Dormitory Commotion (2)
"Are you in your right mind, Young Master Ethan?"
The moment I heard Ethan declare that he intended to march into the cramped servants' waiting room and abandon the perfectly spacious bedroom, that blunt remark shot out of my mouth before I could stop it.
The first to react in shock at my words, however, wasn't Ethan — it was Isabel.
"Lilith?!"
"Even if I am using a dormitory that Young Master Ethan and I have been granted as a mar…a marriage and betrothal arrangement, that does not change the fact that you are the highest-ranking person within it. And yet you would crawl into the cramped room the servants use while leaving the finest bed empty? I truly cannot feel that you are saying this in your right mind."
"Lilith! Y-you mustn't speak to the Young Master like that…!"
"…No, it's fine. I'll speak with Lilith myself, so Isabel, why don't you step out for a moment."
"Y-yes, sir…."
Careful not to intrude, Isabel slipped out from between the two of us at Ethan's words, leaving us standing face to face. In that situation, Ethan answered my blunt remark.
"I understand why you'd say that, Lilith. It must seem strange for me, with you as my personal maid, to use the servants' waiting room as my bedroom."
"It doesn't just seem strange — it's a proposition that makes no sense on its face. How could someone who ought to know better than anyone commit such an absurdity, Young Master Ethan?"
"But setting aside noble and servant, you and I are man and woman. Naturally, the spaces men and women use should be kept separate."
"I and Isabel will use the servants' waiting room, and Young Master Ethan can use the large room alone. That settles it."
"…Lilith, you said it yourself just now, didn't you? The 'cramped' room the servants use. Do you really think two people can live together in a narrow room with only a single bed?"
"That is…."
Ethan was making his own kind of sound argument, and for a moment I fumbled, unable to organize a rebuttal.
Seizing that opening, Ethan spouted his nonsense about how obviously he was the one who should take the servants' waiting room, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
"Think simply, Lilith. It's just a matter of a single room versus a double room. And I'm saying that I, the man, will take the single one."
"…No. Even if it's a little snug, the right answer is for Isabel and me to take the single room. Isabel surely agreed to follow me to the Academy knowing at least that much. Isn't that right, Isabel?"
"M-me?!"
"……"
"……"
"W-well, ever since my junior maid days, Lilith and I have shared a cramped room before, so sharing a small room with Lilith doesn't bother me at all…."
"There, you hear that? Young Master Ethan. Isabel agrees with me as well—"
"…But even so, the highest-ranking person in this place is the Young Master, so I think it's only proper that the final decision rests with him."
"…Is that so, Lilith."
"……"
"…I-I'm sorry, Lilith."
And so, thanks to Isabel's unthinkable betrayal, the debate drifted into a two-against-one atmosphere.
No, if we were being strict about it, Isabel — as a servant of House Blackwood — was in a position where she had no choice but to quietly fall in line with whatever decision Ethan made.
Besides, it was clear Ethan wouldn't back down from this argument unless he himself was convinced, which meant that unless I talked him out of it, he really might end up moving into the servants' waiting room.
Pushing the young master we served into a servants' waiting room while the two maids lived it up in a spacious room? That was nonsense no one in their right mind would accept.
Yes, I was driven by my own survival and self-interest, but I still had a bare minimum of conscience. No matter how much Ethan insisted on crawling into that waiting room himself, I wasn't rotten enough to take him at his word.
"Even if Isabel has said she will defer to your decision, my position does not change, Young Master Ethan."
"…Lilith."
"It is only right that you, the next heir of House Blackwood, use the large room. As the one who has sworn to serve as your exclusive maid for the four years you attend the Academy, this is the one thing I absolutely cannot concede."
"…Then what about the two in the single room? One of you would have to sleep on the floor, wouldn't she?"
"If it comes to that, I will sleep on the floor."
"…No. The one thing I cannot allow is Lilith sleeping on the floor. So use the bed outside. I won't budge on this either."
