A Tsundere Is Not Her True Feelings, Desuwa!
"Hmm…."
Pretending to mull it over for a moment, I opened my mouth, straining to keep the faint trace of irritation out of my voice. Bielka still wore a thoroughly bewildered expression.
"Eliza will come find you sometime today and explain everything. So for today, please rest, desuwa."
"I-is that so…."
Bielka still looked as though she couldn't tell whether she was dreaming or awake.
"Don't worry, and get some rest. Things are going to get busy starting tomorrow. Welcome to the household, Bielka — it seems we'll be spending our days together from now on, desuwa."
The last words slipped out before I knew it. Somehow, I could see Bielka's expression brightening little by little.
"Thank you, my lady!"
She bowed deeply and withdrew. The girl who had been hunching her shoulders only moments ago was nowhere to be found; she stepped out of the study with a spring in her step.
…Well, that's that taken care of.
Letting out a sigh, I leaned back deep into my chair. That had been a strangely exhausting interview.
"Lady Katerina, that was a truly benevolent way to handle things."
Once Bielka had gone, Eliza said it with a smile.
"I only did it because the mood within the citadel would have soured if I left the bullying alone. It was hardly an act of charity, desuwa."
The retort came out a bit more prim than I'd intended, but Eliza's expression remained as pleasantly warm as ever. Then, carefully, she spoke again.
"There is, however, one matter that worries me."
"What matter?"
"Yes, my lady. A Grand Ducal heiress keeping a commoner-born maid at her side is something without precedent."
"The maids of the Grand Ducal house have traditionally been drawn from the lesser nobility. An appointment this unorthodox could provoke resentment from the other aristocrats… and Bielka herself knows nothing whatsoever of the etiquette required to deal with nobles."
"………."
The moment Eliza finished explaining, anger came boiling up out of nowhere. If I had to translate this emotion into words, it would be something along the lines of, 'You seriously think I need to watch my back for a bunch of lesser nobles?!'
This was almost certainly Katerina's instinct — the part of her that loathed tiptoeing around other people.
It's true… there's no question that Katerina Eisenmark is the daughter of the Grand Duchy's supreme power, and she could wield her father's authority as if it were her own.
And yet the Grand Duke of Eisenmark was by no means an absolute, all-powerful despot. If anything, he was closer to the monarch of a textbook feudal state.
So now imagine: the daughter of that Grand Duke starts acting on a whim, pulls off the wildly unorthodox appointment of a commoner-born maid as her personal lady's maid — and then that maid commits a breach of etiquette against some other noble?
That's just slapping on flags for rebellion, isolation, and death, isn't it.
Even so, Katerina's body was screaming at me to surrender to the impulse this very second — to brush Eliza aside and do whatever I pleased. One could say her political sense hadn't merely fallen to rock bottom; it had tunneled through the floor and kept on going into the basement.
Needless to say, that path would end badly both in the long run and the short.
Eliza's counsel was simple, unassailable common sense. Think it through: Bielka was a girl born and raised on a farm in the countryside, and even after coming to the capital she had only ever done odd jobs.
Even with Eliza instructing her, expecting Bielka to handle proper lady's-maid work anytime soon was a near-impossible ask. Eliza was a busy woman to begin with, after all — hardly in a position to carve out time for teaching anyone.
Which meant, in conclusion, hastily putting Bielka in charge of my personal care would be a foolish choice. I quietly calmed Katerina's surging impulse and thought it through.
I could do whatever I want right now, sure. But then I'd be no different from the Katerina who came before me. And that I can't allow.
"Eliza."
I looked at her and chose my words with care.
"How about we have Bielka assist you while she learns the basics, desuwa? Start her on the simplest errands. Teach her the rest slowly."
Eliza nodded.
"Yes. I believe that is the best course, Lady Katerina."
"If I have her help me with simple tasks when I'm occupied, and use the spare time to teach her the education a maid requires, she'll absorb the etiquette naturally before long."
"Then that is what we'll do, desuwa. I can hardly put her in charge of my personal care and then take it back — so she may attend me, but in practice she'll serve as your assistant."
"A wise decision, my lady. Given time, Bielka will grow into someone truly worthy of the position."
With even Eliza sent away, I sat alone in the study, gazing out at the sunset beyond the window and sinking into my thoughts.
Why did I treat Bielka like that? I was going to take care of her anyway — I should have just met her with a smile.
