“Hm? Hold on.”
But then she remembered something.
For some reason, she remembered seeing the abandoned building─even though it had to be her first time here, and her first time seeing it.
“Oh, right… Isn’t this the building that burned down back in─was it August?”
She’d seen it in the news.
As a member of the Fire Sisters who tasked herself with maintaining law and order in her town, she naturally came by such info─the case stuck out in her memory despite the many small fires breaking out at that time because it had been big enough to burn down an entire building.
Before it burned to the ground, and after it burned to the ground.
She had looked at both pictures.
When she learned the facts of the case, it seemed like nothing more than a spontaneous fire, nothing as dangerous as arson or the like─still, the damage must have been massive. Not even a single pillar could have been left behind.
So then, why was a building that had burned down standing there majestically? Had it been rebuilt? No, why bother recreating an abandoned building?
“I figured out the way, Tsukihi. Don’t worry, I won’t get it wrong this time. Or maybe you’d like to try driving? This BMX bike is pretty exciting, it can even go backwards─hm? Hmmm? What seems to be the matter? Why are you looking up at such a plain, commonplace building?”
“Oh… It’s just─”
Tsukihi explained. Ogi had only happened to get lost in the area and wouldn’t have any answers as to why a building that should have burned down still existed. Tsukihi wanted to share her feelings nonetheless.
“Huh, how strange,” commented Ogi. “I wonder if you could call this the ghost of a building. Why don’t we try going inside?”
She was already chaining her bike to─and leaning it against (with no stand, the only option)─a nearby tree, and lost no time entering onto the grounds. She was so quick to act.
This girl was intrepid, unlike Tsukihi’s brother, who overthought everything. Tsukihi wasn’t the type to hesitate either, and rather than watch the girl walk off, followed right behind.
“Are you one of those abandoned building nerds, Miss Ogi?” she asked, inferring the possibility from the girl’s light steps.
“No, ruins don’t do much for me on their own. They scare me like they would any girl. But it’s like my job to investigate suggestive places like these.”
“Your job─you say.” Echoing the word, Tsukihi recalled how it had made Nadeko self-conscious. Ogi couldn’t be implying that it was some part-time gig, though.
“Yep.”
With that, they stepped into the abandoned building. Technically speaking, this was trespassing, but the place was in such awful shape that it couldn’t possibly have an owner or superintendent.
The footing couldn’t be any worse, and no light could be expected given the time of day. They needed to be careful not to trip and fall, or else they could be seriously hurt.
“Looks like it used to be a school…er, a cram school,” Tsukihi concluded, after carefully observing its interior─and climbing the stairs, as the elevator was of course broken.
“Hm, you’re right. Bummer, by charging in head-first, we unveiled its true identity─and now that we know, it isn’t the least bit scary.” Ogi had never looked afraid but said this anyway as she turned the landing. Apparently, she wanted to begin her investigation with the top floor─the inverse of the theory that the most efficient way to look through drawers is to start with the bottom one. “That’s how it is, you know? Whatever you’re dealing with, the unidentified or unfamiliar is what’s scary. People get anxious when they think about their future because they can’t imagine their future selves. With a clear vision, you aren’t afraid of growth.”
“…”
“It’s like Schrödinger’s box. Open it, and it’s just a plain box─of course you can’t know if the cat in it is dead or alive when it’s closed. The same goes for mystery fiction. You bite your nails and your heart pounds because you don’t know who the culprit is. Once a mystery stops being a mystery and the list of suspects gets narrowed down to one─to be blunt, the book stops being interesting. Reveal scenes only need to be a line long, if you ask me.”
Once their true identity is exposed, both the fear and the interest vanish─that’s how it is, she summed up as she climbed, higher and higher.
Words of wisdom─her brother knew so many smart people. Despite this rare moment of honest respect, it was also Tsukihi Araragi’s karma to begin nitpicking whenever she felt respectful.
“Is that really true?”
“Hm…what now, a rebuttal? I’d like to hear it. For my sake, and for yours.”
“I wouldn’t say a rebuttal…but while it might be true for detective novels, in real life doesn’t it get scarier after the culprit is caught? Once they are, you know for sure that the person you found so frightening actually exists.”
“Hm.”
“Learning their identity kicks off its own story… I mean, doesn’t the process after catching a criminal take longer than catching them? There’s the trial, then there’s imprisonment…”
She’d gotten a bit off track, but Ogi seemed to find this opinion novel, as the garrulous girl held her tongue for a moment.
Tsukihi continued, “And even if you call it a true identity, there’s no guarantee that it’s really true. Who knows, another twist could be waiting for you, to put it in detective-fiction terms.”
“You might be right about that. I see, so there are true identities─and plain identities, which are only what they are. You got me there, I see you take after your brother.”
I suppose that opinion was for your sake, and not mine, she remarked as she arrived at the top floor.
Having climbed four floors’ worth of stairs, her breathing remained as calm as ever. The girl seemed to have good legs, but the same could be said of Tsukihi, who followed right behind.
She had health to spare─vitality, too.
Such was Tsukihi Araragi.
“People might accept your true identity, Tsukihi─or feel amused, but in my case I doubt it. My true identity is─ugly.”
“…?”
“Consider how we write that character: saké and demon. Not that the gods aren’t just as fond of drowning in booze.”
“The three strokes for ‘water’ in saké get left over when you combine the characters to form ugly, though.”
“As they should. Signifying water─or a lake. Or maybe a sea snake.”
This explanation only made things more confusing, and Tsukihi had to conclude that the girl had no interest in clarifying anything.
“Tsukihi,” Ogi called to her, heading for the leftmost of the floor’s three classrooms. “I’m afraid you have nothing you can call a future─forget not knowing what’ll happen, you don’t have any at all. No matter how many moments you cobble together in the present, they’ll never add up to your future. All you have is an eternal present. Can you still─keep living in the now, not worrying about what’s to come, never minding the future?”
“Yeah, probably,” Tsukihi answered in a most casual manner, quite unsure of what the question meant. “I’m pretty good at living, so yeah.”
“…It’s wonderful you can say that. I envy you.”
I envy you.
How was she supposed to respond to that, anyway? Ogi then put her hand on the door.
Turning its knob with grace.
She opened it with a smile.
“You’re late, Ogi.”
And─I spoke. Inside the now-open classroom, I stood from the chair where I’d been sitting and imitated the man she’d called her uncle.
“I’ve been waiting for you.”