"So─what kind of spirit, specter, ghoul, or goblin is this Lost Cow, anyway?
What do we need to do to defeat it?"
"Really, Araragi, all you ever think about is violence. Something good
happen to you lately?"
It seemed as though Senjogahara had woken Oshino up while he was
sleeping. He grumbled something about how awful she was to interrupt his
lazy Sunday morning, but even putting aside the fact that it was already the
afternoon, every day for Oshino was a summer break Sunday. He had no
constitutionally guaranteed right to speak those words, so I didn't bother
dignifying them with a response.
Oshino had no cell phone, which meant he had to borrow Senjogahara's
for us to communicate. However, due to reasons both dogmatic and
monetary, he also seemed to be quite bad with technology. When I heard him
start saying things as idiotic as, "Hey, tsundere girl. Which button do I press
when I'm talking?" I felt an urge to press the button that'd cut the call.
What did he think he was using, a walkie-talkie?
"But...I do wonder what's going on here. This isn't so much uncommon
as abnormal. I can't believe you've managed to run into this many
aberrations in such a short period of time, Araragi. How funny. Getting
attacked by a vampire would be enough for most people, but look at you.
First you get yourself mixed up with missy class president's cat, then missy
tsundere's crab, and now you've gone and stumbled upon a snail?"
"I'm not the one who did the stumbling."
"Hm? Really?"
"How much did Senjogahara tell you?"
"Well...she did tell me everything, but I was also half-asleep. It's all a
bit vague, and I might be misremembering some of it... Oh, but you know,
I've always dreamed about how great it would be if a cute high school girl
came and woke me up. Thanks to you, Araragi, a dream I've had since
middle school has come true at last."
"...And how does it feel?"
"Hmm, I'm not sure. I'm still only half-awake."
Maybe that's how fulfilled dreams are.
Not just for him, but for everyone.
"Hey, she's glaring at me, hard. Yeesh, now I'm scared. I wonder if
something good happened to her."
"Who knows."
"Not you, huh? After all, you don't seem like you understand women
very well, Araragi─but forget about that. Hm. Well, it is true that it's easier
to find yourself back in the world after you've gotten involved in it once,
but...it does feel a bit too concentrated. Missy class president and missy
tsundere are both your classmates, too─and, from what I understand, they're
both from the area you're in, right?"
"Senjogahara doesn't live here anymore, though. But that doesn't have
anything to do with this. Hachikuji wouldn't have ever lived here before."
"Hachikuji?"
"Oh, did she not tell you? The name of the girl who came across the
snail. Mayoi Hachikuji."
"Ah..."
There was a pause.
It didn't seem to be because he was sleepy, either.
"Mayoi Hachikuji, you say... Ha hah, of course. I'm starting to get the
picture. My memories are coming together. Of course. It's a nice little
connection, actually. Almost like a play on words."
"A play on words? Oh, because 'mayoi' can mean 'lost'? 'Lost' as in
'Lost Cow' and 'lost child'... You know, Oshino, you come up with some
pretty boring ideas for someone who always has such a dumb smile on his
face."
"You wouldn't catch me dead making jokes that simple. I don't smile
like I do just for show. Nothing conceals a weapon better than a smiling face,
you know. I'm talking about both of her names together. Mayoi and
Hachikuji. You know, Hachikuji. Like in the fifth verse of Shinonome
Monogatari?"
"What?"
Hadn't Hanekawa said something similar?
Not that it meant anything to me.
"You don't know anything, Araragi, do you? I'm glad you're giving me
a good excuse to explain it all. But we don't have time for that right now, do
we? Besides, I'm sleepy. Hm? What's that, missy tsundere?"
Our conversation stopped for a moment as Senjogahara seemed to say
something to Oshino. Even my hearing couldn't pick it up─or rather, she was
intentionally speaking to him so that I couldn't hear her.
Was she sharing a secret? No─that couldn't be it.
What could she be saying?
"Hmm... Okay."
Oshino nodding along was all I could catch. And─
"...Ahh."
A heavy sigh.
"You really are useless, Araragi. You know that?"
"Huh? What did I do to deserve that from you? I haven't even told you
that I'm just passing the time."
"You've made missy tsundere fuss over you so much...she even feels
responsible for you. How pathetic. She practically has to hold your hand and
dress you, Araragi. It's her who should be wearing the pants here."
"Hold on... I do feel bad about dragging Senjogahara into this. I really
do. Not just bad, I feel responsible. It was only last week she finished up
taking care of her own problems, but I've already gotten her into another
strange─"
"Ugh, that's not what I mean. You know, Araragi, I'm starting to think
you're getting a big head after having solved problems with three aberrations
in a row. Just to make sure you know, what you, yourself, see and feel isn't
the whole truth."
"...I wasn't trying to dispute that."
They were stern words─withering. It felt like he'd hit me where it hurt
most, because that did ring a bell.
"Well, you probably don't mean to be doing it, Araragi. I already
understand what kind of person you are. I just think it wouldn't hurt if you
were a little more considerate, that's all. If you're not acting conceited, then I
think something might have you boxed in. Listen carefully. Seeing shouldn't
necessarily be believing─and on the flip side, not seeing isn't necessarily
counterfactual, Araragi. I want to say I told you something similar the first
time we met. I hope you haven't forgotten already."
"...We're not talking about me right now, Oshino. Can you just tell me
how to deal with this...Lost Cow? This snail? What do we do to defeat it?"
"Again with the violent talk. Don't say that kind of stuff. You really
don't understand a thing, do you? You'll come to regret it if you keep going
on like that, and I hope you'll be taking responsibility then. Got that? And
also─the Lost Cow is...oh, er."
Oshino hesitated for a moment.
"Ha hah. I don't know, this is just too simple. It feels like no matter what
I say, I'm going to be saving you here. That's no good... I need you to get
saved on your own."
"It's simple? Really?"
"We're not dealing with a vampire here. That really, truly was a rare
case, Araragi. I guess you can't help but get a lot of wrong ideas if that was
your first experience, but...okay, we could say that this Lost Cow is more
like the crab that missy tsundere encountered."
"Hm."
The crab.
That crab.
"Oh, right. About her, too..." Oshino said. "I don't know if I like this.
I'm only here to connect humans with the other side. Connecting humans
with other humans isn't my specialty, you see... Ha hah. Well then. Now
what? I may have let myself get a little too friendly with you, Araragi. It's
like we're colluding. I never imagined that it'd be this simple for you to ask
me for help, let alone that you'd get me to solve a case for you over the
phone."
