At once, their eyes met. Elijah, who quickly turned his back from Rose who was smiling brightly at him, rubbed the back of his neck for no reason.
“……I don’t know either.”
Rose had never once participated in class. He just sat there quietly like a doll. Among the children wearing identical gray clothes without distinguishing yours from mine, only Rose stood out noticeably, still wearing the dark navy dress he’d worn on the day he first arrived.
“You’ve been stuck with him all the time lately, yet you don’t know a single thing?”
“I didn’t ask……”
In truth, it wasn’t that he wasn’t curious at all, but Elijah found it a bit difficult to ask Rose something first or start a conversation. It was because he was afraid that when he said something, Rose might not smile or show a displeased reaction.
So it was best not to say anything from the start. Just properly answering the questions Rose asked was already very overwhelming for Elijah.
“Master, why doesn’t he do anything?”
At that moment, Igrit raised his hand high. The buzzing noise stopped all at once. The other children all implicitly knew who his words were pointing to.
Jade’s gray eyes turned toward Igrit.
“Who are you talking about?”
“Him, Rose. Rose doesn’t study and just sits there quietly. I’ve never seen him practice either. He’s just been playing ever since he came here.”
Elijah turned his head to look at Rose with a worried heart. However, Rose was just blinking blankly as if it wasn’t about him.
“Rose has no magical power. So originally he doesn’t need to attend class. But he likes being with all of you, so he’s sitting here of his own accord.”
“……”
The heads that had been facing Jade all turned at once. No magical power? Then how did he come here? What did Master just say? I don’t know, Rose has no magical power…… Why? Can someone have no magical power? The small voices were clearly heard by everyone’s ears despite supposedly whispering into each other’s ears.
Clang clang, the irritably shaken bell sound was sharp.
“Stop chattering and concentrate.”
The children’s voices quickly subsided at Jade’s single word. However, only Igrit still seemed bothered by that fact, constantly turning around to glance at Rose.
“What on earth is he?”
Elijah moved his seat a bit farther away to avoid Igrit who kept leaning against him and couldn’t concentrate on class. Igrit, who stubbornly followed and sat next to him, said.
“He’s really weird.”
“……What is.”
“Everything from one to ten.”
Elijah acted as if he couldn’t hear his words anymore. Once he started responding, there would be no end, and he wouldn’t be able to concentrate on class either.
However, Igrit’s words were partly true. Rose was different from his peers in everything from one to ten.
“I don’t want to!”
At the stream where they always washed, Rose, the only one wearing clothes among the naked children, turned pale and covered his shoulders.
“It’s embarrassing! How can you take off your clothes in front of others? It’s weird!”
Elijah was no longer surprised by the commotion Rose caused. Rose questioned their all-too-natural daily life like this one by one.
It was weird that everyone wore the same clothes, weird that they had the same haircut, weird that they woke up at the same time and went to sleep at the same time, and it was all weird to reveal their naked bodies and wash together in one place.
In the end, generous Master gave in this time too.
“The girls will wash first in 20-minute shifts, and after that the boys will wash.”
The children were shocked at his words. Why should some wash first and some wash later?
“Why? Why do we have to do that?”
“……In the long run, that will be more comfortable.”
Master only said incomprehensible words and then disappeared. The children left behind were very anxious about the suddenly changed daily routine. It was just that they would wash in two teams instead of all washing together, but for children who had never experienced change, it was a big event.
In the end, the boys who couldn’t wash and were sitting huddled together each voiced their complaints.
“Why on earth is he like that?”
“I don’t know, it’s really weird.”
“I like it. I can put off the bothersome task.”
“From now on, the girls will have no choice but to wash before us.”
“Daisy, that’s not necessarily a good thing…… What’s good about putting it off?”
“Igrit, you’re the one who’s terribly slow. This is something you should be happiest about.”
Elijah, who sat crouched among them, just silently waited for the 20 minutes to pass. He didn’t know why for some reason, but since Master decided it that way, he just had to follow.
Master’s words were always right. Nothing bad had ever happened from listening to Master’s words until now.
After meeting Master, Elijah had been able to eat non-rotten bread for the first time, and now he could also eat warm meat stew and learn magic too. So he had to unconditionally follow Master’s words.
