……At first, it really had been just a “nearly secret spot,” but the truth was that, at this point, students were careful to keep away from it because it was rumored to be “Elliot Nightray’s favorite place”—not that Elliot knew this.
Still not sure what had awakened him, Elliot drifted again.
As he fell back into sleep, in a corner of his mind, he thought:
Oh, right. I’ll have to get Holy Knight back to the library soon—
He’d checked the book out two months ago, but between this and that, he hadn’t yet returned it. He’d already had it far longer than the Lutwidge Academy library allowed books to be checked out. If he didn’t return it soon, he’d probably start getting complaints from the library assistants.
He had it in his bag, he thought, so all he’d have to do was head over to the library later.
He heard a knock at the door. The anteroom had two doors: one that led to the adjacent studio, and one that opened into the corridor. The knock had come from the second door.
He sensed it when Leo, who’d been sitting on another sofa reading a book, stood up and walked over to the door.
The door opened with a click.
Immediately, he heard several sets of loud, agitated footsteps in the corridor. Elliot thought it might have been the faint echoes of this noise, coming to him through the wall, that had disturbed his nap.
In a voice tinged with faint disgust, he said:
“What’s going on? It’s so noisy.”
Leo had been talking to the student who’d come to the room. He shut the door, answering as he did so.
“It would seem that intruders have somehow entered the academy, Elliot.”
“…Huuh?”
At the unexpected response, Elliot lifted the book from his face and sat up. “What do you mean, ‘intruders’?” he asked, but Leo only shook his head. “How should I know?”
“Well, whatever. The teachers or the disciplinary committee will deal with it.”
“You’re probably right.”
“Leo, we’re going to the library. I forgot to return a book.”
“Sure,” Leo answered. Elliot stood.
“Nn!” As he stretched lightly, his eyes fell on the musical score he’d tossed onto the end of the sofa. He cracked his neck, yawning a little. Elliot picked up the booklet of music, tapping his shoulder with it, and glanced at Leo.
“Before that, come hang out with me for a bit.”
“Mm.” He gestured to the door that led to the studio with his chin, inviting Leo to come play piano for four hands.
Leo nodded.
“Besides, if the intruders hear your music, it may purify their hearts and convince them to let themselves be caught.”
“Moron. It’s not that kind of music.”
“Are you sure? Well, maybe it will get their attention and draw them here.”
“What, we’re supposed to catch them and turn them over to the teachers? What a pain,” Elliot grumbled.
With the score tucked under his arm, he crossed to the door that led to the studio. Leo followed. Elliot didn’t play the piano every time they used this room during the noon recess. Most of the songs he played were pieces he’d composed himself.
Elliot didn’t know whether he had a knack for composing or not. He didn’t care.
In any case, he’d never written a song with the intent of letting lots of people hear it. He only tidied up melodies that popped into his head, to give to his family.
“What are we going to play?”
“Oh, you know—”
When they visited the library after finishing their duet, it was deserted.
Under ordinary circumstances, there should have been a library assistant in the information corner, at the very least. It might have had something to do with the fuss about the intruders, or maybe it was coincidence. He really should have completed the return procedures, but Elliot thought it would probably be okay if he just put the book back where it belonged.
It was the library assistant’s fault for not being here when he’d come to return it, he thought. Immediately after entering the library, Leo had wandered away from Elliot, heading off into the stacks. To Leo-the-bookworm, the fact that the library was deserted meant only that it was a nice, quiet place to read.
Deciding to leave Leo to his own devices, Elliot took the book he was returning and headed toward an inner stack.
In front of the shelf he wanted, he saw a lone figure.
It was a male student, blond and a little on the short side… About as tall as Leo. He seemed glued—eagerly, excitedly—to the row of Holy Knight books on the shelf.
He was exclaiming (“Whoa!” “Awesome!”) at every little thing, although it shouldn’t have been that unusual to see all the volumes of a work as popular as Holy Knight in one place.
Maybe he’s from way out in the sticks?
He thought this, even as he felt that something about the idea clashed with the atmosphere the boy wore.
Elliot walked up to him. The boy must have been completely engrossed; he didn’t notice a thing. He seemed to be examining the toothless gap where the volume Elliot had borrowed should have been. He murmured, sounding perplexed:
“—But… Huh? There’s a volume missing…?”
“Aah, sorry.”
Elliot spoke from behind the boy, coming up to stand next to him. As he returned the volume in his hand to that gap, he said:
“I’d borrowed it just now.”
The boy apparently hadn’t noticed Elliot’s approach until he spoke to him. He stepped away from the shelf, mildly startled, and looked at Elliot. Elliot also shot him a sidelong glance, his expression cold. The boy had bright golden hair and deep green eyes. His features seemed childlike, and yet there was something about them that made him look a bit philosophical.
Elliot didn’t recognize his face; this was the first time he’d seen it. Of course, Elliot didn’t know every single student at Lutwidge Academy, so this wasn’t all that unusual.
“…Do you…”
Elliot spoke to the blond boy, who was watching him silently.
“…like this series…?”