"...Well, I do think it was too facile of me."
It was easier─and I'd been reluctant about the option.
Still─it was also true that it was the only option.
"I wish you wouldn't treat me in such a casual way. You normally
wouldn't have someone like me around when you encounter an aberration.
And, though this is such a plain and commonsense thing to say that it's out of
character for me to be saying it, I don't think it's very admirable of you to be
sending a fine young woman into a more-or-less-abandoned building where a
suspicious man is camped out."
"Oh, so you do realize that you're suspicious and that you live in a
more-or-less-abandoned building..."
But─I had to admit, he was right. Absolutely right. Senjogahara had
agreed to go so readily─she pretty much volunteered─that I failed to be
considerate in that regard.
"It's not like you're going to do anything to her."
"While I appreciate the trust you put in me, you do have to draw lines.
That's why we have rules. Let them slip out of your hands and soon you'll
find yourself in a sloppy situation. Got that? You need to establish boundaries
that say no matter the circumstances, this is off limits. Because if you don't,
you'll find yourself slowly ceding your ground. You hear people say that
rules are made to be broken, but they're not supposed to be. They're rules.
Not only that, you won't have anything to break if you don't have rules in the
first place. Ha hah, I'm starting to sound like li'l missy class president."
"Mmgh..."
Well─he was right.
Absolutely right.
I'd apologize to Senjogahara later.
"Araragi, it's not as if she trusts me as much as you trust me. All she has
is a provisional trust based on the fact that you trust me─so remember, that
means if something happens to her, the responsibility falls directly on you.
Not that I'd do anything, of course. No, really, I won't! Whoa, please, put
down that stapler!"
"..."
So she still carried one of those around.
Then again, that wasn't the kind of habit you got rid of overnight.
"Phew... What a surprise. I guess missy tsundere is a scary missy
tsundere, huh? What a case we have here. Well, okay... Eh, you know, I
don't like phones after all. It's so hard to talk on them."
"Hard? Seriously? I know some people are bad with technology, but
Oshino, that's pushing it."
"Sure, that's a part of it, but it's just that while I'm over here being all
serious, you might be lying down, drinking a soda, and reading a manga over
there. Everything feels so empty when I think about that."
"Wow...I never knew you were that sensitive."
Apparently, people who minded such things really minded them.
"All right, Araragi, then this is what I'll do. I'll tell her how to deal with
the Lost Cow, and you can stay right there."
"How to deal with it? So secondhand knowledge is all we're going to
need here?"
"If you're going to put it that way, the Lost Cow itself is oral tradition."
"That's not what I'm trying to get at─um, we don't need some kind of
ceremony like we did for Senjogahara?"
"Nope. The pattern here is the same, but this snail isn't as tough to deal
with as that crab. It's not a god, after all. It's just a monster, so to speak. And
not as in a ghoul or a goblin. It's sort of like a ghost."
"A ghost?"
In this case, I didn't see much of a difference between gods, ghouls,
goblins, and ghosts. But this was Oshino I was talking to. I knew that the
differences between each were important.
Still─a ghost.
"Ghosts are a kind of yokai, too. The Lost Cow itself isn't unique to any
one region, it appears all across Japan. An aberration that's been handed
down in every corner of the country. It's not a well-known one, and its name
changes here and there, but it started out as a snail. Umm, and one more
thing, Araragi. Hachikuji is actually a term that originally referred to temples
that stand in bamboo groves. The 'ji' means temple, of course, but the 'hachi-
ku' isn't the numbers eight and nine that we tend to write that with.
Correctly, it derives from the word for black bamboo. You know that there
are two major types in Japan, don't you? Black bamboo and tortoise-shell
bamboo. Anyway, this got changed to the characters for 'eight' and 'nine' as,
well, just a play on words. Do you know about the eighty-eight-temple
pilgrimage in Shikoku, or the thirty-three-temple pilgrimage in the western
region?"
"Oh... Well sure, even I've heard of that."
You hear about those all the time.
"Okay, so that's the kind of thing that even you've heard of─sure, I
guess it would be. Well, there are a lot of similar pilgrimages, just not all as
famous. And one of them is a 'Hachikuji' pilgrimage─with a list of eighty-
nine temples. It also has to do with bamboo groves like I said, but in terms of
things getting tacked on, they wanted a pilgrimage with one more temple than
Shikoku's eighty-eight."
"Huh..."
So it had something to do with Shikoku, the smallest of Japan's four
major islands?
But Hanekawa had said something about the western Kansai region of
the main island.
"Yep," Oshino said, "because these eighty-nine temples are mostly in
Kansai─in that sense, you could say it's closer to the thirty-three- temple
pilgrimage than the eighty-eight. But─and here we get to the crux of the
story, to where the tragedy begins─you can also easily read the characters for
'eight' and 'nine' together not as 'hachiku' but as 'yaku,' misfortune. Slap
that title on your temple and you've added a negative prefix. It wasn't a good
idea."
"...? Now that you mention it, I wasn't able to read that part of her name
at first and thought it might be 'yaku,' but...it's not as if they meant it that
way, right?"
"No, but without meaning to, they gave it that sense. Words are scary
things. Without any intention involved at all, things can turn out a certain
way. Language is alive, though people say that too casually these days. In
any case, the interpretation spread, and it wasn't long until the eighty-nine
temples stopped being grouped together. Most of them shut down during the
anti-Buddhist movement in the 1800s, anyway, and only about a quarter still
exist today─in addition, nearly all of them hide the fact they were ever a part
of those eighty-nine temples to begin with."
"..."
His explanations were so offhanded, which made them easy to follow,
but I also got the feeling that repeating them to anyone ran the risk of getting
mud on my face.
This was the kind of knowledge that didn't turn up a single hit when you
searched it online, and I had trouble deciding how much of it I should
swallow in the first place.
It called for a grain of salt.
"And so, if you look at the name Mayoi Hachikuji against that
background─that history─it seems, well, a little too meaningful for comfort.
The names are connected─you see? You find that sort of thing in classical
literature, like in The Great Mirror, which must have come up in class. Still,
I'm not sure about her given name. Mayoi─'lost'? It seems too obvious. If
anything here is facile or simplistic, that'd be it. Whoever came up with it
doesn't seem to have a knack for names. Hm, it'd have been good if you
sensed this from the beginning, Araragi."
