PandoraHearts ~Caucus Race~, Vol. 2 (12 page)

If I wait here, Elliot-kun and Leo-kun should pass by…

She murmured the words in her heart.

Ada was watching the students who crossed in front of her, dazedly, but her mind was elsewhere. She was remembering that night.

The first day of Discipline Reinforcement Week. When she’d met Elliot and Leo behind the girls’ dorm.

She’d patrolled the inside of the school briefly and had been on her way back to the dorm when her pet cat, Snowdrop, had leapt out from a thicket beside her. Ada had been terribly startled; she’d thought he was waiting for her at home. It would have been awful if anyone had seen him, so she’d picked him up and gone around to the back of the dorm.

Then the wall of the girls’ dorm had opened up and those two had emerged. Ada had been horribly startled.

When he saw Ada, Elliot had also looked startled. Then he’d seen Snowdrop.

He’d yelled,
“You’re the owner?”
at her.

And then—

He got awfully mad at me.

After he’d yelled, Eliot had stomped over to her and, still glaring at Ada, gently removed the bookmark from Snowdrop’s jaws.

Snowdrop had been holding a bookmark, and Ada had wondered whose it was.

“Oh, that bookmark…”

“It’s mine! If you’re his owner, watch him properly! Better yet, don’t bring him to school! In case you didn’t know, let me fill you in: The academy isn’t a second Vessalius residence! And anyway, you’ve shown up everywhere I go today, and all you do is get in the way. You’re an eyesore! Hey, are you listening to me?! Get that vacant look off your face!”

…And so on and so forth, for a very long time.

She thought it was probably the first time she’d ever been criticized so acidly and at such length. Ada had been engulfed
by Elliot’s fury, and she’d just stood there, silently, and let him take her to task.

How long had Elliot angrily chewed her out, shaking his friend off when he tried to restrain him?

Finally, possibly because he’d run out of complaints, he’d left with an irritated snort.

After being showered with complaints and abuse for so long, Ada had come to understand something. She knew she might not be very perceptive, but even she’d understood. He might have yelled at her because of the trouble Snowdrop had caused him, but Elliot hadn’t liked her to begin with.

Ada knew about the discord between the House of Vessalius and the House of Nightray. However, she’d thought that, as long as she didn’t pay any attention to it, it wouldn’t matter at all, wouldn’t be anything to do with her.

She’d wanted to be friends with him simply because he was
his
little brother, and she’d thought that she could.

That hadn’t been the case.

“…Onii-chan…” Ada murmured, quietly.

“I wonder if you could be friends with Elliot-kun…”

She was proud of her big brother. He was intelligent and cheerful, a clever conversationalist, good-looking and reliable, and if
he
tried…he might have been able to step right over the discord between the two houses and talk freely with Elliot. At that thought, Ada shook her head.

She was acting spoiled. Even though she knew she needed to do her best with what she had—

…But what should she do?

“………Haaah.” Another sigh.

Ada dropped her gaze to the floor of the corridor and thought.

I’ve had them take care of Snowdrop and Kitty properly at home since then…

She’d asked the servants to watch them and make sure they didn’t leave the house. As a result, since that day, the cats hadn’t come to school once. Ada was still mulling over whether or not this was something she should keep up next week.

She thought some more.

Since then, I haven’t spoken to Elliot-kun.

Ada and Elliot were in different years, and as a rule, they almost never interacted. She’d only seen him at school a few times, and if their eyes met, he just glared at her. There really hadn’t been any way for her to speak to him.

I still haven’t…apologized.

She hadn’t apologized for the trouble Snowdrop had caused him. When he’d yelled at her, Ada had just stood there silently, and she’d been in such a daze that, as Elliot and Leo had left, she hadn’t been able to speak to them.

Even if he did hate her. Even if they couldn’t be friends. Even so.

I have to apologize properly—

As Ada hung her head, she heard the sound of footsteps traveling through the corridor.

Abruptly, two of the sets of footsteps stopped beside Ada.

Ada looked up.

Her eyes met Elliot’s, who’d stopped nearby and was glaring at her. Leo was beside him.

“Oh, Elli—”

Just as she spoke his name, she remembered she’d been told not to say it casually, and she faltered.

Her reaction alone had probably been enough to tell Elliot she’d been waiting for him. Elliot’s expression was cross; he only shot a sharp glance at Ada, then made as if to leave. Just as Leo asked him, “Are you sure?” Ada spoke:

“Um, I’m sorry!” She said it vigorously, bowing her head low.

Elliot stopped again and said, “…What do you want?” He sounded irritated.

“Snowdrop caused trouble for you, and I hadn’t apologized yet.”

“…Is that all?”

Elliot spoke coldly. Ada nodded, timidly.

“I don’t need an apology. Come on, Leo.”

From his tone, Ada couldn’t tell if he’d forgiven her or if her apology had been rejected entirely. Prompting Leo to move, Elliot began walking away from Ada. Her eyes fell on the book he had in his hand.

“
Holy Knight
—”

At Ada’s words, Elliot glanced back. Ada hadn’t expected him to turn, and she hastily said:

“Oh, um, when— When I was little, someone read a children’s edition to me… My big brother had the whole Holy Knight series in his room. He really liked it… I-I’m sure you’d have lots to talk about—”

Ada had involuntarily grown talkative, but under Elliot’s prickly gaze, she trailed off.

