The Villainess and the Fox
"Aaaah... Why did I do that...!"
I want to disappear.
I want to crawl into a mouse hole and hide while high-fiving Tom and Jerry.
"God, this is so embarrassing..."
I must have lost my mind for a moment.
I'm supposed to be the butler who protects and cares for the young lady—someone who should stand by her side and serve her. Instead, I hugged her, cried, and called her name...
Even after the tears stopped, as if I'd downed several bottles of liquor, I kept holding her.
"And on top of that..."
The school nurse I thought had left had actually never gone anywhere. She only pretended to leave, then slipped right back in and watched everything from behind the curtain. I only realized it long after I'd stopped crying in Violet's arms.
"I really am crazy... I must be out of my mind..."
I begged her to keep it a secret, but who knows how long the nurse—who can't resist gossip about students' love lives—will actually stay quiet.
"Thanks to me, everything's ridiculously awkward now...!"
If that were the only problem, it would almost be a relief. But the one most shaken by all this isn't anyone else—it's the young lady herself. And because of me, things have become unbearably awkward between us.
A mere butler like me got swept up in the mood, whined about my circumstances, hugged her while crying, and then got caught by someone else? This is a disaster on a completely different scale from my usual teasing.
"We couldn't even say a single word on the way back to the mansion!"
I considered starting a conversation, but Violet deliberately avoided my eyes, making it impossible to even try.
So here I am, rolling around in the butler's quarters at the Floyd estate, drowning in embarrassment.
"What if she decides to push me away because of this...?"
It was the kind of worry a lovesick teenage girl might have. Still, it was obvious the young lady wouldn't appreciate someone whining beside her while she was already hurting.
At best, she only felt a slight interest in me. And I went and kicked that away with my own foot.
'She might actually like that I empathized with her pain, right?'
If that happened, it would be the best possible outcome for me. But people whose wounds have already festered tend to twist every word they hear, no matter how well-intentioned.
Even if the speaker truly means well, it's hard for someone in pain to accept anything at face value. That's why people who are hurting—inside or out—gradually become more passive.
And the painful part is that this isn't just some belief I cooked up in my head. These are words Violet Floyd herself says in the game.
"If I were truly the 'only' person in her heart like she claims... maybe. But how could I possibly reach that position in a single day?"
It would take hundreds of visits to her heart to even attempt it. There's no way something like that could happen overnight. The young lady isn't the kind of woman who'd fall for someone that easily, either. After eight years of running around like a dog in Starlight trying to keep her alive, I can guarantee that much.
"Ah. Now that I think about it..."
There was something I needed to do. I'm wondering if now is the right time.
According to my plan, I should have been gently coaxing the young lady—who would normally be taking her medicine right about now—into gradually reducing her dosage. But I'm worried that going to see her now will only make us both blush again.
"Still, I can't just leave things like this..."
Her body is already wrecked from Mana Retardation. The medicine will only make it worse. When I weighed my embarrassment against this problem, there was no comparison. Honestly, the moment the thought occurred to me, I didn't even need to weigh anything.
"Young lady, I need to go see her."
As expected, I'm the most incompetent butler in the Floyd household.
***
"It's raining."
The sound of raindrops tapping against the window added depth to my cold thoughts.
"I really don't have much time left now..."
No one knows better than me that my body is slowly turning into a complete wreck. Even channeling the smallest amount of mana feels impossible now. Collapsing after just one kick—how pathetic.
"Haa..."
I reached into the drawer for a stick of Pentanite, but irritably tossed it onto the sofa instead.
"I don't want to smoke it..."
Whenever I used it, I felt vitality return to my dead body. There was a time when I looked forward to that feeling all day long. But today, I have no desire to smoke at all.
"Is it because I'm getting weaker...?"
Maybe the sudden, overwhelming desire to live is what's doing this. The more I surrendered to momentary pleasure, the closer I came to the gates of hell. I'm only realizing that now.
"I'm having thoughts I never used to have."
