The Tail End of Spring
Midterms at the Fraussen Federal Magic University were sat one by one, stretched across a little more than a week.
The difficulty varied from lecture to lecture, but on the whole it kept pace with the school's reputation. Which was to say that the exams were hard.
And so, as the midterm period drew nearer, the library filled by degrees with students bowed under thick textbooks and notebooks. By the fifteenth of May—today, at last, ten days before the examinations began—both libraries on the grounds had achieved the splendid feat of being full to the last seat.
"Nngh..."
I stretched, quiet in the hush. I must have lost the hours, sunk as I was in study. The sky, which had been pouring out a clear blue light, was by now steeped in the full color of sunset.
The season was spring. Unlike winter, when the sun drops all at once, the equinox had already passed; if the dusk had come on, evening could not be far.
I set down my pencil and gathered my things.
Meals are all the happier when we share them.
Something Susan had once said, smiling gently. There was still a peculiar pressure in those words, and so no matter how late I studied, I kept the habit of getting home before dinner. I had begun my studies on my own, and being at home did nothing to dull my concentration, so holding to that unspoken rule was no great hardship. Besides, as Susan said, a meal really was more pleasant when everyone ate together.
I slung my bag over my shoulder and stepped out of the library, taking the quiet path behind the building so I could cut quickly toward the main gate.
And that was how I came upon this.
"......"
Someone had collapsed. Could any word have fit the sight better than sprawled?
If a person topples over before your eyes, the courteous thing is usually to slip quietly away and spare them the embarrassment. I went closer instead. The girl who had fallen was not moving at all, and I hurried to raise her and see whether she was conscious.
Or rather, I was about to.
"I don't know who you are, but I'm quite all right. The ground was slippery, and I simply fell."
"!"
A corpse was speaking. No—the girl who had been lying face-down as if dead had opened her mouth.
The ground was anything but slippery. It was dry stone. Even so, she accounted for the situation with elegant composure, not the least shame in her. When I held my tongue, she went on.
"Oh—if it isn't an imposition, might you help me to my feet?"
"Of course."
"......My. You're a boy. Then I shall have to ask you."
Hearing my voice, she smiled with practiced ease. But I knew her, and I could not smile back.
Julia Müller. Daughter of a professor at the magic university, and owner of every epithet that followed from the fact—a freshman the young men were desperate to befriend. What met my eyes now, though, was only two things: the cane rolling on the ground beside her, and that smile, still a performance.
I remembered her body trembling as she stepped down from the carriage on the day of the entrance ceremony. She had not slipped. She had fallen because she could not walk. Perhaps the unruffled tone and the coquetry braided through her laugh were a last, desperate effort to hide so simple a truth. Whatever the truth was, speculation was useless here.
"I'll take your arm."
I caught the arm of the girl lying face-down and drew her up, and in a moment Julia's posture had settled into a modest kneel. Which also meant that she could finally see my face.
"Haa... thank you."
She lifted her head, and the instant she made out who I was, her lips closed. The soft smile cracked a little, and her pale skin flushed red. Shame, no doubt.
"I've made a spectacle of myself twice now."
"Shall I fetch your cane?"
"......If you would."
I picked up the fine silver-topped cane that had been rolling across the ground and held it out to her. Then, quietly, I spoke the word of activation.
⟨ Levitation ⟩
The target was not myself. It was Julia.
"Ah—ah?"
A soft rush of air, and chestnut hair swayed. Light as that frail frame suggested, Julia rose gently into the air. I did not send her high—only to about the height of my waist, so that she floated. I meant to set her on her feet without laying a hand on her.
Grasping my intent, Julia righted herself and set both feet on the ground. Thwack. The moment Levitation released, the weighted cane struck the stone hard, and her stance wavered. But she seemed satisfied with that.
"Thank you for helping me. I won't forget. I'll be sure to repay you."
"There's no need."
"......Hmm."
At that, her eyes narrowed slightly, as if she had seen something interesting. She studied me for a while, and then she smiled. It was a smile befitting the child of a professor, someone set high in the world—the refined carriage, the lips soft and yet firm.
"You're Eugene Oslo, aren't you? I'll see you next time. In Understanding Literary Genres."