“We’re all done washing. It’s your turn now!”
The girls approached from the distance. They had never been conscious of each other’s gender until now, but Elijah could now clearly distinguish who was female and who was male.
“Elijah.”
At that moment, Rose approached and grabbed Elijah’s sleeve. Elijah found it strange that Rose’s hair wasn’t wet.
“Come here.”
Before he could say anything in response, Rose grabbed his hand and led him. Elijah had to move away from them while receiving the children’s piercing stares.
Rose, who went up the stream for quite a while until the children were barely visible in the distance, only then stopped walking.
“I don’t want to wash with those kids. It’s dirty.”
“……Then what are you going to do?”
“What do you mean what?”
Rose said while untying the ribbon tied at the front of his dress.
“From now on, let’s just you and I wash together here.”
Elijah couldn’t understand his actions at all. Earlier he refused as if he’d die before taking off his clothes in front of others, yet now Rose was casually throwing off his dress in front of him.
“Master set the order. You should wash with the girls……”
It was the moment he was about to say “together.” With the unfinished words hanging on his tongue, Elijah opened his mouth with a blank face.
“……”
Rose’s body was the same as his.
“Rose, you……”
What he had, Rose also had. In other words, it meant they were the same gender.
“……”
Elijah was greatly shocked. He had naturally thought Rose was a girl because he wore a dress that girls wear, but suddenly the knowledge he knew was turned upside down.
“You, ……you were a boy.”
Rose smiled and tilted his head.
“Yeah. You didn’t know?”
“……”
“It’s okay. I’ve heard that a lot.”
Just because he came to know the correct gender didn’t mean Rose would change, yet Elijah somehow felt as if he’d experienced a great upheaval.
“Why? Do you hate that I’m the same as you?”
“No, I don’t hate it.”
He reflexively shook his head in denial. The brown eyes that were looking at Elijah curved roundly into crescent moon shapes. Rose approached him closely.
“Then? You like it?”
“Uh, yeah……”
“You like that I’m the same as you?”
Elijah, who nodded reflexively, suddenly felt his face grow hot. For some reason, he wanted to take back the answer he just gave. Rose grabbed both his hands and led him toward the stream.
“Let’s wash quickly, we don’t have much time left.”
Elijah was dragged along by him swaying, even forgetting that he hadn’t taken off his clothes. Rose’s eyes, crossed diagonally by the winter sunlight, shone reddish.
His brightly smiling face was ridiculously pretty.
* * *
Now Elijah had become quite used to Rose coming over to his room every night. It had been nearly a month since Rose came to this place, and he had never once slept in his own bed even for a single day.
Elijah, who had left a space for Rose next to him, leaned his back against the pillow and looked at the door. He had picked up a few flat stones from the backyard and had just heated them up and laid them under the blanket in advance.
The sound of the bell Master was ringing came from downstairs. It was the sound signaling bedtime.
Tap, tap. Rose’s footsteps could be heard from a distance of just a few steps. It was clearly the same sound as the other children’s, yet he didn’t know why Rose’s walking sound sounded so cute.
Soon the heavy wooden door opened with a creak. Rose no longer wore a dress. With his closely cropped hair and faded gray clothes, he looked exactly the same as the children here.
When Elijah lifted the blanket, Rose naturally went inside and lay down.
“Wow, it’s warm.”
Rose laughed while rolling his body inside the blanket. It was because of the warmth of the stones laid where he was lying, but Elijah didn’t bother to say such things.
“My room is cold, but it’s warm here. I guess it’s because you’re here.”
Rose said while pressing his body close. In truth, it wasn’t only Rose who was happy sleeping together. Elijah, who had never slept with anyone in his entire life, realized for the first time that he could spend such a warm winter with just one person’s body heat.
Since Rose came, there were no more dawns when he woke from the cold, no more nights when he trembled at the eerie sound of the wind and endured it with his eyes forcibly closed. Just when he suddenly opened his eyes, there was only a pretty child sleeping soundly beside him.
“You know, Elijah.”
“Yeah.”
“Daisy said earlier that the wake-up bell won’t ring tomorrow morning.”
“Yeah.”
“What does that mean?”
“……It literally means the bell won’t ring.”
