53 - Can I Cry Now?
53
"Professor?"
Clois snapped out of his thoughts at the sound of Ibi's voice calling him, tilting her head.
"Ah, yes. Did you receive the gift well?"
"Yes! I was originally going to write a letter to you, Professor. To thank you for sending me such a precious thing. But I couldn't write the letter well... so I came to thank you in person!"
Ibi stepped down from the bench and bowed deeply.
Clois quietly watched her.
He had spent days agonizing over choosing that gift all by himself.
He sent the Magic Stone, driven by a rare stubbornness, at the remark that he was deliberately sending something precious so that the child under his care wouldn't feel inferior.
Until he sent it, he was quite confident.
No matter how good the things everyone else sent were, who else would have sent a Magic Stone?
But later, at the meeting, from the moment the people who sent gifts said, "After all, what children like is also important," Clois's confidence crumbled and disappeared.
'...Is there a child who would be happy to receive a Magic Stone?'
Unless they were like Seraphina, who would crawl out of bed even in the middle of the night for a Magic Stone, what use would a Magic Stone be to a young child?
He regretted whether it would have been better to send crayons in hundreds of colors or pretty clothes, but it was too late.
But to receive thanks like this.
He was proud, but his worries didn't easily disappear.
"If there's anything else you'd like to receive, you can feel free to tell me."
As he spoke cautiously, Ibi jumped up as if it were unthinkable.
"No! I really like the Magic Stone! It's warm and bright, so I'm not scared when I sleep now! I was holding it like this before I came out...!"
Ibi even pretended to hold the Magic Stone in her arms as she answered, and only then did Clois's face soften.
Just from Ibi's attitude, he could feel that she really liked it.
Besides, she said she wasn't scared at night because of it. Wasn't that what he had hoped for when he sent it?
"I'm glad you liked it."
He smiled and lightly patted Ibi's head.
Was she happy about that? The child smiled brightly again, her eyes crinkling.
It was a smile that tickled the deepest part of his heart in a strange way.
Then, as if she had remembered something, Ibi asked him a question.
"By the way, Professor, where is your office? I asked the people at the faculty affairs office, but no one knew."
"......!"
At that question, Clois's heart sank.
Seraphina had already mentioned this issue.
\ \ \
"Your Majesty! A Magic Stone! As a gift for a child! Good heavens!"
Seraphina, having thrown away all etiquette, came into the office almost crying.
With a half-resigned heart, Clois let her continue to talk.
"You have no idea how chaotic it was. I heard the report and grabbed the back of my neck. A Magic Stone as an admission gift to the Academy for the Gifted. Really, this is unprecedented..."
Seraphina told him that the Academy for the Gifted had been turned upside down because of it.
"No, you should have given me a heads-up before sending it. Then I would have delivered it quietly. How much gossip there is because of this..."
"Did any problems arise?"
"Of course, there were problems. First of all, people are looking for who Sian Roshen is."
It was a natural thing.
To send a wonderful Magic Stone, which even wealthy nobles find difficult to obtain, as a child's gift.
They would be curious about the child who received it, but they would be even more curious about the person who sent it.
"I've made up some excuses for now. That he's a professor hired for research purposes and doesn't teach classes. And that he's still looking for a house in the capital, so his address isn't certain. But if nothing continues to be seen, it will arouse suspicion."
"So. Is there any way?"
"Rather than a method... it seems like we have to pretend there is one."
"How?"
"We should create a professor's office in a building that people don't use often. There's an easier way too."
"What is it?"
"Change the guardian."
At those words, Clois raised his head and looked at Seraphina.
"Change?"
"As the word says, change the guardian to someone else."
"I put up a fictitious person because there was no suitable person?"
"That's how it was at first. But someone has appeared who will be the guardian instead. Professor Malles, who is crazy about mathematics... no, a person who has made a great contribution to the development of imperial mathematics. He's also my teacher."
"Malles? Hmm, a name I remember."
"You will. He's the one who wrote the new Advanced Mathematics Textbook."
"Ah."
Clois also used to study with that book in the past.
To be the one who wrote the book that will become the basic textbook for the entire empire. It would be hard to find someone more suitable as a guardian than that.
"Professor Malles sees Ibi's potential very highly."
"Potential?"
"She's the child who entered as the vice-chairman after Arcel, right? Other classes will slowly start now, but according to Professor Malles, she's really a child worth teaching. Actually, he's my teacher, but he has a bad personality and hates humans... suddenly, he's making a fuss about writing a new, easier Advanced Mathematics Textbook. It seems the child had a hard time."
A sly smile hung on Seraphina's face as she spoke excitedly.
"Thanks to that, the words that he was going to retire have disappeared, and it's very good. Hehe."
It seemed that she wanted her teacher to work a little more.
"Anyway, he's perfect as a guardian. He'll always be staying at the Academy for the Gifted, so it'll be easy to take care of Ibi if anything happens. So change it to Professor Malles..."
"No. I'll think about it."
"Yes? I thought you would agree right away?"
Seraphina muttered as if she didn't understand.
But Clois didn't answer. No, he couldn't answer.
He also didn't know exactly why he was against changing the guardian.
'If I change it...'
The child will get a strong guardian.
And Sian Roshen, the professor she only saw once, will be forgotten forever.
That's the right thing to do.
He and that child have no reason to meet again, and they shouldn't.
He knew all that, but Clois didn't want to give up the name Sian Roshen.
\ \ \
He snapped out of his thoughts of his work with Seraphina at the sight of Ibi's gaze staring at him.
"Ah, contact information. That's..."
After thinking for a moment, he opened his mouth as if he had made up his mind.
"A professor's office will be prepared soon. If you have anything to ask or anything, you can leave a letter there, and I'll check it."
"Really? Then can I see you in the Academy for the Gifted now?"
"Yes. But I'll hardly be staying there."
At those words, Ibi's expression, which had been happy until just now, changed to a sullen one.
It was definitely the right thing to feel sorry while looking at such an expression.
But strangely, Clois couldn't help but smile at the fact that the child wanted to see him.
Ibi didn't know, but it was a soft smile that he hadn't made in the past few years.
\ \ *
After that, Ibi and Clois talked for a long time.
In fact, it was more like Ibi was talking all the time.
"So, Arcel and Ruska are eating like this, and a roasted chicken disappears in front of their eyes in an instant..."
Ibi sat on the bench and explained the amazing sight she had seen during the day.
Clois sat next to her and watched Ibi.
He asked if the Academy for the Gifted was worth attending and if there were any interesting things, and from then on, Ibi explained to him without a break what had happened in the meantime.
If the State Affairs Minister or other officials were in this place, they would have been surprised and gagged Ibi.
Originally, Clois extremely disliked talking about anything other than what he had to say.
So, even at meetings, if someone who didn't know him well came in and made unnecessary words of praise, he would immediately cut them off, saying, "Say what you have to say and leave."
But now he was listening to Ibi's chatter with interest, as if he were listening to the most interesting story in the world.
He wasn't just listening.
"What's on the menu at the Academy for the Gifted these days?"
He would ask things like this that Ibi could explain.
Thanks to that, Ibi realized that he was interested in what she was saying and explained it even more excitedly.
"...So I tried it for the first time today. It was really delicious! Irene shared it with me... Ah! That's right! Irene!"
Ibi, who had been explaining for a long time, jumped up from her seat.
The moment she said Irene's name, she remembered who she had been waiting for before she came here.
Just in time, the chimes of the clock tower rang in the distance.
