The owner was frozen with only his upper body awkwardly raised, unable to lie down, while the intruder who had lain on someone else’s bed without permission smiled brightly with a very comfortable expression.
“I’m scared a ghost might appear.”
Rose gently tugged and shook Elijah’s sleeve. With a dizzying feeling as if being pushed off a cliff, Elijah fumbled for a response.
“I don’t know if Master will allow it.”
“Why do you need Master’s permission? Just sleep.”
“Is, ……is that okay?”
“Why wouldn’t it be?”
“…….”
“Let’s sleep together……. You promised to protect me. Right?”
It was unfair. He had never made such a promise to protect him in the first place. It was all something Rose had said on his own. However, for some reason, he didn’t want to kick Rose out. Elijah had no choice but to lie down and pull the blanket over Rose and himself.
The two children lying on their sides on the narrow bed looked at each other. They were close enough that their noses could touch if they moved slightly.
“Hehe, now I’m not scared at all.”
Rose said while pressing his body closer to him. His nose tip bumped against his cheek, so Elijah had to press his back tightly against the wall where there was nowhere else to retreat.
His eyelashes that fluttered every time he blinked were quite long. After watching Rose in silence for a while, Elijah spoke first for the first time.
“……You know. I have something I’m curious about.”
“Yeah.”
“Why don’t you want to cut your hair?”
“It’s weird. Why does everyone have the same hair?”
Elijah couldn’t answer. It was something he had never thought was strange, so Rose’s question felt more difficult than any magical theory.
“Then by any chance…….”
Instead, Elijah asked something else.
“Do I seem weird to you too?”
“Yeah. You’re weird.”
His green eyes dropped down. It was nothing special to say, but he didn’t know why one corner of his heart felt so chilly. When Elijah was thinking of something to say in response, Rose immediately added.
“You’re so pretty it’s weird.”
“……Huh?”
“Even with chestnut-like hair, you’re the only one in the whole world who’s pretty.”
He was clearly lying on the bed, but it felt like his heart was plummeting down to the ground below. Rose reached out and stroked Elijah’s head. Elijah, who had been quietly receiving his touch, gathered courage and met his eyes.
“You’ll be pretty too.”
“What will?”
“Even with chestnut-like hair, you’ll be pretty.”
Rose blinked silently. A thoughtful expression briefly crossed his face that was white without a speck of dust.
“……You really think so?”
“Yeah.”
Hehe. Rose laughed and collapsed into Elijah’s arms. The tips of his long eyelashes moved with a flutter and tickled Elijah’s neck.
That night Elijah couldn’t fall asleep, and Rose shaved his head without complaint the next afternoon.
* * *
Steaming stew bowls were placed one by one on the long oak table. Even Daisy, who always had a gloomy face when it was time to eat, nowadays enthusiastically prepared the tableware before anyone else.
“Elijah.”
Igrit tapped Elijah’s arm and sat down in the seat next to him.
“How do you know Rose?”
“What?”
“Weren’t you and Rose acquainted from before?”
“No.”
“Then how are you so close?”
“…….”
Am I close with him? I’m not sure. Elijah still didn’t understand Rose’s various impulsive actions.
It was the fifth day since Rose came. He had spent all four nights with him. He couldn’t understand why he would leave his own room and sleep so well in someone else’s bed.
“……I don’t really know.”
“You’re always like that, whatever.”
Igrit pouted and pulled the stew bowl in front of him closer. Soon Jade appeared in the dining room. He was with Rose.
Rose, who had been looking around the table, saw Igrit sitting next to Elijah and wrinkled his nose. After hovering behind Igrit and Elijah for a moment, he sat down in an empty seat at the end of the table with a sullen face.
Clang, the small handbell held in aged hands rang.
“Begin your meal.”
The children all picked up their spoons at once as if they had been waiting. The fragrant smell of stew with a small amount of meat always excited them. The children were almost burying their noses in the bowls, and even Daisy, who rarely ate well saying the hard bread was too much, quickly emptied her bowl.
Jade distributed one more bowl of stew to each of the children, and after finishing his own meal first, left the dining room.
However, unlike the other children, Elijah couldn’t tell the whole time whether the stew was going into his nose or his mouth. Even though he was sitting apart from Rose, he couldn’t be free from his gaze at all. Somehow, it was more suffocating now than being right next to him.
