PandoraHearts ~Caucus Race~, Vol. 2 (5 page)

…Which meant it shouldn’t be gone. And yet.

Leo seemed to have thought the same thing. He cocked his head as if to say,
That’s odd.

“When was the last time you saw it?”

“Oh, it was…”

Elliot scanned his memory.

“I opened the book in the back garden while I was waiting for you… It was then.”

“I see. Then it must’ve happened after that, while you were on your way back here. Did anything unusual happen?”

“Unusual… Ada Vessalius talked to me.”

He spoke after a momentary silence, making no attempt to hide his bad mood. Leo gave a small, surprised, “Huh.” He followed it with, “That
is
strange,” but Elliot said nothing. He was remembering his exchange with Ada. Even though she’d been nervous, Ada had given him a gentle smile.

“Don’t say my name like we’re friends.”

She’d spoken to him, and he’d rejected her sharply.

He didn’t know whether Ada had understood why he’d been so harsh with her. However, even after having been rebuffed in that fashion, Ada hadn’t immediately tried to leave.

She might have had something she wanted to ask… Something she wanted to talk about. As far as Elliot was concerned, though, he had nothing to discuss with a Vessalius. And so, as Ada stood her ground, fidgeting and looking as if she were searching for the right words, he said it:

“I’m waiting for somebody here. You’re in the way. Get lost.”

At Elliot’s ruthless words, Ada had said, “Oh, um, well, I’ll see you later, then, Elliot-kun.” On that carefree note, wearing a smile that had probably taken everything she had to summon, she went back into the school building.

Did she take that attitude even though she knew about the
discord between the House of Nightray and the House of Vessalius, and that they were on nothing resembling good terms? …Or did she act like that because she didn’t know?

Either way
, Elliot thought.

“That girl’s about as sharp as a marble.”

His mutter drew a “Hey” from Leo.

“You’re talking about an upperclassman.”

“Like I care?”

“Didn’t you scold younger students for not respecting an upperclassman just last week?”

Leo spoke reprovingly. For a moment, Elliot saw red; he shot a glance at him.

“That was different.”

“Oh, so it doesn’t matter when it’s
you.
I didn’t know you were the sort who could compartmentalize your head like that. I hear it’s really convenient.”

At that, Leo stepped away from Elliot. His tone had been indifferent, but he’d as good as said,
I know you really know better.
Elliot was exasperated by Leo’s attitude, but he couldn’t find a comeback.

“—And? Could you have dropped it then?”

Leo smoothly set the conversation back on track.

Elliot, feeling rather off-balance, searched his memory.

He hadn’t been able to leave immediately, not after he’d run Ada off by telling her he was waiting for someone, so he’d dutifully stood there for a few minutes. When, as expected, Leo hadn’t come back, he’d left the back garden and returned to the boys’ dorm. If he’d dropped it then, there was no way he wouldn’t have noticed.

“……No,” he concluded briefly.

Leo folded his arms. “Hmmm…”

Elliot also looked as if he was thinking hard. However, at Leo’s next, casual words, his expression froze.

“Anything else? Did something happen before or after that?”

Mew, mew.

“……‘Moon’…”

He’d accidentally said the word aloud, and he shut his mouth hastily. Leo looked perplexed: “???”

“Moon? …Like the one in the sky, you mean??”

“Nuh, no, it’s nothing. I didn’t mean that…”

He didn’t know what he should say.

When the white cat had appeared, and he’d messed around with it for a while…

It was true that, right then, he’d forgotten about the book. He’d been holding it under his elbow, and he wasn’t entirely sure that he hadn’t come pretty close to dropping it a few times. No, he thought he probably had. …But if he said that to Leo…

The things Leo would say…

Elliot’s gaze swam. It would have been obvious to anyone that he was being evasive.

All he said was, “…I…might have dropped it.”

“While you were playing with the cat?”

Leo’s careless bombshell startled Elliot so much he thought his brain might boil over. His field of vision seemed to somersault.

He was confused, and upset, and his face was bright, bright red—

“Y-y-y-y-you jerk!! You were watching that, Leo?!”

He grabbed Leo’s shirtfront as violently as if he meant to hit him.

If he’d been seen, it would have been the blunder of a lifetime… No, much worse than that. If… If he’d been spotted enjoying himself that much, with his guard completely down…

He’d lose every last shred of his prestige as a master!

“Elliot, calm down.”

Moving nonchalantly, even though he was being shaken back and forth by the flustered Elliot, Leo dropped the corner of the book he was holding onto his master’s head. The motion was casual, but it had serious power behind it. Elliot yelped in pain, but it soon turned to anger; determined to give as good as he got, he glared fiercely at Leo and raised his fist.

Just as he did so—

“You’ve got animal hair on your uniform. It’s white, so it doesn’t stand out, but it’s there.”

At Leo’s words, Elliot froze.

“I didn’t see what happened, so the rest is inference. The hair is short, so it’s probably cat hair. If you think you might have dropped the bookmark then, you were probably playing so enthusiastically that you forgot about the book. …And it looks like I was right. You really are easy to read.”

“……Ngkl…”

“Ah, I made you say ‘uncle.’”

Leo sounded rather pleased.

