Work Text:
The stage: Downtown.
The players: Oshino Ougi and Hanekawa Tsubasa.
The curtain rises. The light comes up on my adorable self, wandering the streets by my lonesome. Maybe it's worth noting that I chose to wear the gakuran, Araragi Koyomi's gakuran, which I have as much right to as him. Even moreso, now that he's graduated.
Why did I take to wearing the gakuran today? A 'change of pace,' perhaps.
Now that my existence is not a self-referential lie, I have to put at least some effort into existing. So here I was, existing. Currently I was existing in a convenience store, browsing an exciting magazine.
"That's no good, Ougi-chan. You're not old enough for that kind of thing."
A mild shock. Hanekawa had already returned? Wasn't she off selling her brain to the Kremlin?
"No, no, it's nothing like that... I'm just in town for a special event."
"A special event... Did someone die?" I asked, making a face as she extracted the exciting magazine from my hands.
"Why is that your first thought? It's a friend's party, one that I can't afford to miss. Otherwise, she'll kill me."
"Ah, Senjougahara-senpai, hmm?" That was an easy deduction to make. It was equally easy to tell I was right from her reaction. "That's right. It's her birthday. So she invited you? How distasteful."
"I don't think it's distasteful to invite someone to a birthday party, Ougi-chan. I'll be happy to reunite with the both of them."
"Her and Araragi-senpai, you mean?"
"Her and you, yes."
"Hm. That's not quite right. But it's not quite wrong either," I admitted, walking slowly past the fluorescent world of drink coolers, stopping in front of one to pick up a can-coffee.
Black.
"I've been meaning to ask you, Ougi-chan. You don't know anything, right? It's Koyomi-kun who knows. Does that mean that you know everything he knows?"
"Well... Yes. We are the same person, so that's a given. It could even be called a basic requirement."
Like everything in this story, it's up to you to decide whether I'm telling the truth or not. I can't help taking a page from that man's book; I do admire him, in a way, despite having had his skull bashed in.
I stopped in front of a row of snacks, leaning this way and that. Browsing. Getting food to eat. All things typical of a high schooler who exists.
I should mention that this was very late at night, or rather very early in the morning. Other than the clerk, there was no one around. The fact that she also just happened to be here at the same time meant she came looking for me.
"Does he know everything you know?"
"Ahaha." That was a good question to ask. As expected of Hanekawa-senpai, the genius. "That's a little more complicated. The simplest way to put it is that 'Araragi-senpai doesn't know everything he knows.'"
"And you know those things he doesn't know he knows?"
"You know it."
She didn't seem to appreciate my wordplay.
"That's very convenient for you," she replied, looking thoughtful as she peered at some pawprint cookies. "Following that logic, if Araragi-san knew everything he knows, you would no longer exist. Right?"
Just like Hanekawa-senpai to say something so cruel to me with a straight face. Not that I don't do the same.
"Hoh... That's an interesting hypothesis, Hanekawa-senpai. In other words, I only exist as a 'difference' in relation to Araragi-senpai. Specifically, I am an addition. If we both knew everything the other knew, if we overlapped completely, we would cease to be meaningfully different people." I put on a cute and charming smile as I chose a snack of dried squid. The texture is pleasing to me.
"It's not a very well-developed hypothesis or anything. It's just a thought I had, contemplating what you really are."
"You know what I really am," I said, walking at a leisurely pace toward the disinterested cashier. "I'm Araragi Koyomi, and I'm Oshino's niece. There are a few more specifics in the fine print, but the result is roughly the same."
"But that's not all you are. No one can be defined purely by their connections."
"Oh? But isn't the perception of others all that matters? 'If a tree falls in the forest and no one's around to hear it, does it make a sound?'"
"It does," she replied simply, buying a pack of gum. "Even if a person were somehow born all alone, without even their own mother's knowledge of their existence, they would still exist."
"Avicenna's Floating Man, hm? It's a compelling theory, but for Oddities, perception is everything," I magnanimously informed her, once we had left the convenience store and moved to a bench in a very small, one-lot park nearby. "They only exist because they're perceived to exist by humanity."
"But you're not just an Oddity anymore." Hanekawa sounded confident in her assessment, sitting down beside me in the still darkness of that alleyway-park. "Your existence isn't a lie. Revealing your true nature won't exterminate you, because Oshino Meme has given you an identity and made it the truth. So, from what I understand, you're not bound by a 'proper' role anymore. You're something more chaotic and strange."
"So now I'm a person, and you want to know what kind of person I am?" I asked, chewing some dried squid. Delicious.
"That should go without saying, Ougi-chan. You're a dangerous entity. I would be very interested to find out what kind of person you are, so I can understand your motives."
"Ahhh. Like criminal profiling, I see." Should I be gratified that she still sees me as something dangerous, even after I've been defeated? In a certain light, those could be words of praise.