"Good? What? And also─"
Hachikuji was sitting on the bench, waiting patiently for me to finish the
call. It didn't look like she was listening in on me─but she had to be. The
conversation was about her, how could she not?
"It wasn't until recently that her last name became Hachikuji. It was
Tsunade before that."
"Tsunade? Huh, really now... Throw that kink into the mix─and the
thread starts to get tangled. Frayed, you could say. That's a little too much,
even for fate. Like there's a man behind the curtains pulling the strings so
that all the dominoes can fall. Hachikuji and Tsunade... I see, and then
Mayoi. So that was the important one here. Ma-yoi─'true twilight.'
Phew─gimme a break."
How ridiculous, Oshino muttered.
He said it as though to himself─but it was intended for me.
"You know what, Araragi, it doesn't matter. This is a really interesting
town, I have to say. A motley crucible. I get the feeling I won't be able to
leave for a while... Well, I'll tell missy tsundere the details, so you get them
from her."
"Hm? O-Okay."
"That is─" Oshino wrapped up in a tone so sarcastic I could practically
see his smirk, "if you're lucky enough for her to come out and tell you."
And then─the call ended.
Oshino had a rule about never saying goodbyes.
"...So, Hachikuji. Looks like there's a way."
"It didn't sound like there is, going by your conversation."
So she'd been listening.
Well, she couldn't have figured out the important parts if she'd only
heard my side of it.
"At any rate, Mister Araragi."
"What is it?"
"You do realize that I'm hungry, right?"
"..."
Okay, so what?
Don't say that, I thought, like you're gently trying to let me know I've
forgotten to fulfill an important obligation.
But now that she mentioned it, I'd forgotten thanks to this snail business
that I hadn't seen to Hachikuji's lunch. Senjogahara, too... In her case,
though, she may have gone off to eat somewhere on her own before heading
to Oshino's place.
Huh, it hadn't occurred to me.
Because my body no longer required me to eat much.
"Okay, then let's go somewhere to eat once Senjogahara gets back.
Actually, there's only homes around here─but you can go to places as long as
they're not your mom's house, right?"
"Yes. I can."
"Okay, we'll ask Senjogahara─she should know the closest restaurant.
So, is there any kind of food you like?"
"I like anything as long as it's food."
"Hunh."
"Your hand was delicious too, Mister Araragi."
"My hand isn't food."
"Oh, you don't need to be so modest. It really was delicious."
"..."
She'd probably ingested more than a little of my flesh and blood, so it
was no joke.
The cannibal girl.
"By the way, Hachikuji. It's true that you've gone to your mom's home
before?"
"It is. I don't tell lies."
"I see..."
But she got lost on her way─and not because it'd been so long. She'd
come across the snail, so even if she'd been before─but wait, why did
Hachikuji come across that snail in the first place?
A reason.
There was a reason I was attacked by a vampire.
There was one for Hanekawa and Senjogahara, too.
So─there had to be a reason for Hachikuji as well.
"...Hey. I know this is a simple-minded way to look at it, but it's not
like your goal is to get to where you're going, it's just to meet your mom,
right?"
"It's very insensitive of you to say 'just,' but yes."
"In that case, can't she come and meet you? Even if you can't go to
Miss Tsunade's home, it's not as if your mom is locked inside. I'm sure
parents have the right to meet their children even after they get divorced─" I
was no expert in the field. "Or so I've heard."
"That's impossible. Actually, it's pointless," Hachikuji replied at once.
"I would have done that from the beginning if I could. But I can't. I can't
even call my mom."
"Hmph..."
"The only thing I can do is visit her like this. Even if I know I'll never
get there."
She was saying it in a roundabout way, but did that mean it had
something to do with her family situation? It seemed complicated. Then
again, I should have guessed as much from the fact that even on Mother's
Day, she was having to come all the way to an unfamiliar town by herself.
But there had to be a more logical method... For example, Senjogahara could
go ahead of us and get to Miss Tsunade's home first... No, a direct strategy
like that wouldn't work on an aberration. It wouldn't let us get to where
Hachikuji was trying to go, just as it caused Senjogahara's phone to go out of
service when she tried to use its GPS. I was able to talk to Oshino on my
phone because he and I speaking was fine.
Aberrations─are the world itself.
Unlike living things─they're connected to the world.
Science alone can't shine light on aberrations. Just as people will never
stop being attacked by vampires.
There may be no darkness in the world that cannot be illuminated.
But darkness itself will never disappear.
That meant our only option was to wait for Senjogahara to arrive.
"An aberration..." I said. "Though I'm not very clear on the details, to
be honest. What about you, Hachikuji? Do you know much about yokai and
monsters and that kind of stuff?"
"...Hm?" she paused weirdly before replying, "Oh, no, not at all. Just
the noppera-bo, I guess."
"Oh, Lafcadio Hearn's faceless monster..."
"Yes, I could really sink my teeth into that story."
"Good for you."
I was sure she could.
Then again, just about anyone in Japan has heard that one.
"Scary, yeah?"
"Yes. But─I don't know any others."
"Right, makes sense."
A yokai, it may have been.
But my case, the vampire─no, it didn't matter.
They were all similar for humans.
It was a conceptual problem.
The deeper part of the problem was─
"Hachikuji─I don't know the details here, but are you really that
desperate to see your mom? I honestly don't get why you're willing to go this
far."
"I think it's normal for a child to want to see her mother... Am I
wrong?"
"No, of course that's true, but..."
Of course that's true. But.
If there was some reason involved that wasn't normal─then I thought we
might be able to figure out why Hachikuji had come across the snail. But
there didn't seem to be anything definite enough to be called a reason. It was
simple, impulsive─a principle akin to nonlinguistic instinct in the edifice of
desire.
"Mister Araragi, you live in the same home as both of your parents,
don't you? That's why you don't understand. You don't think about what it's
like to be lacking something while you're fulfilled. People want what they
lack. If you had to live apart from your parents, I'm sure that you'd want to
go see them, too."
"Is that how it is?"
That's how it is─I suppose.
A nice problem to have.
─You know, Koyomi, that's why.
"If you don't mind me saying so, Mister Araragi, from where I stand,
I'm jealous of the simple fact that you have both of your parents."
"Oh..."
"Jealous as a blue-eyed goblin."