With that, Julia passed slowly by my side. Thwack. Tap. The sound of a cane.
"......"
I did not know why she was not in her wheelchair as usual, but her back, walking away into the sunset, was wholly itself—as if she would rather throw a fit and walk on her own, even if it looked like a young animal's first steps, than let anyone support her.
It was familiar. Where had I seen a sight like that?
"Ah."
I remembered. On the road of our flight, I had looked exactly like that.
"Haa."
Barely back in my place, I sat with demure composure and closed my eyes. I wanted to gasp for breath. All I had done was go to the washroom, and yet forcing myself to walk had set my heart pounding and my head spinning. Shame seasoned it further, and my mood plunged. But I had to sit there as if nothing were amiss. Even now, someone in this library was surely watching me—a freshman, an upperclassman, one of Father's fellow professors. Someone, without fail.
Of late my life at the university had grown as tangled as it could get. At the start of the term there had still been a certain awkwardness, and those who approached me were only girls, so I could meet them in silence and be done with it. A month on, things had changed a great deal. Had they grown drunk on the scent of flowers? In recent weeks, more than one or two boys had come to confess their feelings. Among them were no few fools whose true thoughts showed plain on the surface—I could even take in a cripple like you.
I refused them all. And now they had changed their tactics and begun approaching under the pretext of pushing my wheelchair. One or two I might have borne. Watching six or seven of them gather, without so much as my leave, to discuss who would be put in charge of the chair—even I found it hard to swallow my anger.
So I had resolved, boldly, to get by with a cane instead of the wheelchair. Through the daytime I had managed well enough. I never thought I would blunder like this at the very end.
Beneath the desk, my hand clenched tight. I thought of the man who had just helped me up.
"Eugene Oslo."
As I remembered it, the first impression had been the worst. The day of the entrance ceremony, when I had not been well—I could let it pass that he had seen me struggle down from the carriage and settle into the wheelchair. But that man had unmistakably frowned at my smile. My foremost weapon, one no one had ever seen through. A smile I had practiced and practiced until even my own family could not tell it from the real thing—and he had furrowed his brow at it at once.
"......"
I had been a little surprised to learn that he, Eugene, had placed first on the entrance examination. But that was all. Since we enrolled, we had not exchanged a single word. He had not approached me, and I had felt no need to approach him. A boy from outside Fraussen, practically the antonym of a highborn heir—he sometimes kept company only with that delinquent from the Fourth School, and otherwise crossed the grounds alone, given over to his studies. By rights we would never have crossed paths before graduation.
Wait. Perhaps it was a mercy that Eugene, of all people, had witnessed that spectacle. If one of the girls who clung to me had seen it, the rumor would have been all over the school in less than three days. If it had been a boy, he might have used it as a pretext to stick even closer. But Eugene had treated me with a thoroughly businesslike manner, as if he had seen straight through to the fact that this was what I wanted.
"......Heh."
A laugh slipped out. A good idea had come to me. Perhaps I could make use of that man to break out of this situation. If so, there was something I had to do.
A custom configuration.
"Eugene. Mr. Eugene. Sir Eugene."
Just Eugene would be best. The others had an unpleasant ring—and precisely among so many honorifics, a name spoken with none at all would stand out for that very singularity.
And what of my expression? I took out a mirror and tried this face and that. A gentle smile? He had already seen through that on the first day of the entrance ceremony. A bright, lively laugh would have been pleasant enough, but it hardly suited the image I kept at the university.
Yes. I had decided.
A slow, knowing smile.
In the mirror, crimson lips drew a smile as if it had been painted on.
Morning.
"Haa. I'm not late."
Pressed for time, I flung open the door of the Understanding Literary Genres lecture hall and hurried in. I had no friends to greet. I only needed not to catch the professor's eye. Meaning to straighten my clothes without a thought for who might be watching, I started toward an empty seat—and at the same moment:
"Oh my. Running a little late, are we?"
"......Huh?"
For the first time, someone had spoken to me.
"Good morning, Eugene."
Chestnut hair, and a wheelchair. Julia Müller. That small face, unlike usual, was colored with a bewitching smile.