"...Ah."
Shirou was a little stunned.
On the way here, he had imagined all kinds of possibilities, but he had never expected that the person he came to find was already dead.
Killed eight years ago...
Eight years ago would be the first year of the Heisei era, 1989, right?
Back then, Shirou had only been four.
"That's how it is... The Touko Aozaki you're looking for is already dead.
Sorry. You came all this way for nothing."
With that, Alice Kuonji moved to close the door again.
"...Please wait!"
Shirou quickly reached out and caught the doorframe.
"Sorry."
The moment he noticed Alice Kuonji frown, he immediately let go.
"Would it be possible to let me come in and sit down for a little while?" Shirou asked with a smile.
"Why?" Alice Kuonji's expression made her displeasure plain.
She's the same type as my Leysritt, Shirou thought. The kind who shows exactly what she's feeling on her face.
"I came here all the way from Fuyuki City. I took the bullet train first thing this morning, then walked here from the station.
And after that, it took me almost half an hour to climb from the bottom of the hill up to this place, so..."
Shirou said, "If it's not too much trouble, could you let me come inside and rest for a bit?"
He had originally wanted to add, "There isn't even a convenience store anywhere nearby," but he was not entirely sure this witch in front of him even knew what a convenience store was...
Alice Kuonji looked like someone who had stepped straight out of the Middle Ages. There was not the slightest trace of anything modern about her.
"..."
After hearing his explanation, Alice Kuonji stood in the doorway and stared at him coldly for a long while.
"Come in."
She spoke softly, then turned and walked into the house, leaving Shirou to follow.
"Excuse me."
Shirou hurried after her.
The mansion looked gloomy from the outside, and the inside was just as gray.
Maybe it was the designer's peculiar taste, but there were no electric lights at all from the entrance hall to the staircase.
The only illumination came from sunlight filtering down through the high ceiling.
Even though it was bright and sunny outside, the interior felt dim and somber. On a rainy day, it would probably be as dark as early evening.
And yet, strangely enough, Shirou liked the house a lot. It really felt like the home of a witch.
"Wow, this place is amazing."
He was genuinely impressed, glancing around like an excited child.
"From the floorboards to the furnishings... they all feel properly old. You can really sense the weight of history here."
"Alice-san must spend a lot of time taking care of this place, right?"
"You can tell just by looking that keeping insects out and fighting damp must be a huge amount of work. That's really not easy."
"..."
Alice Kuonji did not say a word from beginning to end. When they turned down the hallway, she even nearly walked straight into the corner.
In the end, Shirou was led into a bright living room.
"Oh... That's a huge TV. Is it thirty inches?
The TV at my house is only twenty one inches. I dragged it back from a junk dealer and repaired it myself."
Alice Kuonji glanced in the direction of the television. "My former housemate left it behind without asking."
So that's why there's such an out of place appliance in here, Shirou thought, while obediently taking a seat on the sofa.
The television did not diminish the room's elegant luxury at all. From the sofa, he could see the beautiful garden outside.
Unfortunately, it looked like no one had trimmed the lawn in years. The weeds in the garden were already half a person's height, so there was not much of a view left to admire.
Alice Kuonji said she would make tea for Shirou, then disappeared down the hall.
…
In the kitchen, Alice Kuonji stared thoughtfully at the kettle as it heated over the fire.
She stood there like a still painting, beautiful and motionless, but her thoughts were anything but calm.
What exactly is wrong with that brat?
The boy from Fuyuki, Shirou.
Judging by his appearance, he looked like he had only just graduated from elementary school.
For a moment she had suspected he might be a Magus disguising himself as a child, but that did not seem to be the case. He really was just a child.
Alice had a great deal of confidence in her judgment on that sort of thing.
Well, children from Magus Families being unusually mature was not all that strange.
Even so, Shirou was only a child, but...
Alice Kuonji found it all very strange, yet she could not quite say what felt so strange about him.
She had been annoyed when someone touched the front door of her house without permission, yet Shirou responded with a smile full of apology.
It was a childish smile, innocent and adorable, but there was also a sincerity and gentleness in it that an ignorant child should not possess.
And the moment she relaxed, even slightly, Alice Kuonji had let Shirou into her home.
That was something she would never have done before.