"Oh... You know you got both sides of that kind of wrong."
What would Senjogahara have said in the situation? If she'd heard about
Hachikuji's issues, then─no, she probably wouldn't have said a thing. She
probably wouldn't have even compared herself to Hachikuji like I was doing.
Even if she was in a much closer position to her than I was.
A crab and a snail.
Organisms that lived by the water's edge─was it?
"Judging by your words, Mister Araragi, I get the impression that you
aren't very fond of your parents. Is that really the case?"
"Oh, no, it's not like that. It's just─"
Before I continued, the thought crossed my mind that maybe it wasn't
something I should be telling a child. Then again, I'd already pried into
Hachikuji's circumstances, so even if she was a child, it didn't seem right for
me to just trail off.
"You know, I used to be a really good kid," I said.
"It isn't good to lie."
"I'm not lying..."
"I see. Then let's say that it isn't. A little lie never hurt anyone."
"So you're from the village of liars."
"I'm from the village of truth-tellers."
"Is that so. Anyway, while I never spoke in the annoyingly polite way
you do, I was a pretty good student and a pretty good athlete, and never got in
too much trouble. Also, I never rebelled against my parents for no good
reason like the other boys around me. I felt grateful that they were raising
me."
"Ahh, how praiseworthy."
"I have two little sisters, too, and they're basically the same. Things
were great at home, but then I overdid it when I was trying to get into high
school."
"Overdid it?"
"..."
I was impressed by how easily she made our conversation flow.
Was this what they called being a good listener?
"I went and applied to a school for way better students than me─and I
managed to get in."
"But that's a wonderful thing. Congratulations."
"No, it wasn't. If I applied for a school that wasn't for me and didn't get
in, and that was all, it would have been fine─but as a result, I wasn't able to
keep up. You wouldn't believe how bad it gets when you're a washout at a
school for smart kids. Not only that, everyone else around me is super
serious... People like Senjogahara and I are the exception, not the rule."
As for Tsubasa Hanekawa, that embodiment of seriousness, she was an
exception just for bothering to deal with a student like me. She had what it
took to compensate for it, quite simply.
"And when that happened, I went from being a good kid to the other
way around, and just as hard. It's not like there was anything specific that
happened to me, though. My father and my mother are the same as ever, and
I'm acting the same at home, or at least I feel like I am─but there's just this
awkward feeling I can't describe. It comes out no matter what I do, and it
lingers. So we all end up worrying too much about each other, and─"
My little sisters.
My two sisters.
─You know, Koyomi, that's why─
"That's why I─never grow up, I've been told. I'm going to stay a child
and never become an adult─I've been told."
"So you're a child?" Hachikuji asked. "Then you're the same as me."
"...I don't think so. What they mean is just your frame growing bigger,
without getting filled out properly."
"What a rude thing to say to a lady, Mister Araragi. I'll have you know
that I'm one of the better-developed students in my class."
"True, your chest was pretty impressive."
"What?! You touched it?! When?!"
Hachikuji's eyes turned to saucers on her astonished face.
"Um...when we were scuffling?"
"That's even more of a shock than the fact you punched me!"
Hachikuji held her head.
She really did seem shocked.
"Wait...it's not like I did it on purpose, and it was only for a split
second anyway."
"A split second?! Really? Honestly?!"
"Yeah. I only touched it about three times."
"Not only is that more than a split second, any time past the first has to
have been intentional!"
"You're accusing me of something I didn't do. It was an unfortunate
accident."
"I've had my first touch stolen from me!"
"Your first touch?"
That's what kids these days talked about?
Grade schoolers really are maturing fast.
"To think that my first touch came before my first kiss... What a
naughty girl Mayoi Hachikuji has become!"
"Oh yeah, Hachikuji. Now that you mention it, I realize I forgot to give
you the allowance I promised you."
"Please, what a moment to pick to bring that up!"
Next, with her head still in her hands, Hachikuji began to writhe all over
as if a wasp had gotten inside her clothes.
The poor thing.
"Come on, don't get yourself so down. It's better than your father taking
your first kiss, you know?"
"That sounds like a very normal event!"
"Okay, then it's better than your reflection in a mirror being your first
kiss, okay?"
"No girl in our world has had that happen to them!"
Yeah.
You could probably include girls in the next world.
"Grrah!"
Just as I thought Hachikuji was taking her hands off her head, she
immediately moved to try to bite my throat. It was where a vampire had
bitten me over summer break, so a chill ran down my spine. I somehow
managed to get my hands on Hachikuji's shoulders and to push her back,
averting any trouble. "Grrarrrarrrarrr!" she gnashed her teeth menacingly. I
recalled there being an enemy in some old video game like her (it looked like
an iron ball with a chain) as I soothed her.
"N-Now, now. Who's a good girl."
"Please don't treat me like a dog! Or is this your roundabout way of
comparing me to a rutting female canine?!"
"Well, if I had to compare you to something, I'd honestly say you're
acting more like a rabid one..."
She did have a nice set of teeth, though. She'd bitten into my hand down
to the bone, but she hadn't chipped or lost a single one of her teeth, baby or
adult. Not only were they perfectly lined, they were unfathomably durable.
"You know, Mister Araragi, you've been acting very brazen for some
time now! I don't see a hint of regret on your face! Isn't there something you
ought to say after having touched a young girl's delicate chest?!"
"...Thank you?"
"No! I'm demanding an apology from you!"
"You say that, but it happened in the middle of us fighting. How could
that be anything short of an act of God? I almost think you should be glad it
was just your chest. And like Hanekawa said earlier, you're the one in the
wrong for biting someone as ridiculously hard as you did."
"This isn't about who's at fault! Even if I am, I'm in an incredible state
of shock! You can't call yourself a grown man if you don't apologize to a girl
in shock, even if it's not your fault!"
"Grown men don't apologize," I said in a deep voice. "It cheapens his
soul."
"How cool?!"
"Or are you saying you'll never forgive me unless I apologize to you?
Saying that you'll forgive someone if they apologize to you...is like
admitting you can't be magnanimous toward people who haven't abased
themselves."
"Why have I become the one being criticized here? Only a thief could be
so bold, as they say... Now you've really gotten me mad... I may be tolerant,
but this is like turning both my cheeks inside out!"
"That'd be incredibly tolerant of you..."
"In fact, I won't forgive you even if you apologize!"
