My heart pounds fast in the dusk
as the stars twinkle above
I guess this is enough for me
I'm sure there's a reason
There's more to this world
than the things I can see
The reason you laugh
is my reason to cry
Getting logical and serious about this won't let us take another step
I'll make a wish upon that shooting star
Too bad I'm not sure anymore
what I want for the future
That's how we pass our days
Let's go to bed and to hell with making sense
My heart pounds
when I eat this sparkling orange mint
My heart pounds fast in the dusk
as the stars twinkle above
Calendar
Story
Koyomi
Seed
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Devil brother.
In short, Devil boy.
I'm surprised to be meeting you here.
Yay.
Hey, why are you trying to ignore me like that?
That sort of action won’t be any good for my upbringing.
If I were to turn delinquent, how do you think
my sis would take responsibility.
Yay.
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I was returning from the National Test Center.
I had taken Senjougahara to her place,
and was walking home.
Hey, what are you doing now, Devil boy?
Look
look
Yay.
Hold on, don’t mix in peace signs,
That just makes the catcher signals that I can hardly read even more complicated.
Deary me.
Anyone and everyone something to say about my peace signs.
This body language.
And these gestures.
'There’s something I’m searching for at the moment,
so if you have time, could you help me, Devil boy?'
Is what it means.
How could I understand that?!
So how about it?
Will you help me?
Won't you help me? Say it clearly.
I do want to help you, but…
To be honest, the results on my mark sheet weren’t very good.
At this point it looks like I'll have to give myself an even harder boost.
Devil boy, what were you doing for the past year?
You should just die.
I won't tell you to study,
but you should just die.
Don’t try to kill me off like that.
As long as you won’t cooperate with helping me search,
I’ll continue to abuse you.
I’ll continue to tell you to go and die.
I lose. I’ll cooperate.
So this thing you're looking for is somewhere around here?
Who knows. It might not be.
Well, if it might not be around here, let’s keep that in mind while looking.
So, Ononoki. What are we looking for?
I'm not sure. It could be anything.
Yay.
Yay...
It's apparently something I'll know once I see it.
While we're searching, I want you to help me out...
by expanding my field of view.
Field of view?
Expand
FOV
I've pretty much reached my limit.
So I was starting to think I need a change in point of view.
Being as I am, by nature, an adorable doll,
I’m a little runt.
In other words I lack the height to do my searching.
It's true that I do have a higher point of view than you,
but that’s only in relative terms.
In absolute terms I’m not actually that tall, you know?
I can see that.
I can see that even from my low vantage point.
You’re absolutely not tall, Devil boy.
In absolute terms. Not 'absolutely.’
But if we add my considerably short height
to your fairly short height,
Hey presto! We end up with a pretty tall height.
Specifically it’ll be around three meters.
I see. It's the 'little girl piggyback ride' event.
Ononoki. There’s something I want to confirm.
I’m going to give you a piggyback ride, right?
That’s wrong, Devil boy.
I’m not going to piggyback on you, nor you on me.
Think about it, if we piggyback then there’s a big loss, isn’t there?
A loss?
Hey. It’s simple, Devil boy.
We just do the same thing I’ve always done.
Say, Ononoki, assuming we’re going to continue searching like this,
this thing you'll know when you see it,
will I be able to tell what it is once I see it, too?
I’ve been using up quite a lot of my vampire powers lately,
so if you’re expecting oddity-like eyesight,
I can’t really live up to that.
Don’t worry. I’m not expecting anything from you, Devil boy.
It doesn’t even have to be something suspicious for example,
but if anything catches your eye or seems a little weird,
then I should like it if you reported it to me in minute detail.
You should like it…
It’s not like I particularly have any free time right now.
You mean how you were only given half a year to live?
How much time is left, again?
Of your remaining life, Devil boy.
Which ends first, your life or your exams?
It’s kind of hard to say.
The exams themselves end first.
But there's the graduation ceremony in the middle,
and the results come out after that.
When you say you’ve been using up a lot of your vampire powers,
that’s also part of it, right?
Constantly repeating a useless effort, or rather, a useless defeat, haven't you?
It’s not useless.
Hey, Devil boy. What do you plan on doing from now on?
If you were willing,
it’s not like I couldn’t contact Gaen like I’ve done before.
However, in this situation I disobeyed her wishes when I didn't use the talisman.
Considering that, I can’t rely on her now.
Well, I've sown these seeds.