"..."
Alice Kuonji was absolutely certain she was not the sort of woman Aoko Aozaki was, the type to take a strong interest in males younger than herself. And yet, she felt something very strange when it came to Shirou.
The girl pressed a hand to her chest, trying to calm her pounding heart.
Calm down, Alice.
I must be acting strangely because I have not seen a living human being in far too long.
When was the last time I saw a living person?
Half a year ago, maybe... Mm.
Calm down, Alice.
Don't be fooled.
That brat has been praising the house ever since he came in. He was just trying to flatter me.
Hmph... It was far too obvious.
I'm not falling for it. I won't let you throw my heart into confusion again.
The kettle let out a sharp whistle.
Alice Kuonji hurriedly took out the teapot and skillfully brewed the black tea.
As she walked back toward the living room, she made up her mind.
Next, Shirou would definitely praise her tea too, say it smelled wonderful and tasted wonderful. That was only natural...
Because the tea I make is wonderful and smells wonderful.
No, that isn't the point.
The point is that I am not going to be fooled by your sweet words any further.
I am only serving him one cup of tea. Once Shirou finishes it, I will tell him to leave and send him right back where he came from.
And of course, there will be no snacks with the tea.
"...Huh?"
When Alice Kuonji stepped back into the room, Shirou, who should have been sitting on the sofa watching television, was nowhere to be seen.
Her eyes widened.
Just as she was regretting how easily she had trusted someone and let a complete stranger into her home on their first meeting, she saw something even harder to believe.
"What... what are you doing?"
The girl stared at Shirou's back and asked the question in a trembling voice.
The boy turned around and gave her a shy, embarrassed smile.
"Ah... it looked so messy from the living room, and it felt like a waste of such a nice view, so I thought I'd clean it up a little."
Still crouched in the garden pulling weeds, Shirou added, "I hope I'm not causing you any trouble, Alice-san?"
Alice Kuonji was so stunned she could not speak.
Was it normal for someone to visit another person's house for the first time and immediately run out into the yard to pull weeds?
What kind of thought process did this kid even have?
Shirou noticed the tea set in her hands.
"Oh, the tea's ready? Sorry, I'll go wash my hands and be right back."
The girl frowned. "You're not going to keep pulling weeds?"
"Hm? I can do that later... It'd be a shame if the black tea got cold."
"..."
Alice Kuonji looked at Shirou for a long moment, then lowered her lashes with delicate softness.
"All right, go wash your hands. I prepared some snacks."
...
And so the two of them had tea and snacks together in the bright living room.
Just as Alice Kuonji had expected, Shirou praised the black tea lavishly as he drank it.
The girl simply listened with a blank expression, as if that was only to be expected.
"Amamiya, you..."
The young witch of the mansion looked at the boy sitting on the sofa and suddenly broke the silence.
"Hm?"
"It's nothing."
Alice Kuonji shook her head, her glossy black hair swaying against her pale cheeks.
"Come on, what is it? Stopping halfway through is only going to make me curious."
That seemed to annoy her a little. "Amamiya, you seem pretty used to black tea."
He looks exactly like the sort of country bumpkin who only drinks Japanese tea. Her cute face practically had those words written all over it.
Shirou thought for a moment before answering, "I lived in Britannia for a while before, so I'm fairly used to black tea."
"Huh?"
Alice Kuonji noticed that Shirou had said "Britannia" rather than "England."
Something about it felt odd... no, ever since meeting Shirou, she herself had felt a little off.
As if trying to avoid that feeling, she turned toward the floor to ceiling window.
The view there had originally been blocked by waist-high weeds, but after Shirou's quick cleanup, part of the scenery was visible again.
That lifted her mood a little.
"Are you good at this kind of thing?"
"Yeah. I used to do it a lot back in Britannia."
For a moment, Shirou's thoughts drifted back to the Fairy Kingdom.
At the far end of that otherworldly island of Britannia, in the tiny land known as Orkney...
"Well, if you're living with a witch, I guess it's only natural to get good at this kind of thing."
Alice Kuonji raised a brow. "You say that like you've actually known a real witch."
Shirou just chuckled and said nothing either way.
The tea party ended in a quiet atmosphere.
Shirou got up and headed back toward the garden.