Yet at the same time, he liked the feeling of Rose’s gaze lingering on him.
Elijah looked at Rose sideways while barely eating his stew. He didn’t know how even his eating appearance could be so doll-like. His mouth, wide open from forcing in the large spoon, was cute and adorable.
As expected, Rose was pretty even with a buzz cut. His head was round like a well-carved pebble, and his fully exposed ears were also charming. Of course, the curly hair he had seen before was also pretty, but Elijah liked this better. He was happy to see Rose’s appearance that had become the same as his.
“Rose.”
At that moment, Igrit spoke to Rose.
“How old are you?”
“Me?”
Sharp eyes turned toward Igrit.
“Twenty years old.”
“…….”
Silence descended among the children for a moment. Everyone’s gaze was drawn to Rose. Elijah was the same.
“What? How are you twenty years old? You’re the same height as us.”
Igrit asked in surprise. Rose said with an indifferent face while moving his spoon.
“I don’t know. Allen-ssi said so. He told me to say I’m twenty if anyone asks.”
“Who’s Allen-ssi?”
Someone’s question followed.
“My employer.”
“What’s an employer?”
“Someone who pays money and makes you work.”
Rose answered the children’s endless questions clearly and well.
“He pays money and makes you work? What kind of work do you do?”
“I don’t know either……. On the first day I was supposed to work, Master brought me here. He said that place wasn’t where I should be, or something.”
The children didn’t understand anything Rose was saying.
“We’re twelve years old.”
Igrit said with a serious face.
“So you’re twelve years old too.”
That was how age was determined here. Although there might be slightly bigger or smaller children, the children’s heights were usually about the same. So their ages were the same too.
Even when children who were a year or two younger or older than them came in, it was the same. The moment they came to this place, everything about them ultimately became the same.
Elijah was curious what kind of extraordinary reaction Rose would show.
“……Is Elijah twelve years old too?”
But his gaze unexpectedly landed on him. Before Elijah could answer, Igrit answered first.
“Of course. We’re all the same.”
“Okay! Then I’ll be twelve years old too.”
Unexpectedly, Rose easily agreed. The children, who had been a little worried that he might refuse and cause a commotion again, now picked up their spoons again with relieved faces.
To Elijah, Rose felt like a person from a great other world. It seemed he had received money and worked outside.
It was quite a shocking fact for Elijah, who had thought until now that money automatically appeared in Master’s pocket.
* * *
“Imprinting magic was devised by magicians who owned dragons in ancient times, leaving a mark on the subject to distinguish it from other people’s dragons. It was similar to a kind of seal, and sometimes when disputes arose, it also served to prove that this dragon was one’s own property, and…….”
Cleanly shaved heads were gathered closely together in a row on the long bench. The hard chairs and desks made of carved stone grew moss in summer and sharp frost in winter. Like all the things that had been in the monastery from the beginning, they were crude and black in appearance.
“Now, everyone draw the formation you learned today on the table.”
Small hands holding charcoal moved busily in similar shapes. Elijah moved his seat a little to the side because Igrit, who kept bumping into him and copying the magic circle he had drawn, was annoying.
Soon a faint light was drawn along the magic circle Elijah had drawn. Unlike him, most of the children had not yet completed even half of the formation.
“Master, this won’t work!”
“Master, he broke my charcoal.”
“Master, I don’t have any charcoal……. I had it originally, but it disappeared. So I can’t draw.”
“Master, I finished! Please look at this!”
Master, Master, Master……. Clear voices burst out frantically from everywhere. Even though he had copied Elijah’s exactly from right next to him, something wasn’t working, so Igrit pouted and sighed.
“It’s boring. It’s not fun.”
Elijah didn’t bother to respond to that. Igrit always dismissed anything he wasn’t good at as boring and not fun.
He couldn’t do any magic properly except for creating a very small fire. It meant he had barely improved from his skill level when Elijah first came to this place.
“……This part is wrong.”
Elijah, unable to just watch, quickly filled in the empty parts of his magic circle. However, Igrit, who seemed to have already lost interest, couldn’t concentrate at all and looked around at the other children.
“But Elijah, he’s a bit strange.”
He turned his head backward and leaned toward Elijah, whispering.
“Who?”
“I mean Rose. Why isn’t he doing anything?”
Elijah turned his head to look at Rose sitting alone in the very back.