I will do something.
If you were really the one to have sown the seeds,
then you certainly should.
However, don’t you think it’s rather strange?
How lately, as though someone were seeking balance,
everything around you specifically, is in chaos.
It's true that once you meet an oddity, you get pulled in by them,
but it's almost like even that fact itself is being balanced.
I doubt even you are dense enough to not think it unnatural, Devil boy.
I am slow.
I'm always completely overwhelmed just trying to fix the situation.
Something you can tell once you see it, huh.
I wonder what it is?
Who knows?
If that's all I have to work with, I don’t have the slightest idea.
But Devil boy, there’s something that I’ve been thinking could be a possibility.
What is it?
Something that anyone could tell once they see it,
but once you start looking for it, you’ll lose sight of it.
That is...
A smile.
Now for the epilogue, or rather, the punch line.
In the end, even though we aimlessly wandered through the town until evening,
we couldn’t find anything, and the result was that we didn't obtain any results.
A while afterwards -
With Tadatsuru's kidnapping of Kanbaru and my sisters,
and their rescue long behind us.
Hanekawa Tsubasa
Hands Free
What do you think's the hardest thing to find?
What are you talking about?
I'm talking about Ononoki.
Araragi, Ononoki ended up living with you, right?
So I thought it'd be okay to tell you.
Hanekawa Tsubasa
Hands Free
What do you think's the hardest thing to find?
Err, let's see. The hardest thing to find that I can think of...
Well, the question is just a preface,
so it doesn’t really matter what you think or what you answer.
Then what do you plan on asking after this preface?
Hanekawa Tsubasa
Hands Free
'What do you think's the easiest thing to find?'
In that case, I guess it’s 'something you can tell once you see it.’
No, no, Araragi.
Don’t get tied up by those words so much.
Because that was just a lie.
Araragi Koyomi
Hands Free
A lie?
Well, 'lie' might be an exaggeration.
Ononoki wasn’t searching for anything.
The hardest thing to find would be, well, exactly that.
You can't find that which doesn’t exist.
Are you saying that Ononoki, because she wanted to play with me,
came up with such an innocent lie?
Hanekawa Tsubasa
Hands Free
Not at all.
Quickly
Denied
The answer is 'the easiest thing to find',
Of course, something that’s easy to find is something that stands out,
and there is nothing that stands out more than a person
who is searching for something.
You’d stop walking, look around, crouch over, or stand on your tiptoes.
It's utterly suspicious behavior.
Searching while standing tall on the finger of a doll-like girl
would stand out a lot.
Conspicuous
Obtrusive
Basically, Ononoki's intentions were to have you stand out, Araragi.
So that’s why she was hoisting you up like a flag.
But, why would Ononoki want to have me stand out?
Wasn't there someone in town in January who you absolutely should not have met?
It would’ve been bad if you ran into him, and he didn’t want to run into you either.
Well, we did run into each other in the end.
Since he was visiting the town on a daily basis,
then, well, it wouldn’t have been strange if you both up crossed paths at some point.
So most likely, at a point where that was likely to happen,
Ononoki was there to stop you.
By making you stand out, Araragi, it made it easier for the other side to avoid you.
Araragi Koyomi
Hands Free
By making me look for something that couldn’t be found,
I was made easy to find…
So as that the con man and I—
didn’t encounter each other.
For Ononoki,
she didn’t want to make you any more worried than you were at that time,
I'm sure.
When situations go without incident - no trouble and no tale to tell, surprisingly,
it's because it's helped along by someone who deeply cares.
Araragi Koyomi
Hands Free
Without noticing what was supporting my peaceful life,
my saying that I must do something about it
is indeed kind of funny now.
That explains why she ridicules me.
Maybe.
'People can only be helped by themselves' is quite the saying,
but in actuality, it’s impossible for people to live on their own.
Well…
That may be true.
Although normally you live your life without any consciousness of that.
That’s right.
Perhaps it's that kind of nonchalant consideration
that's the hardest thing to find of all.
I kick a stone away to get rid of my worries,
I'm downplaying the flutter I feel this April.
We were happy children full of curiosity,
I was the one who pushed you forward,
from that day onward.
Let's escape our confines
and take our time along the way
Let's ride our bikes to far away
carrying our hopes and dreams in the basket
Is the future we heard so many rumors about,
A nice place to be?
Even if we ask our extending shadows about it,
we'll still be none the wiser