Teacher, Turn Off the Light
"Teeeacher... turn off the liiight..."
"Mm... mmmn...... nngh....."
My eyes opened of their own accord at the faint sound of breathing.
Regrettably, I am not a light sleeper. It is a matter of constitution, so there is no one to blame. I have never put it to the test, but even faced with those absurdly loud guitar performances that are all the rage these days, I was confident I could sleep straight through them without so much as a stir.
And yet even I wake the moment someone physically buries their face against me and starts to nuzzle. At first I thought I was simply dreaming—warmth gathered around my chest, and hair tickled in soft little shivers, swaying and rustling. Before I knew it I had gone stiff as a board. Sleep paralysis? I hate ghosts. My shoulders hunched in time with a heart that felt ready to burst.
In that instant the scent of a sweet perfumed oil touched the tip of my nose.
At least this one is alive. Belatedly, I registered the warmth. The knowledge that it was not, at the very least, a ghost let my thoughts settle.
Then who?
I always kept a barrier cast through the night, so it could hardly be some uninvited guest at an ungodly hour. And I had always taken a certain pride in not being the sort of person who earns anyone's grudge in the first place. If there were exceptions—yes. Only my beloved disciples, the ones for whom I had personally picked magic structural formulas apart to the last line and written in the conditions myself.
"Tea...cher's scent... ha... hoo... phew...... nngh. Haa..."
A melting breath brushed my nape. Now and then the sound of sticky saliva sliding down circled at my ear—bare skin, with not so much as a hair's breadth of distance left between us. A familiar voice snapped my eyes wide open.
"Teacher... you're awake...?"
"Uh...... AAAAAH!"
"My. Even your scream is adorable."
She covered her lips lightly and smiled at a slant.
Clear moonlight spilled in from the window. It must have been hidden behind the clouds; in the bedroom that had been dark, her outline emerged, and the pointed ears atop the head of the Fox Tribe woman were the first thing to catch my eye.
But her air was nothing like usual. Her eyes drooped where they normally did not, and her slightly glazed gaze sat strangely out of focus. The refined manner of speaking was gone. In its place, a slightly unraveled breath and a nasal, melting voice dissolved against my ear. Looking closer—good grief, the reek of alcohol was vicious. She was dead drunk.
I soothed her as calmly as I could manage.
"Cecilia, just how much did you drink?"
"It's a happy day~ I only had a little. And yet Teacher didn't drink a drop at the party..."
Cecilia's soft ears perked straight up, brushed past the corner of my mouth, and flicked lightly away.
"Aren't you being a little too cold to your students...?"
"You know I don't drink."
"I... I~ want to play with Teaaacher~"
Cecilia buried her face against me in a slow spin, mumbling something incomprehensible, then suddenly thrust her head out.
"Teeeacher~ For our Cecilia, please do the oh, how pretty, oh, how pretty~"
"What......"
"Oh, how pretty~"
"Are you drunk? You look well and truly drunk. Go to sleep. Now."
"Haa... As I recall, Rin and Ran always had their heads patted just like that."
"Those two are children. Am I not allowed to praise my young students for being good?"
"Buuut... we're students all the same."
"Think about the age gap. Do you even remember how many years there are between you and them?"
"That's true.... Age. Age was a matter of critical importance, wasn't it."
Cecilia swept back the hair that had spilled softly over her shoulder.
A black dress with the shoulders laid entirely bare—the outfit she had worn to today's party. It was cut boldly down past the shoulders and the collarbones, so when she pressed in this close beneath the blankets, the illusion struck that she was not wearing anything at all.
"If one is an adult, one ought to act like an adult. Adults require an adult conversation, you see."
"......An adult conversation?"
The moment the thought struck me that something had gone badly wrong, I tried to move my arms.
"Struggling won't do you any good."
"Ce—Cecilia?! Is this magic...? My arms and legs... my arms and legs won't move...?"
"...I mixed a sealing auxiliary formula into spirit magic and attempted a mana reversal."
Insane! That's the sealing magic I taught her!
My thoughts rang the alarm. There was not a gap in the formula. She had probably been preparing the cast for a dozen minutes or more, and with Cecilia's mana, dismantling it without collateral damage would be difficult. I was going to have to curse myself for sleeping like a fool while she worked magic right beside me.
Even so, a name rose by pure spinal reflex, and I called it—the name I reached for whenever things turned urgent. If I only spoke it, she would be at my side in an instant...
"Undine!"
"......Haa. This time, too... you call that woman's name first."
With a voice threaded through with a sigh, Cecilia stared at me through eyes that had gone half-dead.
Wait. Her eyes just died. Terrifying. Student Cecilia? Let's consult a mirror. The light? In your eyes? It's gone?
"...I slipped sleeping pills into the wine that woman was drinking. Had it been anyone else, I would not have used so dangerous a method, but if it is Lady Undine, drinking alcohol and sleeping medicine together should not do her body any harm."
"Wh—w-wait. Cecilia. Let's talk this out. Cecilia? Hic! My pajamas?! ...Undine? Undine! Save me, Undine! Ignis! Freyja! Professor Aegis! Chairman! Rin! Ran! Anyone, please! Cecilia, you're a good girl, right? Hehe, let's stay calm. Let's all stay calm. I'll teach you a spell that burns the alcohol right out of—GYAAAAH! No! Not there! I don't want to, no, please don't! The security alarm! If you pull those clothes down, Teacher won't hold back either—I'll yank the security alarm! Deep breath~ let's think this through slowly. You're a student, and I'm your teacher. Come on, repeat after me. Tea. Cher."
"Hehe. You know it very well, Teacher. Now you can't go anywhere. Not to anyone. My own... little... Teaaacher... nngh..."
Her glittering eyes drew closer.
Before I knew it, a fluffy tail had wound itself around my leg. At the irregular breathing that continued from somewhere around my nape, my throat began to go dry, little by little.
"Are you all right...? If you're anxious, would you like to touch my tail?"
...I would not.
How had it come to this? I was going to have to pull my memory a little further back.
The day I first saw Cecilia. That day had surely been, like any other, a somewhat ordinary day.