It was probably a summer day.

It must have been a very large window, Eunice thinks, though by now, even he isn’t so sure.

When he was a child… back when he was much smaller, when his hair was much longer, everything around him seemed strangely oversized. When he sat in a chair, his heels still didn’t touch the ground. He couldn’t reach the higher shelves of the bookcases. The unfamiliar places his parents took him to felt like castles built in secret by creatures whose names he didn’t know.

But at the very least, to him at the time, that window seemed large enough to reflect half the sky that stretched across this star.

Thinking back to how intensely blue that sky was, how white the sunlight was—

It must have been a summer day.

“……”

Silently, Eunice swung his feet, gazing at the sky beyond the window.

Birds were flying. White, or perhaps reflecting the color of the sky, blue. Moving in flocks, their sizes didn't seem to change much, so to Eunice, they didn’t look like a gathering of family, but rather a gathering of friends.

Something he didn’t have.

“――So that means――this school――impossible――”

“Very difficult――however, Eunice――at our institution――”

“……”

Faint voices drifted in from the room his parents had just entered.

There was no mistaking his mother and father’s voices. As for the third voice, it was probably the white-haired man who had guided them here earlier.

Once again, things were not going well.

Eunice didn’t know what they were talking about. But whenever his parents spoke in that particular tone, it almost certainly meant that some kind of issue had arisen—and most of the time, he was the cause of it. He had learned that fact well enough to be sick of it. Accumulated experience always led his young mind effortlessly to the conclusion, and in most cases, that conclusion wasn’t wrong.

His parents, and his much older siblings, always told him, “Don’t worry about it.”

Even so, there was a limit to how oblivious one could be. And as the body and heart continued to grow, that limit—the ceiling—only got lower and lower.

He knew he was causing trouble.

But how to stop it—

That, he still didn’t know.

“――You shouldn’t look directly at the sun for too long.”

“――Huh?”

The sudden voice felt like a scolding.

Eunice flinched, his shoulders trembling slightly. Cautiously, he turned to look at the person who had, at some point, come to stand beside him.

It was a woman with deep indigo hair.

At the time, Eunice had no concept of estimating people’s ages based on their faces, so he would only later learn her age from the person herself. Back then, she was in her early thirties.

Her calm demeanor didn’t seem to have changed much from then to now. Or perhaps, because he had been so young at the time, he had perceived her as more mature than she actually was. Now, Eunice looks back on that moment and wonders.

“It will hurt your eyes. If you plan to use them for a long time, you should take care of them.”

“Ah, um… s-sorry.”

He apologized reflexively.

Talking to people outside his family rarely led to good outcomes.

They wouldn’t understand what he was saying. They’d think he was making fun of them. He’d either get laughed at or scolded. It was almost always one of those two outcomes. That was why he had grown to dislike speaking to strangers in the first place.

“I’m not angry.”

But she—

“I was just worried. …Would you mind if I sit next to you?”

“Y-yes.”

“Thank you. Then, I’ll take a seat.”

With those calm, low words, she slowly sat down beside him.

At first, she said nothing.

She simply looked out the window, just as he had been doing. And so, even though Eunice had been tense from the sudden appearance of this unfamiliar person, he gradually began to accept her presence. Bit by bit, the stiffness in his shoulders eased.

It was only then that she finally spoke.

“‘The Sky of Dragons.’”

“Huh?”

“You like it, don’t you? Or am I wrong?”

Why—

Without thinking, Eunice muttered.

“Why do you know that?”

“Just a little trick. I didn’t read your mind, nor is it magic. I simply know a little more about you than you know about me. That’s all I needed to make an educated guess.”

“The Sky of Dragons.”

A fairy tale.

Surely, anyone who could read even a little would know of it. Children encountered it in picture books. A story that famous.

Eunice had read it over and over, countless times.

But how did she…? If it was a trick, was it something he could figure out with a little thought? As he pondered this,

“Your test results were excellent.”

“Huh?”

The topic suddenly shifted.

“Your parents understand you well. They had already discussed with the school about your ‘prior experience’ and the ‘possibility of skipping grades.’ Thanks to that, the headmaster was able to prepare various problems to assess your abilities. However—”

She snapped her fingers. Like a magic trick, a single sheet of paper appeared in her palm.

“Let me ask—what score do you think you got?”

“…A perfect score.”

“You sound confident.”

It wasn’t confidence, exactly.

Eunice knew that responding to a teacher about test scores usually didn’t lead to good results.

But he also knew that if he didn’t answer, they would just be exasperated.

“…There wasn’t anything I didn’t know.”

“That’s right. If only you had written your name, it would have been perfect.”

She handed him the paper.

A test sheet.

The one he had been told to complete in three hours but had finished in a tenth of that time.

The name field was outlined in red, yet beside it, a ‘100’ and a flower mark were written.

“Your name.”

“Hm?”

“I didn’t think I needed to write it. No one else was taking the test.”

Since there was no way they could mistake it for someone else's.

His voice trailed off at the end, mumbling.

Whenever he expressed his thoughts, no matter how logical they seemed to him, he always got scolded.

Yet—

“…That makes sense.”

She said.

“Test names are mostly for identification. If there’s only one test-taker, there’s room to argue that a name isn’t necessary. My mistake—I take it back. ‘This is perfect.’”

Her serious tone caught him off guard, making him stare in surprise.

She continued.

“Unfortunately, this magic school isn’t designed to accommodate someone who can ‘solve problems at this level in under twenty minutes’ and also ‘has magical proficiency shallow enough for magical outbursts to occur.’”

“…So that means—”

Eunice understood.

“I can’t enroll in this school, can I?”

“That’s right. So, I came to ask—‘Would you like to come with me instead?’”

“Huh?”

Her voice, steady as waves lapping at the shore, guided him forward.

And Eunice followed.

Once, he glanced back.

The summer window no longer held any birds.