“It’s weird.”
“Weird.”
“It’s mysterious.”
“Mysterious.”
“Therefore– it’s suspicious.”
“It’s suspicious and–”
Odd.
Oshino Ougi–Ougi-chan said this dispassionately while pointing at the layout she had sketched in the opened notebook on my desk. This situation reminds of when Gaen-san and I had a similar meeting back in August, but we used a tablet instead of a notebook. These days it’s not that rare for a high school student to use a tablet, but for someone like Oshino’s niece an analog approach is probably more suitable.
The notebook depicts a structural rendition of Naoetsu high school–it is so detailed that someone without any knowledge about drawing would say that it was done by a professional. The drawing is so good that it might as well hang on the bulletin board at the school entrance.
“It’s weird–”
repeated Ougi-chan. Still pointing at that one point on the diagram.
“…”
While listening to her monologue, half my attention went to diagram, and the other half to her–specifically her eyes. Those eyes which seemed like they could suck me in.
Which reminds me, Gaen-san once called herself “the little sister of Oshino Meme.” Thoughts like “why is she calling herself a little sister and not a big sister?” and “She sure is strange” were going through my head at that time, but I guess that introduction was based on something real. Come to think of it, there is nothing “half-assed” about Gaen-san.
However, I can’t be completely unconcerned about the reason that the niece of a specialist who left this town in June might have for transferring now. Kanbaru would probably call it “a quirk of fate,” but as someone who has been involved with Hachikuji…
“Uhm, can you please listen, Araragi-senpai?”
“Oh, yeah…”
After she called me out for being distracted, I hastily try to regain my composure.
“O-Ougi-chan, why don’t you sit down? I’m worried that you will tire yourself out if you keep explaining while you’re standing. You don’t have to worry since those guys won’t come back until the chime rings.”
I’m worried that Ougi-chan might feel obligated to stay standing as an underclassman while I’m sitting down as an upperclassman. In the end Kanbaru never sat down, but Ougi-chan seems to refuse to an extreme extent.
“No, unfortunately I’m obsessed with cleansiness. I don’t want to sit on a chair on which someone has already sat.”
“…Is that so.”
Obsessed with cleansiness, huh. If that’s the case there’s no way she can live in a now demolished abandoned cramschool building, like her uncle did.
“I would love to sit on Araragi-senpai’s lap though.”
“Stop it.”
“Aah, Araragi-senpai, you just thought something lecherous, didn’t you–.”
Ougi-chan happily says this while clapping her hands once. Although fooling around like this is very typical of freshman girls, that doesn’t mean that I finally understand her enigmatic self.
“You’re the one who said something sexually suggestive. Keep standing as a punishment.”
“You’re no fun.”
“So, what was it again? What’s the weird part?”
“Even rolling chopsticks are funny–that’s what they say for people of my age. Um, hey, I’m a transfer student. Because of family issues–or should say I for personal reasons, I’ve had to transfer many times–so many times that I don’t even know how many times anymore.”
“I see… that’s rough. That reminds me of something Kanbaru told me, she also transferred once back in elementary school…”
By the way, Kanbaru is gone now. After quickly introducing Ougi-chan to me, she ran off as fast as she could. She must have a busy schedule–or could it be that she was being considerate and wanted to give us some privacy?
“But transferring schools seems like a real pain. Your environment suddenly changes.”
“Yes. I’m already used to it by now though. And, every time I transfer, there’s something that I always do first at the school I transfer to. What do you think this is?”
“A thing… could it be that you greet the teachers?”
“There are times when I don’t greet them.”
“You don’t do that every time?”
“Just listen–I always make diagrams.”
Ougi-chan flips through the notebook pages. It’s a brand new notebook, but it’s already filled with diagrams of the school building. The diagrams are fairly detailed. There aren’t only blueprints, but there are also three-dimensional renditions– how did she even make a sketch showing the building from a bird’s-eye view? It looks like a helicopter shot.
“I drew this to analyze the school that will take care of me, well, I can say this is a habit of mine–do you think that this is strange?”