In that sharp standoff where neither of us yielded an inch, Ethan and I kept trading words while glaring at each other. And watching us go at it, Isabel cautiously interjected with a proposal.
"…I'm sorry to butt into your conversation, Young Master, but may I offer one suggestion?"
"Hm?"
"A suggestion?"
"Well, first — Young Master, you would refuse under any circumstances to let Lilith sleep on the floor, correct?"
"That's right."
"And Lilith cannot abide the idea of you living in a cramped room?"
"Yes."
"Then wouldn't it work if the two of you — the Young Master and Lilith — simply shared the large room together?"
"……Hm?"
"……Huh?"
Wait a moment. Now that I thought about it — wasn't that genuinely all it took?
After all, the thing I couldn't compromise on was Ethan living in worse conditions than me, his exclusive maid. As long as he came out and lived in the big room, I had no complaints whatsoever.
And the reason Ethan was being so stubborn was his worry that Isabel and I would be taking turns sleeping on the floor of a tiny room we shared.
In the end, if Isabel took the single room and Ethan and I took the double, every problem resolved itself.
That's our Isabel for you. She really does have a knack for this sort of thing.
"After all, the room was approved from the start as a dormitory for a married and betrothed pair — you and Lilith. If we follow the original principle, I believe it's actually correct for the Young Master and Lilith to use the large room together."
"…No, hold on."
"Isabel has a point, Young Master. I cannot yield on you using the servants' waiting room, and you cannot allow Isabel and me to take the single room — so this way, the problem is indeed solved."
"W-wait, just a moment, Lilith. Are you really fine with that?"
"I beg your pardon?"
"I'm asking whether you're truly all right with settling on you and me using the same room."
"……?"
Why on earth was he getting so worked up over something as trivial as sharing a room?
It wasn't even our first time sharing one, after all. Anyone who remembered the four days we'd spent using a single inn room just ten days ago would know that.
Besides, when I'd filed the dormitory application earlier, I'd told him there was no other meaning behind it, so he clearly wasn't conscious of anything over simply sharing a room with me.
As for any other purpose Ethan might have in mind — surely not….
"Young Master Ethan. Don't tell me—"
"N-no, Lilith. What I'm worried about is simply…"
"Could it be that you planned all of this from the beginning with the intention of sharing a room with Isabel rather than me…?"
"No, that's not it, Lilith."
"I don't think that's it either, Lilith."
"……I see."
…Come to think of it, if that had been his goal from the start, he never would have brought me on as his exclusive maid in the first place.
Fortunately, thanks to the two of them reacting with such levelheadedness, no strange misunderstanding spiraled out of control like last time, and with me finally quieted, Ethan resumed the conversation.
"What I'm worried about is that Lilith might feel uncomfortable under the gaze of a man like me."
"…Whatever do you mean by that?"
"No matter that we've lived in one space before, it was only a scant four days. A single term at the Academy runs three or four months at the least. Can you honestly promise that in all that time, living in one room with me, not a single accident will ever occur?"
"An accident?"
"You know — the sort of accidents that can happen when a man and a woman live in the same room."
"…I apologize, but I don't follow, Young Master Ethan."
"…For example, imagine that while we were sharing a room, Lilith happened to be seen by me while changing her clothes. Wouldn't that be mortifying for you?"
"……Ah."
"Of course, if we're both careful, we could reduce how often something like that happens — but we could never block it completely. All I'm saying is that it might be better to eliminate the very possibility of such incidents from the start."
What Ethan was saying did have a certain logic to it.
No — logic aside, it was oddly persuasive. Especially from the perspective of a player who had sunk two thousand hours into Luminor Academy in my past life.
The very first event CG you obtained when using the 'couple's dormitory' in that game was, as it happened, the changing-clothes CG Ethan had just described.
