Chapter 67
Chapter 67
"So, you really meant it when you said you want to be my maid?"
"Yeah. And the part about getting paid too."
Shin So-hee answered nonchalantly as she pulled something thick and rolled up from her bag.
A sleeping bag.
"My family went camping on a trip last year. I only got to use this once back then, but seems like it's finally getting some use again."
"......You're planning to sleep on the floor?"
No matter how I looked at it, Shin So-hee intended to share my room with me. Last time we all just slept in the same bed, but...... well, if she's planning to stay here long-term, sleeping in the same bed every day is a bit much. Even between same-sex friends, there are lines you're supposed to keep.
Though I don't really know the specifics of what those lines are yet.
"There are rooms for the servants, you know......"
Honestly, I don't know exactly where they are. The mansion is that big. Still, I do know there was a room Yang Hye-in used. If Shin So-hee intends to live as a maid, it would be more comfortable for her to stay in that separate room instead of sleeping on the bare floor here.
"No."
But Shin So-hee refused flatly.
"Why?"
When I furrowed my brow and asked, Shin So-hee shrugged her shoulders.
"......The heating bill would be too high?"
The heating system in this mansion is incredibly inefficient. But it's not so inefficient that it's unmanageable. The whole mansion doesn't even get heated in the first place.
Yang Hye-in used to stay in a different room too. It's something anyone could guess even without having lived in this mansion. And Shin So-hee must know there was already a room in use.
This means she has some ulterior motive I haven't figured out yet.
I let out a deep sigh and sat on the edge of the bed. I rubbed my forehead with my palm. In the meantime, Shin So-hee was unpacking her things from her bag one by one. Her belongings were piling up neatly on the table in the room.
Toothbrush, toothpaste, various cosmetics, shower supplies, thin casual clothes and a school uniform.......
Ah, right. The school uniform.
"If you're working as a maid here, what are you going to do about school?"
I asked. Sure, if Yu Ha-neul or Lee Su-a had made the same argument, it might be one thing, but Shin So-hee went to a different school. Practically in the complete opposite direction, in fact.
My personal maid goes with me to the front of the school every morning to see me off as I enter. Then, whether I leave via the main gate or not, she has to take a car to the school ahead of time and wait for me. Naturally, there isn't enough time to do all that while attending school. She'd be late and have to leave early every single day.
There's no way she could have a normal school life.
"Ah, right. School."
Shin So-hee, who had been unpacking, looked up as if she'd only just remembered, and clapped her hands together.
"Yeah, that 'plan that costs money' I mentioned. It was about school."
"......About school?"
Ah.
Only after I asked did I realize what Shin So-hee was about to say.
"If I just enroll in Hwayeong High School, everything's solved, right?"
Shin So-hee beamed at me as she said it.
"So, if possible, I'd like my annual salary to be enough for me to go to that school."
"......."
I put a hand to my forehead.
*
Shin So-hee also knew it was an unreasonable request.
She didn't even know how much the tuition at Hwayeong High School was. The only thing she knew was that it was an amount 'a student from a typical family' couldn't afford. It might be tens of thousands at the very least, or at worst, in the hundreds of thousands.
She had no experience, and she had no confidence she could do the maid's job as well as the previous Yang Hye-in. She knew all too well that for someone like her to brazenly ask for that kind of money was an incredibly shameless request.
Even if she got rejected, she might as well just say it. That was what Shin So-hee had thought on her way here.
They had read the will at the café and exchanged a few words with the others. Each of them seemed to have had their own thoughts about the will, but no one had revealed what was really on their mind. Yes, they couldn't reveal it. It wasn't that they didn't.
Their thoughts were too tangled to sort out neatly and give an answer. Shin So-hee wasn't the type to be sensitive enough to read other people's emotions, but she could roughly guess from the anguished looks on Yu Ha-neul and Lee Su-a's faces.
That each of them had resolved to do something definitive.
So, what kind of heart had Shin So-hee herself resolved to have?
......She couldn't decide on anything.
Even after she went home, she lay in bed, lost in thought for a long time. What can I do? No, what should I do now? How can I see Sara's face again? That's when she realized she was thinking such thoughts.
Shin So-hee liked Sara.
That was a clear fact. When she thought about Sara, her heart beat harder, and when she didn't see her for a long time, she felt sad. She'd even had pointless thoughts like, what if she'd studied harder in middle school and gotten into Hwayeong High School? Sometimes she even imagined walking down the aisle with Sara, both in wedding dresses.
Honestly, she knew it was an absurd fantasy.