“No, not really…”
To be honest I think that this is a splendid example of eccentric behavior, but I recalled that ever since I entered this school there have been two people who showed me similar eccentricities so I’m not sure if I can call her weird. Rather, I’m honestly surprised that there are people other than those two who would do this kind of thing.
I initially vigilantly inspected and carefully interacted with Ougi-chan, who I have only recently met for the first time. She’s also the niece of that hypocrite Oshino, but now that I’m used to her eccentric behavior I think I’m getting a little friendlier with her.
“I’m obsessed with mansion murder mysteries, you see. I just get so excited whenever the scenario is sketched. Therefore, whenever I enter a new school, I make sketches like this–of course, I’m not actually hoping for a murder case to happen.”
She laughs, but since we’re stuck in such a puzzling situation it was hard to see the humor in what she just said. I honestly would have believed it if she had said that she was designing it for a crime scene.
“Hm… can I take a look?”
“Eh? At my panties?”
“No, at the notebook…”
That was something you’d expect hearing from one of Kanbaru’s underclassmen. Since not many people know Kanbaru’s perverted side, and since Ougi-chan seems to have been influenced by her this much, it can be concluded that Ougi-chan is fairly close with Kanbaru. (Based on Ougi-chan’s remark just now it seems that Kanbaru was bluffing about Ougi-chan not wearing any underwear)–It concerns me that she has gotten that close with Kanbaru in the short time since she has transferred. Well, Kanbaru is able to get along with anyone–I study the notebook from cover to cover. After studying this notebook I realized that there are a lot of places in this school that I didn’t know about, even though I’ve been going to this school for almost three years. This realization taught me that I have been living my school life halfheartedly.
“…At any rate, you’re really good at drawing, Ougi-chan. I’m not a professional cartographer, and there are many things I don’t understand from just looking at it. But when I look at this notebook I actually get the feeling that I’m walking through the school building.”
“Your praise honors me deeply. Then did you notice anything weird?”
“Hm. Well…”
I really didn’t. I had no intention of flattering her, but this indeed sounds like I praised her hard work without fully appreciating it. Reluctantly I uttered a few sounds that resemble a useful reply.
“Don’t you think it’s weird that there are this many school buildings? If you consider the number of students, you can completely close one of the school buildings–”
“You are absolutely wrong. Aren’t you being foolish?”
It was a polite yet a bitter reply. I thought I might have angered her, but she’s still smiling so maybe that wasn’t the case– is she saying it like that because she has transferred schools so much? Maybe it’s normal to be that rude in other places.
“That is most likely just an effect of the declining birth rates. This number of buildings might have been necessary in the past. We can guess that there are so many empty classrooms because the current number of students is far less than when the school was founded– that’s not what I was about though, I’m talking about this.”
“What?”
“This.”
After taking the notebook from my hands, Ougi-chan opens it at a certain page and points to a single point– it’s the spot she was pointing at earlier. But I can’t detect anything especially irregular.
“The arrangement is weird.”
After she pretends to wait for an answer from a certain fool, also known as me, she starts the explanation.
“It’s weird or maybe I should say that it’s abnormal–here, please look at the floors just above and below this floor.”
While she flips the pages back and forth she keeps talking.
“See how every floor has rooms where they should? Then, it would be weird if there wasn’t a room where it should be in the center of the third floor.”
“That would be weird–”
I re-examine the diagram with this new information in mind, but I don’t really notice anything new.
“But this third floor has a room in the center. It’s the audiovisual room…”
“The blueprint was drawn incorrectly. Maybe should I say that it is drawn to be representative of the actual building, but in reality the audiovisual room is not this long. If you compare it with the circumference, do you realize how the length here is drawn 1.5 times longer than that of the actual room?”
“Hmm.”
When I compare it to the classrooms around it, I could see what she’s trying to say–the audiovisual room that I’ve used several times throughout my school life is not this big. But isn’t this mistake small enough to ignore… It’s not as if Ougi-chan made this diagram with the help of professional surveying equipment. Didn’t the audiovisual room get longer because Ougi-chan might have missed a classroom on the floor, got her units wrong, or shifted her results?