Inherent to the setup of living in the same room was the inevitable moment when you saw each other's bare skin, and there was no better scene to fasten that first button of intimacy than that.
Of course, unlike the couple's dormitory the protagonist used with the heroines for lewd purposes from the outset, Ethan and I had ended up sharing a room for practical reasons — but either way, as he said, accidentally witnessing each other changing was an entirely ordinary occurrence.
It was to forestall that and every other potentially embarrassing situation that Ethan had insisted on claiming the single-room servants' waiting room for himself.
'If that's his reason, then I can't exactly call his reaction unreasonable.'
It was the moment I finally understood why Ethan had only now dug in his heels about taking the single room instead of the double.
Given the man's personality now, one accidental glimpse of me changing would surely leave him mortified to death.
Not that I particularly wanted him to walk in on Isabel changing by accident, or the reverse situation to occur, either.
…And yet, it being me who got seen instead of Isabel — that, I could just barely allow.
"It doesn't matter, Young Master Ethan."
"…What?"
"…Lilith?"
"Even if you happen to see me changing my clothes, it's of no particular consequence, Young Master Ethan. There's no need for me to fly into hysterics over a simple accident with no intent behind it, is there?"
"Do you mean that seriously, Lilith?"
"I am always serious, Young Master Ethan."
It was a laughable notion, really — that I, who had been a man in my past life, would be too frightened by the gaze of one lone man even to change my clothes.
And when the other party was Ethan, I felt no particular aversion anyway.
There was already a past in which I'd shown him everything down to my chest more times than I could count. Why would I start blushing over being seen in my undergarments now?
The season for feeling shame over something like that had passed long, long ago. …Even if it hadn't been by my own will that it did.
More than anything, my simply displaying this indifferent attitude would smoothly settle the question of separating the three of us's living spaces.
Which was precisely why I answered with deliberately shameless indifference.
"I hadn't realized you were so squeamish over a mere trifle, Young Master Ethan — you who have already seen all the way to my chest before."
"…That's an entirely different matter. When you showed me your chest before, Lilith, it was with your permission. This means it could be seen with no relation to your will at all…"
"Yes. Even if it is not by my own will, I will not be troubled by it. …And if you truly find that hard to believe, I can show you right here and now."
—Ziiip.
"W-wait, Lilith! What are you doing right now!"
"L-Lilith?!"
Oblivious to Ethan's and Isabel's alarm, I simply undid the zipper at the back of my maid uniform and slid the garment off my body.
The maid dress that had been covering me seconds before pooled to the floor in an instant.
"Kyaaaah?! L-Lilith?!"
"Well, Young Master Ethan? You've seen plenty of this body in your own room by now, haven't you? Even if you witness me like this, I remain perfectly composed."
"O-okay, I get it, so hurry up and put your clothes back on, Lilith!"
"If you will not answer that you will share the double room with me, then I have no choice but to prove it this way. …And if you cannot bring yourself to trust my resolve, then I will simply have to demonstrate that even stripping down to nothing before you would leave me unmoved—"
"I-I get it, Lilith! I believe you! Sharing the room with you is fine, so put your clothes back on right now!"
Torn between instinct and reason, Ethan averted his eyes for dear life and barked at me to get dressed.
Having somehow achieved my objective, I had no reason to wander around the room in my underwear like some lewd woman any longer.
Since I'd been planning to change before bed anyway, I simply took out the clothes I'd brought in my luggage and changed into them.
"Y-you're so bold, Lilith…. Haaaaa…."
…Ethan I could understand, but why on earth was Isabel blushing over another woman's state of undress?
And so, thanks to my bold decisive action, the question of who would live in which room was finally brought to a close.
Ethan and I would live together in the one large room, sharing a bed, while Isabel would have the servants' waiting room to herself.
…Thank goodness the persuasion worked before I had to strip off my undergarments too.
Even for me, shamelessly baring everything down to my underwear would have been — just a little — embarrassing.