“Do you seriously think I’d sit down and chat with a Vessalius man? Anyway, the guy’s dead.”

“Elliot. A little tact?”

Leo reprimanded him. Elliot turned away in a huff, and Ada shook her head. “It’s all right, Leo-kun.” Elliot moved away from Ada, as if he had no more to discuss. As he walked off with Leo, without looking back, he spoke:

“Who was your brother’s favorite character?”

“Huh?” Ada was at a loss.

Elliot had sounded as though he’d asked about something he wasn’t very interested in, just for the sake of asking. He looked as if he’d leave right away if Ada didn’t answer.

Ada hadn’t read
Holy Knight
since her brother’s disappearance. She didn’t know much about the characters, and her memories were vague, but… She had heard her brother talk about his favorite character. She was fairly sure it had been one of the two characters at the center of the story. Their names were Edgar and Edwin.

One was the protagonist, and one was his valet. —Which had it been?

Flustered and feeling as if she had to say something quickly, before Elliot left, Ada ventured an answer, working from her hazy memories:

“I-I think it was Edwin-san.”

In that instant, Elliot smiled… Or Ada thought he had.

He wasn’t looking at her, so all she saw was a change in the air around him, so slight she thought she might have imagined it. …But.

“I see. Well, if you’d said Edgar, the valet, there really wouldn’t have been any help for him.”

“I-I think…that was it.” Ada really wasn’t confident.

“Never mind. Just because I talked to you a little, don’t think you can just walk up and talk to me next time.”

On that cold note, Elliot left with Leo. Left behind, as she watched them go, Ada ended up thinking it anyway: In a corner of her heart, she thought of her vanished brother. If it had been him. If he were here.

If onii-chan were here, he and Elliot-kun might—

Might overcome the discord between the two houses. Might turn the relationship between the Vessaliuses and the Nightrays…into something good.

Ada thought, as if she was praying to something far away.

THAT SAME DAY, AFTER SCHOOL.

In a corner of the Lutwidge Academy quadrangle was a brick terrace. Girls wandered onto this terrace, with its rows of three-legged tables, one or two at a time. Greeting each other with “Good day to you,” they took their seats. Finally, Josephine arrived as well and settled herself at one of the tables.

“Good day to you,” the others said, and Josephine returned the greeting. The girls at the tables were the members of the disbanded Blue Rose Club.

However, even when all the seats were filled with girls, Josephine didn’t begin the meeting. Quietly, she opened her volume of poetry, listening happily to the conversations at the tables as she read. Of the voices, Mia’s stood out with particular clarity.

In animated tones, she was talking about how Elliot had looked when she’d seen him that day. Bright voices interjected from around her, and laughter rose here and there.

I really am glad
, Josephine thought.

That day, in the common room. Elliot and Leo had told them that the Blue Rose Club must disband. Josephine had been having a difficult time accepting this, when Leo had whispered in her ear:

“If individual girls happen to follow Elliot with their eyes, then talk about it, they’re free to do so. And, if those people happen to meet each other, by accident, they might begin to have fun discussing the same topic. Several such people might even gather in the same place. …Every once in a while.”

Yes: The Blue Rose Club was no more.

The students gathered around the tables just happened to be girls who admired the same student. That was all. As a result, Josephine didn’t declare the beginning of any meeting, and she didn’t lead.

“And so, you see, just then, Master Blue Ro— I mean Elliot-senpai, was terribly gallant!”

As the name they’d decided not to use anymore almost slipped out, Mia stuck out her tongue slightly.

Josephine found the sight charming.

There was no order: Each individual simply spoke as she pleased, and listened, and the time passed peacefully. When the girls seemed to have finished talking, and the terrace was enveloped in an atmosphere of satisfaction, Josephine closed her book of poems.

“All right, ladies. Shall we?”

Her words were met with a delighted, collective “Yes.” Josephine made her announcement:

“Let the first meeting of The Society of Young Ladies who Admire Master Black Rose—the Black Rose Club—begin.”

“Nn? What’s the matter, Leo?”

Elliot, who’d been lying on his bed in their room in the boys’ dorm, spoke to Leo, who was sitting on the floor reading a mystery. Leo, who was immersed in the story, had suddenly shivered and hunched his shoulders up, as if he’d grown cold.

“Oh, no, it’s nothing.”

As he murmured, Leo looked around uneasily. His expression didn’t seem entirely convinced.

“…I just got this abrupt chill.”

Elliot had stormed into the common room.

Leo had followed him in.

Leo had covered for Elliot’s fierce, stubborn actions with intelligent words, calmly and easily, and as they watched him, the hearts of the girls of the Blue Rose Club had beaten faster. “Master Black Rose” was the courtesy title they’d bestowed on Leo.

“Now then. Although this is the monumental first meeting of the Black Rose Club, there is one thing we must do first.”

At Josephine’s words, the girls nodded, and their eyes turned toward a certain empty seat at one of the three-legged tables. It was the seat where Matilda, the consistently inconspicuous member of the Blue Rose Club, had often sat.

Matilda…or rather, the male student Marcel, wouldn’t be appearing here anymore. He’d said so himself.

“Elliot-kun is kind. Back then, he said, ‘You’re
not yet
worth hitting.’ ‘Not yet.’ I want to become the type of guy who’s worth hitting… A guy who can fight, who can meet him on equal terms. …And so I’m going to quit looking at him simply as someone to idolize.”