Just as he said it…
—Tunk.
Elliot felt as if he’d heard a sound, inside his head.
What was that?
It was a very small sound. …Or maybe a faint feeling. Something so slight it would have been easy to think, It’s my imagination, and forget about it right away.
Elliot didn’t know yet.
It was a faint, distant sound, still out of reach. A sound from somewhere in the future.
The sound of two fists striking each other, lightly, companionably.
That sound would make itself heard in a story not yet told—
“Eh… Yeah, I love it…”
The blond boy answered Elliot’s question…
…And the hand of fate began to move.
~ Fin ~
1
…Huh? Look at that crowd. What’s going on?
One afternoon, as Oz Vessalius was walking down a corridor at Pandora Headquarters, he saw a group of uniformed Pandora staff up ahead. The atmosphere seemed too pleasant and genial for a work conversation. The group was clustered around a single employee, and he was talking to them about something.
His curiosity piqued, Oz trotted over to them. When he was close:
“Excuse me, could I ask what’s going on?”
He peeked into the group from the rear, calling to them as politely as he could.
Up until that point, the employees hadn’t noticed Oz’s approach, and at his voice, they flinched and turned around, all at once. One of them bowed his head, saying, “I-I’m terribly sorry, Oz-sama! During work hours, but we’re…,” and the others followed suit, lowering their heads.
“Oh, no… Please don’t. I wasn’t trying to give you a warning or anything like that.”
Oz waved one hand vigorously, giving them an awkward little smile. “
Never mind that,” he continued:
“What were you talking about? Something interesting?”
It was after lunch, and, with nothing in particular to do, he’d been bored. His valet Gilbert had gone off somewhere, saying something about an errand.
The Pandora staff members were evasive. Possibly they were embarrassed at having been caught chatting during work hours by Oz, the next head of the House of Vessalius. However, from inside the group, a voice said, “Um, I was…,” and one young man stepped out in front of Oz.
Oz had a good memory, but even he didn’t know the names and faces of everyone who worked at Pandora. This man wasn’t someone Oz had seen before. The youth looked apologetic.
“…I was showing my coworkers a photograph, and then…”
“A photo? Of who?”
“Uu, y-yes, of my, um…
“It’s this.” The young man held the photo he had in his hand out to Oz.
The photo showed a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes. It looked as if it had just been born.
The baby was being held by a woman with a gentle expression on her face who was probably its mother.
“Woooow, a baby! It’s so cute!”
When Oz cheered his approval, eyes sparkling, the young man blushed self-consciously. Hesitantly, he told him that the baby had been born last week. When Oz peppered him with questions, seeming as happy as if it were his own family, the man told him that the baby was a girl, and that they’d decided to name her Mireille.
“Mireille-chan, huh? She’s going to be a beauty, I just know it! I mean, look how cute she is already!”
Oz’s cheerful reaction seemed to relax the other staff members, and they began talking.
“We were just discussing what we should send to congratulate them.”
“We were saying that cute baby clothes might be good, since it’s a girl, or that maybe toys would be better.”
“From personal experience, I’m telling you they’d probably prefer to get necessities like diapers—”
Oz listened happily to the colleagues’ noisy, lively discussion.
This is kinda nice…
Wanting to be a part of that happy atmosphere, Oz said, “Over here!” and raised his hand. “If you don’t mind, let me send something, too,” he insisted. Immediately, the young man’s eyes went wide. Rather than being happy, he waved both hands frantically, seeming embarrassed. “You don’t have to go that far,” he demurred, but Oz laughed.
“This is something to celebrate, and I want in! Aah, but I’m not sure what to give…”
Oz thought hard. He’d never given anyone a present to congratulate them on a new baby before, and nothing in particular sprang to mind.
Oz’s little sister Ada was six years younger than he, and he tried to remember what sort of presents had arrived when she’d been born. However, the glaringly bright and sparkly, ostentatious, custom-made cradle that his super-enthusiastic Uncle Oscar had sent had made such an impact that he couldn’t remember anything else.
Ada cried when they tried to put her to bed in that thing, and it ended up going into storage…
“Hrrrrn,” Oz groaned, looking obviously troubled. Then one of the members spoke to him:
“Oz-sama, why not give them a ticket saying you’ll date their daughter for a day when she grows up?”
“Eeeeeeeeeeeeeh?!”
The unexpected suggestion startled Oz. The young father was also startled; turning red, he reproached his presumptuous colleague: “Watch what you’re saying!” That said, although he’d been surprised and caught off guard, Oz didn’t feel the least bit put out.
“No, I wouldn’t mind that at all. …I’m just not sure something like that would be enough…”
As he spoke, beaming, the young man’s colleagues cheered.
Then, encouraged by Oz’s easy answer, someone said, half-jokingly, “Lucky you! She might just marry into the purple!” At that, someone else said, “You’d better thank your wife for giving you a beauty,” and a third person even said, “Invite me to the wedding!”
I didn’t promise that much… Oz thought, a little wryly. He wondered, impressed, whether all this excitement was the result of “baby power.”
