The Position I Won't Yield (4)
“Honestly, Lilith… there was no need to go charging up there like that without even hearing the whole explanation….”
Isabel Grace, an intermediate maid of the Blackwood household.
Alone in the now-empty corridor, she resumed the sweeping she'd left unfinished, murmuring to herself as she recalled the friend who had just bounded up the stairs.
Thinking of Lilith Rosewood—her closest friend and colleague, who had gone up carrying some kind of misunderstanding between herself, Young Master Edan, and Isabel herself.
Isabel hadn't had a prayer of stopping her; the moment Lilith went up, the sound of knocking at the young master's door had drifted down from above.
Not long after, the door opened and she'd heard the young master's voice—which meant it was already far too late for her to intervene.
“Still, I'm sure they've cleared things up by now?”
Isabel worried that Lilith had misheard the young master's offer—his proposal that she become his exclusive maid—as a proposal that she become Edan's exclusive maid.
It was absolutely true that Isabel herself had been offered a position accompanying him to the Academy as an exclusive maid under Lilith.
But that was a slightly different thing from being asked to become the young master's exclusive maid.
“He asked me to serve as Lilith's assistant maid, not to take over as the young master's exclusive maid….”
Once Lilith enrolled at the Academy, it would become very difficult for her to devote herself fully to her duties as the young master's exclusive maid.
To be sure, attending the same Academy as a student would be an enormous advantage when it came to accompanying and assisting him during working hours—but as far as the rest of a maid's duties went, being an Academy student was hardly a leisurely position.
Edan had worried about exactly that, which was why he intended to bring Isabel along in addition to Lilith, his current exclusive maid.
While Lilith worked alongside him at the Academy as his exclusive maid, Isabel would be given separate duties to handle back at the dormitory.
Cleaning, laundry, meal preparation—chores of that sort were to be entrusted to her.
“But then Lilith suddenly comes at me asking if I've become the young master's exclusive maid…. As if the young master would ever choose anyone else over Lilith in the first place….”
It was already common knowledge among the servants that Edan harbored personal feelings for Lilith.
The only reason everyone kept quiet about it was that Edan had passed word among the staff asking them to keep it secret from Lilith above all others.
In truth, any servant who had seen the two of them together even once or twice was already perceptive enough to have a fair inkling of what the young master felt for his exclusive maid.
The only one who remained oblivious was the dense maid herself, Lilith Rosewood.
“…Still, thank goodness what Lilith said was just a misunderstanding.”
When Lilith first told her to turn down the offer, Isabel's heart had plummeted.
She had thought Lilith genuinely hated the idea of her becoming her exclusive maid, and she'd very nearly taken a wound to the heart because of it.
That remark had made her wonder whether she had perhaps been the only one who considered herself Lilith's best friend—and for a girl as tenderhearted as Isabel, it had been more than enough to hurt.
Fortunately, the conversation that followed made it immediately clear that it was all a misunderstanding. But Lilith had gone upstairs without resolving it, straight into a confrontation with the young master.
Still, once she started actually talking to him, the misunderstanding would surely dissolve before long.
Convinced beyond a doubt that it would, Isabel finished her sweeping and quietly headed downstairs to empty the dustpan.
…What was about to happen upstairs, in Edan's bedroom, the naive young maid could not have imagined even in her wildest dreams.
— Knock, knock, knock.
“Young Master Edan?”
— Knock, knock, knock, knock, knock.
“Young Master Edan. Young Master Edan.”
“M-Maid?! Maid?!”
“May I have a moment of your time?”
“W-wait, just a minute… no, thirty seconds! Give me thirty seconds!”
“…Very well.”
One, two, three….
I counted down in my head, clenching and unclenching my fingers, waiting for the signal that Edan was ready to let me in.
All the while, my mind was running through a few possible approaches for how I was going to persuade him.
…First things first—apologize for having fallen short as his exclusive maid up until now.
I wasn't sure whether coming out and saying that would actually win back the affection of a greedy maid who'd only ever planned to use him, but it had to beat barging in and immediately begging him to choose me over Isabel.
After that, I'd swear—unequivocally—to faithfully fulfill my duties as exclusive maid going forward.
I'd tell him that at the Academy, I would stay glued to his side as much as possible and attend to his every need.
…Honestly, though? When it came to both the actual maid work and looking after Edan, Isabel would probably do it better than me.
That was exactly why Edan had tried to take Isabel as his exclusive maid instead of me in the first place.
Which meant my only real shot was to win him over using something I had that Isabel didn't.
And if you were a maid who lost to Isabel in both work ethic and personality, the only thing Lilith had to offer was, at best….
— Click.
“Y-you can come in, Maid….”
“…Pardon the intrusion.”
Something had apparently been going on inside the room, because Edan waved me in with a rather flustered look on his face.
I needed to talk to him regardless, so I stepped quietly inside alongside him.
