Bakemonogatari: Hitagi Crab 003

Outside the room, I pushed the door closed, and took one step down the hall, when a voice hit me.

"What were you asking her?"

I turned around.

As I turned, I had no idea who it was -- I didn't recognize the voice. But I had heard the voice before. Any time a teacher called on her, I'd heard that voice say one thing -- "I don't know."

"Don't move."

By this time I had successfully identified her as Senjogahara. I also became aware that as I turned around Senjogahara had slipped a utility knife into my mouth, blade fully extended. Her aim was flawless.

The blade of the knife...

Resting on the inside of my cheek.

I gulped.

"No, that's not completely accurate...you can move if you like, but you do so at your own risk."

She pushed my cheek out with the blade, just hard enough to make her point, but not quite hard enough to draw blood.

I stood there with my mouth wide open like an idiot, not moving a muscle. I had no choice but to do what she said.

I was scared.

Not of the knife.

I was scared of Senjogahara Hitagi, of her cold, unwavering gaze.

I...

I had never thought her capable of this.

But looking at her eyes...

I knew very well the blade in my mouth was not dull from use, and that she was not pressing the back of it against my cheek.

"You have the curiosity of a cockroach. Scuttling after secrets people want left untouched. You know what I do to roaches like you? I squish them. Disgusting little things."

"Um..."

"What? You want one on the right side? You should have said."

The utility knife held steady with her right hand, she raised her left hand so fast I thought she was about to slap me, and stiffened, being very careful not to bite down. But she did not slap me.

There was a stapler in Senjogahara's left hand.

Before I could really get a look at it, it was in my mouth. Of course, not all of it. I only wish it had been. No, Senjogahara slid the stapler onto my cheek - one half on either side.

She squeezed it. Gently.

Like it was nibbling me.

"Ah..."

The heftier top half -- the part with the staples in it -- was inside my mouth, which left my mouth rather full, and me unable to talk. With just the utility knife, I might have been able to utter a few carefully chosen words, but now I did not dare try. Did not dare think of trying.

She put the knife in first to make me open wide, and then followed it with the stapler.

All carefully planned. Terrifyingly planned.

I hadn't had this much crammed in my mouth since I had a cavity filled in seventh grade. I swore never to let that happen again and brushed my teeth every single day, never chewing anything but gum with xylitol, and for this?

The rug yanked out from under me.

In the blink of an eye.

It was impossible to imagine that Hanekawa was just on the other side of this wall, planning for the Culture Festival. An ordinary high school corridor had suddenly transformed into something otherwordly.

Hanekawa...!

Her name might seem war-like, hunh?

She was at war now!

Never trusting your opinion again.

"After asking Hanekawa what I was like in junior high, were you off to talk to Hoshina-sensei? Or maybe straight off to the nurse's office, to see if you can get anything out of Harukami-sensei."

I couldn't speak.

I don't know what she made of that, but Senjogahara sighed.

"It's my fault, really. I have to be extra careful on the stairs. And look what happened! A hundred days of work ruined by a single fart, as the saying goes."

I was surprised to find myself objecting to a teenage girl using a word like fart. Perhaps I'm not as far gone as previously suspected.

"I never suspected there might be a banana peel lying there."

My life was in the hands of a woman who had actually slipped on a banana peel.

What the hell was something like that doing on the school stairs?

"You noticed, didn't you?" Senjogahara asked.

Her eyes like swords.

Convalescing heiress my ass.

"Yes. I weigh nothing."

No...weight.

"Not absolutely nothing. The average weight in kilograms for my height and body type is on the high side of the upper forties."

Fifty kilograms, then.

She pulled my left cheek out as far as it would go.

"I saw your eyes wander. You were imagining me naked, weren't you?"

I seriously wasn't, but I can't say I didn't deserve it.

"So, the high side of the upper forties," she reiterated. This was a point she was prepared to contest, clearly. "But I actually weight only five."

Five kilograms.

Not much different from a newborn baby.

If you imagine it dumbbell-sized, five kilograms is clearly not very close to nothing at all, but five kilograms spread out in something human-sized, diffused into a much larger shape...would naturally feel as if it weighed nothing.

And would be very easy to catch.

"At least, five kilograms is what all devices that can measure body weight display. I can't sense it myself. I don't feel any different from when I was on the high side of the upper forties."

So...

That meant gravity simply didn't exert much influence on her? Looked at as volume rather than mass...since the specific gravity of water was one, and since the human body is almost entirely made of water, the specific gravity and density are also about one, which meant the density of Senjogahara's body was, by rough arithmetic, about a tenth of that.

If her bone density was one tenth normal, then she should be suffering from osteoporosis. Her organs and brain would be unlikely to function normally.

So the theory was wrong.

This wasn't about numbers.

"I know what you're thinking."

She did?

"You're staring at my tits, you dirty little man."

I was not!

That is not what I was thinking!

Apparently Senjogahara was highly conscious of her own appearance. As beautiful as she was, it was hard to blame her -- the class president working on the other side of the wall could probably stand to learn a thing or two.