"What's the big problem anyway? It's only going to go to waste
otherwise."
"And now you're downright defiant, Mister Araragi?! That's not the
issue here! And I've only begun puberty, so it's not going to waste!"
"You know, people say they get bigger if you massage them."
"Only men believe that superstition!"
"It's become a sad, boring world out there..."
"Have you been using that superstition as an excuse to squish ladies'
breasts all the time? You're disgusting!"
"I've never had the chance, unfortunately."
"So you're a lousy virgin!"
"..."
This elementary school kid knew that expression?
Grade schoolers weren't just maturing fast. They were finished.
I wasn't living in a boring world, but in an awful one...
Then again, I could pretend to lament what was going on in the world
today all I wanted, but come to think of it, I'd soaked up that much by the
time I was in fifth grade, too. That's how anxiety about younger generations
tends to work.
"Grrah! Grarrr! Grarrarrarrr!"
"Ah-wh-h-hey, watch it! Seriously, that's dangerous!"
"A virgin touched me! I'm sullied!"
"How does that part change anything?!"
"I wanted my first to be a smooth operator! But I got you instead, Mister
Araragi! My dreams have been crushed!"
"What kind of overblown fantasy is that?! You're making whatever
budding feelings of guilt I had disappear, you know!"
"Graarrh! Grrah, graaah, grr!!"
"Oh, just quiet down! You really are a rabid dog! You high-banged,
play-biting, no-good woman! Fine, then! I'm gonna squish them so much
you'll forget all about your firsts and all about kisses!"
"Eeeek?!"
There he was, a high school boy who was losing it in the face of an
elementary school girl, who was threatening to harass her by force, who I'd
like to believe wasn't me.
It was me, though...
Fortunately, Mayoi Hachikuji put up far more resistance than I ever
could have expected, so this exchange came to an end without having run its
course, but rather with my entire body covered in Hachikuji's tooth and
scratch marks. After five minutes, an elementary schooler and a high schooler
sat silently there on a bench, completely out of breath, drenched in sweat,
exhausted.
I was thirsty, but there were no vending machines in the area...
"I'm very sorry..." she said.
"No... I'm the one who should be apologizing."
Mutual apologies were made.
It was a pathetic settlement.
"...Still, Hachikuji. You're used to fights."
"I get into them quite often at school."
"Scuffles like that? Oh, right. You don't pay that much attention to
who's a boy and who's a girl when you're in elementary school. But you
really know how to get yourself in trouble..."
In spite of her intelligent features.
"You seem to be used to fighting too, Mister Araragi. I suppose battles
like that are common once you become a juvenile delinquent?"
"I'm not a delinquent. I'm a washout."
It was the kind of correction that hurt to make.
I was practically wounding myself.
"I'm going to a prep school, so just because I'm a washout doesn't mean
I'm a juvenile delinquent. We don't even have a group of delinquents at my
school in the first place."
"But in manga, it's standard for student councils of elite high schools to
be doing quite wicked things behind the scenes. The smarter someone is, the
more malicious of a delinquent they become."
"You can ignore that theory in real life. But anyway, yeah, I do get in a
lot of fights with my little sisters."
"Your little sisters, you say. I believe you mentioned earlier that you
have two. So are they about my age?"
"No, they're both in middle school. But they might be around your age
at heart─both of them act so young."
Though neither of them ever goes so far as to bite me.
One of them practices karate, so there's not much messing around
against her.
"You know, they might just get along with you. They're good with kids,
or rather, they practically are kids. I'll introduce you to them next time I get a
chance."
"Oh... Thank you, but I'll have to pass."
"Okay, then. You know, you're pretty shy for all your good manners.
Not that it's important. Well...I guess scuffles, at least, end when one side
apologizes to the other."
But today─was a battle of wills.
Still, I thought, it should end with me apologizing.
I knew I should. But still.
"Is something the matter, Mister Ararragi?"
"You added an extra 'r' this time."
"I'm sorry. A slip of the tongue."
"No, I think you did that on purpose."
"A flip by the flung."
"Or maybe not?!"
"I'm sorry, but everyone stumbles over their words from time to time.
Or are you trying to say that you've never once had a slip of the tongue?"
"I won't go that far, but I've never messed up saying someone's name
before."
"Fine, then say 'She shells she-shells on the she-shore' three times in a
row."
"You botched it yourself."
"What do you mean, 'she-shells'?! Are women all you ever think
about?"
"You're the one who said that, not me."
"What do you mean, 'she-shore'?! Are women all you ever think
about?"
"I don't even understand what that's supposed to mean..."
It was a fun conversation.
"Now that I think about it," I observed, "that's actually pretty hard to
say on purpose. She shells, she-shells..."
"Onsha she-shore!"
"..."
Between all the slipping and nipping, her mouth was getting a workout
today.
"So. Is something the matter, Mister Araragi?" she asked.
"Nothing's the matter. I'm just feeling a little depressed wondering how
I should apologize to my sister."
"Are you going to apologize to her because you squished her chest?"
"I'd never squish my little sister's chest."
"Ah, so you'd squish an elementary school girl's chest, but not your
little sister's. I see, so that's where you draw the line."
"Not to be underestimated, eh? That's some sarcasm. What a great
illustration of the fact that any situation can be twisted into casting a perfectly
innocent man as the villain."
"I don't think I've twisted anything about the situation."
She was right; she'd only explained what had happened. In fact, I was
the one who needed to wrestle and twist the context in a quasi-heroic manner to excuse my actions.
"Fine, then I'll put it another way," she offered. "You'd squish an
elementary school girl's chest, Mister Araragi, but not a middle school girl's
chest."
"Whoever this Mister Araragi you're talking about is, he sounds like one
hell of a pedophile. Not someone I'd want to count as a friend."
"You seem to be trying to deny that you're a pedophile."
"You bet."
"I understand that true pedophiles refuse to label themselves as such
under any circumstances. They consider innocent young girls to be grownup
women and proper peers."
"Thanks for the unwanted factoid..."
Learning useless trivia is nothing more than a waste of brain space.
But more importantly, that wasn't something I wanted to be learning
from a grade schooler.
"Either way," she added, "I do think it's dismissible as an act of God in
a fight, even if it's your little sister."
"Dammit, don't drag out this topic. Your little sister's chest counts even
less as a woman's chest than a grade schooler's. You need to understand
that."
"The way of chests. It's very enlightening."