Looking back, I had been inexplicably prickly toward that poor victim of a girl with the pale-pink hair, straight out of the countryside. Even while I was in the middle of doing her a favor, no less.
If it were the original Katerina, I bet….
The Grand Ducal heiress Katerina I remembered would never have treated Bielka that way. She'd have barked out her orders without a second's thought for consequences or logistics.
'As of today, you are my lady's maid, desuwa. Follow me around and wait on me from now on!'
Something like that. And failing that, there was another scenario entirely.
'If anyone so much as looks at you sideways, report every last one of them to me, desuwa! I'll discipline the lot of them personally!'
That sort of thing, I imagine. Either way, the complicated part would have been left behind, and she'd have simply kept the maid who caught her eye by her side, and that would have been the end of it.
So why couldn't I do that with Bielka?
Hmm. Honestly, the accurate answer is probably that something about Bielka had been needling at me from the moment I saw her from across the room. Especially up close, after laying eyes on that absurdly voluptuous figure of hers….
…Wait. Was I seriously bothered by that?
You know how girls get when they see a pretty, expensive dress on a friend they're not quite as close with — how they act totally indifferent and absolutely refuse to admit it looks good on her?
Maybe my body had reacted defensively to Bielka's figure in exactly the same way.
Yeah, no. Absolutely not. There's no way. Why on earth would I envy her chest?
Right. There is zero chance that I — a modern person, a former man — got snippy because I was jealous of Bielka's bust. All of that was an emotion conjured up by this body's original owner, that dimwitted heiress.
But if that's really true… then why am I so irritated?
I shook my head. Thinking about this any longer was pointless. What mattered was that Bielka would never be bullied among the maids again.
My name is Bielka. I come from a farming family in the Black Earth Plains, down in the southern reaches of the Grand Duchy.
Today marks about a fortnight since — that is, since the day I first met Lady Katerina and became her lady's maid in training.
Every morning, I look in the mirror and think, 'Could this really not be a dream?'
Lady Katerina is exactly like a princess out of a storybook. And her hair isn't just blonde — it's a shimmering gold, as if she'd soaked up the sunlight itself.
And the way she winds it up on both sides is so elegant and so striking. It's terribly irreverent of me, but sometimes I find myself wanting to touch it. Oh — I once overheard the young lady muttering to herself and calling it 'drill hair.' I'm not entirely sure what it means, but I think it suits them.
Her ruby-red eyes frightened me a little the first time I saw them, but now I find that vivid color so beautiful. When the sunlight catches her by the window, they gleam like gemstones.
Even Lady Katerina's figure is perfectly balanced. She's tall for a woman, which gives her such a commanding presence, and she's slim without an ounce of excess anywhere. It's like… like a sculptor's flawless masterpiece, I suppose?
Me, on the other hand… um, well. I've always worried a lot about my own figure, honestly. All my weight goes straight to my chest and my backside, so nothing ever looks pretty on me no matter what I wear.
……Whew. Lady Katerina isn't around just now, so it's safe. Whenever I bring up my figure, her mood seems to dip ever so slightly — perhaps she simply hates hearing me speak ill of myself. She truly is a kind person.
But anyway — how I came to be here at all was pure good luck. Last autumn, with our family finances in ruins, I decided to come to the capital to cut down on how much we ate and to send money home.
Until then I had only ever helped with the farm work, so I had no particular skills. But as fortune would have it, word arrived that the Grand Ducal house was hiring maids, and I worked up the courage to apply.
And then the examiner — oh dear, I mean, the gentleman official — looked me up and down very carefully and said, 'That chest… no, no — what a fine frame. You'd be the finest among the maids.' And just like that, he passed me on the spot!
I heard afterward that they only took a handful out of nearly a hundred applicants. I really was lucky.
When I first arrived at the Grand Ducal house, I was so excited. All my fellow maids were lovely, every single one of them, and I just knew we'd get along wonderfully.
But somehow, no friends ever came. At first I thought it must be because I was from the countryside and hopelessly unfashionable. So I tried my very hardest to act like a capital girl. Still, nothing improved.
I was always alone during my work, too. Even jobs meant for two or three ended up on my shoulders, and at lunchtime, while everyone gathered in their little clusters laughing and chatting, either some urgent task would suddenly call me away — or, if there was no urgent task, I'd eat by myself in a corner all the same.
It was terribly lonely, but I had money to send home, so I bore it and endured. And then, one day….