PandoraHearts ~Caucus Race~, Vol. 2 (6 page)

He’d been distracted by Ada’s approach, and all he’d managed to see of the white cat was its back.

It might have been holding the dropped bookmark in its mouth. He couldn’t think of anywhere else the bookmark could have gotten to. If the cat had left the school grounds, it was all over. His chances of getting that bookmark back were near zero.

Leo said absently, “Well, there’s no help for that. It wasn’t important, anyway. Let’s just forget about it.”

“………Like I could do that.”

Elliot’s answer was cross: It had been a present from Leo, and yet Leo didn’t seem bothered at all.

“Yeah, but it really, really wasn’t anything important, and—”

“Look! I’m responsible for losing it. Besides, you gave…!”

When he’d gone that far, he stopped.

There was no telling how Leo interpreted the words that hadn’t been said.

“In that case, I’ll help you look. Just until it gets dark. If we still haven’t found it by then, you give up, too.”

At those words, Elliot looked up at the sky.

It had been cloudy since morning, and even though it was still evening, it was already gloomy. Leo’s “until it gets dark” hadn’t been sarcastic. It had been a pragmatic decision: After it got dark, it would be very hard to search. Elliot had been planning to look for it by himself if he had to, but—

“…We’d better hurry,” he muttered, his voice low.

He bowed his head, looking at the ground, and thought. Even if they were only searching on campus, where would a cat go? Probably somewhere where people weren’t likely to see it, which meant… As he racked his brains, Leo tugged at his sleeve.

“I’m thinking.” He brushed Leo’s hand off.

“—Say, Elliot. That cat was white, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah.”

“With a ribbon around its neck.”

“Yeah.”

As he answered absently, Elliot thought,
Did I tell him about the ribbon?

“Then I see it. That’s Moon.”

At Leo’s words, Elliot’s face came up sharply. Leo was pointing at a corner of the back garden, and there was the white cat. It looked at Elliot and Leo and gave a soft mew. It didn’t have the bookmark in its mouth. Elliot thought it might have hidden it somewhere.

In that case, they’d have to get it to lead them to it, no matter what.

“Elli—”

“Shh!”

Elliot cut Leo off, hushing him. He crouched down, putting himself on the cat’s eye level. Although it had been incredibly friendly before, it must have sensed their desperation to catch it: The white cat stayed motionless, watching the two of them to see what they’d do.

Elliot beckoned to it with his fingers:
Here, kitty. C’mere.
But the white cat still didn’t move.

“Do you think we could use this?”

Leo took a small candy drop from his pocket and held it out to Elliot. Elliot had no idea whether cats could eat candy, but the colorful wrapper might get its attention. He took it from Leo, held the end of the wrapper, and wiggled it back and forth so the cat would see it.

The effect was instantaneous.

Tup-tup-tup-tup!
The cat came running up to him.

……Here it comes!

Elliot was nervous. He couldn’t mess up. He had to reel it in with the candy and catch it, or else—

The white cat leapt at the candy.

Just before it connected, Elliot whisked the candy up high and out of the way, dodging the cat. The cat looked up at Elliot and mewed. It seemed disappointed.

Elliot felt a twinge in his chest. The white cat jumped again. Elliot moved his hand, evading. Jump, evade. Jump, evade. As this repeated over and over, Elliot felt an indescribable ticklish sensation.

“Too bad! I’m not letting you get it that easily, ah-ha-ha-ha!”

After he’d played with the cat for a while, Elliot said, “There!” and tossed the candy onto the ground.

As if it had been given a toy, the cat batted the candy around with its front paws and stepped on it lightly, pinning it down.

The little guy really is cute…

Elliot’s eyes crinkled in a blissful smile.

Leo watched him, steadily.

“Huh?!” Registering Leo’s significant gaze, Elliot came back to himself with a jolt.

Remembering his original goal, he hastily turned to Leo.

“No! You’ve got it all wrong, Leo. I’m just, uh, lulling the cat into getting careless, and then I’ll—”

“…………Elliot.”

“I’m telling you, that isn’t it—”

“The cat’s getting away.”

“
!?”

Leo’s cool voice made him glance at the white cat. He was just in time to see it running down the path that led from the back garden to the dorms, with the candy in its mouth. “Wait!!” Elliot ran after the cat. Sensing Elliot’s approach, the cat sped up as if it had been stung.

“Have a good trip.”

Leo was waving a hand, nonchalantly. “You come, too!” Elliot roared. Several students spotted Elliot sprinting for the boys’ dorm, and the fact that
the
Elliot Nightray had been seen running somewhere with murder in his eyes later became a topic of discussion, but that’s another story.

“Elliot sure has lots of energy.”

