“But don’t you know Senjogahara better than I do, Araragi? Why ask me? I mean, you’ve been in the same class three years in a row, haven’t you?”
“If you put it that way, yes─but I thought a girl might know another girl’s circumstances a bit better.”
“Circumstances…” Hanekawa chuckled drily. “If a girl had any, wouldn’t that be the last thing I should go around telling a boy?”
“True,” I said. Of course it was. “So, um, think of this as the class vice president asking the class president a question, as the class vice president. What kind of person is Senjogahara?”
“So that’s your move.”
Hanekawa stopped scribbling out the list she had been making as we conversed (endlessly jotting down and erasing candidates since “haunted house” and “cafe”) and crossed her arms in thought. “Because her family name means ‘battlefield,’ it might make her seem fraught with danger at first, but she’s actually a problem-free model student. She’s smart, and she takes, say, her cleaning duty seriously.”
“I’m sure. Even I can tell that much. I want to know something I can’t figure out on my own.”
“But we’ve only been in the same class for about a month. I guess I really don’t know her. We had Golden Week off in there, too.”
“Yeah, Golden Week.”
“Hm? Did something happen then?”
“Nope. Keep going.”
“Ah…all right. Senjogahara doesn’t talk much─and it seems like she doesn’t have any friends. I’ve tried talking to her a number of times, but it’s like she’s put up these walls around her.”
“……….”
What could I say, Hanekawa lived up to her caring reputation. Of course, that was why I was asking her.
“It’s─a tough case,” she said. In a grave tone. “Maybe it’s because of her illness. She was so much more cheerful and energetic in middle school.”
“In middle school? Wait, Hanekawa, you and Senjogahara went to the same middle school?”
“What? Isn’t that why you’re asking me?” Hanekawa made a face like she was the one who never saw it coming. “Yes, we’re from the same middle school. Kiyokaze Public Middle School. We used to be in different classes back then, too, but─Senjogahara was famous.”
More famous than you? I almost said that, but I caught myself in time. Hanekawa hated being treated as famous more than anything. Personally, I thought she needed to be more self-aware, but she seemed to think of herself as “a regular girl who had nothing to recommend her but being on the serious side.” She wholeheartedly bought the cant that anyone who tried hard enough did well in school.
“She was pretty, and she was a good athlete, too,” Hanekawa said.
“An athlete…”
“She was the star of the track team. Some of her records should still be standing.”
“The track team, huh?”
In other words.
She wasn’t like that in middle school. Cheerful and energetic─two more qualities I couldn’t imagine from the Senjogahara I knew, to be honest.
“So I did hear a lot about her,” Hanekawa told me.
“Like what?”
“How nice and sociable she is. How kind she is to everyone alike, all this almost excessive talk about her being a good, hardworking person. Like how her father is some big shot at a foreign-owned company, but her not being stuck-up one bit despite living in an amazing mansion and being amazingly rich. How despite her greatness, she still reaches for greater heights.”
“She sounds like some kind of superwoman.”
Those stories must have been only half-serious.
Rumors are rumors.
“That was all back then, of course,” Hanekawa noted.
“…Back then.”
“I did hear after starting high school that she’d fallen ill─still, to be frank, when we became classmates this year I was shocked. She wasn’t someone who would sit in the corner of the classroom like that, even by accident.”
Though it had been just my image of her, Hanekawa added.
It certainly had been just her image.
People change.
Your middle school days and high school life are worlds apart. That went for me, and for Hanekawa, too. It had to be the same for Senjogahara. She must have gone through a lot, and maybe it was true that she was simply ill. Maybe she’d lost her radiant personality for no other reason. Maybe she’d lost a lot of her fill of cheer. When your body weakened, your spirit tended to sag too, especially if you used to be active. So Hanekawa’s speculation was probably on the mark.
If not for that morning.
“But─and I probably shouldn’t be saying this─Senjogahara…” resumed Hanekawa.
“What?”
“Compared to then, she’s so much prettier now.”
“………”
“Her presence is so─evanescent.”
The words were enough to silence me.
That…
Evanescent presence.
As if─she had none.
Like a ghost?
Hitagi Senjogahara.
The girl who is always ill.
She─with no weight.
Rumors are─rumors.
Urban legends.
Street gossip.
Tall tales.
Only half-serious, as it were.
“Oh, yeah. I just remembered,” I said.
“Hm?”
“Oshino wanted to talk to me.”
“Mister Oshino? Why?”
“Well─to help with his work.”
“O…kay?” Hanekawa reacted uncertainly.
She seemed suspicious at my sudden change of topic─or rather, blatant curtailment of it. My uncertain phrasing, “to help with his work,” could only have deepened her suspicion. This, I thought, is why I don’t like dealing with smart people.
Couldn’t she just play along?
Standing up from my chair, I continued a bit forcedly, “So me, I need to leave. Can you take care of the rest, Hanekawa?”
“You can for today if you promise to make up for it. There isn’t any important work left, so I’ll let you go this time. We wouldn’t want to keep Mister Oshino waiting,” Hanekawa was kind enough to say anyway.
Oshino’s name seemed to have worked on her. He had saved her ass, just as he had saved mine, so being ungrateful must have been out of the question. Well, naturally, I’d taken that into account, but it wasn’t a complete lie.
“Then can I pick all of the options for our activity? I’ll have you confirm them later, though.”
“Yeah, I’ll let you handle it,” I said.
“Send my regards to Mister Oshino.”
“I will.”
With that, I stepped out of the classroom.