A young voice. The voice of an ordinary young man, at most four or five years older than Alisa.

The laughter faded after a long moment, and the man asked casually:

“If I say no, will you run?”

“Of course I’d run!”

“Then why would I say no. Even if I weren’t, I’d say I was.”

“That’s, well, that’s…… that is true……”

“Isn’t it? Then let’s go inside.”

“Where?”

“I’ll invite you to my home today. A drawing room with a fireplace will be better than the clothing shop for drying clothes.”

Where? His home? Even knowing each other this long — was it all right for her to go there?

While Alisa hesitated, the gentleman in the black top hat walked on ahead.

From across the way, the man waved easily toward her. Even as the people crossing the footbridge passed between them and blocked her view, the hand waving in her direction never came down.

The sun, which had been slightly hidden behind a cloud, chose that moment to emerge. Sunlight poured down over Alisa’s eyelids as she stood rooted to the spot.

“Oh!”

She tried to duck her head and shield herself from the light blazing down from the sky. She would have done exactly that, if she hadn’t caught a glimpse of something glittering across the way.

Beneath the man’s large hat, deep in that dark shadow, blue eyes were visible.

Her heart beat strangely. Her gaze locked in place, and every sense in her body began pointing toward a single thing. Alisa’s feet moved forward on their own.

The thought that the light was blinding her didn’t even cross her mind anymore. If she could just see a little more of it, she felt she wouldn’t mind if her eyes turned the color of the sun.

Her foot was just about to leave the footbridge and touch the road.

A cloud covered the sun. Shadow fell over her head, and the vision that had held her eyes scattered like a mirage. Alisa, who had been walking forward, stopped where she stood.

“Huh?”

Blink. Something ran down beneath her eyelids as she opened them.

“Oh, oh?”

Alisa startled and rubbed her eyes frantically against her sleeve. Her clothes were already soaked through from the rain, so no mark was left, but the stinging sensation on her eyelids wouldn’t go away.

She blinked, bewildered. She couldn’t quite remember what she had been thinking just a moment ago, or what she had seen.

Alisa looked up and gazed across the way. Through her confused vision, she could see the man still standing on the other side. He was in the same position, waiting.

Strange, suspicious, not normal.

But Alisa’s life was already a mess, full of strange things. Adding one man in a black top hat to the mix didn’t seem likely to make things any worse.

“Sir, let’s go together!”

Alisa took a step forward. Gripping the blanket wrapped around her, she crossed the footbridge in one go.

˗ˋˏ ♡ ˎˊ˗

The third floor of the clothing shop, reached by following the gentleman in the black top hat, was furnished no differently from an ordinary home. Alisa stepped into the drawing room and settled into a chair by the fireplace.

The man tossed a few more logs into the fireplace and asked:

“Cocoa? Or tea?”

“Coco…… no, no, you don’t have to bother!”

“All right. Cocoa.”

He answered with a smile in his voice and stepped out of the drawing room.

His footsteps faded, and Alisa slowly looked around the room.

The gracefully curved mahogany furniture, the fireplace decorated all the way up to the chimney, the tapestries adorning the floor and walls, the chandelier hanging from the ceiling — not a single thing was anything less than antique. It felt almost like stepping into a past several hundred years gone.

And on top of that, a cat……

“A cat?”

Alisa’s eyes went wide.

She wasn’t seeing things. A white cat with a little bell was genuinely padding around at her feet.

“You……!”

Alisa jumped to her feet.

No matter how she looked at it, this was the same cat that had been showing up in the back yard and coaxing fish scraps out of her meager household. If she had known it lived in a place this spacious and lovely, she never would have gone to the trouble of sneaking fish for it!

Mrow. The white cat walked over and sat down in front of the fireplace. It had been perfectly happy to acknowledge her at the estate, and now it acted as though Alisa didn’t exist.

Alisa pulled her chair a little closer to the fireplace and sat down near the cat. She even gave a little wave in its direction. Still the cat paid her no attention whatsoever.

“Hey! Look over here! Look at me!”

She forgot all about being tense in an unfamiliar place and focused entirely on getting the cat’s attention. She was just about to inch one step closer to the fireplace when she heard the man’s voice from behind.

“Come here, Snow.”

The cat, which hadn’t budged for anyone, immediately got up and walked with great dignity toward the man who had appeared behind her. Then it rubbed its head against his palm!

Alisa, who had been diligently feeding it all this time and received nothing but cold indifference in return, felt a burning sense of injustice. She was staring with wide eyes and trembling when the man turned his head toward her.

“Have you seen Snow somewhere before?”

“She started coming to the back yard of our house at some point…… I thought her owner wasn’t feeding her, so I’d been bringing her food……”

“That explains it. I kept reducing her portions and still she kept getting rounder.”

The man clicked his tongue and looked at the fish Snow was eating. Snow seemed to sense danger, because she snatched up the fish in a flash and bolted outside.

“Oh, the cat……”

“Leave her. She’ll find her way back once she’s done eating. A cat who gets fed well at other people’s houses needs no worrying over. You only needs to worry about yourself.”

“I eat perfectly well, thank you.”

“I’d be very interested to hear the opinion of the young lady’s arms and legs on the matter.”

The man gestured toward her stick-thin limbs.

Alisa bristled all over again at that look of concern, as though she were a small child. She was doing her absolute best to eat everything available at every meal. That there wasn’t enough food was hardly her fault.

“My arms and legs would like to ask after the health of the gentleman’s hair. Trapped under a hat all day — it might be falling out from the stress.”

“When you’ve gone home, I shall look in the mirror and ask after it with great sincerity.”

The man fired back without giving an inch. His satisfied smile was so infuriating that Alisa couldn’t say a word and settled for glaring at him in secret.

While Alisa burned with competitive spirit all on her own, the man pulled a chair up beside the fireplace and sat down, making a suggestion:

“Why not stay for dinner? If you have the time, of course.”

“Hmm…… only if you promise to take your hat off when you come to dinner.”

“Then I’ll take it that you’re leaving after the cocoa.”

She had tried her luck, and the answer was merciless. Alisa puffed up with indignation, then caught herself and was startled to realize she was feeling hurt by him.

She reined in the softness that had crept in without her noticing.

“Once my clothes are dry I’ll leave right……”

“I’m joking. I’ve already told them to prepare a dessert you’ll like, so you absolutely must stay and eat it. If you really won’t, I’ll have it wrapped up for you to take.”

Alisa’s face went red the moment she realized she’d been teased. She whipped her head around and stared fixedly at the burning logs in the fireplace, and from beside her came the sound of quiet, amused laughter.

She had thought he was a stiff, old-fashioned gentleman who kept strictly to propriety — but today showed her that wasn’t quite right.

Feeling slightly put out, Alisa asked:

“Do you normally just bring anyone home like this?”

“Hardly. Admitting a guest who hasn’t arranged a visit in advance is a dreadful breach of social etiquette.”

“Then what about me? You brought me home because I’m not a guest?”

“Not a guest, she says. What a hurtful thing to say.”

The man murmured in a low voice and stood up. He pressed his hat down with one hand and looked down at Alisa.

Looking up from below, his face should have been visible without any shadow in the way. And yet his features still couldn’t be seen. His neck, his jaw, his lips. That was where it ended.

Even so, Alisa felt she knew what kind of eyes he was looking at her with.