Leo, who’d been left behind in the back garden, murmured to himself. Then he started walking, a little faster than normal.

“Dammit, I lost it……!”

Elliot spat the words out. He’d just reached the front of the dorm. He supposed he shouldn’t have expected anything less from the speed of an animal’s legs.

Elliot scanned the area, his eyes sharp, but when he didn’t see even a shadow of the white cat, he turned back to the path he’d come up. He could see Leo walking toward him, still quite a ways away. Leo was looking from side to side as he walked, and when Elliot told him with gestures that it wasn’t there, he nodded.

Elliot got his ragged breathing under control. Finally, Leo caught up.

“At least we know it’s still on campus. That’s something, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, but…”

Elliot’s reply was sullen. After thinking for a little, he turned to Leo with a question.

“Hey, Leo, could we try to catch it with bait agai—”

“Aaaaaaugh!”

Just then, they heard a muffled voice from inside the dorm.

The sound was faint, coming to them as it did through the wall of the building, but Elliot and Leo did hear it.

A scream?
They looked at each other.

“Gerald?!”

When Elliot and Leo stepped into the dorm’s entry hall, they saw a student crumpled at the foot of the stairs.

It was Gerald, the prefect.

Elliot ran over to him. The boy was moaning, as if he was in pain. Calling his name, Elliot helped him sit up.

Leo glanced at the staircase that led to the second floor and murmured, “I wonder if he slipped.”

“No……” Gerald insisted; his voice was hoarse.

“No?” Leo cocked his head, perplexed.

“I was pushed… They pushed me down.”

“Somebody pushed you?” Elliot echoed.

If that was true, it was a bit too serious to qualify as a prank.

Apparently, Gerald had been pushed from the fifth step or so, fairly low on the stairs. Elliot and Leo had assumed he’d been pushed from the landing, and they felt this was a bit of an anticlimax. “But it really hurt!” Gerald stressed during his explanation.

True, he seemed to have gotten away with bruises this time, but if he’d hit the wrong place, his injuries could have been much worse. When Elliot asked if he’d seen the person who’d pushed him, Gerald shook his head in frustration. Apparently he’d been pushed suddenly from behind, so he hadn’t seen.

“What kind of jerk would pull a stunt like that?” Elliot spit out.

“Mm.” Leo nodded in agreement.

“…It was…probably this guy.”

Gerald took a folded scrap of paper from his breast pocket. It looked as if it had been torn from one of the notebooks used in class. When Elliot took it and opened it, he saw a message written in an intentionally clumsy hand:

Resign from being prefect

“What’s this…?” Elliot looked puzzled.

Gerald said that it had been slipped under the door to his room a few days ago.

Looking down at what Elliot held, Leo muttered, “Could be a threatening letter…” If the words were taken at face value, then the sender of the note was someone who couldn’t stand to see Gerald in the prefect’s seat and refused to allow it. Just as Elliot was wondering who that would be, Gerald spoke with obvious hatred:

“It’s Marcel.”

Elliot narrowed his eyes sharply. Leo looked thoughtful.

“It’s got to be him,” Gerald declared categorically.

Gerald thought it would make sense if Marcel was the culprit. He imagined Marcel had a motive… That he wanted to damage Gerald.

Malice, enmity, or…revenge?

In which case…

“…Gerald, you…”

As he questioned Gerald, all concern was gone from Elliot’s voice.

Even as he flinched a little bit at that voice, Gerald glared back aggressively, as if determined not to seem weak in front of a younger student. “What?!”

Elliot continued. “About Marcel. Did you—”

Just as he was about to check what he’d heard last week from Leo, it happened. He heard tiny footsteps:
Tup-tup-tup
.

They were coming from near the door to the entry hall. Elliot started, turning to look at the door, and there was the white cat.

In its mouth it held, not the candy, but the bookmark. A second later, Leo noticed it, too: “Oh.”

The white cat slipped out through the crack in the door.

“…Suh…”

Elliot stared at the door, his shoulders trembling.

“Sorry, gotta go
!!”

Elliot had been supporting Gerald, but he practically shoved him away and ran out the door.

Gerald, who hadn’t noticed the cat and now found himself abruptly and roughly dumped on the floor, had no idea what was happening and looked severely put off. His expression said,
Hunh?!

After a short while, he looked up at Leo as if hoping for an explanation.

“Aw…”

Leo scratched at his cheek in embarrassment and looked down at Gerald, as if asking for understanding.

“He’s got a little too much energy.”

“……………………”

The bewilderment in Gerald’s expression deepened. He was silent. Leo spoke to him, cheerfully: “Still, that was lucky, wasn’t it, Gerald-senpai? You escaped.” Still confused, Gerald nodded.