"I simply cannot abide shallow cretins."

Given my current predicament, I could not see any way to clear up this misunderstanding. Either way, Senjogahara was clearly could not be less like the sickly thing I had previously believed. Someone who weighed five kilograms should be sick, should be frail, and yet she was not. If anything, she seemed more like an alien who had come to earth from a planet with ten times the gravity. She could probably pull off some impressive athletic feats. Especially with her track background. As long as she didn't bump into anything.

"After graduating junior high. Before I started here," Senjogahara said. "A strange time -- not a junior high school student, not yet a high school student, not really on spring vacation. That's when I wound up like this."

Her gaze never wavered.

"That's when I met the crab."

C-crab?

Did she say crab?

The kind of crab you eat in winter?

Crustaceans? Decapod crustaceans?

"It ripped away my weight."

Ripped.

"You don't need to understand. I'm only telling you so I don't have to deal with you asking. Araragi-kun, Araragi-kun, Araragi Koyomi-kun."

Senjogahara...

...began repeating my name.

"I have no weight. I weigh nothing. I do not have this thing called weight. It is not a problem for me. Imagine that I am like a character from Yousuke's Bizarre Adventure. Are you a fan of Takahashi Yousuke?"

Uh...

"The only person who knows about my condition is the nurse, Harukami-sensei. At the moment, he is the only one. Principal Yoshiki and Assistant Principal Shima and the Third Year Head Irinaka and our very own Hoshina-sensei know nothing. Only Harukami-sensei. And now you, Araragi-kun."

Her frown deepened.

"Now, what should I do to ensure you keep my secret? How can I achieve what I want? Should I make you swear you're rather have your cheek slit than breathe a word of it? Or should I seal your lips for good?"

She had the knife.

And the stapler.

Was she sane? Were there really people capable of doing something like this to a classmate? To think I'd been sitting next to someone this utterly terrifying for two years. It sent chills down my spine.

"The doctors say there is no known cause. Perhaps, they think, there is no cause. After all the humiliating things they did to me, that is there conclusion? That this is simply the way I was, and had always been?" Senjogahara spat. "Ridiculous, of course. Until junior high I was an ordinary, adorable girl."

Putting aside the chutzpah it took to call yourself adorable...

The rumors about her hospital visits had been true.

Late arrivals, early departures, absences...

And the school nurse.

I wondered what that was like.

She'd been like this since she started high school. That whole time. Not like me. Not for two short weeks over spring vacation. So much longer.

What had she given up on?

What had she tossed aside?

It was time enough to do a lot of both.

"Do you pity me? How nice of you," Senjogahara snarled. As if she loathed the very idea. "But I don't want you to be nice."
She glared deep into my eyes.

"I want two things. Silence. And disinterest. If you possess the capacity, I suggest you provide them. You wouldn't want anything to happen to this cheek, would you? It doesn't even have any acne."

At this...

Senjogahara smiled.

"If you pledge your silence and disinterest, nod two times, Araragi-kun. I will take anything else, movement or otherwise, to be a sign that you are my enemy, and I will attack immediately."

Not a trace of doubt in her voice.

I had no choice. I nodded.

Twice.

"Good," Senjogahara said, sounding relieved.

Although she had allowed me no choice, although this had not been a deal or an agreement of any kind, simply a demand with which I was forced to comply, she was relieved that I had meekly agreed to her terms.

"Thank you," she added, and took the utility knife away from my left cheek, and slowly -- agonizingly so -- took it out of my mouth. Taking every care not to cut me anywhere.

She slide the blade back into the knife.

One click at a time.

And then, the stapler...

"...agh!?"

Ka-chunk.

I couldn't believe it.

Senjogahara's hand abruptly clamped down on the stapler. Before I could react to the stabbing pain, before I could take any action, she withdrew the stapler.

I crumpled to the floor.

Clutching my cheek.

"Ah....augh..."

"You didn't scream. I'm impressed," Senjogahara said, diffidently.

Looking down at me.

"That should be enough for now. I do hate to go too easy on you, but you did promise, so I will respect that."

"...y-you..."

Ka-chunk.

Before I could say anything, Senjogahara snapped the stapler once again, stapling the air.

The folded staple landed in front of me.

I flinched.

A reflex.

Newly acquired.

"Very well, Araragi-kun. Tomorrow you will ignore me, as promised. Good-bye."

Without bothering to see if I'd respond, Senjogahara turned on her heel, and stalked off down the hall. By the time I managed to stagger to my feet she was out of sight around the corner.

"That woman's like the devil incarnate."

Her brain was fundamentally different.

Even in that situation, even after making that threat...no one would actually do it. I'd been sure of it. I suppose I should be happy she choose to use the stapler.

I rubbed my finger against my cheek -- not to soothe the pain, but to see how bad it was.

Okay.

Not bad. It hadn't gone all the way through.

Then I stuck my fingers into my mouth, and gingerly touched the inside of my cheek. There it was.