"You don't have anything to worry about. I've already admitted defeat, so it would be untoward to do anything devious now. Little pranks here and there, maybe, like a lovable nuisance. But nothing truly consequential."
"Well, this doesn't entirely concern Araragi Koyomi, so let's subtract him. You'll be perceived by more and more people now, living a separate existence like this. You'll have an impact on the lives of others. The question on my mind is, 'what kind of impact will you have?'"
"If I'm a villain or not, you mean?"
"'Villain' is an odd word for it... but something like that." She crunched thoughtfully on the paw-cookies. You sure like to be on brand, don't you, Hanekawa-senpai? "It seems like you have various abilities, and no one is quite sure what you're capable of. If you might end up using that for evil, it's a problem."
"You could say the same for my other half," I rebutted, taking a long drink of pleasingly bitter coffee. You've never seen me eat or drink before, right, dear readers? I am at least capable of that much. There's one mystery solved already.
"For Araragi-senpai?"
"Yes. He doesn't even need to act with evil intent to become a problem. This is the man who, just because he felt a little regret about leaving his high-school life behind, transformed the entire town into a mirror world for two days. Isn't that terrifying? He's like a chaotic god, wholly unaware of his own power and the destruction he might cause." I believe I've read a light novel with the same premise.
"Sure, he is a troublemaker. He causes lots of problems for people without realizing. He caused you, after all."
"Haha." He certainly did. Not only am I his fault, he's the one who allowed me to continue to exist like this.
"But there's a critical difference between you and him, Ougi-chan."
"Oh?"
"Good intentions," she responded simply, casually casting more aspersions toward me. "When he causes a problem, he tries to fix it. He wants people to be happy. When you cause a problem, you revel in it. You don't care if anyone's happy or not. In fact, you seem to enjoy making people miserable."
"I am an embodiment of self-loathing, after all," I replied, pulling one leg up onto the bench and staring upward at the light-polluted sky. "That nagging voice that makes you linger on bad memories. The intrusive thought that ruins your good mood. The impulse to insult yourself, doubt yourself, and punish yourself-- that's the kind of feeling I was born from."
"You're not making yourself sound any less like a villain, Ougi-chan."
"It's still a matter of perspective, isn't it?" I gave a charming smile, tilting my head toward Hanekawa-senpai. She looked nice in the light of the park's streetlamp. It's easy to see why he loves her so much. As for me, I love to hate her. That's just the kind of person I am.
"How so? I'm not sure that matters coming from someone whose perspective is as warped as yours."
"Sure, I might be an extreme," I allowed, "but self-doubt and self-criticism aren't always misplaced. You could say that I'm born from guilt and regret, but Araragi's regret was always 'I wish I could have done things better.' 'I wish there was another way.' 'Maybe things would be better off if I hadn't done this or that.'
So, reverse the chessboard."
"Have you been playing visual novels in your spare time?"
"Ahaha. Maybe." Just like her to catch a reference like that. "I'll explain what I mean, Hanekawa-senpai, since I know you've really declined since your glory days. You see what I did as malevolence and destruction. But I was born from the idea that 'things could have been better.' So, from my point of view, I was trying to put things right. I was correcting mistakes. Making things more 'proper.' I'm not so one-dimensional that I did all that just to make people sad."
Hanekawa was quiet for a while. Then, without warning, she stood up, tucking the cookie box into her bag and sighing. Her breath made a cloud of condensation in the chilly night air.
"I was wrong before, Ougi-chan."
"Oh? That doesn't surprise me, but what were you wrong about this time?"
She looked down at me. Her face was impassive, but I could see the disdain in her eyes. It was wonderful to behold in its own way. She really doesn't like me, hm?
"You might technically be the same person, but you're not Araragi Koyomi," she told me, somewhat paradoxically. "Even if you knew everything he knew, and he knew everything you knew, you would still be different people. He would still try to save people, and you would still try to condemn people. You're fundamentally opposed."
"Is that so." It was a bit of a simplistic view, but not entirely mistaken. "But you know, I really am part of Araragi-senpai. What you see here is another side of Araragi Koyomi, something that exists within him. The same is true in reverse, of course. Yin and yang."
"Everyone has their own inner demons," the big titty kitty replied, looking wistful, "but they don't define us. They're a part of us we have to accept, just as Araragi-kun accepted you... but you are a particularly nasty one."
"Ha-ha."
"That does make me wonder something, though, Ougi-chan."
"Yes?" I asked. I was in quite a giving mood, showing unending generosity, not that she seemed to appreciate it.
"Since you are your own person now... What are your inner demons?"
"..."
I stared at her for a moment, but she didn't give me time to formulate a response. She'd already turned to walk away, and I didn't care to follow her.