Alice Kuonji returned to the kitchen to brew herself a second pot of black tea, and by the time she came back, Shirou was already sprawled in the weeds, hard at work.
She poured tea from the kettle into her cup, then opened the magecraft book she had brought with her.
Time passed quietly.
Only when she lifted her teacup did Alice Kuonji glance outside.
She had no intention of helping. She simply watched the gardener's every move like a detached observer.
Just as Shirou had boasted earlier, he really was very good at weeding the garden.
In barely half an hour, Shirou had crossed the entire yard and cleared away all the wildly overgrown weeds.
He stood there with his hands on his hips, admiring his handiwork for a while, then left the garden looking completely satisfied, without even leaving a single footprint behind.
"Well then, I should be going for today."
After washing his hands, Shirou said that to Alice Kuonji.
"I promised my family I'd be back before dinner, so if I don't leave now, I might not make it in time."
"...?"
The girl felt the words catch in her throat.
He was leaving?
"...So what exactly did you come here for?"
After working that long, wasn't he trying to get more information out of me about Touko Aozaki?
But Shirou did not seem to have any such intention at all.
He had already accepted Touko Aozaki's death, and he really had only come inside to rest for a while.
Right in front of the witch's stunned expression, Shirou said goodbye and left without the slightest hesitation.
Back in the living room, Alice Kuonji quietly raised her head and gazed out through the window.
The view of the courtyard through the glass reminded her of her hometown ten years ago.
Compared to that time, the garden now was run down enough to be called a wasteland.
And yet, for some reason, the two images overlapped in her mind.
Today, her garden had been given care and attention, and all of that was the result of Shirou's half day of work.
A strange warmth rose in the girl's heart.
Maybe it was not so bad to occasionally interact with other people instead of remaining completely sealed away in her own world.
She realized she had enjoyed that time very much.
That boy had simply worked quietly in the garden, pulling weeds, never trying to intrude on her life...
That feeling of mutual noninterference, of carefully looking after Alice's mood without overstepping, felt deeply comfortable.
Maybe he really had lived with a witch before. The thought surfaced in her mind without warning.
"..."
Alice looked out the window, and a certain passion she had lost long ago flickered back to life in her heart.
But...
It cooled again just as quickly.
There probably would not be a next time.
Starting tomorrow, she would return to her unchanging life.
Return to being the eternal witch, abandoned by the age and forgotten by the world.
"Sorry to bother you again today."
The next day, when Alice Kuonji opened the door, she found the red-haired boy standing there once more.
"Why..." the girl murmured.
Shirou answered, "Vacation started yesterday, so I don't have school."
A hint of panic entered Alice Kuonji's voice. "That's not what I was asking..."
Shirou tilted his head and thought about it. "I just feel really comfortable in this house, so I came to bother you again."
"You came all the way here by bullet train just for that?"
"Yeah. Can I come in? I brought a gift."
As he spoke, Shirou held up some wagashi he had bought that morning at a sweets shop in Fuyuki.
"..."
After a long silence, Alice Kuonji steadied herself and lowered her beautiful head.
"I'll make tea."
...
For the next week after that, Shirou visited the Kuonji mansion on the hill every day.
He and Alice Kuonji would quietly enjoy black tea and sweets in the living room or the sunroom.
Sometimes they turned on the television, sometimes they did not.
It was a space created by the unspoken understanding between the two of them.
Shirou and Alice Kuonji only exchanged a few words now and then, letting time drift by at its own gentle pace.
Shirou also helped clean the house.
Watching the red-haired boy busily working around the mansion, Alice Kuonji felt a complicated, delicate mix of emotions.
Maybe this was what happy times were like.
"Amamiya."
Alice Kuonji closed the book resting on her lap.
"What is it?"
Shirou finally pulled his eyes away from the television.
With an expressionless face, the girl said, "I'll tell you about what happened eight years ago... about how Touko died. You still care about that very much, don't you?"
"I do care, sure, but I don't really want to hear it," Shirou said.
Alice Kuonji's brows drew together slightly. "Why?"
Shirou tilted his head. "Because once you tell me, won't that mean I won't have any reason to keep visiting anymore?"
"....."
The witch felt as if something had pierced straight through her heart.