Misunderstanding Begets Misunderstanding
Knock, knock.
She opened her eyes at the sound of someone at the door. The first thing she felt was clarity—neither groggy nor blurred, a mind as clean as a rinsed sky—and that very clarity told her something was wrong. She turned toward the window.
The sun blazed, seated at the very crown of the sky—
"W-wait. Noon?"
She had slept the entire day? Without even eating dinner?
Knock, knock.
The knocking came again.
She hadn't unpacked, which meant she hadn't changed, which meant—of course—she hadn't washed.
"J-just a second!"
Mariella bolted for the washroom.
Something clattered and thumped on the other side of the door. It didn't sound dangerous, so I waited. A little time passed, and the door opened. Moisture glittered on her skin. Had she washed in a hurry?
"...Is something the matter?"
Mariella tipped her head, studying me.
"Th-that's..."
My chest locked up. All I had to do was get one sentence out. Why was that so hard?
Breathe. Breathe.
"Hoooo..."
Slowly, I opened my mouth.
"Would you—would you have lunch with me?!"
"...Lunch, you mean?"
I nodded. Mariella was still tipping her head, exactly as she had a moment ago.
"Y-yes... I wanted to apologize. For yesterday..."
I dropped my gaze and mumbled, the words shrinking as they left me. Ten years in this body had taught me one useful thing: look pitiful enough, and certain people will, as a rule, decide not to get angry.
"...All right. Let's go."
"R-really?"
I stole a glance up and caught her face. Mariella was smiling. Not a sneer, not a laugh she was swallowing—something helpless, faintly wistful. It wasn't a bright smile, which was a shame, but at least she wasn't mocking me. I'd take the win.
"So. What were you thinking of eating?"
"Uh, um... I heard there's a street nearby where all the restaurants cluster together... I thought we could look around the academy while we were out, wander a little, and eat along the way..."
"Is that so? Then let's meet in front of the dormitory entrance. I'll be ready in a moment."
I nodded, and the door shut. Quietly. Gently. The window in the room had been left open.
"Whew..."
Step one: clear.
On the way down the stairs, I flung a thought-speech at Nero.
"Hmm..."
He's not wrong.
"Haaah."
My head rang. A side effect of thought-speech. Drive a voice straight into the skull, and the brain flinches at the sudden glut of information.
"Oh my. You're..."
"...Ah."
The dorm supervisor? Why is she suddenly acting like we're close?
"It must have been terribly cramped. Are you all right? I can move you to another room even now, if you wish..."
"Ah, n-no... I'm fine..."
"How could you possibly be fine? It's so narrow a person can barely lie down, thick with dust, and rats turn up now and then. Don't cling to pointless pride. Wouldn't it be better to change rooms now? If anyone presses you about why you moved so suddenly, tell them I ordered it. They'll accept that—"
Huh? Is this person actually nice?
The tone and the face looked a little arrogant, sure. Strip those away and listen only to the words, though, and wasn't she worried about me?
That's a problem. Stick her nose in like this and she might actually move my room.
"I-I'm fine... I'm used to it..."
"...What? Used to it... the storeroom?"
"I mean, you don't have to change my room. I'll just take the kindness. Thank you..."
And I bolted for the entrance. A glance back showed the supervisor working her mouth open and shut, as if something in her had jammed.
Call someone a dorm supervisor and the mind supplies a drudge. When the dormitory belongs to the Imperial Academy, the story changes.
She was the one ultimately responsible for housing the children of the Empire's countless nobles, and of those who held power to match them. That was the dorm supervisor of the Imperial Aterna Academy. It was only natural that the post belonged to a noble among nobles—someone from a house counted among the ten greatest in the Empire.
And just now, the supervisor could not help wondering whether her own ears had failed her.
A tiny child. About the height of her granddaughter, who had only just begun to grow in her permanent teeth, though the build looked far smaller. Small enough to make one wonder whether the girl was eating at all.
When the story first reached her, she had taken it for the usual sort of trouble and answered it as she always did. Such children appeared from time to time. Children swollen with arrogance because someone powerful stood behind them, sowing malice wherever they went. Children who spewed nonsense at anyone they judged beneath them and threw fits, demanding that her orders be obeyed.
She had assumed this was the same species of brat. Asking to have her own room swapped for the storeroom under the stairs was a little strange, but rules were rules. Bend them for one person's convenience, and fairness collapsed.
Even so, this particular mess had looked easy to settle. The storeroom under the stairs? Let her live in it, then. How many days could a delicately raised young lady last in a place that cramped, that dark, that filthy? She would open the door and come straight back down in tears, begging to have her room changed. The supervisor had no intention of changing it. Manners were meant to be corrected properly.
She might have taken a step back from politics, but the connections built over a lifetime did not simply vanish. So long as she did not go too far, a measured punishment was well within her reach.
And so she waited to see when that brazen child would come down crying, amusing herself with a petty wager among the others who worked in the dormitory. The bet was simple. When would the little one come begging, admitting she had been wrong?
Most of them chose around lunch. So did the supervisor.
Lunch passed, and the child did not come down. One man smirked, pleased with himself, because he alone had picked late evening.
But evening passed, and midnight came, and still the child did not come down.
In the quiet after everyone else had gone home, the supervisor sat alone with her thoughts. Something was wrong. She could not name what.
Time moved on, and it was noon again. Stepping outside to eat, she caught a small flash of white.
That child.
Her body moved before she did. Out came the offer—that she could change the room even now. She didn't know why she had said it.
But the child—
"I-I'm fine... I'm used to it..."
She said it with lifeless eyes, and ran outside.
Used to it? A space that narrow? That storeroom, so tight a single body filled it, filthy and dark?
Thought chased thought, spinning round and round in her head. The supervisor stared blankly at the entrance the child had vanished through.
I was exhausted. My stamina was poor to begin with, but Mariella's was beyond anything I had imagined. Do nobles take physical conditioning as a matter of refinement? We wandered everywhere without so much as lunch, and by the time evening came I felt ready to drop dead.
"This is delicious. How did you find a restaurant like this?"
Only once the sun had leaned itself gently against the horizon did we finally step inside and eat. Mariella worked through every dish with perfect elegance and perfect dignity, and did not leave behind so much as a drop of sauce.
"I looked really hard... I'm glad it suits you."
"Did you spend all of yesterday walking around the academy?"
I nodded. The one who had looked hard wasn't me. It was Nero.
"Thank you."
Mariella smiled, soft and slight. The sudden warmth startled me into twisting my face, and she laughed again, as if the sight amused her.
"Why so surprised?"
"N-no, it's just... I've never seen you smile like that."
The mood wasn't bad. Her anger seemed to have eased, at least a little. If I gave her the gift now, the apology ought to stick. Right?
"The truth is, this is a first for me."
"...A first?"
"Yes."
Mariella nodded and began to talk. There wasn't much to it. It seemed she had been something like me—no friends to speak of—and had never spent time outside with anyone who wasn't family. Boil it down, and that was the whole story.
That aside, this is going on forever. When do I take the gift out?
"So... that thing in your pocket. What is it?"
My pocket?
"A-a gift!!"
"A gift...?"
Because she had brought it up first, I was able to hand it over as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
"...May I look?"
I nodded.
Mariella undid the wrapping with care and studied what lay inside.
"......A necklace... no. This is a collar...?"
"Yes. You like it, don't you?"
Mariella looked at me. It might have been my imagination, but her gaze seemed a little colder than before.
...Wait. Why?