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A Ghost Scattering Flowers – Part 03

Translator: Kell

“’There is an urgent need to shed light on this bizarre incident.’ That’s the end of the article.”

When he finished reading, Kazuya folded the newspaper and put it in his pocket.

He crouched down and peered into Victorique’s small and smooth porcelain face.

“Victorique?”

A faint groan.

“Were you listening?”

“Sort of,” Victorique replied listlessly.

She got up, slowly and wearily, and snorted through her pretty small nose. She stretched her slender arms; her tiny frame extended surprisingly long. A moment later, it returned to normal.

“Well? What do you think?” Kazuya asked.

“Not enough fragments of chaos. The story has too many holes, Kujou.”

“R-Really? S-Sorry.”

“Apologies won’t cut it.”

“What?! S-Seriously?”

“Of course. So either dance or sing for me as an apology.”

Kazuya lowered the parasol and took a deep breath, but when he realized how unreasonable the demand was, he closed his mouth. Just as he was about to give the tyrannical, spoiled, mean Victorique a piece of his mind, he sensed something approaching from afar.

The sound of breathing and small footsteps.

Kazuya and Victorique raised their heads at the same time and saw a cute dog scurrying across the grass toward them.

Kazuya gaped at the animal that had suddenly appeared out of nowhere. Victorique lifted her body up and watched the dog with expressionless, jade-green eyes.

“Quite adorable,” Victorique mumbled.

Kazuya glanced at her ruthless small face, startled at the unexpected remark. Victorique’s expression changed, just slightly, into what seemed like a smile. The white dog ran up to Victorique and pressed its black nose to her small, pretty nose, sniffing her.

Then it wagged its tail.

Victorique looked a little delighted. If she had a tail, she might have given it a little wag as well.

The white dog looked up at Kazuya. For some reason, it growled, then ran off back in the direction it had come from. Its white fur rippled under the bright summer sun as it receded into the distance.

“Whose dog was that?”

“Who knows?”

The summer sun was beating down on them today too.

The long, long summer vacation had just begun, and both Victorique and Kazuya were taking it easy on the grass.

A few days later, noon.

A peaceful village near St. Marguerite Academy.

Kazuya was walking along a corner of the village, where red geraniums glittered brightly in the midsummer sun. He bought a few things, plain and simple stationery, some modest clothes, and resumed walking alone with his back straight.

A shaggy horse pulling a wagon neighed as it overtook him.

Village girls were chatting in front of a store, giggling and nudging each other. As Kazuya strode past them, he stopped in his tracks.

“Right! I need to buy a bigger parasol!”

He entered the store filled with young girls, a little bashfully. He found several parasols large enough to hold three or four adults and began to rummage through them with a grim look on his face.

When a village girl spotted him, she asked, “Are you looking for something?”

Startled, Kazuya turned around, back straight. “Yes. Um, I’m looking for a big parasol.” He paused for a moment to think. “Preferably white or pink, with pretty ruffles.”

“What?”

The village girls exchanged curious glances. After much racket, explaining everything to an older staff, they picked out the biggest, frilliest, pure-white parasol.

“Are you using it?”

“Uh, no. It’s for, um, a-a friend,” Kazuya replied stiffly.

Being surrounded by several girls made him a little nervous. As he was leaving the store, he spotted a small wooden object in the corner that looked like a cage. It was elegantly decorated, surrounded by thin wood, with an open ceiling.

“Um, what’s this?”

A female staff sighed. “It’s for little dogs and cats.”

“Dogs?”

“Yeah. So they don’t leave. Only the nobility would use such a luxury item. We tried stocking up on it, but it’s not selling well.”

After thinking about it for a bit, Kazuya said, “Uh, I’ll buy this one too, then.”

“You are?!” The staff couldn’t believe what she just heard.

Straightening himself, Kazuya left the store carrying a big parasol and a strange cage. He was about to head straight back to St. Marguerite Academy when he decided to stop by the small post office.

He calmly walked inside, and then a few moments later, came running out in a hurry.

In his hand was a letter.

“V-Victorique!” he shouted.

Kazuya, his mature calmness gone, dashed straight to the academy, eyes forward. His geta clattered on the ground.

The village girls chatting in front of the store exchanged curious looks.

“He must have a lot going on,” one said.

“So mysterious,” another added.

Bright-red geranium flowers swayed in the dry summer breeze. Clouds of dust rose and fell on the village road.

A wagon slowly passed by.

The summer sun scorched every corner of the village. A hot wind blew.

“Victorique! You’re here again?!”

Kazuya stopped in the middle of the lush, gently-sloping lawn of St. Marguerite Academy.

