Otorimonogatari

by Nisioisin

  It feels like she might punch Nadeko if we’re too close.

  But Nadeko’s back is up against the wall after scooting, and there’s nowhere to run…

  “What, are you saying it’s not an issue?”

  “W-Well…it’s not like Nadeko─”

  This is a tense conversation. Like one wrong answer could instantly send a fist flying… How did i end up in this situation?

  It’s partly because Nadeko’s Mom and Dad found out that she left home, but the biggest reason must be Mister Serpent malfunctioning…

  The Serpent continues to stay enwrapped around Nadeko’s right wrist. i almost want to call him Mister Scrunchy instead of Mister Serpent at this point.

  “It’s not like Nadeko is ‘skeeming’ to steal him away…and i can’t win him over…and it’s not like i’m hoping that Koyomi and his girlfriend break up, either… i do have feelings of, well…wanting to go out with Koyomi…or i had them, but…if he has a girlfriend, i don’t mean to get in his way… i just want to be near him…that’s all i need to be satisfied…”

  “And I have an issue with that!”

  Tsukihi smacks Nadeko─or actually doesn’t.

  i receive the shouted words like a punch in the head─and flinch.

  If Nadeko were a snake, she’d turn tail.

  “It’s so obvious that you like him, but it’s not like you want to go out with him? You don’t want to be his lover? It doesn’t make any sense.”

  “…”

  “You just need to be near him? You’re content just liking him? That sounds great, sure, so chaste and modest and nice, but don’t you feel like you aren’t making any sense at all?”

  Tsukihi doesn’t try to keep her tone from getting rough. It looks like she’s seriously mad at Nadeko─but.

  Nadeko doesn’t get it.

  Why is Tsukihi mad?

  And─for Nadeko’s sake?

  “In other words, is my brother like an idol in a VCR to you? Is he no different from a manga hero you just admire?”

  “…”

  The term VCR is really close to being outdated…

  “You like him in a sexual…sorry, as a member of the opposite sex, but that’s all you mean?”

  “E-Even if you’re right…” Nadeko hesitantly replies to Tsukihi.

  Eyes cast down, as always. Mounting a rebuttal as best i can.

  “Feelings for idols and heroes don’t have to be weak. You can’t say ‘that’s all’ about them… T-To Nadeko, Big Brother Koyomi is like─”

  “That’s not what I mean,” Tsukihi interrupts Nadeko. “I’m saying you’re being ambiguous. You claim to have liked him ever since second grade, but you sound so unnaturally sensible about it, until i think about how you invite him over, or wear revealing clothes to seduce him, or sleep in his bed─how assertive you are, pretending he doesn’t have a girlfriend, and still not giving up, instead getting a kick out of making him worry.”

  “G-Getting a kick out of…”

  True. i totally am.

  “If you’ll let me tell you exactly how I feel, then yeah,” Tsukihi leads off, asking if she can.

  If i have a choice in the matter, i don’t want her to, but she doesn’t seem eager to “infur” Nadeko’s opinion.

  “Nadeko,” Tsukihi just goes ahead. “Are you playing it safe, with a love that will never be requited?”

  “…”

  “Because if you’re in love with someone, you don’t have to fall in love with anyone else.”

  Ideals that are too lofty can ruin people, didn’t Miss Hanekawa say? Tsukihi mutters like it’s not really her problem.

  Well, it really isn’t. It’s Nadeko’s problem.

  “In that sense, my VCR idol and manga hero analogy are good ones, if I do say so myself. I wasn’t trying to be sarcastic or anything─falling in love with a person you can never reach or a character in a work of fiction means never having to be hurt.” Like a 2D complex? Just kidding, Tsukihi assures Nadeko. “It’s so easy to fall in love with someone who’s never going to reject you.”

  “Y-You might never get rejected…but idols still get married, and heroes get together with heroines…”

  “Yeah.”

  Tsukihi casually nods at the argument Nadeko fought to put together. Almost like being proved wrong on that point doesn’t matter one bit.

  Well, Tsukihi is right.

  Nadeko’s point is no different from a lame question like, Why didn’t Cinderella’s glass slippers disappear once the magic wore off?

  Because.

  In reality─all it does is remind Nadeko of the fact that Big Brother has a girlfriend now.

  “Tsu-Tsukihi… i, um, that’s not it. That isn’t what Nadeko’s up to at all…”

  “Yeah? But hasn’t your life been a lot easier thanks to being in love with Koyomi?”

  “Wh-What do you mean…”

  “Come on. When a boy tells you he likes you or whatever, hasn’t turning him down been pretty easy? ‘There’s someone else I like.’”

