Nekomonogatari (White)

by Nisioisin

  …Hmph, I thought.

  There wasn’t any reason to show any more kindness to her since she didn’t even let me nyoh the identity of this aberration, but─it was true that I’d wasted her time.

  I might as well give that back to her.

  Nyot that I was doing it for that little human.

  “Hey, vampire.”

  “What is it, cat.”

  “Lemme take you there. I could get to those ruins in one leap.”

  “……”

  “Nyo need to be cautious. You can’t fly right nyow, I bet─nor leap so high you look like you’re flying. It’s nyot a big deal for me. But it’d save you thirty minutes.”

  “…Hmph.”

  The vampire─looked indecisive (or really, like she didn’t wanna) for just a moment, but then hopped from ceiling to floor, or actually down onto the bed. It had powerful springs, so she ended up bouncing back up and doing a pointless roll in the air, though I gotta admit I was impressed by her clean landing.

  “Then would ye be so kind?”

  I’d feared that there was a slight, nyo, high chance that this proud vampire would reject my purrposal, but she practically decided on the spot.

  So that’s how serious the situation was.

  Yeah.

  Come to think of it─while she didn’t make it sound like a big deal, her pairing with that annyoying little human getting severed wasn’t just bad, it could be catastrophic.

  After all, that meant he’d lost his immortality, right?

  On the other paw, since the vampire had been sitting and standing on the ceiling, she myight’ve regained some of her vampirism─but it was really bad news if he was deprived of his immortality.

  He was only able to survive this long thanks to it.

  Yet nyow.

  “Of course I would,” I nodded. “But I’m only taking you close by─because that’s what my myaster wants. She doesn’t want to get in that little human’s way when he’s in a fix.”

  “Ah─well, it may be unlike her, but ’tis wise. True, she did have a nasty experience or two over spring break─where her rash, self-righteous deeds only served to plunge my lord and master into ever-greater suffering.”

  “Mmgh…”

  I had those memories too.

  I didn’t exist as me back then, but─I had those memories.

  If you asked me, there was myore than that to her deeds, but the vampire was right for the myost part.

  “’Tis pointless to argue if the lesson has been learned. Very well, then. That would be of great assistance on its own.”

  “Nyoh-kay!”

  I picked up the vampire.

  Right in my arms, like we’d just gotten myarried.

  My enyergy drain activated from the myoment I touched the vampire, but she didn’t seem to myind.

  Nyow that’s what I call tough nyerves.

  I opened the lock on the window and stepped onto the frame. I was barefoot, like I always am, but I could just wipe off after I got back. I was lucky, too─the room had wet tissues that the little human seemed to use to clean (he sure liked cleaning, meow).

  Speaking of which, I wanted to nyoh─how did the vampire get into this room? While the thought occurred to me, there was no point in asking that kind of question about a nyaberration. So, without a thought, I just jumped.

  I flew.

  Toward Eikow Cram School─but.

  The vampire and I couldn’t head toward the building─well, we were able to head to its location.

  After all, I had set my heading, aimed for it, and jumped.

  But.

  But─we couldn’t arrive there.

  Because where we landed, and arrived─lacked the building that shoulda been there, the abyandoned cram school.

  What was there was cinders.

  The ruins of the abyandoned cram school, a refuge for Koyomi Araragi and Shinyobu Oshinyo, a home to Myèmè Oshinyo for months, a place filled with memories for my myaster, for Hitagi Senjogahara, for Suruga Kanbaru, for Nyadeko Sengoku─had been incinyerated.

  052

  What happened?!?!

  052?!

  The section number got double-point scored in one night!

  I don’t know about the other times, but this I can’t ignore!

  No, no, no! I’m not overlooking this!

  What the heck happened while I was asleep?!

  What kind of grand adventures took place for us to skip twenty-five sections?!

  An entire novel’s worth of tales weren’t told just now!

  “……”

  You get the idea.

  Putting aside silly meta-commentary─I really couldn’t help but feel that something was off now that we’d gone this far.

  The bed in those ruins, I supposed I could understand.

  Rather attached to the lovingly handmade cot I’d worked so hard to put together, I’d been able to get a good night’s sleep, my feelings helping to make up for any of its shortcomings. At least, part of me felt that way─and also that the good night’s sleep I got at Miss Senjogahara’s house was assisted by a reaction to the adverse conditions from the previous day when I’d camped out in an abandoned building.

