Bakemonogatari

I try to raise my head, but she pushes it back down.

Not only that, but she just pushed her nails into my scalp.

"You know, Senjougahara...you do know that what you're doing is crueler than what you think it is, right?"

An unconcerned Senjougahara responds to my gentle admonishment with."Is that so?"

"Don't you feel fortunate to have my hand, which as white as a whitefish, hold your head?"

"A whitefish is a whitefish, but you are more like a great white shark...Jaws."

"Oh my, I am so happy. You are quite the flatterer to say that my cheek is so white that it is almost transparent. Now I want to be nice to you."

Her nails dig even deeper into my scalp.

This was quite an effective pain.

Is she really a great white shark...speaking of which, her eyes are as emotionless as the den of said beast, which makes the comparison all the more fitting.

So that's it, my girlfriend is a great white shark....

Hitagi Shark.

"So there is an observatory, right?"

"Yes. It has a very large refracting telescope."

"Hmmm. I don't really know how great that is, though...so are we going in?

"No," Senjougahara immediately replies as she shakes her head. "There is an entrance fee."

"............"

"I am poor, you know," she says with pride....

Well, there is that.

"If it's only the entrance fee, I can pay...I brought that much at least."

"Wanting to spend money on me is a good mentality, but I will decline this time. The spot I have in mind is better than the large telescope in the building. This way."

Senjougahara moves away from the path and begins to head up a hill. I push through the short grass as I follow Senjougahara.

Halfway up the hill, Senjougahara' stops.

There is a picnic blanket spread on the ground.

I see, so this is what she meant when she said she was getting things ready.

"Close your eyes and lie down."

Having come this far, there's no point in not following her orders now. Doing as she said to, I close my eyes and lie down in the picnic blanket and she moves her hand away from my head. Then someone lies down next to me. Though I say someone, if it is anyone other than Senjougahara, it would be an outrageous illusion.

"You may open your eyes now."

I do as she says.

And there is a sky filled with stars.

"....................Wow."

Honestly.

More than a beautiful starry sky, seeing a starry sky and thinking that it is beautiful, even if I turned into an octopus, the part of me that is left would still be surprised.

Can humans really be so moved.

The stars almost seem to be raining down.

If I were to do an unrefined analysis, lying down like this allows the stars in the sky fill my entire field of vision and spreads even further, making it all the more spectacular. Trying nail down why I feel so moved makes me a little self-conscious, but now I know why Senjougahara went so far as to push her nails into my scalp to prevent me from looking up too soon. She wanted my first view of this sky to be from this position.

This is an incredible place.

There really is no better place than this.

Oh-.....this is like the ultimate reward.

If feels as if all the hardships I've endured up until now have just been washed away.

"What do you think--Araragi-kun?" Senjougahara asks as she lies next to me.

She is most likely gazing up at the same sky as I am.

"Incredible--to be honest, I just at a lost for words."

"I think that is because your vocabulary is lacking."

She just dumped a little water on my passion with her verbal abuse.

But--something like that isn't enough to get to me right now.

Even the poison that she spews is not enough to affect how I feel under this sky.

"That is Deneb. Altaire. Vega. The famous Summer Triangle. Far across from it is the Serpent Bearer. The Serpent constellation is made up of the stars in that area."

Senjougahara points at and explains each object.

She does it without a light or constellation map.

But for some reason it is still so easy to understand.

"The conspicuously bright start over there is Spica...which means Virgo is in that area. In that direction is the Crab constellation...but it may be a little hard to make out."

"I at least know the Big Dipper."

"Right. The Big Dipper is part of Ursa Major, and right next to it is the Lynx."

"A cat?"

"Right."

And so saying, Senjougahara goes though each of the visible constellations and their accompanying stories one by one. It is almost as if I were listening to a fairytale that sooths as it soaks into me.

If only she would allow me.

I would fall asleep like this.

"Don't fall asleep."

The timing of her criticism is so perfect.

She's so sharp.

"There's a saying amongst mountain climbers for when they are in a blizzard that I can adapt for this situation--don't sleep, if you do I'll kill you."

"You'd kill me!?"

"At any rate," Senjougahara says in a flat voice after finishing her descriptions the constellations, "this is everything."

"Huh...? What is"

"The things I possess, this is all of it," Senjougahara says as she continues to look up at the starry sky, "The ability to help you study. My adorable kouhai and my blunt father. And--this starry sky. That's about everything that I have. This is all that I can offer you. This is everything."

"Everything..."

So this was what all this was about?

The thing with Kanbaru the day before yesterday....no, has she been thinking about this since we started going out together on Mother's Day a month ago? Was this why she has been refusing all my attempts at asking her out on a date...though reconciling with Kanbaru was unexpected, has she been waiting for the aptitude test to be over and for her father to have time?

Hanekawa's words come back to me.

Senjougahara-san is complicated she said.

"Well strictly speaking, I also have my wicked tongue and abusive language."

"Those are things I don't want!"

"Of course, there is also my body."

"..............."

Her body....

A roundabout way to be frank.

"Do you not want that either?"

"Well, not that....well."

I can't really say that I don't want it, can I?

