Personally, I wished that my actions then belonged to the twenty percent─though I did continue to wear my watch on my right wrist.
It was a habit by now.
But she’d said practice, not habit.
“How did it all start in the first place?” she asked me. “It was a little abstract and hard to understand, but why did your mirror image stop in the mirror, again?”
“Like I said─it was regret that lingered there. A symbol of it all. Now that I’ve graduated, lost my title as student, and am trying to move on, it was the part of Koyomi Araragi that I’m trying to leave behind.”
“…”
“In other words, those were the regrets I tried to put behind me yesterday, and leave there─but I missed it all so much that I ended up reaching out for them. The stuff about me rescuing the lost twenty percent was a consequence of that─nothing but a byproduct. All I tried to do when I saw myself in the mirror for the first time in so long was to remember something I was close to forgetting.”
Everything else had only gotten wrapped up in it.
Entangled in an act I performed for my own sake.
Ogi was right, I needed to think about what I’d done.
I’d forced the entire town to partake in my own sentimentality, in my meddling with a mirrored world…
“True, but it must’ve been fun for everyone, no? It’s not as if you put anyone’s life in danger,” Hitagi said offhandedly.
She hardly understood the gravity of it─that’s an irresponsible spectator for you.
“People influence the world around them just by passing someone on the street. You shouldn’t worry about it too much. I’ve caused a lot of folks trouble over the course of my life, but I believe they grew as people by overcoming those troubles.”
“That’s the most selfish excuse I’ve ever heard.”
“Someday, they’ll say they’re the individuals they are now thanks to the trouble I caused them.”
“They wouldn’t be complimenting you…”
“People are tougher than you’d expect. A world where everything is inside out─I have to admit, I’d be interested to know how I was in that world,” Hitagi brought up a topic that interested me very much as well, to be honest.
“Hmm, well, I never got a chance to meet you. I think it’s one of those things better left to the imagination.”
“Why? You should’ve gone and met me. I appreciate your consideration, but I wish you’d be a little rougher with me. But maybe that’s only the kind of thing a spoiled girl asks for. Still, what were they, anyway? These lingering regrets of yours, Koyomi─were you able to address them?”
“It was because I did, according to Ogi, that we managed to regain control. And that’s why she could create the black mirror, or something. I actually don’t know what they are myself.”
“What? Really?”
“Yeah…but that’s what makes it something I’ve forgotten and left behind. Of all my experiences in the virtual land of mirrors, I don’t know which was my own regret─maybe there was more than one.”
While they were the lingering regrets of all the girls─they were mine as well, according to Ogi. Their twenty percent, and my twenty percent too.
Feelings forgotten and left behind.
Maybe I wanted to apologize about the time I saw Karen in a skirt and laughed. Maybe Ononoki being a doll didn’t allay my remorse for making her attack Tadatsuru Teori. I couldn’t save Hachikuji and had her deified. I could never do anything about Kanbaru’s left arm as a student. I couldn’t come to Oikura’s aid sooner. As far as Sengoku, that one goes without saying─and I continued to bind Shinobu to my shadow.
Year 1, Class 3─and so much more.
I had a mountain of regrets.
I couldn’t claim that I’d graduated with a clear conscience─even if I did, I could never say for certain.
I merely remembered it and faced it.
That was probably enough.
I wouldn’t be able to shoulder it all, nor could I carry it with me.
I wasn’t Hanekawa or Oikura, but I still needed to pack as light as possible for my journey─I only had so much space in my suitcase.
Still, there was nothing wrong with thinking back on it every now and then, yes?
“Yes…you’re right. I suppose your regrets linger because you leave them behind. Leaving little bits of your heart along the path, à la Hansel and Gretel, might be kind of convenient─for fondly looking back on it.”
“I’m not sure that’s how it works, but yeah, that’d be neat.”
“If you don’t know, though, that makes me wonder. Which of those regrets were yours? I feel like everyone’s slightly skewed image of you might be a hint. The ideal Koyomi Araragi─and the mirrored Koyomi Araragi. I’m just being silly… I wouldn’t keep wearing my hair in these childish pigtails if your regret was not getting to bathe with Kanbaru’s mom, though.”
“Don’t worry, I’m pretty sure that wasn’t it… Also, there’s one thing I can say for certain.”
Then─putting my arm around Hitagi’s shoulder as she walked beside me, I tugged her close.
“I didn’t have any regrets when it comes to you. Because we’re always going to be together from now on.”
“Let’s wait until we see your exam results. We’re going to be far apart if you don’t get in.”
Her words were more ruthless than realistic, but she didn’t try to brush off my arm─a relief, given all the courage it took to put it there.
We’d managed to walk quite a distance while we chatted. One more pedestrian crossing and we’d be at our bus stop─not our final destination, of course, just a checkpoint. We needed to get on a train, keep on walking, climb some stairs, cross a pedestrian bridge, get on an elevator, get on an escalator, and walk some more.
“By the way,” Hitagi said as we stood side by side at a red light. “Remember what we said about sansukumi, the original form of rock-paper-scissors─one of the reasons Hachikuji became a god? I heard that the slug in that game used to be a centipede.”
“A centipede? Really?”
“Yes, I don’t remember why, but what started out as a game of frog, snake, and centipede turned into frog-snake-slug over the years… I guess if you think of which one a snake would hate more, the hundred-legged centipede makes more sense.”
Hm, no legs at all versus a hundred. That did make sense.
“Of course, I’d flinch if I saw any of them. Frog, snake, slug, or centipede.”
“Seriously? My impression was that you didn’t mind that sort of thing.”
“I’m a girl, okay,” teased Hitagi, grabbing both of her pigtails and flapping them around.
What? So cute…
Speaking of flinching, though. And centipedes.
“It only happens every once in a while,” I said, “but I’ve always had this problem. Waiting for a pedestrian light to change, I suddenly can’t figure out which foot I should start with when it turns green. Do I take the first step with my right foot, or with my left? I should probably just make a rule about it, like some kind of superstition.”
Thinking leads to hesitation.
Yes, you could call it overthinking and yell at me to hurry up and take that step, but if it were that easy, it wouldn’t be a problem in the first place. No conceptual leaps come from overthinking things, I’ve been told time and again, but it’s not as if humans can stop thinking.
My mind might know that I need to move forward, but my legs just won’t.
Like my body is flinching.
As if my feet are choking─I sit there, unable to take a single step, like the centipede who forgets how to walk.
Even if I know it’s nothing major that could define my fate, it leaves me not knowing which way to go.
My body, rather than my thoughts, gets left behind.
“That’s your problem?” asked Hitagi, guffawing. She never used to laugh with such hearty cheer─but she was a lively young woman now. “If you don’t know which foot to start with, you just have to do this.”
She made sure the light had turned green. Checking both ways to make sure it was safe─she crouched.
Hitagi Senjogahara lowered her center of gravity, and then…
“Hup!”
Jumped forward with both legs.
Teal, don’t mink.
With my arm still wrapped around the former track runner’s shoulder, her resilient legs pulled me along. I rushed to trail after her, not wanting to be left behind, moving forward─leaping towards the light, with an extra twenty percent.
Ending the tale that continued for so long.
Recalling my remembrances, leaving behind what lingered.
The margins open for notes, a note in the air.
We flew to our next tale.