being hidden, maybe it’s been crucified on a bunch of different trees. Hsshh, hsshh.”

  “…”

  He’s being nasty.

  It doesn’t feel good, but of course it doesn’t, that’s what being nasty does.

  i doubt it’s even possible to be nasty in a feel-good way.

  “In that case, Mister Serpent… To summarize, Nadeko…just needs to go out every night…and walk around town…until she finds your object of worship.”

  “Yep, that would be the summary. I wish you wouldn’t make it sound so pastoral, though.”

  “i don’t need to fight any weird enemies or compete with rivals over what i’m looking for?”

  “Yep… Hold on. Were you expecting a big adventure or something, Nadeko?”

  “i wasn’t, but…”

  i did imagine something like that─more anxiously than expectantly.

  Which is why.

  It’s─a letdown. Like i’m being left empty-handed.

  “By the way, what happens when i find your object of worship?”

  “What happens? Well, I leave you and repossess it instead, I guess… Of course, it’s my original body, so more like return into it?”

  “…And when that happens, we part ways.”

  “That’s right. Hmm? Why do you sound disappointed, dear? Don’t tell me you’ve gotten attached to me.”

  “That’s not it…”

  We’ve only been together for a day, not long enough to get attached, and frankly i have a hard time dealing with rough types like Mister Serpent.

  It’s a matter of personality, though, and not because he’s a snake or an aberration.

  “It’s just that i’m bad at goodbyes.”

  “Hmm?”

  “When someone…anyone, really… When they go away…it’s tiresome, isn’t it?”

  “Tiresome? That’s a weird way to put it─almost sounds like you’re…”

  Mister Serpent begins to say something in a suspicious─a very “doubious” and doubting─tone, but doesn’t finish, which might be fortunate for Nadeko.

  Because at that moment.

  “Vzzzzzzzzzt♪”

  Mister Serpent’s white body, wrapped around Nadeko’s right wrist, starts to shake rapidly─he compared it to a vibrating cell phone earlier, but i’m not sure how accurate the analogy is because i don’t have a cell phone.

  So if i were to compare it to anything, it’s the way Nadeko’s Dad’s portable massager vibrates─to be honest, stronger than i imagined.

  So strong it almost hurt. To use a scary figure of speech that isn’t pastoral, i thought it might tear Nadeko’s wrist off.

  “Wh…What?”

  “Hsshh, hsshh─look at that, a reaction already. Head toward your five o’clock, Nadeko!”

  “N-Nadeko’s five o’clock?”

  Which way is that?

  i’m not going to understand him if he suddenly starts talking to Nadeko like we’re in some kind of movie.

  “Make a clock in your mind. If the direction you’re facing, dear, is twelve o’clock, then go to five o’clock─in a diagonal direction behind you and to the right!”

  “D-Diagonal behind Nadeko, to the right…”

  i don’t quite get it even then, but Nadeko turns around as she’s told and starts going that way.

  You could call Nadeko a yes-girl.

  Of course, i’m walking in a town with streets, not in a desert or a jungle, so i can’t move diagonally behind and to the right in a beeline.

  Going around the houses, with Mister Serpent giving slight corrections each time (he’s annoyingly detailed about it, telling Nadeko to go in this hour and that hour when there’s no point in telling her to go diagonally), i finally end up in a park.

  Widely recognized as an indoor person, Nadeko never really played in parks even when she was little, but she still knew of this modest one.

  i notice playground equipment like a jungle gym, a see-saw, and horizontal bars─apparently, they’re rapidly being removed from parks these days, but the “mewnicipal” government here must be putting it off.

  Is that a good thing or a bad thing?

  “Okay. Around here,” the Serpent says.

  “Around here… But this is a sandbox.”

  Yes, his dowsing, or maybe his navigation, has put us in the one place in the park you could just barely call safe in that sense, the sandbox─no, maybe even sandboxes are “inperilled” because there could be glass buried inside or for sanitary reasons or because it’s dangerous if you swallow sand.

  …

  Well, maybe not because it’s dangerous if you swallow sand.

  Anything can be dangerous if swallowed, even food.

  “Wh…What? So your corpse is buried in this sandbox?”

  i said “corpse.” i didn’t mean to.

  i could get in trouble if i don’t pay attention to how i phrase things─but it doesn’t feel quite right to call anything buried in a park’s sandbox an object of worship.

  “Yep, I’m sure of it─hsshh, hsshh! Or, what, do you doubt the precision of my dowsing ability? Hmmmm?”

  “i more than doubt it…”

  Right.

  Well, you could say doubt, but it’s more like not even wanting to debate the matter.

  If it’s buried in a sandbox, it’s practically like some child hid it…no, it’s even at the level of a dog or a cat hiding it.

  “…But, sure, if that’s what you say, Mister Se
rpent…i guess i’ll look.”