  “…”

  Answering with “That’s not true” might put an end to this torturous conversation─if only i could lie, but i can’t.

  Nadeko did use that reason to turn down the baseball-club boy during first term─and it wasn’t her first time.

  And to be honest, Big Brother Koyomi was the perfect person to bring up to end the discussion─after all, he’s known as a dependable older brother to Karen and Tsukihi, of all people.

  “Well, don’t feel bad. I mean, when I was in elementary school, I turned down boys who confessed to me by telling them that I already loved my big brother.”

  “…i-i feel like that shut them up for a different reason…”

  By the way, i believe there’s someone Tsukihi is seeing─an older boy, was it?

  Mizudori, or Rosokuzawa…

  Which one was with which, again?

  i wonder.

  This boyfriend of hers, does Tsukihi love him more than she loves Koyomi?

  “Don’t feel bad, but,” Tsukihi completely ignores Nadeko’s remark (sad face), “I dunno, you might just need to accept people thinking you’re trying to act cute.”

  “A-Act─”

  “Wait, no. It’s natural for you, so you’re not ‘trying to act’ that way. The truth, Nadeko, is that you are cute.”

  “…”

  “Still, it’s not convincing at all when someone you call ‘Big Brother’ is the guy you’re interested in. That’s what Rosokuzawa told me─”

  So it’s Rosokuzawa.

  “─And that’s why I ended up going out with him.”

  “Th-That was your reason?”

  “That was the reason. It was enough for me─but I feel like maybe you don’t have a good enough reason to be in love with Koyomi? You don’t need one to fall in love─sure, that’s the kind of nice phrase that gets you to nod your head and agree for a second, but it’s not true. Like I said, it doesn’t matter what it is, you need a reason, even if it’s something you come up with later. Even if it’s something only you understand that no one else accepts as valid.”

  “Wh-Wha…”

  What time is it now?

  i sense a lot of sunlight outside, beyond the curtains─but can’t tell the exact hour.

  If i go home now, take a shower, eat breakfast, then go to school─will i still make it and not be tardy?

  It’s these sorts of things that keep crossing Nadeko’s mind.

  “N-N-Nadeko is…”

  “That.”

  “Huh?”

  “Why do you refer to yourself as ‘Nadeko’? You’re not a little girl, and certainly not some manga character─”

  i’m blindsided by this fresh piece of criticism from an unexpected direction.

  F-First person? We’re talking about points of view now?

  “─Is that just another part of your cuteness, Nadeko?”

  “Ah, um… Th-That’s not why…”

  “Or maybe your p
syche is still stuck in second grade? You don’t want to think about the complicated stuff, you just want to be a girl who’s in love with being in love?”

  “Th…That might be part of it… B-But Tsukihi. It’s simple, Nadeko doesn’t want to cause any trouble for Big Brother Koyomi…”

  “Trouble?”

  “Y-Yeah… L-Like i said…the one thing i don’t want to be is a nuisance,” i continue, nodding, realizing that Nadeko isn’t going to be freed if she just stays quiet. She might even get trapped in Koyomi’s room for the rest of her life─though i wouldn’t necessarily hate that. “It’s true, i was shocked when i learned he had a girlfriend… i did cry all night…but Nadeko can’t click off her feelings for him like a switch.”

  i drag them along, unable to forget.

  “It might look to you like i’m just playing at love…or maybe like i’m being too devoted…but this is normal for Nadeko. i don’t feel guilty─at all.”

  “…”

  “But Nadeko…doesn’t want to cause trouble for Koyomi. O-Or is that still no good? Is staying in love with him unforgivable?”

  i don’t want to cause trouble for him.

  Yet almost as strongly─i don’t want heartbreak.

  Nadeko doesn’t want to lose this love of hers.

  “Of course, i can’t even cause him trouble…because there’s no way i could beat─her.”

  “If I was a boy─well, even a girl.”

  Tsukihi gets off the bed.

  i think she must have understood Nadeko when i see this─and feel relieved.

  But i’m mistaken.

  Tsukihi faces Koyomi’s desk─and reaches for its stationery holder.

  “Hearing your assertion, Nadeko, people would only think you’re cute. How endearing, and brave, and cute.”

  “…”

  “Of course I do too. But, you know, I am his little sister.”

  Tsukihi picks out a certain implement from the holder. Well, it isn’t anything to tiptoe around, being a pretty standard stationery item.

  “And─I was the one to introduce you to my brother. When I think that I’m even a little responsible…I can’t sit back and do nothing. To be honest, I’d love to…not leave you alone, but sit back and do nothing…”

  “…”

  “You know how people buy lottery tickets? Even though they don’t expect to win. If you ask them why, though, they’ll say they’re ‘buying a dream’… Every time I hear that, I think─dammit, just buy reality.”