“Well, well. Could it be that you’re not confident of my abilities? Araragi-senpai’s doubt, it hurts.”
“No, we’re not so close that you can get hurt from my doubts.”
“No, no, I can dearly talk about it– about a fool who has easily tricked me.”
Once again she treats me like I’m an idiot. This is almost the same as when the old Senjougahara scorned me, but I truly can’t figure out whether Ougi-chan is saying it to be mean when she says it with a smile. I’m suffering from cognitive dissonance.
“I never make mistakes. If this is my mistake, then I’ll remeasure the school naked using my wingspan as my ruler.”
“You sure make some careless promises…”
Even if I were that confident about something, I wouldn’t make a promise like that. Fufu, Ougi-chan laughs and replies, “There’s now way I could have made a mistake.”
“In a mystery novel, when the reality differs from the blueprint, there’s usually a hidden room,”
she says.
“What would you do, Araragi-senpai? What if there is a blank space in this room filled with diamonds, gold and silver?”
“Why would there be a hidden treasure in a school…and even if I find it, it’s not going to be mine.”
“You have no dreams– this is why exam students should have more imagination.”
“For argument’s sake, if your diagram doesn’t have any mistakes, isn’t it plausible to think that it’s a construction mistake? So it could be a dead space, filled with concrete or something–”
I don’t remember a concrete wall next to the audiovisual room–if someone were to ask me what happened to that area, I wouldn’t be able to answer. One can survive his school life as long as he remembers where his classroom is.
“That is a possibility. Of course, that would be the best case scenario. No, the best case scenario would involve a room full of treasures, but I wouldn’t mind if it were also a room full of concrete. However, let’s pretend that it’s something else,”
Ougi-chan proposes. She says it in a playful and ominous tone.
“I think it’s good to check things out before someone gets harmed if this is an oddity.”
“…”
After hearing her real intention– I thought that she might be right. I see, the actual building isn’t identical to the one on the diagram, that really is bizarre– but just because it is bizarre does not mean that it’s caused by an oddity. It would be better if the hidden room theory was true– well, it could be an oddity if I trust these notebooks.
First off, if there was something like that in the school building, there’s no way Shinobu would not notice it– it’s also weird that Oshino didn’t notice it during spring vacation. True, Oshino would probably say something like, “I don’t approve of blaming oddities for everything mysterious.”
The reason I gave Ougi-chan’s idea a serious thought is because she definitely is Oshino’s niece, and– also because I did not hear about any dead space from two fellow students, Hanekawa Tsubasa and Senjougahara Hitagi, who also investigated the entire school building.
If there actually was a hidden room– whether it came into existence because of an oddity or not– Ougi-chan noticed the abnormality right after transferring. The know-it-all Hanekawa didn’t mention it, and Senjougahara didn’t notice it when she was desperately hiding throughout the school.
That fact– no, it’s actually still a possibility, but I’m still not mature enough to let the possibility pique my curiosity.
“Even if for argument’s sake I assume that an oddity is at work, it might just be a harmless one… well, I guess I can agree to investigate it, just in case.”
I said this in an excessively formal and composed tone. I didn’t want her to think that I thoughtlessly accepted any underclassman’s suggestion– I don’t want to step into Kanbaru’s territory.
“Wow, I’m so happy. I knew you were going to say that. Well, please meet me after school today. It’s a bit embarrasing to come to a senior classroom.”
She acts a lot cuter than Kanbaru. Actually, she was adressing an upper classman pretty rudely, but I didn’t notice that.
“Got it. So you want me to meet up with you– but I don’t like staying late. If someone misinterprets the situation it might look like I’m fooling around with an underclassman after school, and I fear that I might get killed.”
“Of course, I won’t take too much of your time. Well, it’ll take about fifteen minutes. I guess that would be enough time to find out if there’s something there.”
Ougi-chan happily said that it would only take fifteen minutes. I conceitedly thought that a transfer student was trying to befriend me using diagrams and oddities as excuses– of course, I couldn’t be more wrong.
Fifteen minutes aren’t enough for this investigation– it’s still going on right now.
Savanna Translations 