But in this setting I can't say I want it, but it's something else...

"But you know right? That I was almost raped by that lowlife in the past."

"Yeah..."

Crab.

That was the reason for the Kaii.

Or at least one of the reasons.

Kaii require the right reasons.

"To be honest, I am afraid of doing with you what that lowlife tried to force me to do. I do not want to use a fashionable term like trauma to describe this. I do not want to appear that weak. But...I am afraid. Before we started going out I didn't feel this afraid, but now I am so afraid of being hated by you."

Afraid.

Not of the deed itself, but of its aftermath.

"I am afraid of losing you now," Senjougahara says in a disinterested tone.

Her emotions are completely unreadable.

Her face is most like totally expressionless.

"Being afraid of being hated by the person you are going out with and being afraid of losing the person you are going out with, it sounds very silly, doesn't it.....it is like asking whether the egg came first or whether the omelet did."

"Well the egg came first."

"Being able to say it so straightforwardly, I feel as if I have become a worthless woman. I was supposed to be the beautiful girl beset by tragedy and struck down by an unknown disease--but now I am a beautiful girl that has become disconnected because all she can think about is a man."

"So in either case it's still 'beautiful girl'...."

"Anyway, for turning me into an uninteresting woman that can be found anywhere, I do resent you, Araragi-kun."

"I see...."

You're plenty interesting though...

It's too bad this had to happen in the middle of such good lines though.

"But, as you know, my life up until now can't be said to have been the most fortunate....but thinking of how I have come to know you, I think all of that unhappiness can just be brushed away."

"............"

"It was because of my misfortune that you were attracted to me, I think it was well worth it. That is how madly I am in love with you. That's why, even if there is even the smallest chance, I don't want you and that low life to overlap. Naturally, I won't always speak such sweet words.....I know that what I am saying is childish. Something like a bye-bye....Something like a naive bye-bye...."

Why did she correct herself to make it more lame.

"Simply speaking, losing you now would be as if I had lost half of myself. That is why I would like you to wait just a little while."

"Just a little while--"

"Yes, until next week would be good."

"That's it!?"

"So please refrain from partaking of Kanbaru's body until then."

"You just said something incredible!"

"I will use that time to rehabilitate with Kanbaru too, of course."

"That means that Kabaru will get everything she wants! Only her wishes will be perfectly fulfilled!"

"Well, next week would be too early--eventually I definitely will be able to deal with it, so please just wait a little bit. That's why at this point, this starry sky is the last of the possessions that this loose woman can offer you. ....When I was a child I came here with my mother and father."

Father and mother--the three of them.

From what I know of Senjougahara, that must have been a very long time ago. But even after all this, she still remembers.

No.

It just came back to her.

The memory that she had forgotten.

"This is my treasure,"

For Senjougahara, this is a very clichéd phrase--but because of this I feel that I have heard what it really means to her.

The starry sky in Summer.

The starry sky that they saw as a family in the Summer.

So this is everything.

"..................."

I don't know much.

But I am certain about one thing.

Senjougahara Hitagi...she is incredibly smart and always plots the right course, but in area of love she is powerless. Absolutely powerless. Even on that Mother's Day when we first started going out, it was obvious, this woman is completely reckless, like the main character of an RPG that enters a cave without a light. It's as if she is showing all her cards to her opponent and leaving it up to him to decide what happens next, but does she realize that she is basically engaging in diplomacy through intimidation? Emotions wouldn't matter in this case. Confronted with this, the opponent would run away ninety-nine times out of a hundred. That's why she's afraid. Even someone with absolutely no experience with relationships can see it....

Well.

If she can see that I'm the remaining one out a hundred, I have to tip my hat to her.

This is bad.

I'm really fallen for her.

So much so that I can't help it.

Truthfully, I want to just go with the moment and hold her, but I don't want to lose Senjougahara like that. I don't have any cards to show her...so I think our relationship should stay like this for now.

It's not like I don't want to.

Lovers who stare up at the starry sky together.

Our relationship is fine like this.

A platonic love.

"Araragi-kun," Senjougahara says in even tone, "Do you like me?"

"I like you."

"I like you too, Araragi-kun."

"Thanks."

"What about me do you like?"

"I like everything about you. There isn't anything that I don't like."

"I see. That makes me happy."

"What about me do you like?"

"You kindness. You cute parts. The you that would rush to save me whenever I am troubled, like my very own prince."

"That makes me happy."

"That's right," Senjougahara says as if it only just came to her now, "That lowlife was after my body so he didn't even try to steal my lips."

"Huh? What do you mean?"

"In a manner speaking, that lowlife wasn't able to see this...Araragi-kun. That's why."

And.

Without even the slightest sign embarrassment, Senjougahara says, "We are kissing."

I'm afraid.

I'm scared, Hitagi-san.

"That's not right. Not like this. Can....can I.....have a kiss? How ab....about a.......kiss?"

"..............."

"Shall we kiss, Araragi-kun?"

"So that's how you finally calm down?"

To be honest, that was the right way.

There is nothing more fitting.

This is how today became a day of commemoration.

For the two of us.