  The two cases may appear to contradict one another, but they could both make sense if you thought of them together.

  Just like those two anecdotes about Napoleon.

  Let’s also put aside the question of when I thought of the imperial episodes (it didn’t seem like my kind of idea), and ask…

  Getting a sound night of sleep in Araragi’s bed?

  Me?

  I’d woken up feeling completely refreshed.

  And emotionally calm, too?

  How could that─be?

  I don’t know if I should say this, but I was nervous from the moment I got under his sheets─if I were to put it in shameless terms, I was so exhilarated that I was in no shape to sleep.

  It was as if I’d experienced firsthand what Miss Senjogahara said about not being able to sleep using her father’s bedding, and in that sense Araragi’s sheets couldn’t have been more uncomfortable─not to mention that I also had his pajamas on.

  It was like feeling Araragi with my whole body.

  If I’d gotten a good night’s sleep in that situation, I might as well rest in peace as a girl.

  Not being able to get a wink of sleep would be going too far, but it ought to have been shallow.

  And yet─I felt reenergized.

  What an invigorating morning.

  It was clearly─abnormal.

  It was clearly aberrant, clearly an alteration.

  An aberration.

  “…Hmm.”

  I rose slowly and examined my body─there would have to be marks left behind if something had happened to me.

  Maybe it was my imagination.

  But there had to be proof─something that would let me know if my nerves were tougher than I imagined, or if they weren’t.

  There had to be something left behind.

  And I found it right away.

  First, there were the pajamas I’d borrowed from Araragi─apart from the night sweats I’d soaked it with, I noticed they had the slight smell of dirt to them.

  If “smell of dirt” is too vague, maybe I should say an outdoors smell.

  “I went outside while I was sleeping?”

  Like a somnambulist?

  I sat cross-legged as I mumbled to myself and bent over like I was stretching before a run to check my feet next─primarily my soles.

  But there was nothing there.

  Size 7 1/2 feet.

  Very clean.

  “But,” I said, my eyes resting on the box of wet tissues on top of Araragi’s study desk (or so I call it, but I’m sure it wasn’t until very recently that it started being used for that purpose).

  I was right. It wasn’t in the same place as yesterday.

  By about an eighth of an inch.

  I got out of bed and peeked inside the wastebasket by the d
esk. Just as I expected, there were a number of used wipes─and they were stained with dirt and gravel.

  That would mean, I thought as I looked at my hands.

  Just like my soles, my hands were clean too─but not under my fingernails.

  A slight bit of dirt was present.

  Some very rugged nail art.

  “I’ve heard of catching a criminal thanks to the grit under their fingernails, but…this is no joke.”

  Muttering, I looked to the window next.

  Nothing said that I must have left through the window─but when I considered Golden Week, it was hard to imagine that I’d bothered to walk out into the hall, descend the stairs, and open the front door to leave. The window was the closest exit and the rational route to pick─and though it was a lucky shot, my prediction hit its mark. The window’s sliding lock had been left undone.

  I had of course made sure that everything was locked before heading to bed last night.

  That degree of caution was inevitable after Miss Senjogahara had gotten as mad at me as she had─and yet.

  In other words, someone had opened the lock to this window while I was sleeping, and since I was the only person in this room, that someone had to be me.

  “I don’t know about criminal, but I do feel like a culprit getting pinned down by a great detective.”

  Of course, culprits in detective novels wouldn’t leave so much evidence─what great detective would be inspired to work on such a case? It would get tossed wholesale to the men and women of Scotland Yard─but then again.

  A case with a Changing Cat as the culprit might be fit for a good, old-fashioned great detective─or so I thought.

  Then, as if to strike the finishing blow, I went back to the bed and grabbed the pillow.

  Araragi’s pillow─it may have been, but that didn’t matter right now.

  If I’d spent even a moment lying in bed while in that state─

  “…There it is. Our conclusive evidence.”

  I picked a single hair from the pillow.

  Male or female, any human’s hair is constantly replacing itself. It’s normal for some strands to fall from your head while you’re sleeping─that much is natural, but the question was why this hair was white.

  White hair.

  No─maybe I should call it white fur?

  Because it looked less like human hair and more like body hair from an animal─

  “Oh…so it’s happening again. I’m turning into the Afflicting Cat…into Black Hanekawa.”