Normally, I would've smoked even more, telling myself death would be better. But now, a desperate longing to live keeps surging through me—more violently than ever before in my life.
"...Is it because of that guy?"
The one who's suddenly acting friendly, as if we're lovers. Even knowing he'll leave soon like everyone else, even knowing he's just trying to use me—I couldn't bring myself to curse him out and push him away today.
"Haha..."
Thinking back, I acted like I was on drugs all day. I let that butler toy with me and felt genuinely happy, like a pure child. Ah, this feeling is so unfamiliar I don't even know how to describe it.
"Yeah, they call this feeling excited, don't they?"
Pfft.
The moment the thought finished, a laugh slipped out. Excitement? How long has it been since I felt something like this? Or is this the first time? I don't know. I just liked the pure joy I felt back then, and for a while, I was lost in that hazy feeling.
"I'm not usually someone who thinks this deeply..."
Since these emotions would leave soon anyway, I never held onto them for long. I let them go easily. I never clung to anything. I didn't tell Sebastian, but maybe that's why I kept lashing out at him?
It's just an excuse, but I should've properly apologized to him. 'Suddenly getting overwhelmed by emotions...' I ended up rambling about all sorts of pointless illnesses and how people treated me. It was embarrassing, to say the least.
'No, if we're being fair, wasn't that guy the one who made a bigger scene?'
I shook my head. What he showed me couldn't be dismissed as mere embarrassment. It was the first time. The only time. That kind of sympathy, that sincere comfort—and someone crying in my arms. It was my first real hug, but what struck me most wasn't the fluttering in my chest from being held by the opposite sex...
'Gratitude... maybe?'
People who are hurting always twist words when they hear them. It's something I always say to justify all the evil I've done. If it had been the old me, I would've twisted Sebastian's rambling words while he held me. But I didn't want to twist those words. Or rather, I couldn't.
No matter how much I tried to rearrange or reinterpret them, his genuine comfort contained no lies. Sincere goodwill. That was all he had shown me.
"Young lady! About the medicine... uh...?"
At that moment, Sebastian burst through the door with a worried expression. Honestly, he came because he was thinking about me again, right? He probably thought I'd be taking the medicine and feeling good.
"Haha..."
A laugh slipped out. Because the guy I was thinking about is standing right in front of me now? Yeah, I can't deny it. I want to approach this guy who's come all this way, embarrassed but worried about me, a little more proactively. I hate admitting it, but I think I've already fallen for him.
"...You're not taking the medicine?"
In just one day, I've fallen for this wolf of a butler.
***
Contrary to my expectation that the room would be filled with acrid smoke when I opened the door, the young lady was having one of her periodic "moments of facing reality and contemplating life with the mind of an adult."
In professional terms, she was experiencing a moment of clarity.
"...You're not taking the medicine?"
But why isn't she taking it? No, seriously—why is the young lady, who could legitimately be called a severe addict, not taking her medicine? Is she seriously considering firing me because of what happened at school today?
That can't happen!
"Hey, come here."
Before I knew it, she had pushed aside the blanket covering her and was tapping the spot beside her head with her finger. What is this? Déjà vu?
I rushed over and sat rigidly by her bedside. The young lady chuckled.
Wait... she's laughing? The young lady who only ever gets angry at others?
"..."
I quickly turned to look at her, but she was still smiling.
Did she smoke so much that she's half out of her mind? Don't tell me some weird alien from an old movie is wearing her skin like a suit?
"So, did you like it?"
While my mind was spinning, the young lady had scooted right up to me and pressed her body against my arm like a cat, asking in that strange position.
"What... what do you mean, did I like it?"
My voice trembled with anxiety as I asked. Seeing that, she smirked again, placed her hand on my chest, lightly pushed me onto the bed, then stood up and spoke.
"I'm asking how it felt to hug the ducal family's young lady. Did it feel good?"
She looked down at me in her pajamas and asked.
...Is the creator testing me?
No, why did she suddenly turn from a person into a fox in half a day?!