As soon as I entered the room, I looked at the bed.
If I lay down there now, it would be over.
Days like this were always like that.
You think, I’ll just rest my body for a second, lie down, and when you open your eyes, curfew is over, the sun is up, the birds are chirping and flitting around all excited, and only the bastards who ought to have stayed hidden have finished moving about to their hearts’ content.
And the guy who missed it ends up picking through scraps of ledgers later, thinking stupid regrets like, Ah, I should’ve gone back then.
I’m not very fond of stupid regrets.
That doesn’t mean I’ve never had them. It means I hate them because I’ve had plenty.
I perched on the chair in front of the desk and pulled the half-burned scrap of paper from my pocket.
…student assignment roster
Great.
The problem was that no matter how much I raised hell with this one word in hand, I couldn’t do anything.
It was too small to call physical evidence, but too unsettling to brush off as coincidence.
To be precise.
If I forced open that storeroom door and went in now, whatever was inside, the odds were higher that I’d be buried and killed before I even saw it.
I placed the scrap of paper on the desk and tapped it twice with my finger.
This wasn’t a matter of courage.
If I got caught, it was over.
And if that “over” only meant being called to the student council and scolded, that would be a mercy.
I saw it in the corridor today.
This school could make a place where someone had nearly been crushed to death disappear as if it had never happened in less than an hour.
Then erasing one person should be possible too.
Very naturally.
With a single phrase like, “It’s been dealt with.”
I swallowed a sigh and laid out tonight’s route in my head again.
The front entrance corridor was out.
Even after curfew, a knight and a patrol assistant passed through once each.
The front entrance was bright, the floor was wide, and there was nowhere to hide.
On the other hand, the west storeroom side was dark, but that meant anyone there without a reason would stand out even more.
Then there was only one answer.
The laundry delivery passage behind the dormitory.
During the day, it was the path servants used to push laundry and linens around. At night, it was almost empty.
It was also close to the west connecting door of the main building.
Less conspicuous than going in through the front entrance, and good for slipping under the west stairs.
The problem was that the path was narrow.
If it got blocked once, there wasn’t even room to turn around.
And as soon as I passed the connecting door, I’d be in the main building corridor, so if my timing was off, I’d be exposed right in the middle before I could even cling to the shadows.
Good.
As expected, places good for hiding people were also good for catching people.
I leaned back in the chair and closed my eyes.
There were five things to check tonight.
Whether that storeroom opened tonight too.
Who opened it.
Whether there was one key or two.
How many times the patrol made its rounds.
And where the first sound came from in front of the storeroom.
Then the door was knocked on twice.
A very short, familiar rhythm.
“Come in.”
When the door opened, Mia poked her face in.
And when I saw what she was holding, I stopped talking for a moment.
It was bread.
More precisely, half a piece of bread.
“What’s that?”
Mia stepped into the room and closed the door.
“Bread.”
“I know that much.”
“Good bread.”
“It’s half.”
At those words, the tips of Mia’s ears moved ever so slightly.
Her tail peeked out behind her, then quickly curled back in.
“On the way here.”
“Yeah.”
“I gave in to temptation.”
I shut my mouth for a moment.
Great.
And in the middle of all this, she confessed that so boldly.
“It was originally one whole piece.”
Then Mia handed me the remaining bread.
“You’re giving me what’s left?”
“Yeah.”
Her answer came so quickly it was actually more suspicious.
I reached out and took the bread.
It wasn’t warm, but it wasn’t soggy yet either.
A faint scent of butter remained.
At a glance, it was exactly the kind Mia would like.
Sweet, soft, and with a slightly rich finish.
“You like this, don’t you?”
“I do.”
“Then why give it to me?”
Mia briefly averted her gaze.
Her tail moved once behind her, then stopped.
“Just because.”
I looked down at the bread once.
Then I looked at Mia.
She was the one who’d handed it over, but her tail was making it painfully obvious she was full of regret.
Good.
No, what’s good about that?
It was cute, though.
“You eat it.”
“No.”
“You want to eat it.”
“No.”
The lie came out immediately.
The problem was that her tail was honest.
I deliberately brought the bread up to my mouth once, then stopped.
Mia’s gaze went to the bread.
Then back to my face.
Then to the bread again.
In the end, I let out a small laugh and put the bread back in Mia’s hand.
“Eat it.”
“Really?”
“Hurry up and eat. Don’t leave the smell behind.”
As soon as I said that, her tail sprang to life.
As if the dejection from just moments ago had been a lie.
Mia took the bread and looked genuinely happy.