  I didn’t want to believe it─or even think about it, but there was no point in running from reality when the situation was so certain.

  I wasn’t going to continue denying the facts until cat ears actually grew out of my head the way they did the day before the culture festival─or so I thought before I had my doubts and checked the mirror on top of the desk.

  It was fine, they hadn’t sprouted.

  Not yet.

  But, and I realize this is a completely unrelated digression, it struck me that Araragi might actually be a bit of a narcissist if he had a mirror sitting on top of his desk at all times.

  What a weird kid.

  Okay, anyway.

  “But when I step back and think through it all─it’s not just the cat ears. There seem to be a lot of differences from last time, and the time before that. There was no headache signaling what was going to happen, and given how I’ve been able to return to normal without Araragi…”

  Anything past that was going to be pure conjecture, but I had probably “Black Hanekawafied” when I spent the night in the ruins, and when I stayed over at Miss Senjogahara’s home, too─pure conjecture, but I was almost sure I was right.

  I say that because it finally explained why I felt so refreshed.

  Yet─I’d turned back.

  I’d turned back into me.

  “Could that mean I’ve gotten used to becoming Black Hanekawa? Just like how Araragi is able to make good use of his immortality?”

  Immortality…

  It was strange. That word, too, seemed to snag against something somewhere in my brain─hmm, but what?

  Really, now─what happened while I was asleep?

  Something must have happened.

  Something very significant…

  “Of course, I do have an idea why I became Black Hanekawa again…”

  The house fire.

  It couldn’t be anything else.

  Black Hanekawa is a manifestation of my stress─a flip-side personality who shoulders feelings that are too much for me.

  “It’s probably not going wild to relieve my stress again… There’d be more obvious marks left behind in that case.”

  But it also felt like wishful thinking.

  Either way, having a blank space in my memories was discomfiting.

  “Deary me… I wonder if Black Hanekawa will whisk this stress right away for me too,” I said in jest as I began changing clothes.

  If there was no point in running from reality, then I faced another unshakable truth: even though I’d discovered that I was turning into Black Hanekawa, there was nothing I could do about it, and I had to go to school.

  I needed to talk to Araragi or Mister Oshino about it, but I didn’t have them, either.

  I could be absent again and say it was due to psychological exhaustion from that house burning down─the thought occurred to me, but it felt hard to do so now that I realized I was offloading the exhaustion to someone other than myself.

  And, to be completely honest, I also wanted to ask Miss Kanbaru if she’d been able to meet Araragi yesterday and if he was okay─I didn’t know her phone number or email address, so direct contact was the only option.

  “I suppose there’s another way, which is to go through Miss Senjogahara…but she’s so sharp that she might get a hint that I’ve been turning into Black Hanekawa.”

  No.

  This was her we were talking about. Maybe she’d gotten that hint already.

  I seemed to recall her suggesting as much…

  Then.

  Just as I finished changing into my school uniform.

  “Miss Hanekawaaa.”

  Tsukihi’s voice came from the other side of the door and made me jump.

  Oh no.

  Was I talking to myself too loudly at someone else’s home?

  Did she hear me?

  Fortunately, that didn’t seem to be the case.

  “Hey, are you up? If you aren’t, wake up, okay? It’s time to eat, okay?” continued Tsukihi. “The Araragi family has a rule where we always have breakfast together.”

  “Thanks, I got it!” I replied. “Don’t worry, I’m awake. I’ll be right there.”

  “Okaaay,” the cute voice said, and I heard the sound of footsteps going the other way down the hall.

  Oh.

  Was I feeling let down?

  Araragi described his sisters “rousing him from bed” every morning like they were a pretty big nuisance, but what could possibly be annoying about this adorable wake-up call?

  Really. He shouldn’t.

  The way he described it, he was liable to give people the wrong impression, as if they practically attacked him in his sleep with a crowbar.

  Thinking this, taking one last look in the mirror, and with my contact lenses in hand, meaning to drop by the bathroom before heading to the living room, I left Araragi’s den.

  Meow.

  053

  A rule about always eating together.

  As far as I could tell, Araragi was constantly breaking this rule, but now wasn’t the time to be asking about that.

  He probably wouldn’t want to hear it from me, and I didn’t want to say it either, but Araragi seemed to have trouble maintaining a comfortable distance between himself and his family─that obviously included Karen and Tsukihi, but also his father and mother.