As had been the case for the past few days, today, his precious little, spoiled, ruthless friend, Victorique de Blois, was lying in the middle of the grass, rolling repeatedly to the right and to the left.

She gave a faint groan in response.

As she tried to raise her small golden head, Victorique’s tiny frame, wrapped in black-and-white frills and laces, lurched to the right, and she rolled down the gentle slope.

Unable to stop the momentum, she continued rolling, slowly and lazily.

Lifting the newly-purchased cage, Kazuya went after her. When he caught up, he used the cage to catch her.

An old memory flashed in his mind, back when his brothers took him with them to catch insects during summer break, swinging their nets around, searching for cicadas.

Summer in that island nation in the Orient was humid. Cicadas chirping. Damp and cloudy, beautiful summer.

“What do you think you’re doing, Kujou?”

Victorique’s husky, grim voice brought Kazuya out of his reverie. He glanced down at his little friend, whom he had saved using the cage, and found her glaring at him. She rose from the cage, her lovely jade-green eyes glinting.

It felt like it had been a while since he was able to look her straight in the face. Kazuya beamed.

“You imbecile!”

“Now that’s a downgrade. I don’t get it. Why are you even angry?”

“What is this?!”

Victorique kicked the cage with her laced, rose-embossed boots. Her face was red from anger. At first Kazuya watched her with astonishment, then he leaned against the cage, looking at Victorique with a smirk.

“Hehe. I caught you.”

“Wh-What did you say?!”

“You finally got off the grass. It’s a good sign. Now I open up this oversized parasol so you don’t get sunstroke. Oh, and I’ve got the continuation of the mystery. So can you please lighten up?”

“A continuation of the mystery, you say?”

“Yup.”

Kazuya pulled out from his sleeve Avril’s letter, which he had just received from the post office. When he showed it to Victorique, her green eyes twinkled a little like she wanted it. Kazuya smiled and straightened his posture. Holding up the large, frilly parasol with one hand, he began reading the second letter from Avril in a stern and sonorous voice.

“Bongiorno again, Kujou!”

“The same introduction…”

“Stop complaining, Victorique. Here we go. ‘Hey, did you read the newspaper article about us? Believe me, I was shocked. The same day I sent the first letter, something happened again in the evening. It’s the bizarre incident mentioned in the newspaper article, where everyone fainted with the smell of flowers. But then later that night, a third incident occurred. Get this…’”

A town in the Mediterranean.

It was a pleasant night. Stars twinkled in the night sky, the ocean breeze and the faint sound of waves caressing the tanned bodies of vacation-goers.

In counterpoint, Sir Bradley’s place was in an uproar, everyone clamoring about the strange incident that just happened.

Frannie, who had been away, returned.

“What’s going on? What’s with all the ruckus?” she asked.

Avril darted to her cousin’s side to explain what happened. Frannie, listening to Avril’s story with a look of shock, suddenly narrowed her blue eyes and stared off into the distance, across the street. Avril followed her gaze.

A figure in a white dress was walking on the other side of the darkening road. Their dress was floating off the ground, undulating uneasily as if swimming.

Garish red flowers scattered in the warm summer breeze, drifting to the side of the road.

“A ghost!” Avril screamed.

“S-See?! I told you!”

Frannie bolted away, and Avril quickly followed her. Faster they sprinted, weaving through shiny cars and roofless carriages ridden by vacationers.

The ghost in the white dress was heading toward the darkness. It turned a corner and disappeared. Frannie followed it.

Frannie let out a shriek. Avril hurriedly turned the corner…

…and found her cousin lying on the ground. When she got up, there was a white dress under her.

Mitch, who was pulling a cart full of flowers, stopped and looked at them curiously. When his eyes met Avril’s, he pointed at Frannie, at the dress, then started saying something, but since he was speaking Italian, she couldn’t understand him.

“It disappeared,” Frannie said uneasily. “It turned the corner and was gone. I jumped at the dress as it fell.” She looked up and stared at Avril. “With all these scary incidents happening, you can’t stay in the villa anymore, can you? You must be terrified, and you should be.”

Avril shook her head. “Nope. Not at all!”

Frannie looked perplexed.

“And then…”

That night.

Avril was in her room, licking her quill pen and writing a letter to Kazuya.

“And then it vanished! All that was left was the white dress. Was I shocked. I wonder if it will happen again. Ehehe.”

Avril thought about what else to write. Still a little bit annoyed, she added a rather mean-spirited message at the end.

“So there you have it. I know I keep telling you this, but I’m having a lot of fun here. You should have come with me. Just kidding. Anyway, until next time. Say hello to the Gray Wolf for me. Later! From Avril.”