Even right before taking a bite, she looked up at me once, paused as if asking permission again, then finally took a big bite.
“Is it good?”
“Yeah.”
“Must be nice.”
“Nice.”
This time, it sounded like the words came out because she was truly enjoying herself.
I gave a hollow laugh and stood up.
“Once you’re done, we’ll talk.”
Mia hurriedly finished the rest of the bread and brushed the crumbs off her hands.
Her ears and tail both looked much more relaxed than before.
In that state, the moment I picked up the scrap of paper on the desk, Mia’s expression sank again.
“It still smells.”
“Like what?”
“Sealing wax. Burned paper. Cloth. Somewhere that’s been shut for a long time. And…”
Mia wrinkled her nose very slightly.
“The smell of something handled by lots of people.”
Meaning it wasn’t just the smell of a document.
It had been touched, chosen, and discarded over and over by people.
I folded the scrap of paper again and put it in my pocket.
“We’re not going straight in.”
“Yeah.”
“We’ll circle around through the laundry passage behind the dormitory.”
“Yeah.”
“Once we pass that passage and enter near the back door of the main building, we’ll be able to see the west stairs right away, so we’ll hide nearby.”
“Yeah.”
“Tonight, we’ll first watch who goes in there.”
Mia stayed quiet even after hearing that much.
Then, at the end, she opened her mouth.
“One more thing.”
“What?”
“When you move around at night from now on.”
Mia looked straight at me.
“Promise you’ll always include me.”
I reflexively started to brush it off, then stopped.
“Out of nowhere?”
She wasn’t wearing a joking expression.
It was completely different from when she’d been eating the bread earlier.
Her eyes were too direct.
“You can’t smell, Senior.”
If I tried to laugh it off at a time like this, it would only get more complicated.
“Got it.”
“Really?”
“I won’t go around at night without you.”
At those words, the tips of Mia’s ears moved ever so slightly.
I couldn’t tell if she was pleased, relieved, or both.
“Good.”
“You’re still pushing that?”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“Because it suits.”
“Who?”
“Me.”
Great.
She really was going to push it all the way to the end.
After curfew was fully in effect and quite some time had passed, we moved.
The laundry passage behind the dormitory was empty, just as expected.
During the day, it would have been full of waterlogged cloth, servants’ curses, and the smell of detergent, but at night it felt strangely hollow.
Only the dampness left on the walls, the scent of dried soap, and faint wheel tracks from wooden carts remained.
The back door of the main building was open.
When I saw that, I swallowed a curse.
This school was so earnest about tightening the leash on students, talking about rules and dignity on the surface, yet the servants’ routes were this sloppy.
No, it wasn’t that they were sloppy. They just didn’t care.
People in high places rarely look at doors they don’t use.
Once we passed through the back door and stepped into the main building, the air changed completely.
Unlike during the day, the main building at night didn’t feel like a school. It felt like a haunted house.
Empty corridors.
Moonlight caught halfway on the windows.
The smell of dust.
The cold sheen unique to a floor polished for many years.
The occasional sound of wood contracting in the distance.
Even the sound of breathing felt needlessly loud.
Without speaking, we turned into the west corridor.
Before we reached the storeroom, a black line briefly passed through my sight.
Not the doorknob.
The floor.
One of the three planks in the corridor in front of the storeroom.
At a glance, it was slightly raised.
I hadn’t seen it during the day, but at night it was clearer.
I lightly stopped Mia with my hand, avoided the plank that would make noise, and slipped into the shadow by the stairs.
Mia followed right after me.
Her breathing was very close.
The two of us waited there for a long time.
Just when I couldn’t tell how much time had passed, footsteps sounded from the end of the corridor.
Two student council aides.
This time, they weren’t carrying boxes, but a thin file and one small pouch.
One took out a key, and the other checked the surroundings.
The door opened.
Click.
A short whisper.
Shadows going in and out.
And then.
A very faint burning smell.
I understood immediately.
This wasn’t a storage room.
It was a sorting room.
A room where they sorted out on paper who would live and who would die,
then separated them accordingly.
Even after the student council aides came back out, locked the door, and left, we didn’t move.
Only after the sound of patrol footsteps passed once more, and the sound of another door closing in the distance ended, did we crawl out.
When I approached the storeroom, the floor was a little dirtier.
Black powder I hadn’t seen during the day had piled up more beneath the door.
I lowered myself and swept the area nearby.
A small metal fragment caught on my fingertip.
A piece of a key tooth.
A trace that someone had broken a spare key in the inner lock.