"Don't follow it or anything, I'm begging you. Be that as it may─I got
in a little argument when I was leaving home today. Not a scuffle, an
argument. And not to rehash what you said earlier, but I feel like I need to
apologize even if it's not my fault. If it'll smooth things out. I do─know that.
It's what I'm supposed to do."
"Yes, it is," Hachikuji nodded with a solemn expression. "My father and
my mother were always fighting. Not scuffles, mind you, but arguments."
"And then─they got divorced."
"It may not be my place to say as their only daughter, but I understand
they got along very well─at first. I've heard they were madly in love with
each other before they married. But─I never once saw them getting along.
The two were always fighting."
Even so.
She didn't think they were going to get divorced, she said.
In fact, the idea that they even could had been foreign to
Hachikuji─she'd believed that families always stayed together. She must not
have known that a practice called divorce existed.
She must not have known.
That her father and her mother could part ways.
"But in terms of what's natural," she said, "that's certainly more natural.
They're human, so of course they'd argue and fight. You bite, you're bitten,
you love, you hate, that's what comes naturally to us. And so─what they
really needed was to work harder if they wanted to stay in love."
"You have to work hard to stay in love? I don't know─I wouldn't call
that insincere, but it doesn't feel very sincere to me either. Having to work
hard to love something─it's like you're making a conscious effort to make it
happen."
"But, Mister Araragi," Hachikuji insisted, "isn't the feeling that we call
love a very conscious thing?"
"...Yeah, I guess."
She was right.
Maybe it was─something deserving of work, of effort.
"It's painful to grow bored of something you love, to hate something
you love─isn't it? It's dreary, isn't it? If you loved someone ten times over,
it's as if you're hating them twenty times over just to hate them as much as
you used to love them. That's so─overwhelming."
"Hachikuji," I said, "you do love your mom, don't you."
"Yes, I do. And of course I love my father, too. And I understand how
he felt, and I understand that he never wanted things to turn out the way they
did. It was difficult for him for a lot of reasons. He was already the
breadmaker of the family."
"So your dad baked, too..."
What a guy.
No wonder he had so much on his plate.
"My father and my mother fought, and they split up as a result─but I
still love both of them," Hachikuji said.
"Huh... Okay."
"But that's exactly why I feel so uneasy." The way she looked at the
ground, I believed her. "My father seems to really hate my mother now─and
doesn't seem to have any interest in letting me meet with her. He won't let
me call her, and he said I should never see her again."
"..."
"I wonder if I won't forget her some day─if I won't stop loving her
some day if we're kept apart like this─and it makes me so uneasy."
That's why.
That's why she came here─all alone.
She didn't have a reason.
She just wanted to see her mother.
"...A snail, huh."
Man.
Why couldn't she be granted her modest wish?
She wasn't asking for much.
Aberration or whatever it was, Lost Cow or whatever it was─why was it
getting in Hachikuji's way? Time and time again, at that.
She could never get there.
She was always lost.
...Hm?
Hold on a second, I thought─Oshino had said that this Lost Cow was
like what happened with Senjogahara and the crab. The same pattern...what
did he mean by that? True, that crab never brought any calamity upon
Senjogahara. The results of what it brought upon her were calamitous, but
those were just results. In a sense, an essential sense─Senjogahara had only
gotten what she wanted.
The crab had granted Senjogahara's wish.
And this was the same pattern... If this were the same formula, only
with different variables, what did that mean? What exactly were the
implications? If the snail Hachikuji encountered actually wasn't trying to
hinder her─
If we were to say it was trying to grant her wish.
What exactly─was the snail doing?
What did Mayoi Hachikuji want?
If I were to look at it that way...didn't it even seem as though Hachikuji
had no interest in having this Lost Cow exorcised?
"..."
"Oh? Is something the matter, Mister Araragi? You suddenly started
staring at me. Don't you know you're going to make me blush?"
"Um...how do I say this."
"Fall in love with me and you'll get burned."
"...What's, that, supposed, to mean?"
She was making my commas proliferate for no good reason.
"What do you find so confusing? I'm a friend fatale, it's only fitting for
me to use cool lines like that."
"Okay, Hachikuji, so it's obvious to me that you meant femme fatale
just now, but I don't even know where to take the joke from there. Also, isn't
it weird for you to be calling a line about getting burned a 'cool' one?"
"Hmph. You're right. Okay, then." Hachikuji struggled for a moment
before rephrasing herself. "Fall in love with me and you'll get a low-
temperature burn."
"..."
"That's just lame!"
"And it's still not what you'd call cool."
So she was warm like an electric blanket?
She sounded like a wonderful person.
"Oh, I know what we should do," she said. "We just have to shift our
ground. We can keep the line and find a different description for me. While I
do wish I could hold on to the cool label, I have no choice but to give it up.
Like they say, you can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs."
"Makes sense. Actually, that might be a pretty standard move, shifting
your ground to make your killer line work. Like calling a series 'already
popular' on the cover when it's just the second installment. Well, let's try it
out. We'll never know otherwise. Okay, so instead of saying you're cool─"
"We'll call me hot."
"Hot-pot Mayoi."
"I still sound like a wonderful person!" Hachikuji lamented
exaggeratedly. But as if she'd realized something, she paused and said,
"You're trying to change the subject, Mister Araragi!"
So she'd caught on to it.
"We were talking about how you were staring at me, Mister Araragi.
What's the matter? Could you have fallen in love with me?"
"..."
She hadn't caught on to it at all.
"While I don't really appreciate being leered at, I will admit that I have
very attractive upper arms."
"That would be a unique proclivity."
"Oh? You're saying you don't feel a thing for my upper arms? You do
see them, don't you? Their functionary beauty?"
"What, did some bureaucrat decide that they're beautiful?"
Functional, maybe.
"Are you being bashful, Mister Araragi? So you do have a cute side. All
right, then, I'll try to understand. I can wait. Please hand out the rain checks."
"Sorry, but I don't have any interest in pipsqueaks."
"Pipsqueak!" Hachikuji looked at me with such shock I thought her eyes
might pop out of their sockets. Next, her head started to sway back and forth,
like she was having a dizzy spell. "What a terrible insult... That word is so
awful I wouldn't be surprised if it were banned from the airwaves some
day..."
"I guess it was pretty mean."
"You've wounded me, gravely! I'm developing quite well, I really am!