As usual when we spoke, Edan settled himself at the table seating in the corner of the room and gestured for me to take the seat across from him.
“You came because you have something to tell me, right, Maid?”
“…Yes, that's right.”
“Let's sit down and talk, then. A maid coming to find me this urgently—you must really have something pressing on your mind.”
“…….”
Seated at the table, Edan gestured toward the opposite chair.
Under normal circumstances, once he gave his permission I would have sat down without a second thought, met his eyes, and started talking. But right now, I was in no position to accept his offer so graciously.
For someone who needed to begin by apologizing for failing to properly carry out her duties as Edan's exclusive maid, the place she belonged was not somewhere as luxurious as a chair.
— Deep breath.
“…….”
“M-Maid?! What are you doing?!”
Edan cried out in alarm at the sight of me lowering myself without a word.
I paid his reaction no mind, sank to my knees on the floor, and bowed forward.
Pressing my forehead flat against Edan's bedroom floor, I delivered my apology for having neglected my duties as his exclusive maid all this time.
“I am truly, deeply sorry for everything, Young Master Edan.”
“M-Maid?! What are you doing?! Get up, quickly!”
“For the three years I have served you, I have failed to properly discern even what you wanted, and I have squandered your time. Even if I had ten mouths, I could not begin to apologize enough.”
“What on earth are you talking about all of a sudden?!”
“I do not know whether an apology like this can undo the wound I have caused you, but I ask that you forgive this wretched maid, who has nothing else to offer but this humble apology.”
A heartfelt apology, delivered with my face pressed to the floorboards.
Frankly, I had no guarantee that groveling like this would actually work on him—but it was the only method of apology my brain could come up with on the spot.
Whether it landed or not, offering the most sincere apology I was capable of expressing was simply the first thing I had to do.
“M-Maid, I have absolutely no idea what you're going on about! Just—please, will you sit down and talk to me? Hm?”
“No. I cannot rise from this spot until you have forgiven me.”
“That's what I'm saying—I don't even know what I'm supposed to forgive! How can I forgive you if I don't know what you did wrong?!”
“If I must put it into words, then the entire three years I have spent as your exclusive maid were, in effect, one long failure on my part.”
“And why on earth would that suddenly be something you need to apologize for?!”
When I showed no sign whatsoever of getting up off the floor, Edan came down to it with me instead.
Then, determined to haul me upright somehow, he took hold of both my shoulders and lifted.
His grip—grown considerably stronger over the past three years—was more than enough to raise my body off the floor.
“Maid, get up. I'm not angry with you at all. And I still don't have the faintest idea what wrong it is you need to be forgiven for.”
“…You needn't force yourself to say such things for my sake, Young Master Edan.”
“I'm not forcing anything—”
“If you truly had not lost faith in me, then why did you ask Isabel to become your exclusive maid?”
“……I-Isabel?”
Edan reacted with a touch of panic at the question I flung back at him.
Seeing that look, I quietly confirmed it in my heart—and brought up the conversation between him and Isabel that I had happened to overhear.
“I did not listen with the intention of eavesdropping.”
“…….”
“But on my way back from my meeting with the Master, I happened, quite by accident, to overhear you and Isabel speaking in the corridor.”
“…D-did you, now?”
“Yes.”
The moment I confirmed that I'd heard his conversation with Isabel, his flustered composure crumbled even further.
As I thought—he really had been planning to keep it from me on purpose and make Isabel his exclusive maid.
Because I, over all these years, had failed to look after him properly.
“From this day forward, I will devote myself more faithfully than ever to my duties as your exclusive maid.”
“M-Maid, you've been doing plenty well enough all along.”
“All the more reason, then! I swear I will not neglect the duties of your exclusive maid—I will work harder than ever!”
“I-I'm sorry, Maid. I never imagined that offer would wound your pride this badly….”
“…Just this once. That is all I ask. So please, I beg you—could you not employ me as your exclusive maid one more time?”
“……Huh?”
“No one knows better than I do that I am a maid with many shortcomings compared to Isabel. She surpasses me in her execution of the household chores, of course, and that bright personality of hers that can make everyone smile is a quality I simply do not possess.”
“W-wait, hold on, Maid. Can't we just—can't we sort this conversation out properly first…?”
“I know it is shameless of me, but I am begging you. Even after I enroll at the Academy, I do not wish to give up the position of your exclusive maid.”
“Like I said, I w-wasn't trying to make Isabel my exclusive maid—”
“…If you will take me as your exclusive maid once more, then I can offer you something that Isabel never could.”
“Something Isabel doesn't have? W-wait, what are you—”
While Edan faltered, failing to follow where I was going, I seized the wrist in front of me and drew it toward my chest.
Something Isabel didn't have—and Lilith did.
It was nothing more, and nothing less, than this wretched, vulgar body that belonged to Lilith alone.