Despite the unwavering stabbing pain, part of me had been secretly hoping it would all turn out peacefully, and she had not actually loaded a staple in the front slot, that it had just been an empty threat.

So much for that idea.

It had not gone through my cheek, so the ends of the staple had not bent much; both spikes had gone straight into my flesh. In theory, I should be able to yank it out of their easily enough.

I grabbed it between my index finger and thumb, and pulled.

It hurt a lot. A murky flavor coated my tongue.

Blood.

"...unh..."

Okay.

This was nothing. I could handle it.

I licked the two little holes in the side of my cheek, and slipped the freshly extracted staple into the pocket of my school uniform. I picked up the staple Senjogahara had dropped on the floor, and did the same with it. If someone walked here barefoot, things could get ugly. I now viewed staples in the same light people usually reserved for magnum bullets.

"Mm? Araragi-kun, are you still here?" Hanekawa said, coming out of the classroom.

She must have finished working.

Too late.

Or maybe perfect timing.

"Weren't you in a hurry to get to Oshino-san?" Hanekawa asked.

She had no idea what had happened.

Right there on the other side of the wall...on the other side of this thin, cheaply-constructed wall. Senjogahara Hitagi had managed all that violence without ever letting her know. She was something else.

"Hanekawa, do you like bananas?"

"Hmm? Well, I don't dislike them. They're good for you, so I guess I'd come down on the side of yes."

"No matter how much you like them, do not eat them on school grounds!"

"Hunh?"

"If you do eat them, absolutely do not throw the peel away on the stairs!"

"What are you talking about, Araragi-kun!?" Hanekawa gasped, hand at her mouth.

Couldn't blame her.

"And Araragi-kun, you said Oshino-san --"

"I'm headed over there now," I said.

As I said it, I slipped past Hanekawa, and broke into a run. I heard her shouting after me, "Ah! Hey, Araragi-kun! Don't run in the halls! I'm telling!" but I ignored it.

I ran.

Just ran.

Round the corner to the stairs.

This was the fourth floor.

She wasn't that far away yet.

Hop, step, and jump, down two, three, four steps, sliding on the landing.

My legs hurt from the impact.

The impact of my weight.

An impact...

Senjogahara never felt.

She had no weight.

She weighed nothing.

That would make it hard to keep her footing.

A crab.

She'd said she met a crab.

"Which way? Down!"

She wouldn't turn off the path now. Why would she think I'd come after her? She'd be heading straight for the gate. She wasn't in any clubs, and even if she was, there was nothing that started this late in the day. With that in mind I headed on down the stairs, from the third to the second floor, bounding down the steps.

On the landing between the second and first floors.

I found Senjogahara.

She must have heard me thundering along, tumbling down the stairs behind her. She had already turned to face me.

Her eyes were cold.

"...amazing," she said. "I must admit I'm astonished. After all that, you're already ready to fight back? You're the first to manage that, Araragi-kun."

"The first?"

She'd done this before?

So much for a hundred days of work.

Then again, not weighing anything was something that could easily be betrayed by the slightest body contact. It was unrealistic to keep it completely secret.

I was the only one who know 'at the moment.'

Maybe she really was the devil.

"But the pain in your mouth shouldn't have been so easy to shake off. Most people would still be curled up on the floor."

The voice of experience.

Terrifying.

"Okay. I understand. Have it your way, Araragi-kun. I can't say there's anything wrong with trying to pay back what gets done to you. If you're prepared to face the consequences..."

As Senjogahara spoke, she spread her arms out wide.

"...then let us go to war."

In her hands...not just a utility knife and stapler, but all kinds of stationary goods. Well-sharpened HB pencils, a compass, a three-colored ball point pen, a mechanical pencil, super glue, rubber bands, paper clips, bulldog clips, brass fasteners, magic markers, safety pins, fountain pens, white out, scissors, scotch tape, a sewing set, a paper knife, a triangular ruler, a straight ruler, a protractor, a glue stick, a set of chisels, art supplies, weights, and a bottle of ink.

The simple fact that I was doomed to share a classroom with her felt as if the world had singled me out for punishment.

I definitely thought the super glue looked particularly dangerous.

"N-no, not war."

"No? Aw..." she seemed disappointed.

She did not lower her hands.

Her deadly stationary supplies remained at the ready.

"Then what?"

"I just might," I said, "Be able to help you."

"Help?"

She sniggered.

Contemptuous?

Or angry.

"Please. I already rejected your cheap pity. Hold your tongue and avoid me -- that's all I ask."

She frowned.

"I will also take kindness to mean you are my enemy."

She took one step up the stairs.

She meant it.

And she was not one to hesitate. I'd had that demonstrated very clearly. Painfully so.

So.

I said nothing. Instead, I stuck one finger in the side of my mouth, and pulled my cheek out.

My right cheek.

Exposing the inside.

Senjogahara blinked. The stationary supplies slipped from her hands.

"But that...you..." she stammered.

Yes.

I no longer tasted blood.

The staple wound Senjogahara had left behind had already healed. Not even a trace of it remained.