A Blanket

People, as a rule, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠learn something new from experience. The same holds even for students who would rather take their knowledge from books than from life itself. Being far removed from experience is no license to scorn it; those who do are dismissed as book-bound, and they fall behind of their own accord.

As if to prove the point, I was learning from experience once again.

"This time I'll be the one asking. Who are you?"

If someone seizes you by the collar and puts a question like that to you when you haven't done anything particularly wrong, answering becomes a remarkably awkward business.

"......"

Lena's scowling face was close enough that our noses might have touched. She was nearly two heads shorter than I was, so even grabbing my collar required her to rise onto her toes. I could have shaken her off without the slightest trouble if I chose, but I had no wish to deepen a needless misunderstanding. Slowly, I raised both hands.

"Just—calm down first."

"......Answer the question. What do you do?"

"Hm."

Her head must have cooled in that brief interval; honorifics had returned to her mouth. Answer well now, and I ought to be able to clear the misunderstanding without incident.

And yet.

Where was I supposed to begin?

That I had lived as Benjamin's student. The crossing. Or, further back than either, the fact that I was from the Empire. Not one of those things could be let past my lips carelessly.

When I hesitated, Lena put still more strength into her grip.

"I told you to answer!"

That was when it happened.

Creeeak—

The door of the house before us opened slowly, and a human silhouette emerged from within. A woman entering her later years. Gently curved eyes, and clothing that carried the full sense of a life being lived. Cutting through that mild air was a certain detached impression, and it struck me as remarkably like someone I knew.

The older woman looked from me to Lena and back, then spoke again.

"Lena. I heard a fuss outside and wondered what was the matter. What in the world is going on?"

"Ah—Mother."

Mother.

So this was Benjamin's wife. Susan Oslo.

Visibly flustered, Lena let go of the collar she had been clutching and began to flounder. In a sense it was only natural. Just as I had not known what to say to her question, she had no way to explain the situation so long as she did not know who I was.

Things had tangled badly from the very first. Here, the one who had invited the confusion ought to step forward.

I brushed past Lena's right side and took a step ahead.

"......?"

A suspicious look shot toward me from her, but I paid it no mind. I laid one arm across my chest, bowed respectfully at the waist, and offered my greeting to Susan, who stood in the entry at the top of the steps.

"It's a pleasure to meet you. My name is Eugene."

"Eugene?"

A brief silence.

"......It can't be."

Eyes wide, Susan hurriedly took in the whole of me. If I were to list what fell within that gaze, it would come to about this: a traveling bag that looked as though it had come from far away, a face still marked by coal-mine labor, and ash-gray hair. And decisively, Susan would know the name Eugene.

A moment later, as if she had put the facts together, astonishment spread across her face. She stepped aside and opened the front door wide.

"Lena. And Eugene. Come in."

"M-Mother?!"

"Lena."

Shh. Susan set her index finger to her lips.

"Come inside, dear."

The house I stepped into for the first time gave off a familiar air. It was a two-story home. Wooden furniture steeped in the passage of years stood throughout rooms papered in shades of green, and indoors a faint floral scent lingered for no reason I could name. A cozy space that felt lived in.

The layout was surely different, and so were the people who lived here, and yet looking at this house called up the Oslo house in Lehman.

At Susan's urging I sat on the living-room sofa and let myself travel as far as I liked into the images of memory.

"......"

"......"

At least while my thoughts were elsewhere, I didn't have to mind Lena, seated primly on the single sofa nearby and glaring at me.

A cold silence.

There was a limit to escaping reality by way of old memories. I turned my gaze and looked over the house again.

It resembled the house in Lehman, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠but the main house in Fraussen was far larger. Hadn't he said there were five daughters? Even setting Benjamin and Dorothy aside, that meant five people lived here. Of course they would need many rooms and a great deal of space.

I was thinking that when I turned my head toward the stairs.

Something was there.

"......?"

A peek.

Halfway up the staircase, through the gap between the banisters, I found two pairs of eyes looking at me. Green eyes that resembled each other exactly. They must have thought they were stealing a look in secret; the instant our gazes met they startled, then scrambled up the stairs and vanished.

Puzzlement aside, I thought I knew who those two children were. The fourth and the fifth. The youngest daughters of the Oslo family—twins, most likely.

