Soon, a heated discussion broke out in the compartment around the topic from just now—so heated that they even forgot the person at the center of it. Nelson pillowed his head on Alphard's shoulder and drowsily closed his eyes.
By the time he woke again, the world outside the window had turned into a pale blur. September sunlight, which should have been gentle, struck his face through the heavy white fog outside, yet it was a little dazzling. He raised an arm and shielded his face with his palm, and the overcoat covering him slid off onto the floor, which was littered with newspaper scraps.
He lifted his neck and found himself lying on the bench. He leaned sideways to reach for the overcoat on the floor, but a hand holding a book picked it up first. That hand passed the book to the other hand, lifted the coat, shook it twice, then used the book to beat the bits of paper and dust from it.
"You're awake?"
"Hm? Tom... are we there?" Nelson raised his head, braced himself against the table, and sat up. The kitten lying on his stomach let out a milky little roar of fury, but it still couldn't avoid the fate of falling to the floor along with the coat. Nelson saw Tom sitting opposite him, looking at him expressionlessly, while Christian beside him rubbed her sleepy eyes and leaned her head crookedly on Tom's shoulder, looking as though she had just been woken by his movement of picking up the coat. Nelson endured the kitten's scratching, picked it up by the scruff of its neck, and shut it in its cage, then tossed in a premium magical dried minnow bought in Diagon Alley, which was said to make it grow one centimeter longer after