A Being Who Wishes Me Gone
"…Rai, are you okay?"
The sight of Eli so unlike himself made Bayul uneasy for no reason at all. Judging by the look on his face, he had surely recognized someone among the new professors. A bad feeling washed over him, strong and immediate.
"What's wrong all of a sudden? Is it someone you know?"
Aidan only belatedly sensed something off and asked, but Eli remained frozen stiff, his eyes fixed on the podium.
"Don't tell me those professors aren't as harmless as they look?"
Eli's reaction set Bayul and the others' imaginations racing. After all, he'd said it himself before.
If four more eccentrics like the Chairman had appeared, it would be the first step down a straight road to the Academy's ruin.
"Ah, damn it, why won't you say anything? Did you turn mute while we weren't looking?"
"Aidan."
It was assembly hour; no one could afford to be too loud. When Bayul pointed at his own lips, Aidan lowered his voice and grumbled on alone.
"Seriously, who are you staring at like that?"
He must have been terribly frustrated, because he hammered his own chest with his fist three or four times.
"…Is it Professor Serarika?"
The new professors stood in a row on the podium. Tracing Eli's gaze carefully, Bayul found it landed on the last one introduced by Rayegar—Professor Serarika.
"You don't look like you fell in love at first sight like the others, though… Don't tell me, Rai—was she your first love?"
"My first love?"
At Aidan's absurd deduction, Quinn shot back in a metallic voice, as if to say, are you serious?
"Look at this airhead. When have you ever seen Rai make a face like that?"
"Actually, I have."
"…You have?"
At Logan's brief reply, Aidan screwed up his face and glared at him.
"When was that?"
"The day the Chairman first arrived."
"Ah…!"
Come to think of it, it was similar to that time. The Chairman's first impression—strolling over with a beaming smile while declaring how thoroughly he despised Eli—had been burned into his friends' memories for good.
"Then… could it be…?"
Aidan's voice suddenly turned solemn. At his gesture to gather around, everyone but Eli leaned in on reflex.
"I think I've figured it out."
As though unburdening a great secret, Aidan whispered.
"Stepmother."
"…What?"
"He freaked out when he saw his adoptive father, remember? So this time he's freaking out at his adoptive mother. Couples look alike, you know. And there's no way a man with the Chairman's looks is single."
"So you're telling me Professor Serarika is the Chairman's wife, and Rai's stepmother?"
"Ding ding dong! Correct! They must've met while studying magic! Who on earth could handle faces like theirs with anyone else? They were made for each other, no question!"
There wasn't a shred of trust in his friends' eyes, but Aidan's conviction only deepened.
"The Magic Department was desperate for professors, so she had no choice, right? Ahh, I'm in awe of my own deductive powers. How do I even come up with this stuff? Am I right or am I right?"
At his shameless self-praise, Bayul and the others simply turned away in silence. They were afraid that if they engaged any further, a fist might find the back of his head.
"…She's not."
It was then that Eli, who hadn't said a word for a while, finally spoke. When his friends turned to him, he enunciated each word with deliberate force, as if commanding them to listen well.
"She is not my mother."
"…Wait, you heard all of that?"
They'd assumed his mind was a thousand miles away, but apparently not. Aidan seized the opening to press him.
"Then who is she, and why that face? She is someone you know, right?"
"I know her well."
"Oh-ho, really? Who is she?"
"…A being who denies me."
"Denies you… what?"
"Shall I put it another way?"
To his bewildered friends, Eli added one more line, his expression cold.
"Someone who wishes I would vanish from this world."
"R-Rai…!"
Perhaps it was the flat, toneless quality of his voice. Bayul felt a shiver crawl up his spine. In that instant, strangely enough, he could feel an intense hatred and fury radiating from Eli.
"I need to go."
Without warning, Eli bolted out of the auditorium. Assembly had just ended, and students were only now beginning to disperse. Bayul and his friends tried to follow, but before they could grab him, that red hair had vanished swift and silent into the crowd.
"Rai!"
Bayul's shout was useless. Classes would start soon—what was he planning to do? The worry gnawed at them.
"One look and you can tell—he's gone to have it out with the Chairman, hasn't he?"
"I just hope he doesn't come back even angrier than he left."
"Shouldn't we go after him?"
"Better to leave him be for now."
They were ready to help Eli anytime he needed it. But judging from how he'd been acting, one thing was certain: the moment he saw the Chairman, he'd fly into a roaring rage. And when that happened, the polite thing to do was clear the blast radius.
Their guess, however, was half right and half wrong.
"…!"
That had indeed been his purpose—but Eli couldn't do it. The moment he opened the door to the Chairman's office, she was there.
The woman who wished Eli's very existence erased.
Serarika.
And she was with Rayegar.
"What are you doing out there? Come in."
Eli froze all over again. He had seen her with his own eyes moments ago, and yet the instant he came face to face with her, his body reacted on its own.
"Have you gotten even dumber in the interim?"