I considered speaking to them, but with Lena's sharp gaze fixed on me, it was not easy to act.

"Did I keep you waiting?"

The chilly air that had seemed as though it might last forever broke when Susan returned from the kitchen. In her hand was a teapot full of that floral scent. With a soft pour she filled three cups with fragrant tea, then slowly parted her lips.

"I received a letter about a week ago. It said that 'Eugene' had left to board a ship bound for the Federation."

"......I see."

So Benjamin had written a new letter. I had been certain she recognized the name Eugene because of the letter he said he had sent long before.

"A telegram might be different, but the post has to cross the sea, so it takes time to arrive. More than a month had passed beyond the day he was said to have left, and with no word I had quietly worried that the crossing might have failed."

Susan looked at me with a gentle smile.

"You've been through quite an ordeal, haven't you."

Faint smears of soot still clung here and there on my skin, and at my fingertips. They were faint enough that a casual glance might miss them, yet they had apparently shown themselves to Susan's eyes. I nodded slowly.

Meanwhile Lena, who had not grasped the situation, was tilting her head with a strange expression.

"......Mother. So who is he?"

"Oh my. 'He'? I could have sworn I heard something about a stalker, and 'what sort of fellow is this.'"

"Wha— I didn't say 'what sort of fellow'..."

Seeing her clench her fists and tremble, I wondered whether this sort of thing happened often.

"Yes. This isn't a matter for teasing."

Susan set her smile aside and brought the matter to a close.

"Eugene Oslo. Nineteen. He studied magic under Benjamin from three years ago, then came over to the Federation. He's your older brother."

I started.

Eugene Oslo.

A name that bore their family name. It meant Benjamin had used that name in the letter, and that Susan had accepted, without ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a moment's hesitation, a new member of the family whose face she had never seen.

"......"

Was it really all right for me to be taken in so easily as one of the Oslos?

There was one other person thinking something similar.

"My older brother?"

"Yes."

"And if it's from three years ago. And if he came over to the Federation."

"Mm. You can tell from the gray hair, can't you? He's from the Empire."

Susan explained it piece by piece, but it was plain this was not the sort of thing one came to accept merely by being led to understand it slowly. Watching Lena, who had begun to sip her tea with a trembling hand, she regarded her with gentle eyes and whispered to me.

"I'm sorry. I never told the children much about the letter. Please understand if she's a little surprised."

"Not at all."

Susan didn't seem to realize it—that I was startled even more than Lena.

An Imperial. I was someone who had been told, times beyond counting, that gray hair alone meant the blood of barbarians. On nothing more than the color of one's hair, people of the Federation laid their disgust and contempt bare without restraint.

But this family was different.

Susan, who had spoken the word Empire herself, and Lena, suddenly faced with a man of the Empire. In neither attitude could I find the least trace of loathing. Even Lena's dismay looked like nothing more than confusion at the fact that an Imperial man who had appeared out of nowhere was her older brother.

Did the two of them know? Benjamin and Dorothy—and even now, how much help and comfort I was receiving from the Oslo family.

I decided at once.

I was an Imperial, and an outsider. More precious than being called older brother was that this close-knit family go on with its peaceful days.

I finished the rest of my tea, then set ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the cup down on purpose so that it sounded. Once I had confirmed that both their eyes were on me, I rose slowly from my seat.

"It was good to meet you today."

"What are you saying?"

I had not the slightest thought of throwing them into confusion, or of holding out my hand. It would be a discourtesy to the Oslo family, who had raised and cared for a beggar boy from under a bridge. The next time I knocked on this door would be after I had properly settled in Fraussen and entered the university.

I set that intention carefully in order and conveyed it to Susan and Lena.

But what came back was a reaction nothing like what I had expected.

"Eugene. It seems you have a serious misunderstanding about family."

With a grave expression, Susan caught my hand.

Listening to Susan's quiet admonition, I found myself seated on the sofa again before I knew it.

I thought I had heard something similar in the winter of three years ago. Unless a person lived with a bonfire cradled in the chest, how could they share a warmth like this?

I was on the verge of nodding, moved by her words, when—

"......I object."

A voice that barely crawled out.

Lena, who had been listening to Susan with her head hung low, cast out that single line and climbed the stairs without a backward glance.

Susan smiled bitterly.

"Lena's trouble is that she loves her family too much."