Feeling that it wouldn’t be nice to throw cold water on the gathering, Oz just listened, smiling. The young man kept desperately bowing to him and scolding his colleagues for having fun with such a presumptuous topic, but he was the only one. “Please don’t pay any attention to them,” he said, sounding as if he was at his wits’ end.
Oz thought. She’ll be old enough to go on dates in, what, twelve or thirteen…no, fifteen more years, I guess.
Then the young man continued:
“…By that time, no doubt you’ll have a family of your own, Oz-sama.”
Those words resonated violently in Oz’s heart.
“”
The Pandora staff members had gone back to their duties, and Oz was walking down the corridor toward his room.
“A family, huh?” he murmured softly to himself.
He tried to imagine himself with a family, as the young man had said, but he just couldn’t see it. Before he started a family, there’d have to be a wedding. For that, he’d need a partner.
…Half involuntarily, Oz’s hand gripped his coat, over his chest. Under the coat, engraved on his chest, was the proof that Oz had made an illegal contract with a Chain. It was an incuse in the shape of a clock. He’d heard that, when the hand of the incuse completed one round, its illegal Contractor was destroyed.
He knew. He’d accepted this situation himself, and so he had no regrets.
As a result, ordinarily, he never even thought about things like this.
But.
Did excessive exposure to happy atmospheres cause adverse reactions? Maybe so: As Oz reached the door to his room, his shoulders were drooping slightly. With a dejected sigh, his head down, he set a hand on the door. As he opened it, the door felt heavier than usual.
A lover…hmm… Will I have one of those, too, someday? …No, but, in a situation like this… I mean, I’ve even got the incuse…
Oz stepped into the room, his thoughts wandering around and around.
Just then:
“—Oz!” A voice called him, sharply.
When Oz raised his head, he saw a girl standing arrogantly in the center of the room.
The girl’s name was Alice.
Alice was a slight, pretty, black-haired girl who seemed to be about Oz’s age. She was actually the B-Rabbit, a Chain feared even in the Abyss. However, for reasons that had nothing to do with that, Alice had been traveling with him ever since they met, and Oz cherished her.
She was fearless and straightforward, and she’d saved his heart many, many times. Just being with Alice seemed to make the world brighter. That was how precious she was to him.
“So you were in my room, huh, Alice?”
Oz hadn’t seen her since that morning.
“I was waiting for you. You kept me waiting forever!”
Alice’s attitude was so haughty that she seemed to be saying, What do you mean by making me—ME!—wait?
She was always this way, and Oz smiled, looking relieved.
“Sorry. I was just wandering around.”
“Hmph. Whatever. Never mind that, Oz. I have a ‘request’ for you.”
“A request? You do? For me?”
Oz answered her question with more questions, a startled expression on his face. When Alice asked for things, she usually phrased it as an order: “Feed me meat.” Even when she didn’t, she always spoke to him as if she outranked him. He wasn’t sure whether Alice had ever used a word as humble as “request” before.
That said, in contrast to her words, Alice nodded grandly. “Mm-hm!” There was no trace of the humility of someone asking for a favor. She folded her arms boldly, puffed out her chest proudly, and, with an arrogance that practically screamed, Be grateful that I’m deigning to ask you for something, she said:
“Oz, make a child with me!”
“……………………………………………Huh?”
Oz’s mind was a perfect blank.
She’d said she had a request, then phrased it as an order as usual, but never mind that. The bigger problem was what she’d said. Alice’s words had entered his ears and reached his mind, but he completely and utterly failed to understand them.
A child? By “child,” did she mean a baby, like the one in the photograph he’d just been shown?
Not even possible, Oz thought, with a forced little smile.
There was just no way that Alice would abruptly say, “Make a child with me.”
…Which meant he must have misheard her.
Here Alice actually asked me for something, and I heard wrong. How could I?!
He actually felt remorse: I’m no good. He wanted to hear her out properly, and if it was a request he could grant, he wanted to grant it. Oz looked slightly apologetic, but his voice was cheerful and earnest:
“Uh, I’m sorry. What did you just say, Alice?”
“……Mu?” Alice scowled at being answered with a question, but, since there was no help for it, she said it one more time:
“Make a child with me! I mean, we’re making one, Oz!”
Oz found himself abruptly confronted with:
A baby-making declaration, skipping all the preliminary steps!!
He froze.
2
As Oz stood petrified, looking as if he’d lost his soul, Alice watched him, curiously. “???”
“Um……uh…… Listen, Alice.”
Forcing his body to move—it had gone so stiff he thought it might make cracking noises when he tried—Oz moved his lips, asking Alice a question. “What?” Alice tilted her head to one side.
“Is that, um, some sort of joke…maybe…?”
“Don’t be an idiot! I always mean what I say.”
As she answered, Alice’s face was the picture of seriousness.
Oz knew this, too. No matter what happened, Alice never lied, and although she might tease and be sarcastic, she never told the sort of jokes that drew their fun from tricking people. The Alice Oz knew wasn’t the sort of girl who could do that.
PandoraHearts ~Caucus Race~, Vol. 2 Page 10