Serarika's beautiful face began, very slowly, to twist. As she stared at him, she tilted her head slightly—and Eli's body slid forward as if pulled by invisible strings, while behind him the door slammed shut with a violent bang.
"Don't you even greet people?"
Eli came to a stop directly in front of her. She sat with her legs crossed, a smile playing on her lips as she lifted her chin.
"What's the matter, cat got your tongue? Shall I pry that open for you too?"
"That's enough, Sera."
Eli knew that if Rayegar hadn't intervened, his lips would have been forced apart just as his body had moved without his consent. Years had passed, and yet the simple truth remained: before her, he was a hapless fool with no strength at all.
"Stop toying with the boy who ran all the way here in a panic."
"And what, exactly, did I toy with? He's the one being dramatic over a simple greeting of welcome. Isn't that right, Kilian?"
Serarika smiled brightly as she called Eli by his old name. It was beauty beyond all description—and yet what lay beneath it was something utterly at odds with that beauty.
"…Are you truly glad to see me?"
Eli's red eyes met hers, level and unflinching. There was no more fear in his gaze. Only fury.
"That's not how it sounds to me?"
"Ha, hardly. Can't you tell from how fast I came running?"
"But this isn't my office?"
"I guessed you'd be with Father. It's your first day at the Academy—you'd need to go over any number of things."
Eli calling Rayegar "Father," so unlike his usual habit, carried a flicker of grim resolve. And at the sight of it, the corner of Serarika's mouth curled up in amusement.
"Heh. Still quick with the excuses, I see. All mouth, as ever."
"Class is about to start. Rai, you'd better head back."
"Rai? Is that what people call you here?"
Just hearing that name in her mouth was displeasing enough that a vein stood out on Serarika's lovely forehead.
"Eli. It's short for that—everyone calls me Rai."
"Tacky, but easy enough to say. Well? Is it at least fun?"
"…"
"If you were going to run away spitting fire, without so much as a shred of gratitude for the life I spared, then it ought to have been fun. Otherwise your father has no face left to save, does he?"
"…Why have you come?"
"My, my! What a voice full of complaints you have there?"
Serarika leaned back against the sofa and gazed up at Eli. Just as she had in the auditorium, she wore a smile over and over.
Once, long ago, he had trusted that smile. But no longer. He would never play the fool again.
"Shall I just go back, then?"
"The bargain is already struck."
At Rayegar's stern tone, Serarika made an exaggerated show of cowering.
"You hear that? Best be scared of your father, boy."
"That can't possibly suit your temperament. Are you sure about this?"
"Who says it doesn't suit me? Rayegar, did you tell him that?"
"Oh dear. I imagine someone like me makes you positively ill."
Her veiled gaze. Her needle-sharp words. He remembered every one of them, carved whole into his memory. As far as Eli knew, she had no reason to come here—and every reason not to.
"Ill, is it…?"
Serarika murmured the word quietly, as if mulling it over. But in the next instant, a killing cold like a sheet of ice shot out from her.
"Kilian, I think you're laboring under a delusion. 'Ill' doesn't suit you at all. If I had to pick a word closer to the truth… I'd say 'useless' comes nearest."
"Sera!"
Rayegar cut in, but she did not stop her venom.
"I told you, didn't I? There are exactly two things in this world that should never have existed. The demonkin who covet humans… and you."
He had heard it a hundred times, a thousand times more. It should have dulled by now—and yet, for some reason, every time he heard it, it pierced his chest and his heart plummeted. If the goal was to wound him, it remained an impeccable choice.
"Get out."
Rayegar commanded, his eyes closed.
"You're not leaving?"
At first, Eli thought the words were meant for him. When Serarika belatedly realized the target was herself, she looked dumbfounded—and Rayegar spoke again.
"How dare you compare my son to demonkin. In front of me, no less?"
WHOOOOSH!
The air itself convulsed. Rayegar hadn't moved from his posture, but a violent gale swirled around him as though a vortex were being born.
Serarika's face went white; she clearly had no idea Rayegar was capable of such fury. Quiet men, when they finally rage, cause catastrophic accidents. And Rayegar possessed power more than equal to it.
"That's enough. This isn't Laye."
It was Eli who quenched Rayegar's wrath. At his son's restraint, Rayegar withdrew his aura in an instant, as if none of it had ever happened.
"You knew exactly what you were doing when you brought her here."
"Kilian…"
"I'll be going."
Turning to leave, Eli paused for a moment and made one request.
"Even if we cross paths in class, please pretend you don't know me. And if you could manage to act as though you haven't seen me at all, I'd be even more grateful."
Then and now, what she wanted was one thing and one thing only.
For Eli to vanish from this world.
And so the wretched situation had come to pass: he would have to take lessons from a woman who rejected his very existence.
If anything, Eli resented Rayegar more than he resented Serarika, who despised him. He had known full well how this would end, and had orchestrated it anyway. Whatever his designs might be, one thing was certain.
Inside Eli's heart, Rayegar had moved one step further away.
The time to throw away the fountain pen was drawing closer and closer.