"Huh—so you don't see it now? The white snake you were talking about?"
"Y-Yeah. .. It's okay now. L-Looking back on it, the white snake that came out of the desk and the shoe cubby must have been a trick of the eye."
"It tricked your eyes? it's an aberration after all."
"N-No. Just a trick of the eye."
"Hmm. Well, fine then..."
"Y-Yeah. i'm doing fine. i'm doing great."
Night.
Big Brother Koyomi called Nadeko at home right at ten—just like he promised.
He wasn't even a second off.
Contrary to his reputation as someone who's always late, Koyomi is surprisingly "punkchul."
"S-Sorry. i must have worried you. e, i was probably just feeling down. I-It's not good, is it—blaming everything on aberrations."
"Well, true, but—hmm. Hold on a second, Shinobu's right here...”
With that remark, he seems to move his phone away from his ear.
Koyomi's cell is sensitive enough that i just barely hear them.
"Hey, Sengoku's saying she imagined it all—what do you think, Shinobu?"
"Imagining it all—at that point, 'tis already a manner of aberration. Hmph, yet this is the forelocked girl we speak of—so perhaps 'tis fine, to leave it be."
"Really? The way I see it, we can never be too careful in her case given what happened last time. Don't you think I ought to see her in person and hear her out, just to be sure?"
"Nay, I do not. At all. Not in the slightest. We ought not to dig deeper if the girl herself says she is fine. She told thee from the start the matter wasn't serious, no?
"Sure, but..."
They seem to be conferring.
i have to root for Miss Shinobu over Koyomi, as much as i hate to, on this issue.
Let's go, you can do it.
"Okay, Sengoku," he comes back to the phone after a bit. "If that's the deal, then we'll say it's fine. They lived happily ever after. But if it turns out you were just imagining that it was your imagination, and this really is some kind of aberration, you need to let me know. Okay?"
"O-Okay, i will... FIh4h-Tha-Thank you, Koyomi," Nadeko says before hanging up.
i'd normally want to talk for longer on a call from him, but even
i realize this isn't the time.
Just as i put down the phone and sigh—
"Hsshh hsshh hsshh!" i hear from Nadeko's right hand.
Her right wrist, actually.
A white snake has enwrapped Nadeko's right wrist like a bracelet—no, it feels more like a scrunchy against her skin.
Of course, it's not really a bracelet or a scrunchy.
The white snake is—just that, a white snake.
It's Mister Serpent.
He only looks puffy because his scales are bristling.
"Aww, you've gone and lied to your dear Big Brother—you sure about it? It's almost like you're trying to hide one crime by committing another. When you keep going down that path, you eventually find yourself past the point of no return—hmmmm?"
"P-Please don't be so loud."
Nadeko puts her hand over her wrist and sneaks up the stairs so that her mom and dad in the living room don't notice.
Then i go into Nadeko's room and lock the door.
i feel a little better, for the time being.
i can breathe a sigh of relief.
"There's no need to sneak around—you're the only one who can hear my voice, Nadeko."
“…”
i know that.
Even then, i don't want people to see Nadeko when she's talking with Mister Serpent—they might not hear his words, but everyone's going to notice Nadeko's reactions to them.
And.
Anyone can see the Serpent—now that he's the size of a scrunchy on Nadeko's wrist.
"If you're able to become this small, why make your first entrance so big you covered that whole shrine?"
"Hsshh, hsshh, hsshh!" Mister Serpent laughs at Nadeko's simpleminded question before answering, "I was putting on a show, that's all—a show, for my grand entrance. What's the point of an aberration if it doesn't surprise humans?"
An aberration—that surprises people.
That's something Koyomi said.
“...How big are you really?"
"Listen, I don't have a size—because all I am is an idea."
"An idea…”
Hearing this reminds Nadeko of something she learned in first-year math.
A line isn't something that exists, it's an idea.
It doesn't have any length or width.
If you give it a length or a width, then it's called a line segment, while a line is purely the straight line that connects two points—if you had to say how long, it's infinite, and if you had to say how wide, the width is zero.
i don't really get it.
What was that teacher trying to say?
Did he even know what he was saying?
When it comes to half-lines, i don't even know what they are—but Nadeko thinks what she heard about lines then matches up to what the Serpent just said.
In short, it exists only in the mind, for the sake of explaining an explanation—
"Anyone is able to see me enwrapping your wrist, Nadeko, but that's only because you think of me as being 'visible to anyone'—or to go a little further, what's happening is that I've possessed you, my dear."
"Possessed…"
Possessed?
Isn't that pretty bad?
Was Miss Kanbaru's left arm possessed, or was that something else?
"Oh, don't you worry—it's just temporary. You only have to put up with it until the job's done—hsshh hsshh!"
The Serpent seems to be in a good mood.
It kind of comes across as him being happy to have a physical form—but do aberrations get happy? Oh, right, apparently Miss Shinobu jumps for joy when she's given donuts.
i don't know.
Nadeko sighs and sits down on the cushion in the middle of the room. It's a little lazy of Nadeko, but i'm tired.
i'm not tired of lying to Koyomi—Nadeko isn't particularly truthful and sometimes lies.
Just like everyone lies.
It's not like i'm lying to him for the first time...but i'm not tired because i climbed a mountain, either.
i'm not physically tired at all, really. The future is what's making Nadeko tired.
When i think about what's to come, Nadeko can't begin to free herself from the "lassietude" she's feeling...
"Ngh."
But i can't stay like this forever—because if Nadeko doesn't move the story forward, she'll have to wear this tacky scrunchy forever.
"You dare call it 'tacky'—hmmmm?"
“…Can you read my mind? i.. .don't think i said that out loud."
"No, I just guessed from your expression—I mean, anyone could figure it out if you gave them that disgusted look. But sure, of course it is a little easier to make a guess since you and I are mentally connected now.
“…”