Then he smacked his palm with a fist and said, “Oh, I see,” as if inspiration had just struck. With no idea what was going on, Elliot flinched. Leo—obviously entertained—spoke with the refreshed expression and tone of a detective who’d just solved a cold case:

“So ‘Moon’ is a name? Elliot. That cat. Did you—”

“Don’t say iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit!!”

A devastating punch flew at Leo.

—Still.

Leo wasn’t the type to stand there and let himself be
punched, and, as was only natural, Elliot’s fists were met with a counterattack.

The dramatic cloud of dust raised by the conflict was nothing anyone would expect from a master and valet.

Sometimes these things happen.

AFTER SHE’D LEFT ELLIOT.

Ada was walking down one of the school corridors. Her shoulders drooped slightly.

“Elliot-kun……”

She murmured the name of the boy who’d chased her out of the back garden.

Elliot Nightray. He was a boy in a different school year, but Ada had known his name since he began attending the academy. After all, like Ada, he was a child of the four great dukedoms, and they were going to the same school. And, as had happened with her, his name had traveled throughout the school soon after he entered it.

Possibly because they were in different years, they’d never directly interacted before. As a result, she hadn’t known what his personality was like.

However, she’d heard the girls in her class happily talking about how he’d helped them when they were in trouble, and this had created a diagram in Ada’s mind: “Elliot-kun = Good person.”

Since that was the case, although it had taken a little courage for her to speak to him for the first time, she hadn’t been reluctant to do so.

“Haaah……”

Ada sighed. She hadn’t expected to be refused so roughly.

Why?
she wondered. She didn’t understand.

But maybe—

Elliot had said he was waiting for someone.
“So get lost
,
”
he’d said.

Ordinarily, you wouldn’t shoo away anyone else who happened to be in the area just because you were waiting for someone.

…Which meant…?

Place: A deserted back garden.

Person: Someone he didn’t want to be seen meeting.

Meaning… He’d been embarrassed?

Could it be—?!

“A secret date…or something?”

As soon as she’d murmured it, Ada’s cheeks flushed, and she gave a quiet little scream.

In that case, she thought, she really had put her foot in it.

Of course she’d been scolded. What terrible timing!

Time spent with a beloved someone was precious. In that situation, Ada wouldn’t have wanted anyone to disturb her, either. As she walked down the corridor, Ada fancied she felt her chest growing warm. She hadn’t spoken to Elliot today simply because he was also a child of the four great dukedoms.

“He’s his……little brother—”

The face of a young man from the House of Nightray, a man whom Ada had recently begun to think of as someone special, rose in her mind’s eye.

That alone was enough to bring happiness bubbling up inside her.

“Hee-hee!” Ada had begun to scatter a girlish aura, a smile on her pretty lips. Then, spotting another disciplinary
committee member walking up the corridor toward her, she gasped. It was a school patrol. The same task that had taken Ada to the back garden.

Oh no
, she thought. It was entirely possible that some other committee member would go to the back garden, as she had.

She had to stop them.

She had to protect Elliot-kun’s secret date, his special time.

As someone else who was in love!

“
!”

Ada ran up to the disciplinary committee member and barred their way, arms spread wide. It was a gesture so abrupt that the student’s eyes went wide. Ada ignored this, speaking emphatically:

“There’s nothing in the back garden. Absolutely nothing. You don’t have to go there, and in fact you really mustn’t. Do you understand? There is really and truly nothing whatsoever in the back garden, so don’t worry about it!”

Ada walked off smartly—she thought—to go tell the other committee members.

But then she turned around again, sharply.

“There is absolutely nothing back there, understand?!”

She drove her point home to the student—who was staring at her, dazed—with a sparkling, triumphant face.

AFTER THE KNOCK-DOWN, DRAG-OUT
FIGHT IN THE BOYS’ DORM.

As Elliot, with a sticking plaster on his nose, and Leo, with a bruise on his cheek, made for the back garden, they passed several students. As a rule, almost no one used the back
garden as a shortcut from the school building to the dorms. …Except for today, apparently.

When they reached the back garden, several students were already there. A few of them seemed to be from the disciplinary committee. Every student was looking curiously around the area, and they all seemed a bit dissatisfied.
What happened?
Elliot wondered.

“…Why is this place so popular all of a sudden?” he asked, keeping his voice down.

Leo only said, “Search me,” and looked perplexed.

At first he thought the white cat might have caused a disturbance, but a look at the students told him that wasn’t it.

“…It’s not here.”

Elliot casually looked around the garden, but, as expected, he didn’t see the cat. He peered into the shadows of the flower bed, too, but the cat hadn’t been heavy enough to leave decent footprints.

After a little while, the students who’d been in the back garden returned to the school building, looking puzzled. When they asked one of the students, they were told that somebody had been kicking up a fuss in the school about something-or-other in the back garden. It had sounded like something interesting was going on, so they’d come out to see, but there hadn’t been anything at all. What a letdown.

Elliot had no idea what it all meant. However, he was a bit irritated with whoever it was for having done something so uncalled for.

In the now-deserted back garden, Elliot knit his brow, wondering what to do.

“It may have gone off campus already,” Leo murmured. “…The cat.”

Feeling as if it was too late to hide anything at this point, Elliot had told him everything.