She was the daughter of an ordinary household. She'd never thought of herself as poor, but she'd never thought of herself as rich, either. Just that her family lived like everyone else. That was Shin So-hee's view of her own family.
But the other person, Sara, was rich beyond imagination. It wasn't simply a matter of inheriting a massive fortune. The Sara she looked up on the internet was already the richest teenager in the world. And apart from some of the world's royalty, she was also counted as one of the wealthiest individuals in any capitalist nation.
At her age, she was already like that.
Sara treated Shin So-hee like a friend without any reservation. She invited her home casually and didn't speak in a difficult or guarded way.
Because of that, when she was next to her, Shin So-hee would unconsciously start to think, 'Maybe I could also.......' She was a 'young lady' with a lot of money, a bit out of touch with the world, and had an airheaded side in some ways, but her essence was the same as hers. Maybe it was just that their situations were different, but in the end, she and Shin So-hee lived in the same world. That's what she had come to think.
But,
But...... that wasn't true.
The world she lived in was different from Shin So-hee's.
The first time she heard that the 'Chairwoman' referred to her 'adoptive mother,' she was a little relieved. Because she thought it wasn't that Sara was suffering from 'that kind of thing.'
But tragically, the most critical part of that delusion turned out to be pretty much spot-on.
That woman, in other words, Sara's 'adoptive mother' Choi Na-kyung, definitely had...... sexual feelings for Sara.
How deranged a person had to be, and what kind of story lay behind it, was beyond imagination, but as far as Shin So-hee could tell, she was definitely a 'dangerous' type of person.
......Yeah, maybe at the core, she wasn't so different from Shin So-hee. Since she liked girls, and even liked the same person.
And with those twisted feelings, that woman had nearly driven Sara to her death.
No, maybe she already had. Perhaps, from Sara's standpoint, she'd simply failed by sheer luck.
"......I'm not asking you to just give it to me for free. Honestly, I know that no matter how hard I work here, it won't be enough to match that cost."
To Sara, who was rubbing her face, Shin So-hee spoke sincerely.
"So, for the part my work doesn't cover...... I'll pay you back."
Of course, that's not an amount of money she can repay overnight.
"......No matter how long it takes, I'll pay you back, little by little."
Is there a chance Sara likes girls? She doesn't really know. Sara herself had left a note for Choi Na-kyung saying she loved her, but there was a greater possibility that she meant she loved her as a family member.
......If she did love her as a woman, would Sara have tried to take her own life?
At first, such thoughts crossed her mind. If it's a life you're going to throw away anyway, why not leave it to me? In a romance novel she once read, the male lead had said as much to the female lead.
But she soon dropped the thought.
Despite appearances, Shin So-hee is a timid person. Like a hedgehog with all its spines up, she hides her heart deep inside and doesn't just show it to anyone. The reason she deliberately reveals those feelings in front of Yu Ha-neul and Lee Su-a is purely to keep them in check. She puts up her spines by openly declaring, 'I like her,' so those two can't approach carelessly.
Yet, at the same time, she was selfish. She wanted Sara to choose her entirely of her own will when she did. Not as an act of charity thrown away alongside a discarded life, but she hoped Sara would love her properly.
She was terrified of rejection, but she was also brazenly throwing her weight around like that.
So,
That's why.
She wanted Sara not to give up on her life.
She didn't want Sara to just be satisfied with this one week and then leave. She wanted her to stay here, to keep on living her daily life.
......But unfortunately, it was hard for Shin So-hee to know what she needed to do to make Sara think that.
She thought she'd been getting to know her slowly, but in reality, she knew nothing. What Sara really thought, what kind of life she'd lived, how much pain she'd suffered in that life—Shin So-hee knew none of it.
Because she knew nothing, in the end, this was the choice she made.
All she could come up with was a simple idea. Once the thought occurred to her, she immediately left the house.
She grabbed a ladder she'd seen in the storage shed, stuffed her bag full of daily necessities, and impulsively climbed over the wall of this mansion.
And now she was here, saying all this.
If Sara ever got the wrong idea and acted on it, or if someone appeared to torment or hurt her,
Shin So-hee herself would step in to stop them.
Sticking to Sara's side 24 hours a day, buying time until Sara found a happiness worth continuing her life for.
That was the only 'idea' she could think of.
......Honestly, the money didn't matter at all. She didn't care how much wealth stood behind Sara. It didn't matter if Sara refused to pay for her to go to school. She didn't even have to go to a place like school. She could always just take the qualification exam later or something.
Right now, the only thing in her heart was that she didn't want to lose Sara. She just wanted to protect her.
And so, Shin So-hee chose this path.