Good.
That meant there wasn’t only one door.
Beside it, a bit more pitch-black, scorched paper ash had accumulated.
At this point, I could probably pick the door tonight.
But that would be insane.
Whatever was inside, if I forced it open now, I’d die before I saw it.
This school was always like that.
Hidden events got you caught faster than they got discovered.
I picked up the metal fragment.
Then I muttered very quietly.
“We’ll have to wake Erka.”
When I muttered that, Mia immediately grabbed my sleeve.
“Now?”
“Now.”
“Without going in?”
“Picking the door right now would be insane.”
“Senior is originally that type, though.”
It annoyed me more because she wasn’t wrong.
I looked down again at the metal fragment in my hand.
A small piece of a key tooth.
The scorched paper ash beside it.
This was enough to mean there was another door, or at least that they had an inner lock separate from the key used outside.
If I stupidly tried to force it here and made even the slightest sound, it was over.
And if “over” only meant getting scolded, that would be a mercy.
“Are you listening?”
Mia tugged my sleeve once more.
I looked one last time beneath the storeroom door and stood up.
“Stay here.”
“No.”
“Here we go again.”
“I don’t want to.”
Mia wrinkled her nose very slightly.
Her gaze, which had been on the west storeroom door, rose back to my face.
“Because Senior might go do something weird by yourself again.”
“I’m not going to do something weird. I’m going to wake someone up.”
“Visiting a girl’s room in the middle of the night is weirder.”
Ah.
She had a point.
I pressed my lips together once.
“That’s true, but Erka needs to see this.”
“I saw it too.”
“You saw the smell.”
“You don’t see smells.”
“Anyway.”
I held up the metal fragment in front of Mia’s eyes.
“This isn’t something your nose can solve.
And even if I pull with all my strength, it won’t open.”
Mia shut her mouth for a moment.
Then she asked very quietly.
“Then you’re telling me to stay here alone?”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t want to.”
“I know. But if we both go back and forth together, we’ll stand out more.”
I scanned both ends of the corridor once more.
It was quiet in the distance, but not completely safe.
Even now, the sound of patrol footsteps occasionally rose and broke off from somewhere.
“Hide near the stairs, run if you’re discovered, and if I take too long to come back, leave first.”
“How long?”
“About thirty minutes…?”
“That’s long.”
Mia looked displeased.
Her ears drooped a little, and her tail seemed to lose strength too.
Great.
The good mood from eating bread earlier was already completely gone.
I swallowed a sigh and added,
“I’ll buy you two of the breads you were eating earlier.”
At those words, Mia’s expression softened ever so slightly.
I couldn’t tell if she was pleased, relieved, or both.
“Three.”
“Fine.”
“Then come back quickly.”
“As quickly as I can.”
“Not as quickly as you can.”
“Got it. Quickly.”
Only then did Mia let go of my sleeve.
I placed Mia back inside the shadow by the stairs, then retraced the path we had taken and slipped out through the back door of the main building.
Going in and out of the main building twice at night was truly insane.
But opening the storeroom door right now was even more insane.
If I had to choose between two insane things, I had to choose the less insane one.
The road back to the dormitory felt even longer than before.
Empty corridors, closed room doors, the smell of dust and cold wood.
It was the kind of hour when it felt like I was the only living thing there.
When I arrived in front of Erka’s room, I stopped and looked at the door for a moment.
Good.
Looks like I really am about to knock on a girl’s door in the middle of the night.
Still, there was no other choice.
The person behind that door could read this lock the fastest right now.
I knocked on the door twice.
A brief silence.
Then a curse immediately flew out from inside.
“Who is it? Do you know what time it is, you crazy—”
When I knocked once more, the cursing grew longer.
“What time do you think it is, banging on someone else’s door—!”
The third time I knocked, the door flew open.
And a cushion came flying first.
I instinctively tilted my head and dodged it.
The cushion hit the corridor wall once and fell.
Erka stood in the gap of the door.
Her hair was half disheveled, she hadn’t even properly put on her outer garment, and her expression was absolutely foul.
Great.
As expected, waking her up meant getting cursed at first.
“Who the hell is it at this hour, with no manners!!!”
“Me.”
“I can see that! I’m asking why you’re here!”
“It’s nothing much.”
“You woke up a sleeping person at this hour for nothing much?!”
Erka looked like she was really about to close the door, so instead of answering, I held out my hand first.
The half-burned scrap of paper.
And the metal fragment.
Erka’s gaze went first to the paper, then dropped to the metal.