For goodness' sake, Mister Beast Alike!"
"Hey, don't act like it's okay to bring that one up again. That's just as
terrible of a thing to call someone, if not worse."
"Fine, then. I'll call you Mister Man Alike instead."
"Now it's like I'm not actually human!"
In fact, calling me that was no laughing matter when I'd been attacked
by a vampire and was semi-immortal. The insult stung because it hit way too
close to home.
"Oh, that's it. I know what we can do. We just have to look at it a different way, Mister Araragi. We'll come up with neologisms. Society will always try to police what words can and can't be used since people do take
offense to them, but there's always the chance that neologisms might be accepted."
"Makes sense. Yeah, you're right. Introducing a new word lets you start
off with a fresh slate, so it might not sound as offensive. Like how 'lolicon'
doesn't sound quite as bad as 'pedophilia.' All right, let's give it a shot. So
we need to come up with brand-new words for pipsqueak you and man-alike
me─"
"Urchine and Beastus."
"Whoa, now we sound like a crime-fighting duo!"
"We do! The scales are being peeled from my eyes!"
That sounded painful.
Well, not as painful as listening to us talk, I bet.
"Anyway, I'll take back what I said. But you know, Hachikuji, for a fifth
grader, you're pretty well, uh..."
"You're talking about my chest? You're talking about my chest, aren't
you?!"
"Just in general. But even so, you still are on a grade-school level. I
don't think I'd call you super-elementary."
"Oh. So to your high school eyes, my elementary-school body cuts a
slider figure."
"Can't touch them when they break off the plate."
She didn't exactly have curves, either.
Even if she was developing fine, as she said.
She'd meant "slender," by the way.
"...So then, Mister Araragi, why were you looking at me with all that
passion in your eyes?"
"Well, you see... Wait, passion?"
"That look you were giving me made my diaphragm go pitter-patter."
"That's called hiccupping."
It was getting hard to keep up with her.
This was turning out to be a test of my stamina as the designated
quipper.
"Oh, it's nothing worth worrying about," I said.
"Really. Are you sure?"
"Yeah...I guess."
Was it─the other way around?
Could it be that deep in her heart, contrary to what she was saying─she
didn't really want to see her mother? Or perhaps she wanted to but was afraid
that her mother would reject her? There was even the possibility that her
mother had told her not to come see her─and it seemed like a very real one
given what I'd heard so far about Hachikuji's family environment.
If that were the case...things weren't going to be easy.
You wouldn't even have to look at Senjogahara's example to─
"...It smells like another woman here."
Hitagi Senjogahara appeared, completely unannounced.
She'd entered the park still on my mountain bike, displaying her full
mastery over it. She was pretty versatile.
"O-Oh... That was quick, Senjogahara."
Her trip back had taken her less than half the time she'd spent to get to
Oshino's.
Her entrance was so sudden I didn't have the time to be so much as
surprised.
"I made a few wrong turns on my way there," she said.
"Oh, yeah. That cram school can be pretty hard to find. Guess I
should've drawn you a map or something."
"And after all of that boasting I did. I feel ashamed."
"I guess you were bragging about your memory or something, weren't
you..."
"I've been humiliated at your hands, Araragi... I can't believe you'd get
your jollies by disgracing me like this."
"Hold on, I didn't do anything? You only have yourself to blame!"
"So that's what you're into, Araragi. Forcing girls into humiliation
roleplay is what excites you. I'll forgive you, though. I can't blame a healthy
young man for having those kinds of interests."
"No, that's a pretty unhealthy young man!"
Listening to her, I recalled that Oshino had spoken of a spiritual
boundary─a barrier or something─around the cram school. Maybe I really
should have been the one to go instead.
But whatever the case, Hitagi Senjogahara was acting awfully brazen for
a disgraced woman. Or rather, there was no way she was embarrassed. If
anyone was being subjected to humiliation roleplay, it was starting to feel
like me...
"I don't mind..." she said. "I can take anything, so long as it's you
doing it to me, Araragi..."
"Listen, you need to stick to one personality! You're not adding any
more breadth to your character by breaking it entirely! And if you really do
care about me, Senjogahara, you need to be warning me as soon as I exhibit
such unhealthy traits!"
"Well, I don't actually care about you, Araragi."
"I didn't think so!"
"If it amuses me, then whatever."
"You're being refreshingly honest right now, in fact!"
"And also, Araragi. If we're being honest, then yes, getting lost was part
of why it took me so long to get there, but it was also because I had to eat
lunch."
"So you did... You always live up to my expectations. Not that it
bothers me, that's your own choice, plus it's who you are."
"I ate a lunch for you, too."
"Did you, now... Well, I hope you enjoyed it."
"I did, thank you. It smells like another woman here."
Senjogahara rushed through our pleasantries so that she could drag our
conversation back to her very first line.
"Was someone here?" she asked.
"Umm..."
"This scent─Hanekawa?"
"Huh? How are you able to figure that out?" I was honestly astonished.
I'd assumed Senjogahara had asked on a lark. "When you say 'scent,' do you
mean...like her makeup? But I don't think Hanekawa wears any makeup..."
She was wearing her school uniform, after all. I wouldn't be surprised if
you told me chapsticks were off-limits in her mind. When she was in those
clothes, at least, she was like a soldier in uniform. Hanekawa would never
stray from the school rules in such a flagrant manner, not even by accident.
"I'm talking about the scent of the shampoo she uses. I want to say the
only girl in our class who uses that brand is Hanekawa."
"Wait, really? Women can figure that out?"
"To some degree," Senjogahara said in an explanatory tone. "Think of it
like your ability to identify a girl by her hips, Araragi."
"I don't remember ever displaying that special ability!"
"Oh? Wait, you can't do that?"
"Stop acting surprised!"
"But you were kind enough to tell me the other day, 'Ah, that nice,
seated pelvis and those motherly hips of yours. I bet you'll give birth to a
bouncing baby boy, geh heh heh heh!'"
"That's what a dirty old man would say!"
Also, it would take a lot more than that to make me go, "Geh heh heh
heh!" And while I'm at it, I thought, I wouldn't describe your hips as
motherly.
"So, Hanekawa. She was here."
"..."
Did she realize how much she was scaring me?
I almost wanted to run away.
"I guess she was here," I said. "She already left, though."
"Did you call her here, Araragi? Though now that you mention it, she
does live in this area, doesn't she? She'd be good to have around as a guide."