  “…”

  i suddenly recall Mister Serpent comparing his dowsing to the lottery.

  “When you tell someone to dream, what you’re really doing is telling them to look at reality─I think. If you were actually planning on confessing to Koyomi─if you were planning on fighting her, I was hoping to back you. I wanted to, even. I’d watch over you, at the very least, and quietly cheer you on. That’s what I thought all this time, but…I’m done.”

  I’m sick of it. I’ll end it for you, Tsukihi says as she turns around.

  The gleaming implement in her right hand, sure enough.

  Sure enough─is just a pair of scissors.

  “Shink!”

  The sound─i feel like it came from somewhere far away.

  But it wasn’t far away at all.

  It was very, very close.

  So frighteningly close that if Tsukihi had miscalculated the distance even a little, Nadeko would have lost her vision in both eyes.

  “What…”

  Flutter, flutter, flutter.

  Nadeko’s just barely unharmed eyes─notice something falling in front of them.

  What is that something?

  Well, there’s no doubting it, no way of making believe it’s anything else─not even a way of being indirect about it: Nadeko’s bangs.

  That shink.

  It was Tsukihi wielding those scissors─and slicing through Nadeko’s bangs with a single, decisive motion.

  “………”

  Well.

  Sitting in stunned silence isn’t going to move things forward.

  So Nadeko will be screaming.

  Your attention, please.

  One, two…

  “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!”

  017

  Okay.

  An hour has passed since i screamed like a dying demon king pierced through the heart with a legendary sword.

  i don’t really remember what happened afterwards.

  It’s vague. It’s fuzzy.

  It’s a total mystery why i’m now staggering toward school.

  It’s strange that i’m lurching from left to right to right to left, not knowing whether i’m awake or asleep, vision blurred and warped, and heading to middle school.

  Why am i still alive?

  It’s strange.

  To escape reality, i try thinking back to the faint memories, and yes, the first flashback is Big Brother running into his room after hearing Nadeko scream and slugging Tsukihi.

  Yikes, i think.

  A girl getting punched with a closed fist basically right before Nadeko’s eyes… The image is so shocking i lose interest in finding fault with Tsukihi for the “atrosity” she committed against Nadeko. Even Solomon wouldn’t try to punch his little sister in two.

  “Sengokuuuuuuuu! Hang on! Relax, you lost your bangs, that’s all!”

  He held Nadeko’s shoulders and swung her back and forth.

  Nadeko lost her bangs, that’s all?

  Nope.

  Isn’t that, like, everything?

  What’s left if you take Nadeko’s bangs away from her?

  “It looks really weird, but don’t worry!”

  It looks really weird, but?

  It wasn’t even an attempt to comfort Nadeko… He was just announcing a fact…

  “Karen! Get over here! Take Sengoku somewhere safe! I need to have a talk with this littler little sister of mine right now! No, I have nothing to tell her anymore, but the two of us need to be alone!”

  “Heh, heheheh,” Tsukihi laughed eerily as she lay under Big Brother’s mount.

  The way she laughed with blood pouring out of her mouth was so awfully real.

  It isn’t super-deformed or anything.

  “H-How bold, Koyomi. You want us to be alone?”

  “Bold is damn right! I’m about to do things to your body that will get censored for teens and Tokyoites! You better be ready!”

  “D-Don’t go too hard on me…”

  “Oh, I’m gonna show you hard!”

  A terrible sibling fight was about to break out.

  No, Karen forced Nadeko out of the room after coming in like some kind of beast summoned by Big Brother Koyomi, so i don’t know if their fight was terrible, or worse…

  “Wh-What the hell have you done, Tsukihi… Even I can’t defend you on this one…”

  Shaking uncharacteristically and streaming a bizarre sweat (not the refreshing kind), Karen brought Nadeko to the first-floor washroom. Then─

  “Umm…I want to say that Tsukihi normally uses…”

  She took a pair of scissors off of the shelf. These were serrated and for trimming hair, rather than the regular kind for cutting pieces of paper that Tsukihi used.

  “We can’t leave you like this, I want to clip it so it looks natural… Is that okay?”

  Karen was being considerate.

  Karen, who’s supposed to be crude and tactless…

  “What’s it like now?” i asked, looking toward the mirror with Nadeko’s unfocused eyes.

  In that mirror, i saw─who?

  That’s what the sight made Nadeko want to ask─a girl with no bangs, whose eyebrows and forehead were out in the open for everyone to see.

  The end.

  “No way, no way, no way, no way, no way, no way, no way, no way,” Nadeko mutters as she heads toward school─hiding her face with both p
alms as she walks.