"No, I didn't. She just happened to be passing by. Same as you."
"Hmph. Same as me," Senjogahara repeated. "I guess that's how
coincidences are. You never know when they might come in pairs. Did
Hanekawa say anything?"
"What do you mean by that?"
"Anything."
"...No, not really. We talked a little...and then she patted Hachikuji on
the head and went to the library...no, not the library. But she went
somewhere."
"Patted her on the head. Hm─okay... Well, I could see Hanekawa doing
that─I suppose?"
"Huh? You mean she likes kids, unlike you?"
"Yes, Hanekawa and I are certainly unlike each other. Yes, we're not the
same. We're not the same─so if you'll excuse me for a moment, Araragi,"
Senjogahara said, before moving her face close to mine. I wondered what she
was trying to do at first, until I realized she seemed to be checking what I
smelled like. No, it probably wasn't me she was trying to smell─it was
probably...
"Hm." She pulled away. "So it looks like there was no love scene
between you two."
"...Excuse me? Were you checking if Hanekawa and I were in each
other's arms? So you can even detect exactly how strong her scent is...
You're incredible, you know that?"
"That wasn't all. Now I know what you smell like, too. I'll at least give
you prior warning that from now on, you should act under the assumption
that I'm observing your every move."
"I don't know what to say to that, other than I wish you wouldn't..."
But still, what Senjogahara had done was no trivial feat for the average
person, so her sense of smell must have been excellent. But hold on, I
thought... I'd fought with Hachikuji not once but twice while Senjogahara
was gone. Could her scent really have not rubbed off on me? Maybe
Senjogahara wasn't bothering to mention it. Maybe the first fight the two of
us had in full view of her was throwing her off. Or Hachikuji could have been
using an unscented shampoo. Whatever. It didn't seem to matter.
"So, Oshino told you what was going on, right? Hurry up and tell me,
Senjogahara. What do we need to do to get her to where she's trying to go?"
To be honest, Oshino's words had stuck with me all this time─I mean
the bit about whether or not I'd be lucky enough for missy tsundere (a.k.a.
Senjogahara) to come out and tell me.
That is─he'd prefaced.
Which is why I found myself coaxing Senjogahara to give me the full
story─Hachikuji was looking up at Senjogahara worriedly, too.
"It's apparently the other way around," Senjogahara divulged. "Araragi.
It seems I need to apologize to you─that's what Mister Oshino told me."
"Huh? Oh, wait, have you changed the subject? You really are good at
getting off one and onto another. The other way around? You need to
apologize to me?"
"To borrow Mister Oshino's words," Senjogahara continued, ignoring
my questions. "Say we take a certain fact─and two people observe it
according to their points of view and reach different conclusions. In such a
case, there's no true way to determine which point of view is the right
one─there is no way to prove yourself right in this world."
"..."
"But it's equally wrong to determine that you must be mistaken in that
case─according to him. He really does talk like he sees through everything,
doesn't he?"
I hate it, she said.
"Wait... What are you talking about, Senjogahara? Well, not you, but
Oshino? How does that apply to our situation here─"
"He says it's very simple to be freed of the snail─the Lost Cow.
Explaining it in words would be very simple. This is what Mister Oshino told
me─you'll be lost as long as you follow the snail, and you won't be lost if
you distance yourself from it."
"You follow it─and that's why you get lost?"
What was that supposed to mean? It was so simple it didn't make sense.
Like he had left some words out. In fact, they seemed somewhat off the mark for him. I looked at Hachikuji, but she wasn't reacting. Senjogahara's words
did seem to be having some sort of effect on her, though─her lips were shut.
She said nothing.
"In other words, there's no need for an exorcism or for prayer. No one's
been possessed, and no one's being harmed─apparently. That much is the
same as what happened with me and that crab. And what's more─with the
snail, the targeted person is actually approaching the aberration. Not
unconsciously or subconsciously, either. Entirely of their own volition.
They're just going along with the snail. They're choosing to follow after it
because that's what they want. And that's why they get lost. Which is why
you need to distance yourself from the snail, Araragi─that's all that needs to
happen."
"Hold on, we're not talking about me here. We're talking about
Hachikuji. Anyway, in that case─how does that make any sense? It's not like
Hachikuji wants to follow this snail around─how could that possibly be what
she's trying to do?"
"That's what I'm trying to say. Apparently─it's the other way around."
The tone of Senjogahara's voice was no different from usual, her same
old flat one. You couldn't read any emotions at all from it.
She was no actor.
But─she seemed to be in a bad mood.
A very bad mood.
"Apparently," she continued, "the aberration known as the Lost Cow
doesn't make you lose your way to your destination. You lose it on the way back."
"O-On the way back?"
"It doesn't keep you from getting there, it keeps you from
returning─according to him."
It wasn't about going─but about coming back?
Coming back... Come back where?
To your own home?
Visiting and─arriving?
"Okay, fine," I said. "But─so what? I get what you're trying to say. S-
Still─Hachikuji's home... It's not as if she's trying to return there, is it?
She's clearly trying to get to her destination, Miss Tsunade's home─"
"That's why─I need to apologize to you, Araragi. I do, I know I do, but
please, let me explain. I wasn't doing it out of malice...or even intentionally.
I was sure that I was the one who was mistaken."
"..."
I didn't understand what she was trying to say─but.
I could tell─it felt pregnant with meaning.
"How could I not be? There was something strange about me for more
than two years. It was only last week that I finally became normal again. So if
something happened─I couldn't help but think that I was the one who was
mistaken."
"Hey...Senjogahara."
"It was like me and the crab─the Lost Cow can only be seen by
someone who has a reason to. Which is why it presented itself to you,
Araragi."
"...No, like I've been saying, the snail didn't present itself to me, but
Hachikuji─"
"Yes. Hachikuji."
"..."
"Araragi, this is what I'm trying to say. You felt awkward because it
was Mother's Day, you fought with your little sisters, and you don't want to
go home. So that girl over there, Hachikuji?"
Senjogahara pointed at Hachikuji.
Or at least, she must have meant to─
Her direction was totally off.
"I can't see her."
I was startled─and my eyes hurried over to get a look at Hachikuji.
The little girl with intelligent features.
With bangs so short her eyebrows were showing, with her hair in
pigtails.
Seeing her, carrying that large backpack─
She somehow resembled a snail.